The city of Ephesus itself was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BC on the Ayasuluk Hill. The mythical founder of the city was Androklos, son of king Kadros and a prince of Athens, who had to leave his country after the death of his
The Greek goddess Artemis and the great Anatolian goddess Kybele were identified together as Artemis of Ephesus. The many-breasted "Lady of Ephesus", identified with Artemis, was venerated in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the largest building of the ancient world according to Pausanias (4.31.8). Pausanius mentions that the temple was built by Ephesus, son of the river god Caystrus, before the arrival of the
Ionians. Of this structure, scarcely a trace remains.
About 650 BC Ephesus was attacked by Cimmerians who razed the city, including the temple of Artemis. A few small Cimmerian artifacts can be seen at the archaeological museum of Ephesus.
When the Cimmerians had been driven away, the city was ruled by a series of tyrants. After a revolt by the people, Ephesus was ruled by a 
council called the Kuretes. The city prospered again, producing a number of important historical figures, such as the iambic poets Callinus and the satirist Hipponax, the philosopher Heraclitus, the great painter Parrhasius and later the grammarian Zenodotos, the physicians Soranus and Rufus.
About 560 BC Ephesus was conquered by the Lydians under the mighty king Croesus. He treated the inhabitants with respect, despite ruling harshly, and even became the main contributor to the construction of the temple of Artemis. His signature has been found on the base of one of the columns of the temple (now on display in the British Museum). Croesus made the populations of the different settlements around Ephesus regroup (synoikismos) in the vicinity of the Temple of Artemis, enlarging the city.
Later in the same century, the Lydians under Croesus invaded Persia. The Ionians refused a peace offer from Cyrus the Great, siding with the Lydians instead. After the Persians defeated Croesus the Ionians offered to make peace but Cyrus insisted that they surrender and become part of the empire. They were defeated by the Persian army commander Harpagos in 547 BC. The Persians then incorporated the Greek cities of Asia Minor into the Achaemenid Empire. Those cities were then ruled by satraps.
Ephesus continued to prosper. But when taxes continued to be raised under Cambyses II and Darius, the Ephesians participated in the Ionian Revolt against Persian rule in the Battle of Ephesus (498 BC), an event which instigated the Greco-Persian wars. In 479 BC, the Ionians, together with Athens and Sparta, were able to oust the Persians from Anatolia. In 478 BC, the Ionian cities entered with Athens and Sparta the Delian League against the Persians. Ephesus did not contribute ships, but only participated with financial support by offering the treasure of Apollo to the goddess Athena, protector of Athens.
During the Peloponnesian War, Ephesus was first allied to Athens but sided in a later phase, called the Decelean War, or the Ionian War with Sparta, which also had received the support of the Persians. As a result, the rule over the kingdoms of Anatolia was ceded again to Persia.
These wars didn't affect much the daily life in Ephesus. In those times, Ephesus was surprisingly modern in their social relations. They allowed strangers to integrate. Education was much valued. Through the cult of Artemis, the city also became a bastion of women's rights. Ephesus even had its female artists. In later times Pliny mentions having seen at Ephesus a representation of the goddess Diana by Timarata, the daughter of a painter.
In 356 BC the temple of Artemis was burnt down, according to legend, by a lunatic called Herostratus. By coincidence, this was the night that Alexander the Great was born. The inhabitants of Ephesus started at once with the restoration and even planning a larger and grander temple.
When Alexander the Great defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BC, the Greek cities of Asia Minor were liberated. The pro-Persian tyrant Syrpax and his family were stoned to death and Alexander was greeted warmly in Ephesus when he entered it in triumph. When he saw that the temple of Artemis was not yet finished, he proposed to finance the temple and have his name as an inscription of the front. But the inhabitants of Ephesus refused, claiming that it was not fitting for a god to build a temple for another god. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Ephesus came under the rule of Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals, in 290 BC.
As the river Cayster was silting up the harbour, the resulting marshes were the cause of malaria and many deaths among the inhabitants. The people of Ephesus were forced to move to a new settlement 2 kilometers further on, when the king flooded the old city by blocking the sewers. This settlement was called after the king's second wife Arsinoe II of Egypt. After Lysimachus had destroyed the nearby cities of Lebedos and Colophon in 292 BC, he relocated their inhabitants to the new city. The architectural layout of the city would remain unchanged for the next 500 years.
Ephesus revolted after the treacherous death of Agathocles, giving the Syrian king Seleucus I Nicator an opportunity for removing and killing Lysimachus, his last rival, at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC. After the death of Lysimachos the town took again the name of Ephesus.
Thus Ephese became part of the Seleucid Empire. After the murder on king Antiochus II Theos and his Egyptian wife, pharao Ptolemy III invaded the Seleucid Empire and the Egyptian fleet swept the coast of Asia Minor. Ephesus came under Egyptian rule between 263-197 BC.
Layout: Between the atrium and the nave of the church is a long narrow narthex. Massive lentils of dressed marble frame the three doors leading to the atrium and into the nave from the narthex. A wall and a number of portals were added between the atrium and the narthex at a later date, to create an exonarthex. Five cupola surmount the narthex itself. The main church is cruciform in plan, a classic plan with three naves, and a superstructure of six, large domes over the main nave, with vaulted flanking naves. The domes were originally supported by marble and brickbond piers, still partially in situ, with a row of blue-veined marble columns lining the Church between the naves. The monograms of Theodora, wife of Justinian, are engraved on these columns, which enables us to date the structure. The above mentioned rows of Columns are joined by a series of arches which in turn support a second row of arches at gallery level. The mausoleum chamber is situated before the apse in the central nave, and is marked out by being raised from the rest of the nave, with two steps between.
When the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great tried to regain the Greek cities of Asia Minor, he came in conflict with Rome. After a series of battles, he was defeated by Scipio Asiaticus at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. As a result, Ephesus came under the rule of the Attalid king of Pergamon Eumenes II (197-133 BC). When his grandson Attalus III died without male children of his own, he left his kingdom to the Roman Republic.
