Racists read history backwards and assume that all ancient Greeks and Romans were Europeans, that they were as lily-White as they are in Hollywood films, that there were no Africans apart from the occasional slave.
Here is an incomplete list of people born in Africa in Greek and Roman times, listed by approximate year of birth:
-340: Euclid – wrote “The Elements”, the book on geometry.
-276: Eratosthenes – came up with the first good measurement of how big the Earth is. Born in Libya.
-247: Hannibal – one of the greatest military commanders ever. In -218 he brought his soldiers and elephants over the Alps in a surprise attack on Rome.
-190: Terence – Latin playwright, influenced Cicero, Horace, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Moliere. Quote: “I am a man, and reckon nothing human is alien to me.”
-120: Sosigenes – astronomer, advised Julius Caesar on reform of the Roman calendar, giving us the Julian calendar, not topped by Europeans till the 1500s.
-69: Cleopatra – queen of Egypt. Pictured above is a forensic reconstruction of a woman who was likely Arsinoe, her half-sister.
-25: Philo – philosopher, combined Judaism with Platonism.
+69: Suetonius – wrote “The Twelve Caesars” about Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors.
100: Ptolemy – his books on geography and astronomy were not topped by Europeans till the 1500s.
124: Apuleius – wrote “The Golden Ass”, the only complete Roman novel that we have.
145: Septimius Severus – Roman emperor from 193 to 211. His sons Caracalla and Geta also became emperors.
155: Pope St Victor I – Roman pope from 189 to 199, the first to write in Latin.
155: Tertullian – father of Latin Christianity.
165: Macrinus – Roman emperor from 217 to 218.
185: Origen – Christian theologian. Out of favour now, but was big for over a thousand years.
188: St Perpetua – Christian martyr.
205: Plotinus – founder of the Neoplatonist school of philosophy.
207: Aemilian – became Roman emperor in 253. Two months later his troops killed him in favour of Valerian.
210: St Cyprian – Christian writer, bishop and martyr. Quote: “Whatever a man prefers to God, that he makes a god to himself.”
250: Arius – founder of Arianism, a heresy that deeply divided the Christian world in the 300s.
251: St Antony of Egypt – the first Christian monk.
270: St Miltiades – Roman pope from 311 to 314. Presided over the Lateran Council.
297: St Athanasius – defender of the Church against Arianism. The first to list the books of the New Testament as most Christians now know them.
300: St Catherine of Alexandria – one of the saints who appeared to Joan of Arc.
331: St Monica – mother of St Augustine (see below) and namesake of Santa Monica, California. She was Berber.
350: Ivory Bangle Lady – a rich woman who lived in York in Britain, probably Christian. Her tomb was discovered in 1901. Forensic reconstruction pictured above.
350: Hypatia – philosopher and astronomer in Alexandria, pulled from her carriage by a Christian mob and killed.
354: St Augustine – one of the greatest Christian theologians ever. Many of the authors he read were also Africans: Apuleius, Plotinus, Victorinus, Terence, Origen, Tertullian, St Cyprian, Arnobius and Lactantius.
410: St Gelasius I – Roman pope from 492 to 496, the last (so far) to be born in Africa. First pope to be called the Vicar of Christ.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Hollywood whitewashing
- Alexandria
- Race before 1400
- Cheikh Anta Diop
- Herodotus
- “Europe is a continent”
- “Africa is a country”
- The term “African”
545
Abagond 
Would Hannibal count as Greek or Roman? Wasn’t he from Carthage?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Many of the people listed here were Europeans; Hypatia, Cleopatra, Ptolemy, St. Augustine, etc. When Greeks conquered Egypt, Greeks moved there. When Roman took over North Africa, Romans moved there. On top of that, many of the pre-Roman city-states were founded and populated by other Mediterranean civilizations. Most notably Carthage having started as a Phoenician colony. If the suggestion is that all these people must be black because it’s Africa, then Dave Matthews, Charlize Theron, Ian Smith, and Richard Dawkins are black, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Bejamin @ Jon John Jean
I am not saying all these people are all Greek or Roman or Black. Africa is not all anything. Africa is not a country.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/africa-is-a-country/
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOM,
Now, come on, we all know Catholic Rome (as you call it) was responsible for many atrocities, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Jon John Jean
They were not born in Europe. How are they European? Is it because they spoke a European language or had a European name? Well then, by that measure, most Black Americans are Europeans too. Is that what you are saying?
If you mean all or most of their genes came from Europe, then please point me to their genetic tests. I would be most interested to see them.
What is your definition of “European”? What is your definition of “Black”?
What is your definition of “Europe”?
My use of “African” was clear cut. Your use of “European” seems subjective.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Hehe, you can’t deny that you baited him.
LikeLike
I think people have to understand that today’s (US) ideas of race did not exist back in the day. Race is not a universal concept even today (it is understood in different ways in different places). During the Greek and Roman period, our idea of race was non-existent.
So was our idea of Europe, for that matter.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
Modern ideas of race do not apply to these people because race did not exist in their day. The concept was just not there in this sense. “Race” was understood completely differently. Often it had nothing to do with physical appearance.
That being said, Greek and Roman worlds (those are two completely different cultures, btw, not that the post implies that they are the same) were def not “lily white” WASP as understood today. For example, if one wants to make realistic casting for a movie set in Greek or Roman times, casting only white WASP actors – and casting no black actors – is factually inaccurate.
LikeLike
One more thing: let’s not forget that Ancient Greece is often understood as the “cradle of Western civilization” so no, “European civilization” (whatever that means) def did not come from Western Europe. Greeks themselves would be appalled to know that those barbarians claim their cultural heritage and take credit for it. Heck, today’s Greeks hate the idea of Western Europeans appropriating Ancient Greece. This cultural appropriation was big in late 18th and 19th century.
LikeLike
Of course people noticed physical differences. The way we today notice if one person has blue eyes and another person has brown. The point is that it wasn’t a base for grouping people into categories, at least not how it’s understood today. People of many different “races” (as understood today) were seen as part of the same group.It’s not so much that they were uniformly “Mediterranean looking” (you had people with pale skin, blue eyes, light hair that would be seen as WASP today; you had people with dark skin that would be seen as black today; you had people with “olive” skin, brown eyes and dark hair that would be seen as Italian/Greek or Middle Eastern today, etc.)
The point wasn’t that they were uniformly-looking or “ambiguous” in racial sense – the point was that physical differences weren’t used as a basis for grouping people into categories (“races”). And it sure meant that physical differences weren’t used for Othering and dividing people into “Us” vs “Them”.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
“Race as it’s understood in the US comes in large part from its people originating from the different ends of continents”
Nah. It actually comes as a historical product of colonialism. As in, races were invented in a specific period of time, relatively recently. For the most of the human history the idea of “race” as understood today did not exist. Like, at all.
Grouping into different categories (“races” if you want to call it) did exist, but it was culturally-specific and varied greatly from culture to culture. And often had nothing to do with physical appearance. Well, one has to understand that even today’s idea of races (that may seem so logical because, hey, there are people of different phenotypes, it’s obvious!), even our idea of race is culturally-specific, not universal. The only reason it’s so widespread is because of colonialism.
LikeLike
Why it’s crazy? You can’t always tell someone’s ancestry just by looking at them. It happens all the time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@Kiwi
So are you saying that most of the people in the Roman Empire would’ve looked similar, ethnically? Like how today (some) Southern Europeans don’t look very different from Middle Easterners (at least when compared to Northern Europeans)?
LikeLike
Kiwi,
It doesn’t really work that way. For example, English people totally considered Irish people inferior even though there was not so much of a “sharp difference in appearance” (based on today’s ideas of race at least).
Also, I find confusing why you keep insisting that people of Greece and Rome were somehow uniformly looking/”ambiguously Mediterranean”. When… no, it’s not the case. There was a lot of diversity and a lot of contact: barbarians on the North, people on the Middle East, people all over Africa, etc.
As for Mongols, they ruled parts of Europe at one point so they did, in fact, encountered people who looked differently. Also, you don’t really need to travel by sea to encounter differences in appearance. I mean, going from Mongolia to Adriatic Sea is larger than going from British isles to Egypt so I don’t know what you mean, honestly.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
“In the US, people usually have little trouble identifying “extreme” races like Whites, Blacks, or East Asians, who originate from continental extremes. But a most peculiar thing I’ve noticed is that people will often confuse “intermediate” races for one another, even among themselves.”
No offense to US-ians, but they sometimes have a problem understanding that a white person can have brown eyes and dark hair, let alone any more complex differences. (And not just white Americans). Though tbh, it’s not just American thing, (def not – for example, in my corner of the world we have a trouble understanding that Mariah Carey is not white). It’s just that America prides itself for being a melting pot so one would assume that Americans kind of know that you can’t really conclude anything about anyone’s ancestry just by looking at them. Heck, it’s kind of offensive to try – there are known cases of “but you can’t be X, you look like Y!” and it’s pretty bad.
Rant aside, while people definitely “see color” and read different people differently it’s far from accurate and it’s not surprising to make a mistake. It’s because – gasp! – races are not a biological thing but a cultural construct. They are culturally-specific and one person’s idea of races may be different than another person’s.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
“I meant to say that in the Greek and Roman world, there were racial “intermediates” that would make the idea of humans being divided into distinct racial groups seem absurd”.
And so were everywhere. British people did not suddenly discover the existence of black, Asian and Middle Eastern people (even if they suddenly discovered Native Americans). Black people, Asian people, Middle Eastern people, “Mediterannean” people (Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, people from the Balkans), people from India, etc. – all these people were not only known but PRESENT in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. They lived among “Western Europeans” (quotes since the idea of Western Europe did not exist back then).
Dividing people into groups was also not a new thing – this is a general human tendency. All groups divide people into “us” and “them”. What was new was the specific type of grouping we still find so normalized and logical today (divide into races) that it’s difficult to grasp that it’s an arbitrary construct. It’s as logical as grouping people based on eye color.
And yeah, it’s circular thinking with colonialism that I mentioned but I meant “colonialism” as a whole historical process – as in, something that happened in a specific time and place and with a specific purpose and consequences. Races as we know them today were born in this system but it didn’t have to be that way. In fact, the first divide was based on religion (one of the reasons why Irish people were so hated) and not on physical appearance alone.
LikeLike
Agree with posters above citing race as a non-factor many times (although Herodotus did note the black skin of Ethiopians several times in his journals) –but in general, the lack of this peculiar Anglo Saxon-created racism is why intermarriage was not an issue (although, IMHO, it led to the end of the ancient black-only Pharisees in Egypt and the end of the Pharonic system itself). Indeed, the same holds true for the black Popes who held Rome’s most highest title, the black female oracles summoned from Africa, and the incredible black Moors, and others who were minted on coin. To this day, the Pope succumbs to a black Madonna and child, an ancient practice from Roman times. Racism, as practiced by some of those who left the caves of the Caucasus, and founded modern day Europe, was not in existence.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
Sorry, but no. I am not sure where you’re from or how much you know about history, but what you’re saying is just, well, it’s not true. Changes in appearance are not “gradual” in the way you seem to understand it or “sudden”… It just not how it goes.
Furthermore, you seem to think that there was no traveling between lands before British empire or something. Or that there was no POC in Europe, basically. I mean, I am not sure what you’re trying to say but those claims of yours are just factually incorrect.
“Different races didn’t interact with each other face-to-face on such a massive scale until the European colonial era.”
No. Obviously, the scale was larger during colonial era but people of different “races” did, in fact, interact. A lot. Like, a lot. It’s one of the misconceptions that people did not have contacts with other people before the age of “great discoveries”. People traveled all over the world in prehistory (and not in the way of settling new lands: I mean on visiting other places and coming back home), let alone during Greece and Rome. Which is one of the reasons why Greece and Rome were pretty diverse (which included people of many different phenotypes).
LikeLike
@Mira,
I wonder if the disconnect is related to this statement from Kiwi:
This assumes a concept of “race” that is not universal.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
No need to explain further – things you claim are simply factually wrong. I am not sure why you keep insisting on them. Like jefe said, one of the problems seems to be that you see concept of race as universal or at least objective at some level. Another problem, I’d say, is that you keep insisting that certain cultures (those connected by land?) were not diverse enough to, idk, notice a difference in appearances. Which, again, is not true.
LikeLike
I read about the Christian martyrrs Perpetua and Felicity and the story of their devotion to their faith and the horrible torture them endured.
LikeLike
@Mira,
So, are you saying that Kiwi seems to imply, for example,that when Han Chinese crossed the mountain passes and met hindu Indians, they would have treated that as a gradual change in race and culture so that they would not have noticed it nearly as much as, say, when they crossed the Taiwan Strait and first met the Austronesians living there (which, somehow, would have been a stark contrast in race and culture)?
I have been to Xinjiang and noticed that the Uyghur, Kazakh and Han all see each other as different “races” and “cultures”, yet live side by side. The is despite the fact that there is quite a bit of phenotype variability WITHIN each group, particularly the Uyghur.
I do agree that races and cultures encountered and mixed to a significant extent centuries, if not millennia before (the relatively modern) European imperialism period.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
The problem is that you are factually wrong. I understand what you argue, but your facts are simply not correct. That’s the issue here.
LikeLike
Dare anyone ask this question? What happened to the glory of North Africa, then, after the fall of classical civilization? What event occurred after the year 500? Would some say the glories continued? Did they really? And if they did, were they equal glories? The list here is impressive, regardless of the racial and ethnic derivation of any of the individuals mentioned, which I am sure varied.
The question I am asking, then, is, did the South Asian conquest harm North African civilization? That is an important question for people of African descent to consider. And an important historical question generally. Any takers on any of these issues?
LikeLike
what happened to the glory of North Africa?—Some of it probably got absorbed into the “Islamic civilization”, ….Avicenna (Ibn Sina—980-1037), Albucasis (Abu Qasim Al Zawahiri-936-1013)…and others drew upon Egyptian tools and surgical methods and pharmacology…..
http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/abu-al-qasim-al-zahrawi-great-surgeon
The Indian Ocean trade routes between East Africa and the Far East (and apparently even Australia) and in-between—would have contributed much to the transfer of knowledge,technology, resources and wealth…….
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/indiansubcontinent/ss/Indian-Ocean-Trade-Routes.htm
LikeLike
Anonymike,
The following link might be of interest to you: (http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africansindianocean/index2.php)
LikeLike
Kiwi,
My comments were directed to Mira, not to you, as I thought it might be better for Mira to explain what portion of your argument she understood to make sure you both are on the same page. It also would be good for her to explain exactly what parts of your argument are factually incorrect. Certainly, there must be something reasonable in your argument (as I believe you are doing it in good faith), but perhaps it is making some assumptions along the way.
I suspect what some of them may be, but I think Mira is in a much better position to point it out exactly.
In any case, your link
– did not define “race” but seems to assume a modern Anglo-American interpretation. Certainly not a universal one. Not the one I encountered in NW China, for example.
– indicates that the European imperialism period was just one chapter of the great human migrations across the globe. The link tends to support the notion that people of myriad “races” (however it was defined at that time) as well as different phenotypes certainly did encounter each other face-to-face, not necessarily in a graduated way. I read the link you provided as supporting Mira’s arguments at least as much, if not more than yours.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
Only a DOUBLE and DROPPING eyes Asian , or any PALE-FACE
flat butt hatred creature will have difficulty understanding that Mariah Carey
was CONCEIVED by and BORN to a PALE-SKINNED COLOUR white woman!
Obviously, Pale-face HATRED and brain DEAD creatures will never get what is so MORALLY wrong about saying someone born to a WHITE woman is not WHITE!
