Around the year 100 AD, the Roman satirist Juvenal sat down to write the tenth book of his Satires, a meditation on the foolishness of human prayer. Most people, he argued, ask the gods for the wrong things — wealth, long life, beautiful children, military glory — and would be wiser to ask for less. In the middle of this acerbic essay he dropped four words that have outlived him by nearly two thousand years: orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. "One should pray for a sound mind in a sound body."

The phrase escaped its original ironic frame almost immediately and became the founding principle of the Western fitness tradition. Public schools carved it on the lintels of their gymnasiums. The modern Olympic movement adopted it as a core value. Two thousand years later it sits, slightly worn but undefeated, at the centre of every conversation about why the body is worth training. The Greco-Roman tradition shaped how Western culture thinks about discipline, and its mottos still carry. Here are fourteen worth knowing, and the symbols that travelled with them.

The Greek roots — Asklepios and Hygeia

Long before the Romans, the Greek tradition gave the Western world its working model of healing. Two figures from that model are still in daily visual use, even by people who would not recognise their names.

Asklepios

Asklepios is the Greek god of medicine and healing. According to myth, he was the son of Apollo and the mortal Coronis, raised by the centaur Chiron, who taught him the arts of medicine. He became so skilled that he could raise the dead, at which point Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt for upsetting the order of the cosmos — and then placed him among the stars as a kind of apology. His staff, with a single serpent coiled around it, is the Rod of Asclepius. Walk into any hospital, ambulance station or medical school on earth and you will see it.

From the fifth century BCE through to the late Roman Empire, temples of Asklepios across the Mediterranean served as the world's first hospitals. Patients slept in the temple precincts and were diagnosed and treated by the priests of the cult. The Hippocratic Oath, sworn by physicians for over two thousand years, begins by invoking Apollo, Asklepios, Hygeia and Panacea.

Hygeia

Hygeia is Asklepios's daughter, the goddess of cleanliness, prevention and good health — not the cure of disease, but the conditions in which disease never develops. Her name is the root of the word "hygiene". She is usually depicted holding a bowl with a serpent drinking from it, the Bowl of Hygeia, which remains the official symbol of pharmacy in most of the Western world. In an age before germ theory, the Greeks understood with remarkable clarity that cleanliness, fresh air, exercise and good sleep prevented more illness than any remedy could cure. Hygeia is the patron goddess of recovery, prehabilitation, and every athlete who has finally accepted that sleep is a performance enhancer.

The continuity from the temples of Epidaurus in 400 BCE to the pharmacy on your high street is twenty-five unbroken centuries of borrowed symbol. Few pieces of branding have lasted longer.

The 14 Latin mottos

Each of the following mottos appears on the Latin Talisman design. Each one is short enough to memorise in the time it takes to set up a barbell, and weighty enough to repay a lifetime of carrying it.

1. Ad Infinitum

"To infinity." A mathematical formula in origin, used by Roman writers to indicate that an argument or a list goes on without end. For the athlete it is the long-game motto — the recognition that training is not a project with a finish date but a practice that, ideally, ends only when you do.

2. Mens Sana in Corpore Sano

"A sound mind in a sound body." Juvenal, Satire X, c. 100 AD. The founding principle. The deal Western culture made with itself about the body. The motto to carry on the days you do not want to train.

3. Et Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est

"And knowledge itself is power." Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrae, 1597 — a Renaissance-era Latin coinage, often shortened in English to "knowledge is power." For the athlete, it is the principle behind the training log, the heart rate data, the film study. What you measure, you can change.

4. Non Ducor Duco

"I am not led; I lead." Adopted as the official motto of the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A short statement of agency. The athlete who is not pushed by their coach but pulls themselves forward of their own will.

5. Carpe Noctem

"Seize the night." A modern variation on Horace's carpe diem, used especially by writers, musicians, and shift workers who do their best work after dark. For the athlete it might mean honouring sleep, or it might mean the early-evening session that fits around the rest of life.

6. Carpe Diem

"Seize the day." Horace, Odes 1.11, 23 BCE. The full line is carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero — "seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow." The reminder that the only training session you can do is today's.

7. Semper Fidelis

"Always faithful." Most famously the motto of the United States Marine Corps, but in use across the Roman period to mean steadfast loyalty — to a cause, a friend, a discipline. The motto of the long training cycle that does not break when results are slow.

8. Dum Vita Est Spes Est

"While there is life, there is hope." Often attributed to Cicero. The motto for the return from injury, the long rehabilitation, the bad season. The body has more in it than you think it does.

