0:00

Okay, so we're about to record a podcast

0:03

and we don't really have a topic, right? I

0:07

don't know why we're disclosing that, but yes.

0:13

Please, give us your time. Trust us. Make

0:16

this podcast a priority. We don't have

0:18

any plan whatsoever. No,

0:20

I

0:21

actually think that's fun because

0:24

I'm going to pull up a topic

0:26

that I think you

0:29

would be able to do off the top of your head. I

0:32

would like to disclose it this way. Do you remember me

0:34

telling you, like, hey, I got a topic.

0:37

You're going to be simultaneously proud of me and

0:39

angry at me for pulling up this topic.

0:42

Do you remember that? Oh, I

0:44

do remember you saying that.

0:46

Yeah. And I'm nervous. So,

0:49

all right, just hit me, I guess.

0:51

I secretly

0:53

consumed Persian

0:55

Fire by Tom Holland and I'm ready

0:57

to talk about the Persian invasion of Greece.

1:02

You did? I'm not mad. Why

1:04

would I be mad at you? Because- That's

1:06

the best thing ever. That would be like if I went and

1:08

was like, I learned how the rockets work. Let's

1:11

figure out how to put a man on the moon. Okay,

1:13

it's not quite that grand a scale, but it's still cool.

1:17

Yeah, I'm ready to go and I just didn't give

1:19

you any warning. So that means anything we

1:21

talk about today is going to have to come right out of your head.

1:24

You have no chance to prepare.

1:26

Oh no. Okay. You see? You

1:29

see? You see what I did? Well,

1:34

just remember that I

1:36

am at least a nice person.

1:46

All right, I learned about

1:49

Persia in a way that

1:51

I never thought I would

1:53

think to learn about Persia. It's incredible.

1:57

You just went and devoured that whole book.

2:00

audiobook I assume? Yeah, yeah, 12

2:02

and a half hours, yep. Did

2:05

you love it? Very

2:07

interesting. There were a lot of names,

2:09

the Greek names were harder for me to

2:11

embrace. It's like the first part

2:13

of the book talks about, well I guess

2:16

we just need to frame this for the

2:18

third chair because we don't want you to feel

2:20

like you have to go listen to this book. But

2:24

it's cool, I enjoyed it. I

2:26

think we can have this conversation in a way that's informative

2:29

and helps other people learn

2:31

about Persia and Greece, specifically

2:34

in the 490s to 480 BC timeframe,

2:36

right?

2:38

This is gonna be delightful, you're gonna do history.

2:41

But I would like to ask for

2:43

one ground rule before we do it.

2:46

Okay. And that is that I would like

2:48

for you to literally jump

2:50

in whenever you want, right

2:52

over the top of me if you want to, when you

2:55

remember something from the book, even if I'm explaining

2:57

it, because I want to know what

2:59

stood out to you and what popped, does that make sense? Yeah,

3:02

so you're giving me permission to be an idiot. No,

3:05

no, not that at all, it's just that

3:08

the history is a present that you only get to unwrap

3:10

once and then after you've unwrapped it,

3:13

the only way you can experience that joy

3:15

again is to watch somebody you care about unwrap

3:17

it for themselves. And you're doing that right now with Persia.

3:20

So I just want you to interrupt me and I want you to jump

3:22

in when you got something and we'll compare notes on it and it'll

3:24

be fun. Okay, I'll do it. I mean, I

3:26

genuinely enjoyed this, so that'll be easy

3:29

to do. Just give me some grace, yeah. I'll

3:31

do what I can do. Cool,

3:33

my pleasure. Okay, so I'm

3:35

gonna ask you to set the table here, opening question,

3:38

how did we end up with a Greece?

3:41

How did we end up with a Persia?

3:44

And how did we end up with them feeling like they needed

3:46

to fight against each other? Oh,

3:50

that's hard. Well, it's interesting

3:52

because Persia, okay, so I'm

3:54

thinking about a map. So if you're looking

3:57

at Europe,

3:58

the bottom right hand, side

4:00

of Europe you've got Greece and it's just

4:04

to the left of Turkey

4:06

and you've got this really,

4:08

and that's kind of like the transition between

4:10

Europe and Asia.

4:12

And you and I have discussed many times that

4:14

the Bosphorus and

4:16

the Hellespont and all that area in there,

4:19

like you re-roll the dice

4:22

or just re-run the earth simulation,

4:24

there's always going to be war in that area,

4:26

right? I think so.

4:28

Why do you think so?

4:30

Because it's the intersection

4:32

of three continents. I think Jerusalem

4:35

is always going to be contested. The Holy Land is

4:37

always going to be hot. If you put

4:39

a heat map of human activity

4:42

around the planet,

4:44

it doesn't even matter where you start life

4:47

on the planet. That intersection

4:50

is the intersection of the most

4:53

connected land in

4:55

the whole world. I mean, think about what else you got. You

4:58

got the Western Hemisphere, so you got Panama. Well,

5:00

sure enough, that's a strategic point. We figured that out.

5:02

It's going to be a strategic point every time,

5:04

but it's just not as much land. It's

5:07

not as much stuff being funneled

5:09

through this area as Asia,

5:13

Africa, and Europe. Everybody's

5:15

going to end up there. It's going to be hot.

5:18

And that heat map is going to radiate

5:20

out

5:21

from basically Jerusalem. Syria,

5:24

Lebanon, Palestine, Israel,

5:27

that's going to be the hottest spot on the map

5:29

because that's where everybody has to go in

5:32

order to get where they're going to pursue riches

5:34

and relationships with other cultures.

5:37

And as you go out with concentric circles

5:40

from the

5:41

center of the Holy Land,

5:44

you get

5:45

still pretty hot, like bright

5:48

orange kind of activity. And

5:50

I think Greece is in that part of the

5:52

concentric circle. Yeah,

5:55

and these two cultures

5:58

were completely opposed. how they

6:00

think about the world. You had Western thought and

6:02

you had Eastern thought. The Greeks,

6:05

they believed in freedom. And

6:08

they were trying out this new thing called

6:10

democracy.

6:12

And this whole concept of we

6:14

can lead ourselves was very,

6:16

very interesting. The one thing I took

6:18

for this entire book is

6:21

we are repeating Greek history

6:24

right now. Because, well,

6:27

this is what just kept coming

6:28

to the surface to me. Because the Greeks were

6:32

awesome and powerful. And

6:34

you've got the Spartans who are down there in, is

6:37

it called Laconia? Is that

6:39

how you say that? Very good. Yeah.

6:42

And so. Laconic wit or a Laconic

6:45

statement is that

6:47

pithy little Spartan comeback.

6:51

If the king of Persia, the king

6:53

of kings, the king of the Medes

6:56

and the Persians and all the different

6:58

titles and everything, Breaker of Chains, comes

7:00

to your people and if he does this,

7:02

you will suffer this. And you remember

7:04

the reply of the Spartans according to Herodotus,

7:07

right?

7:08

If, yeah. Uh-huh, so

7:10

good. Yes, so good. Yeah,

7:13

or if like lay down your weapons and they

7:15

were like, Molon Labe, come and take them. So,

7:18

yeah. So interesting. So

7:21

you've got these Greeks that are amazing

7:24

and they're

7:25

incredible warriors. And I remember in a previous

7:27

episode, you were explaining to me how bad

7:30

Sparta would have been to live in. And

7:32

you're right, man. It's

7:35

all about, hey,

7:36

you are a warrior from

7:38

day one of your birth. I mean, what

7:41

does your, I don't know, man, the Spartans,

7:44

just explain them to me because I just read the

7:46

book, I just consumed it. But for the third chair, just

7:49

tell what it would have been like to be a Spartan. I

7:52

will and just real quick again, thank

7:55

you for reading the book, dude. Yeah.

7:57

That was so cool. What a fun.

8:00

Surprise, I had no idea this was coming. I still don't understand

8:02

the part where you're like, telling me I'm gonna be

8:04

mad at you or something. It's great, how

8:06

delightful. Well, I thought you would be upset

8:09

because I wanted to talk about it and you weren't ready

8:11

to talk about it. Like, I didn't know if you wanted to brush up on stuff.

8:14

So... History is so big, I'll

8:16

never be ready to talk about it.

8:18

I could brush up on everything and study really

8:20

hard. And it's... I mean, you're talking about

8:23

most of the known world is

8:26

in play in this gigantic epic

8:28

war.

8:29

And really, this whole gigantic

8:31

mess started 150 years earlier. There's

8:34

just too much to know. I can get the broad strokes.

8:36

So, nah, you could have given me a year to

8:38

prepare and I wouldn't have felt ready. So, it's

8:40

cool. We'll just take what we get.

8:42

But you asked about Sparta. Well,

8:44

what a brutal place to grow up. I mean,

8:47

it's a cog in the wheel,

8:49

I guess, is the way to think of it. So, it's interesting to me

8:51

that people associate democracy

8:54

and freedom with the Greeks in

8:56

this conflict between the Greeks and the Persians.

8:59

And they imagine that Sparta was this

9:01

ambassador of freedom

9:03

and democracy. And kind of

9:05

they weren't. I don't think many

9:07

people who live in Western democracies

9:10

today would feel very at home

9:12

in ancient Sparta. No. I think

9:15

it would feel horrible. Now,

9:18

okay, I'm going to get my sources confused

9:20

because I've consumed a lot of material about

9:22

Persia over the last couple of years and then

9:24

stuffing

9:25

college, grad school, all of that. So,

9:27

I don't remember what comes from

9:29

Tom Holland exactly.

9:31

Did he talk about the Spartan broth,

9:34

the gruel that they ate? Yeah,

9:37

a little bit. He talked about that fast

9:39

forwarding all the way to the end after the final

9:42

battle where they went and

9:44

they took over the tent of the king

9:47

and they had the servants

9:50

of Persia make them a meal and

9:52

then they compared it to the food that they

9:54

had. And they were like, what the

9:56

heck? Why is he invading us? He's got all this.

9:58

What's he, why is he even doing this?

9:59

Why? And so

10:02

they were just laughing at how bad their food

10:04

was compared to

10:06

The Persians and I thought that was

10:08

really interesting What were

10:10

you gonna tell me about the gruel? I think

10:13

the gruel is very emblematic

10:15

of Sparta in general if you want

10:17

to understand Sparta look at their food. They

10:19

ate this disgusting black

10:22

broth That they had figured

10:24

out over the years is the kind of thing

10:27

that would give

10:28

you the right energy for battle and the right disposition

10:30

and

10:32

It was sort of a rejection of

10:34

pleasure to eat that food

10:36

We eat to live and fight.

10:38

We don't live and fight to eat, right?

10:41

I mean, those

10:42

are very different sets of motivations and

10:44

And Sparta was rough and they

10:47

were a weird outlier in

10:48

the rest of Greece It looks so

10:51

little on a map when you look at it

10:53

now with the whole world in view, but

10:55

it's very different It's a lot like the Black Hills

10:57

of South Dakota where everything's really Gulchy

11:00

and you can just travel a couple of miles and

11:02

things are very very different

11:04

Because of how tight the valleys

11:06

are and how abrupt the mountains

11:09

are and you've got all of these

11:11

different currents and climates with three

11:14

seas contacting the Peloponnesian

11:17

Peninsula and the Attican Peninsula the two peninsulas

11:20

there of southern Greece and so you've got all these

11:22

different weather patterns and you got different

11:24

seas and you got different climate and People

11:26

really lived very differently

11:29

even though by car on an interstate

11:32

They only live 15 minutes apart by

11:34

today's travel times And so Athens

11:36

was a very different animal

11:39

than Sparta. They were not an

11:41

empire They were not one thing

11:43

They were a whole bunch of city-states

11:46

with their own style and their own sensibilities

11:48

about

11:50

love and sex and

11:52

marriage and war and politics

11:55

and art poetry and heroism

11:59

And they came together and found ways

12:02

to be cooperative under this larger

12:04

threat of

12:06

Persia coming to town. When they needed

12:08

to be, like they hated each other, but

12:11

they absolutely hated each other. But when

12:13

it came right down to it, they're

12:16

like, okay, Spartans, you guys

12:18

are really good at land warfare.

12:21

And I

12:22

mean, prior to the Persians

12:24

invading, they weren't good at, nobody

12:27

was good at

12:29

naval battles, but was it Thermistocles

12:31

that said, hey, we need

12:34

ships.

12:35

And so they made them.

12:38

And everybody's like, why aren't

12:39

we making these ships again? What?

12:42

And then it turned out to be a huge deal. And so they kind

12:44

of got this, he was up in Athens,

12:46

right?

12:47

And so they got all

12:49

this figured out and they're like, all right, you guys

12:51

are good at land warfare. We're gonna do the Navy

12:54

thing and we're

12:56

gonna figure out how to do all this. And then when

12:58

it comes right down to it, we're gonna band together

13:00

long enough to whip these Persian

13:03

dudes. And that's what they did. And

13:06

that's a primer, I would say

13:09

on the Greek side, right?

13:10

Yeah, that's great, man. Yeah.

13:13

So what about the Persian side? Where did they come from? Who

13:15

are they?

13:16

The Persians are interesting.

13:19

So one of the first great

13:22

leaders to unify everyone

13:23

was Cyrus. And-

13:27

Very good. He unified everybody

13:30

and well, he unified a lot

13:32

of people and everybody was like, whoa, this is the great

13:34

king and this is the person that's gonna make it all

13:36

go down. And then when he died, everybody's

13:39

like, what's up? What's happening now?

13:42

And then they had this dude for

13:44

a short period of not, Cambyses, is

13:46

that his name?

13:48

Cambyses II, the oldest son

13:50

of Cyrus, yeah.

13:51

And so there was Cambyses

13:54

and they're like, all right, so he's gonna be the king.

13:58

But there was this- this

14:01

group of conspirators that were like, yeah,

14:03

well he's not gonna be the king. And so they got together,

14:05

how many were there? Seven, seven

14:08

conspirators? Yeah.

14:10

The seven conspirators got together and like, all

14:12

right, we're gonna go kill this dude.

14:14

We're gonna be the ones. And so

14:16

they just- Well you're lumping two things together. Okay.

14:20

Cambyses had a brother named Bardia. Oh, that's it.

14:22

And Bardia and Cambyses, Cyrus

14:25

could see this could be a difficult succession.

14:27

Okay. Bardia way east and

14:30

had him govern Bactria and some other very

14:32

important Eastern provinces.

14:34

And he sort of positioned

14:37

the direction of conquest in the army

14:39

for Cambyses in the early going

14:42

toward,

14:43

wait, did I do that backwards? Yeah, toward the west. Okay.

14:46

To go out toward Egypt. Okay. So Cambyses does

14:48

a big campaign to Egypt that Herodotus

14:50

didn't like. We gotta talk about Herodotus. Oh, there's

14:53

so much. Okay, we'll get back to that in just a second. Okay. But

14:55

the sources that Tom Holland

14:57

leans on heavily in

14:59

his book,

14:59

those ancient sources, they

15:02

don't look very fondly on Cambyses.

15:04

I think he was kind of an idiot. Yeah. And

15:07

didn't have the nobility, the noble bearing

15:09

of his dad. Cambyses, I

15:11

think it's Herodotus who gives us a story of

15:13

Cambyses taking an ill-fated, ill-advised

15:16

trip out into the desert and losing

15:18

a whole army out there in a sandstorm that treasure

15:21

hunters still go and look for. They just like

15:23

got lost. Yes.

15:26

Yeah, it's got lost. Swallowed up by the sands. They're out

15:28

there somewhere. Good luck. I mean, if

15:30

that ever gets found, it's gonna be the

15:32

greatest discovery of anything ever. It'd be

15:34

amazing if that's actually out there

15:37

and somebody could dig up. I mean, can you

15:39

imagine? 40,000 Persian

15:42

troops from the five

15:44

teens BC with all of their metal

15:47

and all of their stuff preserved

15:49

out there in the sand. Oh, it's just- It'd

15:52

be amazing. I mean, it would connect us to the ancient

15:54

world in a way previously

15:56

unimaginable. At any rate,

15:58

yeah, so Cambyses. It

16:00

went pretty ugly according to

16:03

the ancient historian Herodotus in Egypt

16:06

He killed some nobleman's sons

16:08

in front of them to make a show of things and

16:11

everybody even his own people According to Herodotus

16:14

they didn't like what Cambyses was doing He

16:17

killed some bull that they worshipped

16:19

in Egypt was the rumor in some

16:21

crazy mad rage And so he gained

16:24

this title the Mad King Cambyses

16:27

and then on the return trip back to

16:29

Babylon and Susa and Persepolis there are

16:31

a lot of capitals of Persia he

16:34

somehow cut himself on his lance

16:36

or his sword and

16:37

It went gangrenous, and he just died

16:40

just over in a couple days Yeah,

16:42

they were talking about maybe on his horse or something and

16:44

now you've got a succession crisis. Yeah

16:48

yeah, and now

16:50

his lance bearer and

16:52

Six of his buddies know

16:54

something the rest of the Empire doesn't know

16:56

the king is dead and his

16:59

little brother Bardia is In

17:01

line to become king and

17:03

that's where we pick up with the story you were referencing

17:06

which is thank you that that helped

17:08

a lot Yeah, so the seven

17:10

conspirators they get together and like alright. Let's

17:12

go kill Bardia

17:13

and so They head over there,

17:16

and they like not this is the way it the

17:19

story reads to me

17:21

So they knock on the door, and

17:23

they're like oh yes, could I please speak to Bardia,

17:25

please and they're like yes

17:28

Come on in and

17:30

they owe sure and they open the door and he

17:32

walks in he's like hey Are you Bardia's like yeah, and they're

17:34

like okay? They just kill him And

17:38

then they ride off really quick, and

17:40

this is an interesting story So they ride off and

17:43

you get the seven conspirators, and they're riding their horses

17:46

And they say because they're all in Persia.

17:48

They're all the the royalty or

17:50

all the the upper class They're really

17:53

good horsemen, and so they're

17:55

riding over the hill, and they're like alright So we

17:57

have fleed

17:58

what we're gonna do is we're gonna

18:00

sit here on this hill and

18:02

we're gonna look at the sunrise over that mountain

18:05

and after the first light beam

18:08

comes over the mountain, we're gonna

18:10

wait and who's ever horse, whichever

18:13

horse, Winnie's first, that's

18:16

gonna be the new king. And

18:18

everybody's like, you agree? Hell yeah, I agree.

18:21

And then it happens. The sun comes

18:23

up and the light beam.

18:25

This is a funny story.

18:28

It's hilarious to me that this has

18:31

lasted so long. Everybody knows what happened.

18:34

And so the, I

18:35

guess, content warning,

18:37

ancient history content warning for

18:40

parents. But apparently

18:43

Darius, the cheater,

18:46

stuck his fingers in the

18:48

vagina of a horse

18:51

and held it up to

18:53

his horse

18:54

at the nose and his horse

18:57

smells it and was like, rrrrr.

19:00

Well, what have we here? Looks

19:02

like I'm the king, boys. It's

19:05

so Darius is the king. And

19:08

they're all like, yeah, that was a good one, Darius. Okay,

19:10

yeah, you're the king because of this little horse

19:12

vagina trick you just did. And

19:15

that blows my mind. There are so

19:18

many other ways for you to say that. But

19:22

that's what happened,

19:24

right? Well, I mean, that's the story.

19:26

Yeah, that's the story. But this is a story

19:29

that's passed down and an entire

19:31

empire is built upon, correct?

19:34

Yes. Right. And that is

19:37

so important to how the entire

19:39

thing works itself out.

19:41

That question of how

19:44

did this happen and is it legitimate?

19:47

Yes. And do you remember the name of the dynasty

19:50

that newly self-appointed

19:52

king, Darius, declared what

19:54

was the name of his dynasty? Oh goodness, you're

19:57

asking me hard. Alcominnagid or something?

19:59

Is that?

19:59

Dude, that's pretty good. You said a lot of the

20:02

letters that are in the answer. What

20:04

is it? It's the acheminid dynasty.

20:06

Acheminid, thank you. Yeah. And

20:09

so what Darius is doing there, because he doesn't

20:11

have a good claim to the throne. He's like maybe 27

20:14

when all this went down. I could be making stuff up. Really?

20:17

But he was a young man.

20:18

He was the lance bearer to

20:21

Cambyses II, the king, when

20:24

he got killed by his lance.

20:26

Okay, I didn't catch that. He was a little

20:29

suspicious. Wow.

20:31

Okay.

20:32

The normal assumption that somebody would

20:34

have when there's like the title of the king

20:36

of kings of all lands of all nations of

20:38

earth and water at stake, and

20:40

a person who's in charge of the king's

20:43

lance is standing there declaring

20:45

himself king right after the former king died

20:47

of a wound from his own lance would

20:49

be, hey, wait a minute.

20:51

Did you maybe kill the king and then come up

20:53

with an elaborate plot to make yourself

20:55

the king? Totally not. So he had to get

20:58

ahead of the narrative, right? Totally not.

21:00

Oh, dude. And the narrative's

21:03

nuts. And the other question is,

21:06

did they actually kill Bardia? Like

21:08

that's a question. People don't know.

21:11

Right. It could have been somebody that looked like Bardia.

21:13

They didn't know what Bardia looked like. It

21:15

could have been, or Bardia could have just

21:17

been like, you know what?

21:18

I'm going to go be a farmer.

21:20

I agree. I'll never come around

21:22

again. I'm going to go be a farmer.

21:24

Who knows what happened? Right. And they didn't

21:26

even mint coins with faces

21:28

on them at this point. That was a free convention

21:30

in Asia Minor. They

21:32

didn't have language at this point. Darius was the one

21:35

that said, hey, we need a language. Am I right

21:37

about that?

21:38

I think that's an overstatement. Okay, thank

21:40

you. No, no.

21:43

These were very cosmopolitan, multilingual

21:46

people.

21:47

And we know, for example, from the books

21:49

of Second Chronicles, Ezra,

21:52

and Nehemiah in the Bible. Yeah. There's

21:54

a lot of court

21:56

drama in those, courtroom drama.

21:59

like will the king make

22:02

it to the archives before the enemies make

22:04

it there to destroy the record that will exonerate

22:07

the people and solve the crisis or will the bad

22:09

guy get there first and burn it and then when

22:11

the king walks in Be like I couldn't find that record.

22:13

I guess it's just gone in the Persian

22:16

era Bible business But we do

22:18

get indications

22:19

that these decrees that

22:21

were held in the the old capital of the Medes

22:24

Akpatana that Darius

22:26

finds during his reign and that a decree

22:29

that Cyrus issued earlier that

22:31

these were issued in Aramaic

22:34

The an early form of the language that

22:36

was Jesus of Nazareth's daily

22:38

language

22:40

In addition the language of the Elamites

22:42

and a bunch of other stuff. So the Persians They

22:45

really wanted to be the kings

22:47

of kings the kings of the world

22:49

and rather than inflicting one language

22:51

on everybody they very much operated

22:54

in multiple languages as a concession

22:57

because before them you had the Babylonians

22:59

and you had the Assyrians and they were both very iron-fisted

23:02

and Tried to control a huge

23:04

swath of the ancient world as well

23:06

Just through brute raw force and

23:09

fear and so when the Persians came

23:11

along they were like that was the undoing of both

23:13

of our predecessors

23:15

we should take a more conciliatory

23:17

approach to governance and

23:19

So this factors really heavily

23:21

in the Hebrew Bible in the Christian Bible

23:24

When the Jews had been taken

23:27

captive by Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonians

23:29

in 586 BC about 40

23:32

years 50 years before the Persians showed

23:34

up and their temple got destroyed

23:36

and Jerusalem got destroyed and the walls were

23:38

torn down and the last remaining

23:40

Jewish people were taken away probably

23:42

to be lost forever to

23:44

history just sort of Bread

23:47

in to whatever the Babylonians would

23:49

be and that you'd never even hear about the Jews but

23:51

instead the Old Testament

23:54

credits God as Supernaturally

23:57

ordaining that Cyrus would be raised up

23:59

and that he

23:59

He wouldn't just defeat and punish the Babylonians,

24:03

but that Cyrus would also let

24:05

the Jews return to rebuild Jerusalem

24:08

and the temple. And indeed, that's

24:11

all over the Bible. Cyrus the Great

24:13

surely ranks in the top 100

24:17

most mentioned people in the entire

24:19

Bible. He's a very, very prominent

24:21

figure in the Bible. Which is interesting.

24:24

And that's what this did for me. It

24:26

made things come alive.

24:28

It was a good book, man. It was written well. It

24:31

just made that ancient world real

24:34

to me. It framed it in terms

24:36

of current events. Like right now, as

24:40

we record this, we're kind of in

24:42

the middle of a large invasion of

24:44

the Ukraine by Russia.

24:48

And I see a lot of parallels

24:50

to how this is going on because

24:53

the Greeks... So let's... Okay,

24:56

so you've got...

24:57

I guess we need

24:58

to finish out the Persians, right? Let

25:01

me do a quick grand reset so you can make that

25:03

point and we can all be operating from the same set of

25:05

facts. Well, we've got to get from Darius to Xerxes real

25:07

quick. Just mention Xerxes. We'll do that.

25:10

Yeah, take us there. How do you do it?

25:12

How do we get from... Why are we in a fight with the Greeks?

25:15

Well, okay, so Cyrus basically got

25:17

everything ready for war and then

25:20

Cambias sees and Bardia,

25:22

that thing happened. And Darius is

25:24

like, okay, I guess it's time for

25:26

war because I got this army sitting

25:28

here

25:29

and I can war people. So I'm going to do it.

25:32

I'm sorry, I can't let it go, man. No.

25:35

No? No, that's not really what happened.

25:38

Okay, tell me. Cyrus set his sights

25:41

on Asia Minor

25:43

and that's plenty for now. Okay.

25:50

Ukraine,

26:00

but Cyrus couldn't handle the Scythians. Nobody

26:03

could handle the Scythians. The Scythians are not

26:05

a good people to invade. They're

26:07

of a weird stock. They don't meet you

26:09

in battle.

26:10

They stay on the move, and Persia

26:13

never got them. So history

26:16

says

26:17

maybe not the best idea to try to

26:20

tackle Ukraine

26:21

or this people group for long periods of time. The

26:23

combination of who they are and where they live makes

26:26

them very difficult to defeat

26:28

and then keep pinned down, which I think is

26:31

an interesting historical footnote. But

26:34

Cyrus then feeling like he

26:36

has to put down a couple of rebellions

26:38

in Lydia, the

26:41

westernmost outpost of his empire

26:43

being in the

26:44

city

26:46

near Ephesus. So clear out toward

26:49

Greece, but still in modern day Turkey called

26:51

Sardis. That was his

26:53

big outpost in the far west, and they rebelled

26:55

a couple times, and Cyrus was mean over

26:58

those rebellions. But he got

27:00

it on lockdown, and he built

27:02

or rather secured a highway that

27:04

ran all the way from Sardis all

27:06

the way back across through Babylon

27:09

and Susa and Pasigarde

27:11

and Persepolis and also looped

27:13

up to Epitana. All the big cities of the empire

27:16

were now connected all the way east

27:19

to west. It was an amazing achievement

27:21

of unifying through diplomacy and

27:24

violent diplomacy. Here's what's interesting is violent

27:27

diplomacy, force. And so

27:30

for Cyrus, he didn't have designs

27:32

on the Greek mainland. He had

27:35

culturally Greek holdings

27:37

in Asia Minor, but he wasn't even looking

27:40

at Athens or Sparta. I'm not sure he even knew

27:42

anything about who Athens or Sparta were.

27:45

Wasn't on his radar. He had his sights set

27:47

north into

27:49

modern day Russia and

27:51

Ukraine, and his sights set east. And

27:54

at some point he wanted to get around to Egypt,

27:56

but Egypt's a tough foe. When

28:01

Cambyses took over, it looks

28:03

like

28:04

he wanted to take the big

28:06

obvious thing that was missing from this

28:08

global empire. We can't really call

28:10

ourselves the King of Kings if

28:12

there's an independent pharaoh

28:14

ruling on the Nile.

28:16

And so Cambyses went that direction,

28:18

and that's really all he ever accomplished. I mean, he reigned

28:20

for a decent chunk of time, but that's what

28:23

he got done. Still, Athens

28:25

and Sparta, they're not really

28:27

on the map very much. Other

28:30

than, somewhere during

28:33

the reign of Cyrus, they started

28:36

needling just a little bit at some

28:38

of those Greek-speaking city

28:41

states and needled at their

28:43

loyalty. They meddled. They goofed

28:45

around and tried to sow

28:48

discord there between these

28:51

Greeks in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey and

28:54

their new Persian overlords from

28:56

way out east. It didn't amount to

28:59

much for a long time, but

29:01

after Darius became king, it quickly

29:03

began to amount to a lot. And it

29:05

started to feel like another full-blown

29:08

rebellion from those danged Greeks

29:10

in Asia Minor way out there at the edge

29:12

of our territory.

29:14

And so Darius became agitated and found

29:16

out that the instigators were these

29:19

stupid Athenians

29:20

and some of their allies as

29:22

well.

29:23

And that's when we really start to see things escalate.

29:26

Well, one of the things the Persians would do is they

29:28

would say, okay, we have a

29:30

freaking huge army. And

29:32

so they would go to these different

29:34

people groups and they would say, hey, we demand

29:37

earth and water.

29:38

What does that mean? Give us some earth, give

29:40

us some of your water. I mean, it like

29:42

symbolically

29:44

give us a shovel full of dirt or something and a pitcher

29:46

of water to demonstrate

29:49

that your land is basically under our

29:51

protection and

29:54

that you will pay tribute to the king, the king

29:56

of kings in this case, the king

29:58

of Persia. A lot of people chose

30:00

the pacifist approach. They would say, cool,

30:03

whatever. We don't

30:05

even know who you are. We don't care.

30:08

Here's a jar of water, whatever. Later.

30:11

So not even pacifist, but just passive.

30:14

Yeah.

30:15

Then they get to,

30:18

that almost sounds like

30:20

the, who was it that said

30:22

the British guy that

30:24

said, he

30:27

read this agreement from Hitler. In

30:30

the thirties, famously, he says, we

30:32

have an agreement and he reads it in front of people. Basically

30:35

like, oh, we've got an agreement. And then

30:37

later on Hitler comes knocking. You

30:40

mean Churchill's predecessor, Neville

30:42

Chamberlain? Yes, was it Chamberlain? Yes,

30:44

thank you.

30:45

I don't know. Yeah, I think it is.

30:47

But anyway, it's interesting. And

30:49

he's just basically saying, just acknowledge

30:51

that I'm more awesome than you. And they're like,

30:54

no, the Greeks. Well,

30:57

some of the Greeks didn't really care. And they said, maybe we should

30:59

just do it. And then the Spartans were

31:01

like, nah, we're not gonna do that. So

31:03

let's get to Xerxes real quick. So

31:05

it goes like this. It goes Cyrus,

31:08

Cambyses and Bardia.

31:09

Then it goes Darius, the cheater. And

31:11

then after Darius dies, it's Xerxes.

31:14

Yes, very, very good. I

31:16

bet you can even extend forward past

31:19

the book you read

31:20

and guess who Xerxes successor

31:22

was just based on his name. You've

31:25

heard of him. Was it, was

31:29

it Xerxes the second? I don't know. Xerxes

31:31

the second did exist, but he reigned only

31:34

very briefly from 425 to 424.

31:39

But in between Xerxes the first and Xerxes

31:41

the second was Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes.

31:43

Super, super, super famous important king. Yeah,

31:46

so timeline goes like this.

31:48

550 ish,

31:51

somewhere in there, Cyrus boxes

31:53

out his rivals, the

31:55

Medes and others and begins his

31:58

conquest of Babylon. Cyrus.

32:00

is King in one way or another from 550 ish

32:02

to 529. From 529

32:08

to 522 is Cambyses and Bardia with

32:11

Bardia only being, if he ever even

32:13

was King, only very, very briefly,

32:16

then Darius is an absolute

32:19

rock star. 522 to 486 is Darius. 486 to 465

32:23

is Xerxes.

32:25

Does that help with timeline? Did

32:28

you do that from your head or did you Google that? I

32:30

did not Google that. That's impressive,

32:33

very impressive.

32:36

Hey, this episode of No-Dome Questions is brought to you by

32:38

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32:54

Destin, what do you like about Raycons? I like

32:56

the fact that the knowledge that I gained

32:59

in this episode came into my

33:01

brain via Raycons. Not

33:04

all of it. I mean, there were sometimes I was listening to the

33:06

truck and whatnot, but like when I was mowing

33:09

or using a tractor at one point, I

33:11

had the Raycons in and I was

33:13

listening to Tom Holland's

33:16

Persian Fire and it was awesome. Like

33:18

there are specific things I can remember doing

33:21

on the lawnmower. I'm like, oh, I was at this location

33:24

in the yard

33:25

when I first learned about

33:27

whatever. It's interesting because

33:29

now I have a mental map of the

33:31

Persian Empire that

33:34

I gained while I was mowing. A response to your yard. Yeah, exactly.

33:36

It's mapped out. I've never thought

33:38

about that, but

33:40

so much of my Persian knowledge came

33:43

into my brain via Raycons too,

33:45

because

33:45

I went on this big kick maybe

33:48

six, eight months ago, where I would

33:50

finish up my responsibilities for the day and then I would

33:52

go fish and I would just cue up books

33:56

and lectures

33:56

about Persia primary sources

33:59

and And when I picture Persia

34:02

knowledge, I picture

34:03

my white Raycons and

34:06

brook trout

34:07

on one particular trail where I fished

34:09

and fished and fished and just listened to things about

34:11

Persia.

34:12

That's the one where I put my hand on that rattlesnake.

34:15

Oh yeah, that one. That's fun, man.

34:17

Here's the offer. If you want some Raycons. Wait, wait,

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wait, wait. What? Do you know why I didn't get

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bit by the rattlesnake, Destin? Why,

34:24

Matt? Do you know why I was aware

34:27

of the rattlesnake? Was it awareness

34:30

mode? It

34:32

was awareness mode. Because

34:35

I had on the awareness mode.

34:40

Tell me fair magic,

34:40

please. How, how did you

34:43

hear the rattlesnake? Well,

34:45

since hither forth, I had chosen to be

34:47

in awareness mode because of the possibility that I might

34:50

encounter a rattlesnake given the harsh

34:52

environments in which I was fishing. I

34:54

had awareness mode activated and sure enough,

34:56

while I was scaling in front of a cliff to get to a

34:59

hole that looked particularly inviting, I

35:01

heard a little sk sk sk sk sk sk, and I was like, dang, I should not

35:03

go any further, and then I saw a snake and it did not bite

35:05

me, and then I sent you a picture of that snake. That's awesome.

35:08

Yeah, there's sound profiles you can use as

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well. Well, you can navigate between the sound profiles.

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Absolutely, and it makes me think.

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36:31

I guess the next thing that would make sense is you've got the

36:33

Greeks over here to your left, and

36:35

you've got the Persians to your right, and they're

36:37

gonna war, right? And I

36:39

think we should start with the

36:41

way it first started, which was the Battle of Marathon.

36:45

Well, it's not quite

36:47

how it first started. Marathon's the famous

36:50

one, but there's one big battle that I think

36:53

Holland covers in his version of the story

36:56

called the Battle of Lade.

36:57

Yes, he did. The Battle of Lade is in 594,

37:02

and it happens near the city of Miletus,

37:05

which is a disputed city on the west coast

37:08

of Asia Minor, and Athens has

37:10

been messing with them, trying to provoke

37:12

rebellion,

37:14

and Darius only kind of

37:16

takes it seriously. Ultimately,

37:19

it is a narrow victory for

37:21

Darius, but

37:23

enough of a costly pain in the butt

37:25

that Darius is like,

37:26

remind me to punish those Athenians.

37:29

We need to do something about that, and

37:31

that is the incident that really pushes us

37:33

toward, well, the road to Marathon,

37:35

which you're talking about now.

37:37

I don't completely understand the Battle of Marathon.

37:40

I do know that the

37:44

way it went down, the Persians showed

37:46

up. The original Greeks

37:48

that made contact were like, whoa, what's up?

37:51

And they sent a runner.

37:54

What was the runner's name? Jogacles?

37:58

Jogacles.

37:59

Fast runner, please. Nike,

38:02

please. No,

38:04

I forget. It's

38:06

like Euripides or something like that. But this guy,

38:08

he ran and he ran

38:11

to go get help. And when he showed up

38:13

with Sparta, right?

38:15

Am I remembering this correctly?

38:17

He would have run to Athens, I would think. Forgive

38:20

me. I forget where he ran. So, some

38:22

of the Greeks sent a runner to some of the other

38:24

Greeks and when they showed up, they were like having

38:26

a party.

38:28

Like, what's going on? And

38:33

they had their tents set up as if

38:35

they were campaigning,

38:36

but it was actually just

38:38

a festival. And they're like,

38:40

hey, there's war happening. And they're like, what? And

38:44

long story short, the Greeks won against

38:46

an overwhelming force.

38:48

That was a really, really

38:51

big deal. And they rested

38:53

on those laurels for many, many years. And

38:55

there were some very interesting people

38:57

that were generals at that

39:00

battle.

39:01

Did they call them stratigos? What did they call

39:03

them? Stratigoy? What

39:05

did they call the generals? That sounds correct

39:07

right there.

39:08

The generals on the Persian side were very,

39:11

very prominent. We know a lot

39:14

about them. A guy named Daddus and a guy named Artifernes.

39:17

Artifernes factors super, super

39:19

heavily

39:20

because of his relationship with the

39:23

royal family. He's

39:24

just all over these battles and all

39:26

over this strategy.

39:28

And they were good. Theoretically,

39:31

that should have been enough mental power

39:33

to absolutely whip

39:36

the Greeks. But

39:37

the battle,

39:39

it's a mess. There was

39:41

chaos on both sides of the line, according

39:43

to the ancient historian Herodotus, who

39:45

we need to talk more about. And you know what?

39:48

What am I even talking about? I literally

39:50

have at my desk, because I'm working on Persia

39:53

stuff all the time. My desk is a mountain

39:55

of Persia stuff right now. I literally

39:57

have Herodotus. This is what it sounds like.

39:59

That's that many pages. Still going.

40:02

There's still more pages. Keep listening. And

40:04

that's in English?

40:06

Well, I don't think it was in the first place, but somebody did

40:08

some work and made it more English-er.

40:11

And I have it sitting open. I

40:14

have it sitting open right now to book three. That's

40:16

what I was last reading in Herodotus. Check this out.

40:18

Here's the page it was open to. You're going to get a kick out of this.

40:21

Now Darius had a clever groom whose

40:23

name was Oaberees.

40:25

To this man, when they had left their assembly, Darius

40:27

spoke. Oaberees. What it was all to

40:29

do about the kingdom thus, namely that the man whose

40:32

horse first nays at sunrise when we are mounted

40:34

upon our horses, he shall be king. Now

40:36

therefore, if you have any cleverness, contrive

40:39

that that we may obtain this

40:41

prize and not any other man. Oaberees

40:43

replied thus.

40:44

If my master it depends in truth upon

40:47

this, whether you be king or no, have

40:49

confidence so far as concerns this and

40:51

keep a good heart, for none others shall be

40:53

king before you. Such charms

40:55

have I at my command.

40:58

That's how Herodotus tells the story that

41:00

you were summarizing of

41:01

how Darius won the horse contest to be

41:03

king. That's good, right? That's good, yeah.

41:06

Then Darius said, if then you have any such

41:08

trick, it is time to devise it and

41:10

not put things off, for our trial

41:12

is tomorrow.

41:14

Oaberees, therefore, hearing this,

41:16

did as follows. When night was coming

41:19

on he took one of the mares, namely that

41:21

one which the horse of Darius preferred.

41:24

And this he led into a suburb

41:27

of the city and tied her up. Then he brought

41:29

to her the horse of Darius, and having

41:31

for some time led them round her, making them go

41:34

close so as to touch the mare, at

41:36

least he let the horse mount. Now at

41:38

dawn the six came to the place as

41:40

they had agreed, riding upon their horses, and

41:43

as they rode through the suburb of the city, when they

41:45

came near the place where the mare had made,

41:47

just when the horse had done this, there came

41:50

lightning and thunder from a clear sky and these

41:52

things consummated Darius's

41:54

claim, for

41:54

they seemed to have come to pass by some design,

41:57

and the others leapt down from their horses and did

41:59

obey the law.

41:59

to Darius. Wow.

42:02

And then in the next line, Herodotus

42:05

tells us about another version, a juicier

42:08

version of the story that

42:11

some others knew. So this is important. I'm actually gonna read

42:13

this, I mean, because it's a funny story, but

42:15

also because it tells you a little bit about how the sources

42:17

on this stuff works when we go back to this far in time. So

42:20

Herodotus goes on. When did Herodotus write

42:22

this? Herodotus of Halicarnassus

42:25

was a contemporary of Xerxes and

42:27

wrote a little while, say, 480s. He

42:30

would've been a contemporary of Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

42:33

So mid 400s, I would say. I

42:35

mean, it's probably on the book. Got it. Well,

42:38

yeah, so the campaign was

42:39

in 480s. So it'd be, yeah, it'd be after that.

42:42

So okay, I'm with you. Keep going, go for it.

42:45

Yeah, okay. So Herodotus

42:47

though, at times, he traveled

42:49

all around the world. He went to Egypt. I

42:51

mean, he's Greek. He knows

42:54

people in these stories. He gets conflicting stories.

42:56

And when he does, he just gives you both

42:58

stories. So he goes on to say,

43:00

now some say that the contrivance

43:03

of Oiberees was this, but others

43:06

say as follows, for the Persians tell the story

43:08

in both ways. Namely, that

43:10

he touched with his hands the parts

43:12

of the mare and kept his hand hidden

43:15

in his trousers. And when at sunrise,

43:17

they were about to let the horses go. This

43:19

Oiberees pulled out his hand and applied

43:21

it to the nostrils of the horse of Darius.

43:24

And the horse perceiving the smell snorted

43:26

and knayed and thus Darius was

43:28

named king.

43:29

Aha! It's good storytelling, right? Dink hand,

43:32

for I am the king. Okay,

43:35

indeed. Not so much my hand that

43:37

is gross, but this gentleman here. What?

43:41

Like, yeah, we're a people and

43:43

we're going to, that is very

43:45

different than George Washington

43:48

crossing the Delaware to fight the Hessians.

43:51

I'm just gonna say, Is it? Those

43:53

are very different things, Matt. Is

43:56

it? Yes! We gotta talk more

43:59

about that. We gotta talk

43:59

more. I mean the ashton's from draw. Here's what I'm driving at. Okay,

44:02

go ahead. With this Herodotus thing. It was Christmas too. The reason

44:04

I Grab this book and

44:07

dude you we're just not gonna

44:09

need me anymore We're think you just it's

44:11

like you sit around and pound history when we don't hang out

44:13

together. I Understand

44:15

what this means the gauntlet is thrown down thrown down.

44:18

I have work to do. You have to make a rocket

44:20

now. I have to make a

44:22

rocket. I must make. Or you must

44:24

simply be replaced and I have ideas

44:27

for how we shall choose your successor and

44:29

it involves stinkhand so

44:31

we got this

44:33

We had this Herodotus guy, right? And he's

44:35

called the father of history by some but

44:38

also some from the ancient world call him the father

44:40

of lies Yeah, because that's

44:42

not what happened. There was no stinkhand

44:45

These stories

44:46

they're in color They're in full

44:48

relief the characters have motivations

44:50

and they give these big stirring speeches

44:53

And Herodotus is very interested

44:56

in symmetry to the stories So

44:58

somebody does a bad thing there's gonna be a reversal

45:01

and you're gonna get that back now That's

45:03

interesting to me because of the Bible in

45:05

the same era all of the parts of the Bible that

45:07

are contemporary with Herodotus

45:10

are also very interested

45:12

in

45:12

symmetry

45:14

right down to the details of

45:16

the Babylonian kings who Luted

45:19

the temple of God in Jerusalem They're

45:21

having a banquet one night in the book of Daniel

45:24

in this era the last night of Babylon

45:26

ever the banquet on the last Night of

45:28

the Empire and they they all get drunk

45:31

and the regent kings like bring out all the fancy

45:33

dishes from the Jews temple Let's make

45:35

a mockery of their God and then famously

45:38

the story goes that a hand appears and there's

45:40

writing on the wall that's where we get the phrase the writing

45:42

on the wall and Daniel

45:44

the many many ticket

45:46

a person. Yeah

45:48

Nice job, man

45:50

You've been waiting found wanting and this very night

45:53

Your kingdom will be divided between the Medes

45:55

and the Persians and then the next verse is like

45:57

and then that happened You read

45:59

about that

45:59

And then you see that one of the very next things

46:02

that Cyrus did, according to the Bible, I

46:04

mean right away when he became king, he let

46:06

the Jews go back and according

46:08

to the book of Ezra,

46:10

he took all those dishes that got used

46:13

to mock the God of the Jews and he gave

46:15

them back to him. And Ezra gives a careful

46:17

detailed accounting of each and every dish

46:20

and fork that was given back. Why

46:22

is he given the details? Because it's that theme

46:25

of reversal. These leaders,

46:27

they get bloated, they get fat, they get drunk.

46:29

They don't care about the truth

46:31

of the... It's hubris.

46:33

And in the Bible,

46:35

God smacks that down and upholds

46:38

the humble.

46:39

In Herodotus,

46:41

it's a little different set of values.

46:43

It's a Greekish set of values.

46:46

But we see that that story really played

46:49

with his audience at that moment in

46:51

time. People were tired of these mega

46:53

powers

46:54

being drunk on their authority

46:56

and abusing their authority, particularly

46:59

the Assyrians and then the Babylonians after that.

47:01

So when you read Herodotus,

47:04

what you're reading is history,

47:07

but it is very animated

47:10

history. And as a result... Not unlike

47:12

this book by Tom Holland. He ascribes

47:14

motives to people.

47:16

He... Yes. Yeah.

47:19

I mean, I think this is the type of writing that

47:22

teaches me.

47:23

I read a book recently

47:25

about the Battle of Gettysburg and

47:28

the way it was written, it kind

47:31

of put me there mentally. And

47:33

now that I've been there, I

47:35

understand it more and I understand

47:37

where the pieces fit

47:40

and I care. I think that's what's

47:42

so interesting. I will never

47:44

have a command of history like you do. It's

47:46

impressive. I

47:49

can go to one battlefield and

47:51

I can mentally place

47:53

myself on that battlefield and be like, oh yeah,

47:55

and then this happened and then

47:57

I can be in that one place. But

48:00

what I don't have, what you do have, is

48:02

the ability to see where that one piece

48:05

of the jigsaw puzzle and how that plays into

48:07

the overall picture.

48:08

I envy your ability to do that, it's incredible.

48:11

And so that's why these conversations are so valuable

48:14

to me because they

48:15

help me understand, you know,

48:17

all I'm doing here is I'm regurgitating some words

48:19

and names and places that I heard,

48:23

and I'm trying to piece them together like a child,

48:26

but you're doing a really good job of helping me

48:28

know why. And so I

48:30

just want to say that over the last, however

48:33

many years we've been friends,

48:34

you've made me care about history

48:37

because of how interested you are in it, genuinely.

48:40

Like,

48:41

mic's on, mic's off, you genuinely

48:43

care, and

48:44

you see how that plays into everything.

48:47

And yeah, it's rubbing

48:49

off on me, man. I really enjoy it. And

48:51

never in my life did I look at every single

48:54

little physical thing in the world

48:56

and think about how that works until

48:58

your interest and mic's on, mic's off

49:01

passion for that stuff

49:02

rubbed off on me. So I'm really, it's

49:04

really kind of you to suggest that

49:06

the stuff I'm interested is in any way

49:09

positively affected how you think about the world and

49:11

where we came from, but thank you for saying that.

49:13

You're welcome. I had a scary thought

49:16

in the middle of this book.

49:18

It came like a

49:20

shadow. It's like someone walking by

49:22

in a shadow just kind of like, and you feel

49:25

it, and then it goes away. And

49:27

the thought was,

49:29

you know,

49:30

if you learned Greek, Destin, you

49:32

could just read this stuff. Hm. And

49:37

I thought, what was that? What

49:40

was that? And

49:43

it reminded me, C.S. Lewis

49:45

was talking at one point in a book and he said

49:48

something about the amount of effort

49:50

it takes for a man to finally settle down and learn

49:52

Greek. And I was like, who

49:54

would learn Greek? Why would you ever do that? And then

49:57

I felt the shadow. I'm like, what?

49:59

What was that? Isn't that interesting?

50:02

It's amazing. Okay, so that

50:04

was a fun rabbit trail, but- It

50:06

was a fun rabbit trail. Let me draw the lines

50:09

here. So we've got, all

50:11

right, so I'm just gonna say it again. We got Cyrus,

50:13

we have Cambyses and Bardia. Darius

50:16

may or may not have killed

50:18

both of them or something happened there

50:20

for sure. We've got the Stinkhand- 522

50:22

to 486. We've got the Stinkhand

50:25

Incidents and now Darius is

50:27

king. And then after that,

50:29

it's unfortunate that people are going

50:31

to learn it that way as opposed

50:34

to the British

50:36

voice actor

50:38

whom I learned it from. It

50:41

was said that Darius upon

50:43

the dawn of light, and I just

50:45

said, yeah, I apologize

50:47

to everybody in the third chair that this is the way you've

50:49

learned this information. I'm so sorry. I

50:51

don't. Okay, and then after

50:54

Darius, we have Xerxes.

50:56

And okay, so that's over there on the

50:58

Persian side. On the Greek side, we've got all these different

51:01

city-states doing their things.

51:03

We had the Battle of Marathon. And the Battle

51:05

of Marathon, the thing that's amazing is

51:07

after the battlefield falls silent

51:11

and the Greeks routed the

51:14

Persians, on the Greek

51:16

side, in a much

51:19

tinier force, you

51:21

have a total of like 192 men

51:23

dead.

51:28

On the Persian side, you've got something

51:30

like 6,000.

51:32

That is not symmetric

51:35

in terms of casualties. So

51:38

the Greeks

51:40

are serious about the fight.

51:42

The Persians are not.

51:44

Like they're there because they got drugged there

51:47

by their leader. Their

51:49

Greeks are like, this is home, we're fighting. And

51:52

so that's when I started seeing the similarities

51:55

in some of the battles that I'm seeing today. The

51:58

types of weapons that were used.

51:59

mattered. You

52:01

know, the Persians tended to have wicker

52:03

shields. Very good. Whereas

52:05

the Greeks had, you know, the hoplite.

52:08

You've got these people that are trained

52:10

in battle. At the Battle of Marathon,

52:12

they were the Athenians. They were not the Spartans.

52:14

So did they have hoplites then?

52:16

Absolutely. Yeah, that's the basic

52:19

heavy infantry unit, medium

52:21

infantry unit, maybe you could call it, of the Greeks.

52:24

And the Persians were built to whip everything

52:27

else, but they weren't built to whip that.

52:29

That matters so much. I

52:32

think one thing that's interesting is the way

52:35

they fought.

52:36

It's just incredible. The Greeks

52:38

fought as one,

52:40

and you were a

52:42

small component in a larger

52:44

machine when you fought. And

52:46

you had to do certain things. The Persians

52:49

seemed to rely on archers quite a bit, which

52:51

the shields of the Greeks seemed to neutralize.

52:55

Anyway, so that's the Battle of Marathon. Nothing

52:57

happens for, what is it, 12, 14 years? I forget

53:00

the number.

53:02

It's a long time. Eight

53:04

to ten, depending on how you date it. Okay.

53:07

Yes, and I'm trying to decide when

53:10

I'm going to push back on your

53:12

narrative, and I think I would like to do it now. Do

53:14

it.

53:15

So here's something I need to disclose.

53:17

I'm sort of team Persia. What?

53:21

Yeah, I had a feeling that wouldn't

53:23

go over well. How are you team Persia?

53:28

Babylon? I'm not sure. Go ahead.

53:30

They made Babylon out of mud.

53:33

Babylon is

53:35

Sin City. It's Las Vegas of

53:37

the old world, and it's like,

53:40

how are you team Persia?

53:44

I'm team Persia for a few reasons. One,

53:47

I don't buy Herodotus's

53:50

account, but I do, but

53:52

I don't.

53:53

He's not holding himself out as a modern

53:55

historian.

53:56

He's not doing this cold, sterile,

54:00

safe version of history where

54:02

he

54:03

gets into the minutia of these

54:05

boring little details and restrains

54:07

from any speculation about motivation. That's

54:10

how we do history now.

54:12

He's telling a story, the kind of story that we

54:14

get people to gather around and listen, the

54:16

kind of story that gets you paid. Like the Iliad.

54:19

The kind of story

54:20

that motivates people. Sort

54:22

of. Yeah, those are different genres, but they're

54:25

close cousins stylistically. I

54:28

mean, the Iliad is poetry and

54:30

Herodotus is definitely not organized

54:33

poetically. It is narrative.

54:36

But nobody had done

54:38

this this way before him. I don't have any gripes

54:40

with Herodotus. You just have to read him

54:42

for what he is. To wit, he is not

54:45

the most ludicrous storyteller

54:47

of his era. There's another guy named Xenophon

54:50

who takes

54:51

crazy logical

54:53

leaps in his storytelling.

54:56

But Herodotus is trying to make a point and I've

54:58

read through the histories, which

55:01

again has a lot of pages. And

55:03

this is what you start to recognize. Herodotus

55:05

respects

55:07

the common man who isn't

55:09

soft,

55:10

who isn't drunk on power,

55:13

who you'll hear a lot of historians

55:15

use this characterization, who isn't wearing silk

55:17

slippers. And Herodotus's

55:20

account of Persia

55:22

is one that demonstrates a lot of respect for

55:24

Cyrus. He likes Cyrus. He

55:26

has a problem with the enemies of

55:29

Cyrus. Herodotus seems to be happy

55:31

that Cyrus beat the Babylonians. They'd

55:33

gotten soft.

55:35

The Babylonians, they worked their butts off

55:37

back in the 600s to knock off

55:40

evil Assyria.

55:41

But they went up the steps

55:44

in hard working shoes, wood

55:47

shoes, but then they descended them

55:49

in silk slippers. And

55:52

he thinks Cyrus was a working man, a

55:54

man of the people, a man of character

55:56

and vision. He has

55:58

relatively high

55:59

high regard. For Darius

56:02

sometimes, he certainly respects

56:05

the administrative acumen of

56:07

Darius and Xerxes. But

56:09

by the time Xerxes comes around,

56:12

Herodotus, he thinks the Persians

56:14

have gone soft. He thinks that

56:16

Xerxes is a little too effeminate,

56:19

a little bit too into fancy

56:21

frilly things, that he's too

56:23

obsessed with himself,

56:26

that his retinue is too expensive

56:28

when he travels and he makes sure

56:31

to point out the most ridiculous excesses

56:33

of these kings the further along

56:36

we get into Persian history. Is some

56:38

of it true? Probably. Is all

56:40

of it true? No, it looks

56:42

like it's a characterization to make

56:44

the story work. Well, I mean,

56:47

and history is written by the victors and Herodotus

56:49

is

56:49

Greek. Well,

56:51

that's the funny thing about Herodotus though.

