Alexandria:

Fraser>
There are indeed signs that the site of Alexandria was not virgin when alexander looked upon
it. Strabo says that the pharaohns had utilized it as a guard-post to prevent the importation of
foreign goods and the entry of merchants: “content with what they had, and with no real need
of imports, they were hostle towards all who sailed to their shores, and particularly the greeks
(for the were pirates and desirious of foreign land through their own lack of it): and they
established a guard-post in this place, with the order to repel all comers” (p5)

STRABO
“and it seemed to him that the site was a the very best to in which to found a city, and that the
city would prosper. A longing for the task seized it, and he personally stablish the main point
of the city –where the agora should be constructed, and how many temples there should
be and of which gods, those of the Greek gods and of Egyptian Isis- and what the course
of the city wall should be.” Iii.I.I 5
Acording to Fraser the motives of alexander were commercial prospertity.

DIODORUS SICULUS
XVI.16.66He decided to found a great city in Egypt, and gave orders to the men left behind with this mission to
build the city between the marsh and the sea. He laid out the site and traced the streets skillfully and ordered that the
city should be called after him Alexandria. It was conveniently situated near the harbor of Pharos, and by selecting
the right angle of the streets, Alexander made the city breathe with the etesian winds so that as these blow across a
great expanse of sea, they cool the air of the town, and so he provided its inhabitants with a moderate climate and
good health. Alexander also laid out the walls so that they were at once exceedingly large and marvelously strong.
Lying between a great marsh and the sea, it affords by land only two approaches, both narrow and very easily
blocked.

In shape, it is similar to a chlamys, and it is approximately331/0 B.C.bisected by an avenue remarkable for its size
and beauty. From gate to gate it runs a distance of forty furlongs; it is a plethron2 in width, and is bordered throughout
its length with rich façades of houses and temples. Alexander gave orders to build a palace notable for its size and
massiveness. And not only Alexander, but those who after him ruled Egypt down to our own time, with few
exceptions have enlarged this with lavish additions. The city in general has grown so much in later times that many
reckon it to be the first city of the civilized world, and it is certainly far ahead of all the rest in elegance and extent
and riches and luxury. The number of its inhabitants surpasses that of those in other cities. At the time when we were
in Egypt, those who kept the census returns of the population said that its free residents were more than three hundred
thousand,3 and that the king received from the revenues of the country more than six thousand talents.
However, that may be, King Alexander charged certain of his Friends with the construction of Alexandria,
settled all the affairs of Egypt, and returned with his army to Syria.

XX. 53.1.4 Ptolemy, however, not at all humbled in spirit by his defeat, also assumed the diadem and always
signed himself king. (Ca. 305/304)

Alexander was assisted in the project by Cleomenes of Naucratis, alexander’s first governor of
Egypt, and Deinocrates of Rodhes (architect)
Para las bondades del lugar y del clima Strab. 793

Acheology unfortunately neither confirms nor refutes this tradition as a whole. Remains of the
period before the foundation of the Greek city are scanty< if they exist at all. Substantial
remains of breakwaters, quays and harbor installations in the open sea to the north and west of
Pharos island, which evidently formed part of a large and highly complex harbor< are earlier
than the foundation of the city, but their historical context remains extremely obscure” (p6)
“it seemed, however, clear that the city was already functioning as the center of Egyptian
administration very soon after its foundation. (p6)

Documents from Egypt referring to Alexandria, evidently at the time a fully developed city,
begin in the middle of the reign of Philadelphus see especially PHal1 (Dikaiomata) containing
legislation affecting the city of the after part of the reign NOTE 23
Coinage commenced after 323, when alexander had already disposed of cleomenes. (esto
confirma que desde le primer momento la ciudad fue concebida con un propósito
guvernamental y official, pues no tendria sentido establecer una casa de la moneda para una
ciudad en la que no iba a residir. Alexandria se convirtioen capital official no later than 320/319

Alexandria is not a city such as Rome or Constantinople, which has been continuously
inhabited since antiquity. On the contrary, even within living memory much of the area east of
the Great Harbor consisted of sand dunes, and certainly the whole central part of the city,
embracing the harbor area, was far more populous in Antiquity than in any period before the
late nineteenth century. (P8)

