Welcome to softcore History. What is up, guys? Welcome back to soft
Core History. I am your host, Rob Fox. And as a father,
I would just like to say it's an honor to be here just entertaining
everyone's children. Everyone's a child, and as a father, I appreciate human
life more because I made one. Well. As the real father to your
child, I appreciate you being here, Thank you. Wow. Yeah,
and raising my child. I appreciate you kind father. He wants to dad,
cut me, that's it, though you don't want to rear the child.
Well, he'll teach him sports. I'm waiting for him to grow to
the age of probably like seven, and then yeah, you can like psychologically
abuse him. He's changing the diapers, he's teaching him how to walk and
talk, and like when I have to give him the talk, Dan will
be in the co owner correcting me. It's like, that's not what you
do with now. Listen, there's a father bowl and a son bowl on
a hill. What elaborate? Okay, I'm not going to It's a Sopranos
quote. Okay, It's like literally everyone everyone's uncle takes the Sopranos quote and
teaches like their nephew about sex. You don't. I don't remember that point.
I remember that quote. None. Yeah, we'll move on, We'll
power through. That's two niche of a reference the Sopranos. No, I
like the Sopranos. I just don't remember that. Anyway, I'm Jake Goldman,
gonna be Jake's here, Dan's here. We're having a good time.
King's been Golden Circle. I'm having just saying with no context. Now,
I'm for it. This is the first like amount, like decent amount of
alcohol I've had since I've had a child. So I'm enjoying that for now.
When I get home, I'm gonna want to die. But yeah,
it's cool. How you guys doing good? Enjoy this weekend of college football.
If I did, I did nothing else but watch football. So I
watched football for twelve hours. Kylie was out of town. She's like,
you aren't texting me enough. I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm just distracted
beating off and watching college football. So I did, oh I did?
I ordered uh like three pounds of valentinos. Yeah, to two hours past
the order due, and uh that was sick. I got to just chill
whenever you order Valentina is a great place in Austin right now, Um South
Boston if you order that barbecue, but make sure to tack on about an
hour and a half to that. Uh, that's the whole time. It
ruins the whole point of ordering ahead. Yeah. There, all of their
employee talent goes into smoking the meats and not getting the smoked meats to you.
And then like when you ask somebody, because you know there's a few
older women that are waiting in line, and of course you know, they
had to let the the employees here that they're a little uh disgruntled, And
the employees were just like, oh yeah, I love that response. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, No. I actually prefer it if someone's it's getting
maufie with an employee and they're like, a, well gets here when it
gets here, Yeah, they're like we're in line and I and he's like,
uh, there's the pile of tickets you know which Nope, order no,
no, not the only one here today to say, you know a
lot of people ordered fucking brisket today. Get this. Get this. I
did Saturday morning. First thing, I woke up at like eight thirty putting
that put in that order and it's like, all right, be ready by
ten twenty one. First off, if you ordered it the day of,
even if it was a thirty, you were probably pretty low on the line.
I bet there's a lot of Saturday orders that were made, like probably,
yeah, right, sure, but I mean still it is annoying.
But Valentine is fucking slaps. It's so good. It's good. But I
asked about college football because we have another episode that is it's not college football
base like Jake's last week, but it is about rabid fans, about insane
fans. And usually, you know, when we think of insane sports fans,
we think of like stabbing in a Zachsby's parking lot after an Auburn Alabama
game that was really close. I think of cricket murders. Okay, yeah,
that that that's my thing. Now I'm in a cricket. I know
you are. I know that's still your thing. Name two positions in cricket,
uh, throwey guy and swingy paddle batter is actually one of the batter
was one, yeah, and there's um it's paddle boys. What you're thinking
paddle boy, paddle boy, paddle boy and pitch man throwboy, Yeah,
throw throw sir. Yeah, or we think of like, you know,
Philly fans trying to kill Santa, which I know always gets it was justified.
It was justified. Why Um well, first off, it was a
skinny Santa. He was in a blue suit. Um, those are mistakes.
Yeah, yeah, it was just a fan that was in the stands.
They just because the real Santa didn't show up. Obviously there's no good
boys and girls in Philadelphia. Yeah, so it was a fan they took
out of the stands. It was also like what in the sixties, So
my grandfather probably threw snowballs at Santa probably, Yeah, and they like shoving
a Duras cell and in the ice and my dad he threw batteries at Jimmy
Yeah, okay, yes, that's awesome. They're throwing batteries at JD.
Drew two back in the day. We're a big battery. You are a
big battery city, which doesn't make any think it weren't for Philadelphia, Dursall
would have gone under years ago. Yeah, that's the only reason they're they're
unpackaging batteries in there to throw them at people. I mean, Elon Musk
only opens battery factories and the hopes that Philly sports will get relevant again.
He's really gonna stop making rechargeable ones, Yes, and you're only gonna get
your ass beat. Um. You know you're gonna have some battle wounds when
you go into Philly, but you're not gonna end up dead like in LA.
That's true. Yeah, they're not gonna put you in a coma.
You're not gonna go to a Dodgers game. I mean every time you go
to a Dodgers game, it's a good chance you might not come back.
It's that's a stabbing waiting to happen. No, you're right. And a
Philly game like a drunk, obese man with like a mustard stain on his
shirt. Yeah, he'll punch a lady in the face, right, But
at a Dodger game. Three like pretty in shape latino dudes from the bleachers
will smash your skull into the pavement in the parking lot. Also with just
white guys too in La. Yeah, just like kind of tattered up white
dudes in LA that'll just slit your throat. Facetuts either way. Um,
didn't that little robot hitchhiker make it all the way through Canada and then get
murdered, and so yeah, he made he made it all the way through
most of the United States as well. Um, yeah, it's just a
fun little societal project of us transporting this little robot from city to city.
And he got to Philadelphia and he ran into the wrong guy at Randall Cunningham,
Jersey at two o'clock in the morning. So yeah, birds, I'd
love to know what they gold birds, I would truly love to know what
they found in that robot's stomach, Like I want a robot autopsy. The
wires are just frosted. It was missing twenty yea. But yeah, sports
hologanism it goes back further than we think, actually beyond like soccer or nineteenth
century boxers or eighteenth century horse racing, whatever the fuck you want to talk
about. It has. Really it's not the first, it's for sure not
the first, but its most famous routes are in the Eastern Roman Empire sounds
right, aka the Byzantine Empire, u Constantinople being its capital where most of
the chariot racing that these people went bananas about happened. Chariot racing was actually
huge in the Roman Empire and then if you've seen the movie ben Her famous
chariot race, sne Her barely know r you went there, it's not afraid
to go there, guys. I'll do it. I'll fucking do it.
I swear to god'll do it again in too. If you say it,
please don't, I won't. I'm sorry, never again. Um. But
I was big in the Roman Empire, and then when it split, it
was still big. And then the Western Roman Empire fell and they didn't necessarily
have the resources to do that kind of grand spectacle of games. But the
Eastern Roman Empire did because it when the Western Roman Empire fell, the Eastern
Roman Empire, it was still basically the world superpower. Um. Just a
dirty yer version, I would say, in a lot of way, is
a more competent version. I also like to think that. I also like
to say that the best I think I've said this on the show before,
the best analogy for the United States historically is probably the Eastern Roman Empire to
date. We'll see how it goes. I hope that's not true, because
Eastern Roman Empire had a very it was a candle that burned bright and short.
They weren't here for a long time. They were here for a bad
time, like orphans. Yeah, yes, but yeah, the Eastern Roman
Empire, they were all about chariot racing. Gladiatorial games went by the wayside,
but chariot racing was still a thing, and fandom was a big fucking
deal. There were four factions, red, White, Green, and blue.
I love that it's just colors. Yeah, Joe, Well, you
know they didn't have to name it shit like that was the original thing.
Yeah, I don't see anything after color. We're in the twenty first century.
The Cincinnati Reds, Saint Louis Blue is I want to say, isn't
Chelsea called the Blues. There's like a British soccerate yea eplt I think Arsenals,
the Red the Reds. Yeah, you can't mention Cleveland though, because
they're actually named after a group of people. Yes, they're the family,
the Brown family. Yes, oh that's where you went, Okay, the
Browns, I was I was worried. Oh no, no, no,
no, I can see how that could get miss construed. No, the
Brown Family, Browns. Yeah, there's a lot um but yeah, so
there were those were the four like major factions, and yeah, you just
wore your color. Uh listen, hair red, Yeah, you root it
for your color in blue territory kind of accurate as we'll get into. I
feel like it's got to be a easy way to not get lost. It's
like, oh oh, honestly, it's just they're all blue. Yeah,
it's like sant andrews um when the Grove gang the was the Ballers, and
then the map just like or yeah, yeah, pink and green. Do
you remember there was always that one little gang territory up in the San Francisco
area they had to go get that was in like where Salsalita would be.
It's like, I'm not protecting that area. I'm giving that up. That's
every time. Yeah. Uh well, what's weird about these is they were
very tribalistic in their fandom, but they weren't. It wasn't necessarily at any
point geographic, you know how like British like the EPL teams, like the
different parts of London, like Green Street, hooligan style. So these are
f one drivers in a way, and so like chariot drivers, they could
switch teams and but obviously the fans stayed the same, and chariot drivers actually
made a shit ton of money. These were not like gladiators like they again
F one drivers, Red Bull these fucking like. I know, I'm very
limited on my F one knowledge. It comes from people that we know that
turned thirty years old. White guys on Twitter just really getting into it.
People root for drivers in F one race team they go team, They're like
red root for drivers, right, yeah, No one's rooting for Hendrix Racing.
Yeah, it's all it's all about teams. Okay, I think from
my understanding the brief interaction I get, like the fifteen minutes or so I
see on the timeline every week, you can Yeah, you can have like
a driver that's your favorite for sure, Like I do like Daniel Ricardo,
but I once he's gone, I actively though I do like the Ferrari team.
It's just a classic okay. Yeah, so yeah, that's how it
is in this too. And uh, since these are human beings, we're
talking about hashtag shit, don't change. Their fandom was pretty similar to modern
sports fandom in a lot of way, a lot of ways, Like you
could get figurings are the most popular racers, uh, and like in their
chariots are just like do you think they had fungos fungos, Ye mean,
yeah, probably like a bad situation, but like you have fun where there
certain chariot racers where if they just got on the podium, they were super
pumped. They're like fuck yeah third place. Yeah, so there were so
I'll get into that. But essentially the two main dominant teams were Green and
Blue, and Red and White were kind of like second tier. So yeah,
they're just happy to finish the race pretty much. Yeah, we'll get
into that more in a moment um. So they would sell figurines and other
like merchandise and shit like that, other trink gets celebrating the teams or like
famous racers. Archaeologists even have even found um cursed tablets in which fans would
ask the gods to make the other team lose or have an opposing driver be
maimed or killed in the race. I am a huge fan of that.
I have a cursed tablet every time we played Georgia. Yeah. Well,
they would also often throws cursed tablets with nails in them onto the track.
I also do that every time we played Georgia. Although I feel like you
could attribute any success those had more to the nails. The curse gods.
Yeah, yeah, gods, you know, put those nails in the right
place at the right time. The gods guided the throw. Yeah. By
the way, this is the Eastern Roman Empire, so we're in full blown
Christian at this point. These people know, these people just went to the
old gods because they knew Jesus wasn't going to do it for a chariot,
right, Jesus is old god in the Old Testament would definitely do some stuff
like no, they were going they were going polytheists because those gods are pettier.
They were they really they really don't like slander or spite. Yeah yeah,
yes, and Old Testament god is petty, but polytheistic gods are real
different, especially the Greek ones. I mean this is essentially Greco society,
so uh yeah, um yeah. So they would, you know, ask
for curses. They'd bypassed Jesus for it because they Jesus doesn't get his hands
dirty on on sports. Like oh no, angels in the outfield is bullshit.
It's like, yeah, Monotheisms like the thing, but it's not because
it's technically still polytheistic. If you can go to a different set of God's
right, well, I mean eventhicism is fairly polytheistic. You pray to Mary,
you pray to the Saints. Yeah, Jesus is essentially raw blow who
shows up to an NFL game and just wears the shield hat. Hey guys,
does everyone have a good time? But once we all win. What
was funny about these fandoms is that, like you were saying earlier, they
were not really divided geographically or socio politically. Like it wasn't like rich people
route for green, like blue collar like workers rooted for red or something like
merchants rooted for white or something like that. It was kind of random,
like it was kind of uh, there was no clear dividing situation with who
rooted for what, Like it was I assume you're born into it to a
certain extent. But also like it was just fandoms like my father rooted Fared,
and his father ruted Fared, and the father before him, Yeah,
pretty much, the father before him was a cave person. Even though it's
about how far back yea. Even though the factions were not so socially politically
divided like that's how they got chosen or whatever, they essentially became socio political
entities in and of themselves. What I mean by that is, so the
citizen the Eastern Roman citizenry, specifically in Constant Noble, which was like more
or less the most important city in the world at that time, certainly in
the Western world, they didn't really have any other outlet or like any other
outlet that was as organized and passionate to like express their will collectively. Interesting,
you know what I mean, Like there was no it was not a
representative democracy, like there's nothing to cheer for. Yeah. Yeah, and
there was no like there weren't unions or guilds or anything like that. So
just accidentally these unions, we're about to get into some union busting. Don't
worry kind of with these guys. Good. I hate the fucking weekend.
I agree, it's stupid. The weekend's dumb, and I hate not working
should work gate days a week? I hate not working with children. By
the way, Jay, do you remember that old bodybuilding dot com forum?
In a week? Yeah? Classic internet? Um literally like not ironic.
People were arguing how many days it were in a week because some guy had
I think he worked out four different muscle groups. He worked out. He
worked out every other day though in a week okay, but I believe he
was working four. Like the whole thing was, there's eight days in a
week because I have I work each muscle twice a week. Okay, so
there's eight days in a week. And okay, I don't think because because
someone was using it on a fourteen day scale to try and calculate it,
and someone was using a seven day scale. He's like, no, you
work out three and a half days a week. He's like, that's fucking
stupid. I don't work out a half day. I work out a full
day, So work out eight days. I work out four days a week.
He's doing it over two weeks. And so you can see where the
math here starts to fall apart um. You probably should look it up at
another time. We could probably do a whole episode on this threat. We
should. We should because it's we can times pass like two thousand nine threads,
you could probably do a whole episode on just body threads from bodybuilding dot
com form. Also, whenever you search something relatively close, anything that's workout
related and it's a body building dot com forum answer, it's from at least
two thousand and eleven. Yeah, they didn't they get rid of it at
some point. It's still a thing, oh is it? But like every
answer they had, their seo was fucking killing it back in two thousand and
eight. Two still fucking going. There's some guy named Klein. God like,
No, what you need to do is just drink a quart of milk
every single day, never jerk off and lift five hundred pounds over your head.
