The BA in Ancient History and Philosophy aims to develop your knowledge and critical understanding of the political, social, economic, and cultural structures of past societies and to cultivate your intellectual and critical skills.

Each School involved in delivering the degree offers a challenging course of modules, supported by a friendly atmosphere and excellent staff-student relationships.

This is a three-year degree course comprising some core modules that provide essential skills and training as well as a wide variety of optional modules for you to select from in order to tailor your degree to meet your interests.

Ancient history at Cardiff covers the period from the Aegean Bronze Age to the fall of the Roman Empire in the west and its survival in the east as the Byzantine Empire. There is a balance between modules covering specific historical periods and thematic modules that examine broad social and cultural topics, such as warfare, gender, religion, art, medicine and science.

There are two related aspects of the philosophy at Cardiff that mark it out among Russell Group universities. One is that there is a strong emphasis on ethics, politics, and aesthetics among the modules on offer. The other is that our research and teaching is spread equally across both the ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental’ styles of Western philosophy. 

The degree provides the training necessary for students who wish to study ancient history and philosophy at postgraduate level, and a valuable range of intellectual and transferable skills for students who enter other professions.

Distinctive features

The distinctive features of the course include:

• a strong emphasis on ethics, politics, and aesthetics
• equal attention to ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental’ styles of Western philosophy
• close links with local historical sites, giving you the chance to link your academic studies to active research in the field
• an opportunity to study Latin and Greek.