The Divine Artemis Sends Birthday Wishes Publius Aurelius Serapion, priest of Artemis, strode with pride past the crowd that had gathered outside the great Artemision for the sacred procession. A hundred or so had prescribed roles in the procession; a thousand more devotees had made the kilometer-and-a-half trek from the city’s northern gate simply to participate. He saw many faces in the crowd that were unfamiliar to him from his five decades of moving through the streets and fora of Ephesus, no doubt a good number of them tourists who had made their way here to see the temple that was lauded as one of the seven greatest architectural wonders of the world. Serapion recalled once seeing a visitor from Athens standing before the temple, weeping. He inquired of him what had affected him so. “How can I now go back to Athens and take pride in our Parthenon? It would take four such houses of our goddess Athena to fill just this one of Artemis!” Great indeed is Ephesian Artemis, Serapion mused with satisfaction.