Ye as can say. If you guys need breast milk, yeah,
I got a source. You got a guy, Yeah, I got a
guy. Guy for it. It's me Tim, It's just kid. Yeah,
okay, okay, it's pretty cool. I just pump picking up what
you're putting down. I just put my kid's stomach and then I blot of
nutrition. Yeah, well I feed him formula after. But I'm like,
daddy needs that gold Yeah. And I I don't mean, I'm not referring
to myself as daddy, Like, oh, like I'm his father, and
I'm like, your daddy needs that Gold's You don't wait for your white to
or your wife to just fall asleep and just milk it out, milk it
out. Yeah. You would think it would be that easy, but it's
super not. It actually blows my mind that human beings are here between watching
her struggle through a birth with twenty first century medical technology and getting milk out
being a fucking nightmare. Yeah, it shouldn't be here. It's not as
instinctive as people know. Yeah, there's process to it. Yeah, it's
fun. It's fucking weird. Fuck up a lot, But those fuck ups
created things like cheese. So it's true. That's true. By the way,
you guys needs some breast milk cheese. I know a guy, you
got another guy? Is there a lactose and breast milk. It's still my
son. It's just I don't get to the milk as quickly to pump out
of him. So it's a little curdled. That's that's the part. That's
how the cheese. Yeah, what is cottage cheese? But vomited. Yeah,
I'm not gonna eat the rest of the night now, so that's that's
cool for me. I guess ted ted So yeah. Anyway, So these
these fantoms became social political entities in another themselves. Um so at the end
of the day, the chariot racing fandom, like fan bases, became like
a weird mix of sports fandom like normal sports fandom, political parties, and
street gangs. They were kind of all three combined. Like imagine. Honestly,
the best way to put this is like, imagine if Green Street Hooligans
was in the most important city in the world and they kind of helped decide
how the government was run. Cool. That sounds terrifying, it's not great.
So that's like if the Raiders fans just, oh, well they're in
Las Vegas. If it'd be like if the Raiders fans just ran Las Vegas.
Hey, man, Packers fans are owners. Yeah, every Packers fan
is an owner. That's the lamest shit. Didn't Jared go to school with
that guy who wrote something in like NFL owner reacts to Colin Kaepernick and it
was just a random Packers season ticket holder. I think he did. I
think he did because he talks about it on Twitter, so but he won't
add him. But like that guy's like the dumbest motherfucker live. He's an
owner, part owner, yeah, part older, and like the guy knew
that he was full of shit, and like wrote in the intro, he
was like, well, I just stort, did you This type of vooter
could more reflective if they like every man how real American stig. That's dumb.
Yeah, it's real dumb. Yeah, so it was calling yourself an
owner, yes, of the Packers, because you hold a season ticket.
Those fucking people, they deserve what they get with Aaron Rodgers this year.
You mean that guy that's won one conference championship, super Bowl, he's won
a super Bowl, but he's only been to one super Bowl too, Right,
he's won one super bowls Um, now he lost one. No,
he's only been the super Bowl once. Do you lose Rogers lose one?
He loses the Steelers, No heat Steelers. Yeah. Okay, so he's
only been one. I don't remember and I don't care anyway. So they
say, you know, you guys probably heard the saying like bread and games,
Yeah right, like keeps their own citizens happy, blah blah blahallaway,
like to say it all the time on our fucking things. That's kind of
a misnomer because it's not like emperors would throw games just to like appease these
people when they're getting pissed off. Like these are complex societies and economies,
like there were games happening constantly, hence the fandom. Um, but essentially
like when there was like a bread and Games situation. Uh it was I
don't know. People were pissed off or the emperor decided to celebrate something,
so they would just throw like an extra March Badness. I would love that,
right if like discontent created, like, oh, we're doing the college
football playoff again, right, Like how do we not do that during COVID.
Yeah, it's like, actually the college football season is all year now.
Yeah, like, yeah, we're doing it. More like the Afghanistan
pullout goes bad. Biden just puts on an extra College World Series, yeah,
or something that's not really that number. That's pretty bad. Oh,
this is September madness. Now another March madness. Just another March madness,
just right then, and it's like, hey, we're having a tournament or
like you get all the NBA players back just for one quick term whatever.
Yeah, I love that. I want that. They were lucky in that
way, I'd say the luckiest. Yes, yeah, it really were.
But yeah. So by the time of the Eastern Roman Empire, the number
one sport was chariot racing by by a long shot, and it was a
humulously integral part of society. Chariot racing and the fandom was like, that
was it. That was a part of the culture, And it was so
much part of the culture, the culture, the culture of the Eastern Roman
Empire and the culture. It was so much part of the culture that you
might ask, oh, like the NFL, like how it's big in America.
Uh No, not even fucking close. Imagine so reading about all this
and how much political weight it had. And I'm not saying this as a
as a judgment on his message or whatever at all, but like, these
people make Colin Kaepernick look like amateur hour. Like whatever Colin Kaepernick did to
the American discourse, it's a drop in the fucking bucket compared to how much
of the political discourse these chariot fandoms control. Howso tell me more, I
want to know what the difference is. Oh, I'm gonna get to that.
Okay. Chariot fan groups were such an important part of Eastern Roman culture
and politics that in order to essentially legitimize themselves, emperors had to choose a
team to root for. That's awesome, Like you were, you couldn't not
do it. And it wasn't like Obama being like, oh, I'm a
white Sox fan they're like Bill Clinton rooting for Arkansas when they won the tournament
in ninety four, ninety three or whatever, like they had they had to
pick a side. That doesn't seem like fair though, right, what do
you mean? I would probably if that team started to succeed and the emperor
is a fan of that team, I would have my questions. I'd be
like, how's he helping them? Yeah? Yeah, yes, that happens
to an extent. So Emperor Theodosius the second was a fan of the Greens.
He's a fan of the green team, so much so that he changed
the seating at the Hippodrome, which was the UH stadium for the racing,
so that the Green fans got the best seats. So the Green Green fans
had like fucking ringside seats. The entire first row around the thing was green
fall. I can't imagine fan cheering has a huge effect on how a chariot
race. Yeah. Absolutely, opposed to like a football game or a basketball
game or something like that. It's momentum sport. Yeah, I mean,
I guess you could try to spook to it. Well, I will say
this, if you're closer to the to the track, easier to throw your
curse tablets onto the You mean your nails, Yeah, your nails. It's
a lot easier to hit a horse with the nails. Yeah. Um,
so he was a fan of the Greens, gave the Greens the best seat.
His successor, Marstian uh got annoyed by how green, how cocky the
Greens had gotten under Theodosius, so he decided to change their seats. Just
kidding, He decided to ban all Greens from holding public office. They could
do that. Yeah, so if you're a fan of the Green team,
get the fuck out. We're not a judge anymore. The original death penalty.
What wait, was he like a blue? Imagine he's a blue guy
then? Uh? Most so, Green and Blue were the biggest one by
far, so he might have been. He was probably a blue, but
I didn't see that off in my research. But he did not like the
Greens. Um. There's another emperor after him, Anastasius, who tried to
stay kind of neutral and not piss off the Blues or the Greens, because
essentially, you would pick one and then the other one would fucking hate you,
and that's like half the city and they're just dicks about it. Like,
I imagine this is a very similar setup to how if the South had
won the Civil War and they're just electing presidents and it's really just based on
which SEC team they're I was about to say, it's probably just like running
for governor of Alabama. Yes, it's like, are you an out are
you a fucking Tide guy? Are you an Auburn guy? What's going on?
Get the UAB guy the fuck out of it? Yeah? Wait UAB
fuck No? Yeah, like South Alabama absolutely not. Can't trust that guy
who did uh oh fuck. I was about to say, Brett Faber.
