PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 118

FIFTY YEARS OF
PROSOPOGRAPHY

The Later Roman Empire,

Byzantium and Beyond

Edited by
AVERIL CAMERON

Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY

by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
 2

The Prosopographia Imperii Romani

and Prosopographical Method

WERNER ECK

THE OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY OF THE Prosopographia Imperii Romani was 31 MaJ:G!J.

1874. That was the day on which Theodor Mommsen formulated an application
of two and a half pages to the plenary assembly of the Koniglich PreuBische
Akadernie der Wissenschaften in Berlin to launch a 'prosopography of renowned
men of the Roman imperial period' (in Latin viri notabiles) 'including chronolog
ically ordered lists of consuls and governors and magistrates in general' .1 But in
fact, as he writes himself, Mommsen had long before planned to 'add a summary
of this kind to the editions of inscriptions'. For him, the realization of such a work
was, however, only possible after the inscriptions had been 'organized for use',
which in his view was achieved in 1874. Apparently he tacitly assumed that for
carrying out the intended prosopography the collected but yet unpublished mate
rial was also usable, since in 1874 only five volumes of the Corpus /nscriptionum
Latinarum had been published: I (1863), II (1869), III/1 (1873), IV (1871) and
V11 (1872). The first part of CIL VI, the inscriptions of the city of Rome, was not
published until1874.
Neither in his application nor in the preface to the first edition does Mommsen
give detailed reasons as to why the PIR was necessary or useful to classical schol
arship. In the preface to PIR he states only that the epigraphic corpora could, in
general, provide the basis for numerous works which would allow deeper insights
into various aspects of antiquity, such as municipal organization, the Roman army

I would like to thank Charlone Roueche for the excellent English translation of this article.
1 The handwritten application, published for the first time in the appendix below, is preserved in
the archives of the Berl.in-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Or Anilca Strobach of
the PIR department of the Academy kindly sent me a copy. A short reference to the beginning of
the enterprise can also be found in A. Harnack, Geschichte der Koniglich-PreujJischenAkademie der
Wissenschaften (3 vols. in 4; Berlin, 1900), 112. 1029.

Proceedings of the British Academy,ll8, 11-22. The British Academy2003.

 PIR AND PROSOPOGRAPHICAL METHOD 13

or religious practice, as well as the moral standards of the masses or the develop
ment of languages in the Roman empire. These works, however, would have to
be undertaken by viri docti qui sunt eruntque, non Academiae nostrae. Only the
notitia hominum notabilium qui vixerunt ab imperatore Augusto ad imperatorem
Diocletianum per tria aerae nostrae saecula, i.e. the PIR, had been chosen for
treatment by the Academy in Berlin. The Roman republic and late antiquity were,
among other reasons, excluded because inscriptions could contribute to them only
marginally? Nowhere does Mommsen explain what detailed historical insight
might be gained, or what sort of research was only made possible, by this proso
pographical compilation. According to what he himself says, it might seem at first
glance that he considered that the complete availability of all the names, offices and
social qualifications of the viri notabiles was sufficient; it seems unlikely, however,
that this was his opinion.
When the Academy approved the application in 1874, work on the first edition
of the PIR began: an amount of 600 thaler was granted, followed by 24,500 marks
between 1877 and 1890,3 of which 12,000 marks were granted from 1887 to 1889
alone. Apparently it was in these last three years and during 1890 that the final
manuscripts were completed for publication; they were delivered to the publishers
in 1891. But then another five years passed before finally, in 1897, volumes I and 11,
and one year later volume Ill, were published, edited by Elimar Klebs, Herrmann
Dessau and Paul von Rhoden.4 From the beginning Mommsen had intended a
fourth volume containing comprehensive lists of all the officials of the first three
centuries of the imperial period.lt was never published, although Mommsen seems
to have considered it as one of the main purposes of the prosopography. It may be
that his diminishing capacity for work by this date contributed to this.
At the time the PIR was published it was already partly out of date, for new ma
terial was emerging at an increasing rate. Thus soon after the turn of the century the
Academy discussed whether a second edition should be launched and also whether
the circle of persons to be incorporated was to be extended, especially to members
of the equester ordo and partly also to imperial freedmen. After the decision had
been reached to produce a revised edition, it was at first principally the task of
Herrmann Dessau, who undertook the work from 1915/16, later transferring it to
FIG. 3. Theodor Mommsen (courtesy Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
2 Th. Mommsen, 'Acadern.iae scientiarum regiae Borussicae praemonitum', PIR I (Berlin, 1896), vi,
reprinted in PIR2 I. vi, with Momrnsen' s signature.
3 This can be followed from the account of grants for the particular research enterprises collected by
Harnack, Geschichte der Koniglich-Preuj3ischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, II. 567 ff.
4 On p. ix of the preface (from 1896) Klebs says that the work had been in press per quinqennium,
so that no more alterations had been possible. Addenda had been planned for vol. IV. On the history
of PIR in general seeK. Schubring, 'Corpus lnscriptionum Latinarum-Prosopographia Imperii
Romani', Das Institutfor griechisch-romischeAltertumskunde: Protokoll der Eroffnungstagung vom
23.-25. Oktober 1955 (Berlin, 1957), 80-2; K.-P. Johne, '100 Jahre Prosopographialmperii Romani',
Klio 56 (1974), 21-7.
14 WemerEck
Emil Groag and Arthur Stein. As in the case of so many major projects of the
twentieth century, work on thePIR was to extend over many years.
However, the PIR did not only have to overcome the usual obstacles but was
also severely affected by the political situation in Germany on two occasions. Both
of the scholars who had taken charge of the project, Stein and Groag, were Jews,
one a professor in Prague, the other a librarian in Vienna. Volumes I and 11, con
taining the letters A to C, were published in quick succession in 1933 and 1936; but
from then on the work of Stein and Groag was made increasingly difficult. Among
other things, Konrad Bernhauer, head of the NS-Dozentenbund in Prag-Briinn,
approached the Academy in Berlin raising objections to the participation of Stein
and Groag in one of the Academy's projects. The Academy had not only entrusted
the work to them, but had also paid them an honorarium, as late as 1937, of 2,000
Reichsmark, at the instigation ofUlrich Wilcken. Despite everything, volume Ill,
containing letters D to F, was published in 1943; the names of Groag and Stein
were no longer mentioned on the front page, but they appeared in the preface, with
an acknowledgement of their great achievement. Even in the last years of the war
Groag-who was in hiding in Vienna--continued the work, in unimaginably dif
ficult conditions. By 1943, when volume Ill was published, Stein had already been
deported to the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. But both scholars survived,
and both were ready to resume work on theP/R immediately after the war. Groag,
however, died in 1946 and Stein only a few years later in 1950, without having had
the chance to train successors. 5
Work on thePIR was resumed at the new Akadernie der Wissenschaften of the
GDR, at first based mainly on the material provided by Stein and Groag. Stein had
been able to accomplish a fascicle comprising the letter G, which was published in
1952, followed by another, of H, in 1956, when LeivaPeterson had already taken
on responsibility for thePIR.6 As she was a classical philologist it took her a while
to familiarize herself with an area of study which was quite new to her. Moreover,
she was at the same time head of the publishing house Bohlau in Weimar, which
left her only a little time to work on the prosopography. Also, other contributors,
such as Klaus Wachtel and Klaus-Peter Johne, were often called away to other pro
jects. However, in 1966 the extensive fascicle covering the letter I and therefore
containing all the lulii was published. But thePIR was not a popular project within
the Academy. What use was a prosopography dealing with a sociopolitical elite in a
socialist workers' and peasants' state? Some members of the Academy had almost
5 S. Rebenich, 'Zwischen Anpassung und Widerstand? Die Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften
von 1933 bis 1945', in B. Naf, ed., Antike und Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus und
Nationalsozialismus (Texts and Studies in the History of Humanities; Mandelbachtal and Cambridge,
2001), 203-44.
6 For her personality see Gedenken an Leiva Petersen, 1912-1992, published after her death in 1992
by Bohlau-Verlag Koln-Weimar (without year), esp. pp. 25-31, Wemer Eck on her work for PIR.
PIR AND PROSOPOGRAPHICAL METHOD 15
written off the project; only a casual remark in a speech of Honecker, the secretary
general of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, on the occasion of his
visit to the Academy in the early seventies, prevented such a decision. Neverthe
less, withoutthe persistent commitment of LeivaPeterson, who obtained help from
colleagues both in socialist brother states and also in capitalist states, work on the
PIR would have ground to a halt or simply petered out. She managed to complete
the letter L in 1970, M in 1983 and finally N and 0 in 1987. She had retired from
the Academy long before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 with all its political
and social changes. Only when the new Berlin-Brandenburgische Akadernie der
Wissenschaften had been founded and a new building provided for the staff around
1994 could work on the prosopography be resumed. In 1998 the volume contain
ing the letter P was published, in 1999 [2000] the fascicle containing all names
beginning with Q and R. The completion of the work is planned for 2005, with the
last volume to be published in 2006, which seems to be realistic. It will then have
taken 73 years, from 1933 to 2006, to complete the second edition of thePIR.
In the meantime the Internet is being used as well. The complete index of the
PIR, containing more than 14,000 persons, is available there for researchers.7 It
is to be hoped that at least all the new evidence which has emerged for various
individuals since the publication of the respective volumes will soon be made
accessible, along with all that for new individuals who have not yet been included
in the PIR, but who belong there on the basis of their social status.
So, what has PIR achieved? Has it affected academic research on the imperial
period? To start with, it is an encyclopaedia of persons and therefore has been and
is of course still being used everywhere to find out what we know about them;
but this will not concern us here. Mommsen himself probably intendedPIR to be
the foundation for further historical insights. For the full benefit of such an under
taking could not consist merely in lists of consuls, governors and other officials;
there must be a far wider contribution to historical understanding. And indeed,
shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century the first attempts were made to
obtain wider historical information from the prosopographic material, by looking
at all the persons of one specific category, rather than particular individuals. One
of the first undertakings of this kind was the work on senators from Vespasian to
Trajan by Bruno Stech, published in 1912.8 Arthur Stein's comprehensive work
Der romische Ritterstand, published in 1927, was outstanding; but it did not imme
diately establish a clear line of research. It was not before the late thirties, about the
same time as the first volumes of the second edition of thePIR were published, that
scholars such as Larnbrechts, de Laet, and even Stein himself in quite quick succes-
7 http://www .bbaw .de/vhlpir/stichworte.html
8 B. Stech, Senatores Romani quifuerunt inde a Vespasiano usque ad Traiani exitum (Leipzig, 1912).
16 WernerEck
sion published works which examined the prosopographical evidence, especially
for groups of senators or governors of specific provinces, in order to provide more
general insights.9 But the actual breakthrough of prosopography as a method for
extracting historical information was made by R. Syme's masterpiece The Roman
Revolution, published one week after the beginning of the Second World War, on
7 September 1939. Likewise, in 1940 H.-G. Pflaum anonymously presented his
first work on the cursus publicus, which was mainly based on prosopographic re
search.10 Since then the prosopographical method has become one of the standard
tools with which to analyse the Roman history of the first three centuries AD. The
number of publications is almost uncountable; all social groups are examined in
this way, from the patricians at the peak of the social hierarchy to veterans, ordinary
villagers from Saittai in Asia Minor, freedmen and slaves of the emperor and of pri
vate persons. In spite of both intense polemics and partly justified criticism,11 this
line of research has lost nothing of its attraction-rightly so, for again and again
works are being presented which directly owe their historical insight to the results
provided by prosopographical material. Segolene Demougin' s L 'ordre equestre of
1988 or Anthony R. Birley's Hallrian: The Restless Emperor, published in 1997,
may be mentioned as examples. In the latter work the vivid picture of the emperor,
who is not seen in isolation but as part of a network of personal relationships, is
only possible because Birley lets the rich prosopographical material speak.
Almost all the prosopographical works on the Roman empire have one thing
in common: their source material predominantly or even solely comprises epi
graphic texts in Latin and Greek. Of course, other sources are taken into account as
well-i.e. historiographic and literary texts, coins and papyri-but the importance
of inscriptions is generally much greater. Most of the works could not have been
written without epigraphical sources. Prosopography and epigraphy are two sides
of one coin for the Roman empire: they are mutually dependent on each other, as
was indicated by Mommsen when in his application he stated that the realization of
a prosopography of the Roman empire was 'only possible after the inscriptions had
9 P. Larnbrechts, La composition du Senat romain de /'accession au trone d'Hadrien ii la mort
de Commode (117-192) (Antwerp, 1936); id., La composition du Senat romain de Septime Severe
ii Diocletien (193-284) (diss. Pannonicae, 1, 8; Budapest, 1937); S. J. de Laet, De samenstelling
van den Romeinschen Senaat gedurende de erste eeuw van het principaat 28 voor Chr.-68 na Chr.
(Antwerp, 1941); A. Stein, Die Legaten van Moesien (diss. Pannonicae,1, 11; Budapest, 1940; repr.
1964); id., Die Reichsbeamten von Dazien (diss. Pannonicae, 1, 12; Budapest, 1944).
10
H.-G. POaurn, 'Essai sur le cursus publicus sous le Haut-Empire rornain', Memoirs presentes par
divers savants a l'Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres de l'Institut de France, 1411 (Paris,
1940), 189-390; Les carrieres procuratoriennes equestres sous le Haut-Empire romain (Paris, 1960)
was his masterpiece.
11
See the various contributions on this topic in W. Eck, ed., Prosopographie und Sozialgeschichte:
Studien zur Methodik und Erkenntnismoglichkeit der kaiserzeitlichen Prosopographie. Kolloquium
Koln 24.-26. November 1991 (Cologne, 1993), with discussion of various criticisms concerning
prosopography.
PIR AND PROSOPOGRAPHICAL METHOD 17
been organized for use'. 12 This close connection between prosopography and epig
raphy on the one hand offers a rich range of material but at the same time means that
Roman prosopography is often circumscribed by the nature of epigraphic evidence.
A detailed example may illustrate the progress in historical insight which has
been made possible by this method. Time and again the question has been posed
as to how Roman supremacy succeeded in maintaining its considerable stability
over several centuries. Although Roman conquests were achieved for the most
part by military power, revolts against Rome were an exception; and this can only
partly be explained by the presence of the military. Other social and political fac
tors must have been involved. One of these factors was the integration of leading
local families into the Roman empire's elite. But literary sources only partially
illuminate when and how this integration took place, how soon it was carried out
in the respective provinces and whether all provinces were actually affected. The
phenomenon remains hard to determine and impossible to assess.
