DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4945#0017
6 The Archaic Artemisia of Ephesus.
to the dedication of the Croesus Temple ? It is quite possible. As will
be shown presently, there is good reason to connect with that temple Pliny's
statement that the Artemision took one hundred and twenty years to build.
If so, the dedication of the building begun about 550 B.C. would fall about
430, when Timotheus was already grown and probably, like most lyrists, come
early to the zenith of his poetical power. As for Eusebius' statement, it has often
been remarked (e.g., by Kukula I.e.) that while mentioning this conflagration,
he records no later one, although the most momentous and famous of all is
supposed to have occurred thirty-nine years afterwards, synchronic with the
birth of Alexander. It is impossible not to suspect that Eusebius' entry
really refers to the latter, or, at least, to a disaster which Herostratus may
have done no more than complete, after some restoration of the Croesus
Temple, greatly damaged thirty-nine years earlier, had been undertaken.
The synchronism of the last, but possibly least signal, catastrophe with
Alexander's birth and the epigrams it evoked (like the " frigid" saying of
Hegesias of Miletus) would sufficiently account for the greater importance it
assumed in popular tradition. Our authorities for Herostratus'arson are all late.
From a statement of Valerius Maximus (viii. 14), it is to be presumed that the
sole earlier authority for it was Theopompus. In any case it is very improbable
that, after a conflagration in 395, the Artemision could have been wholly rebuilt
and re-dedicated before 360, and that Timotheus could have carried off the lyric
prize on that occasion, when at least four score years of age. The literary
evidence, therefore, for a temple intermediate between the " Croesus" and
the Hellenistic is very bad. With the supposed material evidence, adduced by
Wood, we deal later.
Provisionally, therefore, and paying due respect to the statements of Strabo
{i.e., Artemidorus), we have no foundation with which to connect the names of
Demetrius and Paeonius except the Sixth Century (Croesus) Temple. In that
case Chersiphron and Metagenes were architects of a prior structure, the first
referred to by Strabo ; and it must have been with a column in the facade
of this Primitive shrine that the city connected itself by a rope, when
Croesus first descended in arms on the Ephesian plain ; since we find him a
good deal later presenting the majority of the columns of a new Temple. There
are two possible indications of rebuildings of the Artemision, referable perhaps
to Primitive structures: (a) Hesychius (s.v. AuySa/xis) states Ovtos eKavaev rhv
vabv Trjs 'A/^re'/xtSo?. Callimachus (Hymn. iii. 251) also refers to this Lygdamis
as having invited the Cimmerians to Ephesus, but implies that they were beaten
back. Perhaps the Temple outside the walls did not escape so easily as the
to the dedication of the Croesus Temple ? It is quite possible. As will
be shown presently, there is good reason to connect with that temple Pliny's
statement that the Artemision took one hundred and twenty years to build.
If so, the dedication of the building begun about 550 B.C. would fall about
430, when Timotheus was already grown and probably, like most lyrists, come
early to the zenith of his poetical power. As for Eusebius' statement, it has often
been remarked (e.g., by Kukula I.e.) that while mentioning this conflagration,
he records no later one, although the most momentous and famous of all is
supposed to have occurred thirty-nine years afterwards, synchronic with the
birth of Alexander. It is impossible not to suspect that Eusebius' entry
really refers to the latter, or, at least, to a disaster which Herostratus may
have done no more than complete, after some restoration of the Croesus
Temple, greatly damaged thirty-nine years earlier, had been undertaken.
The synchronism of the last, but possibly least signal, catastrophe with
Alexander's birth and the epigrams it evoked (like the " frigid" saying of
Hegesias of Miletus) would sufficiently account for the greater importance it
assumed in popular tradition. Our authorities for Herostratus'arson are all late.
From a statement of Valerius Maximus (viii. 14), it is to be presumed that the
sole earlier authority for it was Theopompus. In any case it is very improbable
that, after a conflagration in 395, the Artemision could have been wholly rebuilt
and re-dedicated before 360, and that Timotheus could have carried off the lyric
prize on that occasion, when at least four score years of age. The literary
evidence, therefore, for a temple intermediate between the " Croesus" and
the Hellenistic is very bad. With the supposed material evidence, adduced by
Wood, we deal later.
Provisionally, therefore, and paying due respect to the statements of Strabo
{i.e., Artemidorus), we have no foundation with which to connect the names of
Demetrius and Paeonius except the Sixth Century (Croesus) Temple. In that
case Chersiphron and Metagenes were architects of a prior structure, the first
referred to by Strabo ; and it must have been with a column in the facade
of this Primitive shrine that the city connected itself by a rope, when
Croesus first descended in arms on the Ephesian plain ; since we find him a
good deal later presenting the majority of the columns of a new Temple. There
are two possible indications of rebuildings of the Artemision, referable perhaps
to Primitive structures: (a) Hesychius (s.v. AuySa/xis) states Ovtos eKavaev rhv
vabv Trjs 'A/^re'/xtSo?. Callimachus (Hymn. iii. 251) also refers to this Lygdamis
as having invited the Cimmerians to Ephesus, but implies that they were beaten
back. Perhaps the Temple outside the walls did not escape so easily as the