Maurice Balme (1925–2012)

Maurice Balme, who died in December 2012, played a major role in ensuring the survival of Classics as a significant subject in school and university curricula. Oxford and Cambridge dropped Latin as a compulsary entry qualification in 1960. Balme, a master at Harrow for 33 years, with his colleague Mark Warman immediately published Aestimanda (Up for discussion), which took Greek and Latin extracts and presented them as subjects for literary debate, directly increasing the appreciation of classical literature within everyday classroom teaching. Balme was also instrumental in changing Classical teaching methods: in the 1960s he was a major contributor to the Cambridge Latin Course, while he also created the beginners' Greek course, Athenaze (To Athens) - a grammatically based reading course published by OUP with a diverting narrative set in the fifth century BC. Athenaze is now the world's best selling Greek course. A subsequent collaboration with James Morwood resulted in The Oxford Latin Course.