Turpe est in patria vivere

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Turpe est in patria vivere et patriam ignorare is an aphorism in Latin that is oftenattributed toclassical authors of antiquity , but probably did not emerge until the 18th century. Translated the phrase means: "It is shameful to live in your home country and not know it."

Alternative versions are " Malum est ... ", " ... et patriam nescire ", and " ... et patriam non cognoscere ."

This Latin quote is often used - for example, in 2014 by the former Bavarian District President Paul Beinhofer in the foreword to a book on regional history about Würzburg. Nowadays "the" ancient Pliny is considered the author. Apart from the fact that neither Pliny Maior nor Minor is seldom defined as the clear author, neither version of this quotation is found in a work by these two. A Pliny is therefore excluded as the actual author of these words.

The earliest found mention of the quote is in the Fauna Svecica by Carolus Linnaeus, or Carl von Linné , from 1746. In this scientific work on the fauna of Sweden it says " Turpe est in Patria vivere & Patriam ignorare ." On the other hand, the name "Lancius" was placed below as the author, about which, unfortunately, no reliable information could be determined. Later it was partly Linnaeus himself, who was raised to be the author of this quotation and, primarily, was used in scientific writings. In his work The Phytologist of 1848 the author Edward Newman even referred to exactly the same place in Linnaeus' book and ignored the word "Lancius" without further ado.

At the same time, the tradition of assigning the quote to a Pliny developed as early as the 19th century, as a statistical-topographical book about the Grand Duchy of Hesse from 1823 shows. By the 20th century at the latest, the view that a Pliny was the author of this saying had evidently gained acceptance, as it had found its way into school education. An adequate choice was made primarily with Pliny Maior : his scientific encyclopedia Naturalis Historia fits best with the context in which the quote was used earlier - nevertheless it does not come from him.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See foreword by Beinhofer, P. in: Bezirk Unterfranken / M. Naser (ed.), Unterfranken in Bayern 1814–2014 (Würzburg 2014), p. 11. See also https://www.spurbuch.de/de /produktleser-geschichte/product/unterfranken-in-bayern-1814-2014.html (05.07.2019).
  2. ↑ Examples:
    Nur Pliny: Foreword by Dr. Beinhofer (see footnote 1);
    Pliny Minor: http://www.rotarybisceglie.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=163:consegnati-premi-professionalita-2018&catid=41&Itemid=101 (05.07.2019);
    Pliny Maior: https://www.eleaml.org/nofor/giornata/03_giornata_nola_13_aprile_Saluto_di_Salvo_Musumeci_2013.html (05.07.2019).
  3. ↑ On the page https://latin.packhum.org/ the words were entered into the search and all results of both Plinii were checked. Consequently, the passage "Naturalis Historia III, 138", which was mentioned in an Italian review for this quote, is pure fiction (see http://www.sibari.info/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=4550 , P. 2 (05.07.2019)).
  4. ^ Linnaeus, C .: Fauna svecica (Stockholm 1761 2 ), p. 544 (July 5, 2019).
  5. ↑ See above: Elements of Natural History; Being an Introduction to the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus, Vol. 2 (London 1802), cover sheet u. Germann, GA: Directory of the plants in the botanical garden of the imperial university of Dorpat (Dorpat 1807), p. IV (05.07.2019).
  6. ↑ See Newman, E .: The Phytologist: A Popular Botanical Miscellany, Vol. 3 (London 1848), pp. 463 f. (07/05/2019).
  7. ↑ See Pauli, PA: Brief statistical-topographical description of the Duchy of Hesse (Darmstadt 1823), cover sheet (July 27, 2019).
  8. ↑ See the annual report of the humanistic grammar school Ansbach for the school year 1934–1935 (Ansbach 1935), p. 11: "Turpe est in patria vivere et patriam ignorare (Pliny)."