for example when Rome signed the treaty ending the 1st Punic War how did it refer to itself in said treaty?

Say I'm some peasant in 147something central Europe. Along comes some noble - I'm not exactly thinking of a king or duke here, more a minor noble or even just a knight - and steals my cow, rapes my daughter, kills my son. What, apart from just accepting this like I would a storm that destroys my crops or rebelling, could I do about this? I'm especially interested in what would happen if my own lord committed the crime, not some stranger.

I’m watching All Quiet on the Western Front and I began to wonder if there was any graphic depictions of the brutality of war in Ancient Rome or Medieval Europe? Maybe some type of literature or visual representation that is anti-war in nature. Thanks in advance

I can imagine the specifics of actually having to go to a physical archive and request the copies or microfilm but I'm trying to figure out what the methodology was before access to digital archives. Any academic papers directly answering the question or as an exemplar would be welcome.

Thanks

Recently learned about the concept of damnatio memoriae and found it fascinating. From some reading on the subject, I'm learning that while it was a cultural practice at the time of ancient Rome, the term itself wasn't created until the 1600s. My curiosity is about ancient Greece, maybe around 500BC or thereabouts. Was there a similar cultural practice there of destroying or modifying statues and artwork to erase people from cultural memory? Any examples you know of? Would historians refer to this by the same Latin term, or did the Greeks have a term for the practice that they used contemporaneously? Thanks in advance!

I've been visiting a museum with a friend and we noticed that, in comparison to Egyptian depictions of Humans American civilizations used to depict humans as really blocky and very symmetrical beings. Is there a particular reason for that?

I kind of had a realization today that we take for granted the fact that we know the Earth is round. If we didn’t know any better, it would seem absurd that we were standing on a rock floating in the middle of literal space. Gravity pulling from the center in all directions is something just not visible in nature, and aside from photos and videos we’ve never truly experienced ourselves. So is there any record of how the ancients reacted to learning this truth? Were they shocked?

I'm watching HBO's Rome and there are frequent mentions of Gods. Some of the characters frequently swear by saying 'Sons of Dis', for example. Hades is also brought up a lot. However, when I Googled Hades, it's a Greek God. Dis is the Roman counterpart from what I've read. Did Ancient Romans acknowledge Greek Gods as well as their own Roman Gods in parellel?

I was recently watching the HBO TV series Rome (acclaimed for historical accuracy), where upon Julius Caesar's death and public funeral, the town crier says

"No prostitutes, actors, or unclean tradesmen may attend."

Were actors in Rome really of so low social status to be clubbed with prostitutes? If so, why?

Today, actors and actresses are generally held in high regard and the profession is also one of the highest paying ones, on par with sportsmen, business executives, etc. When actors like Leonardo DiCaprio talk about climate change, it makes headlines.

When did this reversal happen and why?

Moreover, if they had had domestic horses and camels, would the cultural and technological exchange have been akin to that of Eurasia, or the north-south axis of the continent would still have inhibited it to some extent?

I’m assuming there were multiple numerical systems at one point? Why is 7 * 7 written like this in many cultures but saying ‘seven times seven’ is very different.

I understand there are some dead base 6 numerical systems like Sumerian, and Japanese/Chinese characters are different, but the number of languages that are different is vastly greater than the number of numerical systems that are different.

Been looking for books on the Mongol Empire and Genghis Khan. I wanted to hear it from here. Any ideas?

Most historians agree that initially the Jewish solution was a question of deportation and the genocidal logic was only imposed at the end of 1941.

Why was there that change?

A couple of times now, I've come across a fascinating anecdote about the introduction of the potato in Prussia. Supposedly, Frederick the Great had ordered his subjects to start planting potatoes, but they refused because the potato looked weird or it was a foreign food or they just didn't want to. So the King changed tactics: he ordered potatoes planted in the royal fields, says the story, and spread the word that they were the most important and special crops available and nobody but the king was allowed to have them. He even posted armed guards around the fields to supposedly secure the potatoes, but instructed the guards to ignore all potential potato thieves and even to accept any bribes that they were offered, to ensure that as many "thieves" were successful as possible. Naturally, people were intrigued, stole themselves some potatoes, and the crop was promulgated.

This story seems almost too neat and clever to be true, and I couldn't find any solid proof of it online. But there's an additional wrinkle here. In The Pursuit of Power, Sir Richard J. Evans writes this about Greek leader Ioannis Kapodistrias:

"[Kapodistrias] also introduced the potato into Greece [in 1828] in an attempt to improve people's diet. At first, this met with deep scepticism [sic] among the peasantry, who refused to take up his offer of free distribution of seed potatoes to anyone who would plant them. Trying a new tactic, Kapodistrias had the potatoes piled up on the waterfront at Nafplio and surrounded by armed guards. This convinced local people and visitors from the countryside that these new vegetables were precious objects, and thus worth stealing. Before long, as the guards turned a blind eye, virtually all the potatoes had been taken - and their future in Greece was assured." (p.60)

So now I'm really curious about the provenance of this story. Did Frederick do the same thing as Kapodistrias, just in a different time and place with different details? Did Frederick do no such thing, and the story just migrated over time and retellings from Greece to Prussia? Or are we sure that Kapodistrias did his own potato deed - could that story have been a retelling of an event that actually happened in Prussia? Who's the real potato mastermind here?

Like, what did the USSR do as soon as they heard the news about JFK's assassination?

I was reading a historical fiction novel (yes, yes, I know) and the author describes Henry VIII as having a “high-pitched, almost squeaky” voice; where could they have gotten that from; would there have been less than flattering contemporary or later descriptions of the way he sounded?