The panel examines the ways communities, and individuals re-evaluated relations, actual and conceptual space, and their past in Classical Antiquity. Different perceptions of geographical space were a direct outcome of political developments and changing worldviews, thus adding a temporal aspect to geography and allowing communities to subscribe to multiple identities. On several occasions, however, narratives of the past were consciously modified as an answer to contemporary social and political needs. Tales of phyletic descent were used as separators between different population groups and made their mark on communities’ pasts. Local histories, imbued to the very core of the community, became a distinct genre after the late Classical period and an essential aspect of communal perceptions of the past. This collection of papers examines the development of different forms of communicating stories and perceptions of identity in the Ancient Greek world. These constructs gradually become ‘traditions’, through performance or ritualisation, and are perpetuated by social mechanisms.

Collective identities are based on narrative constructs that social groups communicate to internal and external audiences.

Instal Extreme Picture Finder 3.65.4