The Latin formulation tempora mutantur is not classical, and does not have a generally accepted attribution – it is often identified as "traditional" – though it is frequently misattributed, particularly to Ovid.
The earliest attestations are in German Latin literature of the 16th century: Prior to 1554, the Protestant Reformer Caspar Huberinus completes Ovid's verse in Fasti with tempora mutantur.
[3] Huberinus rewrites the second line as: The German translation is added in 1565 by Johannes Nas: Finally a couplet dedicated by Matthew Borbonius in 1595 to emperor Lothair I.
In English vernacular literature it is quoted as "proverbial" in William Harrison's Description of England, 1577, p. 170, part of Holinshed's Chronicles, in the form: It appears in John Lyly's Euphues I 276, 1578, as cited in Dictionary of Proverbs, by George Latimer Apperson, Martin Manser, p. 582 as It gained popularity as a couplet by John Owen, in his popular Epigrammata, 1613 Lib.
K. Weidling, 1898 edition, p. 506, confuses historical and poetical reality naming emperor Lothair I as the source and the couplet by Matthias Borbonius printed in 1612 as the quote.
Brewer's Dictionary 1898 edition confuses Borbonius' first name (Matthew) with another poet (Nicholas), the entry reading: Joseph Haydn gave his Symphony No.
In Pierson v. Post, dissenting judge and future US Supreme Court Justice Henry Brockholst Livingston argued "If any thing, therefore, in the digests or pandects shall appear to militate against the defendant in error, who, on this occasion, was foxhunter, we have only to say tempora mutantur, and if men themselves change with the times, why should not laws also undergo an alteration?
[15] In July 2017 "Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis" was the first tweet of UK Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg.