Swords, sandals, and toasted panini: delivering cine-antiquity to sixth form students

Abstract Teachers of Classics in sixth form colleges and secondary schools regularly provide extra-curricular activities alongside their bread-and-butter classes in Latin, Classical Civilisation, Ancient History, and Greek. With the on-going squeeze on the provision of these four classical subjects, it is inevitable that teachers of Classics look to other areas within their schools and colleges both to maintain and to promote the face of Classics. The purpose of this paper is to explain the delivery and the thinking behind a weekly extra-curricular activity called ‘Classics on Film’ that was set up at Peter Symonds College in 2018 and which has now continued for four years. This activity encompasses cine-antiquity; in other words, a class that focuses on films depicting the ancient world. By breaking down this project and some of its results, this paper aims to give teachers of Classics and others awareness of the methods, resources, and challenges when delivering an extra-curricular activity on cine-antiquity. Furthermore, it aims to provide a model that other teachers might adapt or use as a springboard for their own bespoke cine-antiquity activity.1