This temple was destroyed on the day on which Alexander was born. It was burnt by an Ephesian, who thus desired to immortalise his name. In order to frustrate the accomplishment of this desire, the Ephesians enacted a law, that no one should even be guilty of mentioning his name. The name of Eratostratus, nevertheless, has descended to posterity. Such is the account left us by Plutarch and Valerius Maximus. On this occasion, Hegesias, the Magnesian, "uttered a conceit," says Plutarch, "frigid enough to have extinguished the flames." "It is no wonder," said he, "that the temple of Diana was burnt, when she was at a distance employed in bringing Alexander into the world."[235] All the Magi, continues Plutarch, who were then at Ephesus, looked upon the fire as a sign which betokened a much greater misfortune;--they ran about the town beating their faces, and crying, "that the day had brought forth the greatest scourge and destroyer of Asia." Barthelemy makes Anacharsis visit Ephesus some few years after this calamity. Nothing then remained of this superb temple but the four walls and some columns in the midst of ruins. The fire had consumed the roof and the ornaments which decorated the nave. Alexander offered to rebuild this edifice; but the offer being accompanied by the condition, that the Ephesians should inscribe his name upon it as that of the benefactor; the Ephesians refused to accept his offer. They, nevertheless, refused in a manner that gave him, no doubt, a superior satisfaction. It was, that one deity ought not to raise a temple to another! At the time Barthelemy has named, the temple was beginning to be rebuilt[236]. All the citizens had contributed, and the women had sacrificed their jewels. No change was made in the form of the goddess' statue; a form anciently borrowed from the Egyptians, and which was found, also, in the temples of several other Greek cities. The goddess bore on her head a tower; two iron rods supported her hands; and the body terminated in a sheath, encircled with symbols and the figures of animals. Thirty-six of the columns were carved by Scopas, of the school of Praxiteles[237], and it was in this temple that the Ionic order in architecture was first employed; and every column contained one hundred and ten tons of marble[238]. In the war between the Romans and Mithridates, the Ephesians took part with the latter; and by his command went even so far as to massacre all the Romans in their city[239]. For this atrocity they were severely fined, and reduced almost to beggars. Whoever might have originally founded this city, certain it is that the town, which in the Roman times was the metropolis of Asia, was founded by Lysimachus; he having caused the first city to be destroyed. When he had effected that, he rebuilt it in a more convenient place.