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The Poetic Justice of Death by Molten Gold · Ridiculous History

0:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair warning, friends and neighbors, strangers, fellow history buffs alike.
0:29
Speaker 1: Today's episode is grizzly. Let's set the tone with a quotation.
0:36
Speaker 1: With my own eyes, I saw Spaniards cut off the
0:39
Speaker 1: nose and ears of Indians male and female without provocation,
0:43
Speaker 1: merely because it pleased them to do it. Likewise, I
0:47
Speaker 1: saw how they summoned the chief rulers to come, assuring
0:50
Speaker 1: them safety, and when they peacefully came, they were taken
0:53
Speaker 1: captive and burned. That is a quote from Bartolome de
0:57
Speaker 1: las Casas, who was actually appointed protector of the Indians
1:03
Speaker 1: during the sixteenth century. High I'm ben shocking. Well it is, uh,
1:09
Speaker 1: it is definitely graphic, and we are talking about something
1:13
Speaker 1: graphic today, right, But first, who are you? I don't
1:15
Speaker 1: want to say, you don't want to say, alright, well,
1:18
Speaker 1: I can't participate in this. Alright, alright, I'm Noel, and
1:21
Speaker 1: we are talking about grizzly things today. We are talking
1:23
Speaker 1: about come up and I guess yeah, poetically right, and uh,
1:28
Speaker 1: we're talking about death by molten gold. Yes, yes, And
1:34
Speaker 1: the reason that Noel, super producer Casey Pegram and I
1:40
Speaker 1: are bringing up this quotation by de Las Casas is
1:45
Speaker 1: because this is one of the few Spanish colonists of
1:49
Speaker 1: the time who stood up against the rank abuse, the
1:54
Speaker 1: systemic plundering of the native lands in Central and South
2:01
Speaker 1: America and and and in the Caribbean. And my co
2:06
Speaker 1: host here is absolutely correct. We are talking about molten Gold,
2:13
Speaker 1: specifically Molten Golden fifteen nine. Now, for fans of a
2:19
Speaker 1: lot of you know, very graphic works of fiction, Uh,
2:23
Speaker 1: this this seems like something an author would make up
2:27
Speaker 1: out of whole cloth just to be spooky. Yeah, it's true,
2:30
Speaker 1: you know. And you're talking about Game of Thrones and
2:33
Speaker 1: George R. R. Martin and um, you may may not
2:36
Speaker 1: know if you're a fan, that he did tend to
2:39
Speaker 1: pull some of the more graphic depictions of death and
2:43
Speaker 1: execution in the Game of Thrones books or the Song
2:45
Speaker 1: of Fire and Ice books from history. Um that includes
2:48
Speaker 1: things like the Red Wedding. Don't don't google that if
2:52
Speaker 1: you don't know. What I'm talking about is a massive spoiler.
2:54
Speaker 1: Just let it go. Just let it go. Um, it'll
2:56
Speaker 1: come around then it will upset you. Um. And death
3:00
Speaker 1: by Molten Gold, which was the poetic end to a character.
3:04
Speaker 1: Can I do this quick spoiler. Can I do a countdown?
3:07
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'll count you down then you go alright,
3:10
Speaker 1: three two one spoilers. So denaries tar Garyan, who is
3:14
Speaker 1: you know, the mother of Dragons and all that um.
3:17
Speaker 1: In the first season of Game of Thrones, her brother
3:20
Speaker 1: the series um is a is a real brat, He's
3:24
Speaker 1: a real pill and he feels very entitled to a
3:28
Speaker 1: crown Um. He wants to rule the Seven kingdoms with
3:30
Speaker 1: a golden crown Um, and in order to do that,
3:33
Speaker 1: they employ, you know, the the help of this barbarian
3:37
Speaker 1: horde um, the doth Racki, and he basically pours his
3:41
Speaker 1: sister out um to this cal Drogo is the head
3:45
Speaker 1: of the doth raki Um and as it turns out,
3:48
Speaker 1: they actually hit it off quite well, despite his evil
3:52
Speaker 1: intentions and you know, treating his sister like chattel um
3:55
Speaker 1: and he kind of really gets cut down to size
3:59
Speaker 1: and and has no power, and she kind of really
4:02
Speaker 1: starts to rise above him in terms of her influence
4:05
Speaker 1: over Um cal Drogo and the doth Racy, and ultimately,
4:09
Speaker 1: when he brings a sword and threatens her unborn child
4:14
Speaker 1: by cal Drogo Um in the presence of all of
4:17
Speaker 1: his uh, what do you call them? His blood riders, right,
4:21
Speaker 1: blood writers crew, his crew. Um. He demands this, this
4:26
Speaker 1: golden crown. He says he's been waiting too long and
4:28
Speaker 1: he needs it now. Um. And he's got this sword.
