A Scholar Pointed Out Greek Statues Were Painted. Then She Suggested Politics.
In an article published in Forbes, the Classics scholar Sarah Bond of the University of Iowa pointed out that many Greek statues that appear white today were painted in colour in antiquity — a point Aeon calls uncontroversial and demonstrably correct. What drew a shower of online abuse, according to Aeon, was her suggestion that the reason some like to picture those statues as marble-white might have something to do with their politics.
Aeon notes that the idea of the Greeks as paragons of whiteness is deeply rooted in Western society. The essay sets out to consider how the Greeks themselves viewed differences in skin colour.
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The abuse is the more revealing part. Aeon calls the painted-statues point uncontroversial and demonstrably correct — yet the attack came for the suggestion that politics might shape the marble-white preference, which suggests the objection was never really about pigment.
The essayist's response is to refuse the bait: he says he won't dignify anonymous trolls with a detailed reply and turns instead to how the Greeks themselves understood differences in skin colour.
The controversy also reached casting: the BBC's Troy: Fall of a City drew ire for casting black actors as Achilles, Patroclus, Zeus and Aeneas — though, as Aeon notes, using anglophone northern European actors would be no less anachronistic.