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Black people in Ancient Rome originated from Africa. They had a small demographic within the Roman city, but they were prominent in Rome's African provinces. Black people in Antiquity were involved in a variety of occupations, such as industry, military, and slavery. Black people did not appear in literature until the 5th century B.C. The scholarly discussion of black people in Antiquity is sometimes misinformed by modern race relations, that were not present in Antiquity.

History

Black people existed outside of Africa before the lifetime of Homer. Africa began to become Roman provinces after the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C. Black identity in Antiquity was accompanied by physical characteristics such as African hair, lips, and nose. There was no such thing as a black community, like there is today, because black people in the city of Rome were largely slave-immigrants or their descendants. This made their demographic within the city small, spread out, and of my several ethnic backgrounds. Black people were not excluded from any profession, and there was no stigma or bias against mixed race relationships in Antiquity. Rome had provinces in North Africa along the Mediterranean coast. The black African troops there were part of the Roman military. North Africa was home to a Roman textile industry. It employed workers regardless of race and of varying social status: free men, North African natives, freedmen, and slaves.

In literature

In Greek and Latin literature from antiquity, black people were referred to as “Aethiopian,” regardless of their geographic distribution throughout Africa. The first Greeks described black humans without bias. Xenophanes was the first writer from antiquity to compare and contrast the physical characteristics of white and black people. He described them as “black-faced and flat-nosed.” Initial references to black people were vague and non-descriptive. They denoted them as Ethiopians. By the 5th century the descriptions began to improve. Homer’s literature is said to have a black character included. Eurybates was Odysseus’ herald in the Odyssey. He is described as “black-skinned and woolly haired." However, James Dee claims that the language used to describe Eurybates does not absolutely qualify him as African or black. Homer also wrote that Menelaus visited the Ethiopians first. Fifth century plays were first to include Ethiopian mythology and geographic details of Africa. The writer Herodotus recorded his observations as he traveled through Africa. He roughly measured geographical distances with the amount of months it took him to travel from location to location. He wrote prominently about the Ethiopians south and southeast of Elephantine. Herodotus found that the capital of Ethiopia was Meroë, which hosted the established religion of the civilization. As followers of the religion, military troops were “despatched…in obedience to its gods.” He also observed other groups of Ethiopian civilizations such as those influenced by Egyptian deserters, Macrobian Ethiopians, and cave-dwelling Ethiopians. The exact geographic location of all these tribes is debated among scholars.

Racism

Compared to modern race relations, Black people in Roman history were not discriminated against because of their skin color or physical features. Translators of ancient texts project modern oppressive sentiments of black people, which inaccurately conveys the tone or purpose of the author’s writing. Classical authors did not attach social status or degree of humanity to skin color. Roman slavery did not include black inferiority as European and American slavery did because it is a modern notion that black skin is ugly and inferior. Greek and Latin writers did not expend large amounts of energy to distinguish between skin colors as the modern English language does.

Further reading

• Benjamin, Isaac (Mar 2006). "Proto-Racism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity". World Archaeology. 38 (1): 32–47. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
• Snowden, Frank M. (Winter 1997). "Misconceptions about African Blacks in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Specialists and Afrocentrists". Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. 4 (3): 28–50. Retrieved 9 May 2017.