4:31
Speaker 1: He's holding it to Denari's belly and cal Drogo kind
4:35
Speaker 1: of chills for a second. He's like, all right, I
4:37
Speaker 1: got you. We'll do this. We'll get you your golden crown.
4:40
Speaker 1: And then they break his arm, hold him down, and
4:42
Speaker 1: he pours a cauldron of molten gold over his head
4:48
Speaker 1: and he dies. INSTO me right, um, And it's a
4:51
Speaker 1: gets a gets a great scene. It's it's very well done.
4:54
Speaker 1: When he kind of falls, he makes this amazing kind
4:57
Speaker 1: of clunk sound. Um, and then their steam rising from
5:00
Speaker 1: the head, which will be important later, very important. So uh,
5:04
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we should do a time code for spoiler.
5:06
Speaker 1: I don't know, is it okay? No? I think that's
5:09
Speaker 1: I think that's completely fine as a spoiler. We did
5:12
Speaker 1: count down And I like your blow by blow description
5:16
Speaker 1: because it is going to come and play later in
5:19
Speaker 1: a big way. Also, boy is George R. R. Martin
5:23
Speaker 1: and also the producers of Game of Thrones. That whole
5:26
Speaker 1: team is just great at making people severely unlikable time
5:30
Speaker 1: because by the time that guy finally gets his come
5:32
Speaker 1: up and everybody is just praying that he will stole
5:36
Speaker 1: he he had the worst catchphrase, which was wake the Dragon,
5:39
Speaker 1: to wake the dragon, Wake the dragon. And it was
5:42
Speaker 1: very very weird about it. Yes, and also super rape
5:47
Speaker 1: to his sister and just anyway arrogant. Yes. But the
5:52
Speaker 1: but the point here is that this kind of thing,
5:57
Speaker 1: as we said, actually happened I r L. Not on
6:01
Speaker 1: the MTV show I r L in actual real life. Yeah,
6:05
Speaker 1: and neither quote you read at the top of the show,
6:07
Speaker 1: um is more about the atrocities perpetrated by the Spanish conquerors. Yes,
6:14
Speaker 1: but what we're seeing here is sort of that turnabouts
6:17
Speaker 1: fair play kind of situation, because the Spanish were so
6:20
Speaker 1: um brutal and ruthless with conquering these native peoples, for example,
6:25
Speaker 1: the Javarro tribe of Lagrango um and In they had
6:31
Speaker 1: had enough. Yes, let's I'm glad you bring up the quote,
6:35
Speaker 1: because let's let's paint the context here. Let's paint the
6:38
Speaker 1: background in which this event occurs. The Spanish were I
6:44
Speaker 1: believe the technical term is utter bastards. During the colonization period,
6:50
Speaker 1: they implemented something called the encomienda system, which was the
6:56
Speaker 1: idea was that groups of indigenous people would be placed
7:00
Speaker 1: under Spanish oversight to foster quote cultural assimilation and ultimately
7:05
Speaker 1: to convert them to Christianity. But what this actually led
7:09
Speaker 1: to was legally sanctioned atrocities by the Spanish government, exploiting
7:15
Speaker 1: natural resources, forcing people to work in minds for gold,
7:18
Speaker 1: forcing people to labor until they die, I mean, forget
7:23
Speaker 1: a coffee break, and very few people, relatively from the
7:30
Speaker 1: Spanish side of this event, very few people spoke out
7:33
Speaker 1: against the injustice. De las Casas was one of the
7:36
Speaker 1: only people who did. What's the political climate here, Ben
7:39
Speaker 1: has this sort of the conquistador era. Yeah, yeah, the
7:43
Speaker 1: Spanish conquest of the Americans. And you know, just from
7:46
Speaker 1: disease alone, up to eight million people died, Indigenous people,
7:51
Speaker 1: just from contacting these diseases. And one of the brutal
7:54
Speaker 1: things that would happen here that's very important for our story,
7:59
Speaker 1: is that the Spanish governing systems would also just tax
8:04
Speaker 1: the pants off people and this Mr Show and then
8:09
Speaker 1: they'd sell them pants, and then they'd sell them pants. Yes,
8:12
Speaker 1: there was a system in play. So the Javarro tribe
8:17
Speaker 1: they eventually, as as you said, nol, they have had enough.
8:21
Speaker 1: And the straw on the camel of colonialism's back, golden straw,
8:26
Speaker 1: the golden straw on the camel of colonialisms back. Here
8:31
Speaker 1: is the moment when the tribe finds out that not
8:35
Speaker 1: only are they submitting to this ridiculous, egregious tax, but
8:39
Speaker 1: that the governor of the town has been cheating them,
8:44
Speaker 1: so adding insult to injury. It was already a rapacious tax,
8:48
Speaker 1: it was already terrible. Yes, And they attacked the lom
8:53
Speaker 1: Grono settlement. They did. Uh. They massacred up to twenty
8:58
Speaker 1: five thousands Spaniards, just regular killing them, regular killing. Um.
9:03
Speaker 1: But but that wasn't enough for the governor, who was
9:07
Speaker 1: responsible for this egregious behavior. Um. They held him down
9:13
Speaker 1: and giving him a taste of his own medicine. Uh,
9:17
Speaker 1: a lot more than it tastes a heroic dose, shall
9:20
Speaker 1: he say of his own medicine? Uh, that medicine being greed. God,
9:25
Speaker 1: I love this poetic justice. Here they poured molten gold
9:29
Speaker 1: down his throat, and then they burned the town to
9:32
Speaker 1: the ground, to the to ash. Yes, and this this
9:37
Speaker 1: sounds crazy, right, We do know that according to the
9:40
Speaker 1: article and Journal of Clinical Pathology, molten gold was poured
9:45
Speaker 1: down his throat until his bowels burst. That is the
9:47
Speaker 1: title of this paper, really leaving nothing to the imagination there. Yeah,
9:51
Speaker 1: by F. R. W. Van der Goot and team. We
9:54
Speaker 1: do know that the pouring of hot liquids or metals
9:57
Speaker 1: like letter gold had been practiced before. This was not
10:01
Speaker 1: the first time someone came up with it, but the
10:05
Speaker 1: given the value of gold, typically if you saw Roman
10:10
Speaker 1: torture and executions this way, it would be a metal
10:12
Speaker 1: like leg It's true, and you can even see today
10:15
Speaker 1: this is a much less grizzly version of this, but
10:17
Speaker 1: it will show you how um how much damage a
10:20
Speaker 1: hot liquid like this can do. Hot molten metal like
10:23
Speaker 1: this can do. There's all these YouTube videos or people
10:25
Speaker 1: pour molten metal on like watermelons or that even when
10:30
Speaker 1: where they poured on an ant hill and you just
10:32
Speaker 1: see insane amounts of steam coming up and it hardens
10:36
Speaker 1: like instantly. Then you can like open the watermelon and
10:39
Speaker 1: look inside and it's filled all the crevices and it's
10:42
Speaker 1: created the shape of all of the open space and
10:45
Speaker 1: hills look really cool, and hills look super cool. It's
10:48
Speaker 1: like some sort of thing you'd see in the Guggenheim,
10:50
Speaker 1: Like it's a really fascinating sculptural kind of vibe m R.
10:54
Speaker 1: I of a brain or some kind of nervous system. Yeah, yeah,
10:57
Speaker 1: that's a This is a great point. You you can
10:59
Speaker 1: see it. And the metal does cool very quickly. In fact,
11:05
Speaker 1: scientist who used lead for a test found that the
11:08
Speaker 1: lead solidified within ten seconds. So this means, you know,
11:14
Speaker 1: think about think about the span of time we're talking
11:17
Speaker 1: and this this stuff pouring down solidifying in ten seconds.
11:22
Speaker 1: It's not going to go through the entirety of the body.
11:27
Speaker 1: Let's set up the the situation here though. You mentioned
11:30
Speaker 1: this paper, molten gold was poured down his throat until
11:33
Speaker 1: his bowels burst. Again the title FR. W. Vandergroot and R. L.
11:37
Speaker 1: Tin Berg Um, this is what they did. They procured
11:43
Speaker 1: a cow's larrn x from a slaughterhouse, and they make
11:46
Speaker 1: it very clear here in the paper that no animal
11:48
Speaker 1: was harmed or killed specifically for this purpose. You could
11:51
Speaker 1: probably get a cow's larne x from your local butcher. Yeah,
11:55
Speaker 1: you gotta have them laying around somewhere. It's not something
11:56
Speaker 1: you see in the case. Necessarily, you can at least
11:58
Speaker 1: get them to order. If you can make yeah, you
12:00
Speaker 1: can make a special request if you'd like to do
12:02
Speaker 1: this at home exactly. Yeah, maybe, you know, make sure
12:05
Speaker 1: make sure there's an adult present kids when you do this.
12:13
Speaker 1: So they fixed the laryn x um in a horizontal
12:16
Speaker 1: position to a piece of wood, and then they closed
12:20
Speaker 1: the bottom end using tissue paper, which I guess is
12:23
Speaker 1: a pretty good stand in for the type of membrane
12:26
Speaker 1: that would be you know, present if this were connected
12:29
Speaker 1: to a you know, the rest of a body. And
12:32
Speaker 1: then they poured seven hundred and fifty grams of pure lead,
12:36
Speaker 1: which was at around four hundred and fifty degrees celsius.
12:39
Speaker 1: Four and fifty degrees celsius is eight hundred and forty
12:43
Speaker 1: two degrees fahrenheits. So nothing just sneeze at no, definitely
12:46
Speaker 1: not um. And what happened was immediately huge amounts of
12:50
Speaker 1: steam began to burst out of both ends of this
12:53
Speaker 1: larrn x. And of course that piece of tissue paper
12:56
Speaker 1: was no match for this kind of pressure and steam,
12:59
Speaker 1: and it's shot out with force, they said. And then
13:02
Speaker 1: within ten seconds, Ben, As you mentioned, um, everything had
13:05
Speaker 1: congealed and the lead completely filled the latin x and hardened,
13:10
Speaker 1: creating a shape, a perfect cross section of the latin
13:14
Speaker 1: x once it had cooled. But there's something fascinating here
13:18
Speaker 1: because after everything had cooled, they examine the larynx. They
13:23
Speaker 1: take cross sections and look at them under a light microscope.
13:26
Speaker 1: They find that the throat mucus layer been completely burned
13:30
Speaker 1: off and the muscle was cooked or damaged to the
13:33
Speaker 1: depth of only about one centimeter, which is fascinating because
13:37
Speaker 1: you know, initially some of us are probably thinking, well,
13:42
Speaker 1: a hot molten metal is going to shoot straight down
13:45
Speaker 1: your throat, burning everything in its path, and uh, you know,
13:48
Speaker 1: fall out of your Australia for lack of a better phrase.
13:52
Speaker 1: But as Rachel Newer rights, an article for Smithsonian called
13:57
Speaker 1: Here's what actually happens during execution by molten gold. It's
14:01
Speaker 1: not the metal that kills, you know, It's it's the
14:06
Speaker 1: pressure and the steam, the absolute ferocity of you know,
14:12
Speaker 1: think about like when you even if you have a pan,
14:15
Speaker 1: write a hot pan and you put it under cold
14:17
Speaker 1: water in the sink. If it's hot enough, that thing
14:21
Speaker 1: produces all kinds of steam that's very, very hot. Can
14:24
Speaker 1: you imagine molten liquid being poured on your flesh? Absolutely,
14:30
Speaker 1: and the difference of temperature would cause that insane amount
14:33
Speaker 1: of pressure and steam and rupture your your gutty parts.
14:36
Speaker 1: I mean on the outside of your body alone, that's
14:39
Speaker 1: unimaginably painful. But then on your inerts, on your insides.
14:44
Speaker 1: This gets to a point where the victim is probably thinking,
14:48
Speaker 1: just let me die. And we know, you know, we
14:51
Speaker 1: mentioned Rome, right, and we mentioned the use of molten lead.
14:55
Speaker 1: The practice of pouring some sort of molten metal down
14:58
Speaker 1: a person's throat was also used by the Spanish during
15:04
Speaker 1: the Inquisition. Again taste of their own medicine in more
15:08
Speaker 1: ways than one. And I have to ask, this is
15:12
Speaker 1: something where we insert our own opinions. Are you cool
15:15
Speaker 1: with that? Sure? Man? I want to hear some I
15:18
Speaker 1: want to hear your take on this. Do you think
15:22
Speaker 1: the tribe was justified in this massacre or this sort
15:28
Speaker 1: of that's a big question. Do you think the tribe
15:31
Speaker 1: is justified in murdering this governor this way? I don't know, man,
15:36
Speaker 1: I mean, they had been just dicked around so much
15:41
Speaker 1: that I think they probably had had enough and they
15:44
Speaker 1: wanted to make an example out of him. You know,
15:49
Speaker 1: it was brutal times, and they had been treated with brutality,
15:52
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean, these tribal people had a
15:56
Speaker 1: history of brutality in and of themselves. So it's it's
15:59
Speaker 1: certainly not something they just invented out of whole cloth
16:02
Speaker 1: because they were pushed too far. Right. Yeah, these violent
16:05
Speaker 1: delights have violent ends, right, and delight obviously is not
16:09
Speaker 1: the right word for this. But we're We're by no
16:12
Speaker 1: means saying that anyone involved in this had some sort
16:16
Speaker 1: of inborn predisposition towards these acts of violence. What we
16:22
Speaker 1: are saying is that when people are forced into a
16:28
Speaker 1: situation wherein brutality becomes a vocabulary, right, where wherein we
16:34
Speaker 1: communicate through these acts of violence, then this escalation occurs.
16:41
Speaker 1: You know, you can check out various podcast we and
16:44
Speaker 1: our cohort have done on torture devices, right, and one
16:49
Speaker 1: thing you'll find is that torture goes across all civilizations
16:55
Speaker 1: and all cultures. But in this case, they go out
16:59
Speaker 1: on a limb miurnal and say, I think he had
17:02
Speaker 1: it come into him. Yeah, I think so too. I
17:04
Speaker 1: think he I think he earned this, I think he
17:07
Speaker 1: earned this torture. Of course, we can't condone the master
17:12
Speaker 1: of twenty five thousand people, not all of whom would
17:16
Speaker 1: be fundamentally involved in these gross acts of injustice. The
17:20
Speaker 1: way it's written in everything that I saw was that
17:22
Speaker 1: they were fighting back against being overtaxed. But they had
17:27
Speaker 1: been colonized in the first place, and you know, essentially
17:30
Speaker 1: forced to work for for nothing and had their natural
17:33
Speaker 1: resources totally commodified by an invading people. Right, so you
17:39
Speaker 1: know it wasn't the best arrangement in the first place.
17:41
Speaker 1: This isn't even like a rebellion, This is a revolt.
17:44
Speaker 1: This is like a slave revolt. Yeah. Absolutely, because these
17:48
Speaker 1: people were considered inhuman and the Spanish government was saying, well,
17:53
Speaker 1: we can do whatever we want because ultimately we're bringing
17:56
Speaker 1: them two out, we're converting them to our religion. Therefore
18:01
Speaker 1: our means are justified. And you know, this is a fascinating,
18:08
Speaker 1: terrible thing that we see so often in colonial history. Also,
18:13
Speaker 1: the Spanish were singularly obsessed with gold myopically, so sure, yeah,
18:20
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, speaking of being myopically obsessed with wealth,
18:24
Speaker 1: have you heard of Crassus, the Roman figure of great opulence. Yes, yes,
18:31
Speaker 1: I have. And this is a great time to bring
18:34
Speaker 1: up Marcus Licinius Crassis born one fifteen b C. He
18:41
Speaker 1: was a Roman politician, right even taught taught some other
18:45
Speaker 1: Romans a few things. Oh big time. He was only
18:47
Speaker 1: a politician. He was considered one of the wealthiest men
18:52
Speaker 1: in Republican Rome. And he got there by corrupt means.
18:56
Speaker 1: Corrupt means there was a lot of invasion of other
19:01
Speaker 1: cultures as well, as we know all roads lead to Rome,
19:04
Speaker 1: because they just kind of took everything at the end
19:06
Speaker 1: of those roads, right, So um, he was hugely responsible.
19:11
Speaker 1: Um had a very successful military career where he would
19:14
Speaker 1: um you know, he essentially gained control over most of Italy.
