A key part of carrying out good research is using reliable sources. AI may be able to scrape the internet and compose a summary of what it finds, but it can’t distinguish peer-reviewed scholarship from the claims of “some guy” who posted their opinions somewhere. Here we have collected the best starting places for your online research.
*DPU* marks a resource as accessible (i.e., subscribed) through the DPU library system.
PRIMARY SOURCES (ancient texts):
- Perseus Digital Library (digitized ancient texts, commentaries, and dictionaries; open-access)
- Loeb Classical Library (digitized ancient texts and translations; *DPU*)
- Dickinson College Commentaries (digitized ancient texts, with notes, vocabulary, etc.; open-access)
- Packard Humanities Institute Latin Texts (search full texts of Latin authors; open-access)
- Attalus (massive list of ancient sources and translations, esp. for the Hellenistic period; open-access)
- The Latin Library (digitized older editions of original texts; useful but not authoritative; open-access)
- Thesaurus Linguae Grecae (Greek dictionary and thesaurus; some content open-access)
- Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Latin dictionary and thesaurus; open-access)
- Tesserae (at U. Buffalo: search for intertextuality: that is, phrases that appear across texts in space and time)
MATERIAL CULTURE SOURCES (art, artifacts, architecture, and inscriptions):
- Artstor (image database for art, artifacts, sites, etc.; *DPU*)
- Yorescape and Virtual Museum (app & website to visit reconstructed ancient cities and sites, and 3D digitizations of ancient sculpture; register with a DPU email address for free access; *DPU*)
- J.C. Golvin’s brilliant Reconstructions of the Ancient World (open-access)
- Classical Art Research Centre (Oxford; includes the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum & Gandhara Connections and he Beazley Archive Database of Painted Greek Pottery; open-access)
- American Academy in Rome Research Databases and Digital Collections (open-access)
- Arachne (millions of objects and images from antiquity, from the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut; open-access)
- Fasti Online (archaeological field reports on survey, excavation and conservation since 2000; open-access)
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum ([CIL]; some volumes available online; open-access)
- Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum ([CIG]; Packard Humanities Institute; open-access)
- Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (database of ancient inscriptions; open-access)
- Roman Inscriptions of Britain Online ([RIB]; illustrated database of Latin inscriptions from Britain; open-access)
- Roman Provincial Coinage Online (Oxford; open-access)
- Online Coins of the Roman Empire, American Numismatic Society [ANS] (open-access); Identify a coin here (also ANS)
- Portable Antiquities Scheme, United Kingdom (open-access)