Fun question for the fellow historians - what *reference* work do you find you consult the most or is the most useful? For me, without a doubt Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1951). - ThreadSky

bretdevereaux.bsky.social • 74 days ago

Fun question for the fellow historians - what *reference* work do you find you consult the most or is the most useful?

For me, without a doubt Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1951).

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enricodandolo.bsky.social•74 days ago

Not counting dictionaries/glossaries, it's probably tied between the Reallexikon der Assyriologie, the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia series, and Jagersma's Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian.

hombresuperfluo.bsky.social•74 days ago

Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, I guess.

scipioasina.bsky.social•74 days ago

Dan Dana's Onomasticon Thracicum and An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis for ancient history research, Hata Ikuhiko's Encylopedia of the Japanese Army and Navy [in Japanese] and Liu Fenghan's History of the Nationalists' Military Institutions [in Chinese] for hobby research.

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•74 days ago

The Inventory is a beautiful, wonderful, useful mess of a thing, isn't it?

scipioasina.bsky.social•74 days ago

Definitely! It has a lot of shortcomings (especially in it's tendency to ignore or downplay evidence of non-Greek populations) but is still a remarkable achievement. It just covers so much.

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•74 days ago

Yeah, it's so expansive, I have ten thousand methodological and definitional complaints, but it is incredibly useful.

hellenisticpod.bsky.social•74 days ago

Not a historian, but the 3-volume “Hellenistic Settlements” series by Getzel M. Cohen

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•74 days ago

I had the briefest of occasions to look through that recently and goodness, what an effort to put together.

nathanielskatz.bsky.social•74 days ago

Definitely Roman Imperial Coinage for research. For teaching, I probably send students into the Oxford Classical Dictionary most often.

idaostenberg.bsky.social•74 days ago

Depends a bit on what I am writing, but Degrassi Inscriptiones Italiae 13 (the various fasti) is definitely a favourite. Others would be LTUR, TLL, TLG, RRC, CIL + Panciera in von Hesberg, Das Mausoleum des Augustus.

wernherneumann.bsky.social•74 days ago

Not a historian. I ran across a reference to Magistrates some time ago and your post prompted me to find it on https://archive.org. I can't stop reading it.

surcomplicated.bsky.social•74 days ago

What would your answer be if it was restricted to works outside of Roman History / Classics?

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•74 days ago

Hm. I don't often use reference works outside of my core research area, since I am usually relying on other historians as intermediaries. There are certainly works of regular scholarship I lean on a lot, like Landers, The Field and the Forge, but that's not a reference work.

roninmacbeth.bsky.social•74 days ago

"A Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing" by Dr. Leonora Neville. Helped me find a bunch of sources back in senior year for my topic and it helped me organize a lot of those sources chronologically.

kitncaboodle.bsky.social•74 days ago

Official records of the union and confederate navies. Specifically the cruisers. Along with the Civil War Naval Chronology.

huwtd.bsky.social•74 days ago

Don't think I probably count as a historian, but the chronology at the back of Hornung/Krauss/Warburton "Ancient Egyptian Chronology" is really useful if you want a set of broadly authoritative, consistent dates (and you aren't working on purely chronological issues)

devlinburgess.bsky.social•74 days ago

I tend to bounce around between subjects, but my current research into Imperial Japan is not exactly flush with great citable material in English.
The most useful so far in coloring my perceptions has been Japan at War: An Oral History. One of the rare works that addresses Japanese public opinion.

stubacca01.bsky.social•74 days ago

Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. It needs (and is getting) an update, but it’s really the first port of call for any unfamiliar name.

kataplexis.bsky.social•74 days ago

Athenian Properties Families. Though it needs an update.

gabrielbaker.bsky.social•74 days ago

Same.

shashwath.bsky.social•74 days ago

Not a professional, but for Indian medieval history, Epigraphia India (43 volumes) and South Indian Inscriptions (34 volumes). Very terse list of inscriptions organized by place and dynasty. But you can assemble stories from there…

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