May 27, 2025 • 35 mins
Statues are sort of a big deal. Even today, most folks you meet don't have a statue of themselves. So it comes as no surprise that back in the day, one statue in particular became a wonder of the ancient world. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the story of Zeus. (Ben here: I need everyone to know we are not talking about the origins of Zeus as a G-d; just this crazy, huge IKEA-level statue.)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for a super producer,
mister Max Williams zeus zeus Z.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Is that a thing people chant? You can chant anything.
Uh has a good mouthfield too when it makes you
want to pump your fist.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And hopefully there are a few people in the audience
tonight who are chanting Uh. Ben Bullen, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
That's you are in the mirror on a regular basis.
That's very nice of summoning you like the candy man.
And you are Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And today we are continuing our our exploration of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now, previously we talked
about the hanging gardens of Babylon. We also talked about
a pretty sick Mauslem And today no, we're exploring a statue.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You know, it's it's it's it's a cool statue. It's
an imposing statue. It looms large in both history and
like you know, physically to jump in here.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
As the research associate on these, I'm going to say
this right now, at the top. I think Statue of
Zeus is the lamest of the seven ones.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I take back, and I was trying to big up
the Statue of Zeus, you know, but you can just
deflated it. That's cool, You're right.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's so you think it's you think it's lamer than
the the what does the world?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, the one that doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I mean that one's really cool because the legend and
lore and stuff like that. Obviously it doesn't exist. I
mean something like it definitely did. But I think it's
actually probably very likely that people were confusing just things
in Babylon.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
To be you're in that area, yeah, one hundred percent.
Like Archimedes didn't really invent Archimedes' screw.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
And invents the Archimedes screw. Why is it called that?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's just branding at that point. Like Pythagorean theorem.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But wait a second, are you saying yzaggaris is in
India Pythagorean theorem?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, he independently discovered it, probably, but someone else also
came up with it.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's all more that parallel thinking we only see in
history and speaking in parallel thinking. A lot of human
cultures love making.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Statues, Uh, there's a bit of hubris to the concept, right,
but it's also a way to tangibly commemorate an idea,
a deity, or you know, a ruler. You don't see
a lot of average guy statues.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That's true. I guess the hubrious element comes in depending on,
like who decided who commissioned the statue. If it's like
Noel Brown commissioning a giant statue of Noel Brown in
my front yard, which certainly has been known to be done,
that would be an act of hubris. But I guess
if it's like you know, in commemoration of a great figure,
and it was done by like the people, I don't
(03:18):
know that. I guess the people don't really commission stiesse
I don't know what I'm talking about. What's the deal
with Zeus though? That's that guy is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, this is the third oldest or most likely the
third oldest wonder of the ancient world. Stay tuned also
for our upcoming episode on who decided what made the
list or did not make the list?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It was Esco, It was wasn't it was different.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It was a little before UNESCO's time. Okay, fair enough,
but it was definitely. I'm gonna say it was kind
of arbitrary, but we'll we'll get into it in the future.
For now, yeah, for now, Zeus is if you travel
back into the heyday of this sculpture, then you'll see
something phenomenal. As Mark Cartwright says writing for World History Encyclopedia,
(04:15):
this statue was worshiped by pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.
It inspired countless imitations. It defined the standard representation of
Zeus in Greek and Roman art on pretty much all
any kind of ancient merch you can imagine, pottery, gemstones, coins.
(04:35):
It's kind of like how a political cartoonist and the
Coca Cola company solidified the image of Santa Claus.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
This.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, before the statue, Zeus could be represented in any
number of ways.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's true. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Are
looking at an artist rendering of it right now. It's
pretty elden Ring. Dude, that stepter that he's holding, I
feel like I could do a lot of HP, you know, seriously,
And then he's got what is that like a why
is there an angel in his hand? What's that about?
He was just a cool guy. It was that like
his familiar can he like deploy that to like, do
(05:12):
you know ranged damage.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Let's get into it. Let's get into it, right, the
DPS and the obviously this statue has a lot of
hit points. But yeah, what's its hip box is the question?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
This this is a world famous thing in its time,
and we owe it all or we owe the actual
sculpture to a guy named Phidias City, which is such
a fun silly name.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It feels like the name of a jolly cat, it does.
It just sounds fiddly for some reason. This guy is
a sculptor. Cartwright goes on the master sculptor and architect Phidious,
which is also spelled kind of like a five five
ds I guess at pH e I d i as
was active from four sixty five to four twenty five BCE.
(05:58):
He was already kind of a big deal. He'd supervised
the construction of a little old government building called the Parthenon.
Never heard of it? Yeah, no big deal there in Athens, uh,
And it's giant statue of Athena also a pretty big
deal in terms of like pantheons, right.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, patron Goddess of Athens, and I love I gotta
stop here for a second. I love the idea of
mascots for cities, whether they be gods or you know,
uh Yo kai or.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Something we got? Is it issy? Isn't that what it
was called? Yeah? For the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, yeah, not not the city's best work. No, but
it's no Athena, It's no Zeus. But you know the
So this guy is kind of like Phidias, is kind
of like a guds On Borgloom of his day, the
guy who made Stone Mountain and the faces. Yeah, he's
(06:55):
he He's a that guy. Gutan's a problematic dude, but
is similar because he is known for making these beat
me here Max big aps sculptures.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Big boys. Yeah, it's true. The location was going to
be Olympia in the western Peloponness of Greece, where a
huge temple had been erected recently. That is where every
four years the Olympic Games, sort of the og Olympic Games,
the Pan Hellenic Olympic Games took place or were dedicated.
(07:30):
And this is from Cartwright's research.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And this would help solidify like the location of this
temple and then later this statue of Zeus. This would
help solidify these events as not just a series of
games similar to things in other parts of the world,
play instead as the games big tent item.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I guess it's appropriate then that I brought up Izzy,
because that was the Olympic mascot, the sort of goofy,
cartoonish Olympic mascot of the Atlanta Olympic Games. What was
that in the nineties ninety nineteen ninety six six man
was wrong, way off. So Phidias was a really really
beloved and you know, luminary of an architect. So he
(08:15):
was the kind of obvious choice for this statue because
it not only was going to be a big deal,
very visible honoring a very important deity, but it was
going to be logistically pretty gnarly, and he was going
to need to supervise hundreds of workers and craftsmen and this,
like many, you know, things that I guess would be
considered ancient wonders, it was going to take quite a
(08:37):
few years of planning and work to get this done.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, exactly, you know, and he has the bona fides,
he's got a nasty CV.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
They like him for this.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
He moves to Olympia because it's going to take so
long that he pretty much has to live there to
make the statue. And if you fast forward you'll see
that later excavations in the twentieth century discovered Phidias's workshop,
so we know he was an actual person.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
We know he was alive. Uh. We have one of my.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Favorite pieces of material evidence for his existence, other than
you know, the statues. Uh, in his workshop they found
a little wine jug or cup and on the side
of it. You know how a lot of people when
they have office jobs, they have qut mugs with his statement.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
There they're faced on the bottom. Was it in the
it crowd? Where like you'll know it's what is it? Moss?
