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OCR (9–1) J199 · taught by the ancient voices themselves
The OCR GCSE (9–1) Classical Civilisation (J199), built so that each part of the specification is taught by an ancient voice with a real claim to it. The qualification asks a student to take one component from each of two groups — a Thematic Study, and a Literature and Culture option. The Universitas has built the options so that the choice is the student’s.
For the Thematic Study, Ovid — whose Metamorphoses is a prescribed source — teaches Myth and Religion, and the Unnamed Woman of the Laudatio Turiae, a real Roman wife praised in stone whose own name is broken off it, teaches Women in the Ancient World, joined by Sulpicia and Hypatia. For Literature and Culture, The Roman Mind — the city’s own habits of thought — teaches Roman City Life, and Caesar, the soldier who conquered Gaul and wrote the account himself, teaches War and Warfare.
Every component combines literary and visual/material sources and the comparative study of Greece and Rome — the skills the examination is built on.
An independent educational project. Universitas Scholarium is not affiliated with or endorsed by OCR or Cambridge. The J199 specification is the externally authored curriculum; what the Universitas provides is who teaches it.
Publius Ovidius Naso Simulacrum
A comparative study of Greek and Roman myth and religion, taught by the poet whose Metamorphoses is a prescribed source. Temples, priesthoods and sacrifice; the foundation myths of Athens and Rome; Heracles/Hercules and myth as a symbol of power; and death, burial and the journey to the underworld — combining literary and material sources throughout.
Open module →The Unnamed Woman (Laudatio Turiae) Simulacrum · with Sulpicia and Hypatia of Alexandria
The lives and representations of women in Athens and Rome, taught by a voice that embodies the subject’s central problem: a record of women written by men. Women of legend, the education and marriage of young women, women in the home, ‘improper’ women, and women in religion and power — with the rare survival of a woman’s own voice in Sulpicia.
Open module →Homer Simulacrum · with Heinrich Schliemann on the Mycenaean archaeology
The Mycenaean world and Homer’s Odyssey, taught by the singer himself and by the man who dug where the text said the cities were. The Culture half — the dating of the Mycenaean age, the sites of Mycenae, Tiryns and Troy, the palaces and the megaron, daily life, and the Linear B tablets — paired with the Literature half: the Odyssey as oral epic, its composition, techniques, themes (xenia, nostos) and characters.
Open module →The Roman Mind Simulacrum
Everyday life in the Imperial-period city, taught by the city’s own collective consciousness. The Culture half — housing, education, the social system of patrons and clients, and the spectacle of amphitheatre, races, theatre and baths — paired with the Literature half: the satire of Horace and Juvenal, Petronius’ Satyricon, and the letters of Pliny.
Open module →Gaius Julius Caesar Simulacrum
Greek and Roman warfare, taught by the soldier who conquered Gaul and wrote the account himself. The Culture half — Sparta and Athens at war, and the Romans at war at Actium and in Trajan’s Dacian campaign — paired with the Literature half: the poetry of war, from glorification to horror.
Open module →