The History of Ephesus, Explained

By All Over InformationUpdated August 10, 20268 min read

Few places on earth pack three thousand years of history into one compact site. Ephesus, on the Aegean coast of Turkey near the modern town of Selcuk, began as a small Ionian Greek settlement and grew into one of the greatest cities of the ancient world: capital of the Roman province of Asia, home of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and a major center of early Christianity. Its marble streets, the Library of Celsus, and the vast Great Theatre still stand, and UNESCO put the site on the World Heritage List in 2015.

From Myth to Ionian Colony

Ephesus enters history through legend. Greek tradition credited the foundation to Androklos, a son of the Athenian king Codrus, who led Ionian settlers across the Aegean around the turn of the first millennium BC. An oracle told the colonists to settle where a fish and a boar led them, and they chose the mouth of the Cayster River, where marsh, woodland, and sea met.

The historical outline matches the myth: Greek-speaking Ionians founded a chain of cities along the Anatolian coast, and Ephesus prospered because its harbor sat at the end of trade routes reaching deep into Asia Minor.

Behind the Greek city lay earlier settlements, and the goddess the Greeks called Artemis absorbed traits of older Anatolian mother goddesses, so her sanctuary would always be greater in meaning than the city around it.

The Temple of Artemis and King Croesus

The city’s greatness was bound to its goddess. The sanctuary of Artemis, on low marshy ground west of the settlement, became one of the most famous religious centers of the Greek world, drawing pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.

In the sixth century BC the Lydian king Croesus conquered the region and donated lavishly to the temple, and the building that rose was a wonder in the fullest sense: roughly four times the size of the Parthenon, ringed by more than a hundred columns almost twenty meters tall.

In 356 BC a man named Herostratus burned the temple down so that his name would never be forgotten. The Ephesians rebuilt it even more grandly, and the sanctuary flourished for centuries more.

Ephesus, Turkey — Photo by DebraJean on Pixabay

Alexander and the Refounding of the City

Alexander the Great reached Ephesus in 334 BC during his campaign against Persia. Tradition says he offered to rebuild the temple, and the Ephesians replied that one god should not build a temple to another, a story that captures the city’s pride.

The city Alexander saw, however, was not the one you visit today. The old settlement stood beside the harbor, and the river mouth was slowly silting up. After Alexander’s death, his general Lysimachos moved the population to fresh ground between Mount Pion and Mount Coressus.

He drained the marshes, laid out streets on a grid, and built the walls whose traces you can still find. The plan of the city you walk today dates from this refoundation at the end of the fourth century BC.

The Capital of Roman Asia

In 133 BC the last king of Pergamon bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. The new province of Asia made Ephesus its capital, seat of the Roman governor and first city of the province in wealth and prestige. The great trade routes of the Mediterranean ran through its harbor, and the city grew rich on shipping, banking, and administration.

Under Augustus and his successors the city flourished as never before. Emperors and local benefactors funded aqueducts, baths, gymnasiums, fountains, and temples, and the population swelled until Ephesus was one of the largest cities of the Roman world after Rome itself.

The ceremonial heart of the Roman city was the road we now call Curetes Street, lined with monuments, workshops, and the houses of the elite.

The Golden Age of the Second Century

The second century AD was Ephesus’s golden age. Hadrian is said to have visited in 128 AD, and a handsome monument on Curetes Street still commemorates him. Wealth poured into public building.

The most famous project is the Library of Celsus, completed around 117 to 125 AD as a tomb monument and library for Tiberius Julius Celsus, a senator who had governed the province. Its restored facade, with statues representing the virtues of the scholar, faces the end of Curetes Street and has become the symbol of Ephesus.

The Great Theatre, cut into the slope of Mount Pion, was enlarged to hold around twenty-five thousand spectators, one of the largest theatres in the ancient world. The wealthy lived in the elaborate houses on the slope behind Curetes Street, now called the Terrace Houses, with frescoed walls and mosaic floors intact.

Christianity and the Council of 431

Ephesus stands at the heart of early Christian history. Paul spent more than two years in the city, and the Book of Acts describes the riot of the silversmiths who feared his teaching would ruin the trade in statuettes of Artemis. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians were written here, and tradition holds that the Apostle John lived in the city, cared for the Virgin Mary, and was buried at Ephesus.

