T
HE subject of the present chapter is the early Roman city, the Ephesus of St. John and St. Paul. But as soon as we begin to examine its character and make even a superficial survey of its history, it stands out as the place that had experienced more vicissitudes than any other city of Asia. In most places the great features of nature and the relations of sea and land remain permanent amid the mutations of human institutions: but in Ephesus even nature has changed in a surprising degree. To appreciate its character as the city of change, we must observe its history more minutely than is needed in the other cities.At the present day Ephesus has all the appearance of an inland city. The traveler who wanders among its ruins may be at first unconscious of the neighborhood of the sea. He beholds only a plain stretching east and west, closed in on the north and south by long lines of mountain, Gallesion and Koressos. As he looks to the east he sees only ranges of mountains rising one behind another. As he looked to the west his view from most part of the city is bounded by a ridge which projects northwards from the long ridge of Koressos into the prairie. This little ridge is crowned by a bold fort, called in the modern local tradition, St. Paul’s Prison: the fort stands on the hill of Astyages contains also another peak on the west, called the Hermaion. The ridge and fort constitute the extreme western defenses of the Greek city, which was built about 287 B.C. That old Greek tower, owing to its distance and isolation, has escaped intentional destruction, and is one of the best preserved parts of the old fortification. From its elevation of 450 feet it dominates the view, the most striking and picturesque feature of the Greek Ephesus.
The historian of Greece, Professor Ernst Curtius, was misled by the appearance of the city, and has described the fortunes of Ephesus as a city separated from the sea by the ridge of Astyages. F98 This misapprehension partially distorted his view of Ephesian history and colored his picture,
which is otherwise marked by sympathetic insight and charm of
expression. It is the merit of Professor Benndorf to have placed the subject in its true light, and to have shown that the history of Ephesus was
determined by its original situation on the seashore and its eagerness to retain its character as a harbor in spite of the changes of nature, which left it far from the sea. The brief sketch, which follows, of the history of Ephesus is founded on Benndorf’s first topographical sketch, and on the map prepared for his promised fuller study of the subject. The present writer is indebted to his kindness for a copy of the map in proof not finally corrected, and can only regret that this sketch has to be printed without access to the historical study which is to accompany it.
FIG. 11: Conjectural map of the plain of Ephesus, to show changes in the coastline. The line of the walls of the Hellenic (and Roman) city is marked. The history of Ephesus takes place between the hill of St. John (Ayassoluk) and the hill of St. Paul (Astyages). The sea in 100-200 A.D. probably came up to about the valley opening down from the Ortygia.
The most impressive view of modern Ephesus is from the western side of Mount Pion, either from the upper seats of the Great Theater or from a point a little higher. The eye ranges westwards over the streets and
buildings of the Greek and Roman city (recently uncovered by the Austrian Archaeological Institute in excavations extending over many years and conducted with admirable skill), and across the harbor to the hill of Astyages: southwest the view is bounded by the long ridge of
Koressos, along the front crest of which runs the south wall of the Greek city: northwest one looks across the level plain to the sea, full six miles away, and to the rocky ridge that projects from Mount Gallesion and narrows the sea-gates of the valley: northward lie the level plain and the steep slopes of Gallesion. The mouth of the river is hidden from sight behind the hill of Astyages. PLATE I.
But a large and important part of ancient Ephesus is excluded from that view, and can be seen only by ascending to the top of the twin-peaked Pion, which commands the view on all sides. The view from the upper seats of the Theater may be supplemented by looking east from the northern edge of Pion, beside the Stadium, or still better from the
prominent rock (cut into an octagonal form, probably to serve a religious purpose) which stands in the plain about fifty yards in front of the northwest corner of Pion and of the Stadium. From either of these points one looks northeast and east over the valley and the site of the great Temple of Artemis to the Holy Hill of Ayassoluk, which overhung the Temple, and to the piled up ranges of mountains beyond. PLATE II.
The modern visitor to Ephesus rarely finds time or has inclination to visit St. Paul’s Prison: the name is traditional in the locality, but though the tower was certainly in existence at the time of St. Paul’s residence in the city, there is no reason to think that he was ever imprisoned in Ephesus. It is, however, quite probable that in the Byzantine time the Apostle’s name was attached to the hill and fort in place of the older name Astyages. Not merely does this western hill permit a survey over the city and valley almost equal in completeness to the view from Pion: there is also a
remarkable phenomenon observable here and nowhere else in Ephesus. At the foot of the hill lies the ancient harbor, now a marsh dense with reeds.
When a wind blows across the reeds, there rises to the hill top a strange vast volume of sound of a wonderfully impressive kind; the present writer has sat for several hours alone on the summit, spell-bound by that
unearthly sound, until the approach of sunset and the prospect of a three hours’ ride home compelled departure.
In ancient times by far the most impressive view of Ephesus was that which unfolded itself before the eyes of the voyager from the west. But the changes that time has wrought have robbed the modern traveler of that view. The ancient traveler, official or scholar, trader or tourist, coming across the Aegean Sea from the west, between Chios and Samos, sailed into Ephesus. The modern shore is a harborless line of sandy beach, unapproachable by a ship.
The plain of Ephesus is distinctly broader near the city than it is at the present sea coast. The narrowness of the entrance, what may be called the sea gate of the valley, has been an important factor in determining its history. Some miles above the city the valley is again narrowed by ridges projecting from the mountains of Gallesion and Koressos. In this narrow gap are the bridges by which the railway and the road from Smyrna cross the Cayster, whose banks here are now only ten feet above sea level, though the direct distance to the sea is ten kilometers and the river course is fully sixteen or twenty kilometers. Between these upper or eastern narrows and the modern sea coast lies the picturesque Ephesian plain, once the Gulf of Ephesus. The river Cayster has gradually silted up the gulf to the outer coastline beyond the ends of the mountains, and has made Ephesus seem like an inland city, whereas Strabo in A.D. 20 describes it as a city of the coast.
But about 1100 B.C. the sea extended right up to the narrows above
Ephesus. Greek tradition in the valley, which can hardly have reached back farther than 1200 B.C., remembered that state of things, when the large rocky hill, two kilometers north of the Roman city, across the Cayster, was an island named Syria, and the whole Ephesian valley was an arm of the sea, dotted with rocky islets, and bordered by picturesque mountains and wooded promontories. Near the southeastern end of the gulf, on the seashore, stood the shrine of the Great Goddess, the Mother, protector, teacher, and mistress of a simple and obedient people. There was no city at that time; but the people, Lelegians and Carians, dwelt after the Anatolian fashion in villages, and all looked for direction and government to the Goddess and to the priests who declared her will. Ephesus even then had some maritime interests, directed, like everything else, by the Goddess herself through her priests. Hence, even when the Temple was far distant from the receding seashore, a certain body of shipment
(naubatou~ntev) was attached to its service, through the conservatism of a religion which let no hieratic institution die. The hill of Ayassoluk,
between the Temple and the railway station, was a defensive center close at hand for the servants of the Goddess. History shows that it was the Holy Hill, though that title is never recorded in our scanty authorities.
The sense of the holiness of this hill, and of the low ground beneath its western slope, was never wholly lost amid all changes, of religion that occurred in ancient and medieval times. On the hill Justinian’s great Church of St. John Theologos was built; the medieval town was called Agios Theologos or Ayo-Thologo, the Turkish Ayassoluk; and the coins of a Seljuk principality, whose center was at this town, bear the legend in medieval Latin Moneta Que Fit In Theologo. F99 Between the church and the old temple of the goddess stands the splendid mosque of Isa Bey. The modern traveler, standing on the southern edge of the large hole, at the bottom of which Mr. Wood found the temple buried thirty feet deep, looks over temple and mosque to the Holy Hill and Church of Ayassoluk, as shown in PLATE III. All the sacred places of all the religions are close together.
