In Petronius's Satyricon, two characters are discussing changing their appearance to hide their appearance. Among other suggestions (circumcising themselves to look like Jews, and piercing their ears to look like Arabs) is the suggestion that they could appear as Gauls if they were to cover their faces in chalk.

Does this imply that the Roman perceived Gaulish peoples as being particularly pale in complex, or did Gauls have some kind of practice that would denote that they covered their face in chalk for some purpose?

With all of the commonness between names like Quintus, Germanicus, and Julius, I found myself wondering earlier today whether or not the Romans had and used nicknames commonly. I thought to myself 'surely they, or at least some, must've,' however, I'm wondering if there're any recorded uses of them.

Quarantine got the best of me. Mid-Victorianism if possible. Thank you in advance.

Bit of a technical one, but during the Great Depression the federal government mandated the destruction of livestock, both through Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and through the Office of Indian Affairs. How did the different programs compare? Were the Navajo compensated to the same degree as (presumably white) herders who had their flocks reduced? Was there any understanding of the social impact the culling had on the Navajo people at the time?

Can someone recommend a good resource; lecture series/book on crime in the Victorian era.

I'm more interested in petty crimes and misdemeanours than big salacious murderers. How poverty-stricken people on the fringes of society could hope to make a living through criminal activity.

I’ve been reading Greenhalgh’s Early Greek Warfare during the quarantine. Briefly he argues that the Homeric bards “heroized and archaized” aspects of contemporary warfare to make it seem old-fashioned. Most significantly, the bards wrote about chariot warfare instead of mounted warfare - they knew that in the good old days chariots were used in battle, but didn’t understand how they were used, so they simply described chariots in the mounted horse were presently used, basically. They also assume all weapons would have been bronze instead of iron etc.

My question is what emotional relationship to their past is implied. Was this a primitive age of wonders that their contemporaries has grown beyond or was it rather a better time that has been lost?

Was the Greek Dark Age view of their ancient past similar to the European early Middle Ages view of antiquity? Or was it like our own view of the past?

I’m curious what to make to the shifted signifiers that Greenhalgh describes, although perhaps he’s totally outdated...

When historical accounts can be fabricated, biased, or just be straight-up propaganda, how can a layman such as myself determine what actually happened? Specifically, I'm doing a report on the history of the USSR and I find there so much cold war propaganda on both sides I'm not even sure I can trust a "neutral" source. (Also in the past I almost became a Holocaust 'truther' because of doubts cast over facts; "History is determined by the victor, etc." So I'm very concerned how malleable my positions are and I need to know if historians have some systematic way of parsing through these things) Thank you.

Would there have been less trade? What about technology, was there any major regression? Did the social customs change, if so how drastically? What about political systems, would it have regressed as well?

I'm trying to build out a fictional world based on Viking Normandy around 990AD. Any sources of information between 950AD to 1050AD would be helpful. I'm particularly interested in every day life, the economy of the time, the geography, and the common mythology of that area. Any local conflict would be great to know about as well. Any sources provided would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

The Protestant reformation brought about a rejection of many traditional doctrines of the Catholic Church (the mass, the saints, the relics, Purgatory, Perpetual virginity, Assumption etc), so how come the Trinity and the Hypostatic union were also not rejected as later additions?

I feel like this is the first time an absolute reset has been put in place for the economy being what it is today, and I'm mainly thinking in terms of technology and the global population. Now that there is a grinding halt on the majority of the global economy, it feels like any comparison to the early 20th century would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Pretty closely following the Spanish Flu was the rise and formation of Fascism as a legitimate political movement and the great depression before that. It makes me wonder what we should look out for!

My question is inspired by my own genealogical searching. I’ve located ancestors in England from the time of the conquest through the mid 17th century. These ancestors appear to have married exclusively with Norman families, with the women sometimes intermarrying with titled nobility. However, beyond the 13th century, I cannot find any evidence of landownership. I have discovered that some were sheriffs, but have no further vocational knowledge until their immigration to America.

I’ve frequently heard the term landed gentry, but were unlanded or landless nobles a common occurrence in British history? If so, what were their lives like?

When u pick classes for ur history degree, what should I be considering?? I’m interested in war/conflict history, but should I be learning about.. say marketing history(or something along those lines) too? Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but it’s worth a shot.

I do know that Great Britain was involved heavily in the slave trade. But as far as I know, there were no cotton fields and plantations in England. So none of these British ex-pats who sailed to America ever had slaves, nor were they ever exposed to slavery (I assume, maybe im wrong).

So if slavery was never the norm, then wouldnt it make sense they would be appalled by it? For a society who never owned slaves, how do you "learn how to own slaves"?

Reading about the "eastern question" and it seems the rest of Europe knew the Ottomans were in decline from the russo Turkic wars in the 1770s. We're the Ottomans aware of the problems and why and how did they fail to fix any of them by ww1?

I have read in various places that Lord Dunsany's fantasy writings in the early twentieth century—which I have read some of and would generally recommend—had a profound influence on The Lord of the Rings. However, no one ever cites any sources on this, and Dunsany is unfortunately one of those authors whom it is very difficult to find much about on Google.

It seems plausible enough, having read The King of Elfland's Daughter, that Dunsany's elves and their obsession with the passage of time might have influenced Tolkien. But it seems just as plausible that they both drew elves from common folklore and literary themes.

How important was honour in Tokugawa Japan? Could it have possibly weakened rule e.g Ako incident and seppuku after the death on ones lord?

I have read that Luther believed that the sacrament of the eucharist was real (the wine is the actual blood of Christ), while Zwingli believed that it is just a symbol.

Aside from Luther believing that the state must be the head of the church, while Zwingli held that the Bible must be the sole rule of faith, what are some differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism that I might have missed?