The xenios Zeus (ie god commanding that one is hospitable to strangers/foreigners) was a custom in force among greeks of different states. A barbarian wasn't protected by it. Eg in Euripedes' play, Medea, Medea is not (and she is a barbarian).
And while what Cleopatra was 'race' wise isn't important in all debates re Cleopatra, it is important when discussing just that, surely ^^
Firstly, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't deliberately misquote me as you did in this post. I said "lineage", not "skin color", which you for some reason inserted into the supposed quotation of my last post.
I also don't think it is very wise to start blanket accusations that entire countries are racist ones. That's a preposterous statement, even if there are some countries with seemingly larger racist white supremacist groups than others (like those in Russia, Poland, or Hungary). Of course, none of this has anything to do with Cleopatra, or ancient Roman artworks depicting Cleopatra, so let's leave it there, shall we?
To a large extent I would agree with this and yes, people from all over the Roman world gained citizenship and served in the Roman army. That even includes peoples from outside the Roman domain, such as the Ethiopians, who you've cited as an example. Regardless of how the Romans did things during the Imperial period, the issue here is Hellenistic Greeks living in areas outside of mainland Greece or the Aegean region. They did not operate the same way as the Romans, certainly not the Ptolemies. The Ptolemaic society was actually a semi-segregated one based on culture, and loosely on "race", although Jews and even native Egyptians could earn citizenship in a Greek polis of Ptolemaic Egypt. This was only allowed if they entirely abandoned their original culture, though, and embraced an absolute Greek lifestyle. Otherwise, they were forbidden to marry or even live in the same residential quarters as Greeks in the city-states of Alexandria, Ptolemais Hermiou, and Naukratis in Egypt. This is not my fanciful opinion. This was Ptolemaic law, and you can read all about it by reading Stanley M. Burstein's Reign of Cleopatra (2004). Greeks and Egyptians were only allowed to wed each other and live together outside of the Greek city-states in Egypt.Does it really matter?..I wonder why, race seems irrelevant, it is unlikely that Cleopatra cared about her racial makeup and it seems to met that skin color didn't matter to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Furthermore,the evidence for Cleopatra's racial ancestry (pure Macedonian Greek or not pure Macedonian Greek) is of little importance in assessing the legacy of the great queen in world history. What is important about Cleopatra is that she became one of the most powerful rulers of her era.
Frank Snowden’s text Blacks in Antiquity shows how unimportant skin-color and race were in the Greek/Roman/ancient world, where intellectual capacity/ military skill, and hospitality to foreign guests- xenia) ranked far higher in importance and discrimination was above all a class/ wealth based decision.
Blacks in antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman experience
To sum up, I say that before the Age of Color Prejudice, the skin color ("lineage") was not "wrapped up in one's inherited culture and cultural preferences"
To the members of the royal Ptolemaic dynasty, maintaining their Macedonian-Greek lineage was absolutely important, so much so that brothers and sisters wed each other to keep the bloodline pure. Again, this is not an opinion, this is a fact. It doesn't matter if it makes some people uncomfortable, or if some people want to interpret that through the anachronistic lens of modern racial politics and migrant crises of the 21st century. None of that has anything to do with Cleopatra, although admittedly one could make an earnest connection between modern-style cosmopolitan multiculturalism and the sort of multiculturalism that existed in Hellenistic Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies.
In either case, the ancient depictions of Cleopatra make it clear that she wasn't just a Caucasian woman. That part is obvious. More importantly, these artworks show her as a typical Hellenistic Greek queen, because that was her culture first and foremost. She is depicted in native Egyptian art as a female Egyptian pharaoh, with very stylized facial features, but if you want to get a good look at the real face of Cleopatra, the Greco-Roman realism of her Roman portraits and paintings are the place to look. Her coinage, while showing the standard iconography such as the aquiline nose, diadem, melon-style hairdo, etc., is fraught with its own set of problems given the deliberate attempt to make her appear more masculine-looking than she probably looked in real life. The images on minted coins are also crude caricatures compared to the high level of Hellenistic-style realism in her portrait busts sculpted with Parian marble, lending us a much greater three-dimensional look. The paintings from Heculaneum and Pompeii also bring her to life in a rich variety of colors not afforded by the almost totally faded polychrome coloring of her busts.
Last edited by Roma_Victrix; April 21, 2018 at 02:12 PM.
While it is true that culture played a much more important part than lineage, bloodlines or race in ancient societies it also depended on individual culture acceptance of those who were of foreign birth as well as individuals within those cultures themselves. The classical Greeks were less open to acceptance of foreigners as Greeks than the hellenistic ones, and in Ancient and Medieval India, no matter how many centuries you rule a part of it, while also administering it in Sanskrit or Prakrit, worshiping local deities and adopting local customs, you'll always be a Mleccha.
The reason why Cleopatra's skin color is relevant, lies mostly in the complaints of people who aren't Caucasian. Every time someone makes a movie about her she's portrayed as a Caucasian with various types of skin color, but still not what is considered "African Black", and then aforementioned people complain that their History is being whitewashed. The problem with that statement is that, first Ancient Egyptians weren't darker that nowadays and she wasn't Egyptian, she was a half or fully inbreed descendant from the Northern Greeks and the palest Eastern Iranians, who even on the most present-day photos one can find look sickly pale.
The problem with that custom is that in Ancient Greece all "Xenoi" were Greeks from another city, region or Greeks who spoke "funny", while non-Greeks were "Barbaroi", it didn't matter if they were forest hut dwellers, or desert Pyramid builders.
Last edited by Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σω April 21, 2018 at 03:44 PM.
"First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure." - Mark Twain
οὐκ ἦν μὲν ἐγώ, νῦν δ' εἰμί· τότε δ' ούκ ἔσομαι, ούδέ μοι μελήσει
There's a scene in Theocritus, Idyll 15 (maybe you know it), in which a Greek woman in Alexandra is talking about native Egyptians:
Apparently Praxinoa doesn't accept that a multicultural society isn't necessarily better than a homogeneous one... or does she?Oh Gods, what a crowd! How are we ever to get through this lot? They’re like ants - countless, innumerable. You’ve done plenty of good things since your father has joined the immortals, Ptolemy. Nowadays no criminal creeps up upon you Egyptian-style as you’re walking along and does you a mischief as in the past – a trick that pack of rogues used to play, nasty scoundrels all as bad as each other, curse the lot of them.
I am puzzled by your claim. Your link seems to show that ancient Egyptians were not black, although it leaves the possibility that different parts of Egypt might have had different genetic make up. The link certainlh does not definitely prove that Tut was black or not, and the link certainly doesn't prove Cleopatra was black.
In any case, whether the Egyptians were black or not is irrelevant, since Cleopatra's was not of Egyptian ancestry for the most part. She was mostly of European ancestry, Greek and Macedonian, and from what we know of both ancient and modern Greeks and Macedonians, we can positively say they were not blacks, and so neither was Cleopatra.
Note, skin color is only one characteristic that differentiates that determines race, and is probably the least important one. There are subtle structural differences in bone and hair that determine racial differences, which allow forensic to make racial identification even with just bones.
I would imagine petty street crime in ancient Alexandria to have been a nuisance, whether committed by native Egyptians or some of the poorer members of the colonizing Greeks. The Gabiniani, the Germanic and Celtic soldiers of Aulus Gabinius left in Egypt after restoring Ptolemy XII to power in 55 BC, gained notoriety in Alexandria for harassing locals in the street (and gradually assimilating into Ptolemaic/Alexandrine Greek culture, even taking on Greek wives). Despite the laws about Greeks and Macedonians exclusively holding citizenship in the city of Alexandria, the place was a teeming melting pot of different cultures, with everyone from Persians to Nubians present there, along with a huge Jewish minority (one of the biggest Jewish communities outside of Judea itself). The poetry of Theocritus definitely shows us the ethnic tensions that existed in the city, although these tensions seem to have rarely boiled over. Whenever the Ptolemies faced serious revolts from native Egyptians, it wasn't in the capital Alexandria itself (from what I recall), but rather from the countryside where ethnic Egyptians were the vast majority of the population.
I'd be honored if some Indian guy called me a Mleccha.
The argument of "why does it matter what color her skin was" basically crumbles when you consider the significantly large amount of Afrocentric literature on the topic claiming Cleopatra was black. They take it very seriously and push that fringe idea far enough that it becomes featured in real academic works on the topic, such as Prudence Jones' Cleopatra: a Sourcebook (2006) and Giuseppe Pucci's "Every Man's Cleopatra", in Margaret M. Miles' Cleopatra : a sphinx revisited (2011). This isn't about a few clowns fetching about Cleopatra in a Youtube commentary section. We're talking about regular publications that attract the attention and criticism of serious scholars.The reason why Cleopatra's skin color is relevant, lies mostly in the complaints of people who aren't Caucasian. Every time someone makes a movie about her she's portrayed as a Caucasian with various types of skin color, but still not what is considered "African Black", and then aforementioned people complain that their History is being whitewashed. The problem with that statement is that, first Ancient Egyptians weren't darker that nowadays and she wasn't Egyptian, she was a half or fully inbreed descendant from the Northern Greeks and the palest Eastern Iranians, who even on the most present-day photos one can find look sickly pale.
The affect of this literature goes beyond the halls of academia, though, and has made serious inroads into the public imagination. Stand-up comedian Paul Mooney, who I otherwise think is hilarious, received applause for his on-stage claim that Cleopatra was black and white people were lying about her. Even though Angelina Jolie played the mother of Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004), her acceptance of the offer to play Cleopatra in Denis Villeneuve's upcoming biopic film on the queen was met with this article from Yahoo News: "Why Angelina Jolie needs to step down from Cleopatra" (hint: it's because of "whitewashing" the role of Cleopatra).
Yeah, the way Greek city-states interacted among each other was obviously different from how diplomats from Illyrian, Thracian, or Celtic groups were received in those same city-states. Also, those Germanic tree monkeys need to learn their place.The problem with that custom is that in Ancient Greece all "Xenoi" were Greeks from another city, region or Greeks who spoke "funny", while non-Greeks were "Barbaroi", it didn't matter if they were forest hut dwellers, or desert Pyramid builders.
Last edited by Roma_Victrix; April 21, 2018 at 05:26 PM.
Xenios is an epithet, the name of the custom was xenia (ξενία), as Ludicus and Appolodotus indicated. That being said, "barbarians" could perfectly be considered as "xenoi". Our ancient sources provide us with numerous instances of Greeks and "barbarians" forming a relationship of xenia between them. It's not very surprising, because that custom was common around the Mediterranean world and not strictly limited to the Greek culture, although each people's ceremonial procedure was marked by some minor particularities. Three cases I can remember (there are many more, not only between Persians and Greeks) concern Meno the Thessalian (against whom Xenophon holds a grudge) and Ariaeus (the Persian friend of Cyrus the Younger), Ariobarzanes, the successor of Pharnabazus in the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, and Antalcidas, Appolophanes from Cyzicus and Pharnabazus himself, and finally, the most famous of all, the son of Parapita (one of Pharnabazus' wives) and Agesilaus, the Spartan king.
Originally Posted by Anabasis, II, 1, 5Originally Posted by Hellenica, V, 1, 28Originally Posted by Hellenica, IV, 1, 29The last "hospitality" gives a lot of information regarding the institution, such as the exchange of presents and the moral obligation to provide safety to the host. It is clear that xenia was not determined by ethnicity, however, we shouldn't exagerate about how easily it crossed different classes. Basically, it affected only the elites, which were after all the only social group practically capable of traveling abroad in the Antiquity. It has probably originated from the need of the nobility to assure to itself a safe passage through foreign and solidify political alliances between different clans, families and political entities. It's interesting to note that even Artaxerxes II is implicitly mentioned as the xenos of a Greek ambassador, but something like that would not be possible, considering his social status and the reciprocal and generally equal nature of the hospitality link.Originally Posted by Hellenica, IV, 1, 39-40
I went and made these family trees for Ptolemy III and his wife Berenike II. Only those two because that is where the genetic diversity ends, since it is all incest and wild George RR Martin type violence from there.
Ptolemaios III Euergetes
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Berenike II
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
While certainly my method is flawed because it doesn't take into account which traits were actually passed down to the offspring, it does give us a pretty good idea of what was happening within these two families.
As you can see where as Ptolemy III had consistently Macedonian, Eordaean and Thessalian ancestry (with Macedonian likely being dominant), Berenike II had like a race war in her gene pool, a Hellenistic ideal. By the time she was born Macedonian genes would have been dominant with perhaps some 2/8 or 1/4 Sogdian genes. Whether Spitamenes' family contained any Persians is almost impossible to say. Their children Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III (who were also married to each other) would have been mostly Macedonian, as would their own children Ptolemy V and Cleopatra I (who were also married to each other), and then their children (Ptolemy VI, Ptolemy VIII, Cleopatra II and granddaughter Cleopatra III) and so on for another four generations. This much inbreeding would have increased the likelihood of the same traits being repeated within further offspring. Though we can't know for sure about the phenotype or what these people looked like exactly. It is quite surprising that someone as inbred as Cleopatra did not result in extreme retardation. She also seems to be descended from all of the main Diadochi, fancy that (except Perdikkas and Krateros).
Previously I had said that Cleoptra VII was herself descended from Mithridates of Pontus and this turned out to be incorrect. While her family members early on did form such marriages none of those Anatolian or Persian genes actually affected Cleopatra herself in any way.
Cleopatra probably looked something like this picture, with hair (probably Black, Brown or Auburn) and eyes being subject to customization (Brown or dark Blue). Maybe even throw on a lighter skin tone due to the very White Sogdians and Macedonians and the possibility that some of her ancestors from Upper Macedonia could have even been Molossians from Tymphaea.
I saw part of a lecture about ethnic relations in Ptolemaic Egypt which had that passage as its central theme. Most of the presenter's analysis seemed like anachronistic postcolonial theory. She kept saying "so-called Ptolemaic Egypt" with a hint of contempt in her voice, but she did have a point, that in the poem at least, the non-Greek inhabitants of Alexandra are basically invisible to the Greek women as they go about their business, except for the off-hand mention that they're a bunch of thieves who creep up on you in that Egyptian way, if they're not kept under control. Despite being an academic in the Twenty-First Century, this stereotype was evidently still emotionally salient for her. I wondered if she had noticed that the Greek women themselves were also stereotypes, but who am I to question her intersectional cred.
Nice info +1
Yet i have to ask if you are certain that the xenia convention was typically extended to non-greeks. I ask because this should not be taken for granted.
In special circumstances you could have anyone claiming to use that (eg to honor a non-greek guest), but i doubt this was part of the actual convention, and it may be more of a pleasantry (often just verbal, assuming the guest was rich and had people with him, like a noble etc) rather than part of the law and custom of the xenios Zeus.
In my own example, from Euripides, Medea has no protection. Also, the status of non-greek foreigners in a greek domain would seem to be very different (and certainly very low) compared to greeks from other greek domains.
I recall hearing that when the Greeks created new colonies, only the men were sent out, and they were expectdd to obtain their wives locally. That kind of process could have produced a some what racial mixed population among the Greek speaking world, as well as the adoption of an essentially Greek identity by originally non Greek people. .
Still , when you look at the ancestry of Cleopatra, and of the available paintings of her, and her depictions, there is no real justification to think that Cleopatra was anything other than what we would call "white". Her features, such as aqualine nose, are rare among "blacks", and features found among blacks (Negroid people) are mostly missing, all of which support what we know from her ancestry. Even if she might have some black (Negroid) ancestry, the overwhelming majority of her heritage, genetic and culture was European (white).
So unless you subscribe to the outdated and racist view that one drop of black blood makes you black, Cleopatra by all criteria must be considered white.
Note, even some white people can develop fairly dark tans under bright sunlight, and I wonder even if if Cleopatra did have less than milky white skin, whether it could be due to developing a tan under the bright Egyptian sun. I know that that it was considerable unfashionable before the 20th century for Europeans and American higher class women to develop tans, and considerable effort was spent by Souther white ladies to avoid exposure to the sun, with parasols, and wide brim hats. But I don't know if that same standard applied to ancient times. (The heroine in the late 18th century novel Pride and Prejudice was criticized as being too "brown" due to the time she spent outdoors, which might indicate the authoress did not agree with fashion of a pasty white complexion, which was sometime achieved with the use of arsenic.)
Not really.
Cleopatra's skin color is relevant for those obsessed with the myths of racial supremacy- black or white.Anyway, racism and white supremacy are modern inventions with origins in late 18th century Europe and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
In fact, complaints come from both sides, including white supremacists-Richard Spencer: White like an Egyptian?
My friend, black or not black - that's the real question, not the "lineage": "Cleopatra was white and I can prove it".
