The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

This morning we shall walk through the remains of the famed city of the Ephesians. We shall wander over the site of the great Temple of Diana, tramp the ground where St. John was living when he wrote his gospel, and stand in the marble marketplace where St. Paul preached. There is a tradition that the mother of our Lord was buried here, and that here lies also the dust of St. Timothy.

The Ephesus of the past has been brought to the light of the present by the excavations of the Austrians. I have told you something of their work in the Holy Land, and especially on the site of old Jericho. They have also dug up the ruins of other cities in Asia, and here at Ephesus have uncovered what remains of the Temple of Diana and found a theatre which had seats for thirty thousand persons. They have excavated the marble docks which led up to the city, and have done much to show us what this great commercial centre of two thousand years ago must have been in the height of its glory.

But first let me tell you something of the Ephesus of the days of St. Paul. It lay here on the coast of Asia Minor, just opposite Greece, in what was almost the centre of the then known world. It was the chief Roman city of Asia. It had a population of a million or more and was famous for its learning, art, and beautiful buildings. It was far more magnificent than Smyrna, which was founded before it, and in which it is said the poet Homer was born.

Ephesus dated back to a thousand years before Christ. Some say it was founded by the Amazons, but we know that it was largely built up by Greeks from the Ionian Islands over the way. It was a great city in the days of Crœsus, who besieged the town in the year 510, B.C.; and later it grew so famous that Alexander the Great wanted to change its name for his own.

Among the wonders of Ephesus was its temple to Diana, the favourite goddess of the city. People from the corners of the earth came to worship her. Her temple was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. It covered more than two acres, and its mighty roof was upheld by one hundred and twenty-seven marble columns each as high as a six-story building. The worship of the goddess was so famous that there grew up a business in making statues of her and manufacturing portable shrines which could be carried away by pilgrims. Athletic games were connected with the worship, and the month of May was sacred to her. The temple itself is referred to in the Scriptures. In the Acts we read of “the great goddess Diana, whom all Asia and the world worshipped.”

Now let us have a look at the site of that temple to-day. We have taken a special car at Smyrna and have been pulled by a little French locomotive over the railroad to the station of Ayasoluk forty-eight miles away across country. We have gone through a land of vineyards and olives where baggy-trousered peasants are pruning the vines and working the fields. They dig about the trees with three-lined hoes and till their crops with donkeys and bullocks. The one-handled ploughs are about the same as those used in ancient days. We go over the plains which must have fed the Ephesians, wind our way in and out through the hills, and finally come to a little station where we get horses to carry us out through the valley to Ephesus.

The site of the temple lies in a valley. It is not far above the level of the sea, which we can see shining in the sun not more than five miles away. History says it was swampy and that the great structure was erected upon piles. This statement is borne out by the present conditions of the site. The excavation made in uncovering the ruins is now filled with water. It is a miniature lake filled with broken columns and capitals lying half in and half out of the water. We stand on the banks beside fluted columns of snow-white marble, and see broken marble everywhere near. That man who ploughs on the southern ridge of the sand turns up marble bits at every step of his bullocks, and the girls behind him, who are planting, uncover stones from the temple at almost every stroke of their hoes.

As we look, we see no sign of the activity which prevailed here two thousand years ago. Birds fly across the lake and sing in the trees bending over it. A stork sits sleepily on a marble rock in its midst and a frog croaks out a welcome. A red cow is grazing there on the edge of the water, and at my right a hog is rooting in the débris.

Let us get on our horses and ride on down the valley to visit the theatre which once held the actors of the chief playhouse of Asia. Think of a theatre seating thirty thousand. It is only in recent years that we have built in the United States amphitheatres large enough to seat as many people as used to watch the performances here more than two thousand years ago. This great open-air structure was built largely of marble and altogether of stone. The entrance to the stage was through tunnels, and the stage was upheld by marble columns. The seats, which were made of common stone covered with marble, ran around the stage or rather the pit in the shape of a half moon, rising high up the hills at the back. They were in three stories and contained sixty-six rows.

I measured the outline of the stage. It was about eighteen feet wide and six or seven feet high. There are long underground passages leading to it, and there were eight dressing rooms on two floors at the sides of the stage. Walking through the pit, now filled with broken marble columns and blocks of marble beautifully carved, I climbed down now and then and tried to imagine the audience and the acting going on upon the marble stage far below.