The sites below (except for number
8) concentrate on material from the Classical period.
Since eight is a sacred number (along with zero, one,
three, two, four, seven, sixteen, twenty-eight, and a
dozen others) we have included eight great web sites.
These represent the best we could come up with but there
may well be others. If you run across something really
great (in comparison with these) please let us know. We
can find another sacred number (somewhere) to round out
the entries.
DCA,
AE, and EMD
“Illorum mundus essare nostre mundus"
THE
PERSEUS DIGITAL LIBRARY
This is the Mother of All Classical web sites. It is
so large and complex that navigation can be extremely
difficult. (It is easy to get lost in it). In spite
of this, we would be remiss not to include it here as
it has links to almost every classical site of importance
on the web. In addition, the site includes entire books
reproduced and cross referenced to other sources, maps,
documents, you name it. For example, an English translation
of Polybius’ “Histories” is included
with embedded links to sources in the actual text. Four
or five clicks and it you are miles away from Polybius,
and in the land of the Lacedaemonians. Overwhelming
in its depth, it is sometimes difficult to find your
way back to Polybius, or whomever or whatever you started
with. Odysseus must have been the inspiration for this
one. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
AQUAE
URBIS ROMAE: THE WATERS OF THE CITY OF ROME
A truly remarkable web site put together by Katherine
Wentworth Rinne, an independent scholar, published by
the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities,
University of Virginia. Project Director. (copyright
1998-2004.) The project is ongoing and is funded by
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and several
other similar organizations. The main page describes
the site as: “An interactive cartographic history
of the relationship between hydrological and hydraulic
systems and their impact on the urban development of
Rome, Italy from 753 BC to the present day. Aquae Urbis
Romae examines the intersection between natural hydrological
elements such as springs, rain, streams, marshes, and
the Tiber River, and constructed hydraulic elements
such as aqueducts, fountains, sewers, bridges, conduits,
etc., that together create the water infrastructure
system of Rome.” This is definitely worth a view. http://www.iath.virginia.edu/waters/first.html
DEPARTMENT
OF CLASSICS AT AMHERST COLLEGE
This is the home page of the Department of Classics
at Amherst College. Of particular interest is the link
from this page to Syllabi for Civilization Courses.
From here, click on the link to Classics 36: Pompeii
and Herculaneum, taught by Professor Cynthia Damon.
While the entire site is most useful with bibliographic
material Professor Damon has a great collection of photographs
on Pompeii and Herculaneum. This one should keep you
busy for a while. http://www.amherst.edu/~classics/
LIVIUS:
ARTICLES ON ANCIENT HISTORY
This is simply an index of articles on the ancient Roman
world. It contains biographies, geographies, and definitions
of things. A very useful and unlike Perseus, a very
simple web site. http://www.livius.org/
LACUS
CURTIUS
A professor (and apparent maniac) at the University
of Chicago, Bill Thayer decided to put all the material
he could find together in one place on the web. This
is the result: a sort of Perseus for ordinary people.
The site is huge, but far more manageable than the Perseus
web site. Thayer describes it as, “ a major site
on Roman antiquity, including a photo-gazetteer of Roman
and Etruscan cities and monuments (with a very large
site on the city of Rome of course), a site for teaching
yourself to read Latin inscriptions, the complete Latin
texts”…of most of the major Roman authors.
It is almost unbelievable that one person assembled
this. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html
ROMA
AETERNA
Enzo Ferrari once said, “If it looks good, it
is good.” Such could also be said for this site:
a very beautiful and very Roman web site with a number
of photographs of important buildings and sites. The
problem is that it is mostly in Italian. Nevertheless,
the photographs do not need translation and there is
an excellent sub-section on the Roman Navy, much of
which is in English. http://www.romaeterna.org/
FORUM
ROMANUM Forum Romanum is
a site maintained by David Camden, an A.B. candidate in
Classics at Harvard University. This means that Mr. Camden
is an undergraduate which is fairly humbling in a certain
way. He describes the site thusly: “Forum Romanum
is a collaborative project among scholars, teachers, and
students with the broad purpose of bringing classical
scholarship out of college libraries and into a more accessible,
online medium. Toward this end, we host a number of materials
for the classical scholar, including texts, translations,
articles, and other pedagogical resources. The centerpost
of Forum Romanum is the Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum, a
digital library covering the entire body of Latin literature,
from the earliest epigraphic remains to the Neo-Latinists
of the eighteenth century. We also provide electronic
editions of such classic secondary works as Johnston's
Private Life of the Romans and Teuffel's History of Roman
Literature (coming soon), in addition to some modern pieces
that have been personally submitted by their authors.
If you would like to help with this project, please visit
our Contributors' Page.” Please feel free to make
a contribution. http://www.forumromanum.org/index2.html
GIUSEPPE
VASI A remarkable website
put together by Roberto Piperno. The primary focus is
on Baroque Rome this is also useful for the Classical
period. Of interest is the juxtaposition of the engravings
of Giuseppe Vasi between 1760 and 1781 with the same sites
as they exist today. Vasi, along with Piranesi and Giambattista
Nolli mapped and drew most of the significant sites in
Rome, including those from the ancient world as well.
Much of the material is copyrighted. http://www.romeartlover.it/superind.html
