Quickfire: 4 Petty Letters Of The Ancient World

G'day guys.

Before we begin our first episode of Quick Fire, I wanted to give you a bit of background

information on what I'm trying to achieve with it.

If you're not interested in hearing about that, feel free to skip ahead.

Since about midway through Season 5, I've struggled with research creep.

I go into one topic and spend a bit too long trying to get the story from as many different

angles as I can.

That makes for a good story, but it means my episode to take longer to research and

write.

I'm not complaining, if the story demands a longer episode, I want to make sure I get

it right.

But this also means my release schedule sometimes gets pushed out.

I wanted to release something during the interim to kind of tide everyone over, so I came up

with the idea for Quick Fire.

There are a ton of stories I've got locked away that I think are really interesting but

don't quite fit into the normal Anthology of Heroes feed.

I could try and shoehorn them into an episode like I kind of did with our episode on the

EMU War, but I don't really think that fits.

So instead, I hit upon the idea of releasing these as many standalone episodes.

If you're a fan of Dan Carlin's hardcore history, I guess it's similar to what he

did when he started Addendum.

But as my show is much, much smaller, I'll be keeping these in the main feed for the

foreseeable future.

They're going to be short episodes, around 15 minutes, and hopefully I'll have a co-host

with me for each episode.

For today's episode and the foreseeable future, I'm joined by my brother, Alexander Gates.

Quick Fire is going to be much more conversational than a normal episode, it's going to be

unscripted, minimal editing, just a lighthearted chat about some interesting, funny, or just

plain weird things in history that hopefully we can all have a bit of a laugh at.

We've got a few episodes planned already.

We've got one about the weirdest battle of World War II, where Nazi soldiers fought

with American soldiers to besiege a medieval castle with the help of a French tennis champion.

I've got another one written about the bizarre life of Ludwig the Mad and a centric dreamer

who built the famous Neuschwanstein castle, aka the Disney castle.

There's also an episode planned about a German merchant who lived with Brazilian cannibals

in the 17th century.

And today we've got a listicle style episode, the four nastiest letters of the ancient

world.

I know these topics and the presentation style of Quick Fire won't be up everyone's alley

and that's okay.

The normal show will continue as is and I'm certainly not replacing that with this.

I'm planning to record about 10 episodes just to see how they're received.

If you guys aren't a fan of them, they suck, then no worries, back to the drawing board,

no harm done.

I'm planning on releasing a good few of them as patron exclusives so if you haven't already,

a great time to join our patron for just a few dollars a month.

Hopefully you'll tune in and see what you think of them and whether you're a new listener

or a veteran one, I'd be genuinely interested to get your thoughts good or bad once we get

a few episodes out.

Alright, let's roll for Quick Fire Episode 1 and just a warning, this episode contains

bad language.

Anthology of Heroes presents Quick Fire, intriguing tales from history, exploring the bizarre,

the profound and the downright ridiculous, all in bite-sized episodes, featuring host

Elliot Gates and co-host Alexander Gates.

After the show, be sure to follow Anthology of Heroes on your socials and check out their

website, both links you can follow in the episode description.

So for today's episode, we as humans are petty and vindictive, but have we always been this

way?

Well, short answer, yes.

Long before TikTok and Twitter, the printing press or even paper, we were writing nasty

things about our enemies and of course blaming our mother for our own faults.

So in this episode of Quick Fire, Alexander and I are going to read through four of the

most petty, lowbrow correspondences between members of our fair race.

So next time your neighbor throws those long clippings over your fence or you open up for

work email beginning with as per my previous email, you can text Solace in knowing, hey,

we've always been this way.

So today I'm joined by my co-host Alexander.

So say good day, Alexander.

Hey, great to be here, I'm excited to explore the grand history of human pettiness with

you.

Likewise.

Alright, let's get into it.

So for our first letter that we're going through today, this is what's known as the

response of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.

So have you heard of this one, Alexander?

Have you seen this one before?

I think you've shown me a picture of the Cossacks writing this picture, but I don't know the

full context, so please enlighten me.

So in the mid-1600s, the Ottoman Empire was still on the rise, pushing into what's now

the Ukrainian region of Zaporozhian and the Sultan, Mehmet IV, writes to them saying quote,

As the Sultan, son of Mehmet, brother of the sun and moon, grandson and viceroy of God,

ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, upper and lower Egypt, emperor

of emperors, sovereign of sovereigns, extraordinary knight, never defeated, steadfast guardian

of the tomb of Jesus Christ, trustee chosen by himself God, the hope and comfort of the

Muslims, co-founder and great defender of the Christians, I command you, the Zaporozhian

Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from

troubling me with your attacks, sign Turkish Sultan, Mehmet IV, quite a list.

Well, I know, well, with all those accolades, I mean, I can only, I mean, first of all,

it's one hell of a resume.

Can I really assume the Cossacks were completely blinded by the brilliance of the composer

and quickly acquiesced and decided to submit?

I presume that's where we're going with this, is that right?

Oh, of course.

Yeah, you know, that's where the story ends.

They said yes and gave away the territory, but no, no, no.

So they send back this famous response.

They say, Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan.

Oh, Sultan, Turkish devil and damn devil, kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself.

What the devil kind of knight are you that can't slay a hedgehog with your naked ass?

The devil shits and your army eats.

You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of your Christian sons, but we have no fear

of your army.

By land and by sea, we will battle you.

Fuck your mother.

You Babylon scullion, Macedonian wheel-rise, brewer of Jerusalem, goat fucker of Alexandria,

swine herd of greater and lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, Pendolian thief, calamite of Tatry,

hangman of the camunets and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God,

grandson of the serpent and the crick in our dick, pig snout, maize arse, slaughterhouse

kerr, uncristened brow, screw your own mother.

And then they go on to say, just in case it wasn't clear that, you know, this is not going

to go the way you want it, they go on to finish.

So the Zaporozhians declare you lowlife, you won't even be herding pigs for the Christians.

Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar, the moon's

in the sky, the years with the Lord, and the days over here as it is over there.

For this kiss our ass, signed Koshovi Ottoman Ivan Serko with the whole Zaporozhian host.

There's so much to love about that one.

I guess, you know, when you spend that long in your response talking about, in your initial

letter talking about how good you are, there's more opportunities to be torn down, I suppose.

I love the extent to which they made the list of insults equal to the sultan's list of accolades.

I love that it was secretary to Lucifer.

Secretary to Lucifer himself.

Is that one of the fairest of witches?

Which is, it's funny that he's not even qualified enough to be Lucifer himself.

He has to do menial jobs for Lucifer.

And I mean, I'm sure some of you have lost in translation, but you couldn't slay a hedgehog

with your bear ass.

I don't know what that was actually meant to me or how it got to that.

It's so funny.

To finish up with, we don't know the year.

To not even care about that, to treat it with such disrespect, we're not even going to bother

working out what year it is.

We don't know.

We don't care.

You're a cricking out dick.

A concentrated effort of disrespect.

I appreciate it so much.

Do we have a picture?

We do.

All right.

Talk to me.

You've got all the Cossacks perched around the little table.

Everyone's having a good old laugh at like, this guy's expensive.

I just love how everyone's kind of chipping in and you can see people yelling, oh, put

this in right this from the back.

Oh, Jerusalem in there, put that in stuff.

And you've got maybe like the one guy out of all them who can actually write is like,

yeah, I'm getting it down.

Don't worry.

Oh, that's a good one as well.

I've got that one.

The guy in the foreground is literally almost rolling on the floor laughing like he's thrown

himself back with how funny these are.

He's tearing up.

It emphasises just how they are not mad.

Yeah.

This is like a massive joke to them.

They're not insulted.

It's just like a big, a big fuck you.

It's a fantastic image.

And just like the looks of delight on most of those people's faces is, yeah, it's a

fantastic image.

Did you want to hear my first one?

So I tried to look at a bit more, I guess, a bit more personal history and, you know,

your introduction is interesting and it's valid because it really does, looking at these

old correspondents really does just confirm how much or how little has changed.

