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3 unusual facts about Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes


La Grande Bouffe

There they find the old caretaker, Hector, who has innocently prepared everything for the great feast, and a Chinese visitor who is there to offer a job to the magistrate in faraway China, which Philippe politely rejects with the phrase "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes", quoting Virgil.

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

In the movie The Rock, John Mason (played by Sean Connery) responds to an offer of freedom by the FBI in exchange for his cooperation to help free captives on Alcatraz by saying, "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) responds with the translation, "I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts."

In the satirical British series Yes Minister, it is used by civil servant Bernard Woolley in the episode "The Bed of Nails", in which government minister Hacker is offered an apparently advantageous role which would actually lose him votes, the bed of nails.



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