I’m old, bold & when the real TRUTH is told, “I $old out to Jesus!”
When you Can’t Dazzle Them with Brillance. Baffle Them with Bullshit 🙂
CBS Evening News, July 13, 2022 -CBS News
Demented Slo-Jo ~ Last Night on CBS News – Biden proved once again he is a liar.
He stated that he’s trying not to allow Iran to have Nuclear Ability unlike his predecessor.
Whereas Trump I believe sanctioned the hell out of Iran to prevent this from happening!
So, one of my readers asked this question:
We often hear of “killing the messenger,” but how dangerous was it, really, to be a messenger bearing bad news or unwelcome demands in Classical or Medieval Time.
Was there an unwritten (or written, for that matter) code protecting messengers? Was killing them frowned upon to the point that even absolute rulers or warlords would face some opprobrium? Or was this a job that nobody wanted because it was totally unsafe?
On that last point, a follow-up: who became messengers, and why? Obviously, there were high-level delegates and envoys, but I’m thinking more of the “little guy,” — some poor schmuck who has to tell Attila that he’d better get out of Roman territory, for example.
Europe/Near East/North Africa?
ANSWER:
Much like Ancient China, Medieval Iran and The Clintonian Tribe of today ~ they have a history of killing the messenger. That’s an interesting and really broad question, so I’ll just deal with the Roman period. There were numerous factors protecting the bearers of bad news in this period. Messengers within Republican Rome itself to the Senate, for instance, could be anybody: they could be civilians carrying news from somewhere else. They may not have been citizens or even Latins, so they did not necessarily have legal protection. For a start, the Romans, like everybody else we’re basically not in the habit of hurting or killing people who brought them news for the very practical reason that ‘shooting the messenger’ might mean you got no more (accurate) messages.
Plutarch castigates Tigranes of Armenia for such a foolish act: “Since the first messenger who told Tigranes that Lucullus was coming had his head cut off for his pains, no one else would tell him anything, and so he sat in ignorance while the fires of war were already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him and said that Lucullus would be a great general if he ventured to withstand Tigranes at Ephesus, and did not fly incontinently from Asia at the mere sight of so many myriads of men.” (Plut. Luc. 25.1)
In the Imperial period,
Messengers within the Empire were usually soldiers, but they worked giving messages to Imperial authorities. As citizens they were both more and less vulnerable to being ‘shot’ as the messenger: they were subject to Disciplina militar which denied many of the rights to safety and appeal of the civilian citizen, but on the other hand their being soldiers meant they could generally only be executed for a military reason, lest an official or officer upset the local soldiers, which could be very fatal for them. Mutiny was perhaps the Imperial soldier’s most important protection from unreasonable violence from superiors.
So ‘shooting the messenger’ was not a great option for soldiers either.
I would not be surprised to find examples of certain Roman Emperors who are unpopular in the literature committing such an act (I can’t think of any at the moment), but these would be looked upon with scorn by the writer and used as an example of that particular Emperor’s bad character. For the Romans, the reputation of their nation and the high status of their messengers might also protect them from harm.
The story of Gaius Popilius Laenas single-handedly facing down Antiochus IV and his army in Egypt to prevent them from attacking the Ptolemies, a Roman ally, is instructive:
“At the time when Antiochus approached Ptolemy and meant to occupy Pelusium, Caius Popilius Laenas,
The Roman commander, on Antiochus greeting him from a distance and then holding out his hand, handed to the king, as he had it by him, the copy of the Senatus-consultum, and told him to read it first, not thinking it proper, as it seems to me, to make the conventional sign of friendship before he knew if the intentions of him who was greeting him were friendly or hostile. But when the king, after reading it, said he would like to communicate with his friends about this intelligence, Pompiliu’s acted in a manner which was thought
to be offensive and exceedingly arrogant. He was carrying a stick cut from a vine, and with this, he drew a circle round Antiochus and told him he must remain inside this circle until he gave his decision about the contents of the letter.
