Panhellenic Humanities case studies
Panhellenic Humanities · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Panhellenic Humanities examination is a broad, multiple-choice assessment of Greco-Roman civilisation, testing candidates across seven weighted domains: Ancient Greek Language and Literature (20%), Latin Language and Literature (20%), Ancient Greek History and Historiography (15%), Roman History and Historiography (15%), Ancient Greek Philosophy and Science (15%), Classical Art, Archaeology and Material Culture (10%), and the Reception of Classical Antiquity (5%). It suits candidates who have studied classical languages and civilisations at school or university level and who need a single, externally recognised measure of that breadth - for example as an admissions or placement credential, or as evidence of subject knowledge for teaching or further study. The Panhellenic Humanities case studies are 5 cases and about 3,879 words.
1The Broken Left Margin: Editing an Aeolic Papyrus
You are preparing the editio princeps of a single-column papyrus, P. 27/4, which preserves fourteen lines of Sapphic stanzas.
789 words, about 4 min2Grading an Essay on Aristotelian Teleology
A second-year seminar has submitted 4,000-word essays on Aristotle, Physics II.8. One essay argues that (i) because Aristotle says nature acts 'for the sake of something' yet 'not by deliberation', his teleology is really a concealed theology; (ii) the rain example shows that he cannot explain why rain falls on the fields; and (iii) Empedocles' account of 'spontaneous' generation is more scientific, so Aristotle's rejection of it is dogmatic.
750 words, about 4 min3Recension of a Three-Witness Hexameter Poem
Three manuscripts carry a 62-line anonymous hexameter poem on the labours of Hercules: A (s. XI, an illustrated codex), and C (s.
801 words, about 4 min4A Krater with a Repainted Zone and a Provenance Gap
A regional museum has accepted on loan an Attic red-figure calyx-krater, height 42.5 cm, described as having been in a private collection in Basel since 1978. It carries a kalos inscription on the rim, partly incised and partly painted.
756 words, about 4 min5Staging Medea for Fourteen-to-Eighteens
A touring company has commissioned a ninety-minute version of Euripides' Medea for audiences aged 14–18, most of whom will have read nothing of the play beforehand. The dramaturg proposes three changes: (a) reduce the five choral odes to a single sung refrain of sixteen lines; (b) cut the messenger speech and show the killings of the children on stage; (c) keep the final scene with Medea in the chariot of Helios but add a short spoken epilogue in which the chorus condemns her, so that the audience is not left without a moral.
783 words, about 4 min