Vive la France!

[Timothy Francis-Wright]

Carl Remick wrote:
> >From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> >
> >... Besides, red-blooded Americans have long hated France.
> 
> Never one to resist the fray, ever ebullient Ed Koch has reportedly 
> added a classical touch to this latest Francophobic frenzy:  "... the 
> former Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, ... angered by what he considers 
> French racism, ends his weekly radio broadcasts with Caesar’s tag: 
> 'Omni Gaul Delenda est!' (All Gaul must be destroyed)."
> 
> <http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-2-2003_pg4_8>

This was also on the Times of London website:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-578274,00.html

Someone needs to brush up on his Caesar, and not just the Shakespeare.
Not only is Koch's purported phrase more Pig Latin than Latin,
it is a literal pastiche of two phrases uttered or written a
century apart.

The opening line of De Bello Gallico is "Gallis est omnis divisa
in partes tres" (Gaul is on the whole divided into three parts).
Cato the Censor is infamously known for ending myriad speeches
in the Senate with the demand "delenda est Carthago!" (Carthage
must be destroyed).


>From what I can tell, none of Ceasar's published works even contain
the word "delenda": 
http://harvest.rutgers.edu/latintexts/caesar/gallic/

--tim francis-wright
forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit