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Speaker 1: Emperor Alexios ordered ships to be furnished by all the

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Speaker 1: countries under the Roman sway. He had a number built

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Speaker 1: in the capital itself, and would at intervals go round

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Speaker 1: and instruct the shipwrights how to make them, as he

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Speaker 1: knew that the Pieasons were skilled in sea warfare and

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Speaker 1: dreaded a battle with them. On the prow of each

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Speaker 1: ship he had a head fixed of a lion or

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Speaker 1: other land animal, made in brass or iron, with the

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Speaker 1: mouth open and then gilded over, so that their mere

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Speaker 1: aspect was terrifying, And the fire which was to be

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Speaker 1: directed against the enemy through tubes he made to pass

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Speaker 1: through the mouths of the beast, so that it seemed

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Speaker 1: as if the lions and the other similar monsters were

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Speaker 1: vomiting the fire. Then the man called Count Lamon very

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Speaker 1: boldly attacked the largest vessel at the stern, but got

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Speaker 1: entangled in its rudders, and as he could not free

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Speaker 1: himself easily, he would have been taken had he not,

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Speaker 1: with great presence of mind, had recourse to his machine

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Speaker 1: and poured fire upon the enemy very successfully. Then he

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Speaker 1: quickly turned his ship round and set fire on the

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Speaker 1: spot to three more of the largest barbarian ships. At

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Speaker 1: the same moment, a squall of wind suddenly struck the

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Speaker 1: sea and churned it up, and dashed ships together, and

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Speaker 1: almost threatened to sink some. For the ways roared at

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Speaker 1: the yard, arms creaked, and the sails were split. The

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Speaker 1: barbarians now became thoroughly alarmed, firstly because of the fire

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Speaker 1: directed upon them, for they were not accustomed to that

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Speaker 1: kind of machine, nor to a fire which naturally flames upwards.

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Speaker 1: Then this case was directed in whatever direction the sender desired,

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Speaker 1: often downwards or laterally. And secondly, they were very much

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Speaker 1: upset by the storm, and consequently they fled. That is

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Speaker 1: what the barbarians did. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind from how Stop work dot com. Hey you welcome

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Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert

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Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And those were the words

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Speaker 1: of eleventh and twelfth century Byzantine Princess Anna Comnena from

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Speaker 1: her book The Alexiad. And we we only tweaked it

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Speaker 1: slightly for performance purposes here and it was brought to

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Speaker 1: life by Annie Reese, one of the hosts of food Stuff.

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Speaker 1: Food Stuff is another podcast here in the house, stuff, works, family.

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Speaker 1: It is about all things edible and potable, that's right.

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't know that they've done anything on

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Speaker 1: Greek food or Byzantine food, but just if if you

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Speaker 1: can can't tell from that that lovely introduction, we are

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about the Byzantine Empire, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about a secret weapon of the

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Speaker 1: Byzantine's weapon so secret that we're not even really sure

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Speaker 1: what it consisted of in detail. Today we're talking about

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Speaker 1: Greek fire, the nuclear bomb of the Middle Ages. I mean, really,

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Speaker 1: it was ahead of its time. It was like napalm

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Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages. It was like a flamethrower in

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages. Right, So we want to explore all

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Speaker 1: the ins and outs of this ancient secret super weapon.

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Speaker 1: I don't know does it qualify a super weapon. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of small scale, but it's in terms of power

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Speaker 1: and awe at the time, you could maybe consider it

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Speaker 1: a super I would think, so, I mean it was

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Speaker 1: a it was a super weapon that definitely inspired terror

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Speaker 1: and was extremely effective in particular situations. As is the

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Speaker 1: case with a lot of a shock and awe weaponry,

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Speaker 1: you know, it can't win it's not gonna win a

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Speaker 1: battle on its own. In the same way that you know,

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Speaker 1: a tank is pretty great, but a tank needs infantry

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Speaker 1: support if it's going to be effective. That's sort of thing, right.

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Speaker 1: So to explore the world of Greek fire, all the science,

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Speaker 1: all of the speculation about what it was, how it worked,

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Speaker 1: how it came to be, we've got to first give

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Speaker 1: you the setting. So what was the Byzantine Empire and

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Speaker 1: where was Byzantium? All right, so we're basically talking about

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Speaker 1: the read of the southern Balkans and Asia minor modern

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Speaker 1: day Turkey. Yeah, rought modern day Turkey and part of Greece.

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Speaker 1: But in the middle of the sixth century, this was

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Speaker 1: an empire that that stretched out all the way across

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Speaker 1: the North African coastal region from the Atlantic to Egypt,

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Speaker 1: along with southern parts of Spain and Italy. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: to give you a sort of a timeline of this

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Speaker 1: of this empire, in three twenty four, Constantine, the Emperor

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Speaker 1: Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire itself to Byzantium.

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Speaker 1: And of course we know Constantine was the first Roman

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Speaker 1: emperor to claim to have converted to Christianity. Yes, so

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Speaker 1: that's key. So it's you know, Roman Christian Christianity here,

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Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Empire. Now this went for this was

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Speaker 1: a successful empire for quite a spell. Here. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: until fourteen fifty three that Constantinople, the capital, fell to

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire, and afterwards, of course became Istanbul. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as the of the Animania songh we're illustrate for us.

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Speaker 1: So all in all, this is an empire with one

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Speaker 1: thousand nine year history. Yeah, though its borders changed a

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Speaker 1: lot over the centuries, and during its final years the

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Speaker 1: Byzantine Empire was reduced to a relatively minor state around

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Speaker 1: the Constantinople area. But it's strange to realize that in

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Speaker 1: some form the Roman Empire didn't actually end before the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages. And I usually think of when did the

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Speaker 1: Roman Empire end? I think of the western Roman Empire

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Speaker 1: around the city of Roman, which of course you know fell,

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Speaker 1: and that that's ushers in what historians generally have thought

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Speaker 1: of as the Middle Ages in Europe, you know, around

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Speaker 1: the middle of the first millennium. But if you consider

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Speaker 1: the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire,

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Speaker 1: which it certainly did consider itself the Roman Empire. The

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Speaker 1: Roman Empire in some form lasted until the Renaissance in Europe,

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Speaker 1: which is a just a bizarre thing to consider. It

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Speaker 1: just doesn't mesh with my normal view of history. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's important to note. Uh. Likewise, I often

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Speaker 1: fall into the trap of sort of thinking of the

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Speaker 1: Byzantine Empire and thinking of it like sort of vaguely

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Speaker 1: as a much smaller and briefer affair than it actually

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Speaker 1: was now it's worth It's also important to note here

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Speaker 1: that nobody actually called it the Byzantine Empire during its time.

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Speaker 1: You only called inhabitants of Constantinople or a couple of

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Speaker 1: other areas Byzantines. Now the subjects of the emperor themselves

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Speaker 1: that they called themselves Romans, uh Constantine. The first, as

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Speaker 1: we mentioned, was the Fruit was the first Christian ruler

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Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire at least took on that mantle,

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Speaker 1: uh he, and he moved the capital to Constantinople, and

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Speaker 1: as such they were the Christian Roman Empire, and the

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Speaker 1: western remnants of the Roman Empire proper, you know, they

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Speaker 1: fell into barbarians successor kingdoms. So we mentioned that the

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Speaker 1: Byzantine Empire had, you know, over a thousand year history,

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Speaker 1: and during this time it was pretty much constantly at

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Speaker 1: war in some form or another. It was constantly challenged

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Speaker 1: by its neighbors. In the east, you had first the

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Speaker 1: Persian Empire and then various Islamic powers later on. And

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Speaker 1: to the north there were the Slavs and the Turkish Avars.

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Speaker 1: There were the Bulgars, the Hungarians, the Serbs, and finally

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Turks. Um. I know, it seems kind of

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Speaker 1: weird that you would put them with the north, but

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Speaker 1: like that was sort of the shape of of of

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Speaker 1: geographically of the territory at the time. So and and

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Speaker 1: then likewise, in the West, they were constantly engaging in

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Speaker 1: these tents struggles with Greek city straight states and other

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Speaker 1: Roman remnants, often with complications from papal politics. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: some of those complications get very complicated. Like one of

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Speaker 1: the things a lot of people don't realize about some

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Speaker 1: of the Crusades is that, yes, the Crusades were waged

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Speaker 1: by European Christians, often against Muslims and Jews, but they

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Speaker 1: also sometimes fought the Byzantine Christians. Yeah, I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: the whole elder in the Crusades of the essentially the

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Speaker 1: sacking of Constantinople by the Christian crusaders. Yeah, for usually

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Speaker 1: for complicated, petty political reasons. But you know, they survived

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Speaker 1: all this time, and one of and one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons was that they were essentially still the Roman empire

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Speaker 1: and spirit. They were well organized, they boasted strong fiscal

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Speaker 1: and military systems, again testaments to their Roman history. And

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Speaker 1: of course they had a secret weapon. There's nothing better

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Speaker 1: than a secret weapon there. Really, we were talking about

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Speaker 1: this earlier there. How many secret weapons can you really

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Speaker 1: think of, even in the modern age? Well, I mean

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Speaker 1: you can definitely. The modern parallel that comes to mind

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Speaker 1: is the race for the atom bomb during the World

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Speaker 1: War two era. It's it's a thing where if you

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Speaker 1: go back and read it at the time, even if you,

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Speaker 1: you know, don't think that the atom bomb was a

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Speaker 1: good thing for humanity to have discovered. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: probably might a lot of us agree that the world

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Speaker 1: would be better if nuclear weapons didn't exist, though some

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Speaker 1: people might argue otherwise. Some people might say that it's

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Speaker 1: a really useful deterrent against more large scale conventional war.

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Speaker 1: But it's a scary time. It's like trying to imagine

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Speaker 1: what would the world have been like if the Nazis

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Speaker 1: had gotten the atomic bomb first, or other scenarios along

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Speaker 1: those lines. Yeah, yeah, I think that the atomic bomb,

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Speaker 1: along with the various biological and chemical weapons are are

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Speaker 1: probably the best analogy we have. But then to think

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Speaker 1: of this in the Middle Ages, to to extrapolate similar

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Speaker 1: circumstances regarding state secrets and weapons systems, it's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of mind bockling right now. Greek fire is certainly much

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Speaker 1: smaller in applied scale than a large scale bomb like

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Speaker 1: an atomic weapon in the twentieth century, but it may

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Speaker 1: be no less terrifying in the way that it's represented

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Speaker 1: in legend. Oh yes, yeah, because we're talking about essentially

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Speaker 1: we'll get into the details here, and you already had

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Speaker 1: an example from the intro. We're talking about ships spewing

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Speaker 1: liquid fire like essentially spewing napalm onto enemy vessels, onto

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Speaker 1: the water itself, causing the water to burn and then

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Speaker 1: of course to burn ships, which are generally highly flammable

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Speaker 1: as well as the individuals aboard. You would, I would think,

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Speaker 1: certainly think twice about approaching one of these Byzantine vessels,

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Speaker 1: especially if it had a visible uh you know, animal

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Speaker 1: head on the front. But you can also think about

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Speaker 1: it from the from the individual sailor's perspective, like the

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Speaker 1: terror that would be inflicted on them, because if you

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Speaker 1: so you imagine a naval battle and you are approaching

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Speaker 1: a ship that is spewing fire, it is probably the

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Speaker 1: case that because you're a medieval sailor, you don't know

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Speaker 1: how to swim, and you might be far from shore,

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Speaker 1: and so you were facing two possible fates either burning

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Speaker 1: alive or jumping overboard and drowning. And even if you

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Speaker 1: could swim, the water is now on fire. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that's it's not like you have a great option either.

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Speaker 1: Now we know there have been all kinds of thermal

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Speaker 1: and incendiary weapons used throughout history. Fire plays a big

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Speaker 1: role in more fair going back to prehistoric times, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, just like burning and raising villages. Like a

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Speaker 1: common way of siege tactics before siege engines were invented

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Speaker 1: would be to just set fire to crops and villages

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Speaker 1: surrounding a besieged castle or fortification to essentially draw them out,

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Speaker 1: to say like we're going to torch everything you have

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Speaker 1: if you don't come out to fight us. What kind

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Speaker 1: of goes back to our episode on fire. Fire is

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Speaker 1: is the basic, you know, the basic aspect of human technology.

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Speaker 1: So as long as we've had it, we've used it

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Speaker 1: for to kill each other and to keep each other alive, right,

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Speaker 1: And so it's it's quite clear and quite easy to

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Speaker 1: see why it's a useful tool. And more also, it

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Speaker 1: has that kind of scary element because it's not just

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Speaker 1: a directed weapon like an arrow or a sword. It

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Speaker 1: has a life of its own. You release fire into

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Speaker 1: the wild and it can sort of carry on with

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Speaker 1: its own business without completely unaided by your continued efforts.

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Speaker 1: But I want to know when's the first time we

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Speaker 1: saw this specific version of incendiary weaponry use What when

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Speaker 1: does Greek Fire itself first come on the scene. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, Joe. It was the year six

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, and uh in Constantinople was in a kind

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Speaker 1: of a tight spot, right, And so going forward from

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Speaker 1: this point, I just want to acknowledge one of our

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Speaker 1: main sources. It is a really interesting paper back from

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Speaker 1: two in the journal Technology and Culture by Alex Rowland

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Speaker 1: called Secrecy, Technology and War, Greek Fire and the defensive

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Speaker 1: Byzantium six to twelve O four. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: our information going forward is going to be coming from here,

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Speaker 1: but we'll mention a few other sources also. So at

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Speaker 1: six Constantinople we're under siege. What's happening? Okay? So the

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Speaker 1: caliph Mawija has dispatched his fleet for the fifth consecutive time,

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Speaker 1: and he's taken the peninsula of sizy Couse and here

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Speaker 1: just south of the Byzantine capital, uh, the entire era

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Speaker 1: name forces here. They've converged with the army and they're

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Speaker 1: going to march on Constantinople and besiege it. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: we have the Arab forces moving in and Constantinople, how's

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Speaker 1: it going to defend itself? Well, I mean, luckily it

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Speaker 1: is a it is a very defensible city at the time,

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Speaker 1: and so they have a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff going for them. But that this is the thing

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Speaker 1: about being besieged, is that it is a long term affair.

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Speaker 1: Usually it's about a steady strangling of the city of

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Speaker 1: the nation. Even but being a coastal city, Constantinople has

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of its power and resources

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Speaker 1: in its ability to travel the seas, right, So if

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Speaker 1: you've got a fleet coming in to attack your ability

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Speaker 1: to travel the seas, that's no good, that's right. So

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Speaker 1: they luckily Constantinople had a strong navy and pretty much

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Speaker 1: had a strong Imperial navy at least isolated to Constantinople

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Speaker 1: for the you know, the duration of the empire. But

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Speaker 1: what they needed the was it was a particular weapon.

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Speaker 1: They needed something that would really give them a strong advantage,

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Speaker 1: an advantage the likes of which we we we we

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Speaker 1: heard in the intro to this episode, and that's where

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Speaker 1: a particular individual comes into play. Kalinkas. Yes, the stories

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Speaker 1: tell us that Kalinkas was a Syrian architect and engineer

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Speaker 1: from the town known at the time as Heliopolis of Syria,

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Speaker 1: and he arrived in Constantinople as a refugee after he

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Speaker 1: had been driven out of his homeland, so he'd recently

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Speaker 1: escaped the Arab conquest of Syria. He brought his military

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Speaker 1: ideas and inventions with him to the Byzantines and essentially

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Speaker 1: he showed up on their doorsteps and offered them the

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Speaker 1: science of napalm. Really, what is with what it breaks

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Speaker 1: down to, how do you imagine that scene breaking down,

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Speaker 1: like he knocks on the city walls and says, I

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Speaker 1: have a flamethrower. Yeah, I mean, I guess you had.

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Speaker 1: He had to make a case for it, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: I've got some ideas. They're they're really explosive, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: love them. Or maybe there was a post saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: we have an opening for a you know, a weapons engineer,

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Speaker 1: a chemical engineer to help us with our weapons systems

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Speaker 1: for this upcoming siege. What does a medieval weapons pitch

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Speaker 1: meeting look like. I don't know, but I'm I guess

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Speaker 1: it's you know, it's like an audience with the king

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Speaker 1: or or dignitaries, and then you know he's probably showing

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Speaker 1: them some plans or something. Right, however he ended up

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Speaker 1: pitching it, it was accepted. In fact, it was even

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Speaker 1: referred to as clinicals fire, as well as Roman fire,

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Speaker 1: marine fire, liquid fire, artificial fire, and of course Greek fire.

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Speaker 1: Now it probably wasn't referred to as Greek fire at

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Speaker 1: the time by the Byzantines because they didn't even think

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Speaker 1: of themselves as Greeks. I think that name that Appellachian

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Speaker 1: came later from Western Europeans. Right, like Crusaders would encounter

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Speaker 1: this or something like it, and because they were going

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Speaker 1: east when they saw it, they referred to it as

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Speaker 1: Greek fire, right, and then the name that name, in

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Speaker 1: particular Greek fire, ends up being applied. I do various

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Speaker 1: things that might not have been the same Greek fire

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Speaker 1: weapons system, or might have been just something just you know,

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Speaker 1: remotely similar, like maybe you just involved flaming oils of

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Speaker 1: some sort. Yeah, I've got to comment on that actually. So,

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Speaker 1: according to Kelly Dvrees and Robert Douglas Smith in their

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Speaker 1: book Medieval Military Technology from University of Toronto Press in

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Speaker 1: basically there were many different types of weapons referred to

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Speaker 1: as Greek fire and the extant literature throughout the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: so there were they separated into three main categories. You've

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Speaker 1: got liquid fire pumped out through a nozzle, and then

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Speaker 1: a liquid incendiary weapon that's hurled in small ceramic grenades.

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Speaker 1: And then you've got later solid incendiaries that used explosive

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Speaker 1: so that'd be something more like gunpowder. For the purposes

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Speaker 1: of today's discussion, we're focusing primarily on that original Byzantine

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Speaker 1: marine fire, which is what Anna Komnina was describing it's

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Speaker 1: a liquid jet of flame that vomited out of a

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Speaker 1: nozzle on the ends of ships. And for for the

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Speaker 1: purposes of simplicity, we could also call it Kalina costs fire,

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Speaker 1: because that specifies that it's what was used in the

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Speaker 1: eighth century by the Byzantines in their ships, these flamethrowers

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Speaker 1: coming out the prow of the of the Byzantine warships. Now,

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Speaker 1: in the case of this initial rollout of Greek fire,

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Speaker 1: uh it turned. It was able to help turn the tide.

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Speaker 1: According to the accounts, they are able to drive back

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Speaker 1: the invaders and the remnants of the air of fleet

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Speaker 1: were then subsequently lost in a mighty storm. And when

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Speaker 1: the forces again attempted the investiture of Constantinople and seven seventeen,

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Speaker 1: the Byzantines again used the Greek fire, and this time

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Speaker 1: they apparently had a an improved formula, and the invaders

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Speaker 1: were driven off once again. And and this is a

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Speaker 1: kind of a key historic moment, by the way, some

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Speaker 1: historians rank it only under Charles Martel's victories over Islamic

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Speaker 1: invaders in southern France during the seven thirties is a

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Speaker 1: key stop point for Muslim expansion into Europe. So it's

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Speaker 1: some one of those moments in time where it's hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine a timeline forking off in an alternate direction. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I always love those things in history, like those key

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Speaker 1: moments where I've never heard of like an alternate history

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Speaker 1: that explores what would have happened if things had gone

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Speaker 1: the other way. But I want to read that book.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's out there, yeah, yeah, and maybe maybe HBO

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Speaker 1: will adapt it. It It sounds equally problematic to to have

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Speaker 1: like a modern series showing what a you know, what

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Speaker 1: a predominantly Islamic at least, you know, at least Eastern

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Speaker 1: Europe would have looked like you know, it's just it's

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Speaker 1: fascinating to try and try and picture how that would

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Speaker 1: have come together in an alternate timeline. But we should

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Speaker 1: focus on the technology itself, because that's the core of today.

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Speaker 1: What was Greek fire? Yeah, I mean, as you might

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Speaker 1: imagine with a wonder when weapons such as this, it

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Speaker 1: was a matter of state secret, and it's a secret

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Speaker 1: that seemingly died with the death of the Byzantine Empire

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Speaker 1: in the four or maybe much earlier. We'll get to

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Speaker 1: uh and to this day, chemists and historians. They continue

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Speaker 1: to devise possible recipes for it, and thoughts not only

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Speaker 1: on the the just the the liquid itself, but also

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Speaker 1: the weapons system and involved here what what what were

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Speaker 1: they cooking up? How are they dishing it out? And

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Speaker 1: to what degree was anyone ever able to replicate it?

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Speaker 1: Fascinating questions we will explore in depth when we come

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Speaker 1: back from this break. Thank thank alright, we're back now, Robert.

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Speaker 1: We're onto the Greek fire itself, the chemistry of the

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Speaker 1: liquid substance, the liquid flame, and the delivery system for it.

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Speaker 1: So what do modern scholars think about Greek fire and

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Speaker 1: and what do we know about Greek fire from these

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Speaker 1: medieval descriptions that we can use to try to figure

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Speaker 1: out how it worked. Yes, let's get into the main

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Speaker 1: properties of Greek fire. Though before we do that, I

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Speaker 1: do want to point out one point that Rowland makes

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Speaker 1: in his his paper, and that's the historian Theophanes wrote

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Speaker 1: that the Bysantine, the Bysantine emperor, already had a fire

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Speaker 1: ship program in the works two years before the arrival

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Speaker 1: of Kalin cost So it remains a mystery exactly what

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Speaker 1: the nature of the prior system weapons system was and

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Speaker 1: how he improved upon it with presumably with his formula. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is one interpretation I've read that some modern historians

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Speaker 1: look at this and say, okay, Kalina Coss if you

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Speaker 1: assume he was a real person and he did show

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Speaker 1: up to help with the Greek fire system, that what

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Speaker 1: he actually did was not invent Greek fire or bring

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Speaker 1: them Greek fire, but that he improved upon their recipe.

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Speaker 1: That they already had some kind of chemical incendiary weapon

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Speaker 1: that could be lit and and tossed out over enemies,

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Speaker 1: but that he made it much more powerful. And what

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Speaker 1: are the key characteristics that are often reported about this

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Speaker 1: powerful version of Greek fire or Kalina Coast fire. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so they're they're basic four of these properties. First of all,

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Speaker 1: we've already alluded to this. It burns in water. Some

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Speaker 1: say it some say it was ignited by water, but

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Speaker 1: this is almost certainly a myth. It's also said that

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Speaker 1: only vinegar, sand or urine could extinguish it. Now in

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Speaker 1: the next key characteristic, it was a liquid. It was

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Speaker 1: something that was vomited forth from one of these animal

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Speaker 1: heads or a siphon number three at sea, it was

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Speaker 1: shot from tubes, or siphons and very rarely used on land. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so it mainly came out of the prow of a ship, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this and it's something that would be you know, squirted

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Speaker 1: or blasted out of um an aperture. And then finally,

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Speaker 1: and this is this one is really interesting and will

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Speaker 1: come into some of the theories that we're going to discuss.

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Speaker 1: There was smoke and a booming sound as it vomited

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Speaker 1: forth from the tube. And this is about as detailed

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Speaker 1: as our understanding of the properties get Like, most of

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Speaker 1: the theories that we're looking at are going to be

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Speaker 1: speculating based on these characteristics. Now, all but the use

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Speaker 1: of tubes, you can find in prior incendiary weapons used

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Speaker 1: by other people, such as various historical accounts of just

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Speaker 1: flaming oils being used. Fireworks existed in the region as

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Speaker 1: early as the fourth century, and those could have created

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Speaker 1: smoke and noise. But still there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: questions regarding you know what, what exactly is going on here. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's chase those questions, man, all right, let's do it. Okay, So,

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Speaker 1: what are some potential ingredients that have been hypothesized by

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Speaker 1: modern scholars that would have been constituents of the Greek

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Speaker 1: fire recipe. We know that it was probably more than

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Speaker 1: just one thing. Right now, one thing that has been

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Speaker 1: suggested by modern scholars is the idea of quicklime. Quicklime

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Speaker 1: is the common name for calcium oxide or C A O,

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Speaker 1: and this is something that can be produced from lime

401
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Speaker 1: bearing things found in nature, such as seashells or in limestone.

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Speaker 1: You can do like a heat reduction of these things

403
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Speaker 1: to produce quicklime. So it is something that was known

404
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Speaker 1: to the ancient world. Now, the supporting evidence for the

405
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Speaker 1: idea that quicklime was involved in the Greek fire recipe

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Speaker 1: was that, of course the production of calcium oxide was

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Speaker 1: technologically feasible at the time it could have been done.

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Speaker 1: In fact, people have been making quicklime for a long time,

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Speaker 1: and it had even been used as a chemical weapon

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Speaker 1: by the Romans hundreds of years before. But if you

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Speaker 1: believe the part of the story that says Greek fire

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Speaker 1: ignited on contact with water, quicklime could help you get

413
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Speaker 1: there because calcium oxide produces a strong exothermic reaction on

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Speaker 1: contact with water, meaning when you get it wet, it

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Speaker 1: releases heat, and you can see videos of this. They're

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Speaker 1: they're like demonstration videos on YouTube where someone will get

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Speaker 1: a container of quicklime and they'll just pour some water

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Speaker 1: on it and immediately start smoking and getting hot. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: they'll even melt the container that it's sitting in. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's not flames my to do, so that's part of

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Speaker 1: the counter evidence. Of course, quicklime itself doesn't produce fire,

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Speaker 1: but a heat producing chemical reaction, so the quicklime couldn't

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Speaker 1: be the only ingredient. Also some counter evidence is that

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Speaker 1: Roland points out the Greek fire was reported to have

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Speaker 1: burned on the decks of ships, not just in the water,

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Speaker 1: and if quicklime was the ignition catalyst, it would need

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Speaker 1: to be heated by coming into contact with water, so

428
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 1: that might weigh against the quick quicklime idea. But perhaps

429
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:33,199
Speaker 1: you could imagine a recipe in which quicklime is combined

430
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: with another fuel or mixture of fuels, and when the

431
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 1: Greek fire preparation comes into contact with water, the water

432
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: reacts with the quicklime triggers the exothermic reaction, so it

433
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: suddenly heats it up, which increases the temperature of the

434
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 1: mixture past the ignition point of the fuel, causing it

435
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: to catch fire. See this, This makes a certain amount

436
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 1: of sense because it you're you're envisioning something that's not

437
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: a primitive lengthrower so much as a chemical concoction. It's

438
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: going to spray safely or semi safely away from the warship,

439
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: and then it's going to hit the water near the

440
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: enemy ship and they're ignite. Right. But as we've said,

441
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 1: there are some complications. They're One of the things is

442
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: just that a lot of modern scholars think that the

443
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: burns on contact with water part is a myth. I

444
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 1: think there's more credence given to the idea that it

445
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: could land on top of the water and continue burning

446
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: while it's wet like, while it's in the water, But

447
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 1: the idea that it would only ignite when it was

448
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 1: touched by water, I think fewer people except that part

449
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: of the story. Also, as Roland points out, and as

450
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: I said a minute ago, it lands on the deck

451
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: of the ship and the ship's burning. So in order

452
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 1: for that to work, if it's triggered by quicklime, if

453
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: that's what's raising the temperature of the mixture to the

454
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: ignition point of the fuel, that probably wouldn't happen on

455
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: the deck of a ship unless the deck of the

456
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: ship is always wet, which maybe it is, I don't know,

457
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: and not get too far ahead of us. But then

458
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: that also makes me remember that there's there's some allusions

459
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: to the idea that one could defend against Greek fire

460
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: by having like soaked items like soaked tarps and whatnot

461
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,400
Speaker 1: on your ship. So that would that would not seem

462
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: to work if this was indeed the quick line, right,

463
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: and that would make the quicklime based version a really

464
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: devilish weapon. Like you thought you could put it out

465
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: with water, or you thought you could put up some

466
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: damp rags to help protect yourself, but in fact, that

467
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: would just make it even hotter, I mean, and really

468
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: one of the key aspects of the weapon, uh that's

469
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: actually mentioned in the opening narration here today is that

470
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 1: it made fire behave in a way that that people

471
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: were not expecting. Be it you know, fire that's coming

472
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: at you laterally or if this is actually a you know,

473
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: a true interpretation, then uh, you know fire that is

474
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: springing up from the water without a visible spark. Yeah,

475
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: it's scary to imagine. All right, Well, okay, that's quicklime.

476
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: What's what's our next potential candidate here? Okay? Roland also

477
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: mentions that some scholars have debated the inclusion of calcium

478
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: phosphied in the in the Greek fire mixture. So, calcium

479
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: phosphide is a chemical compound is C A three P

480
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: two and it's a salt stable in the form of

481
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: a crystal powder, commonly used as an ingredient in rat poison.

482
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: So how does it kill rats? Well, when calcium phosphide

483
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: comes into contact with water or acids, it reacts to

484
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: release phosphine gas pH three. Now we've talked about phosphine

485
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: gas before we mentioned it. I think phosphine gas was

486
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,959
Speaker 1: one of the proposed solutions to the question of what's

487
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: causing will of the whist phenomenon. Yeah, So one of

488
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: the reasons is that phosphine gas is highly toxic, highly flammable,

489
00:27:55,040 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: and that it can spontaneously form explosive and ignite eating

490
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: mixtures with the air. So when exposed to the air,

491
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: it can just sometimes start up a flame on its own.

492
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: You don't even need to ignite it. Now back to

493
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: the rat poison. What happens when the rat eats it?

494
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 1: Will the rat eats the calcium phosphide or any other

495
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: metal phosphides, other metal phosphides are sometimes used as rat poison,

496
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: and then the act of digesting the chemical releases the

497
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: killer phosphine gas inside the rodent's body. Calcium phosphide has

498
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: also been used for ignition properties in things like maritime flares. Uh,

499
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: so what are the what's the supporting evidence that this

500
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: could have been an ingredient. Well, it reacts with water

501
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: to produce heat, kind of like quicklime. Right, So a

502
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: byproduct of the reaction is phosphine gas, which is highly

503
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: flammable potential fuel, and this could explain stories of Greek

504
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: fire being ignited by water or burning on water, and

505
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: phosphine gas can spontaneously form explosive mixtures like I just mentioned.

506
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: So this could be really nasty, horrible stuff to be

507
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: shooting out at a ship in an naval battle. You'd

508
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: be not only shooting out stuff that can spontaneously ignite

509
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 1: and react with water in a way that ignites, but

510
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: also it would be producing poison gas. All right, Well,

511
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: that that sounds like a terrifying weapon. Uh. What's the

512
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: counter evidence? Well, basically it's that people have tried this

513
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: in experiments and it doesn't seem to match the way

514
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 1: it's described Roland points out in his paper that twentieth

515
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: century experiments with preparations containing calcium phosphied didn't exactly match

516
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: what was being described in the ancient sources. So a

517
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: lot of modern scholars think it's kind of unlikely that

518
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: this was one of the ingredients. All Right, So we've

519
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: talked about quickliine, we've talked about calcium phosphied. What's our

520
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,959
Speaker 1: next candidate, how about saltpeter. This is one of the

521
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: big debates in the history of kim is this is

522
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 1: this is this the area of ultimate controversy in the

523
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: twentieth century what was in Greek fire? But there have

524
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: been debates, actually, and one of the big debates, and

525
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: this is a apparently was their salt peter in it

526
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: or not? And there are pro saltpeter scholars and anti

527
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: saltpeter scholars, And it looks to me like in recent

528
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 1: decades the anti saltpeter camp has sort of one out. Well.

529
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: One of the key reasons here, of course, is that

530
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: if saltpeter was used in Greek fire, this would make

531
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: Greek fire arguably the first gunpowder weapon, beating the ninth

532
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: century Chinese discovery of its property. So there's a really

533
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, cultural pride, uh swept up

534
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: in this. Who was the first? Who are the first

535
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: people to figure out how to kill people with saltpeter? First, Well,

536
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: let's explore the saltpeter and see if we can puncture

537
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: that pride. Now, saltpeter is the name for actually a

538
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: group of nitrogen based compounds, primarily potassium nitrate or k

539
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: n O three. Now, potassium nitrate is again assault that

540
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: has many different uses in all kinds of technological fields.

