WHO ARE YOU? Proving your identity in antiquity? DOCUMENTARY

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How did people in the past prove their identity? How common was identity theft? Let's find out!

In this history documentary we ask the question: how did people prove their identity in the past? The results of our research actually resulted in a far more sophisticated answer than I could have ever imagined and which sheds light on the true complexities of antiquity.

We began by quickly reviewing the reasons why you might even need to prove your identity in the first place. This involves things like property claims, inheritance, marriage, and more. But perhaps the most important use of ID was to prove your citizenship. This is such an important idea in the makeup of societies as it governed the rights and responsibilities of all individuals within a community. We therefore spend some time looking at citizenship in the Spartan government as well as in Athens, Carthage, and Rome. The discussion of Roman citizenship in particular is quite revealing.

We then move on the main topic of how to prove your identity. This involved all kinds of methods such as trust, testimony, seals, citizen rolls, birth certificates and more. We then finally conclude by discussing how to falsify your identity and if there were any cases of identity theft in antiquity.

Stay tuned for more episodes about daily life in the past including the history of Rome, the history of Carthage, the history of Sparta and more. These are all a part of our How They Did It series, so check it out.

Sources and Suggested Reading:
“Epochs of European Civilization: Antiquity to Renaissance” by Geoffrey Hosking
“The Attributes of Citizens: Virtue, Manners and the Activity of Citizenship” by David Burchell
"The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody” by Brian M. Rapske
“The Roman Censors: A Study on Social Structure” by Suolahti, J.
“Being a Roman Citizen” by Jane F. Gardner
“The Roman Citizenship” by Sherwin-White
“Roman Registers of Births and Birth Certificates” by Schulz Fritz

#Rome
#History
#HowTheyDidIt

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As someone who works with records to prove lineage for inheritance matters it's both hilarious and shoking how differently this is handled to this day. Some countries keep massive rolls and can tell you exactly who is whose son, whose brother and whose father, where and where they were born and when and where they died whereas other countries are like "Yeah, that guy once got a drivers license in 1969, so he probably existed."...

mnk

Every one of these videos always has that “Oh yeah, your ancestors were literally just as smart as you.” Implication.

apocalypselemon

“I am Spartacus!”
“No, I am Spartacus!”
Legionary: “Alright that’s it, your all getting crucified for identity theft!”

marselv

Another related point is how this related to art. Hellenistic art was idealized, everyone wanted to be made to look like Heracles or Apollo. But Roman art was meant to be hyper realistic. That way, if a Consul showed up in one of the Provinces, everyone would know who he was. Later on, the same was applied to imperial minted coins. Roman soldiers were supposed to be able to recognize the Emperor from the coins they were paid with.

jesseberg

Some enterprising Swedish and Danish soldiers up until the 1700's would switch sides according to who's side was winning. The thing is, their language was so similar, that there was no good way of knowing, so they'd throw various tests at each other, such as a particular nursery rhyme which they _knew_ was slightly different on the other side.

kebman

In the case of Carthage, one citizen parent makes sense.

It was a seafaring trading culture. You can easily see how someone could ship out from Tyre and pick up a wife in a place like Miletus or Alexandria.

editorrbr

Totally have wondered about this for years.

Especially when the apostle Paul told the Romans that he was a citizen when they arrested him. And the Roman authorities were afraid that they had wrongly arrested and planned on legally punishing a citizen . Of which they would’ve been legally liable themselves.

I was always like, how is that proven?

rns

At least in Republican times, Roman equites wore jus annuli aurei- gold seal rings. Many chose to wear iron instead, but people from a certain class were permitted to wear seal rings to identify who they were and where they stood in society. It was these jus annuli aurei that Hannibal dumped in front of the oligarchs of Carthage following his victories at Trasimene, Trebia, and Cannae to show just how deeply he cut down the Romans and their upper class. Loved the video!

johnathanadams

"Identity theft is not a joke, Gaius. Hundreds of Romans suffer every year."
"Suffer from what?"
"PUNISHMENT."

gus-vanover

There is a Turkish saying: "Whoever has the Sultan's seal, is the Sultan"

Impoigness

I've seen an interesting Renaissance example. The Medici bank had lots of offices transferring lots of money all over Europe, far outside the range where any in-person verification was possible. Apparently, one of their main security tools was handwriting - any time a new banker started, they'd provide a sample of their writing to each other branch, which was kept on file to compare transactions against.

(I assume they also used seals etc. as described in the video, but it's been a while since I read that book, so I can't give any details with certainty.)

Alsadius

What's the difference between a civilian and a citizen?
"Sir! A citizen returns the shopping cart. A civilian does not."
A textbook answer.

CHRF-

An example of ancient roman identity theft might explain reports of people seeing emperor nero looking quite well considering he'd committed suicide months prior.

jackukridge

I was surprised that this video wasn't sponsored by a vpn😂

malahamavet

Thanks for providing this. I'm putting together a DnD campaign and this fit in perfectly with some of the questions I had about forgery, theft and identity - a lot of great details and jumping-off points to make the game more interesting!

ScottAleric