Guides: Classical Studies: Primary Sources

Getting Started with Primary Sources

Primary sources provide first-hand accounts of an event or topic from people directly connected to them. They can be visual, material, archeological, or written, video or audio. The sections below focus on a selection of the written and visual primary sources. Some of these are available via the library website and can be accessed with your student username and password. Some of these are freely available on the web (no username or password required). Please use the links below to find a wide range of useful sources on the Classical world!

Primary Source Databases for Ancient and Late Antique History

Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library, founded by James Loeb in 1911, continues the historic mission of making all that is important in Greek and Latin literature available to readers and includes accurate, literate, English translations.

The authors in the Loeb Classical Library span fourteen centuries and every genre. Each work is classified by language, form, genre, subject, and date for ease of browsing and navigation
Translated Texts for Historians E-Library
Historical sources from A.D. 300–800 translated into English. This collection contains 66 volumes that bring together a wealth of important early medieval texts in translation, with scholarship from leading academics.

Manar Al-Athar: Images for the Study of the Middle East
This provides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art, cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period.

AM Explorer
Access millions of pages of primary source collections across the entire portfolio of Adam Matthew Digital, spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries.

Archaeological Sources

Archaeological Data Service
The Archaeological Data Service stores digital data on heritage, including the archives of particular excavations, grey literature, and bibliographies.
Britannia Monographs Series
This this site contains links to full-text pdfs of volumes published in the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies' Britannia series, which focuses on the archaeology of Roman Britain.
British School at Rome Digitial Collections
Consisting of thousands of photographs, illustrations, and documents collected by the British School, this is a unique resource for understanding the ancient world.
Council for British Archaeology Research Reports
The complete series of CBA Research Reports, including microfiche, has been digitised and is being made available in stages. The reports publish the results of a wide variety of archaeology research projects.
English Heritage Archaeological Monographs
English Heritage has a long tradition of producing highly illustrated archaeological monographs about key sites and topics of importance to the understanding of the historic environment in England. Many of the past titles have long been out of print and yet are still of value for reference purposes. As a service to the wider archaeological community, English Heritage is now making these titles freely available as PDFs. Click the link to browse and access these books.
Roman Inscriptions of Britain
This website hosts Volume One of The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, R.G. Collingwood's and R.P. Wright's magisterial edition of 2,401 monumental inscriptions from Britain found prior to 1955. It 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 since.
Roman Provincial Coinage Online
Roman Provincial Coinage presents an authoritative account of the coins minted in the provinces of the empire and shows how they can be regarded as an integral part of the coinage minted under the Roman emperors.

Sources in Latin

The Patrologia Latina and Acta Sanctorum contain a wide range of texts in Latin.

Acta Sanctorum
The Acta Sanctorum Database is an electronic version of the complete printed text of Acta Sanctorum, from the edition published in sixty-eight volumes by the Société des Bollandistes in Antwerp and Brussels. It is a collection of documents examining the lives of saints, organised according to each saint's feast day, and runs from the two January volumes published in 1643 to the Propylaeum to December published in 1940.
Patrologia Latina
Electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855. It comprises the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216.

Maps

Digital Augustan Rome
This is an online map with commentary which allows you to explore Rome around 14 CE
Orbis: the Stanford Geospatial Model of the Roman World
Interactive map of communication and travel in the Roman World.