The Classics: A Brief Insight

Very Short Introductions #001

by Mary Beard, John Henderson

Mary Beard and John Henderson link a haunting temple on a lonely mountainside to the glory of ancient Greece and the grandeur of Rome, and to classics within modern culture-from Jefferson and Byron to Asterix and Ben-Hur. Rather than focusing on the traditional retelling of the classics, the authors concentrate on one particular artifact-the friezes from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia-as a springboard to explore, define, and debate the relationship between our contemporary world and the ancient one.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Classics, Ancient History, Philosophy, Literature, Greece

181 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2000

About the author

Winifred Mary Beard (born 1 January 1955) is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog "A Don's Life", which appears on The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist".

Mary Beard, an only child, was born on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Her father, Roy Whitbread Beard, worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. She recalled him as "a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, but very engaging". Her mother Joyce Emily Beard was a headmistress and an enthusiastic reader.

Mary Beard attended an all-female direct grant school. During the summer she participated in archaeological excavations; this was initially to earn money for recreational spending, but she began to find the study of antiquity unexpectedly interesting. But it was not all that interested the young Beard. She had friends in many age groups, and a number of trangressions: "Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. Yes, I was a very naughty girl."

At the age of 18 she was interviewed for a place at Newnham College, Cambridge and sat the then compulsory entrance exam. She had thought of going to King's, but rejected it when she discovered the college did not offer scholarships to women. Although studying at a single-sex college, she found in her first year that some men in the University held dismissive attitudes towards women's academic potential, and this strengthened her determination to succeed. She also developed feminist views that remained "hugely important" in her later life, although she later described "modern orthodox feminism" as partly "cant". Beard received an MA at Newnham and remained in Cambridge for her PhD.

From 1979 to 1983 she lectured in Classics at King's College London. She returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a fellow of Newnham College and the only female lecturer in the Classics faculty. Rome in the Late Republic, which she co-wrote with the Cambridge ancient historian Michael Crawford, was published the same year. In 1985 Beard married Robin Sinclair Cormack. She had a daughter in 1985 and a son in 1987. Beard became Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement in 1992.

Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Beard was one of several authors invited to contribute articles on the topic to the London Review of Books. She opined that many people, once "the shock had faded", thought "the United States had it coming", and that "[w]orld bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price".[4] In a November 2007 interview, she stated that the hostility these comments provoked had still not subsided, although she believed it had become a standard viewpoint that terrorism was associated with American foreign policy.[1]

In 2004, Beard became the Professor of Classics at Cambridge.[3] She is also the Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has delivered a series of lectures on "Roman Laughter".[5]

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Golden Oldies – Always The Latest Craze

‘This is no potted history of Greece and Rome, but a brilliant demonstration that the continual re-excavation of our classical past is vital if the modern world is to rise to the challenge inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi to “Know yourself”.’ 

~ Robin Osborne

This VSI, one of the best among those I have read, is an eloquent and captivating journey into the world of the Classics. Rather than running through the Peloponnesian Wars, Greeks and Persians, Athens as the birthplace of democracy, Rome as the birthplace of plumbing, the Conquest of Britain, and other landmarks of the subject as it used to be taught in the school room, Classics focuses on one particular artifact — a spectacle that is familiar, but, at the same time, puzzling and strange: dismembered fragments of an ancient Greek temple put on show in the heart of modern London (the friezes from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia), using them as the starting point of a wide-ranging exploration of issues that are of current concern in the professional study of the Ancient World and of changing attitudes to the classical past.

The core idea explored is that the Classics is a subject that exists in that gap between us and the world of the Greeks and Romans. The questions raised by Classics are the questions raised by our distance from ‘their’ world, and at the same time by our closeness to it, and by its familiarity to us. In our museums, in our literature, languages, culture, and ways of thinking. The aim of Classics is not only to discover or uncover the ancient world (though that is part of it, as the rediscovery of Bassae, or the excavation of the furthest outposts of the Roman empire on the Scottish borders, shows). Its aim is also to define and debate our relationship to that world, which is taken as the first step towards any such education.

The questions raised by Bassae is thus used as a model for understanding Classics in its widest sense, and the essential issues that are at stake — questions about how we are to read literature which has a history of more than 2,000 years, written in a society very distant and different from our own. We are told that we are obliged to find a way of dealing with that clash between our imaginary vision of Greece and what we actually see when we get there, or when we actually read the classics first hand, instead of going by hearsay — this is bound to always involve confronting different and competing visions of Classics and the classical world.

