Race Before “Whiteness”: Studying Identity inPtolemaic Egypt

DENISE EILEEN MCCOSKEY (Departmentof Classics, Miami University, Ohio)

ABSTRACT This paperexamines the modelsclassical historians and papyrologistsuse tostudy Greek andEgyptian identity during the periodof Greek occupationof Egypt (332-30B.C.E.). Employingthe concept ofethnicity, some scholars have recently emphasized the uiditywith which identityseems tooperate in colonialdocuments fromthe Ptolemaicperiod. In particular, scholars arguethat these documents attest tothe increasing abilityof certain “native Egyptians”to act as “Greek”in variousadministrative and legal contexts. While Žndingthis recent use ofethnicity productivein grapplingwith the complexity ofidentity as aformof social practice inPtolemaic Egypt,I nonetheless cautionagainst over-emphasizing the roleof context andindividual agency within this colonial framework.In contrast, Iarguethat the concept ofrace shouldbe added to current modelsto allow historians ofthis periodto situate certain performances within alargercolonial structure that continuedto treat the categoriesof “ Greek”and “Egyptian”as conceptually distinct andindeed representative ofinverse positionsof social power.

Ye gods,what acrowd!How and when will we ever Get throughthis mob?Ants withoutnumber or measure! You’ve donemany commendablethings, Ptolemy, Since yourfather has beenamong the immortals.No villain Creepsup upon one in the street, Egyptian-wise, benton mischief, As inthe past– atrick that pack ofrogues used to play, One as badas the other,all ofthem scoundrels. (Theocritus, Idyll 15.lines 44-50,trans. Thelma Sargent)

Critical Sociology, Volume 28,issue 1-2 Ó 2002Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden 14 McCoskey ²

Beginning withAlexander the Great’s conquestin 332 B.C.E. (i.e., B.C.),Egypt was ruled for three oftenchaotic centuries by a Greek foreigndynasty, the Ptolemies– aname taken fromthe general who wasAlexander’ s initialsuccessor in Egypt. From their royal residence in the newcapital of Alexandria, the Ptolemiesgoverned Egypt until they wereforced to relinquish it to the rapidlyexpanding Roman Empire followingthe deathof Cleopatra VII, the lastof the Ptolemies,in 30 B.C.E.While these factsmay befamiliar to many, Ipointedlybegin with them becausethey markan essential contextfor what follows. Stripped ofother details, this brief chronology calls attentionto a dynamicthat wasoften obscured by the Greeks intheir contemporary representations ofthemselves –namely the inextricablelink between“ Greek”identity and the politicalprocess of colonization, both in Egypt and throughout the ancientMediterranean, following Alexander the Great’s campaigns. 1 Greek literarysources, long accorded a privilegedposition in the disciplineof classics, do not help uswitness this startling historical shift; indeed,we might say Greek literatureof this period often functions preciselyto conceal its progressively colonial context through its pointed nostalgiafor, and response to, earlier Greek literarytraditions. 2 Yet the Greek poetTheocritus, in the passagequoted above, gives usa rareand provocativeliterary allusion to the waysin whichEgypt and its new capital, Alexandria,remained infused with a hostile,perpetually unsettled colonial contest.In thispoem, dated to the early third-centuryB.C.E., Theocritus depictsthe experiences oftwo pompous and, as they emphaticallyassert, Greek women,Gorgo and Praxinoa, who are planning to attendthe festival ofAdonis in Alexandria’ s royaldistrict. 3 Asthe womenwalk tothe festival alongthe crowdedstreets of Alexandria, Praxinoa momentarily

1 The periodbetween Alexander’ s deathand the riseof Roman control in the east(i.e., 323-1stcentury B.C.E.)has traditionally been called the Hellenistic Period.During this time,Alexander’ s former empirewas divided between three independentGreek dynasties: that ofthe Ptolemies(who received Egypt), the Antigonids(Macedonia), and the Seleucids (Asia).The combinedterritory ofthese three empires“ extendedfrom mainlandGreece to modern-day Afghanistanand northwest India,north tosouth it reached from Macedonia andThrace toEgypt and the Gulf ofArabia”(Alcock 1994:171). Alcock andGreen 1993 discussthe evolutionand current stateof Hellenistic historiography. 2 Andrew Erskine discussesthe strikinginvisibility of Egyptand Egyptians in mostGreek literature ofthe Hellenistic Period,insisting that the “omission : : : masksa fundamental insecurity”(1995: 43). 3 Forthe text ofthe originalGreek poemand accompanying commentary, seeDover 1971.Delia 1996 discusses the signiŽcance ofthe women’s insistenceon their Syracusan identity,“ which byextensionmakes them Corinthians”(41), i.e., from aGreek city-state,an important “statusbadge” among members ofthe foreignGreek populationin Alexandria (47). Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 15 ² raisesthe specterof the otherwiseinvisible native Egyptianpopulation. In the scornfuldiatribe quoted above, she categoricallycasts the natives as dangerousthieves andpick-pockets, a persistentpublic threat that King Ptolemyhas only recently quelled. Taken asevidence ofthe interactionbetween colonizers and colonized inPtolemaic Alexandria, this outburst is depressingly brief and one-sided. Theattitudes of the Egyptianpopulation toward the arrogantGreek upper-classwomen, not to mention their reactions to the lavish displays ofthe Greek monarchy,are simply unimagined by Theocritus. 4 Indeed, justas the alleged criminalthreat of the Egyptianshas been contained byPtolemy’ s recentmeasures, so, too, all Egyptiansare expelled from the restof poem. Instead, the womenreturn to what seems apurely (in every sense ofthe word)Greek environment.Precisely becauseof its placementwithin a poemcentered around the elaboratestaging of a Greek festival,however, Praxinoa’ s derogatorycomment about the Egyptiansis signiŽcant. Juxtaposing Greek culturaldisplay with a suppressedEgyptian threat,this brief passage illustrates the colonialfantasies and paranoias uponwhich Greek identityin Egypt was founded, that is, it suggeststhat a Greek colonialidentity, one expressed ingreatpart through cultural forms, reliedupon the uncomfortableand always disconcertingly incomplete expulsionof all Egyptian“ elements”to the margins. AlthoughI willfocus in the remainderof this essay onthe useof historicalrather than literary evidence inthe studyof identity in Ptolemaic Egypt,I have dwelton this scene fromancient literature at the outset becauseit functions as a potentsymbol for the waysin which Ptolemaic Egypthas traditionallybeen treatedby classical historians. For Praxinoa’ s dismissiveattitude toward the Egyptianpopulation of Alexandria all too oftenseems toparallel historians’ tendencies eitherto treat the colonized Egyptianpopulation as fundamentallyinconsequential, as the non-speaking extras infrontof whom the Greeks conduct“ worldhistory,” or to idealize the Greek methodsfor assimilating native Egyptiansinto the newcolonial structure. 5 In contrast,I wouldlike toinsist that the colonialcontext

4 The Ptolemiacstrategies for bolstering their positionof authority seemed to involve publicdisplay of their powerand resources. Thompson discusses the evidencefor an elaborateprocession in 279/8B.C.E.(1997: 242; see also Erskine 1995:43-44), just a few yearsbefore the eventsof Theocritus’ poem, which isdatedby Doverwithin ayear or two of274B.C.E. (1971: 197). 5 Ritner arguesthat the Ptolemaicperiod is neglected by historians of Egypt precisely becausethey considerit aperiodof decline,interpreting the“(l)oss of political independence : : : asa lossof cultural independenceand vitality” (1992: 284). Meanwhile, to those in classicalstudies, too often “ (t)he presumptionis, of course, that Ptolemaichistory is Greek history”(285). 16 McCoskey ² remaincentral, that any understandingof the Greek presencein Egypt isultimately only partial(and therefore insufŽ cient) unless itis situated explicitly withina mutuallydependent, structurally violent colonialsystem, onereliant upon ideologies that constructed Egyptian identity as inferior (orat the very least, silent) asa wayof providing a foilfor a superior (or,we might say, clamorous)Greek identity.This approach demands thatquestions of power, both individual and especially institutional,be constantlyraised. So, too, in accordance with the overall aimof this collectionof essays, Ibelieve iturges a returnto the conceptof race asaprimaryanalytic tool. Beforeengaging the questionof race, including what race might even connoteduring this period, I wouldlike tobegin by describing more fully someof the modelsand methods scholars have traditionallyused toreconstruct Egypt under Ptolemiac control. Tomany audiencesan exoticized,asp-bitten Cleopatra VII providesthe mostdominant image of Egypt during the Greek andthen Romanperiods ofoccupation; yet the studyof Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt has occupied amorecomplicated and indeed mostly marginalized position within classi- calstudies. Although the periodis attested in traditionalforms of evidence, suchas literary texts, art,and archaeological remains, 6 fromthe 1880’s onwards,the studyof Ptolemaic Egypt was transformed by increasing at- tentionto a newform of evidence: Greek papyri(Turner 1982). 7 Having survivedto an unprecedenteddegree in Egyptbecause of a variety offac- tors,including the dryEgyptian environment (Thompson 1994: 71), hoards ofdocuments preserved on papyri have been discoveredin sites through- outEgypt. Although the papyrithemselves survive primarilyin fragments, these fragments,both individually and in relation to one another, allow scholarsto reconstruct a moredetailed picture of every-day life inEgypt thanin any otherpart of the formerGreco-Roman world. The content ofsuch documents ranges from legal texts (e.g.,tax records,wills, divorce agreements) topersonal letters, many ofwhich provide witness to interac- tionsbetween individuals and various ofŽ cials of the colonialgovernment. Asinvaluableas the papyriare, however, it is atthe same timealready inthe papyrologicalrecord that we candiscern a biastoward the colonizing

6 Foran introductionto recent archaeologicalexcavation of Ptolemaic sites, see Bianchi 1996.Most general introductions to literature andart from the Hellenistic Periodinclude extensivediscussion of material from Egypt.This is especially true ofstudies of Hellenistic literature giventhat Alexandriawas the center ofGreek literary productionduring this period. 7 Producedfrom areedthat wasnative to Egypt (the papyrusplant), papyrus, a form of ancient paper,was used throughout the ancient Mediterreanworld and the manufacture ofitremainedan important industryin PtolemaicEgypt (Bowman 1986:56). Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 17 ²

Greeks –forthe majorityof papyrological texts thatsurvive arewritten in Greek andindeed many pointedlyfall withinthe Greek administrative apparatus.Even more,the studyof such documents has longbeen restrictedin the Želd ofclassics to asmall groupof scholars,papyrologists, whohave been specially trainedto reconstruct the originaldocuments from suchfragments and to interpret the informationthey contain.Given its traditionalfocus on speciŽ c Greek linguisticand philological problems that emerge when readingthe papyri(papyrologists are rarely trained to read the contemporaryform of the Egyptianlanguage, Demotic, which also, albeitless frequently,appears in the papyri),the Želd ofpapyrology has oftenhad difŽ culty presenting its Ž ndingsto wider audiences in classics. Similarly,the workof papyrologists is rarely cited by classicists doing workin ancient social history or scholars from other disciplines doing comparativestudies of colonialism. 8 Indeed,many papyrologistsseem pointedlyto eschew the label ofcolonialhistorian. 9 Yetsome papyrologists and ancient historians have explicitly treatedthe studyof Egypt under Greek dominationas a formof colonial history. In doingso, they have oftendevoted attention, perhaps not surprisingly, to the topof the colonialhierarchy, that is, to the Ptolemaicmonarchy itself. Thuscertain scholars have attemptedto document the speciŽc waysin whichthe Ptolemiesnegotiated both Egyptian and Greek traditionsin es- tablishingand representing their authority. Such studies have documented the developmentof the Ptolemies’royal religious cult and the visualstyles andsymbols that were used when representingthem moregenerally in publicdiscourse (e.g., Koenen 1993;Samuel 1993: 180-83; Bothmer 1996; andSmith 1996). Other scholars, preferring to study Ptolemiac rule as a practicerather than iconographicevent, have soughtto reveal the eco- nomicmotives and strategies of the colonizingdynasty. For without any

8 SeeBagnall 1982 for a reviewof trends in documentary papyrologyfrom 1956-1980; Hobson1988 and Keenan 1991discuss more recent attemptsto link papyrologywith work in ancient socialhistory. Wider access to surviving papyrological texts hasbeen greatlyfacilitated by the adventof the internet. The University ofMichigan, under the directionof Traianos Gagos, has not only madeits own papyrological collection available on-line, butalso provides a comprehensiveset of links to other papyrologicalwebsites at http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/. 9 In arecent article,Bagnall discusses the relevance ofpost-colonial theory tothe study ofPtolemaicEgypt, responding in particular tothe previouscomparative study by Edouard Will.Adopting a dismissivetone toward the politicalbiases he believessome scholars bring totheir useof post-colonial theory (1997:227), Bagnall ultimately argues that colonial modelsare too restrictive, concludingthat “thosepower relationships that aredistinctive tocolonialism are only asubsetof those that can help usunderstand the societiesof the Hellenistic world”(241). 18 McCoskey ² survivingdirect articulation of the politicalor racial justiŽ cation of Ptole- maicrule, Ž nancialneed appearsin the historicalrecord as the primary engine ofPtolemaic policy. A.E. Samuelhas arguedthat the maingoal of the Ptolemiacdynasty was“ tocontinue collecting rent and tax revenues overan extensive tractof land, from a largenumber of people whose lan- guagethey didnot understand and who functioned in a differentsocial andeconomic system fromthat to which the Greeks wereaccustomed” (1993:174). While the Ptolemiesthemselves remainedin control of the militaryand what we mightcall foreignpolicy (Samuel 1993: 183), in try- ingto meet theirŽ scalneeds, they reliedon an increasinglydiffuse yet elaboratebureaucracy, one that seemed attimesto function independently ofdirect royal authority. As Samuel describes it: “ Themonarchy existed alongsidethe bureaucracy,in a sense, ratherthan being part of it;and the king couldalways be seen asa Žgurequalitatively, not just quantitatively, differentfrom other members of the administration”(192). In seeking totrace more concretely the regularpoints of contact betweencolonizers and colonized in Ptolemaic Egypt, many scholarshave thusshifted their attention from the royalfamily inAlexandria to the developmentof the colonialbureaucracy throughout Egypt. Such work has demonstratedthat the Ptolemaicbureaucracy retained a number ofinstitutions that pre-existed its arrival in Egypt. For example, the Ptolemiesallowed the previouslyestablished Egyptian legal system toco- exist alongsidea newerGreek legal system, althoughthe independence ofthe Egyptiansystem waseventually curtailedin 146 B.C.E., when itbecame necessary toregister an Egyptiancontract, i.e., one that was composedin Demotic, in a Greek registryofŽ ce (Thompson1994: 82). Like theirpredecessors, the Greeks alsodivided Egypt into thirty administrative unitscalled nomes, upon which, however, the Greeks imposeda new ofŽcial, called a strategos. Asboth the gradualevolution toward a Greek standardin law and the introductionof a newGreek ofŽce suggests,despite its adaptation ofcertain traditional features of Egyptian government (as well asthose fromthe Persianregime that immediately preceded Alexander’ s conquest), the Ptolemaicbureaucracy was overwhelmingly conceivedas a Greek institution.As such, it brought tangible privilege to the Greek population inEgypt,a populationthat was comprised of both military personnel and othertypes ofrecent immigrants (Bowman 1986: 122). 10 Greek soldiers, forexample, werecompensated for their service withland grants through

