PHI Latin Texts
A search and passage server for the Classical Latin corpus of The Packard Humanities Institute. It is made for assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT and Grok, and for programs. This page tells a person what it does and what its answers mean.
What it holds
The Latin literary texts of the PHI corpus: about 370 authors, from the earliest fragments to late antiquity. Each text follows one printed edition, and each answer names that edition. The spelling is the edition's: many print u where a school text prints v (uirum, not virum).
There are no translations and no critical apparatus. An assistant that gives you English has made the translation itself.
How to connect an assistant
The address of the server is
https://latin-mcp.packhum.org/mcp
In the settings of the assistant, add a connector (some assistants call it an MCP server, a tool or an app) and give it this address. No key and no sign-in are needed. In Claude: Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector. In Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http phi-latin https://latin-mcp.packhum.org/mcp
Then ask in plain words. The assistant decides when to call the server; to be sure, tell it to use PHI Latin Texts.
What you can ask an assistant that is connected
- The text of a passage: “Give me Aeneid 1.1–11.”
- Where a word occurs: “Which authors use exsilium, and how often?”
- Passages on a subject: “Find passages about grief in Cicero's letters.”
- Two words together: “Where does mare stand near nauis?”
- The Latin for an English word: “What are the Latin words for ‘exile’?”
Ask the assistant to quote from the server and to give the citation. A quotation it writes from memory can be wrong; a line the server returned is the text of the edition.
How the search reads what it is given
There are two kinds of search. They give different counts, and that is the most common cause of a wrong answer.
| Search | What it finds | Example |
|---|
| Letters | That string of letters, anywhere, also inside a longer word | amor finds amor, amorem, clamor |
Letters with # | # is the edge of a word | #amor# is the one form amor; #lug is every word that begins lug- |
| Dictionary word (lemma) | Every form of one word | fero finds tulit and latum |
- One form is not the word. Hannibal as one form occurs 498 times. The word in all its forms (Hannibalis, Hannibalem …) occurs 1,314 times. To count a word, the search must be by dictionary word.
- Some forms belong to two words. malis can be from malus, malum or malo. The server cannot read the sentence, so it gives each such form a share and says that the count is an estimate.
- Spelling is folded. v and u are the same, j and i are the same, and capitals are ignored.
- It finds letters and words, not meanings. For a subject, the assistant must first choose Latin words and then search each one.
How to read the answers
- The order is the order of the corpus, by author number, not by importance. The first lines of an answer are not the best ones. The counts per author show where to look.
- A citation is author, work and place, with the abbreviations of the PHI corpus:
Verg. Aen. 1.1, Cic. Att. 3.7.2. A reference can also be given with a full name or an English title (“Virgil, Aeneid 1.1”).
- A line is a line of the edition, and often not a whole sentence.
- Links go to latin.packhum.org, to the page that holds the passage.
For programs
No key is needed. Each client address has a daily allowance of 20,000 lines of text. Counts, the word tools and the lists of authors and works do not use it. When the allowance is used, the server refuses more text until the next day and says so.
| Address | Use |
|---|
/mcp | Model Context Protocol server (Streamable HTTP). Seven tools: get_passage, search_corpus, find_words, check_words, list_authors, get_author, get_work. |
/api/v1/passage?ref=Verg.+Aen.+1.1-7 | A passage as JSON |
/api/v1/search?q=… or ?lemma=… | Search, with author, work, limit, offset |
/api/v1/authors, /api/v1/authors/{id}, /api/v1/works/{author}/{work} | Authors and works |
/api/v1/words?english=…, /api/v1/words/check?w=… | Latin words for an English word; a check of Latin words |
A reader PHI knows can have a key, which has no allowance: write to the address below. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer <key> or X-Api-Key: <key>. A connector that cannot send a header signs in with the same key through OAuth. A wrong key is refused.
A parameter that a tool does not have is refused, and the error lists the names that exist.
Terms of use
The terms are those of the PHI website.
Questions
Write to [email protected].
The Packard Humanities Institute