Environment and natural hazards in Roman and Medieval texts: presentation of the CLEMENS database project.

CLEMENS, acronym for Corpus Latinorum Et Mediaevalium Naturae Scriptorum, is a new electronic archive of excerpta reporting environment-related data contained in the literary and epigraphic sources of classical Roman and Medieval age. The aim is to fill a gap in information about environmental disruptions or memorabilia that occurred in ancient times within the Mediterranean basin, and to verify whether any useful information has eluded our knowledge. One of the main purposes of the systematic gathering and cataloguing carried out by CLEMENS is to become an extensive easy-to-search tool, offering the scientific community complete annotated documentation of what is available inside ancient sources about the natural environment in the Mediterranean. This information, currently dispersed in a variety of publications that may be difficult to access, has often proven essential for hazard assessment in several areas of the former Roman empire. It also contributes significantly to the understanding of changes caused by environmental events over the centuries, and of their incidence on natural habitats and on cultural heritage. The analysis of such interconnections may lead to a much improved understanding of either natural environment, hazards and cultural setting, as shown by interdisciplinary investigations merging together science, archaeology and history or even myth. Considering the vast amount of documentation, the work is still far from completion. However, the encouraging preliminary results will soon be available on the web.