Коротенькая работа по Цицерону in English

Cicero’s Contribution to Development of Humanities as evident in Pro Archia.

     Based on the diachronic change in the meaning of the words humanitas, libertalitas and studium and also on the way Cicero uses these words in his Pro Archia, it can be argued that he is making a fusion of these words into a complex new concept and makes an important contribution in development of education in an ordered society which began with the Greeks and still is greatly felt in our own culture.
The most general initial meanings of these three verbs tend to pertain to nature and essence rather than to the specificity or artificiality of things. Thus the word humanitas in the Oxford Latin Dictionary is defined in its first meaning as ‘human nature or character’ but already in the second sense it is referred to culture, civilization; it is pointing to what people add to nature (p.808). Similarly, adjective libertatis is initially addressed a state of no restriction: someone’s free will, when opposed to, often suffers somebody else’s oppressive will. Even studium in the initial sense is ‘earnest application of one’s attention or energy… zeal, ardor’, yet it develops into ‘intellectual activity, especially of literary kind’: again much more specific and has to do with human behavior and deeds. (OLD, p.1830-31).
Cicero’s important cultural insight consists in grasping ancient notions of education and excellence, integrating them with his powerful philological instincts and displaying them in a new way for the Rome contemporary to him. He does not classify notions, like Aristotle yet he vividly endorses humanitas, the human nature, as a sort of spiritual glue and also as a generic name for all endeavors worthy of human being. “Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent habent quoddam commune vinculum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur. (Line 20). Humanitas is human character transformed into the set of artistic tasks that are strongly connected and undivided, like the spirit of a human.
As the word humanitas is enriched by inclusion in itself and denoting all the noble arts, it also becomes richer in the sense of connotation. Cicero uses the words humanitas and liberalitas at times almost interchangeably: “… hanc animi remissionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam iudicaretis” (205). Most civilized seems to be free in this passage, and vice versa. After all, speaking of synonyms, OLD in the third meaning refers to the humanitas as kindness, and the same dictionary lists the liberalitas as kindness as well (1024). Which makes civilization a society of kindness. Another similarity in the meaning of this two words is the meaning of ‘gentlemanly, decent, worthy of humans’ (1024) if we delved in adverbs. Cicero’s another endorsement of culture against unkindness is shown in the line 389 of Pro Archia : “ut humanitate vestra levatus potius quam acerbitate violates esse videatur”. In this Peroratio or a summing up of his argument, Cicero wishes that the jurors would relieve, free the man by their humanitas (cultivation, learning, gentleness) rather than overwhelm him by their severity.
But certainly this aspects of the culture of gentle philanthropy does not exhaust the potent idea of liberating humanistic studies. Aristotle said that, ‘just as a man is called ‘free’ when he exists for his own sake, and a slave, when he exists for the sake of another man so these studies are called free (liberating) because they exist for their own sake and not for the sake of anything else” (as quoted by Peter Kreeft in his Socratic Logic, p.8). It is not by accident that Cicero ones listed first, among other vital for society things the humanitas (civilization, culture) and the doctrina (learning): “… adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas, doctrina, religio, fruges, iura, leges...” (For Flaccus, chapter 26). The foremost stuff that came from Athens are not laws or food but liberal arts!
Cicero almost asserts that for us humans it is natural to breathe in the atmosphere of the studium, that it is our spiritual food:“Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. (Pro Archia, 16). “These studies nourish youth and entertain old age”, they are truly sustain us and give us the essentials as humans. The best way to be a human being, according to Cicero, is to studiously pursue liberal humanistic teachings for their own sake.
The classical era is important in that it started to pay proper attention to human needs, not just to the divine. Cicero feeling that this classical cause needed reiteration used his rhetorical powers with these three terms converging into one mighty concept which was to promote a better, kinder, more refined, more informed, brilliant, and what is especially important -arduous humanity, so it would pursue all these worthy causes with success.