roman atrocities

[tlclark]

Thanks for resolving the situation in a civilized manner gents!

Yes, let's never forget what really binds us Roman re-enactors together...

KILLING BARBARIANS!!

:wink:

Travis

[Marius_Ursus]

not meaning to start flame wars, just pointing out reality, we all play roman without realizing what we are representing.

I have definitely come to the conclusion that roman reenacting is definitely as bad if not worse than doing nazi WWII.

find the scenes of SS loading the jews on a train to go to labor camps, separating out the fit from the unfit, etc., now replace the SS men with legionaries, the trains with carts, replace...... oh, wait there is nothing else to replace, it is the same thing.
so we are reenacting the instrument of horrific crimes against humanity, why don't we tell the public about this?, that is not a rhetorical question, I would be interested to hear your answer.

I will keep doing roman, but perhaps I will have to put a new spin on the roman empire, the portrayel, etc., it may even be that due to some moral issues the more I think about it, I might have to do full time rebellious auxiliary. I do RSI fascist, red army, etc. but these organizations were not actually the instruments of the atrocity in most cases. There is no evidence that a Folgore trooper ever killed a jew knowingly and for that purpose, red army artillery didnt put people on trains to gulags, these are considered very un-PC, so roman is to me much worse than this.

if you need documentation I have it all, caesar's gallic wars, Josephus, tacitus, cicero, etc. yeah, from a roman perspective, think about how much they are not telling us.

who systematically killed of, or forcefully assimilated millions of people, making money off the act, lulling the people with speeches and gifts, and did this successfully?

A. Adolph hitler
B. Julius Caesar

answers would be interesting.........

I would hardly compare assimilation to annhilation. Romans were interested in stamping out all who opposed them...like any national force in the history of the world. The Turd Reich laid wast to nearly an entire generation of Jews, Homosexuals, gypsies, and Jehova's Witnesses for the simple reason that they didn't meet his "Aryan" standards.

On another note, I see nothing dishonorable about protraying a German soldier from WWII. If one does it for history's sake, not from some perverse identification with genocide, it's all good, yo.

[hoplite14gr]

Reanacting above all is for trying to understand the mechanics of history.
Putting eminent historians in difficult position and generally making life of the scholars difficult. :twisted: :twisted: (it was ment as a joke!!!)

Among the members of RAT there are those who except in reancting have marched and carried their packs in real life service and possibly have first hand experiance of the "nastiness".
I understand the admins watching closely but it might be prudent for the members who have only renacting military life experience to avoid create strong emotions.
If you ever have a "strong" experience it becomes part of you existance and ist hard to control yourself when you think that people do not know what they are talkig about.

Hope it is not too out of topic and that the admins do not object to this opinion.
Kind regards

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

there is nothing dishonorable about portraying any soldier, as long as you don't sugarcoat what happened, I portray italian RSI, which is right up there with german.

soldiers can rarely if ever be blamed for what happens.

in stamping out all who opposed them...like any national force in the history of the world. The Turd Reich laid wast to nearly an entire generation of Jews, Homosexuals, gypsies, and Jehova's Witnesses for the simple reason that they didn't meet his "Aryan" standards.

exactly, that is what I said in my 'new' stance. If you guys want my real stance on the subject please see my post in which it is outlined on the bottom.

[floofthegoof]

From what I have read from ancient sources, I find the Roman moral ideal quite respectable. In fact, I think there are things they had pinpointed quite well regarding human nature that we have forgotten. However, like our own time, moral ideal is an entirely different thing than moral practice.

In regards to their warlike nature, I must question the pacifistic viewpoint that is common in our time. Pacifists have one gigantic defining problem that cannot be solved. They can be safely ignored. In a world full of pacifists, one of them only needs to espouse violence to completely control the entire world. If nobody is willing to fight this person, the whole world is compelled, through the need to survive, to serve this one persons interest so as not to invoke his displeasure. All of mankind works to serve this one individual. The more peaceful an evironment is, the more there is to be gained by violence. The pressure to act violently increases as the apparent resistance to that violence decreases.

Pacifism itself cannot even exist unless someone is willing to enforce it, but then it's not pacifism! Someone who is truely pacifist can not survive except as a parasite of someone who is willing to fight for his right to express pacifism. Therefore pacifism makes no sense.

Ulitmately, we all must accept violence. The romans knew this and did not question it. The way to peace for them, was in their strength. The only issue left is not one of violence or no violence, but of justice. Justice however, tends to be very subjective. All we can do is fight with all of our strength for what we believe to be just. There is no other option.

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

well said Rich, on the battlefield I would kill in defense of my patient, and probably myself, and feel justified in that. there is a measure and balance between all things.

[Tarbicus]

(Deleted, as I completely got the wrong end of the stiick)

[Robert Vermaat]

Ulitmately, we all must accept violence.

Errm, ahh, no, sorry, don't agree there. I will never accept violence as being acceptable

Eh Jim, Rich did not say that it had to be acceptable, just accepted. We must all accept death and bad weather as well, but no-one says it has to be acceptable.

And can I ask all of you to return to the topic, please? We're discussing reasons why the Romans were cruel folks or reasons why they were not.

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

yeah, sorry robert, we got off track.

anyway, thinking about it, the average roman would have been so infused with death and violence being normal that he/she would have seen it as much less of an issue IMHO.

ex: the romans go to the arena all the time to watch the games, they come to view death as more normal than to us.

standard of living also played a big role IMHO.

so being cruel may have (not saying it was), but may have been just a reaction to being very poor, ad witnessing cruel acts everyday, and just imitating those when presented with defeated enemies/ ordered by an officer or NCO to do something it would have seemed less atrocious.

[Nathan Ross]

ex: the romans go to the arena all the time to watch the games, they come to view death as more normal than to us.

The Roman attitude to death and violence is surely at the crux of all this. To us, after all, the notion that it is fundamentally wrong to injure or kill another person is fundamental to our society, our laws and our sense of common humanity. The Romans had no such idea. To them, not only was it not wrong to kill, it was positively virtuous to do so in many cases. Individual human life was not sacred at all - only the lives of citizens had worth. The rather legalistic Roman concept of human rights is very hard for the modern mind to comprehend - that a slave, for example, could be tortured or killed with impunity by a master, with no recourse to law, but that this same slave could be manumitted and see their entire legal - and human - status change overnight is bizarre to our way of thinking. That the spectacle of violent and bloody death in the arena could be greatest entertainment of a civilised society, and accounted valuable to the mettle of its citizens, is entirely opposed to our basic morality. And yet all this was the case.

Theology is also important here - the Roman pantheon was a gallery of psychopaths, vengeful, petty-minded and bloody (if rather glorious for all that). If the Gods themselves go about killing, tormenting and abusing each other, how else should mere mortals behave? It would be interesting to know what change, if any, can be perceived in Roman attitudes following the advent of Christianity and its slow infusion through the Roman world - doubtless it did not stop Romans killing people (although it did, eventually, stop the games). The concept that all humans are created equal and in God's image, and that any human life is correspondingly sacred, may have been abused countless times by many who called themselves Christian, but by the modern period it has become axiomatic to the way we view ourselves and our relations with others. We will never be able to compare the genuine attitude of a Roman soldier faced with an enemy with that of his modern counterpart, but I have read several times of the difficulty that many modern soldiers in battle have felt in overcoming the prohibition against taking another life - particularly when fighting face to face with a bayonet, for example. Would the Roman with his gladius have felt that prohibition too, in some instinctive human way? We might like to think that he did - I rather suspect, however, that he felt nothing of the kind.

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

I must, however, disagree.

I realize that it would have been more accepted, but there is always the sense that killing is wrong IMHO, how else would the romans have stopped themselves from simply going around murdering eachother, the laws help sure, but the laws have to come from some morality.

in effect, I think the romans felt it was wrong to kill, but when it was necessary and normed by society it was okay in some ways, and less of an issue after the fact.

your mileage may vary.......

[Theodosius the Great]

Theology is also important here - the Roman pantheon was a gallery of psychopaths, vengeful, petty-minded and bloody (if rather glorious for all that). If the Gods themselves go about killing, tormenting and abusing each other, how else should mere mortals behave?

The Romans and Greeks don't seem to have looked to their gods for moral guidance. Rather, they turned to philosophy for that. Philososphy superceded Paganism as philosophy in turn was superceded by Christianity.

The rather legalistic Roman concept of human rights is very hard for the modern mind to comprehend - that a slave, for example, could be tortured or killed with impunity by a master

We tend to overlook the fact that the Romans went through an evolution in legal rights. Hadrian made substantial reforms in the law that granted some basic rights to slaves. They could not longer be beaten or killed by their masters in the mid-2nd century AD and beyond.

Under the pater familias during the Republic, the head of the family had absolute authority over his family members and could even kill his children. But this seems to have changed under the Principate.

