Structure and scope

The study focusses on the period of the Republic and the Principate, with occasional forays into the Later Empire. The discussion is initiated, in chapter 2, with an overview of human rights in Greece.

The remaining chapters pose the problem of the particular approach to be followed. To an even greater extent than usual, structuring is frustrated by the impossibility of dealing with the same topic in two places at the same time. Our preference is for a diachronic rather than a thematic approach. There were significant changes in the perceptions of humanitas down the centuries, and each change is best understood in its own context. In any case there is a major dividing-line between the Republic and the Principate. The liberal climate of the former was severely curtailed in the imperial period, but in compensation the Principate adopted a more professional approach. Our method will basically be a diachronic one, with thematic treatments within time periods.

Chapter 3 covers the evolution over the second century BC of humanitas Romana, which is the linchpin of the entire Roman system. Chapter 4 goes back slightly in time, a necessary deviation because it is best understood against the background of humanitas Romana. Chapter 5 is devoted to Cicero, with glances at other writers. One particular theme, humanitas and the law, takes in both the Republic and the Principate. This particular theme is uniquely suited to the exception. Chapter 6 is an in-depth study of legislative and judicial curbs on greed and brutality as inflicted on non-Romans in the Republican period. Chapter 7 addresses the new image of humanitas in the Principate, developing the topic through two themes, humanitas- clementia and Clementia Caesaris.

A word about original aspects of the work may not be out of place. The overall theme, human rights in the round as distinct from more narrowly focussed studies of humanitas,¹⁴ does not appear to have been tried before;¹⁵ nor has the time-span running from the Early Republic to the Late Principate. Specific innovations, in the sense of matters that have either not been raised before, or not in the form in which they are presented here, include the following: the exposition of Greek philanthropia; Roman human rights before Terence, including the first links between humanitas and maiestas, and the competitive drive for primacy in the introduction of Greek philanthropia to Rome; Terence as a formative influence leading into Panaetius and Aemilianus; the first use of the word humanitas, as distinct from the older humanus; the link between humanitas and the law; Cicero’s ambivalent uses; Cicero and the lex Calpurnia repetundarum; Cicero (and later Seneca) and universalism; the death sentence and voluntary exile; the new image of humanitas and clementia in the Principate; the manifold contributions of Seneca to human rights; advantages and disadvantages of universalism; curbs on greed and brutality right across the Principate; devaluationary factors, especially genocide and racial prejudice.