Primary Sources - Classics
Classics is by nature interdisciplinary. Therefore, the discipline’s primary sources come in several types. Following is a brief description of the major categories with examples of each.
Contents
Original Documents
The Greeks and Romans generally wrote on papyrus. Although this material is durable enough to be used for hundreds of years, relatively few papyrus texts survive from antiquity, and most are fragmentary. Extant papyri include literary works, private documents such as letters and wills, and government documents.
NYU’s collection of papyri, housed in Special Collections at Bobst Library, consists of approximately 600 inventoried fragments and several hundred uninventoried pieces. Most are written in Greek, date to the 4th century C.E., and were excavated in Egypt nearly a century ago. The collection is gradually being added to the Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS), a virtual library of ancient papyri begun in 1996. APIS brings together in a single digital site information about texts written on papyrus and their cultural context. It combines high quality digital imaging with descriptive metadata, including physical description, provenance, content notes, translations, and references to relevant scholarly publications. To search APIS for NYU’s holdings and those of other participating institutions in North America and Europe, please visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/projects/digital/apis/index.html
Modern Editions
Most readers encounter the documentary record and literature of antiquity through modern editions. The classics were among the first books to be printed in the Renaissance, and ancient texts have continued to be issued in updated, expanded editions down to the present. One of the best known edition series of Greek and Roman literature is the Loeb Classical Library. Each Loeb volume contains facing-page translations in English of the Greek or Latin text it contains. A nearly complete collection of Loebs is available in Bobst Library’s Study Collection, which is located along the mezzanine balcony, overlooking the first floor reference desk. The call number for the series is REF1 Study PA3611 .A1.
The Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/) is an extensive collection of classical texts freely available on the Internet. Most works are available in the original language and an English translation. In addition, Perseus provides running commentary and word study aids, which facilitate understanding of difficult passages.
Artifacts
The physical remains of antiquity are often just as important as written texts for understanding how the Greeks and Romans lived and experienced the world. Objects such as mosaics, sculpture, and pottery can tell us much about life in the ancient world. Artifacts, then, are primary sources in their own right. New Yorkers are fortunate to have several museums that house large, distinguished collections of artifacts from the ancient world:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/
Brooklyn Museum, http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/
American Numismatic Society, http://www.numismatics.org/
Pierpont Morgan Library, http://www.morganlibrary.org/
Images
Images often serve as a useful substitute for viewing artifacts in person. Extensive collections of images of antiquities are now available online. These collections feature museum pieces and sometimes archaeological sites or ruins.
One freely available collection is Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome, which contains more than 2100 images of Greek and Roman architecture. Other freely available collections are indexed at Electronic Resources for Classicists: The Second Generation, http://www.tlg.uci.edu/index/resources.html.
Some image collections are available only on a subscription basis. ARTstor is one of the most relevant of these for the student of antiquity. To access ARTstor, please visit the databases page of the library's website. When you're there, click on "databases by title" to get a list of databases arranged alphabetically by title. Here's a link to the databases page: http://library.nyu.edu/collections/databases.html
