L. Amādeus omnibus salūtem!
I am looking for a good way to access the CIL (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum). My impetus for searching it is to find the dates of inscriptions given by Sturtevant (1920) for certain spelling confusions, for example on p. 17 Sturtevant has “admenistrator, CIL xii. 674.”
I understand that everything after CIL vol i is Imperial in age, so after Julius Caesar’s death in 44 BC, and that every other volume is specifically devoid of any inscriptions from the Republican era — is this correct? If so, this would at least allow me to date anything not from CIL vol i as “Imperial.”
But I would like to actually find these inscriptions in the CIL, where I hope to find context for the approximate century if not the exact date.
The best I’ve come across so far is this:
https://cil.bbaw.de/en/homenavigation/the-cil/volumes
But I have found every aspect of it nearly impossible to use, much less find a single inscription. Searching for “admenistrator” reveals this:
https://arachne.dainst.org/search?q=admenistrator
That is, nothing.
I would very much like to get my hands on an easy-to-access version of the CIL, which could take any of three forms:
- A physical copy that I could purchase (at a reasonable price, since everything on Amazon I’ve seen is exceedingly overpriced, and in any case Amazon only has a couple of the dozen or so volumes)
- PDFs of all the volumes (at least the ones published in the 19th century)
- A searchable online database (something like PHI, https://latin.packhum.org/search )
With certain searchable databases of this type, like PHI or especially the TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae), it’s not immediately obvious to the user how to operate the thing effectively, and it usually takes an experienced hand to guide the newbie on how to make a decent use of the website.
Is that the case for the link above? I’ve found both the TEI-viewer and DFG-viewer virtually useless.
If you have experience with the CIL, auxilium ōrō! please help by giving me some guidance on how to find certain inscriptions so that I can date them.
Summās grātiās vōbīs agō!
