Black Africans In Ancient Rome & Greece.

[SOMALI GENERAL]

To sum it up, it's plausible that some Black individuals achieved prestigious positions in the Roman World & you may find the odd Black Soldier in the Army/Navy, but modern depictions of entire Roman legions being mostly made up by Blacks is incorrect, simply because the Black population in Ancient Europe was extremely small.

Lastly, the Roman world was very multi-ethnic & racism in the Ancient world was no different to the racism in the Modern world. There are many parallels between today's Western world and the Roman world, like for instance many Non-European/Italic peoples that were conquered by the Romans migrated to the Empire's Capital [Rome] and self-segregated themselves, such as the Copts/Egyptians, Jews/Israelites, Berbers, Arabs e.g began forming ethnic ghettos in the City; the Native Italians complained of their presence & some Senators wanted to base Roman citizenship on Blood/Ethnicity in an attempt to keep the original Italic Roman ethnicity pure & prevent mixing.

 

[jabsveg276]

To sum it up, it's plausible that some Black individuals achieved prestigious positions in the Roman World & you may find the odd Black Soldier in the Army/Navy, but modern depictions of entire Roman legions being mostly made up by Blacks is incorrect, simply because the Black population in Ancient Europe was extremely small. Lastly, racism in the Ancient world is no different to the racism in the Modern world.

So basically the same thing in America.

 

[Prime Minister]

So basically the same thing in America.

Everyone not just America everywhere people look different and have different culture will create segregated communities so it's been the same throughout history.

 

[yaqir]

Wasn't there a story about a Ethiopian woman in ancient Greece

 

[Kant123]

Ancient greeks and Romans said alot of good things about blacks/Africans unlike today
Its clear blacks were more respected in Ancient times

 

[jabsveg276]

Ancient greeks and Romans said alot of good things about blacks/Africans unlike today
Its clear blacks were more respected in Ancient times

The romans had a lot of respect for Somalis too, they used to buy cinnamon and spices from us at an inflated price because we lied and said it’s home grown.

 

[The alchemist]

This video, good in some aspects, concluded with so little source of information and little outline in the nature of how Romans saw other people (only relied on three badly defined semantical categorizations) that the conclusion is not very cogent. Saying racism existed and was nuanced -- that’s why it was as it is today -- is an error done by pseudo-historians falling for the fallacy we call presentism. The supposition can even go as far as saying it gives room for anachronistic interpretation.

If our only benchmark is “racism,” a very vague wide-ranging term when analyzing through a historiography lens, if we don’t add the context in how it was expressed and from where it derived, especially relative to other groups of foreign origin and overall cultural setting, the layman, in this case, can’t help but infer from a modern putative interpretation that is corroded by our extant experience and understanding of race relations.

An example of how we are falling victim to errors masking the authentic flavor of the past because we take signatures of later human relations for granted and deem them universally applicable across time and space.

 

[Som]

To sum it up, it's plausible that some Black individuals achieved prestigious positions in the Roman World & you may find the odd Black Soldier in the Army/Navy, but modern depictions of entire Roman legions being mostly made up by Blacks is incorrect, simply because the Black population in Ancient Europe was extremely small.

Lastly, the Roman world was very multi-ethnic & racism in the Ancient world was no different to the racism in the Modern world. There are many parallels between today's Western world and the Roman world, like for instance many Non-European/Italic peoples that were conquered by the Romans migrated to the Empire's Capital [Rome] and self-segregated themselves, such as the Copts/Egyptians, Jews/Israelites, Berbers, Arabs e.g began forming ethnic ghettos in the City; the Native Italians complained of their presence & some Senators wanted to base Roman citizenship on Blood/Ethnicity in an attempt to keep the original Italic Roman ethnicity pure & prevent mixing.

The romans had a problem with anyone who didn't assimilate into their culture. Race and ethnicity were not that important especially in the empire era. I think an assimilated black African would have been looked with curiosity but probably treated much better than a white blond german tribesman who didn't speak latin

 

[Som]

To sum it up, it's plausible that some Black individuals achieved prestigious positions in the Roman World & you may find the odd Black Soldier in the Army/Navy, but modern depictions of entire Roman legions being mostly made up by Blacks is incorrect, simply because the Black population in Ancient Europe was extremely small.

Lastly, the Roman world was very multi-ethnic & racism in the Ancient world was no different to the racism in the Modern world. There are many parallels between today's Western world and the Roman world, like for instance many Non-European/Italic peoples that were conquered by the Romans migrated to the Empire's Capital [Rome] and self-segregated themselves, such as the Copts/Egyptians, Jews/Israelites, Berbers, Arabs e.g began forming ethnic ghettos in the City; the Native Italians complained of their presence & some Senators wanted to base Roman citizenship on Blood/Ethnicity in an attempt to keep the original Italic Roman ethnicity pure & prevent mixing.

Racism was different in ancient times though.
For example Egyptians were probably the most racist and xenophobic ancient people but they easily accepted black nubians ruling them in the XXV dinasty because nubians had a similar religion and culture. This would be impossibile with modern racism which is also based on biology. Ancient peoples didn't believe someone was inferrior because of their race. There was racism but it was different. For example in Christian history Paul the apostle was a jew with roman citizenship, he was able to avoid mistreatment because of it. He was in no way treated as any other jew in Roman Palestine. This is much different from let's say america were black people are discriminated despite being american citizens and nativeEnglish speakers
Another huge difference is the target of such racism, africans were not perceived as a monolith. Nubians and ethiopians were considered to be civilized , other africans from unknown tribes were seen in a more negative way but germanic people and celts were probably the most discriminated.