Graph based modelling of prosopographical datasets. Case study: Romans 1by1.

In this paper, we present and discuss a promising research avenue, that is the use of graph-based models and software for prosopographical data sets. Our case study will be constituted by Romans 1by1 (http://romans1by1.com/), a digital-born prosopography focusing on people attested in classical era inscriptions; it presently hosts approximately 18,000 open access persons files. The project aimed at employing new techniques and methodologies that come from other fields (i.e. computer science), in order to approach the study of ancient population in an innovative way, to ease the research, and to create an open-access tool, available for the academic community. In the scope of this paper, we use Romans1by1 as an example to explore the perspectives of ingesting the information from a prosopographical relational database into a graph database. Graph based modelling was employed to reveal data and details on the lives of the 'ordinary' people who lived in the Roman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]