Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what mango was that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: All right, So I was reading up on ancient Greek
Speaker 2: theater this week, which you know I like to do
Speaker 2: every October very personal reasons. I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into it, and I came across this story about an
Speaker 2: Athenian actor name he Geligos, and he once mispronounced a
Speaker 2: word so badly that it tanked his entire career.
Speaker 1: That sounds so harsh, like just one word tanked his career?
Speaker 1: What was the word?
Speaker 2: Well, so here's the story. This happened back in the
Speaker 2: spring of four hundred and eight BC, and it was
Speaker 2: during the premiere performance of Orestes. This was this tragedy
Speaker 2: written by Euripides. He was playing the lead role, and
Speaker 2: in a scene where his character recovers from a bout
Speaker 2: of madness, he's supposed to say, quote, after the storm,
Speaker 2: I see once more a calm, But because he was
Speaker 2: rushing to get the line out, there's this word in it, galen,
Speaker 2: and he says it with the wrong inflection, which changed
Speaker 2: the meaning from calm to weasel, Like that's a different word.
Speaker 1: Those are yeah, I always think that's an improvement.
Speaker 2: Well, it was actually worse than it sounds, because in
Speaker 2: ancient Greece, seeing a weasel was considered a really bad
Speaker 2: omen So the mispronunciation not only made the line sound sillier,
Speaker 2: it also conveyed the exact opposite mood. Instead of being
Speaker 2: this optimistic line about feeling better, it became this ominous
Speaker 2: line about him having bad luck.
Speaker 1: And it was actually that big of a mistake just
Speaker 1: mispronouncing this one word, I'm.
Speaker 2: Telling you it ruined his whole career. So comic playwrights
Speaker 2: of the era teased him mercilessly and even referenced him
Speaker 2: by name in their own play. This killed his reputation
Speaker 2: as an actor, to the point that he never acted
Speaker 2: again after that one flub. It also gave him a
Speaker 2: different level of fame than his contemporaries. Like basically, even
Speaker 2: though ancient Greek tragedies are the bedrock of Western theater,
Speaker 2: we usually don't have record of the actors who appeared
Speaker 2: in the original performances. You don't hear the names of
Speaker 2: any of them except for Geligos, who we still know
Speaker 2: for this mistake, and this was definitely not the legacy
Speaker 2: he would have hoped.
Speaker 1: For, but it is still his legacy. No such thing
Speaker 1: as bad publicity.
Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right. So we're often hearing about the
Speaker 2: seven wonders of the ancient world, so today I thought
Speaker 2: it might be fun to explore the seven biggest blunders
Speaker 2: of the ancient world instead. This slip of the tongue
Speaker 2: is just the first on the list, but that still
Speaker 2: leaves six more gafts to go, so let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 2: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genie. I'm Will Pearson,
Speaker 2: and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh
Speaker 2: hot Ticketter and on the other side of that soundproof
Speaker 2: glass wearing a It took me a minute to read this,
Speaker 2: but it says po body's nerfic T shirt.
Speaker 1: He's so clear, so clever, clever a.
Speaker 2: Picture of a great sphinx on it. That's our friend
Speaker 2: and producer Dylan fag and he's just always one upping
Speaker 2: the last thing he's done.
Speaker 1: So I am actually glad that Dylan referenced the sphinx
Speaker 1: because I considered adding the sphinx to our list, specifically
Speaker 1: because of that broken nose it has, but once I
Speaker 1: started looking into it, I realized the nose wasn't broken
Speaker 1: off by mistake.
Speaker 2: This is one of those stories that I feel like
Speaker 2: I've heard a few times and I never can like,
Speaker 2: wasn't it cut off on purpose? Or shot off by
Speaker 2: French troops or something like that.
Speaker 1: No one actually knows who did it for sure. There
Speaker 1: have been all these rumors over the years that it
Speaker 1: was Napoleon soldiers they had blasted the nose off with
Speaker 1: the cannonball in the seventeen nineties. That was the rumor,
Speaker 1: But most historians actually think that the schnaws was chiseled
Speaker 1: off in the late fourteenth century and chiseled off like
Speaker 1: it's a mass of nos that's huge. The most likely
Speaker 1: culprit was this man named Mohammad Sayim al Dhar and
Speaker 1: apparently the Egyptian peasants of the era had started making
Speaker 1: offerings to the sphinx in the idea that it would
Speaker 1: improve their harvests or whatever. But when Aldaar found out,
Speaker 1: he was so outraged by this idolatry that he destroyed
Speaker 1: the sphinx nose just despite them.
Speaker 2: Wow, So did the villagers kind of snap out of
Speaker 2: it after that or what?
Speaker 1: No, they executed him for vandalism. Oh god.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so far we've talked about some people that
Speaker 2: they're just lives, have.
Speaker 1: Gone poorly after things.
Speaker 2: But all right, so now that we've got that nose
Speaker 2: story out of the way, what's your first fact?
Speaker 1: Mango? Okay, So I actually kind of want to stick
Speaker 1: with Egypt for a minute, because not only is it
Speaker 1: home to the only ancient wonder that still exists, the
Speaker 1: Great Pyramid of Giza, but it's also home to a
Speaker 1: true anciente blunder called the Bent Pyramid. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen this? Actually have not. I'm actually going to put
Speaker 1: a photo here, but the three hundred and thirty foot
Speaker 1: tall Bent Pyramid of Dashu Where was built for pharaoh
Speaker 1: Sneffru in about twenty six hundred BCE, and its name
Speaker 1: stems from an engineering issue that required the builders to
Speaker 1: abruptly change the angle of the pyramid slope about halfway
Speaker 1: through the construction. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm just looking at this picture, and the slope really
Speaker 2: does change drastically right there in the middle of the pyramid,
Speaker 2: Like the lower portion looks so much deeper than the top.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the whole thing was originally designed to be
Speaker 1: built at a fifty four degree angle, which would have
Speaker 1: given it smooth, straight angles that you see on traditional pyramids.
Speaker 1: But as the builders added more and more layers of blocks,
Speaker 1: these cracks started appearing in the structure, and they realized
Speaker 1: it would probably collapse if they kept going, and so
Speaker 1: after a bit of number crunching, they decided to reduce
Speaker 1: the angle for the upper portion to a much more
Speaker 1: stable forty three degrees. I guess it worked.
Speaker 2: It's still standing today, and you could argue that the
Speaker 2: slightly curved appearance is part of the landmark's charm.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious why the Egyptians made such a mistake
Speaker 2: in the first place. I mean, building pyramids feels like
Speaker 2: kind of their thing, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Egyptians are well known for building pyramids. I
Speaker 1: think we're going to break that fact, right, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: But Snepfer's bent pyramid was kind of in early work.
Speaker 1: It was just the second pyramid burial structure that the
Speaker 1: Egyptians had ever constructed. The first one had been built
Speaker 1: about two hundred years earlier, southwest of Cairo. And the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about that one is it was actually a
Speaker 1: stone step pyramid, So the kinds you see in like
Speaker 1: Central America, rather than a smooth faced one like the
Speaker 1: kind that they would later become famous for. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I guess this bent pyramid was in this transitional
Speaker 2: phase where they were still trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: it really meant or what it needed to build a pyramid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were still fine tuning the process, and obviously
Speaker 1: there was a fair amount of trial and error along
Speaker 1: the way. The Egyptians learned from this mistake, and once
Speaker 1: the Bent Pyramid was finished, they built a second, more
Speaker 1: successful one for the same pharaoh, This three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty foot tall, smooth side red pyramid, and it's just
Speaker 1: to the north and the future pyramids built in the area.
Speaker 1: It was built at that same forty three degree angle
Speaker 1: that saved the Bent pyramid. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: is about forty three degrees, but it just works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and definitely does. That's ever, when we want to
Speaker 2: build a pyramid.
Speaker 1: Wait, so, can I tell you how excited I am
Speaker 1: to have Nord VPN sponsoring our little show part time genius.
Speaker 1: You know, when I get excited, I make lists, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you why Nord is so great
Speaker 1: in listical form. First off, VPNs make the Internet a safer,
Speaker 1: cozier place. VPN stand for Virtual Private network. Basically, they
Speaker 1: hide your IP address and protect your online identity and data,
Speaker 1: which is especially good for people like me who use
Speaker 1: the free Internet on cranes or planes or wherever. And
Speaker 1: this is basically like an invisibility cloak that keeps you
Speaker 1: out of sight from hackers, which is incredible. It is
Speaker 1: also why I'm going to use this discount code seriously
Speaker 1: to get my mom a subscription right after this ad
Speaker 1: read two. It is great for sports fans. If you've
Speaker 1: listened to the show, you know that Will and I
Speaker 1: met as college freshmen and we went to Duke. And
Speaker 1: also I secretly watch as many college basketball games as
Speaker 1: my wife and family will allow me to. Please don't
Speaker 1: remind me how the season ended for us, but that
Speaker 1: isn't it. I also love watching soccer and tennis, but
Speaker 1: when I travel for work, like when I went to
Speaker 1: India this winter, I got blocked out of all my games.
Speaker 1: It was the total worst, except because NordVPN let's you
Speaker 1: change your location, you can actually access all those games
Speaker 1: from anywhere. It is magic. And three. One NordVPN subscription
Speaker 1: can be used on up to ten devices, which is incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to do the math for you,
Speaker 1: but whether you use ten cell phones or you have
Speaker 1: like nine desktop computers and one laptop or six iPads,
Speaker 1: three phones and one personal computer, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of ways to stretch this deal. I mean, I'm joking,
Speaker 1: but also I have like a million devices, so the
Speaker 1: idea of spreading this across ten devices is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: It is premium cybersecurity for the price of a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee every month. Anyway, if you love our show
Speaker 1: and you want to support a show and you need
Speaker 1: a VPN, this is absolutely the deal for you. To
Speaker 1: get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to
Speaker 1: nord vpn dot com slash ptg. That's NordVPN dot com
Speaker 1: slash ptg. Our link will also give you four extra
Speaker 1: months on the two year plan and there is no
Speaker 1: risk no risk with Nords thirty day money back guarantee.
Speaker 1: That is NordVPN dot com slash ptg. Or you can
Speaker 1: find the link in the podcast episode description. So if
Speaker 1: you want to not get hacked, watch lots of sports
Speaker 1: and do it on multiple devices, nordvpns for you, all.
Speaker 2: Right, well, I've got an architectural mishap to add to
Speaker 2: our list as well, except mine is more of an
Speaker 2: ecological oversight than some sort of design flaw all. So
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you a little bit of background here.
Speaker 2: This was in the great Maya city called te Call
Speaker 2: and that formed around six hundred BCE. Now to Call
Speaker 2: started as this tiny village in what's now Guatemala, but
Speaker 2: over the course of about one thousand years it developed
Speaker 2: into this full blown jungle metropolis so to call hit
Speaker 2: its stride between three hundred and nine hundred CE, and
Speaker 2: at the peak of its power in the mid eighth century,
Speaker 2: it boasted upwards of sixty thousand inhabitants, so there was
Speaker 2: a lot of people living in one place, making it
Speaker 2: one of the largest and most powerful city states in
Speaker 2: all of the Americas.
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing the architecture there was pretty impressive as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the architecture is actually pretty stunning. So they're these
Speaker 2: one hundred foot tall temples more than two dozen pyramids.
Speaker 2: But maybe most impressively, it also had this highly advanced
Speaker 2: water management system that was there to help residents survive
Speaker 2: of the region's dry season. So this included a series
Speaker 2: of dams, reservoirs that collected and stored as much rain
Speaker 2: water as possible, as well as these paved sloping plazas
Speaker 2: to help direct the water where it needed to go.
Speaker 2: So the city even had this sand filtration system to
Speaker 2: keep the water clean. So really advanced systems.
Speaker 1: That sounds gorgeous actually, And I'm guessing all that water
Speaker 1: work was necessary because of where the city was located, right.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, Like the city was built in the
Speaker 2: middle of this dense rainforest and people didn't have easy
Speaker 2: access to lakes or rivers, so that's how the city
Speaker 2: compensated for this. But what's ironic is that the very
Speaker 2: system that helped to Call survived droughts and dry spells
Speaker 2: also led to its downfall, and much of the Maya
Speaker 2: Kingdom collapsed at the turn of the ninth century, and
Speaker 2: in fact, to Call seems to have been outright abandoned,
Speaker 2: like with all of its structures left completely intact, as
Speaker 2: if everyone just picked up and left at some point.
Speaker 2: So for the longest time, there's been this mystery about
Speaker 2: what caused the city's demise. Obviously wasn't a violent struggle,
Speaker 2: as there were no signs of damage to the city.
Speaker 2: So that led historians to conclude that the city's collapse
Speaker 2: was probably related to droughts and overpopulation.
Speaker 1: And we're saying the fancy water system that the city has,
Speaker 1: that's the reason that they left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there was this very recent study, it was
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty that was published in Scientific Reports Journal,
Speaker 2: and it was this investigation of to Call's reservoirs, and
Speaker 2: they revealed that they were dangerously polluted with high levels
Speaker 2: of mercury. And not only that, scientists also found traces
Speaker 2: of very toxic algae blooms. Now, the presence of mercury
Speaker 2: is most likely attributed to a red mineral called cinnabar
Speaker 2: or mercuric sulfide, which the ancient mile widely used as
Speaker 2: a pigment or a dye for various things. So, for example,
Speaker 2: the city's temples and the main palace were said to
Speaker 2: be caked in cinnabar, which means that during the rainy season,
Speaker 2: all that mercury rich powder.
Speaker 1: It just washed right off the buildings. Yes, so you
Speaker 1: know it's not good news.
Speaker 2: And so thanks to those sloping plazas, this just flowed
Speaker 2: straight down into the city's reservoirs and obtained the water
Speaker 2: supply of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so obviously, with people drinking and cooking with
Speaker 1: all this poisoned water, they must have started getting sick, right.
Speaker 2: Very sick. Once the blue green algae began to bloom
Speaker 2: in those phosphate filled reservoirs, the locals could probably tell
Speaker 2: from the site and smell alone that the water was
Speaker 2: no longer safe to drink.
Speaker 1: And I guess what's weird about this is that the
Speaker 1: entire population just gets up and leaves, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: this civilization has lasted what like a thousand years, and
Speaker 1: it feels like they'd almost wanted to fight to save
Speaker 1: their city a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Well, you've got to keep in mind that Takol was
Speaker 2: already struggling due to intensifying droughts. So even if there
Speaker 2: was a way to fix the pollution, the residents really
Speaker 2: didn't have the time to implement it. Like, they obviously
Speaker 2: needed to deal with this immediately, and so they had
Speaker 2: to find a new water supply. And there's also the
Speaker 2: religious component to consider, So water was sacred to the
Speaker 2: Maya because it was key to their whole existence. So
Speaker 2: when their supplies suddenly went bad, in the middle of
Speaker 2: a terrible drought. They likely took it as a sign
Speaker 2: that the gods were displeased with them. So from a
Speaker 2: practical standpoint and a symbolic one, abandoning their once great
Speaker 2: city probably felt like the most sensible option.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess it's a luxury to be able to
Speaker 1: learn from your mistakes. Like when you think about the
Speaker 1: Egyptians working on that bent pyramid, they make this awkward
Speaker 1: pyramid and then they have time to reflect and figure
Speaker 1: out like how to make the next one perfect. Right,
Speaker 1: But for the Maya, they don't really have a chance
Speaker 1: to be scientific. In order to survive. They just have
Speaker 1: to scramble. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, it's funny that you put it that way,
Speaker 2: because the next blunder on my list is from someone
Speaker 2: who also had to walk away in order to survive
Speaker 2: a mistake, but in his case there was a literal
Speaker 2: dead elephant blocking the exit. How about that for a tease, mango.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, but
Speaker 1: I'm very curious. So let's take a quick commercial break
Speaker 1: and then you can tell me all about it. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: seven blunders of the ancient world. So will where are
Speaker 1: you taking us next? All right?
Speaker 2: So for this one, we're headed back to ancient Greece
Speaker 2: to about the third century BCE, which was a tumultuous
Speaker 2: time in the Mediterranean. The recent death of Alexander the
Speaker 2: Great had created this serious power vacuum and all of
Speaker 2: his former generals and allies were competing to fill it.
Speaker 2: And one of the would be successors, King Pirus, was
Speaker 2: this ruler from northern Greece, and he managed to extend
Speaker 2: his domain by winning narrow victories against the armies of Macedonia.
Speaker 2: Now this was in the year two eighty, and that's
Speaker 2: when he set his sights on conquering Rome. So Piras
Speaker 2: sailed to Italy with about thirty thousand soldiers and twenty
Speaker 2: war elephants, marking the first time that elephants had ever
Speaker 2: been seen on the peninsula.
Speaker 1: So this must predate Hannibal and the Alps then, I guess.
Speaker 2: By about sixty years, so not not a ton of time.
Speaker 2: But as you might imagine, the Romans on the battlefield
Speaker 2: were pretty freaked out by the sight of these enormous
Speaker 2: armored an I can't even imagine if I had never
Speaker 2: seen an elephant, But even with the advantage of intimidation,
Speaker 2: Peeris only barely pulled.
Speaker 1: Out a win.
Speaker 2: In fact, the number of casualties he sustained was so
Speaker 2: high that the Greek historian Plutarch quoted him as having said, quote,
Speaker 2: if we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans,
Speaker 2: we shall be utterly ruined. So you can imagine that
Speaker 2: these were hard won battles. So King Pieris became well
Speaker 2: known for his narrow winds, and people started using the
Speaker 2: expression pyrhic victory, which of course means a victory that
Speaker 2: comes at such great costs that it's almost like a defeat.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I remember taking a class on the moguls
Speaker 1: in college, and elephants are obviously so massive and so intimidating,
Speaker 1: but they also scare incredibly quickly, and so they're not
Speaker 1: great war animals.
Speaker 2: I can I can imagine that, especially if you let
Speaker 2: a bunch of mice loose.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I hear.
Speaker 2: Have no idea whether that's true, it's not true, So
Speaker 2: I haven't even gotten to his real mistake. If you
Speaker 2: remember that amazing tease before the commercial break, the dead
Speaker 2: elephant blocking the doorway. Do you remember this of So,
Speaker 2: after a series of Skin of his Teeth victories in Italy,
Speaker 2: Peeris actually started losing battles, so in two seventy five
Speaker 2: he retreats back to Greece and begins making a play
Speaker 2: for the throne.
Speaker 1: Of mast On.
Speaker 2: First he targeted Sparta, but when the city state proves
Speaker 2: resistant to his attacks, he turns his focus north to Argos.
Speaker 2: I've always thought this was interesting in military history, where
Speaker 2: they're like, I'm gonna go beat these people, and then
Speaker 2: I can't, like, oh no, no, I'll go over here.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting to think about it.
Speaker 2: But now Piers had no trouble breaking through the city's defense,
Speaker 2: thanks once again to his pack of giant elephants. But
Speaker 2: once he's inside, he finds it really difficult to maneuver
Speaker 2: through the narrow streets, and his forces are quickly overwhelmed.
Speaker 2: And to make matters worse, Pearce's forces keep pouring into
Speaker 2: the city even after he had ordered a retreat, and
Speaker 2: in the scuffle that followed, one of the elephants, the
Speaker 2: largest one, falls down right in front of the main gate,
Speaker 2: which sends the other elephants into a panic, and they
Speaker 2: start rampaging through the city basically crushing everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine, like there's no reverse on
Speaker 1: an elephant, Like you're in these narrow streets, and like
Speaker 1: the turning radius isn't that great? Not good? Not good?
Speaker 1: So does Paris get.
Speaker 2: Tremfled, Not exactly, but his death was the direct result
Speaker 2: of not being able to get around the fallen elephant.
Speaker 2: So in the battle, Pieris takes one look at the
Speaker 2: chaos unfolding and decides to take his chances back in
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 1: Now, as the.
