The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - FREEMIUM： Epochs #276 ｜ History of Sicily - Featuring Metatron

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to this very special interview where I'm going to be talking to someone who's

00:00:25.340 got a far greater depth of historical knowledge of myself and I love doing that I absolutely love

00:00:30.620 it today we're in the presence of the one and only Metatron how are you sir the Muppet I'm very well

00:00:37.960 thank you how you doing me yeah I'm good thanks yeah I'm all good thanks for asking so whilst I've

00:00:43.840 got you and without too much sick of fancy you know more than I do and I love speaking to people

00:00:50.800 that know about the ancient world particularly and i know you're sicilian of of extraction and

00:00:56.940 so i thought what better thing to do than talk about sicily now there's so many things from

00:01:02.980 pyrrhus of epirus through to pattern in 1943 um i thought to begin with hopefully it's first of

00:01:10.260 many conversations uh maybe we could just go through a whole bunch of things about sicilian

00:01:15.260 history and you we can just chat about it and you can let me know some of your sort of real niche

00:01:20.160 knowledge on it is that all right with you that's actually perfect and uh what's interesting is that

00:01:25.700 i think i think but i mean i'm a little biased if you will but i do think sicilian history is

00:01:29.900 absolutely fascinating i mean at the end of the day so many powers developed in the mediterranean

00:01:35.480 basin and sicily is right there in the very middle we are touched by three seas you know

00:01:40.260 mediterranean turanian and aegean uh it's uh in the ionic so it's it's like a special place and

00:01:47.700 And I love to start with prehistory, for instance.

00:01:52.240 We can jump into the prehistory if you want, but usually people think of, unfortunately

00:01:56.960 when people think of Sicily, I think of Mafia, which I mean is a reality, and we can talk

00:02:01.140 about it if you want, it's a cultural reality, something that happens still, but I am more

00:02:06.780 fascinated by the ancient period in Sicily, and yeah, there is a lot of niche stuff that

00:02:12.760 we can say.

00:02:13.760 I mean yeah there's so as an Englishman you like to think being condescending to an American or

00:02:19.540 something as an Englishman you like think oh we've got so much history we're steeped in so much

00:02:24.360 history it's not a patch on Sicily right I mean Sicily really I mean the layer upon layer upon

00:02:32.720 layer upon layer there's so many things you could say just to start to begin to outline it like that

00:02:36.620 it's both blessed and cursed by history by its geography where it is right I would call it I

00:02:43.240 would call it the the jewel of the mediterranean lots of empires throughout history have obviously

00:02:47.540 thought of it that way uh that it's a crossroads of civilizations uh i'll describe it as an axis

00:02:54.120 on which the mediterranean has turned still does turn through the millennia um that it's been the

00:02:59.720 heart of trade and conquest and empires on and on so okay let's start should we go through

00:03:05.080 chronologically sort of basically um let's start with prehistory then so i'm sorry go ahead

00:03:09.980 absolutely yeah before we jump into the prehistory which is one of my favorite things there's some

00:03:14.180 mystery i'm going to tell you some stuff that's going to blow your mind but not not because of

00:03:18.100 me but because of some of the reason you know i have a team which is kind of funny because usually

00:03:21.660 my haters and redditors deny the existence of my team which is a way to it's flattering because

00:03:26.520 if they really think i do all the research like literally you're giving me all the credit i've

00:03:31.740 got a full team here but anyway some of the stuff we found particularly about the ancient period is

00:03:36.800 mind-blowing it's mind-blowing stuff very talented team and I want to give him

00:03:40.160 credit but I do want to start if it's okay but debunking just a couple of

00:03:44.060 myths so you know I live in in the United States right because I immigrated

00:03:48.300 here legally years ago married my wife and all that she's from here you know

00:03:53.700 what happened when I entered the US and I was going through customs there's the

00:03:57.900 immigration officer and he asks me the passport so I give him the passport he

00:04:02.020 asks me where are you from and I say was it on Ellis Island he wasn't on Ellis

00:04:06.260 island was it no no no no it's in New York so he he asks me where are you from I say Italy because

00:04:15.640 that's his normal quick answer he looks at the passport it of course the passport says Palermo

00:04:20.380 which is where I'm from my city in Sicily so he looks at me and he says oh you're Sicilian you're

00:04:26.040 not Italian do you mind if I debunk a myth very quickly please don't go ahead yeah get it off

00:04:31.980 your chest mate. Here's how it works, here's how it works. Every Sicilian is an Italian, but not

00:04:37.640 every Italian is a Sicilian. In other words, Sicily is a region, in fact, it's interesting

00:04:43.320 because it's the largest region in the entirety of Italy by land mass, we're talking at 10,000

00:04:49.320 square miles, I think it's in miles, and it's the fourth most populous. First foreign province

00:04:55.400 for the Romans, so there is a lot of history when it comes to Sicily. But what's interesting

00:05:00.700 is that so yeah no it italian sicilian they're not mutually exclusive it's like saying it would

00:05:06.420 be like telling you oh you're from london you're not english but you can be both you know what i

00:05:12.080 mean maybe you can look at it a bit like what british like the way you say british someone

00:05:17.440 can be british but you can be english you can be scott you can be welsh i get it's confusing

00:05:22.380 because it's an island so of course you can't be an irish man from england obviously not but it's

00:05:28.200 Sicilians and Italians, not mutually exclusive. You can be both. So it's just what they wanted to

00:05:32.920 clarify. And Italia, the word, is ancient. Because sometimes I get people in the comments getting

00:05:39.480 mad at me, being like, you shouldn't say Italy when you're talking about the Roman period. But

00:05:42.760 they did. There are literally thousands of entries of the word Italia in Latin. They used it. It's

00:05:49.640 just that they didn't use it in the modern sense after Giuseppe Garibaldi, the modern country of

00:05:55.080 Italy. They mean it geographically, usually, but like already by Dioclesian the islands were

00:06:02.200 considered Italy. So we're talking, we've been Italians from that point of view, at least

00:06:07.000 geographically, since the third century. That was just really quickly to kind of underline a thing

00:06:15.480 that kind of annoys me a little bit. Prehistory, yes. So I must, I imagine you heard about the

00:06:22.760 the three populations, the Elimoi, Sicanoi, Sikeloi.

00:06:26.720 Yeah.

00:06:26.940 The three populations, usually Sicily is divided in a map.

00:06:29.520 When you look at prehistory, probably has been inhabited

00:06:32.440 since the upper Paleolithic, early Mesolithic.

00:06:35.560 Have you ever heard, and I can see a lot about the populations

00:06:38.660 because I love them.

00:06:39.560 I freaking love the population.

00:06:40.660 The Elimoi or Elimians, I think they're called in English,

00:06:43.460 are my favorite, the ones in the West, because I am from the West.

00:06:46.940 So I'll tell you a little bit about those.

00:06:49.040 But I was going to say, oh, yeah, have you ever heard

00:06:51.900 of the cave system of Abdaura.

00:06:55.220 No? No?

00:06:56.140 Okay.

00:06:56.740 It's something you might want to Google.

00:06:58.320 So in 1997, they found,

00:07:00.760 so it's very recent,

00:07:01.760 they found this cave system,

00:07:03.080 which is literally like 20 minutes

00:07:04.840 from where I used to live

00:07:06.300 with my family in Sicily.

00:07:08.140 So right next to where I live.

00:07:10.340 And it was accidentally found.

00:07:12.760 I think there was some kind of

00:07:13.620 like allied ammunition explosion,

00:07:15.920 whatever.

00:07:16.180 I don't remember the exact details,

00:07:17.580 but they found this cave

00:07:18.480 and the cave is prehistoric.

00:07:19.780 and the cave has wall paintings and wall drawings and sketches now usually it's been dated to 11,000

00:07:26.860 BC so again mesolithic possibly upper paleolithic inhabitation of that area population and it's

00:07:35.200 fascinating stuff because usually graffiti or wall art of that type like that ancient it's usually

00:07:42.760 animals maybe a little bit of hunting for hunter-gatherer societies but generally speaking

00:07:46.900 animals not this one the caves of la daura show complex rituals uh ceremonial maybe ceremonial

00:07:54.580 burial but just definitely ceremonial practices and dancing 12 000 bc 11 000 bc these people are

00:08:01.760 dancing they're having ritual they're having society and they are writing it in the caves

00:08:06.240 so like who were these people right that's the first thing you ask i saw it now i think they

00:08:12.560 closed the site because of lack of structural integrity but when i was a child it used to be

00:08:17.360 one of the places where your school you take you right for school trips so i remember it

00:08:23.040 and uh yeah so the three people are fascinated feel free to interrupt me anytime because i talk

00:08:28.000 a lot the the three the my favorite than the ones in the west the um ellie moya get confused with

00:08:34.320 the uh with the do you consider yourself a direct descendant of those people who it's difficult to

00:08:40.320 I mean, I would have to do the genealogy of the century.

00:08:44.060 Plus, we don't exactly know who these people were.

00:08:47.120 There are speculations either that these are originally from the Mediterranean area.

00:08:51.440 Maybe they crossed during a favorable climate shift from mainland Italy.

00:08:56.820 But some people speculate they might be refugees from Troy.

00:09:00.340 So the ones from the West, it is possible.

00:09:03.840 I heard the ones from the East might be from like the Iberian Peninsula,

00:09:07.160 might be from modern day Spain.

00:09:08.840 That's the one in the middle.

00:09:10.320 That's the ones in the middle, the Sicanians.

00:09:11.860 Those are the ones in the middle.

00:09:12.800 And they are the most ancient, as far as we know.

00:09:15.140 The ones in the east, the Sicans, the Sicans, in English.

