Department of Greece and Rome

Department of Greece and Rome
Name	Department of Greece and Rome
Type	Academic department
Institution	University of Oxford
Established	19th century
Location	Oxford

Contents

Department of Greece and Rome The Department of Greece and Rome is an academic unit focusing on ancient Greece and Rome within a major university context, integrating teaching, research, and curation across classical languages, literature, history, archaeology, and art. It engages with comparative study linking figures such as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristotle, Plato, Augustus, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus and material culture including finds from Pompeii, Delphi, Vergina, Knossos, and Ostia Antica. The department maintains partnerships with institutions including the British Museum, the British School at Athens, the Ashmolean Museum, the Vatican Museums, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, and the École française d'Athènes.

History

The department traces roots to classical study traditions exemplified by figures such as Richard Porson, John Beazley, Arthur Evans, Gilbert Murray, A. E. Housman and institutions like Trinity College, Cambridge, King's College London, Balliol College, Oxford and Magdalen College, Oxford. Its formation was influenced by archaeological campaigns at Hephaistia, Mycenae, Knossos, Herculaneum and publication projects linked to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum and the excavations overseen by Heinrich Schliemann, Sir Arthur Evans, Sir John Beazley and Sir William Mitchell Ramsay. Over time the department absorbed curricula models from the École Normale Supérieure, the University of Bologna, the University of Göttingen and the University of Rome La Sapienza while scholars engaged with debates represented by works from Jacob Burckhardt, Edward Gibbon, Friedrich Nietzsche and Erich Auerbach.

Programs range from undergraduate degrees such as Classics (Literae Humaniores), joint honours with History, Archaeology, Philosophy and postgraduate degrees including the MPhil, DPhil and taught master's aligned with research centres like the Oxbridge Classical Research Centre and the Institute of Classical Studies. Courses cover primary texts including editions of Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Metamorphoses and commentaries on Nicomachean Ethics, Politics (Aristotle), Republic (Plato), and engage with methodological frameworks used by scholars like Jane Harrison, F.R. Leavis, Mary Beard, Paul Cartledge and Simon Goldhill. Fieldwork options link to excavations at Vindolanda, Pompeii, Delos, Amathus and study trips to collections at Louvre, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Capitoline Museums and National Museum of Rome.

Faculty specialties include classical philology, ancient history, classical archaeology, epigraphy, papyrology, ancient philosophy, reception studies and digital humanities, with scholars publishing monographs in series by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Brill, Routledge and journals such as The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Greece & Rome, Classical Quarterly, Classical Philology and Historia. Research projects have collaborated with funders and partners including the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the European Research Council and museums such as the Pergamon Museum, Hermitage Museum, Getty Research Institute and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Faculty have contributed to exhibitions on themes connected to Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Ptolemaic Egypt, Roman Britain, Byzantium and debates sparked by texts from Ovid, Sappho, Euripides and newly deciphered papyri associated with the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

The department curates teaching collections and archives including plaster casts, coin collections linked to Numismatics, epigraphic corpora, photographs from excavations led by Sir Arthur Evans and digital corpora interoperable with projects like the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, the Perseus Digital Library, the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire and the Epigraphic Database Roma. It works closely with library holdings such as the Bodleian Library, the Ashmolean Museum's antiquities, the Cambridge University Library's papyri and the special collections of colleges like Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Christ Church, Oxford. Conservation and cataloguing efforts reference standards from the International Council of Museums and collaborate with conservation labs at the British Museum and the Vatican Library.

Student life includes societies and clubs such as the Classical Association, the Gresham Society, college reading groups across St John's College, Oxford, Balliol College, Oxford, Exeter College, Oxford and dedicated lecture series featuring visiting academics from Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Cambridge, University of Chicago, Stanford University and cultural institutions like the Royal Academy and the National Portrait Gallery. Outreach programmes involve partnerships with schools via the Good Schools Guide, summer schools modeled on those at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and public lectures in collaboration with the British Council and the Royal Society of Arts.

Alumni have become distinguished figures in academia, museums, publishing and public life, including classical scholars associated with Cambridge Classical Studies, curators at the British Museum, directors at the Ashmolean Museum and authors connected to Penguin Classics, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge Ancient History and media work on programmes for the BBC and Channel 4. Graduates have contributed to discoveries and interpretations related to Linear B, Mycenaean Greece, Roman law, Byzantine studies, textual criticism of Homeric Hymns and editorial projects for the Loeb Classical Library, the Oxford Classical Texts and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.

Category:Classics departments