Why were ancient romans so cruel?

Why were ancient romans so cruel?

Jews

>implying that if they did it today and live on tv you wouldn't wanna watch

Necessity and daily occurrence in their lives. A man had to be brutal and merciless in upholding his country, homes and social cohesion, otherwise other more brutal men would trample all over it.
We are no different in the end, and there will come time in our lives where we understand fully why they were so brutal, don't you worry user.

Violence is fun to watch, only difference is nowadays we can get our fill from TV, movies, video games etc.

Didn't they let Gladiators live most of the time when they lost a fight? I remember hearing that killing the participants was a rarity outside of slaves/people sentenced to death.

WWE would lose all but 1 person in it's roster within two months if they had every match be to the death.

That one person being brock lesnar of course.

Everyone but me must learn

Life in general was cruel back then.
Cities were essentially giant threshers for the lower classes, who would come in from the country-side in search of work, live for a few years, then die of plague.

Life was cheap, the dead were plentiful, so no one cared.

For a while. Interesting tidbit, the gladiator fights were not cancelled because it was against decency or humanity, but because people grew bored of it. Even the poet Cicero spoke publicly against it for its mundane mindlesness and repetitiveness.
We would be no different.

no TV, no internet
so the state took it upon themselves to make sure their citizens received a controlled, safe supply of snuff and bestiality porn instead of them forming up gangs and making their own

then why haven't we got bored of football, boxing, or wrestling yet?

Romans were badass. Gladiators were like modern day wrestlers and usually didn't die. Instead of slaughtering their enemies like 99% of people did back then they gave them new lives.

It was used as a distraction to keep the people amused and away from realizing the trouble that was brewing
much like facebook and the internet in general these days
also people are still cruel look at cockfights or any of that kind of shit
also UFC
that's pretty fucked up if you ask me

Because it is not a blood sport.

Blood sports follow another psychological pattern, where it must get more and more extreme each time.
It's like watching gore or even porn.

yeah the romans were so cruel. the Vikings were saints, like the Mongols, british, persians, spanish...

>Didn't they let Gladiators live most of the time when they lost a fight?
Yeah. Wouldn't be much to show if all your gladiators died in a week.

That is also the reason why Roman empire never got to the industrial phase - sicknessess would kill most people in their relatively young age and the high infant mortality rate caused that they never created a class that would focus their entire lives on industrial improvements.
It is actually the only difference between us, our society and the population of Roman empire. They even managed to construct a functional steam engine.

Yeah they had celebrity athletes with sponsors, marketing campaigns and everything. Those guys in the nice dyed togas were not going to lose their investment over one battle just so the plebians can get their deathblow fix and go wild

Because people who watch sports have investment in their teams, their wins and their losses. Would people watch those sports if half of the team would be dead at the end of the match and replaced by some unknown schmuck?

Been saying this for a while
Modern day Gladiator battles when?

I wish they let Death Row inmates choose gladiatorial battles with other Death Row inmates as a alternative to lethal injection.

If I'm ever on death row, I'm going to say it against my viking religion to be killed outside of battle.

Romans killed Jews and Christians and Muslims

>muslims

Contrary to what Hollyjew has said, gladiators were volunteers, and, for the most part, could come and go from their ludus as they wanted. They were basically the superstars of their day, the richest one being the equivalent of a billionaire in today's terms.
Cruel? Maybe. But don't pretend that we've changed our ways; that we're insatiable for death and money. Fucking leaves.

A FUCKING LEAF

Bread and circuses. If you watch any sort of professional sports, you are just as bad as them.

You mean they were cruel to gladiators? I would wanted be a slave gladiator than an enemy of Rome.

Because life shit all over them so they got over it and fucked life right up the ass while punching it's skull it

If we don't re-learn how to be cruel, then our race is doomed.

Humans are cruel creatures in general. We've improved in many aspects, but overall, we're still a flawed and asshole of a species. Maybe our AI overlords will be much kinder.

The Roman state was built on war and the games were so the populous did not get soft in luxury.

I'm not bored of porn yet and kids never seem to get bored of generic first person shooters which are also a blood sport. gladiator arenas just need to aim for a younger audience like video game developers do.