Stuff To Blow Your MindHistory. Science. Dethroned emperor. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe travel back to the third century CE to discuss the Battle of Edessa, in which the Sasanian Empire not only defeated the Roman army but also took its Emperor as a prisoner of war. How did the emperor’s capture impact the already crisis-ridden Roman Empire, what do scientists make of his alleged grisly fate and how was Valerian’s fall possibly mythologized by Christian historians? Find out… (originally published 07/21/2022)
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb.
And I'm Joe McCormick. It's Saturday, and so we are going into the vault for an older episode of the show. This one originally published on July twenty first, twenty twenty two, and it's The Fall of Valerian, Part two, continuing from last Saturday. Enjoy.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb.
And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our series on the Fall of Valerian. Rob, can you cutch us up? But of course, if you haven't heard part one yet, you should go back and listen to that first. But if you, assuming you have, Rob, can you do a brief refresher?
Yeah, yeah, I'll refresh everybody on the basics here. So when are we well? We are during This is all taking place during the Crisis of the Third Century. This was a period between two thirty five and two eighty four CE in which the Roman Empire is facing all sorts of internal problems just about following apart lots of warfare, between different would be emperors. There's there's almost an emperor every year during this period. Meanwhile, in Persia we have the strong and united Sasanian Empire. And so in the last episode, we talked about the background, especially on the Sasanian Empire, background on how Rome reaches this state, why it's in such crisis, and who some of the major players are, and what some of the short imperial reigns consisted of. And so the key conflict though that the episode revolved around, was on one side, the Roman Empire under Emperor Valerian and then on the other side the Sasanian Empire under a Chapur the first and so we talked about the Battle of Odessa. We talked about this this enormous military disaster in which not only are Valerians' forces defeated, but Valerian himself, the Emperor of Rome, is dethroned and captured by enemy forces. He is a prisoner of war under the Sasanians. And so this is ultimately, you know, what drew me into into this whole topic here, like what are the ramifications of such a defeat, Because again, while this does not compare to say, the complete taking of a kingdom or the destruction of its capital, the enslavement of a people, that sort of thing. It's still an unthinkable occurrence in many respects because the emperor is the very apex of the imperium, and now here he is in the hands of the enemy. So for starters, yes, one is no longer emperor if one is in enemy hands. So instantly, once Valerian is giscaptured, the title of Roman emperor immediately passes on to his son Galienus. Galienus was already essentially co emperor with his father, and in two sixty he becomes sole emperor, and ultimately he's going to reign till two sixty eight eight year reign. Then he is assassinated. The disaster of two sixty greatly undermined him, and he almost immediately had to deal with other usurpers within the Roman ranks. Now on the other side of things, on the Sasanian side of things, this of course is a most momentous occasion, and Chahbur the first has it commemorated in rock relief. I think in more than one spot that survives. One of the key ones is this place called Nakshi Rustam. It shows two Roman emperors subjugated by a figure mounted on horseback that is supposed to be Sapur the first. So the two emperors here are supposed to be Valerian, who of course has just been captured. Also fill up the Arab, the soldier emperor of Rome who followed the slain Gordian. This is the guy who signed a treaty with the Sasanians. And there's another rock relief elsewhere that also shows Valerian bowing before the Sasanian king. Now, one of the sources that I referred to a lot in the previous episode is Touraj Dari, who wrote this wonderful book about the Sasanians. Go back and listen to that episode for full citation on that source, and he is referring here to Shapur the first quote. No other person before could have claimed that he was able to kill a Roman emperor, make one a tributary, and capture and imprison a third. Sapor was very much aware of this feat and did not hesitate to mention it in his inscription, and ultimately he also ends up commemorating this victory in his biom graphy as well. Now you'll remember the idea that he killed a Roman emperor, that is maybe a beefed up claim. The emperor in question may have just been killed by his own soldiers, which was of course a common fate for Roman emperors during this time of great unrest. Now Here we get into another really contested aspect of all of this, perhaps the most contested aspect of the whole scenario, and that is what then exactly happens to Valerian. We know that he's not emperor anymore, he is a prisoner of war, but then what does that mean? What is going to happen to a supreme ruler in enemy hands during this time? And we have various accounts of what happened. What happened we know, for instance, Darry says that the Iranian sources say that he and some senators and soldiers were deported into Sasanian territory, but we don't really know for sure what happened. But the accounts range from the mundane to the horrific, and all told, none of it is truly out of the question during this time period, I guess one big question we might ask is, just like, what was standard treatment during the day for a captured ruler of an enemy group, and in fact, we might well look to the Romans for such an example.
