Negroes in Classical Greece
Negroes in Classical Greece
Negroes in Classical Greece
– AN OVERVIEW
Negroes were common in Classical Greece – as slaves and as freedmen, and it was
their inclusion into Grecian society, which ultimately saw that civilization
fall.
The Negro appears frequently in Greek literature. A major work in this field is
Beardsley, G.H, 1929 The Negro in Greek and Roman Civilization: A Study of the
Ethiopian Type, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
In Diod. Sic. 3.8.2, for example, is associated with black skin, woolly hair,
and a flat nose.
Arr. Ind. 6.9, states that the natives of Southern India, though Blacks, are not
so flat-nosed or so woolly-haired as the Ethiopians.
In Tetr. 2.2, and Strabo 15.1.24, is associated with black skin and woolly hair;
and the authors discuss the reason for the Ethiopian's black skin and woolly
hair.
In Sext. Empiric. Adv. Ethicos 43, is associated with black skin and a flat
nose; and the Ethiopians are said to prefer the blackest and most flat-nosed;
Aristotle, in his Gen. An. 5.3.782B, contrasts the straight hair of the
Scythians and Thracians with the woolly hair of the Ethiopians and people who
live in hot regions.
Aristotle, in his Physiogn. 6.812A, says that those with “wooly hair” those who
are too swarthy (Phgn 6.812B.) are cowardly, and meant this about Ethiopians.
Galen, in his Temperament. 2.616, attributes the woolly hair of the Ethiopians
to the effect of heat.
!424@R associated with black or dark skin in the following works: Aesch. Prom.
808-809, frg. 370 (Nauck 2 ) ; Eurip. frg. 228.3-4 (Nauck 2 ), cf. frg. 771.4
(Nauck 2 ); Theoc. 17.87; Aristot. Probl. 10.66 898n, Hist. An. 3.9.517A, Gen.
An. 2.2.736A; ps.-Aristot. Physiogn. 6.812A; Lucian, Adv. Indoctum 28, Bis Acc.
6; Ach. Tat. 4.5; Quint. Smyrn. 2.32, 2.101, 2.642; Sext. Empiric. Adv. Physicos
1.249; Arr. An. 5.4.4; ps.-Callisth. 2.190; Galen, Temperament. 2.628; (SCHMIDT,
P. C., 1897 Eine griechische Grabinschrift aus Antinoë. Aegyptiaca: Festschrift
für Georg Ebers, p.102. W. Englemann, Leipzig, 1897, p. 102.)
The most common words that the Greeks used to designate the color of the
Ethiopian’s skin were :(black) and compounds of : (black or dark- Aesch. Prom.
808 and Theoc. 17.87.) and (dark - Quint. Smyrn. 2.101; cf. Hes. Op. 527.
Blacks were well known to Classical Greeks: Here a Greek soldier spears a
Black, from the Lefkadia, Kinch tomb in Macedonia. Note how the Black is
wearing Persian dress, very likely one of the Negroes noted as fighting in
Xerxes' army, which penetrated the entire Greek peninsula past Athens
itself.
When the Greeks wanted to illustrate blackness of color, they often selected the
Ethiopian for this purpose. (Lucian Bis. Acc. 6. In which reference is made to
tanning the skin until it resembles an Ethiopian’s, and Ach. Tat. 4.5.2, in
which mention is made of a flower among the Greeks as dark as an Ethiopian’s
skin.)
Negroes appear also in the Andromeda story. (Beardsley, G.H, 1929 The Negro in
Greek and Roman Civilization: A Study of the Ethiopian Type, The John Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, nos. 102-103.)
The Memnon or Aithiopes of Sophocles and possibly the Memnon of Aeschylus had an
Ethiopian chorus. (Soph. Frgs. 25-30 (Nauck 2) and WEBSTER, T. B. L., 1936 An
Introduction to Sophocles. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, , p. 173.)
Ptolemy (79 Tetr. 2.2.) contrasts Negroes and Scythians in a passage in which it
is clear that the author is interested in the racial types involved.
Xenophanes (Frg. 16 (Diels) in a similar contrast recounts that the Negroes
represent their gods as black-faced and flat-nosed, while the Thracians show
their gods to be blue-eyed and red-haired.
Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Ethicos, 43.) writes that beauty is relative, the Negroes
preferring the blackest and the most flat-nosed and the Persians approving the
whitest and the most hook-nosed.
The authors cite the Negroes and Scythians or Thracians as examples of distinct
racial opposites. A similar practice is reflected in the Menander passage
(SCHMIDT, P. C., 1897 Eine griechische Grabinschrift aus Antinoë. Aegyptiaca:
Festschrift für Georg Ebers, p.102. W. Englemann, Leipzig.)
Knowing how they described Negroes, therefore makes it easier to look for
identical descriptions or references to Negroes in Greece itself.
Negroes were known in the Greek world as early as Minoan times. (EVANS, A. J.:
The Palace of Minos, I. Macmillan, London, 1921, pp. 302, 310, 312, and figs.
