peach eating vagus nerve cultist of the house of tool ape


Sullivan
@Sullivan

Fun aspect of ancient history is when you look for political or cultural accounts the historians all say "no one can really say if this took place, or if this guy really existed, but we know that around this time a person may have instituted a policy of some sort that might have ..." and then when they're talking about a battle suddenly the detail level skyrockets and its like "thirteen guys moved in on the left, it was drizzly out, this spearman was left-handed, he ordered them to flank on the right and then changed his mind a few seconds later..." etc. Its the historical version of intuiting an artists fetish by how hyper-detailed the feet are in an otherwise totally normal drawing


dante
@dante

the fact that the romans were so fucking horny for battle details is so existentially hilarious. entire decades of roman history are unknown but these dudes would move heaven and earth to make sure that future generations knew the exact details of a battle


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in reply to @dante's post:

On some level I get it. The Senate were a few hundred pompous fucks who were way too self-important for how much they actually accomplished. Studying battles, though, that’s a life and death matter for at least a hundred thousand high-prestige people at any given time for at least 600 years straight. Combine that with the instant vs delayed gratification, which we still struggle with to this day, and yeah the battles are gonna take up a lot more scroll-shelf space.