Race Relations in Ancient Greece

...frescoes showing Africans participating in the rites of the cult of Isis...

...Nobody can really say who these men were...

...Alas for dashed hopes...

...Such connections exist...

...Surely whites seeking relief from the emotional strains of contemporary interracial relations can still hope to find a safe refuge in the world of the ancient Greeks...

...Many black Africans seem to have come to classical Europe as soldiers—the Ethiopian contingents of Xerxes' army are said by some to have fought at Marathon—or as slaves...

...Although a classicist, Snowden necessarily must venture into the domain of the Egyptologist, the anthropologist, and the Africanist...

...Snowden mentions that the wooly-haired and black-skinned Blemmyes, who harassed the Romans in Africa for centuries, have been identified by some modern scholars as the Beja of today, but while referring several times to the Troglodyte Ethiopians, whose language, according to Herodotus, "sounds like the screeching of bats," he does not mention that they are often identified with the Tebu of Tibesti—whose speech," according to E. W. Bovill, "is sufficiently unusual to warrant Herodotus' description...

...Ulysses beguiled by a black Circe...

...It is, however, by no means clear what the rough proportion of blacks to whites was at different times and places in the antique world—nor does there seem any way of ever finding out...

...Africans also came into the classical world as bearers of culture and religion...

...In piecing together the evidence, Snowden has had recourse not only to classical literature, but to archeology, anthropology, papyrol-ogy, numismatics, and other disciplines...

...Of special interest are his 120 painstakingly assembled illustrations: double-headed vases contrasting African and European physiognomies...

...as a result, ancient societies enjoyed absorptive powers surpassing those of today...

...Was not the founder of the Oracle of Dodoma, in the opinion of Herodotus, a sacred black woman from Thebes, kidnapped by the Phoenicians and sold to the Greeks...

...What possible connection between Homer and Black Studies...

...Scores of such potential leads to the past are to be found in Snowden's fascinating book—leads that will, one hopes, some day be pursued further to strengthen the slowly emerging pattern of Africa's own ancient history...

...With the publication of Frank M. Snowden's Blacks in Antiquity, another durable illusion passes from the scene...

...And Snowden possesses knowledge that no academic adventurer, seeking to trim his sails to the prevailing winds, can hope to duplicate...

...Ancient Egypt appears to have obtained its religion from Ethiopia, and then to have transmitted some of its beliefs to Greece and Rome...

...But at an early stage the view apparently became widespread that the skin color of "Ethiopians," while unusual, was merely due to their having been burnt by the sun, and was otherwise of no significance...

...One hopes that other authors will enter and develop the territory Snowden has identified...

...Blacks in Antiquity is a seminal book, and a scholar's book...

...Certainly the un-Mediterranean blackness of "Ethiopians" (as all black Africans appear to have been called) was remarked upon, just as the extreme whiteness of Scythians and northern "barbarians" drew comment...

...There was no trace in ancient times—and Snowden quotes eight classical scholars to this effect—of color prejudice in the modern sense...

...White consciousness of technological superiority had not yet upset the balance of mutual respect...

...author, "The Rise of the Colored Races" Blacks in antiquity...

...Indeed, the correspondences between several contemporary African religions and those of ancient Rome are so striking as to demand further investigation...

...Clearly, black Africans were an integral part of the consciousness of ancient European society...

...But scholars, too, sometimes have their day...

...What was of significance was that, not being Greek, they were barbarians—an obstacle that an Ethiopian, like other barbarians, could overcome if he had the inclination to do so...

...When the Portuguese in the 16th century sent the son of Vasco da Gama at the head of 400 men to help the Ethiopian kingdom survive a Moslem invasion, his hosts showed him the mummified bodies of 300 white men, kept in a hilltop town...

...Similarly, in discussing the subject of elephants in the ancient world, Snowden does not mention the North African elephant, killed off in Rome's wars and arenas, which was of a smaller type than the African or Indian elephants of today...

...While its academic style may discourage the general reader, it is nevertheless one of the most important works on black history to appear for a long time...

...marble heads...

...Even later on, population levels remained low...

...that the mother of Delphos, founder of the Oracle of Delphi, was black...

...Although Snowden's guess is that the number of Africans was larger than has been generally assumed, one suspects that, in the fifth and sixth centuries bc at least, it could not have been too great...

...Yet, as formidable a figure as the late W.E.B...

...It was, of course, above all in Egypt that the African and classical worlds met and commingled, and here Snowden has assembled much that is of interest—such as the story of Memnon, the Ethiopian prince who went to the aid of Priam of Troy, slew Antilochus and was himself killed by Achilles...

...The present demand for Black Studies is as apparent as the shortage of qualified experts on the subject...

...The bodies were almost perfect, with only nose, lips, and some fingers missing," it was reported...

...It would appear, too, that black-white relations were not then plagued by some of the problems that were to develop...

...And as Snowden writes, "Delphos is as strong a candidate as any of the others who have been suggested as the Negro appearing on certain fifth-century coins of Athens and Delphi...

...The slaves, though, were not held inferior for any ethnic reasons, but simply because, like numerous Scythians or Britons, they had the misfortune to be taken as prisoners in war...

...What, after all, could be whiter than the classics...

...Asking who the dead men were, the Portuguese were told that they had perhaps been men who conquered the land in Roman times, or perhaps saints...

...Yet one notes in Snowden's pages that, according to a fragment of Agatharchides, probably referring to the reign of the fifth Ptolemy (204-181 bc), a corps of 500 horsemen from Greece was formed for Ptolemy's war against the Ethiopians...

...Despite its scrupulously cautious, almost conservative tone, it breaks completely new ground—that is, ground never before systematically covered...

...Chairman of the Classics Department at Howard University, Snowden has spent many years assembling the material for this book...

...statuettes (bronze for patrician subjects, terracotta for plebeians) showing black soldiers, dancers, jugglers, jockeys, boxers, beggars, and orators...

...The result is the most comprehensive compendium on the subject yet written...

...Apart from a few scholarly articles—including his famous essay, "The Negro in Ancient Greece," in the American Anthropologist (1948)—he has not previously published...

...It has been argued, too...

...The modern phenomenon is an outcome not so much of that gigantic tragedy, the transatlantic slave trade, as of the proslavery propaganda developed in an attempt to counter the ultimate argument that "all men are brothers," with its corollary that slavery therefore had no moral justification...

...All this serves to point up the vast difference between ethnic interrelations in the ancient world and those of our own day...

...Part of the magic that the ancient world holds for us is its capacity for surprise...

...DuBois, in his foreword to The World and Africa (1946), alluded to Snowden's scholarship and also mentioned the difficulties he met with in having his work accepted by classical journals...

...Also depicted are black Aphrodites, black Nikes and a black Andromeda...