1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,960
Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:14,080
Speaker 1: Heart Radios, How Stuff Works. Pay You Welcome to Stuff

3
00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:16,160
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

4
00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,640
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're gonna be talking about

5
00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:23,480
Speaker 1: not just extinctions, but we're gonna be talking about Roman extinctions,

6
00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:27,800
Speaker 1: extinctions that occurred during the time of the Roman Republic,

7
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:30,840
Speaker 1: but especially the Roman Empire. That sounds like one of

8
00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:33,479
Speaker 1: those names for like a made up lewd act, the

9
00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:37,520
Speaker 1: Roman Extinction. Roman Extinctions maybe maybe so good band names.

10
00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:39,920
Speaker 1: Certainly so, Robert, I know you wanted to talk about

11
00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:43,120
Speaker 1: this because of some weird, uh maybe false memory you

12
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:45,199
Speaker 1: had that you were trying to explain to me yesterday.

13
00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:49,080
Speaker 1: But it seems like a very apt topic, whatever the inspiration,

14
00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:53,280
Speaker 1: Because of course, all decadent empires place large stresses on

15
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:57,520
Speaker 1: the environment around them, so you would expect the you know,

16
00:00:57,560 --> 00:01:01,160
Speaker 1: one of the great decadent empires of history would the same. Yeah.

17
00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 1: So I think, well, one of the important things to

18
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:05,920
Speaker 1: keep in mind throughout this topic is like, we're not

19
00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,040
Speaker 1: We're certainly not meaning to single the Romans out as

20
00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:12,240
Speaker 1: being like the like the the the sole examples of

21
00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:17,120
Speaker 1: some of these activities that lead to, uh, to some extinctions. UM.

22
00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:19,560
Speaker 1: Because ultimately you can look to various parts of the

23
00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:22,800
Speaker 1: world in various times, including our own, to see plenty

24
00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,240
Speaker 1: of extinction inducing activities. But I think it's an interesting

25
00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:28,520
Speaker 1: exercise to sort of look to to look at Rome,

26
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:31,200
Speaker 1: which which would have been I think in many ways

27
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:36,760
Speaker 1: sort of uh an intensification of of impulses that were

28
00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:41,000
Speaker 1: already present in other cultures. So to to get started,

29
00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:44,840
Speaker 1: let's just remind everybody who the Romans were. I'm not

30
00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,720
Speaker 1: sure that one of the Romans ever done for us, Yeah,

31
00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,560
Speaker 1: I mean, well, speaking of that, yeah, you know, I

32
00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:52,760
Speaker 1: don't for reasons like that. I think that we don't

33
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:55,400
Speaker 1: really need like a full introduction. I think pretty much

34
00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: everybody has some idea of who the Romans were and

35
00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,160
Speaker 1: what the Roman Empire was out. I mean just the

36
00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:06,440
Speaker 1: basic tropes, um of of the Roman Empire are pretty uh,

37
00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:10,280
Speaker 1: you know, ubiquitous in our culture. UM. Look to, for instance,

38
00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:13,040
Speaker 1: to Monty Python's Life of Brian, which you just quoted,

39
00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:15,639
Speaker 1: which by the way, has been singled out for being

40
00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:20,320
Speaker 1: actually quite historically accurate concernment concerning life in Roman occupied

41
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:23,359
Speaker 1: first century Judea. Yeah, I've read that before a lot

42
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:25,920
Speaker 1: of historians that it's more accurate than a lot of

43
00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:28,960
Speaker 1: serious movies. Right, yeah, because you know, a lot of

44
00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:33,480
Speaker 1: depictions of Rome they really especially the older cinematic interpretations,

45
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:36,440
Speaker 1: but even like more modern films that were influenced by

46
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:40,440
Speaker 1: those older interpretations, you just get like the stoic, colorless,

47
00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:44,880
Speaker 1: very British vision of Rome generally not a lot of

48
00:02:44,919 --> 00:02:48,080
Speaker 1: like street level understanding. Um. But but that's one of

49
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:50,800
Speaker 1: the reasons that HBO's Rome series, it was one for

50
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:54,160
Speaker 1: several years, um, you know, which isn't perfect, but certainly

51
00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:57,240
Speaker 1: had some admirers because of the way that it injected

52
00:02:57,240 --> 00:02:59,919
Speaker 1: a lot of color and and and life off in

53
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:03,880
Speaker 1: like street level life into this time in this place.

54
00:03:04,880 --> 00:03:09,160
Speaker 1: I've also read that Kubrick spartacus Is is more accurate

55
00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:11,280
Speaker 1: than a lot of the films that you would have

56
00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:14,400
Speaker 1: encountered in the nineteen sixties regarding the Romans, but of

57
00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: course still has a number of problems as well. I

58
00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:20,079
Speaker 1: mainly just remember Joe Panaliono and the Sopranos being mad

59
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:23,200
Speaker 1: at it because Kirk Douglas has a flat top and

60
00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:27,720
Speaker 1: he's like, they didn't have flat tops in ancient Rome. Um.

61
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:30,560
Speaker 1: But by the way, I always enjoyed the ancient Roman

62
00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:35,120
Speaker 1: detective novels of Gordianus The Finder by Stephen Saylor. UM.

63
00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: I highly recommend those to anybody. There to be clear

64
00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:43,360
Speaker 1: contemporary novels set in ancient Rome. Anyway, we're in short,

65
00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:46,640
Speaker 1: we're talking about an empire centered in Rome, established in

66
00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:49,920
Speaker 1: twenty seven b C after the collapse of the Roman Republic,

67
00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:53,160
Speaker 1: which was founded in five oh nine BC, and eventually

68
00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 1: grew grew rather rather sizeable and actually rather difficult to

69
00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:59,440
Speaker 1: manage due to its size, stretching across Europe, the Balkans,

70
00:03:59,840 --> 00:04:03,600
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and North Africa. It's the classic risk problem.

71
00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:06,280
Speaker 1: You overextend your armies, you go out too far, you

72
00:04:06,320 --> 00:04:08,560
Speaker 1: think you can hold all of Asia and get those

73
00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:10,840
Speaker 1: whatever you know, fifty men at the end of each turn.

74
00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:13,800
Speaker 1: That is overextend. Yeah, it's the problem you see in

75
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:17,120
Speaker 1: every empire without fail and uh. And since they were

76
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,160
Speaker 1: an empire, they were of course built on a military

77
00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:23,200
Speaker 1: conquest and domination of other lands. And and to be fair,

78
00:04:23,240 --> 00:04:26,159
Speaker 1: the characters in Monty Python are mostly correct in their

79
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:29,520
Speaker 1: list of the quote unquote good things that the Romans

80
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:32,640
Speaker 1: have done for us. Um, you know, we've we talk

81
00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:35,760
Speaker 1: a lot, especially on our other podcast Invention, about various

82
00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:39,880
Speaker 1: Roman innovations. Roman technologies talked about sewers and toilets, sewers

83
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:41,800
Speaker 1: and toilets, but of course they didn't risk bring sewers

84
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:45,239
Speaker 1: and toilets. They all in Rhods. They also brought death

85
00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:49,000
Speaker 1: and bloodshed. They depended on slave labor. And uh, we

86
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:52,880
Speaker 1: can at least lay some of the hollow scene extinctions

87
00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,360
Speaker 1: at their sandaled feet. So that's what we're gonna focus

88
00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:59,160
Speaker 1: on today. And UH, and just fair warning that we

89
00:04:59,200 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: will be talking in places about the Romans trade and

90
00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:06,520
Speaker 1: exotic animals and their harsh treatment of these animals in

91
00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:09,080
Speaker 1: the in the arenas and in the colosseum. And this

92
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:12,520
Speaker 1: is all bloody and depressing stuff, cruelty to animals on

93
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,479
Speaker 1: a massive scale, So just you know, sort of fair

94
00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:18,279
Speaker 1: warning on that. And uh, and just a reminder for

95
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:21,680
Speaker 1: information on how to report cruelty to animals today in

96
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:24,719
Speaker 1: the United States, please visit the American Society for the

97
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:28,640
Speaker 1: Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at a SPCA dot org

98
00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:32,240
Speaker 1: or search for Report Animal Abuse a s p c. A.

99
00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:35,600
Speaker 1: That being said, let's move on to the extinctions. Okay,

100
00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:37,680
Speaker 1: let's hear about it. So one of the articles that

101
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,520
Speaker 1: we were looking at and preparing for this episode is

102
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:43,719
Speaker 1: an excellent two thousand and sixteen Atlantic article titled the

103
00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:48,000
Speaker 1: Exotic Animal Traffickers of Ancient Rome by Caroline Wazer, and

104
00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:51,280
Speaker 1: in it she points out that bloody animal spectacles were

105
00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:54,039
Speaker 1: an important part of Roman culture, Like, you know, it

106
00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:56,640
Speaker 1: wasn't just you know, something that was also going on.

107
00:05:57,080 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 1: It's not like, say, pointing to today's culture and saying, uh,

108
00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:04,440
Speaker 1: look at look at the popularity of say, mixed martial arts.

