More about the course

The Oxford course lasts four years, and spans authors and periods from the Greek ‘dark ages’ to the period when the Roman empire dominated the Mediterranean – almost a millennium. The course has great scope but immense diversity: you can read plays by Sophocles or private letters of Cicero, study Alexander’s conquests or the social context of Christianity, learn what Plato thought and why Aristotle disagreed with him – and much else. The first part of the course focuses on languages and literature, but in the second half you choose from a large and varied menu, and you can emphasize the side of the subject that interests you most.

Christ Church is a major Classics college, taking around seven students a year; the library resources are outstanding; there is an unusually large number of tutors specialising in different areas of Classics; the academic standards are high, and so are levels of support. The classicists in College are a friendly, lively community who often discuss their work outside tutorials.

Recent graduates have become teachers, or have done postgraduate research in Classics, but others have gone on to careers in London and abroad, publishing, advertising, computing, media, law, journalism, the Civil Service, and the Foreign Office. This reflects the diversity of the subject and the skills we aim to cultivate.

View a list of our academic teaching staff

Faculty website:

www.classics.ox.ac.uk