Monday Youtube Post

I enjoy history so much because I always try to put myself in their shoes. But pre-gunpowder battle always escapes me. I just can’t envision it. Think about it. Modern war is civilized in comparison. These people were forced to march onto the battlefield, rip apart the flesh of other human beings, and become serial killers. Just try to think about what the battlefield must have looked like at the end of the day. An estimate of how much blood was on the ground after the dust settled at Cannae is about 30,000 gallons — and that’s a low number. Add that to the amount of people on the ground who are still dying. Cutting is messy. You’re often not going to die immediately. So at Cannae, you got at least 50,000 of the dead and dying basking in a blood swamp in the hot August sun. Hannibal himself was said to have been shocked. You talk about post-traumatic stress disorder in the modern sense? Just imagine what the survivors of these battles had to live with for the rest of their lives. Now try to imagine these people as the same species as us. Don’t let anyone tell you we’re not living in the most peaceful time in the history of the world.