The Temple of Hadrian in Ancient Ephesus

[FrankMi]

It is one of the best preserved and most beautiful structures on Curetes Street. It was built before 138 A.D by P.Quintilius and was dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian, who came to visit the city from Athens in 128 A.D The facade of the temple has four Corinthian columns supporting a curved arch, in the middle of which contains a relief of Tyche, goddess of victory. The side columns are square. The pedestal with inscriptions in front of the temple, are the bases for the statues of the emperors between 293-305 CE, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius I, and Galerius; the originals of the statues have not been found yet.

Inside the temple above the door, a human figure, probably Medusa stands with ornaments of acanthus leaves. On both sides there are friezes depicting the story of the foundation of Ephesus - Androklos shooting a boar, Dionysus in ceremonial procession and the Amazons. The fourth frieze portrays two male figures, one of which is Apollo; Athena, goddess of the moon; a female figure, Androkles, Herakles, the wife and son of Theodosius and the goddess Athena. The friezes that are seen today are copies, and the originals are displayed in Ephesus Museum.

Emperor Hadrian was one of the Five of Good Emperors. The Five Good Emperors is a term that refers to five consecutive emperors of the Roman Empire— Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. The term is first coined by the political philosopher, Niccolò Machiavelli in 1532. Publius Aelius Hadrianus was born on 24 January AD 76, probably at Rome, though his family lived in Italica in Baetica. Emporor Trajan was his cousin. Hadrian was schooled in various subjects particular to young aristocrats of the day, and was so fond of learning Greek literature that he was nicknamed Graeculus ("Little Greek"). Hadrian was active in the wars against the Dacians and reputedly won awards from Trajan for his successes.



Below is the SOOC image before post processing to help make the intricate detail in the stone carvings easier to see.

[jeeperman]

Very interesting structure Frank and nice little write up. I prefer the SOOC image though as the proccessing seems a bit cooked for my taste.

[PBelarge]

I love a story behind the image.
I like the detail that pops in the processed image, but would not mind if it was just a little less processed.

[FrankMi]

Thank you for the feedback Paul and Pierre! If it is that noticeable then I've failed to process it carefully enough. I try to get the image to look as close to how I saw them as I can get but with these stone carvings I went a little too far to try to bring out the detail. Need to be more careful next time. Thanks for helping me to stay on track.

[jeeperman]

No worries Frank, that is my goal as well. I think color wise you are very close and maybe spot on but the detail in everything above the walkway looks a little to detailed and oversharp. Maybe the output sharpening pushed it over the top? The walkway looks good but it is a smoother surface. Likely one of the trickiest textures to get right, these old stone buildings.

[Geoff F]

Somewhere half way between those two images would suit me. But there are various styles and personal preferences so it is impossible to please everybody all of the time.