The Ancient History location in the Philosophicum departmental library offers a collection of approximately 20,000 volumes on the history and culture of the Greco-Roman antiquity. These include collections of sources, current academic journals, and the most important reference works on ancient history, as well as literature on related disciplines such as epigraphy, papyrology, numismatics, and Religious Education. At 23 workstations, you can use the collection to prepare for presentations and lectures and write your term papers or final thesis. You will find our library location on the 3rd floor of the Philosophicum in room 03-632. The latest journal issues are displayed separately in room 03-596. Some newer literature titles on ancient history can be found in the RVK arrangement on the ground floor of the Philosophicum. In addition, the central library holds collections on ancient history, as do the libraries of Classical Philology, Classical Archaeology, and Theology. You can find out the call number under which you can find the titles you are looking for in the university library’s research portal. If you have any questions, you can contact Jan-Erik Pruschke (j.pruschke@ub.uni-mainz.de), who is responsible for the ancient history collections in the Philosophicum departmental library, or Konstanze Schiemann (k.schiemann@uni-mainz.de), the library officer for Ancient History & Cultural History of Antiquity.

Address:Welderweg 18 (Philosophicum), R 03-632
Telephone:(06131) 39-22752
Contact person in the research unitDr. Konstanze Schiemann
Mail: k.schiemann@uni-mainz.de
Contact person in the departmental libraryJan-Erik Pruschke
Mail: j.pruschke@ub.uni-mainz.de
Opening hours:see opening hours of the Philosophicum departmental library
Sigel:77/086
Location information in the online catalog:University Mainz, Philosophicum departmental library, Ancient History location
Collection:approx. 20,000 volumes, 31 current journals
Catalog and equipment:Online catalog and internet access
Collection priorities:History and culture of the Greco-Roman antiquity, including epigraphy, papyrology, numismatics, and Religious Education

The coin collection of Ancient History comprises over 1,200 coins, which are recorded and described in the Numismatic Database.

Digitization of the coin collection as part of the Numid network. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since 2017.

The contact person for the coin collection is Mr. David Eibeck, M.A.. Luka Zäuner supports the coin collection team as a student assistant.

The numismatic collection of Ancient History is based on the coin collection of the former chair holder Hans-Ulrich Instinsky (1907-1973). In 1974 and 1984, the Seminar for Ancient History was able to purchase 368 specimens from his private collection. Since the private collection included all ancient epochs, an extensive overview for teaching activities could be offered in this way. The “Instinsky Collection” thus forms the basis of the coin collection, which now comprises almost 1,000 coins and spans a period from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD.

The focus is primarily on the coins of the Principate, but the coins of the Greek poleis and Hellenism are also strongly represented, as are coins of the Roman Republic and Late Antiquity. The collection also includes a few coins from the Persian Empire or Jewish specimens, as well as some forgeries from the Italian Renaissance, which were minted by Giovanni Cavino in Padova.

The specimens in the collection are regularly integrated into the teaching of Ancient History, into the regular seminars as well as into specific numismatic practice classes.

In the winter semester 2023/2024, the collection showcase was opened – a room in which all university collections of the JGU are represented by selected exhibits. As part of the series ‘Food for Thought! Guided tours through the scientific collections of the JGU at noon’, David Eibeck presented the five exhibited coins from the numismatic collection to an audience of collection managers and students on 07.12.

A matter of opinion! – this is the name of the exhibition series of the university collections, in which objects that otherwise slumber in lockers and safes of the institutes are exhibited at regular intervals. The current exhibit comes from the coin collection of Ancient History: the so-called bull coin of the last pagan Roman Emperor Julian. The bull, which can be seen on the reverse (the back) of the coin, is much discussed in ancient historical research literature. Because: It is controversial what Julian wanted to express with this representation. But it is precisely this mystery and the many different possible interpretations of the bull image that make up the fascination of the bull coin.

Together with Lea Milnazik and Leah Schröder, both students at the JGU, Dr. Konstanze Schiemann from Ancient History has developed the exhibition and the accompanying text. The project originated from a seminar on Emperor Julian in the winter semester 2021/22. If you want to get your own impression of the bull coin, you can visit it in the coming months at the Ansichtssache! display case at the entrance to the university library.

Visit of a class of the Leibnizschule Hannover in the coin collection/cast collection and thematic workshop on the portraits of Roman rulers in the Late Republic and in the Principate (led by: Dr. Patrick Schollmeyer & David Eibeck)

Visit of the Diltheyschule (Wiesbaden) for a workshop on the topic of numismatics in our collection (led by: Dr. Andreas Goltz)

Numismatic practice class in the advanced module Ancient History as a block event. Dr. Martin Ziegert – David Eibeck, M.A.

Numismatic Workshop: “Pecunia non olet”. Max Adam, with a guest contribution by Dr. David Wigg-Wolf.

Practice class: Coins from Byzantium

Prof. Dr. Marietta Horster (Mainz), Prof. Dr. Fleur Kemmers (Frankfurt), Dr. J. Chameroy (RGZM Mainz), Dr. J. Drauschke (RGZM Mainz), Dr. S. Kerschbaum (Frankfurt)

Pecunia non olet – On the Analysis and Presentation of a Numismatic Collection (Dr. A. Goltz / Dr. P. Schollmeyer)

Numismatic Workshop: “Roman Provincial Coinage and Urban Identity”.

Dr. Stefan Krmnicek (Tübingen): “Dicite, qui legitis” – On the communicative function of imperial-era coin legends.

Prof. Dr. Fleur Kemmers (Frankfurt): The Archaeology of Coins: Possibilities and Limitations of Find Numismatics.

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Wolters (Vienna): Augustus and the Roman Forum: Numismatic Perspectives on the Structural Design and its Ideological Significance.

Prof. Dr. Bruno Callegher (Trieste): “Unfortunately… the coins could be identified” – Chronological and economic issues in Kphar Nahum and Upper Galilee at the end of the 5th century CE.
NumisVlogs on Youtube
NumisVlogs on Youtube

Do you remember playing with your parents’ coins? The stories they told? Now you have the opportunity to revive these memories — but this time with a much larger collection of coins, namely with coins from the collections of German universities. Some of these coins may have already been held by Alexander the Great or Caesar or spent for their world-changing wars. Here you have the opportunity to sort and explore these coins with various filters. Help us bring order to the pile of coins…

Essays

  • Horster, Marietta: Tibère – Un successeur à la carte? In: A. Della Rosa, F. Hurlet (éd.) La dernière époque augustéenne, Bordeaux 2025, 55–71.
  • Horster, Marietta: Un « Companion to Roman Prosopography »: un défi spécifique à l’histoire de l’Antiquité tardive ?, Revue des Études Tardo-antiques 12, 2022/23, 159–168.
  • Horster; Marietta/ Wulff, Christine/ Kagerer, Katharina: Normativity: Editing Latin Inscriptions, in: G. Galdi, S. Aerts, A. Papini (eds.), Varietate delectamur: Multifarious Approaches to Synchronic and Diachronic Variation in Latin. Selected Papers from the 14th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin (Ghent, 2022), Turnhout 2025, 779–792.
  • Horster, Marietta: Ideal Exclusivity and Pragmatic Flexibility: Offices and Liturgies for ‘outsiders’ in Late Classical and Hellenistic Cities, in: L. Cecchet, Ch. Lasagni (eds.), Citizenship Practised, Citizenship Imagined. Multiple Ways of Experiencing Citizenship in the Greek World, Stuttgart 2025, 191–224.
  • Meurer, Tabea L.: „Wie anwachsende Jahresringe“: Thukydides’ Kriegschronologie und ihr Kontext, Klio 107.1 (2025), 62–93.

Monographs

  • Blank, Thomas: Religiöse Geheimniskommunikation in der Mittleren und Späten Römischen Republik. Separatheit, gesellschaftliche Öffentlichkeit und zivisches Ordnungshandeln, Stuttgart 2024 (Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge, 82). [https://doi.org/10.25162/9783515133876 ]
  • Groll, Florian: Sieg und Familie im frühen Prinzipat. Eine Studie zur militärischen Repräsentation der Verwandten des Augustus, Mainz 2024 (Mainzer Althistorische Studien, 12). [https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1372 ]

Edited Books

  • M. Horster, O. Pelcer-Vujačić, S. Ferjančić (ed.): Studia epigraphica et militaria. In memoriam Miroslava Mirkovic, Berlin 2024 (De Gruyter, Reihe: Auctarium CIL 8).

