February 23, 2021 • 53 mins
Born Varius Avitus Bassianus, the emperor now known as Elagabalus scandalized ancient Rome with his constant displays of extravagance, his numerous sexual escapades -- and his insistence that all people worship the sun god Elagabal (represented by a mysterious black stone he brought to town). Tune in to learn how everyday Romans reacted to this larger-than-life character, and how his over-the-top behaviors eventually led to his downfall.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Today we bring you the
story of the whoopee cushion Emperor who did a lot
more than that anyway. My name is Ben. Yeah, Ben
no here, he did a lot of stuff. And you
know what, there's one thing that I think we can
both agree on is we love a good corrupt, decadent
(00:48):
Roman emperor story m for the podcast. Now, of course,
going into this, we do have to establish that um
with powerful figure of old, especially for some reason Roman
emperors and maybe popes. Whenever you hear their stories, especially
past a certain historic threshold, you have to assume that
(01:11):
there's some exaggeration, a little bit of the equivalent of
tabloid writing in the mix there. But just just from
the jump, uh, we we do have to say take
some of this with a pillar of salt. But we
had a lot of fun Telly Now our super producer
Casey pegram some of the highlights of this guy's career
(01:32):
before we even recorded. Yeah, we did. You know, there's
there's no nipping Mennos in this one. And if if
you'll recall that from ridiculous histories of your who's that
what what what? What? Decadent emperor had the nipping mennos,
with the the castrated young boys that would pretend to
be little fishies nipping at his heels, and the bathing pools. Um. This,
(01:54):
there is decadence of that caliber in this story, but
this one is almost more about what the greater Roman
population might consider uh heresy or sacrilege. Right, this is
how this emperor really put It wasn't the decadence or
the hedonism or the orgyistic behavior. It was really kind
(02:15):
of just dissing their pantheon. Yeah, that earlier, the Nippi
minnows guy that you just mentioned, old that was tiberious, Yes, yes, uh,
and he did other things. I think that's just what
we latched onto because it was so raunchy and so weird. Uh.
Today's story is about an emperor, a heretic, a problem child.
(02:41):
If anybody recalls that film franchise, especially these early days,
who is known most commonly today as Ella Gabalus, which
is love him or hate Um. That's just a fun
name to say, Ella Gabolus. It sounds like a spell.
Ella Gabalus. Is hella fabulous a name? Uh, it's a
(03:04):
name that was I love. I love the idea of
giving yourself a name, right, um, and that that is
what this uh, this young man did. His official name
was a little less sexy, if very convoluted. It was
Caesar Marcus Aurelius and to Ninus Augustus, which was a
political choice as well. It was kind of it was
(03:25):
meant to tie him into uh, legitimacy and public eye,
which is which is a cool thing that you can't
get away with. Is often today, like popes choose their names.
But uh, you know, podcasters spoiler alert, podcasters can't just
go out and say, well, my name is uh Karen
(03:49):
kill Graf, Maren Glass, Marsupial, I don't know Marsupial, but
you know I'll back you up, yes, And I just
want I just want to I just think Marsupial sounds
like a Roman name. I would love to see that
used more. And and uh in naming culture, I guess.
And maybe when I say he gave himself the name
(04:10):
uh Ella Gabolus, that's not quite right. It was largely
kind of a nickname, I guess because his real name
or his official name was so convoluted and confusing and
easy to construe with other you know, because every single
one of these Caesar, Marcus, Aurelius, Antoninus, Augustus were all
other huge figures that loomed large in Roman political culture.
(04:34):
In fact, I believe ben he was referred to often
by detractors as the faults Antoninas or fake Antoninus. Yes,
you are correct, and the name Marcus really a severus,
and Deninus was the identical name of an earlier imper
name now known as Caracalla, so they changed. People only
(04:58):
referred to Ella Gabolus as Ellie Gables after his death.
Spoiler alert, He's not with us today. Uh, And that
was probably that was probably to differentiate him from this
other guy who was like three emperors before him, who
had the exact same name. So totally understand that. And
what I was I kind of stepped on my own
story there. What I was getting out was the name
(05:20):
Ella Gabbles came from the fact that his mother, Uh, Julia,
I'm gonna shart my best at this, so m E
S s O A E M I A S so am. Yes,
I'm gonna say, but you know whatever, correct me if
I'm wrong, folks. Uh. This part of his family came
from Syria and worshiped a particular son deity by the
(05:47):
name of Ella Gubbaal, which to me just sounds like
something out of Dune. Obviously Dune probably took a lot
of inspiration from this part of the world. Um. And
it was yes, an em a scene son god uh.
And he as a youth was what's called a hereditary
priest of this god. And this is something that's gonna
(06:09):
follow him that he's gonna really double down on when
he starts getting into Roman politics. Absolutely, yeah. And this
was you could tell from the title, folks, hereditary priesthood
means that he was able to get this position due
to the family of his mother, Julius so Amias. His
maternal grandmother, Julia Mesa, was also involved with this, and
(06:32):
she was the elder sister of one Juliet Domna, who
is the wife of Septimius Severus uh, the Emperor of Rome,
founder of the Severn dynasty. Lot of Julius. Here, a
lot of Julia's people were like you know, you find
people back then treated names the way Bernie Sanders treats coats.
You find one good one, you keep the good one. Uh.
So the guy we call Elligaballas today was born around
(06:56):
two oh three c e. In as he said, no,
in Syria, uh, the city that's today known as Halms.
This gives us some weird perspective. First off, the way
he gets to become emperor is super sketchy. It's a
great story, but I want to plan a seed for
a little bit of perspective. So recently here in the US,
(07:18):
the new president was elected. That president is Joe Biden,
and Joe Biden is the only the second Catholic ever
elected to the office of the presidency, uh in the
history of this country. The other one was JFK. I
thank there. Our country's gone. I would like to say
progressed a bit such that it's not a huge deal
or controversial, but we'll see how religion and religious affiliation
(07:42):
plays a huge role in the real controversy surrounding Ella Gables,
Like people were calling him this, you know, this false emperor.
Uh for a number of reasons. His bedside manner didn't help.
So he's he's got he's set up for success. You know,
he's born it into the upper echelons. He's part of
the priesthood class. He's got some connects with the ruling dynasty. Uh.
(08:07):
The Severing dynasty was from one ninety three to about
two thirty five CES, So he's born during this dynasty
and he has a connect with him. Uh. His mom
and his maternal grandmother, both Julia's, were crucial. UH. Probably
the puppeteers behind the scheme to raise him to the
throne of Rome. And as we see often occurring in
(08:31):
ancient monarchies, they there's a good argument that they were
pretty much in control of the empire, especially when Eliga
Ballast was in his younger days. Wouldn't you say? I
would say that bad, and I gotta get it out
of my system real quick before we progressed too far.
Whenever I hear the words severing or severus, the first
thing I think of is the Velvet Underground song Venus
(08:53):
and first uh and the lyric go severing severance speaks
us slightly severing down on your bended knee, taste the
whip in love not given lightly. Taste the whip now
bleed for me. So I mean, obviously this is a
reference to that kind of s and m hedonism of
this particular era of Roman culture. I mean, it's he's
(09:13):
spread throughout, we see it, but the particularly kind of
kinky behavior. And I mean the name of the song
is Venus in first. After all, well, let me let
me get this out of my system that I'm gonna
only reference at once. The whole time I was reading
and researching the Severest dynasty, here, I was just picturing
snape from Harry Potter, also a thing bore and again
(09:36):
and again just using a different name, or he wouldn't
even have to in Rome, because apparently people didn't use
different names that you just got posthumous nicknames. It's very
interesting way of going about things, and also makes for
very confusing timelines because we see, you know, even within
the same era, all of these same names popping up
over and over again, so and and and and the
(09:58):
The story that we're to about how uh Ela Gabiles
became emperor is in and of itself, like you said, Ben,
super shady, but also very complex and convoluted. So we're
gonna do our best to kind of maybe fast track
it and then get to the the hedonistic stuff, the
juicy stuff. We know why you're listening, folks, Yeah, Yeah,
(10:20):
let's well, we'll go through this, uh will We may
have to make up our own nicknames for some of
the people, because again, this gets convoluted. Partially, I'd argue
because the names. It reminds me of that great Marques
novel One Years of Solitude, which just if you've read it,
you know one of the toughest parts is following all
these people with the same names. Anyway, here's what happens. Karacala,
(10:44):
the guy we mentioned earlier, uh, he is assassinated in
two seventeen BC. This death marks a kind of break,
a loss of power for the Severin dynasty, and the
next emperor, Macronus, is not a member of this family
associated with that previous dynasty. Macronus was set up well.
(11:04):
He was a praetorian prefect under Karakala. He's also the
guy who orchestrated the coup, killed the emperor, and then
seized the throne, and he wanted to get rid of
anybody who might contest his rule, including people who were
members of the previous emperor's family, even if they were
kind of distant members. Because of that, he exiled Ella
(11:28):
Gabolus and his family back to their estate in Syria.
But it turns out that he may be Macronus maybe
underestimated just how badly the emperor's family wanted to return
to power. So why is Syria so involved in Roman politics?
I know that Rome like annexed a part of Syria
(11:52):
and then so I guess like like in sixty four BCS,
so that would have been long before this period. So
I guess they just kind of became intertwined. So there
could have been like Syrian families because of that relationship,
that that moved up in the pecking order. Yeah, it's
like it's it was a important province of the empire.
So it definitely was part of the Empire. It was
(12:14):
just also considered like because of the way assimilation works,
they're they're probably considered a little bit culturally different. The
thing is, uh mccrinus sort of made a fatal error
when he underestimated, uh the I guess the staying power
(12:35):
that the Severin dynasty had and how much the family
of Karcala really, really really did not want to give
up that power once they've gotten to taste of it.
