Ephesus: a port city designated capital

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre describes Ephesus, located within what was once the estuary of the River Kaystros, as successive Hellenistic and Roman settlements founded on new locations, which followed the coastline as it retreated westward. "In the fourth century BCE, Lysimachos, one of the twelve generals of Alexander the Great, founded the new city of Ephesus, while leaving the old city around the Artemision." According to the page, "when Asia Minor was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 133 BCE, Ephesus was designated as the capital of the new province Asia". Source 1.

A port city that moved

UNESCO calls the ancient city "an outstanding example of a Roman port city, with sea channel and harbour basin". It is described as favourably located, but the shore line shifted continuously from east to west due to sedimentation, which led to several relocations of the city site and its harbours. Excavations and conservation over the past 150 years have revealed, the page says, grand monuments of the Roman Imperial period lining the old processional way, including the Library of Celsus, the Great Theatre and terrace houses; none of them is given a date of its own on the page. Source 1.

Why Ephesus?

The page does not say why Ephesus was chosen. It lists qualities of the city, a favourable location, a harbour, its leadership of a confederacy of the Ionian cities and its standing as a leading political and intellectual centre, but it does not connect any of them to the decision of 133 BCE. A reader who sees these qualities as the reasons for the choice is drawing a conclusion of their own, not reporting the source. Source 1.

Three wordings for 133

Two other sources word the same year differently. The Met's timeline says that in 133 B.C. Attalus III, king of Pergamon, bequeathed his realm to the Roman people, that "western Asia Minor" then became a Roman province, and that it was Emperor Augustus who annexed Anatolia to Rome; its chart calls the state of 133-27 B.C. the "Roman Republic". The UNESCO page on Pergamon states that after 133 Pergamon was the capital of the Roman Province of Asia "during the Roman imperial period". Each of the two UNESCO pages names its own city as the capital and does not mention the other, and the sources read do not decide between them. Sources 2, 3.

On the timeline

The designation as capital in 133 BCE opens the Roman period in Anatolia as this site defines it, 133 BCE-330 CE, and the article is placed there. The founding by Lysimachos "in the fourth century BCE" is a range that crosses the site's boundary between the Achaemenid and the Hellenistic periods (334 BCE), so it does not by itself place the article in the Hellenistic period. The Christian and Turkish phases of the place are discussed separately, in "The Basilica of Saint John at Ephesus: Justinian's six domes". Source 1.

Scope of reading: the UNESCO World Heritage Centre pages on Ephesus and on Pergamon and the Met timeline page for Anatolia and the Caucasus, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D., were read on 24 October 2026. The Ephesus excavation reports were not read, so no dates are given here for the monuments themselves.