According to the old legends, Ephesus was founded by the female warriors known as the Amazons. The name of the city is thought to have been derived from "APASAS", the name of a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards, but changed its location several times in the course of its long history in accordance with habits and requirements. Carians and Lelegians are to be have been among the city's first inhabitants. Ionian migrations are said to have begun in around 1200 B.C. According to legend, the city was founded for the second time by Androclus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, on the shore at the point where the CAYSTER (Kucuk Menderes) empties into the sea, a location to which they had been guided by a fish and a wild boar on the advice of the soothsayers. The Ionian cities that grew up in the wake of the Ionian migrations joined in a confederacy under the leadership of Ephesus. The region was devastated during the Cimmerian invasion at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. Under the rule of the Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the

Mediterranean world. The defeat of the Lydian King Croesus by Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the way for the extension of Persian hegemony over the whole of the Aegean coastal region. At the beginning of the 5th century, when the Ionian cities rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others, thus escaping destruction.

 

According to the old legends, Ephesus was founded by the female warriors known as the Amazons. The name of the city is thought to have been derived from "APASAS", the name of a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards, but changed its location several times in the course of its long history in accordance with habits and requirements. Carians and Lelegians are to be have been among the city's first inhabitants. Ionian migrations are said to have begun in around 1200 B.C. According to legend, the city was founded for the second time by Androclus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, on the shore at the point where the CAYSTER (Kucuk Menderes) empties into the sea, a location to which they had been guided by a fish and a wild boar on the advice of the soothsayers. The Ionian cities that grew up in the wake of the Ionian migrations joined in a confederacy under the leadership of Ephesus. The region was devastated during the Cimmerian invasion at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. Under the rule of the Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world.

The defeat of the Lydian King Croesus by Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the way for the extension of Persian hegemony over the whole of the Aegean coastal region. At the beginning of the 5th century, when the Ionian cities rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others, thus escaping destruction.

 

According to the old legends, Ephesus was founded by the female warriors known as the Amazons. The name of the city is thought to have been derived from "APASAS", the name of a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards, but changed its location several times in the course of its long history in accordance with habits and requirements. Carians and Lelegians are to be have been among the city's first inhabitants. Ionian migrations are said to have begun in around 1200 B.C. According to legend, the city was founded for the second time by Androclus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, on the shore at the point where the CAYSTER (Kucuk Menderes) empties into the sea, a location to which they had been guided by a fish and a wild boar on the advice of the soothsayers. The Ionian cities that grew up in the wake of the Ionian migrations joined in a confederacy under the leadership of Ephesus. The region was devastated during the Cimmerian invasion at the beginning of the 7th century B.C.

Under the rule of the Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world. The defeat of the Lydian King Croesus by Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the way for the extension of Persian hegemony over the whole of the Aegean coastal region. At the beginning of the 5th century, when the Ionian cities rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others, thus escaping destruction.

Ephesus remained under Persian rule until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 334 B.C., when it entered upon a fifty year period of peace and tranquillity. Lysimachus, who had been one of the twelve generals of Alexander the Great and became ruler of the region on Alexander's death, decided to embark upon the development of the city, which he called Arsineia after his wife Arsinoe. He constructed a new harbour and built defence walls on the slopes of the Panayır and Bulbul Mts., moving the whole city 2.5 km to the south-west. Realising, however, that the Ephesians were unwilling to leave their old city, he had the whole sewage system blocked up during a great storm, making the houses uninhabitable and forcing the inhabitants to move. In 281 B.C. the city was re-founded under the old name of Ephesus and became one of the most important of the commercial ports in the Mediterranean

 