10 There wasa generalincrease in the overallpopulation of Egypt under the Ptolemies. Althoughestimates of its precise size have varied, Bowman suggestsa populationas large aseight million may havebeen possible (Bowman 1986:17-18). Despite the increasing Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 19 ² whatwas called the cleruchsystem, apracticethat Samuel believes also served the purposeof “ ...puttingas many Greek-speaking peopleon the landas possible, in orderto facilitate the collectionof rentsand taxes.” As Samuelcontinues, this meant thatGreeks weredistributed throughout the Egyptiancountryside, not just resident in the cities,as one might expect fromsuch a newly arrivingpopulation (Samuel 1993: 175). The emphasisSamuel places on “ Greek-speaking”is essential, for perhapsthe mostnotable feature of the Ptolemaicbureaucracy was its increasinglyexclusive useof Greek asits ofŽ cial language (Thompson 1994:73, Clarysse 1993:187). So clear was the privilegebestowed on Greek-speakers (or,as they appearin oursources, writers of Greek) bythis accessto ofŽcial power that Samuel suggests the growthof the bureaucracy wasdriven in part by “ wisheson the partof Greeks inEgypt to Ž nd administrativeposts and get themselves somebeneŽ t fromtheir ofŽ cial positions”(1993: 178). He goeson to estimate that “ by250 B.C. a very largeproportion of the noncleruchicGreek-speaking individualsof Egypt hadfound their way into one administrative billet or another” (178). The contrastbetween the termsused in Samuel’ s statements here, however, marksa centraltension in the studyof identity in Ptolemaic Egypt, one to whichwe willreturn – namely the slippagebetween “ Greek”and “ Greek- speaking”in identifying the precisegroup holding privilege under this colonialstructure. While entry intothe Greek administrationseemed tobring economic privilege,it is perhaps surprising to Ž ndthat administrators in Ptolemaic Egyptreceived no regular salary, leading many scholarsto conclude thatrewards were garnered by individual bureaucrats primarily from exploitationof their position. As Samuel articulates it, “ The woesof the peasantswere caused less bya rapaciousmonarchy than by a steadily growingarmy of bureaucrats lining their pockets and then covering themselves againstany complaintsfrom superiors by drainingthe producers tomeet expectations,even indifŽ cult times” (1993: 180). In sucha characterization,colonial abuse and exploitation is therefore locatedat the level ofindividual encounter between individual subjects andagents ofthe colonialbureaucracy, allowing the Greek colonizationof Egyptas an institutionto remain uninterrogated or (at the most)to seem primarilybenign, an optimismthat characterizes many currenttreatments ofPtolemaicEgypt. 11 immigration,the nativeEgyptians, however, continued to vastly outnumber any other group(Bowman 1986:122). 11 Such scholarly attitudesseem compounded by the failureof most of our evidence to registerany direct collectivehostility toward the Greek administration.Samuel suggests: 20 McCoskey ²

Beforeexamining moreclosely the operationof the Ptolemaicbureau- cracyas it is attested in our surviving documentary evidence, weshould briey considerthe roleof culture itself as a concomitanttool of domina- tionin PtolemaicEgypt. In part,culture plays sucha distinctiverole in the negotiationof power in PtolemaicEgypt because the Ptolemiesthemselves actively promotedit as akey vocabularyfor expressing their authority both inEgypt and, as they hoped,throughout the ancientMediterranean. In treatingculture as a centraldomain in which to establish superiority, the Ptolemiesdrew on the long-standingauthority culture had previously ac- quiredin articulating Greek identity.One ofthe mainpublic goals of the Ptolemieswas therefore to establish Alexandria as the newGreek cultural center,the descendantof once-golden Athens. In effect,they soughtto achieve a“monopolyof Greek culture”(Erskine 1995:45). Such aspira- tionsannounced themselves mostprominently in the Museum(a center forscholarly study) and the Libraryof Alexandria, both situated within the royaldistrict of the newcapital city. Through these institutions,the Ptolemiessought to amass the mostcomprehensive collection of Greek lit- eratureand to make theircollection the mostauthoritative in the world, producingfrom it “ deŽnitive editionsof the greatworks of Greek literature, especially Homer”(Erskine 1995:45). Indeed, so explicit was the claimfor Greek culturalsuperiority that although foreign texts wereincluded in the library’s collections,they weredone so only afterthey hadbeen translated intoGreek (Erskine 1995:43). In placingsuch priority on Greek culture, the Ptolemiesunderstood it furthermore as the means bywhich Greek identitycould be both constituted and expressed inthe “foreign”setting providedby Egypt.Erskine writes:

The Ptolemaicemphasis onGreek culture establishes the Greeks ofEgypt with an identityfor themselves : : : Butthe emphasis onGreek culture doeseven morethan this –these areGreeks rulingin aforeignland. The moreGreeks can indulgein their ownculture, the morethey can exclude non-Greeks, in otherwords Egyptians, the subjects whose landhas beentaken over.The assertion ofGreek culture serves toenforce Egyptiansubjection. (43) 12

“Wedon’ t knowwhat Egyptiansdid to protest exploitation if they didn’t speakGreek” (1993:208). This statement isonly partiallytrue, however, for historical records do suggest an increasinginstability in Egyptfollowing the mid-third-century B.C.E.,a phenomenon that can betraced not only in variousmilitary failuresby the Ptolemiesabroad, but alsoincreasing rebelliousness among the populationwithin Egypt.Such internal hostilities culminatedin aseriesof movements that establishedrival nativegovernments in other parts ofEgypt, including one that lastedin Thebesfor two decades beginning in 206B.C.E. (Samuel1993: 176). 12 Yet,just as culture couldbe promoted to claim Greek dominance,it might also,as JorgenPodemann Sorensen argues, be asitein which Egyptianreactions and resistance to Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 21 ²

Ifthe publicdisplay of culture served asone of the arenasin which Greek identitycould be established at a nationallevel, DorothyThompson has shownthe adoptionof suchpractices on the personallevel, suggesting the waysin which literature could be used by individuals to formulate an expressionof, or re ection upon, their own identities as they were situatedwithin this colonial environment. In examining the personal literarycollection of two brothers, Ptolemaios and Apollonios, who lived in areligiouscomplex known as the Serapeumat Memphis, a complexwhich housedboth Greeks andEgyptians (Thompson 1987: 107), Thompson at Žrstnotes the interestingcombination of literary texts, whichinclude an astronomicaltreatise, a Greek versionof what was probably originally an Egyptianstory (“ The Dreamof Nectanebo” ), andquotations copied outfrom various Greek authors.She acknowledges,moreover, that this variety may simplyre ect aspects of contemporary literary taste, including testifyingto the availabilityof Egyptian tales translatedinto Greek, as well asperhaps indicating the contentof a standardschool curriculum (110).In tryingto posit a morepointed principle of selection, however, Thompsonsuggests that particular passages appealed to Ptolemaios and Apolloniosprecisely because they addressedthe tensionsthe brothersfaced inestablishing their Greek identitywithin “ the mainly Egyptianworld of the Serapeum”(116). She notesthat after copying out a literarypassage froma Greek tragedyby Euripides, the Telephus,inwhich Telephus described“ hisbackground as king andas a Greek rulingnow far from homeamong barbarians,” Apollonios emphatically (albeit almost illegibly) signaledhis identiŽ cation with the characterand the character’s plightby writinghis own name underneathit, twice repeating his status as Greek (117). 13 Asinsight into personal afŽ liation with colonial power, this note inthe marginof the text isaspotentially provocative as an Englishmanin colonialIndia owning and inserting himself into,say, aworkby Kipling. Andliterature was presumably not the only culturalmeans bywhichGreek

