Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what mango was that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: All right, So I was reading up on ancient Greek
Speaker 2: theater this week, which you know I like to do
Speaker 2: every October very personal reasons. I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into it, and I came across this story about an
Speaker 2: Athenian actor name he Geligos, and he once mispronounced a
Speaker 2: word so badly that it tanked his entire career. That
Speaker 2: sounds so harsh, like just one word tanked his career?
Speaker 2: What was the word? Well, so here's the story. This
Speaker 2: happened back in the spring of four hundred and eight BC,
Speaker 2: and it was during the premiere performance of Orestes. This
Speaker 2: was this tragedy written by Euripides. He was playing the
Speaker 2: lead role, and in a scene where his character recovers
Speaker 2: from a bout of madness, he's supposed to say, quote,
Speaker 2: after the storm, I see once more a calm, But
Speaker 2: because he was rushing to get the line out, there's
Speaker 2: this word in it, galen, and he says it with
Speaker 2: the wrong inflection, which changed the meaning from calm to weasel,
Speaker 2: Like that's a different word. Those are yeah, I always
Speaker 2: think that's an improvement. Well, it was actually worse than
Speaker 2: it sounds, because in ancient Greece, seeing a weasel was
Speaker 2: considered a really bad omen So the mispronunciation not only
Speaker 2: made the line sound sillier, it also conveyed the exact
Speaker 2: opposite mood. Instead of being this optimistic line about feeling better,
Speaker 2: it became this ominous line about him having bad luck.
Speaker 1: And it was actually that big of a mistake just
Speaker 1: mispronouncing this one word.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you it ruined his whole career. So comic
Speaker 2: playwrights of the era teased him mercilessly and even referenced
Speaker 2: him by name in their own play. This killed his
Speaker 2: reputation as an actor, to the point that he never
Speaker 2: acted again after that one flub. It also gave him
Speaker 2: a different level of fame than his contemporaries. Like basically,
Speaker 2: even though ancient Greek tragedies are the bedrock of Western theater,
Speaker 2: we usually don't have record of the actors who appeared
Speaker 2: in the original performances. You don't hear the names of
Speaker 2: any of them except for Geligos, who we still know
Speaker 2: for this mistake, and this was definitely not the legacy
Speaker 2: he would have hoped for, but it is still his legacy.
Speaker 2: No such thing as bad publicity. No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: So we're often hearing about the seven wonders of the
Speaker 2: ancient world, so today I thought it might be fun
Speaker 2: to explore the seven biggest blunders of the ancient world instead.
Speaker 2: This slip of the tongue is just the first on
Speaker 2: the list, but that still leaves six more gafts to go,
Speaker 2: so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Speaker 2: Part Time Genie. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm
Speaker 2: joined by my good friend mangsh Hot ticketter and on
Speaker 2: the other side of that soundproof glass wearing a It
Speaker 2: took me a minute to read this, but it says
Speaker 2: po body's nerfic T shirt. He's so clear, so clever,
Speaker 2: clever a picture of a great sphinx on it. That's
Speaker 2: our friend and producer Dylan fag and he's just always
Speaker 2: one upping the last thing he's done.
Speaker 1: So I am actually glad that Dylan referenced the sphinx
Speaker 1: because I considered adding the sphinx to our list, specifically
Speaker 1: because of that broken nose it has, but once I
Speaker 1: started looking into it, I realized the nose wasn't broken
Speaker 1: off by mistake.
Speaker 2: This is one of those stories that I feel like
Speaker 2: I've heard a few times that I never can like,
Speaker 2: wasn't it cut off on purpose? Or shot off by
Speaker 2: French troops or something like that. No one actually knows
Speaker 2: who did it for sure.
Speaker 1: There have been all these rumors over the years that
Speaker 1: it was Napoleon soldiers they had blasted the nose off
Speaker 1: with the cannonball in the seventeen nineties. That was the rumor,
Speaker 1: But most historians actually think that the schnaws was chiseled
Speaker 1: off in the late fourteenth century and chiseled off like
Speaker 1: it's a mass of nos that's huge. The most likely
Speaker 1: culprit was this man named Mohammad Sayim al Dhar and
Speaker 1: apparently the Egyptian peasants of the era had started making
Speaker 1: offerings to the sphinx in the idea that it would
Speaker 1: improve their harvests or whatever. But when Aldaar found out,
Speaker 1: he was so outraged by this idolatry that he destroyed
Speaker 1: the sphinx.
