Racism In Rome

[Sextus Roscius]

When the ancients talked in terms of "Barbarians" it didn't invoke the negative connotation it does today. They simply meant foreigners.

Not exactly, you see the Romans did not call Greeks barbarians.

 

The greeks called every other people barbarian...

 

A interesting point you bring up, the greek word barbaros (I believe that is correct) meant anyone who didn't speak greek. Since anyone who didn't speak greek was basicaly saying giberish to them, it sounded no different than a dog barking or the song of a bird. Thus we get the idea that barbarian implies animal or primative.

 

So if you think about it, aren't we all barbarians to the greeks any ways (unless you speak anceint greek like one of my teachers lol). Sorry to digress.

 

Any ways, there wasn't much racism in roman soceity, however it is undoubtable that there was some, as in juveneal as some one mentioned.

[Lex]

I don't think the question should really be about racism, but rather about 'discrimination'.

My interpretation is that if you weren't Roman or at least Romanized you were viewed as a savage or a barbarian who was regraded as culturally and technologically inferior.

 

Racism in modern times in my opinion is mostly between whites and blacks. The differences that might exist with whites and other races is in my opinion more due to culture and religious differences.

 

The reason many whites still regard blacks as 'inferior' is because they haven't really ever invented anything and this might be a similar opinion the Romans had against barbarians. They might say "well, we live in cities of marble, and they still live in hovels, we have an alphabet and they don't, thus they are inferior" etc.

[Sextus Roscius]

Your standing on white vs black racism is questionable but interesting, but I don't want to start anything.

 

I believe that in a way, it made sense for the Romans to see the celtics a inferior. They were in my mind at that point inferior and unproductive. Wheras the Romans made huge architectual triumphs, couquered most of the known world, and had the most or among the top complex system of life with tons of different standing, classes, and means to get where you wanted. The barbarians at the time formed no mass organized armies, lived in smelly hovels, and were massly illiterate.

 

It makes sense that the Romans viewed them selves as superior, while they looked up to the greeks as people with great liturature and culture and worthy of admiring. They judged by cultural sophistication and power.

 

Its strange but I remember a book I read with a story in it. The story was about a fight between students at a Roman school between who was better, the Greeks or the Romans. Part of it went

 

"The romans build useful things!" and it showed a picture of a Roman toilet. Then it showed the Greek kid going "But! The greeks make beautiful things" and it showed a sceen from a greek tragedy. I laughed at it but I guess it has some meaning to it.

[PerfectimusPrime]

On contrary to popular believe, there isn't much racism in our society either. Romans certanly were not racist, pratically racist, but it is undoubtable that there was xenophobia in Roman society, at least in the republic.

[Tobias]

When recently reading Colleen McCullough's "Caesar", i noticed something relevant to this discussion.

In this book is a fictitious account of a Gallic woman, the daughter of a King of the Helvetii, who became one of Caesar's lovers and bore him a son. Before Vercingetorix came to prominence in Gaul, just after Caesar's second invasion of Britannia, Caesar is discussing with this woman, who he calls "Rhiannon", why her son could not be acknowledged as Caesar's son, let alone King of the Romans as she thought Caesar was destined to be. Rhiannon could not understand from Caesar's explanation that "Kings" were an outdated form of authority, and that Rome would never have a king whilst he lived to stop it. Failing this, she wrote to another of Caesar's lovers: the mother of Marcus Brutus, Servilia. Servilia's response to her questions of why Caesar's son can't be acknowledged etc. were quite blunt. She answered that "Even the lowest criminal in a back alley of Rome is better then you, for he has Roman blood." , as well as telling of Caesar's determination for Rome not to have a king. At any rate, the point is is that i agree with the prior posts made here that skin colour was usually not an issue, nor was your upbringing. It was your descent, your bloodline, that made you better in ancient Rome. This is especially seen with individuals like Sulla and Caesar, who, having such a patrician back-ground, was hugely respected even without adding respect for their accomplishments. It was your bloodlines, i suppose you could call it your pedigree that made you "better"

[Guest Wyatt]

Agreed with what PP said. Culture and especially social class mattered more than ethnicity to the Romans.

