Category Archives: (08) Criminalization of populations

Aitolians: Thucydides on barbarous Greeks (late fifth century BCE)

Arabians: Pseudo-Nilus on barbarian bandits and Saracens in the Sinai desert (early fifth century CE)

Arabians: Strabo and Josephos on Itureans as a supposed bandit-people (first century CE)

Arkadians: Plato, Varro, and others on supposed Lykaian human sacrifice (fourth century BCE on)

Baktrians, Sogdians, and some “completely barbarous” eastern peoples: Strabo (early first century CE)

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

Barbarians: Origen on charges against Jesus adherents (mid-third century CE)

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

Celts: Cicero’s ethnic invective against Gauls in defending Fonteius (mid-first century BCE)

Celts: Diodoros on Galatian origins, “savage” customs and invasions of Italy and Greece (mid-first century BCE)

Celts: Julius Caesar on Druids and supposed human sacrifice among Gauls (mid-first century BCE)

Cilicians: Plutarch on foreign “pirates” threatening Roman ways (early-second century CE)

Cilicians: Roman authorities, Cicero, and Florus on a population of “pirates” (100-67 BCE)

Cretans: Athenians and Rhodians on suppressing supposed bandit peoples (fifth-third centuries BCE)

Eastern and northern peoples: Bardaisan of Edessa’s Book of the Laws of Countries, Pseudo-Clementines, and Origen on astrology and peoples (second-third centuries CE)

Egyptian perspectives: Memphites on the goddess Isis and the origins of civilization among Egyptians (first century BCE on)

Egyptian perspectives: Oracles of the Lamb and the Potter on Greco-Macedonians and other foreigners (third-second centuries BCE)

Egyptians and Canaanites: Wisdom of Solomon on worship of animals and images (first century BCE)

Egyptians, Phrygians, Assyrians and Persians: Firmicus Maternus on impious customs (mid-fourth century CE)

Egyptians, Taurians, and Celts: Cicero’s Philus engages in ethnographic discourses for philosophical aims (mid-first century BCE)

Egyptians, Taurians, and Greeks: Athenagoras of Athens combats charges of eating human flesh and incest against Jesus adherents (ca. 176-180 CE)

Egyptians, Thracians, Judeans, and Carthaginians: Theophrastos on piety and human sacrifice (fourth century BCE on)

Egyptians: Achilles Tatius and Dio Cassius on man-eating cowherds / bandits (second-third century CE)

Egyptians: Juvenal on “demented Egypt,” animal worship, and the eating of raw human flesh (early second century CE)

Ethiopians: Dalion on paradoxical peoples (mid-third century BCE)

Europeans, Asians, and Greeks: Aristotle on hierarchies, slaves, and environmental determinism (fourth century BCE)

Greeks: Diodoros and Polyainos on human sacrifice by conspirators led by Apollodoros (late first century BCE on)

Huns and Alans: Ammianus Marcellinus on “savage” nomadic threats (late fourth century CE)

Iberians: Artemidoros, Poseidonios, Strabo, and others (second century BCE to first century CE)

Iberians: Diodoros on Viriathus and the Lusitanians’ resistance to Roman rule (mid-first century BCE)

Iberians: Valerius Maximus, Petronius, Florus, and Appian on brave and/or savage Numantines (first-second centuries CE)

Indians, Ethiopians and others: Pliny the Elder on “unbelievable” peoples (first century CE)

Indians, Taprobanians, and Serians: Pliny the Elder on numerous peoples and customs in India and beyond (first century CE)

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

Isaurians: Ammianus Marcellinus on their incursions and banditry (late fourth century CE)

Israelites, Egyptians, Idumeans, Scythians, and others: Origen on ethnic hierarchies and their spiritual equivalents (mid-third century CE)

Judean wisdom: Tatian the Assyrian on the priority of Moses’ “barbarian wisdom” (second century CE)

Judeans: Celsus on Jesus adherents as followers of a bandit and criminal (mid-second century CE)

Lelegians and Carians: Philippos of Theangela on civilized Carians and savage Lelegians (third century BCE)

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

Libyans, Maurians and Ausourianians: Ammianus Marcellinus on their savage behaviour and banditry (late fourth century CE)

Medes: Nearchos and Strabo on neighbouring bandit-peoples and on Median customs (early first century CE)

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

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

Pelasgian diasporas: Varro on Roman origins and human sacrifice at the Saturnalia festival (mid-first century BCE)

Persian diasporas: Pseudo-Clement, Eusebios, Epiphanios, and Basil on the Magusaeans and their customs (third century CE on)

Persians and peoples in their territory: Strabo on their customs and on bandit peoples (early first century CE)

Persians, Babylonians, and Egyptians: Pseudo-Clementines on Zoroaster and the origins of Magian skill (second-fourth centuries CE)

Persians: Agathias on the divergent customs of Zoroaster’s Magians (sixth century CE and earlier)

Persians: Apuleius of Madaura’s defence against the charge of harmful Magian actions (ca. 158 CE)

Persians: Cattulus’ poem smearing Magians as incestuous (early first century BCE)

Persians: Heresy-hunters on Simon Magus and other Magians (second-third centuries CE)

Persians: Philo on true Magian skill and its criminal counterfeit (early first century CE)

Persians: Xanthos on the Magians’ supposed incest and on Zoroaster’s date (mid-fifth century BCE)

Pontic peoples: Phlyarchos on traits and customs of Thibians and Scythians (early second century BCE)

Romans and Greeks: Livy on human sacrifice and other crimes by Bacchic devotees in Italy (late first century BCE)

Romans, Carthaginians, Celts, Scythians and others: Tertullian combats charges of human sacrifice and incest against Jesus adherents (early third century CE)

Romans, Egyptians, Judeans, and others: Justin of Flavia Neapolis combats charges of eating human flesh and incest against Jesus adherents (mid-second century CE)

Romans, Egyptians, Persians, and others: Minucius Felix’s ethnographic defence of the Christian people (early third century CE)

Romans: Livy, Pliny, Plutarch, and Dio on Roman human sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks (late first century BCE on)

Romans: Sallust, Plutarch, and others on human sacrifice and other crimes of Catiline and conspirators (first century BCE on)

Scythian wisdom: Curtius Rufus on the Scythian elder’s speech about Alexander the bandit (first century CE)

Scythians and other Pontic peoples: Herodotos on the “most ignorant peoples of all” (fifth century BCE)

Scythians: Adventures of Andrew and Matthias among the Man-eaters as ethnographic fiction (third-fifth centuries CE)

Scythians: Athenaios and others on Scythianizing and “Scythian speech” (fifth century BCE on)

Serians (Chinese), Ottorokorians and others: Pliny the Elder on the savage silk people (first century CE)

Syrian diasporas: Diodoros and Florus on Eunous of Apameia’s leadership of the slave rebellion on Sicily (mid-first century BCE / second century CE)

Taurians and Greeks: Clement of Alexandria [III] on human sacrifice (late second century CE)

Taurians and Kolchians: Diodoros on the origins of human sacrifice in the Black Sea area (mid-first century BCE)

Taurians, Gauls, and Romans: Lactantius on human sacrifice and other criminal rituals to false gods (early fourth century CE)

Western peoples beyond the pillars of Herakles (and up): Lucian’s “A True Story” and ethnographic fiction (late second century CE)