October 24, 2024 • 35 mins
From the acting blunder that historians couldn't stop talking about to a confusingly shaped pyramid to the world's most coveted bucket (yes, bucket!), Will and Mango take a tour through seven of antiquity's strangest mistakes.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what mango was that?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
All right, So I was reading up on ancient Greek
theater this week, which you know I like to do
every October very personal reasons. I don't want to get
into it, and I came across this story about an
Athenian actor name he Geligos, and he once mispronounced a
word so badly that it tanked his entire career. That
sounds so harsh, like just one word tanked his career?
(00:35):
What was the word? Well, so here's the story. This
happened back in the spring of four hundred and eight BC,
and it was during the premiere performance of Orestes. This
was this tragedy written by Euripides. He was playing the
lead role, and in a scene where his character recovers
from a bout of madness, he's supposed to say, quote,
after the storm, I see once more a calm, But
(00:58):
because he was rushing to get the line out, there's
this word in it, galen, and he says it with
the wrong inflection, which changed the meaning from calm to weasel,
Like that's a different word. Those are yeah, I always
think that's an improvement. Well, it was actually worse than
it sounds, because in ancient Greece, seeing a weasel was
(01:19):
considered a really bad omen So the mispronunciation not only
made the line sound sillier, it also conveyed the exact
opposite mood. Instead of being this optimistic line about feeling better,
it became this ominous line about him having bad luck.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And it was actually that big of a mistake just
mispronouncing this one word.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm telling you it ruined his whole career. So comic
playwrights of the era teased him mercilessly and even referenced
him by name in their own play. This killed his
reputation as an actor, to the point that he never
acted again after that one flub. It also gave him
a different level of fame than his contemporaries. Like basically,
even though ancient Greek tragedies are the bedrock of Western theater,
(02:01):
we usually don't have record of the actors who appeared
in the original performances. You don't hear the names of
any of them except for Geligos, who we still know
for this mistake, and this was definitely not the legacy
he would have hoped for, but it is still his legacy.
No such thing as bad publicity. No, that's exactly right.
So we're often hearing about the seven wonders of the
(02:23):
ancient world, so today I thought it might be fun
to explore the seven biggest blunders of the ancient world instead.
This slip of the tongue is just the first on
the list, but that still leaves six more gafts to go,
so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
(02:59):
Part Time Genie. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm
joined by my good friend mangsh Hot ticketter and on
the other side of that soundproof glass wearing a It
took me a minute to read this, but it says
po body's nerfic T shirt. He's so clear, so clever,
clever a picture of a great sphinx on it. That's
our friend and producer Dylan fag and he's just always
(03:20):
one upping the last thing he's done.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So I am actually glad that Dylan referenced the sphinx
because I considered adding the sphinx to our list, specifically
because of that broken nose it has, but once I
started looking into it, I realized the nose wasn't broken
off by mistake.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
This is one of those stories that I feel like
I've heard a few times that I never can like,
wasn't it cut off on purpose? Or shot off by
French troops or something like that. No one actually knows
who did it for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
There have been all these rumors over the years that
it was Napoleon soldiers they had blasted the nose off
with the cannonball in the seventeen nineties. That was the rumor,
But most historians actually think that the schnaws was chiseled
off in the late fourteenth century and chiseled off like
it's a mass of nos that's huge. The most likely
culprit was this man named Mohammad Sayim al Dhar and
(04:06):
apparently the Egyptian peasants of the era had started making
offerings to the sphinx in the idea that it would
improve their harvests or whatever. But when Aldaar found out,
he was so outraged by this idolatry that he destroyed
the sphinx.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Nose just despite them. Wow, So did the villagers kind
of snap out of it after that or what? No,
they executed him for vandalism. Oh god. Okay, yeah, so
far we've talked about some people that they're just lives,
have gone poorly after things. But all right, so now
that we've got that nose story out of the way,
what's your first fact? Mango?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, So I actually kind of want to stick with
Egypt for a minute, because not only is it home
to the only ancient wonder that still exists, the Great
Pyramid of Giza, but it's also home to a true
anciente blunder called the Bent Pyramid. Have you ever seen this?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Actually have not.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm actually going to put a photo here, but the
three hundred and thirty foot tall Bent Pyramid of Dashu
Where was built for pharaoh Sneffru in about twenty six
hundred BCE, and its name stems from an engineering issue
that required the builders to abruptly change the angle of
the pyramid slope about halfway through the construction.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah. I'm just looking at this picture, and the slope
really does change drastically right there in the middle of
the pyramid, Like the lower portion looks so much deeper
than the top. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So the whole thing was originally designed to be built
at a fifty four degree angle, which would have given
it smooth, straight angles that you see on traditional pyramids.
But as the builders added more and more layers of blocks,
these cracks started appearing in the structure, and they realized
it would probably collapse if they kept going, and so
after a bit of number crunching, they decided to reduce
the angle for the upper portion to a much more
(05:45):
stable forty three degrees.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I guess it worked. It's still standing today, and you
could argue that the slightly curved appearance is part of
the landmark's charm. I guess. But I'm curious why the
Egyptians made such a mistake in the first place. I mean,
building pyramids feels like kind of their thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, Egyptians are well known for building pyramids. I
think we're going to break that fact, right, Yeah, okay,
But Snepfer's bent pyramid was.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Kind of in early work.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
It was just the second pyramid burial structure that the
Egyptians had ever constructed. The first one had been built
about two hundred years earlier, southwest of Cairo. And the
interesting thing about that one is it was actually a
stone step pyramid, So the kinds you see in like
Central America, rather than a smooth faced one like the
kind that they would later become famous for.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, so I guess this bent pyramid was in this
transitional phase where they were still trying to figure out
what it really meant or what it needed to build
a pyramid.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, they were still fine tuning the process, and obviously
there was a fair amount of trial and error along
the way. The Egyptians learned from this mistake, and once
the Bent Pyramid was finished, they built a second, more
successful one for the same pharaoh, This three hundred and
forty foot tall, smooth side red pyramid, and it's just
to the north and the future pyramids built in the area.
(07:02):
It was built at that same forty three degree angle
that saved the Bent pyramid. I don't know what it
is about forty three degrees, but it just works.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, and definitely does. That's every when we want to
build a pyramid. All right, Well, I've got an architectural
mishap to add to our list as well, except mine
is more of an ecological oversight than some sort of
design flaw. All so, I'm gonna give you a little
bit of background here. This was in the Great Maya
city called to Call and that formed around six hundred BCE.
(07:30):
Now to Call started as this tiny village in what's
now Guatemala, but over the course of about one thousand
years it developed into this full blown jungle metropolis so
to call hit its stride between three hundred and nine
hundred CE, and at the peak of its power in
the mid eighth century, it boasted upwards of sixty thousand inhabitants,
(07:51):
so there was a lot of people living in one place,
making it one of the largest and most powerful city
states in all of the Americas.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And I'm guessing the architecture there was pretty impressive as well.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, the architecture is actually pretty stunning. So they're these
one hundred foot tall temples more than two dozen pyramids.
But maybe most impressively, it also had this highly advanced
water management system that was there to help residents survive
the region's dry season. So this included a series of
dams reservoirs that collected and stored as much rain water
as possible, as well as these paved sloping plazas to
(08:23):
help direct the water where it needed to go. So
the city even had this sand filtration system to keep
the water clean, so really advanced systems.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
That sounds gorgeous actually, and I'm guessing all that water
work was necessary because of where the city was located.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's exactly right, Like the city was built in the
middle of this dense rainforest and people didn't have easy
access to lakes or rivers, so that's how the city
compensated for this. But what's ironic is that the very
system that helped to Call survive droughts and dry spells
also led to its downfall. And much of the Maya
Kingdom collapsed at the turn of the ninth century, and
(08:58):
in fact, to Call seems to have been outright abandoned,
like with all of its structures left completely intact, as
if everyone just picked up and left at some point.
So for the longest time, there's been this mystery about
what caused the city's demise. It obviously wasn't a violent struggle,
as there were no signs of damage to the city,
so that led historians to conclude that the city's collapse
(09:20):
was probably related to droughts and overpopulation.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And we're saying the fancy water system that the city has,
that's the reason that they left.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, So there was this very recent study. It was
back in twenty twenty that was published in Scientific Reports Journal,
and it was this investigation of to Call's reservoirs, and
they revealed that they were dangerously polluted with high levels
of mercury. And not only that, scientists also found traces
of very toxic algae blooms. Now, the presence of mercury
(09:50):
is most likely attributed to a red mineral called cinebar
or mercuric sulfide, which the ancient mile widely used as
a pigment or a die for various things. So, for example,
the city's temples and the main palace were said to
be caked in cinnabar, which means that during the rainy season,
all that mercury rich powder, it just washed right off
(10:12):
the buildings. Yeah, so you know, it's not good news.
And so thanks to those sloping plazas, this just flowed
straight down into the city's reservoirs and obtained the water
supply of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And so obviously with people drinking and cooking with all
this poisoned water, they.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Must have started getting sick, right, very sick. Once the
blue green algae began to bloom in those phosphate filled reservoirs.
The locals could probably tell from the site and smell
alone that the water was no longer safe to drink.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And I guess what's weird about this is that the
entire population just gets up and leaves, right. I mean,
this civilization has lasted what like a thousand years, and
it feels like they'd almost wanted to fight to save
their city a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well, you've got to keep in mind that Takol was
already struggling due to intensifying droughts. So even if they're
was a way to fix the pollution, the residents really
didn't have the time to implement it. Like, they obviously
needed to deal with this immediately, and so they had
to find a new water supply. And there's also the
religious component to consider. So water was sacred to the
(11:15):
Maya because it was key to their whole existence, So
when their supply suddenly went bad in the middle of
a terrible drought, they likely took it as a sign
that the gods were displeased with them. So from a
practical standpoint and a symbolic one, abandoning their once great
city probably felt like the most sensible option.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I guess it's a luxury to be able to
learn from your mistakes. Like when you think about the
Egyptians working on that bent pyramid, they make this awkward pyramid,
and then they have time to reflect and figure out
like how to make the next one perfect. Right, But
for the Maya, they don't really have a chance to
be scientific.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
In order to survive. They just have to scramble. Yeah. Yeah,
Actually it's funny that you put it that way, because
the next blunder on my list is from someone who
also had to walk away in order to survive a mistake,
but in his case there was a literal dead elephant
blocking the exit. How about that for a tease? Mango.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, but
I'm very curious. So let's take a quick commercial break
and then you can tell me all about it. You're
(12:28):
listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the
seven blunders of the Ancient World.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
So will where are you taking us next? All right?
So for this one, we're headed back to ancient Greece
to about the third century BCE, which was a tumultuous
time in the Mediterranean. The recent death of Alexander the
Great had created this serious power vacuum, and all of
his former generals and allies were competing to fill it.
And one of the would be successors King Pirus was
(12:55):
this ruler from northern Greece, and he managed to extend
his domain by winning their victories against the armies of Macedonia.
Now this was in the year two eighty, and that's
when he set his sights on conquering Rome. So Piras
sailed to Italy with about thirty thousand soldiers and twenty
war elephants, marking the first time that elephants had ever
(13:16):
been seen on the peninsula.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So this must predate Hannibal and the Alps, then, I guess.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
By about sixty years, so not not a ton of time.
But as you might imagine, the Romans on the battlefield
were pretty freaked out by the site of these enormous
armored ann I can't even imagine if I had never
seen an elephant. But even with the advantage of intimidation,
Peiris only barely pulled out a win. In fact, the
number of casualties he sustained was so high that the
(13:46):
Greek historian Plutarch quoted him as having said, quote, if
we are victorious. In one more battle with the Romans,
we shall be utterly ruined. So you can imagine that
these were hard won battles. So King Pierris became well
known for his narrow winds, and people started using the
expression pyic victory, which of course means a victory that
(14:07):
comes at such great costs that it's almost like a defeat.
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I remember taking a class on the moguls in college,
and elephants are obviously so massive and so intimidating, but
they also scare incredibly quickly, and so they're not great
war animals.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I can imagine that, especially if you let a bunch
of mice loose. I mean, that's what I hear. Have
no idea whether that's true, it's not true. So I
haven't even gotten to his real mistake. If you remember
that amazing tease before the commercial breath, the dead elephant
blocking the doorway. Do you remember this? Okay, So, after
a series of skin of his teeth victories in Italy,
(14:46):
Pearis actually started losing battles. So in two seventy five
he retreats back to Greece and begins making a play
for the throne of mast on first, he targeted Sparta,
but when the city state proves resistant to his attacks,
he turns his focus north to Argos. I've always thought
this was interesting in military history, where they're like, I'm
gonna go beat these people and then I can't, like,
(15:06):
oh no, no, I'll go over here. But it's interesting
to think about it. But now Pierce had no trouble
breaking through the city's defenses, thanks once again to his
pack of giant elephants. But once he's inside, he finds
it really difficult to maneuver through the narrow streets, and
his forces are quickly overwhelmed. And to make matters worse,
Peers's forces keep pouring into the city even after he
(15:30):
had ordered a retreat, and in the scuffle that followed,
one of the elephants, the largest one, falls down right
in front of the main gate, which sends the other
elephants into a panic, and they start rampaging through the city,
basically crushing everything.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I mean, can you imagine, like there's no reverse on
an elephant, Like you're in these narrow streets and like
the turning radius isn't that great?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Not good? Not good? So does piiskeatry not exactly, but
his death was the direct result of not being able
to get around the fallen elephant. So in the battle,
Puris takes one look at the chaos unfolding and decides
to take his chances back in the city. Now, as
the story goes, he's fighting his way through the streets
and he gets stabbed through the breastplate by this enemy spear.
(16:19):
Pieris turned to face his attacker and landed a killing blow.
But what he didn't realize was that the soldier's mother
had been watching the whole scene from a nearby rooftop. So,
according to Plutarch, when the old woman saw that her
son was in danger, she lifted up a rooftile with
both hands and hurled it at Peuris's head, and the
(16:40):
resulting blow didn't kill Pearis, but it left him dazed
enough that other soldiers were able to swoop in and
finish him off.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
It feels like bringing elephants to battle wasn't a great idea,
but the king's real mistake was killing someone right in
front of their mind.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
You don't do that.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, it's not the kind of thing you walk away
from it. But let's leave the battlefield behind for now.
Because it's time to pay a visit to the ancient
city of Bethlehem. And that's where Saint Jerome, one of
the early scholars of the Catholic Church, accidentally sparked one
of the weirdest trends in medieval and Renaissance are the
horns on Moses.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
You know, I've actually always wondered about this, because there's
that famous statue of Moses by Michelangelo, and for no
apparent reason, he's got these weird little baby goat horns
sprouting from his forehead.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, it's super weird, especially considering Moses's this prophet and
horns are obviously associated with the devil. But Michelangelo was
actually far from the only person to make this connection.
This image of a horn Moses turns up in all
sorts of Western medieval iconography, and weirdly, it can all
be traced back to this single mistranslation by Saint Jerome.
(17:51):
So it all goes back to the late fourth century.
See when Saint Jerome began working on the first Latin
translation of the Christian Bible, and for whatever reason, he
decides to ignore the existing Greek translation of the Old
New Testaments and instead he translates his own version directly
from Hebrew into Latin, and unfortunately that led him into
(18:12):
trouble due to several ambiguities in the ancient Hebrew language.
One example of this is the Hebrew word for a
ray of light is almost exactly the same as the
word for horn, and because the Hebrew language doesn't apparently
write out its vowels, I guess Jerome wasn't able to
pick up on the context clues. And so in the
Book of Exodus, when Moses returns from Mount Sinai with
(18:34):
the Ten Commandments, his face is lit up by this
divine light, but in Saint Jerome's translation, he gets horns instead.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Wow, all right, So Moses spends six weeks on a
mountaintop communing with God and comes back down he's suddenly
grown a pair of horns, and nobody manages to comment
on this again. Is that what we're talking about here? Yeah,
it's super weird.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And the really well part is that the people who
translated the Old Testament into ancient Greek ray solved for
this welcome back to part time genius meaning of the
Hebrew text and described Moses's face as glorified. But because
Jeromed ignored that Greek translation Moses winds up supporting horns
in art for the next millennium, even after the error
(19:15):
is widely acknowledged.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Huh. I Like the art world was like, no, We're
just we're sticking with the horns, you know. All right,
So if my math is right, that brings us up
to five ancient blunders with two left to go. But
before we get to those, let's take one more quick break,
(19:44):
all right, Mango surp my final entry on our ancient
blunders list. I want to take us back to the
reign of Shen Sherwang, the first emperor of China. So
we're talking about the third century BCE, and Sheen puts
an end to a long period of provincial inflict in
China by unifying the country's various provinces under one central government.
(20:06):
He was also responsible for several major advances in Chinese culture,
including the introduction of standardized weights and measures, the creation
of uniform system of writing, the construction of the earliest
form of the Great Wall. So a lot of accomplishments here. Yeah,
it seems so pretty productive, pretty productive. Yeah, But as
he grew older and more powerful, the emperor also became
(20:27):
obsessed with death and began searching for a way to
achieve immortality. It feels like a lot of these leaders
fall into this trap. And we know this because about
twenty years ago, archaeologists discovered this cache of ancient writings
at the bottom of an abandoned well in the Hunan Province,
and one of them contains this executive order issued by
(20:48):
the emperor. The decree ordered a nationwide search for immortality
potions or elixirs of life, and required every village and
region to submit a report of their findings. That's kind
of amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean, like, China is such a vast territory and
it's not like you can just send out junk mail
or notification. The fact that like he forced this decree
on everyone is incredible. It's a testament to Chen's efficacy
as a leader. But it also just shows how seriously
he took this quest for his immortality. So did the
villages end up getting back to him.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I imagine they all did, but only a handful of
responses were found in that well, and most of the
replies were awkward notes from regional governments saying they hadn't
found the elixir of lives, but like, we're going to
keep looking for it because they am sure. They didn't
want to get in trouble. But the only semi hopeful
response came from officials and Langya when they suggested this
herb from a local mountain might have these life extending properties.
(21:44):
That sounds promising, did it, apparently not considering Emperor Chen
died at the age of forty nine. But that actually
brings us around to his big mistake, because it seems
that in his desperate search for immortality, the emperor may
have actually shortened his own life. Historians believe that his
early death was brought on by mercury poisoning, this extremely
(22:07):
toxic side effect of many of the lixers that he
drank in pursuit of his eternal life. Now that said,
don't feel too badly for the emperor, because he did
have a backup plan. So before his early ish death,
he ordered the construction of this enormous burial chamber, which
he famously stocked with a life size army of thousands
(22:27):
of terra Cotta warriors. To see where we're going here, Yeah,
Jen believed in the afterlife and hope that the clay
soldiers would protect him in the world that was to come.
I like that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
You basically thought he would live forever regardless, but he
still tried to find a magic pushit, yes, make sure
I was to.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Live on earth. Well.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Oddly enough, my last mistake also has to do with
one man's quest for immortality. And maybe it's because I'm
actually working on a new show on how to Live Forever,
because I am obsessed with other people's obsession with the topic.
But so this fact, we need to head over to
the city of Ephesus, which used to be a part
of ancient Greece but is now in modern day Turkey,
(23:08):
and the city is largely remembered as a birthplace of
the philosopher Heraclitis, but it was also home to many
lesser known female artists. I didn't realize this until we
did this episode, but Ephesus was filled with sculptors and
painters and teachers, including the artist Timer Reid, who painted
a famous portrait of Artemis in the fifth century BCE.
Now Artemis for anyone who's familiar with Greek myths or
(23:31):
Percy Jackson was one of the most revered goddesses in
the ancient Greek pantheon, but the Ephesians laid a special
claim to her because they actually believed she had been
born near the city. And while most cities praised Artemis
as the goddess of hunting and wild animals, the people
here actually worshiped her as this goddess of fertility and
the protector of women and young girls, and in fact,
(23:52):
Ephesian women would often call on Artemis for help during childbirth.
So Artemis was, I don't know, kind of like the
city mascot patron deity might be a better way to
describe it.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
But I want to go with mass.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
But that's why the city has had a temple dedicated
to her since as far back as the Bronze Age,
and the original structure was wiped out by a flood
in the seventh century, But about two hundred years later,
the Lydian king Croesus paid to rebuild the temple of Artemis,
and he made it bigger and sturdier than ever, And
so this new and improved temple was one of the
(24:27):
largest ever built in ancient Greece. It stood roughly sixty
feet tall. Inside there was this treasure tove of relief carvings, sculptures, paintings,
including this massive statue of Artemis herself. But for nearly
one hundred years after its completion, the Temple of Artemis
served as a house of worship, and it was also
this tourist destination, this art gallery, all in one. And
(24:50):
then this guy named Haristratus comes along, right and late
one evening in three hundred and fifty six PCE, he
makes his way up to the temple and so fire
to the wooden roof. The flame spread so quickly throughout
this wooden interior. By morning the temple is totally in ruins.
There's nothing left but a few blackened marble columns.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So not an Artemis fan, I'm guessing that's the things
we really don't know much about the arsonist.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
He's believed to have been lower class and possibly enslaved,
and many historians suspect that he wasn't Ephesian by birth,
And obviously with that kind of background, you can imagine
all sorts of potential motives. It might have been politically motivated.
It might have been protesting this injustice of his low station.
Or he also might have been a misogynist lashing out
it this women's protector.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Or maybe and I'm not trying to be funny here.
