Meaning of pyrobolus atomicus | Babel Free

Definitions

1. atomic bomb
   declension-2, masculine
2. Equivalent to 'atomic bomb': A nuclear weapon that obtains its destructive energy from nuclear fission.

Equivalents

Examples

“Mirum est Auctorem Manualis dormientes hostes occidere vel veneno puteos inficere tamquam illicitum aestimare (p. 799), contaminationem vero et occisionem per pyrobolum atomicum causatam, quando “proportio innocentium ad nocentes valde est parva” — tamquam licitum tenere.”

It is strange for the author of the Manual to consider the killing of sleeping enemies and the poisoning of wells to be illicit (p. 799), yet to hold that the pollution and slaughter caused by an atomic bomb are licit when “the proportion of the innocent as against the guilty is extremely small”.

“Ad urbem, quae Hiroshima appellatur, cum mens convertitur, adhuc maetitia affici solet, quod ante xxviii annos eam pyroboli atomici primum verberarunt, quibus displosis effectum est, ut tot hominum mortes, tot ruinae essent lugendae.”

When one’s mind is turned to the city that is called Hiroshima, one is still often saddened that 28 years ago it was first to be scourged by the atomic bombs that caused so many lamentable human deaths, so much ruin by their explosions.

“Itaque libertate, humanae condicionis fundamento, orbatum maleficiique conscientia perterritum, quod Hiroshimam et Nagasachium civitates pyrobolo atomico solo aequarat horrificasque multitudinum insontium (facinus indignum!) caedes ediderat, Americanum aëronautam in monasterii solitudinem recessisse inter omnes constat.”

And so it is observed by all that the American pilot retired to the solitude of a monastery, deprived of his freedom, the foundation of the human condition, and terrified by the conscience of an evildoer, because he had razed the cities of Hiroshima and Nasagaki to the ground with an atomic bomb and brought about the dreadful slaughters of masses of innocents (a shameful crime!)

CEFR level