The king was astonished at this authoritative proceeding, but, after a few moments’ hesitation, said he would do all that the Romans demanded. Upon this Pompilius and his suite, all grasped him by the hand and greeted him warmly. The letter ordered him to put an end at once to the war with Ptolemy. So, as a fixed number of days were allowed to him, he led his army back to Syria, deeply hurt and complaining indeed, but yielding to circumstances for the present.”
Proverbs 29:27 Commentaries: An unjust man is abominable to the righteous,
and he who is upright in the way is abominable to the wicked. (biblehub.com)
Even so, note the suggestion that Laena acted arrogantly. Even in the ancient world,
where harsh and threatening “compel Lence diplomacy” was the norm, this was pretty wild conduct (Eckstein, 2006, 173). Even between intense enemies, diplomats (usually Senators) seem to have been able to expect safety. See Hannibal in Spain blowing off the diplomatic party from Rome at the outbreak of the Second Punic War while in the process of attacking a Roman ally: “In the meantime, an account was received, that ambassadors had arrived from Rome; on which Hannibal sent messengers to the seashore, to meet them, and to acquaint them, that it would not be safe for them to come to him, through the armed bands of so many savage nations; and, besides, that, in the present critical state of affairs, he had not leisure to listen to embassies.
He saw clearly, that on being refused audience, they would proceed immediately to Carthage: he, therefore, dispatched messengers and letters beforehand, to the leaders
of the Barsine faction, charging them to prepare their friends to act with spirit, so that
the other party should not be able to carry any point in favor of the Romans. Thus, the embassy there proved equally vain and fruitless, excepting that the ambassadors were received and admitted to the audience.”
(Livy 21.10). Livy: Book XXI (thelatinlibrary.com) | Google Translate
10 Therefore, besides what they were admitted and heard, the embassy was also vain and invalid. One Hanno negotiated with the senate the cause of the treaty with great silence on account of his authority, and not with the approval of his audience, by the gods as arbitrators and witnesses of the treaties, appealing that they should not make war on the Romans against the Saguntines; that he had warned, and had foretold, that they should not send the progeny of Hamilcar to the army; you shall not remain a man, nor will his race be at peace, nor will any Roman confederacy remain at peace until the blood and name of Barca remain.
“You sent a young man blazing with a desire for a kingdom and a one way to see it, if by sowing wars he lives, girdled with arms and legions, as though furnishing fuel for fire,
you sent to his army. You have therefore fostered this fire by which you are now ablaze.
By the same gods, by whom the treaties had been broken in the former war, avenged, whether the enemy, whether you or not you, or the fortune of both peoples know?
They are driven out, they have come to you: things are repeated out of a treaty: public fraud forbid: they demand the perpetrator of guilt, and the man guilty of a crime: the more they act the more leniently, the slower they begin; and you suffered thirst for twenty years: and this boy was not the chief, but the father of Hamilcar himself, the other Mars, as they want.
But we did not keep our hands from the treaty of Tarentum, that is Italy, as we do not now abstain from Saguntum; The gods, therefore, defeated both men, and, as to which of the words it was disputed which of the people had broken a treaty, the outcome of the war, as an impartial judge, gave him the victory from which the law stood. Now Hannibal moves his vineyards and towers to Carthage: he shakes the walls of Carthage with a ram.
The ruin of Saguntum—oh I may be a false prophet—will fall over our heads, and after admitting it, a war with the Saguntines is to be had with the Romans.
Shall we then surrender Hannibal? someone will say.
I know that my authority was slight in him on account of the enmity which he had inherited; but I rejoiced that Hamilcar had perished there because, if he were alive, we would now have war with the Romans, and I hate and detest this young man like the fury and the torch of this war; and that only the atonement of the broken treaty should not be surrendered, but if no one demands it, he must be brought down to the farthest shores of the sea and land, and must be sent away so that he can neither approach his name and reputation to us, nor tamper with the state of the state of the tranquility of that state. that ambassadors should be sent immediately to Rome to satisfy the senate, and others to announce to Hannibal that he should withdraw his army from Saguntum, and surrender Hannibal himself to the Romans in accordance with a treaty.