541
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 1: It's in food preparation. It used to be used all

542
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,479
Speaker 1: the time as a preservative and cured meats. You can

543
00:30:57,520 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: still sometimes see it used in food, but it's a

544
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: little common these days. It's also been used for various

545
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: medical purposes, including both to suppress and enhance the libido.

546
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that it would actually do either one

547
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: of those. I haven't seen any evidence, but you know,

548
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: people thought a lot of things, did a lot of things.

549
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: How I can imagine is somebody like leaving a trail

550
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: of gunpowder to their libido and then like setting it off.

551
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: But it also saltpeter was also the primary ingredient in

552
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: black powder, which was the original gunpowder. Now we have

553
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: to specify black powder original gunpowder because modern bullet cartridges

554
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: tend to use a different ignition material. But the original

555
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: gunpowder it manages to shoot bullets out of guns because

556
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: when you set it on fire, it burns very rapidly

557
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: and creates lots of rapidly expanding gases, which, as they expand,

558
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:54,479
Speaker 1: push the projectile out the barrel of the gun very fast.

559
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: So the traditional mixture for black powder was saltpeter fort

560
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: in percent charcoal and eleven sulfur. Here's something you might

561
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: have wondered before. If the gunpowder is packed down under

562
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: a musket ball, or it's inside an enclosed rifle cartridge,

563
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: how does it burn? I mean, don't fires need to

564
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: be exposed to oxygen in order to burn. And that's

565
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: where the saltpeter comes in. That's that's the role of

566
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: the K and O three. The charcoal and the sulfur

567
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: in the gunpowder are the fuel that burns, and the

568
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: saltpeter is an oxidizer, providing the oxygen atoms that allow

569
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: the ignition reaction to happen without the gunpowder being exposed

570
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: to open air. Now, this argument for Saltpeter's inclusion in

571
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: the Greek fire formula. This was argued by French chemist

572
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: Pierre Eugene Marcelline or p. E. M. Bertolo, who lived

573
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: seven to seven. Now, Bertolo was a really interesting guy,

574
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry to take us on a tangent, but

575
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: I'd hate it if I didn't point out this interesting

576
00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: idea on the technological terror and war from Bertolos perspe active.

577
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: We covered him in an episode of tech Stuff that

578
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: I guest hosted with Jonathan Strickland. Tech Stuff if you

579
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: don't listen as another podcast here in the House, Stuff

580
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: Works Family hosted by Jonathan Strickland, and it was an

581
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: episode I went on there to do with him that

582
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do for a while about five

583
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: ways people predicted that technology could end all wars spoiler alert.

584
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: None of them worked. But Bertolow was one of these guys,

585
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 1: and the short story on how he predicted it was

586
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: that Bertolow predicted that by the year two thousand, engineers

587
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: would create synthetic materials indistinguishable from organic matter, and this

588
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: would be things like meats, vegetables, alcohol, tobacco, and he

589
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: basically saw the whole world as this big solvable chemistry problem.

590
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: This is wonderful because it actually ties in with, of course,

591
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: the Star Trek utopian vision, where up to a machine

592
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: and you, you know, type in steak and you get

593
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: your steak. Yeah, exactly. So he saw this sort of

594
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: world of chemical abundance, a post scarcity world. And he

595
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: also imagined that we could make food so nutritious and

596
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: pure that it would alter our moral nature. In other words, like,

597
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: through the power of chemical engineering, we would make ourselves

598
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:14,479
Speaker 1: better people. And I just want to do a quick

599
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 1: quote from an interview of his from McClure's magazine published

600
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: in eight uh and Bertolo says, in this interview, man

601
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: should grow in sweetness and nobility because he will have

602
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: done with war, with existence based upon the slaughter of beasts. Perhaps,

603
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 1: and this is only a dream. Remember, synthetic chemistry, or

604
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: something we might call spiritual chemistry, will develop means to

605
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: as profoundly alter men's moral nature as material chemistry will

606
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: change the conditions of his environment. I love that. Now,

607
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 1: that's kind of funny. In the context of exploring the

608
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: ancient chemical problem of how to make a mixture that

609
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: best burns people in their ships. Well, but I mean

610
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: we come back down to the nature of technology again, right, fire,

611
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 1: as soon as we learned how to master it, we

612
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: used to keep ourselves warm and to cook food, but

613
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: also to to terrorize each other. And in chemistry, I

614
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: mean you look at especially in the advances made by

615
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: German chemists. Uh, you know, at the you know, the

616
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: dawn of the twentieth century. Um. You see, um, you

617
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: see the sort of the butting heads of the chemistry

618
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 1: of life and the chemistry of death. You know, we're

619
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: learning how to manipulate chemical properties to better crow crops,

620
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,919
Speaker 1: where we're figuring out how to treat illnesses. So we're

621
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: accidentally inventing M D M A uh. And at the

622
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,720
Speaker 1: same time we're creating horrific chemical weapons to utilize against

623
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: each other. Totally, and so it's clear that Bertolo had

624
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: his mind on not just chemistry at the you know,

625
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: molecule level, but chemistry at the societal level. What chemistry

626
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: meant for humankind. And so one of the things he

627
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: was thinking about was chemistry and war. And so he

628
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: turned his mind to this problem of what was in

629
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: Greek fire, and he argued, yes, salt peter was an

630
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:08,359
Speaker 1: ingredient supporting evidence for Saltpeter would be. One thing is

631
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: that in the descriptions, the Greek fire shoots out of

632
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: the nozzles on the front of the ships as if explosively, right, Yes,

633
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: and there was also reportedly a boom and a smoke,

634
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 1: great smoking effect, So you know, others would argue whether

635
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: some sort of a hydraulic system that's responsible for this,

636
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: But you could also imagine, I mean, we were told

637
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: there was a booming, noise, we're told there was smoke,

638
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: so it it leads you to believe that there's some

639
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: sort of explosive reaction taking place here. Yes, But on

640
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: the other hand, what what's the counter evidence that says no, no,

641
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 1: no Saltpeter in the Greek fire. Well, one of the

642
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: things would be, as you alluded to, you know, you

643
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 1: might have been able to produce that that lateral trajectory

644
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: if you just had highly pressurized liquids. So if maybe

645
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: the ships were constructed in such a way that they

646
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: were able to build up the pressure in the storage

647
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: tanks and have valves that would suddenly allow it to

648
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: shoot out, you could get a lot of pressure coming

649
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: out of even medieval tubes. Another piece of counter evidence.

650
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: Where would the salt peter come from? I think the

651
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: thinking on this now is that it's not impossible that

652
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: these people could have used saltpeter, but there's no direct

653
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: evidence that they had it. Also, the British chemist and

654
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 1: historian J. R. Partington, who lived from eighteen eighty six

655
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: to nineteen sixty five, argued against the theory that saltpeter

656
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 1: was part of Greek fire. And Partington argued in a

657
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: book called A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder in

658
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty the Greek fire was made from distilled and

659
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 1: natural petroleum. Will get there in just a second, uh,

660
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: For that would would have been found on the beds

661
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: of the northern shores of the Black Sea. And that

662
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: what it was done was what we were just describing.

663
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 1: It's pumped at high pressure over a flame like a

664
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: modern flamethrower. Now he suggests that a primary ingredient is

665
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: this distilled natural petroleum. And this is a common consensus,

666
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: I would say, of scholars should look at Greek fire today.

667
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: So what's this stuff? All? Right? So there's there's a

668
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: word that is used for this stuff, but I understand it.

669
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: It's also one of these problematic terms that is kind

670
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 1: of broadly applied, right, and that is naptha. Right. So

671
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: it appears that various flammable liquids throughout the ages have

672
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 1: been called naptha at different times and places. But in

673
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: this case we're probably talking about crude oil in some form,

674
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 1: some filtered form, right, That's right. One of the books

675
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: that I was looking after this is The Fall of

676
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: Constantinople by Nicole Haldon and Turnbull uh and the authors.

677
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: They write that Greek fire was likely distilled petroleum, perhaps

678
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: with a resin added like some sort of a tree

679
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:48,439
Speaker 1: sat like a pine resin pine resin, and this would

680
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: have been adding to thicketed, thicken it up and prolong

681
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: it's burning on the surface of the water. Now the

682
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: author Halden the middle and there is John Holden of

683
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: Princeton University, and he's written, uh, some solo papers as

684
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: well on Greek fire, you know. He he suspects that, yeah,

685
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: that it was petroleum based liquid modified to increase its potency.

686
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,839
Speaker 1: He thinks that there key ingredients were highly flammable light

687
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: crude oil. Uh. This would be the naphtha and that

688
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 1: pine resin, which not only would have made it to

689
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: burn more on the surface of the water, but it

690
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 1: would have been sticky. It would have made the mixture

691
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: burned hotter and longer. In general, I've actually read that

692
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: one of the names, one of the contemporaneous names for

693
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: Greek fire was sticky fire God. You know that gets

694
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: That reminds me a lot of the accounts of the

695
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 1: use of actual flamethrowers. I think I've gone on this

696
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: this tirade before on the podcast, but I feel like

697
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: we we watch aliens, we watch the thing, We watch

698
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: shows with flamethrowers in them, and yeah, those look pretty

699
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: terrifying on their own, but we don't really have of

700
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: a true picture of the horrifying nature of say a

701
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: World War two air of flamethrower. We're shooting this jelly

702
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: to flaming death on people, right, I mean, we see

703
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: it used most off and these days, I think in

704
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 1: science fiction where it's used against like aliens and monsters.

705
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: I mean, you got to realize that a flamethrower is

706
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 1: a horrifying terror weapon. Yeah, that it is definitely a

707
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: terror weapon. It is. Uh So if you want, if

708
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 1: you want more on that, just look into any accounts,

709
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 1: any testimony of its usage, say in the Pacific theater

710
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: in World War two, and you will you will be

711
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: totally sickened. It's a it's a devastating weapon. Alright. So

712
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 1: we've discussed quicklime, We've discussed calcium phosphied, We've discussed salt peter,

713
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,359
Speaker 1: We've discussed naptha, we've discussed pine resin. All of these

714
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: have been hypothesized at various times in places as ingredients

715
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:41,919
Speaker 1: in Greek fire. Is that it? Or is there any

716
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: other hypothesized ingredients? Well, I also ran across bit human. Well,

717
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: so this was the world's first petroleum product. It's a sticky, black,

718
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: viscous substance and you we probably know it better as asphalt,

719
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: but it was highly prized in the ancient world, and

720
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 1: it was for the longest it was primarily a Mesopotamian monopoly.

721
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: The stuff substance saw use in various endeavors, boat cocking, art, cosmetics,

722
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: and physicians in the region eventually used it to treat

723
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: a number of ailments and these would have Eventually, these

724
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: forms of treatment would eventually spread to Europe. And uh

725
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: I was reading about this, this one in particular, as

726
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: a candidate for Greek fire in the journal of maths suspectrometry,

727
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: and this was a study of a particular ancient vass

728
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:34,280
Speaker 1: from fifth century BC containing a sample of bitumen. Uh.

