Q&A for History of Mankind (36)

Euripides' Revenge; plus questions about the ideal size of states, what Jesus looked like, the history of parasols & the Indus script

To check all previous newsletters in the History of Mankind, which is pretty long, you can click here.

This is the thirty-sixth Q&A for History of Mankind. Paying subscribers received an email asking for questions; and those are right below the paywall.

As usual, a quick reminder: all new paying subscribers get an electronic copy of my 2023 book ”Emperor Whisperers: a comparative history of ancient Western and Chinese philosophy” (also available here) and also one of “Gods & Heroes,” an updated compilation of the first 43 posts in the History of Mankind series. So, if you are paying subscriber and you didn’t get both already, please let me know.

One other important thing: some people told me they are not getting my emails in their inboxes, even though they are subscribed, and they don’t understand why. This is an important issue, and I didn’t understand why this is happening either, until I found out that this is an issue affecting people who use the Substack app.

Because of a faulty design choice, the Substack app defaults to Smart Notifications, meaning “push” notifications in the app instead of emails in your inbox, to make you to spend more time there. Be careful with that! I believe Substack’s strongest selling point is the ease of its inbox delivery method, so I personally hate the choice. If you do too, just open the app, go to “Settings” and “Notifications”, then at the top select “Newsletter delivery.”

Then select “Prefer email”:

Before we get to subscribers’ questions, I’d like to highlight some pretty good recent news regarding one of the best writers of all time, a Greek playwright whose enemies did much to erase the memory of: Euripides.

I love Euripides, about whom I wrote in particular detail in History of Mankind #119, and loath the fact that most of his works are lost to history, probably because his democrat enemies in Athens believed (unfairly) that he supported their arch-enemies, the Spartans:

Euripides wrote 90 plays, of which only 19 survive; we only have fragments and uncomplete plot summaries of his Phaeton play, for example, or of Andromeda, about a beautiful young princess who was chained to a rock and awaited death from a sea monster until, at the last minute, the hero Perseus arrives on his flying horse, Pegasus, and rescues her. This was a very popular play: days before his death in Babylon, in 323 BC, Alexander the Great recited verses from Andromeda, during an alcohol-fueled party.