DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5179#0062
FOUNDATION OP EPHESUS AND EARLY HISTORY. 41
inhabitants is chiefly occupied in festivals and
sports."1 And lastly Pausanias celebrates it for its
temples, and the salubrious temperature of its air.2
It is curious that Homer does not once mention
Ephesus,3 though he probably lived more than one
hundred years after the Ionian colonization. The
first report we have of the city is from Creophylus,
in his Annals of the Ephesians, cited by Athenseus.4
He states as follows: " The original founders,
finding difficulty in the selection of a place where
to found their city, and fearing to commit an error,
went to consult the oracle, which declared that a fish
should show them, and a wild boar conduct them.5
The common belief therefore is, that where is now
the fountain Hypelaeus,6 and the sacred port, some
fishermen were preparing their dinner of fish, when
one of them leaped from the fire with a hot coal in
his mouth, and fell upon some dry stubble, which,
igniting, communicated the fire to a thicket in which
by chance a wild boar was concealed, which, fright-
ened by the heat, ran along the mountain which is
called Tracheia, and fell at length transfixed by a
1 Justinus, xxxvii. 4. - Pans. vii. 5.
3 Unless under the name of Alope. See page 22. " But this
(says Strabo, p. 554) is not extraordinary : for he does not name
many other cities with which he was well acquainted, but which
he had no occasion to introduce."
4 Athen. p. 3G1.
5 A similar story to this is told of the founders of the city of
Bceoe in Laconia.—(Paus. iii. 22.)
6 So called from being sheltered by olive-trees.
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inhabitants is chiefly occupied in festivals and
sports."1 And lastly Pausanias celebrates it for its
temples, and the salubrious temperature of its air.2
It is curious that Homer does not once mention
Ephesus,3 though he probably lived more than one
hundred years after the Ionian colonization. The
first report we have of the city is from Creophylus,
in his Annals of the Ephesians, cited by Athenseus.4
He states as follows: " The original founders,
finding difficulty in the selection of a place where
to found their city, and fearing to commit an error,
went to consult the oracle, which declared that a fish
should show them, and a wild boar conduct them.5
The common belief therefore is, that where is now
the fountain Hypelaeus,6 and the sacred port, some
fishermen were preparing their dinner of fish, when
one of them leaped from the fire with a hot coal in
his mouth, and fell upon some dry stubble, which,
igniting, communicated the fire to a thicket in which
by chance a wild boar was concealed, which, fright-
ened by the heat, ran along the mountain which is
called Tracheia, and fell at length transfixed by a
1 Justinus, xxxvii. 4. - Pans. vii. 5.
3 Unless under the name of Alope. See page 22. " But this
(says Strabo, p. 554) is not extraordinary : for he does not name
many other cities with which he was well acquainted, but which
he had no occasion to introduce."
4 Athen. p. 3G1.
5 A similar story to this is told of the founders of the city of
Bceoe in Laconia.—(Paus. iii. 22.)
6 So called from being sheltered by olive-trees.
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