Caesar, Cicero, Achilles, Socrates, Plato: millennia later, we still talk about them. Olly Murphy, classics teacher at Wycombe Abbey, one of England’s top girls’ schools, recommends books and explains why classics remains one of the most exciting subjects for teenagers to study.

The Odyssey has been constantly rewritten by centuries of writers, but like so much of Greek myth, it’s always already open to revising its own narrative. Emily Wilson, Professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania and the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English, recommends the best books to read after (or alongside) the Ancient Greek epic, and offers sage wisdom about both translating ancient epics and why everyone can learn from the Odyssey today.

Interested in philosophy? Drama? History? Within a year you too could be reading seminal texts in their original language. Academic Paul McMullen recommends the best books for learning ancient Greek.

What books should you read if you want to learn Latin? Harry Mount (and Katie Walker) recommend the best books for learning Latin—the language of a small, central Italian tribe that managed to conquer most of Europe.

The philosopher and cultural critic recently made a foray into drama when he reworked Sophocle’s Antigone—not out of admiration for the original, but to examine the “stupid and morally problematic” character at its heart. Here he selects five plays he admires—but declines to see performed.

Lucy Coats, author of one of the best books on Greek myths, recommends her own favourites. There’s one for children, one for teenagers, one for scholars, one to read out loud and one that’s very definitely adult in content…

British philosopher Edward Skidelsky tells us about virtue from Plato to the modern day, and says Jane Austen got it right when she wrote about passion

Cultural and philosophical changes that occurred in late antiquity are essential to our understanding of the world today, but few us know much about that period. Historian Robin Lane Fox recommends the best books to read to get a good sense of late antiquity.

Greek myths were themselves elastic so there is no reason the classics of Roman and Greek literature shouldn’t be updated, says classicist Daniel Mendelsohn. He talks us through some of his favourites.

How accurate is what we think we know about the Romans? Tom Holland, the author of Rubicon, tells us about the exercise of power, the staging of ceremony and the influence of religion in ancient Rome.

The translator, poet and author of the best-selling Inspector Chen series, Qiu Xiaolong, says there is no one road when it comes to translating Chinese poetry. He chooses five anthologies that capture its magic.

Oxford historian chooses books on Ancient Rome and counters recent arguments that the fall of the Empire was all about compromise, diplomacy and accommodation. It wasn't, "it was all rape and murder". Brace yourself!

The Guardian’s chief arts writer, Charlotte Higgins, believes that the contemporary value of the Classics is incalculable – here, she tells us why, via her selection of the great and good of classical literature.

Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard explains how the Ancients are pertinent to modern life. Even the most “formative intellectual cultures” had a seething heart of irrationality underneath the sparkling surface.