9. Luctor et Emergo

"I struggle and emerge." The motto of the Dutch province of Zeeland, whose coastal people have spent eight hundred years contesting the sea for their land. The most accurate description of training there is — you struggle, and you emerge. Each time slightly stronger.

10. Memento Vivere

"Remember to live." A late-medieval Latin coinage, written as a counterpoint to the better-known memento mori. The reminder that discipline serves life, not the other way around. The motto for the deload week, the rest day, the holiday that you almost cancelled.

11. Aut Viam Inveniam Aut Faciam

"I will either find a way or make one." Attributed to Hannibal Barca, said to have spoken it when his generals told him it was impossible to cross the Alps with elephants. He did it anyway. The motto for the athlete whose path is blocked — by injury, by circumstance, by the limits of what currently exists.

12. Audax at Fidelis

"Bold but faithful." The state motto of Queensland, Australia. A useful balance — boldness on its own becomes recklessness, faithfulness on its own becomes timidity. The combination is what you want from a training cycle, a race plan, or a coach.

13. Veritas Lux Mea

"Truth is my light." The motto of Seoul National University, in continuous use since the early twentieth century. For the athlete it is the commitment to honest self-assessment — to logging the workout you actually did, not the one you meant to do.

14. Nil Desperandum

"Never despair." Horace, Odes 1.7, c. 23 BCE. The motto for the worst training day, the worst race, the long stretch when nothing improves and everything hurts. Borrowed by everyone from Royal Navy officers to Welsh choirs because it does the job.

Why Latin mottos endure

A motto is a whole philosophy compressed into a unit small enough to fit in the mouth. That compression is what makes it portable. You cannot carry an essay into a race; you can carry four words. The Romans understood this and built their public culture around it — inscriptions over doorways, mottos on military standards, brief Latin phrases on coins. The medieval and early modern heralds inherited the form and put it on coats of arms, university crests, regimental colours. The athletic world borrowed it from the military, which is why so much of training language still sounds martial: drills, formations, campaigns, discipline.

The reason Latin endured rather than English or French or Italian is partly historical accident — it was the lingua franca of educated Europe for fifteen centuries — and partly that its grammar allows a great deal of meaning to fit into a very small number of words. Carpe diem is two words. The closest English equivalent ("seize the day before it gets away from you, because tomorrow is not guaranteed") is fourteen. That density is the source of the motto's psychological power. You can repeat it under your breath on the last interval. You cannot do that with a paragraph.

The Greek protection symbols on the Talisman

Alongside the mottos, the Latin Talisman includes a small set of Greek protection symbols drawn from the visual vocabulary of the classical world.

The Warrior symbol

A stylised hoplite figure, the heavy infantryman of the Greek city-states. The warrior stands for disciplined courage — not the rage of the berserker but the orderly bravery of the man who holds his place in the line.

The Purify symbol

From the ritual purifications of the Greek temple cult. The principle that you arrive at the sacred work only after you have set down what does not belong. The athlete's pre-session ritual is a small version of this.

The Protect symbol

The shield. Cultures change, weapons change, but the principle of guarding what is precious does not.

Pneuma

The Greek word pneuma — breath, spirit, the animating force. The Stoics built their physics around it. For the athlete, the most important and most cultivable variable is the breath, and pneuma is the ancient acknowledgement of that.

Alpha and Omega

The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. "The beginning and the end." In a Christian context they refer to God; in a broader sense they refer to the completeness of a thing, its full arc from start to finish. The motto of any long discipline.

When to wear the Latin talisman

The Latin Talisman fits the big-life moments — the PR attempt, the championship, the exam, the long-awaited race, the first day of a new job that asks more of your body and mind than the last one did. Mens sana in corpore sano as the steady principle; nil desperandum for the day everything goes wrong; memento vivere for the day you need to step back and remember why you began.

It is also a useful tape for the rehabilitation arc. Tendon injuries in particular require patience measured in months, and the mottos on the tape are calibrated for that timeframe. For the practical taping side of tendon work, our guide to taping tendonitis pairs well with this article. Carry the symbols while you wait for the tissue to rebuild.

Frequently asked

One last image

Juvenal finishes Satire X with the suggestion that the only prayer worth offering is a brief one for a sound mind in a sound body, courage in the face of death, freedom from anger, and the wisdom to want nothing one cannot honestly use. Twenty centuries later it remains, as far as anyone has improved on it, a complete prescription for a good life. Carry the four words. Pair them with the work. The mottos are not a substitute for the training, but they are the language in which the training makes sense.