The depravities of ancient societies

Three places come to mind that have ancient and biblical associations with depravity and evil: Sodom, Gomorrah, and Babylon. But were they really more evil than anywhere else?

And then of course there is the Roman decadence.

There is a lot of material about the Roman decadence out there, but not so much, it seems, about the three cities mentioned above. Why did Babylon, for example, get a reputation for evil? I'm guessing its because of the period of captivity of the Israeli tribes there, who then villanized it in the bible. Was it truly a place of evil?

If anyone has any links to good reading about the depravitiy of these ancient societies, be it true or false, I'd be much obliged.

reply to post by silent thunder


The Romans got depravity down to a fine art. Especially Caligula (Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus)!

Surviving sources present a number of stories about Caligula that illustrate cruelty and insanity.

The contemporaneous sources, Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger, describe an insane emperor who was self-absorbed, angry, killed on a whim, and who indulged in too much spending and sex. He is accused of sleeping with other men's wives and bragging about it, killing for mere amusement, purposely wasting money on his bridge, causing starvation, and wanting a statue of himself erected in the Temple of Jerusalem for his worship.

While repeating the earlier stories, the later sources of Suetonius and Cassius Dio add additional tales of insanity. They accuse Caligula of incest with his sisters, Agrippina, Drusilla and Julia Livilla, and say he prostituted them to other men. They state he sent troops on illogical military exercises. They also allege he turned the palace into a brothel. Perhaps most famously, they say that Caligula tried to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul and a priest.

The validity of these accounts is debatable. In Roman political culture, insanity and sexual perversity were often presented hand-in-hand with poor government.

Source: Wikipedia

It could be argued that Caligula wrote the handbook that shapes many of our politicians behaviors today!

IRM

[edit on 15/5/09 by InfaRedMan]

Our society is equally as depraved as any ancient culture, perhaps even more so.

Don't get me wrong, I feel profoundly fortunate to have been born into this generation with it's great leaps of scientific advancement, but human beings are a fundamentally flawed animal.

All of us fantasize about violent acts, as much as we like to pretend we don't in public. It's simple human nature. When you see a man standing on the top of a building, you stop and watch. Not because you're necessarily a bad person, but because it's human nature to want to see what happens. The drama of life and death.

We don't go so far as public executions (well, for the most part) or gladiatorial to-the-death bloodmatches, but with the help of the internet, to date, three people that I'm aware of have committed suicide live on webcam.

Each of these broadcasts attracted hundreds of viewers, and in one case it was something like 1,800. They were egged on by their viewers, and in the most recent case a young man overdosed on a large number of the prescription drug Xanax and lay dead in his bed for 4 hours until the police were notified. They burst into his room, much to the amusement of the viewers, and promptly cut off the stream.

All civilizations have their own particular brutalities, and I don't believe that it's ever going to change. Unfortunately.

reply to post by silent thunder


You know what makes me sick? That we have not evolved more.
We still think it is ok, that while a CHILD IS STARVING, we can carry on with our PATHETIC lives.

Stay on topic guys! This is about ancient societies. If you wish to make social commentaries about modern days - create another thread.

There are already enough threads on this forum whining about the ills of today.

IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Hey, ss, didn't mean to get into your thread,