One of the problems of history is thinking in our own terms of the past. For instance there have been several rationality changes in human endeavour such that previous mindsets become unknowable. The modern rationality of an interconnected digital world would be unfathomable for past rationalities, in the same way as we cannot understand how gravity could have been attributed to "god-stuff".
Victor Davis Hanson writes:
Even the soldiers who fought the war [Peloponnesion war between Sparta and Athens] were not much more than five foot five and 130 pounds. They were often unimpressive middle aged men who appear as mere children next to a contemporary towering two-hundred pound GIs.I can recall a comment when the US entered WWI from an English nurse who saw a bunch of tall men marching in France. The soldiers were six feet and at first she confused them for Australians or New Zealanders as English soldiers were much smaller due to poor diet. When she realised it was Americans she was jubilant. The interest part is that only a century ago the beef and mutton diet of Australia and America produced larger men and women. (reply)