The literary sources do give reliable information about the family origins of
respective emperors, up to the late third century AD. Thus it is evident at the highest
level of power that Roman rule was no longer centred on Rome and Italy, but
had become a universal phenomenon in which all parts of the empire could par
ticipate. The year AD 69 shows that the successors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
no longer had to come from Rome. On the contrary, the origin of the families of
Otho, Vitellius or Vespasian were places like Ferentium in Etruria, Cales in lower
Italy and Reate in the Sabine country. By then the Italian regions were already
participating in power on an equal basis, to be followed by the Iberian peninsula
with Trajan and Hadrian and the south of France with the family of Antoninus
Pius. Africa Proconsularis was represented by Septimius Severus, Mauretania in
the far south-east of the empire by Macrinus and finally Syria by Elagabalus and
Severus Alexander. After Maximinus Thrax more and more emperors came from
the Romanized provinces along the middle and lower Danube.
In contrast to the emperors, however, our knowledge of the great majority of
senators comes not from historiographic testimonies, but from inscriptions of vari
ous kinds. This applies especially to the late first and even more so to the second
and third centuries AD, for which contemporary literature is for the most part lost.
Almost all the details we know about the mass of senators, like their names, offices
and family affairs, are preserved for us by inscriptions. It is this material above all,
combined with the literary sources available for individual areas and ages, such as
the works of Pliny the Younger or Comelius Fronto, that enables us to follow the
ascent of the local families from Italy and the provinces into the empire's elite.13
12
See above, n. 1.
13
The literature on this topic is extremely extensive. Only a few references can be given here: R.
Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939); id., Tacitus (Oxford, 1958); id., The Provincial at
18
WernerEck
As early as the late republic the Roman ruling class was no longer centred on
Rome. But Caesar began and Augustus in particular continued the systematic in
corporation of the municipal elites ofltaly into the senate and the equestrian class.
In particular, the tribes from the mountainous inner regions of the country, who
did not obtain the Roman citizenship before 90/89 BC, sent senators to Rome for
the first time under Augustus. The same applies to the Celtic Transpadana, which
lost its status as a province and became part of Italy only in 42 BC. At the same
time Augustus was already admitting some representatives of the elites of southern
France and Spain, the provinces of Narbonensis and Baetica, to the Senate. The
last senator not a member of the imperial dynasty to be allowed a triumph, in 19 BC,
was L. Cornelius Balbus from Gades in the south of Spain.14 D. Valerius Asiaticus
from Vienne, situated at the northern border of Narbonensis, became consul in
AD 35 and held the fasces again in 46: that is, he belonged to a very restricted
elite of the senate. So did M. Pompeius Silvanus from Arelate in the Narbonensis
who became consul suffectus in AD 45, consul iterum in 74, and was designated
consul Ill by Domitian for the year 83. He died, however, before he could take up
office. 15 Only twelve senators altogether reached a consulship for a third time in the
period of about 170 years from Augustus to Hadrian. Such a statistic reveals how
high this member of a family from Arelate had risen; his father had been admitted
to the senate in late Augustan times.
Not only the highly Romanized provinces in the west of the Mediterranean, but also
the eastern provinces, characterized by Greek culture, were able at a surprisingly
early stage to send representatives to join the ruling elite of Rome. Apart from a son
of Pompeius Theophanes from Mytilene, who had already received a seat in the
senate under Augustus, the first senators from the eastern provinces, particularly
from Asia and Lycia-Pamphylia, appear as far as we know under Claudius and
Nero. The actual breakthrough comes in the civil war in 69. For in the army of
Vespasian, who emerged victorious from the conflict, many of the serving eques
trian officers had their origin in the eastern provinces. Vespasian admitted some of
them to the senate by way of adlectio, such as C. Antius A. Iulius Quadratus from
Pergamon, C. Iulius Celsus Polemaeanus from Sardis or Catilius Longus from
Apameia in Pontus-Bithynia. These and several others quickly brought further rich
and ambitious countrymen with them, so that by the end of the age of Domitian a
Rome, ed. A. R. Birley (Exeter, 2000); EOS IT, ed. S. Panciera (Rome, 1982); W. Eck, 'Die Umgestal
