4 ms·
Lots of Romans were born in Africa, Rome conquered North Africa towards the end of the republic era.
by AmericanChopper 2y ago
Lots of Romans were born in Africa, Rome conquered North Africa towards the end of the republic era.
- hot_gril 2y agoYeah but it also says "Macrinus was a Moor by birth."
- AmericanChopper 2y agoMacrinus was descended from Berbers, who generally consider themselves to be white. Moor is what christians called Muslim North Africans, a concept that was neither an ethnicity, nor in existence at the time of Macrinus' birth.
- hot_gril 2y agoMoor is accurate here because Macrinus was born in Mauretania. No relation to the much later "Moors" of Muslim North Africa, or to the modern nation of Mauritania. I don't know what the Mauri looked like, but probably not like Italians, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had dark skin. The same website thinks that emperor looked like this: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/13005/macrinus-facial-reconstruction/ https://www.worldhistory.org/image/13005/macrinus-facial-rec... and if so, Denzel Washington's portrayal looks pretty good https://i0.wp.com/www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/g2-denzel2.jpg?fit=990%2C557&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07... This doesn't look like the Netflix African Cleopatra situation. She was Greek IRL, which is actually interesting for anyone who didn't know about the Ptolemaic dynasty, and it's relevant because even today the Coptic minority in Egypt is (sorta) Greek.
- AmericanChopper 2y agoThe black cleopatra was a historically accurate recreation as well (according to the people that made the show that is). Amazighs Algerians are an ethnic group that exists today, you can google them yourself to see how close they look to Denzel Washington.
- hot_gril 2y agoThe website I linked wasn't the creator of the show. Modern Berbers are post Arab Conquests, so I wouldn't expect them to look similar to ancient Mauri.