Roman writers described people with physical characteristics of sub-Saharan Africans as "Aethiopes", but the term carried no social implications. There was no such thing as a black community; immigrants from south of the Sahara were few and from disparate ethnic communities. The immigrants would have been separated from each other in households of white people, and if they had descendants these would have blended within very few generations into the local population. While slavery was a deeply-stigmatized social status, the great majority of slaves were from European and Mediterranean populations; inherited physical characteristics were not relevant to slave status. Black people were generally not excluded from any profession, and there was usually no stigma or bias against mixed race relationships in Antiquity.
Video Black people in Ancient Roman history
See also
- African admixture in Europe
- Aethiopia
- Romans in Sub-Saharan Africa
Maps Black people in Ancient Roman history
References
Sources
- Benjamin, Isaac (Mar 2006). "Proto-Racism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity". World Archaeology. 38 (1): 32-47. doi:10.1080/00438240500509819. JSTOR 40023593.
- Snowden, Frank M. (Winter 1997). "Misconceptions about African Blacks in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Specialists and Afrocentrists". Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. 4 (3): 28-50. JSTOR 20163634.
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