Black Romans in Britain

[wolfinthewood]

oursin has noted that it is 2007 International Blog Against Racism Week.

In his excellent book Staying Power: the History of Black People in Britain (1984) Peter Fryer points out that as early as the mid-third century CE there was a numerus or military division of ‘Moors’, North Africans, stationed on Hadrian’s Wall.

This is recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum, an official register of Roman officials, governors and military commanders.

The entry reads:

Sub Dispositione viri spectabilis Ducis Britanniarum:

***

Per Lineam Valli:

***

Praefectus Numeri Maurorum Aurelianorum. Aballaba.


Translation:

At the disposal of the worthy man the Duke (Commander) of the Britains:

[list of military officers, with their commands]

Along the line of the Wall:

[A further list of officers and commands, including]

The Prefect of the Division of the Aurelian Moors. [Stationed at] Burgh-by-Sands, Cumbria.


These troops will have been recruited in the Roman provinces of Africa and named after one of the Emperors (possibly Marcus Aurelius [121–180]).


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Comments

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining a Guy Ritchie-type British tough-guy film with a variant of Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper's face-off in True Romance.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Never saw that. But I can certainly envisage a film in which the tough North African tribesmen (which is what I am sure they were) face the tough Pictish tribesmen with a Roman officer or two thrown in, all shot in the magnificent landscape of Northumbria and lowland Scotland, with some fine views of the Wall.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Well, it's real vintage Tarantino (he wrote the script).: Cocotti (an elegantly dressed mobster) [Christopher Walken] has security guard Clifford Worley [Dennis Hopper] tied to a chair and has roughed him up. He wants to know where Clifford's son (and a large sum of money) are. Clifford knows he's doomed, but he's not going down cringing: (warning: typically Tarantinoish vulgarity)

Coccotti: You know who I am, Mr. Worley?
Clifford Worley: I got no idea.
Coccotti: I'm the Anti-Christ. You got me in a vendetta kind of mood. You tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is Vincent Coccotti. I work as counsel for Mr. Blue Lou Boyle, the man your son stole from. I hear you were once a cop so I can assume you've heard of us before. Am I correct?
Clifford Worley: I heard of Blue Lou Boyle.
Coccotti: I'm glad. Hopefully it means we can cut out the part of the conversation where you're wondering how full of shit I am.

...

Vincenzo Coccotti: Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm Sicilian. My father was the world heavy-weight champion of Sicilian liars. From growing up with him I learned the pantomime. There are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away. A guy's got seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty, but a guy's got seventeen... but, if you know them, like you know your own face, they beat lie detectors all to hell. Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothin', but you're tellin me everything. I know you know where they are, so tell me before I do some damage you won't walk away from.

...

Clifford Worley: You're Sicilian, huh?
Coccotti: Yeah, Sicilian.
Clifford Worley: Ya know, I read a lot. Especially about things... about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here's a fact I don't know whether you know or not. Sicilians were spawned by niggers.
Coccotti: Come again?
Clifford Worley: It's a fact. Yeah. You see, uh, Sicilians have, uh, black blood pumpin' through their hearts. Hey, no, if eh, if eh, if you don't believe me, uh, you can look it up. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, uh, you see, uh, the Moors conquered Sicily. And the Moors are niggers.
Coccotti: Yes...
Clifford Worley: So you see, way back then, uh, Sicilians were like, uh, wops from Northern Italy. Ah, they all had blonde hair and blue eyes, but, uh, well, then the Moors moved in there, and uh, well, they changed the whole country. They did so much fuckin' with Sicilian women, huh? That they changed the whole bloodline forever. That's why blonde hair and blue eyes became black hair and dark skin. You know, it's absolutely amazing to me to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, that, uh, that Sicilians still carry that nigger gene. Now this...
[Coccotti busts out laughing]
Clifford Worley: No, I'm, no, I'm quoting... history. It's written. It's a fact, it's written.
Coccotti: [Laughing] I love this guy.
Clifford Worley: Your ancestors are niggers. Uh-huh.
[Starts laughing, too]
Clifford Worley: Hey. Yeah. And, and your great-great-great-great grandmother fucked a nigger, ho, ho, yeah, and she had a half-nigger kid... now, if that's a fact, tell me, am I lying? 'Cause you, you're part eggplant.
[All laugh]
Clifford Worley: Now tell me: Am I lyin'?

Needless to say, Clarence doesn't live too much longer after this impudence.

The script doesn't do justice to how Walken and Hopper play off each other and the menace builds even as they crack each other up.