Quotes about races in the Ancient World

Race and physical variation was widely recognised by the ancients.

Ancient Sources

The following sources are most classical writers who came to note racial/physical differences between different populations:

Caledonians

Tacitus, Agricola, XI (98 AD):

‘‘…rutilae Caledoniam habitantium comae, magni artus Germanicam originem adseverant’’

“The reddish hair and large limbs of the Caledonians pro-claim a Germanic origin”

Jordanes, Getica, 2. 13 (551 AD):

"The inhabitants of Caledonia have reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies"

Gauls

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, 5. 28. 1 (60 – 30 BC):

‘‘The Gauls are tall of body, with rippling muscles, and white of skin, and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so, but they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it.’’

Virgil, Aeneid, 8. 658 – 660 (29 – 19 BC):

‘‘Golden is their hair and golden their garb. They are resplendent in their striped cloaks, and their milk-white necks are circled with gold.’’

Livy, Ab urbe condita (History of Rome) 38. 17. 3 (25 BC):

‘‘Gauls have the highest reputation as soldiers... their tall persons, their long red hair’’

Ibid, 38. 21. 9: ‘‘The fact that they fight naked makes their wounds conspicuous and their bodies are fleshy and white, as is natural, since they are never uncovered except in battle; so that both more blood flowed from their abundant flesh and the wounds stood out to view more fearfully and the whiteness of their skins was more stained by the black blood.’’

Silius Italicus, Punica, IV. 200 (70 – 100 AD):

‘‘Auro certantem et rutilum sub vertice noduiu’’

‘‘…the ruddy topknot on the crown of his head’’*

Describes a Gaulic hair style, ruddy = red haired. Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, 15. 12. 1 (378 AD):

“Nearly all the Gauls are of a lofty stature, white, and of ruddy complexion; terrible from the sternness of their eyes, very quarrelsome, and of great pride and insolence. A whole troop of foreigners would not be able to withstand a single Gaul if he called his wife to his assistance, who is usually very strong, and with blue eyes”

Claudian, In Rufinum, 2. 100 (400 AD?):

‘…curly-haired Armenian cavalry, their green cloaks fastened with a loose knot, fierce Gauls with golden locks accompanied them’’

Franks

Apollinaris Sidonius, Letters, Book VIII. IX. To his friend Lampridius (478 AD):

‘‘Their eyes are faint and pale, with a glimmer of greyish blue. Their faces are shaven all round, and instead of beards they have thin moustaches which they run through with a comb. Close fitting garments confine the tall limbs of the men, they are drawn up high so as to expose the knees, and a broad belt supports their narrow middle.’’

Germanics

Horace, Epodes, Ode XVI (30 BC):

‘‘Nor did the fierce Germany subdue her, with its blue eyed youth’’

Seneca the Younger, De Ira (On Anger) 3. 26. 3 (50 AD?):

‘‘Non est Aethiopis inter suos insignitus color, nec rufus crinis et coactus in nodum apud Germanos uirum dedecet...’’

‘‘The colour of the Ethiopian is not exceptional among his own [[[people]]], nor is hair, red and gathered into a knot, unfitting for a man among the Germans.’’*

Plutarch, Life of Marius, XI. 3 (75 – 100 AD):

‘‘The most prevalent conjecture was that they were some of the German peoples which extended as far as the northern ocean, a conjecture based on their great stature, their light-blue eyes, and the fact that the Germans call robbers Cimbri.’’

Tacitus, Germania, IV (98 AD):

“For myself I accept the view that the peoples of Germany have never been tainted by intermarriage with other peoples, and stand out as a nation peculiar, pure and unique of its kind. Hence the physical type, if one may generalize at all about so vast a population, is everywhere the same – wild, blue eyes, blond-reddish hair and huge frames that excel only in violent effort”

Juvenal, Satire, 13. 164 (127 AD):

‘‘Caerula quis stupuit Germani lumina, flavam Caesariem, et madido torquentem cornua cirro Nempe quod hsec illis natura est omnibus una?’’

‘‘Who is amazed to see a German with blue eyes and yellow hair, twisting his greasy curls into a horn? We marvel not, because this one nature is common to them all.’’

Eugippius, Thesaurus, 73 (550 AD):

‘‘…white Germans and very black Ethiopians’’*

Another racial contrast.

