1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:14,920
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

3
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:15,560
Speaker 2: is Robert.

4
00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:17,439
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

5
00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:20,639
Speaker 2: In this episode, I'd like to take us back to

6
00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 2: the year thirty six VCE. So at this point we

7
00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:27,800
Speaker 2: have two of the most powerful kingdoms of the day

8
00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 2: ruling over their respective spheres of influence. So in the

9
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 2: West we have the Roman Republic on the cusp of

10
00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,440
Speaker 2: collapse into the Roman Empire, and there at the time

11
00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:43,000
Speaker 2: in control of much of the Mediterranean coast, including all

12
00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:52,560
Speaker 2: or significant portions of the Italian Peninsula Sicily, Sardinia, Hispania, Gaul, Ireicum, Macedonia, Greece,

13
00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:57,320
Speaker 2: Asia Minor Syria, Judea, Cyprus, Crete, and parts of coastal

14
00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:00,440
Speaker 2: northern Africa. And then in the East we have the

15
00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:04,319
Speaker 2: Chinese Han dynasty controlling an even a larger territory that

16
00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:07,720
Speaker 2: consisted of much of modern day China, with a significant

17
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:11,800
Speaker 2: expansion into western regions of this area. So each empire

18
00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:14,479
Speaker 2: was the most consequential of its day within its sphere

19
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:18,000
Speaker 2: of influence, though they were hardly mirror images of each other.

20
00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:21,240
Speaker 2: The Roman Republic was in a very fragile state on

21
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:24,800
Speaker 2: the verge of collapse into the Roman Empire, and it's

22
00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:28,000
Speaker 2: going to continue to experience threats to its stability from

23
00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:33,039
Speaker 2: that point onward. While the Han dynasty was somewhat consolidated

24
00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,720
Speaker 2: and stable, with a complex bureaucracy in place to solidify

25
00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:40,240
Speaker 2: its emperor's rule, it's also worth stressing that the Han

26
00:01:40,319 --> 00:01:43,440
Speaker 2: dynasty also clearly had longevity on its side at this point,

27
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:48,760
Speaker 2: having existed from around two p six BCE. Interestingly enough,

28
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:52,280
Speaker 2: each was ruled to a certain extent by some form

29
00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:57,120
Speaker 2: of unofficial triumvirate at the time, Rome by the first

30
00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:01,880
Speaker 2: Triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus and Pump and the Han Empire

31
00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:07,480
Speaker 2: was sometimes administered by something like triumvirate, most specifically in

32
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,480
Speaker 2: the form of the three Excellencies who would run things

33
00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:13,239
Speaker 2: of the emperor happened to be very young. But again,

34
00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:16,079
Speaker 2: the Roman situation was an unsteady alliance of the day,

35
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:19,680
Speaker 2: and the Chinese version we're seeing here was more of

36
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 2: a baked in aspect of imperial rule. At some point,

37
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:26,520
Speaker 2: I'd like to come back and explore the idea of

38
00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:29,320
Speaker 2: rule by three in general is kind of like to

39
00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:32,560
Speaker 2: what extent it works or doesn't work in human governance

40
00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:35,400
Speaker 2: and so forth. Now, why are we talking about the

41
00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:39,520
Speaker 2: Romans and the Han dynasty. Obviously we're going to get

42
00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:44,840
Speaker 2: to contemplations of and hypotheses, maybe even wild hypotheses, about

43
00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:46,840
Speaker 2: how they might have come into contact with each other.

44
00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:50,639
Speaker 2: And I have to acknowledge something that I remember playing

45
00:02:50,639 --> 00:02:52,640
Speaker 2: as a kid. Maybe you played this when you're younger

46
00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:54,760
Speaker 2: as well. I think it's still around in various forms,

47
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,240
Speaker 2: but the Age of Empire's real time strategy video games.

48
00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:02,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember that. I didn't play it much, but

49
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:04,799
Speaker 3: I remember it was popular among like my friends when

50
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,560
Speaker 3: I was in middle school, and it did seem cool

51
00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:13,200
Speaker 3: because you could make historical empires or peoples that never

52
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:15,960
Speaker 3: would have really had reason to have much interaction with

53
00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:17,840
Speaker 3: each other. You could make them clash.

54
00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:20,200
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and so it was. It was you know,

55
00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:23,360
Speaker 2: I haven't played in a long time, so I can't

56
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:25,760
Speaker 2: really do a deep analysis of it, but you know,

57
00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:28,040
Speaker 2: at least on the surface, it was interesting that you

58
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:32,639
Speaker 2: were generating interest about these various times and places by

59
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,640
Speaker 2: putting them in oftentimes unreal proximity to each other, like

60
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:39,280
Speaker 2: very unreal, like there's a river between the two of them.

61
00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:42,800
Speaker 2: And then engaging in combat. And in my experience, it

62
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,040
Speaker 2: was like, well, what would happen if whichever empire I

63
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,400
Speaker 2: picked a command fell to, I don't know, the Aztecs,

64
00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:51,880
Speaker 2: because I could never play these things correctly. I would

65
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:55,760
Speaker 2: just feel overwhelmed and would inevitably be destroyed. But again,

66
00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,040
Speaker 2: in these games, it makes it seem and I'm you know,

67
00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:00,800
Speaker 2: and it's an artificial construct, you know, it could make

68
00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:03,200
Speaker 2: it seem as if well, there's really not that much

69
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:07,040
Speaker 2: distance between these two empires in time or in space,

70
00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:11,960
Speaker 2: but in this particular instance, talking about the Han Chinese

71
00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,560
Speaker 2: and the Romans, the distance between the two empires, particularly

72
00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:18,160
Speaker 2: for this day and age, was quite vast.

73
00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:20,760
Speaker 3: Especially with other empires in between.

74
00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:24,960
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, there were at least two major empires

75
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,479
Speaker 2: in between as well. We'll mention here. So the Roman Roads,

76
00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:32,039
Speaker 2: the famous Roman Roads, did not directly link Roman China.

