WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Fall of Valerian, Part 1 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.400 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:09.840 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:12.880 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to bring 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.279 an episode out of the vault for viewing. I guess 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.200 it wouldn't be viewing because it's audio for listening. This 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.759 is part one of our series on the Fall of Valerian. 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.800 This was originally published on July nineteenth, twenty twenty two. 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:28.080 Let's jump right in. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.680 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:44.320 is Robert. 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.560 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Rob what's that sound? 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.080 Is that the sound of us digging down a historical 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.479 rabbit hole that you got interested in? What are we 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:54.120 doing today? 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.040 Oh? In this episode we are going to talk about 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.480 the fall of Valerian, Emperor Valerian of Rome. This is 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.240 this is this is going to be I think a 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.080 fun one, even though this is certainly going to be 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.039 more of a historical direction, not the first time that 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.880 we've we've gone down a historical rabbit hole, as you say, 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.920 but I think, as always it's important to remember in 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.360 this context, you know what histories are. It's kind of 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.800 like you have you have, you know, histories with capital aging, 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:28.680 histories with the lower case H. Histories in general, written histories, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:34.240 oral histories, passed down histories, resurrected histories are accounts of 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:39.320 the past that very often have viewpoints, biases, agendas. They're 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.600 constructed from memories, evidence, and pre existing accounts, all of 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.240 which are subject to error. In short, interest in history 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.000 is not only a matter of what happened, but also 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.440 why did this version of what happened happen? Why is 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.720 this the account that was written down or told to others? 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.760 And these are all interesting questions to ask about the 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.040 fall of Emperor Valerian, questions that still remain today about 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.160 what actually happened to him, also how did the defeat 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.880 go down? But mostly what was his ultimate fate? 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.360 Ah. So here you're interested not only in a question 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.880 of history, as in what's the best we can figure 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.600 out what happened in the past, but a question of historiography. 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.160 Why did certain historians of the past write about history 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:28.359 in a certain way? 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.440 Yeah? And I think ultimately this is a story that 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.440 is interesting on both counts because it's also fascinating to 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.320 look at the various histories and piece together in your 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:44.720 mind this story of just countless on the Roman imperial side, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:51.920 you know, just constant overthrow and backstabbing, this era of 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:57.200 chaos that sees just emperor after emperor fall, to all 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.680 of the infighting in Rome as well as to some 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.320 of the the fighting on the borders of the Roman 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.000 Empire as well. And yeah, then there's also this question 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.560 of well, what are these different stories regarding the fate 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.920 of Valarian, what do they mean, and how are we 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.640 supposed to interpret them from our modern standpoint. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.520 So I'm just curious, how did you get interested in this, 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.760 in particular, this question about what happened to Emperor Valerian. 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.840 I think this was one of those kind of just 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.720 tangentsteering research where I just I was working on something 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.600 else and then I was curious. I was looking into 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:39.520 maybe various emperors and the fall of various emperors, and 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.320 then I started I think I initially just clicked on 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.600 on just like a basic page about Valerian and read 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.360 some grizzly details about what might have happened to him, 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.040 and that got me thinking. It was like, well, this 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.160 sounds this is really severe. You know, what were the 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.119 ramifications of this, and then I started digging in a little. 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:00.000 Deeper, classic rabbit hole dynamic. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.720 All right, yeah, yeah, all right. So to begin with, 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.240 let's talk about where we're going to go in what 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.440 time period we're traveling to. For the most part, here 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.360 we have to journey to the Roman Empire during a 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.680 time that is known as the Crisis of the third Century, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.680 a period of decades lasting from two thirty five to 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.840 two eighty four CE, during which the Roman Empire was 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.679 just defined by anarchy and strife, a time during which 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.000 it nearly collapsed. One of the books that I was 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.640 looking to for this is actually it's an older history book, 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:39.280 a series of popular history books came out many decades 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.560 ago from Will Durrant. This is the Story of Civilization. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.159 And there's one section in the book that deals with 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.159 primarily with the Romans, titled the Collapse of the Empire. 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.039 And there's a great quote I want to read from 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.600 that quote, we shall not repeat in bloody detail the 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.359 names and battles and deaths of these emperors of anarchy. 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:06.039 In the thirty five years between Alexander Severus and Aurelian, 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.240 thirty seven men were proclaimed emperors. 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.360 I'm going to say it, that's too many emperors, that's 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:12.760 too many. 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.400 It is it is, it's that is just that is 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:18.080 that has a lot of emperors to go through in 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.200 such a short period of time, And like Will Durrant, 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:22.840 we are not going to go through all and we're 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:24.200 going to mention some of them, just to give you 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.080 a little color for just how much turmoil, how much 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.680 turnover there was. This was the time period during which 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.760 there was there was really not any job security to 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.320 being the emperor of Rome. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.480 You know, one thing that's always interesting to me about 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.159 Roman history is not just that basically that all Roman 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.960 emperors are bad leaders by modern morals and modern standards, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:50.200 but that most Roman emperors were bad leaders by Roman standards. 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.920 Yeah, there's when you start talking about, well, who are 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.880 the worst emperors, it's you can draw up a pretty 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.600 exhaustive list, and then they're actual. There are actually some 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.280 pretty pretty fun lists of this show you can find 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.599 on the internet. But a number of really bad ones 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.000 do occur during this time. Some of the other really 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.320 famous bad ones occur prior to this period. But yeah, 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.880 the Crisis of the Third Century runs from two thirty 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.880 five to two eighty four. So that race is the question. 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.640 What do these dates mean. Let's start with two thirty five. 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.760 In the year two thirty five, the Emperor Severus Alexander 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:31.160 is assassinated by his own troops. So Alexander had been 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:36.360 named emperor at age fourteen, and he was a progressive 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.960 figure in many respects who sought to restore the power 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.120 of the senate and the aristocracy and to weaken the 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.880 dominance of the Roman military. So he built libraries, public baths, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.480 and other works in the empire. He engaged in various 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.080 economic programs to bring down interest rates and also help 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.479 the poor. Now I say progressive in many respects because 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.440 he also enforced various morality based laws that saw the 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:06.520 arrest of prostitutes the deportation of homosexuals. Still, consider that 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.320 previous emperors included the likes of Caligula, Nero, and Comitas. 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.560 These are all names that probably ring a bell in 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.960 everyone's head, you know some of the stories about these individuals. 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.160 Even if that scene from the movie where Caligula chops 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.240 off people's heads with a lawnmower didn't really happen in history, 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.040 Caligula was a really bad guy. 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:29.840 Yeah, it's still kind of in the spirit of Caligula. 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:35.000 So Alexander's immediate predecessor was an emperor by the name 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:40.440 of Elagabalus who had died at age eighteen, following a 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.840 short reign that's noted mostly for scandals and excess, though 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.200 Durant notes that something you have to keep in mind, 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.640 I guess with a lot of these individuals is that 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.800 at least some of these scandals were probably fabricated by enemies, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:08:00.240 of which Elagabalas had many in the senatorial class of 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.080 One of the many examples will be pointing to in 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.960 this episode where history and the truth is of course 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.960 tweaked to serve some sort of an agenda, but by 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.920 by all accounts, still not a great emperor. He hosted 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.040 weird lotteries, and there's actually an excellent horrible history sketch 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:24.520 from the historical comedy show on British television about this. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:26.720 Oh you shared this with me, but I'm sorry I 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.160 did not have time to watch it yet. I can't 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:30.440 wait too once we're done here. 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.280 Basically, I mean the story is that, yeah, he was like, 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.880 well let's have a lottery, let's have some fun romans, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.400 but you might win some money or a house, but 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.760 you also might win just a whole bunch of flies 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.160 or a poisonous snake things. So it's weird, you know, 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.520 in a way. It was kind of like very strange 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:56.400 reality television of this time period. 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.040 So I remember Eli Gabolis has come up on the 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.240 the show at least once before, because it was in 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:07.120 our invention episode on the history of air conditioning, and 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.560 there's a story told by I'm sorry, I forget the 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:14.480 Roman historian, but somebody tells a story about Eligabolis cooling 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.840 his orchard or his you know, the courtyard at his 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.880 palace by having people bring down snow from the tops 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.600 of a nearby mountain and pile it up just to 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.480 like keep things cool in the summer, which overall is 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.400 very inefficient. But I think we decided, well, if there's 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.520 a huge block of snow, that would actually sort of 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.360 cool off the area, especially if there's like breeze blowing 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:42.600 over it. So I guess, if that's true clever but 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:47.480 also kind of excessive. But then again, we also addressed 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.760 the question of whether or not that was true, because 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.880 I think the historian who told that story was a 0:09:54.080 --> 0:10:00.560 marked adversary of the legacy of this emperor. Yeah, it 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.640 may have just been trying to make him look stupid, right. 