The situation as formulated in the title is being described in the History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan, who is a historian to my knowledge.

The Roman Empire of course had to defend its various, constantly troubling borders at the Rhine and Danube frontiers. However, the Sassanids were often facing incursions from their other borders as well. On top of that, they didn't have a professional army like the Romans did (as far as I know).

Julian supposedly had to muster every available person to create an army at least 60'000 men strong, while the Sassanids just already had it. Does this mean that the other Sassanian borders were greatly weakened by this massive army since their realm was smaller?

The Achaemenid Persians and the Assyrians used to have one big army. Maybe the Sassanids operated in that tradition?

I've been to a couple of Edo era castles in Japan lately and I have found the surviving stairs to be high, narrow and irregular; is this a deliberate choice to add to the passive defense of the castle or due to laxer stonemasonry at the time?

Is there information on European stone castle stairs/steps?

Every single interesting post gets deleted by moderators and no discussions can be had

I've only ever heard this term from conservative Americans that I know, I've always wondered why it's not just 'Abrahamic values' considering that Islam is an expansion on the other two faiths and all three share most of their values between them. I also wonder why it's not just 'Christian values' considering that historically Jews have suffered poor treatment and mistrust from Christian powers.

I suspect that this term came about recently because of the close ties between the US and Israel in combination with Islamophobia from terrorism/wars in the middle east, but that's purely anecdotal.

I'm just wondering, if the size of the Earth has been understood since ancient Greek times, it must have been known that there was a large planet that had yet to be discovered. If it's known that the earth is a large planet, then it would also be understood that the Mediterranean and northern Africa were just a small part of that world. What were the ancient Greeks' thoughts when it came to what the rest of the world was like, or did they even ask the question?

New York is one of the largest cities in the world and THE largest city in the U.S. It grew from a simple colony founded by the Dutch. How come cities founded by the English like Jamestown and Salem never grew as large as New York when they were founded earlier?

I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, written in 1844.

In it, characters attend the opera to see, be seen, hang out, and attempt to hook up. They arrive fashionably late and ditch the show on a whim. Listening to beautiful music and watching an enthralling drama is secondary.

What was the reality of the social scene around operas in 19th century western europe?

A question I have pondered was how big of a deal was the loss of the 13 colonies due to the American Revolution? It feels like it was not that big of a loss economically or to it's prestige because the British Empire would go on to even greater heights in the 19th century from the defeat of Napoleon to the Victorian Age. But why was that so? How come the economic and political loss of the 13 colonies did not lead to a decline? Why hadn't the prestige, influence, and power of the British decline relative to other European powers because of (what I assume) the humilating defeat?

I’ve recently finished “Genghis Khan: The Man Who Conquered the World” by Frank McLynn, and I loved it! I want to learn more about the subject, specifically more on the man himself. All suggestions are welcome, and thanks for your answers.

As a Jew I was always puzzled by the translations. In Hebrew there is one definite text we use but in English it seems there's more translations than churches. How did this come to happen?

It seem to me they were pretty culturally similar. Why did they end up splitting in several contiguous states?

I'm watching a video series from Yale on YouTube about the Civil War period and the professor keeps using language like "racist" and "white supremacist" to describe the southern democrats, language which is true from our point of view but which seems anachronistic for the people who lived during the period.

Google's ngram viewer shows that "racism" was coined in the late 30's and "white supremacist" in the 40's which makes me wonder: How did people in the day talk about these issues of race and white supremacy? What was the actual language of the period?

A recent TIL thread mentioned how scribing was reserved exclusively to people who know how to read. Was that always the case? Seems like it could've been a good way to earn money back then if you just copied exactly what was on each page.

I know historians study human history, archeologists excevate, and anthropologists study human culture. Would that be a fair assessment?

What's the relationship between all three? Like do historians only study data/documents, archeologists do the field work, and anthropologists interpret the findings?

I know that generally, the PIRA are not viewed fondly in Northern Ireland (understandably so). However, my understanding is that the violence of the Troubles started due to oppression of non-violent N. Ireland civil rights activists (and a long history of mistreatment of Irish people). I am curious about what people in Northern Ireland initially thought of the PIRA in the late 60s/early 70s. My assumption would be that most Catholics supported the ideas of the PIRA at the very least until their tactics became more reckless, or after the violence had been occurring for so long. Is this the case? If not, what is? Thank you so much for your help :)

Currently have to write an object study on a horse bit found in a Sutton Hoo grave and I'm honestly completely stumped can't seem to find anything that confirms when the Anglo Saxons were in Britain

Thanks!

Professional Wrestling isn't a real professional sport in the way that most others are. How did it become a stage show? Why didn't this happen to other sports?

From what I know, it could take up to two months to cross the Atlantic from Europe to America. I’ve always wondered how people didn’t go insane from boredom. Did some people lose it at sea? Did ships ever make stops at ports in order to take a break from the dullness?

Wouldn’t having to make deals with African slave traders, transporting them across the Atlantic where many die be more expensive than just enslaving the natives?

Obviously as we know, in the end the NSDAP was the eventual winner of the tumult of the late Wiemar government, but the KPD gained ground during the period as well, and it was far from a sure thing that Hitler would be appointed Chancellor, or that the NSDAP would be able to secure a majority in the 1933 elections; undoubtedly, combined with the KPD's gradual growth of popularity during the period, it had to seem as if it was at least possible that they could achieve an electoral victory, should the dual economic and political crises fail to abate.

With that in mind, what do we know about whatever plans they may have had for the aftermath of an electoral victory? Did they anticipate the possibility of mass resistance against their election, perhaps even armed resistance by the Reichswehr, with the support of right-wing paramilitaries? If not, did they believe that their assumption of power would be largely tolerated, or was it a situation where they anticipated resistance, but preferred to react to whichever forms it took as the individual situations developed?