Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to bring
Speaker 2: an episode out of the vault for viewing. I guess
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be viewing because it's audio for listening. This
Speaker 2: is part one of our series on the Fall of Valerian.
Speaker 2: This was originally published on July nineteenth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Let's jump right in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Rob what's that sound?
Speaker 2: Is that the sound of us digging down a historical
Speaker 2: rabbit hole that you got interested in? What are we
Speaker 2: doing today?
Speaker 1: Oh? In this episode we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: the fall of Valerian, Emperor Valerian of Rome. This is
Speaker 1: this is this is going to be I think a
Speaker 1: fun one, even though this is certainly going to be
Speaker 1: more of a historical direction, not the first time that
Speaker 1: we've we've gone down a historical rabbit hole, as you say,
Speaker 1: but I think, as always it's important to remember in
Speaker 1: this context, you know what histories are. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like you have you have, you know, histories with capital aging,
Speaker 1: histories with the lower case H. Histories in general, written histories,
Speaker 1: oral histories, passed down histories, resurrected histories are accounts of
Speaker 1: the past that very often have viewpoints, biases, agendas. They're
Speaker 1: constructed from memories, evidence, and pre existing accounts, all of
Speaker 1: which are subject to error. In short, interest in history
Speaker 1: is not only a matter of what happened, but also
Speaker 1: why did this version of what happened happen? Why is
Speaker 1: this the account that was written down or told to others?
Speaker 1: And these are all interesting questions to ask about the
Speaker 1: fall of Emperor Valerian, questions that still remain today about
Speaker 1: what actually happened to him, also how did the defeat
Speaker 1: go down? But mostly what was his ultimate fate?
Speaker 2: Ah. So here you're interested not only in a question
Speaker 2: of history, as in what's the best we can figure
Speaker 2: out what happened in the past, but a question of historiography.
Speaker 2: Why did certain historians of the past write about history
Speaker 2: in a certain way?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And I think ultimately this is a story that
Speaker 1: is interesting on both counts because it's also fascinating to
Speaker 1: look at the various histories and piece together in your
Speaker 1: mind this story of just countless on the Roman imperial side,
Speaker 1: you know, just constant overthrow and backstabbing, this era of
Speaker 1: chaos that sees just emperor after emperor fall, to all
Speaker 1: of the infighting in Rome as well as to some
Speaker 1: of the the fighting on the borders of the Roman
Speaker 1: Empire as well. And yeah, then there's also this question
Speaker 1: of well, what are these different stories regarding the fate
Speaker 1: of Valarian, what do they mean, and how are we
Speaker 1: supposed to interpret them from our modern standpoint.
Speaker 2: So I'm just curious, how did you get interested in this,
Speaker 2: in particular, this question about what happened to Emperor Valerian.
Speaker 1: I think this was one of those kind of just
Speaker 1: tangentsteering research where I just I was working on something
Speaker 1: else and then I was curious. I was looking into
Speaker 1: maybe various emperors and the fall of various emperors, and
Speaker 1: then I started I think I initially just clicked on
Speaker 1: on just like a basic page about Valerian and read
Speaker 1: some grizzly details about what might have happened to him,
Speaker 1: and that got me thinking. It was like, well, this
Speaker 1: sounds this is really severe. You know, what were the
Speaker 1: ramifications of this, and then I started digging in a little.
Speaker 2: Deeper, classic rabbit hole dynamic.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, yeah, all right. So to begin with,
Speaker 1: let's talk about where we're going to go in what
Speaker 1: time period we're traveling to. For the most part, here
Speaker 1: we have to journey to the Roman Empire during a
Speaker 1: time that is known as the Crisis of the third Century,
Speaker 1: a period of decades lasting from two thirty five to
Speaker 1: two eighty four CE, during which the Roman Empire was
Speaker 1: just defined by anarchy and strife, a time during which
Speaker 1: it nearly collapsed. One of the books that I was
Speaker 1: looking to for this is actually it's an older history book,
Speaker 1: a series of popular history books came out many decades
Speaker 1: ago from Will Durrant. This is the Story of Civilization.
Speaker 1: And there's one section in the book that deals with
Speaker 1: primarily with the Romans, titled the Collapse of the Empire.
Speaker 1: And there's a great quote I want to read from
Speaker 1: that quote, we shall not repeat in bloody detail the
Speaker 1: names and battles and deaths of these emperors of anarchy.
Speaker 1: In the thirty five years between Alexander Severus and Aurelian,
Speaker 1: thirty seven men were proclaimed emperors.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say it, that's too many emperors, that's
Speaker 2: too many.
Speaker 1: It is it is, it's that is just that is
Speaker 1: that has a lot of emperors to go through in
Speaker 1: such a short period of time, And like Will Durrant,
Speaker 1: we are not going to go through all and we're
Speaker 1: going to mention some of them, just to give you
Speaker 1: a little color for just how much turmoil, how much
Speaker 1: turnover there was. This was the time period during which
Speaker 1: there was there was really not any job security to
Speaker 1: being the emperor of Rome.
Speaker 2: You know, one thing that's always interesting to me about
Speaker 2: Roman history is not just that basically that all Roman
Speaker 2: emperors are bad leaders by modern morals and modern standards,
Speaker 2: but that most Roman emperors were bad leaders by Roman standards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's when you start talking about, well, who are
Speaker 1: the worst emperors, it's you can draw up a pretty
Speaker 1: exhaustive list, and then they're actual. There are actually some
Speaker 1: pretty pretty fun lists of this show you can find
Speaker 1: on the internet. But a number of really bad ones
Speaker 1: do occur during this time. Some of the other really
Speaker 1: famous bad ones occur prior to this period. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the Crisis of the Third Century runs from two thirty
Speaker 1: five to two eighty four. So that race is the question.
Speaker 1: What do these dates mean. Let's start with two thirty five.
