April 16, 2018 • 26 mins
The city of Ephesus fell under many different rulers throughout its history, as wars and shifting politics changed Asia Minor. For centuries, it endured, became a successful trade port, and was home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody. Before we get started, we have a couple
of live shows to announce. First April, we will be
at Universal Fan Con in Baltimore, Maryland. Our exact schedule
for that show is still in the works, but this
will include a live show, and our listeners can get
discounted tickets using the offer code History. And for all
(00:20):
the folks who have asked us to do a show
in the Boston area, of which there have been many,
we are finally on the way with the show in
Quincy at Adams National Historical Park on Sunday, July eight
at two pm. That one is an outdoor show. It
will happen rain or shine. And we also have more
appearances that will be announcing soon, as well as more
(00:41):
details about both of these shows, and we will put
that all at our website also at miss in history
dot com. Welcome to Steph you missed in History class
from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy,
(01:04):
we haven't talked about ancient History in a little while,
not not in super recently. No No. I was looking
at our recent episodes and I was like you know where,
we haven't gone real far back, so it seemed like
a good time, uh. And today's topic is an ancient
city that managed to survive and even thrive through a
series of wars, changes in rulers, earthquakes, and floods, and
(01:25):
it was also home to one of the seven Wonders
of the ancient world. We're talking about the city of Ephesus,
and we're going to do it in three parts. So first,
we'll cover a general and very non comprehensive history of
the city to get a sense of how it survived
for so long and then stopped being a really important port.
And then we're going to talk about a few points
of interest within it, again not a comprehensive list. And
(01:47):
then last we will get to its most famous of structures,
the Temple of Artemis. I'm glad that you have chosen
this for a podcast episode, because literally all I knew
about Ephesus was that the Ephesians were a book of
the Bible, and not even not even a book of
the Bible that gets at least in the church that
(02:08):
I grew up in, not not one that gets a
lot of attention in sermons and sermons. Yeah, and just
for expectations management, we're we're going to talk about it
in relation to Christianity a little bit, but not a
whole lot. So if you're like, oh, this will explain
in delve into the biblical story around it, we're not
going super deep there. Just know that up front. So
(02:28):
Ephesus sits near the modern day town of Salchuk in Turkey.
There's also been some location shifting of his position due
to ongoing changes in the delta of the Caster River
and outright moving of the entire city. Yeah, we'll talk
about that move coming up. And while Ephesus is generally
(02:49):
identified as an Ionian Greek city, before the Ionians, it
was inhabited by the Carians and the Lelogians, peoples whose
cultures predated the Ionians. The true history of the founding
of this city is really lost a time. Part of
that is because it was refounded multiple times, but there
are legends about it. One version of the story suggests
(03:10):
that a tribe of Amazons found at the city, and
according to that legend, the name meant city of the
Mother Goddess. The second founding story of Ephesus makes it
founded at the hands of Ionian prince and dro Clos,
son of King Kodros of Athens. And this is really
the point where Ephesus assumes its Ionian identity that will
(03:31):
define it pretty much for the rest of history. So,
according to the story of Androclos, an oracle had told
him that a fish and a boar would show him
the place for his people, and at the time, in
the eleventh century b C. He was leading a group
of his people to find a new settlement, and the
story goes that while he was preparing a fish over
an open fire, a stray spark ignited a nearby cops
(03:54):
of bushes and a boar ran out, and Androclos believed
that the oracle's prophecy was playing out, and so he
founded Ephesus on the site of that bush. During the
six hundreds, Ephesus was attacked by Samerians, although the city
made it through that skirmish, but a lot of the
surrounding area was destroyed in the fighting. Beginning in five
(04:16):
sixty b C. E Ephesus was ruled by the Lydian
king Creasus, who ran Ephsis as a sort of feudal state.
Once he gained power, Creasus was incredibly wealthy and he
spread that wealth around, including making pretty beneficial improvements to
his new territory. One of his works during this time
ruling over Ephesus was to rebuild the city's Temple of Artemis.
(04:38):
We're going to talk more about the temple and a
little bit, but this was a massive undertaking and also
very expensive. Under the rule of Crisis, Ephesus flourished and
it emerged as a wealthy city, one of education, sophistication,
and international business thanks to its location on the Mediterranean Sea.
Ephesis and the entirety of the Anatolian Peninsul, known more
(05:00):
commonly as Asia Minor and today as a large section
of the country Turkey fell under a different rule when
Cyrus of Persia defeated Crisis in five forty six or
five forty seven BC. That your varies a little depending
on what source you're looking at, but this did not
spell doom for Ephesus. The city continued to flourish and
it maintained a pretty neutral position in the politics which
(05:22):
surrounded it. This neutrality was partially because Ephesus was a
trade port. All kinds of people needed to trade there,
so it made sense to be neutral, and it made
sense to all the interested parties to avoid destroying it
lest they also damaged their own economies. Even so, the
city was embroiled in conflict for decades, even though a
(05:43):
lot of times it was tangential to that. When the
Hellenic people of Attica, known as the Ionians, challenged Persian
rule and the Ionian Revolt, Ephesus was used as a
military base, and this revolt lasted for six years from
four BC, and it was the start of a series
of conflicts which are grouped together under the umbrella of
(06:05):
the Greco Persian Wars. And emphasis wasn't central to all
of that conflict, though the city was involved in a
number of battles, and it still seemed to hold a
sort of middle ground in the battle between Greece and
Persia is it maintained good relations with the Persians throughout
the Greco Persian Wars. In three thirty four b C,
Ephesus once again switched rulers as Alexander the Great defeated
(06:28):
the Persians who had been controlling Asia Minor for two
centuries at that point. One of the ways in which
Alexander gained favor in the places that he came to
rule was by not forcing them to adopt Greek customs.
