The act prompted his execution and the creation of a damnatio memoriae law forbidding anyone to mention his name, orally or in writing.

Archeological evidence indicates the site of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus had been of sacred use since the Bronze Age,[1] and the original building was destroyed during a flood in the 7th century BC.

[6] To dissuade those of similar intentions, the Ephesian authorities not only executed Herostratus, but attempted to condemn him to a legacy of obscurity by forbidding mention of his name under penalty of death.

[11]: 417–418 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."