Suebi (Germanic tribe)

Lucan, Pharsalia (Civil War) 2. 60 (61 AD):

‘‘Let loose from furthest North her fair-haired tribes: Elbe, pour thy Suevians forth!’’

Ausonius, Bissula, III (350 AD?):* [Describing a Romanised Suebian slave-girl]:

‘‘She was Latin, but remained a German in her pretty face, blue eyes and blonde hair’’

Translation by Harold Isbell, 1965 (Arion, Vol.. 4, No. 2, p. 221). Thracians and Getae

Xenophanes, B16 (500 BC):*

‘‘Men make gods in their own image; those of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have blue eyes and red hair’’

Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1903, pp.38-58. Aristophanes, Frogs, 730 (405 BC):

[Describing possible Thracian slaves]]

‘‘The brazen foreigners and redheads…’’

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 7. 4 (180 – 210 AD):

‘‘Now, as the Greeks represent the gods as possessing human forms, so also do they as possessing human passions. And as each of them depict their forms similar to themselves, as Xenophanes says, “Ethiopians as black and apes, the Thracians ruddy and tawny;”

Jerome, Letter CVII to Laeta. II (400 AD?):

‘‘The chilly Scythians are warmed with the glow of the faith. The Getae ruddy and yellow-haired, carry tent-churches about with their armies: and perhaps their success in fighting against us may be due to the fact that they believe in the same religion.’’

Procopius, History of the Wars (Vandalic War) III. 2. 13 (550 AD?):

‘‘There were many Gothic nations in earlier times, just as also at the present, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepaedes. In ancient times, however, they were named Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni; and there were some too who called these nations Getic. All these, while they are distinguished from one another by their names, as has been said, do not differ in anything else at all. For they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon, and they use the same laws and practise a common religion. For they are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic.”

Alani

Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, 31. 2. 21 (380 – 390 AD):

‘‘Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty; their hair is somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce; the lightness of their armour renders them rapid in their movements; and they are in every respect equal to the Huns, only more civilized in their food and their manner of life. They plunder and hunt as far as the Sea of Azov and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, ravaging also Armenia and Media.’’

Persians

Xenophon, Hellenica, 3. 4. 19 (350 BC):

‘‘Agesilaus gave orders to his heralds that the barbarians who were captured by the Greek raiding parties should be exposed for sale naked. Thus the soldiers, seeing that these men were white-skinned because they never were without their clothing, and soft and unused to toil because they always rode in carriages, came to the conclusion that the war would be in no way different from having to fight with women.’’

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians, XI (200 AD):

‘‘The Ethiopian preferring the blackest and most snub-nosed, and the Persian approving the whitest and most hook-nosed.’’

Syrians

Strabo, Geographica, 12. 3. 9 (7 BC):*

‘‘As for the Paphlagonians, they are bounded on the east by the Halys River, which, according to Herodotus, flows from the south between the Syrians and the Paphlagonians and empties into the Euxine Sea, as it is called; by Syrians, however, he means the "Cappadocians," and in fact they are still today called "White Syrians," while those outside the Taurus are called "Syrians." As compared with those this side the Taurus, those outside have a tanned complexion, while those this side do not, and for this reason received the appellation - white.’’

The white syrians were Hittites.

Libyans

The ancient Libyans were the native inhabitants of north-western Africa.

Hesiod (700BC) distinguished between the Black Ethiopians (‘‘black skins’’) and pygmies of Africa and the lighter skinned Libyans.*

Catalogues of Women, Fragment 40a, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1358. The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax (4th century BC) describes fair haired Libyans:*

‘‘And there live around it all the Gyzantes Libyes, a community, and a city beyond (the lake) towards the sun’s setting; for all these Gyzantes Libyes are said to be all fair-haired and very beautiful.’’

Geographi Graeci Minores, Vol. 1, p. 88, Col. B. The ancient Libyan-Greek poet Callimachus in the 3rd century BC described yellow haired Libyan women (Hymn II to Apollo, 85) :

‘‘Greatly, indeed, did Phoibos rejoice as the belted warriors of Enyo danced with the yellow-haired Libyan women, when the appointed season of the Karneian feast came round’’

Callimachus, Hymns and Epigrams, Loeb Classical Library Vol. 129. London: William Heinemann, 1921. Lucan (61AD) wrote of auburn haired Libyans (Pharsalia, 10. 155):

‘‘This band with Libyan, that with auburn hair Red so that Caesar on the banks of Rhine’’

From Pausanias (1. 14. 6) we also have a legend that the Libyans had blue eyed deities:

‘‘But when I saw that the statue of Athena had blue eyes I found out that the legend about them is Libyan. For the Libyans have a saying that the Goddess is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, and for this reason has blue eyes like Poseidon.’’

