
“Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.”
Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 13, Helena
Statement as he prepared to flee a camp after angry exchanges and insults with his Praetorian Guard; as quoted in The Gigantic Book of Horse Wisdom (2007) by Thomas Meagher, p. 298
Context: I am emperor. It is I who know what is best for Rome. Not you traitors. Now, let go of my horses!
“Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.”
Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 13, Helena
“In our own times, you see, an emperor came to the city of Rome, where there’s the temple of an emperor, where there’s a fisherman’s tomb”
Temporibus enim nostris venit imperator in urbem Romam: ibi est templum imperatoris, ibi est sepulcrum piscatoris. Itaque ille ad deprecandam a Domino salutem imperator pius atque christianus non perrexit ad templum imperatoris superbum, sed ad sepulcrum piscatoris, ubi humilis ipsum piscatorem imitaretur, ut tunc respectus aliquid impetraret a Domino, quod superbiens imperator mereri non posset.
341:4; English from: Newly Discovered Sermons, 1997, Edmund Hill, tr., John E. Rotelle, ed., New City Press, New York, p. p. 286.
Sermons
Context: In our own times, you see, an emperor came to the city of Rome, where there’s the temple of an emperor, where there’s a fisherman’s tomb. And so that pious and Christian emperor, wishing to beg for health, for salvation from the Lord, did not proceed to the temple of a proud emperor, but to the tomb of a fisherman, where he could imitate that fisherman in humility, so that he, being thus approached, might then obtain something from the Lord, which a haughty emperor would be quite unable to earn.
“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean”
“If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.”
As quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion (1988) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 622
“Rome is no longer in Rome, it is here where I am.”
Rome n'est plus dans Rome, elle est toute où je suis.
Sertorius, act III, scene i.
Sertorius (1662)
Source: The Complete Poems
“I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings.”
Ferdinand I of Austria, quoted in The Fall of the House of Habsburg (1963) by Edward Crankshaw
Misattributed
“Only when I know who I am will I know what is possible.”
Be Here Now (1971)