A Classical Dictionary: Containing a Copious Account of All the Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors with Tables of Coins, Weights, and Measures Used Among the Greeks and Romans and a Chronological Table

For over a century, John Lemprière's dictionary was the essential key to the ancient world. First published in 1788, it became the standard reference for English-speaking scholars, students, and anyone who wished to read the Greeks and Romans in their original languages. Lemprière did not merely compile names. He built a gateway. Within these pages lie every proper noun that appears in the classical canon: gods and heroes, kings and philosophers, cities and rivers, along with meticulous tables of Greek and Roman currency, weights, measures, and a chronological table spanning centuries of history. This was the book a young Victorian schoolboy opened before tackling Homer, the resource that guided Darwin and Byron through their classical reading. It represents the Enlightenment's grand ambition to systematize all human knowledge in a single, usable form. While modern classical scholarship has surpassed it in many ways, Lemprière remains indispensable for understanding how the English-speaking world once encountered antiquity, and for anyone who wants to trace the genealogy of classical scholarship itself.