Text Searching Resources

Attic Inscriptions Online 

A resource structured around English translations of the inscriptions of ancient Athens and Attica. Inscriptions on stone are the most important documentary source for the history of the ancient city of Athens and its surrounding region, Attica. Dating from the 7th century BC through to the end of antiquity, Greek texts are available to scholars in Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) I (up to 403/2 BC) and II (after 403/2 BC), updated annually by the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) and in the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) Greek Inscriptions website. However, before the launch of AIO, very few of the inscriptions were available in English translation, whether in print, or online.

Each translation includes a link to the Greek text translated, whether on an external site or in many cases on AIO. AIO's policy is to include our own Greek text of an inscription where no up-to-date text is available online elsewhere in open access. Every translation also includes links to any available online images of the inscription, on external open-access sites or on AIO.  You can browse by date, by findspot, by original location, by present location, by inscription type, by monument type, and by publication date on AIO.  A new feature as of June 2023. Attic Inscriptions of Delphi, a collaboration with the University of Heidelberg, which aims to present all the Athenian inscriptions from or relating to Delphi. 

Bibliotheca Iuris Antiqui
Full text of main judicial Roman sources. Also bibliographic information on Roman Law, other ancient laws and on general ancient history of the ancient world 1950 - 1989. Contains thesaurus of c9,000 terms relating to ancient law. [Not working at present]

Bibliotheca Teubneriana Latina Version 4, 2006
Full text of Latin texts which have appeared in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana since its foundation.

Corpus glossariorum Latinorum (ed. G. Goetz) -with searchable PDF’s available to download.  This new website includes handwritten addenda / marginalia by Wilhelm Heraeus and Wallace M. Lindsay, previously unpublished, which require some patience to read! The CGL is a fundamental repository of ancient and early medieval Latin glossography, 
including glosses in Greek and Old English.   It documents several centuries of Greco-Roman scholarship and lexicography, language contact, and the development of these languages.   

The project is a collaboration between the Laboratoire Histoire des théories linguistiques (HTL) and the Thesaurus linguae Latinae. (TLL) and work will continue to improve the website. Information provided by Franck Cinato (HTL) and Adam Gitner (TLL)

*Corpus Medicorum Graecorum / Latinorum CMG, CML, CMG Supplementum and CMG Supplementum orientale
Now freely available.

Database of Military Inscriptions and Papyri of Early Roman Palestine.
This site is designed to aid the study of the military in the early Roman period for those interested in Judaism and Christianity of the first few centuries CE. This website is still under construction and has basic functionality as of June 2020

The Epigraphic Database Rome (EDR) is part of the international federation of Epigraphic Databases called Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (EAGLE.
As part of the federation, it is possible to use EDR both as a single database or together with its partner databases accessing EAGLE's portal. In addition to EDR, the federation currently includes the Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg (EDH), the Epigraphic Database Bari (EDB) and Hispania Epigraphica (HE).

Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby

On this site you find a data base that records almost all Latin inscriptions. The texts are based on the decision of the EDCS editors. The texts are presented without abbreviations and completed where possible. The presentation of the texts is kept as simple as possible. Beside the commonly used indications for resolution, completions and erasures as few special characters as possible have been used

Eustathius of Thessalonica, Online commentary on the Odyssey
This work by the publishers Brill is only available in the library and is a new text edition of the Byzantine scholar and rhetorician Eusthathius of Thessalonica’s Commentary composed during the latter half of the twelfth century CE. (From the library catalogue there is a Request button next to the entry - this will not take you to this resource!) The Commentary collects material from a wide range of different sources which explain or expand on words, phrases and ideas in the Homeric epic. Original comments are blended with extracts from earlier commentators, especially the Homeric scholia. The text is an important source for fragments of otherwise lost works of ancient literature, for the history of exegesis and lexicography, and for Byzantine cultural history.
This is the first complete critical edition of the text, and the first translation of it into a modern language.

Inscriptiones Graecae Eystettenses and Inscriptiones Latinae Eystettenses (1996-1999)
These are concordance and search programs of Greek and Latin inscriptions in Asia Minor. They are not a computerised edition of texts but provide references to volumes where the full text may be found.

*Inscriptions of Aphrodisias
This is the electronic second edition, expanded and revised from the version published by the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies in 1989. The editions and commentary are by Charlotte Roueché, except for Text 1, by Joyce Reynolds. The electronic editorial conventions were developed by Tom Elliott (EpiDoc), and the website and the supporting materials are the work of Gabriel Bodard, Paul Spence, and colleagues at King's. This site contains:
Inscriptions, Commentary, Indices and reference materials, Information about the project, Credits

*Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania

Jacoby online is now run on Brill's Scholarly Editions platform with a new design with enhanced search options with over 1.2 million words added. This work is a digital edition of fragments and testimonia of Greek historians, and other authors from antiquity. Although the works of these historians are now lost, we still have passages in the form of citations and paraphrases in ancient texts that are preserved. Jacoby Online is anchored in the work of Felix Jacoby, who started the work of collecting fragments and writing commentaries. To his Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker I-III (1923-1959) are added two new editions, Brill's New Jacoby (2006-2021) and Brill's New Jacoby, Second Edition (2016-), edited by Ian Worthington.

Felix Jacoby himself was unable to finish the collection, but work on Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker resumed in the 1990s, resulting in FGrHist Part IV, currently edited by Stefan Schorn, and FGrHist Part V, currently edited by Hans-Joachim Gehrke and Felix Maier.  Together, these editions form a monumental scholarly accomplishment and an indispensable resource for anyone interested in ancient history and historiography.

The advantages of the new version are:
All entries from Jacoby Online are accessible from a single interface
Search options per ancient writer, modern contributor, edition and part
Full-text search and faceted search; combined searches possible
Reader has option to display two texts side by side
Fragments, testimonia, and texts are fully identifiable by Canonical Text Services Universal Resource Names
There is a facility to export files and a morphology tool.

Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker i-iii and iv can be accessed from the new website Jacoby online

Library of Latin Texts

Further details about this database including links to video presentations in French and English.  Link to the catalogue entry Members can now login via the catalogue and use this resource off-site.

LLT - Series A is a full text database (originally known as Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts) which has been broadened in scope and now contains over 83 million words from over 4,124 works attributed to approximately 1,363 authors. There are plans to combine Series A with Series B (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature and the Aristoteles Latinus Database) into one large corpus which also includes translations from Greek originals into Latin.

Five chronological divisions are used. 1. Antiquitas - works from the beginning until roughly the end of the second century. 2. Aetas patrum I - works of Late Antiquity (until 500) including Ambrose, Augustine, Ausonius, Cyprian, Magnus Felix Ennodius, Gregory the Great, Jerome, Marius Victorinus, Paulinus of Nola, Prudentius, Rufinus of Aquilea, Tertullian. It also contains non-Christian literature such as Ammianus Marcellinus, Claudian, Macrobius, Martianus Capella and the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. 3. Works composed 501-735. 4. Works composed 73601500. 5. Works composed 1501-1965.

Now available off-site - need to login with membership details - and online in the Library - click 'enter databases' to access online through this link.)

Linear B Electronic Resources - LiBER - is free to use (after registration) and aims to produce an integrated database of Linear B documents with an updated edition of the Linear B documents, along with a new set of search tools. Individual texts are supplied with transcriptions, critical apparatus, photographs as well as, whenever possible, with all the relevant information about findspots, scribes, chronologies, inventory numbers and places of preservation. The database can be searched by series of documents, syllabic sequences, logograms, scribes and findspots, while search results can be displayed both as lists of texts and interactive maps. At present (June 2020) the database contains the Linear B documents from Mycenae, Tiryns and Midea but not (yet) the ones from Knossos documents.

Loeb Classical Library
The Library has now subscribed to this database which is available for current members of the Hellenic or Roman Societies / Institute of Classical Studies Library via the Library catalogue page. Please login using the your name and 10 digit barcode number (no spaces between the numbers).  The link to this database is via a title search - Digital Loeb Classical Library - click on "Connect to Web resource"
Guidance notes on using the Digital Loeb Classical Library - updated November 2022

You can watch a video covering how to access and use the Loeb Classical Library.  This has been made into a YouTube link (15 minutes) 

Oxyrhynchus papyri online
This image database has been migrated to Oxford's Sustainable Digital Scholarship platform: Records for texts published in P.Oxy. vols. 83-86 are now included, along with images for records that previously lacked them. Where available, inventory numbers and links to papyri.info have been added.

Poesialatina
This free website includes Greek as well as Latin poetry texts

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
Available online in the Computer Room in the Library. The SEG includes the printed SEG volumes, and future volumes will be added to the online edition. While the contents of the SEG Online are identical to that of the printed volumes, there are some differences in presentation and search possibilities. It is also possible to do a combined search with Jacoby / Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker.

Tesserae   The Tesserae project aims to provide a flexible and robust web interface for exploring intertextual parallels. Select two poems (from the same author or by different authors) to see a list of lines sharing two or more words (regardless of inflectional changes).
Searching is available using a listing of Greek and Latin authors.  The program produces a list of results with scores for the degree of matching between the texts. Free to use.

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) (Greek texts)
The online version of the TLG has many new features including statistical information. This database is only available using the computers in the Library's computer room. Use the login button and input ICSLIBRARY as the Username. Ask at the Library desk for the password. You can access the subscription-free, abridged version offsite by creating a free account.

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae
This database is the largest and most detailed Latin dictionary in the world with extensive and detailed entries covering the classical period up to about 600 A.D. An encyclopedic database, based on the print dictionary of the same name. NB This is a work in progress. The TLL is available in the Library's computer room.
There is now an freely available open-access pdf version from the publisher in co-operation with the IT department of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, organised by volumes and lemmata of the previously published volumes, A-M and O-P.  Recent updates (July 2020)  now includes headwords from N (n to neate) and R (r to refobeo), excluding only material published in the most recent three years. New material will be added annually to maintain this three-year window in accordance with our agreement with de Gruyter. The open access version does not replace the platform offered  by the publishing house, but it is an major step towards greater accessibility. Access via this link  http://www.thesaurus.badw.de/en/tll-digital/tll-open-access.html

*Packard Humanities Institute Latin Texts (PHI) Latin Literary Texts. Now available online. Latin literary texts written before A.D. 200, as well as some texts selected from later antiquity. These texts were previously available on The Packard Humanities Institute's CD ROM 5.3.

*Packard Humanities Institute and Duke Databank of Documentary Gk Papyri /Inscriptions Currently PHI 7.0 CD-ROM which allows separate searching of Greek inscriptions, Greek Christian inscriptions or Greek documentary papyri. There is now free online access to the Greek Inscriptions database, and free online access to an updated version of Greek Documentary papyri which provides access to additional authors.

*Perseus
Version 4.0 is freely available online. It covers the history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world. Perseus contains the full texts of many Greek and Roman authors, as well as out-of-copyright English translations. It allows word searching in Greek, Latin, and English, and can be used for statistical information in relation to texts. Perseus also includes an Art and Archaeology Artifact Browser.

Perseus Version 2.0, the multimedia encyclopaedia covering Greek history, literature, art and archaeology, is available to use in the computer room.

*Roman Inscriptions of Britain online (RIB)
Seach the online version of Volume One of The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, R.G. Collingwood's and R.P. Wright's edition of 2,401 monumental inscriptions from Britain found prior to 1955. Also incorporates all Addenda and Corrigenda published in the 1995 reprint of RIB (edited by R.S.O. Tomlin) and the annual survey of inscriptions published in Britannia.  RIB Online has been relaunched on the anniversary of Claudia Severa’s birthday, with enhanced existing records and a large number of new texts. 1,508 new texts have been added, drawn from RIB Volume III and the corpus of Bloomberg tablets, Roman London’s First Voices (each digitally published for the first time), as well as new and enhanced digitisations of the Vindolanda Tablets, some of which are also making their digital debuts. All the new material includes images where available and relevant non-textual information from the corpora.

The entire corpus of RIB Online now comprises 3,909 inscriptions in all, representing a substantial milestone in the aim to make available digitally every published text from the province of Britannia. Future instalments will include all eight fascicules of RIB Volume II (Instrumentum Domesticum), the curse tablets, writing tablets from Carlisle, and all texts published in the annual updates of the journal Britannia to date.  
Library copy of the print version is shelved at 101H.7 COL