Maybe he was just unwell and not thinking clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, there are all sorts of plausible options, except that
none of them are the explanation that he offered, because
after being arrested, he admitted that he had torched the
temple just to make a name for himself. He wanted
to leave his mark on history, and he decided the
best way to do it was to destroy the symbol
of the city, which had been, you know, a wonder
of the ancient world that could have lasted for a very,
(26:04):
very long time had it not been for him.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's weird because it makes you wonder why the Ephesians
would play into his hand by recording his confession. Why
not just say the fire was an accident and sweep
it under the rug.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Apparently they tried so. Not only did Efesian authorities sentence
Haristratus to death for the arson, they also institute this
special kind of punishment known as damnatio memory or condemnation
of memory, and under this order, the public was forbidden
to speak or write the culprit's name. This was obviously
done to discourage others from committing similar copycat crimes, but
(26:40):
also to ensure that he didn't get his wish. You
know that people would forget the name Herostratus, so instead
of being remembered, he would be condemned to obscurity.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's like the people that streak across like at the
super Bowl and stuff like that on the field. No,
it don't show them. We do not want them to
be known. But that's clearly not what happened, since we're
talking about him right now.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, I completely Apparently some historians refused to go along
with this punishment, so they write down his story, his
name before it could be forgotten by history, and as
a result, Arsenist's name was not only remembered, it became
the basis for a new expression, which is herostratic fame.
It basically means fame at any cost. All right, So
what are we calling the mistake in this one? Because
(27:20):
it seemed like the Arsenists got exactly what.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
He wanted in this case.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think it's the Ephesian authorities who made the mistake
because they tried to suppress the truth about this fire,
and they went about it in the worst possible way,
right They told everyone not to talk about it, which
just makes everyone want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, I'm glad we put this
list together. It's nice to know that the people of
the past were just as accident prone as the rest
of us, and as susceptible to mercury poison. It is true.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
It seems to close out the show. Why don't we
try to keep the fact off mercury poisoning free?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I'll try, no promises. Well, let's see what happens. Okay.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
So here is a messy medieval blunder from the city
for Germany. This is back in eleven eighty four. Dozens
of noblemen gathered at Saint Peter's Church at the request
of the King Henrik the sixth, and he had called
a meeting to settle a land dispute between two prominent citizens.
But unfortunately they actually never got a chance to discuss
it because shortly after the meeting started, the floor of
(28:23):
the church collapses, right, and apparently the upper room where
the group met wasn't intended to hold such a large gathering.
Everyone's in chainmail and all this heavy armor, and the
floor just wasn't strong enough. So the weight of the
falling people and the debris was so heavy that they
broke through the ground floor too, and wound up plunging right.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Into the church's.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Communal sessca post. I know, it's like the money pit
or something. It's believed that almost everyone for the meeting
fell into the latrine pits. Supposedly, the king and the
archbishop avoided this embarrassment by clinging on to some iron
rails on the church's windows. I don't know if that's
just sort of like polishing the story, but the majority
(29:04):
weren't so lucky, and altogether more than sixty people fell
into this latrine and never made it out.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Goh, that might be the saddest story about people falling
into a giant toilet that I've ever heard, So can't
use that in our future list of sad stories of
people falling into giant toilets. But yeah, that's really sad.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
All right.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I've got a tragic, low brow blunder of my own
for you, Mango, and it's about the first known mooning
on record, and it took place in Jerusalem. This was
back in the first century CE, and according to a
contemporary historian of the era, Flavius Josephus, the first mooning
took place just outside of the city when a Roman
soldier exposed his backside to a group of Jewish pilgrims
(29:44):
on their way to celebrate Passover. As Josephus puts it, quote,
the soldier pulled back his garment and, cowering down after
an indecent manner, turned his breach to the Jews and
spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture.
To put it another way, he farted than for that.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Okay, so I'm going to skip to another one. I
know we've talked about the Wicked Bible before aka the
Sinner's Bible, and it's just a normal English printing of
the Christian Bible. This is from sixteen thirty one, except,
of course, it leaves out the word not from the
seventh Commandment, so instead of saying thou shalt not commit adultery,
it orders the readers to go out and have an affair.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Was this a typo situation or did the printers leave
out the non on purpose, like as a prank or
what was the origin of this? So there's this long.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Running rumor that the misprint was actually an act of
sabotage by a rival publisher, but today most experts think
it was just an honest mistake, not that it made
much difference to the two printers responsible for this. Once
King Charles found out about the wicked Bible, he ordered
the printers to stand trial for sloppiness, and ultimately he
stripped them of their printing license. Now, one thousand copies
(30:56):
of the Bible were printed before the error was discovered,
but ns most of them were destroyed by all these
scandalized readers, priests, or whatever who wanted to get rid
of them. Only about twenty copies are known.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
To exist today. Okay, all right, well here's a quick
one I found. So back in thirteen twenty five, a strange,
short lived conflict broke out between the Italian city states
of Bologna and Modena, and it was called the War
of the Bucket. Now, trouble had been brewing between the
two cities for centuries, but the thing that supposedly tipped
them over into this all out war was the theft
(31:29):
of an old wooden bucket. I mean, buckets are very handy,
so you could see the other night frustrate someone. But
apparently a group of Modanese soldiers sneaked into Bologna one
night they noticed this random bucket at a public well,
and they decided to take it with them, so you know,
the spoils of victory, I guess. And of course someone
noticed the missing bucket the next morning and was able
(31:51):
to quickly suss out who had stolen it. So Bolanese
officials demanded this bucket be returned, and even when the
Modenese were fused to oblige, Bologna declared war on its
longtime rival.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I feel like that has got to be some bucket
rightly special.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I definitely hope so, because although the war only lasted
a few months, it's estimated that roughly two thousand people
died between the two sides.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Oh my god, a few months. So how did Bologna
get this bucket back?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
They did not. They wound up surrendering, and just to
add insult to injury, the Modinese were said to have
stolen a second bucket on their way back home.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So we've talked about some pretty silly fluffs today, but
I think this fact might be the most embarrassing yet.
According to a biography of Greek philosophers, there was a
Stoic philosopher named Crispus, and this is in the second
century BCE. He apparently laughed himself to death while watching
a donkey eat figs. Okay, so apparently this happened during
(32:57):
the one hundred and forty third Olympia. Chrysippus was just
hanging out watching the games when he noticed that his
donkey had started helping himself to some figs, and he
thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever seen, so he
cries out, now, give the ass some pure wine to
wash down his figs. And then, according to Diogenes, he
laughed so violently that he died.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Wait, so this guy got presumably very drunk at the
Olympics and then die laughing at his own dad joke.
It sounds like, are we sure this guy was a stoic?
Because that does not sound very stoic to me.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I think his real mistake was not giving a close
enough watch on his fig supply, because the easiest way
to prevent death by laughing at watching a fig eating
donkey is to never give your donkey figs in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
A truer words were never said, Mango, I think you
deserve the trophy this week for imparting that bit of wisdom.
