Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 208 - The Nika Riots

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

What if your local sports fans attempted a coup Support the show https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: Procopius: JUSTINIAN SUPPRESSES THE NIKA REVOLT, 532 JB Bury. The History of the Later Roman Empire https://www.thoughtco.com/the-nika-revolt-1788557 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/circusmaximus/nika.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/ancient-history/war-terraces-nika-riots-mm.html?safari=1

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow by Donkeys podcast. The first non-series episode we've done in quite some time, it feels like, Liam. Sweet relief. I'm free relief i'm free i'm free no you're not you're never free from this place man i know i'm hard at work at the podcasting mind joe is yelling slurs at me that's right specifically philly centric slurs uh which if they don't exist we need to exist uh we need to invent probably i guess you could insult the eagle i mean you you texted me to taunt me about the fucking red wings beating the flyers like i give a shit about the flyers because it's the only team bad enough for

the red wings to fucking like dunk on man yeah no the flyers are are, dude, like, based on what we're about to learn in this episode, I will cool Mayor Jim Kenney. And as my first civic order, I will restore excellence to the Philadelphia Flyers. I will personally ensure that the CEO of Comcast has a nice time. God damn it, Liam. I warned you about this. Yeah, that's why I said have a nice time. I said have a nice time. That's not actionable. Everybody knows

what that means. It's like saying in Minecraft, the FBI is like that's murder, right? I said have a nice time. I know where he lives. Jesus Christ. Nate's going to have to edit all this out.

I'm just ashamed because this is good yeah it's uh like i i couldn't think of a better person to have uh for this episode despite the fact you are the co-host so thanks bud i'm glad to know i i i top rank in a show where i am online as being the co-host i i know that twitter account i think it's ridiculous that you haven't given me the Twitter password. Because I don't feel like having it get banned. See, I understand that, but it hurts my feelings. And my actual account is connected to it.

Therefore, I will be banned, which will lead to my literary agent firing me. That seems like a you problem. firing me that seems like a you problem we're both like the most uh angry um vocal sports fans of this podcast nick's also a huge hockey fan i think he's a baseball guy too oh that's too bad but he's not much of a shit talker about it which like isn't a bad thing right he's like the most normal of the three of us which is something while some of us some of us are are bordering on delusional in their belief in their sports teams and that person is me couldn't be me no no no i am fully invested like i i will talk shit to anyone i'm just like yeah no absolutely the boss of bruins are winning the stanley cup this year and you're

fucking stupid if you don't believe that you're bru a Bruins fan and not a Flyers fan. Why? Because I was raised by my father who grew up in Boston. And so I was a New England sports fan long before I moved to Philly and long before I became an Eagles fan. So you drop the Patriots for the Flyers, the Eagles. No, I don't drop the Patriots. That's the worst part. Oh, God, you're terrible.

You're fired. See, that's fair. You can have actionable threats that cause my producer pain every week, but you cannot be a Patriots fan and work for this podcast. That's fine. It's fine. No, six Super Bowls, bitch. That's the thing. How can

you be a delusional sports fan? Your sports teams have won more championships in the last 10 years than all of mine have combined throughout my life. Here's the thing, though, right? Because now, I expect that every year. That's true. You see? So, living

at the top, you know heavy heavy uh why is the head that wears the crown show that's fair i mean that's why i mean like not going to the playoffs every year as a red wings fan is is slightly above the the burning of the library the library alexandria to me the record uh record for most Stanley Cup losses with 14? Hey, I mean, at least yours were recent. Like, you got to go to the Cup recently. You won a Cup in 2008, you fucking baby. That's not that

recent, my man. It is 2022. No, fuck. We have not been to the playoffs in several years. Yeah, rebuilding takes takes work these are not the red wings i grew up with uh and like the reason why i bring that up is yes i am also very delusional i used to watch the lions jared jared goff really gonna do it for you huh oh no no no no see that's the thing is like you can't find a delusional lions fan because deep down i mean well you can someone will always but like we're delusional to fan because deep down, I mean, well, you can, someone will always,

but like we're delusional to the point like, no, they're going to turn it around this year. It's not like we're going to win the super bowl or even make the playoffs. It's like, they might win nine games. That's, that's a delusional lions fan.

Do you like the pistons? I don't give a fuck about basketball quite honestly. Like, I mean, I, I like the pistons. You want a championship in 2004. Yeah 2004 yeah again even longer ago than 2008 i was in fucking high school the team assembled out of some guys yeah that that was like the cooler story uh behind it is not only that we

beat the fucking lakers uh that was like the most stacked lakers team of all time with tauncey billups and friends yeah Yeah, I remember that. And Rip Hamilton, who went to Connecticut and single-handedly, heroically beat Washington. He's from around here. I will say, despite the fact I'm not a basketball fan, every championship Pistons team fully embodies the spirit of the city they represent

by being like dirty as fuck. Those teams are trying to murder someone sheen is trying to kill someone yeah i mean he was 100 committed assault on the basketball floor he's from philly he's one of us yeah well yeah i mean philly energy and detroit energy are very similar yeah and i used to play basketball in like middle school uh because back then the only skill you needed was like being tall yeah which i hit like six three when i was in like sixth grade i think that's all though aren't you five ten what no five seven yeah you just keep rounding it down i'm actually like four two you'll see me in the most recent jackass film going by Jason Acuna. Fun, fun, fun size Joe.

Everybody's memory of basketball then was like the 90s Pistons teams, like the bad boys, because they literally just punched people in the fucking face. So that's kind of how I learned how to play basketball. So nothing but respect for Bill Lambertbert who's a terrible human being i should point out yeah lambert's a bastard he's a fucking asshole there's there's nobody in the greater detroit area that worked in some kind of restaurant establishment or doctor's office look in the post office whatever that doesn't have a story about bill lambert being a fucking dick at least he's consistent i guess yeah well he's not one of those guys who's like an asshole on the field like uh nudamia can sue is a great example of that he's consistent, I guess. Yeah, well, he's not one of those guys who's like an asshole on the field.

Like, Ndamukong Suh is a great example of that. He's committed felonious assault on the field. He stomped on a guy. Yeah, he's widely considered super fucking nice otherwise. So as long as you're not having to play him in a football game, he's a very cool guy. The reason why we bring all this up is we're considered like i don't know i guess you could call us like very big sports fans for the united states

right also the genocide pod um we're not talking about that today but you know a lot of people are gonna die though uh but like especially for you you live in philly philly has an absolutely terrible sports fan reputation shut the hell up joe i'll fucking kick your ass legitimately one of the worst ones i've ever heard of thank you and not not like because everybody says patriots fans are annoying which you are but it's because you win so much we have no reason to fucking like we have to hate you i i i pride myself on belonging to probably the two worst sports cities in the country. I'm not going to argue with that.

Yeah. LA is pretty bad. I mean, well, it depends on LA. Like, Nick is an LA hockey fan, and he just doesn't give a shit. Like, he's super laid back. Fuck the Kings, man. I hate the Kings. Oh, you mean Flyers West?

Yeah. Congratulations on our Stanley Cup, comrade. Yeah. Shout out to my other podcast, 10 000 losses and shout out my boy tom pain who i assume is giggling and clapping as he's being called one of the worst sports fans of the country no i mean i'm a pretty bad sports fans but like philly has a reputation that y'all all spit on the baby i don't care like the guy ate shit in the street there is that there's that ancient story well what a super bowl so you go and eat a pile of horse shit yeah people do weird stuff all the time whatever man you are a hanker i don't

want to hear it yeah that's the thing you're explaining this to me and you constantly bring up my tbi never once have i been so happy i'm going to eat shit uh you're also from detroit that makes no sense to any rational mind even irrational even irrational birds and like there's that story from like 20 years ago or even longer where like santa came through everybody threw batteries that deserved it all right that kid was a prick. So I had to go and find the one event in history, which I'm sure someone's going to say that there's others, that I found a group of sports fans who were actually worse behaved and more violent than Philly sports fans. And I had to go back to Byzantium. All right.

All right. I respect the game. I respect the game. Yeah. And today we're I respect the game. Yeah. And today we're talking about the Nika riots. To get to that point, we kind of have to talk about how much people really fucking loved sports back then. And specifically chariot racing. I mean, this is easy to figure out why people loved chariot racing and gladiatorial combat and beast fights and whatever because there was literally nothing

else to do just jerk it jerk it and drink with plum wine or whatever yeah just drinking uh your everything is uh aligned with lead as your brain is slowly being churned into powder like do that joe oh i didn't drink a lead that we know of no that's not detroit that's several hours away it's a big state. Oh, I was making fun of you because you're in the military. Nah, that wasn't lead. That was mostly burn pit stuff. And that's all lungs, baby.

It goes down smooth. Yeah, it goes down smooth with my third country cigarettes. Now, people in the Roman Republic Empire and then later Byzantine empires, probably the biggest sports fans that exist. The only thing I could honestly consider even remotely close is how certain countries feel about soccer. And even then, it's not close. That's the closest, however. These athletes were megastars at the levels of so big that LeBron James and Lionel Messi would be jealous.

We're talking demigod status, I assume. Legit demigod status. Yes, and this includes wealth as well. Remember, the world is much smaller. If you're incredibly famous in the Byzantine Empire, it's a small world. It's a large empire

obviously. It's a small world. If you're a celebrity in constantinople you might as well be a global celebrity uh to everyone that exists right there for most of these people the world doesn't exist beyond those walls right so if you're like i don't know jeff the chariot racer or whatever jeff the chariot racer fam. Famed hero of the land. Yeah, known for his intangibles and I don't know, what are other draft words? I like this guy. He's a real blue-collar chariot racer.

There was billboards, there was sponsorships, all of the facets of modern-day athletic celebrity existed back then. But before we get there, we have to figure out how it got that point. Because we talked about Gladiators way back in the day. You weren't quite on the show yet, where it started as a religious event and it kind of grew beyond that.

But people are still like, yeah, yeah, it's for the gods or whatever, but the shit rocks. Right. And kind of explain how we got to that point and then so goddamn important that someone nearly killed an emperor over them oh yeah man good for them so chariot racing in rome began like most other things being stolen from someone else and then you know them being credited for them they probably got the idea for chariot racing from the etruscans, but then possibly got the idea from the Greeks,

or vice versa. Nobody's entirely sure. The racing had been used as part of a religious ceremony since the dawn of the city of Rome, and is actually a very important part in Roman history and Roman mythology. For instance, early on, Rome was hardly the superpower it would become, and it was competing with other nearby civilizations and groups of people like the Sabines. There's some arguments, and this would become a problem later on in the Roman Republic as they argued over who got Roman citizenship and whatever, if they were considered Latin or Italian or whatever. But the Sabine people mostly shared the same culture, religion, and so forth, even the same language. According to Roman mythology, Rome was mostly founded by men, mostly bandit men. So there was a huge inequality between the men and the women

population. So they invited the Sabine people over to their village to watch some sick chariot races to honor a couple of gods, and the Sabine people agreed. When they showed up, they kidnapped all the women and forced them to accept the Roman husbands. This is known as the gods and the Sabine people agreed. When they showed up, they kidnapped all the women and forced them to accept the Roman husbands. This is known as the rape of the Sabine women. Cool, that's fantastic. What are some casual war crimes in my mythology? It's kind of

thought of as being incorrectly translated. The Latin word would probably more accurately consider the kidnapping of the Sabine women. I don't know. I'm not a classicist. I don't fucking know. But this eventually led to war and the Sabine women. I mean, either way, man. I'm not a classicist. I don't fucking know. But this eventually led to war, and the Sabine people and many others eventually being absorbed into Roman society.

And this is like a pretty foundational part of Roman mythology. But I should also point out that, again, because this is a part of Roman mythology, there's a very good chance it isn't real. Like, you know, Romulus and Remus being raised by wolves or whatever. There's a good chance that shit didn't happen. Little to no evidence that it actually did. Other than storytelling, there's also coins minted to memorialize the events,

but they're from hundreds of years afterwards, after the point it would have become mythology. Though, the important part I'm taking out of this, and maybe incorrectly, is that it was believable that a whole bunch of people would have been so enamored by chariot races they get their asses ambushed. Yeah. I don't know. I'm like the dumbest person alive, so I find this entirely plausible. Yeah, I find it plausible. I mean, and it's not like Rome wouldn't go and end up doing insanely evil things to people. This is not outside the realm of possibility. know like if i got

robbed on my way back from the hockey arena in detroit which i still haven't gone to yet since i opened the new one breast and piss mike illich oh little caesars fuck that guy i know i know oh little caesars but like if i got robbed leaving there people would be like yeah that sounds like something that would happen to Joe, right? Yes. Although I don't know what kind of person would want to rob you given that you're like 200 feet tall. It's happened. I mean, Grant, I was much younger.

I've been robbed quite a few times. Were you the guy that got robbed for a pack of menthols or something? It wasn't menthols. They were camel crushes. There we go. Which I was at. Fuck, what's that bar called? it was a bar in pontiac his name's escaping me at the time when they came out and back then i don't know if this still happens mostly because you can't smoke in bars anymore like the camel girls uh that worked for camel

cigarettes uh would go around to nightclubs and bars and give out cartons of new cigarettes uh like because the crush just came out to be a proper country yeah return to tradition smoking in bars but i didn't like them because they suck anybody who who smokes or used to smoke and smoke the cable crush will probably testify that they do in fact suck but uh i gave all of mine out uh and i didn't have any more like that and some guy who couldn't get into the club or bar whatever it was waited for me to come out and told me to give him a pack and it's like i don't fucking have any he decided that was a lie despite the fact that i was clearly not carrying a carton of cigarettes on me and i got robbed and when i didn't have those cigarettes he took my wallet instead which sure i mean i guess

no money is as good as no cigarettes because i was 16 i didn't have any fucking money it's just like now well i definitely won't have cigarettes now i can tell you that much but as the roman republic formed and became stronger and much wealthier circuses and you know which is generally like when you the circus your sports of really and it's sports entertainment of any kind they became more and more important and much more prevalent uh like gladiatorial combat it was a centerpiece of religious ceremony still but also like that combat people really like the entertainment aspect more uh like the circus maximus which is the big uh uh chariot yes yeah yeah the the fucking uh place in ve charity. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the fucking, uh,

place in Vegas. What's, what's the one that's like the Vegas hotel. It's mild after a circus. It's not circus. It's circus, circus, all clowns and shit.

Uh, it's terrifying. It's the only place I've stayed in Vegas. It scares me. Someone's like, Oh, where are you staying in Vegas? It was like circus,

circus. Someone got stabbed there last week. I'm like, yeah, of course it does. That's why I can afford it but there were still statues like there was a a big uh cement piece down the middle of it that had like shrines to the gods or whatever but people were placing bets on this shit the religious aspect was very ill as tertiary at

best like it's like if the super bowl was owned by evangelicals which is probably only like 10 years away from happening anyway yeah we're only a little bit off every starting quarterback is part of some weird religious cult at this point anyway so why does it fucking matter now this led to the first and largest stadium in rome being built which is the circus maximus like i said the maximus is huge just to be clear how big it is, it could fit 150,000 spectators inside of it, which makes it, if it still ran, would be the biggest stadium in the world today. In the day of like modern super mega stadiums that border on the ridiculous, the Circus Maximus was still bigger.

That said, I believe it's Indianapolis that can hold something like 250,000 people. That's kind of cheating. I mean, is that like outdoor seating and shit? Yeah, but the largest stadium in the world that I'm aware of is in North Korea, and I think it holds 125,000 or so. So I looked it up. The biggest one in the United

States is Michigan Stadium, home of the University of Michigan Wolverines, which houses about 110,000. Yeah. And North Korea's May Day Stadium officially hits the mark because there's 150,000, though most people say realistically it's like 115.

So, even today, the Circus Maximus might still be the biggest stadium in the world. And if you look up some things about it, there's I think it's a Livy says it was actually 250,000. But that seems insanely

unrealistic and most people just disregard that because that would have been like most of the population of the city, which seems unlikely. Obsessively fueled by gambling debts and also, hey Joe, go blue. Are you a fucking University of Michigan fan? No. Jesus Christ.

I'm just doing a fuck with you. Like, if you would have said that to me like 10 years ago or 15 years ago, I'd been like, fuck you, Spartan baby. But then like Larry Nassar happened and I had my college burns to the ground. Yeah, that's understandable. I still get

emails like asking for like donations and I just I continuously burns to the ground. Yeah, that's understandable. I still get emails asking for donations, and I continuously tell them to suck my dick and stop emailing me, and then they email me again. I get emails from Temple and Rutgers that are just like, hey, we need your money, and I'm just like,

hey, you institutionally defended Bill Cosby. Oh, God, they did? Oh, yeah. Rutgers did? No, Temple did. temple did temple did okay i'm a proud alumnus of the dumbest schools in the country but at least i didn't go to liberty so that's true we none of us went to like chiropractic university in iowa or wherever the fuck it is either i think it's called like palmer university it's in like iowa or idaho one of those real states yeah i

swear to god yeah it's like named after uh dd palmer the guy who founded chiropractic the the man who believed that he could make blind people see by cracking their backs oh okay yeah he's a fucking psycho and it's a grift and it's not real medicine anyway the circus maximus started off as a little more than a dirt track with some wind bench seating that was like rot away every year in the rain. But eventually it was built up in the Republican era because they just dumped money into it. Because there's a certain group of Roman populist politicians that realized people were a lot happier if you gave them free shit to do. It's crazy how that works. Yeah, because if you don't,

it lets them focus on how much life is terrible. So if you give them food and entertainment, i.e. bread and circuses, they're a lot happier. And people like to simplify that these days. But what it came down to is the government was, wait a minute, if we give

them their means of living and then something to do for fun free of charge everyone's a lot happier no shit uh they didn't have to worry about anything else it's not like health care electricity or anything else is really a thing yet so they got running water and grain which is a pretty sweet trade-off for being ran by psychopaths what are you gonna do you're gonna be ran by psychopaths either way. You might as well get free stuff out of it. It's going to be a guy who has,

you know, baby corpses locked in an attic or whatever. Yeah. Or, or, you know, some psycho emperor that orders his soldiers to stab the ocean. Like you,

I hope the fucking entertainment's at least on the house guys. Now these races became incredibly popular, uh, obviously because, like we point out, living back then is very boring, but also because they were completely free if you were poor. Anyone could go and watch. There was no, like,

oh, I can't afford to go to the circus or whatever. Hell no, I'm going to food stamp circus, baby. Like, rich people paid for this. They paid for better seats, and they were taxed. But that in turn led to them being able to bilk everyday people for more wealth and also controlling all of the power because Roman democracy wasn't really a thing. So in exchange for paying a higher tax rate, they kept the proles happy. Not Ryan Egg, notably.

Yeah, maybe they wouldn't get stabbed so often. Oh, you wouldn't know what that's like, huh? To be fair, if that guy had a chariot race to watch, he wouldn't have stabbed me. And these races were not a rare thing. It wasn't like, oh, it's the one day a year

where everybody packs into the circus. They went on for 66 straight days every year jesus like hundreds and hundreds of races and this well this wasn't gladiatorial combat it's arguably almost as brutal because despite hollywood portrayals and everybody didn't die doing gladiatorial combat right the circus maximus of rome was 2 000 feet long but the track was only about 150 feet wide and there were hardly any goddamn rules i think like the only rule i found for sure is you couldn't just like lean over and punch the other guy in the face but like everything else seemed

to be good you could just run into one another not to mention that happened on accident anyway crashes on purpose or otherwise were pretty much a daily occurrence. And this is the age before safety was invented. So the way the chariots were designed, from my understanding, is you controlled them by leaning side to side, which then would force the horse to follow your direction, right? But in order to get closer and more tightly bind them to the chariot, making their movements

more important they would wind their reins around the wrists meaning that if the chariot went over they were going with it a hundred percent of the time there was no fucking escape man on stuff yeah people get tangled up in horses their chariot ropes whatever they just get fucking mangled not to mention all the times that the other guy ran them over which was quite frequently and remember any medium amount of injury like a bone breaking could be fatal in this day and age yeah you're gonna die all right like oh the ghosts have infected his kneecap we have to cut off his face oh god damn it don't worry about that saves weight going back to like episode one of our roamcast bonus series like the guy trapanned a guy and then

they're like oh what should i do to keep back infection uh sacrifice a pigeon like okay or some sheep if i can find one or a sheep if you can find one and afford it yeah um and there's pretty good records kept on these racers. Like they died constantly. And I found ancient inscriptions that noted down literally hundreds of people who died chair racing. Most of them were in their early to mid 20s, though not always. That's a tough way to go, man. Yeah.

It's like imagine if when you fell out of your prime being like, I don't know, a shooting guard or whatever, like a Mazda Miata blared onto the fucking basketball court and ran you over. Oh, LeBron. Russell Westbrook, my sweet boy. I guess if I was to get hit by any car, a Miata would be the way to go. It's pretty small. I think I could take it. And like one-on-one. It's also entertaining.

I feel like if you put me in a cage with a Mazda Miata, I might be able to win. I think I could take it. It's also entertaining. I feel like if you put me in a cage with a Mazda Miata, I might be able to win. I like that. I like that. Now, many of these racers would begin their careers, if you can call them that, as slaves, but they would pretty quickly earn enough money to

buy their own freedom, at which point they'd begin racing for themselves. They'd work for stables. Consider the stables sports teams, right? Now this prize money that you could win is so high. It's quite baffling even for today when, you know, you're Tom Brady's or you're LeBron James's or Lionel Messi's or whatever. Clear almost half a billion dollars in lifetime earnings, if not more. For instance, Diocles, one of the most successful racers of all time, won 36 million Cistercians.

Now, I couldn't find a direct conversion of that, but this is over a career of over 4,000 races. Inflation calculator dot Rome. And this is a career of 4,000 races of which he didn't even win half. Just pointing out, in lieu of a direct conversion, the Sisonian magazine points out this is enough money to feed Rome for an entire year.

Holy shit, dude. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big stacks. Now, some guys did so well in these races that they were accused of witchcraft and they were executed. The anti-doping agencies now don't have any teeth.

They were executing the Russian Olympic team left and right. Back in the 80s, every 12-year-old swimmer who looked like they were 30 and were ripped would immediately be accused of witchcraft. Like, no, no, it's just HGH. I'm not saying it's a moral thing. I'm just saying

Olympic Committee or International Anti-Doping Agency, my phone number. That documentary Icarus would end a lot different. Now, the money was from cash awards that went to winners of the races, but also sponsorships in the form of most prevalently, olive

oil, where there'd be like billboards and stuff that this is like, I don't know, Jeff the Chariot Racer endorses. Pete the Olive Oil Salesman's olive oil. And also, betting, of course. Technically, private betting was not allowed. Because remember, folks, this is a religious

ceremony. Please. But, come on. Show some respect. Come on. The racers and the spectators themselves made a killing betting on one another and throwing races in order to help one another from time to time. I was wondering where the throwing races was coming. Oh, all the time, dude. All the fucking time.

I mean, I can't say this for sure. And if Diocles has an attorney still living, you can't sue me for this because it's 2022. You're mostly just dust at this point. But remember, that guy won less than half of his races, but ended up with a Bill Gates amount of money. Come on. That's suspicious, man. A little bit. I'm not saying he's wrong. Ethically, sure.

But get the bag, buddy. It's like being in the NFL. Your lifetime career is maybe two years, I think it is. Yep. If someone was like... If you're a quarterback and you're Jeff Driscoll or whatever the other quarterback is that gets six games of experience before you eventually end up doing the motivational speaker circuit in florida or whatever and someone is like hey we'll pay you you know a million dollars to throw three interceptions but yeah all right let's fucking go buddy like i said that the betting thing was

pretty important but also the spectators who were maybe some many of them not quite important enough to have the power to get people to throw races had other means oh boy of influencing uh racers at the disposal which included throwing booby traps out onto the field yeah which one of them my personal favorite was a nail-studded curse tablet jesus now curse tablet is exactly what it sounds like they believed in witchcraft at the time uh and certain inscriptions of certain gods or whatever could use to strike people down, at

which point they would drive nails through them and attempt to throw them from the stands and get them to stick into your horse. Oh. Yeah, these people are fucking psychos, man. I mean, imagine you put like 50 bucks on like, I don't know, think of a team, the Jacksonville Jaguars.

And you're like, oh, man, I'm gonna lose my time to throw some fucking caltrops out of that bitch. Or like the last Boy Scout scene or something. Now, in the days of the Roman Republic, the races featured four color themed teams. The reds, the whites, the greens and the the blues, each of which attracted fanatical support. People would dye their clothes to show which team they supported. These teams were ran much like modern sports teams. Teams had stables where young people trained, and the best would eventually be brought onto the main team while managers could trade people back and forth. Though if you were a slave, you were literally just bought and sold. Also, kind of like today. That's also kind of what happens.

Sponsorships paid these teams in order to put on the races, which in turn meant these fan factions grew to support the sponsors of their team. Senior managers, which were like Domini Factorium or some shit like that. Domini Factorium, of course, famously. Yeah, they were usually of the equestrian class, which is a higher class. The investors were often very wealthy, but of a low social standing.

Driving racing chariots, despite being insanely profitable, was thought of being like the lowest and most disgraceful thing you could be, just above a slave, which some of them are also slaves. Okay. Yeah. So, investors of high social status, these equestrians, would resort to negotiating discreetly through agents or in go-betweens rather than losing reputation,

status, and privilege in order to fund these races, which generally means they laundered their money through these fan-slash-team groups to save social face while also making a massive amount of profit. However, if you notice something, that means that makes these team groups power players in the situation. This eventually turned them into something like soccer hooligans mixed with organized crime,

which I think is kind of how soccer hooliganism works in some parts of the world we don't really have anything like that in the united states for instance team factions would run protection rackets for athletes like they would be bodyguards but also the sponsors of the team oh that gets suck at kneecap by your own fan some dude wearing your jersey right like if you were bill the oil salesman or whatever uh these guys would just hang around your place make sure nothing gets fucked up or maybe if you were i don't know steven the other oil guy who doesn't sponsor a team you could send your blues over and be like it'd be a shame if you didn't sponsor the team and someone broke all your shit like Like, happened all the time. And if you're thinking,

why wouldn't this bring these factions into conflict with one another? Yes, these turned into armed gangs that actively murdered one another over neighborhoods and shit. So they became street gangs, which were originally organized as sports fans, but were also being used as mafia.

Abbas is the best of us. Yeah, whom's amongst us, am I right? These factions were not technically official. Like there's no official government thing recognizing these guys' right to exist. But they operate in a limbo state, just below the surface. They were very, very useful for the men in power,

whether they be very rich commoners or the equestrians. If you needed someone to take out some trash or, say, run a protection rack on one of your businesses or farms or whatever, like, oh, I got a guy in the greens or the reds or whatever. And you'd have the local super fans go kneecap a guy. Okay. People in power knew that they were powerful enough to be useful. But also, if we have made them official, it kind of defeats the purpose. The government itself eventually would show support for one team traditionally. The emperor was kind of officially a fan of the blues because the blues are mostly ran by the nobility.

Lame. There was a very practical political reason for this, which will become very important later on. Another thing these factions did was indirectly engage in politics. They would have very different opinions and different things, and they would debate

during races by means of chanting at one another. And now remember, the emperor is at these races. So this is kind of like uh taking the public's uh temperature and certain things sure i was always mad when uh when trump would show up everybody got booed at that nats game yes i was mad there just wasn't more booing like i like i know they're all dc you know clipboard uh whatever lanyard weirdos but i was always a little annoyed no one just like threw something at him like just

that would have been funny just trump getting cracked in the head with like a 12 dollar miller light i think it's because one they're they're given out in shitty uh plastic cups so they don't have good flight trajectory but also nobody wants to get party vanned. That's true. You're a party van for your country, you fucking cowards. The lines led by Donkeys podcast does not support throwing things at public figures. Now, with all that in mind, we have to jump ahead

a bit to the Byzantine Empire and around the 5th century AD. In the 5th century AD, as the expense of festivals and spectacles increased, the circus factions began to take more of, like I said, an unofficially but official responsibility, not just for the races,

but other kinds of entertainment as well, including pantomimes and wild beast fights. They were effectively a union in control of all kinds of entertainment within the city of Constantinople. But like one of the ones from like a shady mafia TV drama. So the good, so you know what? So the good kind.

Okay. By the sixth century AD after the Western half of the empire fell, only two of these teams survived. The greens incorporated the reds and the whites had been absorbed by the blues, but the two remaining teams are wildly popular in the eastern or Byzantine part of the empire. And more importantly, its capital, Constantinople. What is weird is that nothing really survives as to what the difference was between these factors.

There was very, very real political differences and weirdly enough theological differences um they'd have like theological debates which sound like if you've ever been to a sports bar having a theological debate in there sounds like something that exists only in my nightmares um but this is what happened yeah no thanks hard no thanks uh and they'd have morphed into something of more solid pseudo-political parties though we're not really sure what their difference were other than by default the blue section or faction was the higher classes mostly because traditionally the emperor was a blue that meant everyone else uh from you know below equestrian class was a green. Just kind of like,

well, fuck, I'm not one of those rich guys. I guess I'm green. The real important part for this was that the games were still moderately religious in nature, but also they focused around the cult of the emperor. The emperor was adutely honored. And indeed, he sponsored a faction to glorify its victories without actually having to get involved personally. Like the gladiatorial and wild beast shows, the chariot races were associated with the imperial cult, which had kind of been folded into Christianity, along with the elevation of the status of the concept of the emperor. They weren't worshiping the emperor by no means.

However, it was like there's a certain amount of veneration towards him. That was probably... If you're truly Christian, it's probably quite idolatrous, I guess. But whatever. You do you, guys. Christianity is idolatry anyway, Joe. Yeah, whatever. Even though these games were not paid for by the emperor, they're almost always sponsored

by a praetor or a council or something. The emperor got to take all of the credit. So this is really... Playing the political game for the emperor of the Byzantine Empire was literally playing the game. You show up, you shake hands, you kiss babies, you cheer for chariot races, and you take all the credit. And you are kind of sort of a part of the blue faction. Like, yay, go blues. It's like when you bring your friend who is very clearly not a sports fan to a sports event.

Yes. And you make them kiss babies. And then they say shit like gay sports ball. And then what you do is you execute them in the restrooms at halftime. Hit it in between the eyes of the pipe until they go cross-eyed. Exactly. time hit it in between the eyes of the pipe until they go cross-eyed exactly this kind of imperial support drew the line in the sand between the two sides like i said greens normal people blues rich people nobility the emperor by the end of the 5th century 80 these factions have become insanely powerful uh to the point they were destabilizing the empire.

Neat. Good. For instance, Constantinople, rather a large city, right? A lot of people in it. Now, there was no police force at this time. There was like the Praetorium, which was kind of like the city jail, but there was no modern police didn't exist yet. The closest you had was- Those were founded by slave patrols.

That's why we have modern police saying, look it up. Now, the closest they had was city guards, which the only thing they really did was like, huh, there's a riot. We need to go stop them from burning the fucking city down. Because remember, you know, an open flame in Constantinople might kill a couple thousand people on accident.

Yeah, shit happens. So like without the support of these factions, the city guards couldn't actually control the city. There's simply not enough of them, and so many people were actively in factions, to include members of government, and remember, technically the emperor himself. So without the blues and the greens coming together

to do the three-way handshaking thing with the city guards, the city guards could not control constantinople this has made even worse with emperor anastasius virtually outlawed all other kinds of public entertainment so that meant the pantomimes and the beast fights all that shit is gone now if you want public entertainment you go to the hippodrome which is like where the races took, and you watch chariot racing. And you like it. Yeah, you fucking like it. You fucking like the chariot races.

Horses go fast. Yes, daddy. So that meant not only were these powers very stabilizing, this massive population of people is now centralized in one area for every sports event. Uh-oh, that seems like it might lead to trouble. This is a very stupid thing to do. Now, this meant by the rise of the Emperor Justinian I, going to the races is effectively opening himself to be cheered or

booed at will by the entire population of the city that he controlled. It was the only place in the empire where a common person could go and tell the Emperor to fuck himself and not have to worry about anything bad happening to him. Remember, if you're a green, because remember

the Blues are still moderately loyal to the Emperor because that's their faction, but if you're a green and the greens are cheering like Justinian sucks balls, what are they going to do about it? They can't fucking punish everybody, so they just have to let it go. So every time Justinian went to the races, what are they going to do about it? They can't fucking punish everybody. So they just have to let it go. And that's what I have.

So every time Justinian went to the races everybody was like, fuck you! And he's like, oh, this sucks. I don't want to be here. Mom, they're being mean to me. Can you come pick me up? And eventually he decided that he would fuck up something pretty bad. One of the worst decisions Justinian made at this point

of his time in the reign, which I believe is like three to five years in his reign. He'd make a lot of mistakes, to be clear. Yeah, this dumb bitch got plagued. Fucking owned. Loser shit. I have a feeling he would blame you for that, Liam. He would do that.

Now, the emperor decided to not support the factions. Now, by Justinian's day, when he took over, and he knew this, the factions were politically the most powerful organization in the Empire. And by openly picking a side, it's playing the game. By supporting the blue faction, it just meant that of the two factions one was always on your side right so remember these are all decently well-armed groups of people numbering in the tens if not hundreds of thousands so like having one on your side whether you give a shit about

sports or not is in your best interests however when justinian came to power he decided that this entire thing was actually below the office and status of the emperor so he didn't want any fucking part of it fuck you man fucking baby he was almost immediately unpopular um now this is mostly because under his reign at least 26 new taxes were implemented which pissed everybody off as well as endemic corruption and recent battlefield losses and he got played like a dumb whore and he got played like a dumb whore however shunning these factions was probably the most immediately politically unwise thing he did because within the blue faction remember nobles what do nobles like to do uh fucking inter palace drama drink right yeah well that and scheme right oh yeah they're unemployed and fabulously wealthy what else are they gonna

do but like do weird palace scheming, right? And there were several people in the blue faction that believed that Justinian was not the rightful emperor. So, bad. Uh-oh. Now, while this was going on, the blues and greens had a bit of a riot, as they tended to do. This happened pretty frequently. This riot ended with quite a few people being killed and the city guards being rushed in to beat the two sides into submission until they decided to give up and go home. Of the ringleaders of the riots,

seven were arrested and immediately sentenced to be executed because they had killed quite a few people. While they were strung up at the gallows, the gallows malfunctioned and two of them fell to the ground. Whoops! Egg on my face!

