In the year of 10 BC, Androclos, the
son of King of Athens-Kodros, was
searching a location for establishing a site. Androclos belonged to
Akhas, was running from the Dor invasion in Greece. He was
leading one of the migration convoys. It was predicted by an
Apollon oracle that a fish and a boar would show the location of
the new settlement. Days later, parallel to the oracle's prediction, while
frying, a fish fell down from the pan, irritating a hiding boar behind the
bushes. The feared boar escaped immediately. Androclos
followed the boar and established the city of Ephesus,
where he had killed the boar. When Androclos died in the wars with
Carians, a mausoleum was built to the memory of the first king
of Ephesus. The mausoleum is considered to be placed around "The Gate of
Magnesia".
Ephesus was ruled by the Lydian king,
Kreisos, in the mid 6BC. The city
reached the "Golden Age" and became a
good model to the Antic World in
culture and art, as well. As the detailed excavations have not completed yet,
apart from the Artemis, the remains of
that age haven't been revealed.
Later, Ephesus was dominated by
Persians. As Ephesians did not join the
"Ionian Rebellion" against Persians,
the city was saved from destruction. The rebellion resulted in the loss of
Persian. Alexander the Great won
Persians and the Ionian cities got their independence in the
year of 334. Ephesus was in great
prosperity during the times of Alexander the Great
Until the arrival of Alexander the Great, Ephesus
was consisted of two governing systems, democratic and oligarchic. But the
oligarchic system was violated with the coming of a new ruler,
and a rebellion existed in Ephesus.
The Temple of Artemis was fired and
destroyed by the supporters of oligarchy in 356BC.But
it is believed that a madman known as Herostratus
set fire to the temple in order to make his name immortal on the same night in
Macedonia Alexander the Great was born. As the temple became unusable,
Alexander the Great proposed for repairing. But the
Ephesians delicately refused for the reason that "A
God can not built a temple for another God.".So Alexander who
was very proud of himself as a God, gave some special priviledges to the city.
An Ephesian architect, Dinocrates
restored the Temple of Artemis.
After the death of Alexander the Great,
Ephesus was ruled by the general of him, Lysimakhos,
in 287 BC. Lysimakhos decided to change
the prior location of Ephesus to
further west, due to the destruction of the port by the
alluviums, and the inhabitants were forced to settle in the new
place named "Arsinoeina", the name of
Lysimakhos' wife. The city was surrounded by wide stone walls in 10 meters
height and 9 meters length. And, "Arsinoeina"
was changed into "Ephesus" again, to be
forgotten eternally. |
Ephesus History
