Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there.
Speaker 1: It's just the two of us. So that's okay because
Speaker 1: you're here, dear listener insert your first name after that,
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should Know. That's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: Stanley kuber condition m sort of. I went to go,
Speaker 1: um watch that last night? Oh yeah, and then I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, I think that's really long. So I
Speaker 1: looked up the run time. I was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: watching that, so have yet to see it. Yeah, watch
Speaker 1: Pazz of Glory instead. What was that? Is that? The
Speaker 1: one about Barry Lyndon? Now that was Barry Lindon. That's
Speaker 1: great too, But if you're gunning for early Kubrick, I
Speaker 1: would say, uh, Killer's Kiss if you want to go
Speaker 1: super early. And then as of Glory, which is the
Speaker 1: other one he did with Kirk Douglas, the World War
Speaker 1: One trench warfare film. That's great, okay. And Barry Lyndon,
Speaker 1: which is just a masterpiece, wasn't that Ryan O'Neill, Yeah, boy,
Speaker 1: it's good. Yeah, he's in one of my favorite movies
Speaker 1: of all time Paper movie. That's right, and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite movies. The main event? What was that? It
Speaker 1: was a rom com? He did as he played a
Speaker 1: boxer opposite Barbra Streisand was she a boxer? No? It was.
Speaker 1: It was not great. I mean it was fine. It
Speaker 1: was one of the seventies rom coms, but not one
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies by any stretch. Speaking of rom coms,
Speaker 1: but minus the rom part and just the calm, heavy
Speaker 1: on the calm. Have you seen Eliza this Lessengers sketch
Speaker 1: show on Netflix? No, it was very good that How
Speaker 1: do I know that name? She's She's gotten pretty big
Speaker 1: as a stand up in the last couple of years. Um.
Speaker 1: She If you haven't discovered her yet, you're welcome. She's
Speaker 1: really great. I'm looking her up now, which is something
Speaker 1: I don't normally do. I don't think I recognize her. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: she's got some stand up specials that are definitely worth watching.
Speaker 1: And then she just debuted a season of a sketch
Speaker 1: comedy show that's pretty good, definitely worth seeing. I have
Speaker 1: to check that out. Ryan O'Neil's not in it yet,
Speaker 1: but like I said, it's just one season. Uh, we're
Speaker 1: on a shout out Live Science. By the way, we
Speaker 1: used how Stuff Works article on Spartacus and this great
Speaker 1: Live Science article on Spartacus, the real Spartacus, not Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 1: I also read an article from a guy named Um
Speaker 1: Kenneth Spartacus Kenneth P check c z e c H
Speaker 1: like check the Czech Republic. I guess maybe that's where
Speaker 1: his family is from. Who knows, but he wrote an
Speaker 1: article back in the nineties about Um Spartacus that was
Speaker 1: very exhaustive, that was helpful. And then there's also a
Speaker 1: historian named Barry Strauss who I read some like interviews
Speaker 1: articles from him too. He's a bit of a specialist
Speaker 1: on Spartacus, so shout out to those cats as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the story of Spartacus, if you've watched this the
Speaker 1: Kubrick film, it is not Um. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: bits of truth in there, but it's definitely not some
Speaker 1: real truthful biopic of his life. Good movie, but we're
Speaker 1: going to give you the real story of spartacus life,
Speaker 1: which is that of a and the leader of an
Speaker 1: uprising of slaves who said Rome We're not going to
Speaker 1: take it anymore. Um, no, we ain't gonna take it.
Speaker 1: That's right, We're not going to take it. And it's
Speaker 1: the original title, I think. Um, and we we met
Speaker 1: that guy. Oh, actually we passed that guy backstage on's
Speaker 1: members right? What show was that? Whatever? I think it
Speaker 1: was Jeff Brokes, wasn't it? No? No, no, it was
Speaker 1: the whatever show? With? Was it with? Was that Martha
Speaker 1: Stewart's daughter? Yea, she has a first name, Alexis, Alexis
Speaker 1: and Jennifer, right, Jennifer and Alexis. Wow. Yes, remember when
Speaker 1: we were on TV every now and then, Yeah, we'd
Speaker 1: be on that. We were on Jeff Probes. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the Jeff Probes Show. He was interviewing us and
Speaker 1: he zoned out so hard I almost said, like, Jeff,
Speaker 1: are you okay while we were talking. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: used to occasionally we'd be on CNN. They would have
Speaker 1: us on to do like talking head stuff, and then, uh,
Speaker 1: everyone just sort of stopped caring about us. We got
Speaker 1: really well, we got really popular podcasting, and they just
Speaker 1: all said, huh, well, whatever, we don't need those guys.
Speaker 1: That's okay, Now, I don't want to be on CNN
Speaker 1: or any news network. Well, yeah, we were on the
Speaker 1: soul A Deed O'Brien show. We were interviewed by Christine Roman.
Speaker 1: She's she's like super legit journalist. It was pretty so
Speaker 1: was Jeff Probest right. The tribe has spoken and they
Speaker 1: who else? And that what he said, the tribe is spoken? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then he that candle. He'd kick you in the
Speaker 1: seat of your pants on the way out, and you
Speaker 1: would thank God, because what a relief to be kicked
Speaker 1: off that garbage show man. It was good the first
Speaker 1: season or two. I think. I think I did watch
Speaker 1: the first couple of seasons. Um, but you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna yunk someone's army. There's probably still Survivor shows
Speaker 1: going on. Oh no, there are they. I think the
Speaker 1: most recent season they brought together like past champions or
Speaker 1: past people who got kicked off one of the two
Speaker 1: and said who's going to win this time? Yeah? I don't.
Speaker 1: The only one I do like that is Top Chef,
Speaker 1: which is still maintained its integrity after all these years
Speaker 1: and never became dumb. And then for a little while
Speaker 1: I did that. Discovery had a show I cannot remember
Speaker 1: the name of it where it was like a post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic scenario where they would put people in this area
Speaker 1: and like a ocasionally they would send in these mad
Speaker 1: Max type people to mess with them and take their stuff,
Speaker 1: and they had to build things and defend themselves. God,
Speaker 1: what was that called? It was really awful. And where
Speaker 1: the people naked? Because I can tell you the name
Speaker 1: of the show if they were naked. I have watched
Speaker 1: more than one episode of Naked and Afraid I haven't.
Speaker 1: Did they just like like blur out there there, um
Speaker 1: the parts of their bathing suit covers. No, they're completely
Speaker 1: naked and it's just shows dong out the whole time
Speaker 1: that like goyage Golden Record is blurred out. And the
Speaker 1: kind of the first thing that the ladies do is
Speaker 1: fashion some sort of uh eve like covering on her
Speaker 1: on her bits. And the men either do that or
Speaker 1: they're just like, hey, whatever. He's the guy at the
Speaker 1: gym that has a towel like over his shoulder but
Speaker 1: not around his waist. Oh yeah, that guy, that guy
Speaker 1: wearing tennis shoes with no socks. Yes a k A.
Speaker 1: Men who were proud of their generals dong out. So
Speaker 1: I'm guessing Spartacus is probably dong out. He was, um,
Speaker 1: are we back to Spartacus now you think, okay, So
Speaker 1: Spartacus was this guy who everyone knows the name of. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you may even know that he was a gladiator.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know that he led a slave revolt. But
Speaker 1: this guy was really nuanced, really detailed, and actually even
Speaker 1: after a couple of thousand years of history analysis, you know,
Speaker 1: falling in and out of favor of different cultures that
Speaker 1: come and go, he he stands the test of time
Speaker 1: pretty well, even after being draped in you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people's hang ups and like, you know, held
Speaker 1: up as a prime example of the ideals of whatever
Speaker 1: group are revering him. Like, even after you strip all
Speaker 1: that stuff away and look at the historical figure, he
Speaker 1: was still a pretty pretty interesting and and kind to
Speaker 1: upstanding guy as far as leaders of slave revolts go.
Speaker 1: That's right, and that's a good way to put it. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was a Thracian, which means he is from Thrace.
Speaker 1: We don't know a ton about his early life because
Speaker 1: they just didn't bother recording the history of of nobody's
Speaker 1: slaves in ancient Rome. Why would they. It took him
Speaker 1: to do remarkable things for historians to take notice with
Speaker 1: their their quill and paper, and the Romans at the time,
Speaker 1: this was an area the Thrace was in southeast Europe
Speaker 1: where they're always trying to subjugate this area of Europe
Speaker 1: and first century BC, and it was just it was
Speaker 1: just not a good scene if you weren't sort of
Speaker 1: upper echelon Roman at the time. No, and Thrace was UM.
Speaker 1: I get the impression that it was not really want
Speaker 1: to live under Roman yoke, but I think I also
Speaker 1: have the impression that they were, um, they were in
Speaker 1: league with the Romans, but it was kind of like
Speaker 1: one of those you know, we can either we can
Speaker 1: either be an ally of yours or you can conquer
Speaker 1: us kind of thing, and so I think there was
Speaker 1: a bit of a tense truce and there was a U.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think any contemporary text about um
Speaker 1: Sparta Kisses still around today. Most of the earliest stuff
Speaker 1: we know about him comes from at the earliest the
Speaker 1: first century CE, and he was living in the last
Speaker 1: century or the first century BC. UM, so people were
Speaker 1: writing about him a hundred two hundred years later. But
Speaker 1: one of the one of those old texts says that
Speaker 1: he wasn't born a slave, and that he actually was
Speaker 1: a Thracian soldier who was an ally who who worked
Speaker 1: in the auxiliary or fought in the auxiliary for Rome.
Speaker 1: So he was a soldier under Roman command at some point,
Speaker 1: and they think that that he was drummed out of
Speaker 1: the army for some reason unjustly, this ancient author says,
Speaker 1: and that that kind of led on this path to
Speaker 1: him becoming a bandit and a criminal. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: like the guy in the new Star Wars movies, which
Speaker 1: one which one, the guy that that was a stormtrooper
Speaker 1: and then said, you know what, I'm not a stormtrooper anymore.
Speaker 1: I want to kill stormtroopers. Okay, I haven't I've seen
Speaker 1: the Last Jedi one. Yeah, that's one. Okay, So but
Speaker 1: that was a that was like a side story, right,
Speaker 1: that wasn't one of the actual cannon. No, So the
Speaker 1: Last Jedi was they made three main ones, a part
Speaker 1: of the cannon, and then a Star Wars fans, you
Speaker 1: have words for all these things. Rogue one was the
Speaker 1: one that was outside, and then the Han solo movie
Speaker 1: was outside and not outside cannon, just not part of
Speaker 1: the whatever that those movies. So Rogue one is the
Speaker 1: one I'm thinking of that was really good. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed that one quite a bit. The other ones, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've been able to make it through a
Speaker 1: single one yet. Oh yeah, I like them, but they're
Speaker 1: Star Wars movies. I don't I don't expect greatness. I
Speaker 1: just think they're kind of fun. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: love the first three. Yeah, sure, but not the first
Speaker 1: three seal you know, the first three that were released.
Speaker 1: Ever you liked one through three sequentially or not? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about a fan of Menace. Yeah. It is
Speaker 1: the best of the bunch, all right. So he's like
Speaker 1: the stormtrooper guy in these new movies that is no
Speaker 1: longer a stormtrooper and wants to kill stormtroopers. Uh. He
Speaker 1: gets captured at one point, and he gets sold into
Speaker 1: slavery in Rome. And then there was this man that
Speaker 1: I love. This article says a man referred to at
Speaker 1: times as Vacca. I guess that's his name, or maybe
Speaker 1: he just had a bunch of names. But the upshot
Speaker 1: is this guy had a gladiator school in Capua, about
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty miles southeast of Rome, and that's
Speaker 1: where Spartacus was sent to train to be a gladiatory
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, right, and I feel like we should take
Speaker 1: a break and get our Star Wars facts straight and
Speaker 1: come back. Goodness, Okay, all right, we'll be right back, Chuck, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So when we left off, Chuck um Boba fett Head
Speaker 1: left the army. You know, I'm not even going to
Speaker 1: do that to us. Have you watched Mandalorian? No, huh,
Speaker 1: it's good, the one with Amy Sadaris. Uh. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: is the Mandalorian. She is in it, though she gets
Speaker 1: to like hang out with baby Yoda. I think, no,
Speaker 1: it's she isn't and it's a you know, I love
Speaker 1: seeing her in anything, but it does taking me out
Speaker 1: of the moment just a bit. But it's a fun show.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the A Team. You'd like it,
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, I probably would like it. Then it's
Speaker 1: like a week adventure of the Week type of thing. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: Yeah I might. I might actually check that out. I've
Speaker 1: been looking for something new. I started Ozark and I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: this is really dark. Yeah, where are you now? Fifth episode?
Speaker 1: I think of season one? Okay, burned through season one
Speaker 1: or anything. No, I've been taking it slow. I don't
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah. I mean you've been taken in small
Speaker 1: doses here there. Yeah, I think I'm through like the
Speaker 1: first four of the latest season. And by the way, correction,
Speaker 1: I think I said it was like Heartwell, it is
Speaker 1: like Alatuna. Okay, that makes way more sense because I
Speaker 1: was thinking, is that Ala Tuna? Yeah? Alatuna is you
Speaker 1: know where Alatuna is for damn is? Yeah? Ala Tuna
Speaker 1: or heart wells up near South Carolina. It's not at
Speaker 1: the same lake, yeah, because I have friends, We have
Speaker 1: friends who um have a place on Heartwell. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't recognize it. But then I thought
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't recognize this about any lake, so I
Speaker 1: just kind of went with Heartwell. It was fine. Or
Speaker 1: from what I learned, there was no such thing as
Speaker 1: a natural lake in the state of Georgia. It's right
Speaker 1: there all and most of them are from the Georgia
Speaker 1: Power Company. Yeah. It's so creepy to me sometimes too,
Speaker 1: when you're swimming in a lake, if you start thinking
Speaker 1: about what's beneath your feet, um, it makes you want
Speaker 1: to get back on the boat. Sometimes you mean like
Speaker 1: a former town, yeah town or the woods or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Car Oh well, oh man, how do we get so
Speaker 1: off track? Okay, so we're talking about Sparta because who
Speaker 1: has Um he left or was drummed out of the army,
Speaker 1: became a bandit is captured and when he's captured, he's
Speaker 1: taken to that gladiator school that you talked about by
Speaker 1: a man sometimes called this call, sometimes referred to as Vodia.
Speaker 1: And the thing about gladiators is thanks to movies like
Speaker 1: Gladiator or UM, I don't know other movies about gladiators, Airplane,
Speaker 1: the original Airplane, UM. You we have this conception of
Speaker 1: gladiators is kind of like this awesome thing. But if
Speaker 1: you were living in in Rome around the turn of
Speaker 1: the last two millennia ago, you did not think of
Speaker 1: gladiators very highly. There were some that rose to incredible prominence,
Speaker 1: like the rock stars, sports heroes all mixed together of today.
Speaker 1: Gladiator could rise to that level, but it was incredibly rare.
Speaker 1: For the most part, they were criminals, prisoners of war,
Speaker 1: um slaves, and they were considered the lowliest of the
Speaker 1: low where the the owner their owner in this case Bodia,
Speaker 1: who owned Um Sparta kiss It basically said the only
Speaker 1: way for me to make money off of you is
Speaker 1: to make you fight for these gladiator battles. Um and
Speaker 1: and either bet on you or license you or something
Speaker 1: like that, and that was it. But you were like
Speaker 1: as far as the even the cast of slaves went,
Speaker 1: you were at the bottom. If you were a gladiator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know gladiators, if you've seen the movies, it's
Speaker 1: almost always depicted as a fight to the death. That's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the case. You could kind of tap out
Speaker 1: or if they drew blood, sometimes that would be the end.
Speaker 1: But if they drew blood that might also be the
Speaker 1: end of view pre antibiotics. Um. Either way, you might
Speaker 1: end up dead. But it wasn't necessarily always a fight
Speaker 1: to the death. Uh. And like you said, sometimes they
Speaker 1: would if you were a great gladiator and a great warrior. Um.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what your face look like, but you
Speaker 1: had this cool mask that you were identified by, kind
Speaker 1: of like wrestling or something like that. Or I guess
Speaker 1: the Luca Libre are the ones who always had the mask.
Speaker 1: But I can't believe we did an episode on that.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. It was a good one too. Um.
Speaker 1: But you could be if you want a lot and
Speaker 1: you had a cool helmet you could be a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal to the point where, um, you might have
Speaker 1: slaves taking care of you, and you might lead a
Speaker 1: bit of the better life, but you're still owned by
Speaker 1: someone else. Yeah, you were a slave, you were a
Speaker 1: prisoner of war, you were a criminal um. And but
Speaker 1: when you were taken to gladiator school, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: you're just kept there and then you were thrown into
Speaker 1: the to the ring to fight like you were trained.
Speaker 1: You were put on a diet um, you were you
Speaker 1: were basically put through boot camp and and you were
Speaker 1: introduced to the specifics of certain types of gladiatorial combat.
Speaker 1: And apparently there were a handful of different types, and
Speaker 1: one type of gladiator only fought one or two other
Speaker 1: types of gladiators. And the type that Spartacus was was
Speaker 1: a murmillo, which meant that he fought with a helmet,
Speaker 1: a very long um tall shield kind of like the
Speaker 1: Roman centurions were used, and then a short sword called
Speaker 1: the gladius um, and that's what he would have fought with.
Speaker 1: But there were other kinds of gladiators too. I ran
Speaker 1: across the super cool one, the ready ready, ready arius,
Speaker 1: and they would have a trident and a net and
Speaker 1: a dagger, So you know, like those gladiators that that
Speaker 1: like fought with a net. I think it might have
Speaker 1: been a mad Max or something like that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: based on an actual type of gladiator that used to
Speaker 1: fight back in the day, and again here in the
Speaker 1: twenty one century. We can sit there and think like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting stuff, but you have to stop
Speaker 1: for a second and think these people were being forced
Speaker 1: against their will into fights to the death, sometimes in
Speaker 1: front of spectators, for the sheer blood lust of the crowds.
Speaker 1: That was it, and you can't really forget that because
Speaker 1: it really puts you in the mind of somebody like Spartacus,
Speaker 1: who has been captured as prisoner, potentially unjustly according to
Speaker 1: an ancient text, and being forced into this life of fighting,
Speaker 1: sometimes to the death, for the for the joy of
Speaker 1: the wealthy crowds who came out to see everybody. That's right,
Speaker 1: And that's why Spartacus looked around one day and said, guys,
Speaker 1: we're here at Gladiator's University, right, And I know that
Speaker 1: sounds super cool, but I see where the end is
Speaker 1: for all of us, and that is dying for the
Speaker 1: entertainment value of rich romans, and what do you say
Speaker 1: we get a group of us together, like maybe seventy
Speaker 1: of us, we get the heck out of here, and
Speaker 1: let's let's do it, guys. And they all said, that's
Speaker 1: a great idea. I don't want to go die in
Speaker 1: a ring. So they got together. In seventy three b c.
Speaker 1: They hijacked a caravan that just happened to have a
Speaker 1: bunch of gladiator weapons and armor, and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what we are, We're a little army troop.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, think about the luck that that took.
Speaker 1: Like they broke out. They overpowered their guards with meat
Speaker 1: cleavers that they stole from the kitchen, and um broke out.
Speaker 1: And as they were breaking out, they ran across a
Speaker 1: supply truck of gladiator armor and weapons. I feeling that
Speaker 1: was targeted. That was not the case. No, it happened
Speaker 1: to be coming in as they were leaving, and they
Speaker 1: were like, oh, we'll take this or else. They encountered
Speaker 1: it on the road headed to the gladiator school, and
Speaker 1: the timing was really fortunate. Well, at any rate, they
Speaker 1: got all this gear and all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: were kidded up. And I think one of the people
Speaker 1: he was with with with his wife, This lady sounds
Speaker 1: very interesting. Um, Like we said, we don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about the actual historical record. We don't know her
Speaker 1: actual name. But Plutarch was a writer who wrote that
Speaker 1: Spartacus is why it was a prophetess who was possessed
Speaker 1: by ecstatic frenzies that were part of the worship of
Speaker 1: the god Dionysus, which you know, you know what that means.
Speaker 1: She she liked a party. She did. That was the
Speaker 1: party cult for sure, and she apparently was one of
Speaker 1: the priestesses of this cult in Thrace. She was thracy
Speaker 1: and as well ecstatic frenzies. Yeah, all though that was cool. Um,
Speaker 1: But she her name apparently is just totally lost. No
Speaker 1: one has any idea what her name is or what
Speaker 1: became of her. They assumed that she probably died alongside
Speaker 1: with Sparta kissed. But um, she being a prophetess, a priestess,
Speaker 1: apparently foretold his rise to power even while he was
Speaker 1: a slave in the gladiator camp, like she lived with
Speaker 1: him there. Um, I guess while he was sleeping one
Speaker 1: one night or day or whatever, a snake coiled itself
Speaker 1: around his head. And she was like, well, that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen every day, and I'm pretty sure that Dionysus has
Speaker 1: something to do with this. So my husband's going to
Speaker 1: be pretty important at some point, but he's also going
Speaker 1: to have a very unfortunate end too that the snake
Speaker 1: for tells. And it turns out she was right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And then she said, so I'm gonna go have an
Speaker 1: orgy with all these people and drink some wine with
Speaker 1: some goat goat fellas. So, uh, these these dudes, this
Speaker 1: little kind of for lack of a better term, battalion,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they start to train for combat.
Speaker 1: They're near Mount Vesuvius, which don't don't be afraid of
Speaker 1: the volcano everyone. This is about a hundred years before
Speaker 1: that happened. Isn't that creepy though? To think, like this
Speaker 1: historic thing took place and they were tramping all over
Speaker 1: Vesuvius to have they had no idea what was coming,
Speaker 1: just like a century from then. Mhm, I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing, but not Vesuvius at this time.
Speaker 1: What we're saying is it was lovely and it was lush,
Speaker 1: and that was you could farm there. It was very fertile,
Speaker 1: was covered with vines, and they were down their training.
Speaker 1: And eventually Rome takes a little bit of notice, although
Speaker 1: they weren't seriously worried yet. Uh. They were hiding out
Speaker 1: and they were training. And one of his co leaders,
Speaker 1: this guy Crixus, who kind of factors in as one
Speaker 1: of his big co heads of state. I guess, and uh,
Speaker 1: oh an a mouse as No, I think you had
Speaker 1: it the first time. There was like an extra syllable
Speaker 1: in there. Really, Yeah, but the the way you said
Speaker 1: at the second time sounds better. Well, we'll just stick
Speaker 1: to that. Uh. They would go around and raid uh
Speaker 1: for supplies. They would recruit slaves eventually, and we'll see later.
Speaker 1: They got so popular that they could even get non
Speaker 1: slaves to join up in the rebellion. And Rome was
Speaker 1: not super worried yet. They kind of heard about what
Speaker 1: was going on, but they were busy. They were fighting
Speaker 1: in Spain, they were fighting Crete, they were fighting in
Speaker 1: Southeast Europe, and this little ragtime group of former slaves
Speaker 1: wasn't that big of a deal. No. Less so the
Speaker 1: fact that they were fighting elsewhere like Spain and Crete,
Speaker 1: that meant that their greatest military leaders and those military leaders,
Speaker 1: armies were away, they weren't in Italy, and like you
Speaker 1: said at the time, they weren't taking Spartacus in his
Speaker 1: his runaway slave band seriously at all. But they did,
Speaker 1: you know, take enough notice that they sent a praetor there.
Speaker 1: And a prator is like a very high up elected
Speaker 1: official right under council, which is I think the highest
Speaker 1: elected official in ancient Rome. So they were really super
Speaker 1: high up. And actually they might have been laterals to
Speaker 1: the council's I'm not sure, but it was a very
Speaker 1: important person, but I get the impression that he was
Speaker 1: a very um kind of low on the scale of
Speaker 1: important people, because they sent him with a few a
Speaker 1: few Roman soldiers and said, hey, when you get to Vesuvius,
Speaker 1: just recruit some nicals to to go fight this this
Speaker 1: band of runaway slaves and be back by dinner time. Please. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was you know, I love the National Guard, not
Speaker 1: knocking them, but it kind of reminded me of, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of sending in the National Guard to take care
Speaker 1: of something rather than the Marines storming the beach. It's
Speaker 1: basically the story of John Rambo in First Blood. I
Speaker 1: trust me, I thought of that more than what R
Speaker 1: I P. Brian Dennehy. By the way, when like last week, what,
Speaker 1: how did I not hear that? I think it's just
Speaker 1: sort of been under the radar with everything going on.
Speaker 1: Was it from coronavirus? No, just I think he was
Speaker 1: like in his early eighties and just just passed away.
Speaker 1: R I P. For sure he was good, But I definitely,
Speaker 1: I definitely thought of Rambo a lot while I was
Speaker 1: reading this. The difference is was that Spartacus had a
Speaker 1: team um to aid in his uprising, and Rambo was
Speaker 1: of course a one man army in a team if
Speaker 1: you will. But at any rate, they didn't send the
Speaker 1: best of the best because they're all busy. Glabor's little army.
