Were the Ancient Greeks and Romans White?

In this episode I am joined by Spencer McDaniel from Tales of Times Forgotten on a controversial episode that revolves around race, ethnicity and the ancient world.
Most people assume that everyone who lived in ancient Greece and Rome was white. This is a notion that has been continually reinforced through modern films and television shows. This is especially obvious in the egregiously historically inaccurate film 300, which portrays all the Greek characters as white and all the Persian characters as people of color. How accurate is this idea really, though? Were the Greeks and Romans really white? What does “whiteness” actually mean anyway?
I won’t deny that the majority of people who lived in Greece and Italy in ancient times would probably be considered white by most Americans if they were alive today. Nonetheless, the ancient Greeks and Romans certainly did not think of themselves as white and modern Greeks and Italians haven’t always been considered white either.
Furthermore, there were undoubtedly people whom we would consider Brown and Black present in ancient Greece and Rome from a very early date. These people almost certainly included famous ancient philosophers, writers, theologians, and even Roman emperors. In fact, people whom we would consider people of color probably made up a significant proportion of the total population of the Roman Empire, if not the majority.
Description above was taken from the original article.
To support our guest, check out these links below!
Website : talesoftimesforgotten.com/
Original article titled "Were the Ancient Greeks and Romans White?"
talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/09/30/were-the-ancient-greeks-and-romans-white/
What Do Conservatives Really Mean When They Talk about “Western Civilization”?
talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/23/what-do-conservatives-really-mean-when-they-talk-about-western-civilization/
The Debate about Classics Isn’t What You Probably Think It Is
talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/02/26/the-debate-about-classics-isnt-what-you-probably-think-it-is/
Did Pythagoras Study Philosophy in Egypt?
talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/02/26/the-debate-about-classics-isnt-what-you-probably-think-it-is/

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

To my dear subscribers, thank you all. You have my love and appreciation. Support OUR GUEST in the links above in the video description! My latest history merch! Sea Peoples meet Late Bronze Age humor! I thought this was pretty amusing. teespring.com/new-sea-peoples-coffee-mug?pid=658&cid=102908 Support the channel below! Celebrate the birthplace of civilization and get our Sumerian Shirt | Hoodie | Coffee Mug today! CLOTHES: teespring.com/Sumerian-Clothing?pid=212&cid=5818 COFFEE MUGS: teespring.com/sumerian-coffee-mug?pid=658&cid=102908 Check out our new store! teespring.com/stores/the-history-shop Get your Sea Peoples | Late Bronze Age Merch below! Mugs: teespring.com/new-sea-peoples-mediterranean?pid=658&cid=102950 Hoodies | Shirts | Tank Tops: teespring.com/get-sea-peoples-mediterranean?pid=212&cid=5819 Get your Hittite Merch below! Mugs: teespring.com/HittiteEmpireMug?pid=658&cid=102950&sid=front Shirts | Tank Tops | Hoodies: teespring.com/hittite-empire-shirt?pid=2&cid=2397 Trojan War Merch Below! Mugs: teespring.com/trojan-war-coffee-mug?pid=658&cid=102950 Tank Tops | Shirts | Hoodies: teespring.com/TrojanWarShirt?pid=2&cid=2397 To support the channel, become a Patron and make history matter! Patreon: www.patreon.com/The_Study_of_Antiquity_and_the_Middle_Ages Donate directly to PayPal: paypal.me/NickBarksdale Enjoy history merchandise? Check out affiliate link to SPQR Emporium! spqr-emporium.com?aff=3 *Disclaimer, the link above is an affiliate link which means we will earn a generous commission from your magnificent purchase, just another way to help out the channel! Join our community! Facebook Page: facebook.com/THESTUDYOFANTIQUITYANDTHEMIDDLEAGES/ Twitter: twitter.com/NickBarksdale Instagram: instagram.com/study_of_antiquity_middle_ages/ Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/164050034145170/

[@joekennedy5110]

thanks for the content dude

[@dadsonworldwide3238]

See im confused by what is white ir black because others have really wild defintions lol By some standards im black irish scottish Germainic American. Lol

[@julesknight1511]

I love your channel Nick! However, would really like to see more dealing with actual history and less with modern perspectives of ethnicity and race (that were not even applicable then) or be repeatedly concerned about whether one civilization or culture was white or black or whatever. I've been a history aficionado my entire life and it is never been a concern of mine whether or not the Egyptians were white or the Greeks were brown since it was clear they never even would have had those definitions of themselves in those times

[@joekennedy5110]

@@dadsonworldwide3238 we are all hybrids

[@dadsonworldwide3238]

@@joekennedy5110 yup. I just get a laugh out some especially those black Hebrew they got some funny standards 🤣

[@Utsubu]

The majority of them looked southern Euro. Why is this even debated?

[@lyricofwise6894]

Southern Europeans during their time... are actually more ethnically related to the middle east east mediterranean (And obviously culturally as well i.e. the bulk of the roman empire, as every romaboo knows, was the ERE), during antiquity that is. than to the rest of Europe, Europe was considered uncivilized barbarian, until they civilized it and civilized the barbarians of Germania.

[@kinidiosodlosios6892]

@@lyricofwise6894 most of them were natives nothing to do with middle east clueless

[@lyricofwise6894]

@@kinidiosodlosios6892 LOL just goes to show how much you dont even know the great history of Rome and Greece. Cope more barbarian of Germania. Back then during Antiquity, Europe was FAR more ethnically segregated as compared to today, even during late antiquity. Southern Europeans were a completely different people from the Sub-Alps Europeans (mostly Yamnaya). Tell me, what are the DNA Profiles of most on the Italian and Greek peninsula during Iron age and that of Antiquity? What about the Bronze Age, in which a group called the Yamnaya failed to leave genetic legacy onto Southern Europe (and only left a cultural legacy of a language family) to last past the Bronze Age? What about the Neolithic (or perhaps Mesolithic?)? Ya. Exactly, clueless.

[@alexandrakaiafa1248]

They were checkered: green and pink during winter and magenda and ultra marine during summer. Everybody knows that.

[@katia5165]

χαχαχαχα

[@Zeyede_Seyum]

ixixixixixi

[@mpquestionbeat8327]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@beholdenages]

Hahahahaha 😂

[@tsiaa6790]

finally someone that knows real history!

[@rocketraccoon1976]

No, they were all Chinese.

[@edr.3229]

LMAO!!!🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

[@johnwilson1549]

now thats a good one😅😂😂 👍🇬🇧

[@theguywhoasked5591]

I can’t wait for the video, “Were the Zulu’s black?” Edit: Damn, looks like I’ll never get that video now. In all seriousness, rest in peace Nick. Such a tragic loss at such an incredibly young age. 🙏🏻

[@blendorthaqi3186]

No idiot they were pink

[@gideonros2705]

Were the Zulu Chinese?😂🤣

[@Runitup84]

@Etruscans civilization amen

[@sklavenitis9073]

@Etruscans civilization I'm greek and greeks where never black. Nor did we ever look at skin color as defining a man. Anyone who says so is racist. If your a northern European saying this because our skin is olive colored, your racist. If your a black man spreading these lies to try and promote some kind of black supremacy your a racist. Knock it off.

[@gideonros2705]

@Etruscans civilization Yes, white supremacist can go back in time and alter history so that now when archeologist unearth Minoan building structures the frescoes are all covered with white people. 😂😂😂 When you have no historical achievement as a group the easiest thing is to claim someone else's heritage.

[@DarkSlayer010]

The fact that we have to make videos like this, shows the sorry state of our society, and it’s obsession with race and colour.

[@DarkSlayer010]

@Deniz Metin T. indeed.

[@Ruairitrick]

No one forces this person to make these videos. He consistently makes videos about race because he's aware it's good for clicks.

[@huskernation1973]

@@Ruairitrick it worked on you🤣

[@collinsjeri07]

Some people are simply interested in genealogy. Racism is not an issue. It's a fascinating part of ancient history. Many people are interested in discovering their roots. Again, not racism, simply interesting facts to know or understand.

[@giannarosize]

@@collinsjeri07 some people can you know... Look at the people who live in this countries and deside themselves, the correct question would be, if they consider themselves white or their perspective about race

[@thecelt471]

Yes they were white.

[@christopherkrol7452]

They still are, just rebranded for political purposes 🙄 🤣

[@allmachtsdaggl5109]

"African" meant from the colony of Africa, wich was the vicinity of Carthage, nothing more. In that region lived a lot of people from the levant. Furthermore all of the Mediteranian was colonized by Greeks, Italians or Phoenicians to the extend what "Colony" meant back then.

[@darktyrannosaurus22]

Black peoples from beyond the Sahara were called Ethiopians during the Greek and Roman periods.

[@allmachtsdaggl5109]

@@darktyrannosaurus22 that or Nubians in Egyptian texts

[@lovinmclovin5290]

The person being interviewed is obviously WOKE and wants to promote her racist agenda totally ignoring the fact that Northern Africa was mostly Levantine, Kemerovo and Greek.

[@rickhunter1317]

@@lovinmclovin5290 What was their language and where did it originate from?

[@lovinmclovin5290]

@@rickhunter1317 who are you talking about? The Levantine, Greeks and Kemetic people? - Levantine (Carthaginian, so now Lybia) spoke a Semitic language, so related to Jews, Arabs, Sumerians, Babylonians (none black) - Egypt spoke an Afro-Asiatic language (related to Semitic from Arabs, Israel, Levant) - Greeks used Greek. So all the languages spoken back then and now (mostly Arabic) are not related to Black people. That's why Egyptians or Lybians are Africans (bit not black) and they call black people Sub Saharan Africans 😳 In other words, this WOKE video is selling us total WOKE bullshit, faking history. This is the same lady who claims Cleopatra was Black, when in fact she was white (yes surprised? She was white, wasn't even Egyptian, she was Greek, her name was Greek too, and she was the only one in her family who could speak Egyptian too according to historians... Also she loved in Egypt's capital called Alexandria, yes the name of Alexander the Great, not a black African either, but Greek / Macedonian 🤣)

[@dina113east]

I am sorry to hear that Nick Barksdale passed away in early June. Sad news. He was 30 years old. Condolences to his Wife and Family.

[@karmafocus2007]

😢

[@Kioki1-x8p]

His channel is still active though? Also what type of infection did he have?

[@dina113east]

I read that he had a sepsis infection in his heart. @@Kioki1-x8p

[@jordancarpenter4093]

In the past the Anglosaxon people were considered inferior barbarians by the tanned Mediterranean type: the Romans and Arabian people who gave them everything to the pale people : Algebra, trigonometry, arts,medicine,Alphabet etc

[@TimtheEnchanter25]

The "pale" people went to the moon. The "pale" people didn't need civilization. They were strong and adapted enough to their environment that they didn't have to live in artificial zoos such as the cities. They lived close to nature and as nature intended. As "barbarians." They were smart and tough. Just because they didn't live in zoos doesn't mean they had no tech or ideas. Chain mail armor for example is a Celtic invention that the Romans adapted. Maybe the tanned people needed the easy living of a civilization because they weren't strong enough to live as nature intended? If you're a cripple and you invent a wheel chair, that's resourceful. But if you're not a cripple and thus don't invent a wheelchairs that doesn't make you 1nf3ri0r. You just don't need the thing. Same goes for civilization. Europeans didn't need civilization. Perhaps the tans did.

[@TimtheEnchanter25]

You see, the cold and harsh climate of the north strongly selects for toughness, thoughtfulness, intelligence, strength, discipline, and creativeness. No wonder the Europeans managed to dominate.

[@steviewonder417]

Saxon = Saka = Scythian: Ancient Romans and Greeks revered these people as the most civilized and noble. Cope harder.

[@phillipjordan1010]

Northern white europeans were a very strong and intelligent people until Christianity was forced upon them. Then they were ruined. Even til this day

[@alexdragoon74]

Roman NEVER revered others people, only themselves! When Saxon pitted theyr face ed go make shit around the trees, roman make street and monuments!

[@gioseanuandrei5489]

They were Europeans. Are Europeans white?

