The EphesianArtemis, the “great mother goddess” also mentioned in the New Testament (Acts, 19), was extremely popular in the ancient world, as we might deduce from the fact that copies of her cult statue have been excavated in many parts of the Roman Empire. The first photo on this page is a statue from the Amphitheater of Lepcis Magna and is now in the Archaeological Museum of Tripoli.
The goddess was originally, before her cult was taken over by the Greeks, called Artimus, and her temple -one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World- received gifts from the Lydianking Croesus(c.560-c.547). She is related to other Anatolian mother goddesses, like Cybele. The Ephesians believed that Artemis was born in Ephesus (and not on Delos, as was commonly assumed), and accepted the shrine as an asylum (Tacitus, Annals, 3.61). Later, the Persians patronized the cult; the high priest was called the Megabyxus, a Persian name that means “the one set free for the cult of the divinity”. The original cult statue was made of wood, but was probably lost after the great fire of 356 BCE.