The ambitious young warrior had been drawn to this spot on Egypt\u2019s Mediterranean shore after reading about it in the epic poetry of Homer<\/a>, most revered of the ancient Greek writers. A lover of literature, Alexander had even styled his hair in long locks to emulate Homer\u2019s hero, Achilles.<\/p>\n What he found was a tiny, lifeless island facing a series of small fishing villages scattered across a windswept coast. A few miles to the south on the mainland spread a vast freshwater lake, around which the ancient Egyptians had constructed a canal network.<\/p>\n In his unceasing quest for world domination, this was just the location for which Alexander had long searched \u2013 at the intersection of Africa, Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n And when he arrived at this strategic hotspot, he dropped to his knees in a state of ecstasy and began scattering barley across the sandy ground, roughly designing the layout of what would soon become the world\u2019s first modern city \u2013 a magnificent capital that would change the course of history.<\/p>\n Named in honour of its founder, Alexandria was established that very same year, with a causeway measuring seven stadia (around 1.2km) built to connect Pharos to the coast. Alexander himself was soon on his way eastward in search of his next adventure; he didn\u2019t even wait to watch his new city being built. But its fate was now set, associated with a founding myth and a living hero, and with both Alexander\u2019s city plan and a trusted architect to enact it.<\/p>\n The design Alexander had drawn on the sand included harbours, palaces, temples, markets \u2013 and a library dedicated to the muses. Within decades, this once-desolate place had undergone an incredible transformation into a city that transported its visitors into the future. When the Greek geographer Strabo visited Alexandria three centuries later, he gasped at its grandeur, comprising \u201cbuilding upon building\u201d.<\/p>\n The promenade, designed by the renowned Greek architect Dinocrates, was angled to encourage a welcome breeze from the ocean that infused the streets with the scents of cinnamon and honeysuckle; even five centuries after Alexander\u2019s fateful visit, Roman civil servant Herodian described \u201cbillows of perfume\u201d and \u201csweet aromas throughout the city\u201d.<\/p>\n Horses and chariots traversed eight-lane- wide roads, while marbled colonnades provided shade for pedestrians. Grand courts and statues \u2013 including many depicting the city\u2019s founder \u2013 dotted the paths. Around a main square, locals drove mules and donkeys to bustling markets where stalls were stacked high with fruits, vegetables, loaves of bread and barrels of cloudy beer.<\/p>\n Artisans showed off colourful, decorative mosaics of glass, stone and clay. There were bathhouses, tree-studded gardens and a gleaming temple dedicated to Alexandria\u2019s very own god, Serapis, looming over the city at the top of the hill.<\/p>\n In the complex called the Museum (the \u2018shrine of muses\u2019), scholars gathered to think and to debate, to read and to write. At its heart stood the Biblion (the \u2018shrine of books\u2019) housing ceiling-high book- shelves brimming with scrolls stacked on top of one another like wooden logs.<\/p>\n But the real focus of energy was the dock, at the exact spot where Alexander had arrived on Pharos. The previously lifeless island now boasted one of the tallest man-made structures in the world: the three-tiered Pharos Lighthouse. This extraordinary building was well over 100 metres high, made of reflective white limestone \u2013 a lofty beacon of light that symbolised the power and grandeur of the city.<\/p>\n It also served a practical purpose, guiding ships into the two busy harbours on either side \u2013 \u201cbeautifully enclosed both by the embankment and by nature\u201d, as Strabo put it. In the light- house\u2019s top storey, mirrors reflected the sun\u2019s bright rays during the day and, by night, fire from its furnace created a magnificent glow.<\/p>\n The city of Alexandria was an idealistic endeavour, intended from the very start to be a global capital. Though conceived by its founder, it was implemented by his childhood friend and general, Ptolemy I, and his successors. Alexandria\u2019s founders had a unique and innovative vision of what makes a city successful \u2013 and it was nothing short of radical.<\/p>\n They imagined and enacted two outrageous theories. First, that bringing together diverse people from far and wide in a strategically located spot would produce economic prosperity and make the city a world trade capital. Second, that gathering and generating knowledge \u2013 via the Library and Museum \u2013 would consolidate the city as a global powerhouse. Within a single century, these two premises had combined to make Alexandria the global capital of both trade and knowledge.<\/p>\n Alexander knew that taking control of such a prime location could play a part in expanding and strengthening his realm, bolstering his grand plan to build a unified empire that stretched as far east as Persia and India.<\/p>\n To do so, he envisioned roads and ports connecting Europe with Asia. However, unlike most cities, Alexandria was born not from war or geographical division but was created from scratch. Rather than developing organically, Alexandria was purposely visualised, conceived, shaped and expanded.<\/p>\n People from across the region were invited to populate the new city. With trade a key aspect of its identity, welcoming rather than othering citizens was part of the economic plan. This was to be a polis<\/em> (city state) founded on the notion that it is possible to harmonise different cultures and traditions in order to achieve a greater goal.<\/p>\n At a time when the Hellenistic world regarded non-Greeks as barbarians, and when Egyptians were highly protective of their own traditions, this was a brave new ideology. Drawn by the Alexandrian dream, thousands of people flocked to the new city from every direction. Egyptians travelled north through the desert, Europeans sailed across the Mediterranean, and Jews made their way west from the Holy Land, to be joined by many more groups including Ethiopians, Levantines, Romans and Indians.<\/p>\n The first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who married a woman from Alexandria, wrote that Jews moved to the new city \u201cinvited by the goodness of the soil, and by the liberality\u201d of its early leaders. Indeed, it\u2019s said that, in his very first design, Alexander allocated a district for Jews in his new city. In an attempt to grow the populace, Jews were exempted from tax and promised freedom of worship, with grand synagogues and special theatres built here.<\/p>\n And during the reign of Ptolemy II, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Alexandria\u2019s very own dialect of Koine Greek. Thanks to Serapis, the newly amalgamated Greco-Egyptian god championed by the Ptolemies, the Greeks and Egyptians were also able to find common ground.<\/p>\n Migration and multiculturalism were effective ways of increasing the city\u2019s population and, in turn, its military, commercial and economic power. Before long, Alexandria became a significant regional trading centre and transport hub that welcomed merchants and travellers from east and west. It imported goods from as far as Persia and India, and exported a range of items to Europe \u2013 even the British Isles \u2013 that included art, oils, spices, wine and grain, becoming Rome\u2019s key breadbasket.<\/p>\n Alexander\u2019s successors also put his second priority \u2013 gathering and generating knowledge \u2013 into action. A second-century BC letter, the earliest reference to the Library of Alexandria, tells us that the Ptolemies gave the first chief librarian, Demetrius of Phalerum, an unprecedented budget \u201cin order to collect\u2026 all the books in the world\u201d \u2013 a seemingly impossible task. The Library nonetheless came to house hundreds of thousands of works \u2013 by far the biggest collection of writing ever gathered up to that point in history.<\/p>\n The Museum, too, became the world\u2019s leading research centre, with scholars coming from across the region to work here, given stipends, food and accommodation by the state. They created novel philosophies and pioneered original inventions in a range of fields, from astronomy to geography and from mathematics to poetry. Alexandria\u2019s medical school made huge advances and, unlike its Greek counterpart, welcomed women through its doors.<\/p>\n To Alexandria\u2019s leaders, knowledge equalled power. They put into place various policies to ensure that this authority was maintained, and that the city\u2019s library would outshine all others. Books were not allowed to leave the city and ships docking at the harbour were searched for written materials, which would be confiscated immediately. The export of papyrus was even banned to stop rival cities and libraries from increasing their stocks.<\/p>\n By gathering hundreds of thousands of books from around the world (there were half a million scrolls, according to the second librarian, Callimachus), and by researching and disseminating new philosophies, theories and inventions, Alexandria\u2019s rulers became the global custodians of knowledge.<\/p>\n Coupled with the city\u2019s economic success, the Great Library brought Alexander\u2019s burgeoning capital incredible influence.<\/p>\n Alexandria\u2019s architects successfully executed its founder\u2019s radical vision of how to create a city \u2013 and, more, how to make it a global power. By utilising a strategic location to build a metropolis from scratch, by gathering diverse people to live and prosper together in harmony, and by collating and generating knowledge, Alexandria redefined what it means to successfully construct and maintain a city and society.<\/p>\n As the centuries went on, Alexandria\u2019s fame and status made it a key target for the most powerful empires, from the Romans and Ottomans, to the French and British, attracting the likes of Julius Caesar<\/a>, Saladin<\/a>, Napoleon<\/a> and Admiral Nelson<\/a>. As migration to its shores continued, its various residents brought with them a wide range of traditions, values and faiths, and developed the philosophies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n When 15th-century explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Asia by sailing all the way around Africa, Alexandria\u2019s unique claim to linking the east and west began to diminish. Nonetheless, the city continued to attract different groups and by the 19th and 20th centuries, Armenians, Greeks, Italians and Turks called it home. With the rise of Arab nationalism in the mid-20th century, many of these departed.