77
00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:38,559
Speaker 2: There was trade along the Silk Road that unofficially, I guess,

78
00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:41,120
Speaker 2: did sort of stitch the two together. There was definitely

79
00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:45,880
Speaker 2: trade awareness and perhaps a distant military awareness I've read,

80
00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:48,839
Speaker 2: but each existed well outside of each other's sphere of

81
00:04:48,880 --> 00:04:52,120
Speaker 2: influence and in between them. Yeah, as we're discussing here,

82
00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:56,440
Speaker 2: you had various Central Asian kingdom's nomadic groups, and a

83
00:04:56,480 --> 00:04:59,080
Speaker 2: particular note to what we'll be discussing here, you had

84
00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:03,920
Speaker 2: the Parthian Empire, which lasted from two forty seven u

85
00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:09,120
Speaker 2: BCE to two twenty four CE, and this empire controlled

86
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:13,360
Speaker 2: modern day Iran and much of Mesopotamia and was heavily

87
00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:17,440
Speaker 2: invested in the Silk Road. This empire was preceded by

88
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,680
Speaker 2: the Solucid Empire and ultimately succeeded by the Susanian Empire,

89
00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:24,600
Speaker 2: which we've talked about on the show before. You can

90
00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:27,400
Speaker 2: look up various maps of what these territories looked like.

91
00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:31,280
Speaker 2: I found one from a bit later for our notes here, Joe,

92
00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:33,040
Speaker 2: and you know, I encourage folks to look up on

93
00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 2: I think the one we're looking at here is from

94
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:38,720
Speaker 2: one hundred CE, so not one hundred percent accurate of

95
00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:40,560
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, but it gives like sort of

96
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:44,800
Speaker 2: a basic shape, and you get to see a sizable

97
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:47,720
Speaker 2: amount of territory between these two empires.

98
00:05:48,200 --> 00:05:49,920
Speaker 3: Just to be clear for the folks at home, you're

99
00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,400
Speaker 3: talking about a map representing one hundred CE, not from.

100
00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:53,920
Speaker 4: The year right.

101
00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:57,520
Speaker 2: Correct. This is a modern map that has been you know,

102
00:05:57,560 --> 00:06:00,000
Speaker 2: augmented to represent the you know, the rough boundary zone

103
00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:02,680
Speaker 2: of these different kingdoms and empires.

104
00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:06,080
Speaker 3: Right, because the interesting thing being, at the time, probably

105
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:08,800
Speaker 3: no one person could have combined a map with all

106
00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,520
Speaker 3: the geographical knowledge to represent the land masses between like

107
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:14,800
Speaker 3: Portugal to Korea as we have here.

108
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:19,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and the and distant kingdoms, distant empires were

109
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:21,920
Speaker 2: truly distant, and there might just not be much known

110
00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:24,359
Speaker 2: about them at all. And more would of course be

111
00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:27,479
Speaker 2: known about your immediate neighbors, neighbors that you probably had

112
00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:30,440
Speaker 2: to deal with in terms of trade, in terms of

113
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 2: various military conflicts. So on the Roman side of things,

114
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:38,680
Speaker 2: the Parthian Empire was a far greater immediate concern, and

115
00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:41,839
Speaker 2: even beyond then you had the Kushan Empire. And for

116
00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:44,800
Speaker 2: the Chinese it was, you know, essentially the reverse, though

117
00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:48,000
Speaker 2: their relationships were more but with the more immediate Kushan

118
00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:53,680
Speaker 2: were more cooperative. Apparently, conflict with various nomadic groups were

119
00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:56,159
Speaker 2: more of a common threat for these two, and so

120
00:06:56,440 --> 00:07:01,080
Speaker 2: contact between the Roman and Han empires basically remained a

121
00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:05,880
Speaker 2: distant one, handled through intermediaries among the Parthians and the Kashans,

122
00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:09,400
Speaker 2: as well as generally through the Silk Road, but their

123
00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:12,520
Speaker 2: knowledge of each other again was incomplete, even as their

124
00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,720
Speaker 2: respective interests continued to creep out closer and closer to

125
00:07:15,760 --> 00:07:18,360
Speaker 2: each other. And it's this is one of the I

126
00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:21,800
Speaker 2: think the fascinating things about this historical scenarios. It's so

127
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:26,600
Speaker 2: different from the interconnected world that we know today, where

128
00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:28,640
Speaker 2: you know, there are places that are still very distant

129
00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 2: to us for various reasons, and it may not even

130
00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:35,400
Speaker 2: be purely geographical distance. It could be informational distance and

131
00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:39,040
Speaker 2: cultural distance and so forth, and various other factors could

132
00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:41,480
Speaker 2: be involved. But like this was a time where something

133
00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:46,000
Speaker 2: like two kingdoms away it almost didn't exist. It almost

134
00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:49,960
Speaker 2: took on maybe almost kind of mythical energy. Now that's

135
00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:52,520
Speaker 2: not to say there were not at least some recorded

136
00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:56,120
Speaker 2: attempts at direct contact. One of them is mentioned in

137
00:07:56,200 --> 00:08:00,680
Speaker 2: the book China History by British historian John Key. Though

138
00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:03,400
Speaker 2: it occurred this occurs sometime after the period we're looking at,

139
00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:06,400
Speaker 2: This would be ninety seven CE, and this is when

140
00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:10,480
Speaker 2: the Chinese sent a mission to tashin a distant realm

141
00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:14,480
Speaker 2: with an apparently insatiable appetite for Chinese silk. According to

142
00:08:14,520 --> 00:08:17,200
Speaker 2: Qi and he points out that this was likely Rome,

143
00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:21,680
Speaker 2: or at least its easternmost provinces, but the mission ends

144
00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:25,040
Speaker 2: up being detained in Parthia, likely by parties with a

145
00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:28,840
Speaker 2: vested interest in preventing any direct trade between Rome and

146
00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:31,640
Speaker 2: the Han dynasty, because there's simply too much money to

147
00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:34,600
Speaker 2: be made as the middleman in trade between these two.

148
00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:38,000
Speaker 3: Right, If you are currently making money as the station

149
00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:40,160
Speaker 3: house in the middle of the exchange, you don't want

150
00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:42,680
Speaker 3: to connect the parties on either side of you directly.

151
00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:45,440
Speaker 2: Right, So that seems to be at least one of

152
00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:50,199
Speaker 2: the stumbling blocks that occurred whenever direct communication was really attempted.