 

Most Roman slaves would have look liked their masters - Mediterranean complexion. Of course, their were fair haired Celts and Germans in the mix, and some black skinned Africans.

 

The Mediterraneans were the most racist people in history. However, the P.C. racism of the West prevents us from seeing hate against Northern Europeans as racism.

The book the Gallic Wars boasts how the Romans killed over one million Gallic men, women, and children, because they were culture-less, sub-humans. But since the Celts were lighter than the Romans, this was not genocide.

Greek, Persian, Egyptian slaves would normally made into household slaves, because they were as dark as Romans, whereas most Northern Europeans were used up in the games or in the mines where they were lucky (or unlucky) to live three years.

Roman racism helped Herman to defeat Rome. The Mediterraneans had so little respect for the "blond beast" that they danced right into an ambush. Every Roman account cites: Roman failure, bad omens, rain, etc. Everything, but the fact these "poop in the wood savages" had out smarted Romans.

The Gallic Wars claims the Germans were not human enough to have even a religion nor believe in any God.

The book Germania was like the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Rome. Germania was a very radical book that rejected the popular Mediterranean idea that the Northern people had no culture, no values, no human feelings, no morals, etc.

In our P.C. world, we are always told racism is something light people do to dark people. Therefore, we cannot see the dark Mediterraneans hating, enslaving, and killing the lighter Northern Europeans as racism. This is a problem of our culture.

When the Romans were robbing, enslaving, and murdering the Slavs, Germans, Celts, etc., both sides were aware that it was because of their race.

Wyatt Kaldenberg

[Germanicus]

Roman racism helped Herman to defeat Rome

 

Yes, Herman did inflict a major defeat on Augustan Rome, before he was killed by his own people shortly after being soundly defeated by a Roman force under Germanicus in 14AD.

 

The Romans had great respect for Germanic fighting prowess and physical strength, that's why they started employing them so often in their legions. That's why Roman Emperors used German bodyguards.

 

Rome did not conquer because they hated northern Europeans. If this was the case why did they let so many Gauls and Spanish Celts into the Senate.....indeed, why did they elevate some to the highest office ? (Trajan).

 

One question for you - Were Germanic incursions accross the Rhine into Gaul prior to Roman Occupation, and the rapes, murders etc that those Germanic invaders inflicted on Gallic peoples racially based ?

[Ursus]

The Mediterraneans were the most racist people in history.

 

 

Uh ..... ok.....

[Primus Pilus]

Agreed with what PP said. Culture and especially social class mattered more than ethnicity to the Romans.

 

Most Roman slaves would have look liked their masters - Mediterranean complexion. Of course, their were fair haired Celts and Germans in the mix, and some black skinned Africans.

 

The Mediterraneans were the most racist people in history. However, the P.C. racism of the West prevents us from seeing hate against Northern Europeans as racism.

The book the Gallic Wars boasts how the Romans killed over one million Gallic men, women, and children, because they were culture-less, sub-humans. But since the Celts were lighter than the Romans, this was not genocide.

Greek, Persian, Egyptian slaves would normally made into household slaves, because they were as dark as Romans, whereas most Northern Europeans were used up in the games or in the mines where they were lucky (or unlucky) to live three years.

Roman racism helped Herman to defeat Rome. The Mediterraneans had so little respect for the "blond beast" that they danced right into an ambush. Every Roman account cites: Roman failure, bad omens, rain, etc. Everything, but the fact these "poop in the wood savages" had out smarted Romans.

The Gallic Wars claims the Germans were not human enough to have even a religion nor believe in any God.

The book Germania was like the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Rome. Germania was a very radical book that rejected the popular Mediterranean idea that the Northern people had no culture, no values, no human feelings, no morals, etc.

