Undergraduate Essay Contest

2022/23 — Junior Level

• 1^st — “Cynthia, a Retelling of Elegiac Poetry,” Aliyah Colclough – University of Alberta:
• 2^nd — “Adopting the Basilica: The Genesis of the Architectural Identity of Christendom,” Justin Lortie – Carleton University
• 3^rd— “Diocletian: The Transformative Emperor,” Jared Allison – University of Winnipeg

2022/23 — Senior Level

• 1^st— ““Sibi quisque auctor: the people of Rome as the agents of Tacitus’ Historiae,” Sandy Forsyth – University of Toronto
  
• 2^nd— ““ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΔΕΣ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΓΕΙΤΟΝΟΣ (“Diaries of Aristogeiton”),” Kinnery Jessie-Ruth Chaparrel Thompson – University of Guelph
  
• 3^rd— “Murex Dye Production on Minoan Colony Islands,” Gwyneth Sutherland – University of Western Ontario
  

2020/21 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Duncan Archer (Brock)
• 2^nd — Julia Bovaird (Carleton)
• 3^rd— Brook Klassen (Alberta)

2020/21 — Senior Level

• 1^st—Marina Martine (McGill)
• 2^nd— Avery Warkentin (McGill)
• 3^rd— Sarah Murray (Brock)

2019/20 — Junior Level

• 1^st — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 2^nd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 3^rd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”

2019/20 — Senior Level

• 1^st — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 2^nd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 3^rd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• Honorable mention — TBA (TBA), “TBA”

2018/19 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Yoel Jakobi (Guelph), “Ekphrasis and the Significance of the World within the Shield of Achilles in Homer’s Iliad”
• 2^nd — Angus Wilson (Dalhousie), “Bodyguards or Assassins? Addressing Misconceptions of the Praetorian Guard’s Influence upon Early Imperial Politics”
• 3^rd — Juliette Halliday (Simon Fraser), “Minoan Palatial Interaction: Power or Peers?”

2018/19 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Rachel E. F. Hill (Guelph), “Penelope’s Book 19 Recognition”
• 2^nd — Caleb Sher (Dalhousie), “Equality and the Second City in Plato’s Laws”
• 3^rd — Elakkiya Sivakumaran (Waterloo), “Lucretius the Mythbuster: A Poetic Analysis of De Rerum Natura 3.980-1010”

2017/18 — Junior Level

• 1^st — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 2^nd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 3^rd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”

2017/18 — Senior Level

• 1^st — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 2^nd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• 3^rd — TBA (TBA), “TBA”
• Honorable mention — TBA (TBA), “TBA”

2016/17 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Sandra Castillo (Alberta), “Playing with Fate”
• 2^nd — Thomas Power (Ottawa), “People’s Protector or Terroriser? The Significance of Publius Clodius Pulcher to Political Life in the Late Roman Republic”
• 3^rd — Brayden Hirsch (Trinity Western), “The Challenge of Diversity: Addressing Modern Assumptions With Ancient History”

2016/17 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Cristalle Watson (Dalhousie), “A Tale of Two Initiations”: Virtue, Self-Rule, and the Eleusinian Mysteries in Plato’s Dialogue Meno”
• 2^nd — Andrew Mayo (Toronto), “The Influence of Comedy on Cicero’s Catiline”
• 3^rd — Eric Métivier (Montréal), “Le conflit d’Ambroise de Milan avec les Ariens en 385-386 pour la possession d’une basilique”
• Honorable mention — Sarah Murray (Brock), “Enslavement Within the Geography of the Roman Empire: Tacitus’ Laudatio for Agricola”

2015/16 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Cristalle Watson (Dalhousie), “A Pestilent Knave From Macedonia”: Narratives of Culture and Ethnicity in Demosthenes’ Third Philippic”
• 2^nd — Shelby Colling (Alberta), “Pliny’s Ghost: Religious Occurrence vs. Supernatural Phenomenon”
• 3^rd — Matt Jagas (Brock), “The Fall of a Democratic Empire: An Analysis of the Athenian Democracy’s Capability of Empire”

