February 23, 2022 • 33 mins
Large-scale rioting and mass violence were fairly common in Constantinople when this riot – and then massacre – took place in the year 532. But we have more documentation of the Nika Riots than many of the others.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody. Before we get started, we have a very
exciting announcement, which is two plus years into the pandemic,
we're finally doing a live stream. Uh, taking us a
little bit to plan. One of these were that's gonna
happen on March tenth is when we are having our
live stream, and we are calling it stuff you miss
in history class. Feuds. Yeah, we're gonna talk about some
(00:25):
rivalries throughout history, and you're going to get to weigh
in on who you think really should win the favor
of the crowd and and all of us in terms
of who really was correct in any of those given feuds. Yeah.
We are doing this on a platform called Looped, and
Looped allows us to do some pretty cool stuff, including
(00:45):
having people from the audience ask us questions live on
video you're not really wanting to ask a question on video.
There's also a chat room and we can do a
post show meet and greet. The way this works is
there's an app where Holly and I will each call you.
We got to do that separately because we're still having
a pandemic and Holly and I will not be in
(01:07):
the same place. Yes, so it's kind of a two
for one, you'll get to talk to each of us individually.
It's kind of fun. You will have a little one
on one video chat and you'll get to take a
self eat during the call. That's a little extra you
can add on if you wish. Uh, And it's a
fun way for us to get to chat with you
and reach out and do the kinds of things we
would do at a live show in person, but with
(01:29):
the safety of the internet between us. Yeah. So you
can find tickets to this at looped live dot com.
Click on Upcoming Experiences and it'll take you over. You
can you can click on our show and you can
get your tickets. You can get the Q and A tickets.
We will have early bird pricing for the first ten
(01:49):
days that tickets are on sale, so that is all
the way until March third, and at early bird pricing,
tickets or twelve seventy five and tickets plus of meat
and greet is and then the price we'll go up
for the last week, but the tickets are on sale.
So again that is at looped live dot com, l
O O p E D l i v E dot
(02:12):
com for some live stream tickets. We'd hope it will
be a grand time. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in
History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm
(02:33):
Holly Fry. Way back when I was hosting a show
called This Day in History Class, which is a show
that still exists, I'm just not on it anymore. I
did a five minute episode on the Nika riots and
immediately put it on my to do list for a
full length episode over here on Stuff you Missed in
(02:54):
History Class. Uh, that means it's taken me more than
three years to get to that item on my to
do list. Also, somehow, my time on This Day in
History Class feels like it happened way longer ago than
three years. Yeah, if you had asked me, I would
have said five. Yeah, five feels more correct, but apparently not. Uh.
(03:18):
This was a riot and then a massacre in Constantinople
and the year five thirty two, and a lot of
what happened is pretty horrifying, particularly the way this ended,
and yet it wasn't really entirely unprecedented. Large scale rioting
and mass violence were pretty common in Constantinople and in
(03:39):
the Eastern Roman Empire. More broadly. Around this time, we've
just got a lot more documentation of the Nika riots
than a lot of those other incidents, so they've gotten
more historical attention. So for a little bit of background.
The Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire,
was established when Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire or
(04:00):
into its Eastern and western portions in the fourth century.
The name Byzantine Empire was actually coined in the sixteenth century.
It references the ancient city of Byzantium, which became the
empire's capital city of Constantinople. Today that's Istanbul, Turkey. The
people who lived in the Eastern Roman Empire generally thought
of themselves as Roman, while people living in what had
(04:22):
been the Western Roman Empire generally described those people as Greek.
There is some debate over the term Byzantine Empire. It
has an established meaning within the field of history, but
that's also something of a misnomer that's picked up some
inaccurate connotations. By the time Justinian the First became emperor
of the Eastern Roman Empire, a primary form of entertainment
(04:45):
in Constantinople was chariot racing, at the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome
was a race track that Emperor Constantine the First had
expanded and refurbished, making it into a massive public entertainment venue.
It could hold as many as eighty thousand spectators, although
while doing research for this, I saw estimates UH that
(05:06):
were as low as thirty thousand and as high as
a hundred thousand, So there's that's a little big span,
which though I could hold a lot of people because
had a U shaped track that was about four hundred
meters long, and charioteers would race around a central island
of monuments that ran down the middle of it that
(05:26):
was called the Spina. They usually made seven laps each event.
These events were, as you might anticipate, extremely dangerous. Teams
of four horses pulled each chariot, making tight turns at
speeds of up to forty miles per hour. The chariots
themselves were built for speeds, so they did not offer
(05:46):
a lot of protection in a crash. The track itself
was crowded with horses and chariots, and accidents and deaths
were frequent. At the same time, people who managed to
win these races had the potential to become itch and famous.
Successful charioteers were basically celebrities. But in most cases, charioteers
started racing while enslaved, so starting out they didn't have
(06:10):
any choice about whether to race or which faction they raced, for.
Only the ones who managed to survive ultimately one enough
money to buy their own freedom. Beyond being an intense
and violent public spectacle, chariot races in Constantinople were also
political events. The emperor had a private box that was
connected directly to the palace by a tunnel. The hippodrome
(06:34):
was really the only place that the emperor saw the
common people and vice versa, and it was essentially the
only venue for public demonstrations. The emperor heard petitions at
these events, and people shouted out coordinated chance. That was
something that had originally been part of the experience at
the theater and had kind of carried over into the
chariot races. And then there were the factions, the Blues,
(06:58):
the Greens, the Whites, and the reds. These may have
started out as groups that rented things like horses and
equipment for the chariot races, but over time they had
evolved into competing teams with intensely devoted fans. Over the decades,
historians have put forth various different ideas about whether these
(07:19):
factions had a greater meaning beyond the chariot races, like
whether they were basically political parties, with people choosing which
faction to support based on their own political beliefs and
objectives and their socioeconomic position. Another idea has been that
there was a religious element, like that the Blues were
(07:39):
Orthodox Christians while the Greens held beliefs that could have
been considered heretical. But some argued that it really was
just straightforwardly about the chariot races, with the teams having
really vehemently enthusiastic and even zealous fans. Regardless, disputes between
these factions could be astoundingly island. For example, in the
(08:01):
year five one, the Greens attacked the Blues in the
Amphitheater in Constantinople, killing as many as three thousand people.
