WEBVTT - 7 Blunders of the Ancient World 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.559 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:07.720 and iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:13.080 Guess what mango was that? 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:13.440 Well? 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:15.880 All right, So I was reading up on ancient Greek 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.319 theater this week, which you know I like to do 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.480 every October very personal reasons. I don't want to get 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.880 into it, and I came across this story about an 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.880 Athenian actor name he Geligos, and he once mispronounced a 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.960 word so badly that it tanked his entire career. That 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.240 sounds so harsh, like just one word tanked his career? 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.400 What was the word? Well, so here's the story. This 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:40.720 happened back in the spring of four hundred and eight BC, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.959 and it was during the premiere performance of Orestes. This 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.880 was this tragedy written by Euripides. He was playing the 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.680 lead role, and in a scene where his character recovers 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.360 from a bout of madness, he's supposed to say, quote, 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.440 after the storm, I see once more a calm, But 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.120 because he was rushing to get the line out, there's 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.680 this word in it, galen, and he says it with 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:09.160 the wrong inflection, which changed the meaning from calm to weasel, 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:14.080 Like that's a different word. Those are yeah, I always 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.600 think that's an improvement. Well, it was actually worse than 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.360 it sounds, because in ancient Greece, seeing a weasel was 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.360 considered a really bad omen So the mispronunciation not only 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.520 made the line sound sillier, it also conveyed the exact 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.959 opposite mood. Instead of being this optimistic line about feeling better, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.440 it became this ominous line about him having bad luck. 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.440 And it was actually that big of a mistake just 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.080 mispronouncing this one word. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.119 I'm telling you it ruined his whole career. So comic 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.600 playwrights of the era teased him mercilessly and even referenced 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.880 him by name in their own play. This killed his 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.200 reputation as an actor, to the point that he never 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.480 acted again after that one flub. It also gave him 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.960 a different level of fame than his contemporaries. Like basically, 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.520 even though ancient Greek tragedies are the bedrock of Western theater, 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.680 we usually don't have record of the actors who appeared 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.640 in the original performances. You don't hear the names of 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.680 any of them except for Geligos, who we still know 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.680 for this mistake, and this was definitely not the legacy 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.160 he would have hoped for, but it is still his legacy. 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.119 No such thing as bad publicity. No, that's exactly right. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.480 So we're often hearing about the seven wonders of the 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.160 ancient world, so today I thought it might be fun 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.240 to explore the seven biggest blunders of the ancient world instead. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.840 This slip of the tongue is just the first on 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.600 the list, but that still leaves six more gafts to go, 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:59.280 so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.040 Part Time Genie. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.560 joined by my good friend mangsh Hot ticketter and on 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.640 the other side of that soundproof glass wearing a It 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:09.360 took me a minute to read this, but it says 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.840 po body's nerfic T shirt. He's so clear, so clever, 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.720 clever a picture of a great sphinx on it. That's 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.000 our friend and producer Dylan fag and he's just always 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:21.720 one upping the last thing he's done. 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.880 So I am actually glad that Dylan referenced the sphinx 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.080 because I considered adding the sphinx to our list, specifically 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.640 because of that broken nose it has, but once I 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.440 started looking into it, I realized the nose wasn't broken 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:34.480 off by mistake. 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:36.520 This is one of those stories that I feel like 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.000 I've heard a few times that I never can like, 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.440 wasn't it cut off on purpose? Or shot off by 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.080 French troops or something like that. No one actually knows 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:45.160 who did it for sure. 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:46.880 There have been all these rumors over the years that 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.040 it was Napoleon soldiers they had blasted the nose off 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.600 with the cannonball in the seventeen nineties. That was the rumor, 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.960 But most historians actually think that the schnaws was chiseled 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.320 off in the late fourteenth century and chiseled off like 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.119 it's a mass of nos that's huge. The most likely 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.680 culprit was this man named Mohammad Sayim al Dhar and 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.560 apparently the Egyptian peasants of the era had started making 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.160 offerings to the sphinx in the idea that it would 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.200 improve their harvests or whatever. But when Aldaar found out, 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:20.000 he was so outraged by this idolatry that he destroyed 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:20.960 the sphinx. 