Roman City Life for GCSE OCR Classical Civilisation

J199/22
4 activity types:
  1. Example questions
  2. Guided activities
  3. Consolidation tasks
  4. Independent research

Component Group 2: Literature and Culture

Students can look straight into the heart of the Roman city and gain insight into the lives of Roman citizens, senators and slaves with this fascinating Study Guide.

  • Explore engaging aspects of Roman city life, such as housing, education, the lives of young people, political intrigue, and spectacle.
  • Delve into Roman literary material, analysing styles and techniques.
Prescribed Sources
Culture Literature
  • Pompeii
  • Herculaneum
  • Ostia
  • Rome
  • Horace: Satires 2.2, 2.6, 2.8
  • Juvenal: Satire 3.190–322
  • Petronius: Satyricon: ‘Dinner with Trimalchio’, 29–33, 37–38, 49–50
  • Pliny: Letters, 1.9, 2.6, 3.14, 4.19, 5.19, 9.6
Key exam requirements covered:
  • Understand literary and visual/material sources
  • Use source materials to understand social, historical and cultural contexts
  • Convey significance of these contexts through informed judgement
  • Understand possible interpretations from different audiences

Sources for success


GCSE-friendly notes and varied activities enable core skills development in the use of sources for the GCSE OCR Classical Civilisation ‘Thematic Study’ and ‘Literature and Culture’ components.

Students learn how to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the prescribed material and draw informed conclusions through examples and guidance.

After building confidence, students challenge themselves with independent research tasks, practice questions and unseen sources.

Comprehensive coverage of source types:
  • Literary
  • Visual/material
  • Prescribed
  • Unseen

What do teachers say about this resource? (10410)

I thought this was a very impressive resource, well set out and keeping closely to the spec. There was a good variety of activities and a mixture of text and visuals, pitched at the right academic level. It enhances learning by taking one carefully through the spec and interspersing information with exercises. Its educational value was thus high, particularly for individual learners, who otherwise may only have the textbook available, given the total lack of revision guides on public sale. Literature section just as impressive with activities, sample activities, sample answers, guided activities and clear context and comprehension questions.

L Ashley, Head of Classics & Peer Reviewer

A very thorough overview of the Roman City Life course with useful worksheets for each of the sections of the course and a good overview of each of the set texts and their themes. The exam questions are good ... It includes several unseen sources that can stretch pupils beyond the OCR textbook ... I can easily pull out a specific worksheet for a specific topic as a quick and easy revision topic, or to lighten my planning load for the week ... There is a variety of different activities to give pupils various ways of addressing the key topics of the course ... This resource is a good way to quickly pull together potential exam-style questions and homework assignments for pupils ... It matches the specification very well

S Hayes, Head of Classics & Customer

An excellent resource, expertly written.

Truly, a treasure trove of information, resources and ideas which are exceedingly well aimed at the specification.

It is very well pitched towards its target audience. It possesses a wealth of references to classical sources and will save any hard-pressed teacher a considerable amount of time.

N Buckingham, Classical Civilisation Teacher & Peer Reviewer

This is a very well-researched and comprehensive guide to the culture component of the Roman City Life paper in particular, along with useful discussion of the set literature.

The literature section carefully explains the cultural references in each piece of literature as well as pointing out elements of linguistic style to aid learners in their understanding and analysis of the prescribed writing.

A Hollingbury, Teacher & Peer Reviewer