You built it up like it was going to be
a great fact and it delivered. So congratulations you win
the trophy this week.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Well that's going to do it for a part Time
Genius from myself, Will, Mary, Gabe, and Dylan.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
We'll be back next week with and other brand new episodes,
so please tune back in. Part Time Genius is a
production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by
(34:27):
Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler and research by our good
pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
From Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
A
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what mango was that?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
All right, So I was reading up on ancient Greek
theater this week, which you know I like to do
every October very personal reasons. I don't want to get
into it, and I came across this story about an
Athenian actor name he Geligos, and he once mispronounced a
word so badly that it tanked his entire career. That
sounds so harsh, like just one word tanked his career?
(00:35):
What was the word? Well, so here's the story. This
happened back in the spring of four hundred and eight BC,
and it was during the premiere performance of Orestes. This
was this tragedy written by Euripides. He was playing the
lead role, and in a scene where his character recovers
from a bout of madness, he's supposed to say, quote,
after the storm, I see once more a calm, But
(00:58):
because he was rushing to get the line out, there's
this word in it, galen, and he says it with
the wrong inflection, which changed the meaning from calm to weasel,
Like that's a different word. Those are yeah, I always
think that's an improvement. Well, it was actually worse than
it sounds, because in ancient Greece, seeing a weasel was
(01:19):
considered a really bad omen So the mispronunciation not only
made the line sound sillier, it also conveyed the exact
opposite mood. Instead of being this optimistic line about feeling better,
it became this ominous line about him having bad luck.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And it was actually that big of a mistake just
mispronouncing this one word.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm telling you it ruined his whole career. So comic
playwrights of the era teased him mercilessly and even referenced
him by name in their own play. This killed his
reputation as an actor, to the point that he never
acted again after that one flub. It also gave him
a different level of fame than his contemporaries. Like basically,
even though ancient Greek tragedies are the bedrock of Western theater,
(02:01):
we usually don't have record of the actors who appeared
in the original performances. You don't hear the names of
any of them except for Geligos, who we still know
for this mistake, and this was definitely not the legacy
he would have hoped for, but it is still his legacy.
No such thing as bad publicity. No, that's exactly right.
So we're often hearing about the seven wonders of the
(02:23):
ancient world, so today I thought it might be fun
to explore the seven biggest blunders of the ancient world instead.
This slip of the tongue is just the first on
the list, but that still leaves six more gafts to go,
so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
(02:59):
Part Time Genie. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm
joined by my good friend mangsh Hot ticketter and on
the other side of that soundproof glass wearing a It
took me a minute to read this, but it says
po body's nerfic T shirt. He's so clear, so clever,
clever a picture of a great sphinx on it. That's
our friend and producer Dylan fag and he's just always
(03:20):
one upping the last thing he's done.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So I am actually glad that Dylan referenced the sphinx
because I considered adding the sphinx to our list, specifically
because of that broken nose it has, but once I
started looking into it, I realized the nose wasn't broken
off by mistake.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
This is one of those stories that I feel like
I've heard a few times that I never can like,
wasn't it cut off on purpose? Or shot off by
French troops or something like that. No one actually knows
who did it for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
There have been all these rumors over the years that
it was Napoleon soldiers they had blasted the nose off
with the cannonball in the seventeen nineties. That was the rumor,
But most historians actually think that the schnaws was chiseled
off in the late fourteenth century and chiseled off like
it's a mass of nos that's huge. The most likely
culprit was this man named Mohammad Sayim al Dhar and
(04:06):
apparently the Egyptian peasants of the era had started making
offerings to the sphinx in the idea that it would
improve their harvests or whatever. But when Aldaar found out,
he was so outraged by this idolatry that he destroyed
the sphinx.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Nose just despite them. Wow, So did the villagers kind
of snap out of it after that or what? No,
they executed him for vandalism. Oh god. Okay, yeah, so
far we've talked about some people that they're just lives,
have gone poorly after things. But all right, so now
that we've got that nose story out of the way,
what's your first fact? Mango?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, So I actually kind of want to stick with
Egypt for a minute, because not only is it home
to the only ancient wonder that still exists, the Great
Pyramid of Giza, but it's also home to a true
anciente blunder called the Bent Pyramid. Have you ever seen this?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Actually have not.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm actually going to put a photo here, but the
three hundred and thirty foot tall Bent Pyramid of Dashu
Where was built for pharaoh Sneffru in about twenty six
hundred BCE, and its name stems from an engineering issue
that required the builders to abruptly change the angle of
the pyramid slope about halfway through the construction.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah. I'm just looking at this picture, and the slope
really does change drastically right there in the middle of
the pyramid, Like the lower portion looks so much deeper
than the top. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So the whole thing was originally designed to be built
at a fifty four degree angle, which would have given
it smooth, straight angles that you see on traditional pyramids.
But as the builders added more and more layers of blocks,
these cracks started appearing in the structure, and they realized
it would probably collapse if they kept going, and so
after a bit of number crunching, they decided to reduce
the angle for the upper portion to a much more
(05:45):
stable forty three degrees.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I guess it worked. It's still standing today, and you
could argue that the slightly curved appearance is part of
the landmark's charm. I guess. But I'm curious why the
Egyptians made such a mistake in the first place. I mean,
building pyramids feels like kind of their thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, Egyptians are well known for building pyramids. I
think we're going to break that fact, right, Yeah, okay,
But Snepfer's bent pyramid was.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Kind of in early work.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
It was just the second pyramid burial structure that the
Egyptians had ever constructed. The first one had been built
about two hundred years earlier, southwest of Cairo. And the
interesting thing about that one is it was actually a
stone step pyramid, So the kinds you see in like
Central America, rather than a smooth faced one like the
kind that they would later become famous for.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, so I guess this bent pyramid was in this
transitional phase where they were still trying to figure out
what it really meant or what it needed to build
a pyramid.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, they were still fine tuning the process, and obviously
there was a fair amount of trial and error along
the way. The Egyptians learned from this mistake, and once
the Bent Pyramid was finished, they built a second, more
successful one for the same pharaoh, This three hundred and
forty foot tall, smooth side red pyramid, and it's just
to the north and the future pyramids built in the area.
(07:02):
It was built at that same forty three degree angle
that saved the Bent pyramid. I don't know what it
is about forty three degrees, but it just works.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, and definitely does. That's every when we want to
build a pyramid. All right, Well, I've got an architectural
mishap to add to our list as well, except mine
is more of an ecological oversight than some sort of
design flaw. All so, I'm gonna give you a little
bit of background here. This was in the Great Maya
city called to Call and that formed around six hundred BCE.
(07:30):
Now to Call started as this tiny village in what's
now Guatemala, but over the course of about one thousand
years it developed into this full blown jungle metropolis so
to call hit its stride between three hundred and nine
hundred CE, and at the peak of its power in
the mid eighth century, it boasted upwards of sixty thousand inhabitants,
(07:51):
so there was a lot of people living in one place,
making it one of the largest and most powerful city
states in all of the Americas.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And I'm guessing the architecture there was pretty impressive as well.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, the architecture is actually pretty stunning. So they're these
one hundred foot tall temples more than two dozen pyramids.
