Boris Johnson has hinted at returning to political leadership as he leaves office as British prime minister.
The departing compared himself to the ancient Roman consul and dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who disbanded his army and renounced his office in 458 BC to return to his farm.
"Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plough and I will be offering this government nothing but the most fervent support," Johnson said.
But former Times editor and broadcaster Andrew Neil pointed out that Cincinnatus came out of retirement 19 years later in 439 BC to take up the mantle of dictator again — with the implication that Johnson also planned to return to government.
"This is not the speech of a departing prime minister who necessarily thinks he’s going away forever," Neil tweeted. "And he’s enough of a classics scholar to know, in comparing himself with Cincinnatus leaving for his farm, that when the call came Cincinnatus returned to Rome."
What else did Johnson say?
Johnson stressed his government's previous achievements in his speech, including steering through Britain's withdrawal from the European union, the rapid roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine and sending arms to the Ukraine before and during Russia's operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify the Kiev regime.
And he expressed his conviction that Truss would get the UK through the energy and inflation crisis prompted by Western sanctions on Russia, of which his government was a leading proponent.
In a dig at his former cabinet colleagues and the backbench MPs who helped force his resignation in July, BoJo said: "The baton will be handed over in what has unexpectedly turned out to be a relay race — they changed the rules half-way through, but never mind that now."
And in a final jibe at the opposition Scottish National Party, Johnson said the UK would was stronger than "who want to break it up" and they would "never, ever succeed".
The outgoing PM said his government's projects had laid "great solid masonry" as the foundation for future prosperity, and pledged that he would support his successor Truss "every step of the way".