Category Archives: (09) Ethnic groups or peoples

Amazons, Tibarenians, and Mossynoikians: Apollonios of Rhodes on a voyage to the Kolchians (third century BCE)

Amazons: Greek artistic depictions of a female warrior people (fourth century BCE to second century CE)

Assyrian / Babylonian wisdom: Sibyl of Babylon on the superiority of the Judean people (second century BCE)

Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Celts, and others: The Cicero brothers on the nature and effectiveness of divination (mid-first century BCE)

Assyrians, Medes and Persians: Ktesias on Persian Matters via Diodoros and Photios (early fourth century BCE)

Babylonian diasporas: Josephos and others on legends of migration from Babel (first-second centuries CE)

Babylonian perspectives: Bel-re’ushu / Berossos on the origins of civilization (late fourth century BCE)

Babylonians and Assyrians: Herodotos on legendary queens and outstanding customs (mid-fifth century BCE)

Barbarian and Judean wisdom: Clement of Alexandria [V] on the sources of Plato’s thought (late second century CE)

Barbarian and Scythian wisdom: Diogenes of Laertes (early third century CE)

Barbarian peoples: Caesarius of Nazianzos’ and George the Monk’s collection of extraordinary customs (sixth / ninth centuries CE)

Barbarian peoples: Nymphodoros, Nikolaos, and others with collections of paradoxical customs (third century BCE on)

Barbarian wisdom: Celsus and Origen of Alexandria (second-third centuries CE)

Barbarian wisdom: Clement of Alexandria [VI] on barbarian and Hebrew philosophy (late second century CE)

Barbarian wisdom: Ephoros on inventors (mid-fourth century BCE)

Barbarians and Greeks: Thucydides theorizes the shift from barbarian banditry to settled civilization (late fifth century BCE)

Britons and Iernians (Irish): Julius Caesar, Pytheas, and Strabo on customs including eating human flesh (early first century CE)

Britons, Armenians, Bessians, and others: Reliefs of subjugated peoples at Aphrodisias (first century CE)

Celts / Gauls: Cicero and the link between imperial conquest and negative stereotypes (mid-first century BCE)

Celts, Persians, and Amazons: Smaller statues of fighting and dying “barbarians” associated with Attalos of Pergamon (third-second century BCE / second century CE)

Chaldeans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Judeans: Aristides of Athens (second century CE)

Daans, Kadousians, Hyrkanians, and Sakians: Strabo on peoples east of the Caspian Sea (first century CE)

Eastern and northern peoples: Bardaisan of Edessa and Philippos’ Book of the Laws of Countries (second-third centuries CE)

Egyptian wisdom: Vettius Valens and others on Petosiris and pharaoh Nechepsos as astrologers (first-fifth centuries CE)

Egyptians: Attic vase paintings, Isocrates and others on king Bousiris and human sacrifice (fifth century BCE on)

Egyptians: Diodoros on the origins of civilization and on Egyptian views (mid-first century BCE)

Egyptians: Herodotos on customs and legendary kings (fifth century BCE)

Ethiopians: Herodotos on southern peoples at the ends of the earth (mid-fifth century BCE)

Ethnic diversity in Alexandria: Dio of Prusa on the cross-roads of the world (late first century CE)

Ethnic diversity in Egypt: Inscriptional and papyrological evidence

Europeans and Asians: Pseudo-Hippokrates on humoural and environmental theories (fifth century BCE)

Europeans, Asians, and Greeks: Aristotle on environment, ethnic hierarchies, and slaves (fourth century BCE)

Germans, Suebians, Marcomannians, and Kimbrians: Poseidonios and Strabo on customs and rumours about the tides (first century BCE)

Getians, Dacians, and Scythians: Strabo (early first century CE)

Getians, Scythians, and Goths: Jordanes on their supposed origins and achievements (mid-sixth century CE)

Iberians, Albanians and others of the Caucasus area: Strabo (early first century CE)

Indian wisdom: Apuleius on the amazing naked philosophers and Pythagoras’ journeys (mid-second century CE)

Indians, Ethiopians, Celts, and Scythians: Ephoros on a four-fold division of the known world (mid-fourth century BCE)

Judean and Indian wisdom: Philo on the freedom of Essenes and Kalanos (early first century CE)

Judean diasporas: Josephos on conflicts in Babylonia, ca. 40-66 CE (late first century CE)

Judeans and Celts: Various authors on Claudius’ actions against foreigners in the 40s CE (second / third centuries CE

Judeans, “Asiatics”, and Greeks: Cicero’s ethnic invective aimed at eastern witnesses against Flaccus (mid-first century BCE)

Judeans, Egyptians, and Magians: Various authors on Tiberius’ actions against foreign practices 17-19 CE (first-third centuries CE)

Judeans, Syrians, and Egyptians: Epiktetos engages with ethnographic discourses for philosophical aims (mid-first century CE)

Judeans, Syrians, Celts, Scythians and others: Plutarch on the “barbarian” origins of fearing the gods, or “superstition” (early second century CE)

Judeans, Syrians, Indians, and others: Porphyry of Tyre on abstinence from meat (third century CE)

Judeans: Hekataios, pseudo-Hekataios and Diodoros on Judean origins and migration with the exodus (first century BCE)

Judeans: Mnaseas, Poseidonios, Apollonios Molon, Diodoros, Apion, and Damokritos on the statue of a donkey and on human sacrifice (second century BCE and on)

Judeans: Poseidonios (?) and Strabo on decline after Moses (first century CE)

Kimmerians and Kolchians: Herodotos on other Pontic peoples (mid-fifth century BCE)

Kretans, Spartans, Carthaginians, and Romans: Polybios on superior and inferior societal organization (second century BCE)

Libyans / Africans: Tacitus on Tacfarinas and resistance by Numidians, Maurians, and Musulamians (early second century CE)

Libyans: Dionysios of Mytilene and Diodoros on competing claims about the god Dionysos (third / mid-first century BCE)

Libyans: Herodotos on customs and colonization (fifth century BCE)

Lydians, Maionians, Arimians, and Solymians: Strabo on a variety of peoples in Lydia, Phrygia and Pisidia (early first century CE)

Maiotians, Bosporians, Kaukasians, and other Pontic peoples: Strabo on northern Asia (early first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Artemidoros theorizes foreign elements in dreams (second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Augustus on his own achievements, conquests and alliances with peoples (14 CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Claudius Ptolemy on astrological effects on peoples (second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Diodoros and Pliny on Pompey’s subjugation of peoples of the world (mid-first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Pausanias, ethnographic interests, and local traditions (mid-second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pliny the Elder on inventors around the world (first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Polemon theorizes the meaning of physical features (second / fifth centuries CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pomponius Mela on peoples of the known world (mid-first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Roman coins [part 1] on defeat, capture, and subjugation (first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Roman coins [part 2] on humiliated captives kneeling or on the ground (first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Roman coins [part 3] on kneeling in supplication or adoration (first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Sextus Empiricus engages with ethnographic discourses for philosophical aims (second-third centuries CE)

Mysians, Galatians, Pisidians, and others: Strabo on relations among Anatolian peoples (early first century CE)

Northern peoples: Antonios Diogenes’ Wonders Beyond Thule and ethnographic fiction (second century CE / ninth century CE)

Northern peoples: Inscriptions on barbarians as bandits (second-third centuries CE)

Parthians and Scythians: Julius Africanus on barbarian military techniques (early third century CE)

Parthians, Celts and Iberians or Germans: Scenes on the breastplate of the “Augustus of Prima Porta” (early first century CE)

Parthians, Libyans, Egyptians and others: Acts of the Apostles on legends of Judean migration (early second century CE)

Pelasgian diasporas: Hekataios of Miletos and Herodotos on legends of migration, language, and influence (mid-fifth century BCE)

Persian wisdom: Lactantius and others on the Oracles of Hystaspes the Mede (third century CE)

Persians and Medes: Herakleides of Kyme, Klearchos of Soloi, and others on royal banquets (fourth century BCE)

Persians: Matthew and Luke-Acts on two contrasting approaches to Magians (late first century CE)

Persians: Pliny on the dissemination of Magian skill to the peoples of the world (first century CE)

Phoenician, Egyptian and Babylonian wisdom: Porphyry of Tyre and Antonius Diogenes on Pythagoras (third century CE)

Phrygians: Alexander Polyhistor, Hermogenes, and others on Phrygian Matters (first century BCE on)

Romans: Dionysios on Roman origins and legends of Greek and Pelasgian migrations to Italy (late first century BCE)

Sarmatians, Marcomannians, Quadians, and Iazygians: Reliefs on Marcus Aurelius’ column including women and children (176-193 CE)

Scythians and Ethiopians: Agatharchides and Diodoros theorize about the effects of climate (second-first centuries CE)