The Temple of Artemis

The first shrine to the Goddess Artemis was probably built around 800 BC on a marshy strip near the river at Ephesus. The Ephesian Goddess Artemis worshipped in Greece. The Greek Artemis is the goddess of the hunt. The Ephesian Artemis was a goddess of fertility and was often pictured as draped with eggs, or multiple breasts, symbols of fertility, from her waist to her shoulders.

The shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the next few hundred years. By 600 BC the city of Ephesus had become a major port of trade and an architect named Chersiphron was engaged ti build a new large temple.

In 550 BC King Croesus of Lydia conquered Ephesus and the other Greek cities of Asia Minor. During the fighting, the temple was destroyed. Croesus proved himself a gracious winner, though, by contributing generously to the building of a new temple.This was next to the last of the great temples to the Artemis in Ephesus and it dwarfed those that had come before.

The architect is thought to be a man named Theodorus. Theodorus’s temple was 91 m in length and 46 m wide, with an area four times the size of the temple before it. More than one hundred stone columns supported a mas-sive roof. The new temple was the pride of Ephesus until 356 BC, when a tragedy, by the name of Herostratus, struck.

Herostratus was a yuong Ephesian who would stop at nothing to have his name go down in history. He managed this by burning the temple to the ground. The citizens of Ephesus were so appalled at this act that they issued a decree that anyone who spoke of Herostratus would be put to death. Shortly after this horrible deed, a new temple was commissioned.

The architect was Scopas of Paros, one of the most famous sculptors of his day. According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian, the temple was a “wonderful monument of Grecian magnificence, and that merits our genuine admiration.” The temple was built in the same marshy place as before. To prepare the ground, Pliny recorded that “layers of trodden charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces covered with wool uponthe top of them.”

The building is thought to be the first completely constructed with marble and one of its most unusual features were 36 columns whose lower portions were carved with figures in high-relief.

According to Pliny, construction took 120 years, though some experts suspect it may have only taken half that time.

Pliny reported that earthen ramps were employed to get the heavy stone beams perched on top of the columns. This method seemed to work well until one of the largest beams was put into position above the door. It went down crookedly and the architect could find no way to get it to liiiie flat. He was beside himself with worry about this until he had a dream one night in which the Goddess herself appered to him saying that he should not be concerned. She herself had moved the stone in the proper position. The next morning the architect found that the dream was true. During the night the beam had settled into its proper place.

The city continued to prosper over the next few hundred years and was the destination for many pilgrims coming to view the temple.

By the time the great Temple of Artemis was destroyed during a raid by the Goths in 262 AD, both the city and the religion of Artemis were in decline. When the Roman Emperor Constantone rebuilt much of the Ephesus a century later, he declined to restore the temple.