Editing Classics (section)

==Subdisciplines==
One of the most notable characteristics of the modern study of classics is the diversity of the field. Although traditionally focused on ancient Greece and Rome, the study now encompasses the entire ancient Mediterranean world, thus expanding the studies to Northern [[Africa]] and parts of the [[Middle East]].<ref name="inside-higher-ed">{{cite web|title=The Study of Classics Is Changing|last1=Goldman|first1=Max L.|last2=Kennedy|first2=Rebecca Futo|url=https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/06/15/why-and-how-study-classics-changing-opinion|website=Inside Higher Ed|date=2021-06-15|access-date=2021-10-02|quote=One possible solution to both of these issues (already enacted on a number of campuses) involves a move to ancient Mediterranean studies, where the Greek and Latin languages and literatures are only one track into and out of graduate schools, and where Greek and Roman cultures are contextualized alongside other cultures in ancient Africa, West/Central Asia and the Levant.}}</ref>

===Philology<!--'Classical philology' redirects here-->===
{{further|Philology}}
{{redirects|Classical philology|the journal|Classical Philology (journal)}}
[[File:Friedrich August Wolf - Imagines philologorum.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Black-and-white image of Friedrich August Wolf in profile|The eighteenth-century classicist [[Friedrich August Wolf]] was the author of ''Prolegomena to Homer'', one of the first great works of classical philology.]]
[[Philology]] is the [[Linguistics|study of language]] preserved in written sources; '''classical philology'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> is thus concerned with understanding any texts from the classical period written in the classical languages of Latin and Greek.<ref>{{harvnb|Mackay|1997}}</ref>
The roots of classical philology lie in [[the Renaissance]], as [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] intellectuals attempted to return to the Latin of the classical period, especially of [[Cicero]],<ref>{{harvnb|Shorey|1906|p=179}}</ref> and as scholars attempted to produce more accurate editions of ancient texts.<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|p=172}}</ref> Some of the principles of philology still used today were developed during this period; for instance, the observation that if a manuscript could be shown to be a copy of an earlier extant manuscript, then it provides no further evidence of the original text, was made as early as 1489 by [[Angelo Poliziano]].<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|pp=173–74}}</ref> Other philological tools took longer to be developed: the first statement, for instance, of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one, was in 1697 by [[Jean Leclerc (theologian)|Jean Le Clerc]].<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|p=174}}</ref>

The modern discipline of classical philology began in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century.<ref name="Rommel 2001 169"/> It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole,<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|pp=174–175}}</ref> in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate.<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|p=173}}</ref> This "new philology", as it was known, centered around the construction of a genealogy of manuscripts, with which a hypothetical common ancestor, closer to the original text than any existing manuscript, could be reconstructed.<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|p=175}}</ref>

===Archaeology===
{{Main|Classical archaeology}}
[[File:Lion Gate Mykene with Wilhelm Dörpfeld 1891.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Black and white photograph of the Lion Gate at Mycenae.|Schliemann and Dörpfeld's excavation at Mycenae was one of the earliest excavations in the field of classical archaeology.]]
Classical archaeology is the oldest branch of archaeology,<ref>{{harvnb|Dyson|1993|p=205}}</ref> with its roots going back to [[Johann Joachim Winckelmann|J. J. Winckelmann]]'s work on [[Herculaneum]] in the 1760s.<ref name="Renfrew80-288">{{harvnb|Renfrew|1980|p=288}}</ref> It was not until the last decades of the 19th century, however, that classical archaeology became part of the tradition of Western classical scholarship.<ref name="Renfrew80-288"/> It was included as part of Cambridge University's [[Classical Tripos]] for the first time after the reforms of the 1880s, though it did not become part of Oxford's [[Literae Humaniores|Greats]] until much later.<ref name="Stray 1996 83"/>

The second half of the 19th century saw [[Heinrich Schliemann|Schliemann]]'s excavations of [[Troy]] and [[Mycenae]]; the first excavations at [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]] and [[Delos]]; and [[Arthur Evans]]' work in Crete, particularly on [[Knossos]].<ref>{{harvnb|Renfrew|1980|p=287}}</ref> This period also saw the foundation of important archaeological associations (e.g. the [[Archaeological Institute of America]] in 1879),<ref>{{harvnb|Stray|2010|p=5}}</ref> including many foreign archaeological institutes in Athens and Rome (the [[American School of Classical Studies at Athens]] in 1881, [[British School at Athens]] in 1886, [[American Academy in Rome]] in 1895, and [[British School at Rome]] in 1900).<ref>{{harvnb|Stray|2010|pp=4–5}}</ref>