153
00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:52,760
Speaker 2: It's possible that there's something else in the history books

154
00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:56,920
Speaker 2: that I didn't come across, in which there was an

155
00:08:56,920 --> 00:08:59,559
Speaker 2: attempted connection. But as far as I know, not much

156
00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:03,120
Speaker 2: ever came together. But if we look to the world

157
00:09:03,360 --> 00:09:12,520
Speaker 2: of highly hypothetical interpretations of ambiguous literary data, it's possible

158
00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:16,520
Speaker 2: we could maybe find something right. And that's what we're

159
00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:20,080
Speaker 2: going to be talking about a little bit here today. Let's,

160
00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:23,360
Speaker 2: first of all, let's look to fifty three BCE. So

161
00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:27,400
Speaker 2: I mentioned the Roman triumvirate, of which Roman general and

162
00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:30,640
Speaker 2: statesman Crassus was a member. He assumed Syria as is

163
00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:34,920
Speaker 2: Roman province, but he apparently wanted more, perhaps perhaps in particular,

164
00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:38,600
Speaker 2: he wished to rival the military successes of Caesar and Pompey,

165
00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:41,840
Speaker 2: so he launched a military campaign against the Parthian Empire

166
00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:45,839
Speaker 2: that suffered from refusal to cooperate with allies, as well

167
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:50,559
Speaker 2: as a deliberate misinformation campaign against his incursion. As a result,

168
00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:54,280
Speaker 2: his forces were outmatched at the Battle of Kari. This

169
00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,440
Speaker 2: was this would be modern day Heron and what is

170
00:09:57,480 --> 00:10:01,920
Speaker 2: now Turkey, and they suffered a disastrous defeat. Crassus himself

171
00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:06,080
Speaker 2: lost his life. Later tellings of this would claim that

172
00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 2: the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat. I think

173
00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:12,600
Speaker 2: we mentioned this in a previous episode, but this was

174
00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:16,559
Speaker 2: likely a later Roman fiction. I think most historians contend.

175
00:10:17,080 --> 00:10:20,440
Speaker 3: But absolutely true that the Romans did not do well there.

176
00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:24,000
Speaker 3: I think some of the troops escaped, but the majority

177
00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:26,480
Speaker 3: of them were either killed or taken prisoner.

178
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:30,920
Speaker 2: Right, So that's fifty three PCE. Fast forwarding now to

179
00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:34,800
Speaker 2: thirty six PC. This is where we're getting to our

180
00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:39,080
Speaker 2: outside hypothesis here. This is where we get into this

181
00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:45,200
Speaker 2: mysterious affair of shields like fish scales. So, looking here

182
00:10:45,280 --> 00:10:48,240
Speaker 2: at a nineteen forty one paper titled an Ancient Military

183
00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:52,560
Speaker 2: Contact between Romans and Chinese by Homer H. Dubs, this

184
00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:58,920
Speaker 2: paper lays out the scenario. So, looking at Chinese histories

185
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:03,760
Speaker 2: of the time period, we have this situation where allegedly

186
00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 2: the Protector General of the Chinese Western Frontier Regions in

187
00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:13,760
Speaker 2: Chinese Turkestan named Chin Tang ventures into Sogdia or Sogdiana

188
00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:18,600
Speaker 2: to put down a Hun warlord whose whose name is

189
00:11:18,640 --> 00:11:22,600
Speaker 2: difficult to pronounce. To be to be clear, we think

190
00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:25,320
Speaker 2: it's I was reading something it sounded maybe it's like giorjur,

191
00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:28,920
Speaker 2: and I think you were finding it, maybe more like

192
00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 2: with more of a C sound. But maybe the it's

193
00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:34,280
Speaker 2: somewhere between a J and a C that our lips

194
00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:36,160
Speaker 2: can't quite form. Yeah.

195
00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:40,280
Speaker 3: In his paper, Dubs spells his name c H I

196
00:11:40,600 --> 00:11:44,160
Speaker 3: H c H I H like Chi Chi, and but

197
00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:46,960
Speaker 3: I've seen the name spelled elsewhere in the scientific paper

198
00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:48,760
Speaker 3: that I'm going to talk about later, which is going

199
00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,760
Speaker 3: to disagree with this hypothesis being put forward by Dubbs,

200
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:54,959
Speaker 3: they anglicize his name j z H j z H

201
00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:58,000
Speaker 3: so I'm I think it is that Chi Chi or

202
00:11:58,880 --> 00:11:59,679
Speaker 3: something like that.

203
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:03,320
Speaker 2: Ye. Either way, you pronounced that he was definitely a

204
00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:09,240
Speaker 2: rising figure in this sort of region where different powers met.

205
00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:13,040
Speaker 2: He'd previously killed a Chinese envoy and he was then

206
00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:15,920
Speaker 2: invited by the King of Sogdia to come and help

207
00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:19,040
Speaker 2: deal with some nomadic threats that they were facing. But

208
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:23,320
Speaker 2: he also was seemingly amassing power, demanding tributes from tribes

209
00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:26,559
Speaker 2: under Chinese protection, and generally just become an increasing threat

210
00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:28,040
Speaker 2: to Chinese interests in the region.

211
00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:29,720
Speaker 3: He was trying to set up his own thing.

212
00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:33,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so the Protector General here gathers his troops

213
00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:35,400
Speaker 2: along with some auxiliary forces, and he sets out to

214
00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:38,199
Speaker 2: attack this new city that this warlord is set up.

215
00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:42,640
Speaker 2: And it's here we learned from these various accounts sent

216
00:12:42,679 --> 00:12:47,640
Speaker 2: back to the Hunt Emperor that they encountered something perhaps strange.

217
00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:51,680
Speaker 2: They saw strange soldiers fighting on behalf of the Hunt

218
00:12:51,679 --> 00:12:55,360
Speaker 2: warlord that would have been basically would have mounted to

219
00:12:55,360 --> 00:12:57,600
Speaker 2: like a more than one hundred foot soldiers lined up

220
00:12:57,600 --> 00:12:59,800
Speaker 2: on either side of the city gate in some sort

221
00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:05,040
Speaker 2: of fish scale formation. They apparently included illustrations, and I

222
00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,640
Speaker 2: hope I'm inferring this correctly. But I don't think the

223
00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:13,840
Speaker 2: illustrations themselves survived. I think what survived are histories written

224
00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:17,160
Speaker 2: later based in part on these illustrations that were sent back.

225
00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:21,280
Speaker 3: Yes, it is a weirdly indirect method of information we're

226
00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:24,679
Speaker 3: getting here. But Dubbs does explain in his paper here

227
00:13:25,160 --> 00:13:29,640
Speaker 3: that the information about what this military formation looks like

228
00:13:30,280 --> 00:13:33,480
Speaker 3: comes from a Chinese text called the History of the

229
00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:38,480
Speaker 3: Former Han Dynasty that itself says it got its information

230
00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:43,760
Speaker 3: about this from paintings of the battle that were sent

231
00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:47,680
Speaker 3: that were sent back to the Imperial court, and so

232
00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:51,120
Speaker 3: somebody who saw the battle allegedly painted what it looked like,

233
00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:55,280
Speaker 3: and then it is described in this history. The paintings

234
00:13:55,320 --> 00:13:59,560
Speaker 3: are described as having more than one hundred foot soldiers quote,

235
00:13:59,640 --> 00:14:01,720
Speaker 3: lined up on either side of the gate in a

236
00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:08,000
Speaker 3: fish scale formation. So that is the particular visual detail

237
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,720
Speaker 3: in the description of the painting of the battle that

238
00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:13,880
Speaker 3: Dubs is trying to explain here, with the fish scale

239
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:16,920
Speaker 3: formation of the soldiers. What does that mean? It is

240
00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:20,320
Speaker 3: taken to refer to shields, which I guess is our

241
00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:21,720
Speaker 3: broader point here.

242
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:26,640
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Dubs contends that what they're talking

243
00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:30,560
Speaker 2: about with fish scale formation is a shield wall, and

244
00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:34,160
Speaker 2: not just any shield wall, he argues, but that of

245
00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:38,040
Speaker 2: a Roman shield wall, the formation known as the testudo

246
00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:45,640
Speaker 2: or tortoise that Romans would utilize. And his argument is

247
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:49,280
Speaker 2: that these were surviving Roman soldiers from the Battle of

248
00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:54,160
Speaker 2: Ki who were now long since employed as foreign mercenaries.

249
00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:57,640
Speaker 3: Now, this probably is a good place to flag. We've

250
00:14:57,640 --> 00:15:00,000
Speaker 3: already alluded to this, but a good place to flag

251
00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:04,520
Speaker 3: again that Dubbs's proposal here is highly speculative and relies

252
00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:09,120
Speaker 3: on a bunch of assumptions that are not strongly in evidence.

253
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:13,760
Speaker 3: It's an interesting idea, but it's far from certain or

254
00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:16,800
Speaker 3: certainly not as certain as Dubbs will claim it is

255
00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:20,560
Speaker 3: by the end of his paper. And also, you know,

256
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:23,120
Speaker 3: not to say that it isn't worth talking about. But

257
00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:25,320
Speaker 3: this is one of those ideas where this has come

258
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:28,160
Speaker 3: up on the show before, where it's like a proposal

259
00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:33,600
Speaker 3: of something that's really radically interesting and unique and might

260
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:37,880
Speaker 3: gain a kind of epistemic advantage from that, like it's, oh,

261
00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,480
Speaker 3: it's so cool. The idea that the ancient Chinese and

262
00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:44,960
Speaker 3: the ancient Romans happened to may have happened to meet

263
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:47,400
Speaker 3: each other in battle at one point, and we've got

264
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:50,800
Speaker 3: a theory explaining how that could have happened. That would

265
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,920
Speaker 3: be such an interesting idea. The mind kind of wants

266
00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:56,560
Speaker 3: it to be true and thus views any claim of

267
00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:00,920
Speaker 3: evidence on behalf of it maybe unfairly favorably. So just

268
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:03,040
Speaker 3: to keep that in mind as we continue discussing it.

269
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:07,560
Speaker 3: Certainly is worth talking through this idea, but it's one

270
00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:10,320
Speaker 3: of the many examples of don't let the cool idea

271
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 3: overwhelm your epistemics.

272
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:16,720
Speaker 2: That's right, if true, it's amazing, but don't abbreviate that

273
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:19,680
Speaker 2: to just it's amazing or it's amazing and probably true.

274
00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:30,640
Speaker 4: No, no, Now.

275
00:16:30,800 --> 00:16:33,160
Speaker 2: In the second episode we do We're gonna get, We're

276
00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:36,400
Speaker 2: gonna come back and discuss shield walls and particularly the

277
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:39,600
Speaker 2: test Tuto in greater detail. But just a reminder here

278
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:42,840
Speaker 2: if you're not picturing what we're talking about. This was

279
00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:46,480
Speaker 2: a shield wall formation that the Romans use that generally

280
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:50,600
Speaker 2: featured both a front and a top of overlapping protective

281
00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 2: shields in a layer something that does look like scales,

282
00:16:55,640 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 2: and this would and sometimes the sides are well sides,

283
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,680
Speaker 2: sometimes all side, depending on the description, would be covered

284
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,640
Speaker 2: as well. It made use of the Roman scutum shield,

285
00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:11,040
Speaker 2: which show was these big, kind of like semi cylindrical

286
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:15,200
Speaker 2: but otherwise kind of rectangular shields that the Roman soldiers had.

287
00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:18,480
Speaker 2: And it's also worth stressing that this was not the

288
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:21,960
Speaker 2: default Roman shield formation, but this is one that they

289
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,520
Speaker 2: could use in cases where they're having to endure sustained

290
00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:29,760
Speaker 2: heavy projectile fire, such as while approaching walls during a siege,

291
00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:30,480
Speaker 2: that sort of thing.

292
00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:33,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, So imagine, Yeah, you're trying to maneuver

293
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 3: around at the bottom of the wall of your enemy's fortifications.

294
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:40,080
Speaker 3: It makes sense to form this tight interlocked shield formation

295
00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:42,359
Speaker 3: above your heads because they're going to be throwing stuff

296
00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:43,080
Speaker 3: down at you.

297
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:45,840
Speaker 2: Right, But does it make sense to use it all

298
00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:47,800
Speaker 2: the time? No, and we'll get into some of the

299
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,160
Speaker 2: reasons why in the next episode. But it is certainly

300
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,680
Speaker 2: iconic of the Romans. The Romans did use it. You

301
00:17:55,800 --> 00:18:00,720
Speaker 2: see it pop up in Roman depictions of their own troops. Lubbs.

