Classical Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study encompassing the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome.
We seek to understand the languages, literatures, histories, and visual and material cultures of the premodern Mediterranean world—from the Bronze Age to the dawn of the Middle Ages, from the Iliad and the Odyssey to Saint Augustine, and from Greece, Italy, France, and Spain to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Greek-speaking kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent. We approach these ancient societies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including linguistics, art history, archaeology, anthropology, and philosophy, while also considering the long and complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome in art, language, politics, and culture from antiquity to the present day.Studying Classics at Bard and want to get more involved?
The Extent of the Ancient Mediterranean World
Courtesy Ancient World Mapping Center
- 12/05Friday12:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST/GMT-5 New Annandale House
- 12/09Tuesday5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Olin Humanities, Room 202
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
With Rachel Morrison, Blegen Fellow in Greek and Roman Studies, Vassar College
Olin Humanities, Room 202 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5
The primary form of telecommunication available to ancient Romans was letter-writing, an asynchronous mode of communication. When his friend is widowed, Ovid laments that it can take a full year for mail to travel between Rome and Tomis; after so much delay, trying to console Gallio might only resurface old wounds–or even offend a new wife if he has already remarried! Even when the timeframe is less dramatic, this disjuncture between written time and lived time looms over many correspondences. Writing before an election to a post-election recipient, Cicero addresses one letter, “To Appius Pulcher, censor—I hope.” Examining letters ancient Romans wrote to their friends from the civil war through late antiquity, we will explore how the asynchronicity of letter-writing shaped the kinds of intimacy that letters could foster.
Current News
Law & Liberty Reviews New Book by Bard Professor James Romm
Demosthenes: Democracy’s Defender by James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics James Romm was reviewed in Law & Liberty. Graham McAleer writes that Romm’s “fast-paced” biography provides a valuable perspective on Demosthenes’s charge to Athenians, in which he stated “you cannot have been wrong [to] have taken on the danger of fighting for the freedom and safety of all.”Law & Liberty Reviews New Book by Bard Professor James Romm
The Classical Studies Program at Bard is an interdisciplinary field of study encompassing the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. The program seeks to understand the languages, literatures, histories, and cultures of the premodern Mediterranean world, and approaches these ancient societies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
Post Date: 12-02-2025
James Romm’s Book Plato and the Tyrant Reviewed in the Washington Post
Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece, a new book by James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College, has been reviewed in the Washington Post. The work is “a deft and engaging work of history, philosophy and biography, as well as a meta-commentary on the perils of regarding canonical thinkers as disembodied minds,” writes Becca Rothfield for the Post.James Romm’s Book Plato and the Tyrant Reviewed in the Washington Post
Post Date: 07-01-2025