Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is a Latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal, variously translated as "Who watches the watchmen?", "Who watches the watchers?", "Who will guard the guards?", "Who shall watch the watchers themselves?", or similar.

History

The essential problem was posed by Plato in the Republic, his work on government and morality. The perfect society as described by Socrates, the main character of the work (see Socratic dialogue), relies on laborers, slaves and tradesmen. The guardian class is to protect the city. The question is put to Socrates, "Who will guard the guardians?" or, "Who will protect us against the protectors?" Plato's answer to this is that they will guard themselves against themselves. We must tell the guardians a "noble lie." The noble lie will inform them that they are better than those they serve and it is therefore their responsibility to guard and protect those lesser than themselves. We will instill in them a distaste for power or privilege; they will rule because they believe it right, not because they desire it.

Usage

The saying has since been used by many people to ponder the insoluble question of where ultimate power should reside. The way in which modern democracies attempt to solve this problem is in the separation of powers. The idea is to never give ultimate power to any one group, but to let the interests of each (as the executive, legislative, or judicial) compete and conflict with one another. Each group will then find it in its best interest to impede the functioning of the rest and this will keep ultimate power under constant struggle and, thereby, out of any one group's hands.

One well-known contemporary interpretations of this concept is found in an episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled "Who Watches the Watchers." Another is the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. A second novel uses this expression; Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress". It discusses the intricate balance between national security and personal privacy: who has the right to peek in other's emails in the name of national security - Who will guard them?

Origin

The phrase as it is normally quoted in Latin comes from the Satires of Juvenal, the 1st/2nd century Roman satirist. Although in its modern usage the phrase has universal, timeless applications to concepts such as tyrannical governments and uncontrollably oppressive dictatorships, in context within Juvenal's poem it refers to the impossibility of enforcing moral behavior on women when the enforcers (custodes) are corruptible (Satire 6.346–348):

audio quid ueteres olim moneatis amici,
"pone seram, cohibe." sed quis custodiet ipsos
custodes? cauta est et ab illis incipit uxor.

I hear always the admonishment of my friends:
"Bolt her in, constrain her!" But who will guard
the guardians? The wife plans ahead and begins with them!

However, modern editors regard these three lines as an interpolation inserted into the text. In 1899 an undergraduate student at Oxford, E.O. Winstedt, discovered a manuscript (now known as O, for Oxoniensis) containing 34 lines which some believe to have been omitted from other texts of Juvenal's poem. The debate on this manuscript is ongoing, but even if the poem is not by Juvenal, it is likely that it preserves the original context of the phrase. If so, the original context is as follows (O 29–33):

… noui
consilia et ueteres quaecumque monetis amici,
"pone seram, cohibes." sed quis custodiat ipsos
custodes qui nunc lasciuae furta puellae
hac mercede silent? crimen commune tacetur.

… I know
the plan that my friends always advise me to adopt:
"Bolt her in, constrain her!" But who can watch
the watchmen? They keep quiet about the girl's
secrets and get her as their payment; everyone hushes it up.

External links

• Satire VI in Latin, at The Latin Library
• Satire VI in English (translation by G.G. Ramsay) at the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook