(Image above: a marble bust of Memnon, an ‘Ethiopian’ (what we would call ‘black’) student & adopted son of Herodes Atticus. From Atticus’ Villa (Arcadia, Greece). 1st c. CE. Currently in the Staatliches Museum, Berlin. SK-1503. (CC-BY-SA-4.0).
In movies, tv, and other media, ancient Greeks and Romans are regularly portrayed as ‘white’ people. But were they? The answer is complicated. To begin, the question itself hinges on an underlying assumption that requires us to ask something even more basic: would ancient Greeks or Romans identify themselves as — or even understand the concept of — ‘white’ people? This we can answer: No. The idea that ‘white’ and ‘black’ people exist as distinct human/biological categories — i.e., skin color “predict[s]… intellectual capacity and moral tendency” (McCoskey 2012: 3) — is a comparatively recent social construct (KRG: iii; Coates 2013; Gannon 2016) that first appeared during the 15th-century CE, as Europeans began to justify enslaving dark-skinned Africans (Kendi 2016). Before this, there were no ‘white’ or ‘black’ people.
Further, though lumped together in our imaginations, Greece and Rome were different cultures with different histories that formed and defined their identities in distinct ways. Any investigation into their appearance/ethnicity, then, must also acknowledge the following:
1) The ‘Greeks’ only identified collectively as ‘Greeks/Hellenes’ following the Persian wars (by characterizing themselves as the Persians’ cultural ‘opposite’ (Hall 2001: 166)). Before this, they identified with their individual city-states, which dotted the Mediterranean coastline (including North Africa, Asia Minor, and southern Italy) up into the Black Sea. Unsurprisingly, evidence indicates there was “intermarriage on a substantial scale” (Graham 2001: 327).
2) The city-state Rome, though founded by indigenous Italians, became the “melting pot” capital of a “relatively diverse” Roman empire, “as might be expected” given it “encouraged trade and mobility that extended from Hadrian’s Wall to north Africa, the Rhine, and the Euphrates” (Nicholls 2017). Further, Roman auxiliaries, recruited from far-flung provinces and garrisoned (for decades) at the Empire’s borders, often retired where they had been stationed and married local women.
In sum, ancient Greeks and Romans were diverse in appearance, what we would call ‘white’, ‘black’, and/or ‘brown’ (Bond 2017, Morley 2017, Philo 2017, Woolf 2021). Recognizing this is necessary for historical accuracy and, too, for rectifying the systemic erasure of ‘non-white’ individuals in historical narratives. However, when interpreting ancient material, we must set aside the modern construct of ‘race’, which would force incorrect readings onto our evidence, or obscure what it does indicate. (Note: denying race’s relevance to interpreting ancient material is not to deny the importance of identifying diverse individuals in ancient contexts).
But if ancient Greeks and Romans did not use skin color to construct their hierarchies of human difference, what did they use? Because “ancient origin myths of humanity in Greece and the Near East tended to posit a single source for all humans”, the Greeks (and Romans), who saw human difference around them, concluded that “external factors must have altered them into different forms” (KRG, xiii-xiv). Three factors, in particular, were routinely invoked:
1) Climate and geography. Supposedly, people living on flatter, fertile terrain, in milder or hotter climates with less seasonal change, were smaller, lazy, flabby, unintelligent, effeminate, and cowardly. However, those living on rugged terrain, in harsher or cooler climates with dramatic seasonal change, were larger, vigorous, lean, intelligent, fierce/masculine, and warlike (Hippocratic Corpus, On Airs, Waters, Places, 24). Similarly, Aristotle (Politics 7.5.6 (1327b)) and Vitruvius (On Architecture, 6.1.3-5, 6.1.8.-11) claimed that extreme cold (e.g., northern Europe) makes one braver but less intelligent, whereas extreme heat (e.g., Asia) makes one cowardly but smarter. Those living between Europe and Asia, however, (e.g., Greeks and Romans) were brave and intelligent (with better forms of government).
2) Ethnicity/culture. Greeks and Romans thought different ethnic/cultural groups were uncivilized and morally inferior because of their different customs — especially their different forms of governance: ‘lazy’, ‘soft’, ‘unmotivated’ people in milder/hotter regions lived under monarchs because they were ‘naturally’ willing to be ruled; ‘vigorous’, ‘motivated’ people in regions with variable climate were suited to rule themselves; and ‘hyper-aggressive’, ‘willful’ people in cold regions were unruly/ungovernable. (Herodotus, Histories 9.122; Aristotle Politics 7.5.6 (1327b); Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories, 2.80; Seneca On Anger 2.15). They called foreigners ‘barbarians’, from the Greek word/insult barbaros (the Greeks thought ‘bar-bar’ onomatopoeically replicated the ‘nonsensical sounds’ of non-Greek languages). Greeks considered barbarians innately uncivilized (Hall 1989: 4-5, 10-11). However, the Romans thought barbarians could be ‘uplifted’ via Roman culture/imperialism (McCoskey 2012: 75).
3) Lineage/Heredity. Supposedly, children not only inherited their parents’ physical traits, but their moral character and other climate-determined/cultural features.
Ancient Greek and Roman constructs of difference targeted and ‘explained’ cultural differences, i.e., were ethnocentric. And though modern Europeans (and Americans) have apparently adopted/maintained Greek and Roman rhetorical strategies for denigrating ‘eastern’ cultures, it is also remarkably ironic that modern northern and western Europeans — deemed especially barbaric and savage by the Greeks and Romans — consider their identity as ‘white’ Europeans proof that ancient Greece and Rome’s cultural ‘exceptionalism’ belongs to them.
