The DataCons Project: An Open-Access Database of Late Roman Consular Date

1. General information

Dataset creator: Dosi, Marco (Department of History, King’s College London)

Related publication (forthcoming): ‘The DataCons Project: An Open-Access Dataset of Late Roman Consular Date’, in Journal of Open Humanities Data, 2023/2024.

Object name: DataCons Dataset version 2.0.0

Format names and versions: CSV UTF-8

Creation date: 2017-10-1

Language: Ancient Greek, Latin, English

License: CC BY-SA Int. 4.0

Publication date: 2023/12/02

2. Overview

The DataCons Project aims at collecting and publishing the entire corpus of late Roman consular dating formulae from CE 284 to 541. The current version of the dataset (2.0.0) presents the Latin and Greek documentation dated CE 476 to 526, exclusively comprising papyri and inscriptions.

3. Dataset Structure

All data is sorted by key attributes and stored in a .csv UTF-8 file. In dataset version 2.0.0, the attributes include:

Attribute
Unique identifier	A unique identifier for each single formula. Numbering does not start from 1 as this dataset is part of a larger dataset.
Possible Year(s)	lists the full range of possible dates assigned by the author to a formula, or those proposed by other scholars.
Year Assigned	reveals the author’s chosen date.
Year Assigned (m.l.d. e.app.)	aims for greater specificity grounded in tested qualitative and/or quantitative assumptions.
Class.	currently includes two classes of material: epigraphic (Epi.) and papyrological (Papy.)
Carrier	enables user searches by text carriers such as, for instance, inscriptions, sarcophagi, altars, tablets, mosaics, papyri and ostraca.
Language	indicates the language and/or script of a formula, highlighting cases where they do not correspond.
Type	signifies the overall character of the text (i.e. ‘funeral’, ‘administrative’, ‘legal/fiscal’, ‘military’, ‘monumental’, and ‘others’ encompassing unofficial or miscellaneous content), also indicating when the general character is unknown.
Text	offers detailed distinctions in dated text, like categorising papyri as wills, dowries, or receipts; discerning inscriptions as funerary, honorary, or legal, such as diplomas or edicts.
Evidence	This includes key bibliographic references for each entry, serving as the primary reference source for every item in the dataset.
Formula (full titulature)	provides a strict transcription of the formula as found in the source material, i.e. in its original language and with all the elements of the dating clause (the titulary, day, month, indiction, provincial era and place of dating), if given. Abbreviations, errors and restorations are detailed using the Leiden convention.
Formula (Full titulature, simplified)	retains only key details, including aberrations (e.g. inversion of names, wrong names and numerals). It is given in Latin (the Greek is translated into Latin) following the practice in CLRE.
Formula (simplified)	is optimised for computational analysis.
Day	provides the diurnal date, when mentioned in the formula.
Month	provides the month designation (in Roman numerals), when mentioned in the formula.
Indiction	The indiction is provided if it is a component of the dating formula; otherwise, it is included in the ‘Other supporting dating elements’ column when identified in the text.
Other supporting dating elements	This column encompasses all the additional chronological elements that support the dating of the evidence, which include: the archaeological context, archive affiliation, elements of the titulary, textual cues, and local dating systems, extracted from either the dating clause or the text.
Errors	A further section allows users to search by errors found in text. NA signifies that the reviewed evidence contains no errors
Place	provides the findspot and or place of provenance.
Latitude	provides the findspot’s latitude.
Longitude	provides the findspot’s longitude.
Region	indicates the ancient region where the findspot is located.
Macro-Region	indicates the ancient region where the findspot is located.
Image	provides a digitised image of the original text or its transcription when the former is no longer preserved.
Trismegistos	privides the link to the web page of the item published on Trismegistos.
EDR	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Epigraphic Database Roma.
EDB	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Epigraphic Database Bari.
EDCS	provides the link to the web page of the item published on EDCS Epigraphik Datenbank Clauss / Slaby.
EDH	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Epigraphic Database Heidelberg.
LSA	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Last Statues of Antiquity Project.
PHI	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Packard Humanities Institute Epigraphy Project.
ISic	provides the link to the web page of the item published on I.Sicily Oxford Epigraphic Database.
DDbDP	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Papyri.info, including the material available through the Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS), the Bibliographie Papyrologique (BP) and, obviously, the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri.
BL	provides the link to the web page of the item published on The British Library.
PSI	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Catalogo Informatico dei PSI – Papiri della Società Italiana e P. Laur. – Papiri della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
PapPal	provides the link to the web page of the item published on PapPal.
HGV	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis der griechischen Papyrusurkunden Ägyptens – HGV.
BerlPap	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Berliner Papyrusdatenbank - Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung.
Öster. Nationalbibl.	provides the link to the web page of the item published on Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