In 129 B.C. the Romans took advantage of the terms of the will left by Attalos, King of Pergamon, by which they were bequathed his kingdom, to incorporate the whole region into the Roman Empire as the province of Asia. Ancient sources show that at this time the city had a population of 200,000. In the 1st century B.C. the heavy taxes imposed by the Roman government led the population to embrace Mithridates as their savior and to support him in his mutiny against Roman authority and in 88 B.C. a massacre was carried out of all the Latin speaking inhabitants of the city, which was then stormed and sacked by a Roman army under Sulla, It was from the reign of Augustus onwards that the buildings we admire today were constructed. According to documentary sources, the city suffered severe damage in an earthquake in 17 A.D. After that, however, Ephesus became a very important centre of trade and commerce. The historian Aristio describes Ephesus as being recognised by all the inhabitants of the region as the most important trading centre in Asia. It was also the leading political

and intellectual centre, with the second school of philosophy in the Aegean. From the 1st century onwards, Ephesus was visited by Christian disciples attempting to spread the Christian belief in a single God and thus forced to seek refuge from Roman persecution. Besides enjoying a privileged position between East and West coupled with an exceptionally fine climate, the city owed its importance to its being the centre of the cult of Artemis.

For the Christians, the city, with its highly advanced way of life, its high standard of living, the variety of its demographic composition and its firmly rooted polytheistic culture, must have presented itself as an ideal pilot region... From written sources we learn that
St Paul remained in the city for three years from 65 to 68, and that it was here that he preached his famous sermons calling upon the hearers to embrace the faith in. one God. He taught that God had no need of a house made with human hands and that he was present in all places at all times. This was all greatly resented by the craftsmen who had amassed great wealth from their production of statues of Artemis in gold, silver or other materials. A silversmith by the name of Demetrius stirred up the people and led a crowd of thousands of Ephesians to the theatre, where they booed and stoned Paul and his two colleagues, chanting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" So turbulent was the crowd that Paul and his companions escaped only with great difficulty. From his Epistles to the communities it would appear that Paul spent some time as a prisoner in Ephesus.

 

Legend has it that St John the Evangelist came to Ephesus with the Virgin Mary in his care. Some also say that it was here that he wrote his Gospel and was finally buried. In 269 Ephesus and the surrounding country was devastated by the Goths. At that time there was still a temple in which the cult of Artemis was practised. In 381, by order of the Emperor Theodosius, the temple was closed down, and in the following centuries it lay completely abandoned, serving as a quarry for building materials.

The situation of the city, which had given it its privileged geographical position, was also the cause of its decline and fall. The prosperity of the city had been based on its possession of a sheltered natural harbour, but by the Roman period ships reached the harbour to the west of Mt Pion 1.5 km from the
Temple of Artemis through a very narrow and difficult channel. The cause of this was the Meander (Cayster) River, which emptied into the Aegean a little to the west of the city of Ephesus, where it created a delta formed by the alluvium carried down by the river over thousands of years. By the late Byzantine era the channel had been so silted up as to be no longer usable. The sea gradually receded farther and farther, while the marshy lands around the harbour gave rise to a number of diseases, such as malaria. The new outlook that had arisen with the spread of Christianity led to the gradual abandonment of all buildings bearing witness to the existence of polytheistic cults and the construction in their place of Christian churches. In the year 431 the third Ecumenical council took place in Ephesus.

Emperor Theodosius convoked another council in
Ephesus in 449, which came to be known as the "robber council". From the 6th century onwards the Church of St John was an important place of pilgrimage, and Justinian took measures to protect it by having.the whole hill on which it stood surrounded by defence walls. Shortly afterwards, the Church of the Virgin and other places of worship were destroyed and pillaged in Arab raids. In the 7th century the city was transferred to the site now

occupied by the town of Selcuk and during the Byzantine era Ephesus grew up around the summit of Mt Ayasulug. The city enjoyed its last years of prosperity under the Selcuk Emirate of the Aydınogulları. During the Middle Ages the city ceased to function as a port.
By the 20th century the silt carried down by the Meander had extended the plain for a distance of 5 km.

 

 

CELSIUS LIBRARY

 

One of the finest structures in Ephesus, the Celsus Library has recently been restored. Raised on a high plinth, the building is approached via a broad flight of steps.