302
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:03,480
Speaker 2: His contention here is that while other forces use shield

303
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,280
Speaker 2: wall formations, only the Romans use shields big enough to

304
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:11,600
Speaker 2: generate on effect that could be described as looking like

305
00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:14,560
Speaker 2: fish scales, and he also contended that quote, the only

306
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,239
Speaker 2: professional soldiers at the time of whom regular formations are

307
00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:20,440
Speaker 2: recorded were Greeks and Romans, and then he makes the

308
00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:23,800
Speaker 2: argument that Greek shields were round, and he argues too

309
00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,480
Speaker 2: small to create the sort of shield formation, so it

310
00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 2: absolutely had to be the Romans. And therefore what we

311
00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:35,280
Speaker 2: have here is direct military conflict between Roman troops granted

312
00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:40,400
Speaker 2: no longer serving the Roman Empire or Republic, and soldiers

313
00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:41,360
Speaker 2: of the Hun dynasty.

314
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,120
Speaker 3: Now, based on just everything we've talked about so far,

315
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,600
Speaker 3: this is a really interesting suggestion. So the facts we're

316
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:52,400
Speaker 3: combining are the ancient Chinese historical account based on paintings

317
00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:55,000
Speaker 3: of the battle, which again I think we don't have

318
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:57,320
Speaker 3: the paintings, but we have the description of the formation

319
00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:01,480
Speaker 3: of soldiers with these shields interlocked like fish scales, and

320
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,440
Speaker 3: the fact that that would pretty well describe certain types

321
00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 3: of shield maneuvers that were done by the ancient Romans,

322
00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:12,480
Speaker 3: and that their shields in particular would have been good

323
00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:15,920
Speaker 3: at creating the effect to described, And also the fact

324
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:20,520
Speaker 3: that we know from the first century BCE a large

325
00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 3: contingent of Romans were captured by the Parthian Empire after

326
00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 3: this battle. In southeastern Turkey, and it says that they

327
00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:31,120
Speaker 3: were sent east and that's all we know about them

328
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:34,960
Speaker 3: after that. So, on one hand, just recognizing all these

329
00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:38,880
Speaker 3: these little kind of unexplained details otherwise just hanging out

330
00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,840
Speaker 3: there in histories maybe something you wouldn't even really take

331
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:45,280
Speaker 3: notice of as notable or in need of explanation otherwise,

332
00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:47,879
Speaker 3: and seeing how, oh they kind of could fit together,

333
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 3: especially you know they're in the right kind of timeline

334
00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:54,120
Speaker 3: to fit together. That's kind of interesting. That isn't kind

335
00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:57,320
Speaker 3: of ingenious observation. On the other hand, it's the sort

336
00:19:57,359 --> 00:19:59,359
Speaker 3: of thing where like as we were just saying, like

337
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:01,720
Speaker 3: it's it's so kind of ingenius that you just want

338
00:20:01,720 --> 00:20:04,359
Speaker 3: to fall in love with it and forget how many

339
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,920
Speaker 3: assumptions you're taking on early on, like this is based

340
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:11,760
Speaker 3: on this very loose description of a battle third hand

341
00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 3: from a painting. And also we don't actually know that

342
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:20,680
Speaker 3: Romans were employed by this nomadic ruler, that they ever

343
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:23,080
Speaker 3: made it to that particular place. All that we know

344
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:26,600
Speaker 3: is they were captured after a battle hundreds of miles away,

345
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,800
Speaker 3: and it's said the last we're told of them in

346
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 3: Roman and Greek histories is that they were captured and

347
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 3: they were sent somewhere east. So big leaps being made,

348
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:37,119
Speaker 3: But it is a charming idea.

349
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:42,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and it's possible, but do we

350
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:46,080
Speaker 2: actually have the evidence for it, And yeah, that's where

351
00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:50,199
Speaker 2: we often come up empty here. Additionally, Dubs hypothesized that

352
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 2: the captured soldiers were then moved further east and settled

353
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:56,960
Speaker 2: along the border of the Han Empire itself, and they

354
00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,600
Speaker 2: were settled in this area where, of course, then the

355
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:03,959
Speaker 2: the troops end up intermarrying with the local population. This

356
00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:07,920
Speaker 2: area comes to be known as lee Chen, which essentially

357
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,080
Speaker 2: means legion. Dubs argues, and he argues that we can

358
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:16,760
Speaker 2: still see evidence of this lineage here today in the

359
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:18,800
Speaker 2: genetics of the local population here.

360
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:22,160
Speaker 3: Yes, and so this is sort of the secondary growth

361
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 3: of this hypothesis about the idea of Roman soldiers in

362
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:28,159
Speaker 3: this battle, which again we're not sure of. That just

363
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:32,480
Speaker 3: an interesting idea, it's hard to prove. So there's that idea,

364
00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 3: and then there's the second idea that the Roman mercenaries

365
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 3: form the ancestors of the Leechen people, and the lee

366
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 3: Chien are a real people that exist today. Many of

367
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 3: them live in a place called Yongchang, which is a

368
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:50,239
Speaker 3: county in China, in Gansu Province, and so they are

369
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 3: real people. And this has been sort of connected to

370
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:59,719
Speaker 3: individual observations of morphological traits among some of the lee

371
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,600
Speaker 3: Chi and people that are said to look European like.

372
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 3: Sometimes there will be a Lechian person who has who

373
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:10,440
Speaker 3: has like green eyes or blonde hair or something. And

374
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:14,640
Speaker 3: this has been connected to this idea and in many

375
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 3: ways I believe has been capitalized on for sort of

376
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 3: tourism interest.

377
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's some interesting articles talking about the degree

378
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 2: to which the locals have revved up interest in this

379
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,080
Speaker 2: concept and maybe you know, erected some statues and some

380
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 2: buildings and put on some costumes appealing to tourists who

381
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 2: want to come and see this place where you know,

382
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 2: a lost legion came to rest. And maybe this in

383
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 2: this idea of oh, there's an intermingling here of Chinese

384
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 2: and ancient Roman cultures and blood and it seemed to

385
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 2: have it seems to have been a very popular idea,

386
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 2: not only in the West but also in China. And

387
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:56,080
Speaker 2: this sort of seemed to really like pick up steam

388
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 2: in the nineties. And I would I would I assume

389
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 2: like maybe reached like its peak. In twenty fifteen, that's

390
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 2: when we saw the release of a very expensive looking

391
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:11,159
Speaker 2: movie titled well this is at least its English release title,

392
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:14,959
Speaker 2: dragon Blade, starring none other than Jackie Chan and then

393
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 2: co starring John Cusack and Adrian Brody. Whoa yeah, both

394
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 2: Western actors playing Romans, with Cusack playing the good guy

395
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 2: Roman and Adrian Brody playing the bad guy Roman. If

396
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 2: nothing else, look up a picture of Adrian Brody's hair

397
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 2: in this motion picture. It is amazing.