Speaker 2: Story goes, he's fighting his way through the streets and
Speaker 2: he gets stabbed through the breastplate by this enemy spear.
Speaker 2: Pieris turned to face his attacker and landed a killing blow.
Speaker 2: But what he didn't realize was that the soldier's mother
Speaker 2: had been watching the whole scene from a nearby rooftop. So,
Speaker 2: according to Plutarch, when the old woman saw that her
Speaker 2: son was in danger, she lifted up a roof tile
Speaker 2: with both hands and hurled it at Peuris's head, and
Speaker 2: the resulting blow didn't kill Pearis, but it left him
Speaker 2: dayed enough that other soldiers were able to swoop in
Speaker 2: and finish him off.
Speaker 1: It feels like bringing elephants to battle wasn't a great idea,
Speaker 1: but the king's real mistake was killing someone right in
Speaker 1: front of their mother. You don't do that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing you walk away from. But
Speaker 1: let's leave the battlefield behind for now, because it's time
Speaker 1: to pay a visit to the ancient city of Bethlehem.
Speaker 1: And that's where Saint Jerome, one of the early scholars
Speaker 1: of the Catholic Church, accidentally sparked one of the weirdest
Speaker 1: trends in medieval and Renaissance are the horns on Moses.
Speaker 2: You know, I've actually always wondered about this, because there's
Speaker 2: that famous statue of Moses by Michelangelo, and for no
Speaker 2: apparent reason, he's got these weird little baby goat horns
Speaker 2: sprouting from his forehead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super weird, especially considering Moses's this prophet and
Speaker 1: horns are obviously associated with the devil. But Michelangelo was
Speaker 1: actually far from the only person to make this connection.
Speaker 1: This image of a horn Moses turns up in all
Speaker 1: sorts of Western medieval iconography, and weirdly, it can all
Speaker 1: be traced back to this single mistranslation by Saint Jerome.
Speaker 1: So it all goes back to the late fourth century.
Speaker 1: See when Saint Jerome began working on the first Latin
Speaker 1: translation of the Christian Bible, and for whatever reason, he
Speaker 1: decides to ignore the existing Greek translation of the Old
Speaker 1: New Testaments and instead he translates his own version directly
Speaker 1: from he grew into Latin, and unfortunately that led him
Speaker 1: into trouble due to seven ambiguities in the ancient Hebrew language.
Speaker 1: One example of this is the Hebrew word for a
Speaker 1: ray of light is almost exactly the same as a
Speaker 1: word for horn, and because the Hebrew language doesn't apparently
Speaker 1: write out its vowels, I guess Jerome wasn't able to
Speaker 1: pick up on the context clues. And so in the
Speaker 1: Book of Exodus, when Moses returns from Mount Sinai with
Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments, his face is lit up by this
Speaker 1: divine light, but in Saint Jerome's translation he gets horns instead.
Speaker 2: Wow, all right, So Moses spends six weeks on a
Speaker 2: mountaintop communing with God and comes back down he's suddenly
Speaker 2: grown a pair of horns, and nobody manages to comment
Speaker 2: on this again, is that what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super weird. And the really well part is
Speaker 1: that the people who translated the Old Testament into Ancient
Speaker 1: Greek had already solved for this welcome back to part
Speaker 1: time genius meaning of the Hebrew text and described Moses's
Speaker 1: face as glorified. But because Jerome had ignored that Greek translation,
Speaker 1: Moses winds up supporting horns in art for the next millennium,
Speaker 1: even after the error is widely acknowledged.
Speaker 2: I like the art world was like, no, We're just
Speaker 2: we're sticking with the horns, you know. All right, So
Speaker 2: if my math is right, that brings us up to
Speaker 2: five ancient blunders with two left to go. But before
Speaker 2: we get to those, let's take one more quick break,
Speaker 2: all right, Mango sur my final entry on our ancient
Speaker 2: blunders list. I want to take us back to the
Speaker 2: reign of Shen Sherwang, the first Emperor of China. So
Speaker 2: we're talking about the third century BCE, and Shen puts
Speaker 2: an end to a long period of provincial conflict in
Speaker 2: China by unifying the country's various provinces under one central government.
Speaker 2: He was also responsible for several major advances in Chinese culture,
Speaker 2: including the introduction of standardized weights and measures, the creation
Speaker 2: of uniform system of writing, the construction of the earliest
Speaker 2: form of the Great Wall. So a lot of accomplishments here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems so pretty productive. Pretty productive. Yeah, But as.
Speaker 2: He grew older and more powerful, the emperor also became
Speaker 2: obsessed with death and began searching for a way to
Speaker 2: achieve immortality. It feels like a lot of these leaders
Speaker 2: fall into this trap. And we know this because about
Speaker 2: twenty years ago, archaeologists discovered this cache of ancient writings
Speaker 2: at the bottom of an abandoned well in the Hunan Province,
Speaker 2: and one of them contains this executive order issued by
Speaker 2: the emperor. The decree ordered a nationwide search for immortality
Speaker 2: potions or elixirs of life, and required every village and
Speaker 2: region to submit a report of their findings.