But even if these factions really were just about chariot
racing with no greater political or religious or economic meaning,
they still had a political impact. The two most powerful
(08:23):
factions were the Greens and the Blues, and if the
Emperor publicly backed one of them, supporters of the other
were likely to claim that they were being placed at
a disadvantage. A lot of emperors tried to be very
strategic in which faction they were backing. A few emperors
tried to remain neutral, while others, like Anastasius, tried to
(08:45):
stay out of the way of the Greens and the
Blues by backing one of the more minor factions. In
his case, he backed the Reds. Anastasias ruled from four
to five eighteen. His successor was just In the First,
who had been born to a peasant family but had
gone to Constantinople looking for work at about the age twenty.
(09:05):
He had joined the Palace Guard, where he rose through
the ranks, and he also gained a lot of military experience.
But Justin didn't have a formal education or any children,
so he brought his nephews to Constantinople to be educated
and introduced into political life. One of those nephews was
Petrus Sobatius, later known as Flavius Justinianus. Like his uncle,
(09:30):
he's described as having humble beginnings, coming from a family
of peasants or swineherds, but he was gifted. He learned
really quickly. His uncle Justin eventually adopted him, naming him
Caesar and and then Augustus and co emperor in April
of five. When Justin the First died, on August the first,
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Flavius Justinianus became Emperor Justinian the First. He was influential
all through his uncle's Some accounts describe him as basically
running the empire himself while he was Caesar and when
he was Augustus. Justinian's wife was the Empress Theodora, who
was deeply unpopular. Justin's wife, Euphemia, disliked her so intensely
(10:15):
that Justinian put off marrying her until after Euphemia died.
That was in about five twenty four. Like Justinian, Theodora
was from a working class family, but that was not
really the issue. She had been an actress, which was
seen as essentially the same as a sex worker. It
was actually illegal for actresses to marry aristocrats, a law
(10:36):
Justinian had changed so he could marry Theodora. In some accounts,
people's objections to Theodora weren't just because acting was like
sex work. It was because she really was a sex worker.
Theodora was also about fourteen years younger than Justinian, and
people didn't think she acted like a proper empress at all.
(10:58):
Justinian and Theodora both seemed to have put a lot
of value in all the pomp and ceremonial trappings that
were associated with being emperor and empress, possibly because of
both of their non aristocratic backgrounds. But beyond that, Theodora
took an active role in leadership. She had her own goals,
she had her own agenda. She became one of Justinian's
(11:20):
primary advisors. She influenced his decisions rather than just trying
to support her husband as she was expected to do.
She met and corresponded with foreign dignitaries directly herself, rather
than deferring to Justinian on that, and she directly influenced
newly written laws. This included working to pass laws that
(11:40):
would protect women's rights. She also tried to temper some
of his religious views. Justinian was an Orthodox Catholic and
envisioned the Empire as one unified Orthodox Christian entity, but
Theodorea's own beliefs were unorthodox. She was a meaphysite, meaning
that she believed that Jesus Christ was being whose humanity
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and divinity were united as one nature. The Orthodox belief,
on the other hand, was that Christ was one being
with two natures, human and divine, and Orthodox Christians saw
me aphasticism as heresy. Theodora was not entirely successful with this.
She did convince Justinian to end the empire's persecution of
(12:22):
me Aphysites, but not to fully welcome them into the Empire.
To circle back to those chariot factions, Theodora was also
passionately for the Blues. Her father had been an animal
handler for the Greens. He was nicknamed the bear Keeper,
but he died unexpectedly when Theodora and her two sisters
(12:43):
were still children. A lot of like modern accounts, random
articles kind of imply that his unexpected death was the
inevitable side effect of being a bear keeper. But according
to the historian Procopious, we will talk more about it
a bit, he died of an illness, not because a
bear attacked him. Hardy Hart Harror, which is how the
(13:06):
articles that bring this up seemed to imply. Theodore's mother
had gone to the Greens for help and they had
ignored her, but the Blues offered her a job, and
that earned Theodore's loyalty before ascending to the throne. Justinian
had also passionately followed the Blues, but he seems to
have tempered this somewhat after his uncle's death. And we'll
(13:29):
get to the role that all of these factions played
in the Nika riots after we pause for a sponsor break.
We mentioned earlier that the Nica riots are better documented
than several other similar, but maybe smaller, outbreaks of mass
(13:52):
violence in the early Eastern Roman Empire. This is really
the case with Justinian's rule. Overall. We have multiple accounts
written by people who lived through these events. Most of
them were written not too long after they happened, so
it's not a case of like, we have two accounts
of this and they were written two hundred years later.
(14:12):
Sometimes these accounts disagree with one another, but other times
they more fill in the gaps than each other's perspectives.
A quick rundown of the most cited accounts of the
Nika riots. First is the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Marcellinus was
a retired public official who had been in service to
Justinian while his uncle Justin was still the emperor. Marcellinus
(14:34):
died around two years after the riots took place. Another
account is by John Malalis who died around five seventy eight.
He was originally from Syria, and he compiled an eighteen
volume history of the empire that spanned from creation to
about five sixty five. Another John, this is John the Lydian,
was an administrator and he described the riots in his
(14:57):
writing the Magistratibus, which he wrote sometimes time after five
He died in about five sixty five. And then Victor
of Tununa also wrote a brief account before he died
in five seventy. And then there's Procopius, who died sometime
after five sixty five. Procopius wrote a lots about the
(15:17):
Eastern Roman Empire during Justinian's reign, and his work is
really a key source of information about the empire and
these years of its history. This included the history of
the wars and eight volumes, Buildings which took six volumes,
and the Secret History, and Procopius was uniquely placed in
terms of being able to document this history. He was
(15:39):
an advisor and secretary to the general Belsarius and was
with Belsarius during multiple military campaigns. This included some work
before the Nakar riots. Also, it's possible that Procopius was
sheltering in the Imperial Palace during the actual riots, but
Procopius descriptions of Justinian and Theodora vary from one work
(16:02):
to another. Buildings, which documents Justinian's public works projects, was
probably a commissioned work, and it doesn't really mention Theodora much.
But it's generally favorable towards Justinian. But his History of
the Wars and Secret History, which include his accounts of
the Nika riots, are far more critical. Secret History in particular,
(16:24):
was framed as kind of a tell all, as you
might guess from the name, containing all the scandals and
secrets that were too damning to be revealed when anyone
involved was alive. That work was published posthumously. Secret History
is one of the big sources for the most scandalous
things anyone has ever said about Theodora. He describes Theodora
(16:44):
as a courtisan quote and such as the ancient Greeks
used to call a common one at that for she
was not a flute or a heart player, nor was
she even trained to dance, but only gave her youth
to anyone she met in utter abandonment. He describes her
as shameless and promiscuous and performing stage acts that involved
(17:06):
beast reality. Secret history even argues that Justinian and Theodore
were demons in human form. Sure Sure, Even with all
of that in mind, procopius work is seen as a
major source of information about Justinian's reign and about the
events of five thirty two, specifically, Sometimes it's approached in
(17:29):
conjunction with the writing of John Mallalis, since Procopius wrote
about the riots from the side of the emperor and
his administration, and John Mallalis's account represents more of what
was happening with the common people. So when Justinian came
to power in five seven, he wanted to restore the
empire to what he saw as its former glory. As
(17:50):
we said earlier, he envisioned the empire as one orthodox
Christian entity, which meant cracking down on other religions and
on unorthodox were so called heretical teachings. He forbade pagans
and heretics from teaching, and he outlawed homosexuality. Starting in
five twenty eight, he embarked on a project to massively
(18:12):
revise the law and to reform how the courts operated.
And this was to make the courts more efficient and
to make litigation more affordable. This legal reform and the
laws associated with it collectively became known as the Code
of Justinian. This fed into Justinian's effort to root out
corruption and curb waste. Although he conceived of all of
(18:35):
this as being for the public good, some of these
measures were unpopular and alienated both the aristocracy and the
common people, and that was complicated by Justinian's military campaigns.
In addition to fighting a series of border disputes with Persia,
Justinian tried to reconquer areas that had previously been part
of the Roman Empire. These wars were expensive, and the
(18:58):
Praetorian Prefect, John of Cappadocci, levied new taxes to pay
for them. These taxes were, of course, also unpopular, as
were cost cutting measures meant to help pay for all
of this, so John of Cappadoccia was deeply reviled. On
January tenth, five thirty two, a fight broke out between
(19:18):
the Greens and the Blues. I don't really know exactly
what prompted this fight, but it was happening in the
context of all of that stuff that we just said.
Seven men were arrested and the city prefect, you demon
found them guilty of murder and sentenced them to death.
This was an attempt to try to deter future violence.
The men were supposed to be executed on the other
(19:40):
side of a body of water known as the Golden Horn.
Five of the convicted men were executed, but as the
last two were about to be hanged, the scaffold collapsed.
It's not clear exactly why this happened, but spectators interpreted
it as a sign that God had spared those men.
Mong took them back across the Golden Horn and gave
(20:02):
them sanctuary at the Church of St. Lawrence. Udeman's troops
stood guard outside, effectively turning this sanctuary into a prison.
One of these men was a Green and the other
was a blue. So, as we said, this was not
remotely the first time that there had been violence between
these factions, and since outbreaks of violence were also common
(20:24):
during events at the Hippodrome, it might have made sense
to cancel the upcoming chariot races that were scheduled for January,
but Justinian allowed them to go on, and the crowd
did what it always did during the chariot races, which
is to shout a bunch of demands at the Emperor.
In this case, the crowd was demanding that the Emperor
(20:45):
pardoned these two men. Justinian ignored these demands. There were
twenty four races scheduled that day, and as they went on,
the crowd became increasingly angry and agitated, and after the
twenty second race, the Blues and the Means dropped their
rivalry and started chanting things like quote long live the
merciful Blues and Greens, as well as Nika nika. Nika
(21:09):
nika was a common cheer during these races, and it's
usually translated as win or victory or conquer. Usually this
was something that each faction would chant at its own charioteers,
but at this point the two factions joined up and
they started shouting it at the emperor. This was at
least the third time that the Blues and the Greens
had joined forces. The same thing had happened in five
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fifteen or five sixteen when the two factions had fought
back against soldiers. They had destroyed a number of buildings
in Constantinople in the process, and five twenty the factions
had come together to demand that the Emperor Justin appear
in the hippodrome to answer their demands, and that's something
that he ultimately did, so teaming up together could sometimes
(21:54):
be effective. In this case, though, Justinian continued to refuse
the crowds demands, and he and Theodora left the hippodrome
through the tunnel back to the Imperial Palace. This, of course,
did not help to calm the situation. Members of the
crowd went to the Praetorium, where the Prefect Damon lived,
and demanded the two men be freed. When you demon
(22:15):
refused to free them, the crowd set the Praetorium on fire.
This was also not unprecedented, as one example, the Praetorium
had previously been burned down in four D eight during
a protest against a grain shortage. The crowd liberated some
prisoners who were being held at the Praetorium, and it
is possible that they liberated the two convicted partisans at
(22:37):
this point, but their fate is a little unclear. Get it.
They're stopped being references to their demanding that the men
be freed at these at this point, but there's vagueness
in that aspect of it. This kicked off days of
rioting and arson, and the words of procopious quote, fire
was applied to the city as if it had fallen
(23:00):
under the hand of an enemy. Justinian tried to return
to the Hippodrome on the four and when he got there,
the United Greens and Blues issued new demands. These demands
included firing you Deemon, along with John of Capitoccia, who
was hated because of all those taxes, and a man
named Trimonian who was a senior legal official. Although Justinian
(23:23):
did fire all three of these men, he still didn't
pardon the two convicted men. They may have been released
at this point if people still wanted a formal pardon,
so this did not diffuse the situation. Violence continued all
over Constantinople, and on the fifteen the crowd decided to
elevate a new emperor. At least some of this was
(23:44):
instigated by more powerful people who saw this whole thing
as an opportunity to get rid of Justinian and his
anti corruption campaigns. They looked to the nephews of the
late Emperor Anastasias for a successor. The older two, who
would have had the strongest claimed to the throne, were
capacious and Pompeii, but they were both in the Imperial
Palace with Justinian, so the crowd went to the home
(24:08):
of Anastasius's youngest nephew, ProBiS. ProBiS was not home. It
is possible that he had heard about this and he
wanted no part of it, and he just booked it.
He fled, but when the mob found that he wasn't home,
they burned his house down. So by this point, in
addition to ProBiS His house, rioters had burned down the Praetorium,
part of the Hippodrome, the Senate House, and various churches
(24:31):
and ceremonial buildings. Justinian didn't really have a police force
that he could call to try to deal with this descent.
He was basically trying to cobble together a fighting force
from members of the military who had no clear allegiance
to the Greens or the Blues or any of the
Rioters or any of the aristocrats who were now trying
(24:51):
to work this situation to their own ends. As part
of this, Justinian summoned troops from Thrace, who arrived on
the night of the sevent He also dismissed Hippacious and
Pompeii from the Imperial Palace. It's not clear why he
did this. He may have felt that their presence was
a threat, but as long as they were in the palace,
the mob couldn't publicly try to raise one of them
(25:13):
as emperor. So there are some conflicting things going on there. Yeah.
On the eighteenth, Justinian made one more appearance at the Hippodrome.
He told the assembled people that he should have considered
their demands, and he offered to pardon the rioters. And
while some people thought this was enough, others still refused
to back down. On January two, the crowd, who were
(25:36):
still dissatisfied with what Justinine was doing, declared that Hypacious
would be the new emperor. They did that in the Hippodrome.
At that point, Justinian prepared to flee the city and
will resolve this mini cliffhanger after we have a little
sponsor break. According to Procopious, it was Theodora who convinced
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Justinian not to flee from Constantinople when the rioters tried
to raise another man as emperor. He reported that she
told him quote, the present time, above all others, is
in opportune for flight, even though it brings safety. For
while it is impossible for a man who has seen
the light not also to die, for one who has
(26:26):
been an emperor, it is unendurable to be a fugitive.
May I never be separated from this purple, and may
I not live that day on which those who meet
me shall not address me as mistress. If now it
is your wish to save yourself, oh Emperor, there is
no difficulty, for we have much money, and there is
(26:47):
the sea and hear the boats. However, consider whether it
will not come about, after you have been saved, that
you would gladly exchange that safety for death. As for myself,
I have a certain ancient saying that royalty is a
good burial shoud This is usually framed as Theodora persuading
(27:08):
Justinian because she was convincing and astute, or Justinian being
shamed into it because he was weak and indecisive. Either way,
Justinian dispatched Belisarius and an Illyrian general named Mundas to
the Hippodrome to put down the uprising. They split up
and they entered from opposite sides, essentially trapping the Greens
(27:29):
and the Blues in the hippodrome. Justinian's fighting force then
massacred roughly thirty thousand people that would have been about
ten percent of the population. Justinian did not stop there.
He had both Hypacious and POMPEII executed, along with aristocrats
who had backed Hypatious as emperor. A number of high
(27:50):
ranking senators had been somewhat involved in all of this,
and Justinian exiled all of them and seized all of
their estates in the process that wound up stripping the
Senate of a lot of its power and authority. Once
Justinian and Theodore Are regained control of the city, Justinian
reinstated all the officials that he had previously fired From there,
(28:11):
Justinian started on a massive rebuilding project. One of his
most notable elements was the Hodgia Sophia. This church had
originally been ordered by the Emperor Constantine the First, and
it had been through several cycles of construction, damaged during
unrest and rebuilding. Justinian envisioned the rebuilt Hadgia Sophia as
(28:31):
massive and architecturally groundbreaking. It was the Empire's largest church,
with a domed basilica, marble columns, and elaborate mosaics. This
is one of the earliest and largest uses of pendentives
to support a dome. Pendentives are a little bit tricky
to describe, but imagine a triangular piece of the surface
(28:52):
of a sphere. If you connect the corners of four
of these at the tops of four walls, they create
a circular support for a dome to above them. This
church took six years to build and it was hugely
influential in the architecture of the Eastern Room and Empire
after this point. Although most of the mosaics have not
survived until today, most of the structure does still stand,
(29:15):
although part of the dome had to be rebuilt after
an earthquake in The building became a mosque in the
fifteenth century, and then it was turned into a museum
in the twentieth century, and the Turkish government converted it
back into a mosque after the Nika riots. Justinian also
resumed his efforts to try to reunify the Roman Empire
(29:36):
and restore its former territory. This included invasions into Africa
in five thirty three and five thirty four, and into
Italy and parts of Spain starting in five thirty five.
This was not only about the expansion or reclamation of territory,
It was also about coming to the aid of Orthodox
Christians who were being persecuted. His other projects included establishing
(29:59):
a silk industry in Constantinople using silkworms that had been
smuggled out of China. The Empire was fighting on multiple
fronts when a plague epidemic struck in five forty one.
This is known today as Justinian's Plague or the Justiniac plague.
This plague has come up on so many installments of
Unearthed as researchers have explored just how destructive the epidemic was,
(30:24):
how far it spread, and exactly what strain of plague
was involved. The Empress Theodora died on June. She was
in her late fifties. After her death, Justinian seems to
have turned his focus more towards theological matters and away
from governance. He died on November sixty five at the
(30:45):
age of eighty three. Chariot racing eventually fell out of favor,
and the Niger Riots seemed to be the last time
that the Greens and the Blues united together against the Emperor.
I have so many feelings about this um. Do you
have listener mail that involves hopefully less massacring. You know
(31:07):
there's no massacre in this email. It's from Brita, and
Brita says Hi, Holly and Tracy. I love your show,
and I really loved your recent episode on unicorns. My
dog is actually named after one of the many mythical
beasts whose name is sometimes translated as unicorn. I got
really excited in the episode when you mentioned the Chilean
(31:27):
because I thought you might mention the creature my dog
is named after. If you've ever been to an East
Asian temple or palace, you may have seen a pair
of lion or dog like statues stationed on either side
of the entrance. In Korea, this guardian statue is called
a hit A or a Hitchi, and is described as
(31:47):
a lion with a horn on its forehead or a
unicorn lion. When I first moved to South Korea over
a decade ago, the city of Seoul had a cartoon
Hitchi as its mascot. I thought it was cute and
that hitch would make a good dog name. Now, many
years later, I'm back living in the US and I
have my own little Hitchi. He doesn't have a horn,
(32:08):
but he does take his job of guarding the door
very seriously. Here are a few pictures so you can
see how much my dog Hitchy resembles or not his namesake.
And there is a picture from a Buddhist temple and soul,
and then one with the mascot that was referenced, and
then of course a dog cut just puppy. I'm just
saying he could have a horn at Halloween if you
(32:32):
celebrate it and wish or maybe he has a horn,
he's just very shy about showing it to any There
you go, it's it's covered up hidden. So thank you
so much for this email and these pictures. If you
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And then we're all over social media miss in history,
(32:54):
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(33:15):
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Hey, everybody. Before we get started, we have a very
exciting announcement, which is two plus years into the pandemic,
we're finally doing a live stream. Uh, taking us a
little bit to plan. One of these were that's gonna
happen on March tenth is when we are having our
live stream, and we are calling it stuff you miss
in history class. Feuds. Yeah, we're gonna talk about some
(00:25):
rivalries throughout history, and you're going to get to weigh
in on who you think really should win the favor
of the crowd and and all of us in terms
of who really was correct in any of those given feuds. Yeah.
We are doing this on a platform called Looped, and
Looped allows us to do some pretty cool stuff, including
(00:45):
having people from the audience ask us questions live on
video you're not really wanting to ask a question on video.
There's also a chat room and we can do a
post show meet and greet. The way this works is
there's an app where Holly and I will each call you.
We got to do that separately because we're still having
a pandemic and Holly and I will not be in
(01:07):
the same place. Yes, so it's kind of a two
for one, you'll get to talk to each of us individually.
It's kind of fun. You will have a little one
on one video chat and you'll get to take a
self eat during the call. That's a little extra you
can add on if you wish. Uh, And it's a
fun way for us to get to chat with you
and reach out and do the kinds of things we
would do at a live show in person, but with
(01:29):
the safety of the internet between us. Yeah. So you
can find tickets to this at looped live dot com.
Click on Upcoming Experiences and it'll take you over. You
can you can click on our show and you can
get your tickets. You can get the Q and A tickets.
We will have early bird pricing for the first ten
(01:49):
days that tickets are on sale, so that is all
the way until March third, and at early bird pricing,
tickets or twelve seventy five and tickets plus of meat
and greet is and then the price we'll go up
for the last week, but the tickets are on sale.
So again that is at looped live dot com, l
O O p E D l i v E dot
(02:12):
com for some live stream tickets. We'd hope it will
be a grand time. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in
History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm
(02:33):
Holly Fry. Way back when I was hosting a show
called This Day in History Class, which is a show
that still exists, I'm just not on it anymore. I
did a five minute episode on the Nika riots and
immediately put it on my to do list for a
full length episode over here on Stuff you Missed in
(02:54):
History Class. Uh, that means it's taken me more than
three years to get to that item on my to
do list. Also, somehow, my time on This Day in
History Class feels like it happened way longer ago than
three years. Yeah, if you had asked me, I would
have said five. Yeah, five feels more correct, but apparently not. Uh.
(03:18):
This was a riot and then a massacre in Constantinople
and the year five thirty two, and a lot of
what happened is pretty horrifying, particularly the way this ended,
and yet it wasn't really entirely unprecedented. Large scale rioting
and mass violence were pretty common in Constantinople and in
(03:39):
the Eastern Roman Empire. More broadly. Around this time, we've
just got a lot more documentation of the Nika riots
than a lot of those other incidents, so they've gotten
more historical attention. So for a little bit of background.
The Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire,
was established when Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire or
(04:00):
into its Eastern and western portions in the fourth century.
The name Byzantine Empire was actually coined in the sixteenth century.
It references the ancient city of Byzantium, which became the
empire's capital city of Constantinople. Today that's Istanbul, Turkey. The
people who lived in the Eastern Roman Empire generally thought
of themselves as Roman, while people living in what had
(04:22):
been the Western Roman Empire generally described those people as Greek.
There is some debate over the term Byzantine Empire. It
has an established meaning within the field of history, but
that's also something of a misnomer that's picked up some
inaccurate connotations. By the time Justinian the First became emperor
of the Eastern Roman Empire, a primary form of entertainment
(04:45):
in Constantinople was chariot racing, at the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome
was a race track that Emperor Constantine the First had
expanded and refurbished, making it into a massive public entertainment venue.
It could hold as many as eighty thousand spectators, although
while doing research for this, I saw estimates UH that
(05:06):
were as low as thirty thousand and as high as
a hundred thousand, So there's that's a little big span,
which though I could hold a lot of people because
had a U shaped track that was about four hundred
meters long, and charioteers would race around a central island
of monuments that ran down the middle of it that
(05:26):
was called the Spina. They usually made seven laps each event.
These events were, as you might anticipate, extremely dangerous. Teams
of four horses pulled each chariot, making tight turns at
speeds of up to forty miles per hour. The chariots
themselves were built for speeds, so they did not offer
(05:46):
a lot of protection in a crash. The track itself
was crowded with horses and chariots, and accidents and deaths
were frequent. At the same time, people who managed to
win these races had the potential to become itch and famous.
Successful charioteers were basically celebrities. But in most cases, charioteers
started racing while enslaved, so starting out they didn't have
(06:10):
any choice about whether to race or which faction they raced, for.
Only the ones who managed to survive ultimately one enough
money to buy their own freedom. Beyond being an intense
and violent public spectacle, chariot races in Constantinople were also
political events. The emperor had a private box that was
connected directly to the palace by a tunnel. The hippodrome
(06:34):
was really the only place that the emperor saw the
common people and vice versa, and it was essentially the
only venue for public demonstrations. The emperor heard petitions at
these events, and people shouted out coordinated chance. That was
something that had originally been part of the experience at
the theater and had kind of carried over into the
chariot races. And then there were the factions, the Blues,
(06:58):
the Greens, the Whites, and the reds. These may have
started out as groups that rented things like horses and
equipment for the chariot races, but over time they had
evolved into competing teams with intensely devoted fans. Over the decades,
historians have put forth various different ideas about whether these
(07:19):
factions had a greater meaning beyond the chariot races, like
whether they were basically political parties, with people choosing which
faction to support based on their own political beliefs and
objectives and their socioeconomic position. Another idea has been that
there was a religious element, like that the Blues were
(07:39):
Orthodox Christians while the Greens held beliefs that could have
been considered heretical. But some argued that it really was
just straightforwardly about the chariot races, with the teams having
really vehemently enthusiastic and even zealous fans. Regardless, disputes between
these factions could be astoundingly island. For example, in the
(08:01):
year five one, the Greens attacked the Blues in the
Amphitheater in Constantinople, killing as many as three thousand people.
But even if these factions really were just about chariot
racing with no greater political or religious or economic meaning,
they still had a political impact. The two most powerful
(08:23):
factions were the Greens and the Blues, and if the
Emperor publicly backed one of them, supporters of the other
were likely to claim that they were being placed at
a disadvantage. A lot of emperors tried to be very
strategic in which faction they were backing. A few emperors
tried to remain neutral, while others, like Anastasius, tried to
(08:45):
stay out of the way of the Greens and the
Blues by backing one of the more minor factions. In
his case, he backed the Reds. Anastasias ruled from four
to five eighteen. His successor was just In the First,
who had been born to a peasant family but had
gone to Constantinople looking for work at about the age twenty.
(09:05):
He had joined the Palace Guard, where he rose through
the ranks, and he also gained a lot of military experience.
But Justin didn't have a formal education or any children,
so he brought his nephews to Constantinople to be educated
and introduced into political life. One of those nephews was
Petrus Sobatius, later known as Flavius Justinianus. Like his uncle,
(09:30):
he's described as having humble beginnings, coming from a family
of peasants or swineherds, but he was gifted. He learned
really quickly. His uncle Justin eventually adopted him, naming him
Caesar and and then Augustus and co emperor in April
of five. When Justin the First died, on August the first,
(09:52):
Flavius Justinianus became Emperor Justinian the First. He was influential
all through his uncle's Some accounts describe him as basically
running the empire himself while he was Caesar and when
he was Augustus. Justinian's wife was the Empress Theodora, who
was deeply unpopular. Justin's wife, Euphemia, disliked her so intensely
(10:15):
that Justinian put off marrying her until after Euphemia died.
That was in about five twenty four. Like Justinian, Theodora
was from a working class family, but that was not
really the issue. She had been an actress, which was
seen as essentially the same as a sex worker. It
was actually illegal for actresses to marry aristocrats, a law
(10:36):
Justinian had changed so he could marry Theodora. In some accounts,
people's objections to Theodora weren't just because acting was like
sex work. It was because she really was a sex worker.
Theodora was also about fourteen years younger than Justinian, and
people didn't think she acted like a proper empress at all.
(10:58):
Justinian and Theodora both seemed to have put a lot
of value in all the pomp and ceremonial trappings that
were associated with being emperor and empress, possibly because of
both of their non aristocratic backgrounds. But beyond that, Theodora
took an active role in leadership. She had her own goals,
she had her own agenda. She became one of Justinian's
(11:20):
primary advisors. She influenced his decisions rather than just trying
to support her husband as she was expected to do.
She met and corresponded with foreign dignitaries directly herself, rather
than deferring to Justinian on that, and she directly influenced
newly written laws. This included working to pass laws that
(11:40):
would protect women's rights. She also tried to temper some
of his religious views. Justinian was an Orthodox Catholic and
envisioned the Empire as one unified Orthodox Christian entity, but
Theodorea's own beliefs were unorthodox. She was a meaphysite, meaning
that she believed that Jesus Christ was being whose humanity
(12:01):
and divinity were united as one nature. The Orthodox belief,
on the other hand, was that Christ was one being
with two natures, human and divine, and Orthodox Christians saw
me aphasticism as heresy. Theodora was not entirely successful with this.
She did convince Justinian to end the empire's persecution of
(12:22):
me Aphysites, but not to fully welcome them into the Empire.
To circle back to those chariot factions, Theodora was also
passionately for the Blues. Her father had been an animal
handler for the Greens. He was nicknamed the bear Keeper,
but he died unexpectedly when Theodora and her two sisters
(12:43):
were still children. A lot of like modern accounts, random
articles kind of imply that his unexpected death was the
inevitable side effect of being a bear keeper. But according
to the historian Procopious, we will talk more about it
a bit, he died of an illness, not because a
bear attacked him. Hardy Hart Harror, which is how the
(13:06):
articles that bring this up seemed to imply. Theodore's mother
had gone to the Greens for help and they had
ignored her, but the Blues offered her a job, and
that earned Theodore's loyalty before ascending to the throne. Justinian
had also passionately followed the Blues, but he seems to
have tempered this somewhat after his uncle's death. And we'll
(13:29):
get to the role that all of these factions played
in the Nika riots after we pause for a sponsor break.
We mentioned earlier that the Nica riots are better documented
than several other similar, but maybe smaller, outbreaks of mass
(13:52):
violence in the early Eastern Roman Empire. This is really
the case with Justinian's rule. Overall. We have multiple accounts
written by people who lived through these events. Most of
them were written not too long after they happened, so
it's not a case of like, we have two accounts
of this and they were written two hundred years later.
(14:12):
Sometimes these accounts disagree with one another, but other times
they more fill in the gaps than each other's perspectives.
A quick rundown of the most cited accounts of the
Nika riots. First is the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Marcellinus was
a retired public official who had been in service to
Justinian while his uncle Justin was still the emperor. Marcellinus
(14:34):
died around two years after the riots took place. Another
account is by John Malalis who died around five seventy eight.
He was originally from Syria, and he compiled an eighteen
volume history of the empire that spanned from creation to
about five sixty five. Another John, this is John the Lydian,
was an administrator and he described the riots in his
(14:57):
writing the Magistratibus, which he wrote sometimes time after five
He died in about five sixty five. And then Victor
of Tununa also wrote a brief account before he died
in five seventy. And then there's Procopius, who died sometime
after five sixty five. Procopius wrote a lots about the
(15:17):
Eastern Roman Empire during Justinian's reign, and his work is
really a key source of information about the empire and
these years of its history. This included the history of
the wars and eight volumes, Buildings which took six volumes,
and the Secret History, and Procopius was uniquely placed in
terms of being able to document this history. He was
(15:39):
an advisor and secretary to the general Belsarius and was
with Belsarius during multiple military campaigns. This included some work
before the Nakar riots. Also, it's possible that Procopius was
sheltering in the Imperial Palace during the actual riots, but
Procopius descriptions of Justinian and Theodora vary from one work
(16:02):
to another. Buildings, which documents Justinian's public works projects, was
probably a commissioned work, and it doesn't really mention Theodora much.
But it's generally favorable towards Justinian. But his History of
the Wars and Secret History, which include his accounts of
the Nika riots, are far more critical. Secret History in particular,
(16:24):
was framed as kind of a tell all, as you
might guess from the name, containing all the scandals and
secrets that were too damning to be revealed when anyone
involved was alive. That work was published posthumously. Secret History
is one of the big sources for the most scandalous
things anyone has ever said about Theodora. He describes Theodora
(16:44):
as a courtisan quote and such as the ancient Greeks
used to call a common one at that for she
was not a flute or a heart player, nor was
she even trained to dance, but only gave her youth
to anyone she met in utter abandonment. He describes her
as shameless and promiscuous and performing stage acts that involved
(17:06):
beast reality. Secret history even argues that Justinian and Theodore
were demons in human form. Sure Sure, Even with all
of that in mind, procopius work is seen as a
major source of information about Justinian's reign and about the
events of five thirty two, specifically, Sometimes it's approached in
(17:29):
conjunction with the writing of John Mallalis, since Procopius wrote
about the riots from the side of the emperor and
his administration, and John Mallalis's account represents more of what
was happening with the common people. So when Justinian came
to power in five seven, he wanted to restore the
empire to what he saw as its former glory. As
(17:50):
we said earlier, he envisioned the empire as one orthodox
Christian entity, which meant cracking down on other religions and
on unorthodox were so called heretical teachings. He forbade pagans
and heretics from teaching, and he outlawed homosexuality. Starting in
five twenty eight, he embarked on a project to massively
(18:12):
revise the law and to reform how the courts operated.
And this was to make the courts more efficient and
to make litigation more affordable. This legal reform and the
laws associated with it collectively became known as the Code
of Justinian. This fed into Justinian's effort to root out
corruption and curb waste. Although he conceived of all of
(18:35):
this as being for the public good, some of these
measures were unpopular and alienated both the aristocracy and the
common people, and that was complicated by Justinian's military campaigns.
In addition to fighting a series of border disputes with Persia,
Justinian tried to reconquer areas that had previously been part
of the Roman Empire. These wars were expensive, and the
(18:58):
Praetorian Prefect, John of Cappadocci, levied new taxes to pay
for them. These taxes were, of course, also unpopular, as
were cost cutting measures meant to help pay for all
of this, so John of Cappadoccia was deeply reviled. On
January tenth, five thirty two, a fight broke out between
(19:18):
the Greens and the Blues. I don't really know exactly
what prompted this fight, but it was happening in the
context of all of that stuff that we just said.
Seven men were arrested and the city prefect, you demon
found them guilty of murder and sentenced them to death.
This was an attempt to try to deter future violence.
The men were supposed to be executed on the other
(19:40):
side of a body of water known as the Golden Horn.
Five of the convicted men were executed, but as the
last two were about to be hanged, the scaffold collapsed.
It's not clear exactly why this happened, but spectators interpreted
it as a sign that God had spared those men.
Mong took them back across the Golden Horn and gave
(20:02):
them sanctuary at the Church of St. Lawrence. Udeman's troops
stood guard outside, effectively turning this sanctuary into a prison.
One of these men was a Green and the other
was a blue. So, as we said, this was not
remotely the first time that there had been violence between
these factions, and since outbreaks of violence were also common
(20:24):
during events at the Hippodrome, it might have made sense
to cancel the upcoming chariot races that were scheduled for January,
but Justinian allowed them to go on, and the crowd
did what it always did during the chariot races, which
is to shout a bunch of demands at the Emperor.
In this case, the crowd was demanding that the Emperor
(20:45):
pardoned these two men. Justinian ignored these demands. There were
twenty four races scheduled that day, and as they went on,
the crowd became increasingly angry and agitated, and after the
twenty second race, the Blues and the Means dropped their
rivalry and started chanting things like quote long live the
merciful Blues and Greens, as well as Nika nika. Nika
(21:09):
nika was a common cheer during these races, and it's
usually translated as win or victory or conquer. Usually this
was something that each faction would chant at its own charioteers,
but at this point the two factions joined up and
they started shouting it at the emperor. This was at
least the third time that the Blues and the Greens
had joined forces. The same thing had happened in five
(21:32):
fifteen or five sixteen when the two factions had fought
back against soldiers. They had destroyed a number of buildings
in Constantinople in the process, and five twenty the factions
had come together to demand that the Emperor Justin appear
in the hippodrome to answer their demands, and that's something
that he ultimately did, so teaming up together could sometimes
(21:54):
be effective. In this case, though, Justinian continued to refuse
the crowds demands, and he and Theodora left the hippodrome
through the tunnel back to the Imperial Palace. This, of course,
did not help to calm the situation. Members of the
crowd went to the Praetorium, where the Prefect Damon lived,
and demanded the two men be freed. When you demon
(22:15):
refused to free them, the crowd set the Praetorium on fire.
This was also not unprecedented, as one example, the Praetorium
had previously been burned down in four D eight during
a protest against a grain shortage. The crowd liberated some
prisoners who were being held at the Praetorium, and it
is possible that they liberated the two convicted partisans at
(22:37):
this point, but their fate is a little unclear. Get it.
They're stopped being references to their demanding that the men
be freed at these at this point, but there's vagueness
in that aspect of it. This kicked off days of
rioting and arson, and the words of procopious quote, fire
was applied to the city as if it had fallen
(23:00):
under the hand of an enemy. Justinian tried to return
to the Hippodrome on the four and when he got there,
the United Greens and Blues issued new demands. These demands
included firing you Deemon, along with John of Capitoccia, who
was hated because of all those taxes, and a man
named Trimonian who was a senior legal official. Although Justinian
(23:23):
did fire all three of these men, he still didn't
pardon the two convicted men. They may have been released
at this point if people still wanted a formal pardon,
so this did not diffuse the situation. Violence continued all
over Constantinople, and on the fifteen the crowd decided to
elevate a new emperor. At least some of this was
(23:44):
instigated by more powerful people who saw this whole thing
as an opportunity to get rid of Justinian and his
anti corruption campaigns. They looked to the nephews of the
late Emperor Anastasias for a successor. The older two, who
would have had the strongest claimed to the throne, were
capacious and Pompeii, but they were both in the Imperial
Palace with Justinian, so the crowd went to the home
(24:08):
of Anastasius's youngest nephew, ProBiS. ProBiS was not home. It
is possible that he had heard about this and he
wanted no part of it, and he just booked it.
He fled, but when the mob found that he wasn't home,
they burned his house down. So by this point, in
addition to ProBiS His house, rioters had burned down the Praetorium,
part of the Hippodrome, the Senate House, and various churches
(24:31):
and ceremonial buildings. Justinian didn't really have a police force
that he could call to try to deal with this descent.
He was basically trying to cobble together a fighting force
from members of the military who had no clear allegiance
to the Greens or the Blues or any of the
Rioters or any of the aristocrats who were now trying
(24:51):
to work this situation to their own ends. As part
of this, Justinian summoned troops from Thrace, who arrived on
the night of the sevent He also dismissed Hippacious and
Pompeii from the Imperial Palace. It's not clear why he
did this. He may have felt that their presence was
a threat, but as long as they were in the palace,
the mob couldn't publicly try to raise one of them
(25:13):
as emperor. So there are some conflicting things going on there. Yeah.
On the eighteenth, Justinian made one more appearance at the Hippodrome.
He told the assembled people that he should have considered
their demands, and he offered to pardon the rioters. And
while some people thought this was enough, others still refused
to back down. On January two, the crowd, who were
(25:36):
still dissatisfied with what Justinine was doing, declared that Hypacious
would be the new emperor. They did that in the Hippodrome.
At that point, Justinian prepared to flee the city and
will resolve this mini cliffhanger after we have a little
sponsor break. According to Procopious, it was Theodora who convinced
(26:05):
Justinian not to flee from Constantinople when the rioters tried
to raise another man as emperor. He reported that she
told him quote, the present time, above all others, is
in opportune for flight, even though it brings safety. For
while it is impossible for a man who has seen
the light not also to die, for one who has
(26:26):
been an emperor, it is unendurable to be a fugitive.
May I never be separated from this purple, and may
I not live that day on which those who meet
me shall not address me as mistress. If now it
is your wish to save yourself, oh Emperor, there is
no difficulty, for we have much money, and there is
(26:47):
the sea and hear the boats. However, consider whether it
will not come about, after you have been saved, that
you would gladly exchange that safety for death. As for myself,
I have a certain ancient saying that royalty is a
good burial shoud This is usually framed as Theodora persuading
(27:08):
Justinian because she was convincing and astute, or Justinian being
shamed into it because he was weak and indecisive. Either way,
Justinian dispatched Belisarius and an Illyrian general named Mundas to
the Hippodrome to put down the uprising. They split up
and they entered from opposite sides, essentially trapping the Greens
(27:29):
and the Blues in the hippodrome. Justinian's fighting force then
massacred roughly thirty thousand people that would have been about
ten percent of the population. Justinian did not stop there.
He had both Hypacious and POMPEII executed, along with aristocrats
who had backed Hypatious as emperor. A number of high
(27:50):
ranking senators had been somewhat involved in all of this,
and Justinian exiled all of them and seized all of
their estates in the process that wound up stripping the
Senate of a lot of its power and authority. Once
Justinian and Theodore Are regained control of the city, Justinian
reinstated all the officials that he had previously fired From there,
(28:11):
Justinian started on a massive rebuilding project. One of his
most notable elements was the Hodgia Sophia. This church had
originally been ordered by the Emperor Constantine the First, and
it had been through several cycles of construction, damaged during
unrest and rebuilding. Justinian envisioned the rebuilt Hadgia Sophia as
(28:31):
massive and architecturally groundbreaking. It was the Empire's largest church,
with a domed basilica, marble columns, and elaborate mosaics. This
is one of the earliest and largest uses of pendentives
to support a dome. Pendentives are a little bit tricky
to describe, but imagine a triangular piece of the surface
(28:52):
of a sphere. If you connect the corners of four
of these at the tops of four walls, they create
a circular support for a dome to above them. This
church took six years to build and it was hugely
influential in the architecture of the Eastern Room and Empire
after this point. Although most of the mosaics have not
survived until today, most of the structure does still stand,
(29:15):
although part of the dome had to be rebuilt after
an earthquake in The building became a mosque in the
fifteenth century, and then it was turned into a museum
in the twentieth century, and the Turkish government converted it
back into a mosque after the Nika riots. Justinian also
resumed his efforts to try to reunify the Roman Empire
(29:36):
and restore its former territory. This included invasions into Africa
in five thirty three and five thirty four, and into
Italy and parts of Spain starting in five thirty five.
This was not only about the expansion or reclamation of territory,
It was also about coming to the aid of Orthodox
Christians who were being persecuted. His other projects included establishing
(29:59):
a silk industry in Constantinople using silkworms that had been
smuggled out of China. The Empire was fighting on multiple
fronts when a plague epidemic struck in five forty one.
This is known today as Justinian's Plague or the Justiniac plague.
This plague has come up on so many installments of
Unearthed as researchers have explored just how destructive the epidemic was,
(30:24):
how far it spread, and exactly what strain of plague
was involved. The Empress Theodora died on June. She was
in her late fifties. After her death, Justinian seems to
have turned his focus more towards theological matters and away
from governance. He died on November sixty five at the
(30:45):
age of eighty three. Chariot racing eventually fell out of favor,
and the Niger Riots seemed to be the last time
that the Greens and the Blues united together against the Emperor.
I have so many feelings about this um. Do you
have listener mail that involves hopefully less massacring. You know
(31:07):
there's no massacre in this email. It's from Brita, and
Brita says Hi, Holly and Tracy. I love your show,
and I really loved your recent episode on unicorns. My
dog is actually named after one of the many mythical
beasts whose name is sometimes translated as unicorn. I got
really excited in the episode when you mentioned the Chilean
(31:27):
because I thought you might mention the creature my dog
is named after. If you've ever been to an East
Asian temple or palace, you may have seen a pair
of lion or dog like statues stationed on either side
of the entrance. In Korea, this guardian statue is called
a hit A or a Hitchi, and is described as
(31:47):
a lion with a horn on its forehead or a
unicorn lion. When I first moved to South Korea over
a decade ago, the city of Seoul had a cartoon
Hitchi as its mascot. I thought it was cute and
that hitch would make a good dog name. Now, many
years later, I'm back living in the US and I
have my own little Hitchi. He doesn't have a horn,
(32:08):
but he does take his job of guarding the door
very seriously. Here are a few pictures so you can
see how much my dog Hitchy resembles or not his namesake.
And there is a picture from a Buddhist temple and soul,
and then one with the mascot that was referenced, and
then of course a dog cut just puppy. I'm just
saying he could have a horn at Halloween if you
(32:32):
celebrate it and wish or maybe he has a horn,
he's just very shy about showing it to any There
you go, it's it's covered up hidden. So thank you
so much for this email and these pictures. If you
would like to write to us about this or any
other podcast or history podcast that I heart radio dot com.
And then we're all over social media miss in history,
(32:54):
So we'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram, and
you can subscribe to our on the I heart radio
app or wherever you like to get your podcasts. Stuff
you missed in History Class is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
(33:15):
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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