Classics

Classics 

Subject overview at Downing

Why Study Classics at Cambridge?

The Faculty of Classics in Cambridge is one of the most dynamic of its kind, with an exceptional reputation for teaching and research. Our courses encompass the entirety of the history, culture, archaeology, art, philosophy, linguistics and the reception of classical antiquity across the centuries. This enables students to specialise in a chosen field or to remain open to the breadth of the subject.

Classics is not just the study of the past, but also of how that past has shaped the present and might provide a critical lens through to look at ourselves and shape our future. Greco-Roman antiquity has continued to remain a significant point of reference and departure throughout the centuries, and across many parts of the world, in virtually every cultural sphere, including art and architecture, language and literature, and politics and philosophy. It continues to be an inspiration and a catalyst of change at crucial junctures in our political and social history.

This interdisciplinary degree enables students to cultivate a genuine breadth of learning and enables the development of a huge range of transferable skills, which is reflected in the range of career paths taken by our students: law, journalism, film and television, consultancy, marketing, roles in advocacy and policy-making, museum and gallery work, as well as teaching and academia.

Why Study Classics at Downing?

Downing Classics is a vibrant community, with the biggest undergraduate cohort of Classics students in the university. The teaching of Classics at Downing aims to extract the maximum benefit from the opportunities offered by the Cambridge Tripos. We have a team of two Classics Fellows, and two College Lecturers, and can also secure the best teaching available from across the University, depending on a student’s area of interest. The college has an active Classics Society which meets once in each term for dinner and more often for informal talks by Classical scholars.

The enduring influence of Greece and Rome in modern times is increasingly in the focus of Classics as an academic discipline, and many students choose to work on classical receptions in the framework of undergraduate dissertations. With its vibrant cultural life, which includes exhibitions of modern and contemporary art at the Heong Gallery as well as theatre productions and the Festival of New Writing in the newly built Howard Theatre, Downing College itself contributes to such contemporary engagements and provides an ideal environment for a modern, forward-looking approach to the Classics.

At Downing you will be taught in a mixture of small groups, and individual sessions, making sure that your teaching experience is tailored to your interests and needs during your study. Given the strength of our teaching team (on which see below), and well-established collaborations with Classicists at other colleges, you will be taught by relevant experts across the whole range of Classics.

Meet the Downing Classics team

Frisbee Sheffield is a Fellow at Downing and Director of Studies in Classics (IB and Part II). She teaches ancient Greek philosophy, particularly ethics, moral psychology, aesthetics, politics and the reception of ancient Greek philosophy, particularly in the work of Hannah Arendt. She has co-edited the Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy (2013), two volumes on Plato’s Symposium, and a monograph on Plato’s Symposium: The Ethics of Desire (2006). She has published book chapters and articles on ancient Greek theories of love, friendship, gender, piety, and Hannah Arendt’s engagement with Plato. Recent work is on the ethical value of Socratic dialogue. Committed to widening participation and diversifying dialogue in the discipline, Frisbee is leading the Classics Beyond Borders Project and is a member of the committee for the Global Humanities Network.

Dr Giulia Maltagliati is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Downing and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics, where she delivers teaching on Greek literature (Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen) and History (‘Constructing Sex and Gender’). She was previously a Language Teaching Assistant for the Faculty of Classics (2021–22) and a Visiting Tutor at Royal Holloway (2020–21), after completing her PhD (2020) in Classics at Royal Holloway, where she maintains an active role as Honorary Research Associate in the Centre for Oratory and Rhetoric. A keen teacher of both Greek and Latin language and literature, Giulia specialises in the field of Greek prose, especially Attic oratory and Classical rhetoric. She is particularly interested in the ways in which rhetoric is bound up with questions of knowledge and its lack across Greek literature. She is currently working on an edited volume with Dr Lea Niccolai on discourses of ignorance in Greek and Roman texts and completing a monograph on the rhetoric of exemplarity in Attic oratory.

Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle is a Bye-Fellow at Downing and Director of Studies in Classics (Prelims and Part 1A) and an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Classics. His research and teaching profile spans Greek and Roman literature, from Attic Drama to late Latin figure poetry, and includes topics as diverse as (ancient) literary criticism, ancient sexuality, and classical reception, from Renaissance-Humanism to contemporary cinema. This diversity of approaches has been formed and fostered during his undergraduate studies at Basel and St Andrews where he pursued a combined degree in Latin, Greek and German literature. He co-directs the research project ‘Modes of Reading and the Transmission of Texts’ with Prof Richard Hunter at the Faculty of Classics. Having held various teaching and research positions at Basel, Freiburg and Cambridge, he joined Downing in 2023.

Rosanna Omitowoju is a College Lecturer at Downing and a Fellow of King’s College, she is a keen teacher, and teaches Latin, Greek and Greek Literature with great enthusiasm. She has written ‘Rape and the Politics of Consent in Classical Athens’, articles on Greek literature, especially drama, and a translation of the Greek novel ‘Callirhoe’ for Penguin.

Franco Basso is a University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Classics, a College Lecturer at Downing and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He lectures and supervises for both Greek History and Greek Literature courses and for Greek Language. He has a special interest in Historiography and in Homer.

“The Classics course at Downing is one that can be described by breadth and vibrancy. You begin the course by studying a range of different areas in the Classical world, such as Philosophy, History, Archaeology, Art, Linguistics and Literature, before narrowing down your scope of interest as you proceed to Part IB and Part II. This progression from delving into a breadth of areas to pinpointing what exactly interests you is a distinct perk of the Classics course. Downing also possesses one of the largest Classics cohorts in the University, promising an enthusiastic, friendly, and close-knit community, which is very appealing when you’re new to Cambridge!”

Aleena Islam, third-year Classics undergraduate

Lara Pomphrett is the incoming President of the Millett Classics Society, currently in the second year of her degree (part IB). Inspired by her work on the Minimus Latin Project, and the work of Classics for All, Lara is committed to widening participation in Classics. She is a Student Ambassador at Downing and enjoys talking to prospective students. Her profound love of Classics has inspired her to produce a series of drawings capturing her favourite scenes from Classical literature, as well as building an electric lyre. Through talks and events at the Classics society, Lara hopes to inspires Downing Classicists to deepen their love of the subject in a more informal setting and to meet like-minded people from across years and colleges.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for applicants with a genuine passion for the subject, who can communicate what they are interested in and why.

Candidates for both the three-year course and the four-year course in Classics will be interviewed. The aim of the interview is to assess the candidate’s ability and potential. To this end, the discussion will concentrate on topics concerned with the Ancient Greco-Roman World, although questions may also be asked where relevant, about other A-level subjects that the candidates are studying. It is expected that those wishing to study Classics at Downing will have found time to extend their reading on the Classical word beyond the confines of the A-level syllabus.

All applicants for Classics are required to take an assessment at interview, if interviewed. Further information about the assessment for both three-year and four-year course applicants is on the University website.

For three-year course applicants who are invited to interview, this will be a Latin or Greek skills assessment exercise as part of the interview. All candidates for the four-year course who are invited will have an additional interview with a language teaching officer from the Faculty of Classics, which will include a language aptitude assessment. The nature of this exercise varies depending on whether candidates already have a qualification in Latin at GCSE or AS level (or equivalent) or have no previous knowledge of the language.

All those applying for the Classics course will be asked to submit in advance of their interview two pieces of written work, produced in the course of their studies. For those taking A-levels in Latin or Greek, essays on set texts are suitable, but other pieces of writing are also welcome. Apart from giving an impression of the kind of work a candidate produces on a regular basis, the essays may be used as the basis of discussion in their interviews.

Further advice about entry requirements and interviews for all subjects can be found at the Apply to Downing section of this site.

How can you find out more about Classics?  

Further details about the classics course can be found on the Faculty of Classics website for general information about the Classics courses, or continue to view our dedicated pages to the four-year and three-year degrees for more specific information. If you are interested in a degree which combines either Greek or Latin with a modern language, then you may be better suited to Cambridge’s Modern and Medieval Languages.

Love your Subject