Current Events > Why do people get mad when talking about black people in antiquity?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I remember when that BBC video came out with a Roman guy with dark skin in Roman Britian and some people blew up over it. But it's not as far-fetched to have a black legionnaire in Britain. According to Historia Augusta there was an Ethiopian soldier who was a bit of a jester who decided to prank the emperor Septimus Severus. There was also two black ladies in Roman Britian that I recall, including one of them who was a lady of wealth.

Aside from that I also recall Aristotle talking about children of mixed ancestry, as in the History of Animals he recalls the story of a Greek woman who had children with an Ethiopian man in the Greek region of Elis. He recounts that one of the grandchildren came out later looking like an Ethiopian woman IIRC. Another account he recalls is that there was a woman who had an affair with an Ethiopian man in Sicily. At least showing light that black people weren't totally alien to Greece and Sicily. In his description of the Persian army invading Greece Herodotus also describes Ethiopians that came along with Xerses, and they were left with Mardonius as part of the left over army left to mop up the remaining resistance by Xerses as he went back to home after fulfilling his royal duties. It's possible that these Ethiopians were taken as slaves along with the remainder of the Persian army following their defeat at Plataea, even if the Greeks would rather skewer you in the back they sometimes restrained themselves to take war captives.

Overall if you're willing to look up the record it will provide you with sources on the subject. It should also be noted here that Ethiopian was a term to describe what we would generally call black people today.
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*African-American
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?
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Just recycling an old joke.
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Racism.
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Piplup_Sniper posted...

Racism.

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A lot of people believe the modern, western interpretation of race extends back further than it does.
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Because they racist
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Piplup_Sniper posted...

Racism.

JBaLLEN66 posted...

Because they racist

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See this is the wrong way of looking at it.

It's more like "what's the deal with having an all-white ensemble in a historical European work to the point that we need racial diversity to appease the vocal critics?"

As long as it's historically accurate there is no issue. Or are you talking about video games where black females fought in the nazi army because that will always be fucking stupid
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glitteringfairy posted...

As long as it's historically accurate there is no issue. Or are you talking about video games where black females fought in the nazi army because that will always be fucking stupid

Nah, I mean like the whole fight between that one guy from Infowars and Mary Beard over the inclusion of a black Roman guy. Or hell, I saw some people complain about dark skinned individuals in the new Assassin Creed game.

All I'm saying is that inclusion of characters of that background isn't far-fetched at all.
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What about making Achilles a black guy?
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Well when the shoes on the other foot and Shaka Zulu is played by a white guy we can have this conversation. I'm sure there'd be outrage over something like that.
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KillerKhan420 posted...

Well when the shoes on the other foot and Shaka Zulu is played by a white guy we can have this conversation. I'm sure there'd be outrage over something like that.

When are historical figures being race swapped?
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Because they're racist neanderthals.
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Antifar posted...

A lot of people believe the modern, western interpretation of race extends back further than it does.

Basically this. If you presented the modern view of race to the people of antiquity, they would think you were insane. Their definitions of race were way different. On top of that, races are way, way more fluid. Like 90% of the races we have today are directly the result of large amounts of migration and the mixing of tons of different, smaller groups, who almost assuredly didn't look alike.

Manocheese posted...

*African-American

African-Roman

ImAMarvel posted...

I'm sure they were probably at least a bit racist (I've read that "Ethiopian," in its original Greek form, "Aethiopia," meant "burnt-face"), it wasn't anything fucking NEAR the horror that arose from Europe in the Middle Ages, after the Renaissance, and into the modern era.

There is no reason to believe that racism didn't get bad until that point. People were probably very prejudiced towards people from other places, even places that would be considered nearby by today's standards. Human nature hasn't changed much over this time period.
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Sativa_Rose posted...

ImAMarvel posted...

I'm sure they were probably at least a bit racist (I've read that "Ethiopian," in its original Greek form, "Aethiopia," meant "burnt-face"), it wasn't anything fucking NEAR the horror that arose from Europe in the Middle Ages, after the Renaissance, and into the modern era.

There is no reason to believe that racism didn't get bad until that point. People were probably very prejudiced towards people from other places, even places that would be considered nearby by today's standards. Human nature hasn't changed much over this time period.

People in antiquity recognized that there were differences among each other, mostly attributed to climate. However in antiquity you wouldn't be looked down as inferior because you had dark skin. Their "racism" was based around culture. If you didn't follow Greek/Roman culture you were a barbarian and someone to look down on. It didn't matter if you were a Thracian with red hair or a blond Germanic person. Even if you look back at the record left behind you see that Menmon, who is depicted as a black man, was shown as someone who is almost equal in skill to Achilles. Even Herodotus plays up their exoticness, writing that the Aethopians were the most beautiful and longest lived people.
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