One can search these texts via Windows Explorer or Control-F, but they are not easy to browse or search in complex ways. I have used these documents for much of the work on Corinth I’ve completed since 2006, but they are pretty messy documents running dozens, if not hundreds, of pages long. As Greek and Latin references to the Corinthia number over 5,000, I was able to type out or copy English translations and notes on a tiny portion of these. Mining the comprehensive digital library of Greek texts via the TLG and the somewhat less comprehensive collection of Latin texts in the PHI Latin Library, I created a complete list of ancient literary citations related to the island of Kythera and the sites of the Corinthia. By the time I started work on my doctoral dissertation on the Late Roman Corinthia, I had switched to a laptop and was dumping translations and notes about ancient literary texts directly into Microsoft Word documents. While very little has changed in my method of research (consulting ancient texts to make arguments), it’s amazing how much the basic process of conducting research has shifted in the last two decades. Running searches on Greek keywords for farms and rural life via the CD-ROM produced by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, a comprehensive library of all Greek literary texts produced before 1453, I meticulously copied out notes or transcribed translations of relevant evidence from Thucydides, Demosthenes, Xenophon, etc… thesis on Classical farmsteads, I compiled hundreds of relevant Greek and Latin texts on handwritten 4 x 6” notecards.
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