Ephesus (Ephesos): An Abbreviated History from Androclus to Constantine Xi

Copyright © 2011 Hans Willer Laale.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-1619-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1620-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1618-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011928376

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

LIST OF MAPS.

LIST OF FIGURES.

PREFACE.

PART I:

CHAPTERS 1 TO 3.

CHAPTER 1:

ANDROCLUS TO HIPPONAX.

CHAPTER 2:

CYRUS II TO HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS.

CHAPTER 3:

XERXES I TO CYRUS THE YOUNGER.

PART II:

CHAPTERS 4 TO 6.

CHAPTER 4:

CYRUS II TO ALEXANDER III.

CHAPTER 5:

ANTIGONUS TO ANTIOCHUS IV.

CHAPTER 6:

EUMENES II TO OCTAVIAN.

PART III:

CHAPTERS 7 TO 9.

CHAPTER 7:

OCTAVIAN TO DOMITIAN.

CHAPTER 8:

TRAJAN TO ANTONINUS PIUS.

CHAPTER 9:

MARCUS AURELIUS TO DIOCLETIAN.

PART IV:

CHAPTERS 10 TO 13.

CHAPTER 10:

CONSTANTINE TO ANASTASIUS.

CHAPTER 11:

JUSTINIAN TO MICHAEL III.

CHAPTER 12:

BASIL I TO ALEXIUS V DUCAS.

CHAPTER 13:

BALDWIN I TO CONSTANTINE XI.

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

Also by Hans Willer Laale:

Once They Were Brave the Men of Miletus

© 2007

First published by Authorhouse 1/30. 2007

ISBN: 1-4208-9124-3 (sc).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

To my family, friends and colleagues I extend my sincere thanks for their unreserved support, and to God for his ever present help.

I also wish to acknowledge with appreciation the professionalism of the many writers, translators, editors, publishers and internet contributors who, directly and indirectly have provided such a wealth of source materials for the present book. Special debts of gratitude are owed to Mr. Todd Bolen for providing illustrations for the book, and to my nephew Mikal Halvdan Lawton for photo-enhancing.

H.W. Laale,

Vancouver, British Columbia.

July 28, 2011.

LIST OF MAPS.

Map. I Aegean Sea and Environs.

Map. II Ephesus South and Southwest.

Map. III Ephesus North and Northwest.

Map. IV. Ephesus (Ayasoluk) North.

Maps II-IV are based on C. Toksoz. Ephesus: Legends and Facts. Ayyildiz Matbaasi, Ankara. 1965.

LIST OF FIGURES.

Cover illustration of Artemis Ephesios:

By permission of Todd Bolen/Bible Places.com.

Text illustrations:

Fig. 1. The Gate of Mazaeus and Mithradates.

Fig. 2. The Fountain of Trajan.

Fig. 3. The Celsus Library.

Fig. 4. The Temple of Hadrian.

Fig. 5. The Basilica of Saint John and the Ayasoluk Citadel.

Fig. 6. The Remaining Standing Column of The Temple of Artemis.

Text photographs by permission of Todd Bolen/Bible Places.com.

Photo-enhanced by Mikal Halvdan Lawton.

PREFACE.

It was a wonderful city, this Ephesus. Go where you will about these broad plains, you find the most exquisitely sculptured marble fragments scattered thick among the dust and weeds; protruding from the ground, or lying prone upon it, are beautiful fluted columns of porphyry and all precious marbles; at every step you find elegant carved capitals and massive bases, and polished tablets engraved with Greek inscriptions. It is a world of precious relics, a wilderness of marred and mutilated gems. And yet ‘what are these things to the wonders that lie buried here under the ground?’ At Constantinople, at Pisa, in the cities of Spain, are great mosques and cathedrals, whose grandest columns came from the temples and palaces of Ephesus, and yet one has only to scratch the ground here to match them. We shall never know what magnificence is, until this imperial city is laid bare to the sun - what builders they were, these men of antiquity!

Mark Twain. ¹

Ephesus: An Abbreviated History From Androclus to Constantine XI presents chronologically what is known about the history of Ephesus, its buildings and its people from the time of Androclus the founder of Ephesus in 1050 B.C., to the establishment of the Ottoman state in A.D.1454. ² Although Ephesus is known to most readers through St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians and other New Testament references, few are familiar with the broader history of the city throughout ancient and medieval Mediterranean history. The book is arranged in four parts and thirteen chapters as follows: Pt. I Chapter1: Androclus to Hipponax; Chapter 2: Cyrus II to Heraclitus; Chapter 3: Xerxes I to Philip II; Pt. II Chapter 4: Cyrus the Younger to Alexander III; Chapter 5: Antigonus to Antiochus IV; Chapter 6: Eumenes II to Octavian; Chapter 7: Octavian to Domitian; Pt. III Chapter 8: Nerva-Trajan to Septimius Severus; Chapter 9: Marcus Aurelius to Diocletian; Pt. IV Chapter 10: Constantine the Great to Anastasius I; Chapter 11: Justinian I to Michael III; Chapter 12: Basil I the Macedonian to Alexius V Ducas and Chapter 13: Baldwin I to Constantine XI. Information is interconnected to provide a general feeling for the city and the people of Ephesus. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the lives of individuals and groups and their contributions to architecture, law, literature, medicine, painting, philosophy, poetry, politics, religion and sculpture, often at times characterized by political and territorial power struggles and ecclesiastical doctrinal controversies and jurisdictional disagreements.

The book deals with a broad variety of matters covering a wide range of time occasionally filled with lacunae hungering like empty spaces in a puzzle to be filled. Chronologies make it necessary at times to resort to conjecture, and some conclusions drawn may seem tentative. As rightly noted by a distinguished Canadian archaeologist:

We are always captive to our evidence, which is episodic or spasmodic, rarely complete, and frequently deliberately skewed, whether by suppression or by over-enthusiasm and promotion. ³

The treatment is by no means exhaustive, and not everything is written in stone. Digressions are resorted to occasionally for the purpose of clarity and continuity. It is a history designed for the general reader, and is but a brief introduction to a much broader field of interest to be further explored by other writers. To deal exhaustively with all aspects of the history of Ephesus and its prominent and not so prominent citizens would of course require, as most histories do, the coordinated scholarly efforts of many historians, linguists, archeologists, philosophers and more. To assist the reader, the information provided is documented with excerpts, biographical references, explanatory footnotes and a few illustrations.

The subject dealt with is of ongoing interest to historians, archaeologists, students of classical literature, science, religion and philosophy, as well as to amateurs and laymen who are interested in Mediterranean antiquity. It is hoped that the story of Ephesus, woven into the unfolding historical fabric of ancient and medieval Near Eastern political and religious conflicts, will stimulate interest, elicit dialogue, and provide readers with a fair measure of information and enjoyment.

H. W. Laale,

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (July 28, 2011).

PART I:

CHAPTERS 1 TO 3.

CHAPTER 1:

ANDROCLUS TO HIPPONAX.

THE FOUNDING AMAZONS.

The ancient Greeks believed that the mighty Oceanus and his consort Tethys spawned thousands of water deities each linked to a specific river. ⁴ Of these the river Cayster (Küçük Menderes) had its headwaters in Anatolia (modern Turkey) on Mount Tmolos, and its silt-carrying waters flowed into the Aegean Sea near the ancient city of Ephesus. Some said that the river god Cayster had sired the first Ephesian and named him Ephesus. ⁵ Modern-day linguists think that the name Ephesus could have been derived from Aphasa, an ancient Mycenaean-controlled capital of the Ahiyava Kingdom in southwestern Asia Minor, or perhaps from Apasas, the name of a legendary Amazon warrior-queen. ⁶ The Roman geographer Strabo (64-21) informs us that the founding of cities, and the giving of names to them, was ascribed to these Amazons. ⁷

Long before the Trojan War the Amazons founded a sanctuary to their Asiatic nature-goddess Cybele in the foothills of Mt. Solmissus near Ephesus. ⁸ The image of the goddess was attired in a multi-breasted (polymastros) ceremonial dress, and on her head she wore a turret-crown. Her breasts may have represented any number of things such as palm-dates, acorns, eggplants, ostrich-eggs, scrotums of bulls, bags for amulets and other elements. Clayton (1996) explains that:

The peculiar many-breasted statue of Artemis Ephesia represents a mother-goddess, the breasts symbolizing the fertility of women. The statue is rigid, the lower portion like an Egyptian mummy case. The decorative elements, stags, bulls, lions, griffins, sphinxes, sirens, bees, are creatures originally of the East. ⁹

Carved by skillful craftsmen the image was planted upright like a tree and fastened so that it would not topple. It was a goddess held in honor above all the gods. ¹⁰ Having decorated the senseless image they performed their holy rites around it. The poet Callimachus (310-284) of Cyrene writes that:

the Amazons, whose minds are set on war, in Ephesus beside the sea established an image beneath an oak trunk, and Hippo (then queen of the Amazons…) performed a holy rite…and around the image danced a war dance - first in shields and in armor, and again in a circle arrayed a spacious choir. ¹¹

Prior to the Trojan War (1250) and the arrival of the first Greek Ionians on the shores of Asia Minor, the primitive seat of the nature-goddess was located in a grove at Ortygia on the coast below Ephesus. Frequent earthquakes, raids, fires, and floods may have impaired the structure that protected the image and over time necessitated intermittent repairs. ¹²

That the Amazons were still around during the Trojan War is evident from the writings of the epic poet Homer (800-750). In the Iliad, Priam the son of the King of Troy tells beautiful Helen:

Before now I journeyed to the land of Phrygia, rich in vines, and there I saw in multitudes the Phrygian warriors, masters of glancing steeds, even the people of Otreus and godlike Mygdon that were then encamped along the banks of Sangarious. For I, too, being an ally, was numbered among them on the day when the Amazons came, the peers of men… ¹³

Homer goes on to say that not long after the Amazons together with the Phrygians and other tribes fought with Priam against Agamemnon and his Greek armies before Troy. ¹⁴ The Phrygians had migrated into Anatolia from Macedonia and Thrace, and the hegemony of north-central Anatolia thereafter gradually passed from the Hittites to the Phrygians who established their capital at the Hittite stronghold of Gordion by the river Sangarius not far from a votive monument to the legendary King Midas. ¹⁵ By approximately 1230 B.C., Hector’s Troy was destroyed at the hand of Agamemnon, and between 1200 and 1150 Mycenaean rule in Greece was terminated by invading waves of Dorians, an Indo-European race from the Balkans. They were said to have been the descendants of Heracles (Herakleidai) the son of Zeus and the greatest of Greek legendary heroes. ¹⁶ The region thereafter was plunged into darkness, the dreadful Dark Age of Antiquity.

THE IONIAN MIGRATIONS.

Between 1130 and 1000, when the Dorians migrated into Greece from the north, the Greeks on the mainland were displaced. Those who spoke with the Aeolian dialect gradually settled on the northwestern coastal islands of the Aegean Sea and on the coast of Asia Minor. Those who spoke the Ionian dialect subsequently established themselves along the western and southwestern shores of Ionia and Caria probably between 1000 and 800, and prior to the time of the epic poets Homer and Hesiod. ¹⁷ According to Hornblower and Spawforth (1996) the colonization of Ionia by the Ionians was a long exploratory period in which Greece itself was gradually resettled by Dorian pioneers and the Greeks colonized the coasts of Asia Minor. ¹⁸

Androclus the Colonizer and Founder of Ephesus.

Ionia was colonized by the Athenians Neileus and Androclus both of the lineage of legendary Athenian kings of uncertain chronology. The first of the lineage were Actaeus, Cecrops, Cranaus, Amphictyon, Erichthonius, Pandion and Erechtheus. Following them, the lineage continued with Cephalus, Cecrops, Pandion, Aegeus, Theseus, Menastheus, Demophon, Thymoetes, Melanthus and Codrus, called the Woodcutter King, who is said to have sired Medon, Neileus and Androclus. ¹⁹ When Codrus died his sons quarreled about the succession, and when the prestigious Delphian Oracle decided to make Medon archon, Neileus affronted by the preference departed from the shores of Attica with Androclus and a mixed contingent of Athenians and Ionians. ²⁰ The geographer Strabo writes that Androclus, the legitimate son of Codrus the King of Athens, was the leader of the Ionian colonization which was later than the Aeolian colonization, and that he became the founder of Ephesus. ²¹ Seeking new abodes because of an excess of population at home the sons of Codrus and a mixed company from Euboea, Boeotia, and other tribes poured into Asia Minor and settled along the coastal area of Caria and Ionia. Philostratus the Elder, writes that:

When the Athenians set out to colonize Ionia, the Muses in the form of bees guided their fleet; for they rejoiced in Ionia, because the waters of Meles are sweeter than the waters of Cephisus and Olmeius. ²²

In commemoration of the guiding bees the Ephesians subsequently minted silver coins imprinted with the image of a bee. ²³ While Neileus went on to colonize the Carian city of Miletus, Androclus proceeded northward along the coast to Ephesus. ²⁴ The hills, valleys and pastoral meadowlands around the mouth of the Cayster are poetically described by the epic poet Homer as a natural habitat where:

"Many tribes of winged fowl,

wild geese or cranes or long-necked swans

on the Asian mead by the streams of Caystrius,

fly this way and that, glorying in their strength of wing,

and with loud cries settle ever onwards." ²⁵

The region is further described by the historian Herodotus (484-420) as having the finest sky and climate of the world that we know of. ²⁶ Landing with his followers on some island situated where the Cayster river empties into the sea, perhaps the Island of Syrie now part of the mainland due to silting, they crossed over to the southern bank of the Cayster and expelled the indigenous Lydians, Leleges and Carians from a small harbor named Koressus and from another then named Smyrna. ²⁷ He settled the most of those who had come with him around the…slopes of what is know as Mt. Koressos. ²⁸

The population of Ephesus was divided by Androclus into three tribes: the Epheseis, the native Ephesian population; the Eumonumoi, the Athenian colonists; and the Bembinaeans, colonists from other Greek regions. A council (boule) headed by a secretary (grammateus) and an assembly of the people (ekklesia tou demou), likewise headed by a secretary (grammateus), jointly administered the affairs of the city and its people. The colonists may even have named their new home the City of Androclus. ²⁹ In deference to local customs the council granted immunity to those who dwelt round about the ancient sanctuary of the goddess Cybele. Then in compliance with an oracle they also built a temple to Athena overlooking the marketplace, and a temple to Apollo at the harbor. ³⁰ Athenaeus (170-200), a Greek writer from Naucratis in Egypt, citing from Creophylus’ Chronicles of the Ephesians writes that:

The founders of Ephesus, after suffering many hardships because of the difficulties of the region, finally sent to the oracle of the god and asked where they should place their city. And he declared to them that they should build a city ‘wheresoever a fish shall show them and a wild boar shall lead the way.’ It is said, accordingly, that some fishermen were eating their noonday meal in the place where are the spring, today called ‘Oily’, and the sacred lake. One of the fish popped out with a live coal and fell into some straw, and a thicket in which a wild boar happened to be was set on fire. The boar, frightened by the fire, ran up a great distance on the mountain which is called ‘Trecheia’ (Rough), and when brought down by a javelin, fell where today stands the Temple of Athena (Athenaeum)… ³¹

For the sake of unity the population gradually commingled their religious beliefs and practices, and by so doing they changed the revered image of the Greek Artemis of the Hunt, the twin sister of Apollo, into the grotesquely-dressed many-breasted statue of Artemis Ephesia representing the native Anatolian mother-goddess Cybele. ³² It was a metamorphosis reversible only over time by a gradual down-playing of the attributes of the Anatolian goddess Artemis Ephesia, and a spiritual rebirth of the Greek Artemis of the Hunt who stood for chastity and the rejection of marriage. ³³ It may have been from this time that the Ionians adopted the custom of celebrating the birthday of the Ortygian goddess on the sixth of Targelion (May) and commenced regular processions in her honor. ³⁴

