non-imperial donations in Ephesus

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Many of the religious and political leaders of Anatolia and Asia (Asia Minor) lived in Ephesus but had wider power and derived income from the whole region. Wealth was also derived from trade and depended upon the deep-water port (until it silted up). The Harbour Baths, that were upgraded and decorated a number of times, show that people lived around the port as it was too far out of town, otherwise.

Numerous people in Ancient Ephesus were sufficiently wealthy to erect large structures for the welfare of the city. In c.4 B.C. the ex-slaves, Mazaeus and Mithridates,* built the triple-arched gate to the Commercial Agora as a gesture of thanks to the Emperor Augustus and his son-in-law Agrippa, who had freed them. Donations were either decorative (in praise of a person, family or deity) such as the Memmius Monument* on the Curetes Street*, or provided amenities, such as free water. After Gaius Sextilius Pollio had built the Marnas Aqueduct to bring extra water from the Marnas River into the city, Laecanius Bassus built a fountain in Pollio’s honour in about 80 A.D. Bassus also built the Water Palace in honour of Gaius Ofillius Proculus. Generations of the family of Tiberius Julius Celsus built the outstanding Celsus Library* from 110 A.D., to honour and to bury him.

Unlike aqueducts and fountains, which were free gifts to the city, various people built baths with gymnasia as profit making ventures, although one gift was given by Claudius Verulanus, the chief priest of Asia, between 117 and 138 A.D., when he decorated the Harbour Gymnasium and Baths with multi-coloured marble facings. The East Gymnasium complex was built by Publius Vedius Antoninus, who dedicated it to Artemis and Emperor Antoninus Pius. Standing statues of the sophist Flavius Damianus, dressed as an imperial priest, and of his wife, Vedia Phaedrina, were found in the baths and they may have been connected with its construction.

In Ephesus, there were at least five gymnasia/baths complexes built in Roman times with two sets of baths added in the Byzantine period. Scholastikia* built her bathing complex on the Curetes Street in the 4th century and the Byzantine Baths near the Church of the Virgin Mary probably dates to the 6th century.

The Emperors, from Constantine I onwards, adopted Christianity and the Imperial Cult waned. Christian churches began to be built, including with the financial support of the Emperor Justinian (527-565). Materials were scavenged from Roman structures, especially the circus, as public executions and gladiatorial fights ceased to be popular. Shortly after that only small ships could use the harbour and trade declined. There was another ‘golden age’ for Ephesus in the 14th century but that was up on the hill around the castle, while the lower city was eventually abandoned.




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