Book Review: Artemis Of The Ephesians

By J. Dharma Windham

Dr. James Rietveld’s Artemis of the Ephesians is a masterful study of what was arguably the ancient’s world’s most influential religious cult. This important Anatolian deity has long been ignored, underserved, or mischaracterized by scholars conflating evidence from different cults and eras. Dr. Rietveld corrects this by meticulously reconstructing the origins of the Artemis cult, and demonstrating how it evolved as it spread throughout the ancient world. I have been waiting for a comprehensive book about Artemis for a long time, but I admit that I found Artemis of the Ephesians hard going in places. Not that the book is poorly written—it is not—but Dr. Rietveld packs every sentence with a wealth of recherché facts about the goddess. In other words, it’s a very dense book. This is not a bad thing, of course. It’s one of those books that however many times one reads it something new will be discovered—not unlike Peter Green’s Alexander to Actium. As a former collector of ancient Greek and Roman coins, I found his numismatic evidence particularly fascinating; a close second was the chapter discussing the architectural aspects of her temple at Ephesos. Before reading this book, I had no idea that the Lydian king Croesus had constructed the original temple. Equally compelling is his description of Ephesos itself and the city’s relationship with its tutelary deity and the priesthood that served it. Dr. Rietveld brings his book to a close with a close examination of the Artemis cult’s rivalry with the early Christianity, and its subsequent decline. Lavishly illustrated throughout with photographs taken by the author, this book is clearly aimed toward scholars, but a layperson with an appetite for ancient history will undoubtedly find Artemis of the Ephesians a hearty meal.