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At the time of ancient Rome, Turkic tribes lived somewhere around Mongolia. Gauls, Celts, Goths, and even Greeks were as white as any typical European is today,

At the time of ancient Rome, Turkic tribes lived somewhere around Mongolia. Gauls, Celts, Goths, and even Greeks were as white as any typical European is today, if not more white.

tovej 5y ago
Right, I'm wrong about the Turks. I meant to say Persians.
- dragandj 5y ago
  Ancient Rome and Persia were rival empires. How many Persians (other than usual small number of traders, mercenaries, slaves, etc.) lived in Rome? Even Persians are (largely) of Indo-European ancestry, migrating from the same steppes that filled Europe. Modern people of Iran consider themselves white, although they do typically have slightly darker skin than someone from Italy. It all boil down to what you consider white. If only Swedish people are white, then OK. If Hungarians are white (they typically are) then people of Iran are pretty much white, too. Anyway, race in humans is a pretty much artificial thing, but it is real in our culture nevertheless.
  - tovej 5y ago
    It depends, if you count Armenia as Persian, then all Persians in Armenia lived within the Roman empire for a century. Maybe count Armenians as their own group, that's a safer bet. I think you've hit upon something here with defining "white". If "white" is something that you can freely define to suit your purpose, then there's no point in having this discussion. If we define "white" to be something more specific, that would make it easier to pin down some facts. The bigger point is simply that Rome was ethnically diverse. After all, it was a huge empire, how could it not be?
    - dragandj 5y ago
      OK, what is "white"? Define it. I don't know about USA, but from european perspective, Armenians are as white as any other European nation. What is USA term for that? Caucasian? Ironically, Armenians are as close to THE Caucasus region as anyone can be :) Additionally, the few Armenians, that I know in person, would consider and insult to be called Persian (for political reasons I think). Yes, they were ethnically diverse. That does not mean that Roman senators were any other than a bunch of white male people, and that the majority of its citizens weren't what anyone from Europe today would consider "white" or "caucasian". Of course, lots of people with even totally dark skin lived in Rome and other regions, but not to the extent of "Roman senators have to be depicted as black".
      - tovej 5y ago
        Not the article, nor anyone in this thread so far has claimed that Roman senators were black. But now that you mention it, Septimius Severus was a dark-skinned Roman imperator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Tondo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Tondo
        dragandj 5y ago
        He was from Lybia, though. How dark is that? A funny anecdote from a book of my friend who backpacked Africa 15 years ago: A (dark skinned) Sudanese man was referring to some other Sudanese people from his village as "they are black". He himself also appeared black to my friend, but the man didn't consider himself black. It appears that (many?) people from North Africa are quite precise in differences of their spectrum of skin tone :)
        tovej 5y ago
        Libya is still white then? It feels like you're just moving the goal posts to include all people under "white". If the Roman empire had covered all of sub-saharan Africa I wonder if you would be arguing that they're really white after all. The whole point is that ancient peoples, and especially Romans, are not a homogeneous group of people. Whether they define themselves as white is not what you should be arguing about, because most definitions of "white people" includes a diverse set of ethnicities as well.
  - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
    > Even Persians are (largely) of Indo-European ancestry, migrating from the same steppes that filled Europe. It is worth emphasizing that "Indo-European" is a linguistic description, not a genetic one. The Indo-European languages spread through Europe, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent largely through the people already living there shifting from the language they had been speaking before to Indo-European, because Indo-European had higher social prestige. That Iranians today speak an Indo-European language does not mean that their ancestors all came down from the steppe. (In the last decades, work on historical DNA has identified certain genes that do appear to testify to some Indo-European population movements, but the impact of this is less than one might think for a discussion like this one.)
    - dragandj 5y ago
      Although Persians are on the edge of the Roman Empire, so I don't think this is related to this discussion too much, it depends on what you consider "white". When I google "iranians" and go to images, I see people that, if I must classify them into a "race", I can most closely classify them as white(ish). Here's an interesting (USA) article that illustrates this issue: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-north-africa-race/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-no... Are people from Teheran, for example, "white, black, Asian, American Indian, or Native Hawaiian" (copy-pasted the choices from the article)? In my opinion, American obsession with race is silly.
      - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
        Yes, definitely the "were they white or not?" discussion is silly. I just wanted to emphasize that whatever Iranians look like, you can't assume they represent a look that moved down from the steppe just because they speak an Indo-European language.

