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ABOUT
EPHESUS |
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According to the old legends,
Ephesus was founded by the female
warriors known as the Amazons. The
name of the city is thought to
have been derived from "APASAS" ,
the name of a city in the "KINGDOM
OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of
the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was
inhabited from the end of the
Bronze Age onwards, but changed
its location several times in the
course of its long history in
accordance with habits and
requirements. Carians and
Lelegians are to be have been
among the city's first
inhabitants. Ionian migrations are
said to have begun in around 1200
B.C. According to legend, the city
was founded for the second time by
Androclus, the son of Codrus, king
of Athens, on the |
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shore at the point where the
CAYSTER(Küçük Menderes)
empties into the sea, a
location to which they had
been guided by a fish and a
wild boar on the advice of the
soothsayers. The Ionian cities
that grew up in the wake of
the Ionian migrations joined
in a confederacy under the
leadership of Ephesus. The
region was devastated during
the Cimmerian invasion at the
beginning of the 7th century
B.C. Under the rule of the
Lydian kings, Ephesus became
one of the wealthiest cities
in the Mediterranean world.
The defeat of the Lydian King
Croesus by Cyrus, the King of
Persia, prepared the way for
the extension of Persian
hegemony over the whole of the
Aegean coastal region. At the
beginning of the 5th century,
when the Ionian cities
rebelled against Persia,
Ephesus quickly dissociated
itself from the others, thus
escaping destruction.
Ephesus remained under Persian rule until the arrival of
Alexander the Great in 334
B.C., when it entered upon a
fifty year period of peace and
tranquillity. Lysimachus, who
had been one of the twelve
generals of Alexander the
Great and became ruler of the
region on Alexander's death,
decided to embark upon the
development of the city, which
he called Arsineia after his
wife Arsinoe. He constructed a
new harbour and built defence
walls on the slopes of the
Panayır and Bülbül Mts.,
moving the whole city 2.5 km
to the south-west. Realising,
however, that the Ephesians
were unwilling to leave their
old city, he had the whole
sewage system blocked up
during a great storm, making
the houses uninhabitable and
forcing the inhabitants to
move. In 281 B.C. the city was
re-founded under the old name
of Ephesus and became one of
the most important of the
commercial ports in the
Mediterranean. |
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 In
129 B.C. the Romans took
advantage of the terms of the
will left by Attalos, King of
Pergamon, by which they were
bequathed his kingdom, to
incorporate the whole region
into the Roman Empire as the
province of Asia. Ancient
sources show that at this time
the city had a population of
200,000. In the 1st century
B.C. the heavy taxes imposed
by the Roman government led
the population to embrace
Mithridates as their savior
and to support him in his
mutiny against Roman authority
and in 88 B.C. a massacre was
carried out of all the Latin
speaking inhabitants of the
city, which was then stormed
and sacked by a Roman army
under Sulla, It was from the
reign of Augustus onwards that
the buildings we admire today
were constructed. According to
documentary sources, the city
suffered severe damage in an
earthquake in 17 A.D. After
that, however, Ephesus became
a very important centre of
trade and commerce. The
historian Aristio describes
Ephesus as being recognised by
all the inhabitants of the
region as the most important
trading centre in Asia. It was
also the leading political and
intellectual centre, with the
second school of philosophy in
the Aegean. From the 1st
century onwards, Ephesus was
visited by Christian disciples
attempting to spread the
Christian belief in a single
God and thus forced to seek
refuge from Roman persecution.
Besides enjoying a privileged
position between East and West
coupled with an exceptionally
fine climate, the city owed
its importance to its being
the centre of the cult of
Artemis.
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