It has been widely claimed on the internet that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (ruled 193 – 211 AD) was a black man. For instance, a blog post published on the site Rasta Livewire on 25 September 2010 describes Septimius Severus as “first black African-born Emperor of Rome” and declares that it is important for black people today to “remember and celebrate” the Severan Dynasty he founded.
The claim that Septimius Severus was a “black Roman emperor” has even found its way into peer-reviewed journals dealing with contemporary black culture. For instance, here is an article written by Molefi Kete Asante and Shaza Ismail titled “Rediscovering the ‘Lost’ Roman Caesar: Septimius Severus the African and Eurocentric Historiography” that was published in March 2010 in the Journal of Black Studies, a peer-reviewed journal on contemporary African-American culture, that advances this claim.
So, was Septimius Severus a black man? Well, it depends on what you happen to consider “black.” Septimius Severus was definitely born on the African continent; that at least makes him African. Unfortunately, there are some serious problems with calling him a “black Roman emperor.”
The anachronism of applying modern racial terms to the ancient world
Before I say anything else, I should clarify that our contemporary notion of “race” is entirely a cultural construct—not a scientific concept in any way. In the twenty-first century United States, we classify people as belonging to one “race” or another based physical features such as skin color, but these features are arbitrary and non-concordant.
Modern-day anthropologists agree that racial classifications are not scientific. Here is an excerpt from page 103 of the third edition of the introductory college-level anthropology textbook Essentials of Physical Anthropology by Clark Spencer Larson, published in 2016:
“In the early 1970s, the American geneticist R. C. Lewontin (b. 1929) tested the race concept by studying global genetic variation. If human races existed, most genetic diversity would be accounted for by them. Focusing on blood groups, serum proteins, and red blood cell enzyme variants, Lewontin found that the so-called races accounted for only about 5%-10% of the genetic diversity. In other words, most variation occurred across human populations regardless of “racial” makeup—human “races” have no taxonomic significance. Since Lewontin’s study, many other genetic studies have reached the same conclusion.”
“Subsequent studies by other scientists—of wide-ranging characteristics such as genetic traits and cranial morphology—have all shown the same thing: so-called races account for a very small amount of biological variation. Multiple biological races do not lead to clear-cut racial classifications because traits simply do not agree in their frequency of distribution. One trait might cut across human populations one way, but another trait cuts across them in another way.”
Naturally, as a result of this fact that race only exists in people’s heads, people in the ancient Mediterranean world did not think about race in the same way that people think about race in the United States today in the twenty-first century.
The ancient Greeks and Romans had no concept of the existence of a “black race” and a “white race” existing in contrast to each other. This idea as we know it today was made up by light-skinned people of western European descent in the Early Modern Period (lasted c. 1450 – c. 1750) in order to justify their brutal enslavement of dark-skinned people of African descent.
Now, of course, the ancient Greeks and Romans did recognize that people from different regions tended to look different, but they did not think of these differences using modern racial terms. To the ancient Romans, a person’s skin color was just a physical characteristic, no more or less significant than a person’s hair or eye color. They did not have a system of racial classification based on skin color like we do today.
Unfortunately, due to centuries of racism and oppression, the idea of “white people” and “black people” as distinct racial groups is so thoroughly ingrained in contemporary American culture that most of us are incapable of even imagining a culture where this concept did not exist.
Diversity of skin color in the ancient Roman world
It is, however, worth talking about skin color in the ancient world, precisely because ideas about race are so ingrained in our own culture. We all too often have a tendency to assume that people in the Roman Empire were all what we consider “white.” As we shall see in a moment, this is certainly not true; the population of the Roman Empire was extremely diverse and there were people in the empire of all different skin tones.
Indeed, as I discuss in this article I originally published in November 2019, many of the most famous writers who lived in the Roman Empire were probably not what we today would consider white. For instance, the playwright Publius Terentius Afer (lived c. 185 – c. 159? BC), one of the founders of Latin literature, was actually a native Amazigh who was born in what is now Tunisia. Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (lived c. 124 – c. 170 AD), a famous Latin writer known for his novel The Golden Ass, was probably also of Amazigh descent; he was born in the town of Madauros in what is now northeastern Algeria.
Now, both Terentius Afer and Apuleius came from North Africa and were probably not what most people today would consider black, but there were certainly at least a few people in the Roman Empire—indeed, even on the European continent—who had recent ancestors from the region of the African continent south of the Sahara Desert.
For instance, the wealthy Athenian philosopher Herodes Attikos (lived 101 – 177 AD) had an adoptive son named Memnon, who was of Ethiopian descent. A realistic marble portrait head of him dated to c. 170 AD was discovered in Herodes Atticus’s ruined villa, which was located in the central Peloponnesos in southern Greece. It clearly shows him with African features.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman marble portrait head of Memnon, the adoptive son of the Athenian philosopher Herodes Atticus, showing him with distinctively African features
Septimius Severus’s ancestry
The tremendous diversity that existed within the population of the Roman Empire is reflected in Septimius Severus’s ancestry. His mother Fulvia Pia was of Italian Roman descent. She belonged to the gens Fulvia, a prominent Roman family of equestrian rank who originated from the region of Tusculum in Italy and had migrated to North Africa.
Meanwhile, Septimius Severus’s father Publius Septimius Geta was remotely descended from the Phoenician colonists who had originally begun to settle in North Africa in the twelfth century BC and continued to settle in the region over the course of the following centuries. We know that the Phoenician settlers in North Africa intermarried with the local Amazigh population, so it is likely that Septimius Severus’s father had some Amazigh ancestors as well.
Unfortunately for proponents of the claim that Septimius Severus was a “black Roman emperor,” we currently have no record of him having had any recent ancestors who came from the region of Africa south of the Sahara Desert—the region that is generally associated with people who are most often considered “black” today.
Septimius Severus was born in Leptis Magna, which was a prominent city in what is now northern Libya along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The city had been founded by Phoenician colonists in around the seventh century BC. Septimius Severus’s native language was Punic, but he was also taught to speak both Latin and Greek. As an adult, he reportedly spoke Latin fluently, but with a slight Punic accent.
ABOVE: Photograph of a first-century AD mosaic from the town of Leptis Magna, where Septimius Severus was born and grew up, depicting people angling. Notice that, to our modern eyes, none of the people in this mosaic look particularly “black.”
Rebuttal to the article from the Journal of Black Studies
The article from the Journal of Black Studies that I referred to at the beginning of this article offers a frankly rather absurd argument that all the inhabitants of North Africa during the time of the Roman Empire must have been black because all humans were originally black and the Roman Empire was a really long time ago. It states:
“In fact, the earliest humans on earth, according to science, were black-skinned African people. The farther back into the past one goes, the Blacker the [African] continent is from south to north. This means that the presence in the north of Amazighs and Arabs, who did not originate in Africa but who have now been resident in Africa for nearly 2,000 years, represents a more recent population than the black population.”
Unfortunately, this is not how historical arguments work. Just because residents of North Africa were what we today would consider black at one point in time when humans first settled in North Africa does not mean that they all must have been what we today would consider black in the late second century AD when Septimius Severus was born. In order to argue that people in North Africa were what we would consider black in the late second century, you need to present historical evidence from that time period.
Furthermore, what the article claims about there being no Amazighs in North Africa in ancient times is just flat-out wrong. The Amazighs are indigenous to North African and they were already the primary inhabitants of the region when the Phoenicians first began to settle there in the twelfth century BC.
Yes, there were certainly many people in North Africa during the time of the Roman Empire who were what most people today would consider black, but they were not the majority of the population and we do not have good reason to believe that Septimius Severus was a recent descendant of any of them.
Septimius Severus was certainly African, because he was born in Leptis Magna, a city on the African continent, but this does not necessarily mean that he was what most people today would consider black, since there are many people who were born in Africa who are not normally considered black.
For instance, the novelist J. R. R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa; the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was born in Nairobi, Kenya; and the singer Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania. I certainly do not hear many people going around claiming that any of these people were/are black just because they were born in Africa.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who was born in Kenya. I think very few people would consider him “black.”
The Severan Tondo
There are many surviving artistic depictions of Septimius Severus from antiquity—including at least one portrait of him in full color—but none of them seem to really portray him as what I think most people in the United States today would normally consider black.
Below is the so-called “Severan Tondo,” a family portrait of Septimius Severus with his wife Julia Domna (who was of Syrian ancestry) and their two sons Caracalla and Geta that was painted in around 199 AD or thereabouts. It is one of the very few surviving examples of ancient Roman panel painting. It is currently held in the Altes Museum in Berlin, Germany. Septimius Severus is the bearded man on the top right wearing the golden crown:
Here is another photograph of the same painting with different lighting:
There’s no question that, in this portrait, Septimius Severus is portrayed as noticeably darker-skinned than the other members of his family, which certainly makes sense, given his Punic and possible Amazigh ancestry. Nonetheless, he does not really look like what most people today would consider “black.” Judging from this portrait, he looks very much like the majority of present-day Libyans.
Based on this portrait, I think you could undoubtedly describe Septimius Severus as a “person of color,” but, in order to describe him as “black,” you would have to take a very loose definition of the word.
Some other surviving depictions of Septimius Severus
The Severan Tondo is the only surviving ancient portrait of Septimius Severus that is in full color that I am currently aware of, but, just to be thorough, I am going to include a few examples of other surviving ancient depictions of him that are not in full color in their present state.
For instance, here is a gold aureus of Septimius Severus minted in 193 AD. The obverse of the coin bears Septimius Severus’s own portrait. He is explicitly identified on the coin by an inscription. The reverse bears the standard of Legio XIV Gemina, the legion that first proclaimed Septimius Severus emperor:
Here is a dynastic gold aureus of Septimius Severus minted in c. 202 AD. It bears Septimius Severus’s own portrait on the obverse, which is, once again, clearly identified as him by the inscription. The reverse of the coin bears the portraits of Caracalla (on the left), Julia Domna (in the middle), and Geta (on the left):
Below is a Roman bronze head of Septimius Severus currently held in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark. It bears an inscription that explicitly identifies it as a portrait of Septimius Severus:
Here is a Roman marble bust of Septimius Severus from the Glyptothek in Munich:
Here is a marble and alabaster bust of Septimius Severus from the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Italy. It is probably posthumous, but it certainly retains his likeness:
The head of Memnon that I showed at the beginning of this article proves that Roman artists were willing and able to produce portraits of people with African features, so the fact that they don’t generally portray Septimius Severus with such features is evidence that he probably didn’t look very African.
An alleged racist incident involving Septimius Severus and an Ethiopian Roman soldier
In addition to evidence from artistic depictions, there is also some evidence from the written sources that indicates that Septimius Severus was not what we would consider black.
The Historia Augusta, an often unreliable collection of biographies of Roman emperors that is believed to have been written in around the fourth century AD or thereabouts, records an anecdote that, supposedly, when an Ethiopian soldier serving in the Roman army presented himself to Septimius Severus, the emperor reacted with fear, because he believed that the man’s dark skin was an ill omen. Here is the passage from “The Life of Septimius Severus” 22.4-5, as translated by David Magie for the Loeb Classical Library:
“On another occasion, when he [i.e. Septimius Severus] was returning to his nearest quarters from an inspection of the wall at Luguvallum in Britain, at a time when he had not only proved victorious but had concluded a perpetual peace, just as he was wondering what omen would present itself, an Ethiopian soldier, who was famous among buffoons and always a notable jester, met him with a garland of cypress-boughs.”
“And when Severus in a rage ordered that the man be removed from his sight, troubled as he was by the man’s ominous colour and the ominous nature of the garland, the Ethiopian by way of jest cried, it is said, ‘You have been all things, you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god.'”
The Historia Augusta is a relatively late and highly unreliable source, so we have no way of knowing whether or not this incident really happened. Nonetheless, the story certainly indicates that the author of the Historia Augusta not only believed that Septimius Severus had significantly lighter skin than an Ethiopian, but also believed that Septimius Severus was a racist who thought that people with dark skin were an ill omen.
ABOVE: Illustration by AMELIANVS on DeviantArt of the alleged racist encounter between Septimius Severus and the Ethiopian Roman soldier described in the Historia Augusta
Conclusion
Ultimately, “blackness” and “whiteness” are inherently subjective categories and, especially since I am not a black person myself, I don’t think that it is my place to tell people definitively that they shouldn’t describe Septimius Severus as a black person. Nonetheless, I personally believe that this description is misleading and should not be used unless it is very carefully qualified.
Judging from the Severan Tondo, it seems to me at least that Septimius Severus probably had a similar skin tone to the late Libyan politician Muammar Gaddafi, so you can only really call Septimius Severus “black” if you think that Gaddafi was black too. I don’t think that is a description that most people would be willing to make.
Furthermore, if you do choose to describe Septimius Severus as a “black Roman emperor,” I think that it is important to note that his mothers’ ancestors were Italian, that his father’s ancestors came from North Africa, that he had significantly lighter skin than most people from the interior of the African continent, and that he is alleged to have harbored prejudicial sentiments against people with darker skin than himself.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi (right) sitting with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (left). Septimius Severus probably had about the same skin tone as Gaddafi.
(NOTE: This article was significantly revised in September 2020. An older version of the article can be found at this link.)
This was an interesting read. I’ve seen similar arguments online about the ethnicity of Hannibal Barca, with some people claiming that he was a black African and others claiming that he was most likely of middle eastern /semitic descent. I’d be interested to hear your take on the matter (if you haven’t already covered it elsewhere on this blog).
This is the dumbest argument of all. My grand mother is brown , wife brown. If he is brown what other argument is their. No he is not 100% black. Cause no black people is 100% black. His feature are more similar to a light skinned black man than white are European. American blacks are defendants of the Mandingo with came from Egypt in the 13th century. We are mixed with a lot of things after that due to relocation. Silicy was once a cathage empire. So his mother being italian has not to do with her origin of race. Brown and black skin is the same smh ….
The ancestors of most black people in the United States came mainly from West Africa, not from Egypt, and the Carthaginians were mainly descended from Phoenicians who originally came from what is now Lebanon and settled in what is now Tunisia. Sicily was largely settled by Greeks in antiquity and, even today, most Sicilians ultimately have Greek ancestors. In any case, race is a pretty subjective thing; after all, most people don’t have “black” or “white” skin, but rather a tone somewhere in between.
