Herostratus

Herostratus, sometimes called Eratostratus, was an arsonist active around 356 BCE. He destroyed the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, in an attempt to become infamous. His name is now used to describe someone who commits a crime solely for fame.

Almost nothing is known about his life—no details of his family, birth, home, job, or social standing survive. Historian Albert Borowitz noted that his identity is a mystery except for the name history gives him. He may have been a citizen of Ephesus (near modern Selçuk, Turkey), but that is uncertain. Because the punishment for his crime usually applied only to noncitizens, some historians think he was not Ephesian by birth, or was a slave or former slave. Others suppose he came from a low social class.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was dedicated to the Greek goddess of childbirth and the hunt. It was built over 120 years starting around 560 BCE, designed by Chersiphron and Metagenes, and was larger than the Parthenon. Nearly all of it was marble, except for the wooden statue of Artemis and the roof. Ancient sources listed it as one of the Seven Wonders; Philo of Byzantium called it "the only house of the gods," and Pliny the Elder called it "the most wonderful monument of Græcian magnificence."

On the day Alexander the Great was born in 356 BCE, a man burned the temple down—some historians say he set the large wooden roof ablaze. The crime was attributed to Herostratus. He was arrested and tortured on the rack, where he confessed he wanted everlasting fame or notoriety. He was then executed. To thwart his ambition, Ephesus passed a damnatio memoriae law forbidding anyone from mentioning his name. The arson shocked the city and may have pushed it toward panic.

There may be gaps in this account. Borowitz noted that Herostratus confessed his motives under torture instead of crying out his name publicly. Torture was often not considered a reliable way to get information. Ephesians may have suspected his true intention was hidden—for instance, that enemies of the city had hired him.

The temple was rebuilt starting in 323 BCE, larger than before. The Goths looted and burned it around 262/267 CE, and a Christian mob destroyed it in 401 CE. As of 2017, only one reassembled column remained.

No evidence reveals Herostratus’ motives. Ancient sources agree he burned the temple to gain eternal fame, but not why he wanted that fame. The leading theory since antiquity is that he grew resentful over some perceived injustice and could not earn a good reputation, so he turned to the act. Greek satirist Lucian first suggested jealousy or a feeling of mediocrity drove him—that fame would come only by burning the temple, a perversion of the Greek admiration for honor and heroism. Russian poet Semyon Nadson wrote that Herostratus saw himself as a "maggot squashed by destiny." Roman historian Valerius Maximus noted his penchant for sacrilege.

The damnatio memoriae law did not stop many ancient writers from recording Herostratus. Matthew Fraser argues the law may have guaranteed his posthumous fame. The first to mention him was Theopompus, a Chian historian alive at the time of the arson, in his work *Philippica*. Valerius Maximus brought up Herostratus in a segment titled "Of Appetite for Glory," comparing him to Pausanias, who killed Philip II of Macedon. Around the second century CE, Lucian linked the arson to a later violent act, Peregrinus’ self-immolation at the Olympics.

By the Middle Ages, Herostratus was a familiar name in Europe. Writers like Geoffrey Chaucer used him to mark unscrupulous quests for celebrity, stressing that fame for wrongdoing often outlasts deserved glory. In Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s 1630 comedy *La verdad sospechosa*, the protagonist argues that a low public profile makes a person an "animal" and that one must seek fame by any means. In Colley Cibber’s 1699 play *Richard III*, the English king is painted in a similar light.