Alexandria: City of Gifts and Sorrows: From Hellenistic Civilization to Multiethnic Metropolis

186 Pages·2014·1.06 MB·English

by  A. J. Polyzoides

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Herewith an historical journey from the third century to the multi-
ethnic metropolis of the twentieth century, bringing together two
diverse histories of the city. Ancient Alexandria was built by the
Greek Macedonians. Ptolemy started the dynasty and in thirty years
completed the first lighthouse, and the grand library and museum,
which functioned as a university with an emphasis on science,
known as “The Alexandrian School”. Scholars attended as “the
birthplace of science” from all over the ancient world. Two of the
most eminent were Euclid, the father of geometry, and Claudios
Ptolemy, writer of The Almagest, a book on astronomy. These are the
oldest surviving science textbooks. Herein there are stories about
scientists, poets and religious philosophers, responsible for influ-
encing the western mind with their writings.
Modern Alexandria was rebuilt in 1805 by multiethnic commu-
nities who created a successful commercial city and port with an
enviable life-style for its inhabitants for 150 years. In 1952 the Free
Officers of the Egyptian Army masterminded a coup to free the
country from the monarchy and British domination. In 1956 the
socialist regime under Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Suez
Canal, resulting in the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion. This outburst
of Egyptian nationalism and military revolution by this understand-
ably anti-Western regime included the confiscation of property
belonging to foreigners and the subsequent mass exodus of business
and artisan classes that hitherto had made the city so successful. The
author was an eye-witness to these events and he sets out the polit-
ical errors and failures of both Egyptian and Western leaders. The
legacy of the resulting political and social confusions is deeply
apparent in the continuing unrest in the Middle East, and in partic-
ular in Egypt.
A.J. Polyzoides was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Greek Macedonian
parents. As a youth he walked the city’s avenues and coastal promenade
searching for remains of the Greek Ptolemaic city, the absence of which
sparked a life-long interest in ancient Alexandria. After the military
revolution, the Suez Canal War and the exodus of the foreign commu-
nities, he moved to the UK where he trained in trauma and
orthopaedics, retiring as Consultant and honorary senior lecturer at
Birmingham University. He now lives on an island in the Aegean, and
continues research on his birthplace, the illustrious ancient city.
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To Jean
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Copyright © Apostolos J. Polyzoides, 2014.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2014.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Polyzoides, Apostolos, author.
Alexandria : city of gifts and sorrows : from Hellenistic civilization
to multiethnic metropolis / Apostolos Polyzoides.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84519-667-7 (pbk : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-78284-154-8 (e-pub)
ISBN 978-1-78284-155-5 (e-mobi)
ISBN 978-1-78284-156-2 (e-pdf)
1. Alexandria (Egypt)—History. I. Title.
DT154.A4P66 2014
962.1—dc23
2014017867
This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features,
including tables and figures, might not display as in the print version,
due to electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures.
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements x
Books Consulted xii
Maps and Diagrams, with Narrative xiv
Introduction 1
CHAPTER ONE
Alexandria in the Early 1950s: The Beginning 7
of the End
CHAPTER TWO
Poets and Writers in Alexandria 17
Constantine Cavafy 17
Edward M. Forster 24
Lawrence G. Durrell 27
CHAPTER THREE
Reflections on Ancient Alexandria: Replacing 30
the Famed Monuments on their Rightful Sites
CHAPTER FOUR
Alexander III: The Great 38
Alexander’s education 40
The murder of his father, Philip II 44
Alexander founding his city in Egypt, and his 46
trip to the Oracle of Amun
Alexander’s iconography and Hellenic artists 49
The death of Alexander and his legacy 53
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vi Contents
CHAPTER FIVE
The Quest for the Elusive Tomb of Alexander 61
the Great
CHAPTER SIX
Alexandria the Great 68
The lighthouse and the ancient city 72
The palaces, Museum and Grand Library 74
Literature, architecture and painting 80
Alexandrian religious philosophy 83
Science and scholars 85
Applied mechanics 87
Astronomers and geographers 89
Alexandrian medicine 91
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Collapse of Ancient Alexandria 95
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Rebirth of Alexandria, 1,400 Years After 103
the Collapse of the Ancient City
CHAPTER NINE
The Foreign Communities: The People and 112
their Contribution
CHAPTER TEN
Four Years of Uncertainty, 1952–1956 124
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Suez Canal War 131
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Decline of Modern Alexandria 139
The Cover Illustrations, Select Bibliography and Index
