Laboremus

In a taped conversation in London in 1972 or ’3, Daisaku Ikeda asked Toynbee what his motto was.

In one Latin word, because I was educated in Latin and Greek: laboremus. Let us do our work. In the year 211 the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus died in the city of York in the north of England. A Roman emperor had every day to give a watchword to his troops, and on the day on which Septimius Severus died in York he gave the watchword laboremus. Let us do our work. He was a very sick man at the time. Also, he was a native of Libya, which is a warm country, and he was on campaign, military campaign, in a very cold country, the north of Britain. But though he was dying, he wanted to go on doing his work till the very end of his life, so this watchword he gave on the last day of his life I take as my motto. [...] He felt his responsibilities, at the head of this great empire.

He was campaigning against the Picts. Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 77, Section 15 says that before dying, on February 4 211, he advised his sons Caracalla and Geta, who were with him, to “Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men”.

Toynbee died in a nursing home in York on October 22 1975, having worked until the day, in the previous year, when he was incapacitated by a stroke.

Taped conversation between Arnold Toynbee and Daisaku Ikeda, London, May 1972 or May 1973

The published version, which does not contain this passage, was

Arnold Toynbee and Daisaku Ikeda; Richard L Gage, editor; Choose Life, A Dialogue, OUP, 1976, posthumous