He had his face was on the bottom of the mug,
and so he's looking for his mug. But it was
until the end that they showed the twist when someone
was drinking from it and looked at the bottom and
it was a big picture of Moss's head played by
Richard Iowadi. Great, great, I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's a completely generic mug. Other than that, that's exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I like your glasses.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, I'm sorry, they're not for sale.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
They're not you know what, everything's not for sale.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Okay, So this, uh, getting back to this story the
QT mug thing. This is again one of my favorite
facts about the discovery of this guy's actual existence. He
had a little mug and his little mug which was
probably meant to hold wine. On the side of it,
it says I belonged to Phidias Phidias cup.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He just couldn't put down the cup, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And this workshop also we know they had implements that
sculptors would use. They also have fancy stuff like ivory tools,
goldsmithing hammers, and then molds for pieces of a large,
so far unidentified female statue. But anyway, maybe we talked
about the temple before, so we can understand why they
(10:44):
moved this pretty famous guy all the way over there
to build this statue.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Right, And I don't know if it happens right here,
but I think Max pointed out in the research and
the temple and the statue sounds like like a doom
metal band, or like the very least like a metal album.
It's very metal. Oh it doesn't. The first line sounds
like an album name. It's true highly metal sounding. So
before we dive into the actual statue, to your point, Bed,
let's talk about the meaning and the significance of the
(11:09):
temple In the religion of ancient Greek, a temple was
very very important. That I mean, it's not completely different
than the idea behind a church or like it is
the literal house of God. It is where God lives.
Whose house God's house?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, and the name that would be used for temple
is nous in aos, which just means dwelling, so that
the statue of the deity then it's like a shrine.
The statue is far more important than the structure of
the temple that surrounds the statue.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Now do we know.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
The degree of sincere spirituality for people worshiping at the temple?
Do we ever write it's still a question today would
be point.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Right, I guess because it was kind of a cosmopolitan world,
right in Greek this was a very an urban is
the wrong term, but you know, secular, like in terms
of like the kinds of stuff, the commerce aspect of it.
I know that the worship of the gods was a
thing on paper. But the question then becomes like how
strong was every individual's faith at this point? Is that
(12:23):
what you're saying, Ben.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Well, we have to realize, you know, there's yes that
question that continues in twenty twenty five, right, But we
also have to realize that to the point about cosmopolitan
or diverse belief spectrums, there was a.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
There was a.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Monopoly of varying degrees of sincerity, you know. For It's
funny because in some cases, at this time in history,
people are literally sacrificing animals, and sometimes more than animals
because they believe in gods to that degree. But then
in other cases, is you could say they root for
(13:03):
their city's god the way you would root for your
city sports team.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
You know what I mean. Yeah, case in point with
the Olympics. I mean, truly, it does feel like that
was the best representation of like this, you know, cheering
for your particular deity of choice. But it's also it
shows as well, though, how politics and religion were very
closely intertwined, you know, and in many cases, perhaps by
(13:28):
the folks in charge, religion was a way of controlling
folks at a lower social stratum than.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
They right, an opiate of the masses always Yeah, And
the name for a statue in Greek is zoom zoo or,
which translates to living things. So that's part of why
these sculptures from this period. That's why they aim for
a realism and kind of hyper realism which takes an
(13:57):
immense degree of skill.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's unbelievable. It's still blows me away when I got
I mean, there's like a little sculpture garden at the
High Museum here in Atlanta, and like the stuff that
always absolutely blows my mind is there's one in particular,
I believe where it's like a I think it's a
Greek sculpture. It's a woman sort of in a shroud
and like fa The way it flows and the way
it looks transparent. Dude, it's crazy, the level of precision
(14:21):
that goes into these things.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I've spent more than an hour just baffled at that one.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's crazy. I'm glad that you liked that one too.
Do you know much about the background it has to
be I think roughly of this era. It seems like
the style. In any case, I should have read the cat.
It's a similar medium and a similar level of realism
that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It is a similar medium, it's a similar level of realism.
I don't think it's from the same time, just because
this statue of Zeus is so very old.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
That's very true. It might be Italian. It might be
later though and like inspired by that kind of sculpture.
But we'll figure that out. We will maybe maybe off bake.
We'll report back. It was this kind of idea of
this this temple containing this incredibly imposing statue, that it
(15:15):
would be this link right between like the Mortal Coil
and like the world of the gods.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, and Phidious understands this is a quite prestigious gig, right.
He doesn't want to let the team down, so he says, look,
I'm going to make a statue that is so big
and so literally dripping in gold that it is going
to inspire revelation and epiphany to the onlooker.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
This will change the way you feel about God. Dude,
that's the kind of statue I'm making. So you got
to wonder there to our question, is this a flex
like he's gonna just like he's almost likening him himself
to a godlike in his ability, or is this coming
from a place of true belief. It's up for debate.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
We were not able to get Phidious on the show
today for a couple of reasons. His dance card's a
little full, but he says, hi, and he wants us
to tell you that this statue was over forty feet tall,
and like you were describing earlier, it is not Zeus standing.
(16:29):
He is sitting atop a throne. And it's similar to
later statues like the statue of Lincoln in DC. It's
wrought with symbolism, but unlike the Lincoln statue, which we're
just using his reference point because most people can picture
it in their heads. Unlike the Lincoln statue, this thing
(16:52):
is I'm gonna say it's a little gaudy. It's a
combination of gold and ivory over a wooden core. All
the all the skin of Zeus, his face, his arms,
legs towards, so that's made of ivory, like actual from
elephant's ivory.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
That's why that includes all of his extremities right his
face and arms and torso uh and his beard, all
the little lacoutrement called them, like the accessories robes and
his staff are made of gold, then these are. There's
a lot of craftsmanship that goes into that because they're
hammered really thin and then applied directly to the ivory
(17:32):
as these almost like I guess Inlays is maybe the
wrong word, but it does have all of these different
like components kind of little lecoutrement jewels as well, if
I'm not a mistake, enamel, maybe even ebony mm hmm,
yeah uh. And then of course paint a bunch of jewels,
because why not. And it's blamed out for sure, it
(17:52):
is definitely you know, it has it has some drip.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
And we know from again the evidence in the workshop,
they probably first erected the statue in pieces. The size
of the workshop again proven to be Phidias's hangout, his
little home away from home office. It is exactly the
same dimensions as the inner main room of the temple.
(18:16):
So they probably put it there together in the workshop
to give it a qa, and then they took it apart,
and he took it to the temple and they put
it back together. It's in ikea sculpture.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
It does seem to be the case there, ben So
lest we rely on our own kind of recreation of
like artists renderings and things that we've seen, which I think
we've done a fine job, let's hear a historical description
that has found circa second century CE by the Greek
geographer and traveler Pausanius. Pause, Pausane Pausanius. Yeah pause, Ennius.
(18:49):
Yeah there you go. Love it. You want to pass
this one around them? Yeah, let's do so. Here we go.
The god sits on a throat and he's made of
gold and ivory. On his head lies garland, which is
a copy of olive shoots. It is right hand. He
carries a victory Nike, which, like the statue, is of
ivory and gold. Oh dear, I don't know gonna follow that,
(19:12):
miskinnes my regular lies she Nike right, the victory, the
winged victory like the one at the louver. If phenom
mistaken that Rachel Ziegler is always talking about her in
her YouTube videos. She wears a ribbon and on her
head a garland. In the left hand of the god
is a scepter ornamented with every kind of metal, and
(19:32):
the bird sitting on the scepter is the eagle, terrifying bird.
The sandals also, I gotta do a voice here for
it of the god of gold, and is likewise his rube.
On the rube or embroidered figures of animals and the
flowers of the lily. The throne is adorned with gold
(19:52):
and with jewels, to say nothing of ebony and ivory,
which is a weird shout out to that song. Yeah,
it's true, that's where it came from. Everybody knows that.
So what's the deal with Zeus? We've been talking about
it sort of in absentia, sort of as a thing.
What was right?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes it makes sense because
of you know, I think you could probably put two
and two together and know that the kinds of sculptures
that we have from antiquity that remain are like burly material,
you know, stuff that is carved out of a single
piece of rock. You know, perhaps even carved into perhaps
like a cliff face or what have you. It makes
sense that those would perhaps stick around this perhaps due
(20:31):
to its modularity not the case so, long story short,
a statue celebrating a deity of a pagan religion also
not super popular. When the Christians take over this.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Group be in, They're like, mm, this has got to
go to the point about spirituality and politics. We often
say spirituality and science were inextricably linked in the ancient
world on our show stuff they don't want you to know.
And I think it's a really interesting point that spirituality
and politics were likewise is intertwined. So as you're saying there,
(21:02):
it should be no surprise that when the Roman emperor
Theodosius the First got into Christianity, it shouldn't surprise you.
They was like, all right, get rid of all this
other culty stuff, and he went a little far. He
didn't even like the Olympic Games.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No, he should didn't. And is that not the reason
why a lot of kind of Greek sculptures and things
that we have remaining are smashed up like or have
been damaged. I'm sure that's one of the many I think. Yeah,
it didn't want to presume, but I think that makes
a whole lot of sense. Not a fan of the
games as we dubbed them earlier, as Max dubbed them
all caps, so he wanted to put a stop to
(21:41):
that too. So the final Olympics were held in three
ninety three CE, after a run of two hundred and
ninety three games over a millennium, more than a millennium plus.
So after that the site and the temple fell into disrepair.
So it wasn't like smashed, right, it was just sort
of ignored, And they decided to reroute the upkeep team elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Perhaps, Yeah, it just kind of faded, you know, it
fell from its glory days, and then eventually it is
outright desecrated in four twenty six CE, and this happens
in large part due to a decree against all pagan
temples by Theodosius the Second. Then after that, after the
(22:25):
human disaster, natural disasters strike earthquakes in just a few
decades apart from each other, absolutely rock the temple.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yep, it really got it rocked. It's true, but you know,
nature time, it's the cruelest cut of all time. And
the ruins were eventually covered, even adding insults to injury
the remaining bits in silt from the River Alpheus, which
slowly began to kind of redirect its course also over
(22:58):
the time. What is that a riddle? Ben in Lord
of the Rings. It's one of the Gollumn riddles. It's
about time, And I always thought it was like grinds
great mountains to me. Anyway, I think it's just a
good one and I'll see we can find it time.
I've got it. Yeah cool, yeah, okay, yeah here it is.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Wait, wait, we're not going to do a Gollum voice
because I'm wonder the weather, but this thing all things
devours birds, beast, trees, flowers, gnaws, iron, bites, steel, grinds,
hard stones to meal, slaves, king ruins town. And I
think the line that got it stuck in our heads
(23:42):
we saw this was was where he just gets super metal.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
He's like and beats high mountain and then he takes
like five minutes to say down. It gives them the
beat down of their life. And I think one of
the other clues or the solutions to one of the
is mountain. And then we also have which is another
feature of time. I mean, think about the way like wind,
(24:06):
just over long enough, time just erodes things down to nothing.
It's just I don't know, I'm stating the obvious, but
I do still find it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I hear you, And I think this is one of
my favorite details about the tragic loss of the Statue
of Zeus here because the fact that a river slowly
changed its course is the best illustration of how long
it goes. Yeah, took place, And.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Back to Cartwright direct quote, because I think he said
it best. The statue would not suffer the same fate
as the temple, though as the two were destined to
be separated and never reunited. The statue was renovated several times.
Cracks in the ivory were repaired, and even perhaps supporting
columns added under the throne.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Okay, yeah, and there's a Roman emperor. We've got to mention.
You may have heard of him before. Caligula.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Bit of a sex pest that guy.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, I really don't have a reaction because I
feel like that's very true.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I mean putting it. Yeah, check out the movie with
the Malcolm McDowell. It is bits porn. Just it's rough.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And we should also note that with any historical figure,
I feel like I always have to say this, be
the emperors or popes or what have you, you have
to be careful with wild stories you hear about them
because sometimes they can be propaganda to mess up a reputation.
That being said, caligular man anyway, in addition to doing
(25:34):
a lot of Skinemax type stuff, he tries to take
the statue of Zeus and transport it to Rome. But
if you look at the works of Roman writers like Suetonius,
you'll see that eventually they gave up on the project. Now,
(25:54):
the reason we know they didn't move it there. This
is like eighties Clash of the Titan stuff. The project
gets abandoned for one reason or another. But the official
reason this writer gives is that the Zoos statue, when
they tried to move it, mysteriously emitted a roar of laughter,
and then all the scaffolding that the workers were on collapsed.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Look upon my works? Can we unpack what this might
have been? Do you think it was somebody playing a
nice ashton Kutcher asked prank on all of these construction workers, Like,
maybe it's crouching in the bushes and doing a laugh,
throwing their voice. That's that's I like a hygiens. I
(26:43):
do like that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I think it's more plausible that maybe it was uh,
maybe it was a cover up story because it got
too expensive to move it.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Or what about this? What if it was a temblor
what if it was a small earthquake that made some noise?
