The Latin phrase "Homo homini lupus [est]" ("Man is a wolf to man") is found in the work De Cive ("On the Citizen") by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, written in Latin in 1642, where he describes the selfish nature of the human species, capable of exterminating his own by ambition or greed. It has its antecedent in a fragment of the Asinaria (Plautus, third century BC). of C . ) where the verse "Lupus est homo homini . . . " .
Latin locution of the Asinaria (comedy of the donkeys) of Plautus, comedy writer of the III-II century BC. of C . which would partially modify the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century. Lupus est homo homini ended in: Homo homini lupus: Man is a wolf to man. Expression of Hobbes' anthropological pessimism versus Rousseau's optimism.
