Hogarth, David G.; Smith, Cecil Harcourt [Contr.]: Excavations at Ephesus: the archaic Artemisia: Text (London, 1908)

Literary Evidence. 7

city, (b) Baton of Sinope1 (Suidas s.v. Uvdayopas) states that Pythagoras, an
Ephesian tyrant anterior to the time of Cyrus, caused a desecration of the
" Hieron," and was ordered, in expiation, vewv avaarrjaai. But was either
this Hieron or this new temple the Artemision ? The prehistoric Cimmerian
sack, dated by Eusebius in 1146, can have had nothing to do with any
Artemision in the plain, for none was yet in existence.

In regard to the Sixth Century Temple, we have one or two certain data,
and others of more doubtful reference. In the forefront must be placed
Herodotus' statement (i. 92) that most of the columns of the Artemision,
standing in his day (latter half of the 5th century), were the gift of Croesus
of Lydia, to whom it owed also certain treasures presumably also then extant.
These statements in no way conflict with the probability that the Temple
in question was not quite finished or dedicated until 430 B.C. The latter inference
is derived (cf. the passage of Macrobius quoted above) from comparison of
two statements of Pliny (xvi. 79, and xxxvi. 14). In one he says that the
cypress doors of the Artemision of his own day had been in existence nearly
four hundred years. In the other, that the Artemision took one hundred and
twenty years to build. If this Artemision were that of his own day, begun
after the arson of Herostratus (356 B.C.), it would not have been finished till
about 230, and the cypress doors would have been only three hundred years
old. Ergo, it is more probable that Pliny is recording a tradition of the
earlier temple, more especially since he seems, as we have seen, to ignore the
architectural distinction between the earlier and the latest Artemisia.

Several authorities2 state that the Artemision was erected by common
contributions of the great cities of Asia. Since the Roman king Servius,
according to Livy (i., 45), imitated this practice in providing for the erection of
a Diana temple in Rome, we must understand by the Artemision in question a
pre-Hellenistic structure. The descriptions of actual architectural members
given by Pliny and Yitruvius we prefer to ascribe to the temple of their own
day; and even the statement of the former that the 127 columns were a singulis
regiAus factae can hardly refer to the 6th century temple, if Herodotus was
correct in saying that the majority of the latter's columns were the gift of a
single donor, Croesus. An explanation of this king's munificence has been
acutely inferred by Benndorf3 from a fragment of Nicolas of Damascus {Jr. 65),
where it is stated that Croesus sequestered the Ephesian property of a rich

1 See Miiller, Frag. Hist. Gr. iv. 248. Suiilas, however, possibly did nut get his fact direct from Haton. Sec
Benndorf in Forsch. in Bp/usos, i., pp. 27, 241,

'-' Pliny, xvi. 79: xxxvi. 14; Viiruv. vi. 1 : x. 6 ; Dionys. Hal. iv. 25 ; Am. Vict. Vir. 111. vii. 9.
' Fortchungcn in Ephaos, i., p. 29.