230, a, b, and c; and The Palace of Minos, II. Macmillan, London.1928, pp.
45-46.)
Negroes soldiers were employed by the Minoans as auxiliaries. (EVANS, A. J., 928
The Palace of Minos, II. Macmillan, London, pp. 755-757 and plate XIII. Evans
(p. 756) states that the Blacks also served as palace guards at the King’s
residence in Minos.)
A Negro on a human mask from a bronze age tomb was found at Cyprus (MARSHALL, F.
H., 1911 Catalogue of the Jewellery, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman in the
Departments of Antiquities, British Museum. London. No. 144).
A double headed vase showing a Black and a White face, reflecting the two
elements in late Grecian society.
<= Numerous Janiform objects which contrasted White and Negroid types reveal the
same anthropological interest in racial contrast. (BEARDSLEY, G. H., 1929 The
Negro in Greek and Roman Civilization: A Study of the Ethiopian Type. The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. nos. 8, 9, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 47, 50.)
Negroes also fought at the Battle of Marathon (FRAZER, J. G., 1913 Pausanias's
Description of Greece, II. Macmillan, London, p 434; and GRAINIDOR, P., 1908
Les Vases au Nègre. Musée Belge, p 29).
Theophrastus states that the "man of petty ambition" had an Ethiopian slave.
(Char. 21.4.)
One of the pupils of Herodes Atticus was a Negro. When his pupils died,
including the Negro, he erected statues to them (Philostr., V. A. 3.11; V. S.,
2.558-559.)
The activities in which the Negroes in ancient Greece engaged are listed in
Beardsley, G.H, 1929 The Negro in Greek and Roman Civilization: A Study of the
Ethiopian Type, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp.65-66 and
111-112.
The accuracy of the depictions of Black racial types in Classical Greek art
shows without any doubt that the artists had real, live, actually models before
them.
A statuette vase in the form of a "temple boy," together with the mould for
making it, was discovered at Olynthus in 1928. (ROBINSON, D. Y., 1931
Excavations at Olynthus, Part IV, The Terra-cottas of Olynthus Found in 1928.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, page 78, no.384, and plate 42.)
A mulatto priest of Isis has been identified as the work of an artist working in
Athens in either the first century B.C. or the first half of the first century
A.D. The priest, according to Poulsen, represented one of the native clergy whom
the Egyptian metics demanded for their Isiac worship. (POULSEN, P., 1913 Tête de
Prêtre d'Isis Trouvée a Athènes. Mélanges Holleaux, pp. 217-223. A. Picard,
Paris, pp. 217-223 and plate VI.)
The Negroid face of the herm of Memnon, one of the pupils of Herodes
Atticus.
Graindor believes that a Negro-faced herm, discovered at Athens is that of
Memnon, one of the pupils of Herodes Atticus. (GRAINIDOR, P., 1915 Tête de Nègre
du Musée de Berlin. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 39, p. 402; and 1930:
Un Milliardaire Antique: Hérode Atticus et Sa Famille, Recueil de Travaux
Publiés par la Faculte des Lettres. Cairo, pp. 114-116, 128, 131, 150.)
Negroes even appear on Greek coins of Phocis, Delphi, Lesbos, and Athens
(BABELOX, E., 1907 Traité des Monnaies Grecques et Romaines, DeuxièmePartie:
Tome Premier, Description Historique. E. Leroux, Paris, pp. 1000-1001 and plate
XLII, figs. 22 and 23).
One of the followers of Theseus was a boy whose thick lips and curly hair
suggest that he was a Negro. (Beardsley, G.H, 1929 The Negro in Greek and Roman
Civilization: A Study of the Ethiopian Type, The John Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, p. 63, no. 121.)
A 5th Century lecythus depicts a Negro woman being tortured by satyrs (MAYER,
M., 1891 Noch Einmal Lamia. Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen
Instituts, Athenische Ableilung,16, pp. 300-312.)
Negroes often appeared as actors on the Greek stage. (Beardsley, G.H, 1929 The
Negro in Greek and Roman Civilization: A Study of the Ethiopian Type, The John
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 113-114, and WEBSTER, T. B. L., 1936 An
Introduction to Sophocles. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 173.)
A Greek statue of a Negro musician dating from between the 4th and 3rd
Centuries BC, and on the right, a close-up of Negro musician's face
(picture artificially lightened so as to bring out the features.) On
display in the Biblotheque Nationale, Paris.
A Negro musician, is one of the more famous such sculptures, currently in the
Biblothèque Nationale, Paris (RICHTER, G. Y. A., 1930 The Sculpture and
Sculptors of the Greeks. Yale University Press, New Haven; and Oxford University
Press, London, pp. 82 and 356, fig. 58. 88)
Further references to Negroes in Ancient Greek art can be found in the following
works:
It is therefore beyond doubt that the Negro racial type was present in
significant numbers on the Greek mainland - in all manner of occupations,
including slaves to soldiers, actors and so on.