109
00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:07,440
Speaker 1: It's central to the American experience. I don't know, you

110
00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:09,880
Speaker 1: can maybe make that argument, but it's not just a

111
00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:12,560
Speaker 1: thing in the culture. It's like an integral part of

112
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:15,440
Speaker 1: the culture. Maybe you're saying, like you can't really understand

113
00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 1: the culture without it. Yes, yeah, And I believe that's

114
00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:20,920
Speaker 1: the point she's making. Um So, I think most of

115
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,599
Speaker 1: us are familiar more familiar with human on human gladiator sports,

116
00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,080
Speaker 1: which we've we've touched on on this show before. And

117
00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:31,440
Speaker 1: if it's a you know, any things in large part

118
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: of Ridley Scott's Gladiator in modern times, but so many

119
00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:37,599
Speaker 1: different treatments of gladiatorial combat have been rolled out in

120
00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:40,839
Speaker 1: our media, but it wasn't just human on human violence.

121
00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:45,920
Speaker 1: You also had damnatio add beast is my Latin correct

122
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:48,760
Speaker 1: on that, Joe, it looks like dumb natio ad beasts.

123
00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:51,159
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not an expert either, okay, but dumb

124
00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 1: natio right like damn nation. Well, anyway, it stands for

125
00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 1: execution by beasts. And then there were the natitiones or

126
00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:02,160
Speaker 1: the hunts, you which animals were condemned to die either

127
00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:05,240
Speaker 1: at the hands of human hunters um and sometimes like

128
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:08,120
Speaker 1: just we're talking like just a brutal display of like

129
00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:11,680
Speaker 1: a hunter dispatching all sorts of exotic animals out there

130
00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:14,960
Speaker 1: on the field, or they would have animals battle each

131
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,400
Speaker 1: other all for sport. And sadly, these uh, these blood

132
00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 1: sports have been a part of human civilization for quite

133
00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:24,760
Speaker 1: a while, and though thankfully outlawed in most places, but still,

134
00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:28,000
Speaker 1: cock fighting remains legal in parts of the world, as

135
00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:31,160
Speaker 1: does dog fighting. Sports like bear baiting and lion baiting

136
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:34,720
Speaker 1: continued depressingly far into modern times, at least in some

137
00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:37,680
Speaker 1: parts of the world, and bullfighting remains legal and parts

138
00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:40,320
Speaker 1: of the world as well, uh, namely Spain and Portugal.

139
00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:42,200
Speaker 1: I would say it's not quite the same because it

140
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:45,400
Speaker 1: doesn't involve vertebrates. But I mean even the bug fights

141
00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:48,280
Speaker 1: thing on the internet. I'm sure you've seen that. We're

142
00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:52,400
Speaker 1: we're like crickets or beetles or made to combat each other,

143
00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:55,560
Speaker 1: or centipedes or spiders. I mean it's just basically you

144
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:58,920
Speaker 1: put too kind of scary looking bugs into a container

145
00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,840
Speaker 1: together and then kit and try to make them fight. Yeah,

146
00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:06,560
Speaker 1: it's uh, I don't know what exactly that impulses. I

147
00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:09,120
Speaker 1: mean there's a part of it. I guess I understand

148
00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:11,440
Speaker 1: because I remember when I was a kid, I would

149
00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:16,200
Speaker 1: very often want to ask adults questions like what would

150
00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:19,360
Speaker 1: win in a fight between a tarantula and a scorpion?

151
00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:22,160
Speaker 1: And like as if I thought that, like, adults just

152
00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:24,440
Speaker 1: know these things. You know that, yeah, you're grown up,

153
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:26,800
Speaker 1: you'd know which one would win. Well, there is kind

154
00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:29,280
Speaker 1: of like a need, there's an human necessity to to

155
00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:32,920
Speaker 1: rank and profile the creatures of the natural world. And

156
00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:35,319
Speaker 1: you still see this kind of thing in like kids

157
00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:38,160
Speaker 1: books today, Like my son has a book, uh like

158
00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:41,520
Speaker 1: who would Win? And and it's it's about prehistoric creatures

159
00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:46,760
Speaker 1: and dinosaurs, uh, and all good educational information, but it's delivered, uh,

160
00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:50,920
Speaker 1: with the wrappings of this creature versus this creature. So

161
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,800
Speaker 1: I was not alone in this childhood curiosity. No, I

162
00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 1: think it's I mean, I think there's something you know,

163
00:08:56,920 --> 00:08:59,679
Speaker 1: normal and healthy in it. I mean, I mean, look

164
00:08:59,679 --> 00:09:03,320
Speaker 1: at your documentaries, which can be quite uncomfortable to watch

165
00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:06,360
Speaker 1: at times when you have a predator and prey battling

166
00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:08,920
Speaker 1: each other. But of course, one of the key differences

167
00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:12,040
Speaker 1: here is that these are natural occurrences or they better

168
00:09:12,320 --> 00:09:15,199
Speaker 1: damn well be natural occurrences in a nature documentary, and

169
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:19,000
Speaker 1: they're not something that has been orchestrated through cruelty by

170
00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:23,000
Speaker 1: by humans looking for entertainment. Right. Putting animals into the

171
00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:25,680
Speaker 1: Roman arenas kind of the equivalent of the bug fight,

172
00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:27,440
Speaker 1: Like you put them in the box and shake it

173
00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:30,240
Speaker 1: and try to get them fighting. Right. So, I think

174
00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:33,079
Speaker 1: this is though, an example of where you know, if

175
00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:36,880
Speaker 1: you know the Roman cruelty to animals via blood sport,

176
00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:40,360
Speaker 1: it's it's an outsized and more sensational example of something

177
00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:44,120
Speaker 1: that occurs in other cultures and in other times. It's

178
00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:46,400
Speaker 1: not an excuse for any of this, but again, it's

179
00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:48,800
Speaker 1: important to ground such activities in the larger picture of

180
00:09:48,880 --> 00:09:53,080
Speaker 1: human awfulness. But ways Are actually opens her article with

181
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:57,600
Speaker 1: a discussion of Roman orator um Marcus Cicero in his

182
00:09:57,679 --> 00:10:01,520
Speaker 1: correspondences with a formal a legal client, a man by

183
00:10:01,559 --> 00:10:05,440
Speaker 1: the name of Marcus Kalias. This is while Cicero was

184
00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:10,200
Speaker 1: governor of Cilicia in modern day Turkey. So basically um

185
00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:14,079
Speaker 1: Calias just continued to hound Cisero about how he needs

186
00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:17,400
Speaker 1: him to have some hunters capture and send back some

187
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:21,200
Speaker 1: local leopards which they refer to as Greek panthers, because

188
00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:23,200
Speaker 1: he needs because he's He's like, you gotta give these

189
00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:25,120
Speaker 1: to me, Cistero. I've got to throw him in the arena.

190
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:27,800
Speaker 1: The people love this, and I'm trying to kick start

191
00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,720
Speaker 1: my political career here, come on, don't let me down.

192
00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:33,800
Speaker 1: And it's just it's like multiple correspondences where he's just

193
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,520
Speaker 1: really hounding Cisero over this, and Cicero keeps dodging him

194
00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:40,120
Speaker 1: on the matter and saying, well, look though, you know,

195
00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:43,679
Speaker 1: the local hunters are busy, you know, etcetera. That's that

196
00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: sort of thing. It's like, can you get Mick Jagger

197
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:48,200
Speaker 1: to come to my party? Yeah? I mean it is.

198
00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:51,280
Speaker 1: It's like, imagine if instead of when you see an

199
00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:55,719
Speaker 1: individual running for political office today, instead of it being

200
00:10:55,720 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 1: a situation of them trying to score, say Neil Young

201
00:10:58,120 --> 00:11:01,360
Speaker 1: or you know, the guzzlers to play their event if

202
00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:05,319
Speaker 1: instead you were trying to procure exotic animals to massacure

203
00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 1: each other in a public arena. But it speaks to

204
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:11,360
Speaker 1: how important this was to at least a large segment

205
00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:14,000
Speaker 1: of the population. And so this is something that would

206
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,200
Speaker 1: have been practiced in uh, you know, in the Roman Republic,

207
00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:20,480
Speaker 1: but but then reached you know, new heights in the

208
00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:23,240
Speaker 1: Roman Empire. But it but it also is important to

209
00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:25,800
Speaker 1: know that like not everybody was completely on board with this.

210
00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:29,559
Speaker 1: Uh Wayser shares descriptions by by Cicero the describe it

211
00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:33,520
Speaker 1: as being you know, barbaric and unnecessary and uh And

212
00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:35,960
Speaker 1: there are also some descriptions by a plenty of the

213
00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:38,319
Speaker 1: Elder as well, in which I think we can we

214
00:11:38,320 --> 00:11:40,319
Speaker 1: can trust him a little bit more here because he's

215
00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:43,760
Speaker 1: dealing with domestic matters and not mysterious species that he

216
00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:46,720
Speaker 1: has no firsthand knowledge of. But the plenty you will

217
00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:49,240
Speaker 1: get vindicated a little bit later on in this episode two.

