Aphrodisias

Ancient sources furnish only scant information about the city. According to the Byzantine istorian Stephanus it was founded by the Lelegians and was first known as Lelegonopolis. The name of the city was later changed to Megalopolis, and later again to Ninoe. This name may derive from Ninos, a semi-legendary Babylonian ruler or, more probably, is connected with the Akkadian Nino, Nin or Nina, these being names for the goddess Astarte or Ishtar. The affinities between the cults of Ishtar and Aphrodite are well recognized by scholars and therefore Aphrodisias is quite probably a Greek version of Ninoe. The use of the name Aphrodisias began after the 3rd century BC. The similarities of the goddess Aphrodite to Artemis of Ephesus and other Anatolian mother goddesses are evident in cult statues found at the ruins. In Hellenistic times, she took the form of an ancient nature goddess who was sovereign on the earth, in heaven, and in the oceans and the underworld.

 During the Roman period of the 1st to 6th centuries AD, Aphrodisias became a rich and important city, known as a thriving trade center and for the excellence of its school of marble sculptors. Despite the advent of Christianity and the establishment of a bishop in the city, paganism still lingered for some centuries at Aphrodisias because of the great popularity of the cult of the goddess. Under the Byzantines, the city was renamed Stavropolis (Town of the Cross) but the local inhabitants preferred to use Caria, the name of the province (Geyre, the name of the modern village occupying the same site, is probably a corruption of the ancient Caria). When Christianity was made the state religion of the Byzantine Empire, the pilgrimage shrine of Aphrodite gradually declined in importance, to such an extent that the names Aphrodite and Aphrodisias were erased from all inscriptions and sculptures.