Book contents
- Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
- Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Maps
- Contributors
- Preface
- Chronology of the Ancient Mediterranean
- Chronology of Ancient China
- Maps of Ancient China, Greece, and Rome
- The Many Faces of “the People” in the Ancient World
- Part I Authority and Lifestyles of Distinction
- Part II The People as Agents and Addressees
- Part III Inversions of the People: Emperors and Tyrants
- Part IV Identities and “Others”
- Chapter 12 The Invention of the “Barbarian” and Ethnic Identity in Early Greece and China
- Chapter 13 Ethnic Identity and the ‘Barbarian’ in Classical Greece and Early China
- Glossary
- Index
- References
Chapter 13 - Ethnic Identity and the ‘Barbarian’ in Classical Greece and Early China
Its Origins and Distinctive Features
from Part IV - Identities and “Others”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2021
- Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
- Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Maps
- Contributors
- Preface
- Chronology of the Ancient Mediterranean
- Chronology of Ancient China
- Maps of Ancient China, Greece, and Rome
- The Many Faces of “the People” in the Ancient World
- Part I Authority and Lifestyles of Distinction
- Part II The People as Agents and Addressees
- Part III Inversions of the People: Emperors and Tyrants
- Part IV Identities and “Others”
- Chapter 12 The Invention of the “Barbarian” and Ethnic Identity in Early Greece and China
- Chapter 13 Ethnic Identity and the ‘Barbarian’ in Classical Greece and Early China
- Glossary
- Index
- References
Summary
The ancient peoples of Greece and China represented themselves and others in diverse ways in their surviving literature and art. What appears to approximate a sense of collective ethnic identity and the ‘othering’ of those perceived to be different (i.e., foreigners) existed in both cultures. In the Greek context the collective ‘panhellenic’ identity of that ethnos, which was used to connect the highly fractious and heterogeneous Greek sub-ethne (Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians, etc.) across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, was sometimes expressed via what modern scholars have termed polarity, an oppositional identity vis-à-vis the ‘Barbarian’. A host of scholarship has arisen to address the question of when exactly the notion of Greek-Barbarian polarity or antithesis first appeared. Some have associated its ‘invention’ with Athenian drama (Aeschylus in particular) in the context of Athenian propaganda vis-à-vis members of the Delian League in the fifth century bce.
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- Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China , pp. 420 - 442Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021