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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   24356 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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I don't mean to deny the reality of PTSD, symptoms of which were recorded in the medical literature as far back as ancient Greece, as a mechanistic biological response to extreme injury.

This is often raised as a point (alongside the Herodotus quote that is used to back it up for evidence) but the reality is far more interesting - there doesn't seem to be compelling evidence for the existence of PTSD in anything other than highly rare cases in the ancient and even medieval periods. PTSD is real, but it is not a simple correlation between experiencing death/danger -> PTSD, which raises some really interesting points about the nature of human trauma and experience that might tie into your argument.

I'm paraphrasing the arguments of Bret Devereaux here, who did a far better review of the evidence and lack thereof in this post, which is well worth a read for further detail, but anyway in summary:

First, PTSD is a very serious diagnostic term, which goes beyond experiencing grief or shame about a past event or an anxiety around entering a dangerous situation. PTSD requires:

one intrusion symptom (involuntary and instrusive memories, dreams, flashbacks, marked physiological reactions) and persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and two negative alterations in cognition and mood associated with the trauma and two marked alterations in arousal and reactivity associated with the trauma.

If you go looking for something in history, you'll find stories that could resemble the above here and there, the most famous being Herodotus' one. Quoting Bret:

... One thing you learn very rapidly as a historian is that if you go into a large evidence-base looking for something, you will find it. That’s not a species of research positivity – it’s a warning about confirmation bias, especially if you do not establish a standard of proof before your investigation. It is all too easy to define down your definition of ‘proof’ until the general noise of the source-base looks like proof. In this case, we have to ask – before we go looking – what would evidence of PTSD in ancient societies (I’m going to start there because it is where I am best informed) look like?

... There is one very frequently cited account in Herodotus (Hdt. 6.117) of a man named Epizelos experiencing what is generally understood as ‘conversion disorder’ (which used to be badly labeled ‘hysterical blindness’) in combat. Without being wounded he went blind at a sudden terror in battle and never recovered his sight. Herodotus terms it a θῶμα – a ‘wonder’ or ‘marvel,’ a word that explicitly implies the strange uncommonness of the tale. Herodotus is concerned enough about how exceptional this sounds that he is quick not to vouch for its veracity – he brackets the story (beginning and end) noting that it was what he was told (by someone else) that Epizelos used to say happened to him. In short, this was uncommon enough that Herodotus distances himself from it, so as not to be thought as a teller of tall-tales (though Herodotus is, in fact, a teller of tall tales).

This one example – cited endlessly and breathlessly in internet articles – is remarkable not because it is typical, but because it is apparently very unusual (also, it is my understanding – with the necessary caveat that I am not an expert – that while conversion disorder is a consequence of emotional trauma, it is not clear that it is associated with PTSD more generally). Meanwhile, in the war literature of the Romans, in their poetry (including that by folks like Horace, who fought in quite terrible battles), in the military literature of the Greeks, in the reflections of Xenophon (both on his campaigns and his commands), in the body of Greek lyric poetry…all of it – nothing. It is simply not there – not as a concern that such a condition might befall someone, nor a report that it had done so. Nothing. The lacuna baffled me for years.

Taking a step back, if PTSD was common this seems impossible. A majority of adult free males in many of these societies experienced combat for several century periods in our sample (during the Second Punic war, only a few thousand out of a body of 150,000 eligible men avoided serving). It's unlikely that such societies would put any possible PTSD symptoms in their victory speeches, but we have a huge body of other material where symptoms might appear if they are common (medical texts, private texts, histories where the conquered are discussed, candid advice for Abbots dealing with knights retiring to monasteries etc.) and there is... nothing. Societies might not want these stories front and center, but plenty of things that were embarrassing were still recorded. If PTSD occurred at modern rates it should be everywhere and impossible to brush under the carpet (like in WW1), instead there is simply very little to suggest PTSD was anything more than incredibly rare in a world where violence was very common.

There are a few theories as to why. I think it might be something along the lines of how violence was considered at least for part of the period - a necessary part of masculinity and a good thing and uplifting, rather than a burden that some must carry for society - but that can't be all of it. Possibly the universality of the experience of combat in peers helped (if you fought, it was highly likely you had a lot of peers that did too that you could relate to), and the positive social status of veterans (no Vietnam war protests in Republican Rome, and again combat was viewed as a positive source of virtue not a pollutant of the soul). Interestingly, they also commonly had rituals for entering and exiting military modes to civilian ones, which perhaps allowed some compartmentalization. It might also be the nature of modern combat - artillery, ambush, IED, long periods on the front in danger but not quite sure when, but this is also difficult to be certain on - sieges had a fair amount of the above and were the modal form of warfare for periods. We kind of just do not know why it was so low.

However, I do think it's very interesting in general - I would say that PTSD as a response to trauma is certainly not a sign of moral failing (it's closer to altitude sickness, a bit of a dice roll - I have ancestors who fought in both WW1 and WW2 and loved combat despite repeated wounds), but rates can change and we don't understand so much about it. Pushing people away from it at the margin without returning to a warrior society like Rome seems an achievable goal, but that would require a big change in lots of our thinking - I'm really interested how we might do so though.

Taking a step back, if PTSD was common this seems impossible.

Could have just been a mistake on my part! I don't have the historical expertise to weigh in further.

I do know that the concept of "war neurosis" was known to Freud, so the concept at least predates our "modern" (post-WW2) culture.

