Stephen,
A colleague of mine, Brian Hancock, suggests the following Horatian lines
might be appropriate for a poor man about to kill a presumably wealthy (he
was robbing him) bishop:"pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
regumque turres"-- "pale death with impartial foot knocks at the poor man's
cottage and the palaces of kings." If the bishop was pleading for his life
on the basis of special status this would constitute "a nice knock-down
argument."
Martin Howley,
Humanities Librarian,
Memorial University,
St. John's, Newfoundland,
Canada A1B 3Y1
On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Steven Botterill wrote:
>
> >* Theodard, bishop of Maastricht (670?)
> > - when held up by robbers in the forest of Bienwald, he made a long
> >speech to them, to which they replied with a quotation from Horace before
> >killing him
> >
>
> Does hagiography relate what this quotation was? If not, perhaps we could
> have a competition to suggest the most apposite line of Horace for an
> educated brigand to invoke when about to kill a bishop...
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