Category Archives: ethnicity in the ancient world

Arabians and Judeans: Jubilees, Molon, and Josephos on identifying the Ishmaelites (second century BCE on)

Arabians, Trogodytes, and peoples around the Red Sea: Eratosthenes, Artemidoros, and Strabo on their locations and customs (early first century CE)

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

Armenians: Kyrsilos and Strabo on a Thessalian origin story, on worship of Anahita and on supposed sacred prostitution (early first century CE)

Asian Albanians, Iberians, Mardians and others: Demodamas and Pliny the Elder on peoples in the Caucasus region and further east (third century BCE / first century CE)

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

Assyrians, Babylonians, and surrounding peoples: Strabo on their customs (early first century CE)

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)

Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Macedonians, and Parthians: Polyhistor, Bion and Agathias on a succession of empires (mid-first century BCE on)

Assyrians: Trogus on the achievements of Ninos and Semiramis and on the extreme effeminacy of Sardanapalus (first century BCE)

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)

Barbaria’s inhabitants, Arabians, and Indians: Anonymous author on trade and peoples on the Erythraian sea all the way to eastern India (mid-first century CE)

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

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

Barbarian peoples: Hellanikos, Nymphodoros, Nikolaos, and others with collections of “barbarian customs” (fifth 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)

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

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

Carthaginians: Plato, Aristotle, Polybios and others on their character and communal organization (fourth century BCE on)

Celtic, Indian, and Assyrian wisdom: Polyhistor on Pythagoras’ education by wise barbarians (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)

Celts: Appian of Alexandria on their character and on ambassadorial relations with Romans (second century CE)

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

Colchians, Phrygians, and others: Vitruvius theorizes development from primitives to civilized peoples (first century BCE)

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

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

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 / Persian / Judean wisdom: Judean legends of Jannes and Jambres as Magians in the Exodus account (third century CE and earlier)

Egyptian diasporas: Manetho, Josephos and others on legends of migration concerning Hyksos and Judeans (third century BCE and on)

Egyptian wisdom: Plutarch on wise Egyptian priests and on Isis and Osiris (early second century CE)

Egyptian, Phoenician, and Phrygian wisdom: Ephoros on inventors (mid-fourth century BCE)

Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians: Julius Africanus on competitive chronologies (ca. 222 CE)

Egyptians, Lydians, Cilicians, and other peoples: Kratinos, Aristophanes, Suetonius and others on “Egyptianizing” and other ethnicizing stereotypes (sixth 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 and Thracians: Xenophon of Kolophon theorizes human representations of gods (sixth century BCE)

Ethiopians, Nubians, and Egyptians: Christian authors picturing darker-skinned peoples as “demons” (second century CE on)

Ethiopians: Agatharchides and Diodoros on lifestyles and diets in the extreme south (second-first centuries 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 hierarchies, slaves, and environmental determinism (fourth century BCE)

Gauls, Kimbrians, Numidians, Indians, and others: Valerius Maximus’ collection of “barbarian customs” (early first century CE)

Germans, Britons, and Indians: Strabo on travelers, soldiers and merchants as sources of information (early first century CE)

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)

Iberians and others: Avienus on a journey along the southern coast of Spain (mid-fourth century CE)

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

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

Ichthyophagians: Nearchos and Agatharchides on Fish-eaters around the Arabian Sea (fourth-first centuries BCE)

Indian wisdom: Alexander Polyhistor and Clement of Alexandria (VII) on the Brahmans and naked sages (first century BCE / late second century CE)

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

Indians, Ethiopians, and Iberians: Poseidonios and Strabo on Eudoxos of Kyzikos’ expeditions (first centuries BCE and CE)

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

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

Indians: Megasthenes, Aristoboulos, Onesikritos, and Strabo on Indian customs and on Brahmans (fourth century BCE-early first century CE)

Indians: Palladios and George on naked philosophers or Brahmans (fourth / ninth centuries CE)

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

Italic peoples: Antiochos of Syracuse on migrations of peoples to and within Italy (late fifth century BCE)

Italic peoples: Cato, Livy, and Florus on Sabines, Samnites, and others (early second century BCE on)

Italic peoples: Strabo on Latins, Sabines, Samnites, Umbrians, Lucanians, and others (early first century CE)

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

Judean wisdom: Aristoboulos on Moses and the Judean god as source for Plato and Pythagoras (mid-second century BCE)

Judean wisdom: Eupolemos on contributions by Abraham and Moses (before the mid-first century BCE)

Judean wisdom: Josephos on Abraham’s dissemination of astrological knowledge (late-first century CE)

Judean wisdom: Josephos on Solomon as the ultimate wise man, controller of lower spirits, and healer (late-first century CE)

Judean wisdom: Josephos’ Against Apion in full (late first century CE)

Judean wisdom: Pseudo-Clement on a journey to Peter the Judean sage (third century CE and on)

Judean wisdom: Pseudo-Clementines on Abraham the astrologer and legends of migration (second-fourth centuries CE)

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

Judean wisdom: Testament of Solomon on Solomon’s superiority in controlling lower spirits and in healing (first-third century CE)

Judean, Persian, and Indian wisdom: Philo on the freedom of Essenes and Kalanos (early 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, 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: Strabo on decline after Moses and banditry (early first century CE)

Karmanians, Ichthyophagians, and others: Nearchos, Onesikritos, Juba, and Pliny on the area around the Persian Gulf and Red Sea (fourth century BCE-first century CE)

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

Kolchians, Heniochians, Drillians, and others: Arrian on his journey along the Black Sea coast near the Caucasus mountains (ca. 131-132 CE)

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