218
00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:52,240
Speaker 1: But but in this case, Waser points out things that

219
00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:55,880
Speaker 1: they were both writing about how Pompey the Great organized

220
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,720
Speaker 1: a series of spectacles. Um, but but what like the

221
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:03,400
Speaker 1: main event essentially was a great elephant hunt in the arena.

222
00:12:04,280 --> 00:12:06,720
Speaker 1: And it's interesting interesting in the in the accounts that

223
00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:09,960
Speaker 1: showed that that while individuals like Cistero viewed these shows

224
00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:12,880
Speaker 1: as bloody and cruel, the crowds generally loved it. But

225
00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:15,680
Speaker 1: the elephant hunt was even too much for the masses.

226
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,040
Speaker 1: And here's the quote from Cicero, obviously translated that she

227
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,640
Speaker 1: shares quote. The last day was that of the elephants,

228
00:12:22,679 --> 00:12:25,040
Speaker 1: on which there was a great deal of astonishment on

229
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:28,920
Speaker 1: the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure whatever. Nay,

230
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:31,839
Speaker 1: there was even a certain feeling of compassion aroused by it,

231
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:34,600
Speaker 1: and a kind of belief created that the animal has

232
00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:39,400
Speaker 1: something in common with mankind. Yet they kept watching. Huh, Well, yeah,

233
00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:43,240
Speaker 1: they kept watching, and but apparently felt awful about it.

234
00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:45,720
Speaker 1: And there were you know, some some booze and whatnot.

235
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:48,719
Speaker 1: And of course this didn't prevent later elephant spectacles from

236
00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:52,760
Speaker 1: taking place, and and ultimately, indeed, like the continued trafficking

237
00:12:52,760 --> 00:12:55,920
Speaker 1: of exotic animals is the focus of Waiser's article. Uh,

238
00:12:56,160 --> 00:12:58,720
Speaker 1: that there was this booming industry for folks who would

239
00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:02,200
Speaker 1: arrange the capture of addict wild animals, generally from the

240
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:05,320
Speaker 1: extremes of the Empire, and then transport them back to

241
00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:07,720
Speaker 1: Rome to fight in the arena. So it was a

242
00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:11,440
Speaker 1: cruel business, but enthusiastic. The enthusiasm for the spectacles in

243
00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:14,720
Speaker 1: the arena also also bubbled over into enthusiasm for the

244
00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:18,840
Speaker 1: details of the actual hunts and the tactics that procured them,

245
00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:20,880
Speaker 1: and this is reflected to both in the literature of

246
00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:23,480
Speaker 1: the day and also in h in the art of

247
00:13:23,679 --> 00:13:27,000
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire, where you see murals and whatnot depicting

248
00:13:27,559 --> 00:13:31,600
Speaker 1: individuals hunting these wild animals so they could bring them back,

249
00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:33,840
Speaker 1: and that that, with the wildness of it, was something

250
00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:36,319
Speaker 1: that the Romans seemed to crave, she points out, because

251
00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,160
Speaker 1: the uh there there weren't there, weren't really that many

252
00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:43,080
Speaker 1: attempts to try and raise them in captivity. They had

253
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:46,120
Speaker 1: to be captured and brought back to Rome as part

254
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:48,839
Speaker 1: of the appeal. I wonder if the idea about the

255
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:51,920
Speaker 1: methods used in hunting them does that show up later

256
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,400
Speaker 1: in the sort of styles of gladiators that appear in

257
00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:57,920
Speaker 1: the arena. Because I know we have like the there's

258
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:01,240
Speaker 1: the style of gladiator that's mob old after the fisherman,

259
00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:03,800
Speaker 1: you know, that has like the trident and the net

260
00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:06,160
Speaker 1: and all that. So there are certain styles that seem

261
00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:11,599
Speaker 1: to be based on on like the armies of opposing nations,

262
00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:15,480
Speaker 1: or or on professions like fishing. I wondered also if

263
00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:18,559
Speaker 1: that the hunting methods that they talked about with these

264
00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:22,240
Speaker 1: animals contributed there. Yeah, I mean, it might very well

265
00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:23,880
Speaker 1: be the case. So she doesn't get into that in

266
00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:25,760
Speaker 1: this paper, and I didn't see it mentioned in some

267
00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:28,520
Speaker 1: of the other more animal focused sources I was looking

268
00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:33,120
Speaker 1: at here. But you know, obviously the gladiatorial tropes that

269
00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:35,800
Speaker 1: they used in the arena, they were all, you know,

270
00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:38,960
Speaker 1: based on existing things, you know, to be it be

271
00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:41,600
Speaker 1: it a fisherman or a uh, you know, a soldier

272
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:43,960
Speaker 1: or you know, some sort of animal component that was

273
00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:46,640
Speaker 1: going to be echoed in the design. So let's come

274
00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:48,920
Speaker 1: back to the elephants though, because I think so far

275
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,840
Speaker 1: that's been the most alarming um you know, obscenity that

276
00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:54,280
Speaker 1: we've looked at here on the part of the Romans. Yeah,

277
00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,760
Speaker 1: it's interesting that passage that you read from Cicero, where

278
00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:00,200
Speaker 1: you know, he's describing the crowds feeling simp with you

279
00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:04,280
Speaker 1: for the elephants while they watch this brutality being done

280
00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:08,160
Speaker 1: to them. I mean, I wonder if there's more of

281
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:12,720
Speaker 1: that kind of thing going on in the the appetites

282
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:16,520
Speaker 1: of the Roman Arena audiences than we would normally imagine,

283
00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:20,240
Speaker 1: Like we imagine the audiences the gladiatorial games and all

284
00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:23,560
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff just being you know, bloodthirsty, like yeah,

285
00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:26,120
Speaker 1: they want the fight, they want the violence, and and

286
00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:29,000
Speaker 1: they love it and they're eating it up. I wonder

287
00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:33,400
Speaker 1: if there was some element of the audience that I

288
00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:36,240
Speaker 1: don't know, it's something more equivalent to to the kind

289
00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:39,200
Speaker 1: of like hate watching or the hate clicking kind of

290
00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:42,160
Speaker 1: thing that people do now, like where you know, people

291
00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:45,560
Speaker 1: are constantly clicking on things on the Internet that they

292
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:48,200
Speaker 1: know we're going to make them unhappy. You know, you

293
00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 1: just reliably know if I click this link, I'm gonna

294
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:53,720
Speaker 1: feel bad and I'm not gonna like what I read,

295
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:57,640
Speaker 1: but I click it anyway. You know, I wonder where

296
00:15:57,680 --> 00:15:59,800
Speaker 1: people going to the arena, like I know I'm gonna

297
00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:01,640
Speaker 1: fee all bad, but I have to look at this,

298
00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:03,800
Speaker 1: you know, that would be might be worthwhile to come

299
00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:07,440
Speaker 1: back and explore that in greater detail, like the nature

300
00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 1: of these gladiatorial blood sport events UM which we should

301
00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:15,720
Speaker 1: stress are generally there were a lot more varied, uncomplicated

302
00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:20,960
Speaker 1: than UH is often relayed in popular media. But still

303
00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,600
Speaker 1: we're violent, blood, blood thirsty events. You know what, what

304
00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:26,520
Speaker 1: was the psychology of that? And then how much of

305
00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:30,400
Speaker 1: that psychology still remains in the fandom of various you know,

306
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:35,040
Speaker 1: high impact sporting events or you know, actual mixed martial

307
00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:39,440
Speaker 1: arts or other martial arts contests, or even simulated um

308
00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:43,200
Speaker 1: athletic contests such as professional wrestling. I don't know, I

309
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:45,120
Speaker 1: have to come back to that, I think. But one

310
00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 1: thing the Waysier also points out is you know that

311
00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 1: like there were there their artistic UH renditions of say

312
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:54,400
Speaker 1: big cats that were used in some of these events,

313
00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:57,400
Speaker 1: and they would be given names in the art and

314
00:16:57,400 --> 00:16:59,960
Speaker 1: they would be kind of they're like some of the

315
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,320
Speaker 1: iconography would be akin to that that would you be

316
00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:07,760
Speaker 1: used for human gladiators. So yeah, it gets it gets sticky.