Speaker 1: That's kind of amazing. I mean, like, China is such
Speaker 1: a vast territory and it's not like you can just
Speaker 1: send out junk mail or notification. The fact that like
Speaker 1: he forced this decree on everyone is incredible.
Speaker 2: It's a testament to Chen's he as a leader. But
Speaker 2: it also just shows how seriously he took this quest
Speaker 2: for his immortality.
Speaker 1: So did the villages end up getting back to him.
Speaker 2: I imagine they all did, But only a handful of
Speaker 2: responses were found in that well, and most of the
Speaker 2: replies were awkward notes from regional governments saying they hadn't
Speaker 2: found the elixir of life, but we're going to keep
Speaker 2: looking for it because they A'm sure they didn't want
Speaker 2: to get in trouble. But the only semi hopeful response
Speaker 2: came from officials and Langya when they suggested this herb
Speaker 2: from a local mountain might have these life extending properties.
Speaker 1: That sounds promising, did it?
Speaker 2: Apparently not considering Emperor Chen died at the age of
Speaker 2: forty nine. But that actually brings us around to his
Speaker 2: big mistake, because it seems that in his desperate search
Speaker 2: for immortality, the emperor may have actually shortened his own life.
Speaker 2: Historians believe that his early death was brought on by
Speaker 2: mercury poisoning. This extremely toxic side effect of many of
Speaker 2: the elixers that he drank in pursuit of his eternal life.
Speaker 2: Don't feel too badly for the emperor because he did
Speaker 2: have a backup plan, so before his early ish death,
Speaker 2: he ordered the construction of this enormous burial chamber, which
Speaker 2: he famously stocked with a life size army of thousands
Speaker 2: of terra Cotta warriors. To see where we're going here, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Jen believed in the afterlife and hope that the Clay
Speaker 2: soldiers would protect him in the world that was to come.
Speaker 1: I like that. You basically thought he would live forever regardless,
Speaker 1: but he still tried to find a magic potion. Yes,
Speaker 1: make sure I was going to live on ear Earth. Well,
Speaker 1: oddly enough, my last mistake also has to do with
Speaker 1: one man's quest for immortality. And maybe it's because I'm
Speaker 1: actually working on a new show on how to Live
Speaker 1: Forever because I am obsessed with other people's obsession with
Speaker 1: the topic. But for this fact, we need to head
Speaker 1: over to the city of Ephesis, which used to be
Speaker 1: a part of ancient Greece but is now in modern
Speaker 1: day Turkey. And the city is largely remembered as the
Speaker 1: birthplace of the philosopher Heraclitis, but it was also home
Speaker 1: to many lesser known female artists. I didn't realize this
Speaker 1: until we did this episode, but if theesis was filled
Speaker 1: with sculptors and painters and teachers, including the artist timer Reid,
Speaker 1: who painted a famous portrait of Artemis in the fifth
Speaker 1: century BCE. Now Artemis for anyone who's familiar with Greek
Speaker 1: myths or Percy Jackson was one of the most revered
Speaker 1: goddesses in the ancient Greek pantheon, but the Ephesians laid
Speaker 1: a special claim to her because they actually believed she
Speaker 1: had been born near the city. And while most cities
Speaker 1: praised Artemis as the goddess of hunting and wild animals,
Speaker 1: the people here actually worshiped her as this goddess of
Speaker 1: fertility and the protector of women and young girls, and
Speaker 1: in fact, Ephesian women would often call on Artemis for
Speaker 1: help during childbirth. So Artemis was, I don't know, kind
Speaker 1: of like the city mascot. Patron deity might be a
Speaker 1: better way to describe it, but I want to go
Speaker 1: with mascot. But that's why the city has had a
Speaker 1: temple dedicated to her since as far back as the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age, and the original structure was wiped out by
Speaker 1: a flood in the seventh century, but about two hundred
Speaker 1: years later, the Lydian king Croesus paid to rebuild the
Speaker 1: temple of Artemis, and he made it bigger and sturdier
Speaker 1: than ever, and so this new and improved temple was
Speaker 1: one of the largest ever built in ancient Greece. It
Speaker 1: stood roughly sixty feet tall. Inside there was this treasure
Speaker 1: tove of relief carvings, sculptures, paintings, including this massive statue
Speaker 1: of Artemis herself. But for nearly one hundred years after
Speaker 1: its completion, the Temple of Artemis served as a house
Speaker 1: of worship, and it was also this tourist destination, this
Speaker 1: art gallery all in one. And then this guy named
Speaker 1: Haristratus comes along right and late one evening in three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty six PCE, he makes his way up
Speaker 1: to the temple and sets fire to the wooden roof.
Speaker 1: The flame spread so quickly throughout this wooden interior. By
Speaker 1: morning the temple is totally in ruins. There's nothing left
Speaker 1: but a few blackened marble columns.
Speaker 2: So not an Artemis fan, I'm guessing that's the things
Speaker 2: we really don't know much about the Arsonist.
Speaker 1: He's believed to have been lower class and possibly enslaved,
Speaker 1: and many historians suspect that he wasn't Ephesian by birth,
Speaker 1: and obviously with that kind of background, you can imagine
Speaker 1: all sorts of potential motives. It might have been politically motivated.
Speaker 1: It might have been protesting this injustice of his low station.
Speaker 1: Or he also might have been a misogynist lashing out
Speaker 1: it this women's protector.
Speaker 2: Or maybe, and I'm not trying to be funny here,
Speaker 2: maybe he was just unwell and not thinking clearly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there are all sorts of plausible options, except
Speaker 1: that none of them are the explanation that he offered,
Speaker 1: because after being arrested, he admitted that he had torched
Speaker 1: the temple just to make a name for himself. He
Speaker 1: wanted to leave his mark on history, and he decided
Speaker 1: the best way to do it was to destroy the
Speaker 1: symbol of the city, which had been, you know, a
Speaker 1: wonder of the ancient world that could have lasted for
Speaker 1: a very very long time had it not been for him.
Speaker 2: It's weird because it makes you wonder why the Ephesians
Speaker 2: would play into his hand by recording his confession. Why
Speaker 2: not just say the fire was an accident, sweep it
Speaker 2: under the.
Speaker 1: Rud Apparently they tried so. Not only did Efesian authorities
Speaker 1: sentence Haris Stratus to death for the arson, they also
Speaker 1: institute this special kind of punishment known as damnatio memory
Speaker 1: or condemnation of memory, and under this order, the public
Speaker 1: was forbidden to speak or write the culprit's name. This
Speaker 1: was obviously done to discourage others from committing similar copycat crimes,
Speaker 1: but also to ensure that he didn't get his wish.
Speaker 1: You know, that people would forget the name Herostratus, so
Speaker 1: instead of being remembered, he would be condemned to obscurity.
Speaker 2: It's like the people that streak across like at the
Speaker 2: super Bowl and stuff like that on the field, mial
Speaker 2: it don't show them. We do not want them to
Speaker 2: be known. But that's clearly not what happened, since we're
Speaker 2: talking about him right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, completely. Apparently some historians refused to go along with
Speaker 1: this punishment, so they write down his story, his name
Speaker 1: before it could be forgotten by history, and as a result,
Speaker 1: Arsonist's name was not only remembered, it became the basis
Speaker 1: for a new expression, which is herostratic fame. It basically
Speaker 1: means fame at any cost. All right, So what are
Speaker 1: we calling the mistake in this one? Because it seemed
Speaker 1: like the arson has got exactly what he wanted. In
Speaker 1: this case, I think it's the Ephesian authorities who made
Speaker 1: the mistake because they tried to suppress the truth about
Speaker 1: this fire, and they went about it in the worst
Speaker 1: possible way, right. They told everyone not to talk about it,
Speaker 1: which just makes everyone want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, Well, I'm glad we put this
Speaker 2: list together. It's nice to know that the people of
Speaker 2: the past were just as accident prone as the rest
Speaker 2: of us.
Speaker 1: And as susceptible to mercury poison. It is true. It
Speaker 1: seems to close out the show. Why don't we try
Speaker 1: to keep the fact off mercury poisoning free.
Speaker 2: I'll try, no promises. Well, let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: Okay. So here is a messy medieval blunder from the
Speaker 1: city for Germany. This is back in eleven eighty four.
Speaker 1: Dozens of noblemen gathered at Saint Peter's Church at the
Speaker 1: request of the King Henrik the sixth, and he had
Speaker 1: called a meeting to settle a land dispute between two
Speaker 1: prominent citizens. But unfortunately they actually never got a chance
Speaker 1: to discuss it because shortly after the meeting started, the
Speaker 1: floor of the church collapses, right and apparently the upper
Speaker 1: room where the group met wasn't intended to hold such
Speaker 1: a large gathering. Everyone's in chainmail and all this heavy armor,
Speaker 1: and the floor just wasn't strong enough. So the weight
Speaker 1: of the falling people and the debris was so heavy
Speaker 1: that they broke through the ground floor too, and wound
Speaker 1: up plunging right into the church's communal sessca boast. I know,
Speaker 1: it's like the money pit or something. It's believed that
Speaker 1: almost everyone for the meeting fell into the latrine pits. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: the king and the archbishop avoided this embarrassment by clinging
Speaker 1: onto some iron rails on the church's windows. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's just sort of like polishing the story,
Speaker 1: but the majority weren't so lucky, and altogether more than
Speaker 1: sixty people fell into this latrine and never made it out.
Speaker 2: That might be the saddest story about people falling to
Speaker 2: a giant toilet that I've ever heard, So can't use
Speaker 2: that in our future list of sad stories of people
Speaker 2: falling into giant toilets.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's really sad. All right.
Speaker 2: I've got a tragic, low brow blunder of my own
Speaker 2: for you, mango, and it's about the first known mooning
Speaker 2: on record, and it took place in Jerusalem. This was
Speaker 2: back in the first century CE, and according to a
Speaker 2: contemporary historian of the era, Flavius Josephus, the first mooning
Speaker 2: took place just outside of the city when a Roman
Speaker 2: soldier exposed his backside to a group of Jewish pilgrims
Speaker 2: on their way to celebrate Passover. As Josephus puts it, quote,
Speaker 2: the soldier pulled back his garment and, cowering down after
Speaker 2: an indecent manner, turned his breach to the Jews and
Speaker 2: spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture,
Speaker 2: Or to put it another way, he farted, thank you
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: Clarify. Okay, So I'm going to skip to another one.
