turn, a broader scope of use of the term philanthropy may be noticed in the writings of Demosthenes. As W. Pawlak notices, this concept started to change its meaning in the democratic Athens. It denoted: compassion, reckoning with others, courtesy or simply a broadly perceived kindness towards others. In the court speeches, it was often about the philanthropy of the judges against the accused and thus an attitude close to compassion and mercy. It was also the virtue of the accused as citizens manifesting itself in the participation in social life and bearing the burden for the benefit of the state. The word “philanthropy” additionally denoted friendly, kind interpersonal relations and even an attitude of the tamed animals towards human beings. However, the use of this noun usually indicates an attitude that assumes certain superiority or some advantage over another person. It has its roots in the original meaning of philanthropy, which in the first place related to deities.213
Going back to the term humanitas, among the Latin writers of the classical period, Cicero was the one who used the term most frequently.214 Around 80 BC, ←60 | 61→the term occurs in his speeches, letters, rhetorical and philosophical writings as one of the most important terms referring to man and thus as a key term within his anthropology.215 As Pawlak emphasizes: “The high rank attributed to humanitas by Cicero and the changes that he made in the semantics of the concept turned out to be fraught with consequences for the future of the indicated term since both the direct successors of Arpinata and later Roman authors as well as fifteenth- and the sixteenth-century humanists more or less referred to his very concept.’216 The term humanitas was for the first time certified in an anonymous Rhetoric to Herennius (ca. 86–82 BC.), where it denoted both humanity as such (characteristics typical of a human nature per se), and its particular aspect, expressed through the treatment of people, including enemies, in a manner that is worthy of man, so in a kindly, sympathetic and “humane” way. However, only in the circle of Cicero, did the idea fully develop. He used the term humanitas in various meanings:217
• In the most basic one – to define human nature (natura humana, natura hominis) in contrast to animals and gods;
• characterising interpersonal relations relevant to human dignity (common humanity for all communis humanitas – is what requires us to save our opponents and do good to others; humanitas discourages from committing murder and constitutes an antidote to the horrors of civil war, which lead to the disappearance of all traces of humanitas in human hearts);
• he also appealed to the humanitas of judges to raise their sympathy in the cases in which he acted as a defender or a prosecutor;
• he used the term in the meaning of the royal virtue, worthy of rulers, chiefs and all those who exercised power. There is therefore the following advice given by Cicero to his brother Quintus – the governor of the Asia province: “[…] if fate gave you power over Africans, Spaniards or Gauls, the savage and barbarian ←61 | 62→nations, you should still strive for their comfort, their needs and safety, due to your humanitas;”218
• while using the indicated term, he characterized the formation of an ideal speaker – rhetorician, who, as he claimed, should be equipped with a set of virtues that predisposed him both to active public life and to satisfactory private life. As Cicero writes, the goal of this formation should be a comprehensive education based on natural talents and continuous exercise. He underlined the importance of cultivating both moral and social values.
However, his greatest merit was the significant expansion of the importance of humanitas. The words humanum and humanitas concerned not only the human nature and a friendly attitude towards other people but also what belonged to the specificity of man as man, not only in relation to others but with reference to himself and to his own talents as well.219 Thus, the aforementioned terms defined the essence of humanity, as nothing given but assigned by nature as a subject of constant development and improvement and as an ideal that one should aim at, making use of everything that man was inherently equipped. Human activities are here motivated by moral obligation (honestum) and the inner sense of decency (decorum), on account of which man is capable of sacrifice. Thanks to the fact that man is equipped with reason, he can attain the perfection placing him above the average. According to Cicero, human perfection does not consist in having any significant position or wealth but in being a wise man, restrained and just. He perceived wisdom as an ability to reach the truth, understand relationships and causes; temperance as a rational-minded ability to remain unaffected by passions and feelings; justice, namely, as the cooperation of all citizens for the benefit of common good and restraint in applying penalties.220 Cicero emphasized that all these virtues were based on reason, enabling one to discern the causes and effects of one’s actions, expand the activities and deepen social relations. Due to reason man acquires independence and courage, which are indispensable to face the life’s difficulties. Without reason and virtues humanitas would be extremely shallow and even meaningless.
All the skills and studies facilitating the achievement of the fullness of humanity are called artes humanitatis propriae. Even though at a first glance it ←62 | 63→resembles the Greek ideal of comprehensive encyclopaedic education (énkýklos paidéia), in Cicero the particular emphasis was placed on the skills connected with speech – poetry and rhetoric. They constituted a certain core of the Ciceronian humanitas and proper studia humanitatis.221 Speech was treated by him as a discipline integrating all sciences and skills and constituting their finial. In this way, humanitas became primarily the ideal and the aim of upbringing and education (Bildungsideal), covering a large spectrum of ethical, intellectual, aesthetic and civic values expressed by Cicero and his followers through such terms as: “mansuetudo, cultus, doctrina, dignitas, fides, pietas, honestas, iustitia, gravitas, virtus, integritas, lepos, facetiae, elegantia, eruditio, urbanitas, hilaritas, iocositas, festivitas, sapientia, moderatio, modestia, aequitas, magnanimitas, comitas, benignitas, clementia, misericordia, benevolentia, facilitas, mollitudo, liberalitas, munificentia.”222
Cicero’s humanitas should be treated not only as an educational programme. As Pawlak indicates, it absolutely deserves the title of an anthropological project, extremely attractive for future generations223. The indicated project is described as a “qualified humanity.” It consists of two dimensions – both the humanitas, and the litterae – the refined education.224
As Wolfgang Schadewaldt’s work, Humanitas Romana, reads: “The essence of the Roman humanitas is that it is one of the aspects of an ordered set of different, demanding values which were included in the Roman citizen code of conduct from the beginning and are in fact untranslatable into Greek: Latin pietas (which differs from the Greek eusébeia), Latin mores (which do not fully coincide with ethos), Latin dignitas, gravitas, integritas, and so on. The idea of humanitas encompasses all the indicated values […] and simultaneously, blurs the differences between them, making them less rigid and more universal.’225 In turn, in one of the German encyclopaedias, where the term humanitas occurs, ←63 | 64→the author explains: “Humanitas covers, in the full meaning of the word, the development and the activity of these spiritual (broadly understood) qualities, which characterize and distinguish man as man, and which, in the opinion of the representatives of this ideal, are not given to man by nature, but are only assigned.’226
Thus, humanitas expressed the possibilities determining the value of man: magnanimity and fidelity, among other things, as well as refinement, intelligence and development in the field of arts. Pietas constituted the basis of humanitas and it denoted modesty, due to which man could properly measure the relations with all people and things, with friends, a spouse, parents or children, with different peoples and the state which had to conquer the world and then enable all people’s participation in the just rule of law. At the same time humanitas meant that man transcended what was too human in him through what constituted the essence of his humanity – through reason given to him by the nature itself, designing the divine and human law. Additionally, humanitas denoted liberating from a daily labour. That is why studying the great works of literature was treated as the most human
