Twelve papers presented in 2012 at the fourth Symposium of the Centre for Ancient World Studies (existing from 2006 to 2012) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences are published in this volume. The submitted studies concern the general topic “The Own and the Foreign” and cover a wide temporal range from the second millennium BC to the early medieval period. According to the fields of research of the authors, the scientific contributions and their results are based on archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, papyrological and literary sources. Without any doubt, the complexity of the issues “Own” and “Foreign” does not allow comprehensive examinations within a single volume. Therefore it is to be pointed out that the papers are independent studies using differing methodological approaches from various Classical disciplines. As a result, however, it is clear that these manifold approaches to the subject of the symposium cannot claim any completeness.