What did the Romans think about Race? DOCUMENTARY

in our last video we talked about communication within the multi-ethnic roman army for me it was an enlightening look into the nuanced interactions between people from our past it also got me thinking more about the bigger picture of how different groups interacted in the past and what they thought of one another this is particularly relevant in discussions of the roman empire which ushered in one of the largest periods of cultural exchange up to that point we know for instance how a cosmopolitan rome bustled with people from across the known world while the legions were filled with soldiers born thousands of miles apart given all this i think it's quite natural to ask what did the romans think about different races let's find out this video was sponsored by magellan tv they're an awesome documentary streaming service run by filmmakers with the selection of over 3000 videos to choose from amongst the categories of history science nature space and more when it comes to history documentaries magellan tv has the richest and most varied content anywhere ancient modern current war biography and even related genres like science and crime which are historical in nature if you like our content i can highly recommend you check out the documentary series warriors way which traces the lives of famous warriors from childhood training to bloody battle magellan tv is compatible with roku amazon fire tv apple tv google play and ios which means you can watch it anytime anywhere on your television laptop or mobile device sign up today to get a one month free membership trial by visiting the link in the description below or going to magellantv.com invicta okay so right off the bat it's important to point out that we're starting off with a bit of a loaded question here when we ask what did the romans think about race we're doing so based on our own modern framing of that term today race generally gets equated to one's physical appearance and in particular skin color humans have always had ways of distinguishing in versus out groups and it just so happens that our own has its seeds in the 16th to 18th centuries with the age of exploration the conquest of the new world and the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade it's during this era that the idea of race evolved to meet the dynamics of the times rapid developments in economics politics and science during the 1800s also played a particularly large role in further developing a new framework of race with which to understand the world it's a complicated subject definitely worth exploring but not one we have time to get into right now other than to say that the idea of race we have today is a product of this recent shift so what came before well as already said humans have always had a way to identify in versus out groups humans have also long had observable physical differences for thousands of years which our ancestors were certainly not blind to it's just that in the past people had to rely on a more broad range of indicators for how to group individuals rather than the physical this ended up being the cultural so basically something more equivalent to our own idea of ethnicity if you asked the roman to guess someone's race they would have a lot to consider who are their ancestors what language do they speak how do they dress what are their mannerisms based on these answers your average roman could then slot them into different racial categories ah this person is greek or carthaginian gaelic german iberian egyptian and so on each of these had their own set of expected cultural stereotypes which could be both positive and negative while it's impossible to discern how prevalent these ideas were amongst the general public we can at least get an idea by looking at some surviving texts julius caesar for instance described the gauls as being superstitious independent lazy and prone to violence the carthaginians meanwhile were said to be clever but devious tacitus has a lot to say about these groups of the germans he writes quote they can exert their strength only by means of violent effort they are less able to endure toil or fatiguing tasks and cannot bear thirst or heat though their climate has a nearer them to cold spells and the poverty of their soil to hunger he goes on to describe much more about their stereotypical culture including their admirable monogamy and pure simple living however it's important to take such descriptions with a grain of salt as the author is setting them up as a rhetorical device to contrast against the decline of roman morals as he perceived them another important thing to note here is that roman writers saw all outsider groups as alien the pale skinned hibernian from the far north was no more bizarre than the dark-skinned ethiopian from the far south or the indian from the distant east all were lumped together as exotic and considered to have odd or mystical customs one of the most prolific authors who discussed foreign cultures was plenty the elder he writes about the world and some of his wild speculations about portions of it in his encyclopedic natural history citing other authors pliny declares that ethiopia spreads in a vast way below the sahara with different tribes inhabiting different parts of the land and his descriptions of many of these tribes are strange and fanciful quote it is reported that in the interior on the eastern side there is a people that have no noses the whole face presenting a plain surface the others again are destitute of the upper lip and others are without tongues others again have the mouth grown together and being destitute of nostrils breathe through one passage only imbibing their drink through it by means of the hollow stock of the oat which there grows spontaneously and supplies them with its grain for food some of these nations have to employ gestures by nodding the head and moving the limbs instead of speech these descriptions grow increasingly strange with the telling quote the tragedy made excavations in the earth which serves them for dwellings the flesh of serpents is their food they have no articulate voice but only utter a kind of squeaking noise and thus are they utterly destitute by all means of communication by language the blemi are said to have no heads their mouths and eyes being seated in their breaths the satiri beyond their figure have nothing in common with the manners of the human race and the hematopoieties are a race of people with feet resembling thongs upon which they move along by nature with a serpentine crawling kind of gate i'm sure if we had more records from the past we would be stunned by the sheer variety of descriptions from people from different races across the world given such variety it should be no surprise that there would be an attempt to categorize the races of the world in these efforts it seems that some hypothesized why people from certain regions ended up with stereotypical traits for a deep dive on this topic i highly recommend you read the architectura book six by marcus vitruvius polio who attempts to tie everything to climate i'll read some highlights now quote where the sun acts with moderate heat it keeps the body at a temperate warmth where it is hot from the proximity of the sun all moisture is dried up lastly in cold countries which are distant from the south the moisture is not drawn out by the heat but the dewy air insinuating its dampness into the system increases the size of the body and makes the voice more grave this is the reason why the people of the north are so large in stature so light in complexion and have straight red hair blue eyes and are full of blood for they are thus formed by the abundance of the moisture and the coldness of their country those who live near the equator and are exactly under the sun's course are owing to its power low in stature of dark complexion with curling hair black eyes weak legs deficient in quantity of blood and this deficiency of blood makes them timid when opposed in battle but they bear excessive