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Issues <strong>in</strong> the Creation of Prosopographical Databases
Although prosopography is a well-established discipl<strong>in</strong>e, there are fewer digital resources <strong>in</strong> it than <strong>in</strong>
many of the other fields of digital classics, an issue discussed extensively <strong>in</strong> a recent study by Ralph
W. Mathisen (Mathisen 2007), who provided an overview of exist<strong>in</strong>g prosopographical databases
(PDBs) and the challenges <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> creat<strong>in</strong>g them. 530 In the 1970s, Mathisen decided to create a
database based of the first volume of the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE), but had
to temporarily abandon this work because of the limitations of FORTRAN and ma<strong>in</strong>frame computers.
By the 1980s, Mathisen believed that the development of PDBs was becom<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly possible,
and <strong>in</strong> one of his grant proposals at the time listed a number of major advantages of databases,
<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g convenience, speed, accuracy, diversity and multiplicity of access, ease of revision and
report<strong>in</strong>g, expandability, portability, and, perhaps most important, potential compatibility with other
biographical and prosopographical databases. His current work <strong>in</strong>volves the development of a database
he has named the “Biographical Database of Late Antiquity”(BDLA). 531 Despite the potential of
PDBs, Mathisen reported that his earlier research (Mathisen 1988) had identified 20 prosopographical
database projects, but by 2007, only one had been completed, one had been absorbed by a later project,
and two were still <strong>in</strong> progress, and the other 16 were no longer f<strong>in</strong>dable.
A variety of issues have caused this situation, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Mathisen, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g questions regard<strong>in</strong>g
accessibility and hardware and software problems, but the greatest challenges have been
methodological considerations of the discipl<strong>in</strong>e. To beg<strong>in</strong> with, Mathisen noted that some
prosopographers (and <strong>in</strong>deed other humanists) argued that databases imposed “too much structure on
the <strong>in</strong>formation from primary sources.” Any useful historical database, Mathisen suggested, must
structure data from primary sources <strong>in</strong> two ways: first, it must identify all “categories of recurrent
<strong>in</strong>formation” (e.g., sex, religion); and second, it must identify “appropriate, recurrent values for these
fields.” Mathisen also po<strong>in</strong>ted out that “historians always structure their data, whether they are creat<strong>in</strong>g
a PDB or not.” While creat<strong>in</strong>g a database may be an <strong>in</strong>terpretative act of scholarship <strong>in</strong> terms of
archaeology, as earlier argued by Dunn (2009), us<strong>in</strong>g a historical database also <strong>in</strong>volves <strong>in</strong>terpretation
as expla<strong>in</strong>ed by Mathisen:
PDB structure and cod<strong>in</strong>g are not prescriptive; it only provides a start<strong>in</strong>g po<strong>in</strong>t for research.
The computer can only do so much. Human <strong>in</strong>tervention is always needed, not only <strong>in</strong> the
course of the creation of a PDB, but especially <strong>in</strong> the use of a PDB. This <strong>in</strong>cludes not only
verify<strong>in</strong>g the validity and appropriateness of the data returned, but also judiciously analys<strong>in</strong>g
that data. Even when I read an entry <strong>in</strong> the hard-copy of PLRE, I still check the primary source
myself. Users of PDBs should do the same (Mathisen 2007).
As this statement illustrates, Mathisen considered scholarly consultation of the orig<strong>in</strong>al primary
sources to also be extremely important. To be truly useful, however, Mathisen proposed that PDBs
should also <strong>in</strong>clude at least some access to the primary sources they used whenever possible. “Indeed,
the most effective modern PDBs br<strong>in</strong>g the orig<strong>in</strong>al source documents along with them,” Mathisen
argued, “either by a po<strong>in</strong>ter to a separate source database or by <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g the source text with<strong>in</strong> the
record, thus ensur<strong>in</strong>g that no source <strong>in</strong>formation is ever lost <strong>in</strong> the creation of a PDB” (Mathisen 2007).
530 In this overview, Mathisen also notes the somewhat limited research coverage of PDBs <strong>in</strong> the past 10 years, with much of the significant scholarship
published <strong>in</strong> the 1980s, such as Bulst (1989) and Mathisen (1988), and <strong>in</strong> the 1990s (Goudriaan et al 1995).
531 As of this writ<strong>in</strong>g (September 2010), there does not appear to be any website for the BDLA, which, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Mathisen (2007), “plans to <strong>in</strong>corporate
all the persons attested as liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the Mediterranean and western Asian worlds between AD 250 and 750” and conta<strong>in</strong>s more than 27,000 <strong>in</strong>dividuals and
<strong>in</strong>cludes more than 70 searchable fields.