Digital Prosopography of the Roman Republic

Digital Prosopography of the Roman Republic

The Digital Prosopography of the Roman Republic (DPRR) is the result of a three-year, AHRC-funded project based at the Department of Classics and the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London led by Professor Henrik Mouritsen and Dr Maggie Robb.

The primary objective of the project is to facilitate prosopographical research into the elite of the Roman Republic, its structure, scale and changes in composition over time. To that end a comprehensive, searchable database of all known members of the upper strata of Roman society has been established, which brings together information about individual careers, office holdings, personal status, life dates and family relationships.

The aim has not been to create an entire new prosopography of the Roman Republic from scratch but instead to build on the work of previous scholars and translate their achievements into a digital, online format that makes the extensive, and in many respects unwieldy, material more easily available to academics as well as to the general public. In doing so the hope is also to enable new types of prosopographical research to be conducted, using statistical and quantitative methods.

The project incorporates directly into its database the information on office holders presented in Broughton’s Magistrates of the Roman Republic, which forms the backbone of the database, Rüpke’s inventory of Roman priests in the Fasti Sacerdotum, the collection of information about family relations found in Zmeskal’s Adfinitas, and Pina Polo’s work on repulsae, defeated candidates. In addition, the team has drawn extensively on Brennan’s work on the praetorship,Nicolet’s on the equestrian order, Shackleton Bailey’s onomastica to the works of Cicero, Rich’s consolidated list of triumphs, and Hinard’s study of proscriptions. Further secondary sources are listed on our Bibliography page.

The DPRR team has sought to avoid imposing any particular models or interpretations on the material that might affect its usefulness. Therefore, in the case of contested issues such as the definition of nobilitas or novitas it was decided to apply a purely terminological approach and list only individuals described as such in primary sources. Similarly, only those whom Broughton and Rüpke designate as patricians based on office holding are listed as members of that group. With regard to the equites we have adopted the principles laid down in Nicolet’s standard work on the subject. The classification of offices follows that used by Broughton, e.g. legates (envoys) and legates (lieutenants). Geographical locations linked to individual posts or triumphs are also those suggested by Broughton and Brennan.

Inevitably, given the varied and uneven nature of the source material much of the information contains degrees of uncertainty, which is indicated by question marks and/or italics. Where possible we include references to primary sources as well as to our main secondary sources.

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