Audra Nemirow/The Hofstra Chronicle
Thousands of years ago, people were more or less the same as they are today. They had the same flaws and the same virtues. As a classics major, freshman Anna Evans knows that ancient worlds are not nearly as remote as they seem. She knows that through studying the history and culture of civilization, she is learning more about the world as it is now, as it always will be.
“I’m a very curious person,” Evans said. “I’m very interested in, you know, things that get lost in history. And there’s a lot about the classical world that gets very, very lost in translation, especially in the 21st century where you have all [these] people splicing up actual pieces of classical literature and history for, like, their own arguments and stuff … If you really, you know, read a lot of these full accounts, you read a lot of graffiti. You get this very, very familiar view of humanity in general.”
Evans was inspired to study the classics as early as her freshman year of high school. When her interest in law inspired her to take Latin, a path to classics opened up.
“I [loved] Latin very, very much, not enough to have it as a major, but I kind of loved the general area of classics,” Evans said. “Our Latin teacher used to teach the language, but he also taught a lot about Rome and Greece and Egypt, and I fell in love with it. I thought it was so interesting. The culture, the people, the history of it … So, I figured, that sounds like something I want to pursue for the rest of my life.”
Her decision to continue her studies at Hofstra came from a variety of factors – the primary one being location.
“I always knew I wanted to be in New York. My nana used to live on Long Island, and so I really fell in love with the area,” she said. “You wouldn’t be doing classics if you weren’t interested in people, passionately so. And being in New York and all … you’re going to meet all sorts of people from all over the place.”
One of the things Evans has been learning about is that, like New York, the ancient world was not homogenous. It goes beyond Greece and Rome, with countless cultures existing side by side. It was a much more multicultural world than people expect.
At the moment, Evans is particularly fascinated with ancient Ethiopia. “[Ethiopia] has been almost erased from history at this point … It’s mentioned a lot in the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey.’ It was very important.”
Evans hopes to travel more to learn about the places she is studying, especially Egypt. So far, she has been to Italy, allowing her to visit Rome.
“There’s not much you can say about the Colosseum that hasn’t already been said,” Evans said. “You know, you have to, like, touch every single brick and think about how many thousands of people have touched them, which is something I did. I did get funny looks for it. But it wasn’t the Colosseum that really got me. It was being in the Roman Forum, which is where, you know, Mark Antony gave his big people of Rome speech or where Julius Caesar was buried, and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
In the future, Evans hopes to go into education and archival work, perhaps in the context of a museum. But for Evans, the classics are more than a career. They are simply a part of her life. By studying the classics, Evans means to go beyond the appealing aesthetics of her chosen field: she means to embrace the true spirit of what it means to study the humanities.
