Ephesus

First thing we saw in Ephesus

Bouleuterion/Odelon

We spent all day at Ephesus, an enormous site about forty miles south of Izmir/Smyrna. Ephesus was once on the Aegean Sea, but now because of the river’s silting it is five miles inland. It was founded a thousand years before Christ and by first century was the third or fourth largest city in the Roman empire (after Rome, Alexandria, and perhaps Antioch). Its temple of Artemis (see Acts 19) and its harbor were its primary money-makers. Its claim to fame in the Bible is that Paul spent two years there, made some enemies, and started a riot that ended at the theater. There is speculation that he was imprisoned there as well, though no real evidence in the Bible or anywhere else. 

Library

 The Roman city is situated in a valley between two mountain ridges, a beautiful site. It’s complex, filled with public buildings and spaces and thoroughfares. Of course there is the large theater that became the backdrop of the Acts story, but there is also a smaller building shaped like a theater though much smaller, and roofed, either a city council hall where politics and such were discussed (bouleuterion), or a concert hall (odelon). There were fountains and arches and columns and shops, a villa, a sophisticated public latrine, and an enormous structure identified as a library, and a huge, HUGE agora. 

Agora--one side of square

Now playing at Ephesus Theater--Cats

Theater

We also went to the Ephesus Museum, which houses among other things two statues of the goddess Artemis, which were found buried. When the Ephesians started yelling “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” in Acts 19:28, 34, this is who they are yelling about. Artemis’s actual temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but all that is left is a single column in a field. We visited the church of St. John, the traditional site of John’s burial, reflecting an early tradition that the disciple John brought Jesus’ mother Mary and lived in Ephesus. We didn’t get to visit her house, but we did go to St. Mary’s Church, which was thought to have been the site of the ecumenical council of 431. Only the church isn’t that old, according to the guidebook.

Artemis of the Ephesians--Isn't she great?