Oh yeah, sure, because so the export of a defeated ruler to the victorious metropole of the rival empire would not at all have been an unheard of concept in ancient Rome. As soon as we started talking about this subject, a couple of examples came immediately to my mind. These are by no means the only examples, but these are the first ones I thought of. One is fictional and the other historical. So the fictional example is a scene in William Shakespeare's play Tied to Sandronicus, which, now, to be clear, this is not like Shakespeare's other Roman plays, like Julius Caesar, those are based on real historical at least to some extent, or events that were believed at Shakespeare's time to be real historical events. Titus Andronicus is wholly a fictional scenario, but individual elements from it and scenes in it are based on scenarios that really did happen. And the one I'm thinking of is the very beginning of the play. And so, in a scene in Act one, Titus, the title character is a Roman general. He's returning to Rome after a long war of conquest against the Goths, and with him he brings prisoners that he is parading through the streets, including Tamara, the queen of the Goths. And then a little bit further down, Lucius says, give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, that we may hew his limbs, and on a pile ad manes fratum, sacrifice his flesh before this earthly prison of their bones, that so the shadows be not unappeased, nor we disturbed with prodigies on earth. And then later Tamara herself, the queen of the Goths, says, stay Roman brethren, gracious conqueror, victorious, Titus rue the tears I shed a mother's tears and passion for her son. And if thy sons were ever dear to thee, oh, think my son to be as dear to me. Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome to beautify thy triumphs, in return captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke. But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets for valiant doings in their country's cause?
Oh?
If to fight for king and commonweal we're piety in thine it is in these Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood, wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods, draw near them. Then in being merciful, sweet mercy, is nobility's true badge. Thrice, noble Titus, spare my firstborn son. So the scenario is, this is the queen of the defeated enemy nation that Rome has conquered. She is brought back with her sons, and they are going to do a human sacrifice of her captive son back here in Rome, and she's pleading with Titus, don't do it, please, don't do it, but they're going to do it again.
Not a story or an account directly from the time that we're talking about here, and not from the Romans. This is Shakespeare. But still it paints both a grim picture of what may have been the standard, but also, at least from in Shakespeare's voice, it's asking questions about like, is this really the way we should handle things with when it comes to captives? Is this really the way to go?
Of course, as the morality of Roman practices is highly questionable to us today, I would say even so is the implied morality of the play, where I don't know so Tamara eventually becomes the villain, right or I don't know. I guess it's kind of hard to say within a hyper violent tragedy and revenge story like Titus Andronicus, But she eventually becomes the wife of the Emperor Saturn Ninus and then they end up. Oh, it's a whole big battle. There's a lot of like watering sons and feeding them to people. But to bring it to real history, I think clearly this scene in Shakespeare is based on real historical events. One example that came to my mind immediately is the story of Versinjenerics, who was originally a nobleman of the Arverni tribe of the Gauls. So in the fifties BCE, Julius Caesar was engaged in a number of campaigns that came to be known as the Gallic Wars. It was a war, basically a war of conquest in Gaul, which gall is an area of western Europe that roughly corresponds to modern day France. And it's complicated, but basically the aim of these wars was to bring the various tribes of the region under Roman domination. Now this is before Caesar was an emperor at the time he was I believe he was governor of Gaul, but he was a military commander, and he was practicing a form of divide and rule, showing favor on some Gallic tribes and nobles in order to play them against the other Gallic tribes and nobles. And I think it is it's alleged that earlier in this effort Versus Generics, this one particular Gallic noble had been on relatively good terms with Rome and with Caesar. But sometime later in the campaign Versus Generics did a u turn and he ended up mounting an effort to unite the Gallic tribes in brotherhood to say, okay, let's stop squabbling with each other. We can't let them divide and rule us. We got a band together and fight back. Now I know that initially under Versus Jederics, the Gulls were actually pretty effective at resisting Roman conquest. Versus Jederics apparently employed a sort of harass and deprived strategy, so kind of having quick moving troops moving around and harassing the Roman column and then also practicing scorched earth tactics to deprive the Romans of food and other supplies. So you know, the Romans normally what they would do is they would move into an area and then they would confiscate food and other important supplies from the locals in order to feed their army. Versus Jederics said, okay, now, what we're going to do is just like burn and destroy and remove all of the food and whatever area the Romans are about to move into, so they can't feed themselves. And this actually was a very smart tactic. But ultimately the Gulls were