Essays

  • Blank, Thomas: ‘To Gloat Over Our Catastrophes:’ Isocrates on Commemorating the War Dead, in: Pritchard, D. M. (Hg.): The Athenian Funeral Oration. After Nicole Loraux, Cambridge: CUP 2024, 241–258.
  • [https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009413053.013 ]
  • Blank, Thomas: Rhetorik, Philosophie und Pädagogik: Isokrates, in: G. Ueding / F. Vidal (Hgg.): Handbuch Rhetorik und Pädagogik (Handbücher Rhetorik Bd. 8), Berlin: De Gruyter 2024, 55–84.
  • [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110352382-003 ]
  • Horster, Marietta mit Lucia Rainone: Communicating Jupiter, in: A. Alvar Nuñez C. Martínez Maza, J. Alvar Ezquerra (eds.), Calling Upon Gods, Offering Bodies. Strategies of Human-Divine Communication in the Roman Empire. From Individual Experience to Social Reproduction. Basel 2024, 79–94.
  • Horster, Marietta: Flora: (k)eine unbekannte Gottheit, in: L. Mihailescu-Bîrliba et al. (Hg.), Studia Epigraphica et historica in honorem Ioannis Pisonis, Wiesbaden 2024, 33–44.
  • 74. 2024 Vivas: Über das „Leben“ der Kleininschriften innerhalb und außerhalb von Inschriften-Editionen, in: M. Linder et al. (Hg.), Libens Laetus Merito: Festschrift für Wolfgang Spickermann zum 65. Geburtstag, Wiesbaden 2024, 69–79.
  • Horster, Marietta: On Language and Faith in Cassiodorus’ Institutiones, in: I. Tanaseanu-Döbler, (Hg.), Libraries, Handbooks, Encyclopedias. Ancient and Early Medieval Repositories of Knowledge and Their Religious Aspects, Tübingen 2024, 235–263.
  • Horster, Marietta: Vom Hirtendasein in den Nordwestprovinzen, in: Das Maß ist die Wissenschaft. Gedenkschrift für Hans-Joachim Schalles, hrsg. v. R. Grüßinger, D. Schmitz, Petersberg 2024, 116–128.
  • Horster, Marietta: L’avenir de l’épigraphie – The future of epigraphy, in: P. Fröhlich, Navarro (eds.), L’épigraphie au XXIe siècle. Actes du XVIe Congrès Internationale d’Épigraphie Grecque et Latine. Bordeaux, 29 août-02 septembre 2022, Bordeaux 2024 (Scripta Antiqua), 423–438.
  • Meurer, Tabea L.: Nur mehr stille Distinktion? Otium-Konzepte und die Transformation senatorischer Statusdiskurse im spätantiken Gallien, in: Umberto Roberto/Timo Stickler (Hrsgg.): Das Weströmische Reich und seine Erforschung – neue Perspektiven, Stuttgart 2024 (Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Forschung), 259-277.

Monographs

  • Schipp, O.: Den Kolonat neu denken. Zur Aktualität eines Forschungsproblems (Mainzer Althistorische Studien 11), Heidelberg 2023

Edited Books

  • Horster, M.: Carmina Latina Epigraphica – Developments, Dynamics, Preferences, Berlin 2023 (CIL Auctarium 7).
  • Meurer, T. / Egetenmeyr, V.: Gallia Docta? Education and In-/Exclusion in Late Antique Gaul , Tübingen 2023 (Seraphim 19).Aufsätze

