Classical Civilisation is a course which offers the opportunity to confront the most important, influential and wonderful aspects of the ancient world. Pupils require no previous knowledge or experience of the classical world, merely the curiosity to understand the foundational pillars of Western Civilisation! All texts are studied in translation, so there is no need for pupils to have any knowledge of either Latin or Classical Greek. We aim to explore a wide range of topics from both Greek and Roman culture, studying essential literary texts in English translation, a range of physical remnants of Greek and Roman culture, including beautiful statues and inspirational works of art, vast and fascinating archaeological sites, and the oft-forgotten artefacts of everyday living such as coins and pottery. This broad array of sources encourages pupils of Classical Civilisation to develop a similarly extensive assortment of skills, making this subject a perfect complement to both pupils who are interested in history as an academic discipline, and those who are interested in studying literature, art or culture. It also provides the ideal starting point for pupils who wish to study classical subjects at university, as its range of disciplines and thoughtfully chosen topics marry neatly with the requirements of undergraduate degrees, and its academic rigour will introduce pupils to the broader world of classical scholarship. The course is divided into three sections; the first, “The World of the Hero”, constitutes 40% of the total mark; the second, “Culture and the Arts”, and the third, “Beliefs and Ideas” are both worth 30% of the total. All three papers are assessed by examinations at the end of the course. For further details on each topic, please see the descriptions below. The World of the Hero This topic introduces pupils to the foundational texts of Western literature: the epics of Homer and Vergil. These texts are not only brilliant works of art in their own right but also offer unparalleled access to the values and social structures which underpinned ancient Greece and imperial Rome. We study them both from a literary perspective, analysing character, theme and narratology, and also from a historical perspective, contextualising both their composition and their reception. In particular, here we have an opportunity to get to grips with Roman imperialism and with the origins of Greek social organisation. We read widely in translation from The Iliad and The Aeneid, offering a much broader insight into these texts than the narrower focus of A-level Latin or Greek. Culture and the Arts This paper explores the lived experience of the Greeks and Romans. The module focuses on crucial aspects of ancient ideology and offers a broad range of evidence, from acropolis to necropolis, from Athens to Zymrna, to illustrate key ideas and developments. While the precise topic chosen will depend on the teacher, choices include the “Invention of the Barbarian”, which looks particularly at the way the ancient Greeks represented the neighbouring cultures of Persia and the Medes and how that changed throughout the Greco-Persian conflict of the Fifth Century; and the “Imperial Image”, which explores how Augustus created a visual 15 idiom to disguise his dictatorship, drawing together traditional Roman architecture, mythology and iconography to create the image of the eternal princess. Beliefs and Ideas This module engages with many of the ‘big’ ideas which have come from the ancient world and still impact our lives today, assessing the origin, context and influence of ancient ideologies. Again, the specific topic chosen will depend upon the teacher, but two particularly attractive courses are “Democracy and the Athenians”, which delves into the radical political experiment of Pericles and his fellow Athenians at the height of the city’s power, and “Politics and the Late Republic”, which looks at the collapse of the Roman political system under the stresses of its rapid expansion under such figures as Caesar and Pompey the Great. As with the Culture and the Arts module, evidence is drawn both from material culture and from literary sources studied in translation.