The Grand Tour
Ephesus
(via the port of Kusadasi)
"It is incredible to reflect that things as familiar all over
the world today as household words belong in the history and in the shadowy
legends of this silent morning solitude. We speak of Apollo and of Diana-they
were born here....of Bacchus and Hercules--both fought the warlike women
here.... of Homer--this was one of his many birthplaces...of Alcibiades...
visited here so did ... Lysander..Alexander the Great...Hannibal and Antiochus,
Scipio, Lucullus and Sylla; Brutus, Cassius, Pompey, Cicero , and
Augustus....Paul the Apostle preached a new religion here...."
"It was a wonder city, this Ephesus. Go where you will about these
broad plains, you find the most exquisitely sculptured marble fragments
scattered thick among the dust and weeds;....the finest piece of sculpture we
have yet seen and one that impressed us most...is one that lies in this old
theater of Ephesus, which St. Paul’s riot has made so celebrated. It is only
the headless body of a man, clad in a coat of mail, with a Medusa head upon the
breastplate...." Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad, 1869
When one thinks of Ephesus three characteristics stand out above all others. First, this
was the site of perhaps the most beautiful of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis. Second, this was
a place visited by apostles John and Paul and a site where critical events
took place in the effort to spread Christianity. Third, Ephesus was a
magnificent city, perhaps the greatest city of the ancient world.
Though there is little to mark the site of the Temple of Artemis today,
except the
remnants of several columns and ruble covering a large area, the
Temple was by legend built by the Amazons and considered by the ancients to
be exceptional even among the Seven Wonders. Artemis was a fertility god
symbolized in many ways, among them as a trinity - virgin, wife, and mother.
Her most common symbol was as a queen bee and every ancient coin minted in
Ephesus carried this symbol. In what is surely one of the
earliest acts of vandalism (well before the word or the vandal peoples were
known) the Temple was destroyed by fire in 356 A.D. by someone who wanted to
immortalize himself . (While he succeeded in having his name remembered, we won't repeat
it here in order to deny him a little of the
immortality he sought). The effort of one man to immortalize himself by
destroying the Temple was followed by the effort of another man to immortalize
himself by contributing to the rebuilding of the Temple, provided a plaque
recognizing the contribution would be placed on the facade of the building. However,
the Ephesians (not being Museum Directors) turned down the "generous"
offer, finding another way to raise the money and handing Alexander the Great
one of his few defeats.
Apparently, a booming business sprang up in Ephesus for all sorts of votive
items related to Artemis as for centuries the Temple was a pilgrim's site for all of the
Mediterranean. And, there in lies the rub. When the Apostle Paul
arrived in
Ephesus to do a little missionary work over a five or six year
period, holding meetings in the fantastic odeon near Ephesus' harbour, the
merchants came to believe their livelihoods were slipping away and Paul narrowly
escaped with is life as riots erupted in the city. The Apostle John managed to move to Ephesus during the
latter years of his life and according to tradition he brought along Mary, the
mother of Jesus, who lived out her remaining years in Ephesus too. Many of
the traits later associated with Mary were traits originally associated
with Artemis and dear to the Ephesians. And, it's not surprising that when the
Synod met a few centuries later, in 449 A.D. to determine the nature of Mary, they
chose to meet in Ephesus, the city known for millenia for its association
with
a female deity. After a dry spell which lasted centuries,
merchants involved
in producing votive materials where back in business, only this time they were
producing votive materials to 
honor Mary not Artemis. Today one can visit the ruins of the Church of St. Mary and
the Church of St. John near Ephesus. The Church of St. John was massive and
at the center of it cruciform floor plan stands the Tomb of St.
John.
While Ephesus was originally a port, today the ruins lie several miles
inland, the result of silt filling in the harbour over time. As
Twain
observed, the remains of the ancient city are indeed a testament to how wondrous Ephesus must have been in all its glory. Its wide
marble-paved streets, many temples and monuments,
beautiful library, and massive odeon, are
still there thousands of years later - clear evidence that there was little in
terms of quality of life that the 
Ephesians could have wanted for and
much we
lack today. Unfortunately, the books which were housed in the Library of Celsus
in Ephesus were, according to legend, given to Cleopatra, who put them into the library at
Alexandria where they were eventually destroyed when the library burned.
Of course, anywhere tourists might be in Turkey carpets are everywhere and
Kusadasi is no exception. While
the price, quality for quality, does not seem to be significantly better than
one can find in the United States, the variety is impressive and one can
actually 
observe in Turkey the actual
process of hand knotting a carpet. And, the stories
told by Turkish carpet salesmen are as grand as they get, even for a business
known for its grand and romantic stories related to all aspects of carpet design
and manufacture - as if no one would buy them simply for their beauty and
workmanship.
While cruising the Mediterranean, it is quite likely one will encounter a bit
of
Palm Beach history. The magnificent yacht built for E. F. Hutton and Marjorie
Meriweather Post, Sea Cloud, now cruises the Mediterranean and on the 2nd of September was
in port at Kusadasi. She's a wonderful old sailing yacht which has been
restored and is now working as a luxury cruising yacht for small groups of
travelers.
e-mail Flagler Museum
For more information, please visit the following
websites.
remnants of several columns and ruble covering a large area, the
Temple was by legend built by the Amazons and considered by the ancients to
be exceptional even among the Seven Wonders. Artemis was a fertility god
symbolized in many ways, among them as a trinity - virgin, wife, and mother.
Her most common symbol was as a queen bee and every ancient coin minted in
Ephesus carried this symbol. In what is surely one of the
earliest acts of vandalism (well before the word or the vandal peoples were
known) the Temple was destroyed by fire in 356 A.D. by someone who wanted to
immortalize himself . (While he succeeded in having his name remembered, we won't repeat
it here in order to deny him a little of the
immortality he sought). The effort of one man to immortalize himself by
destroying the Temple was followed by the effort of another man to immortalize
himself by contributing to the rebuilding of the Temple, provided a plaque
recognizing the contribution would be placed on the facade of the building. However,
the Ephesians (not being Museum Directors) turned down the "generous"
offer, finding another way to raise the money and handing Alexander the Great
one of his few defeats.
