Episode 102: The Classical Era, or “That Time Everyone Plagiarized Persia”

Welcome back to the Anti-Social Studies Podcast, a place for people who wish they had stayed awake in high school. Last episode, we started off our trek through world history with the discovery of agriculture and the rise of river valley civilizations. If you haven't listened to episode one, I highly recommend it, but you are also welcome to jump in if you too like to live dangerously. Today, we're looking at an era in history that comes up in modern conversation all the time. Some relics of this era have made a reappearance lately, like the Olympic Games and the Silk Road, although that second one has turned way darker than the one we're going to talk about today. Thanks, internet, for ruining everything. Others like the Colosseum or the Great Wall are literally still standing and show up in your Facebook news feed to remind you that some friends your age apparently don't ever have to go to work. Like, what? Also, if you like what I'm doing, please subscribe to my podcast so you will know when the next episodes are up. And if you really like what I'm doing, then go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and give me a review. Thank you so much in advance. All right, enough business. Let's get to history. Today, we're going back to the classical era, or as I like to call it, that time everyone plagiarized Persia. We'll figure out why Cyrus and Alexander were so great, how Athens got all that nice stuff, and why the nation of Iran was so upset with Gerard Butler. This is Antisocial Studies. I'm Emily Glanckler. Settle in, and let's go back in time. Act 1, Anatomy of an Empire. First, how is the classical era different from the ancient era? What changes at around 600 BCE? The key word here is complexity. These new civilizations are built on the foundations of the ancient era river valley civilizations, but they have grown up and are far more complex. World religions developed during this time period, detailed written records become far more common, and trade expands from being between adjoining regions to being hemispheric. For example, we used to think that trade routes like the Silk Road were never really traveled end-to-end by one person. Instead, there were various nomadic groups who hadn't given up the Paleolithic lifestyle who would facilitate trade along the way. But just a few years ago, archaeologists discovered what could be the remains of an ancient Chinese person in London, which would mean that there was at least one instance of someone traveling the entire Silk Road from end-to-end. Pretty cool. But the most important way that this era is different is that the smaller kingdoms of the ancient era were built on the foundations of the ancient era. So, what's the most important way that this era is different is that the smaller kingdoms of the ancient era were built on the foundations of the ancient era. have grown, expanded, and taken over outside groups. In short, they have become empires. The poster child for empire building is Persia. The classical era begins at 600 BCE because this is around when the Persian Empire was formed. For context, the Roman Republic gets established about 91 years later, but it's going to be another 500 years before it officially becomes the Roman Empire. We'll get there. And the Persians do such a good job of developing methods for maintaining control of their empire that essentially every other empire in human history is going to in some way copy them. The main person we have to thank for this model is Cyrus the Great. Cyrus was the founder of the Persian Empire, and he is nicknamed the Great for a few reasons. First, he instituted a policy of tolerance over the people he conquered. He allowed them to maintain their local identities, religion, culture, governing structure, as long as they paid tribute or taxes to him, and as long as their leaders acknowledged him as the King of Kings, or Shahan Shah. If you know anything about modern Iran, this is where the term Shah, or King, comes from. Another reason why he got to be a "the Great" is because of what he did for the Jews. Judaism was established back in the ancient era. Remember the first city of Ur where Abraham lived? According to religious literature, they had ruled themselves at one point, but had been cast out by various Mesopotamian city-states who were expanding and conquering surrounding areas. The most famous instance of this is called the Babylonian exile. However, when Cyrus conquered the area known generally as Mesopotamia, he freed the Jews in Babylon, earning him the title Messiah. He's the only non-Jewish person to be called that in the Hebrew scriptures. He even gave the Jews money and support to return home and build the Temple of Jerusalem. Pretty great, huh? Cyrus was succeeded by his son, who wasn't that great, and then by a guy named Darius. It's spelled like Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish, FYI. I refuse to accept Darius Rucker as a solo country artist. While Cyrus was famous for creating the empire, Darius did the work of establishing systems that would unite it, both culturally and physically. So let's look at what Cyrus and Darius did in Persia, and also some other things. Like I mentioned before, the Persians established a principle of social tolerance. Citizens were all awarded equal rights as long as they paid taxes, which was incredibly forward-thinking for the