Timeline for Why did Histiaeus tattoo his slave's head?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 27, 2018 at 8:33 | comment | added | Voo | You assume that a) the slave would remember a longer message exactly over weeks (good luck with that) and b) that if he could remember the message perfectly, the slave would want to tell it the recipient (because nothing bad ever happens to the messenger of bad news). The unreliability of messengers used to be one of the biggest problems of diplomacy. There's a fun extra history episode that talks about this for a bit, maybe I'll look for it later. | |
| Mar 26, 2018 at 23:43 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackCrypto/status/978417311660019712 | ||
| Mar 26, 2018 at 22:21 | comment | added | mhum | Also, there is no reason that the tattooed slave should even know that there is a secret message being tattooed on his scalp. I could have sworn that when I first heard of this tale (and, to be clear, this vignette is generally not considered to be one of Herodotus' more factual stories), that the slave was told that the tattooing was supposed to be some kind of medical procedure. | |
| Mar 26, 2018 at 21:34 | vote | accept | TypeIA | ||
| Mar 26, 2018 at 21:13 | answer | added | rackandboneman | timeline score: 6 | |
| Mar 26, 2018 at 19:17 | answer | added | Thomas Pornin | timeline score: 25 | |
| Mar 26, 2018 at 18:55 | comment | added | Ella Rose |
It also doesn't seem likely that the message could be kept secret from the messenger (since the messenger could just ask a friend to read it off his skull) This assumes that slaves know how to read, which easily may not have been true (or that the slave had a friend who was not a slave, which seems improbable).
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| Mar 26, 2018 at 18:45 | review | First posts | |||
| Mar 26, 2018 at 21:27 | |||||
| Mar 26, 2018 at 18:42 | history | asked | TypeIA | CC BY-SA 3.0 |