00:09:19.940 Again, I get confused with the English term.

00:09:22.020 The ones in the east are fascinating.

00:09:24.280 It's going to blow your mind.

00:09:25.600 They are most likely originally from Rome.

00:09:29.260 Rome.

00:09:30.500 Before the Romans were a thing.

00:09:32.940 So when we read the classics, long before, long before.

00:09:36.200 So here's the thing.

00:09:37.040 the original latins already as a people we imagine there is the idea that again eneas right so the

00:09:43.300 trojans troys destroyed the trojans eneas go to relocate the runaway this is the story we don't

00:09:49.820 know how much of it is myth but they relocate where do they go they go into the seven hills

00:09:54.240 and so they found rome but they find it inhabited that's what the myth tells us and generally

00:09:59.700 speaking myths are grounded in reality so i wouldn't just brush it off as a myth so the idea

00:10:04.180 is eneas and the trojans they find some people already in latium and we can talk about the

00:10:09.700 etymology of that word because it's mind-blowing but anyways they find some people and then who

00:10:15.700 are these people they call them the at least three authors that give us the same name ab

00:10:20.980 origines that's what they call them the initial people that were there and if you think about it

00:10:25.940 it sounds a bit like aborigines because it's exactly where that word comes from which means

00:10:30.420 at the origin and there is another author that calls them cascade which means the ancient ones

00:10:37.140 and ideally their king the name was latinus so when anas arrives with the trojans and they find

00:10:44.020 these people they're like let's unite and in honor of your king we'll call ourselves the latin now

00:10:49.860 maybe the king didn't exist but the idea that there were some people there before these trojan

00:10:54.580 refugees arrived and then they mix and become the romans is possible but then there are other

00:11:01.540 historical sources that tell us even before the aborigines arrived there were people there so who

00:11:08.660 were these people even before it's okay prehistoric ancestry and they tell us they are the same people

00:11:15.220 they will then move away because the trojans and the aborigines they are there they don't want to

00:11:20.260 mess with the the very ancient ones and they settle in eastern sicily and becomes the sickles

00:11:27.540 okay so i mean the story about um aeneas and stuff most famously um virgil's aeneid and um

00:11:35.220 i reread that not too long well a couple years ago uh i had to do it years and years ago when i was

00:11:39.300 young but reread it not so long ago and when uh aeneas goes there this is only obviously according

00:11:43.940 to virgil in like the first century of course bc in the age of augustus um the king he finds

00:11:49.700 there is turnus or that's the English translation in the book I had the king

00:11:53.420 that's already there is turnus and maybe that comes from latinus or something I

00:11:58.820 don't know I'm no linguist you're the linguist here but I personally don't

00:12:03.980 think that the it yeah the so the king latinos is probably it's probably a

00:12:08.540 made-up thing but the term latium for the area the region right the modern-day

00:12:13.760 Latio the region where Rome is we don't know exactly what that term means but

00:12:18.140 there is the possibility one of the etymological translations that it means the hidden place

00:12:22.000 or the hiding place so you'll be like hiding from what the romans liked that idea and they tell us

00:12:29.080 oh it's because there was the god saturnus and he was running away from jupiter so the king of the

00:12:36.000 god and he hides in this valley and that's why we call it like that now that's the mythological part

00:12:42.780 It's possible, however, that they called it the hidden place because the very original people lived in caves, so they were hiding because they were cave dwellers.

00:12:51.980 That could be a possibility.

00:12:53.640 It's not the only possible translation.

00:12:55.400 Sometimes the other possibility is that Latium comes from Latus with a long phonemic vowel, because Latus with a short phonemic vowel in Latin means side, but Latus means the expanse.

00:13:07.500 So it's possible that it was a valley among the hills.

00:13:10.520 Maybe that's where the name comes from.

00:13:12.060 or it comes from proto-latin latium but trying to figure out what that means is

00:13:19.200 well to be honest we're getting far ahead of ourselves talking about the

00:13:24.100 Roman period I'd like to start with well first thing before we get on to the

00:13:27.840 Greeks and the Phoenicians yes is there tell me about is there a megalithic

00:13:33.060 prehistoric megalithic structures on Sicily so you're talking about like

00:13:39.780 stonehenge type of stuff yeah just dry like large scale sort of um yeah stone not that i'm aware of

00:13:47.700 the most ancient sites that i have lived because i mean from there is usually the greek coastal

00:13:55.700 battlements of selinus which is selinunte modern selinunte it's in the south west uh that one is

00:14:02.180 probably like what three thousand years ago but that's already the bronze age so because you know

00:14:06.340 the south was colonized by dorian greeks so originally from northwest greece and then

00:14:10.900 peloponnes and then the east is colonized by ionic greeks so from attica not far away from athens

00:14:19.060 we're talking about magna grecia here so-called yes there was a large migration from the greek

00:14:24.820 world the classical greek world while talking like the eighth largely what the eighth century

00:14:29.540 i think famously they say corinth was the first one but of many we talk about the eighth century bc

00:14:34.980 the Greek people, classical Greek people, from the Aegean, moving and settling Sicily.

00:14:41.440 Yes.

00:14:42.060 Yeah, they settled the south and the east, but the northwest instead is either with these

00:14:48.000 original Elimians, which, again, we don't exactly know where they're from, but we know

00:14:52.300 that they were building cities, and one city that they found is the city of Eriks.

00:14:58.280 It's very ancient, it's modern-day Eriks, and it's my wife's favorite.

00:15:02.480 I take her there every time we go to Sicily.

00:15:04.600 because it's an absolutely stunning town at the top of a mountain today it looks medieval but i

00:15:11.840 mean it it looks like you're going back in time like it looks like you're walking around the

00:15:14.960 elder scrolls i did by the way put on my full plate armor and walked around the streets of erics

00:15:20.400 because it just it was amazing i filmed it i've got footage of it but this is ancient

00:15:25.480 and then right next to it the elimeans they built a port town which is modern day trapani but the

00:15:32.440 ancient name is a lot better and it's a drepanon which kind of it means sickle because it looked

00:15:38.620 like a sickle and they built it as a maritime sort of conduit for for that area so the north was was

00:15:46.480 from these original people then the phoenicians arrived and they built my six enormous in the

00:15:51.940 south you've got the greeks this is why sicily is so uh polysemic multi-ethnic but also culturally

00:15:59.860 linguistically you know did you know that for instance sicilian is not a dialect of italian

00:16:04.460 it's a dialect of latin it's not a dialect of italian so um sometimes people think because i

00:16:10.440 do speak it i speak both i was i was raised with both in my household so i'm native of both

00:16:14.500 and they're very difficult different they can be mutually unintelligible at times

00:16:18.760 and you know in a way sicilian is a sister language to standard italian which is based

00:16:23.480 on the florentine tuscan language but it's not a daughter of italian and even sicilian itself

00:16:29.960 it's a i don't even call it a dialect i call it a regional language because it has its own dialects

00:16:35.480 so sicily is split into three just like the ancient populations even linguistically

00:16:39.640 and then you have sub dialects that are like nine or ten depending on who you ask

00:16:43.320 and these are metaphonetically differently i can go into what that means if you're interested or

00:16:47.080 not i don't have to go into the linguistic stuff but basically even between sicilians or different

00:16:51.400 areas it might end up being mutually unintelligible because of all these different civilizations that

00:16:57.420 brought in vocabulary and language so one of the big things one of the big things then say then is

00:17:02.400 this mixture of both greek classical greek and phoenician peoples that's where a lot of documentaries

00:17:09.540 or even books really begin with sicily is starting around the 8th 7th century bc is the greeks and

00:17:15.860 the phoenicians who of course most people should know probably would know that they are very very

00:17:19.860 different and carthage is you know the the most uh the biggest most famous most important

00:17:26.420 phoenician settlement in the western side of the mediterranean so already long before the romans

00:17:32.740 before pyrrhus of epirus before even um what the athenian expedition you've got phoenicians

00:17:39.780 and greeks and they're fighting over in various ways they're fighting over the island

00:17:46.340 yeah and fighting with the original people in there as well at the same time trying to subdue

00:17:51.740 them the phoenicians of course we know they are semitic there are semitic people um when it comes

00:17:56.680 to the carthaginians so from tyre to make sure originally from tyre which is in modern day

00:18:00.940 lebanon isn't it modern day lebanon that's exactly yeah and then it's interesting when the connection

00:18:05.140 with modern day lebanon is is removed is severed and then you only have carthage on this side of

00:18:10.380 the world then carthage is like okay then we are taking control of the phoenician colonies including

00:18:14.780 palermo in the north of sicily and then there is the whole situation with rome trying to see

00:18:18.860 who is going to control sicily while there are still greeks but yeah they are originally they

00:18:24.060 are semitic definitions but actually i looked into this very recent new dna analysis and it seems

00:18:31.180 like that the carthagenians by the time they're carthagenians the semitic component in the dna

00:18:38.060 it's only a core for the nobility so the carthagenians aren't semitic anymore only a small

00:18:43.340 percentage of them and their dna by the time of the punic wars with the romans has changed so much

00:18:49.820 that now they are closely related to uh aegeans greeks and anatolian and anatolian people and

00:18:57.100 sardini they have the same dna as them it's interesting that it's not much sort of north

00:19:02.060 african it's still yeah i know it's still classical mediterranean that's very interesting 100 yeah

00:19:10.380 so i mean so i suppose because there's so much to say we'll have to whip through it a bit

00:19:14.220 let's talk a little bit about um alcibiades uh uh expedition the sicilian expedition uh if anyone's

00:19:21.420 right you see cities and in uh in that age what we're talking is the 400s isn't it the

00:19:28.060 the fifth century bc of 400s bc and the athenians decide crazy strategy as far as i've said well

00:19:36.860 Well, the leader of their polity at that point, Alcibiades, convinces them that they should go on a massive expedition to Sicily,

00:19:44.200 which in the scheme of things isn't really that close to Athens.

00:19:47.040 They're in the middle of a very, very decades-long war with Sparta, and they decide they're going to go to Sicily and conquer Sicily.

00:19:54.920 And ultimately, it's a disaster.

00:19:57.280 As you as a Sicilian, what do normal Sicilians in the 20th, 21st century think about Alcibiades and the Athenian expedition?

00:20:05.040 Is it a joke to them? Is it deadly serious stuff?

00:20:08.780 Well, I think most Sicilians don't even think about it much.

00:20:12.100 I mean, particularly the kids.

00:20:14.380 When we review the history, though, here's the thing.

00:20:16.920 I perfectly understand where they're coming from because they wanted Syracuse.

00:20:20.900 That's what they wanted.

00:20:22.140 I mean, everyone wanted Syracuse.

00:20:24.360 It was a powerhouse.

00:20:25.880 It was extremely culturally significant.

00:20:30.000 It was rivaling with the city-states in Greece.

00:20:33.020 So had they been successful, because, you know, we've got hindsight and hindsight is 2020.

00:20:38.220 But had they been successful, the amount of wealth that they would have got, which the Romans will get.

00:20:43.720 I mean, Sicily will become the granary of Rome eventually.

00:20:46.600 And there is a lot to say about wheat production in Sicily.

00:20:50.240 And that's something that it's still significant today.

00:20:54.260 So we can talk about that as well.

00:20:56.620 But first, yeah, they I think it was worth it.

00:21:00.420 They rolled their dice and they lost also because the Spartans interfered with the fleet.

00:21:07.440 So they did do that.

00:21:08.880 But I got to say, it was worth the try because, yes, if they had gained control over Syracuse

00:21:15.960 and in general, all of the grain production and the maritime trade, it would have definitely

00:21:19.560 repaid for the entire war 10 times over.

00:21:23.220 So I understand it.

00:21:24.500 And even as a modern Sicilian, I mean, to me, Greeks are brothers.

00:21:27.580 You know, we are the most Greek of all the regions in Italy.

00:21:29.460 so you know no no hard feelings i guess yeah i mean i definitely want to get into that a bit

00:21:35.400 later how how how greek sicily is in some ways i mean sort of in the byzantine period

00:21:43.000 i've heard it described as a greek island in a latin sea uh but we'll get on to all of that

00:21:48.300 we'll get into that in a moment uh before we get uh i want to ask you a little bit about

00:21:51.860 oh pyrrhus of epirus i'm a massive fan of the story of pyrrhus of epirus and he famously had

00:21:58.440 a big expedition even fighting with elephants and things wasn't he right on sicily and so

00:22:04.440 what are your thoughts and feelings on pyrrhus well i love that we get the expression of pyrrhic

00:22:09.500 victory right because the idea is he wins well except for the end when he gets murdered in the

00:22:15.520 final battle of his life or whatever but apart from the catastrophic ending it is interesting

00:22:19.960 that he was he's the one who created the expression which means you win but at extremely

00:22:25.680 heavy losses i mean the guy sometimes was given impossible odds and uh what do you like about

00:22:32.240 about i don't know the expeditions in general or the wars pyrrhus of epirus seems to me he's like

00:22:38.800 he's he's not quite as brilliant as alexander the great but for me it's close it's someone

00:22:44.080 up there it's someone like for me it's one of the all-time greats of the ancient world

00:22:48.080 it's a shame as you mentioned just there his final sort of quite ignominious death

00:22:52.800 where an old lady threw a roof tile on his head and killed him.

00:22:56.560 But other than that, he seems to have been an absolute badass,

00:22:59.380 like deliberately getting involved in single combat and stuff,

00:23:02.420 for real, though, not lost in the midst of time, for real,

00:23:05.380 if you believe the accounts.

00:23:07.380 And even though the Pyrrhic victories and losing loads,

00:23:11.580 he very, very seldom lost.

00:23:12.640 He just seems to be a great general, a really affable person.

00:23:17.040 Sorry, go ahead.

00:23:18.640 No, no, no, sorry, an exceptional strategist.

00:23:20.580 i like the fact that you're bringing up the fact of how sometimes generals fought and alexander

00:23:26.820 the great is another example of that he led the charges and sometimes get speared and then he

00:23:31.220 would literally there be that could you imagine modern day politicians leading a combat charge

00:23:36.740 with with a swat team or with like the commandos yeah because that's what we're talking about right

00:23:44.260 i mean medieval kings would stay in the rear i think classical antiquity is more heroic when

00:23:48.500 it comes to that although then again it kind of depends the romans they usually let the centurions

00:23:53.300 deal with it like the romans but they are ready to fight i mean they've got their uh bodyguards

00:23:58.660 right the um praetorian the predators they are like initially bodyguards of generals but the

00:24:05.380 generals are ready to fight they're in armor if something happens the general is gonna fight it's

00:24:09.940 like they know that that's gonna happen well there's definitely some examples from medieval

00:24:14.340 history the first thing obviously always springs to my mind is henry the fifth king henry the fifth

00:24:18.260 of England got involved in actual

00:24:20.260 combat on the field of Agincourt but there's

00:24:22.240 quite a lot of examples but in the ancient world it's even more

00:24:24.280 something, Alexander's supposed to have something like

00:24:26.300 30 odd wounds on his body

00:24:28.300 by the time he died, battle scars

00:24:29.980 being over the wall first, being the point

00:24:32.500 of a cavalry charge more than once

00:24:34.440 in a big battle and Pyrrhus just seems

00:24:36.480 to have been one of those guys, he would throw

00:24:38.540 himself into the middle

00:24:40.260 of a maelstrom

00:24:41.500 it's just great ancient stuff

00:24:44.160 it almost is like

00:24:46.300 legend although the history the literary accounts are to be believed i think i think i think it's

00:24:52.720 possible because these are a different they are cut from a different cloth ancient commanders

00:24:57.400 like that and in fact perus to me is even more impressive and let me tell you why because in

00:25:01.920 alexander and i love alexander the great that's my son's middle name is alexander so i gave him

00:25:06.940 that name but here's the thing uh he there was a psychological aspect to it alexander believed

00:25:12.620 truly to be a god he believed to be divine so i think that that influenced his decision as well

00:25:18.800 still brave and whatnot but i think he actually really did believe that there was divinity in him

00:25:23.660 he wasn't just a mere mortal um with someone like pyrrhus i don't think he believed that but he still

00:25:28.780 did it still did it yeah right still did it okay so we're talking there about like the late 300s

00:25:37.400 So it's not long after that, let's get to the Punic War, the first Punic War, and that's really where the Romans and the Carthaginians first really start vying for full control as sort of the sole superpower of the Mediterranean, at least Western Mediterranean world, and it's fought over Sicily.

00:25:57.880 it's very long war isn't it it's like 20 odd years long a very grinding sort of a war of attrition

00:26:03.260 almost in sicily and the whole time the thing that i thought remarkable that a lot of people

00:26:08.060 is often lost when we talk about the first punic war is there's already sicilians there it's not

00:26:12.340 just like a mostly empty island and the carthaginians and the romans are fighting over it it's like

00:26:16.880 there's loads of other factions in there as well lots and it's just one giant mess it seems to me

00:26:22.900 but um again i would love to know what a real sicilian thinks about that those that know about

00:26:29.440 it anyway i mean is that taught in your schools is it something to be embarrassed about is it

00:26:33.680 something you're very proud of i don't know you tell me no yeah no it's just history we love our

00:26:38.180 history it's uh yeah of course we go through the entirety of the thing and besides we read the

00:26:42.560 odyssey and in the odyssey the sicilian populations are mentioned um homer does mention the both the

00:26:49.000 the Eastern ones, the Sickles, and he mentioned the Sicanians.

00:26:51.700 It's just that he treats them as one people,

00:26:54.240 so it's possible that there was some assimilation by then

00:26:56.780 through Magna Gracchia and all that.

00:27:00.280 But what's interesting is, so we're in 264 BC

00:27:03.220 with the First Punic War.

00:27:04.700 But here is something interesting.

00:27:05.840 Have you ever heard of this idea that the Romans

00:27:09.380 didn't have a navy before the First Punic War,

00:27:12.100 but then because of the conflict with Carthage,

00:27:16.900 that's when they make a navy.

00:27:18.700 And that's wrong, it's a myth.

00:27:21.160 So if you want, we can address it because,

00:27:23.660 but it's an educated myth because it comes from Polybius.

00:27:28.340 So it's not something that people, Polybius does say,

00:27:31.160 oh yeah, the Romans didn't have a fleet,

00:27:33.120 but then the Carthaginians,

00:27:34.400 the situation with Sicily happened.

00:27:35.900 So they build 100 quinque remes and 23 remes.

00:27:40.500 He tells us the type of ships.

00:27:42.640 The thing is though, that he's been hyperbolic

00:27:44.460 and we know that.

