Stephanus numbers, navigation, and precise URLs in OSEO
January 28, 2019
To this day, every student of Plato still uses the conventions invented by Henri Estienne in his 1578 edition of Plato’s works for finding and referencing Platonic passages. Four hundred years later, the Plato texts in Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) support those same conventions – with some digital twists that make finding passages and resolving references the work of a couple of mouse-clicks.
Stephanus numbers
Estienne’s innovation was to add milestones every ten lines or so down the margin of the Greek text in his edition. Readers could therefore produce a reasonably precise reference to any passage of Plato by combining page number and milestone. For example Diotima’s account of the birth of Love begins at 201d in the Symposium. The system caught on, and any modern edition of Plato replicates these Stephanus numbers (named after the Latin form of Estienne). Further, Burnet’s Oxford Classical Texts (OCTs) numbered each line within each section, supporting even more precise referencing: 201e8 is where Socrates’ conversation with Diotima begins, for example.
Navigation by Stephanus number
Plato texts in OSEO all display Stephanus numbers, and, where appropriate, line numbers, so you can use them to scroll to any specific locus in any dialogue. But the Stephanus numbers are also embedded in the data, so you can navigate to them automagically. Use the Find Location in Text functionality (which you can see at the top right of this page), or, even more conveniently, add our bookmarklet to your browser (following these instructions). Then you can simply highlight a Stephanus reference on any web page and use the bookmarklet to go to that Stephanus page, section, or line in the OSEO text. Any Stephanus reference on any web page on any web site: just select, click, and resolve.
When you use the bookmarklet, you are taken first to a results page in OSEO, from which you can choose your preferred destination. There is usually more than one possibility, for two reasons. First, we have multiple versions of most works (Greek and English, for a start), and secondly, Stephanus numbers do not refer uniquely. His edition was in three volumes, and each volume is separately paginated. So, there are three pages 201, and thus 201d could be a section from the Symposium (in vol. III) or the Theaetetus (in vol. I). By coincidence, page 201 in vol. II finishes in section c (at the end of one dialogue, with the next beginning on a fresh page), so there isn’t a third 201d.
To disambiguate, you could add a dialogue title, and you can do this using Find Location, but, for the bookmarklet, we’ve kept it to Stephanus number only, so you’ll always need to pick. It’s quicker.
For digitalists, the fact that the Stephanus system doesn’t uniquely identify is hugely disappointing*, because it means that a Stephanus number alone cannot support a hyperlink to a single passage in Plato. In OSEO, though, we have another system, which complements Stephanus and means we can construct unambiguous hyperlinks.
Using Stephanus numbers in URLs
Every text of every work in OSEO has its own id number, and that number can be used to produce a URL that identifies that instance of that work. Fraenkel’s text of the Agamemnon is id 18516, and, padded to eight digits, functions in an instance URL to take you straight there:
Similarly, the OCT text of the Symposium is 254320, and so the instance URL is:
And the translation of the Symposium is 246982 – so:
You can find any work’s instance id, and instance url, by using the Copy and Cite facility (right mouse click from any place in that work), but, for convenience, a list which gives all instance URLs for Plato is provided at the bottom of this page.
These URLs can be combined with Stephanus numbers, to make a URL that identifies both the text and the locus in that text. It’s done by the addition of a milestones parameter to the URL:
www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254320?milestones=201e2
The pattern is always the same: instance URL, followed by “?milestones=”, and then the Stephanus number, to whatever degree of accuracy is possible. Thus
www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246982?milestones=201d
takes you simply to the Stephanus section 201d in the translation, which doesn’t have the OCT line numbers.
In short, every line of Plato has its own unique URL, and once you know the pattern, and the id number of the dialogue you are discussing, you can construct them. Anyone who clicks on one of your URLs will be taken to the right spot in OSEO. The line glows yellow for a moment to show the exact place. Perfect for notes, reading lists and integration into other web-based projects – in fact, for anything for which you want to show your reader what you are talking about in Plato.
We hope you find this useful. And we also hope you share our delight that a parameter value on an http request is actually founded on a marginal milestone inserted into his text by a sixteenth century French humanist scholar.
* Though, in all honesty, Estienne would have been hard-pressed to foresee the online implications of his decision to paginate each volume separately.
How to use the Stephanus numbers bookmarklet
Work URLs for Plato
For a conveniently hyperlinked list of Plato's works on OSEO, please use the Plato author page.
Oxford Classical Texts
Ἀλκιβιάδης α (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254322
Ἀλκιβιάδης β (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254323
Ἀξίοχος (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254352
Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254354
Γοργίας: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254332
Δημόδοκος (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254349
Ἐπινομίς (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254344
Ἐπιστολαί (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254345
Ἐρασταί (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254325
Ἐρυξίας (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254351
Εὐθύδημος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254330
Εὐθύφρων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254353
Θεάγης (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254326
Θεαίτητος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254358
Ἵππαρχος ἢ Φιλοκερδης (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254324
Ἱππίας ἐλάττων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254335
Ἱππίας μείζων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254334
Ἴων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254336
Κλειτοφῶν (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254338
Κρατύλος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254357
Κριτίας: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254341
Κρίτων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254355
Λάχης: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254328
Λύσις: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254329
Μενέξενος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254337
Μένων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254333
Μίνως (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254342
Νόμοι: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254343
Ὅροι (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254346
Παρμενίδης: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254318
Περὶ Ἀρετῆς (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254348
Περὶ Δικαίου (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254347
Πολιτεία: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254361
Πολιτικός: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254360
Πρωταγόρας: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254331
Σίσυφος (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254350
Σοφιστής: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254359
Συμπόσιον: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254320
Τίμαιος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254340
Φαῖδρος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254321
Φαίδων: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254356
Φίληβος: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254319
Χαρμίδης: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254327
Translations
Apology: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246971
Charmides: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246974
Clitopho (attrib.): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246981
Critias: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246985
Crito: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246972
Euthyphro: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246970
Gorgias: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246973
Laches: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246975
Lysis: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246976
Meno: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246977
Phaedo: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246986
Phaedrus: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246978
Protagoras: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246979
Republic: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246980
Symposium: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246982
Theaetetus: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246983
Timaeus: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00246984
Commentaries
Apology (Burnet): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254376
Crito (Burnet): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254377
Euthyphro (Burnet): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254375
Gorgias (Irwin): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00250016
Gorgias (Dodds): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254368
Laws 1 (Meyer): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00250012
Laws 2 (Meyer): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00250013
Laws 10 (Mayhew): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00250015
Phaedo (Gallop): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00249988
Phaedo (Burnet): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00254362
Philebus (Gosling): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00249989
Protagoras (Taylor): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00250017
Theaetetus (McDowell): www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/instance.00249987
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