BUSCAR URGENTE PHILO> DE OFFICIO MUNDI 17-18

III 1.5Arrian in his tale of the founding of Alexandria not only accords with Diodorus (of
whom surely must have taken as source), saying that Alexander “mark out where the city’s
marketplace was to be built, how many temples there were to be and the gods, some greek and
Isis the Egyptian, for whom they were to be erected, and where the wall was to be built round
it”
Arrianocontradice dos veces la version que da Ptolomy I, son of Lagos, first with the serpent
in direction to the temple of the god that Alexander was going to consult, and then with the
return from that same journey. He says that Aristobulos has a different story and that he does
not know what the truth is.
III 5.7 “it is said that he divided the government of Egypt between many officers and defensibly
of the country and did not think it safe to entrust the command of all Egypt to one man”.
STRABO xvii 1, 6-7
sTRABO 793 (xvii I 8-10
Strabo Book XVII
,Account of Alexandrian topography 5, 7, 11-37, 41, 137,
On the body of alexander 15 II 31 n.79

“The whole city is divided by streets for horsemen and for chariots, two of which are
particularly wide, being more than a plethon [i.e. one hundred feet] in width, and intersecting
each other at right angles.
The true orientation and line of this main thoroughfare have been much disputed and remain
uncertain. 793-4$8
Strabo’s version of events is perhaps not correct in all details, but it seems likely that we may
accept his statement that is was Soter who buried Alexander in Alexandria, in preference to
those versions that attribute this act to Philadelphus. (15-16)
The mausoleum was evidently still standing, and an object of much reverence, in the reign of
Caracalla, and was probably destroyed, along with the rest of the “Palaces’” area , in the
disturbances of the time of Aurelian, in or about 273. (16)
IMPORTANCIA DE LA TUMBA DE ALEXANDER EN LA CONSTRUCCION Y
FUNDACION DE LA CIUDAD: DA LEGITIMIDAD COMO CAPITAL
IMPORTANTE DEL IMPERIO PTOLOMAICO
In contrast to Strabo, a persisten Arab tradition linked a site in the center of the modern city
with the tomb of Alexander. Early travelers pointed out in the center of the town, and a tradition
developed that the site of the tomb was in the Rue Nebi Daniel, on the wstern slope of the hill
sometimes called Kom el Demas (The Hill of the Bodies or The hill of the Burrials) (16) en el
s xx se termino de comprobar la falsedad de la hipotesis
The fame of Pharos, known since Homeric times as the home of Proteus, the ever-changing
sea-god, and the scene of his worhip (17)
Pharos severely damage on 956 AD earthquake and 1303
We have much earlier evidence than either of these authors in the epigram composed by
Posidippus(during the reign of Ptolomy II) to celebrate the erection or completion of the
Pharos, in the form of an incovation to Proteus, the Hero of the Island. (18)
ESTE ES EL EPIGRAMA:
As a saviour of Greeks, this watchman of Pharos, O Lord Proteus, was erected by Sostratus, son of
Dexiphanes, from Cnidus. For in Egypt there are no lookout posts on a mountain, as in the islands, but low
lies the breakwater where ships take harbor. Therefore this tower, in a straight and upright line, appears to
cleave the sky from countless stadia away, during the day, but throughout the night quickly a sailor on the
waves will see a great fire blazing from its summit. And he may even run to the Bull’s horn, and not miss
Zeus the Saviour, O Proteus, whosoever sails this way.

The date of the erection of the Patos also raises difficulties. The entry in the Suda says that it was built when
Pyrrhus took over the dinasty of Epirus. This statement is probably reliable, since the mere association of
Pyrrhus with the building of the Pharos suggestes that the statement comes eventually from an Alexandrian
chronological source: the return of Pyrrhus to Epirus in 297. (…) there are difficulties in either view, and
the question is best left open, but in any case the Pharos is certainly one of the earliest Alexandrian buildings
of which we know. (20)

HEPTASTADION>The dike joining the island of Pharos to the mainland.

DIOLKOS> The slipway for ships.
Destroyed by JC, had aqueducts that latter fall on disuse.

JC Bellum civile III 112.8

Polybius refers to a theater on the skirt of the hill where the palaces were, but do no comment
nor describes it. (23)

CHAPTER II

Notes 4, 5, 12 on phraty and distribution of population. There are papyrus from 265BC that
describes the distribution of population
Phraty appears to be the smallest subdivision of groups of population (then demes, then tribes)
it is 1/12 of demes, and each demes is 1/60 of tribes.
“the deme itself on this hypothesis constituted that part of the citizen-body of Alexandria
comprised within a sixtieth part of the area, but of course, though territorial in this sense , the
whole system concerned only demesmen who lived (or were hereditarily registered as living)
within on such area, in which they might well be a minority. (p41)

The Founder himself synoecized the inhabitants of a wide region into the city, but this
sunoecism, if historical, was physical, and not merely constitutional –that is, the inhabitants of
the area are said to have taken up residence in the new city- and is to be distinguished from the
subsequent assignment of territory here under discussion (p41)

FIND NOTE 19
CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD VII

(118) From the time of Ptolemy I Soter at the moment of writing this note (January 1980) I know of
only two certainly dated Greek papyri, and some six scraps, to which should be added some thirty
private documents in demotic Egyptian. The first ten years of Ptolemy II are also blank. A trickle of
texts commences in the late 270s B.C.; from about 259 B.C. it becomes a flood which lasts down to
about215 B.C. Thereafter there is comparative poverty till the middle of the second century.