This is a dumb statement. You can not out-rightly prove that most “black people” come from West Africa. The problem is that you cant accept truth. And no one is actually black or white. You will have to do a better job repeating dishonest narratives of history that are completely made up.
Most black people in the United States today are descended from people who were brought to North America as slaves prior to the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807. The people who were brought to North America as slaves were mostly procured from West Africa.
This does not mean that all black people in the United States today are solely of West African descent, though; some slaves were procured from other parts of Africa as well and even some slaves that were sold to or captured by European slave traders in West Africa originally came from elsewhere. Some black people have also come to the United States voluntarily in more recent times. Obviously, then, the situation is complicated.
FALSE INFORMATION! WHICH SUB SAHARAN AFRICANS WERE ENSLAVED BY EUROPEANS? BECAUSE I AM SOMALI AND WE HAVE NEVER BEEN ENSLAVED. THE BOTTOM LINE IS, HE WAS AN AFRICAN, THAT IS WHAT WE DO KNOW.
SUB SAHARAN AFRICANS WERE NOT ENSLAVED, WEST AFRICANS WERE.
GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT INSTEAD OF SPREADING PROPAGANDA.
Whoa, hold on there.
European slave traders during the Early Modern Period bought and captured people with dark skin who originally came from all over the African continent. It’s true that they mostly bought or captured those people in West Africa because they wanted to sell those people as slaves in the Americas and the most direct route from Africa to the Americas is by crossing the Atlantic Ocean and West Africa is the side that faces the Atlantic. Nonetheless, there were people who were sold to European slave traders in West Africa who had originally been captured in other parts of Africa. Being in East Africa didn’t necessarily mean someone was safe from being captured and sold into slavery.
All that being said, we shouldn’t imagine that every single person on the African continent was enslaved—or, for that matter, every single person from any part of the African continent either. There were certainly lots of people in Africa who were never captured or sold into slavery. In fact, most of the people who were captured and sold into slavery were actually originally captured by their fellow Africans—usually by members of a rival kingdom or tribe. Then, the Africans who captured them would usually take them down to the coast and sell them to European slave traders.
This post is not relevant to Severus and claims he was black, but relevant to the comment about Somalis and slavery.
Ethiopians enslaved Somalis and Somalis enslaved the Bantu.
A common story among the Somali Bantu is that their ancestors were tricked into slavery. In the late 1830s, after several years of drought in Tanzania and widespread starvation many Bantu accepted promises of wage labor in Somalia. When promises of a better life failed to entice them, the Arab slave traders, and their African accomplices, used brute force. Those that were enticed/forced from their homes were sold as slaves once they landed in Somalia.
Officially, slavery lasted in Somalia until early in the 20th century when it was abolished by the Italians and the Belgium protocol. There were some inland groups, however, who were not freed until the 1930s. In October of 1992, the Bantu began to flee en masse for refugee camps located in Kenya. By January, 1994, an estimated 10,000 Bantu were living in camps known as Dadaab. In 2002 /2003, nearly 12,000 Somali Bantu were approved by the United States for resettlement in the largest resettlement program ever undertaken out of Africa.
Before you make erroneous statements you should know what you are talking about. A vast majority of slaves and people of African decent that were brought to the the Caribbean and the Americas were from West Central Africa. Genetics today have proven the historical record. Stop with the chip on your shoulder and get some knowledge before you make foolish statements. Its seem in vogue today to look for greatness in the wrong places and to claim things that are unimportant and not true.
After reading you racist gibberish …all I can do is put you into the trash can with all the other Caucasoid racists and bigots, who throughout the ages have altered history to deify themselves, and to erase Black/African People form the respectful commentary of history.
Terrence, you must not have read the article. But, go ahead and vent if it makes you feel better.
I do not see how anything I have said here counts as “racist gibberish.” Nonetheless, if anything I have said here has come across as racist or offensive in any way, I most sincerely apologize. My intention in writing this article was merely to investigate a historical question about the ethnicity of a particular Roman emperor. I certainly do not have any intention to “erase black/African people” from history. In fact, I am currently working on an article about ancient African civilizations, which are, sadly, often neglected.
I agree with your wonderful comment. I like you are sick of these people for lying about history. I’m called black but I’m the complexion of oak which is far from black. Now they are trying to say black means dark-skinned. The truth is coming out and they can’t stop it. They failed in destroying all the coins, artifacts and coat of arms.
I am not lying about anything. If I have said anything that is factually inaccurate, it is a mistake, not a deliberate deception. You’re welcome to have your own opinion on whether or not Septimius Severus was black. My goal with this article is not to say definitively that Septimius Severus was not black, but rather to inform people about what his background was and what he looked like, so that they can make their own, informed decision on the matter. As I’ve said, my opinion is that he was certainly African and we would probably consider him as “person of color,” but that he probably wasn’t what most people would normally consider “black” and that, when people refer to him as simply a “black Roman emperor” without further clarification, this can be misleading.
I am certainly not trying to cover up black people’s history in any way. In fact, I published an article in June 2020 about ancient African civilizations in which I talk about some of the ways that racist white people have ignored and marginalized them from history. I am not a white supremacist; in fact, I am strongly opposed to white supremacy in all its forms. I do, however, believe in historical accuracy and I believe that claims about the past should be based on historical evidence.
It’s you blacks who are so desperate to have anybody famous in history you can worship as he is one of us to soothe you obviously damaged egos that you would appropriate anybody less than lily white to pretend he is black. His ancestry and the busts and statues of him clearly show he is white; half semitic white half European white. As for history we Whites invented it . Without our archeologists and historians you Blacks would not even know your own history.
It is not at all true that Black people would not know their own history without Europeans. There were people writing about historical subjects in Africa even in very ancient times. There are very ancient inscriptions from the Meroitic Empire in what is now Sudan written in the Meriotic script and from the Aksumite Empire in what is now Ethiopia written in Geʽez. There are more detailed African written sources once you get into the medieval period. There is also oral history, which tends to be less stable than written history, but which nonetheless can provide valuable historical information, especially concerning relatively recent events.
Stop with the poor black people nonsense. That is not what this article was about. The statements you make are the real tragedy of people in this country today. Everyone is trying to pick a fight when none is necessary. This is the fault of the superheated political environment we live in today. The article points out that the ideas of race were different 2000 years ago from those associated with culture in the United States today. Severus was not a Sub Saharan African. So what. I don’t think the author was doing anything more than critical analysis of some very poor scholarship.
What do you say about the Anglo Saxons that were so-called black people? I’d love to hear your views.
They say silence is gold because saying strange things might expose your ignorance and inexperience and ‘childishness’ , Mr Spencer.
Writing this article was a bad idea and lower than high school students level. Saying that someone’s brown skin tone doesn’t make him black is simply idiotic. Where does this your insecurity stem from? This is 2020 and people are not dumb to continue to believe that Jesus Christ our saviour was a blond hippy with blue eyes, nor the whitening of Pharaohs and paintings in the pyramids, or claims that whites discovered things/ideas they stole from Kemet (Egypt). Those ideas(scientific) looted when Egypt fell is still being studied today, translated and marketed as breakthrough inventions. Ancient Greek philosophers boasted of being graduates of universities in Kemet where most of their teachers were black.