At the time of ancient Rome, Turkic tribes lived somewhere around Mongolia. Gauls, Celts, Goths, and even Greeks were as white as any typical European is today, if not more white.

tovej 5y ago

Right, I'm wrong about the Turks. I meant to say Persians.

dragandj 5y ago
Ancient Rome and Persia were rival empires. How many Persians (other than usual small number of traders, mercenaries, slaves, etc.) lived in Rome? Even Persians are (largely) of Indo-European ancestry, migrating from the same steppes that filled Europe. Modern people of Iran consider themselves white, although they do typically have slightly darker skin than someone from Italy. It all boil down to what you consider white. If only Swedish people are white, then OK. If Hungarians are white (they typically are) then people of Iran are pretty much white, too. Anyway, race in humans is a pretty much artificial thing, but it is real in our culture nevertheless.
- tovej 5y ago
  It depends, if you count Armenia as Persian, then all Persians in Armenia lived within the Roman empire for a century. Maybe count Armenians as their own group, that's a safer bet. I think you've hit upon something here with defining "white". If "white" is something that you can freely define to suit your purpose, then there's no point in having this discussion. If we define "white" to be something more specific, that would make it easier to pin down some facts. The bigger point is simply that Rome was ethnically diverse. After all, it was a huge empire, how could it not be?
  - dragandj 5y ago
    OK, what is "white"? Define it. I don't know about USA, but from european perspective, Armenians are as white as any other European nation. What is USA term for that? Caucasian? Ironically, Armenians are as close to THE Caucasus region as anyone can be :) Additionally, the few Armenians, that I know in person, would consider and insult to be called Persian (for political reasons I think). Yes, they were ethnically diverse. That does not mean that Roman senators were any other than a bunch of white male people, and that the majority of its citizens weren't what anyone from Europe today would consider "white" or "caucasian". Of course, lots of people with even totally dark skin lived in Rome and other regions, but not to the extent of "Roman senators have to be depicted as black".
    - tovej 5y ago
      Not the article, nor anyone in this thread so far has claimed that Roman senators were black. But now that you mention it, Septimius Severus was a dark-skinned Roman imperator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Tondo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Tondo
      - dragandj 5y ago
        He was from Lybia, though. How dark is that? A funny anecdote from a book of my friend who backpacked Africa 15 years ago: A (dark skinned) Sudanese man was referring to some other Sudanese people from his village as "they are black". He himself also appeared black to my friend, but the man didn't consider himself black. It appears that (many?) people from North Africa are quite precise in differences of their spectrum of skin tone :)
        tovej 5y ago
        Libya is still white then? It feels like you're just moving the goal posts to include all people under "white". If the Roman empire had covered all of sub-saharan Africa I wonder if you would be arguing that they're really white after all. The whole point is that ancient peoples, and especially Romans, are not a homogeneous group of people. Whether they define themselves as white is not what you should be arguing about, because most definitions of "white people" includes a diverse set of ethnicities as well.
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  > Even Persians are (largely) of Indo-European ancestry, migrating from the same steppes that filled Europe. It is worth emphasizing that "Indo-European" is a linguistic description, not a genetic one. The Indo-European languages spread through Europe, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent largely through the people already living there shifting from the language they had been speaking before to Indo-European, because Indo-European had higher social prestige. That Iranians today speak an Indo-European language does not mean that their ancestors all came down from the steppe. (In the last decades, work on historical DNA has identified certain genes that do appear to testify to some Indo-European population movements, but the impact of this is less than one might think for a discussion like this one.)
  - dragandj 5y ago
    Although Persians are on the edge of the Roman Empire, so I don't think this is related to this discussion too much, it depends on what you consider "white". When I google "iranians" and go to images, I see people that, if I must classify them into a "race", I can most closely classify them as white(ish). Here's an interesting (USA) article that illustrates this issue: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-north-africa-race/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-no... Are people from Teheran, for example, "white, black, Asian, American Indian, or Native Hawaiian" (copy-pasted the choices from the article)? In my opinion, American obsession with race is silly.
    - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
      Yes, definitely the "were they white or not?" discussion is silly. I just wanted to emphasize that whatever Iranians look like, you can't assume they represent a look that moved down from the steppe just because they speak an Indo-European language.