Books
Tell Me Who You Are: Labelling Status in the Graeco-Roman World, edited by Maria Nowak, Adam Łajtar & Jakub Urbanik (U schyłku starożytności: Studia źródłoznawcze, no. 16, Warsaw: Sub Lupa Academic Publishing, 2017).
PREFACE
This volume is a contribution to the discussion regarding identities and identification in history, specifically in the ancient world. The following twelve articles focus on various issues surrounding personal identification from the classical period through Hellenistic and Roman times up to the early Byzantine era. Research into methods of identification employed in the ancient world is important not merely in terms of understanding how people were described, but also why they were described in a particular way and what those descriptions can tell us about the cultures that imposed them. This broad approach to the question of identification has been adopted throughout the present volume in a number of ways.
The studies on onomastics and identification patterns contribute greatly to our knowledge of the inter-cultural exchange between both Greeks and Romans (Kantola) and Greeks and Egyptians (Depauw & Broux); by examining this exchange at a linguistic level we are better able to understand the multi-cultural nature of these societies. The analysis of specific descriptions in the context of their time and place (Kruse, Garel) can provide us with a better sense of what those descriptions meant within the society that created them. Investigating descriptions of individuals can also help to clarify the political or social institutions to which those individuals belonged (Nowak, Thomsen). The study of identification methods can illuminate the relationship between how people were named and where they belonged (Langellotti, Lewis, Nowakowski), a question no less relevant in today’s world of globalization than it was in antiquity. Specific studies on Roman onomastics can help us to understand aspects of the structure of established families, such as the standing of mothers and their descent (Nuorluoto), but can also allow us to attempt a reconstruction of informal family structures (Krawczyk); both contribute to the study of the legal and social standing of women in the Roman world. Of course, none of these research questions may be answered without the application of appropriate methodologies and tools (Broux).
This volume is not only a collection of articles discussing the sources and research issues from different regions of the Graeco-Roman world, but also a demonstration of some of the historical issues that can be clarified through the study of names and descriptions. Taken together, the following articles offer a sample of the diverse and plentiful information hidden behind and within something as simple as a name, and in doing so hopes to illustrate some of the ways in which the examination of very specific details can be used to achieve wider perspectives in historical studies.
The articles collected within this volume were presented initially at the seminar ‘Tell me who you are: Labelling status in the Graeco-Roman world’ held at the University of Warsaw between 9 and 10 December 2016, which was co-organised by the Chair of Roman Law and the Law of Antiquity and the Department of Papyrology.
Warsaw
17th September 2018
Maria Nowak
Adam Łajtar
Jakub Urbanik
Maria Nowak, Bastards in Egypt, Social and Legal Illegitimacy in the Roman Era (Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement, no. 37, Leuven: Peeters, 2020).
SUMMARY
Throughout the course of Western history, children born out of wedlock enjoyed neither the social nor legal standing of marital children. Being born out of wedlock caused complications in the lives of not only commoners, but even the elite. The question is whether these attitudes developed independently or if they had a common root. In branches of law regulating the relationships within a family, Roman law is the usual suspect as a kind of ‘ideal law’, which may be understood as a model for modern practices, not only in the scholarship, but even in judicial decisions. On the other hand, Christianity is often recognised as inspiration for model of family in the West. The primary aim of this book is, therefore, to reconstruct the Roman concept of bastardy and how that concept evolved between Augustus and Constantine the Great, who changed the standing of individuals born out of wedlock and shaped legal definitions of illegitimacy for the centuries to come. Although the study is focused on Roman Egypt, the conclusions reached in this book are relevant for the whole of the Roman empire.