IB

The Classics department offers Latin and Greek at both Standard and Higher Level. We try to offer a varied programme that covers many areas of classical interest with the intention of allowing pupils discover the beauty of these unique literatures. There is a mixture of verse and prose.

In Latin we offer:
• Latin love poetry (Catullus, Propertius, Ovid)
• Horace
• Set texts are Virgil’s Aeneid and Cicero’s “Pro Caelio”.

Our approach is multi-disciplinary. Read below for a flavour of hoe we approach authors.
Ovid's influence on Western art and literature cannot be exaggerated. The Metamorphoses is our best classical source of 250 myths. "The poem is the most comprehensive, creative mythological work that has come down to us from antiquity". Based on its influence, "European literature and art would be poorer for the loss of the Metamorphoses than for the loss of Homer". Ovid was a major inspiration for Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton. If Virgil is Rome's greatest poet, Ovid is the most popular (even in his own time; Ovidian graffiti has been found on the walls of Pompeii).As one example of Ovid's influence on Western art and literature, read the famous story of Daedalus and Icarus in Book 8. Ovid's account is the earliest in extant literature, although the story is much older, found on 6th century vases. Christopher Marlowe alludes to this story in his tragedy of Dr. Faustus, comparing his protagonist's ambition to that of Icarus:
Till swoll'n with cunning of a self conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach
And melting, heavens conspired his overthrow.

• Xenophon’s Hellenika (Fall of Athens in 403BC)
• Thucydides; Spartan defeat at Pylos.
• Reading of Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles.
• Set texts: Euripides’ Medea and Aristophanes’ Wasps.
• "But, the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."
• "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
• "It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions."
• "War takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes."
• "The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention."