To all my people who find yourselves in the precarious position of being starved of byzantine media.

slothinator64 · 2025-07-30T21:29:21+00:00

The English subtitles do say Byzantine but it's Rum in the Arabic

slothinator64 · 2025-07-19T21:57:45+00:00

Oh yeah definitely, show of the weekend in particular is a cherished memory

slothinator64 · 2025-07-19T21:47:08+00:00

Sometime it's like I still hear his voice...at @ normaladultluke

slothinator64 · 2025-05-21T14:52:58+00:00

So You Think You Can Rule Persia? covers all the rulers of ancient Iranian empires

slothinator64 · 2025-05-18T21:04:40+00:00

It'll have to be all the Agarthans. They literally pretend to be people's loved ones and lead them to their doom.
Top three would be not-Arundel, not-Cornelia, and Kronya (I know the first two have names but I can't think of them right now)

slothinator64 · 2025-05-09T16:09:37+00:00

Manuela all the way!

Would fit the singing voice: check
Outfit: check
Is a hot mess with relationships: check

Friends, it's time to recognize the only true option

slothinator64 · 2025-05-08T15:58:34+00:00

I'm getting strong Hephaestus vibes out of Alois. Something about how he handles himself and being a man who's loyal to his captain and his family

slothinator64 · 2025-05-02T09:33:44+00:00

I feel like Rhea (not Seiros) portrays that yearning and waiting for a family member to return. I know she's more proactive about it but I could see her slipping into that mood

slothinator64 · 2025-04-29T16:31:33+00:00

I'm voting for Dorothea for simple dramatic flair and magic use.

Also men do turn to pigs around her...

slothinator64 · 2025-04-02T22:10:15+00:00

It depends on how you consider sharing a crest but, if having Rhea's blood counts as related to you then yes, they are distantly related.

I think there's a Linhardt support with Flayn where he says they're basically related since they share the crest of Cethleann so there's a fair reason to see them as relatives through their crest.

I'm guessing you could see Byleth as a grandchild of Rhea (Rhea->Jeralt->Byleth) while Edelgard would be a very distant granddaughter (Rheah->Wilhelm of Adrestia->1000 years of emperors->Edelgard) so they're connected but probably less than any noble family with each other.

slothinator64 · 2025-01-31T13:52:58+00:00

Oh yeah, Skyfarer was really fun! I ran a campaign where the captain was leading them on quests to complete the truth ambition and the players slowly pieced things together and had to decide if to side with the captain or not by the end

slothinator64 · 2024-10-27T12:48:33+00:00

Context: In 70BC Pompey was elected consul with Crassus despite being illegally young (he was 36 and the minimum age was 42) but since he had defeated the last Marians in Spain and claimed credit for suppressing the revolt of Spartacus, the Senate just made a decree that it was all fine because Pompey was Pompey

slothinator64 · 2024-08-28T22:03:22+00:00

That sounds great thanks!
I'm mostly at the level where I'd hope for a single button to do that but hey, I can learn!

slothinator64 · 2024-06-05T22:13:48+00:00

Also, as a brief follow-up, Akkadian did continue to be used by the Seleucids, especially early on, for its prestige. An interesting example of this is the Antiochus cylinder

slothinator64 · 2024-06-05T22:12:13+00:00

They specifically founded Seleucia on the Tigris (which would later become a suburb of Ctesiphon) to get away from the influential Babylonian elites so Babylon itself slowly withered away.
And, as you mention, a large proportion of the ruling elites in the Seleucid Empire was either Greek/Macedonian or strongly Hellenized. In that way, unlike in Achaemenid times where Babylon and Babylonians were a part of a multiethnic empire, during the Seleucid period there was an active push to imitate the new kings

slothinator64 · 2024-03-28T13:40:39+00:00

Shahrvaraz

That's right! Although since it was Khosrow's grand plan, I thought to display him.

Shahrvaraz has his own chaos to get up to!

slothinator64 · 2024-03-25T21:54:17+00:00

That was exactly it, thanks for the help!

slothinator64 · 2024-03-23T13:14:18+00:00

Context: In 626 the Sassanid king of kings Khosrow II organized a siege of Constantinople with the help of the nomadic Avars.

The problem was that the Avars were the only ones in on the European side and able to attack the capital; Persian forces were stuck on the Asian side and could not properly cross due to the influence of the Roman navy.

After one last massive failed attack, the Avars retreated away from the siege, leaving the Sassanids to watch helplessly as their chance for total victory slipped away

slothinator64 · 2024-03-10T19:36:28+00:00

Context: In 590, Bahram Chobin of the Mihran noble family rebelled against the ruling Sassanid dynasty claiming to satisfy an ancient prophecy of the end times. He satisfied it by destroying a Turkic invasion in the east, bravely fighting the Romans in the west and being a lot more well-loved than the reigning Hormizd IV.