Speaker 1: They they said, you know what, We're not even gonna
Speaker 1: attack Spartacus. We'll just block off the route up to Vesuvius.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pitch our tents, we're gonna hang out and
Speaker 1: get drunk, and he's gonna starve to death and that's
Speaker 1: kind of gonna be the end of it. So we think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you said, Glabor glabors that praytor um. His name was
Speaker 1: Claudius Glaber. He sounds like an inept kind of person
Speaker 1: that you would send to take care of. I'll send
Speaker 1: Glabor exactly. His name is just too close to Glaban,
Speaker 1: I think so so Um Glaber said, he yeah, it's
Speaker 1: exactly what you said. He posted a couple of guys
Speaker 1: on the road to Vesuvius, the only road in or
Speaker 1: out up the mountain. Um. And then the rest of
Speaker 1: the group is at camp, and so um Spartacus in
Speaker 1: his band are. They know that they can't get down
Speaker 1: this road, but they're also not about to starve at
Speaker 1: the hands of a guy named Glaber. So they actually
Speaker 1: fashioned rope and rope ladder out of the vines that
Speaker 1: are growing up on Vesuvius, and they climbed down the
Speaker 1: mountain to a different spot, and they come up behind them.
Speaker 1: The guys who are guarding the road, kill them, sneak
Speaker 1: into the Roman camp, kill all of them while they're
Speaker 1: bathing and sleeping, and have done two things. They just
Speaker 1: wiped out the soldiers of a praetor a very high
Speaker 1: elected official, and they just captured a Roman camp with
Speaker 1: all of its supplies, all of its weapons, all of
Speaker 1: its armory um. And these were really two really big
Speaker 1: first strikes of fuel allow that and I will not.
Speaker 1: And it was a really big deal because you know,
Speaker 1: word gets around and for the first time slaves in
Speaker 1: Italy we're thinking, Wow, there's actually someplace we could go.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not like the in America where there
Speaker 1: were slaves in the south mainly and they could escape
Speaker 1: to the north. It was just like that all over Italy.
Speaker 1: So they had no uh, they had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1: They had no safe harbor, no quarter. If I'm allowed,
Speaker 1: I will allow that as well. And they said, wow,
Speaker 1: we got a place we can go. We can go
Speaker 1: join up with this guy Spartacus. Um he's out there
Speaker 1: sneaking up on on glabers and killing them while he's
Speaker 1: taking a bath. And then like that sounds pretty good
Speaker 1: to me. I want to get in on the fun. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was this historian Irwin from
Speaker 1: um Murray State or if it was part of the article,
Speaker 1: but somebody says at some point um that and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: not Irwin, Aaron Irvine is the name of the historian,
Speaker 1: but somebody says at some point that those slaves because
Speaker 1: they had nowhere to go, like you were saying, but
Speaker 1: also because of the way that slave uprisings were brutally
Speaker 1: dealt with that they very frequently didn't even require supervision.
Speaker 1: That they would Um that there were whole rural areas
Speaker 1: and towns that Spartacus was moving around to um where
Speaker 1: the slaves vastly outnumbered the freed people. And Um they
Speaker 1: were able to sustain that disproportionate um population distribution because
Speaker 1: the slaves in Rome had such little hope of any
Speaker 1: different life than what they had. And so yeah, like
Speaker 1: you're saying, Spartacus provided hope and something different, and Um,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, his little ragtag band of slaves
Speaker 1: and their slave uprising suddenly became a very large slave uprising.
Speaker 1: And in a really short time they attracted something like
Speaker 1: forty thousand slaves from these rural areas up around Vesuvius
Speaker 1: and in northern Italy I think northeastern Italy. Um that
Speaker 1: they would just run away and now they had a
Speaker 1: place to go, I e. Spartacusses camp and they would
Speaker 1: join up there and show up with like kitchen knives
Speaker 1: and farm tools and stuff like that, and they would
Speaker 1: be trained in combat. And now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it goes from this ragtag band of gladiator slaves who
Speaker 1: had escaped to something that looked a lot like a
Speaker 1: actual rebellion. And that's what Rome started to think that
Speaker 1: maybe they're dealing with. Yeah, and I get the ideas
Speaker 1: around this time that sparka spartacus becomes kind of an
Speaker 1: idea um, even more so than an actual human being,
Speaker 1: because you know, when the word is getting around, it's
Speaker 1: not like the newspaper's head front page headlines or anything.
Speaker 1: You get these whispers and you get these stories and uh,
Speaker 1: the spark of hope among the slaves, and this idea
Speaker 1: that there is this rebellion and he's a great boss.
Speaker 1: He splits everything right down the middle, and he's not
Speaker 1: some awful leader. He divides all the spoils equally, and
Speaker 1: he's getting non slaves to join up. Because even if
Speaker 1: you're like a you know, you might not be a slave,
Speaker 1: but if you're a very poor farmhand or something, uh,
Speaker 1: it might look appealing all of a sudden because you're
Speaker 1: not part of the elite Roman kind of upper echelon class. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the idea that he was splitting the spoils with
Speaker 1: people like that's huge, and apparently that stands up that um.
Speaker 1: Basically all of the ancient sources agree like this guy
Speaker 1: took all his plunder and distributed. He didn't keep it
Speaker 1: fro himself. He didn't turn himself into a king UM.
Speaker 1: And he was running around freeing slaves. And that you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why he he did, like
Speaker 1: you said, become a hero or an idea, and a
Speaker 1: hero that's still to the state group's kind of latch onto.
Speaker 1: So he's attracting more and more people. UM. One of
Speaker 1: the things, one of the ugly truths about this is
Speaker 1: that when they were going around to these small towns,
Speaker 1: in these rural areas, freeing slaves, getting them to join
Speaker 1: their ranks. UM, there was also a lot of plundering
Speaker 1: going on, and they were not merciful with the slave
Speaker 1: owners who own these big enormous um estates that they
Speaker 1: were plundering. They would um engage in rape, they would
Speaker 1: engage in torture, um, they would engage in murder. And
Speaker 1: from what I saw, it wasn't Spartacus that was doing that,
Speaker 1: that he actually commanded against that, but that his army
Speaker 1: had a mind of its own in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: and that they would they would be pretty merciless and
Speaker 1: brutal with them the freed people. Who who's stuff they
Speaker 1: were taking? Yeah, I mean I'm sure they were like, no,
Speaker 1: you're rape in pillage. That's what you do, right, That's
Speaker 1: what That's how it is right now. Um, even in
Speaker 1: the movie, Spartacus he uh he refuses to take part
Speaker 1: in that. So there are a few things you know
Speaker 1: that that Kubrick Um he didn't write the screenplay. That
Speaker 1: was actually Dalton Trumbo, but he uh he he had
Speaker 1: that in the movie. So there were bits of truth
Speaker 1: throughout for sure. So, oh this is going on. Rome
Speaker 1: finally is like, all right, we gotta really deal with
Speaker 1: this guy. Can someone can someone please go kill Spartacus
Speaker 1: for me? Right? Slabor glabor sucked so bad, you guys.
