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Classics

Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics also includes Greco-Roman philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, art, mythology and society as secondary subjects.

Homer, the legendary Greek author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Cicero, the Roman statesman considered the master of Latin prose.
Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and polymath who shaped Western science for centuries.
Virgil, usually considered the greatest Roman poet.

In Western civilization, the study of the Greek and Roman classics was traditionally considered to be the foundation of the humanities, and has, therefore, traditionally been the cornerstone of a typical elite European education.

Etymology

The word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus, meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens." The word was originally used to describe the members of the Patricians, the highest class in ancient Rome. By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality.[1] For example, Aulus Gellius, in his Attic Nights, contrasts "classicus" and "proletarius" writers.[2] By the 6th century AD, the word had acquired a second meaning, referring to pupils at a school.[1] Thus, the two modern meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality, and to the standard texts used as part of a curriculum, both derive from Roman use.[1]

History

Middle Ages

 
The Roman poet Catullus was virtually unknown during the medieval period, in contrast to his modern popularity.

In the Middle Ages, classics and education were tightly intertwined; according to Jan Ziolkowski, there is no era in history in which the link was tighter.[3] Medieval education taught students to imitate earlier classical models,[4] and Latin continued to be the language of scholarship and culture, despite the increasing difference between literary Latin and the vernacular languages of Europe during the period.[4]

While Latin was hugely influential, according to thirteenth-century English philosopher Roger Bacon, "there are not four men in Latin Christendom who are acquainted with the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic grammars."[5] Greek was rarely studied in the West, and Greek literature was known almost solely in Latin translation.[6] The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod, whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, along with most of Plato, were unavailable in Christian Europe.[6] Some were rediscovered through Arabic translations; a School of Translators was set up in the border city of Toledo, Spain, to translate from Arabic into Latin.

Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were other differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus, for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period.[6] The popularity of different authors also waxed and waned throughout the period: Lucretius, popular during the Carolingian period, was barely read in the twelfth century, while for Quintilian the reverse is true.[6]

Renaissance

The Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history,[7] as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin.[8] From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism, an intellectual movement that "advocated the study and imitation of classical antiquity",[7] developed. Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe.[8] This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems.[9] This humanist educational reform spread from Italy, in Catholic countries as it was adopted by the Jesuits, and in countries that became Protestant such as England, Germany, and the Low Countries, in order to ensure that future clerics were able to study the New Testament in the original language.[10]

Neoclassicism

The late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models.[11] Classical models were so highly prized that the plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines, and these "improved" versions were performed throughout the 18th century.[12] In the United States, the nation's Founders were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government.[13]

From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin.[14] In this period Johann Winckelmann's claims for the superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G.E. Lessing "returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement".[15] In the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School.[16] In the United States, philhellenism began to emerge in the 1830s, with a turn "from a love of Rome and a focus on classical grammar to a new focus on Greece and the totality of its society, art, and culture."[17].

19th century

The 19th century saw the influence of the classical world, and the value of a classical education, decline,[18] especially in the United States, where the subject was often criticised for its elitism.[19] By the 19th century, little new literature was still being written in Latin – a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century – and a command of Latin declined in importance.[10] Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin.[14] In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere. Composition continued to be the dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s, when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity.[20] In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years.[21]

Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and North America was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period. Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and scientific, especially with the "new philology" created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.[22] Its scope was also broadening: it was during the 19th century that ancient history and classical archaeology began to be seen as part of classics, rather than separate disciplines.[20]

20th century to present

During the 20th century, the study of classics became less common. In England, for instance, Oxford and Cambridge universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920,[21] and in Latin at the end of the 1950s.[23] When the National Curriculum was introduced in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1988, it did not mention the classics.[23] By 2003, only about 10% of state schools in Britain offered any classical subjects to their students at all.[24] In 2016, AQA, the largest exam board for A-Levels and GCSEs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, announced that it would be scrapping A-Level subjects in Classical Civilisation, Archaeology, and Art History.[25] This left just one out of five exam boards in England which still offered Classical Civilisation as a subject. The decision was immediately denounced by archaeologists and historians, with Natalie Haynes of the Guardian stating that the loss of the A-Level would deprive state school students, 93% of all students, the opportunity to study classics while making it once again the exclusive purview of wealthy private-school students.[26]

However, the study of classics has not declined as fast elsewhere in Europe. In 2009, a review of Meeting the Challenge, a collection of conference papers about the teaching of Latin in Europe, noted that though there is opposition to the teaching of Latin in Italy, it is nonetheless still compulsory in most secondary schools.[27] The same can be said in the case of France or Greece, too. Indeed, Ancient Greek is one of the compulsory subjects in Greek secondary education, whereas in France, Latin is one of the optional subjects that can be chosen in a majority of middle schools and high schools. Ancient Greek is also still being taught, but not as much as Latin.

Sub-disciplines

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 the studies to Northern Africa as well as parts of the Middle East.[28]

Philology

 
The eighteenth-century classicist Friedrich August Wolf was the author of Prolegomena to Homer, one of the first great works of classical philology.

Philology is the study of language preserved in written sources; classical philology is thus concerned with understanding any texts from the classical period written in the classical languages of Latin and Greek.[29] The roots of classical philology lie in the Renaissance, as humanist intellectuals attempted to return to the Latin of the classical period, especially of Cicero,[30] and as scholars attempted to produce more accurate editions of ancient texts.[31] Some of the principles of philology still used today were developed during this period, for instance, the observation that if a manuscript could be shown to be a copy of an earlier extant manuscript, then it provides no further evidence of the original text, was made as early as 1489 by Angelo Poliziano.[32] Other philological tools took longer to be developed: the first statement, for instance, of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one, was in 1697 by Jean Le Clerc.[33]

The modern discipline of classical philology began in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century.[22] It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole,[34] in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate.[35] This "new philology", as it was known, centered around the construction of a genealogy of manuscripts, with which a hypothetical common ancestor, closer to the original text than any existing manuscript, could be reconstructed.[36]

Archaeology

 
Schliemann and Dörpfeld's excavation at Mycenae was one of the earliest excavations in the field of classical archaeology.

