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.
THE VISIT TO AMMON
It was now for the first time that the Macedonians became acquainted with the face of the Libyan desert—its pathless sands, naked rocks, burning sky, and delusive images. That the journey should have furnished numberless stories for the entertainment of the camp, may easily be supposed. It is more difficult to understand how Alexander could have been at a loss for guides well acquainted with the way, as both Ptolemy and Aristobulus represented—though the one related that the perplexity of the wanderers was relieved by two great serpents, which pointed out the track, and were heard even when they could not be seen; the others described two ravens as performing the same office. Whether these are mere fictions of an idle fancy, or cover some fact which we are not able to ascertain, it is hardly worth while to inquire.[23] That the army was refreshed with the extraordinary occurrence of a shower of rain, in which it saw a manifest interposition of the gods, cannot reasonably be doubted. At length it descended safely into the green, well-watered, and richly cultivated valley, where, embosomed in thick woods, stood, within the same enclosure, the palace of the ancient priestly kings, and close by the temple of Ammon.
It was a visit such as Ammon had probably never before received, and the priests no doubt did their utmost, both to welcome the royal pilgrim with due honours, and to impress him with the highest veneration for their oracle. It was not, it seems, always in the temple itself that answers were given. The god chose the place of his revelations for himself. His visible symbol, a round disc formed of precious stones, was placed in a golden ship, from which, on each side, hung sacred vessels of silver; and borne on the shoulders of eighty priests, attended by a train of virgins and matrons, who accompanied the procession with sacred chants, in which they implored a propitious and certain answer, according to the secret impulse of the deity which directed their steps. By such a procession Alexander seems to have been met, as he approached at the head of his army, and to have been conducted into the temple, where his questions were answered by the chief priest. What these questions and answers were, was perhaps never known to any but the interlocutors. It is indeed in itself by no means improbable that the priest saluted him as a hero of divine origin, and promised him the empire of the world: the address would not have been more flattering, nor the prophecy bolder, than those which the Greek oracles, less safe from exposure, had sometimes ventured on. But it is well attested that Alexander did not, at least at the time, disclose what he had heard; but merely declared to his followers that he had received such answers as he had desired, and showed his satisfaction by his offerings and donations.