̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - classics

Can ancient dead languages save today's endangered languages? A tale of identity and visibility

zs332 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:05:24 +0000

̽��ֱ��world is facing a language crisis. Of its c.7,000 languages, Glottolog estimates that only 35% are safe - the rest are at varying stages of being threatened, moribund or nearly extinct. In some cases, it is already too late.

̽��ֱ��Classicist who wants the ancient world to have a radical future

cg605 — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 17:04:17 +0000

Mary Beard says the Greeks and Romans have more to say about modern society than we might think. A new set of films, aimed at teenagers whose schools don’t teach Classics, will investigate how the subject can help us to explore modern issues like free speech, heroes and self-imaging.

Classics shorts with Mary Beard

cg605 — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 09:01:04 +0000

Celebrity guests join Professor Mary Beard and colleagues in a new series of films, that explore modern day classroom themes, through the lens of the ancient world.

New Cambridge Latin course reflects diversity of the Roman world

ta385 — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 10:41:49 +0000

Breaking news from 79 CE: Caecilius has a daughter. Barbillus is a Greco-Syrian man of colour. Enslaved people aren’t always happy. Metella is reading in the atrium.

These statements may read like indecipherable babble to some, but for students of Latin, they are among the most notable changes in the new edition of the Cambridge Latin Course: the leading textbook in the ancient language.

̽��ֱ��course, a mainstay of Latin learning in British schools since the 1970s, has something nearing cult status with its fans. Its vivid stories, beginning in Book One with the adventures of a Pompeiian family featuring Caecilius, his wife, Metella, son, Quintus, and cook, Grumio, have inspired fan fiction, artistic tributes and even a cameo on Doctor Who.

̽��ֱ��newly-published fifth edition represents one of the most significant new editions in its 50-year history. It draws on a wider range of sources and on new scholarship to give a more accurate, evidence-based picture of the classical world. In doing so, it better prepares students to engage with classical works and to think critically about the past, while addressing concerns raised by teachers, academics and students about the representation of women, enslaved people, and minorities in the Roman world.

While the original cast are as central as ever, new characters have been introduced, stories rewritten and features updated. Women have greater prominence (Caecilius has a new daughter called Lucia, for example), readers learn more about the lives of enslaved people, and the multicultural reality of Rome’s vast, intercontinental empire is represented in greater detail.

̽��ֱ��course, written by the Cambridge Schools Classics Project at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has been informed by a fact-finding exercise in 2018 which involved school visits, surveys and interviews with hundreds of teachers and pupils, confirmed other long-held doubts about representation in the course books, prompting a more thorough reassessment.

Caroline Bristow, director of the Cambridge School Classics Project, said: “ ̽��ֱ��aim has always been to introduce students to the complexity of the Roman world and get them to think critically about it while learning Latin. That prepares them to engage more thoroughly with authentic classical sources. ̽��ֱ��feedback we got told us we weren’t doing enough in that regard.”

Girls were especially keen to see more of the female characters – many had already started inventing their own backstories for them.

̽��ֱ��stories in the new edition are, as ever, rooted in historical research, but expand women’s roles and devote more attention to their lived experiences. Lucia, for example, is being pushed into an arranged marriage in Book One. Caecilius also hires a female painter, Clara, to introduce students to the fact that poorer Roman women had to work as well as men.

Bristow said: “We wanted to provide students with a more rounded picture of people and events, while ensure the stories remain historically grounded. We’ve done that by drawing from that wider range of sources and events.”

This also helps to address the challenges that inclusion, access and minority representation can present for Classics educators. In particular, research highlights the imposter syndrome that people of colour feel when encountering the inaccurate, but standard, depiction of Rome as predominantly white. Other studies have shown that without being prompted to see diversity, even students of colour automatically make this assumption about the Roman world – a finding backed up by teachers’ experiences in the classroom.