So, you see ? It largely depends on what period of Roman history you're talking about. The further back you go, the more out-of-sync their moral values seem to be in comparision to modern (i.e. Christian) values.

[Nathan Ross]

Theodosius wrote:

The Romans and Greeks don't seem to have looked to their gods for moral guidance.

and:

We tend to overlook the fact that the Romans went through an evolution in legal rights.

Both good points - my reading on law and society has tended to focus on the late republic, so thanks for the corrective about later affairs. With regard to the religious issue, however, my point was that the Romans had no concept of an ultimate and supernatural arbiter of human morality - as you say, right and wrong were matters for law and philosophy. To what extent the Romans 'believed' in their Gods is immaterial here - religion to them was a matter of bargains struck and honoured, and a God like Mars Ultor, for instance, would not have been impressed by pretentions to pacific sentiment.

John wrote:

how else would the romans have stopped themselves from simply going around murdering eachother, the laws help sure, but the laws have to come from some morality.

Sure, but Roman morality was different to ours, and while many Roman laws were specifically designed to stop people arbitrarily murdering each other, in some cases they provided a good rationale for just that - the theory seems to have been that the desire to murder others is natural, and laws should regulate this rather than suppressing it.

Here's an example related by Seneca - Augustus was once dining with one Vedius Pollio. One of Pollio's slave broke an expensive crystal cup, and Pollio - no doubt wishing to impress the emperor with his severity - ordered the slave thrown into his pool of flesh eating lampreys. The slave petitioned Augustus - he didn't mind dying, but didn't want to be eaten alive. Augustus freed the slave and ordered all of Pollio's crystal collection broken before his eyes. Pollio was thereafter shunned by society. Now - the problem was not that Pollio was going to kill his slave, but the extraordinarily gruesome way in which he intended to do it. This sort of cruelty was beyond the pale - but why? This, I think, is where philosophy comes in, and morality with it. Restraint, after all, was accounted a great virtue - not to give in to ones baser urges was the mark of a civilised man. To kill and torture with undue cruelty was, in effect, to give in to a base urge, and just as the glutton or the sensualist was condemned by society, so was the man who took pleasure in cruelty. Discipline of slaves was important, so the maxim went, to the point of killing them if they erred - taking pleasure in killing and disciplining them, however, was a mark of weakness.

There's also the story of the entire household of slave crucified after the murder of their master (Tacitus, Annals 14) - this extraordinary punishment was decreed by an old Roman law revived by Nero, but the route to the execution site was lined by people (mainly freedmen, we are told, for obvious reasons) petitioning for the sentence to be reversed. The slaves died even so, but the fact that it was recorded indicates that many felt their deaths to have cruel and unnecessary in hindsight. It's this sort of thing that leads to a change in moral standards over time - the fact was, however, that at the time the slaughter was felt to be not only right but vital to the health of society.

Changes did occur, however, as Theodosius says - by the third century, philosophy, religion and law were, I think, beginning to converge on a point not perhaps all that far removed from our perceptions of a common humanity united by a universal morality. What changes this new thinking would have made over further centuries, had Christianity not intervened, would be interesting to speculate - my guess is that something very close to the 'Christian' ideal of a brotherhood of man might well have evolved anyway.

[floofthegoof]

Even in earlier times, the Romans despised cruelty. I remember a story, I believe from before the second Punic war, where roman soldiers were punished with death for treating the inhabitants of a surrendered city as if the city had to be taken. Was it Rhegium? I can't remember but there are several such stories from republican times.

I think the problem we have with Roman morals is it's tribal nature. They had no problem with collective punishment. A person was a slave because he was either an enemy of the Romans, or the descendant of an enemy of the Romans, which to them, was the same thing.

It's easy to see why though. In an age where communication is very slow, and even famous people can move about anonymously, tribalism is useful for forcing groups of people to police themselves. They know that any crimes commited by their members will be associated with the whole group, and the whole group will suffer the consequences. In ancient times, you had almost no chance of catching a criminal, but if you knew where he came from, then you've got something. You go to his city, ask for recompense, and if you don't get it it's war. There's really nothing else you can do to avoid your own tribe being robbed blind.

[Robert Vermaat]

Even in earlier times, the Romans despised cruelty.

I guess you mean unwarranted cruelty. Crucifying Spartacus' rebels 9or crucufiction as a capital punishemnt in general) is cruel.

I seem to recall something about Caesar cutting off the hands of Vercingetorix' soldiers after he surrendered. or is that something unhistorical?