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NON VULGANDA CONSI-
lia ducum.
Keep counsels secret
Emblema. 12.
Limine quod caeco obscura & caligine monstrum,[1]
Gnosiacis clausit Daedalus in tenebris.
Depictum Romana phalanx in praelia gestat.
Semiviroque nitent signa superba[2] bove:
Nosque monent debere Ducum secreta[3] latere
Consilia, autori cognita techna nocet.
The monster that Daedalus imprisoned in its Cretan lair, with hidden entrance and obscuring darkness, the Roman phalanx carries painted into battle; the proud standards flash with the half-man bull. These remind us that the secret plans of leaders must stay hid. A ruse once known brings harm to its author.
1. ‘The monster that Daedalus imprisoned’, i.e. the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull monster kept in the famous Labyrinth at Knossos, which Daedalus, the Athenian master-craftsman, constructed for King Minos.
2. According to Pliny, Natural History 10.5.16, before the second consulship of Marius (104 BC) Roman standards bore variously eagles, wolves, minotaurs, horses and boars. Marius made the eagle universal.
3. Cf. Festus, De verborum significatu (135 Lindsay): the Minotaur appears among the military standards, because the plans of leaders should be no less concealed than was the Minotaur’s lair, the Labyrinth.
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- (story of) the Minotaur (+ variant) [95A(MINOTAUR)7(+0)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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