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Classics

The word is derived from the Latin classicus which literally means "belonging to the highest class of citizens". Furthermore, its meaning intimates "superiority, authority and even perfection". "Classicus occurs first in Aulus Gellius, a Roman author of the second century A. D. who in his miscellany Noctes Atticae (19, 8, 15) refers to classicus scriptor, non proletarius. He was ranking writers according to the classification of the Roman taxation classes.

This method was started when the Greeks were constantly ranking their cultural work. The word they used was canon; ancient Greek for a carpenter's rule. Moreover, early Chrisian Church Fathers used this term to classify authoritative texts of the New Testament. This rule further helped in the preservation of works since writing platforms of vellum and papyrus and methods of reproduction was not cheap. The title of canon placed on a work meant that it would be more easily preserved for future generations. In modern times, a Western canon was collated that defined the best of Western culture.

At the Alexandrian Library, the ancient scholars coined another term for canonized authors, hoi enkrithentes; "the admitted" or "the included".

Classical education was considered the best training for implanting the life of moral excellence arete (paideia) hence a good citizen. It furnished students with intellectual and aesthetic appreciation for "the best which has been thought and said in the world". Copleston, an Oxford classicist said that classical education "communicates to the mind...a high sense of honour, a disdain of death in a good cause, (and) a passionate devotion to the welfare of one's country". Cicero commented, "All literature, all philosophical treatises, all the voices of antiquity are full of examples for imitation, which would all lie unseen in darkness without the light of literature".

Practically every university and college in England and America had a classical department. Classical studies formed the basis for a liberal arts education and were considered necessary for the advancement and preservation of a country's liberty and Western culture. Since the l960's, due to modern cultural attacks and lack of interest, classical departments have been closing.

• Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek culture is not monolithic: it consists of two completely different strains corresponding to two different peoples: the Ionian and the Dorian.

• Ancient Rome

• Post-classical scholarship

Classics can also mean (typically in non-academic contexts) classic books. In ancient China these might include:

Chinese classic texts
Chinese philosophy

Table of contents

1 Western Classicists 2 Sayings 3 See also 4 Bibliography 4.1 Western Classical Reference Bibliography 4.2 Misc. Bibliography

Western Classicists

Karl Otfried Müller German, Theodor Mommsen, Thomas Tyrwhitt, Pierre Henri Larcher, Ada AdlerDanish, Werner JaegerGerman, Edith HamiltonAmerican, Bernard Knox, (A. E. Taylor), (Gregory Vlastos)

• Western culture
• Western World
• Classics basic topics
• Orientalist

• Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, ed. by Harry Thurston Peck, Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., l962. (1701 pages)
• The New Century Classical Handbook, ed. by Catherine B. Avery, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., Ny, l962. (1162 pages)
• The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. by M.C. Howatson, Oxford University Press, NY, l989. (615 pages)
• Loeb Classical Library

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