10 Shocking Ancient Events Not Taught In School

Ancient history is already a pretty wild subject, but we tend to get told a sanitized version of events as we're growing up, sometimes to save time or keep things simple, and sometimes because the truth may be a bit more uncomfortable. Well, we're dispensing with all of that. In this video, we're going to count down ten events that turn on its head what many people think they know about some of the ancient world's most famous individuals and societies. And yes, in all probability, these things really happened. Yeah, the Constantine found in most textbooks is the Roman emperor who transformed the history of Christianity. After years in which Christians could face official persecution, Constantine helped end that persecution and openly supported the religion. He reunited the Roman Empire. He summoned the Council of Nicaea. And he built a new imperial capital at Constantinople. But did you know that Constantine had his eldest son killed? And not for treason against Rome or anything like that. Flavius Julius Crispus was Caesar. Constantine had made him a junior emperor and a possible successor. Crispus commanded troops and even won important battles and appeared on coins beside the rest of the imperial family. Then, out of the blue, he was put to death on his father's orders. We're not entirely sure why, but it was likely for personal reasons. Later writers claimed Crispus had been accused of having a sexual relationship with Constantine's wife, the empress, Fausta, not his mother, or of trying to assault her. After Constantine killed Crispus, he discovered that Fausta had lied and then had her shut inside a bath chamber and then heated it until she suffocated to death. The historian Zosimus adds that Constantine's mother, Helena, bitterly reproached him for killing her grandson. Unfortunately, all this comes from late sources that contradict one another on various points. The earliest surviving accounts are much simpler. Aurelius Victor, writing about 35 years after the fact, says Constantine executed his son for an unknown reason. Eutropius also lists the son's death among the killings Constantine ordered within his own family. Eutropius says Constantine also killed his wife and his young nephew, Lysianus. Lysianus had once been made Caesar and was probably only 10 or 11 years old. Earlier, Constantine had executed the boy's father, Lysanius, despite promising to spare his life. Eutropius adds many of Constantine's friends to the list as well. A late 4th century chronicle dates Crispus' death to 326. Fausta also died in 326, so the two deaths may have belonged to the same crisis, but we cannot know for sure. So yeah, the emperor, honored as a Christian saint in the Eastern churches, had members of his own family put to death. But whatever they had done, and this is certainly the case with Crispus and Fausta, was kept secret from the general public. Number 9. Chinese historian endures castration to finish his book. In accounts of Chinese literature and historiography, Sima Qian occupies an important place. He inherited the position of court historian from his father and completed the Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian, perhaps the most important work of Chinese history. Its 130 chapters told the Chinese past from legendary antiquity to Sima Qian's own time through annals, chronological tables, treatises, hereditary houses, and biographies. Sima Qian even employed a little archaeology to uncover them. Later dynastic historians repeatedly copied its basic design. Sima Qian helped define how Chinese history would be written. What is often left out is what the emperor did to the man who wrote it. Sima Qian was castrated for defending a general who had lost a battle. In 99 BCE, the Han general Li Ling led an army against the Xiongnu. His troops were surrounded far beyond the frontier. After fighting until his army was overwhelmed, Li Ling surrendered. Emperor Han Wudi was furious. The officials at court condemned the general, but Sima Qian spoke up for him. He argued that Li Ling had fought bravely against overwhelming numbers and might still find a way to help the Han. The emperor took that defense as an attack on another commander and had Sima Qian arrested. Sima Qian was convicted of deceiving the emperor. His family didn't have enough money to commute the sentence and none of his powerful acquaintances intervened. He was subjected to castration, a punishment he described as the most degrading fate a man of his position could endure. Honor insisted that he commit suicide, but Sima Qian didn't want to do that. His explanation comes mainly from a letter addressed to his friend, Ren An. In the transmitted text, Sima Qian says his history was unfinished. He feared that if he died, his writings would never become known to posterity. He therefore endured the punishment and the humiliation long enough to complete the work. To be clear, this letter survives in the Book of Han, another history compiled long after Sima Qian's death. And some scholars have questioned whether he wrote it in its present form, but the basic story does not depend on the letter alone. In the autobiographical conclusion to his own book, the Shijie, Sima Qian also connects the Liling disaster, his bodily punishment, and his determination to finish the history. So even if the letter may not preserve his exact words, the emperor nevertheless had Sima Qian castrated, and Sima Qian chose to keep living to complete one of the foundational works of Chinese history. Perhaps an inspiration to today's historians to keep writing. The textbook story of Indian ruler Ashoka is one of the ancient world's great moral transformations. After the bloody conquest of Kalinga, the Mauryan emperor expressed remorse for the suffering that the war had caused. His inscriptions promoted dhamma, moral duty, urged religious tolerance and humane government, and restricted the killing of animals. Ashoka is closely associated with ahimsa, the principle of non-violence toward living beings. He became famous as the Buddhist ruler who declared conquest through moral conduct superior to conquest by violence. More than 2,000 years later, the lion capital from one of his pillars became the state emblem of India. But Ashoka, the promoter of ahimsa, still allowed executions. What? Yeah. And this is not an accusation made by one of his enemies. It comes from Major Pillar Edict 4, issued by him in the 26th year of his reign. In it, Ashoka discusses officials called rajukas. He gave them authority to reward and punish people and told them to act fairly. Then he addressed prisoners who had been condemned to death. Ashoka granted them a three-day reprieve. During those three days, the relatives could try to persuade the authorities to spare them. If nobody succeeded, the prisoners could give gifts or fast in preparation for the next world. The purpose was merciful. A condemned person received one final chance at pardon and a time to prepare for death. But a reprieve is a far cry from abolishing the death sentences. The most straightforward reading is that executions could still take place when the three days were over. Now, there's a minority opinion among scholars that the wording in the passage meant Ashoka had abolished capital punishment. But most understand it as a three-day delay before execution. No primary sources tell us how many people were executed during Ashoka's reign, but the edicts tell us what the law allowed. Ashoka gave condemned prisoners mercy, an opportunity for appeal, and time for religious preparation. But if the usual translation is correct, the Buddhist emperor still allowed the state to kill them. And it is likely, considering the history of executions there and in most of the ancient world, that they were probably fairly common. The Sparta most people are introduced to in school is supposed to have produced the greatest warriors in ancient Greece. Spartan warriors could withstand pain, hold their position, obey orders under any circumstances. The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae are remembered as choosing death rather than retreat. That became the defining Spartan image. They did not run, they did not surrender, and they did not break in battle. Then, in 371 BCE, an army from Thebes met the Spartans at Leuctra. Remember that the Thebans were the ones that the Spartans had humiliated in the past. They were forced to fight at Thermopylae. Well, in this battle, the Thebans defeated the Spartans. This wasn't a narrow defeat that later storytellers exaggerated. It was a crushing loss. Our best account comes from Xenophon, a near-contemporary historian who was generally sympathetic to Sparta. The Spartan army took its usual position with King Cleombrotus and the full Spartan citizens on the right wing. The Thebans concentrated their strongest troops directly opposite them. Xenophon says the Spartan cavalry was quickly beaten and fled back into its own heavy infantry, disrupting the formation just as the Thebans attacked. The Thebans then broke the Spartan right. Cleombrotus was wounded and carried from the field where he died. After several senior officers fell, the troops around them began retreating, and the Spartan left wing also swerved away. Later writers credited the plan to the Theban general Epaminondas, and gave an important role to Pelopidas and the Sacred Band. Xenophon reports that the Spartan army lost nearly a thousand men. That figure includes soldiers from the Spartan state who were not full citizens. But then he gives the number that reveals how serious the disaster was. About 700 full Spartan citizens took part in the battle, and roughly 400 of them were killed. In one battle, Sparta lost well over half of its most valuable citizen soldiers. Some survivors wanted to attack again rather than admit defeat, but their commanders refused. The Spartans asked for a truce so they could recover their dead, which was the customary acknowledgement that the other side held the battlefield. Plutarch says that so many Spartans had shown cowardice or fled at Leuctra, that applying Sparta's normal law against such men, they were called Tremblers, would have disgraced a dangerously large portion of the soldiers. Ordinarily they were barred from office, could not easily marry, had to dress conspicuously, and could legally be struck by other citizens. The other king of Sparta, Agesilaus, solved the problem. He declared that the laws would sleep for one day, and resume the next, effectively exempting the Leuctra survivors. Sparta had spent centuries treating battlefield cowardice as a permanent disgrace. But after Leuctra, so many of its own soldiers qualified for that disgrace that Sparta had to suspend the law. The aura of military superiority was gone. Thebes invaded the Peloponnese and Epaminondas helped free the region of Mycenae from Spartan control. That cost Sparta territory and the labor of the Mycenaean helots on whom its citizen-warrior system depended. Leonidas was rolling over in his grave. Number six, Rome's empire was auctioned off. Bet you didn't know about that one. A textbook history of the Roman emperors usually presents succession as a matter of inheritance, adoption, political maneuvering, or civil war. However violent the process became, a claimant was still expected to base his claim on family, public authority, or military power. But in 193 CE, Didius Julianus became emperor by winning an auction. On March 28th of that year, soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, the troops assigned to protect Rome and the emperor, murdered the emperor Pertinax inside the imperial palace. The guard was already dangerously hostile to Pertinax, its soldiers resented his efforts to impose discipline, and some had recently supported an unsuccessful attempt to replace him. After killing Pertinax, the Praetorians retreated to their fortified camp, closed the gates, and prepared for the people of Rome to retaliate. The Praetorians expected to be able to choose a new emperor, and they weren't going to do it for free. According to the historian Cassius Dio, one important senator was already there. Pertinax had sent his father-in-law, the urban prefect Titus Flavius Sulpicianus, to the camp to restore order. When word arrived that Pertinax was dead, Sulpicianus began trying to persuade the soldiers to make him emperor. Most of Rome's leading senators wanted no part in this. Praetorians said they considered it disgraceful to buy the throne from the men who had just murdered its occupant. Didius Julianus had no such scruples. When he heard what was happening, he hurried to the camp. The gates remained closed, so he shouted his offers to the soldiers from outside, while messages passed back and forth between him and Sulpicianus. According to Dio, the bidding reached 20,000 sesterces for each guardsman. Then Julianus raised the offer by another 5,000 all at once. He shouted the new figure and held up his fingers so there could be no misunderstanding. At 20,000 sesterces, the offer was already worth about five years of a Praetorian's basic salary. Julianus' final bid raised it to more than six years. In modern terms, that would be like offering every man several hundred thousand dollars. The guard had ten cohorts, probably totaling somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 men. If Julianus' offer applied to all of them, he had promised between 125,000,000 and 250,000,000 sesterces. Julianus also reminded the soldiers that Sulpicianus was Pertinax's father-in-law if they chose him. He might take revenge on the men who had just murdered Pertinax. The soldiers chose Julianus. They admitted him into the camp, proclaimed him emperor, and escorted him to the Senate under armed guard. The senators approved the choice because soldiers surrounded the building. Dio was one of the senators present, so we're getting this first hand. Herodian's account differs from Dio on the timing and some of the details, but he does agree that the Praetorians advertised the empire to the highest bidder and that Julianus bought their support with promises of money. We don't know whether the guards ever received the full amount. Herodian says Julianus soon disappointed them because the imperial treasury didn't contain the enormous piles of cash that they expected. The purchase didn't keep him emperor for long. Provincial armies declared for their own commanders, and Septimius Severus marched on Rome. The same Senate that had accepted Julianus condemned him to death, and he was killed after a reign of 66 days. Was it worth it, Julianus? Number five, government jobs for severed heads. Textbooks often emphasize that one of ancient China's most important achievements was a durable tradition of bureaucratic government. People went through special schooling to get a government appointment. States were administered through named offices, written orders, formal appointments, and carefully graded ranks. A civil official could be promoted for effective service, while a soldier might receive rank for courage or victory. But it wasn't always like that. In northern China in 350 CE, during the era of the 16 kingdoms, one leader offered advancement to people who killed members of a specific ethnic population and brought him their heads. This happened more than a century after the fall of the Han dynasty. Northern China had broken into competing states, some ruled by peoples whom Chinese sources grouped under the broad name Hu. One of these kingdoms was Later Zhao, founded by rulers from a group called the Jie. A military officer named Ran Min had risen within that kingdom. He was connected to its ruling family and had become one of its most successful generals. Then Later Zhao collapsed into a struggle over the throne, and Ran Min seized control of the capital at Ye, creating a new kingdom called Ran Wei. The Book of Jin says he first announced that anyone who supported the government should remain in the city, while anyone who did not was free to leave. The result was that the Zhao people entered Ye, while the Hu and Jie people crowded the gates trying to get out. Ran Min concluded that he could not rely on them. Then came the order. Anyone who killed a Hu person and delivered the head to one of the city gates would be rewarded. Civil officials would rise by three ranks. Men in military service would receive appointments as gate officers. Well, the killing began immediately. The Book of Jin says tens of thousands of heads were taken in a single day. Ran Min then personally led his followers against the Hu and Jie population. Men and women, children and old people were killed. Orders went out to other parts of the realm where more killings followed. The same history claims that more than 200,000 people died. We cannot verify that number. The Book of Jin was compiled nearly three centuries later, and enormous totals in dynastic histories need