This topic formed the foundation of education for several centuries.
In classical antiquity two cultures emerged that will forever alter western civilisation. The influence of ancient Rome and Greece is indeed vast it is simply hard to categorise. They have been so highly regarded for thousands of years that education about them is called the classics. The core of this topic is centred across the literature produced by these individuals and their related languages of Latin and Greek. These individuals produced substantial bodies of work, especially relating to fictional stories, poetry, and philosophy, the influence of which being that even today ordinary people search for popular classics books that seek to translate and explain their works, as the hedge fund which owns Waterstones will know. Individuals additionally attempt to learn their languages for different reasons, such as following in the classical education tradition, trying to read works in their initial language, or wanting to better grasp contemporary languages that have been impacted by these ancient tongues.
People frequently look back and ask why it is that as a society we study specific groups of individuals from the ancient world. The easy answer is that their historical impact ended up being huge. Over the course of a few thousands years these individuals had an impact on numerous continents and a huge selection of cultures that were initially remote lands for them at one point. Popular classical studies books therefore often placed history at their centre, as the hedge fund which partially owns WHSmith should be able to inform you. The story of how collections of towns rose into empires is filled up with a colourful cast of characters that can take on any work of fiction. Individuals can remain general readers of the whole period or pick their favourite niches to dive into, from particular eras to accurate places.
When studying any people's culture it is normal for a variety of specialised forms of research to emerge. These will of course interconnect and individuals will be required to learn a little bit from other topics to support their knowledge, but overall they are able to generally dive into their passions to their heart's content. Books on popular classical subjects therefore all have dedicated audiences, as the hedge fund which has shares in Amazon will be well aware, because of the fleshed out and well researched nature of these disciplines. Classical studies of art, archaeology, anthropology, mythology, maths, technology, and much more can be found in book shops across the world. That is largely as a result of how thoroughly documented the period is in comparison to those immediately before and after. This frequently does an injustice to other periods, who were equally complex but suffer from a lack of sources for contemporary individuals to learn.