tung der politischen Fiihrungsschicht: Senatorenstand und Ritterstand', in id., Die Verwaltung des
Romischen Reiches in der Hohen Kaiserzeit: Ausgewahlte und erweiterte Beitriige, I (Base! 1995)
'
103-58.
14 PIR2 C 1331.
15 Y. Bumand, 'Senatores Romani ex provinciis Galliarum orti', EOS IT. 387-437; W. Eck, 'Pom
peius' [116a],RE suppl. XIV (1974), 437 f.
PIR AND PROSOPOGRAPHICAL METHOD 19
substantial number o f men from the Greek-speak.ing east had entered the senate.
This knowledge has only been made possible by the prosopographical analysis of
the steadily increasing epigraphic material from the eastern Mediterranean. It con
tradicts what had been assumed until the forties of the twentieth century, namely
that it was Hadrian, the philhellenic emperor, who had enabled the local elites
from the east to enter the Roman ruling class in such numbers. In fact, members of
the eastern elites had made the breakthrough long before, a breakthrough initiated
not by Hadrian's idealistic view of the great value of Hellenistic culture, but by
the basic practical necessities of Vespasian's power politics. The officia which his
equestrian officers had rendered to him, by their commitment in the course of his
rise to power, Vespasian paid back with the beneficium of admittance to the senate;
Hadrian at the most accelerated this process. By the end of the second century one
6
third of the senate consisted of senators from the east.1
However, the prosopographical data also reveal that certain prerequisites ex
,
isted for leading local families to be admitted to senatorial rank. For it is clear that
the first senators from Asia Minor were for the most part descended either from
families of Italian immigrant origin or from royal or tetrarchic families. The local
aristocrats of the Greek-speaking world without such a background took longer to
be admitted to the senate, in some cities very much longer. It is noticeable that it
was only during the reign of Septimius Severus that the first senator from the rich
provincial capital ofEphesus reached the consulate, and thereby entered the ruling
circle of the empire.17 Still, it is hard to believe that the emperors were paying
attention to historic origins when they admitted new eastern families to the senate.
The reason for the early admittance of families of this particular background may
rather be rooted in their attitude and ambition, as well as in the simple fact of
how well they had mastered the Latin language, which was surely an essential
prerequisite for every senator in the second century AD and long after that.
Not all areas and provinces of the Greek east were equally represented in the
senate. Most senators came from Asia, followed by Lycia-Pamphylia and later also
Syria, whereas we know of almost no senators from Cappadocia and not a single
one from Judaea/Syria Palaestina.18 An explanation for this, which admittedly
seems quite reasonable, was thought to lie in the peculiar character of this province
16
H. Halfmann, Die Senatoren aus dem ostlichen Teil des Imperium Romanum bis zum Ende des
2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr (Hypomnemata, 58; Gottingen, 1979); id., 'Die Senatoren aus den kleinasi
atischen Provinzen des romischen Reiches vom 1. bis zum 3. Jahrhundert (Asia, Pontus-Bithynia,
Lycia-Pamphylia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia)', EOS TI. 603-50.
17 Die Inschriften von Ephesos, Ill. Inschriften griechischer Stadte a us Kleinasien, 13, ed. H. Engel
mann, D. Knibbe and R. Merkelbach (Bono, 1980), no. 648; cf. Halfmann, 'Die Senatoren aus den
kleinasiatischen Provinzen', 628.
18 G. Bowersock, 'Roman senators from the Near East: Syria, Judaea, Arabia, Mesopotamia', EOS IT.
651-68.
20 WernerEck
and its inhabitants, and particularly in the Jewish religion, which made integration
impossible for both sides. This line of argument should, however, have been ques
tioned, since it was known how many of the cities of this province were organized
in a Roman or Greek form. Caesarea and Aelia Capitolina were Roman colonies;
Scythopolis, for example, was organized as a polis, like many other cities. Why
should they have developed in such a completely different way?
As we know now, conceptions about Judaea/Syria Palestina were incorrect. No
attention had been paid to the fact that the absence of prosopographical evidence
does not necessarily mean that the relevant phenomenon did not exist. It may just
as well be that, for one reason or another, the sources which provide this type of
information never existed in a certain province or that we simply have not yet
found them. This was the case for a long time in Judaea/Syria Palaestina. Only
in the last two decades has an increasing number of excavations been undertaken
in the cities of the area that were important during the Roman imperial period.
These investigations have uncovered inscriptions which substantially modify our