And this is a letter from a Sogdian woman to her husband.

Now, the Sogdians, I didn't know this.

I'm not pretending I have to try knowledge of this.

They were Iranian people.

And I could not tell you when this letter was written, but safe to say, quite a while

ago, and this is a letter to her husband who is away at the time.

And the letter follows,

Behold, I am living badly, not well, wretchedly, and I consider myself dead.

Again and again, I send you a letter, but I do not receive a single letter from you.

And I have become without hope towards you.

My misfortune is this, that I have been in Duhang for three years, thanks to you.

And there was a way out.

A first, a second, even a fifth time, but he refused to bring me out.

Surely the gods were angry with me on the day when I did your bidding.

I would rather be a dog's or a pig's wife than yours.

Just a very, very, very unhappy woman.

It's just such a perfect insight into ancient Iranian marital distress.

The fact that she begins it with, Behold, I am living, is like, yes, I'm still here.

Thank you very much, despite your best effort.

And the fact that she mentions there was up to five times that she could have been

brought out of this, I imagine, shithole of an ancient city.

But he didn't allow her to do it.

Yeah, at the same time, I sympathize with him because I'm like, yeah, kind of,

I don't know how much time I want to spend with this woman either, to be honest.

I mean, that could be something out of like, everybody loves Deborah writing to Raymond

or, you know, my wife and kids, what's her name, Al's wife writing to her.

I guess we assume, you know, that like, back in, back in the, you know, the good old days of,

you know, where 2000 BC, like, you know, women had a healthy respect for their husbands.

But no, they didn't.

They, like, men were complete bastards who tried to, like, get away from every chance

they can.

And this woman, for example, was really, really not going to put up with it and was not afraid

to complain about it.

I just love the, the, the slice of life it provides to, to this ancient, um, this ancient

couple.

Yeah, I enjoyed that.

I don't think people start enough letters with Behold anymore, you know, it really gets

your attention, you know, it gets you thinking, okay, this person's got something to say.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Um, Behold, I am living.

It's like, ah, you're still here.

Thank you very much.

I love it.

I love it so much.

What else you got for me?

Right.

So we are going back now to 1750 BC.

No Roman Empire, no Alexander the Great.

Abraham had only just made his covenant with God.

Uh, pyramids were probably still covered with that nice marble you sometimes see in illustrations.

Right.

So quite some time ago.

The city of Lhasa, which is today part of Iraq, almost 4,000 years ago, a student, likely

living away from home to study, writes back to his dear mother, Inu, and he says, quote,

oh, sorry, Zinu, not Inu, Zinu says, tell the lady Zinu, it in sin, sends the following

message, may the God's Shamash, Marduk and illa Bart keep you forever in good health

for my sake.

From year to year, the clothes of the young gentleman here become better, but you let

my clothes get worse from year to year.

Indeed you persisted in making my clothes poorer and more scanty.

At a time when in a house wool is used up like bread, you've made me poor clothes.

The son of Adan Idunam, whose father is only an assistant of my father, has two new sets

of clothes, while you fuss about even a single set of clothes for me.

In spite of the fact that you bore me and his mother only adopted him, his mother loves

him.

While you, you do not love me.

Imagine Lady Zinu slaving over away from a hot stove, you know, there's probably not

for an ungrateful husband as well, to go with her a grateful son and the servant brings

her this lovely little letter to open.

But I've probably said several ungrateful sons, I mean, I don't know, does this guy

strike you as someone of wealth or is he, is, because like you think if he's, if he's

wealthy, I don't know, he, his mother would be out of afford, afford nice clothes, or

is he poor?

And that's why, like, that's why clothes are such a big issue.

I can't imagine.

I don't, he's very, he's a very spoiled young man, I think it's very, so I mean, you really

get the sense that this comes from the heart because once he wrote on the tablet, he spilled

off onto the other side of the tablet, kept writing, and then when he filled up that tablet,

he wrote on the sides of it to keep going, just to really let her know, you know, how

much, how much there was to say.

He was, he was, he was determined to, to let his mum know how dissatisfied he was with

his, with his clothes.

