Jules César : veni vedi vici

Veni vedi vici (je suis venu, j’ai vu, j’ai vaincu) est une locution latine attribuée à Jules César (100 – 44 av. J.-C.), général et homme politique romain.

Cette formule allitérée marque par son laconisme : en latin, le pronom personnel n’est pas obligatoire. Sa forme donne une idée du fond : efficace, elle est à l’image légendaire de César, conquérant fulgurant.

César aurait prononcé sa formule à propos de victoire rapide contre un allié de son rival Pompée (106 – 48 av. J.-C.), Pharnace II (97 à 47 av. J.-C.), roi du Bosphore, qui a annexé la petite Arménie et la Cappadoce. César le vainc sans difficulté le 2 août 47 av. J.-C. à bataille de Zéla, après avoir débarqué en Égypte à la poursuite de Pompée.

Veni, vedi, vici nous est connue par deux sources, les biographies de César (Vie de César) écrites par le grec Plutarque (46 – 125 ap. J.-C.) et par le romain Suétone (70 – 122 ap. J.-C.). En arrivant en Asie, il apprit que Domitius, après avoir été battu par Pharnace, fils de Mithridate, s’était enfui du Pont avec peu de troupes ; que Pharnace, poursuivant avec chaleur sa victoire, s’était emparé de la Bithynie et de la Cappadoce, et se préparait à envahir la petite Arménie, dont il avait fait soulever les rois et les tétrarques : César marche promptement contre lui avec trois légions et lui livre une grande bataille près de la ville de Zèla ; il taille en pièces toute son armée et le chasse du royaume du Pont. Ce fut alors que, pour marquer la rapidité de cette victoire, il écrivit à Matius, un de ses amis de Rome, ces trois mots seulement : « Je suis venu, j’ai vu, j’ai vaincu. » En latin [laculturegenerale.com : veni vedi vici, le texte a été écrit en grec], ces trois mots terminés de même ont une grâce et une brièveté qui disparaissent dans une autre langue. Source: Plutarque

Ses guerres terminées, il triompha cinq fois, dont quatre dans le même mois, après sa victoire sur Scipion, mais à quelques jours d’intervalle, et la cinquième après la défaite des fils de Pompée. Il triompha de la Gaule, et ce fut le premier et le plus beau de ses triomphes; ensuite d’Alexandrie, puis du Pont, puis de l’Afrique, et en dernier lieu de l’Espagne; toujours avec une pompe et un appareil différents. Le jour où il triompha de la Gaule, comme il traversait le Vélabre, il fut presque jeté hors de son char, dont l’essieu se rompit. Il monta au Capitole à la lueur des flambeaux, que portaient dans des candélabres quarante éléphants rangés à droite et à gauche. Dans son triomphe du Pont, on remarqua, entre autres ornements de la pompe triomphale, un tableau où étaient écrits ces seuls mots: « Je suis venu, j’ai vu, j’ai vaincu, » qui ne retraçaient pas, comme les autres inscriptions, tous les événements de la guerre, mais qui en marquaient la rapidité. Source: Suétone

La formule a souvent été imitée ou pastichée.

Titus, pour mon malheur, vint, vous vit, et vous plut. Source: Racine, Bérénice

Veni vidi vixi Source: Poème de Hugo tiré des Contemplations (1856), sur la mort de sa fille

Who Said "Veni, Vidi, Vici" and What Did He Mean?

"Veni, vidi, vici" is a famous phrase said to have been spoken by the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE) in a bit of stylish bragging that impressed many of the writers of his day and beyond. The phrase means roughly "I came, I saw, I conquered" and it could be pronounced approximately Vehnee, Veedee, Veekee or Vehnee Veedee Veechee in Ecclesiastical Latin—the Latin used in rituals in the Roman Catholic Church—and roughly Wehnee, Weekee, Weechee in other forms of spoken Latin.

