Pre-Modern Battlefields (2015)
There&#x27;s a pretty telling anecdote in Suetonius&#x27;s life of Augustus where &quot;[Augustus] sold a Roman knight and his property at public auction, because he had cut off the thumbs of two young sons, to make them unfit for military service&quot; (24). In fact, this was apparently not uncommon, with several more references to similar self-inflicted injuries to avoid service popping up in various texts. I think there were also direct reforms put in place that specified that men without fingers could still be deemed fit for service (I think this might have been the late imperial period but unfortunately the precise source was found in a library book that I don&#x27;t have access to at the moment).<p>While war is obviously still horrific, I think it&#x27;s a bit easier to forget that when discussing history when we don&#x27;t have particularly realistic images to base our imaginations. That even the Romans, at the height of its power, feared sending their sons to war, kinda counters the notion that conquest was this glorious, honorable thing that built an empire and made men like Caesar into the immortal gods we remember.