This comes up sufficiently often in the excellent /r/AskHistorians sub that it made their VFAQ [1] list twice. Both linked answers are worth reading. [1] https

This comes up sufficiently often in the excellent /r/AskHistorians sub that it made their VFAQ [1] list twice. Both linked answers are worth reading. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/vfaq#wiki_ancient_world https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/vfaq#wiki_ancien...