Dethroned Emperor: The Fall of Valerian, Part 2

So when are we well, we are during this is all taking place during the Crisis of the third century. Uh, this was a period between two thirty five and two eighty four c E. In which the Roman Empire is facing all sorts of internal problems just about following apart lots of of warfare between different would be emperors. Uh, there's near there's almost an emperor every year or during

this period. Meanwhile, in 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 the 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.

Uh 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 of the Sasanian Empire under a Shapur the first And so we talked about the Battle of Edessa. 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 he is a

prisoner of war under the Sasanians. And so this is 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 the 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 an enemy hands so instantly, once Valerian is gets captured, the title of Roman emperor immediately passes on to his son Galileinus. Galilenus 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 has assassinated, that is, Master of to 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 Shahbour the first has it commemorated in rock relief. I think it more than one spot that survives. One of the key ones is this

place called Naxi roust tom. It shows two Roman emperors subjugated by a figure mounted on horseback that is uh supposed to be the first. So the two emperors here are supposed to be Valerian, who of course has just been captured. Also Phillip 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 Taraj Dairy, who wrote this wonderful book about the Sasanians. Go back and um and listen to that episode for for full citation on that source. And he's referring here to Shapu 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. Spur 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 biography as well. Um. Now you'll remember the idea that he killed a Roman emperor. Uh, that is maybe a beefed up claim. Uh. The emperor in question uh 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 like the most contested aspect of the whole scenario, and that is what then exactly happens to Valerian? Uh? You know, we we know that he's not emperor anymore, he is a prisoner of war. But but then what does that mean? What what is going to happen to a supreme ruler in enemy hands during this time? And? Uh?

We have various accounts of what happened. What happened we know, for instance, uh Derry says that the Iranian sources say that he and some senators and soldiers were deported uh into a 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 metropol 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 events, at least to some extent, or events that were believed at Shakespeare's time to be real historical events. Tied to Sandronicus 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, tit Us, the title character, is a Roman general. He's returning to Rome after a long or 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 at managed fratrum, sacrifice his flesh before this earthly prison of their bones, that so the shadows be not unappeased, nor we disturbed with prodigies on earth. Uh. 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 in

passion for her son. And if thy sons were ever dear to thee, oh, think my son to be is dear to me? Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome to beautify thy triumphs and 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 tyed us spare my firstborn son. So the scenario is the this is the queen of the defeated enemy nation that Rome has conquered. She has 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 tit us, don't do it, please, don't do it, but they're going to do it again.

Not 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 uh it paints uh it 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? Uh? 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 of 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 within a tragedy, hyper violent tragedy and revenge story like Titus Andronicus. But she eventually becomes the wife of the emperor Saturdayninists and then they end up. It's oh, it's a whole

big battle there. There's a lot of like slaughtering sons and feeding them to people. But but but 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 Verse and Jettis, who was originally a nobleman of the Arverni tribe of the Galls. Uh So, in the fifty BC, 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 Gaul is an area of western Europe that roughly corresponds to modern day France and uh 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

um I believe he was governor of Gaul. But but he he was he was a military commander, and he was practicing a form of divide and rule, showing favor on some Galic tribes and nobles in order to play them against the other Galic tribes and nobles. And uh, I think it is it's alleged that earlier in this effort verse in Jeerics, this one particular Gallic noble had been on relatively good terms with Rome and with Caesar.

But sometime later in the campaign verse, 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 verse in Genderics, the goals were actually pretty effective at resisting Roman conquest verse and Generics apparently employed a sort of harass and deprive strategy, so uh kind of uh having having quick moving troops, uh, 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. Verse and Genderic said, Okay, now, what we're gonna do is just like burn and destroy and remove all of the food in 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 girls were defeated. Caesar surrounded and besieged Verse and Generics and and his forces at a battle called the Battle of Alicia and fifty two b c E. And, facing certain defeat, Verse and 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 I think also sometimes called Dio Cassius, and Dio Cassius writes as follows, now Verse and Generics 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 see it 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

at 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 opposition 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 do Cassius says at the end of that passage that he was sent to Rome for for Caesar's triumph and then he was eventually put to death. Apparently what happened is he 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 b C. The Four Triumphs, it was a kind of victory parade and festivals, celebrating the conquest of the various nations who had come under Rome's heel Uh to read from Dio Cassius in a different section describing the Four 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 for Nassis, and for Juba in four sections on four separate days. Most of it, of course, delighted the spectators. But the site of Arsenal of Egypt and Arsenal was U was a queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, and that that dynasty was unseated by Julius Caesar around