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.880 And also, if you happen to be this teenage emperor 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.040 of Rome, I mean maybe you just asked that they 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.040 bring snow to your house once and then your enemies 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:13.840 find out about it and they're like, he brings snow 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.720 to his house every day. It's the most extravagant thing 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:18.440 I've ever heard of. 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:20.959 Oh yeah, remember when he created ice town. 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.160 At any rate, that that's the only good thing to 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.439 say about him, it seems, is that he did seem 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.600 interested in bol spring religious freedom in the empire. I 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.720 have only so he could keep worshiping the Syrian god 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:39.080 ball himself. So when Severus Alexander becomes emperor at age fourteen, 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.839 the same as his predecessor, things I guess seem to 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.200 be moving in a different direction, and his rule proved stable, 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.079 lasting thirteen years, the longest reign of a single emperor 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.440 in decades. At that point. He was a temperate figure, 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.280 and especially early on, his mother compandied it commanded a 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.280 great deal of power through him, and I think was 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.640 always a powerful figure in his administration, if you will, 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.480 Together they showed a certain amount of openness to the 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.960 practice of Judaism and Christianity within the empire. They even 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.680 lowered taxes. But of course he courted a powerful enemy 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.760 in attempting to reduce the power of the Roman military, 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.760 and Rome had many external enemies during this time, including 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:26.319 the Sasanian Empire, sometimes referred to as the Sassanid Empire 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.160 or sometimes referred to as a dynasty rather than an empire. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.600 This is located in Persia and at this point in 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:39.240 time only recently established in two twenty four by the 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:45.000 founder Adashir the First So about eight years into Alexander's rule, 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:52.559 the Sasanian army under Adashir invades Mesopotamia and threatens Roman 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:57.360 held Syria. So Alexander initially responds by basically sending him 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.760 a statement condemning the violence of the invasion and telling look, 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.679 everyone should be content with current borders and domains, and 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.640 also kind of warning him if you're gonna mess with Rome, 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.320 you're not going to find it as easy as the 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.840 wars you've been waging previously. Now. Adashir, perhaps interpreting this 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.160 as weakness, then follows up by demanding all of Syria 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.720 and Asia minor from Rome and This results in a 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.200 direct military response from Alexander, and he manages to push 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:31.280 Sasanian forces out of Mesopotamia by two thirty three. But 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.720 that's when Rome's Germanic enemies to the north, the Alemanni 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:41.079 and the Marcomanni, attack, taking advantage of depleted northern forces 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.079 to attack Gaul. So Alexander and his mother they rejoined 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:49.280 the army, having only just briefly celebrated a sort of 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.199 victory over the Sasanians, and he leads the army to 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.560 meet this new threat. On his mother's advice, he pushes 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.719 for peace with the Germanic tribes, offering annual payments to 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.280 keep them in check. His own troops reportedly see this 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.360 as weakness. They also seem to have issues with his 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.040 mother's presence, and so they and of course, on top 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.000 of all this, they still hate him for his work 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:17.840 against the military, and so they mutiny against Alexander and 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:22.320 they assassinate him, his mother and some of his key people. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.439 And this is the point where we begin these decades 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.680 of chaos. This is when we begin the crisis of 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:30.559 the third century. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.560 Okay, so the young emperor his mom are dead. They're 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.920 they're they're they're out of power. Who's coming up next? 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:37.920 Who do they put in? 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:43.080 Well, a military man, of course, they lift up Maximinus Thracks, 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.240 a sixty two year old commander, and his rule would 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.720 last a mere three years because everything just descends into 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.360 civil war and death at this point, beginning the Crisis 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.720 of the third century in earnest and immediately bringing about 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.960 the what is sometimes called the Year of Six Emperors 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.120 in two thirty eight, when six different men claim to 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:05.120 be Emperor of Rome. 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.599 Man, you thought two popes at the same time was 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:08.439 too much. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.520 Yeah, so the following decades, Yes, we're in fact bloody 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.319 and chaotic, with again thirty seven different proclaimed Roman emperors 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.440 during just a thirty five year time period. Internal factors 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.760 weakened the state, foreign enemies threatened on every front. This 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.520 period of crisis lasted until two eighty four, when the 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.120 Empire was stabilized once more with the reign of Diocletian, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.840 who reigned twenty one years and then voluntarily retired and 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:42.840 died of get this natural causes. All of this stands 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.600 in start contrast to the short, bloody and doomed reigns 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.160 of most of the emperors preceding him. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.840 Diocletian is an interesting figure. I'm certainly no expert on 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:55.960 his life, but I know one thing about him is 0:14:56.000 --> 0:15:02.760 that he actually had the the unusual seeming insight that 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.520 maybe hereditary rule is stupid and causing a lot of 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.200 problems because if you're just like trying to hand power 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.520 off to your son, your son might not actually be 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.680 good at anything, it might not be very smart. So instead, 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.160 what you should have is a system where power is 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.040 shared between I think the idea came up with was 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.280 the tetrarchy, that there would be four rulers who would 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.680 rule over different parts of the empire. They would make 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.520 decisions together, and then then after they were in charge, 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.200 they would pass on their office not to their sons, 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.880 but to like basically people they're mentees, people who they 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.720 had trained allegedly on the basis of merit. Though I 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.280 think that pretty quickly devolved into hereditary rule again with 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.640 Constantine's father trying to pass stuff on to Constantine. 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:55.160 Yeah. Yeah, this whole question over hereditary rule is interesting 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.520 because I mean, from a modern perspective, we look at 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.360 it and we say, well, this is off is a 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.920 bad idea. There's so much that can go wrong with 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.800 and you look at these historical examples of fourteen year 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:11.320 old emperors and it just seems insane. Like, my son, 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.400 I have to realize with horror, will be fourteen in 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.280 four years. I cannot imagine him as a fourteen year 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:19.920 old emperor. 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.520 But your son is so much nicer than any Roman 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:24.760 emperor that ever lived. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.560 Well, at this point, he hasn't become emperor yet, he. 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:29.600 Has a tasted power. 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.000 But you know, the other interesting side of this is 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:38.120 I mentioned earlier that Severus Alexander and his mother, one 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.240 of their ideas was, all right, let's put the power 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.720 back in more in the hands of the aristocracy, let's 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:46.960 get it away from from the military a bit. And 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.200 apparently one of the arguments in this is, well, hey, 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.440 at least with hereditary rule, there's a structure. You know, 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.840 if you're looking at an alternative that involves just sort 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.520 of endless parades of soldier kings, then how are you 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.360 supposed to work with that? And indeed, I guess you 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.760 could look at the Crisis of the third century as 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.520 an example of what happens when you're ruled mostly by 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.919 soldier kings trying to murder each other or trying to 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.800 nearly avoid being murdered by your own soldiers. Not saying 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.399 hereditary rule is a great idea, but I'm just saying 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.680 you can see where people can maybe waffle back and 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.800 forth as these different systems results in chaos. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.800 I think all of these stories are just a brilliant 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:33.760 advertisement for liberal democracy. 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:39.160 Yeah, all right, So these various imperial stories we've looked 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.000 at so far, these are mostly just to set the 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:45.680 stage for the story of Emperor Valerian, who reigned two 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.800 fifty three through two sixty right in the middle of 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.600 the crisis of the third century, and his two is 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.000 a tale of blood and doom, but also a good 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.560 deal more. And don't worry. If you're out there right 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:58.800 now listening to the show and thinking, well, I wonder 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.679 if there'll be any science, don't worry. We do have 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.119 a short science paper that ties into everything later on. 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.359 All right, I'm going to read another quote from Will Durant, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.639 because this is another one that I thought was rather nice, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.600 And this is again from the Collapse of the Empire 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.840 and the Story of Civilization Part three. Quote the new 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.960 Emperor Valerian already sixty and facing war at once with 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:25.080 the Franks, The Alemanni, the Marcomanni, the Goths, the Scythians, 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.560 and the Persians, made his son ruler of the Western Empire, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.960 kept the East for himself, and led an army into Mesopotamia. 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.280 He was too old for his tasks and soon succumbed. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.920 Okay, so he's going east to fight. 