It was built by the Consul Gaius Julius Aquila in 135 AD. as a hero in honor of his father, Celsius Polemaeanus, the governor of
Asia Minor. The facade is highly ornamented on two levels, and there are three main portals. Over the portals were columns and statues arranged in niches. These statues were female figures representing the virtues wisdom, fate and intelligence. Niches on the interior of the building were designed to hold books.

One of the finest structures in
Ephesus, the Celsus Library has recently been restored. Raised on a high plinth, the building is approached via a broad flight of steps.

 

 

It was built by the Consul Gaius Julius Aquila in 135 AD. as a heron in honour of his father, Celsus Polemaeanus, the governor of Asia Minor. The facade is highly ornamented on two levels, and there are three main portals. Over the portals were columns and statues arranged in niches. These statues were female figures representing the virtues wisdom, fate and intelligence. Niches on the interior of the building were designed to hold books. The tomb of Celsius was placed in a crypt below the central large niche.

According to the inscription on the architrave of the building, its patron, C.Aquila, died before it was completed, and the construction was carried on by his heirs.
Aquila left 25 thousand dinar for the acquisition of books for the library.

 

 

 

HIDRIAN GATE

 

This is on the street of the Curettes, and is one of the better preserved buildings at Ephesus. According to the inscription over the architrave it was constructed by P.Quintilius between 118-138 A.D., and dedicated to the emperor Hadrian. Corinthian columns on the facade support a triangular arched frieze, highly decorative in character, which contains a relief of Tyche, goddess of victory. A vaulted roof covers the colonnaded portico. Four statue bases front the building. Demolished in the 4th century AD. during restoration, the two friezes flanking the portal were brought from other buildings and mounted there. They represent scenes from the foundation of Ephesus, and include figures of deities and Amazons, and the Amazons and Dionysos in ceremonial procession. The fourth frieze portrays Athena, goddess of the moon, two male figures, one of which is Apollo, a female figure, Androkles, Herakles, the wife and son of Theodosius and the goddess Athena.

 

 

THE THEATER

 

The focal point of Ephesus is the great theater, the largest in Asia Minor, with a seating capacity of 24.000.It dates from the early Hellenistic period, with extensive additions and reconstructions in the imperial Roman era. The auditorium extends through an angle of 220 Degrees and has a diameter of 154 meters, with a vertical rise of 38 meters from its orchestra to the uppermost tier of seats, whose middle section is still surmounted by an arcade. Two diazomata divide the auditorium into three section, the first of which have twelve radial stairways and the third twenty four. The diameter of the orchestra, which is slightly larger than a semicircle, is about 34 meters.

The actors in ancient Greek drama originally performed alongside the chorus in the orchestra ; l after in the Hellenistic period, they acted on a raised stage, the proscenium, which was erected in front of the Skene, the stage building. The core of the Hellenistic Skene in the Ephesus theater remains Within the monumental stage building erected in the Imperial Roman era. This grandiose structure originally had three stories, with colonnaded frontals alternating with statues and relief's set in niches ;in front of it was the broad stage, raised high above the level of the orchestra on three rows of Doric columns, whose stumps remain in place.

 

 

At the lower end of the Embolus on its left side, just opposite the gateway, are the remains of a building complex that contained the public latrines. An inscription in the latrines indicates that the complex also included a brothel, which comprised a reception hall, bedrooms, a dining room, a bath and a pool. Several of the chambers still retain their original mosaic decoration, though their frescoes have all but disappeared. The phallic statue of Priapus, now in the museum in Selcuk, was found in a well within the brothel The complex originally built in the late first century A.D. or early in the following century. Around the year 400 the structure was extensively renovated and converted into a large baths by a wealthy Christian lady named Scholoastica, who presumably would have eliminated the brothel. The Baths of Scholoastica included a large colonnaded hall used as a public meeting place. Some of the columns in this hall were taken from the temple of Hestia Boulea; inscribed on them are lists of the Curettes who served in this sanctuary. Near the entrance to the baths there is a headless statue, believed to be a representation of the lady Scholoastica.