Speaker 1: In the year two thirty five, the Emperor Severus Alexander
Speaker 1: is assassinated by his own troops. So Alexander had been
Speaker 1: named emperor at age fourteen, and he was a progressive
Speaker 1: figure in many respects who sought to restore the power
Speaker 1: of the senate and the aristocracy and to weaken the
Speaker 1: dominance of the Roman military. So he built libraries, public baths,
Speaker 1: and other works in the empire. He engaged in various
Speaker 1: economic programs to bring down interest rates and also help
Speaker 1: the poor. Now I say progressive in many respects because
Speaker 1: he also enforced various morality based laws that saw the
Speaker 1: arrest of prostitutes the deportation of homosexuals. Still, consider that
Speaker 1: previous emperors included the likes of Caligula, Nero, and Comitas.
Speaker 1: These are all names that probably ring a bell in
Speaker 1: everyone's head, you know some of the stories about these individuals.
Speaker 2: Even if that scene from the movie where Caligula chops
Speaker 2: off people's heads with a lawnmower didn't really happen in history,
Speaker 2: Caligula was a really bad guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still kind of in the spirit of Caligula.
Speaker 1: So Alexander's immediate predecessor was an emperor by the name
Speaker 1: of Elagabalus who had died at age eighteen, following a
Speaker 1: short reign that's noted mostly for scandals and excess, though
Speaker 1: Durant notes that something you have to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: I guess with a lot of these individuals is that
Speaker 1: at least some of these scandals were probably fabricated by enemies,
Speaker 1: of which Elagabalas had many in the senatorial class of
Speaker 1: One of the many examples will be pointing to in
Speaker 1: this episode where history and the truth is of course
Speaker 1: tweaked to serve some sort of an agenda, but by
Speaker 1: by all accounts, still not a great emperor. He hosted
Speaker 1: weird lotteries, and there's actually an excellent horrible history sketch
Speaker 1: from the historical comedy show on British television about this.
Speaker 2: Oh you shared this with me, but I'm sorry I
Speaker 2: did not have time to watch it yet. I can't
Speaker 2: wait too once we're done here.
Speaker 1: Basically, I mean the story is that, yeah, he was like,
Speaker 1: well let's have a lottery, let's have some fun romans,
Speaker 1: but you might win some money or a house, but
Speaker 1: you also might win just a whole bunch of flies
Speaker 1: or a poisonous snake things. So it's weird, you know,
Speaker 1: in a way. It was kind of like very strange
Speaker 1: reality television of this time period.
Speaker 2: So I remember Eli Gabolis has come up on the
Speaker 2: the show at least once before, because it was in
Speaker 2: our invention episode on the history of air conditioning, and
Speaker 2: there's a story told by I'm sorry, I forget the
Speaker 2: Roman historian, but somebody tells a story about Eligabolis cooling
Speaker 2: his orchard or his you know, the courtyard at his
Speaker 2: palace by having people bring down snow from the tops
Speaker 2: of a nearby mountain and pile it up just to
Speaker 2: like keep things cool in the summer, which overall is
Speaker 2: very inefficient. But I think we decided, well, if there's
Speaker 2: a huge block of snow, that would actually sort of
Speaker 2: cool off the area, especially if there's like breeze blowing
Speaker 2: over it. So I guess, if that's true clever but
Speaker 2: also kind of excessive. But then again, we also addressed
Speaker 2: the question of whether or not that was true, because
Speaker 2: I think the historian who told that story was a
Speaker 2: marked adversary of the legacy of this emperor. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: may have just been trying to make him look stupid, right.
Speaker 1: And also, if you happen to be this teenage emperor
Speaker 1: of Rome, I mean maybe you just asked that they
Speaker 1: bring snow to your house once and then your enemies
Speaker 1: find out about it and they're like, he brings snow
Speaker 1: to his house every day. It's the most extravagant thing
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, remember when he created ice town.
Speaker 1: At any rate, that that's the only good thing to
Speaker 1: say about him, it seems, is that he did seem
Speaker 1: interested in bol spring religious freedom in the empire. I
Speaker 1: have only so he could keep worshiping the Syrian god
Speaker 1: ball himself. So when Severus Alexander becomes emperor at age fourteen,
Speaker 1: the same as his predecessor, things I guess seem to
Speaker 1: be moving in a different direction, and his rule proved stable,
Speaker 1: lasting thirteen years, the longest reign of a single emperor
Speaker 1: in decades. At that point. He was a temperate figure,
Speaker 1: and especially early on, his mother compandied it commanded a
Speaker 1: great deal of power through him, and I think was
Speaker 1: always a powerful figure in his administration, if you will,
Speaker 1: Together they showed a certain amount of openness to the
Speaker 1: practice of Judaism and Christianity within the empire. They even
Speaker 1: lowered taxes. But of course he courted a powerful enemy
Speaker 1: in attempting to reduce the power of the Roman military,
Speaker 1: and Rome had many external enemies during this time, including
Speaker 1: the Sasanian Empire, sometimes referred to as the Sassanid Empire
Speaker 1: or sometimes referred to as a dynasty rather than an empire.
Speaker 1: This is located in Persia and at this point in
Speaker 1: time only recently established in two twenty four by the
Speaker 1: founder Adashir the First So about eight years into Alexander's rule,
Speaker 1: the Sasanian army under Adashir invades Mesopotamia and threatens Roman
Speaker 1: held Syria. So Alexander initially responds by basically sending him
Speaker 1: a statement condemning the violence of the invasion and telling look,
Speaker 1: everyone should be content with current borders and domains, and
Speaker 1: also kind of warning him if you're gonna mess with Rome,
Speaker 1: you're not going to find it as easy as the
Speaker 1: wars you've been waging previously. Now. Adashir, perhaps interpreting this
Speaker 1: as weakness, then follows up by demanding all of Syria
Speaker 1: and Asia minor from Rome and This results in a
Speaker 1: direct military response from Alexander, and he manages to push
Speaker 1: Sasanian forces out of Mesopotamia by two thirty three. But
Speaker 1: that's when Rome's Germanic enemies to the north, the Alemanni
Speaker 1: and the Marcomanni, attack, taking advantage of depleted northern forces
Speaker 1: to attack Gaul. So Alexander and his mother they rejoined
Speaker 1: the army, having only just briefly celebrated a sort of
Speaker 1: victory over the Sasanians, and he leads the army to
Speaker 1: meet this new threat. On his mother's advice, he pushes
Speaker 1: for peace with the Germanic tribes, offering annual payments to
Speaker 1: keep them in check. His own troops reportedly see this
Speaker 1: as weakness. They also seem to have issues with his
Speaker 1: mother's presence, and so they and of course, on top
Speaker 1: of all this, they still hate him for his work
Speaker 1: against the military, and so they mutiny against Alexander and
Speaker 1: they assassinate him, his mother and some of his key people.
