Mixed Race and Populations

Mixed Populations
Thucydides notes that the Hellenes were disparate peoples that came together, citing evidence from the Homeric epics. and that the Sicilians were deliberately made a "mixed population." Antiphon states that living in proximity to other peoples is problematic: “we have been barbarized in our relations with each other” because there is no inborn Greek or barbarian--we can become both. Aristotle discusses the potential for violence when colonists mix or fail to mix with local populations. Plato contrasts the autochthonous community of Athens to mixed communities. Mixed communities have irregular political systems and irregular social institutions. He also states that the victory over the Persians in the Persian Wars kept the Greeks from mixing together and the Persians from mixing with the Greeks. Mixed populations “live unhappily.” Dionysius of Halicarnassus, while arguing that the Romans were initially Greeks, describes how the Romans were a collectivity of disparate peoples. Sallust: After Hercules died in Spain, the Persians in his army came to North Africa by boat. They eventually mixed with the Gaetuli through intermarriage and then called themselves “nomads.” The Medes and Armenians mixed with the Libyans. The Libyans corrupted the name Medes with the “barbarian language” so that they came to be called Mauretanians. Livy, in critiquing the idea of autochthonous peoples, states that the Romans were a collectivity of disparate peoples. Plutarch: Lycurgus did not allow foreigners into Sparta, nor Spartans to travel abroad for fear that mixing with others would cause internal strife. ; Alexander perhaps thought that “shared custom and shared race lends to the humanizing of men.” “Greeks of mixed blood” used by Parthians to come to terms with Crassus at Surena--addressing Crassus in Greek. Diodorus Siculus: Drawing on Hecataeus of Abdera, he notes that when the Jews were subject to the Persian and then the Macedonian empires, “many of the ancestral customs of the Jews were changed--a result of their mingling with foreign peoples.” Tacitus: Jews “abstain from cohabitation with foreign women.” The Germans have not engaging in much mixing with other peoples. Again: “I myself accept the opinion of those who think that the people of Germany have been infected by no marriages with other nations and exist as an individual and pure race that is similar only to itself.” The proof, for Tacitus, is the appearance and character of the Germans. The Naristi and Quadi are not “degenerate”. “The Peucini, whom some call Bastarnae, live like Germans in their speech, culture, location, and homes. The filth and laziness of all of them is great, and with mixed marriages they are defiled not a little into the likeness of the Sarmatians”.

Mixed Race
Herodotus: Some Egyptians defected and settled in Ethiopia at the Ethiopian king’s request. These Egyptians had a civilizing influence on the Ethiopians through their customs. The king Scyles had an Istrian mother who taught “him the Greek language and alphabet.” He didn’t like “the Scythian way of life; he tended rather more to Greek things, which he had learned from his childhood”. Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Quoting Duris, Dionysius reports that “some Indians have sex with wild animals and give birth to mixed and semi-wild beings”. Apuleius proudly states that he is “half Numidian and half Gaetulian.” “I see no reason why I should feel any shame in that! It was the same for Cyrus the Great, since he was of mixed race: half Mede and half Persian”. Plutarch: Alexander perhaps thought that “shared custom and shared race lends to the humanizing of men”. “Greeks of mixed blood” used by Parthians to come to terms with Crassus at Surena--addressing Crassus in Greek.