¬

Loeb Classical Library IV (463/523 - Still incomplete] 
Son of Loeb IV torrent

Several readers pointed out that PDF file sizes in our Loeb III torrent had grown much too big with no appreciable increase in scan quality. Although we added more than 200 Loeb titles, we way more than doubled the torrent size, from 5.79GB to 35GB. Some individual book sizes were 2-3GB!

These filesizes are completely unacceptable for books with no illustrations. Accordingly, we had a rethink of this problem and were able to find many of the Loeb III titles in smaller filesizes and replaced the ridiculously huge ones.

Son of Loeb is the reduced-fat version at 18GB, including supplementary texts. Some wanted us to make a separate torrent for the supplement but we prefer an all-in-one package. Next Loeb torrent is up to you!

If any reader has the expertise to slim the size of the Loeb scans further, we’ll be your best friend! Extraneous pages need deleting, retaining Greek/Latin on verso page, English on recto, sticking to at least the original filesize or smaller.

The complete Loeb titles are here in XML format: https://www.loebclassics.com/volumes. I have also added their individual URLS to the “01 LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY IV - SON OF LOEB (IV) TORRENT DESCRIPTIVE CONTENTS” and “06 MISSING LOEBS UPDATE” documents.

Although LCL doesn’t permit it, we hope some techie can find a workaround to download these XML files. Thanks in advance!

My apologies for your inconvenience and confusion. Thanks to all Loeb readers for their patience in this process.

Please be sure to point out any errors (in pagination, Latin or Greek on verso (left) pages, English on recto (right) pages) [couldn’t fix L067], numeration, or poor scan quality [couldn’t find better scans for L236, L248, L252].

The original inspiration to catalogue Loebs online came from another classical Greek, my nephew, Justin Devris, who studied classics at Blair Academy, Hobart College and the University of Maryland. Loebs were far too expensive for a student to buy and often unavailable from any other source. He is currently (2015) pursuing doctoral classics at the University of California Santa Barbara. Exultations of larks are also deserved for ZL (Europe), Solon (Brazil), Andrew (America) for their contributions.

As you enjoy these from the multiversal data explosion known as the Internet where five exabytes (five quintillion bytes) of content is created every day, take a moment for perspective. The entire sum of our classical heritage preserved fits into just over 523 volumes, just 15GB of data.

Maybe a few more texts will be discovered but, really, that’s all we have from the ancient world, 500 texts, 15GB by classical poets, playwrights, philosophers, religionists, geographers, travelers, historians, theologians medical doctors, architects, statesmen, military strategists, biographers, epistolians, and a few saints. 109 men (where are the women?) who have been remembered and taught for 2,000 years. Not for themselves who ate and shat and fucked like all the rest of us but for their thought. Many are only known by fragments from their texts. How much deep thinking have you done today about the universe around you? A complete list of Loeb authors may be found here: https://www.loebclassics.com/authors.

Two million books are published every year in the United States alone, more than 2,000 every day. If humanity survives another two millennia, what texts and what names of ours will be remembered at the turn of the 24th century? While a few classical authors are known by multiple texts, think of the output of modern writers like  James Patterson at 147 books. Will his name or works endure?

Indeed, consider the total number of man-hours invested in pondering the philosophies of Plato and Socrates. What if there were even more erudite philosophers than these whose texts did not survive the millennia. 

A reader has suggested that you, Dear Reader, provide these Loebs to your local public, corporate, or institutional library so this fount of classical knowledge can be shared by many. Here’s the inspiration: http://thispageisaboutwords.org/10-libraries-that-will-renew-your-love-affair-with-books.  

Son of Loeb is affectionately dedicated to Justin Devris.

More Loebs, please! We’re still not satisfied!  
email. <facthailand@gmail.com>
web. https://latin4everyone.wordpress.com

¬