forty seven b C. E UM. But to continue the quotes, saying of Arsenal, 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 Arsenal, 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 verse and Genderics was put to death was by garrotting, a

kind of ritual strangulation. And I believe in a temple um, 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, and may be released or kept imprisoned, though I believe it's it's interesting that in that passage dou Cassius says that Arsenal was released. I think other historians right that after years of being imprisoned in a temple, Arsenal 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 verse and generics 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. It was like, yes, yes, that was depicted at one point in that series. Oh, I don't think I've seen that, so what did they What do they do to him? And like that they strangle him in the temple? Did they put him on parade? Uh? They either? I think they might. It's been a long time since I've seen this, this show, and I'm not in a big hurry to watch it again, but it has a wonderful cast. I believe they have him depicted strangled, perhaps in 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 Verse and generics was 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 the lad 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 than Alright, So that leads us back to Valerian, and certainly it doesn't It doesn't look great for him at this point based on what we've covered thus far. Uh, for starters, he certainly died in captivity. There's no version of the history here in which he escapes that fate. Um,

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. Um, you know, in which that version of of history serves some purpose or another. But we'll getna, you know, we'll get more into that. But you might remember in our Path stepisode we talked about Lea how how was the defeat at the Battle of the Deaths

a 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 Sasanians were deceptive, uh and 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 how the various histories have mentioned the death of Valerian in Sasanian 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 Leuctonscious, who lived to fifty three five UM, things were pretty grim for Valerian. And we have to mention, though, that the thing about like Conscious is he has a whole acts 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 at a translation here. And presently Valerian, also in a mood of like 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 received 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 conde shtion of slavery for support or 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 a pause right there. I love how in this account Lectantius has uh the has the king of the Sasanians here basically turned to the reader and say, this is true. I'm not making this up. Don't believe those Romans. That's

good anyway, Electanious continues here. Valerian lived for a considerable time under the well merited insults off 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 died with remillion 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 spoils of their captived 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 after his torment is in it, which again Lactantius is saying totally justified. Uh, we don't know if if what he's saying here has any basis in fact, but he's claiming that this he got his come up and for for being a persecutor

of Christians. And when it was all done, his skin was removed from his body, was died red and then was placed in the temple of the gods of the barbarians. Right right, pretty horrendous. And and again I do love how he has U Sabu basically break the fourth wall and say, hey, Christians, this is the real story. Don't believe what anyone anyone 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 source here. This was published in Classical Quarterly in two thousand six from Erica Rhiner, titled The Reddling of Valerian, and according to Rhiner, Ryan Reiner writes that the like conscious 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 in some case add more uh more more details

to this particular count. She points out that only a single account, that of Agatheus, who lived five thirty through two, says that Valerian was flayed alive. Uh this is there is the only account where that extra detail is added almost in like a sort of like I can't just retail that story. I've gotta I gotta make it a little grizzlier. And so there's an upping of the anti here. Later some commentators, including Constantine, um add the detail that

and then well, this is sort of the detail. I guess h that he was embalmed, that Valerian was embalmed, um that that there's some uh, you know, attempt to preserve the body. So it's interesting, I guess if we're getting u info about not info claims about this from Constantine, is Constantine trying to add on, like jump on the bandwagon of like, here's how Valerian got what he deserved because Constantine was of course the first Christian Roman emperor.

I mean it basically falls, you know, 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 maybe uh uh, you know, cashed in from time to time and speeches and so forth. Now, another account, this was from Peter the Patrician, who lived five through five. Uh. This this kind of backs up

the whole idea of of the skin having been preserved. Uh. 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

and history of things like this occurring. Um, and it continues to echo through our fantastic fiction and our you know, grizzly entertainments. But then the dying of it read what does that mean? Like? What is there something lost in translation? Is there some sort of a Uh, this is something

you know, strange picked up in the telling of this tale. Uh. Rhiner 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 a 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, Rhyner 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 through seven oh five b c. Is said to have inflicted such a fate on his enemies by his own recorded word.

He boasted of having defeated King's flade and their skins dyed red as red wool, and Rhino discusses this for a bit and asking questions about that sort of the linguistics of the matter. You know, red as blood, red as sunset, red as the horizon, and it is it has remained a mystery than it is such a strange claim that this idea that the the the flade 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 Hallow feel bacteria.

