RANSVESTIA

seven wonders of the ancient world. It was destroyed by earthquake and fire and rebuilt at various times by Alexander the Great in Greek times and by Augustus in Roman times, but it is just another ruin now. We walked through the streets of the city, which must have been quite a place, judging from the size and variety of the ruins still there. We did get a big kick out of one sign which had been erected for tourists. Seems there was a really enterprising courtesan in those days who ran the town's biggest and best "house of ill repute"; but apparently they weren't considered "ill" in those times because it was right on the corner of the main drag was quite complex inside, with bathing rooms, sitting rooms and a lot of small cubicles for, shall we say, "business purposes." Anyway the explanatory sign was in German - "Froeliche Hause" (pleasure house), English (Brothel), and Turkish-“Ask Evi." Those are Turkish, not English, words, but phonetically translated it seemed so appropriate. After all, wasn't she the "founder" of that kind of business?

We also visited the Aesculapium-you have all heard of Aesculapius, the God of Medicine. It was fascinating to learn of the various psychiatric treatments and techniques that were used here in addition to the more orthodox medical activities. They were evidently quite aware of the role played by the mind in either manufacturing illness - psychosomatic med- icine- or in making worse some organic or functional condition through anxiety, nervousness, etc. So they treated for that too. Made me aware once again of how much of what we think of as a relatively modern inven- tion, discovery and techniques were known to and practiced by our fore- bears two, three or four thousand years ago. Tends to make you a little more humble and tolerant. We aren't so great as we like to think.

It was on a mountain top above Ephesus that Jesus' Mother, Mary came to live with John after the crucifixion, and there is a little church there dedicated to her. It was new information to me that it was in a church council in 451 A.D. here in Ephesus that Mary was declared the Virgin "Mother of God." Interesting that it took over 400 years to get around to that, which reduces the probability of its being literally true to a very low figure indeed. I imagine this observation will irritate some of the devout Catholics amongst us, but we are all entitled to our opinions and points of view, and that was mine so I record it.

Next couple of days were spent driving around the Turkish Coast through Pergamum, Troy, Bursa and on to Istanbul. It was interesting to go to Troy, though more to say that I've been there than for what you can see. The site was excavated by Schliemann over a century ago and pres-

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