He would introduce Greek culture to the lands that he conquered,
but the inhabitants could continue their old ways as long
as they liked, and so Epsis continued a relatively peaceful
(06:51):
and prosperous existence. This actually reminds me of how the
Inca Empire handled things in the episode that we did
recently on that subject. Yes, it's very similar. After Alexander died,
he was succeeded by one of his general's ly Smacus.
The actual transition of power was quite complicated and it
involved decades of infighting and power struggles among Alexander's military commanders,
(07:16):
which came to be known as the Wars of the
Dead Key or the Wars of Succession. And that all
happened because when Alexander the Great died on June tenth
b C. That was a surprise. Then there was not
a clear heir to all of the various kingdoms that
Alexander was ruling over. But eventually Lycemicus gained power over
the city of Ephesus, and he started a renewal project
(07:39):
to revitalize the city, which also included moving it about
two miles or three point two kilometers. He renamed the
city for his second wife, Arsenal, christening it Arsenia, and
the revitalization work that Lysimachus catalyzed was really quite impressive.
There was a new harbor built, there were defensive walls,
(07:59):
but the people who had been living in Ephesus were
not really willing to move from the places that they
had been living just because a new ruler and an
outsider at that decided that the city would be better
off a couple of miles away. But Lismicus was really
insistent about his new city. He was so insistent that
he had the sewage system of Ephesus blocked up to
(08:21):
force the citizens to move by making their homes uninhabitable.
I mean, it's horrifying, but there is part of me
that kind of respects like the level of commitment at
that point, Like fine, good strategy. It's gross strategy, but
I mean that clearly would work. Yeah. In two eight
(08:42):
one BC, Lisimachus was defeated by Seleucus the First, who
had also accompanied Alexander the Great on his march into Asia.
The name Arsenia was abandoned and Ephesus was refounded once
more as Ephesus and regained its reputation as an important
port city, but it did not move again. It stayed
in the place Lisimachus put it. Next up, we'll talk
(09:02):
about the transition that the city went through been when
it became part of the Roman Empire, but first we
will take a quick break for a word from a sponsor.
The next phase of the city's history was under Roman rule.
It was actually bequeathed to the Roman Empire by the
(09:24):
king of Pergamon Atlos upon his death in one nine
b C. Under Roman rule, Ephicis once again experienced a
period of growth and prosperity, and while it was under
the reign of Caesar Augustus, many structures were built that
can still be seen in the ruins of Ephesus today,
including it's very impressive amphitheater, which we'll talk about more
in a moment. And in the middle of the first
(09:46):
century b C, a new business district was built to
accommodate the city's bustling trade industry, and the year seventeen,
much of the city was damaged in an earthquake, but
it once again recovered and rebuilt its commerce and us three,
eventually becoming one of Asia's most vital trade hubs, and
in the Common era, Ephesus became a significant location for Christianity.
(10:09):
Among other stories connected to prominent biblical figures that also
associate with the city, Saint John and Mary, the mother
of Jesus, are said to have made Ephesus their home
late in life. The House of the Virgin Mary has
been a pilgrimage site since the fifth century, and of
course there is also a book in the Bible titled Ephesians,
which is about the apostle Paul's time. There. Another significant
(10:31):
Christian religious story attached to Ephesus is the Cave of
the Seven Sleepers. So, according to this tale, seven Christian
saints were confined within a wall as punishment during the
pre Christian era of Ephesus is history. They're said to
have emerged two hundred years later when the city had
converted and much of Ephesus was destroyed by the Goths
(10:54):
in two sixty two. It had a great deal of
difficulty recovering after that. Then in the Fourth Tree, the
Roman emperor Theodosius closed all the temples and schools in Ephesis.
Social changes were also enacted, including systemic lowering of the
place of women in the culture. Women had been an
active part of the cultural, philosophical, and artistic life of
(11:15):
Ephesus for centuries, but after this they were forbidden to
create art on their own, and they were also not
allowed to teach any men. As a final blow to
the city's history and cultural roots, Artemis was erased as
a deity in every way possible. But as the city
was officially converted to Christianity and away from the worship
of Artemis, it's era of prosperity as a capital of
(11:39):
commerce was also waning. The harbor had really degraded due
to the shifting silt that had been deposited there over
the centuries, and in the sixth century Ephesus was already
in a state of deep decline When an earthquake struck,
The harbor was damaged even further, and the once great
city became something of a ghost town. Although it was
(11:59):
not at this point entirely deserted, Arab invasions in the
seventh and eight centuries caused most of the remaining citizens
to leave and find homes elsewhere. After a very brief
up swaying in the fourteenth century, Ephesus became part of
the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century. But the city,
which once boasted more than three hundred thousand residents and
(12:20):
inhabited a pivotal role in Mediterranean trade, couldn't really offer
stability or commerce, and it was completely abandoned within decades. Yeah,
by the end of the fifteenth century, no one lived
there anymore. Now we're going to shift a little bit
and talk about a few of the points of interest
within the city. Damitian was the Roman emperor from the
(12:40):
years eighty one to ninety six, and there's actually a
temple built in his honor in Ephesus. It's a constructed terrorist,
so it's not a naturally occurring terrorist. Uh. It is
fifty meters as a hundred sixty four feet by a
hundred meters three twenty eight feet, and the northern side
of it was accessed by stairs that still remain today.
And the temple of Daminian had thirteen columns running along
(13:03):
each of its sides, and then eight columns on the
shorter sides. The interior of the temple had another four columns.
The terraces also had a lower level substructure and that
housed shops and storage spaces. All that's left of it
today is the foundation. The Library of Kalsus is one
of the most striking structures remaining in the ruins of
(13:23):
Ephesus today. If you google Ephesus, the image that often
comes up is the front of this library's ruins. It's facade,
which is more intact than most of the ruins and
sits the top. A flight of steps features statues of
the four virtues, so those are Sophia, who represented wisdom,
Arete which represents goodness, Anoia which represents thought, and epistom
(13:46):
A representing knowledge. And the statues on site today are
actually copies. The originals are housed in the Ephsis Museum
in Vienna. Austria has long had archaeological interests in Ephesus,
and they have a really impressive music um. The library
was able to house twelve thousand scrolls, and it was
carefully designed with a gap between the inner and outer
(14:06):
walls to keep moisture from getting to the stored texts.
The theater at Ephesis we referenced the Amphitheater earlier is
another really impressive structure. It was built to hold as
many as twenty four thousand people on a three level design,
with each level containing twenty two rows. The seating area
forms roughly two thirds of a circle, and construction of
(14:29):
the amphitheater began under the rule of Roman emperor Claudius,
who ruled from forty one to fifty four, but it
wasn't completed until the reign of Trajan, who held power
from the year's ninety eight to one seventeen. The stage
portion actually appears to have built before that Roman expansion
into a full scale auditorium, though the Temple of Hadrian
(14:51):
has also been treated well by time in comparisons who
a lot of the ruins of Ephesus. It was damaged
in an earthquake in the fourth century, but a rest
are nation happened and additions are made to the temple
at that time. These included a relief freeze depicting the
founding of the city. Hadrian ruled after Trajan, and it
(15:11):
appears that the temple and his honor at Ephesus was
completed and dedicated during his lifetime. This is a little
early for us to jump to another sponsor break, but
I want to keep this next section together, So coming up,
we're going to talk about the crown Jewel of Ephesus.
The temple of Artemis. But first we're gonna have this
little break. So we have mentioned the Temple of Artemis
(15:38):
numerous times in this episode, and that's because it is
important enough on its own that it really mirrors a
closer look. It is, as we've said, considered one of
the seven wonders of the ancient world, and like the
city of Ephesus itself, it fell and was rebuilt multiple times.
Artemis was a very popular Greek deity, the goddess of
the hunt, the moon, chastity, childbirth, and nature, and the
(16:00):
forms of both flora and fauna. She was Apollo's twin sister,
so her parents were Zeus and Leto. Zeus's wife, of course,
was Harra, and when Artemis was born, her mother was
in hiding on an island away from Harrah's wrath. And
Roman mythology, artemis is counterpart is Diana, and sometimes when
you're looking at pictures of this, that's how it will
(16:22):
be labeled, Yes, for sure, and it actually comes up
referenced as Diana in a piece of in a read
in just a moment so. Writing in eighteen seventy seven,
a man named John Turtlewood, who had sought out the
ruins of Ephesus in the eighteen sixties and collected numerous
artifacts from the site for the British Museum, said the
following quote. The ritual of the worship of Artemis is unknown,
(16:45):
but we gather some facts from ancient writers which enlighten
us on the subject to a certain degree, and especially
in reference to the sacrifice. For these, it is fair
to conclude that beasts were slaughtered at altars in front
of temples, and that small portions of the flo and
perhaps basins of the blood, were carried into the temple
and offered to the deity upon the great altar, the
(17:06):
flesh being put upon some small pieces of wood with
which a fire was made, and if the smoke ascended freely,
the offering was supposed to be accepted. And here we
have one of several reasons for concluding that temples were
in part absolutely open to the sky. The Temple of
Artemis in its earliest farms went through three phases of
construction between the eighth and sixth centuries b c e.
(17:29):
Some of these were required because of flood damage. When
King Cresus rebuilt the temple, he spared no expense, and
the result was a structure larger than any other and
the archaic Greek world constructed entirely from marble. This was
four times the size of the Parthenon. Pliny the Elder
described the temple in his writing quote, the most wonderful
(17:53):
monument of Grecian magnificence, and one that merits our genuine admiration,
is the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, which, one hundred
and twenty years in building, a work in which all
Asia joined. A marshy soil was selected for its site
in order that it might not suffer from earthquakes or
the chasms which they produce. On the other hand, again
(18:13):
that the foundation of so vast a pile might not
have to rest upon a loose and shifting bed. Layers
of trodden charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces covered with
wool upon the top of them. The entire length of
the temple is four hundred and twenty five ft and
the breadth two hundred and twenty five. The columns are
one hundred and twenty seven in number and sixty feet
(18:35):
in height, each of them presented by a different king,
and three fifty six BC, the Temple of Artemis burned
to the ground. There are varying beliefs as to what
actually caused the fire. While it's often attributed to a madman,
the story is a lot deeper than that. The arsonist
hero Stratus is said to have hoped that if he
(18:55):
created a cataclysmic event, he would be remembered eternally. He
was sentenced to die for his crime, and that was
forbidden to even say his name, but it was noted,
and later writers started to use it again when describing
the event. Yeah, that's one of those stories that gets
really shifty and has a lot of different versions. Uh,
(19:16):
some involve Alexander the Great, which is going to come
up in a moment um. And just as a quick
aside on how a marble structure can burn down, because
I was describing this to a friend and they were like, what, um. Generally,
so the roof would have been made of wood, and
because that's a marble roof would have been so heavy
(19:36):
as to be impractical. And also when exposed to intense heat,
the outer portions of marble would begin to crack and crumble.
So a marble structure can quickly lose all integrity and
collapse in a fire. Just in case you were curious
how that worked. When Alexander the Great entered Ephesus after
conquering the Persians, he said to have noticed that the
(19:57):
temple hadn't been rebuilt yet, and he offered to do so.
