Ah, a succulent meal of dates... SPEAKING OF DATES, it's the month of May! And the month of Mae! On Mae's Twitch! All month long! A not-subathon! (was that subtle enough Mae? Can I go home to my family now I'm scared please)

Gladiators were definitely the pro-wrestlers of Ancient Rome. Aside from the occasional dying, they’re usually doing the fake-ish fighting and “drama” for the audience.

If the gladiators were popular enough, they get action figures and posters made. They get to do sponsorship deals, which is so funny to learn.

Pat Mandziy did like two skits about this.

Just a quick little correction, Thermopolia and Thermopylae are different things. Thermopolia is the Latin term for ancient Roman fast-food centers. It literally means “a place where something hot is sold.”

Thermopylae, meaning “the hot gates” is the narrow pass where the battle of the 300 Spartans was fought to delay the Persian advance into Greece.

I tried these out, and yes, they're absolutely amazing. Definitely recommend giving them a shot.

9:00 "What is that from?"  That scene is from HBO's iconic two-season series, "Rome", which covers Julius Caesar's civil war in Rome in Season 1, and everything that happened post-Caesar's assassination to the birth of the Roman Empire in Season 2.  The series ended up being cancelled after just two seasons because the budget to create it was just so massive that HBO wasn't fully prepared to create a series that had that huge a budget.  But that series definitely was the one that taught HBO how to truly make a big budget TV series, and HBO used those lessons it learned when creating Rome in order to create its most popular series ever.  Basically, without HBO's Rome, HBO's Game Of Thrones would never have existed.

The character in that scene shown is basically a "town crier".  He's basically a news reporter, telling daily news to the crowds as they pass by.  But though he's really just a background character, the actor who portrayed him literally made him arguably the best character in the entire show!

Thank you very much for the reaction video today and have a nice weekend

Another fun watch! I didn't know of this channel before we did these on stream, even though I was quite the history nerd back in Uni, so thank you for turning me on to these!

So, awhile back I read a study (that I now cannot find again) that was measuring the amount of lead in the bones of Roman’s. They found that it was rather high due to their use of lead as a sweetener, in their water systems, and cookware and it prompted a lot of interesting discussion.

The short of it is that one of the symptoms of long term lead poisoning, especially if it began in childhood, was a reduction in average IQ, reduction in general empathy, and increased aggression. So it’s theorized that lead poisoning is part of why the gladiatorial games was so popular. It also explains why some emperors, especially in the later half of the empire, were nutcases. Because the levels of lead you were exposed to increased the richer and higher up the roman social ladder you were.

Super fun in the OG stream, just a fun listening back while I make scran!:D

Mae ranking gladiators: "Ahh yes, Maximus Brickus is S tier. Greatest of lore masters."

I made some of these... well a simplified version with nuts you would not find in ancient Rome but more or less the same thing. They're messy to eat but awesome.

Other 'food youtubers' you might like to ckeck out are 'Atomic Shrimp', who's more sedate (but his ''100% Apple' Apple Pie' video was fascinating), and 'Nat's What I Reckon', who is more chaotic (he looks like he escaped from a garage band, takes nothing seriously, and things frequently go wrong in the kitchen...but the food looks very tasty at the end)

I want to eat those dates so much.

To be fair if my options were to watch some people die or leave and get lunch, I'm taking option 2.

You got it wrong because rome elites despised nero for how he was for the common people of lower classes and slandered him just because he interacted with them and how he was supporting the lower classes

Those dates look pretty tasty.

I AM slightly heartened by the knowledge that most of the audience would leave during the executions. Like, no one wanted to see two guys disembowel each other.