Greek rule couldsimultaneously be expressed (1992: 164). Sorensen argues, for example, that althoughapocalypticism was present in earlier literary traditions,it emerged as an especiallysalient feature of native Egyptian literature duringthis time (170).See also Tait 1992on Demoticliterature. 13 Actually,he usesthe term “Macedonian,”writing: “ Apolloniosthe Macedonian : : : a MacedonianI say”(117). Macedonian identity held dualreference in PtolemaicEgypt. Onthe onehand, “ Macedonian”in many contexts merely suggesteda generic Greek identity.On the other hand,it could also more speciŽcally signalafŽ liation with Alexander the Great, whowas Macedonian, and the Ptolemiesthemselves who continued (in part becauseof Alexander) toclaim aMacedonianidentity. Borza 1996examines the waysin which later ancient sourcesconceptualized the relationshipbetween Greek andMacedonian identities. 22 McCoskey ² andEgyptian identities were given expressionin Ptolemaic Egypt. Public institutionslike religioncould also serve tomediate and display identity (van Straten1993); so, too, participation in the activitiesof the local gymnasium,a culturalcenter that included “ lecturehalls andclassrooms, ball-courts,a gymnasium(in the modernsense) andbaths” marked men emphaticallyas Greek (Bowman1986: 143-44). YetThompson’ s studyof the personaluse of literature acknowledges the primacythat the studyof Ptolemaic Egypt, because of its dependency on papyrologicalevidence, placeson textual recordsof identity. And because it isthis textual/ papyrologicalstudy of identity that I wouldlike toexamine inthe remainderof my essay, Iwouldlike toacknowledge some of its limitationsfrom the outset.First, in relying sostrongly on ancient papyri, ourmodern ability to reconstruct Ptolemaic social practice as it related to socialpower and identity is circumscribed by the very real necessity that the writtenrecord of that act hold some signiŽ cance in itsoriginal context. The formand content of ourevidence isthusdictated in nosmall partby the contextof its production, one that was often public and related closely tothe workingof the colonialstate apparatus (i.e., in contrast, temporary, private,or ephemeral actsof identiŽ cation are not always visible in our sources).Second, in relying soheavily ontextual material,we lose the abilityto witness any visualmarkers of identity unless they areexplicitly mentionedin the texts. Althoughidentity in Egypt seems toholdlittle direct correlationto the mostprominent modern visual sign of identity, i.e., skin color,the biasof our evidence prevents any attemptto determine whether identitywas established through other visual means duringthis period (e.g.,through physical features or cultural items, such as clothing).Finally, sincesuch documents are often produced with regard to a particular functionor to produce a speciŽc outcome(e.g., win a legal proceeding), itis dangerous to assume that the participantsin the documentswould necessarily representthemselves the same wayin other contexts, i.e., that the identitiesproduced in formal contexts directly correlate to identities claimedin other social domains. In fact,we possess only afewinstances inwhich we can compare our evidence forindividuals’ activities in documentaryevidence withtheir behavior and self-representations in other settings,such as privaterelationships (Clarysse 1985:66). Nonetheless, itis primarily this function of identity as a type of socialpractice in Ptolemaic Egypt (as itis recorded in text) thatcertain papyrologistshave progressivelyengaged in their work, and it is precisely the termsand methods of this reconstruction of Ptolemaic Egypt that I wouldlike Žnally tointerrogate.Citing papyri in which references topower andstatus seem toappear, papyrologists have attemptedin particular to understandmore fully the relationshipbetween Greeks andEgyptians, Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 23 ² andthe socialpower conferred by each positionin colonized Egypt. In theorizingthe putativelevel ofinteractionbetween the twogroups, Robert Ritnerhas traceda noticeablerecent shift from traditional models that emphasizedthe persistenthostility between the Greeks andEgyptians to morerecent models that insist on keeping the twogroups distinct (1992: 286-87).While thismore recent insistence on separate social spheres has shedpositive light on Egyptian culture during this period (allowing it to beseen as“ vital”on its own), 14 Ritnernonetheless notes“ : : : that it can betaken toofar” and he “: : : (is) suspiciousof the underlyingmotives in overstressing the absenceof interaction”(287). In discussingsocial relations in Ptolemaic Egypt (not just culture in the moreabstract sense), the absenceof interaction between Greeks and Egyptianshas oftenbeen similarlystressed (and overstated) by ancient historians.In contrastto this tendency totreat the populationsseparately, however,a numberof scholars have soughtto examine suchputative boundariesmore closely and,indeed, to demonstrate that the boundaries betweenthe twogroups are less rigidin practice than they mightseem. Evokingprimarily the conceptof ethnicity, such scholarship has sought todemonstrate an increasing  uidityin the waysidentity was formulated duringthe Ptolemaicperiod. Although it has revealed amorecomplicated (andtherefore welcome) picture of social life inPtolemaic Egypt, such employment ofthe termethnicity has nonetheless cometo place special and,in my mind,dangerous emphasis on the opportunityfor self- identiŽcation and assimilation in PtolemaicEgypt. To complementcurrent scholarlyoptimism about the divergentpossibilities and proŽ ts ofindividual socialperformance, I wouldtherefore like toreintroduce race to our critical apparatusas a wayof drawing attention to the simultaneoussurvival of ideologicalstructures that continued to associate the categoryof “ Greek” withdomination and that of “ Egyptian”with dominated. Tobegin, despite the factthat the termethnicity is almost universally evoked asa salient formof identity by scholars of this period, closer examinationof its usage reveals afundamentalinstability – an instability

14 Ritner isspeciŽ cally concerned with howsuch models represent culture, i.e.,“ whether cultural ‘vitality’is againconfused with ‘purity”’ (287).Bagnall, like many scholars,envisions Egyptianculture asfundamentally static,arguing for “ : : : the almosttotal lack ofvisible impactof Greek occupationon Egyptian culture : : :”(1988:24). The tendency toview Egyptianculture asprimarily unaffectedby the contemporary occupationhas been applied in particular tointerpretations of Egyptian religion (Bagnall 1988: 24). Such models,of course,rely ona continuingsense that itispossibleto distinguish “ Greek”from “Egyptian” culture, rather than positingthe productionof any typeof hybrid culture. Avoidingthe possibilityof a hybrid culture meanslikewise that scholarslike Bagnall continue to express cultural contact interms ofwhich culture is“ stronger”by its very “nature”(1988: 24). 24 McCoskey ² linked toa failureto comprehend exactly whatoperation the termethnicity seeks todescribe. In short,papyrologists have been unableto agree on preciselywhat ethnicity might mean inPtolemaic Egypt. Roger Bagnall arguesthat ethnic identity “ : : : atleast formen : : : wasan ofŽcial status, suchas one had been requiredto give inall legal contextssince at least the timeof Ptolemy II” (1988: 22). Yet, he isforced to admit a certain ambiguityin determining its exact foundationfor men, notto mention its meaningoverall forwomen, continuing “ (h)owone came by such status : : : andwhat it meant subjectivelyfor the individuals,particularly women, atan unofŽcial level, aremuch harder questions” (22). AsBagnall’ s statement suggests,the sourceof ethnic identity in PtolemaicEgypt, how one came by suchstatus, is anespecially troublesome gapleft bymany ofour sources. In earlierperiods, as Jonathan Hall has argued,ethnic identity for the Greeks seemed tobe linked primarily toa claimof geographic origin (Hall 1997:25), a traditionalmeaning evoked bythe womenin Theocritus’ poem, who aggressively assertthe signiŽcance of their own Greek origins.Yet such an explicitfoundation of ethnicidentity is rarely so directlyestablished by our documentary sources fromthe period.Instead, papyrologists have hadto approachthe question bystudying the ostensiblemanifestations of ethnic identity in the papyri andfrom that to infer its primary components and consequences. But even thisconcession underestimates the natureof the problem,for papyrologists mustbegin with an even morefundamental question: how can we locate the presenceand operation of ethnic identity in our sources when itmay bemarked in ways that are not immediately comprehensible from our modernperspective? For a longtime, papyrologists chose to use names as the primarysign of ethnic identity in Ptolemaic Egypt, given thatGreek names seem fairlydistinguishable from Egyptian names inour sources, even when bothare written in Greek. In short,papyrologists assumed “ as arule,Greek names pointto ethnic Greeks, Egyptiannames toethnic Egyptians”(Clarysse 1985:58). Such an assumption,however, clearly serves toreinforce a boundarybetween Greeks andEgyptians that is all toooften taken forgranted by scholars. That is, the methodthreatens to rely ona transparentlycircular argument: people were Greeks because they hadGreek names,and people had Greek names becausethey were Greek. The weightplaced on names asthe primarysign of ethnic identity has been challenged even moreby a practiceonly recently discoveredin oursources – the useof double names, that is, persons who can be seen tobe employing a Greek name inone context and an Egyptianname in anothercontext (Clarysse 1985:57-58). Given the natureof papyrological evidence (itsgeneral attachmentto a discreteevent orfunction), many scholarshave recently movedaway from Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 25 ² modelsthat treat ethnic identities as absolute and predetermined in this periodand have insteadexplored the numerouscontingencies by which identityseemed tofunction, that is, to explicate moreclosely the speciŽc contextsfor identity declaration and, equally, the speciŽc privilegesor consequencesparticular claims held withinthat context. Willy Clarysse,for example, arguesthat the useof double names, at least amonggovernment employees, seems tobe dictated by occupation rather than a claimof geographicorigin. This means thatcertain positions were considered Greek (e.g.,bankers), while others were considered Egyptian (e.g., village scribes), andthe holderof the jobused the appropriatetype ofname indocuments relatedto that position. 15 Clarysse writes:

Idonot want tosuggest that there was any legalobligation to change one’s name orto use aGreek orEgyptianname uponbecoming epistates orvillage scribe respectively : : : Butone job was felt tobe Egyptian in character, the otherwas felt tobe Greek, andsince the peopleinvolved seem quiteoften to have haddouble names, the correspondingname was usedmore frequently than the other.(1985: 60)

Clarysse even Žndsindividual families whose members used a combination ofbothGreek andEgyptian names (58-62). Assessingsimilar, albeit more direct, economic consequences of ethnic identiŽcations, Dorothy Thompson has arguedthat ethnic identity func- tionedas an importanttax categoryin Ptolemaic Egypt, demonstrating thattax exemptionswere explicitly grantedto those who identiŽ ed as Greek (“Hellene”) orwho seemed toengage instandard Greek cultural practices. 16 Thus,exemptions from the salttax (a type ofpoll-tax) were given to“schoolteachers,athletic coaches, (most probably) artists of Diony- sus,and victors in the games ofthe variousAlexandrian festivals,” while

15 Clarysseshows that another widelydiscussed ofŽ ce, that of agoranomos,shouldlikewise belinked to Greek namesand not necessarilyany broadersense of Greek identity.He citesthe work ofPestman whopreviously showed “ : : : that the agoranomoi in Pathyris in fact belongedto a familyof Graeco-Egyptian soldiers, that they wrotedemotic as well as (or even better than) Greek, andthat they hadan Egyptianbesides their Greek name. When writing demoticthey usedtheir Egyptianname; when writing Greek, andespecially intheir capacityof agoranomoi,they usedtheir Greek name”(1985: 60). 16 Taxeswere leviedon bothland and individuals and provided one of the mostimportant sourcesof revenue forthe Ptolemies.Much of their elaboratebureaucracy, including the census,was therefore constructed aroundcalculating and collecting it. Thompson provides asuccinct descriptionof how taxes were assessedin PtolemaicEgypt (1992: 324), while Claryssenotes the rangeof information that can begleaned from ancient tax documents (1994:69). Ethnic identitywas not the only identitycategory that mattered in Ptolemaic taxation;Thompson notes that womenpaid a lesseramount on the salttax (1997:246). 26 McCoskey ² exemptionsfrom a tax calledthe obol-tax,were given (beforeit waselim- inated)to Greeks (“Hellenes”) andPersians, the latterbeing colonizers of Egyptprior to Alexander (Thompson 1997: 247; on the statusof a “Per- sian”identity during the PtolemaicPeriod, see Clarysse 1994).Moreover, justas Clarysse detachesnames fromany clearsigniŽ cation of origin, “ Hel- lene”in the tax context,according to Thompson,likewise cannotbe strictly limitedto asignof origin, for although

(s)ome ofthese tax-Hellenes were certainly ethnic Greeks, : : : the categoryalso includedthose fromEgyptian families who worked within the administration andcame toform part of the privilegedgroup. Greek originswere clearly not necessary forthe acquisitionof an Hellenic designation;Jews toomight count asHellenes. “Greeks”were nolonger Greeks : : : (247-48)

Like Clarysse,Thompson has even discovereda discrepancyin tax statuswithin individual families, Ž ndingthat “ intwo cases : : : Egyptian namedbrothers : : : paythe fullrate of both the salt-tax andthe oboltax, whilethe brotherswith Greek names payonly the salt tax”(Thompson 1992:326). These circumstantialdeŽ nitions of ethnic identity led Clarysse toconclude overall thatby “ the lastquarter of the thirdcentury the Hellenes wereno longer a purelyethnic group, but a tax categoryor a socialcategory, to whichalso some Egyptians : : : couldgain access” (1994: 76).Casting it in slightly differentterms, Thompson and Clarysse have arguedthat origin played an increasinglynegligible role in establishing ethnicidentity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Thompson 1994: 75). Ifsuch models capture well the waydocumentary papyri reveal the signiŽcance of context, as well asthe change acrosstime, it is nonetheless importantto evaluate the consequencesand contradictions that may result fromgiving too much emphasis to  uidityin reading the operationof identityduring the Ptolemaicperiod. For one, the notionof  uidityitself has been employedin a limitedfashion, studied almost exclusively asa one-wayprocess, that is, the mannerby which Egyptians crossed into the categoryof Greek. Thisemphasis suggests that to many scholarsupward socialmobility played an exclusive rolein determining the Egyptian responseto Greek colonialrule, i.e., that any Egyptianwho “ could”pass asGreek would.Yet such an assumption,focusing narrowly on economic incentive, threatens toignore other types ofpersonal or political sources forcertain identity claims, such as family structures produced under the conditionsof increasingintermarriage. 17

17 WillyClarysse is one of the fewclassical historians to turn from focuson “ the preservationof Greek identity”to “ the oppositephenomenon, that ofGreek integration in Egyptiansociety” (1992: 51). He notes,for example, the importance ofintermarriage Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 27 ²