I mean, you know, it would be a hard self
for anyone if you've been used to being the family
of literally the emperor to all of a sudden, Oh
there's a coup, and now your life is completely different.
(12:56):
But often I think fear or just self preservation would
take over, but in this case what took over was
a desire to take back the throne clawed back in fact.
So Julia Misia uh mesa, let's say um was the
sister in law to Septimus Severus. Okay, this is where
it gets a look confusing. Also was grandmother to eligabalas Um.
(13:22):
And she was very, very very gifted at conniving and um,
you know, making moves behind closed doors and double crossing
and every flavor of uh today almost consider like espionage,
but it's really just political maneuvering. So she decided she
(13:44):
was gonna make it her goal above all else to
get her family back on the throne. So she and
her two daughters, uh the other two Julia's Julius Simias
and Julia Mamia Mamia Um, they were going to work
together and conspire to destroy mcnus. I'm just I'm just
laughing because as soon as we got to the other
(14:07):
Julia Baba Mia, in my head, it's just my mommy
and it'd be cool. So yeah, so she said, okay, well,
let's get rid of this Macronus guy. He's a dirt bag,
he's a pill. I've got an idea. I've got a
pitch for you. Let's keep it in the family. How
about my grandson, Ella Gabolus. He's he's legitimate, and we
(14:32):
can strengthen his claim to the throne with a little
bit of a story. You know, someone told me, a
little bird told me I heard through the grapevine word
on the street, that Ella Gabolus is actually the illegitimate
son of Cara Colla, the emperor who got assassinated. And
it's weird because Ella Gableus did look like he resembled
(14:57):
Caro call if you saw their faces together, you could,
you know, you could see it. But he was, in
fact just a cousin of that emperor. Still at this time,
his fortunes are looking good because while they're in exile
in Syria, he's inherited his family position as high priest,
and he was currently worshiping that sun god we mentioned earlier,
(15:18):
Ella Gabal, the god of the Mountain, the stone god
of the Mountain, in his home city of Syria. And
it gets a little love craft, dude, which is super cool.
We'll get into it. So this god from what we
call Roman Syria, the worship of this Eli gabal This
was a widespread cult in the Empire in the second century,
(15:40):
and the religion was eventually kind of assimilated into Helios,
the Roman sun god. And that's why one of Helios's
street names was Helio Gabblus, which is a variant of
Eli Gabalus, which eventually became this emperor's posthumous nickname. That
was a lot, but I think we got there. So
(16:01):
I think we got there. It does make sense. Um.
And again, if anybody is more into the minutia of
this power struggle, there's certainly materials out there if you
check out. We're doing our best to get through it, um.
But there you know, if you want to, if that's
the part that that really interests you, highly recommend this
National geographic piece from Juan Pablo Sanchez, published in March
(16:22):
of twenty nineteen. Uh. And there's again tons of other mania.
There's also a really good YouTube video that I found.
It's about a half an hour and talks a lot
about struggle. That's the right, that's the way yeah, I
dig that one. I take that one. It's a it's
part of a series on the ten Most Evil Robe
exactly well narrated, lots of good imagery. Highly recommend that one.
(16:43):
Live footage, live footage, yeah, re enactments of orgies No,
not quite but close. Um. But you know it's interesting
in general, how Rome always in Okay, so let's look
at Greek and Roman religious pampeons. How there's always kind
of like a like a um analog god, you know
what I mean, between the two cultures. And because Rome
(17:06):
conquered so many different Um cultures, they assimilated a lot
of different religions, so they're like, well you don't need
you know, la goball you've got who has it been? Helios? Helios? Right?
But that wasn't doing it for Eli Gabalis, was it? No?
Not at all. I mean, religious syncretism is a huge
(17:27):
tool of empires because it's it's super effective, which I
feel like I excellent quoted a video game there. But
you're right, Eliablus wasn't having it. Uh. He said, you know,
I'm the high priest of this I kind of know
what I'm talking about, guys. Uh. And it's it's not
not the same thing anyway. Uh. The Roman government initially
(17:51):
supported Macronus because Macronus is the ruling emperor and he
kills people to take their thrones. So when Macronus said
this like Ablis kid is an idiot, he's a real
piece of work, not hell of fabulous at all. No, no,
the opposite. Uh. He started calling him the false Antoninus,
(18:12):
and he said, look, I am well aware of this kid,
and he is insane. You do not want him in power,
which would later actually turn out to be the case.
So the senate listened to their emperor and they said,
you know what, good point, Emperor. We're going to declare
war on this guy and his mom. However, mom she
(18:35):
has a plan. They say, we're going to declare war
on this guy and his grandmother. But the grandmother has
a plan. She's not gonna let people dissuade her from
her scheme to get her grandson on the throne. So
she goes to the Roman troops stationed in Syria, the
third Legion, and she bribes them into supporting her her cause,
(18:59):
and the kind of this kind of hamstrings Macronus his
forces in the area. She bought out the troops that
he was going to use basically, Yeah, and with that
support and with this uh, you know, seemingly legit you know,
severing pedigree, right, Ella Gabalus was presented to the centurion
(19:22):
Publius Valerious Camazan and his troops, um, and he was
he was convinced he was good. So the military essentially, uh,
decreed that he was the new emperor of Rome. Was
that about government ben Yeah, that gets us there, So
(19:48):
they says new and berg Rome. Other legions in the
east follow with their own recognition. So now the empire
is in an unstable state. Uh no pun intended, meaning
that there there are two people claiming to be the emperor. Uh.
Ellie Gablis had a tutor, a eunuch named Gannies, who
(20:10):
later became a general, and Gannies would go on to
defeat Macronus in Antioch and modern day Turkey just like
not even a month later. So Marinus is defeated and
he flees on June eighteen CE. Uh. He is executed
at Cappadocia. They also catch his son and kill his son,
(20:34):
and so Ellie Gables declares his victory to be the
beginning of his reign as the Emperor of Rome. He
is fifteen years old. He takes all the titles uh,
and then he goes instantly into diplomacy where his mother
and grandmother do because he sends these letters, uh, these
like let's bury the hatchet letters to the Senate in Rome.
(20:57):
And the way that these letters are raised, from what
we can tell, uh, is very much like, hey, you
can you can get with the times, you can ride
the wave with me, or you can drown when it crashes.
So the senators knew they were getting an offer they
couldn't refuse. It was kind of gangster, uh, So they
(21:18):
went along with it and boomed. The Severeign dynasty is
back in play. But pretty quickly as they're traveling to Rome,
we start to see some unusual behavior on the part
of the new emperor. Yeah, well we might call historical
weird flexes, but not nothing like two out of the ordinary.
I mean, he he liked fine clothing. He would drape
(21:40):
himself in the finest purple raiments embroidered with golden what
he ca coutrement. You know, he was like basically iced up,
you know, wearing heavy necklaces and bracelets adorned with the
finest of precious jewels and metals, and uh, he even
gave him he found himself. Um. And also like like
(22:03):
this is a letter from reading this, maybe I'm a
little confused about the imagery here, but it makes it
sound like he was wearing a crown uh and a tiara.
He was just he was an extra tag extra Yeah,
golden jewels, all that stuff. Uh. And he had like
a crew following him around that would accompany his every
(22:26):
move with flutes and fifes and drums and all that. Um.
And he was just constantly like strutting around and like
really being very performative with his with his behavior. Uh.
And he would openly participate in these orgiastic let's call
them services or rituals uh in you know, devotion to
(22:51):
his god uh elagaba right right in service of this religion.
So he's he's yeah, he could be consider a bit
of a peacock, a bit vain, a bit uh stretched forward.
He was accused in later historical writings of living in
a quote debraved manner, engaging in a natural vice with dudes.
(23:15):
We all know what that means. Uh. The troops who
were stationed nearby, we're kind of digging it. They were like,
this is a great show. You know, this is before
Circus l A. This is the best they could get, right,
So they're like, this is this is a heck of
a show. So they would travel to his temple and
watch him do his priestly duties, and they were just
taken in by the spectacle of it. Uh. But but
(23:38):
that that was all before he was the emperor. He
was just an exiled person at that time. Now that
he is the dude in charge of the Roman Empire,
the soldiers are less and less impressed, and according to
a work called the Historia Augusta, the soldiers soon began
to regret that they conspired against Macronus in the beginning,
(24:00):
and they were starting to think, I don't know, is
this kid really going to be a good emperor. And
the soldiers weren't the only ones worried. Old even Elli
Gabolus's grandmother, who was largely responsible for this scheme, started
to think, I don't know if my grandson, you know,
(24:20):
I love him to death Alcobal bless him. I don't
know if my grandson is fit to be emperor. He's uh,
he's being a little out there. He really did seem
a little out there. And there are some accounts from
various historians and firsthand observers of this behavior, one of
whom was Herodian, who wrote that Julia Mesa, the grandmother
(24:43):
in question here, was quote greatly disturbed and tried again
and again to persuade the youth to wear Roman dress
when he entered the city to visit the Senate Um,
fearing that his appearance, obviously foreign and holy barbed barrack,
would offend those who saw him. So again like that,
not only are these these outfits that he's flexing, you know,
(25:07):
super extra and ostentatious and over the top, they represent
a completely different culture. And there is kind of a
need in this situation if you're coming from a different culture, uh,
to at least give the appearance of you know, respect
or not. Maybe not full assimilation, but certainly not just
outright flouting of the culture that you're coming into. Right, Yeah,
(25:30):
absolutely think about it this way. So there's there's already
been great instability. When you the average Roman citizens see
your new emperor, you want to think that Emperor, hey,
they look Roman. They look like someone I could sit
down and have a couple of wine with uh, and
they look like someone who would be a Roman emperor,
(25:52):
and they act that way too, as low as the
bar is for well behaving emperors. If this person looks different,
if they as though they are from a foreign culture
than the average Roman citizen and the average Roman soldier
and the average Senate member, may feel on some level
less like members of the Roman Empire, more like members
(26:14):
of an occupied state, you know what I mean. There's
there's a lot to be said for this. Now, these
things are all happening, This kind of soup is stirring
and simmering. The party arrives in Rome, and when they
get to Rome, a lot of people who remained loyal
to Macronus are executed the way Macronus and his son
(26:35):
were killed, and a lot of people in the Senate
are left alone. They already got those letters of amnesty
and reconciliation. However, other high ranking imperial officers whose loyalty
was in question, they were at the very least dismissed,
and then they were just so ridiculous. They were replaced
(26:55):
by goons from Syria, people that just like the the
grand mother and the kid liked them, and Ellie Gabolus
again he's a teenager. He's ignoring most of like the
day to day job of being an emperor, the details,
the decisions. UH, this is left up to his mother
and his grandmother, who become the first women who are
(27:18):
given permission to attend the Roman Senate, and they're even
given senatorial positions. So we'll we'll see this pattern. I
would argue that his mother and his grandmother were probably
well qualified to be in the Senate, but we see
this pattern of this emperor hiring unqualified people for very
(27:39):
important positions. And you know, long story short. The way
they write it in UH and an article by history
things is this it could only go downhill from there.
