Paper 6: Classical Essays

Aims and objectives

1. To introduce the intellectual and philosophical, historical, material and visual, and linguistic cultures of Greek and Roman antiquity.
2. To develop the practice of interpretation across the whole range of classical study through close study of texts and artefacts.
3. To introduce the variety of critical methodologies possible in the study of classical antiquity and major current trends in scholarship.
4. To develop a sense of the importance of classical antiquity and its study for the modern world.
5. To develop skills in writing research essays.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2026–27

Candidates will be expected to submit two essays, each related to a different topic chosen from the following four groups: Greek and Roman philosophy (B Caucus), history (C Caucus), art and archaeology (D Caucus), and linguistics (E Caucus). The two essays must be chosen from two different groups. The topics shall be chosen from a list of titles to be issued by the division of Lent term (13 February). 

The word limit is 2,500 words, including notes, but excluding bibliography. Illustrations may be presented under the heading ‘Illustrations’ at the end of the essays and may include figures, maps, charts, diagrams, plans and data in tables, all of these with captions. As long as captions are kept as brief as possible and are not used as a substitute for information which should properly be placed in the main text, they are not included in the word count.Essays must be word processed (1.5 spacing) unless permission has been obtained from the Faculty Board to present them in handwritten form. The style of presentation, quotation and reference to books, articles and ancient authorities should be consistent and comply with the standards required by a major journal. Some questions will give opportunity to engage with the issues raised in the ‘Classics Now’ lectures (see below).

For each essay, students should receive a maximum of 60 minutes of supervision and only one full draft is to be read by supervisor. Students are required to declare that the submitted essay is their own work, and does not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose.

From 2024/25, candidates who have taken Prelim are no longer required to submit at least one essay related to a non-literary topic on which they were not examined in Prelim.

Course descriptions

Greek and Roman Philosophy

This course includes two sessions ('How to do ancient philosophy') giving a general introduction to philosophy through the eyes of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers: the lecture asks What is philosophy? And what does it take to be a philosopher? Is there a method or a specific way to "do" philosophy? The class provides very basic conceptual tools for approaching philosophy lectures, reading philosophical texts and scholarly literature, and writing essays by thinking in terms of "building an argument". No preparation is required for attending the lecture and the class, which are open to all students, independently of whether they will choose to pursue philosophy in their studies.

The main set of lectures provides an introduction to Ancient Greek Philosophy. In the Michaelmas term we will start by looking at the fascinating emergence of new ways of describing the cosmos and the place of human beings in it that find expression in Early Greek Philosophy and Science. We will then look mainly at Plato’s presentation of the figure of Socrates, a presentation that is often inseparable from Plato’s own philosophical views. The lectures will consider how to read and interpret Plato’s ‘Socratic conversations’ philosophically and show how they can be a provocation to further philosophical inquiry.  The main texts will be Plato’s Apology, Euthyphro, Phaedo, Protagoras, Gorgias, and Symposium. Those attending the course are encouraged to read as much as possible of these in advance. A convenient translation, all in one volume, is John Cooper ed. Plato: the complete works (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1997). In the Lent term we will consider two central texts in greater detail: Plato’s Meno and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. We will consider their respective discussions of human excellence in relation to their epistemological and metaphysical views. For the Meno, see the translation in Cooper ed. (above); for the Nicomachean Ethics, see Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe (transl. and comm.), Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford 2002). In the second half of Lent term we will also explore ethical thought from the two Hellenistic philosophies of Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Ancient History

Eight participatory seminars on how ancient historians frame, produce, and reflect on their research will be held across one term (Michaelmas). We will start by looking at one of the fundamental aspects of historical scholarship: arguing about the past. We will see how ancient historians mark out the stakes of their research and how they think we ought to approach our sources. We will move on to discuss a range of topics over the weeks to see how both traditional and more recent focuses have developed in the field. We will interrogate how ancient historians write world history, the history of gender, economic history, cultural history, environmental history, and political history. The aims of these seminars are: 1) to introduce scholarship on a range of major methodologies for studying ancient history; 2) to enable critical analysis of debates in ancient history across a variety of issues and current trends in the field; and 3) to provide a basis from which students can reflect further on the ancient history papers or coursework they undertake throughout the classical tripos. All are welcome.

Introductory reading:

Neville Morley, Theories, Models and Concepts in Ancient History (London, 2004).
Michael Bentley, 'British Historical Writing' in Schneider and Woolf (eds.) The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume 5: Historical Writing Since 1945 (Oxford, 2011).

The second-century BCE Greek historian and Roman political prisoner Polybius compared Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean with previous empires come and gone. Following in his footsteps and those of other ancient and medieval authors, this course examines imperial rule in and around the Mediterranean from the Persian empire in the sixth century BC to the third century CE, when Roman dominion in the Eastern Mediterranean was threatened by the Persians’ successors in what is now Iran. It will explore how empires rose and fell, and how they worked, focusing in addition on Athens, Sparta, the ‘Hellenistic’ kingdoms, Carthage, and the Parthians, with glances across at comparative material from ancient India and China as well as more recent empires. Issues to be explored will include definitions of state and empire; how empires were created in the first place; the ways in which empires exploited the territories and people subjected to them; they ways they learnt from each other; strategies of unification and central control; forms of resistance; and how imperial capitals reflected that status.

This course also provides a broad outline political history of the ancient Mediterranean world, which can be complemented by the paper on cultural, social and economic history: Inequalities and social change in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.

Introductory bibliography: A. Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: a corpus of sources from the Achaemenid period (2007); P.J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 17, 1985); P. Low ed., The Athenian Empire (2008); G. Shipley, The Greek world after Alexander, 323-30 B.C. (2000); C. Champion, Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources (2004); A. Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (1993); P. Garnsey & R. Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture, 2nd edn. (2015); E. Dench, Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World (2018); M. Lavan, Slaves to Rome: Paradigmsof Empire in Roman Culture (2013); M. Canepa, The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment 550 BCE - 642 CE (2018); P.F.Bang & W. Scheidel, eds, The Oxford World History of Empire (2021).

Our connection to the ancient past is indirect and delicate – resting on the proper interpretation of a limited number of small, unevenly distributed, and distorted reflections. This course will introduce this range of reflections – our ancient sources. We will explore the various types of evidence used by ancient historians, considering the pitfalls of each, the kind of history a particular source might produce, and the ways in which historians can critically assess the geographical, chronological, and social perspectives and imbalances of the material. How might the questions we ask of literary evidence differ from those we ask of archaeological data? How might inscriptions and documentary sources illuminate the lives of people neglected by other sources? What determines whether an event or period is ‘well documented’ or not? What are the difficulties and opportunities latent in bringing modern perspectives to ancient material? Students will develop a strong understanding of the landscape of ancient sources, as well as an appreciation for the fragility of the thread which connects modern observers and antiquity

Classical Art and Archaeology

This course provides an introduction to the art and archaeology of the Greek and Roman worlds. The first 8 lectures will offer an overview of the questions, methods and themes of classical archaeology, and introduce their importance for studying the Greek and Roman worlds at large. The following 16 lectures familiarise students with the range of material culture produced across the chronological and geographical span of classical antiquity. The focus of these later lectures will be on key sites, issues and approaches.

Suggested readings

(Starred [*] items are accessible online through iDiscover):

*S. Alcock and R. Osborne, Classical Archaeology, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 2011); *J. Barringer, The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece (Cambridge 2014); M. Beard and J. Henderson, Classical Art from Greece to Rome (Oxford, 2001); A. Claridge, Rome: Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford, 2010); J. Elsner, The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100-450, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 2018); R. Osborne, Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford, 1998);*C. Shelmerdine (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge, 2008); *N.J. Spivey, Greek Sculpture (Cambridge, 2013); N.J. Spivey and M.J. Squire, Panorama of the Classical World (2004); *S. Tuck, A History of Roman Art (Chichester, 2015); J. Whitley, The Archaeology of Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2001).

For students following this course for the first time or who would like some additional background information on topics addressed in lectures, we are recommending the following books as supplements to the weekly reading lists in Moodle.

R.T. Neer, Art & Archaeology of the Greek World, 2nd edn. (London, 2019)

M.D. Fullerton, Art & Archaeology of the Roman World (London, 2020)

Classical and Comparative Philology and Linguistics

The course is designed to introduce the systematic study of language in general and of the classical languages in particular, with the aim of supporting students’ language learning and consolidation while explaining both the concepts and techniques of modern descriptive and theoretical linguistics and the ways in which these can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of Greek and Latin. There will be discussion of selected testimonia from ancient authors and analysis of passages and examples taken from mainstream authors. An advanced knowledge of Greek or Latin is not presupposed.

