Ephesus was first constructed on a bay where the Kucuk Menderes river (classical Kaystros) reached the sea in western Anatolia. This area is almost in the middle of ancient lonia, which has a mild, wet climate, so that it has many natural advantages as a place for people to settle. It was not only situated at an important point joining the West and the East, but was also at the crossroads between Miletus and lonia. The fine arts, the sciences, and philosophers such as Heraclitus and Thales, flourished and developed in lonia. The cities of lonia showed strong religious characteristics from the beginning, and became politically well-organised. Every city was self governing. Ephesus has always been a city under two influences: The first geological, the second political, indeed it is difficult to separate these two influences from each other, and one has always been the cause of the other or the result of it. It is not certain who first founded Ephesus and when. Our first information about it comes from the year 2000 B.C., and its existence was mentioned near the temple of the mother goddess Kybele, a figure who was later called Artemis. The oldest sources record that the Amazons founded the town, and that it was then inhabited by the Carians and the Lelegians.

Ephesus was conquered by the Ionians in the 11th century. B. C. Androclos the son of Kadros from Athens, who was building a new town on the coast about one and a half kilometres from the temple, made his people settle there. This coastal town was a typical Ionian city, finely adorned with temples in honour of the Greek goddess and god Athena and Apollo. The Acropolis (the Byzantine fountain now stands in its stead on the small hill on the plan), which was almost completely destroyed, was located in front of the small round hill before the stadium. Until the 6th century, King Androclos governed the country in a semi-oligarchic fashion, and then up to the second half of the same century he ruled it as a tyrant. During the reign of Androclos, Ephesus maintained relations with the kings of Lydia, but the King of Lydia, Koressos, had the city surrounded, and forced the inhabitants to dwell on the plain, not far from the Temple of Artemis. At that period, the great philosopher, Heraclitus, who had a strong influence on ancient philosophy, lived here between the years 540-480 B.C. After the Persian Wars, a new era of democracy flourished in Ephesus and this Athenian method of rule was practised. During the Peloponnesian Wars, Ephesus first came under the domination of Athens and then Sparta (404 BC). After the Battle of Granikos in 334 B.C., Alexander the Great came to Ephesus and the city was won from the Persians. Later, one of the successors of Alexander the Great, named Lysimachos, conquered the city in the year 283 B.C.

As time passed, the plain became filled with sand carried by the Kucuk Menderes river, and the direct outlet of the city to the sea was cut off. In addition, the plain became a marshy land which brought the city’s inhabitants face to face with the danger of malaria. Lysimachos thought that a city located near such a marsh would be unsuitable for the inhabitants, both from a health point of view and from the point of view of commerce. To escape this unhealthy site, Lysimachos moved the city to a valley between Panayir mountain and Bulbul mountain, and in spite of great difficulties, he succeeded in this venture. This new area was more healthy and the city was better planned. Lysimachos encircled the city walls, the remains of which can still be seen today. He forced some of the people who didn’t want to leave their old homes to move to the new city, by means of artificially flooding the old area using the water reservoir. He called the city after his wife, Arsinoe. At the same time, the city became one of the richest in the region and a centre for trade in ancient times. It was decorated with stadiums, gymnasiums and theatres, and continued to develop in the later Hellenistic and Roman periods, owing its continued existence to the forethought of Lysimachos.

After the death of Lysimachos, Ephesus was brought under the rule of Egypt and Syria. Then it was mastered by the Romans in the year 190 BC. The Romans ruled Ephesus indirectly for a long time through Pergamum. At first, the people of Ephesus could not enjoy a peaceful life because of the wars around them, but they lived well later in the Augustan period (63 BC-14 AD). Soon Ephesus became the capital and also the most important commercial centre for the Roman province of Asia; the great writer of that age, Aristides, has told us this. Almost all religious, cultural and civic buildings, the remains of which are on the picture postcards you see today, belong to this period, when Ephesus was called the bank of Asia minor, Those jubilant days ended in the year 3 A.D. It is very clear that the Goths who sacked the Temple of Artemis, had no mercy for Ephesus in their plundering. Later, Ephesus became the capital of Roman bishoprics of Asia Minor in the 4th century. The Third Council, one of the most important events in the history of Christianity, was held in the Church of St. Mary, with 200 bishops who were brought here at the command of Emperor Theodosius. The controversy about whether or not the Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ or of God, was discussed at this meeting in the 5th century.

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