WEBVTT - From the Vault: Greek Fire 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.640 Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.559 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday, 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:12.440 so of course that means it's time to venture into 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.720 the vault. But whereas the vault is usually quite dark 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.520 and mysterious, today it is brightly lit by some kind 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.600 of green flame. Ah. Yes, the Greek Fire. This episode 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.480 originally aired August two, and it is about a historical 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:28.960 would it would it be safe to call it a 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.840 super weapon? It's at least some kind of nightmarish terror 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.440 of war. Yeah, it's a super weapon, terror weapon, shock weapon. Uh. 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.839 And it's a fascinating episode because it's it gets into 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.640 the power of secrets and the danger of secrets. And 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.000 this one also has a fun dramatic reading at the 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.320 top by Anie Reese of Savor and Stuff. Mom, I 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:50.280 never told you, that's right. If you haven't checked out 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:54.520 Savor yet, that's any and Lawrence Podcast, a relaunch of 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.840 the food Stuff brand. You should check that out. It's great. Yeah, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.240 they definitely. I don't think they're gonna cover Greek Fire. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.160 They'll probably cover Greek cuisine if they haven't already, But 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.399 Greek Fire that's is probably gonna remain just on this 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:11.279 show if Greek feta is more your thing. But oh yeah, yeah, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.319 so this will be Greek fire. We hope you enjoy. 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.840 Emperor Alexios ordered ships to be furnished by all the 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.240 countries under the Roman sway. He had a number built 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.960 in the capital itself, and would at intervals go around 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.560 and instruct the shipwrights how to make them, as he 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.080 knew that the pieces were skilled in sea warfare and 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.640 dreaded a battle with them. On the power of each ship, 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:34.479 he had a head fixed of a lion or other 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.440 land animal, made in brass or iron, with the mouth 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.720 open and then gilded over, so that their mere aspect 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.640 was terrified, and the fire which was to be directed 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.959 against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.440 the mouths of the beast, so that it seemed as 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.120 if the lions and the other similar monsters were vomiting 0:01:52.160 --> 0:02:01.040 the fire. Then the man called Count aim On very 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.240 boldly attacked the largest vessel at the stern, but got 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.000 entangled in its rudders, and as he could not free 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.280 himself easily, he would have been taken had he not 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.840 with great presence of mind had recourse to his machine 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:17.320 and put fire upon the enemy very successfully. Then he 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.000 quickly turned his ship round and set fire on the 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.160 spot to three more of the largest barbarian ships. At 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.920 the same moment, a squall of wind suddenly struck the 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.160 sea and churned it up and dashed ships together, and 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.600 almost threatened to sink them. For the ways roared at 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:38.840 the yard, arms creaked, and the sails were split. The 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.600 barbarians now became thoroughly alarmed, firstly because of the fire 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.680 directed upon them, for they were not accustomed to that 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.519 kind of machine, nor to a fire which naturally flames upwards. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.520 But then this case was directed in whatever direction the 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:58.080 sender desired, often downwards are laterally. And secondly, they were 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.040 very much upset by the storm, and consequently they fled. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:12.240 That's's what the barbarians did. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:20.799 your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com. Hey you 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:22.720 welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.720 Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And those were the 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.840 words of eleventh and twelfth century Byzantine Princess Anna Comnena 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.200 from her book The Alexiad. And we we only tweaked 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.360 it slightly for performance purposes here and it was brought 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:39.800 to life by Annie Reese, one of the hosts of 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.080 food Stuff. Food Stuff is another podcast here in the house, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.680 Stuff Works Family. It is about all things edible and potable. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:48.960 That's right. I don't I don't know that they've done 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.640 anything on Greek food or Byzantine food. But just if 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.280 if you can can't tell from that that lovely introduction, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.640 we are going to be talking about the Byzantine Empire. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.000 We're going to be talking about a secret weapon of 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.720 the Byzantine's, a weapon so secret that we're not even 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.280 really sure what it consisted of in detail. Today we're 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:14.800 talking about Greek fire, the nuclear bomb of the Middle Ages. Yeah, 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:16.880 I mean really, it was ahead of its time. It 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.240 was like napalm in the Middle Ages. It was like 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.080 a flamethrower in the Middle Ages. Right, So we want 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.479 to explore all the ins and outs of this ancient 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.080 secret super weapon. I don't know, does it qualify a 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.839 super weapon. It's kind of small scale, but it's in 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.600 terms of power and awe at the time, you could 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.680 maybe consider it a super I would think, so, I mean, 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.880 it was a it was a super weapon that definitely 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:43.760 inspired terror and was extremely effective in particular situations. As 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:45.560 is the case with a lot of a shock and 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.640 awe weaponry, you know, it can't win. It's not gonna 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:51.960 win a battle on its own. In the same way 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:53.919 that you know, a tank is pretty great, but a 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.440 tank needs infantry support if it's going to be effective. 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:58.920 That's sort of thing, right. So to explore the world 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.880 of Greek fire, all the science, all of the speculation 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.400 about what it was, how it worked, how it came 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.279 to be, we've got to first give you the setting. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:12.880 So what was the Byzantine Empire and where was Byzantium? 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.000 All right, so we're basically talking about the region of 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.960 the southern Balkans and Asia minor modern day Turkey. Yeah, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.120 rought modern day Turkey and part of Greece. But in 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.919 the middle of the sixth century, this was an empire 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:27.560 that that stretched out all the way across the North 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.560 African coastal region from the Atlantic to Egypt, along with 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.360 southern parts of Spain and Italy. U Now, to give 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.320 you a sort of a timeline of this of this empire, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:43.719 in three twenty four, Constantine, the Emperor Constantine moved the 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.200 capital of the Roman Empire itself to Byzantium. And of 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.760 course we know Constantine was the first Roman emperor to 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.800 claim to have converted to Christianity. Yes, so that's key. 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.480 So it's you know, Roman Christian Christianity here, the Holy 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.760 Roman Empire. Now this went for this is a successful 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.240 empire for quite a spell. Here. It wasn't until fourteen 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.320 fifty three that Constantinople, the capital, fell to the Ottoman 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:13.520 Empire and afterwards, of course became Istanbul. Yeah, as the 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.719 of the Animaediac song, we're illustrate for us. So all 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.560 in all, this is an empire with one thousand, one 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.800 nine year history. Yeah, though its borders changed a lot 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.440 over the centuries, and during its final years the Byzantine 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.760 Empire was reduced to a relatively minor state around the 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.960 Constantinople area. But it's strange to realize that in some form, 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.120 the Roman Empire didn't actually end before the Middle Ages. 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.000 And I usually think of when did the Roman Empire end? 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.200 I think of the western Roman Empire around the city 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.520 of Roman, which of course you know fell and that 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.120 that's ushers in what historians generally have thought of as 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.039 the Middle ages in Europe, you know, around the middle 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.400 of the first millennium. But if you consider or the 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.960 eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire, which 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.719 it certainly did consider itself the Roman Empire, the Roman 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:11.680 Empire in some form lasted until the Renaissance in Europe, 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.240 which is a just a bizarre thing to consider. It 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.960 just doesn't mesh with my normal view of history. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.239 I think that's important to note. Uh. Likewise, I often 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.240 fall into the trap of sort of thinking of the 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.640 Byzantine Empire and thinking of it like sort of vaguely 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.640 as a much smaller and briefer affair than it actually was. 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.400 Now it's worth It's also important to note here that 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.440 nobody actually called it the Byzantine Empire during its time. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.680 You only called inhabitants of Constantinople or a couple of 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.520 other areas Byzantines. Now the subjects of the emperor themselves 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.960 that they called themselves Romans, uh Constantine. The first, as 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.320 we mentioned, was the Fruit was the first Christian ruler 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.560 of the Roman Empire at least took on that mantle, 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.400 uh He and he moved the capital to Constantinople, and 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.240 as such they were the Christian Roman Empire and the 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.920 western remnants of the Roman Empire proper they fell into 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:08.240 barbarians successor kingdoms. So we mentioned that the Byzantine Empire had, 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.600 you know, over a thousand year history, and during this 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.400 time it was pretty much constantly at war in some 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.080 form or another. It was constantly challenged by its neighbors. 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.600 In the east, you had first the Persian Empire and 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.760 then various Islamic powers later on. And to the north 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.320 there were the Slavs and the Turkish Avars. There were 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:33.400 the Bulgars, the Hungarians, the Serbs, and finally the Ottoman Turks. Um. 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:34.960 I know, it seems kind of weird that you would 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.000 put them with the north, but like that was sort 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:41.360 of the shape of of of geographically of the territory 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.160 at the time. So and and then likewise, in the 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.000 west they were constantly engaging in these tent struggles with 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.040 Greek city straight states and other Roman remnants, often with 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.040 complications from papal politics. Yeah, and some of those complications 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.719 get very complicated. Like one of the things a lot 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.359 of people don't real lies about some of the Crusades 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:06.160 is that, yes, the Crusades were waged by European Christians 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.320 often against Muslims and Jews, but they also sometimes fought 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.800 the Byzantine Christians. Yeah, I mean, there's the whole tail 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.600 during the Crusades of the essentially the sacking of Constantinople 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:23.240 by the Christian crusaders. Yeah. For usually for complicated, petty 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.360 political reasons. But you know, they survived all this time, 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.800 and one of and one of the reasons was that 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.520 they were essentially still the Roman empire and spirit. They 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:38.000 were well organized, they boasted strong fiscal and military systems, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.280 again testaments to their Roman history. And of course they 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.560 had a secret weapon. There's nothing better than a secret 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.680 weapon there. Really, we were talking about this earlier there. 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.600 How many secret weapons can you really think of, even 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.000 in the modern age? Well, I mean you can definitely. 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.560 The modern parallel that comes to mind is the race 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.760 for the atom bomb during the World War two era. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.840 It's it's a thing where if you go back and 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.360 read it at the time, even if you you know, 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:08.880 don't think that the atom bomb was a good thing 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.000 for humanity to have discovered, I mean we probably might. 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:13.600 A lot of us agree that the world would be 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.160 better if nuclear weapons didn't exist, though some people might 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.200 argue otherwise, some people might say that it's a really 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.440 useful deterrent against more large scale conventional war, but it's 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.000 a scary time. It's like trying to imagine what would 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.480 the world have been like if the Nazis had gotten 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:35.040 the atomic bomb first, or other scenarios along those lines. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.480 I think that the atomic bomb, along with the various 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.559 biological and chemical weapons are are probably the best analogy 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.920 we have. But then to think of this in the 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:50.040 Middle Ages too, to extrapolate similar circumstances regarding state secrets 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.120 and weapons systems, uh, it's it's kind of mind bockling 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.440 right now. Greek fire is certainly much smaller in applied 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.600 scale than a large scale bomb like in comic weapon 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.120 in the twentieth century, but it may be no less 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.280 terrifying in the way that it's represented in legend. Oh yes, yeah, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.120 because we're talking about essentially when we'll get into the 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.679 details here, and you already had an example from the intro. 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:19.080 We're talking about ships spewing liquid fire like essentially spewing 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.520 napalm onto enemy vessels, onto the water itself, causing the 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.360 water to burn and then of course to burn ships 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.600 which are generally highly flammable, as well as the individuals aboard. 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.200 You would I would think, certainly think twice about approaching 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.200 one of these Byzantine vessels, especially if it had a visible, 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.680 uh you know, animal head on the front. But you 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.360 can also think about it from the from the individual 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.880 sailor's perspective, like the terror that would be inflicted on them, 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.440 because if you so you imagine a naval battle and 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:56.080 you are approaching a ship that is spewing fire, it 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.840 is probably the case that because you're a medieval sailor, 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.320 you don't know how to swim, and you might be 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.600 far from shore, and so you were facing two possible 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.000 fates either burning alive or jumping overboard and drowning. And 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.520 even if you could swim, the water is now on fire. Yeah, 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:14.600 so that's it's not like you have a great option 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.800 there either. Now we know there have been all kinds 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.480 of thermal and incendiary weapons used throughout history. Fire plays 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.400 a big role in more fair going back to prehistoric times, uh, 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.960 you know, just like burning and raising villages, Like a 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:32.840 common way of siege tactics before siege engines were invented 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.520 would be to just set fire to crops and villages 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:41.439 surrounding a besieged castle or fortification to essentially draw them out, 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.640 to say like, we're gonna torch everything you have if 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:45.400 you don't come out to fight us. What kind of 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.040 goes back to our episode on fire. Fire is is 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.280 the basic, you know, the basic aspect of human technology. 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.320 So as long as we've had it, we've used it 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.120 for to kill each other and to keep each other alive, right, 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.520 and so it's it's quite clear and quite easy to 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.920 see why it's a useful tool in war. Also, it 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.480 has that kind of scary element because it's not just 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.760 a directed weapon like an arrow or a sword. It 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.560 has a life of its own. You release fire into 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:11.640 the wild and it can sort of carry on with 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:16.280 its own business without completely unaided by your continued efforts. 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.280 But I want to know when's the first time we 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:23.800 saw this specific version of incendiary weapon reuse? What when 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.960 does Greek fire itself first come on the scene. Well, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.839 I'm glad you asked, Joe. It was the year six eight, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.800 and uh in Constantinople was in a kind of a 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.280 tight spot, right, And so going forward from this point, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.680 I just want to acknowledge one of our main sources. 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.440 It is a really interesting paper back from in the 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:46.160 journal Technology and Culture by Alex Rowland called Secrecy, Technology 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.800 and War, Greek Fire and the Defensive Byzantium six to 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.240 twelve o four. So a lot of our information going 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:53.719 forward is going to be coming from here, but we'll 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:58.640 mention a few other sources also. So at Constantinople, we're 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:03.319 under siege. What'spenning? Okay? So the caliph Mawejia has dispatched 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.680 his fleet for the fifth consecutive time, and he's taken 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.520 the peninsula of sizy Couse and here just south of 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:15.520 the Byzantine capital. Uh, the entire Arab naval forces here, 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.240 they've converged with the army and they're going to march 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.400 on Constantinople and besiege it. Okay, So we have the 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.640 Arab forces moving in and Constantinople, how's it going to 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.880 defend itself? Well, I mean, luckily, it is a it 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.360 is a very defensible city at the time they have, 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:32.600 so they have a lot of a lot of stuff 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.480 going for them. But that this is thing about being 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.640 besieged is that it is a a long term affair. 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:43.160 Usually it's about a steady strangling of the city of 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.480 the nation even but being a coastal city, Constantinople has 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.920 a lot of a lot of its power and resources 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.680 in its ability to travel the seas. Right, So if 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.000 you've got a fleet coming in to attack your ability 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.120 to travel the seas, that's no good, that's right. So 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:04.640 they luckily Constantinople had a strong navy and pretty much 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:09.360 had a strong imperial navy at least isolated to Constantinople 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.080 for the you know, the duration of the empire. But 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.520 what they needed, though, was it was a particular weapon. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.480 They needed something that would really give them a strong advantage, 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.440 an advantage the likes of which we we we we 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.320 heard in the intro to this episode, and that's where 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:30.480 a particular individual comes into play. Kalinkas. Yes, the stories 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.720 tell us that Kalinkas was a Syrian architect and engineer 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.720 from the town known at the time as Heliopolis of Syria, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.840 and he arrived in Constantinople as a refugee after he 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.880 had been driven out of his homeland, so he'd recently 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.000 escaped the Arab conquest of Syria. He brought his military 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.600 ideas and inventions with him to the Byzantines, and essentially 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.880 he showed up on their doorsteps and offered them the 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.080 science of napalm. Really with what it breaks down to, 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:01.920 how do you imagine that scene breaking down? Like he 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:06.000 knocks on the city walls and says, I have a flamethrower. Yeah, 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:07.240 I mean, I guess you had. He had to make 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:09.960 a case for it, like, hey, I've got some ideas. 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.160 They're they're really explosive. You're gonna love them for Maybe 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.320 there was a posting, hey, we have an opening for 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.440 a you know, a weapons engineer, a chemical engineer to 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.360 help us with our weapons systems for this upcoming siege. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.720 What does a medieval weapons pitch meeting look like. I 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.120 don't know, but I'm I guess it's you know, it's 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:34.200 like an audience with the king or or dignitaries, and 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.640 then you know he's probably showing them some plans or something. However, 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:41.600 he ended up pitching it. It was accepted. In fact, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.680 it was even referred to as clinicals fire, as well 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.720 as Roman fire, marine fire, liquid fire, artificial fire, and 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.640 of course Greek fire. Now it probably wasn't referred to 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.640 as Greek fire at the time by the Byzantines because 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.040 they didn't even think of themselves as Greeks. I think 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.000 that name, that appellation came late or from Western Europeans, right, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.960 like Crusaders would encounter this or something like it, and 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.720 because they were going east when they saw it, they 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.159 referred to it as Greek fire, right, And then the 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.320 name that name, in particular Greek fire ends up being 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.879 applied to various things that might not have been the 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.760 same Greek fire weapons system, or might have been just 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.119 something just you know, remotely similar, like maybe it just 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.440 involved flaming oils of some sort. Yeah, I've got to 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.399 comment on that actually. So, according to Kelly Dvrees and 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.280 Robert Douglas Smith in their book Medieval Military Technology from 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.639 University of Toronto Press, in basically there were many different 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.560 types of weapons referred to as Greek fire and the 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.760 extant literature throughout the Middle Ages, so there were they 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.960 separated into three main categories. You've got liquid fire pumped 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.359 out through a nozzle, and then a liquid incendiary weapon 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.439 that's hurled in small ceramic grenades. And then you've got 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.960 later solid incendiaries that used explosive so that'd be something 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.480 more like gunpowder for the purposes of today's discussion, we're 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.000 focusing primarily on that original Byzantine marine fire, which is 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.240 what Anna Cumnina was describing. It's a liquid jet of 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.320 flame that vomited out of a nozzle on the ends 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:17.560 of ships. And for for the purposes of simplicity, we 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.840 could also call it Kalina costs fire, because that specifies 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.159 that it's what was used in the eighth century by 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.119 the Byzantines in their ships. These flamethrowers coming out the 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.720 prow of the of the Byzantine warships. Now, in the 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.520 case of this initial rollout of Greek fire, uh it 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.359 turned was able to help turn the tide. According to 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.760 the accounts, they're able to drive back the invaders, and 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.240 the remnants of the air of fleet were then subsequently 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.800 lost in a mighty storm. And when the forces again 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.280 attempted the investiture of Constantinople and seven seventeen, the Byzantines 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.920 again used the Greek fire, and this time they apparently 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.479 had a an improved formula, and the invaders were driven 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.280 off once again. And and this is a kind of 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.720 a key historic moment. By the way, some historians rank 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:08.320 it only under Charles Martel's victories over Islamic invaders in 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.240 southern France during the seven thirties is a key stop 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.959 point for Muslim expansion into Europe. So it's simply one 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.760 of those moments in time where it's hard to imagine 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.919 a timeline forking off in an alternate direction. Yeah. I 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.000 always love those things in history, like those key moments 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:29.480 where I've never heard of like an alternate history that 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.680 explores what would have happened if things have gone the 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.240 other way. But I want to read that book. Maybe 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.680 it's out there, yeah, yeah, and maybe maybe HBO will 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.199 adapt it. It sounds equally problematic to to have like 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.760 a modern series showing what a you know, what a 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.439 predominantly Islamic at least, you know, at least Eastern Europe 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.040 would have looked like, you know, it's just a it's 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.560 fascinating to try and try and picture how that would 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.520 have come together in an alternate timeline. But we should 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.439 focus on the technology itself, because that's the core of today. 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:04.400 What was Greek fire? Yeah, I mean, as you might 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.479 imagine with a wonder weapons such as this, it was 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.440 a matter of state secret, and it's a secret that 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.840 seemingly died with the death of the Byzantine Empire in 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.480 the four hundreds, or maybe much earlier, or much earlier 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.760 later we'll get to uh. And to this day, chemists 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.240 and historians they continue to devise possible recipes for it, 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.320 and thoughts not only on the the just the the 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.880 liquid itself, but also the weapons system and involved here 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:34.840 what what what were they cooking up? How are they 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.280 dishing it out? And to what degree was anyone ever 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.919 able to replicate it? Fascinating questions we will explore in 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:48.479 depth when we come back from this break. All right, 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.679 we're back now, Robert. We're onto the Greek fire itself, 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.840 the chemistry of the liquid substance, the liquid flame, and 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.720 the delivery system for it. So what do modern scholars 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.359 think about Greek fire and and what do we know 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.360 about Greek fire from these medieval descriptions that we can 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.840 use to try to figure out how it worked. Yes, 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.359 let's get into the main properties of Greek fire. Though 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:14.160 before we do that, I do want to point out 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.840 one point that Rowland makes in his his paper, and 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:22.560 that's that historian Theophanes wrote that the Bysantine, the Byzantine 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.920 Emperor already had a fire ship program in the works 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.040 two years before the arrival of kalin Cos. So it 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.399 remains a mystery exactly what the nature of the prior 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.160 system weapons system was and how he improved upon it 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.640 with presumably with his formula. Yeah, that is one interpretation 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.280 I've read that some modern historians look at this and say, okay, 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:45.560 Kalina Cos if you assume he was a real person 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.720 and he did show up to help with the Greek 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.720 fire system, that what he actually did was not invent 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.760 Greek fire or bring them Greek fire, but that he 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.120 improved upon their recipe. That they already had some kind 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.679 of chemical incendiary weapon that could be lit and and 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.480 tossed out over enemies, but that he made it much 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:08.640 more powerful. And what are the key characteristics that are 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.800 often reported about this powerful version of Greek fire or 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.679 Colina costs fire? Okay, so they're they're basically four of 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.280 these properties. First of all, we've already alluded to this. 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.280 It burns in water. Some say it some say it 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.600 was ignited by water, but this is almost certainly a myth. 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.240 It's also said that only vinegar, sand or urine could 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.679 extinguish it. Now, in the next key characteristic. It was 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.760 a liquid. It was something that was vomited forth from 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.480 one of these animal heads or a siphon number three. 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.000 At sea, it was shot from tubes or siphons and 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.040 very rarely used on land. Okay, so it mainly came 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:48.720 out of the prow of a ship, right, yeah, And 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.760