An idle thought about ancient otium

An otiose-looking Cicero from a 14th-century manuscript (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, 552)

The opposition between work and rest goes back as far as history can see. In the Bible, it goes back to Creation itself. God worked for six days and rested on the seventh. In ancient Rome, the opposition work-rest was captured by the concepts of otium - negotium