Roman North Africans in Roman Britain

[HannibalExMachina]

Along with all of those Sub-Saharan Romans.

Actually I dare you to name even one of those supposed North Africans in Roman Britain. Give me a single shred of evidence of even a noticeable Berber population in Britannia. Or hell even a single individual, I'll wait.

i enjoy our rides, since you are a pretty abysmal horseman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Lollius_Urbicus

5 seconds of google, take some more time and im sure youll find all the stuff you need.

and please dont bother with your sub-saharan defense, its not like youve anything to hide.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

You found an individual. That doesn't mean you proved that there existed a significant population of any size. It should also be noted that Quintus Lollius Urbicus came from a family of wealthy landowners in Tiddis. So not only was he a citizen, was assimilated into Roman culture but was also a member of the military and would have been moved around. Also important to note Berber Numidians were not Black. Though at least you managed to name a Berber individual who played some important role in Britain.

My Sub-Saharan defense? Which Sub-Saharans have I defended?

[HannibalExMachina]

berber numidians are from north africa. they are considered POC. no one ever claimed there were large berber communities in britain, born in britain, not even the bbc.

since we have established that there were north africans in britain (guess you cant even remember your own post when its quoted, thats a new low), you wanna go back to your strawman?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Convince you of what?

I know what I asked you to do. But the fact that you did that is still not enough to justify why there are Black Romans depicted by the BBC. So assuming that the guy depicted in that video is a Numidian then why is he a Black person? Second point: if there were no significant Berber populations then what was the point of depicting a pretend Numidian? Third point: they keep making the argument of a multicultural society but then when they depict someone of another ethnicity they go into Roman culture instead. BBC isn't even being consistent.

[Roma_Victrix]

i enjoy our rides, since you are a pretty abysmal horseman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Lollius_Urbicus

5 seconds of google, take some more time and im sure youll find all the stuff you need.

and please dont bother with your sub-saharan defense, its not like youve anything to hide.

Good to know about Urbicus, but he was a Numidian. The historical (and modern-day) Berbers aren't sub-Saharan African (i.e. black, instead of brown), at least not from what I can tell. For instance, the Numidian king Massinissa:



That being said, it's not entirely unlikely that a Mauretanian, Nubian, or Ethiopian somehow found him or herself in Roman Britain at some point, given the fluidity of trade and travel during much of the Imperial period. That and the fact that soldiers from across the empire could be stationed in far-flung areas of said empire.

As for the Mauretanians of northwest Africa (modern Maghreb), the Romans described them as "Western Nubians" on account of their appearance. Make of that what you will. It's known from both literature and ancient artwork that the Nubians (of the Kingdom of Kush, before and after its conquest by Ethiopian Axum) were a black-skinned population group, much like the modern-day Sudanese. The same goes for the ancient Ethiopians and Eritreans. Nubia and Axum never formed parts of the Roman Empire, but it is known that some came to live in the Roman Empire, especially the Roman province of Egypt.

That still says very little about their hypothetical presence in Roman Britain, which I find suspect to say the very least. For that matter, Urbicus was a career bureaucrat, not a representative of a large community of ethnic Berbers.

Yes but none of those emperors were ethnically different. They were all Romans. Septimius Severus and his sons came from a family of Roman colonists in Syria and North Africa. At best he had a Phoenician ancestor and maybe a Berber ancestor somewhere in that tree, that was about it.

Either way there were no significant Sub-Saharan populations anywhere in the Roman Empire. Any Black individuals would have been slaves that were sold to the Romans by the Berber tribes in the interior of Libya or perhaps slaves taken in Nubia. That doesn't justify a video put out by the BBC that seems to imply that there existed a Black community in Rome or something of that sort. That isn't history, it is just nonsense but here we have the BBC acting like it was historical fact. I mean seriously how many Black individuals were there in Rome? How many were citizens? Okay now how many of them were Roman commanders?

There is only one significant figure I can think of and that's Memnon, a foster child of the ethnic Greek Roman Senator Herodes Atticus during the reign of Marcus Aurelius in the mid 2nd century AD.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Are we even sure that Memnon was "Sub-Saharan"? It isn't that hard to change a few features on a face and make it look like a person of a different ethnicity. Even so there are sources that seem to imply he was actually Indian, but we don't know for a fact that the bust is even a depiction of the so called Memnon.

