Old Ideas on Race

David DeGusta (degusta@UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU)
Mon, 24 Oct 1994 15:13:38 -0800

I came across an example of a very early view on race; the more things
change ....
"In accordance with diversity of climate, the appearance of men and
their color and bodily size vary and diversities of the mind appear. Thence
we see that the Romans are dignified, the Greeks unstable, the Africans
crafty, the Gauls fierce by nature and somewhat headstrong in their
disposition ..."
--- Isidorus of Seville (d. 636)
from _Etymologiae_, ed W.M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), 14.5.14
as cited in _Early Anthropology_, ed. Slotkin (Wenner-Gren, 1965)