It's not a it's not an exaggeration because as soon
as this guy is in Rome emperoring full time, he's
(28:00):
just he's a wash and controversy. It's one thing after
the other. It's always something with Ella Gabilus, that's right,
because it seems that more important to him, uh than
the idea of being the emperor of Rome was what
we talked about at the very beginning of the episode.
This identity that was very important to him as being
(28:23):
the high priest of Ella gabal Um, it was you know,
the emperor stuff wasn't that much importance to him. Uh,
it wasn't really something that was top of mind. Um
so and and and yet he is at the pinnacle
of power in Rome and in this position where he
can essentially do what he wants. I mean, obviously we
(28:44):
know that, uh, this can have really gnarly implications over time.
But you know, it's hard to convince somebody who has
absolute power that they are going to be their own
undoing right. Yeah, it's not something that they want to hear,
you know. And the thing is, in social environments like this, Uh,
(29:07):
syncophants have the advantage the yes folk will tend to
win the emperor's opinion. So something happens almost immediately that
scandalizes the population, from members of Senate to just the
average Jewish and Christian people living in the empire. As
(29:29):
you said, no, Ali Gablus feels I guess the best
way to say it is he feels like a high
priest who later became emperor but is still a priest.
And so he says, away with the old religions. We're
going to replace the old traditional religion of Rome in
a large part stolen from the Greeks with this other
(29:49):
religion that I'm a high priest of the worship of
Ella gabal This Syrian god is even going to replace Jupiter,
the the primary god of Roman mythology. And so to
do this, this is what I feel like his love
crafty And I might just be reading tea leaves here,
or you know what, I just love horror stories. Anyway,
(30:12):
to to do this, to make this official in his mind,
Eli Gablus has a stone brought from Syria nearly two
thousand miles to Rome. It's a symbol of his religion.
It's a black, conical shaped rock that may have been
a meteorite, and he installs it on the Palatine Hill,
(30:35):
which is a you know, a prestigious place, so it's
clearly visible. This is where we introduce Cassius Dio. Cassius
Dio writes a thing called Roman History. He is one
of the people who has on written record called the
simper the false Antoninus Uh. And what what did he
have to say about? Oh, quite a bit, Ben, quite
(30:57):
a bit he had. He had some pretty early historical
hot takes to offer um. He said of the false
Antoninus Uh. The offense consisted not in his introducing a
foreign god into Rome, okay, or in his exulting in
very strange ways, but in his placing him even before
(31:20):
Jupiter himself and causing himself to be voted his priest.
So just just to take a pause here, he's essentially
saying that he was trying to subplant, uh, the popular religion,
you know, which was was very very important to to
to the Roman people and to the Yeah, that's the
important part here. It's important to the Roman people. I mean,
(31:41):
you could argue that in the same way religion is
used as a political tool in America today or in
in just you know, geo political affairs. Uh, in Rome
likely you know, sure, there are some true believers in
the Senate and and in politics, but it was largely
a tool to really control people. And when you turn
(32:01):
the people against you, that's going to cause some problems. Okay.
So not only did he supplant the popular religion of choice,
he also made himself like the head of it. It's
like appointing yourself the pope of a religion that nobody
wants anything to do with. Um. Furthermore, this is back
to Cassius Dio. He was frequently seen even in public,
(32:22):
clad in the barbaric dress which the Syrian priests used,
And this had as much to do as anything with
his receiving the nickname the Assyrian. Long story short, Ella
Gabolist does not care. He builds a temple called the
Elligaballium to this, to this god, on that same hill
where the stone now rest. He continues the schedule of
(32:47):
sacrifices to the stone and the god cows and sheep.
For sure. Some of the more sensationally counsel alleged that
humans were sacrificed in honor of this god of the mountain,
and wine was mixed with blood from the sacrifice is
poured out as offerings. Apparently he didn't respect any other
(33:08):
religious movement other, you know, aside from his own. Because
he's the high priest. It's good to be king, high
priest and emperor. You're like double king. That's amazing. So
imagine the equivalent of pr agency, his his supporters, his
real masters, the mom and the grandmother. Like Okay, we
gotta do something, we gotta manage the public image. Let's
(33:29):
get married to a respectable family or families. That's right. Uh,
this is like a political maneuver like a diplomatic kind
of play. Let's say. Uh. He would ultimately go on
to have three wives, uh, one of which was a
Julia Julia Paula uh Annia Faustina, and Aquilia Severa um.
(33:50):
And the last of those, Aquilia Severa, was a particularly
contentious one in terms of the way it was received
by the public because she was known as what was
called a vestal virgin, which ben is a term that
I think we we were here thrown around sort of
in like colloquial, could be thrown around like colloquially, but
(34:13):
it was absolutely like a thing, right, like a particularly
high um. Not don't necessarily, but it was yeah, sacred
almost right, Yeah, absolutely So the vessel virgins were consecrated
to Vesta. Part of their consecration involved a vow of chastity,
(34:33):
and their job was to keep the sacred fire burning
at the goddesses alter vessel virgins. By the way, we
don't do comic book recommendations where we used to. Vessel
virgins appear in a great comic series called Britannia, which
I recommend checking out. It's uh, no spoilers, it's a
nero is in this one not uh Elagabolos, but who
(34:57):
he deserves his own comic or his grandmother certainly does.
But you're right, vessel virgins are real things. So in
attempting to assimilate further into Roman society and get approval
from the well to do Romans at the time, that
he goes too far. And now he offends them even
more because he's knocking up vestal virgins. And he says, uh,
(35:23):
he also doesn't care. He says, quote, there's nothing more
appropriate than the marriage of a priest to a priestess.
He says this to the Senate, and then he also
he also says they will have god like children. He's like,
you don't understand where this is like a super soldier program.
That's interesting, Ben, because I mean, I gotta wonder, like
(35:43):
it doesn't seem to me that he's I think he's
just a little bit clueless maybe and not like outright
trying to piss people off. Like I really wonder if
he is trying to, like, looking at this is almost
a gesture of like joining my religion to your religion
and creating some sort of h ybread super deity that
has the powers the superpowers of both you know what
(36:05):
I mean, Yeah, that's it. I mean, that's a really good,
good point. Definitely there's arrogance in there. That's you know,
you're raised as a high priest, you become emperor. But
it may be that he simply culturally did not understand,
like he may not have been trying to purposely bait
people or be a source of such controversy. He keeps going,
(36:33):
and he's so extra. He has these elaborate processions where elephants, tigers,
and lions are pulling chariots up the Vatican Hill and
they're trampling over these tombs that are in their way,
so like they're going through this graveyard. And then he
(36:54):
also he also has this weird kind of lottery system
that he plays with giving away stuff. Uh. He likes
to go to the population, Like while he's presiding at
various games, he likes to go to the population and
give them what he calls chances. They're essentially presents that
are completely arbitrarying up to him. Like one day he
(37:15):
might throw a nice steak out in the crowd, or
hundreds of gold coins. And he did this because he
liked to watch people run and scramble in the dirt
for this stuff. But then another day he might just
throw out a dead dog. You never know what you're
gonna get on the La Gabolas show exactly. It really
is kind of a weird twisted lotto. Um, did we
(37:36):
talk about the the next kind of big public or
fuffle the divorce? Oh no we didn't, but yes, there
was a divorce. There were several divorces. Remember Paula, That
was Julia, Julia Paula. Uh. He divorced her claiming that
she had some kind of blemish on her body. Uh,
(37:57):
and that was his first wife. And in doing that,
before the divorce was official, he uh basically moved in
with Aquila severa Um. So that was against the law,
against Roman law and custom, and also because she was
the one that was consecrated to vesta Um and he,
according to the account from Cassius Dio, impiously defiled her. Yes, yeah,
(38:25):
impiously defiled. And in order to prevent further controversy, that
marriage was also dissolved. So pictures prt history will tell
you this guy had between three to five wives, so
he was he was going through it, and he was
also doing stuff like throwing parties where he might serve
(38:49):
fake food just for the lulls, like food made of
wax or marble or stone. And there's one story, unproven, unconfirmed,
that says, once upon a time he threw so many
flower pedals on his dinner guests that some of them
almost suffocated. But these are these are childish pranks. And
(39:10):
there is a reason we called him the Whoopee cushion
and berth at the top. Uh, there is stuff we
have to mention. Now, this may not be appropriate for
all audiences. We're gonna maybe know I I proposed that
maybe we veer away from stuff that might be too
too graphic. Yeah for sure. Okay, but we have to
talk about his reputation for being an absolute headonist for sure.
