Author Dana Schwartz explores the stories of some of history’s most fascinating royals: the tyrants and the tragic, the murderers and the murdered, and everyone in between. Because when you’re wearing a crown, mistakes often mean blood.
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Who's punished, but Medusa herself. Her hair is transformed into snakes by her own goddess. There is a feminist reading of that outcome in which some see Minerva giving Medusa a means to protect yourself against future assault. That's a generous reading. As classic scholar, Natalie Haines reminds us, Minerva wasn't exact a girl's girl, but it's also a fairly depressing reading in my view. Protected maybe, but Medusa's fate is also sealed. She will be a monster to be hunted, and her severed head will later be turned into a weapon. For another's use. Ovid's metamorphosis is far from a light read, both in terms of its length and content. Sexual violence is pervasive throughout many of its stories. Jokingly calling metamorphosis Greek mythology fan fiction, is not really inaccurate, but it's also not fully painting the whole picture. The tech was meant to serve as a history Just as it's pervasive in the pages of the text, sexual violence is also pervasive in the history of the world. Ovid followed metamorphoses with fasting, which instead of focusing on Greek legends, finishes what the last three books of metamorphosis began, turning the lens to Roman, history, religion, culture, and figures. Because both books blend genre and because of the time they were written, much of the content in both metamorphoses and fosty fall somewhere in between myth and history. The noblewoman
There was unusually doting and present for a tsar of Russia, but he was also gone too soon. After a shockingly short bout of kidney disease, he died in Olga's mother's arms in 18/94 when he was 49 years old. Olga was only 12. It was the first of a long series of heartbreaks that fate had in store for her. Olga's brother took the throne as Nicholas the second, 26 years old, and everyone agreed, ill prepared for the role. He was to be the last czar of Russia and the end of the 300 year rule of the Romanovs. But Olga didn't know that yet. She had her own personal problems to deal with. In 1901, just before her 19th birthday, the same year her niece Anastasia was born, Olga was attending a seemingly normal party. Suddenly, she was swept unceremoniously to a sitting room upstairs. Inside was duke Peter Alexandrovich, a distant cousin of hers who was 14 years older. Olga didn't understand what she was doing alone in a room with him, and what he did next made even less sense to her. In Olga's own words, I was just tricked. I saw old cousin Peter standing there extremely ill at ease. He did not look at me. I heard him stammer through a proposal. I was so taken aback that all I could say was thank you. She had gotten engaged without realizing what was happening. The proposal was a shock largely because everyone at court and across Saint Petersburg assumed that Peter was gay. He probably was. Olga's marriage to him would go unconsummated. Olga spent the night of her betrothal crying.
Distant gilded figure hidden behind imperial trappings and he introduced himself. And in that moment, as the two men began to speak, Maxwell understood the emperor's power. He wrote, quote, I now became enraptured with his lively, bewitching air, with his astonishing memory, his information, and the fertility with which he kept up an easy and agreeable conversation. No wonder French soldiers adored him for he instantly proved to us all how well he knew how to tickle the human heart. Napoleon was shockingly personable and funny. When one of Maxwell's friends mentioned that he was from Kent right on the southeast coast of England, a thin strip of water away from France, Napoleon replied, we're neighbors. Napoleon had become an expert in playing the role that people wanted him to play on Elba, something of a genial mascot. Though he happily talked about his former military victories, he renounced war. He was retired, he said. And it seemed as though he were perfectly content about all of it. He would pour you a glass of wine, ask you about your family, and then happily chuckle about the fact that the old Napoleon was dead. And what a run he had had. If there was one uncanny skill that Napoleon had, it was the ability to subsume himself into whatever narrative was the most effective at any given moment. Like a good monarch or pop star or celebrity, he knew that his greatest power was in his symbolism. In what others could project upon him. And here on Elba, Napoleon had become the amiable retiree. Except that wasn't how Napoleon wanted the story of Napoleon to end. Though he told tourists and visiting emissaries that he was more
The past year, the Shah had had no idea that this would be the last time he would ever see his country. But as his plane flew westward, not only did the symbolic, quote, peacock throne from which the Shah had reigned crumbled in the face of the Iranian revolution, but so too did these centuries old monarchical tradition in Iran. With his departure, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the, quote, king of kings, light of the Aryans, center of the universe, shadow of the almighty, could add a new name to that impressive list of titles, the last Shah of Iran. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Now before we dive into the Shah's life, I think it's worth clarifying how I'll be referring to him throughout the episode. Mohammad Reza Shah had many names throughout his life. When he was born in 1919, he was named Mohammad Reza with no surname. When his father usurped the throne in 1921, his father adopted the surname, Pat Lavi, which is also the name of the pre Islamic language in Iran. Once king himself, the shah became known as Mohammed Reza Shah. And so for this story's sake, I'll be referring to him either as the Shah or Mohammed Reza Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah was born a commoner, but by his 22nd birthday, he was the Shah of Iran and second Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. He ultimately ruled Iran for almost 40 years, a period during which the nation underwent dramatic cultural changes and grew in power, going from essentially a colony of England and Russia
Many of the ethnic groups that the Romans referred to as, quote, barbarians. And like other imperial overlords, they found a way of recruiting soldiers and even lieutenants from those same subjugated populations. Odoacer's father, Etika, happened to be one of those lieutenants. He was considered such a valuable ally to the Huns that he was eventually made a member of Attila the Hun's prestigious personal bodyguard. When the Roman emperor solicited Etica's support to assassinate Attila, Oedica, loyal soldier that he was, alerted Attila of the conspiracy. Odoacer turned up in Italy by the time he was 28. The Italian peninsula had gone through some major shifts in the last 200 years and it is incredibly complicated. But to simplify for the sake of this podcast, the Italian Peninsula had formerly been the beating heart of a vast and dominant Roman Empire. But the Italy that Ouluasa entered was one in perpetual crisis, where generals competed against one another to prop up their own emperors as figureheads. The armies that fought in these crises were the very barbarian warriors that the Romans had demonized in centuries prior. In the 5 years from 471 to 476, the Western Empire gained and lost 5 emperors. I say Western Empire here because in 395, the Roman Empire was split into 2 parts with 2 separate imperial courts to make it easier to manage. People at the time wouldn't have called themselves Eastern or Western. Those are only terms we use now looking back. Anyway, in the summer of 475, the most recent general
