Mrs Jessica Ashby- Head of Department
email: jessica.ashby@stcatherines.info
Jessica read MML (Latin and French) at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, spending a year in Paris working as Global Marketing intern for PwC as part of her degree. Her final year dissertation surveyed the etymology of compound noun formation in the French Language, and she retains a passion for Linguistics to this day, overseeing the school's participation in the UK Linguistics Olympiad each year. After a year working in Foreign Rights for Yale University Press, Jessica returned to Emmanuel to study for her PGCE in Classics. She joined St Catherine’s in 2010 after 8 years teaching Latin, Classical Civilisation and French in the state sector, taking on her current role as Head of Classics in 2016. She has also worked as an online tutor for the Cambridge School Classics Project, and as a Reviser for the WJEC Latin Question Paper Committee. Outside the classroom, Jessica enjoys playing a variety of sports, walking the family dog and watching live comedy. 

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Mrs Kirsty Meredith
email: kirsty.meredith@stcatherines.info
Mrs Meredith teaches Latin and Classics. She is the department expert on Greek Art and Architecture as well as being the Senior Housemistress.

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Dr Guy Brindley
email: guy.brindley@stcatherines.info
Before arriving at St Catherine’s in 2018, Guy completed his BA, MSt, and DPhil at Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he also taught undergraduates and participated in interview admissions. As well as teaching Latin, Greek, and Classical Civilisation throughout the Senior School, he is an Oxbridge Mentor, Sixth Form Tutor, and chief architect of the annual House Quiz. Beyond the classroom, key interests include theatre (his doctorate was in Greek tragedy), naval history, country walks and gourmet coffee!’

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Mrs Jean Reid
email: jean.reid@statherines.info
Jean read Classics at University College, Oxford, where she particularly enjoyed Greek literature and historiography and wrote her 4^th year dissertation on Ezra Pound’s translation of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis.  She completed her PGCE at Cambridge and went on to teach at Sevenoaks and St Paul’s Girls’ School.  She first came to St Catherine’s in 2008 to teach Latin, Greek and Classical Civilisation, left to raise her young children and is delighted to be back again.  Jean was a tutor for many years at the JACT Greek Summer School and on the editorial team of Omnibus, a classical magazine produced by university academics for VI Form students.  In her spare time, she is involved in her local church and enjoys cooking, knitting and sewing.

Prep School L3 Latin: 

Students in the Prep School in L3 are taught simple Latin grammar and core vocabulary for one period a week. The course aims to consolidate and extend students’ understanding of English grammar via Latin, and to introduce students to the concept of Latin derivatives in both the English language and other Romance languages they may have encountered. Students also explore Greco-Roman mythology, analysing its moral messages and artistic interpretations.

Students will still start the Cambridge Latin Course when they enter the Senior School.

U3-U4 Latin: Cambridge Latin Course

Students in the middle school cover stages 1-20 of the Cambridge Latin Course. We use the Cambridge Latin Course at St Catherine's because it is the most enjoyable of all the Latin courses available. It is a story-based course that aims to build up reading skills and vocabulary through constant exposure to Latin. It delivers the grammar in a clear and accessible manner, although all teachers supplement the course with additional grammatical materials.

The grammar features covered in U3 are: the nominative, accusative and dative cases, declensions (first, second and third), and the present, imperfect and perfect tenses. In U3 we also focus on the civilisation topics of Roman houses and households, daily life, slaves and gladiators.

The grammar features covered in L4 are: infinitives, irregular verbs, agreement of adjectives, relative clauses and the pluperfect tense. The civilisation topics are the eruption of Vesuvius and the Roman invasion of Britain. Literature passages are also introduced in L4 for the first time.

The grammar features covered in U4 are: the genitive case, gender and agreement, demonstrative pronouns, imperatives and present participles. The civilisation topic is Roman Alexandria. Further literature passages are studied as preparation for the GCSE course.

