EPHESUS, ere-siis, Asia Minor, a Greek city of Lydia; one of the 12 Ionian cities; near the mouth of the river Caystrus, now called Kutshuk Mendre. Ephesus is now represented by the village of Ayasoluk, about 36 miles from Smyrna, on the railroad to Aidin. After be longing to the Ionians, it fell successively under the dominion of the Lydian and Persian kings. Its importance as a commercial city dates chiefly from the time of Alexander the Great, and it was the starting point of one of the great trade routes into Asia Minor. The apostle Paul lived for two years at Ephesus and established a Christian Church there, to which he addressed one of his epistles. Timothy succeeded Saint Paul, and Saint John is said to have had charge of the Church after Timothy, and to have died at Ephesus. Its bishop was the first of the seven to whom the Apocalypse was addressed. It was long famous for its temple of Artemis (Diana), called Artemision, reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. The temple was of the Ionic order, and was adorned with many pillars, each 60.feet high, and with numer ous statues and paintings by the most celebrated Grecian masters. It had been destroyed seven or eight times'before Pliny wrote, particularly by the notorious Herostratus, 356 B.C. The tem
ple, however, was rebuilt by the Ephesians with more magnificence than ever, whose women contributed their trinkets to the general fund raised for this purpose. There were also many other temples here, a theatre, a stadium or race course, gymnasia, odeum, etc. The site of the temple had become lost when it was discovered by Mr. Wood in 1867-69. In his excavations he found that the building measured about 343 feet by 164, and stood on a raised platform measuring 418 feet by 239. Important excava tions have since been carried out here by the Austrian Archaeological Institute and the theatre, important buildings connected with the gymnasium, and a splendid semicircular marble portico round the east side of the harbor have thus been disclosed. In the double church of Saint Mary the Virgin the Council of Ephesus was held in 431. The Great Mosque or Church of Saint John, the cave of the Seven Sleepers, and other interesting objects are to be seen here. Consult Wood, 'Discoveries in Ancient Ephesus' (1877).