Even while deliberately provoking Rome to war and fighting a siege,
there is no suggestion that the diplomats sent to Hannibal would be threatened.
On the subject of the Carthaginians, however, they had a practice of crucifying unsuccessful generals, and the story goes that they tortured to death a captured Roman consul (Marcus Atilius Regulus) who broke an oath he had sworn to his captors. Even so, Rome still felt that it could send diplomats to their most aggressive general and expect safety. I would suggest that this meant it was the norm, no doubt through cultural values and norms rather than any rules or laws, there being no international legal system to enforce such a system even if it did exist.
At least in the early Republican period, there were more formalized forms of diplomacy such as the fetial, where a fetial priest would make his way to another Italian city, abuse the first enemy citizen he saw, and then make a song and dance in the enemy forum and demand reparations, which may or may not be actually achievable requests, and war would be declared in the aftermath if the demands weren’t met. This was in order to establish divine approval for a war (Dawson, 1996, 124-5).
Nowhere have I seen it suggested that the fetials would have been exposed to any danger. This is from an archaic period, and I would not extrapolate this to later Rome or the Empire or Medieval Europe or anywhere else, but it is an example of how cultural norms (and religious deference) can render such ‘messengers’ quite safe even when carrying pretty unpleasant and aggressive tidings.
Using the logic,
I have already developed, as for messengers to somebody like Attila.
I don’t have the evidence to definitively answer that, I would suggest that only high-ranking persons would be sent if any were sent at all. I am extrapolating this from Republican practice, however. That said, if the Romans did not consider Attila to be a legitimate king, as he was a nomad, there was no reason the normal rules of war had to apply. It is my understanding that Roman jus ad bellum referred mainly to war between states, whereas war between Romans and any sort of rebels or traitors or some barbarian enemies, as Attila might be defined as, required no declaration of war, hence no delegation would need to be sent to Attila for the Romans to consider it a just war.
Any messengers sent to Attila would have been in a diplomatic sense, and Attila for practical reasons could not harm such men: unless he wanted to just fight forever and never extract any official recognition or payment from the Empire, he would have had to accept diplomats and talk to them. If he hurt them, they’d stop coming.
Further, the purpose of war generally being to extract a formal surrender for the enemy along with concessions, diplomats and messengers of various shades were absolutely essential to achieve this. This had been the pattern of Hunnic warfare in the Eastern Empire in the early-to-mid 400s: invasion, extracting concessions, then leaving. Attila may have had grinder plans, as evidenced by his attempt to marry Honoria, the sister of the emperor.
However, this would make formal discourse and recognition more important to him, not less. Perhaps a true marauder with no imperial ambitions might be more violent towards foreign messengers (perhaps somebody like Tamerlane might be an instructive example?) *, but this was not a practical way of doing things.
As such, at least in the Roman period, I think messengers both within European states and to other powers were generally kept safe by a mixture of cultural and intercultural norms and practical considerations regarding the need for information and communication between warring powers. Exceptions to these norms perhaps only proved the rule and would have been examples of outrageous (and probably impious) conduct in any case where it occurs in the literature, setting the perpetrator up for a fall later on.
Killing Them with Kindness Is the Best Way!!!
If anything, ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ seems as if it would have been fairly practical advice in the Roman period. The Mongols were no doubt another example (along with
the Mid Republic-Mid Imperial Romans).
*And look at where murdering a few Mongol traders got the Khwarazmian dynasty!
Of a race/army/state so feared that their representatives were often sacrosanct.
Sources:
Livy (trans. George Baker), Polybius (trans. W.R. Paton, Loeb Edition),
Plutarch Life of Lucullus (trans. Bernadotte Perrin, Loeb Edition)
Dawson, Doyne. The Origins of Western Warfare: Militarism and
Morality in the Ancient World. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.
