The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, also called Artemision, was the fourth of the Seven Wonders of the World. Its construction began in 560 BC. AD and ended in 440 BC. Its architects are Theodore of Samos, Ctesiphon and Metagenes.
Artemis is the Greek goddess of chastity and the hunt.
The ruins of Ephesus today lie near the Turkish city of Selçuk, 50 kilometers south of Izmir.
This temple is also considered to be the first bank in the world because it was possible to deposit money there and later recover it credited with interest.
Destruction and restoration
The temple was burned on July 21, 356 BC. J.-C. by Érostrate, who thus wanted to make himself famous. Learning the motive of the arsonist who had destroyed the temple which was the envy of all Greeks, the magistrates of the city had him tortured and killed. It was forbidden for his name to be spoken on pain of death. This judgment was only respected for 23 years, until the arrival of Alexander the Great, who financed the restoration of the temple and entrusted the work to the architect Dinocrates (restoration which was completed belatedly more than two centuries later). But when the Ephesians learned the date of birth of their benefactor (the same year and, it seems, the same night as that of the fatal fire), the name was revealed.
Definitive destruction
Deprived of some of its most famous works of art by Nero, plundered by an expedition of Goths from the Black Sea around 262, damaged by earthquakes, the temple was permanently closed, like other pagan temples, by the general edict of Theodosius in 381, and transformed into a cut stone quarry.
The temple is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (XIX:23-40) in particular for the riot triggered there by the preaching of Paul of Tarsus.