The innovations of the Perseus Project have subsequently encouraged a multitude of other, similar scholarly projects based on other classical writings. As more and more new projects enter the Web, the significance of electronic publishing becomes more apparent. William Harris, in his introduction to The Romulus Project , touches upon some of the important effects that electronic publishing has had and will have on the future of classical commentary. With the rising costs of publication, the only really cost-effective way to maintain the availability of ancient text is to do so electronically. Classical texts have such a limited audience to begin with, that printing copies is too costly a way to disseminate the information.
Electronic text is more cost-effective, more easily editable and more interactive than printed text.
Another beneficial loophole for reducing publishing cost of ancient text is the fact that many of the source texts were published long ago and are no longer subject to copyright limitations. The institutions and technologies which drive both print and electronic publishing are not truly comparable on a cost basis. The classical scholar must take into account the whole manuscript tradition when reading ancient text. Texts have come to us in a variety of mediums including clay tablet, scrolls, codices, scraps of papyrus and various others. In the work being done by the various Web projects, more and more of the relevant secondary materials are placed interactively alongside the text in order to give the reader a more complete understanding of the original text.