0:07

Welcome to Totalus Rankium.

0:10

This week, Season 2,

0:13

Round 2, Appropriate

0:15

Crazium.

0:24

Hello and welcome to Roman Emperors Totalus Rankium.

0:27

I am Jamie. I'm Rob. Welcome to

0:29

Roman Emperors Totalus Rankium.

0:32

Ranking. We've done all the ranking. We've ranked all

0:34

of the emperors from Augustus to Constantine

0:36

XI. And we're

0:38

now in the rounds. The chariot races.

0:49

Editing Rob here. So I'm just going

0:51

to give you a little bit of a heads up here. History Dog,

0:53

for some reason, was particularly enthusiastic

0:56

about life and possibly

0:58

looking into history in this episode. He

1:01

was off on one, as you could

1:03

say. And usually I try and

1:05

edit all his historical enthusiasm

1:08

out. But there was so much. So

1:10

much this episode. So you're going to hear History

1:12

Dog for a bit. But you know what? I assume, if

1:14

you've got this far, you're probably a little

1:16

bit of a fan of History Dog. He's a very cute

1:19

dog. So please forgive his

1:21

interruptions whenever Jamie's talking. And

1:24

just know that at the end of the recording,

1:26

he was rewarded for being a good boy. Because

1:28

he is, certainly, a

1:30

very good boy. Here

1:39

we are. The second round, Jamie. Nice.

1:42

Second round. How do you think last

1:44

round went? I thought it was fair.

1:46

But I could understand if some people didn't quite agree.

1:49

But, you know, they're wrong. It's fine. We've done it. Well,

1:52

you'll be pleased to know. We can find out. Because

1:54

there is a listener's poll on

1:56

our Discord.

1:58

So if you're one of our Patreons. you have access

2:00

to our discord and you can go and

2:03

you can do your own round of voting and

2:06

it's just going to be open the whole time we do this so

2:09

we can decide right at the end who

2:12

the listener people who go through are

2:14

but I'll give you an update on round one. I'd

2:16

just like to point out that Anastasius

2:20

who I wasn't sure about because

2:23

just to remind you we put through Ramanus and Anastasius

2:26

I thought maybe John 1 should

2:29

have gone through instead of Anastasius

2:32

but you you were like no Anastasius definitely

2:35

and I did agree with you I do like Anastasius. Well

2:37

our listeners completely agree with you Anastasius

2:40

so far is running away absolutely

2:42

running away with the votes at the moment however

2:45

in joint second place is John 1

2:48

who I thought maybe should have gone through

2:51

I did like John 1 and Ramanus who

2:54

is someone who you were keen on so it's

2:56

close it looks like Anastasius has definitely got

2:58

it from a listener poll but like I say I'm not going to shut

3:00

that till the end but it's a

3:03

throw up between Ramanus 1 and John 1

3:05

if you're listening you've not voted yet go onto

3:07

our discord it's in the season two

3:09

rounds listener poll section and

3:12

yeah just choose the right emoji Anastasius

3:15

is Rocky the rock emoji and

3:18

and Ramanus 1 is the holy

3:20

peach emoji so it's so

3:22

good so good anyway

3:25

we're not doing those today I just

3:27

thought I was gonna I just thought I keep you updated on

3:29

what our listeners think because today it is round

3:32

two but before we go into the people

3:34

we are discussing that means Jamie

3:37

it's not fightiest Maximus but

3:40

it is your very very favorite it

3:43

is aprobium crazium so

3:45

let's break some some stats

3:47

down shall we yeah let's get

3:49

statical okay so we're going to start

3:52

by looking at the dynasties as

3:54

per usual I'm just going to run through them

3:56

very quickly the Leonids very

3:58

very same bunch Average

4:01

of 0.5. That

4:03

is very sane. Very sane. I

4:06

can't discuss whether it's the sanest dynasty

4:08

we've ever had because that would be talking about season one

4:10

and we're not doing it. The Justinians, 7.8.

4:13

Getting

4:15

there. Almost halfway. The Heraclians, 7.2.

4:20

20 years of anarchy, Jamie. How crazy do

4:22

you think that got? Well,

4:25

I'd say above 10. Well, bearing

4:27

in mind I'm not including Justinian, too,

4:29

because he falls into the Heraclian

4:31

dynasty, not the 20-year anarchy. You

4:34

sat down. I mean, I know you sat down, but the listeners

4:36

don't know you sat down.

4:38

I shall resat down, yes. OK. 0.2, Jamie.

4:41

Really? 0.2. We

4:45

didn't have... Maybe they were just bad. They were bad. We

4:47

didn't have a lot on them. They just kept being

4:49

cooed. So most

4:51

of them scored nothing at all if Justinian

4:53

had been in there. Obviously, Justinian, too, did very

4:56

well in that round. So we'll talk about

4:58

that in a moment. So the year of

5:00

the five... Not year of five, plus

5:02

the 20-year anarchy dynasty, officially

5:05

as our sanest dynasty of season two. The

5:07

Isaurians

5:08

got 5.8. The Nikepharans,

5:10

only 1.8. Not too good. The

5:13

Amorans, 7.3. The

5:15

Macedonians, 20 of them. And

5:17

there were some right crazies in there.

5:20

But there's 20 of them and there's some very sane

5:22

ones, which brings the average right down to

5:25

four. Oh, wow. Yeah.

5:28

They were delegates, I'm not sure. The

5:30

Dukas, only 1.8.

5:33

Commonos, generally

5:36

have done very well in season two. Only

5:38

a score of six.

5:40

The Angelos, 5.4. The

5:43

exiled Lacharis dynasty, 1.3. And

5:47

then finally, the Palaeologos dynasty. I mean,

5:49

it was all at the end. Maybe they were going crazy at the end.

5:52

Oh, the Empire was falling. 4.6. Wow.

5:56

Now, like I say, we're not talking about season

5:58

one. I've not even checked.

5:59

Jamie. But I have a feeling that

6:02

season two is a lot sanier than season

6:05

one if you take in the averages. Yeah. That

6:07

means that the Herakolians are our third

6:10

craziest dynasty with only 7.2. The

6:13

Amoreans on 7.3 come second and

6:15

the Justinian dynasty with a mere 7.8

6:18

are actually our craziest. It's not

6:20

bad. Yeah, so what a same butch. And it's Justinian too

6:22

carrying most of that, aren't they? Oh no, Justinian too is

6:24

Herakolian, remember. But his name's Justinian. I

6:26

know, it's confusing, but Justinian too is a Herakolian,

6:29

not a Justinian. Bloody Romans and their

6:31

names. A lot of the Justinian

6:32

dynasties score comes from

6:35

Justin 2, but we'll talk about that in a moment.

6:37

Yeah. Right, okay, so the most

6:39

same, the bottom five. Who

6:41

was our sanest emperor? Right,

6:44

we don't need to discuss anything here because just like

6:46

in season one, what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at all

6:48

the emperors with zero in this round.

6:51

Mm-hmm. But then I'm

6:52

going to say the sanest

6:54

is the one with the highest score with

6:56

a zero in this round. Because

6:59

if you're scoring high and still getting

7:01

a zero in abrabium grasium, that's

7:03

because you're very sane, not because we don't have anything, aren't you?

7:06

I figure. That's a good point, yeah. 27 emperors

7:08

scored zero. Wow,

7:11

that's, do you know when you say that, it

7:13

makes the series sound a lot more boring. Roughly

7:17

around a third of the emperors got zero

7:19

in this round. Wow. It

7:21

just doesn't, you look at this, it's like wow,

7:23

what a sane bunch. What a sane

7:25

bunch. There's no way that's not significantly

7:28

higher than season one, surely. I'd

7:31

be surprised. Yeah. Anyway, we're not

7:33

talking about that. We're not, we're not. Okay,

7:36

only five emperors with zero

7:39

in this round got Genesee Cesar. But

7:41

here are the top three sanest emperors

7:44

or the bottom three of this round. Third,

7:46

we get Tiberius II from the Justinian

7:49

dynasty. He didn't get Genesee Cesar

7:51

and he was very sane. Second,

7:54

John II from our last episode.

7:57

Oh, good old John. He wasn't good enough to go through

7:59

but...

7:59

he was good enough to get into the rounds

8:02

and he was a very sane emperor. He'd

8:04

be happy with that result. But our very sanest

8:06

emperor of season two

8:08

is awarded to none other than

8:10

Anastasius from last round.

8:13

What a sane bunch we had last round. Yeah,

8:16

so good, so calm. Such a calm group.

8:19

There you go, a bunch of sainies. What

8:21

about the, oh you wouldn't invite them

8:23

around to meet your mother-in-law kind of. Yeah.

8:25

I'm not sure why you're inviting people to meet your mother-in-law.

8:28

But that's just... You're weird. Yeah, but maybe you

8:30

are and you'd avoid these ones. Yeah.

8:33

So we can, I can tell you fifth and fourth

8:35

place easily, but then we've got three

8:38

joint firsts. So we're going to have to do some clearing

8:40

up. Yeah.

8:42

So in fifth place is

8:44

interestingly Alexios IV. Alexios

8:48

IV didn't really do anything apart from one thing

8:50

and he earned a lot of points doing it. He

8:52

sold the empire to the Latin

8:55

crusading states. He did. Yes.

8:57

He did. He did. And for that, he got a score

8:59

of 15, which isn't a

9:01

huge score, but it's enough to

9:03

get in fifth place in this season. Shows

9:06

how fit on the ground we were. Yeah, you sell the empire,

9:08

you're going to get high points. So

9:10

there you go.

9:11

Fourth place. Oh, we're going way back here

9:13

Jamie. It's Emperor Focus.

9:16

Yeah, way back near the start. Emperor

9:19

Focus feels more like season one to me. Yeah.

9:22

He burnt narses alive. He had people

9:24

whipped to death. He had them beaten to death

9:26

with cudgels. He beheaded people. He amputated

9:29

bits off people for punishment. He tied them up

9:31

in sacks and threw them in the sea. Had

9:33

people tied to stakes and shot with

9:35

arrows. He was

9:38

generally a nasty man.

9:41

It's like the good old days of season one over there. Like the

9:43

good old days. He scored a

9:45

good chunky 16 for a

9:48

lot of being very nasty. Felt

9:50

like that should have been higher. Yeah, yeah, no. When

9:53

I did that quick summary, I thought, oh, only 16 for

9:55

that. I thought exactly the same. But there you go. Only 16

9:58

apparently.

9:59

But now we need to make a decision because we have three

10:03

emperors, all of them,

10:05

on 20 points. Oh,

10:07

okay. Yes, we have,

10:09

and I'll just put them in order that we came across

10:11

them first, we had Justin II

10:15

from the Justinian dynasty, we had

10:17

Justinian II from

10:19

the Heraklian dynasty, it's the

10:21

name, and we had Andronicus

10:26

from the Komunonos dynasty.

10:28

And they're all a little bit different from each other,

10:31

and we need to put them in order. So just to remind

10:33

you, why did we score them full marks

10:35

in this round? Because it's hard getting full marks in

10:37

the program crazy. Justin

10:40

II, he actually went crazy.

10:43

Full on crazy. He

10:45

did, yes. Yes, I remember that. He imitated

10:47

animals, he rode around on a throne on wheels

10:50

because it kept him calm, he kept biting

10:52

people so much that rumours went around that he had actually

10:54

eaten two of his staff. The

10:57

windows, sorry,

10:59

the doors were boarded up to stop him from escaping.

11:03

When the patriarch came around to see if he was

11:05

okay, he punched the patriarch so hard

11:07

in the face that the patriarch was knocked

11:09

unconscious. He

11:13

would hide under the bed from the boggle because

11:16

he thought the boggle was coming to get him. He

11:18

just went insane and like,

11:21

actually insane. So

11:24

that's why he scored 20. He is the only

11:26

emperor that we can point to and went, no,

11:28

there was something very wrong going on there.

11:31

We don't feel bad though. Oh yeah, no, definitely.

11:33

There's a clinical reason for that role. Yes, just being

11:35

a bit brutal because he definitely came along

11:38

all of a sudden. Yeah, so

11:41

yeah, we did, if I remember correctly,

11:43

we did feel sorry for him in his episode.

11:46

But let's be honest, we also found some of

11:48

the stories amusing. And

11:50

he also

11:51

scored full marks because he

11:53

went insane. Yeah. Okay,

11:56

then Justinian two, a

11:58

little bit different. He

11:59

might have slaughtered 10,000 Sklavians maybe, because 20,000 other

12:02

Sklavians deserted him.

12:05

So

12:09

maybe he did a massacre. We don't know.

12:12

Then he was knocked

12:14

out of power and came back to power, remember,

12:17

after his nose was chopped off. We have him

12:19

today and around, so I'll go in this in more

12:21

detail in a bit. But once

12:23

he came back, he did a lot of slow burning

12:26

and torture.

12:28

Lots of blindings with vinegar. He

12:30

ordered a red wedding murder of one

12:33

of his own cities, Ravenna.

12:35

He sent some people around there and he invited

12:37

all the nobility of Ravenna out to a big picnic

12:40

outside the walls. And once they get

12:42

there, he slaughtered them all. He

12:44

wasn't physically there, but it was on his orders.

12:48

There's a very good chance he did the mass killing

12:50

of Cherson, the area he was exiled

12:52

to, where people were tied up in sacks and

12:55

thrown in a river. He just went very

12:57

purgy,

12:58

very killy. And

13:02

yeah, so we gave him 20 for that. Yeah,

13:05

because he's just more brutal revenge-y. Yeah,

13:08

it's because he was a full-on revenge story and we

13:10

liked the revenge story, so we were like 20. But

13:13

maybe we went a bit high.

13:17

Maybe we did. It's certainly up

13:19

there. He should be getting 18, 19, but 20.

13:22

I mean, it's no worse

13:24

than what Focus did though, or fuck ass. Well,

13:27

yeah, no, this is it. Focus only got 16. Maybe

13:29

he disliked his story so much. Maybe. Maybe. He tried

13:32

to bolster his points. Maybe that's why. This could be

13:34

it. Yeah, exactly. And then finally,

13:36

right near the end, where

13:38

we thought no more crazy like this would be

13:40

seen again, we got Andronicus. So,

13:43

as with all of them whilst doing this, I go back

13:46

into my old notes just so I can

13:47

compile some things nice and easily. And

13:50

I looked into my notes for Andronicus and

13:52

I had put, I quote, the whole

13:54

section of a Chromium Crazium,

13:56

all the stuff. Yeah.

13:58

Yeah. At the...

13:59

At the start of this episode, I completely forgot I did this, at

14:02

the start of this episode I asked you to make a list

14:04

as we went along, because I knew there was going to

14:06

be a lot. So you actually

14:08

made a list, and then you talked us through all

14:10

the opprobium crazium in that episode. He

14:13

had lots of affairs with his cousin,

14:16

he escaped from prison, got re-caught, escaped,

14:18

got re-caught and escaped again. He

14:21

pretended that he needed to go for a poo

14:23

behind a bush and then he legged it. The

14:25

first half of the

14:27

episode is essentially him trying

14:30

to sleep with as many of the Emperor's relatives

14:32

as possible just to annoy the Emperor, and

14:34

he kept being arrested and escaping.

14:37

And it was all fun and antics, it was

14:39

just really hilarious. And then he

14:41

becomes Emperor, and then

14:43

suddenly he becomes very purgy, and

14:46

like a very angry man. When the

14:48

future Emperor Isaac Angelos revolted,

14:50

he tied Isaac's mother to a battering

14:53

ram and threatened to use her to

14:55

knock the doors down, if you remember that. He

14:59

also burnt someone to

15:01

death in the hippodrome without

15:03

tying them up. So they got long sticks

15:05

and they just kept poking him back in the fire, and

15:07

he tried to escape, which was horrendous.

15:11

So yeah, I said at the time it's an amazing

15:13

mixture of all the fun type of opprobrium

15:15

crazium, but also the horrific type

15:18

of opprobrium crazium. So,

15:21

three very different opprobrium crazium for

15:23

Max. What order do we go?

15:26

Before you went through that big list, I think I

15:28

sort of had my mind made up. I was thinking, maybe just

15:30

sitting in two? Sorry, yeah,

15:32

just in two because... Because he went insane.

15:35

Yeah, he actually literally was, so you can't beat

15:37

that.

15:38

But there's something quite inciting about Andronicus.

15:41

There is, and I do feel sorry for

15:43

Justin, because I mean, let's face it, if we were doing

15:45

an American president, and

15:47

it was recent, we wouldn't just

15:49

be laughing at the stories. We'd be going,

15:51

oh, that's really awful. What awful problems.

15:54

Yes, we enjoyed the stories, but I don't know. I

15:56

just feel sorry for him. He lost it. But also,

15:58

I don't think Justin... Justinian

16:00

too, he's just, he was brutal

16:02

and revenge-y but I think

16:04

he's more on a level with focus. I mean,

16:06

yeah, I mean, he quite, I think

16:09

it's more than focus. Focus was doing lots of individual

16:11

horrible punishments and they were brutal. Justinian,

16:14

don't forget, wiped out two of his own

16:17

cities and also massacred like 10,000

16:19

people on top of doing

16:22

all the personal revenge. I do think

16:24

Justinian definitely is worth some focus. Whether

16:27

he deserved the full 20, maybe a 19,

16:29

maybe even as low as an 18,

16:32

I'm not sure, but again, with Justin, I

16:35

don't know. Are you feeling like I am

16:37

that Andronicus should actually be top though,

16:39

for having a variety of opprobrium crazy? Yeah,

16:41

the note I've just written down is Sex, Escape and Purge,

16:44

which sounds quite fun. Yes, yeah.

16:47

Okay, let's say Andronicus wins this then. He

16:49

is officially our most crazy of the season

16:52

two emperors. Where do you want to put

16:54

Justin 2 and Justinian 2 then? I

16:57

think,

16:57

oh no, I don't, I

17:00

think, because I feel bad for Justin 2.

17:02

I think he should be third. Okay,

17:04

no, I'm happy with that. So

17:07

that is third place Justin 2, second place Justinian

17:10

2 and our most crazy of all emperors of season two

17:13

goes to Andronicus of the Common Noss dynasty.

17:15

Yay!

17:16

I don't know, those Common Noss,

17:18

those Common Noss, they're two doing all right.

17:21

They keep coming up. Right, okay, well, that's it. That

17:24

is it for opprobrium crazy. We now know our most

17:26

sane emperor, well done, to

17:28

Anastasius and we now know our most crazy

17:31

emperor, Andronicus. Oh, I imagine

17:33

dinner party with those two. Oh, it would

17:35

have bounced out. It would be like a normal dinner party. Yeah.

17:39

Yeah. An average of 10. Okay,

17:43

let's do, let's do round two, shall

17:45

we?

17:46

Round two,

17:47

fight! Okay,

17:50

here we are Jamie. This has been dubbed

17:52

as season two's round of death. Yeah.

17:56

Which, we've got some big names here. We have got

17:58

some big names. We do.

17:59

think it's as bad as season one's round of death

18:02

but no yeah but it's it's a tough

18:04

one because we have Justinian one

18:07

we have Justinian two we have

18:09

a man well one

18:11

we have Justin two and

18:13

we have Eudocia that's a

18:16

lot of big names I mean we talked about two

18:18

of them just now in the aprobing crazy in the section

18:20

now just give you an idea last time

18:22

most of our contestants were around

18:25

roughly between the low teens

18:27

and the low 20s in terms of

18:29

ranking what position they ranked him this

18:31

time Justin one came

18:34

at rank fourth with a score

18:36

of 51.5 Justinian

18:38

two came in third with

18:40

a score of 52 man well

18:43

one sixth with a score of 43.88 so

18:47

the first three names were in the top six yeah

18:50

different type of round Justin two nowhere

18:53

near as high with the score he came in 33rd

18:56

with a score of 29.38 but

18:58

as we just saw he just came third in the most

19:00

crazy Emperor of season two

19:02

so he's got he's got something going for

19:04

him he's also in Genesis oh you could

19:06

say that and then there's Eudocia she came

19:09

58th with a score of 14.88

19:12

let's not kid ourselves Eudocia is probably

19:14

not going through today you're so sexist Rob it

19:17

pains me it pains me because

19:20

and for reasons we're talking about later I really

19:23

like Eudocia she is a really

19:25

good Emperor to choose if you're looking for an

19:27

interesting Emperor and this is why I fought for her to go

19:29

through to the rounds but just look

19:31

at those names she's up against anyway let's

19:34

let's talk through them then shall we let's

19:36

do Justinian one first Justinian

19:39

one ruled from 527 to 565 a giant in Roman history

19:48

arguably the most well-known Eastern

19:50

Roman Emperor of all time usually

19:52

the only one mentioned in people's top 10

19:55

lists of all Roman emperors

19:58

as in the only one from the East Usually

20:00

the other nine are Western Roman emperors

20:02

from the early days and then to show

20:04

that they know a little bit more than just early

20:08

Roman history you get Justinian the

20:10

Great thrown in because he was great

20:13

and uh oh he's got a great after his name

20:15

oh he is Justinian the Great that's

20:17

coming in with a sledgehammer oh it is

20:20

and he was oh he's very good Jamie

20:22

he is very good and perhaps

20:24

that's what made you so hostile against him

20:26

maybe you've forgotten this but you went

20:28

into this episode determined

20:29

not to like him yeah

20:32

that was your attitude you sat there and went go on

20:34

then impress me I dare

20:36

you uh and he did he

20:39

did impress he he did a lot

20:41

born as Petrus in

20:44

a farming village he headed for the

20:46

big city because his uncle Justin was

20:48

doing well there and he served in

20:51

the excubitors remember they were like the

20:53

the guards of the day yeah he

20:55

met Theodora an extra an actress

20:58

uh slash sex worker working for the blues

21:01

because the blues were around and they fell in love

21:03

we've got a true real love story here then

21:06

his uncle Justin the

21:08

head of the excubitors managed

21:10

to take the throne when Anastasia dies

21:12

mentioned this last time with Anastasia he did the

21:14

thing with his three nephews sitting on the right chair and

21:17

they did sit on the right chair so he thought oh well

21:19

whoever I see in the morning can be there and

21:21

wouldn't you know it's Justinian's uncle Justin

21:24

hi the guy with the sword happens

21:27

to become the emperor but hey it's the

21:29

Justinian dynasties so there you go uh everything

21:32

becomes good so Justin uh

21:34

becomes the emperor Justinian becomes

21:37

the heir and an important advisor

21:39

to his uncle straight away one of the first things

21:41

he did was

21:41

change the law so he could marry Theodora

21:44

Theodora was too low class to marry him

21:46

so he just changed the law

21:48

privilege of power yeah it's fantastic

21:50

okay and then not too long after

21:52

Justin dies leaving the emperor to Justinian

21:56

and then he went on his campaign of

21:58

one god one emperor

21:59

one emperor. No, say that again.

22:02

One god, one empire, one emperor.

22:05

He used to get confused a lot as well. People

22:07

got used to that.

22:09

They just, they knew what he was talking about. They wouldn't bother correcting

22:11

him. It would just embarrass everyone. Yeah. In

22:14

other words, he was going to rebuild the fallen

22:17

empire. That's what he was going to do. But

22:19

first of all, he didn't he did go off rushing, fighting.

22:21

No, he reworked the tax system. So

22:23

people were paying a more fair share. The rich

22:26

and powerful weren't paying anything at this

22:28

point. And the poor were really poor. So

22:30

he changed that.

22:31

Everyone was

22:33

now happier apart from the really rich,

22:35

but they were happy anyway, because they were really rich. So

22:37

it was fine. He then codified

22:40

all the laws, all the laws, since the

22:42

start, the very start of season one

22:44

were a mess. So he went, let's get

22:46

them all written down in one place. So

22:49

it's clear.

22:50

I mean, that kind of makes sense. It was an amazing

22:53

thing to do. He did it in months. And

22:56

all of a sudden, the law was now clear. A

22:59

huge thing revolutionized the

23:01

empire because all of a sudden they had a clear

23:03

legal system. Absolutely amazing. You

23:07

know what's going on. Yeah, this is this lays

23:09

the foundations of modern European

23:12

law. This is how much of an impact it has.

23:15

John Adams is reading this when he's

23:18

growing up. Do you think the Romans would high five if they knew?

23:20

The Romans probably did high five

23:22

knowing that the Americans were probably pre

23:25

high five. This is going to keep going on. Yeah. Anyway,

23:27

the Persians then kicked up a fuss. It's back

23:29

when the Persians were around. And we

23:32

are Persians. Yeah, we're introduced to

23:34

Justinian's Agrippa. That's

23:36

right. It's none other than balisarius.

23:39

Balisarius was just

23:42

absolute genius of a general. He was

23:44

the Agrippa for Justinian.

23:46

It's always good to have an Agrippa. Yeah.

23:49

And the Roman forces

23:50

win spectacularly.

23:52

Short story there. But then writing

23:54

takes place in the capital. The demes were fighting

23:57

and it led to unrest the Nica riots

23:59

break out.

23:59

Justinian nearly flees

24:02

the city but Theodora says no,

24:05

better to be dead than fleeing as

24:07

an emperor. And Justinian went, oh you've

24:09

got a good point, fair enough, I'll stay. How

24:12

can we put the riots down though? Well,

24:14

they just kill everyone.

24:18

The soldiers go into the Hippodrome and

24:20

an estimated 30,000 people are massacred. So

24:23

he kills 30,000 of his own people, something

24:26

that is quite often forgotten about I think with

24:28

Justinian.

24:31

That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people isn't

24:33

it? That's

24:34

like almost as small cities were.

24:36

It's really bad. A very big town. Really

24:38

bad. Anyway, the riots put down.

24:41

So there you go. But not

24:44

before most of the city is burnt down. This is

24:46

hugely devastating to the city

24:48

but silver lining, okay,

24:51

most of the city is burnt down. But that means we

24:53

can rebuild the city. So Justinian

24:56

orders none other than the best building ever

24:58

built. The Harge of Sophia is

25:01

built. And this is where we get the Harge of

25:03

Sophia, which you were impressed with in

25:05

Justinian's episode. But now you

25:07

have seen how much impact that building had throughout

25:10

the rest of the series. Does that mean a bit more to

25:12

you? Because it seemed like almost everything revolved

25:15

around the Harge of Sophia. It was mentioned pretty much every

25:17

episode. So yeah, so

25:19

that's when it was built.

25:21

It was all a bit bendy to begin

25:23

with because it was built in old rush. But

25:26

yeah. So what did they get to fix

25:28

that rub? The goats. Yes. Yeah, that's where

25:30

the goats come from. So

25:32

all of that comes from here. Right. Anyway,

25:35

he then decides to get the rest of the empire

25:37

back. And that meant taking Africa. Africa

25:39

had been lost to the Vandals, remember? Long

25:42

story short, Belisarius takes

25:45

Africa back. There we go. Africa's back. Then

25:48

let's get Italy back. Belisarius heads to

25:50

Italy. Lots of fighting out there over a

25:52

long period of time. Lots of sieging taking place in

25:54

Naples and Rome. But

25:56

eventually the goffs are defeated and Italy

25:58

is back. Hooray.

25:59

So Roma's back in the Empire. The

26:02

Empire's back apart from

26:04

Gaul and Spain and stuff. Anyway,

26:06

lots of fighting takes place. The country

26:09

of Italy is, well the region, sorry, of

26:11

Italy is absolutely worn out. Ravenna

26:13

is eventually taken and then,

26:16

as just as everything is looking really

26:18

good and it looks like the Empire will be fully

26:20

reunified again, the Black Death

26:23

appears. The first case of bubonic

26:25

plague. Horrific scenes. 40% of

26:27

the population

26:30

of the city die. 10,000 a

26:32

day were dying at one point in

26:34

the capital city alone. It

26:37

was absolutely horrific.

26:39

End of days apocalyptic stuff.

26:43

Anyway, let's get over that. Several

26:46

years were then fighting, spending, taking

26:48

Italy back again because they lost Italy during

26:50

the plague and they do get it back. Then Spain

26:53

has to rejoin. Hey, if we're getting the Empire back

26:55

together, we'd like to join in. So Spain's back

26:57

as well. It's not like the

26:59

height of glory days, but essentially the Empire

27:01

is being rebuilt. It's no longer east and

27:03

west. It's now the Roman Empire again. Can

27:06

you give him credit though for Spain? Because they made that choice

27:08

themselves. Not like he took it. He's just... Yeah,

27:10

but he did so well. Spain wanted to join

27:12

it. I'd say that's even better. Yeah, that's a

27:14

good point. At least no one's dying this way.

27:18

Justinian then starts paying off barbarian

27:20

invaders in his later life because

27:22

he realises that it costs a lot of money. A lot

27:25

of money fighting these, so he just starts paying them off and

27:27

he starts focusing on unifying the church.

27:29

We're going to have the whole Empire back together. We need to unify

27:31

the church properly. He did this by

27:34

arresting the Pope. Long

27:36

story short, it kind of works. And

27:39

then he dies. And despite

27:41

the worst plague in history up until

27:44

this point, the Empire did nothing

27:46

but grow under his rule, politically, literally,

27:49

in terms of culture and art and

27:51

law. The city is better. Everything

27:54

is better,

27:55

even though something awful happened

27:58

in the middle of its rule. Might have...

27:59

impressive. There is a reason why he

28:02

is fifth overall. So that's

28:04

Justinian 1. Is that how you remember

28:06

it being?

28:07

It's actually a bit better than I remember, which

28:10

is for me it's really frustrating because it was

28:12

just so good. You know where I'm at, I'm there,

28:14

I'm there. If you paint a few pictures, build

28:16

a castle thing. I believe you

28:20

said he did nothing, it was all Belisarius.

28:23

That's a good point, it's all Belisarius. I mean a

28:25

lot of it was Belisarius, but I mean... It's

28:28

Augustus all over

28:28

again, isn't it? Oh, Augustus is amazing. No

28:30

he's not. It

28:32

is kind of Augustus. So Griffin Belisarius. I

28:34

mean Justinian and Augustus are very similar.

28:36

They both really helped with all

28:38

the civil stuff in the Empire

28:41

whilst they had a very competent general sorting

28:43

out the military stuff and the two of them working

28:45

together means great things for the

28:47

Empire. You can see why the parallels are drawn.

28:50

So there we go, but and interestingly we did not mark

28:52

Augustus the highest in season one, although

28:54

a lot of people put him at the top. We

28:58

have not said Justinian the great

29:00

is the highest in season two

29:02

even though a lot of people would. So

29:04

that says something about us I feel. Oh

29:07

yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's undeniably

29:09

good. Is it good enough to go through? We'll

29:12

find out. Okay, next stop. Next

29:14

stop. Oh no, sorry, let me just go

29:16

for his score. So for Phytius

29:19

Maximus he got 16. Very

29:21

phytie, but marked down for Belisarius

29:23

doing most of the actual work. Aprobium Crazium,

29:26

eight. In retrospect that perhaps

29:28

should have been a bit higher for massacring 30,000 of

29:31

his own people. We only went four apiece.

29:33

I'd argue maybe he

29:35

deserved a couple more points now I'm looking at this afresh.

29:38

Possibly. Yeah, and considering

29:41

yeah we just said Justinian two maybe

29:43

we scored him too highly in Aprobium Crazium just

29:45

a moment ago. Maybe if we're doing this again maybe

29:48

Justinian one would just eek Justinian two

29:50

in the points. Who knows.

29:53

Successus Ultimus, 18. Undeniably

29:56

good. The reason why we marked it now slightly

29:59

is that he ripped Italy apart getting

30:02

them back into the Empire and all the people living

30:04

there were miserable. They weren't happy

30:06

being back in the Empire so he didn't get 4

30:09

marks. Anyway, Imogio Fascias,

30:11

the amazing mosaic, got him 4.75 almost 4 marks.

30:13

He'd ruled for a good long

30:16

time. He got 4.75 for Tembocomblito.

30:20

A very impressive score. 51.5. He's in the 50s

30:23

club. He is ranked 4th.

30:25

Sorry, I said he was ranked 5th a moment ago, didn't I? 4th

30:28

is his rank. Yeah, no, I got that. There

30:30

you go. So anyway,

30:32

that's him. Now let's do Justinian Deux.

30:35

Justinian Deux. Again.

30:39

Well, a little bit more

30:41

detail this time. Justinian II, he ruled from 685 to 695

30:43

and then 705 to 711. The very fact I need to say that gives you one

30:50

reason why he has made it this far. He's

30:53

the last of the Heraklian dynasty and

30:55

oh, he's an action-passed story. Born

30:58

into the royal family, he was made co-emperor

31:01

and heir at the age of around 1213.

31:04

His father died of dysentery and suddenly

31:06

he was emperor at 16 years old, Jamie. I'd forgotten

31:08

how young he was when

31:09

he became emperor. To begin with, the

31:11

new caliph, Almalik, was

31:13

threatening to cause trouble and Justinian

31:16

II sent his trust general, Leontius,

31:18

to deal with it. And Leontius does, so that's

31:20

nice. And then, aged 19, the Slavs

31:23

were causing problems and this time Justinian

31:26

II says, no, I'm going to lead it rather than giving

31:28

it to my general. I'm 19 years old.

31:31

Some people are unsure about this, especially you. You

31:33

thought this was going to go terribly. This was when you thought

31:35

this was going to be a really short episode, by the way. Yes.

31:38

And then I was ending

31:39

up listening for like four hours or whatever

31:41

I think you did. You thought

31:44

he was going to be humiliated at this point. Oh,

31:46

but no. No, he did well. He impressed many in the army.

31:48

So he did well against the Slavs. Then

31:50

another war with the Caliphates started

31:53

up. Justinian II used the resettled

31:55

prisoners of war from

31:57

the Slavs that he just fought to fight.

31:59

affected so Justinian II ordered

32:02

them all to be killed. Now,

32:06

sources differ. Some people say this doesn't happen, some

32:08

people say it was 7,000, some sources say 10,000, one source says 30,000.

32:13

So, yet again, we've got another possible 30,000

32:16

people massacred. It must be a Justinian

32:19

thing. Yeah. Anyway, like I say, it's debated

32:21

but we decided at the end of the episode that

32:23

he did do this. Anyway, Justinian

32:26

II then sent someone to arrest the Pope because

32:28

he was trying to sort out

32:29

all the religious problems. Again? Again,

32:32

it must be a Justinian thing. Yeah. The

32:35

Pope had refused

32:37

to sign the Quintisex

32:40

rules, remember those? Sex.

32:43

No. They were a bunch of

32:45

rules that were brought in to make everyone

32:47

happy. They got carried away, there's

32:49

like a hundred of them. You must smile. Well,

32:51

they're ridiculous things, some of them, like, no,

32:54

having a cow in a church on a Tuesday or something. We

32:57

might have made that one up now, think about it, but there

32:59

was a lot about not singing, not selling

33:01

alcohol in certain times and stuff. Right.

33:03

Yeah. The Pope wasn't happy with it because he liked

33:06

to sing and drink. Yeah. And yeah,

33:08

didn't like it, so he didn't

33:11

sign it. Justinian

33:12

sent him to be arrested, but

33:15

lots of stuff was going on at the time, so it doesn't really

33:17

work because a lot of people

33:19

didn't like these laws and

33:21

the patriarch and the powerful in the city

33:24

used the blues to start a riot and

33:27

Leontius is freed from prison and

33:29

proclaimed emperor. Justinian, too,

33:31

aged 26, was captured

33:34

and his nose was cut off and

33:36

he was thrown in a cell to bleed

33:38

to death. And that's when I said,

33:41

oh, we're pretty much at the

33:42

end, but I was lying, Jamie. You

33:44

were lying. I was lying. Sorry,

33:46

but for dramatic purposes.

33:48

So I hope you forgive me. Because

33:50

he was sent to Cherson, Crimea,

33:53

where Crimea is now, and he was

33:55

there in exile. He slowly recovered

33:57

and he learned that Leontius had been deposed by the

33:59

general called Tiberius and Tiberius

34:02

too was now Emperor

34:03

and Justinian too swore

34:06

to get the throne back.

34:08

Now one kind of laughed a bit.

34:10

Don't be silly, I've got a nose. Yeah. Hearing

34:13

that the leaders of Cherson

34:15

were planning to send him back and change

34:17

to the capital, Justinian too

34:20

flees from his house arrest. He

34:22

went up to stay with the goss for a while but he

34:24

was very recognisable and he realised someone would

34:26

probably kidnap him, sell him from ransom so

34:29

he leaves quite soon after that. He heads to the

34:31

land of the Khazars on the other side of the

34:33

Black Sea, a semi-nomadic Turkish

34:35

people. He married the Khagan

34:38

sister and then one night Justinian

34:40

too was told

34:43

that the Khagan planned to

34:45

betray him

34:46

and the new bodyguard that he'd just been given

34:48

were about to kill him. So Justinian

34:51

too in the middle of a meal stands up,

34:53

stands behind his chief bodyguard and

34:56

strangles him with a rope where

34:59

he sits. That's quite cool.

35:01

Oh yeah. It just

35:03

becomes an amazing adventure story because

35:05

he then flees, he grabs a small

35:08

boat and he rows himself across

35:10

the Black Sea. Maybe there was a sail

35:13

in my head he's rowing. He heads

35:15

across Black Sea, he

35:16

stops at Cherson and he picks up a handful

35:19

of followers and it's literally a handful. One

35:21

of them was called Foolish Paul and that wasn't

35:23

us, that was the source calling him

35:25

that. Yes, we assumed

35:27

that he was Jeff's friend. Then

35:30

they cross the Black Sea more, there's a big storm

35:32

and everyone's like oh we're going to die and Justinian

35:35

too says oh if I'm going to fail

35:37

God kill me now and then the stop stops

35:40

and it's really cool. Yeah. Coddles

35:42

like, I'm good, I'm good.

35:46

Then he

35:46

lands, he meets up with

35:48

the Bulgars and Justinian too convinces

35:51

the Khan of the Bulgars to back him. They

35:54

head to Constantinople, they siege

35:56

the city, Justinian too uses his knowledge of

35:58

a hidden passageway to get

35:59

into the sewers

36:01

and then suddenly appears in the middle of the city.

36:04

Hey, it's me, I'm back. Tiberius

36:07

attempts to flee but is captured and Justinian

36:09

II takes back the throne after 10 years of

36:12

exile. Amazing story.

36:15

He uses Tiberius and Leontius

36:17

as footstools in the Hippodrome. Whilst

36:21

he is crowned the second time. Yeah,

36:25

it's like, I'm back and these two fools

36:28

are my footstools. And then

36:30

the purges start and

36:32

it all gets a bit Ravengy. Ravenna

36:34

was attacked, like I said earlier, it was old Red Wedding

36:37

thing going on. I remember Ravenna is in his own

36:39

empire at this point, so that's his own city, he

36:41

does that too. All the

36:43

nobles are killed and perhaps this was

36:45

to make sure the Pope knew who the boss was

36:48

because he was trying to reunify the church.

36:50

He then went up to Cherson and, no, not

36:52

personally sorry, he ordered people in Cherson

36:54

to be massacred. Sources aren't clear

36:57

but something clearly what happened. There's some discussion

36:59

about people being tied in sacks and thrown

37:01

in the sea.

37:03

Oh. Yeah. A general

37:06

called Philippikos then revolts. So

37:08

Justinian II goes to put it down.

37:11

But he went the wrong way. He thought

37:14

Philippikos was in Armenia

37:16

region, but Philippikos had moved

37:18

and was actually near Cherson. And Justinian

37:21

II got it wrong. So he left the capital

37:23

and Philippikos was able to just come in

37:25

and take the capital whilst he was out. Justinian

37:28

II's son is ripped out of the naught.

37:31

He's a small boy at the time. Remember a

37:33

guard steps

37:33

in front of one of the churches, holds

37:35

up this small boy in front of the whole crowd and

37:38

slits the boy's throat. Yeah.

37:41

It's all very gruesome. Yeah.

37:43

I mean, when you've especially with an emperor that is

37:45

quite good at revenge, that's probably the worst thing

37:47

you can possibly do. Meanwhile, there

37:50

is a general chasing

37:53

after Justinian II. And this general

37:56

had a family and when Philippikos

37:58

had revolted, Justinian

38:00

II had killed this general's entire family,

38:03

including his children. So this general

38:05

was not pleased, and he was chasing Justinian

38:07

II down. Justinian II was racing

38:10

back to the capital by this point. He'd heard Philippicus

38:12

was in there and bumps into this general,

38:14

whose family he had murdered. And

38:17

the two face off against each other, and

38:20

the general decapitates Justinian II in

38:22

the middle of a field. And

38:25

that is right. That is the ending of Macbeth

38:28

right there. Yes. That

38:30

is a king who was killed, a general's family,

38:32

and the general goes and decapitates the king in the

38:34

middle of a field. It's Macbeth. Yeah.

38:37

So we've got all of the – taking the empire back, and then we get

38:40

the end of Macbeth at the end. We

38:42

thoroughly enjoyed that story. It's a great

38:44

story. Justinian II got

38:46

Phytius Maximus of 17. He

38:48

did some okay fighting, but most of that

38:51

was points for getting the empire – back

38:54

after he'd been exiled and his nose had been chopped

38:56

off. He fought tooth and

38:58

claw back. He was literally strangling

39:00

his bodyguards at one point to

39:03

try and get back.

39:05

Eprobium Krazium, we gave him 20.

39:08

He massacred two of his own cities. He

39:10

did a massacre of 30,000 people. There

39:13

was throwing people in the sacks in the sea. There was a lot

39:15

going on. Now, I say it like this. Maybe he

39:17

did deserve the 20. Maybe

39:20

he did. There was a lot going on. It was very

39:22

Eprobium Krazium. Successus Ultimus,

39:25

we gave him a nine. Obviously, if

39:28

he lived in that empire, it wasn't great, but

39:30

he did succeed in getting the empire back. So,

39:32

it's just under half max. Imajofacius,

39:35

he scored four. He was an emperor

39:38

with a golden nose. He's got a score high.

39:41

He buffered up by Christmas. Exactly. Tembo

39:43

Completo score of two in the 50s club. Very

39:45

impressive.

39:46

Total score of 52. He came in

39:48

third overall in

39:50

season two. He beat Justinian.

39:53

He beat Justinian. Very close. Very

39:55

close. He got 50.

39:59

Justin and two gets fifty two. I mean,

40:02

oh, they're both very, very good, aren't they? Yeah.

40:04

I mean, who else can go through in this round?

40:07

Well, let's do Manuel one, shall we?

40:13

Oh yes, that's right. It's Manuel. We're jumping forward

40:15

a bit now. 1143 to 1180. We're

40:18

back with the common lost dynasty. We

40:21

covered his father, John two, last

40:23

time. Yes, and we will cover his grandfather,

40:26

Alexios, in round four.

40:29

That's right. That's grandfather, father and

40:31

son all get it. It

40:33

was strong genes. Yeah.

40:36

I mean, John two wasn't the strongest

40:38

Genesys are winner. He

40:40

wasn't going to go through last round, but he was good enough

40:43

to get Genesys are definitely. And out

40:45

of the three generations, Manuel

40:47

is the highest scoring of the three. So out

40:50

of the three good commoners, emperors,

40:52

you can argue he's the strongest, although don't

40:55

forget, and Rhonokus is also a commoner

40:57

and he's just crazy. So maybe, maybe

41:00

he would do better. Anyway,

41:02

just like his father, it's hard to sum

41:04

up. Just like I said last time, we are

41:06

in the crusading period here, and

41:09

the world is so fractured and all the

41:11

moving parts means it's tricky

41:13

to follow, especially in a quick summary,

41:15

but I'll try my best here. Manuel is born the

41:17

youngest son into the royal family. At

41:19

age 25, his dad died with that

41:21

arrow wound to his hand that we discussed last time.

41:24

And he declared on his deathbed that his youngest

41:26

son should become emperor because

41:29

the outer son often went into fits

41:31

of towering rages. Not

41:33

great. No. Yeah.

41:36

Now, remember they're often the east at this point.

41:39

They're outside Antioch. So

41:42

Manuel happens to be with John, but the other

41:44

son is back in the capital. So

41:46

Manuel sends his father's right hand man

41:49

to rush back to the capital. This is Axelch, if

41:51

you remember, and they Axelch

41:54

rushes back, arrests the other brother

41:56

and says, no, Manuel's now in charge. So

41:59

it's all set up. for when he arrives which he does soon

42:01

afterwards and he gives everyone in the city two

42:03

gold pieces. Nice. That's

42:06

nice isn't it? Things are going

42:08

well until the king of France says they wanted another

42:10

crusade. The last one went so well so let's

42:12

do another one. So we're just going to be passing

42:14

through the French and German armies. Hope

42:17

that's okay. Manuel wasn't

42:19

best pleased about this because obviously they'll ransack

42:22

the land as they come through but okay you

42:24

can come through but no fighting and you're

42:26

not allowed to siege me all right whatever

42:28

you do. So he receives the French and German

42:31

armies he waves them through some tensions occur

42:33

but it's all okay ultimately then word

42:35

comes through the crusade is falling apart

42:38

oh dear this crusade is awful but

42:40

Manuel is too busy dealing with the Norman

42:42

King Roger. Yeah

42:45

this is when Roger just loses it and

42:47

decides to take over Sicily and

42:49

take over the world so Manuel meets

42:52

up with his brother-in-law the Western

42:54

Roman emperor in orbit name Conrad

42:57

hadn't technically been crowned so I still don't

42:59

know if we're going to do him if we do Holy Roman

43:01

emperors but it seems silly not to he was very

43:03

good and it was all but named but oh

43:05

this is a whole thing we're like I have to deal with if

43:07

we cover the Holy Roman emperors. Anyway

43:10

he meets up with his brother-in-law Conrad

43:13

do you want to do something with Roger because oh Rogers

43:15

are forced to be racking with he knows where all the mail

43:17

is. He's got all the stamps.

43:20

Yeah so they decide to take on the Normans together

43:22

remember Roger was a Norman so

43:24

they're going to do that all sorts of political and

43:27

actual fighting take place Manuel is kept

43:29

busy putting down revolts started by

43:31

Roger. Roger is kept busy putting down

43:33

revolts started by Manuel and then Conrad

43:36

the Pope and Roger all die within a year or

43:38

so of each other apart from Roger who obviously

43:40

lives on forever. This changes the political landscape.

43:43

Cousin Andronicus more of

43:45

him in round four then

43:47

attempts a coup but Manuel manages

43:50

to put it down uh then he goes to

43:52

the south of Italy and he takes it from the Normans.

43:54

Hey and this is a time where Italy has

43:56

not been in the empire for for centuries

43:59

so

43:59

half of Italy is suddenly back in the Empire.

44:02

We were amazed by that. The Pope

44:04

was so grateful that he started looking at the

44:06

Eastern Roman Empire as the protector of the Catholic

44:08

Church rather than the Western one.

44:11

Yeah, it all looked like things could become

44:13

very different, very rapidly at this time. It was a very interesting

44:15

time. But then the Normans

44:17

rallied and they took Italy back. So as soon as

44:20

that started, it kind of ended.

44:22

But this isn't actually bad for Manuel. Getting

44:26

Italy was never really an idea.

44:28

It was going to Italy, bash the Normans around

44:30

a bit so they stop invading us with the plan.

44:33

They just managed to bash the Normans around even better than they

44:35

thought they were going to. So the Normans sue

44:37

for peace.

44:40

The Roman Empire lose nothing after

44:43

being invaded by a very formidable force. Then

44:46

we get some personal stories of Manuel's fighting,

44:48

a giant of a man on a battlefield whilst

44:51

putting revolts down by the Hungarians

44:53

and the Serbs. So we got some personal fighting in there that

44:55

was interesting. Then he

44:57

settled the West. All of the western

44:59

area of the Empire was settled for the first time in a very

45:02

long time. So he goes east to deal with the unrest there.

45:05

His forces were now some of the best in

45:07

the world after being trained well by him,

45:09

his father and his grandfather. So he was able

45:11

to cut through all of the squabbling

45:14

post-crusades states of the East.

45:16

And he is the big guy on the block just

45:19

like his father Nice. He's

45:21

able to take Antioch back for the Empire.

45:23

Antioch once used to be a crown

45:25

jewel in the of

45:27

the city and the Empire back in the day. Well

45:29

it's back. Antioch's back. It's amazing.

45:32

He also made the Kingdom of Jerusalem a vassal

45:34

state. So a lot of the East is

45:36

starting to look really good. He

45:38

celebrated by taking part in our first

45:41

ever story of Jousting, which was exciting.

45:44

Yeah. Yeah. Although if I remember correctly,

45:46

this Jousting was less fence down the middle.

45:48

It was more everyone grab an axe and a stick

45:51

and let's just go let's let's go go go. But

45:54

it was called Jousting. The Caliphate then paid Manuel

45:57

a lot of money to go away because the Caliphate

45:59

was scared of him. and just gave back all

46:01

of the Roman prisoners because

46:03

they were scared. Manwell was planning to go home anyway,

46:06

so he just got lots of money in prisoners for

46:08

doing nothing apart from being Manwell. He's

46:10

looking really good by this point. On

46:12

the way home, he avoids being killed by

46:15

forces of the Sultanate of Rom. They try to assassinate

46:17

him because he's too powerful. He manages to

46:19

get away with it. Manwell gets home

46:22

and then strong arms various kingdoms to

46:24

attack the Sultanate of Rom in revenge.

46:26

He's not even having to do his own dirty work

46:28

anymore. He's tanning other kingdoms to fight

46:30

for him. Rom surrenders and a large part

46:33

of Anatolia is given back to the Empire. The

46:35

Sultanate then becomes a vassal of the

46:37

Empire. Then the Hungarians start

46:39

causing some trouble yet again. Some Manwell goes

46:41

and defeats them. He takes back the entire

46:44

Dalmatian coast right up to

46:46

Venice. So that's

46:48

more of the Empire back. He's doing very

46:50

well. The Balkans are now almost all his.

46:53

Anatolia is almost all his and he oxed

46:55

back in the Empire. He's got an understanding

46:57

with the Sultanate of Rom and

46:59

the King of Jerusalem.

46:59

And he did

47:02

for a while have Italy for a little bit but

47:04

he's definitely put the Normans to bed.

47:07

It was a period of huge unrest and Manwell

47:10

just sorted it. Now let's not forget his grandfather

47:12

and his father putting a lot of the legwork here. But

47:14

Manwell did not drop the ball and he kept

47:17

running with it. And it's really good. He

47:19

then sends troops to go and see if they can

47:22

get Egypt back Jamie. Egypt.

47:24

Egypt? Yeah. He just stopped

47:26

being around. So you just sat there and it's like, do you

47:28

know what? Do you know what? Really good.

47:31

Some pyramids. Yeah, I want some

47:33

pyramids. Not the one in the wall in Rome.

47:35

That's rubbish. Not the real pyramids. Yeah,

47:38

unfortunately due to political upheaval

47:40

and also some bad weather, this invasion

47:43

failed. But it was, I mean let's face it,

47:45

it was a bit of a pipe dream. But I mean no

47:47

other Emperor in season two is trying to get Egypt

47:49

back. Very, very rarely

47:51

happens. So yeah,

47:54

that's pretty impressive. He was then right

47:56

at the end of his reign defeated by the Sultanate

47:58

of Rome in a battle. which hugely embarrassed

48:01

him and he went home and died

48:03

probably of embarrassment or something. He's

48:06

getting on in years at this point. All

48:08

in all, a very competent ruler. I'd

48:10

say a very strong contender to go through

48:13

to the next round, almost a shoo-in to go into

48:15

the next round if this wasn't a round

48:17

of death.

48:19

Yeah.

48:20

It's very good. He's very good. Anyway,

48:22

that is 16 for Phytias

48:25

Maximus. That was only 16. Only 16.

48:28

16 for Phytias Maximus. Yeah, you'd think that

48:30

would be more. Now I think about it. Yeah.

48:34

Yeah. That is six for Probium Crazium. He

48:36

was fairly sensible. 14 for

48:39

Success as Ultimus. I think we marked him down

48:41

for not being able to hold on to Italy and

48:43

also not

48:46

getting Egypt, but to be honest, that 14 seems

48:48

a bit harsh. 3.25 for Imajofacius. 4.63

48:51

for Tempo Completo. He

48:54

ruled for a good long time. Very impressive. 43.88.

48:58

He comes sixth overall this season.

49:01

Manuel. Manuel.

49:03

Yeah.

49:04

And he did it all with a black cigarette as well.

49:06

He did. So there you go. But is

49:08

it good enough to go through? We go

49:10

to our next one.

49:12

Justin 2. Justin 2. 2. 2. 2. Nephew

49:16

of Justinian Great. And we've already obviously

49:18

talked about him in the Probium Crazium. Yeah.

49:21

Yes. His overall score

49:23

is not great. He only scored 29.38, coming in 33rd. But

49:28

Justin 2 was announced Emperor upon Justinian's

49:31

death by the Patriarch and the head

49:33

of the Excubitors. We get very little

49:35

detail to begin with, but there is one story

49:37

that he and his wife Sophia

49:40

had his cousin, a rival also called

49:42

Justin, killed.

49:44

And then they

49:45

played football with Justin's head around

49:47

the palace. I forgot that. Yeah.

49:50

Yeah. So would I. I'd completely – because I always remember

49:52

the crazy stuff at the end. But no, there was that story

49:54

as well at the start, which perhaps I should have

49:56

mentioned in the Probium Crazium

49:58

section.

49:59

think about it. Do we want to swap him

50:02

and Justinian too round? No,

50:04

because that's the whole mental health thing. Yeah,

50:06

okay, that's fine, that's fine. Right, okay,

50:08

um,

50:09

anyway Justin too then announces that the payments

50:12

to all these barbarians that his uncle Justinian

50:14

had started were going to stop. This did

50:16

not make the Avars happy. That's

50:18

right Jamie, it's the Avars. Yeah, so he then

50:20

goes, well we're not

50:24

paying you Avars and Gepids.

50:26

We're going to fight you instead. So he heads off to fight the Avars

50:29

and the Gepids. He does reasonably

50:31

well. He was able to take the city of Sirmium

50:34

back, again another jewel in

50:36

the old empire, which yeah,

50:38

I mean that's great.

50:39

However, he then starts to lose

50:42

control of Italy apart from the major

50:44

cities. Italy is no longer nicely coloured

50:46

and

50:47

it's now that period of time where little bits

50:49

of roads and major cities are in the

50:51

empire and the rest is just not.

50:54

Looks a bit like the outline of a lung. Yeah,

50:57

exactly. The war with the Avars

50:59

drag on and eventually Justin realises

51:02

that paying him off would have been far, far cheaper.

51:05

His uncle had got it right basically.

51:08

It just wasn't working. Anyway, then war

51:10

breaks out with the Persians and

51:13

he needs to go and deal with it but he can't because

51:15

he goes mad

51:17

and I won't go over all that again because we talked

51:19

about that in the Perobium Crazium.

51:21

But yeah, so his Genesysar,

51:24

let's be honest, was because he went mad and

51:26

it's very interesting and you remember the stories.

51:29

That's why I got Genesysar. I'll

51:32

be honest, it's not looking good for him.

51:35

No, it's not. It's not. But

51:37

he deserves to be here. He deserves to be

51:39

here. And last, and I hesitate

51:42

to say least, Eudocia. Okay,

51:44

Eudocia rolling from 1067 to 1067. Very short rule.

51:46

And let's face it, she's

51:50

not going through. We know she's not going through. She

51:52

walked for seven months, but she

51:54

was politically very impressive because

51:57

she put the empire before herself and her family.

52:00

something that very, very, very few rulers

52:02

have ever done. I stand

52:04

by this Genesys. Ah, I definitely

52:07

do. But I do feel like this is where

52:09

her journey will end. She was

52:11

born into a powerful family. She married Constantine

52:14

Dukas. The two had several children,

52:17

while all sorts of political intrigue is going on.

52:19

Constantine becomes the emperor thanks to maneuvering

52:22

by good old Celus. But

52:24

after seven years, Constantine 10 dies.

52:27

He made it very clear that his wife, Eudocia,

52:29

was going to be in charge

52:29

until their son Michael was old

52:32

enough. It would appear everyone realised

52:34

Eudocia

52:35

had a sensible head on her shoulders and

52:37

was a good person to be in charge. However,

52:39

as you can imagine, a lot of people weren't happy

52:42

with this due to the misogyny

52:44

of the Romans. So Eudocia was forced

52:46

to swear a vow that she would never wed

52:48

again and only support her son. That

52:51

way, Michael gets to be the emperor as soon as possible.

52:53

And he is knocking about 18

52:55

at this point, so this should be a period

52:58

of months. And then we crammed

53:00

the sun, I think. But

53:02

Eudocia realised the empire was very

53:04

weak

53:05

and its enemies were looking in, looking

53:07

at a weak empire and thinking now is

53:09

a good time to invade.

53:11

Like vultures peeking over a carcass

53:13

of a big

53:15

goat thing that lives in a frozen. Yeah, definitely.

53:17

This is not a good time, Eudocia realised,

53:19

for her to be in charge. And

53:21

she looked at her son and she asked herself a very

53:23

honest question and thought, it's not a good

53:25

time for my son to be in charge either. We

53:28

need a good general in charge.

53:31

And she wasn't the only one to realise this because she had

53:33

heard that a popular general, future Romanos

53:35

IV, was planning a coup. Now rather than just

53:38

panic or try and fight against it, Eudocia

53:41

had him arrested and then went

53:43

to see him and said, how about Romanos?

53:45

Instead of you cooing, why don't

53:47

you marry me and then become the emperor

53:50

with my son as your heir? That way we've got a strong

53:52

emperor in charge, my son still gets

53:54

to be heir, he can be emperor next when the empire's

53:56

not in so much trouble. Yeah. It was just

53:59

a really smart move. put

54:01

down the idea of being cooed immediately,

54:03

but of course she couldn't remarry because

54:06

she had sworn the oath.

54:07

Yes.

54:09

But she could remarry if

54:11

the oath was lifted, and only one person could lift

54:13

the oath, and that's the patriarch. Now

54:16

the patriarch wasn't going to go do that any time soon.

54:18

The patriarch thought the oath was a good idea. So

54:20

she set up a rumour that she fancied

54:23

the patriarch's brother. The patriarch,

54:26

thinking that his brother could become the

54:28

emperor if he released her

54:30

from the oath, released her from the oath. She

54:32

then immediately told Celus

54:35

that she plans to wed Romano, which

54:37

she does, and then steps down.

54:40

So she politically manoeuvred herself, so

54:42

a coup didn't happen against her family,

54:45

and she managed to get out of an oath that she'd

54:47

been forced to swear. And she

54:49

did it not for political gain, but

54:52

for the good of the empire. She

54:54

had a family, I guess, and her son. Yeah, exactly.

54:57

Constantine's safe. It's just very

54:59

impressive. It's a short,

55:01

sharp little story, but it's showing

55:03

political skills that we rarely see in this podcast.

55:07

So Eudocia scored

55:10

none for five years, Maximus, none

55:12

for a program, Crazium, 11 for

55:15

Successus Ultimus, because she

55:17

succeeded in doing what she did. She scored 3.75

55:22

for Majo Facious, a 0.13 for

55:24

Tempo Completo. She's only left seven

55:26

months. 14.88, which gives her

55:29

the low score, sorry, low ranking

55:31

58th. I think as well

55:34

rethinking what she did, there

55:36

was actually quite a lot of political fighting on that. Yeah,

55:38

I was thinking that. Not loads, but maybe. Not loads.

55:41

We gave her zero, I think maybe one or two?

55:43

Yeah, I'm looking at that, I'm wondering why we

55:45

gave her zero, because yeah, I'd

55:48

expect her to have scored something there. But

55:51

oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbled on that day.

55:53

So there we go,

55:55

Jamie. That's the round of death. That

55:58

is Justinian 1, Justinian 2.

55:59

Manuel won, Justin 2 and Udocea.

56:03

Right, let's just straight away, are

56:05

we agreeing that Justin 2 and Udocea aren't

56:07

going through? Well I don't know, I think you

56:09

can make an... no, of course not. So

56:11

we are talking about the top three, our

56:14

third, fourth and sixth ranking of the season.

56:17

And I am honestly unsure where to

56:19

go here. Choosing two of these is

56:21

tough. I mean, I, in my head,

56:24

have an idea. I have an

56:27

idea. It doesn't make me happy, because I

56:29

don't want to lose... I'm not happy. I don't want to lose any of

56:31

these. I would have put all three of these in

56:33

first place last week. Yeah.

56:36

Yeah. It's tragic the way that the rounds

56:38

have happened, that one of these gets not absolute so

56:40

early. But it is a shame that Manuel

56:42

won't be joining them. It is a shame that Manuel

56:45

won't be joining them. It's got to be Manuel, hasn't it? It's

56:47

got to be. There's no way Justinian the

56:49

Great's not going through. He is arguably

56:52

the best Eastern Roman emperor of all

56:54

time. Yeah. I personally

56:56

don't argue that, but a lot of people do for very

56:58

good reason. Justinian's two story

57:01

is just so phenomenally good.

57:03

How can he not go through? Yeah.

57:06

Manuel was so good, though. He was

57:08

so good.

57:09

But you could argue he was propped up by his grandfather and

57:11

his father. That means a weak argument,

57:13

because he carried the ball, like you said. Yeah. It's

57:16

just a terrible round. It is. It's a round

57:18

of death. I really feel sorry for Manuel. But

57:21

I do agree with you. If we're both thinking the

57:23

same thing, then I think that's what we need to say. But

57:26

we still have one more thing to discuss because we need to

57:28

decide who comes in first and who comes in second.

57:31

And I, I've, I just

57:33

don't know. I do not know where to put

57:35

this. Justinian two scored marginally

57:38

higher. However, as we've

57:40

discussed in this episode, perhaps

57:43

we were slightly harsh on Justinian one's

57:45

opprobium crazium. Possibly we were slightly

57:47

lenient on Justinian two's opprobium

57:49

crazium. Again,

57:52

balances out, annoyingly. Yeah,

57:55

so

57:56

these two, I, how, how

57:58

do you, that's, that's very different.

57:59

as well. One of them was a

58:02

brilliant force for the Empire and made it really

58:04

good. The other one just has this phenomenally

58:06

cool story which you just, it

58:08

has Genesys R written all over

58:10

it. It's almost like yin and yang, isn't

58:12

it? Yeah, yeah, it really is. There's

58:15

a point five between them. I mean this

58:17

is the kind of thing I was kind of expecting to come

58:19

up against in the final, not

58:21

in one of the rounds. Well, let's

58:24

play it how they scored. How it played

58:26

in the score, that's putting Justinian 2 first

58:29

and Justinian 1 second. Yeah, let's

58:31

do that way. I'm

58:34

happy to go with that because that's the score we gave

58:36

on the day and we had more detail

58:38

at that time and if we can't

58:41

put a piece of paper between them right now today,

58:44

let's say that, and

58:46

if they happen to meet each other again, say in

58:49

the final, then we'll have to make a real

58:52

decision then. Yeah. So let's kick this

58:54

can down the road, shall we? Yeah, that's what

58:56

it would say. And let's trust past us to

58:58

have made the right call in that

59:00

score. Yeah. Okay,

59:03

Justinian 2, well done. You are our

59:05

leader.

