Art appreciation in Pompeii.
Until this year, these trips have been for pupils in the Middle and Upper School; however, we are pleased to announce that from 2019 we will also be able to run a short tour to Pompeii for the Lower School, allowing our youngest Classicists to discover whether Caecilius still “est in horto”, and what really happened in this most evocative of sites. Alongside these expeditions to the Mediterranean, the Classics Department runs a number of other trips within the United Kingdom, tailored to the studies of each year group. The wonderful resources of the London museums provide a great introduction into Greek and Roman culture, and we begin with the Museum of London in Year 7, where we not only explore the fascinating displays, but also undertake an object-handling session, which lets the pupils hold genuine artefacts from Roman Britain. In Year 8 we make our first visit to a Roman villa, touring down to Lullingstone, where beautiful mosaics give the first evidence for Christian worship in this country, while sacrificed animals attest to the continued prevalence of pagan worship at the same time. In Year 9 we offer a tour to some of the finer ruins of the West Country, visiting Bath,
‘I find the culture of the Romans and Greeks extremely interesting and I love the logical challenges of translating Latin too’ Oliver, Year 8 Cirencester and Chedworth in a three-day trip which culminates in an exploration of Roman London, from its amphitheatre to the unparalleled treasures of the British Museum. Such a trip not only perfectly complements our pupils’ studies, but also allows us to consider the ethics and politics of Classical archaeology as we confront one of the most controversial objects to survive from antiquity: the Parthenon (or perhaps Elgin’s) marbles! For our senior pupils, many of these sites can be explored in greater depth, alongside other fantastic resources such as the Cast Courts of the Victoria and Albert museum. All A level pupils are taken back to the British museum (often more than once!) to explore the less famous but no less important items within the collection, such as evidence for Domitian’s damnatio memoriae , a deliberate strategy of erasing the emperor’s name from public inscriptions after his assassination, a sobering testament to the power of the victors to construct history as they see fit.
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