Multi-ethnic Roman Britain

[Mark]

Roman remains in York are 'elite' African woman
Ivory bangle lady copyright aaron watson university of reading
This reconstruction shows how the Ivory Bangle Lady may have looked

Archaeologists have revealed the remains of what they say was a "high status" woman of African origin who lived in York during Roman times.

Academics say the discovery goes against the common assumption that all Africans in Roman Britain were low status male slaves.

Remains of the Ivory Bangle Lady, as she has been named, were studied in Reading using forensic techniques.

She was first discovered in the Bootham area of York in August 1901.

Her remains were in a stone coffin near Sycamore Terrace in the city.

Her grave dates back to the second half of the 4th Century. She was buried with items including jet and elephant ivory bracelets, earrings, beads and a blue glass jug.

She also had a rectangular piece of bone, which is thought to have originally been mounted in a wooden box, which was carved to read, "Hail, sister, may you live in God'.


rest at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...re/8538888.stm

[Michael]

It would be interesting to learn what a DNA study would reveal of her connection to modern Britons.

[august]

Or, wondering if she was perhaps the wife of some wealthy merchant and/or retired soldier of Roman and/or British descent, who met her in N. Africa, and brought her back home to England.

[EDSEL_PK]

It's entirely possibe that some lovely Nubian woman coud have wound up in Britannia. I could see a Roman general/senator/merchant travelling to Egypt, finding favor with her, and BAM! She winds up in the British Isles. Surely, it would be a rarity, but not implausible.

[august]

Maybe not that much of a rarity - once you were a citizen, it didn't really matter what color you were. And I note that they say "African origin," meaning she could actually have been of mixed heritage. So as above she might have married a citizen... or her mother might have, and she could have been born a free woman of means. Or I guess for that matter, she could have been married to a slave who became a freedman, and perhaps from there became a wealthy merchant and ended up there....

[Boomstick]

Originally Posted by august

Maybe not that much of a rarity - once you were a citizen, it didn't really matter what color you were.

Among the Romans, you mean? What did one have to do to achieve citizenship?

[august]

Complicated levels, detailed here. But being born to a citizen made it automatic. So let's say her dad was a centurion, was stationed in North Africa, married a local girl - even a slave girl whom he then freed and married - then their daughter would have had the same status as any free-born commoner. And for that matter, if he prospered in life, then the African-born wife could have been extremely wealthy when she died, and would have been buried with dignity and pomp, regardless of her birth.

[Boomstick]

Originally Posted by august

So let's say her dad was a centurion, was stationed in North Africa, married a local girl - even a slave girl whom he then freed and married...

Thanks for the link, very interesting. Are there many accounts of Romans taking foreign wives? It seems likely, given the size of their empire.

[august]

Originally Posted by Boomstick

Thanks for the link, very interesting. Are there many accounts of Romans taking foreign wives? It seems likely, given the size of their empire.

Yes and no. The problem is that 99.9% of all "accounts" got used for kindling by a thousand years of Huns, Vandals and Goths. (The latter then had an all night rave.) And the other .1% got stuck in a mildew-y storage room by some semi-literate monks who were half-drunk on Trappist ale, muttering "We'll sort out all those old Roman record next week."

There were countless marriages with foreign wives. In fact that's one of the sort of creation myths about the founding of the city, the "rape" (meaning abduction here) of the Sabine women. Romulus and his men needed women, so they kidnapped a bunch of them from a neighboring tribe. A different language (ok, dialect anyway) a different culture... but they lived 5 miles away. Seriously! But that was a way to explain early intermarriages.

But for most of the "classical" period, the Romans of middle class and above were huge snobs, and it was shameful to marry anyone who wasn't Roman. Even to marry an Italian from another part of the country was just sort of tacky. (But no different than if a Kennedy were to marry some country music singer from Nashville. Or a body-builder from Austria! ) But men didn't need to marry foreigners... you just marry an ugly Roman girl to get her father's money... make sure to have two sons (in case one dies) and then you can have as many hot foreign slave girls as you want.

The people who did marry foreigners were the commoners, and no one ever documented any of their lives. And the wives would have been slaves, or children of freed slaves. But just like today, soldiers did it all the time.