56:53

He's from Halicarnassus. You know who else is from

56:55

Halicarnassus? Artemisia,

56:58

the woman general, the woman admiral,

57:00

who is at

57:02

all of these big battles and is a trusted

57:05

advisor. At Salamis? Of a king,

57:07

yes, Salamis. She's a trusted advisor

57:10

of Xerxes.

57:12

That's where Herodotus is from. She's of

57:15

the same stock as Herodotus. So he's

57:17

really a guy who has his feet in both

57:19

worlds

57:20

and he reads like somebody who wanted

57:22

the Persia thing to work out. He

57:25

maybe even kind of liked the initial vision

57:29

and he unapologetically views

57:31

the Greeks as rascals.

57:33

He's not happy with how his own people

57:35

handle their business either. Their politics

57:37

are dirty. They've got some silly

57:40

sensibilities. They make some stupid moves.

57:43

But when push came to shove, he

57:45

liked the style

57:47

of the Greeks better than he

57:49

liked the style

57:51

of the bloated, overly

57:52

soft, extravagant

57:56

Persian empire as it had become in his

57:58

mind by the time Xerxes

57:59

comes around. So everything

58:02

we get from Herodotus is upholding

58:04

that characterization that I just gave you.

58:07

But everything I get from non-Greek

58:09

sources, which isn't as much because most of what

58:11

we know about Persia we know from Greeks,

58:14

what we get from the non-Greek sources,

58:17

these Persian kings looking pretty amazing.

58:19

And if you just look at what they accomplished, Cyrus,

58:22

Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes,

58:26

they were phenomenal. There's

58:28

one more power broker too. Artaxerxes

58:30

II, who comes along in the very late 400s

58:33

and rules for almost 50 years,

58:35

he was a great

58:37

administrator. The Persians,

58:39

they rolled double sixes like

58:42

five times in a row on their kings.

58:45

That never happens in history.

58:47

And so I for one look at this

58:49

and I go, these were the first people to

58:51

disrupt this violent, awful,

58:54

enslaving cycle that had

58:56

existed in all the mega empires prior.

58:59

And I think the Persians are

59:01

as much as anyone deserving of credit

59:04

as the foundational people of the West.

59:07

For all of my upbringing I was taught that

59:09

the West are the Greeks

59:11

and that the East were the Persians.

59:13

I think it's a battle between Westerners

59:16

and another kind of Westerners

59:18

and the Greek version of Western thought

59:21

is the one that won out.

59:22

So I like Persia and I read this a little

59:25

bit differently than Tom Holland

59:27

but he's smarter than me and I still love this book.

59:29

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah,

59:32

are we still friends?

59:33

Yeah, I mean yeah you're the authority. I'm not. But

59:36

I did enjoy being introduced to

59:39

the ancient religion of the Persians.

59:41

Zoroastrian? How do you say that? Very

59:44

good. Yeah, very good. Who's their main

59:46

god? Do you remember that? Ahura Mazda.

59:48

Nice job man, look at you. You're just a sponge.

59:51

Yeah, I meant it when I

59:53

was listening to it. I really wanted to know. And

59:56

fire was huge in their culture.

59:59

and is a purifying

1:00:03

tool. I mean, there's just a lot to

1:00:05

that. So that was really interesting to learn about. I

1:00:07

feel like, man, this

1:00:10

is a well that's so deep. You've been studying it for

1:00:12

months. We may have to break this

1:00:14

up because there's too much here. I'm game. We've

1:00:17

got the Persian leaders. Okay, the Battle

1:00:19

of Marathon. There was one

1:00:22

person at the Battle of Marathon

1:00:24

that I loved

1:00:26

and I thought this person was awesome.

1:00:29

And I kind of want to be like this person.

1:00:32

Well,

1:00:34

let's put it this way. I want this person's reputation

1:00:38

and that was, what

1:00:40

was his name?

1:00:41

Aristides the Just. I

1:00:43

just had to look that up. Aristides the Just.

1:00:46

The Just, yeah, that's a pretty good

1:00:48

name, isn't it? Yeah, and it was said, they

1:00:51

gathered up all the loot and the spoil

1:00:53

from the battle after Marathon and they're

1:00:55

like, all right, we're gonna leave all this.

1:00:58

What do we do? We can't just leave it here. Somebody else

1:01:00

steal it. I know. Give it to Aristides

1:01:02

because he's the most honest person

1:01:05

in our entire culture.

1:01:06

And they're like, what?

1:01:09

Oh wait, yeah, Aristides? Yeah, totally. Yeah,

1:01:11

let him watch it. I was like, that is

1:01:13

the kind of reputation I want. I

1:01:15

want the kind of reputation where people are like, oh,

1:01:17

well, if he's saying it, then

1:01:19

yeah, of course he's telling the truth.

1:01:22

I mean, your name is worth more than gold

1:01:24

and Aristides

1:01:26

did it. What's interesting is after

1:01:28

the battle of Marathon,

1:01:30

they go back to Athens, Aristides

1:01:33

and, what's his name, Thermistocles? Yes.

1:01:37

So these are the two dudes, right? And

1:01:39

Thermistocles is like the first guy

1:01:42

who campaigns like

1:01:44

a modern politician in a democracy. He's

1:01:46

like,

1:01:47

hey, vote for me. He

1:01:51

hangs out- Yeah, and vote for my idea. Yeah. You

1:01:54

got a platform. What was his platform? You vote for me,

1:01:56

we will do what?

1:01:57

He wanted a Navy and he wanted to harbor.

1:01:59

Yeah, he wanted a new harbor. Excellent,

1:02:02

yes. And that was crazy. And

1:02:04

at the time, the, and this

1:02:06

is amazing to me, at the time, the

1:02:09

boat, the type of boat

1:02:11

that was fashionable was called a tri-reign.

1:02:14

And basically you had three,

1:02:17

imagine you get in a boat and you're, you know,

1:02:19

like Ben Hurst style, like you're rowing the oars,

1:02:22

right?

1:02:23

Well, if you're smart, you can

1:02:25

stack in more oars

1:02:28

by going vertical with them. So you have three

1:02:30

rows of oars

1:02:33

and you can row with them. And

1:02:35

the Phoenicians were like the bosses

1:02:38

at this, but the,

1:02:41

you know, the Persians were really, really good. And

1:02:43

the Athenians were like, I don't know. I've

1:02:45

seen boats before.

1:02:47

I don't really know how they work, but you know,

1:02:49

they seem cool and all.

1:02:51

And the Mysticles was like, yo, dog,

1:02:53

we need boats. And

1:02:55

the way he sold it to everybody, he's like, let's

1:02:57

build a harbor down at this new place and

1:02:59

it'll let us do this and

1:03:01

let us do this and this and this. And oh, by

1:03:04

the way, we might make a little naval port, but

1:03:06

anyway, but yeah, the trade is going to be amazing.

1:03:08

And so he

1:03:09

totally sold everybody on the harbor.

1:03:12

Ultimately, he gets his boats. These

1:03:14

boats ended up being a huge deal

1:03:16

in the upcoming battle. Here's-

1:03:19

They were everything. Everything. Yeah.

1:03:21

Everything.

1:03:24

When Xerxes shows up,

1:03:26

famously whips

1:03:27

the water. What was that about? Tell me

1:03:29

about that. That was about crossing the Hellespont,

1:03:32

that little bit of water

1:03:34

there as you're coming across from Asia Minor into

1:03:36

the European, the Greek mainland there.

1:03:39

He built a pontoon boat. So like opposite

1:03:41

the Bosphorus? Yes. And

1:03:44

he, the story goes,

1:03:47

who knows if this is true or more of Herodotus

1:03:50

characterizing Xerxes as an unstable

1:03:52

goofball. I mean, surely

1:03:54

Zack Snyder latched on to Herodotus

1:03:56

as characterization of Xerxes in 300.

1:03:59

What we do see is all these kings are upholding a narrative.

1:04:03

Darius is upholding a narrative that

1:04:05

he is the guy who defeated the

1:04:07

lie. People were trying to steal the kingdom.

1:04:09

The lie. And Azura Mazda ordained

1:04:12

him.

1:04:13

There was somebody, Darius asserted that somebody

1:04:15

was trying to impersonate Bardia and

1:04:17

that the true Bardia was already dead, assassinated,

1:04:20

but that this shape-shifter magician

1:04:23

had taken over the spot and he didn't even kill Bardia.

1:04:26

He killed a magical imposter

1:04:28

of Bardia to keep the kingdom from

1:04:30

being stolen. So he actually was doing

1:04:32

a favor to everyone. I see. And

1:04:35

so Darius builds in to

1:04:37

the DNA of these kings

1:04:40

that they are the upholders of the truth and

1:04:42

they will snuff out the

1:04:44

lie that just happens to totally undermine their claim

1:04:46

to the throne. And so this idea

1:04:48

that nature had chosen them

1:04:51

was very important, that Azura Mazda

1:04:54

had chosen them, was very important.