conceptions. While no family from Judaea/Syria Palaestina which made it to
the senate has yet been identified, T. Flavius Iuncus, citizen of Flavia Neapolis,
modem Nablus, is now known to have gained access to the procuratorial order
under Trajan and to have achieved the patrimonial procuratorship of the province
of Asia in the early years of Hadrian. He therefore belonged to the second ordo of
the empire, the equestrian class from which senators were mainly recruited. 19 From
the provincial capital Caesarea at least two families belonging to the equester ordo
are now known as well; a member of one of these municipal families, L. Valerius
Martialis, served as tribune in one of the legions of Syria Palaestina around 163.20
Another procurator, who held major equestrian offices under Caracalla, may also
have come from Caesarea.
So these newly acquired prosopographical data clearly show that Judaea/Syria
Palaestina was no exception at all, but shared in the general process which we have
come to expect throughout the empire. Thus recent prosopographical material has
clarified the situation in a province which had been considered to have a special
status for apparently significant reasons. The process of integration, which was so
essential for the stability of the Roman empire, was much more extensive than had
been assumed.
At the same time this example points out one of the major methodological prob
lems in prosopographical research. It warns us against using our sources, and espe-
19 W. Eck, 'Flavius Iuncus, Biirger von Flavia Neapolis und kaiserlicher Prokurator', Acta Classica
42 (1999),67-75.
20
H. M. Cotton and W. Eck, 'A new inscription from Caesarea Maritima and the local elite of
Caesarea Maritima', in Leonard V. Rutgers, ed., What Athens Has to Do with Jerusalem: Essays on
Classical, Jewish, and Early Christian Art and Archaeology in Honor of Gideon Foerster (Leuven,
2002) (in press).
P!R AND PROSOPOGRA PHICAL METHOD 21
cially their non-existence, directly and without analysis to gain information. The
non-existence of sources can have various reasons. In Judaea the relevant inscrip
tions remained unknown through lack of excavations. This does not apply to other
areas of the empire, where extensive work has been carried out in the former Roman
cities. Yet some kinds of sources will not be found even by further excavation. This
applies in the provinces of Gaul and Germany, where specific types of epigraphic
texts hardly existed or were totally absent-precisely the kind of text that has been
found in Judaea/Syria Palaestina over the last two decades. But this is exactly the
type of source which allows us to infer the origin of senators and equestrians. What
conclusions may a historian draw from the lack of such sources? We may certainly
not conclude that the phenomenon itself did not exist: that is, in this case, that there
were no or only a few senatorial and equestrian families in the Gallic-Germanic
provinces.21 For it is just as possible that such families simply remain unknown
to us, only because they are not mentioned in the kind of sources that we have.
In such a case we have to admit that we simply cannot draw any conclusions.
However, the horror vacui must not dominate the ars nesciendi. This applies to
the prosopography of the imperial period as well as to all other scientific research.
A P PENDIX
Mommsen 's Application to the Berlin Academy
Antrag Mommsens an die konigliche Akadernie in Berlin vom 31. Mai 1874, eine Proso
pographie der Kaiserzeit ausarbeiten zu lassen.22
page 1:
Wenn das Untemehmen der Akademie die griechischen
und Jateinischen Inschriften zu sarnmeln, vollstiindig seinen
Zweck erreichen soli, so ist wenn nicht fur die altere, doch
gewiB fur die Epoche der Kaiserzeit noch eine weitere vor
bereitende Arbeit erforderlich, die die Krafte des einzelnen Ge
lehrten iibersteigt. Ein sehr wesentlicher Theil des daraus zu
ziehenden Gewinns besteht einerseits in der Ermoglichung einer
21
See W. Eck, 'Die Struktur der Stlidte in den nordwestlichen Provinzen und ihr Beitrag zur Adminis
tration des Reiches', in W. Eck and H. Galsterer, eds., Die Stadt in Oberitalien und in den nordwest
lichen Provinzendes ri:JmischenReiches (Mainz, 1991), 73-84='La struttura delle citta nelle province
nordoccidentali e il loro contributo all'amminjstrazione dell'impero', in id., Tra epigrajia, proso
pografia e archeologia: Scritti scelti, rielaborati ed aggiomati (Vetera, 10; Rome, 1996),95-106.
22
As mentioned in n. I, Dr Anika Strobach of the PIR department of the Berlin-Brandenburgische
Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin kindly provided me with a copy of this application. Hartmut
Wolff and Stefan Rebenich helped me with great amiability to decipher Mommsen's difficult hand
writing. I thank all of them. The transcription preserves Momrnsen's line division; his punctuation
marks have also been maintained.
22 WernerEck

