[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
As stated in the acknowledgments, this book was conceived as a part of the project Rome our Home: (Auto)biographical Tradition and the Shaping of Identity(ies), which ‘examined the idea of identities (rather than identity) in European antiquity through biographical sources and other texts’ (p. 7). The structure of the book is thus divided into two thematic sections. The first, Roman Identity in (Auto)Biographical Texts, covers mainly biographical sources from the Early and Late Roman Empire; the second, Roman Identity in Political and Legal Discourses, as the title already suggests, concentrates on political and legal discourses from the Late Republic onwards.
The topic of Roman identities has been particularly productive in the recent decades, due to various socio-political shifts and the increase in (in)voluntarily migration movements. For example, Louise Revell’s monograph (2008) examines the ethnic identity in the Roman Empire and the paradox of similarity and difference in models of Roman imperialism, while her latest monograph (Revell 2016) explores the formation and maintenance of identity among communities in the western Roman provinces; Emma Dench (2013) analyses the socio-specific views on what it meant to be a Roman from the perspective of Cicero, and in her latest book (Dench 2018) explores the political cultures in the Roman world; Saskia T. Roselaar’s edited collection of studies (2015) focuses on the mechanisms of cultural interactions and integrations in the Roman world; Jussi Rantala’s edited volume (2019) demonstrates the complexity of social identities from the Augustan period to Late Antiquity based on the interactions of gender, memory, and identity; and finally Price, Finkelberg, and Shahar’s volume on ethnic diversity and cultural identity in the Roman Empire examines different aspects of cultural and ethnic identities (2021). There are numerous other collections, monographs, and articles that explore this topic from different perspectives, examine location specific cases, and so on.
Countless debates cloud the subject of identity(ies) in Roman antiquity. Is there such a thing as a distinct identity? Can we find such a personal singularity in ancient sources? What is the difference, if any, between cultural identity and selfhood? These are just some of the big questions to start with. The contributors to this volume approach the question of Roman identities by choosing to analyse textual sources that ‘reflect a set of views, but dynamically engage with tradition, images, views, and identities in order to state new understandings and worldviews’ (p. 18). The book’s approach is that dynamism and fluidity of identities are not immanent qualities of the text, but, to paraphrase Walter Pohl (2019), emerge from the unique instances of self-identification or alienation (p. 19). The main focus of this volume is on the notion that Rome’s identity was fluid and accommodating multi-ethnic groups and societies. The contributors seek to understand how the Romans represented themselves and how others defined and regarded them (p. 30). The volume therefore seeks to answer the following questions: How and what did Romans write about themselves? Was there a selfhood in their biographical and autobiographical sources? If so, how did they perform it in their texts? What was the notion of Roman identity in non-Roman sources? How did this view influence Roman self-perception?
The chapters by Nuno Simões Rodrigues, Eelco Glas and José Luís Brandão are particularly noteworthy in the first part of the volume dedicated to Roman identity in (auto)biographical texts. N.S. Rodrigues analyses the portrayal of women in Augustan Rome, specifically in Livy’s Ab Urbe condita, through the lens of Roman virtues. The author shows that the question of identity was already complex in Roman times. Especially in biographical literature, it was a mixture and not a simple dialectic of positive and negative exemplars. Glas explains how the Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus sought to renegotiate the valuation of Judaean identity in Flavian Roman discourse. The scholar demonstrates how Josephus compares Judaean history with Roman history, allowing himself to draw parallels and to evoke pity and compassion instead of anti-Judaean sentiments. Glas argues that Josephus uses rhetorical strategies to overcome the identity gap between Judaeans and Romans by subverting and challenging social identity boundaries and differences. Brandão provides a compelling interpretation of Suetonius’ emperors through the lens of performativity. The author considers the characters of the emperors in Suetonius as performers and argues that because emperors are the most significant agents of Roman identity, their interaction with cultural identifiers, such as language, clothing, religion, etc. reveals composite and intertwined instances of identity in the Roman world.
As for the part of the volume on Roman identity in political and legal discourses, two papers stand out. Ália Rodrigues explores the political self-perception of the Romans by looking at how Roman law changed between the institution of the Lex Appuleia de maiestate (end of second century BCE) and the early Empire. The researcher examines Rome’s political identity and the link between maiestas and the reification of political power. Rodrigues convincingly demonstrates that there was a gradual shift in Roman legal discourse from the maiestas of the Roman people to the imperial maiestas of the Princeps (p. 336). Kelly Nguyen focuses on the changing connotations of natio, which reveal the constant redefinition of Roman identity. The chapter centres on the use of natio for self-identification in funerary epitaphs. Nguyen begins with an analysis of a first-century BCE inscription from Rome that mentions four freedmen and their ethnic markers. The scholar then examines natio as an identity that ‘oscillated between etic and emic perceptions, between socio-cultural and geopolitical definitions, and between local and global identities’ (p. 374). Nguyen’s chapter is a perfect example of how a sociolinguistic approach is beneficial for understanding social and cultural identities in antiquity, especially when researching ego-documents. For this reason, Nguyen’s chapter seems thematically more appropriate for the first part of the volume.
A few additional words should be said about the composition of the volume. It is worth noting that the editors and contributors have not attempted to argue for a coherent definition of Roman identity(ies), but rather to explore a variety of its manifestations (pp. 21–22). The editors seem intent on showing that the notion of Romanness and Roman identity gradually changed, undergoing transformations and fluctuations. Nevertheless, a critical reader might ask whether such an approach, spread over several centuries and a vast geographical area, can provide a coherent insight into Roman identities. One of the main issues may be the chronological rather than thematic arrangement of the chapters. The choice of a chronological approach is understandable given the general notion of gradual change, but it sometimes clouds the original intention of the volume. It seems that a thematic arrangement would have been more beneficial, as some chapters already state programmatically that Roman identity was a fluid concept (Morelli p. 121) and that ‘cultural identity does not have an objective existence’ (Teixeira p. 228).
This volume needed more consistent editing. Some chapters provide the Greek or Latin translation of the text in the footnotes (Ginelli), some directly under the block quotations (Kaufmann, N.S. Rodrigues, Morelli, Lazzerini, Beltrão, Nguyen), in other chapters we find only the translated passages without the original text (Glas, Teixeira), otherwhere there is only the original text without any translation (Peloso) or the original text is in the footnotes (Á. Rodrigues); yet there is a chapter (Brandão) that uses all of the above, sometimes providing a translation in parentheses without any clear logic. The same could be said of the quotation format: it is not clear whether the bold is from the original text or emphasised by the author (pp. 185, 188–90, 200, 206). Furthermore, quotes in Italian that are directly in the text should have been translated (pp. 133).
Some chapters contain different treatment of Latin orthography: sometimes the text is archaicised (N.S. Rodrigues, Morelli, Brandão, Teixeira), e.g. p. 92 vites, p. 93 Vrbe, p. 127 uirtutis, p. 139 ciuitatis; sometimes different orthography is used in the same chapter (Glas, Á. Rodrigues, e.g. p. 163 Judaicum, but then again p. 165 Iudaicus), similarly both vita and uita can be found on the same page (Teixeira, p. 244). Morelli’s chapter contains a different treatment of Greek, e.g. the author transliterates polymathia and paideia, but does not use transliteration for ὁμόνοια, εὐνομία (pp. 133–38, 143–46, 153). There are also occasional typos or missing characters in the text (e.g. framwork on p. 255)
Finally, the volume will undoubtedly attract attention and provide a solid background for further research as there are still many questions to be answered about Roman identity(ies), their performances, and manifestations.
Authors and Titles
Introduction: Defining Self and Other in Changing Situations and Discourses. The Dynamism and Fluidity of the Notion of Identity (Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta)
Roman Identity in (Auto)Biographical Texts
Similarities and Dissimilarities: Roman Identity and Models of Behaviour in Nepos’ Punic Lives (Francesco Ginelli)
Identity in Latin Verse Autobiography (Helen Kaufmann)
Lucretia, Tullia and Tanaquil: Shaping the Identity of Rome’s Women in the Augustan Period (Nuno Simões Rodrigues)
Pythagoreanism and Roman Identity in Plutarch’s Aemilius Paullus (Davide Morelli)
Overcoming Otherness in Flavian Rome: Flavius Josephus and the Rhetoric of Identity in the Bellum Judaicum (Eelco Glas)
Performing Roman Identity in Suetonius’ Caesars (José Luís Brandão)
When the Emperor is the Other: Perceptions of Identity in the Historia Augusta’s Life of Maximinus (Cláudia Teixeira)
Roman Identity in Political and Legal Discourses
Quirites and Populus Romanus: New Identities and Old Figures in Αrchaic Legal Formulas (Carlo Pelloso)
Rome in the Mirror: Varro’s Quest for the Past, for a Present Goal (Federica Lazzerini)
Sacra privata perpetua manento: A Reading of Cicero’s De Legibus (Claudia Beltrão)
Roman Maiestas: Becoming Imperial, Staying Republican (Ália Rodrigues)
What’s in a Natio: Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the Roman Empire (Kelly Nguyen)
Bibliography
Dench, Emma. 2013. Cicero and Roman Identity. The Cambridge Companion to Cicero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 122-38.
Dench, Emma. 2018. Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pohl, Walter. 2019. Historiography and Identity: Methodological Perspectives. W. Pohl, V. Wieser, edd. Historiography and Identity I: Ancient and Early Christian Narratives of Community, Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 7–50.
Price Jonathan J., Margalit Finkelberg, Yuval Shahar, edd. 2021. Rome: An Empire of Many Nations. New Perspectives on Ethnic Diversity and Cultural Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rantala, Jussi, ed. 2019. Gender, Memory, and Identity in the Roman World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Revell, Louise. 2008. Roman Imperialism and Local Identities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Revell, Louise. 2016. Ways of Being Roman: Discourses of Identity in the Roman West. Oxford; Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2016.
Roselaar, Saskia T., ed. 2015. Processes of Cultural Change and Integration in the Roman World. Leiden; Boston: Brill.