Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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"Who watches the watchmen" redirects here. For the Star Trek the Next Generation episode, see Who Watches the Watchers.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase found in the work of the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–8). It is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?", though is also known by variant translations.
The original context deals with the problem of ensuring marital fidelity, though it is now commonly used more generally to refer to the problem of controlling the actions of persons in positions of power, an issue discussed by Plato in the Republic. It is not clear whether the phrase was written by Juvenal, or whether the passage in which it appears was interpolated into his works !