Classics

Bust of Homer, the ancient Greek epic poet

Classics (also Classical Studies) is the study of the languages, literature, laws, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other material culture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; especially during Classical Antiquity (ca. BCE 600 – AD 600). Traditionally, the study of Classical literature (Greek and Roman) was the principal study of the humanities.

Etymology

The word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus, meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens."

History of the Western Classics

The first “Classic” writer was Aulus Gellius, a 2nd-century Roman writer who, in the miscellany Noctes Atticae (19, 8, 15), refers to a writer as a Classicus scriptor, non proletarius (“A distinguished, not a commonplace writer”). Such classification began with the Greeks’ ranking their cultural works, with the word canon (“carpenter’s rule”). Moreover, early Christian Church Fathers used canon to rank the authoritative texts of the New Testament, preserving them, given the expense of vellum and papyrus and mechanical book reproduction, thus, being comprehended in a canon ensured a book’s preservation as the best way to retain information about a civilization. Contemporarily, the Western canon defines the best of Western culture. In the ancient world, at the Alexandrian Library, scholars coined the Greek term Hoi enkrithentes (“the admitted”, “the included”) to identify the writers in the canon.

According to Werner Jaeger, the method of study in the Classical World was “Philo’s Rule”: (lit.: "strike the divine coin anew")—the law of strict continuity in preserving words and ideas.^[1] Although the definitions of words and ideas might broaden, continuity (preservation) requires retention of their original arete (excellence, virtue, goodness). “Philo’s Rule” imparts intellectual and aesthetic appreciation of “the best, which has been thought and said in the world”. Oxford classicist Edward Copleston said that classical education “communicates to the mind...a high sense of honour, a disdain of death in a good cause, [and] a passionate devotion to the welfare of one’s country”,^[2] thus concurring with Cicero that: “All literature, all philosophical treatises, all the voices of antiquity are full of examples for imitation, which would all lie unseen in darkness without the light of literature”.^[3]

Legacy of the classical world

The classical languages of the Ancient Mediterranean world influenced every European language, imparting to each a learned vocabulary of international application. Thus, Latin grew from a highly developed cultural product of the Golden and Silver eras of Latin literature to become the international lingua franca in matters diplomatic, scientific, philosophic and religious, until the 17th century. In turn, the classical languages continued, Latin evolved into the Romance languages and Ancient Greek into Modern Greek and its dialects. In the specialised science and technology vocabularies, the influence of Latin and Greek is notable. Ecclesiastical Latin, the Roman Catholic Church’s official tongue, remains a living legacy of the classical world to the contemporarys world.

Sub-disciplines within the classics

One of the most notable characteristics of the modern study of classics is the diversity of the field. Although traditionally focused on ancient Greece and Rome, the study now encompasses the entire ancient Mediterranean world, thus expanding their studies to Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Philology

There is a surviving tradition of Latin philology in Western culture connecting the Roman Empire with the Early Modern period.^[4] The philology of Greek survived in the Byzantine Empire until the fall of Constantinople, and was re-introduced in Western Europe in the Renaissance.

Classical philology was a major preoccupation of the 19th-century German education system, which became "the paradigm for higher education" throughout Western culture.

Although less dominant than it used to be, philology retains a central role in classical studies.^[5]

One definition of classical philology describes it as "the science which concerns itself with everything that has been transmitted from antiquity in the Greek or Latin language. The object of this science is thus the Graeco-Roman, or Classical, world to the extent that it has left behind monuments in a linguistic form."^[6] or alternatively as "the careful study of the literary and philosophical texts of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds."^[7]

Before the invention of the printing press, texts were reproduced by hand and distributed haphazardly. As a result, extant versions of the same text often differ from one another. Some classical philologists, known as textual critics, seek to synthesize these defective texts to find the most accurate version.

Important scholars in classical philology included Eduard Norden, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Franz Boll and Károly Kerényi.

