King Henry V's English army killed many French prisoners of war after the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Later, Clovis I ( r. 481–511) liberated captives after Genevieve urged him to do so. Mongol riders with prisoners, 14th centuryĪccording to legend, during Childeric's siege and blockade of Paris in 464 the nun Geneviève (later canonised as the city's patron saint) pleaded with the Frankish king for the welfare of prisoners of war and met with a favourable response. In the fourth century AD, Bishop Acacius of Amida, touched by the plight of Persian prisoners captured in a recent war with the Roman Empire, who were held in his town under appalling conditions and destined for a life of slavery, took the initiative in ransoming them by selling his church's precious gold and silver vessels and letting them return to their country. Typically women had no rights, and were held legally as chattels. Sometimes the purpose of a battle, if not of a war, was to capture women, a practice known as raptio the Rape of the Sabines involved, according to tradition, a large mass-abduction by the founders of Rome. Typically, victors made little distinction between enemy combatants and enemy civilians, although they were more likely to spare women and children. Homer's Iliad describes Greek and Trojan soldiers offering rewards of wealth to opposing forces who have defeated them on the battlefield in exchange for mercy, but their offers are not always accepted see Lycaon for example. Early Roman gladiators could be prisoners of war, categorised according to their ethnic roots as Samnites, Thracians, and Gauls ( Galli).
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