In May of 47 BCE, Julius Caesar was in Egypt attending to his pregnant mistress, the famed Pharaoh Cleopatra VII. This relationship would later prove to be the undoing of Caesar, Cleopatra, and Cleopatra's lover Mark Anthony, but in June of 47 BCE, Cleopatra would give birth to their son Ptolemy Caesarion and Caesar was by all accounts smitten with her. Duty called and he had to leave her: there had been a report of trouble rising against Roman holdings in Syria.

Caesar's Triumph

Caesar traveled to Asia, where he learned that the primary troublemaker was Pharnaces II, who was king of Pontus, an area near the Black Sea in northeastern Turkey. According to the Life of Caesar written by the Greek historian Plutarch (45–125 CE), Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, was stirring up trouble for the princes and tetrarchs in several Roman provinces, including Bithynia and Cappadocia. His next target was to be Armenia.

With only three legions at his side, Caesar marched against Pharnaces and his force of 20,000 and handily defeated him in the Battle of Zela, or modern Zile, in what is today the Tokat province of northern Turkey. To inform his friends back in Rome of his victory, again according to Plutarch, Caesar succinctly wrote, "Veni, Vidi, Vici."

Scholarly Commentary

The classic historians were impressed with the way Caesar summarized his triumph. The Temple Classics version of Plutarch's opinion reads, "the words have the same inflectional ending, and so a brevity which is most impressive," adding, "these three words, ending all with like sound and letter in the Latin, have a certain short grace more pleasant to the ear than can be well expressed in any other tongue." The English poet John Dryden's translation of Plutarch is briefer: "the three words in Latin, having the same cadence, carry with them a suitable air of brevity."

The Roman historian Suetonius (70–130 CE) described much of the pomp and pageantry of Caesar's return to Rome by torchlight, headed up by a tablet with the inscription "Veni, Vidi, Vici," signifying to Suetonius the manner of the writing expressed "what was done, so much as the dispatch with which it was done."

Queen Elizabeth's playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616) also admired Caesar's brevity, which he apparently read in North's translation of Plutarch's "Life of Caesar" in the Temple Classics version published in 1579. He turned the quote into a joke for his silly character Monsieur Biron in Love's Labour's Lost, when he lusts after the fair Rosaline: "Who came, the king; why did he come? to see; why did he see? to overcome."

Modern References

Versions of Caesar's statement have also been used in several other contexts, some military, some satirical. In 1683, Jan III of Poland said "Venimus Vidimus, Deus vicit," or "We came, we saw, and God conquered" reminding his triumphant soldiers after the Battle of Vienna that there is "No I in TEAM" and that "Man proposes, God disposes" in one witty quip. Handel, in his 1724 opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt) used an Italian version (Cesare venne, e vide e vinse) but associated it with the proper ancient Italian.

In the 1950s, the title song for the musical version of the Broadway hit "Auntie Mame" included a line from her lover Beauregard who sings "You came, you saw, you conquered." In 2011, Hillary Clinton, then the United States secretary of state, reported the death of Muammar Gadafi using the phrase "We came, we saw, he died."

Peter Venkman, arguably the idiot member of the 1984 "Ghostbusters" film, applauds their efforts "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!" and the 2002 studio album for the Swedish rock band the Hives was titled "Veni Vidi Vicious." Rappers Pitbull ("Fireball" in 2014) and Jay-Z ("Encore" in 2004) both include versions of the phrase.

Latin grammar

Veni, vidi, and vici are first person singular perfect indicative active forms of the Latin verbs venire, videre, and vincere, which mean "to come", "to see", and "to conquer", respectively. The sentence's form is classed as a tricolon and a hendiatris.

Source

Carr WL. 1962. Veni, Vidi, Vici. The Classical Outlook 39(7):73-73.
Plutarch. "Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Englished by Sir Thomas North." Temple Classics version, tr. 1579 [1894 edition]. Online copy by The British Museum.
Plutarch. "Plutarch's Lives." Transl, Dryden, John. Ed., Clough, A. H. Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1906.