Classics Conference 2025
7 October 2025 - Academic
Wycombe Senior Dorothy Lamb (Rubens, 1905) once wrote ‘the study of antiquity is not merely the study of objects, but of the lives and hopes of those who came before us.’
Wycombe Abbey’s inaugural Classics Conference, attended by over 200 pupils from 15 different schools, epitomised Lamb’s view of studying Classics: our five amazing speakers, all renowned academics from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, brought the ancient world back to life for us.
The conference began with a deep-dive into the interplays of genre in Latin literature with Professor Llewelyn Morgan. He brought together epic and elegy, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Fasti, and with them, a profound lesson that humanity is ‘to see and appreciate the better course but not to follow it’; that we live not confined by logic, but spurred on by the peaks and troughs of raw emotion.
Professor Morgan’s lecture was followed by Dr Gail Timble’s on the silliness, saltiness and softness of Catullus, another Roman poet. From Poem 64, where Ariadne generalises men, to Poem 70, where Catullus himself generalises women, his impassioned exploration of gender norms still has much to offer in today’s society.
Next, Professor Caroline Vout’s lecture on art and religion palpably and masterfully described and unpacked how the ancient Greek and Romans visualised the divine. We were mesmerised by the otherworldliness of gods and goddesses in archaic Greece and astonished by how tantalisingly human they looked in the Roman world.
A delicious lunch was followed by Dr Rosanna Omitowoju’s inspiring talk on the value of reading, what we can learn about women from Classical texts and the joys to be found in two underrated genres of ancient Greek literature, New Comedy and the Greek Novel. We heard about the centrality of Chrysis, a concubine, to the Samia household in Menander, and about the admirable endurance of Chariton’s Callirhoe.
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, a powerhouse in the field of Roman archaeology, ended our conference with aplomb by taking us step-by-step on his journey to find the villa from which Pliny observed the devastating 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. As well as giving us top tips for affordable hotels in the area, Professor Wallace-Hadrill showed us how much more there is to discover among the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Wycombe Abbey’s Classics Conference was enriching and engaging from start to finish. We were honoured to hear from internationally-acclaimed experts who shared their knowledge and passion about the ancient world and left feeling closer than ever to understanding how the ancient Greeks and Romans lived, thought, felt, hoped and dreamed.
We would like to thank all staff involved in the organisation and delivery of this insightful conference.
Aubrey and Abila
UVI
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