Procuratores: On the Limits of Caring for Another

In considering the Latin provenance of the terms, both security (securitas) and at least one specific form of representation (procuratio) explicitly hinge on some idea of care or concern (cura): securitas spells the removal (se-) of care; while procuratio designates how an agent takes care of some task for (pro) another. Yet, far from unequivocal, the word cura operates along two divergent semantic trajectories. On the one hand, cura may denote the assiduous concern that one devotes to a person or object, or, in fact, even the object of concern, like the beloved addressed in Roman elegy or the poem…