WEBSITE ATTICA
Website Attica complements and enhances the
published volumes of Persons of Ancient Athens. The addenda et corrigenda to the published
volumes, which are issued as a supplement to PAA periodically,
are regularly updated at this web site. Searches may be made 10,000 names of the
ATHENIANS database in beta, gamma, and delta (second half of
volume 4, the whole of volume 5, and the first third of volume
6). The possible searches range from selecting every person in
a particular deme or of a specified profession to more
sophisticated searches, e.g. to find all Athenians who lived
between specified years and/or are related to a certain person
and/or are attested in a class of document, etc.
The results of searches give an up-to-date version of the
data in the printed volume (the 'formatted version'), now with
transliterated Greek texts. The search form is divided into fields
similar to those in the computer database; these do not always
correspond exactly to the position in which the information
appears in the formatted version. The fields shown in the search
form are detailed below, with a summary of the database
information from the 'Description of Entries' appearing in each
of the printed volumes, together with additional information
about the contents of each field to help in the defining of
search terms. Access to the printed volumes
of PAA is desirable, both for understanding this section and
for the formulation of search requests.
SEARCHING THE DATABASE
Search results MAY BE LARGE: the whole file for each
person who meets the criteria specified is retrieved each time.
Thus a search for persons whose activity/id was concerned with
Euboia will retrieve, among others, the whole range of
activities and kin of the orator Demosthenes (some 61 records
and 255 references) among which you will find 'trierarch sent to
Euboia, 357a.'
For notes on the use of special characters in formulating
searches (i.e., 'wildcards' like '.' for a single character),
see the Notes section of the search form. GREEK NAMES are
entered in CAPITAL LETTERS, transliterated using:
C=ksi, F=phi, H=eta, Q=theta, U=upsilon, W=omega, Y=psi.
Fields in the Search Form: Section 1
- Num.
- Each person has a 6-digit Num(ber), which is attached to all
the records about that person's activities or relationships.
For searching you can specify an individual num, or use the
wildcard '.' to specify a range of numbers (useful for
statistical searches): e.g., typing '306...' in the Num field
limits the search to all persons between 306000 (DHMAGAQH) and
306997 (DHMHTRIA). Note that a Num is also assigned to
cross-references, like 'BAXIOS see also BAKXIOS', and that the
number of the Nums assigned in any given range of numbers varies
considerably -- interleaving of new material takes place
regularly, and space for expansion has been left at intervals in
the numbering system.
- Status.
- The pull-down menu in Status allows searches to be limited
to a number of categories based on citizenship (see the Notes on
the search form for interpretation of the abbreviations). The
records retrieved show additional information about citizenship:
certain, attributed (with *), doubtful (with ?), and whether the
citizenship is attested inside or outside Athens or both (in,
out, in+out).
- Clicking the button "fem" in the search form restricts the
search to women, about one tenth of the database: the records
retrieved show (f) after the Status.
- Name.
- Specifying a name will restrict searches to persons with
that name, and the following 'not' field allows one to restrict
the name even further: e.g., Name {DHMOS.*} not DHMOSQENHS would
retrieve all names containing DHMOS followed by any number of
letters (or none), excluding names ending in -DHMOS (the { }s
specify a whole word not part of a word), and excluding anyone
with the name DHMOSQENHS (not just the orator).
- Since variant orthography is maintained -- e.g. BAXXIOS is
distinguished from BAKXIOS -- one should use 'wildcard' searches
to include all forms: BA.XIOS would retrieve both spellings, and
BA.*XIOS would include also BAXIOS. Broken names (i.e., names
containing dashes or dots representing unknown letters) may be
excluded from the search by clicking the button "only if whole".
Other information contained in the 'Code' field in the database
can be specified in Comment (see below).
- PA or Roman name.
- Citation in Kirchner (the PA number), Sundwall (S), or
Davies (D), additional O KAI or H KAI appellations, and
supplementary Roman names appear in this field in the database.
PA numbers are entered as digits only, so entering a # sign in
this field will limit the selection to persons who appear in Kirchner's
Prosopographia Attica, and entering an @ (for some letters,
i.e., not blank) and a # sign in the following 'not' field
will select people with an additional Roman name. Of course, a
name like AURHLIOS can always be specified, selecting all those
with the additional nomen of Aurelius.
- Place.
- Place contains the demotic or ethnic of a person.
As with Name and Kin, variant othography, e.g. MILHSIOS and
MEILHSIOS, ALWPEKHQEN and ALWPEKEUS, along with special forms
using EK (or EG), should be considered in searches for demotics
and ethnics. The feminine forms of ethnics are generally well
known, and are common in Attic gravestones. Proper feminine
'demotics', however, are rare, the usual designation being EK +
the genitive plural of the masculine demotic. Metics are usually
listed with EN (or EM, as phonetically appropriate) and the
dative of the deme name, e.g. EN KOLLUTWI, EM MELITEI. For
homonymous demes the appropriate phyle should be selected from
the phyle menu. For the split or divided demes the designator,
usually KAQUPERQEN (Upper) or UPENERQEN (Lower), can be
specified in Comment (see below), as can alternative place
names, although they appear in the results attached to the
demotic.
- Phyle.