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about the Wicked Bible before aka
Speaker 1: the Sinner's Bible, and it's just a normal English printing
Speaker 1: of the Christian Bible. This is from sixteen thirty one, except,
Speaker 1: of course, it leaves out the word not from the
Speaker 1: seventh Commandment, so instead of saying thou shalt not commit adultery,
Speaker 1: it orders the readers to go out and have an affair.
Speaker 2: Was this a typo situation or did the printers leave
Speaker 2: out the non on purpose, like as a prank.
Speaker 1: Or what was the origin of this? So there's this
Speaker 1: long running rumor that the misprint was actually an act
Speaker 1: of sabotage by a rival publisher, But today most experts
Speaker 1: think it was just an honest mistake, not that it
Speaker 1: made much difference to the two printers responsible for this.
Speaker 1: Once King Charles found out about the Wicked Bible, he
Speaker 1: ordered the printers to stand trial for sloppiness, and ultimately
Speaker 1: he stripped them of their printing license. Now, one thousand
Speaker 1: copies of the Bible were printed before the error was discovered,
Speaker 1: but since most of them were destroyed by all these
Speaker 1: scandalized readers, priests or whatever who wanted to get rid
Speaker 1: of them, only about twenty copies are known to exist today.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well here's a quick one I found.
Speaker 2: So back in thirteen twenty five, raine short lived conflict
Speaker 2: broke out between the Italian city states of Bologna and Modena,
Speaker 2: and it was called the War of the Bucket. Now,
Speaker 2: trouble had been brewing between the two cities for centuries,
Speaker 2: but the thing that supposedly tip them over into this
Speaker 2: all out war was the theft of an old wooden bucket.
Speaker 2: I mean, buckets are very handy, so you could see
Speaker 2: the other night frustrate someone. But apparently a group of
Speaker 2: Modanese soldiers sneaked into Bologna one night, they noticed this
Speaker 2: random bucket at a public well, and they decided to
Speaker 2: take it with them, So you know, the spoils of victory,
Speaker 2: I guess. And of course someone noticed the missing bucket
Speaker 2: the next morning and was able to quickly suss out
Speaker 2: who had stolen it. So Bolanese officials demanded this bucket
Speaker 2: be returned, and even when the Modanese refused to oblige,
Speaker 2: Bologna declared war on its longtime rival.
Speaker 1: I feel like that has got to be some bucket, right.
Speaker 2: I definitely hope so, because although the war only lasted
Speaker 2: a few months, it's estimated that roughly two thousand people
Speaker 2: die between.
Speaker 1: The two sides. Oh my god, a few months. So
Speaker 1: how did Bologna get this bucket back? They did not.
Speaker 2: They wound up surrendering, and just to add insult to injury,
Speaker 2: the Modinese were said to have stolen a second bucket
Speaker 2: on their way back home.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about some pretty silly fluffs today, but
Speaker 1: I think this fact might be the most embarrassing yet.
Speaker 1: According to a biography of Greek philosophers, there was a
Speaker 1: stoic philosopher named Crispus, and this is in the second
Speaker 1: century BCE. He apparently laughed himself to death while watching
Speaker 1: a donkey eat figs. Okay, so apparently this happened during
Speaker 1: the one hundred and forty third Olympiad. Chrysippus was just
Speaker 1: hanging out watching the games when he noticed that his
Speaker 1: donkey had started helping himself to some figs, and he
Speaker 1: thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever seen, so he
Speaker 1: cries out, now give the ass some pure wine to
Speaker 1: wash down his fig and then, according to Diogenes, he
Speaker 1: laughed so violently that he died. Wait, so this.
Speaker 2: Guy got presumably very drunk at the Olympics and then
Speaker 2: died laughing at his own dad joke.
Speaker 1: It sounds like that.
Speaker 2: Are we sure this guy was a stoic, because that
Speaker 2: does not sound very stoic to me.
Speaker 1: I think his real mistake was not giving a close
Speaker 1: enough watch on his fig supply, because the easiest way
Speaker 1: to prevent death by laughing at watching a fig eating
Speaker 1: donkey is to never give your donkey figs in the
Speaker 1: first place.
Speaker 2: A truer words were never said, Mango, I think you
Speaker 2: deserve the trophy this week for imparting that bit of wisdom.
Speaker 2: You built it up like it was going to be
Speaker 2: a great fact and it delivered. So congratulations, you win
Speaker 2: the trophy this week.
Speaker 1: Well that's going to do it for a part time
Speaker 1: Genius from myself, Will, Marry, Gabe and Dylan. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: and other brand new episodes, so please tune back in
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongish
Speaker 1: Heatikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan
Speaker 1: Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with
Speaker 1: social media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and
Speaker 1: Viny Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.