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.320 Right, and it's not going to end well. And granted, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.639 Durant's covering a lot of territory in these books, so 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.040 this is basically all he has to say about the 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.320 episode with Valerian right there. But there are other histories, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.760 of course that give us a lot more details and 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.000 also some questionable details as we'll get into. So the crisis, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.520 so the third century against a number of would be 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.080 emperors rise up through the military ranks, and a lot 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:10.040 of them were purely of military stock. Valerian, however, actually 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.760 came from the senatorial class, so he was essentially a nobleman, 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.320 and his roles in the state were largely more political 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.840 for the most part earlier on, and it was only 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.879 later that he was appointed as a ducks or leader 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:29.600 in the military. And he had two sons, Galienus and Licinius. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.880 Now to set the stage for Valerian's rule. Here's how 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.639 the three previous rules ended. First of all, there's Emperor Decius, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.520 who reigned two forty nine through two fifty one. Died 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.760 at the Battle of Verona, one of the worst military 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.960 disasters in Roman history. According to Durant, either of wounds 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.399 sustained against the enemy or he was assassinated by his 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:57.720 own troops. There's some discussion over which it was. At home, 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.199 he had sought to restore Roman moraley and ordered the 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.239 destruction of Christianity. This will become important later on. 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.680 Oh yeah, because so there has long been a sort 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:14.639 of meme among Christians that Christianity was just fundamentally like 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.640 illegal in the Roman Empire and constantly totally persecuted, which 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:19.600 is not actually true. 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.320 I mean, the. 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.920 Romans were absolutely evil, and you wouldn't say tolerant generally, 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.080 but they were broadly religiously tolerant. They didn't care what 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.720 people's religion was most of the time. But there would 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:37.639 be occasional, sporadic outbreaks of persecution of Christians for various reasons. 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.080 They were accused of being responsible for various calamities because 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.280 they were accused of being atheists, as in not believing 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.400 in the Roman gods and not making sacrifices to them, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.160 and so you know, not contributing basically to the quid 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.000 pro quo that kept the gods happy and kept everybody's 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.840 fate good. But also I think they were sometimes accused 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:58.320 of sort of disloyalty to the emperor if they wouldn't 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:03.560 make a burned offering to Caesar. So occasionally these persecutions 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.200 would break out, and I think under Deshis was if 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.720 I recall some of the worst persecution of Christians. 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.439 Yeah, yeah, but yeah, like you say, it kind of 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.760 goes emperor to emperor. So you'll have a period of 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:18.679 some of these periods. These rules are pretty brief, especially 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.280 during this period, this time period. But yeah, one emperor 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.880 may just be like, uh, you know, it's all right whatever, Judaism, Christianity, 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.800 it's all good. I'm busy with other things. And then 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:31.720 someone will come along and say, well, one of the 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.800 problems here is we have to return to Roman moral 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:39.240 values or Roman traditions and Roman rights need to be preserved, 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.240 all right. So that was one of the three preceding Valerian. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.000 The other was Gallis, who not lived but reigned two 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.520 fifty one through two fifty three. He was definitely murdered 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.880 by his own troops. He also had two co emperors 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.960 that died of plague or murder, We're not sure which. 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.400 And then there's a Milianus who reigned June through September 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.240 in the year two fifty three. That's a nice short one. 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.960 He was, guess what, murdered by his own troops. So 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.280 this is just a taste of how unstable again the 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.879 position of emperor was at this time, as Valerian himself 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:18.720 is named emperor by Amalanius, his own defecting legions. But 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.560 even as internal strife at least temporarily slightly settled around 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.880 this new emperor Valerian, and you have a I guess, 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.480 a cessation of just open civil war, there are still 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:34.200 plenty of would be usurpers in the Roman ranks. Plus 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:38.280 Rome still faces threats from all of its external enemies, 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.280 including the Sasanian Empire in the east. So Valerian he 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.040 puts his son Galienus in charge of the West and 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.320 occupies himself with the East and the threat posed by 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:53.840 the Sasanians in Persia. Okay, and meanwhile at home, we 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.280 should also know coming back to the issue of Christian persecution. 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.400 That Valerian is also remembered for the persecution of Christians 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:05.240 in Rome. He had ordered that all must conform to 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:10.040 Roman ceremonials and that Christian assemblages are forbidden. And then 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:14.240 when Pope Sixtus the Second resists, the Pope is beheaded 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.400 and seven of his deacons are executed as well. Christians 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.439 at the time and even in times thereafter, really have 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:21.920 a hard time letting this one go. 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:24.639 Yeah, yeah, no pity for the pope killer. 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.320 Now, at this point, I'd like us to turn to 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:38.639 the Sasanian Empire, because a number of you might not 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.960 be very familiar with what we're talking about here, and 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:45.679