Ephesus Terrace Houses
About
Six wealthy Ephesian families shared this hillside apartment block, built in the second quarter of the 1st century AD along Curetes Street. Each unit opened onto its own Corinthian-columned courtyard, floored with mosaics of Nereids riding hippocamps, beneath frescoed walls showing Eros figures and hunts. By 11 August 117 CE the terrace houses had sheltered Ephesus's leading families for some eighty years, and would stand for centuries more. Hermann Vetters led their excavation from 1960.
What happened here
A working estate with a comfortable house attached, and the proportions vary with how rich the owner is and how often he visits. The farm side has presses for oil and wine, threshing floors, storage sunk into the ground, stables and quarters for the workforce. The residential side has baths, dining rooms sited for the view, mosaics, and a garden with water in it. A manager runs the place year-round and reports; the owner arrives for the vintage and for the summer. Produce goes to market or to the owner's town house, and the accounts are kept in detail. Some villas are pure retreat with no farm at all, built on a cliff or a lake specifically to be looked at from a boat.
In ancient writing
- in situ inscriptions, Terrace House 2 (Dwelling Unit 6), honorific / ownership inscriptions mid-2nd century CE
Inscriptions found within the residence name its owner as Gaius Flavius Furius Aptus, a leading Ephesian citizen who served as alytarch (games president) of the city's Olympic festival.
Sources
Nearby
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 →