Putting up a help wanted sign for a new executioner made like two of the ropes the gallows broke or like the eye bolt or whatever they fucking you broke yeah their erector set of doom broke and these two guys hit the ground the assembled civilians

all members of the factions rushed forward and like I don't know unarrested them kind of like how it happens at protests occasionally in the US you civilians, all members of the factions, rushed forward and like, I don't know, unarrested them. Kind of like how it happens at protests occasionally in the US. You mob one cop with like 20 people and get your buddy out. And that's kind of what happened. Remember, the guards couldn't maintain security without a faction's help. But these were greens and blues. And of the two men that hit the ground, one was a green, green one was a blue so that meant it was in both sides best interest like we're going in on this together

they stashed these guys in a monastery and then unified to appeal to the government to free their dudes like pardon them because their argument was this is clearly an act of God you tried to kill them and it didn't work so by like executing them again

like you sentenced them to death and you tried. God said no, you have to let them go. That was effectively if the noose don't fit, you must acquit. Sure. Why the hell not? I've heard of legal defenses. Sure. Now, with them together, they

appealed to the emperor, who was the only power in the city that had to give them a pardon or clemency or whatever so three days after that it was time for races once again so people flooded to the hippodrome despite justinian not supporting either side he still had to go to the games uh because remember he's blessing off on them i'm gonna get booed again it's like putting on his best clothes to go get told that he sucks like yeah yeah so as soon as he showed up to the now unified crowd they began just harassing him

demanding that he save the two men's lives he simply ignored them and they kept going the screaming continued which turned into chanting which went on for hours not a single race occurred during that day. It was not accompanied by deafening shouting and chanting to the point that it was... Because remember, it's hundreds of thousands of people. Just like, you suck!

Oh, this rules so much, dude. Just 80,000 or whatever, 100,000 people screaming that they fucked your mom. Oh, it's glorious. Otherwise, I was like, every Patriots away game. Remember those old school Call of Duty

lobbies? That, but like 200,000 people or whatever. Hell yeah. Now, the chanting soon turned hostile, and since the Emperor's traditional allies, the Blues, now hated his fucking guts, Justinian had no allies.

Justinian, no shooters in these streets. He had no one to rely on. He couldn't like... Oh, no. In a normal situation, the blue faction would just start stabbing the green ones now until they shut up.

But now he had sucked so hard they had united. He panicked and Justinian agreed to spare the two men's lives, changing the punishment instead to imprisonment. But now, that was not enough. They were not asking for imprisonment. They were asking for a pardon, and they demanded a full pardon and the men should walk free. Now, it was clear to Justinian that he had completely lost control of the situation. The rest of the races were canceled, and he retreated to his palace. The city guards were deployed, but

couldn't manage to do anything and so the factions, united in their growing hatred for the government, told them to fuck off. Yes. Now, their demands were growing. On top of the pardon of the two men, they demanded the three advisors of the emperor

be fired. Now, these three advisors were all considered at fault for all the taxes that had been raised, which to be fair, they were. But Justine was using that to pay for wars, which is one of the reasons why he would go on to be celebrated as much as he is because he's conquered a whole

bunch of shit. But it costs money. These taxes, there's a lot of them. And they blame the advisors. They want the advisors to be fired. The emperor immediately agreed. He's like, fine, I'll do whatever you want. Just stop yelling at me. He fired everyone thinking that this would finally be what they wanted and promised more races. He's like, look, I know I canceled the other ones.

I fired the guys who don't like. These dudes have a pardon. I'll put on more races. Just please, for the love of God, stop yelling about my mom. The crowd responded by setting the hippodrome on fire.

Go birds, baby. And then when he refused to pardon, he didn't give a full pardon, so they went to the local, easily it's called the local city jail, and demanded that the guards let them out. When they disagre to the local like the easily is called like the local city jail and demanded that the guards let them out. When they disagreed, they also set that on fire.

Which seems like counterintuitive because there's men inside the jail but whatever. RIP homies, you died for a good cause. Yeah, sorry about that. Now, it was pretty obvious to the emperor that there was nothing he could do to please the mob and it was now the most powerful force in

Constantinople, and everybody fucking hated it. As they watched from the palace, they burnt the city to the ground for days. They even set fire to the Hagia Sophia, burning down a large portion of it.

That's not good. Which, remember, was a church then. It belongs in a museum. This was leaping over from not only hating the emperor to hating all of the institutions that supported the emperor, which included the church, which is a lot. That was the hint to them

to like, oh man, I'm really screwed. A lot of things to say about the Eagles fans, but I don't think we've ever burned a church. Not yet. Imagine getting so mad at like, I don't know, the Eagles losing in the playoffs or whatever, that you go and burn down the local Orthodox church. You don't know why we're doing this, but we feel like it's necessary. The Lines Love My Donkeys podcast is not for burning down churches. We especially don't support that one.

We're not a Norwegian black metal band. We don't support doing this. Now, like I said, this went uninterrupted for three days. But this is more than just some rioters. Remember the factions were popular in upper, lower, and nobility classes. And the lower classes were

using them to vent the rage, as there was plenty to be mad about. Taxes. Yeah, taxes for sure. There's one of those situations where it was truly the straw that broke the camel's back. And while they were mad about their buddies being executed for doing the things that

the people in government benefited from these factions wholeheartedly in their activities, but now they're being held accountable. This is fucked up. We do these things because we're ran by you guys. Even the Greens have nobility on the payroll who use them for stuff. So on top of like, well, my taxes keep going up.

Food's expensive. You just lost several thousand people in a battle. This emperor fucking sucks. Another part of it, mostly blues, but also some greens, were nobles who were scheming to bring down Justinian, who they hated and thought was not a legit emperor. So three days into the rioting, suddenly the crown began to support a new idea.

We should crown a new emperor. Hell yeah. I love that. I just love the idea of like going from like you know what the eagles lost like 48 7 you know what what if we what if we burned down ice what if we burned down ice which we should uh no i don't know if we say we should do that no you can't say we should do that all right i think you'rechart of things you cannot legally say. Thank you. This is like, you remember like, fuck, 10 years ago?

15 years ago? I just had my editor do this. There was the big protest in Canada when the Vancouver Canucks lost. Yes, I do. To the Boston Bruins, game seven. See, I didn't remember that was the Bruins. I wouldn't have brought it up and gave you something to be happy about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, cry more, Knux fans, you stupid fucks. But imagine at the end of that protest, they're like, fuck it, we're going to Ottawa. We're getting a new prime minister. They're just like, wait, what? You guys remember the Sadin brothers? You guys remember that, right? You remember how many cups they won?

