All Are On The Path, Whose End Is The All

so a couple of things about this. the roman empire was a very racially missed place because it conquered a huge amount of territory. because of that, it’s citizens included north african, semitic, west asian, latin, and greek peoples. the problem is that much of the country gets a lot, if not all, of its information about the roman empire from hollywood products (tv and theater movies) and we all know just how whitewashed everything that comes out of there is. i mean have you ever heard of  macrinu, firmus, emilianus, septimius serverus, pescennius niger, aquilus niger, brutidius niger, q. caecilus niger, novius niger or trebius niger? no? not surprising. these were african EMPERORS of rome!  so they never shared with us that there were africans emperors of rome, you can bet your sweet ass they are not going to tells us that there were black gladiators. and yes there were black gladiators because most gladiators were slaves and there were a lot of african slaves in rome. there were plenty of roman, greek and asian slaves as well. i mention that because it’s important to remember that slave during roman times weren’t as we know them today. it wasn’t sweet to be sure but it was very different than the slavery we learned in school. racism wasn’t even a thing back then. you were a slave if you weren’t born into the right family, if your country was conquered and/or if you weren’t roman. not because of your skin color. however africans regularly made it to high offices and contributed greatly to roman culture and life. we know from ancient writings that the roman had great regard and respect for africans and egypt. so it’s important to remember that the racism we know here and today didn’t exist in the days of ancient rome. again, i don’t want to paint the picture that it was perfect back then but it wasn’t this.

“Please rise for the Star Spangled Banner”

Everybody has a chapter they don’t read out loud