[@danbeaulieu2130]

The Irish became white in the 1980s.

[@sklavenitis9073]

@@danbeaulieu2130 I think alot of Irish Americans have forgotten this by the way I hear them speak about race.

[@giannis_toupolemou]

No they were and are mediterranean. Mediterraneans are described as "olive skinned" with "dark hair". So yeah, they should be white jn todays standard huh?

[@sklavenitis9073]

@@giannis_toupolemou You don't seem to understand that there is this thing call dna testing now. Its impossible for you Arabs and Turks to lie about this anymore. Testing has been done on 3700 year old Greek DNA and it has been found to be related western and northern European DNA. NOT Arab, Not African, and Definitely not Ottoman.

[@giannis_toupolemou]

@@sklavenitis9073 im not arab lmao, im just saying accept that ancient greeks were'nt what youd consider "white" today. There's no way. Same reason mediterraneans don't claim the nordic gods and culture.

[@Mimix476]

“African” didn’t have the meaning it has today. That’s why Ethiopians were Ethiopians and not Africans.

[@tack9571]

@scsyc bxcvbx Bullshit. Italians have a 60% genetic similarities with Romans, and Greeks have 80%

[@tack9571]

@scsyc bxcvbx No and neither do modern Greeks, because that's a 2balkan4you meme. Memes don't constitute reality.

[@tack9571]

@scsyc bxcvbx Ffs you're a troll

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

on that note, those Ethiopian stone churches are interesting. Familiar design that makes ppl uncomfortable

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

@scsyc bxcvbx good for you. I suggest googling them tho; if you haven't seen them, they're not what you expect. Quite interesting ancient buildings.

[@BlackadderFunk]

I'm a Greek and I've always found this obsession (mainly from Americans) around whether Greeks are white or not somewhat bizarre, and the whole notion kind of forced on us. I've never felt part of a "white" club and have always felt like we are culturally distinct from "white" people regardless of our skin tone which, for a Greek person, has never been a defining factor around whether a person is Greek or not.

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

Skincolorism as a race is dipshit concept. It originated with the Arabs who introduced racializing skin as by race to western Europe via Al-Andalusia with Arabs and western Europeans racializing skin immaturely. When race was more just a local regional people of similar culture and nature and nurture and features. And common ancestry and values. Not continent spanning "white" or "black" race. With racializing skin being inconsistent as brown and olive people still getting divided into multiple races despite same skintones. Saying it's a race because of continent or skin is a bullshit concept Arabs and western Europeans should never have invented.

[@CDRNY25]

@@noahtylerpritchett2682 Arabs invented skin colorism? Provide sources

[@AlbertManiscalco]

As a Sicilian American i feel this even more acutely. I can thank that prick Tarantino for further muddying the water with his racist and exploitative films

[@fernandonp2534]

Leave this problems with the races to the protestants. This is not our problem.

[@brawndothethirstmutilator9848]

It’s a made up category that even in America the definition has changed over time. It’s all B.S. and doesn’t actually exist.

[@snail1720]

Of course they faced discrimination but Greeks and Italians drank from the "white" water fountains during segregation and went to white schools. Europeans are considered white since they all share common ancestors. Neolithic, hunter-gatherers, Caucuses, Steppe.... all Europeans share these ancestors but in different ratios.

[@karlmarx1730]

Many people outside of europe also share those ancestry. You assumption doesn't make sense.

[@ajmerthethy6724]

Mixed race.

[@Dragonette666]

in the 20th century , yes , but in the 19th century , no.... there were plenty of people who would be "white" now who weren't considered white in the 1800s. Basically back then it was strictly WASP people that were white. Celtics, Slavics, Mediterraneans need not apply.

[@percymiller8775]

Many Italians where descriminated in the usa

[@jordancarpenter4093]

@@ajmerthethy6724 is only one race: the human !!

[@Blue-jd8jf]

They were olive skinned/brown southern Europeans Mediterranean

[@freckleheckler6311]

No they weren’t. That dark they were not. That’s absurd

[@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45]

@@freckleheckler6311 Yes, they were! They were even darker than modern southern europeans (they had dark skin)! See "The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations" in cell_dot_com.

[@giannis_toupolemou]

Love how you lead with european and then mediterranean... tsk tsk sounds like you dint even believe your shit. If you thunk Greeks and Romans are white, then Indians and Arabs today shoud be considered white. Mediterreneans have so many physical and cultural similarities with Indians

[@AnnRen-nh4ur]

@Me Myself do you get paid to spread malicious propaganda

[@Jondoe297..]

@@giannis_toupolemouno they don’t 😂

[@Liethen]

This video asks if Greeks and Romans were white. You then list off non-Greek and non-ethnically Roman people from the Mediterranean. That has no baring on the ethnicity of the average Greek or Roman. By the way middle easterners and North Africans, even the really tan ones, are still classified as white by the USA census, and at the very least are closely related on a genetic level. After all 1/3rd of European dna came from the Middle East.

[@tarosskozlov8791]

My dad was born in Kiev Ukraine and knew many Balkan/Slavic/Southern Euros who say there Caucasian

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

@@tarosskozlov8791 well, obviously. Slavs are as Caucasian as one can be haha. I wasn't aware anyone was doubting that

[@reportedstolen3603]

@@Yarblocosifilitico you know Caucasian actually encompasses Africans and Mediterranean people. The man who classified people into negro, mongoloid, etc Blumenbach I believe created the term. Some Slavs have considered Irish and Germans as Caucasian opposed to themselves.

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

@@reportedstolen3603 I didn't know. Seems absurd to me there's theories for everything. Anyway, bones don't lie. Skin can be more tanned or not, but the bone structure (skull mostly) will tell you who is Caucasian or not.

[@reportedstolen3603]

@@Yarblocosifilitico thats the thing they classified by cranial structure. regardless, He was the one who created the term, analyzed and considered some africans and mediterraneans as Cauc.

[@aaronmckay1711]

So the short answer is yes they were predominantly white. Longer answer is they were quite diverse.

[@sheerluckholmes7720]

😂 ...🎯

[@robertfluxx]

the mediterranean tan isn't what americans call white .__.

[@Viodoxz]

Yes. Next question

[@al1665]

Why does Harvard discriminate Asians?

[@Viodoxz]

@@al1665 ahhhahah what does that have to do with Greeks and Romans,?

[@Zeyede_Seyum]

@@al1665 It doesn't they're just too smart.

[@hollymedici2936]

well when my grandparents were not considered white enough...

[@TVaz7777]

It's not that simple. White is a concept created in the US. Caucasians are not the same thing. There are many ethnicities within the Caucasian race and US stupidly use this "white" term usually to refer to those with Nordic and Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

[@kilipaki87oritahiti]

Lol if you mean literally yes. Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean people, even North Africans are all white. It’s mostly Scandinavians that are famous for being blonde, and having blue eyes. This is not synonymous with being white, as most people believe...

[@afrikash]

80% of north africans carry a haplogroups related to the horn africa and speak a language from family that also began in the horn, the green sahara shows the original population as black and ancient dna from tarofalt show e1b1b1 and lacked the gene causing pale skin, phenotypically as the african horn. Neither North Africa or middle east was white, but darkskinned people that eventually depigmented by mixing. North Europe was civilized by darker south just accept reality

[@Texasmade74]

@@afrikash wrong

[@vladimirvaldimirov3065]

@@afrikash All European and Asian people carry haplogroups linked to North Africa and the Horn of Africa because that is from where the Homo Sapiens came into Eurasia.

[@giannarosize]

What i know is that everyone was obsessed with us to get called white now that we are people don't want us to be, like if a the title of being white or not caries different history with it, way i see it skin colour have become like football teams today, everyone is obsessed with it, Greeks and Italians trade and and interacted with people from all around, and have a sertain culture and history, skin colour won't change that, it's not like if we say we are white that means Anglos let's say can claim the history as part of theirs

[@shylock5477]

@@giannarosize 😂😂😂

[@fiore7939]

Long story short. Yes, they were white, Caucasian, to be precise, with a little variety here and there, but mostly white.

[@nguyenhieu6731]

Jesu were White 😂

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

Yes, but to ancient Romans “Africa” was a province on the shore of the Mediterranean. They didn’t use the term like we we use it today, generally meaning sub-Saharan Africa, when referring to peoples. I think the majority of people living in areas controlled by the ancient Roman or Greek Empires would be considered white today. At least, I consider North Africans, Arabs, Israelis, Egyptians, Syrians, Middle Easterners/Persians, and most South Asians, etc. to be caucasian/white, like most Ancient Europeans. Of course, there would be an unknown percentage of black (sub-Saharan) Africans, South and Central Asians present, too.

[@candicecantoo92]

Yes, look at the ancient Egyptian mummies as well as those found along the silk road: red & blonde hair, caucasian features. These were the ancient peoples... of the Middle East, North Africa & India/Asia, "white" people were much more prolific at that time & numbers have consistently dropped worldwide through concentrated efforts of the controllers. This is why they want the world to believe that there were no "white" people in these lands, however, unfortunately for them... the facts say differently. (Robert Sepehr channel anthropologist.)

[@Mr02k]

@@candicecantoo92 wtf

[@catocall7323]

Also, the entirety of the levant and what is now turkey were much less Arab in antiquity then they are now. During antiquity these lands were settled predominantly by Indo-Europeans with a few Semitic groups like the Jews in the mix.

[@Mr02k]

@@catocall7323 Turkey is not arabic, and when it comes to the Levant, the process or arabization was cultural, the arab conquerers were a small elite and arabia had, has it has now, very few people comparing to the surounding areas. Also, the Kurds are indo-european. I think you're making very confused statements and mixing language with genetics and an overall ignorance of the region's history.

[@steviewonder417]

@@Mr02k how do you not know this?

[@somewhereintheworld4325]

Currently there are three human races - woke, covidians and normal people.

[@joshaklese4969]

STUNNING AND BRAVE

[@dimtsk838]

My humble opinion is that the American definition of race is just stupid. The colour of the skin becomes darker in Europe as you go from north to south. Warmer weather, darker skin, as simple as that. I suggest we redefine race according to the colour of our eyes 😂

[@TheJodolivia]

humble and clever.

[@als3022]

So you agree the Mediterranean is technically it's own group.

[@giannarosize]

@@als3022 i think anyone could see their is major difference between let's say a Italian and a Greek this a German or a Celt, especially in the south parts of those countries that are more intact from the north populations, there were even racist movements from the both parts of Europe who were claiming they are the "better race", check out what Mediterranism is for example, Greeks and Italians before ww2 they were not considered white in America (see the burning of Greek town by kkk)

[@giannarosize]

@@als3022 people here were making the distinguish way before all this race bs circus, but here we debating if Mediterranea is it's own group of not, like if it's going to make any difference

[@giannarosize]

@@als3022 history and culture are far more important factors than a difference in melanin and facial characteristics

[@dinos9607]

Well, there are software packages that turn artwork into photo-realistic faces. The ancient Greek and Roman busts turn out to give faces that you would see in Athens and Rome today. What a surprise! LOL!

[@azurephoenix9546]

well sure. they're as ethnically mixed now as they ever were.

[@dinos9607]

@@azurephoenix9546 that is something very relative

[@randomstuff1315]

@@azurephoenix9546 The ancient and modern Greeks are actually less mixed than Germans when it comes to ancient Hunter Gatherers

[@esti-od1mz]

@@azurephoenix9546 didn't the Huns married germanic women, my friend?

[@azurephoenix9546]

@@esti-od1mz I'm sure the huns "married" many women in many countries, but it was the Germans who were referred to as "the huns" Well into the 20th century, though by then they weren't any more hun than a Frenchman

[@AndYourLittleDog]

My ancestry is Greek and Cypriot going back generations. My entire family has white to olive skin with brown, blue or green eyes. We all check the “Caucasian” box. Stop this nonsense.

[@sklavenitis9073]

Thank you, My family is from Lefkada going back hundreds of years. We are White, We Are European, I'm getting sick of all this talk about how greeks are black, or greeks are Arab. It straight bull shit.

