Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Perseus Digital Library Update

Michael Hanel on the BibleWorks blog has brought to my attention (yeah, I noticed the reminder...) that the Perseus Digital Library has just announced some significant updates (as well as a job opening for an ambitious grad student classicist). They announce that:

  • Many improvements to the Art & Archaeology data and interface. You can now search the A&A data and image captions.
  • Euclid's Elements have been added, as well as a large number of Plutarch texts, edited by Bernadotte Perrin. Links to these texts can be found on the Greek and Roman collection page.
The Art & Arachaelogy database is quite useful. It's a great place to find images of denarii (Matt 22.19), idols in Athens (Acts 16.17), earthen vessels in Corinth (2Cor 4.7), Artemis in Ephesus (Acts 19.28), the Via Egnatia in Philippi (Acts 16.11-12), and more, including many photographs of sites.
Of the new texts added, having Plutarch available in English is a wonderful resource. (There are actually more English texts than Greek for Plutarch for now. When both are available, you can get the parallel view as shown above.) Add to this the benefit of having every Greek word linked to the Liddell-Scott lexicon and numerous other resources, and it's a resource you surely should bookmark.

2 comments:

  1. I knew I could start a conversation online :) Thanks for following up on it. Perseus is so quiet about their announcements, it seemed someone else had to toot their horn. Just for that I will get a blog post going that refers back to your blog as well. This is Internet is a Web after all.....

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  2. This is cool. I love Aristophane's "The Clouds." The English translation on Perseus is hilarious ....

    Dis.
    Chaerephon the Sphettian asked him whether he thought gnats buzzed through the mouth or the breech.

    Strep.
    What, then, did he say about the gnat?

    Dis.
    He said the intestine of the gnat was narrow and that the wind went forcibly through it, being slender, straight to the breech; and then that the rump, being hollow where it is adjacent to the narrow part, resounded through the violence of the wind.

    Strep.
    The rump of the gnats then is a trumpet! Oh, thrice happy he for his sharp-sightedness! Surely a defendant might easily get acquitted who understands the intestine of the gnat.

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