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  • The Christian Martyrs (1909)
  • Short | Drama, Short
Primary photo for The Christian Martyrs
The Christian Martyrs (1909)
Short | Drama, Short
A romantic tragedy of early Rome, the story woven around the life of the Empress Faustina, the mother of Nero. She was a corrupt and voluptuous queen, who knew no law but to break it, obeyed no will except her own, and at the period of her...See moreA romantic tragedy of early Rome, the story woven around the life of the Empress Faustina, the mother of Nero. She was a corrupt and voluptuous queen, who knew no law but to break it, obeyed no will except her own, and at the period of her life when occur the scenes of our present picture, she was thirty-five years of age, and madly infatuated with a handsome Roman soldier, Flavian Gato. He was a general in the Queen's service, and our opening scene shows Faustina in her magnificent pleasure craft, drifting down the Tiber to meet her lover upon his return from the wars. Flavian has prepared a feast for the Empress, and we are present at the revels, a faithful reproduction of life in Rome nearly two thousand years ago. After Faustina's departure, Flavian regales his Roman friends with a description of his battles. A slave girl, Naodamia, enters with a flagon of wine, and Flavian sees her for the first time; he becomes enamored of the girl's beauty and innocence, dismisses his followers, and orders the girl to entertain him. The impetuous Roman is used to having his own way with both men and women, and when Naodamia pleads to be gone, the infatuated soldier madly declares his love. "No, no, my lord, you cannot and must not love me, for see I am a Christian," and she holds up a cross, the emblem of her faith, before his astonished eyes. It is well known throughout Rome that the Empress hates Christians and never fails to destroy them wherever found. Flavian does not betray the girl's confidence by denouncing her, but bids her go. Cupid, however, played the same pranks in these times as he does today. Flavian cannot dismiss the girl from his mind. They meet again, but she is adamant: "Become a Christian; believe in the true God and His Holy Sacrament of Marriage and I will become thy wife as well as thy slave; coerce me and I will destroy my body, that my soul can live purer hereafter." Flavian listens to her pleadings and consents to accept her faith. Mantua, a jester and confidant of Faustina, overhears the compact, and rushing into the Queen's retiring room, gleefully tells of the interview. The Queen accompanies him to a rest hall within Flavian's grounds, and there she sees her lover holding the Christian girl in his arms. Mad with jealous fury, she is about to order their arrest, when Mantua makes a discovery, it is a small, white wooden cross, that has become unfastened from Naodamia's girdle and fallen to the ground. "See, your Majesty, she is lion food, for she is a hated Christian!" The Queen laughs with savage joy at the vengeful project this information offers. "But stop! He, too, must be compromised. He is strong with the Senators. I must know that he, too, belongs to the cursed sect." Disguised, she follows the Christians to an underworld church beneath the streets of Rome and accompanied by her soldiers she arrests Flavian and Naodamia at the Christian altar. Flavian pleads to be allowed to marry the slave girl. The Empress feigns consent and offers Flavian a glass of wine to show that she forgives him, but the wine is drugged, and as the soldier falls unconscious at her feet she proceeds to put into execution a plan of vengeance that only such a mind as hers could have conceived. She calls the populace together at the circus maximus and when the crowd has assembled she announces her program, sports of the arena, then twenty Christians fed to the lions. Amongst the martyrs waits Naodamia, a note left by Faustina for Flavian reads, "When you awake from the drug I gave you the Christian slave you dared to love will be no more. Come to the lion's feast if you dare." The horror-stricken Flavian awakes, reads, and rushing to his stables secures a steed and gallops madly to the circus, pushes his way through the gaping crowd to Faustina's side. We have seen the poor girl dragged to the lion's barred door, seen her kneel in supplication. Flavian looks over the box rail and finds he is too late to save the woman he loves, and maddened by her awful fate, draws his sword and before her attendants can prevent he has revenged Naodamia. As the guards of the Empress clutch at his robe he leaps to the arena below and finds death beside his lost love. Written by Moving Picture World synopsis See less
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Director
Otis Turner
Writers
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (story) | Otis Turner (scenario)
Producer
William Nicholas Selig
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Status
Edit Released
Updated Dec 23, 1909
Release date
Dec 23, 1909 (United States)

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