<\/p>\n Today, Alexandria is a bustling metropolis with a population exceeding 6 million and responsible for 40 per cent of Egypt\u2019s industrial capacity. Its founder died at 32, eight years after he first set foot on Pharos. He never returned to see Alexandria in all its glory. More than two millennia later, the city that Alexander the Great envisaged during a brief visit to a barren island off the windswept coast of north Africa still stands proud.<\/p>\n \u201cThe place of the cure of the soul.\u201d So, according to ancient sources, read the inscription above the shelves of Alexandria\u2019s vast book collection: the Great Library. The Library was probably architecturally very grand, with several halls and ceiling-high wooden cabinets filled with scrolls.<\/p>\n This impressive building was sited inside Alexandria\u2019s extensive Museum complex. The Museum\u2019s entrance had a grand porch reminiscent of Greek temples, while expansive gardens and colonnaded walkways led to private study rooms, lecture halls and a banquet room. There was an outdoor seating space with a semi-circular arrangement of stone benches, as well as small theatres.<\/p>\n From its initial design in the fourth century BC, Alexandria featured vast gardens. The most famous of these was the Park of Pan, a pleasure garden that included such amenities as a marble-seated amphitheatre and a public bath.<\/p>\n That century also saw the construction of the Eleusis (Advent) Park. Now in the centre of the modern city, it is the oldest surviving garden in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most magnificent building in the whole world.\u201d That\u2019s how the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus described Alexandria\u2019s Serapeum. This suitably splendid temple was constructed on the city\u2019s highest hill for Alexandria\u2019s divine protector, Serapis, in the third century BC.<\/p>\n A staircase in the temple complex led down to a nilometer, a device to measure the level of the Nile\u2019s waters; placing it here enabled Serapis to protect the river from drying up or overflowing.<\/p>\n More than 100 marble steps led up to the Serapeum. In the centre stood a vast statue of Serapis, covered with ivory and gold. Windows were positioned so the sun\u2019s rays made the god glow.<\/p>\n The Serapeum was used to store thousands of books that couldn\u2019t fit into the library. It was damaged during a second-century AD Jewish revolt before Christians destroyed it in the late fourth century.<\/p>\n By the early third century BC, after 14 years of construction, Alexandria\u2019s harbour was guarded by the Pharos Lighthouse, soaring over 100 metres high.<\/p>\n One of the seven ancient Wonders of the World, it was built from white limestone that reflected the sunlight, and comprised three tiers resting on a 10-metre-wide cylindrical base.<\/p>\n At the top stood a sculpture of Zeus, the god of sky and thunder, holding a thunderbolt.<\/p>\n The 12th-century explorer Ibn Jubayr from Al-Andalus (the Islamic state then ruling the Iberian peninsula) wrote that \u201cdescription falls short of it and the eyes fail to comprehend it; relating it [in words] is inadequate, and the spectacle is vast\u201d.<\/p>\n When Roman emperor Diocletian visited Alexandria at the turn of the fourth century AD, he created a triumphal monument to himself: an armour-clad statue atop one of the largest monolithic columns in history.<\/p>\n Pompey\u2019s Pillar was a 27-metre-high column of rose granite, with a grey granite capital and a sparkling porphyry statue. The sculpture no longer stands atop the pillar but in the 18th century a fragment of Diocletian\u2019s thigh was discovered, suggesting a statue 7 metres high.<\/p>\n But it had nothing to do with Pompey the Great. When the crusaders arrived in Alexandria, they misread the pedestal\u2019s inscription of Egypt\u2019s governor Publius as \u2018Pompey\u2019 \u2013 and the name stuck.<\/p>\n The role of Greek writer Homer was pivotal in the city\u2019s founding: lines about this location in his poetry had come to Alexander the Great in a dream, driving the king to make the journey here to found his city.<\/p>\n In the third century BC, Ptolemy IV Philopator built a shrine in Alexandria dedicated to Homer \u2013 the Homereion, representing the first deity-like veneration of a western poet.<\/p>\n Writing sometime around the turn of the third century AD, Roman author Aelian described a magnificent statue of Homer seated in a semi-circular arc in the shrine, with an inscription confirming Alexandria as the universalising home of the greatest writer.<\/p>\n In the first century BC, Alexandria\u2019s most famous queen, Cleopatra VII<\/a>, began constructing a temple in honour of her lover, Julius Caesar.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-463923311-b06b57e.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"A")
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Shrines to learning<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Built from scratch<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Knowledge capital<\/h2>\n
The seven wonders of Alexandria<\/h4>\n
The landmarks that helped make the city a masterpiece of the ancient world.<\/h6>\n
1. Knowledge bank<\/h6>\n
2. Leisure gardens<\/h6>\n
3. The glowing god<\/h6>\n
4. Sky and thunder<\/h6>\n
5. Lost in translation<\/h6>\n
6. A heavenly poet<\/h6>\n
7. Cleopatra\u2019s love affair<\/h6>\n