JC Classics study plan

Build a one-page genealogical chart linking the Olympians, the Titan generation, and the major mortal houses (Atreus, Cadmus, Pelops), drawing each edge from memory before checking a handbook.

Define in writing the difference between myth, saga, folktale, and etiological narrative, and tag ten well-known stories with the correct category.

List the twelve Olympians with their Greek and Roman names, core attributes, sacred animals or plants, and one principal sanctuary each.

Recite aloud the principal episodes of the Trojan cycle and the returns of the heroes, separating Homeric from non-Homeric material.

Summarize the plot of the Iliad book by book in no more than two sentences per book, noting where the poem's stated theme of wrath pivots.

Map the structure of the Odyssey by travel sequence and by the embedded narrative frame, marking where flashback begins and ends.

Compare how Virgil reworks Homeric episodes in the Aeneid, identifying at least five deliberate echoes and their effect.

Memorize ten short Greek or Latin epic phrases (opening lines, formulaic epithets) with their literal translations.

Outline the narrative arc of Apollonius' Argonautica and name the ways it departs from Homeric convention.

Construct a timeline from the Persian Wars to the death of Alexander, placing at least 20 events with dates accurate to the decade.

Explain in writing how Herodotus and Thucydides differ in subject, method, speeches, and stated purpose, citing specific passages by book and chapter.

Trace the political development of the Roman Republic from the Conflict of the Orders to the Gracchi, naming the key magistracies and their powers.

Compare the accounts of Livy, Polybius, and Plutarch on one event (for example the Second Punic War) and isolate where their emphases diverge.

Identify the bias and intended audience of three ancient historians and give one textual example of each tendency.

Explain the constitutional settlements of Augustus and the institutional basis of the Principate in writing.

Analyze how the sources for the Late Republic (Cicero's letters, Caesar's commentaries, Sallust) shape the modern narrative of decline.

Diagram the structural conventions of Attic tragedy (prologue, parodos, episodes, stasima, exodos) using one Sophoclean and one Euripidean play.

Explain Aristotle's analysis of tragedy in the Poetics, defining hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and catharsis and applying each to a specific play.

Contrast the comic methods of Aristophanes and Menander in plot, chorus, and character type.

Articulate how the three tragedians treat the same myth (e.g. Electra or Iphigenia) and what the differences reveal about each dramatist's concerns.

Summarize the arguments of Plato's Republic, Apology, and Symposium, naming the central question and method of each.

State the core doctrines of Aristotle's ethics and metaphysics in plain language and distinguish them from Platonic positions.

Trace the main schools of Hellenistic philosophy (Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic) and their differing accounts of the good life.

Define the parts of classical rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery) and the three genres of oratory with a Roman example of each.

Explain Cicero's rhetorical theory and its debt to Greek sources in writing.

Identify the orders of Greek architecture and date the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and a Roman triumphal arch by style and context.

Describe the techniques of Greek vase painting and Roman wall painting, and use them to date three representative objects.

Explain how inscriptions, papyri, and medieval manuscripts each transmit classical texts, and define palimpsest, codex, and stemma.

Outline the history of textual criticism from Alexandrian scholarship to modern editorial method.

List the major papyrus finds and manuscript families for one Greek and one Latin author.

Synthesize the four heaviest domains by writing timed essay outlines on cross-domain prompts (e.g. how tragedy uses history, how myth informs rhetoric).

Complete a full-length timed practice set under exam conditions and score it by domain.

Re-drill every item missed in earlier weeks and log the underlying concept, not just the answer.

Recite from memory a consolidated date list, a myth-genealogy core, and key philosophical definitions.