Neighbours or Strangers? Identities, Minorities and Ethnic Relations in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on forms of cultural interaction and methods of negotiation in multiethnic and multilingual contexts during Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It examines the physiognomic theory of the Roman Antiquity and details how perceived phenotypic differences were used in the late imperial texts as argumentative tools with which individuals or groups inside and outside the Roman Empire could be labelled and categorized, segregated or integrated into the Roman society. The book then provides a case sample of a Greek outsider, who became an important figure in imperial Roman court but lost his privileged status. It also examines depictions of the people outside the Roman Empire focusing on the Dacians. The book provides a new perspective to the relations between the Jews and the Romans by exploring how Jewish immigrants and inhabitants of Ostia were integrated into Roman culture.