317
00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:09,760
Speaker 1: And and then I mean just thinking about the elephants

318
00:17:09,760 --> 00:17:12,439
Speaker 1: and the obvious connection, like the obvious intelligence that is

319
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:16,800
Speaker 1: there in the elephant the sympathy that one feels like this. Uh,

320
00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:19,320
Speaker 1: this kind of connection like has existed throughout I think

321
00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:22,399
Speaker 1: our our experiences with elephants, and yet cruelty to elephants

322
00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:25,800
Speaker 1: continues to this day. Uh. And um, you know had

323
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:28,640
Speaker 1: certainly continued on through the you know, the history of

324
00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:33,560
Speaker 1: circuses around the world. So um, yeah, I mean our

325
00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:37,919
Speaker 1: relationship with animals is always complicated, even when we have

326
00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,439
Speaker 1: you know, sympathy actually activated for them. Well, I know

327
00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:45,200
Speaker 1: you wanted to explore more about the Romans and the elephants. Yeah,

328
00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:48,440
Speaker 1: so I found a book titled Elephant Destiny Biography of

329
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:52,040
Speaker 1: an Endangered Species in Africa by Martin Meredith. And in

330
00:17:52,080 --> 00:17:55,200
Speaker 1: this the author details the slaughter in the Roman Arenas

331
00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:59,359
Speaker 1: in general in the in the opening of Pompei's Games

332
00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:03,760
Speaker 1: in the b C and he mentions that no fewer

333
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:07,280
Speaker 1: than six hundred lions were massacured, just to give everyone

334
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:12,760
Speaker 1: an idea of the scale of bloodshed. Here, six hundred lions.

335
00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:15,600
Speaker 1: Can you imagine, I mean, a lion is a lion

336
00:18:15,680 --> 00:18:19,639
Speaker 1: is an apex predator, So there already aren't that many

337
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:25,040
Speaker 1: of them, And to remove six hundred lions from their habitat, Yeah,

338
00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:28,760
Speaker 1: to essentially like basically put out the call and say, look, Pompey,

339
00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:32,000
Speaker 1: the Great kneeds lions. So everybody that is in the

340
00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:35,000
Speaker 1: in the business of catching lions or could conceivably catch

341
00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,119
Speaker 1: a lion, get out there and start catching lions essentially,

342
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:40,159
Speaker 1: uh and and this but this would have meant just

343
00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:45,440
Speaker 1: before the elephant event described previously. So what elephants were

344
00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:48,560
Speaker 1: they catching? Well, the author here points out that the

345
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:52,120
Speaker 1: North African elephant was was the likely species. Is these

346
00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:56,920
Speaker 1: were the elephants used by the forces of Hannibals Carthagian army.

347
00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:00,560
Speaker 1: The African bush elephant that is still a round um,

348
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:03,119
Speaker 1: this one is too wild to to ride around or

349
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:06,840
Speaker 1: to really tame in the same way that one uses, uh,

350
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:10,000
Speaker 1: the Asian elephant and uh and and not to just

351
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:14,960
Speaker 1: you know, to a single out Carthage. Other groups used

352
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:17,640
Speaker 1: the North African elephant for labor in war as well.

353
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:21,760
Speaker 1: But anyway, following Hannibal's defeat, the region fell under Roman

354
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:24,399
Speaker 1: control and the Romans used these elephants in their bloody

355
00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:27,119
Speaker 1: sports as well as in attractions that really have more

356
00:19:27,119 --> 00:19:29,080
Speaker 1: in common with the sort of circus work that we

357
00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 1: see uh, you know throughout even like the twentieth century,

358
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:36,280
Speaker 1: and then and then includes things like tight rope walking. Yeah,

359
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:38,919
Speaker 1: they single he singles that out in the book. But

360
00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:43,040
Speaker 1: here's a quote that touches on the additional levels of

361
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:46,800
Speaker 1: exploitation that get to become employed. Quote. Rome's liking for

362
00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:50,520
Speaker 1: elephants meant that the North African herds faced constant raids.

363
00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 1: But even more perilous was the insatiable Roman demand for ivory.

364
00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:58,480
Speaker 1: Ivory was used to decorate temples and palaces, carried in

365
00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:02,120
Speaker 1: triumphal processions, and maid into a vast range of luxury

366
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:07,120
Speaker 1: goods thrones, chess, statues, chairs, beds, book covers, tablets, boxes,

367
00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: bird cages, combs, and broches. Caesar wrote in an Ivory

368
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 1: Chariot Seneca possessed five hundred tripod tables with ivory legs.

369
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 1: Do you need that many tables for large events? Large

370
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:24,040
Speaker 1: scale events? I guess Caligula gave his horse an ivory stable. Wow.

371
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:26,120
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got Caligula in there. I wasn't sure

372
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,640
Speaker 1: we were can actually uh be able to make room

373
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:32,240
Speaker 1: for him. So that being said, some of the ivory

374
00:20:32,359 --> 00:20:35,879
Speaker 1: came from India and Ethiopia, but North Africa suffered the

375
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:39,600
Speaker 1: most and in seventies seven CE plenty of the Elder

376
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:43,119
Speaker 1: rode about the shortage of African ivory quote an ample

377
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 1: supply of ivory is now rarely obtained except from India,

378
00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:50,440
Speaker 1: the demands of luxury having exhausted all those in our

379
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:53,679
Speaker 1: part of the world. And of course, um the ivory

380
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:57,320
Speaker 1: trade still remains a threat to elephant populations, despite laws

381
00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: and the hard work of of conservationist world wide. And

382
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: if you want more information about what's going on and

383
00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:06,679
Speaker 1: what can be done, I recommend everyone check out stop

384
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: ivory dot org for more information. Okay, but what was

385
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,600
Speaker 1: the ultimate effect on the elephant populations? Do we know

386
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:16,880
Speaker 1: if the Roman exploitation of these animals did it? Did

387
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: it damage their populations? Did it drive them extinct? The

388
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:24,440
Speaker 1: general consensus is that it it definitely drove their extinction.

389
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:28,119
Speaker 1: They either died out during the fifth century or at

390
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,879
Speaker 1: least we're well on their way to extinction. But the

391
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,919
Speaker 1: damage was done during the Roman imperial period, so it

392
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily that we know that the Romans like hunted

393
00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:40,679
Speaker 1: down the very last of the North African elephants, but

394
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:44,920
Speaker 1: they may whatever they did to them damage their populations enough,

395
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,679
Speaker 1: and all that that we think it strongly contributed to

396
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 1: their decline, right, and that's something we're going to see

397
00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 1: in some of these other examples we bring it. We

398
00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:54,960
Speaker 1: bring out as well is that there are other cases

399
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,880
Speaker 1: where it's certainly not in a situation where the Romans

400
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,400
Speaker 1: just went out and had killed or had killed all

401
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 1: members of a species, but they you know, they had

402
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: the power, through their their appetites, through their their economic demands,

403
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:18,399
Speaker 1: to actually like do this much damage to the environment. Again,

404
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: with the Roman Empire, everything that was already present in

405
00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 1: human of civilization was there only maybe ramped up a

406
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 1: little bit. Uh so their destructive tendencies, you know, they

407
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,479
Speaker 1: had a little more reach than you might find in

408
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:34,280
Speaker 1: other civilizations. And of course the same thing can be

409
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:38,480
Speaker 1: said for today. Their various human appetites and are various

410
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:40,919
Speaker 1: wants and desires and our uses for the natural world

411
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 1: that uh, at the scale we're doing things now are

412
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 1: even more destructive than they ever were. Yeah, it's a

413
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 1: sad fact, and it's going to come up again, and

414
00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 1: some of the other stuff I've got here. It's it's

415
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: sometimes striking how similar the patterns of civilization level activity

416
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 1: are between things that we do today and the things

417
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,440
Speaker 1: the Romans did to exploit their environment. Yeah, alright, Well,

418
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:05,440
Speaker 1: on that note, let's go and take a quick break

419
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: and we come back. We're going to continue to discuss

420
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 1: Roman extinctions. Thank thank alright, we're back. So, so, Joe,

421
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 1: what what is the next organism we're going to discuss

422
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,400
Speaker 1: here that was made to to fight glad he hats

423
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:23,200
Speaker 1: in the arena? Well, uh, it's not. This next one

424
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,160
Speaker 1: is a plant. But this is going to be one

425
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 1: of the main examples that people often bring up as

426
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 1: something that was likely driven to extinction by the Roman Empire.

427
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: So my main source here is an article from Conservation

428
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: Biology from two thousand three by Ken peedge Coo called

429
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: plenty of the elders Sylphium first recorded species extinction. Now

430
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: the author, Ken perege Coo, I looked him up. He

431
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,679
Speaker 1: was a professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin Stout.

432
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: I think he's retired now. But in this essay the

433
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: author asked the question, how do we know when a

434
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: specs has gone extinct? In the words of E. O. Wilson,

435
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: quote extinction is the most obscure and local of all

436
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: biological processes that it took me for a second, and

437
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 1: then I realized, Oh, yeah, I guess that must be true.