Classical archaeology is the oldest branch of archaeology,[37] with its roots going back to J.J. Winckelmann's work on Herculaneum in the 1760s.[38] It was not until the last decades of the 19th century, however, that classical archaeology became part of the tradition of Western classical scholarship.[38] It was included as part of Cambridge University's Classical Tripos for the first time after the reforms of the 1880s, though it did not become part of Oxford's Greats until much later.[21]

The second half of the 19th century saw Schliemann's excavations of Troy and Mycenae; the first excavations at Olympia and Delos; and Arthur Evans' work in Crete, particularly on Knossos.[39] This period also saw the foundation of important archaeological associations (e.g. the Archaeological Institute of America in 1879),[40] including many foreign archaeological institutes in Athens and Rome (the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1881, British School at Athens in 1886, American Academy in Rome in 1895, and British School at Rome in 1900).[41]

More recently, classical archaeology has taken little part in the theoretical changes in the rest of the discipline,[42] largely ignoring the popularity of "New Archaeology", which emphasized the development of general laws derived from studying material culture, in the 1960s.[43] New Archaeology is still criticized by traditional minded scholars of classical archaeology despite a wide acceptance of its basic techniques.[44]

Art history

Some art historians focus their study on the development of art in 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, Ionic, and Corinthian. 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.

Ancient history

With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of the history and culture of a civilization, 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 due to a 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; likewise, the Roman Empire destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the Etruscans.

Philosophy

The English word "philosophy" comes from the Greek word φιλοσοφία, meaning "love of wisdom", probably coined by Pythagoras. Along with the word itself, the discipline of philosophy as we know it today has its roots in ancient Greek thought, and according to Martin West "philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation".[45] Ancient philosophy was traditionally divided into three branches: logic, physics, and ethics.[46] However, not all of the works of ancient philosophers fit neatly into one of these three branches. For instance, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics have been traditionally classified in the West as "ethics", but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic; in reality, they do not fit neatly into either category.[46]

From the last decade of the eighteenth century, scholars of ancient philosophy began to study the discipline historically.[47] Previously, works on ancient philosophy had been unconcerned with chronological sequence and with reconstructing the reasoning of ancient thinkers; with what Wolfgang-Ranier Mann calls "New Philosophy", this changed.[48]

Reception studies

Another discipline within the classics is "reception studies",[49] which developed in the 1960s at the University of Konstanz.[50] Reception studies is concerned with how students of classical texts have understood and interpreted them.[50] As such, reception studies is interested in a two-way interaction between reader and text,[51] taking place within a historical context.[52]

Though the idea of an "aesthetics of reception" was first put forward by Hans Robert Jauss in 1967, the principles of reception theory go back much earlier than this.[51] As early as 1920, T. S. Eliot wrote that "the past [is] altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past";[53] Charles Martindale describes this as a "cardinal principle" for many versions of modern reception theory.[51]

Classical Greece

Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period, beginning in the eighth century BC, to the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC. The Classical period, during the fifth and fourth centuries BC, has traditionally been considered the height of Greek civilisation.[54] The Classical period of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with the first and second Persian invasions of Greece at the start of the Greco-Persian wars,[55] and to have ended with the death of Alexander the Great.

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; thus Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization.

Language

 
Map showing the regional dialects of Greek during the Classical period

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic (c. 8th to 6th centuries BC), Classical (c. 5th to 4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC to 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 classical 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 the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, 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 other scientific terminology.

Literature

The earliest surviving works of Greek literature are epic poetry. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are the earliest to survive to us today, probably composed in the eighth century BC.[56] These early epics were oral compositions, created without the use of writing.[57] Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC.[58]

European drama was invented in ancient Greece. Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis, around the middle of the sixth century BC,[59] though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus' tragedy The Persians, which dates to 472 BC.[60] Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors, but by the end of Aeschylus' life, a third actor had been introduced, either by him or by Sophocles.[60] The last surviving Greek tragedies are the Bacchae of Euripides and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, both from the end of the fifth century BC.[61]

Surviving Greek comedy begins later than tragedy; the earliest surviving work, Aristophanes' Acharnians, comes from 425 BC.[62] However, comedy dates back as early as 486 BC, when the Dionysia added a competition for comedy to the much earlier competition for tragedy.[62] The comedy of the fifth century is known as Old Comedy, and it comes down to us solely in the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, along with a few fragments.[62] Sixty years after the end of Aristophanes' career, the next author of comedies to have any substantial body of work survive is Menander, whose style is known as New Comedy.[63]

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. These have had a profound influence on Western society.

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 and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.

Greek religion encompassed 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 neighbouring 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.

Philosophy

 
So influential was Socrates to classical philosophy that earlier philosophers are today known as pre-Socratics.

The earliest surviving philosophy from ancient Greece dates back to the 6th century BC, when according to Aristotle Thales of Miletus was considered to have been the first Greek philosopher.[64] Other influential pre-Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras and Heraclitus. The most famous and significant figures in classical Athenian philosophy, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BC, are Socrates, his student Plato, and Aristotle, who studied at Plato's Academy before founding his own school, known as the Lyceum. Later Greek schools of philosophy, including the Cynics, Stoics, and Epicureans, continued to be influential after the Roman annexation of Greece, and into the post-Classical world.

Greek philosophy dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, and logic, as well as disciplines which are not today thought of as part of philosophy, such as biology and rhetoric.

Classical Rome

Language

 
The Praeneste fibula is believed to bear the oldest known Latin inscription. The inscription means "Manius made me for Numerius".

The language of ancient Rome was Latin, a member of the Italic family of languages. The earliest surviving inscription in Latin comes from the 7th century BC, on a brooch from Palestrina. Latin from between this point and the early 1st century BC is known as Old Latin. Most surviving Latin literature is Classical Latin, from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. Latin then evolved into Late Latin, in use during the late antique period. Late Latin survived long after the end of classical antiquity, and was finally replaced by written Romance languages around the 9th century AD. Along with literary forms of Latin, there existed various vernacular dialects, generally known as Vulgar Latin, in use throughout antiquity. These are mainly preserved in sources such as graffiti and the Vindolanda tablets.