I’m not necessarily saying that Septimius Severus couldn’t be considered black; what I am saying is that the claim that he was black requires a lot of careful qualification, because, like I said, I don’t think that someone of approximately similar skin tone to Gaddafi is what most people think of when they hear the words “black Roman emperor.” His mother’s ancestors were Italian and his father’s ancestors were probably part Phoenician and part Berber. I’ve also said multiple times that I think you could definitely consider him a person of color.
It’s true that there are many stories in the ancient sources about early Greek philosophers (such as Thales of Miletos, Pythagoras of Samos, and Solon of Athens) having supposedly studied in Egypt, but there were no “universities” in the modern sense anywhere in the ancient world, the stories don’t name any specific teachers, and most modern scholars generally believe that these stories are probably legends invented to show how educated the Greek philosophers in question were, since the Egyptians had a reputation among the ancient Greeks for being great teachers of philosophy and mysticism. It’s also worth noting that Egypt is just one of the many places Pythagoras is said to have studied; he’s also reported by various ancient sources to have studied with the Babylonians, with the Hebrews, and in India.
I wrote an article about whether the ancient Egyptians were black in April 2020. Given what you have said here, I don’t imagine you will particularly care for that article. Nonetheless, in it, I argue that there were definitely many people in ancient Egypt who we today would consider black, but that the majority of ancient Egyptians were—like the majority of modern Egyptians—probably neither exactly what most people today would consider white nor exactly what people today would consider black, but rather somewhere in between. In their art, the Egyptians regularly portrayed themselves as having darker skin than so-called “Asiatics” from the Levant, but lighter skin than the Nubians who lived to the south in what is now Sudan.
Maybe I’m splitting too many hairs here, but I’m the sort of person who likes to split hairs in general.
Interesting breakdown! I enjoyed reading it, even though we diverge on your analytical emphases in the description of blackness and whiteness. I do believe that “white” and “black” as descriptions of phenotypic expressions of human hues is a fairly recent social construct devise to further supremacist agenda. The ancients did not contend with race as much as they did with ethnocultural identity and origins the same way we do today, if they even obliged common definition of race that we seem to hold in modern society at all, we agree there.
Where we diverge is on the notion that based on said construct, Septimius Severus would not be described as black or brown even today – Perhaps we can agree that at the very least, he would be considered a person of color in much the same way, non-white Puerto-Ricans would. He was certainly not white! Anyway, I would entreat you to examine the works of scholars with contrarian accounts to Eurocentric conceptualizations of ancient history since much of today’s historiographic accounts of the ancient world have likely been repackaged through lenses that we cannot consider altogether unadulterated by modern racial constructs of the last half millennium.
It may intrigue you to examine contrarian interpretations of old evidence and new evidence juxtaposed to mainstream narratives about old-world histories of human origins and civilization. The evidence is the evidence, the interpretation of that evidence is not quite as self-evident, objective or agenda-free as many would have us believe – I think any serious scholar should examine contesting interpretations of the many evidences that have been proposed in opposition to mainstream consensuses on the histories of mainstream civilization. While it is easier to accept the status-quo, it is much more challenging but infinitely more satisfying explore counter-arguments to it – this either further affirms are confidence in what we think we know or exposes us to ground-breaking, earth-shuttering new knowledge that causes us to question what we think we know to be true based on what we’ve been taught or told.
We ought to disabuse ourselves of vested interests and at least embark on that quest for knowledge – to simply dismiss alternate view points as quack without careful examination of those interpretations and the bases on which they are made in contrast to the foundation of the accepted view is uncritical and shoddy scholarly work, if not bias-affirming and outright prejudiced (at least in the context of the racial historiography of the ancients, a word I use in a relativistic sense.)
Take a break or temporary hiatus from the works of David Hume and Franz Boas, and read more recent contrarian scholars like Ivan Van Sertima or Yosef Ben-Jochannan just to further reinforce what you already believe to be true about racial dynamics of the ancient world if not transform your understanding of it at all.
What about Severus himself attributing dark skin to be an ill omen? That is a direct physiological bias which is, by definition, a phenotypical bias.
Apologies, I think you’re approaching it the wrong way. I’ll give you an example of truth… I also think it will shed some light on all the other black groups of the ancient Era… Read this please …
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahia_Ben_Yahi_III
That’s like saying Mulan isn’t Asian, because most Asian Americans are from Japan, not China… Black is a skin color, he was talking about black as a social category defined by skin hue, not the various places in Africa you seem to have a need to specify with a magnifying glass. Do Americans not eat apples because most apples are not granny smith apples, hence “not what you think” when you think what apples are? The most simple, way to define black: a dark skin tone. You choose to go a step above that definition and pinpoint West African as the “standard American black”.
The pictures clearly paint him as having a noticeably dark color (darker than Gadaffi). Why so specific?
I find it disrespectful to say or imply that race don’t scientifically exist. Never hear that mess when that sell out Barrak Obama was in office. How convenient. Because a cat has kittens in an Oven that don’t make em Biscuits…(MALCOMN X).
Whether Severus was Black must be understood in the context raised by the first author advancing it. He looks just like my half-black nephew. I believe Severus was black, along blood-lines because his appearance does not eliminate the possibility. Yes, most Caribbean and American Blacks descended from West Africa but I would like to encourage everyone to read the old slave narratives like “The Autobiography of Nicholas Said” because he was a native of Bournou, in Eastern Soudan, in Central Africa and travelled extensively having been re-sold several times and even visited the settlement of Adelaide, on the Island of New Providence, in the then Colony of The Bahama Islands and he lists the various tribes from africa which he was able to identify as being liberated there. It is available free online: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/said/said.html
The point is trying to grasp at an y straw to turn him into a Black man is not going to work. In addition culturally he was Roman he had absolutely no Black African cultural connection. He ruled as a Roman emperor which was firmly rooted in a purely European history and culture end of story.
It is not true that Septimius Severus was “firmly rooted in a purely European history and culture.” He was born and raised in Leptis Magna, a city outside of Europe. Although Leptis Magna was under Roman rule at the time when he was alive, it would be entirely erroneous to think that the cultures that had thrived in the region before the Roman conquest simply ceased to exist. Septimius Severus’s own father was certainly of Punic ancestry and probably Amazigh ancestry as well. Septimius Severus’s native language was Punic, which is a non-European Semitic language, and, even after he became emperor, he is said to have spoken Latin with a Punic accent.
It’s true that the world Septimius Severus grew up in was heavily shaped by the Roman Empire and Roman culture, but the assertion that he was from a “purely European” cultural background is an absurd overstatement to say the least. Indeed, there’s really no such thing as a “pure” culture to begin with. All cultures are influenced by other cultures. No culture has ever existed in a state of “purity” or isolation.
Spenser , have you lived in North Africa? I have . 3 years in Tunisia in an area called Carthage Dermesh surr ounded by Punic and Roman ruins. The Byrsa hill was 500 metres from my house. Modern Tunisians are the descendents of the Berbers and Carthaginians and zi can tell you 100 % they are pale skinned and look nothing like black Africans. When I said purely it was a figure of speech . As for black Africans their tradition was mostly oral. It was Europeans who deciphered the hieroglyphs and Berber/Arabic( Ibn Battuta) and Europeans (modern and ancient)who wrote the history of the African continent not the locals. Anyway end of story I have said my piece. You must learn to stick to your arguments when you know you are correct and not bend or play eoke to the ignorants with a chip on their shoulders.Cheers.