19:19
Speaker 1: Um in his struggle against the forces of Gaius Marius
19:25
Speaker 1: and Cornelius sinna Um and his father was part of that,
19:29
Speaker 1: and he actually committed suicide. And then Crassus took off
19:33
Speaker 1: and fled to Spain, and he ended up siding with
19:36
Speaker 1: the opposing force in that conflict, a leader named Sola
19:41
Speaker 1: against Marius, and he was able to reap the benefits
19:46
Speaker 1: of that through a practice called prescription, which is where
19:50
Speaker 1: you take the spoils of war from your defeated foes.
19:55
Speaker 1: You essentially commodify their property, their slave, their lands, and
20:01
Speaker 1: they become your personal wealth. It's important to mention the
20:06
Speaker 1: slavery aspect there, because again slaves at the time were
20:11
Speaker 1: considered property, not people. This is like, uh for a
20:16
Speaker 1: modern analog. This is similar to civil forfeiture. Civil forfeiture
20:22
Speaker 1: is the practice in the US whereby law enforcement can
20:26
Speaker 1: confiscate property if a crime is suspected, and it changes
20:30
Speaker 1: a little bit state to state. But this is on
20:32
Speaker 1: a much higher level. This this is, as Noel said,
20:37
Speaker 1: spoils of war, and all you have to do is
20:41
Speaker 1: declare someone an enemy of the state. But why are
20:45
Speaker 1: we bringing up crosses here? He is rumored to have
20:47
Speaker 1: met a delightfully violent and as well um at the
20:52
Speaker 1: hands of another group that he was attempting to conquer,
20:57
Speaker 1: and that group was no And as the Parthians, what
21:01
Speaker 1: were they about then? Yeah, the Parthian Empire was a
21:06
Speaker 1: major socio political power located in modern day Iran and Iraq.
21:12
Speaker 1: So it's just across the Euphrates. And Crassis says, you know,
21:18
Speaker 1: he has Syria as his province, and he said that's
21:23
Speaker 1: not enough. I want more I want the riches of Parthia.
21:28
Speaker 1: So he crosses the river and he wants to prove
21:34
Speaker 1: that he also is a military force to be reckoned with.
21:38
Speaker 1: There's some internal competition in the empire, big time UM,
21:42
Speaker 1: and that specifically was he. He he was one of
21:44
Speaker 1: the responsible parties for starting the triumvirate between himself, Julius Caesar,
21:51
Speaker 1: and ultimately his greatest nemesis, Pompey, Pompeii the Great, Pompeii
21:56
Speaker 1: the Great exactly, And in fact, he had such a
21:59
Speaker 1: beef with Pompeii that when people would use this nickname
22:04
Speaker 1: Pompey the Great, Um, he would respond, how big is he?
22:09
Speaker 1: He's just he's just such a pill man. And his
22:12
Speaker 1: uh plan to his plan to attack Parthia just doesn't
22:20
Speaker 1: doesn't work out because they have a different type of
22:24
Speaker 1: attack strategy. Oh for sure, it's a it's a different
22:27
Speaker 1: terrain than he's used to operating on. That's a very
22:30
Speaker 1: sandy terrain, and it's a pretty poorly formed plan. But
22:33
Speaker 1: before we we we get into that and finish that,
22:35
Speaker 1: I just wanted to mention some of his bona fides
22:37
Speaker 1: and some of what led to his beef with Pompeii, Um.
22:40
Speaker 1: He was responsible for quashing the Spartacus slave rebellion, right um,
22:46
Speaker 1: and you've got you've all seen the movie I Am,
22:47
Speaker 1: I Am Spartacus and all of that between seventy thousand
22:50
Speaker 1: to a hundred and twenty thousand um slaves who basically
22:55
Speaker 1: formed an army who had created a huge kerfuffle in
22:59
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire. And it was his job, Crosses, his
23:02
Speaker 1: job to deal with this, right um, and he ultimately
23:05
Speaker 1: did after his legion, under the leadership of a lieutenant
23:10
Speaker 1: by the name of Mummy, has failed miserably when Mummy
23:13
Speaker 1: has disregarded crosses his orders. Um Crassis was also ruthless
23:17
Speaker 1: because he instituted this punishment for this disobedience called decimation,
23:22
Speaker 1: wherein one in ten soldiers in this five man part
23:26
Speaker 1: of the army were killed by their cohorts in full
23:30
Speaker 1: view of their colleagues. We have to interject now, or
23:33
Speaker 1: I have to interject at least now in this story
23:36
Speaker 1: to say Rome is the origin of the word decimate.