Bi-annually we run a trip to classical sites in the Mediterranean. This opportunity is offered to any student in L5 upwards with priority given to those studying a classical subject.  Previous trip locations have included:

• Rome and the Bay of Naples
• Sicily
• Greece (A multi-site trip)

 

* means that this is a book you could read for pleasure
** means that this book is a slightly harder read
^ means that this is a book that is relevant to the A-Level students

• Classical Epic: Homer and Virgil
• Camps, W.A, An Introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid ** ^
• Edwards, Mark, Homer: Poet of the Iliad ^
• Finley, M.I., The World of Odysseus ** ^
• Fowler, Robert, The Cambridge Companion to Homer ^
• Griffin, Jasper, Homer ** ^
• Griffin, Jasper, Homer: the Odyssey ^
• Griffin, Jasper, Virgil ^ **
• Harrison, Stephen, Oxford Readings in Vergil’s Aeneid ^
• Homer, The Iliad (translated by Peter Jones) ^ *
• Homer, The Odyssey (translated by D.C. Rieu and edited by Peter Jones) ^ **
• Jenkyns, Richard, Classical Epic: Homer and Virgil * * ^
• Jones, Peter, Homer’s Odyssey, a companion to the English Translation by Richmond Lattimore ^
• Luce, J.V., Homer and the Heroic Age * ^
• Martindale, Charles (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil ^
• Silk, Michael, Homer: the Iliad ^ *
• Thorpe, Martin, Homer * ^
• Virgil, The Aeneid (translated by David West) * ^
• Williams, R. Deryck, Aeneas and the Roman Hero ** ^
• Wood, Michael, In Search of the Trojan War *
• Zanker, G., The heart of Achilles: characterisation and personal ethics in the Iliad ^

Greek Tragedy

• Aeschylus, Prometeus Bound, Suppliants, Seven against Thebes, Persians (Penguin) *
• Aeschylus, The Oresteia (Penguin) * ^
• Blundell, Mary, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: a study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics ^
• Easterling, Pat, The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy ^
• Easterling, Pat, Greek Drama ^
• Euripides, Electra and Other Plays (Penguin) * ^
• Euripides, Heracles and Other Plays (Penguin) *
• Euripides, Medea and Other Plays (Penguin) * ^
• Euripides, Orestes and Other Plays (Penguin) * ^
• Goward, Barbara, Aeschylus: Agamemnon * ^
• Hughes, Ted, Alcestis (his translation of Euripides’ tragedy) *
• Kitto, H.D.F., Greek Tragedy: a literary study ^
• Knox, Bernard, The Heroic Temper: studies in Sophoclean Tragedy ^
• Lloyd, Michael, Sophocles: Electra ^ *
• Mills, Sophie, Euripides: Bacchae ^ *
• Mills, Sophie, Euripides: Hippolytus ^ *
• Segal, Erich, Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy ^
• Sophocles, Philoctetes (Arris and Phillips) * ^
• Sophocles, The Theban Plays (Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus) * ^
• Taplin, Oliver, Greek Tragedy in Action ^ William, Allan, Euripides: Medea ^ *
• Winnington-Ingram, R., Sophocles: an interpretation ^
• Woodard, Thomas, Sophocles: a collection of critical essays ^

Greek Comedy

• Aristophanes, The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin) *
• Aristophanes, Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin) *
• Aristophanes, The Wasps and Other Plays (Penguin) *
• Easterling, Pat, Greek Drama

Greek and Roman Philosophy

• Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic Aristotle, Classical Literary Criticism (Penguin) ^
• Barnes, Jonathan, Aristotle **
• Fox, Adam, Plato for Pleasure **
• Guthrie, W.K.C., The Greek Philosophers from Thales to Aristotle
• Nadaff, Ramona, Exiling the poets: the Production of Censorship in Plato’s Republic Plato, Protagoras and Meno (Penguin) **
• Plato, Republic (Penguin) *
• Sedley, David, The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy
• Shields, Christopher, Aristotle Taylor, C.C.W., Socrates **

Greek Historians

• Dewald, Carolyn, The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus ^
• Dover, K.J., Thucydides Finley, M.I, Greek Historians: the essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius ^
• Gould, John, Herodotus ^ *
• Herodotus, Histories (Penguin) * ^
• Romm, James, Herodotus ^
• Rood, Tim, Thucydides: narrative and explanation
• Thomas, Rosalind, Herodotus in Context ^
• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin)
• Usher, Stephen, Herodotus: the Persian Wars ^ *
• Westlake, H.D., Studies in Thucydides and Greek History

