Edith Hall, Classics Professor at Durham University, specialises in ancient Greek literature and philosophy and their continuing presences in the modern world.

Her latest book, Epic of the Earth: Reading Homer’s Iliad in the Fight for a Dying World, offers a new interpretation of this foundational war poem which focuses on the cost to the environment of international combat, especially in terms of deforestation, pollution, and man-made ecological disasters.

In this talk she will present some ancient images of war and peace, nature divinities and myths about trees, plants, animals, rivers and mountains, and ask what we can learn from the ancients about our responsibilities to future generations and all the other organisms with which we share our precious planet.