The site of the temple was only found after many years of search. Those who know the spirit of Anatolian religion, and the marvelous persistence with which it clings to definite localities, would have looked for it beside the mosque, the hill and the church. But it was sought everywhere except in the right place. Professor Kiepert marked it conjecturally on his plan of Ephesus out in the open plain near the Cayster, two kilometers west of Ayassoluk; and Mr. Wood spent several years and great sums of money digging pits all over the plain. Afterwards, he went to the city, searching the public buildings for inscriptions which might by some chance allude to the temple, and at last found in the Great Theater a long inscription which mentioned a procession going out from the Magnesian Gate to the temple.
He went to the gate, and followed up the road, which lay deep beneath the ground, till he found the sacred precinct and finally the temple.
Yet this was not the earliest Ephesian sanctuary and home of the goddess.
In her oldest form she was a goddess of the free wild life of nature, and her first home was in the southern mountains near the place marked Ortygia on the map. Thence she migrated to dwell near her people in their more
civilized homes on the plain, or rather she, as the Mother and the Queen-bee, guided her swarming people to their new abodes, and taught them how to adapt themselves to new conditions. But her love for her favorite wild animals, who had lived round her old home among the hills, always continued; and two stags often accompany her idol, standing one on each side of it: see Fig. 10, Fig. 17, Fig. 30.
But her old home among the mountains was always sacred. There were there a number of temples, ancient and recent; an annual Panegyris was held there, at which there was much competition among the young nobles of Ephesus in splendor of equipment; and Mysteries and sacred banquets were celebrated by an association or religious club of Kouretes. The myth connected the birth of Artemis with this place; and in a sense it was the birthplace of the goddess and her first Ephesian home.
In Christian times the holiness of this locality was maintained. The Mother of God was still associated with it, though the birth of God could no longer be placed there. The legend grew that she had come to Ephesus and died there; and her home and grave were known. This legend is at least as old as the Council held in Ephesus A.D. 431. After the Greek
Christians of Ephesus had fled to the eastern mountains and settled in the village of Kirkindji they celebrated an annual pilgrimage and festival at the shrine of the Mother of God, the Virgin of the Gate, Panagia Kapulu. The Christian shrine was at a little distance from Ortygia; both were under the peak of Solmissos (Ala-Dagh), but Ortygia was on the west side, while the Panagia was on the north side higher up the mountain; both Solmissos and panagia lie outside our map (Fig. 11), and even Ortygia is strictly outside the southern limit, though the name has been squeezed in.
The home and grave of the Mother of God have been recently discovered by the Roman Catholics of Smyrna, aided by visions, prayers and faith;
and the attempt has been made in the last ten years to restore the Ephesian myth to its proper place in the veneration of the Catholic Church. The story is interesting, but lies beyond our subject. F100 What concerns us is to observe the strong vitality of local religion in Asia Minor amid all changes of outward form. The religious center is moved a little to and fro, but always clings to a comparatively narrow circle of ground.
The date and even the order of the successive stages in the history of the Ephesian valley cannot as yet be fully determined — though Professor Benndorf’s expected memoir will doubtless throw much light on them.
About 100 B.C. the first Greek colonists, coming from Athens, expelled most of the older population and founded a joint city of Greeks and the native remnant beside the shrine of their own Athena, including in their city also a tract along the skirts of Koressos. Its exact situation has not been determined; but it was probably identical with a district called Smyrna, which lay between Koressos and Pion, partly inside, partly southeast from, the Hellenic Ephesus.
For four centuries this was the situation of Ephesus. There was an Ionian city bearing that name on the slopes of Mount Koressos, and above a mile north was the Temple of the Great Goddess Artemis. The Greek colonists in their new land naturally worshipped the deity who presided over the land. Gradually they came to pay more respect to her than to their own patroness and guardian deity Athena, who had led them across the sea from Athens. The holy village around the Hieron of Artemis can hardly have existed in this period: Ephesus was moved to the southern position and transformed into a Greek city. The population of the city was at first divided into three Tribes, of which Epheseis the first was evidently the Anatolian division, while Euonymoi, containing the Athenian colonists, was only the second.
