''Novus homo'' or ''homo novus'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

for 'new man'; ''novi homines'' or ''homines novi'') was the term in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...

for a man who was the first in his

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

to serve in the

Roman Senate The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...

or, more specifically, to be elected as

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states th ...

. When a man entered public life on an unprecedented scale for a high communal office, then the term used was ''novus civis'' ( ''novi cives'') or "new citizen".

History

In the

Early Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdo ...

, tradition held that both Senate membership and the consulship were restricted to patricians. When plebeians gained the right to this office during the Conflict of the Orders, all newly elected plebeians were naturally ''novi homines''. With time, ''novi homines'' became progressively rarer as some plebeian families became as entrenched in the Senate as their patrician colleagues. By the time of the

First Punic War The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and gr ...

, it was already a sensation that ''novi homines'' were elected in two consecutive years ( Gaius Fundanius Fundulus in 243 BC and Gaius Lutatius Catulus in 242 BC). In 63 BC,

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the est ...

became the first ''novus homo'' in more than thirty years. By the Late Republic, the distinction between the orders became less important. The consuls came from a new elite, the ''

nobiles The ''nobiles'' ( ''nobilis'') were members of a social rank in the Roman Republic indicating that one was "well known". This may have changed over time: in Cicero's time, one was notable if one descended from a person who had been elected consul. ...

'' ( noblemen), an artificial aristocracy of all who could demonstrate direct descent in the male line from a consul.

List of notable ''novi homines''

* Lucius Sextius Lateranus (elected 366 BC) *

Gaius Licinius Stolo Gaius Licinius Stolo, along with Lucius Sextius, was one of the two tribunes of ancient Rome who opened the consulship to the plebeians. A member of the plebeian ''Licinia gens'', Stolo was tribune from 376 BC to 367 BC, during which he passed t ...

(elected 361 BC) * Marcus Popillius Laenas (elected 359, 356, 350, 348 BC) * Gaius Plautius Proculus (elected 358 BC) * Gaius Marcius Rutilus (elected 357, 352, 344, 342 BC) * Publius Decius Mus (elected 340 BC) *

Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens was a consul of the Roman Republic, a ''novus homo'' ("new man") who was the first consul to come from his plebeian ''gens''. Volumnius served as consul twice, in 307 BC and 296 BC, both times in partnership with t ...

(elected 307 BC and 296 BC) * Spurius Carvilius Maximus (elected 293, 272 BC) * Manius Otacilius Crassus (elected 263 BC) * Gaius Duilius (elected 260 BC) *

Gaius Aurelius Cotta Gaius Aurelius Cotta (124–73 BC) was a Roman statesman, orator, priest, and Academic Skeptic; he is not to be confused with Gaius Aurelius Cotta who was twice Consul in the 3rd century BC. Life Born in 124 BC, he was the uncle to Julius Caesar ...

(elected 252 and 248 BC) * Gaius Fundanius Fundulus (elected 243 BC) * Gaius Lutatius Catulus (elected 242 BC) * Gaius Flaminius (elected 223 BC and 217 BC) * Marcus Porcius Cato (the Censor/Elder) (elected 195 BC) *

Gaius Calpurnius Piso Gaius Calpurnius Piso may refer to: * Gaius Calpurnius Piso (conspirator) * Gaius Calpurnius Piso (consul 180 BC) * Gaius Calpurnius Piso (consul 67 BC) * Gaius Calpurnius Piso (praetor 211 BC) * Gaius Calpurnius Piso Crassus Frugi Licinianus Gai ...

(elected 180 BC) *Gnaeus Octavius (elected 165 BC) * Lucius Mummius Achaicus (elected 146 BC) * Quintus Pompeius (elected 141 BC) *

Gaius Marius Gaius Marius (; – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his important refor ...

(elected 107 BC, 104–100 BC, 86 BC) * Gnaeus Mallius Maximus (elected 105 BC) * Titus Didius (elected 98 BC) * Gaius Coelius Caldus (elected 94 BC) * Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (elected 89 BC) * Marcus Tullius Cicero (elected 63 BC) * Marcus Vinicius (appointed suffect consul 19 BC) *

Gaius Pomponius Graecinus Gaius (or Publius) Pomponius Graecinus was a Roman politician who was suffect consul in AD 16 as the colleague of Gaius Vibius Rufus. He was probably a ''novus homo'' raised to the Senate by Augustus. He was a friend and patron of the poet Ovid ...

(appointed AD 16) *

Gaius Cornelius Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

(appointed AD 97)

''Topos'' of the "new man"

The literary theme of ''homo novus'', or "how the lowly born but inherently worthy man may properly rise to eminence in the world" was the '' topos'' of Seneca's influential Epistle XLIV. At the endpoint of

Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...

, it was likewise a subject in

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, '' magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the t ...

' '' Consolation of Philosophy'' (iii, vi). In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...

's ''Convivio'' (book IV) and

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credite ...

's '' De remediis utriusque fortunae'' (I.16; II.5) take up the subject, and Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale. In its Christian renderings, the theme suggested a tension in the ''scala naturae'' or great chain of being, one that was produced through the agency of Man's

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to a ...

. The theme came naturally to Renaissance humanists who were often ''homines novi'' rising by their own wits in a network of noble courts that depended on the highly literate new men to run increasingly complicated chancelries and create the cultural propaganda that was a contemporary vehicle for noble fame, and that consequently offered a kind of intellectual '' cursus honorum''. In the fifteenth century

Buonaccorso da Montemagno Buonaccorso da Montemagno was the name shared by two Italian scholars from Pistoia in Tuscany. The elder Buonaccorso da Montemagno (died 1390) was a jurisconsult and ambassador who made a compilation of Pistoia's statutes in 1371. Poems are uncertai ...

's ''Dialogus de vera nobilitate'' treated of the "true nobility" inherent in the worthy individual; Poggio Bracciolini also wrote at length ''De nobilitate'', stressing the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

view of human responsibility and effectiveness that are at the heart of Humanism: ''sicut virtutis ita et nobilitatis sibi quisque existit auctor et opifex''. Briefer summaries of the theme were to be found in Francesco Patrizi, (VI.1), and in Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo's encyclopedic ''Speculum vitae humanae''. In the sixteenth century these and new texts came to be widely printed and distributed. Sánchez de Arévalo's ''Speculum'' was first printed at Rome, 1468, and there are more than twenty fifteenth-century printings; German, French and Spanish translations were printed. The characters of Baldassare Castiglione's '' The Book of the Courtier'' (1528) discuss the requirement that a '' cortegiano'' be noble (I.XIV-XVI). This was translated into French, Spanish, English, Latin and other languages.See: P. Burke. ''The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano''. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). Jerónimo Osório da Fonseca's ''De nobilitate'' (Lisbon 1542, and seven reprintings in the sixteenth century), stressing ''propria strennuitas'' ("one's own determined striving") received an English translation in 1576. The Roman figure most often cited as an '' exemplum'' is

, whose speech of self-justification was familiar to readers from the set-piece in Sallust's '' Bellum Iugurthinum'', 85; the most familiar format in the Renaissance treatises is a

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is ...

that contrasts the two sources of nobility, with the evidence weighted in favor of the "new man".

Notes

External links

''Dictionary of the History of Ideas'': "Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man"
{{Library resources box , by=no , onlinebooks=yes , others=yes , about=yes , label=yes , viaf= , lccn= , lcheading= , wikititle= Society of ancient Rome Ancient Roman titles

History

List of notable ''novi homines''

''Topos'' of the "new man"

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links