Eckstein, Arthur M. Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome.
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006.
What is a word that is spelled the same but pronounced two different ways?
Why don’t we like to be told anything new – Search (bing.com)?
Why do people like to kill the messenger – Search (bing.com)?
Most of the people don’t like to be told
because it makes them feel:
They are not mature enough.
They cannot make their own decisions.
It makes them feel that they are immature.
They think that the other person is being bossy.
It makes them feel worthless and weak.
I know for me personally; it undermines my own capacity to think and act on my own.
I have no problem acknowledging and following someone’s guidance and instruction, but the phrase “being told what to do” has the connotation of some authoritarian figure who subscribes to the philosophy of “my way or the highway” and hints at an underlying tone of condescension. Using that phrase specifically. One of the biggest things I can’t stand is being looked down on, especially without precedent. Again, no problems with constructive criticism or following the instructions of anyone who’s treating me with respect, but the moment you get on your high horse and start abusing authority, we’ve got ourselves a problem.
It’s not always bad to be told what to do, sometimes it guides you and brings you back on the right path. Think of it as a learning opportunity from experienced ones.
There are a few assumptions in your question that make it a bit loaded, but I will try and untangle it to offer some perspective. I think most people appreciate a moderate amount of direction -especially when you’re outside of your expertise and/or dealing with someone with more expertise- but being micromanaged when the person is otherwise competent in the task/field can be burdensome. Micromanagement in this situation connotes several ideas to the person that may be rather distasteful, such as: they aren’t trusted to fulfill their own calculations or intuition in a manner that is fundamentally driven by their own values, education, experience, and approximations.
To be sure, I am talking about the extreme aspect of ‘being told what to do’ and always believe you ought to think about the context of the situation, what is at stake, and consider the person’s advice from their perspective/position. There are many psychological and business-based nuances involved that can be entirely dependent on context. It seems, perhaps, individuals wish to feel important and/or have agency in the task they are doing. Someone talking to them to tell them what they are to do can be violating these basic imperatives of autonomy.
Oftentimes, it matters how the person is coming across that may yield an attitude of cooperation or a resentful subservience. I don’t like people ordering me around too.
I don’t feel bad for having this kind of character.
In fact, I think those who always like to give orders to others are rude. They’re the ones who are egoistic, humble people don’t order others, but they will ask or give suggestions instead. I won’t behave like a puppet by doing what they order me to do.
I usually ignore them or reject them. I’m allergic to orders!
Even at work, I had complained to a boss that he was poor in leadership.
Leaders led and not ordered. I felt like a kid when I was ordered to do this and that.
I hated that feeling. My complaints worked. If I could do that at work, I could do that to everybody. Sometimes I’d order them back, we don’t have to worry about whether they would feel upset as they deserved to be treated like this the other way round.
Show them the “mirror” so that they will know how ugly and how disrespectful they are.
If they want to gain respect, they should learn to respect in the first place.
I think because it’s degrading. Even when it’s a boss, it comes across like,
“You aren’t worthy of being asked. That’s for people who are equal to me.”
I find that I have trouble saying no if I am asked.
“Can you stay late?” 0r “Any chance you can come in early?”
But when I’m told, “You will stay late” or, “You can’t leave until X.”
It’s an entirely different experience happening in my life!!!
People really need to be on the same page with one another.
Someone who tells someone what to do (Providing it isn’t obvious, such as,
‘Get out of the road! There’s a truck coming!”) I generally find it to feel superior.
To the point where they don’t want to give a choice. It’s one thing when it’s a part of a job or a situation. “Did you set the table?” “You know you have to do X and Y, it’s part of your job.” But when it comes down to “I want you to do something extra, something above and beyond,” I think people who can’t ask are people who want to intimidate and also, I don’t want to risk that you might go, “Sorry, I can’t.”
FEMALE SINGER SONGWRITER ACOUSTIC: ‘Kill the Messenger’
Shawn Colvin cover Kristy Gallacher (2020) – YouTube