| Share

Diana of Ephesus

This statue, we are told, fell from heaven. If so, it was an aerolite; but Minucius says he saw it, and that it was a wooden statue (second century, A.D.). Pliny, a contemporary of Minucius, tells us it was made of ebony. Probably the real “image” was a meteorite, and in the course of time a wooden or ebony image was substituted.

The palladium of Troy, the sacred shield of the Romans, the shrine of our Lady of Loretto, and other similar religious objects of veneration, were said to have been sent from heaven. The statute of Cybele (3 syl.) “fell from heaven”; and Elagabalas, of Syro-Phoenicia, was a great conical stone which fell from heaven.

Great is Diana of the Ephesians.

Nothing like leather; self-interest blinds the eyes. Demetrios was a silversmith of Ephesus, who made gold and silver shrines for the temple of Diana. When Christianity was preached in the city, and there was danger of substituting the simplicity of the Gospel for the grandeur of idolatry, the silversmiths, headed by Demetrios, stirred the people to a riot, and they cried out with one voice for the space of two hours, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” (Acts xix. 24-28.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894

Dian's Worshippers

Diana