Contents
Ephesus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient City of Anatolia
(Efes)
Ephesus (Hittite Apasa; Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος; Turkish Efes) was a city of ancient Anatolia. During the period known as Classical Greece it was located in Ionia, where the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes) flows into the Aegean Sea. It belonged to the Ionian League.
Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia cited in the Book of Revelation.[1] The Gospel of John might have been written here.[2] It is also the site of a large gladiator graveyard.
The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), which was destroyed by the Goths in 263. The emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected a new public bath. The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614. The importance of the city as a commercial centre declined as the harbour slowly filled with silt from the river.
Today's archaeological site lies 3 kilometers south of the Selçuk district of İzmir Province, Turkey. The ruins of Ephesus are a favorite international and local tourist attraction, partly owing to their easy accessibility from Adnan Menderes Airport and via the port of Kuşadası.
History
Neolithic age
The area surrounding Ephesus was already inhabited during the Neolithic Age (about 6000 BC) as was revealed by the excavations at the nearby hoyuk (artificial mounds known as tells) of Arvalya and Cukurici.[3]
Bronze age
Excavations in recent years have unearthed settlements from the early Bronze Age at the Ayasuluk Hill. In 1954 a burial ground from the Mycenaean era (1500-1400 BC) with ceramic pots was discovered close to the ruins of the basilica of St. John. [4] This was the period of the Mycenaean Expansion when the Achaioi (as they were called by Homer) settled in Ahhiyawa during the 14th and the 13th centuries BC. Scholars believe that Ephesus was founded on the settlement of Apasa (or Abasa), a Bronze Age-city noted in 14th century BC Hittite sources as in the land of Ahhiyawa. [5]
Dark age
The city of Ephesus itself was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BC on the Ayasuluk Hill, three kilometers from the center of antique Ephesus (as attested by excavations at the Seljuk castle during the 1990s). The mythical founder of the city was a prince of Athens named Androklos, who had to leave his country after the death of his father, king Kadros. According to legend, he founded Ephesus on the place where the oracle of Delphi became reality ("A fish and a boar will show you the way"). Androklos drove away most of the native Carian and Lelegian inhabitants of the city and united his people with the remainder. He was a successful warrior and, as king, he was able to join the twelve cities of Ionia together into the Ionian League. During his reign the city began to prosper. He died in a battle against the Carians when he came to the aid of Priene, another city of the Ionian League. [6] Androklos and his dog are depicted on the Hadrian temple frieze, dating from the second century. Later, Greek historians such as Pausanias, Strabo and the poet Kallinos, and the historian Herodotos however reassigned the city's mythological foundation to Ephos, queen of the Amazons.
The Greek goddess Artemis and the great Anatolian goddess Kybele were identified together as Artemis of Ephesus. The many-breasted "Lady of Ephesus", identified with Artemis, was venerated in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the largest building of the ancient world according to Pausanias (4.31.8). Pausanius mentions that the temple was built by Ephesus, son of the river god Caystrus. [7] before the arrival of the Ionians. Of this structure, scarcely a trace remains.
Archaic period
About 650 BC Ephesus was attacked by Cimmerians who razed the city, including the temple of Artemis. A few small Cimmerian artifacts can be seen at the archaeological museum of Ephese.
When the Cimmerians had been driven away, the city was ruled by a series of tyrants. After a revolt by the people, Ephesus was ruled by a council called the Kuretes. The city prospered again, producing a number of important historical figures, such as the iambic poets Callinus [8] and the satirist Hipponax, the philosopher Heraclitus, the great painter Parrhasius and later the grammarian Zenodotos, the physicians Soranus and Rufus.
About 560 BC Ephesus was conquered by the Lydians under the mighty king Croesus. He treated the inhabitants with respect, despite ruling harshly, and even became the main contributor to the reconstruction of the temple of Artemis.[9] His signature has been found on the base of one of the columns of the temple (now on display in the British Museum). Croesus made the populations of the different settlements around Ephesus regroup (synoikismos) in the vicinity of the Temple of Artemis, enlarging the city.
Later in the same century, the Lydians under Croesus invaded Persia. The Ionians refused a peace offer from Cyrus the Great, siding with the Lydians instead. After the Persians defeated Croesus the Ionians offered to make peace but Cyrus insisted that they surrender and become part of the empire.[10] They were defeated by the Persian army commander Harpagos in 547 BC. The Persians then incorporated the Greek cities of Asia Minor into the Achaemenid Empire. Those cities were then ruled by satraps.
Classical period
Ephesus continued to prosper. But when taxes continued to be raised under Cambyses II and Darius, the Ephesians participated in the Ionian Revolt against Persian rule in the Battle of Ephesus (498 BC), an event which instigated the Greco-Persian wars. In 479 BC, the Ionians, together with Athens and Sparta, were able to oust the Persians from Anatolia. In 478 BC, the Ionian cities entered with Athens and Sparta the Delian League against the Persians. Ephesus did not contribute ships, but only participated with financial support by offering the treasure of Apollo to the goddess Athena, protector of Athens.
During the Peloponnesian War, Ephesus was first allied to Athens[citation needed] but sided in a later phase, called the Decelean War, or the Ionian War with Sparta, which also had received the support of the Persians. As a result, the rule over the kingdoms of Anatolia was ceded again to Persia.
These wars didn't affect much the daily life in Ephesus. In those times, Ephesus was surprisingly modern in their social relations. They allowed strangers to integrate. Education was much valued. Through the cult of Artemis, the city also became a bastion of women's rights. Ephesus even had its female artists. In later times Pliny mentions having seen at Ephesus a representation of the goddess Diana by Timarata, the daughter of a painter.
In 356 BC the temple of Artemis was burnt down, according to legend, by a lunatic called Herostratus. By coincidence, this was the night that Alexander the Great was born. The inhabitants of Ephesus started at once with the restoration and even planning a larger and grander temple.
Hellenistic period
When Alexander the Great defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BC, the Greek cities of Asia Minor were liberated. The pro-Persian tyrant Syrpax and his family were stoned to death and Alexander was greeted warmly in Ephesus when he entered it in triumph. When he saw that the temple of Artemis was not yet finished, he proposed to finance the temple and have his name as an inscription of the front. But the inhabitants of Ephesus refused, claiming that it was not fitting for a god to build a temple for another god. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Ephesus came under the rule of Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals, in 290 BC.
As the river Cayster was silting up the harbour, the resulting marshes were the cause of malaria and many deaths among the inhabitants. The people of Ephesus were forced to move to a new settlement 2 kilometers further on, when the king flooded the old city by blocking the sewers. [11] This settlement was called after the king's second wife Arsinoe II of Egypt. After Lysimachus had destroyed the nearby cities of Lebedos and Colophon in 292 BC, he relocated their inhabitants to the new city. The architectural layout of the city would remain unchanged for the next 500 years.
Ephesus revolted after the treacherous death of Agathocles, giving the Syrian king Seleucus I Nicator an opportunity for removing and killing Lysimachus, his last rival, at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC. After the death of Lysimachos the town took again the name of Ephesus.