Archaeology

Classical archaeology is the investigation of the physical remains of the great Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The archaeologists’ research make available information that provides a counter or complement to the extant literary and linguistic cultural artifacts explored by philology. Likewise, archaeologists rely upon the philology of ancient literatures in exploring historic and cultural contexts among the classic-era remains of Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

Art history

Some art historians focus their study of the development of art on the classical world. Indeed, the art and architecture of Ancient Rome and Greece is very well regarded and remains at the heart of much of our art today. For example, Ancient Greek architecture gave us the Classical Orders: Doric order, Ionic order, and Corinthian order. The Parthenon is still the architectural symbol of the classical world.

Greek sculpture is well known and we know the names of several Ancient Greek artists: for example, Phidias.

Civilization and history

With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of the history and culture of a civilisation, through critical study of the extant literary and physical artefacts, in order to compose and establish a continual historic narrative of the Ancient World and its peoples. The task is difficult, given the dearth of physical evidence; for example, Sparta was a leading Greek city-state, yet little evidence of it survives to study, and what is available comes from Athens, Sparta’s principal rival; like-wise, the Roman Empire destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the Etruscans.

Philosophy

Pythagoras coined the word philosophy ("love of wisdom"), the work of the "Philosopher" who seeks understanding of the world. Thus, most classics scholars recognize that the roots of Western philosophy originate in Greek philosophy, the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

Classical Greece

Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian leadership successfully repelling the military threat of Persian invasion. The Athenian Golden Age ends with the defeat of Athens at the hands of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.

Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe, for which reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization.

Language in ancient Greece

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic (c. 9th–6th centuries BC), Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine ("common") or Biblical Greek, and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles Classical Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects.

Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in scientific terminology.

Ancient Greek literature

Alfred North Whitehead once claimed that all of philosophy is but a footnote to Plato. To suggest that all of Western literature is no more than a footnote to the writings of ancient Greece is an exaggeration, but it is nevertheless true that the Greek world of thought was so far-ranging that there is scarcely an idea discussed today not already debated by the ancient writers. At the beginning of Greek literature stand the two monumental works of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Greeks invented the epic and lyric forms of tragedy and used them skillfully. They also invented drama and produced masterpieces that are still reckoned as drama's crowning achievement. Like tragedy, comedy arose from a ritual in honor of Dionysus, but in this case the plays were full of frank obscenity, abuse, and insult. At Athens, the comedies became an official part of the festival celebration in 486 BC, and prizes were offered for the best productions.

Two historians flourished during Greece's classical age: Herodotus and Thucydides. Herodotus is commonly called the father of history, and his "History" contains the first truly literary use of prose in Western literature. Of the two, Thucydides was the more careful historian. His critical use of sources, inclusion of documents, and laborious research made his History of the Peloponnesian War a significant influence on later generations of historians. The greatest achievement of the 4th century was in philosophy. There were many Greek philosophers, but three names tower above the rest: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It is impossible to calculate the enormous influence these thinkers have had on Western society .

Greek mythology and religion

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of Ancient Greece, its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.

Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared similarities. Also, the Greek religion extended out of Greece and out to other islands.

Many Greek people recognized the major gods and goddesses: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Demeter, Hestia and Hera though philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to posit a transcendent single deity. Different cities often worshipped the same deities, sometimes with epithets that distinguished them and specified their local nature.

Ancient Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric, and aesthetics.

Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception. Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, to medieval Islamic philosophers, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Technology of ancient Greece

Ancient Greek technology developed at an unprecedented speed during the 5th century BC, continuing up to and including the Roman period, and beyond. Inventions that are credited to the ancient Greeks such as the gear, screw, rotary mills, screw press, bronze casting techniques, water clock, water organ, torsion catapult and the use of steam to operate some experimental machines and toys and a chart to find prime numbers. Many of these inventions occurred late in the Greek period, often inspired by the need to improve weapons and tactics in war. However, peaceful uses are shown by their early development of the watermill, a device which pointed to further exploitation on a large scale under the Romans. They developed surveying and mathematics to an advanced state, and many of their technical advances were published by philosophers such as Archimedes and Hero.

Classical Rome

Classicists

Throughout the history of the Western world, many classicists have gone on to gain acknowledgement outside the field.

• Mary Beard (classicist), Classics lecturer at Cambridge, has presented Classical educational programmes
• George Berkeley, philosopher, read Classics at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was also Junior Lecturer in Greek
• J. K. Rowling, British novelist, best known as the author of the top selling Harry Potter fantasy series. Studied both French and Classics at the University of Exeter.
• John Buchan, writer and politician, who served as Governor General of Canada.
• Anthony Chenevix-Trench taught Classics at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church before becoming headmaster at Bradfield College, Eton (where he substantially reduced the Classics department in the course of modernising the curriculum) and Fettes College.
• Sir James George Frazer, poet and anthropologist
• Edward Gibbon, English historian and Member of Parliament who wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• William Ewart Gladstone, 19th century British Prime Minister, studied classics at Oxford University
• A.E. Housman, best known to the public as a poet and the author of A Shropshire Lad, was the most accomplished (and feared) textual critic of his generation and held the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1911 until his death in 1936.
• J R R Tolkien, British, studied Classics at Oxford for two years before transferring to English
• Boris Johnson, British Conservative politician and current Mayor of London; studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford.
• Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher, theologian, and social critic, studied classical philosophy and received a Master of Arts for a dissertation on Socratic thought, entitled On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. Kierkegaard spent much of his philosophical career studying and refining his views of Socrates.
• T.E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia; British military officer and a key figure in the Arab Revolt 1916-18 read Classics at Jesus College, Oxford. He translated the Odyssey.^[8]
• Karl Marx, philosopher and political thinker, studied Latin and Greek and received a Ph.D. for a dissertation on ancient Greek philosophy, entitled "The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." His classical background is reflected in his philosophies—indeed the term "proletariat" which he used came from the Latin word referring to the lowest class of citizen, without property (the "proletarii").
• John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and English Civil War figure; studied, like many educated people of the time, Latin and Greek texts, which influenced Paradise Lost
• Theodor Mommsen, author of History of Rome and works on Roman law; German politician, delegate in the Reichstag during the German Empire period
• Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher; became Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland at the age of 24. His books on the subject include The Birth of Tragedy and Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks.
• Enoch Powell, British Conservative and later Ulster Unionist politician; wrote and edited texts on Herodotus
• Oscar Wilde, nineteenth-century playwright and poet; studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford
• P.G. Wodehouse, writer, playwright, lyricist and creator of Jeeves; studied classics at Dulwich College
• Tom Hiddleston, British actor
• Annie Machon, former MI5 spy and whistleblower. She studied Classics at Cambridge University.

Most other pre-twentieth century Oxbridge playwrights, poets and English scholars studied classics before English studies became a course in its own right. Also many civil servants, politicians, etc. studied classics at Oxford University, by taking a course in Greats, up till the 1920s, when Modern Greats started to become more influential.

Modern quotations about Classics

• "I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat."
  —Sir Winston Churchill, Roving Commission: My Early Life
• "He studied Latin like the violin, because he liked it."
  —Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man
• "Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument."
  —Thomas Gaisford, Christmas sermon, Christ Church, Oxford.
• "I enquire now as to the genesis of a philologist and assert the following: 1. A young man cannot possibly know what the Greeks and Romans are. 2. He does not know whether he is suited for finding out about them."
  —Friedrich Nietzsche, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen
• "I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment."
  —George Orwell

See also

• Classical tradition
• Outline of classical studies
• Outline of ancient Greece
• Attic Greek
• Ancient Greek religion
• Outline of ancient Rome
• Latin
• Christian views on the classics
• Digital Classicist
• Humanism
• Literae Humaniores
• Loeb Classical Library
• Philology
• Textual scholarship
• Western culture
• Western world

