Venues

Gilmorehill Campus

Content

Year 1: You will study the myth, literature, art, history, and politics of classical Athens and Augustan Rome. You will read Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid alongside the histories of Thucydides and Tacitus, works of Plato and Cicero, poems of Horace and dramas by Aristophanes and Euripides.

Year 2: You will study Greek cities, communities and kingdoms and the wider Mediterranean world in the build-up to Alexander the Great's world-changing conquests in the fourth century and their aftermath in the Hellenistic period. Using literary sources (including Apollonius’ Argonautica, Menander, Theocritus), as well as historical and material evidence you will explore topics such as war and conquest, kingship and empire, politics and ideology, cult and ritual, and the household.

You will also study the Roman Empire by considering literary, historical and material evidence (including Tacitus, Suetonius) to investigate issues of identity and power across the empire as well as the lived experience of its inhabitants (including topics such as slavery, gender, language, religion, education, disability).

Years 3 and 4: If you progress to Honours (years 3 and 4) you will choose options from a wide range that reflects current key issues, debates and research on the ancient world.

Courses may include:
Interpreting Greek tragedy; The Roman stage: a history of Roman drama; Greek/Roman art; Ancient medicine; Greek lyric poetry (including Sappho); Rhetoric at Rome; Myths, fictions & histories of Alexander the Great; Greek religion; Cleopatra: life & legend; The later Roman Empire; Women & witchcraft in antiquity; The invention of history: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon; Greek letters & letter-writers; The novel in antiquity: Impotent heroes & damsels in distress.

Entry Requirements

2026 entry requirements

Standard entry: 5 Highers at AAAAB (by end S6 with min BBBB after S5) including English and a humanities subject at AA (AB or BA may be considered).

Entry to year 2 may be possible with 3 Advanced Highers at AAA in relevant subjects plus above Highers.

Widening access entry: 4 Highers at AABB or BBBB (by end S6) including English and a humanities subject. Completion of pre-entry programme is necessary.

Grades and subjects may vary depending on combinations taken.