00:27:45.840 Well, what he means is not that literally

00:27:47.980 the Romans didn't have a fleet because I can give you a date from when the Romans

00:27:51.820 began their fleet and it's a long time before that and I can get that date from

00:27:56.080 him so I can use Polybius to the bank Polybius in Chile. So what happened and

00:28:00.160 it's not the only ones Deodorus Siculus, Dionysus of Alicarnassus speak about it,

00:28:05.440 Titus Livius speak about the Roman fleet. So what happened is that in 509 BC, so

00:28:11.560 we're almost 300 years before the war, the Carthaginians write a treaty with the

00:28:17.860 Romans. Polybius tells us about it. And in this treaty, the Carthaginians tell the Romans,

00:28:22.640 you shall not traverse with your fleet. They're mentioning a fleet, a Roman fleet. They say,

00:28:28.120 you will not have your vessels cross this line. And they give us the name of a settlement,

00:28:33.280 which is in modern day Tunisia. I think, I don't remember the ancient name, the modern name. I

00:28:37.540 think the French protectorate in the 1800s called it Cape Lafarina, but I don't remember the ancient

00:28:43.060 name. Anyways, it's in Tunisia. And they tell us, you shall not cross this line because otherwise

00:28:47.580 it's war that's what the Carthaginian Republic tells the Romans but then they

00:28:51.360 add two caveats and this is when it gets fascinating caveat number one if it's a

00:28:55.920 tempest or a storm and you end up crossing it not a big deal just leave

00:28:59.700 second if you are engaging in naval combat and you need to retreat from your

00:29:04.560 enemies you can cross it but then you need to go back so what naval combat

00:29:09.000 if the Romans said name why are the Carthaginians even bothered I mean if

00:29:13.860 it was a bunch of fishermen why would they even care so they do consider

00:29:17.520 them a possible threat and they tell us you know you're not going to cross this and that's one

00:29:21.360 thing this the second thing is that the romans take a city called uh antium and it's a pirate

00:29:28.800 city and they take it and then what do they do they confiscate the the vessels and that's when

00:29:35.440 roman piracy begins and you know who mentions roman piracy alexander the great he says they're

00:29:41.200 pestering him he's annoyed by them because of course they you know there was no roman empire

00:29:46.640 but there was already a republic when alexander great was doing his thing it's not like yeah of

00:29:51.680 course yeah and uh so the romans did have a fleet they had a navy what changed is that in the first

00:29:57.760 punic war they are they humped up they went for a rearming and they built a significant fleet that

00:30:04.000 now could compete with the uh naval supremacy that the carthaginian had had up to that point

00:30:10.560 maybe you can remind me whether it's in polybius or maybe it's in livy the story i guess it's just

00:30:17.600 low resolution or maybe even apocryphal but that the romans somehow got seized uh a carthaginian

00:30:24.420 ship and they sort of um and they uh what was the word they they back engineered it that yeah

00:30:30.400 back engineered it took it apart and even found yes that the carthaginians uh made so many ships

00:30:37.260 that on each individual segment it was almost like lego or something you could it was shown how to

00:30:43.200 put it together by and so the romans were able to back engineer it and copy it effectively um

00:30:49.100 and aren't we told that that's during the first period or just before the first period course

00:30:53.480 something like that um and i can't remember if i think it might be livy that's in but um

00:30:58.320 so but that and they say that's the first time the romans ever had a navy but you're quite right

00:31:03.120 that can't be the case i can tell you the first time i can tell you the first time they ever

00:31:08.060 built the first ship it's in 620 bc when they founded ostia well now it's called ostia it's

00:31:14.660 ostia tiberina whatever uh they it's the first colony that rome ever built on the coastline

00:31:21.560 that's when they started making the very first vessels not as advanced as this because this is

00:31:26.980 completely different but uh it's no the romans have been dealing with the mediterranean well

00:31:31.760 Why wouldn't they?

00:31:32.460 They are a Mediterranean power.

00:31:34.140 Yeah.

00:31:34.460 Right?

00:31:34.720 Yeah.

00:31:35.680 I've been to Austria once,

00:31:37.540 and the beach had loads of cigarettes all over it,

00:31:40.720 littered with cigarettes.

00:31:41.580 I know, and I hate it.

00:31:43.440 But, okay, so the first Punic War,

00:31:46.480 the Romans win in the end, basically.

00:31:48.860 The idea is that all the Carthaginians

00:31:50.960 were pushed off of Sicily, if they really were.

00:31:53.480 And had to pay a lot of silver, yeah.

00:31:55.300 Yeah.

00:31:56.020 But, oh, God, there's already, there's so much to say.

00:31:58.120 So, I mean, Archimedes, quickly mention Archimedes.

00:32:01.200 Oh, yeah.

00:32:01.460 Surely every Sicilian child is brought up with the story of Archimedes?

00:32:06.120 100%.

00:32:06.560 Yeah, 100%.

00:32:07.940 We study him, the engines, the machines, the battlements,

00:32:11.800 the defense mechanisms, all the inventions.

00:32:13.880 It's insane.

00:32:14.460 Could you imagine what you could build in terms of machines?

00:32:17.640 Because these are machines.

00:32:18.940 It's just that it's Bronze Age, Iron Age, and classical antiquity.

00:32:22.260 It's their technology, right?

00:32:24.440 So the stuff that they can build with ropes and metal,

00:32:27.020 although, if you want, at one point,

00:32:29.060 maybe let's go through the Punic War,

00:32:31.220 because there are a couple of things i want to tell you about the second but then we can talk

00:32:34.560 about there is one type of screw that the it is attributed possibly to archimedes but in general

00:32:41.220 it's called the greek screw it's a bronze type of um construction that the romans used for mining

00:32:48.400 and they possibly took it from the egyptians and it's a fascinating story because it's going to

00:32:53.560 blow your mind how the romans did mining operation under under the soil and they had to consider

00:32:58.360 the oxygen and water displacement.

00:33:01.620 It's insane how advanced they were with this stuff.

00:33:05.640 So we can go into it if you want.

00:33:07.600 But, yeah, no, Archimedes is, I mean,

00:33:11.780 one at a time, genius of the era, 100%.

00:33:15.280 I guess it's one of those, I imagine,

00:33:17.140 it's one of those people that's in your history

00:33:19.740 that you're just very, very proud of the way

00:33:22.360 we might, Englishmen might be proud of,

00:33:24.160 I don't know, Isaac Newton or something,

00:33:26.120 Or, you know, something like that

00:33:28.460 It's just one of your all-time greats

00:33:30.620 But yeah, because there's a lot of Roman mining in Cornwall

00:33:35.480 Obviously in a later period, much later period

00:33:37.720 But there's actually, I actually studied Roman Britain a lot

00:33:40.980 And after a while you read enough, read around Roman Britain

00:33:44.620 Eventually they'll talk about the tin mines in Cornwall

00:33:47.760 Right, of course

00:33:48.680 Yeah, remarkable, yeah, not until really the 18th century was it surpassed

00:33:54.880 um yeah yeah absolutely incredible absolutely incredible yeah they had two were two ways to

00:33:59.680 mine they had vertical sorry horizontal mining operations and vertical mining operations the

00:34:05.260 vertical ones could go relatively deep not as deep as modern mining but then again that the heat

00:34:10.940 conditions and the lack of oxygen would have off them but they knew that so what they do is that

00:34:16.440 they use this uh this this greek or egyptian screw as they call it and what they do is that

00:34:22.200 they create a machine a wooden machine that can redirect underwater river flow so that it doesn't

00:34:28.340 flood and it can pump out the water it tells us of what rate and it can pump out the water and then

00:34:34.380 they use these like candles to see if there is oxygen they keep going down but then they have

00:34:39.460 to check if there is oxygen it's insane like a stuff that they can come up with it's remarkable

00:34:45.180 to think that both the greek world or ancient sicily even or the romans came very close perhaps

00:34:51.820 you could argue came very close to an industrial revolution because the first steam engines the

00:34:57.340 first pistons ever which is like the main component of of an engine was britain in the 18th century

00:35:05.100 or or late 17th yeah no 18th century um in order to pump water out of mayans right yeah there we

00:35:11.740 go right so so if the romans or the greeks had made a couple of little with the the genius of

00:35:16.780 archimedes and the and the elbow grease of the romans they were right there they're right there

00:35:22.700 a couple of little things and we might be two thousand years further ahead in human development

00:35:27.100 at this point but ah if you think about it i mean roman cement they figured out a way for it to

00:35:33.740 self-heal underwater so they compounded the chemicals in it in a way that the constituents

00:35:41.740 in a way this is of course the trial and error that's how ancient people do it but experiential

00:35:45.900 knowledge is not to be underestimated when you've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years

00:35:49.860 of continuous trial and error and so they figured out this way whereby when the cement goes underwater

00:35:54.420 it whenever it cracks the water enters and it re sort of resurrects it and repairs it

00:36:01.900 automatically can you imagine that like roman cement in fact still stays strong today yes

00:36:09.200 it's remarkable in fact i watched something a little while ago probably a year ago now but

00:36:12.880 it was a little documentary just talking about the cement used in the coliseum specifically yes

00:36:18.480 and how remarkable like the chemical they they you know they analyzed it in a modern modern

00:36:24.160 scientific way the chemical makeup of it where they sort of couldn't believe how how perfect it

00:36:29.280 was really um yeah and even even pompey um just the other day i was hearing an interview with

00:36:35.360 christopher nolan and he was talking about like oh ancient people you know they didn't have a

00:36:40.160 modern scientific understanding so to them everything was gods and the fire is gone and 0.65

00:36:44.400 i'm like you clown you never opened a source have you because here's the thing when you actually

00:36:49.200 read how the romans reacted to the explosion of vesuvius and how you know pompeii right if you 0.90

00:36:56.480 read because you would imagine oh probably the romans thought the god vulcanus is punishing us

00:37:01.360 maybe some people thought that i'm not denying it but if you look at the historians the the emperors

00:37:06.640 no the first thing the emperors say we need to send aid so they organize very well put together

00:37:12.480 aid to go and help the victims then they try to figure out the physical causes like they are very

00:37:18.000 pragmatic it's insane when you read it and in fact they even try to figure out why the soil after the

00:37:22.960 lava and the explosion it becomes more fertile and they don't say well the gods blessed us no they

00:37:27.840 say probably it creates a layer of fat around there now they were wrong but they tried to explain it

00:37:33.680 through physical reality and observation which is very modern if you think about it and have you

00:37:40.000 ever thought the question why did they even try to build a settlement near a volcano like

00:37:45.500 wasuvius like wouldn't that be dangerous the i i asked myself that question and i found the answer

00:37:51.580 together with the team and it's actually mind-blowing the reason is they didn't know

00:37:57.380 because the previous now it's not documented but now we know because of geometric analysis

00:38:03.560 the previous explosion or eruption of the volcano was prehistoric so nobody knew they didn't know

00:38:10.720 it was a volcano now it looks obvious because you see it's got it looks like this because it

00:38:15.400 exploded if you look at drawings from the period before the explosion it looks like a it has a peak

00:38:21.660 it looks like a whole top of it blew off was it plenty the elder is it plenty the elder that gave

00:38:27.300 the account at the time yeah and uh yeah now it looks like a two double peak thing with yeah but

00:38:32.160 But at the time, they thought it was just a hill or at least a dormant volcano.

