Antigone Journal (@AntigoneJournal) / X

Antigone Journal

32.3K posts

Antigone Journal

@AntigoneJournal

An open forum for Classics—Ancient Greece, Rome, and their influence. Explore over 500 open-access articles on our website. **We pay £100-200 for new writing**

Thebes

Joined November 2020

Pinned
Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Nov 30, 2025
Philology – a love of words – is at the heart of the Antigone project. And today, we're delighted to announce a major annual prize for Classical Philology. The winner takes home the *full* Loeb library, and £5,000. Please share this news, and do go visit:
The Antigone Prize for Classical Philology
From antigonejournal.com
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Nov 3, 2024
Why is Google Books removing access to out-of-copyright books that it once hosted as open access? There is a good chance that the mass-deaccession policy of libraries, on the ground that "it's available for free online", will be one of the most stupid acts of modern curatorship.
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Jun 26, 2025
1902 Oxford scholarship exam: tell me, 17-year-old-lad, how and why do nations decline through decadence?
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Aug 29, 2025
Many of us still believe!
Ferenc Hörcher
@HorcherF
Aug 29, 2025
Does the idea of a personal library still exist?
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Jul 18, 2025
The syllabus of what was read at a small secondary school in their final two years by teenagers who focused on Classics in 1910. It is now more than is read in any three- or four-year university degree in the world.
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Jan 6, 2024
What are the oldest numbers in English? Well, before the Normans, the Anglo-Saxons, and even the Romans turned up, the Britons spoke Brythonic Celtic languages. Remarkably, the bare bones of that counting system are still preserved by some rural sheep farmers. Take the numbers
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Jan 13, 2025
In simpler times, Cambridge students (in any subject) could sit an optional 30-hour examination in the Classics, held over five days in January, halfway through the year and entirely unconnected with the main Classics course (the Tripos). Here's the full exam papers from 1960:
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Apr 30, 2025
Brutal conversation with a top-tier academic in charge of examining a Classics BA. She believes that all but one, ie 98.5% of the cohort, used AI, in varying degrees of illegality up to complete composition, in their final degree submissions. Welcome to university degrees 2025.
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Jan 8, 2025
Replying to @JosephBottum
I once had something along the lines of: "As Gilbert Murray famously argued in an important article "Citation needed", ..."
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Oct 12, 2025
POV: you're 17 or 18, you've carefully read Homer's Odyssey, and you're ready to show how complete your knowledge of Homer is. The bad news is that the exam also tests Greek and Latin literature, culture and history, is closed book, and needs sitting this very morning, in 1824.
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Aug 29, 2025
Sailing to Ephesus, home of Heraclitus and John, with the greatest of the Ionians for company: Homer.
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
May 9, 2023
All Latin grammar worth knowing summarised on just 8pages?! The naysayers said it couldn't be done. No chance. But that was in the dark days before 1961, when James P. Humphreys stepped forward and said "Hold my Kennedy":
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Oct 22, 2024
Internet Archive (archive.org) is back, after cyber-attacks removed it from action. Most valuable to (and most missed by) many of us is its mind-blowingly large collection of out-of-print PDFs, including most books relating to Classics from 1800 to 1930. A great site!
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Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
Sep 28, 2025
A Greek exam from the days when you *really* had to know your Herodotus (Trinity College, Cambridge, 1826):
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