Festival plays

Characters

The Seven Sleepers. Lads, of the time of Decius who reigned over the Roman Empire from A. D. 249 to 251, named Constantine, Dion, Maximus, Ioannes, Martinus, Malchus, and Serapíon.

A Young Slave named Constantine and six Schoolboys, of the time of Theodosius II, who reigned from A. D. 408 to 450, named Dion, Maximus, Ioannes, Martinus, Malchus and Serapíon.

Other persons of the same day, including

The Emperor and his suite,

The Schoolmaster, called by the boys Didaskalos,

A Priest, a Contractor, an Overseer, a Centurion and Soldiers, the Magistrate, the Townclerk, other Officials, Slaves working in the quarry, An Old Slave Woman, grandmother of Constantine,

Holiday-Makers with their attendant Slaves, and

A Friend who belongs to all ages and countries.

FOREWORD

Let us take a flight backward over fifteen centuries to a date somewhere about A. D. 410. The Roman Empire is the centre of the civilised world, with Constantinople for its capital and Theodosius II upon the throne. Let us imagine ourselves in Asia Minor, visiting a city of Lydia which we are accustomed to call in Roman fashion Ephesus, but which we will to-day spell Ephesos to remind us of a fact of which it was too proud ever to forget ... its Greek origin. Indeed Ephesos at all times seems to have held its head high. It prided itself for one thing on its commercial importance, its situation rendering it an admirable starting-place for Roman legions on their eastward march of conquest no less than an admirable port from which the spoils of the orient, brought across the desert routes by caravan, could be shipped to western markets. From this it gained the name of Key, or Gateway, to the eastern Empire. In the earlier days of its history Ephesos had also proudly styled itself the Temple-Keeper City on account of its devotion to the great nature-goddess Artemis in whose honour a magnificent sanctuary had been erected there some thousand years before this day we are to relive in the reign of Theodosius II. Little gold and silver shrines of Artemis were fabricated and sold in Ephesos while Christianity was still under a ban, and, as you will recall, it was the fear of the guild of smith-craftsmen that the new religion would deprive them of this industry that caused an uprising against the Apostle Paul during his missionary labours there. Then when Constantine the Great declared in favour of Christianity, causing it to be the officially established religion of Imperial Rome, we find Ephesos priding itself on the zeal with which it renounces its ancient deities, and either razing the temples of these or converting them into churches with forms of worship adapted to the new creed.

It is a holiday in spring, and holidays here seem much the same as elsewhere. Schoolboys freed from the rule of didaskalos go to the shores of the River Kaÿstros to skip oyster shells, or they play hide-and-seek in the fields of wheat and millet that grow high as a man’s head. Perhaps when the back of the Centurion with his vine-branch rod is turned they will form a group in the pleasant shade of some portico to match coins. “Heads or ships?” we shall hear them say, if by chance a Roman piece has found its way among the locally minted currency. Picnic parties attended by slaves bearing huge baskets of provisions will be seeking the quarried sides of Prion and Kóressos, the beautiful mountains that overlook Ephesos. Stories will be told by the old to the young: legends of the days when the Temple of Artemis ... now but a picturesque ruin ... was sanctuary during a Persian invasion; later fables of the persecutions instituted by the Emperor Decius against the professors of the new religion who were fain to meet by stealth in upper chambers to worship, or be scourged, thrown, perchance, to beasts in the arena. Perhaps some antiquarian will have discovered a papyrus on which he has deciphered a hymn in praise of Artemis, coupled with an ode to the City, to be sung by the Epheboi, the youths of the place, and the girls destined to be Temple priestesses, at the great festival of springtide when nature’s self celebrates the glory of resurrection after its winter sleep, and decks the world with flowers. In those days the month of festival was called Artemision, but now it is known as Easter! Listen to the chants from the churches dedicated to St. Paul, St. John! But even as you hear the “Glory to the Father” the winds that acknowledge no religion, old or new, and the echoes that witness them all, bring back to life the strains of the ancient processional, sung to flute, harp and lyre, in praise of the banished goddess Artemis by boys and girls over whose graves the flowers of nigh two centuries have grown!

The winds fold their wings among the hills and the echoes slip back into the valleys with their memories of boys and girls with their flowering garlands, incense bearers, priests and priestesses of long ago who used to march through the city and climb the hill to the Temple in the month of Artemision; and the cross over the gateway that we see in the distance, and the peal of the Gloria from the churches remind us that this is a modern and Christian Ephesos through which we are wandering at Eastertide in the year 410. From the market-place we have passed to the stadion where the young athletes of the place are practising for the games that will be held later on, and now our steps have brought us beyond city bounds in the direction of Kóressos. Here we find that, although it is a holiday, gangs of slaves directed by an overseer are busily quarrying the grey marble for which this mountain is famed. Mingling with the bystanders we pause to watch them as they tear down a pile of loose, large stones that seem at some time to have been stacked up against what looks like a solid wall of masonry. As the sun is high and we are wearied with our climb we join a group sitting in the shadow of a plane tree, enjoying the view, listening to the distant chimes and the anthems of praise from the churches. Meanwhile our attention is arrested by the talk that goes on about us.