[hellheaven1987]

If emperors could be from Africa or Spain, (Caracalla, Septimus Severus and a few more I think) then there's no reason there couldn't be black people chilling in Roman Britain as slaves or whatever. Then those slaves become manumitted, and their sons or grandsons enter the army? Or just Africans who joined the army and were posted to Britain.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

How about African Celt and Arabic Norman?

[Kyriakos]

^

I suppose it is meant as a message of inclusiveness, itself obviously positive if so, but here it is very crude. Someone actually wanting (and being able) to present such a message would not go about it in this way, imo.
Any less savoury end that some people bothering with this may have is not enough to be a counter-weight to the actual crudeness and problems inherent in the presentation by the bbc either; it is another issue altogether.


That said, iirc the french series 'Il etait unes fois' was doing something analogous, decades ago. Yet at least there there were redeeming factors; the program was high-quality by itself, much of it was not about history but either contemporary of futuristic stuff in space, and even in its utterly historical-typed branch it didn't aspire to be used as an official teaching series (afaik; contrast to "Bbc teach"), and - last but not least- it even had an alien character in the first place, so whatever ^_^

[Darios]

I find the BBC's message of inclusiveness to be rather retarded, even if I kinda get what they are trying to do.

All the same, there can be no doubt that there were black Africans present in the Roman Empire as soldiers, slaves, merchants, etc. To think otherwise is equally as retarded as the BBC depicting Black Celts and Normans

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I don't even get why there is a message of inclusiveness with regards to the distant past. Modern Britain isn't Celtic, Roman or Norman. Not to mention that it is inaccurate since the history of Blacks in Britain is fairly recent.

[Roma_Victrix]

I find the BBC's message of inclusiveness to be rather retarded, even if I kinda get what they are trying to do.

All the same, there can be no doubt that there were black Africans present in the Roman Empire as soldiers, slaves, merchants, etc. To think otherwise is equally as retarded as the BBC depicting Black Celts and Normans

Right, aside from literature about Ethiopians and Nubians, there were at least some blacks depicted in Roman art, like this guy carrying water in a mosaic from Antioch:



That's not the issue here, though. What the BBC is doing is asserting that a significant black sub-Saharan population lived in Britain in Roman times, let alone pre-modern Celtic Britain and Norman-era England of the High Middle Ages. There's simply no evidence for it and shoehorning a distant, foreign people into the British Isles at this time is a strange move. It would be like having a bunch of ancient Olmecs or Mayans from pre-Columbian Central America holding prestigious command posts and bureaucratic positions in Han-dynasty, Sui-dynasty, or Tang-dynasty China. I think the Chinese denizens of the Internet would explode in a nationalistic fervor at something like that. All we're doing is pointing out how silly and historically inaccurate all of this is. If it's some sort of attempt at political correctness, then it's a dumb one.

[sumskilz]

Abstract: The purported migrations that have formed the peoples of Britain have been the focus of generations of scholarly controversy. However, this has not benefited from direct analyses of ancient genomes. Here we report nine ancient genomes (∼1 ×) of individuals from northern Britain: seven from a Roman era York cemetery, bookended by earlier Iron-Age and later Anglo-Saxon burials. Six of the Roman genomes show affinity with modern British Celtic populations, particularly Welsh, but significantly diverge from populations from Yorkshire and other eastern English samples. They also show similarity with the earlier Iron-Age genome, suggesting population continuity, but differ from the later Anglo-Saxon genome. This pattern concords with profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period. Strikingly, one Roman skeleton shows a clear signal of exogenous origin, with affinities pointing towards the Middle East, confirming the cosmopolitan character of the Empire, even at its northernmost fringes.

Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons

About this "Middle Eastern" individual (he was probably gladiator):

Combined genomic and isotopic evidence support the inference that the origins and childhood of individual 3DRIF-26 lay far outside Britain. His modern genomic affinities clearly lie with the Middle East. Isotopically, the most plausible suggestion is an arid environment on igneous or limestone geology, which is consistent with the same regions

The best fit for the isotopic evidence is actually Egypt. That also seems to be his best fit genetically, now that we have ancient Egyptian DNA samples, but it wasn't obvious at the time, because unlike modern Egyptians, ancient Egyptians didn't have any significant sub-Saharan ancestry.