2015/16 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Vanessa Snyder-Penner (Toronto), “Naming, convention, and realism in Menander’s Dyskolos”
• 2^nd — Allison Graham (Dalhousie), “Epicureanism and Cynicism in Lucian”
• 3^rd — Alison Cleverley (Toronto), “Tatian’s Rival Cosmologies as Reified Realities”
• Honorable mention — Maryse Boulanger (Ottawa), “La ville byzantine: l’urbanisme du IVe au VIIe siècle et la théorie du déclin”
• Honorable mention — Daniel Russell (Winnipeg), “Gothic Identity and the Methods of the Incorporation”

2014/15 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Allison Graham (King’s College), “Inhumane Philanthropy and Philanthropic Tyranny: Prometheus and Zeus in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound”
• 2^nd — Rachel Weary (Alberta), “A Boy’s Worst Friend: The Personal and Public Maternal Roles of Venus in Virgil’s Aeneid”
• 3^rd — Eric Métivier (Montréal), “Le suicide chez les aristocrates romains à l’époque des guerres civiles et des Julio-Claudiens”
• Honorable mention — Ben Kmeich (Saskatchewan), “Kleos-22”
• Honorable mention — Michael Somerville (Manitoba), “Roman spoons, cooking methods and table manners: a correlation”

2014/15 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Philippe Mesly (Dalhousie), “Theological Semiotics in Books III-V of Eriugena’s Periphyseon”
• 2^nd — Joshua Zung (Toronto), “Domini metus servi: Who is Afraid? Hints of Fear of Slaves in Roman Comedy and Agronomy”
• 3^rd — Sara Leger (Brock), “A Tale of Two Plagues: A Comparative Analysis of the Human Reaction to the Athenian and Justinian Plagues”

2013/14 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Royce Murray (Winnipeg), “The Daughters of Ares: An exploration of the historical validity of Amazon society as it existed within the sphere of ancient Greece between the Bronze Age and Classical Era”
• 2^nd — Benjamin von Bredow (King’s College Halifax), “Images of the Unimaginable: How Plato and Dionysius the Areopagite Picture the Good”
• 3^rd — William Harrison (Manitoba), “The Effectiveness of the Roman Military Medicine within an Ideal Castra”
• Honorable mention — Catriona Schwartz (Concordia), “Urban Archaeology: Montreal’s Empress Theatre and discovering its connection with the Temple of Horus at Edfu”

2013/14 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Constantin Pietschmann (UBC), ““Roman painting is more than slavish copying of Greek models”. A discussion”
• 2^nd — Bianca Claudio (Manitoba), “What Do Ancient Men Want? Defining the Roles of Women in Classical Athens”
• 3^rd — David Sutton (Alberta), “Utrum adulter an amator videatur? Sex, Slander and Semantics in Cicero’s Pro Caelio”
• Honorable mention — David Andrews (Memorial), “Grey Areas in a Golden Age. Virgil’s Aeneid and the Res Gestae”

2012/13 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Hilary Ilkay (Dalhousie), “Weaving the Great Web. Helen’s Poetic Perspective in the Iliad”
• 2^nd — Eric Tincombe (Brock), “The Pezhetairoi of Philip II and Alexander III”
• 3^rd — Alana Rigby (Waterloo), “What’s in a Name? The Personal Narrative as Master Signifier in Homer’s The Odyssey”
• Honorable mention — Daniel Heide (King’s College), “Being and Time in Plato’s Timaeus”

2012/13 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Jesse Hill (Winnipeg), “Frater Catulli: Fraternal Grief in the Elegiacs of Catullus”
• 2^nd — Laura Sirkovsky (Concordia), “Tragic Masks from the Grecian Classical Period”
• 3^rd — Shelley Hartman (Carleton), “To Pierce or Transfix: the Story of the Bone, the Peróne and the Fibula”

2011/12 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Kris Toohy (Concordia), “The Choice of Abstraction over Reality in Byzantine Art”
• 2^nd — Eric Tincombe (Brock), “Mos Barbarorum: Tacitus’ Portrayal of the Britons in Agricola and Annals”
• 3^rd — Brendan Palangio (McMaster), “‘Books from the Ships’ and Editors of Homer: The Library of Alexandria and Ptolemaic Cultural Hegemony”
• Honourable mention — Jacqueline McGoldrick (McGill), “A Study in Sanctity: the Symbolic Appropriation of Vestal Identity, or the Correlative Identities of Vestal Virgins and Julio-Claudian Women”

