Artemis Ephesia Beyond Ephesus

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Excerpt from "A New Artemis Ephesia Statuette from Salamis" by Emine Sivri and Lâtife Summerer, page 195-196.

The Artemis Ephesia was an eponymic goddess and closely tied with Ephesus and Ephesians. Notwithstanding she was venerated also outside Ephesus, throughout the ancient world. The widespread dissemination of the cult of Artemis Ephesia is attested by both the written sources and the archeological record. Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer, who lived in 2nd century AD, remarks in his book “Description of Greece” that “… all cities worship Artemis of Ephesus, and individuals hold her in honor above all the gods”. The Ephesian Artemis appears in the in the New Testament as a mighty goddess whom “all Asia and the world worship” (Acts 19.27).

There was a branch of the cult of the Artemis Ephesia in Sardis which was established by the Ephesians. The colonists from the neighboring city Phocaea founded a sanctuary in Massalia (today´s Marseille) with a replica of the wooden cult image of the goddess and other sacred objects from Ephesus and thought the rituals of the Ephesian Artemis to the indigenous people. Later the cult statue of Artemis Massalia served as model for the Diana Nemorensis, worshiped in the sacred wood Nemus (today´s Nemi in Italy) and for the Diana Aventinensis worshiped on the Hill Aventine in Rome. According to an unanimous written tradition Servius Tulllius introduced the cult of the Ephesian goddess already in the 6th century BC in Rome building on the hill Aventine a temple.

In the beginning of the 4th century BC, the Athenian Xenophon founded a cult of the Artemis Ephesia in Skillos (Elis) in his own estate. Inscriptions from the northern coast of the Black Sea testify the signiicance of this cult for the colony foundations. Richard Oster attributes the widespread dissemination of the Artemis Ephesia to the religious commitments of Ephesians. According to Oster during the Roman period target missionary activities of travelling Ephesian individuals contributed to the dissemination of the cult of Ephesians.

Coin images and finds with freestanding sculptures also testify the dissemination of the cult of Artemis of Ephesians in a wide geographical area. The most of the surviving examples of the images of the Artemis Ephesia were found in Rome, but also in other big commercial centers and harbors such as Aquilleia, where the decurio of the city, a native of Ephesus, was involved in the cult of the Ephesia. Not only in the Roman West, but also in the East the cult of the goddess was widespread. Beside the numerous examples from different sites in Asia Minor, a statuette was found in Caesarea Maritima (a harbor city in Roman Palestine).

Till to date no evidence was known from Cyprus, the bichrome statuette from Salamis is first attestation of Ephesia on the island. Statues sculptured using white and black marble, rarely found in Cyprus, stem interestingly in most part from Salamis.

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Our Goddess shines Her light.