Ephesus 1

Ephesus

These materials on the history and geography general suzerainty over the city. He did, howev- of Ephesus were compiled from the following er, present many columns and some golden sources: cows for a new and splendid rebuilding of the Artemiseum (Temple of Artemis). At this time, Unger, Merrill F., Bible Dictionary according to Strabo, the Ephesians began to live Encyclopedia Britannica in the plain; and to this period, too, should be Bean, G. E., "Aegean Turkey: An Archaeolog- allotted the redrafting of the laws, said to have ical Guide" been the work of an Athenian, Aristarchus. Conybeare and Howson, "The Life and Epis- Ephesus soon submitted to Cyrus of Persia. Ear- tles of St. Paul" ly in the Ionian revolt (499-493 BC) against the Ephesus is the most important Greek city in Io- Persians, Ephesus served as a base for an Ionian nian Asia Minor; its ruins lie near the modern attack on Sardis; but it is not mentioned again village of Selcuk in western Turkey (near the until 494, when the Ephesians massacred the city of Izmir). Chiot survivors of the Battle of Lade. The mas- sacre may have occurred because Ephesus was In Roman times it was situated on the northern a commercial rival of the chief rebels, Chios and slopes of the hills Coressus and Pion and south Miletus. Ephesus maintained friendly relations of the Cayster River, the silt from which has with Persia for about 50 years: in 478 Xerxes, since formed a fertile plain but has caused the returning from his failure in Greece, honored coastline to move ever farther west. The Tem- Artemis of Ephesus, although he sacked other ple of Artemis, or Diana, to which Ephesus Ionian shrines, and left his children for safety in owed much of its fame and which seems to Ephesus; and Themistocles landed there in the mark the site of the classical Greek city, was 460s on his flight to Persia. But after 454 Ephe- probably on the seaboard when it was founded sus appears as a regular tributary of Athens. (about 600 BC), one mile east by northeast of Great Ephesians up to this time had been Calli- Pion (modern Panayir Da{g hacek}). In Roman nus, the earliest Greek elegist (mid-7th century times a sea channel was maintained with diffi- BC), the satirist Hipponax, and the famous phi- culty to a harbor well west of Pion. By late By- losopher Heracleitus, one of the Basilids. zantine times this channel had become useless, and the coast by the mid-20th century was Ephesus shared in a general revolt of 412 BC three miles farther west. Ephesus commanded against Athens, siding with Sparta in the Second the west end of one great trade route into Asia, Peloponnesian War, and remained an effective that along the Cayster valley, and had easy ally of Sparta down to the end of the war. access to the other two, along the Hermus (Ge- Threatened by Persia after 403, Ephesus served diz) and the Maeander (Büyükmenderes) riv- in 396 as the headquarters of King Agesilaus of ers. Sparta. In 394 the Ephesians deserted to Con- on's anti-Spartan maritime league, but by 387 H i s t o r y . the city was again in Spartan hands and was Ephesus enters history in the mid-7th century handed by Antalcidas to Persia. There followed BC, when it was attacked by the Cimmerians. the pro-Persian tyranny of Syrphax and his fam- Unlike its neighbor, Magnesia, it survived the ily, who were stoned to death in 333 on Alexan- attacks. For part of the early 6th century the der the Great's taking the city. city was under tyrants. Though allied by mar- After 50 years of fluctuating fortune, Ephesus riage to the kings of Lydia, its people could not was conquered by the Macedonian general Ly- hold back the Lydian Croesus, who asserted a simachus and resettled around Coressus and Pion (286-281 BC). Lysimachus introduced co-

