Introduction

For much of this book we have emphasized what is common to communities across the Greek and the Roman worlds, discussing features found from one to another. In the last chapter we emphasized the archaeological evidence for the particular role played by individuals in these communities, and looked at the marks they made upon the fabric of the world they set out to impress. In this chapter, by comparison, we look at how the material record reveals the creation, expression and maintenance of identity: of cities, or factions within cities or of other communal elements in the ancient world.

Faced with the question “Who are you?,” most people in the western world expect to answer by identifying themselves by their individual name. But when pressed to identify themselves as part of a group, they are likely, depending on the circumstances, to identify themselves by gender (“I’m a woman”) or sexual orientation (“I’m gay”), by religion (“I’m a Buddhist”), by nationality (normally by citizenship) (“Actually, I’m Canadian”), by ethnic group (“I’m Hispanic”), or by class (“I’m working class”). In the last chapter we saw that some women impressed themselves on their communities as individuals, but there is little evidence of gender-consciousness in classical antiquity beyond the context of religious festivals exclusive to men or to women. Homoeroticism is well attested within the Greek city and well displayed on Greek painted pottery, but there is little indication in antiquity of homosexuals considering themselves, or being considered, a distinct class. Polytheism was non-exclusive, and until Greek and Roman culture came into contact with Judaism and then Christianity, religious identification would be found only in specialized contexts in which a person might admit to having been initiated into a particular cult not open to all, such as the Dionysiac mysteries. By contrast,

Both men and women, despite women’s lack of political rights, regularly identified themselves to those outside their city by declaring themselves to be, or being identified by others as, Athenians or Corinthians or from Padua. In certain circumstances within the Greek world that same Athenian might identify himself as Ionian and that same Corinthian as Dorian, but to a wider world they would both identify themselves as Hellenes—Greeks. Such identification by city, ethnic group, or nation extended beyond men and women to things, as the products of particular cities were singled out (Arretine pottery), or particular styles were identified with particular groups (Ionic architecture).

Particularly interesting is the question of identification by class. In response to a question, the closest equivalent answer in antiquity would be an answer in terms of legal status (“I’m a slave”) or precisely defined status group (“I’m an eques”—the equivalent of “I’m a Knight of the Realm”). But in terms of material culture it is possible to see a broader class grouping being expressed, as people seek to distinguish themselves as, or distinguish themselves from, the wealthy elite. The demonstration here of the way in which material culture suggests social divisions not explicitly manifested in our textual record provides an object lesson in the importance of allowing that objects may not only speak louder than texts, they may actually say something different.