AT THE SHRINE OF DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS
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.
Leaving the theatre, I strolled about through the wide streets of marble,
which have been partially uncovered, and made photographs of bits of
the ruins. There is enough of this fine stone here to build a structure
equal to our national Capitol at Washington. This is mixed with mosaic
and the broken statues of the palaces of the past. There are pieces of
friezes, columns, and capitals lying out in the open; there are torsos
of statues the heads and feet of which have been broken off and carried
away; and also many exquisite carvings which would be treasures to any
museum. Here lies a piece of marble drapery, the remnants of the garment
of a goddess; there the broken-up limb of an athlete, and farther on a
beautiful bit from the front of the temple.
Among the ruins are the remains of stores, houses, and markets. I climbed
over marble blocks along the street which led to the ship canal, and
stood among broken columns in what was once the stock exchange and
wool market. In one place is an artificial terrace where stood the
great gymnasium, and in another is a marketplace two hundred feet long,
surrounded by a portico, back of which were the stalls of the marketmen.
In the mosaic floors of these stalls thirteen different kinds of marbles
were used, and marbles of various colours were employed throughout the
structure.
To-day the peasants are working all over these ruins. Here they are
planting grain, and there, cleaning the fields, is a gang of a dozen
girls working under a turbaned man in baggy trousers. Here women are
digging; farther on a man drives a camel harnessed to a one-handled
plough. The only town near Ephesus is Ayasoluk, which has but a few
hundred inhabitants. It has, perhaps, a dozen small stores, a railroad
station, and a hotel. While at the station I saw a white, fat lamb
awaiting shipment. It was tied to the platform, and a card fastened to
one horn bore the name of the commission merchant in Smyrna to whom it
was consigned.
Just opposite the hotel are seven tall columns which once supported the
great aqueduct which supplied Ephesus with water. Each of these has now a
stork’s nest on its top, and the great birds may be seen any day standing
there. I am told that they come here only for the winter, and that they
leave every spring for Holland, or perhaps for some other far-away part
of the world, every one of them carrying a baby.
Before coming to Ephesus I spent a day in Smyrna, whither I shall return
to go on to Constantinople and Greece. Smyrna is the largest city in
Asia Minor, and has about the same position in the modern world that
Ephesus once had. The chief port of this part of the Levant, it does a
big business in shipping wool, wine, grapes, olives, and figs. It has a
foreign trade of about fifty million dollars a year, and steamers from
all parts of the Mediterranean come to its docks.
The city lies at one end of the Gulf of Smyrna, which is thirty-four
miles long and surrounded by lofty silver-gray mountains some of them
a mile high. Its harbour is excellent, and the town has many modern
buildings. Because of its importance in the trade of Asia Minor, Smyrna
is a centre of political and commercial interests and the scene of fierce
competition among the various nationalities. Among its people there are
more Greeks than Turks.
While travelling in Syria I saw many openings for American goods. The
farming there is after the methods of centuries ago, and our ploughs,
reapers, and other agricultural machines might be sold. I understand that
the more progressive of the native landlords are ready to buy. One man,
who owns more than a thousand acres of rich grainland on the high plateau
between the two ranges of the Lebanon Mountains, has offered 75 per cent.
of the profits to any American company that will cultivate it for two
or three years, and will bring in American machinery. The landlord also
agrees, upon the termination of the lease, to pay for the machinery at
the regular price.
Some of the Syrian farmers are now using American threshers and reapers,
and some are bringing in American ploughs. The first thresher imported
was upon the advice of our consul general at Beirut. He is a Dakota man,
who understands the farming conditions in the Northwest. He tells me
that the possibilities of raising grain in this part of the world are
remarkable, and that dry farming might be practised in many localities
which now go to waste. He thinks that old Mesopotamia can be reclaimed
by irrigation and a new Egypt created there. He says that as political
conditions improve there will be many opportunities for commerce and
industry, and that American capital should take advantage of the
situation.
Syria and Asia Minor are now raising a great deal of silk, which is sent
to France and shipped from there to the United States. The American
residents tell me that there is no reason why we should not buy this
raw silk direct, thus saving the Frenchman’s profits and the double
transportation charges. I saw mulberry orchards everywhere during my
travels in Syria. The plains about Beirut are covered with them, and
they are to be found on both sides of the Lebanon Mountains. When the
trees have grown to the height of a man’s head, they are cut back. Green
leaves from the new sprouts furnish food for millions of silkworms. In
coming from Damascus I saw women and children picking the leaves to feed
to the worms, carrying them to sheds erected for the purpose. Raising
the silkworms is largely in the hands of the women, who take care of the
trees and sell the cocoons. From the Lebanon mountain regions every year
men, specially appointed, go to France to get the silkworm eggs. For
some reason those laid in the Syrian mountains do not produce well.
[Illustration: The first steel bridge across the River Jordan was named
in honour of General Allenby. Under the British régime motor launches ply
along this most sacred stream in the world]
[Illustration: Jerusalem now has a speed law, and its road signs are
printed in the three official languages—English, Hebrew, and Arabic—and
French besides]
“He who plants an olive tree lays up riches for his children’s children.”
This saying expresses a current belief throughout the Levant. Olives are
the money crop of a great part of Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. Many
of the trees are hundreds of years old, and some of them were planted
before Columbus discovered America. I am told of an orchard near Tripoli,
in Syria, which the deeds show was established about five hundred years
ago, and the trees of which are still bearing. All the way from Jerusalem
to the Sea of Galilee I saw olive trees that looked old enough to have
been planted by Jacob. Some of gigantic size were hollow and had been
filled with stones to aid in their support.
Many of the colonists of the Holy Land have set out new orchards, and the
Americans who live at Haifa have trees bearing fruit every year. I am
told that the crop is very profitable, and that under reduced taxation
many more trees will be planted. The fruit is raised for the oil. A ton
of olives yields about seventy gallons of oil. Asia Minor already leads
the world in its production of olive oil, producing about two or three
hundred thousand more barrels per annum than either Spain or Italy.
Another important crop of the region about Smyrna is the fig, which grows
better here than in almost any other part of the globe. More than three
hundred thousand camel-loads are raised in some years, and they are
shipped all over the world. The trees begin to bear in their sixth year,
and are at their best ten years after planting. The figs ripen about the
first of August, and when fully matured fall to the ground. They are
dried in the sun, then packed in bags for the market.
A great many of these figs go to America, where you will find them in all
the fruit and grocery stores. Our part of the crop is carefully packed,
there being several American firms here which do nothing else. The figs
are first sorted according to the thickness of the skin and size of the
fruit. The poorest are thrown away or used for distilling purposes, and
the best are put up for export in boxes and jars. The price here varies
from two to eight cents a pound, the very finest of the figs bringing the
latter figure.
A great deal of the packing is done in the city of Smyrna to which the
fruit is brought in from all parts of the country. Some of it comes on
the railways, on cars especially built for the traffic, and some is
carried on camels. As it is important that the fruit be not bruised, that
carried in the cars is laid upon shelves built one above the other, so
that there is no danger of the figs being crushed or bruised.