Brain Soda Podcast - Episode 39 -The Sublime Elephant on the Mountain

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

On this week's episode we're discussing the 90s Ska/Reggae/Punk band Sublime, and we're coming back to the ancient Romans to talk about the Punic War!

Dylenda Escratago. Brain soda. It's the Brain Soda Podcast. I, as always, am your host Kyle, joined by my co-host, co-conspirator, and cohort, Brad. How's it going? Today, we're going to be talking about the Punic Wars.

But first, Brad, yes. One of the things that you have actually requested for me to cover is a long- time favorite band of mine. And I actually really appreciate it because I feel like this guy and this trio of guys needs a segment on this show, Long Beach's own tonight. We are going to be talking about sublime. Yes. Finally, man, like I wanted to, like I was thinking about even covering them,

but I'm like, no, no, this is definitely a Kyle subject. I can't cover, let's apply it, obviously. Back when Frog was on the show? No, I was just kind of like tied into like the whole like 90s, like, yeah, okay. I'm like, I don't know enough about that. I'm not leaving it on Tempe. But yeah. Oh, yeah, I would, I would feel that it would be a disservice. Exactly. Oh yeah, I would I would I would feel that it would be a disservice Exactly for my fanhood of this band if I had a podcast and you covered them and I just yeah

I would legit like be mad. Yeah, good thing I edit the show But but anyway Yeah, man So I was introduced to this at like a pretty young age right like I was probably just at like a pretty young age, right? Like I was probably just a just a bit before a teenager that I really like started to gather up what songs were actually about. And I remember hearing like what I got and even other deeper cuts, you know, from like my brother and stuff like that in the car. And eventually this grew to be like one of my very favorite bands. So we're gonna start again in Long Beach, California.

We're gonna talk about Brad, Lee Noel. Yes, oh. Yeah, Bradley Noel, the lead singer and guitarist of this band. And at the age of 10, his parents are separated, but at the age of 11, he goes with his dad on a sailing trip into the Virgin Islands and he gets introduced into reggae music right like Peter Tosh and Bob Marley the waylers and even just you know locals that he had seen playing like steel drums of the islands and stuff like I like this was a really influential moment in this guy's life now is he white or yes okay they're in

all the band members are white right yes Okay, because they do they have that like kind of reggae sound and everything well and like and there's songs that are sung in Spanish and I think a lot of it is that so cow Culture right like these are guys from Long Beach so like yes very California anyway so as a teen though, Brad went on to like playing a lot of punk bands and for a lot of them, one of his closest cohorts if you will was his bassist Eric Wilson. And Eric Wilson had a dad who was like a former drummer, uh, drummer in like a jazz band or something like that, but he taught some neighbor kid,

but Ga, to play the drums and thus, someone was formed in 1988. Okay, so is it the three of them? Yeah, it's just a trio of band. And I will say this, like, I feel that there's a lot of trios that really working can be super hard, loud, heavy acts, right? Or efficient acts, right? It doesn't even have to be heavy. No, I mean, you got your guitar, a singer, right? Or efficient acts, right? It doesn't even have to be heavy.

No, I mean, you got your guitar, a singer, and a drums, yeah. Somebody's just pulling double duty is all the same. Exactly. There's no drum guitar, and somebody's pulling double duty, singing, and playing a bass or drumming, or whatever it is. You're absolutely. But like, even just hearing the way

that this band formed of like You know brand Eric played in some bands and his dad taught me how to play drums We all met but for a lot of bands. That's that's kind of how you form up. Yeah, no, I mean that's kind of how we formed up I mean, yeah, unfortunately, you know frog with that Max of it he had but um, yeah, you know safaris will never be the same but moving along so in eighteenth band forms and initially they kind of start with playing like house parties and stuff like that and it would be that like they get a thong-wing that kind of gathered through that and although some of these shows could be kind of dicey at times you know they were a well-known Long Beach music act in the local scene and stuff like that. And they even started to really garner a little bit of a following by the time we get to 1990, they kind of had a

staple of their live show and a mascot for them in the rescue Dalmatian that Bradley finds named Ludoag. Okay. You often hear him reference, and yeah, dude, he's a fixture of their live shows being up on stage with the band. That's crazy. And their publicity photos and things like that, like Ludoag is almost a part of the band. He is actually the cover of their demo tape.

Job won't pay the bills. So let's get into kind of what the prototypical sublime sound is for those who may not know. Now that we're actually getting into like their discount. Because it is, it is very unique. Like, I would say there's no, Diverse. Yeah, well, Diverse for sure. Well, that's what makes them unique.

It's like, no one sounds like Sublime. Sublime is Sublime. You know, it's one of those type of bands where it's like, if you hear them, you know that sublime right away. You can have a thrashy punk kind of 80s hardcore sound. Like again, like we said a minute ago, Eric and Brad probably were playing just a couple years beforehand. Yeah.

We're in the foundation of this stuff, a bad brain's bad religion, they cover bad religion. We're only going to die from our arrogance. Um, but yeah, you would have songs like that. And then like you could turn right around and hear like, uh, my song, you know what I mean? Or you could hear Brad rapping in one song versus full charge, like kind of punk scream, you know, just rattling everything off really fast and you could go from so many different things to the grateful dead cover of Scarlet Bagonius to Bad Fish or pawn shop. I had to look up. I had to look up Brad really quick. He he was born in 1968 so that would have made him 22 in 1990 right so they were pretty young yeah when like they're they started

getting big and stuff they were pretty young right so yeah there's still only big in the local California oh really at that point okay yeah right at point these guys are all pretty relatively young we've established that right they found in skunk records which is is the label they made to release their records, but they really didn't have the distribution or anything like that. But around this time, they're recording and releasing 40 ounces to freedom. This is kind of the landmark record. What's their signals off of it?

Like what's the... The one that really blew up is date? Okay, and we're gonna get it into around the time of the third wreck. I don't think I've heard of that one Okay, date is a story about a guy who commits date Is then charged and goes to prison and is suffering a A similar experiences to one that he would forcibly put on someone else, right? Okay, it's not. Oh, no, no, I know they are very like, they're, I don't want to call them political, but they're like, I mean, that like the pun, they're rebellious.

They're like, they're punk, they're sky or you know, like, uh, like, right. Yeah, they're like, yeah, yeah, they're like, they're like, they're part of that like Nirvana type, you know, like, uh, they're not like Nirvana, right? But they are in the Nirvana, right? But they are in this sense of... Right, they're not a grunge act because, okay, so let's be fair. At the time, because this is around the like Nirvana revolution, right? Yeah. You have bands like this, the skate, punk, sky punk, kind of stuff that's still surviving and prevalent and alternative pop culture, right? Like Hard Rock and Heavy Metal is a culture onto itself, kind of punk music and stuff like that. And for sure.

Although it permeates part of the culture at this point during Nirvana, you have like the Skat and punk bands and stuff like that at the time, bad religion, no effects, offspring. Those guys still survived, but they weren't ever too grungy. They were more of the punk dance, and then you had the guys with more of an edge like Pearl Jambs, your sound gardens, that big Seattle sound, which was grunge, right? So while this is existing and permeating in that time, they definitely didn't have that kind of like dour, ripped-gean flannel feel to them, right? Like they were an upbeat party band, really. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they were more like, yeah, like you said, like skateboarders and like that, for sure.

By 94, this band is like coming off the end of a two-year tour stint They had been selling 40 ounces to freedom mostly like from their van on tour Unfortunately the band had really been partying harder and harder along these times like parting like okay like partying and what with what I Guess because like I never really I know that party, but they really only talk about weed, really weed and maybe alcohol, and the big songs, yeah. Right, well definitely alcohol because like bad fish is a song kind of about alcoholism. Okay.

And I will say this, like at this time, it's probably noted that Bradley Noel is using heroin. Again, like we said in the Mitch headberg episode and like we didn't mention necessarily with Dave Brakhy and Corey Smood, I believe both of those guys actually overdose of a heroin use in some form or fashion, right? So if you or anyone you know needs help, please reach out to the appropriate spaces, right? And there will be someone there willing to help you. But yeah, at this point,