Androclus campaigned against the nearby island of Samos and took the island from the Samians, and for about a decade he held it and the adjacent islands. ³⁵ As told by the Lydian-born historian Pausanias (fl. 2nd century after Christ):

The Ephesians under Androclus made war on Leogoras, the son of Procles, who reigned in Samos after his father, and after conquering them in a battle drove the Samians out of their island, accusing them of conspiring with the Carians against the Ionians. The Samians fled and some of them made their home on an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name was changed from Dardania to Samothrace. Others with Leogorus threw a wall around Anaea on the mainland, opposite Samos, and ten years after crossed over, expelled the Ephesians and re-occupied the island. ³⁶

Not all Ephesians were expelled from the island, for as told by Malacus in his Annals of Siphnos:

"Ephesus was settled by slaves of the Samians, to the number of a thousand, who at first had retired to the mountains on the island and done much mischief to the Samians. Five years after this the Samians, in obedience to an oracle, made a conditional treaty with the slaves, and they departed to Ephesus, where they landed. The Ephesians sprang from them. ³⁷

Androclus also helped the people of Priene to the north of Miletus against the savage Carians, but although the Greeks were victorious, Androclus fell in battle and was carried off to be entombed at Ephesus. ³⁸ Later monuments, friezes, reliefs and coins dating from the 2nd century B.C. to the 4th century after Christ, variously depict Androclus killing the wild boar referred to by Creophylus, fighting against the Samosians, and being killed by the Carians. Statue fragments also show Androclus as a mighty hunter. ³⁹ The descendants of Androclus’s family were called kings and accorded respectful honors including:

…privileges of front seats at the games and of wearing purple robes as insignia of royal descent, and staff instead of scepter, and of the superintendence of the sacrifices in honor of the Eleusinian Demeter. ⁴⁰

THE IONIAN AMPHICTYONY.

Having settled along the Asian shores the Greeks formed an Ionian Amphictyony, a loosely connected dodecapolis of city-states, or dwellers round about (perioikoi). Of these, Miletus was founded by Neileus, Myus was founded by Cydrelus, Priene by Aepytus the son of Neileus, Colophon by Andraemon, Lebedos by Andropompus, Teos by Athamas, Clazomenae by Paralus, Phocaea by Philogenes, Erythrae by Cnopus, and Ephesus by Androclus. Including the island cities Samos and Chios, founded respectively by Tembrion and Egertius, the union consisted of twelve walled cities. ⁴¹ Communication may not always have been easy, for not all spoke the same dialect or language. The historian Herodotus (484-430) for example explains that:

Miletus lies farthest south among them, and next to it come Myus and Priene; these are settlements of Caria, and they use a common language; Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Phocaea, all of them being in Lydia, have a language in common which is wholly different from the speech of the three cities afore-mentioned. There are yet three Ionian cities, two of them situate on the islands of Samos and Chios, and one, Erythrae, speak alike, but the Samians have a language which is their own and none other’s. It is thus seen that there are four fashions of speech. ⁴²

Moreover, there may have been a mixture of additional uncommon Anatolian dialects reflecting the Hittite, Luvian, Lycian and Lydian origins of dwellers round about. To facilitate communication between the city-states it became necessary to assemble and to discuss who and what cities should have part and vote in the league, and to decide on what rights citizens and cities should have in their various dealings. For the sake of mutual cooperation it was also important to preserve, protect and perpetuate their shared ethnic and religious culture. The first common assemblage was likely established at Mycale, a ridge of the Tmolus mountain, near Miletus. Later however, as a result of the outbreak of wars the Greeks were unable to hold the Panionia there, so they shifted the…gathering to a safe place near Ephesus. ⁴³

The Murderer Hegesistratus Banned by the Ionian Amphictyony.

Around this time Hegesistratus, an otherwise unknown Ephesian, was banished by the Amphictyony for murdering one of his kinsmen. The murderer fled to Delphi and there inquired of the oracle where he should make his new home. As was usually the case, the response of the oracle was appropriately laconic and vague:

Where you shall see rusties dancing, garlanded with olive-branches.

When Hegesistratus thereafter had come to a certain place, and there observed farmers garlanded with olive-branches and joyfully dancing, he founded a city and called it Elaeus, meaning City of Olives. ⁴⁴

THE CIMMERIAN INCURSION.

At the beginning of the 8th century B.C. predatory tribes of nomadic Cimmerians pressured by Scythian tribes began to move southward from their homes in the Tauric Chersonesus. ⁴⁵ They entered northern Anatolia and overran the Kingdom of the Phrygians. Thereafter, Lydia rapidly grew first under Caudales (733-716), also known as Myrsilus, and then under Gyges (715-678) who forced the people into submission with a mercenary force paid for by Melas I, a supposed lord of Ephesus. ⁴⁶ Gyges thus became the first in the line of Lydian kings. ⁴⁷ He aggressively attacked his Greek neighbors in Ionia, led an army into the lands of Miletus and Smyrna, and overran the nearby city of Colophon. His savage raids against the Ionian cities, however, temporarily came to an end when he was threatened by the dastardly Cimmerians, who with their curving bows made incursions across the Hellespont. Failing in their attack on Sardis between 670 and 665, the Cimmerians in 652 under their commander-in-chief Lygdamis (fl. 652-636) returned for a second attack. The triple-walled city on the golden Pactolus river was sacked and Gyges killed in battle. ⁴⁸ After Gyges was buried in the Lydian royal cemetery at Bin Tepe on the plain of Sardes, the rule passed to Ardys II (678/644-629/625), the son of Gyges, then to his son Sadyattes (629/625-617/600) and to the latter’s son Alyattes II (617/600-560). Over the following years the Cimmerians threatened the towns in Aeolia and Ionia, laid siege to Priene, destroyed Magnesia-on-the-Maeander and threatened Miletus. It is said that insolent Lygdamis in his madness also attempted to waste the whole city of the Ephesians. The temple to Artemis in the plain near Ephesus was badly damaged by the Cimmerians. ⁴⁹ In retaliation the enraged goddess is said to have sent a horrible plague, causing the fleeing and terrified Cimmerians to withdrew to Cilicia taking the plague with them. Callimarchus comments that:

He (Lygdamis) brought against it (Ephesus) a host of Cimmerians…, in number as the sand; who have their homes hard by the Straight of the Cow, daughter of Inachus! Foolish among kings, how great he sinned! For not destined to return again to Scythis was neither he nor any other of those whose wagons stood in the Caysterian plain; for thy shafts are ever more set as a defense before Ephesus. ⁵⁰

Callinus the Elegiac Poet and Patriot.

That the Ephesians survived the Cimmerian attack on Ephesus was due largely to the bravery of Callinus (fl. 650-642) one of the oldest of the Greek elegiac poets and the creator of political and warlike elegies. ⁵¹ He flourished during the time of the poets Simonides (650) of Amorgos, Archilochus (680-640) of Paros and Tyrtaeus (640-637) of Miletus, but some years prior to the time of Mimnermus (632-629) of Colophon, Stesichorus (629-553) of Himera and Alcaeus (620-580) of Mytilene. When Ephesus was besieged, Callinus accompanied by musical pipes would rally the Ephesians to defend their fair city. Like his contemporary the political poet Tyrtaeus, he would shame the young men into action with his potent war-songs and sharply pointed interrogatives. ⁵² How long, he would cry out, will ye lie idle ? Then with a rallying cry he would shout: When, young men, will ye show a stout heart ? Have ye no shame of your sloth before them that dwell round about you ? Purpose you to sit in peace though the land is full of war? ⁵³ With the exasperation of an overzealous patriot he would remind them of how honorable it is to fight for city and family, and how death finds everyone eventually. Then he would end his tirade with a great war cry:

Let every man cast his javelin once more as he dies. For ‘it is an honorable thing and a glorious to a man to fight the foe for land and children and a wedded wife; for death shall befall only when the Fates ordain it. Nay, so soon as war is mingled let each go forward with his spear in poise and shield before a stout heart; for by no means can a man escape death, nay not if he comes of immortal lineage. Often, it may be, he returns safe from the conflict of battle and the thud of spears, and the doom of death cometh upon him at home; yet such is not dear to the people nor regretted, whereas if ought happen to the other sort is bewailed of small and great. When a brave man dies, the whole people bemoan him, and while he lives he is as good as a demigod; for in their eyes he is a tower, seeing that he does single-handed as good work as many together. ⁵⁴

When not fighting the Cimmerians there were frequent deadly clashes with the citizens of nearby Magnesia-on-the-Maeander. That the Magnesians were often defeated by the Ephesians in these encounters is suggested by Athenaeus who quoting from the Elegies of Callinus says that they were overcome by the Ephesians. ⁵⁵ As bees and hornets do, the Ephesians chased them and drove them back. ⁵⁶ Indeed, Lucian (120-190), in one of his dialogues appropriately likens such combatants to savage bees each having a sting of his own to sting his neighbor. ⁵⁷ As rightly observed by the later Ephesian poet and bee-keeper Menecrates:

…when black and striped bees occur in the same hive the black either drives the striped out, or is driven out. ⁵⁸

An interesting account of one such conflict is provided by the later Roman writer Claudius Aelianus (165-230). The opposing sides, he writes, were accompanied by slave javelin-throwers and a number of war dogs each more fierce than the legendary hound Cerberus.

When the battle was due to begin the dogs, which were fearsome, aggressive and ferocious to encounter, rushed forward and disturbed the enemy formation, the slaves jumped out in front of their masters and threw javelins. After the disorder already caused by the dogs the activity of the slaves also had its effect. Finally in their place the masters attacked. ⁵⁹

Like the Mollossian hounds that attacked legendary Actaeon, the fierce canines lashed out at their opponents, tearing them to pieces. ⁶⁰ The Lydians under Alyattes in mush the same fashion used fierce war-dogs to drive out the remaining Cimmerians. Mayor (2003) quoting from the Stratagems of War by the Macedonian Greek writer Polyaenus (A.D. 153) tells us that:

the monstrous and bestial Cimmerians were driven out of Asia Minor…by the vicious hounds of King Alyattes of Lydia…King Alyattes set his ‘strongest dogs upon the barbarians as if they were wild animals’.‘The king’s war dogs’, he wrote, ‘killed many and forced the rest to flee shamefully’ ⁶¹

The patriot Callinus may not have lived long enough to see the Cimmerians suffer final defeat in wars with Alyattes of Lydia, with Ashurbanipal (668-627) of Assyria and Cyaxares (653-585) of Media. ⁶² Nor did he live long enough to see Nabopolassar (626-605) the Chaldean declare himself King of Babylon, and in alliance with Cyaxares the King of the Medes capture and utterly destroy the Assyrian strongholds of Ashur (614), Nineveh (612), and Harran (610). ⁶³

During this approximate period Alyattes also moved against the cities on the Aegean coast. He fought an inconclusive war against Miletus, and made an agreement with the tyrant Thrasybulus (612-605) that lasted for the duration of his rule. He also captured Smyrna at the head of the bay into which the Hermus (modern Gediz) flows and concluded a treaty with Ephesus. ⁶⁴

The Tyrants Pythagoras, Melas II, Pindar and Pasicles.

The Ephesian tyrant Pythagoras (590-580), the namesake of the later Samian philosopher Pythagoras (569-475), was instructed by Delphi to rid Ephesus of an unnamed pollution that was causing a plague. ⁶⁵ After him, Melas II (580-570), the successor of Pythagoras the tyrant, wisely chose to enter into a non-aggression pact with Alyattes of Lydia. The pact involved an Homeric-like alliance involving a political marriage of convenience between Melas II and an unnamed daughter of Alyattes of Lydia. Alyattes had two wives, a Greek and a Carian. With the Greek wife he sired Pantaleon, a half-brother of Croesus. With the Carian wife he sired two daughters, Aryenis who married Astyages the son of Cyaxares and another who married Melas II. ⁶⁶ Aelian writes that Pindar, or Pindaros (570-550), the son of Melas II and grandson of Alyattes on his mother’s side, then became tyrant of Ephesus by succession. ⁶⁷ In his punishments, writes Aelian, he was stern and unyielding, but in other respects he seemed to have been reasonable and patriotic, and he was thought to take many precautions to prevent his country being enslaved by the barbarians. ⁶⁸ Despite a rather distinguished family connection, however, Pindar remains an obscure figure.

Alyattes II bequeathed his Lydian Empire to his son Croesus (560-546) whose reign began following a civil war against his half-brother Pantaleon. ⁶⁹ By approximately 560, a decade after Pindar had succeeded the tyrant Melas II, the Lydians using new undermining techniques developed by the Assyrians moved against the Greeks in Ionia. The first Greeks whom Croesus attacked were the Ephesians. Since the Temple of Artemis had been considered inviolate from the early days of the Amazons it seemed natural to Pindar to consecrate the whole city to the goddess and thus extend its inviolability. The historian Herodotus writes:

These (the Ephesians), being besieged by him (Croesus), dedicated their city to Artemis. This they did by attaching a rope to the city wall from the temple of the goddess standing seven furlongs away from the ancient city, which was then being besieged. ⁷⁰

A fuller account is provided by Aelian who writes:

"When his maternal uncle Croesus was conquering Ionia and had sent envoys to Pindar to demand that Ephesus submit to him, the request was refused and Croesus began a siege of the city. When one of the fortification towers was destroyed - it was known as the Tower of Treason - and he could see disaster looming, Pindar advised the Ephesians to attach cords from the city gates and towers to the columns of the Temple - as if they were consecrating the city to Artemis. He hoped by this means to ensure that Ephesus would not be captured. He advised them to go to plead with the Lydian. When the Ephesians displayed their credentials as suppliants, Croesus is said to have laughed and accepted the stratagem in good part, allowing the Ephesians unmolested freedom, while he ordered Pindar to leave the city. ⁷¹

Pindar then collected those of his friends who wanted to go with him. He nominated Pasicles, one of his close friends to be guardian of his son and his property and then left for the Peloponnese accepting exile in exchange for the position of tyrant… ⁷² The Ephesians may have been dealt with lightly because of the intervention of Croesus’ sister on behalf of her son. Be that as it may, during the attack on Ephesus the Temple of Artemis was badly impaired or possibly destroyed, and in deference to the goddess of the Ephesians, Croesus ordered the construction of a magnificent new Temple to Artemis.

The Shepherd Pixodarus called Euangelos.

Legend has it that some time earlier before the Ephesians were planning to construct the new temple ordered by Croesus, quarries rich in marble had been discovered by an Ephesian shepherd-boy named Pixodarus. As the story goes:

Pixodarus was driving his sheep and was pasturing them…And there two rams, butting together, overran one another, and, in the rush, one of them struck a rock with his horns and a chip of the whitest color was thrown down. So Pixodarus is said to have left his sheep on the hills and to have run with the chip of marble to Ephesus at the time when there was a great discussion about the matter. The citizens decreed him divine honors and changed his name: instead of Pixodarus he was to be named Euangelos. ⁷³

CROESUS AND THE ARTEMISION.

The architects usually associated with Croesus’s new temple to Artemis were Chersiphron (600-550) and his son Metagenes, both from Cnossus on the island of Crete. ⁷⁴ Croesus by then had moved the city standing on Mount Pion (Lepre Acte) to a flat plain further to the east. Chersiphron and Metagenes set out looking for marble to aggrandize the planned Ionic temple. Since marble is not found of the same kind in all regions, they looked for it between the boundaries of Magnesia and Ephesus where the shepherd-boy Pixodarus had dug it up ready for use… ⁷⁵

Construction likely began around 540 and continued for about another 120 years. The Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (80/70 B.C.-A.D.15) provides interesting information on the ingenious contrivances employed to transport the shafts of columns from the quarries to the temple on rollers, and elsewhere he says that Chersiphron may have co-authored a work with Metagenes on the proportions of the Ionic temple. ⁷⁶ Pliny the Elder (23-79), as well, has contributed interesting information about the laying of the foundation and the proportions of the temple. The foundation posed a problem of some dimension:

For it was built on marshy soil so that it might not be subject to earthquakes or be threatened by subsidence. On the other hand, to ensure that the foundations of so massive a building would not be laid on shifting, unstable ground, they were underpinned with a layer of closely trodden charcoal, and then with another layer of sheepskins with fleeces unshorn. The length of the temple overall was 425 feet, and its breadth 225 feet. There were 127 columns, each constructed by a different king and 60 feet in height. Of these, 36 were carved with reliefs. ⁷⁷

Legal and administrative regulations regarding contracts for the erection of public works and cost estimates had to be adhered to, for the forefathers of the Ephesians had specified that:

When an architect undertakes the erection of a public building, he estimates at what cost it will be done. The estimate is furnished, and his property is assigned to the magistrate until the work is finished. On completion, when the cost answers to the contract, he is rewarded by a decree in his honor. If not more than a forth part has to be added to the estimate, the state pays it and the architect is not mulcted. But if more than a fourth extra is spent in carrying out the work, the additional sum is exacted from the architect’s property. ⁷⁸

Besides the unstable foundation there undoubtedly were numerous other problems. Pliny the Elder, for example, describes the difficulties when the architraves (lintels) were lifted into place:

This he achieved by filling bags of plaited reed with sand and constructing a gentle graded ramp which reached the upper surfaces of the capitals of the columns. Then little by little, he emptied the lowest layer of bags, so that the fabric gradually settled into its right position. But the greatest difficulty was encountered with the lintel itself when he was trying to place it over the door; for this was the largest block, and it would not settle on its bed. ⁷⁹

Then one night while sleeping he saw before him the goddess Artemis who told him that she herself had laid the stone. Indeed, overnight the stone had been adjusted merely by dint of its own weight.

Among the offerings made by Croesus to the Temple of Artemis were oxen of gold and the greater part of the pillars, some of which were inscribed with his name. ⁸⁰ Around this time the Samian sculptor Theodorus (550-520), the son of Rhoecus, was also working on a project in Ephesus. He and his brother Telecles were preparing for the people of Samos a wooden statue of the Pythian Apollo for the Temple of Hera.

One half of the statue…was worked by Telecles in Samos, and the other half was finished by his brother Theodorus at Ephesus; and when the two parts were brought together they fitted so perfectly that the whole work had the appearance of having been done by one… ⁸¹

Over the centuries that followed and down to the time of Alexander the Great (356-323), the temple and its interior was decorated by a great number of notable painters, sculptors and craftsmen such as Apelles, Calliphon, Cresilas, Euphranor, Pharax, Pheidias, Phradmon, Polycleites, Praxiteles, Rhoecus, Scopas, Zeuxis and more. As for the altar of the Artemision, Strabo writes that the whole of the altar was filled, one might say, with the works by Praxiteles (370-330). ⁸²

Of germane interest is the story provided by Matyszak (2003) that the Temple of Artemis which was built in Rome during the reign of Servius Tullius (579-509) was in the likeness of the temple to Artemis at Ephesus, but on a smaller scale.

Archaeology gives some support to the claim that Servius Tullius was the builder of the Temple of Diana, which was constructed in the 6th century B.C. This temple emulated the first Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, later one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The significant feature of the Roman temple was that it was built by the combined peoples of Latium, and the choice of Rome as its site shows explicitly that Rome was the recognized Latin capital. ⁸³

CYRUS II THE GREAT.

While construction on the Temple of Artemis was ongoing in Ephesus, Croesus conquered all the nations west of the Halys River except for Cilicia and Lycia. ⁸⁴ At the same time the Medo-Persian Empire under Cyaxares had reached to the Halys. The river soon became the disputed frontier between Lydia and Media and a bone of contention, and for about five years Astyages (585-550), the son of Cyaxares, warred with the Lydian King Alyattes II. ⁸⁵ Persia at the time was still a province under the rule of Media, but controlled by two families, the family of Ariaramnes and the family of Ariaramnes’s brother Cyrus I (640-580) of Anshan. The latter’s son Cambyses I (580-559) of Anshan married the daughter of Astyages, and from that marriage was born Cyrus II (559-529) of Anshan, who as Cyrus the Great, conquered the Median Empire and established the Persian Empire.

Eurybatus the Traitor.

Having ascended to power, Cyrus II moved against Astyages and took the city of Ecbatana the capital of his Median overlord. ⁸⁶ He captured Astyages, and coveting the fabled wealth of Sardis he encamped with his army near the frontiers of Lydia. The historian Diodorus Siculus (80-20) comments that Cyrus II sent envoys to Croesus with the message that should Croesus decide to surrender he would be appointed Satrap of Lydia. Under the guise of sending to Delphi, Croesus dispatched Eurybatus of Ephesus to the Peloponnesus with money to recruit mercenaries from among the Greeks. The disloyal envoy, however, went over to Cyrus II and revealed everything to him. ⁸⁷ As a consequence of this betrayal the wickedness of Eurybatus became a by-word among the Greeks. Indeed, whenever a man wished to cast another’s knavery in his teeth he would call him a Eurybatus. ⁸⁸

Mobilizing his forces, Croesus II quickly crossed the Halys River in support of Astyages his brother-in-law, but following an unsuccessful skirmish with the stronger Persian forces, he retreated to Sardis. Cyrus II pursued and in 546, before any ally could come to Croesus’ assistance, he captured the city of Sardis and killed Croesus the last independent King of the Lydians. ⁸⁹ In the aftermath of the war the natural-philosophers Thales (624-546) and Anaximander (610-546) of Miletus both died. ⁹⁰

Aristarcha the Priestess of Artemis.

