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The city of Troy is sacked and burned in 1184 BC, according to calculations made by Greek poet and mathematician Eratosthenes. The accuracy of this guess is dubious, as is, of course, the existance of the Trojan War itself. Nevertheless, the legendary events have remained immortalised within one of the greatest epic poems ever composed - that of Homer's 'The Iliad'. Although much of the war happens strictly outside the 15, 700 lines of the text, Homer's prodigious skills allows the stories of the war's inception, tales of Helen, Paris, Agamemnon and Achilles to be seamlessly woven throughout the narrative.

The ten year war, therefore, is portrayed through just the final weeks, as Homer's climactic dactylic hexameter encompasses the deaths of Sarpedon, Patrocles and culminates with the funeral of Trojan prince Hector, whose body, dishonoured by Achilles was returned to his grieving father. The poem, in conjunction with partner 'The Odyssey', which charts the King of Ithaca's return from the war, has given rise to many other literary masterpieces. Greek dramatist Aeschylus follows Agamenon in his 'Oresteia', Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida' uses much of the poem as source material, and translations by writers such as George Chapman and Alexander Pope have become famous in their own right. In short, it is a poem which transcends time, and remains as apt and enchanting today as it did almost 3,000 years ago.

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Homeric hero Odysseus is calculated to have returned home from the Trojan War. King of Ithaca, Odysseus, or 'Ulysses' in Latin, was one of the Greek warriors charged with bringing the abducted Helen back to her husband. Thus follows the legendary 10 year long Trojan War as recorded in 'The Illiad'; a war through which names such as Agamemnon, Achilles and Hector, as well as of course the Trojan horse, have all achieved hero status.

Yet 'The Odyssey', the second of Homer's epic poem, charts Odysseus' return home to his island home and wife Penelope; an adventure that takes a further 10 years and recounts stories of captivity, storms, sirens and the cyclops Polyphemus. Upon his return, Odysseus enters the household as a beggar and discovers his wife is already being courted by a number of suitors. Yet when a competition is organised, to string Odysseus' bow and shoot it through a dozen axe heads, Odysseus alone is able to, his disguise is lifted and the pair are reunited. Probably composed near the end of the 8th century BC, the works are fundamental to the Western canon. The dactylic hexameter used has since been closely replicated in other classical poetry, notably Virgil and Ovid.

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Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, better known simply as Ovid, was born in 43 B.C. The son of a rich family, Ovid was destined to practice law. Yet in his rhetoric training, Ovid, according to Seneca the Elder, instead dwelt on the emotions, and he renounced law in pursuit of poetry. Married three times and divorced twice by the age of 30, much of Ovid's poetry was centred on the theme of love. Indeed, one such collection of poetry, 'Ars Amatoria', a manual on seduction, is thought to have contributed to Ovid's exile in 8 A.D by the Emperor Augustus.

Ovid himself, gave the reasons to be a 'carmen et error', 'a poem and a mistake', yet what these are is not made clear. Conjecture centres around Augustus' daughter Julia, and her husband, both banished at the same time as Ovid, perhaps for indiscretions which he may have been party to. Ovid died in modern-day Romania 10 years after his exile, at the age of approximately 60. His best known work is epic poem, the 'Metamorphoses', written in hexameter in 15 books. Ovid's influence has entered many works of subsequent literary greats. Chaucer, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Milton are just a few of the names to have honoured the poet and surely many more will follow.

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Julius Caesar was famously killed on the Ides of March in 44 B.C on the senate floor. Led by Brutus, a group of conspirators, uneasy with Caesar's supremacy and possible assent to monarchy, devised a plot to kill him. Such powerful political and ancient history is perhaps best captured in the writings of Shakespeare, and his 1599 play, 'Julius Caesar'.  However although the title of the play, Caesar himself only appears in three scenes. Thus the majority of the drama is focused instead on the psychologically turmoils of Marcus Brutus, as he struggles to reconcile his patriotic duty for Rome, with his close friendship with Caesar.

Cited as one of the first of Shakespeare's plays to be staged in the Globe Theatre, 'Julius Caesar' is often thought to reflect the contemporary political events of that time, as monarch Queen Elizabeth I declined to name a successor, leading to fears of a civil war. The drama is perhaps most famous for two of its lines; 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears' and, of course, 'Et tu, Brute?'

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Arguably the greatest philosopher to have lived, Aristotle, is said to have died in 322 BC, at the age of 62. A student of Plato, who in turn was a pupil of Socrates, Aristotle is considered one of the most important figures in Western philosophy. His writings encompass areas of morality, theology, ethics, logic, politics, poetry - the list goes on. Aristotle's father was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, and as such, Aristotle was educated as a member of the aristocracy.

Having received training at Plato's academy, Aristotle travelled far and wide, to Asia Minor and the Greek islands, finally ending up in Macedon, where he became tutor to young Alexander the Great, and two other future kings, Ptolemy and Cassander. Returning to Athens, Aristotle established his own school, Lyceum, and here composed many of his most famous treatises, including 'De Anima'. He died amidst accusations of plotting against his former pupil Alexander. Aristotle himself divided his works into the 'exoteric' and 'esoteric', and the traditional 'Corpus Aristotelicum' which survived through to the Middle Ages consists of 45 treatises.

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The Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, better known as Lucan, was born in 39AD. Brought up under the tutelage of Seneca the Younger, Lucan's success was found under the reign of Emperor Nero, to whom he became a close friend. Yet a feud between them occured, leading Lucan to write several poems insulting Nero such as 'De Incendio Urbis' (On the Burning of the City), in which he is reputed to have described the Emperor as a 'criminal tyrant'. In 65AD, Lucan joined a conspiracy against Nero, and once his treason was uncovered he was obliged to commit suicide at the age of 25. Tacitus writes that as he died, 'he recalled some poetry...in which he told the story of a wounded soldier dying a similar kind of death. And he recited the very lines. These were his last words.' He is regarded as one of the best poets of the classical Latin period.