ABSTRACT
Greeks may have settled at Ephesos as early as 1000 BC, and the native Carians were certainly there before them (Bammer 1988:12741), but the original site of the city has not yet been identified with certainty. The city whose remains we can see today was first built by Lysimachos, one of Alexander’s successors (who induced the inhabitants to move from the old site by blocking the city drains during a rain storm, and flooding them out-Strabo 14, 21). Ephesos came under Roman control in 133 BC with the death of King Attalos III of Pergamon who left his kingdom to the Roman People in his will. It was a ‘free city’, and one of the assize centres (see p. 81) of the new province of Asia. The unscrupulous behaviour of Roman tax-collectors and businessmen soon made Roman rule in Asia deeply unpopular, and when the king of Pontus, Mithridates, invaded and occupied Asia in 88 BC, the Ephesians welcomed him and enthusiastically joined in a massacre of all Italians in the city. When Mithridates had been defeated the Romans deprived Ephesos of its status as a ‘free city’ (which it did not get back until c. 47 BC), and imposed an enormous fine which, combined with the effects of the civil wars later, impoverished the city, until, under the regime of Augustus, peace was established and the administration and taxation of the provinces was put on a more regular basis. The result was that Ephesos and the other cities of Asia became very prosperous, and were able to undertake the lavish urban building programmes whose results we can still see (Rogers 1991:2-16).
