Dethroned Emperor: The Fall of Valerian, Part 1

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe travel back to the third century CE to discuss the Battle of Edessa, in which the Sasanian Empire not only defeated the Roman army but also took its Emperor as a prisoner of war. How did the emperor’s capture impact the already crisis-ridden Roman Empire, and how was Valerian’s fall possibly mythologized by Christian historians? Find out…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and
Rob do it. What's what's that sound? Is that the
sound of us digging down a historical rabbit hole that

(00:23):
you got interested in? What what are we doing today? Oh?
In this episode, we're going to talk about the fall
of Valerian, Emperor Valerian of Rome. Uh, this is this is,
this is gonna be I think a fun one, even
though this is this is certainly gonna be more of
a historical direction, not the first time that we've we
we've gone down a historical rabbit hole, as you say,

(00:44):
But I think, as always it's important to remember in
this context, you know what histories are. It's kind of
like you have you have, you know, histories within with
capital aging, histories with the lower case h um. Histories
in general, written his stories, oral histories, past down histories,
resurrected histories are accounts of the past that very often

(01:07):
have viewpoints, biases, agendas. They're constructed from memories, evidence, and
pre existing accounts, all of which are subject to error.
In short, interest in history is not only a matter
of what happened, but also why did this version of
what happened happen? Why is this the account that was
written down or told to others? And um, these are

(01:28):
all interesting questions to ask about the fall of Emperor Valerian,
questions that still remain today about what actually happened to him.
Also how did the defeat go down? But but mostly
what was his ultimate fate? Ah. So here you're interested
not only in a question of history, as in what's

(01:49):
the best we can figure out what happened in the past,
but a question of historiography. Why did certain historians of
the past write about history in a certain way? Yeah?
And I think ultimately this is a story that is
interesting on both counts because it's also fascinating to to
look at the various histories and piece together in your

(02:11):
mind this story of just countless on the in the
Roman imperial side, you know, just constant overthrow and backstabbing. Uh.
This uh, this this era of chaos that sees just
emperor after emperor fall, to all of the infighting in
Rome as well as to some of the uh, the

(02:33):
fighting on the borders of the Roman Empire, as well,
and yeah, then there's also this this question of of well,
what are these different stories regarding the fate of Valerian
and what do they mean and how are we supposed
to interpret them, uh from our modern standpoint. So I'm
just curious, how did you get interested in this, in particular,
this question about what happened to Emperor Valerian. I think

(02:55):
this is one of those kind of just tangent steering
research where I just I was working on something else
and then I was curious. I was looking into maybe
various um emperors and the fall of various emperors and uh,
and then I started I think I initially just clicked
on on just like a basic page about Valerian and uh,

(03:18):
you know, and read some some grizzly details about what
might have happened to him, and that got me thinking,
It's like, well, this sounds this is really severe. You know,
what were the ramifications of this? And then I started
digging in a little deeper classic rabbit hole dynamics. All right, yeah, yeah,
all right. So to begin with, let's talk about where
we're gonna go in what time period we're traveling to.

(03:41):
For the most part, here, we have to journey to
the Roman Empire during a time that is known as
the Crisis of the third century, a period of decades
lasting from two thirty five to two eighty four CE,
during which the Roman Empire was just defined by anarchy
and strife, a time in which it nearly collapsed. One

(04:02):
of the books that I was looking to for this
is actually it's an older history book, series of popular
history books came out many decades ago from Will Durant.
Uh this is the Story of Civilization. And there's one
section in the book that deals with primarily with the
with the Romans, titled the Collapse of the Empire, and

(04:22):
there's a great quote I want to read from that quote,
we shall not repeat in bloody detail the names and
battles and deaths of these impervors of anarchy. In the
thirty five years between Alexander Severus and Orillian, thirty seven
men were proclaimed emperors. I'm gonna say it, that's too

(04:43):
many emperors. That's too many, is it is? It's that
is just that is that has a lot of emperors
to go through in such a short period of time,
And like Will Durant, we are not going to go
through all of them. We're gonna mention some of them,
just to give you a little color for just how
much turmoil, how much turnover there was. This was the
time period during which there was there was really not

(05:04):
any job security to being the emperor of Rome. You know.
One thing that's always interesting to me about Roman history
is not just that basically that all Roman emperors are
bad leaders by modern morals and modern standards, but that
most Roman emperors were bad leaders by Roman standards. Yeah.
There there's when you start talking about, well, who are

(05:25):
the worst emperors, it's you can draw up a pretty
exhaustive list, uh, and then that they're actually there are
actually some some pretty pretty fun lists of the shore
you can find on the internet. But a number of
really bad ones do occur during this time. Some of
the other really famous bad ones occur prior to this period.
But yeah, the Crisis of the Third century runs from

(05:46):
two thirty five to two eighty four, So that race
was the question, what do these dates mean? Let's start
with two thirty five. In the year two thirty five, Uh,
the Emperor Severus Alexander is assassinated by his own troops.
So Alexander was had been named emperor at age fourteen,
and he was a progressive figure in many respects who

(06:10):
sought to restore the power of the senate and the
aristocracy and to weaken the dominance of the Roman military.
So he built libraries, public baths, and other works in
the empire. He engaged in various economic programs to bring
down interest rates and also helped the poor. Now I
say progressive in many respects because he also enforced various

(06:31):
morality based laws that saw the arrest of prostitutes the
deportation of homosexuals. Still considered that previous emperors included the
likes of Caligula, Nero, and Commitists. Uh, these are all
names that that probably ring a bell in everyone's head,
you know some of the stories about these individuals. Even

(06:51):
if that scene from the movie where Caligula chops off
people's heads with the lawnmower didn't really happen in history,
Caligula was a really bad guy. Yeah, it's still in
the spirit of Caligula. So Alexander's immediate predecessor was an
emperor by the name of a Lagabalus who had died
at age eighteen following a short rain that's noted mostly

(07:14):
for scandals and excess, though Durrant notes that something you
have to keep in mind, I guess with a lot
of these individuals is that at least some of these
scandals were probably fabricated by enemies, of which um uh
Alagabalus had many in the senatorial class. So just so
one of one of the many examples will be pointing
to in this episode where history and the truth is

(07:38):
of course tweaked to serve some sort of an agenda,
but by by all accounts, still not a great emperor.
He hosted weird lotteries, and there's actually an excellent horrible
history sketch from the historical Comedy of show on British
television about this. Oh you shared this with me, but
I'm sorry I did not have time to watch it yet.

(08:00):
I'm I can't wait to once we're done here. Basically,
I mean the story is that, yeah, he was like,
well let's have a lottery, let's let's have some fun romans.
But you might win some money or a house, but
you also might win just a whole bunch of flies
or a poisonous snake. Things. So it was, you know,
in a way, it was it was kind of like

(08:22):
very strange reality television of this time period. Huh. Um.
So I remember Ella Ablis has come up on the
show at least once before, because it was in our
invention episode on the history of air conditioning. And there's
a story told by I'm sorry, I forget the Roman historian,
but somebody tells a story about Ella Ablas cooling his

(08:47):
his orchard or his you know, the courtyard at his
palace by having people bring down snow from the tops
of a nearby mountain and pile it up just to
like things cool in the summer, uh, which overall is
very inefficient. But what I think we decided, well, if
there's a huge block of snow that would actually sort
of cool off the area, especially if there's like breeze

(09:08):
blowing over it. Uh. So this is uh, I guess
if that's true clever but also kind of kind of excessive.
But then again, we we also addressed the question of
whether or not that was true, because I think the
historian who told that story was a marked adversary of
the legacy of this emperor. M Yeah, it may have

(09:32):
just been trying to make him look stupid, right and
like and also if you're if you happen to be
this teenage emperor of Rome. I mean, maybe you just
asked that they bring snow to your house once, and
then your enemies find out about it, and they're like,
he brings snow to his house every day. It's the
most extravagant thing I've ever heard of. Oh yeah, I
remember when he created ice town. At any rate, about

(09:55):
the only good thing to say about and it seems
is that he did seem interested in spring religious freedom
in the empire, if only so he could keep worshiping
the Syrian god ball himself. So when Severus Alexander becomes
emperor at age fourteen, the same as his predecessor, things,
I guess seemed to be moving in a different direction,
and his rule proves stable, lasting thirteen years, the longest

(10:19):
reign of a single emperor in decades. At that point
he was a temperate figure, and especially early on, his
mother companion commanded a great deal of power through him,
and I think was was always a powerful figure in
his administration, if you will. Together they showed a certain
amount of openness to the practice of Judaism and Christianity
within the empire. They even lowered taxes. But of course

(10:42):
he courted a powerful enemy in attempting to reduce the
power of the Roman military, and Rome had many external
enemies during this time, including the Sasanian Empire UH, sometimes
referred to as the Uh Sassanid Empire or sometimes referred
to as as a dynasty rather than an empire. This

(11:02):
is located in Persia and at this point in time
only recently established in two twenty four by the founder
Ottashir the First, So about eight years into Alexander's rule,
the Sasanian army under Ottashir In invades Mesopotamia and threatens

(11:24):
Roman held Syria. So Alexander initially responds by basically sending
him a statement condemning the violence of the invasion and
telling him, look, everyone should be content with current borders
and domains, and also kind of warning them, if you're
gonna mess with Rome, you're not going to find it
as easy as the wars you've been you've been waging previously. Now. Ottashir,

(11:46):
perhaps interpreting this as weakness, then follows up by demanding
all of Syria and Asia minor from Rome, and this
results in a direct military response from Alexander, and he
manages to push Sasanian forces of Mesopotamia by two thirty three.
But that's when Rome's Germanic enemies to the north, the

(12:06):
Alamanni and the Marcomanni, attack, taking advantage of the pleaded
northern forces to attack Gaul. So Alexander and his mother
they rejoined the army, having only just briefly celebrated um
sort of victory over the Sasanians, and he leads the
army to meet this new threat. On his mother's advice,

(12:27):
he pushes for peace with the Germanic tribes, offering annual
payments to keep them in check. His own troops reportedly
see this as weakness. Uh. They also seem to, you know,
have issues with his mother's presence. Uh, And so they
and of course, on top of all this, they still
hate him for his work against the military, and so
they they mutiny against Alexander and they assassinate him, his

(12:51):
mother and some of his his key people. And this
is this is the point where we begin these these
decades of chaos. This is when we began the crisis
of the third century. Okay, so the young emperor, his
mom are dead, they're they're they're they're out of power.
Who's coming up next to who do they put in
well a military man. Of course, they lift up um

(13:13):
maxim minus thracks a sixty two year old commander, and
his rule would last a mere three years because everything
just to sends into civil war and death at this point,
beginning the crisis of the third century in earnest and
immediately bringing about the what is sometimes called the Year
of Six Emperors in two thirty eight, when six different

(13:35):
men claimed to be Emperor of Rome. Man you thought
two popes at the same time was too much? Yeah,
so the following decades, Yes, we're in fact bloody and chaotic,
with again thirty seven different proclaimed Roman emperors during just
a thirty five year time period. Internal factors weakened the state,
foreign enemies threatened on every front. This period of crisis

(13:57):
lasted until two eighty four, when the Empire was stabilized
once more with the reign of Diocletian, who reigned twenty
one years and then voluntarily retired and died of get
this natural causes, um, All of this stands and start
contrast to the short, bloody and doomed reins of most

(14:19):
of the emperors preceding him. Diocletian is an interesting figure.
I'm certainly no expert on his life, but I know
one thing about him is that he actually had the
the the the unusual seeming insight that maybe hereditary rule
is stupid and causing a lot of problems because if

(14:39):
you're just like handing trying to hand power off to
your son, your son might not actually be good at anything,
it might not be very smart. So instead, what you
should have is a system where power is shared between
I think the idea came up with was the tetrarchy,
that there would be four rulers who would rule over
different parts of the empire. They would make decisions together.

(15:00):
Then then after they were in charge, they would pass
on their office not to their sons, but to like
basically people, their min tees, people who they had trained,
uh allegedly on the basis of merit. Though I think
that pretty quickly devolved into hereditary rule again with Constantine's
father trying to pass stuff on to Constantine. Yeah. Yeah, this,

(15:23):
this whole question over hereditary rule is interesting because I mean,
from a modern perspective, we look at it and we
and we say, well, this that is it's obviously a
bad idea. Um, there's so much that can go wrong
with and you look at these historical examples of a
fourteen year old emperors and it just seems insane. Like,
my son, I have to realize with horror, will be

(15:45):
fourteen in four years. Um, I cannot imagine him as
a fourteen year old emperor. That' but your son is
so much nicer than any Roman emperor that ever lived.
Well at this point he hasn't become emperor yet, has
a tasted power. But but you know, the other interesting
side of this, as I've mentioned earlier that uh, severals

(16:08):
Alexander and his mother, one of their ideas was, all right,
let's put the power back in more in the hands
of the aristocracy. Uh, let's get it away from them
from the military a bit. And apparently one of the
arguments in this is, well, hey, at least with hereditary rule,
there's a structure. You know, if you're looking at at
an alternative that involves just sort of endless parades of

(16:30):
soldier kings, uh, then you know, how are you supposed
to work with that? And indeed, I guess you could
look at the Crisis of the third century as an
example of what happens when you're ruled mostly by soldier
kings trying to murder each other or trying to narrowly
avoid being murdered by your own soldiers. Not saying hereditary
rule is a great idea, but I'm just saying you

(16:53):
can see where people can maybe waffle back and forth
as these different systems results in chaos. I think all
of these stories are just a brilliant advertisement for liberal democracy. Yeah, alright,
So these these various imp imperial stories we've looked at
so far, these are mostly just to set the stage

(17:14):
for the story of Emperor Valerian, who reigned to fifty
three through to sixty right in the middle of the
crisis of the third century, and his two is a
tale of blood and doom, but also a good deal more.
And and don't worry if you're out there, I know,
listening to the show and thinking, well, I wonder if
there'll be any science in this. Don't worry. We do
have a short science paper that ties into everything later on. Alright,

(17:37):
I'm going to read another quote from Will Durant, because
that was another one that I thought was was rather nice.
And this is again from the Collapse of the Empire
and the Story of Civilization Part three. Quote the New
Emperor Valerian, already sixty and facing war at once with
the Franks, the Alamanni, the Marcomanni, the Goths, the Scythians,
and the Persians, made his son ruler of the Western

(17:59):
in higher, kept the East for himself and led an
army into Mesopotamia. He was too old for his tasks
and soon succumbed. Okay, so he's going east to fight, right,
and it's not gonna end well. And granted durance covering
a lot of territory in these books. So that's basically
all he has to say about the episode with Valerian

(18:22):
right there. But but there are other histories, of course
that give us a lot more details, and and also
some questionable details as we'll get into. So the crisis
of the third century against all, a number of would
be emperors rise up through the military ranks, and of
a lot of a lot of them were purely of
military stock. Valarian, however, actually came from the senatorial class,

(18:43):
so he would he was essentially a nobleman, and his
roles in the state were largely more political for the
most part earlier on, and it was only later that
he was appointed as a ducks or leader in the military,
and he had two sons, uh Galinus and Licinius. Now
to set the stage for Valerian's rule, here's how the

(19:04):
three previous rules ended. First of all, there's Emperor Decius,
who reigned to forty nine through to one died at
the Battle of Verona, one of the worst military disasters
in Roman history. According to Durrant, either of wounds sustained
against the enemy or he was assassinated by his own troops.

(19:25):
There's there's some discussion over which it was. At home,
he had sought to restore Roman morality and ordered the
destruction of Christianity. This will become important later on. Oh yeah,
because so there, uh there. There has long been a
sort of meme among Christians that Christianity was just fundamentally

(19:46):
like illegal in the Roman Empire and constantly totally persecuted,
which is not actually true. I mean Romans, the Romans
were absolutely evil, and you wouldn't say tolerant generally, but
they were broadly religiously tolerant. They didn't care what people's
religion was most of the time, but there would be occasional,
sporadic outbreaks of persecution of Christians for various reasons. They

(20:09):
were accused of being responsible for various calamities because they
were They were accused of being atheists, as in not
believing in the Roman gods and not making sacrifices to them,
and so you know, not contributing basically to the quid
pro quo that kept the gods happy and kept everybody's
fate good. But also I think they were sometimes accused
of sort of disloyalty to the emperor if they wouldn't

(20:30):
make a burned offering to Caesar Um. So occasionally these
persecutions would break out, and I think under Decius was
was if I recall some of the worst persecution of Christians. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
like you said, it kind of goes emperor to emperor,
so you'll you'll have a period of and some of
these periods, these rules are pretty brief, especially during this period,

(20:51):
this this time period. But yeah, one emperor may just
be like, oh, you know, it's all right whatever Judaism, Christianity, Uh,
it's all good. I I'm busy with other things. And
then someone will come along and say, well, one of
the problems here is we have to return to Roman
moral values or Roman traditions and Roman rights need to
be preserved all right, So that that was one of

(21:12):
the three preceding Valerian. The other was Gallus, who lived
who have not lived, but reigned to fifty one through
two fifty three. He was definitely murdered by his own troops. Uh.
He also had two co emperors that died of plague
or murder, We're not sure which. And then there's a
Milianus who reigned June through September in the year to

(21:33):
fifty three. That's a nice short one. He was, guess what,
murdered by his own troops. So this is just a
taste of how unstable again the position of emperor was
at this time, as Valerian himself is named emperor by
a Millanius, his own defecting legions. But even as internal
strife at least temporarily slightly settled around this new emperor Valerian,

(21:57):
and you have uh, you know, I guess a cessation
of just in civil war. Uh, there are still plenty
of would be usurpers in the Roman ranks. Plus Rome
still faces threats from all of its external enemies, including
the Sasanian Empire in the east. So Valerian he puts
his son uh Galinas in charge of the West and

(22:17):
occupies himself with the East and the threat posed by
the Sasanians in Persia. And meanwhile at home, we should
also know, coming back to the issue of of of
Christian persecution, that Valerian is also remembered for the persecution
of Christians in Rome. Uh. He had ordered that all
must conform to Roman ceremonials and that Christian assemblages are forbidden.

(22:41):
And then when Pope Sixtus the Second resists, the Pope
is beheaded and seven of his deacons are executed as well.
Christians at the time and even in times thereafter, really
have a hard time letting this one go. Yeah, yeah, no,
no pity for the pope killer. Now, at this point,

(23:04):
I'd like us to turn to the Sasanian Empire, because
a number of you might not be very familiar with
what we're talking about here, and uh, and I wasn't
that familiar with the Sasanian Empire either prior to to
this research. So I turned in part to a book
titled Sasanian Iran to twenty four through six one c

(23:27):
by Turaj dari On, Iranian ironologist and historian at the
University of California, Irvine. Um, he's published a number of
books over the years, and you also, you know, can
find very speaking engagements and and whatnot that he's um
he's done concerning not only ancient Iran, but also the
modern state or of Iran and global affairs and so forth.

(23:47):
So in the openings of the book, um Dari points
some things out about our understanding of ancient history that
that I thought were very illuminating. He points out, of
course that ancient history and the West especially is often
very Eurocentric, with excessive energy focused on European, Greek and
Roman cultures and histories, which can of course come at

(24:10):
the expense of understanding other powerful and important cultures. And
this is often, he says, utilized to set up this
narrative that European and Western power is a kind of
continuous success story that extends back through these cultures. But
Dary points out that not not only is such a
focused detrimental to understanding say, the nation's bordering the Roman

(24:31):
Empire during this time period, but you also can't look
at the Roman Empire in a vacuum. You have to
you have to look at you have to understand the
nations that it's interacting with and that it's warring with.
Otherwise you're also denying yourself a full understanding of say Rome. Well, yeah,
that's true in many ways. I'd say one of the
most baseline is remembering that the Roman Empire when it

(24:53):
during its great expansion, most of the people in the
Roman Empire were not Romans. There were people living in
conquered territories who were under Roman rule. Yeah, and and
in many cases, individuals fighting for the Roman military are
auxiliary troops that are that are brought in from regions
outside of of Rome proper. Yeah, but I love this, Uh,

(25:15):
I mean, it's it's kind of one of these these
things where once it's stated, it seems so obvious. But yeah,
it's like, um, it's like if you were to ask somebody, hey,
what's your favorite boxer and they're like, oh, Muhammad Ali
And then you're like, oh, what was your favorite opponent?
And they're like, oh, I don't know any other boxers.
I just know. Moment like, what you how much can
you really understand this athlete if you don't understand the

(25:36):
athletes he competed against and and and so forth. Um,
you know, that's an oversimplification, but that the Yeah, I
think this is a really valid point. And I have
to say when I when I think back about when
I was first learning about, say that decline of Rome,
I feel like there was this feeling that Holy Rome
is this wounded lion, and you have all these other

(25:57):
kingdoms that are sort of snapping at its heels like hyenas.
But this is, you know, certainly not the case with
the Sasanian Empire. So what was the Sasanian Empire um
sometimes called the Empire of the Iranians or the Neo
Persian Empire. Well, it all begins with the reign of
Otdashir the First, also known as Otashir, the Unifier, who

(26:19):
indeed unify the Iranian Plateau in two twenty four. You'll
remember him from just a little bit earlier as the
ruler who tangles with Severus Alexander. So Drey writes that
it was an enormous undertaking to unite the Iranian plateau
under one rule at this time, But the exact origins
of the House of Sasain and Otdashir the First are

(26:43):
somewhat shrouded in mystery. He apparently picked Susain as the
name for his house, as it may have been the
name of a protective deity, but I don't think we
know for sure. Uh. And it seems that while Ottashir
may have had a background in Zoroastrianism, so his father
um pah Bag may have been a fire temple priest,

(27:04):
he was still essentially an upstart. And I thought this
passage from Dare is is rather illuminating quote. Furthermore, it
was claimed that Oddashir was Odda Shir, that kand the
son of pa Bag of the race of Sassain, from
the family of King Dare. When looking at this line,
one gets the sense that every possible connection to divinity, royalty,

(27:28):
and nobility was evoked by artist Shir, which can only
mean that he was none of them. So another example
of the powerful tinkering with history right, the falsification of
one's lineage to tie in with the noble, the royal
in the divine. You know, sometimes when I look at
these ancient rulers and I see them, I know there's
a specific term for this, so I forget what it is,

(27:49):
you know, the list of prestigious things that would be
said after their name, so it's king whatever you know,
And then all these associations with nobility, lineage, deity, royalty,
and stuff. It reminds me of keywords stuffing in the like, Uh,
you know that that era where you and I first
started getting into digital content on the internet. Uh, and
all these companies that we were competing with, we're doing

(28:12):
this thing where they would try to rank higher and
Google results by just loading tons of irrelevant metadata garbage
into every page. So it's like, is this page really
about Metallica? No, but it's in the meta Yeah, yeah,
the meta keywords that list is longer than the actual post. Right,
So out to share the first is definitely bringing the
metadata here. But I but I should drive home he

(28:34):
does have the power to back it up that this
is just about securing the power, um, supporting the power
by making these uh perhaps making these claims to uh divinity,
royalty and nobility now and gaining this power though art
to share the first uh possibly one this his rule
through conflict not only with rival Iranian kings, were perhaps

(28:57):
even family members. So in piecing together to history, He's
uh dare mentions that artist Shar's father may have dethroned
an important king and artist shir then then may have
taken to the field of battle against his own brother,
but his brother died unexpectedly before this battle could occur.

(29:18):
This raises the specter of possible assassination. We're not we
will never know for sure, but yeah, he's seemingly perhaps
rebelled against his own father and against or against his
own brother after his father's death. So there's there's infighting
in the family on this ascension towards becoming the King
of kings UM. He also has this decade long war

(29:39):
against Artawan the Fourth UH, further expansions across the the
Iranian Plateau, challenges from other local war lords. UH. Some
of these warlords are fighting on our Tawan the Fourth
behalf are to Shear the First also has to deal
with challenges from other brothers, and finally, are Tawan the Fourth,
his main rival, takes the field with his armies against

(29:59):
are to Shear the First and parishes Artist Here, the
First becomes the King of kings and the Sasanian Empire
is born. Now, as we already alluded to, are to
Share the First expands his territory from here and eventually
enters into conflict with Rome over Syria and Asia Minor
and there's there's really no clear winner to this conflict.

(30:20):
Uh Now, certainly Alexander Severus and his mother, you know,
celebrate that they have they have some sort of a
victory here, but it sounds like both sides were somewhat
reduced and exhausted by this whole um series of battles,
and no one was truly victorious. But Alexander Severus is
able to hold under Roman territory here in the in

(30:41):
the Asia Minor, but after his death the Sasanians are
able to then annex several regions. Dare notes, however, that
are to shear. The first challenge to Rome was probably
not mere expansionist hubris, as Alexander's letter alleges that it is,
but that it was probably an attemp to stave off
further Roman expansion into their region. This is one of

(31:05):
the nasty problems of the imperial mindset, right. So you
have empires with borders touching, you can always justify conquest
and expansion of borders, which means killing people, you know,
military expansion as defensive because it's like, well, I got
to get more of a buffer, you know, out from
my territory, because what if they do it to me exactly.
And so you have all these these peoples in between

(31:27):
these empires that are that are really seeing the some
of the worst of it. And yeah, the imperial mindset
on both sides, like you say, so the important thing
to keep in mind. Know I'm throwing a lot of
names out there, but yeah, Artishire the First, this is
the beginning of the Sasanian Empire. Uh. He consolidates power.
He is a true threat um, He's already engaging in

(31:51):
warfare against the Romans. But then artish Or the First
does again what is what seems may seem unthinkable at
the time. He retired ars Uh and pass his leadership
on to his son. And his son is shah Bur
the First UH, and he Shabu the First, becomes the
leader of the Sasanian Empire in two forty and this

(32:15):
is the ruler that comes into direct conflict with Emperor Valeriana.
Now note that it would be twenty years before Valerians
fall at this point at the Battle of Edessa, and
thirty years before Shahbur's reign ends due to death from illness.
So while Rome is racked by instability and infighting during
this time period, the Sasanian Empire is actually incredibly strong.

(32:38):
Now that's not to say that there aren't dynastic squabbles
going on uh in the Sasanian Empire under Schabur. There
there are. Uh. He's still having to deal with with
challenges from even some of his other brothers, uh, you know,
the other potential usurpers. So it's not not saying that
the kingdom is peaceful, but during this time period it

(33:00):
when there's so much turmoil, especially going on in the
Roman Empire, the Sasanian Empire is pretty solid. Now. Schabur
the First had been well prepared for Ruble, according to
the sources I was reading here, especially dare Uh. He
he had accompanied his father on the battlefield, ensuring that
he was just ready to take the fight to his enemies,

(33:23):
including whoever happened to be calling themselves Roman Emperor at
any given moment. And of course it changes a lot,
and of course battles continue between the two empires in Mesopotamia.
In fact, in two forty three, Roman Emperor Gordian the
Third invades Mesopotamia in an attempt to retake territory that
had been previously held by Rome under Alexander Severus with

(33:45):
an auxiliary army of mostly Gothic and German soldiers, and
that following year, Gordian the third is dead, as Schabur
the First claims that he killed the emperor in battle,
but it seems like possibly the truth here, as the
emperor or died away from many known battles and might
have been guess what, killed by his own soldiers. But

(34:05):
again we see the fluid and power serving nature of
histories here. If you're Chabu the First and you know
that during the conflicts that you're engaging in against the
Roman Emperor, that the Roman Emperor is dead, might as
well go ahead and claim that kill for at least
your troops, if not you personally. And that was only yeah, yeah,
that that'll back up your your power. And then after
this the following emperor Uh makes concessions, essentially becomes a tributary,

(34:31):
if you will, And this is the way that the
Sasanians end up framing it. And and into sixty Schabur
pushes further into Mesopotamia and comes into conflict with Emperor Valerian.
So at this point, yeah, we're going to get to
the Battle of Odessa. This is the crucial battle in
this whole scenario, it counts among the worst Roman military

(34:53):
disasters in history. On one hand, again, we have the
forces of the Sasanian Empire under Shapu the First, and
here we have Roman forces under Emperor Valerian. So one
of my chief sources here was Udo Hartman's The Third
Century Crisis from the Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles that came
out in seventeen, which provides a nice summary of what

(35:15):
we know and what some of the histories say concerning
the Battle of Edessa and it's aftermath. So let's go
ahead and hit the basics here. Okay, So where is
this taking place? Uh? For the most part, we're talking
about Edessa, an ancient city, and what is now Turkey.
More precisely, this battle may have occurred somewhere between the
cities of Kre and Edessa. When did this occur? This

(35:39):
is again the year to sixty and it's spring, and
then we have the two forces. Well, so let's start
with the Roman forces. This is the one we actually
have some numbers on whether those numbers are correct or not.
As a matter of discussion, we don't know for sure
exactly what the troop count was but Shabu the first
puts it at seventy thousand, which is probably an exaggeration

(35:59):
to enhance his victory. But um, but Deare gives us sixty. Um.
It does seem that Valerian had pretty strong numbers, bolstered
by troops originally stationed to the north of Rome to
deal with Germanic threats, and so essentially the troops here
under under Valerian, it's going to be some makeup of Roman,
Germanic and Gothic troops. That seems a safe assumption. Okay,

(36:23):
so tens of thousands at least that this is They're
not playing around. Yeah no, but I haven't seen anybody
suggesting that this is just a small ragtag group. Now
this is. This is a large army led by an
emperor of Rome, so you know, it's it's it's not
to be underestimated. On the other hand, we have the
Sasanian forces here and this numbers here seem to just

(36:44):
be unknown. I haven't even run across the source that
ventures a guess at what the numbers were. Uh though
I suppose we you know, you could probably loosely speculate
if you roll through some of the possible scenarios about
just how large the force might need to be to
pull off the victory. Though we have to remember that
troops size alone is not necessarily a determinant for victory

(37:04):
nor his fighting strength. UM. I try I go back
to um some of the writings of of Brett Devereaux,
who has a wonderful history blog about ancient battles uh.
And he always points out, quote the question is always
achieving strategic objectives and that that is ultimately more important
than the fighting strength. So you'll have certain ancient armies,

(37:26):
for example, that you can say their fighting strength was
was greater than this other force, but are they able
to pour pull off strategic objectives? Are are the other
mechanisms of warfare working in their favor? Devereaux's blog, by
the way, is a collection of unmitigated pedantry UH, well
worth checking out if you're interested in ancient warfare, as
well as sort of the echoes of ancient warfare that

(37:48):
you find in things like The Lord of the Rings,
the books in the movies, or the movie three hundred
for example, things of that nature. He he does a
great job dissecting them and talking of out like what
the history actually tells us. You know, this also reminds
me of something that came up in episodes we did
a few years ago about warfare between aunt colonies, which

(38:10):
is a principle in warfare scholarship sometimes known as Lanchester's laws,
Lanchester's linear law, in Lanchester Square law. They're not actually laws,
they're not laws of nature. They're just approximations modeling how
different types of battles tend to work in reality. And uh,
I'm gonna gloss over some of the details here, but
basically my memory is that it found that, you know,

(38:32):
really like, the individual effectiveness of units and tactics are
usually more decisive in ancient combat than they are in
modern combat. Because in shooting wars, where where individual you know,
tanks or or or soldiers can basically shoot in any
direction at any time, can engage in any direction at

(38:53):
any time, what you always want is to have overwhelming numbers.
You know, you would rather defeat the enemy in detail,
so attack small units of theirs with larger units of
yours so you suffer minimal losses and do that over
and over again. But in ancient combat, uh, like, individual
little tactical decisions could swing things wildly in the favor
of smaller armies. Yeah, and then if you throw in

(39:16):
additional factors that are definitely in play during this time,
including potential mutinies from your own troops, plague and illness. Uh,
and some of the some of the other factors that
will get into that may have been in play, particularly
at the Battle of Odessa. Go back and listen to
the ant Wars episodes if you want more detail on
the Lanchester's laws. Thank Alright, So at this point, you know,

(39:43):
you might you might wonder like, okay, are they going
to really get into the nitty gritty here about the
movements of the troops and so forth. This is going
to be like one of those battles that they teach
where they talk about, all right, this is where Valerian
went wrong here and here this is these are the
advantages that the Sasanians had tactically. Uh no, uh. This
is one of those battles where even if we wanted
to get into into those sorts of details, we just

(40:04):
don't have them. Um. We we don't know exactly how
the battle proceeded. There are some different versions of how
it might have gone, and we'll get into that. However,
the immediate outcome is not in question. The Sasanians secure
absolute victory over the Roman forces. Emperor Valerian and some
of his senators and soldiers are taken as prisoners. And

(40:27):
while the Sasanians seem to have suffered minimal casualties, the
Roman losses, I mean, some estimates put them at like
sixty thousand or so. Um, it's uh so, it's just
again a complete military disaster for the Roman forces. And
so you're probably wondering, okay, even in an age full
of emperors and kings, and in which emperors and kings

(40:49):
are are are often present at the battles and sometimes
die in battle. So we've already looked at an example
or two of that, how is it that a disaster
of this magnitude can take place? How can you wind
up with your emperor in the hands of the enemy
forces without them having actually, uh, you know, invaded Rome

(41:09):
or something of that nature. Well, as Hartman summarizes, we
basically have three different accounts in the Western histories of
what happened, and again we have to acknowledge that some
or all of them have agendas in they're telling. So,
first of all, there's the ZAWESOMEUS accounts awesome iss is
writing at the dawn of the sixth century. Uh. This

(41:31):
version goes basically, Valerian is cowardly. He wants to settle
things financially, which we have to mention is a tool
that had been used by the Romans before. You know,
just meet with the enemy, pay the enemy, and we
can you know, put this off for a while. But
this story goes that Shabur the first rejects Valerian's envoy

(41:52):
and says, hey, I'm only going to deal with the
emperor himself, and then Valerian says, okay, that sounds fine.
They meet and Valerian has taken pretty okay. So scene
based on this that this account is attempting to make
Valerian look weak and cowardly and Shabour look devious, right,
And apparently this is a common trend and we can
see as well. M Hartman points this out that like

