“The Finding of Moses”
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1904.

Alma-Tadema is most well-known for his depictions of scenes from Greek myth. These, as well as other scenes from (an imagined) daily life in various historical time periods show of his various skills as an artist.

Luscious in its colour and the realistic composition of a group of people together, The Finding of Moses is no exception. But that is not what the focus will be on here.

Two figures stand out from the small crowd gathered here. Firstly, there is Pharaoh’s daughter, who gazes at the baby Moses that is carried by two of her attendants. Of these, one might find their eye drawn to the woman carrying the basket at the front. Though shaded by the basket on her back, her complexion is considerably lighter than the others in the prossession (even lighter than Pharaoh’s daughter).

If this woman is a personal attendant to the princess (or, in less lovely but probably more accurate terms, a slave), it would not be too far-fetched to conclude that Alma-Tadema has depicted a North-African woman with albinism.

The perception of people with albinism in antiquity is not always clear. For one, it differs per time-period and region whether this condition impacted someone negatively to a major or minor degree. Overall, it would have contributed to a feeling of exclusion from the general populace.

Within the context of the painting, and some accounts of people with albinism being seen as closer to gods or bringing fortune in and of themselves, it makes sense that this woman could be part of the inner circle of the royal family.

Recommended reading:
Hilton, John Laurence. “Albinism in the Ancient Mediterranean World.” Journal for the Study of Religion 34, no. 1 (2021): 1–28. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27117876.

“IV. Transformation of females into males is not anchange of sex. idle story. We find in the Annals that in the consulship of Publius Licinius Crassus and Gaius Cassius Longinus a girl at Casinum was changed into a boy, under the observation of the parents, and at the order of the augurs was conveyed away to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus has recorded that he personally saw at Argos a man named Arescon who had been given the name of Arescusa and had actually married a husband, and then had grown a beard and developed masculine attributes and had taken a wife; and that he had also seen a boy with the same record at Smyrna. I myself saw in Africa a person who had turned into a male on the day of marriage to a husband; this was Lucius Constitius, a citizen of Thysdritum… .”

• from: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 7.4

Between information on the birth of twins and triplets, Pliny the Elder makes a brief mention of trans-masculine persons (as well as intersex people in 7.3). What his exact reasons are for this are unclear. It does provide us with the possibility that one could socially transition in Antiquity, and that a new name/presentation was even accepted in f.e. the case of Arescon.

Recommended reading:
Parker, Holt N. “The Myth of the Heterosexual: Anthropology and Sexuality for Classicists.” Arethusa 34, no. 3 (2001): 313–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578440.

“29. Hagestratus with headaches. He suffered from insomnia on account of headaches. When he came to the Abaton he fell asleep and saw a dream. It seemed to him that the god cured him of his headaches and, making him stand up naked, taught him the lunge used in the pancratium. When day came he departed well, and not long afterwards he won in the pancratium at the Nemean games.”

At an Asclepieion, someone suffering from a kind of illness could go to seek a cure. The above text comes from a stele found at Epidaurus that is dated to the 4th century BCE. It lists roughly forty accounts of visitors relaying their ailments and the subsequent cure they received from Asclepius.

Hagestratus, in addition, was taught a move to win a wrestling game.

Recommended reading:
Renberg, Gil. Where Dreams May Come (2 vol. set), (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 01 Jan. 2017) doi: https://doi-org.proxy-ub.rug.nl/10.1163/9789004330238.

“Thracian Woman killing Orpheus”
Pistoxenos Painter, circa 470-460 BC. NAMA nr. 15190.

Earlier this year, during an excursion to Greece, I came across this fragmented cup at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. It bears the image of the murder of Orpheus by a Maenad (or at least a Thracian, more on that later). What piqued my interest, however, was what seemed to be a tattoo of a grazing animal on the right arm, as well as geometric designs on the wrists.

At the time I deemed it a solitary case until I came across the image below.

“Death of Orpheus”
Black Fury Painter, circa 400-375 BCE. APMA nr. 02581.
Print by K. Reichhold.

Here, the murder is depicted with a much larger group of Maenads/Thracians. Orpheus, his person largely missing, can be identified in the middle with his left hand clinging to the lyre. Additionally, he is the only one in this group lacking body art on the exposed limbs.

The assaulting group bears rocks, knives, and other weapons, while their arms and legs are covered with simple line drawings of animals resembling deer, as well as abstract geometric patterns. To draw comparisons with the upper cup drawing would not be out of the question.

I was hesitant to call them tattoos at first, but an article by C.P. Jones more or less confirms that they were, based on various historical sources. Tattoos (Or stigma from στίζω: to mark. Not to be confused with the English use of the term) for decoration were a rare occurrence in antiquity, but there seems to be an exception for Thrace, where tattoos on women were a sign of esteem.

Recommended reading:
Jones, C. P. “Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.” The Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 139–55. https://www.jstor.org/stable/300578.
(See section VI for the specific case of Thrace).

Schildkrout, Enid. “Inscribing the Body.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004): 319–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064856.
(A general overview of tattoos and body art throughout history and in cultures across the world).

When the Obscure and very Niche blorbo deity makes an appearance in an academic text and the author actually goes more in-depth

“Perseus and Andromeda”
Titian, circa 1554-1556.

Perhaps a better-known case of someone from Aethiopia, Andromeda makes for a good case study. The subject of a number of artworks (primarily paintings, f.e. see above by Titian), Andromeda’s rescue by Perseus seems a favorite myth in the visual arts.

But when one puts these images side-by-side, it becomes abundantly clear that many artists favored a specific interpretation of Andromeda as someone with white skin.

