I once heard our modern world described as “thinly veiled barbarity” and I think that sums it up quite nicely.
8 months ago
| 35
Well said. I agree with all your statements. We look at just millions of people watching Netflix movies on murder, horror and violence. As well as media exploiting violence!
8 months ago
| 14
Just wait till there is no human operating the machine. It is only a matter of time people. Wake up.
8 months ago | 7
What counter tech could someone wear? Is there anything? Something that shines into the lens? I dunno if anything exists?
7 months ago | 0
Did you hear that in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king? So after an army surrendered to the eastern Roman Empire they blinded 99 out of one hundred men and left the last with one eye to guide them home. It’s not a competition. People haven’t changed. And they only seem good most of the time.
7 months ago | 0
Maybe I'm soft, but knowing her plea for mercy wasn't granted hurts my heart a bit
8 months ago
| 20
No, we have actually always claimed the highest moral ground in history but when it really came down to it, we proved to be the at the lowest that it would impossible to even stretch any further below ground.
8 months ago | 0
100% 👌🏼 I've been saying this for the last few years... The parallels are evident if you look. I am an absolute history geek and, more often than not, add historical context to any discussion about current affairs 😅😂 probably annoying, but I can not help but see what I 🤓 🤷🏻♀️ Thanks for the conscise examples. Lots of people think of historical civilisations as old and different from modern
8 months ago
| 3
Times change but people apparently don't. I think in a lot of ways we haven't learned anything.
8 months ago
| 3
You wanna live? Drop the gear, take five paces back and lay flat and an operator will be with you shortly.
8 months ago | 1
I think the times were more violent back then, but it's not because people were more barbaric, but because they didn't have as many laws to obey as today. If we lived in a warzone, we would be much more violent than an average person back in Roman times. If Putin never attacked Ukraine in a first place, so much violence could be avoided.
8 months ago | 0
Ancient Rome has a European part and later an infected part when judendom took over with various tactics.
8 months ago | 12
War is war. It doesn't grow softer, or harder. It's just a different fight in a different time
8 months ago | 10
Legendary Lore
Were the Romans Really That Brutal Compared to Us?
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we see ancient Rome as this incredibly brutal society. People cheering at gladiators fighting to the death, public crucifixions, wars of conquest—it’s easy to look at that and think of the Romans as this barbaric, bloodthirsty culture.
But then I look at today.
People watch drone war footage online. Some out of morbid curiosity, some out of horror, some because they viscerally hate one side, and yeah… some just find it entertaining. A lot of us think it’s in bad taste—but plenty of Romans probably thought gladiator fights were in bad taste too. Seneca, for example, respected the skill and bravery of gladiators but still thought the games were barbaric.
And let’s not forget that gladiator fights weren’t always to the death. A lot of them were trained professionals, expensive to replace, and fought many battles. Compare that to modern combat sports like MMA or boxing. Sure, they’re not using weapons, but it’s still two people beating the sh*t out of each other in front of a crowd. The line between “entertainment” and “violence” is still a bit blurry.
Then there’s war. Rome didn’t just say, “We’re stronger, so we take what we want,” even if that’s exactly what they were doing. Generals and consuls had to justify their wars, because the Roman people wouldn’t have accepted conquest without a moral excuse. For example, Julius Caesar put a lot of effort into framing his war in Gaul as necessary—to help their suffering allies or whatever. Not very different from today, where wars are framed as spreading democracy, securing peace, protecting freedoms etc. In fact, their justifications aren’t very different from those of Caesar.
Then there are the gruesome Roman executions. Crucifixions were absolutely brutal, but they weren’t that common, and people found them shocking even back then. Cicero called crucifixion “the most cruel and disgusting penalty.” I think we focus on the most brutal parts of Rome because that’s what’s been written down extensively—but we wouldn’t look at the worst horrors of the 20th century and claim they represent daily life in the modern world, so why would we do that with Rome?
I’m not saying Rome wasn’t more violent than today’s world—at least in the modern West. But I suspect the gap isn’t as wide as we like to think, and I think people were a lot more peace-minded than we give them credit for.
But I’d love to hear what you think…
8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 112