How ethnically diverse was the Roman Empire?

Hi y'all,

Quick question: we always picture the Romans as white, purely italians but the Empire spanned continents. It must have included arabs/middle-eastern people, nubians, maybe some indians and chinese (merchants obviously) on the fringe?

So, what was the reality? Were there any people in the administration or the army which were not caucasians? Was there anything like roman racism?
I know they had a disdain for what was not roman but it seems it's more cultural than racial
 

libbrit

Banned
Racism as we know it was not much of a thing in Roman times.

Such prejudice at there was in the Roman world was based less on racial characteristics (racism of that type was fairly late to develop in the post Roman world as well, being rooted in recent if woefully incorrect `scientific` theories of race), than on the division between slave and free, citizen or non citizen. And eventually, citizenship was spread outside the city of Rome itself-which some might argue is one of the reasons Rome lost its distinctive edge, because it became less protective of its citizenship.

Even some of the later emperors were of distinctly non latin, non Roman, non Italian stock.
 
I guess you are actually asking how racially diverse the Empire was. Which means projecting racial categories that are mostly relevant to the modern US into a context which had none of that. My understanding is that the key category under which the Romans themselves declinated identity in Classical Imperial times was citizenship, which was largely unrelated to race: most citizens inherited it, but, critically (unlike in most Greek states), the offspring of freed slaves had citizenship by birth as well, totally irrespective of race or ethnic orgin.
This does not mean lack of what we would call racial prejudice, or that birth (including ethnic origin, although that was probably not the most important point) was irrelevant to social status - I am under the impression that the relatively high upward social mobility enjoyed by said descendants of freed slaves* had a price tag attached in terms of prejudices regarding their origin, including ethnicity and what we would call race. A superficial notion of racial difference, based on appearence, of course existed, and it comprised a degree of prejudice (IIRC, it was attributed to climate). But, as far as I can tell, it was pretty minor, and it had no import in itself on social or juridical status. I do not think that the English word "race", in this sense, is even translatable with one word in Classical Latin, although I am willing to be proven wrong on this point.
In general, it is safe to say that in "modern" racial terms, most of the population of the Roman Empire would be considered "Caucasian" - there would be a presence of East Asians, and a larger presence of Subsaharan Africans, but neither in very large numbers, which is part of why race was not a relevant concept in Roman society: it marked no important difference in most contexts.
This, however, stil makes for a lot of ethnic diversity between, say, Syrian and Britons (although they could and did mix).


* I read just today a reference to claims that, in the third century, a fraction of the Senate, up to 12%, was composed of them, and the rate was a lot higher in provincial nobility. This is a hell of a lot of social mobility by the standards of almost any pre-modern society, and somewhat impressive even by the standards of some modern ones.
 
Even some of the later emperors were of distinctly non latin, non Roman, non Italian stock.

I'd say most of them actually, after Septimius Severus (himself from Africa but of Italic origins IIRC). His family was heavily married into a powerful family from Syria. Then you have the Macrinus and Gordians, also from Africa, Maximinus the Thracian, Philip "the Arab", and a pretty numerous bunch of guys mainly from Illyria. After that, under the Dominate, I gather that it really means little wherever they were from (within the Empire) but of course they were culturally Romanized, and considered themselves thoroughly "Roman", regardless of ethnic ancestry.
 

scholar

Banned
Hi y'all,

Quick question: we always picture the Romans as white, purely italians but the Empire spanned continents. It must have included arabs/middle-eastern people, nubians, maybe some indians and chinese (merchants obviously) on the fringe?
This is before many of the migrations that served to make Europe whiter, North Africa darker, and the "Orient" more diverse. It was still fairly diverse, but perhaps not as diverse as it would be should we get a geopolitical cardboard cut-out of the modern world and put it in its place. I would be careful about talking about color in antiquity though, even if I just did that very same thing. While generally speaking what I said is probably true, it is also useless if you don't tag other things alongside them: drying up of the sahara, introduction of new peoples, Turkic and Persiatic migrations, Hellenistic Civilization, the Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic migrations, the Arabic expansion, Roman colonization and pseudo-genocides, and so forth.

Also, as a number of others have already stated, there were a few Emperors who were not Romans from Italy. Though most of them were from the Balkans if they weren't from Italy, there were some notable exceptions from Gaul, Africa, and Arabia. The Empire of the Gallic Provinces also comes to mind, alongside the Palmyrene Empire. We don't know much about the Gallic Provinces too much other than that they were probably Gallo-Romans, but the Palmyrenes were Greco-Syrians who eventually styled themselves as Roman Emperors. A few of the early Popes were also from Africa, and as time moved on the Senatorial and Equestrian classes shifted dramatically from a mostly local landed Roman Elite to a vastly diverse group of people spread across the entire empire. Many of Italic or partial Italic origins, but also many who were not (or at least, not explicitly so).
 

PhilippeO

Banned
is there any good guess of ethnic demographic of Roman Empire ?

several book mention that Jewish citizen of Roman Empire is quite large (roughly 10% of roman citizen) so Middle-Easterner population (Jewish-Phoenician-Nabatean-Arabs) must be quite large. 15-20% ?

Is there any good guess of percentage of roman population is Med-European (Greek-Latins-Italian)? Celts (Gauls-Britons)? North-African (Carthaginian-Phoenician-Numidian-Libyans)? Egyptian? Mid-Easterner ?
 
is there any good guess of ethnic demographic of Roman Empire ?

several book mention that Jewish citizen of Roman Empire is quite large (roughly 10% of roman citizen) so Middle-Easterner population (Jewish-Phoenician-Nabatean-Arabs) must be quite large. 15-20% ?