1:04:56

So maybe Xerxes did have

1:04:58

the waves whipped as a punishment for their

1:05:01

rebellion against the will of Ahura

1:05:03

Mazda, who clearly wanted Xerxes and

1:05:05

his army to cross the Hellespont and punish the

1:05:07

Greeks, who were also in opposition

1:05:09

to Ahura Mazda and the will of the true God

1:05:11

and of nature.

1:05:12

So maybe it happened,

1:05:15

I don't know.

1:05:16

Meanwhile, over in Greece, just

1:05:18

a few years before, Aristides and

1:05:21

the Mysticles, who were

1:05:23

generals at Marathon, they were politically

1:05:25

opposed to each other and the Mysticles won,

1:05:27

got his navy,

1:05:29

and Aristides had to leave. Who's

1:05:32

the Greek that is advising Xerxes?

1:05:35

Who was that? There was a Greek that ended

1:05:37

up, it starts

1:05:39

with an A. Dang it, I knew this once. Okay,

1:05:42

Sparta at this time is Cleisthenes

1:05:46

and obviously Leonidas, but

1:05:48

it was a former Spartan.

1:05:50

I don't remember the name. It's not Artifernes, is it?

1:05:52

No, Artifernes is Persian.

1:05:55

Okay, no, I don't know. So anyway, there's a

1:05:57

Greek person.

1:05:59

with Xerxes, telling him what's going

1:06:02

on. And so he starts slowly

1:06:04

marching over to Greece,

1:06:07

basically.

1:06:08

The Greeks come up with this plan. They're like, okay,

1:06:10

so he could land here, he could land here, we could do

1:06:12

this, this, or this. And so

1:06:15

part of the plan, and this is where it's kind

1:06:17

of, they had a council of war and they're like, all right,

1:06:20

what are we gonna do? They create an alliance

1:06:22

of all these city states that hate each other. Like,

1:06:25

all right,

1:06:26

we gotta do something.

1:06:27

Demystocles, you guys came

1:06:30

up with this

1:06:31

Navy. Demeritus,

1:06:33

I found it in Herodotus. Demeritus,

1:06:35

yeah, I remember thinking, the name

1:06:38

Demeritus, yeah, like Demerits,

1:06:40

yeah. That's a, yes. And so

1:06:42

Demystocles has the Navy, the

1:06:44

Spartans have their kings, and

1:06:47

they do some kind of religious thing, and

1:06:50

then they say, okay, this virgin lady

1:06:52

that's

1:06:55

a prophet kind of person. She says, oh, well,

1:06:58

you got two options.

1:07:01

Athens is gonna burn or something.

1:07:04

Who is this lady again? She's some kind of magic

1:07:06

woman. Oh, dude, I

1:07:09

mean, we almost gotta do this twice. We really do

1:07:11

because

1:07:12

we're not even halfway through this story and

1:07:14

we're not even to the juicy bits. Why

1:07:16

don't we stop? You're talking about the Oracle at Delphi.

1:07:19

Yes. And the Oracle at Delphi, dude, let

1:07:21

me just tease it. Let me just tease it.

1:07:23

Sparta wasn't going to war. Yeah, this'll

1:07:25

be the place to stop. So I told you

1:07:27

that Xerxes is

1:07:30

marching under the banner of Ahura

1:07:32

Mazda,

1:07:33

who enabled his dad to

1:07:35

kill the imposter and preserve

1:07:38

the true line of kings, the true

1:07:40

ruling family, the Achaemenid dynasty,

1:07:42

descended from the grandfather

1:07:45

of Cyrus the Great. Xerxes

1:07:48

is, he is snuffing out

1:07:50

the lie, man. That's what kings

1:07:53

of Persia do. And nature

1:07:55

and the God of all nature, Ahura Mazda,

1:07:57

is on his side as he marches.

1:07:59

to the Greek mainland to punish these

1:08:02

insurgents. Now understand, at this point,

1:08:05

I am now on team Greece.

1:08:07

When it comes to this, I just really

1:08:09

happen to like Persia. Because there's invasion. And

1:08:11

it would have been, yeah, now it's an invasion and I happen, of

1:08:13

course I'm rooting for Greece at this point. But

1:08:17

I like Cyrus a lot in particular,

1:08:19

so I have my affections for Persia as well. But

1:08:22

at the same time, the Xerxes

1:08:25

is doing all of this theater and dramatic

1:08:27

stuff to communicate to all of his legions that

1:08:31

we will win because God has willed it and ordained it. Well,

1:08:34

so the gods of the Greeks are also in play.

1:08:37

And the way you talk

1:08:39

to the gods of the Greeks is at

1:08:42

Delphi. There's

1:08:43

this high mountain, I've been there. And there's this temple complex. There's

1:08:47

still a little bit of it there. I've been there too. And

1:08:50

there was an oracle there. There were certain prophetacies

1:08:52

there. And

1:08:56

these prophetesses

1:08:58

were probably high on certain fumes that

1:09:01

emanated from a couple of caves

1:09:03

or

1:09:04

like Yellowstone kind of geothermal

1:09:06

stuff that happened there.

1:09:08

And when they would get into this

1:09:11

trance state, they would almost

1:09:14

act like the Joker in the old 1960s Batman stuff,

1:09:17

where they would, or the Joker knows a riddler. They

1:09:19

would give these clever riddles to

1:09:22

bewitch almost the different

1:09:24

Greek city states because the

1:09:27

oracle, Delphi, it wasn't on the side

1:09:29

of one Greek city state or another.

1:09:32

They all had access to it. And

1:09:34

it's almost like they enjoyed playing them

1:09:36

off of each other. So it wasn't like,

1:09:38

go march into battle against Xerxes.

1:09:41

And if you meet him at this bay, you will

1:09:43

surely have victory. Make sure to deploy

1:09:46

your archers to the right. I mean, it wasn't

1:09:48

like that. It was a riddle. Crazy riddles.

1:09:51

Yeah. And they couldn't agree on how

1:09:53

to read it.

1:09:55

They didn't know how to interpret the riddle.

1:09:57

And so the Spartan army just ground

1:09:59

to a halt.

1:09:59

One of the things they said was,

1:10:03

you may have to

1:10:04

mourn the loss of a king.

1:10:07

I don't know that we can say much more if we're gonna

1:10:09

break this into two pieces. We've

1:10:11

set the stage for battle, right? Right. I

1:10:14

think you've done a marvelous job of that. And

1:10:17

it's not – what I find so interesting

1:10:20

is it's a battle of narrative, not

1:10:22

just soldiers.

1:10:24

Honestly, pound for pound on the battlefield,

1:10:26

we already know

1:10:27

that the hoplite

1:10:28

is superior in

1:10:30

a matchup against what the Persians are bringing

1:10:33

to the forefront. Now, this time around, Xerxes

1:10:35

is coming with something different. He's bringing his global

1:10:38

cosmopolitan

1:10:40

army that is just whatever your people

1:10:42

group, your subject people group is good at. Dress

1:10:44

up how you dress and bring the weapon you use. And

1:10:47

we're gonna make a statement that all of Earth is

1:10:49

going against you and your homogenous

1:10:51

army of hoplites. We are Earth,

1:10:54

you are one people.

1:10:55

There's a group of warriors

1:10:58

called the Immortals, and they're gonna bring them

1:11:00

to bear at a very specific battle

1:11:02

that

1:11:03

we should not say the name of right now. Yeah, it's

1:11:06

pretty good, isn't it? It really is,

1:11:08

dude. It's so good. Even if it's a long

1:11:10

time before we get back to this, and I'd be up for

1:11:12

coming right back to it immediately. We'll

1:11:15

figure that out later, I suppose. But even

1:11:17

if it's a long time,

1:11:18

what I love about this story are the big

1:11:21

colorful characters. I

1:11:24

love the way it overlaps with stuff that I care

1:11:26

a lot about that involves the Bible, both

1:11:28

the Old Testament and the New Testament.

1:11:31

This stuff we're talking about

1:11:32

at Delphi, it's the spirit of Python

1:11:35

is what informs these prophets.

1:11:41

The spirit of Python comes into play in the book of Acts when Paul goes to

1:11:43

one of the cities right up by Delphi.

1:11:45

And there's a young girl there, much like these Delphi

1:11:48

oracles, who can give prophecies. And according

1:11:50

to the story in Acts, the demon,

1:11:52

the spirit, gets cast out of her, and her slave

1:11:54

owner is irate because now she can't prophesy

1:11:57

anymore because she lost the spirit

1:11:59

of the Python.

1:11:59

defeated by Apollo all the way

1:12:02

back in the day when he was at Delphi. I mean, it all,

1:12:05

it all fits together and adds such

1:12:07

depth and color

1:12:09

to so many stories that matter so much,

1:12:11

artistically, narratively, religiously,

1:12:14

politically, legally, to

1:12:16

our shared story that we have. And

1:12:19

so it's not just looking back in time

1:12:21

and picking one little interesting nugget and being like, oh look,

1:12:23

they're all interesting people. That's great.

1:12:25

But the implications for this just spider

1:12:28

web

1:12:29

into the lives of literally every single

1:12:31

person in the third chair right now. There

1:12:33

is stuff from this story that dramatically

1:12:36

affects your

1:12:37

life.