Alexandria

Located on the Mediterranean Sea coast, Alexandria (in Arabic, الإسكندرية, transliterated al-ʼIskandariyyah) is the chief seaport in Egypt, and that country's second largest city, and the capital of the Al Iskandariyah governate. It is located at {{coor dm|31|12|N|29|15|E|}}, 208 km (129 miles) northwest of Cairo. The Canopic mouth of the Nile (now dry) was 19 km (12 miles) east, near the ancient city of Canopus. It has a population of approximately 3,341,000.

History

The history of Alexandria covers four periods:

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• The Ptolemaic era which starts with the founding of the city and ends with the arrival of the Romans (blue).
• The Roman era from 80 BC until the arrival of the Arabs in 641 (green).
• The Arab city from 641 until 1798 when Napoleon arrived (yellow).
• The modern city from 1798 (red).

Founding

Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in or around 334 BC (the exact date is disputed) as ??????????? (Aleksándreia; see also List of traditional Greek place names). Alexander's chief architect for the project was Deinocrates of Rhodes. Ancient accounts are extremely numerous and varied, and much influenced by subsequent developments. One of the more sober descriptions, given by the historian Arrian, tells how Alexander undertook to lay out the city's general plan, but lacking chalk or other means, resorted to sketching it out with grain. Alexander's seers, and in particular Aristander of Telmessus, interpreted this as an omen that the city would prosper, particularly in grain. Other authors make the omen not the grain itself, but the arrival of flocks of birds to eat it. In any case, the story explains Alexandria's role as the shipping-point for Egyptian grain, which fed the Hellenistic and Roman world.

Related Topics:
Alexander the Great - 334 BC - List of traditional Greek place names - Deinocrates of Rhodes - Arrian - Aristander of Telmessus - Hellenistic - Roman

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A number of the more fantastic foundation myths are found in the Alexander Romance, and were picked up by mediæval Arab historians. The 14th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun ridiculed one where sea-monsters prevent the foundation, but are thwarted when Alexander descends in a glass box, and armed with exact knowledge of their appearance, erects metal effigies on the beach which succeed in frightening the monsters away.

Related Topics:
Alexander Romance - 14th century - Ibn Khaldun

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Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis as a Greek centre in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile Valley. If such a city was to be on the Egyptian coast, there was only one possible site, behind the screen of the Pharos island and removed from the silt thrown out by Nile mouths. An Egyptian townlet, Rhacotis, already stood on the shore and was a resort of fishermen and pirates. Behind it there were five native villages scattered along the strip between Lake Mareotis and the sea, according to a history of Alexander attributed to the author known as pseudo-Callisthenes.

Related Topics:
Naucratis - Greece - Nile Valley - Pseudo-Callisthenes

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A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt for the East and never returned to his city. His general, Ptolemy (later Ptolemy I of Egypt) succeeded in bringing Alexander's body to Alexandria, where it became a famous tourist destination for ancient travellers.

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After Alexander departed, his viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the creation of Alexandria. The Heptastadion, however, and the mainland quarters seem to have been mainly Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a century to be larger than Carthage; and for some centuries more it was second only to Rome. Nominally a free Greek city, Alexandria retained its senate to Roman times; and indeed the judicial functions of that body were restored by Septimius Severus, after temporary abolition by Augustus.

Related Topics:
Cleomenes - Heptastadion - Tyre - Europe - Arabia - India - Carthage - Rome - Senate - Septimius Severus - Augustus

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It was not only a center of Hellenism, but was also the greatest Jewish city in the world. There the Septuagint was produced. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Greek university but they were careful to maintain the distinction of its population into three nations, "Greek", Jew and Egyptian. One of the earliest inhabitants was the geometer and number-theorist Euclid. From this division arose much of the later turbulence which began to manifest itself under Ptolemy Philopater, who reigned 221–204 BC.

Related Topics:
Hellenism - Septuagint - University - Euclid - Ptolemy Philopater - 221 - 204 BC

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In ancient times, Alexandria was known for its lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the World) and its library (the largest in the world). Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, begun in 1994, is revealing details of the Alexandria of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Related Topics:
Lighthouse - Seven Wonders of the World - Library - Maritime archaeology - 1994

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Roman jurisdiction

The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 BC, according to the will of Ptolemy Alexander: but it had been under Roman influence for more than a hundred years previously. Julius Caesar dallied with Cleopatra in Alexandria in 47 BC and was mobbed by the rabble; his example was followed by Marc Antony, for whose favor the city paid dear to Octavian, who placed over it a prefect from the imperial household.

