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CITY OF LOVE. Set on a lush plateau amid the picturesque mountains of southwestern Turkey, the ancient city of Aphrodisias is renowned for its impressive marble monuments, including this towering and recently restored tetrapylon gate that gave access to the city’s main sanctuary to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. (The more meager remains of the goddess’s temple, later turned into a church, can be seen in the distance at left.) By the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., Aphrodisias had become a cosmopolitan city inhabited by not only adherents to the city’s traditional Hellenic pagan faiths, but also various Christian sects and a vibrant Jewish community. As our author explains, a new study of an old inscription sheds fresh light on the incredible and often complex interchange of faiths, ideas and communities during late antiquity.