Smyth Classical Library

Row of shelves in Smyth library / photo by Shelley Zatsky

Smyth Classical Library is a specialist collection owned and managed by the Department of the Classics. Students, visiting scholars, and others with an interest in Greco-Roman antiquity are warmly encouraged to make use of the library’s resources. 

  • Harvard ID-holders who wish to use Smyth Library should email classics@fas.harvard.edu with their 8-digit Harvard ID number to request access.
  • Questions regarding the collection or suggestions for new acquisitions are welcome and may be sent to smythlibrary@fas.harvard.edu. 
  • Library access hours are the same as those for Widener Library. 
  • If volumes are removed from the library (e.g., for scanning), they should be returned straight afterwards. All users should re-shelve volumes after use.

The library is named in honor of Herbert Weir Smyth, Eliot Professor of Greek at Harvard from 1902 to 1925, who bequeathed his collection of 5,000 scholarly books to the department upon his death in 1937. The library’s holdings have been augmented continually since then by donations from the collections of other Harvard classicists, as well as through purchases financed annually by bequests from three further former faculty members: Frederick de Forest Allen, Edward Kennard Rand, and Clement Lawrence Smith.

The collection in Smyth Classical Library is primarily philological in nature and includes critical editions and commentaries for most major Greek and Latin authors through to the 5th century CE. There are also substantial holdings in epigraphy and paleography, as well as a selection of essential works in the areas of anthropology, archaeology, history, law, linguistics, literature, philosophy, and religion. In addition to a collection of most of the major journals and periodicals in the field of classics, the library likewise maintains complete sets of important reference works.

Manuscript facsimiles, archaeological plates, epigraphic squeezes, and older volumes (including rare and out-of-print works) are available in the corridor annex adjoining the main reading room.