to be treated cautiously. But the massacre happened. The source explicitly describes the order, the rewards, and the killing of people without regard to age or sex. It even says that people with prominent noses or heavy beards were sometimes killed by mistake because killers thought they looked like Hu. The word Hu was not a modern racial category, and the Jie were not Europeans despite claims you may find online. The labels refer to a complicated mixture of ancestry, culture, political allegiance, and outsider classification. Ethnic cleansing is nothing new in history. The notable element here is that Ran Min offered promotion and public office in return for severed heads. I thought that was shocking enough to share with you. Number four, human sacrifices beneath Teotihuacan. When Teotihuacan appears in a textbook, the lesson is usually about the achievements of this great city of the ancient world and its fabulous construction projects. Its builders laid out an enormous urban center, constructed the Avenue of the Dead, raised up the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, and housed much of the population in these large apartment compounds. The city became a center of trade, religion, and political power whose influence reached far across Mesoamerica. Its ruins are still among the most impressive in the Americas. But what doesn't get told to the kiddies is that these great monuments were dedicated with human sacrifices. The victims were placed inside or beside the buildings during construction, and later building phases sealed them in. We hear a lot about human sacrifices when it comes to the Aztecs or the Maya, but human sacrifice was ubiquitous in Mesoamerica, and Teotihuacan was right there with them. We found this out from archaeology. The largest group of human sacrifices was found at the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Built around the early 3rd century CE, excavators found bodies in carefully arranged pits inside and around the pyramid. Many victims had their hands behind their backs as though they had been tied, and some wore necklaces decorated with imitation human jaws. A few wore real human jawbones taken from other people. Archaeologists recovered the remains of 137 individuals. If you look this up, you'll often see the number 200, that's an estimate of the original total. The Pyramid of the Moon contained victims from several later building phases. One deposit, known as Burial 6, held 12 men, 10 had been decapitated. The other two still had their heads, but all 12 appear to have had their arms tied behind their backs. The deposit also contained obsidian knives, objects shaped like feathered serpents, and more than 50 sacrificed animals. Archaeologists can connect these deposits with construction because they were placed at particular levels between successive versions of the monuments. A burial was laid down when a new section of the pyramid was built above it. The deposit was sealed inside. Bodies were part of the dedication of the remodel. We can't assume that every person found in the pyramids was sacrificed. Three men in another Moon Pyramid deposit, Burial 5, received unusually rich grave goods, and the excavators could not determine whether they had been killed or died naturally. Nor can we say that all the clear victims were prisoners of war. Some may have served Teotihuacan's rulers before they were killed. So yeah, the Pyramids of Teotihuacan are engineering achievements, but they're also monuments in which bound and decapitated human beings became part of the architecture. Number 3, Persia captured Rome's emperor. We learned a lot in school about terrible things that happened to Roman emperors. How they were overthrown, murdered by their own soldiers, defeated in a civil war, driven to suicide. But did you know that on one occasion a foreign king took the reigning emperor alive and Rome never got him back? This story doesn't get told enough. In 260 CE, the Persian king Shapur I captured the emperor Valerian. Valerian had gone east during one of the worst periods in Roman history. The empire faced civil wars, invasions, disease, and a rapid turnover of emperors around this time. Meanwhile, the new Sassanid Empire was challenging Rome for control of Mesopotamia. Valerian gathered an army and marched against Shapur, Mirkari, and Edessa. We don't know exactly how he was captured. Some later accounts say he was seized during negotiations. Shapur presents the event as the result of a great battle. He recorded the victory in a long inscription at the Kaba-ye Zartosht in southern Iran. He had it written in three languages. After listing the Roman provinces represented in Valerian's army, the inscription declares that Valerian was taken prisoner, quote, with our own hands, unquote, along with his commanders and senior officials. Shapur then deported Roman captives into his empire. Shapur also carved the victory into the cliffs at Naqsh-e Rostam. The Persian king sits on horseback. One Roman emperor kneels in front of him. That's Philip the Arab, who had made peace with Shapur years earlier. Shapur grips the wrist of a second emperor standing beside the horse. That man is Valerian. The 4th century Roman historian Eutropius confirms that Valerian was captured by Shapur and grew old in humiliating captivity. Later Christian writers claim Shapur used Valerian as a mounting block and eventually had him flayed. Valerian had persecuted Christians, so the Christian authors presented his fate as divine punishment. Valerian was the only Roman emperor in history to be captured alive and never returned. His son Gallienus took his place. Number two, witchcraft destroyed the imperial family of China. Earlier, I mentioned the Chinese emperor Han Wudi in connection with the historian Sima Qian. Let's talk more about Emperor Wu. In school, we're often told, rightly, that he made the empire formidable. He ruled for more than half a century. He expanded Han power deep into Central Asia, opened up the Silk Road, used diplomacy as well as war, strengthened the imperial government, and promoted officials and policies that shaped the dynasty long after his death. Whatever one thinks of those policies, he was an intelligent, energetic, and highly capable ruler. But near the end of his reign, he made some stupid decisions that led to the death of his wife and the son that was supposed to succeed him. This intelligent ruler became convinced that people were attacking him with magic. The crisis erupted in 91 BCE, when Emperor Wu was old and often ill. Investigators searched homes for dolls, written charms, and other objects believed to carry curses. Accusations of witchcraft spread through the court, and large numbers of people were prosecuted. Eventually, the investigator, Zhang Chong, targeted the household of the crown prince, Liu Zhu. According to the Book of Han, Zhang was afraid that Liu Zhu would punish him after becoming emperor, so his men searched the prince's residence and claimed to find evidence of witchcraft there. Liu Zhu knew he was being framed, but his father was ill and staying at Guanchuan Palace away from Chang'an, so the prince couldn't simply walk in and explain himself to his father. Maybe Zhang Chong was acting on his father's instructions. The prince decided to strike first. He arrested Zhang Chong and had him killed. Then he armed his guards and enlisted civilians in the capital city of Chang'an. To the emperor, this looked like a rebellion. He returned to the city, government forces met them in the streets, and the capital became a battlefield. The prince's side eventually collapsed. Empress Wei, Liu Zhu's mother, killed herself. Liu Zhu escaped from Chang'an, but officials eventually found his hiding place, and rather than be captured, he hanged himself. His children and many of his supporters were killed as well. The Book of Han says Zhang Chong's men planted the evidence that condemned the prince. Since this history is from about 200 years later, that detail is less secure than the actual rebellion and the deaths. Can the disaster be reduced to one man's conspiracy? People at court really did fear witchcraft, and these investigations had begun before Zhang Chong moved against Liu Zhu. Later accounts say Emperor Wu finally realized that his son had been wronged, but one of the most powerful emperors in Chinese history had allowed a search for evil magic to result in the loss of his wife and son, and turn his own capital into a battlefield. And number one, Ashurbanipal's Severed Head Banquet. Most people who have heard of the Assyrian Empire know about its brutality, its kings gloated over conquest, sieges, deportations, and savage punishments. King Ashurbanipal has another reputation. He was a learned king who could read difficult cuneiform texts, and he assembled a great library at Nineveh. Many have heard about his library. Its thousands of tablets contained literature, medicine, religious texts, scholarship, and government records. Copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh should survive there, helping modern scholars recover one of the world's oldest literary masterpieces. But did you know he enjoyed dinner with his queen in the presence of a severed human head? At least that is how he depicted himself. You can still see the relief in the British Museum. Ashurbanipal reclines on a couch beneath an arbor. His queen sits on a throne opposite him. Servants fan the royal couple and bring dishes. Musicians play among palms and vines. The king and queen appear completely at ease. Then look at the tree on the left. A human head is hanging from one of the branches. Whose head is it? The traditional identification is Tumon, king of Elam. Ashurbanipal's army defeated him in 653 BCE, cut off his head, and carried it away. And other palace reliefs show the head being transported and presented. It is possible that the head may belong to another enemy, Nabu Belshumati, who died during a later campaign. Part of the head in the relief has been restored, so an attempt to identify the dead man from his facial features is difficult. But whatever the case, the head belonged in the king's ideal picture of victory. Now that doesn't mean the relief records a banquet exactly as it occurred. Assyrian palisade was propaganda, carefully designed to show what royal power was supposed to look like. But the setting makes the image disturbing. The head hangs in a beautiful garden while the king drinks with his wife and listens to music. For Ashurbanipal, this was not a detail that spoiled the pleasure of the scene. It compliments it. So what do you think about these ten shocking events from ancient history that you probably didn't learn about in school? And are there other shocking events from the ancient world that you think should have been included? Let me know in the comments below. And if you liked the video, give it a thumbs up. Thanks for watching. You might like my little e-booklet, Why Ancient History Matters. It's designed to persuade people that the subject is important, even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it to help spread the word. So feel free to share it with someone you know. It's free for anyone who wants it. I've left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy. Catch you later.