(39:36):
You know, like I said, I was setting up for
that at the top of the show with that underground quote,
the whole taste of the whip situation. But his his
stuff went even deeper than just your every day you
know the kinks, right. Yeah, yeah, So he had he
had the street rep as a guy who just couldn't
(39:57):
control himself and didn't bother to. Uh. The Augustine History
describes it as this quote. He had never had intercourse
with the same woman twice except his wife. And he
opened brothels in his house for his friends, his clients,
and his slaves. On one occasion, he gathered all the
city's prostitutes in the forum and appeared before them in
(40:19):
a woman's costume and with protruded bosom. And it's this
that actually, uh, you know, and and and I think
it was that YouTube video that that we we talked
about Ben sort of credits him as being one of
the first trans people in history. Yes, yeah, we'll come
to find out that. According to a couple of sources, uh,
(40:40):
he once went to physicians and asked for surgery uh,
and wanted them to construct female genitalium and his body.
And because this story is found in Cassius Dio and
not the other two ancient sources, it's it's still up
for debate. Uh. He also reportedly was attempted to become
(41:06):
a unique priest of a sort a real this is
a real thing called a gallus, but he was convinced
to undergo just circumcision instead. So that you know, there's
a lot culturally that doesn't quite translate. But to your point, yeah,
there is something to this. People have argued this case
about his gender identification. He was a sidemail at birth.
(41:30):
But um, the language I think didn't really exist to
describe this at the time. Um. Either way, Rome is
just continually scandalized by this, Yes, and for sure. Uh.
And what we're talking about here with this like forum
kind of event was it's essentially like a sexual Olympics,
(41:50):
almost with him as the sole judge, right. Um. And
there were charioteers and athletes and slaves that would participate
in this and that would also attend to his individual
private uh sexual needs. Um. And he became so fond
of a particular charioteer named Heracles. Uh he started referring
(42:13):
to him openly as his husband. UM. And he you
know had a kind of a you know, a harom
I guess of of lovers on the side. Like you said, Ben,
he never claimed to never have sex with the same
person more than once, except for his wife. But it
did seem like Heracles would have been uh in this
smaller group of recurring UM lovers would have been you
(42:36):
know a little bit different. But he you know, would
gravitate towards those that were open to his particular kinks
and and would allow him to kind of discover uh
and push these boundaries right. Yeah, there's there's even this
story that Elligabolos would deliberately put himself in situations where
(42:58):
he would be discovered sleeping with other people entirely in
the hopes that his husband hero cles would quote unquote
punish him. So so this very I agree, there's a
little bit of kink to this so long story short,
doesn't take much for all the people who are disapproving
of this guy to start talking about him and saying,
(43:21):
you know, he's unsuited for the role of emperor. He
spends so much more time dancing around that gosh darn
temple and buying exotic food and gold chamber pots. He
doesn't like what what emperoren does this guy actually do
and their uprisings, especially in some of the more distant provinces. Uh.
(43:42):
This is weird because picture elli Abolis still young while
and out his whole life is like an episode of
MTVS cribs. Uh. But every so often, maybe in the
middle of the night, he's looking out the window and
he's thinking of what that Syrian oracle told him long ago.
It makes me think of Searcy and Game of Thrones,
(44:03):
who is visited by an oracle or of a seer
when she's a child and is told that like everyone
she loves is going to die and all this stuff.
Um to have that in your head, you know, and
it caused you to maybe act a certain way because
a lot of stock was put into these types of predictions. Uh.
And and he was warned by this oracle that he
(44:25):
should expect a short life and a violent death. Um.
And so again he um. It's in the same way
that Searcy was always trying to keep people at arms
length and protect her children and all of that. Um.
He preferred the idea of being in control, being able
to kill himself rather than being assassinated. So he kept
(44:47):
the stockpile of silver, daggers and poison. Uh. And he
had a tall tower built and adorned with diamonds and gold,
so that at the moment when he you know, like
the Hitler Bunker type moment um, he would ascend this
tower and throw himself to his death before being taken
(45:08):
alive and tortured and then ultimately you know, killed him.
M hmm. There's all the story to find out that. Uh.
He apparently also only wore Chinese silk when when possible,
because he wanted to leave a good looking corpse, right
despite all of all of his preparations, the Tower of
the Daggers and so on. Uh, he had an ignoble end.
(45:32):
His grandmother masterminded the end of his career. She convinced
him to adopt his twelve year old cousin, Alexander, as
his official successor. Alexander, not being completely crazy, became kind
of popular throughout Roman society, doubtlessly because he had the
support of people who wanted anyone but Ellie Gable us here. Uh.
(45:54):
So Ellie Gables smells something on the wind. Uh, he
thinks his us in as a serious rival, starts planning
to kill this twelve year old, and so the family
argues about it. March eleven, two c e Elecapitlis orders
the execution of his cousin and the Praetorian guard refuses.
(46:18):
They support Alexander instead. Twists feels like a coup. H
They were probably bribed by the Emperor's grandmother. She bribes
a lot of people in this story. Yea, yeah, yeah,
but why she was seeing the tides turning right, the
tides of public support completely turning and and and away
from you. Know, her grandson who she had installed through
(46:42):
the same type of behavior, the same type of underhanded
double dealings, and now she sees the end in sight
right for her. Yeah, that's right, that's right. So this
is a move of self preservation. Remember we said this
emperor was not really doing the day to day stuff,
so who was probably blee Julia, probably the grandmother orchestrating
(47:02):
the moves of the empire. So from her perspective, if
I can slot out my crazy grandson who's not really
working out and put in this other kid who's not
as crazy but as younger and more pliable, then I
can just continue business as usual, you know. So she watches,
(47:23):
she watches Ella Gabolus gets stabbed to death by his
own soldiers at the age of eighteen, and his mother,
Julia's daughter, is executed as well, headed, dragged through the streets. Eventually,
I think they try to dump them in a sewer,
but the sewers too small or something, and they tried
to dump they dumped. I know that at one point
(47:45):
they do dump his headless body into the river, the
Tyber River. Yeah, yeah, I read that. Uh, they tried
the sewer first, that it wouldn't work, and so they said, okay,
let's tie something heavy to this body and then throw
it an the river. Uh. That's not that's not a
peaceful way to go. As soon as the Senate hears
(48:06):
about it, they condemn his memory. They immediately name Alexinus
the new emperor who becomes who rules until two d
and thirty five when he is also you guess if
folks assassinated emperor, is it like a good job to
keep while you have it? But their retirement plan is terrible?
(48:27):
Oh my god, yes, I mean you never really hear
about many emperors living to the ripe old age of
of of whatever thirty I guess would have been for
the time, and and retiring you know, uh peacefully usually
involves a lot of stabby stabs. And this this ends
the story of Ella Gables too, so we're not ending
(48:49):
completely dire note. Uh. At dinner parties, he was also
known to slip what he called air pillows under his
friends of low status. Those are animal platters, so those
were whoopee cushions. It wasn't all terrible. Yeah, I'm picturing this.
So you would literally take a dried, a cured of
(49:10):
some kind animal bladder, Uh, and blow it up and
then you sit on it and then make up a
fart sound. Ye. So so this so that's not the
most light noe. But this is this is a really
interesting story and it has so much, it has so
much tied into it. I think one important thing we
(49:31):
can say there are a lot of takeaways for us
in the modern day, but one important thing we can
say here, nol is that we're pretty lucky, uh not
to live in an age where an entire nation can
be ruled by a twelve or fourteen year old. I
hope that's not a hot take. I'm glad. I'm glad that.
I'm glad. You have to have a few more qualifications
(49:53):
than just the genetic lottery of birth. Oh totally. And
the more we whenever we do these types of you know,
uh insane Roman, you know, unhinged leader stories, it really
does make me realize that George RR. Martin was definitely,
I think, pulling just as much influence from this part
of history and this part of the world than he
was from say European history. Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know,
(50:18):
Game of Thrones has a huge basis in the War
of the Ruses, but Martin pulls from uh so many
other cultures and societies in quite a great way. George,
if you happen to listen to this podcast, turn it off,
get back to writing Winds of Winter. Man. I've got
your back. I know it's tough. I think he's checked
out at this point. Ben, I don't know. I'm not
(50:39):
giving up on this doll. I'm not giving up. He's
he's gonna make that book. It's gonna be fantastic, And
I am never going to start a fantasy series again
unless the thing is already written in its entirety. Maybe
he's just waiting for the backlash to die down a
little bit from that abysmal ending of the series. Uh
So people kind of give people a change as to forget,
(51:01):
because I think it might be a tall order people
who are so let down by that ending to go
ahead and pick up a book and like rehash it
all over again, just to see if he does a
better job when you don't necessarily know if you they
did or not. Yeah, that's true. It's a shrewd Injur's
plot at this point, isn't it. We don't know? Uh
but uh yeah, I know a lot of people were
(51:23):
disappointed with with that last season, but how how wonderful
uh the good moments of it were. You know, agree,
no spoilers that people haven't seen it, um, but you know,
uh in in trying times like this, NOL super producer
Casey Pegram, I like to uh lift my spirits with
a warm cup of Joe in my Ridiculous history mug.
(51:45):
How how how pointless is it to plug this on
our audio podcast? Not not pointless at all, Ben, because
you two can see, not only can you see what
this beautiful piece of ceramics looks like, you can get
one for yourself along with t shirts uh and other
you know, a Kucherman like I believe you can get
yourself a mouse pad. Um. And there's a bunch of
(52:06):
new designs on here that are pretty cool. So you
can see this and more by going to t public
dot com slash Ridiculous. Thanks as always to our super
producer Casey Pegram, our research associate, the confirmed un crazy
Gabe Bluesier uh, and thanks to Eaves Jeff Cope, Pure
podcast or host of several great shows here at the network.
