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What a silly article. How could they possibly see themselves as white given such limited contact with other peoples? Their entire world was the Mediterranean. Y

• GavinMcG 8y ago
  Could you please substantiate those claims? One obvious counterexample is that Alexander the Great's empire reached northwest India. The idea that Greek society would be so isolated from the world – not coming into contact with travelers or traders or captives from beyond the Mediterranean – seems ridiculous to me.
  • ng12 8y ago
    But the overwhelming majority of Greeks would have never seen a Indian or Ethiopian person in their lifetime. Why would they define themselves based on the differences between them, especially superficial ones?
    • GavinMcG 8y ago
      Again: can you please substantiate that? Speculation isn't worth much. Your intuition is clearly that someone wouldn't define themselves along those lines, but intuitions are often wrong. And it's not obviously and unequivocally true that the overwhelming majority of Greeks would never see someone distinctly foreign looking.
      • ng12 8y ago
        How does one substantiate something that didn't happen? The Greeks made very little discussion of their own skin color and we have no archaeological or literary evidence of Ethiopian or Indian people actually living in Greece. Look at the stretches the author had to make when discussing skin color.
    • HarryHirsch 8y ago
      That's frankly rubbish. Chapter 2 of the Acts of the Apostles tells how the Apostles speak in tongues and Acts 2,9-10 lists the nations that were in Jerusalem for Shavuot: Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome. Given, this is early 1st century AD Jerusalem, not Greece, but classical Athens was no less cosmopolitan, and the gymnosophists were well attested in Alexander the Great's time.
      • ng12 8y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. The places listed are all parts of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and the Middle East which were largely white by some definition -- at least more-so than people from Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. > but classical Athens was no less cosmopolitan Now this is actually rubbish. The Roman Empire was orders of magnitude more diverse than Ancient Greece ever was. > the gymnosophists were well attested in Alexander the Great's time. Sure, they were -- as people who lived in India. There's a huge gulf between knowing of the existence of the outside world and developing modern conceptions of race. Here's an overly simple example: if I told you there was a race of three-legged Martians would you immediately start defining yourself by your bipedal nature? Probably not. What if a small number of Martians moved to your country and you saw one on the subway one time? Still, probably no. It's not until you're faced with a deeply-connected universal society that includes bipedal, tripedal, and quadrupedal humanoids that you might start thinking that way.
• Apocryphon 8y ago
  North Africa is right there. And they knew lands beyond: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aethiopia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aethiopia
  • ng12 8y ago
    North Africa was largely populated by people ethnically similar to the Greeks (Carthaginians et al). They knew about the existence of other races, sure. My point is there was nowhere near enough contact or integration with them for the Greeks to begin defining themselves in relation to them.
    • jaclaz 8y ago
      Well, the Romans ( a little later but not that much) had no issues with white vs. black, to the point that several empoerors were black: http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/rome.htm http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/rome.htm >Interestingly, at least ten Africans became Emperors of Rome. They are listed on the historical record as the following: Macrinu, Firmus, Emilianus, Septimius Serverus, Pescennius Niger, Aquilus Niger, Brutidius Niger, Q. Caecilus Niger, Novius Niger, and Trebius Niger who was a proconsul in Spain. Racism of the white vs. black kind came out much, much later.
      • ng12 8y ago
        There were many prominent Romans from North Africa meaning Carthage (now Algeria/Tunisia) and Egypt. Would you call those people black? I think there's a credible argument that, to Romans, they were not any more foreign-looking than Celts or Gauls.
        • Apocryphon 8y ago
          The Romans in Britannia thought of the Celts as pale headhunting painted savages. The definition of foreign-looking has shifted over the millennia.
      • Mediterraneo10 8y ago
• Grustaf 8y ago
  It's definitely a silly article, of course the Greeks didn't see themselves as "White", that's a modern concept. But that doesn't mean they saw the world as one big happy family of equals. They disdained almost everyone who wasn't Greek and had no problem at all with slavery. They also probably knew more about the world than the average American today. Greece was a bustling center of trade and the Greek peoples had numerous colonies. Not to mention, as someone did, Alexander the Great that conquered basically the entire Ancient world.