As I said before, black or not black is irrelevant. Pure Macedonian Greek or not is irrelevant. The lineage is relatively irrelevant. What's more, we are not certain of the heritage of Cleopatra's mother or her paternal grandmother. So,is there any evidence that either her mother or paternal grandmother was a black African? not really. Is there any evidence that either of those women were not black Africans? Nope, again.Who knows, is it probable that she had some Egyptian blood. Does it matter? of course not.
This guy hit the nail on the head.
Cleopatra's true racial background (and does it really matter?) | OUPblog -Duane W. Roller, historian, archaeologist, classical scholar and Professor Emeritus of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University.
In fact it is a racist view,and we know quite well that hypodescent against blacks remains a relatively powerful force within American society.More precisely, in the USA, whites' use of hypodescent associated with intergroup anti-egalitarianism, whereas blacks' use of hypodescent is associated with intergroup egalitarianism....Yet all this argumentation is rather silly.
What is important about Cleopatra is that she became one of the most powerful rulers of her era. She was a skilled linguist, a naval commander, an expert administrator, a religious leader who was seen by some as a messianic figure, and a worthy opponent of the Romans.
She was worshipped in Egypt for at over 400 years after her death. Race seems irrelevant in such a situation, and it goes without saying that people should be judged by their abilities, not their race. But sadly, even in twenty-first century America, this is far from the case. It is unlikely that Cleopatra cared about her racial makeup, but people over 2000 years later still obsess about it, thus trivializing her accomplishments.
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The Concept of Race in Contemporary Anthropology
Race in Forensic Anthropology
--Any anthropologist who contends that races do not exist and provides a vague answer as to ancestry of an unidentified skeleton, or launches into a discourse on ‘ethnic groups,’ will likely never be called upon again to assist in solving a case.
A major reason for the use of racial categories by American forensic anthropologists is thus pragmatic: their target audience wants to hear about race.
Forensic anthropologists in other countries do not seem to feel the same need to talk about “race,” and to avoid mentioning “ethnic groups” in forensics (see, for example, Evison 1999).
The author of an important British textbook on the analysis of the human skeleton (Mays 1998) managed to go through the whole book without referring to race once; he wrote about human populations instead.
Even some American forensic anthropologists seem less than committed to the concept (Kennedy 1995; Sauer 1992)
I would argue that inductive reasoning is splendid weapon at the service of racism.
Last edited by Ludicus; April 23, 2018 at 11:27 AM.
Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
Charles Péguy
Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
Thomas Piketty
God, I hate when people reply with "not really".
Any fact that can be proven or considered most likely is relevant. Xenophobia and ethnocentrism isn't a modern invention, or perhaps you skipped the part in which I wrote about it, using the term Mleccha as an example of a hereditary foreigner status in Ancient India and someone who should be expelled from India or at least be barred from holding any power over the true Aryans. Ancient People did care about appearance and culture. Ancient Egyptians didn't treat Nubians as equal and have considered them as usurpers despite the fact that they were very egyptophile, unlike other rulers, including the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
I haven't seen nowhere near as much of interest about Cleopatra from the white supremacists, while I've seen plenty complaining why isn't she portrayed as Black. I suppose we should simply indulge these people, even though they are most likely wrong, and I don't think that "most likely" is strong enough of a characterization.
Once again it does matter, does it matter that Mansa Musa was Black, not much, but still it matters, because if we don't utilize this information one day the true description of his complexion might be replaced by a falsehood, maybe one day we'll think he looked like an Arab, and when someone tries to correct this error, then that someone will be labeled as a racist. Just like not portraying Cleopatra as Black and me disagreeing that she was black makes me a racist in the eyes of, I guess nowadays, millions of people.
Every detail we know matters to a degree, I can't go around and portray Achaemenid Architecture as Mughal Architecture, just because, well, buildings are buildings, Achaemenids were Persians, Mughals used Persian for writing poetry and administration, why should it matter, they're all people, and both created great empires.
As for her accomplishments, she is one of the most overrated rulers in human history, all her accomplishments were due to the fact that she was able to charm two men to give her what she wanted. The fact that Ptolemy I and II, whose accomplishments Cleopatra could only dream of, are virtually unknown, is the main reason why people think she was Egyptian.
So has the time come when we are about to pretend that ancient people were fair, unprejudiced people, who considered other cultures, peoples, and women as equal, with their only "minor" shortcomings being near constant state of war and enslavement. I guess slavery and war are a-OK, as long as people aren't racists and ethnocentric.
"First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure." - Mark Twain
οὐκ ἦν μὲν ἐγώ, νῦν δ' εἰμί· τότε δ' ούκ ἔσομαι, ούδέ μοι μελήσει
Cleopatra's skin colour is relevant to those who want to know what she looked like. Does it make sense if I depicted her anything than what she was? We know she was a Macedonian so why would I depict her any other way?
What does Richard Spencer have to do with this??? Although perhaps more importantly, what in that article was a lie?
Cleopatra was White because her parents were White. I'm confused, are you implying that White people can give birth to Black babies???
How is it irrelevant? Macedonians were White, Whites cannot spontaneously give birth to Black children.
We do know that Cleopatra VII's mother was Cleopatra V. That whole theory hinges on the claims that Cleopatra V died half way through Ptolemy XII's reign or that there existed a Cleopatra VI, both theories are extremely ill founded. The first because Cleopatra V's name survived on monuments into the reign of Cleopatra VII, so whether she died or not is not indicative that Cleopatra was not her daughter. The other theory being wrong because even if there existed a Cleopatra VI, we have no idea whether this was any other relative or Cleopatra herself. Third if Ptolemy XII remarried then the most likely scenario is that new mommy was not Cleopatra's mom for the first reason I gave. Cleopatra could not have been illegitimate because we already have an established precedent going back to Ptolemy I and Ptolemy IV that children born of a mistress are automatically excluded from the succession.
No he didn't and yes it does matter. I reiterate that White people cannot give birth to Black children.
"All that matters is that Cleopatra became a powerful ruler", this Duane guy is huffing paint! If I want to depict Cleopatra accurately then I'm afraid a lot more matters than that.
This smells to me like Stage 0 in the BBC agenda to create Black Cleopatra. First they say "it doesn't matter racist, Cleopatra can be Black", then they make Cleopatra Black, then they keep saying she is Black until everyone just accepts it. So basically what they already did to King Tut with those ludicrous reconstructions. Academia has become a joke.
Beware of the milk toast centrist who tries to pollute the well by appealing to logic and reason. For they are neither trustworthy nor reasonable, thus sayeth Oda.
So? Cleopatra wasn't Black either way.
Also I am rather curious since you appear to be applying the ideological concept known as Secular Humanism, however Anthropology is considered to be an invalid field by their own reasoning.
Modern Anthropologists are wrong then. These claims were disproved in the 1990's and early 2000's by real geneticists and biologists. Just because the concept of Race as it was developed in the 1700's turned out to be a wrong application of taxonomy, doesn't mean that taxonomy doesn't exist. It stands to reason that if Humans are the most widespread of the animals then their evolution and genetic diversity could turn out to be extremely varied, more so than Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Australoid.
All these guys are obstructing the point, just because people have Melanin does not make them Black. So "people of colour" is not a true representation of what it means to be Sub-Saharan African. Does having Melanin in your skin make you African? No, because by that logic most of the Mediterranean is Sub-Saharan including Portugal, Bosnia, Italy etc etc. But then you might think, well that's because you have actually disproved the concept of race! Again no, if we accept that various peoples can have Melanin then we must also accept that they have different physical traits from each other. For instance Malaysians and Nigerians, both have Melanin content but one clearly has different features from the other. Which means that in evolution they are not the same, due to various factors which caused them to be that way. This is easy to determine if one only looks at their physical features both external and internal. As real biologists and physicians have done.
What? We're not talking about Jim Crow though. We're asking what Cleopatra looked like, and yes lineage determines that.
The color of Cleopatra skin wouldn't really be an issue except for the black supremacist. Given that she was of solid Macedonian and Greek ancestry, and from her depiction in paintings and her facisl features in art, there wouldn't be any reason not to assume she wasn't white until black racist and supremacist started making claims which fly in the face of all actual evidence.
You say whether she is black or not doesn't matter, and then in the very next statement you contradict yourself. This seems the kind of thing black supremacist do, complaining about all the talk of race, but then willing to bring race into the pictures so long as they can boast of black achievement and it suits their purposes.My friend, black or not black - that's the real question, not the "lineage": "Cleopatra was white and I can prove it".
As I said before, black or not black is irrelevant. Pure Macedonian Greek or not is irrelevant. The lineage is relatively irrelevant.
As for lineage, that is highly relevant. First, given that we don't have any DNA, or photograph, or a detail realistic portrait like we do of say, Henry VIII, her lineage is the is the best method of determining Cleopatra's race we have. While art work confirms thst Cleopatra was "white", both in the skin color in paintings, and her clearly Caucasoid features as opposed to Negroid, there is always the question of how accurate the depictions of her are. Your dismissal of lineage seems to be due solely to the fact it contradicts your claim Cleopatra was black.
Second, and more important, her Greek Macedonian lineage is far more important to who Cleopatra was than her particular skin color. Her lineage determined the language that was her primary tongue, her education and patterns of belief, her over all outlook. Saying lineage is not important is like saying that it doesn't matter if you were raised in an affluent middle class American home, or your were raised in a poor home in Cameroon. Sorry, but it makes big deal of difference, more than even your skin color.
That Cleopatra's mother or grandmother might have some black (Negroid) ancestry is not relevant, since even if it was true, it still wouldn't make her "black". Obama had a white mother, and was raised by his white mother and grandparents and genetically half white, yet Obama isn't considered to be "White" by anybody, nor even ever referred to as biracial, even though Obama was. There is a much greater claim to call Obama white than any possible claim to call Cleopatra "black". It is black racism to complain and reject white racist standards except when it suits the black supremacist purposes. The ancient Romans and Greeks never adhere to the "one drop of black blood makes you black rule", and if we are to reject racism, neither should we.What's more, we are not certain of the heritage of Cleopatra's mother or her paternal grandmother. So,is there any evidence that either her mother or paternal grandmother was a black African? not really. Is there any evidence that either of those women were not black Africans? Nope, again.Who knows, is it probable that she had some Egyptian blood. Does it matter? of course not.
And it is just speculation that Cleopatra's mother or grandmother was black, while we are confident that her Greek and Macedonian ancestry was white (Caucasian), her alleged black ancestry is not, and even in the best scenario, would make up a smaller portion of her makeup than here white ancestry. Anyway you look at it, Cleopatra, either by biological race or cultural race, should be classified as "white". This is confirmed by the pictures we have of her, which show her as a white, and not a single one as black. Only a racist, black as well as white, could really consider her as "black".
As for color of bust, my dad has a bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln that was mostly a very dark brown in color, so by that logic Abraham Lincoln was black.
