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> The warfare was absolutely horrifying by modern standards, and I imagine that even the best warriors of Rome would have had severe PTSD. I'm not actually sur
by laverya 3y ago
> The warfare was absolutely horrifying by modern standards, and I imagine that even the best warriors of Rome would have had severe PTSD.
I'm not actually sure this was the case. We don't actually really hear of things like PTSD for anything before the Great War - and we do have veterans of prior wars saying something was different about WW1.
It seems that the constant, unending chance of combat or death really might be different than what came before.
- NoPicklez 3y agoI read the same thing somewhere on here many years ago. The concept of war and killing was "more normal" during those times than it is now and the alternative to war still wasn't sunshine and rainbows for most. I think what I also read was from the side of the wives. Deaths due to war were much more normalised and were a higher occurrence, therefore there were better support networks of wives whose husbands had been killed in battle.
- BirAdam 3y agoNah Herodotus wrote about it, as did Assyrian scholars. In the case of Assyrians this psychological problem was attributed to the spirits of slain enemies tormenting the sufferer. Given the extremely spiritual viewpoint of almost all ancient peoples, I have feeling that this is why it’s not heard of more frequently.
- nonethewiser 3y agoThere is definitely something going on. Its hard to imagine there is no record of PTSD during countless wars over the course of history leading up to WWI.
- NordSteve 3y agohttps://www.civilwarmed.org/ptsd/ https://www.civilwarmed.org/ptsd/ discusses PTSD in the context of the American Civil War. "Abundant evidence suggests that Civil War soldiers, like their twentieth-century counterparts, exhibited symptoms that today we would associate with war trauma, notably post-traumatic stress disorder..." Many references in the article.