(52:29):
Huge thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Super
producer Casey Pegram, Christopher Haciotes here in spirit, soon to
be here corporeally or at least podcast early um and
thanks to you, Ben, this is a fun one or
very you know, fun being a loose term agreed agreed
on all cowds. Thanks so much, we'll see you next time, Cooks.
(52:57):
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Today we bring you the
story of the whoopee cushion Emperor who did a lot
more than that anyway. My name is Ben. Yeah, Ben
no here, he did a lot of stuff. And you
know what, there's one thing that I think we can
both agree on is we love a good corrupt, decadent
(00:48):
Roman emperor story m for the podcast. Now, of course,
going into this, we do have to establish that um
with powerful figure of old, especially for some reason Roman
emperors and maybe popes. Whenever you hear their stories, especially
past a certain historic threshold, you have to assume that
(01:11):
there's some exaggeration, a little bit of the equivalent of
tabloid writing in the mix there. But just just from
the jump, uh, we we do have to say take
some of this with a pillar of salt. But we
had a lot of fun Telly Now our super producer
Casey pegram some of the highlights of this guy's career
(01:32):
before we even recorded. Yeah, we did. You know, there's
there's no nipping Mennos in this one. And if if
you'll recall that from ridiculous histories of your who's that
what what what? What? Decadent emperor had the nipping mennos,
with the the castrated young boys that would pretend to
be little fishies nipping at his heels, and the bathing pools. Um. This,
(01:54):
there is decadence of that caliber in this story, but
this one is almost more about what the greater Roman
population might consider uh heresy or sacrilege. Right, this is
how this emperor really put It wasn't the decadence or
the hedonism or the orgyistic behavior. It was really kind
(02:15):
of just dissing their pantheon. Yeah, that earlier, the Nippi
minnows guy that you just mentioned, old that was tiberious, Yes, yes, uh,
and he did other things. I think that's just what
we latched onto because it was so raunchy and so weird. Uh.
Today's story is about an emperor, a heretic, a problem child.
(02:41):
If anybody recalls that film franchise, especially these early days,
who is known most commonly today as Ella Gabalus, which
is love him or hate Um. That's just a fun
name to say, Ella Gabolus. It sounds like a spell.
Ella Gabalus. Is hella fabulous a name? Uh, it's a
(03:04):
name that was I love. I love the idea of
giving yourself a name, right, um, and that that is
what this uh, this young man did. His official name
was a little less sexy, if very convoluted. It was
Caesar Marcus Aurelius and to Ninus Augustus, which was a
political choice as well. It was kind of it was
(03:25):
meant to tie him into uh, legitimacy and public eye,
which is which is a cool thing that you can't
get away with. Is often today, like popes choose their names.
But uh, you know, podcasters spoiler alert, podcasters can't just
go out and say, well, my name is uh Karen
(03:49):
kill Graf, Maren Glass, Marsupial, I don't know Marsupial, but
you know I'll back you up, yes, And I just
want I just want to I just think Marsupial sounds
like a Roman name. I would love to see that
used more. And and uh in naming culture, I guess.
And maybe when I say he gave himself the name
(04:10):
uh Ella Gabolus, that's not quite right. It was largely
kind of a nickname, I guess because his real name
or his official name was so convoluted and confusing and
easy to construe with other you know, because every single
one of these Caesar, Marcus, Aurelius, Antoninus, Augustus were all
other huge figures that loomed large in Roman political culture.
(04:34):
In fact, I believe ben he was referred to often
by detractors as the faults Antoninas or fake Antoninus. Yes,
you are correct, and the name Marcus really a severus,
and Deninus was the identical name of an earlier imper
name now known as Caracalla, so they changed. People only
(04:58):
referred to Ella Gabolus as Ellie Gables after his death.
Spoiler alert, He's not with us today. Uh, And that
was probably that was probably to differentiate him from this
other guy who was like three emperors before him, who
had the exact same name. So totally understand that. And
what I was I kind of stepped on my own
story there. What I was getting out was the name
(05:20):
Ella Gabbles came from the fact that his mother, Uh, Julia,
I'm gonna shart my best at this, so m E
S s O A E M I A S so am. Yes,
I'm gonna say, but you know whatever, correct me if
I'm wrong, folks. Uh. This part of his family came
from Syria and worshiped a particular son deity by the
(05:47):
name of Ella Gubbaal, which to me just sounds like
something out of Dune. Obviously Dune probably took a lot
of inspiration from this part of the world. Um. And
it was yes, an em a scene son god uh.
And he as a youth was what's called a hereditary
priest of this god. And this is something that's gonna
(06:09):
follow him that he's gonna really double down on when
he starts getting into Roman politics. Absolutely, yeah. And this
was you could tell from the title, folks, hereditary priesthood
means that he was able to get this position due
to the family of his mother, Julius so Amias. His
maternal grandmother, Julia Mesa, was also involved with this, and
(06:32):
she was the elder sister of one Juliet Domna, who
is the wife of Septimius Severus uh, the Emperor of Rome,
founder of the Severn dynasty. Lot of Julius. Here, a
lot of Julia's people were like you know, you find
people back then treated names the way Bernie Sanders treats coats.
You find one good one, you keep the good one. Uh.
So the guy we call Elligaballas today was born around
(06:56):
two oh three c e. In as he said, no,
in Syria, uh, the city that's today known as Halms.
This gives us some weird perspective. First off, the way
he gets to become emperor is super sketchy. It's a
great story, but I want to plan a seed for
a little bit of perspective. So recently here in the US,
(07:18):
the new president was elected. That president is Joe Biden,
and Joe Biden is the only the second Catholic ever
elected to the office of the presidency, uh in the
history of this country. The other one was JFK. I
thank there. Our country's gone. I would like to say
progressed a bit such that it's not a huge deal
or controversial, but we'll see how religion and religious affiliation
(07:42):
plays a huge role in the real controversy surrounding Ella Gables,
Like people were calling him this, you know, this false emperor.
Uh for a number of reasons. His bedside manner didn't help.
So he's he's got he's set up for success. You know,
he's born it into the upper echelons. He's part of
the priesthood class. He's got some connects with the ruling dynasty. Uh.
(08:07):
The Severing dynasty was from one ninety three to about
two thirty five CES, So he's born during this dynasty
and he has a connect with him. Uh. His mom
and his maternal grandmother, both Julia's, were crucial. UH. Probably
the puppeteers behind the scheme to raise him to the
throne of Rome. And as we see often occurring in
(08:31):
ancient monarchies, they there's a good argument that they were
pretty much in control of the empire, especially when Eliga
Ballast was in his younger days. Wouldn't you say? I
would say that bad, and I gotta get it out
of my system real quick before we progressed too far.
Whenever I hear the words severing or severus, the first
thing I think of is the Velvet Underground song Venus
(08:53):
and first uh and the lyric go severing severance speaks
us slightly severing down on your bended knee, taste the
whip in love not given lightly. Taste the whip now
bleed for me. So I mean, obviously this is a
reference to that kind of s and m hedonism of
this particular era of Roman culture. I mean, it's he's
(09:13):
spread throughout, we see it, but the particularly kind of
kinky behavior. And I mean the name of the song
is Venus in first. After all, well, let me let
me get this out of my system that I'm gonna
only reference at once. The whole time I was reading
and researching the Severest dynasty, here, I was just picturing
snape from Harry Potter, also a thing bore and again
(09:36):
and again just using a different name, or he wouldn't
even have to in Rome, because apparently people didn't use
different names that you just got posthumous nicknames. It's very
interesting way of going about things, and also makes for
very confusing timelines because we see, you know, even within
the same era, all of these same names popping up
over and over again, so and and and and the
(09:58):
The story that we're to about how uh Ela Gabiles
became emperor is in and of itself, like you said, Ben,
super shady, but also very complex and convoluted. So we're
gonna do our best to kind of maybe fast track
it and then get to the the hedonistic stuff, the
juicy stuff. We know why you're listening, folks, Yeah, Yeah,
(10:20):
let's well, we'll go through this, uh will We may
have to make up our own nicknames for some of
the people, because again, this gets convoluted. Partially, I'd argue
because the names. It reminds me of that great Marques
novel One Years of Solitude, which just if you've read it,
you know one of the toughest parts is following all
these people with the same names. Anyway, here's what happens. Karacala,
(10:44):
the guy we mentioned earlier, uh, he is assassinated in
two seventeen BC. This death marks a kind of break,
a loss of power for the Severin dynasty, and the
next emperor, Macronus, is not a member of this family
associated with that previous dynasty. Macronus was set up well.
(11:04):
He was a praetorian prefect under Karakala. He's also the
guy who orchestrated the coup, killed the emperor, and then
seized the throne, and he wanted to get rid of
anybody who might contest his rule, including people who were
members of the previous emperor's family, even if they were
kind of distant members. Because of that, he exiled Ella
(11:28):
Gabolus and his family back to their estate in Syria.
But it turns out that he may be Macronus maybe
underestimated just how badly the emperor's family wanted to return
to power. So why is Syria so involved in Roman politics?
I know that Rome like annexed a part of Syria
(11:52):
and then so I guess like like in sixty four BCS,
so that would have been long before this period. So
I guess they just kind of became intertwined. So there
could have been like Syrian families because of that relationship,
that that moved up in the pecking order. Yeah, it's
like it's it was a important province of the empire.
So it definitely was part of the Empire. It was
(12:14):
just also considered like because of the way assimilation works,
they're they're probably considered a little bit culturally different. The
thing is, uh mccrinus sort of made a fatal error
when he underestimated, uh the I guess the staying power
(12:35):
that the Severin dynasty had and how much the family
of Karcala really, really really did not want to give
up that power once they've gotten to taste of it.
I mean, you know, it would be a hard self
for anyone if you've been used to being the family
of literally the emperor to all of a sudden, Oh
there's a coup, and now your life is completely different.
(12:56):
But often I think fear or just self preservation would
take over, but in this case what took over was
a desire to take back the throne clawed back in fact.
So Julia Misia uh mesa, let's say um was the
sister in law to Septimus Severus. Okay, this is where
it gets a look confusing. Also was grandmother to eligabalas Um.
(13:22):
And she was very, very very gifted at conniving and um,
you know, making moves behind closed doors and double crossing
and every flavor of uh today almost consider like espionage,
but it's really just political maneuvering. So she decided she
(13:44):
was gonna make it her goal above all else to
get her family back on the throne. So she and
her two daughters, uh the other two Julia's Julius Simias
and Julia Mamia Mamia Um, they were going to work
together and conspire to destroy mcnus. I'm just I'm just
laughing because as soon as we got to the other
(14:07):
Julia Baba Mia, in my head, it's just my mommy
and it'd be cool. So yeah, so she said, okay, well,
let's get rid of this Macronus guy. He's a dirt bag,
he's a pill. I've got an idea. I've got a
pitch for you. Let's keep it in the family. How
about my grandson, Ella Gabolus. He's he's legitimate, and we
(14:32):
can strengthen his claim to the throne with a little
bit of a story. You know, someone told me, a
little bird told me I heard through the grapevine word
on the street, that Ella Gabolus is actually the illegitimate
son of Cara Colla, the emperor who got assassinated. And
it's weird because Ella Gableus did look like he resembled
(14:57):
Caro call if you saw their faces together, you could,
you know, you could see it. But he was, in
fact just a cousin of that emperor. Still at this time,
his fortunes are looking good because while they're in exile
in Syria, he's inherited his family position as high priest,
and he was currently worshiping that sun god we mentioned earlier,
(15:18):
Ella Gabal, the god of the Mountain, the stone god
of the Mountain, in his home city of Syria. And
it gets a little love craft, dude, which is super cool.
We'll get into it. So this god from what we
call Roman Syria, the worship of this Eli gabal This
was a widespread cult in the Empire in the second century,
(15:40):
and the religion was eventually kind of assimilated into Helios,
the Roman sun god. And that's why one of Helios's
street names was Helio Gabblus, which is a variant of
Eli Gabalus, which eventually became this emperor's posthumous nickname. That
was a lot, but I think we got there. So
(16:01):
I think we got there. It does make sense. Um.
And again, if anybody is more into the minutia of
this power struggle, there's certainly materials out there if you
check out. We're doing our best to get through it, um.
But there you know, if you want to, if that's
the part that that really interests you, highly recommend this
National geographic piece from Juan Pablo Sanchez, published in March
(16:22):
of twenty nineteen. Uh. And there's again tons of other mania.
There's also a really good YouTube video that I found.
It's about a half an hour and talks a lot
about struggle. That's the right, that's the way yeah, I
dig that one. I take that one. It's a it's
part of a series on the ten Most Evil Robe
exactly well narrated, lots of good imagery. Highly recommend that one.
(16:43):
Live footage, live footage, yeah, re enactments of orgies No,
not quite but close. Um. But you know it's interesting
in general, how Rome always in Okay, so let's look
at Greek and Roman religious pampeons. How there's always kind
of like a like a um analog god, you know
what I mean, between the two cultures. And because Rome
(17:06):
conquered so many different Um cultures, they assimilated a lot
of different religions, so they're like, well you don't need
you know, la goball you've got who has it been? Helios? Helios? Right?
But that wasn't doing it for Eli Gabalis, was it? No?
Not at all. I mean, religious syncretism is a huge
(17:27):
tool of empires because it's it's super effective, which I
feel like I excellent quoted a video game there. But
you're right, Eliablus wasn't having it. Uh. He said, you know,
I'm the high priest of this I kind of know
what I'm talking about, guys. Uh. And it's it's not
not the same thing anyway. Uh. The Roman government initially
(17:51):
supported Macronus because Macronus is the ruling emperor and he
kills people to take their thrones. So when Macronus said
this like Ablis kid is an idiot, he's a real
piece of work, not hell of fabulous at all. No, no,
the opposite. Uh. He started calling him the false Antoninus,
(18:12):
and he said, look, I am well aware of this kid,
and he is insane. You do not want him in power,
which would later actually turn out to be the case.
So the senate listened to their emperor and they said,
you know what, good point, Emperor. We're going to declare
war on this guy and his mom. However, mom she
(18:35):
has a plan. They say, we're going to declare war
on this guy and his grandmother. But the grandmother has
a plan. She's not gonna let people dissuade her from
her scheme to get her grandson on the throne. So
she goes to the Roman troops stationed in Syria, the
third Legion, and she bribes them into supporting her her cause,
(18:59):
and the kind of this kind of hamstrings Macronus his
forces in the area. She bought out the troops that
he was going to use basically, Yeah, and with that
support and with this uh, you know, seemingly legit you know,
severing pedigree, right, Ella Gabalus was presented to the centurion
(19:22):
Publius Valerious Camazan and his troops, um, and he was
he was convinced he was good. So the military essentially, uh,
decreed that he was the new emperor of Rome. Was
that about government ben Yeah, that gets us there, So
(19:48):
they says new and berg Rome. Other legions in the
east follow with their own recognition. So now the empire
is in an unstable state. Uh no pun intended, meaning
that there there are two people claiming to be the emperor. Uh.
Ellie Gablis had a tutor, a eunuch named Gannies, who
(20:10):
later became a general, and Gannies would go on to
defeat Macronus in Antioch and modern day Turkey just like
not even a month later. So Marinus is defeated and
he flees on June eighteen CE. Uh. He is executed
at Cappadocia. They also catch his son and kill his son,
(20:34):
and so Ellie Gables declares his victory to be the
beginning of his reign as the Emperor of Rome. He
is fifteen years old. He takes all the titles uh,
and then he goes instantly into diplomacy where his mother
and grandmother do because he sends these letters, uh, these
like let's bury the hatchet letters to the Senate in Rome.
(20:57):
And the way that these letters are raised, from what
we can tell, uh, is very much like, hey, you
can you can get with the times, you can ride
the wave with me, or you can drown when it crashes.
So the senators knew they were getting an offer they
couldn't refuse. It was kind of gangster, uh, So they
(21:18):
went along with it and boomed. The Severeign dynasty is
back in play. But pretty quickly as they're traveling to Rome,
we start to see some unusual behavior on the part
of the new emperor. Yeah, well we might call historical
weird flexes, but not nothing like two out of the ordinary.
I mean, he he liked fine clothing. He would drape
(21:40):
himself in the finest purple raiments embroidered with golden what
he ca coutrement. You know, he was like basically iced up,
you know, wearing heavy necklaces and bracelets adorned with the
finest of precious jewels and metals, and uh, he even
gave him he found himself. Um. And also like like
(22:03):
this is a letter from reading this, maybe I'm a
little confused about the imagery here, but it makes it
sound like he was wearing a crown uh and a tiara.
He was just he was an extra tag extra Yeah,
golden jewels, all that stuff. Uh. And he had like
a crew following him around that would accompany his every
(22:26):
move with flutes and fifes and drums and all that. Um.
And he was just constantly like strutting around and like
really being very performative with his with his behavior. Uh.
And he would openly participate in these orgiastic let's call
them services or rituals uh in you know, devotion to
(22:51):
his god uh elagaba right right in service of this religion.
So he's he's yeah, he could be consider a bit
of a peacock, a bit vain, a bit uh stretched forward.
He was accused in later historical writings of living in
a quote debraved manner, engaging in a natural vice with dudes.
(23:15):
We all know what that means. Uh. The troops who
were stationed nearby, we're kind of digging it. They were like,
this is a great show. You know, this is before
Circus l A. This is the best they could get, right,
So they're like, this is this is a heck of
a show. So they would travel to his temple and
watch him do his priestly duties, and they were just
taken in by the spectacle of it. Uh. But but
(23:38):
that that was all before he was the emperor. He
was just an exiled person at that time. Now that
he is the dude in charge of the Roman Empire,
the soldiers are less and less impressed, and according to
a work called the Historia Augusta, the soldiers soon began
to regret that they conspired against Macronus in the beginning,
(24:00):
and they were starting to think, I don't know, is
this kid really going to be a good emperor. And
the soldiers weren't the only ones worried. Old even Elli
Gabolus's grandmother, who was largely responsible for this scheme, started
to think, I don't know if my grandson, you know,
(24:20):
I love him to death Alcobal bless him. I don't
know if my grandson is fit to be emperor. He's uh,
he's being a little out there. He really did seem
a little out there. And there are some accounts from
various historians and firsthand observers of this behavior, one of
whom was Herodian, who wrote that Julia Mesa, the grandmother
(24:43):
in question here, was quote greatly disturbed and tried again
and again to persuade the youth to wear Roman dress
when he entered the city to visit the Senate Um,
fearing that his appearance, obviously foreign and holy barbed barrack,
would offend those who saw him. So again like that,
not only are these these outfits that he's flexing, you know,
(25:07):
super extra and ostentatious and over the top, they represent
a completely different culture. And there is kind of a
need in this situation if you're coming from a different culture, uh,
to at least give the appearance of you know, respect
or not. Maybe not full assimilation, but certainly not just
outright flouting of the culture that you're coming into. Right, Yeah,
(25:30):
absolutely think about it this way. So there's there's already
been great instability. When you the average Roman citizens see
your new emperor, you want to think that Emperor, hey,
they look Roman. They look like someone I could sit
down and have a couple of wine with uh, and
they look like someone who would be a Roman emperor,
(25:52):
and they act that way too, as low as the
bar is for well behaving emperors. If this person looks different,
if they as though they are from a foreign culture
than the average Roman citizen and the average Roman soldier
and the average Senate member, may feel on some level
less like members of the Roman Empire, more like members
(26:14):
of an occupied state, you know what I mean. There's
there's a lot to be said for this. Now, these
things are all happening, This kind of soup is stirring
and simmering. The party arrives in Rome, and when they
get to Rome, a lot of people who remained loyal
to Macronus are executed the way Macronus and his son
(26:35):
were killed, and a lot of people in the Senate
are left alone. They already got those letters of amnesty
and reconciliation. However, other high ranking imperial officers whose loyalty
was in question, they were at the very least dismissed,
and then they were just so ridiculous. They were replaced
(26:55):
by goons from Syria, people that just like the the
grand mother and the kid liked them, and Ellie Gabolus
again he's a teenager. He's ignoring most of like the
day to day job of being an emperor, the details,
the decisions. UH, this is left up to his mother
and his grandmother, who become the first women who are
(27:18):
given permission to attend the Roman Senate, and they're even
given senatorial positions. So we'll we'll see this pattern. I
would argue that his mother and his grandmother were probably
well qualified to be in the Senate, but we see
this pattern of this emperor hiring unqualified people for very
(27:39):
important positions. And you know, long story short. The way
they write it in UH and an article by history
things is this it could only go downhill from there.
