In the Shadow of the Empire

Comparing is a base operation in the description of foreigners. Yet, its role in Hellenistic ethnography is still understudied. The paper looks at practices of comparing in the ethnographic texts of Polybius, Posidonius and Strabo in the 2nd and 1st century BC, which served to integrate the (newly discovered) peoples of western Europe into Greek views of the world. It shows both that the conquest of these areas by the Romans changed Greek perceptions of western ‘barbarians’ and that older ethnographic traditions were still retained.