defeated. Caesar surrounded and besieged Versus Generics and his forces at a battle called the Battle of Alicia and fifty two BCE, and facing certain defeat, Versus Generics made a bid for mercy, a bid for mercy for his troops by surrendering himself personally to Caesar. And this story is told in the work of the second and third century Roman historian Cassius Dio also sometimes called Dio Cassius, and Dio Cassius writes as follows, Now, Versinjenerics might have escaped, for he had not been captured and was unwounded, but he hoped, since he had once been on friendly terms with Caesar, that he might obtain pardon from him. So he came to him without any announcement by Harold, but appeared before him suddenly as Caesar was seated on the tribunal, and threw some who were present into alarm, for he was very tall to begin with, and in his armor he made an extremely imposing figure. When quiet had been restored, he uttered not a word, but fell upon his knees with hands clasped in an attitude of supplication. This inspired many with pity at remembrance of his former fortune and the distressing state in which he now appeared. But Caesar reproached him in this very matter on which he most relied for his safety, and by setting over against his claim of former friendship, his recent eye position showed his offense to have been the more grievous. Therefore, he did not pity him even at the time, but immediately confined him in bonds, and later, after sending him to his triumph, put him to death. And then I think after this event Caesar basically slaughtered everybody that the Roman behavior in the Gallic Wars was extremely brutal. Now, coming back to what Diocassia says at the end of that passage that he was sent to Rome for Caesar's triumph and then he was eventually put to death. Apparently what happened is he was sent to Rome, where he was held in prison for about five or six years before being ritually executed after he was displayed to the public in Caesar's Four Triumphs in forty six BCE. The Four Triumphs, it was a kind of victory parade and festival celebrating the conquest of the various nations who had come under Rome's heel. To read from Dio Cassius in a different section describing the for Triumphs quote after this, he conducted the whole festival in a brilliant manner, as was fitting in honor of victories so many and so decisive. He celebrated triumphs for the Gauls, for Egypt, for Pharnaces, and for Juba in four sections on four separate days. Most of it, of course, delighted the spectators, but the site of Arseneaux of Egypt, and Arsenau was was a queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, and that dynasty was unseated by Julius Caesar around forty seven Bce. But to continue the quote saying of Arseno, whom he led among the captives, and the host of lictors, and the symbols of triumph taken from the citizens who had fallen in Africa displeased them exceedingly. The lictors, on account of their numbers, appeared to them a most offensive multitude, since never before had they beheld so many at one time. And the site of Arsenau, a woman and one considered a queen in chains, a spectacle which had never yet been seen at least in Rome, aroused very great pity, and with this as an excuse they lamented their private misfortunes. She, to be sure, was released out of consideration for her brothers. But others, including verse in Generics, were put to death. And I don't know what the source on this following detail is, but it seems like most historians agree that the way versus Generics was put to death was by garrotting, a kind of ritual strangulation. And I believe in a temple, but this seems to be a ritual well known to the Romans, that like a leader of a subjugated nation would sometimes be brought back to Rome as a kind of souvenir of the returning conqueror's power, and then put on public display in some fashion, probably sort of humiliated. And then after that it seems their fates were varied. Some were put to death, others were given a more merciful fate of some kind, maybe released or kept imprisoned. Though I believe it's interesting that in that passage Diocasta says that Arsena was released. I think other historians write that after years of being imprisoned in a temple, Arsenau was executed on orders of Mark Antony, allegedly at the behest of Cleopatra. But that again, that's one of those things that you wonder if that's historically true or if that's just somebody who's like mad at Antony and Cleopatra trying to make them look bad.
Right right, there's certainly plenty of that to go around. By the way, this episode with versus Jenerics was depicted in the HBO series Rome. I'd kind of forgotten about this, but once you went through the description, I had to look it up. I was like, yes, yes, that was depicted at one point in that series.
Oh, I don't think I've seen that. So they what do they do to him? And like they strangle him in the temple, did they put him on parade?
They either, I think they might. It's been a long time since I've seen this show, and I'm not in a big hurry to watch it again, But though it has a wonderful cast, I believe they have him depicted strangled, perhaps in a cage in the street or on the steps of a temple. But again, my memory on this is foggy.
So I don't know if this is true. But it seems like a common received interpretation that Versus Generics was put to death here because he turned on Caesar and humiliated Caesar's forces in battle. That you know, because he had been very successful in stopping them early on, that this led to him being treated especially harshly. But in general Roman leaders were very cruel, very brutal, very into domination, and had a low tolerance for being embarrassed.
