priestesses were called Melissai (working-bees), and a body of priests attached to the Temple was called

Essenes (the drones). The shape of the idol is seen in Figure 10 chapter 14; Figure 26 chapter 25. The life -

history of the bee, about which the Greek naturalists held erroneous views (taking the queen-bee as male,

and king of the hive), was correctly understood in the primitive Ephesian cultus; and it is highly probable

that the employment for human use of the bee and of various domesticated animals was either originated or

carried to remarkable perfection in ancient Asia Minor; while it is certain that the whole doctrine and rules of

tending those animals had a religious character and were in close relation to the worship of the Divine power

in its various and varying local embodiments.

The reverse of the coins tells the same tale as the obverse. The Anatolian coin shows the palm-tree under

which the goddess was born among the southern mountains at Ortygia, and her sacred animal, the stag, cut

in half in truly barbaric style. The Hellenic coin shows the bow and quiver of the huntress-maiden, and

acknowledges the Anatolian goddess by the small figure of a bee: even in its most completely Hellenised

form Ephesus must still do homage to the native goddess.

On the other hand Greek religion was strongly anthropomorphic, and the Hellenic spirit, as it developed and

attained fuller consciousness of its own nature, rejected more and more decisively the animal forms and

animal analogies in which the Anatolian religion delighted.

Where Greece adopted an Anatolian cult, it tried to free itself from animal associations, and to transform the

Divine impersonation after the purely human beautiful Hellenic idea. Thus to substitute the head of the

huntress Virgin Artemis for the bee on the coins was to transform an Anatolian conception into a Greek

figure, and to blazon the triumph of the Greek spirit over the Oriental.

There followed once more a change in the situation of Ephesus, accompanying the change in spirit that was

being wrought in the aims and outlook of the city. Ephesus was moved away from the neighbourhood of the

Temple to a situation not far removed from that of the old Greek city. The change, naturally, was strenuously

resisted by the priests and the large section of the people that was under their domination. But the will of

King Lysimachus, the master of the northwest regions of Asia Minor, who carried on the Hellenising

tradition of Alexander, was too strong; and he cleverly overcame the unwillingness of the Anatolian party in

the town. The Ephesus of 560-287 BC was in a low-lying situation, surrounded on three sides by higher

ground, and in time of rain a great amount of water poure d down through the town. Lysimachus took

advantage of a heavy rain, and stopped the channels which carried off the water into the gulf, or the river:

the town was flooded, and the people were glad to leave it.

The new situation was admirably strong and convenient; and the Hellenic Ephesus of this new foundation

lasted for more than a thousand years. Its shape was like a bent bow, the two ends being Pion on the east

and the Hill of Astyages on the west; while the sea washed up into the space between, formin g an inner

harbour, whose quays bordered by stately colonnades and public buildings can still be traced amid the

ruins. The outer harbour was part of the land-locked gulf.

A great street ran from the inner harbour right up to the base of Pion. The visitor to Ephesus, after landing at

the harbour, would traverse this long straight street, edged by porticoes, with a series of magnificent

buildings on either hand, until he reached the left front of the Great Theatre and the beginning of the steep

ascent of Pion. The street, as it has been disclosed by the Austrian excavations, is the result of a late

reconstruction and bears the name of the Emperor Arcadius, AD 395-408; but the reconstruction was only

partial, and there can be little doubt that the general plan of the city in this quarter dates from the foundation

about 287 BC, and that this great street is the one which is mentioned in the Bezan text of Acts 19:28. A riot

was roused by a speech of Demetrius, delivered probably in a building belonging to a guild of some of the

associated trades. After the passions of the mob and their apprehension of financial disaster were inflamed,

they rushed forth "into the street," and ran along it shouting and invoking the goddess, until at last they

found themselves in front of the Great Theatre. That vast empty building offered a convenient place for a

hasty assembly. Even this excited mob still retained some idea of method in conducting business. It was