But the people of Ephesus declined this offer, saying it
was unfit for a god to build a temple to
another god. A lot of people were at that point
believing that Alexander was a demigod, the son of Zeus.
He was born on July twenty b C. And that
coincided with the burning of the temple of Artemis. So
(20:20):
it was believed that when the temple burned, Artemis was
assisting in Alexander's delivery. Yeah, she was not there to
protect her temple. She was gone. Sometimes this gets wrapped
up with the story of um Haristratus and suggests like
I saw one version that was clearly very very apocryphal
(20:42):
and kind of a modern thing that I think conflated
some things. Uh suggested that somehow Harristratus knew that Alexander
was being born, and that as the son of the
um Uh Macedonian king Philip the Second, he wanted to
somehow also have a play in that momentous moment that
(21:05):
he would be remembered for, which was the burning of
the temple. It gets really um. The layer there is
a little weird, and I feel like a little forced,
But I don't I don't know the gent and he
was raised largely from history, so no one has his account. Uh.
It did take more than a century to rebuild the
temple after it burned, and the new version retained the
(21:26):
dimensions of the previous but the base of that that
second version, it's actually not the second version, but the
second version of that architecture was built higher. And then
when the Goths attacked Ephesus in the third century, which
we mentioned earlier, the temple was burned again, But the
details of the level of repair or restoration that were
performed after that are unknown, although we do know the
(21:47):
temple existed after that. I mentioned earlier that Theodosius closed
all the temples, and that took place in and that
included the Temple of Artemis. Eventually, whatever was left of
the temple was completely destroyed, and it's broken pieces were
carried away to use an other building projects. Yes, some
versions of that story indicate that those pieces were carried
(22:09):
away to make churches. Uh, so it becomes that ongoing
sort of battle of religious culture. One column still stands
at the site today, although I can't really say still
because it's actually reconstructed from fragments that were found since
the site was rediscovered in the second half of the
nineteenth century. That gentleman whose piece I read earlier, is
(22:30):
one of the been credited with refinding Ephesus. The base
of another column has also been reconstructed, but it is
a much smaller piece, Like it's basically just the base
and a tiny piece of column. And Ephesus was added
to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and it's also
a tourist attraction. You can visit. You can walk among
the ruins yourself, and you can stand in the space
(22:52):
where the Temple of Artemus used to be. Yeah, you
can also walk right up to that amazing amphitheater, in
which to me looks like a mind blowing experience. It
might be on my bucket list. Now, do you have
some listener mail for us? I do, And it's really
exciting and fun, uh because it's gifts which were spoiled
and I never feel like we deserve half of the
lovely gifts we get because they're too nice. This is
(23:14):
from our listener Lisa and it comes. The letter says,
Dear Tracy and Holly, I'm a huge fan of the show.
I almost like my awful commute because it gives me
the perfect chance to enjoy your podcast a few times
per week. I visited Japan a little while ago, and
during my somewhat unrestrained stationary shopping spreeze, I found that
it was impossible to pick just one postcard for you, ladies. Therefore,
I've enclosed a few postcards for each of you. I
(23:36):
think Holly will enjoy the ones depicting pretty kimono, which
is why I've enclosed the stickers as well. She sent
beautiful kimono stickers, and let me just tell you, stickers
are the key to my heart. I never agree that
phase uh and said that if either of you are
Totoro fans, the cat bus card maybe amusing too. I
think I speak for both of us when I say
we do both love Totoro um The latter is from
(23:59):
the spect acular ghibli Museum and depicts the enormous plush
model of the cat Bus that's in the basement of
the museum. It's delightful watching little kids climbing on and
crawling through the cat bus model, but it's still a
bummer that I was too grown to do. So. She
also sent us copies of a biography of Gypsy Rose
Lee as a request for that one that's actually been
on my list for a while. Um, and she says, anyway,
(24:23):
thank you for making such a wonderful show. I especially
love the Edward Gory episode. You're right, the intro he
drew for Masterpiece is many people's introduction to his work.
In fact, that sequence is one of the first things
I recall watching in my childhood, and my sister and
I loved imitating the wailing lady in the blue dress.
Cheers Lisa, Lisa, this is amazing. Tracy will be so
excited next time she's here in the Atlanta office to
(24:45):
open her her treats. Lisa sort of set them out
in two different parcels for each of us, so I
did not open years. So I have mine, which have
some of the most beautiful cards. One is all kiddies
and I love it, and there beutiful Kimona pieces and
this cat bus card, which I am also in love with.
I am excited to see your cat bus card. You
(25:06):
have a cat bus card too, I'm pretty sure you do. Okay,
you will see both the cat bus. Everybody loves cat
but I wish I were small enough to climb around
inside a life size cat bus. I do too, although
I worry that one in a public space, even though
I'm sure children in Japan are very tidy. Um, they're
still children, and they might come with germs and furry
(25:31):
things aren't necessarily the easiest, that's my thinking. But I
bet it's very tidy and clean. I don't want to
disparage the cat bus exhibit. Uh, if you would like
to write us, so first before I say that, thank you,
Thank you again, Lisa. It was such a delight to
open that parcel today. There's been uh, you know, weird,
weird things going on with us, and it's been a
(25:52):
little bit stressful with some of our office software, and
so it was lovely for us to have like this
nice thing to open and delight in. So if you
would like to write to us, you may do so
at history podcast at how staff works dot com. You
can also reach out to us across the spectrum of
social media. As missed in History and Missed in History
(26:12):
dot com is our website. We're an archive of every
episode of the show that has ever existed can be found,
as well as show notes and references for any of
the shows that Tracy and I have worked on. So
come on and visit us and play in the history
pond at missed in History dot com. For more on
(26:35):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works
dot com.
