A few years ago, an image of a dark-skinned Roman soldier appeared in a children's history book, and this sparked the anger and indignation of many, especially "purists of the race".
Is that image wrong because the Romans were white? Is that image right?
To answer these questions in a historical way, and not in the gut, we need to focus on two elements, namely the demographic distribution of the population of the Empire and the living conditions of the inhabitants of the Empire.
Before going into the analysis of the phenomenon and trying to shed some light on the issue, I anticipate that, I want to show you this image prior to the first century after Christ, identified as "Medicine of the boot and of the Roman Age:Aeneas edited by Japige " which was found in the excavations of Pompeii.
Do you notice something strange in the color of Aeneas's skin and the doctor who is treating him?
The skin of Aeneas and the doctor is very dark, this and it is not an effect due to the aging of the pigment, also because in the same image there are other people with a much lighter skin tone, and therefore, even if the image over time it has darkened, the fact remains that those who created this fresco had in mind that Aeneas's skin should be darker than that of other subjects in the same image.
Demographic distribution in Roman times
As for the demographic distribution, it must be said that the Roman Empire stretched from Spain to the Middle East, from the British Isles to the Sahara Desert, controlled the entire Mediterranean basin, and, over the centuries, they have merged within its borders. hundreds of different and distant populations, both culturally and ethnically.
Within the borders of the empire there was also North Africa, an area that went from Egypt to Morocco, and which constituted the "granary" of the empire, that is a predominantly agricultural and very fertile region, in which large part of the grain stocks for the whole empire.
Except for the "big" cities like Rome, the area of North Africa was among the most populous of the empire, because it was inhabited by many peasants who worked in the immense and endless fields that produced and supplied grain to the whole empire.
The inhabitants of that region, for ethnic reasons and living conditions, had very dark skin.
Now, if the most populous part of the empire is inhabited by dark-skinned people, it goes without saying that ... this is enough to say that, not only, in the empire there were people with dark skin, but also that these it was an important slice of the entire Roman population.
To this it must be added that most of the inhabitants of the empire and of Europe in subsequent eras, from the British Isles to Egypt, were farmers and fishermen.
What does work with skin coloring have to do with it?
We are talking about a pre-industrial era in which the work in the fields was carried out mainly under direct sunlight, the land was worked all year round, day after day, under the sun, an era in which we move on foot or at most to the horse, and also the, one is exposed to sunlight, consequently, these very long hours of exposure to sunlight, to ultraviolet rays that trigger the tanning process, makes the skin of those people very dark, on average much more darker than that of a modern employee who sunbathes 2/3 weeks a year, during summer weekends and mid-August holidays.
We can say that the ancients, and by ancients we mean the inhabitants of Europe and from the times of Rome, until at least the second half of the twentieth century, were perpetually tanned.
Blessed are they, were it not that their skin was literally cooked and ruined, worn by the sun and all sorts of skin diseases.
For centuries the color of the skin has been an element of distinction between social classes, because, while the peasants, but also soldiers, fishermen and workers in general, spent most of their lives under the sun, the nobles, the aristocrats and the more affluent, they were much less exposed to the sun, consequently, with rare exceptions, their skin was on average lighter and smoother than that of peasants.
Nobles and aristocrats, in appearance, were much more like us, but, let's not forget that nobles and aristocrats were a small fraction of the European population.
This distinction based on color and condition of the leather was partially lacking with the industrial revolution, following the spread of electric lighting, factories and trains, elements that have moved a large part of the production process to Europe indoors, thus limiting the exposure to the sun and changing work habits.
You work indoors, you tan less, then the tan goes around and goes from being indicative of poor and manual jobs, to being indicative of belonging to a higher social circle that, in the second half of the twentieth century , leads a more comfortable life… can go on vacation.
This type of tanning limited in time, results in slightly darker skin, but still smooth, different from that of peasants, much darker and wrinkled and ruined, not taken care of.
It should also be said that, after the Second World War, in the 1950s, when Ernesto de Martino and before him Carlo Levi, during their travels and studies, went to southern Italy, and came into contact with rural populations at noon, they came across men and women who still wore the sign of work in the fields on their faces, we are talking about men and women with dark skin, baked by the sun during long hours of work in the fields.
Therefore, answering with a "no dry" when asking if in the ancient world, in Europe, there were people with dark skin, besides being stupid, it is also anti-distortion, because you look at that world, at that time, not analyzing it in its entirety, ignoring the living conditions of the population of the time and projecting our rhythms and habits, into a world that followed different rhythms, a world whose time was marked by sunlight and not by the hands of a clock modern. A world, in which people's skin was on average darker, because, unlike us, they lived and worked all year under the sun, without sunscreen and without any kind of protection against UV rays.