(119) Greek papyri about the Ptolemies (in the Prosopograpbia Ptolemaica, for instance, or F. Uebel's
monumental lists of cleruchs). But the analysis of these 'facts' is still only in the preliminary stage.

Diod. xvm.39.5 and 43.1 (in the latter passage Perdiccas is specially mentioned).

Squillace, G (2010) Alexander the Great, Ptolomy I and the offerings of Arms to Athena
Lindia on After Alexander. The time of the Diadochi (323-281BC)
After Alexander’s death, the Diadochi consistency used the theme of Greek freedom for
propagandistic aims presenting themselves as champions of Greek freedom. Specially
Antigonus, Demetrius and Ptolomy transformed the power struggle into an “ideological war”.
According to Diodorus, in 315 Antigonus in Tyre [today Lebanon] issued a decree in which he
declared all the Greeks free, without garrisons and autonomous. He did this because he hoped
to obtain the support of the Greeks in the war against Cassander. When Ptolomy heard of
Antigonus’ decree, he issued his own version the same year. He wanted to make clear to the
Greeks that he, no less than Antigonus, cared about their autonomy. Both kings –Diodorus
concludes (Diod. XIX 62.2)- tried to obtain the benevolence of the Greeks.

AUSTIN

15
(33C) When King Alexander offered him to found a city near the island of Pharos and to move
to it the commercial port (emporion) which till then was allocated at Canopus, Cleomenes
sailed to Canppus and told the priest and the local landowners that he had come to make them
move their residence. The priests and the settlers collected money and gave ir to him to get his
permission to keep the commercial port on the spot. On that occasion, Cleomenes took the
money and went away. Later, when the construction of the new city was completes, he return
and asked them for an exorbitant sum of money: this amounted to the difference e required to
avoid changing the location of the port. But when they said they could not afford it, he forced
them to move. [Aristotle Oeconomica II 2.33a-c]

McKENZIE

The city had purpose-building public buildings for Greek entertainment in use early in the reign
of Ptolomy II. Gymnastic, equestrian and musical contest were held by 279/8 BC
In the racecourse, the Lagion, which was both a hippodrome (for chariot racing) and stadium
(for athletics). There were gramatic festivals in the great Theatre by7 276/271 BC. The agora,
a distinguish feature of the Greek cities, is attested by the mid-thrid century, and was a market
place and focal point of civuc life. Ptolomy II was responsible for the main development of the
facilities for the city’s intellectual life: the museum and the Library. Although the palace had a
peristyle court in the Greek tradition, the erection of his famous banqueting tent was in eastern
tradition (as seen both in Egypt and Persia)
The use of Egyptian and Greek features together on buildings in the city appears during the
reign of Ptolomy II Philadelphus. This is most obvious in the royal cult temples in honour of
his wife Arsinoe. The arsineion had a single obelisk erected in it. The obelisk is Egyptian, but
use of it alone, rather than in a pair is new, beginning a costum which was continued by romans
and still seen in cities today. (33)

Death of Cleomenes in Pau. Description of Greece I.34

Depiction of the caravan that brought the body of Alexander in Diod. 18.26 I-18.28.2 Strabo
Geography 17.1.8

Callimacus attests that the walls were standing (310-240) Iambus 1 line 9 “it is possible that
this first set of walls could have been constructed of mudbrick, like the substantial walls around
Egyptian temple enclosures. Mudbrick fortification walls, which are apparently Ptolemaic,
survive elsewhere in Egypt and mudbrick on stone socle was sometimes used in greek
fortifications”

What is P.Halle I.215???

“A papyrys recording the city law of Alexandria in the mid-third century BC, includes tye
penalty for crimes commited while drunk in an agora, as double the normal penalty” (presence
of the agora by mid-third BC)

Theocritus Idilio 17
390 in Austin

The procession of Ptolemy II described in considerable detail by Athenaeus, passed through

the city stadium in mid-winter 275-274 (Deipnosophistae 5.197c-203b)

Herodas I an old lady visits a young one and asks he why had she not seen her, the anwers is
that the young is still waiting for her lover. The old one says that 10 months has passed and
that the lover, who is in Alexandria probably found a new love in the beautiful city.

Plutarch indicates that the museum in Alexandria was established by Ptolomy I soter, whose
advisor was Demetrius of Phalerum whom had ruled Athens.