THE LINK — OR LACK THEREOF — BETWEEN WHITE NATIONALISM AND ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
In hindsight: White supremacist groups often reference ancient Greco-Roman culture to reinforce their beliefs. But these historical connections do not hold up under scrutiny.
by Claire Hoffman
Inside the Pio-Clementino Museum in the Vatican stands the famous Belvedere Apollo statue. A Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze original thought to be the work of Leochares, the statue depicts the sun god standing astride with his left arm extended, his hand empty but for the broken remnants of what was most likely a bow, and a cloak draped across his shoulders. The statue was once described by German antiquarian and Hellenophile Johann Winckelmann as “the highest ideal of art among the works of antiquity that have escaped destruction.” It is considered a central work in high culture and in Western aesthetics.
Today, the statue also features prominently in white nationalist propaganda. The group Identity Evropa, which identifies itself as a “fraternal organization for people of European heritage located in the United States that participates in community building and civic engagement,” has circulated a graphic that features the Belvedere along with the caption “OUR FUTURE BELONGS TO US.” The text calls to mind the refrain from, “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” a song that some neo-Nazis mistake for a German-nationalist anthem rather than a tune from the Broadway musical, Cabaret. In the Identity Evropa image, the Belvedere statue is cropped and his gaze zoomed in on to frame the chiseled, apathetic mien of the god. The contrast appears to have been adjusted to emphasize the statue’s whiteness.
The Anti-Defamation League identifies Identity Evropa as a “white supremacist group focused on the preservation of ‘white American culture’ and promoting white European identity.” According to a report prepared by the ADL, white supremacist groups are on the rise in America since 2009. Common to today’s white supremacists is the use of Internet graphics, memes and posters to spread their message, and in particular a well-documented pattern of misrepresenting and appropriating ancient Greek and Roman culture. The attempt to claim these civilizations as “white culture” is tied to a form of nostalgia for past achievements of these thousand-year-old empires. Some have also speculated that employing language, themes and art from the classical world gives a kind of intellectual legitimization to the group. Whatever the motives, the linkages do not pass the test for historical accuracy. They are a potent example of how the past can be manipulated and weaponized to promote a particular ideology or agenda.
Attempts by white supremacists to claim classical civilizations as “white culture” is tied to a form of nostalgia for past achievements of these thousand-year-old empires, and do not pass the test for historical accuracy.
Classicists such as Mary Beard and Sarah Bond have worked diligently to respond to the misappropriation of ancient civilizations. In response to Identity Evropa’s materials, Bond has reported on the developing field of polychromy, the study of the use of paint and pigment in sculpture. In an article from June 2017 on Hyperallergic, Bond articulates the need to see ancient sculpture in its original hues. She recommends a number of exhibits, including the Gods in Color exhibition most recently on display at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The exhibit reconstructs pieces from the classical world in full color. One of the centerpieces of the exhibit is the relatively well-known bust of Emperor Caligula. The reconstruction of the bust is painted to show the Emperor’s hair, eye and skin color, as opposed to its recovered “lily-white” marble. In his printed catalogue of Gods in Color, Vinzenz Brinkmann, who originally developed the concept for the exhibition, writes that by the 1960s, scholars had generally acknowledged the widespread painting of the skin of ancient Roman marble statues.
The Roman Empire in which the Belvedere statue was constructed was full of cultural and ethnic diversity, and the art of the period reflects that fact. The neo-classical ideal of bright white marble, one that modern neo-Nazis seem to depend on for their political aesthetic, is rooted in degraded paint and ignorance of the facts of the period and the process of discovering and excavating those facts. It is almost certain that the sculpted portrait of Belvedere was originally designed with a deeper, darker complexion. The veneration of light skin has no roots in the ancient Mediterranean.
Historians and classicists can confidently point out the fallacies — perhaps even irony — in the use of the Belvedere statue in white nationalist propaganda. But does the campaign’s intended audience actually care whether the complexion of its depicted figures isn’t historically accurate? This is the challenge. It is a rather straightforward task to articulate the misuse of history; it is a far more complex task to change the hearts and minds of those who promote hatred and bigotry.
As Bond points out in her article, the study of Classics has traditionally been an exercise in elitism and homogeneity. Reserving the study of Latin and Greek for the upper echelons of society meant the exclusion of certain classes from accessing the history and philosophy that serves as the foundation for much of modern culture and society. The legacy of this practice remains evident today. And while the problem of historical (mis)appropriation is not exclusive to the study of antiquity, narratives around ancient civilizations are particularly vulnerable to misuse and misrepresentation. While almost all history inspires contentious debate, civilizations as old as Rome have been caught in thousands of years of cultural erosion and mounting ambiguity. The future of the study of these cultures depends not only on combating myths about the ethnic makeup of the ancient world, but also in creating a more accessible and inclusive community of scholarship.
Claire Hoffman is a History and Classics double major at Villanova University, and one of two inaugural History Communication Fellows at the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.