Croesus’s defeat prepared the way for the extension of Persian hegemony over the whole of the Aegean coastal region. Lydia became a Persian satrapy. Besieged by the Persians, and terrified to suffer bondage under the Median general Harpagus, the citizens of Phocaea to the north of the Gediz (Hermus) river in 540 decided to leave their city behind. When about to set sail an oracle instructed them to take along Aristarcha an Ephesian priestess held in very high honor. The Ephesian goddess Artemis is said to have stood beside Aristarcha in a dream and commanded her to sail away with the Phocaeans taking with her a wooden statue which was among the sacred temple images. ⁹¹ Under the leadership of Creintiades, and with the solemn blessing of Aristarcha who carried the sacred image, the Phocaeans hastily departed in their fifty-oared ships for Cyrnus in Corsica and from there to Massilia and on to Elea in southern Italy. Ephesus likely was taken soon after by the ferocious general Harpagus.

Hipponax the Poet and Patriot.

The Ephesian poet Hipponax (fl. 540-437), the son of Pytheus and Protis, was born at about the same time as the Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus when work was begun on the Croesus temple to Artemis. Hipponax was a near contemporary of the lyric poets Ibycus of Rhegium (564-533), Simonides of Cos (557-467), Theognis of Megara (540-537), Bacchylides of Ceos (518-452) and Pindar of Cynoscephalae (518-438), the namesake of Pindar the earlier Ephesian tyrant. Hipponax came from an established family and grew up to become a writer of sorts. He invented satirical verses of an uninhibited nature in a meters called the limping iambic, or scazon, also known as the choliambic meter. ⁹² He initially lived in a district of Ephesus named Smyrna between Tracheia and Lepra Acte (Mount Pion). ⁹³ He was the kind of person that one would not want as a neighbor. History portrays him in most unflattering terms. He is described as:

…a disreputable fellow, a brawler, drinker and womanizer, who expressed himself in vulgar colloquial language and abused his enemies using the weapon of epic parody… ⁹⁴

The obscene diction that emanated from the lips of Hipponax is referred to by Smith (2004) who says that Hipponax’s verse has the repulsive fascination of toilet graffiti. ⁹⁵ He would say that there are two days when a woman is a pleasure, on the day one marries her and the day one buries her. ⁹⁶ Having expressed his contempt for women in general, he would, as was his habit, entertain like-minded companions with lascivious yarns like the one about Aristonymus of Ephesus, the son of Demostratus, who hated women and used to consort with an ass that in due time gave birth to a very beautiful maiden Onoscelis by name. ⁹⁷ Perhaps he also recited from his repertoire the story of the rape of Chelidon, the daughter of Pandareus of Ephesus. ⁹⁸ As the story goes, Chelidon, the daughter of Pandareus was raped by Polytechnus. When his sister Aedon learned what had happened to her sister, they killed Polytechnos’ child Itylus and served him as a meal to his father. Undoubtedly a man like Hipponax had an inexhaustible supply of similar anecdotes to draw upon.

In addition to his deficiency of character Hipponax had a notoriously ugly face. ⁹⁹ A stone head which scholars suggest could be in the likeness of Hipponax is described by Schmidt (2004) who observes that:

There are vestiges of a wreath around his brow - laurel, or poison ivy? Battered, like a pugilist who is being restrained, he snarls the eyes frowning and pursed. Time has cut off his nose but the face refuses to be spited. ¹⁰⁰

Tradition has it that due to his hideous appearance, the Chian artists Bupalus and Athenis for their own amusement made caricatures of Hipponax and displayed them openly to their companions. ¹⁰¹ This so infuriated Hipponax, who in retaliation aggressively abused them with such extreme offensive poetry that they hanged themselves like Lycambes and his daughters when assailed by Archilochus of Paros the satiric predecessor of Hipponax. ¹⁰² The much later satirist Lucian (120-190) of Samosata when ridiculed by an insolent stranger is said to have repaid the man with the following biting words:

I am…aware that you have done in your life hundreds of things which deserve iambics. Even Archilochus himself, I think, would not have been able to cope with them, though he invited both Simonides and Hipponax to take a hand with him in threatening just one of your bad traits, so childish in every sort of iniquity have you made Orodocides and Lycambes and Bupalus, their butts, appear. ¹⁰³

It is not difficult to see in Hipponax an image of Homer’s Thersites. ¹⁰⁴ Both were physically and morally deformed. Hipponax had a malicious disposition and was expelled from Ephesus because of his coarseness of thought and feeling, his rude vocabulary and his want of grace and taste. Thersites was expelled from Ilium by Odysseus for reasons much the same. Hateful were they, men of measureless speech whose minds were full of great and disorderly words wherewith to utter revilement and abuse. Moreover, they would say whatsoever they deemed would raise a laugh. Both men were evil-favored beyond all men. Yet, Thersites is bound to live as long as Agamemnon, and Hipponax is bound to live as long as Homer. ¹⁰⁵

Hipponax was expelled from Ephesus and took refuge in Clazomenae on the coast near Smyrna. As indicated in two of his