References

• Beard, Mary; Henderson, John. Classics: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995 (paperback, ISBN 0-19-285313-9); 2000 (new edition, paperback, ISBN 0-19-285385-6).
• Briggs, Ward W.; Calder, III, William M. Classical scholarship: A biographical encyclopedia (Garland reference library of the humanities). London: Taylor & Francis, 1990 (ISBN 0-8240-8448-9).
• Forum: Class and Classics:
  • Krevans, Nita. "Class and Classics: A Historical Perspective," The Classical Journal, Vol. 96, No. 3. (2001), p. 293.
  • Moroney, Siobhan. "Latin, Greek and the American Schoolboy: Ancient Languages and Class Determinism in the Early Republic", The Classical Journal, Vol. 96, No. 3. (2001), pp. 295–307.
  • Harrington Becker, Trudy. "Broadening Access to a Classical Education: State Universities in Virginia in the Nineteenth Century", The Classical Journal, Vol. 96, No. 3. (2001), pp. 309–322.
  • Bryce, Jackson. "Teaching the Classics", The Classical Journal, Vol. 96, No. 3. (2001), pp. 323–334.
• Knox, Bernard. The Oldest Dead White European Males, And Other Reflections on the Classics. New York; London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1993.
• Macrone, Michael. Brush Up Your Classics. New York: Gramercy Books, 1991.
• Nagy, Péter Tibor. "The meanings and functions of classical studies in Hungary in the 18th–20th century", in The social and political history of Hungarian education (ISBN 963-200-511-2).
• Pearcy, Lee T. The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005).
• Wellek, René. "Classicism in Literature", in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, ed. by Philip P. Wiener. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968.
• Winterer, Caroline. The Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750–1900. Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0-8014-4163-9).

Dictionaries

• Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists by Ward W. Briggs, Jr. (editor). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994 (hardcover, ISBN 0-313-24560-6).
• Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities) by Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III (editors). New York: Taylor & Francis, 1990 (hardcover, ISBN 0-8240-8448-9).
• Dictionary of British Classicists, 1500–1960. Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004 (ISBN 1-85506-997-0).
• An Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology, edited by Nancy Thomson de Grummond. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996 (hardcover, ISBN 0-313-22066-2; ISBN 0-313-30204-9 (A–K); ISBN 0-313-30205-7 (L–Z)).
• Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, ed. by Harry Thurston Peck. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896; 2nd ed., 1897; New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1965.
• Medwid, Linda M. The Makers of Classical Archaeology: A Reference Work. New York: Humanity Books, 2000 (hardcover, ISBN 1-57392-826-7).
• The New Century Classical Handbook, ed. by Catherine B. Avery. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962.
• The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, revised 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003 (ISBN 0-19-860641-9).
• The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. by M.C. Howatson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Further reading

• Victor Davis Hanson, John Heath, Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom, Encounter Books, 2001

External links

Wikiversity has learning materials about classics at The School of Classics

• The American Philological Association, founded in 1869, is the principal learned society in North America for the study of ancient Greek and Roman languages, literatures, and civilizations
• The Classical Association, the largest classical organization in the UK.
• Institute of Classical Studies, the UK's national centre for the study of the ancient world, based at the University of London
• Institute of Classical Studies Postgraduate Work-in-Progress Seminar official website, the UK's national forum for postgraduate students in classics
• The Center for Hellenic Studies
• Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
• Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
• The American Classical League, the largest classics organization in the US, mainly a Latin, Greek, and Humanities teacher resource center
• The National Junior Classical League, the largest youth-oriented Classics organization in the world, with US and international chapters, and membership for all middle- and high-school students of the Classics
• Classical Resources on Internet at the Department of Classical Philology, University of Tartu.
• De Imperatoribus Romanis: An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors
• Electronic Resources for Classicists by the University of California, Irvine.
• Illustrated History of the Roman Empire
• The Online Medieval and Classical Library
• NOSTOI Journal of Classical Humanism. An aggregation of classical topics, articles and news.
• The Perseus Digital Library
• The Alpheios Project
• The Centre for the Promotion of Classics in Schools, Eye, Suffolk

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