Questions of terminology

Does â€?human rights’ imply â€?rights’ in the technical sense? Some would make the concept an essentially modern invention because â€?rights’ as such were unknown in classical antiquity and did not surface until the English, American and French Bills of Rights of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or at best until the Middle Ages.⁶ To this there are two answers.

What is the relationship between the Greek philanthropia/ philanthropos and the Latin humanitas/humanus? Was humanitas a straightforward Latin equivalent for philanthropia, or was it an original formulation drawing only part of its content from philanthropia? This question will lead us into the most important terminological question of all, the emergence in the second century BC of what has come to be known as humanitas Romana.

Humanitas can also be seen as an umbrella under which were grouped moral values that furthered the ideals of the parent concept. The most important of these is clementia, with aequitas, lenitas, mansuetudo, moderatio, indulgentia, iustitia, fides and pietas helping to fill out the picture. Standing apart from these is a hitherto unrecognised concomitant of humanitas, namely maiestas populi Romani, �the greaterness of the Roman people’. This embodiment of the Roman imperial idea played more than a supporting role in the external sphere, that is, in relations between Rome and non-Romans, whether subjects or independent nations.