Barack Obama -- and the first 'African-Roman' emperor of Rome

I’m surprised that no-one seems to have spotted an obvious Roman parallel for the success of Barack Obama. Or have I missed it? In the second century AD, Lucius Septimius Severus became the first ‘African-Roman’ emperor of Rome. Like Obama he was of mixed race -- his father from Libya, his mother of European descent. He too had an outspoken and determined wife, from Syria. And his first task on coming to the throne in 193 AD was to deal with a military disaster in Iraq (‘Parthia’ as it was then known). The success of his surge was commemorated in the great arch, which remains to this day one of the most impressive monuments in the Forum at Rome.

The two little children he took with him to the palace did not fare so well. In fact they grew up to be murderous thugs – even if the elder, Caracalla, did go on to initiate the most daring extension of civic rights in the whole of world history. Once he had got rid of his brother (nastily murdered on his mother’s lap), he gave full Roman citizenship, and the legal privileges and protection that went with it, to all the free male inhabitants of the empire.

Did the success of Septimius Severus show that race no longer mattered in Roman politics? And is there a message in his story for the new president-elect?

If so, the message is a double-edged one. A few more African-Romans did make it to the higher echelons of the imperial government (in many cases members of the emperor’s own family, or his wife’s friends). But on the wider view, it was not so much that his race did not matter, but that the Roman upper class and the Roman media made sure that it simply was not seen.

We do not know for certain whether or not Septimius Severus was black. That is itself significant. One historian writing three hundred years after his lifetime claimed that he was ‘dark’, and one or two portrait statues appear to show him with African features. But the vast majority of images that survive make him look like any other Roman emperor before him – his whiteness over-emphasised by the shiny white marble in which he was so often portrayed. This was not a black man claiming the imperial throne for himself. This was the Roman imperial machine turning a man of colour into an emperor more or less indistinguishable from all his predecessors. The machine was making sure that race did not show.

No-one is suggesting, of course, that Obama’s publicity team will attempt, literally, to whiten the image of the forty-fourth president. But the ‘Septimius Severus problem’ is already clear enough. Obama’s understandable decision not to mention his own ethnic identity, or anything else about race, in his acceptance speech had decided echoes of Septimius Severus’ image as a white emperor. The more you present Obama as any other president, and peddle the self-congratulatory clichés about the end of a raclal divide at the highest pinnacle of American politics, the more you are simply refusing to see that for most people in the US and the rest of the world race does still matter..

Most British women will recognise a much more recent political analogy. For ethnicity, read gender. Margaret Thatcher did almost nothing to advance the chances of other women in British public life, Quite the reverse. By making it look as if the gender wars were a conflict now decisively won  --- when for millions of British women the battle had hardly begun -- the effect of Thatcher’s victory was to put back the cause of women for a generation at least.

Lets hope the same is not true for Obama – and that he doesn’t take the Septimius Severus route towards the same old orthodoxy of power. If  race (or gender) is really not to matter it needs to be visible to us.

Comments

[M Henry MA. Adult Black Male, Full Menalin Cover]

Dear Esteemed & Important Cambridge Classics Scholar

I hope you have the personal courage & professional integrity to approve my comments, and lets make matters crystal clear, I am an adult black male- with a full & healthy share of mighty menalin.

What is the difficulty in accepting your own 'euro-facts'

1)the catholic encyclopedia on-line as I write confirms Mr L Septimius Severus as the alpha male in a short line of African Roman Emporers.

2)All so called scholarly works from european writers on ancient rome from the late 19th Century (circa 1880 onwards) confirm that by all original historical source accounts (ancient texts in latin)
Septimius was born in Africa.

I suppose 'as time goes by' (chorus to a song sung with considerable pathos by a black man in a film which also featured a person-screen name H Bogart) that Mr M Ali, Mr ML King, & were not really blackmen either- you keep well & stay in the sunshine !

[Sujan Patricia]

Septimius Severus, the first of the soldier emperors rose improbably from the ranks of soldiers to become a reformer of the military, but at a high cost to the Roman budget.

[ROMAN YeShU'a PTzaTzaH]

Septimius Severus,named imperial legate of Gallia Lugdunensis,a province which comprised the northern territories of actual France. Extension: from southern city of Lyon to the coast of NORMANDY...