4. Date Range Notation

When indicating a range of dates, the use of ‘/’, ‘,’, or ‘or’ is interchangeable and conveys the same meaning. For example, a document that could date from either 476 or 477 can be listed as ‘476/477’, ‘476, 477’, or ‘476 or 477’ without implying any difference. Similarly, a document with possible dates of 510, 513, or 516 can be represented as ‘510/513/516’, ‘510, 513, 516’, or ‘510, 513 or 516’, all of which are equivalent

5. Years m.l.d. & m.l.d. (e.app.)

The dataset uses the term “m.l.d.” and "m.l.d.(e.app.) also applied in the “Year Assigned (m.l.d. e.app.)” column. This notion is an essential part of the methodology for determining dates based on consular formulae. It is used to classify dates that are deemed the most probable based on a combination of three assumptions.

m.l.d.: This acronym stands for “most likely date”. It indicates that the assigned year is the most probable based on the available evidence and certain assumptions about the dating process. The assignment of “m.l.d.” typically involves applying two key assumptions:
1. Provisional consular formulae with only one consul were not common before AD 411, as joint proclamations were the norm (CLRE: 17-8; Dosi 2022: 169-174).
2. To avoid confusion with homonymous consuls, suffixes like “iunior” and occasionally “alius” were used (CLRE: 40-46; Dosi 2022: 383-96).
e.app.: This extension, which can be added to form “m.l.d. e.app.”, signifies a more comprehensive consideration of assumptions. It includes the same considerations as “m.l.d.” but also incorporates an additional assumption:
1. People generally adhered to the standard dating formula that was disseminated.

This implies that “m.l.d. (e.app.)” represents a date determined by considering all three assumptions, making it a more speculative estimate.

6. Regional Classification

The regional labels for classifying evidence are based on the administrative boundaries of the late Roman Empire. These include:

Italia: the Italian peninsula with all its island systems, the provinces of Raetia I and II and the city of Rome.
Gallia: the region encompassing modern France, Belgium, Luxembourg, as well as portions of Germany and Switzerland.
Western Illyricum: the Roman provinces of Dalmatia, Pannonia II, Valeria, Pannonia I, Noricum and Savia.
North Africa: the Roman provinces of Proconsularis, Byzacena, Tripolitania, Numidia, Mauretania Tabia, Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana.
Hispaniae: the Iberian peninsula and its island systems.
Britain: the British isles, with the exclusion of Ireland.
Egypt and Cyrenaica: covering Egypt from the Delta to Aswan, including the oases in the western desert, along with the Roman province of Cyrenaica.
Oriens: the homonymous diocese after its reorganisation in c. 370, minus Cilicia and Isauria, which are treated as part of the Anatolian region.
Asia Minor: encompasses the Anatolian Plateau as far east as the Armenian Highlands and the northern-most outskirts of the Mesopotamian plain.
Eastern Illyricum: designating the city of Constantinople and the homonymous prefecture created after 437, excluding Sirmium.

7. Bibliography

7.1 Abbreviations in use
For a full list of abbreviations of corpora and bibliographical references cited in the dataset, please refer to the following resources:

For Papyri and Ostraca: J.F. Oates et al., (eds.), Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, 5th ed. (Atlanta, 2001), accessible from https://papyri.info/docs/checklist.
For Inscriptions: M. Dosi, Consular Dating and Consular Dissemination in Late Antiquity. PhD dissertation, King’s College London, 2022. G. Tsolakis, ‘Epigraphic Abbreviations,’ in E.Sverkos, G.Tsolakis, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Consolidated Concordances for Volumes XLVI – LX (1996 – 2010), 2021, Leiden: Brill, XV-CXXVI, accessible from: https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/sego/abbreviations/
For journals and other corpora: Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th edn)

7.2. Works cited in this README file

CLRE = Bagnall, R. S., Cameron, A., Schwartz, S. R., & Worp, K. A. Consuls of the later Roman Empire. Atlanta; 1987.

Dosi, M. Consular Dating and Consular Dissemination in Late Antiquity. PhD dissertation, King’s College London; 2022. [Online]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18742/pqvw-fh97