Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire

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Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (usually abbreviated as PLRE) is a set of three volumes collectively describing every person attested or claimed to have lived in the Roman world from AD 260 to 641. Sources cited include histories, literary texts, inscriptions, and miscellaneous written sources. Individuals who are known only from dubious sources (e.g., the Historia Augusta), as well as identifiable people whose names has been lost, are included with signs indicating the reliability.

The volumes were published by the Cambridge University Press, and involved a large number of authors and contributors.

• Volume 1, published on March 2, 1971, comes to 1,176 pages and covers the years from 260 to 395.
• Volume 2, published on October 9, 1980, comes to 1,355 pages and covers the years from 395 to 527.
• Volume 3, published on October 15, 1992 is itself a two-volume boxed set coming to a total of 1,626 pages and covering the years from 527 to 641.

As of October 2007, the volumes cost $300, $350, and $420 respectively, so the total collection of 4,157 pages comes to $1070.

The Prosopography of the Byzantine World project aims to extend coverage to 1265.

[edit] See also

• Prosopography