Ephesus

Ephesus, one of the 12 cities of Ionia (an ancient Greek district on the western coast of Asia Minor), located near modern İzmir, Turkey. As a port city at the mouth of the Cayster (modern Küçükmenderes) River, it was a major departure point for trade routes into Asia Minor. Known in antiquity for its sacred shrines, notably a famous temple (one of the Seven Wonders of the World) to the goddess Artemis, or Diana, the city was also an important center of early Christianity.

Probably founded in the 11th century bc by Ionian Greeks, Ephesus was conquered by the Cimmerians in the 7th century bc; by Croesus, king of Lydia, in the 6th century; and soon after, by Cyrus the Great, king of Persia. Later it was a tributary of Athens, but it sided with Sparta against Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 bc). Sparta ceded it to the Persians, who were driven out by Alexander the Great in 333 bc. Under this Macedonian rule Ephesus flourished, and it was briefly renamed Arsinoë. The city passed to Roman rule in 189 bc and remained an important commercial center. St. Paul established a Christian congregation in Ephesus in the 1st century ad, and it was the site of the third general council of the Christian church, which condemned the Nestorian heresy, in 431.

Having been destroyed by the Goths in 262, Ephesus, although rebuilt, never regained its former splendor. Under the Byzantine Empire it declined, and its harbor silted up; it was abandoned in the 14th century.

Excavations at Ephesus, begun in 1863, have uncovered temples to Artemis, public buildings, works of the Greek sculptors Phidias and Polyclitus, and a portrait of Alexander the Great.