729
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: By the way, ancient Egyptians used this as a preservative

730
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: for their mummies. And the word mummy even comes from

731
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 1: the Persian word for for wax mumia, which was used

732
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 1: to describe but human. Okay, so we've got all these

733
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: hypothesized ingredients. So in what way is it most likely

734
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: they came together? Well, we already mentioned that Roland has

735
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: something to say about that. He concludes in agreement with

736
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: the scholar he names uh a chr. Ellis Davidson, that

737
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: naptha was almost definitely the primary fuel, that pine resin

738
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: was possibly used as a thickener, that quicklime may have

739
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: been added to help it burn in or on water,

740
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: but this is not viewed as necessary, and that saltpeter

741
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: may have been added to give it explosive properties, but

742
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: this is also not viewed as necessary. I found another

743
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:26,359
Speaker 1: paper on this. It was in the Biotechnology Journal from

744
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: the year two thousand and six by procop at All

745
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: called Enzymes Fight Chemical Weapons, and the authors here say

746
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,879
Speaker 1: that they think the Greek fire was probably a combination

747
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: of resin sulfur, naptha, quicklime, and saltpeter. And of course

748
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 1: we have to remember that even in even in these

749
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:48,800
Speaker 1: earlier accounts, UH supposedly the the the Greek fire itself,

750
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 1: the formula for it improved between the first and the

751
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: second major usage. So it's possible that Kalina costs improved

752
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: upon the formula, that it was tweaked by others. And

753
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: and as will explore in the After a Break here,

754
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: there's also the nature of the secret here. What happens

755
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: when you keep a secret so well that that it

756
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,760
Speaker 1: never leaks outside of your kingdom, it doesn't survive your empire.

757
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 1: What does it say about the nature of the secret,

758
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: how you kept it, and how that might backfire on

759
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:27,759
Speaker 1: you when you need to retrieve that secret later. And

760
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 1: we're back, all right, Robert. Let's say that I have

761
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: captured the recipe for Greek fire. I'm I'm an opposing

762
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: general of some other army, and I know exactly what

763
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:44,320
Speaker 1: chemicals to mix in what proportions to make Greek fire?

764
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: Am I now as powerful as the Byzantine fire fleet? No?

765
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: You're not. And because this is interesting, you can you

766
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: can if you have a perfect mixture, the identical mixture.

767
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: Let's say I have a bucket of it. Yeah, you

768
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 1: have a bucket of it. Great, what are you gonna

769
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 1: do with that bucket? Uh? Do you have a ship?

770
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: I'm gonna maybe like throw it really hard? No system?

771
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: Do you have any of the end you have the

772
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,879
Speaker 1: skill to use it? Right? So from from the descriptions

773
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: we know of ancient history, it's not just the recipe

774
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: of the of the Greek fire that really matters. And

775
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: how it's deployed as a weapon in battle, that's right,

776
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 1: I mean one can have cannot help but be reminded

777
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: of all the various news reports going on now about

778
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 1: North Korea and its nuclear weapons program. We see the

779
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: various steps in the thresholds that are being discussed. Right, Like,

780
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: it's it's one thing to be able to produce a

781
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: an atomic bomb, but then can you can you miniaturize

782
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: it right and fitted into a warhead? Are you capable

783
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: of creating uh an interconcontinental ballistic missile that can that

784
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: can exit the atmosphere, re enter and hit the target.

785
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 1: There they're additional um systems that have to be in

786
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:00,040
Speaker 1: place to fully utilize that weapon. And their skills. It

787
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: have to be in place to be able to use

788
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,720
Speaker 1: it effectively against your enemy. Yeah, when you think about

789
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: developments and weapons technology, and I do want to be clear,

790
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: we're not trying to glorify weapons technology today or say like,

791
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: look how beautiful it is all the destruction we can do.

792
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 1: But as one important aspect of the development of science

793
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:19,879
Speaker 1: and technology, I think it's worth exploring. As you look

794
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: at how weapons have developed in the last century or so,

795
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,240
Speaker 1: a lot of what has happened, with the exception of

796
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 1: of course nuclear weapons and things like that, has not

797
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:32,240
Speaker 1: been so much changes in what you can blow up

798
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: on like the incendiary or the chemical compounds there, but

799
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 1: it's been in the delivery systems, right and uh. For instance,

800
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: the historians Holden and Burn have argued that that, yeah,

801
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: this was going with what we've said, we definitely had

802
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 1: a liquid uh substance here uh and uh, and it

803
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 1: was more of a scientific victory of preheating and pressurizing

804
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:55,399
Speaker 1: the liquid below deck, they argued. So this would mean

805
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: that the delivery system is as important, or if not

806
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: more important then and the true Greek fire and you know,

807
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 1: the formula for the stuff, so you know it's not

808
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: just the Kalina costs fire. It's the Kalina cost weapon, right,

809
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: the whole I mean, the weapon system and also like

810
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: the tree. It's kind of like a fighter jet. Right.

811
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: You can have the fighter jet, you can have like

812
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: an F fourteen Tomcat, but you gotta have somebody to

813
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: that's also capable of piloting that thing as well. So

814
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: you have you have essentially you have the ammunition, you

815
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 1: have the system, and then you have the skills required

816
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: to use it in battle. Now, of course, Uh, this

817
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,919
Speaker 1: this weapon system as a technology. Uh, it was again

818
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,800
Speaker 1: a state secret and this is this is actually Roland's

819
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 1: key area of focus in his article the Keeping of

820
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: This Secret and and what does it? What does it

821
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: do for your technology when the technology itself is secret? Yeah.

822
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: Roland explains this via framework originally articulated by a guy

823
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: named Derek to sell a price in the nineteen seventies,

824
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: where he he sets up science and technology as opposed

825
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: in one very key UH aspect, which is that he

826
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 1: calls science quote paperophilix, meaning enjoying publishing or enjoying paper,

827
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: whereas UH technology is largely paperophobic, meaning it wants to

828
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: stay secret. It doesn't want to be widely published and disseminated.

829
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: Science is about sharing knowledge with all of humanity. Technology

830
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: is about using science to your advantage. And for examples

831
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: of that, we can think too patents. You know, you

832
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 1: have a patent on your technology because no one you

833
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:34,799
Speaker 1: don't want anyone else, even if they figure out how

834
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 1: to do it, you don't want them to make money

835
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 1: off of it, or the or you want to go

836
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:43,280
Speaker 1: more historical, you can look to various guilds, trade guilds,

837
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: trade secrets, and then state secrets as well, and we

838
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:49,399
Speaker 1: continue to see this play out today with everything from

839
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: computing technology to nuclear weapons. Now, Roland points out that

840
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: you know, even mythical weapons of great might were typically

841
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: secretive in nature and then it and that in the

842
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,760
Speaker 1: real world, everyone from da Vinci to Samuel Colt took

843
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: steps to safeguard the details of their inventions, in which

844
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:11,720
Speaker 1: you know, in Colts case, were certainly weapons and in

845
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,839
Speaker 1: in da Vinci's case were sometimes weapons depending on what

846
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:18,359
Speaker 1: he was concocting. But he also does acknowledge that there's

847
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: a countervailing viewpoint, for example, from the researcher Pamela long

848
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: Right that says that Okay, so, yes, Greek fire was

849
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: a great state secret. But actually it's kind of an

850
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: anomaly in that right, because a lot of other weapons

851
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:36,879
Speaker 1: technology did become widely disseminated public knowledge, that Greek fire

852
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,319
Speaker 1: is kind of an outlier for the Middle Ages. Yeah,

853
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 1: this this one, and that's one of the reasons it's

854
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: so intriguing. This one example of a weapon system that

855
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: was that was wrapped up in secrecy. But in what

856
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: way this keeping a technology secret also undercut your ability

857
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: to use it? Yes, this is this is where it

858
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: gets even more interesting. So for the for the for

859
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: the Formula LA, according to Rowland, they simply made and

860
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: bottled the stuff and sealed up jars. Okay, yeah, I

861
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 1: think he calls this the Coca Cola method. You just

862
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:11,399
Speaker 1: make it at the central factory. You've got your your

863
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: central arsenal, and that's where you mix up all the

864
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 1: stuff and you jar it up and you send it

865
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: out and you don't let anybody else see what you're doing, right,

866
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 1: And you're only darring it up a centralized location, for instance,

867
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 1: in or around Constantinople. It's not coming in from a

868
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: you know, another province or anything. What are the eleven

869
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:30,879
Speaker 1: herbs and spices. I mean they arrive pre bagged. There's

870
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: no way to know. But but of course there's more

871
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:35,879
Speaker 1: at play here than just that nere liquid. As we've

872
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 1: we've related, so the technology entails matter, power, a tool

873
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:46,240
Speaker 1: or machine, and technique. So power plus matter via machine

874
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:50,399
Speaker 1: and a human operative utilizing the technique that will give

875
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: you the fire itself the basic equation of technology. Right,

876
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 1: So the formula here, the formula itself was the matter,

877
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: the power was the fire, the spark, the machine and

878
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: technique or largely a mystery, but you know, a lot

879
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 1: of the theories boiled down to you know, a system

880
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 1: of tubes and a like a heating under underneath the

881
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: deck of the ship, right, like a pressurized cauldron that

882
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: would be heating the oil or the nap the ahead

883
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 1: of time and keeping it under high pressure. And then

884
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 1: a valve that you could turn to suddenly release a

885
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 1: jet of it which would spray over a flame. And the

886
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: the author points out that all the information needed to

887
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:33,400
Speaker 1: design such a pressurized weapon system, this would not have

888
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: been a godsend. You don't have to imagine uh klinkos

889
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: as as an alien visiting the human civilization and giving

890
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 1: them flame covers. No, in fact, this is highly uh.

