Yes — and this is a really fruitful way to think about the history of mental illness: different cultures didn’t just “misunderstand” it; they organized it around very different social priorities (moral order, family structure, cosmology, law, etc.).

Here are several contrasting traditions that are especially interesting alongside the Roman “capacity and property” model.

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1. Ancient Greek Medicine: Balance, Not Danger

In Ancient Greece, especially in the medical tradition of Hippocrates, mental disturbance was framed as:

• A bodily imbalance (humors)
• A natural (not supernatural) condition
• Potentially treatable through regimen

Key emphasis:

• Internal balance, not social threat
• The patient as a body to be regulated

Unlike later legal systems, there was little systematic focus on “danger to others.” The concern was more about restoring equilibrium than managing risk.

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2. Medieval Islamic Medicine: Care and Classification

In the medieval Islamic world, especially under the Abbasid Caliphate, there was a sophisticated medical and institutional approach.

Physicians like Avicenna wrote extensively on mental disorders.

Practices included:

• Early psychiatric hospitals (bimaristans)
• Music therapy, baths, structured environments
• Detailed clinical descriptions of conditions

Framing:

• Mental illness as a medical condition
• Often combined with philosophical ideas about the soul

Crucially:

• Care was institutional, but not primarily punitive
• Patients were not defined mainly as dangerous, but as in need of treatment and balance

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3. Medieval & Early Modern Europe: Moral and Spiritual Disorder

In Christian Europe, mental disturbance was often interpreted through:

• Sin
• Demonic influence
• Spiritual trial

This was not uniform — there were also medical traditions — but the framing often emphasized moral and cosmic order.

Implications:

• Some individuals were cared for compassionately
• Others were feared or punished, especially if disruptive

By the early modern period, this fed into institutions like the Hôpital Général, where confinement blurred:

• Poverty
• Deviance
• Madness

Here we start to see the shift, though still not yet the modern legal “dangerousness” standard.

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4. Classical Chinese Medicine: Disharmony in Systems

In traditional Chinese thought, especially under frameworks associated with Traditional Chinese Medicine, mental disturbance was understood as:

• Imbalance of qi (vital energy)
• Disruption between organ systems
• Disharmony between person and cosmos

Key emphasis:

• Relational balance (body–mind–environment)
• Integration of emotional and physical states

Treatments included:

• Herbal medicine
• Acupuncture
• Regulation of lifestyle and emotions

Again, the focus is not “is this person dangerous?” but “how is this system out of harmony?”

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5. Indigenous and Shamanic Traditions: Meaning and Role

In many Indigenous cultures (varied across the world), unusual mental states could be interpreted as:

• Spiritual calling
• Contact with other realms
• Transitional or liminal states

For example, in some Siberian traditions:

• Individuals with visions or altered states might become shamans

Framing:

• Not purely illness
• Sometimes socially valued difference

Of course, this varied widely — some conditions were still seen as distressing or dangerous — but the key point is:

Not all cultures pathologized altered mental states in the same way.

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6. Early Modern Europe to 19th Century: From Disorder to Danger

Returning to Europe, the big shift comes later:

• 17th–18th centuries: confinement for “disorder” and “unreason”
• 19th century: rise of psychiatry and asylums
• Legal systems begin emphasizing risk, control, and dangerousness

By the time of laws like the Lunacy Act 1845, the framing is moving toward:

• State responsibility
• Public safety
• Medical authority

This is much closer to the modern “danger to self or others” idea.

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7. A Useful Comparison

If you line these up, you can see very different core concerns:

Culture / System	Central Concern
Ancient Rome	Property, legal capacity, family continuity
Ancient Greece	Bodily balance
Islamic medicine	Clinical care and classification
Medieval Europe	Moral/spiritual order
Chinese medicine	Systemic harmony
Indigenous traditions	Meaning, role, spirituality
Modern psychiatry	Risk, pathology, public safety

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The Bigger Insight

What counts as “mental illness” — and especially whether it is seen as dangerous — depends heavily on:

• What a society values most (property, morality, harmony, autonomy)
• How it defines personhood
• Whether it prioritizes order, care, or meaning

The Roman model about is just one configuration:
it treats mental disturbance as a problem of capacity within a legal-economic system.

Modern systems, by contrast, often treat it as a problem of risk within a public safety framework.