Were they generally just servants, or did they gain high military/bureaucratic positions like eunuchs did in China? Where did they come from--were they generally slaves, or did people willingly castrate their children for some chance at social advancement? I've read that Christianity was generally opposed to castration. Was employing eunuchs controversial?

Why couldn't the church just say "do things our way or rot in hell"?

I've been googling for an hour and can't find it again. I might have the civilization wrong but I'm pretty sure it was the Inca. IIRC, one of the characters was a princess named Sumac.

IIRC, the story is about a general who rebels against the king. Princess Sumac is in love with the general. But the king doesn't know Sumac is his daughter. In the end, the general becomes king and goes and finds Sumac.

I have heard claims that a Pa would hold out better against cannons than European forts, is this true?

Bonus questions:

-How advanced were the weapons used in this war compared to weapons used in Europe at the same time?

-Was the logistics of moving the heavy equipment through forest a major difficulty?

Specifically, I was reading about the war of the roses, and all the details simply take for granted that the kings "raised an army" and fought each other. What was the process like?

Those who defended slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact. Did this ever happen? Was this part of the panic of 1873?

I am aware that the Jews were already migrating in significant numbers before World War II, so why didn't it lead to greater numbers of migration when Hitler came into power?

I know, for instance, that Muhammad's tribe was in control, in full or in part, of the pilgrimage trade in Mecca. The adoption of a pilgrimage to Mecca by Muslims can clearly be seen as a (perhaps financially-motivated) continuation of this tradition.

Yet at the same time some Islamic scholars rejected the depiction of living things in art, or adhered to aniconism, which is clearly an intentional departure from Christian / Manichean artistic tradition.

So what are some of the other continuations / rejections? What explains the origins of some of these?

Reading "Provos - the IRA and Sinn Fein" by Peter Taylor.

Given it was published in 1998 or so I was wondering what info had come to light since.

When talking about the start of talks in the mid 1970's he uses the name "Contact" for one of the go-betweens in Derry - has the identity of this person ever come out?

Relating to these talks he also mentions visiting a secluded farmhouse and reading the IRA army council minutes which provide a record of meetings and discussions - have these or portions of these ever come to light? Are they sitting in a the National Library or National archive at the minute next to other state papers?

Did any papers or info on this stuff get released from Her Majesty's Government under thirty year rule?

Obviously nothing might have given how much is still confidential, covered up and sensitive to one side or another - the disappeared, collusion to name just two!

Any other recent books that can be recommended that have more up to date info would also be great.

Thanks.

I'm speaking, roughly mid-500s BC through the rise of Alexander the Great. Was there a concept of being "Greek" independent from one's city state?

How strong was it relative to city-identity?

How did it differ between those in the region of modern Greece, and other Greek inhabited regions such as Asia Minor or Sicily?

How did it evolve over those two centuries?

How did the conquests of Philip and then Alexander change the concept of pan-Greek identity?

If General Paulus had ordered Sixth Army to breakout immediately after being cut off in Operation Uranus, would they realistically have been able to escape? OKH and Hitler recieve a significant amount of blame for ordering Sixth Army to hold its ground while General Manstein's Army Group Don attempted to break through to them, but it seems like many sources on the ground including Manstein himself felt that Sixth Army was already incapable of escaping encirclement. Considering the ammount of Soviet forces in the area building up for Operation Saturn, was the Sixth Army's fate already sealed?

Hernan Cortes and other conquistadors made alliances with the native tribes of Mesoamerica, the Tlaxcalans in particular. Presumably this required more than rudimentary communication.

I suppose the real question is, how do two people who speak two different languages with no common roots communicate with each other?

I understand that later there would have been interpreters that knew both languages, but what about the very first, initial communication between Europeans and Mesoamericans?

Thanks in advance for your response.