Classics is the study of  ancient Greece and Rome. This can encompass a wide variety of areas such as politics, language, art, archaeology, history, philosophy, economics and literature of areas covering not just modern-day Greece and Italy, but also places we now recognise as Turkiye, Spain, Tunisia, Iraq and beyond.

The Oxford Classics Faculty is the largest in the world, and so you will be part of a vibrant community of students and academics, where you will be able to support and learn from each other. You can learn either Latin or Greek from scratch (Course II), or apply having studied one or both languages beforehand (Course I). Both Classics courses give you the chance to study a variety of modules and provide you with great scope for pursuing inter-disciplinary work.

Here at Univ, we will support you across the whole range of options within the Classics course, whilst placing particular emphasis on the teaching of core texts and the close study of language. We offer several travel grants, which are specifically for students wishing to travel in support of their course. Classics is one of the few four year undergraduate courses, and Classicists at Univ are known for taking advantage of this time to build a strong and supportive community between different year groups.

Classics can be studied in combination with a variety of different subjects at Univ. In addition to Classics (Course I and Course II), you could apply the joint schools of Classics with English, Classics and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and Classics and Modern Languages. You may also be interested in the related degrees of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, and Ancient and Modern History (see History).

Resources

If you are considering applying for Classics, number of resources you might find useful to explore beyond the school curriculum can be found on Univ’s Staircase12 pages, including the Reading Bank and Resource Hub.

You may also like to read Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction, written by one of Univ’s tutors, Dr William Allan.  You can read Univ student Delia’s review here.