Ephesus: The Greatest City of All Time

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

"Best carpets in town. Don't listen to your guides. They get a percentage from the stores they take you to. We can beat their prices. Try us. Come and look at our carpets. Isn't that why you're here?"

No it isn't, we think determinedly as we walk along the dock at Kusadasi in Turkey. We're here to see the greatest city in Greek history and, because it's not in Greece but Asia Minor -- that's why we're here.

Sensing a hopeless case and a lost sale, the young Turk outside his carpet store smooths his dark mustache and turns to the tourists behind us. "Best carpets in town," he cries cheerfully, "Don't listen to your guides. They get  ." His voice fades as we turn the corner and board our bus at this little port on the west coast of Turkey.

Moments before we had disembarked from our ship just as travelers to this spot had done for thousands of years, similarly over the ages running the gauntlet of the merchants, the storekeepers, the pier touts and all the polyglot mixture of mankind that hangs around a harbor.

The locals at Kusadasi have had plenty of time to get their act together. They've been doing it since, maybe, 2000 BC. Certainly there was a settlement here even before Androclus landed with his Ionian colonists in the 11th century BC, and Ephesus was a substantial city long before Alexander the Great arrived in 334 BC to claim yet another part of the world for his empire.

While the bus trundles the ten miles inland, our guide, Hulya Terzioglu, explains that, over the centuries, the city had to move five times as the river silted up and what had been a seaport found itself repeatedly far from the sea. Of the five cities of Ephesus, the most illustrious was the third, and Pliny the Younger describes a city that in 281 BC had 300,000 inhabitants. Carrying its traffic were 27 marble streets lined with statues, although only four streets have been excavated at the moment.

We are walking on one right now -- the street of Curetes, and over there on our right is a monument to Memmius built in the 1st century BC. We are in the Upper Agora, the area containing the ancient seat of government. Behind us stands the remains of the town office, the Prytaneion, and close by it the Odeon, or council hall, where as many as 1400 town fathers could meet at one time to discuss a problem.

But the streets themselves are fascinating. Under them ran sewage canals and, above, water from fountains cascaded down the slopes continually keeping them clean. To help drainage and prevent feet or chariot wheels from slipping, the city scored and etched the marble in a way not unlike that seen on concrete roads today to prevent aquaplaning. Holes in the marble show where portable street lights were placed when it became dark, because, like modern cities today, Ephesus thrived with business at night time. "Some of the night people would be looking for other marks on the ground," says our guide as we enter Marble Street. She draws our attention to a footstep carved in the marble. It is the signpost to the famous brothel of Ephesus, a huge building dating back to 400 BC whose other claim to fame are its toilets. They had running water and are still well preserved. Soon we're all resting our feet and posing for pictures!

Across from us is the great library of Celsus, added by the Romans in the 2nd century AD. It contained 18,000 books, and allegedly an underground tunnel to the brothel. Marble Street brings us to the vast outdoor amphitheatre with its perfect accoustics: every person in the audience of 24,000 could hear the softest whisper. There's never enough time to see all of Ephesus, but we make time. We sit down. This is where visitors should end their tour. From the heights of the Great Theater they can think about what they've seen and gaze out over Asia Minor.

Stretching before them is the Arcadiane, the 2000 foot long Harbor Street down which Antony and Cleopatra made their triumphant procession. Below is the arena where the silver and goldsmiths who made the idols for the temple aroused the crowd and drove out St. Paul and his Christian converts. That marsh we see in the distance is all that remains of the Temple of Artemis (Diana to the Romans), the greatest edifice of the Greek Empire. It took 120 years to build and when it was burned down by a madman, the Greeks put it up a second time. To the temple came the pilgrims of the world. With their donations they made Ephesus wealthy. Indeed, the first ever letters of credit were issued by the temple -- it was, in a way, the first bank in history.

Yet the city shines with a spiritual luster also. Both St. John the Theologian and the Virgin Mary spent their last days here, and in Ephesus the Christian faith started and spread throughout the Roman empire. Faith may move mountains but it can't stop rivers. The Cayster went on bringing the sands of Asia Minor to the shores of the Aegean, and the harbor continued to choke with silt. The sea front turned into a marshland. In the 6th century AD, an epidemic of malaria arose from the swamps killing 200,000 persons.

Thus the gods handle hubris.

We walk back to our bus, and half an hour later stroll back to our ship, the Constellation. As we approach the carpet stores we harden our resolve. We're not going to buy a carpet.

The same young Turk grins at us. "Best carpets in town," he cries as we approach. He drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Do you know the difference between a Turkish carpet and true love?" he asksthen, flourishing a carpet like a bullfighter, gives the answer: "A Turkish carpet," he says, "lasts forever."

We laugh and smile at each other.

He ushers us into his store.