But maybe most impressively, it also had this highly advanced
water management system that was there to help residents survive
the region's dry season. So this included a series of
dams reservoirs that collected and stored as much rain water
as possible, as well as these paved sloping plazas to
(08:23):
help direct the water where it needed to go. So
the city even had this sand filtration system to keep
the water clean, so really advanced systems.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
That sounds gorgeous actually, and I'm guessing all that water
work was necessary because of where the city was located.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's exactly right, Like the city was built in the
middle of this dense rainforest and people didn't have easy
access to lakes or rivers, so that's how the city
compensated for this. But what's ironic is that the very
system that helped to Call survive droughts and dry spells
also led to its downfall. And much of the Maya
Kingdom collapsed at the turn of the ninth century, and
(08:58):
in fact, to Call seems to have been outright abandoned,
like with all of its structures left completely intact, as
if everyone just picked up and left at some point.
So for the longest time, there's been this mystery about
what caused the city's demise. It obviously wasn't a violent struggle,
as there were no signs of damage to the city,
so that led historians to conclude that the city's collapse
(09:20):
was probably related to droughts and overpopulation.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And we're saying the fancy water system that the city has,
that's the reason that they left.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, So there was this very recent study. It was
back in twenty twenty that was published in Scientific Reports Journal,
and it was this investigation of to Call's reservoirs, and
they revealed that they were dangerously polluted with high levels
of mercury. And not only that, scientists also found traces
of very toxic algae blooms. Now, the presence of mercury
(09:50):
is most likely attributed to a red mineral called cinebar
or mercuric sulfide, which the ancient mile widely used as
a pigment or a die for various things. So, for example,
the city's temples and the main palace were said to
be caked in cinnabar, which means that during the rainy season,
all that mercury rich powder, it just washed right off
(10:12):
the buildings. Yeah, so you know, it's not good news.
And so thanks to those sloping plazas, this just flowed
straight down into the city's reservoirs and obtained the water
supply of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And so obviously with people drinking and cooking with all
this poisoned water, they.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Must have started getting sick, right, very sick. Once the
blue green algae began to bloom in those phosphate filled reservoirs.
The locals could probably tell from the site and smell
alone that the water was no longer safe to drink.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And I guess what's weird about this is that the
entire population just gets up and leaves, right. I mean,
this civilization has lasted what like a thousand years, and
it feels like they'd almost wanted to fight to save
their city a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well, you've got to keep in mind that Takol was
already struggling due to intensifying droughts. So even if they're
was a way to fix the pollution, the residents really
didn't have the time to implement it. Like, they obviously
needed to deal with this immediately, and so they had
to find a new water supply. And there's also the
religious component to consider. So water was sacred to the
(11:15):
Maya because it was key to their whole existence, So
when their supply suddenly went bad in the middle of
a terrible drought, they likely took it as a sign
that the gods were displeased with them. So from a
practical standpoint and a symbolic one, abandoning their once great
city probably felt like the most sensible option.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I guess it's a luxury to be able to
learn from your mistakes. Like when you think about the
Egyptians working on that bent pyramid, they make this awkward pyramid,
and then they have time to reflect and figure out
like how to make the next one perfect. Right, But
for the Maya, they don't really have a chance to
be scientific.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
In order to survive. They just have to scramble. Yeah. Yeah,
Actually it's funny that you put it that way, because
the next blunder on my list is from someone who
also had to walk away in order to survive a mistake,
but in his case there was a literal dead elephant
blocking the exit. How about that for a tease? Mango.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, but
I'm very curious. So let's take a quick commercial break
and then you can tell me all about it. You're
(12:28):
listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the
seven blunders of the Ancient World.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
So will where are you taking us next? All right?
So for this one, we're headed back to ancient Greece
to about the third century BCE, which was a tumultuous
time in the Mediterranean. The recent death of Alexander the
Great had created this serious power vacuum, and all of
his former generals and allies were competing to fill it.
And one of the would be successors King Pirus was
(12:55):
this ruler from northern Greece, and he managed to extend
his domain by winning their victories against the armies of Macedonia.
Now this was in the year two eighty, and that's
when he set his sights on conquering Rome. So Piras
sailed to Italy with about thirty thousand soldiers and twenty
war elephants, marking the first time that elephants had ever
(13:16):
been seen on the peninsula.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So this must predate Hannibal and the Alps, then, I guess.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
By about sixty years, so not not a ton of time.
But as you might imagine, the Romans on the battlefield
were pretty freaked out by the site of these enormous
armored ann I can't even imagine if I had never
seen an elephant. But even with the advantage of intimidation,
Peiris only barely pulled out a win. In fact, the
number of casualties he sustained was so high that the
(13:46):
Greek historian Plutarch quoted him as having said, quote, if
we are victorious. In one more battle with the Romans,
we shall be utterly ruined. So you can imagine that
these were hard won battles. So King Pierris became well
known for his narrow winds, and people started using the
expression pyic victory, which of course means a victory that
(14:07):
comes at such great costs that it's almost like a defeat.
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I remember taking a class on the moguls in college,
and elephants are obviously so massive and so intimidating, but
they also scare incredibly quickly, and so they're not great
war animals.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I can imagine that, especially if you let a bunch
of mice loose. I mean, that's what I hear. Have
no idea whether that's true, it's not true. So I
haven't even gotten to his real mistake. If you remember
that amazing tease before the commercial breath, the dead elephant
blocking the doorway. Do you remember this? Okay, So, after
a series of skin of his teeth victories in Italy,
(14:46):
Pearis actually started losing battles. So in two seventy five
he retreats back to Greece and begins making a play
for the throne of mast on first, he targeted Sparta,
but when the city state proves resistant to his attacks,
he turns his focus north to Argos. I've always thought
this was interesting in military history, where they're like, I'm
gonna go beat these people and then I can't, like,
(15:06):
oh no, no, I'll go over here. But it's interesting
to think about it. But now Pierce had no trouble
breaking through the city's defenses, thanks once again to his
pack of giant elephants. But once he's inside, he finds
it really difficult to maneuver through the narrow streets, and
his forces are quickly overwhelmed. And to make matters worse,
Peers's forces keep pouring into the city even after he
(15:30):
had ordered a retreat, and in the scuffle that followed,
one of the elephants, the largest one, falls down right
in front of the main gate, which sends the other
elephants into a panic, and they start rampaging through the city,
basically crushing everything.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I mean, can you imagine, like there's no reverse on
an elephant, Like you're in these narrow streets and like
the turning radius isn't that great?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Not good? Not good? So does piiskeatry not exactly, but
his death was the direct result of not being able
to get around the fallen elephant. So in the battle,
Puris takes one look at the chaos unfolding and decides
to take his chances back in the city. Now, as
the story goes, he's fighting his way through the streets
and he gets stabbed through the breastplate by this enemy spear.
(16:19):
Pieris turned to face his attacker and landed a killing blow.
But what he didn't realize was that the soldier's mother
had been watching the whole scene from a nearby rooftop. So,
according to Plutarch, when the old woman saw that her
son was in danger, she lifted up a rooftile with
both hands and hurled it at Peuris's head, and the
(16:40):
resulting blow didn't kill Pearis, but it left him dazed
enough that other soldiers were able to swoop in and
finish him off.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
It feels like bringing elephants to battle wasn't a great idea,
but the king's real mistake was killing someone right in
front of their mind.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
You don't do that.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, it's not the kind of thing you walk away
from it. But let's leave the battlefield behind for now.