relativ vollstandigen Prosopographie der namhafteren Manner

dieser Epoche, andrerseits in der Aufstellung chronologisch geord
neter Consuln= und Statthalter= und tiberhaupt Magistratischer
Listen, mit welchen man verkehrter Weise oft begonnenhat,
die aber bei richtiger Behandlung vielmehr das ErgebniB einer
solchen Prosopographie und gewillermaBen ein Auszug daraus
sind. Eine Arbeit dieser Art ist nur ausfiihrbar, nachdem
das inschriftliche Material zum Gebrauche geordnet vorliegt.
Selbstverstandlich aber kann sie sich darauf nicht beschranken,
sondem hat auch die Schriftsteller und nicht minder die
Mtinzen ebenmaBig zu berticksichtigen.

page2:

Es ist irnmer meine Absicht gewesen eine zusarnmenfaBende Arbeit

dieser Art an die Inschriftenwerke anzuschlieBen.Dieselben dtirften jetzt
weit genug vorgeschritten sein, urn jenes Folgewerk in Angriff zu
nehmen; wahrend andrerseits der gegenwartige Moment vom
akadernischen Standpunct uns wohl geeignet sein diirfte eine solche allerdings
weitschichtige Untersuchung ins Leben treten zu laBen.
Ich schlage darum vor rnich zu bevollmachtigen zur Erstellung einer
Proso(po)graphie der narnhaften Personen der rbrnischen Kaisert.eit die Vor
arbeiten zu veranlaBen, und zwar zunachst die systematische Excerpirung
der Schriftsteller so wie der Inschriften= und Mtinzwerke fiir diesen Zweck
in Angriff zu nehmen. Es ist meine Absicht jtingeren Philologen, die
rnir fiir diesen Zweck geeignet erscheinen, die einzelnen Schriftsteller
so wie die fertigen Bande der Corpora inscr. Lat. Et. Graecarum, Medi
corum zum Excerpiren zu iiberweisen. Wie es spaterhin rnit der Redactio
dieser Excerpte gehalten werden soli, bleibt weiterer EntschlieBung
vorbehalten. Ich habe die sichere Aussicht geeignete Theilredacteure
seiner Zeit dafiir zu gewinnen, glaube aber im Interesse der
Sache selbst fiir jetzt von bestirnmten Vorschlagen in dieser Hinsicht ab
sehen zu mtiBen. Ftir jetzt wtirde ich bitten die Auswahl der zu
excerpirenden Werke, die Bestimmung der geeigneten Personen und
die Aufstellung der Specialinstructionen rnir anzuvertrauen und

page 3:

rnir zu diesem Ende einen Credit von 1000 rtt zu iiberweisen,

iiber deren vOllige oder theilweise Verwendung ich bei JahresschluB
Rechnung legen und die Quittungen der einzelnen Empflinger bei
bringen werde. Nach Erschbpfung dieser Surnme behalte ich rnir vor,
weitere Antrage an die K. Akadernie zu richten. Solite es zweck
maBig erscheinen zur Zeit nur eine geringere Surnme zu bewilligen,
so wtirde ich auch dagegen, falls nur die Akadernie im Allgemeinen
den aufgestellten Plan billigt, keine Einwendung erheben.

Berlin

Mai 1874 MommsenDr.