How were these non-Spartiate members of the army regarded among the Spartiates on campaign with them?

From the time of the Battle of Thermopylae through the Peloponnesian War, what is known about the dress and armaments of the Perioikoi and Helot soldiers that would also make up the Spartan army? Could one distinguish between a Spartiate hoplite and a Perioikoi hoplite based on dress?

While reading "Storia dell'Italia dall'Unità a oggi", I stumbled upon something that I find terribly interesting: the two authors state that a weakness of the main right-wing Italian party when it came to build the First Republic was the lack of a serious reflection over fascism, that it was commonly referred to as something that would have been "imposed on the Italians from a foreign country".

However, there is no reference in the book itself to support this claim, so I was wondering if anyone here would have further information on that topic or even books/articles to recommend (I'm fairly new to Italy's contemporary history). Please excuse me for my broken English, I am not a native speaker, and thank you in advance!

Specifically, the smallpox vaccine existed before the development and acceptance of the germ theory. So how did doctors think the smallpox vaccine worked?

In my limited knowledge, at the time doctors accepted the "miasma" theory of bad air. Did doctors think smallpox vaccine counteracted the bad air or something?

Did Chinese doctors, who made the first smallpox vaccine, have their own theory?

It's pretty clear that it was the British who discovered the connection between Sanskrit (and INdo-Aryan languages) and European languages.

But were the Indo_Aryans atleast aware that their languages formed a family with Sanskrit being the oldest? Did they see Hindustani, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Kashmiri as belonging to one family?

what did the precolonial Indian linguists think of the languages of India?

I have often heard that during the Civil War, the Union was an industrial economy while the Confederacy was primarily agricultural. This extends to propaganda about the conditions of slaves being no worse or marginally worse than those of factory workers in the North. Is there truth to any of this?

Hi everyone, I was wondering whether anyone could help me out and explain what were the underlying reasons which led to Meiji restoration/Tokugawa shogunate fall? I understand that in broad strokes it was due to western presence showing how technologically lacking Japan was and that supposedly the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown for the sake of modernization. But it is hard to believe that's really the underlying reason for the civil war and Meiji revolution. I mean were those nobles really fighting out of an ideal to modernize Japan and not for some underlying personally beneficial reasons?

Further Tokugawa shogunate by the end of it were the one's who were looking to modernize, while the forces behind Meiji revolution initially were looking to expel the foreigners/were against their modern technology. How did that change?

I would really be grateful for an in depth answer addressing this topic from the multiple aspects that played a role.

Is it true that often Ottoman soldiers couldn’t break through knightly armor? Or that Arabs during the Crusades wore very little armor?

That's pretty obvious question to me but I didn't find an answer.

Saint-Petesburg was closer, it had better infrastructure, moreover it was the actual CAPITAL of Russian Empire.

But despite of these facts Napoleon had decided to take Moscow, it sure was a big city, but imperial government wasn't there.

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I'm seeking detail as to how the Parsis from Bombay/Gujarat state in India were involved in the process. Either as traders, financiers or shippers of some sort. I've only read snippets which suggested that Zoroastrian citizens close to the British in India were able to get 'in' on the Opium industry in China. There isn't too much that I could discover myself and I'm not sure whether there's been a more detailed treatise on this.

I have read “Cod” by Mark Kurlansky and recently read an article in American Heritage about Zuane Pizzagano’s map from the early 1400’s but I have yet to see anything that claims to be from Cod fisherman drying their catches (dropped possessions, maps, written stories from the period...) or anything that truly says these assertions are something more than fancy. What else has been presented for evidence?

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Prussia had the best education system in Europe and produced notables like Einstein. But it no longer exists as a state in the modern world. What happened to it? Why did it decline?

Is it not possible that stories were the result of culture rather than being the cause of behavior? I'm sorry that this question asks a bit of sociology too.

For the Aztecs, or anyone else, what were put inside thick walls guarding cities?

Germany seems to be a popular region for English-tradition folk songs to send lovers to:

• In "Jackie Monroe" (Roud 268), the father has the unsuitable suitor pressed and sent to "the wars of Germany".
• In "High Germany" (Roud 904), the man offers to "take you to the wars, me love, in High Germany", and later on the woman complains that both her true love and her three brothers have been pressed and sent "to the wars, me love, in High Germany".
• In "My Love's in Germany", Willie is said to be "fighting brave for royalty" in Germany.
• In "Bonnie lass o' Bennachie" (Roud 6737), the eponymous lass goes to Germany to find her dead husband's body.

Do these songs refer to a specific war in Germany (and if so, are they all the same war?), or is Germany just a convenient synecdoche for "somewhere far away"? Alternatively, perhaps I could find as many examples of France or Spain if I went looking?

So, this question came to mind after reading about the exchange of messages between Sparta and Phillip II of Macedon.

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Phillip begins by threatening Sparta. "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city." Where sparta replies with the iconic (laconic) "If.".

And in a subsequent period, sent a message asking if whether he should come as friend or foe, with sparta answering "neither".

This may be embellished, or maybe never happened at all, but are there any other examples of threats and trash talk like that between kings? did it usually work?

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