ANCIENT AFRICA AND EARLY ROME

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BLACK MAN IN EARLY ROME

 

Ancient African people, sometimes called Moors, are known to have had a significant presence and influence in early Rome.  African soldiers, specifically identified as Moors, were actively recruited for Roman military service and were stationed in Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Romania.  Many of these Africans rose to high rank.  Lusius Quietus, for example, was one of Rome's greatest generals and was named by Roman Emperor Trajan as his successor.  He is described as a "man of Moorish race and considered the ablest soldier in the Roman army."

For most of the second century Africans dominated the intellectual life of Rome.  By the end of the second century nearly a third of the Roman senate was of African origin. St. Victor I became the first African bishop of Rome in 189 C.E. and reigned until 199 C.E.  Victor I, the first pope known to have had dealings with the imperial household, is described as "the most forceful of the 2nd-century popes."

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Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus, the most distinguished of the African emperors of Rome, reigned from 193 to 211, and was born at Leptis Magna on the North African coast. Marcus Opellius Macrinus, Emperor of Rome for fourteen months, "was a Moor by birth."  St. Miltiades, a Black priest from Africa, was elected the thirty-seventh pope in 311 C.E. Under Miltiades the Roman persecution of Christians ceased.  The third African pope, St. Gelasius I, governed as pope from 492 to 496 C.E.

 

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian, another African, was the first of the Church writers to make Latin the language of Christianity.  Other Africans included the playwright Publius Terentius Afer.  It is to Terence that we owe the expression, "I am a man, and reckon nothing human is alien to me."

 

SOURCES:

Rome And Africa, by Susan Raven

African Presence In Early Europe, Edited by Ivan Van Sertima

 

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