Here's that science angle that we've been we've been mentioning. So Wood says, you know, there's really no clear explanation why Shebour would have died the skin of Valerian. Read he acknowledges Reiner's thoughts regarding the flaying tradition, but then says there's another possible explanation, and it goes like this.

If Shebour 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 Shebour had ordered Valerian skin to be not only flayed

but preserved. I think this comes back to what you said earlier about Constantine making claim that, uh that he was embalmed. Woods writes that the verb constantine uses here for preserve in this con text 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 would use

lots of salt. Uh now. Woods cites a couple of scholars named Land and Hoaxteing to point out that sometimes the salt curing of a hide would be compromised if the product was contaminated with a hallow felic bacteria hallow fhelic meaning salt loving bacteria 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 Um. And it's called that because the byproduct of the presence of these micro organisms 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 hollow philic micro organisms. Robbi 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 and it's taken into 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, but definitely. Uh, you get this 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 hollow philic bacterial contamination there, and it looks like yes, this absolutely is in fact a problem in the 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 brind bacteria can still grow. These are a particular type of bacteria which are hollophilic 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 um enzymes that dissolve proteins. Now, this article also offers preventative measures to to keep away putrefactive bacteria, the kind of

bacteria that would cause leather to actually rot. But they say, you know, for red heat there they're not really as many things you can do. I guess maybe it's harder

to keep out um. But anyway, I kept looking more into the idea of these red halophiles, the salt loving bacteria, and one 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 of red colored halophiles are actually now classified as archaea. Now, Archaea are very similar

to bacteria in many ways. They're both lineages of single celled organised ums 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 they're both single celled organisms. For in a lot of ways, Archia are just sometimes referred to as a type of bacteria UM.

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 membranes, are different. But another common feature relevant to this discussion is that archia are most often found in extreme environments that are

less friendly to other earth life. So archia 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 red in color. Uh, And I found a paper that at least identifies a common biochemical factor. So uh. This paper was by Harran Orn and Francisco Rodriguez val Era, published in f e MS Microbiology Ecology in two thousand one, called the contribution 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. Assaultern 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. Uh 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 solar saltern pools usually reveals that there's very little microbial diversity. They tend to be dominated almost entirely by hallow feel like archia like we're just talking about. But hallo feel like

archia 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 micro organisms have literally been implicated in causing the red coloration. You've got hallophilic archaea of the family hallo bacteria sy and the unicellular green alga Dunaliella selina. The main pigments of the hallow bacteria cy r C fifty carotenoids mainly alpha bacteria rubrin and derivatives, while Dunaliella

accumulates massive amounts of beta carotene under suitable conditions. The relative contributions of red archaea and beta carotene rich Dunaliella cells to the coloration of saltine crystallizer ponds have been studied. In the past, beta carotene was often found in quantities greatly exceeding the archaeal bacteria ruberns. In spite of this, the optical properties of the salter and brines were determined

primarily by the archaeal community. This apparent discrepancy was explained by the extremely small in vivo optical cross section of

the beta carotene in dunali La 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 archaeal pigments, which are distributed evenly on the cell membrane and The study also did find a small presence of halophilic bacteria in some salt terns, but not others like it found uh, actual halophilic bacteria of a type called saline bacter that

was present in the crystal 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, uh, those red and orange orange colors are generally going to be a result of carotenoid pigments and uh. And of course

you know when you eat a red carrot. Uh. 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, this dying red of the of

the high of Emperor Valerian. If that is actually some ancient commentator looking at the skin seeing it's red and then mistaking it being colonized by hallophilic Archaea for it being dyed red on purpose, then what's causing that red color is probably part of the same family of pigment compound, the carotenoids that make your carrots red or orange fascinating.

So so yeah, it seems very uh biologically possible that you could have an attempt to preserve the hide like this uh flamed 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 um, the centner of this hide worker that's suddenly called in one day to the palace and you and you find out you have a particular task ahead of you, you need to preserve the skin, and then it ends up

turning red like how do you how do you spin that? How do you sell that? I? Yes, or your majesty, um, might this look better if it were red? Think about it. I think they think about all the connotations of the of the color um really really get him on board with this, make you think it was his idea before presenting him with this hide that uh ended up turned in this color on you, right? So anyway, that's what would Woods argues in this letter that maybe the ancient