The sea gradually retreated towards the west during this period; and the Temple of Artemis was now a sanctuary within a large sacred precinct in the plain. But the Goddess, though worshipped by the Greeks, was not transformed into a Greek deity. She remained an Anatolian deity in character and in ritual. The Divine nature does not change.
A new era began after 560 B.C., when Ephesus was conquered by Crocuses. The city was now attached to the Temple of Artemis; and the population was moved back from the higher ground and dwelt once more beside the Temple. Smyrna, the deserted site of the Ionian Ephesus, was now behind the city (as Hipponax says).
The change marked the entire triumph of the Asiatic or Anatolian element over the Greek in the Ephesian population. The Anatolian element had always been strong in the population of the Greek city; the Ephesian
Goddess was henceforth the national deity of the city, the patroness of the family and municipal life. Thus, the change of situation about 550 B.C.
accompanied a change in spirit and character.
Ephesus was not, however, reduced entirely to the pure Anatolian village system. It was not a mere union of villages with the Temple as the only center; it was a city with a certain organization and a certain form of municipal government. Power was apportioned to the different sections of the population by the usual Greek device of a division into Tribes: each Tribe had one vote, and a more numerous body in one Tribe had no more power than a small number of citizens in another. It had its own acropolis, probably the hill of Ayassoluk, overhanging the Temple on the northeast.
It struck its own coins in silver and electrum (the sure proof of
administrative independence as a city); but they were entirely hieratic in character and types, and for nearly three centuries after 560 it must be ranked rather as an Anatolian town than as a Greek city.
FIG. 12 A, B: Coin of the Anatolian Ephesus.
It was, indeed, forced, after 479, to join the union of Greek States which was called the Delian Confederacy; but it seceded at the earliest
opportunity; and the Goddess was always inclined to side with the Persians against the Greeks, and with oligarchic Sparta against democratic Athens.
With the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great, after 335, the Greek spirit began to strengthen itself in Ephesus and in general throughout the country. This is first perceptible in the coinage. The bee, the sacred insect and the symbol of the Great Goddess, had hitherto always been the principal type on Ephesian coins. Now about 295 B.C. a purely Greek type, the head of the Greek Artemis, the Virgin “Queen and Huntress chaste and fair,” was substituted for the bee on the silver coins, while the less honorable copper coinage retained the old hieratic types.
FIG. 13 A, B: Coin of the Hellenic city Ephesus.
The importance of this change of type arises from the character of the Great Goddess. She is the expression of a religious belief, which regarded the life of God as embodying and representing the life of nature, and proceeding according to the analogy of the natural world, so that in the drama of Divine life there is a God-father a Goddess-Mother, and a Son or a Daughter (the Maiden Kora or other various ideas), born again and again in the annual cycle (or sometimes in longer cycles) of existence. The mutual relations of those beings were often pictured in the Divine drama according to the analogy of some kind of earthly life. In the Ephesian ceremonial the life of the bee was the model: the Great Goddess was the queen-bee, the mother of her people, and her image was in outline not unlike the bee, with a grotesque mixture of the human form: her priestesses were called Melissai (working-bees), and a body of priests attached to the Temple was called Essenes (the drones). The shape of the idol is seen in Fig. 10; Fig. 26. The life history of the bee, about which the Greek
naturalists held erroneous views (taking the queen-bee as male, and king of the hive), was correctly understood in the primitive Ephesian cultus; and it is highly probable that the employment for human use of the bee and of various domesticated animals was either originated or carried to remarkable perfection in ancient Asia Minor; while it is certain that the whole doctrine and rules of tending those animals had a religious character and were in close relation to the worship of the Divine power in its various and varying local embodiments. F101
The reverse of the coins tells the same tale as the obverse. The Anatolian coin shows the palm tree under which the goddess was born among, the southern mountains at Ortygia, and her sacred animal, the stag, cut in half in truly barbaric style. The Hellenic coin shows the bow and quiver of the huntress-maiden, and acknowledges the Anatolian goddess by the small