Hey everybody. Before we get started, we have a couple
of live shows to announce. First April, we will be
at Universal Fan Con in Baltimore, Maryland. Our exact schedule
for that show is still in the works, but this
will include a live show, and our listeners can get
discounted tickets using the offer code History. And for all
(00:20):
the folks who have asked us to do a show
in the Boston area, of which there have been many,
we are finally on the way with the show in
Quincy at Adams National Historical Park on Sunday, July eight
at two pm. That one is an outdoor show. It
will happen rain or shine. And we also have more
appearances that will be announcing soon, as well as more
(00:41):
details about both of these shows, and we will put
that all at our website also at miss in history
dot com. Welcome to Steph you missed in History class
from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy,
(01:04):
we haven't talked about ancient History in a little while,
not not in super recently. No No. I was looking
at our recent episodes and I was like you know where,
we haven't gone real far back, so it seemed like
a good time, uh. And today's topic is an ancient
city that managed to survive and even thrive through a
series of wars, changes in rulers, earthquakes, and floods, and
(01:25):
it was also home to one of the seven Wonders
of the ancient world. We're talking about the city of Ephesus,
and we're going to do it in three parts. So first,
we'll cover a general and very non comprehensive history of
the city to get a sense of how it survived
for so long and then stopped being a really important port.
And then we're going to talk about a few points
of interest within it, again not a comprehensive list. And
(01:47):
then last we will get to its most famous of structures,
the Temple of Artemis. I'm glad that you have chosen
this for a podcast episode, because literally all I knew
about Ephesus was that the Ephesians were a book of
the Bible, and not even not even a book of
the Bible that gets at least in the church that
(02:08):
I grew up in, not not one that gets a
lot of attention in sermons and sermons. Yeah, and just
for expectations management, we're we're going to talk about it
in relation to Christianity a little bit, but not a
whole lot. So if you're like, oh, this will explain
in delve into the biblical story around it, we're not
going super deep there. Just know that up front. So
(02:28):
Ephesus sits near the modern day town of Salchuk in Turkey.
There's also been some location shifting of his position due
to ongoing changes in the delta of the Caster River
and outright moving of the entire city. Yeah, we'll talk
about that move coming up. And while Ephesus is generally
(02:49):
identified as an Ionian Greek city, before the Ionians, it
was inhabited by the Carians and the Lelogians, peoples whose
cultures predated the Ionians. The true history of the founding
of this city is really lost a time. Part of
that is because it was refounded multiple times, but there
are legends about it. One version of the story suggests
(03:10):
that a tribe of Amazons found at the city, and
according to that legend, the name meant city of the
Mother Goddess. The second founding story of Ephesus makes it
founded at the hands of Ionian prince and dro Clos,
son of King Kodros of Athens. And this is really
the point where Ephesus assumes its Ionian identity that will
(03:31):
define it pretty much for the rest of history. So,
according to the story of Androclos, an oracle had told
him that a fish and a boar would show him
the place for his people, and at the time, in
the eleventh century b C. He was leading a group
of his people to find a new settlement, and the
story goes that while he was preparing a fish over
an open fire, a stray spark ignited a nearby cops
(03:54):
of bushes and a boar ran out, and Androclos believed
that the oracle's prophecy was playing out, and so he
founded Ephesus on the site of that bush. During the
six hundreds, Ephesus was attacked by Samerians, although the city
made it through that skirmish, but a lot of the
surrounding area was destroyed in the fighting. Beginning in five
(04:16):
sixty b C. E Ephesus was ruled by the Lydian
king Creasus, who ran Ephsis as a sort of feudal state.
Once he gained power, Creasus was incredibly wealthy and he
spread that wealth around, including making pretty beneficial improvements to
his new territory. One of his works during this time
ruling over Ephesus was to rebuild the city's Temple of Artemis.
(04:38):
We're going to talk more about the temple and a
little bit, but this was a massive undertaking and also
very expensive. Under the rule of Crisis, Ephesus flourished and
it emerged as a wealthy city, one of education, sophistication,
and international business thanks to its location on the Mediterranean Sea.
Ephesis and the entirety of the Anatolian Peninsul, known more
(05:00):
commonly as Asia Minor and today as a large section
of the country Turkey fell under a different rule when
Cyrus of Persia defeated Crisis in five forty six or
five forty seven BC. That your varies a little depending
on what source you're looking at, but this did not
spell doom for Ephesus. The city continued to flourish and
it maintained a pretty neutral position in the politics which
(05:22):
surrounded it. This neutrality was partially because Ephesus was a
trade port. All kinds of people needed to trade there,
so it made sense to be neutral, and it made
sense to all the interested parties to avoid destroying it
lest they also damaged their own economies. Even so, the
city was embroiled in conflict for decades, even though a
(05:43):
lot of times it was tangential to that. When the
Hellenic people of Attica, known as the Ionians, challenged Persian
rule and the Ionian Revolt, Ephesus was used as a
military base, and this revolt lasted for six years from
four BC, and it was the start of a series
of conflicts which are grouped together under the umbrella of
(06:05):
the Greco Persian Wars. And emphasis wasn't central to all
of that conflict, though the city was involved in a
number of battles, and it still seemed to hold a
sort of middle ground in the battle between Greece and
Persia is it maintained good relations with the Persians throughout
the Greco Persian Wars. In three thirty four b C,
Ephesus once again switched rulers as Alexander the Great defeated
(06:28):
the Persians who had been controlling Asia Minor for two
centuries at that point. One of the ways in which
Alexander gained favor in the places that he came to
rule was by not forcing them to adopt Greek customs.