It's not a it's not an exaggeration because as soon
as this guy is in Rome emperoring full time, he's
(28:00):
just he's a wash and controversy. It's one thing after
the other. It's always something with Ella Gabilus, that's right,
because it seems that more important to him, uh than
the idea of being the emperor of Rome was what
we talked about at the very beginning of the episode.
This identity that was very important to him as being
(28:23):
the high priest of Ella gabal Um, it was you know,
the emperor stuff wasn't that much importance to him. Uh,
it wasn't really something that was top of mind. Um
so and and and yet he is at the pinnacle
of power in Rome and in this position where he
can essentially do what he wants. I mean, obviously we
(28:44):
know that, uh, this can have really gnarly implications over time.
But you know, it's hard to convince somebody who has
absolute power that they are going to be their own
undoing right. Yeah, it's not something that they want to hear,
you know. And the thing is, in social environments like this, Uh,
(29:07):
syncophants have the advantage the yes folk will tend to
win the emperor's opinion. So something happens almost immediately that
scandalizes the population, from members of Senate to just the
average Jewish and Christian people living in the empire. As
(29:29):
you said, no, Ali Gablus feels I guess the best
way to say it is he feels like a high
priest who later became emperor but is still a priest.
And so he says, away with the old religions. We're
going to replace the old traditional religion of Rome in
a large part stolen from the Greeks with this other
(29:49):
religion that I'm a high priest of the worship of
Ella gabal This Syrian god is even going to replace Jupiter,
the the primary god of Roman mythology. And so to
do this, this is what I feel like his love
crafty And I might just be reading tea leaves here,
or you know what, I just love horror stories. Anyway,
(30:12):
to to do this, to make this official in his mind,
Eli Gablus has a stone brought from Syria nearly two
thousand miles to Rome. It's a symbol of his religion.
It's a black, conical shaped rock that may have been
a meteorite, and he installs it on the Palatine Hill,
(30:35):
which is a you know, a prestigious place, so it's
clearly visible. This is where we introduce Cassius Dio. Cassius
Dio writes a thing called Roman History. He is one
of the people who has on written record called the
simper the false Antoninus Uh. And what what did he
have to say about? Oh, quite a bit, Ben, quite
(30:57):
a bit he had. He had some pretty early historical
hot takes to offer um. He said of the false
Antoninus Uh. The offense consisted not in his introducing a
foreign god into Rome, okay, or in his exulting in
very strange ways, but in his placing him even before
(31:20):
Jupiter himself and causing himself to be voted his priest.
So just just to take a pause here, he's essentially
saying that he was trying to subplant, uh, the popular religion,
you know, which was was very very important to to
to the Roman people and to the Yeah, that's the
important part here. It's important to the Roman people. I mean,
(31:41):
you could argue that in the same way religion is
used as a political tool in America today or in
in just you know, geo political affairs. Uh, in Rome
likely you know, sure, there are some true believers in
the Senate and and in politics, but it was largely
a tool to really control people. And when you turn
(32:01):
the people against you, that's going to cause some problems. Okay.
So not only did he supplant the popular religion of choice,
he also made himself like the head of it. It's
like appointing yourself the pope of a religion that nobody
wants anything to do with. Um. Furthermore, this is back
to Cassius Dio. He was frequently seen even in public,
(32:22):
clad in the barbaric dress which the Syrian priests used,
And this had as much to do as anything with
his receiving the nickname the Assyrian. Long story short, Ella
Gabolist does not care. He builds a temple called the
Elligaballium to this, to this god, on that same hill
where the stone now rest. He continues the schedule of
(32:47):
sacrifices to the stone and the god cows and sheep.
For sure. Some of the more sensationally counsel alleged that
humans were sacrificed in honor of this god of the mountain,
and wine was mixed with blood from the sacrifice is
poured out as offerings. Apparently he didn't respect any other
(33:08):
religious movement other, you know, aside from his own. Because
he's the high priest. It's good to be king, high
priest and emperor. You're like double king. That's amazing. So
imagine the equivalent of pr agency, his his supporters, his
real masters, the mom and the grandmother. Like Okay, we
gotta do something, we gotta manage the public image. Let's
(33:29):
get married to a respectable family or families. That's right. Uh,
this is like a political maneuver like a diplomatic kind
of play. Let's say. Uh. He would ultimately go on
to have three wives, uh, one of which was a
Julia Julia Paula uh Annia Faustina, and Aquilia Severa um.
(33:50):
And the last of those, Aquilia Severa, was a particularly
contentious one in terms of the way it was received
by the public because she was known as what was
called a vestal virgin, which ben is a term that
I think we we were here thrown around sort of
in like colloquial, could be thrown around like colloquially, but
(34:13):
it was absolutely like a thing, right, like a particularly
high um. Not don't necessarily, but it was yeah, sacred
almost right, Yeah, absolutely So the vessel virgins were consecrated
to Vesta. Part of their consecration involved a vow of chastity,
(34:33):
and their job was to keep the sacred fire burning
at the goddesses alter vessel virgins. By the way, we
don't do comic book recommendations where we used to. Vessel
virgins appear in a great comic series called Britannia, which
I recommend checking out. It's uh, no spoilers, it's a
nero is in this one not uh Elagabolos, but who
(34:57):
he deserves his own comic or his grandmother certainly does.
But you're right, vessel virgins are real things. So in
attempting to assimilate further into Roman society and get approval
from the well to do Romans at the time, that
he goes too far. And now he offends them even
more because he's knocking up vestal virgins. And he says, uh,
(35:23):
he also doesn't care. He says, quote, there's nothing more
appropriate than the marriage of a priest to a priestess.
He says this to the Senate, and then he also
he also says they will have god like children. He's like,
you don't understand where this is like a super soldier program.
That's interesting, Ben, because I mean, I gotta wonder, like
(35:43):
it doesn't seem to me that he's I think he's
just a little bit clueless maybe and not like outright
trying to piss people off. Like I really wonder if
he is trying to, like, looking at this is almost
a gesture of like joining my religion to your religion
and creating some sort of h ybread super deity that
has the powers the superpowers of both you know what
(36:05):
I mean, Yeah, that's it. I mean, that's a really good,
good point. Definitely there's arrogance in there. That's you know,
you're raised as a high priest, you become emperor. But
it may be that he simply culturally did not understand,
like he may not have been trying to purposely bait
people or be a source of such controversy. He keeps going,
(36:33):
and he's so extra. He has these elaborate processions where elephants, tigers,
and lions are pulling chariots up the Vatican Hill and
they're trampling over these tombs that are in their way,
so like they're going through this graveyard. And then he
(36:54):
also he also has this weird kind of lottery system
that he plays with giving away stuff. Uh. He likes
to go to the population, Like while he's presiding at
various games, he likes to go to the population and
give them what he calls chances. They're essentially presents that
are completely arbitrarying up to him. Like one day he
(37:15):
might throw a nice steak out in the crowd, or
hundreds of gold coins. And he did this because he
liked to watch people run and scramble in the dirt
for this stuff. But then another day he might just
throw out a dead dog. You never know what you're
gonna get on the La Gabolas show exactly. It really
is kind of a weird twisted lotto. Um, did we
(37:36):
talk about the the next kind of big public or
fuffle the divorce? Oh no we didn't, but yes, there
was a divorce. There were several divorces. Remember Paula, That
was Julia, Julia Paula. Uh. He divorced her claiming that
she had some kind of blemish on her body. Uh,
(37:57):
and that was his first wife. And in doing that,
before the divorce was official, he uh basically moved in
with Aquila severa Um. So that was against the law,
against Roman law and custom, and also because she was
the one that was consecrated to vesta Um and he,
according to the account from Cassius Dio, impiously defiled her. Yes, yeah,
(38:25):
impiously defiled. And in order to prevent further controversy, that
marriage was also dissolved. So pictures prt history will tell
you this guy had between three to five wives, so
he was he was going through it, and he was
also doing stuff like throwing parties where he might serve
(38:49):
fake food just for the lulls, like food made of
wax or marble or stone. And there's one story, unproven, unconfirmed,
that says, once upon a time he threw so many
flower pedals on his dinner guests that some of them
almost suffocated. But these are these are childish pranks. And
(39:10):
there is a reason we called him the Whoopee cushion
and berth at the top. Uh, there is stuff we
have to mention. Now, this may not be appropriate for
all audiences. We're gonna maybe know I I proposed that
maybe we veer away from stuff that might be too
too graphic. Yeah for sure. Okay, but we have to
talk about his reputation for being an absolute headonist for sure.