23:42
Speaker 1: When you hear someone described something as decimated, they should
23:48
Speaker 1: not be saying that if they mean destroyed, annihilated, And
23:53
Speaker 1: doesn't it seem like shooting yourself in the foot too,
23:55
Speaker 1: you're literally like getting rid of your precious troops here.
24:00
Speaker 1: It was also born wealthy to It's not as if
24:03
Speaker 1: he earned his way up by his bootstrapped now and
24:06
Speaker 1: this was the time to we're just being wealthy. You
24:07
Speaker 1: could like buy your own army that you know, it
24:10
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily like a standing government army. A rich man
24:13
Speaker 1: could come forth and pay enough money to have his
24:16
Speaker 1: own army. So what happened next, Well, he you know,
24:24
Speaker 1: he ultimately after the severe punishment, um, he did come
24:28
Speaker 1: through and defeat that slave uprising at Lucania, where he
24:32
Speaker 1: cornered Spartacus and his forces. Um. That ultimately resulted in
24:36
Speaker 1: him crucifying six thousand of the survivors on the Api
24:40
Speaker 1: n Way, which was a road where it would be
24:43
Speaker 1: lined with crucified um corps corpses. Yeah, exactly. Um. But
24:48
Speaker 1: the beef with Pompey came from the fact that after
24:51
Speaker 1: crash this had done the bulk of the work, pomp
24:55
Speaker 1: Pays force kind of swept in and like just sort
24:58
Speaker 1: of picked off the last remaining stragglers of spartacus army
25:02
Speaker 1: and then got back home before Crassus and was able
25:06
Speaker 1: to kind of reap the glory, the credit, of the
25:08
Speaker 1: credit of of that, and that was the thing that
25:10
Speaker 1: sort of haunted him and happened a couple more times.
25:12
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the undoing of Crossis and
25:16
Speaker 1: how he ultimately met his poetic end, his alleged end
25:20
Speaker 1: as well. So he's got a real chip on his shoulder,
25:24
Speaker 1: a real badger in his bag about this. Uh, let's
25:27
Speaker 1: call it an inferiority complex. Even he is in intense
25:31
Speaker 1: internal competition with the other members of the triumvirate, and
25:38
Speaker 1: this victory over Parthia, if he can swing it, is
25:41
Speaker 1: going to make him just as respected in his mind.
25:45
Speaker 1: Maybe he can be called Crosses the competent or something
25:50
Speaker 1: like that. Oh come on, he wanted more than that.
25:52
Speaker 1: Crass Is the badasses, there we go, there we go,
25:56
Speaker 1: or Crassis the cosmic cool, or's something like that. Oh wait, no,
26:02
Speaker 1: I got it, Crosses the celebrated, something like that. He
26:05
Speaker 1: wanted credit and he had as we as I think
26:09
Speaker 1: it established before, he had greater numbers in terms of
26:14
Speaker 1: just individuals fighting for him. However, the Parthians had superior strategy.
26:20
Speaker 1: They had a shoot and run, cavalry and arrow attack.
26:26
Speaker 1: This was their combo move. They were very good at it.
26:29
Speaker 1: They would get in within shooting range, they would rain
26:33
Speaker 1: arrows down on the troops, then they would fall back,
26:36
Speaker 1: and then they would charge forth and do it again.
26:39
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. They were able to shoot as
26:41
Speaker 1: well backwards as they could forwards. So if you just
26:45
Speaker 1: have waves of this going back and forth, what's the
26:48
Speaker 1: Crosses to do. This actually reminds me of going back
26:51
Speaker 1: to Game of Thrones um. That is sort of like
26:53
Speaker 1: a situation where the death Racky were mounted, and they
26:57
Speaker 1: were archers, and they were masters of their terrain, which
27:01
Speaker 1: was sort of they called it the the Grass Sea.
27:03
Speaker 1: See it's this big, very flat area, and the folks
27:07
Speaker 1: that they were fighting against would often not be prepared
27:09
Speaker 1: to meet them in open combat. Again, taking historical context,
27:13
Speaker 1: I think Mr Martin is pretty pretty good at weaving
27:15
Speaker 1: that stuff into his work. So the forces that Crosses controls,
27:20
Speaker 1: uh don't like them. They're near mutiny, and so they
27:23
Speaker 1: demand that he hold parley with the Parthians, in other words,
27:28
Speaker 1: that he negotiate a peaceful end to this, because obviously
27:32
Speaker 1: he's kind of a jerk for a boss and they're
27:35
Speaker 1: getting shredded, right, and his son dies in the same battle.
