# Cacatum non est pictum - a Question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 23, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494 "2000-08-23T19:47:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/1 "2000-08-23T19:47:38Z")
This from an email from a guy on the quizbowl circuit:
“While working on a piece of Unheard Beethoven just scavenged from the British Library, we ran across a canon by Beethoven on the phrase “Cacatum non est pictum.” I’ve picked up enough off the web to recognize it as being slightly scatological, but can someone give me a proper translation and a source from which it comes? I know that it appears in a poem by Heine (Deutschland, Caput XI), but that’s too late to be Beethoven’s source (the canon is from 1815 and the poem 1844). Many thanks!!!”
Anyone wanna take a stab at this?
Who knows . . . maybe the guy who wrote this email is on this MB.
---
### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/2 "2000-08-23T20:48:43Z")
I have no idea where it comes from, but
cacatum = past participle of cacare, to shit
pictum = past participle of pingere, to paint
so the phrase could be translated as:
[that which has been] shat is not painted (?)
In other words, I have no idea what the phrase is supposed to mean. I found the [poem by Heine](http://web.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/~karlowsd/winter11.htm) but the context didn’t help me much. The poem says “this is what we would have told Cornelius”, where Cornelius (presumably) is the roman author of a biography of roman celebrities, “De viris illustribus.”
---
### Author:  [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/3 "2000-08-23T21:30:01Z")
I am under the impression that it basically means “Nobody ever shat gold” or something equally valuable/pretty. IOW, war sucks, and the end doesn’t always justify the means. Again, IOW, don’t complain about how ugly war is if you win.
---
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/4 "2000-08-23T22:09:25Z")
The context of the original quote would help but, in the meanwhile here’s my WAG:
Shit (bad stuff) is not painted (described).
Or, in other words, In what I said, I left out the bad stuff. This could be used in two contexts: one to convey that if you think what I just told you is bad, I left out the _really_ bad stuff. Or, another: In my description I told you the good stuff and left out the bad.
---
### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/5 "2000-08-23T22:28:05Z")
my WAG: it’s a description of a painting, in the vein of “That was defecated, not painted.”
---
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/6 "2000-08-23T23:15:27Z")
The poem tells the Germans were successful in rejecting the Romans and describes what history would have been had the Romans succeeded in conquering them.
Something like saying today “had the Germans won the war, we’d all be speaking German today”.
---
### Author:  [@sergi0s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sergi0s)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2022, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/7 "2022-11-13T12:41:32Z")
it means DEFECATED IS NOT PAINTED, in terms of "to defecate does not mean to paint.
---
### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2022, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/8 "2022-11-13T17:10:02Z")
Is this the longest time for a zombie resurrection?
---
### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2022, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/9 "2022-11-13T20:16:08Z")
I know this is a zombie, but then so am I.
On Google Books, I found a Latin-language [book about Roman law](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Notae_ad_singulos_Institutionum_et_Pande/N3ho1d3kkPkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=cacatum&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover) that appears to have been published in 1713. The author appears to be [Christian Thomasius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Thomasius). He uses the phrase to illustrate the logical fallacy of [affirming the consequent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent).
> [@](#):
>
> Veneficarum pacta cum diabolo facientium existentiam nondum probatam esse, docui in dissertation de crimine magiae, et fusius ostensum in disp. de origine et progressu processus inquisitorii contra sagas. Quae Lipsiae contra priorem, disputationem scripta sunt, non merentur responsionem, sed autor ad scholam remittendus et doctrinam syllogisticam. Primarius eius fundamentum hoc est: Qui potest corpus assumere, potest agere in corpus; Diabolus potest agere in corpus, ergo potest assumere corpus. Est vitium in forma, ac idem est, ac fi quis diceret: Quincunque potest pingere, potest agere in corpus; Infans potest agere in corpus; (v.g. excrementa projiciendo in lintea) ergo potest pingere. Sed cacatum no est pictum.
> [@](#):
>
> In my dissertation _On the Crime of Sorcery_ I taught that the existence of witches making pacts with the devil has not yet been proven, and [that argument] was more fully shown in _Disputation On the Origin and Development of the Investigative Procedure against Soothsayers_. What was written in Leipzig against the previous discussion does not deserve an answer, but [instead] the author should be sent back to school and to syllogism lessons. Its primary basis is this: “He who can assume a body can act upon [another] body; The devil can act upon a body, therefore he can assume a body.” There is a defect in the form [of his argument], and it is the same as if someone were to say: “Whoever can paint, can act upon a body; A child can act upon a body; (e.g. by throwing excrement on a linen cloth) therefore he can paint.” But the shit is not painted.
---
### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/10 "2022-11-14T21:48:40Z")
I thought “Cacatum non est pictum” meant “Don’t send me pictures of your bowel movement”.
---
### Author:  [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2022, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/11 "2022-11-15T06:17:29Z")
“That shit doesn’t make a pretty picture”?
---
### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2022, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cacatum-non-est-pictum-a-question/30494/12 "2022-11-15T18:26:26Z")
Thanks bibliophage, interesting cite and nice to see you again!