And then man, don't you picture when he starts laughing
that he just rises up and the like the stone
cracks and he gets up and just starts like initiates
a giant fight, Like I'm sorry, I've been playing this
clare obscure r j RPG style game. So I'm picturing
(27:15):
everything in turn based combat. I think Zeus would crush'd.
It's good. It's getting a lot better. You got it.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
You finally finished the main story last night, so I'm
doing a new game.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Plus.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
By the way, do an in game plus you have
to delete your save file.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
So uh, it's a little a little psychotic. I'm on
the lamp Master, who was kicking.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, you knew the end of Act of one then.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Oh good? Yeah, the lamp Master very hard. But I
realized that I kept getting my ass handed to me,
so I decided to go back and fight some larger
level bosses and level up somewhere. Anyway, enough about Yeah,
it's good, I just started the grind. But anyway, I'm
loving it very much.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And speaking of the grind, Uh, there's another unfortunate thing
that happens to this statue of Zeus.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Emperor Constantine one is like one of those guys in
Florida who steals copper wiring from out of houses.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, like drains the what is the free on from
air conditioning? You?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, like has a side business selling dirty catalytic catalyts.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
What is it? What is the material that's in that.
It's so dear, isn't it like platinum or something. There's
like a tiny amount of platinum and catalytic converters makes
them valuable.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
It's something. There is some material in there. Because remember
Alex got his stolen off his truck when he's an
LA hacked it off because this is like they're super
expensive to replaced. Thankfully it was covered by his insurance.
But yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
A platinum, palladium and rudium. Dang d look at my
car stuff notes? Why do I still have those anyway? Yeah,
So the gold parts of this Zeusied statue are taken
by Constantine the first. Eventually the statue or what's left
of it is moved to constant antoneuple. It's not as sambols,
(29:02):
not as symbol, and that's not our business. And this
is at the time the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Then from there the temple or the structure maybe a
palace where this was housed that got destroyed, but we
don't know how it got destroyed. It could have been
(29:24):
an earthquake, could have been a tsunami, could have been
the fifth century, could have been the sixth century CE.
All we know is that so much time has passed,
rivers have literally changed course.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The statue is gone. Yeah, that's basically the story. But
you know, based on these descriptions, very helpful descriptions, we
do have some pretty cool artists renderings of it. Like
I said, so you can look that up. There is
a cool alternate kind of what if of it all?
An alternate theory is recorded in the works of a historian,
actually a paraff history Zonaris and Kedron. You might have
(30:02):
heard of them, But doesn't that sound like a cool
rap duo? Yeah, I could hear it. Jesus and Marrow,
I think is what I'm thinking of. Zennaris and Kedron.
I love it. They proposed that the statue was dissured
by a fire, and I guess, given its wooden core,
that would make sense, and that would have potentially been
in four seventy five C.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And so now we have a very interesting conundrum here.
I'm going to call this statue Zeus Prime. Zeus Prime
is gone by Eddie Measure. We don't know exactly what
caused it to disappear, but Zeus has inspired so many
(30:43):
other renditions. I would say the statue hasn't really disappeared
because of the strength of its legacy, You know what.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I mean, Mark, that's for sure. Yeah. And to your point,
then it really is the quintessential artists rendering of Zeus.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
And with that we are ending the story of this
wonder of the ancient world, the Statue of Zeus, uh,
and getting to our main story, the question that has
haunted all our fellow ridiculous historians.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I threw out this low this half hour.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Uh your question immediately, friends and neighbors. Should I build
this wonder in the video game sid Meier's Civilization?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
And I start that to Max Maximilian, Max Atrillian with
the facts.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Well, like all wonders, and Civilization depends on which game
you can build it in. Through my research, I found
it's been in four. I haven't checked to see if
it's in seven.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I haven't even played seven. I was when I were
talking to earlier. I only play a civilization on long
plane flights.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
This year's a really I mean, if you're a game nerd, this,
oh yeah, yeah, it's really. But there's just so many
video games this year to oh.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Sorry, that's well, that's a good thing. It's a good, good,
good kind of Roughs.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, it's we're up through so many games, like I
don't even touched a like Adam Fall, and that's supposed
to be a beautiful game. Long story short though, in
Civilization six, Statue of Zeus is probably the most worthless
wonder in the game because what it gives you.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
They like to share your opinion of the one.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
No, it's like it's four hundred and forty production to
build all the things that Statue of Zeus comes with.
There's like one specific build you can do where it
makes sense. I mean technically, like you know, it's an
early wonder, so if you go in for cultural victory earlier,
you build them the better. Blah blah blah. But it's
like if I think I wrote down here the equation
that I ran, But it's like if you're doing a
Wonders China build, you have a classical age monumentality. The
(32:39):
Statue of Zeus can be attained pretty easy because what
you can do is you can, like, you know, put
workers in there, you can buy workers with faith and
do all these things. But you have to build in
a canon and a barracks already, and you can just
build you know, so many other great wonders like Jebel, Barkeel, Petra, Avedonna, Plasus, Colisseum,
(33:00):
Right Library, Maha Body Temple, and of course the previous
dimension Masleiam Halcronasis. Or you can even build the Terracotta Army,
which has the exact same requirements as temple Zuits. But
it's so much better.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And those guys are scary, they'll come at you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And maybe first I have always liked the Great Library
as a fan of Bordes, and due to the fact
that it gives you those free technologies.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
That's just sweet. But this is someone who has never
played the game or any of the games. Every time
you guys talk about it, it gets me curious. It's fun.
Isn't there one on PS five? There's one, there's a version. Okay,
I'm gonna check it out. Are any of them free
on PS plus? They should be, Maybe the older ones
might be.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Take a look or check an emulator if I can
say that online. Anyway, we have we have so so
much more to get to, more ancient wonders of the world.
We have some ideas we'd like to share with you
about what makes a wonder so wonderful or what not,
But for now we are going.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
To call it to day.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
We're off on some adventures and we're doing so with
big thanks to our super producer research associate for this episode,
mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Boy are we ever? Huge thanks to Alex Williams, brother
of Max, who composed this banging them. Sorry about your
catalytic converter, Yeah, I think he got pasted. At least
insurance paid for it. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland and
the Quist and A J. Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzle.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And to our dear friends the Rude dudes at Ridiculous
Crime who are actually making an appearance on the Puzzler.
You check out that crossover we're all very excited about. Uh,
let's see Christopher Hasiotis, Eve's Jeff Coates here in.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Spirit and Noel. Thanks to you. Welcome back man, Thanks buddy,
I appreciate it's good to be back and we'll see
you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(35:05):
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for a super producer,
mister Max Williams zeus zeus Z.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Is that a thing people chant? You can chant anything.
Uh has a good mouthfield too when it makes you
want to pump your fist.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And hopefully there are a few people in the audience
tonight who are chanting Uh. Ben Bullen, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
That's you are in the mirror on a regular basis.
That's very nice of summoning you like the candy man.
And you are Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And today we are continuing our our exploration of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now, previously we talked
about the hanging gardens of Babylon. We also talked about
a pretty sick Mauslem And today no, we're exploring a statue.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You know, it's it's it's it's a cool statue. It's
an imposing statue. It looms large in both history and
like you know, physically to jump in here.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
As the research associate on these, I'm going to say
this right now, at the top. I think Statue of
Zeus is the lamest of the seven ones.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I take back, and I was trying to big up
the Statue of Zeus, you know, but you can just
deflated it. That's cool, You're right.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's so you think it's you think it's lamer than
the the what does the world?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, the one that doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I mean that one's really cool because the legend and
lore and stuff like that. Obviously it doesn't exist. I
mean something like it definitely did. But I think it's
actually probably very likely that people were confusing just things
in Babylon.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
To be you're in that area, yeah, one hundred percent.
Like Archimedes didn't really invent Archimedes' screw.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
And invents the Archimedes screw. Why is it called that?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's just branding at that point. Like Pythagorean theorem.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But wait a second, are you saying yzaggaris is in
India Pythagorean theorem?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, he independently discovered it, probably, but someone else also
came up with it.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's all more that parallel thinking we only see in
history and speaking in parallel thinking. A lot of human
cultures love making.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Statues, Uh, there's a bit of hubris to the concept, right,
but it's also a way to tangibly commemorate an idea,
a deity, or you know, a ruler. You don't see
a lot of average guy statues.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That's true. I guess the hubrious element comes in depending on,
like who decided who commissioned the statue. If it's like
Noel Brown commissioning a giant statue of Noel Brown in
my front yard, which certainly has been known to be done,
that would be an act of hubris. But I guess
if it's like you know, in commemoration of a great figure,
and it was done by like the people, I don't
(03:18):
know that. I guess the people don't really commission stiesse
I don't know what I'm talking about. What's the deal
with Zeus though? That's that guy is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, this is the third oldest or most likely the
third oldest wonder of the ancient world. Stay tuned also
for our upcoming episode on who decided what made the
list or did not make the list?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It was Esco, It was wasn't it was different.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It was a little before UNESCO's time. Okay, fair enough,
but it was definitely. I'm gonna say it was kind
of arbitrary, but we'll we'll get into it in the future.
For now, yeah, for now, Zeus is if you travel
back into the heyday of this sculpture, then you'll see
something phenomenal. As Mark Cartwright says writing for World History Encyclopedia,
(04:15):
this statue was worshiped by pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.
It inspired countless imitations. It defined the standard representation of
Zeus in Greek and Roman art on pretty much all
any kind of ancient merch you can imagine, pottery, gemstones, coins.
(04:35):
It's kind of like how a political cartoonist and the
Coca Cola company solidified the image of Santa Claus.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
This.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, before the statue, Zeus could be represented in any
number of ways.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's true. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Are
looking at an artist rendering of it right now. It's
pretty elden Ring. Dude, that stepter that he's holding, I
feel like I could do a lot of HP, you know, seriously,
And then he's got what is that like a why
is there an angel in his hand? What's that about?
He was just a cool guy. It was that like
his familiar can he like deploy that to like, do
(05:12):
you know ranged damage.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Let's get into it. Let's get into it, right, the
DPS and the obviously this statue has a lot of
hit points. But yeah, what's its hip box is the question?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
This this is a world famous thing in its time,
and we owe it all or we owe the actual
sculpture to a guy named Phidias City, which is such
a fun silly name.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It feels like the name of a jolly cat, it does.
It just sounds fiddly for some reason. This guy is
a sculptor. Cartwright goes on the master sculptor and architect Phidious,
which is also spelled kind of like a five five
ds I guess at pH e I d i as
was active from four sixty five to four twenty five BCE.
(05:58):
He was already kind of a big deal. He'd supervised
the construction of a little old government building called the Parthenon.
Never heard of it? Yeah, no big deal there in Athens, uh,
And it's giant statue of Athena also a pretty big
deal in terms of like pantheons, right.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, patron Goddess of Athens, and I love I gotta
stop here for a second. I love the idea of
mascots for cities, whether they be gods or you know,
uh Yo kai or.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Something we got? Is it issy? Isn't that what it
was called? Yeah? For the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, yeah, not not the city's best work. No, but
it's no Athena, It's no Zeus. But you know the
So this guy is kind of like Phidias, is kind
of like a guds On Borgloom of his day, the
guy who made Stone Mountain and the faces. Yeah, he's
(06:55):
he He's a that guy. Gutan's a problematic dude, but
is similar because he is known for making these beat
me here Max big aps sculptures.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Big boys. Yeah, it's true. The location was going to
be Olympia in the western Peloponness of Greece, where a
huge temple had been erected recently. That is where every
four years the Olympic Games, sort of the og Olympic Games,
the Pan Hellenic Olympic Games took place or were dedicated.
(07:30):
And this is from Cartwright's research.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And this would help solidify like the location of this
temple and then later this statue of Zeus. This would
help solidify these events as not just a series of
games similar to things in other parts of the world,
play instead as the games big tent item.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I guess it's appropriate then that I brought up Izzy,
because that was the Olympic mascot, the sort of goofy,
cartoonish Olympic mascot of the Atlanta Olympic Games. What was
that in the nineties ninety nineteen ninety six six man
was wrong, way off. So Phidias was a really really
beloved and you know, luminary of an architect. So he
(08:15):
was the kind of obvious choice for this statue because
it not only was going to be a big deal,
very visible honoring a very important deity, but it was
going to be logistically pretty gnarly, and he was going
to need to supervise hundreds of workers and craftsmen and this,
like many, you know, things that I guess would be
considered ancient wonders, it was going to take quite a
(08:37):
few years of planning and work to get this done.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, exactly, you know, and he has the bona fides,
he's got a nasty CV.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
They like him for this.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
He moves to Olympia because it's going to take so
long that he pretty much has to live there to
make the statue. And if you fast forward you'll see
that later excavations in the twentieth century discovered Phidias's workshop,
so we know he was an actual person.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
We know he was alive. Uh. We have one of my.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Favorite pieces of material evidence for his existence, other than
you know, the statues. Uh, in his workshop they found
a little wine jug or cup and on the side
of it. You know how a lot of people when
they have office jobs, they have qut mugs with his statement.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
There they're faced on the bottom. Was it in the
it crowd? Where like you'll know it's what is it? Moss?
