Classics

Classics may also include as secondary subjects Greco-Roman philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, art, mythology, and society.

In Western civilization, the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman classics was considered the foundation of the humanities, and they traditionally have been the cornerstone of an elite higher education.

The word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus, meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens."

[1] Thus, the two modern meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality and the standard texts used as part of a curriculum, were both derived from Roman use.

[1] In the Middle Ages, classics and education were tightly intertwined; according to Jan Ziolkowski, there is no era in history in which the link was tighter.

[6] The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod, whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, along with most of Plato, were unavailable in Christian Europe.

Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were other differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages.

[8] From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism, an intellectual movement that "advocated the study and imitation of classical antiquity",[7] developed.

[11] Classical models were so highly prized that the plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines, and these "improved" versions were performed throughout the 18th century.

[12] In the United States, the nation's Founders were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government.

[14] In this period Johann Winckelmann's claims for the superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing "returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement".

The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School.

[10] Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin.

[21] Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and North America was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period.

In England, for instance, Oxford and Cambridge universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920,[21] and in Latin at the end of the 1950s.

[32] Other philological tools took longer to be developed: the first statement, for instance, of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one, was in 1697 by Jean Le Clerc.

[22] It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole,[34] in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate.

For instance, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics have been traditionally classified in the West as "ethics", but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic; in reality, they do not fit neatly into either category.

[54] The Classical period of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with the first and second Persian invasions of Greece at the start of the Greco-Persian wars,[55] and to have ended with the death of Alexander the Great.

It has contributed many words to the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance.

[57] Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC.

[60] The last surviving Greek tragedies are the Bacchae of Euripides and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, both from the end of the fifth century BC.

Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.

Many Greek people recognized the major gods and goddesses: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Demeter, Hestia and Hera; though philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to posit a transcendent single deity.

The earliest surviving philosophy from ancient Greece dates back to the 6th century BC, when according to Aristotle Thales of Miletus was considered to have been the first Greek philosopher.

Later Greek schools of philosophy, including the Cynics, Stoics, and Epicureans, continued to be influential after the Roman annexation of Greece, and into the post-Classical world.

Late Latin survived long after the end of classical antiquity, and was finally replaced by written Romance languages around the 9th century AD.

Much of the best known and most highly thought of Latin literature comes from the classical period, with poets such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid; historians such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus; orators such as Cicero; and philosophers such as Seneca the Younger and Lucretius.

[75] However, Rome continued to fight, annexing much of Spain[76] and eventually defeating Carthage, ending her position as a major power and securing Roman preeminence in the Western Mediterranean.

[78] The modern Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Catalan) all derive from Latin.