Contributor(s): Professor Barbara Graziosi, Edith Hall, Tom Holland, Sir Peter Stothard | This panel explores the Classical wellsprings of Western literature, reflecting on the continuing value and relevance of the Greco-Roman Classics today. Barbara Graziosi (@BarbaraGraziosi) is Professor of Classics and Director for Arts and Humanities at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Durham University. She has published widely on the culture of the ancient world including Inventing Homer, After Homer: The Resonance of Epic and The Gods of Olympus: A History. Edith Hall (@edithmayhall) is Professor of Classics at King's College London and Co-Founder and Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek & Roman Drama at Oxford. Her achievements in research have recently won her the Erasmus Medal of the European Academy, the Goodwin Award of Merit from the American Classical Society, and a Humboldt Research Prize. She has supervised more than thirty PhD students and published more than twenty books; the most recent is Introducing the Ancient Greeks: from Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind. Tom Holland (@holland_tom) is the award winning and bestselling author of Rubicon, Persian Fire and the highly acclaimed Millennium. His most recent work, is In the Shadow of the Sword -The Battle for Global Empire and the end of the Ancient World. He appears regularly on radio, television and in print. He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio, and Herodotus for Penguin Classics. He is working on a companion book to Rubicon - Dynasty - to be published in September 2015. Peter Stothard is Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of three volumes of diaries, Thirty Days, On the Spartacus Road and Alexandria, which won the 2014 Criticos Prize for literature on a theme from ancient Greece. He was Editor of The Times (1992-2002), Chairman of the Man Booker Prize judges (2012) and President of the Classical Association (2012). Llewelyn Morgan (@llewelyn_morgan) is a Classicist and Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. His books include Musa Pedestris and The Buddhas of Bamiyan. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.