Alexandret′ta, or Iskanderoon (ancient Alexandria ad Issum), a small seaport in Asia Minor, on the Gulf of Iskanderoon, the port of Aleppo and Northern Syria. Named after Alexander the Great, and founded in memory of the battle of Issus. In 1832 Mehemet Ali won a victory over the Turks near Alexandretta. There is a large export and import trade. It was occupied by British and French troops in Nov., 1918. Pop. 10,000.
Alexan′dria, an ancient city and seaport in Egypt, at the north-west angle of the Nile delta, on a ridge of land between the sea and Lake Mareotis. Ancient Alexandria was founded by, and named in honour of, Alexander the Great, in 332 B.C., and was long a great and splendid city, the centre of commerce between the east and west, as well as of Greek learning and civilization, with a population at one time of perhaps 1,000,000. It was especially celebrated for its great library, and also for its famous lighthouse, one of the wonders of the world, standing upon the little island of Pharos, which was connected with the city by a mole. Under Roman rule it was the second city of the empire, and when Constantinople became the capital of the East it still remained the chief centre of trade; but it received a blow from which it never recovered when captured by Amru, general of Caliph Omar, in 641, after a siege of fourteen months. Its ruin was finally completed by the building of Cairo (969) and the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope (1498) which opened up a new route for the Asiatic trade. See Alexandrian Library, Alexandrian School.—Modern Alexandria stands partly on what was formerly the island of Pharos, partly on the peninsula which now connects it with the mainland and which was formed by the accumulation of soil, and partly on the mainland. The streets in the Turkish quarter are narrow, dirty, and irregular; in the foreign quarter they are regular and wide, and it is here that the finest houses are situated. Here also are the principal shops and hotels, banks, offices of companies, &c.; this part of the city being supplied with gas, and with water brought by the Mahmudieh Canal from the western branch of the Nile. Alexandria is connected by railway with Cairo, Rosetta, and Suez. A little to the south of the city are the catacombs, which now serve as a quarry. Another relic of antiquity is Pompey's Pillar, 98 feet 9 inches high. Alexandria has two ports, on the east and west respectively of the isthmus of the Pharos peninsula, the latter having a breakwater over 3000 yards in length, with fine quays and suitable railway and other accommodation. The trade of Alexandria is large and varied, the exports being cotton, beans, pease, rice, wheat, &c.; the imports chiefly manufactured goods, machinery, timber, and coal. The origin of its more recent career of prosperity it owes to Mohammed Ali. In 1882 the insurrection of Arabi Pasha and the massacre of Europeans led to the intervention of the British, and the bombardment of the forts by the British fleet in July. The administrative district has an area of 19 sq. miles; pop. 444,617 (or 23,401 per square mile).
Alexandria, a town and port of the United States, in Virginia, on the right bank of the Potomac (which is of sufficient depth for large vessels), 7 miles south of Washington, carries on a considerable trade, chiefly in flour. Pop. (1920), 18,060.
Alexandria, a town of Scotland, in Dumbartonshire, on the Leven, 4 miles north of Dumbarton, with extensive cotton-printing and bleaching works. Pop. 9850.
Alexandria, a town of the Ukraine, in the former Russian government of Kherson, on a tributary of the Dnieper. Pop. 10,521.
Alexandrian Library, the largest and most famous of all the ancient collections of books, founded by Ptolemy Soter (died 283 B.C.), King of Egypt, and greatly enlarged by succeeding Ptolemies. The first librarian was Zenodotus (234 B.C.). At its most flourishing period it is said to have numbered 700,000 volumes, accommodated in two different buildings, one of them being the Serapeion, or temple of Jupiter Serapis. The other collection was burned during Julius Cæsar's siege of the city, but the Serapeion library existed to the time of the Emperor Theodosius the Great, when, at the general destruction of the heathen temples, the splendid temple of Jupiter Serapis was gutted (A.D. 391) by a fanatical crowd of Christians, and its literary treasures destroyed or scattered. A library was again accumulated, but was burned by the Arabs when they captured the city under the caliph Omar in 641. Amru, the captain of the caliph's army, would have been willing to spare the library, but Omar is said to have disposed of the matter in the famous words: "If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed". This story, however, which rests solely on the authority of Abulfaragius, a writer who lived six centuries later, is now generally discredited.
Alexandrian School or Age, the school or period of Greek literature and learning that existed at Alexandria in Egypt during the three
hundred years that the rule of the Ptolemies lasted (323-30 B.C.), and continued under the Roman supremacy. Ptolemy Soter founded the famous library of Alexandria (see above) and his son, Philadelphus, established a kind of academy of sciences and arts. Many scholars and men of genius were thus attracted to Alexandria, and a period of literary activity set in, which made Alexandria for long the focus and centre of Greek culture and intellectual effort. It must be admitted, however, that originality was not a characteristic of the Alexandrian age, which was stronger in criticism, grammar, and science than in pure literature. Among the grammarians and critics were Zenodotus, Eratosthenes, Aristophanes, Aristarchus, and Zoilus, proverbial as a captious critic. Their merit is to have collected, edited, and preserved the existing monuments of Greek literature. To the poets belong Apollonius, Lycophron, Aratus, Nicander, Euphorion, Callimachus, Theocritus, Philetas, &c. Among those who pursued mathematics, physics, and astronomy was Euclid, the father of scientific geometry; Archimedes, great in physics and mechanics; Apollonius of Perga, whose work on conic sections still exists; Nicomachus, the first scientific arithmetician; and (under the Romans) the astronomer and geographer Ptolemy. Alexandria also was distinguished in philosophical speculation, and it was here that the New Platonic school was established by Ammonius of Alexandria (about A.D. 193), whose disciples were Plotinus and Origen. Being for the most part Orientals, formed by the study of Greek learning, the writings of the New Platonists are strikingly characterized—for example, those of Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Iamblicus, Porphyrius—by a mixture of Asiatic and European elements. The connection of Neo-Platonism with Alexandria is, however, less than is commonly supposed.—Bibliography: Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought from the Age of Alexander to the Roman Empire; Kingsley, Alexandria and her Schools; Vacherot, Histoire critique de l'école d'Alexandrie (3 vols.).
Alexandrian Version. See Codex Alexandrinus.
Alexandrine, in prosody, the name given, from an old French poem on Alexander the Great, to a species of verse, which consists of six iambic feet, or twelve syllables, the pause being, in correct Alexandrines, always on the sixth syllable; for example, the second of the following verses:—