4 ms·
The morals of the ancient world would probably seem alien to anyone from the modern era. I can't remember the specifics but Roman literature reflected rather pe
by jmyeet 3y ago
The morals of the ancient world would probably seem alien to anyone from the modern era. I can't remember the specifics but Roman literature reflected rather permissive attitudes to non-consensual sexual relations and relations with minors (eg a marriage age of 12). It's a hard thing to Google for without ending up on a watch list however.
> How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"?
Isn't the world today largely standing by and watching the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of mostly women and children? That has not valid military purpose.. It's just retribution, ethnic displacement and genocide.
Example: the Sderot night cinema [1]. No matter your position on the conflict, these are people who are treating the mass bomardment and death of civilians as popcorn-worthy entertainment.
Genetic heritage of the survivors of the transatlantic slave trade show a dark history of mass rape of enslaved women [2].
The occupation of Germany at the end of WW2 came with rape on a massive scale [3].
My point is that we, as people, stand by and let atrocities happen routinely so how are Roman atrocities really that different?
Oh, and 600 gladiators is really nothing. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, of the ~!3 million people, ~1 million were killed and another ~1 million were enslaved. The former province of Dacia ceased to exist. It is now modern day Romania. "Rome" is the root word there. The Dacians were literally wiped out.
[1]: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/13/israel-sderot-gaza_n_5582032.html https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/13/israel-sderot-ga...
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/26/us/dna-transatlantic-slave-trade-study-scn-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/26/us/dna-transatlantic-slave-tr...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...
- scheme271 3y ago> The morals of the ancient world would probably seem alien to anyone from the > modern era. I can't remember the specifics but Roman literature reflected > rather permissive attitudes to non-consensual sexual relations and relations > with minors (eg a marriage age of 12). It's a hard thing to Google for without > ending up on a watch list however. I think that it can be a bit difficult to differentiate pro-forma traditions from what actually occurred. E.g. roman mores were quite different from ours but I'm not sure that marriage at 12 was much aside from an engagement. For exampl with later european marriages might have happened at similar ages but weren't actually consummated until the spouses where in their late teens or older. From a practical standpoint, if you marry someone to cement an alliance, it isn't a good look if you get them pregnant at 12 and they die in childbirth because they are too young to successfully deliver a baby. Even terminology can be misleading as Naomi Wolfe famously found out when writing about homosexuality in Victorian Britain. She wrote about homosexuals being given the death penalty but was embarassed when an interviewer pointed out that one of the men she wrote about was tried and apparently given the death penalty multiple times over several years. Turns out when someone was tried and an entry of "death recorded" was made, it actually meant that their sentence was commuted to jail time or they were pardoned.