by Tonina Rodenberger
Concordia, ae, fem. (noun) = harmony, unity
"Ibi semper victoria, ubi concordia est."
"Where there is harmony, there always is victory."
This sentence comes from Publilius Syrus, a roman writer of maxims, who lived in the 1st century BC.
Publilius was a Syrian, who was brought as a slave to Italy and he won the favor of his master by his wit and talent. His mimes, in which he acted himself, were of great success in the provincial towns of Italy and when in 46 BC Caesar gave games, Publilius was invited to a contest of mimes, in which he vanquished all his competitors.
Unfortunately all of his mimes got lost and all that remains of his works is a collection of Sentences (Sententiae), a series of moral maxims in iambic and trochaic verse. Each maxim consists of a single verse and the verses are arranged in alphabetical order. In the course of time the collection was interpolated with sentences from other writers, so its not sure how many of them are originally drawn by Publilius himself.
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