sic semper tyrannis

{{italic title}}{{short description|Latin phrase}}

{{redirect|Thus always to tyrants|the album|Thus Always to Tyrants (album){{!}}Thus Always to Tyrants (album)}}

Sic semper tyrannis is a Latin phrase meaning "thus always to tyrants". In contemporary parlance, it means tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown. The phrase also suggests that bad but justified outcomes should, or eventually will, befall tyrants. It is the state motto of the U.S. state of Virginia.

History

Image:Tizian 094.jpg, a 1571 portrait by Titian]]

Before 509 BC, Rome was ruled by kings, with the last being Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. The king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped a noblewoman, Lucretia, who revealed the offense to various Roman noblemen and then died by suicide. The noblemen obtained the support of the aristocracy and the people to expel the king and his family and to institute the Roman Republic. The leader of the noblemen was Lucius Junius Brutus, who became one of the first consuls of the Republic. It has been suggested that the phrase was used at this event, but the suggestion is not based on any Latin surviving literature of the time.

Senator Marcus Junius Brutus, a descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus and who also took part in the assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC,{{cite news |last1=Mitgang |first1=Herbert |title=Booth Speech Reveals a Killer's Mind |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/12/us/booth-speech-reveals-a-killer-s-mind.html |access-date=23 November 2015 |work=The New York Times| date=12 April 1992}}{{cite news |last1=Mulvihill |first1=Amy |title=The Fault in His Stars |url=http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/2015/4/13/the-fault-in-his-stars |access-date=23 November 2015 |work=Baltimore Magazine |date=13 April 2015}} is sometimes credited with originating the phrase. Plutarch suggests he either did not have a chance to say anything, or if he did, no one heard it:

Caesar thus done to death, the senators, although Brutus came forward as if to say something about what had been done, would not wait to hear him, but burst out of doors and fled, thus filling the people with confusion and helpless fear.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0244%3Achapter%3D67 Plutarch, "Caesar", Plutarch's Lives, with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919. ch. 67. On Line text.]
Mike Fontaine, professor of Classics at Cornell University, proposes that the expression is likely a Latin translation by the U.S. founding father George Wythe of what Tiberius Gracchus' brother-in-law, the general and statesman Scipio Aemilianus, said when he heard of the assassination of Gracchus. This is also reported by Plutarch in his Life of Gracchus (21.4), where he reacted by quoting Homer's Odyssey (1.47): {{Lang|grc|ὡς ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος, ὅτις τοιαῦτά γε ῥέζοι}}.{{Cite web |last=Fontaine |first=Mike |date=2022-07-28 |title=The Real Source Behind "Sic Semper Tyrannis" |url=https://medium.com/in-medias-res/the-real-source-behind-sic-semper-tyrannis-b2bc3ddc70dc |publisher=Medium |website=In Medias Res |language=en |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231201102403/https://medium.com/in-medias-res/the-real-source-behind-sic-semper-tyrannis-b2bc3ddc70dc |archive-date= Dec 1, 2023 }} Gracchus was assassinated due to the land reforms he had made a major priority, to which Aemilianus was opposed.

The phrase has been invoked as an epithet about one allegedly abusing power, or as a rallying cry against abuse of power.

Usage in the United States

File:Seal of Virginia.svg]]

File:149th Fighter Squadron emblem.jpg]]

The phrase was recommended by George Mason to the Virginia Convention in 1776, as part of the commonwealth's seal. The Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia shows Virtue, spear in hand, with her foot on the recumbent form of Tyranny, whose crown lies nearby. The Seal was planned by Mason and designed by George Wythe, who signed the United States Declaration of Independence and taught law to Thomas Jefferson.{{cite book |title= The Life of George Mason, 1725–1792 |first= Kate Mason |last= Rowland |publisher= G.P. Putnam's Sons |year= 1892 |pages= 264–265 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=jbiCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA265}} A joke referencing the image on the seal that dates as far back as the Civil War, is that "Sic semper tyrannis" actually means "Get your foot off my neck."{{cite journal |last=von Borcke |first=Heros |author-link=Heros von Borcke |date=April 1866 |title=Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence |journal=Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine |volume=99 |version=American edition, vol. 62 |issue=606 |page=462 |publisher=Leonard Scott & Co. |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HqrZODfwUIIC&pg=PA462 |access-date=21 August 2010 |quote=...the coat of arms of the state of Virginia, bearing the motto, Sic semper tyrannis, which the soldiers translated, "Take your foot off my neck", from the action of the principal figure ... representing Liberty, who, with a lance in her right hand, is standing over the conquered and prostrate tyrant, and apparently trampling on him with her heel.}}

"Happy While United" was the slogan on a medal coined by the State of Virginia in 1780. First envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, the medal was minted and designed to be given to Native American signatories to the treaties Jefferson planned with the Native Americans of Virginia. The medal portrays a Virginia colonial, sitting, enjoying a peace pipe with a Native American. The obverse portrays a variation of the Virginia state seal of the state symbol standing triumphant over a slain enemy with the legend: "Rebellion to Tyrants Is Obedience to God".

