The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 25, June 16, 2002, Article 7

LATIN LINGO

  John Adams' request for a translation of the Latin phrase
  AMAT AUREA CONDERE SAECLA brought several replies:

  Ken Berger writes: "My Latin is very rusty but I was a Latin
  scholar in high school many years ago.  I would say it means
  something like "He who loves gold, builds a generation".

  Gar Travis attached a picture of a Jeton bearing the
  Latin phrase in question, which he found on a web site listed
  as a "Royal token".

  Allan Davisson writes: "I think "He loves gold more than God"
  probably comes close to the meaning of the phrase. (My
  Latin goes back more years than I care to remember.)

  Ferdinando Bassoli writes: "The expression can be found
  in Lucretius, the great Latin poet of the first century B.C..
  (De rerum natura , III, 1088), and means: (he) who loves to
  live long golden centuries, i.e. a long time and well.   I would
  like to know whether this is the inscription of a medal and to
  what or whom is referred."

  Ron Haller-Williams writes:  "Here's my offering:

  AMAT     [he/she/it] likes/loves
  AUREA    (feminine singular or neuter plural form of AUREUS)
  AUREUS   gold/golden/gilded; *figuratively*: beautiful/splendid
  SAECLUM/SAECULA   (see SAECULUM/SAECULA)
  SAECULA  (plural form of SAECULUM)
  SAECULUM generation/lifetime/century/the_age/the_times
  CONDERE  [to] found/establish/build/make/pass/bring_to_a_close
  N.B. There is no need in Latin for an adjective to be adjacent
  to the noun which it describes.

  I think that, unfortunately, this is one of these cases where we
  need  to convey an idea, rather than simply trying to "translate"
  as such!

  So, for example, AUREA CONDET SAECULA, as on a
  Dutch medal of 1631 commemorating four important victories,
  including the conquest of Pernambuco (1630) and Piet Hein's
  capture of Spain's silver fleet (1627),  could translate roughly
  as THE GOLDEN AGE HAS COME TO PASS.

  [Van Loon wrongly dates this medal to 1630, and the
  engraving used by him wrongly reverses the "2" in the date
  of the Hertogenbosch victory (1629).]

  He translates it into Dutch as HY ZAL DE GOUDE EEUW
  OPRECHTEN,  which may confuse people familiar with the
  more modern form OPRICHTEN.  Anybody know what the
  French edition gives?   (It would be in volume 2.)

  One could also offer an alternative of GOLD/EN [things]
  ESTABLISH THE ERA,  or the more modern-sounding
  "gold things are the keynote of the epoch".

  Brits with long memories might like to compare with Harold
  Macmillan's  alleged quote (while Prime Minister, 1957) of
  "You've never had it so good!".  Actually "Most of our
  people have never had it so good", whereas the headline
  version seems to have been lifted from The U.S. Democratic
  party slogan  during the 1952 election campaign.  These
  convey a similar idea.

  It seems this three-word version originates in Virgil's Aeneid,
  Book VI, lines 792-793:
  ... Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet
      saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arua ...

  I would try this, but I don't guarantee it!:
  "Exalted Caesar, of divine descent/birth, creates the golden
   age/s which again have prevailed through the plains in Latium"

  John - might I suggest that you double-check whether AMAT
  is actually part of the same motto/legend as the other three
  words, and also that it indeed reads CONDERE not CONDET ?
  If it is exactly as you stated, then I am not happy with "S/HE
  LOVES TO  ESTABLISH THE GOOD TIMES", or "S/HE
  LOVES THE GOOD TIMES TO BE ESTABLISHED",
  or even the idea of some royal love-match towards such an
  end, because I reckon the Latin for this would read somewhat
  differently.

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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