National Competitions The Department of Classics

Carpe

diem! Seize the moment! In the slight dull that lingers in the Humanities corridor prior to study leave and then activities weeks, I am taking this opportunity to write. The Classics Department as ever has been proceeding purposefully and faced the new challenge uniquely of encouraging the pupils to select Latin for a GCSE subject both in year eight and in year nine. First teaching September 2014 we will have the situation where there will be GCSE Latin sets in three year groups. The numbers across the key stages are full of promise with up to sixteen pupils alone doing Latin A/S alongside a strong contingent of Classical Civilisation students at A level and a sizeable number of Greek GCSE candidates too. In large part this has been the result of the brilliant teaching of my colleague Sarah Latcham who sadly is leaving the school after three years to take up a position at Shrewsbury School. The moment she told me that she was being interviewed I knew in my heart that she would be departing too. I have really enjoyed working alongside her and benefitting from her pool of knowledge and common sense. In addition to being a brilliant classicist capable of teaching the full gambit of subjects to A level, Latin, Greek and Classical Civilisation, she has supported the Modern Languages Faculty with her knowledge of German by taking two trips to the Rhineland in Activity Week Two. Away from the classroom where she has been an exemplary form tutor, she has committed herself to the DoE, Chapel Weekends away and cricket. I knew immediately when I met her on interview day that anyone who liked cricket and taught Classics must come out of the highest of drawers. She has excelled in every aspect of her life here at Saint Olave’s. Her new school Shrewsbury with its very fine tradition of cricket and classics has netted a very good teacher.

Sarah’s replacement will be Mr Alex Carroll who is a Cambridge graduate and possessed of a master’s degree too from the Courtauld Institute. After working briefly at Bonhams in the manuscripts department he has recently completed his PGCE back at his alma mater. He has a great interest in public speaking, DoE and playing in orchestras. It is testament to the reputation of the school that we can recruit such high calibre teachers and the department warmly welcomes him and shall look forward to integrating him into our modus docendi.

Never unwilling to participate in and organise trips the department took the whole of year seven to Porchester where as ever they enjoyed the impressive Roman walls which surround the tremendous Norman keep. We also took Year 9 and some of Year 7 (though not all at once) to visit the Elgin marbles and the Parthenon metopes. Naturally we also went to Greece and its report follows beneath.

The Olavian Classicists have been performing superbly at university with a good number achieving first class honours degrees; Tom Hughes and Jack Owens at Bristol, George Jenkins at Cambridge ,Jordan McGauran at Liverpool and Lisa Chung at King’s College, London. My congratulations go to all these students and my memory of them at Delphi when they were at school still brings a smile to my face.

The study of Classics is thriving with large numbers of students going on to universities to study the subject. In the past five years there seems to have been an exodus towards Durham and Warwick. However there now seems to be a much keener enthusiasm for Exeter and Bristol. No doubt all the universities have their individual merits. Students also head for Oxbridge with Peter Leigh going to New College Oxford and Timothy Adelani to Cambridge. In spite of such enthusiasm there are challenges ahead and as ever we shall encounter them and deal with them appropriately.

David Craig S___Head of Classics

Classics Department trip to Greece 2014

‘I am part of all that I have met; yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.’

Tennyson’s romanticised vision of Ulysses is really quite extraordinary given that Ulysses or strictly speaking Odysseus’ travelling was full of experiences which far from engendering comfort contrived the opposite, fear. They were indeed in part on the margins of the world where law and order yield to barbarity or at least a world which Odysseus cannot accept and will wish to destroy, harm or deceive and they certainly help us to think of Odysseus as the man who is full of cunning, much- travelled, and a man of many turns. Fortunately Odysseus’ nostos bore no resemblance to ours but we would like to think that our experiences have contributed to our make-up and outlook.

There seems to be a sense of some recovery in Athens and it certainly did not have that edge of uncertainty that still pervaded last year after the violent protests around Syntagma square. On arrival we walked around the classical zone at ease against the constant backdrop of cicadas enjoying the temples of the Acropolis in the afternoon and thereafter the new Acropolis Museum. Around the remains of the theatre of Dionysus a good deal of work has been done and a recently-sculpted statue of Menander has been erected. We stayed in the Herodion for the second time running where the students delighted in the roof top café and its hot tubs. It is a hotel of exceptional value for a school trip and its position adjacent to the lower entrance to the Acropolis is ideal.

