two provincial gods belonging to the two capitals, the official and the virtual.

While Ephesus was ranked in the estimation of the world by her goddess Artemis, the Imperial worship was

not neglected. A shrine and a great altar of Augustus was placed in the sacred precinct of the goddess in

the earlier years of his reign: it is taken as a type on coins of the Commune (Figure 17), where the two sacred

stags (compare Figure 26, chapter 25ff) mark the close connection between the Imperial and the Ephesian

religion even at that early time (see chapter 10).

Figure 17: The Altar of Augustus in the precinct of Artemis

This was a purely municipal, not a Provincial, cult of Augustus; and in the competition among the cities of

Asia in AD 26 for the honour of the temple to Tiberius (chapter 19) Ephesus was passed over by the Senate

on the ground that it was devoted to the worship of Artemis. But Provincial temples of the Imperial religion

were built in Ephesus, one under Claudius or Nero, one under Hadrian, and a third under Severus; and the

city boasted that it was Temple -Warden or Neokoros of three Emperors.

Sometimes it styles itself "four times Neokoros"; but the fourth Temple -Wardenship seems to be of Artemis,

not of a fourth Emperor; though the fact that the title (which ordinarily was restricted to Imperial temples)

was allowed in respect of the temple of Artemis shows that a very close relation was formed between the

Imperial religion and the worship of Artemis as a goddess of the whole Province. A coin shows the four

temples, containing the statues of Artemis and three Emperors, and marks the closeness of the connection

between the cults (Figure 18).

Figure 18: The four Temple Wardenships of Ephesus

Two subjects still claim some notice, the changes in the relation of sea and land, and the changes in the

constitution of the city.

The stages of the former cannot be precisely dated; but the Gulf of Ephesus was gradually filled up as the

centuries passed by, and navigation was after a time rendered difficult by shallows and changes of depth,

caused by the silting action of the Cayster. The entrance to the gulf grew narrower; and a channel was not

easily kept safe for ships. Engineering operations, intended to improve the water-way, were carried out by

the Pergamenian kings of the second century BC and by the Romans in the first century after Christ; these

show the time when the evil was becoming serious. When the ship in which St. Paul travelled from Troas to

Jerusalem in AD 57 sailed past Ephesus without entering the harbour, this may probably be taken as a sign

that ships were begin ning to avoid Ephesus unless it was necessary to take or discharge cargo and

The state of the coast during the second century after Christ is shown by the following incident. Apollonius

of Tyana, defending himself before Domitian, spoke of Ephesus as having now outgrown the site on which

it had been placed and extended to the sea. This furnishes a conclusive proof both that the sea no longer

reached up to Ephesus when the speech was composed, and that it was not so distant from the city as the

modern seashore, for it is impossible to suppose that the city ever reached to the present coastline. The

words probably imply that the seashore was near the lower (i.e. western) end of the Hermaion, and that

Ephesus extended into the valley of the stream which flows from Ortygia to join the Cayster now, but at that

time fell into the sea. It remains uncertain whether Philostratus composed the speech about 210 or found it in

his authorities. The difference however is not serious. There is no reason to think that the words are as old

as Apollonius' supposed trial about AD 90. They represent the ideas that were floating in the Asian world,

AD 100-200; and even a century would not produce much difference in the coast line.

But even in the second and third centuries after Christ Ephesus was still a great trading city, and therefore

must have still had a harbour open, though not easy of access. It is certain that only energetic engineering

work kept an open channel. The last kilometre of the modern river course is straight, in contrast with the