2011/12 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Shelley Hartman (Carleton), “Entropy, Individualism and the Collapse of Empires”
• 2^nd (tie) — Amber Jacob (UBC), “Plutarch’s Reception of Osiris: The Problem of the Missing Phallus”
• 2^nd (tie) — Elizabeth Ten-Hove (McGill), “Multiplying Voices: a Choral Tradition”
• Honorable mentions — Alain Zaramian (Toronto), “Some Aspects of Otium in the Works of Pliny the Younger”; Leah Bernardo-Ciddio (York), “A Return to the Mos Maiorum? Contextualizing the Augustan Legislation on Manumission”; Theodore Naff (McGill), “The Dark Age of Mathematics”; and Delphine Ngirumpatse (Concordia), “Emotion in the Art of Ancient Egypt and Hellenistic Greece”;

2010/11 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Vanessa di Francesco (Concordia), “One Man’s problem, Every Man’s Problem: Masculinity Crises in Catullus and Cicero”
• 2^nd — Lukas Lemcke (Waterloo), ‘Was the Peloponnesian War Inevitable After 435 BC?”
• 3^rd — Jesse Hill (Calgary), “Andromache, Orpheus, and Polyphemus Revisited”

2010/11 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Ben Hellings (UBC), “Early Evidence of Roman Religion in Civitas Batavorum”
• 2^nd (tie) — Karine Laporte (Laval), “Piété et tyrannie dans l’Histoire des empereursd’Hérodien: le cas d’Héliogabale”
• 2^nd (tie) — Alin Mocanu (Montréal), “Vocatio ad cenam et Martial 10”
• 4^th — Amber Jacob (UBC), “Matter and Evil in Sethian Gnosticism”
• Honourable mention — Lukas Lemcke (Waterloo), “Who Was Ptolemy Neos Philopator?”

2009/10 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Mark Rendell (King’s College/Dalhousie), “Philo and Allegory”
• 2^nd — Damian Melamedoff (Winnipeg), ‘The Twelve Tasks of Heracles: A Role-Playing Game”
• 3^rd — Rob Konkel (Saskatchewan), “Pericles and the School of Hellas: An Expression of Athenian Nationalism”

2009/10 — Senior Level

• 1^st (tie) — Alin Mocanu (Montréal), “Pericles and the School of Hellas: An Expression of Athenian Nationalism”
• 1^st (tie) — Ruben Post (Victoria), “The Bithynian Army in the Hellenistic Period”
• 3^rd — Louise Savocchia (McMaster), “Pocket-sized Political Statements: The Development of the Coinage of the Deinomenids of Sicily”

2008/09 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Nigel Morton (University of Toronto), “Proposing a search for the mundus at Lugdunum”
• 2^nd — Marie-Helene Boucher (Laval), “Le mythe de Méléagre chez Ovide et Homère ou l’exemple à ne pas suivre, suivi d’une ekphrasis”

2008/09 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Alexandre Turner (McGill), “Plato’s late style: a case study”
• 2^nd — Louise Savocchia (McMaster), “The lone charioteer: investigating the sculpture and inscription set from the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi”
• 3^rd (tie) — Melina Sturym (Winnipeg), “Women in Roman Egypt”
• 3^rd (tie) — Marie-Hélène Guilbault (Ottawa), “La politique religieuse de Julien dit l’Apostate: restauration du paganisme ou lutte contre le christianisme?”