Literature

Latin literature seems to have started in 240 BC, when a Roman audience saw a play adapted from the Greek by Livius Andronicus. Andronicus also translated Homer's Odyssey into an Saturnian verse. The poets Ennius, Accius, and Patruvius followed. Their work survives only in fragments; the earliest Latin authors whose work we have full examples of are the playwrights Plautus and Terence. Much of the best known and most highly thought of Latin literature comes from the classical period, with poets such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid; historians such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus; orators such as Cicero; and philosophers such as Seneca the Younger and Lucretius. Late Latin authors include many Christian writers such as Lactantius, Tertullian and Ambrose; non-Christian authors, such as the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, are also preserved.

History

According to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC;[65] in reality, there had been a settlement on the site since around 1000 BC, when the Palatine Hill was settled.[66] The city was originally ruled by kings, first Roman, and then Etruscan – according to Roman tradition, the first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, ruled from 616 BC.[67] Over the course of the 6th century BC, the city expanded its influence over the entirety of Latium.[68] Around the end of the 6th century – traditionally in 510 BC – the kings of Rome were driven out, and the city became a republic.[69]

Around 387 BC, Rome was sacked by the Gauls following the Battle of the Allia.[70] It soon recovered from this humiliating defeat, however, and in 381 the inhabitants of Tusculum in Latium were made Roman citizens. This was the first time Roman citizenship was extended in this way.[71] Rome went on to expand its area of influence, until by 269 the entirety of the Italian peninsula was under Roman rule.[72] Soon afterwards, in 264, the First Punic War began; it lasted until 241.[73] The Second Punic War began in 218, and by the end of that year, the Carthaginian general Hannibal had invaded Italy.[74] The war saw Rome's worst defeat to that point at Cannae; the largest army Rome had yet put into the field was wiped out, and one of the two consuls leading it was killed.[75] However, Rome continued to fight, annexing much of Spain[76] and eventually defeating Carthage, ending her position as a major power and securing Roman preeminence in the Western Mediterranean.[77]

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. Long before this, Latin had 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 language, remains a living legacy of the classical world in the contemporary world.

Latin had an impact far beyond the classical world. It continued to be the pre-eminent language for serious writings in Europe long after the fall of the Roman empire.[78] The modern Romance languages (Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish) all derive from Latin.[79] Latin is still seen as a foundational aspect of European culture.[80]

The legacy of the classical world is not confined to the influence of classical languages. The Roman empire was taken as a model by later European empires, such as the Spanish and British empires.[81] Classical art has been taken as a model in later periods – medieval Romanesque architecture[82] and Enlightenment-era neoclassical literature[11] were both influenced by classical models, to take but two examples, while James Joyce's Ulysses is one of the most influential works of twentieth-century literature.[83]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c Ziolkowski 2007, p. 17
  2. ^ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 19.8.15.
  3. ^ Ziolkowski 2007, p. 19
  4. ^ a b Ziolkowski 2007, p. 21
  5. ^ Sandys 1921, p. 591
  6. ^ a b c d Ziolkowski 2007, p. 22
  7. ^ a b Kristeller 1978, p. 586
  8. ^ a b Kristeller 1978, p. 587
  9. ^ Pade, M. (2007). The Reception of Plutarch's Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum
  10. ^ a b Kristeller 1978, p. 590
  11. ^ a b Kaminski 2007, p. 57
  12. ^ Kaminski 2007, p. 65
  13. ^ Mortimer N.S. Sellers, Founding Fathers in America in The Classical Tradition p.367, 368 (Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, & Salvatore Settis, eds. 2010).
  14. ^ a b Kristeller 1978, p. 591
  15. ^ Kaminski 2007, p. 69
  16. ^ Stray 1996, p. 79
  17. ^ Caroline Winterer, The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Cultural Life, 1780-1910, pp.3-4 (2002)
  18. ^ Becker 2001, p. 309
  19. ^ Becker 2001, p. 313. Educator Benjamin Rush, for instance, deemed the classics to be "remnants of an aristocratic education unsuited to a republican nation and an industrial economy." Margaret Nash, Women's Education in the United States, 1780-1840, p.218, note 110 (2005).
  20. ^ a b Stray 1996, p. 81
  21. ^ a b c Stray 1996, p. 83
  22. ^ a b Rommel 2001, p. 169
  23. ^ a b Stray 1996, p. 85
  24. ^ Cook 2003
  25. ^ Sally Weale (2016-10-17). "Scrapping of archaeology and classics A-levels criticized as 'barbaric act'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-02.
  26. ^ Natalie Haynes (2016-10-19). "Ditching classics at A-level is little short of a tragedy". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-02.
  27. ^ Balbo 2009
  28. ^ Goldman, Max L.; Kennedy, Rebecca Futo (2021-06-15). "The Study of Classics Is Changing". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2021-10-02. One possible solution to both of these issues (already enacted on a number of campuses) involves a move to ancient Mediterranean studies, where the Greek and Latin languages and literatures are only one track into and out of graduate schools, and where Greek and Roman cultures are contextualized alongside other cultures in ancient Africa, West/Central Asia and the Levant.
  29. ^ Mackay 1997
  30. ^ Shorey 1906, p. 179
  31. ^ Mann 1996, p. 172
  32. ^ Mann 1996, pp. 173–74
  33. ^ Mann 1996, p. 174
  34. ^ Mann 1996, pp. 174–75
  35. ^ Mann 1996, p. 173
  36. ^ Mann 1996, p. 175
  37. ^ Dyson 1993, p. 205
  38. ^ a b Renfrew 1980, p. 288
  39. ^ Renfrew 1980, p. 287
  40. ^ Stray 2010, p. 5
  41. ^ Stray 2010, pp. 4–5
  42. ^ Dyson 1993, p. 204
  43. ^ Dyson 1993, p. 196
  44. ^ Darvil, Timothy (January 2009). "New Archaeology". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (2 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199534043. Retrieved 2016-07-16 – via Oxford Reference.
  45. ^ West 2001, p. 140
  46. ^ a b Mann 1996, p. 178
  47. ^ Mann 1996, p. 180
  48. ^ Mann 1996, pp. 180–81
  49. ^ Bulwer 2005, p. 13
  50. ^ a b Kallendorf 2007, p. 2
  51. ^ a b c Martindale 2007, p. 298
  52. ^ Martindale 2007, p. 301
  53. ^ Eliot 1920, p. 45
  54. ^ Shapiro 2007, p. 3
  55. ^ Shapiro 2007, p. 2
  56. ^ Kirk 1985, p. 47
  57. ^ Kirk 1985, p. 43
  58. ^ Kirk 1985, p. 45
  59. ^ Winnington-Ingram et al. 1985, p. 259
  60. ^ a b Winnington-Ingram et al. 1985, p. 258
  61. ^ Winnington-Ingram et al. 1985, pp. 339–40
  62. ^ a b c Handley 1985, p. 355
  63. ^ Handley 1985, p. 356
  64. ^ Aristotle, Metaphysics Alpha, 983b18.
  65. ^ Grant 1978, p. 11
  66. ^ Grant 1978, p. 10
  67. ^ Grant 1978, pp. 21–22
  68. ^ Grant 1978, p. 28
  69. ^ Grant 1978, p. 31
  70. ^ Grant 1978, p. 44
  71. ^ Grant 1978, p. 46
  72. ^ Grant 1978, p. 79
  73. ^ Grant 1978, pp. 83–85
  74. ^ Grant 1978, pp. 98–99
  75. ^ Grant 1978, p. 101
  76. ^ Grant 1978, p. 104
  77. ^ Grant 1978, p. 106
  78. ^ Ostler 2009, pp. xi–xii
  79. ^ Ostler 2009, p. 161
  80. ^ Ostler 2009, p. xiii
  81. ^ Ostler 2009, p. xii
  82. ^ Ziolkowski 2007, p. 26
  83. ^ Martindale 2007, p. 310

