Last edited Fri Apr 6, 2018, 09:08 AM - Edit history (2)
Edited for correct spelling and punctuation. Spellcheck doesn't flag Latin.
O tempora o mores!
"
O tempora o mores" is an observation by Cicero in the fourth book of his second oration against Verres (chapter 55) and First Oration against Catiline. It translates literally as
Oh the times! Oh the customs! but more accurately as
Oh what times! Oh what customs! or alternatively,
Alas the times, and the manners. It is sometimes printed as
O tempora! O mores!, with the interposition of exclamation marks, which were not used in Classical Latin.
In his opening speech against Catiline, Cicero deplores the viciousness and corruption of his age. Cicero is frustrated that, despite all of the evidence that has been compiled against Catiline, who has been conspiring to overthrow the Roman government and assassinate Cicero himself, and in spite of the fact that the senate has given senatus consultum ultimum, Catiline has not yet been executed. Cicero goes on to describe various times throughout Roman history where consuls have killed conspirators with even less evidence, sometimes – in the case of former consul Lucius Opimius' slaughter of Gaius Gracchus (one of the Gracchi brothers) – based only on quasdam seditionum suspiciones, "certain suspicions of insurrection" (Section 2, Line 3).
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