But if ancient Greeks and Romans were diverse, why do the media and the public still treat them as ‘white’ (or at least, ‘white’ by default)? Because: Modern Europe and the US (as a former European colony) consider themselves heirs to ancient Greek and Roman culture, so assume ancient Greeks and Romans were ‘white Europeans’, too. Further, this mistaken belief has been reinforced/taught for generations because earlier European scholars ‘whitewashed’ ancient history to justify race-based slavery and promote ‘white’ European exceptionalism/superiority. Evidence for ancient diversity has always existed; it was just not reported. However, recently, as our society has started to address racism, ethnocentrism, and sexism, it has become acceptable to discuss or research material that earlier scholars discounted or dismissed. Current discussions about Greco-Roman antiquity, then, include this previously omitted material. No-one is fabricating or manipulating evidence to attack ‘real’ history, as some social commentators allege (Hunter 2017, Morley 2017, Philo 2017).
Thus, the ancient Greeks and Romans were not ‘white’ but reflected their Mediterranean context’s regional diversity. This fact was deliberately obscured until our own culture’s attitudes towards difference began to change — which introduces another important lesson for students: that external cultural concerns can (and often do) distort the transmission and interpretation of evidence.
PLEASE NOTE: This topic has two pdf presentations below. The first one (Part I) is more directly useful for class presentation. The second one (Part II) does include useful visual slides, but works more like a series of handouts.
Works Cited:
Bond, S. April 27, 2017. “Whitewashing Ancient Statues: Whiteness, Racism, and Color in the Ancient World”. Forbes Magazine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/04/27/whitewashing-ancient-statues-whiteness-racism-and-color-in-the-ancient-world/#59b8273a75ad
Coates, T.-N. May 15, 2013. “What We Mean When We Say ‘Race Is A Social Construct’. The Atlantic. https://kalamu.com/neogriot/2013/05/18/pov-what-we-mean-when-we-say-race-is-a-social-construct/
Gannon, M. February 5, 2016. “Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue”. Scientific American.com. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue
Graham, A. J. 2001. “Religion, Women, and Greek Colonization”. Collected Papers on Greek Colonization. Brill: 327-48.
Hall, E. 1989. Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy. Oxford.
Hall, J. 2001. “Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Definitions of Greek Identity”. Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity. I. Malkin, ed. Center for Hellenic Studies:159-86.
Hunter, J. August 11, 2017. “Roman Britain, Mary Beard, and the Battle for Control of the Past”. Prospect Magazine https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/44835/roman-britain-mary-beard-and-the-battle-for-control-of-the-past
Kendi, I. X. 2016. Stamped from the Beginning. New York.
KRG = Kennedy, R., C. Roy & M. Goldman. 2013. Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation. Hackett.
McCoskey, D. 2012. Race: Antiquity and its Legacy. London.
Morley, N. August 2, 2017. “Diversitas et Multiculturalismus”. SPHINX: Exploring Antiquity and Modernity with Nevil Morley. https://thesphinxblog.com/2017/08/02/diversitas-et-multiculturalismus/
Nicholls, M. July 28, 2017. “How diverse was Roman Britain?”. Connecting Research: The Forum. https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/the-forum/2017/07/28/how-diverse-was-roman-britain/
Philo, J.-M. August 9, 2017. “Mary Beard is Right, Roman Britain Was Multi-ethnic — So Why Does This Upset People So Much?”. The Conversation.
Woolf, G. September 21, 2021. “An Empire of Many Colours? Race and Imperialism in Ancient Rome”. OUP Blog. https://blog.oup.com/2021/09/an-empire-of-many-colours-race-and-imperialism-in-ancient-rome/
Further Reading:
Beard, M. August 3, 2017. “Roman Britain in Black and White” from A Don’s Life in The Times Literary Supplement. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-features/mary-beard-a-dons-life/roman-britain-black-white
Kennedy, R. April, 2019. “Is There a ‘Race’ or ‘Ethnicity’ in Greco-Roman Antiquity?” Classics at the Intersections. https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/04/is-there-race-or-ethnicity-in-greco.html
McCoskey, D. June 18, 2018. “Bad to the Bone: The Racist Application of DNA Science to Classical Antiquity”. Eidolon. https://eidolon.pub/bad-to-the-bone-617ca3e37347
McCoskey, D., ed. 2025. A Cultural History of Race in Antiquity. London.
Omi, M. and H. Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York.
Painter, N. 2010. The History of White People. New York.
Rutherford, A. March 1, 2015. “Why Racism is not backed by science”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/01/racism-science-human-genomes-darwin
Pharos. May 11, 2018. “Scholars Respond to Racist Backlash against Black Achilles, Part 1: Ancient Greek Attitudes toward Africans”. Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics. https://pharos.vassarspaces.net/2018/05/11/scholars-respond-to-racist-backlash-against-black-achilles-part-1-ancient-greek-attitudes-toward-africans/
Pharos. May 18, 2018. “Scholars Respond to Racist Backlash against Black Achilles, Part 2: What Did Achilles Look Like?”. Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics. https://pharos.vassarspaces.net/2018/05/18/scholars-respond-to-racist-backlash-against-black-achilles-part-2-what-did-achilles-look-like/
Zhang, S. August 2, 2017. “A Kerfuffle about Diversity in the Roman Empire”. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/dna-romans/535701/
Download Presentation 1: https://palinodia.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Were-ancient-Greeks-and-Romans-white-people.Part-1.Definitions-and-Some-Visual-Sources-2.pdf
Download Presentation 2: https://palinodia.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Were-ancient-Greeks-and-Romans-white-people.Part-2.Textual-and-archaeological-sources-1.pdf
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