00:38:37.560 Because there's Herculaneum, which is even closer, isn't there?

00:38:40.660 I've been there.

00:38:41.920 Herculaneum is right on the side of the mountain, basically.

00:38:47.560 It's crazy how close that is.

00:38:50.240 But, okay, because there's so much to get through.

00:38:51.780 So, I guess, montage through the next few centuries,

00:38:57.020 because this is then the height of the Roman period,

00:39:00.580 from after the first punic war all the way up to the fall of rome in the west and now we're talking

00:39:07.080 like the fifth century a.d right for that whole time as you've said sicily exists as uh not just

00:39:14.620 a part of the roman republic and empire but a key part of it sort of their first overseas territory

00:39:21.420 and acts as something like a bread basket for rome and yes um so so that whole period is when

00:39:29.600 would you say this is the question um sicily becomes less greek and more roman is that fair

00:39:38.480 to say or is that just silly low resolution and i've got it all wrong no no for sure i mean you

00:39:44.080 can be a little bit of both because at the end of the day even in our language we use terms that are

00:39:47.900 clearly greek related um so you can tell there is and besides we do remember that even though

00:39:53.780 the romans conquered the greek temples are still there so there is still a lot of greek

00:39:59.100 architecture there and in fact we've got i think we have the most well-preserved temples in the

00:40:05.100 world when it comes to ancient greece they're in sicily so our temples are better there was an

00:40:08.880 earthquake in the selenus area uh but you know suggests that there are still temples that are

00:40:14.180 standing and you can go and experience them it's like the value of temples in agrigento for instance

00:40:19.180 that's the most famous ones but there are other areas that are less famous and to me more beautiful

00:40:24.700 where you still see the paved koto and the altars

00:40:28.960 where the population, the Greeks,

00:40:31.660 were doing sacrifices for the gods

00:40:33.900 in terms of grapes and food and stuff like that.

00:40:37.120 They're still there. You can see them.

00:40:39.080 You can still walk the battlements.

00:40:40.460 3,000 years old, they're still almost,

00:40:42.960 not intact, but like that.

00:40:45.040 There is one thing I wanted to tell you

00:40:46.620 about the Second Punic War.

00:40:48.820 So there is a lot to say,

00:40:50.380 but Scipio Africanus, one of the things he did

00:40:52.500 when he was dealing with Hannibal,

00:40:54.020 which by the way Hannibal was in Italy for like 13 years it's insane how long like we often when

00:41:00.200 we brush through it we don't realize how long freaking Hannibal was in Italy and they couldn't

00:41:05.020 get him out but it's very famous how Scipio Africanus decides I'm gonna take the Iberian

00:41:10.420 Peninsula and then he does the counter-attack in in Carthage, Zama and whatnot but I would like to

00:41:15.820 very quickly focus on what happened when he took the Iberian Peninsula because this is something

00:41:20.180 they always get wrong in every documentary i swear every documentary of video game so the

00:41:26.900 iberian peninsula belongs to carthage until roman troops go there and take it when the romans take

00:41:33.220 it one of the settlements that they take which is a celtiberian the celtic people is full of

00:41:38.580 blacksmiths these are the blacksmiths that invent the gladius in fact the first iteration is the

00:41:44.820 gladius hispaniensis from hispania the iberian peninsula so for any battle that you represent

00:41:53.300 graphically that happens before the romans in the second punic war take the iberian peninsula

00:41:58.660 the romans should not have a gladius the carthaginians should have a gladius because

00:42:02.980 the romans take the gladius when they take the iberian peninsula and then it becomes the roman

00:42:08.660 sword so a lot of situations you see the carthaginians with these like kind of falcata

00:42:14.180 looking swords. And the Romans have the gladius. I'm like, no, it's the other way around.

00:42:18.500 The Romans don't have the gladius at this time. They have three types of swords, in fact,

00:42:22.000 one of which looks a bit like a falcata. The rest look like a mixture between Celtic designs

00:42:26.720 because of Northern Italy and Greek designs. And it's the Carthaginians that have the gladius.

00:42:31.400 The Romans just take it from them once they take the entire opida with the blacksmiths. There were

00:42:36.100 like at least, I think, a hundred blacksmiths. The Romans confiscate them and say, okay,

00:42:39.600 mass producer we want this and in fact before this they weren't even using metal umbo they were using

00:42:45.280 wooden protection for the for the shield and then they because they take these so like it's it's

00:42:51.120 every time i see video games and i see why are the romans using a gladius before they take

00:42:55.440 like in the first punic war absolutely not yeah like the first punic wars romans fighting against

00:43:01.760 brennus or like any depiction of the early kings all the romans are using gladius no no that would

00:43:08.400 know it's like we know when it happened we even know i actually have the name of this settlement

00:43:14.400 somewhere let me see if i can find it numantia that's the name of the that's where they engineered

00:43:19.800 the gladius and i'm not sure what the modern name i mean at the end of the day the romans always

00:43:24.380 change names even paris paris today is the it kind of because the original name was parisi

00:43:31.520 but the romans called it lutetia so the romans conquer it change the name because that's what

00:43:36.720 they do and then they start digging and they create the stone underground quarries that they

00:43:44.440 used to then build the city which is now the labyrinth of Paris it's it's part of it it was

00:43:50.220 expanded in the Middle Ages the underground of Paris is insane if you go in there you'll never

00:43:54.100 come out some of which are ancient Roman mines because they were literally mining downstairs

00:43:59.640 downstairs taking the stones build the rest of the town but then eventually they want to go back to

00:44:04.600 you know afterwards they're like no we want to call it paris because the romans didn't call it

00:44:07.880 that they called the lutetia wasn't the parisi more like the tribe yeah but also the settlement

00:44:15.160 both yeah because you have adnonyms endonyms and depending on how people call themselves

00:44:20.680 and that kind of stuff okay so when the roman empire in the west finally falls

00:44:26.040 Sicily isn't necessarily immediately conquered by anyone else but we get well we would get into

00:44:35.820 the period of what like the vandals and the and the Ostrogoths people like Theodoric and stuff

00:44:42.560 how do Sicilians how do you view that period is that something that is well because as an

00:44:49.440 Englishman when I talk when I think about and when I talk about time particular times when

00:44:54.820 britain might have been invaded sometimes the feeling is like the romans you're like oh well

00:45:00.860 good on you you as a good opponent and you won fair and square and other times it's like like

00:45:05.360 viking invasion you think oh they're mean they're the baddies i'm not okay with that i'm not cool

00:45:09.420 with that do you feel sicilians feel like that about like the vandals and the ostrogoths or is

00:45:14.080 it or is it are you indifferent about it yeah i think we're a little indifferent about it only

00:45:19.760 because it wasn't long enough to define us as a culture whereas if you look at

00:45:24.220 the crown of Aragon in Spain if you look at the Norman conquest those right have

00:45:28.740 left or even the Saracens those have left buildings architecture and the

00:45:33.680 Byzantine that is visible today so you have Islamic structures you have a

00:45:39.440 Spanish or Baroque for instance as well so all of that is insisting in its

00:45:43.400 visual and the other thing is for me like I would say I kind of look

00:45:48.440 stereotypical for an italian but like in my class in my classrooms and this is a little anecdotal i

00:45:54.840 get it but just to give an idea in every classroom that i've ever been to as a child growing up

00:46:00.280 out of like 20 22 students three were blondes with blue eyes so the the norman the norman

00:46:06.280 influence is there ethnically you can see it it's not weird to us some people have a darker

00:46:13.160 complexion than me some people look exactly like me and at the end of the day it is because of the

00:46:18.120 ethnic makeup of all of these different civilizations that stayed stayed for a few

00:46:21.320 hundred years and then you know they were replaced by someone else because everybody wanted sicily at

00:46:26.200 the end of the day okay so to go through a little bit um chronologically okay so after the fall of

00:46:31.560 the roman empire in the west uh we've got vandals ostrogoths theodoric something like that but then

00:46:37.240 the campaigns of justinian the first and belisarius and the reconquest of italy and sicily at least

00:46:43.320 for a little bit by the eastern roman empire the by the byzantine yeah yeah so i guess that is as

00:46:51.000 you just said basically that is a much bigger part and then there's still lots and lots of

00:46:55.960 there's lots of byzantine architecture still there to this day yeah yeah and the art the christian

00:47:03.400 art particularly uh in fact when i went to the metropolitan museum of art which contains a lot

00:47:09.240 of european stuff like a lot i don't even know why we we sold them everything so anyways there

00:47:14.760 is a lot of like crucifixes and art that comes from that period specifically that area uh it's

00:47:20.360 mind-blowing the to me i think if you visit for instance palermo right um it's the norman

00:47:29.400 architecture that is the one that gets to me uh there is the palazzo dei normanni so norman palace

00:47:35.560 or like the cathedrals that were built as well

00:47:38.380 during the Middle Ages,

00:47:40.980 those are really the architecture

00:47:42.300 that every Sicilian will know.