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.120 Nose just despite them. Wow, So did the villagers kind 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.280 of snap out of it after that or what? No, 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.080 they executed him for vandalism. Oh god. Okay, yeah, so 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.560 far we've talked about some people that they're just lives, 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.920 have gone poorly after things. But all right, so now 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:37.599 that we've got that nose story out of the way, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:38.920 what's your first fact? Mango? 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.039 Okay, So I actually kind of want to stick with 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.760 Egypt for a minute, because not only is it home 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.800 to the only ancient wonder that still exists, the Great 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.839 Pyramid of Giza, but it's also home to a true 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.520 anciente blunder called the Bent Pyramid. Have you ever seen this? 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:54.120 Actually have not. 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.440 I'm actually going to put a photo here, but the 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.920 three hundred and thirty foot tall Bent Pyramid of Dashu 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.760 Where was built for pharaoh Sneffru in about twenty six 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.719 hundred BCE, and its name stems from an engineering issue 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.479 that required the builders to abruptly change the angle of 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.200 the pyramid slope about halfway through the construction. 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.120 Yeah. I'm just looking at this picture, and the slope 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.320 really does change drastically right there in the middle of 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.280 the pyramid, Like the lower portion looks so much deeper 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:23.360 than the top. Yeah. 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.400 So the whole thing was originally designed to be built 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.440 at a fifty four degree angle, which would have given 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.040 it smooth, straight angles that you see on traditional pyramids. 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.839 But as the builders added more and more layers of blocks, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.800 these cracks started appearing in the structure, and they realized 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.960 it would probably collapse if they kept going, and so 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.280 after a bit of number crunching, they decided to reduce 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.760 the angle for the upper portion to a much more 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:47.320 stable forty three degrees. 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.599 I guess it worked. It's still standing today, and you 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.919 could argue that the slightly curved appearance is part of 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.080 the landmark's charm. I guess. But I'm curious why the 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.920 Egyptians made such a mistake in the first place. I mean, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.560 building pyramids feels like kind of their thing, you know. 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.000 Yeah, yeah, Egyptians are well known for building pyramids. I 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.000 think we're going to break that fact, right, Yeah, okay, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.520 But Snepfer's bent pyramid was. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:11.640 Kind of in early work. 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.840 It was just the second pyramid burial structure that the 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.680 Egyptians had ever constructed. The first one had been built 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.760 about two hundred years earlier, southwest of Cairo. And the 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:23.960 interesting thing about that one is it was actually a 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.880 stone step pyramid, So the kinds you see in like 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.839 Central America, rather than a smooth faced one like the 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:30.880 kind that they would later become famous for. 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.880 Yeah, so I guess this bent pyramid was in this 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.520 transitional phase where they were still trying to figure out 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.039 what it really meant or what it needed to build 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:40.560 a pyramid. 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.720 Yeah, they were still fine tuning the process, and obviously 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:44.640 there was a fair amount of trial and error along 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.360 the way. The Egyptians learned from this mistake, and once 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.240 the Bent Pyramid was finished, they built a second, more 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.040 successful one for the same pharaoh, This three hundred and 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.880 forty foot tall, smooth side red pyramid, and it's just 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.680 to the north and the future pyramids built in the area. 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.200 It was built at that same forty three degree angle 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.240 that saved the Bent pyramid. I don't know what it 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.359 is about forty three degrees, but it just works. 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.120 Yeah, and definitely does. That's every when we want to 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.040 build a pyramid. All right, Well, I've got an architectural 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.640 mishap to add to our list as well, except mine 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.520 is more of an ecological oversight than some sort of 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.920 design flaw. All so, I'm gonna give you a little 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.239 bit of background here. This was in the Great Maya 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.560 city called to Call and that formed around six hundred BCE. 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.200 Now to Call started as this tiny village in what's 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.640 now Guatemala, but over the course of about one thousand 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:41.200 years it developed into this full blown jungle metropolis so 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.680 to call hit its stride between three hundred and nine 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.400 hundred CE, and at the peak of its power in 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:51.000 the mid eighth century, it boasted upwards of sixty thousand inhabitants, 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:52.920 so there was a lot of people living in one place, 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.280 making it one of the largest and most powerful city 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:56.680 states in all of the Americas. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.680 And I'm guessing the architecture there was pretty impressive as well. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.760 Yeah, the architecture is actually pretty stunning. So they're these 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.040 one hundred foot tall temples more than two dozen pyramids. 