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GSilky t1_ja428ma wrote

Reply to comment by Rahodees in Weekly History Questions Thread. by AutoModerator

It was common place for a long time, and leaving people alive after a conquest is usually a stage in social development. You see it in the middle east ancient history. For a long time it was a tribe coming out of the desert or hills replacing the existing people wholesale. Then you see people like the Assyrians taking slaves and relocating whole populations. The Babylonians would only take the leadership class and eventually the Persians took only taxes to everyone's acclaim (it has been offered that the messiah mentioned in the Tanakh was Cyrus or maybe Darius, ICR which).

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Rahodees t1_ja4c4y2 wrote

>eventually the Persians took only taxes to everyone's acclaim

That's interesting, was it seen as like a surprising innovation, or something people often hoped for but rarely saw happen?

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GSilky t1_ja4zfou wrote

I think it was the influence of a more cosmopolitan outlook, it was certainly a first, afaik, but that is also an over gloss, it was more complicated of course, but that is the traditional textbook take. I personally think that it depends on the time and place, while mercy has been developed by today, it's always been present in individuals, there are surprisingly modern examples of this type of behavior, I would think that the knowledge of past behavior like being discussed was also not necessarily the norm, but those bizarre headline grabbing scenarios of today.

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