AFRICA
I
GREECE (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS TRAINED IN KEMET, AFRICA)
I
ROMAN EMPIRE(COPIED EGYPT)
I
EUROPE LIVING IN CAVES AND FOREST GOT CIVILISED BY ROMAN EMPIRE AND GREECE
What do you mean Europeans “deciphered… Berber/Arabic”? Arabic is a living language with around 310 million native speakers and “Berber” is a whole family of languages, most of which are still spoken. Neither Arabic nor “Berber” ever needed to be “deciphered.”
It’s true that the most influential books about the history of Africa in modern times have been written by westerners, but that’s largely because Europeans brutally conquered, subjugated, and, in many cases, enslaved the Indigenous peoples of the continent, which kind of made it hard for them to write their own histories and have those histories be paid any attention to.
Leptis Magna had originally been a Carthaginian trading post ,later taken over by the Greeks and then the Roman. It was firmly anchored to European culture and civilization with some local Berber and Carthaginian influences to be sure but overwhelmingly Euopean nonetheless.
Chinese Coronavirus
your name is so wwwww
caracara is White children = Severus is a tanned white man.
I worked in Nigeria in the 1980’s. The people there called arabs and north africans “white men” Perhaps it would be a good idea to ask Berbers and North Africans if they consider themselves as black rather than have black people label them as such.
As regards celebrating “Black” history, I would have thought black people would have wished to distance themselves from an emperor who, when campaigning in northern Britain, told his soldiers: “Let no-one escape sheer destruction, no-one our hands, not even the babe in the womb of the mother, if it be male; let it nevertheless not escape sheer destruction.” and was involved in slavery.
I think that the reason why people are trying to claim Septimius Severus as a black Roman emperor has a lot less to do with his actual, specific personality or leadership and a lot more to do with a general desire for black leaders in ancient history. I’ve noticed that most people tend to be ignorant about the existence of actual ancient African civilizations and there remains a tendency to assume that all people from ancient history were white. As I said in the article, I do think you can call Septimius Severus a “person of color,” but I think it would be a real stretch to call him “black.”
Just because your a white man does not mean we will accept your lies, those days are over. What makes us upset is because we know you and your white supremacist counterparts have lied about history. Germany, England, and many parts of Europe was governed by so-called black royals and aristocracy. I know my own history goes back to the 13th century and I’m considered Black British Caribbean. You see when you’ve been lied to it’s very easy to find the truth. Just because we are black it does not mean we came from Africa the fact of the matter the slaves came from Israel and it is the biggest white supremacist cover-up in the history of mankind. But time will reveal all things. I’ve been to Morrocco and dined with the Berbers, they told me I am the way the original Berbers looked, they would NEVER have light-skinned white Moors or Berbers in their artwork, if you’ve been to Morrocco you know that.
Guinevere Jackson an interesting comment. Having just finished a book detailing the rules of every English/British monarch from the ancient Celts to Elizabeth II there wasn’t a single black ruler mentioned. Could you please clarify the names and years of rule of the black English rulers you reference?
You need glasses mate queen Charlotte marred to george the III 1822 queen of England and Ireland she was Portuguese royal with african descendents o and there was a african in the Russian royal house do you need more. Joker
Our queens great great great grandmother what a shock joe check it out
Queen Charlotte was German, directly descended from a branch of the Portuguese royal family, related to Margarita de Castro e Souza, a 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman nine generations removed, whose ancestry she traces from the 13th-century ruler Alfonso III and his lover Madragana, This lover is claimed to be a moor and like Severus is therefore claimed to be black. You have to go back 500 years to find her ancestor of possible African heritage.
If we go back far enough everyone is African, just some of us moved north and became a whiter shade of pale.
As for Severus he was a genocidal maniac, imperialist, slaver and racist; if you want to say he was a black genocidal maniac, imperialist, slaver and racist then do so and take whatever pride you can from it.
Stop taking drugs and go to North Africa. I lived 3 years in Tunisia and travelled extensively in Libya, Algeria and Morroco and I can confirm they light skinned and look a lot like southern europeans(Greeks, Spanish and Portuguese and Lebanese Syrians as well. Not black except for some migrants from soyth of the Sahara. But blacks have trouble dealing with reality and have a feeling of inferiority – which they shoudn’t have – which makes them invent alternative facts to boost their depleted egos.
Eric, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are behaving in an extremely racist manner.
First of all, there is no evidence that Guinevere has been “taking drugs.” She has said nothing about taking drugs; all she has said is that she is Black. You should not automatically assume that all Black people take drugs.
Second of all, it makes no sense for you to tell her to “go to North Africa,” since she literally just said that she has been to Morocco, which is in North Africa. She has already been there.
Third and finally, when you claim that “blacks have trouble dealing with reality and have a feeling of inferiority,” you are making broad overgeneralizations about the behaviors and personalities of all Black people, which is inherently a racist thing a to do.
You have the issue that the people of this region have changed ethnicity significantly since ancient times. The Arab invasion of 640s change this regions ethnicity a lot, so saying “Well look at Tunisia in the modern day” is a pointless observation.
If I recall correctly this region was under Turkish rule of a huge amount of time as well, again significantly changing the regions ethnicity.
I’ve read your article, and it was the pretty much the same insight into Euro thinking. So, my first question. Would you consider Colin Kaepernick the football player black? Since we knw hes been fervently fighting for black rights since hes of mixed heritage. Also, there are tons of others mixed individuals tht come to mind like Fredrick Douglas or Even Blake Griffin or President Obama who all have lighter skin tones, but African features, talent, and swag for lack of a better word rt now. Here’s the issue with white washing history it’s not factual. It’s to keep up an systematic agenda tht you may or may not be aware of just by the simple words you use. Like Kemet had no universities, which one of the biggest libraries of the time was burned down by Alexander. #3 Did you see the other bronze statue of Septimus Severus…not jus a head but the full bust was in bronze like he wanted it known he was black. # We know tht like stated by historians Race was not looked @ as it is today so why would he be scared of Ethopian when hes from Africa, usually where you are born and raised you like to go back to your home land. #4 Do you see his sons they look like distinctly different from what ppl of today would consider white as you put it.#5 The Kemetians or Greek named Egyptians well tell us thru written I stone text and other written works who they were. They tell you they come from the beginning of the Nile which is Tanzania and Uganda. Also, alot of the sciences we study today derive from the for this article, i.e. melanin. #5 We don’t bunbury our ancestors just to see what they are like bc we already know…Other ppl will do this bc they have no regard. Ancestors wont do it to their own ancestors. #6 The same ppl from the East of Africa are the same ppl in South, North, & West. The languages the cultures have already been linked. #7 The semantic ppl carry on their traditional life still to this day. And Egypt was given to them by the British as was Palestine to Jewish ppl. It’s all divi8…<<#8 Last but least just like Asians ppl know Asain ppl and white ppl know white ppl let us let you in on a lil secret color Black ppl know Black ppl when we are each other's presence as well…The source of Mankind knows all of our children even when they are belligerent.
