Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts: How Neo-Nazis and Ancient Greeks Met in Charlottesville

An 1897 map of the boundaries of the Roman Empire at its peak in 150 C.E.

An Identity Evropa postcard placed inside a book on Western Philosophy in a Campbell, CA bookstore in 2017 [Image via Twitter].

An image from the 2017 protest in Berkley, CA with a protester holding a flag with a Spartan slogan, molṑn labé (come and get them), although the slogan is mispelled [Image via Twitter].

A tauroctony relief from the Mithraeum of S. Stefano Rotondo at the end of the third century C.E. with much of its original paint preserved.

Identity Evropa postcards placed at a Confederate War Memorial in Dallas, TX on Memorial Day 2018 [Image via Twitter].

A 2018 Identity Evropa propaganda poster featuring Michaelangelo’s statue of David in front of a fallen replica of the statue on the campus of California State University, Fullerton [Image via Twitter].

A 2016 BBC cartoon on life in Roman Britain featured a character with dark skin as a high-ranking Roman soldier living with his family in Britain [BBC Teach via YouTube/Screenshot by Origins].

A tweet from Mary Beard in response to criticism of the BBC’s cartoon Roman Britain for featuring a black-skinned character. 

White supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 carrying Identity Evropa flags.

A statue of the Athenian orator Isocrates in a garden in Versailles, France.

An 1866 French engraving of the philosopher Aristotle tutoring Alexander the Great.

The U.S. Supreme Court building’s west façade, featuring classical details.

A monument built in 1877 to commemorate the naval deaths during the Civil War in front of the U.S. Capitol.

Black schoolchildren in front of the Horatio Greenough statue of George Washington in D.C. around 1899.

Joseph Wilson’s The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775-1812, 1861-’65 (1888).

In 1867, African American sculptor Edmonia Lewis used neoclassical techniques and Roman-style garb for Forever Free (1867-1868) to depict the end of slavery and the dignity of the formerly enslaved [Howard University Art Gallery].

Illustrations from Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Giddon’s Indigenous Races of the Earth(1857), which argued that “Negroes” were closer to chimpanzees than “Greeks.” Nott and Giddon’s work adapted Louis Agassiz and S.G. Morton’s work for a general audience.

An image from Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Giddon’s Indigenous Races of the Earth (1857) meant to show that there had long been four racial groups and that the rulers of Egypt were Caucasians. 

A mummy portrait of a bearded man from 100-300 C.E.

A mummy portrait of a young woman dressed in purple from the around 300 C.E.

A mummy portrait of a man holding a plant, date unknown.

A mummy portrait of a young man in a gold wreath from 130-50 C.E.

A mummy portrait of a woman with a ringlet hairstyle, date unknown.

A highly contested 1820 drawing of a fresco in the tomb of Seti I.

The title page of Hippocrates's “Airs, Waters, Places.”

An 1890 painting depicting the sacking of Rome by “barbarians” in 410 C.E.

An illustration from H. Strickland Constable’s Ireland from One or Two Neglected Points of View (1899) purports to show the similarities between “Irish Iberian” and “Negro” features and their differences with “Anglo-Teutonic” features.

An image from Dictionnaire Pittoresque d'Histoire Naturelle et des Phénomènes de la Nature (1837), a French natural history reference book, depicting various skulls.

Figures from the East Pediment of the Parthenon from 447-438 B.C.E. in the British Museum.

Identity Evropa members placed propaganda posters featuring iconic Classical and Renaissance sculptures like Michelangelo’s David and the Apollo Belvedere on many U.S. campuses in 2017 [Image via Twitter].

A slide from a Hitler Youth presentation on the supposed origins of Jewish people.

In 1938, Adolf Hitler went to great lengths to purchase Discobolus, a marble copy of a bronze work by the Greek sculptor Myron of Eleutherae from around 460 B.C.E.

A scene from the Iliad of Achilles and Memnon fighting on an Attic black-figure amphora from around 510 B.C.E.

The first volume of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (1987).

An advertisement for a 2008 academic conference at the University of Warwick to discuss the issues posed by Martin Bernal’s Black Athena.

A 2018 Identity Evropa demonstration in front of a recreation of the Parthenon in Nashville, TN.