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On the night of July 21, 356 BC, the sky over the city of Ephesus glowed with the flames of one of the most famous fires in world history.
The destruction of one of the ancient world’s most famous temples was not the result of an invading army or a conflict between empires. It was the most famous act of arson in history, committed by a man who wanted his name to live on.
But the temple got bigger and better.
Learn more about the Temple of Artemis and its many creations and destruction in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The previous episode covered the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Seven Wonders were part of a list compiled by the Greek historian Herodotus. The modern popularity of this list is due to a Dutch book of etchings published in 1572. 8th wonder of the world
I completed an entire episode on two wonders: the Great Pyramid and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Today I want to focus on one of the other Seven Wonders: the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
Artemis is the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wildlife, childbirth, and the moon, often depicted as a fierce and independent defender of young women and nature. She was Apollo’s twin sister, which is why the most recent lunar program was named after her.
Stories of Artemis from Greek mythology often focused on her swift and disproportionate punishment of those who behaved unjustly or immorally. Her protection made her widely revered among the Greek gods.
There were many temples dedicated to Artemis, but the center of worship was the city of Ephesus on the west coast of modern-day Türkiye.
There were several versions of the Temple of Artemis, built over several centuries after the previous version was destroyed. The first temple is believed to have been built in the 7th or 8th century BC.
Excavations of the first temple, completed in the early 20th century, yielded gold, ivory and glass artifacts worshiping Artemis. While sacred relics were expected, the discovery of thousands of early coins ultimately proved to be the most important discovery, completely changing our understanding of the site.
This temple, commonly called Artemision, was more than just a religious sanctuary. It served as a financial institution from the beginning, a role confirmed by the discovery of numerous coins.
The first version of the temple was destroyed by a flood around 560 BC.
But it was the latter’s two temple reincarnations that ultimately cemented its place in history.
Construction on the second temple began shortly after the destruction of the first temple. The enterprise was funded by a remarkable benefactor, King Croesus of Lydia. During the 6th century BC, control over Asia Minor was in flux. The Greeks considered the Lydians to be barbarians. While the ‘barbarians’ were harsh, the high tribute of the Lydians was likely to sour the Greeks’ opinion of them.
Croesus and the Lydians knew the Greeks were difficult to rule and wanted good relations, so they funded a new temple in honor of Artemis. Given the enormous cost of construction, Lydian funds were generous.
Historical estimates of the original structure indicate that it was nearly twice the size of the Greek Parthenon. Croesus was sending a message to his Greek subjects with his generosity.
But despite his generosity, Lydian rule over the Anatolian coast was short-lived. Just three years after the temple was completed, the region fell to the expanding Persian Empire.
The second and third temples gained much fame because they were located at the end of two important trade networks. Ephesus’ location between the Ionian coast and the Persian capital made it an important trading center.
As commerce and pilgrimage brought people to Ephesus, the legend of the temple naturally spread through merchants and pilgrims who arrived to worship Artemis.
The Greeks tended to build larger temples in wetlands. Earthquakes are a common disaster in the region, and ancient builders believed that the water-soaked ground protected their massive structures.
Engineers faced similar challenges with the Taj Mahal, which was also built in a saturated zone. Unlike the stone pillars of the Taj Mahal, the engineers at Ephesus laid charcoal topped with sheepskin. The charcoal served as a buffer between the watery soil and the stone foundation. The porosity of the charcoal allowed water to expand without moving the base of the monument.
The sheepskin was the final key to the puzzle. It was a dry film to protect the charcoal layer from impurities. The result was an incredible feat of engineering that supported a massive stone monument the size of a modern-day football field.
The temple maintained its structural integrity for nearly two centuries until the events of July 21, 356 BC. Coincidentally, it was the exact same day that Alexander the Great was born.
That night, a man named Herostratus deliberately set fire to the temple. According to ancient sources, his motivation was simply to gain lasting fame through shocking acts of destruction.
I mentioned Herostratus in an episode of Damnatio Memoriae. The authorities reportedly attempted to erase Herostratus’ name from history by having him executed and preventing anyone from ever mentioning him, but historians later recorded this, coining the enduring term “heroic fame” to refer to notoriety gained through destructive actions.
Arson had a serious impact on the marble structure, as most of the building’s supports were massive cedar and cypress columns.
The building contains a tapestry that allows Herostratus to saturate the sacred cloth with oil that burns slowly towards the roof supports. Historical engineers assume the interior fire reached temperatures of 800 degrees Celsius (1550 degrees Fahrenheit). At that temperature, a process called calcination occurs.
In scientific terms, the surface of marble begins to peel and break down, turning into a soft, powdery chalk. Even though the column appears to be intact, its structural integrity has been compromised.
