Dan Snow's History Hit - The City of Alexandria

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

This is the story of a city that laid the foundations for our modern world. Sitting at the intersection of East and West, Alexandria has been home to many of humanity's greatest architectural and cultural achievements, like the famous Lighthouse and the storied Great Library. Some of history's most illustrious figures have left their mark there, from Alexander the Great and Aristotle to Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.Dan is joined by Islam Issa, Professor of English at Birmingham City University and author of 'Alexandria: The City that Changed the World'. Islam explains how a city that started as a vision in Alexander the Great’s mind became a global capital of knowledge.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Homer wrote that after Helen and Paris ran away together, wildly in love, they landed on the island of Pharos on the southern edge of the Mediterranean, on what is now, and what was then, Egypt. The poet also says that on her way back to Greece, having been recaptured by her husband Menelaus after the destruction of Troy, the death of Paris, she also visited that same island on the way home. This story was well known in the classical Greek world. And that's why when Alexander the Great became the only Greek warlord to conquer Egypt, it was very natural that this massive Homer fanboy, Alexander the Great, decided to build a huge city on the island of Pharos. It was to be a totem of his new empire,

sitting at the crossroads of this mighty realm spanning three continents. The city that he founded on that island, he gave his name to. It was Alexandria. And the city is surely one of his most enduring, most significant legacies. Alexander was buried there in the centuries that followed his death. His city flourished. It became possibly the first city on earth to reach a million in population. It was a centre of trade and it became a centre of knowledge. It was home to the greatest library in world history to that point. A centre of study. To tell me all about

Alexandria, tell me all about this extraordinary city. I've got a son of that city, a native of Alexandria, Islam Issa. He is a multi-award-winning author, curator and broadcaster. He's professor of literature and history at Birmingham City University. He's just written a book, Alexandria, the city that changed the world. Let's hear from him. Enjoy. T-minus 10. The Thomas bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.

No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Islam, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I'm very excited to be here. Alexandria is such an obvious place to have a massive city. I mean, was there stuff there before Alexander the Great? Or is this genuinely a new foundation? I think when Alexander arrived at this location, there was probably an anticlimax. There was an

island there that was uninhabited, Feroz Island. And then on the Mediterranean coast, there were some scattered fishing villages. But there was a lake to the south of the Mediterranean as well, where there were some shrubby farmlands that people occupied. But no, I think it was probably a bit of an anticlimax in terms of who was there and how many people occupied the space. This is really a city that was constructed purposefully. Usually a city is founded as a result of a geographical division or a war this wasn't the case here this was a place that was not organically created it was purposely created when he arrived and realized that it had potential do you have a sense of where

the ancient pharaohs presumably had a big port at the mouth of nile was it where so damietta is now or a little bit further to the east or does this this show Alexander's interest in tying Egypt in with the rest of the ancient Near East with the Greek world from which he'd sprung? Is this a big statement? It's a bit of both, I'd say. If I were to summarise Alexander and his goals, I think he wanted world domination, to put it simply, and obviously was interested in expanding eastwards towards Persia and India and so on. Egypt is very much at the centre of his world between Europe and Asia. But also, Egypt has existed as a civilisation for a long time. So when Alexander arrives there, he's halfway the timeline between us and the Great Pyramids. So that's how long

the pyramids had been there. So Egypt's already got a reputation as a place of medical knowledge, for example, as a place of engineering feats. So I think part of it is also an ambition to control what is not just geographically welled place, but a place that has a long history and a reputation and its own traditions and cultures. Because that's what sort of really comes across with Alexandria, but I can't work out how much of this is myth that I've just fallen for. Was it designed and set up to be somehow different from other places? First of all, when he arrives, I think it's part of Greek consciousness already as a result of Homer. So it's got this mythological prowess from the very

beginning. It's mentioned in Homer's writing, this location. So the island of Pharos is mentioned? Yes, exactly. So the island is mentioned. Homer at this time isn't just literature, it's kind of like history. And in the absence of a single scripture, it's got a theological importance as well. So the island of Pharos is mentioned, it's mentioned that Helen of Troy goes there twice in Greek mythology. So it's already part of the consciousness. Plutarch writes that Alexander actually dreams of the venerable grey-haired man appearing before him and quoting Homer, an island lies where now the billows roar, pharaohs they call it, on the Egyptian shore,

and that Alexander just gets up and goes immediately to this location. So that's the first point, it's part of the consciousness already which helps him in that quest. But I do think that Alexandria is unique in its founding, but it's built on what I argue are two radical visions about how to create a city. Like I've said, it's not come about from geographical division or war. It's not organically expanded, it's purposely expanded. So the first of those visions is that gathering a uniquely diverse group of people together in one space and allowing them the freedoms of their own cultures and faiths can help the economy and create a global trading hub. And a second of these is that knowledge equals power. That comes slightly after Alexander,

but that's the idea that if you collect the world's knowledge and you are the caretaker of that knowledge and the disseminator of that knowledge, that you can garner some serious soft power. So I think because of those two visions, Alexandria is quite unique in the way that it's set up. Yeah, I love that. That's such an interesting insight that it was a place in Egypt the Greeks had heard of, and therefore I guess it would have attracted their gaze. And also, it's near Greece. It opens up an artery for communication, for reinforcement. If you've got trouble in your eastern empire, having a big Greek city on that coast, a day's sail from Crete

is probably really useful. Yes, it's the section of the continent. It's a crossroads through which the Hellenistic world can connect, particularly with the treasures of Asia and Persia. It's uniquely connected to Africa via the Nile, the Levant and Europe via the Mediterranean, obviously, and then Arabia and India through the Red Sea. So Alexandria can become this link between the three continents. And that allows trade very quickly to develop. It allows the movement of people. And it also allows cultural exchange. But on that note, I don't think that Alexander, again, it's part of the unique start that the city had. He doesn't Hellenize

in the way that might have been expected at that time. I think he chooses rather to harmonize. So he allows the Egyptians to continue worshipping their gods. He invites the Jews to the city with the promise of freedom of worship. There are early Buddhists. It's really quite a unique vision of society of how to build a population, because the first thing you need when you create a city from scratch is people as well. So it's very exciting because Aristotle, we think, is involved in city planning, as well as some other very brilliant men. He doesn't really spend any time there, the city that bears his name,

one of his most famous legacies. He's there for, what, a couple of months? If that really, I mean, Alexander, legend has it, he arrives, he's excited, and he ecstatically gets onto his knees and scribbles the plan for the city on the sand. And it's a plan that has the public spaces and the markets and the harbour and also a shrine to the muses, which will become the library. And then he rushes off for his next adventure. He goes southwards towards the Siwa oasis in order to find out about his parentage and where he becomes convinced that he has divine parentage and a link to Zeus. So Alexander's overexcited and leaves. But his stamp on it, his stamp on the city is

present through these legends, through the Alexander romance that's written in order to record some of the legends that he has and the stories of Alexander, through his friend and general Ptolemy, who is the one who is the successor to him after he dies in Egypt, he takes Egypt, Ptolemy. But also just the fact that, as you've mentioned, Aristotle is Alexander's tutor. And that's a really quite magnificent line of knowledge. So Aristotle teaches Ptolemy and Alexander. So we have Alexander and Ptolemy. Then Aristotle, Aristotle's taught by Plato. Plato is taught by Socrates. That is quite the line of teachers.

Plato. Plato is taught by Socrates. I mean, that is quite the line of teachers. And so it makes sense for the city to be planned in a very educated way. It's not randomly designed in terms of its urban planning. It makes sense for the city to have a library thereafter as well, as a result of that. Islam, can I ask, is there any of that original street plan or planning visible in your native city today? Yes, the short answer is yes. The Greek architect Hippodamus was a champion of the grid system. His ideas were held in high regard

and especially by Aristotle. And it was about having big straight streets that cut at right angles. So that's the promenade, if you like, in Alexandria, is that the promenade is this long, straight street that allows for multiple lanes. So at the time, it was multiple lanes of horses and chariots and so on. Now it's multiple lanes of cars driving in every direction. But also the one that really, you can really feel literally in

Alexandria today is that the promenade should profit from the sea breeze. So the angle of the promenade is supposed to profit from the sea breeze and shelter the people from strong winds. And that's probably what's felt today from that initial design, because it's at the same angle. Amazing. So the city is, unlike some parts of Alexander's imperial projects, it's an extraordinary success. So Alexandria starts to benefit, does it, as being the sort of key node for Eastern trade coming into this, and I guess African trade coming into the Mediterranean basin. And the population, it balloons.

Yeah, I mean, the population is obviously something that's intended to do. So I'd say two things in the very early design confirm this. The first is the cisterns. So the fact that they really sorted a whole sewage system immediately suggests that they wanted people to live there. And the second is based also on Hippolymus' urban planning, which Aristotle and the engineer Dinocrates, who was charged with building Alexandria, believed in, was the value of uninhabited space. So the central areas were left uninhabited and unbuilt, knowing that the city could then evolve as the population grew. So that's proof that it was supposed to grow. And then to bring people in beyond the urban planning, there was also the creation of the cult of Alexandria, if you like, in order to attract people. So you attract people through different means. One of them is obviously what I call in the book, the Alexandrian

dream, which is basically there's loads of work here, come and work. And the other side of that was also that Ptolemy hijacks Alexander's corpse, brings it to Alexandria and creates this mosleum around it. So it's got this attraction, but also the creation of Serapis as a unifying god. So the Ptolemies bring this amalgam of a god who's Greco-Egyptian. So both the Egyptians and Greeks can worship the divine protector of the city. So these all help bring people in. And I think that's the key. That population is the key to the city becoming a trade hub, because it could be well positioned at the intersection of the continents, but have no one there. But once they bring everyone there, they're able to develop their trade with different, many people working on the harbour, many people working construction, grain is exported, among other things. And then

you have the imports coming both from Europe and from Asia are stopping. So it becomes a kind of transit place as well. And that's something i've not really seen many people discuss before it's not just that it's a trade center it's also a transport hub where people can transit in between traveling east and west and although it doesn't appear to be all sunlit uplands it's a place where different nationalities and ethnicities seem to be able to carve a path through life with perhaps slightly less interference they might have got in other places yes i mean as far as the scholars are concerned for example to give one example alexandria is a liberal city so whereas in athens scholars could be evicted from the city on grounds of impiety the fact there's no democracy

in alexandria is actually working in favor of that because it means that people can say what they want to do what they want for the large part. And as you've mentioned, population increases by the first century BC to hundreds of thousands and it becomes one of the most populated cities on earth, perhaps the first city to reach a million. So part of that is the jobs, that people have jobs. Part of it is this liberal city concept, that people can flee there, that people can bring their communities there,

that people can preach there. So for the large part, it's a place where people are free to be themselves. Obviously, that begins to change as the centuries pass. Listen to Dan Snow's history hit, The Best Is Yet To Come. Stick with us. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research.

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Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. Let's do the lighthouse. What was it about this lighthouse that was one of the wonders of the world? Well, first of all, it's really tall. I mean, it's potentially the tallest or second tallest man-made building in the world at that time. It's the first great lighthouse in recorded history placed on right there on the island of Pharos, which Alexander had ordered to be connected to

the Mediterranean coast via a causeway. And this lighthouse is, I mean, it's a spectacle. coast via a causeway. And this lighthouse is, I mean, it's a spectacle. It's as much for practical purposes. So it has a mirror for reflection of the sun during the day and a furnace to guide the ships with a fire during night. But it's also supposed to be a show of power. It stands tall and shows that this city is a rich city. It shows that this is a powerful dynasty, the Ptolemies. And it shows that people, as they come into the city, they can follow that Alexandrian dream as the Pharos lighthouse, as it was called, rises majestically. So at least 100 meters tall, some narrations put it around 117, 135 meters. It's white limestone, so it reflects the light. And like I said,

it costs a huge amount of money. Following the first treasury would have cost about a tenth of the treasury. So 800 talents. In today's money, that's 16 million pounds. So it's a show of power.

And it lasts for over a thousand years until a great medieval earthquake. It's so sad. We almost got to have a glimpse of that. Tell me now, let's talk about knowledge. Alexandria is so famous for the great library. Why did Alexandria become this great seat of knowledge? And how amazing was that library? How much would you like to have seen it? It's something we have very limited information about in terms of how it looked. So part of the wonder of it is that we continue to imagine it. But it starts with the founding myth, the founding legend of Alexander getting on his knees, scribbling in the sand and adding a shrine to the muses where we get the term museum from now.

And so it's part of their early vision for the city that knowledge equals power. And it becomes something of an obsession. How did it come about? The Ptolemies, Ptolemy I, and then it's followed by Ptolemy II and III. They hire Demetrius, who has the power of the city. He's a former Athenian governor. And his job description, if you like, is to gather all the books in the world. We know that from a letter at the time.

And it's a seemingly impossible task. It's also not a very selective task, but they go to great measures to do so because they believe that if they are the guardians of knowledge, their knowledge equals power. And they build a museum adjacent to the library, which is a kind of research center where the scholars are free to stay and have tenure if you like. They get free food and accommodation as long as they do research. It's a huge project, a huge complex. Gathering all the books in the world, there's all these scrolls. And the quest to find these is quite intriguing. They go to great measures and lengths in order to do so. By the first century BC, it's thought there are 700,000 books.

Some people say over a million. The second librarian is quoted as saying there are half a million scrolls there. So it's really that job description to gather all the books in the world. That's the main task of the library. Our comedians, he may have spent time there, but we do know some other extraordinarily important thinkers, mathematicians, scientists. Tell me about one or two who would have used that research centre. Is it Hypatia? Tell me about her. Well, she's the greatest female philosopher of her generation. She is interested in renewing and analyzing the early mathematicians of

Alexandria. And she takes a very public role of philosopher. So a philosopher at the time in Alexandria isn't just somebody who sits in the room and philosophizes alone. No, a philosopher has an open house which people can come to to learn, to seek counsel. She is involved with the governors of Alexandria. But the issue with Hapatia is that she appears at a time when Christianity is spreading in Alexandria and where there's some serious doubts placed on the philosophy, what would have been termed pagan philosophy. And she's tragically killed in a sign of how the city changed from when it started as a place where people were entitled to different opinions and to freedom of opinion, freedom of worship, to a time when there are consequences to thinking differently to the status quo. I love Ptolemy, the geographer. Second century AD, was he working? He wasn't. He had some really fascinating notes where he says things like you

know i wouldn't want to be anywhere at alexandria um you know he felt that he was a part of the city that gave him the freedom to do what he wanted and to write about what he wanted he was also very much alexandrian in the sense that he didn't stick to one thing he was um well versed in geography as we well know but also on music music, for example. So he advanced the sort of science of music. So a lot of these scholars like Bactolome were interested in multiple fields and tried to amalgamate those fields in order to reach sort of what they would have perceived as the ultimate truth. I love Ptolemy's maps. People should go and Google, well, they should Google all of these people you're mentioning, but Ptolemy's maps. People should go and Google, well they should Google all of these people you're mentioning, but Ptolemy's maps are so extraordinary.

Then we've got Euclid. Euclid, it's math and geometry. It is interesting in the sense that he was very early, so he's before Hephaestus and Ptolemy. He arrives in the city within a decade of expanding. He writes books outlining the basics of geometry. He writes The Elements, which was a 13-volume work. And it was a key textbook for those studying mathematics until maybe about 100 years ago. And interestingly, because the library and its research center were state endeavors,

there were constant links with the pharaoh, with the Ptolemies. So for example, there's a letter, we mentioned Demetrius in gathering all the books in the world, there's a letter where he reports to the king about how many books he's gathered. So they're constantly checking on them. And Euclid's interesting because Ptolemy I, who was ruling Egypt in the Ptolemaic Empire, was fascinated by this new idea, by the geometry. And he wanted to learn it. And he summoned Euclid to the palace he said to him you know this is too hard is there a way I can learn geometry without understanding your book the element and there's the famous reply from Euclid which is there is no royal road to geometry

and that's a really neat phrase because we can put that in any subject there's no royal road you know you have to work hard and understand what's in front of you in order to be an expert in it. Let's finish off the library, sadly, literally. Is there one catastrophic moment where the library is destroyed or does it just sort of get run down?

It's a slow and steady decline. There's a moment, I guess, when Julius Caesar is there and he sets fire during this war in Alexandria to the ships on the harbour. And he writes so in his autobiography, a very small autobiography, it's all in third person. So the fire is set to the harbour and it expands into the city. And it seems like that caused some damage to the library and Plutarch certainly thinks so but there is evidence that the library survives and it's a steady decline over time the library because it

starts as a state endeavor in some ways we could say the same about our current situation libraries are very much symbolic of the political situation and public spending, that kind of thing. So the more the Romans influence Egypt, the more the library declines and the less freedoms that exist. So with the rise of Christianity later with the Muslims, the more that these freedoms are restricted, the more that scholars leave and head to Athens or Rome. And as these scholars leave, they also take books with them. They don't just take ideas with them, they take books. So it's a slow and steady decline. I don't think there's one moment, but I think symbolically that does start in the first century BC when Julius Caesar sets fire to

the city. Caesar's trying to conquer the Ptolemaic kingdom, is he? Or he's marched in there with intent to expand the empire? Yes, I mean, he's an ambitious man who's got these huge rivalries in Rome. At this stage, obviously, Rome is still a republic. It's not quite the empire that we know. And he'd read Alexander's biographies. There's even a story of him weeping under Alexander's statue, lamenting that he hadn't achieved what Alexander has in his 30s. The Ptolemies bring it on themselves to some extent, because they borrow money from the Romans, especially Cleopatra, the famous Cleopatra VII, her father, Ptolemy XII. They borrow a lot of money from Rome, and they put collateral on that.

It was Ptolemy X before that who sought support from Rome and specified that in the event of dying without an heir, Egypt would go to Rome, which seems like collateral. Then Ptolemy XII borrows a lot of money from Rome as well. And so Caesar actually says, because Ptolemy XII is illegitimate, people didn't quite know who his mother was, that he's not a legitimate heir to Egypt, and therefore it should belong to Rome, based on what Ptolemy X had done. So that's how the Ptolemies kind of brought it on themselves. And then in 48 BC, the Romans then attack Alexandria,

and Cleopatra signs with Caesar against her brother and sister in that particular occasion. And her love affair with Caesar, or anyway, her relationship, begins in the city, does it? Legend has it that she gets unfurled into the palace where Caesar is. So Caesar, when he arrives in Alexandria, makes himself at home immediately in the royal palace, to the extent that Cleopatra has to somehow get inside. She gets inside, whether rolled from a Persian rug or not, you know, we can't be sure. And as the Roman army besieges the harbour in 48 BC, Caesar and Cleopatra are inside. About a year and a half later, after these major Roman

reinforcements arrive, the Alexandrian army escapes, and it's a victory for Caesar. That whole time Cleopatra is in the palace, and she now has Caesarian, who's little Caesar, her son from Julius Caesar. As Alexandria is then absorbed into really big empires, Rome, the Eastern Roman Empire, so the continuation of the Roman Empire, and then the early Islamic empires, does it decline in importance in those bigger units? I mean, it's a fluctuating story. No doubt that the Ptolemaic period was the period where it really did expand and where it was a global knowledge capital and a global trading capital with, for example, Constantine building a new city in Constantinople, of course, Alexandria declines in importance. The early Muslims were very much land people. When the Muslims take