Speaker 1: And this is the point where we begin these decades
Speaker 1: of chaos. This is when we begin the crisis of
Speaker 1: the third century.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the young emperor his mom are dead. They're
Speaker 2: they're they're they're out of power. Who's coming up next?
Speaker 2: Who do they put in?
Speaker 1: Well, a military man, of course, they lift up Maximinus Thracks,
Speaker 1: a sixty two year old commander, and his rule would
Speaker 1: last a mere three years because everything just descends into
Speaker 1: civil war and death at this point, beginning the Crisis
Speaker 1: of the third century in earnest and immediately bringing about
Speaker 1: the what is sometimes called the Year of Six Emperors
Speaker 1: in two thirty eight, when six different men claim to
Speaker 1: be Emperor of Rome.
Speaker 2: Man, you thought two popes at the same time was
Speaker 2: too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the following decades, Yes, we're in fact bloody
Speaker 1: and chaotic, with again thirty seven different proclaimed Roman emperors
Speaker 1: during just a thirty five year time period. Internal factors
Speaker 1: weakened the state, foreign enemies threatened on every front. This
Speaker 1: period of crisis lasted until two eighty four, when the
Speaker 1: Empire was stabilized once more with the reign of Diocletian,
Speaker 1: who reigned twenty one years and then voluntarily retired and
Speaker 1: died of get this natural causes. All of this stands
Speaker 1: in start contrast to the short, bloody and doomed reigns
Speaker 1: of most of the emperors preceding him.
Speaker 2: Diocletian is an interesting figure. I'm certainly no expert on
Speaker 2: his life, but I know one thing about him is
Speaker 2: that he actually had the the unusual seeming insight that
Speaker 2: maybe hereditary rule is stupid and causing a lot of
Speaker 2: problems because if you're just like trying to hand power
Speaker 2: off to your son, your son might not actually be
Speaker 2: good at anything, it might not be very smart. So instead,
Speaker 2: what you should have is a system where power is
Speaker 2: shared between I think the idea came up with was
Speaker 2: the tetrarchy, that there would be four rulers who would
Speaker 2: rule over different parts of the empire. They would make
Speaker 2: decisions together, and then then after they were in charge,
Speaker 2: they would pass on their office not to their sons,
Speaker 2: but to like basically people they're mentees, people who they
Speaker 2: had trained allegedly on the basis of merit. Though I
Speaker 2: think that pretty quickly devolved into hereditary rule again with
Speaker 2: Constantine's father trying to pass stuff on to Constantine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this whole question over hereditary rule is interesting
Speaker 1: because I mean, from a modern perspective, we look at
Speaker 1: it and we say, well, this is off is a
Speaker 1: bad idea. There's so much that can go wrong with
Speaker 1: and you look at these historical examples of fourteen year
Speaker 1: old emperors and it just seems insane. Like, my son,
Speaker 1: I have to realize with horror, will be fourteen in
Speaker 1: four years. I cannot imagine him as a fourteen year
Speaker 1: old emperor.
Speaker 2: But your son is so much nicer than any Roman
Speaker 2: emperor that ever lived.
Speaker 1: Well, at this point, he hasn't become emperor yet, he.
Speaker 2: Has a tasted power.
Speaker 1: But you know, the other interesting side of this is
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that Severus Alexander and his mother, one
Speaker 1: of their ideas was, all right, let's put the power
Speaker 1: back in more in the hands of the aristocracy, let's
Speaker 1: get it away from from the military a bit. And
Speaker 1: apparently one of the arguments in this is, well, hey,
Speaker 1: at least with hereditary rule, there's a structure. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at an alternative that involves just sort
Speaker 1: of endless parades of soldier kings, then how are you
Speaker 1: supposed to work with that? And indeed, I guess you
Speaker 1: could look at the Crisis of the third century as
Speaker 1: an example of what happens when you're ruled mostly by
Speaker 1: soldier kings trying to murder each other or trying to
Speaker 1: nearly avoid being murdered by your own soldiers. Not saying
Speaker 1: hereditary rule is a great idea, but I'm just saying
Speaker 1: you can see where people can maybe waffle back and
Speaker 1: forth as these different systems results in chaos.
Speaker 2: I think all of these stories are just a brilliant
Speaker 2: advertisement for liberal democracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So these various imperial stories we've looked
Speaker 1: at so far, these are mostly just to set the
Speaker 1: stage for the story of Emperor Valerian, who reigned two
Speaker 1: fifty three through two sixty right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the crisis of the third century, and his two is
Speaker 1: a tale of blood and doom, but also a good
Speaker 1: deal more. And don't worry. If you're out there right
Speaker 1: now listening to the show and thinking, well, I wonder
Speaker 1: if there'll be any science, don't worry. We do have
Speaker 1: a short science paper that ties into everything later on.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to read another quote from Will Durant,
Speaker 1: because this is another one that I thought was rather nice,
Speaker 1: And this is again from the Collapse of the Empire
Speaker 1: and the Story of Civilization Part three. Quote the new
Speaker 1: Emperor Valerian already sixty and facing war at once with
Speaker 1: the Franks, The Alemanni, the Marcomanni, the Goths, the Scythians,
Speaker 1: and the Persians, made his son ruler of the Western Empire,
Speaker 1: kept the East for himself, and led an army into Mesopotamia.
Speaker 1: He was too old for his tasks and soon succumbed.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he's going east to fight.
Speaker 1: Right, and it's not going to end well. And granted,
Speaker 1: Durant's covering a lot of territory in these books, so
Speaker 1: this is basically all he has to say about the
Speaker 1: episode with Valerian right there. But there are other histories,
Speaker 1: of course that give us a lot more details and
Speaker 1: also some questionable details as we'll get into. So the crisis,
Speaker 1: so the third century against a number of would be
Speaker 1: emperors rise up through the military ranks, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them were purely of military stock. Valerian, however, actually
Speaker 1: came from the senatorial class, so he was essentially a nobleman,
Speaker 1: and his roles in the state were largely more political
Speaker 1: for the most part earlier on, and it was only
Speaker 1: later that he was appointed as a ducks or leader
Speaker 1: in the military. And he had two sons, Galienus and Licinius.
Speaker 1: Now to set the stage for Valerian's rule. Here's how
Speaker 1: the three previous rules ended. First of all, there's Emperor Decius,
Speaker 1: who reigned two forty nine through two fifty one. Died
Speaker 1: at the Battle of Verona, one of the worst military
Speaker 1: disasters in Roman history. According to Durant, either of wounds
Speaker 1: sustained against the enemy or he was assassinated by his
Speaker 1: own troops. There's some discussion over which it was. At home,
Speaker 1: he had sought to restore Roman moraley and ordered the
Speaker 1: destruction of Christianity. This will become important later on.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because so there has long been a sort
Speaker 2: of meme among Christians that Christianity was just fundamentally like
Speaker 2: illegal in the Roman Empire and constantly totally persecuted, which
Speaker 2: is not actually true.
Speaker 1: I mean, the.
Speaker 2: Romans were absolutely evil, and you wouldn't say tolerant generally,
Speaker 2: but they were broadly religiously tolerant. They didn't care what
Speaker 2: people's religion was most of the time. But there would
Speaker 2: be occasional, sporadic outbreaks of persecution of Christians for various reasons.
Speaker 2: They were accused of being responsible for various calamities because
Speaker 2: they were accused of being atheists, as in not believing
Speaker 2: in the Roman gods and not making sacrifices to them,
Speaker 2: and so you know, not contributing basically to the quid
Speaker 2: pro quo that kept the gods happy and kept everybody's
Speaker 2: fate good. But also I think they were sometimes accused
Speaker 2: of sort of disloyalty to the emperor if they wouldn't
Speaker 2: make a burned offering to Caesar. So occasionally these persecutions
Speaker 2: would break out, and I think under Deshis was if
Speaker 2: I recall some of the worst persecution of Christians.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, like you say, it kind of
Speaker 1: goes emperor to emperor. So you'll have a period of
Speaker 1: some of these periods. These rules are pretty brief, especially
Speaker 1: during this period, this time period. But yeah, one emperor
Speaker 1: may just be like, uh, you know, it's all right whatever, Judaism, Christianity,
Speaker 1: it's all good. I'm busy with other things. And then
Speaker 1: someone will come along and say, well, one of the
Speaker 1: problems here is we have to return to Roman moral
Speaker 1: values or Roman traditions and Roman rights need to be preserved,
Speaker 1: all right. So that was one of the three preceding Valerian.
Speaker 1: The other was Gallis, who not lived but reigned two
Speaker 1: fifty one through two fifty three. He was definitely murdered
Speaker 1: by his own troops. He also had two co emperors
Speaker 1: that died of plague or murder, We're not sure which.
Speaker 1: And then there's a Milianus who reigned June through September
Speaker 1: in the year two fifty three. That's a nice short one.
Speaker 1: He was, guess what, murdered by his own troops. So
Speaker 1: this is just a taste of how unstable again the
Speaker 1: position of emperor was at this time, as Valerian himself
Speaker 1: is named emperor by Amalanius, his own defecting legions. But
Speaker 1: even as internal strife at least temporarily slightly settled around
Speaker 1: this new emperor Valerian, and you have a I guess,
Speaker 1: a cessation of just open civil war, there are still
Speaker 1: plenty of would be usurpers in the Roman ranks. Plus
Speaker 1: Rome still faces threats from all of its external enemies,
Speaker 1: including the Sasanian Empire in the east. So Valerian he
Speaker 1: puts his son Galienus in charge of the West and
Speaker 1: occupies himself with the East and the threat posed by
Speaker 1: the Sasanians in Persia. Okay, and meanwhile at home, we
Speaker 1: should also know coming back to the issue of Christian persecution.
Speaker 1: That Valerian is also remembered for the persecution of Christians
Speaker 1: in Rome. He had ordered that all must conform to
Speaker 1: Roman ceremonials and that Christian assemblages are forbidden. And then
Speaker 1: when Pope Sixtus the Second resists, the Pope is beheaded
Speaker 1: and seven of his deacons are executed as well. Christians
Speaker 1: at the time and even in times thereafter, really have
Speaker 1: a hard time letting this one go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no pity for the pope killer.
Speaker 1: Now, at this point, I'd like us to turn to
Speaker 1: the Sasanian Empire, because a number of you might not
Speaker 1: be very familiar with what we're talking about here, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't that familiar with the Sasanian Empire either prior
Speaker 1: to this research. So I turned in part to a
Speaker 1: book titled Sasanian Iran two twenty four through six fifty
Speaker 1: one CE by Turaj Dhari On Iranian irenologist and historian
Speaker 1: at the University of California, Irvine. He's published a number
Speaker 1: of books over the years, and you also can find
Speaker 1: various speaking engagements and whatnot that he's done concerning not
Speaker 1: only ancient Iran but also the modern state of Iran
Speaker 1: and global affairs and so forth. So in the openings
Speaker 1: of the book, Dary points some things out about our
Speaker 1: understanding of ancient history that I thought were very illuminating.
