e p h : 
Sans were proud to owe their fuperiority over the Ionian 
cities. The rude objeft of their primeval worfliip was a 
block of beech or elm carved into the fimilitude ot Diana, 
not as the elegant huntrefs, but an /Egyptian hierogly¬ 
phic, which we call the goddefs of nature, with many 
breads, and the lower parts formed into an hermaean datue 
grotefquely ornamented and difcovering the feet beneath 
it. This image was prelerved till the later ages in a 
fhrine, on the embellifliment of which mines of wealth 
were confumed, and the genius of Praxiteles exhaufled. 
The earlied temple was partially burned, and probably 
the roof of timber only, by Heroflratus, a philofopher 
who chofe that method to infure to himfelf an immortal 
name on the very night on which Alexander w-as born. 
Twenty years after, that magnificent prince, during his 
grand expedition for the conqued of Perfia, offered to ap¬ 
propriate his fpoils to the reftoration of it, if the Ephe¬ 
fians would confent to allow him the foie honour; but 
they rejected the propofal as difgraceful for them to ac¬ 
cept ; and fo general was the devotion, that the women 
worked at its materials, and 220 years w ere fpent in its 
completion. The defigner and original architect was 
Ctefiphon, a Cnoflian, aflifted by his (on Metagenes, 541 
years before the Chridian era ; and their plan was con¬ 
tinued by Demetrius, a pried of Diana; but the whole 
was completed by Daphnis of Miletus, and a citizen of 
Ephefus. It was the fird fpecimen of the Ionic dyle, and 
in which the fluted column and capital with volutes were 
originally introduced. Led fo great a flru&ure diould 
be endangered by earthquakes, they feleCted amarlhy fite 
for the foundations, which were laid on charred piles 
and beds of wool. The whole length of the temple was 
425 feet, and the breadth 220 ; with 127 columns of the 
Ionic order, and Parian marble each of a Angle fliaft, and 
lixty feet high. It had a double row of columns, fifteen 
on either fide ; and Vitruvius has not determined if it had 
a roof; probably, over the cell only. Such dimenfions 
excite ideas of uncommon grandeur from mere madivenefs; 
but the notices we collect of its internal ornament will 
increafe our admiration. It was the repofitory in which 
the great artids of antiquity dedicated their mod perfeft 
works to poderity. Praxiteles and his fon Cephifodorus 
adorned the fhrine ; Scopas contributed a datue of He¬ 
cate ; Timarete the daughter of Mycon, the fil'd female 
artid upon record, finifhed a picture of the goddefs, the 
mod ancient in Ephefus; and Parrhafius and Apelles, both 
Ephefians, employed their fkill to embellifli the pannels 
of the walls. The excellence of thefe performances may 
be fuppofed to have been proportioned to their price, 
and a picture of Alexander grafping a thunder-bolt by the 
latter, was added to this fuperb collection, at the expence 
of twenty talents of gold, a fum, according to certain 
commentators on Pliny, fo exorbitant, as fcarcely to be 
reconciled to an equivalent value in our money. From 
thefe imperfect documents we may conjecture what was 
the date of painting in the flourifhing ages of Greece, 
whild the admiration of the Italian fchools may induce a 
regret, that the opportunity of forming a comparifon is 
loft for ever. So great an inferiority exids between the 
defign and execution of tire Frefco paintings in the mod 
perfect date difcovered at Herculaneum and Portici, that 
at may be prefumed, that many of them were copied from 
the more famous works of Grecian artids at that time im¬ 
ported into Italy. 
The priefls of Diana fuffered emafculation, and virgins 
were devoted to inviolable chadity. They were eligible 
only from the luperior ranks, and enjoyed a great revenue 
with privileges, the eventual abufe of which induced 
Augudus to redrain them. Amongd others was that of 
an afylum for infolvent debtors. For feveral centuries 
after the pofieflion of the Roman emperors, and feven 
fucceflive injuries from which it fuffered almod a demo¬ 
lition, the temple retained an undiminiflied fplendour ; 
and was finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval 
jnvafion, when the remaining beauty of the Afiatic cities 
Vol, VL No. 397. 
