The two frieze reliefs on the left side of the porch interior

Four badly worn frieze reliefs from the top of the walls either side of the doorway inside the porch (pronaos) have survived. The front of each marble block has reliefs of groups of figures, most of which fill the height of the shallow recessed space between the frames along the top and bottom of the frieze. They are usually referred to as Blocks A-D. Most of the poorly sculpted and badly damaged figures have not been identified beyond doubt, and there have been various interpretations of the scenes. All the frieze reliefs now displayed in the building are copies; the originals are in the Ephesus Archaeological Museum, Selçuk. Inv. Nos. 713-716.

The reliefs are thought to have been made in the third quarter of the 4th century AD for an unknown building, and shortly after, perhaps between 383 and 387 AD in the reign of Emperor Theodosius I (379-395 AD), they were taken to the "Temple of Hadrian" during its restoration following an earthquake. The original form of the frieze and the order of the relief scenes (perhaps a single continuous frieze) is unknown, and there may have been further scenes or panels. [1]

To the left stand three male figures: a man or god in a himation, Dionysus with his right hand on his head, holding what appears to be a wine jug in his lowered left hand, and a man in armour. The figures have also been interpreted as Zeus, a Nymph, perhaps representing the Hypelaios spring (see below), and Androklos [2].

To the right a rider, probably Androklos, whose horse rears above a fallen man (a Carian, Lelege or Lydian?) with a helmet, sword and shield; a wild boar runs to the right (sorry about the scroll).

The horseman scene is similar to several hero-horseman reliefs (see Pergamon gallery 2, page 10) and depictions of Alexander the Great on horseback, such as the "Alexander Mosaic" from Pompeii and the "Alexander Sarcophagus" (see the Alexander the Great page in the MFP People section).

On the left, six figures stand around a statuette of a deity, perhaps Artemis, on an altar. The winged female figure, third from the left, is probably Nike crowning the draped male in front of her, perhaps Androklos or a Roman emperor. This figure's garments have been seen as a Roman military tunic and paludamentum (a military robe). The naked figure with a spear may be Androklos or Theseus, and next to him is Herakles, wearing the skin of the Nemean Lion and holding a club. It has been suggested that the two figures on the far left may be personifications, one perhaps Bonus Eventus, alluding to the Virtus of the emperor, and also that the scene represents a sacrifice following a military victory by the emperor [Saporiti, see note 2].

On the right, four female figures, three of which are shown with exposed right breasts, probably represent fleeing Amazons, according to some versions of myths the original inhabitants of Ephesus. There were also mythological stories in which the Amazons fled from both Dionysus (see Block C on the next page) and Herakles, and took refuge in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. [3] The leftmost figure carries a pelte (πέλτη), the type of shield held by the Amazons in Greek and Roman art (see also the figures on frieze Block C on the next page). The rightmost figure has fallen to her knees. As with the other frieze blocks, it is not known whether this scene continued on either side.

According to the local legend, Ephesus was founded by Androklos (Ἄνδροκλος) [4], son of Kodros (Κόδρος), the last legendary or mythical king of Athens, estimated to have reigned around 1089-1068 BC. Forced to flee Greece (perhaps because of Dorian invasions), Androklos sailed to Anatolia with his followers. On their arrival they drove out the indigenous Carians and Leleges (probably Lydians).

Androklos is mentioned as the ktistes (κτίστης, founder) of Ephesus on several Hellenistic and Roman period inscriptions found in the city. [5]

The only surviving ancient literary source for this story is Athenaeus of Naucratis, who claims to be citing a certain Creophylus (Κρεώφυλος), about whom nothing else is known. [6]

"Creophylus, in Chronicles of the Ephesians, says that the founders of Ephesus, after suffering many hardships because of the difficulties of the region, finally sent to the oracle of the god and asked where they should place their city. And he declared to them that they should build a city 'whereso'er' a fish shall show them and a wild boar shall lead the way.

It is said, accordingly, that some fishermen were eating their noonday meal in the place where are the spring today called Oily [Hypelaios] and the sacred lake. One of the fish popped out with a live coal and fell into some straw, and a thicket in which a wild boar happened to be was set on fire by the fish. The boar, frightened by the fire, ran up a great distance on the mountain which is called Trecheia (Rough), and when brought down by a javelin, fell where today stands the temple of Athena.

So the Ephesians crossed over from the island after living there twenty years, and for the second time settled Trecheia and the regions on the slopes of Coressus; they also built a temple of Artemis overlooking the market-place, and a temple of the Pythian Apollo at the harbour."

The oracle mentioned is usually taken to be that of Apollo at Delphi, which is known to have been consulted by Greek cities sending out colonies, although it is usually reported that colonists received the god's enigmatic advice before setting off. There was also an oracle of Apollo much nearer at Didyma, belonging to the Ionian city of Miletus, which was colonized by Greeks before Ephesus. [8]

The "Hypelaios" [9] appears to have been a spring among the olive trees, which may have later been contained by a fountain, the Hypelaion (Ὑπέλαιον; Latin, Hypelaeum) mentioned by Strabo (see below). The "sacred lake" (ἱερὸς λιμὴν, ieros limin) is usually translated as sacred harbour, thought to be the old harbour of Ephesus which was silted up by the Roman period.

In the 5th century BC Herodotus, when discussing Ionia and the Ionians, briefly, indirectly and scathingly referred to the Ephesians' claim that their founder was Androklos, the son of Kodros of Athens. He also claimed that the Ionians were not pure Ionian Greeks, since many had come from other places, and the first colonists had brought no women with them but married the daughters, wives and mothers of the male natives they had dispossessed and killed:

"... for it would be foolishness to say that these are more truly Ionian or better born than the other Ionians; since not the least part of them are Abantes from Euboea, who are not Ionians even in name, and there are mingled with them Minyans of Orchomenus, Cadmeans, Dryopians, Phocian renegades from their nation, Molossians, Pelasgian Arcadians, Dorians of Epidaurus, and many other tribes.

And as for those who came from the very town-hall of Athens and think they are the best born of the Ionians, these did not bring wives with them to their settlements, but married Carian women whose parents they had put to death.

For this slaughter, these women made a custom and bound themselves by oath (and enjoined it on their daughters) that no one would sit at table with her husband or call him by his name, because the men had married them after slaying their fathers and husbands and sons. This happened at Miletus.

And as kings, some of them chose Lycian descendants of Glaucus son of Hippolochus, and some Caucones of Pylus, descendants of Codrus son of Melanthus, and some both."

Herodotus, Histories, Book 1, chapters 146-147. [10]

The Greek geographer Strabo, writing in the early 1st century AD, cited the 5th century mythographer Pherecydes [11] as his source for the early history of Ephesus:

"According to Pherecydes, Miletus, Myus, Mycale, and Ephesus, on this coast, were formerly occupied by Carians; the part of the coast next in order, as far as Phocaea, and Chios, and Samos, of which Ancaeus was king, were occupied by Leleges, but both nations were expelled by the Ionians, and took refuge in the remaining parts of Caria.

Pherecydes says that the leader of the Ionian, which was posterior to the Aeolian migration, was Androclus, a legitimate son of Codrus king of the Athenians, and that he was the founder of Ephesus, hence it was that it became the seat of the royal palace of the Ionian princes. Even at present the descendants of that race are called kings, and receive certain honours, as the chief seat at the public games, a purple robe as a symbol of royal descent, a staff instead of a sceptre, and the superintendence of the sacrifices in honour of the Eleusinian Ceres [Demeter]."

"The city of Ephesus was inhabited both by Carians and Leleges. After Androclus had expelled the greatest part of the inhabitants, he settled his companions about the Athenaeum, and the Hypelaeum, and in the mountainous tract at the foot of the Coressus. It was thus inhabited till the time of Croesus. Afterwards, the inhabitants descended from the mountainous district, and settled about the present temple, and continued there to the time of Alexander."

The second century AD travel writer Pausanias (who may have been from nearby Lydia) had more to say about the arrival of the Ionian Greeks and their conquest of Miletus and Ephesus. He also related that Androklos took Samos for a while, perhaps as long as 10 years. Androklos was even depicted on Roman coins of Samos during the 3rd century AD, perhaps due to a revival of interest in the hero sparked by the works of authors such as Pausanias. The founder hero was killed while fighting with the people of Priene against the Carians and was buried in Ephesus, on the road between road between the sanctuary of Artemis Ephesia and the Magnesian Gate via the Olympieion. [13] Pausanias' usual mix of myth, legend and heresay is apparent when he discusses the history of the sanctuary of Artemis.

"... Medon and Neileus, the oldest of the sons of Codrus, quarrelled about the rule [of Athens], and Neileus refused to allow Medon to rule over him, because he was lame in one foot. The disputants agreed to refer the matter to the Delphic oracle, and the Pythian priestess gave the kingdom of Athens to Medon. So Neileus and the rest of the sons of Codrus set out to found a colony, taking with them any Athenian who wished to go with them, but the greatest number of their company was composed of Ionians."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 7, chapter 2, section 1. [14]

The Ionians of the Peloponnese had taken refuge in Athens after being driven out of their lands by the Dorian invasions. Neileus, the brother of Androklos, was the legendary founder of Ionian Miletus.

"When the Ionians had overcome the ancient Milesians they killed every male, except those who escaped at the capture of the city, but the wives of the Milesians and their daughters they married.

The grave of Neileus is on the left of the road, not far from the gate, as you go to Didymi. The sanctuary of Apollo at Didymi, and his oracle, are earlier than the immigration of the Ionians, while the cult of Ephesian Artemis is far more ancient still than their coming.

Pindar, however, it seems to me, did not learn everything about the goddess, for he says that this sanctuary was founded by the Amazons during their campaign against Athens and Theseus. It is a fact that the women from the Thermodon, as they knew the sanctuary from of old, sacrificed to the Ephesian goddess both on this occasion and when they had fled from Heracles; some of them earlier still, when they had fled from Dionysus, having come to the sanctuary as suppliants. However, it was not by the Amazons that the sanctuary was founded, but by Coresus, an aboriginal, and Ephesus, who is thought to have been a son of the river Cayster, and from Ephesus the city received its name.

The inhabitants of the land were partly Leleges, a branch of the Carians, but the greater number were Lydians. In addition there were others who dwelt around the sanctuary for the sake of its protection, and these included some women of the race of the Amazons.

But Androclus the son of Codrus (for he it was who was appointed king of the Ionians who sailed against Ephesus) expelled from the land the Leleges and Lydians who occupied the upper city. Those, however, who dwelt around the sanctuary had nothing to fear; they exchanged oaths of friendship with the Ionians and escaped warfare. Androclus also took Samos from the Samians, and for a time the Ephesians held Samos and the adjacent islands.

But after that the Samians had returned to their own land, Androclus helped the people of Priene against the Carians. The Greek army was victorious, but Androclus was killed in the battle. The Ephesians carried off his body and buried it in their own land, at the spot where his tomb is pointed out at the present day, on the road leading from the sanctuary past the Olympieum to the Magnesian gate. On the tomb is a statue of an armed man."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 7, chapter 2, sections 6-9. [14]

"Thus far Asius in his poem. But on the occasion to which I refer the inhabitants of the island received the Ionians as settlers more of necessity than through good will. The leader of the Ionians was Procles, the son of Pityreus, Epidaurian himself like the greater part of his followers, who had been expelled from Epidauria by Deiphontes and the Argives. This Procles was descended from Ion, son of Xuthus. But the Ephesians under Androclus made war on Leogorus, the son of Procles, who reigned in Samos after his father, and after conquering them in a battle drove the Samians out of their island, accusing them of conspiring with the Carians against the Ionians.

[3] The Samians fled and some of them made their home in an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name of the island was changed from Dardania to Samothrace. Others with Leogorus threw a wall round Anaea on the mainland opposite Samos, and ten years after crossed over, expelled the Ephesians and reoccupied the island."

Antinous (Ἀντίνοος, Antinoos, circa 111-130 AD) from Bythinia, northwestern Anatolia (Asia Minor), was the young lover (eromenos) of Emperor Hadrian. He is thought to have accompanied Hadrian on the emperor's second visit to Ephesus around 129-130 AD.

After he drowned in the Nile, Hadrian deified him and erected many busts and statues of him at sanctuaries for his cult throughout the Roman Empire. He was often depicted in the guise of a local deity or hero such as Dionysus, Osiris, Herakles or Bellerophon.

Ephesian coins from the reigns of Hadrian (117-138 AD) to Gallienus (253-268 AD) show Androklos hunting a wild boar, a reference to the legend related by Athenaeus (see above). One of the earliest, from Hadrian's reign, shows a bust of Antinous with the inscription "Heros Antinoos" on the obverse side. The reverse shows a youthful Androklos standing in a heroic pose, naked apart from a chlamys (short cloak, as in the statue of Antinous above), in front of an olive tree, and the inscription "Ephesion Androklos". He holds a spear in his left hand and carries a dead boar in his right hand.

Coins from the mid 2nd to 3rd century show the head of the current emperor on the obverse side, and on the reverse a similar representation of Androklos, sometimes with a hunting dog. Others show Androklos hunting a boar either with a spear or on horseback, or standing next to the hero Koressos with both holding the dead boar.

Androklos is also shown on coins of other cities during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, standing to the right of the founder of that city (e.g. Alexander the Great for Alexandria and the hero Kyzikos for Kyzikos), either shaking hands or holding statuettes of their respective local deities (e.g the hero Pergamos with a statuette of Asklepios and Androklos with Artemis Ephesia).

1. Robert Fleischer on the temple frieze

See: Robert Fleischer, Die Amazonen und das Asyl des Artemisions von Ephesos (particularly the section Der Fries des Hadrianstempels). In: Jahrbuch Des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Volume 117, pages 185-216. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2002.

Fleischer treated the reliefs as parts of a single frieze, and suggested that it may have been made during the lifetime of Emperor Julian II (Julian the Apostate, 331/332-363, reigned 361-363 AD), who spent some time in Ephesus. He also wrote an influential study of the frieze:

R. Fleischer, Der Fries des Hadrianstempels in Ephesos. In: Festschrift für Fritz Eichler zum achtzigsten Geburtstag (Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes (ÖJh), Beiheft 1), pages 23-71. Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut (ÖAI), Vienna, 1967.

Beat Brenk argued that the frieze may have been made during the priod of the Tetrarchy (284-312 AD).

2. Nada Saporiti on the temple frieze

3. Amazons at Ephesus

Pausanias doubted Pindar's claim that the sanctuary of Artemis Ephesia was founded by the Amazons, but appears to have taken as fact tales in which some of them lived at Ephesus, and claimed asylum in the sanctuary when they fled there from Dionysus, and later from Herakles.

"Pindar, however, it seems to me, did not learn everything about the goddess [Artemis Ephesia], for he says that this sanctuary was founded by the Amazons during their campaign against Athens and Theseus. It is a fact that the women from the Thermodon, as they knew the sanctuary from of old, sacrificed to the Ephesian goddess both on this occasion and when they had fled from Heracles; some of them earlier still, when they had fled from Dionysus, having come to the sanctuary as suppliants. However, it was not by the Amazons that the sanctuary was founded, but by Coresus, an aboriginal, and Ephesus, who is thought to have been a son of the river Cayster, and from Ephesus the city received its name.

The inhabitants of the land were partly Leleges, a branch of the Carians, but the greater number were Lydians. In addition there were others who dwelt around the sanctuary for the sake of its protection, and these included some women of the race of the Amazons."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 7, chapter 2, sections 7-8. At Perseus Digital Library.

See also Strabo on the Amazon queen Smyrna and the foundation of Ephesus on gallery page 62.

4. The name Androklos

5. Ktistes

Ktistes (κτίστης), founder. From ktízein (κτίζειν), to make habitable, to settle, or to found, to set up. The word was used for the founders of cities, including legendary or mythological founders (e.g. Byzas for Byzantium), gods (especially Apollo) and divine heroes (e.g. Herakles). From the Hellenistic period it was also used for founders of games and other public institutions.

In Archaic and Classical Greece an oikistes (οἰκιστής) was a person chosen by the mother city (μητρόπολις, metropolis) to establish a new colony (ἀποικία, apoikia).

6. Creophylus

Creophylus (Κρεώφυλος, Kreophylos) is also referred as Kreophylos of Ephesus (Κρεώφυλος ο Εφέσιος) because of Athenaeus' mention of his Chronicles of the Ephesians (or Ephesian Annals; Ἐφεσίων ὧροι, Ephesion oroi), and it has even been speculated that he wrote in the Ionian dialect and may have lived in the 4th century BC. However, there is no evidence for this, and there is no mention of a historian named Creophylus by any other ancient author.

