ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the negotiations and their consequences for the conceptualisation of Classical Studies. It analyses the social and political discussions in order to define the role of the classical past in the Danish educational system but also to explore how classical antiquity has been conceptualised and performed in the classroom. The name gymnasium had been used since the 1620s by a few Danish schools offering a two-year preparation for university. The Rome pictured by Danish poets and writers is peopled by distant, cold, weak, degenerate, heartless, brutal, slanderous, irreligious and perverted seekers after power–the most positive to be said is that they were stout and disciplined pragmaticists. The reform of 2002 had serious consequences for Classical Studies, because Latin was removed as a mandatory independent subject and integrated with a subject called general language understanding. The subject of Classical Studies is confronted by the new demand that the European dimension be extended to a global dimension.