All right, So that leads us back to Valerian and certainly doesn't look great for him at this point based on what we've covered thus far. For starters, he certainly died in captivity. There's no version of the history here in which he escapes that fate. I guess it should be noted. As far as I know, there's there are no surviving accounts that he escaped that fate, and I guess there's no there's no like real reason, there was no real faction that had an interest in pushing that fiction, you know, that in which that version of history served some purpose or another. Uh. But we'll get it, you know, we'll get more into that. But you might remember in our past episode we talked about how how was the defeat at the Battle of Adessa framed? How are the particulars of that defeat passed down? And you know, a lot of times it's about from the Christian perspective, it's about saying Valerian was punished by God because he was cruel to Christians back home and had a pope put to death. And then from the Roman standpoint, it's a it's about pushing the idea that well, he was weak and the Susanians were deceptive, uh, and therefore sort of excuse the loss to some extent. But as we said earlier, there's a there's a lot of leeway and how we might actually interpret his death and in now the various histories have mentioned the death of Valerian in Sesanian hands. Since we're already talking about the horrific side of things, let's stick with the horrific side of things, and then we'll come back to the more mundane possibilities towards the end. It's kind of a palate cleanser, I guess so. According to early Christian writer and Christian apologist Lectantius, who lived two fifty through three twenty five, things were pretty grim for Valerian. And we have to mention, though, that the thing about Lectantius is he has a whole axe to grind here on the survival of Christianity. And he wrote an entire work titled on the Death of Persecutors, in which he writes the following about Valerian. And this is of course a translation here and presently Valerian, also in a mood alike Frantic, lifted up his impious hands to assault God, and although his time was short, shed much righteous blood. But God punished him in a new and extraordinary manner, that it might be a lesson to future ages that the adversaries of heaven always receive the just recompense of their inequities. He having been made prisoner by the Persians, lost not only that power which he had exercised without moderation, but also the liberty of which he had deprived others. And he wasted the remainder of his days in the violence condition of slavery. For suppor, the king of the Persians, who had made him prisoner, whenever he chose to get into his carriage or to mount on horseback, commanded the Roman to stoop and present his back. Then, setting his foot on the shoulders of Valerian, he said, with a smile of reproach, quote, this is true and not what the Romans delineate on board or plaster unquote. And just to pause right there, I love how in this account Lactantas has has the king of the Sasanians here basically turned to the reader and say, this is one hundred percent true. I'm not making this up. Don't believe those Romans. That's good anyway, Like conscious continues here, Valerian lived for a considerable time under the well merited insults of his conqueror, so that the Roman name remained long the scoff and derision of the barbarians, and this also was added to the severity of his punishment, that although he had an emperor for his son, he found no one to revenge his captivity and most abject and servile state. Neither indeed was he ever demanded back. Afterward, when he had finished this shameful life under so great dishonor, he was flayed, and his skin stripped from the flesh, was dyed with remilion and placed in the temple of the gods of the Barbarians, that the remembrance of a triumph so signal might be perpetuated, and that this spectacle might always be exhibited to our ambassadors as an admonition of the Romans that beholding the spoil of their captive emperor in a Persian temple, they should not place too great confidence in their own strength.
Okay, So it gets very clive barker at the end here, and they say that that after his torment is in it, which again Lactantius is saying totally justified. We don't know if what he's saying here has any basis in fact, but he's claiming that this he got his comeuppance for being a persecutor of Christians, and when it was all done, his skin was removed from his body was dyed red and then was placed in the temple of the gods of the Barbarians, right.
Right, pretty horrendous. And again I do love how he has Sabur basically break the fourth wall and say, hey, Christians, this is the real story. Don't believe what anyone someone else tells you, thus acknowledging that there are other accounts of what happened. So I was I was reading a little bit more about this. I found a source here. This was published in Classical Quarterly and two thousand and six from Erica Reiner, titled The red Ling of Valerian, and according to Reiner, Reiner writes that the La Tantis account is by far the most detailed and the most disputed, and she she shares and weighs in on some of the other claims that come about to in some cases add more more details to this particular account. She points out that only a single account, that of Agathias, who lived five point thirty through five eighty two, says that Valerian was flayed alive. This is the only account where that extra detail is added, almost in like a sort of like, I can't just retell that story. I've got to I got to make it a little grizzlier, and so there's an upping of the ante here. Later some commentators, including Constantine, add the detail that and then, well, this is sort of a detail. I guess that he was embalmed, that Valerian was embalmed, that there's some attempt to preserve the body.