More recently, classical archaeology has taken little part in the theoretical changes in the rest of the discipline,<ref>{{harvnb|Dyson|1993|p=204}}</ref> largely ignoring the popularity of "[[New Archaeology]]", which emphasized the development of general laws derived from studying material culture, in the 1960s.<ref>{{harvnb|Dyson|1993|p=196}}</ref> New Archaeology is still criticized by traditional minded scholars of classical archaeology despite a wide acceptance of its basic techniques.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Darvil|first1=Timothy|title=New Archaeology|encyclopedia=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology |edition=2nd|url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199534043.001.0001/acref-9780199534043-e-2752|via=Oxford Reference|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|access-date=2016-07-16|isbn=9780199534043|date=January 2009}}</ref>

===Art history===
{{Main|Art history}}
Some art historians focus their study on the development of art in the classical world. Indeed, the art and architecture of ancient Rome and Greece is very well regarded and remains at the heart of much of our art today. For example, ancient Greek architecture gave us the classical orders: [[Doric order|Doric]], [[Ionic order|Ionic]], and [[Corinthian order|Corinthian]]. The [[Parthenon]] is still the architectural symbol of the classical world.

[[Ancient Greek sculpture|Greek sculpture]] is well known and we know the names of several ancient Greek artists: for example, [[Phidias]].

===Ancient history===
With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of the history and culture of a civilization, through critical study of the extant literary and physical artefacts, in order to compose and establish a continual historic narrative of the Ancient World and its peoples. The task is difficult due to a dearth of physical evidence: for example, [[Sparta]] was a leading Greek [[city-state]], yet little evidence of it survives to study, and what is available comes from [[Athens]], Sparta's principal rival; likewise, the [[Roman Empire]] destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the [[Etruscans]].

===Philosophy===
{{Main|Ancient philosophy}}
The English word ''[[philosophy]]'' comes from the Greek word φιλοσοφία, meaning "love of wisdom", probably coined by Pythagoras. Along with the word itself, the discipline of philosophy as we know it today has its roots in [[Ancient Greek philosophy|ancient Greek thought]], and according to Martin West "philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation".<ref>{{harvnb|West|2001|p=140}}</ref> Ancient philosophy was traditionally divided into three branches: logic, physics, and ethics.<ref name="Mann 1996 178">{{harvnb|Mann|1996|p=178}}</ref> However, not all of the works of ancient philosophers fit neatly into one of these three branches. For instance, Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'' and ''Poetics'' have been traditionally classified in the West as "ethics", but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic; in reality, they do not fit neatly into either category.<ref name="Mann 1996 178"/>

From the last decade of the eighteenth century, scholars of ancient philosophy began to study the discipline historically.<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|p=180}}</ref> Previously, works on ancient philosophy had been unconcerned with chronological sequence and with reconstructing the reasoning of ancient thinkers; with what Wolfgang-Ranier Mann calls "New Philosophy", this changed.<ref>{{harvnb|Mann|1996|pp=180–81}}</ref>

===Reception studies===
{{main|Classical reception studies}}
Another discipline within the classics is "reception studies",<ref>{{harvnb|Bulwer|2005|p=13}}</ref> which developed in the 1960s at the [[University of Konstanz]].<ref name="Kallendorf07-02">{{harvnb|Kallendorf|2007|p=2}}</ref>
Reception studies is concerned with how students of classical texts have understood and interpreted them.<ref name="Kallendorf07-02"/>
As such, reception studies is interested in a two-way interaction between reader and text,<ref name="Martindale07-298"/> taking place within a historical context.<ref>{{harvnb|Martindale|2007|p=301}}</ref>

Though the idea of an "aesthetics of reception" was first put forward by [[Hans Robert Jauss]] in 1967, the principles of reception theory go back much earlier than this.<ref name="Martindale07-298">{{harvnb|Martindale|2007|p=298}}</ref>
As early as 1920, [[T. S. Eliot]] wrote that "the past [is] altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past";<ref>{{harvnb|Eliot|1920|p=45}}</ref> Charles Martindale describes this as a "cardinal principle" for many versions of modern reception theory.<ref name="Martindale07-298"/>