 

 

THE MARBLE WAY

 

One of the main streets of ancient Ephesus-The Marble Way-begins below the theater perpendicular to the Arcadiane, running southward from there into the the center of the city. The street takes its name from the fact that it is paved in marble, which was laid down in the fifth century A.D. at the expense of a wealth Ephesian named Eutropius. The marble way was designed as a thoroughfare for wheeled vehicles, whose tracks can still be seen in the pavement with pedestrians using a raised walkway on the west side under a Doric portico. The relief panels depicting gladiators that we see alone the walkway where brought here from other places in Ephesus. Notice also crude carving on the pavement, showing a woman’s head, a pubic triangle and foot , the latter indicating the direction to a brothel at the southern and of the marble way.

 

 

 

 

1.-North Harbour Gate; 2- Central Harbour Gate; 3. South Harbour Gate; 4- Harbour Magazine; 5- Arcadian Road; 6-Byzantine Wall; 7- Four Columns; 8- Harbour Baths; 9- Harbour Gymnasium; 10- Harbour Gymnasium; 11- Byzantine Baths, Atrium; 12- Columned Forecourt; 13- Church of the Consul; 14- Archdukes Palace; 15- Olympieion; 16-Apollo Temple; 17-Lysimachos Wall; 18- Heroon; 19- Vedius Gymnasium; 20- City Gates; 21- Stadium; 22-Byzantine Palace; 23-Stadium Road; 24- Theatre Gymnasium; 25. Street portal; 26- Theatre; 27- Fountain; 28- Roman Governor's Palace; 29-Marble road; 30- Agora; 31 -West gate of Agora; 32- Western Road; 33. Serapis Temple; 34- Mazaeus -Mithridates Gate; 35- Celsius Library; 36- Large Shrine; 37- Necropolis; 38- Portal; 39- House; 40- Scholoastica Baths; 41 -Hadrian's Temple; 42- Road to Baths; 43- Heroon; 44- Octagon; 45, 46- Insula houses on slope; 47-Road to insula; 48- Curettes Street; 49- Trajan Fountain; 50- Rotunda; 51- Hercules Gate; 52- Memmius Monument; 53- Domitian Temple; 54- Round Tomb; 55- Paul's Cave; 56- State Agora; 57- Necropolis; 58-lsis Temple; 59- Fountain; 60- Water Palace; 61- Prytanion; 62- Divus Julius Temple; 63- Bouleuterion; 64- Basilica; 65- Vedius Baths; 66- Fountain; 67- Fountain; 68- Lucas tomb; 69- East Gymnasium; 70- Magnesian Gymnasium.

Bluffer's Guide to the Anatolian Iron Age

By Roger Norman / Turkish Daily News

This is the second Bluffer's Guide, and takes over more or less where the first one ended, at the close of the Anatolian Bronze Age and the time of the upheavals of the 13th and 12th centuries B.C. caused by largescale migrations in the Aegean region. The end of the 13th century saw the end of the Hittite Empire that had dominated Anatolian history for 500 years.
When to date the end of the Iron Age is a matter of taste, since in some ways it can be said to be still continuing. For the purposes of this guide, the end of the 6th century B.C. has been somewhat arbitrarily taken as the terminal date, on the grounds that the 5th century onwards can better be considered under the heading of Anatolia in classical times. We are thus dealing approximately with the period 1200 to 500 B.C. As in the Bronze Age, the center of power in the region remains the Near East, first in the shape of the vast Assyrian Empire of Sargon II, afterwards with the emergence of the Medes and Persians. Phrygia, and then Lydia, were the dominant Anatolian powers, and Greek cities were starting to appear on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, and, later, on the Black Sea. Cyrus the Great died in 530 B.C. and Croesus of Lydia around the same time.

