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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?

#31

Post by rsynnott »

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…

> 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.

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.

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

#32

Post by manishsharan »

Emperor Ashoka of Magadha (India) fought a bloody war against the kingdom of Kalinga. The carnage wrought by war moved him deeply . He converted to Buddhism and he is responsible for spreading Buddhism to much of Asia. Was this because of PTSD ? The sorrow and remorse he felt was real and changed him from a ambitious emperor to a deeply spiritual person.

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

#33

Post by third_I »

lidHanteyk wrote: post #28
third_I wrote: post #24

I'm sorry but this has to be the most un-scientific account I've read on the topic (granted, I read few), and it's incredibly misleading. - Humans did not change biologically enough in 10,000 years, let alone 2,000, to produce a meaningfully different psychology. Take a a child born 2,000 years ago, raise them today, and you'll get just a regular human being. Same thing backwards. - The entirety of the author's 'hypo…

Your own first two points are in conflict. Either humans from the past raised in today's world would be like today's humans, or like the past's humans. Pick one.

No, it's precisely the same idea.

Biology did not change. Perceptions and expression of it did change. It does not mean the inner biological processes are any different, just the way you consciously select what to say about them. Absence of words (context) means you cannot express certain things; does not mean you don't actually feel them. Romantic love for instance is a quite modern thing, the way we speak of it today. Does not mean people did not feel it before.

Please reconsider your take and vote, you misinterpreted my points I'm afraid. Or at least, make a worthy counter-argument, a click is simply too easy IMHO.

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

#34

Post by airza »

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…

Sure, but I'm guessing that not a lot of the people who endured the latter situation lived, and they certainly were not doing a lot of writing about their experiences.

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

#35

Post by jeltz »

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…

Your example of massacring the population of rebelling provinces can be found much closer to our time. Punishing rebels like that has been common throughout history.

- 1750s Dzungar genocide

- 1860s Circassian genocide

- 1900s Herero and Namaqua genocide

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

#36

Post by third_I »

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…

> EDIT: the way some downvote on HN makes me sad.

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.

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

#37

Post by jeltz »

airza wrote: post #34
LordHeini wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, but I'm guessing that not a lot of the people who endured the latter situation lived , and they certainly were not doing a lot of writing about their experiences.

I would argue that we know that most people who did lived. Most people, even on the losing side, of ancient battles survived the experience. Formations tended to break and people flee long before all people were dead.

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

#39

Post by mkl »

third_I wrote: post #24

I'm sorry but this has to be the most un-scientific account I've read on the topic (granted, I read few), and it's incredibly misleading. - Humans did not change biologically enough in 10,000 years, let alone 2,000, to produce a meaningfully different psychology. Take a a child born 2,000 years ago, raise them today, and you'll get just a regular human being. Same thing backwards. - The entirety of the author's 'hypo…

> The entirety of the author's 'hypothesis' (sic) rests upon ignoring that nurture, context, is highly determinant in forming psychological references, relative perceptions, hence reactions, profiles.

Huh? The author's hypothesis is that nurture and context were all-important in helping people avoid PTSD.

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

#40

Post by hef19898 »

quezzle wrote: post #29
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…

Do you have kids? It’s a very strange idea that somehow mothers loved their children any less in times past. I wonder if your opinion is from someone with kids or not.

I think mothers, and fathers, loved children as much or little back then as they do now. That being said, I do belivethat if something like loosing a child is bsaically a daily occurance, shared with family and friends, makes it easier to cope with it. Even if it is just by maybe getting a little numb.

As far as PTSD is concerned, I remember a commentary / documentation (I suck at keeping my sources, so...) that went a long these lines:

- War was more common, when everybody is kind of traumatized, society copes with it better - soldiers were traumatized, but it seems less so when compared to modern war, which brings me to the last point: - the most horrible war experience back then was battles (sieges, field battles,...), off battle, life for the soldier was as dangerous as a civilian's one. In modern war, the soldiers stress was constant, everywhere and the enemy (artillery, snipers, air craft,...) often invisible, increasing the stress levels a lot

I am no expert in psychology, but it does sound logical.

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