00:47:45.760 The Byzantines, absolutely,

00:47:48.120 but I think that's like for history buffs.

00:47:51.420 But if you want to know

00:47:52.120 what the general population recognizes,

00:47:55.120 it's the Norman medieval period

00:47:57.320 and the kind of architecture

00:47:59.040 and structures and cathedrals,

00:48:00.900 those any Sicilian,

00:48:02.180 even if you ask a fishmonger,

00:48:04.260 they will know about it.

00:48:05.240 Right, okay

00:48:06.420 Well one question I wanted to ask

00:48:07.960 I don't want to spend too much time on it

00:48:09.620 Or get in too deep

00:48:10.420 Or any sort of controversy

00:48:11.140 But the tension

00:48:15.000 If that's even the right word

00:48:17.020 Between Orthodox Roman Catholicism

00:48:21.880 And Eastern Roman

00:48:25.040 Eastern Orthodox

00:48:26.880 Yeah, Eastern Orthodox

00:48:30.540 Eastern Orthodox, yeah

00:48:31.680 And so in Sicily

00:48:33.700 um there's you there's both of course but for you in your mind

00:48:38.720 try to try to explain for me a little bit what what that's like are most people

00:48:44.500 christians anyway are most of them catholic or like most of them eastern orthodox or

00:48:49.780 everyone everyone is everyone is roman catholic okay literally everyone is roman catholic right

00:48:54.960 so uh the reality besides so that that's it i think it's it we are too disconnected from that

00:49:01.220 period to have any remnant of eastern orthodoxy i've never met an eastern orthodox in my life

00:49:08.180 maybe they exist i'm not saying but i've never met one in my life okay so everyone yeah everyone

00:49:13.220 is a romano catholico apostolico romano so roman catholic right and uh okay yeah that's pretty much

00:49:20.960 it honestly it's really that's okay fair enough yeah yeah so so just before we get to the normans

00:49:26.640 then got to talk a little bit about the uh the abbassids ultimately the fatimids the islamic

00:49:34.260 invasions before and that was before the normans right right right and so there's a period there

00:49:39.980 is anyone getting the the trend the pattern that lots and lots of different empires and peoples

00:49:44.860 have uh anyone you realize it so next next up next up to bat is the uh the muslims from north

00:49:52.040 africa yes yes right and so tell me a little bit about modern day sicilian people's thoughts and

00:49:58.160 feelings about all of that there's lots of mosques aren't there yeah um active mosques i don't think

00:50:04.440 there are that many there are some repurposed buildings that occasionally used to be mosques

00:50:08.380 like you can see the it's called a cupola i'm not sure what the term is in english but basically

00:50:12.800 like the spherical uh roof that you see on top of that we see them in palermo all over the place

00:50:17.880 some have been turned into Christian churches by the way a function Christian

00:50:22.720 churches so that has happened I'm not sure yeah there are very again I've only

00:50:28.260 met one would you say active Muslim really but then again that's maybe that

00:50:38.560 just has to I guess this just has to do with and then again now it's different

00:50:42.420 with the immigration situation that it's happening in Europe it's a different

00:50:45.120 context but i think yeah i mean what they i think what they wanted to do was what they did in spain

00:50:50.900 it's just that it didn't last that long okay pretty much okay well so then yeah on to the

00:50:57.140 normans then so now we're talking the 11th century right it's actually about the time of

00:51:01.760 the norman invasion of britain the 1060s right it's the exact same time and so the normans come

00:51:08.220 in there and i mean it takes a it takes a few generations it's not like one battle or anything

00:51:12.780 but um and so this is like this is western europe now this is this is the frankish people

00:51:18.800 coming in and it's their turn next up to bat is them and i just want to reiterate there's still

00:51:25.560 the ancient sicilian people there and all the other layers of of conquest and migration and

00:51:32.620 all that sort of thing all one on top of the other still like a palimpset like and so on top of that

00:51:37.380 now normans but they stay there for a long time and as you're telling me uh you know they've you

00:51:43.540 can tell a big imprint of it physically architecturally to this day is still there and still

00:51:51.220 important yes and uh it's uh and linguistically there are some words that kind of sound

00:51:59.540 like you could tell they they have a connection to norman french uh that we have in our language

00:52:05.940 the sicilian language but you don't find in standard italian because of that and personally

00:52:11.780 the the norman palace and the cathedrals are what to me are some of the most impressive in fact

00:52:17.380 the cathedral of palermo is phenomenal and of course with that one then we'll have to go into

00:52:22.180 the kingdom of the two sicilies at one point but the the it you could tell how rich it was

00:52:28.020 because now you know after the unification of italy the rich part of the country is the north

00:52:33.300 but the south used to be the rich part of the country it's just that it got the relocated a

00:52:38.660 lot the resources were relocated for us it wasn't a great deal i want to be honest not that i'm a

00:52:42.580 secessionist what i want to separate that no i'm more than happy to be italian but i'm saying like

00:52:48.900 it used to be like if you look at the architecture there's no way you're going to think okay this is

00:52:52.180 place is like opulent it's insane in fact the cathedral of palermo is huge but lots of statues

00:52:58.820 but the cathedral of monreale which is a smaller town on the top of the mountain right next to

00:53:02.820 to palermo the inside is all gold leaf everything is gold inside the the entirety of the structural

00:53:11.280 and it's fun because even the cathedral sometimes the type of architecture borrows from muslim or

00:53:18.760 islamic arches but to build a christian it's a mixture you can see benzentine decorations as

00:53:25.440 well so when you look at one structure sometimes it's mixed so yeah yeah okay we learned this from

00:53:31.120 from those guys we learned this one these other guys let's put it all together and build an

00:53:34.160 incredible structure and um as i say there's this huge imagine of of cristo panto creatore so you

00:53:41.120 have like the christ as a creator and then it's all gold it's all gold it's like mind-blowing

00:53:48.320 like the expense of something like that is insane uh one could even argue but i mean

00:53:55.200 jesus was poor so i mean one could argue that yeah whatever yeah yeah tell a medieval king that

00:54:02.640 go tell a medieval king that i was gonna say as a as a sort of a an anglican church of england

00:54:09.600 northern european protestant that's all in terribly bad taste as far as we could say

00:54:17.040 a church must be a whitewashed empty hall with no glass with no stained glass certainly no gold

00:54:24.480 i'm okay no gold but i'm keeping the stained glasses because those are incredible

00:54:29.240 of course yeah now one thing i would say at this point i just want to reiterate something we said

00:54:33.140 right at the beginning that um sicily its geographical position uh means that it really

00:54:38.760 has been a crossroads a key to the mediterranean so by this point already we've had people from

00:54:44.760 as far away as uh the the holy land from tyre from lebanon and from scandinavia the normans

00:54:52.840 are really from scandinavia they're norsemen first and foremost yes so you've got people

00:54:57.740 from scandinavia and from lebanon and and they end up in sicily one way or another just an

00:55:05.320 absolutely remarkable fact really but so there's a couple of the key sort of norman kings would be

00:55:10.660 roger roger the first and roger the second roger the second are they known are they household names

00:55:14.980 in sicily oh yeah if you say ruggiero secondo that's how we say roger the second everyone

00:55:20.220 i would say everyone who has had an education i mean i guess it depends who you talk to but in

00:55:24.140 general yes these are well-known names uh because again they are history and i guess even if you go

00:55:29.340 into a minute school trip because they take you it is cool and i think that's great like middle

00:55:34.940 school you take the kids and then you show them all of these structures and architectures and

00:55:39.500 buildings which are still the medieval ones are in fantastic condition and i want to be honest

00:55:44.540 with you even the ancient sites are still in good conditions um i just wish that the italian

00:55:51.300 government and specifically sicilian authorities they used it better they cared they because as

00:55:57.860 you say sometimes the some areas are let down a little bit or they are not they don't have like

00:56:02.620 the ingenuity that both english and americans have where you guys are great are using your

00:56:08.880 own sites and your own things too like you know how to make money and business we are great we

00:56:14.480 get a lot of tourism but then sometimes they will block areas you gotta pay like at one point i even

00:56:20.800 asked a formal permission to film i tell you this i asked a formal permission to film in this ancient

00:56:27.040 greek area in sicily and they rejected it and i'm like but why and they said well you need to pay

00:56:32.880 us five thousand dollars a day and i told them i can't do that this is at the beginning of my

00:56:36.960 channel i'm like you're joking i'm not i'm not nolan i'm not a hollywood but i i said and at

00:56:42.560 the time i was a full-time teacher i was teaching in high school so i said but this is great because

00:56:48.720 the students we can make a mini documentary and the students gonna love it like our own people

00:56:53.680 are gonna know about the history we're gonna dress we're gonna be dressed up in historically

00:56:58.800 accurate gear and we're gonna do this they still said no so i did it anyways without their permission

00:57:04.560 ha ha ha brilliant classic classic yeah screw them yeah because because the rule was you can't

00:57:11.360 use a tripod that was the rule they said you can't put the tripod down like okay so i removed the

00:57:15.920 tripod and we filmed it freehand it wasn't breaking the law that way yeah brilliant brilliant well so

00:57:21.840 going through i mean after after norman's what you've got like at the house of hauenstaufen

00:57:28.080 right right so so now we're talking sort of more or germanic peoples i mean frederick ii

