Editing Herostratus

{{short description|Ancient Greek arsonist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{for|the film|Herostratus (film){{!}}''Herostratus'' (film)}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Herostratus
| native_name        = Ἡρόστρατος
| image              = Portrait of Herostratos (Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam).jpg
| alt                = 
| caption            = Non-contemporary depiction
| birth_name         = 
| birth_date         = 
| birth_place        = [[Ephesus]]<br />(modern-day [[Selçuk]], [[İzmir Province|İzmir]], [[Turkey]])
| death_date         = {{circa}} 356 BC
| death_place        = Ephesus
| death_cause        = [[Capital punishment|Execution]]
| nationality        = Ephesian
| occupation         = 
| years_active       = 
| known_for          = Destroying the [[Temple of Artemis]] at Ephesus—and, concomitantly, seeking fame at any cost
}}

'''Herostratus''' ({{langx|grc|Ἡρόστρατος}}) was a 4th-century BC Greek, accused of seeking notoriety as an [[arsonist]] by destroying the second [[Temple of Artemis]] in [[Ephesus]] (on the outskirts of present-day [[Selçuk]]), one of the [[Seven Wonders of the Ancient World]]. The act prompted his execution and the creation of a ''[[damnatio memoriae]]'' law forbidding anyone to mention his name, orally or in writing. The law was ineffective, as evidenced by surviving accounts of his crime. Thus, Herostratus has become an [[eponym]] for someone who commits a criminal act to become famous.

== History ==
[[File:Miniaturk 009.jpg|thumb|A modern 1:25 scale model of the [[Temple of Artemis]], at [[Miniatürk]], [[Istanbul]], Turkey]]

Archeological evidence indicates the site of the [[Temple of Artemis]] at [[Ephesus]] had been of sacred use since the [[Bronze Age]],<ref>{{cite journal |first=Anton |last=Bammer |title=A Peripteros of the Geometric Period in the Artemision of Ephesus |journal=Anatolian Studies |volume=40 |year=1990 |issue= <!--|pages=137–160--> |doi=10.2307/3642799 |jstor=3642799 |page=142|s2cid=164151382 }}</ref> and the original building was destroyed during a flood in the 7th century BC.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' 7.7 - 8.</ref> A second temple was commissioned by King [[Croesus]] of [[Lydia]] around 560 BC and built by [[Crete|Cretan]] architects including [[Chersiphron]], constructed largely of [[marble]], and measuring {{convert|337|feet|order=flip}} long and {{convert|180|feet|order=flip}} wide with its pillars standing {{convert|40|feet|order=flip}} tall.<ref name="Wurtz">{{cite book|last=Wurtz |first=Robert II|title=Love in Crisis: Modern Parallels to the Church at Ephesus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEqACgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6|year=2015|publisher=[[Creation House]]|isbn=978-1-62998-477-3}}{{page needed|date=August 2021}}</ref> The sculpted bases of the pillars contained life-sized carvings and the roof opened to the sky around a statue of [[Artemis]].<ref name="Wurtz"/> The second temple was included on an early list of the [[Seven Wonders of the Ancient World]] by [[Herodotus]] in the 5th century BC, and was well known in ancient times.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rawlinson |first=George |author-link=George Rawlinson |year=1859 |title=The History of Herodotus |volume=1 |publisher=D. Appleton and Company |location=New York }}{{page needed|date=September 2020}}</ref>