Speaker 1: We gotta get a non glabor in there to take
Speaker 1: care of business. And they did. They sent um Publius Varennius,
Speaker 1: and he was another prator. So they're sending like pretty
Speaker 1: important guys um along with their soldiers, and um Varennius.
Speaker 1: He was almost nearly captured, which would have been enormous.
Speaker 1: He was so close to being captured that I believe
Speaker 1: Spartacus himself he stole the guy's horse. He got his
Speaker 1: his horse and Varennius Publius, Publius, Varennius um. And that
Speaker 1: was a huge black eye to Rome that like not
Speaker 1: only as as this you know, band of runaway slaves.
Speaker 1: You know it will like able to engage Rome in battle,
Speaker 1: but he stole your horse and you're insignia and and
Speaker 1: almost got your guy. That was a big deal. And
Speaker 1: so all these these victories. With each victory, spartacus legend
Speaker 1: just grows, and he's able to attract more and more people. Um.
Speaker 1: I think within a year that UM historian Kenneth Check
Speaker 1: says within a year, maybe a little more than a year,
Speaker 1: there was as many, possibly as a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand freed slaves or slaves, escaped slaves and commoders
Speaker 1: um who had joined spartacus army. A hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand. And he started with seventy gladiators the year before. Yeah, seventy,
Speaker 1: not seventy, just to reiterate, yeah, no, that's worth saying.
Speaker 1: So spring of seventy two, b c uh, Spartacus has
Speaker 1: these troops. Some of them stay in the south with
Speaker 1: his buddy Crixus, And then he said the rest of
Speaker 1: you come with me. We're the head towards the Alps
Speaker 1: because it's lovely this time of year. And I think
Speaker 1: at the time, who would they These guys have great names. Uh,
Speaker 1: Rome sent armies led by Lucius Gellius public Publicola and
Speaker 1: Neus Cornelius Lentulus Claudianus. Those are great names. Wow. Those
Speaker 1: guys were councils, so they were the highest elected officials
Speaker 1: in Rome. Yell of as many as like twenty guys
Speaker 1: put together like this is serious business at that at
Speaker 1: this time to go take care of Spartacus. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think when he almost captured Varennius, that was that really
Speaker 1: caught Rome's attention for the first time. Um. Unfortunately, these
Speaker 1: two councils what were their names again, Chuck, let's just
Speaker 1: call him public Coola and claude Anius. Okay, fine, Um,
Speaker 1: they were no better equipped to fight uh Spartacus either.
Speaker 1: I think by this time he had he hadn't come
Speaker 1: close to people yet, but he was up to forty
Speaker 1: thou and both of um, both of the yeah, peaches
Speaker 1: in herb nice Um. They underestimated how many troops he'd had.
Speaker 1: They also were unaware that he had wintered UM in
Speaker 1: the I think the north of Italy and had spent
Speaker 1: the winter stealing horses and building up a cavalry unit,
Speaker 1: which they had no idea. He had this UM and
Speaker 1: one other thing he put to good use. So remember
Speaker 1: this guy's potentially a Roman army veteran from Thrace, which
Speaker 1: means he's familiar with guerrilla warfare that the Thracians practiced
Speaker 1: and conventional warfare which the Romans practiced. And he's like
Speaker 1: commanding tens of thousands of troops to to great effect
Speaker 1: built a cavalry. And he also so like some of
Speaker 1: those commoners who joined up who weren't slaves, but they
Speaker 1: were not well off and they wanted to fight the
Speaker 1: fight the power, so they joined UM. They were usually
Speaker 1: like herdsman or shepherds or something like that from local
Speaker 1: areas who knew the areas really well. So he used
Speaker 1: them as scouts and um peaches and herb had no
Speaker 1: idea that this, again, this band of runaways slaves had
Speaker 1: turned into an actual like legit army under the command
Speaker 1: of somebody who knew what they were doing, and he
Speaker 1: ate both of them alive. Yeah, well it actually was, UM.
Speaker 1: It was kind of tough. Because Peaches went down there
Speaker 1: to the south where Crixus was and killed him with
Speaker 1: a lot of the rebels. And then Herb came in
Speaker 1: from the north of Spartacus, where he was headed toward
Speaker 1: the Alps. Uh came you know, he was ahead of him,
Speaker 1: so he came south from the north and he came in,
Speaker 1: and Spartacus was basically trapped between these two armies that
Speaker 1: had better equipment, better weaponry, better armor, more munitions and
Speaker 1: food and water and everything and wine. And they had
Speaker 1: no idea that this cavalry was waiting for him, that
Speaker 1: he had been working on. It was kind of his
Speaker 1: little Uh, kind of his little trojan horse in a way,
Speaker 1: and they had never seen anything like it. And he
Speaker 1: beat Peaches, I think, or was that Herb. Now am
Speaker 1: all confused? He beat Herb. Okay, he beat Herb and
Speaker 1: got all of the supplies that Herb's army had, and
Speaker 1: then it was it was on in a big, big way.
Speaker 1: So I misspoke. By this time, yes, he probably had
Speaker 1: close to people in his army, but they had split
Speaker 1: off because Crixus, who was one of the gladiators that
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, one of the original gladiators, he broke
Speaker 1: out of gladiator school with and who basically co operated
Speaker 1: the army with him. Um. He apparently wanted to split
Speaker 1: off and take it straight to Rome, wanted to attack Rome.
Speaker 1: Him and Sparta Kisses whole thing was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's go north to Thrace, out of Italy. We can
Speaker 1: be we can build our army up even better there
Speaker 1: and either just hang out in Thrace and be great
Speaker 1: or maybe then we can come back to Italy. And
Speaker 1: they had a disagreement, they had a falling out, um,
Speaker 1: and they split up, and crix Has took thirty thousand men.
Speaker 1: And like you said, I don't remember if it was
Speaker 1: Peaches or Herb who got him, but the Crixus and
Speaker 1: his men were killed, but simultaneously, even though Sparta kiss
Speaker 1: later beat that both of those guys, he had just
Speaker 1: lost thirty thousand of his troops, which is a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty big troop reduction, especially basically overnight. Yeah, but he's
Speaker 1: still won in the end. In that battle, he uh,
Speaker 1: he fought very bravely. He rushed either Peaches or Herb,
Speaker 1: broke them down, captured their supplies, and then we don't
Speaker 1: know for sure if he defeated Herb or not. Or
Speaker 1: if they just retreated, but at any rate, that was
Speaker 1: sort of the end of them, and they were allowed
Speaker 1: to go onto the Alps. Right, So you want to
Speaker 1: take another break, Yeah, let's take our last break and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll wind it up here with the last stand. Okay,
Speaker 1: change to Chuck. So Sparta Kiss is not only now
Speaker 1: beaten prators that the Romans sent, he's beaten councils in
Speaker 1: their armies, and Rome is full lipped out. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they knew that Crixus, who by the way,
Speaker 1: was a celt which I find immensely interesting, but Crixus Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they knew that he was coming
Speaker 1: toward Rome and that they just narrowly avoided being attacked
Speaker 1: by that contingent. But it was definitely on their mind
Speaker 1: that Rome was left unprotected because remember, the best generals
Speaker 1: and the best their best armies were in Spain and
Speaker 1: Crete Um, and there was a really really angry group
Speaker 1: of um impoverished and escaped slaves who were who had
Speaker 1: assembled themselves into a pretty respectable army UM possibly coming
Speaker 1: toward Rome. Yeah, and Rome was on thin ice at
Speaker 1: this point. I mean, they were still super powerful, obviously,
Speaker 1: but um, they make a good point in this article
Speaker 1: that they kind of relied on the fact that everyone
Speaker 1: thought they were great and was super scared of them,
Speaker 1: and they had these big, scary armies. And once they
Speaker 1: started getting these defeats, and once they started getting defeats,
Speaker 1: especially at the hands of a former slave who was
Speaker 1: leading this kind of rag tag team that was revolting
Speaker 1: against them, there's a little chink in that armor. And
Speaker 1: Spartacus is about they're winning battles, and everyone hears about this,
Speaker 1: and that's a big big deal to Rome. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, they seem like they're defeatable. Yeah, which if
Speaker 1: you are, if your society includes slaves and the slaves
Speaker 1: are kept in line by the idea that you were undefeatable,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so they're there. They seem like they're defeatable.
Speaker 1: Now they're best armies in generals are away and they
Speaker 1: couldn't really find anyone to really take care of Spartacus
Speaker 1: until this guy stepped up. He was a wealthy prater
Speaker 1: named Marcus Crassis, and he said, you know what, I've
Speaker 1: got the dough and I'm a pretty brutal leader in
Speaker 1: my own right. Maybe you've heard of me, and so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna finance this army and I'm gonna go kill
Speaker 1: that guy. And so if there's a villain in this story,
Speaker 1: it is Crassis. He was a terrible, terrible person, possibly
Speaker 1: the richest person Rome has ever seen. Um. I read
Speaker 1: somewhere that he he would go to places that had
Speaker 1: caught fire with his own personal fire brigade and would
Speaker 1: negotiate with the owner of the house or whatever um
Speaker 1: to buy it. And if the if they would negotiate
Speaker 1: at just an extremely cheap rate to sell their house
Speaker 1: that was on fire, then Crassies or Crassis would have
Speaker 1: his fire brigade put it out. If they didn't negotiate
Speaker 1: or sell, then he would just leave with his fire
Speaker 1: brigade and let it burn. Here's that kind of guys
Speaker 1: is like, hey man, this place is on fire, and
Speaker 1: I'm offering to buy it from you. Right, it's a
Speaker 1: fire sale. You should you should take this. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: if they wouldn't, if they'd be like, no, this is
Speaker 1: completely unacceptable and immoral, he'd be like, all right, see
Speaker 1: you later, and his fire brigae would leave. That's just
Speaker 1: not good stuff. That's the kind of thing that if
Speaker 1: you do that people continue to talk about it in
Speaker 1: a negative like two thousand years later on some dumb podcasts.
Speaker 1: So Crassis, you also might recognize his name. He was
Speaker 1: part of the first triumvirate with Um, Pompey and Caesar.
Speaker 1: He was the third guy. Remember that name, so Um.
Speaker 1: So Crassus steps up and he says, you know what,
Speaker 1: my father got a triumph, which is basically like a
Speaker 1: military parade for a great military victory. And I've always
Speaker 1: been envious. I want mine. I'm gonna make mine the
Speaker 1: defeat of Spartacus. I'm gonna go get them. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: finance this army. I'm gonna go pick up some of
Speaker 1: the other armies that have been defeated and kind of
Speaker 1: left scattered around Italy and reassemble them. And there was
Speaker 1: one in particular, I think it was um, the army
Speaker 1: of the Praetor, who was almost captured Verennius. Some of
Speaker 1: his people ran away, and Crassus got them together, I
Speaker 1: believe five hundred people who had been accused of desertion
Speaker 1: and running away during battle. And he brought out of
Speaker 1: the old steamer trunk, an old technique for keeping your
Speaker 1: troops in line. Called decimation chuck, which is a word
Speaker 1: that we've misused for years on this podcast. But this
Speaker 1: is the real deal that he was doing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we've been missusing it for years. I
Speaker 1: think it's now part of a popular terminology, just not
Speaker 1: necessarily reduced by ten. Okay, fair enough. But what he
Speaker 1: did was he said, okay, all of you five break
Speaker 1: up into fifty groups of ten, and in every group,
Speaker 1: all ten of you draw lots. Whoever draws the shortest
Speaker 1: lot gets executed. And he executed fifty out of five
Speaker 1: hundred deserters in front of his troops to basically say, hey,
Speaker 1: let's get that moral up everybody. This is what happens
Speaker 1: to you if you don't fight valiantly. And that was
Speaker 1: the kind of leader that he was. So he's a
Speaker 1: real jerk in business, in a real jerk on the
Speaker 1: battlefield too, even with his own troops, and a very
Speaker 1: selfish lover from what I hear he really was. He'd
Speaker 1: be like, well that's it for me, good luck to yourself.
Speaker 1: So he had a real be in his bonnet to
Speaker 1: get that victory parade. He goes and chases Spartacus all
Speaker 1: over Italy and there was some infighting going on, which
Speaker 1: is what can happen a lot of times in a rebellion,
Speaker 1: and if you don't keep everyone's spirits up. So that
Speaker 1: kind of weakened his army a little bit. And so
Speaker 1: in a last ditch effort, Spartacus said, you know what
Speaker 1: we need to do is we need to go kill
Speaker 1: Crassis in front of everybody. And that's that'll do the trick.
Speaker 1: If everyone seas Crassis has gone, you cut off that head,
Speaker 1: maybe another one will not grow up in its place. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that didn't work out for Spartacus. He was actually
Speaker 1: cut down in battle. His army was finally defeated. Uh.
Speaker 1: They hunted down all six thousand of the survivors of
Speaker 1: the army and crucified them. Uh. He was not himself
Speaker 1: crucified like in the movie Spartacus. And there was never
Speaker 1: that great moment in the movie that I'm Spartacus moment
Speaker 1: that never really happened in real life. Unfortunately, Um, they
Speaker 1: never found his body, which is sort of a a
Speaker 1: sad end to this. Um to a leader who did
Speaker 1: some pretty great things for a little while, but not
Speaker 1: really though, because I read he was last seen he
Speaker 1: was really close to Crassis. He was headed to Crasses
Speaker 1: to kill him himself, and he I think killed two
Speaker 1: centurions in hand to hand combat on his way to
Speaker 1: Crasses before he was swarmed on like Hollywood style and
Speaker 1: cut down by like just a mob of dudes who
Speaker 1: overwhelmed them. Which is, it's not a sad end. No,
Speaker 1: if you're living by the sword and dying by the sword,
Speaker 1: that's the way to go for sure. Okay, I bet
Speaker 1: you he would have preferred to kill Crasses. I'll give
Speaker 1: you that. But if he was never faded to kill Crasses,
Speaker 1: if that snake coiled on his head and fore told
Speaker 1: that he would never kill Crasses, that's the way to go. Well.
Speaker 1: In the end, Uh, he has gone. His rebellion is squashed,
Speaker 1: but some good comes out of it. Rome kind of says,
Speaker 1: you know what, this taught us a great lesson, which
Speaker 1: is maybe we should listen to the lower class a
Speaker 1: little bit more. It wasn't some huge sweeping reform change
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I don't want to like sugarcoat it,
Speaker 1: but there were a number of reforms that were passed
Speaker 1: that did strengthen the voice of the people as a whole,
Speaker 1: and they had a little bit more say, in their
Speaker 1: government because they didn't want another Spartacus to come along. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then over the years, like many thousands of years later,
Speaker 1: like I said, he was kind of held up as
Speaker 1: like this hero, this ideal, so like the abolitionist movement
Speaker 1: in the United States held him up as a hero
Speaker 1: because he was known to free slaves. That was how
Speaker 1: he assembled his army. And he wasn't necessarily freeing slaves
Speaker 1: for the ideal of ending slavery. He was freeing slaves
Speaker 1: to help build up his army. Um, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was a certain amount of like this is a
Speaker 1: good thing that these slaves are no longer slaves when
Speaker 1: they're you know with me that he must have entertained
Speaker 1: at least. And then later on, like you said, Dalton
Speaker 1: Trumbo wrote the script for Um, the nineteen sixty movie
Speaker 1: directed by Kubrick on Spartacus, and Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted
Speaker 1: from Hollywood because he was a communist or he wouldn't
Speaker 1: name names I can't remember. And Dalton Trumbo wrote that
Speaker 1: script based on a novel written by a guy named
Speaker 1: Howard Fast who had written the novel in jail. Because
Speaker 1: he wouldn't name names on the McCarthy hearings. UM, and
Speaker 1: so Spartaca's kind of became like a hero of Marxists
Speaker 1: because he freed slates. He overthrew the oppressors, but he
Speaker 1: also took the oppressor's wealth and redistributed it among you know,
Speaker 1: the lower classes, which Marxists are just bonkers for pretty
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. Uh, there's plenty more about sparta kiss, gladiators,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. This is really thick stuff, and this
Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. It's not what we do.
Speaker 1: We've just kind of given overview. So if this floated
Speaker 1: your boat at all, go look up Spartaca's start reading
Speaker 1: on him and you will be fascinated. And since I
Speaker 1: said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this wastewater operator or a former now retired wastewater operators. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just finished listening to the episode on wastewater treatment with
Speaker 1: a critical ear. Having worked for over twenty years, is
Speaker 1: both a w W lab analysts and operator. While I
Speaker 1: understand you were aiming for the least knowledgeable common denominator
Speaker 1: in your audience, I feel like you did a disservice
Speaker 1: to all wastewater treatment plants and their employees by failing
Speaker 1: to mention that every treatment plant in America must abide
Speaker 1: by strict regulatory permits issued under the Clean Water Act
Speaker 1: tailored to the needs of the of these specific facilities. Influent,
Speaker 1: your words make it sound like we and operations made
Speaker 1: our own decisions as to how clean the water, Uh,
Speaker 1: how how clean is clean enough? And that cannot be
Speaker 1: further from the truth. UM. I want to stop here
Speaker 1: because I don't feel like we did that, did we?
Speaker 1: We certainly didn't mean to. I don't think that we
Speaker 1: were just like you know, it's up to text who's
Speaker 1: running the levers to decide what's clean enough. If we did, Sorry,
Speaker 1: we definitely don't think that. No, we didn't think that
Speaker 1: at all. Uh. In my position as analysts, I perform
Speaker 1: an average performed in average of thirty thousand standard laboratory
Speaker 1: tests per year to maintain permit compliance and support operations.
Speaker 1: That number increased dramatically when there are operational upsets, process changes,
Speaker 1: influence variations, etcetera. In addition, operators collect and analyzed process
Speaker 1: control samples several times per shift for the same reason. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we knew that stuff was going on, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound defensive, but do this person
Speaker 1: listen or just say, oh, I see this title. Here's
Speaker 1: all the things are going to get wrong. Now I
Speaker 1: think they listened. I wish to thank you for attempting
Speaker 1: to educate the public on the vital role clean water
Speaker 1: and sewage treatment play and the health and prosperity of
Speaker 1: the United States. I firmly believe this is what truly
Speaker 1: makes America great. You don't hear people saying they need
Speaker 1: vaccinations and antibiotics to fend off water borne illness when
Speaker 1: visiting the United States. Uh. Sorry to rant On, I
Speaker 1: appreciate your time, Thanks for reading, and please put out
Speaker 1: a big thank you to all wastewater treatment operators about
Speaker 1: whom nobody is paying attention, but whom everyone needs. And
Speaker 1: that is from uh. Anne Danielson, retired operator and analyst.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, and that's good stuff. And yes, agreed.
Speaker 1: If everyone doesn't know that we need waste water treatment
Speaker 1: people and they're not paying attention, so hats rop to
Speaker 1: you and your colleagues from us. Agreed. Yes, I know
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of work and analysis and testing,
Speaker 1: and if we didn't hammer that home enough, then we
Speaker 1: are now yeah, Well, if we missed the mark on something,
Speaker 1: or you just wanted to add something, or just want
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you guys nailed it, nailed it. We
Speaker 1: love that You can get in touch with this via email,
Speaker 1: Wrap it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it
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