Getting Started
This Getting Started guide shows you how to:
- jump in to some selected works
- find content in the classics wing of OSEO
- use the features on the site to help you study
- read texts and translations together
- look up words in the Oxford Latin Dictionary
- optimize your use of OSEO with three neat tricks
- see pdfs of the original print pages
- copy quotations with powerful citation tools
- resolve cross-references easily
Full help text is also available from anywhere on the site.
Jump in
Here are some passages that you may or may not know.
Please note: you must be a subscriber to OSEO to view this content - find out how to subscribe.
- Horace reminds us to seize the day (Latin, English)
- Ovid’s cautionary poem about the perils of dyeing one’s hair (Latin, English)
- The story of Arachne, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
- Catullus comes home to Sirmio (Latin and English)
- Juvenal laments the diminution of the power of the people (Latin, English)
- Atomic theory, in verse: Lucretius (Latin, English)
- Martial celebrates the opening of the Colosseum (Latin and English)
- Birthday poems: Horace, lonely Ovid, Propertius in Latin (and in English: Horace, Ovid, Propertius)
- Virgil celebrates bees: Georgics IV (Latin, English)
Finding content
Browse is the best way to explore the site
With browse editions you can see all the books available: you'll find that filtering by author is a good way of focusing.
Browse authors takes you to a list of authors included. Authors have author pages that show links to our texts, translations, and commentaries of their works.
Quick search from the home page finds authors, works, editions and words in full text.
Tip: if you want to find all forms of a Latin word, use its uninflected form as your search term.
Go straight to a particular work or passage using "Find Location in Text" on the home page.
Tip: you can use the standard abbreviated forms, such as Virg. Aen. 2.49.
Reading content
We show content in parallel panels, so you can see navigation maps, the text, notes, and links off to secondary content all together. You can slide the panels to fit the content, and shut down the ones you don't need.
Lock the panels together and click on note markers to move through content.
Need to look up a word? Double click on it to select it, and a menu will pop up. Choose to "Look up the word in the Oxford Latin Dictionary" and we'll show you possible definitions in our dictionary widget.
Need a translation, or a commentary? Click on "Read with" and choose from the list of possible edition there. Your choice will open up in a second part of your window. Adjust the panes and use the lock icons to keep everything scrolling together.
"Extras" is a pane of links that connects what you're reading with entries in the Oxford Latin Dictionary or secondary scholarship in the monographs on Oxford Scholarship Online – click these links to take you straight to discussions of the precise lines you are reading. (Please note: this will require access to Oxford Scholarship Online.)
Three neat tricks ...
Need to see the original print page? Every single page from the print editions is available to view by using the "Download pdf" option in the search pane on the left of the screen.
With our quick copy and cite tool, you can select text and copy it into your digital world, complete with citation information and a unique URL for that exact line. Select a word and choose "Copy and cite" from the pop up menu.
When an editor compares other passages from the corpus, you can quickly follow up the cross-reference. Select the cross-reference and choose "Open this text in OSEO" from the pop-up menu. We'll try to take you straight to the right passage.
