System requirements: Graphical Web browser with frames and multiple windows support (e.g. Netscape 3.x or higher or Internet Explorer 3.x or higher). Recommended: Symbols font for Greek characters and Russian font for Russian characters.
One of the largest sites on the Web about ancient Rome, LacusCurtius is a very complex site including photographs, Latin texts, public domain classics on ancient Rome, maps, book reviews, bibliographies, personal observations from the author, and a list of over 1,600 other sites dealing with ancient Rome. Large portions of the site are primarily based on photographs taken by the author; and the site is, therefore, very graphics intensive. Visitors are encouraged to get a graphical browser to take full advantage of the site.
The site also contains Greek, and Russian texts which require fonts capable of supporting the special characters needed for those languages. These texts, however, appear to be very scattered; and visitors will still find much information even if they lack the special fonts. The largest drawback of this site, especially given its immense size, is that there is no search system available. Thayer has attempted, with a fair amount of success, to make the site as easily navigable as possible in spite of this. He uses various conventions such as backgrounds, typography, clickable indexes, and tables of contents to make navigation as easy as possible. The indexes tend to be very detailed and, as with the rest of the site, continue to be developed and expanded.
Thayer also uses large amounts of links which open secondary browser windows both to aid navigation and to avoid repeated downloads of large files as users move around the site. While this can get a bit confusing at first, the system used to determine when to load secondary windows is fairly logical; and users may find themselves anticipating when new windows will occur after browsing the site for a short while. About half of the links which open new windows have some indication of this, either embedded within the text or in a mouseover note which appears in the status window of most browsers.
Another visual technique used throughout the site is the modification of the width of borders around linked images to indicate the amount of relevant material included in the page linked to. Thicker borders indicate a larger amount of relevant information while thinner borders indicate a lesser amount. Variations in font face and amount of linked text are used to a similar effect for textural links. In general, the more visible the link, the more information may be found by pursuing it. Various inline icons are also used in this manner. The visual marking system is explained in the help screens for the site. The help pages also include other navigational tools including indexes and a list of old URLs for pages which have been moved.
The site, while updated frequently, is not yet complete. Several sections listed in the help pages, for instance, are not yet online. Portions of Ptolemy’s Geography and several of the Latin texts or their translations are also incomplete. However, incomplete sections are generally clearly marked; and there is often some indication of the order in which the remaining work is planned to be done.
Most of the images used on the site come from photographs taken by the author during various trips; and the large majority of them are in full color. Some of the images are marked as clickable or have colored sections to indicate that detail images are available. They are divided among many pages; so while download times may be long on slower connections, they are not terribly excessive. Also, most of the lists of links include indications of how many pages, how many images, and, occasionally, how many external links are included in the linked section.
Cross‐references between maps, photographs of monuments, and commentary pepper most of the site. Where available, Thayer has linked original language texts with translations, or vice versa. Links to comments of authors contemporary to the discussed structures are provided if the text is not actually included in the commentary on the particular monument. Commentary from Pliny the Elder, Augustus Caesar, Livy, Vitruvius, and others is provided. Maps are often linked to photographs of monuments in the area of each map. Portions of the online texts are linked to maps, photographs, and commentary where appropriate.
Several Latin texts are available online including: Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia in Latin with links to partial translations in English; Frontinus’s De Aquis with Latin, English, and French translations; and Vitruvius’s De Architectura in English with partial Latin text available. Also available are photographs of over 200 Etruscan and Roman inscriptions. Thayer has indexed these by location. The index also includes the text of the inscription or a brief summary, an indication of the quality of the photograph of the inscription, and a link to the image of the photograph if it is available online. Two brief indexes of inscriptions by location and topic are also available. Thayer has selected several inscriptions as being useful for student practice. These are rated easy, medium, and hard; and the image of each inscription is linked to a translation with explanation on a separate page.
Other texts available online from LacusCurtius are Thomas Codrington’s Roman Roads in Britain, selections from William Smith’s A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and selections from Samuel Ball Platner’s A Topography of Ancient Rome. One final notable section of this ambitious site is the Geography of Claudius Ptolemy. While the maps from this work have been lost to history, Ptolemy gave instructions in the first portion of his text on how to use the data he provided in his indexes to replot maps of the areas he described. Thayer has begun the massive undertaking of replotting all of Ptolemy’s maps to online versions. This project is not complete at this time; but what is available is sure to be of interest to any scholar of Roman geography. Thayer provides some information on his sources and methods and an index to place names.
LacusCurtius contains a sometimes overwhelming amount of information. The author has managed to organize it fairly logically and has provided many detailed indexes to assist users in finding materials needed on the site. However, it may still take some time exploring to get a feel for how the site works. Multiple cross‐references allow users to move around the site following a particular topic while the use of multiple browser windows allows them to move back to their starting points fairly easily. This site will be of interest to scholars of Roman and Etruscan antiquities, particularly those with an interest in the architecture of the time. The main text of the LacusCurtius site is available in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.
