In Focus: The IG and CIL
'I could have touched him with my hand - Mommsen! - Think of it! Here he was, clothed in a titanic deceptive modesty which made him look like other men...'
Mark Twain, A Note on Berlin, 1892
Without doubt, the most significant contribution made to the modern study of epigraphy came with the publication of the two great corpora of classical inscriptions during the 19th century. In 1815, the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences undertook the daunting task of collating and publishing all known classical inscriptions in two collections, one in Greek and the other in Latin. The result was the production of the first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum in 1825, and that of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum in 1853.
The success of these two great epigraphic collections owes much to their editors, Philipp August Bockh, a brilliant philologist and antiquarian, and Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen, a politician, jurist, and the greatest classical scholar of the 19th century. Together these men collected, arranged, and published entries for more than 300,000 Greek and Latin inscriptions from across the Mediterranean.
Although Mommsen himself was responsible for no less than five complete volumes of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, most entries were compiled and submitted to the Academy of Sciences by external scholars. Instructions for entries were prescriptive, and stressed above all else that the scholar examine the inscription in person. Each entry was also to be accompanied by detailed drawings, squeezes, and information about the inscription’s archaeological context and current location, as well as any other pertinent details including missing or abraded letters, alternative readings, unusual letter forms, or associated sculptural or architectural elements.
In the 20th century, although work was interrupted by two world wars, the international standing of the corpora meant that after 1945 the economic and academic burden of administering the collections was divested upon numerous international bodies. In 1994, administration of both corpora was reinstituted at the Berlin- Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Today, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is comprised of seventeen standard volumes, augmented by 13 supplements. The Inscriptiones Graecae, since 1860 the successor to the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, is divided into 49 fascicles. Together, they form the basis of modern epigraphic study.