Little is known about the life of Herostratus, though it is thought he may have been someone of low social standing, a non-[[Ephesian]] or a [[Slavery in ancient Greece|slave]].<ref name="kidder">{{cite book|last1=Kidder|first1=David S. |last2=Oppenheim|first2=Noah D. |authorlink2=Noah Oppenheim|title=The Intellectual Devotional Biographies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hpzb_yA42TAC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA46&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false |year=2010 |publisher=[[Rodale, Inc.|Rodale]]|page=46 |isbn=978-1-59486-513-8}}</ref> According to tradition, the fire that destroyed the second temple was set on the day [[Alexander the Great]] was born, 21 July 356 BC.<ref name="Wurtz"/> Herostratus was then captured and tortured on the [[rack (torture)|rack]],<ref name="kidder"/> where he confessed to having committed the arson in an attempt to immortalize his name.<ref>[[Valerius Maximus]], ''Memorable Deeds and Sayings'', 8. 14. 5: "A man was found to plan the burning of the temple of Ephesian Diana so that through the destruction of this most beautiful building his name might be spread through the whole world." [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Valerius_Maximus/8*.html#14.ext.5 Valerius Maximus, VIII.14.ext.5]</ref> To dissuade those of similar intentions, the Ephesian authorities not only executed Herostratus, but attempted to condemn him to a legacy of obscurity by [[damnatio memoriae|forbidding mention of his name]] under penalty of death. However, the ancient historian [[Theopompus]], who was not Ephesian but rather [[Chios|Chian]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Flower |first=Michael Attyah |title=Theopompus of Chios: History and Rhetoric in the Fourth Century BC |place=[[Oxford]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press#Clarendon Press|Clarendon Press]] |year=1997 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=RumukFvWjywC&pg=PA78 78]|isbn=978-0-19-815243-9}}</ref> mentions the name of Herostratus in his ''[[Philippica (Theopompus)|Philippica]]'',<ref name="Borowitz2005">{{cite book|last=Borowitz |first=Albert |title=Terrorism for Self-glorification: The Herostratos Syndrome|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWiTYTJXY_IC&pg=PA6|year=2005|publisher=Kent State University Press|isbn=978-0-87338-818-4|pages=6ff}}</ref> and it appears again later in the works of [[Strabo]].<ref name="Amaseia2016">{{cite book|author=Strabo of Amaseia|title=Delphi Complete Works of Strabo - Geography (Illustrated)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DFqQCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT4279|date=13 February 2016|publisher=Delphi Classics|isbn=978-1-78656-368-2|pages=4279ff}}</ref> It is said that in fact his name has outlived the names of his judges, and in his 1658 work [[Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial|''Hydriotaphia'']] Sir [[Thomas Browne]] states: <blockquote>But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. [...] ''Herostratus'' lives that burnt the Temple of ''[[Diana (mythology)|Diana]]'', he is almost lost that built it [...] Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, then any that stand remembred [sic] in the known account of time?<ref>{{cite book|last=Browne |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Browne |editor-last=Sayle|editor-first=Charles |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924064959640 |title=The Works of Sir Thomas Browne |volume=3 |place=[[Edinburgh]] |publisher=John Grant |year=1907 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924064959640/page/n155/mode/2up 139]}}</ref></blockquote>

Work on a third temple at the site began in 323 BC, resulting in a larger and more ornate temple that would be included by [[Antipater of Sidon]] as one of [[Seven Wonders of the Ancient World]].<ref>Price, J. R., & House, H. W., ''Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology'' ([[Grand Rapids, Michigan|Grand Rapids]]: [[Zondervan]], 2017), [https://books.google.com/books?id=3xDxCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT417 pp. 417–418].</ref>{{rp|417–418}}

==Legacy==
Herostratus' name lived on in classical literature and has passed into modern languages as a term for someone who commits a criminal act in order to achieve notoriety. According to Julia H. Fawcett, Herostratus "exemplifies a figure asserting his right to self-definition, one who strikes out against a history to which he is unknown by performing himself back into that history—through whatever means necessary." The term "Herostratic fame" refers to Herostratus and means "fame [sought] at any cost".<ref name="JHF">Fawcett, J. H., ''Spectacular Disappearances: Celebrity and Privacy, 1696-1801'' ([[Ann Arbor]]: [[University of Michigan Press]], 2016), [https://books.google.com/books?id=1lqvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 p. 33]. {{isbn|978-0-472-11980-6}}</ref>{{rp|33}}

