11 ms·
Julius Caesar battlefield unearthed in southern Netherlands
- brudgers 11y agoThe Dutch National Geographic article contains more detail and reads reasonably with computer translation: http://www.nationalgeographic.nl/artikel/genocidaire-slachting-onder-leiding-van-julius-caesar-bij-kessel http://www.nationalgeographic.nl/artikel/genocidaire-slachti... Regardless, the scale of slaughter is staggering.
- an_account_name 11y agoPicking a round number of 200MM people in the world at the time [1], this is 0.1% of the entire population killed in a single event, which is staggering. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- meric 11y agoAll the more staggering because back in those times the majority of the world population resided in China and India. At around 0 A.D, there were 100M people in India and 58M people in China[1][2], leaving a few tens of millions in the rest of the world. By the way, in the 202BC battle of Gaixia, 250,000 people died in a world of 150M people[3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history#India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history#India [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaixia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaixia
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- erdewit 11y agoAccording to Caesar he made 430000 casualties, while historians now estimate it were about 160000. Among these were women an children. On the Roman side there were zero casualties so it was more a genocide than a battle.
- trhway 11y ago>On the Roman side there were zero casualties so it was more a genocide than a battle. there was definitely a genocide after the battle. Rome legions excelled at both. Caesar had 8 legions, while here there were only 2 legions against about the same size of force Caesar faced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Watling_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Watling_Street
- staunch 11y agoThe name Caesar was adopted by later emperors, but Gaius Julius Caesar was long dead by the time of Boudica's revolt.
- mercurial 11y agoCaesar wasn't shy about slaughtering civilians (though it was likely a widespread habit at the time). However, he was a political animal, and behaved in an unusually forgiving way toward his Roman opponents when he made his bid for power (in contrast with the bloody purges of his predecessor Sulla and the triumvirate which succeeded him).
- staunch 11y agoSadly, humanity hasn't improved at all really. American and British forces weren't shy about intentionally slaughtering over 1,000,000 civilians in WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World... Caesar wrote proudly of the punishment he dealt out to tribes, but he didn't do it out of any particular cruelty. He could rationalize it as saving lives in the end, in a way that most people would agree with, given the same context. The same way most Americans justify dropping nukes, firebombs, and missiles on women and children. The way Trump justifies the idea of killing the families of terrorists. People can always rationalize killing civilians by claiming it saves more lives in the end. This exactly the argument that Hitler, Caesar, Roosevelt, and Churchill (among others) used. > Hitler with the idea of poisoning the poisoners suggested: "If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
- danielvf 11y agoYou can read, Caesar's version here: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Gallic_War/Book_4#1 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Gallic_...
- stygiansonic 11y agoRelated: For curated list of the 100 largest atrocities, ranked by largest loss of life, check out Matthew White's The Great Big Book of Horrible Things [0] It grew out of his website, Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, and while he is not an historian by profession (I believe he's a librarian), the book is very well researched (lots of footnotes, citations, etc.) and IMO, "fun" to read. (Only because of his style of writing, obviously not about the content) Each event is a relatively short read, with decent background provided, though the book is quite long overall. Spoiler: One of the items on the list is Caesar's Gallic Wars, and there are many dedicated to various events that transpired the Roman {Republic, Empire} 0. http://www.bookofhorriblethings.com/ http://www.bookofhorriblethings.com/ 1. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm
- nice1 11y agoOne thing was rather amusing: the corrections below the article. One of them said that a photo of a bust of Octavian had been used in the original version of the article. The other was that Julius Caesar was called a Roman emperor in the earlier version. It would be unthinkable for a literate person of my generation to make either mistake. Today I suppose this would be like meeting somebody who thinks iPhones are made by Sony!