L'Année Philologique: Bibliography of the Classical World

This guide will explain how to access and conduct searches with L'Année Philologique (APh). 

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 covers a wide array of subjects, including Greek and Latin literature and linguistics (which includes early Christian texts and patristics), Greek and Roman history, art, archaeology, philosophy, religion, mythology, music, science, and scholarly sub-specialties such as numismatics, papyrology, and epigraphy.

U-M affiliated users should use this link to access L’Année Philologique. This will ensure you are properly authenticated whether you are on or off campus. Once you have accessed L’Année Philologique, there are no other log in or authentication requirements. 

Contact Zachary Quint or Ask A Librarian if you have trouble accessing the database. 

The Simple Search is a powerful tool. There are two main searches: Free Search or Thematic Search. Users can conduct broad searches to gain a bird's eye view or develop precision searches. Both search options utilize an auto-complete function. 

Simple Search - Free Search:

• All Fields: When you enter text in this field, the software searches for it anywhere in the database, in bibliographical data, subject indexing and notes.
• Author Search: Enter the author name with the surname first, followed by the first initial or name, if known. You can search for both ancient and modern authors.  

Simple Search - Thematic Search:

• Subject Tree:  You can select subject indexing terms (other than place names and personal names) by browsing a hierarchically organized tree. You can also search the tree for a specific word to see which terms match. More information here.
• Ancient author and text: To get the best results from these features, enter the author name with the surname first, followed by the first initial or name, if known. 

You find more examples of Text Search at the bottom of this guide.

The Brepolis Bibliographies Help section provides more details and explanations here.

Contact Zachary Quint if you have questions. 

The Lexica search allows users to simultaneously search a variety of digitized lexica. The search is based on the lemma and the autocomplete function helps to speed up the process. In addition to providing links to entries in different lexica, it also provides statistical and geographical information associated with the lemma. 

There is a handout with screenshots available here.

Contact Zachary Quint if you have questions. 

Users will need to follow the guidelines in their style guides (such as MLA, Chicago, etc.), but the citation will look similar to this:

T.W. Allen, W.R. Halliday, and E.E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936: 2-20. Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/Iris/Cite?0013:002:0

The TLG license explicitly prohibits copying, downloading and redistribution of texts. Users may copy short passages for research purposes or for use in instructional materials (handouts), but they may not download and/or redistribute large portions or complete texts.

This section will describe the basic steps when a user wants to search within one specific author (1), within one specific text (2), within one specific corpus (3), and in multiple authors (4). 

Searching within one specific author (1)

Once you have logged in, go to Text Search. Next, on the right side of the screen, you will click the Author option and begin typing Sophocles. The name should automatically populate the field. Click the name to confirm the selection. Now you can perform the Simple searches (tips here) and Proximity searches (tips here) for words found in Sophocles’ writings.

Searching within one specific text (2)

If you want to search within a specific play by Sophocles, on the right side of the screen you will see the My Search Selection filter. You should see all of Sophocles’ plays listed. Click on the x next to all of the options except for the x by Ajax. Now you can perform the Simple searches (tips here) and Proximity searches (tips here) for words only found in Sophocles’ Ajax.

Searching within one specific corpus (3)

If you want to search within a specific corpus, such as the scholia to Euripides, you will click the Author option on the right side of the screen, and begin typing Scholia. The name Scholia in Euripidem should automatically populate the field. Click the name to confirm the selection. Follow the basic steps in Sections 1 and 2 above to set the parameters for your search. Now you can perform the Simple searches (tips here) and Proximity searches (tips here).

Searching within multiple authors (4)

Once you have logged in, go to Text Search. Next, on the right side of the screen, you will click the Author option and begin typing Aeschylus. The name should automatically populate the field. Click the name to confirm the selection. Repeat these steps with Sophocles and Euripides. Now you can perform the Simple searches (tips here) and Proximity searches (tips here) for words only in the works by these three tragedians.