That was Southern myths, not South Alabama. Clearly Jean Chiswick doesn't Tubberville or
Tuberville. Yeah, Alabama, it's a disgrace that Tommy Tubberville want a statewide
election as an Auburn coach. I loved the mud slinging commercials. It's like
he quit on his team, and it talked about how he bailed on Auburn.
It's in Cincinnati, right, an Texas antech all but the Emperor Anastasius.
He wanted to stay kind of neutral, not pissed off one or the
other. So he was he decided to be a fan of the Reds,
declare himself for the Reds because it's a shooty so shitty that people, it
wouldn't affect anything. Yeah, yeah, it's like being a Jags fan.
Yeah yeah, exactly, harmless um. However, his relative neutrality did not
make the action the factions very chill. The chariot racing, like, these
people were crazy about it, so they got mad at each other a lot.
They're a lot of rs and rumbles and things like that. And during
Anastasius's rain in five o one, the Greens uh took to the streets and
ambushed the Blues and beat them up because the guy picked the Reds. No,
just because just because, just oh for sure them. They didn't like
them. Those guys are dicks, and I beat them up. I mean
they killed three thousand of them. Three thousand, whoa hold on, Yeah,
wait a minute, that's like an entire student section in the streets.
Like they just went out and like if Alabama fans, like if after the
kick six, they're like, you know what, it's a we're gonna kill
all these kids. It's a micro genoside. Yeah no, yeah, they
laid an ambush and killed three thousand blue fans in the streets of Constantinople.
That's a bit much. I'm gonna say they took it too far that time.
This is some serious shit. You don't have these people have and poison
the trees. They killed the fans. Yeah, yeah, so that was
pretty big. Wait you say that, but not the biggest. No,
there's more. Oh god, Okay, So the emperor Justinian enter him,
he's at he's next. I don't know if he's immediately next, but he's
like within the next two. He is, by all accounts, considered the
best emperor in Eastern Roman Empire history. Um, he basically like two famines
under his reign. There was only one Black Death. We talked about him
before Justinian's plague, during the worst years to be alive from human history.
Oh, he was. He was under that, yeah umbrella. He was
in part of that umbrella. Yes, so he's one of the best,
but he's also his worst year is the worst of all the worst. His
black death doesn't really his fault. Can't only put that on him. I'm
kind of putting it on with it on him. Yeah, alright, he
didn't react fast enough. It's actually Prairie dog's faults, varmints. What without
Black Death? It's something it's some weird animal. It's it's not it's more
so than rats. It's another animal, penguin. It's not a penguin either,
that's us. That's at the penguin. Yeah, it was some sort
of like periodog animal. It's a marmot. Okay, yeah that they did
the Black Death. They're actually thinking it's like either marmot or like, uh,
some sort of beaver like but it just happened to get to rats and
rats like blew it up perfect. Yeah. So like everyone blamed bats,
but it was really penguins, was it. Yeah, penguin's wasn't a lab?
I heard it was a lab? Oh yeah, yea chocolate lab.
Yes, yeah, but yeah. So the Justinian best emperor in Eastern Roman
history. He basically reconquered all of Western Rome during his reign, like basically
reunited the Roman Empire, uh most of it. He wrote one of the
most comprehensive legal codes in human history. He did lead the Eastern Roman Empire
into and out of I mean he didn't really get him into but led them
out of the Black Death and oversaw a massive humongous, insane construction projects throughout
the empire that still stand today. Like did like digging mass graves, Yeah,
part of them, beautiful mass graves. The facilities of these fucking graves,
the mosais, Yeah, unbelievable, but all of that was almost derailed
early in his reign. This is what the historian John Malasis. This is
like a contemporary historians from the time John Malasis actually wrote about him. This
is how important chariot racing is. This This is in the first paragraph that
John Malassis, a contemporary historian, John John Mallalyssis, wrote about Justinian,
the most important emperor in Eastern Roman Empire history. In appearance, he was
short, with a good chest, a good nose, fair skinned, curly
haired, round faced, handsome with receding hair, a florid complexion, with
his hair and beard graying. He was magnanimous and a Christian. He favored
the Blue faction. That was worth including in the first fucking sentence about Justinian.
Cherry on top favored the Blue faction right, all of his entire None
of what I just read off would have happened if it wasn't for the fact
that he favored the Blue faction and also the favoring the Blue faction almost caused
all of it to happen. So early in his reign there was oh actually,
let me go back a little bit. First, Justinian was married to
Theodora. That was his wife. The Eastern Roman Empire didn't They didn't really
like him very much because the a lot of like the aristocracy and who even
the civilians and stuff like that, because him and Theodora, his wife,
are of low birth, low wish birth. His uncle was the emperor,
but he's I guess like the poor gross nephew. Yeah, but came to
the throne somehow. So he married Theodora, also of low birth, and
she rooted for the Blues as well. However, that was a bit of
a scandal because it felt like a little bit of a betrayal because her dad
was a bear trainer for the Green faction. Wait, bears, this is
a cheriy race, great question, don't know they have obstacles then track for
I don't know what else these people were doing. Yeah, when when she
got real bad, they do the bear games. Yeah, it's all right,
but more cherio races a trained bears for the Greens. Well, modern
like Russian circus bears. If you can raise a bear, you can raise
the chariot. Yeah, they're if they're riding fucking motorcycles through fires like like
hoop fires, I'm sure they can ride a chariot. You can train these
these bears. These bears are probably part of the team bear races. Yeah,
like you. It's like a you get a shitty car before you can
get a good one. So before they give you a horse, you have
to use a bear on the chariot. That's should you have a bear at
the front of the horses, or maybe like a bear. Actually, here's
the better way. The bears behind the bears behind it, tethered behind the
chins. The bears tethered behind the chariot, and you sick him on the
people behind you. Yeah, right, like the bears. It's like Mario
Kart. Yeah, yes, and a chariot. Yeah, just like Mario
Kart. So Theodora's dad trained bears for the Greens. Cool, but Theodora
adopted the Blues like her husband. Uh justin. Justinian's fandom was actually used
against him by less sympathetic historians. The historian Procopius claimed yes, yeah,
yeah, uh yeah. Modern historians, also the guy with no less name
Procopius. Yeah. Uh, in his work Secret History. I guess this
was all like the dirty things you didn't hear about. That's you know,
what's old because it's called secret history, not of anything, just secret secret
history. Yeah. There were only like eight titles of books back then.
Yeah, and five of them were just variations on Bible. Yeah so truth.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So. He said that Justinian, because
he was a fan of the Blues, let Blues fans kill and rape and
steal at will and also molesque children at will. That's a pretty common smear.
It sounds like a bad guy. Yeah, yeah, sounds like a
real jerk. How good could he have been? Yeah, black death.
Blue fans were also allowed child rape. Yeah this is this is your king,
This is my king. Yeah, this is my king. I'm backing
him. I don't care what you say. Uh. Blue fans were also
apparently Justinian let them like make women have sex with their slaves, defile churches,
all kinds of wild shit. The Blue faction sounds pretty metal, pretty
Yeah. Uh, this is probably bullshit because Justinian was like obsessed with the
law. Like I said, he wrote like the one of the most comprehensive
legal codes in like human history. His name is Justinian. That's not surprising
him. Man, yeah right, it sounds just sounds Justice named after him.
Yeah, yes, yeah, why now I'm pretty sure this historian also
yeah, yeah, what follow the money? Follow the money, connect the
dots, Quibo. Yes, I still don't remember what that means. You're
gonna have to explain it to me. Every time I asked quibono. Every
time someone, some debt collector calls me, what do you have the game?