Responding to this, greater attention was given to cultural diversity in the new edition. For example, Barbillus, a wealthy Greco-Syrian merchant character, features more prominently and is clearly presented as a person of colour. His early presence in the stories is partly intended to challenge another general misconception, that such people were always enslaved.

Jasmine Elmer, a Classics educator and media personality whose work focuses on trying to broaden access to, and understanding of, the ancient past, was one of several experts who reviewed the new edition. “We’ve tended to take an all-white view of an empire that clearly wasn’t,” she said. “If you’re a person of colour, it’s natural to wonder whether people like you were even there. ̽��ֱ��new course seems to be braver about those issues. It doesn’t run away from complicated subject matter; it turns it into teaching points.”

Enslaved characters were, in earlier editions, sometimes depicted in simplistic terms: as “happy”, “hard-working” or “lazy”. In the new edition, slavery is now depicted through the eyes of its victims, focusing on their anxieties and gruelling lives.

Other changes reflect developments in historical scholarship since the series was last updated. Ingo Gildenhard, a Professor of Classics at Cambridge, advised the production team on a section on gladiators in Book One. Traditionally, gladiatorial combat has been presented as a strange, bloodthirsty aspect of Roman culture. Without ignoring its horrors, modern research nonetheless shows the reality was more complex: arena combat also stirred Roman audiences because it reinforced key contemporary values, such as martial prowess.

Teaching materials in the new edition draw attention to that more nuanced perspective. “It’s essential that instead of brushing aspects of Roman culture under the carpet, we look at it in the round,” Gildenhard said. “Part of this is about empowering teachers with new scholarship they might not have encountered. It’s also about inviting students to think critically about the past and its relationship to the present. That’s a valuable skill whether or not you end up doing Latin long term.”

Pupils and teachers have tested the new edition and responded positively. One young reviewer told the team: “I like that Lucia is educated, but I would like to know whether she actually wants to marry or not.” Of Clara, another commented: “It’s good that Caecilius is hiring women”.

Bristow said: “We sometimes get told that children just want to learn the language, study the amazing things Romans did and dress up as gladiators,” she said. “There’s lots that was inspiring, but this was a complex world. We’re teaching children to be Classicists. We’re not teaching them to be Romans.”

This story was first published by Cambridge's Faculty of Education.

̽��ֱ��latest edition of the leading Latin course has been designed to more accurately depict the roles of women, minorities and enslaved people in the Roman world.

It’s essential that instead of brushing aspects of Roman culture under the carpet, we look at it in the round

Ingo Gildenhard

Characters from the Cambridge Latin Course, Book One

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Lessons from modern languages can reboot Latin learning

tdk25 — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 07:54:17 +0000

Fan fiction, Minecraft and Taylor Swift lyrics are hardly the stuff of traditional Latin lessons. They are, however, part of an expanding repertoire that teachers are successfully drawing on to deepen students’ grasp of the language of Virgil and Cicero.

All three are cited – alongside many other examples of innovative tools and techniques – in a new handbook which calls for a rethink about how to teach Latin. Its author, the Cambridge academic Steven Hunt, suggests that mainstream teaching practices, some of which date back to the 1950s, are linked to dwindling uptake in the subject and that change is overdue.

Part of his suggested solution is for Classics teachers to follow the lead of subjects like French and German, where students learn to use and communicate in their target language. Hunt argues that students would comprehend Latin better if they were exposed to opportunities to speak, sing, perform or write creatively in it, rather than just learning vocab and grammar, and translating set texts. They might also enjoy it more.

His book shows that some more adventurous teachers are, indeed, already following this path and innovating in the classroom to engage students and improve fluency. While Hunt does not dispute the value of some traditional teaching methods, he does suggest that a more open-minded approach to how Latin might be taught, drawing on the evidence from other language subjects, would help students to thrive.

Hunt has been a Latin teacher for 35 years, and now trains teachers on the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge PGCE. “ ̽��ֱ��trouble with Latin teaching is that it’s never been subject to thorough academic investigation; we tend to rely on anecdotal information about what seems to work,” he said.