Related Topics:
80 BC - Ptolemy Alexander - Julius Caesar - Cleopatra - 47 BC - Rabble - Marc Antony - Octavian

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Alexandria seems from this time to have regained its old prosperity, commanding, as it did, an important granary of Rome; this fact, doubtless, was one of the chief reasons which induced Augustus to place it directly under imperial power. In AD 215 the emperor Caracalla visited the city; and, for some insulting satires that the inhabitants had directed at him, he abruptly commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. This brutal order seems to have been carried out even beyond the letter, for a general massacre was the result.

Related Topics:
Imperial power - 215 - Emperor - Caracalla - Satire

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Even as its main historical importance had formerly sprung from pagan learning, so now it acquired fresh importance as a centre of Christian theology and church government. There Arianism was formulated and there Athanasius, the great opponent of both Arianism and pagan reaction, triumphed over both, establishing the Patriarch of Alexandria as a major influence in Christianity for the next two centuries.

Related Topics:
Christian - Theology - Arianism - Athanasius - Patriarch of Alexandria

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As native influences, however, began to reassert themselves in the Nile valley, Alexandria gradually became an alien city, more and more detached from Egypt; and, losing much of its commerce as the peace of the empire broke up during the 3rd century AD, it declined fast in population and splendour.

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In the late 4th century, persecution of pagans by Christians had reached new levels of intensity. Temples and statues were destroyed throughout the Roman empire, pagan rituals forbidden under punishment of death, and libraries closed. In 391, Emperor Theodosius ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and the Patriarch Theophilus, complied with this request. It is possible that the great Library of Alexandria was destroyed about this time.

Related Topics:
4th century - Pagans - 391 - Theodosius - Theophilus - Library of Alexandria - Destroyed

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The Brucheum and Jewish quarters were desolate in the 5th century, and the central monuments, the Soma and Museum, fallen to ruin. On the mainland, life seems to have centred in the vicinity of the Serapeum and Caesareum; both become Christian churches. The Pharos and Heptastadium quarters remained populous and intact.

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In 616 it was taken by Khosrau II, king of Persia. Although the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius recovered it a few years later, in 640 the Arabians, under the general Amr ibn al-As, captured it for good after a siege that lasted fourteen months. The city received no aid from Constantinople during that time; Heraclius was dead and the new Emperor Constantine III was barely twelve years old. Notwithstanding the losses that the city had sustained, Amr was able to write to his master, the caliph Omar, that he had taken a city containing "4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 12,000 dealers in fresh oil, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000 Jews who pay tribute, 400 theatres or places of amusement."

Related Topics:
616 - Khosrau II - Persia - Byzantine Emperor - Heraclius - 640 - Amr ibn al-As - Constantinople - Constantine III - Caliph - Omar

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After Amr

Shortly after its capture, Alexandria again fell into the hands of the Greeks, who took advantage of Amr's absence with the greater portion of his army. On hearing what had happened, however, Amr returned, and quickly regained possession of the city. About the year 646, Amr was deprived of his government by the caliph Uthman ibn Affan. Amr was greatly beloved by the Egyptians; they threatened such a revolt over this that the Greek emperor was determined to reduce Alexandria.

Related Topics:
Greeks - 646 - Uthman ibn Affan - Egyptians

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The attempt proved successful. The caliph, perceiving his mistake, immediately restored Amr, who, on his arrival in Egypt, drove the Greeks within the walls of Alexandria, but was only able to capture the city after a most obstinate resistance by the defenders. This so exasperated him that he completely demolished its fortifications, although he seems to have spared the lives of the inhabitants as far as lay in his power.

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The city was for some time a center of the Mediterranean spice trade, receiving overland caravans of pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace and more from India and beyond, which were bought by European traders at enormously inflated prices. The locations of the source of these spices were carefully guarded by their Indian and Arabian merchants.

Related Topics:
Spice trade - Pepper - Cinnamon - Nutmeg - Mace - India

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The building of Cairo in 969, and, above all, the discovery of the route to the East by the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, nearly ruined the commerce of Alexandria; the canal, which supplied it with Nile water, became blocked; and although it remained a principal Egyptian port, at which most European visitors in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods landed, we hear little of it until about the beginning of the 19th century.

Related Topics:
969 - Cape of Good Hope - 1498 - Mamluk - Ottoman - 19th century

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Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoléon's Egyptian expedition of 1798. The French troops stormed the city on July 2 1798, and it remained in their hands until the arrival of the British expedition of 1801. The battle of Alexandria, fought on March 21 that year between the French and the British, took place near the ruins of Nicopolis, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Abukir.

Related Topics:
Napoléon - July 2 - 1798 - 1801 - Battle of Alexandria - March 21 - Nicopolis - Abukir

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The 1800s

During the anarchy which accompanied Ottoman rule in Egypt from first to last, Alexandria sank to a small town of about 4,000 inhabitants, and it owed its modern rennaissance solely to Mehemet Ali, who wanted a deep port and naval station for his viceregal domain. He restored its water communication with the Nile by making the Mahmudiya canal, finished in 1820; and he established at Ras et-Tin his favorite residence. The old Eunostus harbour became the port, and a flourishing city arose on the Pharos island and the Heptastadion district, with outlying suburbs and villa residences along the coast eastwards and the Mareotic shore.

Related Topics:
Anarchy - Ottoman - Mehemet Ali - 1820

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Being the starting-point of the "overland route" to India, and the residence of the chief foreign consuls, it quickly acquired a European character and attracted not only French residents, but great numbers of Greeks, Jews and Syrians. There most of the negotiations between the powers and Mehemet Ali were conducted; from there started the Egyptian naval expeditions to Crete, the Morea and Syria; and thither sailed the betrayed Ottoman fleet in 1839. It was twice threatened by hostile fleets, the Greek in 1827 and the combined British, French and Russian squadrons in 1828.

Related Topics:
Crete - Morea - Syria - 1839 - 1827 - Russia - 1828

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The latter withdrew on the viceroy's promise that Ibrahim should evacuate the Morea. The fortifications were strengthened in 1841, and remained in an antiquated condition until 1882, when they were renovated by Arabi Pasha. Alexandria was connected with Cairo by railway in 1856.

Related Topics:
Ibrahim - 1841 - 1882 - Arabi Pasha - 1856

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Much favored by the earlier viceroys of Mehemet Ali's house, and removed from the Mameluke troubles, Alexandria was the real capital of Egypt until Said Pasha died there in 1863 and Ismail Pasha came into power. Though this prince continued to develop the city, giving it a municipality in 1861 and new harbour works in 1871–1878, he developed Cairo still more; and the center of gravity definitely shifted to the inland capital.

Related Topics:
Mameluke - Said Pasha - 1863 - Ismail Pasha - 1861 - 1871 - 1878

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Bombardment of 1882

Fate, however, again brought Alexandria to the front. After a mutiny of soldiers there in 1881, the town was greatly excited by the arrival of an Anglo-French fleet in May 1882, and on June 11 a terrible riot and massacre took place, resulting in the death of four hundred Europeans.

Related Topics:
1881 - Fleet - June 11

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Since satisfaction was not given for this and the forts were being strengthened at the instigation of Arabi Pasha, the war minister, the British admiral, Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester), sent an ultimatum on July 10 and opened fire on the forts the next day. They were demolished, but as no troops were landed immediately a fresh riot and massacre ensued.

Related Topics:
Arabi Pasha - Frederick Beauchamp Seymour - July 10

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As Arabi did not submit, a British military expedition landed at Alexandria on August 10, following which the British engaged in the occupation of the whole country.

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Under British control

Alexandria has greatly expanded since then. As the British consular report for 1904 says, "Building … for residential and other purposes proceeds with almost feverish rapidity. The cost of living has doubled and the price of land has risen enormously."

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More Greeks continued to settle the city, establishing financial and cultural centres. The Greek poet Constantine Cavafy was born and lived here.

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British occupied Alexandria developed into a major Royal Navy base, with the strategic Suez Canal to the east. During Second World War and the North Africa Campaign of 1940–1943 The decisive Battles of El Alamein were fought to its West.

Related Topics:
Royal Navy - Suez Canal - Second World War - North Africa Campaign - 1940 - 1943 - Battles of El Alamein

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The Egyptian military coup of 1952 saw the destruction of the Egyptian monarchy and the British protectorate status. Colonel Nasser took power and the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1954 made provision for the withdrawal of British troops. The numbers of the city's foreign population dwindled ever since. A small Greek community, however, remains to date.

Related Topics:
1952 - Protectorate status - Nasser - Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1954

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The film Ice Cold in Alex would later be set here.

Related Topics:
Film - Ice Cold in Alex

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