Like quibono, they're like, sir, the the people who you owe
the debt too, bono, you owe the money? You two, and
like qui bono, And then I just hang up the phone. Anyway,
my house is getting foreclosed. They're sure pumping out more milk. Man,
Yeah, I know. That's why I'm trying to sell this milk. Who
needs milk? My baby's got a stomach and my wife has working bress.
I bet you if you went, I've got some rubber pipe, you could
set up a folding card table outside of the west Lake Gold's gym. You'll
get a couple cups. It's a fly that is a pterodactyl um, but
yeah, oh so Procopius also his other thing. He didn't like Theodora either,
didn't like Justindian's wife. So he said that Theodora, who is of
lowish birth middle class. Maybe I don't know, she got famous in Constantinople
by taking the stage in theaters, what a bitch and filling her vagina and
asshole with rice and then letting geese eat the rice out of her pussy and
asshole. I think this guy might have been lying. I'm gonna I'm here
and say this guy might have had some personal issues that he's lying about.
What a show though, what they call it? The aristocratic yea geese of
all things? So such a mean bird. It's like, if we gonna
have any animal eat anything out of any orifice on my body, it's not
the one that's gonna peck at it. No, No, get a dog
or something like a goose. Do you think the rice was cooked? Do
you think it was dried rice? I don't know which and which is better
to do. You gotta think the cooked rice is easier to stomach. Stuff
in cooked rice is more effort for you, and it's not like you're benefiting
from it. The geese. The geese don't need it to be cooked.
I know, but it's yeah, but I don't think England's benefiting from this
cat que Queet Booner whoa, Well, Theodora's benefiting. He actually getting paid.
It's her job and she can retain us original cam she got famous.
I look forward to that on TikTok if someone wants to get some rice,
the Theodora challenge has challenge like whatever, Yeah, whoever wants to hit do
the Theodora challenge. Send us that. Please send it to Rob. I
don't want to see it. Yeah, send it to me outside as Jake.
You gotta just be nice to the goose. We don't want any like
peta complaints, all right, I mean you gotta run out of content at
some point, right, Like there's only it's like Godwin's law, but with
geese seating rice out of your pussy, at some point everything gets done to
death. You know what's funny? Someone will probably try to do that thinking
it's original, and then we'll be like, actually, fucking idiot tombas well,
according to Procopious. Yeah, Procopius, which sounds like a liar,
like the name just south ohs Procopius. Yeah, that Precopious. Come on,
he was like, she did this and this and this bitch, Like
what the fuck? Obviously that's why there's no way she did that. Yeah,
so that didn't happen. Justinian was also not letting the blues. He
yes, he does. Sounds like a real green boy. Uh. So
the other the aforementioned historian, John Malasis is uh, he doesn't mention any
of that in his history. In fact, chariot racing doesn't even really come
up in his history so much so that chariot racing doesn't come up until it
does come up for second. H but like before that, like none of
that comes up, like like he's talking about other things. Like he mentions,
I don't know if this is how like benign the history was at this
point, and this is before the Black Death and stuff like that, so
there was like a war with Persia at the time, but it was relatively
I guess, I don't know, not much going on, because he mentions
an Italian showman who comes to Constantinople with his psychic dog, like that predicted
the games that No, just in jail, I was gonna say, he's
like the fucking octopus bowl, Like his dog's just psychic. But what does
he pick? And no, not about the games, about anything. It's
like, you're gonna are You're gonna die in the next five years. My
dog will tell you how what does he speak fucking Latin? Look what's going
on? Well, first, like a bar speaking Greek in this area whatever,
it's all the same. Secondly, I don't know how the psychic dog
in five D work. He goes or treat b Yeah pretty much. Now
that's like a horse like stomping his yeah, counting, Yeah right, okay,
so what about this dog? Tell me more? Uh? It was
god. Oh wait, you're saying history was so boring. He just mentions
the psychic dog at some point yea, yeah yeah. He was like,
and there is a psychic dog that showed up at some point, slow slow
decade decade. Yeah that's hilarious. Uh but so yeah, but malaisis kind
of Malasis is kind of towed the imperial line a little bit, so he
was kind of on the other end. There is a good chance that Blue
fans were emboldened by their emperor being a Blue fan, probably got away with
a little more. Also, probably weren't molesting children at will in the street.
Just genocide. Yeah, well, I mean, look, sometimes you
gotta kill three kill the blues. Yeah, sometimes you gotta just on the
wrong end of the genocide. To be fair, there a murderers constantly,
which is how we get into the biggest problem with the chariot racers. So
the background on this what is known as the Nika riots pretty simple. This
is when shit exploded with the chariot racing. There had been some light chariot
racing rioting and some people were murdered. It happens. You go to a
chariot race, it's expected, you expect to get but you take your life
into your own hands. Let's be honest. That's the fun. Dodgers stadium
bleachers, uh, I don't know Alabama chief seats if in an Auburn jersey
like you, there's or an Astros fan going to a Dodgers game for the
first like there were videos a couple of weeks ago. The Astros played at
Dodger Stadium for the first time since the cheating scandal when they beat the Dodgers
in the world. Oh fucking psychos went to the Dodgers game in their Astros
gear. The fight videos were all out. I mean, they weren't seen
this yet. And but like I don't like not to victim blame or whatever,
but like, what did you expect? What was she wearing? Not
to get beat up at a fucking game in Astro's gear with psycho Dodgers fans.
See. It's It's the thing that always blows my mind. It's like,
I'm just so used to like Deep South like crazy fans. I forget
they have crazy fans everywhere like La. Yeah, I'm like, oh yeah,
people used to get stabbed at the Chargers. Raiders get people all the
time. The people. I would actually say, La might be the second
best baseball town in America. They go fucking hard for that shit. Um
number one in New York for baseball. Yeah all right, whatever, uh
just lying, yeah, sorry, all right, real quick. Chariots are
cool. But you know what else is cool? What's that? Rob?
Ghost Bed? Ghost is cool? Ghostbet dot com. We love ghost Bed.
They've been a sponsor with the Drinking Bros. Network, which we are
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They're fucking great comfortable mattresses. They last forever. They're made in the USA.
Every mattress has a twenty year warranty. You can try it out for
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mattress? But also you wouldn't need to anyway, Like I said every time.
I don't know if ghost Bed appreciates it or not, but I actually
don't believe that anyone would mail a mattress back, Like the mattress can't want
to. Yeah, the mattress could be constructed only of like filthy thongs that
your mother is worn, like glued together with the seamen of the men that
took them off of her. Now the red is ruined. Yeah, like
you're like that mattress. But this is a Ghostbed mattress, so you're not.
You're definitely not going to send it back. I'm just telling you,
like not any of those things that Rob just listed off, it's actually really
great mattress. Tom White's great. Rob. They got cooling technology or they're
comfortable shit, but the cooling technology is what's great about here in Texas.
It's so pillows too adjustable bass. If Stuart Scott laid on the other side
of this pillow, yeah, his other eye would probably work. Stewart got
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though by which side of the pillow was the coolest. Did Stuart Scott die
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eye. The world will never know. Yeah, anyway, it's real chicken
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softcore softcore look back to this show. But yeah, so there was some
a little bit of murder from some light chariot rioting and you know, no
maig deal whatever, get over it. Most of the murderers were captured and
executed, but a Blue supporter and a Green supporter who had killed people,
escaped from jail and took sanctuary in a church. Why were there riots,
you asked what it might have been due to At the time, I don't
know if this caused these riots. So there's always riots, but people were
a little extra prickly because Green fans were being accused of awful things like being
blasphemers or Samaritans or Jews. That's a bad one. Yeah, yeah.
