page_title: Otium
section_title: Etymology and origin
hierarchical_section_title: Otium / Etymology and origin
caption_attribution_description: Representation of ancient Roman soldiers at rest
context_page_description: Otium, a Latin abstract term, has a variety of meanings, including leisure time in which a person can enjoy eating, playing, resting, contemplation and academic endeavors. It sometimes, but not always, relates to a time in a person's retirement after previous service to the public or private sector, opposing "active public life". Otium can be a temporary time of leisure, that is sporadic. It can have intellectual, virtuous or immoral implications. It originally had the idea of withdrawing from one's daily business or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening. It had particular meaning to businessmen, diplomats, philosophers and poets.
context_section_description: In ancient Roman culture otium was a military concept as its first Latin usage. This was in Ennius' Iphigenia.
  Otio qui nescit uti
  plus negotii habet quam cum est negotium in negotio;
  nam cui quod agat institutum est non ullo negotio
  id agit, id studet, ibi mentem atque animum delectat suum:
  otioso in otio animus nescit quid velit
  Hoc idem est ; em neque domi nunc nos nec militiae sumus;
  imus huc, hinc illuc; cum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet. 
  Incerte errat animus, praeterpropter vitam vivitur.
  
  He who does not know how to use leisure
  
  has more of work than when there is work in work.
  
  For to whom a task has been set, he does the work,
  
  desires it, and delights his own mind and intellect:
  
  in leisure, a mind does not know what it wants.
  
  The same is true (of us); we are neither at home nor in the battlefield;
  
  we go here and there, and wherever there is a movement, we are there too.
  
  The mind wanders unsure, except in that life is lived.
  — Iphigenia, 241–248
  According to historian Carl Deroux in his work Studies in Latin literature and Roman history, the word otium appears for the first time in a chorus of Ennius' Iphigenia. Ennius' first use of the term otium around 190 BC showed the restlessness and boredom during a reprieve from war and was termed otium negotiosum (free time to do what one wanted) and otium otiosum (idle wasteless free time). Aulus Gellius, while discussing the word praeterpropter ("more or less") quotes a fragment of Ennius's Iphigenia, which contrasts otium with negotium repeatedly. Ennius imagined the emotions of Agamemnon's soldiers at Aulus, that while in the field and not at war and not allowed to go home, as "more or less" living.
  The earliest extant appearance of the word in Latin literature occurs in a fragment from the soldiers' chorus in the Iphigenia of Ennius, where it is contrasted to negotium. Researches have determined the etymological and semantic use of otium was never a direct translation of the Greek word "schole", but derived from specifically Roman contexts. Otium is an example of the usage of the term "praeterpropter", meaning more or less of leisure. It was first used in military terms related to inactivity during war. In ancient Roman times soldiers were many times unoccupied, resting and bored to death when not at war (i.e., winter months, weather not permitting war). This was associated with otium otiosum (unoccupied and pointless leisure – idle leisure). The opposite of this was otium negotiosum (busy leisure) – leisure with a satisfying hobby or being able to take care of one's personal affairs or one's own estate. This was otium privatum (private leisure), equal to negotium (a type of business).
  The oldest citation for otium is this chorus of soldiers, singing about idleness on campaign, in an otherwise lost Latin tragedy by Ennius. Andre shows in these lines that Ennius is showing the soldiers in the field would rather go home tending to their own affairs (otium) than to be idle doing nothing. Its military origin meant to stop fighting in battle and laying down of the weapons – a time for peace. Even though originally otium was a military concept in early Roman culture of laying down one's weapons, it later became an elite prestigious time for caring for oneself. The ancient Romans had a sense of obligatory work ethics in their culture and considered the idle-leisure definition of otium as a waste of time. Historians of ancient Roman considered otium a time of laborious leisure of much personal duties instead of public duties. Author Almasi shows that historians Jean-Marie Andre and Brian Vickers point out the only legitimate form of otium was transpired with intellectual activity. Otium was thought of by the wise elite as being free from work and other obligations (negotium) and leisure time spent on productive activities, however a time that should not be wasted as was thought the non-elite did with their leisure time.
caption: Representation of ancient Roman soldiers at rest
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