Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (356 BC): Burned by Herostratus

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, known to the Greeks as the Artemision, was one of the largest and most admired buildings of the ancient world and a member of the Seven Wonders. On a summer night in 356 BC a man named Herostratus set fire to it simply to make himself famous, and ancient tradition holds that this happened on the very day Alexander the Great was born. The Ephesians rebuilt the temple on an even grander scale, and it stood until late antiquity before falling into ruin.

A sacred site on the Aegean coast

Ephesus lay near the mouth of the Cayster river on the western coast of Asia Minor, in modern Turkey. Long before the classical temple, the marshy site outside the city was a place of worship. Excavations show shrines there from at least the 8th century BC, and possibly earlier traditions of a local mother goddess whom the Greeks identified with Artemis.

The Artemis of Ephesus was quite different from the slender huntress of mainland Greek art. Her statue showed a stiff, upright figure covered with rows of rounded objects, interpreted in different ways as breasts, eggs or bull’s testicles; scholars still debate their meaning. The temple was also a place of asylum, where fugitives could claim protection, and it acted as a major treasury and bank for the region.

The Archaic temple

In the mid-6th century BC, around 560–550 BC, Ephesus began a vast new temple, designed according to ancient writers by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes. King Croesus of Lydia, who had brought Ephesus under his rule, paid for many of its columns, and fragments of column bases carrying his name survive in the British Museum.

It was one of the first monumental temples built almost entirely of marble. Modern reconstructions put it at roughly 115 metres long and 46 metres wide, with a double row of columns around the inner building. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, says the work took 120 years, a figure that probably covers the whole Archaic project. To protect the building from earthquakes, its builders laid it on marshy ground over layers of charcoal and fleeces.

The fire of 356 BC

In 356 BC Herostratus, an otherwise unknown man, set fire to the temple. The roof and interior were largely timber, and the fire caused enough damage that the temple had to be rebuilt. Under questioning he is said to have admitted that he did it to win lasting fame.

The Ephesians executed him and, according to later writers, decreed that anyone who spoke his name would be punished. The ban failed: the historian Theopompus recorded his name, and it has survived ever since. “Herostratic fame” is still used to describe notoriety gained through a destructive act.

Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, says the fire took place on the same day that Alexander was born at Pella. He quotes the historian Hegesias of Magnesia, who joked that Artemis could not save her temple because she was busy helping at Alexander’s birth. Plutarch also reports that Persian priests and soothsayers at Ephesus took the disaster as a sign of a greater calamity to come for Asia. The date of 21 July 356 BC often given today comes from converting Plutarch’s Greek calendar date, and is approximate.

Rebuilding the wonder

The Ephesians began rebuilding almost at once, on the same plan but on a raised platform reached by steps. The Late Classical temple was at least as large as its predecessor. Pliny gives its dimensions as 425 by 225 Roman feet with 127 columns, each 60 feet high, of which 36 had sculpted lower drums, one by the famous sculptor Scopas. A sculpted column drum from this temple, showing figures that may include Hermes, is now in the British Museum.

When Alexander the Great arrived in Ephesus in 334 BC after his victory at the Granicus, the work was still in progress. According to Strabo, he offered to pay for the entire rebuilding if he could be credited in an inscription. The Ephesians tactfully refused, saying it was not fitting for one god to make offerings to another. Strabo names the architect of the new temple as Cheirocrates, probably the same man known elsewhere as Deinocrates.

Among the Seven Wonders

The rebuilt temple appeared in the lists of wonders compiled by Greek writers in the Hellenistic period. The poet Antipater of Sidon, in the 2nd century BC, wrote that after seeing the house of Artemis rising to the clouds, all the other wonders, including the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, seemed dim in comparison.

The temple remained a great pilgrimage centre under Roman rule. The Acts of the Apostles describes a riot in Ephesus in the 50s AD, when silversmiths who made shrines of Artemis protested against the preaching of Paul, fearing that Christianity threatened their trade and the goddess’s honour.

Decline and rediscovery

The temple was badly damaged during a raid by the Goths in the 260s AD. It was partly repaired, but as Christianity spread and pagan cults were restricted in the late 4th century AD, it fell out of use. Its marble was burned for lime or reused in later buildings, and the site silted up as the coastline moved west.

Its location was forgotten until the British engineer John Turtle Wood, digging for the British Museum from 1863, finally found the temple’s pavement on 31 December 1869. Between 1904 and 1905 David Hogarth excavated the earliest levels and found a foundation deposit containing some of the oldest known coins, made of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. Austrian archaeologists have continued work at the site since the 1960s. Today a single column, reassembled from fragments, stands among the foundations.

Myths and facts

“Columns from the Temple of Artemis were used in Hagia Sophia.” This is a popular story, but there is no good evidence for it. The columns of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople came from various sources, and none can be securely traced to Ephesus.

“Nothing of the temple survives.” Much was lost, but substantial pieces survive: column bases with Croesus’ name, the sculpted drum in the British Museum, and many fragments in the Ephesus Museum at Selçuk and in Istanbul.

Timeline

• 8th century BC: The earliest known shrines are built on the site.
• c. 560–550 BC: Work begins on the great Archaic temple, supported by King Croesus.
• 356 BC, 21 July (traditional date): Herostratus sets the temple on fire.
• 334 BC: Alexander the Great offers to fund the rebuilding and is politely refused.
• 2nd century BC: Antipater of Sidon includes the temple in his list of wonders.
• 260s AD: The temple is damaged during a Gothic raid.
• 1869, 31 December: John Turtle Wood locates the temple’s remains.
• 1904–1905: David Hogarth excavates the earliest levels and the coin deposit.

Why it matters

The Temple of Artemis showed the wealth and ambition of the Greek cities of Asia Minor and pioneered monumental building in marble. Its burning by Herostratus gave the world a lasting lesson about the hunger for fame, and its rebuilding, admired by Alexander the Great himself, earned it a place among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.