In 431 AD the Third Ecumenical Council met in the Church of the Virgin Mary and declared Mary the Mother of God, and the city had become one of the great sees of the church.

Christian Ephesus also left a grand monument: in the sixth century the emperor Justinian built a great basilica over the reputed tomb of John on the hill of Ayasoluk, and its roofless shell still rises above the plain.

The Basilica of St John and the Byzantine City

The Byzantine centuries were a long, slow transformation. Justinian’s Basilica of St John made Ephesus a pilgrimage destination, and the city remained an important bishopric, but the harbor that had made its fortune was dying.

The Cayster River carried silt into the bay year after year, and no effort could hold back the sea’s retreat. As the water receded, trade moved with it, and life drifted up the hill around the basilica, which the Byzantines called Ayasoluk. The old city, cut off from the sea, shrank and gradually emptied.

Disasters accelerated the decline. Gothic raiders sacked the city in 262 AD, earthquakes repeatedly toppled its columns, and the low ground between the hills turned marshy and unhealthy.

Decline and Abandonment

By the later Byzantine period the old Roman city was largely abandoned, its marble buildings quarried for stone or left to collapse. The Seljuks took the region in the eleventh century, and in the Ottoman centuries the site was known mainly as a place of ruins where farmers grazed animals and travelers sketched the fallen columns.

The Temple of Artemis suffered worst. Its stones were carried away for building material over the centuries, and its site became a marsh. When the English antiquarian J. T. Wood began searching for the temple in the 1860s, its location had been forgotten entirely, buried under meters of silt.

The other monuments were buried in their turn: the Library of Celsus collapsed in an earthquake, and the great theatre filled with earth. By the nineteenth century the classical city existed mainly in texts and in travelers’ imaginations.

Rediscovery and the Great Excavations

Modern knowledge of Ephesus begins with the hunt for the Artemision. In 1863 the British engineer John Turtle Wood began searching for the temple on behalf of the British Museum and, six years later, found the platform buried beneath the marsh. Sculpted column drums were shipped to London, and the temple’s site was finally known.

The systematic excavation of the city itself was the work of the Austrians. In 1895 Otto Benndorf began excavations for the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and the work has continued, with interruptions, ever since. The Great Theatre, Curetes Street, the Library of Celsus, the Terrace Houses, and the agoras emerged layer by layer, turning the site into the vast open-air museum you see today.

Later teams refined the picture with scientific dating and careful conservation. In 2015 UNESCO inscribed the whole site on the World Heritage List, and excavation continues today.

The Site Today: A Walk Through Time

The ruins you explore near Selcuk are mostly the Roman city: the colonnade of Curetes Street, the restored facade of the Library of Celsus, the baths, the latrines, the temples, and the vast theatre where the silversmiths once rioted. The Terrace Houses give an unmatched glimpse of Roman domestic life, with mosaics, frescoes, and heating systems intact.

Yet the deeper past is never far away. The foundations of the Hellenistic walls lie beneath the streets; the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders, lies a short walk from the main entrance, marked by a single reconstructed column rising from a pool. The hill of Ayasoluk carries the Basilica of St John and the Isa Bey Mosque.

A visit to Ephesus is a walk through the whole sweep of Mediterranean history. From Ionian colony to Roman capital, from Christian shrine to abandoned ruin to world heritage site, three thousand years are written in its stones.

Frequently asked questions

How long did Ephesus remain a major city?

The city mattered for more than a thousand years, from its Ionian foundation in the early first millennium BC through the Roman centuries, when it was the capital of the province of Asia. Decline set in during late antiquity as the harbor silted up, and by the medieval period the classical city stood largely empty. Its most brilliant centuries ran from the first to the third century AD.

Why was the Temple of Artemis counted among the Seven Wonders?

The Artemision was one of the largest temples of the ancient world, roughly four times the size of the Parthenon, built of marble around more than a hundred columns nearly twenty meters tall. Ancient writers listed it among the Seven Wonders for its size, sculpture, and wealth. Burned by Herostratus in 356 BC, it was rebuilt even more lavishly and stood until late antiquity.

Is the Ephesus you visit today the original Greek city?

Not exactly. The Greek city stood nearer the sea and was refounded by Lysimachos around 300 BC on the ground you now walk, so most of what you see dates from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Temple of Artemis and the old settlement lay west of the site, mostly buried today. Only a single reconstructed column marks the temple’s place.

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