Always Back with a Bang

The Classics are to be always discovered anew and yet to be always known only in the light of the discovery of the past generations — which only serves to make our own discovery even more exciting, richer, deeper and stronger. It is precisely when a generation skips on the classics or on a classical education that they come back with even more of a bang. This gives me pause and makes me think of the sudden craze of classical based (at leas mythological) fiction in India. I can only hope that the next step in that craze would involve going beyond the familiar myths into the vast body of Sanskrit literature as well.

All this makes the book more about the discovery of the classical world, about the motivations that inspired that discovery, and in the end about the relation of the modern world to the classical world, and how it was all imagined into existence  — each begetting the other.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The aim of Classics is not only to discover or uncover the ancient world. Its aim is also to define and debate our relationship to that world."
- Mary Beard, Classics



Using the British Museum's Bassae room and the Temple of Bassae as a framework, Mary Beard introduces us to the Classics. There are points when her Bassae-frame almost doesn't hold her subject, but her metaphor/frame largely holds together. It acts like a map, allowing Beard and Henderson an opportunity to walk around and examine the classics from several perspectives. Readers of the Classics become tourists and Beard and Henderson become our tour guides. Like all VSI, I'm always left feeling a bit snubbed and short shrifted. My whistle is barely wetted and I'm asked to leave room and exit the museum.

[Amine · Rating 3 out of 5]

"As the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome. But Rome is also where the visit to Greece begins; it is from Rome that the mind longs to travel, away to that outpost of cultural order in the midst of wild nature, ‘high on a mountainside in a rugged and lonely part of Arcadia . . .’ Classics travels this route constantly, speculating and pondering: Which is the greatest show on earth?"

Quite enlightening, food for thought.
I felt that this was somewhat lacking for a general introduction, too focused on one aspect I guess. Although maybe that shed more light on the analytical side of it, allowing us to see deeper.
The writing was eloquent, well put together, and at times poetic.
It also did what I presume to be the goal, spark an interest and give an idea of what the study of classics is about.
I like the concept of the series, I hope to read as much very short introductions as I can.

Et in Arcadia ego

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short volume isn't about classics at all. Instead, we have an essay in aesthetics, reminding us that millennia of interpreters stand between us an our Greek and Roman heritage, modifying our experience of it. The idea is not new, having been examined in detail by John Dewey, for instance. The last chapters then go off the rails entirely, delivering a screed on the shortcomings of classics education.
What were they thinking?

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have huge admiration for Professor Mary Beard, and have seen many of her programmes. Apart from her vast knowledge, she never seems to be speaking down to the layperson, and has a gentle humour, so that we learn, but in a very accessible and enjoyable way.

I think that is why I found this audiobook slightly lacking. Maybe if Mary Beard had narrated it, this would have helped. This is just my personal feeling, and no disrespect is meant to this narrator!

[Laurent · Rating 2 out of 5]

In all its shortness, this Very Short Introduction takes a long time to introduce its premise. Although I admire the way that Mary Beard has approached the vast expanse that is Classics, the opening chapters of this book are extremely slow-paced. I must say that for a person who has a massive passion for Classics to be bored by a book about CLASSICS! the authors must have EFFED UP pretty badly.

This said, the book picks up speed as it moves along. In fact, it is almost distributed like the inverse of a normalised capacitor discharge (of course, totally), with interest on the y-axis and page number on the x-axis. Its apex — in the book's last chapters — is a section addressing some of what I consider the most interesting aspects of Classics: the exploration of cultural and psychological realities through classical literature. However, this book also introduced me to several other aspects of Classics that I hadn’t come into contact with, especially examples of symbols originating in Ancient Greece and Rome that have had cultural constancy over the ages.

All things considered, I wouldn’t recommended it unless you are prepared for around 70 pages of absolute, tear-wrenching boredom. In fact:

Just skip straight
To chapter eight!

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not what I was looking for when I chose it. I guess I didn't read carefully -- I wanted a short introduction to the classics, but there's no "the" in this title. Instead, it intends to be an introduction to [the study of] classics.

Even for what it intends to be, I didn't like it much. It seemed very strident and polemical, as though the authors were trying to press their points against those who disagreed with them, rather than trying to inform someone new to the subject. The entire work was built around a discussion of a ruined temple at Bassae (Greece). Classic authors like Sophocles, Aeschylus, and others were mentioned only briefly. And I really don't think it added at all to my understanding of what the study of classics is.

The best I can say for it is that it mentioned a few other books that I think might in fact be worth my reading.

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When your daughter tells you that she is going to study Classics at Oxbridge, it suddenly seems like a good time to try to better understand what the field of Classics is today and what studying it might be good for. If this is your goal, then "Classics, A Very Short Introduction" is your book: I found it stimulating of thought and interest.

