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Classical Civilisation - H408
12 sections available · 54 chapters available
Free Classical Civilisation - H408 study notes for Cambridge OCR A Level students. Each chapter breaks down a key concept with examples and practice prompts you can turn into AI drills in the thinka app.
The World of the Hero
The World of the Hero (H408/11)
Homer's Iliad: prescribed books and plot
Homer's Odyssey: prescribed books and plot
Virgil's Aeneid: prescribed books and plot
Epic technique and composition: oral tradition, similes, speeches
The heroic world: time, kleos, menis, pietas and furor
Gods, fate and the social world: xenia, women, slaves
Augustan context of the Aeneid
Culture and the Arts
Beliefs and Ideas
Greek Theatre (H408/21)
Drama and theatre in Athenian society
Sophocles' Oedipus the King
Euripides' Bacchae
Aristophanes' Frogs
Nature of tragedy and of old comedy
Prescribed visual sources: theatres and vases
Imperial Image (H408/22)
Divi filius and Imperator
'Augustus': religion, Apollo and semi-divinity
Culture hero and Pater Patriae
Prescribed literary sources: Res Gestae, Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Suetonius
Prescribed visual sources: monuments, statues and coins
Later representations of Augustus
Invention of the Barbarian (H408/23)
Greeks and barbarians: polarities and stereotypes
Euripides' Medea
Aeschylus' Persians
Herodotus: prescribed sections of The Histories
Greek visual sources: Persians and Amazons
The reality of Persia: Persepolis, Cyrus, Darius
Greek Art (H408/24)
Function, materials and techniques
Free-standing sculpture: prescribed works
Architectural sculpture: pediments, friezes, metopes
Vase-painting: prescribed vases and painters
Stylistic development and composition
Subject matter: myth, emotion and everyday life
Greek Religion (H408/31)
Nature of the Olympian gods and hero cults
Personal experience of the divine: mysteries, Asclepius, Dodona
Religion and society: participation, authority, the Panathenaia
Places of worship: Acropolis, Delphi, Olympia
Rituals and priests: sacrifice, libations, votives
Religion and philosophy: Xenophanes and Socrates
Prescribed visual sources for Greek Religion
Love and Relationships (H408/32)
Men and women: status, marriage and adultery
Plato on love and desire
Seneca on love and desire
Sappho: prescribed extant works
Ovid, Ars Amatoria Book 3
Love and relationships in poetry
Politics of the Late Republic (H408/33)
Cato the Younger
Caesar as popularis and dictator
Cicero and the res publica
Cicero as orator: In Verrem 1
Cicero as correspondent: prescribed Letters
Democracy and the Athenians (H408/34)
Reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes
Fifth-century developments: Ephialtes, Pericles, the Areopagus
Democracy idealised: Thucydides, Aeschylus, Euripides
Democracy critiqued: Plato and the Old Oligarch
Democracy and comedy: prescribed Aristophanes extracts
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