As our group entered into the
ancient city of Ephesus, we went through the state agora, which was the
entrance for Roman citizens. To be able
to enter through this particular place was considered to be an honor because
not everyone could be a Roman citizen. Paul
himself could have passed through here if he would have wanted. And as one makes their way along the path of
the agora, you can stop to see the bulitarium, which was a meeting area where
Roman citizens would meet for forums. With the look of a theatre, Romans would
occupy the seats, and when they needed to take the platform to speak, there are
aisles carved down the steps leading to the platform. During the Byzantine era when Christianity
became accepted, the meeting area was Christianized by the placing of a cross
over the entrance.
 |
| Christianization of Roman constructions was common in the Byzantine era. |
As we were passing through this part
of the city, we got to see some of the ancient water pipe system that ran
through this city. They were clay pipes
placed in the ground that would run water to different parts of the city. There are still places in Turkey that have a
functional clay pipe system. These clay
pipes would start to fill with calcium deposit from the water, and they would
need to be replaced, and so they would fix them one little piece at a
time.
 |
| Cenkis our archeologist guide (he has worked on this site for 40 years!) holding up a partially blocked pipe. |
After
we examined the water pipes, we came to the inscription museum, which is housed
in the base of the Temple of the Sebastoi.
This temple was dedicated to emperor worship, and was built by Domitian
in 89-90 AD, and there was once a large statue of Domitian in the temple. Now as one enters the base; it is full of the
inscriptions that are important to the history of Ephesus. You will not just find one language on these
inscriptions either; there are both Greek and Latin in the museum. One of the stones in this place held the
names of the people who had won the city’s races, while another talks about how
Caesar rules over all, he is lord.
 |
| An inscribed tablet found in Ephesus |
After we passed from the inscription
museum, we moved on to the terrace housing, which housed the wealthy members of
the city. This area is still being worked
on now, there were archeologists working as we went through. To help protect this place from weather
damage, there is a Kevlar roof overtop.
The first of the houses that we came to was from a very wealthy member
of society. This can be easily seen due
to the fact that this house had its own bath.
The Roman city would have had its own bath as well, where people could
have gone, and so it was not common for someone to have a bath in their house,
but this house was wealthy enough to.
Not only did they have their own bath, but they also had their own
basilica, and this home was also covered in marble. This was clearly an affluent family. Having a terrace houses also gave the owners
a view over the city. You could tell
that they lived easier and more indulgent lives.
 |
| The Basilica in one of the terraced houses, the roof of this room was the floor of the house above. |
We then moved on to the library of
the city, which is also a mausoleum. Julius
Aquila built this library for his father Julius Celsus Polemanenus in the year
110 AD. This library provided educated
people of this city access to books and showed that this was not a poor
city. At the front of this library,
there are four statues, each in their own niche, which have a different word
carved into the stone. These four words
are supposed to show the attributes of Celsus, and they are wisdom, excellence,
insight, and understanding. Not only did
this library show off some wealth of the city, but you also had a massive state
agora in the beginning, and many wealthy terrace homes, which showed off the
wealth of the city. It would seem that
Ephesus was not second hand city, but it was an important place, for more than
just the Christian faith.
 |
| The Library of Ephesus with statues representing wisdom, excellence, insight, and understanding. |
Speaking of the Christian faith
though, we then moved to the site of the riot found in the book of Acts,
19:23-34. This is a massive theatre has
a very apt name, the Great Theatre. This
theatre was had a multi leveled stage, with three different levels. This was an important place, where many
people could gather, for a plethora of reasons.
There is the obvious reason as to why one could come to a theatre, for a
show, whether that is musical or theatrical.
They would also hold executions here, so people of the city would come
out to see this, for execution meant sport to them. There were also public meetings held here, a
place for all the people to gather to hear what someone was saying.
 |
| The great Theater of Ephesus |
It was for this last use that we
hear about this place in scripture. Paul
was set to come to this place to speak to the people of the city and to try to
convert them. This would cause the
people to stop worshiping gods like Zeus and Artemis. Demetrius the silver smith saw that Paul
would cause a loss in his profits, and so he came to this place to rile up the
city against Paul. He spoke out against
Paul and the message that he was bringing, telling other silversmiths what harm
Paul would cause and so he caused a riot in this city. Rioting was not a legal thing though, for it
could cause a lot of harm in the city, and so doing this was dangerous. But the way the acoustics worked in this
theatre, pointed the sound away from the city officials, and the streets were
probably already crowded with pilgrims, so a two-hour riot could have gone
unnoticed. It was amazing to be in this
place were Paul had attempted to go, even in the midst of a riot. I can say that having seen the inside of this
theatre, and seeing how many people it could hold, I would not have wanted to
be in the midst of all those people rioting.
- Jared Lorraine
 |
| A group shot in front of the library of Celsus |
No comments:
Post a Comment