So it's interesting, I guess if we're getting info about not info it claims about this from Constantine. Is Constantine trying to add on, like jump on the bandwagon of like, here's how Valerian goalwit he deserved because Constantine was of course the first Christian Roman emperor.
I mean it basically falls. Yeah, it basically has to do with this, with the whole role that Valerian has after his fall in Christian power in the view of Christian oppression in the past. So yeah, like he remains a coin that may be cashed in from time to time and speeches and so forth. Now another account, this was from Peter the Patrician, who live five hundred through five sixty five. This kind of backs up the whole idea of the skin having been preserved. Peter writes, quote, even after death, with loathsome art, you kept his skin and inflicted an undying insult on his dead body. But then Reiner gets into questioning this whole thing about the red dying of the skin, because this instantly stands out like it's one thing. Okay, we can understand flaying, you know, horrific, but there are other accounts in history of things like this occurring, and it continues to echo through our fantastic fiction and our grizzly entertainments. But then the dying of it red, what does that mean? Like, what is there something lost in translation? Is there some sort of a something you know, strange picked up in the telling of this tale. Hiner mentions that there is at least one theory that this account of red dyed hides refers to Valerian having to set aside his purple robes and where the hide of a mere beast like a donkey or something in captivity, and this might have been dyed purple and mockery, But then again, we're talking about purple in this case, and it seems like all these other accounts we're looking at, we're definitely talking about the color red. So, however, Reiner does point out that as outrageous and fabricated as these accounts of the flame may very well be. They're also not altogether out of keeping with the ancient world, and in fact, Sargon the second of Assyria, who reigned seven twenty one through seven oh five BCE, is said to have inflicted such a fate on his enemies. By his own recorded word. He boasted of having defeated king's flayed and their skins dyed red as red wool, and Reiner discusses this for a bit and asking questions about those sort of the linguistics of the matter. You know, red as blood, red as sunset, read as the horizon. And it has remained a mystery.
It is such a strange claim, this idea that the flayed hide was dyed red. But Rob, you found an interesting little letter to a classics journal called Nimo sign that's a journal published by Brill, which addresses this question of what this could be a reference to. If it's not just literally the skin being dyed red, could this have another meaning? And I thought this was so interesting. So the letter was by a classics professor based in Ireland named David Woods, and the letter was called Lactantius Valerian and halophilic Bacteria.
Here's that science angle that we've been mentioning.
So Wood says, you know, there's really no clear explanation why Schebor would have dyed the skin of Valerian red. He acknowledges Reiner's thoughts regarding the flaying tradition, but then says, there's another possible explanation, and it goes like this, if Shabour actually wanted to keep the skin of the emperor as a permanent trophy of his victory, rather than something that would just sort of rot away, he would of course have to preserve it somehow, and the standard way of preserving a hide at that time would be by curing. This assumption is given weight by a statement of again the later Roman emperor Constantine, who mentions that Shabur had ordered Valerian skin to be not only flayed, but preserved. I think this comes back to what you said earlier about Constantine making a claim that he was embalmed. Woods writes that the verb Constantine uses here for preserve in this context is the same word used for the preservation of fish at the time, which could refer to preservation by salting, pickling, or smoking, and generally, if you were going to cure a hide. In the ancient world, this would have involved salt. You'd use lots of salt now. Woods cites a couple of scholars named Rieland and Hochstein to point out that sometimes the salt curing of a hide would be compromised if the product was contaminated with a halophelic bacteria hallophilic, meaning salt loving, that can survive in extremely salty environments. Apparently, these bacteria are well known pests in the leather industry, and they produce a side effect called red heat, just like the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. And it's called that because the by product of the presence of these microorganisms is the reddening of surfaces that they colonize. In fact, if you've ever seen a salt lake turn red, this is caused by the same strains of hollophilic microorganisms. Rabbi attached one picture for you to look at in their outline here. This is a photo I found of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, taken in nineteen ninety nine, and it's taken at a place where the lake is divided by a railroad causeway. On one half of the causeway, the water looks like normal water, it's kind of blue green, and then on the other half the water is bright red.
Yeah, indeed, bright red almost almost leaning a little bit towards purple almost. Definitely, you get this reddish vibe from it. Yeah.
So I went to double check this. I was looking, okay, leather industry sources. I wanted to see about halophilic bacterial contamination there, and it looks like, yes, this absolutely is in fact a problem in the leather industry. I found an article on how to prevent it, or at least addressing the signs of it, on a trade website called Leather International. I think this is some kind of leather trade magazine. I don't know, but the article is just called putrefaction. To read from it here, they write quote, sometimes even when hides have been well salted or brined, bacteria can still grow. These are a particular type of bacteria which are halophilic or salt loving, and are commonly colored red or purple, affecting hides that are said to have red heat under normal storage conditions. For raw hides or skins, red and purple heat bacteria take a relatively long time to grow, around two to three months. Therefore, their presence is an indication that the hides or skins have been in storage for some time. However, at higher temperatures around thirty to forty degrees celsius, growth will be more rapid. The warm humid conditions favored by red heat bacteria are also favored by other non colored spoilage bacteria, so if salt levels are not high enough, putrefactive bacteria may also be present. It was once thought that red heat bacteria caused no harm to the hide, but it is now known that some types of bacteria do produce proteolytic enzymes, which are capable of damaging collagen. Proteolytic enzymes I think would be enzymes that dissolve proteins. Now this article also offers preventative measures to keep away putrefactive bacteria, the kind of bacteria that would cause leather to actually rot. But they say for red heat there are not really as many things you can do. I guess maybe it's harder to keep out, but anyway, I kept looking more into the idea of these red halo files the salt loving bacteria. Interesting thing I found is that while many older sources, including the ones I was just looking at, refer to red halophiles as bacteria. It seems that most of the prominent examples of red colored halophiles are actually now classified as archaea. Now, archia are very similar to bacteria in many ways. They're both lineages of single celled organisms without a true nuclear membrane, but they're distinct from each other. They split off from one another extremely early in the history of life on Earth, probably something like four billion years ago, and there are some common structural differences between them, even though they're both single celled organisms. In a lot of ways, Archia are just sometimes referred to as a type of bacteria, But yeah, they're these different clades, and some of the structural differences that are found between them have to do with things like cell walls and membranes, like the chemical characteristics of the lipids in their cell memora brains are different. But another common feature relevant to this discussion is that Arkia are most often found in extreme environments that are less friendly to other Earth life. So arkia are abundant in extremely hot environments, such as around deep sea vents or hot springs, or deep underground in low oxygen, high pressure geological deposits like around fossil fuel deposits or in extremely chemically unfriendly environments such as the various salt hells of the world. Now, I was curious why there would be a tendency for the microbes that battle for life in these salt hells to be read in color, and I found a paper that at least identifies a common biochemical factor. So this paper was by Ajaran Orn and Francisco Rodriguez Valera published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology in two thousand and one, called the contra of halophilic Bacteria to the red coloration of saltern crystallizer ponds. So in this article, the authors start by looking at natural hypersaline environments like salt lakes, but also at human constructed environments like these saltern crystallizer pools. A salturn is essentially a factory for harvesting sea salt, and in the old school process, what you do is you leave a bunch of sea water out in these pools and you leave it under the hot sun, so the water content can evaporate, leaving crystallized sodium chloride behind and you can harvest it. Rob Again, I attached some pictures for you to look at. These pools are often kind of arranged in these big reflective rectangles out by the ocean side. And an interesting thing is that if you look up pictures of saltern pools, occasionally you will find that they are red in color. And I was reading another paper that claimed that testing of the microbial communities in soil or saltern pools usually reveals that there's very little microbial diversity. They tend to be dominated almost entirely by halophilic archaea, like we're just talking about. But halophilic archaia are not the only things in there. So to read from a section of or in at all the paper I referenced a minute ago quote, two types of carotenoid rich microorganisms have generally been implicated in causing the red coloration. You've got halophilic archaea of the family hallow Bacteriacee and the unicellular green alga Dunaleela selina. The main pigments of the Halobacteriacee are C fifty carotenoids, mainly alpha bacteria ruberin and derivatives, while Dunaliella accumulates massive amounts of beta keratine under suitable conditions. The relative contributions of red Archaea and beta carotene rich Dunaliella cells to the color duration of saltine crystallizer ponds have been studied in the past, beta keratine was often found in quantities greatly exceeding the archael bacteria ruberns. In spite of this, the optical properties of the salterenbrines were determined primarily by the Archel community. This apparent discrepancy was explained by the extremely small in vivo optical cross section of the beta keratine in Dunaliella cells. As the carotenoid is densely packed in granules within the algal chloroplast, the presence of even large amounts of this pigment may contribute much less to the overall red color than the archel pigments, which are distributed evenly on the cell membrane. And The study also did find a small presence of halophilic bacteria in some salturns, but not others. Like it found actual halophilic bacteria of a type called Salinibacter that was present in the cryst in the crystallizer ponds that were sampled from California, but not the ones that were sampled from Israel, So it seems there's some geographic variation there, but ultimately they say yes to create this red color, the most important components are these extremophile archaea, the salt loving archaea. And I thought it was interesting that what's causing the red color here are these carotenoids, which are present, of course throughout all different kinds of life. If you eat red or orange colored vegetables or fruits, those red and orange colors are generally going to be a result of carotenoid pigments. And of course you know when you eat a red carrot. People talk about carrots being a good source of vitamin A, which they are, But what's actually happening metabolically there is you're eating them and they contain these red orange pigments, the carotenoids, which then through your metabolism, are turned into vitamin A. So if woods idea is correct, that actually what this you know, dying red of the of the hide of Emperor Valerian, If that is actually some ancient commentator looking at the skin seeing its red and then mistaking it being colonized by halophilic archaea, for it being dyed red on purpose, then what's causing that red color is probably part of the same family of pigment compounds, the carotenoids that make your carrots red or orange.
