OCR AS Level Classical Civilisation Past Papers

OCR AS Level Classical Civilisation (H008) offers three topic options that examine the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome through their literature, art, and architecture: Greek Theatre, Imperial Image, and The World of the Hero. All three are assessed through written examination papers. The discipline does not require knowledge of ancient languages — all primary sources are studied in translation. Greek Theatre (H008/11, 1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks) examines the dramatic tradition of fifth-century BCE Athens through a selection of tragedies and comedies, together with their performance context. Students study the physical theatre space (the theatron, orchestra, and skene), the conventions of performance (the chorus, masks, staging machinery including the mechane and ekkyklema), the civic and religious role of theatrical festivals (the City Dionysia), and the plays themselves. Set texts typically include tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides alongside comedies by Aristophanes. Questions assess both close knowledge of the texts and understanding of the theatrical conventions that shaped them. Imperial Image (H008/12, 1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks) examines how the emperor Augustus and his successors projected power and ideology through art, architecture, and coinage. Case studies include the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), the Res Gestae (Augustus's political testament), the Forum of Augustus, the Aeneid of Virgil, and Augustan portrait sculpture. Students analyse how visual and literary programmes of propaganda constructed the image of the ideal Roman emperor and reinforced the legitimacy of the Principate. The World of the Hero (H008/13, 1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks) examines heroic literature and its depiction of the ideal warrior-hero. Set texts include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and often Virgil's Aeneid. Students analyse the heroic code (timé, kleos, arete in the Greek tradition; pietas and furor in the Roman), the role of the gods in heroic narrative, and the representation of gender, death, and fate.