This capital is decorated with the heads of two bulls. Capitals of this kind crowned the columns of the Basilica Stoa on the State Agora of Ephesus, a long hall built under Augustus that served for business and law courts and displayed statues of the imperial family.
Bull-headed capitals go back to Persian architecture at Persepolis and were revived in the Roman East.
Ephesus, on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, was one of the great cities of the Greek and Roman world. Under Rome it was the capital of the province of Asia, with a population estimated at well over 100,000, and it was famous for the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders.
