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The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον, or Artemision), also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana , was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis. It was sited at Ephesus (the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey ), and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction or decay. Only foundations and sculptural fragments of the latest of the temples at the site remain.
The first sanctuary (temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, and dates to the Bronze Age. Callimachus , in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons . In the seventh century the old temple was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction began around 550 BC, under the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia: the project took some 120 years to complete, only to be destroyed in an act of arson by the infamous Herostratus . It was again rebuilt, and became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Antipater of Sidon , who compiled the list of the Seven Wonders, describes the finished temple:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus , and the hanging gardens , and the colossus of the Sun , and the huge labour of the high pyramids , and the vast tomb of Mausolus ; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, “Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand”.
The archaic temeton beneath the later Temples clearly housed some form of “Great Goddess” but nothing is known of her cult. The literary accounts that describe it as “Amazonian” refer to the later founder-myths of Greek emigres who developed the cult and temple of Artemis Ephesia. The wealth and splendour of temple and city were taken as evidence of Artemis Ephesia’s power, and were the basis for her local and international prestige: despite the successive traumas of Temple destruction, each rebuilding – a gift and honour to the goddess – brought further prosperity.
Artemis’ shrines, temples and festivals (Artemisia) could be found throughout the Greek world, but Ephesian Artemis was unique. The Ephesians considered her theirs, and resented any foreign claims to her protection. Once Persia ousted their Lydian overlord Croesus, the Ephesians played down his contribution to the Temple’s restoration. The Persians dealt fairly with Ephesus, but removed some religious artifacts from Artemis’ Temple to Sardis and brought Persian priests into her Ephesian cult; this was not forgiven, and when Alexander conquered the Persians in turn, his offer to finance the Temple’s second rebuilding was politely but firmly refused. Ephesian Artemis lent her city’s diplomacy a powerful religious edge.
Under Hellenic rule, and later, under Roman rule, the Ephesian Artemesia was increasingly promoted as a key element in the pan-Hellenic festival circuit. It was part of a definitively Greek political and cultural identity, essential to the economic life of the region, and an excellent opportunity for young, unmarried Greeks of both sexes to seek out marriage partners. Games, contests and theatrical performances were held in the goddess’ name, and Pliny describes the Ephesian Artemisia procession as a magnificent crowd-puller; one of Apelles’ best paintings showed the goddess’ image, carried through the streets and surrounded by maidens. In the Roman Imperial era , the emperor Commodus lent his name to the festival games, and might have sponsored them.
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron < Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals”. In the classical period of Greek mythology , Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος) was often
described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto , and the twin sister of Apollo . She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her. In later Hellenistic times, she even assumed the ancient role of Eileithyia in aiding childbirth.
Artemis later became identified with Selene , a Titaness who was a Greek moon goddess, sometimes depicted with a crescent moon above her head. She was also identified with the Roman goddess Diana , with the Etruscan goddess Artume , and with the Greek or Carian goddess Hecate .
Ephesus (Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος, Turkish Efes) was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia , near present-day Selçuk , Izmir Province , Turkey . It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the Roman Empire ; ranking behind Rome, the empire’s capital. Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.
The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BCE), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . The Temple was destroyed in 401 CE by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom . Emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected new public baths. The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614. The city’s importance as a commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes).
Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation . The Gospel of John may have been written here. It is also the site of a large gladiators ‘ graveyard.
Today’s archaeological site lies 3 kilometers southwest of the town of Selçuk , in the Selçuk district of İzmir Province , Turkey . The ruins of Ephesus are a favorite international and local tourist attraction, partly owing to their easy access from Adnan Menderes Airport and via the port of Kuşadası .
The area surrounding Ephesus was already inhabited during the Neolithic Age (about 6000 BCE), as was revealed by the excavations at the nearby hoyuk (artificial mounds known as tells) of Arvalya and Cukurici.[6][7]
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 BCE) with ceramic pots was discovered close to the ruins of the basilica of St. John.[8] This was the period of the Mycenaean Expansion when the Achaioi (as they were called by Homer ) settled in Ahhiyawa during the 14th and 13th centuries BCE. Scholars believe that Ephesus was founded on the settlement of Apasa (or Abasa), a Bronze Age -city noted in 14th-century BCE Hittite sources as in the land of Ahhiyawa . [9]
Dark age
Site of the Temple of Artemis in the town of Selçuk , near Ephesus.
The city of Ephesus itself was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BCE 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.[10] 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 .[11] before the arrival of the Ionians. Of this structure, scarcely a trace remains.
Archaic period
About 650 BCE, Ephesus was attacked by the Cimmerians , who razed the city, including the temple of Artemis. A few small Cimmerian artifacts can be seen at the archaeological museum of Ephesus.
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 and the satirist Hipponax , the philosopher Heraclitus , the great painter Parrhasius and later the grammarian Zenodotos , the physicians Soranus and Rufus.
About 560 BCE 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.[13] 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.[14] They were defeated by the Persian army commander Harpagos in 547 BCE. The Persians then incorporated the Greek cities of Asia Minor into the Achaemenid Empire . Those cities were then ruled by satraps .
Ephesus has intrigued archaeologists for the main reason that for the Archaic Period, there is no definite location for the settlement. There are numerous sites to suggest the movement of a settlement between the Bronze Age and the Roman period but the silting up of the natural harbors as well as the movement of the Kayster River meant that the location never remainded the same.
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 BCE) , an event which instigated the Greco-Persian wars . In 479 BCE, the Ionians, together with Athens and Sparta , were able to oust the Persians from Anatolia. In 478 BCE, the Ionian cities entered with Athens and Sparta into the Delian League against the Persians. Ephesus did not contribute ships but gave financial support by offering the treasure of Apollo to the goddess Athena , protectress of Athens.
During the Peloponnesian War , Ephesus was first allied to Athens[ neededcitation] 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, rule over the kingdoms of Anatolia was ceded again to Persia.
These wars did not much affect daily life in Ephesus. The Ephesians were 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 the Elder mentioned having seen at Ephesus a representation of the goddess Diana by Timarata, the daughter of a painter.
In 356 BCE the temple of Artemis was burned 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 at once set about restoring the temple and even planned a larger and grander one than the original.
Hellenistic period
Historical map of Ephesus, from Meyers Konversationslexikon , 1888
When Alexander the Great defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BCE, 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 when he entered Ephesus in triumph. When Alexander saw that the temple of Artemis was not yet finished, he proposed to finance it and have his name inscribed on the front. But the inhabitants of Ephesus demurred, claiming that it was not fitting for one god to build a temple to another. After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, Ephesus in 290 BCE came under the rule of one of Alexander’s generals, Lysimachus .
As the river Cayster silted up the harbor, the resulting marshes caused malaria and many deaths among the inhabitants. The people of Ephesus were forced to move to a new settlement two kilometers further on, when the king flooded the old city by blocking the sewers.[15] 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 BCE, 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 BCE. After the death of Lysimachos the town took again the name of Ephesus.
Thus Ephese became part of the Seleucid Empire . After the murder of king Antiochus II Theos and his Egyptian wife, pharaoh Ptolemy III invaded the Seleucid Empire and the Egyptian fleet swept the coast of Asia Minor. Ephesus came under Egyptian rule between 263-197 BCE.
When the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great tried to regain the Greek cities of Asia Minor, he came in conflict with Rome . After a series of battles, he was defeated by Scipio Asiaticus at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE. As a result, Ephesus came under the rule of the Attalid king of Pergamon Eumenes II (197-133 BCE). When his grandson Attalus III died without male children of his own, he left his kingdom to the Roman Republic .
