Talks for schools

We offer talks to schools about Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology. This includes topics in Greek and Latin literature, Greek and Roman history, and Greek and Latin language.

We can offer talks related to OCR specifications in Ancient History, Classical Civilisation, Greek and Latin. We aim to support teachers and learners at A-level, AS-level, GCSE or earlier Key Stages in their study of classical subjects.

We also offer introductions to Classics, Classical Studies, and Ancient History, at school and at university.

To arrange for one of our members of staff to come and give a talk at your school, please contact Dr Mary Beagon.

Talk topics

All talks are designed to last 45 minutes but can be made longer or shorter. They are aimed at A-level students but could be modified for KS3 or KS4.

Ancient History and Classical Civilisation

Greek topics

  • Ancient and Modern Debates about Democracy
  • Commemorating the war dead in Ancient Greece
  • Getting to know Socrates
  • Magical objects in Greek myth
  • Political Spaces in Classical Athens
  • The uses of Greek Inscriptions
  • War and death in Classical Sparta

Roman topics

  • A day at the races: chariot racing in antiquity
  • Agricola: a Roman superhero
  • Apocalypse Now: Boadicea's uprising
  • Blood and Sand - gladiators in antiquity
  • Pax Augusta or triumphant imperator? Reading Augustus’ image in Rome’s monuments
  • Polybius on the rise of Rome and how to write history
  • Practical Magic: Cursing a Thief in Roman Britain
  • The Edge of Civilisation: Hadrian's Wall
  • The Gracchi, Rome and Italy: what problem were they trying to solve?
  • Was Seneca really a Stoic?

Greece and Rome

  • Character assassination in the ancient world: Diodorus Siculus and the wonder-working slave-king Eunus
  • Classics and Islam
  • Egypt in the Graeco-Roman World
  • Everyday writing from a Roman province: Greek and Latin papyri from Egypt in the John Rylands Library collection
  • How to write a letter in ancient Greece and Rome

Ancient Languages and Society

  • Everyday writing from a Roman province: Greek and Latin papyri from Egypt in the John Rylands Library collection
  • How many languages are there in the world?
  • How to write a letter in ancient Greece and Rome
  • Latin and the other languages of pre-Roman Italy
  • The pronunciation of classical Greek (knowledge of Latin or Greek required)
  • The pronunciation of classical Latin (knowledge of Latin or Greek required)
  • What is Indo-European? And how do we know?

Classical Literature

Greek literature

  • Babies in Greek Tragedy
  • Deathless Glory: heroism in the Iliad and Odyssey
  • Directed by Homer: Homer and the poetry of seeing
  • Odysseus and Agamemnon
  • Patterns in Homer
  • War Music: Christopher Logue as a Hellenistic poet

Latin literature

  • Catullus the love poet
  • Ovid the love poet
  • Playing with Ovid
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