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  • Mackay, Christopher (1997). "Philology".
  • Mann, Wolfgang-Ranier (1996). "The Modern Historiography of Ancient Philosophy". History and Theory. 35 (2): 165–195. doi:10.2307/2505360. JSTOR 2505360.
  • Martindale, Charles (2007). "Reception". In Kallendorf, Craig W. (ed.). A Companion to the Classical Tradition. Malden, Massachusetts; Oxford, England; Carlton, Victoria: Blackwell.
  • Ostler, Nicholas (2009). Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin and the World it Created. London, England: HarperPress.
  • Renfrew, Colin (1980). "The Great Tradition versus the Great Divide: Archaeology as Anthropology". American Journal of Archaeology. 84 (3): 287–298. doi:10.2307/504703. JSTOR 504703. S2CID 162343789.
  • Rommel, Georg (2001). "The Cradle of Titans: Classical Philology in Greifswald and its History from 1820". Illinois Classical Studies. 26.
  • Sandys, Sir John Edwin (1921). A History of Classical Scholarship; Volume One: From the Sixth Century B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages (3rd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 591. ISBN 978-1-108-02706-9.
  • Shapiro, H. A. (2007). "Introduction". In Shapiro, H. A. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  • Shorey, Paul (1906). "Philology and Classical Philology". The Classical Journal. 1 (6).
  • Stray, Christopher (1996). "Culture and Discipline: Classics and Society in Victorian England". International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 3 (1): 77–85. doi:10.1007/BF02676905. S2CID 144110386.
  • Stray, Christopher (2010). "'Patriots and Professors': A Century of Roman Studies". Journal of Roman Studies. doi:10.1017/s0075435810000018. S2CID 162987340.
  • Trivedi, Harish (2007). "Western Classics, Indian Classics: Postcolonial Contestations". In Hardwick, Lorna; Gillespie, Carol (eds.). Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
  • West, Martin (2001). "Early Greek Philosophy". In Boardman, John; Griffin, Jasper; Murray, Oswyn (eds.). The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
  • Winnington-Ingram, R. P.; Gould, John; Easterling, P. E.; Knox, Bernard M. W. (1985). "Tragedy". In Easterling, P. E.; Knox, Bernard M. W. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. 1. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  • Ziolkowski, Jan M. (2007). "Middle Ages". In Kallendorf, Craig W. (ed.). A Companion to the Classical Tradition. Malden, Massachusetts; Oxford, England; Carlton, Victoria: Blackwell.

Further reading

General
  • Beard, Mary; Henderson, John (2000). Classics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192853851.
  • Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Anthony, eds. (2012). Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199545568.
  • Abrantes, Miguel C. (2019). Sources of Classical Literature: Briefly presenting over 1000 works. ISBN 9781689096805.
Art and archaeology
History, Greek
  • Shipley, Graham (2000). The Greek World After Alexander 323–30 BC. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415046183.
  • Osborne, Robin (2009). Greece in the Making 1200–479 BC (2 ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415469920.
  • Hornblower, Simon (2011). The Greek World 479–323 BC (4 ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415602921.
History, Roman
Literature
  • Whitmarsh, Tim (2004). Ancient Greek Literature. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9780745627915.
Philology
  • Chadwick, John (2014). The Decipherment of Linear B (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107691766.
Philosophy
  • Irwin, Terence (1988). Classical Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192891778.
  • Annas, Julia (2000). Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192853578.
  • Shields, Christopher (2012). Ancient Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (2 ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415896603.

