The Classics Department at Yale has been a leading center for teaching and research into the cultures and societies of the ancient Mediterranean World for over a hundred years. In addition to the study of the ancient Mediterranean in all its aspects, we also study the complex afterlives of the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome and the ways in which the classical past has been, and continues to be, woven into narratives of the present. The department places a very high value on equality, inclusion, and mutual respect and on providing an intellectual community in which all members of the department feel at home.

Our faculty members have areas of expertise in Ancient Philosophy, Greco-Roman History and Historiography, Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic Egyptian Law, Art and Material Culture, Archaic and Hellenistic Greek Poetry and Performance, Latin Poetry (especially epic, satire and elegy), the Reception of the Classics, Ancient Magic and Religion, Ancient Slavery, and Classical scholarly traditions. Within these broad outlines the department conducts research and teaching across the entire disciplinary spectrum from ancient epigraphy to twenty-first century classical receptions.

The department has affiliations with the Yale Art Gallery, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Divinity School, Yale Law School, and the departments/programs of African-American Studies, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Hellenic Studies, History, Humanities, Linguistics, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Renaissance and Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, and ARCHAIA. Our outlook is international: in addition to the U.S., members of the teaching faculty come from Britain, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, and the Netherlands.