Roman Slaves

[julieboy]

How many slaves were taken from Sicily and brought to Italy's South,that eventually mixed with those Southern Italians already there?

 

Likewise,how many Semitic peoples ,North Africans,Greeks,Black Africans,and various Asians such as Turks,Indians,etc.,were brought to Italy's South ,that later on would mix with the Southern Italians who already lived there?

[Andrew Dalby]

How many slaves were taken from Sicily and brought to Italy's South,that eventually mixed with those Southern Italians already there?

 

Likewise,how many Semitic peoples ,North Africans,Greeks,Black Africans,and various Asians such as Turks,Indians,etc.,were brought to Italy's South ,that later on would mix with the Southern Italians who already lived there?

 

I'm not aware that any Indians or Turks became Roman slaves. The first known Turk to visit the Empire was in early Byzantine times. Must check that -- I think I have the name somewhere.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Julieboy from your line of questions thus far it seems obvious that you want to implicate the darker complexions and hair color of modern Italians to intermixing of peoples. What is the aim of all this?

[julieboy]

One thing I'd like to know is why people say Sicilians are racially different or from different ancestry than mainland Italians.It seems like both the island and mainland have all mixed with the exact same people,at one time or another.

[Pantagathus]

It seems like both the island and mainland have all mixed with the exact same people,at one time or another.

 

Generally true with the caveat of 'a little less Latin' & 'a little bit more other'

 

Do a Google search on "population genetics of Sicily". There should be an article from Best of Sicily that covers this issue pretty well.

[Skarr]

Julieboy from your line of questions thus far it seems obvious that you want to implicate the darker complexions and hair color of modern Italians to intermixing of peoples. What is the aim of all this?

 

Good point, Favonius. One thing to remember is that Romans did not enslave on the basis of color but on the basis of status. That is to say, the status of the subject nation to which the enslaved person hailed from.

 

Another point is that slavery was not an absolute status as slaves could eventually become free (number of ways - released by master, purchase of their own freedom, extraordinary service, etc.) and although they would be known as freedmen or freedwomen in their own lifetimes, their children could become citizens and in subsequent generations, even go up the cursus honorum by becoming eligible to contest in various elections and assume magisterial positions.

 

A few centuries after Caesar, many of the nobility were descended from slave ancestors.

[julieboy]

Pentathagus,I have read the information on the Best Of Sicily website.Being South Italian, including some Sicilian myself,the personal experiences have been such that I still can't look at an Italian and know that his or her family was from Sicily. Too many blonde and blue eyed Sicilians,and dark complexioned people from closer to Rome,make identification by mainland or island impossible. If I had to say who were the most consistantly darkest Italians,from my experience,it would be those from the area near Bari.

 

Anyway there is a lot less mixing of non white races in present day Italians that people think,which makes it that much more bewildering from where the darker ones inherit their features. One site that I found interesting,that you also may like is: racial reality.shorturl.com. or possibly racial reality/shorturl.com.

 

If these sites are incorrecet,I will get back and post the correct one later.

[Primus Pilus]

Pentathagus,I have read the information on the Best Of Sicily website.Being South Italian, including some Sicilian myself,the personal experiences have been such that I still can't look at an Italian and know that his or her family was from Sicily. Too many blonde and blue eyed Sicilians,and dark complexioned people from closer to Rome,make identification by mainland or island impossible. If I had to say who were the most consistantly darkest Italians,from my experience,it would be those from the area near Bari.

 

Anyway there is a lot less mixing of non white races in present day Italians that people think,which makes it that much more bewildering from where the darker ones inherit their features. One site that I found interesting,that you also may like is: racial reality.shorturl.com. or possibly http://racialreality.shorturl.com/

 

If these sites are incorrecet,I will get back and post the correct one later.

 

In a quick perusal the site seems logical and straight forward enough. Some of the photographs seem a bit superfluous (as its hard for me to understand how a photo proves much) but I don't see any ridiculous claims off hand. They seem to do a good job of seeking balance between the white supremacist and the extreme racial revisionists and presenting what evidence is known.

 

However I am having a difficult time understanding why this site which we've tried so hard to develop as a discussion on ancient history attracts so many people who seem so obsessed by race. Please indulge me though and explain, is this a pursuit of curiosity (I hope) or rather some precursor to a soon to be revealed hidden agenda?

[julieboy]

No hidden agenda on my part. Just curious first of all, to find out who exactly were the very ,very,first people in Italy's south,and why there are so many people who insist that Sicilians are not the same as the rest of the Italians.

 

This latter point never made sense to me, because to begin with, so many people from the mainland had migrated to the island at one time or another and vice versa. And because every type of people that went through one ,seemed to go through the other.

 

As far as the web site goes,it was found while rearching Italian people,just going from one place to the other.Personally ,I could hardly tell anything by any of the pictures,including which type, I myself,would be. But found the section about the DNA informative and interesting,especially given what many people,including many Italians seem to believe.

[LEG X EQ]

@Julieboy

 

i also dont understand the thing that you are desperately looking for.

 

The thing is that you are making a mistake from the beginning and use the word Italian.

There is no such thing as an Italian, or as an Italian territory. Modern day italy is a Political union of several regions. This union was created in 1861 and completed in 1918 and finally rounded up in 1947. In this union you will find the biggest differences. This union was created in 1861 by a bunch of Greedy Royals and Heated up Patriots that wanted to create the ancient province of Italica. But a lot has changed from 476 till 1861. In every department in Italy. Lingiustically, Ethnically, Historically etc. etc.

The language Latin was split and mixed with didifferent elements (depending on the region) into the most various dialects.(sicilian is classified as an own language) Italian is nothing else, than the dialect of Florence in the 13th centuary.

Language

Romagnolo

http://www.mitidiromagna.it/cgi-bin/miti/romagnolo.jpg

Lombardic Dialects

http://members.tripod.com/~rjschellen/NthItalianNums.htm

etc. etc.

 

And we can go about the Germanic tribes in the north and the arabic invasion of the south etc etc. bla bla bla. And all the different historic stages of each region etc. etc.

 

The Point is there is no ITALY, there is the Republic of Italy and its islands.

I mean do you consider those italians?

http://www.walserland.org/comuni/images/folk01_big.jpg

Those are Walsers, a germanic people that Migrated to the North in the 13th centuary. And Occupie a landmass. And are Italian citizens with a Germanic Language.

If you consider them italian, than you will agree that there is only an Italian Nationality and not ethnicity, But if you dont agree, than why do you consider an Campanian or Umbrian more italian than them??

Do you consider a San Marinese (Seperate republic) More Italian than a South Tyrolian(Autonom Germanic People)??

Thats why sicily is considered sicily, an your assumptions that mainlanders and islanders mixed is just an asumption, there are no clear records. Furthermore, the funny thing is that the South "Italians" imigrated to the USA and the Northern "Italians" to south america.

Argentina is heavily North "italian".

Thats an argentinian soccer player (E. Cambiasso) of Genoese decent

http://placente-fans.hp.infoseek.co.jp/other/cambiasso.jpg

Thats Dean Martin Southern Italian

http://www.davincibeverlyhills.com/dean_martin_pic2_pix.jpg

 

The point is, that alot of US Americans take that as the standard of "Italian", because the have a predominant Sicilian community. While an Argentinian would take the Northern Italian as the standard. But the truth is, there is no standard Italian or any type of Italian. Italians as i have written above, different at every level. All of the italian regions have their own identity, dialect or language and history. That differs from the other regions. Thats why sicilian is sicilian. Piemontese is Piemontese, Aostan is Aostan etc. etc.

 

One more word to the Lega Nord, that was falsly put in your link. The Lega Nord is not an organisation of people that want to Belong to germany or press on the Germanic (gothic - lombard) heritage of northern italy. They want an independant country called Padania. Its a geocraphical country that borders are the Valley of the Padus (largest river of northen italy). And every person that settled in that valley and the culture (from DaVincvi-Michelangelo-Macchiavelli-Stradivari-Venetian Republic-Ferrari-Ducati etc etc.) is padanian, and they dont want to share their culture and identity with the rest of the so called "italians" because its simply not theirs, because they havent comtributed anything and are different. These Padanian (northern italians) are furious at the fact that southern italians immigrated to the new world and claimed the padanian culture to be theirs and therefor gave it a bad name by mixing it with their own traditions.

 

Personally, i dont think there will be an Italy in 2020. The mass that wants a Padania is becoming bigger and bigger.

[LEG X EQ]

The province of Italica at that time was still pretty much the same Cultuarly and Ethnicaly than a millenium ago.

Yes, The Romans made millions of slaves. But only a small fraction of them were shiped to Italica. Mostly as Houshold slaves or Gladiators. But slaves had no rights, so they were not allowed to marry and the majority died alone. Only as small percentage was granted freedom and an even smaller one remaind in italica. The majority of slaves were brought to north africa or iberia were all the mining was, or to Gallia and germania inferior where Towns roads and bridges needed to be build. The Slaves were important for the empire but not for the Province of Italica.

But slaves had no rights in every part of the empire and so the majority died without spreading their seeds.

The Foederati families lived in segregation in the countryside.

It was not until 476 AD and Odoaker and his army of germanic foederati soldiers that mixed with the local Roman population. During East-Gothic rule the reamainders of Odoakers army were considered as part of the Roman locals, with the same rights. So the entire remains of Odoakers army mixed with the locals.

 

The Slaughtering of the families of the Gothic soldiers, was an act of insanity. were authorities in the west got paranoid. They also murdered Stilicho and numerous other Generals in the Roman service. And basically crippled themselves, with that act of insanity.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Wow thanks for that site very facinating. Actually I think the pictures can be important. While of course there will be variations, you can notice a certain 'look' to different kinds of peoples.

 

This Native American mix of Americans is really interesting too:

 

http://racialreality.shorturl.com/

[Northern Neil]

I'm not aware that any Indians or Turks became Roman slaves. The first known Turk to visit the Empire was in early Byzantine times. Must check that -- I think I have the name somewhere.

 

I remember reading somewhere that the Huns have been established as being a turkic people.

[Andrew Dalby]

I'm not aware that any Indians or Turks became Roman slaves. The first known Turk to visit the Empire was in early Byzantine times. Must check that -- I think I have the name somewhere.

 

I remember reading somewhere that the Huns have been established as being a turkic people.

You might even have read this in my own /Dictionary of Languages/. I reprinted there the oldest known text in Hunnish (spoken by a Chinese Buddhist monk to a Hun monarch in AD 329) which has been(as you rightly say) identified as being in an archaic Turkic language. The oracular advice of this monk was:

 

S

[Rameses the Great]

So, yes, anyway, the first Turkic visitor to the Roman Empire will surely have been a Hun: they arrived in Europe far earlier than any other Turkic speakers. Thank you!

 

The Turks knew the Romans way before any Huns came around. Turks were undoubtedly forced into slavery Asia Minor beeing very close to the Romans. On the other hand the Indians so far away that the only western civilzation to reach them is Persian, by no means were slaves to Romans. The only reason Romans remotely knew Indians existed at that time was from the trde route from Egypt. India is a lot closer to China then the Mediterranian. No Roman had set foot in India 'till Marco Polo many centuries later.