Clontarf Castle

VINCIT QUI SE VINCIT, ‘They conquer who conquer themselves’, a version of a phrase found in Publilius Syrus, sometimes attributed to Seneca: bis vincit qui se vincit in victoria, ‘he conquers twice who conquers himself in victory’.

VIX EA NOSTRO VOCO, [more properly, nostra], taken from Ovid, Metamorphoses, 13, 140–1. Odysseus is speaking in a debate with Ajax. ‘As for lineage and ancestors and things we have not done ourselves, I can scarcely call these things our own.’