The concept of humanitas Romana
When did the concept of humanitas first make its appearance on the Roman scene? Schadewaldt (1973) offers an answer which is, with certain modifications, largely acceptable. Schadewaldt divides his presentation into three phases.
In the first phase the word humanitas was not yet in use. The adjective humanus was known, but in matters of behaviour the spotlight was more inclined to be focussed on traditional values like gravitas and severitas. In the second phase, which dawned at a particular historical moment, the demands of the humanus value became so pressing that the noun humanitas was coined; but it was a purely Latin construct, not a translation of either philanthropia or paideia.We pause at this point to note that the expression humanitas Romana is not found in the sources. The usual term is the bare humanitas or one of its equivalents.2 However, humanitas Romana is a most convenient signpost, and Schadewaldt appears to have devised it as such; he does not claim any source authority. In the pages that lie ahead its character as something essentially Roman will be repeatedly confirmed. It is proposed to use humanitas both with and without the qualifying adjective to designate the Roman concept.
In formulating his second phase Schadewaldt argues that humanitas acted as a prism, drawing humanus values like clementia and traditional values like gravitas and severitas into a synthesis. The amalgam was �a coincidence of opposites’ to which Cicero draws attention in two passages:
[Atticus] has achieved the most difficult combination of gravitas and humanitas, both in his life and in his language. Avidius has such a well-balanced character that it combines the most rigid severitas with the highest degree of humanitas.3
Schadewaldt’s historical moment at which the word humanitas came into use is the mid-second century BC. The innovation is credited to the Scipionic Circle, the group of intellectuals around Scipio Aemilianus that is thought to have modified a number of traditional Roman ideas by synthesising them with Greek thought.
One of these modifications was the synthesis of Roman severity and Greek humanity.4 But attributing the innovation to Aemilianus is said to raise �a gigantic paradox’ in the shape of Aemilianus’ brutal treatment of Carthage and Numantia in, respectively, 146 and 133 BC. Schadewaldt’s answer is that Aemilianus’ humanitas is not to be measured by an idealistic yardstick. The synthesis was devised for the specific purpose of giving a colour of morality to Rome’s subjugation of the Mediterranean world. Events like the destruction of Carthage and Corinth were in harmony with traditional Roman virtus, but they needed a complement. That was provided by the humane values inherent in Greek philanthropia, to which Aemilianus personally contributed by practising such virtues as moderation, integrity, magnanimity and cultivation of �the humanities’.The fundamental source, the fountainhead of the whole construct, from which Aemilianus drew his ideas was provided by the Stoic philosopher, Panaetius of Rhodes, who used the twin instruments of Greek ethics and Roman realism to design the kind of humanitas that found favour with Aemilianus.
Schadewaldt’s third phase is what he describes as �the universal importance of humanitas in Cicero’. This phase can more conveniently be reserved for a later chapter,5 and the rest of the present chapter is devoted to a critical assessment of the second phase.
More on the topic The concept of humanitas Romana:
- Humanitas Romana: a first appraisal
- HUMANITAS ROMANA
- HUMAN RIGHTS PRIOR TO HUMANITAS ROMANA
- A concept of legal validity that leaves out the elements of social efficacy and correctness of content was classified above as a concept of legal validity in a narrower sense.
- The Ethical Concept of Validity
- The concept of the state
- The Sociological Concept of Validity
- THE CONCEPT OF THE POLITICAL
- The genealogy of the concept of the state
- II The Concept of La
- Preamble: the meanings of humanitas
- Humanitas and punishment: exile
- The Scipionic age: humanitas and maiestas
- Humanitas and clementia: Augustus and Tiberius
- Humanitas and the law
- As previous chapters have demonstrated, ‘the state’ is an elusive and contested concept.
- Humanitas and clementia: Seneca
- Primacy in humanitas: rival contenders