[@chosenone3527]

You look Middle-Eastern lol

[@sklavenitis9073]

@Mz TTM o.o you don't even know what I look like. (I look like Josh Hartnetts twin brother, skin color and all. People have mistaken me for him often.) So your definition of "white" must be based on race alone. Can you tell me what European races are white and what ones aren't so I know better from now on? Are the French white to you? They have a southern European tan. Say someone like Jonny Depp, is he white to you? I'm very confused please tell me the ways of the white man oh wise one.

[@giannis_toupolemou]

Before Rome conquering most of Europe, long before then, Ancient Greeks were described as "olive skinned" with "dark hair", just as the original Romans were. You're "whiteness" is a product of Roman influence in 80% of europe and european migration to the mesiterranean. You're not pure original mediterranean.

[@sklavenitis9073]

@@giannis_toupolemou You dumb shit we are original European Mediterranean. Not Arab Mediterranean or African Mediterranean. Do you think that there is some magical single race that sprung up out of the dirt of the Mediterranean and is the only race that rightfully lives/lived there?

[@MDLi0n]

Yeah, like Italians and Spanish are White despite having been suntanned, as in Caucasians, as in European.

[@oddindian1]

In the modern sense yes, historically no.

[@antinoofromgreece6560]

@@oddindian1 Historically Iberia is white, is Caucasian, although some of them aren't very white as northern Europeans.

[@oddindian1]

@@antinoofromgreece6560 The Celtic peoples in southern Iberia do fit within caucasian origin. Iberians themselves as I understand it do not, the Basque(Vascones) least of all. Most of the recent genetic insertion is Germanic and north African. In the modern sense you could maybe get away with saying some Spaniards and Portuguese are Caucasian. In reality that varies wildly from person to person and region to region. Overall it wouldn't be correct to say Iberians/Spaniards/Portuguese are Caucasian because that by in large are from a majority of blood that is indigenous.. That's like saying Hungarians are white and or Slavic. None of which are always true in every case. So in short some are more "white" than others or not at all. Even saying that a Caucasian is "white" is a slippery slope to begin with.

[@antinoofromgreece6560]

@@oddindian1 What you are saying is quite nonsense. First of all, Caucasian is a skull type it is not related to the skin tone, for example, you can find some dark caucasians in South India, the Tamil people which the paternal DNA is caucasians. You're arguing that Iberians

[@antinoofromgreece6560]

@@oddindian1 That some Iberians aren't caucasians, well what you've mentioned is nonsense and just based on skin tone. I'm a gypsy, I'm dark but although dark I'm a caucasian.

[@LigaFantasma]

Spencer wants it both ways. He says race is a construct then speaks of non-European as if that automatically means non-white . If race is a construct then the race of these early Levantine and Amazigh people is strictly interpretational. The idea that Levantine and Amazigh aren't "white" is a construct of the modern West. The ancient Egyptians definitely viewed Lybians and Syrians as white/tan not dark or black.

[@someguy8732]

Yup, they love to tell white people they don't exist any time you open your mouth but as soon as they want to criticize you and rewrite your history they suddenly know exactly who is and isn't white

[@carlomariaromano4320]

@@someguy8732 They have no problem with using the term black people when they try to prove that Rome wasn't all white.

[@rosalynbeatty8310]

@Ligafantasma. Ancestors of Berbers or Amazigh were the brown - black Guaramantes & Ibero-Mauritians indigenous to north Africa. Many Berbers/ Amizigh are still black or brown. Many ancestors of the Syrians, Elamites, Sumerians are painted as dark brown w/ tight curly hair. 'God does not see black or white.' - Baha'u'llah.

[@danieldigiuseppe7912]

​@someguy8732 Yeah they act like because the greeks saw one black guy. That they are a mixed race. So sick of it.

[@deanamodeo4072]

The answer is YES!! I don't need an expert to tell me that. This is a ridiculous question. Never in doubt. This guy must be a real genius😅

[@2dimitropolis370]

Bravo. We are all white, just because of climete, the nordics are blonder, and us on the south have dark hair.... But still all white

[@peterroberts7684]

A very ridiculous question indeed

[@giannis_toupolemou]

@@2dimitropolis370 So I expect you are warm towards the Indians and Arabs for they are caucasoids as well?

[@petrairene]

The ancients didn't enslave people based on the colour of their skin so they had no problem with skin colour as a marker of discrimination.

[@petrairene]

@@glorioushotwingsjr5080 Yeah. But barbarian status was not attributed due to skin colour.

[@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368]

That's right: back in their time all slaves were created equal.

[@robinfinley7317]

@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 haha

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

GloriousHotWingsJr - They thought that because we are.

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

M H - No; you’re confusing the Latin “barbatus” (bearded) with the onomatopoeic Greek “bar-bar-bar” (unintelligible barking mimicking sounds) which is the origin of “barbaros” (βάρβαρος)-Greek for “barbarian”.

[@benjalucian1515]

Based on a 21st century lens, the answer is yes. Did the ancients care? Not really.

[@aleksa6548]

Well not caring is a bit overstatement in my opinion. Would Roman men marry black girl for example, I hight doubt that, as his children would be looked down upon as foreigners

[@benjalucian1515]

@@aleksa6548 - er there are poems written by ancient Roman men about how hot they thought African women were. They did marry them. The Roman empire extended into north Africa, so they wouldn't be "foreign', they were part of the Roman empire.

[@christopherkrol7452]

Before the moors they were white, after they became what they are

[@AnnRen-nh4ur]

@@christopherkrol7452 And what is your ethnicity/skin color?

[@christopherkrol7452]

@AnnRen-nh4ur why would that matter? White man can only come from white parents, anything else is arab or mongol

[@rogueraven1333]

Pre video knowledge: the Greeks referred to themselves (the common people) and Anatolians (Asians) as white. They referred to others as brown (mostly from the south) or blonde (usually from the north. However they also referred to Achilles and Agamemnon along with other illiad heroes as well as some gods as blonde)

[@atreast.4331]

If you have really read Iliad yiu would see that it does not refer to them as blondes. That is a myth. All Homer says is that they were really handsome ,at least for Achilles

[@hydroxyzine1136]

@@atreast.4331 nope

[@atreast.4331]

​@@hydroxyzine1136 if you speak ancient Greek find me the part. i do not want an English translation since the foreigners translate horribly. i just want the part from the original.

[@klausroxin4437]

@@atreast.4331 Homer about Achilles: ξανθῆς δὲ κόμης ἕλε Πηλεΐωνα. You really want to translate that in another way than blonde? Stop spreading misinformation, dude!

[@atreast.4331]

@@klausroxin4437 yes. many greek words are used both in ancient greek and modern greek but with a slightly different meaning. like ερωτας. it is not necessarily sexual love in ancient greek in contrast with the modern.For the ξανθος now in modern greek means blond. In ancient it is not that sure cause Celts that were blonds were described as white haired if I remember correctly. Ξανθός some philogists suggest that was used like handsome in ancient greek.he had nice hair in this example. Homer was supposed not to describe his heroes in order to make someone imagine how this heroes looked like the way they wanted. Others suggest that the ξανθος was used for auburn. You could be right to be fair though.Anyway . I do not say that greeks were blacks in any case. Of course we belong to the white race if that is what you worry about.

[@peterthesneakybastar]

For those wondering the answer from a scientific perspective: Ancient Greeks are closely related to modern Greeks, and Ancient Italians are closely related SOUTHERN modern Italians. Both Ancient Italians and Greeks had plenty of pale faces as well as brown European faces. Generally speaking they’re dark white people. If anything, Greeks nowadays are genetically slightly lighter than before due to 14% Slavic admixture. Northern Italians are now much lighter than their ancient predecessors because they’re mostly related to Celtic/Germanic immigrants that arrived after the fall of Western Rome. Southern Italians, if anything, are slightly darker now due to Berber (North African) admixture during the Middle Ages. The city Rome specifically however is a very different story. Rome generally contained Neolithic Mediterranean DNA closely resembling Greeks, but only during the era of the Roman Republic. As soon as the Roman Empire formed, mass Near Eastern immigration exploded into the city quickly reaching one million people, and almost completely replacing the DNA prior. According to a recent Stanford study, the city became genetically 40% Greek, 28% Middle Eastern, 24% Italian, 4% North African, and 4% Celtic. This would likely mean the people there were technically white, however darker than most ancient Italians and Greeks considering at least a third of their DNA is not of European descent. After the city was sacked in 476 AD the majority of its citizens either left or were killed by Goths and widespread disease, and thus the population there was once again genetically replaced. Today the city’s citizens are much lighter than the ancient Romans.

[@vnorm2907]

North Africa and Middle Eastern DNA? There is no such thing.

[@wankawanka3053]

Whiteness of italians and greeks is determined from how much we go to the beach 😎

[@vnorm2907]

@@wankawanka3053 lol

[@sergpie]

I just got my dna results, and though born in Rome, to parents from Latium and Campania, I came back with 9% Egyptian, 11% Levant/Caucasus, 16% German, 11% Sardinian, and just over 52% broadly Italian. Back up until my great grandparents on both sides; they’re all gingers, blondes, and light brunettes, and not a single relative with brown eyes. My hair came out kind of curly, but that’s it 😝

[@wharris381]

I doubt that modern Greeks are lighter than ancient Greeks. Greeks have always mixed with North Africa and the Middle East since the colonial era, as well as with Türkiye in terms of population exchange. According to DNA tests, Albanians have higher ancient Greek DNA than modern Greeks, because Albanians and their ancestors are Isolated in history and rarely communicate with the outside world, unlike Greeks are mixed everywhere in the Middle East and North Africa. Modern Albanians look whiter than Greeks.The Mycenaeans and Dorians are white skin Indo-Europeans who played an important role in ancient Greece. The Spartans are Dorians. Slavic immigrants did not change the composition of the Greeks. The Byzantine emperor once moved a large number of Slavs from Greece to Anatolia

[@salimzwein]

In Ancient Egypt also women were e portrayed with a rather white skin while men were deeply tanned...I think it has more to do with just the way of life of different genders possibly accentuated by culture.

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

Color in Egyptian art is really interesting and extremely propagandized. When you have the time take a look at this article by Dr. Juan Carlos Moreno García. I think you’ll really enjoy it. www.asor.org/anetoday/2020/05/ethnicity-pharaonic-egypt

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

@@LVSJT LMAO. Yes, the article above clearly speaks for itself. Once your blood pressure calms down, I’d suggest wiping those tears from your eyes and trying to read the scholarship on Egyptian art.

[@gioseanuandrei5489]

Women of upper classes were staying inside and spinning and weaving. Men, even if noble, had little to nothing to do inside, so they stayed outside. And the Mediterranean people, actually most Europeans, can get very, very dark if they stay in their underwear outside almost all their life. Search Wikipedia for Sun tanning to see examples.

[@gioseanuandrei5489]

​@@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449 Or better search Google image for shocking tan lines, to get the obvious answer why Rahotep walking around in mini skirt, taking care of business outside, had a deep tan, while his wife, Nofret, who was sheltered from the sun, preserved her natural color.

[@ahmadmuhammad6200]

No the man in egypt are brownish red while the the woman were light brown ... Not white

[@soik1401]

Somewhat dissapointed. I was interested in the genetic make up about the Ancient Greeks and Romans. I.e. Minoans, Mycenaeans, Dorians for the Greeks etc. What were they? The whole presentation was about examples of some Africans and Near Easteners which were or became Greeks and Romans.

[@someguy8732]

Well yeah, what do you expect? If they actually looked at genetics it would just be "yeah, they were white europeans, here is the DNA evidence."

[@sebastianlayton6387]

@@someguy8732 They are Mediterranean not germanic...

[@someguy8732]

@@sebastianlayton6387 white doesn't just mean Germanic. Where the hell did you get that idea. White is just genetically European

[@yomamawanmadikku9094]

@@sebastianlayton6387 Dorian and the galatians, Atwell as the mitanni all started out white

[@yomamawanmadikku9094]

@@someguy8732 modern Mediterranean are bronce not brown this is due to Semitic admixture from years of cultural ties to Levant and Mesopotamia, Egypt ect...

