Omnibus Competitions
Every year, our Omnibus magazine runs two competitions for students aged under 19 in full-time education: a translation prize and an essay prize.
Sam Hood Translation Prize 2026
Omnibus now invites entries (just one per person!) for the 2026 Sam Hood Translation Prize.
The judges are keen to encourage elegant and stylish creative translations from Greek and Latin prose and verse. Try your hand at translating any one of the following passages (verse passages may be translated into either verse or prose, as you consider most appropriate):
Iliad 17.426-49
Sophocles, Antigone 334-64
Thucydides 2.41
Horace, Odes 1.9
Virgil, Georgics 4.499-527
Tacitus, Histories 4.73
Texts of these passages can be found here, but you may use any text that is available to you, provided that you include with your translation a copy of the text you have translated.
The judges will be looking for accuracy but also, and especially, for creativity when making their decisions. The competition is open to anyone under 19, still in full-time pre-university education. Entries must contain a statement from a teacher, containing the teacher’s e-mail address, confirming that this is the case. This statement should be included in the same e-mail that you send to submit your entry, otherwise it will not be entered into the competition
The prize-winner will receive not only a cheque for £75 but also a book of classical poetry.
Entries should be submitted electronically, as e-mail attachments, preferably in Microsoft Word format, to Professor Katherine Clarke (katherine.clarke@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk).
Deadline 7th July 2026.
The Gladstone Memorial Essay Prize 2026
Through the generosity of the Gladstone Memorial Trust Omnibus is again in 2026 able to offer prizes for excellent essays on classical themes. The competition is open to anyone under 19 and still in full-time pre-university education. Entries must contain a statement from a teacher, containing the teacher’s e-mail address, confirming that this is the case. This statement should be included in the same e-mail that you send to submit your entry, otherwise it will not be entered into the competition. Entries should be submitted as e-mail attachments, preferably in Microsoft Word format, to: cowper.tl@gmail.com. Deadline 7th July 2026.
The first prize stands at £200, the second at £100. Essays must not exceed 2000 words.
The topics for 2026 are:
- Discuss the role of speeches in the Odyssey, or the Iliad, or the Aeneid.
- What makes Aristophanes’ plays funny? (You may, if you wish, discuss a single play).
- Why are dysfunctional families so attractive to Greek and Roman tragedians? (Discuss not more than three different plays).
- How democratic was classical Athens?
- What made a Roman emperor a good emperor?
- Is Roman love poetry misogynistic? (You may, if you wish, discuss a single poet, Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus or Ovid).
- What has archaeology contributed to our understanding of Republican Rome?
- Either Is there anything ‘British’ about the art of Roman Britain? Or Is there anything Greek about Greek art?
The judges decision is final: no correspondence will be entered into. Please give your name, school, and e-mail address on your essay, and keep a copy for yourself.
You can read previous winning entries into the Competition:
Anna Drummond Young on Plato (Issue 75)
Claudia Thomas on Aeneid 8 (Issue 71)
Natalya Khan on Roman Britain (Issue 67)
Ellie Moodey on Ovid (Issue 63)
Adam Lomax on Cleon (Issue 59)