Above, on a sort of balustrade, may
be been a funeral procession.
The old Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (cf page 140) was set on fire
and reduced to ruins by an incendiary in 356 B.C., on the very
night, it is said, in which Alexander the Great was born. The
Ephesians rebuilt the temple on a much more magnificent scale,
making of it the most extensive and sumptuous columnar edifice
ever erected by a Greek architect. How promptly the work was begun
we do not know, but it lasted into the reign of Alexander, so that
its date may be given approximately as 350-30. Through the
indefatigable perseverance of Mr J. T. Wood, who conducted
excavations at Ephesus for the British Museum in 1863-74, the site
of this temple, long unknown, was at last discovered and its
remains unearthed. Following the example of the sixth century
temple, it had the lowest drums of a number of its columns covered
with relief sculpture. Of the half dozen recovered specimens Fig.
163 shows the finest. The subject is an unsolved riddle. The most
prominent figure in the illustration is the god Hermes, as the
herald's staff in his right hand shows.
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