Discover Aphrodisias, the preeminent temple of the goddess Aphrodite in Asia Minor
According to the Suda, before being known as Aphrodisias, the city had three previous names: Lelegon Polis (city of the Leleges), Megale Polis, and Ninoe. The city was later renamed Stauropolis (city of the cross) in the Christian era. The similarities of the goddess Aphrodite to Artemis of Ephesus and other Anatolian mother goddesses are evident in cult statues found at the ruins. In Hellenistic times, she took the form of an ancient nature goddess who was sovereign on the earth, in heaven, and in the oceans and the underworld.
During the Roman period of the 1st to 6th centuries AD, Aphrodisias became a rich and important city, known as a thriving trade center and for the excellence of its school of marble sculptors. Despite the advent of Christianity and the establishment of a bishop in the city, paganism still lingered for some centuries at Aphrodisias because of the great popularity of the cult of the goddess.
The most impressive monument in Aphrodisias is The Temple of Aphrodite. Located in the northern section, in ancient times the Temple of Aphrodite formed the centre and nucleus of the city. All that remains of the ancient temple consists of fourteen of the over forty Ionic columns that once surrounded it and the foundations of the cella section. Although the cult centre dates back to earlier times the temple whose remains we see today was begun in the 1st century B.C. and is thought to have been completed during the reign of Augustus. The temenos (temple precinct) was completed in the 2nd century during the reign of Hadrian. The building would appear to have been what is known as an octastyle temple with thirteen columns on each side and eight columns at front and rear. On some of the columns are inscribed the names of the donors who presented them to the temple. The discovery of several mosaic fragments belonging to the Hellenistic period indicate the existence of an older temple on the same site, but with the conversion of the temple to a church in the 5th century all traces of the older building were erased. At the same time, the walls of the cella containing the cult statues were removed and the building enlarged by moving the side columns outwards. Walls were added at the front and rear of the building to form an apse and nave. An apse and an atrium were added on the east and west. No cult statue was found in the cella but in 1962 a statue was found immediately outside it bearing all the characteristics of a cult statue. This statue, which is now exhibited in the museum, displays a stiff, hieratic stance closely resembling the Artemis of Ephesus. The goddess is wearing a long garment. One of the arms is stretched forward. The reliefs carved on the bands of the garment are very interesting. The sun god and moon goddess, the Three Graces with Aphrodite in the middle, Aphrodite and three Cupids seated on a goat with the tail of a fish are all symbols which frequently appear on various copies of the cult statue.
The available evidence indicates a construction date in the Antonine or early Severan period (late second or early third century A.D.). The scaenae frons (stage front) was certainly put up at this time, as the style of both sculpture and architectural ornament suggest. Statue bases terminating the retaining walls of the auditorium bore the names of two brothers, senators in the early Severan period, and two inscribed bases placed symmetrically against the exterior facade held statues of Aphrodisian benefactors, Claudia Antonia Tatiana and her uncle Lucius Antonius Dometinus, who were active at the end of the second century (Sculptures of the Bouleuterion). Tatiana is known to have had close ties with Ephesos and it is possible that the striking similarities between this building and the Bouleuterion on the Civic Agora there, dated by inscription to the mid-second century, are due to some initiative on her part. We do not know what stood here before the second century A.D., but it is likely that the present building replaced a smaller one contemporary with the laying out of the Agora in the late first century B.C.
The Bouleuterion at Aphrodisias remained in this form until the early fifth century, when a municipal official had it adapted as a palaestra, recording his achievement on the upper molding of the pulpitum (stage). This term usually refers to a wrestling ground, but in the fifth century it could be used to describe a hall for lectures, performances, and various kinds of competitive displays, as suggested by a number of factional inscriptions carved on the seats. Numerous additional cuttings in the surviving seats, probably for poles supporting awnings, suggest that by this time the building had lost its roof. The orchestra was lowered and provided with a marble pavement, reused, perhaps, from the earlier phase.
There are many other notable buildings, including the stadium which is said to be probably the best preserved of its kind in the Mediterranean. It measured 262 by 59 m and was used for athletic events until the theatre was badly damaged by a 7th century earthquake, requiring part of the stadium to be converted for events previously staged in the theatre.
The Sebastion is a most remarkable discovery, not only as regards the excavations in Aphrodisias but in the whole context of classical archaeological excavation. When the building was first unearthed in 1979 it appeared to have no relation to any other building but, as excavations were carried down to deeper levels, it became apparent that this consisted of a temple dedicated to the cult of the Emperor Augustus (Sebastos is the Greek equivalent of the Latin Augustus) and its surrounding complex.
Of the temple only the foundations now remain, together with a few column bases, Corinthian style capitals and architrave blocks. In addition to the damage inflicted by the earthquakes in the 4th and 7th centuries, the remains of the temple also suffered from the use of the area for settlement in the Byzantine and Turkish periods. The temple, which was located at the eastern end of the Sebastion, consisted of two porticoes 80 m in length composed of half columns and a ceremonial way 14 m wide. At the western end there was a gate or propylon opening on to the street. Excavations both inside and outside the porticoes yielded a quite extraordinary quantity of reliefs and decorative panels. The most remarkable of these included depictions of the birth of Eros, the Three Graces, Apollo in Delphi, Meleager, Achilles and Penthesilea, Nyssa and the child Dionysus. There are also reliefs of some members of the imperial family and mythological figures. Those identified include Augustus, Germanicus, Lucius, Gaius Caesar, Claudius and Agrippa, together with Prometheus and Aeneas fleeing from Troy. There is also a particularly interesting group of reliefs symbolizing Claudius’s conquest of Britain and Nero’s conquest of Armenia.
