Is he remembered more as a martyr, a terrible leader or somewhere in between?

To my knowledge, most other countries generally have a singular federal or national police force. But in the US, there's the FBI, DEA, USSS, Marshall Service, ICE, postal inspector, and many more. How did this come about? Has there ever been an effort to consolidate them under one umbrella? How unique is this in the world?

For as long as they lasted, and as unique and colorful as they seem to be, did any Egyptian customs, religious ideas, music, or artistic ideas get adopted by other cultures or exist as remnants in modern times? As far as I can tell, none of their ideas, other than mathematical or scientific, had a lasting legacy.

Edit: Thank you for all the thoughtful and thorough answers. I obviously have a lot to learn about ancient Egypt!

From my limited understanding of religion in the Roman Empire, it seems their society/government disliked Christians from the very beginning, evidenced by Tacitus bad-mouthing the earliest Christians. And there were many persecutions throughout the empire's history.

But why was the official policy towards Christianity so much in flux and so uncertain? From what I understand:

• Nero persecuted them for like, a month? And only in Rome, nowhere else

• Marcus Aurelius said that they shouldn't be sought out, but should be punished if discovered

• later on, some emperors (Decius, Diocletian, etc) decided to institute national bans against Christianity but these bans lasted only a few years and were immediately revoked afterwards

This just seems like such a broken and senseless pattern. If Christianity was so reviled, why didn't the empire just institute a ban from the beginning and keep enforcing it indefinitely?

Seeing how controversial Kennedy's Catholicism was, how important Barack Obama's blackness was to his campaign, and how many times Keith Ellison's dedication to the US is called into question because of his religion, I have a hard time believing that Goldwater had a realistic chance in a country that still logged numerous public servants as Klan members.

I was reading an article by Noam Chomsky and he mentioned Admiral Gernetz

German Admiral Gernetz -- when he was brought to trial (he was a submarine commander or something) for sinking merchant vessels or whatever he did -- he called as a defense witness American Admiral Nimitz who testified that the U.S. had done pretty much the same thing, so he was off, he didn't get tried.

Can someone please elaborate or explain this?

I was wondering, Mara Bar-Serapion in his letter to his son from prison said this quote:

"What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: The Athenians died of hunger. The Samians were overwhelmed by the sea. The Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good. He lived on in the teachings of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good. He lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good. He lived on in the teaching which He had given."

I wonder, when he said the words "when the Jews executed their wise king" was he referring to Jesus or another person? Is Mara even a good source for this kind of topic?

It seems to me that with cannons and other artillery on the field, having lots of soldiers closely grouped together makes it rather easy for a well-paced cannonball to demolish an entire regiment. Was artillery still too primitive to take advantage or am I wrong in assuming how tightly-packed the infantry would be stacked during engagements with artillery batteries?

The wikipedia article doesn't give whole lot of information. I'm curious of what they were because someone used that word during debate class.

And if it is, how do we know it's true, genetic markers? What other leaders have left a genetic mark, Genghis Khan?

I understand that Egyptian theology believed that after Osiris judged a deceased person in the underworld, said person might return to their body, and this is the reason they mummified and created extravagant tombs and pyramids. But my question is, did everyone get mummified? (exceptions being slaves I'm guessing...)