[@jamesfreeman7182]

'White' doesn't apply, they were Roman or Greek, which were 'races'in their own context of that time. 'White'' is only a term in opposition to 'black,' which is a term equally dependent on the context of post Reconquista trans Atlantic history. These terms do not translate.

[@Ace-sb4il]

More like nationality. I thought it was common sense that Rome was mixed in it empire stage in the same way as America

[@gianlucarossi5672]

White does apply to ethnic/native Romans and Greeks.

[@Ace-sb4il]

@@gianlucarossi5672 not 100 yrs ago

[@gianlucarossi5672]

@@Ace-sb4il Oh yes.

[@giannis_toupolemou]

@@gianlucarossi5672 mediterraneans were described as "olive skinned" with "dark hair". If anything, Mediterraneans look Arabic. Heck, Greek and Indian culture have so many similarities - from Gods to clothing & social constructs, etc.

[@foxmactavish2739]

The idea of the white race only exists in contrast to the idea of a black race. In old times there were many groups of people with unique cultural identities. People would be identified not as white or black but as one of these many ethnic groups.

[@jackiehamilton2738]

Agreed. I tried to make a similar point a couple of days ago but in such a concise way.

[@metigame1450]

Today we identify as ethnic Albanian, when i went outside my country and went to Uk realised people identify as white and black etc.

[@kurgansrus1277]

Funny cuz Romans literally used the term "white" to describe sythians and Celts, stop watching propaganda, CNN isn't history,

[@casek6930]

Where we draw lines generally follows these rules: (1) there must be a natural clustering of properties that distinguishes the proposed category from other property-clusters and (2) categorical separation has some practical value. The latter rule changes over time, but it in no way negates the reality of rule #1. This is actually a feature of language in general. It's kinda fascinating how a general feature of language could be exploited for political motives as if it was a unique property of one specific category.

[@kurgansrus1277]

The only issue is cultural identity doesn't change DNA evidence, clearly all European cluster together regardless of culture as do subsahren Africans, second the idea that ancient people were political correct and didn't see Color is absolutely ridiculous, as even animals show levels of colorism it's natural, ancient vedic people clearly were very racist and separate themselves from the "blacked skin" natives as it's literally written in the rig veda, DNA evidence overwhelmingly supports Aryan migrations hence androvono culture, who was r1a z93 and often blonde hair and blue eyed, and spread Indo Iranian language into south Asia, the word "varna" in vedic Sanskrit means color, the caste system was called the varnas, there is a line in rig veda where the Aryans say that they need to protect aryavarna from the dasu, meaning arya-varna, Aryan color, dasu "dark/black"

[@markspiro3959]

Hollywood is somewhat to blame on modern perceptions of our actual racial history. Royalty in Roman movies always have a British accents...

[@killastake]

Roman royalty 😂😂

[@belialord]

Imagine if we were to apply this reasoning consistently: We know the Nubians interacted with the Romans for centuries, this naturally raises the obvious question: Were the Nubians really black? Well, we have lots of evidence showing a strong Roman presence in Nubia, we've even found Roman artifacts there, such as the Meroe head of the emperor Augustus! Therefore, we can conclude the Nubians were in fact multiracial!

[@MZ-9993]

Yeah, its a posibility. Nubia had a strong connection to the ancient middle east, so its laughable to assume that it was 100% "black"

[@MZ-9993]

@Alex Soltesz so you say that China is definetely 100% yellow?

[@wodenravens]

Modern academia seems utterly obsessed with race. Modern academia produces scholars who are far more consumed by race and 'Whiteness' than almost anyone else.

[@belialord]

@@MZ-9993 Right? And yet I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing a "Were the Nubians black?" video, because assuming we can't answer yes unless they were a 100% black is just as laughable as assuming we can't answer yes unless the Romans were 100% white.

[@wodenravens]

@Alex Soltesz I am fascinated by black culture and love learning about non-white cultures. I certainly do not delude myself into thinking that there is anything inherently superior about white culture. But my problem is with trying to shoehorn race into every discussion of history.

[@xavseq727]

If only we had technology that could breakdown our genetic DNA code, we could then use it on these ancient skeletons!

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

Sarcasm?

[@Historian212]

Those tests are notoriously inaccurate except in archaeological circumstances when the population being studied is known to have been geographically isolated for many generations. In the case of ancient Greece and Rome, there was tremendous mixing. Even if you could trace a particular bone to only one geographical area (unlikely), that still wouldn’t tell you everything. Because peoples traveled, traded, and mixed. And the complications of that type of testing get more intense than that. Because people didn’t classify each other in the same ways as many people do today. (The commercial DNA tests that claim to tell a person’s ethnicity are basically BS, except in very fuzzy and general terms. And they go back about seven generations, at most, with any real accuracy. If you’re lucky. And their results often vary widely from one another. At best, the strictly maternal and paternal direct lines can be traced by more specific tests, but that leaves out most of a person’s genetic inheritance. Most geneticists are critical, to say the least, of the widespread scamming of people by these companies. DNA testing helps fill in the paper trail for a few generations, helpful for determining parentage and close family relationships. Without family history and documentation, nope.)

[@3John-Bishop]

Even some black people have white DNA. They do not get any reparations.

[@clarkwinters1770]

@@Historian212 excuses, the records plainly tell us what type of people they were tell us what tribes founded their cities or civilization we know their physical appearance and the further back we go in time the remains are consistently in agreement with the primary sources.....this is just laughable.....you would think having access to so much info would make academics more interested but instead they seem to stick with the scores of modern books of echo chambers....all of which are in agreement in saying "we don't know,,,.wee cannot know... therefore I think" super duper smart

[@CA-jz9bm]

@@Historian212 "The commercial DNA tests that claim to tell a person’s ethnicity are basically BS" - you got 5% ashkenazi jewish didn't you... ;)

[@SuperBjanka]

In my experience skin color is depended on the time we spent in the sun, and the amount of copper in the local food. I'm Danish and as white as it gets, but my aunt is as brow as a Tamil, because she live on a boat for half of the year. The idea abut classifying groups of people based on skin color are just stupid.

[@oo88oo]

How about classifying them by height? Or weight? Or eye color? Or IQ?

[@gregorybrian]

Nationality based solely on physical features is one of the deadliest thing one can believe. National identity is based on political and cultural values.

[@darktyrannosaurus22]

@@gregorybrian no

[@robinhawkins335]

The distinctions between races has never been the color of skin. At least not by anyone with a respectable scholarly approach. Historically differences in cranio-facial structures were used to categorize individuals into one of the big three(caucosoid,mongoloid,negroid) These cranio-facial distinctions are largely consistent with some overlap and variation not necessarily due to admixture.

[@SuperBjanka]

@@robinhawkins335 I find it hard to find anything abut cranio-facial structures. My father have a cranium of 62 cm, does this fit into the Caucasoid groups?

[@wifil532]

Question: Greeks and Romans white or not? The answer I expected:Yes or no Spencer: 30 minutes nonstop blabbering

[@dannynmelissa57]

Little to much liberal college in Spencers talk

[@dannynmelissa57]

@Mark Milicci I just go by the way they described themselves and they was Caucasian

[@dannynmelissa57]

@Mark Milicci it's cool 😎

[@moserbite2159]

sigh .. . here kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4LNlpZthdSbndE , how about some TRUE BLACK African super-civilization and culture?

[@GhostSal]

Answer = No For one, there really is only one race, the human race; everything else is a social construct. Also, if you do separate people by physical traits and ancestry you can clearly see differences. Roman ancestors were the Latin Tribes where their language, culture and identity comes from. Without which no one alive today would be called Latin/Latino/Latinx. The other major group in Europe were the Germanic Tribes with a completely different culture, language and identity. Romans had olive skin or darker (just like southern Italians today), dark hair and eyes. Germanic people were pale skin and had hair color variations like blonde hair and blue eyes. What she said in the video has some truth about being in the sun you do get darker but I have family that no matter how much time they are inside never get pale looking (so no it isn’t just the sun). One more thing, they didn’t see themselves all the same. Romans considered the Northern Europeans like the Germanic Tribes as the pale skin violent blondes and those to the south as dark skin intelligent people. While they put themselves right in the middle as the best overall.

[@gianlucarossi5672]

Asking whether ethnic Romans or Greeks were white is like asking is water wet? As an Italian I'm disgusted at how liberal progressive American scholars distort and play with and politicise our history and heritage. Native, ethnic Romans and Greeks were what is deemed white or European, regardless of whether they were tanned, pale or swarthy. It's also irrelevant, that the Romans or Greeks didn't consider themselves as "white" since even the ghostly white Northern Europeans didn't refer to themselves as "white" either. Plus, a tanned skin was considered attractive and masculine on males. Therefore Roman or Greek males had be dark, and avoid being pale for not being "white" as a female. That's why in Roman or Greek paintings males were often depicted tanned and females pale to reflect the gender roles, the outdoors and indoors activities, the contrast between the beauty standards for males and females. However, being too swarthy was according to Cicero the complexion of a slave. The other question- was the Roman Empire multicultural? Short answer- yes. Did the Romans depicted Non-Europeans or so-called POC in their art. Of course. But this fact remains, the Founders and Fathers of the Roman Empire were Italics who fit the bill of "whiteness", and who were as European as any Celts, Germanic tribes or Vikings. In fact that Italics had ties to Celts and shared the same ancestors who hailed from Central Europe.

[@gyorkshire257]

The guy literally explains how that is not the case, the concept of whiteness and being a European did not exist at that time.

[@gianlucarossi5672]

@@gyorkshire257 And you blindly parrot this guy without using your brain? It doesn't matter that the concept of race and whiteness didn't exist back then. Native Romans and Greeks were what is deemed white/Caucasian today. We don’t need this guy to tell us that Augustus, Nero, Tiberius or Caligula who looked generic European and white, were white. The same goes for Nubians/Ethiopians who were what deems black today. Think for yourself and stop being a mindless parrot of left-wing scholars who are inserting their liberal views and PC narrative on ancient people and history. Besides, there are historians and anthropologists who think it's silly to pretend, that we can’t apply modern racial categories for classifying ancient people.

[@gyorkshire257]

@@gianlucarossi5672 White is not a real thing, it is a category we use today in a somewhat inconsistent way to describe people of broadly European descent or who appear as if they could be. It is used inconsistently from country to country and time to time. The irony of your post is that you obviously care so much about whiteness that you have discovered it doesn't actually exist! Most people just accept "whiteness" as if it were real, but you have gone and spoiled it for yourself by being so obsessed with race. In your heart of hearts, you know race is not real, everything you believe is a lie.

[@gianlucarossi5672]

@@gyorkshire257 But native Romans would fit the bill of what people today call white. Even if native Romans were olive skinned, brownish they would be considered as tanned white. Caucasian is a better category than white, though.

[@giuseppelogiurato5718]

For someone who claims to know a lot about Greece, she doesn't pronounce Greek words very well... She needs to learn about diphthongs.

[@evamentos7171]

he has not read a single history book, if he knows greek i am a nuclear scientist

[@colinchampollion4420]

You are sooo correct~ she needs to be replaced with someone with a fluent knowledge of the Greek language 😳👌😤!

[@celeriacmarcus]

She has a strange way of pronouncing Ethiopia like I never heard it before. She's no historian.

[@fernandonp2534]

She/he have a lot of information but don´t understand so much. "USA state of mind".

[@damaskosc]

Long story short: they knew they were white, but they didn't have any serious hangups about it.

[@youngimperialistmkii]

I think that the best point made in this vid. Is that attempting to apply a modern concept of race to the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean world would be the biggest hangup if all. Perhaps if you want to understand those people, and their perspective on the world you must divorce yourself from so strongly leaning on 20th century idea's about race and identity.