Speaker 1: He points out, of course, that ancient history in the
Speaker 1: West especially is often very Eurocentric, with excessive energy focused
Speaker 1: on European, Greek and Roman cultures and histories, which can
Speaker 1: of course come at the expense of understanding other powerful
Speaker 1: and important cultures. And this is often, he says, utilized
Speaker 1: to set up this narrative that European and Western power
Speaker 1: is a kind of continuous success story that extends back
Speaker 1: through these cultures. But Dhary points out that not only
Speaker 1: is such a focus detrimental to understanding, say, the nation's
Speaker 1: bordering the Roman Empire during this time period, but you
Speaker 1: also can't look at the Roman Empire in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: You have to look at you have to understand the
Speaker 1: nations that it's interacting with and that it's warring with.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you're also denying yourself a full understanding of say Rome.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's true in many ways. I'd say one
Speaker 2: of the most baseline is remembering that the Roman Empire
Speaker 2: when it during its great expansion. Most of the people
Speaker 2: in the Roman Empire were not Romans. They were people
Speaker 2: living in conquered territories who were under Roman rule.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in many cases, individuals fighting for the Roman
Speaker 1: military are auxiliary troops that are that are brought in
Speaker 1: from regions outside of Rome proper. Yeah, but I love this.
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of one of these things where
Speaker 1: once it's stated, it seems so obvious. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like if you were to ask somebody, hey,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite boxer and they're like, oh, Muhammad Ali,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, oh, what was your favorite opponent
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, I don't know any other boxers,
Speaker 1: I just know mommeter. How much can you really understand
Speaker 1: this athlete if you don't understand the athletes he competed
Speaker 1: against and with and so forth. You know, that's an oversimplification.
Speaker 1: But the Yeah, I think this is a really valid point.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, when I think back about
Speaker 1: when I was first learning about, say, the decline of Rome,
Speaker 1: I feel like there was this feeling that Holy Rome
Speaker 1: is this wounded lion, and you have all these other
Speaker 1: kingdoms that are sort of snapping at its heels like hyenas.
Speaker 1: But this is certainly not the case with the Sasanian Empire.
Speaker 1: So what was the Sasanian Empire sometimes called the Empire
Speaker 1: of the Iranians or the Neo Persian Empire. Well, it
Speaker 1: all begins with the reign of Adashir the First, also
Speaker 1: known as Adashir the Unifier, who indeed unified the Iranian
Speaker 1: Plateau in two twenty four. You'll remember him from just
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier as the ruler who tangles with
Speaker 1: Severus Alexander. So de Rey writes that it was an
Speaker 1: enormous undertaking to unite the Iranian plateau under one rule
Speaker 1: at this time. But the exact origins of the House
Speaker 1: of Sasain and Adashir the First are somewhat shrouded in mystery.
Speaker 1: He apparently picked Ssaine as the name for his house,
Speaker 1: as it may have been the name of a protective deity,
Speaker 1: but I don't think we know for sure. And it
Speaker 1: seems that while Adashir may have had a background in Zoroastrianism,
Speaker 1: so his father Pabog may have been a fire temple priest,
Speaker 1: he was still essentially an upstart. And I thought this
Speaker 1: passage from Dare is rather eliminating quote. Furthermore, it was
Speaker 1: claimed that Adashir was Adashir the Kayanid, the son of
Speaker 1: Pabag of the race of Sosain, from the family of
Speaker 1: King Dare. When looking at this line, one gets the
Speaker 1: sense that every possible connection to divinity, royalty, and nobility
Speaker 1: was evoked by Ardashir, which can only that he was
Speaker 1: none of them. So another example of the powerful tinkering
Speaker 1: with history, right, the falsification of one's lineage to tie
Speaker 1: in with the noble, the royal, and the divine.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes when I look at these ancient rulers
Speaker 2: and I see the I know there's a specific term
Speaker 2: for this, I forget what it is, you know, the
Speaker 2: list of prestigious things that would be said after their name,
Speaker 2: so it's king whatever, you know. And then all these
Speaker 2: associations with nobility, lineage, deity, royalty and stuff. It reminds
Speaker 2: me of keyword stuffing in the like. You know that
Speaker 2: that era where you and I first started getting into
Speaker 2: digital content on the Internet, and all these companies that
Speaker 2: we were competing with, We're doing this thing where they
Speaker 2: would try to rank higher and Google results by just
Speaker 2: loading tons of irrelevant metadata garbage into every page, So
Speaker 2: it's like, is this page really about Metallica? No, but
Speaker 2: it's in the meta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the meta keywords. That list is longer than
Speaker 1: the actual post, right, So ought to share the first
Speaker 1: is definitely bringing the metadata to hear, but I should
Speaker 1: drive home he does have the power to back it up.
Speaker 1: This is just about securing the power, supporting the power
Speaker 1: by making these perhaps making these claims to divinity, royalty,
Speaker 1: and nobility now in gaining this power, though, Ardashir the
Speaker 1: First possibly won his rule through conflict, not only with
Speaker 1: rival Iranian kings, perhaps even family members. So in piecing
Speaker 1: together the histories, Daara mentions that Ardashir's father may have
Speaker 1: dethroned an important king, and Ardashir then may have taken
Speaker 1: to the field of battle against his own brother, but
Speaker 1: his brother died unexpectedly before this battle could occur. This
Speaker 1: raises the specter of possible assassination. We will never know
Speaker 1: for sure, but yeah, he's seemingly perhaps rebelled against his
Speaker 1: own father and against or against his own brother after
Speaker 1: his father's death, So there's inviting in the family on
Speaker 1: this ascension toward becoming the king of kings. He also
Speaker 1: has this decade long war against Artiwan the Fourth, further
Speaker 1: expansions across the Iranian plateau challenges from other local war lords.
Speaker 1: Some of these warlords are fighting on Artiwan the Fourth
Speaker 1: be half. Ardashir the First also has to deal with
Speaker 1: challenges from other brothers, and finally, Artiwan the Fourth, his
Speaker 1: main rival, takes the field with his armies against Ardashir
Speaker 1: the First and perishes. Ardashir the First becomes the King
Speaker 1: of Kings and the Sasanian Empire is born. Now, as
Speaker 1: we already alluded to, Ardashir the First expands his territory
Speaker 1: from here and eventually enters into conflict with Rome over
Speaker 1: Syria and Asia Minor. And there's there's really no clear
Speaker 1: winner to this conflict. Certainly, Alexander Severus and his mother,
Speaker 1: you know, celebrate that they have some sort of a
Speaker 1: victory here, but it sounds like both sides were somewhat
Speaker 1: reduced and exhausted by this whole series of battles, and
Speaker 1: no one was truly victorious. But Alexander Severus is able
Speaker 1: to hold onto Roman territory here in the Asia Minor,
Speaker 1: but after his death, the Sasanians are able to then
Speaker 1: annex several regions. Daray notes, however, that Ardashir the first
Speaker 1: challenged to Rome was probably not mere expansionist hubris, as
Speaker 1: Alexander's letter alleges that it is, but that it was
Speaker 1: probably an attempt to stave off further Roman expansion into
Speaker 1: their region.