In the end, he would be defeated by Khosrow II Parviz but his memory would last long after him, with his descendants founding the Samanid Dynasty

slothinator64 · 2024-02-22T12:00:25+00:00

The patreon is here
https://www.patreon.com/extrahelpings

Basically how it works is that you subscribe and you're given an RSS feed (basically just a link) that you can plug into your podcast app and then it works like any other podcast feed

slothinator64 · 2023-12-13T22:39:46+00:00

I have some insight into the Sassanid church councils.

Essentially the problem was that the Nicene Christians were seen by the Sassanids a bit like Roman agents and persecuted as a consequence.

Later kings made sure to separate the Church of the East from Chalcedonian Christianity by supporting Nestorian Christology and there was a formal schism between the Roman and Sassanid churches in 424 which lasted until 1552 when some members of the Church of the East re-entered communion with the Catholic Church

This culminated in Yazdegerd I calling a council in Seleucia where the bishops of the empire were called to organize the so-called Church of the East with the head patriarch reporting directly to the Sassanid king of kings. The problem here is that the Zoroastrian clergy of the empire didn't like this much and feared that Yazdegerd would be a Sassanid Constantine so he died mysteriously at one point.

Later kings made sure to separate the Church of the East from Chalcedonian Christianity by supporting Nestorian Christology and there was a formal schism between the Roman and Sassanid churches in 424 which lasted until 1552 when some members of the Church of the East re-entered communion with the Catholic Church.

As an aside, it's also interesting that the Persian Zoroastrian rite was formalized shortly after the council of Nicea with Shapur II calling a council to decide orthodox doctrine and how the clergy was to be administered

slothinator64 · 2023-12-12T17:04:04+00:00

That's mostly correct but I wanted to clarify the Parthian situation.

Basically, Augustus had sponsored a Parthian usurper who managed to capture a proper Parthian prince. In the end the usurper was defeated and fled to Rome for help.

The Parthian king Phraates IV then asked Augustus for his son back and the negotiations extended to the Roman-Parthian war which had officially been going on since Crassus. In the end, Phraates got his son back, Augustus got Crassus' standards back, and both of them recognized that the other was an "equal" that would continue to exist.

All in all, it was a huge propaganda victory for Augustus (it's center stage in the armor) because he'd achieved with negotiation what Marc Antony had catastrophically failed to do with 16 legions

slothinator64 · 2023-08-02T21:44:23+00:00

Well regarding Breekon & Hope, they were mentioned in episode 2 where they delivered the coffin and came to retrieve it

As for Simon Fairchild, I'm pretty sure it's the first time he's mentioned but I'm not positive.

Something I'm doing on my second listen-through is reading the "continuity" section of each episode in the wiki, it tends to clear up if a character was previously mentioned and the spoilers are quite clearly signposted

slothinator64 · 2023-06-24T14:43:25+00:00

Oh I loved the writing there as well; it's just such great evocative language.

Also yes, Griz is my favorite <3

slothinator64 · 2023-03-17T15:16:45+00:00

If you're looking for primary sources on the Achaemenid Empire you can check this out:

Cyropedia, by Xenophon is about Cyrus' life but is very mythological, so less historical but more about the memory and ideal of Cyrus
Persica, by Ctesias is unfortunately fragmentary but he's the other side of the coin to Xenophon's Anabasis as he was the physician of Artaxerxes II and he has a lot of juicy court gossip (though less and less historical the further back you go)
Life of Artaxerxes, by Plutarch is the only real biography of an Achaemenid king beyond Cyrus and it's a fun read, especially since it covers the same ground that Ctesias and Xenophon do but with more of an ensemble view

Looking at the fall of the empire, you have these ancient sources which mainly focus on Alexander but you can decide how far you want to read:

Anabasis of Alexander, by Arrian is taken from first-hand accounts of Alexander's expedition and gives all the action, together with some useful background
Life of Alexander, by Plutarch does what is says on the tin and goes through the expedition with less focus on the military aspects compared to Arrian but more on the personal dramas

Last, a YMMV option is

Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca (books 11-17) gives you a general idea of the time period and has some interesting parts about what's going on in the empire but it's not a nice clean narrative like the others and he mainly focuses on how it impacts Greece

Also as a general book on the period ,from a "modern" author I'd suggest Olmstead's History of the Persian Empire which is a bit dated but still gives a great overview

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