00:57:35.440 literally the holy roman emperor oh yeah this is this is a german this is now these are now germans

00:57:41.680 they're next up to bat to have a pop in sicily the germans i mean is frederick the second sort

00:57:48.400 of uh and i think or would you have to be like a real history nerd to to ever know really no

00:57:53.760 would have to be a history yeah you would have to be like either a student a young student who

00:57:57.300 paid attention in class so you would have to be like a history buff it's actually funny because

00:58:01.200 the the holy roman empire wasn't holy wasn't wasn't roman and definitely wasn't an empire

00:58:05.080 but hey it's it's pr it's pr it's it's like it's like subway here white bread they call it italian

00:58:12.280 which is just white bread with better pr that's what it is it's funny i've heard someone argue

00:58:17.060 that the holy roman empire because that's almost a cliche it's not holy it's not roman yeah it's

00:58:21.140 not an empire it's a cliche people argue no it is holy it definitely is roman and 100% it's an

00:58:26.640 empire what are you talking about i've heard people argue both ways but no i'm of the opinion

00:58:31.360 that yeah it's not holy it's not roman it's not an empire but okay so then we got like charles of

00:58:37.100 anjou right the angevins the angevin empire so i mean they're french essentially what today we

00:58:44.580 call france anyway so it's like so the germans just had a pop now now the french and then you

00:58:49.220 mentioned um arrogant peter the third right spanish effectively so the germans the french the

00:58:55.940 spanish it just keeps going on and on it never stops does it i want to tell you one thing that

00:59:01.520 is interesting you can tell the french and spanish conquered that area the italian word to say work

00:59:08.240 work or to work let's say the verb is lavorare that's how we say to work lavorare the sicilian

00:59:16.020 word is travagliare interestingly enough trabajar in spanish and travailler in french and we say

00:59:23.340 travagliare so clearly the sicilians got these plans to buy those all right there is that like

00:59:29.920 you could tell even in like everyday when this is everyday language people speak it it's still

00:59:34.600 a language that is spoken uh in sicily we speak both we just alternate is there any particular

00:59:40.640 a particular bit out of all these various uh invasions and conquests that you guys aren't

00:59:47.980 particularly happy with or particularly proud with for example i'll give you one example

00:59:52.100 in english history there's one point um during i think it's true i can't remember i think it's

00:59:58.740 during the age of king john something like that i think it's just after where the french king

01:00:03.340 one of the louis came over to london invaded england came over to london got into london

01:00:10.360 installed himself as king of england but then within months a few months was for political

01:00:15.600 reasons was deposed and sent back to france and english history largely really really quite largely

01:00:22.180 tries to paper over that and no one really ever talks about it and you'd have to be a real history

01:00:26.260 nerd who even ever heard of it and it's one of those things where it's like well we don't we

01:00:29.600 don't talk about that we don't that like barely happened it's not a thing is there any is there

01:00:34.560 any bit in sicilian anywhere out of all of these where you know sicilians are like we don't like

01:00:39.800 even the islamic invasions you're like oh yeah we okay we're not gonna really dwell on that yeah

01:00:45.880 i mean i don't i think it's it's large enough that you can't really consider it a footnote in

01:00:50.500 history but i think today due to the current geopolitical situation probably if you ask a

01:00:56.040 of sicilians they're gonna be mad about muslims coming in the country and then of course if you

01:01:01.960 bring up the idea of uh but the muslims already did invade then you could be like yeah and they're

01:01:08.040 invading again so i guess but that's a modern thing so when i was a kid it was just history

01:01:14.840 you know just like the normans just like this just like that but of course we're christians so

01:01:19.000 obviously we we consider it a happy ending that we kicked them out and because otherwise i would

01:01:24.520 be speaking arabic to you right now uh but the reality is that no one really saw it in at least

01:01:30.520 as i was growing up as anything but history in fact i don't think we have any i've got friends

01:01:35.560 who are from tunisia and uh grew up together never was a problem i think it's the current

01:01:41.400 political situation with the way some not not that i want to go into immigration politics and

01:01:46.040 stuff like that but it's a changing now because of the current political scenario but in general

01:01:52.520 all of these invasions are just looked at as well it's just a tuesday all right i guess i

01:01:58.200 say i mean is there any one of them i guess i guess you've sort of already answered it with

01:02:02.360 that question with that answer but are there any ones that are like you're particularly happy or

01:02:07.080 probably like are you proud to have been such a core part of the roman world or or like you're

01:02:12.200 particularly proud of like i don't know uh roger ii or something i think at least that could be me

01:02:20.920 but i was brought up like my mom when i was eight she was reading me the iliad the odyssey the n8

01:02:26.120 and all that stuff so i am proud of the sicilian component sorry of the greek component in this

01:02:31.400 greek right okay and uh so that is the one thing that i would say i'm mostly proud that and rome

01:02:38.200 probably are the two things uh the most also because again depends where you go there is this

01:02:44.120 incredible villa called villa romana del casale in sicily where it's like roman and all the

01:02:50.200 frescoes you see all the oftentimes if you google roman gladiators you're seeing frescoes from this

01:02:55.160 villa or mosaic from this villa in sicily because it was the villa of the posh romans that would go

01:03:01.640 and relocate to spend the holiday in sicily because of the beautiful mediterranean weather

01:03:05.800 nothing has changed so you still see the villa and all the frescoes and that's where you see

01:03:10.200 have you ever seen those images that look like there are women using dumbbells wearing bikini

01:03:15.240 yeah that's where it's from that's the villa that's the place all right okay I

01:03:20.640 didn't know that yeah so they look like that's a place and it's in Sicily and

01:03:24.480 it's a gorgeous very well-preserved villa where you can see all the different

01:03:28.240 sections where people would go and do the sauna then cool down then exercise

01:03:33.340 and that kind of stuff but then if you move a little bit further east then not

01:03:38.680 not Naxos built by the ancient Greeks with all of the ancient structures still

01:03:43.060 that so literally depending on turn left or turn right greek or roman that's how it's going to end

01:03:47.420 up a great put a great way of putting it a great way of putting it now there's there's so much

01:03:51.960 and i'm conscious of time um and there's loads of things i'd want to talk to you about the 20th

01:03:58.160 century um i know it's a bit of a jump perhaps from that's fine the crown of aragon and someone

01:04:05.120 like peter iii straight to sort of the the 20th century but talk to me a little bit about mussolini

01:04:11.360 What do you and what do Sicilians feel about Italian fascism and Mussolini

01:04:19.000 Is he a complete embarrassment or not at all

01:04:22.240 I know lots of Italian people who aren't even particularly right wing 0.88

01:04:25.280 Certainly not what you'd call fascist

01:04:27.020 But they're not embarrassed by Mussolini, far from it

01:04:29.980 They think he did very great things

01:04:31.880 What's your thought of this

01:04:33.320 And what's the average Sicilian person's feeling about that

01:04:39.520 Yeah, so Benito Mussolini, it is, in my opinion, a dark chapter in Italian history,

01:04:44.940 as it is for any 20th century totalitarian regime,

01:04:48.140 whether it be the Austrian painter fan club in Germany.

01:04:51.880 I don't want to get you to monetize, so I'm not saying the word.

01:04:54.700 Or whether it be the USSR with Stalin.

01:04:57.020 I mean, they're all, the totalitarian regimes remove freedom,

01:04:59.280 and so when you remove freedom, it's a catastrophe.

01:05:01.180 But with Giovanni Gentile, so the writer of the theory of fascism,

01:05:05.660 and benito mussolini um they the the one thing they did right was architecture so if you go to

01:05:13.100 the central post office in my city in palermo it's a fascist building and it's gorgeous like

01:05:19.000 the huge columns the imposing almost square like structures art deco stuff yeah i think that's the

01:05:28.860 term i'm not sure but they so the structure is great i guess they've made advancements in sports

01:05:33.980 but in general he was a warmonger and generally speaking again I don't know how many people

01:05:39.680 consider fascism a good thing in Sicily or in Italy in general most people see it as a dark

01:05:45.060 chapter in our history the also because I mean at the end of the day we did lose anyway and

01:05:49.740 interestingly enough the Sicilians specifically when the Americans the allied forces entered

01:05:54.840 through Sicily Sicilians didn't fight they didn't want to they didn't want to have anything to do

01:05:59.320 accept it. He's like, yeah, come in.

01:06:01.340 That was the next thing, before we get on to the actual

01:06:03.520 invasion in 1943, or

01:06:05.620 liberation of it. One thing

01:06:07.520 I want to say just before we move on from Mussolini

01:06:09.500 is something

01:06:11.540 I've heard some Italian people say,

01:06:14.200 and I've even heard it

01:06:15.420 written about, I've read it about,

01:06:17.780 one of the things he

01:06:19.500 did do was

01:06:21.060 fight against

01:06:24.940 the Mafia.

01:06:26.000 yeah now is that really true is that is there a lot of myth going on there what's your thoughts

01:06:33.020 and feelings on that did he really do much there and if so was it good was it ultimately good

01:06:38.460 you tell me i i think it was a pr campaign because the idea is uh the mafia is is a reality even

01:06:46.300 today it's real if you open any business in sicily you have to give a percentage to them

01:06:51.240 or they'll burn it to the ground.

01:06:53.180 So it's just how it is.

01:06:54.520 And the reality is that he did say that he was going to do that.

01:07:00.160 And he did, as far as I understand, again,

01:07:02.220 I'm not a specialist of modern history,

01:07:04.680 so you might need to double check.

01:07:05.940 But as far as I know, he definitely tried.

01:07:08.620 The problem with the mafia is that it's not easy to stomp out.