[@Texasmade74]

@Etruscans civilization no such thing as black Minoans or black Greeks and here are the DNA findings on Greek DNA from 3 years ago

[@Texasmade74]

@Etruscans civilization "The origins of the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean cultures have puzzled archaeologists for more than a century. We have assembled genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals, including Minoans from Crete, Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and their eastern neighbours from southwestern Anatolia. Here we show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, having at least three-quarters of their ancestry from the first Neolithic farmers of western Anatolia and the Aegean1,2, and most of the remainder from ancient populations related to those of the Caucasus3 and Iran4,5. However, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter-gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia6,7,8, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe1,6,9 or Armenia4,9. Modern Greeks resemble the Mycenaeans, but with some additional dilution of the Early Neolithic ancestry. Our results support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean, before and after the time of its earliest civilizations."

[@Texasmade74]

@Etruscans civilization nature journal is a scientific journal not Wikipedia

[@Texasmade74]

@Etruscans civilization no Greek inscriptions ever call Zeus burnt face and his facial features in all cult statues were European

[@mrhatty2085]

Race is not a Social Construct, academia however, most certainly is.

[@boborappa]

Look up what "social construct" means

[@mrhatty2085]

@@boborappa look up what Race means.

[@boborappa]

@@mrhatty2085 Thanks for proving me right. I wish you knew enough words to feel dumb

[@mrhatty2085]

@@boborappa you're special . Thanks for the good wishes, you're helping.

[@mrhatty2085]

@@dffndjdjd its that kind of Post Modernist thinking that causes the real divide between people. One either lives in the reality of Genetics, Biology and Evolution or one lives in the deluded world of Cultural Marxism and the fool's paradise of 'Social Constructivism." The divide is sanity vs insanity, survival vs suicide. The delusionists have chosen the latter and frankly will be no great loss to humanity.

[@vincemajestic2650]

Right . . So race is a "Social Construct" ... Just like gender

[@gyorkshire257]

Yeah, gender is a social construct, sex isn't. Race is a social construct, but certain average genetic differences between populations can be measured.

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

We are all for the most part 99.9% biologically the same.

[@gyorkshire257]

@@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449 Yes, that's true, and there is more difference within populations than between. But there are some observable genetic differences between groups, that don't usually map onto any racial system of classification humans use in the real world.

[@Orph3us33]

Yes the 19th century idea of race is a Social Construct as has been disproven by Human genetics. Human genes are not just visible characteristics like dark skin or thin hair as which was used as the basis for 99% of all "race science" for its first 200 years. People in Africa are more genetically diverse than "white or black" Americas yet would all be classified as "black" despite having very different genes from what we call "black" in America.

[@gyorkshire257]

@@Orph3us33 The idea of race as a social construct is totally correct, what you mean is that the constructs themselves are not scientifically valid.

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

You're confusing the latter part of the Roman empire with the ethnicity and race of the original Romans. The original Romans were 7 Latin tribes that meandered into the Italian peninsula between 1000 BC and 800 BC. They eventually united all Latins and then conquered all of Italy who's original people were Italic who were also white. This question is so dumb I dont mbow where to even start.

[@DM-nl7kf]

Right sir!

[@steviewonder417]

This is what so many scholars do now. They are so motivated by petty partisan politics they have to recategorize and revise history to tell a story that is basically the same if you read between the lines but has the superficial appearance of giving credit where none is due to people who have nothing to do with ancient Rome or Greece. I mean obviously she isn’t saying they were black or something but she’s using imprecise and abstract language to sort of leave the door open for non whites to imagine themselves as possibly being the progenitors or contributors to these great civilizations. It’s so transparent and pathetic.

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

@@steviewonder417 it made me laugh when he/she said that the founder of soiticsm was described as "dark". My ex-wife was a light skinned Indian. My Mother is Lilly white and my Mother use to say that my ex-wife was "dark", lol. The term is arbitrary. The Greeks were caucasian period. Just because they were Mediterranean and some might have been a little tan is meaningless for this discussion. The problem is guilt ridden whites are trying so hard to make non-whites feel like they have accomplished something as a group because in modern and even post Classical times they have accomplished and built next nothing. Sub-saharan African blacks didn't even have the wheel before they came in contact with with Muslims and Europeans.

[@peterroberts7684]

The Romans were white,but their were Romanized Phoenicians ,like emperor Septimius Severa..

[@edwardwright9344]

Better study your Bible. Ethiopia had the wheel.

[@perrinayebarra]

Obviously. What else would they be?

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

Guilt ridden testosterone challenged Anglo-Saxon soy milk drinkers are trying so hard to make non-whites feel good.

[@jerrymedina7228]

@ Joseph Falco: Mad?

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

@@jerrymedina7228 nope

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

@Mz TTM I think you've got me confused with the Black Supremacists. I'm white.

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

@Mz TTM LOL!!! Keep dreaming.

[@KingCatsTube]

Again, Spencer is assuming that if you had ancestors from N. Africa, that you would have been very dark. The peoples of N. Africa are mainly of ancient Berber (caucasian) ancestry. During the Roman period in the larger port cities, it would not have been uncommon to have any combination of Italic, Gallic, Iberian, Greek, Thracian, Illyrian, Syrian, Phoenician, or N. African ancestry.

[@joseantoniocastro1486]

Berber people are white people. The fact that Spencer always stumble under the same mistake over and over again is mindblowing.

[@KingCatsTube]

@@joseantoniocastro1486 true, we need to understand that his take is likely due to a broader agenda.

[@nonameanonymous1537]

@@joseantoniocastro1486 No they aren’t saying that they are is Racist Erasure. Yes there are pale skinned people (also pale skinned and white are not the same) but there are also dark skinned brown as well as black Amazigh peoples. There is no one phenotype. I swear Westerners think they know everything about everything. Please stop being ignorant.

[@rosalynbeatty8310]

@ The G Man: the ancient Guaramantes & Ibero-Mauritians were indigenous to north Africa & were ancestors of Berbers. They were a brown-black skinned people. Many Berbers 2 day still are people of color.

[@rosalynbeatty8310]

@@nonameanonymous1537 Thank u good answer.

[@andersaxmark5871]

Yes they were

[@zeke-p7f]

They weren’t white or black, when you look at the ancient wall paintings they had olive skin ✊🏽 not ✊🏻 or ✊🏿

[@corymiller536]

Basically dark brown???

[@AnnRen-nh4ur]

@@corymiller536 They are Caucasians

[@AnnRen-nh4ur]

There are many Greeks who have fair skin have you seen any modern day greek people? What race are you?

[@jperes889]

If u want to know how ancient Greeks and Romans looked like, just go and spend Holliday there. They are and were Mediterranean Caucasians.

[@jperes889]

@Big Mike Media It is the pb with most Americans, they limit their world to the US. Travel and u will see the world is not limited to whites, blacks and Latinos. There are all kinds of people out there, and Romans and Greeks are Mediterraneans.

[@jperes889]

@Big Mike Media did I say anywhere they were white, and Europe s definition is purely geographical so I don't know how u define geographically Europeans and non geographically Europeans.

[@jperes889]

@Big Mike Media Ur reply again shows the typical American centered view of the world. European for u means white Caucasian mostly Irish British type. Europe is a vast continent with different types of people, in the south Mediterraneans are Europeans and tend to be a bit shorter and darker of skin. But all these people are europeans, as they are born in the continent named Europe.

[@jperes889]

@Big Mike Media soulless blue eyes? U are clearly rayciss and don't know what u are talking about. U probably have never been to Europe, travel there go to different countries, that might open ur eyes.

[@jperes889]

@Big Mike Media then that is even worse, u don't even have this excuse.

[@BleroBlero-e8h]

They were black, and ancient chinese and japan were black. In europe white people didn't exit when black people came to europe. World know about this , first people in all world was ancient black people.

[@dina113east]

The European Continent was Caucasian. The languages were German, Celtic and Italic. The discussion here, speaks of migration from other countries, but that did not change the fact that the peoples of Ancient Rome or Greece were Caucasian.

[@vandalcreed]

North Africa and the Middle East and parts of central Asia are also considered Caucasian, as per US definition of Caucasian.

[@galadballcrusher8182]

i think you forgot a major language there buddy ,,, Greek, which not only was part of Europe... Europe is a Greek word and the language was very important among Roman Scholars and intelectuals as basicaly they were adopting a lot of Greek culture and it is no concidence first bible translations are in Greek (not to mention parts were written in Greek in the first place and were not translated like for example the revelation)

[@josephj6521]

Dina113est, I’ve never head of the Italic language? Romans spoke Latin and Greek. Go to the Vatican, built way later. The cornices are full of Latin and Greek writing. Greek was the key language in Europe and many in the Middle East.

[@dina113east]

@@josephj6521 OK, The word Italic pertains to ancient Italy or its people. Or "it pertains to a branch of Indo-European languages that includes Latin-Faliscan and Osco-Umbrian groups". Of course the Romans spoke Latin and the Italian language is the closet to Latin. I have been to the Vatican a few times and I am well aware of the history. By the way today the word Italic has other meanings, including a type of print (which I am certain that you know).

[@elohim660]

WRONG

[@dylanwatson4591]

Alexander was described as fair to the point of ruddy. There's zero reason to believe he or the classical Greeks weren't similar. Lay off the wokeness.

[@RU-Aussie]

Alexander was Macedonian. Macedonians are fair modern greeks look like Arabs .

[@gianlucarossi5672]

Look at Romans and Greeks on their statues and busts, you see such faces all across Europe. Liberals like this scholar and other guests on this channel, want to hide the fact, that ancient Romans and Greeks were white since it doesn't fit their woke and PC agenda. If you states facts they scream racists, white supremacy. The academic world is a mess right now where freedom of thoughts and speech are suppressed.

[@maniacgr2617]

@@RU-Aussie Macedonski, are Tatars, with slanted eyes and epicanthic fold.

[@RU-Aussie]

@@maniacgr2617 Im Australian so not sure about that but greeks are Arab looking cause they are turks.

[@maniacgr2617]

@@RU-Aussie Turks ,Greeks, Arabs, all the same according to the tatar.

[@blogbalkanstories4805]

A rather woke and misleading interpretation. It isn't true that WASPs didn't consider Italians or Greeks not white or not fully white. This ahistorical interpretation just ignores that "whiteness" isn't one homogenous racial concept. Rather, racism within white populations is as common as racism from whites towards people of darker skin (or the other way round, for argument's sake.) Same goes for inner-black racism in Africa, for instance. Or inner-Asian racism in Asia. Also see Antisemitims, rampant racism against the Irish etc. Spencer McDaniel builds his own strawmen that are then easy to destroy. This is all too typical of "Critical Race Theory". Also, he seems to have little awareness of how the populations in the Levante such as Syria have changed over time. There is also no mention of the fact that Africa did not mean the same thing it does today. It refers to the Roman provinces in Norther Africa, not to the continent. While there were almost certainly more black people living there in Antiquity than today, they were almost certainly not the majority. Rather, the population was a mix of Berber tribes - who seem to have also comprised a relatively large black population -, Middle Eastern and European colonists. So when Augustinus thinks of himself as African, he means something very different from how we understand the term today. I mean it's fine to point out that Romans and Greeks did not have the racial concepts many people have today and that Roman society was multiethnic. (Greek societies were not so much until the Roman conquest, as they mainly precluded foreigners from participating in their political life. Even Greeks born outside one's own city state never had a chance to citizenship in most cases.) But they were both obsessed with ancestry, and there is preciously little discussion of that in this video. McDaniel portraits it as if neither Greeks nor Romans cared much about that, and presumably with the purpose of fitting them into modern political ideologies. This is just historically wrong. When we talk about a Roman Emperor called Philip the Arab - why do you think his origin was mentioned so specifically? Because it was so highly unusual that people noticed and thought it a good idea to mention that. There is also some anecdotal evidence about what we can describe as open racism. One involved Emperor Septimus Severus, whom McDaniels uses as a argument to imply how non-racist Roman society was. As Septimus Severus inspects Hadrian's Wall - probably around 209 or 210 CE - he spots an Ethopian soldier. He remarks upon that observation and reports it as a bad omen that he must die soon. Since he did die in 211, we can assume that the anecdote was ascribed to him posthumously, but it shows us two things, nevertheless: First that black Roman soldiers were rare enough to be noticed and remembered. And secondly that racism was not alien to Romans, even those originally from Norther Africa. Plus, let's not forget that Roman Emperors were basically military dictators, many of whom ascended to the throne in coups d'etats, not through elections - much like Septimus Severus himself. So, an ethnic Arab as Roman Emperor is no evidence that the Romans didn't care about that sort of thing. It just means he had a great enough army. By extension, this means that military careers were possible for outsiders. They were considered good enough to die for Rome, most of the time, but were mostly excluded from Roman political life until very late. Plus we must not forget that Romans also employed auxilliary forces who were raised from local populations and were generally paid less than legionaries. So, yes, in the heyday of the Roman Empire there would have been some black people living throughout the Empire but not very many outside of Rome and a few other bigger cities. Not out of racism, but the Sahara was an even greater barrier to migration than it is today, and there was no direct maritime connection to Ethopia. Middle Easterners or the by definition multiethnical Northern Africans would have been a different story, they would have been plentiful in the bigger cities. As for the criticism of "300": It is a protofascist propaganda piece. That's for sure.There is open racism in how the Persians are portrayed. That part of the criticism is valid. The way the Spartans are shown is clearly protofascist. We can call that racist by extension. But: The Spartans only let pure bred Spartans fight as regular soldiers. Heck, they even enslaved their neighboring Greek tribes and looked down on them in what we can clearly call racism. So not showing a dark skinned Spartan warrior is simply historically accurate and not in itself racist. In short: Things are a bit more complicated than Spencer McDaniel makes them out to be. Projecting one's own political beliefs and concepts into historical settings is never a good idea. It is also bad for the occasionally justified criticism of other people's flawed and often ideologically driven historiography.

