The Negro in Greek and Roman Civilization

Abstract

No barbarian race held as continuous an interest for the Greek and Roman artist as the Ethiopian. Realistic portraits of other known races in the classical world are relatively few and belong usually to the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The negro, on the other hand, was rendered with the utmost fidelity to the racial type during the most restrained and idealistic period of Greek art. Attic vase painters who were content to indicate Orientals by their dress with scarcely any distinguishing marks of race, delineated with marked realism the woolly hair and thick lips of the Ethiopian. From its earliest appearance the popularity of the type never waned in any productive period of classical art.