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[–] Grospoliner 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

They had some African auxiliaries but none of them would have been legionaries which is what the guy is portrayed as. Of course if they were black African, then they would have been from Nubia or Aksum and had traveled up the Nile to Egypt as Rome never conquered that far south. North Africa was almost entirely light skinned during the period. Either way, only citizens of Rome could be legionaries and anyone else was an auxiliary.

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[–] GOMAD_OR_GFYAD ago  (edited ago)

The ethnic composition of north Africa was pretty different back then. It changed a lot after Rome fell and muslims took over.

Carthage was phoenician, they would have probably looked like a more sicilian version of modern libyans. Carthage was one of Romes first big conquests. There were Roman settlements, around, and I think there were some older settlements of Greeks around too. There were berbers there too and that's probably the darkest skinned ethnic group in the Roman empire, but they are not as dark as that image shows.