Classics: Perseus under PhiloLogic

Note: Perseus texts under PhiloLogic are now also accessible through a redirect at perseus.uchicago.edu

Tips and hints for Perseus under PhiloLogic.

For pattern matching one may employ wildcard characters (e.g., widow* retrieves widow, widowe, widowhood, etc.). Wild cards are not necessary outside the main search field. In the author field, 'Xen', 'Xen*', 'noph', etc. all find Xenophon. For fuller explanations, please consult the Philologic manual.

We have implemented a morphology look-up tool. Select a word (for instance, by double-clicking it) and hit 'd' on your keyboard. If this does not result in anything, there are two possible causes: You may have blocked pop-up windows, or you are actually typing a Greek delta! Change your keyboard to regular input and the morphological analysis should show up. Make sure to select the word (including any apostrophe) only, and no surrounding punctuation.

In case you are looking for the morphological analysis of a word that does not appear on the page, you will need to use the Morphological Analysis box instead. This is also a solution for iPhone users who cannot select and enter text outside of web forms.

In the bibliographic search fields, try to enter as little information as possible. 'Xen' suffices to get you to Xenophon.

Philologists: Check out the refined search results. Here you can tweak the KWIC settings, for instance.

Narratologists: Check out the Text Object Search fields. Here you can enter a character's name and search only in that character's speech (fully implemented in Greek texts of tragedy and comedy).

Text Objects are also handy if you are looking for Demosthenes on the Crown and don't remember the number of the speech. Simply enter 'crown' or 'Στεφ' --NB: Greek is accent and case-sensitive here.

On the results pages, we have included a link to report problems and errors. If you find anything from a misplaced accent to a missing chunk of text, or if you have suggestions for improvement, please let us know.

Terms: Clicking on the "Terms" buttons gives you a listing of all the possibilities for the search field in this database. Please be patient; some of these take a few moments to generate.

No results when you fully expected them? You may need to hit the 'Clear' button to make sure you do not have hidden criteria from a previous search. Also, make sure that your typed input matches the radio button for full diacritics (and all English input); no diacritics; or transliteration.

Transliteration: Here's the Greek alphabet in transliteration: a b g d e z h q i k l m n c o p r s t u f x y w.

Similarity searching: Remember, you know more Greek than a computer does. Your mileage may vary, but you will probably find this option most useful for searching the English translations.

Still confused about something? You may have stumbled into a bug in the system. See: Known problems with Perseus under PhiloLogic