Professional Identity in Funerary Epigrams of the Graeco-Roman East

Epigrams constitute a small percentage of the funerary inscriptions from the Graeco-Roman world. Choosing this literary form for one’s epitaph must have been a conscious choice in a relatively illiterate world. In this article, we poster we show who chose to be commemorated with an epigram and why they chose to be commemorated in this way. Our material comes from the Graeco-Roman East and we focus on representations of professional identity, as this is indicative of a person’s role in society. We show that (1) the habit of erecting funerary epigrams is widespread in space, time and across the social spectrum and that (2) epigrams were used as a medium to present oneself in transcending terms, e.g. as famous or ‘the best’ in one’s profession, or in connection with the gods or mythical and epic heroes.