[@joshuamoon9312]

Ancient Greeks were olive skinned though. Not pasty.

[@edelgyn2699]

@BBS In short: nope. I suspect McDaniel knows more than conveyed in this brief video and certainly more than you based on your responses about the ancient history of northern African or the Roman Empire.

[@blogbalkanstories4805]

@@edelgyn2699 I suspect he knows very little about history in general. All of what I said can easily be checked and reflects scholarly consensus among historians.

[@fordman7479]

Short answer yes they were. Were all Roman and Greek citizens white? Maybe not but all native romans and greeks were. The end

[@veegar9265]

Sighhhhh, .. . here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4LNlpZthdSbndE how about some TRUE BLACK African super-civilization and culture

[@thewolverine2225]

Not really Spartan men were not white they were more bronzed skin

[@thewolverine2225]

Your white right?

[@fordman7479]

@@thewolverine2225 and some black people are light skin.

[@thewolverine2225]

@@fordman7479 I’m not saying they’r black they’re bronze, people from Sparta were bronze. people called them white to fit their agenda brown skin is the most common skin look it up also light skin isn’t really white nor is it black it’s both can’t say for sure which colour sad thing is people who are mixed never get accepted by whites or blacks or browns a bit sad

[@danbeaulieu2130]

The whole concept of "white" was not even invented until the 1600s. The Baroque era... The classical Greek and Roman cultures had no concept of being "white". Race was a fluid thing. A natural born Greek could be raised in the Roman culture, and so become part of the "Roman race". An Egyptian could also join the Roman race. As could a Persian. Or anyone. A Briton could become an Egyptian. A Pict could become a Roman. Race was not a fixed and final thing.

[@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45]

The best answer! ❤️

[@Hyperium90201]

Yes they did

[@Hyperium90201]

In ancient Greece they referred themselves as "λευκός" that means "white/shiny".They also referred black people as "Μελάς" that means "black/dark"

[@davidbenyahuda5190]

Ancient means black people. Please study Greek mythology. Their gods were black people. I know White people have been lying about everything and to everyone. But that doesn't mean you have to believe them. Leonidas was a Danite, i.e Israelite Please see Anacalypsis by G Higgins.

[@danbeaulieu2130]

@@davidbenyahuda5190 Ancient means from the time before the fall of Rome.

[@Orph3us33]

As someone from Greece the Greeks from the islands like Crete, Aegina, etc are quite dark skinned and have black curly hair, while northern Greeks close to the borders of Europe are very light skinned and blonde. But they are all Greek

[@LigaFantasma]

Bullshit. Most Greeks look like typical Southern Europeans. There's no part of Greece that is majority blonde or majority curly haired and dark skinned.

[@aevans-jl9ym]

@@LigaFantasma Most Northern Europeans today, resemble the fair-haired Persians from Iran the true homeland and origin of the blonde-haired Aryan people of Europe. Please vacate my European homeland and go back home to your 3rd world shitehole in the Eastern hemisphere.

[@p.s.56]

@@LigaFantasma As a Cretan I have to kind of agree with thecornerstone. The more Mediterranean look is in part due to climate and agricultural occupation, but also due to Crete being on the fringes of Greece and mixing with foreigners since before the Minoans. Don't forget that the island has been on many important trade routes and has always heavily relied on exports and imports alike. This is something to be proud of, don't act as if looks are something that brings shame. Rich culture is what matters the most.

[@mrod87]

@@LigaFantasmahave you been to greece? i have and most people who live in the greek islands are darker skinned/olive skinned with dark thick curly hair. they def arent black or arab...i dont know if "white" is the right word for them...but they are NOT fair skinned.

[@colinafobe2152]

just dont be surprised if one day certain people exclude Greeks from "white race"

[@RebelWithoutABoss]

These discussions always turn into semantics babble in order not to answer the question straight forward. We know the ancients didn't perceive of race the same way we do now. Strange they don't go through these same gymnastics when it comes to anci my China or ancient Nubia or medieval Mali, despite the fact that there was some degree of mixture in all these places.

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

ancient China is a touchy subject, with those red haired mummies found in pyramids, like the Tarim ones.

[@KSmithwick1989]

@@Yarblocosifilitico The Tocharian mummies weren't in pyramids. Also they had been known about in the West, decades before the documentary came out. Hell the Book of Han (32 AD) talks about them and the fact they practiced Buddhism. lol

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

@@KSmithwick1989 oh yeah, the Book of Han, so mainstream x) Known about and talked about are very different. I'm probably wrong about the Tarim mummies being in pyramids. I think other red haired mummies were tho, but I'd have to look it up. Either way, it's not common knowledge, and China has clearly tried to cover their pyramids by planting trees.

[@KSmithwick1989]

@@Yarblocosifilitico Funny, because it was the Chinese government that was promoting the Tocharian mummies in the first place. They wanted the tourism money and National Geographic took the opportunity to film the documentary. Also you're confusing the location of the burial mounds (pyramids). The oldest sites originate during the Neolithic, in Liaoning Province. They're in the Northeast, rather than the Northwest. The trees were planted to stabilize soil. In fact the tombs were (like Kurgans), meant to be grown over into hills.

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

@@KSmithwick1989 stabilizing the soil, huh? Seems like it's been fine for milennia but I guess that could be the reason. And, yeah, I'm probably confusing the locations, and the attitude of the Chinese gov towards the red haired mummies. My understanding was that they actively ignore them, but I'll look into it.

[@WaaAniga-p4x]

Short answer: Both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome were a multicultural and multiethnic civilisation!

[@deusdat]

Bottom line: they WERE white.

[@gianlucarossi5672]

And that's illegal according liberals, thus they have to explain it away.

[@gyorkshire257]

Everything argued here is entirely true, the question of whether Romans and Greeks were "white" is completely anachronistic, and depictions of these cultures as monolithically composed of people Americans would call "white" is false. I just wish McDaniel would not repeat the falsehood that there was a time when Italians and Greeks were not considered "white" in the US. This is a back projection of the American 1960's conception of whiteness, meaning a full member of the politically and culturally dominant ethnic group of US society, onto the reality of the pre-war period. Italians, Greeks, Jews, Irish and Slavs were all viewed by society as white, but also inferior to those who were referred to as "Native Americans"; Protestant people of older immigrant stock.

[@gyorkshire257]

@Alex Soltesz There were people whose appearance would mean them being called "black" or "mixed race" today among both free and slave populations. Their numbers were small, but they were there and Europeans are all partially descended from them.

[@gianlucarossi5672]

@Alex Soltesz Black slaves were kept Rome, albeit in insignificant small numbers. They disappeared without leaving a trace.

[@sirdigby9241]

With such a silly title I hesitated to watch but it was actually quite good.

[@JohnnyArtPavlou]

As a person of Greek heritage, I don’t really think of myself as “white.” I’m happy to pass is white. Then I can add white privilege to my male privilege. Which is rather awesome… But I grew up in a kind of “ethnic” household and never quite felt as American as my friends and classmates. Nowadays being ethnic is a very cool thing. And why not? I mean we used to be a melting pot… Now we’re grand mosaic. Anyway you slice it… We’re all Americans.

[@WoodsLesnik]

So how exactly do we define white?

[@oddindian1]

I think what is really being described is northern and northwestern European people.

[@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368]

We currently define it as the root of all social problems.

[@karenburrows9184]

It should be defined as a social misconception.

[@someguy8732]

As in the typical European genotype; a mixture of the three ancient groups called the Western Hunter Gatherers, Neolithic Anatolian Farmers and Steppe Pastoralists which first formed in north-central Europe in the bronze age.

[@moshow93]

Who exactly would you say has white privilege if we can't even define white? Try harder schlomo.

[@GABRIELLUCERO1]

Let me add a bit of info. As a child in the 70's and early 80's in Mexico many people avoided having relationships with dark skin people not because they were racist but because dark skinned people were considered to be impoverished since the dark color was due to working out in the fields. Lighter skin men were considered more desirable to women because people who work inside usually make more money and have higher educations. Lighter skinned women were considered to be better educated and taken care by their parents making them desirable since they were more likely to be educated or having parents who looked after them remained virgins since they were not exposed to the risk of having early sex while roaming the streets.

[@GABRIELLUCERO1]

@Mz TTM Maybe I should have added that I am Mexican and am living in Mexico so I have a bit of insight.

[@SILENCEINTHESOULS]

@@GABRIELLUCERO1 i saw your dp You look very brown In my nation you will be passed as brown race Do you identify as white race

[@GABRIELLUCERO1]

@@SILENCEINTHESOULS No I actually identify as Hispanic even though I have no pigment besides pink in my skin and my eyes are either hazle, golden or green (yes I have those weird eyes that constantly change colors) up to the age of 4 they were blue. My hair is black or better yet salt and pepper but used to be blonde up to the age of 6. I was not liked by other boys as a child and was called all kinds of names because racism exist in the other direction when you're the minority.

[@SILENCEINTHESOULS]

@@GABRIELLUCERO1 i feel sad for you but remember you are a powerful soul and will achieve what you want. Regarding me, I have personally seen so much of racist experience that my friends went through, one of my friends was bullied by white guy because he said, Rahul,your mom has white skin tone so she is of white race, Funny thing was - his mom Doesn't even identify as white race Her white skin was not even due to white race ancestory and was not of white race But yet he labelled her as white. And used to bully him Though we got the revenge. On last day of school, John's mom came to school and she was white race women but she had brown skin tone so we did that too her mom and said oh you mam did a inter race marriage She said no, my skin tone is brown but I have white Race ancestory ANCESTORY and of white Race and I don't even identify as brown race We said no and We said, well you skin tone is brown and hence you can't be of white Race ancestory and is of brown race. Right John ? John was so angry at that time He didn't liked his logic being applied at him. He left while his mother was very confused.

[@AnnRen-nh4ur]

Mexicans are much darker than Greeks and Italians

[@matthewmann8969]

Yes and no they were definitely not Anglos, Saxons, Anglo Saxons, Germanics, Normans, Or Vikings

[@giannarosize]

Viking is a job, correct definition is Scardinavians, and they are considered Germanic since they speak a Germanic dialect 🙃 they just have a little different fixture in their genes (just a correction)

[@opalsirius8484]

Our idea of Greek and Romans being white DOESN'T come from Hollywood movies; it comes from their own sculptures and paintings. More recently, the Pompeii walls are full of art with white people

[@joshuamoon9312]

"White"

[@mariosathens1]

define white first If you mean white like the Central and Nothern Europeans ( Britons, Germans etc) i think not. The Greeks and Romans belong to the European Mediterranean Nations. They have darker skin than the Central and Nothern European Nations because of the different weather conditions (sunny days)

[@furn6341]

What even is “Europe”. There is nothing historically or pretty much in present as “European”. Europe is not even a continent.