reports are mistaken. It was not actually dyed red. Shubar 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 rites quote the importance of this discovery is that it confirms that the ultimate source of lactantious information in this matter must have seen Valerian skin firsthand. He then made the understandable but erroneous assumption that Subber 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 as source would have seen it firsthand, but I'd agree it makes it more like yeah, yeah, absolutely, um and uh. And again, on one hand, we have, of course the older account from Sargon that that you know, reminds us that such horrendous things did occur in the ancient world

and uh. And then this is something that Rehiner gets into a little bit as well, you know, pointing out that, okay, we have we have these two alleged incidents of flaying and the reddening of a of a skin, but they occur about a thousand years apart um. But Rehiner contends that either perhaps there is some truth to the le conscious account, or perhaps there's this kind of cultural memory of Sargon's deeds. Ultimately, I think you could spend this is see this is kind of a trope about the

evil things that Eastern kings do to defeated emperors. Um. Uh, there's you know some memory of also 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 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 some other accounts. Uh. There's the the writer Eutropiusts, 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 Shapoor, king of Persia, and being soon after made 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 he died there. Uh. He was already by you know, by many accounts, an older man, he was in his sixties. And how long is he gonna live in captivity? Uh? In enemy captivity? Now to Rajdari also gets in on this and seems to side with this interpretation as well, Uh, that that he the Valerian and some of his men were sent back uh into Sasanian territory, into Bishopur and modern Iran, where one of the card reliefs there show him kneeling before the

mounted king. In this area would become known as Valerians prison. And I also can't help but wonder this is just me here that this isn't anything any of these authors were discussing. But again we have these rock reliefs showing Valerian bowing uh in Roman Emperor's bowing before the the king of the Sasanians who has mounted on horseback. I wonder if if it's possible that you can 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 list is having lived till two sixty Uh. 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 uh removed, or some

more extravagant means of execution. Uh. Either way, Yeah, you tend to see two sixty or two sixty four Uh. So, yeah, he might have just lived out the rest of his life in prison. Uh, he may have been made a maker off. 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 where anything any of these accounts seem possible, you know. Uh, And and ultimately we'll never know what actually became of Emperor Hilaire. Now here's a possibility you probably haven't considered. What if he was fully externally colonized by hollow fili Archia before he died, 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. Uh, maybe Valerian removes his own skin, then escapes and has someone else to wear that skin after he has left. You know, it kind of does a little Hannibal Lecter thing there, or reverse Hannibal Lecter. Well, it's like face off. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it could be like face off, except it's like whole skin off. Next

Nicolas Cage role playing Valerian. You know. In 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 by these various rulers, I was reminded of all. I kept being reminded of this line in Dune. In the novel Uh, this is a depicting a scene that is in the recent part one film that came out. Uh. Though this exact line of dialogue

I don't think is present. But basically, the Harconans have moved against the Treedes, and we have that scene where the baron has Leto trades 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 towards 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 royalty 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 and death is never that far away, and the shadow of of uprising and dethronement, you know, is always present in the mind of any ruler, even one who enjoys

a rather secure rain. Uh. You know it's it's say, um take Otashir the first you know, he he was able to retire and uh 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 in and I guess you get into some of that Shakespearean morality as well, like the mistreatment of 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 those around us who may one day be the ones to rise

up against us. Uh. And it's it's an interesting moment in in Herbert's doone as well, because you know, obviously the baron harkonan or or or hearkening to be more authentic here. You know, he's not if 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 there's this and and of course in the world of June, you know, these great

houses are are connected in various ways as well. All right, well, I guess we're gonna go and close this out here. But I greatly enjoyed this examination of of history and histories concerning the fall of Emperor Valerian. Um. I I apologize if I messed up any pronunciations in this. We had to to to juggle uh two different tongues here, uh, and I hope that I didn't get anything wrong to try to try to make sure we hit the pronunciations correctly. You're a lot of names today. We I think you

did good well. Thanks uh oh. And by the way, that taraj Dari. That book is Sasani in Iran too through six fifty one, a d portrait of a late antique empire from Mazda Publishers, who came out in two thousand and eight. Uh. It's it's a really good read. I recommend it for anyone's interested in this time liime period in this particular dynastic Um rule. Uh. It's it's a not a very not a very thick book, very readable,

has some 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 uh, preserving hides and leather and so forth, and perhaps you can weigh in on this reddening that we've discussed. Uh and uh, hey, let us know if there are there are other episodes

in history you'd like us to cover. I don't know, maybe there's some some other dethroned emperors 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 how 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 a 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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