Abstract
Based on a study of almost 5000 Greek language inscriptions found in the territory of Thrace (Janouchová 2014), I argue the epigraphic expression of the Thracians, as well as the Greeks inhabiting Thrace, and consequently the Romans, was a matter of individual decisions and combination of lifestyle choices, rather than affiliation with large scale social group, resulting from a sense of commonality based on ethnicity. The mutual cross-cultural contacts did influence the formation of local identity, but the ethnicity itself was rarely in focal point of commissioners of inscriptions.
Rather, one's personal prestige and affiliation with the current social order played the quintessential role in forming the epigraphically pronounced identities from onset of epigraphic activity in the Classical period to the decline of epigraphic production during the third century AD. The local epigraphic identities were formed ad hoc and transformed over time as the socio-political circumstances changed, as can be seen in many parts of the world (Barth 1969).