Speaker 2: This is one of the nasty problems of the imperial mindset, right.
Speaker 2: So you have empires with borders touching, you can always
Speaker 2: justify conquest and expansion of borders, which means killing people,
Speaker 2: you know, military expansion as defensive because it's like, well,
Speaker 2: I got to get more of a buffer out from
Speaker 2: my territory because what if they do it to me exactly.
Speaker 1: And so you have all these these peoples in between
Speaker 1: these empires that are that are really seeing some of
Speaker 1: the worst of it. And yeah, the imperial mindset on
Speaker 1: both sides, Like you say, so the important thing to
Speaker 1: keep him. I know I'm throwing a lot of names
Speaker 1: out there, but yeah, Ardashir the first, this is the
Speaker 1: beginning of the Sasanian Empire. He consolidates power, he is
Speaker 1: a true threat. He's already engaging in warfare against the Romans.
Speaker 1: But then Ardashir the first does again is what seems
Speaker 1: may seem unthinkable at the time. He retires and passes
Speaker 1: leadership on to his son, and his son is Chahbur
Speaker 1: the First, and he, Shahbur the First, becomes the leader
Speaker 1: of the Sasanian Empire in two forty and this is
Speaker 1: the ruler that comes into direct conflict with Emperor Valerian.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, note that it would be twenty years before Valerians
Speaker 1: fall at this point at the Battle of Odessa, and
Speaker 1: thirty years before Shahbur's reign ends due to death from illness.
Speaker 1: So while Rome is racked by instability and infighting during
Speaker 1: this time period, the Sasanian Empire is actually incredibly strong.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that there aren't dynastic squabbles
Speaker 1: going on in the Sasanian Empire under Shahbur. There are.
Speaker 1: He's still having to deal with challenges from even some
Speaker 1: of his other brothers, you know, the other potential usurpers.
Speaker 1: So it's not saying that the kingdom is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent peaceful, but during this time period when there's so
Speaker 1: much turmoil, especially going on in the Roman Empire, the
Speaker 1: Susanian Empire is pretty solid. Now, Shahbur the First had
Speaker 1: been well prepared for rule. According to the sources I
Speaker 1: was reading here, especially Dare, he had accompanied his father
Speaker 1: on the battlefield, ensuring that he was just ready to
Speaker 1: take the fight to his enemies, including whoever happened to
Speaker 1: be calling themselves Roman Emperor, at any given moment, And
Speaker 1: of course it changes a lot, and of course battles
Speaker 1: continue between the two empires in Mesopotamia. In fact, in
Speaker 1: two forty three, Roman Emperor Gordian the Third invades Mesopotamia
Speaker 1: in an attempt to retake territory that had been previously
Speaker 1: held by Rome under Alexander Severus with an auxiliary army
Speaker 1: of mostly Gothic and German soldiers, and that following year
Speaker 1: Gordian the Third is dead. A Shabur the First claims
Speaker 1: that he killed the emperor in battle, but it seems
Speaker 1: like possibly the truth here, as the emperor died away
Speaker 1: from any known battles and might have been guess what
Speaker 1: killed by his own soldiers. But again we see the
Speaker 1: fluid and power serving nature of histories here. If you're
Speaker 1: Shabur the First and you know that during the conflicts
Speaker 1: that you're engaging in against the Roman Emperor, that the
Speaker 1: Roman emperor is dead, might as well go ahead and
Speaker 1: claim that kill for at least your troops, if not
Speaker 1: you personally. And that was only Yeah, yeah, that'll back
Speaker 1: up your power. And then after this the following emperor
Speaker 1: makes concessions, essentially becomes a tributary, if you will. And
Speaker 1: this is the way that the Sasanians end up framing it.
Speaker 1: And in two sixty Shabur pushes further into Mesopotamia and
Speaker 1: comes into conflict with Emperor Valerian. So at this point, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to get to the Battle of Edessa. This
Speaker 1: is the crucial battle in this whole scenario. It counts
Speaker 1: among the worst Roman military disasters in history. On one hand, again,
Speaker 1: we have the forces of the Sasanian Empire under Shabur
Speaker 1: the First and here we have Roman forces under Emperor Valarian.
Speaker 1: So one of my chief sources here was Udo Hartman's
Speaker 1: The Third Century Crisis from the Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles
Speaker 1: that came out in twenty seventeen, which provides a nice
Speaker 1: summary of what we know and what some of the
Speaker 1: histories say concerning the Battle of Edessa and its aftermath.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and hit the basics here. Okay,
Speaker 1: so where is this taking place? For the most part,
Speaker 1: we're talking about Odessa, an ancient city, and what is
Speaker 1: now Turkey. More precisely, this battle may have occurred somewhere
Speaker 1: between the cities of Care and Edessa. When did this occur?
Speaker 1: This is again the year two sixty and it's spring.
Speaker 1: And then we have the two forces. Well, so let's
Speaker 1: start with the Roman forces. This is the one we
Speaker 1: actually have some numbers on. Whether those numbers are correct
Speaker 1: or not. As a matter of discussion, we don't know
Speaker 1: for sure exactly what the troop count was, but Shabur
Speaker 1: the first puts it at seventy thousand, which is probably
Speaker 1: an exaggeration to enhance his victory, but Dare gives us
Speaker 1: sixty thousand. It does seem that Valerian had pretty strong numbers,
Speaker 1: bolstered by troops originally stationed to the north of Rome
Speaker 1: to deal with Germanic threats, and so essentially the troops
Speaker 1: here under Valerian it's going to be some makeup of Roman,
Speaker 1: Germanic and Gothic troops. That seems a safe assumption.