Because it's time to pay a visit to the ancient
city of Bethlehem. And that's where Saint Jerome, one of
the early scholars of the Catholic Church, accidentally sparked one
of the weirdest trends in medieval and Renaissance are the
horns on Moses.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
You know, I've actually always wondered about this, because there's
that famous statue of Moses by Michelangelo, and for no
apparent reason, he's got these weird little baby goat horns
sprouting from his forehead.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, it's super weird, especially considering Moses's this prophet and
horns are obviously associated with the devil. But Michelangelo was
actually far from the only person to make this connection.
This image of a horn Moses turns up in all
sorts of Western medieval iconography, and weirdly, it can all
be traced back to this single mistranslation by Saint Jerome.
(17:51):
So it all goes back to the late fourth century.
See when Saint Jerome began working on the first Latin
translation of the Christian Bible, and for whatever reason, he
decides to ignore the existing Greek translation of the Old
New Testaments and instead he translates his own version directly
from Hebrew into Latin, and unfortunately that led him into
(18:12):
trouble due to several ambiguities in the ancient Hebrew language.
One example of this is the Hebrew word for a
ray of light is almost exactly the same as the
word for horn, and because the Hebrew language doesn't apparently
write out its vowels, I guess Jerome wasn't able to
pick up on the context clues. And so in the
Book of Exodus, when Moses returns from Mount Sinai with
(18:34):
the Ten Commandments, his face is lit up by this
divine light, but in Saint Jerome's translation, he gets horns instead.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Wow, all right, So Moses spends six weeks on a
mountaintop communing with God and comes back down he's suddenly
grown a pair of horns, and nobody manages to comment
on this again. Is that what we're talking about here? Yeah,
it's super weird.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And the really well part is that the people who
translated the Old Testament into ancient Greek ray solved for
this welcome back to part time genius meaning of the
Hebrew text and described Moses's face as glorified. But because
Jeromed ignored that Greek translation Moses winds up supporting horns
in art for the next millennium, even after the error
(19:15):
is widely acknowledged.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Huh. I Like the art world was like, no, We're
just we're sticking with the horns, you know. All right,
So if my math is right, that brings us up
to five ancient blunders with two left to go. But
before we get to those, let's take one more quick break,
(19:44):
all right, Mango surp my final entry on our ancient
blunders list. I want to take us back to the
reign of Shen Sherwang, the first emperor of China. So
we're talking about the third century BCE, and Sheen puts
an end to a long period of provincial inflict in
China by unifying the country's various provinces under one central government.
(20:06):
He was also responsible for several major advances in Chinese culture,
including the introduction of standardized weights and measures, the creation
of uniform system of writing, the construction of the earliest
form of the Great Wall. So a lot of accomplishments here. Yeah,
it seems so pretty productive, pretty productive. Yeah, But as
he grew older and more powerful, the emperor also became
(20:27):
obsessed with death and began searching for a way to
achieve immortality. It feels like a lot of these leaders
fall into this trap. And we know this because about
twenty years ago, archaeologists discovered this cache of ancient writings
at the bottom of an abandoned well in the Hunan Province,
and one of them contains this executive order issued by
(20:48):
the emperor. The decree ordered a nationwide search for immortality
potions or elixirs of life, and required every village and
region to submit a report of their findings. That's kind
of amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean, like, China is such a vast territory and
it's not like you can just send out junk mail
or notification. The fact that like he forced this decree
on everyone is incredible. It's a testament to Chen's efficacy
as a leader. But it also just shows how seriously
he took this quest for his immortality. So did the
villages end up getting back to him.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I imagine they all did, but only a handful of
responses were found in that well, and most of the
replies were awkward notes from regional governments saying they hadn't
found the elixir of lives, but like, we're going to
keep looking for it because they am sure. They didn't
want to get in trouble. But the only semi hopeful
response came from officials and Langya when they suggested this
herb from a local mountain might have these life extending properties.
(21:44):
That sounds promising, did it, apparently not considering Emperor Chen
died at the age of forty nine. But that actually
brings us around to his big mistake, because it seems
that in his desperate search for immortality, the emperor may
have actually shortened his own life. Historians believe that his
early death was brought on by mercury poisoning, this extremely
(22:07):
toxic side effect of many of the lixers that he
drank in pursuit of his eternal life. Now that said,
don't feel too badly for the emperor, because he did
have a backup plan. So before his early ish death,
he ordered the construction of this enormous burial chamber, which
he famously stocked with a life size army of thousands
(22:27):
of terra Cotta warriors. To see where we're going here, Yeah,
Jen believed in the afterlife and hope that the clay
soldiers would protect him in the world that was to come.
I like that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
You basically thought he would live forever regardless, but he
still tried to find a magic pushit, yes, make sure
I was to.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Live on earth. Well.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Oddly enough, my last mistake also has to do with
one man's quest for immortality. And maybe it's because I'm
actually working on a new show on how to Live Forever,
because I am obsessed with other people's obsession with the topic.
But so this fact, we need to head over to
the city of Ephesus, which used to be a part
of ancient Greece but is now in modern day Turkey,
(23:08):
and the city is largely remembered as a birthplace of
the philosopher Heraclitis, but it was also home to many
lesser known female artists. I didn't realize this until we
did this episode, but Ephesus was filled with sculptors and
painters and teachers, including the artist Timer Reid, who painted
a famous portrait of Artemis in the fifth century BCE.
Now Artemis for anyone who's familiar with Greek myths or
(23:31):
Percy Jackson was one of the most revered goddesses in
the ancient Greek pantheon, but the Ephesians laid a special
claim to her because they actually believed she had been
born near the city. And while most cities praised Artemis
as the goddess of hunting and wild animals, the people
here actually worshiped her as this goddess of fertility and
the protector of women and young girls, and in fact,
(23:52):
Ephesian women would often call on Artemis for help during childbirth.
So Artemis was, I don't know, kind of like the
city mascot patron deity might be a better way to
describe it.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
But I want to go with mass.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
But that's why the city has had a temple dedicated
to her since as far back as the Bronze Age,
and the original structure was wiped out by a flood
in the seventh century, But about two hundred years later,
the Lydian king Croesus paid to rebuild the temple of Artemis,
and he made it bigger and sturdier than ever, And
so this new and improved temple was one of the
(24:27):
largest ever built in ancient Greece. It stood roughly sixty
feet tall. Inside there was this treasure tove of relief carvings, sculptures, paintings,
including this massive statue of Artemis herself. But for nearly
one hundred years after its completion, the Temple of Artemis
served as a house of worship, and it was also
this tourist destination, this art gallery, all in one. And
(24:50):
then this guy named Haristratus comes along, right and late
one evening in three hundred and fifty six PCE, he
makes his way up to the temple and so fire
to the wooden roof. The flame spread so quickly throughout
this wooden interior. By morning the temple is totally in ruins.
There's nothing left but a few blackened marble columns.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So not an Artemis fan, I'm guessing that's the things
we really don't know much about the arsonist.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
He's believed to have been lower class and possibly enslaved,
and many historians suspect that he wasn't Ephesian by birth,
And obviously with that kind of background, you can imagine
all sorts of potential motives. It might have been politically motivated.
It might have been protesting this injustice of his low station.
Or he also might have been a misogynist lashing out
it this women's protector.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Or maybe and I'm not trying to be funny here.
