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CLASSIC: The Poetic Justice of Death by Molten Gold · Ridiculous History

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