[@giannarosize]

@@furn6341 the correct name of the continent is Eurasia

[@christopherkrol7452]

It's not the weather but dna that made em a shade darker...Ever hear of the moorish conquest?? All of us were mostly 1 genetically until this side got a little african, that side got a little chinese, and the middle, ottoman got a little of everything... everyone between central European and the other main types is a mixture. Pretty much that simple

[@devinsmith4790]

The Roman Empire at its height had territories in three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa), so it's no surprise there were populations that we today wouldn't consider white.

[@someguy8732]

But they weren't Roman, just like a Pakistani immigrant or his kids living in the UK isn't English, Scottish or Irish

[@furn6341]

Europe is not a continent.

[@rosalynbeatty8310]

@@furn6341 It connects to Asia

[@joshuamoon9312]

@@someguy8732 Yeah they were. Rome was known for civic nationalism.

[@ITALICVS]

@@joshuamoon9312 absolutely not. Roman citizenship was not given outside Italy for 9 centuries. It happened only after 212 AD..... 😅

[@2Hesiod]

Well, Syria was part of the Greek empire, but many early Greeks were from Asia Minor.

[@konstantinoskouratoras8079]

I am from Asia Minor!

[@2Hesiod]

@@konstantinoskouratoras8079 Anthropologists and archaeologists describe the ancient peoples around the Mediterranean as of the "Mediterranean" type. My childhood friend's father was Italian, and he was very dark-complexioned.

[@davidelrockafella2870]

12:31 most Europeans that speak on ancient history try their hardest to not use the word “black” out of fear of backlash when addressing the evidence of people darkskin people being associated with people incorrectly viewed as “black” in current day. Some things never change

[@heathervelasquez9108]

I enjoy the info on DNA and other historical content but the "Race" thing is putting me off.

[@shannonandsheila1403]

Agreed 👍

[@YaBoiDREX]

@Alex Soltesz races weren’t created by god or nature, they were created by man.

[@Ace-sb4il]

Especially when they dont really say anything

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

@@YaBoiDREX really?

[@christopherkrol7452]

Species better?

[@lysimachosdiadochos7203]

Short story: Yes. Long story: Yeeeeeeeeeesssssss.

[@DogWalkerBill]

"Orientalism" I visited Blenheim Palace in England back in 2000. I had high tea in the India Room, which is painted in motifs of China because decorators of the era didn't know the difference. (BTW: Blenheim Palace is Winston Churchill's birth home and is otherwise a worthy place to visit.)

[@veegar9265]

Sighhhhh, .. . here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4LNlpZthdSbndE how about some TRUE BLACK African super-civilization and culture

[@joshuddin897]

I thought this was a lady with long hair!!!

[@hardrada8637]

Yep ... Transexual

[@Jobe-13]

Wait she’s a dude? What the-

[@christopherkrol7452]

I don't trust left theorists

[@tomlidot4871]

Fascinating and informative segment. Appreciated the guest speaker and the POV regarding 300.

[@Luis-hy8qj]

But wasn't Achilles and Alexander the Great described as having blonde hair and blue eyes??

[@GhostSal]

I don’t know about Achilles but when discussing Alexander the Great, remember it’s more so a matter of perspective. The Greek word for blond(e) is ksanthos/ksanthê/ksantho which was often compared to the color of roasting meat, so to modern ideas it was more likely a sandy-brown. In fact when Greeks saw very light blonde hair (think closer to Marilyn Monroe) they compared it to that of the elderly, calling it “old” or “white”. So Alexander the Great was light haired, especially by Greek standards but not likely not “blonde” they way we think of blondes. Pseudo-Callisthenes labels Alexander's hair "lion-colored" and said "For he had the hair of a lion and one eye was blue; the right one was heavy lidded and black, and the left one was blue; and his teeth were sharp as fangs, and he looked upon a defensive attack the same as a lion would."

[@hydroxyzine1136]

@@GhostSal many people regard sandy brown as blonde even today in america. monroe had bleached hair and most people assume its fake

[@GhostSal]

@@hydroxyzine1136 That’s true, it’s like I said a matter of perspective. When I think of blonde hair, I think of someone like Marilyn Monroe.

[@hydroxyzine1136]

@@GhostSal her hair was very light blond. a typically UNNATURAL shade of hair color even in western europe, unless youre talking about children. blond comes in many different shades. for many people, sandy, chestnut or light "brown" is what you call dark blond. usually they had monroe hair color as children and it darkened with age. my hair was blond like that as a child too, and now its dark brown/blackish, and im 100% north western european in descent. as for alexander, he was described as "xanthos" by another author, and the famous mosaic depicts his hair as light brown/blond (dark color is used for shading) and his skin is milk white (note the untanned neck). but then, the artist probably never saw him anyway. however, plutarch spoke with authority that alexander had fair rosy skin, and thus would have been coded as white in modern america, much to the dismay of spencer mcdonald and the classicists who have been trying to divorce classical civilization from europe. the reality is that the concepts of race including whiteness and anti-black racism (severus had a black man killed because he was black, the greek galen attributed negative characteristics to black featured people, and the spanish invented racial castes systems in latin america) were invented by southern europeans, and its cute seeing people insist that they were or are not white because western europeans have more "blondes" among their populations even though the vast majority of us still have dark hair, just like our mesolithic and steppe ancestors. you guys are a joke

[@GhostSal]

@@hydroxyzine1136”…and its cute seeing people insist that they were or are not white because western europeans have more "blondes" among their populations even though the vast majority of us still have dark hair, just like our mesolithic and steppe ancestors. you guys are a joke” - Where did that come from? We were talking about hair color, not racíal identity politícs. When we apply modern racíal categories and distinctions to the ancient world, it’s important to realize that we are applying modern labels to people that they never would have used themselves. It’s also important to recognize there is no scientific basis for the belief in different raceš today. With that said, that hasn’t stopped people from ígnoring scíence and mistreating each other, simply based physical differences and today on perceptíons of “racè”. Again though, this discussion was started simply about hair color.

[@bobjuniel8683]

To understand the genetic origins of ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, use DNA testing. Do not guess.

[@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45]

They already did that (at least in relation to the Greeks): see "The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations" in cell_dot_com. And guess what: they had dark skin.

[@giannarosize]

@@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45 define dark skin

[@orthochristos]

@@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45 Guess what: I read the study. It does refer to their skin complexion. So, either you are lying, or you are an ignoramus.

[@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45]

@@orthochristos (???) That's what I said: they had dark skin complexion (I never said they were black). I was just comparing them to modern Greeks, who are lighter-skinned (at least most of them).

[@orthochristos]

@@woodpeckerfromspacewoodpec45 Well, that's not what I said. Nowhere in the study that you referred to as evidence for your claim does it make mention of skin complexion. That was not the purpose of the study, to begin with. I read it. They might have been dark-skinned or light-skinned, but that is irrelevant. Of course, they were not black, but I am not even going to entertain that ridiculous notion.

[@muslimcrusader5987]

Romans had rosy skin (light pink). Greeks also had rosy skin. They were not white. In fact, the only white people were northern Germanians, like the Anglo-Saxons, and some Scandinavian tribes as they were pale (white). But for the vast majority of Europeans they are either pink, peach or yellow.

[@davidbenyahuda5190]

White people are not indigenous to Europe, hence not European. Saxons were black people, Israelites. And much of Europe was black.

[@TimtheEnchanter25]

Brah, the Germans are pink. Only Caucasians are white. Georgians, Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis and Circassians.

[@muslimcrusader5987]

@@TimtheEnchanter25 Not exactly. Modern Germans are mostly peach, as they are a mix of Celts (light pink) and Slavs (light yellow). Pure blooded Germans are pale (white). Not too sure about the ethnicities of the Caucuses. I haven’t investigated them well enough

[@candicecantoo92]

My Italian family extends to Ancient Rome: the TRUTH is that the Romans were THE ORIGINAL LATINOS (Latin Speaking) AND THEY WERE "WHITE". They were descendants of the sons of Atlantis, i.e.,the Aryans who originated from modern day Iran (which means "land of the Aryans") and Eastern Europe extending to the GREAT RUS WALL (no it was never a wall of China which is why its battlements face TOWARDS CHINA not in defense of it). My Italian family originally settled in the area of Lombardy (Northern Italian State)... HOWEVER THEY CAME FROM the far North (Lombardy is a word which etymologically derived from the term referring to what ancient people called "longbeards" or "redbeards") and today we know they were originally Rus/Norwegian Vikings. There was a huge migration of Northmen down into Europe at this time which facilitated this. We have been so lied to... they WERE "WHITE" because they DID NOT ORIGINATE FROM ITALY but rather had migrated South prior to the creation of "Italy" and I'm sure it was the same for the Greeks, & for allother peoples. "Racism" is a cultural narrative created to divide. This girl/guy is a loon. Check out Robert Sepehr Channel (Anthropologist,) or Atlantean Gardens Channel, he isn't afraid to tell the unvarnished truth.

[@galinor7]

Absolutely right. Thank you.

[@dina113east]

The Romans weren't Latinos, they were Latins. Latino is a modern term applied to the people of various countries with some Hispanic/Spanish ancestry.

[@ogahlatta2009]

U are misleading urself and ur audience, all the ancient people were black with 9DNA contrary to caucasian with 6DNA series big differences.

[@dina113east]

@@ogahlatta2009 Ancient Romans were not black. There are existing frescoes and statues that show us what the Ancient Romans skin color and features were. They were white, as with all European peoples.

[@joshuamoon9312]

@@dina113east Nah, they were Mediterranean.

[@gyorkshire257]

Asking if Greeks and Romans were "white" is like asking whether they supported Aston Villa or Leeds United.

[@denis3208]

@Etruscans civilization That is simply untrue and trying to mask your stupidity with shaming someone as a white supremacists is just sad. It doesn't matter how much you lie, truth comes out, its not just history or archeology, literature, architecture, or oral tradition there is now a days also genetic evidence, Greeks are genetic descendants of of Minoans and Mycenaean its simple as that and Coptic people are direct descendants of ancient Egyptians, and children tend to look like their parents.

[@MrJoebrooklyn1969]

@Etruscans civilization yea, meep dreaming. They were white. The proof is look at what all black nations have created.

[@gyorkshire257]

@Etruscans civilization In reality race doesn't exist, except as a social construct. The societies of the ancient Romans and Greeks had no concept of race, in our understanding of the word. Looking at some of the comments on here, I would have to say "lucky them".

[@gyorkshire257]

@@denis3208 I love this, you come in and complain about views being called white supremacist, then the very next post in support of you is by a white supremacist.

[@someguy8732]

@Etruscans civilization all credible scholars know that genetic studies have been done which show they are white Europeans and the relatively small numbers of foreigners living in the trade centers were regarded as foreigners and distinctly different. Most Greek city states wouldn't even consider other Greeks as being able to become "one of them", let alone a non Greek. As for Rome, they kept strick lineage based criteria for who counts a Roman and who doesn't. Eventually during the empire the definition of who could be a Roman citizen was expanded several times to include more and more non-romans and every time it was done for the sake of immediate convenience to the government (namely tax and military advantages) and not because they actually considered the foreign peoples they conquered to be "one of them" and the ethnic Roman citizenry tried to fight it every time.

[@alexisgateley230]

Are the speakers in this video white? They appear more pink than white..btw were Zulus actually black? LOL

[@robertcrusader5019]

Exactly.

[@lamebubblesflysohigh]

Shaka Zulu was tall blonde blue eyed white dude... everybody knows that

[@shaqatwinters3180]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/b33NiIeIbMR-h8U

[@TimtheEnchanter25]

Only Caucasians are actually white. By Caucasians, I mean Georgians, Chechens, Ingush... I am Georgian and I am purely white. Not pink, not olive. We're the only ones who are actually "white" and actually "Caucasian" as well. Nords are pink, Middle easterners are light shade of brown, Mediterraneans are olive, Africans are brown.

