Читать книгу A City of Professions - Jordi Ludevid Anglada - Страница 17

Cicero

During the classical Roman period, the collegia opificum were created at the municipal level,16 a forerunner of the medieval guilds, which later gave rise to the consortium advocatorum, a clear precedent of the legal profession.

De officiis (On Duties or On Offices) is the important philosophical work which Cicero dedicated to his son and which deals with the duties to which every man must adhere as a citizen and thus as a member of the State. Written during the final months of 44 BC, it has become a significant reference in the history of the professions. It clearly establishes the link between citizenship and the professions, a link that is still very relevant today. It is structured as a treatise on practical ethics, on civic virtues, strictly linked to politico-social action. In consequence, the book was interpreted as an attempt to define an ethic for the Roman ruling class. In the manner of a guide, a «cicerone»...

Although the intellectual foundations of Cicero’s work come from Greece, his work in general, and specifically De officiis, represents a decisive step forward in the history of the professions and trades, with regard to the codification of their principles and their dissemination. In clear continuity with the origins of the Hippocratic school, it illustrates the expansion of the professional fact, of its values and principles, across the European continent through the vast political reality that was the Roman Empire, which later made way for Christianity.

The double meaning of the word officiis (offices) is interesting. As a contraction of opus and fecit, it means ‘work completed’ on the one hand, and ‘duties’ on the other. For his part, Cicero posited the Latin word officiis as coming from the Greek word kazekon: ‘set of rules that are to regulate life in all its manifestations’, including professional life. Thus, the trades are associated not only with the execution of work, but also with a certain idea of duty, of rules. Thus, the meanings of the two words, trades and professions, are not as different as some people think.

Some 15 years after Cicero’s death, Marcus Lucius Vitruvius Pollio wrote his fundamental treatise De Architectura. In it, with the concept of decorum, he largely followed Cicero and Socratic-Ciceronian thought, which he often quoted and from which he drew his inspiration.

16 It is worth highlighting this long-standing relationship between the municipality and the city, and the professional fact through the professional associations.