I went down a rabbit hole of DNA studies trying to understand why people on tumblr seem to think the Romans were not white, and here are a few thoughts:
in Europe,Ā āwhiteā isnāt a thing
in the sense that there are so many shades of white, it doesnāt really mean anything
like, Spanish white and Swedish white are different things, but we wouldnāt consider either ānon-whiteā orĀ āwhiterā
you can generally tell where someoneās from, but there are people whoĀ ālook out of placeā a bit everywhere
either because recent or century-old migrations, or because of a previous population that lived there and then the borders moved or something
and: in a nutshell, Italian geography discourages friendships
that means that before the Romans came along, people generally kept to themselves, so thereās more genetic diversity the farther back you go
at some point in the Neolithic, there were non Indo-European tribes living in Italy, but we donāt know exactly where they came from
the Indo-European people, on the other hand, probably invaded from the North
except for the Etruscans, because as it turns out, Herodotus was right (AGAIN! HAHHAHAHAHAHA SUCK IT HATERS) and they actually came from somewhere in modern Turkey
which still doesnāt mean they werenāt white, btw
even today, thereās plenty of people in the Middle East who look like this:
[top to bottom: a Kurdish fighter; Iranian politician Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf; Syrian writer Samar Yazbek]
so the notion ofĀ āraceā as itās understood in the US doesnāt really work elsewhere
if it even works in the US, that is
so anyway, from what we know from literary sources, the Romans werenāt incredibly dark
(btw people abroad, and especially Americans, tend to have a fixed idea of what Italians look like and act like)
(but most of the Italians who emigrated to the US came from four Southern regions -Ā Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, andĀ SiciliaĀ - and because Italy basically became a united country, like, 20 years ago, itās still a very diverse nation)
(so what you think of as aĀ ātypicalā Italian is probably the great-grandnephew of aĀ ātypicalā resident of one small village in Sicily)
and theĀ ātypicalā Roman you often see in movies, with tanned skin, dark eyes and curly black hair, probably wasnāt aĀ ātypicalā Roman at all
those traits are way more common in some areas of the South - where about 37% of the population has Greek DNA because ancient colonies
so while blond hair probably wasnāt really common (we can tell because it was greatly admired and sought after, and people generally like what they donāt have), neither were darker skin and black hair
in fact, a lot of politicians and other VIPs are described in the texts as having light eyes (light blue, green and gray) and some had blond or red hair
others died their hair blond with pigeon poop, but thatās another story
so the bottom line is - like modern inhabitants of Italy, ancient Romans were white, but in many cases you could probably tell from where their family came from, and some wereĀ āwhiterā than others depending on their ancestry
that said, the European past was a lot more diverse than our instinctive perception of it
there was a lot of trade going on, slaves from conquered lands, wealthy and poor people roaming about, and units of foreign-born Roman soldiers in unlikely places, so thatās something to keep in mind.
As a bonus for reading this far, here is a smiling wolf.
(Also please stop saying those guys are chads, daddys and DILFs. Most of them were dangerous sociopaths whoād feed you to their pet eels if they could.)
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