[@ellienavarro4230]

Why cannot be Greeks and Romans white? Who Knows? I am Spaniard and my father´s family side is very fair and my mother´s family side is olive skin with freckles. People have assumptions that Spaniards are dark skin and that is not true

[@edwinlucianofrias1643]

Many Spaniards do indeed have slightly darker skin than your average Swede, for example. Greeks and Romans are considered “white” today but in antiquity the idea that a person identified as “white” is anachronistic. Sería como preguntarse si Jesús el Nazareno era palestino o israelí.

[@gioseanuandrei5489]

Looking at the Spanish football players, there are quite a few with blue eyes and light hair. One example that comes to mind is David de Gea, but there are others also like Pique and Marcos Llorente.

[@darktyrannosaurus22]

How does the existence of people making contributions in many areas, from Phrygia, Lycia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, North Africa to the Mediterranean, who lived in European political entities change something about the existence of the Greeks and Romans? How does individuals of other ethnicities acquiring citizenship or being composed as subjects change the status that they were not Roman, Greek, Macedonian?

[@gianlucarossi5672]

The native Romans, Greeks and Macedonians were white, thus they have to be written out of their history. It's called wokeness and liberal progressiveness.

[@daPawlak]

The point is that mediterran popularipns were mixed up a lot while having nothing to do with say north europeans. Roman was closer to Egyptian or North African than to Scandinavan. Thus there is no point to make an arbitrary grouping that includes Scandinavan and Roman (aka white race) while excluding Mesopotanians or Egyptians. It's anachronistic

[@catocall7323]

@@daPawlak that's not true, Greeks, Italians, Etruscans, Gauls, Celts, Hittites, Persians and Iberians were all Indo-European and more similar to each other than Mesopotamians and Egyptians which had completely different histories and language families. And, before you think I am claiming some kind of supremacy here, it is clear that Egypt and Mesopotamia were before the Bronze Age collapse way more advanced than their Indo-European neighbors. And subsequent civilizations borrowed extensively from Egypt and Mesopotamia.

[@someguy8732]

@@catocall7323 not entirely true, they were only more advanced in some ways. Architecturally speaking, and in terms of stone work, the Egyptians and Mesopotamians had the upper hand for most of the bronze age, and they benefited from being large centralized states in prime farming real estate but the Indo-European people's had much more advanced military technology and metal working in general. Europeans seem to have invented bronze and spread it across Eurasia after all. They domesticated the horse and invented the chariot.

[@catocall7323]

@@someguy8732 the bronze age civilizations created sophisticated civil societies centuries before anybody else. We should give credit where credit is due.

[@vespasian266]

the question was, were the greeks and romans white, not did the greeks and romans think of themselves as white. The Greeks and Romans were a mix of Mediterranean and northern Europeans. Romans more so than Greeks. they both spoke an indo european language. which suggests there was an invasion by the steppe nomads who mixed with the population at one point. perhaps in time the anatolians expanding back into Greece.

[@carlomariaromano4320]

@Ario 1 With that logic nobody was white back then including the super pale Northern Europeans who also never thought of themselves as "white". Nubians that were called by Romans and Greeks literally burnt faces didn't think of themselves a black; too. Yet the same liberal scholars have no qualms with pointing out, that black Africans were present in Rome or ancient Greece. They also love to inflate or blow up the presence of SSAs in Rome or Greece.

[@Texasmade74]

@Ario 1 "The origins of the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean cultures have puzzled archaeologists for more than a century. We have assembled genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals, including Minoans from Crete, Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and their eastern neighbours from southwestern Anatolia. Here we show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, having at least three-quarters of their ancestry from the first Neolithic farmers of western Anatolia and the Aegean1,2, and most of the remainder from ancient populations related to those of the Caucasus3 and Iran4,5. However, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter-gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia6,7,8, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe1,6,9 or Armenia4,9. Modern Greeks resemble the Mycenaeans, but with some additional dilution of the Early Neolithic ancestry. Our results support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean, before and after the time of its earliest civilizations."

[@carlomariaromano4320]

@Ario 1 Keep in mind that white people can be swarthy, tanned or pale. So a tanned white, is still white.

[@nuttybar9]

They were White.

[@EudaimonV]

Ethiopia didn't exist as a country back then like we know it now. Aethiopis is a Hellenic word used by Hellens to describe the people living South of Egypt because of there darker skin complexion. Aethiopis means Burnt Face. Memnon and Andromeda are NOT described having African features or characteristics. They are born in the land of the Aethiopis people. Hellenic mythology like every mythology, goes beyond the borders of there lands. Memnon and Andromeda are Based on Hellenic mythology related to Hellenic culture. Memnon's title is. Memnon Hero of Troy king OF THE Aethiopis people.

[@furn6341]

Who said Syrian is non-European ancestry?

[@Hellemokers]

Shocking, Philip the Arab was from Arabia. Great video!

[@jju2444]

No he was not from Arabia... its like Scipio Africanus. These men were from italic families but ruled over the region of Arabia and Africa respectively...

[@andrewsivewright7087]

@@jju2444 Scipio Africanus is not Scipio the African. Phillip the Arab was an Arab not named for a military triumph over the Arabs.

[@jju2444]

@@andrewsivewright7087 Philip the Arab was born in Syria and he was part of the reconquest of areas of the former Mesopotamia and battled the Persians... 🙄

[@jju2444]

@Ario 2 Syria is next to Turkey, closer to Greece than to the Arabian Peninsula and had no borders with the orginal kindgom of Nabatea... And Syria was not a part of the roman Arabia until a dispute over power occured when the Governor of Syria Pescennius Niger proclaimed himself as the Roman Emperor. As punishment, Severus attacked Syria and split it into two. One of the splitted regions of Syria was annexed to the administrative region of Arabia (3rd Century). Still Phillip was "Arab" as Claudius Gothicus was "Goth"... Or as Trajan was "Hispanic"... Phillip was Syrian/Greek/Roman, but due to the political climate of Syria that tried to control the Roman Empire while the Arab administrators remained loyal to Rome, the nickname of Arab sounded more friendly in this period. Then, during Diocletian's reign, Israel was added to the administrative region of Arabia.

[@jju2444]

@Ario 2 That is true. The same can be said about all the populations in North Africa too. Even Muslims from Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, etc share more DNA in common with the ancient populations of those regions than with people from Saubi Arabia or Jordania. Even many have Jewish ancestry and dont know it yet. The same happens in the Muslims from Albania and North Macedonia. If only more people knew that the truth about their ancestries in the Levant and North Africa...

[@marcrubin8844]

It is ironical that people who lived in antiquity had a more modern view on race than society today in the 21st century.

[@robertcrusader5019]

At that time, they did not have marxist critical race theory pitting one group against another to advance their own personal power seeking ends. People just accepted that you came from an ethnic group and all were proud of their origins, slaves and all.

[@joek600]

@@robertcrusader5019 ''marxist critical race theory'' seriously wtf

[@robertcrusader5019]

​@@joek600 "At that time, they did not have marxist critical race theory..."

[@joek600]

@@robertcrusader5019 as if you fixed it now lol

[@emmettroehr406]

I haven't seen this video before. I love this channel, and this one really struck me as an important conversation. I wish Nick was here to continue to promote young Historians and conduct great interviews like this one. He is missed. ❤

[@darthchingaso3613]

The modern concept of white is a fairly modern construct and not based in biology orscience but off skin color.

[@Texasmade74]

"An analysis of ancient DNA has revealed that Ancient Minoans and Mycenaens were genetically similar with both peoples descending from early Neolithic farmers. They likely migrated from Anatolia to Greece and Crete thousands of years prior to the Bronze Age. Modern Greeks, in turn, are largely descendants of the Mycenaeans, the study found.The discovery of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations on the island of Crete and on mainland Greece in the late 1800s gave birth to modern archaeology and opened a direct window into the European Bronze Age. This period of history had previously been glimpsed only though Homer's epics, the Iliad and Odyssey."

[@jordancarpenter4093]

I know, but your information is simply too much for the Idiots in England and the USA !!

[@Texasmade74]

@Me Myself no they didn't

[@Texasmade74]

@Timothy Aldred are you being serious or sarcastic?

[@Texasmade74]

@Me Myself they literally come from Neolithic farmers that are from Anatolia not Africa whatsoever

[@Texasmade74]

@Me Myself I just posted the dna findings from a scientific journal

[@ΜιχΛαζ]

Of course they where white this isn’t even a question.Αιθιοψ means sunburned (black and red) so if thery where something else they didn’t even need the creation of the this word which is from Homers and we still use today.

[@The30Free]

This doesn’t make sense lmao that doesn’t say anything about the literal colour of your skin which if your Greek is likely light brown or olive, not white 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@ΜιχΛαζ]

@@The30Free I think you confuse been brown from the sun and brown from origin or white from origin and white from no sun.

[@The30Free]

@@ΜιχΛαζ no you clearly are the one mistaken because our culture is heavily influenced south and east of modern day Greece not north lol, we originate from a hot place lmao so to say you prove me right is an understatement, herodatus says we came from south of Greece give or take, genes say we originated in Anatolia and maybe even further east, all hot places so what are you talking about? My dad was born in chios but has lived in England since he was young, still brown... no sun here pal 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’m sorry but I’m finding these arguments more and more hillarious... Greek culture is clearly more historically connected to the east and south of Greece.

[@The30Free]

@@ΜιχΛαζ the very Greek language originated in North Africa, do you see the problem here? We can draw at straws or we can look at the facts and the facts are growing up my entire life people mistake me for being Middle Eastern, not Slavic 🤷🏻‍♂️ no one ever said ohh you look Germanic or ohh you look Russian. No they all say we look Middle Eastern. The racist Europeans use to be honest about this saying we are more closely to related to Middle East then Europe and they were right 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@ΜιχΛαζ]

@@The30Free first of all you have no clue what anthropology is about second Hellenic people didn’t originate in Anatolia or in Caucasus where Prometheus was poisoned but originated in this area the tablet of dispilios is from 5.300bc with Greek letters on it and not Phoenician and also the cave of petralona and the cambrigde letter to the hellenic constitution of Greece proves that.Being born in a place doesn’t make you one for example a Chinese man born in Greece doesn’t make him white and the same is for the opposite.There are white people in Afghanistan or in north japan that are white.Berbers has blue eyes and gold hair in Ethiopia.You didn’t prove something as I am aware.

[@grimfortress6420]

By any modern definition of the word yes. We consider the modern day Italians and Greeks to be European, aka white. They are direct descendants of their ancestors. There might be a few other genetic infusions into the populations, but they are still 95% still genetically the same as 2000 years ago. This just seems like a silly question to even be asking. It is like asking if modern day Kenyans are African.

[@galinor7]

Thank you your sensible contribution. So few however want to ask that question.

[@joshuamoon9312]

Not true.

[@DogWalkerBill]

I heard that Roman men were fascinated by blond Celtic-Germanic women because they were so tall and fair. This may have started with a fascination with blond women that continues to this day.

[@ms-06fzakuii53]

Or maybe they're just objectively desirable.

[@DogWalkerBill]

@@ms-06fzakuii53 Nah. It's the novelty of something new. Humans are like that.

[@sklavenitis9073]

Lmao. This put a smile on my face.

[@ThanosAnim]

You guys are doing amazing analysis! Keep it up

[@alessandrom7181]

Amazing idiocies at most.

[@sheerluckholmes7720]

Historical-anal dialysis 🙄

[@DogWalkerBill]

I've been amazed by Luwian Studies which claimed the original archeologists (Schliemann etal.) were interested in the history of Europe. Thus they focused on the Greeks, Achaeans & Myceneans and ignored the Trojans and people living in Anatolia.

[@veegar9265]

Sighhhhh, .. . here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4LNlpZthdSbndE how about some TRUE BLACK African super-civilization and culture