Human Rights in Ancient Rome

Richard Bauman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781134689880
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The concept of human rights has a long history. Its practical origins, as distinct from its theoretical antecedents, are said to be comparatively recent, going back no further than the American and French Bills of Rights of the eighteenth century. Even those landmarks are seen as little more than the precursors of the twentieth century starting-point - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. In this unique and stimulating book, Richard Bauman investigates the concept of human rights in the Roman world. He argues that on the theoretical side, ideas were developed by thinkers such as Cicero and Seneca and on the pragmatic side, practical applications were rewarded mainly through the law. He presents a comprehensive analysis of human rights in ancient Rome and offers enlightening comparisons between the Roman and twentieth century understanding of human rights.

1

INTRODUCTION

‘Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto’

‘I am a man: I deem nothing pertaining to man foreign to me.’ The words of the comic playwright P.Terentius Afer reverberated across the Roman world of the mid-second century BC and beyond. Terence, an African and a former slave, was well placed to preach the message of universalism, of the essential unity of the human race, that had come down in philosophical form from the Greeks, but needed the pragmatic muscles of Rome in order to become a practical reality. The influence of Terence’s felicitous phrase on Roman thinking about human rights can hardly be overestimated. Two hundred years later the philosopher Seneca ended his seminal exposition of the unity of mankind with a clarion-call:

There is one short rule that should regulate human relationships. All that you see, both divine and human, is one. We are the parts of one great body. Nature created us from the same source and to the same end. She imbued us with mutual affection and sociability, she taught us to be fair and just, to suffer injury rather than to inflict it. She bids us extend our hands to all in need of help. Let that well-known line be in our hearts and on our lips: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.¹

With access to an intellectual coterie in which culture, influence and realism all played a part, Terence’s message epitomised the Roman conception of human rights. It was not a starry-eyed concept. Prompted by the need to define their relations with non-Romans, the new masters of the Mediterranean world sought to combine the tenets of Greek philanthropia with traditional Roman values. The resultant product, humanitas, was given theoretical form by thinkers like Cicero and Seneca, and practical expression by laws and trials. The idea of humanitas was not confined to the external scene. It also had an impact on the domestic scene, primarily with reference to relations between ruler and subject, but also taking in relations between fellow-citizens.

The word humanitas, together with its adjective, humanus,² has a broad semantic span. Its primary connotation is the quality of civilised and cultural behaviour that is inculcated in people by education and training. Fom there it broadens out so as to become an incentive to do the right thing. In particular it acts as an incentive to avoid savage and brutal behaviour towards other members of the human race, either as individuals or in groups. But there is even more to it. There is a considerable amount of material pertaining specifically to human rights that is not identified by a specific humanitas label, or indeed by any label. That material must be given full weight in order to complete the picture of Roman human rights in the round. But no barrier will be erected between the humanitas/humanus material and the unlabelled material. At any given point the context will show whether it is a question of humanitas/humanus as expressly used in a source, or of human rights as a whole.

The meaning of ‘human rights’

What do we mean by ‘human rights’? Given the high profile of the idea in today’s world, one might look for a contemporary answer. But this is true to only a limited extent. The modern founding charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, does not attempt a comprehensive definition. As adopted by the United Nations in 1948, the Declaration’s preamble recognises that ‘The inherent dignity and…equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family [are] the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’ This is little more than a restatement of the doctrine of universalism that came down to Rome from the Greeks. For specific details we must consult Articles 2–29 of the Declaration.³ These may be grouped as follows:

(i) The right to life, liberty, security of person, equality before the law, fair trial, asylum, and freedom from torture and inhuman punishment;

(ii) the right to privacy, reputation, opinions, religion, mobility, nationality;

(iii) the right to marry, own property, take part in government, choose one’s occupation, receive an education.

A number of these categories can be matched by Roman parallels. But not all the categories have the same importance—or perhaps the same sense of urgency. For us, and indeed for the Declaration itself, the main focus is on the first group. The struggle against brutality-driven assaults on the human person and human dignity is the central core. On the ancient scene an apposite illustration is supplied by Cicero in his defence of C.Rabirius:

Scourging, the executioner’s hook, the dread of the cross—these things have long been obsolete. The credit belongs to your ancestors who expelled the kings and left no trace of their cruel ways among a free people. Many brave men followed them and protected our liberty by lenient laws rather than by savage punishments.

(Cic. Rab. perd. 10)

Cicero here stresses the negative side of humanitas, he cites examples of what should not be done. Seneca makes even more extensive use of the same approach. The negative and the positive sides are not often covered in one and the same passage, but Flavius Josephus comes close to it. Although based on the Laws of Moses, his exposition reflects Graeco-Roman thinking:

The Laws of Moses promote piety, communal friendliness and philanthropia to the world at large. The Laws furnish a lesson in gentleness and philanthropia: food for all who ask, guidance on the road, no unburied corpses, and clemency to declared enemies by not burning their land, cutting down their trees, outraging prisoners, especially women, or ill-treating their animals.

