CLAS 201: Public Entertainment in Greece & Rome (Ebbott/Perry): Primary (Ancient) Sources

SET A SEARCH STRATEGY

Similarly to academic articles, there are some very general tools that you can use to search primary sources broadly. However, it is usually more productive to work out in advance....

1. Who do you want to hear from?
    
2. Where are they? 
   Identify where your selected perspectives might "live" in the historical record. For example: do they "survive" in everyday objects? Temple architecture? Art? Are they documented in any way by historians or poets? 
    
3. How can I access these sources? 
   This has to account for things like: where the sources are preserved / stored; how you might access to those sources from campus (are they digitized? published in a book?), and what your own research limitations might be. For example, if a source survives only as a handwritten, Greek manuscript, and your Greek isn't up to the challenge -- you'll need to pivot to other sources. 

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Once you've started to grapple with these questions, you can...

Start Searching: 

• Keep your searches simple, and be creative with your search terms. How did people in the period you are researching speak and write?  What words would they have used to describe events or ideas? Are there specific names that  you can focus in on? 
   
• Work with, not against, your search tools. Databases designed for primary sources often will let you narrow your search by features like publication date, geographic location, or type of source. 
   
• Don't just search -- browse! Keyword searching for primary sources can be imprecise, especially if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Give yourself time to click in and out of sources you're unsure of and browse through the pages.
   
• Pace yourself. Primary sources can take longer to find than academic articles. You may also need more time to decipher, digest, and interpret the content of your primary sources. Leave yourself plenty of time to do this work, and ask questions or for assistance earlier rather than later! 

INTERPRET & FOLLOW ABBREVIATIONS

Secondary sources like classical encyclopedias and dictionaries, as well as commentaries and other books, sometimes provide helpful references to ancient texts that you may want to follow. These could appear in the bibliography, OR they could be presented as part of the text (or both). For example, here is the Oxford Classical Dictionary entry for Cadmus (highlighting added to show references): 

You will need to decipher these abbreviations before you can determine which ancient text the encyclopedia is referencing. Fortunately, most reference books of this kind provide information about how they use abbreviations somewhere at the front of the book (note that if you are using a multi-volume series, this information may be at the front of each volume or may be limited to the first volume). 

If the list is standard enough, you may be able to find it in other sources. For example, Oxford makes their abbreviation list available online:

The book you are using might also spell out abbreviations, if not in a preface, than in a section under References or Further Reading (pay attention to whether they mention this!). 

If you cannot find the meaning of the abbreviation, don't be afraid to ask your professor, or Google it! 

Other Terms

Some texts use additional terminology in Latin or Greek that may not be defined in the abbreviation list. You can look these up in a Latin or Greek dictionary, in the Perseus Digital Library, or sometimes even in a reputable English dictionary like the Oxford English Dictionary. 

For example, the bibliography for the Oxford Classical Dictionary's article on Cadmus uses the term passim with several citations. 

Passim is Latin for "scattered," and is used to indicate that the article has used information from many different parts of the source being cited (instead of identifying specific pages or sections). This is not, of course, a technique that you want to use on your own assignments!

USE COMMENTARIES

What is a Commentary?

Commentaries are designed to help both students and scholars of the classics work more effectively with ancient texts.  

Commentaries can take many different forms. Some commentaries are written as footnotes, under or around an edition of an ancient work. Others can be found at the back of the book containing an ancient text, or in a completely separate volume. You can find commentaries which walk you through an ancient text line-by-line, and others which take more of a narrative approach to describing important themes, characters or other ideas in a text. There are even ancient forms of commentaries found in manuscripts, known as scholia. 

Commentaries may also be very different in their focus. A commentary designed for students might provide translations or explanations for important vocabulary. Commentaries might also address topics related to the text such as word choice, grammar, literary devices, or meter; historical details; themes and ideas; manuscript sources for the text; and/or questions and problems that previous scholars have had about a certain part of the work. The ultimate goal of any commentary, though, is to help the reader to better understand and to engage more fully with, the ancient text. 

Why Use a Commentary?

If you are taking a Latin or Greek course, often your required textbooks will include some kind of commentary. But beyond assigned readings, it is often valuable to consult one (or more!) commentaries for a text that you are trying to read closely. A commentary will help you better understand what you are reading and ask questions about it. It will highlight important parts of the text which you should particularly pay attention to or ask questions about.  Commentaries are particularly useful if you are trying to compare different versions of the same text (or different versions of the same story told in multiple texts), or if you are doing a word study where you are looking at the use of specific Latin or Greek words. They can also be very helpful inspiration for reflection or research paper topics, or for other long-term projects! 

How Do I Find Commentaries? 

Most of the time, commentaries will be found with the texts they comment on. So, if you are looking for commentaries on the Odyssey, you should start by looking where the books on Homer are found. Check multiple editions of the text in question to see if they contain commentaries, or look for separate commentary volumes in the same areas. There are also some useful collections of commentaries on the web.