Commentary
Where’s Cato the Elder when you need him?
Around 150 BC, the grumpy Roman senator took to ending every speech, no matter what the topic (grain allotments for the plebs, plans for a new aqueduct, whatever) with the injunction “Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam”: “And another thing, I think that Carthage ought to be destroyed.”
That refrain has come down to us as a lapidary, three-word imperative: Carthago delenda est: “Carthage must be destroyed.”
Daniel Hannan, the British commentator, eurosceptic, and sometime member of the European Parliament, took a page from Cato’s book and for a time ended all of his speeches with the formula “Pactio Olisipiensis censenda est”: “The Lisbon treaty must be put to the vote.”…