Ok I’m having an argument with some racists (self identified) about the contribution of black to society and I got into the the idea the idea that “civilized” people 2000 years ago would not have considered “whites” (in the sense of Northern Europeans) to be capable of contributing to society either.
Anyway, all GD (or Pit) fodder but my factual question is…what if anything is know of “blacks” (I mean Sub-Saharan Africans) in the Roman world? The point was made that Northern barabarian were accepted into Roman society…at least sometimes. If their Latin was good enough. But Africans weren’t. According to the racist theory because they couldn’t make the grade. My theory is if they didn’t figure more into Roman history it was because Romans never conquered that far south. But I could use some firmer historical information. Anyone have any facts regarding blacks in the Roman world, and Roman attitudes toward same?
(Relavent facts regarding the “barabarians” are also appreciated.)
Well, its not dealing with black people under Roman rule, but from the 3rd-7th century CE the Roman/Byzantine Empire had a close trade relationship with the Kingdom of Axum, which lay in modern Ethiopia and Eritrea. It helped that the Axumite royal line became Christian in the 300’s and they provided Rome with an alternative to trade with Persia when acquiring goods from the East. Byzantium aided Axum in its invasion of the Himyarite Kingdom in modern-day Yemen. They certainly didn’t seem to have any problems with having a relationship with that black civilization.
The main place the Roman Empire would have been in contact with a black civilization was in Nubia. Nubia in the past had at times been ruled by Egypt, and Nubian dynasties at times ruled Egypt. Although the Romans conquered Egypt itself, the Nubians, then ruled by a dynasty from Meroe, held out against them.
It does not seem from this that Roman attitudes towards blacks were any different from those toward any of the other surrounding peoples. If anything, the Nubians were probably quite a bit more civilized than some of the Germanic peoples on the northern frontiers.
Africa was a significant contributor to Roman society. Unfortunately, (for both your positions–although I suspect that you come out ahead on points), the Africans with whom Rome generally had contact were “Mediterranean” people: Egyptians, Carthaginians (who were originally Phoenicians who were originally from the regions around Greece), Libyans, Berbers, Mauretanians, and maybe the odd Tuareg.
The only significant contact Rome had with “sub-Saharan” Africans was their periodic conflicts with the Nubian empire. At one point Rome conquered the Nubian capital, Nepata, and enslaved its people, but I have found no significant record of any one of that group rising to prominence. On the other hand, even having defeated the Nubians, Augustus never really tried to occupy the land, respecting their fighting strength (and recognizing that his lines were overextended) and he eventially established a permanent border between Rome and Nubia.
If you go to this page and click on the link “Ancient Africa and Early Rome” in the middle of the page, (it is only a pop-up, with no easily discerned url), you will get a (misleading) discussion of African contributions to Roman society. It is misleading because the people identified as Moors are Mauretanians and not the people we call “black” and the Africans mentioned by name are of “Mediterranaen” heritage. (This is part of the fallout of white racists and black racists dueling it out in popular media: white racists claim that nothing good came from black Africans (clearly a false claim) and black racists claim that anything that occurred south of the Mediterranean was the result of “black” contributions.) ZeroGyro’s notes on the Axum empire run close to the problem. Axum succeeded Nubia after the fall of the Kushite empire. Certainly it included people we would now identify as “black,” but when Kush fell, people from the Sahara and people from the Arabian peninsula moved in to fill the gap, so the ethnic composition of Axum was probably highly mixed, rather than being closely tied to one group or another.
However, the lack of “black” participation in Rome had nothing to do with Nubians or Abyssinians being unable to “make the grade” and everything to do with them simply not mingling with Romans. There was no law that prohibited Nubians from rising to positions of power–there were simply not enough Nubians present to be recognizable.
Isn’t “everything” south of the Mediterranean, Africa ?
Whether those blacks are racists or not, they do have a point. Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are African nations. They’re not southern Europe !
Yes there is a tradition of including them in the list of Mid East nations, but c’mon a continent is a continent.
If they’re not, then I claim Iceland, Ireland and the U.K. are in North America.
You miss the point entirely. African != black. tomndebb’s point was that claims that black Africans were responsible for any accomplishment made south of the Mediterranean are false.
And less I cause more confusion here, I realized after posting that my use of the word “any” might be misleading. I meant it in the inclusive sense, such that anyone claiming that all African accomplishments were made by black Africans would be incorrect.
Your history is wrong. The Pre-Axumite and Axumite civilizations (500 BC to 650 AD) overlapped with the existence of Kush and Meroe (800 BC to 400 AD). There was no movement from the Nubian civilizations (or from Saharan people) to the Axumite ones. They were located a distance apart, with the Nubian cities along the Nile in Sudan and the Axumite cities in the Ethiopian highlands and along the Red Sea. Their trade focuses were completely different (Nubia brought goods from within Africa, Axum from India and Arabia). The Axumite civilization was spurred on by South Arabian colonists who mixed with the local Horn Africans, but their cultural impact was greater than their actual racial mixture. I wouldn’t state otherwise, but for the sake of what betenoir was asking (which to me had more to do with whether the Romans had a disregard for including or dealing with black people) they were majority black African racially and they seemed to be treated like any other trading partner by the Romans.