59:07

You go through. Justinian 1, you also

59:09

go through in second place. Manuel

59:12

3rd and Justinian 2 in Udocea.

59:14

Sorry, it just was never going to happen. So

59:17

there we go, round two done. Yeah,

59:20

it was definitely tougher today. Round

59:24

three is next. And if

59:26

round one was a fairly tight

59:29

group that were sort of in the middle of pack

59:31

and round two was a round of death, round three,

59:34

we've got stuff going on all over the place. It's

59:37

going to be interesting. That's Basil 2,

59:40

Leo 3, Theodosus 3, Theodore

59:42

and John 3. A clear

59:44

favourite in there. But

59:46

who goes through, let's face

59:49

it with Basil, it's going to be interesting.

59:51

It's going to be tight. That's the way

59:54

the rounds go. Okay, well, thank you very much

59:56

for listening. Thank you for

59:58

the very positive feedback. got from our

1:00:01

first episode of the rounds. I'm

1:00:03

glad that people enjoyed them. I hope

1:00:05

you're still enjoying them. And if you are one of

1:00:07

our Patreons and you are playing

1:00:09

along with the pretend betting that

1:00:11

your Emperor goes through, because there's

1:00:14

a whole thing going on there. I'm

1:00:16

purposely not looking at it so I don't become biased.

1:00:19

I apologise if we knocked your Emperor

1:00:21

out today, but that's the way it goes.

1:00:24

Oh, you know, I completely forgot Jamie, I

1:00:27

completely forget. I forgot and I did this last

1:00:29

time, asked

1:00:29

people to say what they thought, didn't I? And people

1:00:32

talked about season two. So

1:00:34

let me just, it's

1:00:35

not going to sway us because we've already made

1:00:37

our decision, but let's see what people said. Okay,

1:00:40

so we've got Magda saying Eudocia

1:00:42

should go through. I agree. It's probably

1:00:44

not what you're looking for, because she doesn't have any

1:00:47

chance. But

1:00:49

I want to vote for Eudocia anyway, at

1:00:52

least so you don't dismiss her out of hand.

1:00:54

We didn't dismiss, we did. We dismissed her

1:00:56

out of hand. But what I will say is

1:00:58

that I was very impressed with her and she deserved to be

1:01:00

in this round. Anyway, I carry on quoting here.

1:01:03

She was a great political player doing,

1:01:05

as you said yourself in the episode, very well indeed

1:01:07

with the cards that she was doubt. Her actions may

1:01:10

not have been amazing, but she

1:01:12

was undoubtedly an impressive person. I

1:01:14

think it's always worthwhile to keep reminding ourselves

1:01:16

about the women that contributed making history, since

1:01:19

they sadly still tend to be in

1:01:21

the shadows in most narratives. Completely

1:01:23

agree with that. 100%. Yeah,

1:01:27

it's just you've got the two Justinians in your

1:01:29

group. And well,

1:01:31

I mean, what hope have you got? Okay. Okay,

1:01:34

David P. Just want to advocate for Justinian

1:01:36

the Great here for a moment, because ironically, it

1:01:38

feels like he may not have gotten his full

1:01:41

due in memory. He got quite

1:01:43

a lot of competition with his later namesake

1:01:45

and Justin too in the same category, but

1:01:48

their insane crazy scores shouldn't

1:01:50

overshadow how off kilter the original

1:01:52

was either. I don't think I need to reiterate

1:01:55

his accomplishments here. They more than precede

1:01:57

him, but let's not forget about the massive slaughter.

1:02:00

he ordered at the beginning of his reign.

1:02:02

Yes, it's a very good point. There's

1:02:04

some real opprobrium there. And

1:02:06

who can forget his right hand man Balasarius,

1:02:09

a few true successor to a gripper

1:02:11

if ever there was one. Don't let the myth of

1:02:13

Justinian great overshadow the accomplishments

1:02:15

and intrigue of the man himself. He

1:02:18

clearly is the best of the bunch in this round.

1:02:20

And one of the highest scores from both series for a

1:02:23

good reason. Yeah, David Peay, I've got to

1:02:25

agree with that. It's what he went through. Okay.

1:02:29

Asbeth, Justin too, because

1:02:31

he's a chicken, afraid of the boggle. I

1:02:34

mean, it's hard to argue with that, but we did. Roberto

1:02:37

says Manuel one, you can't blame him for having

1:02:40

to deal with the snooty Norman culture. Fair

1:02:43

enough. Jamie didn't get it. Aidan

1:02:45

just wants to moan again about Alexios

1:02:47

come his round. But that's not this one.

1:02:49

So I won't read that one out. Okay.

1:02:53

And now people are starting to talk about the

1:02:56

next round, round three, I think. So let's leave

1:02:58

it there for now. Okay. Yeah.

1:02:59

I think generally we might have called

1:03:02

it. And finally, before we say

1:03:04

goodbye, then let's just see

1:03:06

if we do agree with the listeners voting.

1:03:10

So we have overwhelmingly

1:03:12

in round two, Justinian

1:03:15

two has been chosen. It's overwhelming.

1:03:18

And in second place with a healthy

1:03:23

score is Justinian one. So there we go.

1:03:26

We have called it the same as the listeners

1:03:29

this time as well, which is nice. Right.

1:03:31

And we are going to leave it there then. Right. Thank you very

1:03:33

much for listening. And until

1:03:35

next time.

1:03:37

Goodbye. Goodbye.

1:04:06

This

1:04:11

is BBC's coverage of the chariot

1:04:13

races. And welcome

1:04:15

to the second round of the chariot race for the

1:04:17

Roman emperors in the east. I'm

1:04:20

Winston Featheringway. And I'm Guthbert

1:04:22

Menbatten. And here we are, it's another

1:04:24

glorious day for the chariot races. And

1:04:27

I just wanted to say Winston that

1:04:29

I thoroughly enjoyed the last race. I thought

1:04:31

it was absolutely splendid. The way they raced, the

1:04:33

way they fought, and our two winners I think were very

1:04:35

deserving. Yes, I went home

1:04:38

afterwards, I said to the wife, I

1:04:40

thoroughly enjoyed that race I said. And you know what

1:04:42

she said? What did she say? Oh

1:04:44

my. Oh gosh, that is quite the

1:04:46

compliment. Quite the compliment. So

1:04:49

there you go. She

1:04:51

caught it on the wireless and she thoroughly enjoyed

1:04:53

it as well. We can only hope there's more thorough

1:04:56

in German going on today. And

1:04:58

yes, I can see already we have the races

1:05:00

lined up on the chariot. Well of course

1:05:03

we can see some marvellous steels here. We

1:05:05

can see Justina 1 in lane 1 looking

1:05:08

quite splendid and grand there.

1:05:10

There he goes, look at him, he's

1:05:11

majestic, absolutely majestic. And

1:05:13

a beautifully artistic horse as well. You

1:05:17

can tell he's got the local children, the orphanage to

1:05:19

paint and decorate his horse. Looking quite splendid.

1:05:21

Absolutely, it's marvellous. And next to him is

1:05:24

Justinian 2. Justinian 2, it's

1:05:26

a spiky chariot. It's very spiky.

1:05:29

Yes, of course it sounds a mischief on

1:05:31

there. Spikes, spikes on spikes

1:05:33

you could say. Let's hope no one gets

1:05:35

too close. Ah Manuel, I can see

1:05:37

he's not even using a chariot, he's just riding on a horse

1:05:40

bank, which is quite impressive. Yes, bear back, he's

1:05:42

not even on the horse right now. He's just standing

1:05:44

next to the horse smoking

1:05:46

a small black cigar. Looking

1:05:48

fairly confident I must say. Yes, he

1:05:50

seems to be talking to rows

1:05:52

A to C of the stands near

1:05:55

him and all of them appear to be swooning. That

1:05:57

is quite a accomplishment. Yes, yes it is.

1:06:00

And then in lane 4 we

1:06:02

have Justin 2. Oh! Justin 2

1:06:05

I was told did have a horse, but

1:06:08

he ate the horse. So they've had to get

1:06:10

a replacement. Yes, I believe

1:06:12

he is currently riding a large

1:06:15

South Atlantic crab. Yes, he's giant

1:06:18

of a crab. I never have seen

1:06:20

a crab so large. No, I'm amazed

1:06:22

they managed to custom make the saddle for it to

1:06:24

be honest. Yes, but there you go. It's

1:06:27

a big crab. That's all there is to it.

1:06:29

And then finally there

1:06:29

is Eudocia, oh absolutely

1:06:32

splendid, looking marvellous on

1:06:34

her horse there. Cool, composed,

1:06:37

what more is there to say apart from then

1:06:39

what a professional. As you can see

1:06:42

the man with the bow and arrow is about to sub

1:06:44

the race. He's attached to the flag and we're

1:06:48

off. They are immediately out

1:06:50

of the stocks, all up for neck and neck

1:06:52

on the

1:06:53

racing forward. Apart from Justinian 2

1:06:55

there. Justinian 2 is

1:06:57

falling slightly back. It's all the spikes.

1:06:59

It seems to have got caught up slightly. It's a slow

1:07:02

start from Justinian 2. You see, but right

1:07:04

in the front we've got Justinian 1. He is way

1:07:06

out

1:07:06

in lead now. He's making his gap between the other

1:07:08

ones, falling close and on unwell. And

1:07:11

Justin 2 is sight scuttling out for

1:07:13

the starting line there. Yes, it

1:07:16

does appear that the crab is racing

1:07:18

sideways and he is sitting sight

1:07:20

saddle. So he is facing forward. It's quite a sight

1:07:22

to behold. They take the first

1:07:24

hairpin, oh it's really tight. Oh the

1:07:27

crab cannot take this hairpin. Too

1:07:29

many legs? Too many legs there Winston. It

1:07:31

feels like it's almost

1:07:33

in a three point turn. Oh it's gone

1:07:35

straight into the side of the walls there.

1:07:37

Oh this is painful to watch and

1:07:39

Justinian 2 then catches up with him,

1:07:41

smashes him to the crab. This

1:07:44

is awful. This is awful. So we

1:07:46

now have Justinian 1 in first place. Eudosia

1:07:49

and Manuel neck and neck in second

1:07:51

place. Then we have Justinian 2 in fourth. Oh

1:07:54

it's painful watching this crab. It's

1:07:57

up on its feet. It's up and going again.

1:07:59

is not in a good way at

1:08:02

all. Many, many, many

1:08:04

lacerations on his poor,

1:08:07

poor crazy face. And oh,

1:08:09

if you see my morn there, I can see he's removing

1:08:11

a giant jousting stick from his

1:08:13

side pocket. It looks retractable.

1:08:17

Impressive. It's very impressive. You can hear

1:08:19

the crowd. They are.

1:08:21

Swooning is the only word to use.

1:08:24

On their swooning, they're very impressive. And

1:08:27

yes, now, it would appear we are going offensive. We're

1:08:29

going offensive. He is

1:08:32

throwing it forward. He's trying to get Justinian

1:08:34

one. Oh, it's a

1:08:36

miss. It's a miss. It's so close. That

1:08:38

was very close indeed. I see he went for

1:08:40

the hook up there. Missed. Oh,

1:08:43

I've got to stop you. I thought

1:08:45

it was a miss, but now I'm looking into

1:08:47

the crowd. It would appear that his

1:08:50

spear rose,

1:08:51

and that rose has now traveled three,

1:08:53

three rows back, and it's

1:08:55

now in the hands, what can only be described

1:08:58

as a beautiful name.

1:08:58

Well, there we go. Manuel is now winking.

1:09:01

Well,

1:09:01

she looks delighted. Winking at the

1:09:03

crowd. It would appear it was, after

1:09:05

all the hits, it's just Manuel

1:09:07

was not focusing on what we're focusing on. No. Still

1:09:10

in second, though. Very impressive. Still in second. As we

1:09:12

carry on with this long stretch of the track, we can just

1:09:14

have a look at our other commentary teams from

1:09:16

other international meneudasopanities around the world.

1:09:19

We've got our Spanish team over the side. The

1:09:21

Spanish team, obviously, rotating from Manuel there. They

1:09:23

are very excited. We've got our Greek

1:09:25

team. Yes. Homepatch. They're very excited

1:09:28

as well. And also,

1:09:30

I was saying this last time, dear listeners,

1:09:34

to Winson, our American colleagues over

1:09:36

there. They are very excited. I believe

1:09:38

the first time the Americans have come to watch the

1:09:40

charity business. Oh, they do love a charity business.

1:09:42

They're very excited. They are jumping up

1:09:44

and down. One of them looks scared,

1:09:47

to be honest. I do. I think one of

1:09:49

them is drinking from a thing called a Bud

1:09:51

Light. I have no idea what that is. Well,

1:09:54

there we go. Anyway, we're reaching the

1:09:56

other hairpin. It's all about to get

1:09:58

exciting again. So, here we go.

1:09:59

And round they go, there's Justinian 1, Manuel,

1:10:02

Eudocia, and just behind Justinian 2,

1:10:05

and just Justinian 2's out! Oh, he

1:10:07

smashed into the wall, he's gone straight into the crowd,

1:10:09

it's just tipped, he's fallen into the crowd! Justinian 2

1:10:13

is out of the race. His

1:10:15

spiky chariot

1:10:16

flips several times and pales

1:10:18

several people in the crowd, there is blood and tears

1:10:21

everywhere. And he appears to have face planted

1:10:23

quite hard into one of those plastic chairs. Oh,

1:10:27

there's a lot of blood coming out of his face there. So

1:10:29

there we go, Justinian 2 a fan favourite, and he's

1:10:31

out early. Now this is a shock, and Manuel

1:10:33

is going to be very pleased with this, this means he has much

1:10:35

more of a chance than he first thought. And

1:10:39

you can see Justinian 1 looking very confident

1:10:41

at the front there. He appears to be... I've gathered strides

1:10:44

ahead, strides. Strides ahead, he

1:10:46

also appears to be repainting the sights of the walls

1:10:48

into improving the stadium as he's traveling forward.

1:10:51

Quite impressive, would you not agree, Koffbert? Very,

1:10:54

very impressive, I mean it's going to take a lot

1:10:56

to... Oh, sorry, what's this?

1:10:59

I'm just seeing over

1:10:59

the crowd there. The crowd are

1:11:02

holding up a sign, it says, Justinian 2,

1:11:05

the boggle is coming. Oh dear, Justinian 2.

1:11:09

Yes, Justinian 2, see that? Oh, he

1:11:11

is panicking, he is absolutely panicking, that crowd

1:11:13

is speeding up quite a bit. It is speeding

1:11:15

up quite a bit, he's covered his eyes, he can't see where

1:11:17

the crowd is going, he's lost complete control. Oh,

1:11:20

but oh, there's so much speed down. No,

1:11:22

he has caught up Eudosia, he has passed Eudosia

1:11:25

and as we get to the hairpin again, yes,

1:11:27

that's right. He's straight past Manwell 2

1:11:30

and it's only going to be a matter of time before he catches

1:11:32

the speed, it's phenomenal here. And yes,

1:11:34

he is now in the lead, Justinian 2 is in the lead

1:11:37

and he is going so,

1:11:39

so fast into the hairpin once more, but oh,

1:11:42

he's just going straight, he is just going straight. Oh

1:11:44

dear, he's heading straight to the audience, he's gone

1:11:46

into the audience. He's

1:11:49

over the audience, he's over the stage. He's

1:11:51

got the guy over the side of the stadium, oh. He has

1:11:53

just gone, Justin 2

1:11:54

has gone, we should

1:11:56

have brought him up to the stadium.

1:11:59

Well, the organizers were

1:12:02

informed that this could happen. Yes, well,

1:12:04

that's no Justin 2, no Justinian 2,

1:12:06

only three people left in it. That is Justinian 1,

1:12:09

now back in the lead after that surprise. Metal

1:12:12

Out 2 is gaining, but to be honest,

1:12:14

doesn't seem to be taking this seriously. He

1:12:17

is currently penning a love

1:12:19

poem, it would appear. Ah, I believe

1:12:21

it was Sonnet. Yes, it

1:12:24

would appear so. There's a lot of

1:12:26

winking going on. Kudosia is

1:12:29

catching up,

1:12:29

but only slowly she is a consummate

1:12:33

professional, but I don't think she's got the speed. I

1:12:35

don't, I just don't think she will catch it until

1:12:37

now. She seems completely impervious to Manuel's

1:12:40

flirtations. Well, we've got about ten

1:12:42

laps left, but to be honest, I don't see how this

1:12:44

is going to change any more, Winston. Well,

1:12:46

here we are, settled in till the end.

1:12:50

I can see our American colleagues across the row are

1:12:52

still very animated, though. I'm not sure what they're quite

1:12:54

so excited about. They just won't stop. But

1:12:56

you can almost hear them from here. Oh,

1:12:59

well. Anyway.

1:12:59

Yes, and we take

1:13:02

the hairpin again, and yes, the crowd, oh,

1:13:04

you can hear the crowd, they're starting to lose interest. It

1:13:06

would appear that this race is now a two-horse

1:13:08

race. Gimonic,

1:13:11

there are three horses. Yes, it's

1:13:14

just Stinian, Manuel,

1:13:16

and Winston. Winston,

1:13:18

what's this? I just hear a cloud

1:13:20

of dust. You

1:13:23

can see the ground shaking, and the

1:13:25

dust is being kicked up, and...

1:13:26

Oh, my goodness. It's... Oh, good,

1:13:29

good, good, good. It's just Stinian, too. He's back.

1:13:31

He's back. He's on a grab. You chariot made of gold.

1:13:34

Oh, my goodness. Well, he's chasing around

1:13:36

very fast. He's taken the hairpin. He's...

1:13:38

He's... He's on a pudosia. He

1:13:41

has. He's ahead of pudosia. That chariot looks

1:13:43

phenomenal. It's going so quick, it's just covered

1:13:45

in gold noses. It's a strange and striking

1:13:46

look, but it's doing well for him. Manuel

1:13:49

is looking around. He doesn't

1:13:51

look too concerned, to be honest. I think he thinks

1:13:53

he's got this, but not just

1:13:55

Stinian, too, has pulled out a

1:13:57

sort. Oh, dear.

1:13:59

And yes,

1:14:02

he's thrown the sword, an unusual approach for the sword,

1:14:04

but he's thrown the sword and... Oh, it's

1:14:07

hit the horse of Manuel! The horse

1:14:09

goes tolling! Manuel

1:14:12

into the dirt, all but he rolls, he

1:14:14

rolls and he's up, and he's on a spare

1:14:16

horse already. That is quite phenomenal for Manuel

1:14:18

there. I haven't ever

1:14:19

seen moves like that. That is impressive

1:14:21

horseplay. I mean, that horse is very, very

1:14:24

dead, but he's on a new horse already, barely even

1:14:26

blinked. Oh, it's absolutely

1:14:29

phenomenal, but that quick pit stop for

1:14:31

Manuel there has cost him, because Justinian

1:14:33

II has caught and overtaken

1:14:35

him. So we have Justinian I, Justinian

1:14:37

II, Manuel and Udozio, and we're into our final

1:14:39

lap, and it's incredibly close. It is incredibly

1:14:42

close, and as we can see, the riders,

1:14:44

they're starting to get more angsty, they're starting

1:14:46

to get more pressured, they're pushing their horses.

1:14:48

You can see the sweat from the horses' hooves

1:14:51

spraying on the floor. Justinian II

1:14:53

has got to catch Justinian I. He is going to catch

1:14:55

him. It is neck

1:14:58

and neck with one hairpin, and

1:14:59

who's this from the crouch and begin? Is

1:15:02

that Belisarius?

1:15:03

That is Belisarius! Belisarius

1:15:05

is coming in to take... Oh, he has grabbed

1:15:07

more than Justinian II. He's caught! By

1:15:09

the nose he has tried to pull off, the nose has come

1:15:11

off. It is a fake nose, I repeat, it is a fake

1:15:14

nose. Belisarius

1:15:15

falls to the dirt with fake nose and hands.

1:15:18

He tried to take Justinian

1:15:20

II down, but it's not worked. It is neck and

1:15:23

neck with the last hairpin. Who can call

1:15:25

this? It is too close. It is far too close. You

1:15:27

can see Justinian II. He is

1:15:28

pushing their horse, but all he can do is Justinian

1:15:31

I.

1:15:32

He makes it! That's

1:15:34

it! That's it! They're over the finish line. I can't

1:15:36

call it. I can't say who will. We are going to have to

1:15:38

wait for the painting. So

1:15:40

yes, it was Justinian II by

1:15:42

a nose. So,

1:15:47

there we go. Well, thank you very much for

1:15:50

listening to the BBC's coverage of the

1:15:53

Chariot Races. We have Justinian

1:15:55

II winner and Justinian I second

1:15:57

place.

1:15:58

But well, well comes in at very... and third place.

1:16:01

Unfortunately, Eudocia didn't quite make the podium,

1:16:03

but she was incredibly graceful and was not

1:16:05

influenced by the negativity around

1:16:08

her. Groomer is, Justin too, is

1:16:10

now a parsnip. So, there

1:16:13

we go. Thank you very much for listening

1:16:15

to the BBC's coverage of the Jared Racers.

1:16:19

And good evening.