LibGuides: Arts & Humanities: Classics

The Maughan Library

Print books and journals for Classics can be found at the Maughan Library.

Find art & archaeology resources

Art and Architecture Archive This link opens in a new window A full-text archive of magazines comprising key research material in the fields of art and architecture, dating from the late-nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Subjects covered include fine art, decorative arts, architecture, interior design, industrial design, and photography. The issues are presented as full-color page images; detailed article-level indexing permits quick, efficient searching and navigation of this material. Senate House membership gives access to: Art & Architecture Archive Collection 1 Art & Architecture Archive Collection 2 Coverage: 1895 - 2015 Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.
Artstor (JSTOR) Artstor features millions of high-quality images and media from some of the world’s top photo archives, museums, libraries, scholars, and artists, including rare materials not available anywhere else. Artstor’s collections also include Open Access collections from partner museums freely available to all. All content in Artstor is rights-cleared for education and research — you are free to use it in classroom instruction and handouts, presentations, student assignments, and other noncommercial educational and scholarly activities.  With approximately 300 collections composed of over 2 million images* (and growing), scholars can examine wide-ranging material such as Native American art from the Smithsonian, treasures from the Louvre, and panoramic, 360-degree views of the Hagia Sophia in a single, easy-to-use resource.  
BIAB: British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography (Archaeology Data Service) This link opens in a new window The BIAB online database contains datasets covering publications from AD 1695 to the present day on archaeology and the historic environment, historic buildings, maritime and industrial archaeology, environmental history, and the conservation of material culture - with a geographical focus on Britain and Ireland. The British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography (BIAB) was originally compiled by the Council for British Archaeology (CBA), and contains over 150,000 references and abstracts. In 2016 BIAB was deposited with the ADS, and its records added to the Library database.
Contemporary Anthropology: Archaeological Fieldwork and Methods This link opens in a new window Contemporary Anthropology: Archaeological Fieldwork and Methods brings together archival and textual material relating to archaeological excavations, methods, and practices done in the late 20th century to present day. It provides insights into the lives, cultures, and societies of ancient and not-so-distant civilizations through the analysis of material remains and artifacts from the past. This collection allows researchers and students to use archival material and published works to better understand, analyse, and critique archaeological research. Featured in this collection is the The Cusichaca Trust Archive sourced from the Senate House Library, University of London. Led by archaeologist Ann Kendall, the Trust did numerous excavations in the South-Central Andes from 1980s-2010s. The archaeology, archaeobotany and ethnohistorical work focused on human occupation of the area from the late first millennium BC, through Inca expansion and into the Spanish Colonial period. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.
Image Quest This link opens in a new window Britannica® ImageQuest™ – provides access to millions of royalty free images on one site and from 60 of the world’s most respected image libraries. You can access million rights-cleared images from over 50 world-class collections, including: British Library, De Agostini Editore Picture Library, Design Pics and Photo Researchers.Each photo or illustration comes with complete metadata, including the source, the copyright holder, caption and keywords. Because Britannica has done the work of finding the best photos – most of which are not freely available on the web – you can trust the source and be certain that you’re using an accurate photo.
Index of Medieval Art This link opens in a new window The Index of Medieval Art online database holdings complement and partly overlap with the print Index at Princeton University, which is currently being integrated into the database. The collections include images and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century. Although the Index of Medieval Art was formerly known as the Index of Christian Art, it now includes secular subjects as well as a growing number of subjects from medieval Jewish and Islamic culture. As of 1 July 2023, the Index is accessible without a subscription.

Collections Guide for Classics

Welcome to the Collections Guide for Classics

This guide provides tailored information on library collections and links to some of our key resources.

Key resource for Classics

Oxford Classical Dictionary This link opens in a new window This is a modular resource. Only the below modules are available through Senate House Library:Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History Oxford Classical DictionaryThe Oxford Research Encyclopedias (OREs) offer long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars. The OREs cover both foundational and cutting-edge topics in order to develop, over time, an anchoring knowledge base for major areas of research across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.

Find reference material & companions online for Classics

Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World Series Part of ProQuest Ebook Central
Brill's Companions to Classical Studies Part of ProQuest Ebook Central

Cambridge Companions Online (Cambridge Core) This link opens in a new window Cambridge Companions are a series of authoritative guides, written by leading experts, offering lively, accessible introductions to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics, and periods. CCO offers thousands of comprehensive and accessible essays on major authors, periods and genres, written by experts and designed for student readers.King's users have access to the complete collection of Cambridge Companions, which is divided into three subsections: Literature and Classics; Philosophy, Religion and Culture; and Music.
Database of Latin Dictionaries (Brepols) This link opens in a new window Database of multiple Latin dictionaries covering three areas: assisting translation from Latin into modern languages, providing semantic and etymological explanations in Latin of Latin words, and historical Latin dictionaries. Please note: this database includes The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources.
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (Brepols) This link opens in a new window The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (DMLBS), the first fascicle of which appeared in 1975 and the 17th and last in 2013, is “the most comprehensive dictionary of Medieval Latin to have been produced and the first ever to focus on British Medieval Latin”.  Please note, this dictionary is included in the 'Database of Latin Dictionaries', so this link directs to this resource.
Encyclopedia of Ancient History - all content up to 2014 (Wiley Online) This link opens in a new window The Encyclopedia of Ancient History contains over 5,000 original entries spanning the late Bronze Age through the seventh century CE. Entries extend to all Mediterranean civilizations, including the Near East and Egypt, and represent an unprecedented level of coverage of the ancient world.