2007/08 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Jean-François Charbonneau (Université d’Ottawa), “Pourquoi les Grecs se sont-ils répandus à travers la Méditerranée aux VIIIe et VIIe siècles av. J.-C.?”
• 2^nd — Wanda O’Connor (Concordia University), “Antony, breviter”
• 3^rd — Ian Waddell (University of Alberta), “Euripides and the Elderly: Pheres’ role in Alcestis”

2007/08 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Dwayne Meisner (University of Regina), “Livy and the Bacchanalia”
• 2^nd — Gabriel Hauser (York University), “Oracular and Prophetic Activity in the Roman Empire: Religious Threats to the Political Order”
• 3^rd — Patrick Roussel (University of Ottawa), “Perception, limes et stratégie: étude du système défensif du Bas-Empire”
• Honourable mentions — Seth Estrin (University of Toronto), “Object and representation in Roman imperial relief”, and Carlene Chuakaw (University of British Columbia), “Preparing, serving, and consuming food and drink in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A road to Pythagoras”

2006/07 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Sophie Dodd (Memorial University), “Portraits of Rivalry: The East-West Dichotomy in the Coinage of Octavian and Antony”
• 2^nd — Gabriel Hauser (York University), “Augustus as an Historian and Restorer of the Republic: The Res Gestae as a Rapprochement with the Senate and a Road-Map for His Heirs”

2006/07 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Seth Estrin (University of Toronto), “Reading Cycladic Figurines: Adopting a Visual Approach to Understanding Early Cycladic Sculpture.”
• 2^nd — Andrew Murdison (Queen’s University), “Moral Unity in Horace’s Third Book of Odes”
• 3^rd — Patrick Roussel (Université d’Ottawa), “Frontières et armée romaine sous le principat: force et tactique calculées?”

2005/06 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Joel Taylor (Concordia University), “Achieving Quietude Amongst the Polarized Scholarship Concerning Sappho’s Fragment 94″
• 2^nd — Jeremy Treleaven (University of British Columbia), “The Echo of Nomos: The Characterization of Isolation in Philoctetes”
• 3^rd — Patrick Roussel (Université d’Ottawa), “Nouvelles techniques de guerre”

2005/06 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Seth Estrin (University of Toronto), “A Day at the Tripartite Shrine: Reconstructing and Reinterpreting the “Grandstand” Fresco.”
• 2^nd — Catherine Ouellet-Fortrin (Université Laval), “La guerre des mots: l’émulation entre les cités d’Asie Mineure à l’époque impériale.”
• 3^rd — Christopher Lougheed (Queen’s University), “The Cult of Divus Claudius: Scope and Survival”
• Honourable mentions — Rhonda Barlow (Lakehead University), “A Note on Prorsus in Cicero’s Ad Familiares 16.1.1.”, and Jane Burkowski (Queen’s University), “Time of Day Imagery in Apollonius’ Argonautica.”

2004/05 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Daniel Shapiro (University of Winnipeg), “Departing the University’: A Satire in the Horatian Manner and Commentary”
• 2^nd — Daniel Unruh (University of British Columbia), “Sons of Gods: Divine Representations of Alexander and Augustus”
• 3^rd — Laura Wilson (University of Winnipeg), “Heracles’ Twelve Steps to Mt. Olympus Board Game”

2004/05 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Colin Alexander Murray (University of Toronto), “The Temple of Aphaia in a Broader Scope”
• 2^nd — Émilie-Jade Poliquin (Université Laval), “Le Commentaire au songe de Scipion au sein de la tradition cosmologique”
• 3^rd — Maciej Pach (University of Western Ontario), “The Byzantine Economy of the Eleventh Century: A Turning Point”
• Honourable mention — Athena Economopoulos (University of Western Ontario), “Burial Rites and Funeral Lamentations: Women’s Roles in Ancient and Modern Greece”

2003/04 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Brent R. MacFarlane (University of Saskatchewan), “The Romans Wore Bowling Shoes: Plautine and Terentian Devices and Resulting Reflections of Society in John Hughes’ Uncle Buck”
• 2^nd — Jenice Batiforra (University of Winnipeg), “The Struggle for Power”
• 3^rd — James Phelan (Concordia University), “To Lesbia With Love and Rancor: Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things as a Touchstone to a Different View of Catullus”