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.760 But maybe most impressively, it also had this highly advanced 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.120 water management system that was there to help residents survive 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.360 the region's dry season. So this included a series of 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.880 dams reservoirs that collected and stored as much rain water 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.600 as possible, as well as these paved sloping plazas to 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.480 help direct the water where it needed to go. So 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.680 the city even had this sand filtration system to keep 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:31.800 the water clean, so really advanced systems. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.120 That sounds gorgeous actually, and I'm guessing all that water 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.720 work was necessary because of where the city was located. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.240 That's exactly right, Like the city was built in the 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.640 middle of this dense rainforest and people didn't have easy 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.680 access to lakes or rivers, so that's how the city 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.760 compensated for this. But what's ironic is that the very 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.240 system that helped to Call survive droughts and dry spells 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.680 also led to its downfall. And much of the Maya 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.680 Kingdom collapsed at the turn of the ninth century, and 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.040 in fact, to Call seems to have been outright abandoned, 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.480 like with all of its structures left completely intact, as 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.120 if everyone just picked up and left at some point. 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.559 So for the longest time, there's been this mystery about 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.679 what caused the city's demise. It obviously wasn't a violent struggle, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:16.880 as there were no signs of damage to the city, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.000 so that led historians to conclude that the city's collapse 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.240 was probably related to droughts and overpopulation. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.360 And we're saying the fancy water system that the city has, 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.240 that's the reason that they left. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.400 Yeah, So there was this very recent study. It was 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.040 back in twenty twenty that was published in Scientific Reports Journal, 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.800 and it was this investigation of to Call's reservoirs, and 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.400 they revealed that they were dangerously polluted with high levels 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.880 of mercury. And not only that, scientists also found traces 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.920 of very toxic algae blooms. Now, the presence of mercury 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.400 is most likely attributed to a red mineral called cinebar 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.800 or mercuric sulfide, which the ancient mile widely used as 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.200 a pigment or a die for various things. So, for example, 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.040 the city's temples and the main palace were said to 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.280 be caked in cinnabar, which means that during the rainy season, 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.000 all that mercury rich powder, it just washed right off 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.559 the buildings. Yeah, so you know, it's not good news. 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.079 And so thanks to those sloping plazas, this just flowed 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.080 straight down into the city's reservoirs and obtained the water 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:22.280 supply of course. Yeah. 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.719 And so obviously with people drinking and cooking with all 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.760 this poisoned water, they. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.280 Must have started getting sick, right, very sick. Once the 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.880 blue green algae began to bloom in those phosphate filled reservoirs. 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.360 The locals could probably tell from the site and smell 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.040 alone that the water was no longer safe to drink. 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:41.960 And I guess what's weird about this is that the 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.520 entire population just gets up and leaves, right. I mean, 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.920 this civilization has lasted what like a thousand years, and 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:52.600 it feels like they'd almost wanted to fight to save 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:53.680 their city a little bit more. 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:55.720 Well, you've got to keep in mind that Takol was 0:10:55.800 --> 0:11:00.000 already struggling due to intensifying droughts. So even if they're 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.520 was a way to fix the pollution, the residents really 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.760 didn't have the time to implement it. Like, they obviously 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.240 needed to deal with this immediately, and so they had 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.320 to find a new water supply. And there's also the 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.960 religious component to consider. So water was sacred to the 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.280 Maya because it was key to their whole existence, So 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.520 when their supply suddenly went bad in the middle of 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.080 a terrible drought, they likely took it as a sign 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.920 that the gods were displeased with them. So from a 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.120 practical standpoint and a symbolic one, abandoning their once great 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.800 city probably felt like the most sensible option. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.120 Yeah, I guess it's a luxury to be able to 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.160 learn from your mistakes. Like when you think about the 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.640 Egyptians working on that bent pyramid, they make this awkward pyramid, 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:43.400 and then they have time to reflect and figure out 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.440 like how to make the next one perfect. Right, But 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.840 for the Maya, they don't really have a chance to 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:49.640 be scientific. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.280 In order to survive. They just have to scramble. Yeah. Yeah, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.040 Actually it's funny that you put it that way, because 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.520 the next blunder on my list is from someone who 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.880 also had to walk away in order to survive a mistake, 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.120 but in his case there was a literal dead elephant 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.920 blocking the exit. How about that for a tease? Mango. 