Again, when Mithradates was all-powerful, we find the people of Ephesus, to please him, joining in a general massacre of the Romans in their town; indeed, going to such lengths as not to respect the asylum of their own temple; the natural result being a severe punishment of this fickle population on the ultimate success of the Romans. On an inscription, however, recently discovered, we believe, by Mr. Wood, but now at Oxford, the people assert that they had been compelled to act against their will, and that they were none the less, at heart, the devoted friends of the Romans. As a place of commercial importance, Ephesus did not survive the first three centuries of the Roman empire, as the city was sacked by the Goths in A.D. 262, and its famous temple burnt, an event of which some traces have been detected during the recent excavations on its site. In later days it passed into the hands of the Seljuks and Turks, and a great mosque was built there by Selim I. on the rising ground overlooking the port. The long occupation of the site of Ephesus by a mixed population is attested by the discovery there by Mr. Wood of a hoard of coins, belonging chiefly to the Western States of Europe, and struck during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Among these are some of the Christian subjects of Saro-khan, an emir of Magnesia in the fourteenth century.[20] It is believed that the present name of its site, Aiosoluk, is a corruption of Hagios Theologos (St. John), the name borne by Ephesus during the Middle Ages. Footnote 20: An interesting account of these coins (2,231 in number) has been given in the Numism. Chron., vol. xii. New Ser., 1872, by Mr. H. A. Grueber, of the British Museum. The whole “find,” with some lumps of metal, weighed more than seventeen pounds of silver. Among these were coins of Naples, of Rhodes, of the Seljuk Amírs, of Venice, Genoa, and of the Papal States, their dates embracing a period of about eighty years, from A.D. 1285.