Fascinating. So yeah, it seems very biologically possible that you could have an attempt to preserve the hide like this a flayed skin of human being, and then lo and behold, it ends up taking on this red color, which ultimately makes me really potentially feel for this hyde worker. It's suddenly called in one day to the palace and you find out you have a particular task ahead of you you need to preserve of the skin, and then it ends up turning red, Like how do you How do you spin that? How do you sell that? I meant to do that? Yes, or your majesty, might this look better if it were red? Think about it? They think about all the connotations of the color. Really get him on board with this, make it think it was his idea before presenting him with this hide that ended up turning this color on you. Right.
So anyway, that's what wood Woods argues in this letter that maybe the ancient reports are mistaken. It was not actually dyed red. Schubert didn't do that on purpose. Instead, somehow tried to cure it with salt, and then it was colonized by halophilic bacteria or actually, more likely halophilic archaea, causing the red heat phenomenon that's been known to the leather industry actually since ancient times. Woods writes, quote, the importance of this discovery is that it confirms that the ultimate source of Lactantious information in this matter must have seen Valerian's skin firsthand. He then made the understandable but erroneous assumption that Schuber had ordered the skin to be dyed red. A humble leather producer would not have made such a mistake, but few diplomats, ancient or modern, have a background in the leather industry. Now, I think that's all pretty well put, except I don't think I agree that it confirms Lactantius's source would have seen it firsthand, but I'd agree that makes it more likely.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, on one hand, we have, of course the older account from Sargon that reminds us that such horrendous things did occur in the ancient world. And and then this is something that Reiner gets into a little bit as well, and pointing out that, okay, we have these two alleged incidents of flaying and the reddening of a skin. They occur about a thousand years apart. But Reiner contends that either perhaps there is some truth to the conscious account, or perhaps there's this kind of cultural memory of Sargon's deeds. Ultimately, I think you could spin this. See this is kind of a trope about the evil things that Eastern kings do to defeated emperors. There's some memory of Sargon did this, and then it gets sort of wrapped into the account. If you need perhaps something horrible to happen to Valerian in your history to again prop up the idea that God has punished Valerian, then perhaps you draw in this historical detail and it becomes part of your story. Now, on the more mundane side of things, we do have some other accounts. There's the writer Eutropius, who was writing between three sixty four and three seventy eight, and he contended that quote Valerian, while he was occupied in a war in Mesopotamia, was overthrown by Shapur, king of Persia, and being soon after made prisoner, grew old in ignominious slavery among the Parthians. So in that account, it's like, basically, well, they took him away, they locked him up, and yeah, he died there. He was already, by many accounts, an older man, he was in his sixties, and how long is he going to live in captivity? In enemy captivity? Now to Raj Dhari also gets in on this and seems to side with this interpretation as well, that he the Valerian and some of his men were sent back into Sasanian territory, into Bishophur in modern Iran, where one of the carved reliefs there show him kneeling before the mounted king. In this area would become known as Valerian's prison. And I also can't help but wonder, this is just me here, This isn't anything any of these authors were discussing. But again, we have these rock reliefs showing Valerian bowing in Roman emperor's bowing the king of the Sasanians who has mounted on horseback. I wonder if it's possible you could have a situation where it's like some sort of misunderstanding of the visuals here that lead to the idea of him being a footstool to mount a horse. I don't know, anyway, there's not really any consensus on when Valerian dies in captivity. It may have been the same year. So sometimes you see him listed as having lived till two sixty he might have been executed more or less immediately or within that year. Other times you see a date of two sixty four mentioned, saying that he lived about four years in enemy captivity before he either dies of some natural causes, is just sort of removed, or some more extravagant means of execution. Either way, yeah, you tend to see sixty or two sixty four. So, yeah, he might have just lived out the rest of his life in prison. He may have been made a mockery of. He may have been tortured to death or flayed following a quicker execution. And of course the different versions of the tale again they kind of fulfill different needs, both in the turbulent years following the Battle of Edessa but also for years to follow. So we almost end up in this kind of quantum state where anything any of these accounts seem possible, you know, and ultimately we'll never know what actually became of Emperor Valarian.
