Graffiti is one of the most exciting kinds of evidence preserved for us by the destruction of Pompeii, because it comes not from the literature of the elite, or the inscriptions of the powerful, but from a wider cross-section of society.
The article is mostly about slavery and prostitution, colored by modern views of the world. For much of human history, people were simply trying to survive and life expectancy was usually lower than today. A lot of privileged people had lives we would not really envy.
Articles like this usually make no effort to give that kind of context and implicitly compare their worst to our best or average and make it sound intentionally cruel to a greater degree than was probably the case most of the time.
The article is mostly about slavery and prostitution, colored by modern views of the world. For much of human history, people were simply trying to survive and life expectancy was usually lower than today. A lot of privileged people had lives we would not really envy.
Articles like this usually make no effort to give that kind of context and implicitly compare their worst to our best or average and make it sound intentionally cruel to a greater degree than was probably the case most of the time.