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Another major methodological issue <strong>in</strong> the development of PDBs, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Mathisen, is that they
are about “<strong>in</strong>dividual people,” and that these people must have unique identities with<strong>in</strong> a database. Yet
the identification of <strong>in</strong>dividual people with<strong>in</strong> primary sources is no easy task, and even if two sources
cite the person with the same name it can be difficult to determ<strong>in</strong>e whether it is the same person.
Additionally, a s<strong>in</strong>gle <strong>in</strong>dividual may go by different names. “Sort<strong>in</strong>g out who’s who,” Mathisen noted,
“either by us<strong>in</strong>g a computer algorithm or by human eye-ball<strong>in</strong>g, cont<strong>in</strong>ues to be one of the major
problems, if not the major problem, fac<strong>in</strong>g the creators of PDBs” (Mathisen 2007). As has been seen
throughout this review, the challenges of historical named-entity disambiguation have also been
highlighted <strong>in</strong> terms of historical place names <strong>in</strong> archaeology (Jeffrey et al. 2009a, Jeffrey et al. 2009b)
and classical geography (Elliott and Gillies 2009b), and both personal and place name disambiguation
complicated data <strong>in</strong>tegration between papyrological and epigraphical databases <strong>in</strong> the LaQuAT project
(Jackson et al. 2009).
While hierarchical structures were first explored for PDBs, Mathisen proposed that it was generally
agreed that the relational model was the best structural model for such databases. Several important
rules for relational PDBs that Mathisen listed <strong>in</strong>cluded the need to store data <strong>in</strong> tabular format, the
creation of a unique identifier for each primary data record (with<strong>in</strong> PDBs this is typically a person’s
name comb<strong>in</strong>ed with a number, e.g., Alexander-6), and the ability to retrieve data <strong>in</strong> different logical
comb<strong>in</strong>ations based on field values. While many PDBs, Mathisen observed, were often “structured
based on a s<strong>in</strong>gle table” that attempted to <strong>in</strong>clude all the important <strong>in</strong>formation about an <strong>in</strong>dividual,
such a simple structure limited the types of questions that could be asked of such a database.
The f<strong>in</strong>al major methodological issue Mathisen considered was standardization. While the early period
of PDB creation saw a number of efforts at develop<strong>in</strong>g a “standardized format for enter<strong>in</strong>g and stor<strong>in</strong>g
prosopographical material,” Mathisen doubted that any real standardization would ever occur. Indeed,
he argued that s<strong>in</strong>ce the “data reduction” methods of any prosopographical database were often
designed based on the primary source material at hand and how it would be used, attempt<strong>in</strong>g to design
an all-purpose method would be <strong>in</strong>efficient. While Mathisen proposed that the use of a relational
database structure <strong>in</strong> itself should make it relatively easy to transfer data between databases, the
LaQuAT project found this to be far from the case (Jackson et al. 2009).
Despite these various methodological issues, a number of prosopographical database projects have
been created, as seen <strong>in</strong> the next sections. Mathisen posited that there were two general types of
PDBs: 532 (1) a restricted or limited database that typically <strong>in</strong>corporates <strong>in</strong>dividuals from only one
“discrete primary or secondary source”; and (2) “<strong>in</strong>clusive” or open-ended databases that usually
<strong>in</strong>clude all of the people who lived at a particular time or place and conta<strong>in</strong> material from many
heterogeneous sources. All the databases considered <strong>in</strong> the follow<strong>in</strong>g sections, with the exception of
Prosopographia Imperii Romani, are open-ended databases. Such databases are far more difficult to
design, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Mathisen, s<strong>in</strong>ce “designers must anticipate both what k<strong>in</strong>ds of <strong>in</strong>formation users
might want to access and what k<strong>in</strong>ds of <strong>in</strong>formation will be provided by the sources from which the
database will be constructed.” In addition, such databases are typically never completed as new
resources become unearthed or additional sources are m<strong>in</strong>ed for prosopographical data. “The greatest
future promise of PDBs lies <strong>in</strong> the construction of more sophisticated and comprehensive databases,”
Mathisen concluded, add<strong>in</strong>g that “<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g a broad range of persons, constructed from a multiplicity
of sources and permitt<strong>in</strong>g search<strong>in</strong>g on a multiplicity of fields” (Mathisen 2007).
532 Mathisen lists a third special case of limited databases with the form of open-ended databases, but that “are constructed from exist<strong>in</strong>g hard-copy
prosopographical catalogue” or card-files, and the limit is imposed not by source-material but by editorial decisions on whom to <strong>in</strong>clude. In addition,
Mathisen also described a number of “biographical catalogues” like the “De Imperatoribus Romanis” (DIR) (http://www.roman-emperors.org/).