On Tuesday, 23 September, Sixth Form students studying Latin were taken by the Classics department to the beautiful setting of Wycombe Abbey School for its inaugural Classics Conference. On arrival, we were treated to a delicious breakfast and the first of a series of fascinating talks by leading Classicists from Oxford and Cambridge universities. Subjects varied from an investigation of how the Greeks and Romans depicted their gods to a presentation of new evidence from Pompeii and Herculaneum. More than 100 students from fifteen schools participated, including Eton, Westminster and Downe House.
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the former Director of the British School in Rome, demonstrated how the skeletons of people who died fleeing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD can reveal vital information about who they were and how they lived their lives. He also showed us his journeys around the Bay of Naples to locate the exact spot from where the Roman writer Pliny wrote his eyewitness account of the eruption. Dr Rosanna Omitowoju – incidentally, Mr Mackey’s supervisor at Cambridge! – introduced us to the plays of the Greek dramatist Menander and the work of the ground-breaking novelist Chariton. Dr Gail Trimble gave an absorbing introduction to the Greek influences on the love poetry of Catullus.