He would introduce Greek culture to the lands that he conquered,
but the inhabitants could continue their old ways as long
as they liked, and so Epsis continued a relatively peaceful
(06:51):
and prosperous existence. This actually reminds me of how the
Inca Empire handled things in the episode that we did
recently on that subject. Yes, it's very similar. After Alexander died,
he was succeeded by one of his general's ly Smacus.
The actual transition of power was quite complicated and it
involved decades of infighting and power struggles among Alexander's military commanders,
(07:16):
which came to be known as the Wars of the
Dead Key or the Wars of Succession. And that all
happened because when Alexander the Great died on June tenth
b C. That was a surprise. Then there was not
a clear heir to all of the various kingdoms that
Alexander was ruling over. But eventually Lycemicus gained power over
the city of Ephesus, and he started a renewal project
(07:39):
to revitalize the city, which also included moving it about
two miles or three point two kilometers. He renamed the
city for his second wife, Arsenal, christening it Arsenia, and
the revitalization work that Lysimachus catalyzed was really quite impressive.
There was a new harbor built, there were defensive walls,
(07:59):
but the people who had been living in Ephesus were
not really willing to move from the places that they
had been living just because a new ruler and an
outsider at that decided that the city would be better
off a couple of miles away. But Lismicus was really
insistent about his new city. He was so insistent that
he had the sewage system of Ephesus blocked up to
(08:21):
force the citizens to move by making their homes uninhabitable.
I mean, it's horrifying, but there is part of me
that kind of respects like the level of commitment at
that point, Like fine, good strategy. It's gross strategy, but
I mean that clearly would work. Yeah. In two eight
(08:42):
one BC, Lisimachus was defeated by Seleucus the First, who
had also accompanied Alexander the Great on his march into Asia.
The name Arsenia was abandoned and Ephesus was refounded once
more as Ephesus and regained its reputation as an important
port city, but it did not move again. It stayed
in the place Lisimachus put it. Next up, we'll talk
(09:02):
about the transition that the city went through been when
it became part of the Roman Empire, but first we
will take a quick break for a word from a sponsor.
The next phase of the city's history was under Roman rule.
It was actually bequeathed to the Roman Empire by the
(09:24):
king of Pergamon Atlos upon his death in one nine
b C. Under Roman rule, Ephicis once again experienced a
period of growth and prosperity, and while it was under
the reign of Caesar Augustus, many structures were built that
can still be seen in the ruins of Ephesus today,
including it's very impressive amphitheater, which we'll talk about more
in a moment. And in the middle of the first
(09:46):
century b C, a new business district was built to
accommodate the city's bustling trade industry, and the year seventeen,
much of the city was damaged in an earthquake, but
it once again recovered and rebuilt its commerce and us three,
eventually becoming one of Asia's most vital trade hubs, and
in the Common era, Ephesus became a significant location for Christianity.
(10:09):
Among other stories connected to prominent biblical figures that also
associate with the city, Saint John and Mary, the mother
of Jesus, are said to have made Ephesus their home
late in life. The House of the Virgin Mary has
been a pilgrimage site since the fifth century, and of
course there is also a book in the Bible titled Ephesians,
which is about the apostle Paul's time. There. Another significant
(10:31):
Christian religious story attached to Ephesus is the Cave of
the Seven Sleepers. So, according to this tale, seven Christian
saints were confined within a wall as punishment during the
pre Christian era of Ephesus is history. They're said to
have emerged two hundred years later when the city had
converted and much of Ephesus was destroyed by the Goths
(10:54):
in two sixty two. It had a great deal of
difficulty recovering after that. Then in the Fourth Tree, the
Roman emperor Theodosius closed all the temples and schools in Ephesis.
Social changes were also enacted, including systemic lowering of the
place of women in the culture. Women had been an
active part of the cultural, philosophical, and artistic life of
(11:15):
Ephesus for centuries, but after this they were forbidden to
create art on their own, and they were also not
allowed to teach any men. As a final blow to
the city's history and cultural roots, Artemis was erased as
a deity in every way possible. But as the city
was officially converted to Christianity and away from the worship
of Artemis, it's era of prosperity as a capital of
(11:39):
commerce was also waning. The harbor had really degraded due
to the shifting silt that had been deposited there over
the centuries, and in the sixth century Ephesus was already
in a state of deep decline When an earthquake struck,
The harbor was damaged even further, and the once great
city became something of a ghost town. Although it was
(11:59):
not at this point entirely deserted, Arab invasions in the
seventh and eight centuries caused most of the remaining citizens
to leave and find homes elsewhere. After a very brief
up swaying in the fourteenth century, Ephesus became part of
the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century. But the city,
which once boasted more than three hundred thousand residents and
(12:20):
inhabited a pivotal role in Mediterranean trade, couldn't really offer
stability or commerce, and it was completely abandoned within decades. Yeah,
by the end of the fifteenth century, no one lived
there anymore. Now we're going to shift a little bit
and talk about a few of the points of interest
within the city. Damitian was the Roman emperor from the
(12:40):
years eighty one to ninety six, and there's actually a
temple built in his honor in Ephesus. It's a constructed terrorist,
so it's not a naturally occurring terrorist. Uh. It is
fifty meters as a hundred sixty four feet by a
hundred meters three twenty eight feet, and the northern side
of it was accessed by stairs that still remain today.
And the temple of Daminian had thirteen columns running along
(13:03):
each of its sides, and then eight columns on the
shorter sides. The interior of the temple had another four columns.