Lastly, Procopius (History of the Wars, 4. 13. 29) wrote of a native desert tribe ‘‘white in body and fair-haired’’ who inhabited North Africa:

And I have heard this man say that beyond the country which he ruled there was no [29-36] habitation of men, but desert land extending to a great distance, and that beyond that there are men, not black-skinned like the Moors, but very white in body and fair-haired. So much, then, for these things.

Seres

The Seres were a mysterious tribe of Central Asia, placed by most ancient authorities just east of the Scythians or Bactrians. Their described physiognomy has baffled many ethnologists.

Pliny physically described the Seres as blondish haired, tall, with blue eyes (N. H, 6. 24):*

‘‘These people, they said, exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes.’’

See Who were Pliny’s Blue-eyed Chinese?, Classical Philology, Vol. 52. No. 3, pp. 174-177, 1957.

Ligures

Lucan, Pharsalia, I. 496 (61 AD)

‘‘Ligurian tribes, now shorn, in ancient days First of the long-haired nations, on whose necks Once flowed the auburn locks in pride supreme’’

Scandinavians

Vitruvius, On Architecture, 6. 1. 3 (25 BC):

“In cold countries which are distant from the south, the moisture is not drawn out by the heat, but the dewy air, insinuating its dampness into the system, increases the size of the body, and makes the voice more grave. This is the reason why the people of the north are so large in stature, so light in complexion, and have straight red hair, blue eyes, and are full of blood, for they are thus formed by the abundance of the moisture, and the coldness of their country.”

Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 2. 78 (77 AD):

‘‘…in the frozen and icie regions, the people have white skins, haire growing long downeward, and yellow…’’

Ptolemy, Tetrabiblios, 2. 2 (150 AD?):

‘‘The natives of those countries which lie under the more remote northern parallels (that is to say, under the Arctic Circle and beyond it) have their zenith far distant from the zodiac and the Sun's heat. Their constitutions, therefore, abound in cold, and are also highly imbued with moisture, which is in itself a most nutritive quality, and, in these latitudes, is not exhausted by heat: hence they are fair in complexion, with straight hair, of large bodies and full stature. They are cold in disposition, and wild in manners, owing to the constant cold. The state of the surrounding atmosphere and of animals and plants corresponds with that of men; who (as natives of these countries) are designated by the general name of Scythian.’’ Julius Firmicus Maternus, Matheseos Libri Octo, X. 8 (346 AD):

‘‘Those parts which lie next to the icy zones and are deserted by the heat of the sun endow the men born in their vicinity with a shining white appearance.’’

Inhabitants of the South (Ethiopians and Indians)

Strabo, Geographica, 15. 1. 13 (7 BC): ‘‘As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.’’

Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 7. 6 (77 AD): ‘‘Whoever believed in the Ethiopians, before seeing them?’’

Manilius, Astronomica, 4.724 (80 AD?):

‘‘The appearance of the inhabitants is also not very different in India and Ethiopia: the southern Indians are rather more like Ethiopians as they are black to look on, and their hair is black; only they are not so snub-nosed or woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians physically.’’

Arrian, Indica, VI. 9 (150 AD):

‘‘As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in color, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Egyptians.’’

Pseudo-Aristotle De Mundo (On the Universe) 1. 303 (150 AD?):

‘‘Those governed by black bile are indolent, ailing, and, with regard to body, swarthy and black haired.’’

Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 6 .1 (217 – 238 AD): [Describing Ethiopia]

‘‘We have a proof of the similarity of the two countries in the spices which are found in them, also in the fact that the lion and the elephant are captured and confined in both the one and the other. There are also the haunts of animals not found elsewhere, and of black men - a feature not found in other continents- and we meet in them with races of pigmies and of people who bark in various ways instead of talking, and other wonders of the kind.’’

Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, 22. 16. 23 (378 AD):

It was a market place to which the Ethiopians bring all the products of their country; and the Egyptians in their turn take them all away and bring to the same spot their own wares of equal value, so bartering what they have got for what they have not. Now the inhabitants of the marches (Nubian/Egyptians border) are not yet fully black but are half-breeds in matter of color, for they are partly not so black as the Ethiopians, yet partly more so than the Egyptians.