External links

classics, this, article, about, academic, discipline, other, uses, disambiguation, classical, literature, redirects, here, literature, from, ancient, world, general, ancient, literature, exemplary, noteworthy, books, classic, book, classicist, redirects, here,. This article is about the academic discipline For other uses see Classics disambiguation Classical literature redirects here For literature from the ancient world in general see Ancient literature For exemplary or noteworthy books see Classic book Classicist redirects here For the art movement see Classicism This article includes a list of general references but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations February 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity In the Western world classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages Ancient Greek and Latin Classics also includes Greco Roman philosophy history archaeology anthropology art mythology and society as secondary subjects Homer the legendary Greek author of the Iliad and the Odyssey Cicero the Roman statesman considered the master of Latin prose Aristotle the Greek philosopher and polymath who shaped Western science for centuries Virgil usually considered the greatest Roman poet In Western civilization the study of the Greek and Roman classics was traditionally considered to be the foundation of the humanities and has therefore traditionally been the cornerstone of a typical elite European education Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2 1 Middle Ages 2 2 Renaissance 2 3 Neoclassicism 2 4 19th century 2 5 20th century to present 3 Sub disciplines 3 1 Philology 3 2 Archaeology 3 3 Art history 3 4 Ancient history 3 5 Philosophy 3 6 Reception studies 4 Classical Greece 4 1 Language 4 2 Literature 4 3 Mythology and religion 4 4 Philosophy 5 Classical Rome 5 1 Language 5 2 Literature 5 3 History 6 Legacy of the classical world 7 See also 8 References 8 1 Citations 8 2 Sources 9 Further reading 10 External linksEtymology EditThe word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus meaning belonging to the highest class of citizens The word was originally used to describe the members of the Patricians the highest class in ancient Rome By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality 1 For example Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights contrasts classicus and proletarius writers 2 By the 6th century AD the word had acquired a second meaning referring to pupils at a school 1 Thus the two modern meanings of the word referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality and to the standard texts used as part of a curriculum both derive from Roman use 1 History EditMiddle Ages Edit The Roman poet Catullus was virtually unknown during the medieval period in contrast to his modern popularity In the Middle Ages classics and education were tightly intertwined according to Jan Ziolkowski there is no era in history in which the link was tighter 3 Medieval education taught students to imitate earlier classical models 4 and Latin continued to be the language of scholarship and culture despite the increasing difference between literary Latin and the vernacular languages of Europe during the period 4 While Latin was hugely influential according to thirteenth century English philosopher Roger Bacon there are not four men in Latin Christendom who are acquainted with the Greek Hebrew and Arabic grammars 5 Greek was rarely studied in the West and Greek literature was known almost solely in Latin translation 6 The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans along with most of Plato were unavailable in Christian Europe 6 Some were rediscovered through Arabic translations a School of Translators was set up in the border city of Toledo Spain to translate from Arabic into Latin Along with the unavailability of Greek authors there were other differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages Catullus for instance was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period 6 The popularity of different authors also waxed and waned throughout the period Lucretius popular during the Carolingian period was barely read in the twelfth century while for Quintilian the reverse is true 6 Renaissance Edit The Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history 7 as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin 8 From the 14th century first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe Renaissance Humanism an intellectual movement that advocated the study and imitation of classical antiquity 7 developed Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe 8 This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch 1304 1374 and Boccaccio 1313 1375 who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems 9 This humanist educational reform spread from Italy in Catholic countries as it was adopted by the Jesuits and in countries that became Protestant such as England Germany and the Low Countries in order to ensure that future clerics were able to study the New Testament in the original language 10 Neoclassicism Edit The late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition as writers consciously adapted classical models 11 Classical models were so highly prized that the plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines and these improved versions were performed throughout the 18th century 12 In the United States the nation s Founders were strongly influenced by the classics and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government 13 From the beginning of the 18th century the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin 14 In this period Johann Winckelmann s claims for the superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements while in the literary sphere G E Lessing returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement 15 In the United Kingdom the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School 16 In the United States philhellenism began to emerge in the 1830s with a turn from a love of Rome and a focus on classical grammar to a new focus on Greece and the totality of its society art and culture 17 19th century Edit The 19th century saw the influence of the classical world and the value of a classical education decline 18 especially in the United States where the subject was often criticised for its elitism 19 By the 19th century little new literature was still being written in Latin a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century and a command of Latin declined in importance 10 Correspondingly classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin 14 In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere Composition continued to be the dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity 20 In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years 21 Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and North America was in decline in the 19th century the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and scientific especially with the new philology created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century 22 Its scope was also broadening it was during the 19th century that ancient history and classical archaeology began to be seen as part of classics rather than separate disciplines 20 20th century to present Edit During the 20th century the study of classics became less common In England for instance Oxford and Cambridge universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920 21 and in Latin at the end of the 1950s 23 When the National Curriculum was introduced in England Wales and Northern Ireland in 1988 it did not mention the classics 23 By 2003 only about 10 of state schools in Britain offered any classical subjects to their students at all 24 In 2016 AQA the largest exam board for A Levels and GCSEs in England Wales and Northern Ireland announced that it would be scrapping A Level subjects in Classical Civilisation Archaeology and Art History 25 This left just one out of five exam boards in England which still offered Classical Civilisation as a subject The decision was immediately denounced by archaeologists and historians with Natalie Haynes of the Guardian stating that the loss of the A Level would deprive state school students 93 of all students the opportunity to study classics while making it once again the exclusive