Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto (Terence, Heauton timorumenos 77)

Abstract

One of the verses of classical poetry frequently quoted by those who have had a traditional upbringing is still an iambic senarius originally uttered by an old man in a comedy by Terence:homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto.Few would be willing to interpret it closely. Some would see in it, as Michel de Montaigne did, a man’s confession of his emotional and spiritual weakness. Others, like John of Salisbury, perceive an expression of Christian charity. Others again make it a disavowal of intolerance and prudery in regard to human behaviour. Most would say that it had to do with being ‘humane’ in some very positive sense of this much used word and claim to hear in it a tone both elevated and elevating. The association with knowledge of literature and the fine arts which Varro and Cicero sometimes gave the abstract humanitas still exercises a powerful influence and not surprisingly the verse turns up time and again in the public discourses of University professors and in the mottos of institutions concerned with education.