A previous post went into the etymology of “Αἰθίοψ”. It is explicitly mentioned that Andromeda hails from “Aithiopia”. This is not to be confused with modern-day Ethiopia, and generally is a term that refers to the outer edges of the known Greek world. On the basis of that, the assumption could be made that Andromeda was black (African), brown (Indian/Persian), or perhaps mixed. But still, simply relying on Aithiopian would be in the realm of speculation.

Ovid, however, is a rare case in ancient texts where we encounter a visual descriptor of Andromeda’s skin. Even rarer, he does this multiple times.

Ovid is particularly known for Metamorphoses, where Andromeda is introduced with the following note:
“nisi quod levis aura capillos moverat et tepido manabant lumina fletu, marmoreum ratus esset opus” (book 4, lines 673-675)
Artists that read the Metamorphoses and are accustomed to the white marble pillars and temples, would come to the conclusion that Andromeda was as pale as can be.

But Ars Amatoria, a lesser-known work by Ovid (probably due to it being censored for its erotic topics, as recent as 1930s US), is more direct on Andromeda:
“Alba decent fuscas: albis, Cepheï, placebas” (book 3, line 191)
“Nec suus Andromedae color est obiectus ab illo” (book 2, line 643)

Interestingly enough, though the latter comment could suggest a negative undertone in regard to color, Ovid is quite positive in regard to darker-skinned people or at least felt the need to include them in this text.

Among the tons of white Andromedas, there are still some that strive for a little further reading of Ovid.

From left to right: A. van Diepenbeeck, 1655 ; J.J. von Sandrart, 1698 ; Unknown, 15th century

Recommended reading:
Yaker Ekall, Patricia. “Andromeda: forgotten woman of Greek Mythology.” Art UK. 17 August 2021. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/andromeda-forgotten-woman-of-greek-mythology

(mentioned in the above)
McGrath, Elizabeth. “The Black Andromeda.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 55 (1992): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/751417.

“Aesop Narrates His Fables to the Handmaids of Xanthus”
Roberto Fontana, 1876. Engraving by Gallieni.

Even if one has not heard of the name Aesop, they undoubtedly have come across The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy who cried Wolf, or any other of the hundreds of fables attributed to the man. Yet besides these tales, very little is known about Aesop himself other than that he lived from about 620–564 BCE and was a slave. The only pseudo-biographical account that exists is The Aesop Romance, which has been called out for lacking any historical credit. One thing it did popularize was the depiction of Aesop as someone with dwarfism (perhaps not with the best intent. The Aesop Romance lists this among several unflattering characteristics).

Another discussion is that of Aesop’s race. The general term for the African people in ancient times was “Αἰθίοψ” (Aithíops), which translated to “burnt-face”(noun) or “red-brown”(adjective) and was used for the people the Greeks encountered in northern Africa. Andromeda is a famous Ethiopian.

It has been argued that Aesop’s name is a form of Aithiop that has altered over time. It is not unthinkable that the θ became an s-sound and the second ι was dropped. Another argument made by Richard Lobban in (recent) scholarship is that (Egyptian) animals play a very prominent role in the fables. Animals as subjects/actors in Greek myth and tales are a rarity, and more common in African folklore.

That Aesop is described as a slave by most accounts does not confirm his possible African identity. Slaves in ancient times were often prisoners of war and the like. Race would not make Aesop a slave by definition, but if he were one, being an Ethiopian would have made it likely that he was a storyteller/entertainer in the household (Snowden, 1970).

Referring to Aesop as Ethiopian/black started in the 13th century and continued till the present day. Though (as is frequently the case…) not without some grumbling.

The painting that the above image refers to won the first prize during its exhibition at the Fine Art Academy of Brera in Milan. A French critic at a Parisian showing noted:
“Why is M. Fontana’s Aesop, expounding with forceful comic gestures some sort of moral, apparently very agreeable to the young women stretched limply among the oleanders, black as an Ethiopian? Perhaps M. Fontana knows more about Aesop than we do, which would not be difficult.”

And, yes, while there is no indisputable evidence that Aesop had been “black as an Ethiopian”, there also is no evidence of him having been white either. A white default is questionable in modern times, but this is equally so when one talks about Ancient Mediterranean and the frequent interactions between the peoples surrounding it.

Recommended reading:
Lobban, Richard A. “Was Aesop a Nubian Kummaji (Folkteller)?” Northeast African Studies 9, no. 1 (2002): 11–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41931299.

Snowden, Frank M. Blacks In Antiquity: Ethiopians In the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. https://hdl-handle-net.proxy-ub.rug.nl/2027/heb31888.0001.001.
Snowden was a prominent African-American classicist to whom we owe much of the research into the lives of black people in ancient times. Like women, people of color and other minorities were (and still are) under-researched in scholarship.

“They were likewise taught not to cut but to thrust with their swords. For the Romans not only made a jest of those who fought with the edge of that weapon, but always found them an easy conquest. A stroke with the edges, though made with ever so much force, seldom kills, as the vital parts of the body are defended both by the bones and armor. On the contrary, a stab, though it penetrates but two inches, is generally fatal.”

So writes Flavius Vegetius Renatus in his De Re Militari.
The so called “Roman Thrust” is in theory indeed effective, were it not that it is mentally harder to do than slashing.
The Roman Republic thrived on a good view of the military. Taking part was not only encouraged, but brave acts on the battlefield were openly rewarded which inspired soldiers to return on campaigns, as well as others to join the imperialist effort.
On the other hand, lack of discipline was severly punished.

Recommended reading:
Grossman, Dave. On Killing : The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
(Sect. 3 Ch. 5 goes more into detail on the thrusting as opposed to slashing matter).

Milne, K. H., 2020. The middle Republican soldier and systems of social distinction. In J. Armstrong, M. P. Fronda (eds.), Romans at War. Soldiers, Citizens, and Society in the Roman Republic, London, 134-154.