Frankly I’m unsure why you introduced the notion of Afrocentrism into this discussion and I certainly hope you weren’t implying that my notes ran close to the ideas of “black racists” (of course some of the most prominent Afrocentrists like Martin Bernal are white). betenoir clearly stated he was interested in sub-Saharan black people and didn’t seem to think/imply that all African civilizations were “black.” I certainly don’t.
Again, all this leads to is speculation over defining/dividing blacks from non blacks, when there is no dividing line.
The OP might want to consider if Romans were biased/prejudiced or motivated by some people based on their appearance, cultural background, social status, country of origin, etc. I’m guessing the implication is that ‘blacks’ were victims of prejudice based on their skin color.
If you want to make a safe bet, based on what we know about people, Romans had a thread of racism that permeated their culture. Which races where the victims of the racism? Well, again, it is likely that if you could live in Rome, or be part of Rome, you probably weren’t a true victim of racism. State sponsored racism would lead to genocide.
Rome didn’t collapse under the weight of political correctness.
[QUOTE=betenoir]
The point was made that Northern barabarian were accepted into Roman society…at least sometimes. If their Latin was good enough. But Africans weren’t. According to the racist theory because they couldn’t make the grade. My theory is if they didn’t figure more into Roman history it was because Romans never conquered that far south. But I could use some firmer historical information. Anyone have any facts regarding blacks in the Roman world, and Roman attitudes toward same?
[QUOTE]
Given the tenor of this thread, I hesitate to weigh in on the facts regarding Roman relations with non-Romans. A thorough discussion of the prevalence of racist attitudes in the ancient world is probably impossible, and even if it were I think the discussion would quickly turn to questions of what “true” racism is–state sponsored genocide vs. social injustice–and the whole point of the original question would be lost.
That is why I have reposted the OP’s relevant question. First, as tomndebb pointed out, Africa was a significant contributor to Roman society. It is unlikely, for example, that Rome could have fed her growing civilian population without grain from Egypt (one of the reasons Vespaisian made a dash for Alexandria during the Year of Four Emperors, rather than head to Rome like his rivals). The emperor Septimus Severus–founder of the Severan dynasty–was from Tripoli. And of course who could forget St. Augustine, probably the intellectual light of the late Roman world?
The legend of Memnon–the Ethiopian king whom Achilles killed at Troy–notwithstanding, the Romans had very little direct contact with sub-Saharan Africa. Roman legions entered Ethiopia during the reign of Augustus, supposedly reaching as far as Meroe, but Augustus’ will set the boundaries of the empire at the first cataract. Zerogyro knows far more about the history than I do, but the summary given in that post jibes with my understanding of Roman trade; Axum (modern Eritrea or thereabouts?) brokered trade between the Far East and Roman interests in Egypt, while Nubia brought goods to market from the African interior. Christianity was quite late to the area (mid- to late 4th century), further indicating the region’s relative isolation from Rome.
I say “relative”, because in these matters it’s difficult to give a clear answer as to how common sub-Saharian Africans appeared around the empire. I can say I know of not a single one, whereas northern tribesmen who held military and civil power were common enough (Stilicho springs to mind). It is clear Rome’s policy of using local troops to defend the borders brought provincials into the civil and military chain of command very quickly; no such comparable program was in place for Africa, probably because any military threat there was miniscule compared to the Visigoths in the north and the Parthians in the east.
Well, it is certainly true that as I kept wrestling with how much to say about the shifting borders of Egypt, Nubia, Kush, and Abyssinia across different centuries, trying to track the exact points where there were Roman contacts, I kept carving off stuff that looked like it was too much until I had left far too little.
And, as you note, my comments on Axum were in error. (For some reason, the older belief that the Sabaean kingdoms had a role in the rise of Axum still show up on several historical web sites and I missed the corrective information that it was a home-grown enterprise.)
However, that demonstrates the problem that I was trying to highlight with my references to Afro-Centrism–not that I thought there were any errors in your post, but that searching the web for historical information regarding Roman involvement with Africa tends to turn up Afro-Centrist tracts (such as the link I provided) as well as tracts slanted the opposite way (such as the information I found that you have corrected on my post).
The central intent of my post was to point out that Rome did not “exclude” blacks (for any reason) so much as they simply had little contact with them (regardless what hoops we jump through to identify who might be “black.”)
I think there’s a reading comprehension problem here. The OP was referring to blacks, who in the ancient Roman world would have been African. It would be an error of logic to assume that just because “all” blacks are African, that all Africans are black.
IMHO racists need to learn geography.
Allowing anyone to “cherry pick” (I.E. northern Africans aren’t really Africans since they’re not black) only reinforces their arguments.
No, I understood the OP, I’m addressing the first sentence of the OP.
You are making the error,all “blacks” are NOT Africans, and all Africans are not black.