ARMENIANS -- A tribe, possibly of PHRYGIAN origin, which gradually occupied the region of URARTIA towards the end of the 7th century. The position of a kingdom sandwiched between the MEDES, the ASSYRIANS and whoever was the dominant power in Anatolia proper guaranteed a chequered career for the first Armenians, and for most of their successors. Armenia was to be ruled successively by Medes, Persians, Seleucids, Romans etc. etc.

ASSYRIANS -- After a period of relative decline in the 12th and 11th centuries, the Assyrian Empire not only recovered but expanded rapidly, especially during the reign of Sargon II (722-706), so that by the end of the 8th century B.C., Assyria comprised the whole of present day Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Palestine and extensive territories in present day Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Assyrian kings even ruled in Egypt for 20 years in the mid 7th century. The empire collapsed with impressive speed, however, during the final decades of the 7th century, defeated by a coalition of MEDES and Babylonians. The Assyrian capital Nineveh fell in 612.

CIMMERIANS -- One of the "destroyers" of historical record and, like others before and after them, originating from somewhere in the broad steppes of southern Russia. Swept into Anatolian history at the end of the 8th century, first harrying the URARTIANS, then destroying the Phrygian capital GORDIUM in 695 and burning Lydian SARDIS 50 years later. Always described as historians as advancing in "hordes", technically an anachronism, since the word horde comes from the Turkish <ITALIK ordu ITALIK> meaning army.

CROESUS -- Lydian king who reigned c. 560 to 547 B.C. Like the Phrygian Midas, a byword for great wealth, possibly because the LYDIANS were the first to mint coins. Croesus was the subject of the famous dialogue with Solon related by Herodotus. In reply to Croesus' leading question "Who is the most fortunate of men?", Solon irritatingly replied by naming various unknown and defunct Greeks, making the point that no man could be called happy until he was dead. It was also Croesus who was fooled by the ambiguous reply of the Delphic oracle -- "If you attack, you will destroy a great nation". It turned out to be his own, and Croesus became an (honored) captive of the Persian king Cyrus. Croesus has come down to us as a very human and rather sympathetic character, thanks largely to Herodotus. History proper starts somewhere here, one might say.

CYBELE -- The chief Phrygian divinity and their version of the Anatolian mother goddess. She was suckled by wild creatures as an infant, ministered to as a deity by castrated priests and her cult was apparently characterized by frenzied orgies. A symbol of fertility, often depicted as pregnant, sometimes many-breasted. Atys was her omprehensively defeated (although somewhat unfairly, some would say, because Cyrus apparently used the smell of his pack camels to deter the Lydian cavalry) in 547 B.C. Sardis was taken and Lydia became a Persian satrapy.

MEDES -- An Iranian tribe who first appear as the Mada and start threatening the power of Assyria in the 7th century. Together with Babylonian forces they destroyed Nineveh in 612 and soon afterwards took control of URARTIA. They were later defeated by the Persian King Cyrus and were incorporated into the empire of the PERSIANS. The Greeks tended to refer to the Persians as Medes and Cyrus as "the Mede". In the later Persian Empire, the Medes were associated with the Magi, a sacerdotal caste who followed the teachings of Zoroaster (Zarathustra).

MIDAS -- Known as Mita to the Assyrians and Egyptians. Famous in legend for the "Midas touch" which turned everything, even his food, to gold. Yet oddly there was no gold found in the immense burial mound near GORDIUM that has come to be known as Midas' tomb. There were however, a large number of wonderful bronze cauldrons and other vessels which can now be seen in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. Actually, there is a second so-called Tomb of Midas, an intriguing temple, possibly dedicated to CYBELE and to be found some 60 kilometers southeast of Eskisehir. It consists of a huge facade sculptured on the living rock. Midas himself was probably the last of the independent PHRYGIAN kings and is said to have committed suicide after the defeat by the CIMMERIANS.

