Templum Artemidis Ephesiae
About
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple burned in 356 BCE (in a fire ancient writers synchronized with Alexander the Great's birth) and was rebuilt on an even grander scale over the following century, with the reconstruction generally dated complete by the mid-3rd century BCE. That Hellenistic-era structure -- described in detail by Pliny -- remained standing and was a major pilgrimage/cult site throughout the Roman period, including at 117 CE; it was eventually destroyed by a Gothic raid in 268 CE, well after this snapshot. Coordinates match the point already present in this repo's places_medium.geojson gazetteer for consistency.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
In ancient writing
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.95–97
A hundred and twenty years in the building, 127 columns each the gift of a king, raised on marshy ground deliberately chosen to hold against earthquakes.
- Strabo, Geography 14.1.22–23
The successive temples on the site, the man who burned the last one down, and the right of asylum its precinct carried.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →