TITLE: Needless axiom for Grothendieck topologies?
QUESTION [7 upvotes]: Hi,
The first axiom for a Grothendieck (pre)topology on a category $C$ says that for every object $X\in C$, the family consisting of just the identity $1_X : X\to X$ should be a covering family.
Why is this axiom needed? Obviously a functor $F : C^{opp}\to Sets$ will satisfy the sheaf condition with respect to this family, so nothing seems to be gained by adding this covering family...
Am I missing something?
Thanks!

REPLY [9 votes]: The only important axiom in order to define a notion of sheaf is the stability under pullback. There is a proposition in SGA4 saying that if you have a family of sieves only satisfying the pullback stability condition then a presheaf is a sheaf with respect to this family if and only if it is a sheaf with respect to the topology it generates. Hence to some extend the identity axiom is useless, as well is the locality axiom.
The reason why this two other axioms are important is that when you have all three axioms then you can prove that if two topologies defines the same notion of sheaf then they are equal: adding new covering will reduces the number of sheaf, and this is the case only if the three axioms are satisfied.