===In literature and the arts===
* [[Chaucer]] makes reference to Herostratus<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://jamesbowman.net/articledetail.asp?pubid=456 |title=From Heroes to Herostratus |last=Bowman |first=James |date=18 April 2001 |website=JamesBowman.net |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111012032729/http://www.jamesbowman.net/articleDetail.asp?pubID=456 |archive-date=12 October 2011 |access-date=8 March 2020}}</ref> in ''[[The House of Fame]]'': ''"I am that ylke shrewe, ywis, / That brende the temple of [[Isis|Ysidis]] / In Athenes, loo, that citee." / "And wherfor didest thou so?" quod she. / "By my thrift," quod he, "madame, / I wolde fayn han had a fame, / As other folk hadde in the toun..."''<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/medieval/labyrinth/library/me/chaucer/HF.html |title=The House of Fame |last=Chaucer |first=Geoffrey |date=1379–1380 |website=The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer |publisher=Georgetown University |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810174546/http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/medieval/labyrinth/library/me/chaucer/HF.html |archive-date=10 August 2011 |access-date=19 September 2011}}</ref>
* Many authors from 16th- and 17th-century Spain refer to Herostratus to represent someone who will do anything to gain notoriety. He is discussed in Chapter 8 of the second part of [[Miguel de Cervantes]]' ''[[Don Quixote]]'' (1615),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cervantes Saavedra |first=Miguel de |author-link=Miguel de Cervantes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3qxaBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA451 |title=Don Quixote |year=2009 |publisher=[[Hackett Publishing Company|Hackett Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-60384-115-3 |location=[[Indianapolis]] |pages=451 |translator-last=Montgomery |translator-first=James H.}}</ref> along with [[Julius Caesar]] and [[Hernán Cortés]]. Don García, the protagonist of [[Ruiz de Alarcón]]'s ''La verdad sospechosa'' (''Suspect Truth''), compares his feats to the ancient character.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=de Armas |first=Frederick A. |author-link=Frederick A. de Armas |date=1996 |editor-last=Tibits |editor-first=Mercedes Vidal |title=The Burning at Ephesus: Cervantes and Alarcón's ''La verdad sospechosa'' |journal=Studies in Honor of Gilberto Paolini |location=Newark, Del. |publisher=Juan de la Cuesta |pages=41–55 |isbn=0-936388-78-1 |oclc=36714819}}</ref>
* [[Colley Cibber]]'s ''[[Richard III (1699 play)|Richard III]]'' (1699) contains the oft-quoted line, ''"The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome / Outlives in fame [[Chersiphron|the pious fool that rais'd it]]."''<ref name="JHF" />{{rp|33}}
* In the chapter titled "Dreams" in [[Herman Melville]]'s ''[[Mardi|Mardi, and a Voyage Thither]]'' (1849), the protagonist states, "[W]hoso stones me, shall be as Erostratus, who put torch to the temple..."<ref>{{cite book|last=Melville|author-link=Herman Melville|title=[[Mardi|Mardi, and a Voyage Thither]] |volume=2 |place=New York |publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper & Brothers]] |year=1855 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZgBCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA61 61]}}</ref>
*[[Jaroslav Hašek]], in the preface of his last novel ''[[The Good Soldier Švejk]]'' (1921–1923), compared Herostratus to the protagonist Švejk in praise of the latter.
* In his 6 October 1939 speech to the Berlin Reichstag, Adolf Hitler made a reference to Herostratus, making a contemporary comparison: ''"It is clear to me that there is a certain Jewish international capitalism and journalism that has no feeling at all in common with the people whose interests they pretend to represent, but who, like Herostratus of old, regard incendiarism as the greatest success of their lives."''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Skene|first=Gordon |url=https://pastdaily.com/2014/10/06/adolf-hitler-addresses-the-reichstag-october-6-1939-past-daily-reference-room/ |title=Adolf Hitler Addresses The Reichstag – October 6, 1939 – Past Daily Reference Room |date=6 October 2014 |website=Past Daily |access-date=8 March 2020}}</ref>
* The protagonist of the 1967 film [[Herostratus (film)|''Herostratus'']] hires a marketing company to turn his suicide-by-jumping into a mass-media spectacle.
* In [[Gore Vidal]]'s 1970 novel ''[[Two Sisters (novel)|Two Sisters]]'', the real-life story of Herostratus serves as a sub-plot.
* In [[Grigori Gorin]]'s 1972 play [[:ru:Забыть Герострата! (пьеса)|''Forget Herostratus!'']], a "theater man" from the present observes the judgement of Herostratus in order to understand the source of the disaster that plagues humanity.
* [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s short story "[[The Wall (Sartre short story collection)#"Erostratus"|Erostratus]]" (1939) is directly based on the story of Herostratus.
*[[Andrei Tarkovsky]]'s 1979 film [[Stalker (1979 film)|''Stalker'']] makes reference to Herostratus. As the protagonist wishes to destroy something associated with wonder, he blows up a mysterious restricted site known as "the zone".
* The tale of Herostratus is directly referenced in two songs from the [[If These Trees Could Talk]] album ''[[Above the Earth, Below the Sky]]'' (2009).
*In [[Sam Levinson]]'s 2018 film ''[[Assassination Nation]]'', a hacker under the handle "Er0str4tus" leaks half of the town of Salem's personal information "[[Internet troll|for the lulz]]", sending the town into a frenzy of violence.

== See also ==
* [[Famous for being famous]]
* [[Streisand effect]]

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book|chapter-url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ACL3129.0002.001/449?rgn=full+text;view=image|chapter=Herostratus|editor-last=Smith|editor-first=William|editor-link=William Smith (lexicographer)|year=1867|title=[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]|volume=II|place=Boston|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|page=439}}

==External links==

* [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/14A*.html Chapter of Strabo's ''Geography'' that mentions Herostratus]

*{{Wiktionary-inline|Herostratus|herostratic fame}}
*{{Commonscatinline}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:356 BC deaths]]
[[Category:4th-century BC births]]
[[Category:4th-century BC executions]]
[[Category:4th-century BC Greek people]]
[[Category:Arsonists]]
[[Category:Date of death unknown]]
[[Category:Executed ancient Greek people]]
[[Category:Historical negationism]]
[[Category:People charged with terrorism]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Temple of Artemis]]
[[Category:Ancient torture victims]]
[[Category:Greek torture victims]]
[[Category:Damnatio memoriae]]