891
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 1: It's something you can definitely imagine that people would have

892
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: come up with just based on Roman learning, And this

893
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: is something that we we should emphasize about the state

894
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 1: of technology and what we often refer to as the

895
00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, what sometimes called the Dark Ages. Now, there

896
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: has been a lot of a lot of historical thought

897
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century that, you know, like Enlightenment historians

898
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: who looked back on the Medieval period and called it

899
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: all the Dark Ages, they really were sort of underestimating

900
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: the intellectual flourishing that went on in some places in

901
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages in Europe. But at the same time,

902
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,399
Speaker 1: after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire throughout much

903
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 1: of Europe, there was kind of a period in which

904
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: much knowledge was lost and forgotten and fewer historical records

905
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 1: were produced. So for for some time, for some centuries

906
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,280
Speaker 1: in the later millennium, the later half of the first

907
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:40,800
Speaker 1: millennium CE, you could sort of say that there was

908
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: a technological dark Age. There was less progress for a

909
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: while than there had been in the Roman period, and

910
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 1: a lot of what we used to know how to

911
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,400
Speaker 1: do was forgotten. So it is kind of interesting that

912
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: you see this advance taking place. Then yeah, now, so

913
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:56,279
Speaker 1: who knows if you would be able to acquire them,

914
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:59,280
Speaker 1: But if you could, if you could get a copy

915
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: of here throws new Matica and Vitruvius's d architectura, you

916
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: would have, according to Roland, the basic elements you'd need

917
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: to figure out how to construct your own pressurized weapon

918
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:16,760
Speaker 1: system for Greek fire. And he he writes the following,

919
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 1: and I read a quick quote. He says the technique

920
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 1: itself would have been a secret of almost as much

921
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:26,320
Speaker 1: sophistication as the formula for without pressure gauges and safety valves,

922
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:29,880
Speaker 1: it was surely a delicate task to heat and pressurize

923
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 1: a volatile liquid in dark and cramped quarters below deck

924
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 1: in combat without accident. God, can you imagine that? So

925
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 1: you're you're the nap the pumper in the belly of

926
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 1: the of the fire ship. Yes, yeah, just this just

927
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 1: bottled death down there, and it's going to be hopefully

928
00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: you know, spit away from your ship and onto the others.

929
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: So you've just got to imagine that if they were

930
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,560
Speaker 1: operating ships like this, they frequently would just become engulfed

931
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: in flames and kill all of the people operating them. Well,

932
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,239
Speaker 1: you might think so, but there are actually no reports

933
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:06,720
Speaker 1: of such accidents. Now that doesn't mean they didn't occur.

934
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,319
Speaker 1: It could be a situation where you know, especially if

935
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: if you know, if if you're if Byzantines are writing

936
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 1: about their fabulous weapon system, maybe you're not going to

937
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: write about the failures. You're only going to write about

938
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: the victories. But for whatever reason, we we don't have

939
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 1: any accounts of of Greek fire vessels blowing up, of

940
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 1: the system backfiring. Now, I will say that that there

941
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 1: are accounts of other similar weapons systems backfiring, which gives us, uh,

942
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: gives us an idea that, well, this kind of thing

943
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 1: might have easily occurred and it just wasn't written about

944
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: or though the writings have not survived. But if we

945
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: look to China, of all places, uh, there's a there's

946
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: actually a detailed description of a similar weapons system that

947
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: was employed around nine hundred CE in China. So there's

948
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:57,959
Speaker 1: a a ten forty four military work titled Woo Jing

949
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 1: zong Yao, and it details a brass container fitted with

950
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:07,720
Speaker 1: a horizontal pump gunpowder ignition chamber and a small diameter nozzle,

951
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 1: and this was designed for use on you know, the

952
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: ramparts of a fortress or what it would be used

953
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: against siege weapons. But they were also apparently used in

954
00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: naval battles, uh, particularly one naval battle on the young

955
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: Z River near Nanjing in between Tang and Song forces.

956
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: And here's the where it ties into what we're discussing here.

957
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 1: The Tang used it, but the wind changed and the

958
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: fires blew back on their own ships. So who knows

959
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: if this was exactly the same weapon system, if it

960
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 1: was inspired by it, or if it was just independently produced.

961
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,760
Speaker 1: But I feel like what they're describing here taking place

962
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: on the young Z River could easily have occurred with

963
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 1: one of these vessels, right, and we might not know

964
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: about it. Now here's a question. Did anybody ever find

965
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: themselves in the scenario I described earlier where you're you're

966
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: a general facing off against the Byzantines or the Romans

967
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: as they would have called themselves, and you've captured some

968
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 1: of this fire in a bottle? Uh? Did did it

969
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: ever get turned against them? Um? It does not seem

970
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 1: that it did. But we do have a case. In

971
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: eight fourteen, the Bullguards captured thirty six siphons and jars

972
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:24,879
Speaker 1: of Greek fire to go with them. So they had

973
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, the at least I guess the hand because

974
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 1: there were two types. So they had like the ship

975
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 1: based siphons and then like a handheld model apparently um

976
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: according to some accounts. So they had the fire, they

977
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 1: had the technology, but apparently they didn't know how to

978
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:43,439
Speaker 1: use it, because there's no evidence that they were able

979
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 1: to capitalize on it. Likewise, Marcus the Greek published a

980
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:52,479
Speaker 1: Greek fire recipe in the twelfth century, but you didn't

981
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:56,839
Speaker 1: see that technology spread. And also after nine hundred CE,

982
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: Arab forces had similar incendiary web, but they weren't able

983
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 1: to utilize it as the Byzantines had. So you can

984
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 1: easily interpret this as being a situation where Okay, you

985
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:08,440
Speaker 1: have the the AMMO, you have the weapon, but you

986
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: just don't have the training or the you know, the

987
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 1: systematic approach to its use. So in other words, to

988
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: steal the secret, you'd have to steal all the components,

989
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:20,520
Speaker 1: and that would be difficult, right, I would, because one

990
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: of the keys here was the people with knowledge of

991
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: all the components, according to Roland, were never in the

992
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,439
Speaker 1: same place at the same time, right, So you had

993
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 1: people building it was a compartmentalization of military technology where

994
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: you'd have the people who are the pyromancers in there,

995
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:38,120
Speaker 1: you know, in their secret dungeon making your Greek fire,

996
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 1: whoever they are. But then you've also got the people

997
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 1: who are building the pump system and the siphons into

998
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: the belly of these warships, and the people who are

999
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:47,839
Speaker 1: being trained in how to operate it. And you've got

1000
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,240
Speaker 1: to have all these pieces come together for the weapon

1001
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 1: to be viable. Right, So you're gonna have I guess

1002
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:56,360
Speaker 1: a key number of overseers. They are going to be

1003
00:56:56,440 --> 00:56:59,120
Speaker 1: able to put all of this together. But this is

1004
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:01,359
Speaker 1: where we have the power of secrecy and the risk

1005
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: of secrecy, because it seems that there were very few

1006
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: people who had that information that knew how all these

1007
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,200
Speaker 1: components came together. Uh, and we're able to put it

1008
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:16,240
Speaker 1: all together now. According to legend, you had only two

1009
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 1: families that knew the full formula of the full weapons

1010
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: system here and and the technique for using it. And

1011
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 1: that would have been the Emperor's family, the royal family itself,

1012
00:57:27,680 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: and also a family referred to as the lamp Prose

1013
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 1: family I've seen people speculate that the lamp Prose family

1014
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:38,920
Speaker 1: is not a real historical right. Yeah. Roland spends a

1015
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 1: good amount of time discussing the ins and outs of

1016
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,919
Speaker 1: both of these. Basically, I guess one of the key

1017
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:47,520
Speaker 1: things to keep in mind here is just how the

1018
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 1: golden throne worked in in in the Byzantine culture, it

1019
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 1: worked by you getting murdered, basically, Well, it worked by

1020
00:57:55,960 --> 00:57:58,600
Speaker 1: you murdering somebody else and then you getting murdered. Well

1021
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 1: he he compares it actually to the Chinese imperial model,

1022
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 1: where whoever the emperor is is the is divine, it's

1023
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 1: the chosen of heaven, and so there's almost no such

1024
00:58:08,040 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: thing as a usurper, right because once you've usurped it,

1025
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:13,840
Speaker 1: you've got it and you're okay with God. That's kind

1026
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,640
Speaker 1: of the you know, a quick version of it. But

1027
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:22,480
Speaker 1: there was an hereditary nature to the throne in Byzantine culture,

1028
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 1: but once you took the throne, it was yours. So

1029
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 1: there was a lot of backstabbing, a lot of a

1030
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:33,720
Speaker 1: lot of plots and intrigue, and uh that's so here's

1031
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 1: here's a scenario. If you're planning to stage a series

1032
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: of murders and take the throne. Um where on your

1033
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: priorities list is Greek fire, you know, is getting us.

1034
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 1: You're worried about the people in the room with you

1035
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah, yeah, I mean you're you're plotting to

1036
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: to take the throne and kill who needs to be killed,

1037
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: backstab or front staff, whoever needs to to get it. Uh,

1038
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:01,920
Speaker 1: the passing down of that the details of that weapon system,

1039
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: it either might not be a priority, it might not

1040
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: be possible. It's very susceptible to loss because again, very

1041
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 1: few individuals, you know, in the royal family for instance,

1042
00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: you're going to have access to it. And if there

1043
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 1: is a periphery family that's close to the throne that

1044
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 1: also carries the secret, well they're just going to be

1045
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 1: just as susceptible to back in front stabs. As you proceed,

1046
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 1: Roland points out one situation where it's hard to imagine

1047
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 1: how a Greek Fire protecting family, you know, a family

1048
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: who is known to the emperor and keeps the state

1049
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 1: secret could have survived a series of events. And that

1050
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 1: series of events was one emperor was deposed, a new

1051
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 1: emperor deposed him and came in. Then the original emperor

1052
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:48,240
Speaker 1: came back and retook the throne. So you're imagining, basically,

1053
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 1: each time something like this happens, key, allies are all

1054
00:59:51,200 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 1: eliminated because you don't want anybody, you know, trying to

1055
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:57,960
Speaker 1: get one over on you. So when the new emperor

1056
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 1: deposed the original one, you imagine and they probably would

1057
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: have killed all of the original emperor's uh supporting families

1058
01:00:06,600 --> 01:00:10,480
Speaker 1: if the lamp cross families somehow survived this, when the

1059
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: original emperor who was deposed return to power, probably would

1060
01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: have killed that family for supporting the usurper. Now, of course,

1061
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 1: all of this is still theoretical, like you know, is

1062
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: to the exact nature of the secret, but and and

1063
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 1: how it was kept. But but rolling backs it all

1064
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:27,880
Speaker 1: up with the fact that Constantinople was able to keep

1065
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:32,720
Speaker 1: a governmental monopoly on silk production. Um. Silk production, of course,

1066
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: relies on the the use of the silkworm. And it's

1067
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 1: really kind of comparable in many ways because you've got

1068
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: to you have to actually have the worms uh and

1069
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 1: but then you also have to know how to tend

1070
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 1: to them and uh and rear them and use them. Uh.

1071
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 1: So just stealing the worms alone is not the same

1072
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:51,600
Speaker 1: as stealing the technology. Now, the best kind of secrets

1073
01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 1: come with magical curses, don't they don't they? Because like

1074
01:00:55,960 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 1: a great tomb that you shouldn't be robbed, it will

1075
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:00,360
Speaker 1: have a curse that will lay on you if you

1076
01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:03,440
Speaker 1: disturbed the tomb. And a great state secret, for a

1077
01:01:03,480 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 1: secret weapon, should have a curse if you send this

1078
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: secret to the enemy. Yeah, I mean, treason should not

1079
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 1: only be um, you know, betrayal of of the state,

1080
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 1: It should be betrayal of God. Right. We actually have

1081
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 1: a wonderful quote here, and this is from this from

1082
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 1: the writings of Emperor Constantine the seventh he would have

1083
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: lived nineteen and nine fifty nine, who, addressing his son,

1084
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 1: warned that the Greek fire was a not just a

1085
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:32,560
Speaker 1: state secret, but a holy state secret. This too was

1086
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 1: revealed and taught by God through an Angel to the

1087
01:01:35,960 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: Great and Holy Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, And concerning

1088
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: this he received great charges from the same Angel. As

1089
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:48,080
Speaker 1: we are assured by the faithful witness of our fathers

1090
01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 1: and grandfathers, that it should be manufactured among the Christians

1091
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: only and in the city ruled by them, and nowhere

1092
01:01:56,040 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: else at all, Nor should it be sent nor taught

1093
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 1: to any other nation whatsoever. And then he goes on

1094
01:02:02,840 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: to insist quote a death most hateful and cruel awaits

1095
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 1: anyone who breaks this secret. Yeah, there's a wonderful, illustrated

1096
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:13,360
Speaker 1: example of this given in the quote where he talks

1097
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:16,480
Speaker 1: about there was a general or some some kind of

1098
01:02:16,560 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 1: major figure in the Byzantine Empire who sold the secret

1099
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 1: of how to make Greek Greek fire to some enemies

1100
01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:25,880
Speaker 1: of the state, and when he tried to walk into

1101
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 1: a church next he was struck dead at the doors

1102
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 1: of the church. There you go. I mean, it's it

1103
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:33,600
Speaker 1: seems perfectly in keeping with what we've talked about concerning

1104
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:36,840
Speaker 1: a Byzantine culture and the rulership that, yeah, you would

1105
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:41,280
Speaker 1: also just utilize myth and religion to help safeguard your

1106
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:44,120
Speaker 1: secrets as well. Now, the author of our opening monologue,

1107
01:02:44,160 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 1: Anna Komnena, wrote about this too, right, Yes she did,

1108
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:48,919
Speaker 1: and she would have been in on the secret given

1109
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:52,240
Speaker 1: her position within the royal family, and she also apparently

1110
01:02:52,240 --> 01:02:54,959
Speaker 1: provided an incomplete formula of the fire at some point

1111
01:02:54,960 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 1: as well. Again, the nature of a well kept secret

1112
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 1: is it's susceptible to law us and uh, and it

1113
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: was eventually lost perhaps for centuries before it was confirmed

1114
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: lost in twelve oh four. And indeed subsequent accounts of

1115
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 1: Greek fire are a few far between and often doubtful. Yeah,

1116
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:16,880
Speaker 1: after that story of it being used to repel the

1117
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:20,800
Speaker 1: second invasion in the early seven hundreds, do we even

1118
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:24,720
Speaker 1: really see it used again much? I mean the original

1119
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: preparation by the byzantines Um. I don't think there are

1120
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 1: any strong cases for it now. According to that book

1121
01:03:30,640 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 1: The Fall of Constantinople by Nicole Haldon in Turnbell, there

1122
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 1: are there's some form of quote unquote Greek fire that

1123
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,240
Speaker 1: used was used twice during the final siege of Constantinople

1124
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: in fourteen fifty three. This is again when they were

1125
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 1: conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Uh. And this is where

1126
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 1: an incoming grain ship to use it against attackers. And

1127
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:53,360
Speaker 1: then another account the fire was erected onto the siege engine.

1128
01:03:54,120 --> 01:03:57,400
Speaker 1: But then again, as we've established, lots of things started

1129
01:03:57,440 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 1: to be called Greek fire after the cons scept came

1130
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,240
Speaker 1: into vogue. So as for how the secret was kept

1131
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: for that long, well, we've we already talked about like

1132
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:09,480
Speaker 1: the hereditary nature of the secret of Greek fire. We

1133
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:14,960
Speaker 1: talked about um the the often murderous ends to to

1134
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:18,440
Speaker 1: various individuals and positions of power and the Byzantine Empire.

1135
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:23,040
Speaker 1: We mentioned the Lampros family and how their doubts there now.

1136
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:26,880
Speaker 1: Rowland also discusses the possibility that the Lampros might have

1137
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:31,760
Speaker 1: merely served for some time in an official capacity, something comparable,

1138
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:35,080
Speaker 1: say to the military official who carries the nuclear football

1139
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 1: for the US president. You know, they might just be

1140
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:40,680
Speaker 1: like a designated secret keeper, guardian of the Greek Fire,

1141
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:43,440
Speaker 1: or something to that effect, right, And he says that

1142
01:04:43,480 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 1: this is possible, but it's difficult to evaluate further. We

1143
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:50,040
Speaker 1: just don't know enough about Byzantine bureaucracy. We we have

1144
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: no idea who this theoretical firemaster would have been, you know,

1145
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:56,680
Speaker 1: like we we don't have any taught, any records of

1146
01:04:56,720 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 1: such a title, and if they existed, they must have

1147
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:03,000
Speaker 1: been called something el else. There are various official positions

1148
01:05:03,040 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 1: that have been brought up that that could have, you know,

1149
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:09,040
Speaker 1: arguably been secret keepers of the fire. But either the

1150
01:05:09,080 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 1: position didn't have close access to the emperor, which would

1151
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:15,080
Speaker 1: be key, or the powers of the office were deluded

1152
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 1: over time in a way that wouldn't seem to fit

1153
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 1: an office that was in charge of the secret weapon.

1154
01:05:21,360 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: And we already mentioned how allies of the emperor very

1155
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:27,440
Speaker 1: often got eliminated when the next emperor deposed him and

1156
01:05:27,480 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 1: came in again. We do know that the weapon was lost,

1157
01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:33,840
Speaker 1: and it just becomes more of a question of when

1158
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:36,880
Speaker 1: it was lost and how it was lost. So we

1159
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 1: know that the Byzantine Navy suffered numerous key defeats in

1160
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 1: the centuries to follow defeats which they failed to use

1161
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: their legendary wonder weapon, uh, you know, to defend themselves. Yeah,

1162
01:05:48,560 --> 01:05:50,920
Speaker 1: And this is another point Roland sort of gets on,

1163
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:53,760
Speaker 1: is that it may have been a problem with the

1164
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:57,320
Speaker 1: secrecy that if you're so concerned about keeping the secret

1165
01:05:57,360 --> 01:06:01,240
Speaker 1: of how your weapon works that you are reluctant to

1166
01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:03,919
Speaker 1: deploy it, like if you're reluctant to hand it over

1167
01:06:03,960 --> 01:06:06,440
Speaker 1: to satellite allies. I mean, that's the thing that if

1168
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:10,360
Speaker 1: you're running an empire, you've got your locals who work

1169
01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 1: directly under you. You're the emperor, your your local people

1170
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:15,880
Speaker 1: work directly under you. But then you've got all kinds

1171
01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 1: of people working for you who are farther away, and

1172
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:21,200
Speaker 1: by virtue of being farther away, you don't know if

1173
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:25,040
Speaker 1: you can trust them quite as much. And so say

1174
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:29,080
Speaker 1: you hand over some fire breathing you know, Greek fire

1175
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:32,040
Speaker 1: ships to them, how do you know that they're not

1176
01:06:32,120 --> 01:06:35,560
Speaker 1: going to eventually turn that technology against you? So maybe

1177
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 1: you shouldn't arm them with your strongest weapons. Maybe you

1178
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: should only keep those close to home where you've got

1179
01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:42,920
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, a firm hand on the control

1180
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:44,840
Speaker 1: of them, and you can keep the secret to yourself.

1181
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 1: But that just limits the way in which you can

1182
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:51,920
Speaker 1: actually deploy this powerful weapon. And another argument here is, okay,

1183
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:55,360
Speaker 1: you have your your special secret weapon. You're it's a

1184
01:06:55,640 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: but it's a shock weapon, it's a surprise weapon. And

1185
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:00,440
Speaker 1: the thing about that that sort of weapon is that

1186
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:05,720
Speaker 1: it's it's most effective when it's first deployed. So you

1187
01:07:05,720 --> 01:07:08,000
Speaker 1: know what happens when you try and pull that trick

1188
01:07:08,240 --> 01:07:11,160
Speaker 1: again and again. Your enemies begin to learn, they begin

1189
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:13,960
Speaker 1: to be able to they begin to take precautions. Maybe

1190
01:07:14,000 --> 01:07:16,919
Speaker 1: they you know, there are some accounts of being able

1191
01:07:16,920 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 1: to drake the ship in in like wet cloth to

1192
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 1: help protect it. Now whether that worked or not, who knows.

1193
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 1: The other idea being that this was more or less

1194
01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:30,560
Speaker 1: a close combat scenario. Weapon, you know, you're not gonna

1195
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:33,520
Speaker 1: be able to launch it at great distances, so then

1196
01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:36,080
Speaker 1: your enemies may be realized. Okay, well they have Greek fire.

1197
01:07:36,360 --> 01:07:39,080
Speaker 1: We need to figure out how to combat them from

1198
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:41,840
Speaker 1: afar and annihilate them from afar. Keep there and keep

1199
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:44,400
Speaker 1: our distance in a way that they're unable to deploy

1200
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:46,960
Speaker 1: their wonder weapon. Yeah. I mean, it might be a

1201
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:49,160
Speaker 1: horrifying weapon up close, but what if it can only

1202
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 1: shoot about twenty feet? Yeah, because really it was made

1203
01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:56,880
Speaker 1: for galley warfare, this close combat among these these vessels. Now,

1204
01:07:56,920 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 1: it's also possible that as the Arab threat decline into

1205
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:04,240
Speaker 1: the eighth century, and no other naval power threatened Byzantium

1206
01:08:04,280 --> 01:08:07,880
Speaker 1: until really until the Italian City states in the twelfth century,

1207
01:08:08,080 --> 01:08:11,840
Speaker 1: that they simply stopped producing specialized fire vessels if they

1208
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:14,800
Speaker 1: didn't need them. Yeah, I mean, because it's another key

1209
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:17,320
Speaker 1: thing is that these are these are very specialized weapons.