In our P.C. world, we are always told racism is something light people do to dark people. Therefore, we cannot see the dark Mediterraneans hating, enslaving, and killing the lighter Northern Europeans as racism. This is a problem of our culture.

When the Romans were robbing, enslaving, and murdering the Slavs, Germans, Celts, etc., both sides were aware that it was because of their race.

Wyatt Kaldenberg

 

Sorry Wyatt but I must disagree. Seems to me that your attempting to fit the ancient world into a more modern view of popular design. To call the Romans racist based on the slaughter of their enemies is failing to understand the fundamental differences between ancient and modern cultures. I will not deny that the Latin Romans were not thrilled with the idea of Italian inclusion into the citizenship roles, nor were they pleased with the same thing for the Gallic Celts or Celt-Iberians, and so on. I agree that the Romans harbored a form of racism (certainly viewing themselves as superior to all others) however, labelling the Romans as hateful only based on race would be failing to understand the fundamental structure of Roman society... the patron/client relationship, the value of citizenship and overall wealth and social standing were at the core of the Roman value system. While I do not personally deny that race played a role, its this social fabric that was FAR more important to a Roman.

 

Did Caesar conquer Gaul because he hated Celts? Perhaps, who's to know for sure, but more importantly it provided Caesar the military glory he sought and it met with popular approval because of the great fear of the Celts based on a history of warfare between the cultures. In fact, Caesar is quite complimentary throughout the Gallic Wars. Of course we can view this as Caesar propping up the Gauls as a way to boost the greatness of his victory and therefore his own dignitas, but true racism does not generally allow for such complimentary behavior. Did the Romans hate the Celts... an argument can easily be made based on bloodshed, but their conquest was not a simple matter of racism alone. It was an event steeped in hundreds of years of a reciprocal adverserial relationship. The Celts didn't much care for the Romans long before Rome had the power to do anything about it, does that not make them racist as well? Were the Cimbri and Teutons racist when they massacred Romans that stood in their migratory path?

 

In my opinion political correctness only comes into play when we used modern notions of 'Empire = Bad' in order to revise the history of the world. Using PC notions related to history is as wrong as using it in a modern context.

[Skarr]

Nice write-up, PP. I would tend to agree with most of what you've said and here's my 2 c...

 

Roman 'racism' (I don't like to use this word as it has a different, modern interpretation as PP eloquently pointed out) was not based on color but on social mores, stature, culture and so on.

 

For example, the Etruscans were despised because of their more open culture and the increased freedom that women had, including their aggression, something which no Roman male would brook from their wives or daughters. The Germans, Celts etc. were despised probably because of their un-Roman ways, their strange gods and customs, including their sexual behavior, which has been largely misunderstood.

 

In some tribes, for example, there was no concept of 'marriage' (as we understood it) and a group of men would be 'married' to a group of women and it was never a problem when a woman bore a child, as the 'husband' she was married to would raise up the child as his own son. However, the women may have had multiple partners. On the other hand, there were also paradoxes and some warriors (Germanic tribes) preferred to be celibate, at least until the age of twenty [ I think even Caesar commented on this], as they feared it would diminish their strength. However, in the rivers, men and women would bathe without a problem and there would be a lot of promiscuity as well. Full of contradictory practices / beliefs, the Celts / Germans confused the hell out of the Romans, as they perceived chaos instead of order. In some tribes, there were perfectly chaste couples too, men and women who were utterly devoted to each other for the rest of their lives, viewing their marriage as a 'sacred' bond until death.

 

So, you had all these various conflicting cultures grouped as 'Celts' , 'Germans' and what have you and I guess, at some point the Romans must have just given up and lumped them all into one category. The interesting thing is that the Romans did not attempt to learn or understand their culture but instead 'Romanized' them. In a few centuries after Caesar, for example, the Gauls were more Roman than the Romans themselves and found Roman ways quite easy to adopt and follow.

