#hercules gate

16.01.19 Pula, Croatia, pt. 2

This amazing ancient Greek City in eastern Mediterranean was a highlight of our trip around Turkey. Our limited Australian history did not prepare us to fully comprehend the revelations that Ephesus holds.

The site where Ephesus stands has evidence of stone age and neolithic age (6,000 BC) life. Greeks founded the city in the 10th century BC and Romans developed it around the bible times. St Paul is believed to have written his gospels in Ephesus. 

It is easy to imagine what it must have been like for the wealthy and the slaves in this busy city which was home to 250,000 people. A walk along the marble road is where Cleopatra and Mark Antony walked in the day. The ruins of The Temple of Diana can be seen and this is where one of the original seven wonders of the world once stood. The vast amphitheatre with the three levels and a capacity for 25,000 people has amazing acoustics and a stage where concerts would have been staged. The gladiators and wild animals fought to their death in this arena. The gladiators trained in the gymnasium and scholars read from the huge collection of parchment scrolls in the Library of Celsus. The horse drawn traffic came up the main road to the narrow Hercules Gate where it then became pedestrian traffic. The civil engineers of the day had already worked out the grid system for town planning. We can imagine how the rich lived in their stylish town houses built on three levels with running hot and cold water. The boys sat on the marble latrines and joked about how it was in the day with a public toilet complete with a sewage system and cleaning facilities. The slaves apparently warmed the marble seats for their masters. The road from the harbour led to the Roman Bath and next to that is the brothel. Men from the sailing boats followed a distinctive street sign to these facilities.