You guys remember that? To the credit, the Sadin brothers probably deserved at least one cup. 21 seasons, 21 seasons. 21 seasons. No cups. Hey, remember when Ray Bork had to go to Colorado to finally win a cup? Hey, shut up. I got you, Canadians.

It's cool. Now, they decided they were going to crown a new emperor, and it just so happened the conspiring nobles knew just the guy, a guy named Hapatius. Hapatius? Now I'm fucking guy named Hapatius. Hapatius? Now I'm fucking kidding. Nailing it. Hapatius.

Still good. Now, he was a man that most of the nobles believed to be the right and rightful emperor, since his uncle, Anastasius, had been the guy widely accepted as the last good emperor. There was one in between Anastasius and Justinian, a guy named Justin I, who Justinian had kind of sort of just sat upon the throne uh and then ruled over because he was old and had dementia so guys named justin are fucking dweebs and they eat their own poops god damn it liam he listens to the show too that's the best part of this for some reason i forgot that one of the other hosts of well

there's your problem was named justin because you guys only call him Roz. I don't know why that somehow melted in my mind to make him make believe that like Roz is his first name. But yeah, I figured it was Justin. Despite the fact I have also recorded with Justin for at least three hours, probably more. Sorry, Justin. I'm not talking to you, buddy. hours probably more um sorry justin uh but you buddy no i should be completely clear here hypatias was never considered uh for emperor uh when justin the first was uh was shuffled away and just made room for justinian of course the argument could be made is because justinian

controlled that process sure the tellings of the story are all over the place and in one of them hypatias was actually in the palace with just Justinian in the beginning of this was eventually thrown out because he was starting to get paranoid about people plotting against him, leading him to agree to become the new emperor of all the weird sports fans. All right. Okay. yeah yeah now thankfully for those guys the sports faction had torn the goddamn city apart and created a great opening so you know for all the conspiring nobles

so the blues and the greens got together crowned their new emperor and set him in the emperor's box seat at the half burned down hippodrome unspeakable orgy of violence like again going back to Canada imagine them crowning down hippodrome. Unspeakable orgy of violence. Again, going back to Canada, imagine them crowning, I don't know,

Berto Luongo as the new Prime Minister, then seating him upon the box seat in the arena. He was a good goalie. Go to hell. I was guessing Tim Thomas the whole series. Why didn't he do it to me? Fuck you, bud. I think he won a gold medal, so he's got that going for him. That's cool. That's the same thing as the Stanley Cup. That's why

they have the same name, Joe. How good of a person was Tim Thomas again? What happened to his career? Let's move on swiftly. He took the rest of his career off and would have blamed cancel culture if it was five years in the future. Yeah, he would have.

Yeah, he would have. That's one of your boys. He's from Michigan, man. Yep, he sure is. I think he went to University of Michigan. I don't remember, though. No blue. No, I went to Vermont.

Oh, way off. People from Vermont are weird. That's something we can all agree on. Freaks. Now, this mob kept growing and growing and growing. And soon, this mob surrounded the palace. And Justinian realized, like, we're not going to be able to control this from within the city. I need to leave the city, muster an army on the outskirts of it.

Because remember, the army within the city was untrustworthy. These guys were all, like, and not to mention the garrison was also very small. So like he couldn't muster them because there's a good chance that they were also in one of these factions, right? So he's like, I have to go and get someone from outside the city to handle this problem. Or there's also another theory

that he was just planning on abdicating. So, you know, if you believe the part that he was going to fight against this rebellion, he was going to leave against this rebellion he was going to leave and lack the soldiers to do so and while he was planning on escaping the city all of his advisors agreed with him with the exception of one the unofficial advisor his wife theodora who was a bit of a hard ass theodora was a commoner or as common as anyone could be and so elevate to her status and at one point she had not only

been a hardcore member of the blue faction but had been a goddamn street fighter with them that's sick yeah so like when she came to power or like she was also previously married with like a single mother before she met justinian so like she was a bit harder than her husband was who was a pampered rich kid who ended up becoming emperor. She publicly shamed her husband for wanting to leave and famously looked him dead in the eye and said, quote, royalty is a fine burial shroud in case they storm the palace and kill everybody. There's other accounts that she said purple is a fine burial shroud, which is like the colors of the Byzantine royalty. She also said a lot of other things. She's just dogging on him in front of his advisors.

For her. For her. And I guess by getting openly shit-talked by his wife in front of his entire government, just finally changed his mind, and he decided to sit and fight. Thankfully for him, he had one of the greatest generals to ever live right by his side, a guy named Belisarius and another guy named Narcissus, the eunuch who would eventually become a legendary military commander.

So, like, it wasn't from a lack of ability. Yeah. See, without his balls, he's able to focus on studies. And see his weight. Yeah. Makes it more dynamic. yeah makes it more dynamic yeah i uh i will say as someone who is uh dating uh with the intention to marry a strong-willed woman uh i i am quite sympathetic to just sitting in here uh because mostly what i do is people think that that i'm the brawn of the operation but i think it's really corinne it's just like negs you into doing the things that you need to do yeah i'm like that person i said no onions

and they brought me onions i guess i'm eating onions and she's like no fuck that just flips the table uh and like looking back a lot of people call uh theodora's unofficial advisor but that was like only because it would have been like weird but by all, she was a pretty important part of his government. Now, the plan for Belisarius and Narcissus was quite simple. The rebels headquartered in the remains of the Hippodrome, which I say remains, it wasn't that heavily damaged. Okay. But it's not like they're patrolling the city or whatever. Most of these people were from the area. They went home at night. But tens of thousands of people camped out in the Hippodrome.

Their goal was to sit on the Hippodrome. And eventually, I don't know. On the Hippodrome, yeah. And eventually just, I don't know, wait for Justinian to leave. And then just sit the other guy on the throne or whatever. So in order to take them out, all they had to do was invade the Hippodrome. But next came the question, with who? Any town guards

couldn't be trusted, and they had loyalty to one faction or another, and same goes for any units in the area. Any other army unit wasn't garrisoned anywhere nearby, and sending off for them would have taken quite some time. And it wasn't like they had anything comparable to a modern police force that could go and commit wanton violence and get

away with it. So Belisarius had an idea. He went through the city's garrison until he found a very small contingent of Thracians and Goths, who were foreigners, who wouldn't have loyalty to either blue or green faction. I guess unspeakable goth orgy of violence. Just getting stabbed through while I blare new order in the background. I just keep thinking of what if soccer hooligans got into a fight

full of armed hot topic juggalos or something. Rawr means I love you in dinosaur as I cut a dude into quarters. The large amount of hair and hair product is just as good as an iron helm. So Belisarius, who himself,

actually all three of the advisors were considered foreigners as well. So they would have, it's generally considered barbarian heritage. So they would have loyalty to their fellow barbarians, right? Nurses joined in taking with him the only for sure loyal members of the Imperial Garrison, which were the Imperial Guard.