Speaker 2: Okay, so tens of thousands at least, this is They're
Speaker 2: not playing around.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I haven't seen any body suggesting that this
Speaker 1: is just a small, ragged group. Now this is this
Speaker 1: is a large army led by an emperor of Rome,
Speaker 1: so you know it's it's not to be underestimated. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, we have the Susanian forces here, and
Speaker 1: this numbers here seem to just be unknown. I haven't
Speaker 1: even run across a source that ventures a guess at
Speaker 1: what the numbers were, though I suppose we You know,
Speaker 1: you could probably loosely speculate if you roll through some
Speaker 1: of the possible scenarios, about just how large the force
Speaker 1: might need to be to pull off the victory. Though
Speaker 1: we have to remember that troop size alone is not
Speaker 1: necessarily determinant for victory, nor is fighting strength. I try
Speaker 1: to go back to some of the writings of Brett Devereaux,
Speaker 1: who has a wonderful history blog about ancient battles, and
Speaker 1: he always points out, quote the question is always achieving
Speaker 1: strategic objectives and that that is ultimately more important than
Speaker 1: the fighting strength. So you'll have certain ancient armies, for example,
Speaker 1: that you can say their fighting strength was was greater
Speaker 1: than this other force, but are they able to pour
Speaker 1: a pull off strategic objectives are the other mechanisms of
Speaker 1: warfare working in their favor. Devereux's blog, by the way,
Speaker 1: is a collection of unmitigated pedantry, well worth checking out
Speaker 1: if you're interested in ancient warfare, as well as sort
Speaker 1: of the echoes of ancient warfare that you find in
Speaker 1: things like The Lord of the Rings, the books, in
Speaker 1: the movies, or the movie three hundred, for example, things
Speaker 1: of that nature. He does a great job dissecting them
Speaker 1: and talking about like what the history actually tells us.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: This also reminds me of something that came up in
Speaker 2: episodes we did a few years ago about warfare between
Speaker 2: ant colonies, which is a principle in warfare scholarship sometimes
Speaker 2: known as Lanchester's laws, Lanchester's linear law and Lanchester's square law.
Speaker 2: They're not actually laws, they're not laws of nature. They're
Speaker 2: just approximations modeling how different types of battles tend to
Speaker 2: work in reality. And I'm going to gloss over some
Speaker 2: of the details here, but basically my memory is that
Speaker 2: it found that, you know, really like the individual effectiveness
Speaker 2: of units and tactics are usually more decisive in ancient
Speaker 2: combat than they are in modern combat, because in shooting
Speaker 2: wars where where individual you know, tanks or soldiers can
Speaker 2: basically shoot in any direction at any time, can engage
Speaker 2: in any direction at any time. What you always want
Speaker 2: is to have overwhelming numbers. You know, you would rather
Speaker 2: defeat the enemy in detail, so attack small units of
Speaker 2: theirs with larger units of yours, so you suffer minimal losses,
Speaker 2: and do that over and over again. But in ancient combat,
Speaker 2: like individual little tactical decisions could swing things wildly in
Speaker 2: the favor of smaller armies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then if you throw in additional factors that
Speaker 1: are definitely in play during this time, including potential mutinies
Speaker 1: from your own troops, plague and illness, and some of
Speaker 1: the other factors that we'll get into that may have
Speaker 1: been in play, particularly at the Battle of Odessa.
Speaker 2: Go back and listen to the ant Work episodes if
Speaker 2: you want more detail on the Lanchester's laws.
Speaker 1: All right, so at this point, you know, you might
Speaker 1: you might wonder, like, Okay, are they're going to really
Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty here about the movements of
Speaker 1: the troops and so forth. This is going to be
Speaker 1: like one of those battles that they teach where they
Speaker 1: talk about, all right, this is where Valarian went wrong.
Speaker 1: Here and here this is these are the advantages that
Speaker 1: the Sasanians had tactically. No, this is one of those
Speaker 1: battles where, even if we wanted to get into those
Speaker 1: sorts of details, we just don't have them. We don't
Speaker 1: know exactly how the battle proceeded. There are some different
Speaker 1: versions of how it might have gone, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into that. However, the immediate outcome is not in question.
Speaker 1: The Sasanians secure absolute victory over the Roman forces. Emperor
Speaker 1: Valerian and some of his senators and soldiers are taken
Speaker 1: as prisoners. And while the Sasanians seem to have suffered
Speaker 1: minimal casualties, the Roman losses, I mean some estimates put
Speaker 1: them at like sixty thousand or so. So it's just
Speaker 1: again a complete military disaster for the Roman forces. And
Speaker 1: so you're probably wondering, Okay, even in an age full
Speaker 1: of emperors and kings, and in which emperors and kings
Speaker 1: are often present at the battles and sometimes die in battles,
Speaker 1: we've already looked at an example or two of that,
Speaker 1: how is it that a disaster of this magnitude can
Speaker 1: take place. How can you wind up with your emperor
Speaker 1: in the hands of the enemy forces without them having
Speaker 1: actually invaded Rome or something of that nature. Well, as
Speaker 1: Hartman summarizes, we basically have three different accounts in the
Speaker 1: Western histories of what happened, and again we have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that some or all of them have agendas in
Speaker 1: their telling. So, first of all, there's the Zowsamous accounts
Speaker 1: Ossamus is riding at the dawn of the sixth century.
Speaker 1: This version goes basically, Valerian is cowardly. He wants to
Speaker 1: settle things financially, which we have to mention is a
Speaker 1: tool that had been used by the Romans before. You know,
Speaker 1: just meet with the enemy, pay the enemy, and we
Speaker 1: can put this off for a while. But this story
Speaker 1: goes that Shahbur the first rejects Valerian's envoy and says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm only going to deal with the emperor himself, and
Speaker 1: then Valerian says, okay, that sounds fine. They meet and
Speaker 1: Valerian is taken prisoner.
