ToposText
Free
3.2for iPhone, iPad and more
Age Rating
ToposText Screenshots
About ToposText
A project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation
A new way of experiencing Europe’s most ancient literary culture, implanted in its unforgettable landscape.
ToposText is a new interface that links readers and travelers to Europe’s most ancient literary culture and to the Greek landscape that inspired it. TT presents 5000 places relevant to the ancient Greek world -- ancient cities and shrines, medieval castles and towers, modern museums and excavation sites -- primarily in Greece but including major places from Spain to the Caucasus. It links those places to the ancient authors who wrote about them in Greek or Latin. A large classical library married to an up-to-date gazetteer, freely available as a mobile application or this web site.
Education / Reference Tool:
- Accurate coordinates for thousands of Greek historical sites
- Each site indexed to the ancient literary sources that mention it.
- A huge, free, portable library of classical texts in English
- Texts and places stored on-device – no internet access necessary.
- Location-aware display of site information.
- Recent archaeological information on many sites.
A new way of experiencing Europe’s most ancient literary culture, implanted in its unforgettable landscape.
ToposText is a new interface that links readers and travelers to Europe’s most ancient literary culture and to the Greek landscape that inspired it. TT presents 5000 places relevant to the ancient Greek world -- ancient cities and shrines, medieval castles and towers, modern museums and excavation sites -- primarily in Greece but including major places from Spain to the Caucasus. It links those places to the ancient authors who wrote about them in Greek or Latin. A large classical library married to an up-to-date gazetteer, freely available as a mobile application or this web site.
Education / Reference Tool:
- Accurate coordinates for thousands of Greek historical sites
- Each site indexed to the ancient literary sources that mention it.
- A huge, free, portable library of classical texts in English
- Texts and places stored on-device – no internet access necessary.
- Location-aware display of site information.
- Recent archaeological information on many sites.
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What's New in the Latest Version 3.2
Last updated on Dec 1, 2023
Old Versions
Five new ancient texts (817 total), including the Life of St. Porphyrios of Gaza, the indispensable commentary by the Tzetzes brothers to Lycophron's Alexandra, and a new English translation of Cristoforo Buondelmonti's Description of the Archipelago (1420 CE).
Significant bug fixes as well, including moving the border of Epiros closer to where it belongs.
Lots of new people and a few new places.
Significant bug fixes as well, including moving the border of Epiros closer to where it belongs.
Lots of new people and a few new places.
Show More
Version History
3.2
Dec 1, 2023
Five new ancient texts (817 total), including the Life of St. Porphyrios of Gaza, the indispensable commentary by the Tzetzes brothers to Lycophron's Alexandra, and a new English translation of Cristoforo Buondelmonti's Description of the Archipelago (1420 CE).
Significant bug fixes as well, including moving the border of Epiros closer to where it belongs.
Lots of new people and a few new places.
Significant bug fixes as well, including moving the border of Epiros closer to where it belongs.
Lots of new people and a few new places.
3.1
Aug 16, 2023
- Now including 812 ancient texts (200 authors) and improved Wikipedia/Wikidata links to a new total of 8235 ancient places and 16532 ancient people/tribes/concepts.
- Bug Fixes
- Bug Fixes
3.0
Nov 20, 2021
ToposText 3.0 (November 2021) includes:
- Important bug fixes to restore key navigational controls on larger/newer iPhones.
- User interface improvements.
- A dozen new ancient texts, to reach 800, plus Col. William Leake's fascinating 1805-9 travels in the Morea and Northern Greece.
- Major improvements to the Persons database, with thousands of new or improved entries (now 15000+) and Wikipedia/Wikidata links.
- Important bug fixes to restore key navigational controls on larger/newer iPhones.
- User interface improvements.
- A dozen new ancient texts, to reach 800, plus Col. William Leake's fascinating 1805-9 travels in the Morea and Northern Greece.
- Major improvements to the Persons database, with thousands of new or improved entries (now 15000+) and Wikipedia/Wikidata links.
2.0.5
Oct 8, 2020
The October 2020 update to ToposText tweaks the map interface slightly. It enriches modern place descriptions with Wikidata IDs and data from Archaeology in Greece and other scholarly sources. We have more modern translations for several works, plus 36 fresh ancient texts, including some hard-to-find works like Palaephatus’ On Unbelievable Things, and Dionysius Calliphontis’ description of Greece, newly translated. A few new sites, and lots of site information corrected.