So even with that, they only had about 1,500 soldiers. Oh. Yeah. So there's tens of thousands of people in the Hippodrome. And they weren't exactly sure how many people they'd be fighting, but they knew they had to level the playing field somewhat. So Justinian came up to an additional layer of the plan. According to the book A Short History of Byzantium,

Justinian sent Narcissus undercover, because it's not like anybody knows what most people looked like back then, into the hippodrome with a fat sack of gold to talk with some members of the blue faction. Once there, Narcissus told the leader that Justinian was totally

for realsies in support of the Blues and since nobody told you guys I should tell you that other guy you picked to take the Emperor's spot he's a green supporter now this is apparently news to these guys and they took this at face value it's actually not nobody's actually sure if this is true

or not but it was true enough that they fell for it and they got pissed uh upon learning this and a lot of blues picked up and left the hippodrome after this just went home and uh you know if of course if being mad that the emperor might be a green uh didn't work like here have some money fuck off here's 20 bucks how about you fuck off and go back home so this left somewhere again we're not sure how many between 30 000 and 100 000 people in the hippodrome that's still a lot of dudes it's still way too many guys but it was decided i like my chances with that in place

narcissists use the imperial guard as a blocking force one of the problems with making a building your headquarters is you just plug the exits. This created no exits and not to mention tens of thousands of people densely packed within the walls of the Hippodrome. Oh, that would actually be better because

afterwards Belisarius entered the Hippodrome with his soldiers and began cutting everyone down in their path. Oh, okay. Yeah, fair enough. Now remember, there's another third advisor named Mundus who came in through a different gate. It was like a three-way slaughter.

There's nowhere for anybody to go because everybody's so densely packed together. The only way out is now full of angry men with swords and you're just being diced down. It's like a crush from a concert, right? Where people start panicking and running every which way, smashing into another if they're not already being cut in half by an angry guy from Hot Topic.

So people start trampling one another, suffocating and being butchered. Now, despite the fact there's only 1,500 soldiers doing this, the rioters had no fucking way out. And these guys just kept chopping until there was nothing left alive within the Hippodrome. The heavily armored and disciplined soldiers worked their way through the panicked mass, killing blues and greens indiscriminately. Most of these people were not armed, though it's thought that most were trampled or crushed in a stampede as they try to get around these guys. I think I'd prefer plague to be honest with you. Yeah, right. John Julius Norwich writes in the history of Byzantium, quote, The angry shouts of the great amphitheater had given place to the cries and groans of the wounded and dying.

Soon these two grew quiet until the silence spread over the entire arena and now sand sodden with the blood of the victims. Okay. There was literally no attempt to discern who was like a civilian or an actual rebel. People had brought their families in there. It was just an all-out massacre. There was

no quarter. It's thought of at least 30,000 people died this way. Jesus. and just to put that in scale that is 10 percent of constantinople's population oh okay yeah so like the aftermath of this is quite obvious right they said the quite opposite intentions of what anybody involved really wanted for starters it failed. Justini in the first stayed in power and became one of the greatest emperors in the history of Byzantium.

Secondly, the factions were annihilated. I would imagine, yes. And not only their factions, but the families of the factions, and people who, I don't know, were just gawking about the cool coup happening in the fucking Hippodrome. It was just destroyed.

Everyone that didn't get killed on the spot was executed, to include the guy they picked to be the new emperor, despite the fact he seemed to be only in about halfway. Oh. The sports factions ceased to be. They died after this. I mean, they might still exist as actual sports factions and sports teams, but as a political faction, they were literally annihilated. And while imperial governance is bad,

maybe having your political parties based on sports hooliganism and mafia crimes is also bad. Stop fucking moralizing. Like... The weeb. And this allowed Justinian to centralize control over constantinople making him even more powerful oh no the opposite thing yeah this is the exact opposite of what i

wanted uh now i'm not saying this meant the rest of byzantine history is not a cavalcade of horror shows it is but you know that ended the Nikia riots or the Nika riots, whatever you want to, they died. They died real bad. Hey, you guys asked for this episode. People have been requesting this episode for like four years.

It just happened. We did it. It gives us an excuse to talk about sports. Uh, you know, like, like I think we've said before, the last several months of podcasts have been quite heavy.

Um, so this is nice. People call us a genocide pod. Joe, you do that. It's been quite heavy. So this is nice. People call us a genocide pod, Joe. You do that. You did that this episode. Yeah, but I got it. I learned it from watching you, Dad. You just wait about what I have waiting in the wings.

Is it more genocide? Do I have to do another fucking genocide? Fuck you. Now, Liam, again again thank you so much for joining me everybody thank you for listening and we do a thing on this show called questions from the legion you donate to the show you ask me a question and then we

answer it there's a pretty huge uh uh thread of these on our patreon join our patreon for as little as one dollar add your question to the gigantic thread and the goal is to eventually get through all of them now today's question is the first one ever i actually had to prepare for because it asked for like a whole joke and either one of us are comedians so this one is invent a self-help program that is clearly a scam

all right do you want to go first you want me to uh you go first all right cool so i had this idea when i was younger right where i was going to go around to protestant churches where i grew up so weirdo freako baptists and uh and uh pentecostals be like i used to be a satanist oh you're gonna be one of those guys. I love those guys. Yeah, I knew enough about Satanism. I don't know. I've listened to Slayer before. That's what Alex Jones does now. He claims that.

Yeah, I was going to be... And then I saw the light, and I was just going to try and milk Protestants out of their money because Protestants don't deserve rights. I mean, that's not really a self-help program, but it helps you. Yeah. Well, that's the most important thing, Joe. So here's my idea. I'm a motivational speaker, right? Liam, is there something in your life holding you back like a prison?

Yes, Joe, there is. There's a prison and we all feel it. You feel it encroaching in on us from within. That's right, folks. Your skeleton is It's imprisoning you from the inside. You have to free yourself from your bones. So send your bones to me and you will not have to deal with them. You will be free. And then I assume my scam is I sell those to a university or something. Welcome to Goo Body, home of the Goo Body.

Can I take your order? Just slipping and sliding around completely bonelessly like Zoidberg. Yeah. Do you feel something weighing you down? Does your back hurt? My back does hurt. You know what would cure your back pain? Not having a spine.

Hear me, Kasabian. Just like a fucking Mortal Kombat character reaching in through your chest and pulling out your entire spinal column. You're healed. I fled Doom Eternal.

Anybody. Thank you for listening to the show. Thank you for supporting the show. If you don't consider it, it's your money or don't. It's fine.

Liam, plug your shows. No, but do give us your fucking money, though. Ten thousand losses. And well, there's your shows. Do give us your fucking money, though. $10,000 in losses. And, well, there's your problem. All right. And until next time, everybody, don't be a chariot racer.

Go Birds. Go Birds.