438
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: Whenever the last ones disappear, it's always kind of a

439
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: local and isolated phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, like a lot

440
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:21,879
Speaker 1: of these cases, it's it's looking to when was the

441
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: last recorded like dependable and recorded sighting or killing of

442
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: a particular organism. Yeah, and so the author writes, quote,

443
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 1: the question of how many species extinctions have gone unnoticed

444
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: in human history is unanswerable. Yet the past may shed

445
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: light on the present, on what in our behavior has

446
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 1: changed and what hasn't. So he starts off by talking

447
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: about our old friend Plenty of the Elder. Now remember,

448
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 1: of course, so we know the timing. The Plenty of

449
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: the Elder's natural history was first published around seventy and

450
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: so Plenty, in one section of his natural history dives

451
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 1: into an ex explanation of sort of miracle plant that

452
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 1: he calls silphium. The plant is described as having plentiful

453
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: kind of stubby, thick roots, a finnel like stalk, blade

454
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 1: like leaves that resemble parsley, and then at the top

455
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: the stalks have an umbell. When an umbell is a

456
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 1: cluster of short flower stalks all clumped together, so that

457
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: the flowers kind of resemble a parasol. You've probably seen

458
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 1: plants like this. Robert got sort of a little dome

459
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: of little flowers all clustered together. So the Romans called

460
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: it sylfium. It was also known as silphion by the Greeks,

461
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 1: as well as laser wart uh and laser pithecum uh

462
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 1: and and from this plant, apparently you can create a

463
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: resin that is called laser l a s e r

464
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: that might be pronounced losser. I don't know, but I'm

465
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: gonna say laser. So this resin called laser Plenty describes

466
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: it quote as among the most precious gifts presented to

467
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:01,120
Speaker 1: us by nature. And you could get this resin by

468
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: making slits in the roots and the stem of the

469
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: plant so that it's juices and its sap would leach out,

470
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: and then those juices and the sap would be dried

471
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: into a resin to produce laser Plenty. Cites a Greek author,

472
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: probably the philosopher Theophrastus, who was a student of Plato

473
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 1: and Aristotle's on the origins of the plant, and the

474
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: Greek author claims that the plant was discovered in the

475
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: seventh century b C. After a black rain fell upon

476
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: the gardens in a region of north North Africa known

477
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: as Synaica, which is now Libya. Precho writes, quote, it

478
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: grew most profusely in a region of that country known

479
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: as the sylphio Ferra, near the Gulf of Syrtus. There

480
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: where the plateaus along the Mediterranean coast rises tiered highlands

481
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: that received considerably more rainfall than the deserts to the south.

482
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: Sylfium thrived in a region of hilly and forested meadows.

483
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: So we're almost getting this picture of this pristine, you know,

484
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: lush little area with a desert to the south, the

485
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: coast to the north that has all these little plants

486
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 1: with the finel like stalks and the parsley leaves and

487
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 1: the umbell of flowers near the top. And in ancient

488
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: times sylfium had a number of uses that recommended it

489
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 1: to plenty as a kind of miracle plant. And among

490
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: these uses documented by Peregeco number one, it was fed

491
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: to livestock like cattle and sheep, under the idea that

492
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: it gave their meat a special desirable flavor. So you

493
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: really wanted you wanted your mutton to be fed on,

494
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: sylfium tasted way better. Apparently the plant parts could also

495
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: just be cooked and you know, used in cooking, like

496
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: the stalk could be used, or the resin could be used.

497
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: It was also used medically as a laxative, you know,

498
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: so for fast effective relief you go with sylfium. But

499
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: the concentrated resin called laser which was which was made

500
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: from the plant, was considered even more useful. It could

501
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,719
Speaker 1: supposedly treat fevers and coughs and warts. It was believed

502
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: to be a pain reliever and a hair restoration tonic.

503
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: And apparently, as I mentioned, it was sometimes just also

504
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: used in cooking. And there's also another huge use for

505
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: this plant, which was that it was apparently believed to

506
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: be a contraceptive and a board efficient, and so the

507
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 1: juice or resin would be applied to a piece of

508
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: wool and then used as a vaginal suppository as a

509
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 1: contraceptive or a board deficient. And contraceptives and a board

510
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: officians were highly desirable in ancient room. They were largely

511
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: sought sought after for, of course, many of the same

512
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 1: reasons that they have been throughout all of history. So

513
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: apparently a laser was in such demand that there was

514
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: a widely acknowledged problem of unscrupulous merchants selling low quality,

515
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: adulterated laser. You cut that laser, buddy. You know, it's

516
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: like the scene in the movie where the guy gets

517
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: in trouble for for cutting the coke with baby powder

518
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: or something. You know, this is this is cutting the laser,

519
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: maybe with with assi fatigue or something like that. So

520
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: Peregiko notes that within Gaius Petronius first century CE fictional

521
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,479
Speaker 1: work known as the Satiricon, there's a scene where an

522
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: Egyptian slave sings a song from what is apparently a

523
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: well known contemporary musical farce, and this musical force of

524
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: the day is called the laser dealer. So you get

525
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: a sense that the laser dealer of ancient Rome, the

526
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: ancient Roman Empire might have had a reputation sort of

527
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: like the used car salesman of today who's trying to

528
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: give you, you know, get you to buy, to pay

529
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: too much for something that's not worth what you think

530
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: it is. Okay, because I mean, ultimately we're not talking.

531
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: This was not FDA approved. There was not no like

532
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: a system. You were you were going to, you know,

533
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: essentially an apothecary or just somebody who had a supply

534
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: or claim to have a supply of the the the

535
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: the laser that you needed. And yeah, if you didn't

536
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: trust them, if if they were a little sketchy, they

537
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: might be cutting the product or selling something else, you

538
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: know that they're calling laser. And think about what people

539
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: were using this product for. I mean, it's something that

540
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: if you you got something that was an inferior product

541
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 1: that didn't work as well as you thought it would,

542
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: you might be facing serious consequences. And so here's the

543
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: weird fact. We don't know for sure what plant species

544
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: plenty was talking about. It was this hugely important, commercially

545
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: important plant, and we don't know for sure what it was.

546
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: There is a plant genus in North America called Sylfium,

547
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: but it's apparently not related. An author named Rackham in

548
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty suggested that plenty of Sylfium might have been

549
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: the species called Ferula tingetna or Farolla marmarica, which are

550
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: North African plants that still exist today. Or of course

551
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: it could be an extinct relative of these, but that's

552
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: just rackham suggestion. It's widely believed that the Roman Empire

553
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,719
Speaker 1: may very well have driven this miracle plant to extinction.

554
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: So how would that be. Well, already in his day,

555
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: Plenty comp lanes that you can't really get sylphium anymore.

556
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: He notes that in the year forty nine BC, Julius

557
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: Caesar ordered the stockpiling of fifteen hundred pounds of lasers

558
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: just the resin in the royal treasury. But by Plenty's

559
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: own lifetime, Remember Plenty, this is published in seventy seven,

560
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: so this would have been just about a hundred years

561
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: later in Plenty's lifetime. By this time, the plant had

562
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: vanished in its natural range, and the last known stock

563
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: of it quote being valued at its weight in gold

564
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: and sent to the Emperor Nero. And I'm you know,

565
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure Nero did something awesome with So what's the

566
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: reason for this decline and disappearance of sylfium? Well, Plenty

567
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: says that number. The main explanation Plenty gives is quote

568
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: tax farmers who rent the pasturage and strip it clean

569
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 1: by grazing sheep on it, realizing that they make more

570
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: profit in that way. And to be honest, I'm not

571
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: positive I understand what plenties saying there what that means.

572
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: But I think pssibly it refers to the fact that

573
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: meat from the livestock that's fed on sylfium got a

574
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: much higher price because it was believed to taste better,

575
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: so you could get more money for the you know,

576
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: upgraded meat. But this is you know, this decimating your

577
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: sylfium fields. Okay, So in a in a way like

578
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: they're just multiple demands on the product because it was

579
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: used for so many things, including people who just want

580
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: to graze their animals on it and produce superior meat.

581
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,959
Speaker 1: But it all comes down to, like to demand for

582
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: the various products direct products or products that depend upon

583
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: the sylfium, and there were limited habitats in which sylfium

584
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: would grow. So Perejiko also offers some other thoughts about

585
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: would have what could have contributed to the decline of

586
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: sylfium uh and a chief concern he raises his habitat destruction.

587
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: He says that a very popular would for Roman furniture

588
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: came from the thuon tree, which filled the forests of Synaica,

589
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: and over harvesting of this would possibly lead to def

590
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: for a station of the area that is now Libya,

591
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: and in turn this led to soil erosion. So without

592
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: tree roots to hold the soil in place, you know

593
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: the soil roads in rainfall or in the wind or

594
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: in anything um which destroyed the sylfium's natural habitat and

595
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: the hilly meadows near the coast. So there you've got

596
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: a couple of unsustainable practices coming together to conspire for

597
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: the demise of this plant. He also points to unsustainable

598
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: farming practices in the region which were aimed at short

599
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: term profits but which came at the long term expense

600
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: of soil quality. Also, he says there are historical records

601
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: of political conflict over sylfium in synaica Um so in

602
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 1: the region. In this region during the Roman Empire, they

603
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 1: were like there were native tenant farmers and then the

604
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: rich Roman landlords. And as sylfium became scarce, the Romans

605
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: tried to put tight control on the production by saying

606
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: only they could farm it on their lands, and they

607
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: put fences up around the meadows where the sylfium grew

608
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 1: in order to keep the locals out. But Perejko writes

609
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: quote the natives practiced to kind of agrarian terrorism by

610
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: tearing down the fences and letting their flocks graze on

611
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: the sylphium to increase the value of the sheep's mutton.

