Ancient city of Anatolia

Imagine a bustling city of 250,000 people going about their daily lives in a city built 10 centuries ago and you have Ephesus.
With it's many twists and turns through-out history of being conquered by various rulers, destroyed by earthquakes and being rebuilt 3 times...it took a long time for these ancient people to give up on their beloved city.  

Main Street


As I strolled down the sun soaked main street of marble...roasting like a chicken in the hot June sun with my umbrella at 11am...I could hear their voices. Women bargaining with the shop keepers on the sides of the streets for the goods for their evening meals.

Shops built into hillside where columns held the now missing roof


Chickens clucking and goats baying plaintively. Children running, playing tag and hiding behind the rows of large marble and granite columns. What a grand city it must have been!

 It became the seat of the governor, growing into a metropolis and a major center of commerce. It was second in importance and size only to Rome.  Ephesus has been estimated to be in the range of 400,000 to 500,000 inhabitants in the year 100, making it the largest city in Roman Asia and of the day. Ephesus was at its peak during the first and second century AD.

Library



Theater where many gladiators lost their lives

The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (Diana), who had her chief shrine there, the Library of Celsus, and its theatre, which was capable of holding 25,000 spectators. This open-air theater was used initially for drama, but during later Roman times gladiatorial combats were also held on its stage, with the first archaeological evidence of a gladiator graveyard found as recently as May 2007.










The population of Ephesus also had several major bath complexes, built at various points while the city was under Roman rule. The city had one of the most advanced aqueduct systems in the ancient world, with multiple aqueducts of various sizes to supply different areas of the city, including 4 major aqueducts.
The city and temple were destroyed by the Goths in 263 AD. This marked the decline of the city's splendor.

All that remain today are the relics of the past, a royal cat and the hoards of tourists that inhabit this medieval ghost town.