John Finn
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Camino de Frances - Sarria to Santiago (2013), Burgos to Leon (2014), St Jean Pied de Port to Logrono (2015), Logrono to Burgos (2016), Leon to Sarria (May 2017).
I doubt if there is any man of a certain age (those of us weaned on the Roman epic movies of the 1960s starring Charlton Heston et al) who, when striding purposefully across the Meseta, does not at some stage imagine himself in the uniform of a Roman legionary.
The Emperor Trajan marched his Seventh Legion soldiers here en route to León and if you listen very carefully on, for instance, that long stretch between Carrión de los Condes and Caldadilla de la Cueza, you may still hear the sound of their marching feet echoing down the centuries.
And like soldiers on the march everywhere and at every time they sang their way along. Thanks to Suetonius, we know the words of one such marching song but not, alas, the tune. Anyhow, here it is:
Urbani, servate uxores, moechum calvum adducimus.
Aurum in gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.
Gallias caesar subegit, nicomedes caesarem, ecce caesar nunc triumphat qui subegit gallias.
Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit caesarem.
Gallos caesar in triumphum ducit, idem in curiam, galli bracas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumperunt.
Which roughly translates as:
Citizens, keep an eye on your wives, we’re bringing back the bald adulterer. He’s stashed away the gold in Gaul that you loaned him here in Rome.
Caesar vanquished the Gauls, Nicomedes Caesar, Caesar who vanquished the Gauls now triumphs. Nicomedes does not triumph, who vanquished Caesar.
Caesar leads the Gauls in triumph, likewise into the Senate House. The Gauls have laid aside their trousers and put on the broad purple stripe.
I guess it loses something in translation.
Now if only someone could set the words to a rousing tune we could adopt it as our Meseta marching song
The Emperor Trajan marched his Seventh Legion soldiers here en route to León and if you listen very carefully on, for instance, that long stretch between Carrión de los Condes and Caldadilla de la Cueza, you may still hear the sound of their marching feet echoing down the centuries.
And like soldiers on the march everywhere and at every time they sang their way along. Thanks to Suetonius, we know the words of one such marching song but not, alas, the tune. Anyhow, here it is:
Urbani, servate uxores, moechum calvum adducimus.
Aurum in gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.
Gallias caesar subegit, nicomedes caesarem, ecce caesar nunc triumphat qui subegit gallias.
Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit caesarem.
Gallos caesar in triumphum ducit, idem in curiam, galli bracas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumperunt.
Which roughly translates as:
Citizens, keep an eye on your wives, we’re bringing back the bald adulterer. He’s stashed away the gold in Gaul that you loaned him here in Rome.
Caesar vanquished the Gauls, Nicomedes Caesar, Caesar who vanquished the Gauls now triumphs. Nicomedes does not triumph, who vanquished Caesar.
Caesar leads the Gauls in triumph, likewise into the Senate House. The Gauls have laid aside their trousers and put on the broad purple stripe.
I guess it loses something in translation.
Now if only someone could set the words to a rousing tune we could adopt it as our Meseta marching song