About Hannibal’s Race…
What an issue! There are two decidedly staunch camps that I’ve become very familiar with as I worked on and then publicized Pride of Carthage. One camp says that Hannibal was black, an African, and should therefore be considered an African hero. He was based in Africa; therefore he is of Africa. These folks would say that it’s our continuing racist society that either wants to 1) deny that Hannibal was African or 2) choose to accept it, but then go on to demonize him because of it.
The other camp says that Hannibal wasn’t black. They argue that he and his people were Phoenicians. They might’ve had a colony based in North Africa, but that doesn’t mean they mixed with the locals. And even if they did mix with the locals the North Africans weren’t really “black”, so African-Americans have no reason to claim him as their own. Folks from this camp are inclined to 1) be real Hannibal fans or 2) still choose to demonize Hannibal, because even if he was Phoenician he was still not European, more a threat to Western Civilization than a participant in its growth.
My book does not enter this debate with hard and fast agenda. At least, that’s the way I see it. I’m not sure that all the interest in this really has much to do with who Hannibal truly was. It’s about the myriad ways we’re still hung up on race in the Twenty-First Century. I mention these two “camps”, but I should also point out that I’m not talking about scholars and academics here. These vocal proponents on either side are mostly just folks from the general public. This is, in many regards, a popular debate, not an academic one. If I have an agenda it’s to render on the page the true racial complexity of the Second Punic Wars, including – but not limited to – highlighting Carthage’s African characteristics.
In most regards I take the original sources at face value. It’s these old dead guys that I base my story on because they’re the best sources we have and because their version is filled with racial/ethnic complexity. Carthage did have a Phoenician element, sure. This can be seen in their earlier naval and trading prowess, and in their religious pantheon. But Carthaginians also intermarried with North Africans, and had been doing so for hundreds of years. The ancients, like Livy and Polybius, point out many marriages at the highest level of Carthaginian society. These were often arrangements meant to strengthen ties with Numidian and Libyan allies. If the Carthaginian aristocracy was doing it why would anybody claim the lower classes weren’t mixing and mingling freely? And, significantly, the Romans themselves called the Carthaginians by a name from which we derive the term Punic. It’s a word coined to name the particular combination of Phoenician and African cultures that Carthage was. It doesn’t mean Carthage was completely either. But it certainly names it as indelibly both. Remember also that when Publius Scipio triumphed over Hannibal he was given an honorific name that essentially meant “Conqueror of Africa”. So, in many ways, the Romans themselves had no qualms about acknowledging Carthage’s African identity.
So what do I think personally? I think that Carthage (and Hannibal) was a child of two nations. There is an undeniable Phoenician influence. But there is also a foundation in African soil, blood and customs that is at least equally important, maybe more. I say maybe more because throughout the Second Punic War many African tribes joined Hannibal in his fight. I don’t recall any mention of other Phoenician states having much of anything to do with it. So my answer is one based in the complexity of the situation. I’m content with embracing the uncertainty inherent in that, and I think it’s more than a bit unfortunate that more people in our society can’t do the same. Black and white. Conservative and Liberal. Good and evil… It seems we’re trained to think only in absolutes. The world, however, never works in absolute terms; that’s part of why we’re always handicapped in trying to make sense of it from within our ideological boxes.
But the question people really have and often ask me is more mundane… They want to know whether I’d prefer a Vin Diesel or Denzel Washington a Hannibal movie? Honestly, I don’t think either is perfect. I’m not sure that Vin Diesel could pull it off because of the complexity inherent in bringing such a dynamic figure to the screen. Maybe he could, but only if he majorly ups his game. And Denzel, although I believe he has the gravitas, is too old to play the twenty and thirty-something general Hannibal was through the war. Both these things come to mind for me before we even get to the race question.
Usually this answer doesn’t satisfy people. It’s not really what they were asking. What they really want to know is do I support a black or white Hannibal? The answer is “No”. No, I don’t support a “black or white” Hannibal. I don’t see Wesley Snipes as Hannibal in the same way I don’t see Brad Pitt. (I don’t think Brad Pitt should be playing a Greek hero either. Believe me, my indignation at racial misrepresentation is multi-faceted.) Either extreme is misguided. As with so much around Hannibal the truth is somewhere in between. It’s gray. It’s brown. It could even be tan, but the truth isn’t black or white. The person who could best bring Hannibal to the screen must first have the charisma, the strength, the intelligence, the skills to embody his arrogance and his brilliance and portray with empathy a man blessed and cursed by his own destiny. Such an actor isn’t easy to find, and shouldn’t be searched for only after passing a complexion test.
On the issue of a complexion test… I do believe that people who want to deny Hannibal blackness are being unfairly selective in their use of this racial terminology. No matter what Hannibal was he was a man with brown skin. The ancients make it entirely clear how strange and barbaric white-skinned, blond haired people were considered. The Celts and Gauls from Northern Italy northward were spoken of disparagingly by Romans and Greeks in part because of their unnatural whiteness. White, blond, tall: these were the characteristics of barbarians. So Hannibal, being south of Rome and from African soil, was at the very least a brown-skinned man, much more familiar and respected in the ancient world.
Now, I am also a brown skinned man. (I’m actually sadly pale right now, it being a New England winter and all that. But still, you can tell.) I’m of mixed blood, black and white and with other indeterminate influences thrown in. But few people would call me anything but black if they saw me walking down an American street. As has often been stated, a drop of African – a drop of black – makes you all black. I do think it’s too precious, then, for people to call a person of any and all shades of brown a Black Person here in America, but then to deny other brown, African people a claim to blackness when it suits them.
I’m quite sure that if Hannibal dropped down on to the streets of any American city, put on modern clothes and walked the sidewalk… He might well look like somebody that our culture would most readily define as a black man. I think that because we’d see a brown-skinned man with curly hair, burnished by the Mediterranean sun. Remember, we tend to have a very wide spectrum in terms of what we call black in America. It doesn’t matter where along that spectrum he ultimately sits. If he’s on it at all that man walking down the street would be defined by one or two words, labeled, identified, preliminary judged. That, unfortunately, is what all the debate is about. It’s not about the Hannibal of more than two thousand years ago. It’s about us, right here and right now.
The other camp says that Hannibal wasn’t black. They argue that he and his people were Phoenicians. They might’ve had a colony based in North Africa, but that doesn’t mean they mixed with the locals. And even if they did mix with the locals the North Africans weren’t really “black”, so African-Americans have no reason to claim him as their own. Folks from this camp are inclined to 1) be real Hannibal fans or 2) still choose to demonize Hannibal, because even if he was Phoenician he was still not European, more a threat to Western Civilization than a participant in its growth.
My book does not enter this debate with hard and fast agenda. At least, that’s the way I see it. I’m not sure that all the interest in this really has much to do with who Hannibal truly was. It’s about the myriad ways we’re still hung up on race in the Twenty-First Century. I mention these two “camps”, but I should also point out that I’m not talking about scholars and academics here. These vocal proponents on either side are mostly just folks from the general public. This is, in many regards, a popular debate, not an academic one. If I have an agenda it’s to render on the page the true racial complexity of the Second Punic Wars, including – but not limited to – highlighting Carthage’s African characteristics.
In most regards I take the original sources at face value. It’s these old dead guys that I base my story on because they’re the best sources we have and because their version is filled with racial/ethnic complexity. Carthage did have a Phoenician element, sure. This can be seen in their earlier naval and trading prowess, and in their religious pantheon. But Carthaginians also intermarried with North Africans, and had been doing so for hundreds of years. The ancients, like Livy and Polybius, point out many marriages at the highest level of Carthaginian society. These were often arrangements meant to strengthen ties with Numidian and Libyan allies. If the Carthaginian aristocracy was doing it why would anybody claim the lower classes weren’t mixing and mingling freely? And, significantly, the Romans themselves called the Carthaginians by a name from which we derive the term Punic. It’s a word coined to name the particular combination of Phoenician and African cultures that Carthage was. It doesn’t mean Carthage was completely either. But it certainly names it as indelibly both. Remember also that when Publius Scipio triumphed over Hannibal he was given an honorific name that essentially meant “Conqueror of Africa”. So, in many ways, the Romans themselves had no qualms about acknowledging Carthage’s African identity.