He had his face was on the bottom of the mug,
and so he's looking for his mug. But it was
until the end that they showed the twist when someone
was drinking from it and looked at the bottom and
it was a big picture of Moss's head played by
Richard Iowadi. Great, great, I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's a completely generic mug. Other than that, that's exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I like your glasses.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, I'm sorry, they're not for sale.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
They're not you know what, everything's not for sale.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Okay, So this, uh, getting back to this story the
QT mug thing. This is again one of my favorite
facts about the discovery of this guy's actual existence. He
had a little mug and his little mug which was
probably meant to hold wine. On the side of it,
it says I belonged to Phidias Phidias cup.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He just couldn't put down the cup, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And this workshop also we know they had implements that
sculptors would use. They also have fancy stuff like ivory tools,
goldsmithing hammers, and then molds for pieces of a large,
so far unidentified female statue. But anyway, maybe we talked
about the temple before, so we can understand why they
(10:44):
moved this pretty famous guy all the way over there
to build this statue.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Right, And I don't know if it happens right here,
but I think Max pointed out in the research and
the temple and the statue sounds like like a doom
metal band, or like the very least like a metal album.
It's very metal. Oh it doesn't. The first line sounds
like an album name. It's true highly metal sounding. So
before we dive into the actual statue, to your point, Bed,
let's talk about the meaning and the significance of the
(11:09):
temple In the religion of ancient Greek, a temple was
very very important. That I mean, it's not completely different
than the idea behind a church or like it is
the literal house of God. It is where God lives.
Whose house God's house?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, and the name that would be used for temple
is nous in aos, which just means dwelling, so that
the statue of the deity then it's like a shrine.
The statue is far more important than the structure of
the temple that surrounds the statue.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Now do we know.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
The degree of sincere spirituality for people worshiping at the temple?
Do we ever write it's still a question today would
be point.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Right, I guess because it was kind of a cosmopolitan world,
right in Greek this was a very an urban is
the wrong term, but you know, secular, like in terms
of like the kinds of stuff, the commerce aspect of it.
I know that the worship of the gods was a
thing on paper. But the question then becomes like how
strong was every individual's faith at this point? Is that
(12:23):
what you're saying, Ben.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Well, we have to realize, you know, there's yes that
question that continues in twenty twenty five, right, But we
also have to realize that to the point about cosmopolitan
or diverse belief spectrums, there was a.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
There was a.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Monopoly of varying degrees of sincerity, you know. For It's
funny because in some cases, at this time in history,
people are literally sacrificing animals, and sometimes more than animals
because they believe in gods to that degree. But then
in other cases, is you could say they root for
(13:03):
their city's god the way you would root for your
city sports team.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
You know what I mean. Yeah, case in point with
the Olympics. I mean, truly, it does feel like that
was the best representation of like this, you know, cheering
for your particular deity of choice. But it's also it
shows as well, though, how politics and religion were very
closely intertwined, you know, and in many cases, perhaps by
(13:28):
the folks in charge, religion was a way of controlling
folks at a lower social stratum than.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
They right, an opiate of the masses always Yeah, And
the name for a statue in Greek is zoom zoo or,
which translates to living things. So that's part of why
these sculptures from this period. That's why they aim for
a realism and kind of hyper realism which takes an
(13:57):
immense degree of skill.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's unbelievable. It's still blows me away when I got
I mean, there's like a little sculpture garden at the
High Museum here in Atlanta, and like the stuff that
always absolutely blows my mind is there's one in particular,
I believe where it's like a I think it's a
Greek sculpture. It's a woman sort of in a shroud
and like fa The way it flows and the way
it looks transparent. Dude, it's crazy, the level of precision
(14:21):
that goes into these things.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I've spent more than an hour just baffled at that one.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's crazy. I'm glad that you liked that one too.
Do you know much about the background it has to
be I think roughly of this era. It seems like
the style. In any case, I should have read the cat.
It's a similar medium and a similar level of realism
that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It is a similar medium, it's a similar level of realism.
I don't think it's from the same time, just because
this statue of Zeus is so very old.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
That's very true. It might be Italian. It might be
later though and like inspired by that kind of sculpture.
But we'll figure that out. We will maybe maybe off bake.
We'll report back. It was this kind of idea of
this this temple containing this incredibly imposing statue, that it
(15:15):
would be this link right between like the Mortal Coil
and like the world of the gods.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, and Phidious understands this is a quite prestigious gig, right.
He doesn't want to let the team down, so he says, look,
I'm going to make a statue that is so big
and so literally dripping in gold that it is going
to inspire revelation and epiphany to the onlooker.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
This will change the way you feel about God. Dude,
that's the kind of statue I'm making. So you got
to wonder there to our question, is this a flex
like he's gonna just like he's almost likening him himself
to a godlike in his ability, or is this coming
from a place of true belief. It's up for debate.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
We were not able to get Phidious on the show
today for a couple of reasons. His dance card's a
little full, but he says, hi, and he wants us
to tell you that this statue was over forty feet tall,
and like you were describing earlier, it is not Zeus standing.
(16:29):
He is sitting atop a throne. And it's similar to
later statues like the statue of Lincoln in DC. It's
wrought with symbolism, but unlike the Lincoln statue, which we're
just using his reference point because most people can picture
it in their heads. Unlike the Lincoln statue, this thing
(16:52):
is I'm gonna say it's a little gaudy. It's a
combination of gold and ivory over a wooden core. All
the all the skin of Zeus, his face, his arms,
legs towards, so that's made of ivory, like actual from
elephant's ivory.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
That's why that includes all of his extremities right his
face and arms and torso uh and his beard, all
the little lacoutrement called them, like the accessories robes and
his staff are made of gold, then these are. There's
a lot of craftsmanship that goes into that because they're
hammered really thin and then applied directly to the ivory
(17:32):
as these almost like I guess Inlays is maybe the
wrong word, but it does have all of these different
like components kind of little lecoutrement jewels as well, if
I'm not a mistake, enamel, maybe even ebony mm hmm,
yeah uh. And then of course paint a bunch of jewels,
because why not. And it's blamed out for sure, it
(17:52):
is definitely you know, it has it has some drip.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
And we know from again the evidence in the workshop,
they probably first erected the statue in pieces. The size
of the workshop again proven to be Phidias's hangout, his
little home away from home office. It is exactly the
same dimensions as the inner main room of the temple.