There are of course many things that such a short book is not and cannot be... but it does not pretend to be other than it is and those who would like it to be different are missing its most important point: Classics is as wide as our culture and as deep as our history and what Classics means must be discovered anew by each time and each person. "Et in Arcadia ego..." is up to you to complete.

[منن نصار · Rating 3 out of 5]

أول كتاب لي في سلسلة مقدمة قصيرة جدا
حبيت أبدأها بالترتيب بدلا من اختيار الموضوعات التي تستهويني فقط .. ربما سأغير تلك القاعدة :D
الكتاب يقدم نبذة عن الحضارة اليونانية ووليدتها الحضارة الرومانية من خلال زيارة معبد باساي
مزود بالصور ومعلومات قيمة عن الحالة الثقافية في تلك الحضارة. . ربما شعرت بالملل في بعض الأجزاء وشعرت أنها تخصصية أكثر من مقدمة لشخص غير دارس
لكن الكتاب في المجمل جيد

[Alex Pler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obra interesante que debería titularse "El estudio del mundo clásico", porque más que de la cultura clásica grecolatina, habla de cómo el estudio de la misma ha ido mutando a lo largo de la historia. Partiendo de un templo griego, va detallando cómo cada generación se acerca a la historia, el arte, la arquitectura, la lengua clásicas, cambiando y creciendo por el camino.

[Sher · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 12th Very Short, and my favorite so far. This book is truly interdisciplinary and connects the classics with art, literary, history, both ancient and modern. Brilliantly written, and makes one want to return to Greek and Roman literature once again.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this one solely because it was co-written by Mary Beard, one of the foremost classicists today, and often wryly funny. Not much time for humor here, but an interesting way of organizing things--describing a temple in Greece and then coming at it from a number of different directions in order to illuminate the history and development of classical studies itself, mythology, ancient religion, ancient travel and geography, philosophy, and literature. Apart from a quibble about what I think was a bizarre over-reading of one of Horace's Odes, I found the whole thing fascinating. I especially appreciated her dwelling on the well-known phrase "Et In Arcadia Ego." (And [or even] in Arcadia, I). I always wondered where it came from, since it sounds like Virgil but isn't. She says it was inspired by his Eclogue 5; but it was coined by Pope Clement IX in the early 17th century. I was gratified to learn that Dr. Johnson supposedly thought it was meaningless, which it is unless it is put in some context that identifies who "I" might be. Usually it accompanies a picture of a skull or skeleton representing Death. The phrase then means something like, even in the most perfect place you can imagine, death is there too. But Goethe, after he'd visited Italy for two years, used it to rejoice that now even he had been in Arcadia. It was also used as the title for the first half of Brideshead Revisited, where the young lovers try to have a perfect place in an imperfect world--they mock the phrase, but in the end it mocks them. A good Short Introduction to a very large topic.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is more about the study of the classics, rather than the classics as a field of study. The authors talk about architecture, geographic regions, and people who studied classics in the 19th century. But they never tell me what classics IS as a field or WHY I should study it!

The chapters contain various paragraphs which, even if they do contain valuable info, don’t relate to each other and don’t connect to the chapter title. The authors swing from one thing to the next without tying it all together.

A disappointing first book for the Very Short Introductions series. Great idea from Oxford’s Editors, just a poorly written book from these authors. Still going to try more of these!

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this ten-chapter book, I think, is an inspiring introduction to the term “classics” itself as regards the meaning, scope, application, etc. in which few could know and understand thoroughly. Recommended by John Godwin, it’s been praised because “The authors show us that Classics is a ‘modern’ and sexy subject.” (back cover) Some may wonder how so it would suffice in the meantime to say that we need to read it for better understanding rather than leave it as an academic myth preached by some professors.

[Ahmed Almawali · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكتابُ الثاني لي في هذه السلسلةِ بعدَ الإخفاقِ في الكتابِ الاول "القيادة"، الترجمةُ هنا جيدةٌ ومحفزةٌ للاستمرار في القراءةِ. يجعل الكاتبُ من المعبد اليوناني في باساي محورا رئيسًا للحديثِ في كيفيةِ التعاملِ مع النصوصِ الكلاسيكية التي تسعى إلى تحسين معرفتنا باليونان وروما، فهنالك مكتشفونَ دخلوه في أيام الخلافةِ التركيةِ ونقلوا خزائنه لبريطانيا، ويومياتٌ كتبها الإغريقي باوسانياس، وعبيدٌ استعملوا لبناءه "آلات ذو صوت بشري"، يتناولُ كل ذلك في الكتابِ، هو كتابٌ متخمٌ بالتساؤلاتِ الباحثةِ عن الاجوبةِ

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite doing a Classical Civilisation A-Level not long after this book first came out, I'd never read this, or any Mary Beard. It's very good - especially on the importance of 'Classics' being 'the history of 'Classics''. Only flaw as a short introduction perhaps is that it doesn't get into spicier questions such as 'why only these two ancient civilisations and not the ones in North Africa and the Middle East with which they were inextricably linked'. I will read more though!

[heptagrammaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

" [T]he experience of Greece is not something we discover for ourselves, entirely anew; it is something that, at least in part we inherit from those earlier travellers who experienced Greece before us. "

You have to judge the Very Short Introduction moreso by what they don't know contain than by what's in them. In that, Beard and Henderson's Classics is exemplary for its kind. Fluid and polemical, like a class with your favourite teacher, an interrogation of ways of seeing. It is about (at least an argument for) the methodology of the classics as a scholarly discipline.

This could have chosen to be impossibly broad, with the enumerative expansiveness of a textbook which would have damned it to shallowness, or worse, boredom. Instead, the text chooses to start with a concrete, seemingly separate and mundane place, a constructed-for-purpose room in the British Museum, which exhibits of the 23 marble panels of the interior frieze of the temple of Apollo in Bassae, in the rocky Arcadian wilderness. The text asks us which questions we are wont to ask of them, and why do we ask them. It talks of the architects and romantic aristocrats their dug it up, and their culture, which is ours. It talks of the material culture and the hands which carved the marble, of the Hellenic rituals of worship so different from our own. And it talks about us.

" ... Is this the fate that awaits any post-imperial world? Amused to death? "

An introduction to Athenian dramatists, or the Augustan poets (though it does discuss them and their works) this is not. Nor does it claim or aim to be. Nor would it have done it any good to be. A lot of works would be better suited for it, and some of them are duly mentioned in the bibliography. Classics: A Very Short Introduction is a discussion about history, and the history of history, and the history of historiography of history, and vice versa, and conversely vers. vice.

[Haaze · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and postmodern perspective on the history of Ancient Greece/Rome as well as classical studies. Sometimes I think that Beard loves to stir the academic pot just to add yet another layer of perspectives on top of the numerous layers already present. Layers that in a sense block us from seeing the reality of ancient Greece/Rome as we are living in the ripples of its history and our thinking has been colored by many thinkers, writers, politicians and artists over the last two millennia. A well-know example is how the classical world generally painted their sculptures yet we often know the remaining pieces as partially broken and unpainted. The bright white look of classical art is not real but rather an impression. However, this is a relatively well-known fact. Regardless, the book is crammed with similar perspectives. It is not a history book, but rather a work to make on think about the lenses of historians as we view the past. This brief book will definitely make the reader think differently about classical studies. Refreshing yet stifling, modern yet archaic. Ah, it is good brain food if one is interested in wandering the realm of classical studies at the beginning of the 21st century. The classical world has clearly influenced the present and lenses such as art, gender, theater, tourism, literature and more are useful for pondering the past. Recommended.

[Mared Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I can see, on one hand, that the temple at Bassae was used as a sort of prompt for introducing readers to the classics, I felt at times that I wasn't really learning anything about the classics at all, but rather just learning about a temple; despite being quite interesting, it wasn't what I wanted from this (very short) book. However, the later chapters I found much more intriguing and useful. Surprisingly, I greatly enjoyed chapter 7, 'The Art of Reconstruction' as, at first glance, it concerns archaeology. Which I'm not the biggest fan of. However I found that this chapter in particular helped explain things, or at least made things clearer. Chapter 8 I also found incredibly interesting, although that was expected of me, seeing as it concerned literature.

Overall, this book did a good job of explaining what 'classics' really consist/s of and why it is so important that we continue to study the subject. However the the things that were, I assume, intended to make things clearer really just got in the way of the actual points being made.

[Kuba Zajicek · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thanks Mary Beard, I yawned myself to shit. I always thought that the classical world is a storehouse of good ideas for people to raid. And yet, Beard's dull narrative gives the impression that the classical world is essentially as mundane as her own use of the English language, which it certainly isn't. This book is so boring presumably because the scope of it is unfortunate; instead of focusing on the interesting literary side of Classics or its contemporary relevance, she offers long and uninteresting descriptions of Roman and Greek antique buildings, which were admittedly important for their culture, yet should have recieved less focus by an author that claims to have written a "comprehensive introduction" to Classics. What a waste of time.