01:07:12.820 I mean, even when I was a child,

01:07:14.560 I remember I was 10 in elementary school,

01:07:16.840 and they suspended the class because there was a judge

01:07:20.620 called Falcone he was an anti-mafia judge and mafia exploded him they blew up they basically

01:07:27.380 placed TNT and explosives underneath the the bridge and the asphalt so that when the cars

01:07:33.300 would go through would explode and the student we remember that because we wore the shirts

01:07:38.680 because the mafia killed two judges Falcone and Borsellino and Borsellino was exploding they made

01:07:46.660 his car explode in front of his mother's house when he turned on the ignition and as 10 year

01:07:52.740 olds i remember wearing the anti-mafia shirts at school because they had taken out the anti-mafia

01:07:58.340 judges that's insane but the anti-mafia judges should be the most well-guarded of all the judges

01:08:04.080 because they are the ones to try to prosecute no i know the story all about falcone absolutely

01:08:08.680 yeah um so one thing i'll say before we go on again before we just get on to um 1943

01:08:15.020 um there's the book you know um mario puzzo's um the the godfather the original book then the

01:08:25.500 second book his second book is just called the sicilian and in that that's not the events that

01:08:32.240 you see in the film godfather part two the the the filmmakers that made the godfather decided to

01:08:38.380 just not really do that book because that book michael corleone is in it a little bit as a bit

01:08:43.940 part but it's all about sicily and people the sicilian people um militias fighting in the hills

01:08:52.980 and fighting the local mafia and the the corleone family michael corleone is very very tiny mentioned

01:09:00.140 a few times in it the whole book is about it's set on sicily about sicily about the culture and

01:09:07.160 about yeah it's very very deep i don't know if you've ever read it but i read it about two years

01:09:12.280 ago uh roughly and uh it's it's brilliant it's absolutely brilliant i i i'm sure you would i'm

01:09:18.280 sure you would like it in fact i'd love for you to read it and tell me what was nonsense in it and

01:09:22.800 what rings true for you uh but if you haven't read it yeah i'm sure he did his research so in

01:09:29.780 19... Sorry, go ahead.

01:09:32.340 Just one thing I want to tell you.

01:09:33.980 Of course, Corleone, famous.

01:09:36.360 Have you ever heard of

01:09:37.740 the mafia boss Totorina?

01:09:40.460 The Rina family?

01:09:42.120 Is he the one that

01:09:43.320 was only caught a few years ago

01:09:45.780 and he was very, very, very old?

01:09:47.460 He was like in his 90s, but they finally caught him

01:09:49.680 a few years ago. Yeah, I remember that.

01:09:51.940 I remember that his

01:09:53.700 name...

01:09:55.020 I remember my mum, she wouldn't

01:09:57.900 even say it out loud inside our house so like literally there's no one there's no one and my

01:10:04.180 mom would say she would whisper it and i said oh totorina she's like shh this is what i'm talking

01:10:10.520 about like in our house like no one on the third floor for second floor of an apartment building

01:10:15.620 because sicily has a lot of tall apartment buildings unless you go to the rural areas

01:10:19.360 and she was this is how this is how frightened people were of the reina family she wouldn't

01:10:25.740 even say like voldemort basically yeah right yeah he who cannot be named fascinating so in in 1943

01:10:33.960 the allies the united states great britain as a fair amount of canadians actually after we've won

01:10:43.100 the north african campaign against rommel and the italians in north africa uh that before there's the

01:10:49.600 actual invasion of mainland italy there's the uh liberation of sicily and you've got pattern there

01:10:56.100 and you've got monti you've got montgomery and um and and so i suppose well again you tell me

01:11:02.320 your grandparents lived through that did they and is that is that a thing you were told loads about

01:11:07.920 when you were growing up is it again is it something to be proud of is it something you

01:11:12.320 guys are ashamed of i really don't know well how do you how is it dealt with yeah in general

01:11:18.560 Sicilians is like proud of the fact that we are accepted the allies that we

01:11:22.640 were fed up with the fascists but one thing I'll tell you is this because I

01:11:26.600 do have a family history with that so my my so half of my family is all

01:11:32.660 Sicilian and I was brought up and bread goodness gracious what's the word I can't

01:11:38.180 remember the expression bone and bread there you go in Sicily but the other

01:11:41.180 half is northern my dad is from the Northeast and the the Friuli region and

01:11:45.560 And interestingly enough, his father was a colonel, I think, colonel major in the army, Alpine Deployment Unit for Artillery, I think it was.

01:11:56.140 And he refused to join the fascist party.

01:12:02.380 So the fascists arrested him and they gave him to the Nazi officers who took him to Dachau concentration camp.

01:12:10.640 so my grandfather ended up in the cow and stayed there for a few years so my grandmother imagine

01:12:18.080 went through hell and then the american soldiers liberated the cow right before they were going

01:12:23.360 to execute him so he survived and that's when he had my dad so i kind of owe my existence to allied

01:12:29.200 forces i have to say that so um having this kind of so he so this grandfather of mine on the north

01:12:37.040 He eventually joined the partisans.

01:12:42.040 And one thing about partisans is that

01:12:43.980 they weren't all communists, by the way,

01:12:45.500 because sometimes people think the partisans

01:12:47.000 were socialists and communists,

01:12:48.560 but by the end of the war, everyone was fed up with it.

01:12:52.040 The centrist, right-leaning people, right-wing,

01:12:54.180 everybody, they didn't even care at that point.

01:12:56.080 They just didn't want to deal with the fascists anymore.

01:12:58.440 And he was one of those, no socialist, no communist,

01:13:01.780 but he joined the partisans

01:13:03.980 for the anti-fascist opposition resistance.

01:13:07.860 Whereas down south, my grandfather down south,

01:13:11.660 I'm not sure, I know he moved around a lot.

01:13:14.340 At that time, I think he was in Sicily,

01:13:16.220 but he was a banker.

01:13:19.260 So, and his wife a pianist,

01:13:21.340 it was kind of a special situation.

01:13:23.700 I'm not sure if he had to deal too much with that,

01:13:25.860 but in general, yeah, Sicilians welcome the allied forces.

01:13:29.300 We're like, yeah, please come in.

01:13:31.140 One of the things that is sort of usually gets talked about if you watch a documentary or read a book about the about the Sicilian campaign in 43 is that they like to point out that a lot of a lot of American intelligence, military intelligence was bound up with, again, American US Sicilian mafia, where they had family deep, deep, deep connections still to Sicily.

01:13:56.760 And there was all sorts of intelligence and espionage and counter espionage going on on behalf of the Allies and the Americans behind enemy lines, essentially.

01:14:07.440 And that really, really helped defeat the fascists.

01:14:11.160 Again, from what you know, is that more myth than reality or was that a really big element of it?

01:14:19.360 Yeah, I mean, I think at that point you'd have to ask a specialist.

01:14:22.320 It wouldn't surprise me, though.

01:14:23.800 and the reason why it wouldn't surprise me is because i think mafia is an awful thing and the

01:14:28.620 stuff they do like if you if you tell on them they'll melt you in acid that's one thing they

01:14:33.560 used to do even up to the 90s or like they will wall you alive inside a building and let you there

01:14:39.080 to die as you're walled behind bricks stuff like that so mafia is awful but mafia does in its awful

01:14:45.700 aspects it also brings in order in a way that unfortunately has some positive ramifications

01:14:52.960 and let me tell you one if even today but this happened 10 years ago it doesn't matter if you

01:14:59.360 walk around milan there will be like foreigners or like we call them extra comunitari but like i

01:15:06.480 don't know people who are like come there and they just want to grape women mess with women

01:15:12.660 and whether it be i don't know where they're from but you know what i'm talking about

01:15:16.220 whatever ethnic group it is they start causing trouble and they're foreigners and it happens

01:15:20.800 in milan it happens a lot women are afraid of going out at night never in sicily you don't touch

01:15:26.000 a sicilian woman why because the mafia is going to melt you in acid so like it's an awful thing

01:15:31.680 but in this case at least they're doing what the government is supposed to do which is protect the

01:15:37.080 local population so this is one positive aspect i've never heard of a foreigner causing trouble

01:15:42.560 in sicily when it comes to like oh they're messing with their women never heard it in my life

01:15:48.160 interesting

01:15:50.020 very very interesting

01:15:52.640 I didn't want to spend a massive

01:15:55.540 amount of digging like really really

01:15:57.440 digging into the

01:15:59.460 Matthew with you because one it's a bit of a cliche

01:16:01.300 isn't it two there's so many

01:16:03.380 more interesting things to say

01:16:05.480 about Sicily I mean

01:16:07.160 if you're ever good enough to give

01:16:09.380 me a bit more of your time one day I'd love

01:16:11.420 to take any one of those things we've talked about

01:16:13.380 today and just do an hour an hour and a half

01:16:15.420 just on that

01:16:16.220 sounds good um but okay i mean i'm gonna have to draw it to a close there

01:16:21.240 uh i would just say once again without being too sick and fancy about it thank you very much for

01:16:26.820 your time i really really appreciate it and if you ever want to come on again just say the word

01:16:31.340 anything you want to talk about at all i would be i would be more than happy to sit here and chat to

01:16:37.020 you so um if you can let people know where they can see if anyone doesn't know who you are i can't

01:16:41.940 believe that's the case but let them know where they can let them know where they can get get you

01:16:45.700 absolutely but thank you so much for your time i really appreciated it fantastic time

01:16:50.780 thank you all right well there you go that's metatron ladies and gentlemen

01:16:56.160 i hope you've enjoyed that and uh and well until next time then take care take care

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 16, 2026

FREEMIUM： Epochs #276 ｜ History of Sicily - Featuring Metatron

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