Near Ku\u015fadas\u0131, in Ayd\u0131n Province, T\u00fcrkiye, in a 2016 Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Tevfik Teker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
We were up very early this morning to fly from Kayseri to Izmir.\u00a0 Izmir is the ancient Smyrna, the traditional birthplace of the enormously important Greek poet Homer.\u00a0 Kayseri is only one of several towns named Caesarea in the ancient world \u2013 think, for example, of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast of Israel and of Caesarea Philippi in the northern Galilee; everybody in antiquity wanted to flatter the emperor \u2013 and, in the Middle Ages, was once the capital of the early Turkish Seljuq Sultanate of Rum.<\/p>\n
At one point during our travels today, I spoke to the group about the curious fact that much of Greek civilization actually had its origin outside of Greece proper, in what is today T\u00fcrkiye.\u00a0 Besides Homer, who was famously \u201cthe teacher of Greece\u201d and whose Iliad<\/em> and Odyssey <\/em>served, in a sense, as the classical Greek \u201cBible,\u201d there is the other great early Greek poet, Hesiod.\u00a0 And several of the pre-Socratic philosophers (e.g., Thales, Anaximander, Xenophanes, and Melissus) were from \u201cIonia\u201d (that is, western Anatolia), as well. \u00a0Anaxagoras was born near Smyrna. \u00a0Sappho, the famous poetess, lived just off the coast of Anatolia on the island of Lesbos. The great Heraclitus came from Ephesus, which seems apt given the eight-kilometer distance that now separates its onetime harbor from the sea, the changing course of its river, and its transformation from a populous and wealthy city to a famous set of ruins.\u00a0 Panta rhei <\/em>(\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1fe5\u03b5\u1fd6), \u201ceverything flows\u201d or \u201ceverything is in flux\u201d or \u201ceverything changes,\u201d is probably the most familiar of Heraclitus\u2019 sayings, although he may not actually have said those particular words. \u00a0(The exact phrase wasn\u2019t ascribed to Heraclitus until the sixth century, by Simplicius, although a similar saying that expresses the same idea \u2014\u00a0panta chorei<\/em> (\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6), or \u201ceverything moves\u201d \u2013 is definitely Heraclitean.)<\/p>\nFirst, we visited the ruins of the Church of St. John, a traditional burial place of the apostle John\u2014a tradition that Latter-day Saints tend to doubt\u2014who is said to have lived for a time in Ephesus (and perhaps to have written his gospel there) and, having been commissioned by Jesus from the cross to care for Mary, to have brought her here, as well.<\/p>\n
We next dropped by the ruins of the Artemisium, the great temple of Artemis or Diana that was completed around 550 BC.\u00a0 It\u2019s a powerful commentary on the transience of human greatness to see one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World reduced to one standing column\u2014standing only because restorers put it back upright\u2014with a stork\u2019s nest on its top.\u00a0 (For the first time that I\u2019ve been here, the ruins were dry, rather than immersed in a swamp, and the storks had abandoned their nest for their annual migration.)<\/p>\n
Then we went for a really fine outdoor lunch and some carpet shopping.\u00a0 (I\u2019ll have to get the name of the place; I highly recommend it for both the food and the carpets.)<\/p>\n
On the whole, I am not an acquisitive person.\u00a0 But oriental carpets and kilims<\/em> are very definitely one of my weaknesses.\u00a0 I can\u2019t go into a carpet store or a carpet factory without falling in love with at least one carpet.\u00a0 We\u2019ve bought carpets during previous visits here in the Ephesus area and in Egypt.\u00a0 And one of my favorites is a Tabrizi that I bought in the Islamic Republic of Iran.\u00a0 The trouble is that we don\u2019t have room for any more of them.\u00a0They\u2019re on our floor, and other weavings (one even made by a relative in Norway) hang on our walls.\u00a0 In fact, we have more than we can display at any one time.\u00a0 So many carpets, so little space.\u00a0 And so little money.\u00a0 So we bought another.<\/p>\nNext, we went to Ephesus itself.\u00a0 Some have called it the second most important city of the Roman Empire. \u00a0I personally might argue that, say, Alexandria<\/em> held second rank, but Ephesus was certainly an important<\/em> city.\u00a0 For one thing, it was the capital of the Roman province of Asia Minor and, because of the confluence of a navigable river connecting to the sea and a trade route all the way to Mesopotamia, it was a major trading center and port. Paul lived in Ephesus for well over two years and, as I mentioned above, many believe that the Gospel of John was written in the city. It had a population of roughly a quarter of a million people, which was a very large number for the ancient world.<\/p>\nBut its meandering river, the K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fckmenderes or \u201cLittle Meander,\u201d let it down.\u00a0 It silted up the city\u2019s harbor.\u00a0 Incidentally, the term to meander<\/em> derives from the name of that winding river, the Menderes, which was sometimes known to the ancient Greeks as \u039c\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 (Maiandros, <\/em>or Latin\u00a0Maeander<\/em>), which was characterised by a very convoluted path along its lower reach. As a result, even in classical Greece the name of the river seems to have become a common noun denoting anything<\/em> that was convoluted and winding, including speeches. \u00a0Strabo said of the river that \u201cits course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nThe ruins of Ephesus are extensive and relatively well preserved.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible, walking down the main street, to get a real sense of an ancient Greco-Roman city.\u00a0 Notable along the way are Hadrian\u2019s temple, the luxurious terrace houses of the economic elite, the magnificent Library of Celsus, and the impressive Roman theater, which could accommodate more than 25,000 spectators. \u00a0Along with the temple of Diana or Artemis, the theater figures prominently in the interesting account given at Acts 19 (https:\/\/www.churchofjesuschrist.org\/study\/scriptures\/nt\/acts\/19?lang=eng<\/a>). \u00a0I read that account to our group and commented on it as we sat on benches in the theater, perhaps in the very places where some of those sat who cried out, for two hours, \u201cGreat is Diana of the Ephesians! \u00a0Great is Diana of the Ephesians!\u201d<\/p>\nWe\u2019re spending the night in the Charisma Hotel, overlooking the Aegean Sea, \u00a0in the beautiful resort town of Ku\u015fadas\u0131. \u00a0It is a popular stopping point for cruise ships \u2014 which are currently making their way to T\u00fcrkiye in somewhat heightened numbers because they cannot dock in Israel.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Ku\u015fadas\u0131, Ayd\u0131n Province, T\u00fcrkiye<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 We were up very early this morning to fly from Kayseri to Izmir.\u00a0 Izmir is the ancient Smyrna, the traditional birthplace of the enormously important Greek poet Homer.\u00a0 Kayseri is only one of several towns named Caesarea in the ancient world \u2013 think, for example, of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":102338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36749,36752,35124,36746,6189,36743],"class_list":["post-102335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ephesus","tag-heraclitus","tag-homer","tag-izmir","tag-paul","tag-smyrna"],"yoast_head":"\n
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