I read the full article many of the comments. I think it’s profound. What you say is far from being racist. I wouldn’t know the connotations in an American context but I think it is actually helpful/empowering for us “black” people in Zimbabwe. We didn’t move from Africa so we can directly look back to our ancient civilizations. We don’t have to be told what the Zimbabwe bird is and we speak our own language. Colonization and subsequent events may have taken away part of our heritage but at least we have something to refer to.
Having experienced our culture and foreign cultures I am able to appreciate diversity without prejudice. Which is why your article doesn’t upset me, but rather informs me. I don’t need Septimius Severus to be black for me to know what I am capable of, especially if I can appreciate the “neglected Ancient African Civilizations” as you call them.
What I like most though is the idea that you prompt us to imagine a society without racism.
An interesting and I think fair and balanced article Spencer. You will always upset somebody in this subject matter but I applaud your bravery in attempting to discuss it at all. In fact I see your article as trying to prevent the inaccurate retelling of history. For the record I’ve a Masters in Classics and am completing a PhD now. I specialise in Punic history including Hannibal and Severus so know a little about the subject. Keep up the good work.
Thank you so much! I am always glad to hear that people appreciate my work!
I have noticed that my articles do often tend to upset people, which I think is rather unfortunate, since I am certainly not trying to upset people.
Spencer I agree, a very interesting and informative article. I find this subject fascinating. Questions like the colour of the Carthaginians, Roman and Greek views on ‘racism’ (I remember reading something on how you could you could be a white Greek and considered civilized, and a white Celt and considered barbarian so this was the Roman version of ‘racism’) and other such subjects. Its amazing how some people have interpreted your article to mean ‘Severus was White’ which isn’t the point at all. Anyway, very enjoyable read, will be hitting your African Civilizations’ article next!
Spencer you can’t spend your time worrying about some of the comments on here. The true racists are the ones who want to fabricate a narrative, no matter the facts. Your original analysis is factual. He was Libyan father Italian mother. Whatever you want to call it.
Would love to hear about the widespread destruction of coins and “coats of arms”. Not sure what that means. As for coins, you can find pictures of his coins throughout the internet. Almost all have a picture of him. As for coats of arms, maybe the author of those comments might want to do a little more research.
The author of this article
Has clearly not read any of the Accurately Researched Books by The Historical Sage Mr J A Rodgers such as
100 Amazing Facts About The Negro – published circa 1955 in his own plantation country.
Other Books by JA Rodgers include:
‘Nature Knows Colourline’
‘Worlds Great Men of Colour’
‘From Superman To Man’
‘Sex and Race Volumes 1&2’
‘Africa’ s Gift To America 🇺🇸
I suggest that creature and all the other lame brained limited educated white Americans gobbling up this revisionist clap trap like the lickspittles they are wake up to read some quality work from a Jamaican Author.
If its any comfort to you dyed in the brain wyte supremacists JA Rodgers himself was what we African People from Caribbean and The wider BLACK diaspora call a
‘high colour brother’
Fortunately by Higher power He knew he was from BLACK AFRICAN ORIGINAL HUE-MAN Stock
The content of his life works demonstrated this fact.
The article I am taking time to comment on is sadly from a
Revisionist writers putrid poisonous pen.
In any of your ‘Jim Crow Virus’ Infected States in 2020 JA Rodgers would likely be in line for :
-knee in neck while handcuffed =Dead
-7 Shots in The Back when unarmed = paralyzed
-20 shots while running away unarmed = dead then carefully handcuffed while definitely deceased
-Spithood Arrest, while handcuffed naked
-or battered and thrown from a bridge like Emmet Till in 1955.
The Question in this article shows the writer is
patently ‘under educated’ despite having possibly attended many schools of Euro – Centric Indoctrination
This pseudo writer
is clearly the spouter of cyclical caucazoid re-wyting of World His-Story
He needs to unlearn the Euro Neo Nazi Script
and then re-learn that the tangible records of hue-mans is OURSTORY
That even his pimpled pink behind stooping shares diluted DNA of Lake Turkana Woman From 🇰🇪 Kenya.
So He and All Earths People
STEM
From what he dismissively refers to as
‘Sub-Saharan Africa’.
What clearly terrifies he and his Ilk is that this is Where All we ‘Blacks’ Come from- sadly even his genetically blended self (albeit Eons ago)
I am 60+
I live in the UK
I Parents From Caribbean
I and I fully Bantu Black as is – and to look at-
Mum and Dad also (despite Mum’s Mulatto Dad)
I have written and self published an A5 sized school book on Lucious Septimius Severus in 1999
Title
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
BRITAINS FIRST BLACK EMPEROR
I completed this task in conjunction with
The Governing Body of St Saviours Primary School Walthamstow London E 17
I was inspired to write based on reading sections from many of JA Rodgers
detailed and extremely well researched books.
In the UK it is widely accepted by all the European Universities here That Septimius was an African.
Thid writer as a fool is falling into and wallowing in the pseudo science of ‘Race’
in his race to some shyte pitt where his best work is done.
I say to him go and read
‘Bedes Ecclesiastical History of Britain’
written in the 11th Century scribed in what’s known as
‘Mittle English’
Plus All readers of my angry rant are cordially invited to view any Podcast or Speech by a vety Talent Younger and Calmer Man Than me
His Name is
AKALA
&
Like
Brother BOB MARLEY
can inform you neo nazis in a form you may not reject like omr of My Grandfathers parents from different ‘races’
Yet All Very Comfortable in. They Brown from BLACK
Hue-man Skin
Plus Proud Pleased and Powerful in the awareness of thier
Black African Ancestry
I would love to see a copy of your book! How can I get hold of it?
As one of the commentators on here M Henry I take offence to your ‘lame brained limited educated white Americans’ comment. I’m British, not American
So I’m what modern north americans call “black,” unambiguously, and I understood and appreciated this article, although it seems a tad petty at times. I didn’t find it racist, in fact I think the author is trying to explain, again and again, that “race” is a cultural construct and that skin colour didn’t have much meaning back then (nor does it today to scientists who actually understand genetics). I also appreciate that the author points to other works that examine African history – we need more of that. Anyway, it seems clear that Severus was “brown” in modern terms, not white, so I see no reason to see this view as a “loss” to the community of colour. And, like other commenters have pointed out, it’s not like he was a particularly “good” person anyway – I see no reason to cling to any particular narrative about him (or any Emperor) at all. However, I deeply understand the pain, anger and exasperation fellow black people carry when it comes to the endless whitewashing and general lies that are heaped upon all of us from birth to death. It is not something that whites in a white culture will ever understand. It’s exhausting, deeply traumatic and damaging and we’ve had enough. So I can see why this article would feel like just another load of lies and whitewashing because it seems like our White Ruling Class is determined not to let blacks have anything whatsoever (not even to proclaim that they “matter” in any sense, for example). Maybe the author really didn’t need to focus so much on racial “accuracy” in this article, since he concedes that race is a construct anyway – why, then, is it necessary to nitpick about how black or not black he may have been? This is hardly the time to split hairs about race, especially as an argument against rumoured black leadership…it comes across like an echo of an abusive and rather callous obsession with correcting black people even as their world literally burns. Where is the crusade to correct, and accurately report, ACTUAL instances of black leadership, then? (again, I’m glad the author mentions another article, but it seems petty to bother with this one at all). So…on the one hand, I appreciate the article, but I also think it was kind of in bad taste, and I understand why it’s an infuriating find at the moment. Let’s see an article from this writer about a “white” leader who was not really white, at least, where he carefully nitpicks and dismantles the incorrect narratives surrounding an instance of White Power. I suspect we won’t see one, which, for many, is the problem.
