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Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

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Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#11

Post by agumonkey »

papeda wrote: post #3

On a related note, a while ago I read a little about how ancient families coped with the deaths of their children. My takeaway, pretty much cribbed from this article [1], was that such deaths produced less trauma than they would today because: (1) More families lost children. This lessened the trauma because a family could talk to other nearby families who had experienced the same thing. Those families would also be…

I do believe that modern society regressed on these topics.

Another instance is "insanity". Today the standard answer is psychiatry/psychiatric ward.. But there was a documentary about mildly handicapped people being hosted by a group of elders in a big house. And these potential patient, looked happy as a puppy in this environment. Gut feeling level of improvement IMO. Now I think I've read that people accepted handicap that way before .. it was just how life was sometimes, and it seems it was a better answer than stuck in a hospital.

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#12

Post by cletus »

If you're so inclined to go down a rabbit hole of 100+ hours of content, I highly suggest having a listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History [1]. Dan is particularly interested in military history, especially ancient military history. He has an episode on Caesar's conquest of Gaul (which he argues in any kind of modern context would be called a genocide) as well as a series on the great Persian kings, called the King of Kings. This is specifically about the Achaemenid Empire talking about Cyrus II, Darius, Xerxes and the likes.

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

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#13

Post by 7952 »

drewbeck wrote: post #5

Really interesting, tho I wish he cited or talked to some psychologists as well! I wonder if the specific tools of war are a factor as well — the suddenness of explosions and bullets might provide a significantly more traumatic experience than spear sword and trebuchet, the pace of humvees and airplanes more shock than feet and horses.

A counterpoint is that war could also be anguishing slow. An enemy could be moving across a land for months or even years and you would just get occassional news and rumours as they got ever closer. People knew that the enemy was coming, but not neccessarily when. That is a different kind of stress.

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#14

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

cletus wrote: post #9
papeda wrote: post #3

On a related note, a while ago I read a little about how ancient families coped with the deaths of their children. My takeaway, pretty much cribbed from this article [1], was that such deaths produced less trauma than they would today because: (1) More families lost children. This lessened the trauma because a family could talk to other nearby families who had experienced the same thing. Those families would also be…

You don't even need to go to the ancient world to see this. A rudimentary look at genealogy will show you that even in the 19th century. If a child under 2 dies, you'll often see reuse of that name for the next child. There were cultural standards, particularly in Europe, around naming children after paternal and maternal grandparents and so forth (such that often you can tell what number a child was by their name if…

that's actually a pretty effective way for overwriting/replacing your bad memories with something new. Less drastic / and practical examples:

Say you went through a really bad breakup and your partner let you down by cheating on you with your best friend. You still love them and really want to those memories gone. You got 2 options:

1) stop listening to favorite songs, no longer visit specific restaurants or pubs, stop doing a sport you did together,

2) replace these memories by doing exactly those things with your new partner. soon you will have forgotten about them. Instead what remains is that activity/place now being your memory and not associated to another person (or the 2 of you).

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#15

Post by Amezarak »

cletus wrote: post #12

If you're so inclined to go down a rabbit hole of 100+ hours of content, I highly suggest having a listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History [1]. Dan is particularly interested in military history, especially ancient military history. He has an episode on Caesar's conquest of Gaul (which he argues in any kind of modern context would be called a genocide) as well as a series on the great Persian kings, called the King o…

Decimation was a military punishment. I cannot think of any time it was used on civilians. It was employed not just for mutiny, but for desertion and cowardice. If your unit panicked and routed during a battle, it might very well be subjected to decimation later - probably a powerful motivator.

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#16

Post by XorNot »

LordHeini wrote: post #8
drewbeck wrote: post #5

Really interesting, tho I wish he cited or talked to some psychologists as well! I wonder if the specific tools of war are a factor as well — the suddenness of explosions and bullets might provide a significantly more traumatic experience than spear sword and trebuchet, the pace of humvees and airplanes more shock than feet and horses.

I doubt that standing there as a poor peasant with a spear, while getting charged by a horde of knights on massive battle horses in full armour is any less traumatic than the crack of a snipers bullet whizzing over ones head. And medieval combat was quite a gruesome affair, cleaving people into peaces with axes and swords, in an age without proper medical care... What has changed though, is the staying power of armie…

Mmmm I'm deeply wary of an absence of evidence about a condition which civilization today still can't actually acknowledge properly existing being evidence of its absence.

"Gun cleaning" accidents, as the socially accepted cover for male suicide by people everyone wants to ignore were suffering from depression or PTSD.

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#17

Post by kazen44 »

cletus wrote: post #9
papeda wrote: post #3

On a related note, a while ago I read a little about how ancient families coped with the deaths of their children. My takeaway, pretty much cribbed from this article [1], was that such deaths produced less trauma than they would today because: (1) More families lost children. This lessened the trauma because a family could talk to other nearby families who had experienced the same thing. Those families would also be…

You don't even need to go to the ancient world to see this. A rudimentary look at genealogy will show you that even in the 19th century. If a child under 2 dies, you'll often see reuse of that name for the next child. There were cultural standards, particularly in Europe, around naming children after paternal and maternal grandparents and so forth (such that often you can tell what number a child was by their name if…

Also, illness and mortality was far more definitive prior to modern medical breakthroughs.

Prior to world war 2, getting ill from a wide range of highly deadly or incapacitating diseases (polio for example) was quite common and far more fatal then it is today.

The culture around mortality has changed a lot in my opinion.

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#18

Post by magicalist »

papeda wrote: post #3

On a related note, a while ago I read a little about how ancient families coped with the deaths of their children. My takeaway, pretty much cribbed from this article [1], was that such deaths produced less trauma than they would today because: (1) More families lost children. This lessened the trauma because a family could talk to other nearby families who had experienced the same thing. Those families would also be…

FWIW I believe this has become a somewhat outdated view of how people historically dealt with the death of children. It appeals to a sort of historical logic without really being supported by the record.

Lazy citation: here are some askhistorians threads on evidence and how scholarship ended up going in this direction

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7vbohl/how_d...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/41953k/what_...

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#19

Post by kazen44 »

LordHeini wrote: post #8
drewbeck wrote: post #5

Really interesting, tho I wish he cited or talked to some psychologists as well! I wonder if the specific tools of war are a factor as well — the suddenness of explosions and bullets might provide a significantly more traumatic experience than spear sword and trebuchet, the pace of humvees and airplanes more shock than feet and horses.

I doubt that standing there as a poor peasant with a spear, while getting charged by a horde of knights on massive battle horses in full armour is any less traumatic than the crack of a snipers bullet whizzing over ones head. And medieval combat was quite a gruesome affair, cleaving people into peaces with axes and swords, in an age without proper medical care... What has changed though, is the staying power of armie…

> This of course changes the whole psychology aspect, its not the stress of one battle going on for a day or so, but the stress of a battle going on for weeks.

All quiet on the western front describes this phenomenon quite well. The continues stress of being on or near the front lines with constant shelling all around you. The artillary barages where so severe that areas of the ground are poisoned with metals from artillery shells..

To give you an idea about the frequency of shells getting fired.[1]

[1] https://codatocoda.com/blog/making-a-new-world-armistice-sou...

Re: Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?

#20

Post by seibelj »

papeda wrote: post #3

On a related note, a while ago I read a little about how ancient families coped with the deaths of their children. My takeaway, pretty much cribbed from this article [1], was that such deaths produced less trauma than they would today because: (1) More families lost children. This lessened the trauma because a family could talk to other nearby families who had experienced the same thing. Those families would also be…

In Ancient Greece a baby wasn’t named for 5 days after birth, so it wasn’t really considered a person until it survived 5 days. I’m sure this helped lessen trauma as many babies would die before this milestone.
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