Classics is the original interdisciplinary academic field at the heart of both European/western civilization and today’s Liberal Arts education. We teach and research the languages (Greek, Latin), literature, history, philosophy, science, art, and material culture that survive from the worlds of ancient Greece, Rome, and Late Antiquity. Through archaeology and art history we investigate and analyze the material record and environment of these civilizations and their neighbors – accessing a past beyond the texts of the elite and their mostly male voices to explore fully this world from top to bottom.
Classics Resources
Department of Classics Events
Linguistics Colloquium Speaker: Krishnan Ram-Prasad
Classics Speaker Series: Krishnan Ram-Prasad
Classics Speaker Series: Kelly Nguyen
News from Classics
Townsend lecturer explores Anatolian origins of European literature
Morris’ research involves the interaction of Greece with its Eastern neighbors, in art, literature, religion and culture.
Read moreSummer Experience Grant applications now open
The grants provide funding for students in unpaid or low-paying summer experiences to offset the cost of taking on those positions.
Read moreSupport Arts & Sciences on Giving Day March 14
Your gift allows the College to fulfill our mission — to prepare our students to do the greatest good in the world.
Read moreThree juniors awarded Caplan Travel Fellowships
Julia Fritsch ’25, Cristina Kiefaber ’25, and Ashley Koca ‘25 have been selected as the 2024 Harry Caplan Travel Fellows, supported by the Department of Classics.
Read moreBook brings elusive Greek technical writer into focus
Hero of Alexandria's writings on things like pneumatics, pure geometry and catapults have influenced many others through the ages and his principles touch early modern inventions including the player piano and the fire engine.
Read moreTwelve new Klarman Fellows to pursue innovative, timely research in A&S
This fifth cohort of Klarman Fellows is the largest since the program was launched in 2019.
Read moreWhat is Classics?
Classics is about learning Latin and Greek
Neither language is spoken today, but hundreds of world-historical masterpieces were written in those two languages. Ancient Greek is the key that unlocks Homer, philosophy, tragedy, comedy, history, particle physics, and half the Bible. Latin is the key that unlocks epic poetry, stage drama, fables, rhetoric, law, and the reawakening of the West in the Renaissance. The two languages together allow you to observe, like a firsthand witness, the downhill slide of Rome’s thousand-year civilization from an American-style democracy to an authoritarian empire. Studying them, and the voices of the women and men who spoke them, reveals more than just the mindset of a people that built the Coliseum and the catacombs. Those voices also reveal the foundations of the modern world order—from secular humanism to religious orthodoxy. They’re also a lot of fun!
Classics beyond the classroom
Classics doesn’t just involve learning your Latin principal parts (important though they are!). Our students and faculty engage with the Greco-Roman world in multiple ways, whether speaking “living Latin” in Rome, taking part in archaeological digs or traveling seminars to Europe, curating exhibitions, or putting on performances of ancient plays. From experiments with ancient technology to the use of myth in contemporary art, we celebrate and explore the enduring relevance and reinvention of the Classical past within the 21st century.