Rather than doing what I should be doing concerning the really rather tedious late Roman Republic, I have been thinking about your Ephesus/Damascus streets. Street names are generally given to ancient cities by archaeologists and only on a few occasions are we provided with clues as to the original names. Pausanias (Roman travel writer) is pretty good at letting us know the names of streets, when there are any and they tend to be called after particular landmarks (such as temples/local cults). He does however, often refer to ‘the straight road’ when describing a number of different cities in Greece. At a quick glance these streets may (and I stress, may) refer to the main street which links the port to the town. So the fact that Damascus has a street called Straight Street may just be due to the possibility that there is an ancient source to this and the archaeologists have carried on the name. Whereas actually it seems that having a street named ‘straight street’ might have been common for Greek/Roman cities and certainly not exclusive to Damascus. So it seems to me you should be fine with your straight street in Ephesus. What may be slightly problematic might be the fact that there were two cities of Ephesus, the Greco-Roman one being the latest in date and somewhat more inland than the original port foundation.