Subject to Directors of Studies’ approval, supervisions will be organised centrally to complement the lectures.

Those who plan to offer one or more of the Group E papers (Historical and Comparative Linguistics) in Part II of the Tripos are advised to attend at least some of the lectures for linguistics in Part IA, even if they do not intend to answer linguistics questions in Paper 6 of Part IA, or to take a linguistics paper in Part IB.

Introductory readings:

Students may find the following helpful as introductory or follow-up reading for many of the concepts introduced throughout the whole course:

Larry Trask, Language: The Basics (Routledge 1999, 2nd edn.); Ralph Fasold & Jeff Connor-Linton (eds), An Introduction to Language and Linguistics (Cambridge, 2014, 2nd edn.); James Clackson, Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Cambridge, 2016); Coulter George, How Dead Languages Work (Oxford, 2020); Egbert J. Bakker (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language (Blackwell, 2010); James Clackson (ed.), A Companion to the Latin Language (Blackwell, 2011).

Ancient Greek and Latin are “dead” languages, meaning that we only have written evidence for these languages. These four lectures will explore how we can know what they sounded like. To this end, the concept of “sound” as an element of the language will be explained before discussing the sounds of Greek and Latin individually and as systems.

Recommended reading:

J. Clark, C. Yallop and J. Fletcher, An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Blackwell 2006

W.S. Allen, Vox Graeca, Cambridge 1987

W.S. Allen Vox Latina, Cambridge 1978

Ancient Greek and Latin are “dead” languages, meaning that we only have written evidence for these languages. In these lectures we will explore the relationship between speech and writing. We will discuss the nature and the workings of the alphabet and then look at its origin, development and spread, and discuss how it is used by putting it in a linguistic, historical and cultural context. We will then read a number of primary sources (inscriptions) and literary texts in order to see how all of this works in practice.

Introductory reading:

Peter Daniels and William Bright, The World’s Writing Systems New York 1996

Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing, London 2007

James T. Hooker, Ancient writing from cuneiform to the alphabet, London 1990

Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy, Cambridge 2012

Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead, A Study of Greek Inscriptions, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1981

In these lectures we explore the Greek and Latin languages as systems; systems that despite their considerable similarities and still show a great number of differences. How come fero and φέρω look the same in the first-person singular but completely different in the third-person plural? Why does Latin have more cases than Greek, but no aorist or optative? And what are all these cases for anyway? By analysing phonology, morphology and syntax we shall try to come to better understand why Greek and Latin work the way they do. We shall illustrate the lectures with selected passages from the Target Texts, and highlight the many different ways in which people spoke and wrote Greek and Latin.

Introductory reading:

Leonard Palmer, The Latin Language, London 1954 (older, but still useful; many reprints)

Michael Weiss, Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, 2nd edition, 2020 (advanced, but a useful place to look for particular details)

Leonard Palmer, The Greek Language, Bristol Classical Press, 1996

Stephen Colvin, A Brief History of Ancient Greek, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014

Students may find the following helpful as introductory or follow-up reading for many of the concepts introduced throughout the whole course: Larry Trask, Language: TheBasics (Routledge 1999, 2nd edn.); Ralph Fasold & Jeff Connor-Linton (eds), An Introduction to Language and Linguistics (Cambridge, 2014, 2nd edn.); James Clackson, Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Cambridge, 2016); Coulter George, How Dead Languages Work (Oxford, 2020); Egbert J. Bakker (ed.), ACompanion to the Ancient Greek Language (Blackwell, 2010); James Clackson (ed.), A Companion to the Latin Language (Blackwell, 2011).

Classics Now: live issues past and present

This course will consist of a variable number of lectures each year, focused on different topics. The lectures will introduce students to some key aspects of the history of Classics as a discipline, and the many ways in which the study of Greece and Rome has participated and continues to participate in live issues of politics, power and identity in the modern world. Every Caucus will offer at least one lecture for the module. Essay questions reflecting this module will be set in IA Paper 6.

The schedule of lectures for LT 2027 will be confirmed in the course of MT 2026.