Ephesus - The Aegean Coast - Cities and Towns in Turkey - Turkey - Home
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| According to
legend, 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 Arzawa meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess."
Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age, but changed its
location several times in the course of its long history in accordance
with habits and requirements of the times. 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 another 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 (Küçük Menderes) empties into the sea. The legend goes on to state that this was 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 sort of union 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, and one of the most important port cities of the time. The defeat of the Lydian King Croesus by Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the way for the extension of Persian hegemony over the Aegean coastal region of which Ephesus was a part. At the beginning of the 5th century, when the Ionian cities rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others and therefore escaped destruction. |
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Ephesus remained under Persian rule until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. This was the beginning of a fifty year period of peace, tranquility and further growth. 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 harbor and built defense walls on the slopes of the Panayır and Bülbül Mountains. During this process the entire city was moved a few miles to the south-west. The Ephesians were unwilling to leave their old city so he had the whole sewage system blocked up during a great storm. The sewage backed up 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, who were always on the lookout for additional conquests, took
advantage of the terms of the will left by Attalos, King of Pergamon, by
which they were bequeathed his kingdom. Thus, the entire region became
part of the Roman Empire as the province of Asia. Ancient sources show
that at this time the city had a population of 200,000, already one of
the largest in the world. 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. 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
most of the buildings we admire today were constructed.
According to documented sources, the city suffered severe damage in an earthquake in 17 A.D. After rebuilding the city, Ephesus again became a very important centre of trade and commerce. The historian Aristio describes Ephesus as being recognized 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. |
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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 for their religion. 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 Paul was preaching to the people. It was there that 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 barely escaped. It is believed that he was later captured and that Paul spent some time as a prisoner in Ephesus. (See Ephesus: City of Worthless Idols (http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=2268)
| 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 practiced. 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 harbor, but by the Roman period ships reached the harbor to the west of Mt. Pion 1.5 km from the Temple of Artemis through a very narrow and difficult channel. The city was forced to build the causeway because the Meander (Cayster) River, which emptied into the Aegean a little to the west of the city of Ephesus, had begun to create 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 harbor gave rise to a number of diseases, such as malaria. It is this flat area that you now see when you look down the road to the former harbor from the theater. |
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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 defense 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 Selçuk and during the Byzantine era Ephesus grew up around the summit of Mt Ayasuluğ. The city enjoyed its last years of prosperity under the Selçuk Emirate of the Aydınoğulları. During the Middle Ages the city ceased to function as a port and over the many years of unuse, the city became abandoned and finally buried by the natural landscape. All that you now see has been recovered over the years by painstakingly removing all of the dirt, debris and rubble that accumulated over the years to find the glory of its past.
CLICK HERE for
additional photos of Ephesus
and
HERE for photos of some of the intricate
detail work to be found in Ephesus.
| It is best to visit Ephesus with a good
guide - especially if it is your first visit. Although there are many licensed,
official tour guides, I believe that Can (John) Yigit is one of the best. One of
the main reasons is, not only does he love this place, but he worked here beside
the archeologists when he was in college. And, is very personable. His English
is excellent and he makes the place come alive with his narrative. Contact
information is as follows: Can Yigit Gsm +90 532. 426 63 35 Tel +90 256. 612 83 30 email: guidecan68@yahoo.com P.O. Box 152 09400 Kusadasi / Aydin / Turkey Here
are a couple of comments about John. |
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