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:08.880 Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, but 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.680 I'm very curious. So let's take a quick commercial break 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:28.560 and then you can tell me all about it. You're 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:30.480 listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:32.160 seven blunders of the Ancient World. 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.319 So will where are you taking us next? All right? 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.760 So for this one, we're headed back to ancient Greece 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.640 to about the third century BCE, which was a tumultuous 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.720 time in the Mediterranean. The recent death of Alexander the 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.440 Great had created this serious power vacuum, and all of 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.480 his former generals and allies were competing to fill it. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.040 And one of the would be successors King Pirus was 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.440 this ruler from northern Greece, and he managed to extend 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.679 his domain by winning their victories against the armies of Macedonia. 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.440 Now this was in the year two eighty, and that's 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.880 when he set his sights on conquering Rome. So Piras 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.880 sailed to Italy with about thirty thousand soldiers and twenty 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.680 war elephants, marking the first time that elephants had ever 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:18.559 been seen on the peninsula. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.640 So this must predate Hannibal and the Alps, then, I guess. 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.160 By about sixty years, so not not a ton of time. 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.640 But as you might imagine, the Romans on the battlefield 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.559 were pretty freaked out by the site of these enormous 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.600 armored ann I can't even imagine if I had never 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.160 seen an elephant. But even with the advantage of intimidation, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.599 Peiris only barely pulled out a win. In fact, the 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.040 number of casualties he sustained was so high that the 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:50.240 Greek historian Plutarch quoted him as having said, quote, if 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.200 we are victorious. In one more battle with the Romans, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.400 we shall be utterly ruined. So you can imagine that 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.920 these were hard won battles. So King Pierris became well 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.120 known for his narrow winds, and people started using the 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.520 expression pyic victory, which of course means a victory that 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.800 comes at such great costs that it's almost like a defeat. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:11.720 It's funny. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.160 I remember taking a class on the moguls in college, 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.280 and elephants are obviously so massive and so intimidating, but 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.840 they also scare incredibly quickly, and so they're not great 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:24.080 war animals. 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.320 I can imagine that, especially if you let a bunch 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.360 of mice loose. I mean, that's what I hear. Have 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.440 no idea whether that's true, it's not true. So I 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.640 haven't even gotten to his real mistake. If you remember 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.920 that amazing tease before the commercial breath, the dead elephant 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.960 blocking the doorway. Do you remember this? Okay, So, after 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.680 a series of skin of his teeth victories in Italy, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.000 Pearis actually started losing battles. So in two seventy five 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.720 he retreats back to Greece and begins making a play 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.400 for the throne of mast on first, he targeted Sparta, 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.400 but when the city state proves resistant to his attacks, 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.920 he turns his focus north to Argos. I've always thought 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.080 this was interesting in military history, where they're like, I'm 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:06.760 gonna go beat these people and then I can't, like, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.080 oh no, no, I'll go over here. But it's interesting 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.640 to think about it. But now Pierce had no trouble 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.560 breaking through the city's defenses, thanks once again to his 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.400 pack of giant elephants. But once he's inside, he finds 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.920 it really difficult to maneuver through the narrow streets, and 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.360 his forces are quickly overwhelmed. And to make matters worse, 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.240 Peers's forces keep pouring into the city even after he 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.360 had ordered a retreat, and in the scuffle that followed, 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.560 one of the elephants, the largest one, falls down right 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.960 in front of the main gate, which sends the other 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:44.000 elephants into a panic, and they start rampaging through the city, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.320 basically crushing everything. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.160 I mean, can you imagine, like there's no reverse on 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.360 an elephant, Like you're in these narrow streets and like 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:56.760 the turning radius isn't that great? 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:01.640 Not good? Not good? So does piiskeatry not exactly, but 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.200 his death was the direct result of not being able 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.040 to get around the fallen elephant. So in the battle, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.240 Puris takes one look at the chaos unfolding and decides 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.360 to take his chances back in the city. Now, as 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.720 the story goes, he's fighting his way through the streets 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.080 and he gets stabbed through the breastplate by this enemy spear. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.920 Pieris turned to face his attacker and landed a killing blow. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.080 But what he didn't realize was that the soldier's mother 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.120 had been watching the whole scene from a nearby rooftop. So, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.040 according to Plutarch, when the old woman saw that her 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.360 son was in danger, she lifted up a rooftile with 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.440 both hands and hurled it at Peuris's head, and the 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.560 resulting blow didn't kill Pearis, but it left him dazed 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.320 enough that other soldiers were able to swoop in and 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:48.280 finish him off. 