Quite. I thought of the infamous execution of the wannabe assassin of Louis XV. in particular, but even discounting this as shocking even some contemporaries, there are the highly popular executions in England, France, the Dutch being disappointed not more gay men got executed as the result of the Utrecht trials, FW's style of punishmnent for desertion....

Mind you, I seem to recall Mary Beard making a similar point re: the Roman Games less patronizingly and without racism or colonialism somewhere in SPQR, when saying they show that given social permission to enjoy public executions, fights to the death etc., a majority of people will go for it, in any society.