A pioneering classicist explores how ancient Greeks and Romans understood their own racial and ethnic identities, offering lessons for our increasingly divided world today
In modern times, people have interpreted and misinterpreted the history, literature, art, architecture, and archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome to lend authority to their own ideas of race and ethnicity. The ancient Greeks and Romans, however, did not adhere to modern racial categories. They were incredibly diverse: they lived on three continents, had various skin colors, and spoke multiple languages.
Rebecca Futo Kennedy traces how ancient Greeks and Romans engaged with the concepts of race and ethnicity and examines how the ancients attempted to understand group identities. While modern race and ancient ways of understanding human variation share many characteristics, including underlying prejudices and fears, where they differ can offer new ways to think about how we interact and live together as humans in an increasingly global society. Modern claims to the legacy of the ancient Greeks and Romans have shaped national identities, informed foreign policy decisions, fueled wars, and driven imperialism and genocide. These uses of ancient history in the present provide ample reasons for why the study of ancient Greece and Rome still matters.