EPH'ESUS (Lat. from Gk. "Eoecros, Ephcsos). One of the twelve Ionic cities of Asia Minor. It was situated in Lydia, near the mouth of the river Cayster, in the midst of an alluvial plain. Its origin is enveloped in myths, as in the case of all the Ionic cities; but the reputed founder was Androcles, son of Codrus, the last King of Athens. The population was by no means all Ionic, as appears from the fact that the Ephesians did not celebrate the great Ionic festival of the Apaturia, nor were they divided into the four Ionic tribes. The presence of the great temple of Artemis (see DIANA, TEMPLE Or ) seems to have made it a sacred place from an early time. and its situation at the starting-point of one of the great trade routes into the interior of Asia Minor led to its commercial prosperity. It suffered from the Cimmerian invasion, about B.C. 655, and early submitted to the Lydian kings. During the Grreeo-Persian wars we hear little of the city, and it played no prominent part during the Peloponnesian and later wars. After the time of Alexander the Great the prosperity of Ephesus seems to have increased. The city was strengthened and improved by Lysimachus and the kings of Pergamum. The Romans made it the capital of the Province of Asia. Under the em perors it was the most prosperous trading city in Western Asia Minor, though we hear of com plaints that the right of asylum possessed by the temple of Artemis was abused. The account of ;saint Paul's labors in Ephesus. lasting nearly three years, shows the prosperity of the place and the importance of the temple in promoting that prosperity, as well as the passionate devo tion of the people to their great goddess (Acts xix.). A vigorous Christian Church was estab lished in the city. and later the Apostle John and ether prominent men of the Apostolic age made their headquarters at Ephesus. The bishop of this church was the first of the seven to whom the Apocalypse was addressed. The destruction of its great temple by the Goths in A.D. 263 gave
it a blow from which it never recovered. In A.D. 431 it was the scene of the third general council of the Christian Church. Its general history, while a city of the Byzantine Empire, was unim portant, and before the days of Tamerlane it bad almost completely perished. Certain cabalistic words or sayings said to have been inscribed on the base of the statue of _Artemis were copied and carried about as charms. Hence to a large num ber of similar charms hung about the neck and repeated in a low tone to avert danger was given the name Ephesia littera, or 'EqSeryLa 7pdpuara.
Before 1883 little was known of the topography of Ephesus, though the remains of the stadium, theatre, so-called g,ynthasium, and a few other buildings and walls could be traced. Wood's excavations in search of the Temple of Artemis assisted in clearing up some of the uncertainties in the plan, but it was not till the Austrian Archeological Institute began its systematic ex plorations that any very definite information was obtained. Work was begun in 1806, and is not yet (1902) completed. The great harbor is now known to date from the Hellenistic period (it had been thought Roman), and a broad street leading from the harbor past the theatre, which bas been fully excavated, and terminating in a triumphal arch, furnishes a starting-point for the deter mination of the topography of the city. Other discoveries include a large market-place, some 200 feet square, surrounded by colonnades and rooms, a large number of inscriptions, and many statues and reliefs. among them a bronze athlete, using the strigil, of remarkable beauty. Consult: ituhl, Ephrsiaca ( Berlin, 1842) ; Wood, Discov eries at Ephesus ( London, 1877). For the pre liminary reports of the :Austrian excavation, con sult: I nzeiger der pitilosophisch-hidto•ischen Kiasse der haiserlich-honialichen Akadentie der Wissenschaften in Wien (Vienna. 1S97 et seq.). and Jahreshrite des iisterreiehis•hen archtiologi schen Instituts 1SOS et seq.).