Didn't you get called a Jew at a Tennessee game? Got called a jew
pretty hard? It was a hard j jew at a Tennessee game. I
look, if you saw me passing you on the street, you would not
know I was a Jewish person. I would get pretty waspy. Yeah,
like I was boat shoes four inches seems short, five inches seemed short.
It's like Bricks Brothers Poll twenty eleven. Frash, yeah, fat dipping.
I actually bumped into a guy. You guys watch Jew, and I'm like,
whoa are you sure? That wasn't the accent? Like he was just
like watch it chew like you you know it was watch qu No, it
was. It was a hard joo. He was like, watch it Jew.
The stink in his voice came with the jew part, not the watch.
It's really upsetic that he could sniff you out. It's like, do
I smell like Montza again? Like what's going on? That's just like that's
that's such as just finally honed. I was impressed. I was impressed by
his prejudice, honestly, I was like that that's pretty. He could sniff
it out. He got it, knows like a bloodholmet, Like goddamn dude.
Yeah, but can we start referring to people the Jewish background as greens?
Oh? Because yeah, because they root, because the Greens are Jewish?
No, because they love money? A classic yeah, Daniel, good
one. And they were, they were being accused, they were. It
didn't help that they were being accused of these things by um people in Justinian's
camp, right, not Justinian himself that I'm aware of, but it's people
close to in his court or whatever you want to call it. Did that
purp out bud, Yeah, you got it. There we go. So
the Blues and Greens um, despite you know, they murdered each other,
so they were kind of like they wanted their boys to be spared execution.
Sure, they were like fuck this, you know, like we always murder
each other, Like, get over it, Come on, guys, is
it that big a deal? So at the next chariot race, they shouted
in unison, which was uncommon for two fan bases to shout something in Unison
at Justinian for the definitely confirmed murderers to be spared because reasons like really,
it's like, we can kill each other, but we don't like the government
killing us for killing each And as a small government guy, I agree with
that. Yeah, absolutely, let people murder each other. The government has
no place in what kind of bullets I put into anyone else's bodies as long
as they're trying to put bullets into me, and I'm trying to put bullets
into them. If you shouldn't put bullets in If we're consentually trying to put
bullets into each other, what say does the government, right, I don't
need the government to hand out bullets, yeah, or implement them into other
people. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just sick of it, right, sick
of the government getting into that or I guess in this time frame, arrows,
arrows or knives, spears, daggers, it's big days. Vinegar sponges,
Well, that's for different things. That was five years prior. They
were still using those other thing. Okay, technology was a little slower back
then, except for on the cherry it's probably yeah, cherry technology is incredible.
Yeah, chers just looked like a fucking Ford Fiesta back then, just
like they were just going dude. They were much like f one where they're
just putting all this money into their cars. Yeah and nothing and nothing else,
nothing else. Yeah. Um. So this was actually pretty common for
chariot factions to chant demands at the emperor between races, but it was usually
like a faction, So you know, I was going to be like,
I don't know if tom I had just bad at the apple, like lower
taxes or someone else would be like lift this embargo or like free this prisoner
or whatever the fuck. They would they would shout their political or like free
hat yeah, like free hat yeah, like they would lower They would shout
those things. It was rare. They would chant in unison though, like
teams together. So at this point, Justinian was still like a really young
emperor and people didn't necessarily like him because a he had raised the shit out
of taxes be uh those that tax raising hurt the influence and wealth of rich
families. He also kind of cleaned house on like lower levels civil servant stuff,
so people who were like corrupt and making money on corruption couldn't do that
anymore. And also people were just assholes to new emperors. Yeah you should
be. Yeah. Um, so Justinian kind of caves to the mob and
spares these two guys of execution, just execution. Then the mob immediately starts
demanding that these two guys also be pardoned of the murders. They definitely committed.
They already had their execution stayed. So I don't know what else you
would need, but weird that an angry you couldn't appease an angry mob.
You give an angry mob a cookie. Yeah, they're gonna ask for some
milk. That's crazy, crazy that the angry mob free. So uh,
this massive chariot race. The crowd goes from chanting, um, their favorite
color, like the greens will be like green, green, green, really
really inspiring. Chance, these are the first fans ever, you know,
let's go blue. Lower taxes, Yeah, pardon the killers. Yeah,
of self defense. Consensual stabbing. I don't want to go to these now.
Yeah, a consensual stabbing. Well even a chariot game. Yeah,
that the same thing. This is on my bucket list of time travel.
Should show up and yellow. Everyone's like, fuck this guy. Actually,
I'll bring my I'm gonna wear my Saint Louis blues Jersey to the They wouldn't
know what it said, I know, but they'd be blue on it.
Yeah. Uh so that's fine. Um So anyway, the chariot race crowd
after they already got their guys off but not pardoned. So Justiniane was already
like, all right, I won't I won't execute them for the murders.
And now they were like, say they didn't do it a bitch. Yeah,
you won't. You bend at anyone's will, don't you, Justinian?
Yeah, he was like no. So they started chanting nick gun gut,
nique gut, which means victory or to conquer yea, be careful there,
Yeah, yeah, that's something you want to be Nu Greek for victory or
I don't tell you. Then uh, pretty much they were like fuck it,
and they started assaulting the palace, which overlooked the hipodrome. So the
Eastern Room Empire Imperial Palace basically had like a box overlook It was next to
the stadium, next to the hippodrome, had a box overlooking it, so
Justinian could preside over the races or whatever just from his palace didn't have to
leave. So they just were like, fuck it, we're going to burn
this bitch down. For the next five days, the Imperial Palace was under
siege. They were trying to light it on fire. The entire city went
into full riot mode. They were burning everything down. They burned down the
Hagia Sophia, which was like arguably the most beautiful church in the world at
the time. These are Christians, by the way, we were just like
fuck it. Yeah, best emper to ever do it. Huh. This
is early on, all right, he learned after this. This was his
nine to eleven. This is like fucking this is Philly whenever they win anything.
No, this is more Vancouver after they lost Stanley Cup. Yeah,
or La after they win anything. La, this actually gets a bad date.
Or Dayton. Yeah, but Dayton's more controlled. LA would just fuck
shit up? Was Dayton ConTroll? Like Penn State after I got after the
coach gets fired for covering up boy rape. Or Morgantown and now on a
Tuesday. Yeah, but you just have to be angry about living in Morgantown.
Yeah, burn the couch, just do it. Might couches there.
So yeah, they're they're they're essentially and these are all the fans combined.
The Reds the Blues, the Greens, the whites, they are all they
united to destroy their entire city and depose the emperor because they wanted the killers
to be free because two murderers weren't pardoned enough. I love sports, It's
my favorite thing about humans. So it was like just every NFL team come
together against Roger Goodell. Literally, yeah, pretty much. And so for
the next five days, the imperial palaces underseas the city was being ransacked.
Senators and other aristocrats who hated Justinian and his taxes and reforms started funding and
leading the different factions of chariot racing fans to try to like finish the job,
and yet Justin even the fuck out um. At one point they even
declared a new emperor, Hypatius, who was the nephew of Anastasius, the
first, who was the guy who chose the reds to not rock the boat
too much. Man, Yeah, Anastasius was yeah. So Justinian was like,
I thought about fleeing. He was like, fuck this, I gotta
get the funk out of here. They're gonna murder me. But his wife
was like, there's no way I'm going back to getting on the stage.
So I'm not doing the old go again. I'm not letting geese rise out
of my vagina anymore. I'm an empress now, God damn it. I'd
serve my name made it. Yeah. Uh. Theodora was actually like,
fuck this, I'm empress and I will die in empress like I'm not gonna
be ever and I respect that. Yeah. I think her direct quote was,
purple makes a fine burial shroud because purple is the imperial color. Yeah.
That's pretty boss. That's a that's a good I love that. It's
like, I'm not being poor again, yeah, or not even poor.
I'm not being middle class again. I'm rich now fuck out. You know
all good being riches. People are willing to die before not being rich.
It's that good. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a historically accurate statement,
like that's throughout time. So Justinian decides to stay in the palace,
hold up in the palace as the city of city's a chariot racing fans are
pretty much all hanging out in the Hippodrome, which is next door. That's
kind of like their base of operations as they go out into the city and
just murder and loot and everything that they were accused of doing before. They
just do. Now much of the city was destroyed. Like it was bad.
It was not as bad as when the Crusaders sat Constantinople in the twelve
hundreds, but this is probably the worst until then. And then the only
one after that that was bad was the Turks taking it overall. Like I
said, they destroyed the Hegia Sophia and a bunch of other churches. Finally,
Justinian and some of his advisors, including Belisarius, who is arguably one
of the greatest generals of all time, come up with a plan to figure
out how to not have the palace burned down and be deposed, etc.
Did they release the green bears? The Green bears released the green best I
kind of wish they did. Yeah, Theodora's father or Theodosia's father just comes
in with a legion of bears, just handles everything. No, not quite,
unfortunately, So Justinian sends one of his advisors, a eunuch by the
name of Narsis, into the hippodrome, which is where all the murderers are,
with a sack of gold. So essentially a time put a ball less
man with a sack of gold somewhere and historians. Historians noted that he was
of slight build So essentially, Justinian sent a tiny man with no testicles dressing
a bag of gold into an arena full of murderers. That's the best thing
I've ever heard in my life. And I can't imagine it went well.
You'd be surprised what he just started spinning with the gold, so round housing
everyone. The tiny, ballless man with his sack of gold. He went
up to the blue fans and he was like, hey, this is in
case you forgot like Justinian, he roots for the blues too, you know,
like he's with you, Like he's with you guys, like he roots
for the Blues. And also, in case you didn't know, the guy
that the new guy that the senators and everyone want to be crowned emperor,
he roots for green. Yeah, so here's a whole bunch of gold.
Think about everything I just said. Sly. It's a sly move. So
the Blue fans. So he didn't go up to the blue fans as a
whole. He wasn't like, hey, I've got like there's like elite blue
fans. He told them the boosters. Yeah, he went to the boot
the Blue boosters, yeah, right, and then the Blue boosters talk amongst
themselves and then turned around and talked to the rest of the Blue fans.
And then in the middle of Hipacius's coronation, the Blue fans stormed out of
the hippodrome, no longer supporting any of it. And the General Belisarius,
who is essentially like on par with like Patton Napoleon, Like this guy is
a goat in terms of the pantheon of generals throughout history. Him and a
bunch of troops roll in and kill thirty thousand people in the hippodrome. That's
awesome, Just fucking slaughter everyone. That's all the fans. So there are
no fans left. Oh, there's Blue fans except Blue yeah left. At
that point they won. That's how you win chariot racing. Yeah, and
that's chariot racing, right, podcast racing joke. The Blues were playing the
long game past, so that was the Nika riots, which was kind of
the main thing, and chariot racing still um existed throughout the only other thing
I that that's like really of like hilarious interesting. I mean, like these
people were a problem back in the day when you could slaughter people for having
a coup. Jesus fucking shit. That was like pretty much the only I
mean, like that's like the most famous example. These people are a problem
throughout Eastern Roman obviously, just constant riots stuff like that, Like they're a
problem. Where they're a problem, they're a little bit of a little bit
of ba it depends. What's funny though, is during Constantinople's last stand a
good like eight hundred years later, at this point, the Eastern Roman Empire
is essentially just a city state. They've lost all their territory to the Turks,
to Christian other Western nations, everything. It's pretty much just the city.
And they still own the city because it's a really well defended city.
Just the walls alone are incredible. So I'm sorry. This is like nine
years later, So the Turks are approaching and the fourteen hundreds, and you
know, they're ready to take the city. They've got everything else around it,
and you know, the Byzantine Empire, the East from an empire whatever
it is like, well, yeah, the West is going to come to
help us, but we have to defend it in the meantime, and they
don't really have that many troops or anything like that. So they actually arm
chariot teams chariot fans. Okay, so this is where the Green Bears come
in the play. I was about to say, now we get to the
Green Bears. Now we release the Green Bears. Yeah, no, they're
no Green Bears. Release damn it. They are. They are mcguffin.
The Green Bears Are mcguffin in this entire play? Are Yeah? Am I
right on that? No? Red Herring, red Herring, Yes, mcguffin
is the thing that's the plot. But is red Herring is erroneous? Yeah
right, Okay, can't stop thinking about the Green Bears. I know,
I know. I don't know why they're training bears. I couldn't find it.
I want to know how they were involved with the chario' racing. Yeah,
I have no idea, damn it. It's the The Eastern Roman Empire
has these chariot fans man the walls, like, oh, you guys kill
each other all the time. You'll either kill some Turks, but Turkish soldiers
with cannons and guns pretty easy to beat. They would have rocked. Yeah,
they would have gotten rocked if they had John Smith I'm just gonna say
that. Yeah, john Smith would be headed all those Turks one by one.
This is roughly the same time frame. I think john Smith was maybe
born but young. Anyway, you said fourteen hundreds, right, late Foe
would be mid to late fourteen. Was was he a hundred years later?
Oh? No, he was like sixteen. Okay, yeah, okay,
not soon Tiver then anyway, Yeah, the chariot fans were much better at
killing each other than they were at killing well armed and trained Turkish soldiers with
cannons. Get out of here. Yeah. So, um, that didn't
work out so well. Constantinople fell and thus ended the chariot racist chariot racing
once and for all. They've been in decline since at that point. But
yeah, that was their last stand. They didn't do a great job.
No, the city fell. So what team would have you been on?
What's your faction? Uh? You know, I'm going with Blues, Like
I already a route for a team called the Blues, well as a former
charot racer myself during a UCF Greek week. Yeah, I'm a purple guy.
There was no purple team right then. I'm closest to purple blue and
red. I'm in between purple and red. That's the easiest. Yeah,
you're getting you're murdered first. You can't ride. You can't fucking switch hit
teams. Dude, just did I'll see in the parking lot. All right,
perfect, Yeah, you have to come with me. We're both blue.
Yeah, we're blue. It was the fourth team White white. That
was a white team. Yeah, I can't be. I can't be.
The guy's like, I'm the white team. White pride. White have that.
Yeah, white pride work out doesn't usually work out well for a while.
Says that it is all the colors to actually know, yes, you're
right back. I didn't hear anything about the whites, so yeah, quite
a bit throughout history, yet I've never heard about the white sneaky sneaky whole
time, who was left after everything else was done. Yeah, No,
the whites and reds were pretty like B tier. It would be like this,
Yeah, the whites, the whites and reds were pretty be tier teams.
They didn't really get much. And it's type of thing like so you
could switch teams right like writers were like or racers were like free agents.
