Classics fan Katherine conquers heart surgery, Ancient Greek

Katherine Prouting wasn’t going to let her fourth round of open heart surgery stop her from studying ancient Athenian prostitution law and completing an ANU Bachelor of Classics (Honours).

She arrived at her first Cardiac Rehab session in late 2015 with a pile of books borrowed from her supervisor, Dr Peter Londey.

“I was still reading Ancient Greek books, but I didn’t do any serious research in that time,” she recalls.

“I read a lot of crime novels, especially by Ian Rankin, during my time off.

“That was my first surgery as an adult. I ran five kilometres yesterday, so the surgery has been a success.”

Katherine is among the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences students graduating on 16 December.

“I’ll miss the friends I’ve made,” she says.

“I’ll miss being around people, especially in the Classics Centre. I’m going to miss that the most.”

Katherine chose to research a slice of Ancient Greek life after learning about an historic speech on Athenian law in her first year of university.

“It was about the Athenian sex trade, a man called Timarchos was indicted. Aischines gave the speech, which contained lots of information about how the sex trade interacts with male citizens,” she says.

“I learnt that male Athenian citizens had strict sexual codes of conduct, which a lot of non-historical people didn’t think existed in Ancient Greece, for example about pederasty.”

As Aischines’ speech was in Ancient Greek, Katherine translated key passages, looked at other translations by other scholars, and read various commentaries.

“I had to basically read the speech in Ancient Greek.”

She relished the challenge, as much as she’s relished history since she was four years old. In her final year of high school, her favourite subject was ancient history.

“I've always held a deep fascination with ancient civilizations, especially the Ancient Greeks and the Romans.”

Katherine’s also explored some of those locations, too, having joined the ANU field trip to Turkey in 2015 and Greece in 2016. She’ll be part of the January 2017 ANU Classics students’ trip to Italy, and will maintain the students’ travel blog.

Katherine arrived at ANU in 2012 and busied herself with various activities including hosting The Vinyl Hour on community station 2XX.

“I’m glad I had the support of many people at ANU, the people I worked with and studied under. I found the whole community very helpful.”

“I cannot recommend my degree enough. The department is very close-knit, so you get a lot of support. It’s interesting and challenging – like learning Latin and Ancient Greek – and it’s quite fun.

“I mean, in how many subjects do you get to study ancient prostitution law?”

Katherine plans to keep studying. She intends to pursue a Masters degree in 2018, after a holiday in Europe.