Did ancient soldiers suffer from PTSD, or is it a (relatively) modern phenomenon?

Did ancient soldiers suffer from PTSD, or is it a (relatively) modern phenomenon?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Back then it was called cowardice

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      it's a modern phenomenon. in ancient wars a soldier might go through an entire war fight in multiple battles and have spent only a few hours in contact with the enemy (meaning in range of the enemy's weapons). In modern war due to artillery and other long-ranged attacks he can be in peril for weeks at a time. It's the prolonged stress that causes ptsd.

      [...]
      PTSD is mostly a phenomenon of modern warfare because the more we progress in terms of terms, the more warfare is dystopian

      Yes and no, men in the pre-modern era certainly experienced shock, guilt and trauma. However what we call PTSD today is a product of modern warfare, particularly modern artillery and irregular warfare.

      In pre-modern and early industrial warfare , the distinction between combat and non-combat was definite, you could tell when you were in danger and you could see your enemy. As mentioned, men came away from this kind of conflict with guilt and fear, but not regularly the psychiatric condition we see today.

      Today we know that PTSD is especially caused by long-term exposure to danger or potential danger, especially without a clear definition between combat and non-combat. The prolonged possiblity of harm can be as impactful as the actual harm, such as being under artillery barrage for hours when a shell could stray and kill you. What we see with returning veterans of counterinsurgency operations is exposure to an environment where the possibility of attack is constant, and there is little indication of when combat or danger is present or not.

      these conditions wreak havoc on the limbic system and cause stressful memories to be imprinted on the thalamus and amygdala instead of the cerebral cortex, essentially hardwiring the events to the fear and emotion centers.

      O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
      For what offense have I this fortnight been
      A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?
      Tell me, sweet lord, what is ‘t that takes from thee
      Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
      Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
      And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
      Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
      And given my treasures and my rights of thee
      To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
      In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,
      And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
      Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
      Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d
      Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
      Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
      Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
      Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain,
      And all the currents of a heady fight.
      Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war
      And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,
      That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
      Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream;
      And in thy face strange motions have appeared,
      Such as we see when men restrain their breath
      On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
      Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
      And I must know it, else he loves me not.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think there have been some recorded examples but they weren't thought of as PTSD until later.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yes, there are stories back to antiquity of men suffering horrible dreams after battle, drinking heavily after the loss a friend, and other things that are signs of PTSD in soldiers today .

      Though it may be more prevalent these days just due to how the nature of war has changed

      PTSD is mostly a phenomenon of modern warfare because the more we progress in terms of terms, the more warfare is dystopian

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    there are some accounts of soldiers being haunted by ghosts of men they killed and similar that might be what we call ptsd but they didn't conceptualize it like that
    especially since the existence of actual ghosts wasn't out of the question i guess

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules
    Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these.
    But of all the world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare.
    With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadiers.

    Those heroes of antiquity ne'er saw a cannon ball,
    Or knew the force of powder to slay their foes withal.
    But our brave boys do know it, and banish all their fears,
    With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, for the British Grenadiers.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare.
      >With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadiers.
      vomiting at the very thought of any british person to be considered heroic. homosexuals yes, alcoholics yes, killers of children, elderly., women, unarmed men and babies yes.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I read something, somewhere, that spoke of a knight who would go into fits of rage whenever he heard people cooking. Apparently the noises of metal pots and shit would remind him of the general hubbub of a melee. So I guess that's a form of PTSD?
    >Or I made the whole thing up, seems equally likely.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Learn to greentext, redditor

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    they usually went into battle drunk or high

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yes, there are stories back to antiquity of men suffering horrible dreams after battle, drinking heavily after the loss a friend, and other things that are signs of PTSD in soldiers today .

    Though it may be more prevalent these days just due to how the nature of war has changed

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Though it may be more prevalent these days just due to how the nature of war has changed
      Spend every waking moment for several weeks/months with the knowledge that you can be cooked at any moment by arty or an air strike or a random sniper
      vs
      One big punch up in a field for a couple of hours

      I can see why one of those would take it's toll more.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        it's a modern phenomenon. in ancient wars a soldier might go through an entire war fight in multiple battles and have spent only a few hours in contact with the enemy (meaning in range of the enemy's weapons). In modern war due to artillery and other long-ranged attacks he can be in peril for weeks at a time. It's the prolonged stress that causes ptsd.

        Sieges were a thing. Also, lots of asymmetrical combat back in the day. Being a roman legionary walking Hadrian's wall or the Rhine and yeah you live under the 24/7 threat of attack during periods when the frontier was active.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Its debated a lot isn't it. Shakespeare talks about things that sound like it. You could stretch a point wonder if thats what is up with Achilles. There are various gods and their curses that sound like it etc etc.

          That said, it seems a big part of it is related to the lack of control associated with things like coming under artillery bombardment for hours or even days on end. Fear you can do nothing about. Similarly, I hear the Pacific was particularly bad for this vs. the Western theatre because of all the irregular warfare and sneaky Jap shit.

          It may also be the case there are some cultural protection factors.

          Roman legionaries didn't walk on Hadrian's wall and they were Belgian mercenaries up there anyway. It wasn't a defensible site as such, more of a border marker. And sieges weren't Helm's Deep either, the typical outcome was the besieging parties would run out of supply and then fall to typhoid and so on. Life inside was generally just boring.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            This, I think Hercules killing his family as a "curse" by Hera is actually him having a bad "Vietnam Flashback" but instead of Charlie, it's Trojans in the bush.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              you got your myths mixed up mate.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Well actually Hercules and his buddies did sack Troy roughly a generation prior to the Trojan War.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    it's a modern phenomenon. in ancient wars a soldier might go through an entire war fight in multiple battles and have spent only a few hours in contact with the enemy (meaning in range of the enemy's weapons). In modern war due to artillery and other long-ranged attacks he can be in peril for weeks at a time. It's the prolonged stress that causes ptsd.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >a few hours of playing stab or be stabbed isn't traumatic enough to haunt men's dreams
      I'm willing to bet you're full of shit.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        not compared to sitting concussed in a trench getting shelled nonstop for days on end and there's absolutely nothing you can do but wait for the shell with your name on it, no, it's not stressful at all.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Yeah and a rape victim's traumatic event isn't equivalent to the battle of the fricking Somme, but they still can get PTSD. The question isn't how bad the trauma is compared to the arbitrary gold standard of traumatic events you picked, it's how bad the trauma was compared to the individual's norm.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Idk man... My lil cousin got raped by his coach. He said he still has nightmares from him whispering into his ear about when he's coming. I'm talking man on boy.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Do you often write pedophilic fanfics for your own amusement, anon?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >he thinks rape is real
            I think you forgot where you are, redditor

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              If rape isn't real, then how are there rape threads on /gif/? Checkmate homosexual.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The Romans sent to fight the Germanic people would disagree with you.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >there was this one battle that lasted for days so that proves all of them did

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yes. 100%. Lots of ancient cultures had different ways of dealing with it.

    For example, with the Zulu's, if you "wet your spear" for the first time in battle. You then leave your regiment (yeah, they had almost professional soldiers) and return to your home kraal (kinda like a stronghold where your family lives). On the way you must sleep with a woman, and per custom the woman cant quite refuse, and then when you get home there is a whole load of customs you go through but itt it was basically you getting counselling from your family elders and then a witchdoctor telling you
    >no dont feel bad, its okay, you are morally good.

    Humans are social animals, killing goes against our wiring. This is also the evolutionary explanation for why sociopath and psychopaths exist. There was a time when having someone in the tribe who can murder without feeling or consequence was quite the fricking asset.

    That's just addressing the nature element. The nurture element is a whole other thing. People back then were so fricking brutalized by life that they likely had PTSD stacked on PTSD.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      That was super fricking interesting.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yes and no, men in the pre-modern era certainly experienced shock, guilt and trauma. However what we call PTSD today is a product of modern warfare, particularly modern artillery and irregular warfare.

    In pre-modern and early industrial warfare , the distinction between combat and non-combat was definite, you could tell when you were in danger and you could see your enemy. As mentioned, men came away from this kind of conflict with guilt and fear, but not regularly the psychiatric condition we see today.

