Closing Remarks

Identity in the ancient world is a productive, if contentious, field of study. A few key points deserve reiteration. First of all, identity in antiquity (as in the modern world) was not a given, established for the individual at birth, though biological facts like race and sex fed into it, but a “construction.” Identity is both constructed for the individual, by the values of the culture in which he or she is reared and lives, and by the individual who defines himself or herself in relation to society’s norms. Societies create customs, traditions, and myths to bolster and legitimize a sense of belonging; individuals can subscribe to such values in a more or less self-conscious way. Moreover, identity is a flexible construction. It can change over time, as can the ways in which it is manifested and the customs which underpin it.

In the above remarks the role of the individual is being stressed. Scholars of antiquity often blithely talk about Greeks (or better Athenians, Spartans, etc.) or Romans without properly considering the huge numbers of sophisticated individual human beings, with their own interests and attitudes, that such terms mask; the present chapter is guilty of the same fault. Societies are made up of individuals, who each have distinct identities. A sense of common belonging to a state is normally part of that identity; and states promote these elements of commonality among the population. Adherence to a state is only one factor in an individual’s identity, however. Others include some or all of the following: age, biological sex, social gender (which may not coincide exactly with biological sex), occupation, political affiliations, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, social status, and wealth. These and other crosscutting factors affect how individuals see themselves and how society views the individuals. Thus, future studies of identity in the ancient world need to be more sensitive to the differences between individuals and interest groups and to the ways identity, and how it is constructed and manifested, changed over time.