The terraces also had a lower level substructure and that
housed shops and storage spaces. All that's left of it
today is the foundation. The Library of Kalsus is one
of the most striking structures remaining in the ruins of
(13:23):
Ephesus today. If you google Ephesus, the image that often
comes up is the front of this library's ruins. It's facade,
which is more intact than most of the ruins and
sits the top. A flight of steps features statues of
the four virtues, so those are Sophia, who represented wisdom,
Arete which represents goodness, Anoia which represents thought, and epistom
(13:46):
A representing knowledge. And the statues on site today are
actually copies. The originals are housed in the Ephsis Museum
in Vienna. Austria has long had archaeological interests in Ephesus,
and they have a really impressive music um. The library
was able to house twelve thousand scrolls, and it was
carefully designed with a gap between the inner and outer
(14:06):
walls to keep moisture from getting to the stored texts.
The theater at Ephesis we referenced the Amphitheater earlier is
another really impressive structure. It was built to hold as
many as twenty four thousand people on a three level design,
with each level containing twenty two rows. The seating area
forms roughly two thirds of a circle, and construction of
(14:29):
the amphitheater began under the rule of Roman emperor Claudius,
who ruled from forty one to fifty four, but it
wasn't completed until the reign of Trajan, who held power
from the year's ninety eight to one seventeen. The stage
portion actually appears to have built before that Roman expansion
into a full scale auditorium, though the Temple of Hadrian
(14:51):
has also been treated well by time in comparisons who
a lot of the ruins of Ephesus. It was damaged
in an earthquake in the fourth century, but a rest
are nation happened and additions are made to the temple
at that time. These included a relief freeze depicting the
founding of the city. Hadrian ruled after Trajan, and it
(15:11):
appears that the temple and his honor at Ephesus was
completed and dedicated during his lifetime. This is a little
early for us to jump to another sponsor break, but
I want to keep this next section together, So coming up,
we're going to talk about the crown Jewel of Ephesus.
The temple of Artemis. But first we're gonna have this
little break. So we have mentioned the Temple of Artemis
(15:38):
numerous times in this episode, and that's because it is
important enough on its own that it really mirrors a
closer look. It is, as we've said, considered one of
the seven wonders of the ancient world, and like the
city of Ephesus itself, it fell and was rebuilt multiple times.
Artemis was a very popular Greek deity, the goddess of
the hunt, the moon, chastity, childbirth, and nature, and the
(16:00):
forms of both flora and fauna. She was Apollo's twin sister,
so her parents were Zeus and Leto. Zeus's wife, of course,
was Harra, and when Artemis was born, her mother was
in hiding on an island away from Harrah's wrath. And
Roman mythology, artemis is counterpart is Diana, and sometimes when
you're looking at pictures of this, that's how it will
(16:22):
be labeled, Yes, for sure, and it actually comes up
referenced as Diana in a piece of in a read
in just a moment so. Writing in eighteen seventy seven,
a man named John Turtlewood, who had sought out the
ruins of Ephesus in the eighteen sixties and collected numerous
artifacts from the site for the British Museum, said the
following quote. The ritual of the worship of Artemis is unknown,
(16:45):
but we gather some facts from ancient writers which enlighten
us on the subject to a certain degree, and especially
in reference to the sacrifice. For these, it is fair
to conclude that beasts were slaughtered at altars in front
of temples, and that small portions of the flo and
perhaps basins of the blood, were carried into the temple
and offered to the deity upon the great altar, the
(17:06):
flesh being put upon some small pieces of wood with
which a fire was made, and if the smoke ascended freely,
the offering was supposed to be accepted. And here we
have one of several reasons for concluding that temples were
in part absolutely open to the sky. The Temple of
Artemis in its earliest farms went through three phases of
construction between the eighth and sixth centuries b c e.
(17:29):
Some of these were required because of flood damage. When
King Cresus rebuilt the temple, he spared no expense, and
the result was a structure larger than any other and
the archaic Greek world constructed entirely from marble. This was
four times the size of the Parthenon. Pliny the Elder
described the temple in his writing quote, the most wonderful
(17:53):
monument of Grecian magnificence, and one that merits our genuine admiration,
is the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, which, one hundred
and twenty years in building, a work in which all
Asia joined. A marshy soil was selected for its site
in order that it might not suffer from earthquakes or
the chasms which they produce. On the other hand, again
(18:13):
that the foundation of so vast a pile might not
have to rest upon a loose and shifting bed. Layers
of trodden charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces covered with
wool upon the top of them. The entire length of
the temple is four hundred and twenty five ft and
the breadth two hundred and twenty five. The columns are
one hundred and twenty seven in number and sixty feet
(18:35):
in height, each of them presented by a different king,
and three fifty six BC, the Temple of Artemis burned
to the ground. There are varying beliefs as to what
actually caused the fire. While it's often attributed to a madman,
the story is a lot deeper than that. The arsonist
hero Stratus is said to have hoped that if he
(18:55):
created a cataclysmic event, he would be remembered eternally. He
was sentenced to die for his crime, and that was
forbidden to even say his name, but it was noted,
and later writers started to use it again when describing
the event. Yeah, that's one of those stories that gets
really shifty and has a lot of different versions. Uh,
(19:16):
some involve Alexander the Great, which is going to come
up in a moment um. And just as a quick
aside on how a marble structure can burn down, because
I was describing this to a friend and they were like, what, um. Generally,
so the roof would have been made of wood, and
because that's a marble roof would have been so heavy
(19:36):
as to be impractical. And also when exposed to intense heat,
the outer portions of marble would begin to crack and crumble.
So a marble structure can quickly lose all integrity and
collapse in a fire. Just in case you were curious
how that worked. When Alexander the Great entered Ephesus after
conquering the Persians, he said to have noticed that the
(19:57):
temple hadn't been rebuilt yet, and he offered to do so.
