Afro-centric revisionist history gone too far?

[Riesstiu IV]

I came across this exert from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/romans.htm.

The Multicultural Roman Empire
Our knowledge of Black people present in Britain in early times is scanty. However, studies by scholars, archaeologists and historians have pieced together evidence about the lives of Black Romans.

One historian, Anthony Birley, in his work The African Emperor: Septimius Severus, explains that between AD 193 and 211 the Roman empire embraced a multicultural mix of peoples from Syria, Germany, Britain, Spain and Africa. Eight African men had positions of command in the northern Roman legions, and others held high rank as equestrian officers.


Map of Ancient Roman Empire in AD 211
Document

One of these Africans was Emperor Septimius Severus (AD 145-211). He arrived in Britain in AD 203 and when he died in AD 211 he was cremated in York (Eboracum), the capital of Roman Britain.

A Black Emperor - Septimius Severus (AD 145-211)
Septimius Severus was the first Roman emperor not born and raised in Italy. His father's family originally came from Libya (Leptis Magna) and his mother's family were Etruscans (Italian). His grandfather, a knight of the Roman empire, owned land near Rome, but Septimius grew up in North Africa with his father.

Septimius married Julia Domna, a Syrian, daughter of a high priest. The name Domna is derived from the archaic Arabic word dumayna, meaning 'black'. Septimius and Julia had two sons, Caracalla, the elder, born in AD 188, and Geta.

Because Septimius's ancestors were Roman citizens, he was entitled to be educated in Rome. He briefly practised as a lawyer, became a Roman senator, and from the age of 24 took part in campaigns in Spain, Syria, Gaul, Sicily and Athens. He spent much time extending Rome's borders eastwards across the Tigris in Mesopotamia and the Balkans. His education and experience won him strong support within the empire. He was described by contemporaries such as the famous physician Galen and the historians Herodian and Cassius Dio as 'a man of such energy...wise and successful...that he left no battle except as victor'.

This type of revisionist history always bothers me. Who would believe such nonsense? Just take a look at Septimius's statue...

So what are your opinions on this?

 

[airrahul]

He was a north african and hence Mediterranean, not a black African. Most likely, he was Berber ethno-linguistically I'd guess. Also, what does the Arabic word "dumayna" have to do with all this? Furthermore, all the Syrians I know in my town aren't exactly "black".

As far as revisionist history goes, it is silly. Since when is a country's history indicative of what it can become? Revisionist history is silly as history is not the sole determination of what one's nation or people or whatever are capable of and wrong as it obscures truth.

 

[YotoKiller]

Just because someone comes from Africa, especially North Africa, does not mean they are black. Some people just need to realize this.

And by the way, Cleopatra was not black or even African or Egyptian. She was Greek.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

I’ve also heard people claim that Hannibal was black African even though it is clearly not the case. Carthage was established as a colony by Phoenicians.

 

[BOTP]

I’ve also heard people claim that Hannibal was black African even though it is clearly not the case. Carthage was established as a colony by Phoenicians.

It is likely that Hannibal was black.First and foremost Ancient so called Medditeranean and the overwhelming majority of "North Africans" were NOT and are not White. Race is a social construct primarily based upon phenotype promulgated by eurocentric and colonized mindsets.

I do not have time to get into HLA and other genetic markers here, but suffice to say that many of the folks who have come in here expousing the european myth of White North Africans have a history of attempting to hold onto the rapidly dying Myths.

Berbers are not white, since Africans are the most diverse looking people of course there are many different phenotypes. These people try to claim that the Khoisan (!Kung) pejoratively known as Bushman are not African but Asian back migrants. They try to claim the Massi and Watusi as "Dark whites" and the Fulani of Nigeria as white or mixed.

Hell even the lebanese example of Tony Shaluab is not a white man. During Jim Crow he would have been beaten for looking at a white water fountain. Ancient Egyptians (Kemetics) were clearly Black/Afrikan and their modern day descendents such as the Fellahin are also clearly Black/Afrikan.

If one wants to talk about proximity lets talk about Nubia/Sudan. These people shared and often ruled Kemet. They built pyramids and are clearly what is seen as Black/Afrikans. Nilotic peoples have a much greater "accessibility" to "Egypt". BTW the origin of term Egypt is Greek for brown face. Hannibal was in all probability a Black/Afrikan.It is likely that Hannibal would be called black were he to walk down a street in the US today, however ancient peoples did not think in terms of race as meaning skin color but rather one's tribal or ethnic origins.

 

[Xen]

I'd have to say the post above is utter BS.

