The ', abbreviated ''PIR'', is a collective historical work to establish the prosopography of high-profile people from the

Roman empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

. The time period covered extends from the

Battle of Actium The Battle of Actium was a naval battle fought between a maritime fleet of Octavian led by Marcus Agrippa and the combined fleets of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII Philopator. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC in the Ionian Sea, ...

in 31 BC to the reign of Diocletian. The final volume of the second edition, ''PIR²'', vol. IX, V–Z, appeared in November 2015.

History

The first edition was rapidly achieved and published in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

in the line of the great works of scholarship from the historical school of economics which had been successful in achieving the project of a corpus of all the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

inscriptions, the '' Corpus inscriptionum latinarum''. Led by Elimar Klebs, Hermann Dessau and Paul von Rohden,Jean Maurin, ''La prosopographie romaine : pertes et profits'', ''Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations'', 37th year, N. 5-6, 1982. pp. 824-836.

p. 835 note 23 the first edition of the ''PIR'' was edited in three volumes from 1897 to 1898. The implementation of a second edition was last updated in 1933 for publication in Berlin. The first booklet of the second edition was led by

Edmund Groag Edmund Groag (2 February 1873, in Prerau – 19 August 1945, in Vienna) was an Austrian classical scholar, who specialized in Roman history. From 1892 he studied history and philology at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 18 ...

and Arthur Stein who brought together the letters A and B. The publication was interrupted by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

while working on the letter F (1943). From 1952 they took the direction of Stein and then Leiva Petersen. After German unification the project found a new dynamic. It was from then on led by K. Wachtel. The fascicle concerning the letter S was then published in 2006, and T in 2009. The index of names and people integral to the ''PIR'' was in the meantime made searchable on the website of the ''PIR''.''PIR'' website (German)
/ref> Volume 2 of the ''PIR'' includes notes for all the well-known Roman senators, the nobles, and some civil servants not of equestrian rank, such as

manumitted Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that ...

imperial freedmen who are attested in the literary tradition. Entries in the ''PIR'' are indexed by the initial letter of the name, then by the number of the entry, i.e.

Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus ( 125 – 193 AD) was a politician and military commander during the 2nd century in the Roman Empire. A general under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Pompeianus distinguished himself during Rome's wars against the Part ...

corresponds to the entry PIR² C 973: the 973rd entry under the letter C. For periods after the third century which the ''PIR'' does not cover, there is ''

Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire ''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date ...

'' by A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, and John Morris.

References

Bibliography

* ''Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec I. II. III'' (first edition). Berlin, 1897-1898. * ''Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec I. II. III'' (second edition). Berlin, 1933-2015. * A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale, J. Morris, ''

'', Cambridge, 1971-1992 *

Werner Eck Werner Eck (born 17 December 1939) is Professor of Ancient History at Cologne University, Germany, and a noted expert on the history and epigraphy of imperial Rome.Eck, W. (2007) ''The Age of Augustus''. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, cover notes. Hi ...

: ''The Prosopographia Imperii Romani and Prosopographical Method''. In:

Averil Cameron Dame Averil Millicent Cameron ( Sutton; born 8 February 1940), often cited as A. M. Cameron, is a British historian. She was Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at the University of Oxford, and the Warden of Keble College, Oxford ...

(Hrsg.): ''Fifty Years of Prosopography. The Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and Beyond''. University Press, Oxford 2003, S. 11–22, (Proceedings of the British Academy, 118).

External links

Website for ''PIR²''
{{Authority control Prosopography of ancient Rome History books about ancient Rome 19th-century Latin books 20th-century Latin books

History

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links