Sic Semper Tyrannis

Great Seal of Virginia with the state motto.

Sic Semper tyrannis is a Latin phrase meaning "Thus always to tyrants" or "Thus ever [it be] with tyrants". Recommended by George Mason to the Virginia Convention in 1776, the phrase is attributed to Marcus Brutus at the assassination of Julius Caesar.

It is the state motto of Virginia in the United States (and also that of the USS Virginia). The Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia shows Virtue, sword in hand, with her foot on the prostrate form of Tyranny, whose crown lies nearby. The Seal was designed by George Wythe, who signed the United States Declaration of Independence and taught law to Thomas Jefferson. The phrase is also the motto of the U.S. city Allentown, the third largest city in Pennsylvania.

According to some witnesses and an excerpt from John Wilkes Booth's diary, he is said to have shouted the phrase after shooting United States President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

Timothy McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt with this phrase and a picture of Lincoln on it when he was arrested on April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing.^[1]

Virginia rock band Mae wrote a song for their August 2007 album Singularity entitled "Sic Semper Tyrannis".

It is sometimes mistranslated as "Death to tyrants."

References

External links

• Webster entry - audio pronunciation

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