The phrase is the motto of the United States Navy attack submarine named for the state, the USS Virginia. Before that, it was the motto of the nuclear-powered cruiser USS Virginia.

The phrase appears on the Insignia of the 149th Fighter Squadron which is located at Joint Base Langley–Eustis, Virginia.

John Tyler's father, John Tyler Sr., uttered the phrase to a schoolteacher who had been tied up by the younger Tyler and his fellow pupils.{{cite book |last1=Longo |first1=James McMurtry |title=From Classroom to White House: The Presidents and First Ladies as Students and Teachers |date=28 November 2011 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8846-9 |page=50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SVFkQJD7b1wC&pg=PA50 |language=en}}

In her non-fiction polemical A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe noted the irony of runaway slave ads appearing in Southern newspapers with nameplate mottos like Sic semper tyrannis and "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God".{{cite book |last=Stowe |first=Harriet Beecher |title=A key to Uncle Tom's cabin: presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded |publisher=J. P. Jewett & Co. |year=1853 |location=Boston |chapter=Chapter IX: Slaves as They Are, on Testimony of Owners |lccn=02004230 |oclc=317690900 |ol=21879838M |author-link=Harriet Beecher Stowe |chapter-url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008689317}}

During the Civil War, at least one regiment of the United States Colored Troops used it as their motto.{{cite web|url=https://jubiloemancipationcentury.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/usct-regimental-flag-22nd-united-states-colored-infantry/ |title=USCT Regimental Flag – 22nd United States Colored Infantry|work=Jubilo! The Emancipation Century|date=3 May 2011}}

John Wilkes Booth wrote in his diary that he shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" after shooting U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, in part because of the association with the assassination of Caesar.{{cite web|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lincolnconspiracy/boothdiary.html|title=Diary Entry of John Wilkes Booth|work=umkc.edu|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229212451/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lincolnconspiracy/boothdiary.html|archive-date=2010-12-29}}{{cite news| url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1865/04/15/P1 | work=The New York Times | title=TimesMachine April 15, 1865 – New York Times}}{{cite web|url=https://events.fords.org/productions/historic-site-visit/?q=home/plan-your-visit/daytime-visits-fords-theatre|title=Ford's Theater Historic Site Visit|work=fords.org}}

The phrase was also in the pro-Confederate Civil War song "Maryland, My Maryland", which was popular at the time with Southern sympathizers in Maryland, such as Booth. The song, containing the phrase, was the official state song of Maryland from 1939 until its removal in 2021.{{cite news |url=https://www.wjla.com/news/local/on-bill-signing-day-hogan-officially-legalizes-sports-betting-repeals-state-song |title=On bill-signing day, Hogan officially legalizes sports betting, repeals state song |date=May 18, 2021 |work=WJLA-TV |agency=Associated Press |access-date=May 18, 2021}}

After Thomas Lawrence Higgins had pied anti-gay activist Anita Bryant on live television in October 1977, he remarked "thus always to bigots" as a reference to the phrase.{{cite book |last1=Lane |first1=Stephen |title=No Sanctuary Teachers and the School Reform That Brought Gay Rights to the Masses |date=2019 |publisher=University Press of New England |page=55}}

Timothy McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt with this phrase and a picture of Lincoln on it when he was arrested on April 19, 1995, the day he carried out the Oklahoma City bombing.{{cite news |last=Kilzer |first= Lou |author2=Flynn, Kevin |title= Did McVeigh Plan to get Caught, or was he Sloppy? |work= Denver Rocky Mountain News |date= 1997-12-19}}

The phrase is also the motto of Allentown, Pennsylvania, the third largest city in Pennsylvania.[https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/07/the-100-sic-semper-tyrannis-meaning/ "What Does 'Sic Semper Tyrannis' Mean?"], Heavy.com, July 10, 2018, retrieved October 27, 2022]

See also

References

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