Information Management through Elementary Data Clusters – New Observations on Pridianum-type Roman Statistical Documents

Abstract

The topic of this article is the comparative analysis of the data structure of the extant pridianumtype documents from the Roman Empire. The pridianum is a report on the status and the changes of a cohort, which was compiled once or twice a year. Though we don’t have any contemporary sources on the data recording methods of the Roman army, with the analysis of these documents we can discover some regularities referring to conscious recording of statistical data. These regularities in the macrostructure of documents also can help us to get more information about fragmentary documents.