27:39
Speaker 1: So he agrees. He finally says, all right, I'll meet them,
27:44
Speaker 1: and everything goes pear shape. He is riding a horse
27:47
Speaker 1: to negotiate for peace, and he's got, you know, his entourage,
27:51
Speaker 1: he's got his sidekick, Octavius. Octavius suspects that there's a trap.
27:55
Speaker 1: He grabs crosses his horse. This instigates again as a
27:59
Speaker 1: very tense climate, a sudden fight with the Parthians, and
28:03
Speaker 1: later you will hear from a historian named Cassius Dio
28:07
Speaker 1: that he was killed made a mockery of by pouring
28:13
Speaker 1: metal molten gold again down his throat, and that this
28:19
Speaker 1: was poetic come up and due to his lifelong greed
28:24
Speaker 1: thirst for riches and powers. Seem like editorializing to me.
28:28
Speaker 1: It is because it can be traced to that one historian,
28:31
Speaker 1: but now currently that's the source. There's no nobody found
28:37
Speaker 1: a body filled with molten gold. It was also thought
28:41
Speaker 1: that perhaps he was killed and then had the molten
28:44
Speaker 1: gold pour down his throat, sort of adding insult to
28:46
Speaker 1: injury as some sort of symbolic gesture, right like like
28:50
Speaker 1: that pope who dug the other pope up and held
28:53
Speaker 1: a trial for him, which we should totally do an
28:55
Speaker 1: episode on but you know, at the end of the day,
28:57
Speaker 1: it's a good story. Not sure it happened that way,
29:00
Speaker 1: but it is an example of somebody uh meeting their
29:04
Speaker 1: own demise because they just couldn't have enough and they
29:07
Speaker 1: felt overshadowed by somebody and they needed to you know,
29:11
Speaker 1: ambigen themselves. Yes to literally a fatal degree. However, we
29:18
Speaker 1: can say thankfully that death by ingestion and molten metal
29:21
Speaker 1: is not a leading cause of fatalities nowadays in as
29:26
Speaker 1: we recorded at least the years so far. However, I'd
29:30
Speaker 1: like to hear from you, friends and neighbors, what are
29:33
Speaker 1: some of the strangest or maybe most aproposed deaths that
29:37
Speaker 1: you've read about, whether in fiction, whether in literature, um
29:41
Speaker 1: whatever you've got. Send it to us at ridiculous at
29:44
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or you can shoot it
29:46
Speaker 1: to us on Facebook or Twitter, where we are Ridiculous History.
29:50
Speaker 1: We also have a pretty cool Facebook group where we're
29:52
Speaker 1: kind of mining it for topic ideas, and pretty active
29:55
Speaker 1: and fun group over at the Ridiculous Historians. You can
29:58
Speaker 1: join up there and if you like, send us a
30:00
Speaker 1: note if you want to be a moderator. Yes, and
30:03
Speaker 1: while you're there, go ahead and find some of the
30:07
Speaker 1: threads that are still active. One that we both enjoyed
30:10
Speaker 1: was the one about hot people from history, and I
30:14
Speaker 1: chose the original. Michelin, man I think you went with
30:17
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. I did, but Man I had no idea.
30:19
Speaker 1: That's for yours, where I thought there were some sort
30:20
Speaker 1: of weird sausage monsters from like like a Twilight Zone episode.
30:24
Speaker 1: Very crazy. Look, you guys check it out. Michelin has
30:26
Speaker 1: a crazy history too. We should probably cover the story
30:29
Speaker 1: of how a tire company fostered one of the most
30:33
Speaker 1: prestigious rating systems in the world of restaurants, but that
30:37
Speaker 1: is a tale for another day. Do check us out
30:41
Speaker 1: online and stay tuned for our next episode, when we
30:45
Speaker 1: examine the disappearance of a waterfall. And in the meantime,
30:48
Speaker 1: we'd like to thank our composer Alex Williams, super producer
30:52
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, and you for joining us for another episode
30:55
Speaker 1: of Ridiculous History. We will see you next time, assuming
30:58
Speaker 1: we don't by multi to don't I'm not want to
31:01
Speaker 1: talk about him