The Off Topic Topic

[Syt]

Another example of Romans in Britain came from all over, this famous gravestone:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/EBvs4GUaT8Knfhl_sSpGWw

This tombstone is evidence for immigration and the mixing of cultures 1800 years ago. It was set up outside the Roman fort at South Shields in north-east England and records a British woman called Regina, who originally came from south-east England, and a man called Barates, who came from Palmyra in Syria. Regina was a slave, but Barates freed her and married her, and when she died aged 30, had this expensive tombstone made for her. It is Roman in style and has a Latin inscription, but also, uniquely in Britain, a second inscription in his own language, Aramaic, reading 'Regina, freedwoman of Barates, alas'.

[Syt]

As a kid I read the Ryder Hook series. It was a silly sci-fi pulp space opera about an enhanced super warrior on the run from the authorities that created him. I don't recally much of the series, but I know that I picked them up based on the awesome cover art.

[Josquius]

The German adds to the 80s retro cool aesthetic

[Tamas]

Another example of Romans in Britain came from all over, this famous gravestone:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/EBvs4GUaT8Knfhl_sSpGWw

This tombstone is evidence for immigration and the mixing of cultures 1800 years ago. It was set up outside the Roman fort at South Shields in north-east England and records a British woman called Regina, who originally came from south-east England, and a man called Barates, who came from Palmyra in Syria. Regina was a slave, but Barates freed her and married her, and when she died aged 30, had this expensive tombstone made for her. It is Roman in style and has a Latin inscription, but also, uniquely in Britain, a second inscription in his own language, Aramaic, reading 'Regina, freedwoman of Barates, alas'.

This was never up for debate by us, as mentioned by others above. BTW the Museum of London makes a very nice and cool case for how in a lot of ways Roman London was very much like the present day one.

Which just makes it all the more historically silly, to take all the possible ethnicities that could had feasibly risen to nobility in Roman Britain, and choose the by far least likely one, based on the basically offendingly oversimplified notion that "Algeria is in Africa, people in Africa were all black, ergo Roman noble from Africa was black". This assumption about North Africa is right up there with assuming the Romans (as noted, centuries before mass Germanic migrations) were pale North Europeans.

[garbon]

What's silly is complaining that one 6 minute video in an hour long series is making claims that the average family in Roman Britain was black. Admittedly I only watched a brief bit of the 5 minutes on BBC's website but didn't see any of the claims that Tamas/Infowars are making.

Also, unless I'm mistaken only the father and son are of particularly dark shades. So 2 characters out of something like 15 in a 6 minute long cartoon for children causes this much angst?

Thanks for promoting a world where skin color is not important.

[Josquius]

Black isn't too unlikely.
At least he wasn't oriental or asian.

Black people at the time were rare in the empire, but far from unseen. Trans Saharan trade was pretty active then you've the Nubia connection.
Black people wouldn't be the most common but they existed. And they show diversity a lot better than different shades of Caucasian.

I get where the upset us coming from.
It annoys me too when I see the wrong ethnicities in shows. I recall a doctor who episode where he was in a  medieval village and there was a random black villager for no reason. The diversity of planets in stargate also annoyed me: why did the Chinese go auld only have his main guy be Chinese and everyone else be white?
But in the case of a single roman soldier in an educational video to show how people in settled from all over the empire.... Meh. Uncommon but realistic.

[Tamas]

What's silly is complaining that one 6 minute video in an hour long series is making claims that the average family in Roman Britain was black. Admittedly I only watched a brief bit of the 5 minutes on BBC's website but didn't see any of the claims that Tamas/Infowars are making.

Also, unless I'm mistaken only the father and son are of particularly dark shades. So 2 characters out of something like 15 in a 6 minute long cartoon for children causes this much angst?

Thanks for promoting a world where skin color is not important.

Well it had to have the "all Africans were black" angle from the Guardian article and comment section to raise above my horizon. You have to admit that is not less ignorant than the right-wing twitter fury they were reacting on.

[The Brain]

The guy is probably neurodiverse as well. Only we can't see it.

[garbon]

What's silly is complaining that one 6 minute video in an hour long series is making claims that the average family in Roman Britain was black. Admittedly I only watched a brief bit of the 5 minutes on BBC's website but didn't see any of the claims that Tamas/Infowars are making.

Also, unless I'm mistaken only the father and son are of particularly dark shades. So 2 characters out of something like 15 in a 6 minute long cartoon for children causes this much angst?

Thanks for promoting a world where skin color is not important.

Well it had to have the "all Africans were black" angle from the Guardian article and comment section to raise above my horizon. You have to admit that is not less ignorant than the right-wing twitter fury they were reacting on.

I have no idea what all African were black article you are citing. I've not seen that.

Not really sure though why you are happy to point out ignorant leftists commenting on articles as equivalent to your ignorant complaining.

[Tamas]

What's silly is complaining that one 6 minute video in an hour long series is making claims that the average family in Roman Britain was black. Admittedly I only watched a brief bit of the 5 minutes on BBC's website but didn't see any of the claims that Tamas/Infowars are making.