the band is known for its alcohol and antics. Obviously in the music itself, there's references to drug use, but it's mostly smoke and weed and drinking and things like that that you say. But like, no matter what we want to speculate on who's doing what at what point there's their partying so hard that they don't have money to record the next rack really yeah, I mean like are they big enough to like millions of dollars or they not like that they're not making like million to be fair this is an independent local punk band that's like starting to sell out clubs But at that point you're a band who's selling out clubs and touring for two years and you don't have money to record your next material like The card is coming before the horse when it comes with the party in essentials, right? That's probably the story of like so many different rock bands and countless bands right. Well so these guys have to do it yourself. Know how or ingenuity or squatters rights or whatever you want to call it because they

recorded robbing the hood in a earthquake damaged home that they pirated the electricity to. Yeah, that did. I mean, that's big tweaker energy, though, too, right? Like, that's definitely a sign where maybe things should change a little bit, I feel, but regardless of such, like, the partying had kind of caught up with these guys a little bit, even by that point 94. One of the notable things about that razz is it's for a lot of people maybe they're first encounter with Gwen Stefani on Saw Red.

Rapping the hoax Gwen Stefani was on that. She's on the song Saw Red, okay. They're starting to get more and more attention and then like we had said K-Rock and local college radio started playing date and more and more people were discovering them and the catalog and more and more people were going where can I find your record. Gasoline Alley, which was like a subsidiary of MCA, reaches out to these guys and that's where the third record kind of comes in, the self-titled record of Sublime, and they start recording this record, and by this point the partying had gotten to be so much that like Brad would just kind of freestyle his lyrics and say he was gonna actually write lyrics, and you know they would be like no no we're gonna sit down

and iron out this song and make them into actual proper lyrics for a song. And they almost burned down Willie Nelson's studio. Okay. Well, okay, well, like, when is like other hits? Like this is before or after other hits? Most of the big national exposure, I would say say comes post-humusly for this band. They are growing in things like that. That's what I figured. But like, I mean, did they write that, like, you know, like, what I got? And that is this record that we're talking about, the self-titled record. Okay, okay. This record in these sessions that we're talking about are, caress me down, what I got, Santoria.

Santoria, yes. Wrong way. A lot of the staples that you would hear of this band played on the radio, right? Right. So there's a song called Pool Shark. And in that song, Brad is kind of just like discussing his problems with his drug use and things like that. Even having a lyric as far as one day I'm going to lose the war, right? After they've gotten a major label deal, a national attention, they go to Austin, Texas,

they're recording this record and they almost burned down the studio, William Eseland Studio and all that stuff. Doing what? They put a, apparently they put a tower over a light bulb in a sauna and it was seven-room on fire. Okay, they were like, yeah. Apparently that it was the thing they did. But like Louis, they had to ship Louis dog out because he scratched up the floors and stuff like that. Like they did a lot of physical damage. Yeah. Yeah.

And apparently these guys would be so drunk by the time they'd come in that they'd be like, hey man, we're recording that noon and we're already drunk. We need to record earlier. So then the next day everybody'd come in early and they'd all have like a picture of Marta Baritas. Oh, right. They were just going to constantly be drunk. They got sent home and Brad and his girlfriend separated for a time. They had a child and Brad works on himself Sobers himself up. They finished the record. They go out on a short tour across the West Coast One night after a show in May he calls his wife and Unfortunately that night it was the last night they would talk to

each other and that next day he would pass and this is like within a week of the release of his major label debut and his son's first birthday and like a week after his wedding. Like this is all happened within a month right like given this all gonna be within a month of this time and he passes and Eric and bud go on to do long beach double stars and They they meet up with Roman mirrors. They come back as sublime with Rome Which is you know kind of a continuation of this band and yeah, but Brad, he and his, like a very signature voice. It's a whole different thing. It is a very whole different thing.

And I embrace it and welcome it. That's cool. But today we're talking about the blind proper. That is what I would suggest to anybody wanting to check these out. Check out like their big four mainline records, secondhand smoke, sublime, robin the hood, 40 ounces to freedom, Bradley Noelle and his friends, the acoustic record if you want.

