This book traces the meaning of humanitas from the late Republic to the late Empire in order to provide an answer to a long-standing issue surrounding the concept of humanitas: whether humanitas should be interpreted as παιδεία (education) or as φιλανθρωπία (humanity). In the preface, the book introduces the research history on the concept of humanitas, and provides analysis on the usage of humanitas and humanus present from the speeches of Cicero in the 1st century BC to The Asclepius in the 5th century AD.
Chapter 2 explores how humanitas was established as an academic concept during the period from the Republic to the reign of Emperor Domitian in greater detail. Specifically, it analyzes the aspects of the relationship in which humanitas cooperates and competes with its counterpart concepts (ἀντιστροφή), ultimately handing over the leadership of the discourse market to its rival concept, clementia, with Seneca’s clementia used as a historical example of how humanitas fell into disrepute during the imperial era. Chapter 3 presents how Pliny the Younger restored and revived the concept of humanitas through his Panegyrics and Letters during the reign of Trajan. The book also observes how the concept of humanitas spread throughout Europe along with the Roman army and expanded into the meaning of “civilization”, equating humanitas with a sign of so-called “Romanization.” Chapter 4 analyzes how humanitas was used in courts and classrooms during the reign of Antoninus. In relation to court cases, the book analyzes usages of humanitas in Apuleius’ Apologia and Metamorphoses, while its usages in Gellius’ Noctes Atticae were analyzed in educational cases. The book argues that Gellius’ position in Noctes Atticae 13.17, which corresponds to the locus classicus that gave rise to the so-called humanitas debate, came out in the process of criticizing contemporary grammar school teachers. Chapter 5 examines whether humanitas is used as a basis for argument in rhetorical education. The observation focuses on Quintilian’s Declamationes Minores and Declamationes Maiores, which demonstrate how the concept of humanitas transformed from a political ideology to common sense in everyday life. Chapter 6 reports the historical situation in which humanitas was once again shrouded in darkness during the chaos in the 3rd century AD. Chapter 7 examines the fate of humanitas during the reign of Constantine. Firmicus Maternus’ Mathesis shows that humanitas was firmly established as a sign of civilization. Chapter 8 examines the use of humanitas during the reign of Theodosius. Through Letters of Symmachus, the book examines how humanitas was established as a value and virtue that should be obtained by Roman nobilty, illustrating that epistles were the medium for spreading and preserving humanitas. However, it also shows how humanitas was hidden from everyday life, merely staying in the writings of intellectuals. Chapter 9 is an observation of how humanitas in Asclepius appeared in the early days of Christianity, with a focus on the contrast between humanity (humanitas) and divinity (divinitas). Chapter 10 is specifically dedicated to how the semantic map of humanitas is completed through the relationship with the companion concepts that humanitas encounters during the process from the late Republic to the late Empire. It concludes that humanitas has been a concept that has shown an inextricable connection with παιδεία and φιλανθρωπία since its origin: “So that all good men, irrespective of their initial social conditions, might play an important role for the res publica, humanitas needed to be something which could be acquired, for example through the study of the liberal arts: hence its connotation of παιδεία. At the same time, education could not be an end in itself, but had to levate man from an ethical viewpoint: hence its connotation of φιλανθρωπία,” (p. 331).
This study makes at least three significant contributions. First, it offers a clear analysis of the different ancient and modern concepts of humanitas. Secondly, the book systematically deals with the usages of humanitas in the imperial era, which has been a blind spot in research. Notable examples include Seneca, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Apuleius, Gellius, Fronto, Quintilian, Firmicus Maternus, Ammian, Ausonius, Symmachus, and the author of The Asclepius, ranging from emperors’ professors to provincial literati. Their characteristics are examined in detail as well. By doing so, it persuasively illustrates the entire history of humanitas while not underplaying its conceptual duality between παιδεία and φιλανθρωπία: its birth in the late Republic, its authority and prestige in the transitional period to the empire, its marginalization and subordination to clementia in the early empire, Pliny the Younger’s efforts to bring humanitas back into the discourse market, and its eventual decline and semantic reduction in the late empire. Ultimately it reveals a closely-knit semantic structure. Finally, the book is a good example of so-called conceptology within its unique methodology. This does not resemble either the semantic structure found in TLL, or methodology spotted in Reinhardt Koselleck’s Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe.[1] Rather, the study shows that it is no coincidence that humanitas acquired the meaning of “civilization” during the imperial expansion, successfully demonstrating humanitas as language mirroring civilization. In sum, the book is a masterpiece that provides much to read and to think about for both professional scholars and general readers.
Notes
[1] Cf. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, Reinhart Koselleck (Hrsg.): Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2004.