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eirwen29
Citizenship at that time was less of a "nationality" or "culture" thing but a means of accessing better opportunities. It was official and a literal chit that you could earn. Gladiators could earn citizenship etc. I doubt they saw themselves necessarily as "Roman" but historians caution about pathologizing the past. Unless we have primary source documents, we can't assume how people saw themselves at that point in time. And sadly, the documentation we retain from that period is both limited and from very specific portions of society. This is why the city of Pompeii is so great because it preserved a literal moment in time; from the graffiti down to what people had been doing that day in their own homes.

当时的公民身份与其说是“国籍”或“文化”，不如说是一种获得更好机会的手段。它是你可以争取到的一种货真价实的正式凭证（可兑换各种利好）。角斗士可以获得公民身份，诸如此类。他们就一定会把自己看成“罗马人”吗？我是很怀疑的，但历史学家提醒我们不要把过去归于病态。除非我们掌握了最初的原始文件，否则我们就不能去假设那个时间点的人们是如何看待自己的。而让人难过的是，我们从那个时期留存下来的文件非常有限，而且来自社会中非常特殊的阶层。这就是为什么庞贝城是如此伟大，因为它保存了时间中的一个真确的瞬间；从墙头涂鸦到人们那天正在自己家里所做的事情。

"Pathologizing the past" means negatively judging past events based on today's perceptions. It literally means taking something for pathological (= diseased, deviant).

（回）"把过去归于病态"的意思是，以今人的看法对过去的事件进行负面的评判。它的字面意思是：把一些东西看成病态的（也即患了病的、不正常的）。

Conversely, though, a lot of people seem to do the opposite and pretend that no historical figures can be judged at all, which I would also caution against. There were abolitionists at the time Thomas Jefferson was raping his 14-year-old female slave, for example, and pretending this was just a normal, everyday occurrence that no one took issue with whitewashes those terrible actions.

（回）尽管如此，很多人似乎在做相反的事情，还假装任何一个历史人物都无法评判，我也要提醒大家不要这么做。比如说，就托马斯·杰斐逊强奸他那个14岁的女奴一事，当时就有一些废奴主义者假装这只是一件正常且日常会发生的事情，他们对这些暴行的洗白行为，是没有人提出异议的。
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Of course, simultaneously, he was an incredibly influential figure whose philosophical ideals resonate with many people even today. All this to say that history is full of people, often deeply flawed people, and we should be careful to not venerate historical figures despite their terrible actions, while also not demonizing them based on modern moral standards. It can be a difficult line to walk.

当然了，与此同时，他也是一个影响力无边的人物，他的哲学理想哪怕到今天都能引发很多人的共鸣。所有这一切都说明，历史中的很多人往往都有很严重的缺陷，我们应该小心谨慎，不要无视他们的可怕行为去尊崇他们，也不要根据现代的道德标准将他们妖魔化。这可能是一条很难走的路。

But what you shouldn't do is project modern perspectives and modes of understanding into history; because you're only going to make misinterpretations. For example, projecting the modern concept of a nation-state back onto the pre-colonial tribes of a native country, in order to frx things under those terms. It makes it easier to grasp, but less true to reality.

（回）但你不应该做的是把现代的观点和理解模式投射到历史中去；因为这样只会曲解。比如，为了利用这些术语来构建叙事，将现代的民族国家概念投射到一个本土的前殖民地部落上。这种做法使其更容易理解，但不太符合现实。

"Did people identify as Roman" is one question, but you have to be careful to avoid approaching it from a modern cultural lens, i.e the way people see their "cultural heritage" as "Irish-American" or whatever today.

“人们是否自认为是罗马人”是一个问题，但你必须注意避免从现代文化的角度来看待这个问题，比如说现如今的人会把他们的“文化传统”看成是“爱尔兰裔美国人”或是别的什么。

TwoPercentTokes
The Byzantines likely though of themselves as “Greek Romans”, that is a continuation of the Roman Empire largely constituted of Greek peoples. In reality though, much as we attribute Greek influence to the development of Roman culture, Roman culture likely impacted the Greeks on a similar scale to the linguistic, cultural and political legacy they left to the successor states of the western Roman Empire following its fall.

拜占庭人很可能会把自己看成“希腊的罗马人”，也就是主要由希腊人组成的延续了罗马帝国的一种存在。但事实上，正如我们将希腊人的影响归因于罗马文化的发展一样，罗马文化很可能对希腊人产生了影响，而这种影响程度近似于西罗马帝国灭亡后留给继承者的语言、文化和政治遗产。

Phokasi
And the identification between Greek identity and Roman-ness became so tight after the loss of Egypt and the Levant to the Arabs that anything other than Greek-speaking Christian ceased to be considered Roman. A Latin speaking person from an ERE possession in Italy would not be called "Roman" if they visited Constantinople in 800 CE, they would be a "Latin" or a "Frank".