With increasingconsensus that Egyptians could become or act as “Greek”in Ptolemaic Egypt, scholars have furthersought to identify the speciŽc colonialinstitutions that permitted or facilitated such crossings. DorothyThompson, for example, demonstratesthe waysin which the educationalsystem inEgypt provided an importantmeans bywhich the Egyptianupper-class could learn Greek and,therefore, gain access to po- sitionsin the colonialadministration, concluding that “ : : : the Ptolemies usededucation combined with tax incentives toencourage Hellenisation amongthe majoritypopulation of Egypt” (1994: 82). 18 While suchprojects are,of course, important in revealing the preciseinstitutions involved in the practiceof colonialism in Egypt, Thompson’ s choiceof the verb“ en- courage”is powerful in this context and reveals the waysin which the very possibilityof Egyptian assimilation has led somescholars to empha- size“ opportunity”over any structuralviolence suchassimilation may have entailed.Thompson herself identiŽes twopossible ways of reading “ hell- enization”within the Egyptianpopulation, i.e., as “ Greek impositionor Egyptiancollaboration” (1994: 77). While she arguesfor the simultaneous existence ofboth processes, Thompson’ s work,as herstatement abovesug- gests,more frequently adopts a positiveview of these measures.She calls the tax exemptions,“ encouragement,”a “dispensationto those prepared to‘goGreek”’ (Thompson1997: 248). Willy Clarysse,in contrast, although emphasizingin certain contexts the uidityof the system, has elsewhere calledthe Ptolemaictax structure“ clearproof of ofŽ cial discrimination againstthe Egyptianpart of the population”(1992: 52). And he has even usedthe word“ apartheid”to characterize the structureof powerrelations producedby Ptolemaicoccupation (Ritner 1992:290). Ifsuch language reveals morefully the conceptualframeworks by which the Ptolemaiccolonial system, includingits putative openness and  exibil- ity,have been read,Thompson’ s evocationof the Egyptian“ upper-class” suggestssome of the practicallimits that simultaneously warn against over- valuing uidityas a universalfeature of ethnic identity in PtolemaicEgypt. Althoughsome portion of the populationmay have been ableto cross be- tween ethniccategories, evidence sofar suggests that that group remained

(51-2)and Ž ndsevidence for the participationof Greek familiesin Egyptiantemples (53); he alsodiscovers evidence for Greeks usingDemotic contracts insteadof contracts written inGreek (54). 18 The subjectof education in PtolemaicEgypt is animportant one.Thompson (1992 and 1994)considers a number ofits dimensions, such as the roleof literacy overallin Egypt andthe speciŽc content ofthe Greek schoolcurriculum. SeeCribiore 1996 for a fuller account,while Tassier 1992 provides a short introductory studyof Greek andDemotic schooltexts. Finally, Clarysse 1993 details the technical methodsused to identify Egyptian scribeswriting in Greek. 28 McCoskey ² relatively small. Clarysse has only been ableto Ž ndthe useof double- names amonggovernment employees (1985:58) and Thompson found thatonly 16%of the adultpopulation in the Arsinoitenome was consid- ered“ Hellene”(1997: 247). Such numbers suggest that, far from being available toevery residentof Egypt, “ passing”as Greek requiredaccess to opportunity,an accessthat was itself presumably strictly monitored, i.e., thatŽ rstand foremost the transgressionof boundaries necessitated a par- ticular,pre-existing privilege conferred by some other aspect,or perception, ofone’ s identity.Clarysse pointsout well thatit is notnecessarily the case thatholders of ofŽ ces acquireddouble names (andhence accessto amore uididentity) as aconsequenceof their job as opposedto holdersof double names gainingofŽ ces fromthe precisemeasure of statusthat enabled them toadopt double names inthe Žrstplace. YetI wouldlike togo further in suggesting that the currentdiscussions ofethnicity have themselves frequentlyarticulated a conceptualproblem thatthe termethnicity alone cannotresolve, namely the terminological crisisthat emerges intrying to trying to differentiate identity categories fromidentities claimed in practice,acontrastthat has been variously termedas the differencebetween Greek andGreek-speaking (Samuel) orGreek and“ Greek”(Thompson). Indeed, such formulations, especially the latter,suggest the persistentdual reference ofmeaning appliedto the terms“ Greek”and “ Egyptian”in recent scholarship, where one meaning evokes an “essential”or authentic identity and the other,an identity claimedwithin a speciŽc context.Nowhere is this scholarly expectation ofa “true”identity residing beneath contextualidentities in Ptolemaic Egyptmore apparent than inthe continuingdebates over a womanwho usesboth the names Apolloniaand Senmouthis in our documents. Not contentto consider her both Greek and Egyptian,scholars have instead persistentlysought to answer deŽ nitively the question“ Was she aGreek oran Egyptian?”(1988: 21). And signiŽ cantly, whilescholars have not interrogatedthe phrasingof the questionitself, they have been unableto agreeon an answer.Thus, Bagnall observesa dramaticlack ofconsensus onher “ true”identity, observing that “ (t)he last Žve years have seen four scholars– twoDemoticists and two Hellenists –divideevenly inprint on thispoint, with one Demoticist and one Hellenist oneach side”(21). 19 In

19 RobertRitner criticizes thosewho deny her Greek identity,claiming that “sheexplicitly stylesherself a‘Greek’in bothDemotic and Greek legaldocuments” (1992: 289). Citing Bagnallas one who has called her Egyptian,Ritner arguesthat thesescholars insist on her Egyptiannessprecisely because they areuncomfortable with the possibilityof a Greek womanwanting to act asEgyptian,an act that wouldbe in clear oppositionto the general scholarly emphasison “ passing”as a one-way(Egyptian to Greek) process.Yet, as Ritner pointsout, in many waysthe Egyptianlegal system was more favorableto women, since, Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 29 ² short,despite recent attention to the uidityof ethnic identity in practice inPtolemaicEgypt, no scholar has suggestedthat performance does more thantemporarily undermine more enduring categories of “ Greek”and “Egyptian.”Rather than positingthe emergence ofa newhybrid form ofidentity in Ptolemaic Egypt (where, for example, the term“ Greco- Egyptian”might come to connote possibilities for a morecomplex from ofidentiŽ cation among the ancientresidents of Egypt, much like the possibilitiesof hybrid American identities today), scholars seem totake itforgranted that people in thisperiod would have remainedpermanently afŽliated with one category or the other,despite occupying any temporary uiditybetween them. Underneath the elaboratedouble-game of Apollonia andSenmouthis, then, somefundamental identiŽ cation with one identity orthe otheris thought to reside – notan identiŽcation with the space between,a spaceto which I willreturn. Whether explicitly statedor not, papyrologists thus still dependon the differentiatedcategories of “ Greek”and “ Egyptian”to structurethe mean- ingsof identity in Ptolemaic Egypt, an assumptionthat does receive some conŽrmation in the colonialideology that underlies certain practices. 20 To give Greeks atax-break,after all, relies onan ideologyin whichsome type ofGreek essence isconsideredsuperior. Similarly, it cannot be strictlyco- incidentalthat the occupationsassociated with Greek names aregenerally ofhigherstatus than those attached to Egyptian names. And this duality is preciselywhy Iadvocatea returnto race– notas areplacement,but as a complementto the connotationsattached to ethnicity in current study of PtolemaicEgypt. For race provides a wayof giving language to a differ- ent, moreessentialized, more structural operation informing and producing identityin Ptolemaic Egypt. If ethnicity is used to name the performance orstrategy, I believe racecan name the ideologicalcategory that dictates the consequenceof that performance (e.g., the tax break).Indeed, despite the possibilitiesfor  uiditywe have witnessedin practice, the Theocritus poemat the beginningof my paperattests to a retentionof the concepts, orpositions, of “ Greek”and “ Egyptian”that receive meaning precisely intheir categorical opposition – nottheir blurring. And the evocationof these categoriesas distinct, as well asthe associationof each withinverse positionsof power, is notrestricted to literature. unlikethe Greek system,it allowed women to conduct legal business without a male guardian(289). 20 Goudriaan1992 seems to situate this distinction in the maintenance ofa symbolic, more essential,boundary between Greek andnon-Greek, even ascultural practice (such aslanguage)brought the twogroups into closer and closer alignment. Goudrian, however, usesslightly different terminologyto express this model – culture andethnicity rather than ethnicity andrace, which Iadopt. 30 McCoskey ²

