After the rather funny (but appropriate) Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur, one of my favourite latin quotes. It means something like :

'Who watches the watchers?' (Juvenal, Satires)

There is a lot inside these four words.

My favorite Latin quote, mostly because it's so appropriate these days in many, many places.

Yes, Koala, quote is right. According to my sources¹, it's from Juvenal's misogynous satire (6,365, O 31-2). Juvenal pointed out that it's useless to hire a guard to guard a wife of questionable loyalty, because guards can be bribed (And, as pointed out by evilrooster, be the goats guarding the cabbage patch - good point).

These days, of course, guards are not always hired to guard the women only, but the guarding ability and trustworthiness of guards can always be questioned.

¹ Arto Kivimäki: Carpe Diem! Hauskaa ja Hyödyllistä Latinaa, Karisto, ISBN 951-23-3661-8

Must add my 2 sestercii worth here. Juvenal's point in the Satires was not that the guards could be bribed, but that the untrustworthy wife was as likely to go to bed with them as with anyone else.

The very people you hire to protect you may be the source of your greatest danger. Think of all the military dictators who threw out European colonial powers, only to loot their countries and oppress their people even more than the former governors did.

To add a little detail, I'll mention that the relevant portion of the satire in question, Satire VI, "The Ways of Women", goes:

"I hear all this time the advice of my old friends--"Put on a lock and keep your wife indoors." Yes, but who will ward the warders? The wife arranges accordingly and begins with them. High or low their passions are all the same. She who wears out the black cobble-stones with her bare feet is no better then she who rides upon the necks of eight stalwart Syrians."

Juvenal had a sharp pen, upon which he skewered the wicked ways of his fellow Romans. Like all satirists, of course, he paid more attention to vice than to virtue, since vice was grist for the mill.

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