[Vendedor de rápida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con este título puede parecer la enésima recopilación de cosas sabidas sobre Grecia y Roma para bachilleres pero este ensayo en una delicia. A partir de un ejemplo significativo, el tempo de Apolo en Basas, en medio de la Arcadia griega, los autores van estableciendo un diálogo entre el mundo grecolatino, la actualidad y toda la concepción y uso que de la cultura clásica ha hecho la Historia occidental. Beard responde a un montón de cuestiones pero plantea otras muchas en un juego fascinante de semejanzas y diferencias muy interesante.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fan of Mary Beard, I especially loved this Very Short Introduction book. Some understandably disliked the fact the authors don’t really cover much historical ground in this book, but this is really an examination of a discipline or approach to the past. It’s also structured in a really interesting way. The authors look at a specific Greek temple and then see how that temple was interpreted by Romans, Victorians, and modern audiences. Very nice to see the authors reflect on their profession in such a deep but accessible way.

[Emmanuel Olowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book aims to answer or give an account of:

What is the study of Classics?
What is the methodology used by Classicists?
How does Classics relate to the various time periods?


The book certainly gears toward teaching you about the questions raised and the methodology of classics rather than an account of ancient Rome and Greece. The Temple of Bassae is used as a device to which the methodology of Classics is introduced to the reader. This can be boring at times; especially if the purpose of your reading is to learn about the events, philosophy and works of classical antiquity. You get some insight into the thought process of a Classicist when approaching literature, art and politics of classical antiquity. I feel you come away with an understanding of questions to ask yourself when exploring works produced at this time.

The book also shows you the interconnected nature of Greek and Roman history, through case studies of Roman poets (Horace), Architecture (the use of the Corinthian Order, etc) and more. The effects of our preconceived notions of the period on the interpretation of material from the time too are detailed through various examples. There is quite a bit of focus on Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece and lots of sprinkles of information about events and works produced in the time period.

I would recommend for people interested in the brief account in the methodology of Classics.

"The aim of Classics is not only to discover or uncover the ancient world. Its aim is also to define and debate our relationship to that world. " - Mary Beard

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A smorgasbord of interesting and uninteresting information but I suppose the topics covered are extremely broad.

[Gio | gioweavingtales · Rating 5 out of 5]

aula de estudos clássicos :)

[Camila Ducón · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahora quiero ir al templo de Basas

[Illiterate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Focuses less on Classics than how to study it. The main ideas are thus watery versions of ones found throughout the humanities.

[Daniel Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ancient Greece and Rome: mysterious, romantic, distant, and exercising an almost disproportionate fascination on many centuries of intellectuals. The authors' choice of Arcadia as the underlying theme of their book is highly appropriate; the attitude of the writers of the cradle of European civilisation to that lost rustic wilderness is comparable to our modern impression of that lost opulence mixed with technological simplicity, however inaccurate that impression may be.

I confess, I have myself indulged in that fascination. I studied Latin and Greek at school, all the while subconsciously wondering what were the unifying features behind the diversity of the texts I studied.

But I have to say that, for me personally, this book completely failed to capture that fascination. It was interesting, certainly, and I learnt things, but it begin to strike me that the whole discipline of Classics was somewhat parochial. True, Greece and Rome were important, and the study of them is not to be neglected. But so what? What about the rest of the world? What about the rest of history? And no classicist has ever really been able to make that argument convincingly, and these two are no exception. Our ancestors, the medievals, through the Renaissance as far as the Enlightenment, were intrigued by the distant past in general, so they learnt all they could about Greece and Rome because that was what they has access to, and nothing else. I do not see any excuse for continuing to confine ourselves when so much else has become available in the last fifty years, not to say the last two hundred.

[Andrew Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an essay on relevance of classics and its changes over the ages. The authors use a temple of Apollo at Bassae in Greece for their discussion. The marble frieze of this temple were discovered in 1811 by Carl Haller and Charles Cockerell. The frieze was bought at auction by the British Museum in 1815 where it is now on permanent display. Finding of the temple, located in a remote mountainous region of Greek Arcadia, was facilitated by an ancient text of a Greek traveller and geographer Pausanias in his "Description of Greece" written in the second century AC. The temple itself was constructed around 400 BC and Pausanias described her remains in his travels more than 500 years later. The book is one of the series of brief insights covering a wide range of subjects.

[Emmett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I opened this book with a few expectations that I found were not adequately met. Most importantly, there isn't a definition of classics, as the term is used and the field studied. While I appreciate the intention of using the Bassae as a focal point and a thread for discussion, I feel a comprehensive introductory text ought to grant views of elsewhere, too. It is less what classics is all about, i.e. what periods are studied, the geo-political landscape broadly sketched out, and prominent figures than it is an academic's reflection of the Classics, without all the bare-bones initiation.