Before there was a Super Bowl…

The elites have always devised a way to create spectacles for the masses to focus on, to gamble on, and to “care about”. Whether it was feeding Christians to lions for the amusement of the general public or …Chariot Racing “ludi circenses,” one of the foremost sports of the Roman and Byzantine Empire, where competing teams would race either in four-horse chariots (quadrigae), or two-horse chariots (bigae) around a hippodrome or circus.

The Roman’s imitated the sport from the ancient Greeks, turning the races into a grand spectator event watched by hundreds of thousands, in venues like the Circus Maximus in Rome, and the Hippodrome of Constantinople.

Once the cloth known as a “mappa” was dropped, the charioteers jostled to move in front of each other, in an attempt to cause their opponents to crash into the central “spinae”, whilst being the first to complete 7 laps of the race (later reduced to 5). So, not that different than Nascar.

The races created a rivalry between spectators, who passionately supported their favored chariot team (distinguished by a different color: red, white, blue, and green), often leading to violence between the supporters of the competing factions. The races also became heavily politicized, both through the associations of social and religious ideas, but also through the direct patronage and management by wealthy benefactors or state officials.

With the collapse of the Western Empire, the races faded along with the decline of Rome, but in the Eastern Empire, the races continued to thrive, and even celebrated on a grander scale. To the Byzantines, the races were seen as a way to reinforce social class and political power, and for the Emperor, a focal event to bring their subjects together in celebration.  They didn’t have the propaganda medium of television to allow people to cheer from home.

Theodosian Walls

 

In AD 447 to 448, the Constantinian and Theodosian walls of Constantinople were severely damaged by a series of earthquakes. The city was already under threat of invasion by the Huns, led by their leader Attila.

Theodosius II ordered the praetorian prefect, Constantine Flavius to quickly repair the walls (that previously took nine years to build). Realizing the monumental task before him, Constantine Flavius reached out to the factions of the chariot teams for aid, gathering a work force of some 16,000 supporters.

Each faction was tasked with a stretch of wall, working in competition to complete their section before the other, winning the honor of victory for their team. The “Blue” team worked the stretch of walls from the Gate of Blachernae to the Gate of Myriandrion, and the “Greens” from there to the Sea of Marmara. In just sixty days, the great walls of Constantinople were restored, and the defensive moat cleaned of debris.

Callinicus, in his Life of Saint Hypatius, wrote: “The barbarian nation of the Huns, which was in Thrace, became so great that more than a hundred cities were captured, and Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it.”

Hearing of the completion of the walls, the Huns abandoned their plans for conquest of Constantinople, and instead turned their attentions further west into the Balkans capturing many Byzantine cities and settlements. Theodosius was forced to sue for peace, leaving Attila to focus on invading the former lands of the Western Roman Empire.

 

And While We’re on a Sports Theme – KC Won!

TAMPA, FL—Fox News has projected the Kansas City Chiefs will be the winners of Super Bowl LV, despite it being only 4 minutes into the first quarter.

“Our expert analysts are now calling the game for KC,” said anchor Chris Wallace. “This game is over. May as well pack it in and go home now because we already declared the winner, but we’ll continue to cover the remaining portion of this game that the Chiefs have absolutely no chance of winning.”

According to sources on the sidelines, Tampa Bay Head Coach Bruce Arians is furious and has called for fans to protest the “rigged Super Bowl.” Fans have responded by charging the press box where Fox News analysts are hiding.

Twitter banned Arians soon after for inciting violence.

Monday — 

“After closer examination, we discovered several more points scored by the Chiefs that we had missed initially,” said one official.

Tuesday —

138,000 points awarded to KC during the halftime celebration didn’t make it to the scoreboard.

 

 

 

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29 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve often wondered about the Balkans in Roman and Byzantine times. They certainly seem to have been treated as worthwhile and civilized lands in period, but I really have a hard time imagining them that way.

    -Kle.

    • They were invaded, the populations replaced (genetically and actually) by other civilizations over the past several thousand years, that nobody know what the population was actually like then (pick your point of time for “then”). You can make the same argument for other locations on the planet that were subject to frequent invasions.

      Think about the invasions that ended up in the British Isles (because they couldn’t go any further) the Celts, the Britians, the Saxons, the Franks, the Jutes, the Angles, the Danes and even the Americans during WW2 who were (1) overpaid (2) over-sexed (3) over there.

  2. Investigating a garage door pull in a nascar building, but not any reports of election fraud or any malfeasance by our betters should project where we are headed or already arrived as a country.

    • I have a Centennial Livestock Auction cap…what does that make me? And is that only when wearing it or always?

      • I think that once you put on a Centennial Livestock Auction cap, it brands you for life, whether or not you are wearing it. I played on the Oakland A’s little league team when I was 10, and the Oriels when I was 11 and have been branded as being from Baltimore and Oakland ever since even though I don’t meet the required inner-city demographic. However it may help me in future years when I self-identify as a black, muslim, woman so that I can board an airplane or need to buy a lottery ticket, or cross a state border.