Racial Contrasting - Hair

Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, 5. 3. 782B (300 BC?):

‘‘For what is straight becomes bent, if the moisture in it is evaporated, and runs together as a hair does when burning upon the fire; curliness will then be a contraction owing to deficiency of moisture caused by the heat of the environment. A sign of this is the fact that curly hair is harder than straight, for the dry is hard. And animals with much moisture are straight-haired; for in these hairs the moisture advances as a stream, not in drops. For this reason the Scythians on the Black Sea and the Thracians are straight-haired, for both they themselves and the environing air are moist, whereas the Aethiopians and men in hot countries are curly-haired, for their brains and the surrounding air are dry.’’

Galen, De Temperamentis (Mixtures) II (200 AD):

‘‘So much for the formation of the hair; we should now pass on to the features of all the incidental features of the mixtures, as regards the differences of hair according to age, place, and nature of the body. The hair of Egyptians, Arabs, Indians, and of general all peoples who inhabit hot, dry places, has poor growth and is black, dry, curly and brittle. That of the inhabitants of cold, wet places, conversely - Illyrians, Germans, Dalmatians, Sauromatians, and the Scythian types of people in general- has reasonably good growth and is thin, straight, and red. Those who live in some well-balanced land which is between these in quality have hair with extremely good growth, which is strong, fairly black, moderately thick, and neither completely curly nor completely straight. The differences due to age are analogous to these: with regard to the qualities of strength, thickness, size, and colour, infants’ hair is similar to the Germans’, hair in the prime of life to the Ethiopians’, and that of ephebes and children to the hair of people of well-balanced lands.’’

Skin colour (various)

Aesop, The Blackamoor, Fable CLXXII (600 – 570 BC)

‘‘Once a man bought a blackamoor and assumed that the color of the slave’s skin was due to the neglect of the former master. No sooner did he bring him home than he procured all kinds of scouring utensils, scrubbing brushes, soaps, and sandpaper and set to work with his servants to wash him white again. For hours they drenched and rubbed him, but it was in vain. His skin remained as black as ever, while the poor wretch almost died from the cold he caught from all their scrubbing and washing.

It is not humanly possible to change what is humanly natural.’’

Hippocrates, On the Nature of Man, II. 5 (400 BC?):

‘‘The inhabitants of narrow, waterless, bare places, which are not well balanced in terms of changes of season, will tend to be hard and vigorous in appearance, to be fair rather than dark.’’

Plato, Republic, 474e (380 BC)

“The swarthy are of manly aspect, the white are the children of the Gods divinely fair and as for honey-hued, do you suppose the very word is anything but the euphemistic invention of some lover who can feel no distaste for sallowness when it accompanies the blooming time of youth”.

Juvenal, Satire, II (100 AD?):

‘‘Let the straight-legged man laugh at the club-footed, the white man at the blackamoor…’’

Lucian, Hermotimus, 31 (150 – 180 AD):

‘‘Tell me, Lycinus: imagine an Ethiopian who had never travelled abroad and so had never seen other men like but who stated firmly in an assembly of the Ethiopians that nowhere in the world were there men who were white or yellow or any other colour than black, would they believe him?’’

Julius Firmicus Maternus, Matheseos Libri Octo, II. 1 (346 AD):

‘‘If the characters and complexions of mankind are due to the combinations of planets, and the motions of the planets make up men’s traits, as if in paintings: that is, if the Moon makes people fair-skinned, Mars red, Saturn black, why is the whole population of Ethiopia black, of Germany blond, of Thrace red-haired, as though the Moon and Mars had no strength in Ethiopia, and Saturn could not produce dark coloring in Germany or Thrace?’’

Ibid, X. 6 – 8:

‘‘The nature of these five zones has produced men of different races, each with their own colouring; but in such a way that there is an appearance of unity, though the bodies of men vary with the radiation of the stars. Whatever race of men lies near the zone which burns with eternal fire, takes on fire from the nearness of its neighbour. These men are permanently dark with the look of burned objects. Those parts which lie next to the icy zones and are deserted by the heat of the Sun endow the men born in their vicinity with a shining white appearance. Yet, even in the regions which produce dark men and those which produce light-colored, the power of the stars is very strong, each and every man, though his colour is uniform, has a different appearance and shape.’’