time. Remember, we're talking about 2600 years ago. Tolerance was an important strategy for gaining support, and it worked so well that revolts were very rare in the empire. Politically, the Persians realized that the key to maintaining control over such a vast landmass, at their height under Darius, they ruled from Libya to Pakistan. This was to delegate. They divided up the empire into administrative provinces called satrapies that were ruled by satraps, or governors. Joke break, what did Admiral Akbar say when he met the Persian governor? It's satrap. Come on, that was a good one. With its federalist system, governors are responsible for what's going on in their state. Everyone just calls it something different and claims they came up with it. Delegation is an effective way to maintain your empire, as long as you can keep an eye on your satraps so that they don't get any ideas. Since the Persian empire was so massive, they had to modify their natural environment to create physical unity. The best example of this is called the Royal Road. This road and its offshoots created a web across the empire, and it served many different purposes. Optimistically, people could travel and trade across the empire more easily. Taxes could be collected much more efficiently, but also the leader of Persia could send out a military quickly, or more commonly, his spies. Since he didn't have the power to read everyone's emails yet, Darius set up a really efficient postal service to improve communication, but also to send out people known as the king's ears, who could report back if people in a province were growing restless or a satrap was becoming too powerful. The Persians extended their tolerance to religion, too. Conquered people were allowed to keep their beliefs, but many chose to convert to the Persian religion. The Persian religion was called Zoroastrianism. It was an incredibly attractive religion for a few reasons. One, it was the official religion of Persia, and it's typically beneficial to be the same religion as your ruler. Two, it introduced new ideas like free will and heaven and hell. Remember, most of the people conquered by the Persians were Mesopotamians before. Remember that their religious outlook was incredibly dark. There was no good option after you died. You just died and ended up in a gloomy, dusty afterlife. Three, even though Zoroastrianism had one main god, they explained that the worship of all other deities could eventually flow to Ahura Mazda, so local people could retain a lot of their religious practices and get all the benefits of this religion. Four, even though Zoroastrianism had one main god, they explained that the worship of all other deities could eventually flow to Ahura Mazda, so local people could retain a lot of their religious practices and get all the benefits of this religion. Five, even though Zoroastrianism had one main god, they explained that the worship of all other deities could eventually flow to Ahura Mazda, so local people could retain a lot of their religious practices and get all the benefits of this religion. Six, even though Zoroastrianism had one main god, they explained that the worship of all other deities could eventually flow to Ahura Mazda, so local people could retain a lot of their religious practices and get all the benefits of this religion. and especially about Persia is from a few Greek historians. The most famous is named Herodotus and he is considered the father of history. So really what we know about them is pretty one-sided. It's from the Greek perspective, but more on that in a second. The Persian Wars were actually a series of three conflicts over a period of 50 years. It started when the Ionian Greeks revolted and they were supported by a fleet of ships from Athens, but then Persia invaded Greece twice and were amazingly held off twice. The most famous example of this is the Battle of Marathon. The Persians had invaded the Greek mainland and the Athenian army met them at a field near a town called Marathon. The story goes that the Greeks needed reinforcements and so they sent their fastest runner, Pheidippides, Dib's baby name by the way, like Pheidippides, eat your green beans. Anyway, they asked him to run to Sparta and ask for reinforcement. According to Herodotus, the Spartans claimed to be in the middle of a religious festival so they couldn't make it. Damn Sparta, that. The distance between Marathon and Sparta? You guessed it, 26.2 miles. Except that actually, it's not. So not to ruin this story, but allow me to ruin this story. Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta, which was 140 miles, which is way more impressive, but not a marathon. Then after the battle, the Athenian army marched back from Marathon to Athens, which was around 25 miles, and they marched really fast so that they could cut off the Persian navy's attempt to beat them there. These two stories get mixed up, but they're both very similar. The Persians were mixed up, and we eventually just decide to call a 26.2 mile race a marathon. Oh well, we were close, I guess. But still, this battle of Marathon ended the first Persian invasion of Greece. But what I really want to talk about is the movie 300. I think it's one of the more interesting and surprisingly useful Hollywood depictions of history ever, if you know what you're watching. So first, 300 tells the mythical story of the 300 Spartans under Gerard Butler, or King Leonidas, who held off the terrifying Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. Okay, well, for starters, there were 300 Spartans, but like a thousand other Greeks too, but let's pretend we don't know that because the 300 version of the story is way better. The movie 300 is a Hollywood version of Greek accounts of the battle. So you're basically watching a more entertaining version of a primary source. Yeah, there are tons of liberties taken, but you can do that when you're talking about something so old that there aren't a ton of other sources to prove you wrong. It's fun. The main issue is that you're watching, quote-unquote, history from the Greek perspective. So if you're aware of, this, it's pretty cool and you can learn a lot, but if you aren't and you just think that this is what happened, then the Persians come out looking pretty, how should I say this, terrifying and creepy. So in the movie, Xerxes is an insanely tall, like, Mr. Clean with eyeliner who makes his slaves carry him wherever he goes. The creepiest thing about him for me are his hands. So in the scene where he talks with Leonidas, he keeps putting his long, spidery fingers on Gerard Butler's shoulders in a way that makes me feel like I'm watching something. I shouldn't be. Either way, it's obviously an unfair portrayal of Persia, especially now that you know what an impressive civilization they were. Sure, Xerxes wasn't great like his grandfather, Cyrus, and yeah, maybe he did try to seduce his brother's wife for the hell of it, but he also built up the empire, including the capital city, Persepolis. Anyway, long story short, Iran was irate when the movie was released and claimed that Hollywood had, quote, opened a new front in the war against Iran. But back to history, beating the Persians ushered in the height of the war against Iran. And so, as you can imagine, the Persians were of the golden age of Greece. This is what you're probably picturing in your head any time you hear the word Greece. Togas, columns, socrates, all that good stuff. During the Persian Wars, the city-states had created this thing called the Delian League, which is basically a Greek NATO to unite and defend against the invasions. The center of this league and its treasury was supposed to be the city of Delos, but a guy named Pericles had different plans. After the Persian Wars were over, Pericles moved the treasury to Athens, where he essentially stole the money to beautify his own city. And so, as you can imagine, the Persians were really, really, really, really, really, really, So, in Athens, this is known as the Age of Pericles, and it's great. In every other city-state, I don't know what it's called, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to say it out loud without losing my clean rating from iTunes. The rise of a powerful Athens sparks tensions, especially with its main rival, Sparta. More on that in a second. Thanks to all that money from the Delian League, Athens becomes the center of Greek culture. You know the drill. They invent drama, including comedy, tragedy, and satire. There was a guy named Aristophanes, who was essentially the John Oliver of his day. He mocked Athenian politicians and earned himself the nickname, the father of comedy. The Athenian marketplace, or Agora, also becomes the center for what must have been an incredibly annoying group of philosophers. Socrates, or Socrates, as I prefer to call him. Again, Bill and Ted, watch it. Keanu Reeves. Okay. Socrates is the most famous. He would sit on the steps of a building and ask questions to anyone who would walk by, hoping to engage them in a never-ending discussion, where he just asked questions until the other guy probably wanted to smother him with his toga. Socrates was eventually tried and convicted of corrupting the youth because he was teaching them to question Greek tradition, especially religion, and he wanted the young people to focus more time studying the natural world instead of honoring the gods. This was not okay, and so he was forced to drink poison. You know, pretty standard stuff. This golden age comes crashing down with the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The Spartans obviously win. They're a society built to win wars. Young children who were considered weak were left on a mountain to die. Kids started training in military boarding schools at age seven. Young children won, and they conquered other groups and forced them to do all the agricultural work just so that their men could be full-time soldiers even during peacetime. Side note, Sparta was way more equal in terms of gender roles. I think a lot of times Sparta gets a bad rap because they're so militaristic, but this is one thing where they were straight up better than Athens. Since the men were constantly away fighting, the women were trusted to run the homes and sometimes the government. This is very different from Athens, where women were not allowed to leave the house without a male guardian, and even then they usually could only leave for a few days. The Spartans were very different from Athens, for religious ceremonies and funerals. So Athens gets a glowing reputation later, mostly thanks to Renaissance artists and thinkers who are going to love their emphasis on art, culture, and philosophy, but we'll get to that in a few episodes. So the main reason why the Peloponnesian War is important is because of what happens afterward. The war weakens all of Greece and leaves them completely vulnerable. Enter a guy named Alexander. Alexander the Great was from a place called Macedonia just north of Greece. They were a military society, kind of like Sparta, and they had just successfully conquered Greece week from the Peloponnesian War. But Alexander's dad, Philip, still wanted to make sure he learned culture in addition to military strategy, so he did what any rich parent does. He hires a tutor, but he doesn't hire just any tutor. He hires freaking Aristotle to tutor his son. This instills in Alexander a deep love for the military, and he's a very good tutor. He's a very good tutor. It's really thanks to Alexander, a non-Greek, that Greek culture gets preserved and spread all around the regions that he's going to go conquer. Having one of the most famous philosophers of all time as his personal tutor also gives Alexander a pretty intense superiority complex. After his dad, Philip, dies mysteriously, some think Alexander plotted his assassination to take over. Alexander becomes the leader of Macedonia and Greece, and he is super young. He's going to do all of this that I'm about to talk about like in his 20s. He looks across the sea at Persia, this powerful, long-standing civilization and things. Yeah, I can conquer that. And the annoying thing is that he does. So Alexander comes to control Egypt, Greece, and all of the Middle East. He wanted to conquer India too, which in the Greek worldview would have meant that he had conquered the entire world. The Greeks believed the world ended in India. And he probably could have, but after years of marching his troops around the Middle East, they were like, dude, can we please go home? So they stopped at the Indus River. Remember this for next episode. The threat of an Alexandrian invasion is going to be all the motivation India needs to get their act together. There are a lot of great stories about Alexander. His soldiers worshiped him. There's a document talking about how his troops have been marching without water for days. Alexander was given a canteen from some of the last reserves they had, and he stood up in front of his army and poured it out. If his troops couldn't drink, then neither would he. To me, this just seems really wasteful, but his message to the troops was that he was one of them. The only difference was that he got to name everything they conquered after himself. Alexander literally named 70 cities after himself, the most famous being the Alexandria and Egypt. He also named one city after his beloved horse, Bocephalus, who he had tamed at the age of 12. This is really nice for the horse, but probably really frustrating to his generals, who I'm sure would have loved to have a city named after them, but they'll get their day when he dies. Alexander's strength as a conqueror made him weak as an empire builder. And this is something we'll see throughout world history. Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Daenerys Targaryen, they all find that conquering is the easy part, but building and maintaining an empire that lasts beyond your death is really tricky. Again, can we just appreciate how good the Persians were at this? Okay, you get it, I'll stop. When Alexander died, he hadn't put in place a succession plan. He was killing it and making plans to conquer Rome. And a combination of his superiority complex, being worshipped by his subordinates for so long, and the fact that he was only 32, made him think that he would never die. And then he got a fever, and he died. His empire fell apart with different chunks of it going to various generals. The most important for our story is Egypt, which comes under the rule of a guy named Ptolemy. It's spelled with a silent P at the beginning. He starts a dynasty of rulers who are not actually Egyptian, but rule as king, queen, pharaoh, whatever. And one of them, Cleopatra, is going to get herself very, should we say, involved in the affairs of the last major Western civilization we're going to talk about today. On to Rome. Act 4. All roads lead to Rome. Okay, there are a lot of Rome fans out there who are going to be upset by how many great crazy important things I skip. Every year, I have run-ins with my Latin students who are scandalized that I don't think it's particularly important that we understand the inner workings of the Senate and patron-client relations. For that story, check out my post at antisocialstudies.org. For today, I'm going to focus on the few people and events in Roman history that you've probably heard of and thought, damn, I really should know more about Julius Caesar than just his pizza and salad empire. First, there are some great legends about how Rome was populated. Originally, there were people living there called the Etruscans, and they were ruled by a king. At some point, other people show up and eventually overthrow the monarchy and set up a republic. The typical myth says that the city was founded by the brothers Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a she-wolf, which is the myth I prefer just based on the mental image alone. But there's also a really cool theory that maybe those people who showed up were actually the remnants of the Trojans, who had been forced out of their city after the war with Greece. The idea is that they essentially walked all the way around the sea, down the Italian peninsula. So maybe the Romans were actually the descendants of the people who literally looked a gift horse in the mouth. Either way, the Roman Republic gets set up in 509 BCE. For context, Darius was ruling the Persian empire and building his royal road. In Greece, the last Athenian tyrant fell in 510 BCE, just one year earlier, paving the way for Athenian democracy. Considering how long history is, it's pretty crazy that the two most forward-thinking forms of government of all time, the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire, are the ones that were established within just one year of each other. I wonder if the Athenians felt like the Romans stole their thunder. Rome lasted as a republic for 500 years. While Greece and Persia are fighting their war, Rome is starting to expand its influence across Italy. About 100 years after Alexander swept through and conquered both Greece and Persia, the Romans are looking to establish dominance in the Mediterranean, which is somewhat of a power vacuum after the breakup of Alexander's empire. Their main rival is a city in North Africa called Carthage, and they fight a series of wars with them called the Punic Wars. I have no idea why every war in this time period starts with the letter P. Persian, Peloponnesian, Punic, but I can assure you that it bothers no one more than my poor students who are just trying to pass that matching quiz unscathed. It is brutal. The most famous military general of Carthage is a guy named Hannibal, who marched an army of the Pyrenees and Alps into Italy. Oh, did I forget to mention, he did it on war, elephants, like what? How has there not been a movie about this? I mean, there has been a movie about this, but they're all terrible. One of them started like Vin Diesel and was awful, but anyway. He occupied northern Italy for 15 years, but was never able to conquer Rome. And it's partly because the Romans, who were led by a guy named Scipio Africanus, launched a counterattack on his home city, forcing him to return to defend Carthage. When the Romans won the battle, they sacked and completely destroyed the city. Apparently while the city was burning, Scipio Africanus wept for his enemies because he realized that this could one day be the fate of Rome. Supposedly, he recited a verse from Homer's Iliad, quote, a day will come when sacred Troy shall perish and Priam and his people shall be slain. This is why everyone needs a liberal arts education. Like no matter what path your life takes you, the ability to recite classical poetry at a moment's notice will immediately elevate you to badass status, in my opinion. So now Rome is the dominant power in the Mediterranean. And as so often happens, without a clear external enemy, chaos and division arise at home. Around 100 BCE, a guy named Gaius Marius changes the game. Across the Roman Empire, power in the form of land had been slowly consolidated by the rich patrician class. The lower classes or plebeians left for the city of Rome in droves looking for jobs. Side note, one of my favorite like insults to call someone who doesn't really know much about history is a plebe, which is short for plebeians. Like, oh, you're such a plebe, right? If they don't really know anything. I love it because they don't know it and it just confirms that they are in fact a plebe. So Marius was a as an opportunity. He revolutionized the Roman military in many ways by implementing a lot of reforms that I don't totally understand. It's something about military formations. Ask your uncle. I'm sure he knows. But the thing he did that I do understand is that he started collecting these landless peasants off the streets of Rome and giving them a job as soldiers. He offered to pay them in land after they had served Rome. This was new, and it's going to set off a few different chains of events. For one, Rome now has to be in a constant state of conquest to get more land to pay its soldiers, which can only work for so long. We'll come back to this next episode. But more immediately, the soldiers become more loyal to their general, in this case Marius, who had given them a job in the promise of land, than they are loyal to the Roman Republic. Ambitious statesmen start building their own personal armies that they use in power struggles for over the next 100 years or so, like senators would post lists of their enemies and offer rewards to any of their soldiers who killed them, that kind of stuff. Amidst the chaos, there were three influential senators who decided to form an alliance, or a triumvirate, to stop the chaos. These three were Crassus, a rich guy who we will never talk about again, sorry Crassus, Pompey, a senator popular with the elites, and Julius Caesar, a general who had a loyal following of soldiers. In the years of the first triumvirate, Julius Caesar went off and conquered Gaul, essentially modern-day France. He was incredibly savvy and would write about his conquests and send them back to Rome to be read by the masses. Obviously, these were incredibly biased in his favor, and he developed a celebrity status back home, a specially with the lower classes and soldiers. This made Pompey feel threatened, and it caused him to turn on Caesar, knowing that Caesar would have pretty soon have turned on him too, I'm sure. So civil war between Caesar and Pompey ensues, and Caesar famously takes his troops across the Rubicon River into northern Italy. You were never supposed to march your troops into the city of Rome, which is why Caesar crossing the Rubicon was a decisive act that could not be taken back. Caesar wins the fight, and Pompey flees to Egypt. Pompey had hoped to be protected by this boy-king, Ptolemy VIII, whom he had helped earlier. Ptolemy, however, was afraid of the wrath of Caesar, and so he had Pompey assassinated. While pursuing Pompey, Caesar ended up in Alexandria, Egypt, one of Alexander's cities, where he accidentally burned down the famous library that had been built by Alexander's general. Oops. Ptolemy was also in the middle of a civil war with his sister-slash-queen, Cleopatra. She ended up allying with Caesar, in more ways than one, if you know what I mean, and they defeated her brother, and she became the sole ruler of Egypt. Besides her son, Caesarian, named after his father, wink wink, who ruled for a few years, Cleopatra was the last ruler of the dynasty begun by Alexander's general, Ptolemy, like hundreds of years ago. Cleopatra tried to have her son recognized as Caesar's heir when he died, and thus heir to his power in Rome, but that failed, and Egypt was conquered by Caesar's nephew, Octavian. Talk about family drama. After he beats Pompey, Caesar returned to Rome and had himself named dictator for life. This apparently didn't go over well with some of the senators, who decided, just like Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, that we should totally just stab Caesar. So they did, 23 times. But even though Caesar is dead, there's still a lot of people left who are loyal to him. Chaos erupts across Rome as Caesar's allies root out and murder his killers, and another group of three rises and forms a second triumvirate. This is an example of a triumvirate. The second triumvirate is made up of some rich guy, who we won't talk about, sorry, Mark Antony, not to be confused with J-Lo's baby daddy, Mark Antony, and Caesar's nephew, Octavian. They unite and restore order after the assassination, but each eventually want power for himself. Just like the first time, a second civil war ensues between Mark Antony and Octavian. Copy and paste the first triumvirate's fate, Mark Antony flees to Egypt to be protected by Cleopatra. They also created a. Alliance. But they were ultimately defeated by Octavian's military. Cue joint suicide. You know the story. It's Romeo and Juliet. I prefer to picture the Claire Danes, Leonardo DiCaprio one, but I'll leave that decision up to you. So after Mark Antony and Cleopatra are out of the picture, Octavian is left as Caesar's heir and the sole ruler of Rome. And this is the moment that Rome stops being a republic and becomes an empire. I don't know why I did that. It just kind of felt like we needed something for emphasis. Don't you think? Rome had been conquering other land for a while already, so technically they were already an empire, but it's not until they are ruled by an emperor that we officially call them an empire. And this happens when Octavian changes his name to Augustus, or the revered one. It's a little on the nose, right? He's named Princeps, or first citizen of Rome, and he rules over the Senate. So whereas in the Republic, the Senate was the most important governing body, now it's the emperor. In hindsight, we know that this is the moment that the Republic dies. But the people living in Rome at the time, especially the senators even, probably didn't know that. Augustus was really smart, and he let the Senate retain a lot of its power, just under his guidance. It's not until Augustus died and named his own heir that people probably looked around and went, oh, so we're doing that now? All right. The 200 years after Augustus' rule are known as the Pax Romana, or Roman peace. To be clear, it definitely was not peaceful if you were living in one of the provinces being conquered and subjugated by Rome, but there was relative calm in the Roman government. And this is actually a problem that Rome is always going to have. They kind of focus all of their attention on the city of Rome. And so even as they're expanding and conquering all this new land, the most important thing is always what's happening in the city. And sometimes they don't really pay attention or care about the provinces as much as they should. So there's calm in the Roman government. I mean, sure, emperors were sometimes assassinated, and sometimes they killed their mom for good measure. I'm looking at you, Nero. but all in all, Rome was stable and flourished. Maybe next season I'll see you there. do a whole episode on the crazy Roman emperors, but for now, just know that Rome was the undeniable powerhouse of the Mediterranean and beyond. But as we find with all empires, this too shall pass. So what has been going on all this time in the East while everyone in the West was fighting over the Mediterranean Sea? Well, India will unite again, and yay, this time we can read their writing! China will definitely rise, and then for some reason, all of these impressive empires will fall. To be continued. For notes, pictures about some of the things I mentioned, links to sources, and other fun stuff, check out the podcast appendix page at www.antisocialstudies.org. Join me next time on Antisocial Studies as we explore the classical era in the East, or as I call it, they built a great wall and made the Huns pay for it. And don't forget that if you like what I'm doing, please subscribe to my podcast so you will know when the next episodes are up. And if you really like what I'm doing, then go to iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts, and give me a review. Thanks!