        Guard at border crossing point, “You don’t talk like a black woman.”
        Me, “Don’t you dare look under the burka.”

        • Good to be branded with those who do things vs. those who do nothing, or those who talk about what others are doing then warp reality while criticizing.

        • Response to guard: How dare you profile by tone, timbre and speech pattern? How DARE you?

          Only … good luck finding a straight, white male guard you can pull that on. They’re getting fewer and fewer. (Possibly there is actually zero conspiracy here, it’s just the diabetes and coronary disease killing them off. I have seen more fit people in the obesity/metabolic disorders clinic, FFS.)

          Speaking of crossing guards, I doubt I will be heading to Washington DC any time in the near future, but when I did, I preferred — in order — DCA, then BWI over IAD, because of who and what they had working TSA at Dulles. The last flight through IAD, apart from two younger men (who were professional and efficient; one Black, one white, both fit, of military bearing, and in neatly pressed uniforms) all of them were loud, lackadaisical, slovenly, and openly hostile to whites and East Asians, especially normal (“traditional”) families. But if you were dark, obese, or deviant you got treated well. (Kinda like the cafeteria at this one hospital where I used to work, come to think of it.) I doubt the two good TSA are still around. Both looked profoundly embittered. The white one was robotic with burning eyes over a fixed non-expression, and the Black one looked pained whenever one of his ostensible colleagues did something rude and stupid, which was roughly every two minutes.

          • Are you criticizing the government for hiring Capitol Police and TSA by the pound? They are trying to be efficient and non-discriminatory in their hiring practices (pass the biscuits, Mike_C) and YOU are fat-shaming them. The new practice of allowing convicted felons into their ranks is a landmark move toward inclusion.

            And they should be allowed behind the wall to graze in the cafeteria on the food that was discarded before it goes into the chute that hauls it away to feed swine and shoats. How else can the Capitol or TSA police maintain their body weight?

          • A trendy new designation for fat tubs of lard with adult-onset sugar diabetes — ‘diabesity’.

            Diabesity.

            Probably something to avoid.

  4. Came across a video of a player pull another football out from underneath the Gatorade table and hand it to the wide receiver…for a touchdown. And I have proof the scoreboards are owned by a Biden/ChiCom shell corporation headed up by Hunter, “the best CEO ever”. Also discovered Smartmatic scoreboards – which we were told were not internet capable, connected to servers in Germany raided by the Raiders who were mad they didn’t get into the game. If you scroll forward to the 1:24:68 second mark you can see the score flip from TBB to KCC.

    Sidney Powell & Lin Wood are already on it, but America’s Mayor was “unavailable”, hanging out at The Daiquiri Deck in Saint Armand’s Circle with wings and adult beverages with little umbrella’s.

    And so it goes…showing the absurd with absurdity. Trouble is the election flip is true.

    • Oh, and facial Recognition software was not able to determine who the perpetrators were because they were wearing full “facemask” helmets, and backup digital security camera images were too blurry to read the jersey names or numbers…but we did get recent crystal clear images of Mars.

      • Please don’t attempt to apply logic when trying to understand the progressive mind.

        There were only two, fifteen second video clips shown of the outside of the Capitol during the June 6 disturbance. Why is that. Is that the only video feed that was shot?

        And the Capitol Police let them in. Where is the video feed of that?

        • Can’t help myself, logic is built into the wiring…my poor attempt at BabylonBee satire. Goose/Gander, right?

          Jan. 6th was a setup, plain to see for the rational among us, especially considering half the Capital Police had cameras out. Nothing to see here, move along.

          But they prop up the propaganda that the officer who died was not actually killed, he died later at his desk and they have yet to release why. And today we get to hear all about another unconstitutional idiotic kangaroo court impeachment for a man not in office, aka, a private citizen. Yet, the Dem’s have twisted themselves in knots say this is fully Constitutional.

          Orwell has nothing on these clowns.

        • What about the 18-minute “accidental” erasure in the tape, hmmm? Surely none of you are Democratic enough to believe that old trick….

  5. Every since the professionals went woke and the owners/league went along with it, I’ve tuned them out. That said, Tom Brady giving the metaphoric finger to the world warms my evil old heart.

  6. Last time I had any interest in sportsball, Daryle Lamonica, Fred Biletnikoff, and Ben Davidson were playing for the Oakland Raiders. Did my own version of “ball”, repaired out to the man cave and loaded up some 173 gr. FMJ. in 308.

    Now and again, I wear my “triggered” hat. It is a freebie from GEISSELE AUTOMATICS, sent to me by Bill Geissele (pronounced “guys-lee”). The brim is a bit thick, so that across the front lip it reads in fine print “GEISSELE AUTOMATICS TRIGGERS FOR THE WARFIGHTER AND COMPETITOR”.

  8. Didn’t know the racing factions helped repair the wall, interesting. I’ve always thought it strange that they were “kingmakers.” A bit like the UK’s Prime Minister being decided by Chelsea or Millwall.

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