2.009 June, 6th. Barack Obama travels to France to conmemorate the D-Day operations in NORMANDY beaches...

[ROMAN YeShU'a PTzaTzaH]

BARRACK Obama is Septimius Severus, the "first BARRACK Emperor" of Rome.The mathematical LAW OF RETURN draws these events as the same historical scenarios: Severus' joint military commnand of Pannonia and Germany. "Few men were given command of so large an army unless they had some experience; Obama first trip to Europe to attend the NATO summit, in Stasbourg, Kehl and Baden-Baden...
Even more... Severus' star was in the ascendant, his credit rating improve. While in Germany, he behaved in such a way to increase his already illustrious reputation = OBAMANIA IN GERMANY.
The bankers and the stock market, the "argentarii", the money changers,consecrated a monument to Severus = US banking and Wall Street meltdown consecrated Obama. Severus, men of the money changers = Obama, US banking elite and Wall Street puppet.

[ROMAN]

SEVERUS means SEVERE. The name BARACK OBAMA, in Hebrew, has the numerical value of the word AShUN, which means...SEVERE!!

[ROMAN]

SEVERUS purchased "HORTI",vegetable gardens,and on its grounds he EDUCATED his son and other children-his son's playmates-to be frugal, sparing, economical,and to avoid waste.
When applied the mathematical formula of the LAW OF RETURN, this imperial propaganda comes back to the news = 2009 March, 19. "The Obama family plant a VEGETABLE GARDEN on White House grounds". "While the organic garden will provide food for the first family, its main role will be to EDUCATE CHILDREN..." Political and evniromental symbolism, cheap, local ena esay for a time of economic difficulties. THE SAME IS THE SAME. IMPERIAL PROPAGANDA

[Joey McGreen]

I thine Lucius Septimius Severus was Libya Roman But Barack Obama is pure African! does make sens to me since the Severus era provided more strength, control and power to the Roman empire,Obama era is in different time rolls and conditions, we have to wait and see!

[Chris Swann]

No offence to Mary Beard, but as a historian, this is absolutely ridiculous, and I'd expect better from a Cambridge classics professor. The constructions and meanings of 'race' in the classical world and the present are almost completely different, and anybody with a sense of history should know that. You can't use the same arguements about 'race' on Obama and Severus, because 'race' meant very different things to an ancient Roman and to an modern-day American.
The only thing this seems to show is that certain people are so keen to see 'race' that they'll make any kind of inapplicable comparison. I mean seriously, this is like trying to compare Hilary to Boudicca. It just doesn't work.

[ROMAN]

This is the time when the Praetorian Guard did AUCTION THE VACANT IMPERIAL THRONE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER. A situation, perceived as a disgrace-the "lowest point of the Empire"-,a shameful political scandal by the people,and exploited by Septimius Severus to take advantage in his ambitious path to power.History repeats itself. So it says the mathematical LAW OF RETURN.It's just now. FBI agents arrest the Governor of Illinois, who did AUCTION OBAMA'S VACANT SEAT AT THE SENATE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER.

[Mary Beard]

Thanks Peter Howe; I havent seen the book -- so I will now check it out.

[Peter Howe]

The parallels are discussed at length in Webster Tarpley's Unauthorised Biography of Barack Obama, p 409-412, which antedates this article, Ms. Beard.

[ROMAN]

Septimius Severus reached power in a time of deep RECESSION throghout all the empire. When applied the mathematical formula of the LAW OF RETURN,
SEVERUS=OBAMA. Severus persecution of African Christians=Obama quits his Afro-American church because of political expediency. Rev. Jeremiah Wright quotes about the crimes of the USA Govt.,even the creation of AIDS as GENOCIDE against black people were dismissed by Obama as "destructive and divisive". So, Obama sends a signal for blacks to worship state idols.

[Mary Beard]

Kieron -- I think that we're both right! In part I was being provocative, as the spread of citizenship was (and I think remains) unprecedented for an imperial power -- and is worth pulling back into the limelight. But you are absolutely right that we shouldnt be starry eyed about it. It had its limits, there were all kinds of further hierarchical distinctions between individuals -- and I dont imagine that the motives were simply political justuce! m

[Kieron]

Mary:

Caracalla may have made all free born into citizens but the nature of citizens changed in the later emopire didn't it? I think to call it the 'most daring expansion of civic rights in the whole of world history' is way off the mark. Although it was of real benefit to a lot of people.

There were still distinctions in rights and punishments but these were now between the honestiores - the better off and distinguised citizens - and the humiliores (all the rest of them). So perhaps Caracalla did this as a propaganda exercise - it didnt really make a huge amount of difference in the real world. Although small postive changes made by huge empires can benefit the poor and defenceless (Obama can you hear me?)

Hey hang on you are a Classics Professor - I hope i'm right! :-)

[Eileen]

I think C. Brown's Punic label is more apt. I've always imagined S. Severus and his ilk as looking like Gaddafi and his.

[C. Brown]

It's misleading, I think, to call Septimius Severus African-Roman, let alone the first African-Roman emperor. Just because he originated from the African continent doesn't mean he was black. Septimius Severus was of Punic origin and the Punic race were Phoenician in origin, a semitic people if I'm not mistaken.

It would be more accurate to call Septimius Severus the first Punic-Roman emperor, which would have been much more significant at that time. Carthage (a Punic city), Rome's arch nemesis of old, was wiped out by the Romans. Today, that would be more like a Native American becoming president of the United States.

[Tony Francis]

Let me splash a little cold water on the love-fest over Obama. True, he can read a speech. But oratory normally implies the conveyance of some concrete ideas. Obama was always vague. In this he supplied a blank screen on which many projected their hopes and dreams. Clearly, this was a particular value at this time in political history. Reality is different. Speaking extemporaneously, the man can hardly put a coherent sentence together. As for change we can believe in: Obama appears to be a mixture of Clinton 2.0 and Bush 3.0. Personally, I am beginning to like him. Not so much the fantasy Marxist of the early campaign, but now someone faced with the hard rocks of economic reality.

[Richard]

Piece by Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian about Obama's speeches and ancient oratory here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/26/barack-obama-usa1

It's rather better than this kind of article usually is, IMO.

Raises the question: to what extent is this a "legacy" from antiquity, and to what extent is it simply showing us that some kinds of rhetorical phenomena recur in different times and places, so that it will go on being possible (selectively) to use ancient models to describe them.

Note the virtual elision of independent elements from Judeo-Christian tradition, cunningly achieved by means of getting James Davidson to talk about Christianity and rhetoric in the Roman Empire: fair enough, but what about the antiphonal structure of e.g. the Psalms? There's no need to play up the "classical" roots by trying to minimise the semitic ones (I nearly contrasted "ancient" with "semitic" here: bit of a giveaway as to how the idea of "classical" is still constructed...).

All best,
Richard

[Paulo]

Well done, and thanks Lord Truth. Yes, Britain (or I should ssy England) is as vicious as that from top to bottom. That's why I'm in Africa. I mean, people like each other, and show it. I'm not sure about your Othello - sooty bosms ad all that - but I suggest that Iago was in fact in love with him.

[Lord Truth]

I have often thought I should write an article about the following,what might be called one of Lord Truths Originalities.
Offering it here I have no doubt someone will find some profit in it ,sadly without mentioning myself...

Of all the convoluted sickiness of certain British -and perhaps all-aspects of racism surely the most bizare relates to Shakespeares Othello.
I like to think Shakespeare himself added the subtitle (on the play lists?) 'The Moor of Venice'as a shrewd way to fend off those who would twist the plays intentions as I will indicate. 'That will stop the bastards!'he may have exclaimed-but the sub-title may well have been added by later editors

Because its a most strange thing that of all the productions of this play in my long life, there has been an obssessive desire to present Othello as a black African
Indeed the search for total blackness takes us to African actors not only physically 'black' but with genuine African nationalities and names.
Dear old Larry Olivier. played the role fully blacked up as virtually a fully high strutting Deep South nigger .
Only the banjo and a few bars of Mammy were missing.

Why is all this important?
Because Othello is a play about racism- real racism and showing Othello as a black man cleverly and completely travesties and destroys the plays painful reality.

Othello was not remotely a black man. He was a Moor meaning a North African Arab (the term blackamoor referred to a real African )
There were plenty of blacks around at the time,some servants,some slaves.
Othello was the supreme naval commender of what was the then NATO, facing Europes greatest enemy-the Turks. All eyes were upon that area.
Earlier,Elizabeth 1 had been in constant touch with the Christian defenders of Malta for example
Othello was a vital person in European defence.He would have been an accomplished seaman,administrator and strategist,moving in the most refined and cultured society in Europe.There is no way he would have been physically 'black'-
As the greatest seamen of the time in North Africa were Libyans he would probably have been Libyan or mixed Arab racially and as anyone who knows these people ,he would have been reasonably light skinned and irrisistably attractive to women.
Above all he would have been a cultured totally westernised person in his speech and behaviour

But-he would have had enough tell tale signs of not being completely white -his curly hair mentioned by Iago for instance -to allow the racial knives to go in

As such then the play clearly defines the cutting edge of real racism at its most vicious
Yet this is completely destroyed by a black African Othello.

One could of course start by saying there is no way a modern Western management would dare present the play with a good looking Libyan Arab playing the role (Are you completely insane?!!)
But there is far more to it than that
A real black African -with implications of being a sexual stud-produces a curious reaction among the miserably frail white aneamic audience
Because its clear this black stud -who should be able to laugh off any challenge to his wifes virtue -can in fact be HUMILIATED-is vulnerable-can be brought crashing down by jealous insecurities
How satisfied and fulfilled the white audience feels as they file out(just as they feel at the end of a bull fight)..while the whole point of the play has been trashed.

Othello should in fact be portrayed as attractive and goodlooking by entirely western standards. Only then does the naked racism show up
It was possible to create contempt for Othello NOT because he was black but because he was in every way a cultured white man
Those hating him seized on his few non white characteristics to smear and denigrate.

There is a lot in this that applies to the present British racial scene (though I will end soon)
The British are proud of their multiracial society but this has nothing to do with lack of racism.
In a feudal class society like Britain the existence of a Black /Asian sub-culture offers the only outlet from their class prisons for the mass of the lower class -and insecure middleclass whites-it allows them to feel comfortably superior and thus friendly.
Thus flourish Asian shops and restaurants and general friendliness to blacks
Alien figures -Americans for example (not tourists to whom one feels superior) but working Americans-are greatly disliked.

Anyone who is an Othello in British society will find they are victims of extraordinary levels of racist hate and spite -that is difficult to deal with as -probably with Iago also ,they would claim great friendliness to real black individuals

The basic rule of British society remains that people are always friendly to people they feel confidently superior to. And generally resentful and potentially hate filled towards those they feel are culturally above them.

It is of course knowledge of this that makes the British highly suspicious -and cold to people who approach them in a friendly fashion

There is much to be written about these matters but before Beard reaches for her scissors lets hope for a real Othello as Shakespeare intended.One that will send an audience out feeling distinctly discomfitted

[ROMAN]

Congratulations! But these are not just "coincidences". It's a fact. Since 1891,HISTORY REPEATS. The arrow of time runs backward with a 187/13 factor.This proportion means that every 14 years (and a few months)previous to 1891 return,compressed,with its charge of information and historical memory,by each year later to that date. When applied that mathematical formula, you find that NOVEMBER 2008 IS INDEED YEAR 197, when SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS BECAME THE FIRST AFRICAN EMPEROR IN ROME HISTORY!! To reach power he had to defeat two rival whose names are "funny" opposites: NIGER, which means BLACK, and ALBINUS, which menas WHITE.
Michelle Obama is the FIRST BLACK FIRST LADY IN USA HISTORY. Severus' wife,Julia DOMNA, means BLACK JULIA.
When Severus became emperor Rome was suffering a severe RECESSION DEEPENING INTO ALL ITS PROVINCES, A MASSIVE AND GLOBAL RECESSION !!!!.
Not just coincidences. It is the same and it's happening now. If you want to know more about historical repetitions, call me.

[Paulo]

Tony, scepticism becomes the scholar, but as a habit, a tradition, it requires a lot of self-application. That is to say that of course there was a Remus - if only as the beginning of something. Of course there was an Aesop, ditto. Of course there was an Adam - there must have been, genetically speaking, and ditto, whatever it was he started.

I am am making a fuss about this because I think that classical studies put a gun to their head if they automatically deride the tradition as useless. That, for example, the Scholiasts' comments on the plays of Euripides etc. ae to be scoffed off? Believe me, if you actually understand the plays (I mean the "screenplay", not the texts), you will understand what the scholiasts were talking about. I have a specially telling example about the "Orestes", but cannot do it here. Similarly, if in the prodction of texts, the editors simply assume that the copyists were ignorant or stupid or incompetent, then you've got your life's work cut out - but it's all a waste of shame. Give me Migne any day rather than the attempted modern, sparse and very expensive versions of the Fathers.

I think you've got your get your act together and abandon this fundamentalist bullshitting.

I don't know why I feel so strongly about this, but the issue I have tries to raise resonates everywhere. Scepticism is a dead-end.

[Tony Francis]

Looking at F. G.'s list, I see one of the competitors of Severus was Pesennius Niger. Anything to the last name?
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescennius_Niger

[F.Gamberini]

Apologies for entering at this late stage; I've been mulling things over -and, even so, never got round to tracing all the genealogical connections.
1. Why his father was called Geta it would be interesting to know.
2. Concerning his likeness to previous emperors:
after the broad, solid and unshaven faces of the Flavians + Trajan, it was Hadrian who inaugurated a fashion for bearded emperors (this does not necessarily contradict Eileen's point about his appearance in relation to M.Aurelius). The cultural implications would be interesting to explore. From Hadrian to Macrinus (217-18), some 14 emperors, the line is almost unbroken -one exception ironically being Geta, the younger son of Severus.

http://www.roman-emperors.org/impindex.htm

[Lidwina]

I suppose the people of Rome saw their emperor just as often as I see the Queen; never, except on coins. Coin portraits are quite standardised, and maybe Roman statues were too. Did they not paint the statues, though? Those soldiering types would have been nicely bronzed anyway, did they not prefer to emphasise this?