Maybe he was just unwell and not thinking clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, there are all sorts of plausible options, except that
none of them are the explanation that he offered, because
after being arrested, he admitted that he had torched the
temple just to make a name for himself. He wanted
to leave his mark on history, and he decided the
best way to do it was to destroy the symbol
of the city, which had been, you know, a wonder
of the ancient world that could have lasted for a very,
(26:04):
very long time had it not been for him.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's weird because it makes you wonder why the Ephesians
would play into his hand by recording his confession. Why
not just say the fire was an accident and sweep
it under the rug.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Apparently they tried so. Not only did Efesian authorities sentence
Haristratus to death for the arson, they also institute this
special kind of punishment known as damnatio memory or condemnation
of memory, and under this order, the public was forbidden
to speak or write the culprit's name. This was obviously
done to discourage others from committing similar copycat crimes, but
(26:40):
also to ensure that he didn't get his wish. You
know that people would forget the name Herostratus, so instead
of being remembered, he would be condemned to obscurity.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's like the people that streak across like at the
super Bowl and stuff like that on the field. No,
it don't show them. We do not want them to
be known. But that's clearly not what happened, since we're
talking about him right now.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, I completely Apparently some historians refused to go along
with this punishment, so they write down his story, his
name before it could be forgotten by history, and as
a result, Arsenist's name was not only remembered, it became
the basis for a new expression, which is herostratic fame.
It basically means fame at any cost. All right, So
what are we calling the mistake in this one? Because
(27:20):
it seemed like the Arsenists got exactly what.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
He wanted in this case.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think it's the Ephesian authorities who made the mistake
because they tried to suppress the truth about this fire,
and they went about it in the worst possible way,
right They told everyone not to talk about it, which
just makes everyone want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, I'm glad we put this
list together. It's nice to know that the people of
the past were just as accident prone as the rest
of us, and as susceptible to mercury poison. It is true.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
It seems to close out the show. Why don't we
try to keep the fact off mercury poisoning free?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I'll try, no promises. Well, let's see what happens. Okay.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
So here is a messy medieval blunder from the city
for Germany. This is back in eleven eighty four. Dozens
of noblemen gathered at Saint Peter's Church at the request
of the King Henrik the sixth, and he had called
a meeting to settle a land dispute between two prominent citizens.
But unfortunately they actually never got a chance to discuss
it because shortly after the meeting started, the floor of
(28:23):
the church collapses, right, and apparently the upper room where
the group met wasn't intended to hold such a large gathering.
Everyone's in chainmail and all this heavy armor, and the
floor just wasn't strong enough. So the weight of the
falling people and the debris was so heavy that they
broke through the ground floor too, and wound up plunging right.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Into the church's.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Communal sessca post. I know, it's like the money pit
or something. It's believed that almost everyone for the meeting
fell into the latrine pits. Supposedly, the king and the
archbishop avoided this embarrassment by clinging on to some iron
rails on the church's windows. I don't know if that's
just sort of like polishing the story, but the majority
(29:04):
weren't so lucky, and altogether more than sixty people fell
into this latrine and never made it out.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Goh, that might be the saddest story about people falling
into a giant toilet that I've ever heard, So can't
use that in our future list of sad stories of
people falling into giant toilets. But yeah, that's really sad.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
All right.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I've got a tragic, low brow blunder of my own
for you, Mango, and it's about the first known mooning
on record, and it took place in Jerusalem. This was
back in the first century CE, and according to a
contemporary historian of the era, Flavius Josephus, the first mooning
took place just outside of the city when a Roman
soldier exposed his backside to a group of Jewish pilgrims
(29:44):
on their way to celebrate Passover. As Josephus puts it, quote,
the soldier pulled back his garment and, cowering down after
an indecent manner, turned his breach to the Jews and
spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture.
To put it another way, he farted than for that.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Okay, so I'm going to skip to another one. I
know we've talked about the Wicked Bible before aka the
Sinner's Bible, and it's just a normal English printing of
the Christian Bible. This is from sixteen thirty one, except,
of course, it leaves out the word not from the
seventh Commandment, so instead of saying thou shalt not commit adultery,
it orders the readers to go out and have an affair.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Was this a typo situation or did the printers leave
out the non on purpose, like as a prank or
what was the origin of this? So there's this long.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Running rumor that the misprint was actually an act of
sabotage by a rival publisher, but today most experts think
it was just an honest mistake, not that it made
much difference to the two printers responsible for this. Once
King Charles found out about the wicked Bible, he ordered
the printers to stand trial for sloppiness, and ultimately he
stripped them of their printing license. Now, one thousand copies
(30:56):
of the Bible were printed before the error was discovered,
but ns most of them were destroyed by all these
scandalized readers, priests, or whatever who wanted to get rid
of them. Only about twenty copies are known.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
To exist today. Okay, all right, well here's a quick
one I found. So back in thirteen twenty five, a strange,
short lived conflict broke out between the Italian city states
of Bologna and Modena, and it was called the War
of the Bucket. Now, trouble had been brewing between the
two cities for centuries, but the thing that supposedly tipped
them over into this all out war was the theft
(31:29):
of an old wooden bucket. I mean, buckets are very handy,
so you could see the other night frustrate someone. But
apparently a group of Modanese soldiers sneaked into Bologna one
night they noticed this random bucket at a public well,
and they decided to take it with them, so you know,
the spoils of victory, I guess. And of course someone
noticed the missing bucket the next morning and was able
(31:51):
to quickly suss out who had stolen it. So Bolanese
officials demanded this bucket be returned, and even when the
Modenese were fused to oblige, Bologna declared war on its
longtime rival.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I feel like that has got to be some bucket
rightly special.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I definitely hope so, because although the war only lasted
a few months, it's estimated that roughly two thousand people
died between the two sides.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Oh my god, a few months. So how did Bologna
get this bucket back?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
They did not. They wound up surrendering, and just to
add insult to injury, the Modinese were said to have
stolen a second bucket on their way back home.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So we've talked about some pretty silly fluffs today, but
I think this fact might be the most embarrassing yet.
According to a biography of Greek philosophers, there was a
Stoic philosopher named Crispus, and this is in the second
century BCE. He apparently laughed himself to death while watching
a donkey eat figs. Okay, so apparently this happened during
(32:57):
the one hundred and forty third Olympia. Chrysippus was just
hanging out watching the games when he noticed that his
donkey had started helping himself to some figs, and he
thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever seen, so he
cries out, now, give the ass some pure wine to
wash down his figs. And then, according to Diogenes, he
laughed so violently that he died.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Wait, so this guy got presumably very drunk at the
Olympics and then die laughing at his own dad joke.
It sounds like, are we sure this guy was a stoic?
Because that does not sound very stoic to me.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I think his real mistake was not giving a close
enough watch on his fig supply, because the easiest way
to prevent death by laughing at watching a fig eating
donkey is to never give your donkey figs in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
A truer words were never said, Mango, I think you
deserve the trophy this week for imparting that bit of wisdom.
You built it up like it was going to be
a great fact and it delivered. So congratulations you win
the trophy this week.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Well that's going to do it for a part Time
Genius from myself, Will, Mary, Gabe, and Dylan.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
We'll be back next week with and other brand new episodes,
so please tune back in. Part Time Genius is a
production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by
(34:27):
Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler and research by our good
pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
From Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
A
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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