purview of wealthy private school students 26 However the study of classics has not declined as fast elsewhere in Europe In 2009 a review of Meeting the Challenge a collection of conference papers about the teaching of Latin in Europe noted that though there is opposition to the teaching of Latin in Italy it is nonetheless still compulsory in most secondary schools 27 The same can be said in the case of France or Greece too Indeed Ancient Greek is one of the compulsory subjects in Greek secondary education whereas in France Latin is one of the optional subjects that can be chosen in a majority of middle schools and high schools Ancient Greek is also still being taught but not as much as Latin Sub disciplines EditOne 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 the studies to Northern Africa as well as parts of the Middle East 28 Philology Edit Further information Philology For the journal see Classical Philology journal The eighteenth century classicist Friedrich August Wolf was the author of Prolegomena to Homer one of the first great works of classical philology Philology is the study of language preserved in written sources classical philology is thus concerned with understanding any texts from the classical period written in the classical languages of Latin and Greek 29 The roots of classical philology lie in the Renaissance as humanist intellectuals attempted to return to the Latin of the classical period especially of Cicero 30 and as scholars attempted to produce more accurate editions of ancient texts 31 Some of the principles of philology still used today were developed during this period for instance the observation that if a manuscript could be shown to be a copy of an earlier extant manuscript then it provides no further evidence of the original text was made as early as 1489 by Angelo Poliziano 32 Other philological tools took longer to be developed the first statement for instance of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one was in 1697 by Jean Le Clerc 33 The modern discipline of classical philology began in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century 22 It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole 34 in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate 35 This new philology as it was known centered around the construction of a genealogy of manuscripts with which a hypothetical common ancestor closer to the original text than any existing manuscript could be reconstructed 36 Archaeology Edit Main article Classical archaeology Schliemann and Dorpfeld s excavation at Mycenae was one of the earliest excavations in the field of classical archaeology Classical archaeology is the oldest branch of archaeology 37 with its roots going back to J J Winckelmann s work on Herculaneum in the 1760s 38 It was not until the last decades of the 19th century however that classical archaeology became part of the tradition of Western classical scholarship 38 It was included as part of Cambridge University s Classical Tripos for the first time after the reforms of the 1880s though it did not become part of Oxford s Greats until much later 21 The second half of the 19th century saw Schliemann s excavations of Troy and Mycenae the first excavations at Olympia and Delos and Arthur Evans work in Crete particularly on Knossos 39 This period also saw the foundation of important archaeological associations e g the Archaeological Institute of America in 1879 40 including many foreign archaeological institutes in Athens and Rome the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1881 British School at Athens in 1886 American Academy in Rome in 1895 and British School at Rome in 1900 41 More recently classical archaeology has taken little part in the theoretical changes in the rest of the discipline 42 largely ignoring the popularity of New Archaeology which emphasized the development of general laws derived from studying material culture in the 1960s 43 New Archaeology is still criticized by traditional minded scholars of classical archaeology despite a wide acceptance of its basic techniques 44 Art history Edit Main article Art history Some art historians focus their study on the development of art in 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 Ionic and Corinthian 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 Ancient history Edit With philology archaeology and art history scholars seek understanding of the history and culture of a civilization 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 due to a 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 likewise the Roman Empire destroyed most evidence cultural artefacts of earlier conquered civilizations such as that of the Etruscans Philosophy Edit Main article Ancient philosophy The English word philosophy comes from the Greek word filosofia meaning love of wisdom probably coined by Pythagoras Along with the word itself the discipline of philosophy as we know it today has its roots in ancient Greek thought and according to Martin West philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation 45 Ancient philosophy was traditionally divided into three branches logic physics and ethics 46 However not all of the works of ancient philosophers fit neatly into one of these three branches For instance Aristotle s Rhetoric and Poetics have been traditionally classified in the West as ethics but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic in reality they do not fit neatly into either category 46 From the last decade of the eighteenth century scholars of ancient philosophy began to study the discipline historically 47 Previously works on ancient philosophy had been unconcerned with chronological sequence and with reconstructing the reasoning of ancient thinkers with what Wolfgang Ranier Mann calls New Philosophy this changed 48 Reception studies Edit Main article Classical reception studies Another discipline within the classics is reception studies 49 which developed in the 1960s at the University of Konstanz 50 Reception studies is concerned with how students of classical texts have understood and interpreted them 50 As such reception studies is interested in a two way interaction between reader and text 51 taking place within a historical context 52 Though the idea of an aesthetics of reception was first put forward by Hans Robert Jauss in 1967 the principles of reception theory go back much earlier than this 51 As early as 1920 T S Eliot wrote that the past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past 53 Charles Martindale describes this as a cardinal principle for many versions of modern reception theory 51 Classical Greece EditMain articles Ancient Greece Outline of ancient Greece and Timeline of ancient Greece Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period beginning in the eighth century BC to the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC The Classical period during the fifth and fourth centuries BC has traditionally been considered the height of Greek civilisation 54 The Classical period of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with the first and second Persian invasions of Greece at the start of the Greco Persian wars 55 and to have ended with the death of Alexander the Great 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 thus Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization Language Edit Map showing the regional dialects of Greek during the Classical period Main articles Ancient Greek Mycenaean Greek language and Koine Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic c 8th to 6th centuries BC Classical c 5th to 4th centuries BC and Hellenistic c 3rd century BC to 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 classical 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 the vocabulary of English and many other European languages 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 other scientific terminology Literature Edit Main article Ancient Greek literature The earliest surviving works of Greek literature are epic poetry Homer s Iliad and Odyssey are the earliest to survive to us today probably composed in the eighth century BC 56 These early epics were oral compositions created without the use of writing 57 Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed the Greek alphabet was introduced the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC 58 European drama