Speaker 2: Nose just despite them. Wow, So did the villagers kind
Speaker 2: of snap out of it after that or what? No,
Speaker 2: they executed him for vandalism. Oh god. Okay, yeah, so
Speaker 2: far we've talked about some people that they're just lives,
Speaker 2: have gone poorly after things. But all right, so now
Speaker 2: that we've got that nose story out of the way,
Speaker 2: what's your first fact? Mango?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I actually kind of want to stick with
Speaker 1: Egypt for a minute, because not only is it home
Speaker 1: to the only ancient wonder that still exists, the Great
Speaker 1: Pyramid of Giza, but it's also home to a true
Speaker 1: anciente blunder called the Bent Pyramid. Have you ever seen this?
Speaker 2: Actually have not.
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to put a photo here, but the
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty foot tall Bent Pyramid of Dashu
Speaker 1: Where was built for pharaoh Sneffru in about twenty six
Speaker 1: hundred BCE, and its name stems from an engineering issue
Speaker 1: that required the builders to abruptly change the angle of
Speaker 1: the pyramid slope about halfway through the construction.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm just looking at this picture, and the slope
Speaker 2: really does change drastically right there in the middle of
Speaker 2: the pyramid, Like the lower portion looks so much deeper
Speaker 2: than the top. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing was originally designed to be built
Speaker 1: at a fifty four degree angle, which would have given
Speaker 1: it smooth, straight angles that you see on traditional pyramids.
Speaker 1: But as the builders added more and more layers of blocks,
Speaker 1: these cracks started appearing in the structure, and they realized
Speaker 1: it would probably collapse if they kept going, and so
Speaker 1: after a bit of number crunching, they decided to reduce
Speaker 1: the angle for the upper portion to a much more
Speaker 1: stable forty three degrees.
Speaker 2: I guess it worked. It's still standing today, and you
Speaker 2: could argue that the slightly curved appearance is part of
Speaker 2: the landmark's charm. I guess. But I'm curious why the
Speaker 2: Egyptians made such a mistake in the first place. I mean,
Speaker 2: building pyramids feels like kind of their thing, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Egyptians are well known for building pyramids. I
Speaker 1: think we're going to break that fact, right, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: But Snepfer's bent pyramid was.
Speaker 2: Kind of in early work.
Speaker 1: It was just the second pyramid burial structure that the
Speaker 1: Egyptians had ever constructed. The first one had been built
Speaker 1: about two hundred years earlier, southwest of Cairo. And the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about that one is it was actually a
Speaker 1: stone step pyramid, So the kinds you see in like
Speaker 1: Central America, rather than a smooth faced one like the
Speaker 1: kind that they would later become famous for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess this bent pyramid was in this
Speaker 2: transitional phase where they were still trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what it really meant or what it needed to build
Speaker 2: a pyramid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were still fine tuning the process, and obviously
Speaker 1: there was a fair amount of trial and error along
Speaker 1: the way. The Egyptians learned from this mistake, and once
Speaker 1: the Bent Pyramid was finished, they built a second, more
Speaker 1: successful one for the same pharaoh, This three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty foot tall, smooth side red pyramid, and it's just
Speaker 1: to the north and the future pyramids built in the area.
Speaker 1: It was built at that same forty three degree angle
Speaker 1: that saved the Bent pyramid. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: is about forty three degrees, but it just works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and definitely does. That's every when we want to
Speaker 2: build a pyramid. All right, Well, I've got an architectural
Speaker 2: mishap to add to our list as well, except mine
Speaker 2: is more of an ecological oversight than some sort of
Speaker 2: design flaw. All so, I'm gonna give you a little
Speaker 2: bit of background here. This was in the Great Maya
Speaker 2: city called to Call and that formed around six hundred BCE.
Speaker 2: Now to Call started as this tiny village in what's
Speaker 2: now Guatemala, but over the course of about one thousand
Speaker 2: years it developed into this full blown jungle metropolis so
Speaker 2: to call hit its stride between three hundred and nine
Speaker 2: hundred CE, and at the peak of its power in
Speaker 2: the mid eighth century, it boasted upwards of sixty thousand inhabitants,
Speaker 2: so there was a lot of people living in one place,
Speaker 2: making it one of the largest and most powerful city
Speaker 2: states in all of the Americas.
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing the architecture there was pretty impressive as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the architecture is actually pretty stunning. So they're these
Speaker 2: one hundred foot tall temples more than two dozen pyramids.
Speaker 2: But maybe most impressively, it also had this highly advanced
Speaker 2: water management system that was there to help residents survive
Speaker 2: the region's dry season. So this included a series of
Speaker 2: dams reservoirs that collected and stored as much rain water
Speaker 2: as possible, as well as these paved sloping plazas to
Speaker 2: help direct the water where it needed to go. So
Speaker 2: the city even had this sand filtration system to keep
Speaker 2: the water clean, so really advanced systems.
Speaker 1: That sounds gorgeous actually, and I'm guessing all that water
Speaker 1: work was necessary because of where the city was located.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, Like the city was built in the
Speaker 2: middle of this dense rainforest and people didn't have easy
Speaker 2: access to lakes or rivers, so that's how the city
Speaker 2: compensated for this. But what's ironic is that the very
Speaker 2: system that helped to Call survive droughts and dry spells
Speaker 2: also led to its downfall. And much of the Maya
Speaker 2: Kingdom collapsed at the turn of the ninth century, and
Speaker 2: in fact, to Call seems to have been outright abandoned,
Speaker 2: like with all of its structures left completely intact, as
Speaker 2: if everyone just picked up and left at some point.
Speaker 2: So for the longest time, there's been this mystery about
Speaker 2: what caused the city's demise. It obviously wasn't a violent struggle,
Speaker 2: as there were no signs of damage to the city,
Speaker 2: so that led historians to conclude that the city's collapse
Speaker 2: was probably related to droughts and overpopulation.
Speaker 1: And we're saying the fancy water system that the city has,
Speaker 1: that's the reason that they left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there was this very recent study. It was
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty that was published in Scientific Reports Journal,
Speaker 2: and it was this investigation of to Call's reservoirs, and
Speaker 2: they revealed that they were dangerously polluted with high levels
Speaker 2: of mercury. And not only that, scientists also found traces
Speaker 2: of very toxic algae blooms. Now, the presence of mercury
Speaker 2: is most likely attributed to a red mineral called cinebar
Speaker 2: or mercuric sulfide, which the ancient mile widely used as
Speaker 2: a pigment or a die for various things. So, for example,
Speaker 2: the city's temples and the main palace were said to
Speaker 2: be caked in cinnabar, which means that during the rainy season,
Speaker 2: all that mercury rich powder, it just washed right off
Speaker 2: the buildings. Yeah, so you know, it's not good news.
Speaker 2: And so thanks to those sloping plazas, this just flowed
Speaker 2: straight down into the city's reservoirs and obtained the water
Speaker 2: supply of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so obviously with people drinking and cooking with all
Speaker 1: this poisoned water, they.
Speaker 2: Must have started getting sick, right, very sick. Once the
Speaker 2: blue green algae began to bloom in those phosphate filled reservoirs.
Speaker 2: The locals could probably tell from the site and smell
Speaker 2: alone that the water was no longer safe to drink.
Speaker 1: And I guess what's weird about this is that the
Speaker 1: entire population just gets up and leaves, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: this civilization has lasted what like a thousand years, and
Speaker 1: it feels like they'd almost wanted to fight to save
Speaker 1: their city a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Well, you've got to keep in mind that Takol was
Speaker 2: already struggling due to intensifying droughts. So even if they're
Speaker 2: was a way to fix the pollution, the residents really
Speaker 2: didn't have the time to implement it. Like, they obviously
Speaker 2: needed to deal with this immediately, and so they had
Speaker 2: to find a new water supply. And there's also the
Speaker 2: religious component to consider. So water was sacred to the
Speaker 2: Maya because it was key to their whole existence, So
Speaker 2: when their supply suddenly went bad in the middle of
Speaker 2: a terrible drought, they likely took it as a sign
Speaker 2: that the gods were displeased with them. So from a
Speaker 2: practical standpoint and a symbolic one, abandoning their once great
Speaker 2: city probably felt like the most sensible option.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's a luxury to be able to
Speaker 1: learn from your mistakes. Like when you think about the
Speaker 1: Egyptians working on that bent pyramid, they make this awkward pyramid,
Speaker 1: and then they have time to reflect and figure out
Speaker 1: like how to make the next one perfect. Right, But
Speaker 1: for the Maya, they don't really have a chance to
Speaker 1: be scientific.
Speaker 2: In order to survive. They just have to scramble. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Actually it's funny that you put it that way, because
Speaker 2: the next blunder on my list is from someone who
Speaker 2: also had to walk away in order to survive a mistake,
Speaker 2: but in his case there was a literal dead elephant
Speaker 2: blocking the exit. How about that for a tease? Mango.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, but
Speaker 1: I'm very curious. So let's take a quick commercial break
Speaker 1: and then you can tell me all about it. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: seven blunders of the Ancient World.
Speaker 2: So will where are you taking us next? All right?
Speaker 2: So for this one, we're headed back to ancient Greece
Speaker 2: to about the third century BCE, which was a tumultuous
Speaker 2: time in the Mediterranean. The recent death of Alexander the
Speaker 2: Great had created this serious power vacuum, and all of
Speaker 2: his former generals and allies were competing to fill it.
Speaker 2: And one of the would be successors King Pirus was
Speaker 2: this ruler from northern Greece, and he managed to extend
Speaker 2: his domain by winning their victories against the armies of Macedonia.
Speaker 2: Now this was in the year two eighty, and that's
Speaker 2: when he set his sights on conquering Rome. So Piras
Speaker 2: sailed to Italy with about thirty thousand soldiers and twenty
Speaker 2: war elephants, marking the first time that elephants had ever
Speaker 2: been seen on the peninsula.
Speaker 1: So this must predate Hannibal and the Alps, then, I guess.
Speaker 2: By about sixty years, so not not a ton of time.
Speaker 2: But as you might imagine, the Romans on the battlefield
Speaker 2: were pretty freaked out by the site of these enormous
Speaker 2: armored ann I can't even imagine if I had never
Speaker 2: seen an elephant. But even with the advantage of intimidation,
Speaker 2: Peiris only barely pulled out a win. In fact, the
Speaker 2: number of casualties he sustained was so high that the
Speaker 2: Greek historian Plutarch quoted him as having said, quote, if
Speaker 2: we are victorious. In one more battle with the Romans,
Speaker 2: we shall be utterly ruined. So you can imagine that
Speaker 2: these were hard won battles. So King Pierris became well
Speaker 2: known for his narrow winds, and people started using the
Speaker 2: expression pyic victory, which of course means a victory that
Speaker 2: comes at such great costs that it's almost like a defeat.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 1: I remember taking a class on the moguls in college,
Speaker 1: and elephants are obviously so massive and so intimidating, but
Speaker 1: they also scare incredibly quickly, and so they're not great
Speaker 1: war animals.
Speaker 2: I can imagine that, especially if you let a bunch
Speaker 2: of mice loose. I mean, that's what I hear. Have
Speaker 2: no idea whether that's true, it's not true. So I
Speaker 2: haven't even gotten to his real mistake. If you remember
Speaker 2: that amazing tease before the commercial breath, the dead elephant
Speaker 2: blocking the doorway. Do you remember this? Okay, So, after
Speaker 2: a series of skin of his teeth victories in Italy,
Speaker 2: Pearis actually started losing battles. So in two seventy five
Speaker 2: he retreats back to Greece and begins making a play
Speaker 2: for the throne of mast on first, he targeted Sparta,
Speaker 2: but when the city state proves resistant to his attacks,
Speaker 2: he turns his focus north to Argos. I've always thought
Speaker 2: this was interesting in military history, where they're like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go beat these people and then I can't, like,
Speaker 2: oh no, no, I'll go over here. But it's interesting
Speaker 2: to think about it. But now Pierce had no trouble
Speaker 2: breaking through the city's defenses, thanks once again to his
Speaker 2: pack of giant elephants. But once he's inside, he finds
Speaker 2: it really difficult to maneuver through the narrow streets, and
Speaker 2: his forces are quickly overwhelmed. And to make matters worse,
Speaker 2: Peers's forces keep pouring into the city even after he
Speaker 2: had ordered a retreat, and in the scuffle that followed,
Speaker 2: one of the elephants, the largest one, falls down right
Speaker 2: in front of the main gate, which sends the other
Speaker 2: elephants into a panic, and they start rampaging through the city,
Speaker 2: basically crushing everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine, like there's no reverse on
Speaker 1: an elephant, Like you're in these narrow streets and like
Speaker 1: the turning radius isn't that great?
Speaker 2: Not good? Not good? So does piiskeatry not exactly, but
Speaker 2: his death was the direct result of not being able
Speaker 2: to get around the fallen elephant. So in the battle,
Speaker 2: Puris takes one look at the chaos unfolding and decides
Speaker 2: to take his chances back in the city. Now, as
Speaker 2: the story goes, he's fighting his way through the streets
Speaker 2: and he gets stabbed through the breastplate by this enemy spear.
Speaker 2: Pieris turned to face his attacker and landed a killing blow.
Speaker 2: But what he didn't realize was that the soldier's mother
Speaker 2: had been watching the whole scene from a nearby rooftop. So,
Speaker 2: according to Plutarch, when the old woman saw that her
Speaker 2: son was in danger, she lifted up a rooftile with
Speaker 2: both hands and hurled it at Peuris's head, and the
Speaker 2: resulting blow didn't kill Pearis, but it left him dazed
Speaker 2: enough that other soldiers were able to swoop in and
Speaker 2: finish him off.
Speaker 1: It feels like bringing elephants to battle wasn't a great idea,
Speaker 1: but the king's real mistake was killing someone right in
Speaker 1: front of their mind.
Speaker 2: You don't do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not the kind of thing you walk away
Speaker 1: from it. But let's leave the battlefield behind for now.
Speaker 1: Because it's time to pay a visit to the ancient
Speaker 1: city of Bethlehem. And that's where Saint Jerome, one of
Speaker 1: the early scholars of the Catholic Church, accidentally sparked one
Speaker 1: of the weirdest trends in medieval and Renaissance are the
Speaker 1: horns on Moses.
Speaker 2: You know, I've actually always wondered about this, because there's
Speaker 2: that famous statue of Moses by Michelangelo, and for no
Speaker 2: apparent reason, he's got these weird little baby goat horns
Speaker 2: sprouting from his forehead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super weird, especially considering Moses's this prophet and
Speaker 1: horns are obviously associated with the devil. But Michelangelo was
Speaker 1: actually far from the only person to make this connection.
Speaker 1: This image of a horn Moses turns up in all
Speaker 1: sorts of Western medieval iconography, and weirdly, it can all
Speaker 1: be traced back to this single mistranslation by Saint Jerome.
Speaker 1: So it all goes back to the late fourth century.
Speaker 1: See when Saint Jerome began working on the first Latin
Speaker 1: translation of the Christian Bible, and for whatever reason, he
Speaker 1: decides to ignore the existing Greek translation of the Old
Speaker 1: New Testaments and instead he translates his own version directly
Speaker 1: from Hebrew into Latin, and unfortunately that led him into
Speaker 1: trouble due to several ambiguities in the ancient Hebrew language.
Speaker 1: One example of this is the Hebrew word for a
Speaker 1: ray of light is almost exactly the same as the
Speaker 1: word for horn, and because the Hebrew language doesn't apparently
Speaker 1: write out its vowels, I guess Jerome wasn't able to
Speaker 1: pick up on the context clues. And so in the
Speaker 1: Book of Exodus, when Moses returns from Mount Sinai with
Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments, his face is lit up by this
Speaker 1: divine light, but in Saint Jerome's translation, he gets horns instead.
Speaker 2: Wow, all right, So Moses spends six weeks on a
Speaker 2: mountaintop communing with God and comes back down he's suddenly
Speaker 2: grown a pair of horns, and nobody manages to comment
Speaker 2: on this again. Is that what we're talking about here? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's super weird.
Speaker 1: And the really well part is that the people who
Speaker 1: translated the Old Testament into ancient Greek ray solved for
Speaker 1: this welcome back to part time genius meaning of the
Speaker 1: Hebrew text and described Moses's face as glorified. But because
Speaker 1: Jeromed ignored that Greek translation Moses winds up supporting horns
Speaker 1: in art for the next millennium, even after the error
Speaker 1: is widely acknowledged.
Speaker 2: Huh. I Like the art world was like, no, We're
Speaker 2: just we're sticking with the horns, you know. All right,
Speaker 2: So if my math is right, that brings us up
Speaker 2: to five ancient blunders with two left to go. But
Speaker 2: before we get to those, let's take one more quick break,
Speaker 2: all right, Mango surp my final entry on our ancient
Speaker 2: blunders list. I want to take us back to the
Speaker 2: reign of Shen Sherwang, the first emperor of China. So
Speaker 2: we're talking about the third century BCE, and Sheen puts
Speaker 2: an end to a long period of provincial inflict in
Speaker 2: China by unifying the country's various provinces under one central government.
Speaker 2: He was also responsible for several major advances in Chinese culture,
Speaker 2: including the introduction of standardized weights and measures, the creation
Speaker 2: of uniform system of writing, the construction of the earliest
Speaker 2: form of the Great Wall. So a lot of accomplishments here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it seems so pretty productive, pretty productive. Yeah, But as
Speaker 2: he grew older and more powerful, the emperor also became
Speaker 2: obsessed with death and began searching for a way to
Speaker 2: achieve immortality. It feels like a lot of these leaders
Speaker 2: fall into this trap. And we know this because about
Speaker 2: twenty years ago, archaeologists discovered this cache of ancient writings
Speaker 2: at the bottom of an abandoned well in the Hunan Province,
Speaker 2: and one of them contains this executive order issued by
Speaker 2: the emperor. The decree ordered a nationwide search for immortality
Speaker 2: potions or elixirs of life, and required every village and
Speaker 2: region to submit a report of their findings. That's kind
Speaker 2: of amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, China is such a vast territory and
Speaker 1: it's not like you can just send out junk mail
Speaker 1: or notification. The fact that like he forced this decree
Speaker 1: on everyone is incredible. It's a testament to Chen's efficacy
Speaker 1: as a leader. But it also just shows how seriously
Speaker 1: he took this quest for his immortality. So did the
Speaker 1: villages end up getting back to him.
Speaker 2: I imagine they all did, but only a handful of
Speaker 2: responses were found in that well, and most of the
Speaker 2: replies were awkward notes from regional governments saying they hadn't
Speaker 2: found the elixir of lives, but like, we're going to
Speaker 2: keep looking for it because they am sure. They didn't
Speaker 2: want to get in trouble. But the only semi hopeful
Speaker 2: response came from officials and Langya when they suggested this
Speaker 2: herb from a local mountain might have these life extending properties.
Speaker 2: That sounds promising, did it, apparently not considering Emperor Chen
Speaker 2: died at the age of forty nine. But that actually
Speaker 2: brings us around to his big mistake, because it seems
Speaker 2: that in his desperate search for immortality, the emperor may
Speaker 2: have actually shortened his own life. Historians believe that his
Speaker 2: early death was brought on by mercury poisoning, this extremely
Speaker 2: toxic side effect of many of the lixers that he
Speaker 2: drank in pursuit of his eternal life. Now that said,
Speaker 2: don't feel too badly for the emperor, because he did
Speaker 2: have a backup plan. So before his early ish death,
Speaker 2: he ordered the construction of this enormous burial chamber, which
Speaker 2: he famously stocked with a life size army of thousands
Speaker 2: of terra Cotta warriors. To see where we're going here, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Jen believed in the afterlife and hope that the clay
Speaker 2: soldiers would protect him in the world that was to come.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: You basically thought he would live forever regardless, but he
Speaker 1: still tried to find a magic pushit, yes, make sure
Speaker 1: I was to.
Speaker 2: Live on earth. Well.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, my last mistake also has to do with
Speaker 1: one man's quest for immortality. And maybe it's because I'm
Speaker 1: actually working on a new show on how to Live Forever,
Speaker 1: because I am obsessed with other people's obsession with the topic.
Speaker 1: But so this fact, we need to head over to
Speaker 1: the city of Ephesus, which used to be a part
Speaker 1: of ancient Greece but is now in modern day Turkey,
Speaker 1: and the city is largely remembered as a birthplace of
Speaker 1: the philosopher Heraclitis, but it was also home to many
Speaker 1: lesser known female artists. I didn't realize this until we
Speaker 1: did this episode, but Ephesus was filled with sculptors and
Speaker 1: painters and teachers, including the artist Timer Reid, who painted
Speaker 1: a famous portrait of Artemis in the fifth century BCE.
Speaker 1: Now Artemis for anyone who's familiar with Greek myths or
Speaker 1: Percy Jackson was one of the most revered goddesses in
Speaker 1: the ancient Greek pantheon, but the Ephesians laid a special
Speaker 1: claim to her because they actually believed she had been
Speaker 1: born near the city. And while most cities praised Artemis
Speaker 1: as the goddess of hunting and wild animals, the people
Speaker 1: here actually worshiped her as this goddess of fertility and
Speaker 1: the protector of women and young girls, and in fact,
Speaker 1: Ephesian women would often call on Artemis for help during childbirth.
Speaker 1: So Artemis was, I don't know, kind of like the
Speaker 1: city mascot patron deity might be a better way to
Speaker 1: describe it.
Speaker 2: But I want to go with mass.
Speaker 1: But that's why the city has had a temple dedicated
Speaker 1: to her since as far back as the Bronze Age,
Speaker 1: and the original structure was wiped out by a flood
Speaker 1: in the seventh century, But about two hundred years later,
Speaker 1: the Lydian king Croesus paid to rebuild the temple of Artemis,
Speaker 1: and he made it bigger and sturdier than ever, And
Speaker 1: so this new and improved temple was one of the
Speaker 1: largest ever built in ancient Greece. It stood roughly sixty
Speaker 1: feet tall. Inside there was this treasure tove of relief carvings, sculptures, paintings,
Speaker 1: including this massive statue of Artemis herself. But for nearly
Speaker 1: one hundred years after its completion, the Temple of Artemis
Speaker 1: served as a house of worship, and it was also
Speaker 1: this tourist destination, this art gallery, all in one. And
Speaker 1: then this guy named Haristratus comes along, right and late
Speaker 1: one evening in three hundred and fifty six PCE, he
Speaker 1: makes his way up to the temple and so fire
Speaker 1: to the wooden roof. The flame spread so quickly throughout
Speaker 1: this wooden interior. By morning the temple is totally in ruins.
Speaker 1: There's nothing left but a few blackened marble columns.
Speaker 2: So not an Artemis fan, I'm guessing that's the things
Speaker 2: we really don't know much about the arsonist.
Speaker 1: He's believed to have been lower class and possibly enslaved,
Speaker 1: and many historians suspect that he wasn't Ephesian by birth,
Speaker 1: And obviously with that kind of background, you can imagine
Speaker 1: all sorts of potential motives. It might have been politically motivated.
Speaker 1: It might have been protesting this injustice of his low station.
Speaker 1: Or he also might have been a misogynist lashing out
Speaker 1: it this women's protector.
Speaker 2: Or maybe and I'm not trying to be funny here.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was just unwell and not thinking clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are all sorts of plausible options, except that
Speaker 1: none of them are the explanation that he offered, because
Speaker 1: after being arrested, he admitted that he had torched the
Speaker 1: temple just to make a name for himself. He wanted
Speaker 1: to leave his mark on history, and he decided the
Speaker 1: best way to do it was to destroy the symbol
Speaker 1: of the city, which had been, you know, a wonder
Speaker 1: of the ancient world that could have lasted for a very,
Speaker 1: very long time had it not been for him.
Speaker 2: It's weird because it makes you wonder why the Ephesians
Speaker 2: would play into his hand by recording his confession. Why
Speaker 2: not just say the fire was an accident and sweep
Speaker 2: it under the rug.
Speaker 1: Apparently they tried so. Not only did Efesian authorities sentence
Speaker 1: Haristratus to death for the arson, they also institute this
Speaker 1: special kind of punishment known as damnatio memory or condemnation
Speaker 1: of memory, and under this order, the public was forbidden
Speaker 1: to speak or write the culprit's name. This was obviously
Speaker 1: done to discourage others from committing similar copycat crimes, but
Speaker 1: also to ensure that he didn't get his wish. You
Speaker 1: know that people would forget the name Herostratus, so instead
Speaker 1: of being remembered, he would be condemned to obscurity.
Speaker 2: It's like the people that streak across like at the
Speaker 2: super Bowl and stuff like that on the field. No,
Speaker 2: it don't show them. We do not want them to
Speaker 2: be known. But that's clearly not what happened, since we're
Speaker 2: talking about him right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely Apparently some historians refused to go along
Speaker 1: with this punishment, so they write down his story, his
Speaker 1: name before it could be forgotten by history, and as
Speaker 1: a result, Arsenist's name was not only remembered, it became
Speaker 1: the basis for a new expression, which is herostratic fame.
Speaker 1: It basically means fame at any cost. All right, So
Speaker 1: what are we calling the mistake in this one? Because
Speaker 1: it seemed like the Arsenists got exactly what.
Speaker 2: He wanted in this case.
Speaker 1: I think it's the Ephesian authorities who made the mistake
Speaker 1: because they tried to suppress the truth about this fire,
Speaker 1: and they went about it in the worst possible way,
Speaker 1: right They told everyone not to talk about it, which
Speaker 1: just makes everyone want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, I'm glad we put this
Speaker 2: list together. It's nice to know that the people of
Speaker 2: the past were just as accident prone as the rest
Speaker 2: of us, and as susceptible to mercury poison. It is true.
Speaker 1: It seems to close out the show. Why don't we
Speaker 1: try to keep the fact off mercury poisoning free?
Speaker 2: I'll try, no promises. Well, let's see what happens. Okay.
Speaker 1: So here is a messy medieval blunder from the city
Speaker 1: for Germany. This is back in eleven eighty four. Dozens
Speaker 1: of noblemen gathered at Saint Peter's Church at the request
Speaker 1: of the King Henrik the sixth, and he had called
Speaker 1: a meeting to settle a land dispute between two prominent citizens.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately they actually never got a chance to discuss
Speaker 1: it because shortly after the meeting started, the floor of
Speaker 1: the church collapses, right, and apparently the upper room where
Speaker 1: the group met wasn't intended to hold such a large gathering.
Speaker 1: Everyone's in chainmail and all this heavy armor, and the
Speaker 1: floor just wasn't strong enough. So the weight of the
Speaker 1: falling people and the debris was so heavy that they
Speaker 1: broke through the ground floor too, and wound up plunging right.
Speaker 2: Into the church's.
Speaker 1: Communal sessca post. I know, it's like the money pit
Speaker 1: or something. It's believed that almost everyone for the meeting
Speaker 1: fell into the latrine pits. Supposedly, the king and the
Speaker 1: archbishop avoided this embarrassment by clinging on to some iron
Speaker 1: rails on the church's windows. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: just sort of like polishing the story, but the majority
Speaker 1: weren't so lucky, and altogether more than sixty people fell
Speaker 1: into this latrine and never made it out.
Speaker 2: Goh, that might be the saddest story about people falling
Speaker 2: into a giant toilet that I've ever heard, So can't
Speaker 2: use that in our future list of sad stories of
Speaker 2: people falling into giant toilets. But yeah, that's really sad.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I've got a tragic, low brow blunder of my own
Speaker 2: for you, Mango, and it's about the first known mooning
Speaker 2: on record, and it took place in Jerusalem. This was
Speaker 2: back in the first century CE, and according to a
Speaker 2: contemporary historian of the era, Flavius Josephus, the first mooning
Speaker 2: took place just outside of the city when a Roman
Speaker 2: soldier exposed his backside to a group of Jewish pilgrims
Speaker 2: on their way to celebrate Passover. As Josephus puts it, quote,
Speaker 2: the soldier pulled back his garment and, cowering down after
Speaker 2: an indecent manner, turned his breach to the Jews and
Speaker 2: spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture.
Speaker 2: To put it another way, he farted than for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm going to skip to another one. I
Speaker 1: know we've talked about the Wicked Bible before aka the
Speaker 1: Sinner's Bible, and it's just a normal English printing of
Speaker 1: the Christian Bible. This is from sixteen thirty one, except,
Speaker 1: of course, it leaves out the word not from the
Speaker 1: seventh Commandment, so instead of saying thou shalt not commit adultery,
Speaker 1: it orders the readers to go out and have an affair.
Speaker 2: Was this a typo situation or did the printers leave
Speaker 2: out the non on purpose, like as a prank or
Speaker 2: what was the origin of this? So there's this long.
Speaker 1: Running rumor that the misprint was actually an act of
Speaker 1: sabotage by a rival publisher, but today most experts think
Speaker 1: it was just an honest mistake, not that it made
Speaker 1: much difference to the two printers responsible for this. Once
Speaker 1: King Charles found out about the wicked Bible, he ordered
Speaker 1: the printers to stand trial for sloppiness, and ultimately he
Speaker 1: stripped them of their printing license. Now, one thousand copies
Speaker 1: of the Bible were printed before the error was discovered,
Speaker 1: but ns most of them were destroyed by all these
Speaker 1: scandalized readers, priests, or whatever who wanted to get rid
Speaker 1: of them. Only about twenty copies are known.
Speaker 2: To exist today. Okay, all right, well here's a quick
Speaker 2: one I found. So back in thirteen twenty five, a strange,
Speaker 2: short lived conflict broke out between the Italian city states
Speaker 2: of Bologna and Modena, and it was called the War
Speaker 2: of the Bucket. Now, trouble had been brewing between the
Speaker 2: two cities for centuries, but the thing that supposedly tipped
Speaker 2: them over into this all out war was the theft
Speaker 2: of an old wooden bucket. I mean, buckets are very handy,
Speaker 2: so you could see the other night frustrate someone. But
Speaker 2: apparently a group of Modanese soldiers sneaked into Bologna one
Speaker 2: night they noticed this random bucket at a public well,
Speaker 2: and they decided to take it with them, so you know,
Speaker 2: the spoils of victory, I guess. And of course someone
Speaker 2: noticed the missing bucket the next morning and was able
Speaker 2: to quickly suss out who had stolen it. So Bolanese
Speaker 2: officials demanded this bucket be returned, and even when the
Speaker 2: Modenese were fused to oblige, Bologna declared war on its
Speaker 2: longtime rival.
Speaker 1: I feel like that has got to be some bucket
Speaker 1: rightly special.
Speaker 2: I definitely hope so, because although the war only lasted
Speaker 2: a few months, it's estimated that roughly two thousand people
Speaker 2: died between the two sides.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, a few months. So how did Bologna
Speaker 1: get this bucket back?
Speaker 2: They did not. They wound up surrendering, and just to
Speaker 2: add insult to injury, the Modinese were said to have
Speaker 2: stolen a second bucket on their way back home.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about some pretty silly fluffs today, but
Speaker 1: I think this fact might be the most embarrassing yet.
Speaker 1: According to a biography of Greek philosophers, there was a
Speaker 1: Stoic philosopher named Crispus, and this is in the second
Speaker 1: century BCE. He apparently laughed himself to death while watching
Speaker 1: a donkey eat figs. Okay, so apparently this happened during
Speaker 1: the one hundred and forty third Olympia. Chrysippus was just
Speaker 1: hanging out watching the games when he noticed that his
Speaker 1: donkey had started helping himself to some figs, and he
Speaker 1: thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever seen, so he
Speaker 1: cries out, now, give the ass some pure wine to
Speaker 1: wash down his figs. And then, according to Diogenes, he
Speaker 1: laughed so violently that he died.
Speaker 2: Wait, so this guy got presumably very drunk at the
Speaker 2: Olympics and then die laughing at his own dad joke.
Speaker 2: It sounds like, are we sure this guy was a stoic?
Speaker 2: Because that does not sound very stoic to me.
Speaker 1: I think his real mistake was not giving a close
Speaker 1: enough watch on his fig supply, because the easiest way
Speaker 1: to prevent death by laughing at watching a fig eating
Speaker 1: donkey is to never give your donkey figs in the
Speaker 1: first place.
Speaker 2: A truer words were never said, Mango, I think you
Speaker 2: deserve the trophy this week for imparting that bit of wisdom.
Speaker 2: You built it up like it was going to be
Speaker 2: a great fact and it delivered. So congratulations you win
Speaker 2: the trophy this week.
Speaker 1: Well that's going to do it for a part Time
Speaker 1: Genius from myself, Will, Mary, Gabe, and Dylan.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with and other brand new episodes,
Speaker 1: so please tune back in. Part Time Genius is a
Speaker 1: production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler and research by our good
Speaker 1: pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
Speaker 1: by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support.
Speaker 2: From Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 3: Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: A