This is incorrect. Decimation was a form of military discipline, not civilian, and it was _extremely_ rare for most of Rome's history. It was usually used for mass desertion. Thousands of people were executed for individual desertion during WW1, so you could argue that it's not THAT exotic a punishment.
The Roman Empire _did_ do various nasty things to rebellious provinces (Judea is particularly notable), but again, really nothing that we haven't seen in 20th century wars, unfortunately.
Roman history is long and practices vary. I don't think that you can critically look at the campaigns to conquer and pacify Gaul or Carthage without walking away with the understanding that mass killing (or enslavement) wasn't a tool wielded by the Romans.
For that matter, their behavior in Gaul isn't evidence of it either; again, we unfortunately have many recent parallels.
- 1750s Dzungar genocide
- 1860s Circassian genocide
- 1900s Herero and Namaqua genocide
> historical events that could've completely changed the course of history
The battle of Teutoburg Forest [1][2] is another one. Had the Roman general Varius not fallen in to Arminius ambush, things might have been vastly different. The Romans never again had a solid footing beyond the Rhine and the battle was used again and again to forge German identity.
> One thing he notes is that the closer someone is to someone, the harder it is for them to (psychologically) kill them.
This same effect is discussed extensively in the book On Killing [3] and similar conclusions can be drawn from the Milgram Experiment [4]. On Killing also mentions that stabbing weapons are psychologically harder to use than slashing weapons. It specifically mentions the Roman Gladius.
0 - https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
1 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f69q
2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest
Interestingly, the defeat of Vercingetorix was also used as a mean of forging the French identity, so even a defeat can be used this way (though if Caesar had failed to invade Gaul, history might have been quite different too). Also in regard of using Teutoburg to build a national identity, the series on the Fremen Mirage [0] on the same blog talk about that idea too.
[0] https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
There are many 'trolls' around here (comes with the popularity), who will downvote based on opinion to begin with, instead of writing a counter-argument (or their "problem" with the post is simplistic, first-degree, unsophisticated).
Ignore them. Those who come to read/learn usually do. We read arguments, rebuttals or agreements, and seldom consider scores at face value.
Also, engagement is probably the real salience of votes, whether up or down: it means someone got 'triggered' enough to click, and that usually means you touched something (assuming the comment isn't misleading, factually wrong, etc).
Typically, a post such as yours is interesting, and warrants no downvotes whatsoever.
Now as Dan would say, he doesn't find scientific and technological advancements particularly interesting (from a historical perspective). Like if Edison didn't invent the light bulb, someone else would've.
What he finds far more interesting is historical events that could've completely changed the course of history and one of those was the Battle of Marathon [2]. This was a battle between the Persians and the Greeks that the Greeks somehow won. Had they lost it would've changed the entire history of Europe given how important Greek culture was to everyone from the Romans on. Bear in mind when this happened, Rome was a small regional power at best.
He talks about the psychology of ancient warfare. One thing he notes is that the closer someone is to someone, the harder it is for them to (psychologically) kill them. From a gun at a distance is completely different to hand-to-hand combat.
At this time, the Greeks fought with spears that were very broad. Stab someone in the guts with one of those and their insides would literally spill out to the point where the likes of Herodotus described the ground at Marathon as being soaked red in blood.
Likewise, ancient culture and justice must be almost incomprehensible to us. Fun fact: the origin of the word "decimate". When a province rebelled against Roman Rule and Rome would crush them, insurrection was punished particularly harshly. People would be put in groups of 10 (hence DECImate) where each group was responsible for choosing which of those 10 would die and for killing that person.
How did people cope with these things? How would PTSD fit into this world?
EDIT: the way some downvote on HN makes me sad.
[1]: https://www.dancarlin.com/
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon