Decades ago at a college, I saw a display of "great black kings", it included Hannibal, who was from northern, not sub-saharan, Africa, and who was of Punic/Phoenician decent (not even north African let alone sub-saharan Africa, and Cleopatra who was part of a Greek/Macedonian dynasty of Egypt (not sub-saharan Africa).
Hannibal wasn't even a King, or even a ruler of Carthage.
As for Cleopatra someone could try to argue that she was centuries removed from Ptolemy I Soter who founded the dynasty, and that the dynasty could have become more ethnically mixed over time. But that doesn't really hold up when your trying to call her a "great African king". Her dynasty stayed apart from the locals. There is some evidence that she was the first Ptolemaic pharaoh (if so the only one because she was the last) who could speek the local language. Her dynasty was also very conserned about "bloodlines", mostly either the offspring of other Greek/Macedonian dynasties that ruled other areas of Alexander's former empire, or making incestuous marriages. So she wouldn't have decended from the locals. Also the locals were not themselves sub-saharan Africans, and also she would have been a queen not a king.
Looking at en.wikipedia.org
I see that the founder of the dynasty Ptolemy I Soter had three different wives. A Persian (Alexander encourged his generals to marry Persians trying to unify the empire) the daughter of another Macedonian general, and a woman from Greece.
The next ruler was a son of the third Greek wife. He also had 3 wives. The first the daughter or another Macedonian, the 2nd was his sister, and the third the daughter of a Greek prince from Asia minor (Turkey today)
The next ruler was the son of that first wife he married the daughter of a Macedonian noble
The next ruler married his sister
Their son married a Persian (so the first non Greek/Macedonian entry in to the dynasty but Persian is hardly sub-saharan)
Their son married his sister
...
All the way down its marriages to noble familes from Greece or Macedon, or family members (incestuous marriages), with a Persian or two in the whole line, and then Cleopatra VII Philopator (the most famous Cleopatra and commonly just called Cleopatra) at the end having kids with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony (and marriages to her brothers but no kids from them).
As Metatron pointed out if you want to make movies about African kings/emperors/warriors etc. they certainly exist, both in Africa, and to a lesser extent as players outside of Africa. That field really is underrepresented in popular history and historical fiction. Better to do that than having a show about Romans and locals around Hadrian's wall were every other person is black, all the women are competent and eager fighters, and most of the white males are either incompetent or evil. |