In onesurviving legal petitiondated between the years 222-218 B.C.E,a Greek man,Herakleides, asks the legal authoritiesto punish the Egyptianwoman, Psenobastis, for emptying her chamberpot over his head, emphaticallypointing out that he was“ forno reason, manhandled by an Egyptianwoman, whereas I ama Greek anda visitor”(translated in Lewis, 61),a rhetoricalgesture that invites outragein casting Egyptian/ Greek andwoman/ manas parallel categorical oppositions. 21 Similarly,the same Ptolemaios,whose literary sensibilities Thompson analyzed previously, complainedin a petitionin 163B.C.E. that the temple bakershad “ forced theirway in with the intentionof dragging me outand driving me away,just as they triedto do also in earlier years, when the revoltwas on– andthat despite the factthat I ama Greek!”(Lewis 1986: 85). Ptolemaiosmoreover repeats this phrasing “ despitethe factthat I ama Greek”at least twicein subsequent petitions, once in response to alleged abuseby the temple cleaners,and a secondtime in response to being hit througha windowby stones thrown by “ personnelof the temple”(86). Ptolemaios’complaints not only remindus again (and indeed rhetorically exploit)the occupationaldistinctions between Greeks andEgyptians (that seems tobe the reasonhe citesthe occupationsof his attackers), but also alludeto the recurringcolonial tensions that are only briey glimpsed inother sources. That Ptolemais’ recourse to the polarizingcategories of “Greek”(stated) and “ Egyptian”(implied) was not in any waymediated bypresumably having an Egyptianroommate, Harmais, and an Egyptian friend,Nektembes, whosedream he recorded(Thompson 1987: 107 and 109-10),suggests the waysin which certain categories, categories founded inideology and designed to enforce relations of power, are not always disruptedby more  uidsocial practices. In all, suchpassages forcefully evoke Greek asa meaningfulcategory, a distinctposition of power, even asits precise referent (who counts as Greek) mighthave been becoming less determinatein social practice – indeed,we might wonder if claims of “Greekness”to peoplelike Ptolemaiosacquire such weight (if the boundary isso adamantly set) preciselybecause the exclusivity ofGreekness isbeing challenged byan increasing uidityin contemporarysocial performance. Itis precisely for this ability to name, and therefore make visible,the structuralaspect of identity both governing and opposing performance in PtolemaicEgypt that I advocatea returnto the conceptof race. My

21 In the archive belongingto the strategos Diophanesfrom which thisdocument is taken, Lewisnotes that twenty-Žve papyri (one-Ž fth ofthe collection)feature cases brought by Greeks againstEgyptians and vice versa, with eighteenof the twenty-Žve submitted by Greeks (1986:59-60). The terms “Greek”and “ Egyptian”are not alwaysexplictly stated bythe petitioneras in the passagequoted, but ethnic tensionis inferred becauseof the namesof those involved. Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 31 ² recommendationthat we revive useof the speciŽc termrace to connote the organizingand essentializing operations of identity, however, may still requiresome justiŽ cation. So in the remainderof the essay, Iwould like todiscuss brie y whatrace means, why Ithink classicists(including papyrologists)have ceasedto employ it indiscussing ancient identities, and Žnally why Ibelieve, given certainconnotations that race has acquired,the currentconceptual gaps in the studyof PtolemaicEgypt demand its return.

Racialidentity has longbeen thoughtto categorize identity strictly accordingto biological features as opposed to ethnicity, which seemed torelate strictlyto social features. Recently, however,race’ s deceptive, albeitpotent, claims to being a solely biologicalcategory have been exposed;most scholars now recognize that despite its previous status as apseudo-science,and thus by extension, anatural,universal and objective modeof differentiation, race remains emphatically a productof social construction(Omi and Winant 1994:65). 22 Indeed,as Omi and Winant have argued,the conceptof race involves aseriesof social decisions that notonly (in modernterms) privilege a rhetoricof biologicalessentialism in accountingfor race, but also determine which biologicalfeatures to privilege inassigning racial categories (e.g., skin color),the meanings thatsuch featuresare presumed to signify (e.g., serving assigns of supposed social orintellectual inferiority)and the subsequentuses to which they areput (e.g.,rationalizing forms of discrimination). Rather than considering race astaticconcept, one that holds the same connotationsand consequences regardlessof context, Omi and Winant proposeinstead that we treatrace asadynamicformation, that is, as a“sociohistoricalprocess by which racial categoriesare created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed” (55). Omi andWinant userace, then, todenote the shiftingorganizational principles thatestablish identity and structure its meanings and representations. This emphasison situating race within its historical and social contexts has led avariety ofscholarsto scrutinizemore closely the workingsof race within historicallyspeciŽ c socialand political sites (e.g., Gates 1997).Perhaps mostdramatically, historians have nowcarefully explicated the waysin whichthe advent of(post-classical)European colonialism provided a critical juncturein the historyof racial ideologies, “ legitimizing”racial distinctions througha burgeoningscience ofrace,one centered around visible somatic features,most notably skin color(Omi and Winant 1994:63-64, Appiah 1992: 13 and passim).One ofthe mostcritical aspects of contemporary race

22 Thisconclusion has not only beenproposed in academiccontexts, but also widely disseminatedin the American popularmedia, including in the sciencemagazine Discover in aspecialissue (November 1994). 32 McCoskey ² theoryhas thereforebeen the unveiling ofskin coloras an arbitraryand overdeterminedmodern sign of race. While scholarsin other Ž elds have demonstratedthe historicalspeciŽ city ofmodern racial systems, tracingthe originsof racial ideologies centered around“ black”and “ white”to the periodof post-classical European imperialism,it is nevertheless athesis thathas been primarilyoverlooked byclassicists, who have remainedtrapped within the pervasive modern paradigmsof “ blackness”and “ whiteness”when applyingthe termrace to antiquity.Thus, by the 1970’s the conceptof race had become so bounded bythe modernsystem ofracial formation that the conceptwas associated almostexclusively withthe questionof skin color(i.e., black skin color) inclassical scholarship. 23 Althoughmaking black skin colorthe center ofsuch study, scholars found little evidence thatit provided a structural foundationfor identity in antiquity (Snowden 1970: 218). That is, although ancientauthors do at times describe physical appearance, there islittle indicationthat such physical appearance, much less the narrowcriterion ofskin color,served asa primarybasis for identity in ancient ideology. 24 Instead,as we have seen inPtolemaic Egypt, identities in antiquity seem tobe based more systematically onpractice and cultural traits, such as language. 25 Concludingthat the ancientsdid not discriminate according toskin color(the modernbasis for racial formation), however, such scholarshipoverstated its aims in denying any salience tothe conceptof raceitself in ancient studies. Ironically, this has meant thatjust as other disciplinesare devoting more critical attention to the questionof race and