No no not at all, I absolutely assumed that it must be true that PTSD has been with us everywhere before I read Bret's argument, and maybe someone here has something that in convincing the other way - for what it is worth I am not a historian and I assume that PTSD symptoms must have emerged before WW1 more commonly than reported, but that does seem to be the big break when it became impossible to ignore - followed by later developments like Vietnam that Scott discusses.

In many ways I find its relative absence more interesting in many ways, and it might give us clues as to why people experience it if we can explain the reason it emerged.

This is often raised as a point (alongside the Herodotus quote that is used to back it up for evidence) but the reality is far more interesting - there doesn't seem to be compelling evidence for the existence of PTSD in the ancient and even medieval periods. PTSD is real, but it is not a simple correlation between experiencing death/danger -> PTSD, which raises some really interesting points about the nature of human trauma and experience that might tie into your argument.

When listening to Daniele Bolelli's podcast on conquest of Mexico by Cortez, he mentioned first hand description of PTSD by conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who wrote about it in his memoirs Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Here is the relevant excerpt from page 115 of second volume:

The reader will remember above that I stated how we could see the Mexicans sacrificing our unfortunate countrymen; how they ripped open their breasts, tore out their palpitating hearts, and offered them to their abominable idols. This sight made a horrible impression on my mind, yet no one must imagine that I was wanting either in courage or determination; on the contrary, I fearlessly exposed myself in every engagement to the greatest dangers, for I felt that I had courage. It was my ambition at that time to pass for a good soldier, and I certainly bore the reputation of being one; and what any of our men ventured, I ventured also, as every one who was present can testify; yet I must confess that I felt terribly agitated in spirit when I each day saw some of my companions being put to death in the dreadful manner above mentioned, and I was seized with terror at the thought that I might have to share a similar fate! Indeed the Mexicans had on two different occasions laid hold of me, and it was only through the great mercy of God that I escaped from their grasp.

I could no longer divest myself of the thoughts of ending my life in this shocking manner, and each time, before we made an attack upon the enemy, a cold shudder ran through my body, and I felt oppressed by excessive melancholy. It was then I fell upon my knees, and commended myself to the protection of God and the blessed Virgin; and from my prayers I rushed straightway into the battle, and all fear instantly vanished. This feeling appeared the more unaccountable to me, since I had encountered so many perils at sea, fought so many sanguinary battles in the open field, been present on so many dangerous marches through forests and mountains, stormed and defended so many towns; for there were very few great battles fought by our troops in New Spain in which I was not present. In these perils of various natures I never felt the fear I did subsequent to that time when the Mexicans captured sixty-two of our men, and we were compelled to see them thus slaughtered one by one, without being able to render them assistance. I leave those cavaliers to judge who are acquainted with war, and know from experience what dangers a man is exposed to in battle, whether it was want of courage which raised this feeling in me. Certain it is that I each day pictured to myself the whole extent of the danger into which I was obliged to plunge myself; nevertheless, I fought with my accustomed bravery, and all sensation of fear fled from me as soon as I espied the enemy.

Lastly, I must acquaint the reader that the Mexicans never killed our men in battle if they could possibly avoid it, but merely wounded them, so far as to render them incapable of defending themselves, in order that they might take as many of them alive as possible, to have the satisfaction of sacrificing them to their warrior-god Huitzilopochtli, after they had amused themselves by making them dance before him, adorned with feathers.

There definitely are more PTSD-like descriptions of especially brutal fights from history, especially from prolonged fightings. I think it is related to continuous stress such as in trenches of WW1 moreso than just one battle or even series of battles. For instance Jan Sobieski describes sense of hyper-vigilance of people he liberated from Turks in Vienna, who were still on the verge of panic even after the Turks were defeated.

I always love a good conquistador story - in some ways they're the closest thing we have to experiencing actual alien invasions and both Mexico and Peru saw stories that are better than most fiction. I would advise everyone to read the Peru one for sure - literally a few hundred men with a few horses soloed tens of thousands of soldiers with no native support - it's fairly wild.

Back to your point, I think this is where the clinical definitions of PTSD come in that I linked to before. PTSD is not being afraid, or guilty, or experiencing agitation seeing your comrades get sacrificed one by one by people you cannot stop and then going to fight them anyway. I am not a psychiatrist, but as I understand it PTSD goes much much beyond that, it's post for a start, and your Spaniard exhibits fear during a multi day battle in the Mexican capital that he masters and fights on to victory in the campaign. He meets critera A - experiencing trauma, but that's kind of a baseline of being in combat. However, the others are clearly not met, remembering an old fear during a multi day battle as a soldier is extremely far from PTSD and I encourage the reader to run down the list for themselves to see the stark differences. I see no "Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred" exactly the opposite there, he's discussing it and saying I was afraid, it was correct to be, but we overcame. Also, no "Negative alterations in cognitions and mood associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by two (or more) of the following:" for an extended period afterwards, and the same for all the other markers - this is someone overcoming an understandable fear in the immediate term, not PTSD.

I would also caution you to read Bret's admonition again about defining the strength of evidence you would need prior to your search - you are going to see historical evidence of people following battles, near misses, sieges etc. being on edge and jumpy, especially if the danger/war is still present. That is not PTSD, it is being a sensible human, unless it goes into the clinical territory above. Civilians following a siege would be prime material for PTSD, but as far as I understand we do not see it nearly as much as in modern times (Malta being a classic too where it is absent), and the silence is very very interesting. Certainly SOME must have met the threshold for PTSD, the Siege of Vienna would be a prime candidate to cause it and I would assume that rates climbed well before WW1, but there is still a hole where the evidence would be if it was in any way common.

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