Midlle easterners as a whole are, apperntlly caucasian, and this includes the berbers, and the egyptians as well.

hell, Ramses the great had red hair.

berbers in north africa are knon to have blue eyes on occasion, the same as any other caucasian group.

 

[BOTP]

I'd have to say the post above is utter BS.

Midlle easterners as a whole are, apperntlly caucasian, and this includes the berbers, and the egyptians as well.

hell, Ramses the great had red hair.

berbers in north africa are knon to have blue eyes on occasion, the same as any other caucasian group.

George Murdock in his book Africa It's Peoples and Their Cultural History places the Berber tribes in North Africa as early as 6,500 years ago and speaking a Afro-Asian language not related to the Semitic Language family. Racially the Berbers were south European but they intermarried with indigenous negro tribes like the ancient Numidians and their modern descendants the Kanuri. And they were who are black and look negroid.

 

[Bizon77]

Would the romans have even accepted a black emperor?

Rome was multicultured and racialy tolerant but so is America and there are still many who believe that a black president is unthinkable.

 

[Xen]

George Murdock in his book Africa It's Peoples and Their Cultural History places the Berber tribes in North Africa as early as 6,500 years ago and speaking a Afro-Asian language not related to the Semitic Language family. Racially the Berbers were south European but they intermarried with indigenous negro tribes like the ancient Numidians and their modern descendants the Kanuri. And they were who are black and look negroid.

A)in all likellyness, europeans are descendents of the Berbers from North Africa

B)a semetic language only stregthns the berbers caucasianess, not weakens it, as it sternlly connects them with the caucasian semtics of the middle east

C)Th eNumidands themselves were hyarley all negroid; the same as the res tof North africa; thier was never a huge pure negroid populaiton in North Africa, and even into northern Sudan, one can find descriptions of tribes that were caucasian in appernece

D)Caucasians themselves coem from somwhere else; north africa, the genisis site of all humanity; it is only logical, that, as evidence and logic indicates,that the berbers were in fact the first caucasians, spereated from the souther afrcan ribes via the sahara desert, and before that, the huge expanse of jungle that was the sahara before its desertifcation; these berbers then colonized europe, further pushing the borders of the caucasian phenotype.

 

[Xen]

Would the romans have even accepted a black emperor?

Rome was multicultured and racialy tolerant but so is America and there are still many who believe that a black president is unthinkable.

I doubt it.

 

[BOTP]

A)in all likellyness, europeans are descendents of the Berbers from North Africa

B)a semetic language only stregthns the berbers caucasianess, not weakens it, as it sternlly connects them with the caucasian semtics of the middle east

However, if the Berbers are from southern Europe how did they end up speaking a semitic language? Seeing as how many historians believe the semitic languages started in present day saudi arabia wouldn't it be safe to say the berbers originated there and not southern europe. OR was there some sort of semitic group that conquered them and imposed their language on the native 'south europeans' as you put it.

C)Th eNumidands themselves were hyarley all negroid; the same as the res tof North africa; thier was never a huge pure negroid populaiton in North Africa, and even into northern Sudan, one can find descriptions of tribes that were caucasian in appernece

Busts of Hannibal do show Numidian features, wide nose and thick lips, curly hair and small ears none being European features. The Numidians being a state level people, having a king and royal family were far more important to the Carthaginians then the Libyan tribes to their east. Most of Hannibal's light cavalry were Numidians. So to solve the issue how much intermarriage was there between the negroid Numidian elites and the Phoenician elites?

D)Caucasians themselves coem from somwhere else; north africa, the genisis site of all humanity; it is only logical, that, as evidence and logic indicates,that the berbers were in fact the first caucasians, spereated from the souther afrcan ribes via the sahara desert, and before that, the huge expanse of jungle that was the sahara before its desertifcation; these berbers then colonized europe, further pushing the borders of the caucasian phenotype.

If the Berbers came from south Europe in Paeolithic times it is likely they walked via one of the land bridges that existed prior to 10,000BCE just as the Native Americans reached the America's by a similar system of land bridges now covered by the oceans.

Here is a link which points to the Afro-Asiatic origins of the Berber as opposed to European.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/be/Berbers.html

 

[Xen]

However, if the Berbers are from southern Europe how did they end up speaking a semitic language? Seeing as how many historians believe the semitic languages started in present day saudi arabia wouldn't it be safe to say the berbers originated there and not southern europe. OR was there some sort of semitic group that conquered them and imposed their language on the native 'south europeans' as you put it.

A)Phenotype is a word that means a physcial trait that is geneticalyl coded into the living beaing that it is on

B)I mad eno mention of language, becaus elanguage counts for exactley nothing in this discussion. We are tlakign about what ethnicity the berbers were, they were causcasion, and the numdians were quite similer. not being completlyl negorid themselves in group ethnicity.