So what do I think personally? I think that Carthage (and Hannibal) was a child of two nations. There is an undeniable Phoenician influence. But there is also a foundation in African soil, blood and customs that is at least equally important, maybe more. I say maybe more because throughout the Second Punic War many African tribes joined Hannibal in his fight. I don’t recall any mention of other Phoenician states having much of anything to do with it. So my answer is one based in the complexity of the situation. I’m content with embracing the uncertainty inherent in that, and I think it’s more than a bit unfortunate that more people in our society can’t do the same. Black and white. Conservative and Liberal. Good and evil… It seems we’re trained to think only in absolutes. The world, however, never works in absolute terms; that’s part of why we’re always handicapped in trying to make sense of it from within our ideological boxes.
But the question people really have and often ask me is more mundane… They want to know whether I’d prefer a Vin Diesel or Denzel Washington a Hannibal movie? Honestly, I don’t think either is perfect. I’m not sure that Vin Diesel could pull it off because of the complexity inherent in bringing such a dynamic figure to the screen. Maybe he could, but only if he majorly ups his game. And Denzel, although I believe he has the gravitas, is too old to play the twenty and thirty-something general Hannibal was through the war. Both these things come to mind for me before we even get to the race question.
Usually this answer doesn’t satisfy people. It’s not really what they were asking. What they really want to know is do I support a black or white Hannibal? The answer is “No”. No, I don’t support a “black or white” Hannibal. I don’t see Wesley Snipes as Hannibal in the same way I don’t see Brad Pitt. (I don’t think Brad Pitt should be playing a Greek hero either. Believe me, my indignation at racial misrepresentation is multi-faceted.) Either extreme is misguided. As with so much around Hannibal the truth is somewhere in between. It’s gray. It’s brown. It could even be tan, but the truth isn’t black or white. The person who could best bring Hannibal to the screen must first have the charisma, the strength, the intelligence, the skills to embody his arrogance and his brilliance and portray with empathy a man blessed and cursed by his own destiny. Such an actor isn’t easy to find, and shouldn’t be searched for only after passing a complexion test.
On the issue of a complexion test… I do believe that people who want to deny Hannibal blackness are being unfairly selective in their use of this racial terminology. No matter what Hannibal was he was a man with brown skin. The ancients make it entirely clear how strange and barbaric white-skinned, blond haired people were considered. The Celts and Gauls from Northern Italy northward were spoken of disparagingly by Romans and Greeks in part because of their unnatural whiteness. White, blond, tall: these were the characteristics of barbarians. So Hannibal, being south of Rome and from African soil, was at the very least a brown-skinned man, much more familiar and respected in the ancient world.
Now, I am also a brown skinned man. (I’m actually sadly pale right now, it being a New England winter and all that. But still, you can tell.) I’m of mixed blood, black and white and with other indeterminate influences thrown in. But few people would call me anything but black if they saw me walking down an American street. As has often been stated, a drop of African – a drop of black – makes you all black. I do think it’s too precious, then, for people to call a person of any and all shades of brown a Black Person here in America, but then to deny other brown, African people a claim to blackness when it suits them.
I’m quite sure that if Hannibal dropped down on to the streets of any American city, put on modern clothes and walked the sidewalk… He might well look like somebody that our culture would most readily define as a black man. I think that because we’d see a brown-skinned man with curly hair, burnished by the Mediterranean sun. Remember, we tend to have a very wide spectrum in terms of what we call black in America. It doesn’t matter where along that spectrum he ultimately sits. If he’s on it at all that man walking down the street would be defined by one or two words, labeled, identified, preliminary judged. That, unfortunately, is what all the debate is about. It’s not about the Hannibal of more than two thousand years ago. It’s about us, right here and right now.
Labels: Pride of Carthage, Random Ruminations
posted by David Anthony Durham at
4:25 PM
18 Comments:
How do people disregard the fact that the Phonecians were black? With the bit of knowledge, it should cancel out an idea that Hanibal was anything other than black.
It's laughable that people fail to acknowledge the fact that the Phoenicians themselves were a mix of Indo-African stock. So if they "mingled" with North Africans a fairly dark complexion would be the result of that "mingle."
He was Lebanese. Not white, and not a monkey. And black people who have a disparraged history are trying to claim the only thing they think might be their salvation to higer self-esteam. No matter what a silly african schollar writes here or a jewish media mogul puts in a movie I will always know the truth and think of them in a very less than flattering way of being sheerly stupid.
Well... Like I said, the race question always inspires differing opinions, be they informed or not. If I chose to I could delete the post that seems to call black people monkeys and that appears to call me a "a silly african schollar", but I'd rather leave it as revealing of the issue I was addressing in the first place.
I'll quote myself... "It’s about the myriad ways we’re still hung up on race in the Twenty-First Century. I mention these two “camps”, but I should also point out that I’m not talking about scholars and academics here. These vocal proponents on either side are mostly just folks from the general public. This is, in many regards, a popular debate, not an academic one."
I still think that's the truth. I don't feel much need to debate whether or not Hannibal was Lebanese. Nor will I put too much effort into wondering whether the author of that post might be disparaging me in an effort to shore up his own "self-esteam". Whatever.
For you the reader: there are plenty of books out there; read them and come up with your own thoughts. I wouldn't mind if you read my book too, but I'm only a novelist and books are only books. The truth, in any finite form, surely escapes us all.
There is absolutely no doubt that Hannibal was black. This was revealed by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. J.A. Rogers was a meticulous researcher who revealed Hannibal's true ethnicity. Here is what he looked like:
http://members.tripod.com/~Abyssinia/Africa/Hannibal.html
On November 15, 218 B.C., Hannibal, a full-blooded 'Negro,' marching through conquered territory in Spain and France, performed the astounding feat of crossing the Alps. With only 26,000 of his original force of 82,000 men remaining, he defeated Rome, the mightiest military power of that age, who had a million men, in every battle for the next fifteen years. Hannibal is the father of military strategy. His tactics are still taught in the leading military academies of the United States, Enland, France, Germany and other lands.
PROOF:
Hannibal is usually depicted as a white man, but his coins in the British Museum and the Museo Kercheriano, Rome, show him to have been an African of purest type with rings in his ears. Col. Hennebert, perhaps the leading authority on Hannibal, declares that none of the several differing portraits now exhibited as Hannibal is he, "We do not possess any authentic portrait of Hannibal," he says. (Histoire d'Annibal, Vol. I, p. 495, Paris, 1870). These coins were struck by Hannibal while he was in Italy. In the absence of other information the most logical argument is that they bore his own effigy, the more so, as the several kinds of them bear the same likeness. Above all, let us remember that he was an African
For other Little Known Black Facts Go Here:
http://www.users.fast.net/~blc/blac2.htm
Here are the coins made in Hannibal's honor:
http://www.nok-benin.co.uk/prev-articles/royal_6.htm
Glad to see people throwing in their thoughts on this issue, and glad to check out the websites and sources mentioned.
I'll tend to stick with my original comments on the issue, which means that I'm all for acknowledging Hannibal's Africaness, while at the same time acknowledging that we can't know anything as a certainty. The Romans, unfortunately, did too good a job of eventually destroying all things Carthaginian. They made sure we'd have little to go on as we try to understand Hannibal and the culture he came from.
I've certainly seen many representations of Hannibal over the years, each one different, each one a variation on his ethnicity. Personally, I take them all as interesting, but never as conclusive. If there's one thing I've learned in the process of writing and publishing a book on the Punic Wars it's that every time somebody lays down the facts (the dates, the reasons, the names, the details) they're going to differ from the what the person before them said, and differ from what the next person says, and so on... That's why I wrote Pride of Carthage as a novel instead a scholarly work. I sifted my way through the variety of sources and came up with a fictional version of things that works for me, that lives a breaths on the page, answering a few questions, asking a few, and hopefully entertaining also.
I cannot find this museum in Rome.
Please send the link to this museum. I would like to see the coins.
Thanks.
Hello. I just did a quick search for that museum also. Didn't find a link that takes you right to it, but I did notice that the spelling mentioned above was a little off. It looks like the name is actually "Museo Kircheriano".
david,
i've read in wikipedia that at the battle of Cannae, Hannibal killed 80 senators. is this true, and if so.. what in the world would 80 senators ALL be doing there at the same time?
Brendan,
Interesting that you asked about the senators. Yes, I've heard that number of 80 senators quite often. I guess in this day and age it is hard to imagine our senators going off to war. At present, there's like, what? one senator with a child on active duty in Iraq? I guess we've gotten used to the notion that those that decide to go to war rarely fight in those same wars.
Not so with the Romans, though. Remember this is still the days of the Roman Republic. They were still very much in a citizen-soldier mode of thinking. Roman pride and honor dictated that every male be willing to take up arms when an enemy appeared. It would've been hard, I think, to secure much stature without some military service. There was, essentially, a new warring season each year, and battle was a way to prove yourself a worthy man and citizen.
On a slightly more cynical note I'd add that the Romans went into the battle at Cannae feeling very confident. They were fielding a massive army. They were confident in their consuls and sure that the time had finally come to defeat Hannibal. That being the case, what senator would want to miss the oppurtunity to thereafter brag about his exploits on the day? It makes sense that they'd feel they had to be there.
Of course, we now know how ill-fated the day turned out to be - from the Roman standpoint at least.
Well, I dont think he was black, probably some Semitic type. We shouldnt forget that his mother was an Iberian noble and his wife too, so I dont think that he looked that much different from them. But mingling of Barca family with some sub-saharan Africans is also possible
That coin in Kircheriona is a hoax, AFAIK Hannibal had only one coining die and he looks much different there. Visit that museum personally if you dont believe.
Well, pretty strange arguing about the identity of man so long dead :)
Hello Anonymous,
(This thread has more "anonymous" posters than any other thread.)
Personally, I'm not arguing with anyone. I agree that it's ancient history, and no matter how hard we try to believe absolutes we're not going to be right about it. The truth - whatever it really was - is long gone.
I don't recall coming across anything that said Hannibal's mother was Iberian. If I had I would've been happy to include that, but I mostly recall his mother being a blank. Since he was born in Carthage and since his father had not yet headed for Spain I thought it reasonable that Hamilcar's wife be North African.
Hannibal's wife, on the other hand, was said to have been Iberian. That's exactly what she is in my novel. She's an important character in the book, really, with her own scenes.
I've said it before - and people that have read my book know it to be true - but part of what I love about the Punic Wars is the multi-ethnic/polyglot character of it. It included so many peoples, and so much crossing of cultural boundaries. I think our perceptions of race have very little to do with that ancient reality.
That said, I'm living now, so our hangups can't entirely be ignored...
Hi, its me again. Wow, now I noticed you are a well known writer, interesting.
So first I would like to take back claim that Didobal was Iberian. I did read on wiki and few forums that she was a daughter of Iberian king, but I wasnt able to find any quotation of the source. Except of that that name sound quite Phoenician - I think Dido was founder of Carthage, right? What did you use as a source for Hamilcars biography?
So its pretty hard to tell how he really looked like, probably some mix.
Hi Anonymous,
Now this gets interesting! Okay, yes, I'm a "well known" writer. Quite a conditional term, though. If you never heard of me you've never heard of me, so I'm not so well known. But to those that have - four books published in eight foreign languages, the UK, blah, blah - I'm doing alright.
That's not the interesting part, though. I was struck by your use of Didobal's name. I may be wrong about this - and if you can find any documentation of it let me know - but as far as I can remember I MADE THAT NAME UP!
