A Week in the Life of Ephesus by David A. deSilva

Author:David A. deSilva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical fiction;fiction;Christian fiction;Ancient Ephesus;Ephesus;Ephesians;Paul;New Testament background;cultural background of the New Testament;New Testament;social background of the New Testament;Bible;ancient near east;bible background;biblical context;contextual;biblical fiction;academic fiction;roman empire;first century Christianity;early Christians;first century Christians;ancient Christians;Pauline studies
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2020-05-04T13:53:44+00:00

IN THE MERCHANTS’ QUARTER

Titus Flavius Zeuxis had spent the whole day with his crew on the Leviathan, beginning the wearisome process of preparing it to sit at anchor for the winter months. He had always been slightly uneasy about working on the Sabbath, but there could be no day without work on the open sea, and he had made the decision long ago to trust that the God of Israel would understand. He walked up Harbor Street to the foot of the great theater and stopped to rinse off his face and hands in the water pouring from the basins of an old fountain house that was being renovated and expanded.

Drying his face and hands in a fold of his cloak, he turned to the right and walked south down the Cardo Maximus past the great length of the theater with its stage house on his left. Beyond this lay a sprawling residential area broken up by taverns, street-food eateries, and a latrine—all the necessities of urban life, thought Zeuxis. Stretching out opposite and below all of this to his right was the commercial forum that he had visited the day before. Some passageways and a great hall gave access from the Cardo to the second story of the galleries of the porticoes surrounding the commercial forum.

He came to the junction of the Cardo and the Embolos and paused for a moment by the great square that opened up to his right. Almost directly in front of him stood a great altar. From the sculpted frieze around its base, Zeuxis could make out that it was dedicated to Ephesian Artemis, telling the story of her birth as the daughter of Zeus and Leto. He looked off to his right at an arched gate that gave access to a paved road that seemed to head nowhere save up toward the mountain—the path to the shrine of Ortygia, the mythical birthplace of the goddess, to which her devotees traveled every spring on her birthday. He had seen processions of Artemis coming down the Embolos and turning on to the Cardo; he had once seen a procession turn in the direction of Ortygia instead. All at once he felt a rush of alarm to be standing himself at the place where the three roads met—at a major junction in the highways on which the worshipers of the false god traveled.

Zeuxis instinctively took a few steps back, as though to move away from a space toward which the anger of the one God must surely burn. He looked around him to see whether anyone had noticed what surely must appear to be erratic behavior, but the Ephesians walking by paid him no attention. As he continued to survey the square, his eyes lighted upon the great Southern Gate to the commercial forum. He had walked through its triple arches countless times in the course of his dealings here over the years, but he had not looked up before to notice the statues of Augustus, Livia, and another couple standing atop the gate.

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