He means he wont be looking what hair color is of his phalanx, hoplites or hastati. Except if his Nubian Archers have blond hair. Otherwise it doesnt really matter in total war.
I don't think it's fair to compare the current thread with Stormfront, since this thread hasn't devolved into some silly argument for racial superiority. If anything, the other editors and I have pulled up credible scholarly sources to present a reasonable theory that a significant proportion of the Mediterranean world was fair-haired. If leading members of Roman society like the first emperor are described by credible historians like Suetonius as having golden hair, that's something you should pause and think about at the least. That said, I have to agree that most people in the Greco-Roman world would have been dark-haired brunets, if only from the massive amount of Roman painted artwork I've taken into account with analytical observation. Of course CA has many other aspects of the game to focus on, arguably more important things, but this is a serious topic worthy of consideration. It would be unjust to paint our discussion as nothing but a bunch of racist tripe, so please don't. Thank you.
Thanks Ichon, that was an interesting post. The mummy portraits are from the Ptolemaic period and they are known as the Fayum mummy portraits . The majority of portryts exhitbit induviduals with dark haired complexions but some indeed have fair feautures.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That's a Danish reconstruction. A more moden reconstruction of Caligula has been done by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The claim that "The polychromy of the statue (not visible to the naked eye) has been restored on the basis of surviving pigments on the bust in Copenhagen and the statue in Richmond."
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
"No one really knows" and "there is much to prove" are to different things though.
I'd say it is as suspicious as someone viciously defending a notion that no one around the Mediterranean and on the Steppe had anything else than dark complexions (even though this is not true even for today). All I'm asking you is to look at the historical evidence that proves the contrary.
Would it also be white or germanic supremacist to claim such things as some Gauls and Germanics had blonde hair? No?
I've said several times on the last five pages that I don't think fair complexioned features ever represented the majority around the Mediterranean and I have no idea why you keep beating this dead horse. It's like you are trying to make things sound ridiculous. Entire nations are not supposed to be blonde. In my first post, I say that fair features are overrepresented among Gauls. Also, why do you take for granted that all Persians had black hair? That's utterly worng.
Have a look at Roman Mosaics (hoover over text for link) and look at how the Romans depicted fair hair. The majority of the Roman mosaics that shows up portray fair haired individuals and they do it in a way we both could agree on indeed are "fair features"
A couple of examples:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Well, is there any reason to portray everyone around the Meditrianan and on the steppe as dark haired if there is no evidence to support the notion that everyone in these regions were dark haired?
Last edited by Der Phönix; January 08, 2013 at 03:27 PM.
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If you've read the clone armies thread you'll see most people seem much happier keeping preconceptions and I doubt CA will make it their bit to challenge that. It would be nice to see more variety but besides the evidence issue there is simply the engine requirements of video game- I personally don't think it would be so hard to have 10% or so roughly in 'mixed' populations that existed around Mediterranean of different complexion but I'm not a designer so maybe there are reasons not to do that or it is difficult to control proportions that closely so some units even with 10-20% random could end by distribution closer to 50% sometimes. Or appear to change greatly from battle to battle.
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Not really since nobody in this thread has claimed that there were no light complexions, just that they were a minority and it doesn't matter or deserve a 5 page thread to have it in Rome 2.I'd say it is as suspicious as someone viciously defending a notion that no one around the Mediterranean and on the Steppe had anything else than dark complexions (even though this is not true even for today). All I'm asking you is to look at the historical evidence that proves the contrary.
I am Greek and most of my family has blue eyes and light brown hair (not me dammit I just got the freaking hair and hazel eyes when my sister has a blue-gray colour that would certainly land me a lot of women ) so IF I was 'suspicious' I would lobby for blonder ancient Greeks to prove my connections. Instead I suspect some Slavic and perhaps Venetian streaks somewhere in the bloodline.
Well, then you certainly have recessive genes for fair features in your DNA, that you might pass on yo your children. Instead of a Slav or Venetian origin, it might very well orginate from the Indo-European invasion of the Greek peninsula, probably from the North some thousand years before present. Or it might originate from the Dorians as most scholars agree upon they came from the North. Even the sea peoples, if the originated from the Norhern shores of the Black sea like some schoolars cliam, might have given origin to fair features in modern Greece
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Cant we instead beg CA to make Rome II moddable so we can edit the skin and hair ourselfs?
you honestly do think they're gonna spend man hours and resourses on an insignificant feature like this?
But,i would want to point out the height of the romans at that time.From what i know,they're swords seem short to us now,because the average man was about 160cm and the sword corresponded with the height
'When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything. '
-Emile Cammaerts' book The Laughing Prophets (1937)
Under the patronage of Nihil. So there.
There seem to be scientific consesus in regards to that the the fair complexions among Berbers stem from isolation during pre-ancient times rather than the Vandal intrusion.
So what are they gonna make people look like? As I've noted earlier, they would save thousands of hours by using the same facial animations in Shogun as the ones thet used for Napoelon and Empire.
The average height was very much shorther for all peoples in ancient times compared to what is today. Human height has for the most part increased the last 200 years.
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Werent red and blonde hair dyes and wigs particularly popular in ancient rome? It seems entirely plausible that a few of the fair haired mosaics, particularly the ones of rich and noble people, were product of these color enhancers.
This seems to be the consensus.Not really since nobody in this thread has claimed that there were no light complexions, just that they were a minority and it doesn't matter or deserve a 5 page thread to have it in Rome 2.
I am deeply interested in anthropology, but i honestly don't see "Arians - Total War" happening soon.
I'm wondering... if you say most of souther europe was had a light complexion... what's then the origin of the dark-haired brown-eyed "corruption" of Europe and north-Africa?
Arabs? Iberians? (not meaning celtiberians here) Numidians? i honestly don't have a clue.
In any given case... i don't really think looking that at mosaics is the most accurate way to do a ethnic study...
I mean... what if researchers 2000 years from now found zillions of posters of naruto in the ruins of japan... that would not mean all the japanese were blonde.
I find extremelly hilarious how (in some countries) depicting men slaughtering each other in a massive scale, or setting pigs on fire to scare and eventually kill elephants is perfectly fine for kids to watch... but looking at naked men would corrupt their morals...
Last edited by HigoChumbo; January 09, 2013 at 12:12 AM.
@Fayum portraits.
They indeed depicts egyptian from the ptolemaic and roman era, however the area was where many clerouchies of greek settlers/soldiers were installed with their family.
Not a small numbers of those portraits (though certainly not all of them) may be (mixed) descendants of greeks (and later roman) veterans or simply greeks and romans.
Anyway, lower egypt has always be more open to foreign settlements, lybian, canaanean, greeks and latter bedouins and arabs from the whole middle-east.
While it's a possibility people of lower egypt have always be fairer in appearance than people from upper egypt, it's also more than probable that it's the area where the features of ancient egyptian are the less likely to have remained unchanged.
I think that when looking at modern people to know how ancient egyptian looked like, we should look at rural people in southern modern egypt or in northern soudan.
Also, while i generally too dislike the stereotypical view of all celts as blonde haired and all roman as dark haired and northern african as extremly dark skinned and always beardy. The truth is that reality even in our modern time is complicated.
Brown hairs are ubiquitous in europe, black hairs are more common in the south and blonde in the north, but they can be found anywhere really.
Another poster also remarked justly that in a dark haired population, someone with light brown hair will be described as fair haired.
Same for north african. First of all the area is very mixed.
The berbers are the original inhabitants as far as historical sources can be tracked back. However being "berber" like most human groups is more a culture and a language than a genetic trace. Tuareg are black berbers. Some of them are dark skinned (in Morroco or southern tunisia) most are olive skinned, others are fair skinned and haired (especially in algeria, the Kabyles) but they don't have only one look.
It's not because many (not all by the way) kabyles are blondes and look like europeans that all berbers are that way or that ancient numidians looked that way too.
North africa, like lower egypt has seen many foreign population settling in the area. Phoenician, romans (from the whole empire), arabs, vandals. Then latter european slaves taken by the barbary pirates. Algerian are often european looking too, or at least fairer than other maghrebi, it is thought it is because of the high proportion of european taken in captivity throughout the centuries.
Actually, evidence of fair haired roman and greeks are just that. Evidences that there was people with fair hair among them. Not any indications of the actual look of the population as a whole.
IMO most of the population was probably brown haired like in modern italy, france etc.
Last edited by Keyser; January 09, 2013 at 04:27 AM.
Nice, there is also videos of an colored version of the famous Prima Porta statue of Augusts and a reconstruction of old Rome:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That's just your personal opinion. I don't think these two color reconstructions of Caligula look "chintzy".
Last edited by Pinarius; January 09, 2013 at 05:34 AM.
I can't believe there's 6 pages of discussion about "swarthiness of the people". I guess this is more important than any game mechanics. This is so sad.
Thanks for your incredibly important contribution.
That's plausible. Not to say that rich and noble people did not often have fair features and as such created the trend in the first place.
I'm trying to advocate Reality:Total War.
Europe was never corrupted by fair hair and blue eyes. It's more like the opposite. Fair features was introduced by invading populations from the East all over Europe. Most probably they originate from somwhere between the Black sea and the Pontic steppe (blue eyes source). For example, fair feautres most probably spread with the Indo-European/Kurgan invasions/migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC. Before this point in time, all Europeans may have had dark complexions as far as eye- and hair color goes.
The majority of the population in Southern Europe has never had light complexions (remember that the majoroty were slaves back then). Invading tribes seldom composed a demographic majority where they arrived; they were for the most part composed of a warrior elite, ruling over the populations they subjugated.
That's why I have given tons of references to ancient literature. When I in my first post of the thread say that of the 18 Emperors from Augustus to Commodus (27 BC-AD 192): 9 had blonde or red hair; 5 had grey or white hair; 3 had no recorded hair color and just 1 (Hadrian), was referred to as dark-haired, it's because it's supported by literature.
Ancient writers usually explain hair and eye color in relation to something else. They don't say he had "yellow" or "brown" hair. It's more like: "his hair had the color of gold", or: "his hair has the same color as the lions mane". This fact combined with the obvious colors on frescos and mosaics makes the cultural relativist argument somehow weaker.
When it comes to the Berbers, there have been several DNA studies that proves the category to be genetically relevant. I've refered to a cuople of them in this post. However, the regions is indeed very mixed, although the Kyabyles and the Riffians show the strongest tendency towards fair features. Don't know much about the Algerians so I'll have to check that out
I just wanted to point out that fair features were severely underrepresented in Rome 1. They simply don’t exist South of Gaul. I hope to have illustrated that fair features indeed existed outside of Gaul and in the Greek aristoi and among Roman Patricians were prominent. To not speak of the Thracians and Steppe peoples were they seem to have been dominant.
Awesome
That Rome video should be really valuable to the developers
Last edited by Der Phönix; January 09, 2013 at 07:19 PM.
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