Classics

AS and A2 level

Ancient History: special emphasis is placed on looking at original sources (in English) — historical narrative, biography, letters, comedy, inscriptions, archaeology. Two units are taken at AS and two at A2, and the subject can be pursued at A level without having been studied at GCSE. At the end of the course, students will have gained knowledge of some of the most important periods in world history: at AS, the democratic Athens of the 5th century BC and the fall (or is it the transformation?) of the Roman Republic; at A2, the wars between the Greeks and the Persians, 500–479 BC, and imperial Rome of the 1st century AD.

Latin, Greek: opting for Latin or Greek, or both, gives Paulines the opportunity to develop and deepen the knowledge and skills gained at GCSE. At AS, classes typically have two teachers, one of whom will handle the language (more challenging unseens and elementary composition into Latin and Greek), and the other the literature. At A2, the division is slightly different: one teacher handles the prose literature, and also prose composition, into Latin or Greek, (or a prose alternative), while the other teaches the verse book together with verse unseen translation.

This academic year the AS texts in Latin are selections from Ovid Amores III, and Cicero’s second speech against Verres. In Greek, the options are selections from Xenophon’s Anabasis and Homer’s Iliad XXIV. At A2, the Latin texts are portions of Tacitus’ Annals XIV and Virgil’s Aeneid I, and in Greek parts of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War VIII and Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae.