At this time a shepherd happened to be feeding his flock on the mountain, and two rams fighting, one of them missed his antagonist, and, striking the rock with his horn, broke off a crust of very white marble. He ran into the city with this specimen, which was received with excess of joy. He was highly honoured for his accidental discovery, and finally canonized; the Ephesians changing his name from Pyxodorus to Evangelus, The good messenger; and enjoining their chief magistrate, under a penalty, to visit the spot, and to sacrifice to him monthly; which custom continued in the age of Augustus Cæsar g.

The author above cited mentions Prion as a mountain of a remarkable nature. He meant perhaps some property of preserving or consuming the dead, of which it has been a principal repository. In the records of our religion it is ennobled as the burying-place of St. Timothy, the companion of St. Paul, and the first bishop of Ephesus, whose body was afterwards translated to Constantinople by the founder of that city, or his son Constantius, and placed with St. Luke and St. Andrew in the church of the apostles. The story of St. John the Evangelist was deformed in an early age with gross fiction; but he also was interred at Ephesus, and, as appears from one narration, in this mountain h

f Upon what authority? Vitruvius, though he relates the story, does not give us the name of the mountain on which it happened. If mount Prion consists of white marble, it is very extraordinary it was not discovered sooner, part of the mountain being included within the walls of the city. R.

g Vitruv. lib. x. c. 7.

h See Cave.

In the side of Prion, not far from the gymnasium, are cavities with mouths, like ovens, made to admit the bodies, which were thrust in, head or feet foremost. One has an inscription on the plane of the rock, beginning, as usual, This is the monument, &c. The traces of numerous sepulchres may be likewise seen. Then follows, farther on, a wide aperture or two, which are avenues to the interior quarries, of a romantic appearance, with hanging precipices; and in one is the ruin of a church, of brick, the roof arched, the ceiling plaster or stucco, painted in streaks corresponding with the mouldings. Many names of persons and sentences are written on the wall, in Greek and Oriental characters. This perhaps is the oratory or church of St. John, which was rebuilt by the emperor Justinian. It is still frequented, and had a path leading to it through tall strong thistles. Near it are remnants of brick buildings, and of sepulchres, with niches cut, some horizontally, in the rock. Going on, you come to the entrance into Ephesus from Aiasalúck. The quarries in the mountain have numberless mazes, and vast, awful, dripping caverns. In many parts are chippings of marble and marks of the tools. I found chippings also above by the mouths, which supplied marble for the city-wall; and saw huge pieces lying among the bushes at the bottom. The view down the steep and solemn precipice was formidable. A flock of crows, disturbed at my approach, flew out with no small clamour.

CHAP. XXXVI.

OF OLD EPHESUS-THE CITY OF THE IONIANS-AN ORACLE

-OF ANDROCLUS-THE CITY OF LYSIMACHUS-THE PORT HISTORY OF EPHESUS-ITS DECLINE-THE

-MODERN

PRESENT EPHESIANS-ITS DEPLORABLE CONDITION.

To complete the local history of Ephesus, we must deduce it from a period of remote antiquity. Prion had in former times been called Lepre Acte; and a part behind Prion was still called the back of Lepre, when Strabo wrote. Smyrna, a portion of the first Ephesus, was near the gymnasium, behind the city of Lysimachus, and between Lepre or Prion, and a spot called Tracheia beyond Corissus. When the Ionians arrived, Androclus, their leader, protected the natives, who had settled, from devotion, by the temple of Diana, and incorporated some of them with his followers; but expelled those who inhabited the town above i.

The city of Androclus was by the Athenæum, or temple of Minerva, which was without the city of Lysimachus, and by the fountain called Hypelæus, or that under the olive tree; taking in part of the mountainous region by Corissus, or of Tracheia. This was the city which Croesus besieged, and the Ephesians presented for an offering to their goddess, annexing it by a rope to her temple, which was distant seven stadia, or a mile, wanting half a quarter.

It is related, that Androclus, with the Ephesians, invaded and got possession of the island of Samos. It was then debated, where to fix their abode. An

i Strabo, p. 633. 640. Pausanias, p. 207.

oracle was consulted, and gave for answer, "A fish "should shew them, and a wild hog conduct them." Some fishermen breakfasting on the spot, where afterwards was the fountain called Hypelæus, near the sacred port, one of the fish leaping from the fire with a coal, fell on some chaff, which lighting, communicated with a thicket, and the flames disturbed a wild hog lying in it. This animal ran over great part of the Tracheia, and was killed with a javelin, where afterwards was the Athenæum or temple of Minervak. The reverse of a medallion of the emperor Macrinus, struck by the Ephesians, which has been otherwise interpreted, plainly refers to this story. The Ionians removed to the continent, and founded their city, with a temple of Diana by the market-place, and of Apollo Pythius by the port; the oracle having been obtained and fulfilled by the favour of these deities.

Androclus, assisting the people of Priene against the Carians, fell in battle. His body was carried away and buried by the Ephesians. Pausanias relates, that his monument, on which was placed a man armed, continued to be shewn in his time, near the road going from the temple of Diana by the Olympium, toward the Magnesian gatem. His posterity had possessed hereditary honours under Tiberius Cæsar. They were titular kings, wore purple, and carried in their hands a wand or sceptre. They had, moreover, precedence at the games, and a right of admission to the Eleusinian mysteries.

The temple of Diana, which rose on the contri

k Athenæus, lib. viii. p. 361.

1 See Museum Florentinum, v. 4. pl. lxi. and v. 6. p. 85.

m P. 207. He wrote about the year of the Christian era, 175.

butions of all Asia, produced a desertion of the city of Androclus. The Ephesians came down from the mountainous region, or Tracheia, and settled in the plain by it, where they continued to the time of Alexander. They were then unwilling to remove into the present city; but a heavy rain falling, and Lysimachus stopping the drains, and flooding their houses, they were glad to exchange.

The port had originally a wide mouth, but foul with mud, lodged in it from the Cayster. Attalus Philadelphus and his architects were of opinion, that if the entrance were contracted it would become deeper, and in time be capable of receiving ships of burden. But the slime, which had before been moved by the flux and reflux of the sea, and carried off, being stopped, the whole basin quite to the mouth was rendered shallow. The morass, of which I had a perfect view from the top of Prion, was this port. It communicates with the Cayster, as might be expected, by a narrow mouth; and at the water-edge by the ferry, as well as in other places, may be seen the wall intended to embank the stream, and give it force by confinement. The masonry is of the kind termed incertum, in which the stones are of various shapes, but nicely joined. The situation was so advantageous as to overbalance the inconveniencies attending the port. The town increased daily, and under the Romans was accounted the most considerable emporium of Asia within mount Taurus ".

Toward the end of the eleventh century Ephesus experienced the same fortune as Smyrna. A Turk