“There is no ‘best way’ to teach it, but some teachers are creating a rich set of responses to the challenge. Most draw on principles from modern languages education. Because the human brain is hardwired for sound, it learns by speaking, listening and using language. Some Latin teachers are realising that this is the way to learn any language – dead or alive.”

Hunt believes that many students are disengaged by the standard teaching model for Latin: an outdated formula focused on vocab, grammar, translations, comprehension exercises and rote-learning. There is little evidence from research in modern languages that this is the best way to develop students’ fluency or understanding, and there has been a steady decline in the numbers of students choosing Latin for examination. “Falling uptake means there is now a moral imperative for us to be open to different ideas,” he said.

His book makes a case for more forms of ‘active’ Latin – encouraging students to use and communicate in the language. One argument is that of ‘communicative necessity’. Speaking a language means students have to make themselves understood in real time, so they often grasp core principles, and learn to correct mistakes, quickly. Similarly, he advocates giving students more opportunities to hear Latin being sung or spoken. This can, for example, embed vocabulary in the long-term memory: when we recall a word, what we are really recalling is its sound.

̽��ֱ��book also suggests new ways to develop the traditionally favoured skills of reading and translation. For example, some teachers have successfully improved students’ ability to master complicated texts, like Cicero’s speeches, through a process called ‘tiering’, in which they start with simplified versions and gradually build up to reading the full, complex original.

Evidence is also emerging, particularly from the US, that free composition – creative writing in Latin – can improve fluency, translation, and deepen students’ appreciation of Roman authors. In some classrooms, students now produce poetry, prose and songs in Latin, as well as their own fan fiction – which often involves tributes to characters from popular programmes such as the Cambridge Latin Course.

One example cited in the book comes from a university tutor who, having struggled to develop his students’ understanding of Virgil’s poetry, asked them to try translating well-known songs instead. In a research paper, he describes how, for instance, students Latinised the chorus of Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood: Quod, care, nunc malum sanguinem habemus. He found their choices about how to translate the hits strengthened their ability to “recognise, comprehend and use” different techniques in Roman poetry. ̽��ֱ��exercise is now a staple of his Latin Prose Composition course.

Similar examples of innovative practice abound in Hunt’s book. Adopting principles from language immersion, many teachers use techniques such as storytelling, singing and dramatic performances to get students using Latin, while some universities now have Latin-speaking social circles.

Teachers are also producing their own resources to support these endeavours. A thriving culture of self-published Latin short stories and novellas is encouraging students’ free reading, which according to one study is up to six times more efficient than traditional teaching at building vocabulary.

Elsewhere, one enthusiast has recorded Latinised Disney songs, enabling listeners to hear how Let It Go might have sounded had Frozen been made in Ancient Rome. 3D digital modelling and Google Earth are also being used to create opportunities for students to use Latin during virtual walk-throughs of ancient sites; these include a 3D model of Rome built in Minecraft.

Such innovations should, Hunt says, be treated selectively but seriously; while the change they are instigating ought to be welcomed. “Latin’s role as the gatekeeper to an elite education is over, but involving more students, especially in state schools, remains a problem,” he said. “ ̽��ֱ��challenge for teachers in the years to come will be whether they are prepared to grasp these opportunities to present the subject differently, and widen the appeal for students, or whether they prefer to stick to familiar routines.”

A new guide calls for a broader approach to teaching Latin, one that draws on modern languages education, involving speaking, music and storytelling.

Falling uptake means there is now a moral imperative for us to be open to different ideas

Steven Hunt

Chemical Engineer

'Romans go home'. Mocked-up Roman graffiti, referencing Monty Python’s Life of Brian, at the Hull and East Riding Museum

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Students taking GCSE Ancient History worry they appear ‘elitist’ to friends and family

tdk25 — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 12:30:35 +0000

Their perspectives are documented in a newly-published study, which argues that Ancient History’s position as a minority subject in the curriculum is reinforcing its image as the preserve of a privileged elite. Since 2009, any school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has had the option to offer Ancient History GCSE, but very few do so. Fewer than 1,000 candidates (about 0.1%) sit the exam every year, and only a fraction are from state schools.

