Where they make a desert, they call it peace.

The line is Tacitus’s famous indictment of Roman imperialism, placed in the mouth of the Caledonian leader Calgacus on the eve of battle against Rome in Britain. In Agricola (a biography of Tacitus’s father-in-law, the governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola), Tacitus includes set-piece speeches that dramatize the moral stakes of conquest. Calgacus portrays Rome as a predatory power that plunders, enslaves, and devastates, then labels the resulting silence “peace.” The speech functions less as verbatim reportage than as a rhetorical counterpoint to Roman self-justifications, exposing the violence that can hide behind the language of order and civilization.

“Where they make a desert, they call it peace” compresses a critique of empire into a single paradox: peace defined not as justice or mutual security, but as the absence of resistance after destruction. Tacitus highlights how dominant powers can rename outcomes to legitimize them—turning devastation into “pacification.” The line also reflects Tacitus’s broader skepticism about Roman moral decline and the costs of expansion, suggesting that political rhetoric can invert meanings to mask coercion. In modern usage, the quote often serves as a warning about euphemism in statecraft: stability achieved through annihilation or repression is a hollow, imposed peace.

They make a desert and call it peace.
They create a desolation and call it peace.
They make a solitude and call it peace.