The PLACE field
The Greeks and ‘places’
The ancient Greeks were conscious of what united them as Greeks, but at the same time were
conscious, and proud, of local differences in their religious, social and political institutions. These
differences might be regional (e.g. the ‘Boiotian’ or ‘Thessalian’), but most often related to the
institutions of the city-state. When, for example, a city-state sent out colonies to distant lands, the
colonists took with them the institutions – and the personal names – of their mother city. It is these
localisations and continuities which are a core element in the study of ancient Greek society, and give
personal names their significance in that study.
LGPN and ‘places’
‘Place’ is, therefore, a very important field of information in LGPN data. It is also a crucial and
challenging field when we consider how to achieve interoperability with other classical resources,
especially as, in the digital world, such interoperability depends on utilizing modern geographical
systems. The question may be a relatively simple one: how to ensure that ‘Athens’, ‘Athènes’, ‘Athen’
and ‘Athenai’ are recognized as the same place. But for the purposes of genuine interchange and
interoperability between online data sets, deeper mutual understanding is required of what place
‘means’ in each resource.
What follows is an exploration of the meaning of ‘place’ in LGPN. It should be regarded as work in
progress.
The ‘classic’ case
In LGPN, the fundamental principle is that ‘place’ is the place of origin of the individual. This principle
derives from the classic scenario of the individual as citizen of a Greek city (or, in some cases, region);
where cities had sub-units such as demes, these are recorded. That is, LGPN’s ‘place’ is essentially
political affiliation, and, for ontological purposes, has been provisionally classified as a relationship of
‘belonging to’.
Crucially in the context of interoperability with e.g. corpora of inscriptions or catalogues vases, in LGPN
‘place’ is not to be taken to be the ‘find-spot’ of the document which provides the evidence (though it
may incidentally be that too). For example, a person honoured in a foreign city will be recorded by LGPN
under the place of origin (attested by the ethnic), not the place where the honorific decree was found.
‘Place’ in this core sense may be modified by one of two formulae:
a) attested at (*): for people who were clearly active in a place on a permanent or semi-permanent
basis, but were not citizens e.g. metics at Athens, generations of craftsmen on Delos. But NOT
people who just happen to be are attested in a place e.g. Ptolemaic officials, imperial freedmen.
b) ‘?’: for people who are serious contenders for category (1), but the evidence is not conclusive.
The exceptions: modern place-names
In practice, we do not always have the evidence to join individual to ancient location, and then we
deploy modern place-names. Classically:
a) where surface remains indicate an ancient settlement, but they cannot be identified with any
known ancient place.
b) where the identification of surface remains with an ancient place attested in the sources is
disputed. Here we give the modern name in brackets after the putative ancient city: e.g.
Antigoneia in Macedonia, important in military campaigns in Livy.
c) to give a more refined indication of location in a large region which lacks major cities, or where a
city has a very large territory (e.g. Philippoi in Macedonia, Nikaia in Bithynia, in the Roman
period).
Practical problems in digital representation of ‘places’:
a) Regions: how to represent a whole region?
b) Unknown locations: documentary and literary texts may record ethnics which we cannot, and
probably never will be able to, locate e.g. i) tribal units and sub-units in Epiros (NW Greece): e.g.
Onopernoi and Onopernoi Kartatoi ii) a kome (village) as a subdivision of a known city e.g. Argos
(Hyadai); Argos (Dymanes-Amphiareteidai)
c) Shifting boundaries: ‘regions’ were differently defined at different periods. LGPN records a
hierarchy of place to region. LGPN tends to reflect the regional definition of the pre-Roman
period, but clearly boundaries and the associated names changed over time e.g. in LGPN Achaia
is a region in the Peloponnese, not the Roman province of Achaia (= Greece).
Note on ethnics:
1. The ethnic (an adjectival form of a city or a region: Athenian, Boiotian), a core element in Greek
identity, was used only when abroad; at home, it was not considered necessary. So, in many
cases, the individual ‘belongs to’ the find-spot of the document, but it is not possible to
extrapolate this fact from LGPN place data.
2. The use of the regional ethnic e.g. ‘Thessalian’ may be used when a political organisation has
been established on a regional basis e.g. the Achaian League, the Boiotian Confederacy.
Individuals may be found using both city and regional ethnic, depending on their function at the
time. LGPN will always use the more precise, i.e. the city, where it is known.