    Today we know that PTSD is especially caused by long-term exposure to danger or potential danger, especially without a clear definition between combat and non-combat. The prolonged possiblity of harm can be as impactful as the actual harm, such as being under artillery barrage for hours when a shell could stray and kill you. What we see with returning veterans of counterinsurgency operations is exposure to an environment where the possibility of attack is constant, and there is little indication of when combat or danger is present or not.

    these conditions wreak havoc on the limbic system and cause stressful memories to be imprinted on the thalamus and amygdala instead of the cerebral cortex, essentially hardwiring the events to the fear and emotion centers.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      /this
      my shrink explained this to me in fewer words. humans are designed to deal with short term stress, regardless of how intense it is. constant low or high intensity stress really fricks us up.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      /this
      my shrink explained this to me in fewer words. humans are designed to deal with short term stress, regardless of how intense it is. constant low or high intensity stress really fricks us up.

      i think another factor besides duration that's been found to affect the severity of your stress response is how much control you feel over the stressor
      which sense of control probably had more of in face to face melee combat compared to modern war when you're exactly as likely as the next guy to get popped by a shell or bullet from nowhere

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >how much control you feel over the stressor
        This is a good point. Not combat related, but burnout is a fairly common problem in the workplace, and it's been noticed that stress itself doesn't cause burnout, not even persistent stress. It's the lack of ability to do affect the situation that seems to cause the burnout.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    We've had this thread like EIGHT fricking times in the last month. It always ends up with francophiles and angloboos arguing with each other.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous
      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Idk man, between the repeat threads and the Ukraine bullshit, I just want a decent thread to talk about ancient and medieval shit.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          So do it? No one is stopping you from talking about whatever you want in this thread, or just making your own.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >he doesn't know that generals and Ukraine posting is the only things that gets discussed on this board

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >is literally posting with 19 other people in a thread that isn't either of those things
              whoa

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              You are a moronic homosexual, sorry for your loss anon.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Get that knight some milk!

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Apparently, Alexander's destruction of Thebes was so brutal and comprehensive that it affected his troops that participated in it greatly. Alexander himself is said to have regretted the excess of it thereafter.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    A fun rabbit hole to go down is the bicameral mind. In which you actually spoke to God/gods, which makes interpreting the Odyssey a bit different where he's guided to and after battle by communing with deities to express his battlefield grief. It's theorized that this is why God doesn't talk to us anymore.
    >or it's all spiritual mumbo jumbo bullshit lmoa

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Whacky 70s paperbacks ahoy.
      In general I think the gods in Homer are pitched right in that space where you can read it either way. What does it mean to think Athena spoke to you, are hallucinating some chick with a shield or is it just a bit of common sense asserting itself in your addled mind.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    They didn't even suspect about mental issues. I guess many suffered it but couldn't do much about it.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I don't think they kept the best medical records back then.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yes, but it was slightly different and they had way better coping mechanism due to cultural support.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Cancer didn't exist until the ancient Greeks came on the scene with their "democracy" and gave everyone cancer.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I once read a book of journals and diaries throughout history, and one of the first chapters was of a roman soldier who was struggling with living life normally because he found himself being paralyzed with fear, unable to stop the memories of fighting, and feeling ashamed that others had died when he didn't.

    His next entry was a short one, that he went to a friend's house and they made bread together, and that he really enjoyed making bread with his friend and was looking forward to making bread himself and doing it again with his friend.

    If anyone else can tell me the title of this book, I've lost it and would like to read it again. There were two other chapters that I remember: one was a journal entry of a woman who was in love with her husband's friend's wife, and was writing her romantic fantasies of her; the other was a guy who was journaling about how his friend was married to someone really bad for him, that they had another fight and she kicked him out of the house, and he was sleeping on his couch, and that he felt powerless to help his friend get though this.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    A big aspect of shell-shock and PTSD comes from modern weapons, especially artillery. Ancient soldiers didn't experience all that much actual fighting. Plus they'd generally be harder and more used to blood from an agrarian life, being used to slaughtering animals and such.
    But it's quite conceivable that some experience some psychological trauma from battle. But I imagine plenty of other fricked up shit would affect people even more.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >“When young men who are still growing are forced to enter military service and thus lose all hope of returning safe and sound to their beloved homeland, they become sad, taciturn, listless, solitary, musing, full of sighs and moans. Finally, these cease to pay attention and become indifferent to everything, which the maintenance of life requires of them,” wrote Auenbrugger in his 1761 book Inventum Novem. “Neither medicaments, nor arguments, nor promises, nor threats of punishment are able to produce any improvement.”

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Quite a good piece. I was going to cut and paste but its worth reading entire.
    https://www.historiamag.com/roman-ptsd/

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The ancient Greek historian Herodotus may have been one of the first to write about the emotional strain of combat. In his account of the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, the celebrated “Father of History” noted something akin to PTSD in the case of one veteran known only as Epizelus.