But the people of Ephesus declined this offer, saying it
was unfit for a god to build a temple to
another god. A lot of people were at that point
believing that Alexander was a demigod, the son of Zeus.
He was born on July twenty b C. And that
coincided with the burning of the temple of Artemis. So
(20:20):
it was believed that when the temple burned, Artemis was
assisting in Alexander's delivery. Yeah, she was not there to
protect her temple. She was gone. Sometimes this gets wrapped
up with the story of um Haristratus and suggests like
I saw one version that was clearly very very apocryphal
(20:42):
and kind of a modern thing that I think conflated
some things. Uh suggested that somehow Harristratus knew that Alexander
was being born, and that as the son of the
um Uh Macedonian king Philip the Second, he wanted to
somehow also have a play in that momentous moment that
(21:05):
he would be remembered for, which was the burning of
the temple. It gets really um. The layer there is
a little weird, and I feel like a little forced,
But I don't I don't know the gent and he
was raised largely from history, so no one has his account. Uh.
It did take more than a century to rebuild the
temple after it burned, and the new version retained the
(21:26):
dimensions of the previous but the base of that that
second version, it's actually not the second version, but the
second version of that architecture was built higher. And then
when the Goths attacked Ephesus in the third century, which
we mentioned earlier, the temple was burned again, But the
details of the level of repair or restoration that were
performed after that are unknown, although we do know the
(21:47):
temple existed after that. I mentioned earlier that Theodosius closed
all the temples, and that took place in and that
included the Temple of Artemis. Eventually, whatever was left of
the temple was completely destroyed, and it's broken pieces were
carried away to use an other building projects. Yes, some
versions of that story indicate that those pieces were carried
(22:09):
away to make churches. Uh, so it becomes that ongoing
sort of battle of religious culture. One column still stands
at the site today, although I can't really say still
because it's actually reconstructed from fragments that were found since
the site was rediscovered in the second half of the
nineteenth century. That gentleman whose piece I read earlier, is
(22:30):
one of the been credited with refinding Ephesus. The base
of another column has also been reconstructed, but it is
a much smaller piece, Like it's basically just the base
and a tiny piece of column. And Ephesus was added
to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and it's also
a tourist attraction. You can visit. You can walk among
the ruins yourself, and you can stand in the space
(22:52):
where the Temple of Artemus used to be. Yeah, you
can also walk right up to that amazing amphitheater, in
which to me looks like a mind blowing experience. It
might be on my bucket list. Now, do you have
some listener mail for us? I do, And it's really
exciting and fun, uh because it's gifts which were spoiled
and I never feel like we deserve half of the
lovely gifts we get because they're too nice. This is
(23:14):
from our listener Lisa and it comes. The letter says,
Dear Tracy and Holly, I'm a huge fan of the show.
I almost like my awful commute because it gives me
the perfect chance to enjoy your podcast a few times
per week. I visited Japan a little while ago, and
during my somewhat unrestrained stationary shopping spreeze, I found that
it was impossible to pick just one postcard for you, ladies. Therefore,
I've enclosed a few postcards for each of you. I
(23:36):
think Holly will enjoy the ones depicting pretty kimono, which
is why I've enclosed the stickers as well. She sent
beautiful kimono stickers, and let me just tell you, stickers
are the key to my heart. I never agree that
phase uh and said that if either of you are
Totoro fans, the cat bus card maybe amusing too. I
think I speak for both of us when I say
we do both love Totoro um The latter is from
(23:59):
the spect acular ghibli Museum and depicts the enormous plush
model of the cat Bus that's in the basement of
the museum. It's delightful watching little kids climbing on and
crawling through the cat bus model, but it's still a
bummer that I was too grown to do. So. She
also sent us copies of a biography of Gypsy Rose
Lee as a request for that one that's actually been
on my list for a while. Um, and she says, anyway,
(24:23):
thank you for making such a wonderful show. I especially
love the Edward Gory episode. You're right, the intro he
drew for Masterpiece is many people's introduction to his work.
In fact, that sequence is one of the first things
I recall watching in my childhood, and my sister and
I loved imitating the wailing lady in the blue dress.
Cheers Lisa, Lisa, this is amazing. Tracy will be so
excited next time she's here in the Atlanta office to
(24:45):
open her her treats. Lisa sort of set them out
in two different parcels for each of us, so I
did not open years. So I have mine, which have
some of the most beautiful cards. One is all kiddies
and I love it, and there beutiful Kimona pieces and
this cat bus card, which I am also in love with.
I am excited to see your cat bus card. You
(25:06):
have a cat bus card too, I'm pretty sure you do. Okay,
you will see both the cat bus. Everybody loves cat
but I wish I were small enough to climb around
inside a life size cat bus. I do too, although
I worry that one in a public space, even though
I'm sure children in Japan are very tidy. Um, they're
still children, and they might come with germs and furry
(25:31):
things aren't necessarily the easiest, that's my thinking. But I
bet it's very tidy and clean. I don't want to
disparage the cat bus exhibit. Uh, if you would like
to write us, so first before I say that, thank you,
Thank you again, Lisa. It was such a delight to
open that parcel today. There's been uh, you know, weird,
weird things going on with us, and it's been a
(25:52):
little bit stressful with some of our office software, and
so it was lovely for us to have like this
nice thing to open and delight in. So if you
would like to write to us, you may do so
at history podcast at how staff works dot com. You
can also reach out to us across the spectrum of
social media. As missed in History and Missed in History
(26:12):
dot com is our website. We're an archive of every
episode of the show that has ever existed can be found,
as well as show notes and references for any of
the shows that Tracy and I have worked on. So
come on and visit us and play in the history
pond at missed in History dot com. For more on
(26:35):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works
dot com.
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