' S U S, 853 
was totally defaced, and of thofe in the region of the Troad 
fcarcely a vedige can be difcovered. The Ephefian 
games, originally indituted by the Ionians in honour of 
Diana, were frequented as late as the reign of Caracalla. 
They bore the title of Neocori, in confequence of having 
templesand ceremonies dedicated to Claudius and Hadrian. 
In the year 409 before Chrid, the Ephefians fignalized 
themfel ves by a total defeat of the Athenians under Thra- 
fyllus; and during the Perfian war in 395 B. C. Agefi- 
laus edablidied himfelf in their city. The Roman fenate 
appointed Attalus king of Pergamus, and his fuccedors, 
guardians of the Afiatic dates ; and under the imperial 
government Ephefus continued to increafe in opulence 
and fplendour ; though, of the thirteen cities almod de- 
droyed by the earthquake in the reign of Tiberius, it did 
not efcape without a confiderable fliare of the calamity. 
Timothy, the colleague of St. Paul, was the fird bifliop 
of Ephefus, and edablidied the Chridian faith ; and under 
the aufpices of Coirdantine and Theodofius new churchds 
were ereCted and the pagan temples defpoiled of their or¬ 
naments, or accommodated to other worfhip. The ediCt 
of the latter emperor, the objeCt of which was the fubver- 
fion of thole magnificent piles which had been confecrated 
to the heathen deities, was executed with the molt labo¬ 
rious defiruCtion ; and the ruin of the faired flruCtures of 
antiquity originated in the zeal of the early Chridians. 
The immenfe dome of Santa Sophia at Condantinople, 
now rifes from the columns of green jafper which were 
originally placed in the temple of Diana at Ephefus, and 
were taken down by order of Juftinian. Procopius de adificiis 
jfujiiniani afcertains their identity. Two pillars now in 
the great church at Pifa were likewife tranfported from 
thence. The antiquary is frequently pleafed to be able 
to trace thefe dupendous ornaments through their whole 
hidory, as compofing in fucceflive ages, the grandeur of 
temples facred to Paganifm, to Chriflianity, and the Ma, 
homedan faith. 
Circumdances, not abfolutely to be attributed to any 
Angle caufe, but to thofe periods of growth and decay 
which await cities as well as men, involved Ephefus in 
univerfal depopulation, even before the Greek empire 
was extinCt. The Carian princes founded their citadel 
and town, about two miles didant, at Aiafoluk ; and re¬ 
moved all the materials for that purpofe, fo that upon 
their pofieflion of the Afiatic provinces it was totally de- 
ferted, and the fite remains to be didinguifhed by nume¬ 
rous and confufed heapsof disjointed architecture. Among 
thefe we may notice the range of vaults, once communi¬ 
cating with the harbour as warehoufe, and forming one 
fide of an ample dreet; above which is the ftadium, partly 
raifed on vaults to render it level with the dope of the 
hill ; a high wall at the circular end is perfect, and con- 
druCted with heavy rough dones. The gate of the left 
wing is of white marble, and nearly entire ; but evidently 
made up of fragments in a latter age. Ignorant of this 
circumdance, Tournefort is puzzled with a mutilated in- 
fcription, which is legible. There are others of Greek, 
but too far didant to be tranfcribed. The blocks of mar¬ 
ble are feveral tons weight. The pavement of a broad 
dreet then intervenes between another eminence of greater 
height, upon the brow of which, and occupying the 
whole platform, are the foundations of a fumptuous ar¬ 
cade, as appears from the bafes of ieveral columns, traced 
to a great extent. This has been a fpacious temple, hi¬ 
therto unnoticed. Winding round the hill, is the theatre 
which Pococke confiders as the inferior of two, if it were 
not a Naumachia ; it has two vad gateways, and a regular 
bafin fcooped from the marble rock, with the fublellia 
removed. Beyond is a groupe of broken pillars and heaps 
of architectural fragments near the temple voted to Clau¬ 
dius by the Afiatic cities, which had a portico of the Co¬ 
rinthian order, raifed on four columns only, each thirty 
feet in length, the mod intire fliaft of which rneafures 
more than four feet in diameter, and one broken in two 
pieces is of more than half its proportions. The point of 
*0 H the 