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Because of past abuses,.a lot of modern scientist would argue against the very existence of race, but the fact that forensic scientist and police can correctly identify the race from just a set of bones proves the reality of race, it is just that race doesn't automatically imply certain characteristics (greater intelligence, superior morality) that is once was assumed to imply. The shape of the hair, some of the bone structure, doesn't imply superiority one way or the other, it is just different, anymore than the color of ones eyes.The Concept of Race in Contemporary Anthropology
Race in Forensic Anthropology
--
I would argue that inductive reasoning is splendid weapon at the service of racism.
White parents produce white children, black parents produce black children (and the once in a billion exception doesn't change that fact, anymore that a baby born without legs proves humans aren't bipedall). We know Cleopatra ancestry was white. we know her language was the language of white Europeans, and we know that she associated with white leaders like Caesar, and Mark Anthony. There is no evidence that she ever had relationships or even major dealings with black leaders. So it is just racism to claim she was black.
The issue is that we shouldn't sacrifice historical truths simply to make people feel better, that is it ok to lie just to make black children feel better about themselves. While it may have noble intent, it is wrong to do so based on a lie. There are many genuinely black leaders to use as role models, such as Mansa Musa. The case for Queen Nefertiti and Queen Tiye being black is much greater than Cleopatra.
The only way one can honesty claim Cleopatra is black is (1) ignore all the actual evidence, and just by fiat she is black and (2) redefine what you mean by black so it doesn't have the same definition of what "black" means today, and use an outmoded and racist definition of black.
PS - If some groups of scholar claimed Musa Mansa was actually white on the basis that his mother might, I repeat might, have beenn white, and some bust made of marble being white, and dismissed all the claims all the claims of his being black based on his known lineage, and further, claimed tnose who insisted Musa was black were just racial motivated, you would condemn those people as being tne real racist. Well, the claim that Cleopatra was black is as racist and untrue as claiming Musa is white.
After, why should it matter if we say if Musa was wnite or black, it shouldn1't matter? That is what you keep saying for Cleopatra, so why shouldn't the same thing be true for Musa?
Last edited by Common Soldier; April 23, 2018 at 09:32 PM.
I just want to say this is a fantastic reply and I learned a great deal from it. Thank you kindly for sharing it.
Nice. Also a fitting comparison, considering the level of incest and family backstabbing on Game of Thrones.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing these with us.Ptolemaios III Euergetes
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Berenike II
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
It's amazing, to be honest, that she wasn't hideous as well, just rather plain or average. Her coins and busts portray this and seem to confirm Plutarch's opinion about her looks being okay, but nothing breathtaking or notable compared to her supposed electrifying personality.It is quite surprising that someone as inbred as Cleopatra did not result in extreme retardation. She also seems to be descended from all of the main Diadochi, fancy that (except Perdikkas and Krateros).
This is a trap a lot of historians of all ages fall into, interpreting things from the institutional bias of their respective eras and investigating things that only seem relevant in that context. Even if you could make a million small comparisons, I think it would be wise to view ancient Greek colonization of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Basin, southwestern Europe, North Africa and West Asia through a far different lens than we would the much later European colonization of the entire globe beginning with the Portuguese and Spanish empires. The methods along with societal, cultural, and political motivations of colonization are for the most part incomparable in these two examples. It would be like trying to compare the Islamic Arab conquests and settlements of Central Asia with Han-dynasty Chinese colonization of northern Korea and northern Vietnam. They're just not the same beasts.
Yes, her paintings show her with light skin, as is to be expected for a Macedonian Greek woman with ancestors from northern Greece. There was of course no such thing as white identity back then, though. Everything was about culture and xenophobic tribalism, which is at times inherently tied to genetics and racial appearances, but it should be stressed that even Jews and native Egyptians during the late Ptolemaic period could be considered Greeks if they abandoned their original cultures and adopted Greek culture wholesale (a point that I've made earlier in this thread). However, they were otherwise legally segregated and forbidden to marry one another.
I feel as though you haven't actually read the OP. You know, the part where I specifically mentioned that talk of race and skin tone was fine in this thread so long as we framed it within the context of the artwork and scholarly opinions. For that I cited Walker (2008) and her description of Cleopatra's ivory-white skin as one of several features that coincided with common Roman depictions of Venus and other goddesses. Admittedly I have also been participating in the discussion and am guilty of prolonging it against my own advice in my own OP, but the point stands. It seems as though you and others as well have honed in on the sardonic title of the thread while ignoring the part of the OP where I said it was basically in jest. If it's not clear enough to you or others here then perhaps I'll rename this thread to something dry like "Roman Paintings of Cleopatra and how they compare to busts and coins", but that's not as snazzy or click-baity as the chosen title.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that a white nationalist like Richard B. Spencer would pursue that topic out of the millions of topics one could discuss about ancient Egypt. White nationalist literature, however, is kind of a fart in a windstorm, so to speak, compared to the mountain of material belonging to Afrocentric literature on the topic. I've outlined this already, but for your convenience I will quote Jones (2006) and Pucci (2011) below.
You keep saying it doesn't matter, but I think Apollodotos and Common Soldier have outlined salient points about why it does matter that she was a Greek, culturally and ethnically. And since I have already done that I won't repeat myself once again, other than to say it affected nearly everything about her, from her personal life to her state policy. Of course it wouldn't really matter if she had some Egyptian blood, but this ignores the historical reality that the Ptolemies only had one recorded Egyptian mistress out of the entirety of their dynasty, and not a single Egyptian wife. You don't think that's an important aspect of their history? And if so, why? Your posts seem absolutely belligerent about this topic.As I said before, black or not black is irrelevant. Pure Macedonian Greek or not is irrelevant. The lineage is relatively irrelevant. What's more, we are not certain of the heritage of Cleopatra's mother or her paternal grandmother. So,is there any evidence that either her mother or paternal grandmother was a black African? not really. Is there any evidence that either of those women were not black Africans? Nope, again.Who knows, is it probable that she had some Egyptian blood. Does it matter? of course not.