There's a plethora of music out there, bootleg recordings and things like that. You can find it all anywhere because of Spotify and things like that. Definitely, it is well worth your time. Rest in peace, Bradley, and a while. And again, if you feel that someone needs to seek some help, please point them in the right direction. Yes. But with that, I, you know, I want to kind of try to step out of the somber know. And so like Brad says in Poole Shark, one day he's going to lose the war. But I think we have another war that we can talk about and maybe it's a Hopefully a little bit lighter know. Well, I mean it yes, it happened, you know over two thousand years ago

So like nobody involved, you know, you it's very distant. It's just a word. You wouldn't have a deep personal Connection to someone like they've been singing to you. Sure. Yes. And you're right, yeah. Yes. Rome, you know, I guess if you're rooting for Rome, which I guess I am because I am fascinated by Roman history. Big fan. Exactly. Big fan. Big fan. They did win.

The proof is in the point. Do you know anything about the Punic Wars? I don't like that I answer no. No, it's not very close to you asked me. It's fine. I like it. Actually, I do. I do like that, you know.

I will say that this is one of the things that when I looked on our document that shows who's got what. I was like, sounds familiar, but I can't tell you why it sounds familiar. You know what? I should have talked about this in episode two. And I missed it. So this is a call mess. Yes. I should have talked about it in episode two when I was first talking about the Roman Republic, and I completely forgot about it.

I don't even think I mentioned it at all. Please don't feel bad about that because that is one of the things that I've kind of set up with my stuff going forward is, we have room to come back and talk about things in a little bit more granular detail, right? Yes, for sure, because, you know, I was just giving a broad history of the Roman Republic.

Right, I think I must have. It was Caesar's reign, right? Well, yeah, I wanted to get to Caesar, and that's a thing. As I was skipping ahead to Caesar, essentially, and I completely miss this. So yeah, the Punic Wars, like you said, you recall it, right? This is something that's actually taught in school, I think. Like, when you were talking about Rome, it's the lead up to how Rome became the masters of the Mediterranean.

You know, this is when they like really, before the empire, this is the republic itself. Is this like a gathering of city states like the initial big wave of city state culture in Rome? No. Well, kind of, in a way yes, because if it wasn't for the other cities in Italy for sure They would have been screwed, but it's more they were like they conquered those cities in Italy

So they're like, you know, they're using their resources. Is that like helping? Yeah Is that like because at this point they controlled so many different things resources from Italy, but they conquered Italy So it's their resources at that point anyway, right? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, yeah. Well, okay, so this took place between 264 BC to 146 BC. So this is like over, this is 120 years of conflict we're talking about here. It's, there's three wars it's separated into, you know, but really it's, it's really the two superpowers of the time in that area, we have the Carthaginians which were located in the northern part of Africa in the city of Carthage, which is like, I think, Monardade, Tunis, I think, that area it's like just south of Sicily if you look at a map, right?

These were Phoenicians The Carthaginians were Phoenicians and one of these days I'll get into Phoenicia because it's a whole different thing But Phoenicians is like our alphabet is based on that right a the Phoenician alphabet is what we use right? Yeah, okay Hookdown phonics right Yeah, okay. You know, hookdown phonics, right? Yeah, phonics is pretty good. So they were traders in the Mediterranean, like really early traders, and they spread all around, right?

And like one of their main trading posts was Carthage, and like they weren't like very like connected though. They didn't have like an empire though They're more just like true. They didn't like warfare wasn't their thing You know they're more like let's trade and set a fight right? Like if you kind of think about it like there's there is Empires and like cultures kind of in history where they're more interested in trading as they were merchants, right? They were the trade was the most important thing,

not necessarily like, obviously you need more territory to trade, right? So like that was, that was important to them, but like they didn't do warfare, like they didn't like conquer things like Rome did to, you know, like they'd rather trade with the people. Right, your empire spreads an open air via market versus physical dominance.

I guess, you know, like occupation, you know. Yes, and like really that's kind of how it started, like the initial conflict. And that happened around 275 BC when like Rome really became like solidified as like the leader of Italy, right? They like took a hold of like there was still they were they didn't directly control out of areas, but let's just you know Be you know they essentially control the

Right, right so but there was Sicily and if you know The world map or you know the area of the Mediterranean If you know the world map or the area, the Mediterranean, Sicily is almost like a ball being kicked by Italy, the boot of Italy, like the toe, it's right after the toe of it. It's just a little offshore island from the eastern or western tip of Italy, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's a pretty big island. It's very important. It's very good. Like it's very good.

Like it's, it was like the bread basket of Italy, you know, for many, many years, for centuries, until like Egypt essentially, until they control Egypt. But because of trade routes and stuff like that or what? Well, yeah, just because like the growing, you know, like you had good growing conditions and everything and like that was where like a lot of their,

their wheat and everything came from. So like until until you know Which someday we're going to you know like the Empire Egypt was their biggest one. It's cisly still was too But it's just yeah anyways So at the time though, they didn't control it like it was actually Greek control They're somewhat it was controlled by um king hair on the second of Ciercus essentially like There's a bunch of other you know things in general terms, he was the big guy, and it's just like, right, right. There was these campaigned mercenaries called the Mamartini that force themselves onto

the city called Messina, which is like right on, it's right on the shore, next to Italy, insistly, right? Like it's really short. Okay, right, yeah, the closest adjacent city or whatever, right? Yeah, so it's like it's very important, obviously, for trading and all that. You know, that caused a big ruckus, you know,

on the island. Right, obviously. And King Harry was like, hey, you know, you can't be doing that, blah, blah, blah. And then the Carthaginians came in and they ended up settling it. Where they're like, you know, everything's cool. We're good, right? But the Romans were still like, no, no, we're going to come in and take over this city.

Oh, we're not good, actually. Yeah. Exactly. And that led to, you know, much fighting. The place where they come into conflict is that they ended a dispute between mercenaries and Sicily. They're through this city even not even necessarily Sicily as a whole but I just say Sicily right. Essentially but like really all of this. And what the f*** are you doing bro? This is my spot. All this stuff is just like a Causes belly. I think they call it right like I think that's Latin too. This is obviously good

It's like it's the reason it's just the reason to start a war. You know, we see this all the time Right. Yeah, tensions are brewing and we're looking for the trigger to pull This will be exactly. Yeah, yeah These are the two superpowers in the area Sicily's like kind of like the middle just barking over the same spots. Yeah exactly like they need can they want to can take control of the Mediterranean right and who's in the way of that both these guys yeah, okay. Yeah, yes so like the Romans by like 262 they they like, you know, try to conquer more of Sicily, but we're held back by the Carthaginians in this in the area.

And so it was kind of like a stalemate for a couple years until 260 when the Romans built this the largest navy fleet they've ever built. And if you don't anything about the Romans, they're not a navy people. Like they may control the Mediterranean, but ironically, they don't do anything in the water. But they don't rule it via rolling around the waters, right? They just walk around that. Yeah, we're just marching to your front. Yeah, right?

We're gonna walk out. Yeah, pull up both. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much all through history, they just march. Like they never use the Mediterranean. Yeah, it's crazy. But like horse draw, like that is another thing too.

Like, okay, so how prevalent are horses in modern combat at this point? Not modern combat, ancient combat at this point? Yeah, well, I mean, they use cavalry. Right, okay. But they're mostly an infantry. Right. Rome is known for their infantry,

which we're getting to right now, is that like, so like to get a navy fleet, like, that's completely different. So to do that, they invented at this time, like grappling hooks, to hook onto the enemy ships and bring them in and make like bridges over to them and then have, like, you know, land battles across the ships. Oh my god. Yeah. Okay, now I'm starting to remember when I learned this in history class. And this is like what I loved it. Any in water encounter on a ship that I do in D&D.

This is what I want to have happen is somebody, grapple hook and bridge over. And now you're fighting on two ships, baby. Yeah, this is okay. I do remember some of this now. And like, you know, so like they pretty much took them out by the sea. And like, and after that, you know, they kept, they kept fighting. They landed in Africa. And they tried to battle Carthage through there. And but like,

it was just back and forth, right? From by 254, like they came back to Sicily, they took a large fortress in Palermo, which is like a big city. Now I think I'm gonna say again, it's Sicily. But in then in 251, they got defeated. Charter the Giniens, so like, I mean like. And they had that big fortress in Palermo. Yes, and like the Romans and that in 251 tried to like take a bunch of a couple cities with their navy again.

