Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Animats 978 days ago
It's from a novel, I think. It reflects battle results of legions against barbarians. One on one, the barbarians could win. A formed legion could take on a larger group of barbarians and win. See Gallic Wars.

Google's coverage of books is worse than it used to be. Search results from old books don't come up much any more.
1 comments
Balgair 978 days ago
Non composita legio heroum. Heroes sunt quos legio necat.

(Please tell me how I'm butchering my Latin here, still learning!)

Yeah, I get nothing from a quick search too.

I wouldn't even think to know who would have said something so mundane about the legions. Cesar would never have said something like that. The closest that I can think of would be Pompey, but such a saying would have been too glib even for him.

link
justin66 976 days ago
> Cesar would never have said something like that.

I expect "don't be a hero" would be a very, very common sentiment expressed to a legionnaire during his training. It's a little more pithy than "hold the line or you'll get killed and fuck things up for everybody else."

link