africans in the military

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It is always a sensitive subject; unfortunately most people have a hard time disengaging their modern ideas about how "race" is defined from the ancient idea of race, which was so poorly developed as to be near non-existent. It is not too far a generalization to say that racism, as we know it today, simply didn't exist in the ancient world.<br>
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I don't want to divert the thread to a general discussion of race in ancient times, but a very good scholarly treatment is Frank Snowden's "Blacks in Antiquity." It's in print and the ISBN is 0-674-07626-5 for the paperback. Snowden is Professor of Classics (emeritus) at Howard University, and is also a black man who takes "Afrocentrist" proponents to task for making all sorts of unfounded claims, such as "all Africans were black [in the modern American sense of black, which is based on West-African appearance]."<br>
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North Africa was a rich recruiting ground for Roman auxiliaries and later, legionaries as well. Some of the most formidable warrior peoples Rome ever encountered were natives of Africa -- the Carthaginians (who were Semitic Phoenician colonists, originally), the Mauri (Moors), the Blemmyes, the Numidians whose light cavalry was highly prized as ally troops by Caesar, or the Ethiopian guerillas of the Kandake (queen) of Nubia, who incessantly raided Roman Egypt. There's no question that Africans were in the Roman military, nor that they fought the Romans and were fully capable of beating them.<br>
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If the question is whether these peoples were "black" in the modern sense, the answer is no, for most North Africans living along the Mediterranean rim at that time were descendents of either Semitic or European stock. The Ethiopians were considered by the Romans to be a different sort of people than North Africans; they described their hair and facial features differently, and called them "Aethiopes," though there was no stigma attached to the term.<br>
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The Aethiope description used by the Romans and Greeks fits very well with stereotypical modern concepts of blackness -- woolly hair, flat broad nose, everted lips, dark eyes and skin. Their descriptions of North African peoples, however, do not match the modern concept.<br>
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Any posts on any thread which remotely resemble personal attacks or "flames" will be immediately deleted and the abuser will receive one private warning. This is why we have moderators, and they are watching for this very thing. So don't be too concerned about getting flamed. Any fires will be instantly snuffed by the firemen.<br>
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Cheers,<br>
Jenny<br>
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