[naravara]

> Honestly a lot of colonial rule feels pretty awful too, and with a similar flavor.

I suspect what makes colonialism feel less shocking is that most of the cruelty happens "out there" and the day-to-day activities that promulgate it were usually done with native man-power in those regions. Like one faction there that was elevated above the others and made to do the dirty work.

The primary beneficiaries aren't forced to see and live with it and very few of them ever have to go and get their hands dirty. This is all sustained by a set of narratives and beliefs back home that sanitize these activities and depict the foreign populations as being not sophisticated enough for self-government or appeals to reason. They were either childlike and ignorant or inherently violent martial races.

Sparta, in contrast, had a hereditary elite that does its own dirty work up close and didn't seem to be engaged in any self-deception about the moral status and intellectual capabilities of their slaves.