Now here's a possibility you probably haven't considered. What if he was fully externally colonized by hallophilic Archia before he died.
Hmmm, so he was already read.
Maybe he's just rubbing salt on his skin all day long and I don't know it's getting in there.
I'm not sure. Or here's another possibility. Maybe Valerian removes his own skin, then escapes and has someone else wear that skin after he has left, you know, kind of does a little Hannibal electter thing there or reverse Hannibal lecter.
Well, it's like face off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it could be like face stuff, except it's like whole skin off.
Next Nicholas Cage role playing Valerium.
You know, in thinking about these accounts of rulers being treated in some cases horrifically or in other cases perhaps you know, more politely but generally horrifically by these various rulers, I was reminded of I kept being reminded of this line in Dune. In the novel, this is a depicting a scene that is in the recent Part one film that came out, though this exact line of dialogue I don't think is present, but basically, the Harconins have moved against the atreades. And we have that scene where the baron has Leto Treades captive, and in the book there's this bit of dialogue it goes like this quote, this is not a child's game we play. The baron rumbled. You must know that he leaned toward Leto, studying the face. It pained the baron that this could not be handled privately, just between the two of them. To have others see loyalty in such straits, it sets a bad example. And I kept thinking about that because so many, especially on the Roman side, I mean, you have these these emperors, these absolute rulers whose position is actually rather precarious, and death is never that far away, and the shadow of uprising and dethronement, you know, is always present in the mind of any ruler, even one who enjoys a rather secure reign. You know. It's a take Autasher the first. You know, he was able to retire and die a natural death, but he didn't do that by not keeping an eye out for all those who tried to rise up against him. And so it makes me think about that, Like I guess you get into some of that Shakespearean morality as well, like the mistreatment of other rulers, like there has to be this moment where you realize, like this, this could easily be me, and what kind of example do we continue to set for these around us who may one day be the ones to rise up against us. And it's an interesting moment in Herbert's Dune as well, because you know, obviously the Baron Harcone or hearkening to be more authentic here, you know, he's not. He doesn't feel any actual mercy towards Letto. But it's the idea that well, the lesser people, the commoners, the soldiers, they shouldn't see this between us, like there's this, And of course in the world of Dune, you know, these great houses are connected in various ways as well. All right, well, I guess we're going to go and close this out here. But I've greatly enjoyed this examination of history and histories concerning the fall of Emperor Valerian. I apologize if I messed up any pronunciations in this. We had to to juggle two different tongues here, and I hope that I didn't get anything wrong. I tried to try to make sure he hit the unciations correctly. There are a lot of names today. I think you did good well. Thanks. Oh and by the way, that Turaj Dhari. That book is Susanian Iran two twenty four through six point fifty one AD, Portrait of a Late Antique Empire from Mazda Publishers that came out in two thousand and eight. It's a really good read. I recommend it for anyone who's interested in this time period, in this particular dynastic rule. It's not not a very thick book, very readable, has some nice illustrations and maps in it. All right, well, we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna go and close the book here on old Emperor Valeria. But we'd love to hear from everybody out there if you have any thoughts on the histories at play here, If perhaps we have some folks out there who have some experience preserving hides and leather and so forth, and perhaps you can weigh in on this reddening that we've discussed. And hey, let us know if there are other episodes in history you'd like us to. However, I don't know. Maybe there's some other dethroned nimbers of note in the history books that would make for a good episode. Let us know. In the meantime, you'll find core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do short form artifact or monster fact episodes, and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and just focus on a weird film. And you'll find all of this in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.
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