Rooted in the basic curriculum -- the enkuklios paideia or `` education in a circle '' -- of late Classical and Hellenistic Greece , the `` liberal arts '' or `` liberal pursuits '' ( Latin liberalia studia ) were already so called in formal education during the Roman Empire . The first recorded use of the term `` liberal arts '' ( artes liberales ) occurs in De Inventione by Marcus Tullius Cicero , but it is unclear if he created the term . Seneca the Younger discusses liberal arts in education from a critical Stoic point of view in Moral Epistle 88 . The exact classification of the liberal arts varied however in Roman times , and it was only after Martianus Capella in the 5th century AD influentially brought the seven liberal arts as bridesmaids to the Marriage of Mercury and Philology , that they took on canonical form .

Question: where did the term liberal arts come from
Answer: the Roman Empire