And they were repelled, you know, by land forces with their navy, it was screwed up their ships. And on the way back, there was a bunch of storms which screwed up their ships even more. So like they're pretty much screwed. Yeah. Yeah. Double duty. But the Carthaginians weren't in much like better conditions,

right? Like this is like, again, this is years and years. This is like going on like 20 years now of war. Yeah. Right. I was going to say these are decades lapsing by as these guys are just constantly fighting over like now really quick. What is the square mileage between? I would say 400-ish or like 600 kilometers maybe around over under 500 miles of space between two empires exhausting learning resources for a decade. not exhausting their resources, but like

portions of it to just compete over this for And this isn't even this is the first few before and like there's three three sets of Exactly, I know so they super piece right and but the Romans in the end kind of got the better They they asked The better deal. They had control of Sicily and a few other areas you don't know about there. And they asked for 3,200 talents of gold, which talents was like 71 pounds or 32 kilograms.

That's what was like a massive bar of gold. Yeah. Yeah, a bunch of gold. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of a bunch of gold. Yeah. Yeah. And after that, they had dominance, right? But there was this guy named Hamlet Carb Barca, which he was a general during there that fought in Sicily.

And he, a Carthaginian general, should I say. He was like, hey, we gotta, we got us, you know, keep expanding and like get back on those, yeah, those Romans, right? So he went over to Spain and, you know, because Africa, Northern Africa, and again, the Mediterranean is very, it's kind of, it's close, you know, it seems very local, if you think about it. It's pretty local. Right. Everybody's all just adjacent to one another there. Exactly. Yep. So they went around to Africa or sorry, they went around to Spain and he started taking over areas around there

and he ended up dying. But his son, a guy named Hannibal, Marka, you might have heard of him. Yes. That is the most familiar name I would say from Carth in ancient history, right? Yeah, obviously the basis for Hannibal Lecter's naming, right? That's where the name comes from. Yeah, so he, you know, took over kind of his dad's, you know, he stepped up. And this was not until like 241, right? By 241 though, the Romans had rebuilt their fleet and were they're ready to like go back at it right so so his Rome is Rome barking at the heels of another

Carthage and war like they're like yeah bro let's go for it another Punic war I should say well pretty much like they never really settled but like yeah like they're kind of after it and like so So about like 221 so this is like you know 20 years after it was about 241 when the war ended the first war in right Like so like 20 years after right, you know, they've been building up Bane and all that That's when in Spain actually is what caused the next war to happen Was there was a Roman ally town in the area that Hannibal attacked. And the Romans were like, you know, that you can't be coming around and attacking our allies and all that.

Yeah, right. And you know, they declared war so all that. You know that. So Hannibal had two options. You know, he, well, he decided he was going to go and attack Rome. Right. Like Hannibal's like, you like, it's odd. Let's go. But how do I attack Rome?

Exactly. So there's two ways he could have on C, went over to Rome and to Italy landed on Italian shores and then attacked Rome from there. But they still have a good navy. They were able to build up over 20 years, right? They haven't been better navy in all that now. Right. Right. So it'd be really hard. And at that time, like they controlled the ports and everything. Like that's the thing, like that's the biggest thing

is that they just had control the ports of all around Italy, right? You know, like they have people stationed. Hey, so yeah, to even come over water is difficult, because where are you gonna land, right, or dock, right? So the other option though, which was not much better actually, was to travel up through Spain, right, through my, or at the time,

Gal or my or day France, and up and through the Alps, the mountains, and down, into Italy. That's kind of hard going up mountains and down, obviously. Well, like the Alps, like if you look at, again, look at a map, I wish I were a man. If you're not driving, look at a map, yeah.

Yes, please. It's like, it kind of cuts off Italy from the rest of Europe, almost in a way, way right and like right and that's where Switzerland is You know, that's kind of why Switzerland is the neutral country because they're up in the mountains like anybody like come on up in a Yeah, but through the mountain people I don't know in history mountain people I think of like you know kind of like rugged like crazy people and like, the Switzerland people are like, almost like, um, Scandinavian, but they're not. We'll hold on to your money and hear some chocolate.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but anyways, that's my idea. So, Hannibal, he had about 20,000 troops 6,000 Calvary and 37 war elephants that he took with him. Yeah, I dig it War elephants are dope. Yes, and he took those war elephants, you know these African elephants that were from Africa up through these Mountains and over the mountains. I should have looked a few, I definitely said, oh yeah, for sure.

