The Book of Enoch (1st century BC) describes the white Aryo-Nordic
phenotype as indicative of superhuman, angelic origins:
And it came to pass after this that my spirit was translated
And it ascended into the heavens:
And I saw the holy sons of God.
They were stepping on flames of fire:
Their garments were white [and their raiment] ,
And their faces shone like snow.
...
And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son
Lamech, and she became
2 pregnant by him and bore a son. And his body was white as snow and
red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long
locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful. And when he opened
his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole
house
3 was very bright. And thereupon he arose in the hands of the
midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of
righteousness.
4 And his father Lamech was afraid of him and
5 fled, and came to his father Methuselah. And he said unto him: I
have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and
resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is
different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the
sun, and his
6 countenance is glorious. And it seems to me that he is not sprung
from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder
may be
7 wrought on the earth.
http://www.heaven.net.nz/writings/thebookofenoch.htm
Plato clearly held to a theoretical racism comparable to the modern:
races native to the Hyperborean North (Germans, Celts, Scythians)
are by nature more warriorly and spirited; races from the South
(Semites, Africans, Jews, etc.) are slavish materialistic idolators;
whereas those in the temperate middle parts (i.e. the 'domesticated'
Hyperborean-descendents of Mediterranean Europe) are known for
balance and learning:
Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the
same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that
from the individual they pass into the State?--how else can they
come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit; it would be
ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is
not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it,
e.g., the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the Northern nations;
and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the
special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of
money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians
and Egyptians.
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/plato/Republic-Book-
IV.html
Probably the best example of ancient racism I discovered
is the 5th-century BC treatise Airs, Waters, Places by Hippocrates.
http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.html
Therein is asserted that Africo-Asiatics are naturally more cowardly
and pantheistically enmeshed in primitive nature than tenacious,
creative, enterprising and brave Europeans because the land and
climate in which they reside is undemanding, moderate and nourishing
in comparison with that of Europeans'. Europeans have by nature a
strong, courageous character and "endurance in body and soul" due to
living in rigorous, cold, wintry climates (Airs. Chap. 24).
http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.24.24.html
Hippocrates connects race and character explicitly by suggesting
that archetypal warriors are naturally light-skinned and blondish-
haired and dark people are generally base in spirit and weak (Airs.
Chap. 24).
Has the state of knowledge really changed since Hippocrates with
our "cold winter theory of intelligence"?
http://www.vdare.com/rushton/060322_iq.htm
Julius Evola basically states the same thing as ancient Hippocrates
and the "cold winter theorists":
"By virtue of the occult relationship that exists between what takes
place on the visible plane (which is apparently shaped according to
external conditions) and that which conveys a deep and even
spiritual meaning, we can refer to environmental and climatic
factors in order to explain analogically the differentiation that
occurred. The experience of the sun, of light, and of fire itself
naturally acted in the Northern races as a liberating spirituality,
especially during the long glacial winter; Uranian and solar,
Olympian, or fiery figures also played a major role in the symbolism
of these races. Moreover, the rigorous climate, barren soil, and
need for hunting as well as the need to migrate across unknown seas
and continents naturally shaped those who innerly retained this
spiritual experience of the sun, bright sky, and fire into warriors,
conquerors, and navigators, and thus furthered that synthesis of
virility and spirituality, the characteristic traces of which were
retained in the Indo-European races" (Revolt Against the Modern
World).
The difference between modern and ancient concepts of race is not as
great as certain revisionist anti-racists suggest.