Interesting Factoid: Your Brother's Keeper

One of the stops I made in Istanbul was at Topkapi Palace. This was basically the center of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century onward... as expected, it was big and it was pretty impressive.

One interesting little factoid from Topkapi was about the "Cage". The Cage was a collection of apartments in the palace where the Sultan's brothers lived. Once the Sultan ascended to the throne, his brothers were sent to live here, with the finest furniture, foods, and dozens of concubines. The catch with the Cage was this: they couldn't leave. The idea was to avoid having to kill the brothers, which was done in the past to avoid a fratricidal power-grab. They had to stay in there until they were called upon to be sultan themselves, which was sometimes more than 20 years.

So, basically, when these guys got out, they were paranoid and crazy. Bonkers. Bananas. One guy would only practice his bow and arrow by shooting at a live target, preferably one of his pages. Another killed all of his concubines--all 300 of them--based upon hearing one rumor that one of them was up to no good.

I didn't say it was a nice factoid. Just an interesting one.