612
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 1: And then also apparently sometimes they would just go into

613
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 1: the fields in the night and just uproot the plants,

614
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 1: just pull them up by the roots, kind of as

615
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,919
Speaker 1: a middle finger to the Roman overlords. Romans go home.

616
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: Another thing that's a possible explanation here, apparently the Romans

617
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: were obsessed with garlic. Oh well we still have that.

618
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and I don't often side with the Romans,

619
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 1: but I cannot fault them there. Garlic is great. Yeah,

620
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: I mean garlic not only is it a wonderful culinary ingredient,

621
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: but I mean it has a number of different medicinal

622
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 1: uses and you know in in in herbal traditions. Um,

623
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: is that antimicrobial property? Yeah, um yeah, yeah absolutely, And

624
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: so Perejhko writes quote Garlic was such a popular plant

625
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: with the Roman army that it was said one could

626
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: follow the advance of the Roman legions and expansion of

627
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: the empire by plotting range maps for garlic. Uh. So,

628
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: the Romans and Cyrenaica also apparently destroyed some sylfium habitats,

629
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: so they could plant garlic locally. Uh. And so the

630
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: question is did sylfium fully go extinct in the first

631
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: century CE or not. Some scholars have argued that sylfium

632
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 1: was cultivated at least until a few hundred years later

633
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: in the fifth century, because there are references to it

634
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: in some later writings, like people who have writing letters

635
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: in the fifth century cee Talking about having sylfium plants.

636
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: But these references could very well be to what what

637
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: Peregco calls pseudo sylfium's other plants that were incorrectly identified

638
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: as sylfium and had been for a long time, or

639
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: also for a long time had been combined with laser

640
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: resin to adulterate it, or had simply been sold as

641
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: fake sylfium by yet another unscrupulous laser dealer. Yeah, you know,

642
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: this is something I I was reading about recently and

643
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 1: another book about just um. You know, as his ancient

644
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 1: people's moved around, there might be a traditional plant that

645
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: they depended upon, and as they move out of its range. Uh,

646
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: and sometimes you know, take it with them to some extent,

647
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: but then lose it. They have to find new substances

648
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 1: that will fulfill at least some of the properties, or

649
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 1: they hope will fulfill some of the properties. And sometimes

650
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,320
Speaker 1: you just give it the same name or you know,

651
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: or a similar name exactly. Uh. And you know, and

652
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 1: not all plants can follow you outside of I mean,

653
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: some plants are very particular about their native range and

654
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: and can't be really grown outside it very well. And

655
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: it does appear sylfium as one of those. But in

656
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: the first centuries, see other plants and spices were being

657
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: recommended as a substitute for sylfium, like petco sites a

658
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,720
Speaker 1: Roman cookbook from around twenty CE that recommends Assa fatida

659
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: as a substitute for laser and recipes, presumably because real

660
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: laser was already really expensive or hard to get. So ultimately,

661
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure whether or not the species

662
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 1: plenty is talking about actually when extinct, but it seems

663
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: pretty likely it's got a limited natural range subject to

664
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: habitat destruction and over exploitation, as well as intentional destruction. Uh.

665
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: And the author ends by saying, either way, it's interesting

666
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,720
Speaker 1: and sad to see the exact patterns of human behavior

667
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: leading to extinction of plant and animal species today have

668
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: been with us for thousands of years. I mean this

669
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: almost reads like a like a parody of you know,

670
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: modern stories about how we we overexploited certain plants and animals. Absolutely. Well,

671
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and

672
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to discuss a few

673
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: more Roman extinctions, or at least in some of these cases,

674
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: extinctions that were greatly contributed to by the Roman Empire. Alright,

675
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: we're back, Okay. Can we talk about bears? Yes, let's

676
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: talk about bears. Uh. The Atlas bear is um by

677
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: some estimates, a notable victim of Roman civilization and the

678
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 1: civilization that followed in the wake of the Roman Empire. Uh.

679
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: These were the brown bears of northern Africa, and their

680
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 1: extinction can at least be partially attributed to the Romans,

681
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 1: though we have to stress here it didn't truly go

682
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: extinct in the wild and in the wild to the

683
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, so sometime later to be sure. But

684
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: so we're saying that maybe the Romans did stuff to

685
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: contain its range or something like that, Yeah, or certainly

686
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: really kickstarted the tradition of of exploitation, uh and in

687
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: habitat destruction that would reach you know, its final form,

688
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 1: uh in the nineteenth century. Uh. So, basically what happens

689
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 1: is when the Romans expanded into the Atlas Mountains of

690
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: modern day Morocco, the bears were hunted for sport and

691
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: they were captured for transport back to the Arenas in

692
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:54,359
Speaker 1: Rome as well. So we're talking thousands and thousands of

693
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: them again. You know, when we're talking about the the

694
00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:59,879
Speaker 1: trade and exotic animals, it's not just like a few

695
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 1: a few individuals here and there catching a few curious

696
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: creatures and sending them back. You know, I think it's

697
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: easy to fall back on. Uh. You know, certainly a

698
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: lot of this took place steering, you know, the time

699
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: of European colonialism as well. Um. But uh, a lot

700
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: of times it brings to mind pictures of say, like

701
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 1: the hold of a ship with a few different animals

702
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: in it or something like that. But no, we're talking

703
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: like tons and tons of creatures here, um, thousands, thousands

704
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: and thousands of bears. I mean, it's not like they're

705
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: all that many bears to begin with, right, Yeah, and uh,

706
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 1: and so the initial depleting of their numbers put them

707
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 1: in a terrible position for a centuries of habitat loss

708
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: and deforestation to follow, and also continued hunting, which was

709
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 1: ultimately bolstered by the development of modern firearms. And they

710
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 1: apparently when you look at the like the the the

711
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: last known sightings of these animals, they pretty much line

712
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: up with modern firearms being available, so that at just

713
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: pushing the hunting over the edge. Um. This made me

714
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: think a little though about bears and human extinction. Uh.

715
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 1: It was once theorized that prehistoric cave bears were hunted

716
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,399
Speaker 1: into extinction by humans, but it doesn't seem to be

717
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: that this was actually the case, or at least this

718
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: is not the predominant theory now. Uh. You know, these

719
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 1: were largely herbivorous creatures and they might have just been

720
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: too much for ancient humans to really tackle on a

721
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 1: regular basis, and human numbers might not have been sufficient

722
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: to pull off that kind of extinction at the time,

723
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: so we can't lay their extinction entirely at human feet.

724
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: I'd love to come back and discuss cave bears or

725
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: or other prehistoric bears like the short faced bear in

726
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: the future, but it is interesting to sort of think

727
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: of that in terms of the scaling up of human activities,

728
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: like you know, there were there were times there were

729
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: certainly there were certainly animals that you know that that

730
00:40:55,760 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: that early humans contributed to their to the extinction of uh,

731
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: you know, no doubt about it. But if if, if

732
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 1: populations are smaller, uh, there's less that can be done

733
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: towards pushing an animal's extinction. Right now, another animal creature

734
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: you might not expect to show up on this list

735
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 1: is the ostrich because you know, it doesn't seem like

736
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 1: a natural creature that would be out there in the

737
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 1: Roman arena, right, But the ostrich we're talking about about

738
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: here is not the common ostriche that you're probably thinking of,

739
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: and that you would you can see it most zoos

740
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 1: and window and what have you. Well, I mean I

741
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 1: was thinking when you said this, okay, there are some

742
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: large birds I can't imagine in the arena. I was

743
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: thinking about the cassowary. Oh yeah, Well, and is the

744
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,800
Speaker 1: scariest feed of anything I've ever seen? Well, yes, and

745
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: ostriches can be quite terrifying close up for sure, and

746
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: they can and they are dangerous animals. But but I

747
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 1: have to admit it wasn't like the first thing I

748
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 1: thought about is being something that there would have you know,

749
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: really suffered due to the pressure of Roman appetite. But

750
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here is not common ostrich, but

751
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: the Arabian ostrich or the Syrian ostrich, also known as

752
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 1: the Middle Eastern ostrich, and it lived in the Near

753
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: and Middle East, as opposed to the common ostrige of

754
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:12,879
Speaker 1: Africa that we still know today now. To be sure,

755
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:16,280
Speaker 1: the Arabian ostrich suffered under humans for quite a while.

756
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: They're mentioned in in other ancient texts. Uh they're even

757
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: mentioned in the Bible. And given that they are giant birds,

758
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:25,399
Speaker 1: you know they're they've always been something of a curiosity

759
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: for humans. And then you see this as far east

760
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: as China where specimens were taken for display, but the

761
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: Romans were were also rather taken with them. And again

762
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: everything with the Roman Empire you can sort of see

763
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: as like a leveling up of of of of appetite

764
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, but also just the ability to

765
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: exert that appetite on the natural world. Uh So, because

766
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: again these ostriges, they were exotic and they became something

767
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: of a status symbol. You see them popping up on

768
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: Roman coinage. From that, from that time period seem true.