Northern Africa is populated by Africans of Asian (the “Middle East” part of Asia) decent. Southern Africa
They are not “black” accomplishments, but they ARE African accomplishments! North and south of the Sahara. That is the point of the so called “black racists”. Since most people are unaware of the history of Africa, that there were “high cultures”, equal to any found in the rest of the ancient world, there’s a need to reclaim the “high cultures” people are aware of.
These Egyptians http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/tuthmosisIII.html look “black” to me!
No, I understood the OP, I’m addressing the first sentence of the OP.
Yes it would be an error of logic, all “blacks” are NOT Africans, and all Africans are not black.
Northern Africa is largely populated by Africans of Asian (the “Middle East” part of Asia) decent. Southern Africa includes Africans of European decent (the Boers) and Africans of Indian (Asian) decent. There are also Africans of North American decent. What ever their ancestry, or skin color, they are Africans!
Yes, I know the OP is about a different time period,but it doesn’t change my point.Dividing Africa into “Black” Africa and not quite so “black” Africa creates a racist, racial division. Is there any historical evidence that Asians (“Middle Easterners”) moved in to a North Africa with NO indigenous people with darker skin? Was their (“the Middle Easterners”) skin color so uniform?
Racists are not interested in history, they simply believe non “whites” are inferior. Therefore the pyramids aren’t really African, since blacks are savages not capable of a higher culture.
When the Newark earthworks were discovered in the 1800’s the Hopewell people, who lived in the valley 2000 years before, were not believe to have anything to do with the origin of the mounds.The notion that “Indians” could have created something similar to the creations of ancient Europeans was easily dismissed. Instead the popular theory of the time was that the “ten lost tribes of Israel” built them. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1430/is_n1_v17/ai_15831798
Because they were known to have built mounds, the Vikings, Aztecs, Phoenicians, Hindus, the ten lost tribes of Israel, Romans, Greeks and Persians have all taken their turn being given consideration for the work. Why? Because savage red Indians aren’t capable of creating a high culture. Even today some find a need to find someone,anyone other than the Hopewell. http://www.atlantisrising.com/issue10/ar10mounds.html
White supremacists (esp. anthropologists of the 18th & 19th century) create an artificial hierarchy of race in part based on the notion of “high cultures”. that continues to infect our view of history to this day.
Whites at the top,“just look at Europe how wore civilized could ya be”.
Europe becomes the paradigm of human culture.
China and Japan give Asians a veneer of civilizedness in their eyes. They wore clothes, lived in houses, had cities, and their cities were old.
South America was a no brainer, Europeans had been visiting since the 1500’s.Yes they where a “high culture”, but a culture of savages.
Now when Europeans meet up with the Africans & N. Americans what do they find? Half naked people, living in huts, NO cities. Primitives, at best.
And in their arrogant, ignorance, dismiss two continents worth of humanity and any claims they had of being part of an older culture.
Since they had no “high culture” when we found them, any suggestion that they could create a high culture can be dismissed without a thought.
For a racist to acknowledge the contributions of blacks to society would require that person to stop being a racist. BTW I am not in any way, suggesting, that anyone involved in this thread is a racist.
Actually, no. The ones I’m thinking of are open that their goal is to promote black identity, and sometimes open about the fact that lie through their teeth (it’s Marcus Garvey Syndrome). But regardless, it’s a deception. No doubt there is some overlap, and a tiny kernal of truth to their claims. But rationally, there seems to be much less than claimed by them.
Also, pointing to one picture of a possibly black Egyptian proves nothing. IN fact, it proves my point: that picture is well known precisely because it is not perfectly representative. Undoubtedly there were darker and lighter Egyptians; they were not one homogenous mass. But it does not seem likely, given the preponderance of alternative depictions, that most Egyptians were that dark.
If they want to “reclaim” high culture, they would be much better off trying to raise awareness about real “black” nations. They weren’t the strongest of nations or the most glorious, but they had a distinct high culture and great wealth, and were somewhat famous in the middle-east.
Can you give me something to look at (online?), so I can see if I agree with you or not?
You’re making my point, at the time of the Romans was north Africa homogeneous at all,moreover how homogeneous was sub-Saharan Africa? How heterogeneous.
How hetero/homogeneous, compared to sub-Saharan Africa, does N. Africa have to be to create a distinction, or make one impossible? Ignoring culture and ancestral hetero/homogeneousness, and only considering pigmentation.
In some distant future, and assuming no changes in population or culture, should the high cultures of the United States and Canada viewed as
[ul]North American (geographically)[/ul]
or
[ul]European (culturally)[/ul]
or
[ul]White (racially)[/ul]
This debate reminds me of a job I had several years ago. I was working for a firm contracted to handle the processing of claims for a class-action law suit against Denny’s. The law suit was over discrimination against African-American customers. One of the claims we received was from a man who was an immigrant from Egypt. Since Egypt is on the African continent, he claimed that he could receive part of the settlement because he was an “African-American”. I don’t know how that claim was ever resolved. I did ask my supervisor what I should do if a full-blooded Australian aborigine claimed Denny’s discriminated against him and wanted to file a claim. My supervisor wouldn’t touch that scenerio with a ten-foot pole.
