# "Arma optimum defensione est"



## Novac

Hello to all!

I've come across this sentence "Arma optimum defensione est" but I think it is grammatically wrong. "Defensione" is the ablative singular and I think the nominative is needed there (e.i. defensio); "optimum" is neuter, nominative, singular, but the _only_ neuter noun is "arma", which doesn't even count, as it is plural (e.i. even if "optimum" modified "arma", it would be "optima" because of the agreement).

Therefore, the first part of this post is the question "Is it truly wrong?".
Then, if it is indeed so, I wanted to know if the following ways to correct it are right or not:

*1. *(first way to correct it)* "Arma optima defensio sunt":*

*"The armour is the best defence."*

So here "optima" modifies the noun "defensio", thus being singular, feminine in the N. case.

*"The best armour is/means defence".*

Here, though the sentence seems rather unnatural to me, the adjective "optima" modifies "arma", thus being plural, neuter, in the N. case.

*2.* (second way to correct it) *"Arma optima defensio est."*

*"The defence is the best armour."
"The best defence is the armour."

*
So, both "Arma optima defensio est" and "Arma optima defensio sunt" have two translations; I believe it depends on the context which one you choose.

In conclusion: is the original sentence truly wrong? If so, are the corrections right? And do they really have two translations (or maybe even more, but I haven't figured them out), or is it just me that got confused? And if they do, are the translations above correct or not?

_Sorry for the complicated questions, I just got confused in these four words, as in Latin it seems the noun-adjective agreement is very important to determine about whom we talk, but the fact that some endings are the same makes certain translations depend on the context, I think._


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## Scholiast

Hello again Novac, welcome back!

There is a genuinely ancient Latin maxim, though I cannot remember the original source (perhaps another Foreaster can help here?)

_si pacem vis, bellum para!
_
Or

_qui pacem vult, bellum paret_.

'If you desire peace, be ready for war', or 'Let him who desires peace prepare for war'.

This conveys, I think, the substance of what the (faulty) Latin of the original 'quotation' was trying to express.

Does this make sense?

Σ


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## bearded

Scholiast said:


> I cannot remember the original source (perhaps another Foreaster can help here?) _si pacem vis, bellum para!_


Hi Scholiast
I know the motto in the version ''_si vis pacem, para bellum_'' , and apparently the origin is in the work of a late-Latin author Vegetius Renatus: Si vis pacem, para bellum .


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## Scholiast

Bearded!

Thank you very much. My suspicion remains that the axiom (or at least the thought) has a more ancient pedigree than Vegetius, but yours is a significant and valuable contribution to the discussion.

Σ


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## Snodv

Three things occur to me. 
1.  I think I would translate _arma_ as "weapons" in the corrected sentence; armor is expected to be defensive, and weapons offensive, so the statement has more punch as "Weapons are the best defense."   
2.  The original does indeed appear to be grammatically incorrect.  Nothing goes with anything.
3.  I am almost sure Cicero said the "bellum para" quote, but I am not entirely sure that even he was the first.


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## Snodv

I have just read that Cicero's words were actually "Si pace frui volumus, bellum gerendum est."


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## Scholiast

Afternoon all


Snodv said:


> I have just read that Cicero's words were actually "Si pace frui volumus, bellum gerendum est."


Great, Snodv. Can you supply a precise reference for this?

Σ


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## Snodv

I think so.  Orationes Philippicae VII, 6, which goes on to say "Si bellum omittimus, numquam pace fruemur."  Or if not, something very close to that.


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## Scholiast

Snodv et aliis gratias


Snodv said:


> Orationes Philippicae VII, 6, which goes on to say "Si bellum omittimus, numquam pace fruemur." Or if not, something very close to that.


Excellent, but my text has the future _omitt*e*mus. _I'm kicking myself for not immediately recognising it. But this confirms my suspicion (## 2, 4 in this Thread) that the thought is older than Vegetius Renatus, who was not exactly an original thinker or rhetorician.
Nevertheless, another example of why this site and its contributors are so splendid.
Σ


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## Snodv

Hmm.   I don't think I understand the locating numbers:  when I look at another source, it looks like VII, 19 rather than VII, 6.  But in all the places I looked I found _omittimus.  _Perhaps this transcription was due to an English speaker's bias?   We are perfectly happy to use a present tense protasis with a future tense apodosis; I'm not positive that formal Latin liked that--maybe your edition is closer.
But yes, indeed--ain't we got fun?


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## Novac

Wow, thanks for all your answers!


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## Scholiast

@ (chiefly) Snodv in his # 10 here

Just for explanation: at the start of printed reproduction of classical literature (with the Dutch printer Aldus) the texts were numerically paginated, so 'Cic. _Phil_. VII 6' meant 'page 6' in the Aldine edition. 18th-19th century scholarship, in Germany, the UK and elsewhere, found this an annoyingly cumbersome and imprecise means of reference, so editors resorted to the preciser system in which 'paragraphs' were numbered according to conceptual content and concinnity. I don't know when or by whom this process was started, but a best guess would be with the eminent Joseph Scaliger. (1540-1609).

Σ


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## Snodv

Multas gratias, Scholiast, pro lumine in tenebris!


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