Epigraphic Database Roma

Epigraphic Database Roma
Name	Epigraphic Database Roma
Type	Digital epigraphy
Established	2006
Owner	Sapienza University of Rome
Country	Italy
Language	Latin, Greek, Italian, English

Epigraphic Database Roma is a digital corpus and research infrastructure focused on ancient inscriptions from the city of Rome and its environs. The project integrates philology, archaeology, and classical studies to provide searchable records of Latin and Greek epigraphy for scholars working with material from Rome, Latium, Italia, and related Roman provinces. It interfaces with institutional collections held by Sapienza University of Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, Istituto di Studi Romani, and international databases to support comparative work with inscriptions from Ostia Antica, Pompeii, and Herculaneum.

Overview

The project aggregates epigraphic texts, photographs, and metadata to serve researchers in ancient Rome, classical archaeology, and Roman law. It links inscription records to monuments such as the Colosseum, Forum Romanum, and Pantheon, and to personalities attested epigraphically like Augustus, Nero, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Livy, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Seneca the Younger, Cassius Dio, Appian, Cassiodorus, Aurelian, Constantine the Great, Julia Domna, Cornelia Africana, Scipio Africanus, Cato the Elder, Pompey, Mark Antony, Brutus, Cassius Longinus, Sulla, Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula, Vespasian, Domitian, Commodus, Maxentius, Theodosius I, Belisarius, Alaric I, Odoacer, Romulus Augustulus, Pope Gregory I, Saint Peter, Saint Paul.

History and Development

Founded in the early 2000s under the aegis of Sapienza University of Rome and initiatives in digital humanities promoted by European Union research funding, the project matured alongside parallel efforts such as EDR (Epigraphic Database Roma) collaborations with The Packard Humanities Institute, British Museum, École Française de Rome, American Academy in Rome, and the Deutsche Archäologische Institut. Key editorial figures included scholars trained in traditions stemming from Eduard Gerhard, Giovanni Battista Piranesi-era antiquarianism and later methodologies influenced by Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Theodor Mommsen, Robinson Ellis, Giovanni Coarelli, Silvia Orlandi, and other noted epigraphers. Institutional partnerships with Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo e l'Area Archeologica di Roma, and universities such as University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Munich, Heidelberg University expanded digitization programs and image archives.

Database Content and Scope

The corpus includes funerary inscriptions, honorific texts, public decrees, legal formulas, dedicatory inscriptions, milestone records, and graffiti. Records often reference civic institutions like the Curia Julia, magistrates such as consuls and praetors, collegia attested in inscriptions tied to sites like Thermae, Circus Maximus, and the Via Appia. The geographic scope prioritizes Rome proper and Suburbio, but connections to provincial centres—Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Lyon (Lugdunum), Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Cologne (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium), Ephesus, Smyrna, Athens—allow comparative prosopography. The database catalogs epigraphic hands, letter-forms, formulaic expressions (e.g., tituli, vota, cursus honorum), and references to legal texts such as the Twelve Tables and imperial constitutions preserved in collections like the Codex Theodosianus.

Data Model and Standards

Records follow international standards derived from projects such as EpiDoc and the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, encoding texts in XML with TEI-informed markup. Metadata fields document findspot coordinates tied to gazetteers like the Pelagios and link to authority lists including the Prosopographia Imperii Romani, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, and the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Paleographic descriptions reference typologies used by scholars such as Bernard Andreae and connect to imaging standards promoted by DARIAH and CLARIN infrastructures. Licensing and citation practices align with norms from Creative Commons where applicable and cataloguing conventions of the International Council on Archives.

Access, Search Tools, and Interfaces

The platform provides multilingual search forms with faceted filters for chronology, material, findspot, and epigraphic formulae, interoperating with portals like Europeana, Pelagios, Pleiades, Nomisma, Perseus Project, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, PROPYLAEUM, and library catalogues at Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Library of Congress, Bodleian Library, Vatican Library. Advanced functions support fuzzy date ranges tied to reigns of emperors and magistracies (e.g., Augustus to Romulus Augustulus), coordinate-based mapping with OpenStreetMap overlays, and IIIF-compatible image delivery for high-resolution photography.

Usage and Research Impact

Scholars in fields connected to Roman epigraphy, Roman social history, Roman prosopography, Latin philology, Greek epigraphy and ancient religion use the resource for studies on onomastics, mobility, and urban topography. The database underpins publications in journals such as Journal of Roman Studies, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Antiquity, Classical Quarterly, and monographs from presses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Brill, Routledge, and Edizioni Quasar. It supports digital projects analyzing networks of elites found in the Prosopographia Imperii Romani and computational linguistics work tied to the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.

Technical Infrastructure and Maintenance

The system runs on relational and graph databases linked to content delivery networks managed by university IT services and hosted on research computing clusters affiliated with CINECA and national e-infrastructure initiatives. Preservation strategies follow guidelines from Portico and the Digital Preservation Coalition, with backups coordinated with national archives and museum partners like the Capitoline Museums and the Vatican Museums. Ongoing curation involves epigraphists, IT specialists, and collaborators across Europe and North America to maintain compatibility with evolving standards such as IIIF and updates to the EpiDoc schema.

Category:Epigraphy Category:Digital humanities Category:Classical studies