The Internet Classics Archive

General Help

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For further assistance contact the Webmaster at classics@classics.mit.edu.

May I reproduce works found on this site?
Yes! To the best of our knowledge all works on the site are in the public domain. You are free to reproduce and distribute them at no cost.

Why are there more Greek than Latin authors?
The first batch of works in the Internet Classics Archive came from the Eric Project at Virginia Tech (see sources help), and were about evenly mixed between Greek and Latin texts. The second set of works, roughly the same size as the first, came from the Perseus Project, and consisted almost entirely of Greek texts. See below for information on how to contribute new works.

How can I contribute works?
Contributions to the Internet Classics Archive are always welcome, especially those in a plain text format that is easy to recognize and process. For more information please contact the Webmaster at classics@classics.mit.edu.

Why is my favorite author/title not included?
The archive is still missing works from some noteworthy authors. If you can provide a work in electronic format, see above.

Why are the years wrong for some works?
The given years are taken from the source text or other reference material. In some cases, classics experts have provided a more accurate year for the work -- if you think you know a better year, please contact the Webmaster with the year, author and title of the work, and a reference to the source you used.

Why do so many works have anonymous translators?
Again, the names are taken from the source text. If you recognize the translation, and can provide a reference to it, please contact the Webmaster. If you want to provide a better translation, please see above.

Why are the names wrong?
Different translators use different styles and different naming schemes. Many of the translations use the Latin style of names. Since all of these translations are in the public domain, they are not recent, and some are "Victorian" in style. If you have a copy of a better or more recent translation and would like to contribute it to the archive, please see above.

Why is the formatting wrong?
A concerted effort has been made to attractively and practically format the works with appropriate HTML tags. Occasionally, errors will appear in a work: the wrong text is italicized, a character name is not in bold print, or the indenting is off. These errors come from inconsistencies in the source text that the processing programs cannot recognize. Please report any errors to the Webmaster, including the author and title, section (if any), and URL.

Why are some pages missing, and others cut off strangely?
Due to a hardware failure in recent years, many pages have unfortunately been truncated strangely. We are launching a project in summer 2010 to repair the broken links and restore the site to its full potential. In the meantime if you need access to a particular work, please contact the Webmaster, including the author and title, section (if any), and URL, and we will do our best to help you access that page or find another source for that material.