Oxford Bibliographies Classics Part of Oxford Bibliographies
Oxford Handbooks Online - Classical Studies Part of Oxford Handbooks Online

Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window Oxford Reference Online: The Core Collection brings together 100 well-known and trusted dictionaries, reference books and Encyclopedias, into a single cross-searchable web database. The Premium Collection offers all of these, plus added functionality and more detailed information from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions Series, plus the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. ORO provides integrated, consistent coverage of a broad range of subjects: everything from General Reference, Language and Quotations to Science and Medicine, and from Humanities and Social Sciences to Business and Professional.
Oxford Scholarship Online This link opens in a new window An essential research resource for students, scholars, and academics, Oxford Scholarship Online provides access to prestigious academic books across the humanities, social sciences, sciences, medicine. Available online on Oxford Academic, scholars and students can discover these academic books alongside Handbooks, Very Short Introductions, practitioner medicine and psychology texts, and hundreds of the highest quality journals. King's subscribes to the full or partial sets listed below and has access to some additional single titles:Business & ManagementClassical Studies 2007 – 2013Economics & FinanceHistory 2011 – 2013LawLiterature 2011 – 2013Music 2011 – 2013PhilosophyPolitical ScienceReligion 
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy This link opens in a new window Features over 2000 original articles from over 1300 leading international experts across the discipline of philosophy. The articles cover a wide breadth of subject matter, including Anglo-American, ethical and political, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, continental and contemporary philosophy. With a summary providing a rapid orientation at the beginning of every in-depth article, the Encyclopedia is specially designed to meet the needs of all levels of users. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.

Find journals for Classics & Modern Greek

Keep up to date with your subject. Use Library Search to access an extensive collection of print and ejournals. Titles include:

Arts & Humanities print journals are on the ground floor of the Maughan Library in rooms G.54-G.59, GM.54-GM.59, G.66-G.67. Our collection of Modern Greek journals is in room G.67. See our Floorplans.

Library Search

Hellenic Studies collections

Our collections on the history, literature, culture and society of post-classical Greece and Cyprus are an area of collection strength and are considered to be of national and international importance. Our holdings, are especially strong in Byzantine studies, Greek political history 1870-1945, the Greek islands, 20^th century Greek poetry and the Greek Orthodox Church.

Find books for Classics

Find print copies of the Loeb Classical Library and Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics at the Maughan Library.

See also the online version of Loeb Classical Library:

Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window The Digital Loeb Classical Library contains translations of classical literature from Greek and Latin in genres from poetry, tragedy and comedy to history, travel and philosophy.

Key classmarks:

CC - archaeology
DE - the history of the Greco-Roman world.
DF - the history of ancient Greece.
DG - the history of ancient Italy
N - fine arts
PA - Greek language and literature & Roman language and literature.

Print dictionaries / lexicons can be found in the Round Reading Room at the Maughan Library and also on the shelves with the relevant collection.

Titles include:

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC)
Thesaurus Lingua Graecae
Thesaurus Lingua Latinae.

Find literature online for Classics

The following eresources are useful for finding and studying texts online:

In Principio (Brepols) This link opens in a new window Covering all Latin texts that have been transmitted in manuscript since the origins of Latin literature up to about 1600 when the manuscript is replaced by the printed text. In Principio thus covers ancient, patristic, medieval, and humanist Latin literature. In addition, all literary genres are included: the liberal arts and theology, history and poetry, medicine and liturgy, civil law and canon law, the exact and occult sciences, summas and sermons, glossaries and correspondence, cooking recipes and cursing formulas, large treatises and small, isolated sentences. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.
Library of Latin Texts A (Brepols) This link opens in a new window CLCLT contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livius Andronicus, 240 BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It covers all the works from the classical period, the most important patristic works, a very extensive corpus of Medieval Latin literature as well as works of recentior latinitas including texts from the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The complete works of writers such as Cicero, Virgil, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Kempis can thus be consulted. The texts have been taken from the Corpus Christianorum series and from many other leading editions.   Each search-query shows the results in the context of a sentence, but from here the user can consult the whole text of the work. Texts can also be accessed through an index of author and work references. Each work that is incorporated has been the subject of a historical and literary-critical examination and is accompanied by a didactical "memento" which supplies chronological, bibliographical, critical and statistical information. All relevant Clavis Patrum Latinorum entries have been fully integrated. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.
Library of Latin Texts B (Brepols) This link opens in a new window CLCLT contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livius Andronicus, 240 BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It covers all the works from the classical period, the most important patristic works, a very extensive corpus of Medieval Latin literature as well as works of recentior latinitas including texts from the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The complete works of writers such as Cicero, Virgil, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Kempis can thus be consulted. The texts have been taken from the Corpus Christianorum series and from many other leading editions.   Each search-query shows the results in the context of a sentence, but from here the user can consult the whole text of the work. Texts can also be accessed through an index of author and work references. Each work that is incorporated has been the subject of a historical and literary-critical examination and is accompanied by a didactical "memento" which supplies chronological, bibliographical, critical and statistical information. All relevant Clavis Patrum Latinorum entries have been fully integrated. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.
Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window The Digital Loeb Classical Library contains translations of classical literature from Greek and Latin in genres from poetry, tragedy and comedy to history, travel and philosophy.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica (eMGH) (Brepols) This link opens in a new window A corpus of historical works, charters, legal texts, letters, political texts, and literature from the European Middle Ages. It contains about 800 texts and further material is added yearly.The powerful search engine developed by the Centre ‘Traditio Litterarum Occidentalium’ and Brepols Publishers allows unparalleled exploitation of this important body of texts, permitting in-depth searches of the corpus. Moreover, the integration of the eMGH into the Brepolis Latin platform offers the opportunity to carry out searches simultaneously with other collections of texts bringing together a total of 16,000 works (Library of Latin Texts, Aristoteles Latinus Database, Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature), and allows the user to search Latin reference dictionaries (Database of Latin Dictionaries). 
Past Masters: Philosophy & Religion collections This link opens in a new window Searchable scholarly, full-text editions in English and/or Latin, of the writings of philosophers and theologians from antiquity into the 20th century. Writers in these collections include: Aristotle, Austin, Locke, Hegel and Wittgenstein among others. Past Masters Subjects:All PhilosophyReligious StudiesSocial Science and History of ScienceChinese ClassicsRussian LiteraturePast Masters Commons 
Patrologia Graecae This link opens in a new window This database contains 161 volumes including an index. It is a complete electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Graecae (1857-1856). It is a collection of medieval texts from late antiquity through the high Middle Ages. Texts are in the original Greek with some translations into English, German, and French.
Patrologia Latina Database This link opens in a new window An electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855, and the four volumes of indexes published between 1862 and 1865. The Patrologia Latina comprises the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216. The Patrologia Latina Database contains the complete Patrologia Latina, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes. Migne's column numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum Online (Brill) This link opens in a new window The Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) collects newly published Greek inscriptions as well as publications on previously known documents. It presents complete Greek texts of all new inscriptions with a critical apparatus; it summarises new readings, interpretations, and studies of known inscriptions and occasionally presents the Greek text of these documents.The online edition includes all SEG volumes, and will incorporate all future volumes in the series. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum Online is automatically updated upon publication of the annual volume.
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae This link opens in a new window Please note: TLG does not permit downloading, printing or making copies of TLG material. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. Founded in 1972 the TLG has already collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era. Information about the authors and works included in the TLG Library is stored in a database, known as the Canon of Greek Authors and Works.  See: TLG website | Canon of Greek Authors and Works  Note:  Campus Desktop users will not be able to download any of the extra Greek Fonts offered by this service.  For both on and off-campus access, please register for an account.  When accessing off-campus, a King's username and password are required before registering for an account with Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Library Services and the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies gratefully acknowledge the help of the King's Development Trust in the funding of this resource.
Translated Texts for Historians E-Library This link opens in a new window The Translated Texts for Historians E-Library makes available historical sources from A.D. 300–800 translated into English, in many cases for the first time. This indispensable collection contains over 80 volumes from the following series: Translated Texts for Historians, Translated Texts for Historians Contexts, and Translated Texts for Byzantinists.

The following eresources are useful bibliographies and critical works:

Année philologique (Brepols) This link opens in a new window L’Année philologique, published by the Société Internationale de Bibliographie Classique, is a specialized bibliographic database of scholarly works relating to all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. It contains over 810,000 records with citations to journal articles and books, as well as abstracts. Subjects include Greek and Latin literature, linguistics, history, art, archeology, papyrology, philosophy and religion, music, science and early Christian texts and patristics.
Philosopher's Index with full text This link opens in a new window The Philosopher's Index Covers all major fields of philosophy such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, metaphysics, etc., and philosophy of related interdisciplinary fields such as education, history, law and religion. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.
PhilPapers This link opens in a new window PhilPapers is a comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy maintained by the community of philosophers. We monitor all sources of research content in philosophy, including journals, books, open access archives, and personal pages maintained by academics. We also host the largest open access archive in philosophy. Senate House resources require registering for Senate House library membership. See also our library FAQ for more details.

External libraries for Classics

If you need resources beyond King's, you may want to visit other libraries with Classics collections:

Please check for access restrictions before visiting.

Senate House Library

Senate House Library is a large humanities research library in Bloomsbury.

King’s staff and students are entitled to free membership which provides
borrowing rights to print books and remote access to most eresources.

See Membership for information on signing up.