(42:15):
this is a classic way of trying to take the
blame away from Rome and the Roman military itself, a
way to sort of excuse the loss by saying, well,
the Rome is strong, the military is strong, but unfortunately
we had a cowardly emperor here and we had a
very dastardly opponent. What can you do now? A couple
of of later this centuries later historians give us a

(42:39):
different version. This comes to us from George Sincellus, who
died sometime after eight ten, and uh Zonaras who lived
some of something like ten seventy through eleven forty. And
in these accounts, Valerian's forces were actually besieged in Odessa

(42:59):
and they were facing our vation there. Valerian, fearful of
the military mutiny, chose to surrender to the Sasanian forces
and only went through the motions of resistance casually end
up being pretty low because some of the Roman forces
recognize the deception and flee. Oh so is it possible, again,

(43:19):
if if there's any truth to this, is it possible
that Valerians like I might actually have a better chance
of surviving personally if I'm taken prisoner by the enemy
than if I'm left here with my own troops. Yeah,
that seems to be the idea that they're getting any here.
And and and again this this is so brief. It seems
like there are a number of plot holes that might
emerge here, like, well, how are they how are the

(43:40):
Roman forces, Uh fleeing? Are they are the how, what
are the exact conditions of the siege, etcetera. We don't know. Uh,
this is just one idea. But Zanaris has another account
that's interesting that again Hartman shares here, and in this one,
Chabor the first has Odessa besieged, but Valarian ends forces

(44:00):
are not in the city of Edessa. They're arriving um
outside of all of this. They see the siege going on,
and they see that the Sasanian forces are really really big,
perhaps larger than their own. It's in a very imposing force.
So they're reluctant to attack. But then they get intelligence
that tells them that the Edessian forces are mounting a

(44:22):
promising counter attack against the besiegers, against the Sasanians, and
so Valerian decides, well, this is our chance, this is
our opportunity, and they need to attack now. But then
they end up routed and surrounded by the Sasanian army
and taken prisoner. So it's kind of interesting to to
look at these different things and sort of try and
piece together the sort of situation that might have happened. Again,

(44:46):
thinking about these tensions involving a potential besiegement, either of
Roman forces or of another player in the conflict, um,
the possibility of then of Valerian having to deal with
potential mutinies occurring within his own ranks, potential desertions, and
perhaps weighing like who he has a better chance of

(45:07):
survival with UH, Perhaps the situation where he's dealing with
potential mutinies and wants to work out some sort of
a deal but do so without UH, without getting himself
killed by his own troops. It seems like there may
have been a lot of factors at play here, but
as again his Heartman points out, when when it comes
to Western sources, the two main narratives seem to have agendas.

(45:31):
One is that you know, we're going to cover for
the Roman loss by putting the blame on Valerian and
the enemy. And then for Christian historians uh some in
like the essentially the immediate aftermath of all of this,
this is a situation where God is punishing Valerian. Valerian
was hostile towards Christians and the Roman Empire, you know,

(45:54):
he was, He persecuted Christians, and so the idea here
is that God him self is punishing Valerian for what
he has done, a trope that remains popular up until today.
There is always the temptation within a within a you know,
a belief in a system of divine justice, to say
that when my enemy has suffered a bad fate, it's
because of the bad things they did. They're they're finally

(46:17):
getting their come upance right right. And again that can
be not only foreign enemies, but but they can be
domestic enemies. They can be you know, rival or previous
emperors when you're saying, well that they weren't right with God.
So this is what happens. We need to get an
emperor in there who is right with God. And uh.
And of course any of these kings, especially in this age,

(46:37):
there's going to be some degree of religious tinkering of
their stories, like I'm king because I'm right with God.
I mean, I've got divine blood inside my body. Uh,
you know, I hearkened back to divine kings, etcetera. So
there's a lot of this going around. Well, looking at
the time, I think we're gonna have to call this
episode right here and say this is part one of
this talk. But we will get into some surprising territory

(47:00):
next time, not only about history and historiography, about the
the idea of the dethroned prisoner Emperor of Rome, but
also into some surprising microbiology territory. Yeah, I was really
surprised this came up as well, but I look forward
to talking about this in the next episode. But for now, yes,
this is a good, good stopping point point, kind of

(47:20):
a cliffhanger because at this point the Roman army has
been defeated and Emperor Valerian is a captive of the
Sasanian Empire. What's going to happen next, Well, there's a
lot of discussion about what happens next. Alright, So come
join us again on Thursday as we continue this historic
and ultimately scientific investigation. In the meantime, if you want

(47:42):
to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
you'll find them in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
podcast feed. Our core science and culture episodes published on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Wednesday we do a short
form artifact or monster fact. On Monday's we do listener mail,
and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
just talk about a weird film. Huge Thanks as always,

(48:02):
to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
would like to get in touch with us with feedback
on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for
the future, or just to say hello, you can email
us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

(48:23):
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