Ephesus 2

lonists from Lebedus and Colophon and re- The Goths destroyed both city and temple in AD named the city after his wife, Arsinoo--a name 262, and neither ever recovered its former soon dropped. This was the beginning of Ephe- splendour. The emperor Constantine, however, sus' Hellenistic prosperity. It became conspi- erected a new public bath, and Arcadius rebuilt cuous for the abundance of its coinage. at a higher level the street from the theatre to After the defeat of Antiochus the Great, king of the harbor, named after him, the Arkadiane. A Syria, by the Romans in 189 BC, Ephesus was general council of the church, held at Ephesus handed over by the conquerors to the king of in 431 in the great double church of St. Mary, Pergamum. Attalus III of Pergamum be- condemned Nestorius and justified the cult of queathed Ephesus with the rest of his posses- the Virgin as Theotokos (Mother of God). A few sions to the Roman people (133 BC). Thence- years later, according to legend, the Seven Slee- forth, Ephesus remained subject to Rome, ex- pers of Ephesus (a group of 3rd-century Chris- cept for a brief time beginning in 88 BC, when, tian martyrs) were miraculously raised from at the instigation of Mithridates the Great of the dead. They too became the object of a fam- Pontus, the cities of Asia Minor revolted and ous cult. The emperor Justinian built the magni- killed their Roman residents. ficent basilica of St. John in the 6th century. By the early Middle Ages, the city was no longer The Ephesians even killed those Romans who useful as a port and fell into decline; late Byzan- had fled for refuge to the Artemiseum; notwith- tine Ephesus, conquered by the Seljuqs in 1090, standing which they returned in 86 BC to their was merely a small town. After brief splendour former masters. Their claim, preserved on an in the 14th century, even this was deserted, and extant inscription, that in admitting Mithridates the true site of the Artemiseum remained un- they had merely yielded to superior force was suspected until 1869. rudely brushed aside by Sulla, who inflicted a very heavy fine. Although it twice chose the los- Excavations and extant remains. ing side in the Roman civil wars and although it J.T. Wood, working at Ephesus for the British was stoutly opposed by Pergamum and Smyrna, Museum between 1863 and 1874, excavated Ephesus became under Augustus the first city of the odeum and theatre. In May 1869 he struck a the Roman province of Asia. The geographer corner of the Artemiseum. His excavation ex- Strabo wrote of its importance as a commercial posed to view not only the scanty remains of centre in the 1st century BC. The triumphal the latest edifice (built after 350 BC) but the arch of 3 BC and the aqueduct of AD 4-14 in- platform below it of an earlier temple of iden- itiated that long series of public buildings, or- tical size and plan subsequently found to be namental and useful, that make Ephesus the that of the 6th century BC, to which Croesus most impressive example in Greek lands of a contributed. The sculptured fragments of both city of imperial times. temples were sent to the British Museum. In Meanwhile the Christian Church began to win 1904 D.G. Hogarth, heading another mission converts. A famous protest in the theatre from the museum, examined the earlier plat- against the teachings of St. Paul, described in form and found beneath its centre the remains Acts 19, is dated about AD 57. According to lo- of three yet older structures. In its earliest cal belief Ephesus was the last home of the Vir- known phase the temple was apparently a small gin, who was lodged near the city by St. John platform of green schist, containing a sealed and died there. The tradition that St. Luke also deposit of primitive coins and other objects. died there seems to be less strongly supported. These date from c. 600 BC. Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia It is impossible to assign the various architects to which the Revelation to John was addressed. named by ancient authors to the respective phases of the temple. At best, Chersiphron and

Ephesus 3

Metagenes can be tentatively assigned to the agora (marketplace), surrounded by stoas Temple of Croesus, Chirocrates or Dinocrates to (sheltered promenades), dating from the time that of the 4th century. There had perhaps been of Severus; the library of Celsus, also Trajanic some repairs toward 400 BC, associated with and well known because of its facade; and an the architects Paeonius and Demetrius and with immense array of baths and gymnasiums. the prize-winning dedicatory hymn of the fam- All these buildings are to the west of Pion. On ous musician Timotheus. its north side is the stadium and north of this The Artemiseum passed rapidly through three the gymnasium of Publius Vedius Antoninus, phases before c. 550 BC. The Temple of Croesus relatively small but very complete and with a (the fourth phase) was remarkable for its great notable chapel for the cult of Antoninus Pius. size (it was more than 300 feet long and 150 South of Pion were the odeum--another gift of feet wide), for the carved figures around the Vedius--a roofed semicircular theatre to hold lower drums of its columns (columnae caela- 1,400 persons; also a series of fountains and tae), and for the smaller but elaborate figured aqueducts, notably the aqueduct of Gaius Sexti- friezes along its roof gutter (sima). Croesus' lius Pollio, which crossed the valley from Cores- temple seems to have been burned down in 356 sus. BC. The new temple built shortly afterward co- Of the early Byzantine city, besides the stretch pied the old in its columnae caelatae, one of of curtain wall on Panajir Dag, there remain the which was by Scopas; but the new sima, instead ruined church of the Seven Sleepers to its east of small, crowded figures, had a more conven- and the long double basilica of the Virgin, the tional, if vigorous, rinceau ornament. The cella scene of the council, to its west. This basilica contained, among other great works, the Ama- was rebuilt several times; it was largely around zons of Polyclitus, Phidias, and Cresilas. this building, between the great gymnasiums Lysimachean Ephesus has been continuously and the stadium of the classical city, that the excavated since 1894 by the Austrian Archaeo- early Byzantine Ephesians gathered. logical Institute, but so solid and extensive is the Roman town that by the early 1960s the Austrians had rarely penetrated to Hellenistic Grace Notes is a ministry of Austin Bible levels. Church, Austin, Texas http://www.austinbiblechurch.com On the hill of Ayasoluk (Hagios Theologos) is Justinian's church of St. John the Theologian, For an index of topics, or information about built around a shrine variously associated in the regular Bible studies, write to: early Middle Ages with the death or bodily as- Warren Doud sumption of St. John. The church, uncovered Grace Notes since 1922, is a noble structure but badly res- 1705 Aggie Lane tored. On the hill there is also a beautiful Seljuq Austin, Texas 78757 mosque dedicated in 1375. E-Mail: [email protected] The public buildings of the city are arranged in URL: http://www.gracenotes.info a rectangular street pattern going back to Hel- There is no charge for Grace Notes materials. lenistic days. They include the theatre, capable The work is supported by Christians who pray of seating nearly 25,000 spectators and com- for the ministry and share in the expenses. pleted in its present form under Trajan; the