Egypt, the caliph orders, Caliph Omar, orders that the capital be moved. And that's the moment when it loses its status as a capital. He orders for it to be moved because they don't like water. First of all, there's Nile separating Mecca and the Red Sea separating Mecca from Alexandria. It's quite a distance. But also they don't have a navy to start with. They're unsure about naval battles. And also they're unsure how to deal with a diverse population like Alexandria's.

So it declines in importance then and then there's more empires it often serves their cities and serves their empires rather than being important in and of itself but those are two examples of that what about modern alexandria that's what i like from your book it's clear that it's not just the street plan that endures there are characteristics there's a feel in the city, which does hark back to its founding principles. The difficulty is so much of the ancient city is absent. Some of it is under the city, physically under the city.

Some of it is in the depths of the ocean. But I think there's something about the name, believe it or not, that just reminds people of how old the city is and who the founder is. There are multiple periods present in it. So you might find a Roman theater on one corner and, you know, a Mamluk mosque on another corner. So there's an expansive period of history in Alexandria as well. There's something of a unique character. So in the same way that it was called Alexandria by Egypt

at the beginning, not in Egypt, in the same way that many people during the early centuries saw it as slightly separate to Egypt, and then Greeks saw it as separate to Greece. And the Jews of Jerusalem, they saw the Jews of Alexandria to be these liberal Jews who, to quote, were more interested in theater than the synagogue. So Alexandria is always being a kind of odd one out. And I think that still remains.

Alexandrians today have their own cultural traditions that are quite different to other mediterranean locations to the rest of egypt to the arab region alexandria's still got those unique moments you know um so for example on the new year as it turns midnight alexandrians throw pottery and throw glass out of their windows and balconies and you can just hear it echoing around the city until today you know that's something that alexandrians do on the new year and that comes from a jewish and greek and hellenistic tradition so there are these kind of quirks that you do feel that alexandria

is quite different alexandrians today will refer to cairo as egypt you know they don't say cairo they say egypt so yeah there is something about still in the air for sure. And I should ask, when's the last time we knew where Alexander was buried? Will he be unearthed one day by archaeologists in Alexandria or was his tomb looted and stolen? The fascinating thing is that so many Roman rulers visit Alexander's too, one after the other. And then suddenly, it stops. Even his people know not where he is, writes Strabo. So there's a sudden moment where people just seem to lose sight of where he is. And could that be because it was so obvious that it didn't need to be recorded? Or is it that it was lost to time? It's a real mystery. But the thing is, Alexandrians do have their own theories. So if you walk around Alexandria today, people will have local legends

about where Alexander is. Many think he's near the Prophet Daniel Street, which is a lovely street because it has a big mosque mosque a big church and a big synagogue all on one road there are people who think it's near the roman ruins that had been found under the ground and there are small wall paintings of alexander as well in some of the areas so people have theories about it and i'm sitting at cafes during the research process I heard so many theories about where Alexander is buried Alexandrians will tell you yes he's still there but where well I mean it's a similar question to the Patron and Anthony's too as well it sounds like a very nice research process buddy sitting in delicious cafes watching the world go by as sophisticated Alexandrians

chat about the possible whereabouts of the founder. Now, tell everyone what the book is called. It's Alexandria, the city that changed the world. Nice. Good luck with it, Islam. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you so much. you