7. Athenaeus on the foundation of Ephesus

Athenaeus of Naucratis (Greek, Ἀθήναιος Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, Athenaios Naukratites; Latin, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian of the late 2nd to early 3rd century AD from Naucratis, the Ptolemaic capital of Egypt. His only surviving work is the 15-volume Deipnosophistae (Δειπνοσοφισταί, Banquet of the Learned or Scholars at the Dinner Table), written in Greek in the early 3rd century AD in Rome, most of which is still extant. The book is an account - probably fictional - of erudite conversations between diners at three banquets.

The Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus, Book VIII (Part 5 of 5), page 137. Volume IV of the Loeb Classical Library edition, Harvard University Press, 1930. At Bill Thayer's LacusCurtius website, University of Chicago.

Another translation: Charles Duke Yonge, The Deipnosophists: or, Banquet of the learned, of Athenaeus, Volume 2 (of 3), Book 8, chapter 62, pages 569-570. H. G. Bohn, London, 1854. At the Internet Archive.

The text in Greek, from the Loeb edition:

Κρεώφυλος δ᾽ ἐν τοῖς Ἐφεσίων ῝ Ὥροις οἱ τὴν Ἔφεσον, φησί, κτίζοντες καὶ πολλὰ ταλαιπωρηθέντες ἀπορίᾳ τόπου τὸ τελευταῖον πέμψαντες εἰς θεοῦ ἠρώτων ὅπου τὸ πόλισμα θῶνται. ὁ δ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἔχρησεν ἐνταῦθα οἰκίζειν πόλιν ᾗ ἂν ἰχθὺς δείξῃ καὶ ὗς ἄγριος ὑφηγήσηται.

λέγεται οὖν ὅπου νῦν ἡ κρήνη ἐστὶν Ὑπέλαιος καλουμένη καὶ ὁ ἱερὸς λιμὴν ἁλιέας ἀριστοποιεῖσθαι, καὶ τῶν ἰχθύων τινὰ ἀποθορόντα σὺν ἀνθρακιᾷ εἰσπεσεῖν εἰς φορυτόν, καὶ ἁφθῆναι ὑπ᾽. αὐτοῦ λόχμην, ἐν ᾗ ἔτυχε σῦς ἄγριος ὤν: ὃς ὑπὸ τοῦ πυρὸς θορυβηθεὶς ἐπέδραμε τοῦ ὄρους ἐπὶ πολύ, ὃ δὴ καλεῖται τρηχεῖα, καὶ πίπτει ἀκοντισθεὶς ὅπου νῦν ἐστιν ὁ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ναός.

8. Oracles of Apollo

9. Hypelaios

Hypelaios (Ὑπέλαιος) has been translated in the Loeb edition as "Oily", while Yonge simply used the Latin "Hypelaeus". Few modern authors have attempted to translate or examine the name, Doctor Richard Chandler being a notable exception:

"The city of Androclus was by the atheneum or a temple of Minerva, which was without the city of Lysimachus, and by the fountain called Hypelaeus, or that under the olive tree."

Richard Chandler, Travels in Asia Minor: or an account of a tour made at the expense of the Society of Dilettanti, Volume I (of 2), page 146. Joseph Booker, London, 1817.

A German translation of Hypelaion (Ὑπέλαιον) in Strabo (Book 14, chapter 1, section 21) renders the word as "Ölbaumquelle" (literally, oil tree spring), olive tree spring.

Elmar Schwertheim, Kleinasien in der Antike: von den Hethitern bis Konstantin, page 38. C. H. Beck, München, 2005.

10. Herodotus on the Ionians

11. Pherecydes of Leros

Pherecydes (Φερεκύδης) was a 5th century BC writer, referred to variously as Pherecydes of Leros (Φερεκύδης ὁ Λέριος) or Pherecydes of Athens (Φερεκύδης ὁ Ἀθηναῖος), with differing opinions on whether they were the same person. He is thought to have been a native of the island of Leros who spent much of his life in Athens.

12. Strabo on the foundation of Ephesus

13. The tomb of Androklos in Ephesus

See:

Helmut Engelmann, Das Grab des Androklos und ein Olympieion (Pausanias VII 2, 9). In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 112 (1996), pages 131–133.

Elisabeth Rathmayr, Die Präsenz des Ktistes Androklos in Ephesos. In: Anzeige der Phil.-Hist.Klasse, 145, Jahrgang 2010, pages 19-60. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 2010.

14. Pausanias on the foundation of Ephesus

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