I am writing a sequel to my book and one of the characters, Nikolaos, was born in around 482 BCE in Greece. In the first book, I didn't divulge much about his life growing up in Ancient Greece however in this one I would like to look into it more.
I was wondering if any of you knew some good places to find out more information on what life was like back in those times for families and citizens, what the politics were, etc.
Am I correct in think that my character would not have a surname, so he would be called Nikolaos son of name?
What would life be like for a 27 year old man in those times, not affluent as such but not a poor man either?
I'm sorry if these questions are too broad, I'm really trying to educate myself on the matter as much as possible to do justice to the character's history and not spread misinformation. If any of you could help with these queries or could point me in the right direction of resources to learn more I would be very grateful, and if you would like me to be more specific with questions I would be happy to try and word them better.
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your novel, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists, based on past experience: some aspiring novelists have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.