Was ancient warfare more gruesome? Any accounts of PTSD in ancient

probably
since ancient everything was more gruesome

who knows, probably half the populace had experienced trauma that would cause ptsd in modern humans

Are you the same guy who makes these PTSD threads every day? Fuck off already.

Nah, modern artillery and shit turns people inside out. Ancient soldiers probably didnt have to deal with picking up their comrade's giblets spread over a square mile.

As far as barbarism that happens in war like cutting cocks off corpses and stuffing it in their mouths, that still happens today.

The world wars were probably more gruesome than all ancient conflicts combined.

>>2538904
PTSD only happens when you put pussy men who have lived their entire lives in comfort into a high-stress battle situation. Ancient warriors didn't experience that because they were mentally trained for war.

I mean, think about it, if war caused all the psychological side effects as it did now, only those who somehow didn't experience them would have survived.

>>2538932
>PTSD only happens when you put pussy men who have lived their entire lives in comfort into a high-stress battle situation
That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard on this board. Congrats.

>>2538932
>PTSD only happens when you put pussy men who have lived their entire lives in comfort into a high-stress battle situation
wew lad all those people who fought in ww1 and ww2 sure were massive fucking pussies
I'm sure you're a lot braver than they are

>>2538932
t. suburban tough guy

>>2538932
yeah, nigga, I'm sure that all those people that wrote about how much they suffered after being soldiers since ancient times were just fucking pussies, hahahaha, real men just suck it up, :)

you're a pathetic fucker if you didn't know it before

I think there are references going as far back as the American Civil War referring to people with PTSD like symptoms. Some medical theories hold that PTSD is the result of brain trauma which can be more easily caused due to massive explosions, though a severe beating can do the trick.

It's probable that people did have PTSD in the ancient era, was probabl less frequent, may have written out of history as cowards.

I read that certain ancient cultures militarily suffered because their practice of war wasn't as brutally efficient as others'.
The ancient Celts, medieval Irish, and the opponents of the Zulu "Impis" lost because they weren't used to the close-order melee fighting their enemies faced them with, most of those societies being geared towards champion combat and/or skirmishing.
Whether it's because of instinctive revulsion of large-scale killing, or simply fear and lack of trust in the phalanx/shield wall, I don't know, but I'd be inclined to say the latter.
The lack of training for both (but moreso the latter) is what I think the biggest issue was in those days. It is worth noting that generally there was some way of separating the mass-murderous close combatants from those who were dying, be it large, wall-like shields, extra-long pikes, very heavy armour, or guns.

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>>2538932
Sure mate keep telling yourself that

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>>2538904
It was gruesome in its own way. The skirmishes and melee engagements were fast, brutal, up close, and bloody. That being said, they were over with. Modern warfare exposes soldiers to slow, cunning, prolonged, and unstable forms of war. Each taxes the brain and body differently. Modern soldiers experiencing PTSD could share some feelings with their ancient warrior brethren... but each would have their own experiences as well.

I remember a story of an Athenian going blind after the battle of Marathon for a while. Conversion disorder that plagued the poor man after what he witnessed in that bloody melee is far different than the trench shellings French soldiers underwent during WWI... but they too had fits called "Shell Shock".

>>2538932
t. gamer

>>2539102
>The skirmishes and melee engagements were fast, brutal, up close, and bloody. That being said, they were over with.

Not to be nitpicky but I bet sieges really messed with people a lot too. Especially the ones that went on for months, food running out, eating rats, horses, and boiled leather to stay alive.
Seeing your buddy catch an arrow with his neck while you're standing on the walls or just sitting down to eat.
A rock from a catapult crippling some one who happened to be in the wrong place.

Your skill at arms is more likely to see you through melee combat than for instance trench warfare.

Bombs and artillery don't give a shit. Some theorize that PTSD has more to do with prolonged stress and a sense of powerlessness. So while medieval warfare was brutal as fuck, you have more capable of defending yourself, and you'd also know when you'll be fighting. WW1 trench warfare is a constantly potentially life threatening situation on the frontline, or the skirmishy nature of modern combat of hide and seek which requires constant vigilance and can easily start and end with taking a bullet to the face or being smeared across the dirt by an explosion out of nowhere.

>>2538955
he is still right, WW soldiers were barely trained kids thrown into meat grinders instead of men born in a warrior caste that trained their entire life

>>2539357
WW weren't that bad in that regard, Vietnam was where it got crazy.

N-n-n-n-nineteen.

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>>2539357
>medieval peasant levy
>trained warrior class

>>2539428
WW1 and 2 had kids lying about their age, such that some soldiers were as young as 14.

One of the youngest Victoria Cross recipients ever was 16, and he fought at Jutland.

>>2539305
le just standing here while those trebuchets are hurling rocks at us.

www.newhistorian.com/ptsd-found-ancient-warriors/2835/

Enjoy, anon.

>>2538932
Patton pls go

>>2538932
-t arm chair warrior

>>2539512
My uncle lied to get into Korea at 16 then was at Vietnam by 18
Fucking why lol

>>2539463
the average medieval peasant has seen/went through their fair share of shit

>>2538925
Also, ancient tactics helped (unintentionally) prevent PTSD, because you would often be fighting in a tight formation with all your buddies next to you. And yea, artillery's a helluva drug.

>>2538904
Ancient people had to have more resilience, so PTSD is unlikely.

>>2541437
Yea. Cow shit.

Rather than combat and war being a one-off deal like in modern times, guys in ancient times were by default expected to be ready to fight.

Mortality was more common.

There wasn't artillery and gunfire to fuck with your senses.

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>>2541003
>nu historian

>>2539102

I look like that every day. It's why I don't go outside. People call 911.

>>2541602

It's the article that have a link to the research. You can google "PTSD mesopotamia" and results/interviews will show.

>>2538904
Ancient combat didn't exert the same level of constant stress that modern conflicts do i.e. no threat from IEDs, artillery/air strikes, long range sniping, or other threats that the individual soldier has no control over.

Plus it is easier to reconcile killing another man when he is within arms length, and is actively trying to skewer you.

>>2541370
Those numbers don't add up, anon. There was a decade or so between those conflicts.

>>2538904
Why do you keep making these threads? There's several differences between modern and ancient warfare, but there are records of PTSD like symptoms of ancient warriors. Only they obviously didn't understand mental health the way we do now.

It was believed people were being haunted by the ghosts of the men they killed, people berzerking, etc. You see this going as far back as ancient Greece. Cases of what sound like PTSD described by Homer.

But on top of that you have to understand the nature of warfare changed completely. In ancient times, most of your time was spent in camp or marching. When battles came they were harsh but you had all of your buddies and neighbors around you and after a couple of battles one side gave up cause they couldn't fight anymore. Generally speaking causality rates were low in battles and casualties came from poor sanitation and desertion before and after the battle. But you had periods of time where you could turn off and stress was contained to battles.

Modern warfare is different. Artillery in the turn of the century and the modern trend of insurgency make it where you are in a state of stress all the time. A shell can hit you at any moment, any turn can be a kill zone, and even at base there's a chance you can get hit by mortars. This puts a fuck ton of strain on the mind that doesn't go away until you actually leave the deployment zone. When soldiers comeback, as Rambo said "you can't just turn it off." the state of mind has been completely altered.

>>2538932
t. Patton

>>2539305
PTSD is your brain trying its hardest to keep you safe by constantly making you remember the possible cause of death via trauma. If a human played with lions, the brain causes PTSD to ensure you stay away from lions.

>>2538904
Jayatunge, Ruwan M. The Psychophysical Effects of Combat from the Ancient Times to Modern Day. LankaWeb. 2010.
>Along with Jayatunge’s History of PTSD (2011), also on LankaWeb, provides sweeping historical coverage of this subject. A brief but good springboard to the other overviews.
Hastings, Max, ed. The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
>Full of fascinating examples of combat from ancient, medieval, and early modern times that can be compared with the modern literature on psychiatric casualties to demonstrate the long history of these wartime debilitations.
Mumford, David B. “Somatic Symptoms and Psychological Distress in the Iliad of Homer.” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 41.2 (1996): 139–148.
>Interesting discussion of probable conversion reactions reflected in Homer’s epic poem about the sacking of Troy. Available online for purchase.
Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1995.
DOI: 10.1016/0022-3999(96)00091-8
>Influenced by his treatment of Vietnam veterans with PTSD, Shay mines the Iliad to find many probable examples of this and other combat reactions in Homer’s descriptions of Achilles and Patroclus.
Meineck, Peter, and David Konstan, eds. 2014. Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks. New Antiquity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
>Collection of papers on the emotional response to combat, covering different approaches, case studies, and methodologies.
Tritle, Lawrence A. 2000. From Melos to My Lai: War and survival. London: Routledge.
>An expansion of the comparative approach presented in Shay 1995, surveying how ancient Greeks coped with the experience of violence.

>>2542092
Chaniotis, Angelos. 2013. Greeks under siege: Challenges, experiences, and emotions. In The Oxford handbook of warfare in the classical world. Edited by Brian Campbell and Lawrence A. Tritle, 438–456. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
>Overview of Greek siege practices, with updated discussion and bibliography. It particularly emphasizes the experiences on both sides.
Kern, Paul Bentley. 1999. Ancient siege warfare. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.
>General study on siege warfare in the ancient world, emphasizing the traumatic experience of sieges and their peculiarities against other land military operations. Chapters on Greek siege warfare, pp. 89–250.
Hammond, Nicholas G. L. 1989. Casualties and reinforcements of citizen soldiers in Greece and Macedonia. Journal of Hellenic Studies
>An introductory study of the practices to deal with the challenge of combat casualties by Greek communities. Good assessment of the topic.
Krentz, Peter. 1985. Casualties in hoplite battles. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 26.1: 13–29.
>Fundamental paper on casualties in classical Greek battles, according to the main literary sources. Essential and compelling.
Tritle, Lawrence A. 1997. Hektor’s body: Mutilation of the dead in ancient Greece and Vietnam. Ancient History Bulletin
>Another aspect of the treatment of the dead in combat: mutilation and humiliation of the enemy’s dead. Interesting comparison with practices in the Vietnam War.
van Wees, Hans, ed. 2000. War and violence in ancient Greece. London: Duckworth.
>Collection of papers on violence in Greek culture, dealing with the psychology and sociology of violent behavior and its influence on attitudes toward combat and performance in it.