    During the battle, which saw a force of 10,000 Greeks repel a Persian invasion of more than twice that number, Epizelus suddenly and inexplicably lost his sight. He was pulled from the field, which was littered with nearly 200 Greek dead and the bodies of more than 6,000 Persians, and promptly examined by army surgeons. Although the physicians could find no wounds whatsoever, Epizelus explained to them that he somehow lost his sight moments after a terrifying and near-fatal brush with a Persian.

    “He said that a gigantic warrior, with a huge beard, which shaded all his shield, stood over against him. But the ghostly semblance passed him by, and slew the man at his side,” Herodotus wrote. [1]

    Looking back, it’s believed the encounter brought on a case of hysterical blindness in Epizelus, a condition occasionally seen in combat survivors. He never regained his sight.

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    they spoke a different language so it was different lettering

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      PTΣΔ

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If anything PTSD was more rampant and you were traumatized at a substantially younger agesback then. Life was primitive and short, even if you were among the highest social elite. Women died in childbirth, men died from health problems brought on by physically arduous work, everyone died of communicable diseases. By the time your average knight, samurai, or feudal levy reached fighting age, it would have been extremely UNCOMMON if he hadn't already experienced the death of a parent, a sibling, or a cousin.

    Such widespread trauma was also probably one of the major contributing factors to the extreme societal dysfunction of the medieval period, where murder rates and domestic abuse easily exceeded those of modern day Latin America (highest in the world).

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      you don't bat an eye about all the people dying and being maimed in automobile accidents in spite of it being an everyday, visible occurence. it's an accepted and normal part of your life, people have to drive.
      you don't see the forest for the trees and your modern bias has caused you to go full moron.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >b-but muh goresites and 5 seconds glimpses of red stains on the asphalt

        When was the last time you have seen a dead body outside of the internet? Cause jpgs and real, stiff, heavy and often smelly, deal are two entirely different things. Then there is the witnessing prolonged and acute suffering of other people, dealing with which these days is mostly relegated to dedicated institutions. Your grandma dying of pneumonia and drowning in her own fluids for days in a row would lie in the bed next to yours, not in some fancy hospice in another state. And thats just the ordinary peacetime event, wars, famines and plagues would be much worse, with added extreme violence and hopelesness.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Read The Iliad and get back to me.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Greeks were gay.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Perfect. You'll love it then.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's important to remember a few things:
    First, the standard of living was extremely low and from an early age most people were desensitized to violence and death. The world wasn't "tougher", people were just shittier to each other on a more regular basis. Piracy, brigandry, slavery, urban crime, mob justice. It was all rampant, only without modern police forces or governments to crackdown effectively on it. So seeing a dead body was not something you'd be surprised about by age 18.
    Second, casualties in warfare were relatively low. The focus was far more on blooding an enemy into routing than battles of annilation.
    Third, you'd spend far more time in camp or marching than in combat. In fact, combat probably made up the smallest percentage of time unless you were engaging in a siege - and even that was mostly just waiting.

    The modern soldier comes from a far more peaceful background, faces far more deadly weapons and tactics, and on an active frontline can expect to be in near constant combat until rotated out. There was a point probably somewhere in the early 19th century where technology outstripped humanity's psychological capacity to become desensitized to violence, and the end result is the outbreaks of PTSD during the US Civil War, WW1, WW2, and so forth.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      So the solution is that we should lower the standard of living across the board to create more hardened and effective fighters then?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yes
        >t. Sardaukar

  27. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Certainly. Tacitus described the legionnaires in France, they are prone to rioting and very bad moods.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      That may have been because Roman soldiers at the time were scumbags who got paid in loot they stole.

  28. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9mdx60/monday_methods_on_why_did_ancient_warriors_get/
    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eaupqm/did_ancient_civilians_get_ptsd_what_do_we_know_of/
    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/63ujea/are_there_any_examples_of_ptsd_from_early_wars_or/dfxds3i/

  29. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Men being haunted by the spirits of the slain is a tale as old as oral tradition.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      What about your mom show me her oral tradition?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Your mom has a better throat for oral practices. I confirmed it last night.

  30. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Every argument in this thread hinges on a narrow understanding of ancient and medieval warfare. Soldiers were exposed to danger way more often than in battles themselves, skirmishing, raiding and low scale, frequent clashes and incursions were normal, especially during foraging on campaign and sieges, the later could last several years on end even.

    Battles could also get unbelievably loud without needing explosions to deafen soldiers the clanging of metal during a mass melee is enough to cause severe hearing loss.

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