Its the same thing today, some like blonds more, and some brunets.
But if the girl really got a big hooked nose etc, it just means to me that this girl wouldnt be beautiful to the most men, no matter what color they would usually prefer.

"And the Province pronounces you beautiful?"

Well, looking at this you could say too, that the province even said to ugly blonds that they are beautiful, just because they are blond.
What would mean that in this province, blonds were strongly prefered.

And if you would write a poem at all, and you thinking of an ideal, and you want to compare this ideal with others, than you have to make the other ideal worse than it is.

For sure dark eyes can be very beautiful, I know this from my own experience, but looking at your quotations which are nice, and judging like you did is not possible.

It just proves that there were men which loved women with dark eyes, thats nothing which is that extraodinary.
I loved a woman with dark eyes too, but at the moment I have one with fair ones...so what.

But in a poem or in love, you often exaggerate.
And if you are a member of an ethnic group which is predominantly dark or mixed eyed, it seems quite unusual to "hate" dark eyes.

I read Catull in school and he is really a classic Roman author, but, he didnt represent the whole Roman culture from its beginning to its end.
He wrote as an individual, not as the voice of the populum romanum.

Exactly, that's like saying I don't like northern European types because I don't find Margaret Thatcher attractive.

Btw, this Med girl in the pic looks a bit too 80s for my liking. And she has a plump nose.

Here's a better example of a Med girl, from Poland...

http://www.misspolski.pl/konkursy/galeria/0027-1.jpg

>> Btw, this Med girl in the pic looks a bit too 80s for my liking. And she has a plump nose.

Very narrow tips were not liked in the classical world, as were very thick ones. The ideal form is described in the physiognomical tradition as stroggulon (round).

>> Here's a better example of a Med girl, from Poland...

She is plain and not of Mediterranean type.

>> Its the same thing today, some like blonds more, and some brunets.

The post was about eye color, not hair color.

>> But if the girl really got a big hooked nose etc, it just means to me that this girl wouldnt be beautiful to the most men, no matter what color they would usually prefer.

She is given various features to emphasize her ugliness. It is clear that not having dark eyes was a disadvantage.

>> Well, looking at this you could say too, that the province even said to ugly blonds that they are beautiful, just because they are blond.

This has nothing to do with "blonds".

>> For sure dark eyes can be very beautiful, I know this from my own experience

This is not relevant to the question of Ancient Roman preferences.

>> It just proves that there were men which loved women with dark eyes, thats nothing which is that extraodinary.

Indeed, but poems are not personal journals. They are meant to be read by others. If light eyes were valued in Ancient Rome then ridiculing a caesia, or saying that a girl was thought beautiful despite various negative characteristics, including not very dark eyes, would sound absurd to the poets' audience.

I also note that the Latin physiognomist Loxus also gives dark eyes to the ideal female.

Dienekes, what are talking about? Why isn't that Polish girl Med?

She has dark hair and apparently dark eyes. None of her other features point to a Mediterranean derivation.

So how would you classify her?

I think she has Atlanto-Mediterranean features, as described by Coon.

Long narrow face, long head, gracile build, very tall.

Her jaw line does suggest some northern European influence, but so what?

>> I think she has Atlanto-Mediterranean features, as described by Coon.

Atlanto-Mediterraneans are typically found in the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines. This girl looks like a dark-haired Slav.

What's "Slavic" about her?

>> What's "Slavic" about her?

These kinds of discussions usually lead nowhere, since people have different perceptions of the various ethnic groups, conditioned on their own levels of exposure to these groups. If I saw that girl without knowing that she was Polish, I would never guess "Spanish", "British", "Italian" or "Greek". I would probably say she was Czech or Hungarian, or more generally "Eastern European". Consequently, I don't think she appears to be of Mediterranean racial type. As I have noted elsewhere: "The Aegean-Mediterranean racial element does not seem to have penetrated much to the north of Hungary along the continental route."

Yeah, but it's not like you make an anthropological classification by using "the force". You can't just say you have a hunch she's not a Med without being able to properly explain why. We're not talking about somoene's soul here, but their physical appearance.

Obviously you could never mistake this woman for a sub-saharan African or a Mongolid. And I'm sure you could explain why, so, by the same token, you should be able to explain why she looks Eastern European. Sure, the divisions in Europe are much finer than they are between the major "races", but still.

You must have a very clear idea of what Eastern Europeans look like, because of what you said, and quite clearly you think she fits this mould. All I'm asking is that you explain this in more detail. Can't be that hard.

