When was Ephesus Overthrown by Rome?

[Pointer]

When was Ephesus overthrown by Rome? And by whom? Was there any significant battles that took place? And how did Rome establish itself there? Was there a Roman official that oversaw Ephesus? I would appreciate your help or point me to something I can read on the subject. Or Time Line...

Thank you.

[Epictetus]

Nice coincidence! I’ve just been reading some books about Ephesus. Ephesus was under the domination of the Kingdom of Pergamon, so was part of a Roman client state in the 2nd century BC. It finally went under direct Roman control when Attalus III’s left his kingdom to Rome via inheritance in 133 BC. So it wasn’t conquered by Rome.

It was the capital of the province of Asia, so the Roman proconsul was based there. Early in its Roman history, it was basically self-governed by the local elite and only exploited by Roman or Italian tax farmers, but later when the Empire became more autocratic and centrally-organised, it, along with other provinces, were more controlled by the centralised imperial bureaucracy.

There were no real battles in Ephesus until the crisis of the third century, when the Goths sacked it and destroyed or damaged the famous Temple of Artemis.

I certainly don’t recommend Laale’s Ephesus, which I recently finished and was very disappointed in. One that I did like is Ephesus After Antiquity by Clive Foss. It is mostly about its history in late antiquity, but there is some information about its earlier life.