There was always a little bit of info on Hasdrubal in any bio of Hannibal, but not much. I don't recall ever reading an account of who Hannibal's mother had been, other than a vague mention that the Barcas were an established aristocratic Carthaginian family. When I did have names I'd use them, even if - as in the case of Hannibal's sister Sapanibal - they were only mentioned once. But this mother figure was a blank. I combined the "bal" structure at the end of so many Carthaginian names with Dido, but... that's my authorial license at play also. Dido is the name given to Carthage's mythical founder by Romans - as in the Aeneid. In Carthaginian lore the same character is call Elissa. In my book I use Elissa as the founding queen, but as a bit of play with the fact that so much Carthaginian history came to us via Roman sources I combined their version with a Carthaginian name and come up with Didobal. If I got that name from any other source I don't recall doing so. I'm pretty sure the name is mine.
I just Googled the name and found mostly references to my own work/comments. I didn't see any mention of that name on Wikipedia. I did see that a person on some forum about Hannibal's race mentioned Didobal and that she was Iberian, and that amuses me greatly. In my novel Didobal is not Iberian. But I also don't think Didobal exists anywhere but within my fictional pages. Whomever that person was has some garbled version of this stuff - a version that includes a fictional character that wasn't even depicted in the way he thinks!
Classic.
For info on Hamilcar I mostly referenced books about Hannibal and the Second Punic War. I detail them at the back of PRIDE OF CARTHAGE - and in a list that's on this blog somewhere. I did read a book on the First Punic War by JF Lanzenby that dealt with Hamilcar quite a bit. Even that was pretty spotty on familial details, though.
First of all why do people act as though black africans just stayed within the boundaries of their continent there are pyramids all over the world who built them europeans.Barcelona means town of Barca it was named for hannibal's fathe Hamilcar Barca. If vhis mother was Iberian why do u assume she was white since africans had ruled the Iberian peninsula for thousands of years why is it when ever someone is great they can never be black.The phoenicians were black the ancient Egyptians were black the Numidians were black there were no whites in america 400 to 500 hundred years ago so why does everybody act as though there were no blacks in north africa 1000's of years ago the romans minted coins with Hannibal seated on an elephant with dreadlocks and big earrings what the fuck do u have to do to be black nowadays.
By the way no one is black we are shades of brown so what is a brown man in africa a blackman in Harlem.Semitic is a language group not a race 90% of all the semitic languages spoken in the world today are on the continent of Africa those include languages of Ethiopia Somalia and the Sudan and Arabic is just one of them all semitic languages originated on the african continent and spread outward the so called Phoenician alphabet is a form of the ancient Egyptian alphabet so is hebrew africans had the only writing systems in the ancient world and threw migration they spread throughout the earth.There was a time when the only people on the planet were so called blacks people should read.The greeks tell u exactly what these people looked like and there customs always descibing them as wooly headed and black were the ancient greeks blind.People hate black people so much that they say the most ridiculous things the moors were arabs if the moors were arabs why did the Visigoths call them the blacks why not call them arabs the word moor means black.It's funny the only moor most people have ever heard of is Othello and he is never called an arab but Shakespeare continually calls him an African or a black man look at portraits of shakespeare and u will notice a moorish earring in his ear there were plenty of moors in europe.Read the accounts of the moorish invasions of Spain and u will read the descriptions of the moors when they entered the country they were said to b as black as pitch or as king Roderick described them like big black penises wrapped in white cotton.Some whites claim everything as their own yet they are the last civilizations to grace the world stage inferiority masked as superiority Hannibal was black St.Augustus was black St.Tertullian was black and pope they also were all Carthiginians.People need to grow up the truth is the truth.white people behave like children and people of colour need to stop pampering them science math architecture animal husbandry and ocean navigation were all created by black people not because they were black but because they were human and until people see their humanity and not their own insecurities and stupidity they will b lost.racism is a disease and the truth is the cure wake up.
Why is it that no one ever has to prove that some one is white,strange!
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