Omnibus Magazine Gladstone Memorial Essay Prize

Published biannually in March and September, Omnibus Magazine is dedicated to promoting Classics to students and teachers worldwide. The magazine hosts two competitions, one of which is the Omnibus Magazine Gladstone Memorial Essay Prize. In this competition, students are invited to write an essay in response to one of the competition topics.

Interested in the competition?

Competition Overview

Students under 19 years old

Eligibility

Free

Entry Fee

July 7, 2026

Submission Deadline

📌 Note: Aralia is not the organizer of this competition. For official rules, deadlines, and updates, please refer directly to the competition organizer. Aralia provides listings and information about competitions for student reference. Aralia is an online education platform offering competition preparation classes to students worldwide.

Competition Details

1. Eligibility

The Omnibus Magazine Gladstone Memorial Essay Prize is open to anyone under 19 and still in full-time pre-university education.

2. Competition Topics

In this competition, students are invited to write an essay that must not exceed 2000 words. There are topics for students to choose from:

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?

3. Entry Requirement

Upon submitting an entry, students are required to submit a statement from a teacher containing the teacher’s e-mail address confirming that the student is in full-time pre-university education.

4. Submission

Entries should be submitted as email attachments, preferably in Microsoft Word format, to cowper.tl@gmail.com.

5. Prize