In different places and times there were different thresholds on the level of violence acceptable to society.

We should be careful to not project our current norms on the entire history of humanity.

A quote from A Distant Mirror The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman:

In village games, players with hands tied behind them competed to kill a cat nailed to a post by battering it to death with their heads, at the risk of cheeks ripped open or eyes scratched out by the frantic animal’s claws. Trumpets enhanced the excitement. Or a pig enclosed in a wide pen was chased by men with clubs to the laughter of spectators as he ran squealing from the blows until beaten lifeless

and another one:

The citizens of Mons bought a condemned criminal from a neighboring town so that they should have the pleasure of seeing him quartered.