769
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: Sylfium sylfi amazon coins we have, which just speaks to

770
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: like what kind of value was put on these on

771
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: these species. But in the arena, the ostriches were made

772
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: to pull chariots to participate in other you know, violent

773
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: arena spectacles, which of course tended to have a terrible

774
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: end for the animal. But they were also prized in

775
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: Roman cuisine, both the meat and the eggs. I was

776
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: the Romans were omnivorous to an extreme. You can read these,

777
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: uh these cookbooks where you know, it seems like they ate,

778
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: they tried eating just about everything. I was reading a

779
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaker 1: cookbook entry and something earlier today with this recipe for

780
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 1: like parrot and flamingo. I think, yeah, there's some very

781
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: exotic dishes, which again I think is part of just

782
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: like the traffic of these exotic animals. Uh. Yeah, there's

783
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: apparently a really good book on it that I didn't

784
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: have time to really get into a lot. But Patrick

785
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 1: Foss wrote one called Around the Roman Table, Food and

786
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: Feasting in Ancient Rome. Uh, and then he was looking

787
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 1: at some Roman cookbooks and uh he appointed to at

788
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: least a couple of Austria recipes, one for an Ostrich

789
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: stew and one for a boiled Ostrich. So boiled whole Ostrich.

790
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: Uh No, not whole, not whole. You know, there were

791
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: limits to what you could do. But then I mean

792
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: outside of this too, I mean ostrich feathers were prized

793
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: um for use in ornamentation and costumes. But the Arabian Ostrich,

794
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 1: the Syrian Ostrich ends up surviving the Roman Empire, but

795
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: they did not survive the pressures of the modern world,

796
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 1: so they're thought to have gone extinct sometime in the

797
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century. So they made it pretty far. But again,

798
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 1: this is a situation where you can't lay their extinction

799
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: entirely at the feet of the Roman Empire by any means,

800
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: but you can certainly look to the degree that the

801
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 1: Roman Empire added additional pressure upon their survival. All right, well,

802
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 1: I've got another one where, uh, we don't have clear

803
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 1: evidence that the Romans drove a species extinct, but there

804
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: are some interesting clues about possibilities in history that that

805
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,919
Speaker 1: may have previously not been imagined. So uh, let's let's

806
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 1: take a look at Plenty again. Plenty of the Elder

807
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: from his Natural History Book nine, chapter five, and this

808
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: one's the John Bostock translation where Plenty is talking about billina,

809
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: the ballina and the orca uh. And note in this

810
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,799
Speaker 1: passage there's this word billina. It's believed to refer to

811
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,959
Speaker 1: some kind of you know, key toss, meaning like sea

812
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: monster or big fish, which which for Plenty would include whales.

813
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: But we don't. We think he's talking about a whale.

814
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: We don't know what whale he's talking about. Okay, but

815
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: this is where we get balin from. Is it like

816
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: similar etymology? I would assume so yeah, uh, so he says, uh.

817
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,239
Speaker 1: The billina penetrates to our seas, even it is said

818
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: that they are not to be seen in the Ocean

819
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: of Gettyes before the winter solstice, and at periodical seasons

820
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: they retire and conceal themselves in some calm, capacious bay

821
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 1: in which they take delight in bringing forth. This fact, however,

822
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: is known to the Orca, an animal which is peculiarly hot,

823
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: hostile to the ballina, and the form of which cannot

824
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: be in any way adequately described, but as an enormous

825
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: mass of flesh armed with teeth. The animal attacks the

826
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,400
Speaker 1: billina and its places of retirement, and with its teeth,

827
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: tears its young, or else attacks the females which have

828
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: just brought forth, and indeed while they're still pregnant, and

829
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: as they rush upon them, it pierces them just as

830
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: though they had been attacked by the beak of a

831
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: Liburnian galley. And that refers to like a sharp pointed ship.

832
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 1: And he goes on and on about the orca hunting

833
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 1: these billina. But all of it is I mean, this

834
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: sounds exactly like everything we've discussed regarding the orca in

835
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: the past. I mean, this is like straight out of

836
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: a modern documentary in which we get to see, you know,

837
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: spectacular underwater footage of the orcas, or at least the

838
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 1: the the variety of orcas that that feed on whales

839
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 1: going after them. Yes, I mean it is an accurate

840
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 1: description of things you might see in some parts of

841
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,479
Speaker 1: the ocean. It scept there's a problem. In the early

842
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: part of this passage, he's referring to some kind of

843
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: whale that retires seasonally to the shallows to give birth

844
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: in the area around what is now Cadiz, So that's

845
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: in southwestern Spain. But the passage has long been of

846
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: interest to marine biologists because there are no whales in

847
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: the region that match this ecological and behavioral description, And

848
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: in fact, there are whales in the Mediterranean sometimes, but

849
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:27,320
Speaker 1: they tend to be you know, like deep water whales

850
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 1: that do not retire to shallow bays around Cadiz to

851
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: give birth. So what was plenty of talking about, Like,

852
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: did he get the story mixed up? Is he confused

853
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: about the location or about the behavior of the whales

854
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 1: or what or maybe was he referring to whales that

855
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: once would have calved in that area but no longer

856
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 1: do Now there are whales that that fit that ecological

857
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: and behavioral description, but they don't live in the Mediterranean.

858
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: A couple of examples would be gray whales, which is

859
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: the gray whale is a baleen whale up to about

860
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:02,280
Speaker 1: fifteen meters long or fifty feet about thirty five metric tons,

861
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: and it's worldwide range today has been reduced to a

862
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: couple of populations in the Northern Pacific Ocean, and one

863
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: of its two population subgroups, the Western group, is endangered.

864
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 1: And then also it would fit the North Atlantic right whale,

865
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: which is also a baleen whale of endangered today. It

866
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 1: lives in the Northern Atlantic. As the name implies, it's

867
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:25,479
Speaker 1: up to about sixteen meters or about fifty feet long

868
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: and about sixty four metric tons. And the right whale

869
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:32,720
Speaker 1: was a huge target of the historical whaling industry because

870
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,840
Speaker 1: they were valuable and they were easy to catch, and

871
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: they were hunted to commercial extinction by the mid nineteen

872
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: hundreds and nearly to biological extinction. They're they're pretty much

873
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: entirely gone from the eastern North Atlantic. There's a single

874
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 1: population of about five hundred individuals that survives in the

875
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: western North Atlantic and that's it. And so, you know,

876
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: in terms of extinction, we've often touched on like the

877
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 1: differences between extinct and wild. Uh, you know, absolute extinction,

878
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:03,760
Speaker 1: but commercial extinction is something I don't often think about,

879
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 1: like basically depleted to the point where, like the the

880
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: industry of whaling this particular animal is no longer viable. Yeah, exactly.

881
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: Um So, so let's come back to the whales in

882
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: a minute. A different question. When was the first time

883
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: somebody decided they could base a whole industry off of

884
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: hunting whales? And we know the hunting of whales in

885
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 1: like individual cases goes back thousands of years. But the

886
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: first known large scale commercial whaling industry and history has

887
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 1: long been believed to be the basque whaling business of

888
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 1: the medieval period. And there's no evidence that hunting of

889
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: whales by humans would have happened at any scale large

890
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 1: enough to have had an effect on whale populations before

891
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: the Basque whalers of the Middle Ages, but there are

892
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: earlier descriptions of whale hunting. Another piece of ancient Roman

893
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: literature we want to look at here is an awesome

894
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: poem about fishing by the second century ce Greco Roman

895
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: poet Opien, called the Halley Utica, and this is from

896
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 1: the Lobe Classical Library edition. It describes all kinds of stuff,

897
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: you know, the way the fishers go out in the

898
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: boat and they stab at the whale with barbs and

899
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 1: attached a hook to it with a rope, and that

900
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:16,720
Speaker 1: they then attached the rope to water skins or skins

901
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: that are filled with human breath, and there of course buoyant.

902
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:21,840
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like in Jaws, right when you

903
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: go and they spear the shark with the floating barrels um.

904
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: But then uh Oppian rights quote. Now, when the deadly

905
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: beast is tired with his struggles and drunk with pain,

906
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: and his fierce heart is bent with weariness and the

907
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 1: balance of hateful doom inclines. Then first of all, the

908
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:41,320
Speaker 1: skin comes to the surface, announcing the issue of victory,

909
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: and greatly uplifts the hearts of the fishers. Even as

910
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:48,120
Speaker 1: when a herald returns from dolorous war in white raiment

911
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 1: and with a cheerful face, his friends, exulting follow him,

912
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: expecting straightway to hear favorable tidings, so do the fishers

913
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,439
Speaker 1: exult when they behold the hide, the messenger of good

914
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: news rising from below. And immediately other skins rise up

915
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 1: and emerge from the sea, dragging in their train the

916
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,399
Speaker 1: huge monster, and the deadly beast is hauled up, all

917
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: unwillingly distraught in spirit, with labor and wounds. Yeah, it is,

918
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, I feel like Oppian is kind

919
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,439
Speaker 1: of a good poet in a way, but it's uh,

920
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: it's it's a sad story. He seems to be delighted

921
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: about it, though it does seem to resemble the shark

922
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:30,680
Speaker 1: hunting sequence and Jaws more than more than It's not

923
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: clear what kind of whale Oppian thinks he's talking about. Okay,

924
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 1: so we know the Romans didn't have the technology to

925
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: do deep ocean whaling, but it but is it possible

926
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 1: the Romans did participate in more shallow whaling than previously thought.