(39:36):
You know, like I said, I was setting up for
that at the top of the show with that underground quote,
the whole taste of the whip situation. But his his
stuff went even deeper than just your every day you
know the kinks, right. Yeah, yeah, So he had he
had the street rep as a guy who just couldn't
(39:57):
control himself and didn't bother to. Uh. The Augustine History
describes it as this quote. He had never had intercourse
with the same woman twice except his wife. And he
opened brothels in his house for his friends, his clients,
and his slaves. On one occasion, he gathered all the
city's prostitutes in the forum and appeared before them in
(40:19):
a woman's costume and with protruded bosom. And it's this
that actually, uh, you know, and and and I think
it was that YouTube video that that we we talked
about Ben sort of credits him as being one of
the first trans people in history. Yes, yeah, we'll come
to find out that. According to a couple of sources, uh,
(40:40):
he once went to physicians and asked for surgery uh,
and wanted them to construct female genitalium and his body.
And because this story is found in Cassius Dio and
not the other two ancient sources, it's it's still up
for debate. Uh. He also reportedly was attempted to become
(41:06):
a unique priest of a sort a real this is
a real thing called a gallus, but he was convinced
to undergo just circumcision instead. So that you know, there's
a lot culturally that doesn't quite translate. But to your point, yeah,
there is something to this. People have argued this case
about his gender identification. He was a sidemail at birth.
(41:30):
But um, the language I think didn't really exist to
describe this at the time. Um. Either way, Rome is
just continually scandalized by this, Yes, and for sure. Uh.
And what we're talking about here with this like forum
kind of event was it's essentially like a sexual Olympics,
(41:50):
almost with him as the sole judge, right. Um. And
there were charioteers and athletes and slaves that would participate
in this and that would also attend to his individual
private uh sexual needs. Um. And he became so fond
of a particular charioteer named Heracles. Uh he started referring
(42:13):
to him openly as his husband. UM. And he you
know had a kind of a you know, a harom
I guess of of lovers on the side. Like you said, Ben,
he never claimed to never have sex with the same
person more than once, except for his wife. But it
did seem like Heracles would have been uh in this
smaller group of recurring UM lovers would have been you
(42:36):
know a little bit different. But he you know, would
gravitate towards those that were open to his particular kinks
and and would allow him to kind of discover uh
and push these boundaries right. Yeah, there's there's even this
story that Elligabolos would deliberately put himself in situations where
(42:58):
he would be discovered sleeping with other people entirely in
the hopes that his husband hero cles would quote unquote
punish him. So so this very I agree, there's a
little bit of kink to this so long story short,
doesn't take much for all the people who are disapproving
of this guy to start talking about him and saying,
(43:21):
you know, he's unsuited for the role of emperor. He
spends so much more time dancing around that gosh darn
temple and buying exotic food and gold chamber pots. He
doesn't like what what emperoren does this guy actually do
and their uprisings, especially in some of the more distant provinces. Uh.
(43:42):
This is weird because picture elli Abolis still young while
and out his whole life is like an episode of
MTVS cribs. Uh. But every so often, maybe in the
middle of the night, he's looking out the window and
he's thinking of what that Syrian oracle told him long ago.
It makes me think of Searcy and Game of Thrones,
(44:03):
who is visited by an oracle or of a seer
when she's a child and is told that like everyone
she loves is going to die and all this stuff.
Um to have that in your head, you know, and
it caused you to maybe act a certain way because
a lot of stock was put into these types of predictions. Uh.
And and he was warned by this oracle that he
(44:25):
should expect a short life and a violent death. Um.
And so again he um. It's in the same way
that Searcy was always trying to keep people at arms
length and protect her children and all of that. Um.
He preferred the idea of being in control, being able
to kill himself rather than being assassinated. So he kept
(44:47):
the stockpile of silver, daggers and poison. Uh. And he
had a tall tower built and adorned with diamonds and gold,
so that at the moment when he you know, like
the Hitler Bunker type moment um, he would ascend this
tower and throw himself to his death before being taken
(45:08):
alive and tortured and then ultimately you know, killed him.
M hmm. There's all the story to find out that. Uh.
He apparently also only wore Chinese silk when when possible,
because he wanted to leave a good looking corpse, right
despite all of all of his preparations, the Tower of
the Daggers and so on. Uh, he had an ignoble end.
(45:32):
His grandmother masterminded the end of his career. She convinced
him to adopt his twelve year old cousin, Alexander, as
his official successor. Alexander, not being completely crazy, became kind
of popular throughout Roman society, doubtlessly because he had the
support of people who wanted anyone but Ellie Gable us here. Uh.
(45:54):
So Ellie Gables smells something on the wind. Uh, he
thinks his us in as a serious rival, starts planning
to kill this twelve year old, and so the family
argues about it. March eleven, two c e Elecapitlis orders
the execution of his cousin and the Praetorian guard refuses.
(46:18):
They support Alexander instead. Twists feels like a coup. H
They were probably bribed by the Emperor's grandmother. She bribes
a lot of people in this story. Yea, yeah, yeah,
but why she was seeing the tides turning right, the
tides of public support completely turning and and and away
from you. Know, her grandson who she had installed through
(46:42):
the same type of behavior, the same type of underhanded
double dealings, and now she sees the end in sight
right for her. Yeah, that's right, that's right. So this
is a move of self preservation. Remember we said this
emperor was not really doing the day to day stuff,
so who was probably blee Julia, probably the grandmother orchestrating
(47:02):
the moves of the empire. So from her perspective, if
I can slot out my crazy grandson who's not really
working out and put in this other kid who's not
as crazy but as younger and more pliable, then I
can just continue business as usual, you know. So she watches,
(47:23):
she watches Ella Gabolus gets stabbed to death by his
own soldiers at the age of eighteen, and his mother,
Julia's daughter, is executed as well, headed, dragged through the streets. Eventually,
I think they try to dump them in a sewer,
but the sewers too small or something, and they tried
to dump they dumped. I know that at one point
(47:45):
they do dump his headless body into the river, the
Tyber River. Yeah, yeah, I read that. Uh, they tried
the sewer first, that it wouldn't work, and so they said, okay,
let's tie something heavy to this body and then throw
it an the river. Uh. That's not that's not a
peaceful way to go. As soon as the Senate hears
(48:06):
about it, they condemn his memory. They immediately name Alexinus
the new emperor who becomes who rules until two d
and thirty five when he is also you guess if
folks assassinated emperor, is it like a good job to
keep while you have it? But their retirement plan is terrible?
(48:27):
Oh my god, yes, I mean you never really hear
about many emperors living to the ripe old age of
of of whatever thirty I guess would have been for
the time, and and retiring you know, uh peacefully usually
involves a lot of stabby stabs. And this this ends
the story of Ella Gables too, so we're not ending
(48:49):
completely dire note. Uh. At dinner parties, he was also
known to slip what he called air pillows under his
friends of low status. Those are animal platters, so those
were whoopee cushions. It wasn't all terrible. Yeah, I'm picturing this.
So you would literally take a dried, a cured of
(49:10):
some kind animal bladder, Uh, and blow it up and
then you sit on it and then make up a
fart sound. Ye. So so this so that's not the
most light noe. But this is this is a really
interesting story and it has so much, it has so
much tied into it. I think one important thing we
(49:31):
can say there are a lot of takeaways for us
in the modern day, but one important thing we can
say here, nol is that we're pretty lucky, uh not
to live in an age where an entire nation can
be ruled by a twelve or fourteen year old. I
hope that's not a hot take. I'm glad. I'm glad that.
I'm glad. You have to have a few more qualifications
(49:53):
than just the genetic lottery of birth. Oh totally. And
the more we whenever we do these types of you know,
uh insane Roman, you know, unhinged leader stories, it really
does make me realize that George RR. Martin was definitely,
I think, pulling just as much influence from this part
of history and this part of the world than he
was from say European history. Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know,
(50:18):
Game of Thrones has a huge basis in the War
of the Ruses, but Martin pulls from uh so many
other cultures and societies in quite a great way. George,
if you happen to listen to this podcast, turn it off,
get back to writing Winds of Winter. Man. I've got
your back. I know it's tough. I think he's checked
out at this point. Ben, I don't know. I'm not
(50:39):
giving up on this doll. I'm not giving up. He's
he's gonna make that book. It's gonna be fantastic, And
I am never going to start a fantasy series again
unless the thing is already written in its entirety. Maybe
he's just waiting for the backlash to die down a
little bit from that abysmal ending of the series. Uh
So people kind of give people a change as to forget,
(51:01):
because I think it might be a tall order people
who are so let down by that ending to go
ahead and pick up a book and like rehash it
all over again, just to see if he does a
better job when you don't necessarily know if you they
did or not. Yeah, that's true. It's a shrewd Injur's
plot at this point, isn't it. We don't know? Uh
but uh yeah, I know a lot of people were
(51:23):
disappointed with with that last season, but how how wonderful
uh the good moments of it were. You know, agree,
no spoilers that people haven't seen it, um, but you know,
uh in in trying times like this, NOL super producer
Casey Pegram, I like to uh lift my spirits with
a warm cup of Joe in my Ridiculous history mug.
(51:45):
How how how pointless is it to plug this on
our audio podcast? Not not pointless at all, Ben, because
you two can see, not only can you see what
this beautiful piece of ceramics looks like, you can get
one for yourself along with t shirts uh and other
you know, a Kucherman like I believe you can get
yourself a mouse pad. Um. And there's a bunch of
(52:06):
new designs on here that are pretty cool. So you
can see this and more by going to t public
dot com slash Ridiculous. Thanks as always to our super
producer Casey Pegram, our research associate, the confirmed un crazy
Gabe Bluesier uh, and thanks to Eaves Jeff Cope, Pure
podcast or host of several great shows here at the network.
(52:29):
Huge thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Super
producer Casey Pegram, Christopher Haciotes here in spirit, soon to
be here corporeally or at least podcast early um and
thanks to you, Ben, this is a fun one or
very you know, fun being a loose term agreed agreed
on all cowds. Thanks so much, we'll see you next time, Cooks.
(52:57):
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