It is my intention to occasionally
post a few bits and pieces of history. Today seemed like a good day to start,
because several disparate but fascinating events have occurred on the
twenty-first day of the seventh month.
Here are a few of them:
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| "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians" really set Herostratus on fire for fame... |
356 B.C.—Destruction of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus
Touted by Antipater as one of
the “Seven Sights of the World” the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the
great and beautiful feats of architecture that Greek culture produced.
Herodotus says that Croesus, of “rich as” fame, partially funded its
construction. Like most of the Seven Wonders, this one was destroyed. A man
named Herostratus deliberately set it afire, so that through his arson his name
would endure forever. In English, he gave us the phrase “herostratic fame”
which is used for a person who deliberately did something heinous out of a desire for
pure notoriety. Plutarch tells in his “Life of Alexander (the Great)”, somewhat
wryly, that it burned down because Artemis was absent assisting in the birth of
that great ruler. Which would, of course, make the 21st the birthday
of Alexander as well.
It was rebuilt by the Ephesians and would later serve again as one of the
great attractions of that city. On account of it, Paul was nearly killed by a
mob in Acts XIX, when Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, stirred up
a tumult.
A.D. 1796—Death
of Robert Burns
Robert Burns (1759-1796) has
been called one of the greatest of Scotland’s sons. He was a poet, writing in
both Scots dialect and English. His works include “The Braes o’ Killiecrankie,”
“Scots Wha Hae,” and of course, “Auld Lang Syne.” Talented and handsome, he was
also a dissolute rake whose philandering lifestyle likely contributed to his
early death at thirty-seven.
A.D. 1861—Battle
of First Manassas
In the rural countryside of
Virginia on a hot day 154 years ago, the United States dissolved and began the
bloodiest conflict ever waged on this continent. Irvin McDowell led about 18,000 Union troops
over Bull Run to collide with the combined forces of Confederates Joseph Johnston
and P.G.T. Beauregard. Here Thomas Jackson and his men gained their famed
sobriquet of “Stonewall” from General Bee, who called to his men, “Look at
Jackson! There he stands like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” Here
also Jackson exhorted the men of the Fourth Virginia Regiment, “When you
charge, yell like furies!” birthing the famed Rebel Yell. Manassas was a
Confederate victory, and signaled that the war would be anything but the quick
contest the spectator politicians from Washington D.C. had anticipated. It
would drag on for another four years until 1865.
A.D. 1925—Scopes
Trial Concludes
A mere ninety years ago today, substitute
teacher John Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in the public
schools and fined $100, a fair sum in those days. The trial was far more of a
media event than a pure trial, however. Scopes was unsure he had ever actually
taught evolution, but plead guilty to provide a test case for the ACLU. Both
sides brought in big names to plead their case: the Fundamentalists, three-time
presidential candidate and former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan.
The ACLU brought in Clarence Darrow, a noted agnostic and the first lawyer to
ever successfully use an “insanity plea” to get his clients out of a murder
charge (Leopold-Loeb, 1924). Tiny Dayton, Tennessee was overrun with
journalists and spectators; it was also the first trial to be broadcast on
radio. While the Fundamentalists won that day in 1925, it was later overturned
on a technicality and they were largely embarrassed by Darrow’s wit and greater
knowledge. In retrospect, it marked the withdrawal in a great part of the
religious fundamentalists from public life, until the Culture Wars began in the
70’s.
Destruction of a wonder, the death of a profligate poet, a battle that
birthed a legend, and the beginning of the end for the public school system.
And God put them all on the same day. Ain’t history grand?