C)considering the indo-european culture group sterthed from over the border so fth eIndus river, well into the highest mountians of scandnivaia, the fact that a stretch of simielr terrian that is inhabited by essentially the sam epeoples has the same cultures come as no shock to me at all. it called cultural conquest, and the arabs had a culture that spread like wild fire it seems, in the era before any civlization

Busts of Hannibal do show Numidian features, wide nose and thick lips, curly hair and small ears none being European features. The Numidians being a state level people, having a king and royal family were far more important to the Carthaginians then the Libyan tribes to their east. Most of Hannibal's light cavalry were Numidians. So to solve the issue how much intermarriage was there between the negroid Numidian elites and the Phoenician elites?

A)and yet, the bust of hannaibal looks completelly european :rollseyes:
-why? because all those features are european as well; he looks like the avergae middle aged guy you might pull off the street almosty anywhere in
europe.

B)considerign that the Carthigianians were arepublic, they woudl have had little interes tin marrying "nobility" from a people that you have yet to proove were even negroid.

If the Berbers came from south Europe in Paeolithic times it is likely they walked via one of the land bridges that existed prior to 10,000BCE just as the Native Americans reached the America's by a similar system of land bridges now covered by the oceans.

Here is a link which points to the Afro-Asiatic origins of the Berber as opposed to European.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/be/Berbers.html

A) your link states very plainlly that the berbers are caucasian

B)the Europeans CAME FROM BERBERS. not the Berbers coming from european travellers to the region.

 

[Johann MacLeod]

i dont think the bust is prober evidence though, it very well could be stylised, as paintings and statues often were.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Yeah, but the Romans tried to keep true to the facts (although vanity reared its' ugly head. Sometimes bald men would make the sculptors give them a full head of lush hear) so any person could see a statue, then see the real person and recognise them and treat them with the proper respect of a superior person. Maybe not as strongly as I said, but that was why it happened so widespread.

Arabs have curly hair... OMG they're really Negro!!! And a lot of Negro Africans (I'm using the word Negro to differentiate them from the Pygmies whom were eaten by them and the Khoisan who were far distant from them) spoke Arabic during the Middle Ages... OMG they're really Arabs!!! Language does not have much effect on race, except in extreme cases where a language is completely unlike any other language bordering them for thousands of years (for example, the Basques or the Albanians).

Septimus Severus and Hannibal were not black. The 'Negro' Africans really even didn't leave West Africa and the Congo until the 16th - 17th Centuries.

 

[Mescalhead]

i dont think the bust is prober evidence though, it very well could be stylised, as paintings and statues often were.

We have no other contemporary depictions, so its your choice to diregard, but what is the reason to do so?

 

[Mescalhead]

I do not have time to get into HLA and other genetic markers here, but suffice to say that many of the folks who have come in here expousing the european myth of White North Africans have a history of attempting to hold onto the rapidly dying Myths.

The haplotypic evidence shows that North African, Caucasoid, founder populations made incursions into Sub-Saharan Africa, not vice versa. This is shown to have happenned well after Carthage was but a distant memory.
Crossing the Sahara before the arrival of camels was an exercize in futilty. Camels were not introduced to Africa before 100 C.E.
Also, to disregard contempoary depictions as the statue above and coinage seems a bit misguided. Also, the Carthaginian aristocracy probably did not mix much with the Berbers (caste being important in almost all ancient societies to reienforce the notion of divinity through lineage), hence retaing their Canaanite traits. Even if mixing occured, it is improbable that much non-Phoenician blood entered.
Khemet refers to the black silt left after the Nile inundation. Just like Desret refers to the desert, or were red people living in Lybia? Egyptians depicted differences between themselves and Nubians in their art, and the depictions of certain people of the later dynasties who may have had negroid admixture show definite traits of it. Most other dipictions with straight hair and a pointed nose is not indicative of anything but a Caucasoid phenotype. Also, many Mid-Easterners who are devoid of any Sub-Saharan genes also have full and lush lips, it is not exclusively Negroid. In fact the haplotypes of many carcasses found in earlier Egyptian tombs point to an Arabian origin.
Afro-Asiatic includes semitic languages as well, while Sub-Saharan languages are unrelated. Also, Herodotus states a difference betwixt the Egyptians and Ethiopians who are referred to as "black-faced ones".
Look at modern day North Africans. They resemble Mid-Easterners more than Europeans or Sub-Saharans.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

A)in all likellyness, europeans are descendents of the Berbers from North Africa

Where are you pulling this from?

Most Europeans are of an Indo-European stock, and therefore are descendents of ancient invaders from the Caspian area or, depending on your taste in historical linguistics, central Anatolia.

Semitic peoples are currently considered caucasian or "white", yes, but this does not mean they are related to Europeans.

 

[Adler17]

I don´t think there was a "negro" African Roman imperator. I don´t want to discuss migration in Africa of the last 10.000 years. Nevertheless Egypt was ruled by Numids before the Persians came. This dynasty was the last one, in which Egypt was a big power. The Numids were having the same religion and partly also the same language as Egypts. They ruled with great success.
Here is another point spoken: We all must see that there were ethnical minorities from other continents in Europe of the Roman empire. And not only in the Roman empire! Fled Slaves or captured Roman soldiers from all over the empire could also become a Germanic warrior! There are some sources mentioning other people who were not tall and blond fighting with the Germans against Rome. Also some skelletons of Germanics of this area and time give hints about that.

Adler

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

That was Nubians, not Numidians. Nubians and Ethiopians are sometimes put into yet another ethnic group. The Nubians though did not mix with the existing Egyptian population and they were unpopular for being foreigners.

 

[LouLong]

The article in the first post is BS but I am pretty sure the Africocentrist "scholars" would not care about its accuracy.

First a former Emperor did not originate from Rome/Italy. Of course black scholars might consider Trajan not to be a worthy Emperor (lol) but anyway.
He was coming from Southern Spain (province of Baetica). What's more revealing is he came from a town called Italica. What does that mean ? That the city was a Roman/italian colony in Southern Spain. What does that mean ? That he was not "Spanish" but of Roman descent which allowed him to be a Roman citizen with all the privileges one can access through that. Imagine a colony as a part of Rome geographically isolated in an ethnically different (less and less with time) countryside it controls.

Septimus coming from Lybia : yes. Lybian : no.
There were many Roman colonies there : Appolonia, Leptis Magna (ex Greek colony, etc...).

Does that mean non-white people could not have been Romans ? No, through adoption or as a special favor from the senate or the Emperor it could be done. But it remained a small minority, at leats before Caracalla decided to grant citizenship to all free men within the Empire (212).
There were slaves from most parts of the known world in the Roman Empire so black slaves (coming either from Nubia/south along the Nile or from the early raids across the Sahara) were present. In time some were surely freed and some could be expected to enter the legions. Romans started to rest heavily on violent groups to provide soldiers then (Numids, Germans especially) and they sure would have accepted free blacks. But black slaves or freed slaves would not have been a large percentage of the entire slave population.
Now even if they could go up the military hierarchy they could not have become officers as these titles were reserved for Roman citizens. And being free and a Roman citizen is not the same. Even after the Caracalla edict it would not have been that easy (for social reasons, family ties and power, rather than for ethnical reasons).

It is true later in the Empire when legions chose the Emperors soldiers would have had a chance but I have never seen a "black" Emperor. The first Emperor without a Roman ethinc background that I am sure about would be Philipp the Arab whose father was traditional Arab sheik.

It is also to remember "black" means "darker" so when a Greek writes "black" it can mean someone with a bronze skin or olive skin (Greeks were actaully Northern invaders). The same way people from Okinawa were long considered "black" by standard Japanese.

Numids are what are now Berbers. Some of them can definitely have some black blood (what group is pure) but it is not like they are a perfect mixture of blacks and others. Being so closed to black Africans geographically they have always in history tried to keep themselves different.

I agree with Johann MacLeod though : statues needed to follow a certain style. But if the black features are what caused this man to be " 'a man of such energy...wise and successful...that he left no battle except as victor' " (why do I feel like this is an extremely racist - we-are-superior-position lol), I guess they would have been represented...

About his wife. Romans embraced Oriental religions fairly quickly. The Roman Emperor was among other things the "Pontifex Maximus". The rest of his family or himself were often made high priests of other local religions (these positions were more political than religious) with the exception of Judaism of course. It was not surprising to see a Roman elite woman be the head of the cult of Isis, without being an Egyptian obviously. The same for the solar cults of Asia so I am quite doubtful his wife would have been pure Syrian (ethnically). On the other hand I truly believe she was a high-born Roman whose marriage with him could have brought him money and political ties.


I just cannot believe people are getting paid to do this kind of extremely biased researches for more than dubious aims.
If a white were trying to find evidence of a white king in an African kingdom and saying he was considered particularly wise and better, I am pretty sure of what would happen lol.
Historicall speaking excess in one direction is always balanced by a following excess in the other direction. Can I ask black "Africo-centric" (they are perfectly fine black scholars) when they are gonna stop thinking with their skin and start to use what's between their ears.