I always wondered since the conversion of the Empire to Christianity how the Romans reconciled the fact that their Government was directly behind the persecution of who they perceived to be God in the flesh -- Did any Christian Emperor have an official stance on this? Was it widely perceived that it was the fault of the Jews, and not actually the Romans so as to deflect blame? Or did they chop it up to the sinful folly of man?

I'm mostly looking for a little more context into this statement and to the political climate at the time, as the "Vidal vs Buckley" era around 1968 is sometimes portrayed as a pivot point in American political theater.

Why was Buckley's statement met with applause from the crowd? Was the establishment of only two political parties important to conservatives in the US during the mid- to late-1960s? If so, why?

While I'm aware of the widespread Buddhist opposition to the Catholic President Diem and his regime in South Vietnam, I feel like their role in history after 1963 isn't really mentioned much. I have a few questions

1. While Communist ideology is hostile toward religion, did the Vietcong try to make inroads with the Buddhist opposition anyway?
2. Were the Buddhist clergy only protesting against pro-Catholic policies, or were they involved in other issues such as land reform?
3. Did Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government cease once Diem was overthrown?
4. What were the religious policies of the junta that followed Diem? Did they have a pro-Catholic bias like Diem did?

Any recommendations for books that go in-depth about South Vietnam's internal issues would also be much appreciated.

To give some context:

In 1857, the Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case, in part ruling (perhaps in dicta) that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen Douglas floated the idea that the Supremes could go pound sand. Both the institution of slavery and its abolition required that local police enforce the law (regardless of what side one was one, this was true) -- and the Supreme Court couldn't make them do it.

That's basically unheard of today. The closest thing in my lifetime is probably Kim Davis' refusal to issue marriage licenses after Obergefell, but she was jailed for her refusal. Before my time there was George Wallace physically blocking blacks from entering a school, but that doesn't quite rise to what Douglas was talking about.

So, when did the word of the Supreme Court become so intractable?

What were other major cities in Ancient Rome? I get the impression that basically in Ancient Rome there was only one city and that was the city of Rome, everything else was its backyard so to speak. Weren't there other influencial cities which could have rivaled Rome at least in some regard?

I'm especially interested in the cities during the time of the Republic. IIRC there were two further major cities, Alexandria and Constantinople, but these only became major cities during the Roman Empire (or in the case of Alexandria it was only since the Empire under Roman rule), IIRC again.

Also, bonus question. Were only the citizens of Rome considered Roman? What with cities around Rome, in today's Latium or Italy in general? Did they only become Romans after a certain person (whose name I forgot) did a reform so that all free citizens of the Roman Republic/Empire became Romans?

Thx in advance

Obviously, it's a joke/meme. But I'm writing a lighthearted-yet-informative essay on the fall of Constantinople, and I need some help. I'm leaving 'inside job' as subjectively defined as possible intentionally, because I'll take anything I can get.
Was it, to any extent, an "inside job"?
Could I, for rhetorical purposes, feasibly create a straw-man that thinks it was?
Any sources you can reccomend for further reading?
Something I asked unclear?
Thanks!

I've tried to find an answer to this, but I cannot find anything historical (most responses are along the lines of "to honor or invoke a patron saint"). In the New Testament, the different congregations are just called by their location and I assume they rarely if ever had specific church buildings in those early years. Do we know when and why Christian's started naming churches after specific individuals/saints?

I remember from a trip to Italy a few years ago that Roman cemeteries were always located on the outskirts of which ever city the were supplied from. If I remember correctly the dead essentially had a city of their own. What is the reason for this practice? I remember when I visited Ostia Antica that the cemetery was basically at the entrance to the port city. Was this the case for all roman cemeteries? Were there any other caveats involved in the locations of cemeteries?

I've read a lot about kings in Middle Ages Europe that fought in the front line of their battles, especially in the Portuguese and Spanish Reconquista. The first Portuguese king was supposedly proclaimed by his knights in the battlefield itself. But, was this actually real? Wasn't it too dangerous to risk the King's life? If not, what importance had the presence of the King in the battlefield and how they prevented the enemy to going against him all at once?

I keep stumbling over the following citation/indexing format for letters from Ambrose of Milan:

epist. 49[59],3

How can I understand which letter is meant by this numbering scheme and what do the other numbers mean?

I am german and know that after WW2, a big chunk of eastern german territory was annexed by the Soviet Union. However, I always thought that it was because this region was originally ethnically polish (Which was now part of the Soviet Union) and only got "germanized" in the late 19th to early 20th century.(Which was now part of the Soviet Union).

But some guy on the internet pointed out, that I am wrong and this region was ethnically german since a long time already. Hence my question.

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How did they hang out or plan on going somewhere?

The trauma of the "Jap camps" in the Dutch East Indies, as they are still often called today, has been an important part of the Dutch experience. For a long time after WWII, there were many Dutch people who had either been detained in such a camp themselves or whose relatives had been in one. However, curiously enough, I've never heard why the Japanese felt the need to imprison civilians on such a large scale. Recently I visited Bronbeek, a museum dedicated to the history of the Dutch East Indies with a particular focus on WWII and the Indonesian war of independence that followed – but even there, the Japanese were treated more or less like a force of nature, their motives, command structure, and internal disagreements abstracted away.

So... why did they do it? Was it an attempt to court sympathy among the native population (which I'm vaguely aware the Japanese tried in other ways), by showing that their colonial oppressors were finally getting their just desserts? A pre-emptive measure against a group considered likely to resist the occupation? A way to uproot the old power structure as rigorously as possible? Or something else entirely?

More generally, good sources about the Japanese perspective on World War II in the Dutch East Indies would be welcome. Unlike the Germans, the Japanese are still very much treated as one-dimensional "cartoon villains" in the Dutch popular historiography of WWII, and I'd love to get a more detailed picture.

Modern day bodybuilders strive to emulate the physiques found on statues.

I have heard throughout my life that Asians ate monkey brains, that in fact, there were special tables designed with a hole in the middle through which a monkey's head can be inserted so that the brains can be consumed.

But after digging around a bit, I can't see an actual evidence that the consumption of monkey brains was a regular practice, or even happened at all. Is the practice of eating monkey brains just an urban legend or is there an actual historical basis for this?

Hi all, can anyone give me a couple of examples of debates and contention concerning Roman history among historians? For example I know there is conflict over the exact causes and nature of Roman imperialism...is there anything else like that that causes issues?

Were there any tribes that had land on both sides of either border, and if so how has that been handled through history? Considering how both borders are in part arbitrary straight lines, I'd imagine that there's a chance they might have gone right through tribal lands. Was this ever an issue, or did the forced resettlement programs of the past negate this?