In the Odyssey why didn't the vast majority leave to find wives elsewhere when it became clear Penelope was dragging her feet and not choosing a husband anytime soon? There had to have been plenty of princesses and noble daughters or widows all around ancient Greece at the time. It would be better than hanging around for twenty years with increasingly hostile competition.

I’m trying to picture what the seas looked like activity wise. It’s 0 AD (or 0 BC?), basically when all the clocks flipped to 0. I’m flying in a plane over the northern Red Sea, then along the Gulf of Suez, across Sinai and continue north along the coast of the Eastern Med. I’m flying high enough to count shipping density. Just ball parking for example: what would I find in these regions? Not during wartime per se. (Would they have rescued each other if needed? Was there maritime law enforcement?)

Silly example: North Red Sea. 50 merchants per sq nmi or sq km, (any additional info welcome, eg Mostly Nabateans headed back with papyrus)

I just watched Gladiator 2, and I want to know in detail all the different hardships slaves faced and how people owned them and looked at them. I feel like that whole era was the worst time ever to be a slave or just human in general.

It's a common trope in modern/urban fantasy. The fae can't touch iron without it burning/hurting them, they can't enter a house without an invitation, they can't outright tell a lie and so on. But where did these tropes originate? I heard somewhere that king Solomon supposedly used an iron sword to bind/abjure demons in the construction of his temple, so is the idea of iron being anathema to fae/elves etc a result of Christianity trying to paint old pagan beliefs as devil-worship?

Similarly, I remember reading a translations of Goethe's Faust where Mephistopheles mentions devils, ghosts and the like can only enter a house once invited, and can only leave the house by the same door, but older myths and legends don't seem to have any requirement for fae and supernatural creatures to need an invitation to enter.

How recent are these additions to the myths? Do we know where they sprang from?

Embarasssing for me, as someone who never "studied the Classics", I didn't realize that the Trojan Horse was barely mentioned by Homer, let alone how the war ended. Not asking about historicity etc., but why would Homer choose to end his epic with the death of Hector rather the fall of Troy? Especially given The Odyssey gives it minimal mention as well.

In the modern story telling sense, the obvious end is the fall of Troy and death of Achilles, which makes it seem as if we're missing some great tome by Homer between the two poems. Or perhaps the story was so well known into the 5th-8th century BC that the Horse and fall of Troy wasn't exciting to the audience. The absence is curious!

What was Hitler's long term plan for southeast Europe?

When talking about Amadeo Avogadro, historical Italian chemist, he is most often depicted by that one portrait where he looks like a goblin. Was that just a bad portrait or was he really considered notably ugly by people who met him?

In When Montezuma Met Cortés, Matthew Restall notes the following about Mesoamerican traditions of warfare:

Contrary to the Aztecs’ reputation for bloodthirstiness, they shared with other Mesoamericans a culture of warfare that was bound by a war season, by rules of conduct, and by an emphasis on individual combat and ritualized killing. (The Aztecs and the Tlaxcalteca Triple Alliance even seem to have engaged in so-called Flower Wars, in which the unpredictable chaos of open battle was replaced by hand-to-hand combat and negotiated casualties.) Unlike the Iberian Peninsula, the Mexican countryside was not studded with castles and fortified towns; by and large, both urban and rural populations did not need to live in fear of sudden attack, slaughter, and enslavement—not until 1519, that is.

Restall says this about Aztec and Tlaxcalteca warfare close to the contact period, but I’m wondering if this extends to other Mesoamerican groups and in other eras as well?

In most cases, wouldn't the people initially being "devoured" be the "parents" of the revolution, setting in motion the rhetoric, zeitgeist, etc for violence to be an acceptable solution for dissidents. The early generation revolutiononaries then gets outflanked by newer generations.

Should it not be: "The children of the revolution devour its parents"?

Was there an official policy handed down from above, or was it just a socially enforced taboo? "Don't wanna be seen as a commie sympathizer right?'

