Library Research Guides: E-Resources for Arts & Humanities: Classical Studies

Classical Studies

Databases of classical texts:

Loeb Classical Library
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Interconnected, fully searchable, perpetually growing, virtual library of Greek and Latin literature.
Includes epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory.

Perseus Digital Library - Tufts University
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Greek and Latin texts with word indexing and translation, together with Arabic, Germanic, and other Classics-related texts.

Chicago Homer
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Searchable database covering The Iliad, The Odyssey, Theogony, Works and Days, Shield of Herakles, Homeric Hymns in their original Greek and English and German translation.
Multilingual database that uses the search and display capabilities of electronic texts to make distinctive features of early Greek epic accessible to readers with and without Greek. Except for fragments, it contains all the texts in the original Greek, in addition to English and German translations.
Library of Latin Texts
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Contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
The Library of Latin Texts is a searchable full-text database of classical, patristic, medieval and neo-Latin writers. It includes:
- Literature from Antiquity (Plautus, Terence, Caesar, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Titius-Livius, the Senecas, the two Plinys, Tacitus and Quintilian and others).
- Literature from Patristic Authors (Ambrose, Augustine, Ausonius, Cassian, Cyprian, Gregory the Great, Jerome, Marius Victorinus, Novatian, Paulinus of Nola, Prudentius, Tertullian and others) It also contains non-Christian literature of that period (Ammianus Marcellinus, the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Claudian, Macrobius and Martianus Cappella).
- Literature from the Middle Ages (Anselm of Canterbury, Beatus de Liebana, Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, Sedulius Scottus, Thomas à Kempis, Thomas de Celano, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the Rationale of Guilelmus Durandus and important works by Abelard, Bonaventure, Ramon Llull, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham and others).
- Neo-Latin Literature (decrees from the modern ecumenical Church councils up to Vatican II and translations into Latin of important sixteenth-century works).
In Principio
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Latin Literature from its origins to the Renaissance.
Those who are interested in the writers, texts and manuscripts of Antiquity and the Middle Ages know how difficult it is to identify a particular work encountered by chance in a manuscript, or, when studying or publishing a particular text, to make an inventory of all the manuscripts in which it appears. These difficulties arise primarily from the manner in which literary works circulated prior to the invention of printing. Before Gutenberg, the text had a life of its own, independent of its author, and was modified from copy to copy. It is not only the text that changed; titles might vary and authorial attributions could shift. There was a tendency to lend only to the rich, and Ovid, Saint Augustine and Saint Bernard found themselves credited with a host of apocrypha. The incipit or first words of a work thus remain the surest means of designating it unambiguously. In a sense, the incipit, by virtue of its invariability, is the identity card of the text. Standing apart from the diversity of attributions and titles, the incipit guarantees the presence of a particular text.
Patrologia Latina
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Electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855, and the four volumes of indexes published between 1862 and 1865. Covers the works of the Latin Fathers from Tertullian in 200 A.D. to Pope Innocent III in 1216. Includes the complete Patrologia Latina, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes. Migne's column numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.
Aristoteles Latinus Database
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Digital access to the complete corpus of medieval translations of the works of Aristotle.
Aims at documenting the various tools that were used in the Middle Ages for the study of Aristotle, with a special emphasis on Latin translations. Includes Greco-Latin translations in the printed Aristoteles Latinus series and also in some unpublished editions in preparation. Also includes the corpus of Latin translations of Greek commentaries and glosses on Aristotle (most of them published in the Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum), texts that were closely associated with the Corpus Aristotelicum (such as the Liber sex principiorum, the Paraphrasis Themistiana or the Vita Aristotelis), and some translations from the Arabic (the Analytica Posteriora, tr. Gerardi and Averroes’Poetria, tr. Hermanni).