I will agree with Roller that her life and times are far more interesting to learn about than an argument on an Internet forum about her skin tone that has apparently gone around in circles, while avoiding the topic of Cleopatra in ancient art. You know, the purpose of this thread. One should keep in mind that Roller actually paid a great deal of attention to how Cleopatra looked in her official images and portraits that have now been identified as depicting her, all of this outlined in the chapter "The Iconography of Cleopatra VII" in Cleopatra: a biography (2010). Roller even shows a picture of the painting from the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus and calls it the "only extant contemporary painting of the queen." He's very much aware of her facial features from a variety of mediums and, since he's clearly not blind, also obviously privy to the color of her skin in the paintings he has discussed at length.This guy hit the nail on the head.
Unless this somehow ties into racism as it can be found historically in American academics and particularly in old-school Egyptology, how is this relevant? Let's stick to ancient Ptolemaic society, since that is at least loosely related to the theme of the thread.In fact it is a racist view,and we know quite well that hypodescent against blacks remains a relatively powerful force within American society.
To be honest I've never actually seen anyone even infer that Mansa Musa I of Mali (!!!) was white European (or even North African Caucasian) instead of black African. I think a better example would be some idiot archaeologists of the 19th and early 20th centuries who, blinded by their contemporary prejudices and racism, thought that the ancient Nubian/Kushite pyramids of Sudan and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe couldn't have possibly been built by sub-Saharan blacks. I wonder what the same people would have said about Timbuktu in Mali or the ancient and medieval churches of Ethiopia (at least some medieval European miniaturist painters were hip enough to paint Ethiopian emperors as black dudes). I'll leave it there, since this is off-topic, but I will bring it back around to Cleopatra by saying that Afrocentric claims of owning her as one of their own, a black "sister" as Paul Mooney called her in the video I linked above, are equally astounding in their comical ignorance of the subject (the Ptolemies for Christ sake).
My personal opinion aside, it would be wise to quote the work of a scholarly publication. Prudence Jones' Cleopatra: a sourcebook (2006) is a great place to start, although she plays a more explanatory than critical role here:
Jones goes on to summarize and quote lengthy passages from some Afrocentric sources, many of which have abused to the hilt the line in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra that the queen was "tawny", hence black (never mind the fact that no ancient Roman historian ever claimed this and Shakespeare was a playwright who lived more than a thousand years after Cleopatra, when she had already started to become Orientalized in the Renaissance mind). These Afrocentric sources include Joel Augustus Rogers' "Cleopatra: Exemplar of Feminine Fascination Throughout the Ages" (1946), John Henrik Clarke's "African Warrior Queens" (1984), and Shelly P. Haley's "Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Remembering, Reclaiming, and Re-empowering" (1993). Jones also indirectly cites Robert Ripley's "Believe It or Not" (1934) as another source claiming she was not only black, but very fat, along with C. W. King's Antique Gems and Rings discussing Renaissance-period Florentine cameos that showed Cleopatra as an Ethiopian "negress" committing suicide by asp bite.Originally Posted by Jones (2006: p. 279)
I also mentioned Giuseppe Pucci's "Every Man's Cleopatra" (Cleopatra: a sphinx revisited, 2011) in a previous post about the topic of Afrocentrism. He provides a nice explanation about Cleopatra in modern art and literature:
To be fair to Ludicus, he was basically leaving it as an open question that is unresolved, not planting his flag in the ground and picking sides of whether she was this or that. Although technically correct, it's a rather tepid approach given the well known Ptolemaic abstinence from courting native Egyptian women.Originally Posted by Pucci (2011: p. 201)
I agree.Second, and more important, her Greek Macedonian lineage is far more important to who Cleopatra was than her particular skin color. Her lineage determined the language that was her primary tongue, her education and patterns of belief, her over all outlook. Saying lineage is not important is like saying that it doesn't matter if you were raised in an affluent middle class American home, or your were raised in a poor home in Cameroon. Sorry, but it makes big deal of difference, more than even your skin color.
At least in Obama's case he has a known mixed race lineage but self-identifies as an African American and embraces the culture. Cleopatra did not claim a racial identity, ever, because race was an unknown concept in the ancient world. Cleopatra didn't so much embrace Egyptian culture (and obviously never abandoned her native Greek culture) so much as saw it as a duty of being a monarch that she should pay respects to the Egyptians deities, look after their temples and ceremonies, and build strong links with the wealthy and powerful Egyptian priesthood in order to maintain stability. This was about politics, not her personal preference. The only document we have with her signature handwriting is, not surprisingly, Greek.That Cleopatra's mother or grandmother might have some black (Negroid) ancestry is not relevant, since even if it was true, it still wouldn't make her "black". Obama had a white mother, and was raised by his white mother and grandparents and genetically half white, yet Obama isn't considered to be "White" by anybody, nor even ever referred to as biracial, even though Obama was. There is a much greater claim to call Obama white than any possible claim to call Cleopatra "black". It is black racism to complain and reject white racist standards except when it suits the black supremacist purposes. The ancient Romans and Greeks never adhere to the "one drop of black blood makes you black rule", and if we are to reject racism, neither should we.
And yet her light skin tone is about the least interesting thing in regards to the thankfully preserved paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Far more interesting are the connections to be made to her official coinage and the confirmation from Roman artwork that her image in Hellenistic Greek artwork was virtually the same. That's the story here, not the freaking obvious part where she was clearly a pasty white Greek.And it is just speculation that Cleopatra's mother or grandmother was black, while we are confident that her Greek and Macedonian ancestry was white (Caucasian), her alleged black ancestry is not, and even in the best scenario, would make up a smaller portion of her makeup than here white ancestry. Anyway you look at it, Cleopatra, either by biological race or cultural race, should be classified as "white". This is confirmed by the pictures we have of her, which show her as a white, and not a single one as black. Only a racist, black as well as white, could really consider her as "black".