(18:16):
So they probably put it there together in the workshop
to give it a qa, and then they took it apart,
and he took it to the temple and they put
it back together. It's in ikea sculpture.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
It does seem to be the case there, ben So
lest we rely on our own kind of recreation of
like artists renderings and things that we've seen, which I think
we've done a fine job, let's hear a historical description
that has found circa second century CE by the Greek
geographer and traveler Pausanius. Pause, Pausane Pausanius. Yeah pause, Ennius.
(18:49):
Yeah there you go. Love it. You want to pass
this one around them? Yeah, let's do so. Here we go.
The god sits on a throat and he's made of
gold and ivory. On his head lies garland, which is
a copy of olive shoots. It is right hand. He
carries a victory Nike, which, like the statue, is of
ivory and gold. Oh dear, I don't know gonna follow that,
(19:12):
miskinnes my regular lies she Nike right, the victory, the
winged victory like the one at the louver. If phenom
mistaken that Rachel Ziegler is always talking about her in
her YouTube videos. She wears a ribbon and on her
head a garland. In the left hand of the god
is a scepter ornamented with every kind of metal, and
(19:32):
the bird sitting on the scepter is the eagle, terrifying bird.
The sandals also, I gotta do a voice here for
it of the god of gold, and is likewise his rube.
On the rube or embroidered figures of animals and the
flowers of the lily. The throne is adorned with gold
(19:52):
and with jewels, to say nothing of ebony and ivory,
which is a weird shout out to that song. Yeah,
it's true, that's where it came from. Everybody knows that.
So what's the deal with Zeus? We've been talking about
it sort of in absentia, sort of as a thing.
What was right?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes it makes sense because
of you know, I think you could probably put two
and two together and know that the kinds of sculptures
that we have from antiquity that remain are like burly material,
you know, stuff that is carved out of a single
piece of rock. You know, perhaps even carved into perhaps
like a cliff face or what have you. It makes
sense that those would perhaps stick around this perhaps due
(20:31):
to its modularity not the case so, long story short,
a statue celebrating a deity of a pagan religion also
not super popular. When the Christians take over this.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Group be in, They're like, mm, this has got to
go to the point about spirituality and politics. We often
say spirituality and science were inextricably linked in the ancient
world on our show stuff they don't want you to know.
And I think it's a really interesting point that spirituality
and politics were likewise is intertwined. So as you're saying there,
(21:02):
it should be no surprise that when the Roman emperor
Theodosius the First got into Christianity, it shouldn't surprise you.
They was like, all right, get rid of all this
other culty stuff, and he went a little far. He
didn't even like the Olympic Games.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No, he should didn't. And is that not the reason
why a lot of kind of Greek sculptures and things
that we have remaining are smashed up like or have
been damaged. I'm sure that's one of the many I think. Yeah,
it didn't want to presume, but I think that makes
a whole lot of sense. Not a fan of the
games as we dubbed them earlier, as Max dubbed them
all caps, so he wanted to put a stop to
(21:41):
that too. So the final Olympics were held in three
ninety three CE, after a run of two hundred and
ninety three games over a millennium, more than a millennium plus.
So after that the site and the temple fell into disrepair.
So it wasn't like smashed, right, it was just sort
of ignored, And they decided to reroute the upkeep team elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Perhaps, Yeah, it just kind of faded, you know, it
fell from its glory days, and then eventually it is
outright desecrated in four twenty six CE, and this happens
in large part due to a decree against all pagan
temples by Theodosius the Second. Then after that, after the
(22:25):
human disaster, natural disasters strike earthquakes in just a few
decades apart from each other, absolutely rock the temple.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yep, it really got it rocked. It's true, but you know,
nature time, it's the cruelest cut of all time. And
the ruins were eventually covered, even adding insults to injury
the remaining bits in silt from the River Alpheus, which
slowly began to kind of redirect its course also over
(22:58):
the time. What is that a riddle? Ben in Lord
of the Rings. It's one of the Gollumn riddles. It's
about time, And I always thought it was like grinds
great mountains to me. Anyway, I think it's just a
good one and I'll see we can find it time.
I've got it. Yeah cool, yeah, okay, yeah here it is.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Wait, wait, we're not going to do a Gollum voice
because I'm wonder the weather, but this thing all things
devours birds, beast, trees, flowers, gnaws, iron, bites, steel, grinds,
hard stones to meal, slaves, king ruins town. And I
think the line that got it stuck in our heads
(23:42):
we saw this was was where he just gets super metal.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
He's like and beats high mountain and then he takes
like five minutes to say down. It gives them the
beat down of their life. And I think one of
the other clues or the solutions to one of the
is mountain. And then we also have which is another
feature of time. I mean, think about the way like wind,
(24:06):
just over long enough, time just erodes things down to nothing.
It's just I don't know, I'm stating the obvious, but
I do still find it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I hear you, And I think this is one of
my favorite details about the tragic loss of the Statue
of Zeus here because the fact that a river slowly
changed its course is the best illustration of how long
it goes. Yeah, took place, And.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Back to Cartwright direct quote, because I think he said
it best. The statue would not suffer the same fate
as the temple, though as the two were destined to
be separated and never reunited. The statue was renovated several times.
Cracks in the ivory were repaired, and even perhaps supporting
columns added under the throne.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Okay, yeah, and there's a Roman emperor. We've got to mention.
You may have heard of him before. Caligula.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Bit of a sex pest that guy.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, I really don't have a reaction because I
feel like that's very true.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I mean putting it. Yeah, check out the movie with
the Malcolm McDowell. It is bits porn. Just it's rough.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And we should also note that with any historical figure,
I feel like I always have to say this, be
the emperors or popes or what have you, you have
to be careful with wild stories you hear about them
because sometimes they can be propaganda to mess up a reputation.
That being said, caligular man anyway, in addition to doing
(25:34):
a lot of Skinemax type stuff, he tries to take
the statue of Zeus and transport it to Rome. But
if you look at the works of Roman writers like Suetonius,
you'll see that eventually they gave up on the project. Now,
(25:54):
the reason we know they didn't move it there. This
is like eighties Clash of the Titan stuff. The project
gets abandoned for one reason or another. But the official
reason this writer gives is that the Zoos statue, when
they tried to move it, mysteriously emitted a roar of laughter,
and then all the scaffolding that the workers were on collapsed.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Look upon my works? Can we unpack what this might
have been? Do you think it was somebody playing a
nice ashton Kutcher asked prank on all of these construction workers, Like,
maybe it's crouching in the bushes and doing a laugh,
throwing their voice. That's that's I like a hygiens. I
(26:43):
do like that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I think it's more plausible that maybe it was uh,
maybe it was a cover up story because it got
too expensive to move it.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Or what about this? What if it was a temblor
what if it was a small earthquake that made some noise?
