Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/487

Rh of kings. Though Alexander the Great, after his victories, offered to pay the whole cost of reconstruction, on condition that he might inscribe his name as dedicator on the pedi ment, his offer was refused. The temple was rapidly com pleted, and was considered in after times the most perfect model of Ionic architecture, and one of the seven wonders of the world. The recent excavations of Mr Wood have enabled us to form a fairly exact notion of its details, as will be seen below. The architect employed was Dinocrates, and Scopas was one of the sculptors employed in the decoration. Alexander established a democratic government at Ephesus. Soon after his death the city fell into the hands of Lysimachus, who determined to impress upon the city a more Hellenic character, and to destroy the ancient bar barizing influences. To this end he compelled, it is said by means of an artificial inundation, the people who dwelt in the plain by the temple to migrate to the Greek quarter ou the hill now identified as Coressus, which he surrounded 467 by a solid wall. He recruited the numbers of the inhabi tants by transferring thither the people of Lebedus and Colophon, and finally, in order to make the breach with the past complete, renamed the city after his wife Arsinoe. But the former influences soon reasserted themselves, and with the old name returned Asiatic superstition and Asiatic luxury. The people were again notorious for wealth, for their effeminate manner of life, and for their devotion to sorcery and witchcraft. After the defeat of Autiochus the Great, king of Syria, by the Romans, Ephesus was handed over by the conquerors to Eumenes, king of Pergamus, whose successor, Attalus Philadelphus, worked the city irremediable harm. Thinking that the shallowness of the harbour was due to the width of its mouth, he built a mole part-way across the latter ; the result, however, was con trary to his wishes, the silting up of the harbour with saud proceeding now at a greater pace than before. The third Attalus of Pergamus bequeathed Ephesus with the rest of his possessions to the Roman people, when it became the RUINS OFEPHESUS. THf SITE OF THE TEMPLE OF DIANA. l j lau of Ephesus (copied by permission from Wood s Discoveries at Ephesiis, Longmans, 1876). capital of the province of Asia, and the residence of the proconsul. Henceforth Ephesus remained subject to the Romans until the barbarian invasions, save for a short period, when, at the instigation of Mithradates, the cities of Asia Minor revolted and massacred their Roman residents, The Ephesians even dragged out and slew those Romans who had fled to the precincts of Artemis for pro tection, notwithstanding which they soon returned from their new to their former masters, and even had the effront ery to state, in an inscription preserved to this day, that their defection to Mithradates was a mere yielding to superior force. Sulla, after his victory over Mithradates, brushed away their pretexts, and after inflicting on them a very heavy fine, told them that the punishment fell far short of their deserts. In the civil wars of the 1st century B.C. the Ephesians were so unfortunate as twice to support the unsuccessful party, giving shelter to, or being made use of by, first Brutus and Cassius and afterwards Antony, for which partisanship or weakness they paid very heavily in fines. All this time the city was gradually growing in wealth and in devotion to the service of Artemis, a devotion which had become quite fanatical at the time of St Paul s visit. The story of his doings there need not be repeated ; the supplement of them is, however, very suggestive, the burning, namely, of books of sorcery to a great value. Addiction to the practise of occult arts was always general in the city. The Christian church which St Paul planted was nurtured by St John, and is great in Christian tradition as the nurse of saints and martyrs. It was, however, long before the spread of Christianity threatened the cultus of Artemis. The city was proud to be termed neocorus, or servant of the goddess. Roman emperors vied with wealthy natives in lavish gifts to her, one Yibius Salutaris among