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.960 It feels like bringing elephants to battle wasn't a great idea, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.480 but the king's real mistake was killing someone right in 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:57.120 front of their mind. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:57.800 You don't do that. 0:16:57.880 --> 0:16:59.720 Yeah, it's not the kind of thing you walk away 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.360 from it. But let's leave the battlefield behind for now. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.040 Because it's time to pay a visit to the ancient 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.560 city of Bethlehem. And that's where Saint Jerome, one of 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.879 the early scholars of the Catholic Church, accidentally sparked one 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.679 of the weirdest trends in medieval and Renaissance are the 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:18.200 horns on Moses. 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.120 You know, I've actually always wondered about this, because there's 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.560 that famous statue of Moses by Michelangelo, and for no 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.000 apparent reason, he's got these weird little baby goat horns 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:29.159 sprouting from his forehead. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.040 Yeah, it's super weird, especially considering Moses's this prophet and 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.119 horns are obviously associated with the devil. But Michelangelo was 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.040 actually far from the only person to make this connection. 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.800 This image of a horn Moses turns up in all 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.040 sorts of Western medieval iconography, and weirdly, it can all 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.240 be traced back to this single mistranslation by Saint Jerome. 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.560 So it all goes back to the late fourth century. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.480 See when Saint Jerome began working on the first Latin 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.439 translation of the Christian Bible, and for whatever reason, he 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.320 decides to ignore the existing Greek translation of the Old 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.040 New Testaments and instead he translates his own version directly 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.080 from Hebrew into Latin, and unfortunately that led him into 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.920 trouble due to several ambiguities in the ancient Hebrew language. 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.440 One example of this is the Hebrew word for a 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.199 ray of light is almost exactly the same as the 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.600 word for horn, and because the Hebrew language doesn't apparently 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.679 write out its vowels, I guess Jerome wasn't able to 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.679 pick up on the context clues. And so in the 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.159 Book of Exodus, when Moses returns from Mount Sinai with 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.400 the Ten Commandments, his face is lit up by this 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.679 divine light, but in Saint Jerome's translation, he gets horns instead. 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.280 Wow, all right, So Moses spends six weeks on a 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:48.240 mountaintop communing with God and comes back down he's suddenly 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.840 grown a pair of horns, and nobody manages to comment 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.040 on this again. Is that what we're talking about here? Yeah, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:55.000 it's super weird. 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.120 And the really well part is that the people who 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.680 translated the Old Testament into ancient Greek ray solved for 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.040 this welcome back to part time genius meaning of the 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.720 Hebrew text and described Moses's face as glorified. But because 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:12.480 Jeromed ignored that Greek translation Moses winds up supporting horns 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.280 in art for the next millennium, even after the error 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:16.520 is widely acknowledged. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.320 Huh. I Like the art world was like, no, We're 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.919 just we're sticking with the horns, you know. All right, 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:23.840 So if my math is right, that brings us up 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.119 to five ancient blunders with two left to go. But 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:43.440 before we get to those, let's take one more quick break, 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.640 all right, Mango surp my final entry on our ancient 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.520 blunders list. I want to take us back to the 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.320 reign of Shen Sherwang, the first emperor of China. So 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.639 we're talking about the third century BCE, and Sheen puts 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.520 an end to a long period of provincial inflict in 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:05.680 China by unifying the country's various provinces under one central government. 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.800 He was also responsible for several major advances in Chinese culture, 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:14.000 including the introduction of standardized weights and measures, the creation 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.720 of uniform system of writing, the construction of the earliest 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.680 form of the Great Wall. So a lot of accomplishments here. Yeah, 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.320 it seems so pretty productive, pretty productive. Yeah, But as 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.320 he grew older and more powerful, the emperor also became 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.359 obsessed with death and began searching for a way to 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.719 achieve immortality. It feels like a lot of these leaders 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.800 fall into this trap. And we know this because about 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.919 twenty years ago, archaeologists discovered this cache of ancient writings 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.720 at the bottom of an abandoned well in the Hunan Province, 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.480 and one of them contains this executive order issued by 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.720 the emperor. The decree ordered a nationwide search for immortality 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.639 potions or elixirs of life, and required every village and 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.680 region to submit a report of their findings. That's kind 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:02.119 of amazing. 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.800 I mean, like, China is such a vast territory and 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:06.880