Posted on 06/23/2021 11:23:11 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
As a mostly irrelevant sidebar, the House of the Vettii in Pompeii was over a century old when it was buried by Vesuvius, but at that time was owned by a couple of freedmen. The banking system in the Roman Empire consisted of private lenders (even military campaigns sometimes/often got called off due to financing trouble) and a few houses down the street, the home of one of those private bankers was found to contain fragments of the lending records. The Vettii owed him money. :^D
Finds like that are priceless to history showing ancient commerce and culture. Like finding merchant shipping manifests on cuneiform clay tablets in Mesopotamia, or in a trading city along the silk road. Pretty cool stuff.
Thank you!
My pleasure.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.