而在埃及和黎凡特被阿拉伯人占领后，希腊人的身份认同和罗马人的身份自觉极为紧密地绑定在了一起，以至于除去讲希腊语的基督徒，其他任何人都不再被看成罗马人。一个出身于不断缩小的罗马帝国的意大利领地且讲拉丁语的人，如果在公元800年访问君士坦丁堡，就不会被称为“罗马人”了，而会被称为“拉丁人”或 “法兰克人”。
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PartyLikeAByzantine
The Byzantines thought of themselves as Roman. Which by Justinian's time and beyond was closely intertwined with being Christian more than anything else. By the post-Heraclius period, it also became synonymous with being Greek-speaking, but you had Roman Armenians and others over time as the empire waxed and waned.

拜占庭人认为自己是罗马人。在查士丁尼时代及以后，和基督徒的身份勾连最紧密的就是罗马人，而非其他任何人。到了赫拉克利乌斯时期以后，罗马人也成了讲希腊语的同义词，但随着帝国的兴衰，你也会在时间流逝中发现罗马亚美尼亚人以及其他人。
（译注：罗马亚美尼亚（行省）为罗马帝国统治下大亚美尼亚的一部分）

Which, TBH, isn't all that different that how it was at the empire's height. The empire was always bilingual. A proper Roman knew Latin or Greek and preferably both. Someone who didn't know either was, at best, a bumpkin provincial.

老实说，这和帝国鼎盛时期的情况也没有什么不同。这个帝国一直都是讲双语的。一个体面的罗马人是需要懂拉丁语或希腊语的，最好两种都懂。而不懂其中任何一种的人充其量只是个乡下的土包子。
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This also glosses over how Romans of all eras were closely tied to their home city and province or theme. Romannness was their least important identity, subservient to family, region, and most importantly: patron. The empire ran on patronage.

这也掩盖了一点，即所有时代中的罗马人是和他们家乡的城市、行省紧密联系在一起的。罗马人这个身份对他们来说是最无关紧要的一个身份，是从属于家庭、地区，以及最重要的赞助人的。而这个帝国的运转，靠的就是赞助人。

The imperial population mostly spoke their local language. Even Greek was spoken by a minority in the east outside of Greece and parts of Asia Minor. The imperial court, however, had been bilingual since Augustus even if the emperors weren't always fluent themselves.

（回）帝国的人民讲的大都是他们的当地语言。连希腊语，都只有希腊以外东部地区和小亚细亚部分地区的小部分人在说。不过自奥古斯都以来，朝廷一直都使用双语，哪怕皇帝本人并不总是能说得很流利。

Tiako
This is a complicated question and likely varied between people, and certainly varied depending on the context of discussion. To give a concrete example: the writer and priest Plutarch was granted Roman citizenship and did not view himself in conflict with Rome, or as part of a people under chains, but he still wrote an essay about the differences between Roman and Greek culture (or rather explaining Rome to an assumed Greek audience).

这是一个复杂的问题，可能是因人而异的，当然了，也会因讨论语境的不同而不同。举个具体的例子：作家兼牧师普鲁塔克被授予了罗马公民的身份，他不认为自己的身份认同和罗马有冲突，也不认为自己是那些被套上枷锁的民族中的一员，但他还是写了一篇关于罗马和希腊文化差异的文章（更确切地说是向潜在的希腊读者解释罗马）。
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I think the mistake here is seeing the identities as oppositional or exclusive. To give a somewhat crude analogy, somebody who immigrates to the United States from, say, Sweden and gets citizenship could view themselves as "American" but still write something about how American and Swedish culture are different. That person did not stop being Swedish or identifying with Swedish identity just because they became American, likewise Plutarch did not stop being Greek because he became Roman.

我觉得这里的错误在于，将这些身份认同看成了对立的或不兼容的。打个粗糙的比方，一个从瑞典移民到美国并获得公民身份的人可能会把自己看作“美国人”，但还是会写一些关于美国和瑞典文化差异的文章。这个人并没有因为成为美国人就不再是瑞典人，或不再认同自己的瑞典身份，类似地，普鲁塔克也没有因为成为罗马人就不再是希腊人。

And we can say eventually that Roman identity did become completely accepted, such that by the Middle Ages the Greek speaking inhabitants of the "Basileia Romaion" (ie, Byzantine empire) called themselves "Romaioi", which continued well after conquest of the region by the Turkish speaking Ottoman Empire, who called the people "Rum". I vaguely remember reading an account by a western European travelerr to Greece in the eighteenth century who was annoyed that the inhabitants called themselves "Romaioi" rather than "Hellenes".

而且我们可以说，罗马人这个身份最终还是完全被接受了，以至于到了中世纪的时候，"Basileia Romaion"（也即拜占庭帝国）中讲希腊语的居民自称为 “Romaioi”（即罗马人），这种情况在该地区被讲土耳其语的奥斯曼帝国征服后仍在继续，他们称这些人为“Rum”。我依稀记得我读过一段十八世纪的西欧人去希腊旅行的记录，他对当地居民自称“Romaioi”而不是“Hellenes”（即希腊人）感到恼火。

(A complicating factor in that last bit is that for many early Christians, "Hellene" came to have the implication of "non-Christian", such that "Hellenic studies" would be studies of pagan philosophy, but this was also actively contested and particularly with the "Macedonian Renaissance" many writers actively embraced the title)

(有一个把问题复杂化的因素：对很多早期的基督徒来说，“希腊人”暗含着“非基督徒”之意，于是“希腊研究”就会成为对异教哲学的研究，但这也陷入了非常激烈的论辩，特别是在“马其顿文艺复兴”时期，当时的很多作家欣然接受了这个称呼)
（译注：843年圣像争论平息下来后，拜占庭美术发展进入了第二个鼎盛期，即马其顿文艺复兴时期（867～1057））

OMightyMartian
For quite some time there certainly was a sentiment among Romans (as opposed to the non-Roman residents in the Provinces) of the uniqueness of the Roman people. Long before the conquests outside of Italy, the Romans viewed themselves as a separate people from even closely related groups like the Oscans. By the time the late Republic as Rome's empire was growing, that sentiment may have been diluted to one degree as Romans begin to filter out into the growing empire, and took with them Latin and Roman culture. But none of it is what I'd quite say was equal to the modern notions of nationalism (which really have their origins in the rise of the nation states; in particular France and England, and the political necessity of forging a kind of common ethno-linguistic identity).

毫无疑问，在相当长的一段时间内，在罗马人（相对于各行省的非罗马居民）内部弥漫着一种罗马人独特性的情绪。罗马人在征服意大利以外地区前很久就把自己视为一个独立的民族了，连欧斯干人这种和他们关系密切的族群都与之划清了界限。到了共和国后期，随着罗马帝国的不断壮大，这种情绪可能已经在某种程度上被冲淡了，因为罗马人开始向不断壮大的帝国中渗透，并带去了拉丁文和罗马文化。但我认为这一切都不能等同于现代民族主义的概念（其真正的起源是民族国家的崛起，特别是法国和英国，以及锻造出一种共同的民族-语言身份认同的政治需要）。

The closest Classical approximation to nationalism was the quasi-nationalism of the Greek city states, and to some extent the nationalistic fever that gripped Athens was what dragged into the war with Sparta. But the Greeks also had a national identity, even as the cities themselves were often in competition or war, in no small part forged by a common enemy; Persia. Many historians describe the Battle of Thermopylae as being a crucial moment in the forging of a common Greek identity, which survived even the Peloponnesian War. So really, as others say, group identity can be a complicated thing. A person can be an Athenian, a Greek, a Hellene and a Roman all that same time.

古典意义上最接近民族主义的是希腊城邦的准民族主义，某种程度上说，正是笼罩着雅典的民族主义狂热，把前者拖入了与斯巴达的战争。就算各城邦经常处于竞争或战争之中，但希腊人也拥有一种民族身份认同，这在很大程度上是由共同的敌人波斯造成的。很多历史学家将温泉战役描述为锻造希腊人共同身份认同的一个关键时刻，这种身份认同甚至在伯罗奔尼撒战争中也得到了延续。因此，确实如其他人所说，族群身份可能是一个挺复杂的东西。一个人可以同时是雅典人、希腊人、古希腊人和罗马人。

At the end of the day, the Romans themselves were nothing if not a harshly pragmatic people. They honestly didn't care that much what any conquered peoples' identity was, although up until the Edict of Caracalla, there were clear advantages to Roman citizenship. In general, Romans were comfortable with absorbing conquered peoples through attrition; Latin and Greek were the languages of trade and learning, one would get better reception with a Roman noble or aristocrat if one dressed and spoke as a Roman ("when in Rome..."), and thus throughout much of the empire you often had almost parallel cultures; the native culture of the region, with a Roman layer atop it. Certainly that was how Roman civilization functioned in Greece and Judaea.

说到底，罗马人本身就是一群极为务实的人。老实说，他们是真的不太关心被征服民族的身份认同，尽管一直到颁布卡拉卡拉敕令，罗马公民身份都明显占有优势。一般而言，罗马人能很轻松地通过消耗战吸收被征服的民族；拉丁语和希腊语是贸易语言也是学者的语言，如果一个人的穿着和谈吐很像罗马人，就会得到罗马贵族更好的接待（“入乡随俗”），因此在帝国的大部分地区，你通常都会发现近乎并行的文化；该地区的本土文化，顶上还有一层罗马文化。毫无疑问，这就是罗马文明在希腊和犹地亚的运作方式。
（译注：犹地亚即犹太，古代巴勒斯坦南部地区，包括今天的以色列南部及约旦西南部）
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That being said, the Romans on occasion, whether for political or moral reasons, would seek the destruction of a native culture; such as the campaigns to destroy Druidism in the Gallic territories. Whether this was because the Romans viewed human sacrifice as vile (which was Pliny the Elder's belief), or more to get rid of a potential rival political class, we'll never know.

话虽如此，罗马人偶尔也会出于政治或道德原因，谋求毁灭本土文化；比如在高卢地区摧毁德鲁伊教的运动。这是不是因为罗马人认为活人献祭是一种邪行（这也是老普林尼的信念），或者，更多是为了铲除潜在的敌对政治阶层，我们永远都不会知道了。
（译注：老普林尼即盖乌斯·普林尼·塞孔都斯(Gaius Plinius Secundus，公元23-79)，古罗马百科全书式作家，著有《自然史》）

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