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Racist history—have you written anything about the “Swahili peoples” of East Africa?
—anyone here have any opinions?….
LikeLike
＠BytheGrace Verywell
So, it is morally wrong if one were to say President Obama is anything other than white?
LikeLike
@ anon
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/swahili-civilization-700-to-1500/
LikeLike
@ Abagond (and Mira and Kiwi and anyone who sees problems of vagueness or improper imposing of current ideas to the past)
I was interested by the title of the post but then when I read it, it was a disappointment.
Euclid ( to pick from the list) was African because he was born in Africa? It’s more usual to cite the country one is born in. It’s uncommon to say, “I was born in North America.” Why do that with the list of people in the post?
Abagond, you say that one of the commenters is subjective in his use of the term “European” while you are “clear cut” with how these people are African, but your choice to label Euclid as African is subjective. How so?: You made a choice about categorization: Born in Africa=African. Definitions can be clear cut but it doesn’t mean they’re true or free from scrutiny for soundness.
Euclid was born in Africa? Let’s pin that down a little. He was born in Alexandria in Egypt. It was founded by Alexander the Great. It’s culture was Greek based,no? It seems to me Alexandria would have been far more Hellenistic and or Mediterranean than African. And so by that reckoning one can redefine Euclid as Greek and not “African” at all. Your post comes down to how wishes to categorize, no?
If I move to the states and take citizenship would that make me a Black American? (Legion is a black person for those who do not know.) Being black American is about more than being born in the U.S. and being black, there’s a culture and a history that go along with it too.
Btw, if one looks at Egypt with Alexandria highlighted on a map it becomes all the more striking how distant Alexandria is from Africa relative to how close it is to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. And of course there is the name itself: the city was named (renamed?) by Alexander the Great. Sheesh!
LikeLike
@ Legion
I wanted to avoid a rant, but here it goes:
Not sure if you know it, but Egyptian history did not start with Alexandria or the Greeks. Not even its intellectual history. Not even its mathematical history. Not even its history of geometry. That stuff goes back thousands of years, long before the Greeks showed up with their Johnny-come-lately selves. Egypt is where the Greeks themselves learned geometry and much else. It is no accident that people like Euclid and Ptolemy were in Egypt and not, say, Greece or Rome.
So to call Euclid “Greek”, meaning White to most people’s brainwashed minds, is to let Whites, yet again, for the gazillionth time, swoop in, appropriate something at the last minute and take all the credit for it. Bravo. Good work.
Part of the point of this post is to show how our idea of what is “African” has been shaped by Western racism. The West, in effect, claims a huge chunk of Africa as its own to make themselves seem greater than they are – and to make Africans seem less than they are. That in turn excuses White paternalism, White racism and all the rest. It is not an “academic” point.
It is the same battle you see over the “race” of Cleopatra and Jesus. Western ideas of race did not exist back then, so they were neither Black nor White nor even something in between. But that hardly stops, say, Hollywood from using White actors to play them, as if only White people ever did anything important in history – something that many people seem to believe.
Alexandria is IN Africa. Sheesh! Alexandria was like Hong Kong: the meeting point between trade routes and cultures. It was no more “Greek” than Hong Kong was “British”. It was a mix of cultures: Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, Phoenician and much else. To see it as merely Greek/White is, again, the same sort of Whitewashing of history that US schoolbooks and Hollywood do.
LikeLiked by 3 people
@Abagond
Like.
LikeLike
@abagond
I can see what you mean by saying Alexandria was like Hong Kong, but was Hong Kong really that diverse? I was going to say that it was more like a New York City of its time, with various cultures/languages centered in one city.
LikeLike
@ Benjamin
Hong Kong was like a Western interface to China, so to speak. Alexandria likewise was the Greek and Roman interface to Egypt. New York is a world interface to the US, and does have people from all over the world, like Alexandria did, but that interface is largely intra-Western. That could change once the West no longer controls world trade.