927
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: They certainly did a lot of fishing and fish processing.

928
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: The Roman Empire loved fish. They had like fish processing plants.

929
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,320
Speaker 1: Basically they made stuff that's like you know, modern fish sauce,

930
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,880
Speaker 1: like colatura, uh, you know, salted fish products. So they

931
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: were they were big on seafood and and the fishing industry.

932
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:03,879
Speaker 1: But did they do any whaling. We we didn't previously

933
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:06,759
Speaker 1: have really any evidence that that happened at any kind

934
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 1: of scale, but a study from ten finds some interesting

935
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: evidence that might make us question that. Uh. And this

936
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 1: was published in Proceedings to the Royal Society b Biological

937
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,799
Speaker 1: Sciences by Anna Rodriguez at All and the authors here

938
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: point out that whales are often archaeologically invisible, meaning when

939
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:27,240
Speaker 1: they die, their bones sink to the bottom of the ocean,

940
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: and we just don't usually get much of a record

941
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 1: of them even when they're you know, called or processed

942
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: by humans. They tend most often to be processed on

943
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,280
Speaker 1: the beach and there's stuffed you know, all the blubber

944
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 1: and everything taken away, and then the bones just get

945
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 1: washed back into the water. Uh. And this study used

946
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: DNA analysis of bones found in Roman and pre Roman

947
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 1: archaeological sites, I think primarily ancient fish processing factories in

948
00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: the Gibraltar region, and they found among the bones that

949
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: there were there were remains of three right whales, three

950
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: gray whales, but also a fin whale, a sperm whale,

951
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: a long finned pilot whale, a dolphin, and one bone

952
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: from an African elephant. Not sure what was doing at

953
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 1: the fish processing plan. Also makes me wonder which if

954
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: this was truly since it's not a study about elephants,

955
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: if we're talking about the uh, the extant African elephant

956
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 1: or the extinct North African elephant. Oh yeah, I'm actually

957
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:24,440
Speaker 1: not sure they're But so the author has used radio

958
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:27,320
Speaker 1: carbon dating that placed the bones with an origin between

959
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: two fifty b c E and five, so that's the

960
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: Roman Empire period. Uh. And the authors believed this indicates

961
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 1: that the historical range of these two whale species, the

962
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: gray whale and the right whale, actually included the Gibraltar region.

963
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:43,919
Speaker 1: In the Mediterranean Sea as Calvin grounds at the time.

964
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:46,239
Speaker 1: So in the Roman period, the ranges of these two

965
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 1: whales were very different. They were much bigger, apparently, And

966
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 1: the author's right that when these two whale species disappeared

967
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: from the Mediterranean, it was probably accompanied by quote the

968
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: disappearance of their predators, killer whales. So you're not normally

969
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 1: going to be seeing orca in the Mediterranean, right, but

970
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: they might have been there to prey on these whales

971
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: at the time. And when they're their their main prey vanishes,

972
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,240
Speaker 1: they have to vanish as well, exactly. And then also

973
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: they say, and a reduction in marine primary productivity. And

974
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 1: the authors also think that if these two species of

975
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: coastal accessible whales were historically present, it might indicate that

976
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire had a forgotten pre Basque whaling industry.

977
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: Quote none of this demonstrates that the Roman whaling industry existed,

978
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 1: but it indicates that Romans had the means, the motive,

979
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: and the opportunity to capture gray and right whales at

980
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:40,439
Speaker 1: an industrial scale. And then also quote nonetheless, if such

981
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 1: an industry did exist, it could have had an impact

982
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 1: on the eastern North Atlantic populations of these two species,

983
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:51,280
Speaker 1: as it would have affected particularly adult females with disproportionate

984
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: demographic consequences in these long lived, slowly reproducing species. Thus,

985
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,920
Speaker 1: Roman exploitation may have played a role in the observed

986
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:04,240
Speaker 1: decline in Atlantic gray whale genetic diversity before the onset

987
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:08,759
Speaker 1: of industrial basque whaling. So quite a few ifs they're right.

988
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: We don't know, uh, you know, if this whaling industry

989
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:15,239
Speaker 1: existed and all that, But you can see how it's

990
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 1: plausible that a Roman whaling industry could have contributed to

991
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:22,240
Speaker 1: the decline of whale populations in the Mediterranean in the Atlantic.

992
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 1: But I did just want to caution this with, you know,

993
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 1: because not everyone agrees with how to interpret the study.

994
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: So I was reading an article about this in The

995
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: Guardian that cited a doctor Erica Rowan, a classical archaeologist

996
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: at Royal Holloway University of London, and she said the

997
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: study does show these whales habitats once included the Gibraltar region,

998
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 1: but that the small number of bones over the short

999
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 1: time span found doesn't necessarily prove that there was a

1000
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: large commercial whaling industry in ancient in the ancient Roman Empire, which,

1001
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: of course the authors didn't say they were proving that,

1002
00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:55,359
Speaker 1: but they just suggested as possible. Uh quote. I think

1003
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,719
Speaker 1: that if these whales were present in such numbers, and

1004
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 1: we're being caught on an industrial scale, that we would

1005
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: have more evidence, perhaps not in the zoo archaeological record,

1006
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,400
Speaker 1: but in the ceramic record. In the literary sources, the

1007
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:10,839
Speaker 1: Romans ate and talked about an enormous variety of fish

1008
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: and seafood, and if the whale was widely exploited and exported,

1009
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: then it is strangely absent from many discussions. So she

1010
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: makes the point. Yeah, you might not expect to find

1011
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: many physical remains because of the way that whales are

1012
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 1: often processed, but you would probably expect to find writings

1013
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: where people talked about the whale industry. Yeah. One of

1014
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:35,200
Speaker 1: the Roman authors whose work survives today would have would

1015
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: have seen it, would have commented on it, would have

1016
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 1: been impressed by the scale of the industry. Yeah, you

1017
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:42,800
Speaker 1: would have said that they ate it, would have recorded

1018
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 1: some sort of a recipe, or if not a recipe,

1019
00:56:45,120 --> 00:56:46,920
Speaker 1: than like, you know, some sort of record of what

1020
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:49,400
Speaker 1: they were using the you know what, the various things

1021
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 1: they might have been processing the whale into. Yeah, I

1022
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: can see that being a potential red flag there. So

1023
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 1: I guess the big takeaway today is that empires have consequences.

1024
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: They do that, they have a lot of consequences, and

1025
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 1: it's and it's I think easy to to overlook the

1026
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 1: consequences that they have on the natural world and have

1027
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 1: always had. And again we have to think about the

1028
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:11,920
Speaker 1: scaling up of human behavior as our you know, our

1029
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 1: modern empires, in our modern um you know, nation states, uh,

1030
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 1: continue to scale up what they're doing sometimes uh take

1031
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: into into account their impact on the natural world, but

1032
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: perhaps not as much as it should be the case.

1033
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: Uh So kind of a cautionary tale, I guess from

1034
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:34,160
Speaker 1: the Roman world. Don't kill the elephants, don't deplete the sylphium.

1035
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 1: And of course these are the mainly the species. Most

1036
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 1: of the species we talked about here were things that

1037
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: their absence is notable because they were a value in

1038
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: some way. These are the things that they are historical

1039
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 1: records of of going missing. Right, Yeah, so we're being reduced.

1040
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: So just imagine other species that were less remarkable or

1041
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 1: at least less valued, or you know, they weren't exotic creatures,

1042
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 1: you know, very you think of the various rodents or insects, birds,

1043
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 1: or what have you that could have also been destroyed

1044
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 1: by Roman activity and it just didn't make it into

1045
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 1: the history books. Yeah, all right, So there you have it.

1046
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 1: As always, if you want more episodes of Stuff to

1047
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, visit Stuff to Blow your Mind dot

1048
00:58:13,160 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 1: com because that's where you'll find them. And if you

1049
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: want to support the show always, the best thing you

1050
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:20,360
Speaker 1: can do is tell friends about the show. Make sure

1051
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: that you rate and review us wherever you have the

1052
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: power to do so. And if you have any thoughts

1053
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: on the the organisms we discussed today, the histories we

1054
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 1: discussed today, if you have additional ideas, if you have

1055
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 1: corrections additional organisms we might have missed that when extinct

1056
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,520
Speaker 1: or might have gone extinct during the Roman time or

1057
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 1: do in part to the Roman influence, let us know.

1058
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. Huge thanks as always

1059
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Try Harrison. If you would

1060
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1061
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,

1062
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: to answer any of those questions Robert just said, or

1063
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1064
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow Your Mind, dot com. Stuff to

1065
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:11,360
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radios How

1066
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:13,880
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

1067
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1068
00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:29,680
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.