Expert: Maria - 10/11/2006

Question
I think my proffesor is trying to give me a stroke, do you know what this means? it would help me out a bunch. thanks
Nos numeri summus, nati consumere fructus terrae. Horace  

Answer
Hello,

First of all the phrase you mention -“Nos numeri sumus, nati consumere fructus terrae”- is an adaptation of a line we read in Horace, Epistles, book I, epistle 2, line 27:

“Nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati “.

This line, as well as its adaptation “Nos numeri sumus, nati consumere fructus terrae”, means:

“We are a multitude made  to consume the fruits of the earth”.

Horace in fact wants to point out that the human race is often nothing but a crowd made to eat and drink what the earth produces, without considering moral duties of life.

Have a nice day.
Maria
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-Quintus Horatius Flaccus  (born  65 BC, Venusia, Italy – died 8 B.C, Rome), known as Horace in English, was a great  Latin lyric poet and satirist under the emperor Augustus.

Note that:

-We = NOS

are = SUMUS (not ‘summus’, of course)

-a multitude = NUMERUS (NUMERI, plural, in the adaptation you mention)

-made  = NATI

-to consume = CONSUMERE

-the fruits of the earth =FRUGES  ( FRUCTUS TERRAE in the adaptation you mention)