I just read The Scarlet Pimpernel and it's pretty much Batman set during the French Revolution. How far does the "hero with a secret identity trope" go back?

Wikipedia puts The Scarlet Pimpernel as the first in 1903, but the idea of a secret identity probably goes back further, right?

Never posted here before, please link if this has been asked before. Just curious :)

Hi, everyone. I read an older thread on AskHistorians discussing the decline of Classics as a discipline, and the corresponding reduction in the number of people who can read ancient Greek or Latin at the level of proficiency that Classics professors could 50 years ago.

I realize that the answer will vary based upon specialty, but on average, how fluent are current historians who specialize in periods/subjects/regions that would have overlapped with "Classics" a couple decades ago?

And to what extent do historians rely upon translations of Greek or Latin texts these days, as opposed to reading them in the original languages?

Thanks!

Would an ambassador from places like Liberia, Japan, China, Ethiopia etc be restricted in terms of what hotels they could stay at or even whether they could be entertained at certain restaurants or theaters in ways that a representative of the French or British governments werent?

After the Communists won the Chinese civil war there was a big debate in the U.S. about who was responsible for "losing" China.

How do historians view the Chinese civil war now? Was a communist victory inevitable? Was there anything the U.S. could have done to prevent a Communist victory?

Was it a perfect era? Was it really as "swell" as we see it in recreations? What were the hardships of the time?

If Napoleon organized the Confederation of the Rhine and started the process of German unification why isn't he credited for uniting Germany instead of Bismark?

As far as I know, the Persian nations to the east of the early-middle Roman Empire were the only states bordering it which were of any military or economic worth. Yet even the Parthian and Sasanian Empires only controlled Persia and parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia. The Roman Empire, on the other hand, was... the Roman Empire. Are these two nations really considered rivals? Did the discipline of Persian troops compare to the Roman legions? Were the Persian states able to produce a more centralized government due to their smaller size? What other advantages, if any, might they have had?

I'm reading "The Coming of the Third Reich", and in the conclusion, Evans states that "Nor was the decree meant to be used by a Chancellor applying the President's stamp", but I don't remember how or why that happened.

What is the oldest extant exhibit of a passport?

Futhermore, American popular culture includes a connotation of protection with the current US Passport, sort of a handshake agreement of "treat this person as we would treat our own". Who was the originator of this concept, and what are some early examples?

Is a passport the fruit of modern nation-states, or did they exist earlier?

Thanks, as always, for your time and insight.

It's difficult to imagine a more target rich environment with so many large surface vessels. Why didn't UBoats do what they do best?

I know the oldest books from the Bible that we have are basically scraps. That means that what we are reading was recorded more recently than the dating of those pages. So what is the oldest complete version of the Bible that exists? What is the earliest date we could get if we built a Bible from each of those aforementioned papers? (I know this question probably can't be answered because that would mean someone figured out what the earliest date of each pieced together book of the Bible was)

It seems like documentation and studies are really good on PTSD, but what about ancient wars? I feel like I never heard of PTSD in ancient times, or even more modern history?

I am asking this because I'm a secondary-world fantasy writer. In my story, there's a similar first-contact thing going on and my protagonist has to learn the language of the locals in two months. Obviously, she has no books or any people preceding her to help her, all she can do is communicate with the natives. However, I can't find any information on how history has dealt with this during the exploration of America, which is why I turn to you guys.
How much time did it take for the Native Americans to learn English/Spanish/French/Dutch/another European language? Or, how much time did it take the explorers to learn the locals' language and how did they do so?
Thank you all so much in advance.

Hello. This is probably an odd question, but is anyone aware of academic work that uses insights from argumentation theory (e.g., Toulmin's model, Walton's argumentation schemes, etc.) when looking at early Christian apologetic writings?

And, more generally: what sources would you recommend for someone interested in the argument structure and persuasive/rhetorical techniques used in early Christian apologetic writing?

Thanks!

"Tremors" "Nervousness" "Confined to her bed"

Often I read about this happening to women and/or grief-stricken women in european/early US history. I was told by a high school teacher once that many of these women (between the ages of 20 and 40) already had so little power in life that losing a husband stripped them of enough power/privilege as to trigger a nervous breakdown. Even so, its hard to believe this could be as deadly as it seems. I just realized I hadn't questioned this idea in years and you all probably have more satisfying answers.

I've looked on the FAQs about women and found nothing, which makes me wonder if this is not as common as I seem to think it is.

As a follow up question, was there any literature on greek lions apart from noting their existence?

What was the illiteracy rate of Czarist Russia right before the Russian Revolution (say 1913 - 1916)? Also, what was the literacy rate of the USSR by the time of Lenin's death in 1924?