Ephesus - was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in Turkey.

Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation. The Gospel of John may have been written here. The city was the site of several 5th-century Christian Councils.

Ephesus was an important Centre for Early Christianity from the AD 50s. From AD 52–54, the apostle Paul lived in Ephesus, working with the congregation and organizing missionary journeys. Initially, according to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul attended the Jewish synagogue in Ephesus, but after three months he became frustrated with the stubbornness or hardness of heart of some of the Jews, and moved his base to the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9).

The city was famed for the nearby Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Among many other monumental buildings are the Library of Celsus, and a theatre capable of holding 25,000 spectators. www.Maranathatours.com

The Library of Celsus is an ancient Roman building in Ephesus. The building was commissioned in the 110s A.D. by a consul, Gaius Julius Aquila, as a funerary monument for his father, former proconsul of Asia Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, and completed during the reign of Hadrian, sometime after Aquila's death. The library is considered an architectural marvel, and is one of the only remaining examples of a library from the Roman Empire. The Library of Celsus was the third-largest library in the Roman world behind only Alexandria and Pergamum, believed to have held around twelve thousand scrolls. Celsus is buried in a crypt beneath the library in a decorated marble sarcophagus. The interior measured roughly 2,000 square feet.

The Fountain of Trajan was built to the north end of Curetes Street on the east side next to the Hadrian Temple. An inscription on the fountain says it was built in the 2nd century AD and erected in honor of the Emperor Trajan.

This fountain is considered to be one of the three most magnificent fountains of Ephesus. It had two ornamental pools, one in the front and one at the rear. The upper level pool was surrounded with Corinthian style columns. Water flowed from a pillar on which rested a colossal statue of Emperor Trajan. This pillar was at the very center of the largest ornamental pool. An inscription at the base stated that the world rested at the emperor’s feet. This was symbolized by a round stone placed under the foot of the emperor’s statue. Today only the pedestal and one of the feet belonging to this statue of Trajan have survived.