Humanitas and clementia: Augustus and Tiberius

The human rights terminology for the first emperor, Augustus, reflects some important uses of clementia, but very little on humanitas/humanus. We do not know what Livy said about Augustus and humanitas in the lost books of his history, but we do know that the Augustan poets said nothing of particular interest about humanus⁵ nor, with the exception of Ovid, about clementia.⁶ Only Seneca Rhetor provides a point of interest when he has Cassius Severus fulminate against fathers whose cruelty to their children includes â€?factories of human misery’ (humanarum calamitatium officinae) and children mutilated for begging (Sen.

Tiberius is somewhat better served. Valerius Maximus includes a unique rubric entitled De humanitate et dementia in Book 5 of his Memorabilia. Although intended primarily as a source-book for orators and rhetoricians, the work was also in touch with public opinion; orators needed to tune in to juries’ perceptions of humanitas. The work was popular enough to run into a second edition.

If the opening words of the rubric are any guide, the words humanitas and clementia were now being used in a specific rather than a generalised sense:

What more fitting companions can I give liberalitas than humanitas and clementia? The first caters for the needy, the second for the unfortunate, the third for the uncertain.⁷

Liberalitas has here the basic, civilised-behaviour-encouraging role usually assigned to humanitas, while the other two words are given more direct roles in the promotion of human rights. â€?The unfortunate’ was already one of the more specialised connotations of philanthropia; â€?the uncertain’ is the accused hoping for lenient punishment.⁸ Valerius illustrates the latter when he has a commander remit the punishment of a young Numidian who was found in the enemy ranks, on the grounds that the youth erred by mistake, not by wrongful intent (Val. Max. 5.1.7). This is precisely the sort of thing that Seneca would convert into a positive legal rule. The other major Tiberian writer, Velleius Paterculus, has only one passing reference to Tiberius’ humanitas, but a more generous notice of Augustus’ dementia.⁹