The Psychotically Violent Traditions of Ancient Rome
We often assume that people thousands of years ago were just technologically deprived versions of us. In reality, they were quite different. They were not just like you, minus smartphone and electricity. They were born and raised in a different world, with different mental and moral landscapes. Their basic assumptions about life – and right and wrong – differed greatly from what we take for granted. Which explains how otherwise normal people back in the day could spend entire days in places like Rome’s Colosseum, watching other humans get killed in various gruesome ways for fun. Before it ceased operations as a gladiatorial arena and public execution site, up to a million people died in the Colosseum, aside from the millions of animals slaughtered for the crowd’s pleasure. Ancient Romans thought snuff on a massive scale was great.
Their sense of humor was also cruel by modern standards. Take the aftermath of the fire that burned Rome in Emperor Nero’s reign. Many Christians had been seen celebrating – they seem to have thought the fire was a sign of the anticipated end of days and the return of Jesus. Understandably, such giddiness amidst widespread misery infuriated other Romans. They suspected that the Christians had started the fire or at least spread it, and demanded that they be punished. So Christians were arrested, and Nero ordered a spectacle to make an example of them. The highlight – literally – was when Christians were covered in pitch, and set on fire so they became human torches. Spectators thought that was an apt and funny punishment, especially fit for arsonists who had torched Rome, and now became torches themselves.