Reference works on the Greek and Latin languages:

Database of Latin Dictionaries (DLD)
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Latin dictionaries, modern, medieval, early-modern, with links between the different tools produced by Brepolis.
The Database of Latin Dictionaries is a project that has been in development for many years by the Centre ‘Traditio Litterarum Occidentalium’ (CTLO) under the direction of Paul Tombeur. At the moment, three dictionaries are searchable on the database: Albert Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens. Firminus Verris Dictionarius, Dictionnaire latin-français de Firmin Le Ver, ed. by B. Merrilees and W. Edwards. C. du Fresne ('du Cange'), Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis. In the coming years, more and more dictionaries will be integrated: Albert Blaise, Lexicon latinitatis medii aevi praesertim ad res ecclesiasticas investigandas pertinens / Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs du moyen-âge. Anonymus Montepessulanensis, Dictionarius / Le Glossaire latin-français du MS Montpellier H236.; Glossarium gallico-latinum / Le Glossaire français-latin du MS Paris lat. 7684, ed. by A. Grondeux, J. Monfrin and B. Merrilees (1998) Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, by Forcellini, Furlanetto, Corradini and Perin (1771- 1940) The Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary
Thesaurus Linguae Latinae
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The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae covers all of the Latin texts from the classical period up to about 600 A.D. 31 academies, and scholarly societies from 23 countries support the work of the Bayerische Akademie (Thesaurusbüro München).
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
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Online access to ancient Greek texts. USERS MUST CREATE AN INDIVIDUAL LOGIN FOR ACCESS.
The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG®) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. Founded in 1972 the TLG has already collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era.

Reference works related to the ancient world:

L'Annee philologique
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Database that indexes annually collected scholarly works relating to every aspect of Greek and Roman civilization (authors and texts ; literature ; linguistics ; political, economic, and social history ; attitudes and daily life ; religion ; cultural and artistic life ; law ; philosophy ; science and technology ; and the history of classical studies).
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Significant space is accorded to the auxiliary disciplines (archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, papyrology and paleography). Book notices are followed by a listing of reviews as these are published ; notices of articles include an abstract in English, German, Spanish, French, or Italian.

New Pauly Online
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Unrivalled reference work for the ancient world, including fifteen volumes on Greco-Roman antiquity, and five volumes on the Classical Tradition.
Brill's New Pauly is the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, published by Verlag J.B. Metzler since 1996. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world.

The section on Antiquity of Brill´s New Pauly are devoted to Greco-Roman antiquity and cover two thousand years of history, ranging from the second millennium BC to early medieval Europe. Special emphasis is given to the interaction between Greco-Roman culture on the one hand, and Semitic, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic culture, and ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the other hand.

The section on the Classical Tradition is concerned with the aftermath of antiquity and the process of continuous reinterpretation and revaluation of the ancient heritage, including the history of classical scholarship. Many entries include maps and illustrations and the English edition will include updated bibliographic references.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, Third Edition
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Reference work on the classical world. Covers all aspects of ancient life - political, economic, philosophical, religious, artistic, and social. Includes over six thousand entries ranging from long articles to brief definitions. There is substantial coverage of women in the ancient world, sexuality, Asia and the Far East, Judaism, and early Christians. Thematic articles reflect the current emphasis on multidisciplinary approaches to classical studies.

Papyrology, Epigraphy, and Archeology

The Papyrological Navigator
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A portal to ancient papyrological documents and related materials.
PHI Greek Inscriptions
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A website of searchable Greek inscriptions.
Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (EDH)
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Latin inscriptions from the Roman empire.
Open Context
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A digital archive of archaeological field data.

Classicist Blogs & Wikis

The Digital Classicist Wiki
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"A hub for scholars, students, professionals and other interested in the application of digital humanities or computational methods to the study or dissemination of the ancient world(s)."
The Ancient World Online
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A classicist blog with a particular focus on open-access resources available online.

E-Resources for Arts & Humanities

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Classical Studies

Databases of classical texts:

Reference works on the Greek and Latin languages:

Reference works related to the ancient world:

Papyrology, Epigraphy, and Archeology

Classicist Blogs & Wikis

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IU Libraries

E-Resources for Arts & Humanities

Classical Studies

Databases of classical texts:

Reference works on the Greek and Latin languages:

Reference works related to the ancient world:

Papyrology, Epigraphy, and Archeology

Classicist Blogs & Wikis

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Additional resources

Featured Databases

IU Libraries