Looking at her objectively, like I said, she is very tall, narrow faced, long headed, brunet, fine featured, deep jawed. She looks like a more roust Mediterranean to me. If she had blond hair, she could pass for Nordic. But since she doesn't, the closest thing we've got is Atlanto-Mediterranean, or perhaps Pontic Mediterranean, if you will. But Mediterranean nevertheless.

And this is her phenotype we're discussing, not "race" or even "sub-race". Her genotype may be very different. In fact, she is probably very Slavic genetically speaking.

Regards

Polak

>> Yeah, but it's not like you make an anthropological classification by using "the force".

If you go back and read my posts, you will see that I did not make an anthropological classification of that woman. I made a NEGATIVE classification, i.e., she is not a Mediterranean and I pointed out that she looked "Slavic", which is NOT a racial term. If I had good-quality face/profile pics, I would classify her.

>> Looking at her objectively, like I said, she is very tall, narrow faced, long headed, brunet, fine featured, deep jawed.

Stature is practically worthless as a criterion of subrace. You can't say that she's narrow-faced, since her facial contour is not visible. Neither can you say that she is long-headed, since you see her in frontal view. I would scarcely call her "fine-featured" based on what I can see. "Deep-jawed" is not diagnostic of the Mediterranean race.

Her face is narrow. It is also high, which is supposed to be an Atlanto-Med trait.

That's not really all that difficult to see is it? In fact, she has an extremely high and narrow face.

She is also long headed. You can see that because her vault comes up at the back, which is a sign of projecting occiput. Anyway, I've seen her on tv in a fashion parade, and I would say she is close to being dolichocephalic. Moreover, her had looks to be vary narrow in that pic.

Plus, stature is a criteria if you're using the old models like the one used by Coon. I did mention that at the start didn't I?

And in fact, Slavs are more of a race than you think. Our phenotypes vary, but genetically we could be one gene pool, even after all these centuries of living in seperate parts of Europe. What's a race anyway? A phenotype or a gene pool? The latter I think, but that's debatable I guess.

Here's another pic of the same girl...

http://www.misspolski.pl/konkursy/galeria/0026-1.jpg

It looks like she has blue eyes...which is yet another Atlanto-Med trait I do believe.

Polak, I said all I had to say on the matter. Your opinion has been stated more than once.

dienekes, don't you get tired of this crap???

>> dienekes, don't you get tired of this crap???

It depends on which crap you're talking about.

you know, wasting your time debating the racial identity of butt ugly polish women....

"butt ugly polish women...."

Actually, Polish women are quite attractive.

This web site is, in part, about debating racial identities.

I just saw the pic: you're right, she is "butt ugly."

C'mon Polak, show us some pics of tall, blond and blue-eyed Polish women. That's what we want to see!

While brunettes are not very frequent in Poland, that doesn't mean that Polish women are ugly. Here is an example of a beautiful Polish woman with nice brown hair and eyes:

http://www.gaga.pl/img/magdalena_68/6.jpg
http://www.gaga.pl/img/magdalena_68/2.jpg

I'm reminded of the Koran verses (repeated in the media after 9-11) about the 72 "black-eyed virgins" awaiting martyrs in heaven. Not 'wide-hipped virgins' or 'smooth-skinned virgins', instead it's the largely "evo psychless" feature of the eyes that are the focus of the reward (along-side the more evo-psych loaded ones of mate quantity and paternal certainty).

I wonder if dark eyes are somehow optimally appealing to races with medium brown skin tones and not as aesthetically interesting to lighter and darker skinned pops. Maybe it results in the white part of the eye looking at its whitest (thus healthiest). I can't think of many (non-arbitrary) reasons why eye-color would be of more interest to certain people than others)

There are theories as to why certain people dislike light eyes. One theory is that light eyes are associated with disease (glaucoma) and are thus considered as 'maybe abnormal' by predominantly dark-eyed populations. Another reason is that they are rare in dark-eyed populations, and people tend to like what is common and not what is rare. There are other explanations having to do with pupil dilation, which I don't remember right now. Interestingly Balts distrust dark-eyed people, i.e., the reverse prejudice of that found in the Near East.

Portuguese crooner from the 1950s, Francisco José:

«Olhos verdes são ciúme,
E nada valem para mim.
Olhos negros são queixume,
Duma tristeza sem fim.
Olhos azuis são traição,
São crueis como punhais.
Olhos bons com coração,
Os teus: Castanhos, leais.»