2003/04 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Lydia Pelletier Michaud (Université Laval), “Le vocabulaire des couleurs rouge et blanc chez les poètes antiques: les lyriques grecs et les élégiaques latins”
• 2^nd — Matthew Keith Malott (University of Windsor), “Nomine Caesaris: An Examination of the Propagandistic Function of the Aqueducts of Rome During the Early Empire”
• 3^rd — Jared Secord (University of Calgary), “The Gothic Conversions of 376 and 589: Historiography and History”
• Honourable mentions — Crystal Forrest (University of Western Ontario), “Transgression and Reproduction: Rape and Marriage in the New Comedy of Menander”; Sean Lehane (University of Toronto), “The Psychoanalyst and the Historian: an Introductory Note”; Dunny Medina (University of Western Ontario), “The Purpose of the Aqua Virgo: Water and Recreation in the Campus Martius”; and Andrew Snelgrove (Memorial University of Newfoundland), “Homosexuality and the Etruscans: Greek Love in Archaic Italy”

2002/03 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Marc Ducusin (University of Winnipeg), “Adapting The Brothers Menaechmus”
• 2^nd — Karyn Kibsey (University of Winnipeg), “Odysseus: A Game of EPIC Proportions’
• 3^rd — Sarah Snyder (University of Alberta), “A Curious Reconciliation. Late-Night Dialogue with Xenophette and Platona: On Embodied Philosophy in the Symposia”

2002/03 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Jennifer Phenix (Brock University), “Helen as Analogy and Antithesis for Penelope in Homer’
• 2^nd — Michael Griffin (University of British Columbia), “The Apodeictic Structure of Narrative in Herodotos, Book V’
• 3^rd — Andrew Mason (University of Toronto), “Libertas, Patronage and Dominatio: Political Life and Freedom under Augustus’
• Honourable mentions — Andrew Snelgrove (Memorial University of Newfoundland), “Catullus 32: The Insolvable Problem of Ipsitilla”; Sean Dermot Lehane (University of Toronto), “A History of Troy: Combining Archaeology and Hittite Documents”; and Nancie Rideout (Memorial University of Newfoundland), “Studies in Subjectivity: Plutarch’s Portrayals of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar”

2001/02 — Junior Level

• 1^st (tie) —Jordan Diacur (Brock University), “The Remarkable Life and Mysterious Death of Germanicus Caesar: A Modern Adaptation of an Ancient Tradition’
• 1^st (tie) — Catherine Pitre (University of Ottawa), “Le premier triumvirat’

2001/02 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Michael J. Griffin (University of British Columbia), “The POINIKASTAS in a Cretan City: Notes on the Archaic Cretan Inscription BM 1969.4-2.1’
• 2^nd — Edwin Wong (University of Victoria), “Incubation, or the Art of Objectifying Belief’
• 3^rd — Cory Verbauwhede (Simon Fraser University), “Feud and Litigation in Athens: The Search for Judicial Independence in Classical Athens’
• Honourable mentions — Ian Ferguson (University of Toronto), “Authority and Subordination: Slavery and Social Status in Classical Athens”; Jean-Francois Lozier(University of Ottawa), “Le pays paradoxe ou les deux Scythies d’Herodote”; and Jacob Wall (University of Waterloo), “Dionysus’ Mysteries in Aristophanes’ Frogs:Irony in the Underworld”

2000/01 — Junior Level

• 1^st — Lauren Faulkner (Simon Fraser University), “The Shadow of Caesar:  The Search for Mark Antony from Plutarch to Burton”
• 2^nd — Anders Bell (Concordia University), “Castra et urbs romana:  An Examination of the Common Features of Roman Settlements in Italy and the Empire and a System to aid in the Discovery of their Origins”
• 3^rd — Mariela Johansen (Simon Fraser University), “Tiberius: A Prisoner of Resentment’

2000/01 — Senior Level

• 1^st — Aaron Puley (Trent University), “Representations of Women on Classical Grave Stelai”
• 2^nd — Edward Fox (Dalhousie University), “Herodotus and Tyranny’
• 3^rd — Jason Boulet (Mount Allison University), “The Tragedy of Being Human: The Opposing Forces of Male and Female in Three of Euripides’ Tragedies’

1999/2000

• 1^st — Matthew Penney  (Memorial University), “The Navel of Society:  Prostitution in Classical Athens and Early 20th Century Japan”
• 2^nd — Jim Grant (Queen’s University), “Fortune in the Third Book of Horace’s Odes”
• 3^rd — Marian S. Jago (Dalhousie University), “Crook and Staff: Power, Identity and the Roman Church”