Ancient Greek and Roman culture might sometimes appear to be the preserve of a privileged elite. This is because it used to play a crucial role in social division. But this is not the whole story. The culture we all equally inherit from the ancient Greek and Roman past may seem to be cordoned off by such boundaries as the knowledge of unspoken languages, but these boundaries and others like them have consistently been overcome by an enthusiasm for the classical world that transcends social division. Our archive of class-conscious classical encounters stands as testament to this.