Okay, this is officially ridiculous … first it was the Volvo nonsense, then Lamborghini with its Deimos nonsense, and now some town in Turkey has managed to trademark Julius Caesar’s phrase? From Hurriyet:
The municipality of Zile in the northern province of Tokat has announced the acquisition of the Turkish patent license for the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar’s famous saying “Veni Vidi Vici” which is believed to have been uttered in district’s 4,000-year-old castle.
It took two and a half years to acquire the patent, Mayor Lütfi Vidinel said.
“The copyright of the phrase belongs to our municipality for the following 10 years. We are planning to renew it every decade. A global tobacco company is using this phrase as part of its brand logo and we are planning to contact them and ask for our copyright share for the use of the phrase. We will allocate the funds we raise for the fight against tobacco use,” Vidinel said.
In May 47 B.C., Caesar defeated Pharnaces of Pontus near the town of Zile. He claimed he captured the enemy in four hours. To inform the Roman Senate of his victory, Caesar succinctly wrote, “veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered).
- via: ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’ patented in Turkey(Hurriyet)
This a.m. I quipped on Twitter that all the Classics departments should band together and trademark the name of every Greek and Roman divinity. We should add to that the name of every ancient author and everything they said. We clearly could easily fund Classics for eternity …
rogueclassicism 