The debut of the word �humanitas’

Schadewaldt’s belief that the noun humanitas was formed in Aemilianus’ day, contemporaneously with the emergence of humanitas Romana, confronts a formidable obstacle. A guided tour of the labyrinth of sub-categories in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (s.v.

Schadewaldt does not motivate his date, nor does any motivation seem possible. The Greek sources for Aemilianus’ day supply an important clue. They fail to use the word philanthropia where it would be expected if the (presumably lost) Latin sources had used humanitas. The best example is Polybius’ total omission of philanthropia from his encomium on Aemilianus, despite lavish allusions to the latter’s moderation, temperance, magnanimity, severity and probity.²⁰ If nothing else, Aemilianus’ high level of culture ought at least to have earned a philanthropia. The omission contrasts sharply with Polybius’ six uses for the era of Aemilianus’ adoptive grandfather, Scipio Africanus.²¹ The word does not appear in Plutarch’s lengthy account of the dominant feature of Aemilianus’ last years, Tiberius Gracchus’ agrarian law.²² There is also no trace of it in Appian’s account of that law, despite the fact that he does not go back to the same Latin source as Plutarch.²³

The Aemilian-Gracchan period knew little or nothing of the noun humanitas. The 80s BC is when it was introduced, or at any rate was sufficiently in use to get into the sources. One can in fact identify a watershed, a major precipitating event that prompted the introduction. The proof is furnished by Ad Herennium. Although Book II’s uses of humanitas are mere rhetorical commonplaces (2.24, 26, 50), Book IV addresses the more meaningful topic of external relations: those who betray their country have been deserted by humanitas; and the victor in war looks on the vanquished as fellow men, and his humanitas advances peace (4.12, 23). Elsewhere in Book IV there are allusions to the Social War of 91-88 BC: when our allies wished to go to war against us they deliberated fully, assisted by confederates from our side; there is also an allusion to â€?perfidious Fregellae’.²⁴ The uses of humanitas in a work that was written in c. 87 point to the introduction of the noun in, or shortly after, the Social War. If Cicero’s De inventione dates to c. 91,²⁵ the total absence of humanitas from its pages suggests that the noun was not yet in use. The Social War could well have been the watershed that we are looking for.