Novus homo

''Novus homo'' or ''homo novus'' (Latin for 'new man'; ''novi homines'' or ''homines novi'') was the term in ancient Rome for a man who was the first in his family to serve in the Roman Senate or, more specifically, to be elected as consul. 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, 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, 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 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'' (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 (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 (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 (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 (elected 180 BC)
*Gnaeus Octavius (elected 165 BC)
* Lucius Mummius Achaicus (elected 146 BC)
* Quintus Pompeius (elected 141 BC)
* Gaius Marius (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 (appointed AD 16)
* Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (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, it was likewise a subject in Boethius' ''Consolation of Philosophy'' (iii, vi). In the Middle Ages Dante's ''Convivio'' (book IV) and Petrarch'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.

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

See also

* New men
* New Man (utopian concept)
* '' Homo Ludens''
* Homo Sovieticus
* ''Nouveau riche''
* The Iliad, the first example of the common man in literature
* Heroic fantasy, sources Roman and Greek literature for virtus and the common man

Notes

Further reading

* Burckhardt, Leonhardt A. 1990. "The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts Nobilitas and Homo Novus." ''Historia'' 39:77–99.
* Carney, Thomas F. 1959. "Once Again Marius’ Speech after Election in 108 B.C." ''Symbolae Osloensis'' 35.1: 63–70.
* Dugan, John. 2005. ''Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical Works.'' Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
* Feig Vishnia, Rachel. 2012. ''Roman Elections in the Age of Cicero: Society, Government, and Voting.'' London: Routledge.
* Hill, Herbert. 1969. "Nobilitas in the Imperial Period." ''Historia'' 18.2: 230–250.
* Späth, Thomas. 2010. "Cicero, Tullia, and Marcus: Gender-specific Issues for Family Tradition?" In ''Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture.'' Edited by Véronique Dasen, 147-172. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
* van der Blom, Henriette. 2010. ''Cicero’s Role models: The Political Strategy of a Newcomer.'' Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
* Vanderbroeck, Paul J. J. 1986. "Homo Novus Again." ''Chiron'' 16:239–242.
* Wiseman, T. Peter. 1971. ''New Men in the Roman Senate, 139 B.C.—A.D. 14.'' Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
* Wright, Andrew. 2002. "Velleius Paterculus and L. Munatius Plancus." ''Classical Philology'' 97.4: 178–184.
* Wylie, Graham J. 1993. "P. Ventidius: From Novus Homo to “Military Hero.”" ''Acta Classica'' 36:129–141.

External links

''Dictionary of the History of Ideas'': "Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man"

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