2.0.4
Aug 5, 2019
An updated database (August 2, 2019), with 350 new sites and monuments, for a total of 7538. We have added dozens of new texts, including Ioannis Malalas, the Annals of Niketas Choniates and Vienna Anonymous description of Athens, and subdivided other texts to make paragraphs smaller and easier to navigate. And we’ve enriched the modern descriptions of many obscurer sites with extracts from the Inventory of Ancient and Classical Poleis by Hansen et al.. Also, embedded links to the EFA/BSA Chronique des Fouilles, and extracts from Judith Binder’s Sourcebook for the Sites and Monuments of Athens. More improved coordinates and ground-truthed descriptions.
2.0.3
Aug 29, 2018
An enriched database (July 2018): 15 new texts (now 714 total), including Solinus and Avienus, plus Censorinus, more Theophrastus and Plato, prodigies, etc..
287 new places (to 7090 total), including 115 additional Athenian sites and monuments (250 in all), plus buildings/monuments at Olympia.
Many corrections and improved site descriptions.
287 new places (to 7090 total), including 115 additional Athenian sites and monuments (250 in all), plus buildings/monuments at Olympia.
Many corrections and improved site descriptions.
2.0.2
Dec 18, 2017
Lots of database improvements: A major expansion of tagged sites in the city of Rome and the western Roman empire, bringing us up to more than 6500 sites and 675 ancient texts. These include the Antonine Itineraries, Frontinus’s Aqueducts, Latin poets, and various oddities, bringing us much closer to the goal of covering the full scope of Greco-Roman civilization. 15 million words, improved proper name tagging, and a cleaner user experience. iphone X support!
2.0.1
Sep 11, 2017
Thirty new or expanded texts, the key sources for Republican Rome through the Middle Empire: Livy (with epitomes of the missing books), Tacitus, Horace etc. Now 642 ancient texts, 14 million words, with 249,000 tagged place names and 387,000 tagged instances of 10,500 proper names. We are up to 6262 ancient places with lots of improved coordinates and descriptions. Added credits to modern descriptions and a new info text!
2.0
Mar 24, 2017
ToposText, winner of a 2016 Digital Humanities Award,
Version 2.0, optimized for iPhone and completely redesigned to be smooth, intuitive, and fast.
Cleaner map, faster redraws
Location aware to show the ancient places near you
New index of 11000 proper names: find instantly the ancient sources for all the gods, heroes, and philosophers of ancient Greece
More texts (536, with 14 million words of Classical literature)
More ancient places (5400) from Spain to India
More accurate links to Greek and Latin originals.
More flexible place searches, by place type, Greek and English names, etc.
Author, genre, and date filters to narrow down the place/people references you are looking for.
Google Maps navigation button: driving directions to sites and museums
Version 2.0, optimized for iPhone and completely redesigned to be smooth, intuitive, and fast.
Cleaner map, faster redraws
Location aware to show the ancient places near you
New index of 11000 proper names: find instantly the ancient sources for all the gods, heroes, and philosophers of ancient Greece
More texts (536, with 14 million words of Classical literature)
More ancient places (5400) from Spain to India
More accurate links to Greek and Latin originals.
More flexible place searches, by place type, Greek and English names, etc.
Author, genre, and date filters to narrow down the place/people references you are looking for.
Google Maps navigation button: driving directions to sites and museums
1.2
Jun 1, 2016
ToposText is now up to 507 texts, including important additions such as Suetonius, Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, more of Appian, Ammianus Marcellinus, Alciphron, Cornelius Nepos, Apuleius’s Golden Ass. This involved adding hundreds of new ancient places (5193 total) for better coverage of the Near East and Black Sea. Also we now have on-device the ancient Greek of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
But the most important new feature is links from ToposText to the Ancient Greek or Latin original for most paragraphs of most texts, generally using the Perseus Project web site of Tufts University. Most of Classical antiquity is now at your fingertips.
But the most important new feature is links from ToposText to the Ancient Greek or Latin original for most paragraphs of most texts, generally using the Perseus Project web site of Tufts University. Most of Classical antiquity is now at your fingertips.
1.1
Apr 14, 2016
Now with support for iPhone! (iPhone 6/6+). New ancient texts, more ancient places.
1.0
Jan 31, 2016
ToposText FAQ
Click here to learn how to download ToposText in restricted country or region.
Check the following list to see the minimum requirements of ToposText.
iPhone
Requires iOS 11.0 or later.
iPad
Requires iPadOS 11.0 or later.
iPod touch
Requires iOS 11.0 or later.
ToposText supports English
