The third marble is a sepulchral monument, and represents a dead person extended, from his knees upwards, on a funeral bed; the chief mourner sitting, and five other persons standing in a melancholy posture, and lamenting over him. These likewise are very lively figures, and cut with an inimitable perfection.
Of the temple of Diana there are extant no considerable ruins, nor any thing that is lofty and beautiful enough to bespeak it the remains of that famous structure. But in a marshy ground, near the Lacus Selenusius[47], betwixt the haven Panórmus[48] and the place of the antient city, there stand two broken pieces of a massy wall, in which both the present tradition, and accounts of antient geographers, exactly conspire to prove them the small reliques of the temple. As they themselves consist of square hewn stone, so they are surrounded with heaps of the same materials, among which occur some lofty dejected pillars of beautiful and splendid marble. Under the highest of these ruinous walls there descends an artificial passage, which after two or three short turnings proceeds in a straight line thro many narrow rooms and alleys. This, tho dark and noisome, is customarily visited by travelers, with the assistance of a candle and clue of thread; and is called, by we know not what fancy, the labyrinth of Diana’s temple. But as we observed the like under several large structures, some at Sardis, and others at this very place; so it is notorious, that this is but the ordinary method of strengthening any great foundation, and securing the building by subterraneous arches. Returning from this cavity the traveler has nothing else in view, but venerable heaps of rubbish, and uncertain traces of foundations; and must be forced to supply his curiosity with considering, that this was the place, where once stood and flourished that renowned wonder of the world.
The first temple had been burnt on the same night, in which Alexander the Great was born; and this second was then rebuilding, when that prince was residing at Ephesus, and pursuing his conquests in Asia Minor. He contributed sumptuously to the expence, and afterwards proposed to reimburse the whole, if the Ephesians would consent to inscribe his name upon the fabric[49]. But those citizens had an ambition equal to that of Alexander, and therefore diverted his desires by a fulsom compliment, and the dedication of a famous picture; which was Alexander himself armed with thunder, designed by the inimitable Apelles, and valued at twenty talents of gold[50]. Pliny has likewise told us, that this temple was adorned with an hundred and twenty seven pillars, each sixty feet high, thirty six of which were carved, and that by the celebrated hand of Scopas. The whole structure was four hundred and twenty five feet in length, and two hundred and twenty feet in breadth; and was founded in this watry ground, out of a vain hope to secure it by that means against time and earthquakes.
These are the most remarkable curiosities either of Turkish, Christian, or Heathen antiquity, which in the space of this afternoon we observed at Ephesus. Besides which we viewed many intire pillars of an aqueduct, that passes over the plain from the southern hills; as also in two places the uncertain footsteps of a theatre; and without the new castle a full face[51], with two serpents (cut on a stone) whose heads meet over it, and their bodies descend on each side. This monument is supposed to represent Diana, in the two characters of Luna and Proserpine. But it is to be wished, that some curious traveler might remain two or three days at Ephesus; during which time by removing the weeds, and clearing the confused ruins, he might possibly discover many valuable inscriptions; as by the benefit of a ladder he might take one or two from the wall above mentioned under the Christian ruins, which to our great dissatisfaction we found not legible from the ground.
Among the few imperfect inscriptions discoverable in so short a stay, the name of P. VEDIVS ABOSCANTVS, with mention of his wife and daughter, is once or twice repeated both in Greek and Latin. And ΑΤΤΙΚΟΝ ΗΡΩΔΗΝ, or the name of that ingenious Roman, whose part is so entertaining in the Noctes Atticae of Gellius, is preserved on a fragment among the pillars of the aqueduct. In the same place is frequent mention of M. Antoninus, once particularly on occasion of an honour done by the city to his daughter Fadilla.
ΦΑΔΙΛΛΑΝ ΘΥΓΑΤΕΡΑ Μ. ΑΥΡΗΛΙΟΥ ΑΝΤΩΝΕΙΝΟΥ
ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΥ[52]
This distich likewise on the castle gate is remarkable for the word Ptelea, an old name of Ephesus, which occurs in it.
ΤΟΥΤΟΝ ΟΝ ΕΙΣΟΡΑΑΣ ΤΥΠΟΝ ΟΡΘΙΟΝ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΝΟΥ
ΔΩΡΟΘΕΟΣ ΠΤΕΛΕΗ ΘΗΚΑΤΟ ΚΡΥΠΤΟΜΕΝΟΝ