The Suda is an anonymous Byzantine compilation dating to the late 10th century CE. Despite being personified as "Suidas" in older Latin scholarship, it has no single identifiable author. It takes the form of an alphabetical lexicon-encyclopedia written in ancient Greek.
Its roughly 31,000 entries range across classical Greek lexis, biography, history, geography, and miscellany. The compilers drew on earlier lexica — including those of Photius, Hesychius, and Harpocration — as well as the Etymologica, scholia, and numerous works that no longer survive independently. The standard critical edition was produced by Ada Adler for the Teubner series between 1928 and 1938. In this corpus, the text is divided into 24 per-letter works, from Suda Letter Alpha through Omega.
The Suda preserves excerpts from and testimonia about lost ancient Greek literature. Passages from tragedians, historians, and philosophers survive nowhere else, making it the largest surviving source for works otherwise known only by name.
Available Works
Also published as PDF.