Oh yeah, Tumblr 2, oh yeah. Yeah, but yeah, he, like just think about that. Take these elephants over, over a mountain. It took him 56 months to go from Spain over over into the like the lowlands of Italy like 56 months almost that It's almost almost five years it took a most yeah, almost five years to do that. Yeah, and I was surprised I was surprised by the two years with Mansa Musa. You're right. That is scoot him. Well for yeah. This is yeah five years to travel that how I'm running hundreds of miles. Exactly. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah wow five years. I mean you got an open. Sorry. Yeah 37 opens got 10 to yeah. It was 218 when he arrived. So he was saying before like well I don't know because his dad died. Well he can control of the army

in 221 so like other things have for you yeah it's about four years of some change right yeah still it's a long time yeah so for the next few years though like this like he just raged across Italy right animal just Rome up pretty Like in the Romans, there was this guy named, I think it was Quintis Fabius or something like that. Um, known for Fabian tactics, which, like, if you know anything about war, like, that's called... That's tough.

No, even now, like, people will talk about Fabian tactics, which is like... Because it's positioning and... Like that's what? Yeah, it's a strategy of like non-engagement. So like, you have an army out in the field, right? But you just like run away. Every time you see the other army, right?

And like, I mean, you're keeping that other army, you know, like keeping them busy, you're keeping them exactly. Yeah, so like they did that for years, for two years, right? But then on August 2nd, 216 BC, Neertown named Kanh, the Romans finally decided to meet up with the Carthaginians and Hannibal, right? With 85,000 men they had and at this time I think the Carthaginians had more people than just the 20,000 they brought like they probably, you know, yeah, right, right, right, but

Hannibal chose the site and everything at that. And he just utterly destroyed the Romans. Like, it was one, like, it's estimated that one fifth of the Roman men of fighting age were killed at that battle. Wow. Yeah. Like, it's probably the greatest loss ever, like, percentage wise in Roman history.

Like, yeah, yeah But you know the thing about Rome though and this is why they're not with became like the ampere They were yeah, is that they just they just never like they you could just kill so many of them and they just like Yeah, it sucks. We lost, but we're just gonna keep fight. We're just gonna keep fighting Yeah, we're not gonna give up. We're bad. We're just gonna keep fight, yeah. We're not gonna give up. We're just never gonna accept defeat. Like, that's just was Rome.

That was literally Rome through a thousand years, right? Like, yeah. Yep, and they did that and they kept fighting. They kept fighting. And then finally, they're like, you know what, let's bring the battle to them. And in 202 BC're like, you know what, let's bring the battle to them. And in 202 BC, so you know, this is what, 14 years later, Skipio, which he later became Skipio Africas, went over to Africa and

started making a ruckus there, right? He started going after Carthage. So the Carthage Indians had to recall Hannibal and everything took him out of here. Come back home, yeah. Yep. And there, they had a pitch battle and Skipio ended up beating Hannibal.

And through that, yes, they were able to, that was the end of it, right? You know, that was the end of their big parts. Yeah, now we've taken Carthage. Through that Carthage-succeeded Spain and all the Mediterranean islands, they surrendered their warships. They had to forfeit their independence and affairs of war and foreign policy. So pretty much like they were just like, you know, done for the day.

Public state overall. Yeah, in order to pay 10,000 talents over 50 years. Like so like tons of time. And that's that 71 pound bar older than a real shit. That's right. Exactly. Just tons of, yeah, just tons of gold, right? So, God, man.

So at this point, how long does it take before Rome no longer has like, in some capacity capacity a major control In Carthage alone, so that's okay. So right this is this is in the second more second war, right? like They did all this like they're pretty much have control of the Mediterranean right at this point You're like what you're asking is wrong is right?. It was going to say the only think of as the giant empire. A little bit. Yes, pretty much, but like yeah, I guess you can say

this is when they in a little bit because Carthage was still around right Carthage, they might out of had an army. They had they had to get rid of other army and all that, but they could still trade like I said at the beginning. their whole thing was trade and man, they didn't want to fight. They just wanted to trade. That's true, right? They were beating Rome and not even wanting to fight that much of them.