Speaker 2: Okay. So scene based on this that this account is
Speaker 2: attempting to make Valerian look weak and cowardly, and Shabur
Speaker 2: look devious.
Speaker 1: Right, And apparently this is a common trend, and we
Speaker 1: can see as well. Hartman points this out that like
Speaker 1: this is a classic way of trying to take the
Speaker 1: blame away from Rome and the Roman military itself, a
Speaker 1: way to sort of excuse the loss by saying, well,
Speaker 1: the Rome is strong, the military is strong, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: we had a cowardly emperor here and we had a
Speaker 1: very daystardly opponent. What can you do now? A couple
Speaker 1: of later, this is centuries later, historians give us a
Speaker 1: different version. This comes to us from George Sincellus, who
Speaker 1: died sometime after eight ten, and Zonaras who lived something
Speaker 1: like ten seventy through eleven forty. And in these accounts,
Speaker 1: Valerian's forces were actually besieged in Edessa and they were
Speaker 1: facing starvation there. Valerian, fearful of a military mutiny, chose
Speaker 1: to surrender to the Susanian forces and only went through
Speaker 1: the motions of resistance casually. Has ended up being pretty
Speaker 1: low because some of the Roman forces recognized the deception
Speaker 1: and flee.
Speaker 2: Oh so, is it possible again, if there's any truth
Speaker 2: to this, is it possible that Valerian's like I might
Speaker 2: actually have a better chance of surviving personally if I'm
Speaker 2: taken prisoner by the enemy than if I'm left here
Speaker 2: with my own troops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's ms to be the idea that they're getting
Speaker 1: out of here. And and again this this is so brief.
Speaker 1: It seems like there are a number of plot holes
Speaker 1: that might emerge here, like, well, how are they how
Speaker 1: are the Roman forces fleeing? Are they are the how
Speaker 1: what are the exact conditions of the siege, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Uh, this is just one idea. But
Speaker 1: Zanaris has another account that's interesting that again Hartman shares here.
Speaker 1: And in this one, Shahbor the first has Edessa besieged,
Speaker 1: but Valerian's forces are not in the city of Odessa.
Speaker 1: They're arriving outside of all of this. They see the
Speaker 1: siege going on, and they see that the Sasanian forces
Speaker 1: are really, really big, perhaps larger than their own. It's
Speaker 1: a very imposing force. So they're reluctant to attack. But
Speaker 1: then they get intelligence that tells them that the Odessian
Speaker 1: forces are mounting a promising counter attack against the besiegers,
Speaker 1: against the Sasanians, and so Valerian decides well, this is
Speaker 1: our chance, this is our opportunity, and they need to
Speaker 1: attack now. But then they end up routed and surrounded
Speaker 1: by the Susanian army and taken prisoner. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting to look at these different things and sort
Speaker 1: of try and piece together the sort of situation that
Speaker 1: might have happened. Again, thinking about these tensions involving a
Speaker 1: potential besiegement either of Roman forces or of another player
Speaker 1: in the conflict, the possibility then of Valerian having to
Speaker 1: deal with potential mutinies occurring within his own ranks, potential desertions,
Speaker 1: and perhaps weighing like who he has a better chance
Speaker 1: of survival with, perhaps the situation where he's dealing with
Speaker 1: potential mutinies and wants to work out some sort of
Speaker 1: a deal but do so without getting himself killed by
Speaker 1: his own troops. It seems like there may have been
Speaker 1: a lot of factors at play here, but as again
Speaker 1: as Hartman points out, when it comes to Western sources,
Speaker 1: the two main narratives seem to have agendas. One is
Speaker 1: that yeah, we're going to cover for the Roman loss
Speaker 1: by putting the blame on Valerian and the enemy, And
Speaker 1: then for Christian historians, some in like the essentially the
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of all of this, this is a situation
Speaker 1: where God is punishing Valerian. Valerian was hostile towards Christians
Speaker 1: and the Roman Empire, you know, he was, he persecuted Christians.
Speaker 1: And so the idea here is that God himself is
Speaker 1: punishing Valerian for what he has.
Speaker 2: Done, a trope that remains popular up until today. There
Speaker 2: is always the temptation within a within a you know,
Speaker 2: a belief in a system of divine justice, to say
Speaker 2: that when my enemy has suffered a bad fate, it's
Speaker 2: because of the bad things they did. There they're finally
Speaker 2: getting their comeuppance.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And again that can be not only foreign enemies,
Speaker 1: but they can be domestic enemies. They can be you know,
Speaker 1: rival or previous emperors. When you say, well, they weren't
Speaker 1: right with God. So this is what happens when to
Speaker 1: get an emperor in there who is right with God.
Speaker 1: And of course any of these kings, especially in this age,
Speaker 1: there's going to be some degree of religious tinkering of
Speaker 1: their stories. Like I'm king because I'm right with God.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got divine blood inside my body. I
Speaker 1: harken back to divine kings, et cetera. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of this going around.
Speaker 2: Well, looking at the time, I think we're going to
Speaker 2: have to call this episode right here and say this
Speaker 2: is part one of this talk. But we will get
Speaker 2: into some surprising territory next time, not only about history
Speaker 2: and historiography, about the idea of the dethroned prisoner Emperor
Speaker 2: of Rome, but also into some surprising microbiology territory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was really surprised this came up as well,
Speaker 1: but I look forward to talking about this in the
Speaker 1: next episode. But for now, yes, this is a good
Speaker 1: stopping point, kind of a cliffhanger because at this point
Speaker 1: the Roman Army has been defeated and Emperor Valerian is
Speaker 1: a captive of the Sasanian Empire. What's going to happen next, Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of discussion about what happens next. All right,
Speaker 1: So come join us again on Thursday as we continue
Speaker 1: this historic and ultimately scientific investigation. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, you'll find them in the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind podcast feed. Our core science and culture
Speaker 1: episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Wednesday we
Speaker 1: do a short form artifact or monster fact. On Mondays
Speaker 1: we do listener mail, and on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact that Stuff to Blow
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