Today:
Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Sunday Digest (formerly the Day of Reflection). Nobody can read all the questions and answers that are posted here, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.
Since I (finally) answered a 2.5 month old question I'm sure it wasn't seen by many:
/u/cleopatra_philopater gave two long and interesting answers. One on Did the contemporaries of Ancient Greeks share their views of sex and sexuality? which took some time and thus did not have the merited visibility and one on Cleopatra is pretty (in)famous for her sexual exploits at this point. Is this based in ancient accounts or is it a modern invention? where she outlines how Cleopatra got her reputation; /u/XenophonTheAthenian having outlined what the old sources are saying on the subject.
Better late than never:
/u/gaimar answered What was the difference between fealty and homage in medieval Europe?
Let’s look at the theme of the week (rubs hands excitedly)! What did we learn about drugs?
/u/RexSueciae, /u/XenophonTheAthenian and others had a fantastic discussion about about ancient recreational drugs
/u/restricteddata and /u/Skiosmagus talked about the history of the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer
/u/poob1x talked about the import and export of drugs to and from Circumpolar north areas!
Just wanted to say /u/keyilan gave a fascinating answer to a question I had about an obscure kingdom in the south of China: What do we know of the Kingdom of Nanzhao?
Apologies if this is against convention. I asked a question about the development of children's literature but didn't get an answer. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6nmnq9/did_mainland_european_childrens_literature/
Question is here. I'm wondering if the question is too broad? If you agree let me know and I'll try and tighten it up a bit.
Hello there, my fellow AskHistorians fiends! Hope everyone is having a great weekend and here you can find your fix of the popular and/or interesting questions from last week, which did not receive an answer yet:
/u/roshoka wants to know if there were any country stars in his time who had an opinion of Hank Williams' country similar to many of today's negative opinions towards modern "pop-country?"
/u/CheetoBenitoBurrito asked how come that no Portuguese-speaking countries have life sentences and Portugal was seemingly the first country in the world to forbid them in the 19th century
/u/Paulie_Gatto would like to know what was the policy of the Soviet Union, the PRC, Cuba etc. towards tobacco use
/u/JohnBrownsRevenge would like to know (and so would I) about the relationship that English and Sicilian Normans might have had with each others.
I actually asked a question based on the theme of the week anlbout Whether recreational smoking is attested to in ancient Rome. It got downvoted and has zero comments but I still really wanna know if there is any evidence and if not when did smoking pipes, hookahs etc in the areas of the former Roman Empire start?
The use of opium in HBO's "Rome" is fictional sure but that doesn't mean no one smoked anything, it just tells me Anthony and Cleo didn't smoke opium. Marcus Aurelius chewed opium leaves sure but that ain't smoking. Does any literature describe smoking or is there any archaeological evidence that it was a thing?
It seems like a groundball question but after asking more than once I feel like I'm either missing something obvious or no one cares.
About a week ago /u/LordOfFantasy asked How did medieval rulers and nobles choose who to marry? Was it entirely political, or were there other factors?
More recently /u/BeraldGevins asked How did the Egyptian Empire last so long?. I know the gist of that answer but I hope someone more qualified can give a good one.
I asked who were the Székelys since it's been asked multiple times on this sub with no real answer.