Research Guides: Classics Research Guide: Find Background Information

Reference Sources

Below are links to reference sources and collections that are most useful for Classics:

Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World
Call Number: Frost Reference DE5 .N48213 2006
Presents traditional and new areas of research and brings together specialist knowledge from leading scholars from all over the world. Many entries include maps, illustrations, and bibliographic references.

Oxford Classical Dictionary
Written by subject experts, this dictionary overs all aspects of the classical world from literature and history to religion, science, and archaeology. The Dictionary contains many thematic entries on subjects relevant to the 21st century such as nationalism, race, gender, and ecology.

Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek This link opens in a new window
Considered the most important modern dictionary for Ancient Greek; brings together 140,000 headwords taken from the literature, papyri, inscriptions, and other sources of the archaic period up to the 6th Century CE.
Database of Latin Dictionaries This link opens in a new window
Dictionaries for translation, etymologies, and historical context. Cross-searchable with the Library of Latin Texts.
Encyclopedia of Ancient History This link opens in a new window
Over 5,000 original entries spanning the late Bronze Age through the seventh century CE, and covers all Mediterranean civilizations, including the Near East and Egypt.
Historisches Worterbuch der Rhetorik This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive academic reference work for scholarship on rhetoric.
Jacoby Online (Brill) This link opens in a new window
The authoritative resource for the study of ancient Greek historians, it includes Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker I-IIII; Brill's New Jacoby, a new English edition of FgrHist I-IIII; and Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker IV and V.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Full-text critical studies, biographies of authors; covers all genres, all time periods, and all regions.
Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization This link opens in a new window
Provides an authoritative survey of the Greek and Roman worlds in all their aspects.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Digitized entries from Oxford's Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias, spanning multiple subject areas.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy This link opens in a new window
Scholarly entries on all aspects of philosophy.
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) This link opens in a new window
Digital library of literary texts written in Greek from Homer (8 BC) to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. (Access requires each user to set up an account with individual username/password)
Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL) This link opens in a new window
Online version of the standard (and ongoing) scholarly dictionary of ancient Latin.
Reference Universe This link opens in a new window
Searchable index of the library's entire reference collection, both print and electronic.

Tip: What are reference sources, and why would I use them?

Reference sources can include encyclopedias, bibliographies, dictionaries, handbooks, and atlases.

They provide overviews of and background information on a topic
They help you identify or refine your topic
They provide quick, reliable facts
They include bibliographies that will lead you to additional sources of information on your topic

You can find the Library's collection of reference books on Floor 1 of Frost. We also have many online databases that include collections of edited scholarly encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference sources.