23 In 1970,Frank Snowden,Jr., published his Ž rst studyof “ blacks”in antiquity,a work that hashad tremendous in uence on the waythe concept“ race”has been understood in classicalscholarship; a fewyears later, LloydThompson, similarly conducted a studyof Romanattitudes toward “ blacks”(1989). 24 Thisis not todeny that the questionof ancient skincolor holds modern political signiŽcance. But itis only when wedistinguish the meaningsof Cleopatra’ s skincolor to us from the meaningsher skincolor held to her (virtually non-existent) that weapprehend the arbitrary basisof modern racialsystems. For racial ideologies in ancient Egyptbefore the Ptolemies,see Bard 1996,who considers the waysin which the ancient Egyptians representedtheir ownracial identity. Morsy 1996 writes about the impactthe debateover the skincolor of ancient Egyptianshas had on modern politicalattitudes toward Egyptians andEgyptian identity. 25 Acontrasting,albeit now muted, tradition which attemptedto deŽ ne the conceptof race within the ancient context can beidentiŽ ed in classicalstudies, one that Ihope can bereinstated. See, for example, D.B. Saddington who quietly repudiated the useof modern modelsof race andargued for the necessityof using “ Romanterms ofreference” if“wewish to understand race relationsin the early Romanempire” (1975: 134). See also Mudimbe1992 and Sherwin-White 1967for examples of ways in which the term “race” can beapplied to antiquity without relying onskincolor as its primary signiŽer. Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 33 ² itshistoric formations, the termhas droppedout of the vocabularyof most classicalhistorians altogether. What wouldit mean then toemploy race as a conceptin the time periodbefore “ whiteness”acquired categorical force? And, perhaps most importantly,why doI advocateemploying race speciŽ cally inthe case ofPtolemaic Egypt? First of all, itis important to acknowledge that in applyingthe conceptof race to the studyof identity during this period, wemust always deŽ ne preciselywhat we mean the termto connote. I draw,therefore, on the waysthat race has been explicatedin modern scholarship,including the speciŽc emphasisgiven torace as a type of formation,an ideologicalstructure within which identities are formed. This doesnot mean thatany comprehensiveand coherent boundary between the conceptsof race and ethnicity can be Ž rmly established;in fact, mostcontemporary theoretical discussions of the termsemphasize their confusingsites of convergence. Yet the termsdo at times acquire a certain precisionin contrast to one another and, in using them explicitly tocall attentionto divergent traits, can operate effectively withinthe same critical apparatus.For example, sincethe conceptof race has oftenconnoted agreaterdegree of difference than ethnicity (Cornell and Hartmann 1998:26ff, Sollors 1996: xxx), itcan be used to help clarify(and indeed emphasize)critical degrees of difference at operation in Ptolemaic Egypt. Thisconnotation of race would be especially usefulgiven that“ ethnicity” iscurrently (and at time confusingly) employed by scholars to name bothdifferences among the Greeks themselves andbetween Greeks and Egyptians– an overlappingusage that obscures the factthat the distances signiŽed by each pairare not parallel (i.e., the degreeof differencebetween Greek andEgyptian and Macedonian and Syracusan identities is certainly notequivalent in Ptolemaiccolonial ideology). 26 Using racerather than ethnicityto encapsulate a particularfacet of identityformation can furthermore draw attention not to its constructed- ness (since bothtypes ofidentity are social constructs), but to the natureof the claimsthat construct it – forexample, whetherthe identityis basedon atype ofessentialist thinking,as the useof race often suggests in modern ideology.If race signiŽ es an identitycategory based in essentialist ideol- ogy,the termethnicity, in turn, can continue to denote an identiŽcation claimedthrough a contextualizedperformance – one,race, designating the latent structurethat grants meaning to the other,ethnicity, the temporal andmanifest practice. For it is clear from the Greek womenin Theocritus’

26 Thismeans that astudyof ethnic identityin Egyptcan entirely avoidthe question ofEgyptians, such as Delia 1996. Clarysse 1998 similarly adopts the term tospeak of divergentethnic identiŽcations within abroader“ Greek”identity. 34 McCoskey ² poemthat any uidityin social performance does not necessarily elimi- nate an appealto essentialism andstereotype in other arenas. That they mustbe envisioned in Ptolemaic Egypt as operating in unison, sometimes jarringlyso, is therefore critical. K. AnthonyAppiah describes a similar mediatingsite that makes “passing”possible in modern society, namely, a gap“ betweenwhat a personascriptively is and the racialidentities they perform,”where he usesascription to signify“ the processof applying : : : (a racial)label topeople, including ourselves” (1996: 69). In short,that iden- titymay happenprecisely in the spacesbetween institutionalized structures andindividual performance. Using raceto identify structure (the productionand ascription of “ la- bels”), moreover,allows us to theorize the conditions and limits of perfor- mance inPtolemaic Egypt, including the powerstructures that surround andmake every performancepossible, i.e., the aspectsthat might control when andby whom such performances could be enacted. Any identity theorybased solely onperformance would surely bemost strongly tested intimesof oppression of certain identity types, when self-identiŽcation, for example, mightnot outweigh the external impositionof identities by oth- ersholding greater power. This point reminds us to clarify the potentially violent consequencesof certain identiŽ catory acts, when, for example, race andstereotype function to enable andjustify racism. 27 In concludingwith emphasison the oftenbrutal consequences of certain operations, I argue forthe useof race Ž nally becauseit has been employedin contemporary usageto call mostpersistent attention to the roleof power, and relatedly, the abuseof power. Suggesting some of the limitationsethnicity has ac- quiredin its current use, Barker thusargues that “ (o)ne problemwith the conceptof ethnicity,especially inthe contextof discussionsabout multicul- turalism,is thatquestions of powerand racism are too often sidelined” (63). In addingrace to the studyof Ptolemaic Egypt, I thereforejoin scholars inother Ž elds whopointedly “ preferthe conceptof ‘ race’, notbecause it correspondsto any biologicalor culturalabsolutes, but because it connotes, andrefers investigation to, issues of power” (Barker 1999:63).

In all, PtolemaicEgypt provides a uniquesite for studying ancient identity asboth a colonialinstitution and individual practice. Yet it is precisely becauseof the greatopportunity that it provides that we must broaden ourmodels to enable usto comprehend fully all ofits complexities, includingthe areasleft primarilyinvisible in our sources. By addingthe

27 Omiand Winant, among others, argue for making clear distinctionsbetween race and racism.They write that “racism can beseen as characterizing some,but not all,racial projects”(1994: 71). Studying Identity in PtolemaicEgypt 35 ² conceptof race to such study we achieve anumberof aims: we bring the invisible,the marginalto light; we combat structural invisibilities (or wemight say the invisibilityof structure); and we remain ever attentive tothe colonialbackground, the ideologies,the powerrelationships, that surroundevery individualcontextualized performance in Ptolemaic Egypt –whetherthey make themselves felt orwhether it isprecisely their nature toremain hidden. Whether explicitly articulatedin oursources or not, we thereforeunderstand that the categoryof “ Greek”receives itsmeaning only inreference tothe mutualfunctioning (and subordination) of “ Egyptian”in PtolemaicEgypt. Moreover, when evoking race,despite its own pretensions toholda “naturalstatus,” one outside of temporal pressures, we understand itasaformation,a process,a set ofprojects, whose precise meanings and operationsin Ptolemaic Egypt we have nothad time to fully interrogate here, includingthe waysthey may have shiftedover time. We cansay thatracial identity in this period falls longbefore the modernŽ xationon blackness andwhiteness. This Ž nal reminderof the historicalcontingency ofracial formation is essential, notleast becauseit reveals the arbitrary natureof modern racial formations and, in terms of Ptolemaic Egypt, it preparesthe wayfor the Romans,who loom on the horizon.And when the Romansarrive in Egypt, the formsof identity assigned to its residents willonce again be transformed. 28

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28 Rostovtzeff1929 points out some critical changesbrought by Roman rule in his examinationof the Romanexploitation of Egypt speciŽ cally in the Žrst-century C.E.In notedcontrast tothe seeming(if contextualized)  uidityof identityin PtolemaicEgypt, the new Romanlegal code in Egyptsought to establish and maintain more explicitboundaries betweenvarious identity categories (Lewis 1983: 32; see also Alston 1997). Woolf 1994 presentsan important discussionof the confrontation betweenGreek andRoman forms ofidentity under the Romanempire. The Romanemphasis on citizenship in particular servedto both eclipse and even collapsea number offormer identitycategories. Lewis writes:“ Ifyou were an inhabitantof Egypt, but not Roman,a citizen ofone of the four poleis,or aJew,to the Romangovernment youwere an Egyptian.No matter that you were descendedfrom sixor sevengenerations of military reservists,that classof hereditary privilegesettled on the landunder the Ptolemies.That privilegedstatus was now gone, andwith itthose ethnic designationsby which youused proudly to proclaim your family’ s originin the Greek or Macedonianhomeland – Coan,Cretan, Thessalian,and so forth. In the government recordsyou were allnow Egyptians, nothing more.”(1983: 31). 36 McCoskey ²

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