(Jos. Ant. Iud. 2.146, 211–14)

On the negative side a damning condemnation comes from the Greek historian Polybius, writing in the mid-second century BC. He describes how, in the previous century, rebellious Carthaginian mercenaries had butchered 700 Carthaginians, cutting off their hands and other extremities, breaking their legs, throwing themalive into a trench, and refusing to hand over their bodies for burial. Polybius throws up his hands in despair:

Tumours become savage, brutalized and incurable. If treated they spread more rapidly, if neglected they continue to eat into the flesh. Similar malignancies grow in the human psyche. If we treat the disease by philanthropia they become suspicious, if we try to cure it by retaliation they react violently, stopping at no atrocity or abomination. In the end they are totally brutalized and can no longer be called human beings. The prime cause of the evil is bad manners and wrong training, but there are contributory causes like habitual violence and unscrupulous leaders.⁴

Latin writers are also highly critical of brutality. According to the annalists, the Alban leader Mettius Fufetius was punished for betraying his treaty obligations to Rome by being torn apart by two chariots going in opposite directions (in retaliation for his having been ‘torn’ between fulfilling his obligations and awaiting the outcome of the battle). The king Tullus Hostilius had justified the punishment ‘as a warning to all mankind’, but Livy condemns it as the first and last Roman punishment (sic) to disregard the laws of humanitas (Livy 1.28.6–11). And Cicero fulminates against his former son-in-law, Dolabella:

He killed Trebonius brutally, torturing him as Regulus had been tortured at Carthage, and so forgetful of humanitas that after breaking his neck he showed insatiable cruelty to the dead, cutting off Trebonius’ head and parading it on a spear. He has been false to his city, his country and his gods—in short, false to nature and mankind.

(Cic. Phil. 11.8–10)

The modern scene has also prompted despairing assessments, not only of the unbridled savagery of the second to fifth decades of the twentieth century, ‘the darkest of the dark ages’, but also of the more hopeful period ushered in by the Universal Declaration. In a work published in 1993, E.L.Doctorow expressed black pessimism reminiscent of Polybius:

When introduced [human rights] referred to a person’s right to speak freely, to hold any political opinion or to be tried under due process of law. But under pressure of worldwide practices the term has taken on a humbler meaning. Now [it] refers to standards of treatment that you hope to expect of your oppressor after he has taken all your rights away. He should not pack you away in an isolation cell while denying that you’re under detention; or with relish take you into a ditch and break every bone in your body before killing you. If you’re an infant you have the right not to have your skull smashed against a wall; if a nursing mother, not to have your breasts sliced off. The right not to have these things done to you—the right not to be tortured, mutilated, enslaved or injudiciously murdered—is what we’ve come to understand by the term human rights.⁵

Our identification of brutality and savagery as the central problem of human rights is every bit as valid for the modern scene as for the ancient. But this does not mean that other, non-brutal values are not important. In ancient times they easily outweigh the brutality group numerically. But they should be seen as regulators. Values like culture, education, kindness, clemency are (hopefully) capable of counteracting the central core. Polybius has drawn our attention to this in the concluding sentence of the above passage.

Questions of terminology

Does ‘human rights’ imply ‘rights’ in the technical sense? Some would make the concept an essentially modern invention because ‘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. First, is the word ‘rights’ used technically even on the modern scene? The Universal Declaration does not think so. It hedges its bets by addressing ‘human rights and fundamental freedoms’.⁷ But even if ‘rights’ is used technically, there is a small but important group of Latin expressions of the type ius humanum, lex humana/humanitatis that seems to supply what is needed.⁸

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.

The enforcement of human rights

If Roman human rights should be seen as the ultimate source of the modern institution,⁹ how do the two compare in the matter of practical enforcement? Our answer is that Rome anticipated the modern idea of creating a world environment in which solutions become possible. The Roman empire was the first global village. It was uniquely placed to give effect to the ideal of universalism. When the sole arbiter was Roman governance and Roman law, there was a less pressing need to educate, persuade or cajole a diversity of nations and peoples; Rome’s writ ran right across the Mediterranean world. This greatly helped the installation of new rules of behaviour. And the enforcement of those rules was in the hands of an established court system and a single system of law.¹⁰ It did not have to be left to international tribunals of dubious muscularity.

The modern version appears to have the advantage in respect of the scope of human rights. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration those rights have been expanded by legislation by individual states and interpretation by international organs. On the other hand, Roman humanitas was a flexible, and indeed chameleonlike, concept¹¹ that constantly adapted to changes in society. Adaptation was effected partly by redefining humanitas, but in an even more subtle way by making it always subject to the dictates of the public interest, utilitas publica.¹² The public interest acted as a brake on the enthusiasms of humanitas. At the end of the day, however, the difference between the ancie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Human rights: the Greek experience
• 3 Humanitas Romana
• 4 Human rights prior to Humanitas Romana
• 5 Human rights in the Late Republic: Cicero
• 6 Human rights in the Late Republic: curbs on ill-treatment
• 7 The new image of Humanitas: part one
• 8 The new image of Humanitas: part two
• 9 Man’s inhumanity to man
• 10 Conclusion
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Index to sources
• General index