Well it helps one keep perspective.
e.g. Siege of Merv by the Mongols 1221AD. When Merv finally surrendered. Ghenghis Khan ordered the death of its inhabitants for resisting. The Arab Chronicler Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ash-Shaybānī records 700,000 were slaughtered in a day.
Now that's by hand, swords, axes, arrows, knives etc.
Compared to modern casualties from atomic bombs, gas, bullets, artillery shells, cruise missiles, drones etc. Hiroshima, The Somme, Stalingrad, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields. One can only say that Hitler and Pol Pott were amateurs, and we should put aside our arrogance that we moderns are more knowledgeable or can do things far more efficiently than the Ancients.
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