We visited the agora where the pupils particularly enjoyed seeing the voting discs, the ostraka covered in the name of Themistokles, the klepysdra and the machine created for picking the jury men, the kleroterion. Though we were unable to insert our own pinaikon we came away from the museum having a fuller grasp of the mechanics of democracy.

From the streets of Athens we headed north up towards Marathon and the wonderful site of Rhamnous, a place which should be on the itinerary of all school trips. A caveat is that pre-booking is now essential .It took all my powers of persuasion to be allowed into the site. The reward is immense .The route down to the main entrance to this fortified town and military garrison is lined with immense tombs and the site is possessed of a theatre that far from being carved out of the natural incline of a hill sits actually on a raised flat area. Its purpose was not merely for dramatic performances but seems to have been for meetings of the people; this was where democracy and theatre elided. As in the previous year its inaccessibility, its position overlooking the straits of Euboea, its colossal towers and massive walls enthralled the students.

The drive up to Delphi was as divine as ever with the hills coated with pine trees and terraces of olives. The small town with its narrow streets full of gift shops, selling replica armour and helmets, its pottery emporia and countless bars appealed too. The site itself was as magnificent as always though the Roman gymnasium has now been closed permanently for fear of falling rocks. We battled through the crowds of tourists following haplessly behind the guides with their red umbrellas reading from their pre-written script. In moments of quiet we were able to consider the light and shade of Mount Parnassus and why such vastly important decisions were made as a result of a visit to the oracle. We were also able to consider Herodes Atticus and the theatre he had built here. He is a man who should inspire an EPQ for the future.

At Olympia we stayed in the lovely Europa Hotel where we were met appreciatively as ever. The students dined al fresco under pergolas some of them eating rabbit for the first time and all of them declaring they had never seen artichoke hearts before. They appeared to enjoy equally the sites of Olympia especially the palaestra and the proximity of the workshop of Phidias to the Temple of Zeus. Unseen by the group before they have opened up a Roman mosaic just to the left of the entrance and this was a marvellous example alongside the Roman bathhouses how this pan-hellenic site was used not only throughout the Greek world but also the Roman one.

This year we went to Bassae again but I think this may be the last time. The road there is becoming increasingly dangerous and given its relative proximity to Olympia the journey is extremely long.

On arrival there we also discovered that much of the temple has now been shut off and I feel I have to balance the benefits of seeing this extraordinary work of Icktinos with the longevity of the coach trip there. From there we headed straight to Nafplion and the Argolid.

In the Argolid we visited the traditional sites of Epidauros, Paleo-epidauros, Mycenae and we raced at Nemea though strictly speaking I competed rather than raced. I certainly did not carry off the Herculean lion pelt. The students were captivated by the treasury of Atreus and the museum at Mycenae and even showed some enthusiasm for Ancient Tiryns. Corinth and the National Archaeological museum were visited on the way back to the airport.

For next year some changes are afoot. We need to do something different or more strictly speaking I do. Plans have been put in place to visit Sounion, Thorikos and Oropos. We hope too to see a live performance at the theatre of Epidaruros and not to see abandoned dogs as we did this year at Argos. The Classics trip is extremely rewarding but some changes are needed to avoid monotony for the party leader. This year we cut the trip down by one day but did not reduce the content from previous trips the result being total exhaustion on my return.

The success of the trip depends in large part on the cooperation of the students who as ever were well-behaved and this was noted by four retired teachers who were staying at the Europa who expressed their admiration not only for their behaviour but astonishment that so many students studied classics. This year the students performed the annual cabaret which I must say may well have been the very best ever with the most hilarious take on the embassy of Odysseus to the newly name ‘Achillies’ and some very interesting lyrics on ‘regrets’ sung by Jack Bradfield to the accompaniment of a ukele and Matthew Roberts appearing in a dress doing a brilliant scene from the ‘History Boys’. I am sure that the hotel is convinced of our eccentricity now and long may this conviction last. But the trip is also successful because of the huge support I receive from my wife in the running of the trip. She is certainly an honorary Olavian and certainly a boon to the department.