#and by god if you want to criticize the romans (which is my favorite pastime) there are a BILLION other things you can call them out for

[bacchilles]

some people in my roommate’s class were apparently making fun of this guy who’s doing a gladiator story for his final writing project because the guy mentioned how Roman slavery wasn’t based on race and they were all like “noooo it TOTALLY was he probably just watched I, Claudius one time and called it a day lmao i took an ancient history class once i know im right” and im just like . ben affleck smoking.jpg

#he's right??? the romans didnt have the same concept of race as we do today bc modern perception of race began in the ~1400s or so #(maybe a little later i cant remember exactly) #but racism as we know it didn't exist in the ancient mediterranean? it was more xenophobia than anything else #and by god if you want to criticize the romans (which is my favorite pastime) there are a BILLION other things you can call them out for #for one thing! SLAVERY! fucked up no matter if racism was part of it or not!! #the genocide! the war crimes! the oligarchy/monarchy! the horrific legends of how the city was founded! #but Rome was a fairly heterogeneous population. there were black/brown emperors! #they would enslave those they conquered and that often turned out to be people from SW Asia or North Africa but it also included N. Europe #jhrjhg maybe im throwing stones in a glass house but i hate when people apply modern systems/concepts to ancient history w/o nuance #also i know for a fact that the guy studied latin for a long time and his uncle's a latin professor at the university #so i feel like he probably knows what he's talking about to some degree