[Kyriakos]

Right, aside from literature about Ethiopians and Nubians, there were at least some blacks depicted in Roman art, like this guy carrying water in a mosaic from Antioch:



That's not the issue here, though. What the BBC is doing is asserting that a significant black sub-Saharan population lived in Britain in Roman times, let alone pre-modern Celtic Britain and Norman-era England of the High Middle Ages. There's simply no evidence for it and shoehorning a distant, foreign people into the British Isles at this time is a strange move. It would be like having a bunch of ancient Olmecs or Mayans from pre-Columbian Central America holding prestigious command posts and bureaucratic positions in Han-dynasty, Sui-dynasty, or Tang-dynasty China. I think the Chinese denizens of the Internet would explode in a nationalistic fervor at something like that. All we're doing is pointing out how silly and historically inaccurate all of this is. If it's some sort of attempt at political correctness, then it's a dumb one.

Roman era was very interested in anything Priapos

[Darios]

That's not the issue here, though. What the BBC is doing is asserting that a significant black sub-Saharan population lived in Britain in Roman times, let alone pre-modern Celtic Britain and Norman-era England of the High Middle Ages. There's simply no evidence for it and shoehorning a distant, foreign people into the British Isles at this time is a strange move. It would be like having a bunch of ancient Olmecs or Mayans from pre-Columbian Central America holding prestigious command posts and bureaucratic positions in Han-dynasty, Sui-dynasty, or Tang-dynasty China. I think the Chinese denizens of the Internet would explode in a nationalistic fervor at something like that. All we're doing is pointing out how silly and historically inaccurate all of this is. If it's some sort of attempt at political correctness, then it's a dumb one.

Yup yup. Western European countries are going through a really weird identity crisis these days. I guess if you are of non-European origin then it's pretty difficult living in a country like Great Britain. An example, a few years ago my dad (I'm American) married a woman from London, who is of Nigerian origin. Through doing so, she took on my family's last name, which is of medieval English origin. I guess it may have provided some kind of socio-cultural boon for her because a year or so later, her little daughter gave a presentation at her school about "her" family history which focused on my own part-English family origin. I supposed that recent (over the past few decades) migrants to Britain have a need to feel a part of their new country. I also imagine that its really hard being being black or brown in a country where all of the historical, cultural, etc images are of white Britons.

At the same time, the BBC should stop being retarded and trying to warp history. There is nothing racist to say that the Celts, Normans, etc were homogeneously white. The Romans were a different matter however, as the empire encompassed people from Britain to Arabia, from Crimea to the Sahara. A few random depictions of 'black' merchants trading in a Roman market, a 'black' gladiator here or there, or a random 'black' legionnaire would not be inaccurate.

[hellheaven1987]

You know, personally I do not think Arabic Norman is completely a fairy tale since Norman Sicily did have considerable Muslims (it was described as a multi-ethnic society, and the knowledge of Muslim supposely gave the Norman crusader an advantage during First Crusade). For African Celt, lets say may be it was a deserter from Hannibal's army?

Modern Britain isn't Celtic

No wonder Scotland wants to quit.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

They've done studies of skull morphology, Oxygen and Strontium levels, and osteographic analysis of teeth from Roman-era graves and they suggest about 1 in 4 people in Britain were from North Africa or the Roman levant. The Roman empire had a significant semitic population, but the presence of "black" people was low as it's noted by Roman authors. Exceptionally dark skin was often considered a curiosity combined with ugly facial features. The dwarf Zerkon who became Bleda's jester in the 440's was noted as being ugly, deformed, disgusting, and Moorish (probably "black").

There are several examples of "black" people in Roman art as well, including a statue from Pompeii. Actually a lot of the faces look kind of like Down Syndrome faces (although people with Down syndrome didn't usually survive past the age of ~10 back then).

[sumskilz]

They've done studies of skull morphology, Oxygen and Strontium levels, and osteographic analysis of teeth from Roman-era graves and they suggest about 1 in 4 people in Britain were from North Africa or the Roman levant.

It was 1 in 7 in the genetic study I posted, the other six being like the pre-Roman inhabitants, but they were probably gladiators. Let me know if you have any references. I suspect that number if accurate has to be based on some kind of sampling bias, like being from a more recently established colonia. If it was really that high, I think it would still show up in the genetics of medieval and modern people, and it doesn't at all.

