noemon wrote:You said that Alexander moved his capital to Egypt and ordered his men to marry Egyptian women, I thought you were confused to say Egypt instead of Persia as Alexander moved his capital to Persia(Babylon) and ordered his generals to marry Persian women as he did.
Well, he planned to move his capital to Babylon, but Alexandria in Egypt was de facto the most important city of his empire, and he was buried here.
The Ptolemaic Kingdom was the most prominent Kingdom that existed till the Roman Time.
During the reign of Ptolemies II and III thousands of Macedonian veterans were rewarded with grants of farm lands, and Macedonians were planted in colonies and garrisons or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper Egypt, farthest from the centre of government, was less immediately affected, even though Ptolemy I established the Greek colony of Ptolemais Hermiou to be its capital. But within a century Greek influence had spread through the country and intermarriage had produced a large Greco-Egyptian educated class. Nevertheless, the Greeks always remained a privileged minority in Ptolemaic Egypt. They lived under Greek law, received a Greek education, were tried in Greek courts, and were citizens of Greek cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom
Well, if I was an idiot, like some users in this forum, I would talk about "Greek racism", because Greeks were a privileged group in Egypts.
But who were these Greeks?
Well, they were people who accepted the Hellenistic culture, that had nothing to do with race. Hellenistic people were of mixed race.
noemon wrote:... in Egypt specifically, a very extreme apartheid existed that separated Greeks from Egyptians...
Yes, but this division was not racial, it was cultural. The educated class was Hellenistic, though of mixed Egyptian-Greek origin, the common people were of the old Egyptian stock.
It is obvious that the soldiers did not take Greek women to Egypt, they married local women, like it was the case with Spanish conquistadors in Latin America, who married local women, and their descendants are mestizos who speak Spanish.
Mestizos speak Spanish, they were always segregated from native Amerindians, but it would be idiotic to say that Mestizos in Latin America and the Spanish people in Spain are the same race.
noemon wrote:Arabs did not exist in Egypt back then, except for some tiny number of merchants but as Herodotus again tells us, they were negligible and does not count them among the peoples in Egypt.
They did not call themselves Arabs yet, but the population of these regions remained the same.
Do not confuse race with ethnicity or religion.
Ethnic and religious (or ethno-religious) groups segregate themselves.
The Jews is the most prominent example of such a segregation.
Jews usually intermarry only with Jews.
But how did it happen that Ethiopian Jews are indistinguishable form Black Ethiopians who are Christians or Muslims, and Chinese Jews are indistinguishable from other Chinese people? And Jews from Lithuania look like Nordic people with blue eyes and blond hair?
Well, the answer is simple.
If a non-Jew converts to Judaism, then he is a Jew, and he can marry another Jews. That was the only segregation that worked for Jews and also for Hellenistic people. You can become a Jew via conversion, you marry another Jew, and then you segregate yourself from people of your own race.
That is what Tacitus described in his historical works:
The most degraded out of other races, scorning their national beliefs, brought to them their contributions and presents. This augmented the wealth of the Jews, as also did the fact, that among themselves they are inflexibly honest and ever ready to shew compassion, though they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies. They sit apart at meals, they sleep apart, and though, as a nation, they are singularly prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful. Circumcision was adopted by them as a mark of difference from other men. Those who come over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and brethren. Still they provide for the increase of their numbers.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... citus.html
As we see, Jews were from the very beginning just an ethno-religious group, they isolated themselves from the others, they hated the others, they treated the others as enemies, but the "others" were their former cousins, who did not abandon their old gods and their old way of life.
And now compare this to the other works of Tacitus, like "Germania":
The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For, in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail from our world. And, beside the perils of rough and unknown seas, who would leave Asia, or Africa, or Italy for Germany, with its wild country, its inclement skies, its sullen manners and aspect, unless indeed it were his home?
...
Every mother suckles her own offspring, and never entrusts it to servants and nurses. The master is not distinguished from the slave by being brought up with greater delicacy. Both live amid the same flocks and lie on the same ground till the freeborn are distinguished by age and recognised by merit. The young men marry late, and their vigour is thus unimpaired. Nor are the maidens hurried into marriage; the same age and a similar stature is required; well-matched and vigorous they wed, and the offspring reproduce the strength of the parents.
...
The other slaves are not employed after our manner with distinct domestic duties assigned to them, but each one has the management of a house and home of his own. The master requires from the slave a certain quantity of grain, of cattle, and of clothing, as he would from a tenant, and this is the limit of subjection.
...
Of lending money on interest and increasing it by compound interest they know nothing,—a more effectual safeguard than if it were prohibited. Land proportioned to the number of inhabitants is occupied by the whole community in turn, and afterwards divided among them according to rank.
...
Arms are not with them, as with the other Germans, at the general disposal, but are in the charge of a keeper, who is actually a slave...
...
For my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany are free from all taint of inter-marriages with foreign nations, and that they appear as a distinct, unmixed race, like none but themselves. Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population. All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Germania ... 6_Brodribb)
So what is Tacitus telling us?
Well, Northern Europe was isolated from the rest of Europe by forests and ocean, people there were also isolated from the rest of Europe during the ice times, so it is obvious that they could develop a racial homogeneity.
The Northern People did not have an institution of slavery similar to South Europe or the Orient. Their slaves were from the same stock, they were just people who were subordinated to the stronger alpha-males:
Strangely enough they make games of hazard a serious occupation even when sober, and so venturesome are they about gaining or losing, that, when every other resource has failed, on the last and final throw they stake the freedom of their own persons. The loser goes into voluntary slavery...
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Germania ... 6_Brodribb)
As we see, the Northmen slaves were just serfs or squires, they lost the battle and they were subordinated to the winners. That was the ethic of the Northern men.
Germanic tribes did not know what "racism" is, because they all looked similar, speak they were of the same race.
Racism is a phenomenon that inevitably exists in racially mixed societies, in these societies people of different skin colour are enslaved.
Northern people hated slavery, like it was practised in South Europe, the institution of slavery was de facto destroyed by Northern people who had different moral and ethic norms, speak their ethics was free from racism, though the contact with Romans corrupted the original culture of Germanic tribes:
Besides parents and children, a household might include slaves, but slavery was uncommon, and according to Tacitus, slaves normally had households of their own. Their slaves (usually prisoners of war) were most often employed as domestic servants.[200] Polygamy and concubinage were rare but existed, at least among the upper classes.[205] When a certain number of families resided on the same territory, this constituted a village (Dorf in German). The overall territory occupied by people from the same tribe was designated in the writings of Tacitus as a civitas, with each of the individual civitas divided into pagi (or cantons), which were made up of several vici. In cases where the tribes were grouped into larger confederations or a group of kingdoms, the term pagus was applied (Gau in German).[206] Extensive contact with Rome altered the egalitarian structure of tribal Germanic society. As individuals rose to prominence, a distinction between commoner and nobility developed and with it the previous constructs of folkright shared equally across the tribe was replaced in some cases by privilege.[175] As a result, Germanic society became more stratified. Elites within the Germanic tribes who learned the Roman system and emulated the way they established dominion were able to gain advantages and exploit them accordingly.[207]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples
But the spirit of Northmen still survived after the adoption of Roman Law, that is the only reason why white Christians could not tolerate Slavery, which was perfectly accepted by Abrahamits, Christianity accepts Slavery.
White people, who are the only people, who REALLY hate racism, freed black slaves, though some shills, who are de facto the worst racists themselves, still talk about "white racism" and the "white guilt".
_________________________________________________________________________________
"I don't care if Americans think we're running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them".
J. Stein
- By ingliz
- By wat0n