was invented in ancient Greece Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis around the middle of the sixth century BC 59 though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus tragedy The Persians which dates to 472 BC 60 Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors but by the end of Aeschylus life a third actor had been introduced either by him or by Sophocles 60 The last surviving Greek tragedies are the Bacchae of Euripides and Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus both from the end of the fifth century BC 61 Surviving Greek comedy begins later than tragedy the earliest surviving work Aristophanes Acharnians comes from 425 BC 62 However comedy dates back as early as 486 BC when the Dionysia added a competition for comedy to the much earlier competition for tragedy 62 The comedy of the fifth century is known as Old Comedy and it comes down to us solely in the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes along with a few fragments 62 Sixty years after the end of Aristophanes career the next author of comedies to have any substantial body of work survive is Menander whose style is known as New Comedy 63 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 These have had a profound influence on Western society Mythology and religion Edit Main articles Greek mythology and Religion in Ancient Greece 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 and its civilization and to gain understanding of the nature of myth making itself Greek religion encompassed 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 neighbouring 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 Philosophy Edit Main article Ancient Greek philosophy So influential was Socrates to classical philosophy that earlier philosophers are today known as pre Socratics The earliest surviving philosophy from ancient Greece dates back to the 6th century BC when according to Aristotle Thales of Miletus was considered to have been the first Greek philosopher 64 Other influential pre Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras and Heraclitus The most famous and significant figures in classical Athenian philosophy from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BC are Socrates his student Plato and Aristotle who studied at Plato s Academy before founding his own school known as the Lyceum Later Greek schools of philosophy including the Cynics Stoics and Epicureans continued to be influential after the Roman annexation of Greece and into the post Classical world Greek philosophy dealt with a wide variety of subjects including political philosophy ethics metaphysics ontology and logic as well as disciplines which are not today thought of as part of philosophy such as biology and rhetoric Classical Rome EditMain articles Ancient Rome and Culture of Ancient Rome Language Edit Main article Latin The Praeneste fibula is believed to bear the oldest known Latin inscription The inscription means Manius made me for Numerius The language of ancient Rome was Latin a member of the Italic family of languages The earliest surviving inscription in Latin comes from the 7th century BC on a brooch from Palestrina Latin from between this point and the early 1st century BC is known as Old Latin Most surviving Latin literature is Classical Latin from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD Latin then evolved into Late Latin in use during the late antique period Late Latin survived long after the end of classical antiquity and was finally replaced by written Romance languages around the 9th century AD Along with literary forms of Latin there existed various vernacular dialects generally known as Vulgar Latin in use throughout antiquity These are mainly preserved in sources such as graffiti and the Vindolanda tablets Literature Edit Main article Latin literature Latin literature seems to have started in 240 BC when a Roman audience saw a play adapted from the Greek by Livius Andronicus Andronicus also translated Homer s Odyssey into an Saturnian verse The poets Ennius Accius and Patruvius followed Their work survives only in fragments the earliest Latin authors whose work we have full examples of are the playwrights Plautus and Terence Much of the best known and most highly thought of Latin literature comes from the classical period with poets such as Virgil Horace and Ovid historians such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus orators such as Cicero and philosophers such as Seneca the Younger and Lucretius Late Latin authors include many Christian writers such as Lactantius Tertullian and Ambrose non Christian authors such as the historian Ammianus Marcellinus are also preserved History Edit Main article Timeline of ancient Rome According to legend the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC 65 in reality there had been a settlement on the site since around 1000 BC when the Palatine Hill was settled 66 The city was originally ruled by kings first Roman and then Etruscan according to Roman tradition the first Etruscan king of Rome Tarquinius Priscus ruled from 616 BC 67 Over the course of the 6th century BC the city expanded its influence over the entirety of Latium 68 Around the end of the 6th century traditionally in 510 BC the kings of Rome were driven out and the city became a republic 69 Around 387 BC Rome was sacked by the Gauls following the Battle of the Allia 70 It soon recovered from this humiliating defeat however and in 381 the inhabitants of Tusculum in Latium were made Roman citizens This was the first time Roman citizenship was extended in this way 71 Rome went on to expand its area of influence until by 269 the entirety of the Italian peninsula was under Roman rule 72 Soon afterwards in 264 the First Punic War began it lasted until 241 73 The Second Punic War began in 218 and by the end of that year the Carthaginian general Hannibal had invaded Italy 74 The war saw Rome s worst defeat to that point at Cannae the largest army Rome had yet put into the field was wiped out and one of the two consuls leading it was killed 75 However Rome continued to fight annexing much of Spain 76 and eventually defeating Carthage ending her position as a major power and securing Roman preeminence in the Western Mediterranean 77 Legacy of the classical world EditThe 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 Long before this Latin had 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 language remains a living legacy of the classical world in the contemporary world Latin had an impact far beyond the classical world It continued to be the pre eminent language for serious writings in Europe long after the fall of the Roman empire 78 The modern Romance languages Catalan French Italian Portuguese Romanian Spanish all derive from Latin 79 Latin is still seen as a foundational aspect of European culture 80 The legacy of the classical world is not confined to the influence of classical languages The Roman empire was taken as a model by later European empires such as the Spanish and British empires 81 Classical art has been taken as a model in later periods medieval Romanesque architecture 82 and Enlightenment era neoclassical literature 11 were both influenced by classical models to take but two examples while James Joyce s Ulysses is one of the most influential works of twentieth century literature 83 See also Edit History portalClassical tradition Great Books of the Western World Neoclassicism Outline of classical studies Outline of ancient Greece Outline of ancient RomeReferences EditCitations Edit a b c Ziolkowski 2007 p 17 Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 19 8 15 Ziolkowski 2007 p 19 a b Ziolkowski 2007 p 21 Sandys 1921 p 591 a b c d Ziolkowski 2007 p 22 a b Kristeller 1978 p 586 a b Kristeller 1978 p 587 Pade M 2007 The Reception of Plutarch s Lives in Fifteenth Century Italy Copenhagen Museum Tusculanum a b Kristeller 1978 p 590 a b Kaminski 2007 p 57 Kaminski 2007 p 65 Mortimer N S Sellers Founding Fathers in America in The Classical Tradition p 367 368 Anthony Grafton Glenn W Most amp Salvatore Settis eds 2010 a b Kristeller 1978 p 591 Kaminski 2007 p 69 Stray 1996 p 79 Caroline Winterer The Culture of Classicism Ancient Greece and Rome in American Cultural Life 1780 1910 pp 3 4 2002 Becker 2001 p 309 Becker 2001 p 313 Educator Benjamin Rush for instance deemed the classics to be remnants of an aristocratic