Thank you for your honest feedback. I really appreciate it.
I originally wrote this article over a year ago in response to a question on Quora. I am a pedantic hair-splitter who is obsessed with historical accuracy and I am generally very poor at judging how what I write will affect other people’s feelings. When I first published this article, I was really having troubles understanding why so many people were getting so offended at me, since it didn’t seem to me like I had said anything particularly offensive.
I do think I am starting to understand things better now. I am not going to delete this article, but I do think that I would not write an article like this one from scratch today.
These days you need to have fortitude when you deal with historical reality and facts as easy access to the internet has emboldened all the trolls and extremists and idiots with an agenda to demean and destroy you with their stupidity , arrogance and lack of literacy and knowledge. Just read many of the insulting and hostile postings in answer to your article which was merely stating facts that conform to know and classical history without propaganda or distortion. This is a sign of then times when intelligent people have to ignore the politicized mentality which includes doxing, spewing venom , cancelling or maligning anybody who dare expose the truth with reason and logic and refuses to bend to the prevailing woke-leftist ideology. Do not be afraid of your opinions and do not apologise for them. Ignore the imbeciles as they only want to pull you down to their level. Be stout and keep writing and posting interesting stuff there are many cultured people who can appreciate and enjoy your work. Cheers.
If people were out there making a false claim that a leader commonly regarded to have been non white was actually white, people like the author here probably would be writing articles debunking the claim. As far as I know, though, there is no one out there making any claim, for example, that one of the Chinese emperors was white or that one the Aztec chieftains was white, etc etc.
No one should ever be expected to apologize for correcting an erroneous claim.
You call for this author to write an article about a white leader who was not really white but isn’t that exactly what this article is? Sure, it’s framed a bit differently and focused on the idea that Septimius Severus not being white doesn’t mean that he was what we would consider black in America today but my point is still that he was not what we would consider white today either and was not the stereotypical whitewashed Roman emperor. The article delivers what you have asked for and seeks to portray the accurate truth rather than fit history to what is socially acceptable.
Whilst I now live in the UK, my family originates from Morocco – my parents moved to the UK in the 60’s. I feel the point needs to be made here that my semetic (Arab) and Berber roots are being disrespected by the comments above insisting the Emperor was black. It is evident that he was brown skinned just like the people of North Africa. This is ‘blackwashing’, which is every bit as bad as whitewashing – the rest of us – the brown skinned fold – seem to be completely ignored. The Emperor was North African (aka brown like me and all other Arabs/Berbers), not black!
And this is how Great Britain held onto Empire for so damn long. Divide and rule. Instead of people of ALL colours coming together under the share yoke of subjugation, we allowed our differences to push us apart and hate each other so much that now a s**t load of us side with the very people who once held the whip hand and sold people like chattel then worked them to death.
And I am not including those who were indentured servants such as Indians who were sent all over the world after slavery was “officially” abolished.
Get a grip people, in the end it really doesn’t matter, and you know why? Racism still exists. Caste still exists. Religious intolerance still exists. And a load of other stuff I just can’t be asked to write down.
Heck, we still value pale skin over dark skin, and worse of all, we are still under the yoke of snowflake supremacy, only it is a tad more palatable than the old days, less lynchings, less slavery, and a whole heap of rhetoric that we have to listen to from politicians who think they have the answers.
This Emperor was not White at the end of the day, he was more than likely mixed race, did he call himself Black, Brown, Polka dotted, none of us will ever know but what we do know, he WAS NOT White, and that in itself is something to look at in astonishment and celebrate, because you sure as hell don’t see it all that often in the history books that most of us get to read throughout our lives.
Respect and roll on the insults! LOL
Appreciate the hairsplitting.
Keep it up.
People show up upset, wouldn’t worry about them too much.
Reading your Ancient Civilization we article next. Thanks!
Good well presented arguments. However, you seem to put huge effort into differentiating being African and being black in a peculiar way . For Example , Was Barack Obama Black ? Thats the level of argument you are making. That Serino Tondo painting does something that The sculptures cant really do is to Show Colour. Clearly he is depicted as being different in colour to his wife next to him . That I hope you not imagining it to be just a tan . If it waranted Painter to distinguish his appearance in such a colour knowing for example how he mocked an Ethiopian for having an omenious colour means it wasnt a mere casual representation. It is an Important representation of him and of serious significance why it exists like that.
Notice the Bust of African Mnenon has the nose Broken . Same as Sphinx . Western Europeans as you rightly pointed out redefined society relationship with colour in order to justify genocide slavery colonialisation Arpatheid . This goes together with stripping any historical context that humanises Africans especially of the darker south of Sahara complexion. Skin colour was recognised during Greek Roman, Biblical eras but the difference with western European 15th century type onwards is the dehumanisation element .
I reference above thoughts to explain that depicting an African Roman emperor without African features is not uncommon to hide the stigma associated with Black Dark Africanness. To A lot of Europeans Black Dark Africans have no say on world history . Its a gross Sad misrepresantation of the truth of World history . Homosapiens Started in Southern Africa , San people or East Africa Hadza. They didnt just all of a sudden just start one journey one tribe march from South Africa till they got to Present day Egypt then leave Africa to Populate the rest of the World . They would populate Africa first and spread generation to generation as children seek their own territories . You cant cross Sahara Desert without significant pressure forcing you to. Its an obvious fact that none of you white academics ever consider or mention in historic studies . Populations built up first in Africa until people came to Nile delta populated there then crossed to everywhere else . People dont just wake and start building Pyramids of that size and complexity. There is a lot of history not known but logic of human behaviour tells us that people dont migrate without a strong push . What colour are these people taking over the world . They are Black Dark Africa Colour but it is not as significant as fact that these are the Homo Sapiens . They are Black dark African colour of today . White is a very recent adaptation . Its unfortunate that the effort to Isolate the Black colour is bourne out of the dehumanisation race stigma and conciously or unconciously you are riding it. Any colour change happening in middle East in Asia its adaption . Its not different races mixing its one Homo Sapien morphing into its surroundings . You have white foxes in arctic region and in savanna they a straw colour . (I may seem like I digressed here but I didnt because its important for Readers to understand what is at the heart of him saying ” BLACK” . )
What you Authour miss is Severious is not a Western European Emperor , He is an African Roman Emperor . That is what Black historians are saying and it has been buried through these European looking sculptures until the Severino Tindo came to light . Black dark people were there in Rome in Libya in Italy in England . Severius could have been as Dark as a Mandingo because the Sculptures clearly hide his origin and depict him as all other Emperors were it not for the Severino Tindo
Dean, I think you’re working from an assumption that all African people are black and there exist “African features” common either to all black people or all African people. Furthermore how can you claim “What you Authour miss is Severious is not a Western European Emperor , He is an African Roman Emperor” when it is right there in the article: “Septimius Severus was certainly African, because he was born in Leptis Magna, a city on the African continent”
What the author is doing is refuting the idea that just because this emperor was African he must have been a member of what we call black today. It would appear that some black Americans have heard that a Roman emperor was from Africa and have jumped to conclusions without having any particular knowledge of history or geography. I think any arguments about Roman race as we understand it in our modern context are going to produce odd results as there is no equivalency between our prejudices and theirs.
