The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04

by Unknown

ALEXANDER IN EGYPT

The sieges of Tyre and Gaza, occupying together nine months, were, says Grote, the hardest fighting that Alexander ever encountered.[21]

The siege of Gaza had occupied, it seems, three or four months; and it was perhaps not before December 332, that Alexander began his expedition to Egypt. Here he might safely reckon not merely on an easy conquest, but on an ardent reception, from a people who burned to shake off the Persian tyranny, and had even welcomed and supported the adventurer Amyntas. Mazaces himself, as soon as he heard of the battle of Issus, became aware that all resistance to Alexander would be useless, and met him with a voluntary submission. At Pelusium he found the fleet, and having left a garrison in the fortress, ordered it to proceed up the Nile as far as Memphis, while he marched across the desert. Near Heliopolis he crossed the river, and joined the fleet at Memphis. Here he conciliated the Egyptians by the honours which he paid to all their gods, especially to Apis, who had been so cruelly insulted by the Persian invaders; but at the same time he exhibited a new spectacle to the natives—a musical and gymnastic contest, for which he had collected the most celebrated artists from all parts of Greece. He then embarked, and dropt down the western or Canopic arm of the river to Canopus, to survey the extremity of the Delta on that side; and having sailed round the lake Mareotis, landed on the narrow belt of low ground which parts it from the sea, and is sheltered from the violence of the northern gales, which would otherwise desolate and overwhelm it, by a long ridge of rock, then separated from the main land by a channel, nearly a mile (seven stadia) broad, and forming the isle of Pharos. On this site stood the village of Racotis, where the ancient kings of Egypt had stationed a permanent guard to protect this entrance of their dominions from adventurers, especially Greeks, who might visit it for the sake either of plunder or commerce; while for greater security they granted the adjacent district to a pastoral tribe, which regarded all strangers as enemies.

Alexander’s keen eye was immediately struck by the advantages of this position for a city, which should become a great emporium of commerce, and a link between the East and the West—one of the great objects which already occupied his mind—while it secured the possession of Egypt to his empire, and transmitted the name of its founder to distant ages. He immediately gave orders for the beginning of the work, himself traced the outline, which was suggested by the natural features of the ground itself,[22] and marked the sites of some of the principal buildings, squares, palaces, and temples. The two main streets, which intersected each other at right angles in a great public place, one traversing the whole length of the city, and forming a series of magnificent edifices, provided for health and enjoyment by a free current of air; and the inundations of the Nile secured it from the pernicious effects which would otherwise have arisen from the vicinity of the lake. A causeway connected the island—on which it is said Alexander at first thought of building the city—with the main, and divided the intervening basin into two harbours, which were only joined together by a canal near either end. By the continual accumulation of sand, this isthmus has been so enlarged that it now forms the site of the modern Alexandria. Still there were two defects to counterbalance so many advantages of situation. The harbour was on both sides difficult of entrance, and there was no other within a great distance either on the east or the west. This inconvenience could never be wholly remedied, though the danger of the approach from the sea was afterwards much lessened by the erection of a magnificent beacon-tower, on a rock, near the eastern point of Pharos, which threw out its light to the distance, it is said, of nearly forty miles. The other defect was the want of water; and for this ample provision was made by a new canal, branching from the Nile, which brought a constant supply into the cisterns over which the houses were built. Yet Alexandria was thus placed at the mercy of every enemy who could make himself master of the canal and deprive it of a main necessary of life. It was a part of Alexander’s plan to people the city with a mixed colony of Greeks and Egyptians, in which the prejudices of the two races might be effaced by habitual intercourse, though Grecian arts and manners were to give their character to the whole; and therefore, among the temples of the Grecian gods, he ordered one to be founded for the worship of Isis.

[331 B.C.]

Greek Jug

A favourable omen is said to have afforded a presage of the prosperity which awaited the new city. When he was about to trace the course of the walls, no chalk was at hand for the purpose, and it was found necessary instead to make use of flour, which soon attracted a large flock of birds from all sides to devour it. Aristander—who was never at a loss—construed this incident as a sign of the abundance which the city should enjoy and diffuse. That indeed probably far exceeded its founder’s most sanguine hopes; but still less could he have foreseen or calculated all the elements of a new intellectual life, which were to be there combined, and the influence which it was to exert over the opinions and condition of a great part of the world.

He was still thus engaged when Hegelochus arrived with the news that the Persians had been dislodged from the last holds of their power in the Ægean. Tenedos had revolted from them, as soon as it became sure of Macedonian protection. At Chios the democratical party had risen against the government established by the Persian satraps, and had taken Pharnabazus himself prisoner: and soon after Aristonicus, the tyrant of Methymna, having sailed into the harbour, before he had heard of the recent revolution, with some pirate ships, fell into their hands. The crews were all put to death; he himself, together with the oligarchical leaders, who had betrayed the city to the Persians, was sent to Alexander to receive his sentence. Mytilene, too, where Chares, the Athenian general, commanded the garrison, had been forced to capitulate, and the whole of Lesbos had been recovered. Hegelochus had likewise left his colleague Amphoterus in possession of Cos, which the islanders had freely surrendered. There Pharnabazus had made his escape; but he had brought the other prisoners with him, among whom, beside Aristonicus, were several tyrants who had ruled under Persian patronage. These Alexander abandoned to the mercy of the cities which they had governed, and they all suffered a cruel death; the Chians, as both enemies and traitors, he sent under a strong guard to a wretched exile in the stifling island prison of Elephantine.

He was now on the confines of Egypt and Libya. In the region which lay not many days’ march to the west, as some Greek legends told, Hercules and Perseus had pursued their marvellous adventures: both, it was believed, had consulted the oracle of Ammon in the heart of the Libyan wilderness. Alexander may have been desirous of emulating the achievements of his two heroic ancestors; or, if he had not heard of them, might still have been attracted by the celebrity of the oracle, and by the difficulty of reaching it. That he was impelled by curiosity about its answers, is very doubtful; but it is highly probable that he did not overlook the advantage which he might derive from them, however they might run, and the mysterious dignity with which the expedition itself might invest him in the eyes of his subjects. If however to these motives for the enterprise it should be thought necessary to add any others of a more intelligible policy, it might be conjectured that he also wished to impress Cyrene with respect for his power, and to show that even her secluded situation did not place her beyond the reach of his arms. On his march to Parætonium he was met at about midway by envoys from Cyrene, who brought a crown and other magnificent presents. After a march of about two hundred miles along the coast—perhaps nearly as far as the eastern frontier of the territory of Tripoli—he appears to have taken the direction toward the southeast, which leads, in five or six days for a private caravan, to the oasis.