Much MUCH later, 900 years into the city's history, there were very few "real" Romans left, so it was different. The emperors and generals were from Italian stock, but were born in the provinces, and so are very likely to have had slightly mixed blood. Eventually by the 3rd century there was an emperor named Septimius Severus who was born in what is now Libya, and while Roman, his portaits make him look sort of like Omar Sharif. i.e. Caucasian, but sort of exotic. And his wife was likewise a citizen, but of Syrian blood. (i.e think maybe Yasmeen Bleeth or Marlo Thomas.) And fast forward another century, and some of the emperrors were of Thracian, Greek or Dacian blood....but after centuries of Roman domination. So that would be like an American becoming king of England. OK, not technically English, but apart from an accent, there's no real difference.

This chick whose remains they found was from the late 300's, towards the end of the empire, when there really were no "real" Romans left, i.e. people related to the original familes from 1000 years earlier. BUT... most Roman citizens were still what we'd think of as Europeans and/or Caucasians.... so she is a bit different. So basically, for those who followed the HBO series "Rome," I think what we have here is Titus Pullo marrying Zoe Saldana or Halle Berry, and moving to England to prosper in the trade business.

[EDSEL_PK]

Romans probably came n a thosand diffeent flavors. Centuries of fighting in, and occipyig foreign lands meant Roman men had access to women of all flavors.

Carthaginians, for instance, were said to be of the same stock as Phoenicians, whose roots were Greek, and mixed with tribes from the Eastern Med. So a Carhaginian slave girl, or merchant's daughter, would have a mixed ethnic background.

In Egypt, there was great influence from the olive-skinned Greeks, and from the dark-skinned Nubians. Given Egypt became a vassal province of Rome, one can be assured that this blend was added, too, to the Roman gene pool.

And of course, we have the Gauls, Germans, and Britons -- burly, fair-skinned folk often with blonde or red hair.

Ahhhh...to be a Roman general in that time. The 'perks' of the job would be...you know...really cool.

[Michael]

The Apostle Paul claimed Roman citizenship. It was extended to many families in all regions.

[august]

Yep - that's why he was entilted to a legit trial in Rome, rather than just being executed on the spot.

[Jaak]

Originally Posted by august

The people who did marry foreigners were the commoners, and no one ever documented any of their lives.

They did. Quite humble Roman people commissioned inscriptions on gravestones that often described their biography and status at some length.

And they also wrote such things on official documents and legal papyri, but most of these rotted. They also were not copied through Middle Ages; but legal texts commenting on humble people did remain.

Originally Posted by august

And the wives would have been slaves, or children of freed slaves. But just like today, soldiers did it all the time.

Slaves could not, legally, be wives. A Roman could not legally marry unless he freed her first.

Nobles were legally banned by Augustus from marrying freedwomen. Common freeborn Roman citizens never were; and laws explicitly considered masters who freed their slaves specifically to marry her. But there was no such legal duty on the part of masters. If a master wanted, he could keep his children by slave women as slaves and sell them. Many masters did release their children, but only some time after birth.

There were large numbers of free peregrini around. Both immigrants into Rome and free inhabitants of the areas where Romans moved as conquerors. So many common Roman citizens would have wanted to marry there.

But there were obstacles here. A slave released by a Roman citizen was a Roman citizen and could vote (if a man), and marry a Roman citizen (except nobles). A free non-Roman could be granted Roman citizenship; but in the absence of such a grant, most peregrines did not have conubium with Roman citizens - they could not legally marry, and the children were bastards who inherited the status of mother.

[Alvin Eriol]

Phoenicians were a Semitic people, not related to Greeks. Not that anyone would complain. The Philistines, for whose women the Israelite judges seemed to get serious hots regularly, were related to the Bronze-age Aegean peoples i.e. 'Minoans' and perhaps Achaean Greeks.
The tale of Mark Antony & Cleopatra (not Egyptian, Macedonian Greek) is of course well known, as is Titus' Jewish mistress Berenice daughter of Agrippa.

In the book of Acts you can almost hear the water hit the floor when Paul, having been tied up to be scourged without trial, springs the news on the Roman commander that he's a Roman citizen by birth! Oops!

Now, as to this inscription found in the woman's grave: does "may you live in God" indicate she was a Christian, or did other faiths such as Mithraism (popular with Roman soldiers) have similar addresses and prayer formats?

[Michael]

According to this book from the 1800s, variations on "May you live in God" were found throughout Christian catacombs but that does not address your question about whether other faiths used it.

Greek philosophers, for example, sometimes spoke of "god" in the singular rather than in the plural (as one might expect of a polytheistic faith).