The powerful Latin phrase, “Pacem appellant” (“they call it peace”), serves as the devastating conclusion to one of history’s most famous indictments of imperial conquest. The full quote, immortalized by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, states: “Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.”

This translates to: “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

A Barbarian’s Truth

Tacitus, writing around AD 98 in his work Agricola, did not offer this critique as his own commentary but placed it into the mouth of a defeated enemy: Calgacus, a chieftain of the Caledonians (ancient Britons). It was Calgacus’s fiery rallying cry before the Battle of Mons Graupius against the Roman legions. Through the voice of the “barbarian,” Tacitus delivered a scathing critique of the Pax Romana, the supposed “Roman Peace” that was enforced by brutality and total subjugation. The essence of the line is that when Rome destroys a society, wiping out its people, culture, and life—making a desert—the resulting silence and lack of resistance is hypocritically labeled “peace.”

Pegleg

Leave it up to Pegleg to come up with a nice Latin quote to lighten the mood. The pirates have just turned their ship into a restaurant and it seems they are ready to start a new life. In this album, in the end, luck is on their side. I think they deserved it.