And I like the comparison that his friend who was adopted even gets better, better clothes

than he does.

I read online while looking up for it, the average kind of normal garments would take

about three months to purchase and die and weave and for finer garments that were taken

an entire year, assuming his mum was making it.

It's not like you can just go on ASOS or Sheen and just, you know, buy a couple more.

His mother's probably got 12 or 13 children, all of which have their own needs and desires.

And unfortunately, she can't prioritize giving you a new set of clothes and not letting them

become spindly or whatever he said.

What's his name?

Eden Sin.

It's very, yeah, he's a very, very naughty boy.

And actually on that topic, it leads very well into my, into my second letter because

whereas you honored the, the time old tradition of young boys being rude to their mothers,

my second letter is a young boy being rude to his father.

This is a letter from Theon to his father.

And this would have been in ancient.

Theon Greyjoy.

No, no, not quite because Theon Greyjoy was a fictional character from the series Game

of Thrones.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Think about it.

Got it.

Because the dragons were a giveaway.

True.

But so this is from ancient Greece and he's, he's, he's writing to his father who has just

traveled to Alexandria, which was at the time a very exciting, busy metropolis, one of

the biggest cities in the empire, Theon.

To his father, Theon greetings.

It was so nice of you not to take me with you to the city.

If you refuse to take me with you to Alexandria, I won't write you a letter or speak to you

or wish you good health.

So if you go to Alexandria, I won't take your hand or greet you ever again.

If you refuse to take me, this is what will happen.

And my mother said to Arcleus that he is upsetting me, take him away.

It was so nice of you sending me these great presents.

Just rubbish.

They put me off the track for the 12th, the day when you sailed.

Well then, send for me.

I beg you.

If you don't, I won't eat.

I won't drink there.

I pray for your health, Theon.

Yeah.

I love the complete different changes of tone.

The fact that he goes from such biting sarcasm, it was so nice of you not to take me with

you to the city to I beg you.

He really, really, really wants to go to Alexandria, you know?

I feel bad.

I mean, I would too.

Poor guy just wanted to trip out.

It sounds like he probably could have taken him with him, but he doesn't sound like a

very good son to have on a long journey to Alexandria.

I don't know who Arcleus is in the letter.

Some have speculated it's like a sibling of his.

So when he says, and my mother said to Arcleus that he is upsetting me.

Take him away, implying he doesn't want to go to Alexandria.

If that doesn't work, please take my annoying sibling away from me because he's upsetting

me.

I just love the fact that this kid was left.

I mean, clearly he's wealthy or educated enough to write this letter himself.

The mix of tenses and the tonal shifts that he goes through suggests that it was actually

written by him.

You know, it wasn't, you know, written by a tutor or something.

So he's smart enough to write it and he just writes what's on his mind.

And the fact that he's got the audacity to say, it was so nice of you sending me this

great presence, just rubbish, just kids throwing a temper tantrum when they don't get what

they want.

It is an ancient tradition and I love that we do still have these, you know, not everything

is grand statements and official correspondence.

Sometimes it is just this slice of life stuff that just illuminates how human beings really

haven't changed that much in thousands of years.

The most interesting thought to me is that these people, particularly these two ungrateful

sons, that 2004,000 years later, some of these correspondences, some of the only records

of their civilization, and if they could only see that 4,000 years later, that's a record

we've got.

Not just of him, not just of his family, not just of his town, but as an entire civilization,

you know?

A civilization full of art and politics and achievements and great men, and yet the only

proof we have existed is some shitty little snot nose punk yelling at his mother for not

making his clothes correctly.

It's a, it's akin to, you know, our civilization being discovered in like 4,000 years and Jake

Paul TikToks are like the only thing that like, that like exists, you know?

It's like the very, the very lowest examples of humanities or all the proof we have, but

it'll be very interesting.

And that is all we've got time for today.

Thanks for listening to our very first episode of Quick Fire.

We've got more of these in the works with several planned exclusively for our Patreon

members.

If you're not a member already, you can check out our Patreon via the link in the show notes.

Thanks a lot and see you on the next one.

See you later.