1210
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:20,320
Speaker 1: It's if you think to any like strategy video game

1211
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:23,200
Speaker 1: where you're building units for your army, like, this is

1212
01:08:23,240 --> 01:08:25,559
Speaker 1: not a unit you would just spam the heck out off,

1213
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:28,760
Speaker 1: because it's it's ultimately very specialized. You could build a

1214
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 1: thousand of them, and you'll lose the WARLD like that,

1215
01:08:31,120 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 1: because the war is not being exclusively fought for this

1216
01:08:34,320 --> 01:08:37,120
Speaker 1: theater of battle. Yeah, and that that's also I mean

1217
01:08:37,560 --> 01:08:40,479
Speaker 1: talking about the difference between naval and land powers. I mean,

1218
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:42,320
Speaker 1: a lot of the threats you might be facing would

1219
01:08:42,360 --> 01:08:46,280
Speaker 1: be from the land, and this is it's now. People

1220
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: did talk about land based uses for Greek Fire, but

1221
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:51,880
Speaker 1: it's a lot less common. It's primarily in this ship

1222
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:55,080
Speaker 1: based method. And that's one reason that I sort of

1223
01:08:55,200 --> 01:09:00,559
Speaker 1: favor the pressurized cauldron and pump method as supposed to

1224
01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:02,840
Speaker 1: saying that they're well, there might have been saltpeter in

1225
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:06,479
Speaker 1: it or some other kind of explosive incendiary oxidizer to

1226
01:09:06,560 --> 01:09:09,840
Speaker 1: get that power pushing it out. I think that the

1227
01:09:09,880 --> 01:09:12,559
Speaker 1: fact that we primarily see it being used in ships

1228
01:09:12,800 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: is a good indication that they had to have a

1229
01:09:15,360 --> 01:09:19,040
Speaker 1: large apparatus of pumps and hydraulics in place in order

1230
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:21,599
Speaker 1: to pressurize it to get it to shoot the way

1231
01:09:21,600 --> 01:09:24,240
Speaker 1: they wanted. Yeah, I think that there's there's definitely a

1232
01:09:24,240 --> 01:09:27,000
Speaker 1: strong case or that, and uh and and and of

1233
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:30,200
Speaker 1: course the cost is another huge factor here too. So

1234
01:09:30,479 --> 01:09:34,880
Speaker 1: if this is a specialized shock weapon, that is also

1235
01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:38,000
Speaker 1: expensive to produce, because even it's been argued that the

1236
01:09:38,479 --> 01:09:42,960
Speaker 1: fuel itself was fairly inexpensive. Still, the pressurized system we're

1237
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:45,639
Speaker 1: talking about and the training for those individuals, it becomes

1238
01:09:45,640 --> 01:09:49,000
Speaker 1: a very costly weapon. And so does it make sense

1239
01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:52,400
Speaker 1: to have a bunch of fireships just on hand if

1240
01:09:52,760 --> 01:09:55,439
Speaker 1: you don't need them, you know, and and end up,

1241
01:09:55,479 --> 01:09:57,200
Speaker 1: you know, you end up not needing them for say

1242
01:09:57,240 --> 01:09:59,960
Speaker 1: a century or more. So, looking at this whole discup,

1243
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:02,599
Speaker 1: I should I'm trying to figure out what the main

1244
01:10:02,680 --> 01:10:09,160
Speaker 1: takeaway about the interplay between secrecy and technology is. Well,

1245
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:11,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there are a couple of key points.

1246
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:14,040
Speaker 1: I mean, one is just that a secret of technology

1247
01:10:14,120 --> 01:10:16,719
Speaker 1: is more than just uh some you know, a patent

1248
01:10:16,800 --> 01:10:20,360
Speaker 1: on a sheet of paper necessarily more than just a formula. Uh.

1249
01:10:20,439 --> 01:10:23,080
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a lot more complicated than that. And

1250
01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:27,440
Speaker 1: to steal technology is is a is a grander endeavor

1251
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 1: uh than simply you know, taking a few photographs of

1252
01:10:30,439 --> 01:10:33,559
Speaker 1: a top secret document. It's funny how in this uh,

1253
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: this peperophobic versus paperophilic conception of technology versus science, you

1254
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:42,559
Speaker 1: can almost look at the same thing and call it

1255
01:10:42,760 --> 01:10:47,519
Speaker 1: a paperophobic technology or a paperophilic piece of science. I

1256
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:50,000
Speaker 1: think about fire itself in the Greek myth. You know,

1257
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 1: so you have Prometheus stealing fire from the gods. Is

1258
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 1: the fire their science or is it technology? I mean

1259
01:10:58,000 --> 01:11:00,800
Speaker 1: as a tool. Usually we think to think of technology

1260
01:11:00,800 --> 01:11:02,559
Speaker 1: as a thing and a tool in science is an

1261
01:11:02,600 --> 01:11:06,120
Speaker 1: abstract process. But isn't it? Is it an example of

1262
01:11:06,160 --> 01:11:10,880
Speaker 1: sharing scientific knowledge or technological knowledge? Um? I mean maybe

1263
01:11:10,920 --> 01:11:13,960
Speaker 1: it's that the gods think about fire as a technology,

1264
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:16,439
Speaker 1: a state secret to be protected to keep out of

1265
01:11:16,479 --> 01:11:20,080
Speaker 1: the hands of these humans, and Prometheus re envisioned it,

1266
01:11:20,760 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 1: uh to to take it out of the technological realm

1267
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:25,760
Speaker 1: and say this is science. This is basic knowledge that

1268
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:28,120
Speaker 1: can be applied to all things, and it should be

1269
01:11:28,160 --> 01:11:30,599
Speaker 1: shared to all people. Yeah. And I think the other

1270
01:11:30,960 --> 01:11:33,600
Speaker 1: aspect here is, even if we strip away the military

1271
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:37,160
Speaker 1: aspects in the in the state security aspects of Greek fire,

1272
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:40,840
Speaker 1: it's such a specialized technology that doesn't have a lot

1273
01:11:40,880 --> 01:11:45,639
Speaker 1: of uses outside of this particular uh, you know, field

1274
01:11:45,640 --> 01:11:48,360
Speaker 1: of battle. Like it's not it's hard to I cannot

1275
01:11:48,400 --> 01:11:52,000
Speaker 1: instantly think of an example of another application for Greek

1276
01:11:52,000 --> 01:11:56,240
Speaker 1: fire as an advanced technology. Is a specialized technology what's

1277
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:59,599
Speaker 1: a peaceful use for a flamethrower? There's there's not one.

1278
01:11:59,640 --> 01:12:01,960
Speaker 1: And let even if you go to burning Man, you're

1279
01:12:01,960 --> 01:12:05,400
Speaker 1: not seeing a true flamethrower. You know, you're seeing a

1280
01:12:05,439 --> 01:12:09,400
Speaker 1: pyro techniqus you know exchange, You're seeing uh, you know,

1281
01:12:09,760 --> 01:12:12,040
Speaker 1: fire a shot into the sky, but it's not like

1282
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:16,800
Speaker 1: jelly gasoline, um, you know, squirted onto people. I mean,

1283
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:18,960
Speaker 1: maybe it does make me think there are some things

1284
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:23,120
Speaker 1: that are not worth sharing because there is no conceivable

1285
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:26,800
Speaker 1: positive use for them. But then again, maybe that's just

1286
01:12:26,840 --> 01:12:29,639
Speaker 1: my lack of imagination. Maybe somebody out there, if you're

1287
01:12:29,640 --> 01:12:31,559
Speaker 1: listening right now and you can think of a way

1288
01:12:31,560 --> 01:12:34,719
Speaker 1: that a flamethrower could be used in a totally peaceful

1289
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:37,280
Speaker 1: way that harms no one and helps people live better

1290
01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:40,960
Speaker 1: lives or uh, you know, builds a better not a

1291
01:12:40,960 --> 01:12:43,600
Speaker 1: better mousetrap that's a killing machine. Also, well builds a

1292
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:46,439
Speaker 1: better something very sweet and wonderful. Let us know. I

1293
01:12:46,520 --> 01:12:47,760
Speaker 1: want to know what that is. What do you do

1294
01:12:47,800 --> 01:12:50,559
Speaker 1: with a flamethrower? That's all happy times? It reminds me

1295
01:12:50,720 --> 01:12:54,040
Speaker 1: of a some e card from years back, where it

1296
01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:55,880
Speaker 1: was I think it was from a medieval woodcut of

1297
01:12:56,120 --> 01:12:57,559
Speaker 1: or it was made to look like one of an

1298
01:12:57,560 --> 01:13:01,280
Speaker 1: individual standing next to some ridiculous looking wheeled contraption, and

1299
01:13:01,280 --> 01:13:02,960
Speaker 1: he had kind of a sad look on his face,

1300
01:13:03,240 --> 01:13:07,439
Speaker 1: and the text just read I invent awful things. And

1301
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:09,840
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we're talking about with Greek fire. Yes,

1302
01:13:09,920 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 1: it's it's very advanced, it's very sophisticated, it's super secret,

1303
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:19,120
Speaker 1: but it's really an awful invention. Well, this has been interesting, Robert, Yeah, yeah,

1304
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:21,280
Speaker 1: this has been a lot of fun. Uh so, and

1305
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:24,120
Speaker 1: and hopefully it's it's stirs some interesting thoughts out there,

1306
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, whether you're into the history of military technology

1307
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:30,200
Speaker 1: or not. Um, you know, just about the kind of

1308
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:33,559
Speaker 1: going off on our our previous episode about secrets and

1309
01:13:33,560 --> 01:13:35,760
Speaker 1: the keeping of secrets, you know, it ties into that

1310
01:13:35,880 --> 01:13:39,240
Speaker 1: and and also just the nature of technology. I'm glad

1311
01:13:39,280 --> 01:13:43,080
Speaker 1: I learned that saltpeter can be used for ammunition, for sausage,

1312
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:46,960
Speaker 1: or for sexual impotence. Yes, yes, fire up that libido,

1313
01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:49,919
Speaker 1: or don't actually attempt to fire up your libido with saltpeter,

1314
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:53,200
Speaker 1: or at least don't blame it on us when things

1315
01:13:53,200 --> 01:13:57,960
Speaker 1: go awry. All right, Hey, we thank you for listening

1316
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:00,599
Speaker 1: in and uh while you're waiting on the next episode

1317
01:14:00,600 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind to come out, why

1318
01:14:02,280 --> 01:14:04,000
Speaker 1: don't you head on over to stuff to Blow your

1319
01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:06,000
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's we will

1320
01:14:06,040 --> 01:14:09,200
Speaker 1: find all of the podcast episodes. You'll find some videos.

1321
01:14:09,240 --> 01:14:11,719
Speaker 1: You'll find blog posts and links out to our various

1322
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:17,040
Speaker 1: social media accounts such as Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, Facebook, Facebook,

1323
01:14:17,120 --> 01:14:21,519
Speaker 1: where we now have a Facebook group for your more

1324
01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:24,479
Speaker 1: detailed discussions. We call it Stuff to Blow your Mind

1325
01:14:24,479 --> 01:14:27,760
Speaker 1: Discussion Module. If you haven't done so already, go there

1326
01:14:27,880 --> 01:14:30,640
Speaker 1: asked to join. You will be admitted and then you

1327
01:14:30,680 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 1: can engage in some longer form discussions with other fans

1328
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,360
Speaker 1: and Stuff to Blow Your Mind and occasionally the host themselves.

1329
01:14:36,840 --> 01:14:38,320
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us

1330
01:14:38,320 --> 01:14:41,639
Speaker 1: directly as always, you can do that the old fashioned

1331
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:44,439
Speaker 1: way by emailing us and blow the mind at how

1332
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:57,000
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com For more on this and thousands

1333
01:14:57,000 --> 01:14:59,360
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff Works dot Com?

1334
01:15:04,600 --> 01:15:15,719
Speaker 1: Every lame the biggest. First start about