Essays

  • Horster, M.: Temporal developments, regional Dynamics and individual preferences of inscribed poetry in the Latin speaking Roman empire, in: M. Horster (ed.), Carmina Latina Epigraphica. Developments, Dynamics, Preferences , Berlin 2023, 1-11.
  • Horster, M.: Only the very best! Precious metals for the house of God(s), Religion in the Roman Empire 9, 2023, 48–70.
  • Horster, M.: CARMEN Communal Art – Reconceptualising Metrical Epigraphy Metwork, Project Repository Journal 17, 2023, 58-61. https://doi.org/10.54050/PRJ1720281
  • Horster, M.: Cult Economy in the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire, in: A. Wilson, N. Ray, A. Trentacosta (Hgg.), The Economy of Roman Religion (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy), Oxford 2023, 156–179.
  • Horster, M.: Social factors in Latinization: Perspectives and Future Challenges, in: A. Mullen, A. Willi (eds.), Social Factors in the Latinization of the Roman West, Oxford 2023, 286-296.
  • Horster, M.: Religious expansionism? Roman priestly activities outside republican Rome, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 25/1, 2023, 359–378.
  • Horster, M.: Falsi and tituli and the asterisk-categories in the CIL, in: M. L. Caldelli (ed.), Falsi e falsari nell’epoca di Internet. False testimonianze. Copie, contraffazioni, manipolazioni e abusi del documento epigrafico antico (Studi Miscellanei, 42), Rom 51–62.
  • Horster, M.: Dissemination strategies of the Innovative Training Network (ITN) CARMEN, CARMEN Working papers 5, 2023, 1–9: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-10028
  • Meurer, Tabea L.: Ausonius’ Professores. A Landscape of Learning in Fourth-Century Gaul? In: Tabea L. Meurer/Veronika Egetenmeyr (Hrsgg.): Gallia docta? Education and In-/Exclusion in Late Antique Gaul , Tübingen (Seraphim 19), 361-383.
  • Egetenmeyr, Veronika/Meurer, Tabea L.: Introduction. Approaches to Education and In-/Exclusion, in: Tabea L. Meurer/Veronika Egetenmeyr (Hrsgg.): Gallia docta? Education and In-/Exclusion in Late Antique Gaul , Tübingen (Seraphim 19), 1-35.
  • Meurer, Tabea L.: Spatia vitae. Social Time Issues in Sidonius, Hermes 151.4 (2023), 476-489.

Edited Books

  • Marietta Horster / Nikolas Hächler (Hgg.): The Impact of Empire on Landscapes. Leiden 2022 (Impact of Empire 41).

Essays

  • Thomas Blank: Methodical Remarks on the ‚Truthfulness’ of Oratorical Narrative. In: A. Kapellos (Hg.): The Orators and Their Treatment of the Recent Past, Berlin: De Gruyter 2022(Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes), 23–45. [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110791877-002]
  • Marietta Horster / Nikolas Hächler: Le regard du vainqueur?, in: N. Hächler, M. Horster (Hgg). The Impact of Empire on Landscapes, Leiden 2022, 3-17.
  • Marietta Horster: Heterogenous Landscapes: Theories and Impact, in: N. Hächler, M. Horster (Hgg.), The Impact of Empire on Landscapes, Leiden 2022, 18-44.
  • Marietta Horster: Roundtable “Constructing Texts”, in: CARMEN Working papers 1, 2022, 4–8. http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-8180
  • Marietta Horster / Petra Heřmánková / Jonathan Prag: Digital Epigraphy in 2022: A Report from the Scoping Survey of the FAIR Epigraphy Project, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6610696 (32 pp.)

In our seminars, including accompanying tutorials, you will receive a detailed introduction to the most important subject-specific databases. In addition to general instructions, you will also find topic-specific links to the respective seminars there. The corresponding subject information page “Ancient History” of the university library also offers a useful collection.

You will also find a list of useful links here:

  • Bryn Mawr Classical Review: Review organ
    Current reviews of ancient studies literature, also available as a free newsletter
  • Epigraphische Datenbank Clauss – Slaby: Database/research tool
    The inscription database of Prof. Dr. Manfred Clauss, University of Frankfurt – a true classic among epigraphic databases
  • EAGLE: The “Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy” is an association of European databases, including the Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg – in the database launched by G. Alföldy, it is possible to extensively research the digitized Latin inscriptions – and the Epigraphic Database Roma – with a focus on the Italic and urban Roman inscriptions
  • Gnomon-Online: Literature database/research tool
    Current and older literature (monographs, articles, reviews) can be researched online here
  • KIRKE-Projekt: Catalog
    A German-language catalog of Internet resources for classical antiquity.
  • The Latin Library: Database/research tool
    A large number of Latin authors are available here in the original text for research
  • Perseus-Projekt: Database/research tool
    The Perseus project includes Latin and Greek original texts with English translation and commentary, as well as a papyri database
  • Propylaeum: Subject Information Service for Ancient Studies : Propylaeum is operated by the UB Heidelberg and the BSB Müncen and is a targeted information and service portal. Here you will find various search technologies, and digital copies and e-publications are also offered in the open access procedure
  • OCRE (Online Coins of the Roman Empire): Research tool/database. With this database, operated by the American Numismatic Society and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (New York University), you can research, identify and catalog Roman coins of the imperial period. All central coinages from the period from 31 BC to 491 AD are recorded. In addition, there are coin images, mappings and other useful functions.

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