 

Well, Christianity soon came along soon after that and changed everything. Another attempt at homogenization, which seems to be a favorite pastime of mankind, this one from a religious and not military perspective.

[Pertinax]

I think the key might be that if you aspired to being a "Roman" and became one you were "intergrated" as we would now say-otherwise you were an outsider. The Romans didnt do multi-culturalsim you joined in and could be any race .

[Pertinax]

I also suggest that Empire meant (as in Victorian times) not "bad" ie: colonising but "good" as in moral obligation of the civilised to impose law and order over chaos and misery, the Roman version of that imperative being perhaps more secular than the apparent "muscular Christianity" of Victorian England .

[WotWotius]

Greek, Persian, Egyptian slaves would normally made into household slaves, because they were as dark as Romans, whereas most Northern Europeans were used up in the games or in the mines where they were lucky (or unlucky) to live three years.

 

i'll think you'll find that the reason Greeks were mainly used as domestic slaves was not because they shared the same skin colour as the Romans but because there were thought to be intellectually superior to slaves from 'barborous' nations.

 

Changing the subject a bit, I recently found out that Rome seemed to have the same problem with immagrantion that the Western world has today.

 

The satirist juvenal complains about he is unable to find a jobs due to the amount of Greeks stealing employment. He also complains about the vast amount of foreignors (sp) walking the streets of Rome. However, these complaints are not based on skin colour; they focous on all non Romans.

Edited December 5, 2005 by WotWotius

[M. Porcius Cato]

While the Romans may not have been the most racist society to ever exist, it strikes me as a whitewash to think they weren't racist at all. What is a race? It's like a family, but a family of families of families of.... you get the point. And the Romans were positively obsessed with establishing that they came from 'noble blood', were 'true sons of Numa', and the like. Even if they didn't CALL it a race, it's what they were talking about.

 

Here's a perfect thought experiment we might ask a Roman to test whether he was a latin supremacist:

If a baby born to German parents were raised in Rome by Roman parents alongside Romans of noble birth and given a proper Roman education, and the child had no accent and looked the same as everyone else and learned the same manners as everyone else, could he and his family ever achieve as much as what his true Roman brothers could achieve under the same circumstances? And if a baby born to Roman parents were raised in Germania by German parents alongside German barbarians, and the child spoke no Latin whatever and looked the same as every other German etc, could he and his family ever achieve as much as what his true German brothers could acheive under the same circumstances? My guess is that almost all Romans would say that the baby born to Germans and raised by Romans would never be a true Roman or acheive as much as true Romans and that the baby born to Roman parents and raised by Germans could excel over most other Germans due to his true Roman nature.

 

What makes me think that this is how Romans would answer is the fact that a question like this has been asked by cognitive psychologists and anthropologists to every sort of group imaginable and this is exactly how most people in every society answers the question--whether Mongol herdsman, Indian brahmin, New Guinea tribesman, or American preschooler. It's the basic story of the ugly duckling, of countless ancient myths, etc etc. When you change the characters from people to arbitrary castes of insects, even the most politically correct hippy answers the same way. My guess is that something-that's-darned-near-to-racism is simply a natural way to think, and it takes EFFORT to quit treating people as if they were divided up into breeds or races and to treat them as individuals. And frankly, on the battlefield, you don't put effort into this sort of thing at all.

 

So, basically, if the Romans weren't racist, they were gods.

 

That said, I think everybody posting here is making an awfully important point about the fact that the 'natural' social groups that the Romans thought about had nearly zero correlation to the modern 'races' that used to be called "Negroid", "Mongoloid," "Caucasian", etc. These categories reflect a modern form of stupidity that vanished from anthropology with the liberation of Treblinka.

[Primus Pilus]

Excellent point that did need to be made Cato. Sometimes in our zeal to point out the differences in the ancient and modern way of thinking, we sometimes gloss over some rather obvious notions.