The adjective recidiuus is relatively late in attestation: its earliest known occurrence in poetry is in Virgil, while in prose it appears primarily in technical writings such as those of Celsus and Pomponius Mela. The term develops a noteworthy range of uses. In its literal sense, it functions as an agricultural and medical term, referring respectively to the renewal of the harvest and the recurrence of a fever; more broadly, it acquires a metaphorical sense of rebirth. This figurative usage is particularly prominent in late antiquity and is accompanied by a significant oscillation in the textual tradition between the readings recidiuus and rediuiuus.
Martina Venuti (Thu,) studied this question.