Postgraduate Students
Postgraduate Students
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
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Taught courses

You will take several courses across two semesters of teaching, including a compulsory course and a range of optional courses.

Core courses

There is one required training course in classical research methods and skills that runs across the two teaching semesters (20 credits). This course is specially designed for classicists and aims to introduce you to areas of the discipline beyond your own specialities and to help you with the practical skills of finding and presenting information; it also equips you with the independent skills you need to complete your dissertation.

Compulsory courses previously offered include:

Course name Credits

Skills and Methods in Classics

 20

Optional courses

Students will choose five courses from a list of options, subject to availability. Greek and Latin language courses will be offered every year, as will a number of Latin and Greek text seminars and core Ancient History and Classical Archaeology courses. Please note: at least three of your option courses must be on specific classics topics.

You will choose a further 100 credits from a wide selection of optional courses, subject to availability.  

Option Courses 2024-2025

* * Please note that the list of courses below is provisional and subject to change.  

Course name Credits

Elementary Latin (PG) 1

20

Elementary Greek (PG) 1

 20
Elementary Latin (PG) 2 20
Elementary Greek (PG) 2 20
Intermediate Latin (PG) 1 20
Intermediate Greek (PG) 1 20
Intermediate Latin (PG) 2 20
Intermediate Greek (PG) 2 20
A Topic in Late Antique and Byzantine History 1 20
A Topic in Late Antique and Byzantine History 2 20
Ancient Philosophy Seminar I 20

 Ancient Superpowers: The Armies and Military Monuments of Rome and Persia

 20
Archaeological Illustration 20
Bronze Age Civilisations of the Near East and Greece 20
Conceptualising the Neolithic 20
Conflict archaeology: materialities of violence 20
Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Suleyman the Magnificent 20
Greek Palaeography & Manuscript Culture 20
Greek Philosophy (Plato's Republic) 20
Greek Text Seminar 3 20
Hellenistic Art and Archaeology 20
Issues in Egyptian Archaeology: the Second Intermediate Period until the end of the Late Period (1650-332 BC) 20
Latin Text Seminar 1 20
Religion and War in Archaic and Classical Greece 20
Scottish Latin Literature 20
The Archaeology of Children and Childhood 20
The Art and Archaeology of Sparta and Laconia 20
The Hellenistic City 20
The Hittites: The Archaeology of an Ancient Near Eastern Civilisation 20
The Jewish Diaspora under the Roman Empire 20
Women, Writing, Greece: From Sappho to Virginia Woolf and Beyond 20
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy ^ 20
Greek Pastoral Poetry ^ 20
Latin Epic ^ 20
Latin Satire ^ 20
Plato's Republic ^ 20
Herod the Great and the End of Hellenism (online) * 20
Popular Culture in the Roman World (Online) * 20
The Athenian Akropolis (online) * 20

^ A maximum of one Level 10 course can be chosen. Priority for Level 10 courses goes to undergraduate students.

*A maximum of one online course can be chosen.

Courses for those studying from September 2025 will be available from April 2025.

Teaching and assessment

Teaching takes place in small groups with most courses taught via weekly seminars. The majority of the 20-credit courses are assessed by single pieces of coursework, usually essays of 4-5000 words, while the language courses are assessed by weekly exercises and a final exam.

Further information

You can see more details about the 2024/25 programme structure on the Degree Programme Table for the MSc in Classics. We expect the 2025/26 programme structure to be available from May 2025.

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