Thread by @VeraCausa9

A short thread of Latin quotations on wolves and human nature:

"The wolf may shed his coat but not his nature"

Lupus pilum mutat, non mentem

-Latin Maxim

Bronze Wolf Head, Roman ca. 1-200 AD-at Cleveland Art Museum [1]

What a splendid shepherd is the wolf!

custodem ovium, ut aiunt, lupum!

-Cicero, Philippic III

She-Wolf, bronze 5th c. BC (head detail) at Capitoline Museums, Rome [1]

"A man is a wolf rather than a man to another man, when he hasn't yet found out what he's like."

Lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit

-Plautus, Asinaria (The One With the Asses)

From Caligula's Nemi Navi (seconda nave):

Brass rings in the shaped of wolves. They're fitted to the cantilevered beams that supported each rowing position. [1]

"I hold a wolf by the ears"

auribus teneo lupum

-Terence, Phormio

i.e. "I'm in desperate trouble"

A frontal photo of the bronze wolf head, Roman ca. 1-200 AD-at Cleveland Art Museum [1]

"A precipice before [me], wolves behind [me]"

a fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi

-Latin Maxim

Detail of the mosaic depicting the She-wolf with Romulus and Remus, from Aldborough, about 300-400 AD at Leeds City Museum, UK [1]

"You may as well leave wolves among your sheep, than these (men) to guard your house."

(Ut mavelis) Lupos apud oves linquere, quam hos custodes domi

-Plautus, Pseudolus

A Roman bronze figure of a wolf standing alertly with gaping jaws (at two different profiles) circa 2nd century AD-sold at Christie's [1]

P.S. Latin word Versipellis i.e. "skin-changer", in certain texts mean "werewolf" but also man's "deceitfulness"

Ovid's versipellis, Jupiter turns Lycaon into a werewolf:

fit lupus et veteris servat vestigia formae

"He becomes a wolf, and retains traces of his former shape"