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Documenting Identity in the Early Roman Empire

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Documentality
This chapter is in the book Documentality

Abstract

This chapter examines the role that written records played in legal discussions of identity and citizenship in ancient Rome, and demonstrates that the evolutionary narrative of documentality, as posited by Maurizio Ferraris and Enrico Terrone, must be reevaluated. The manner in which Romans attested to the identities of individuals suggests that Roman evidentiary practices transcend the written document in cases of identity, given their dependence on witness testimony and oral utterance. Even Roman texts that aimed to establish identity were largely ineffective at imposing social reality until the Edict of Caracalla. This relative slowness to move beyond the oral document appears to violate the teleology inherent in Ferraris’s model, and ultimately suggests that Roman Imperial documentary practice never truly set off the “virtuous cycle” of practices and documents postulated in Ferraris’s Documentality.

Abstract

This chapter examines the role that written records played in legal discussions of identity and citizenship in ancient Rome, and demonstrates that the evolutionary narrative of documentality, as posited by Maurizio Ferraris and Enrico Terrone, must be reevaluated. The manner in which Romans attested to the identities of individuals suggests that Roman evidentiary practices transcend the written document in cases of identity, given their dependence on witness testimony and oral utterance. Even Roman texts that aimed to establish identity were largely ineffective at imposing social reality until the Edict of Caracalla. This relative slowness to move beyond the oral document appears to violate the teleology inherent in Ferraris’s model, and ultimately suggests that Roman Imperial documentary practice never truly set off the “virtuous cycle” of practices and documents postulated in Ferraris’s Documentality.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations IX
  5. List of Figures XI
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I: Approaches to Ancient Documentality
  8. Documenting Identity in the Early Roman Empire 35
  9. Copying the Canon: Imperial School Texts as Documentary Traces 57
  10. Documenting Wonderland: Lucian’s True Stories and the Documentary imaginaire 79
  11. Part II: Documentary Communities and Landscapes
  12. Cities Full of Words: Illiteracy and Epigraphy in Lucian of Samosata 107
  13. Documenting the oikoumenê: What “Documents” Supported the Description of the Inhabited World in the Hellenistic and Early Imperial Periods? 133
  14. A Community Set in Stone? Monumental Decrees as Instruments of Greek Interactions 153
  15. Part III: Between Documents and Literature
  16. Dead Letters, Documentality, and the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius 181
  17. The Relationship between Documents and Literature in Late Antiquity: The Case of the Petition, between Document, Adaptation and Literary Creation 209
  18. When the Letter Speaks Up: Living and Lifeless Letters 233
  19. Epilogue
  20. The Ancient Historian and His Documents: Reader, Interpreter, and/or Author? 253
  21. List of Contributors 279
  22. Index Locorum 281
  23. Index Rerum 285
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110791914-002

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations IX
  5. List of Figures XI
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I: Approaches to Ancient Documentality
  8. Documenting Identity in the Early Roman Empire 35
  9. Copying the Canon: Imperial School Texts as Documentary Traces 57
  10. Documenting Wonderland: Lucian’s True Stories and the Documentary imaginaire 79
  11. Part II: Documentary Communities and Landscapes
  12. Cities Full of Words: Illiteracy and Epigraphy in Lucian of Samosata 107
  13. Documenting the oikoumenê: What “Documents” Supported the Description of the Inhabited World in the Hellenistic and Early Imperial Periods? 133
  14. A Community Set in Stone? Monumental Decrees as Instruments of Greek Interactions 153
  15. Part III: Between Documents and Literature
  16. Dead Letters, Documentality, and the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius 181
  17. The Relationship between Documents and Literature in Late Antiquity: The Case of the Petition, between Document, Adaptation and Literary Creation 209
  18. When the Letter Speaks Up: Living and Lifeless Letters 233
  19. Epilogue
  20. The Ancient Historian and His Documents: Reader, Interpreter, and/or Author? 253
  21. List of Contributors 279
  22. Index Locorum 281
  23. Index Rerum 285
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