I am sorry if this question is too broad, but I was curious. For context - I was reading Ovid's metamorphosis, and came across the story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus:

Then she was truly pleased. And Salmacis was inflamed with desire for his naked form. The nymph’s eyes blazed with passion, as when Phoebus’s likeness is reflected from a mirror, that opposes his brightest unclouded orb. She can scarcely wait, scarcely contain her delight, now longing to hold him, now unable to keep her love to herself. He, clapping his open palms to his side, dives into the pool, and leading with one arm and then the other, he gleams through the pure water, as if one sheathed an ivory statue, or bright lilies behind clear glass. “I have won, he is mine”, the naiad cries, and flinging aside all her garments, she throws herself into the midst of the water

She held him to her, struggling, snatching kisses from the fight, putting her hands beneath him, touching his unwilling breast, overwhelming the youth from this side and that. At last, she entwines herself face to face with his beauty, like a snake, lifted by the king of birds and caught up into the air, as Hermaphroditus tries to slip away. Hanging there she twines round his head and feet and entangles his spreading wings in her coils. Or as ivy often interlaces tall tree trunks. Or as the cuttlefish holds the prey, it has surprised, underwater, wrapping its tentacles everywhere.

The descendant of Atlas holds out, denying the nymph’s wished-for pleasure: she hugs him, and clings, as though she is joined to his whole body. “It is right to struggle, perverse one,” she says, “but you will still not escape. Grant this, you gods, that no day comes to part me from him, or him from me.” Her prayer reached the gods. Now the entwined bodies of the two were joined together, and one form covered both. Just as when someone grafts a twig into the bark, they see both grow joined together, and develop as one, so when they were mated together in a close embrace.

This made me curious as to whether Ovid would have seen this as an attempted rape - the structure does somewhat parallel how he depicts Apollo's attempted rape of Daphne. Building on this, I know that modern ideas about sexual violence against men and boys (and all sexual violence in general) are exceptionally new and hardly universal, but I was wondering generally how new to concept that a woman forcing a man or boy to have sex with her is morally wrong is.

I was over at /r/HistoryMemes reading this post and learned about this. Someone over there that nobody has any idea why it was such a common subject.

Is there any school of thought on why snails were used? Was it a meme from antiquity or a joke? Or could there have been some some deeper meaning?

Example one Example two

In the US education system it is portrayed that before the seven years war, what are now called “the 13 colonies” were pretty much autonomous and British parliament levying taxes on them was unheard of. They even saw each-other as separate pseudo-nations. (I could be wrong about that).

Why then did the British Empire go through all the effort and money of establishing and defending these colonies? What benefit did the empire have in doing so?

I’m interested in how ethnic Germans, who were not political or sexual deviants, were treated when they committed a crime. Did they have (fair) trials? What were the prison conditions like? What were the sentences for crimes? What criminal justice rights did they have, if any? I’ve tried looking around but haven’t been able to find much on this, as most of the literature is on how minorities were treated, so any information would be much appreciated.

We are at the 4. internationale. That is alot, not as many as the number of republics France has had. But why do we have a 4. Internationale, and what happened to the 1., 2. and 3.?

So in 1921, the British decided to formally recognize the Soviet Union and signed a trade agreement with them. This confuses me because in the past three years before the Treaty was signed Britain was one of the supporters of the White Movement during the Civil War. So why did they decide to change their policy towards the Soviets?

In The Godfather Part II, the Cuban Revolution and Batista's ouster is depicted right after the scene where Michael signals his awareness of Fredo's betrayal.

During the party at the Presidential Palace, Batista announces that rebel forces have seized the cities of Santiago and Guantánamo and declares his resignation and intention to flee the country immediately. This triggers panic among the wealthy guests who scramble to leave the country. Outside, the streets erupt in celebration as civilians bang on fire hydrants and cheer the arrival of the rebels. The scene also shows Batista’s soldiers saluting the incoming rebels as they take over the city.

How well does this depiction align with what actually took place in Cuba during the early hours of January 01, 1959?