Exactly. It's kind of crazy, right? Yeah. And so they just kept trading and everything. And you know, those people just kept getting richer and richer without having an army. They don't need an army to get rich, right? They just... But they can amass one with those riches. Yes. So within 50 years, we're talking 149ish BCE

They're back pretty well not like back in power, but they had a lot of money and Rome I was gonna say the evidence assemblage that is probably like man Exactly like one of the greatest of its time in region. Yeah, like I'm not gonna say you're like a senator or something But I think like a senator something went to a carthage and they looked at the city and they're like holy shit Look at this place. This thing's like, you know There's riches everywhere people just fall with this is better than the capital Exactly, they're like what you know not even like this is better than the capital. Exactly. They're like, what, you know, not even like, this is better than the capital. Like it wasn't, they didn't control Carthage,

but like they thought it was like, you know, some like, they thought they had them under control and everything, you know, and they're like sitting here like just fabulously wealthy, you know? So. Yeah, this is one of the greatest cities in existence today. And we like realistically, how much of it

did we put here? Right. yeah. Exactly. So like, you know, Rome found some reason, another cause of the spell I write to attack. And it was something about, I'm like, Carthaginians resisting in Roman force somewhere or something like that. So they broke the treaty.

So then like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the Romans were like, all right, we're going back to Africa. They sent a bunch of troops there at this time And this is the third war where they pretty much just they they they laid siege to Carthage and Carthage they tried to like build up things, but again, they did they couldn't have an army, right? So like even though they're really wealthy they didn't have like The supply networks to have an army like you need all that like

Infrastructure you the logistics right you couldn't get souls Exactly or elephants and all this other Well, even the supplies, you know like you need swords, right? You know, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, and like Yeah, it's already sealed. It's already sealed. Yeah, it's already sealed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

And like, so like, they're put under siege and over the, it was actually led by a scapio milionus, which was the grandson of scapio africanus, you know, who 50 years ago ended the war. Right, yeah. But they took, took siege of the city and there was around 250,000 people at the time. And you know, through people leaving or dying or all that,

by the time they finally gave up a couple of years later, there was only 50,000 people left. Wow. Yes. But it wasn't just that the Romans ordered it to be burned. And like some people say to be salted or the ground will be salted, that wasn't done. But pretty much just condemned,

like to be in place that was never to be like trading posts again, you know, like or a place for anything, a city or nothing. Like they like they burn it to nothing, like they destroyed it off. Almost never to be spoken of again too, right. Yeah. And there was eventually, you know, there what like the area was turned into a province at that point. Like that was when I was like Rome was like, all right, it's harsh now. We proud of you. So obviously they did sold the earth right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But they they they called it Africa. That's when

like they started the thevinces of Africa, which stayed in Roman hands until the pretty much the fall of the Western Empire. The fifth century sees, so we're talking 700 years later. So it was in Roman hands from then. The better part of them was in the West. The better part of them was in the West. Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, there was another town that ended up coming around like that area, but it wasn't that same spot. But like, yeah, man, like it's just crazy. This was when Rome became like the superpower. And really after that, like that's when everything kind of started going crazy because they overblown it. I don't know, right? Kind of.

Yeah, you can I don't know. It's almost, I hate to say it, but like you can't have an empire and be a republic. Like you can't, it just doesn't work. You can't do just like the way an empire works, like the way an empire works in the way a republic works, they're against each other almost. And I like, I'm not going to get in that today. And I don't know why I'm just it just seems that way. But I'm going to leave it at that. That is a punic voice. And with that, we love to thank you for joining us here each in every

week. Let us know what you thought about this and each in every episode. Give us a rate and review on any and all platforms you listen to us on. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and on Patreon. We're for $5. You can get access to these episodes by one week. Wait, so you're telling me we can get this earlier than usual? A whole week. Just so everybody knows after episode 40, we're going to be taking a break and we'll be catching back up with you guys like the first week of December. Is that right Brad?

Yeah, we're just taking a couple of week break. You got to move. I move. Yeah. Yeah. Let you get situated. Just give us a few weeks, OK? Episode 41, first week of December,

beyond a lookout for it. We love you. Let us know what you would like to hear when we come back. And how you loved what we've put out so far. For Brad, I'm Kyle and we will see you again here soon. See ya. Blamdy. See ya. Blamdy. Blam. I forgot. Kato is the guy.

He said, Carthard must be destroyed. That's what was at the beginning, guys. Good night. Munchok Gusto. That was Bradley. Brainsoda