Brad Pitt looked delightful in a skirt in Troy. Bettany Hughes looks almost as good clambering over the ruins on television. Columns and sculptured fragments assault you on the covers of books such as Robin Lane Fox’s The Classical World, Hughes’s own Helen of Troy, Butterworth and Laurence’s Pompeii, and Simon Goldhill’s Love, Sex and Tragedy. “Labra legge” (“read my lips”), as Goldhill’s subtitle says, “Classics Matters”.

It is an astonishing reversal. Once Latin and Greek was “Greats” and the staple course at Oxford and Cambridge. Through the 20th century it declined, until schools no longer offered ancient languages and university courses became “Classical Civilisation”.

Maybe it was that very change that made the difference. Now at History Key Stage 2 (7 to 11-year-olds) the national curriculum includes a compulsory study unit on “Ancient Greece and the influence of its civilisation on the world today”. My 9-year-old god-daughter does Latin at her prep school. My 13-year-old niece teaches herself because at her state school she has to be content with modern Greek in an after-school option. But I am hopeful.

For younger children there is Usborne’s Latin for Beginners, Winnie Ille Pu or Domus Anguli Puensis and Asterix Gallus. For older children there is Caroline Lawrence’s popular Roman Mysteries series. I haven’t yet had a student excuse the non-appearance of their essay with “canis meus id comedit” — (my dog ate it) — but who knows?

Ad venatum vadamus — (to cut to the chase). Why Classics? Why now?

The myths and histories of Greece and Rome give us stories that we need, examples — and warnings. Athenian civilisation invented the idea of the “barbarian” other. A quick glance at the titles below and you will see the contemporary relevance.

An empire — just like our early 21st century Western world — can rise. And it can fall. Credo nos in fluctu eodem esse — (I reckon we are on the same wavelength).

We need Classics. The languages, the myths, the histories. Only with them might we turn our modern story into love, sex and a happy ending.

What’s more . ..

POMPEII: The Living City
by Alex Butterworth and Roy Laurence,
Weidenfield; £20

THE CLASSICAL WORLD: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian
by Robin Lane Fox
Penguin; £25

PERSIAN FIRE: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West
by Tom Holland
Little, Brown; £20

LOVE, SEX AND TRAGEDY: Why Classics Matters
by Simon Goldhill
John Murray; £7.99

ROME AND HER ENEMIES: An Empire Created and Destroyed by War
edited by Jane Penrose
Osprey; £20

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Why do Pynchon, Ballard and Wallace provoke such online loyalty?
• The Sunday Times 100 best holiday reads
• What will we be reading this summer: the booksellers predict