From "Legends of the Fortress" – "Hisarya – a town-legend"

The Romans were building the fortress 20 years – the legend says – as long as the slaves had to work for the rulers without payment. Few of them, however, lived till the end of their service.

Hundreds of Roman soldiers were sent to the Thracian villages in order to find and bring all men over 20 years who are fit for physical work. When they came back a swarm of slaves covered the land near the healing waters. It was hard for a man to imagine how this rabble, staying back to back will begin and finish such an enormous structure. But the ones who supervised the building have thought over everything. At each hundred of slaves there was one supervisor and one craftsman. The supervisors were chosen among the fiercest soldiers thirsty for revenge, who were not able to become chiefs in the legions. Their rights were unlimited and they could take away slave’s life for a little mistake. The craftsmen were more good-hearted, because they themselves were Thracians, who had reached the summit of the masonry as builders of many fortresses.

Everything was done by hand. The only help came from the hammer, iron bars and the pulley, but they were powerless as well before the enormous stones, which had to be brought to the ridge of the walls. Immense mass of lime was poured in endless pits, in order to be slaked, and the bricks, big and heavy, were taken up on their backs. The hard work was killing the slaves: some of them were going blind by the boiling lime, others died under the stones, which pressed them, and others were writhing under the whips of the supervisors. They died like flies – many and unknown. Their groans were tearing the hearts of the people near them from morning until evening, but no one could help them. The sick, the weak and the wounded were falling and dying, they could not be used anyhow, and their places were taken immediately by new and young Thracians which received the scanty food.

The walls were finished. The free people came in the fortress, they were astonished by its hardness and by the knack of the builders, but they did not know how many human lives were buried here. At night they could hear some groans, which were coming from the walls like echo. In the mornings they wondered why the walls were covered with dew and crystal clear squirts were trickling down their bodies. The groans were these of the slaves who died during the building of the structure and the drops on the walls – the tears, shed by great number of mothers for their children, taken with force by the enslaver and thrown without a grave near the fortress.

When Makesat decided to get married – this is the beginning of another legend – according to an old Thracian custom he had to ask for his father’s blessing, or the happiness will not come to his family. But what was he to do, because he has never seen his father, nor did he know where he is. He had heard from his mother that he was at a big structure in Thracian, beyond Hebros River and nothing more. And as there was no other way out, his mother has to swallow her bitter tears and to give up the most precious thing in her life for a second time.

“Your father’s name is Beyti! You will not be able to recognize him, because I do not know how much he has changed and how does he look like now. Just remember his name and also: Take this flower, its name is Sevda. If you have to prove that you are his son, show it to him. He will remember that when we separated I gave him the same flower. Go, my son and take care of yourself”.

Makesat descended the Rhodope Mountain, passed unseen through the |Hebros River and went north. He went on and on and asked where a big structure is being built. That is how he reached Auguste with the warm springs. But how was he to find his father in this sea of slaves, who are identically humpbacked and almost killed by the work? He stopped and asked for Beyti from Rhodope Mountain here and there. Nobody knew anything. Only one big and bent Thracian with long and strong hands walked by the boy, sat with him here and there and followed him again. In the end the old slave stood on his way and asked:

“How will you recognize your father, if you meet him?”

“I cannot recognize him, because I have not been born when he was abducted by the Romans…”

“So?...” the slave asked again.

“I bring a flower with me, its name is Sevda, and he will believe me when he sees it. My mother has given him such a flower when they separated…”

The young Thracian went on his way, and the other man stopped following him. He sat by a tree, took his head with his big hands and whispered silently:

“Everything is already clear. This is my son. But why did I create him so strong and handsome if he will also be a slave? Why is he to marry if his happiness of the marriage will last so little? What shall I do? Shall I tell him the truth or shall I remain silent?”

 Two days Makesat walked around the fortress and asked for his father, and behind him walked his father and cried like a child, without being seen by the supervisors. On the third day Beyti met the morning at the top of the new tower in order to fix the big stones. The sun has already risen. Suddenly he saw his son from the high place: he walked with a sack on his shoulder and asked for him. At that moment, Beyti has picked a big stone, but suddenly he felt sick. When he recovered himself instead of fixing the stone he threw it upon his son. Sinister scream and disarranged running of the slaves – that was everything. What happened later with the father-slave – the legend says nothing. But his last words were: “Better dead than a Roman slave!”

The stalk of the Makesat’s flower by a miracle fell in one of the corners of the fortress and took roots among the bricks and mortar. When it bloomed in the spring, the slaves considered it an omen for near freedom.