How many times do we have to tell people that taking spoils of war does not equal rape. At this point, people really need to take history lessons before they start blatantly address everything happened in ancient war equal those who loses become absolute victim of rape and sexual abuse.
For real... although I partially see where that opinion comes from given that unfortunately rapes and violations were really common, heck they still happen today, during war and conflict because the violent insticts of people are at the zenith however yes to assume that literally everyone would just start a raping spree sounds to me like a game of thrones episode. Historically speaking war captives and slaves had many different fates. This is also what I tried to experiment with my own version of Ismarus:
Ismarus! Ismarus!
I basically place Odysseus contemplate the idea that slaves could be exchanged for gifts or hospitality at lands they would encounter. In fact some of the women remaining virgins would be part of that exchange process. Is still cruel of course but is not like once they saw a female immediately that female would be raped. In fact this is why the whole party was moving like a huge city. Some of them had concubines with them on occasion even free women. They did have ways to satisfy their needs on that departure too. Would mass rapes happen at a conquest? Absolutely. However to assume that would be the 100% of women by the 100% of men? Just no.
As I said many times before as well Odysseus had 50 war slaves in his palace and they were used for service not sex. The same he planned to do with Hecuba. The existence of war loot needs to be seen as cruel of course but that doesn't mean that we automatically speak of rape and concubines. I think there is a misunderstanding with the translation "we took the women" because the verb in English is also used as euphemism for sex but that is not a thing as much in Greek and much less in ancient greek. The part of Ismarus doesn't elaborate on the women's fate apart from the fact they were shared among the men.
Was it cruel and inhumane for our standards? Absolutely and without a doubt. But that doesn't mean we always need to assume the ancient wars were nothing but a raping spree. Like with the same logic someone 1000 years from now should say everyone was an internet scammer every time they did business or that every single person who deals with kids is a predator like no? That's not how the world works.
