In ancient times how did they prevent people from misrepresenting themselves (e.g. "Hello, I am the king of Someplace You Never Heard Of") and commiting fraud?

Factual Questions
1

It seems it would be fairly trivial in the past (especially ancient past) when the whole world was not known and communication over long distances were slow at best (if it even existed).

How was it someone didn’t just rock-up to the palace in Beijing, claim they were “King of Someplace” and have a great time?

Heck, even these days some similar things have happened where a con-artist managed to insert themselves into high society and have a run of fun times when they really had very little money.

When your welcome is worn out, move to the next place. Rinse and repeat.

2

Claiming you’re important without having a huge entourage and a lot of spending money probably wouldn’t go very far.

I’ve read quite a few English books from the 18th and 19th century where they’ll have a broke-ass character claiming they’re a noble from Ireland or Italy or Poland or somewhere (generally played for comic effect).

3

It’s also a plot point in Huckleberry Finn I think.

4

Literacy, manners, and not smelling or looking like shit seriously eliminated the vast majority of pretenders, but, as noted above, your court/entourage /army was the measure of how important you were.

5

Makes sense. Seems one could lessen the requirements by saying they were an ambassador representing someone much more powerful. Still need to look the part but no need to go nuts with it.

I get the person could not roll in like a peasant (although I wonder what diplomats from Germanic tribes like the Visigoths or Vandals looked like to Roman nobility?). Still, with some up-front investment seems there is a scheme there to get more than spent and abscond with the ill-gotten gains.

6

Filthy barbarians - they wore trousers! Shivers in Latin

7

In Hukleberry Finn, Mark Twain told us of the adventures of The Lost Dolphin and The Duke of Bilgewater.

Such impersonations are an ancient and time honored tradition.

8

It seems that largely they DIDN’T - but since many social perks required local standing, it wasn’t quite the lucrative scam it has been in more recent times. A lightweight link for easy reading:

Some of them (Tichborne) were successful (like the reported case of Anastasia) in convincing family that wanted to believe, but when substantial money claims come forward then there’s a tendency for the imposters to get caught.

I assume that in many cases, the simple desire to save face, which is common across nearly all cultures and times, means a LOT of people got away with it to various degrees because the targets didn’t want to reveal the scandal.

But given the sheer number of historical pretenders to various royal or aristocratic houses, you’re kind of spoiled for choice, see the list of False Royal Heritage claims in Wikipedia under the general heading of List of Imposters which, while not exhaustive, has a long list of various efforts over hundreds of years:

9

You would have to go really far away, for a start. If you just went to the next kingdom over, or the next one over from that, there would already be dignitaries from your country at their court, scholars who had studied in your country, merchants who traded regularly between the two regions, and other people who would know perfectly well what the real Prince Ludwig of Ruritania looked like, or that there was no such person. People traveled in the premodern world, especially elites, and they had plenty of contact with other elites.

If you did manage to get that far away, and brought enough money with you to turn up at the court of Balochistan with a suitable entourage, clothing, horses, and other possessions (without getting robbed on the road, and without attracting undue attention) … well, congratulations, I think in that case you would basically BECOME the Ruritanian ambassador to Balochistan if you represented yourself as such. You are no longer a fraud! Of course, anybody with sufficient wealth to pull off that sort of thing could have been enjoying a perfectly nice life at home with fewer risks, so it would take a very special personality type.

10

This thread got me thinking about Martin Guerre, a real imposter story from the 1500s, though not about scamming royalty:

This guy who looked like another guy who had left long before came back to a town and was (mostly) accepted as the original, taking up with the other guy’s wife. Got away with it for about 3 years.

11

IIRC, the issue with “Martin Guerre” was that his wife wanted a husband, so was willing to lie even though she knew he was lying; I think she got convicted along with him.

I was at a SciFi convention where L E Moddessit was giving a talk about his faux-medieval fantasy world. He was an economist and gave some interesting details. You didn’t travel with a magic American Express card, like so many characters in fiction (historical or fantasy) seem to. You needed to pay for your lodgings while travelling. Therefore, you needed to travel with a decent purse. So to avoid robbery, you needed a soldier escort… who needed to be paid, plus thier room and board at assorted Inns. So that purse got bigger. This is why in the real world, nobles travelled with a large retinue. You had to be a big enough force to deter highwaymen and gangs who would be after the small treasure you had to travel with. Not to mention the chest full of nice clothes, also a magnet for robbery.

Normally someone would travel to a known acquaintance - say the duke of Essex travelling to visit, say, the pope would carry a set of letters of introduction for others along the way, sealed by someone who either knew those hosts or from the king or someone important. A letter to the King in Paris, some Duke or Archbishop in Avignon, the duke of Milan, etc. You stayed at the host’s palace at their indulgence, and better not abuse it.

Or they would go by ship. This is the important point. People went everywhere, especially sailors and the merchants who accompanied the cargo. Marco Polo (and his uncles) were not unique, they just happened to write things down. (I think it was Ancient Engineers de Camp mentions the only written evidence we have of Roman trade with India was someone’s off-hand remark how long a ship voyage took) In those days, when connections were everything, people were a lot more concerned about who was who and what connections were there, and what were the kingdoms. The idea of showing up in London claiming to be the Duke or Laird of Inverness would be laughable.

Another important point is accent. There’s the joke about telling where in England, or even in London, someone came from by their accent. And being able to tell the details of who’s who back home to fill in their curiosity. Not to mention manners, religious observations, etc. Nothing likely pissed off the local archbishop than alleging to be a certain religion, and not knowing the details.

All in all, in a place where people had nothing better to do than gossip, one would have to be a very good imposter. You might get away with actually being from that remote place, but being a local and trying to pull it off would be unlikely. Plus, the risk of being recognized, society - especially noble society -was not that big.

12

I once read the vast majority of feudal peasants lived their entire life within a fifty mile radius. How ancient are the times of which you speak?

Big cities like Rome were very cosmopolitan by the standards of the day. They probably had people from every corner of the empire. There could possibly be consequences if you claimed to be wealthy and from Uzbeka-Beka-Bekastan but lacked protection or a retinue.

13

I get most people could never manage to do this. They would have nowhere near the education to pull this off (present themselves as something other than a peasant) not to mention the financial means to make a good show of it.

But, I’d think more than a few merchant or military ship captains might have the means and ability to pull this off. They travel far and wide. Often educated and often reasonably wealthy for the day. And they have an entourage in their sailors if nothing else. And good they can show to suggest more to come.

Or, possibly, you are a down-on-your-luck noble. You’ve already got the education and the bearing. With some money (not a lot) to make a good show and some chutzpah I can see it happening.

14

Someplace has a democracy.

15

I’d imagine you’d face some pretty detailed questioning by the royal court. If you are from so far away, how do you speak our language so fluently? Who told you about us and why do you know so much about us? etc.

16

The obvious scenario is a shipwrecked noble, which would explain lack of retinue and money. I believe even Shakespeare used this trope.

I forget which story I was reading where some time traveller tried to pass as an Icelandic noble in medieval Britain, only to encounter one of the lesser clergy who had been a monk in Scandinavia and knew the names and domains of the Icelandic nobles.

The point being, nobility and title were everything in those times, and those to whom it was important - other nobles - knew the topic inside out. Also remember there was no such thing as privacy in those days, you had the cooks and maids and laundry staff and you bought supplies from local vendors, and they all gossiped. Security was everything around the king, and strange people certainly got vetted behind their back even if they were accepted at their word. Plus - get too close to the ruler and whoever was jealous of your favour would certainly do their own digging. Court intrigue was another favourite passtime.

Then it comes down to - what’s your goal? To live the good life? Sooner or later someone will tire of supporting you and the hints will be to move on. Getting fed, probably not too much of a problem, the kitchen staff will probably do as told by you a “noble” between banquets. You need a new suit of clothes or new shoes, say - noble clothes are not cheap. How will you pay for that? Someone has to give you cash. (And most nobles were notoriously short of cash) At a certain point, your novelty will wear off.

17

I’d also imagine there being a cost/benefit analysis. Entertaining a stranger might be, well, entertaining. At least for a while. And might be a source of information. And a potential investment in future benefit. Not sure how expensive it would be to feed one more mouth. And, absent some show of “power” by the traveller, not sure why the host would feel it necessary to to do more.

18

Not just a joke. I am English by hereditary means, but accents even within London (granted, a big city) could be prettily easily be discerned as a specific area.

Weirdly for me, my Zimbabwe/South African accent was often taken for Irish, though the only Irish accent I could have picked up were the horrible Nuns who practically run the catholic church in which I spent a number of hours in my youth

As a foreigner, I found it quite easy to discern different London accents, perhaps because they were all foreign to me, even as we were speaking English to each other.

I lived in the East End (Bromley by Bow) but traveled extensively though London as I was a temp worker hired for temp work, one evening gigs as a waiter or barman.

I got to learn a bunch of accents just in one (huge) city.

EtA, I can easily guess the area where my fellow Zimbabweans come from, even though I do not speak fluent chiShona, just by accent.

19

That’s not true at all. Strabo mentions it, Pliny wrote extensively about it, Cassius Dio mentions it, Eusebius and Ammianus record it. And then there’s the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

20

I bet a few people somehow pulled it off and we don’t know about them because they were the best of the best and they pulled it off. I agree that it would be nearly impossible though.