education unsuited to a republican nation and an industrial economy Margaret Nash Women s Education in the United States 1780 1840 p 218 note 110 2005 a b Stray 1996 p 81 a b c Stray 1996 p 83 a b Rommel 2001 p 169 a b Stray 1996 p 85 Cook 2003 Sally Weale 2016 10 17 Scrapping of archaeology and classics A levels criticized as barbaric act The Guardian Retrieved 2018 08 02 Natalie Haynes 2016 10 19 Ditching classics at A level is little short of a tragedy The Guardian Retrieved 2018 08 02 Balbo 2009 Goldman Max L Kennedy Rebecca Futo 2021 06 15 The Study of Classics Is Changing Inside Higher Ed Retrieved 2021 10 02 One possible solution to both of these issues already enacted on a number of campuses involves a move to ancient Mediterranean studies where the Greek and Latin languages and literatures are only one track into and out of graduate schools and where Greek and Roman cultures are contextualized alongside other cultures in ancient Africa West Central Asia and the Levant Mackay 1997 Shorey 1906 p 179 Mann 1996 p 172 Mann 1996 pp 173 74 Mann 1996 p 174 Mann 1996 pp 174 75 Mann 1996 p 173 Mann 1996 p 175 Dyson 1993 p 205 a b Renfrew 1980 p 288 Renfrew 1980 p 287 Stray 2010 p 5 Stray 2010 pp 4 5 Dyson 1993 p 204 Dyson 1993 p 196 Darvil Timothy January 2009 New Archaeology The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology 2 ed Oxford University Press ISBN 9780199534043 Retrieved 2016 07 16 via Oxford Reference West 2001 p 140 a b Mann 1996 p 178 Mann 1996 p 180 Mann 1996 pp 180 81 Bulwer 2005 p 13 a b Kallendorf 2007 p 2 a b c Martindale 2007 p 298 Martindale 2007 p 301 Eliot 1920 p 45 Shapiro 2007 p 3 Shapiro 2007 p 2 Kirk 1985 p 47 Kirk 1985 p 43 Kirk 1985 p 45 Winnington Ingram et al 1985 p 259 a b Winnington Ingram et al 1985 p 258 Winnington Ingram et al 1985 pp 339 40 a b c Handley 1985 p 355 Handley 1985 p 356 Aristotle Metaphysics Alpha 983b18 Grant 1978 p 11 Grant 1978 p 10 Grant 1978 pp 21 22 Grant 1978 p 28 Grant 1978 p 31 Grant 1978 p 44 Grant 1978 p 46 Grant 1978 p 79 Grant 1978 pp 83 85 Grant 1978 pp 98 99 Grant 1978 p 101 Grant 1978 p 104 Grant 1978 p 106 Ostler 2009 pp xi xii Ostler 2009 p 161 Ostler 2009 p xiii Ostler 2009 p xii Ziolkowski 2007 p 26 Martindale 2007 p 310 Sources Edit Works citedBalbo Andrea 2009 Review of Bob Lister ed Meeting the Challenge International Perspectives on the Teaching of Latin Bryn Mawr Classical Review Becker Trudy Harrington 2001 Broadening Access to a Classical Education State Universities in Virginia in the Nineteenth Century The Classical Journal 96 3 Bulwer John 2005 Teaching Classics in Europe An Overview PDF Meeting the Challenge European Perspectives on the Teaching of Latin Cambridge England Cook Stephen 2003 02 18 Latin Types Dyson Stephen L 1993 From New to New Age Archaeology Archaeological Theory and Classical Archaeology A 1990s Perspective American Journal of Archaeology 97 2 195 206 doi 10 2307 505656 JSTOR 505656 S2CID 193119611 Eliot T S 1920 The Sacred Wood Essays on Poetry and Criticism London England Methuen Grant Michael 1978 The History of Rome London England Weidenfeld amp Nicolson Handley E W 1985 Comedy In Easterling P E Knox Bernard M W eds The Cambridge History of Classical Literature Vol 1 Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Kallendorf Craig W 2007 Introduction In Kallendorf Craig W ed A Companion to the Classical Tradition Malden Massachusetts Oxford England Carlton Victoria Blackwell Kaminski Thomas 2007 Neoclassicism In Kallendorf Craig W ed A Companion to the Classical Tradition Malden Massachusetts Oxford England Carlton Victoria Blackwell Kirk G S 1985 Homer In Easterling P E Knox Bernard M W eds The Cambridge History of Classical Literature Vol 1 Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Kristeller Paul Oskar 1978 Humanism Minerva 16 4 586 595 doi 10 1007 BF01100334 Mackay Christopher 1997 Philology Mann Wolfgang Ranier 1996 The Modern Historiography of Ancient Philosophy History and Theory 35 2 165 195 doi 10 2307 2505360 JSTOR 2505360 Martindale Charles 2007 Reception In Kallendorf Craig W ed A Companion to the Classical Tradition Malden Massachusetts Oxford England Carlton Victoria Blackwell Ostler Nicholas 2009 Ad Infinitum A Biography of Latin and the World it Created London England HarperPress Renfrew Colin 1980 The Great Tradition versus the Great Divide Archaeology as Anthropology American Journal of Archaeology 84 3 287 298 doi 10 2307 504703 JSTOR 504703 S2CID 162343789 Rommel Georg 2001 The Cradle of Titans Classical Philology in Greifswald and its History from 1820 Illinois Classical Studies 26 Sandys Sir John Edwin 1921 A History of Classical Scholarship Volume One From the Sixth Century B C to the End of the Middle Ages 3rd ed Cambridge England Cambridge University Press p 591 ISBN 978 1 108 02706 9 Shapiro H A 2007 Introduction In Shapiro H A ed The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Shorey Paul 1906 Philology and Classical Philology The Classical Journal 1 6 Stray Christopher 1996 Culture and Discipline Classics and Society in Victorian England International Journal of the Classical Tradition 3 1 77 85 doi 10 1007 BF02676905 S2CID 144110386 Stray Christopher 2010 Patriots and Professors A Century of Roman Studies Journal of Roman Studies doi 10 1017 s0075435810000018 S2CID 162987340 Trivedi Harish 2007 Western Classics Indian Classics Postcolonial Contestations In Hardwick Lorna Gillespie Carol eds Classics in Post Colonial Worlds Oxford England Oxford University Press West Martin 2001 Early Greek Philosophy In Boardman John Griffin Jasper Murray Oswyn eds The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World Oxford England Oxford University Press Winnington Ingram R P Gould John Easterling P E Knox Bernard M W 1985 Tragedy In Easterling P E Knox Bernard M W eds The Cambridge History of Classical Literature Vol 1 Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Ziolkowski Jan M 2007 Middle Ages In Kallendorf Craig W ed A Companion to the Classical Tradition Malden Massachusetts Oxford England Carlton Victoria Blackwell Further reading EditGeneralBeard Mary Henderson John 2000 Classics A Very Short Introduction Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780192853851 Hornblower Simon Spawforth Anthony eds 2012 Oxford Classical Dictionary 4 ed Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 9780199545568 Abrantes Miguel C 2019 Sources of Classical Literature Briefly presenting over 1000 works ISBN 9781689096805 Art and archaeologyBoardman John 1996 Greek Art 4 ed Thames amp Hudson ISBN 9780500202920 History GreekShipley Graham 2000 The Greek World After Alexander 323 30 BC London Routledge ISBN 9780415046183 Osborne Robin 2009 Greece in the Making 1200 479 BC 2 ed London Routledge ISBN 9780415469920 Hornblower Simon 2011 The Greek World 479 323 BC 4 ed London Routledge ISBN 9780415602921 History RomanBrown Peter 1989 The World of Late Antiquity 150 750 New York W W Norton ISBN 9780393958034 Crawford M 1993 The Roman Republic 2 ed Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press ISBN 9780006862505 Cornell T J 1995 The Beginnings of Rome London Routledge ISBN 9780415015967 Millar F 2002 Rome the Greek World and the East The Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution Vol 1 Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press ISBN 9780807849903 LiteratureWhitmarsh Tim 2004 Ancient Greek Literature Cambridge Polity Press ISBN 9780745627915 PhilologyChadwick John 2014 The Decipherment of Linear B 2 ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781107691766 PhilosophyIrwin Terence 1988 Classical Thought Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780192891778 Annas Julia 2000 Ancient Philosophy A Very Short Introduction Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780192853578 Shields Christopher 2012 Ancient Philosophy A Contemporary Introduction 2 ed London Routledge ISBN 9780415896603 External links EditClassics at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons News from Wikinews Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Electronic Resources for Classicists by the University of California Irvine Perseus Project website at Tufts University Alpheios Project website Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Classics amp oldid 1147372821, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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