398
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 3: Oh, it's like this big, beautiful brunette bouffont, just like

399
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 3: puffed out. I guess this has got to be a wig.

400
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:43,879
Speaker 3: That can't be his real hair.

401
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:46,919
Speaker 2: I assume it's just too big, it's too glorious. I mean,

402
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:50,040
Speaker 2: he looks like he looks like an anime character come

403
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:51,640
Speaker 2: to life here. Oh amazing.

404
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:57,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, Adrian Brody's big, big hair. I've never wow. So

405
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 3: that's funny. But also it's funny. John Cusack just seems

406
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 3: like weird casting for a Roman mercenary.

407
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean by yeah, yeah, by by a

408
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,400
Speaker 2: number of standards. I think you can make a make

409
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 2: a fair argument that that's the case. I don't know

410
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 2: if you would have been my casting choice. But but

411
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know this movie, which I haven't seen,

412
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 2: so I can't really vouch for the quality here. I

413
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 2: just looked at the stills, I looked at the trailer.

414
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 2: This isn't like a period of Chinese cinema that I've

415
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 2: seen much of. But you know, it does show you

416
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 2: just how exciting this concept is that you're like, let's

417
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,920
Speaker 2: make a movie out of that. Let's let's get let's

418
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 2: get some big names from from around the world. Let's

419
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 2: make you know, this big international venture out of it.

420
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 2: To some extent.

421
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm having a brainstorm. Okay, combining our sort of

422
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 3: like weird house cinema unlikely casting's recent discussions regarding virtuosity

423
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 3: and the Roman theme. What if the two actors here

424
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 3: had been Russell Crow and Denzel Washington, that would have

425
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 3: been great. We'll bring in both from the too Gladiat movies.

426
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 3: All right, they've already got the Roman bona fides, and

427
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,919
Speaker 3: here they are in northwestern China, strutting to stay alive.

428
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and either one could play the villain, like, we

429
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 2: have clear evidence that either one of them could pull

430
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 2: it off. But back to the underlocking hypothesis here, So yeah,

431
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 2: we want to be clear there are a lot of

432
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:23,160
Speaker 2: problems with it before you even get into any discussion

433
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 2: of genetics. The big one, of course, is lack of evidence.

434
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 2: Dubbs himself, you know, bases his hypothesis on extremely little

435
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 2: literary evidence. You know, if you were thinking game of

436
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 2: telephone when we were talking about the evidence. I think

437
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 2: that's fair. I mean, to a certain extent, all history

438
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 2: is a game of telephone, but this especially sounds like one.

439
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that. Again, Dubbs's paper is

440
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 3: an interesting read for a speculative history paper written in

441
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 3: the nineteen forties. It's actually interesting for multiple reasons. Number one,

442
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 3: like it is cool to kind of follow the way

443
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 3: he put together these different pieces of evidence and all that.

444
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 3: But it's also a lesson in how the mind works

445
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 3: in a way, because Rob, you and I were talking

446
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 3: about this off mic, like noticing if you just go

447
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 3: along the paper, it's kind of funny how he just

448
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 3: like step by step, leverages multiple it is reasonable to

449
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 3: assumes into it is certain that these are the legionaries

450
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 3: of Crassus.

451
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he at least the way it's written, it

452
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 2: sounds like he's just very convinced to this idea by

453
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,239
Speaker 2: the end of it, and as it turns out, like

454
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 2: other folks of his time and shortly thereafter, most of

455
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 2: them disagreed with it, at least to some degree. I

456
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 2: was looking at a twenty eleven paper published in the

457
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: Journal of Asian History by historian Christopher A. Matthews, which

458
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 2: an historian here who ultimately presents his own hypothesis that well,

459
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 2: maybe the soldiers could have been Greek. And basically he

460
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 2: just presents this as a quote more probable hypothesis, getting

461
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: into like details of the shield observations and so forth.

462
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 2: But in it he also provides a good overview of

463
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 2: how other synologists and historians of Dubbs's own time reacted

464
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 2: to the paper. And basically, there were some who accepted

465
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 2: that this passage indicates foreign troops, okay, fair enough, but

466
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 2: disputed the idea that they were Romans. Others accepted only

467
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 2: parts of the theory. Some of them also did that

468
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 2: kind of thing where what you see in histories where

469
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:31,159
Speaker 2: a controversial hypothesis will be just mentioned without judgment, to

470
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,719
Speaker 2: just say, well, Homer dubs such and such, and then

471
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: they move on to the next or included as a footnote.

472
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 2: That sort of thing.

473
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 3: Often happens if it's like ancillary to the main point

474
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 3: you're making. It's like I don't have time to argue

475
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 3: for or against this. I just need to acknowledge that

476
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 3: I know somebody said.

477
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 2: It right right, and then others just dismissed it completely,

478
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 2: saying that this is fiction or it's just not probable

479
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 2: at all. Now, another thing we talked earlier about the

480
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 2: vast distances involved here, and even even couching all of

481
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 2: this in the vast distances between those two empires, it's

482
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 2: still tempting to sort of oversimplify the vast amount of

483
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: space we're talking about. So the distance between Hern Turkey

484
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 2: and Yongchan, China is five four hundred and thirty six

485
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 2: kilometers or roughly three three hundred and seventy seven miles,

486
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: And Joe included a map for you other folks. You

487
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 2: can you can get a map showing this distance by

488
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 2: just doing a Google search. But we're talking about a

489
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 2: huge expanse of territory here.

