Such cross-border raids were a common during the first ~300 years of the Roman Empire, assaulting hostile Germanic chieftains or supporting Germanic chieftains allied to Rome. Distinction between combatant and noncombatant was rarely made.
Such cross-border raids were a common during the first ~300 years of the Roman Empire, assaulting hostile Germanic chieftains or supporting Germanic chieftains allied to Rome. Distinction between combatant and noncombatant was rarely made.
I cannot comprehend a society where it is normal to have people commit those barbaric (ironic) acts in cold blood… The worst is that it’s done with swords. Not even a drone thousands of kilometers away, or even a gun… You really need to go up close, hear their pleas, and physically cut them and feel the blade pierce through… What kind of mindset enables this? Were the romans psychopaths or traumatised?
Writing this I remembered that most people still eat meat and that it requires slaughtering animals in the same way… Or it can be automatised somewhat but it’s maybe even worse…
Trauma, or exposure to bloodshed, as the Romans would probably prefer terming it, was definitely a factor. The Romans considered the gladiator games, for example, as a part of a Roman upbringing that would steel the young in the audience if the day came when they took up a soldier’s life.
Generally, though, pre-modern societies are much more comfortable with death than we are. I mean, public executions were a family occasion well into the 19th century in Europe and North America.
Barbarism is only a stone’s throw in our past.
Let’s hope that stone wasn’t a boomerang…