Thanks to a grant from , students in the Introduction to Ancient Rome class had a chance to mount their own display of public art depicting the choice of Hercules Nov. 12-16 in front of the statue of Hercules near the Statler Hotel at 15 East Ave.
Each day, there were two signs next to the statue, one showing the cover of 鈥淥n Duties鈥 by Cicero and the other side showing this passage from the book:
鈥淲hen Hercules was approaching maturity, which is the time selected by nature for choosing the road in life one must travel, he sought out an isolated place. Sitting there for a long time, he could not decide which path was better for him. For he could see two paths, one marked PLEASURE and another marked VIRTUE.鈥
The students illustrated the famous fable by creating a forked path in front of the statue, each leading to one of the two grassy 鈥渋slands鈥 in front of the statue, illustrating 鈥減leasure鈥 and 鈥渧irtue,鈥 using any objects to make Hercules鈥 choice clear.
Cicero, a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, details his ideas about the best way to live, behave and observe moral obligations in 鈥淥n Duties,鈥 which students read and discussed in class.
鈥 鈥極n Duties鈥 is a practical guide to making moral choices in life,鈥 said professor of classics, associate vice provost of undergraduate education and instructor of the course. 鈥淐icero wrote it 2,000 years ago and it became an instant classic. It was revered as a sort of supplement to the Bible, which is all the more amazing if you reflect that Cicero was murdered 43 years before the birth of Jesus.鈥
鈥淢y group and I learned through this project the power that visual instillations have on the ability to understand complex concepts,鈥 said Alexis Davis 鈥20. 鈥淭hough the ideas that we were representing may seem simple, much of the original meanings that we had to parse through are convoluted in the original text.鈥
The class of 40 worked in groups of eight. Each group displayed their exhibit for one day and wrote a reflection paper detailing the choices they made, their process and what they learned about Roman values from the activity.
Brittany Rubin, curatorial assistant at the , was involved in the project, as well, showing students an illustration by Albrecht Durer, a German Renaissance painter, which also depicts the fable of Hercules鈥 choice. 鈥淚鈥檓 intrigued by how the students interpreted the personification of 鈥榲ice鈥 as inspired by the text, as its vagueness is starkly in contrast with the rather direct interpretation of renaissance artists,鈥 she said.
鈥淭he point of this exercise was to get students talking about values, and give them experience in building a consensus and making group decisions,鈥 Fontaine said. 鈥淢any of us are shy about talking candidly about values, especially in a secular community like Cornell鈥檚. Like most ancient philosophers, Cicero likes to talk about 鈥榲irtue.鈥 It鈥檚 a nice word but what does it actually mean? And the same goes for 鈥榩leasure.鈥 鈥
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a communications assistant for the 麻豆视频 & 麻豆视频.
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