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ense et aratro

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

By sword and plow; the dual symbols of military valor and agricultural labor, war and peace.

Detailed Definition
Ense et aratro represents the complementary virtues of the soldier and the farmer, the defender and the sustainer of civilization. In Roman tradition, the ideal citizen was both a warrior and a cultivator of the land. In poetry, it appears in civic verse, georgic tradition, and poems celebrating the virtues of active, productive life. It speaks to the Virgilian ideal of a civilization grounded in both the courage to defend and the patience to cultivate.
Example
Example in poetry:
Virgil's Georgics are the great poem of ense et aratro — the complementary virtues of the soldier who defends and the farmer who sustains civilization; Cincinnatus — the Roman dictator who returned to his plow after saving Rome — became the ideal figure of ense et aratro, celebrated in poetry as the model of republican virtue; Washington was consistently compared to Cincinnatus and praised in American verse as an ense et aratro hero — the general who became a farmer; A student might write a poem about someone who embodies both sides of ense et aratro — a veteran farmer, a peacemaker who was once a warrior, a healer who was once a soldier; The tension between ense et aratro in colonial and post-colonial poetry — the soldier's and the farmer's different relationships to the land — is a rich subject for analysis and composition
Additional Notes
Ense et aratro encapsulates the Roman ideal of the citizen-soldier — the man who is equally capable of defending the republic with the sword and sustaining it with the plow. This ideal was embodied in the figure of Cincinnatus, who was called from his farm to serve as dictator, defeated Rome's enemies, and immediately returned to his plow — a story that profoundly shaped republican political culture and was frequently invoked in poetry. Students should note that the phrase also suggests a fundamental tension in the relationship between culture and violence: the plow represents the arts of peace, the cultivation of the earth and of civilization; the sword represents the violence required to defend that civilization against those who would destroy it. This tension between ense (violence) and aratro (cultivation) is one of the organizing polarities of the Virgilian tradition from the Georgics to the Aeneid.
Also Known As
by sword and plow sword and plough by the sword and the plough
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