delenda est Carthago

(idea) by lumina Sat Nov 13 1999 at 10:14:07
Latin for "Carthage must be destroyed", the concluding comment of every single speech in the Senate by Cato the Elder, who wanted to provoke a Punic War which would result in the destruction of Carthage. He was ultimately successful. See non sequitur, anaphora, Aeneid, Dido and Aeneas, genocide, What I tell you three times is true, obsession.
(idea) by jerwin Sun Mar 23 2003 at 4:07:43
Delendo est Carthago is an example of the passive periphrastic construction in Latin, usually expressing the idea of must, or ought. This grammatical construction is composed of the gerund + forms of the verb esse.
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