duncan-jones.andrew
Aug 9, 2017 · 4 min read

3. Which brings me to the more serious subjects of Roman civilization and your ignorance.

- You would find it interesting, I think, to read “ROMAN PERCEPTIONS OF BLACKS” by Lloyd Thompson (https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V1N4/thompson.html#36) from Scholia N.S.2 (1994) His main point is that Roman society did not discriminate against black people in anything like the way that one finds in modern times (e.g. post Renaissance Europe and the USA). Their perception of people was, in a sense, colour-blind, in that skin colour was not an automatic assignation to class. Certainly there were those who saw anything outside their own “somatic norm” as freaky or caricaturable, but for the most part colour did not enter into judgements of worth.

- One might note that this is an argument on rational lines, based on the words used the players themselves to describe their experiences. It is not an argument which employs statistics, and so may seem a little strange to you at first. There are however two points which deserve your consideration. One is that the Romans did indeed recognize a broadly Italian — what you call Mediterranean — appearance, and contrasted this not only with the black skin of an Aethiop (Numidian, whatever) but also with the fair hair and paler appearance of Germanic tribes. I am not a classicist, and have no idea where Celts might fit into this schema, but that is not the issue: you are simply wrong to suggest that the only experience that the Romans had of appearances was of the group you characterize as “Canaanite” (I think the Romans actually had little difficulty in noticing facial differences between for instance some Italian sourced, some Greek and some Middle-Eastern sourced populations); and further when you suggest that no other groups appear in Roman society as it spread through Europe — both black and Germanic individuals reached positions of prominence as well as of subservience throughout the empire. I acknowledge that a somewhat more rigid view is taken by B Isaac in “Protoracism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity” (Wrold Archaeology 38 no.1, March 2006) — but this seems to me over influenced by some admittedly and overtly exclusive Greek views. A more interesting discussion is to be found in J.H.Dee’s Black Odysseus, White Caesar (Classical Journal 99 no.2 Dec 2003-jan2004): and you might like to consider the implications of his discussion of “The King of Tars” (ironic title)

- You are mistaken in suggesting that “people from North Africa looked no different from Spaniards, S. Italians, and Greeks” — as the article cited above shows, Romans were well able to use their eyes, and skin hues markedly different are noted in literature and in art. You may have a point — I have not seen the full cartoon — about showing differences between the Celtic and Nordic inhabitants of the British Isles and the Roman invader from Italy: but your over-emphatic rhetoric is aimed at the wrong target.

- Secondly I am struck by the viciousness of your attacks on Professor Beard, as I noted above, and your denial to her of any pretence to scholarship. In your Appendix you seize on an apparent time discontinuity to reject all her work as bullshit. Here the fault is rather yours, since you yoke together different remarks by Professor Beard.

- Now I have not read your work, but the New York Times kindly offers the first chapter of “The Black Swan”. Here we read for instance that “The French, after the Great War, built a wall along the previous German invasion route to prevent reinvasion-Hitler just (almost) effortlessly went around it.” The French were well aware that they had not covered the Belgian front but chose not to do so for political reasons — this example does not support your suggestion that people are incapable of thinking about unpredictable options.

- You also write “those people who have been mistreated by history. There were the poËtes maudits, like Edgar Allan Poe or Arthur Rimbaud, scorned by society and later worshipped and force-fed to schoolchildren. (There are even schools named after high school dropouts). Alas, this recognition came a little too late for the poet to get a serotonin kick out of it, or to prop up his romantic life on earth.” Poe was not scorned by society, though like most writers he struggled to make a living — in fact The Raven was an astonishing success on its first publication, and brought him wide recognition; though I grant he did himself harm with his attack on Longfellow. Rimbaud was indeed, like his lover Verlaine, an archetype of the poète maudit (you will forgive me for not following your curious spelling): both his affair with Verlaine and general enfant terrible disposition caused a good deal of outrage — but that is scarcely surprising if you attack a member of your circle with a swordstick. But in fact the notion of the cursed poet has more to with the detachment that a poet feels from his society, rather than society’s rejection of him. And Rimbaud’s poems were well regarded, and not just by Verlaine. It was Rimbaud’s choice to abandon poetry (“Des vers … Il y a beau temps que sa verve est à plat. Je crois même qu’il ne se souvient plus du tout d’en avoir fait”: A.Delahaye in 1875) ; and Rimbaud went on to a different life taking in both exploration and business. He did not die young, embittered by society’s rejection of his writing.

- If you can make such foolish and unnecessary errors at the very beginning of your book, I am scarcely tempted to read further. Should I also on that account dismiss all your writing as bullshit ? It is tempting, but I will try to accord you that courtesy you seem unwilling to offer to others. �yU3�W.

    duncan-jones.andrew

    Written by