ABSTRACT
This chapter determines in which situations religious practitioners either chose or disregarded religious identities as part of a broad range of identification habits (“roles”) in order to present themselves to others. The papyrus archive of the Egyptian priest Aurelios Ammon from late antique Panopolis provides formidable material for three case studies: (1) As a young man, he wrote a letter to his mother, making use of Stoic philosophy. (2) Years later, he prepared drafts for a petition, in which he described himself as “scholastikos” while quoting Classical Greek texts and Neoplatonic thinking. (3) During a visit to Alexandria, he approached a Roman official while dressed in his priestly cloak. All three scenes illustrate that Ammon was, on the one hand, educated in Hellenism but, on the other hand, also willing to appear publicly as a priest of traditional Egyptian cults. The study will reveal that choices of specific roles were, on the one hand, determined by such individual factors as age, familial relations, or personal experiences. On the other hand, norms of literary genres, preferences of specific peer groups, and social conventions limit the degree to which these factors may come into play.