Also, unless I'm mistaken only the father and son are of particularly dark shades. So 2 characters out of something like 15 in a 6 minute long cartoon for children causes this much angst?

Thanks for promoting a world where skin color is not important.

Well it had to have the "all Africans were black" angle from the Guardian article and comment section to raise above my horizon. You have to admit that is not less ignorant than the right-wing twitter fury they were reacting on.

I have no idea what all African were black article you are citing. I've not seen that.

Not really sure though why you are happy to point out ignorant leftists commenting on articles as equivalent to your ignorant complaining.

Can't find the link now. But I happily admit I was wrong and black Algerians rising to Roman nobility is a perfectly acceptable historical concept, if it helps you chill.

[garbon]

What's silly is complaining that one 6 minute video in an hour long series is making claims that the average family in Roman Britain was black. Admittedly I only watched a brief bit of the 5 minutes on BBC's website but didn't see any of the claims that Tamas/Infowars are making.

Also, unless I'm mistaken only the father and son are of particularly dark shades. So 2 characters out of something like 15 in a 6 minute long cartoon for children causes this much angst?

Thanks for promoting a world where skin color is not important.

Well it had to have the "all Africans were black" angle from the Guardian article and comment section to raise above my horizon. You have to admit that is not less ignorant than the right-wing twitter fury they were reacting on.

I have no idea what all African were black article you are citing. I've not seen that.

Not really sure though why you are happy to point out ignorant leftists commenting on articles as equivalent to your ignorant complaining.

Can't find the link now. But I happily admit I was wrong and black Algerians rising to Roman nobility is a perfectly acceptable historical concept, if it helps you chill.

I'm fine, so don't you worry about me. If I were you, I'd worry more about how you are coming across as an ignorant individual obsessed with skin tones in cartoons.

[The Brain]

I'm more concerned that he looks a bit like Idris Elba. Not all black people are total hunks.

[garbon]

I'm more concerned that he looks a bit like Idris Elba. Not all black people are total hunks.

But you aren't supposed to be taken seriously.

[CountDeMoney]

Correction: Seedy used to be American. Now he's nothing. Hell, he's almost European.

Save it for your frilly Esteban hat, Junta boy.

[Malthus]

Heh, here is some actual proof on the Black Africans in Britain thing.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/historia_augusta/septimius_severus*.html

22 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] The death of Severus was foreshadowed by the following events: he himself dreamed that he was snatched up to the heavens in a jewelled car drawn by four eagles, whilst some vast shape, I know not what, but resembling a man, flew on before. And while he was being snatched up, he counted out the numbers eighty and nine,162 and beyond this number of years he did not live so much as one, for he was an old man when he came to the throne. 2 And then, after he  p425 had been placed in a huge circle in the air, for a long time he stood alone and desolate, until finally, when he began to fear that he might fall headlong, he saw himself summoned by Jupiter and placed among the Antonines. 3 Again, on the day of the circus-games, when three plaster figures of Victory were set up in the customary way, with palms in their hands, the one in the middle, which held a sphere inscribed with his name, struck by a gust of wind, fell down from the balcony163 in an upright position and remained on the ground in this posture; while the one on which Geta's name was inscribed was dashed down and completely shattered, and the one which bore Bassianus' name lost its palm and barely managed to keep its place, such was the whirling of the wind. 4 On another occasion, when he was returning to his nearest quarters from an inspection of the wall at Luguvallum164 in Britain, at a time when he had not only proved victorious but had concluded a perpetual peace, just as he was wondering what omen would present itself, an Ethiopian soldier, who was famous among buffoons and always a notable jester, met him with a garland of cypress-boughs. 5 And when Severus in a rage ordered that the man be removed from his sight, troubled as he was by the man's ominous colour and the ominous nature of the garland, the Ethiopian by way of jest cried, it is said, "You have been all things,165 you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god." 6 And when on reaching the town he wished to perform a sacrifice, in the first place, through a misunderstanding on the part of the rustic soothsayer, he was taken to the Temple of Bellona, and, in the second place, the victims provided him were black. 7 And then, when  p427 he abandoned the sacrifice in disgust and betook himself to the Palace,166 through some carelessness on the part of the attendants the black victims followed him up to its very doors.

A couple of things to note:

- Black African soldiers existed in Roman Britain - this "Ethiopian soldier" was very clearly Black, as he had an "ominous colour" that was noted as an unfavorable omen, an omen made worse by the later sacrifice of Black animals (that followed the emperor home). 

- Septimius Severus was himself a native of North Africa, but clearly that didn't make him have Black skin - or it would be odd that he would be "troubled ... by the man's ominous colour ".

- a reasonable assumption: Black Africans clearly existed in Roman Britain, but they were rare enough that the fact of them being Black was occasionally noteworthy - as the omen-obsessed Romans took note of this soldier's skin colour.

- The omen may never have actually happened (it seems a little too pat - and it would be a very bold soldier indeed who would "jest" about the death of Severus!  ) but that isn't important ... the important thing is that it would be plausible as a story to this writer's audience. In short, no-one hearing the story would dismiss it because the guy was Black and in Britain.