Is there any good guess of percentage of roman population is Med-European (Greek-Latins-Italian)? Celts (Gauls-Britons)? North-African (Carthaginian-Phoenician-Numidian-Libyans)? Egyptian? Mid-Easterner ?

Probably not. We can make educated guesses at the population of the geographical areas you mentioned, though. We know, for example, that native Egyptians may have numbered some seven million, courtesy of Josephus, not counting the hundred of thousands of people in Alexandria of non-Egyptian ethnic origin. But ballparking the population of Roman Syria (3-4 millions IIRC) is not like having an _ethnic_ breakdown.
By the way, the very high estimates about Jews in the Roman Empire (10% sounds a bit unrealistic to me: that would be around five-six millions Jews, that is more than the Roman citizenry under Augustus) refer to religion, NOT just inherited ethnic origin. We know that, while Judaism lacked then, as ever, any sustained missionary effort, conversion was relatively common.
 
Racism as we know it was not much of a thing in Roman times.

Such prejudice at there was in the Roman world was based less on racial characteristics (racism of that type was fairly late to develop in the post Roman world as well, being rooted in recent if woefully incorrect `scientific` theories of race), than on the division between slave and free, citizen or non citizen. And eventually, citizenship was spread outside the city of Rome itself-which some might argue is one of the reasons Rome lost its distinctive edge, because it became less protective of its citizenship.

Even some of the later emperors were of distinctly non latin, non Roman, non Italian stock.



Though in the later Empire there seems to have been significant prejudice of those with "Barbarian" ancestry. Some at least of the hostility to Stilicho seems to stem from that.
 
Though in the later Empire there seems to have been significant prejudice of those with "Barbarian" ancestry. Some at least of the hostility to Stilicho seems to stem from that.

True, but that had almost nothing to do with race in the modern sense. The polarity was precisely Roman vs. Barbarian (sometimes vs. Persian: the great Eastern rival was seen as civilized, although hostile) so it still involved primarily culture and citizenship.
In Late Antiquty, religion also played an important part in defining identity.
 
I tend to agree with what most of the others have said about race as a relatively irrelevant category. Prejudices and discrimination abounded (although there was, as many have said, a lot of upward mobility opportunities, too), but it was all contained in the term "barbarian", which meant "uncivilised", "not urban", "culturally very different", "speaks neither Latin nor Greek" and much more.

But I think a bit of that was linked with physical appearance, too - and of course the way things were seen was not at all like modern US racism. "Caucasian", for one, was not a category. The prototypical physical trait of the barbarian was not darker skin (those were associated with what was South of Egypt, a rather legendary place for Romans and, being close to Egypt, not considered particularly uncivilised), or differently shaped eyes, but primarily fair (blond or reddish) hair and very light complexion. These traits, associated with Germanic, Celtic and even some so-called "Scythian" groups, were, I think, prototypes of barbarians. When you read ancient geographies, then barbarian groups particularly looked down upon and exoticised were those of whom it was also mentioned that they had blond or red hair and light skin.
 
Probably not. We can make educated guesses at the population of the geographical areas you mentioned, though. We know, for example, that native Egyptians may have numbered some seven million, courtesy of Josephus, not counting the hundred of thousands of people in Alexandria of non-Egyptian ethnic origin. But ballparking the population of Roman Syria (3-4 millions IIRC) is not like having an _ethnic_ breakdown.
By the way, the very high estimates about Jews in the Roman Empire (10% sounds a bit unrealistic to me: that would be around five-six millions Jews, that is more than the Roman citizenry under Augustus) refer to religion, NOT just inherited ethnic origin. We know that, while Judaism lacked then, as ever, any sustained missionary effort, conversion was relatively common.


But keep in mind that the Mediterranean was far more populated at this time, and wouldn't be again until the 1600s. There weren't as many Italians but far more EGyptians and Libyans and Phoenicians and Jews.
 
But keep in mind that the Mediterranean was far more populated at this time, and wouldn't be again until the 1600s. There weren't as many Italians but far more EGyptians and Libyans and Phoenicians and Jews.

I am not sure what comparison you are making, but I certainly agree that most of the population of the Roman Empire lived fairly close to the coasts of the Med. You are also right in that the East was significantly more densely populated than the West, although Italy was likely an exception.
However, my understanding is that ethnic Jews were still a relatively tiny portion of all this Eastern population. It is not even clear from the sources that they were majority in the entirety of Palestine (although it is possible).
Palestine, in itself, is agains a relatively tiny portion of the Roman East, and not the most fertile. I don't think it could have had more than a couple million inhabitants, considering that Egypt (with a denser population and a larger overall arable area) had between seven and eight.
Of course, a lot of Jews lived outside Palestine, and had been for centuries before the Romans came to the area.
And we know that conversions happened, although I know no source that could provide anything resembling a reasonable number of those.
My guesstimate (not even approaching anything vaguely scientific) would be that in the first century AD, something like 5% Jews is reasonable (would be about three million, going by the debatable estimates of a total in the 60M range) but much more than that sounds excessive. Perhaps it was 10% indeed (sounds strange for a variety of reasons, though, I don't say it is completely impossible) but in that case, it is hard to see all those people having proximate Palestinian ancestry, particularly as outside Palestine, the overwhelming majority would be living in cities.
(Which is part of why I think 10% total is way too much: the urban population of the Roman Empire is the most visible to us in the sources of all kinds, and if one Roman in ten was Jewish, we should expect a Jew every three or four people in cities; this is definitely NOT the picture we have from any epigraphic or historical source outside, of course, Palestine). Now, 10% of urban population, instead... (that would be, dunno, perhaps 1% of the total one... but you have to consider the not insignificant rural Jews in Palestine, that of course, were for the most part ethnic Jews).
 
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