LikeLike
How come this is the post that shows up in top place when I searched for African Philosophy? Kwasi Wiredu who “…proposes that the African philosopher has a unique opportunity to re-examine many of the assumptions of Western philosophers by subjecting them to an interrogation based on African languages.” Along with Anton Wilhelm Amo, Paulin Hontondji, Henry Odera Oruka and others, should have a place on a blog that purports to take a serious interest in Black people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“As far as scholarship can reveal the origin of the word philosophy is not in the Greek language, although it comes into English from the Greek. According to dictionaries on Greek etymology the origin of the word is unknown. But that is if you are looking for the origin in Europe. Most Europeans who write books on etymology do not consider Zulu, Xhosa, Yoruba, or Amharic, when coming to a conclusion about what is known or unknown. They never think that a term used by a European language may have come from Africa.
There are two parts to the word philosophy as it comes to us from the Greek, “Philo” meaning brother or lover and “Sophia” meaning wisdom or wise. Thus, a philosopher is called a “lover of wisdom.”
The origin of “Sophia” is clearly in the African language, Mdu Ntr, the language of ancient Egypt, where the word “Seba,” meaning “the wise” appears first in 2052 BC in the tomb of Antef I, long before the existence of Greece or Greek. The word became “Sebo” in Coptic and “Sophia” in Greek. As to the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, that is precisely what is meant by “Seba,” the Wise, in ancient tomb writings of the Egyptians.”
Read the rest of that essay at:
(http://www.asante.net/articles/26/afrocentricity/)
LikeLike
According to George G. M. James, who wrote “Stolen Legacy”, in his introduction of Greek philosophy,” to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence. The ancient Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was also the first system of salvation.”
LikeLike
The thought of “toppling” Ptolemy seems to me a rather strange idea. Ptolemy systematized the geocentric astronomy of the pre-modern age. The idea of a heliocentric astronomy long has been around, but the point of the Ptolmaic system is that allowed the prediction of the movement of the planets, albeit with addition of new epicycles every now and then to explain the occasional and unpredictable appearance of the backward movement of the planets as observed in the night sky.
Ptolemaic astronomy never was correct. It was superseded eventually by modern mathematical astronomy which could predict the motion of the planets as observed in the night sky, without resort to Ptolemaic mind games.
You can see for yourself that the solar system is heliocentric without resort to any instruments. Look at the new moon (the little crescent you can in the west just after sun goes down) and notice how the dark park actually looks grey. Later in the lunar cycle, you can see how the dark part of the moon look darker. This, in fact, proves that the moon revolved around the earth and that dark part of moon is illuminated by reflected light from a central source. In other words, the sun.
Another thing you can prove unaided is that the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are beyond the earth. You can determine this because you sometimes see these adjacent to a full Moon, while you never see Mercury or Venus adjacent to a full Moon. The Moon appears full only when it is farthest from the sun, or behind or past the Earth if you could look at the Earth from the vantage of the Sun.
Nobody told me any of of this. I think the people who write the history of science want us to think that nothing can be accomplished with unaided astronomy. But that is not true. I just got tired of the snow job and figured it all out one evening, By looking at the sky.
You want some respect for Ptolemy? How about respect for Mercator, the cartographer? He was the one whose world map made Greenland look as bigger than Africa. The point of the Mercator projection, however, is that it allows the plotting of true courses. What that mean is that if you started out in, say, New York and wanted to go to the mouth of the Cape of Good Hope, you could draw a line on the map, and if you could go in straight line in that direction, you would end up where you wanted to go. No other projection allows that.
Most people are aware of the incongruity of the Mercator map. When I have needed a map of the world and used the Mercator, generally I have looked at only one part of it at a time. The Mercator map also makes it easy to find the point on the Earth opposite any other point.
Good idea, I suppose, not to huff and puff about the history of science, without knowing the story tout entiere.
LikeLike
Diodorus of Sicily lista a lot of greek people who were influenced by egyptian culture. Scroll to the end, or search Plato:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1D*.html
LikeLike