heat and fevers without fear because their limbs are nourished by heat those however born in northern countries are timid and weak when attacked by fever but from their sanguineous habit of body more courageous in battle so moreover from the clearness of the atmosphere aided also by the intense heat the southern nations are more ready and quick in the expedience but the northern nations oppressed by a gross atmosphere and cooled by the moisture of the air are of duller intellect that this is so may be proved by the nature of serpents which in the hot season when the cold is dispelled by the heat move with great activity but in the rainy and winter seasons from the coldness of the air they become torpid hence it is not surprising that man's intellect should be sharpened by heat and blunted by a cold atmosphere though however the southern nations are quick and understanding and sagacious in council yet in point of valor they are inferior for the sun absorbs their animal spirits those on the contrary who are natives of cold climates are more courageous in war and fearlessly attack their enemies though rushing on without consideration or judgment their attacks are repulsed and their designs frustrated theories on racial origins however could justify ideas of racial superiority vitruvius for instance uses the traits of people at the climate extremes to argue why rome's position in the center ensured that they had the best combination of all traits here's the relevant passage for context quote since then nature herself has provided throughout the world that all nations should differ according to the variation of the climate she is also pleased that in the middle of the earth and of all nations the romans should be seated on this account the people of italy excel in both qualities strength of body and vigor of mind for as the planet jupiter moves through a temperate region between the fiery mars and icy saturn so italy enjoys a temperate and unequaled climate between the north on one side and the south on the other hence it is that by stratagem she is unable to repress the attacks of the barbarians and by her strength to overcome the subtlety of southern nations divine providence has so ordered it that the metropolis of the roman people is placed in an excellent and temperate climate whereby they have become masters of the world so with all these ideas about race floating around how did they inform people's actions well as some might imagine it could certainly be the cause of some xenophobia we have numerous references to people being picked on for their accents clothes and manners one example comes from the roman poet juvenal who rants on about how the greeks are effeminate decadent corrupters of roman virtue a character from one of his satire states the following quote now let me turn to that race which goes down so sweetly with our millionaires but remains my special pet aversion and not mince my words i cannot citizen's stomach a greek roman yet what fraction of these dregs is truly greek for years now easter neurontes has discharged into the tiber its lingo and manners its flutes its outlandish harps its native tambourines and the horrors pimped out around the racecourses so yeah even if this is just a character in a play you can see where the conversation is headed some prejudices here are quite familiar to us the idea of an immigrant people with a different language strange music and odd customs who poison a land that was once great however other prejudices seem quite farcical for example pants used to be a sign of the barbarian other and no true roman would be caught dead without their toga or tunic cicero himself had something to say on these pant-wearing foreigners in town quote are you then hesitating o judges when all these nations have an innate hatred against and waged incessant war with the name of the roman people do you think that with their military cloaks and their breaches they come to us in a lowly and submissive spirit as these do who having suffered injuries fly to us as suppliants and inferiors to beg the aid of the judges nothing is further from the truth on the contrary they are strolling in high spirits with their heads up all over the form uttering threatening expressions and terrifying men with barbarous and foreign language there were even laws passed that dictated quote within the city of rome no man shall make use of pants in later antiquity during the period of the great migration there was an even larger influx of foreign influence from the germanic people which sparked some pushback against these perceived invaders the theodosian code for instance contained laws against trousers long hair and certain types of shoes which were associated with the goths yet even small differences like this could inflame tensions between groups and bubble over into violence for instance when alaric began raining roman towns in the 5th century a.d some romans reacted in a panic by forming lynch mobs to target goths within their own ranks by and large however the roman administration didn't care much for explicit racial discrimination as long as you paid taxes and didn't cause unrest you were fined by them speaking latin was a great start to being considered amongst the civilized and if you adopted roman customs you could more readily fit in socially regardless of your background within a few generations people who might once have stuck out could have begun to assimilate again racial ideas were tied more to one's culture rather than one's appearance it's for this reason that people from antiquity were none too picky with whom they captured as slaves rather than farms looking like something out of the american antebellum south they would have instead been filled with all kinds of slaves who looked quite similar to their masters as another data point regarding the idea of racial discrimination i'd like to point to this map which shows how rome's own emperors hailed from lands across the empire that being said i don't want to pretend that there was no racism at all there certainly was it's just that it manifested in different ways than we might expect today for example on a more local level people would sort out their own differences in some places this meant peaceful mixing of the races and in others it could be more violent it all varied by location and time just as today though large cities often saw the most mixing in egyptian alexandria for example as many as 15 different languages were spoken in the city with records of legal documents showing that such contracts were often drafted with multilingual audiences in mind in addition if you were to walk the streets you'd see groups carving out their own corners of the city think little italy or chinatown so on the one hand it seems like it's quite the cooperative society yet on the other hand we know that alexandria could often be a powder keg waiting to explode it all really depended on the situation honestly there's so much more like to talk about when it comes to exploring race in the ancient world and when it comes to things like defining what actually made one roman the struggle to maintain one's cultural identity and how people we would today identify as black were seen by those in the mediterranean for now though i think this episode will suffice as a primer on the subject with the main takeaway being that race in antiquity was more about culture than appearance i hope you found this just as fascinating as i have a huge thanks to the patrons for funding the channel and to the researchers writers and artists who made this episode possible be sure to like and subscribe for more history and check out these related videos see you in the next one peace out

Channel: Invicta

Views: 830,583

Keywords: race, ancient rome, roman history, roman history documentary, history of race, history of racism, how they did it, language of the Roman army, latin, latin documentary, roman daily life, ancient greece, carthage, carthage history

Id: GVWi3_FMjno

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021