Phillips Exeter Academy

Classical Languages

Classical Languages
Classical Languages

Experience the joy of reading Greek and Latin authors in the original. Learn Latin from Ludus and Greek from ΑΓΩΝ, textbooks written by members of the Classical Languages...

Roman Satire
Classical Languages

This course explores the meaning of the Roman interpretation of satire (satura, meaning “medley”) and how the literary form developed from an improvisational, personal story set to meter to a light-hearted yet dagger-sharp form of social...

Tacitus
Classical Languages

Agrippina, the sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, mother of Nero, was at the heart of the power and intrigues of the Julio-Claudian emperors for several decades. She is one of the most colorful characters in Tacitus’ history of that period with...

Martial and Petronius
Classical Languages

Although they wrote in different genres – Martial was a master of the epigram, while Petronius wrote something resembling a modern novel – the works of these first century CE authors are both written in language that is closer to the street than...

Vergil – Intensive
Classical Languages

The 511/521/531 sequence offers a close reading of selections from Vergil’s epic Aeneid, Latin poetry’s defining achievement and an enduring monument of world literature. This intensive sequence covers more material than the 510/520/530 sequence...

Catullus – Intensive
Classical Languages

This course is dedicated to reading selections from the short carmina of a revolutionary young lyric poet, Gaius Valerius Catullus. Love, hate, betrayal, loyalty, invective and the art of writing itself are among the array of topics that Catullus explored in...

Horace – Intensive
Classical Languages

In this course, students study many of Horace’s lyric poems (Odes) and at least one of his Satires. Horace used his verse to discuss topics essential to fundamental human happiness in the face of inevitable changes both personal and political. In...

Ovid – Intensive
Classical Languages

This course explores in depth the wittiest of Roman poets, Publius Ovidius Naso. First, we will read three of his Amores, the love poems that made him famous; then, the opening of the Ars Amatoria, the seduction manual that got him in trouble with the emperor...

Greek Poetry – Intensive
Classical Languages

Depending on the interests of the students and instructor, this course offers readings in either Greek epic or lyric poetry. In the epic sequence, students will read at least two books of Homer’s Odyssey in their entirety and selections from the full...

Latin Elegy
Classical Languages

Quintilian famously said, “In elegy too we challenge the Greeks.” Although indebted to the Greeks, the Roman elegists created a kind of personal love poetry never seen before in literature: a cycle of poems describing a love affair with one woman...