When Professor Nandini Pandey came to talk to us I did not know what to expect. The topic of her talk was about diversity and race within the Roman Empire. This topic seemed interesting due to the fact that I don’t always think of diversity as happening throughout history. Due to modern times and recent history, one can easily think that race has been a huge issue for all of history. In Rome, I had always thought that most everyone was white. In most depictions of Romans, they are marble busts that may have been painted but the paint has been worn off.
Professor Pandey remarked on the Roman empire is a place that valued diversity, even though people perceive it to be a place that had a lot of white people due to looking at marble statues. In Rome, they did have a slave system but unlike the historical American slave system, it was not based on race. The slave system allowed for the freeing of slaves in an excepted way. It was also the duty of the person who owned the slave to provide for them.
One of the most fascinating things that I learned from the talk was about the commodification of the foreign. Going to foreign places and having foreign things showed Romans power. It showed how vast the Roman empire was, valuing the diversity that they had. This is an interesting thing to think about in comparison to American society now. We also commodify diversity with the valuing of being “cultured”. Being “cultured” requires having a wide array of experiences, trying different foods, seeing art from all around the world, and travel. Unlike the Romans, not everyone is always excepting of those that are different. The commodification of cultures is not also done with a good result with some cultures being appropriated and reduced to stereotypes.
Professor Pandey talked about alt-right groups trying to claim Roman things to promote their agenda. This claim from the alt-right can’t be given that Romans did not value diversity as they did due to the vastness of their empire.