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Shadow
Shadow
That doesn't mean that the character isn't realistic. They could have been a slave that earned their freedom or born to a freed slave or their father was a roman citizen that elected to raise him as one of his children. They could even be someone's lover and that person is powerful enough to guarantee them citizenship.
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Shadow
Shadow
Unless the show went into every facet of that dude's life and explained everything about them, there's no way to say it's entirely historically inaccurate.
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Innsmouth
Innsmouth
There is like two black romans out of five soldiers. Thats absurd. and it represented as norm, which is also absurd. They just try to insert black persons into each and every historical point without any need to actually uphold accuracy.
Foxtrot94
Foxtrot94
Depends on what you mean by "black". If you mean any African in general, the roman army was stock full of black people. The Empire used to recruit heavily in North Africa, and Numidians especially were common in the army, serving as light cavalry, if I'm not mistaken.
Foxtrot94
Foxtrot94
If you mean people that live under the Sahara, which is the common image of a black person, then yeah it's bull. But xenophobia has nothing to do with it, it's cause Romans didn't have many contacts with those people to begin with. They used to recruit from various races and nationalities but their territory didn't include the sub Sahara.
V
Viper
*shrugs* To this I can only say that it's not a documentary, it's a science fiction show about a silly alien traveling through space and time in a logic-defying ship disguised as a police box. As long as the dude's race is not his single most important trait, I don't see the problem.
Dark Drakan
Dark Drakan
From what I remember studying Roman History, racism based on skin colour wasn't really a Roman trait. Sure they were meant to be rather Xenophobic but Roman slavery did not include black inferiority as European and American slavery did.
Dark Drakan
Dark Drakan
Emperor Septimius Severus was from North Africa (now Libya) and reports say he was likely "black" though not the modern (stereotypical) definition maybe if you want to split hairs. Would have been plenty of "black" Romans in the African provinces, many reports of them in UK too around Hadrian’s Wall in the 3rd century.
Lain
Lain
This show has an interesting relationship with race, especially of late. The director of the show talked about it in a previous episode this season, about how they cast black actors in Regency London "bending history in a progressive way"...which is hilariously ironic since there actually *were* multi-ethnic people working in the docks of where that episode was set so he didn't know what he was on about.
V's patron
V's patron
They had shakespeare take down a witch by shouting Expelliarmus so i dont think historical accuracy was much of a concern.
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V's patron
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Innsmouth
Innsmouth
DragonMaster2010
DragonMaster2010
Its a show about aliens, time gods, and robots. Is a small historic inaccuracy really the problem here?
Foxtrot94
Foxtrot94
You do realize that article refers to the city of Rome alone when it talks about population, right? The army was not composed of just people from the city. As I said, the Empire recruited like crazy in North Africa. It was not uncommon at all to find Africans in the army. If you talk about finding black people among CIVILIANS, like that article mentions, that's another story indeed.
Foxtrot94
Foxtrot94
But I imagine you don't mean North Africans as "black", cause most of them don't really have THAT dark of a skin color. I guess the actor playing the character doesn not reflect the appearance of, say, an Empire's Numidian, so the confusion is understandable. Romans didn't have people with very dark skin in the Empire, as far as I know. Therefore, none in the army either.
Foxtrot94
Foxtrot94
Once again, as I said, depends on your definition of black person. Granted, you're right, the modern common image of a black guy ain't historically accurate for ancient roman army but if they hired a modern African American (if the show is american, I dunno) or whatever to play a North African then it ain't a big deal imo.
Foxtrot94
Foxtrot94
If they actually mean that there were people that reflect our modern image of black guys in the roman army though... That's pretty effed up, yup yup. But from what I hear, the show is pretty effed up and weird itself, so... whatever.
Innsmouth
Innsmouth
Thats exactly what I meant. We're talking your standard African Americans in nowadays. If we talked people with darker skin shades it could have been ok.
@DragonMaster2010 the problem is that they tried so far be relatively historically accurate in terms of country etc, so it bugs me that they suddenly decided: screw it...
Lain
Lain
I'll say one last thing. The show was created to educate kids through entertaining stories. So the Roman thing didn't bother me. But earlier in this season, the sidekick kicked up a fuss about being mistaken for a slave in Regency England and the Doctor goes on a speech about how slavery is bad and I'm thinking "but slavery has been outlawed in Britain for over a thousand years" so what are you on about.
Lain
Lain
TL;DR - If you want to tackle a serious issue like slavery, take it seriously and do your research!
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