Typical Eurocentric article with dishonest arguments. It seems no one is Black unless the supposedly almighty European scholar or historian says so. And by their criteria, no one is Black unless they are West African or quote ” subSaharan. “.. Enough with the BS.
James, I think this is more of an issue of present-day racial identity rather than an example of Eurocentric whitewashing of history. Your dissatisfaction with who defines “black” is central to the issue and I would even question what the definition of “black” is. It’s well understood in America that this label was created by non-slaves and given to slaves and their descendants in order to maintain a social distinction. I’m particularly thinking of the “one drop rule” and similar state laws that defined the limit of African ancestry a person could have and still be considered white.
To those Americans there was an obvious initial physical distinction between black and white, but the status of interracial children was not as clear without the imposition of rules plucked out of thin air. The issue of this arbitrary but legal classification of race persists today as we institute race-based policies and anti-discrimination laws. But without slavery and discrimination we would have no need for this concept of mostly binary racial identity.
The idea there is a cohesive group of “black” people throughout the world and throughout history is not, in my opinion, accurate.
If somebody living in America today sees a bit of themselves in a Libyan-born Roman Emperor then good for them. We’re all a part of the human race and ought to see our shared humanity reflected in all ancient civilizations.
Ever wondered why Mid Eastern people and mixed Race are same colour .
Ever wondered why Mid Eastern people and mixed Race are same colour . Black or white are the melanin content extremes .
I’m from Morocco and I can tell you we North Africans (Amazighs and Egyptians) have our own identities which have nothing to do with what’s happening across the Sahara. In fact (and this is something I really am not proud of) black people suffer from a lot of racism in our countries, this is to tell you that there is a clear separation in the minds of the people between North African and Sub-Saharan cultures/ethnic groups… I would kindly ask Sub-Saharan Africans to stop claiming certain glorious figures or periods of our history since the Arab invasions have dealt a great blow to the Amazighs in the Maghreb and the Copts in Egypt and our cultures are in great peril ! This being said, I would be happy to debate with anyone who might need convincing, as long as we keep politics out of it.
Aymane,
Happy Sunday IJN. I read your comment finding it vague and void of any substantial historical facts.
Your case is similar to that of Poland in central Europe(lived there several years). The country was invaded by Germans who took over many regions and settled there for many centuries. They only got back those territories in 1945 when Germans lost WW2. Europeans and Americans were able to deliver justice.
According to you, you invaded northern Africa and has been illegally occupying the region for so long , and adding insult to injury, been discriminating against the original inhabitants of the land , and have the audacity to tell them to shut up. Look in the mirror and see how ugly and nasty you are. Justice will be delivered one day in Africa.
Hello, my intention in my last message was not to enter in the particulars at length but to clarify the situation. Anyone who is honestly interested in the matter can grab serious books (which means any book written on the matter by someone else than an afrocentric maniac) and see the truth for what it is : the Sahara desert has been separating the continent for thousands of year, allowing different groups and cultures to develop north and south. We Amazighs are on the land that our forefathers have been occupying since the dawn of times. Please, tone down the rhetoric, there is no justice to be served. And comparing us to German Nazis ? Completely ridiculous.
I read up to the point where you put Richard Dawkins as an argument for the fact that not all people born in Africa are black. Unfortunately, you “forgot” to mention that his father was British, he was called up into the King’s African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. Forgetting about it is, frankly, funny and unworthy an academic. Clinton John Dawkins was British, independent from where he was stationed when his son was born.
Sadly, omitting such crucial facts makes your whole point totally untrustworthy and comes across as either manipulative, or badly researched.
I am well aware that Richard Dawkins’s parents were British. I did not “forget” that they came from Britain. On the contrary, that’s precisely my point. Just because someone was physically born on the African continent doesn’t automatically mean that they have African ancestry, nor does it automatically make them what most Americans would consider Black.
Now, as it happens, Septimius Severus probably did have some Amazigh ancestry on his father’s side, although his mother was Italian.
Mr. McDaniel,
I appreciate your posts, hard work and well thought out research,
as well as your calm replies to some possibly hurtful dialogue.
I just came across the above discourse today and have more questions than answers,
and I send my comment with a smile.
Where is good old scientific research when you need it?
Do we know where the old boy Septimius Severus is buried?
Maybe we could discreetly dig him up, grind up his teeth for precious dna, as they did for good old Richard III, or even all those mummified persons while in search of Nefertiri?
Could the score be settled once and for all?
But-
Would anyone be truly satisfied with the results and halt the intellectual fisticuffs?
I hate to say, but I rather doubt it.
Sometimes when we are so set in our thinking, even scientific evidence is ignored.
I like to keep an open mind for the facts.
Thank you for pursuing this route.
I am 99.8% European, (just so happens, not by choice)- according to my dna profile.
I have identical twin children whose father is also visibly caucasian of European heritage, born in North America, and yet–
our children have north African and Sub Saharan dna traces —
AND not in equal proportion, even though they are monozygotic.
Now HOW did that happen? Who knows and really –
who cares?
We are all very amused by the outcome of dna tests, and embrace the results.
No one here is fighting about it either.
(We all claim our very own continents at the table.)
My being “european” however has not stopped my being discriminated against
for being both Jewish and Rroma, which apparently I am neither.
Oh, the .2% is east Asian, just in case there is a question.
I have felt the whip of a security guard at a train station, waiting for a train while carrying my violin case, this in east Europe.
Thrice I have been spat at by men saying I was Jewish, this in Europe and Middle East.
but hey,
nasty people are everywhere to be found, and skin colour means nothing if they want to exhibit bigotry.
The question is how do we respond to it?
My answer is to show them a BETTER way if at all possible.
Best wishes to Everyone.
Seems to me race has to be connected to a belief system. If like me you believe in evolution then conceptually all people must come from one place which makes issues such as “race” an adaptive response to the surroundings in which a group has spent a certain amount of time. Therefore noone can come from spain, sweden china or australia “originally” as they have come there from somewhere else before.if you dont beeive in evolution then maybe some higher power designed races and put them in these places and made them different
wow
People can’t accept the fact that this man was of African origin. A black man who was a Roman Emperor. So they try to twist the truth. Also people have a very ignorant idea of what Africans supposed to look like. Dark skin, big noses kinky hair. There’s so many different groups of Africans. With different Features and hair, eyes and noses They are all Africans. And no you don’t have to be mixed to have straight hair and fine noses as some ignorant people say. North African is Africa. People need to stop acting like it’s in some other place. As for as the Atlantic slave trade. They were stealing people from everywhere they could in Africa. Not too many people know there was an East African slave trade, before the transatlantic slave trade. Here’s what you need to remember. Life began in Africa. She gave birth to every single what we call race today. Don’t buy into the lies. They try to brainwash you with. Yes I am black and very proud.
Lewontin, really? oh brother…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewontin%27s_Fallacy