On the great line of communication between Rome and the East in general, E. was one of the knots where many side roads converged to feed the main route. From the N. and the S. coa.sting ships and land roads (Ac 19'' 20'-", 1 Ti 1', 2 Ti 4") brought travellers to the city on their way to Rome, or carried away travellers and oilicials who were going from Rome to other parts of the pro- vince. Thus it was a regulation that the Rom. governors under the empire must land at E. ; and ♦,he Hystem of roads was such as to make the city the most ea-sily accessible from all quarters of Asia. Hence it was naturally marked out as the centre where St. I'aul should station hiiii.sulf in order to aUcct that great province ; and from thence the new religion radiated over the whole of the pro- vince (Ac 19'"), partly through the fact that great numbers of the provincials came to E. for various purposes {e.g. to trade, to see the great Rom. festivals and shows, to worship the great goddess, etc.), and heard the word, and carried it back to their homes, partly through special missions on VOL. I. — Af>
which, doubtless, St. Paul's helpers, like Timothy and others, were sent by him. Corinth was the next great knot on the way to Rome, and coni- muniiation between E. and Corintli must have been very frequent. The ship that conveyed St. Paul to Jerus. from Corinth, doubtless a pUgriin ship carrying Jews to Jerus. ex])rcssly for tlie Passover, crossed first to E. (Ac 18''), ami theme coasted round Asia Minor, and crossed, doubtless by the W. side of Cyprus, to the Syrian coast >as in Ac 21'). The same character, as a pilgrim shi]), doubtless belonged to the ship by which St. Paul intended to sail from Corinth tor the Passover four years later (Ac 20^) ; on board of such a ship Jewish fanaticism would have been specially strong, and the conspiracy which was dreaded by St. Paul's friends would have had every chance of being successful.
After St. Paul's work in Asia was ended, Timothy seems to have been stationed in E. for a time (1 Ti 1'), with general authority, extending probably over the wTiole province, as is implied throughout the first Epistle ; and he was sum- moned thence by St. Paul to join him in Rome during his second imprisonment (2 Ti 4") ; and Jolin Mark must have been in Asia, perhaps in or at least near E., at that time, as Timothy was charged (4") to bring Mark with him to Rome. A wide acquaintance of Mark with the Asian Churches is implied in Col 4'", 1 P 5" ; and on each of the journeys between Rome and Asia which are implied in these pas.s.ages, he must have liassod through Ephesus. The rank of the Ephe.4an Church in the province is attested further by its being named first in Rev 1" 2'. It became the home of St. .John in the latter part of the century ; and a few incidents of his residence in E. are pre- served by Eusebius. According to tradition, not merely 'limothy and John, but also the Virgin Mary, were buried at Ephesus.*
The connexion of the Ephesian city harbour with the sea deiiended on the jiroper maintenance of the diannel of the Cayster ; but this was dithcult, for the river, which drains a valley of fertile alluvial soil, carried much silt in its water, and dei)Osited this toward its mouth, as the current became weak. According to Strabo (p. 641), an ill-advised engineer- ing scheme under tlie Pergamenian king Attains Philadelphus (n.C. 159-138), when a breakwater was built to narrow the entrance from the river, increased the tendency to silt up the mouth of the city harbour; and in A.D. 65 measures had to be taken by the governor of Asia to iriiiuovo the con- nexion Letween the harbour and the sea (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 23). Either then or at some other time, an embankment, which can still be seen as one rides down from E. to the sea (see Weber, p. 52), was built along the lower course of the river, to help the action of the stream in sweeping the silt out towards the sea. The harbour of E. was maintained, ajiparently, under the Rom. Empire ; but in later centuries the care and energy needed for so great a task failed, the harbour became a mere marsh, and with it E. necessarily decayed, as its qualifications for being the sea-end of the great higliway had ceased. Even in the time of St. Paul,
• Ab to the Biipposerf connexion o( St Luko with K.,noancient evidence for it fXislB (l)ut raliicr only contrary evidence); in Ac there is nothing to Bug^eHt pcrHonal Itnowledife of the city on tite part of the autlior ; and the 80-called ' Toinlt of St. Luke' iH liie creation of a mere error on tiie part of Mr. J. T. Woo<i, who niist4>ok a rude cross, incised in lat<jr tiincB on the murhle door of an old Gr. polyandrion or fnniily toniii, for a proof of the ChriMtian ori^'in of the monuniont, inm;;inin(; tliut the flmire of a hull (a tir. ornament) wliidi was sculptured on it was the symbol of St. Luke, and coniplelitiK tiis delusion hy ttle false belief that the moilern name Avassuluk (on which see below) was derived from "Aj-iof \ovxitt. Vet from his idea tltere ha« been develope'l a tno*lern leu'cnd ; and in recent years there hoA been some attempt to institute a ceremonial at tliU false ' tomb of St. Luke.'