[bigdaddy1204]

I'm not sure why it's so important to prove that there were no black people in Roman Britain. And the debate about whether North Africans are black is ridiculous. Here is Moroccan popstar Dounia Batma.



As you can see, definitely not black. North Africans are best described as a mixture of Mediterranean people with Middle Eastern. The Moroccan population is mostly Berber ancestry, i.e. North African which has been part of the Mediterranean world since the Neolithic period. They are not and never have been "black", in any historical period.

I think it is entirely possible that black Nubians from the southern part of the Nile may have visited Britain during the Roman period, possibly as merchants, soldiers or even slaves. But i think if North Africans are referred to in Roman Britain, they were mostly likely the same Mediterranean looking people we see throughout history.

[Roma_Victrix]

The dwarf Zerkon who became Bleda's jester in the 440's was noted as being ugly, deformed, disgusting, and Moorish (probably "black").

For me, this was the main takeaway from your post. That's a fun bit of trivia right there. I didn't know the Huns had jesters, let alone black dwarf ones.

It was 1 in 7 in the genetic study I posted, the other six being like the pre-Roman inhabitants, but they were probably gladiators. Let me know if you have any references. I suspect that number if accurate has to be based on some kind of sampling bias, like being from a more recently established colonia. If it was really that high, I think it would still show up in the genetics of medieval and modern people, and it doesn't at all.

Makes sense. Still, it shows a significant portion of the population were at least North African colonists. That says nothing about Sub-Saharan populations, which is basically the chief subject of the OP (even though the initial example cited is a North African Numidian/Berber bureaucrat).

Yup yup. Western European countries are going through a really weird identity crisis these days. I guess if you are of non-European origin then it's pretty difficult living in a country like Great Britain. An example, a few years ago my dad (I'm American) married a woman from London, who is of Nigerian origin. Through doing so, she took on my family's last name, which is of medieval English origin. I guess it may have provided some kind of socio-cultural boon for her because a year or so later, her little daughter gave a presentation at her school about "her" family history which focused on my own part-English family origin. I supposed that recent (over the past few decades) migrants to Britain have a need to feel a part of their new country. I also imagine that its really hard being being black or brown in a country where all of the historical, cultural, etc images are of white Britons.

At the same time, the BBC should stop being retarded and trying to warp history. There is nothing racist to say that the Celts, Normans, etc were homogeneously white. The Romans were a different matter however, as the empire encompassed people from Britain to Arabia, from Crimea to the Sahara. A few random depictions of 'black' merchants trading in a Roman market, a 'black' gladiator here or there, or a random 'black' legionnaire would not be inaccurate.

Right. As for the black people in modern Britain thing, that's to be expected. To be frank about it, I'd feel out of place as a white guy (i.e. European descent) in Korea, China, Ethiopia, India, etc. That's just how it is and that's how it's going to be moving forward; there's also nothing wrong with it. Just as there's nothing wrong with a black guy in today's Britain assuming a British identity (or simply having one since birth).

I'm not sure why it's so important to prove that there were no black people in Roman Britain. And the debate about whether North Africans are black is ridiculous. Here is Moroccan popstar Dounia Batma.



As you can see, definitely not black. North Africans are best described as a mixture of Mediterranean people with Middle Eastern. The Moroccan population is mostly Berber ancestry, i.e. North African which has been part of the Mediterranean world since the Neolithic period. They are not and never have been "black", in any historical period.

That's now what the Afrocentrist magazines tell me, though, bigdaddy1204! Who am I to believe now?

You're certainly correct, though. It's not like we confuse population groups of India and China simply because they both belong to the continent of Asia. The Saudis and Syrians and Turks also live in Asia. Does that mean they share a biological/familial heritage with the Vietnamese? Obviously not.

[sumskilz]

The Moroccan population is mostly Berber ancestry, i.e. North African which has been part of the Mediterranean world since the Neolithic period. They are not and never have been "black", in any historical period.

You are essentially correct, but today there is significant sub-Saharan African ancestry in some North African populations. It's relatively recently arrived according to genetic and paleoanthropological evidence. Prior to the introduction of camel in late antiquity, there was no trans-Saharan trade west of the crossings controlled by the Garamantes. That's probably the reason we have no Roman analog to Ibn Battuta.