So if a red or a white racer got pretty good chances are blue or
greens. And by the way, another huge thing is so like I'm you
know, yeah, go whites, that's our show. Well another thing,
it was interesting. I didn't read too much into this, but part of
the economy around cherry racing was not It was gambling, huge, huge gambling.
And obviously this is uh pre any sort of regulatory anything. I mean,
there was regulatory a little bit, but as you can imagine, fair
amount of corruption. I say the fix was probably always in yes, well
only to an extent, because you couldn't fully fix something because thousands of people
would start committing murders right like they had there sounds like that. That's exactly
what happened. I don't have to be on the up and up to an
extent. Well, a lot of times people would be accused other people of
fixing it. Everybody. It was always a riot, always until you send
in the National Guard and pull a Kent state. That's right. Yeah,
they did a bit of a Kent state for sure. Thirty thousand deaths.
By the way, I believe that was like ten percent of the city that
the army just murked in the hippodrome. Really, yeah, that's awesome.
Between that and the Black Death, I feel like, uh, you know,
they did a little population control, that was right, This was all
pre Black Death. Yeah yeah, yeah, they really probably regretted taking out
ten percent of anything before. Really Justinian came into his own after this and
became one of the best emperors in Roman history East or West. It's a
bit of a heat check and then he kind of came back and stronger than
ever. Yeah. You know, it's like you kind of have an awkward
first swing, awkward first shot, and then breakfast ball. Yeah yeah,
for sure, then you get going. But that's all I got for the
cherry race and a just so you know, insane fandom. It's been around
forever, a lot older than you think. Um Um. I learned that
I'm right when I'm angry about sports, and that my ancestors were probably just
that my ancestors were just as dumb. Yeah yeah, yeah. In fact,
we're dumber because these people had so much less to define themselves with.
I yeah, like, there's so many options for us to ours. I
think I'm dumber for not being mad about more sports. Oh you want,
so you want like twenty four seven calendar, like twelve months That's why I
would say that we're not even real sports fans with how little we care if
we're not going to kill somebody over it. I'm just saying, man,
if you know Alabama comes through Gainesville next week, they're gonna embarrass us,
and then I'm going I should be able to just come murder them. I
mean, I have watched you yell at your wife during a Florida Alabama game,
actually during a Florida Albama game and target parking lot. It's a classic
Jake Goleman joke. I've never seen my Yeah, if you've ever seen my
stand up, you know that's a throwback from Dan um. No. Yeah,
I uh my wife went to the bathroom when we threw an interception.
Yeah, and then she came out and said what happened. I was like,
what do you mean? What happened? Why do I have to live
this again? Why why are you making me explain it? There's a replay.
He's like, what happened? You just like leave me a lot Like
I was pretty much the thing. You're like, oh, I ask someone
else. Fuck. Yeah. I've calmed down quite a bit since then.
Sometimes sometimes, yeah, you guys to do abandon all hope. You just
abandoned all hope. Oh I was you. You can ask Katie. I
actually gave up on us thirty seconds into the game because we had a bad
first drive. And she's like, you're it's fourteen minutes in and as like
you're classic one whites. Yeah, classic whites, you know, Uh,
but yeah, damn would you learn I mean we just went back and forth
home what we learned. It's just that, oh, yeah, you're right.
Sports fandom. Sports fandom has been and always will be stupid as hell.
Yeah, I love it, but like we're predisposed to essentially, it's
kind of like tribalism. It's just like you crazy, you're you're naturally geared
to go towards one side or the other. Um, And yeah, there's
no hope for humanity because we're fucking cheering for colors at this point. Like
you just assigned your self esteem to a piece of laundry, Yes, like
a piece of laundry that you have no control over. Yes, you do.
If you do the same thing, if you realize, if you if
your team wins and you follow that same routine every time, your team will
always win. Everyone knows that it's fair. Yeah, that's what I do,
and that sports gambling has been around since you could gamble in anything.
Oh, sports gambling predates this by dollars. Yeah, I'm sure like you
you could see like two turtles racing or just like kind of walking on the
beach, probably been on that. Yeah, I mean there's ancient Egyptian board
games that were like gambling related, so like a sports gambling is much older
than this. I bet you we were betting on when the sun would go
down before we understood how the sun worked. Wouldn't surprise me. Yeah,
I bet it happens in four clicks or whatever we were using though, it's
clicks measure time, clicks, not like distance, but like you just click.
There's like there's like a thing that happens, yeah, or a Dirk
yeah, derk whatever. Yeah, Yeah, it's uh, it's pretty fun
too. I like days are the type of things that make me feel good
about humanity when I like like him, like, dude, what are we
doing or whatever? Like the same ship we have always been always yeah,
same ship we always have done getting ratty about sports. These people are people
like people don't and honestly, if anything, it makes me happy because I
think how much better things are. How often are three thousand sports fans ambushed
and murdered I don't know, in the streets by other sports fan. I'd
argue we have too many options now, so like it would have been cool
if there's only four teams in existence. That's why the SEC is going to
take over all sports. Yeah, everybody merges together. Yeah, yeah,
we are the not the what is another anomaly? The we're the entity.
We just take over everything. What is the entity? I don't know,
but we just take It's not the alliance, I'll tell you that. Yeah,
that's the Mega Blocks. Are you part of the alliance? You're not.
We're Big twelve. So um, we are now in an alliance with
the SEC because you guys have no other choice because you can't play out of
conference games against the alliance team. You don't need to play out of conference
games. Yeah, we're gonna play us. It's kind of part of the
deal for Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC. I'm excited from missoo UCF.
I'm excited for already two and l whatever. Hey, we got a
Florida UCF game coming up to two. Two of them in home at home
ten years. Yep, let's go dumb. All right, that's all I
got for this week. Uh yeah, make sure to rate and subscribe obviously
on iTunes. Um tell a friend about the podcast. Help us grow be
you know, we've got got some mads right now. But it'd be sick
to continue getting Paige paid to do this podcast. Buy our swag software history
dot com. Yeah, software history dot com. From merch we'll get some.
Maybe we get some some chariot racing shirts. Go get Oh, we'll
start making it's just gonna sit. It's just gonna be green shirt or just
go a blue shirt white. That's the shirt. No, and it's and
the back of the shirt will just be a long explanation of why it says
no listen here back in the room. Back in the Eastern Roman Empire,
there were four factions of teams, and it's just a very long textbook explaining
why it's on a racist shirt. We'll make that. Yes, so go
white will be the shirt on the front. Yeah, the back, well,
keep you from being paragraph explaining No, it's gonna be it will run
out of the room. Yeah, well it's explaining it. We're doing that
show that's probably antar Wars intro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all
I gotta check out. Please buy our merchandise, and yeah, rate rate
review. Tell a friend about the podcast. Yeah, I mean that's the
best way to kind of grow this podcast. Just you know, go take
your friends phone, take your dates phone, you go on tender Day,
take their phone, subscribe to our podcast without them knowing. Also, if
you don't like even listening to podcasts, or you've a friend who doesn't like
listening to podcasts, be like, hey do this. Do you have like
an Alexa or something like that, just have them play the podcast for the
dog. Yeah. Yeah, we don't have to actually listen though, Let's
just play it. Let us make money from this so we don't have to
do normal jobs. That's what I'm saying. And if you do like this
podcast, keep listening, tell more people about it, and then we grow
and we could do more shows every week. I could do if I could
do this every day of my life. If you guys listened hard enough,
is all I'm trying to say. You guys need to listen harder. You're
letting Jake down. Yeah, no, I have to you hard work.
I have to actually work stupid, all right, See you guys next time.
For Jake Goldman and Dan Rojester, I am Rob Fox and you just
got soft served.