- The results obtained from limiting the search to
one of the phylai in the pull-down menu will include that phyle
also in combination with alternative phylai. The attribution of
demes to the five post-Kleisthenic phylai has been taken from
The Political Organization of Attica, pp. 109-112. (NB a
topographical and constitutional database of the Attic demes
providing this and other information, and linked to this
database, is under construction.) Again it is sensible to keep
in mind that the indefinite or undetermined dating of many
inscriptions permits a number of phyle attributions for some
demotics, particularly the homonymous pairs of OINAIOS and EC
OIOU.
- Link.
- A selection of relationships appears in the pull-down
menu. Selecting a multiple link, such as adopted/adoptive, or
uncle/aunt/nephew/niece, will retrieve records with any of the
individual links specified.
- Kin name.
- Kin name is exactly like Name: variant spellings
can be found with one search using the special character
'wildcards' given in the Notes on the search form. The Kin name
does not include alternate names, Roman tria nomina, extended
family etc; these appear in the formatted version after
the Kin name but are stored in the database in a comment field;
search terms for these Kin modifiers should be entered in
Comment (see below).
- Id/Activity.
- The Notes should be consulted for a table of
common abbreviations, expanded in the printed version and in
search results, which should be used in searches (e.g., to
search for persons with 'casualty' as an Id in the formatted
version one should enter {cas} in the Activity field in the
search form) -- also for examples showing the use of special
character 'wildcards' and the excluder 'not'. Browsing the
printed volumes will give an idea of the scope of searchable
terms: names of opponents, ships, proxenoi, deities, places
where an activity has been carried out, offices held, etc.
- Date.
- Searches may be limited by using conventional
dating formulas (e.g., c Ip = around the first century AD), but
the From-To 'window' was specially designed for computer
searching. From and To are arbitrary derivations (see the
'Description of Entries' in PAA volumes). Note also the
backdating and 'widened windows' for parents, and grandparents,
and other pecularities and anomalies in date conversion. When
entering dates in From and To, use negative numbers for BC
dates, positive for AD.
- Comment.
- This field represents additional information
both about the main person (stored in the NB field in the
database) and about the Kin (stored in the Kincom field in the
database). It contains headings which can be used as search
terms; these headings are omitted or expanded in the formatted
version, and the information after the heading is often
reformatted to appear with the main field it modifies.
- Some modifiers of Kin (which mostly appear in the formatted
version after the Kin name) are:
- Altkin: alternate reading or restoration of the name
- Fkin: full name, including O KAI or H KAI and Roman names
- Kinx: additional relatives (e.g. 'daughter of ...')
- Kinplace: ethnic or demotic different from that of the
person in Name
- Kinid: activity of the Kin (used for Kin whose names do not
preserve the first letter(s), and who will not have a
separate entry except in Volume 19, broken names)
- Kinstat: status of broken-named Kin
- Some headings for the main person are:
- Namemod: e.g., NEWTEROS or PRESBUTEROS
- Altname: alternate readings or restorations (but not O/H
KAI names which appear in the main field 'PA or Roman name')
- Placemod: usually identifier for divided demes (e.g., UPENERQEN)
- Archon: the name of archons whose dating is controversial
- Fstem: reference to treatment of the family, usually with
stemma, which appears in the formatted version as 'Treated in
...'
- Xref: reference to treatment of the individual (converted to
'Cf ...' in the formatted text), e.g., Stefanes, TrGF, PCG
- Xstem: relationship to another person in the database
supplying also his/her Num
- PID: nums of persons who may be the same ('possibly the same as').
- Altdate: alternate date (added to date in formatted version)
- Fdate: full date (an entry too long for the fixed-length
'Date' field in the database, replaces the shortened 'Date' in
the formatted version)
- NB: 'NB see ...' or 'NB Name non-existent' appears in comment
for 'ghosts', names which owe their existence to error or
accidental connection with Athens (these have a special 'Code'
in the database, and appear with brackets [ ] around the num in
the formatted version).
Fields in the Search Form: Section 2
- Ref.
- References should be searched according to the
abbreviations which appear in the 'Abbreviations of References'
section in the 'Description of Entries' in the printed volumes.
The most common are H for Hesperia and II, III etc for volumes
of IG, the Corpus of Greek Inscriptions (IG is omitted).
References can be excluded in the 'not' field, and the metrical
inscriptions can be specified by clicking on the 'In verse' button.
- Class.
- Like link, class provides a pull-down menu of the different
types of inscription or other documents the reference appears in.
A general one-word description is given for some categories
which also have more specific entries: choosing 'decr' will find
all the decrees, 'decr phyle' will limit the selection to phyle
decrees. The results may give further detail about, e.g., the
category of literature (Class 'lit') to which a given work belongs.
- Ref comment.
- Like the main comment above, the Ref comment contains
searchable headings:
- Fref: references longer than 18 characters are repeated in full
under Fref (and appear in place of the shortened ref in the formatted
version)
- Xref: usually designates a text
reprinted without restudy, e.g. many SEG references (in the
formatted version it is replaced with "Cf.")
- Classmod: an expansion or addition to the class of document
- Xclass: where the reference falls into more than one category, the
additional class appears here: e.g., owner of vase in
addition to graffito, and further information for refs with a class
of 'other' (e.g., a class appearing in the formatted version as
'sep oth' might have an entry of 'Classmod mensa')
- Refloc: the finding place of a document; entering 'Rhamnous'
in Ref comment will retrieve persons attested by inscriptions
where the Ref comment contains 'Refloc Rhamnous'.
Queries and feedback about the data or organization of the data to:
John Traill (athenian@chass.utoronto.ca).
Web implementation by Philippa M.W. Matheson (amphoras@chass.utoronto.ca).