Caratacos est un roi et chef militaire breton de la Bretagne insulaire qui a dirigé la résistance à la conquête romaine de la Bretagne par Claude Ier en 43 ap. J.-C. jusqu'à sa capture en 51. Wikipedia
“And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them, covet our poor huts?”
Cassius Dio Roman History Bk. LXI, ch. 33, sect. 3c; translation from John Creighton Coins and Power in Late Iron Age Britain (Cambridge: CUP, 2000) p. 92.
Said after having seen Rome for the first time.
“I had horses, arms, men, wealth. Are you surprised I am sorry to lose them? If you want to rule the world, does it follow that everyone else welcomes enslavement?”
Habui equos viros, arma opes: quid mirum si haec invitus amisi? Nam si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem accipiant?
Tacitus Annales, Bk. XII, ch. 37; translation from The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1956] 1971) p. 267.
“Had my lineage and rank been accompanied by only moderate success, I should have come to this city as friend rather than prisoner, and you would not have disdained to ally yourself peacefully with one so nobly born, the ruler of so many nations.”
Si quanta nobilitas et fortuna mihi fuit, tanta rerum prosperarum moderatio fuisset, amicus potius in hanc urbem quam captus venissem, neque dedignatus esses claris maioribus ortum, plurimis gentibus imperitantem foedere in pacem accipere.
Tacitus Annales, Bk. XII, ch. 37; translation from The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1956] 1971) p. 267.
