To be sure, writing Power Women has given me perspective. For example, when prison inmates “strike” because of “cruel and unusual treatment” when their color televisions have been taken away or their leisure time working out in the gym has been withheld, I think of what the Romans would say.
I think of how people rotted in dungeons year after year after cruel torture, not just under Roman rule but also under European rule of the Spanish Inquisition–and many, many other periods of time. I think of how tongues were removed, hands cut off, ears and noses sliced away because people did or did not believe in some sort of religion: Christian, pagan, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, or animist.