The Athenian leader, Pericles, tried in 451 BC, to limit citizenship of Athens
to those of pure Athenian biological descent.
Despite Pericles’ law, the Classical Greeks, according to Zimmern, showed very
little other traces of racial awareness (what Zimmern calls “color-prejudice” -
ZIMMERN, A. E., 1931 The Greek Commonwealth , fifth edition. The Clarendon
Press, Oxford, p. 323.)
Another scholar, Westermann, goes even further and states that Classical “Greek
society had no color line”. (WESTERMANN, W. L., 1943 Slavery and the Elements of
Freedom. Quarterly Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in
America, 1, p. 346.)
Aristotle mentions a woman of Elis whose daughter by a Negro, was not Negroid
but whose grandson was. (Gen. An. 1.18.722A; Hist. An. 7.6.586A.) This passage
would be meaningless unless it referred to the offspring of a black-white union.
Aristotle's general usage of :X8"l, furthermore, indicates that in these
passages he clearly had in mind the Negro type.
Plutarch (De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 21.) relates a similar story about a Greek
woman whose black baby caused her to be accused of adultery, although an
investigation of her lineage revealed that she was the great granddaughter of an
Ethiopian.
RACIALLY MIXED GREEK TYPES ILLUSTRATED IN COFFIN PORTRAITS
The best original examples of what happened to many Classical Greeks, in racial
terms, comes form the coffin portraits of Greeks who emigrated to Egypt during
the Ptolemaic Era.
AB
From left to right: (A) detail from the mummy case of Artemidorus the
Younger, a Greek who had settled in Thebes, Egypt, during Roman times
(100AD). ; (B) This coffin-portrait from AD 40-50 bears the inscription
"Hermione, Grammatike." Hermione was, therefore, an educated woman, a
teacher of reading, writing and grammar. There is evidence that
grammatikoi were highly esteemed in the Roman empire for their role in
disseminating Greek education.
C D
From left to right: (C) Unknown woman, Roman period of Greek Egypt. ca.
130-60 A.D.; (D) Unknown woman, Roman period of Greek Egypt, circa AD
55-70.
AB
From left to right: (A) Two Greco-Roman brothers, 1st century AD, one
darker than the other, mulatto types: (B) Greco-Roman male, 2nd century
AD, clear Semitic admixture.
C D
From left to right: (C) Greco-Egyptian, 1st half of the 2nd Century AD,
mixed race; (D) Greco-Roman male, 2nd Century AD, mixed-race type.
Mixture between Blacks and Whites in the Greek world is confirmed by the
evidence of sculpture.
Another Olynthus head whose features Robinson also regards as "almost negroid"
is another obvious product of racial mixing. (ROBINSON, D. Y., 1931 Excavations
at Olynthus, Part IV, The Terra-cottas of Olynthus Found in 1928. The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, p. 87, no.405 and pl. 45.)
Above: A mummy of a Greek boy, whose face was painted on his coffin,
First/Second Century AD. (detail below). Once again, the effects of racial
mixing are plain to see. On display in the British Museum, London.
Reference was made above to a mulatto priest of Isis: his racial appearance is
described as follows: “... this man, whose cranium belongs to the type of Asia
Minor and whose lower face and neck are those of a Negro, is obviously of a
mixed race; we are dealing with a mulatto . . .” (" ...cet homme, dont le crâne
appartient au type de l'Asie Mineure et dont le bas du visage et le cou sont
ceux d'un nègre, est évidemment d'une race mixte; tout bien considéré nous avons
affaire à un mulâtre." - POULSEN, P., 1913 Tête de Prêtre d'Isis Trouvée a
Athènes. Mélanges Holleaux, pp. 217-223. A. Picard, Paris, p. 218 and pl. VI.)
Both Aristotle and Plutarch discuss the racial characteristics of of second and
third generation black-white racial mixes in their works:
"Further, children are like their more remote ancestors from whom nothing has
come, for the resemblances recur at an interval of many generations, as in the
case of the woman in Elis who had intercourse with the Aethiop; her daughter was
not an Aethiop but the son of the daughter was." - Aristotle, Gen. An. 1.18.722A
and
"But parents may pass on resemblance after several generations, as in the case
of the woman in Elis, who committed adultery with a negro; in this case it was
not the woman's own daughter, but the daughter's child that was a blackamoor" -
Aristotle, Hist. An; 7.6.586A.
Also previously mentioned was the herm of Memnon, which, according to Graindor,
was a Negroid pupil of Herodes Atticus. This herm is “of mongrel race but with
the Negro type of North Africa, Nubia or Abyssinia, being prevalent.” (“"de race
métisse mais avec prédominance du type nègre du Nord de l'Afrique, de la Nubie
ou de l'Abyssinie." - GRAINIDOR, P., 1915 Tête de Nègre du Musée de Berlin.
Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 39, p. 402.)
CONCLUSION
1. The Ancient Greeks were well aware of the Negroid and mixed racial types;
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