The question about this in my opinion not perfect but quite beautiful polish girl http://www.misspolski.pl/konkursy/galeria/0026-1.jpg is really not easy to answer...
But I would call her Atlantomediterranean or North-Mediterranean more than anything else, even if she is of mixed ancestry.

I mean how would you call all these tall, dark haired and meso- to dolichokephalic people in Northern-Central-Eastern Europe which have more Mediterranean facial features too than Nordic?

I mean they are no Dinarics, but clearly dark European dolichocephalic people.
Wether you call them Pontic or Atlantomediterranean which are both quite similar (I know some Bulgars which could pass easily as French or Spanish Atlantomeds) makes no big difference.
I would just say Dienekes you speak about Mediterraneans and mean just the small Westmediterraneans and Berids.
All dark dolichokephals which are taller and more fair or are mixed in more Northen parts of Europe are what else to you?

I mean this people exist, and if you dont call them Mediterraneans, what else? Ethnic terms are not to useful even if I know what you meant in this case.
But especially on this picture its quite hard to see any difference to taller Mediterraneans from Spain, Portugal or Bulgaria.
Only the nose looks more "Slavic" but even this feature, a round nose like that you can find quite often under Mediterraneans.
She is in my opinion mixed, so not the best example for Eastern European Mediterraneans, but, how would you call this tall Mediterraneans which are often to be found in Czechia, Poland, Southern Germany/Austria and Russia quite often too.
I see no clear borderline in Eastern Europe...
And dont forget, I saw many Central Europeans, because I'm from Central Europe, and there are many dark dolichokephals which dont look Nordic and are quite similar to the Atlantomeds of France etc, and not all look just mixed people which look Med by chance.

"Indeed, but poems are not personal journals. They are meant to be read by others. If light eyes were valued in Ancient Rome then ridiculing a caesia, or saying that a girl was thought beautiful despite various negative characteristics, including not very dark eyes, would sound absurd to the poets' audience."

That would be the only sufficient argument to me...
Well maybe you are right that in some parts of Italia at a certain time fair eyes were seen as negative signs, or even of "bad character" as you explained.

"And the Province pronounces you beautiful?"

But I want to repeat this quotation, which province is meant?
If its not Italia, it would not contradict what you said...

And I would say too that in a group the dominant features are seen in healthy societies most of the time as the "good ones" and it needs quite some time to accept other features than these and to judge about them more neutral.

"Indeed, but poems are not personal journals. They are meant to be read by others. If light eyes were valued in Ancient Rome then ridiculing a caesia, or saying that a girl was thought beautiful despite various negative characteristics, including not very dark eyes, would sound absurd to the poets' audience."

But you could say it that way too: He just likes his girl more and maybe the dark type of women in general too, so he just can't believe or want to contradict the popular view of the ordinary people that even an ugly blond is beautiful.

So he want to make the Italian girls look better to the audience than the foreign blond ones as moralist and ethnocentrist at a time many other Romans had another view than he had.
So he wanted to exaggerate the traditional ideal which was in decline at that time.
I mean, I dont say it was like that, I just think this explanation is as good as some others judging from this poem.

I often wrote blond but always meant blond+blueeyed.

"Interestingly Balts distrust dark-eyed people..."

I can vouch for the accuracy of the above observation.

Being of solid Prussian stock (and having light blue eyes), I distrust dark-eyed people.

Polak, I'm still waiting for those pics...

asian people (both south & east) have traditionally admired light skin-but not light hair or eyes. the eastern asian tradition is attested to in the literature prior to european dominance while the south asian aversion i know first hand from my family & their circle (as well as reading a few literature references).

"Uh, yeah", sarcastic comments will be deleted on sight. Incidentally, the Roman preference for dark eyes was first noticed by the German scholar Karl Jax in "Der Frauentypus der Romischen Dichtung" in the 1930s (cf. John V. Day, "Indo-European Origins: the Anthropological Evidence", p. 102). Also, there is the testimony of the Latin physiognomist Loxus who explicitly associates dark eyes with beauty in women.

Ok Dienekes, maybe you are right, but what province was meant in this poem?
Italia or another?

True beauty has nothing to do with eye/hair/skin color... Are you guys as good-looking as you sound? I doubt it somehow... Slavic/Nordic/Anglo/Hispanic/Celtic/etc. people are only as good looking as they are - there is no reason to debate it further.
There are beautiful people in every country in the world - and there are terribly ugly people everywhere as well...
Get used to it. Try to live alongside everyone.
Love to everyone!
Eva