NCEA L2 Classical Studies cheat sheet

Classical Studies (Level 2) - content domains not enumerated in source

• Sources fall into three types: literary texts (epic, tragedy, history, oratory), material evidence (buildings, sculpture, vases, coins), and inscriptions; each is shaped by its author's or maker's purpose, audience, and genre, so no source is a neutral window onto the past.

• Chronology anchors: Minoan and Mycenaean Bronze Age (c. 2000–1100 BCE), Greek Archaic period (c. 800–480 BCE), Classical period (480–323 BCE), Hellenistic period (323–31 BCE), Roman Republic (509–27 BCE), Roman Empire from 27 BCE.

• Greek epic convention: Homeric poems open with an invocation of the Muse and begin in medias res; formulae and epithets are oral-composition markers, and the Iliad covers a short span of the Trojan War while the Odyssey covers a long nostos (return journey).

• Greek theatre convention: three actors maximum on stage, all roles played by male performers wearing masks, chorus of twelve to fifteen, and the unities of time, place, and action observed most strictly in tragedy.

• Athenian democracy institutions: Ekklesia (assembly of citizens), Boule (Council of 500 chosen by lot), dikasteria (jury courts), and ostracism; citizenship excluded women, slaves, and metics (resident foreigners).

• Roman political offices in the cursus honorum: quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul, then censor or dictator; each office had a minimum age and the consulship conferred imperium (military command) for one year.

• Roman social hierarchy: patrician and plebeian orders in the Republic, equestrians (equites) as the business class, and in the Empire the emperor's household, senators, equestrians, freedmen, and slaves; clientela (patron-client bonds) structured daily obligation.

• Ancient religion as civic practice: sacrifice, festivals, and vows were public acts expected of citizens; Greek and Roman gods were identified with each other through interpretatio Romana (e.g. Zeus–Jupiter, Hera–Juno, Athena–Minerva).