Greek History and Civilisation

• Andrews, Anthony, Greek Society **
• Buckley, Terry, Aspects of Greek History, 750-323
• Cartledge, Paul, The Spartans **
• Dover, K.J. Greek Homosexuality *
• Easterling, Pat, Greek Religion and Society * ^
• Easterling, Pat, The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I: Greek Literature
• Forrest, W.G., A History of Sparta
• Grant, Michael, The Classical Greeks *
• Jones, Peter, The World of Athens: an introduction to classical Athenian culture * ^
• Powell, Anton, Classical Sparta: Techniques behind her Success
• Wycherley, Richard, How the Greeks Built Cities

Greek Art and Architecture

• Beard, Mary, The Parthenon ** ^
• Boardman, John, Athenian Black-figure Vases ^
• Boardman, John, Athenian Red-figure Vases ^
• Boardman, John, Athenian Red-figure Vases: the classical period ^
• Boardman, John, Greek Art * ^
• Boardman, John, Greek Sculpture * ^
• Boardman, John, Greek Sculpture: the Archaic Period ^
• Carpenter, Thomas, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece ^ *
• Cook, R.M., Greek Art, its Development, Character and Influence ^
• Jenkins, Ian, The Parthenon Frieze ^
• Pedley, John Griffiths, Greek Art and Archaeology ^
• Politt, J.J., Art and Experience in classical Greece ^
• Robertson, Martin, The Art of Vase Painting in Classical Athens ^
• Smith, R.R.R., Hellenistic Sculpture
• Woodford Susan, Introduction to Greek Art ** ^
• Woodford, Susan, The Parthenon ** ^

Latin Poets

• Catullus, The Poems (Penguin Classics) **
• Davis, P.J., Ovid and Augustus, a political reading of Ovid’s erotic poems ^
• Hardie, Phillip, The Cambridge Companion to Ovid ^
• Knox, P.E., Oxford Readings in Ovid ^
• Lyne, R.O.A.M., The Latin Love Poets from Catullus to Horace ^
• Nisbet, R.G.M., A commentary on Horace: Odes Book I
• Nisbet, R.G.M., A commentary on Horace: Odes Book III
• Otis, Brooks, Ovid as an Epic Poet
• Ovid, Metamorphoses (in Penguin Classics) **
• West, David, Horace Odes III: Dulce Periculum
• West, David, Reading Horace
• Williams, Gordon, Horace
• Wiseman, T.P., Catullus and his World *

Cicero

• Cicero, Murder Trials (Penguin Classics) *
• Cicero, Selected Political Speeches (Penguin Classics) *
• Everett, Antony, Cicero **
• Harris, Robert, Imperium **
• Rawson, Elizabeth, Cicero: a portrait *
• Shackleton, D.R. Cicero

Roman Historians

• Goodyear, F.R.D., Tacitus ^
• Goodyear, F.R.D., The Annals of Tacitus: Books I-VI ^
• Grant, Michael, Greek and Roman Historians: information and misinformation ^ *
• Livy, The Early History of Rome (Penguin Classics) *
• Livy, The growth of Rome (extracts from his histories) **
• Martin, Ronald, Tacitus ^
• Mellor, Ronald, Roman Historians ^
• Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics) **
• Syme, Ronald, Tacitus ^
• Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin Classics) * ^
• Walker, B., The Annals of Tacitus: a study in the writing of history ^
• Walsh, P. G., Livy
• Walsh, P.G., Livy: his historical aims and methods

Roman History and Civilisation

• Alston, Richard, Aspects of Roman History, AD 14-117 *
• Bradley, Keith, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World *
• Dawson, Ian, Greek and Roman Medicine *
• Flower, Harriet, The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic *
• Gardner, J.F., Women in Roman Law and Society *
• Grant, Michael, Julius Caesar *
• Griffin, Miriam, Nero: the End of a Dynasty *
• Holland, Richard, Augustus, Godfather of Europe **
• Holland, Tom, Rubicon: the Tragedy and Triumph of the Roman Republic **
• Jones, Peter, The World of Rome: an introduction to Roman culture **
• Massey, Michael, Slavery in Ancient Rome *
• Paoli, Unrico, Rome, its People, Life and Customs **
• Richardson, J., Roman Provincial Administration *
• Salway, Peter, The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain *
• Sear, Frank, Roman Architecture *
• Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: a Sourcebook in Roman Social History **
• Shotter, David, The Fall of the Roman Republic **
• Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Augustan Rome **
• Ward-Perkins, J.B., Roman Imperial Architecture *
• Woolf, Greg, Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World **

 

Website Links

• Cambridge Latin Course
• Classical texts in the original and in translation