Did Fully Fledged humanitas Exist before the Ciceronian Age?

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the noun humanitas and the adjective humanus. In particular, it argues that literary evidence suggests that the comparative and the superlative of humanus are far more suitable than its positive grade to render the Greek ideas of παιδεία and/or φιλανθρωπία which are usually subsumed in the word humanitas. One of the main consequences of this is therefore that it might be hazardous to speak about the humanitas of authors who wrote before the comparative and the superlative of humanus, if not the word humanitas itself, were first attested. Crucial to this discussion are passages by Aulus Gellius, Terence, Cicero, Valerius Maximus and Ammianus, as well as some occurrences of the expressions studia humanitatis and studia humaniora we find in some Renaissance Humanists.