Ethnicity in the Ancient World – Did it matter?

Erich S. Gruen

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9783110995053
• eBook ISBN: 9783110685657
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religioni antiche

This study raises that difficult and complicated question on a broad front, taking into account the expressions and attitudes of a wide variety of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian sources, including Herodotus, Polybius, Cicero, Philo, and Paul. It approaches the topic of ethnicity through the lenses of the ancients themselves rather than through the imposition of modern categories, labels, and frameworks. A central issue guides the course of the work: did ancient writers reflect upon collective identity as determined by common origins and lineage or by shared traditions and culture?

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Were Barbarians Barbaric?
• 2 Herodotus and Greekness
• 3 The Racial Judgments of Polybius
• 4 Rome’s Multiple Identities and Tangled Perspectives
• 5 Constructed Ethnicities in Republican Italy
• 6 The Chosen People and Mixed Marriages
• 7 Did Hellenistic Jews Consider Themselves a Race or a Religion?
• 8 Philo and Jewish Ethnicity
• 9 The Ethnic Vocabulary of Josephus
• 10 The Racial Reflections of Paul
• 11 Christians as a “Third Race”?
• 12 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Primary source index
• General Index