ABOUT US…

The civilizations of Greece and Rome continue to amaze us with the depth and verve of their thought, their history and philosophy, and their perennial relevance. Studying classics is the attempt to root such astonishment in the knowledge of what those works meant in their own time, how they have come down to us, and what significance they have today.

The Department of Classics at Princeton, which is among the largest and most distinguished in the country, offers courses, both in English and in the original languages, that treat the whole range of ancient culture, from its mythology to its philosophy, from its law to its literature.

As an interdisciplinary general course of study, classics provides the foundations for a broad and versatile education in the humanities that will sharpen powers of reading, analysis, and writing. Accordingly, the program at Princeton is not designed solely for the future professional classicist; in a typical year more of our concentrators go on to careers in medicine, law, or publishing. The concentration is also compatible with many cross-disciplinary fields; the department maintains close ties to, in some cases sharing faculty with, departments such as comparative literature, history, philosophy, politics, and Hellenic studies. Those who do wish to go on to graduate studies in classics usually have their choice of fellowships in premier graduate programs.