Ancient Greek Studies at Edinburgh

Ancient Greek has been taught continuously at the University of Edinburgh for over 400 years.

With the establishment of the A. G. Leventis Centre for Greek Studies, research and teaching in Ancient Greek at Edinburgh are stronger than at any time in their history, with staff and student numbers in Ancient Greek Language and Ancient Greek History and Archaeology higher than ever before.

Teaching and research

We offer a wide array of pre-honours, honours and postgraduate courses, covering all aspects of Ancient Greek history, literature and material culture:




Community

Dr Louise Blanke (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Late Antique Archaeology
Professor Douglas Cairns (Classics), Professor of Classics
Dr Damian Caluori (Philosophy), Senior Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy
Dr Lilah Grace Canevaro (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Classics
Professor Mirko Canevaro (Classics), Professor of Greek History
Dr Tom Clements (Classics), Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Classics
Dr Kimberley Czajkowski (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Ancient History
Professor Benedikt Eckhardt (Classics), Professor of the History of the Ancient Mediterranean World
Professor Andrew Erskine (Classics), Professor of Ancient History
Professor Niels Gaul (Classics), A. G. Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies
Dr Lina Girdvainyte (Classics), Lecturer in Ancient History
Dr Benjamin Harriman (Classics), Lecturer in Greek Literature and Philosophy
Dr Matthew Hewitt (Classics), Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Classics
Dr Theodore Hill (Classics), British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow
Dr Inna Kupreeva (Philosophy), Senior Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy
Dr Calum Maciver (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Classics
Dr Donncha O’Rourke (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Classics
Dr Paul Parvis (Divinity), Lecturer in Patristics
Dr Sara Parvis (Divinity), Senior Lecturer in Patristics
Dr Nicolette Pavlides (Classics), Lecturer in Greek Art and Archaeology
Dr Richard Rawles (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Greek
Professor Benjamin Russell (Classics), Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire
Dr Marco Santini (Classics), Lecturer in Ancient History
Dr Anja Slawisch (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Greek Archaeology
Dr Simon Trépanier (Classics), Senior Lecturer in Classics

Professor Judith Barringer (Classics), Professor Emerita of Greek Art & Archaeology

Maylla E. Bisson‘Sanctuaries and metal workshops in the Greek Mediterranean: techniques and economic practices in the shadow of worship from the Geometric to the Classical period’
Graham Blackbourne‘Self, witness and perception in archaic Greece’
Veronica Capriotti‘Democracy and the sea in the Greek polis’
Lucilla Crespi‘Fable and simile in Homer’
Matteo Demartis‘Decree proposers in Hellenistic democracy’
Giulia Fanesi‘Rule of law in ancient Greece, Rome and beyond’
Sophie Jacôme‘Tragedy as a mask: politically engaged twenty-first century productions of ancient tragedy’
Panayiotis Karageorgopoulos‘Public employment in the Athenian polis between 507–307 BCE’
Giulia La Cognata‘Honours for doctors in Hellenistic Greece’
Dominic Laverick‘Cosmos and dreams in Aeschylus’s Oresteia’
Minaghan Li‘Masses and elites in archaic Greek legislation’
Juan Navarro‘Reading the image: an interdisciplinary study of the iconography of Clazomenian sarcophagi’
Roberto Russo‘Class struggle in Sicily and Magna Graecia’
Antonios Stamiris‘Pleasure, pain, and emotion in ancient Greek philosophy’
Jiangtao Xiong‘Ghosts in Homeric epic and tragedy’
Oliver Zizzari‘Dokimasia and value in ancient Greece’

Ancient Greek Traditions at Edinburgh

Ancient Greek has been taught continuously at the University of Edinburgh since its foundation by King James VI in 1583. Students in Scotland’s ancient universities were originally taught all subjects in the Master of Arts degree by a single tutor (or ‘regent’, as they were called), but by the time of Edinburgh’s foundation specialist instruction in both Greek and Latin (or Humanity, as it was known in Scotland) had been introduced, and chairs in Humanity and Latin were established throughout Scotland in the early 1700s, the two Edinburgh chairs dating from 1708. 

The Greek chair was held continuously until the retiral of the last of its 13 incumbents, Arthur Beattie, in 1981. Notable holders include:

  • John Stuart Blackie (1852–82), a prominent man of letters and an early supporter of Scottish Home Rule. Blackie was instrumental in raising subscriptions for a Chair of Celtic at the University and an annual prize in the subject still bears his name. Edinburgh University Library’s Blackie Collection of over 250 books on ancient and modern Greece was catalogued thanks to generosity of the A. G. Leventis Foundation
  • Samuel H. Butcher (1882–1903), editor of Demosthenes, but probably best known today for a celebrated and in its day much-used prose translation of the Odyssey, produced in collaboration with Andrew Lang. Butcher was President of the British Academy, 1909–10
  • A. W. Mair (1908–28), a notable scholar of Archaic and Hellenistic poetry, and also a published poet
  • Sir Arthur W. Pickard-Cambridge (1928–30), one of the twentieth century’s leading scholars of the ancient Greek theatre and author of Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy (1927), The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (1946), and The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (1953), all still in use (albeit in later editions)
  • Sir William M. Calder (1930–51), leading archaeologist of classical and Byzantine Asia Minor 

After a brief hiatus, the newly established Chair of Classics superseded the former Chairs of Greek and Humanity in 1987. Its current incumbent, Douglas Cairns (appointed in 2003) is a Hellenist.

Following the difficulties endured by Classics departments in the 1980s, those that survived emerged stronger and more agile, adding non-linguistic courses in Classical Civilization and new courses in Beginners’ Greek to join and enhance existing provision in Greek, Latin, Ancient History, and Classical Archaeology. Provision in Ancient Greek – for students with secondary school qualifications in the subject, as well as for those who begin the languages at university – is particularly strong at Edinburgh, and enrolments in ancient Greek language classes remain buoyant, even though Greek is no longer available as a Higher subject in Scottish state schools.

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