Transparency Documentation for Perseus AI
Perseus AI is an AI-powered Ancient Greek lexical analysis tool built for transparency and research purposes. You can analyze Greek words (like ἀρετή or ψυχή) or translate English words (like courage or justice) into Ancient Greek. This page documents our complete methodology, including the exact prompts we use, processing pipeline, and technical decisions.
All prompts and configurations shown below are the actual defaults used in production. Administrators can customize these through the admin interface for continuous improvement.
When you submit a word, Perseus AI first detects the language. Greek words go through the analysis pipeline below. English words are offered for translation into Ancient Greek.
When you enter an English word (like "courage" or "honor"), the system detects it and offers to translate it to Attic Greek. The AI provides the Greek equivalent with proper diacritics, a transliteration, and an explanation. If the concept cannot be accurately translated into Ancient Greek, you will receive a polite explanation. Successfully translated words can then be analyzed through the full pipeline below.
The AI validates whether the input is a legitimate Attic Greek word, checking for dialectal variations, rare forms, and compound words. If validation fails, the analysis stops here with a helpful message.
The AI analyzes the exact form you entered, identifying its grammatical features: person, number, tense, mood, and voice for verbs; case, number, and gender for nouns; and so on. This represents the morphology of the word as you typed it.
The word is converted to its dictionary form (lemma) and transformed into Beta code following Perseus Digital Library standards. This handles special cases like -μι verbs and deponent verbs. Lexicon links to Perseus, Logeion, and LSJ.gr are automatically generated using these normalized forms.
The AI generates a concise English definition for the word, making it accessible for beginners while still being useful for advanced learners.
For words identified as verbs, Perseus AI offers AI-powered conjugation tables that display all grammatical variations across moods, tenses, and voices. This feature is available both in analysis results and on individual word detail pages.
When you analyze an Ancient Greek verb (like παιδεύω or γιγνώσκω), a "Generate Conjugation" button appears in the results. Click it to generate a complete conjugation table showing the verb across indicative, subjunctive, optative, and imperative moods in active, middle, and passive voices. Generation typically takes 30 to 60 seconds as the AI computes all grammatical forms. An 80-second countdown timer displays in authentic Attic Greek numerals while you wait. The conjugation displays inline below the search result without requiring page navigation.
When generating a conjugation, the AI uses a configurable prompt to produce complete conjugation tables. The output includes all grammatical combinations for the dictionary form of the verb, normalized to first person singular present indicative active. Administrators can customize the conjugation prompt through the admin dashboard for continuous improvement.
Model Selection: The system uses configurable OpenAI models, with the flexibility to optimize for accuracy and performance at each processing step.
Beta code is a standard ASCII representation of Ancient Greek text. Our conversion follows Perseus Digital Library standards:
Perseus AI is a research tool in active development. While we strive for accuracy, AI-generated linguistic analysis may contain errors or inconsistencies. We recommend:
This tool is designed for transparency and continuous improvement. If you notice inaccuracies, have suggestions for prompt improvements, or want to contribute to the project's development: