The first thing I had to do on arrival was find a place to stay. I picked a place recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide called the Australian Pension. The Aegean coastal resorts have strong connections with Australia and New Zealand because of Gallipoli. Selcuk had loads of Pansiyons (Pensions - Guesthouses) and other establishments with antipodean names. There was even a Bob Hawke Bar. My room cost 45,000TL but I can't remember very much else about the place at all except that it was good and clean and reasonably priced. It had a kind of central courtyard and all day long Morning Glory blossoms dropped from above. I remember that I got talking to two South African girls staying there called Gayl and Lola. Gayl was from Port Elizabeth and we had an interesting chat about the fact that she had an Afrikaaner boyfriend/fiancé but since she was an English speaking South African and could not speak Afrikaans his parents did not approve of her at all. There seemed to be a degree of Apartheid even between the white South Africans. Nelson Mandela had been out of prison just under seven months at this point in time.
I wasted no time and, having dumped the rucksack, I was off to see the ruins of Ephesus. Pretty impressive ruins they are too. At this stage this Blog may start to look like a photo album. That's half the point.
The Library of Celsus pictured above was, it says in a book written by the Director of the Ephesus Museum that I bought after my visit, built by Tiberius Julius Aquila as a mausoleum for his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus the proconsul (governor) of the Asian province of the Roman Empire, the capital of which was Ephesus, who died aged 70 in 114 AD. It took 3 years to build by which time the governor's son had also died having bequeathed 25,000 dinars to make sure 12,000 scrolls were acquired. The scrolls were kept in rows of niches on the side walls. The scrolls aren't there now. The book doesn't say what happened to them. I wonder whether they were gradually all borrowed and never returned (but of course it wasn't that kind of library). More probably they were destroyed in 262 when the Goths set fire to the interior. The book says the interior of the Library was burnt completely during the Gothic attacks in 262. It wasn't vandalism because the Vandals didn't really get going untill about 250 years later and I don't think they got as far as what is now Turkey. Had they done they would have found that Ephesus had already been vandalised.
The picture above shows the view to the Library of Celsus as you look down the Curetes Street. The Curetes were a class of priests who founded a collegium that was considered to be the largest cult in Ephesus. Their aim was to recreate the birth of Artemis Ephesia in Ortygia, near Ephesus. In mythology Curetes were semi deities. "According to mythology," writes Sellahattin Erdemgil in the book Ephesus Ruins and Museum (the book I mentioned), "while Leto, impregnated by Zeus, was giving birth to the twins, Artemis and Apollo, Curetes made a lot of noise with their weapons so that Zeus' wife Hera who was jealous of Leto, would be confused and not see the birth of the twins." As aims for groups go, recreating the scene described would have been a pretty tall order and you have got to wonder why they wanted to do it. Suppose they had succeeded, what then?
The Temple of Hadrian was dedicated to Emperor Hadrian by P. Quintilius around the year 138. The centre of the arch is adorned with the bust of Tyche, the goddess of the city and on the semi-circular frontal over the door, the figure of a maiden resembling Medusa is depicted among flowers and acanthus leaves. I know this now because I'm reading it in the book. At the time I couldn't honestly say that I knew anything other than it was worth taking a picture of as I walked down what I was blissfully unaware was Curetes Street.
I really enjoyed wandering aound the ruins. There were a lot of other tourists but it didn't spoil the experience. The weather was great. I think this was the first highlight of my journey. I strolled down the Marble Road to the the Theatre.
The view from the top down the Harbour Road was terrific. This was (and is) the best Theatre of its kind I have visited. The Harbour Road pictured below explains why Ephesus went into decline. Around the year 100 the population was around half a million and it was the largest city in Roman Asia. Gradually the harbour silted up and the sea got further and further away and the city became of increasingly less commercial importance. It is now 5 kilometres from the end of the Harbour Road to the coastline. Mind you, being sacked by Goths; reduced to rubble by earthquakes at least twice; and being sacked again by Arabs on three occasions would make you wonder if it was worth hanging about. The city was actually abandoned in the 15th Century.