490
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dubs gets them part of the way there by

491
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 3: accepting the history, saying that, okay, they're captured by the Parthians,

492
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 3: and then we're told in histories that they were sent

493
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 3: east from here to I think it says that they

494
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 3: were sent to the region of Margiana, which is a

495
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 3: region in Central Asia overlapping parts of modern day Afghanistan, Turkmenistan,

496
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 3: and Uzbekistan. And after that, of course, there are no

497
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 3: more Roman or Greek records of what happens to these soldiers,

498
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 3: what happens to the prisoners. It just says they were

499
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 3: taken out to Margiana. So dubs gets them from the

500
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 3: battlefield to weigh at the other side of the Parthian

501
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 3: Empire over there. That gets them part of the way.

502
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 3: That still doesn't get them all the way to where

503
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 3: this ancient battle described in the Chinese histories would have been.

504
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 3: And then that does not get them all the way

505
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 3: to Yongchang County, right, So there's a bunch of steps

506
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 3: along the way that you just have to fill in

507
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 3: and say, assume this happened.

508
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's not to say these are impossible distances

509
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 2: and that's not And you have to acknowledge there are

510
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 2: other accounts of people traveling great distance in ancient times,

511
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 2: you know, on up through medieval times and so forth.

512
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: And you know, some of these are also have an

513
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 2: air of myth making and a legend about them. But

514
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: you know it's not impossible. But still the greater the distance,

515
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 2: there's less likelihood and there are more problems in getting

516
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 2: them from point A to point B. Yeah, and then

517
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 2: there's the genetics based take on the whole situation.

518
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 3: Right, So, Rob, you asked me to look into this,

519
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 3: and I went digging around. The best study I could

520
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 3: find of the genetic evidence concerning specifically the question of

521
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 3: the Roman mercenary theory of the genetic origins of the

522
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 3: Lechian people. The best study I could find on that

523
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 3: was a two thousand and seven paper published in the

524
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 3: Journal of Human Genetics by Joe at All called testing

525
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 3: the hypothesis of an Ancient Roman soldier origin of the

526
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 3: Lechian people in Northwest China a Y chromosome perspective. And

527
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 3: this paper has a bunch of authors, a majority of

528
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 3: which are affiliated with Lango University in China, also has

529
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 3: one author from the Chinese Academy of Science Institute of

530
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 3: Genetics in and the authors start off this paper by

531
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 3: addressing the hypothesis we've been talking about, so they sort

532
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 3: of lay out what Dubs claims in his classic paper

533
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 3: and how that idea has been developed historically since then.

534
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 3: The main thing they're looking at is the claim that

535
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 3: the le Chien people of yung Chang County and Gansu Province,

536
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 3: Northern China are descended from a group of Roman mercenaries

537
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 3: that settled in the region in the first century BCE.

538
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 3: This story that we've been talking about of the Roman

539
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 3: mercenaries that went east is often told to explain the

540
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 3: fact that some people, not most, but some in the

541
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 3: area of Yongchang County in Gansu Province have what appear

542
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 3: to be European looking physical features, such as blonde hair

543
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 3: or maybe blue or green eyes. But the authors note

544
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 3: that apart from any direct contradictory physical evidence, this hypothesis

545
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 3: of the Roman legionary origin of the Leechian people has

546
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 3: been challenged by a number of scholars for a variety

547
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 3: of reasons. One is a lack of strong archaeological evidence

548
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 3: to support it. It would be one thing if you

549
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 3: had a bunch of ancient Roman artifacts there, I mean,

550
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 3: that would be kind of interesting, But that's not the case.

551
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 3: The best thing I could find in terms of archaeological

552
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 3: evidence were just sort of indirect inferences, and then also

553
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 3: the fact that this hypothesis rests on a lot of

554
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 3: speculative assumptions. So the authors here set out to investigate

555
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 3: by comparing the genetic evidence. They write, quote, single nucleotide

556
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 3: polymorphisms or SNPs and short tandem repeat loci on the

557
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 3: non recombining region of the human Y chromosome have been

558
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 3: widely used to trace the origin and migratory events of

559
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 3: modern paternal genetic lineages. Therefore, why chromosome polymorphisms in our

560
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 3: study were used to investigate the paternal genetic landscape of

561
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 3: the lee Chien and to provide genetic evidence for a

562
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 3: suggested origin of the Lechian people. So, in this study,

563
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 3: the authors took blood samples of two hundred and twenty

564
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 3: seven unrelated men from four different ethnic populations of northwest China.

565
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 3: The study featured thirty nine Tibetans, forty nine Wikers, eighty

566
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 3: seven Lechians, and fifty two Yugurs, who are apparently closely

567
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 3: related to the Lechian people. They also compared the information

568
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 3: collected from this analysis to Y chromosome patterns in other

569
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 3: populations around the world. What did they find well, they

570
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 3: found that seventy one point three percent of the Y

571
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 3: chromosomes from the Lechian people belonged to a haplogroup called

572
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 3: three M one two, which is a specific East Asian lineage.

573
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 3: The Lechian people actually had the greatest frequency of this

574
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 3: haplogroup of any of the four groups tested from northwestern China,

575
00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 3: So ultimately, the Lechian people were genetically close mostly related

576
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 3: to other Chinese populations, particularly the Han Chinese people, but

577
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 3: also to Mongolians and the Yugurs. Also, the authors say

578
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,760
Speaker 3: that genetically the Lechian people were found to be quite

579
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 3: distinct from Central Asian and West Eurasian populations, which they

580
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 3: say is incompatible with the hypothesis that Roman soldiers made

581
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 3: up the bulk of their paternal ancestry. So that doesn't

582
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 3: necessarily rule out the idea that somebody from Europe or

583
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,720
Speaker 3: from the Roman Empire could have come to this region

584
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 3: long ago, but it really does. It doesn't fit at

585
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 3: all with the idea that these people as an ethnic

586
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 3: group or as a culture were descended from a settlement

587
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 3: of Roman mercenaries. Quote failure to find an apparent link

588
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 3: between the Lechian people and ancient Roman soldiers in this

589
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:53,919
Speaker 3: study might be either because long distance migration and intermarriage

590
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 3: have erased earlier genetic signatures, or because the Lechians are

591
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 3: just a general population in north in China. The authors

592
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 3: also they get ahead of another thing that does pop

593
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 3: up later. I've read in various news articles people will

594
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 3: keep trying to resurrect this hypothesis, particularly by saying, but

595
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 3: look at these individual cases of local people in Yongchang

596
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 3: with European looking features, or look at maybe these individuals,

597
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 3: a handful of individuals that have done genetic testing, and

598
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 3: maybe they show more Central Asian or West Eurasian ancestry.