Vitruvius, a 1st-century Roman architect and engineer, analyzed the destruction of temples over the centuries after they were burned and described the effects of fire on marble structures. he said,
The secret of this is that stones, like all other objects, are made up of four elements… When thrown into a kiln and burned, it loses its former hardness. The heat of the great fire drains them of their strength, leaving the hole open and empty.
The Roman statesman Pliny the Elder is the primary source for the third iteration of the Temple, basing his account on personal observations.
According to Pliny’s account, the construction of the Third Temple took about 120 years. Solid fragments of the second temple formed a stable foundation for the third temple. Pliny mentioned this as follows:“It is the most amazing monument of Greek grandeur.”
Pliny also provided size measurements. The overall length of the temple was 425 feet (130 m) and its width was 225 feet (70 m).
Perhaps the building’s most impressive feature is its 127 columns. According to Pliny, each was a gift from a different local king and soared more than 60 feet (18 meters) in height.
Pliny was intrigued by the composition of the statue of Artemis in the third temple. He noted: There is some doubt as to the statue itself, but it is generally assumed to have been made of ebony. But Mucianus, who was three times consul, is one of the most recent writers to have seen this work, and says that it was made of vines…
Centuries later, the Temple of Artemis once again faced destruction, this time during the long decline of the Roman Empire.
The Goths sacked it in 262. As the Gothic fleet, consisting of hundreds of ships manned by captured sailors and Gothic warriors, passed through the Bosphorus and entered the Aegean Sea, there was a clear motive for destruction.
They weren’t looking for territory. They were looking for a temple that served as a bank. The Goths stripped the ceilings of gold leaf, emptied the treasury, and even took away the silver bars of the priesthood in a sacrilegious act.
The destruction of the third temple was carried out by thieves, again by torches.
The Ephesians tried to repair the statue as best they could, but they no longer had the economic power and lacked imperial support as they had during the first construction.
After the Gothic disaster in 262, no sponsors stepped forward. The need to build defensive walls to address the city’s heightened vulnerability to invasion severely depleted Ephesus’ resources. As a result, subsequent reconstruction efforts were inevitably minimal.
Most of the roof remained incomplete and open to the sky. The Ephesians did not even replace the damaged pillars. Instead, like the modern-day Parthenon, they were braced to prevent further deterioration.
Despite the Ephesians’ best efforts, the building suffered one final, fatal blow. The final chapter of the Crusade unfolded after the Edict of Milan, which legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire.
The construction of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus marked a significant change as the city became one of the first Ionian communities to establish a major Christian landmark, highlighting the spiritual and physical decline of the Temple of Artemis. As the desire to tolerate Greco-Roman gods waned, funds for temple reconstruction disappeared entirely.
The final chapter of the famous building began in 391 when Emperor Theodosius issued an edict banning Greco-Roman customs.
Let no one… in any place or in any city, offer an innocent sacrifice to a senseless idol… If anyone tries to offer such a sacrifice, he will be reported… and he will receive due retribution… In every place and in every city, the temple should be closed and no one will be allowed to enter the temple, so that sinners will not have the opportunity to commit sin.
St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, is credited with the final destruction of the temple in 401, ten years after the Edict of Theodosius. He carried out this final act of destruction by recruiting a group of monks to act as “foot soldiers” to eliminate what he believed to be pagan atrocities.
Cyril of Alexandria calls St. John “The one who destroys demons and destroys the Temple of Artemis.“
Armed with sledgehammers, the monks decapitated the statues and used crowbars and pulleys to topple the pillars. Those that could not be destroyed were engulfed in flames.
All that remained of the Temple of Artemis were a few scattered pillars and broken stones.
A monument that once held great significance for believers in the Greco-Roman world has been lost to legend.
In the late 19th century, competition for world relics led to the temple’s restoration into the world’s collective memory. A passionate archaeologist named John Turtle Wood used the writings of Pliny the Elder and other ancient authors to find out what he could about the lost monument.
The monks’ destruction of the temple was so complete that it took six years to find the rocks that once made up the building.
The fragments of the Temple of Artemis discovered by Wood and his team are today preserved in the British Museum.
Other fragments of the temple still exist, thanks to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who used the surviving pieces of stonework to build Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
Today, little remains of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus except scattered stones and a single reconstructed column rising from the marshlands where one of the greatest buildings of the ancient world once stood.
It was a symbol of wealth, faith, artistry and ambition and was rebuilt many times because people believed that some places were worth restoring, regardless of the cost. The temple may be gone, but it lives on in memory as one of the true wonders of the ancient world.
