Appearance is interesting, but what's more interesting, I think, is the similarities and differences of personality and behavioral perceptions over time. David Friedman's A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis goes into some comparisons of how Romans viewed black Africans too. Many of the same stereo-types are there Re: a pre-occupation with the size of African genitals, and a view of African sexuality that was comical, exaggerated, and un-Roman. Bernard Lewis's Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry also briefly covers some of these perceptions in Classical times, but much more so, with the Muslim world throughout the Middle ages and up until modern times, where the stereotypes, almost wihout exception are all the same as the ones that exist independently in the West: rhythmic, sexual, etc., etc.

One stereotype that did seem common in antiquity and through the dark ages in both Southern Europe and (independently) among the traveling Muslim scholars was the intellectual dullness of the pale inhabitants of Northern Europe. (perhaps many still see it that way :))

. . . I wonder how the 'white nationalist' southern Europeans will feel about this classical Roman feeling of kinship with Jews before "nordics"? . . . Or was that the point?

I will blog about perceptions of other people in Arabic literature some time in the near future.

Gaulic tribes used heated chalk (lime) to whiten their hair before battle. I do not know if they whitened their faces too, but I would not be suprised if they did.

There is no ancient reference to Gauls whitening their skin.

Diodorus Siculus describes Gauls as white and light-haired (xanthoi), increasing their light-hairedness artificially: "Hoi de Galatai tois men sômasin eisin eumêkeis, tais de sarxi kathugroi kai leukoi, tais de komais ou monon ek phuseôs xanthoi, alla kai dia tês kataskeuês epitêdeuousin auxein tên phusikên tês chroas idiotêta"

"ou monon ek phuseôs xanthoi, alla kai dia tês kataskeuês epitêdeuousin auxein tên phusikên tês chroas idiotêta"

Indeed the above is refering to hair whitening only. I find it a strange coincidence the word chalk was used though.

I don't see why white nationalist needs be put in quotation marks. Sarcasm ha no place on this blog.
As I SE White nationalist, my opinion is - and I hope this doesn't violate blog rules - is that this is just another of Dienekes' Mediterocentrist attempts to distinguish and differentiate SEs from Northern Europeans, a quest for which I would think he would have, or should have, the support of those Nordicists who hate SEs.

As for the quote itself, it proves nothing, and to make any sort of assertions about it proves nothing as well. Nordicists who believe that the ancient Romans (at least Patricians of this time period like Petronius) were Nordic can come up with their own set of quotes justifying their own position.

Until such a time that ancient Roman remains can be accurately genetically studied via autsomal DNA analysis (and I'm not at this time sanguine about the technical feasibility), we need to just look at sculpture, overall writings, history, etc in order to get a view of what the ancient Romans really were. I do note an old Cavalli-Sforza article from 1988 that suggests that modern Italy still retains the genetic stratifiation of ancient times - which would be impossible in light to large scale admixture - but they did not state what this genetic structure was similar to.

I have my own theory of the relative fairness of the Roman Patriciate, in that fair traits are recessive, and the patricians were heavily inbred (at least up until the time of J. Caeser). Thus, one would expect a higher % of recessive traits among a heavily inbred patriciate as contrasted to the plebs, breeding among a larger population base, without the limitations of staying within the "famous families."

I may be wrong, but it is an idea.

But to answer Malloy's question: what Petronius wrote 2000 years ago is irrelevant to the current racial situation, and it doesn't impact today's reality one iota.

>> As I SE White nationalist, my opinion is - and I hope this doesn't violate blog rules - is that this is just another of Dienekes' Mediterocentrist attempts to distinguish and differentiate SEs from Northern Europeans, a quest for which I would think he would have, or should have, the support of those Nordicists who hate SEs.

Nothing would please me more if Nordicists acknowledge that their race was not involved in classical civilization. However, the Nordicist's disdain for Southern Europeans of the present time is only matched by his lust to be associated with Southern Europeans of classical times.

>> As for the quote itself, it proves nothing, and to make any sort of assertions about it proves nothing as well. Nordicists who believe that the ancient Romans (at least Patricians of this time period like Petronius) were Nordic can come up with their own set of quotes justifying their own position.

The quote is one of many independent lines of evidence in classical literature indicating that the Greeks and Romans saw themselves as racially distinct from the northern peoples. Nordicists are welcome to come up with any number of quotes (if they can find them) showing that Romans or patrician Romans had a sort of racial kinship with the northern peoples.

>> I have my own theory of the relative fairness of the Roman Patriciate, in that fair traits are recessive, and the patricians were heavily inbred (at least up until the time of J. Caeser). Thus, one would expect a higher % of recessive traits among a heavily inbred patriciate as contrasted to the plebs, breeding among a larger population base, without the limitations of staying within the "famous families."

You cave in to Nordicist revisionist history way too easily. There is no need to explain "the relative fairness of the Roman Patriciate," because there is no credible evidence of the Roman Patriciate being noticeably fair, or that its "fairness" was relatively greater than the general Italian population of either ancient or modern times.