I feel you there. I had an exasperating conversation with an Afrocentric fellow on the Wiki talk page for Cleopatra. He initially suggested deleting all the images in the article except for the Egyptian-style black basalt statue in the Hermitage Museum, because he considered it to be more authentic than European paintings of white women. Lol. Never mind the fact that basalt is black by default, and hence Cleopatra's hair, nails, clothes, crown, vulture headdress, golden uraeus ornament, and cornucopia held in her hands are all the same color as her skin in the statue. I guess that means ancient Roman bronze statues of famous people like Julius Caesar means they were all copper-colored guys who transformed into green-colored guys due to oxidization (i.e. the patina).As for color of bust, my dad has a bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln that was mostly a very dark brown in color, so by that logic Abraham Lincoln was black.
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Okay, okay, okay, we are seriously flying off the handlebars here in going off-topic. I have enjoyed the conversation and agree with many of your points, but let's return to the focus on artworks depicting Cleopatra, please.Because of past abuses,.a lot of modern scientist would argue against the very existence of race, but the fact that forensic scientist and police can correctly identify the race from just a set of bones proves the reality of race,
Well, they can give birth to half-black/mixed-race kids if the spouse is black, of course, which is the point made by Afrocentrists in claiming Cleopatra as theirs, a figure stolen from them by white Europeans (or so they claim). Some of them go further, though, such as Clarke (mentioned above), who says she wasn't even Greek. Lol. That's a special kind of retarded.
Lol. Huffing paint."All that matters is that Cleopatra became a powerful ruler", this Duane guy is huffing paint! If I want to depict Cleopatra accurately then I'm afraid a lot more matters than that.
Duane W. Roller just so happens to be Professor Emeritus of Classics at the Ohio State University and has written publications for Oxford University Press, including a biography on Cleopatra, so I would give him some leeway here. Put into the proper context of his entire book, this statement is small compared to his overwhelming description of Cleopatra as a Hellenistic Greek monarch. He clearly demonstrates who she was and what she looked like in his descriptions of artworks. I think the statement from him that was cherry-picked here is more of a disclaimer about his personal beliefs and attitude before diving into concrete substance. This is hardly his major fault, considering how he glosses over academic controversies in regards to the date of Cleopatra's death, the numbering of Ptolemy XII's wife as either the fifth or sixth Cleopatra, the exact name and identity of the Roman receiving the tax benefits in the papyrus document signed by Cleopatra, the political reality versus the Augustan propaganda regarding the Donations of Alexandria, etc. He does at least warn the reader of the affect of Augustan propaganda on Roman historiography.
It is a crime, I agree. If the world was a fair place, I would have started a thread about the provable whiteness of Ptolemy I instead of Cleopatra VII. I think you're downplaying Cleopatra a bit too much, though. She was a very young woman, a teenager, when she took the throne and managed to not only survive exile to Syria but also raised an army there and marched back to Egypt to confront her rival brother. Mind you, her astute advisers and generals were doing the heavy lifting here, but she showed a lot of fortitude and insight when it came to politics and war. She had a great learning experience in these things by being temporarily exiled alongside her father Ptolemy XII, first traveling to Rome as an 11-year-old. She might have been a crap naval commander, but there weren't that many female naval commanders in all of history, Artemisia I of Caria being perhaps the only other one before her. Her biggest mistake was being overly concerned with defending Egypt instead of using offense as her best defense and letting Antony blockade Octavian in Italy while he still had the chance to cross the Adriatic. She made virtually the same mistake that Pompey did with Caesar, fighting a doomed campaign in Greece. She also went out like a boss, committing suicide rather than being humiliated in a triumph, and for that melodramatic exit, and being the last ruler of pre-Roman Egypt tangled up in the web of Roman politics, she has earned her place as one of history's more important figures.
Last edited by Roma_Victrix; April 24, 2018 at 03:46 AM.
Don't worry, just because almost no one has ever heard of Ptolemy I that doesn't mean you can't start a thread about whiteness, or more accuratelly, "caucasioness" of Hannibal and Septimius Severus. Although I'm pretty sure they're nowhere near as famous as Cleopatra.
If people weren't so obsessed with her I'd have said nothing. One more thing though, If I was a betting man I'd bet that most people claiming Cleopatra's Black, don't even know that there were several Cleopatras before her, as well as that her name is a Greek word.
Last edited by Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σω April 24, 2018 at 03:19 PM.
"First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure." - Mark Twain
οὐκ ἦν μὲν ἐγώ, νῦν δ' εἰμί· τότε δ' ούκ ἔσομαι, ούδέ μοι μελήσει
I am now woke on the Aethiopian question.
Ethnic tensions were certainly very strong in Ptolemaic Egypt. In fact one gets the impression that the Greeks had disdain for the Egyptians and largely preferred Jews and Arameans. Jews even settled within Ptolemaic Egypt (such as the growing community at Arish) and when Aulus Gabinius invaded Egypt he was able to convince the Jews to open the gates of Arish to his army and accept Ptolemy XII as their rightful ruler. Jews also served as mercenaries for both the Romans and the Ptolemies. This is unlike the Egyptians who were rarely required to bear arms, in a few cases not even allowed to do so at all.
In Alexandria the Greeks also had their own walled off section of the city. Gated communities essentially with few Egyptian members of the nobility. There was also legal distinction made between Egyptians, foreigners and the Hellenized.