599
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 3: Could they be descended from Roman soldiers, even if the

600
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 3: le Chien people in general are not. It's hard to

601
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 3: ever like completely rule out that sort of possibility. But

602
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 3: the authors of this paper also point out that a

603
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 3: captured legion of Roman soldiers turned Roman mercenaries turned settlers

604
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 3: in northern China is not the only way to explain

605
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 3: some people in Yongchang having what look like European features

606
00:35:56,080 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 3: or even some European genetic lineage. All throughout history, people

607
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 3: were moving around in ways that were not documented in

608
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 3: exciting narrative histories and you know, mentioned in like royal

609
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 3: royal decrees about battles and things like that. The author's

610
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,320
Speaker 3: right quote. Along the ancient Silk Road in North China,

611
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 3: it is common to see people with Caucasian morphological traits,

612
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 3: which is also a classical trait of Chinese minority ethnic

613
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:27,320
Speaker 3: groups in Shinjung, like the Wigers. Therefore, we cannot trace

614
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 3: a Lechian origin only from morphological traits. And this area

615
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:34,919
Speaker 3: was indeed around the path of the ancient Silk Road.

616
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 3: So that's another thing here that somewhat undermined some of

617
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 3: the claims people make for this Roman legionary hypothesis. You know,

618
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 3: that's not the only way people from further west could

619
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 3: have ended up in this region hundreds or thousands of

620
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 3: years ago.

621
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 2: It's just one of the more exciting stories of how

622
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 2: it could happen, as like the Lost Legion, just as

623
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 2: more appealing, as opposed to like the Lost Silk Merchant's

624
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 2: brother in law not as exciting, but could easily be

625
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 2: a factor in anything like this.

626
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was trade, there was some travel, economic transactions,

627
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 3: and along the way there was some genetic exchange.

628
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that the loss of merchant's brother

629
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 2: in law would also make for a nice movie, so

630
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: and you could probably would probably be cheaper.

631
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me actually back that up. It's a counter

632
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 3: narrative to the way people might be thinking about this.

633
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, I want the I want the legionaries

634
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 3: settling and China thing to be real. Isn't it actually

635
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:37,879
Speaker 3: more interesting to think about sort of non military examples

636
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 3: of cultural ad mixing in the ancient world and people

637
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 3: are traveling and you know, not as like a like

638
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 3: an armed band who train and travel together and you

639
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 3: know they're fighting through the Instead, it's like smaller groups

640
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 3: of people, maybe even individual people, just trying to survive

641
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 3: and get by in an unfamiliar culture in the ancient

642
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 3: world without even having the kind of the technology link

643
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 3: and stuff that we have today that make transportation and

644
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 3: communication across distance easy. Just trying to imagine that sort

645
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 3: of thing in the ancient world is is fascinating, you know,

646
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 3: imagining just one lost trader or a small group of

647
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 3: traders from one edge of the Eurasian continent getting ending

648
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 3: up in the other and settling down there. Like what

649
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 3: leads to that? What is what is the life of

650
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 3: those people.

651
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,240
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, yeah, I mean it's that kind of story

652
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 2: that on one level, it's it's it's more relatable because

653
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 2: it deals with like everyday life and everyday experience. Is though,

654
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 2: you know, a in a setting that is that is

655
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 2: also fantastic and intriguing, you know, outside of like the

656
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 2: military setting, which in ways is like easier to imagine

657
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 2: because we've in part because we've seen it depicted so much,

658
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 2: but I think also a reality that is a little

659
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 2: further from many of our experiences, you know, you know,

660
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 2: especially if we've never actually been in a military of

661
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 2: one form or another, and certainly not in an ancient military.

662
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 3: On the other hand, it is also interesting to think

663
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 3: about ancient military tactics being sort of like lifted up

664
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 3: and take transplanted around to places where they were not familiar,

665
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 3: where that was not normally what the armies did. And

666
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 3: so thinking about a testudo formation with this wall of

667
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 3: shields appearing in a place where that was not what

668
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 3: the other armies were used to seeing it that that's

669
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 3: interesting as well, and I think that's good fodder for

670
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 3: continuing our look at shields and shield walls.

671
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's the age of Empires thought experiment, right,

672
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 2: And it's also a thought experiment that is not without

673
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,879
Speaker 2: context in the real world. We certainly do have a situations,

674
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:43,320
Speaker 2: certainly with the arrival of Europeans and the Americas, where

675
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 2: you have combatants going up against combatants that they have

676
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 2: never encountered before, and in some cases weapons they have

677
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 2: never encountered before. So you know, it's an interesting thought

678
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 2: experiment from multiple points of view. One more thing I

679
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 2: want to bring up, though, is that if you look

680
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 2: up articles about what we've been discussing here, you will

681
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 2: find locals from yong Chung County dressed up, yeah, sort

682
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 2: of mock Roman military attire. These are quite amusing images.

683
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:21,439
Speaker 2: And again you know they're you know, get those tourism dollars.

684
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 2: I understand it, like it totally makes sense. I understand

685
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: the economic incentive here. But I have to say, shields

686
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 2: are all wrong. This I would you could easily say, well, this,

687
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 2: this hypothesis cannot be correct because the shields and the

688
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 2: illustrations are round. They're not slightly cylindrical and rectangular at all.

689
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 3: That's such a good point. I didn't even notice that

690
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 3: the rectangular profile of the shields is like the core

691
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 3: of what he bases the hypothesis on.

692
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 2: Yeah.

693
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then here here we got the round ones.

694
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the two seem to be eating it up

695
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 2: in these photos, so yeah, yeah, more power. Then all right,

696
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: Well we'll go ahead and cap this one here, but yes,

697
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 2: we'll be back in the next episode. This will probably

698
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 2: be just a two parter, but in the next episode

699
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: we'll get more into a discussion of shield, shield walls

700
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 2: and shield tactics. In the meantime, will remind you that

701
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

702
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 2: culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short

703
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 2: form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside

704
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film

705
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema.

706
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 3: Here's thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

707
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

708
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

709
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:34,399
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

710
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

711
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

712
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

713
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

714
00:41:51,800 --> 00:42:04,879
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.

715
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 2: The West