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There is a wide gulf between arguing something happened on occasion and arguing it was a sound idea. History records ancient states performing human sacrifice t
by jjk166 4mo ago
There is a wide gulf between arguing something happened on occasion and arguing it was a sound idea. History records ancient states performing human sacrifice to make the sun rise again. It's likely these people saw it as a good idea, and hey the sun kept rising for years, but you'd have a hard time convincing me it was economical compared to alternative options.
- fragmede 4mo agoOnly if you frame it as an attempt to keep the sun rising via blood sacrifice. If instead the priesthood is a power faction within the civilization's various power brokers, and it's all political, then blood sacrificing your "randomly" selected rival's daughter is going to be much more economical than not sacrificing her, and having your political rival be stronger than you.
- jjk166 4mo agoWhich is exactly the point I was making. For a particular emperor in Constantinople, paying tribute to an army outside the wall may have been, or appeared to have been, an economical option for achieving their personal goals, which may not have been aligned with the empire's, and thus the fact the action occurred can not be taken as evidence that it was a rational choice which served the interest of the Roman Empire. People in the past weren't dumb, but they weren't hyper-competent nor devoid of ulterior motives either. We should expect most past decisions to have been sub-optimal.