MOPSUS -- A Greek by the name of Mopsus has the honor of being the very first figure of Greek legend to be authenticated as a historical personality. (Remember that there is still no <ITALIK proof ITALIK> that there were ever such people as Agamemnon or Achilles.) Legend said that one Mopsus wandered the Anatolian peninsula after the fall of Troy and ended up founding Greek colonies in Pamphylia and Cilicia (on the Mediterranean coast). He appears in a Hittite document with the unappealing name of Mukshush and also in an inscription at Karatepe in Cilicia. He is said to have founded Aspendus, Phaselis and Mopsuestia.

NEO-HITTITES -- Remnants of the Hittites, mixed with Hurrians, Hattians and others, who occupied a series of city states in the northern regions of present day Syria and southern Turkey. The art and architecture of the Neo-Hittite cities owe a good deal to Hittite traditions. Carchemish and Zincirli, close to the present day Turco-Syrian border are the best known of these.

PERSIANS -- An Iranian people who probably arrived in the region of present day Iran during the 8th century B.C., a little later than the MEDES, whom they later defeated and assimilated. It was under Cyrus the Great that the Persians began to build the great empire that was to be the dominant power of the Near East on and off for nearly a millennium. The early period of Persian glory is usually referred to by the name of its ruling dynasty, the Achaemenids, who were overthrown by Alexander. (They were succeeded in turn by the Seleucids -- named after Alexander's general Seleucus, the Parthians -- who fought the Romans over three centuries, and the Sassanians -- who were finally defeated by the Arabs.) Cyrus took Lydia and Babylonia; his son Cambyses occupied Egypt; and Darius I, who became king in 486 B.C., was responsible for introducing a gold coinage, building a huge network of roads -- including the Royal Road from SARDIS to Susa and fostering commerce throughout the empire.

PHRYGIANS -- Federation of tribes who moved into Anatolia from Eastern Europe during the last century of the Bronze Age and who established a powerful kingdom centered on GORDIUM which included Troy and Hierapolis. Replaced the Hittite Empire as the dominant force in central Anatolia, building modest walled towns on the ruins of the old Hittite cities -- at Bogazkoy, Alaca Hoyuk, Kultepe and elsewhere. Came up against Sargon II of ASSYRIA in the 8th century and were wiped out by the fierce CIMMERIANS at the beginning of the 7th century. Phrygian inscriptions remain unintelligible and the reputation the Phrygian people have left behind them makes strange reading. Stubborn, effeminate, servile and voluptuous according to various Greek readers, they were famous as makers of grave and solemn music and also for the wearing of a peculiar conical cap which was later worn by freed Roman slaves and thus became a symbol of liberty to the French revolutionaries of 1789. Phrygia was also known among Greeks as a land of fabulous wealth (see MIDAS).Their Chief divinity was CYBELE.

SARDIS -- Lydian capital, situated in the broad and fertile valley of the Gediz Cayi. There's not much left now of the Lydian city, although American excavators claim to have found the remains of the first ever mint (see CROESUS). Ten kilometers to the north lies Bin Tepe, the Lydian necropolis, where there are scores of burial mounds dating from the great age of the Lydian kingdom. The largest of these, the Tomb of Alyattes (father of Croesus), took ten minutes to ride around according to the nineteenth century traveller W.J. Hamilton.

URARTIANS -- Possibly a Hurrian people, since their language is closely related. Settled the area around Lake Van and established a kingdom that included Mt. Ararat and the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. First mentioned in ASSYRIAN texts in the 13th century B.C., reached their zenith three or four centuries later when they built a characteristic series of massive hill fortresses in the region. Came into conflict with the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century B.C. and disappeared from history somewhat mysteriously in the 6th century at which period they were replaced by the ARMENIANS. Urartia is sometimes known as the Kingdom of Van, or the Vannic kingdom.