Whether or not Cleopatra had black skin is probably of little importance.
We can suspect, on the other hand, those who pose it
(
Le Figaro
of April 21, 2023)
of hiding their intentions behind a biased debate since Cleopatra was Macedonian, Greek therefore, and not Egyptian.
The hostility of Roman opinion towards Cleopatra was never due to her skin color but quite simply to the fact that she was a foreigner, a queen and... a woman as the shamelessly puts it. Latin historian Eutropius.
In other words, there was never the slightest racist feeling from the Ancients towards him.
But the simple fact that we try to insinuate into people's minds that the Romans could have been racist - and the rest of us following them, since we would be guilty of concealing or of having forgotten that Cleopatra was black - has nothing of innocent.
There is, in fact, only one more step to cross between this affirmation and the next step: since the Ancients were racists...
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