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Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
"It is sweet and honorable to die for (one's) country."
Odes (iii 2.13)
Horace gets too much credit for this line, it has clear overtones of an earlier Greek poem by Tyrtaeus:
τεθνάμεναι γὰρ καλὸν ἐνὶ προμάχοισι πεσόντα
ἄνδρ' ἀγαθὸν περὶ ἧι πατρίδι μαρνάμενον·
Fragment 10.1-2
Seriously, I am just testing Unicode in my blog :) But the Greek here means something like, "It is a beautiful thing when a good man falls and dies fighting for his country." It may be suggested, and often is, that it is a commonplace idea that someone's death for his country is a beautiful sight. In my opinion, only frequent repetition made this idea commonplace, because there is nothing beautiful about this. Even if one feels exceedingly militaristic a healthier approach has been sugegsted by General Patton: "“No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.”
Basically, 'commonplace' does not always mean 'true'.