Oxford Classical Dictionary
one-volume encyclopaedia in English of topics relating to the Ancient World and its civilizations
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) is generally considered "the best one-volume dictionary on antiquity," an encyclopædic work in English consisting of articles relating to classical antiquity and its civilizations. It was first published in 1949 (OCD1 or OCD), edited by Max Cary with the assistance of H. J. Rose, H. P. Harvey, and Alexander Souter. A second edition followed in 1970 (OCD2), edited by Nicholas G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, and a third edition in 1996 (OCD3), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. A revised third edition was released in 2003, which is nearly identical to the previous third edition. A fourth edition was published in 2012 (OCD4), edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow. In 2016, a fully digital edition launched online, edited by Sander Goldberg (2013–2017) and Tim Whitmarsh (2018–present). Continuously updated on a monthly basis, this edition incorporates all 6,300 entries from OCD4 (which are being updated on a rolling basis) as well as newly commissioned entries, and features multimedia content and freely accessible maps of the ancient world.
The OCD's over 6,400 articles cover everything from the daily life of the ancient Greeks and Romans to their geography, religion, and their historical figures.
Digital and on-line availability
The fourth edition and the third revised edition of the OCD are available online for members of subscribed institutions and for subscribed individuals via Oxford Reference. The third edition (1996) was also available on CD-ROM, but it is partially incompatible with more recent versions of Windows and has not been revised or re-released.
“Oxford Classical Dictionary” enters the record as one-volume encyclopaedia in English of topics relating to the Ancient World and its civilizations. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Oxford, Classical and Dictionary can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Oxford Classical Dictionary” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Oxford, Classical and Dictionary provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q430486. None of the 4 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1970, 1996 and 2003.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oxford Classical Dictionary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.