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Preface
Fortunate is he who has studied history.
Euripides 480–407 BCE
Over the centuries, historians, scholars and writers have
consistently neglected the history of ancient Alexandria in
Egypt – the renowned city of the 3rdcentury BCE, birthplace
of science and the modern mind – in comparison to the
numerous books on pharaonic Egypt, Athens and Rome.
The aim of this book is to reveal the real history of ancient
and modern Alexandria, and to record its importance to
western culture.
During my student days, I walked along its coastal prom-
enade, avenues and narrow alleyways, perplexed at the
absence of Greek Ptolemaic archaeological remains, whose
civilisation lasted for three hundred years.
It is surreal, but also fascinating, that Alexander the Great
– having conquered Asia Minor, Persia, Babylon and going
as far as India – chose a desolate plot of land on the
Mediterranean coast in Egypt, opposite the island of
Pharos, to build his capital. Homer, in the 8th century BCE,
used the word historto describe a person who passed judge-
ment on facts after an enquiry. The recording of history
started in Greece, with Herodotus and Thucydides in the
5th century BCE. Ancient and modern historians presented
past events either as a pure narrative or as a timeless analysis
of events. A different approach is used in this book, by
presenting the relevant historical events from the rise to the
fall of a city, the achievements during its apogee, and the
reasons for its decline and collapse. Alexandrian history was
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viii Preface
shaped by the Ptolemies in the 3rd century BCE – there was
no city in the world that could claim to have been built, in
less than half a century, with a lighthouse, Grand Library
and Museum (which functioned as a university), the
Serapeion temple, one deity for both Greeks and Egyptians,
and a trading centre: the Emporium.
In 30 BCE, Octavian invaded Alexandria and ruled Egypt
and the East. When the power of the Roman army was
declining, the Arabs were expanding, and they occupied
Alexandria without any resistance in 645 CE. Under the
Arabs, Alexandria continued to be a trading centre with
other western countries in North Africa. In 1517 CE, the
Turks occupied Egypt but neglected Alexandria, and it was
under their rule that the great ancient city was reduced to a
small fishing village. In the 19th century CE, there were
regular incursions: first by the French, under Napoleon
Bonaparte, and then the British, under Horatio Nelson, who
destroyed the French fleet and occupied Egypt.
The Ottoman sultan appointed Mohammed Ali, a
Greek-born Albanian and distinguished soldier in the
Turkish army, as governor of Alexandria and Egypt in
1805. Mohammed Ali saw the potential of the two ports and
had the vision to bring British, French, Greeks and Jews to
rebuild the city by offering them special privileges. As a
result, in the late 19th and 20th century, modern Alexandria
arose as a commercially-successful city with all types of
industries, cultivating and exporting cotton, generating
wealth and a good standard of living for everyone for 150
years.
In the 1950s, there was an explosion of Egyptian nation-
alism, a change to military rule and the closure of the Suez
Canal, followed by the Anglo–French–Israeli invasion in
1956. The legacy of this military regime, under the leader-
ship of Colonel Nasser, was the decline of Alexandria and
the exodus of all its foreigners – including myself. I had the
misfortune to witness these events, and realised that there
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Preface ix
was no future for any foreigner to live and work in Egypt.
By 1962, some 85–90 percent had already left.
Efforts by Britain and the United States to stabilise Egypt
failed, the Palestinian negotiations deteriorated, the rise of
terrorist organisations was disturbing, the Arab countries’
discontent with their leaders looked for solutions and,
several decades later, the “Arab Spring” movement began.
This book presents historical facts and information from the
birth of geometry, astronomy, hydraulics, medicine and
religious philosophy up until the beginnings of Christianity.
Concerning modern Alexandria, it recounts the lives of a
people with a European lifestyle – their economic, profes-
sional and social achievements – but the military revolution
brought about the decline of the cosmopolitan city to an
Arab summer resort.
It has taken several years to complete this book, but it was
undoubtedly a “labour of love”, as it is about my birthplace.
I have deliberately kept it short, in the tradition of
Kallimachos (the Alexandrian poet of the 3rd century BCE)
who is quoted as saying “a big book is a difficult book!”
Some changes were carried out with the spelling of proper
names of people and places, differing from the usual
Latinisation of Greek names and pronunciation that still
prevails in the English-speaking world; however, I retained
well-known and familiar names for the convenience of the
reader.
All translations of ancient and modern Greek poetry and
quotations are my own, unless otherwise stated. Instead of
BC and AD I have used BCE (Before Christian Era) and CE
(Christian Era) as this is now common practice.