̽��ֱ��study, by academics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, surveyed students at three state-funded comprehensive schools which do teach the subject. All of the students said they felt stigmatised by their peers for taking Ancient History, and that it was generally perceived as 'posh', 'academic', 'boring', 'elitist' and 'snobby'. Some said these views were shared by members of their own family.

̽��ֱ��researchers argue that making Ancient History more widely available in schools would resolve this image problem. There is also some evidence that it might even be a popular move. Despite their concerns, students who took the subject also said they found it interesting and rewarding. Many were particularly interested in the stranger and more distant aspects of the ancient world.

Dr Frances Foster, from the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “These were three very different schools, in very different communities and with varying levels of deprivation, but every single student we spoke to had experienced resistance to the idea of studying Ancient History from relatives or friends.”

“ ̽��ֱ��message we got was generally: ‘This is really cool stuff, but it’s not meant for people like us.’ Once they stepped outside the classroom, they were uncomfortable even disclosing that they did Ancient History because they were worried about being seen as different, or about people assuming they went to a posh school. We ought to be emphasising that they have a right to study this subject just as much as anyone.”

̽��ֱ��students were asked to answer a questionnaire about their background and any opportunities they had to learn about Ancient History outside school (for example by visiting museums). They then took part in a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups, which explored their feelings about the subject.

Their comments disclosed widespread discomfort with being given what they knew was unequal access to a subject associated with social privilege. In many cases, either the students, or their relatives and peers, appeared to view Ancient History as both ‘very academic’ and ‘prestigious’ specifically because so few people study it.

One interviewee told the researchers: “People perceive it as posh because it’s not common… a lot of private schools have the option of taking it but I don’t know any other school in this area that has Latin or Ancient History.” Another said: “It’s perceived as quite an intelligent subject because a lot of schools don’t offer it. When you say, ‘I do Ancient History’, people kind of judge you and think, oh, you must go to a posh school.”

Many students were aware that this was a misconception, but they consistently felt that by taking the subject they had nonetheless been branded 'clever', 'upper-class' or even 'unlucky' by their peers.

Despite this, many also expressed considerable interest in various source materials, the age of the subject matter, and the sophistication of the ancient world. ̽��ֱ��study also explores cases such as that of a girl from a Middle Eastern family who explained how she had been able to feel more connected to her own heritage through learning about the Persian Empire. Two other students spoke enthusiastically about how the ancient world had inspired Winston Churchill during his own political career.

“They were really interested that texts which had survived for two millennia might still be useful to governments in another time and country,” Foster said. “Part of Ancient History’s attraction for students seems to be that the stories and objects they are studying were features of people’s lives 2,000 years ago, but have come down to us. Another part is the very different nature of societies in the ancient world – the fact that so much of it is just plain weird.”

All the students said they would feel more comfortable taking Ancient History if it was more widely available. As the study’s authors note, several organisations – including the Classical Association, Classics for All, and the ̽��ֱ��’s own Cambridge Schools Classics Project – have actively campaigned for some time to increase access to Ancient History partly because of concerns about its marginal status.

Their report also points out that, because the GCSE course does not require knowledge of ancient languages, it can be delivered by History teachers even in schools which do not teach Classics.

“At the moment young people’s access to the ancient world is defined largely by chance – whether or not their school happens to offer it,” Foster said. “As long as that remains the case, students will be told it’s not for them, it’s not going to get them a job, and they would be better off doing something else. Ancient History was put on the GCSE curriculum to make it more accessible. If we value that principle, we should be worried that so many of the students who actually get to study it feel so uncomfortable about the idea.”

̽��ֱ��study is published open access in ̽��ֱ��Curriculum Journal.

̽��ֱ��tiny minority of state-educated students who take Ancient History at GCSE worry that the subject’s exclusive reputation will brand them ‘elitist’ in the eyes of friends and relatives, research suggests.

̽��ֱ��message we got was generally: ‘This is really cool stuff, but it’s not meant for people like us’

Frances Foster

Portrait of Sappho

Yes

Road radar to reveal York's Roman secrets

ta385 — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Did the Romans alter their legionary fortress at Eboracum in the late Antique period? What was the settlement around it like and how did this change? Did Eboracum receive a makeover when emperors came to town?

These are just some of the questions which Cambridge archaeologist Professor Martin Millett and his colleagues hope to answer without lifting a single spade or trowel.

Over summer 2022, a vehicle equipped with specialist radar equipment will survey 20km of streets around York – the first time a project on this scale has been undertaken in the UK. ̽��ֱ��team behind the scheme are working with City of York Council to access as much of the city centre road network as possible, including some pedestrianised streets, during the survey, with minimal disruption to the public.

Alongside the road surveys, a different radar system will scan the green spaces in the city centre, particularly around the Yorkshire Museum and York Minster.

̽��ֱ��initiative is a joint project between Universities of Cambridge and Reading, York Archaeology and the York Museums Trust funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). ̽��ֱ��30-month-long project aims to collate everything archaeologists and historians know about the whole of Roman York into a single database which will then be made freely available to the public.

Among many other things, the team will be looking for evidence of Eboracum's architecture and infrastructure being enhanced during periods of imperial residence (AD 208–11 and AD 305-06), or following York’s promotion to colonial status in the early 3rd century. They are also hoping to find evidence for changes in the organization and use of land in the immediate environs of York through the Roman period.

Alongside the research there will be a series of public engagement projects including volunteer-run research projects, an art initiative and a project for schools around the country linking research findings to geography, physics, geology and archaeology.

̽��ֱ��radar mapping exercise will start in the summer, with dry weather being crucial to the success of the scanning, as the radar can only penetrate down to the water table, which is notoriously high for much of the year in York.

Project leader Martin Millett, Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge and a trustee of York Archaeological Trust, said: “This is a key initiative where we hope to learn much more about the layout of the Roman city without having to dig a single trench.”

Co-investigator Dr John Creighton of the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading said: “Over many years, various investigations have opened small windows into different parts of the Roman city, but we hope that this scanning will reveal far more about the city including details where the roads and significant buildings in the city were located, particularly around Micklegate.”

̽��ֱ��wider research will bring together not only the results of archaeological excavations over the last 50 years, but also other less formal sources of information, including historic press reports of Roman finds, notebooks and published reports from the 18th century onwards. It is hoped that volunteers from across the community will be involved.

Cllr Darryl Smalley, Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities at City of York Council, said: “This exciting new project will provide a new basis for understanding of Roman York and will enhance the ways in which the City can assess the impact of planning and future development on this valuable but hidden heritage.”

Updates on the project will be posted on yorkarchaeology.co.uk/romanyork

Professor Millett recently led the team which successfully mapped a complete Roman city, Falerii Novi, in Italy, using the same technology. This research received global media coverage. Find out more here.

̽��ֱ��biggest investigation ever undertaken into Eboracum, the Roman city buried beneath York, is set to begin this summer. Ground penetrating radar will be used to map as much of the influential ancient settlement as possible in a bid to learn more about its evolving layout and use.

We hope to learn much more about the layout of the Roman city

Martin Millett

View of the city of York in England including walls and cathedral

Yes

Ancient Greek ‘pop culture’ discovery rewrites history of poetry and song

ta385 — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 11:45:00 +0000

New research into a little-known text written in ancient Greek shows that ‘stressed poetry’, the ancestor of all modern poetry and song, was already in use in the 2nd Century CE, 300 years earlier than previously thought.