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In Book XI Aurelius wrote:

After Tragedy was introduced the Old Comedy, which through its instructive frankness and its reminder by actual plainness of language to avoid vanity was not without profit, and this directness Diogenes also adopted with a somewhat similar object. After the Old, observe what the Middle Comedy was like and afterwards with what end the New Comedy was adopted, passing little by little into a love of technique based on imitation. It is recognized that there are profitable sayings of these authors also, but after all what was the object to which the whole aim of such poetry and drama looked?

In the passage he mentions Old, Middle, and New Comedies. Do we know whose work he is referring to? And is his criticism of newer works fair?

So I'm helping my grandfather wade through our family genealogy. According to a ship's roster, two of my ancestors came to New Netherland (New York) in 1638 from England. They had children with them, but the roster doesn't say how many or their names. Family stories that have come down through all these years say that all four of their kids were on the ship with them. We have documentation from an old family Bible, however, that one of them, Ephraim, was born in 1639. So... Did they really have all four kids on the ship? Was Ephraim's birth year in the Bible wrong? Was he born on the ship itself? Did they leave England in 1638 and not arrive in NY until 1639, and maybe Ephraim was born on the ship? Or is it way more probable that the family story about all four kids being on the ship is wrong and Ephraim was born the year after they had arrived in NY? Did ships even sail to the "New World" in late December? Wouldn't that have made it crazy cold and a more difficult voyage? I have tried Google and Ancestry and I just don't know. Any theories on what probably actually happened from those who know colonial history way better than myself? Thanks in advance!

During the Punic Wars, Cimbrian War, etc., the Romans often suffered epic losses and managed to recover due to an apparent endless supply of manpower. So where did this manpower disappear to during the Imperial period?

Was the Irish language not written until then? I'm reading the wikipedia article and having trouble wrapping my head around it.

I am watching episode 1 of 'Barbarians Rising'. When Viriathus and the remaining Lusitanians didn't have a sufficient amount of weapons at first because the Romans were committing genocide I am wondering how the Lusitanians (and other tribes like the Gauls etc) would arm themselves.

Also I mean loot after they won a fight against the Romans.

I have started watching the Youtube channel 'History Civilia' and am enjoying it a lot!

In most interpretations I've heard she became a Gorgon after being a priestess of Athena and breaking her vow of chastity by being raped by Poseidon.

I know their view of rape was sort of archaic (essentially that it destroys a woman) but they also have stories about characters like Philomela which makes it seem like they understand what a horrible crime it is, and that they at least pity victims of it.

What was the Greek opinion of Athena turning one of her priestesses into a monster for getting raped and then helping Perseus murder her? What was the moral lesson?

Was it maybe a mistranslation of a consensual affair? Was it just Athena being sorta mean like she was with Arachne? Or was it "the gods do what the gods want to do"?

Sorry if this question is stupid or has been asked, but I've been wondering what specifically happened in the United States (or the world in a larger scope) to cause the United States to fall behind towards the latter end of the 20th century, and other countries to catch up or surpass the United States? I've had a pretty hard time finding specific rankings of education by country, but in a documentary I watched it said the United States had the best public school education in anywhere in the world in the first half of the 20th century; and by the end of the 20th century it seemed like it was in crisis; as it was underfunded, overcrowded, and many kids were not passing the state requirements of school.

Is the answer as simple as other countries simply improved, or is there something to pinpoint the decline in the United States in terms of GDP per capita and education? The United States still has a relatively high GDP per capita that's been steady, but the growth compared to other countries has been pretty slow during this time period and many European countries have surpassed the United States in terms of educational requirements. For example, the United States was higher than Switzerland and Norway from the 1960s, but then it seemed Switzerland and Norway had both gotten ahead, and by 1995 both were higher than the United States in terms of GDP per capita.

I know that Latin is only used in the church and in little phrases but at what point did it actually die?

The stories say he was a prince in a small kingdom in northern India/southern Nepal around 500 BCE. Were such kingdoms present in that part of the world at that time period? Are there any contemporary records of the time that would help corroborate the story of the life of the Buddha?

While not exclusively the domain of women, many areas of work that were previously taking up women's time and making them valuable contributors to society became automated during or around the 1800s. Stitching once done by hand then was done by sewing machine; spinning, weaving, and knitting all became automated around the same time. Washing that used to take two to three days to complete could suddenly be completed by washers, driers, and electric irons in a couple of hours. Vacuums replaced sweeping and some of the role of mopping, too. Eventually dishwashers took over washing dishes and microwaves took over some of the labor of cooking dinner. Despite the fact that this is a massive degree of automation, I rarely hear it discussed in this context.

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I am wondering what drove this automation, how the perception of the value of labor of women changed as a result, and how did women change their perception of their own labor? (And any other questions in this vein I may have forgotten).

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My curiosity on this topic was sparked by a conversation I had with my grandmother about her grandmother, who took care of the men of the family and boarders for my great great grandfather's blacksmith shop. Washing clothes took an entire day, then a day was spent boiling the clothes, and another day ironing them. She spent a day just on baking bread for the week and I believe another day just cleaning. It came through very clearly that there could be no illusions how integral she and the other women in the family were to the operations of the blacksmith shop (since the men who worked there were partially paid through "board", which was the value my great great grandmother added to the whole operation). When the family got my great great grandmother a washing machine, she didn't know what to do with herself. It took much convincing to stop her from boiling the clothes after using the washer.

I can bookend this story of my great great grandmother with the post-automation life of my own mother, with recollections of how extensively my she used the microwave while I was growing up. I didn't realize until I was an adult that microwaves only really entered homes about a decade before I first saw my mother using them. I have a decent idea of how much faster she could bake potatoes in the microwave than in the oven, which helped her cook dinner while working a full time job, but I also remember fights with my father over him never helping with housework. I feel like there is probably a big-picture story happening between the experiences of my great great grandmother and my own mother, and I would love a historian to weigh in on this!

After reading a bit online, I wasn't able to find a fullfyling answer on the demographic history of Abkhazia, was it Georgian ? Are the modern Abkhazs indigenous to the region ? I am looking for at least the mainstream view

Not the most usual history question, and maybe it’s more a shower thought, but I’m trying my luck here... Nowadays we cover our genitals mostly because we are embarrased to show them and other would find it gross. However i guess it hasn’t always been like that. I’d expect it originally was for protective reasons. How far back is there evidence for humans covering their genitals and when/why did it become culturally expected?

Backstory: My wife and I like to read/learn different things together so we have lots of conversations about things we learned or didn’t learn and our educational experiences. We recently stumbled on a gap in our knowledge of American history.

So what we ideally are looking for is to gather some content so that can we can explore the aftermath of the civil war. Doesn’t have to be limited to the south can include economic, political, social and or race related content as well. Specifically the time period we are interested in is immediately after peace was declared to pre civil war.

Any recommendations are welcome

When you read about the medieval kings of Europe, you can see clearly their heirs (often being the oldest son). The heirs of the heirs became kings themselves, but what happened to the descendants of younger sons ?

For example, when you read about John II of France (1319- 1364), you can see that he had 4 sons, one of which became king Charles V and the three others all became dukes. What happened to the children of those three sons ? It's clear that the duchies didn't pass on to their descendants as the title of duke of Berry (which was created for the second son, John) was recreated over a 100 years later in 1461 for Charles, the younger brother of Louis XI.

Yes, I know that maybe these examples aren't the best but my question stays the same, How far does one have to be removed from the senior branch to no longer be considered a member of the royal family or even the nobility ?

EDIT: So for the sake of clarity and facility, I'd be most interested in Medieval France (or Western Europe). If someone can share some insight into other regions or time periods, that'd be awesome as well!!

I heard it from the 7th episode of the machines series called Freeman’s Mind.

So in the cold war, the soviets kinda tried to get their influences through communism to spread all over the world, from asia (mainly vietnam and china) to south-america (mainly cuba). My question is, did or did they not try to do this in africa, and if yes, why, and if not, why not.

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I hope my question is clear and understandable, if anyone has a followup question or if something is unclear, please leave a comment, i'll try to answer it

To clarify, when did people realize that it was midnight on the opposite side of Earth where it is noon?

*To double clarify, I mean the time, as in time on the clock

I kind of know that to some extant Viking raids continued for awhile even after the adoption of Christianity, and I know that Scandinavia changed a lot politically (and maybe economically too?) throughout the Viking age and that those changes had an effect too...

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So to what extent was the adoption of Christianity a factor in the whole thing? And what other things (like politically/economically/culturally) caused those raids to cease eventually?

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Also, regardless of how effective it actually was, to what extent was the notion that it might reduce the raids and “civilize” the Nords was a motive for the whole endeavor to Christianize the “heathens”? I mean with the whole “you’ll have to baptize to make a treaty with us / you’ll have to baptize first and then we’ll give you your Danegeld” thing...

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And did the Christians had other motives behind this endeavor (besides the obvious missionary ones)?

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Sorry for the long question/s - the more I thought about it the longer it got... and thanks in advance :)

I have tried googling this question and haven't been able to find anything substantial. I read somewhere that Arabs only had oral traditions before Islam and didn't write anything. But I have also heard that they wrote down poetry and there were some Arabic-speaking Kingdoms in Norther Arabia. So, are there any Manuscripts/relics with an Arabic script that are older than the Quran? (Oldest Quranic manuscript being from 549-671)

thank you

I enjoy the occasional cigar and the other day was pondering about the first people to smoke tobacco and why, with the countless other plants out there, did people stick with tobacco. Thanks in advance!

I live in Denmark, and lions have been used in all sorts of ways here for about a thousand years. I suspect that they have all over Europe. Why?

I don’t understand how people would have even known what a lion looked like. How would they know how to decipher the coat of arms or flag or statue or whatever it was?