oxford classics offer holders 2024

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do not do the duolingo course. it’s very bad. you will be confused

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have a look at a basic grammar textbook (cambridge latin course might help? alternatively try a gcse one)

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read around the subject; having a good knowledge of myths is useful for translations

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read some history! spqr by mary beard is an excellent starter.

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don’t believe the internet about myths (esp not places like tumblr)

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natalie haynes (author, comedian, classicist): she does the stand up for the classics podcast (high key recommend the odyssey and iliad episodes) & she’s an incredible writer (pandora’s jar (women) & divine might (goddesses) are her non fiction books on myth; stone blind (medusa) & a thousand ships are her fiction!! she has some more but these are the ones i’ve read) note: she’s greek focused, esp. on women

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SPQR by mary beard is excellent for rome!! 10/10 no notes

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the death of caesar by barry strauss is an EXCELLENT book on, well, caesar’s death!! it’s laid out in a way that makes it easy to understand all the moving pieces and actually makes it pretty suspenseful!!

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absolutely adore the drunk mythology podcast on spotify. it’s not all greek and roman stuff but they clearly love it & they’re hilarious!!

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in terms of learning languages i’m pretty sure they walk you through it when we get there but i did a summer school on latin using the cambridge latin course which was super fun & i 100% recommend if you want a headstart!!

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i would avoid madeleine miller tbh? i’ve read her circe and, like, it’s well written but perhaps not best for any actual classical study or perspective on the characters. i’ve heard similar criticism for her song of achilles (i.e. rounding all the edges off characters and essentially uwuifying them) but it’s def fun to read if you want!!

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my classics teacher recommends silence of the girls by pat barker but i haven’t read it yet!

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robert harris has some good historical fiction set in rome!!

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i’ve read a lot of stuff around the fall of rome & i’d recommend adrian goldsworthy, bryan ward-perkins, and peter heather’s stuff based on what i read around that!!

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honestly, if there’s something you’re interested in, try looking on jstor? i love love love roman lead poisoning and there are articles on there about that

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i’m ngl i adore sophocles’ oedipus trilogy (still can’t decide if my fave is oedipus the king or antigone)

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ovid fan here. would recommend!! you can get each book individually too!!

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the odyssey & the iliad, naturally. i’ve read e. v. rieu’s translations but i’ve heard excellent things about robert fagles’ and emily wilson’s too!!

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world’s biggest aeneid fan. aeneas my blorbo my guy my man i am his defence lawyer lover and he is my son. i have david west’s translation!!

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i’ve also read frogs (aristophanes) & bacchae (euripides) (both featuring dionysus, the first being a comedy and the latter being a tragedy) ((the concept of dionysus’ actor wearing a mask set in a serene smile throughout all of bacchae haunts me)

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ucl & kcl’s annual classics plays!! i saw plato’s symposium at ucl last year (and heard excellent things abt kcl’s iphigenia) and am seeing bacchae at ucl this year!!

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i saw phaedra at the national theatre and it was terrible but i read an online translation of (seneca’s) phaedra (as opposed to euripides’ hippolytus i or hippolytus ii, telling the story of the same myth) and loved it so who’s to say

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learn the difference between classical and modern morals and don’t try and apply modern morals to classical texts!! this one is really important

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familiarise yourself with the timeline of ancient greece (i.e. the difference between ancient classical hellenic roman etc)

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learn the gods!! you don’t need to know all of them off by heart but knowing the olympian gods and at least having heard of some of the other ones is helpful!!

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if you just want the gist of a myth of character genuinely just look on wikipedia. it’ll be way simpler and will at least give you a grounding if you want to do more research!!

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sappho my love my life!! anne carson’s sappho translation “if not, winter” has gotta be up there in my faves (greek on one page english on the other) and it haunts me always

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quite frankly i think finding yourself a guy (gender neutral) to be obsessed with and then learning everything about said guy is very important

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remember to point and laugh and make fun of historical people for being stupid, i 100% guarantee it will improve everything

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remember that different translations will tell you different things (in the words of natalie haynes: “good at shouting” is sometimes written as “master of the war cry”, and quite frankly those are not the same thing)

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sorry for the horrendously long message i am normal about classics