And then man, don't you picture when he starts laughing
that he just rises up and the like the stone
cracks and he gets up and just starts like initiates
a giant fight, Like I'm sorry, I've been playing this
clare obscure r j RPG style game. So I'm picturing
(27:15):
everything in turn based combat. I think Zeus would crush'd.
It's good. It's getting a lot better. You got it.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
You finally finished the main story last night, so I'm
doing a new game.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Plus.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
By the way, do an in game plus you have
to delete your save file.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
So uh, it's a little a little psychotic. I'm on
the lamp Master, who was kicking.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, you knew the end of Act of one then.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Oh good? Yeah, the lamp Master very hard. But I
realized that I kept getting my ass handed to me,
so I decided to go back and fight some larger
level bosses and level up somewhere. Anyway, enough about Yeah,
it's good, I just started the grind. But anyway, I'm
loving it very much.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And speaking of the grind, Uh, there's another unfortunate thing
that happens to this statue of Zeus.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Emperor Constantine one is like one of those guys in
Florida who steals copper wiring from out of houses.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, like drains the what is the free on from
air conditioning? You?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, like has a side business selling dirty catalytic catalyts.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
What is it? What is the material that's in that.
It's so dear, isn't it like platinum or something. There's
like a tiny amount of platinum and catalytic converters makes
them valuable.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
It's something. There is some material in there. Because remember
Alex got his stolen off his truck when he's an
LA hacked it off because this is like they're super
expensive to replaced. Thankfully it was covered by his insurance.
But yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
A platinum, palladium and rudium. Dang d look at my
car stuff notes? Why do I still have those anyway? Yeah,
So the gold parts of this Zeusied statue are taken
by Constantine the first. Eventually the statue or what's left
of it is moved to constant antoneuple. It's not as sambols,
(29:02):
not as symbol, and that's not our business. And this
is at the time the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Then from there the temple or the structure maybe a
palace where this was housed that got destroyed, but we
don't know how it got destroyed. It could have been
(29:24):
an earthquake, could have been a tsunami, could have been
the fifth century, could have been the sixth century CE.
All we know is that so much time has passed,
rivers have literally changed course.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The statue is gone. Yeah, that's basically the story. But
you know, based on these descriptions, very helpful descriptions, we
do have some pretty cool artists renderings of it. Like
I said, so you can look that up. There is
a cool alternate kind of what if of it all?
An alternate theory is recorded in the works of a historian,
actually a paraff history Zonaris and Kedron. You might have
(30:02):
heard of them, But doesn't that sound like a cool
rap duo? Yeah, I could hear it. Jesus and Marrow,
I think is what I'm thinking of. Zennaris and Kedron.
I love it. They proposed that the statue was dissured
by a fire, and I guess, given its wooden core,
that would make sense, and that would have potentially been
in four seventy five C.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And so now we have a very interesting conundrum here.
I'm going to call this statue Zeus Prime. Zeus Prime
is gone by Eddie Measure. We don't know exactly what
caused it to disappear, but Zeus has inspired so many
(30:43):
other renditions. I would say the statue hasn't really disappeared
because of the strength of its legacy, You know what.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I mean, Mark, that's for sure. Yeah. And to your point,
then it really is the quintessential artists rendering of Zeus.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
And with that we are ending the story of this
wonder of the ancient world, the Statue of Zeus, uh,
and getting to our main story, the question that has
haunted all our fellow ridiculous historians.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I threw out this low this half hour.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Uh your question immediately, friends and neighbors. Should I build
this wonder in the video game sid Meier's Civilization?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
And I start that to Max Maximilian, Max Atrillian with
the facts.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Well, like all wonders, and Civilization depends on which game
you can build it in. Through my research, I found
it's been in four. I haven't checked to see if
it's in seven.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I haven't even played seven. I was when I were
talking to earlier. I only play a civilization on long
plane flights.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
This year's a really I mean, if you're a game nerd, this,
oh yeah, yeah, it's really. But there's just so many
video games this year to oh.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Sorry, that's well, that's a good thing. It's a good, good,
good kind of Roughs.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, it's we're up through so many games, like I
don't even touched a like Adam Fall, and that's supposed
to be a beautiful game. Long story short though, in
Civilization six, Statue of Zeus is probably the most worthless
wonder in the game because what it gives you.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
They like to share your opinion of the one.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
No, it's like it's four hundred and forty production to
build all the things that Statue of Zeus comes with.
There's like one specific build you can do where it
makes sense. I mean technically, like you know, it's an
early wonder, so if you go in for cultural victory earlier,
you build them the better. Blah blah blah. But it's
like if I think I wrote down here the equation
that I ran, But it's like if you're doing a
Wonders China build, you have a classical age monumentality. The
(32:39):
Statue of Zeus can be attained pretty easy because what
you can do is you can, like, you know, put
workers in there, you can buy workers with faith and
do all these things. But you have to build in
a canon and a barracks already, and you can just
build you know, so many other great wonders like Jebel, Barkeel, Petra, Avedonna, Plasus, Colisseum,
(33:00):
Right Library, Maha Body Temple, and of course the previous
dimension Masleiam Halcronasis. Or you can even build the Terracotta Army,
which has the exact same requirements as temple Zuits. But
it's so much better.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And those guys are scary, they'll come at you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And maybe first I have always liked the Great Library
as a fan of Bordes, and due to the fact
that it gives you those free technologies.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
That's just sweet. But this is someone who has never
played the game or any of the games. Every time
you guys talk about it, it gets me curious. It's fun.
Isn't there one on PS five? There's one, there's a version. Okay,
I'm gonna check it out. Are any of them free
on PS plus? They should be, Maybe the older ones
might be.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Take a look or check an emulator if I can
say that online. Anyway, we have we have so so
much more to get to, more ancient wonders of the world.
We have some ideas we'd like to share with you
about what makes a wonder so wonderful or what not,
But for now we are going.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
To call it to day.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
We're off on some adventures and we're doing so with
big thanks to our super producer research associate for this episode,
mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Boy are we ever? Huge thanks to Alex Williams, brother
of Max, who composed this banging them. Sorry about your
catalytic converter, Yeah, I think he got pasted. At least
insurance paid for it. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland and
the Quist and A J. Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzle.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And to our dear friends the Rude dudes at Ridiculous
Crime who are actually making an appearance on the Puzzler.
You check out that crossover we're all very excited about. Uh,
let's see Christopher Hasiotis, Eve's Jeff Coates here in.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Spirit and Noel. Thanks to you. Welcome back man, Thanks buddy,
I appreciate it's good to be back and we'll see
you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(35:05):
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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