Alexandria

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. This episode was first released in February 2024. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore. You can sign up to watch Dan and Dr Michael Livingston's documentary series on Magna Carta on https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 0:32Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the best one yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalised AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 1:12Dan Snow?

  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, 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,

• 1:53Dan Snow?

  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.

• 2:18Dan Snow?

  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. 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.

• 3:01Dan Snow?

  He's just written a book, Alexandria, The City That Changed The World. Let's hear from him. Enjoy.

• 3:28Dan Snow?

  Islam, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  I'm very excited to be here.

• 3:32Dan Snow?

  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?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  I think when Alexander arrived at this location, it was probably an anticlimax. There was an island there that was uninhabited, Pharos 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

• 4:23Speaker 02

  created when he arrived and realised that it had potential.

• 4:27Dan Snow?

  Do you have a sense of where the ancient Pharaoh, presumably they had a big port at the mouth of the Nile, was it where Demietta is now, or a little bit further to the east? Or does 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?

• 4:45Speaker 02

  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 in 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

• 5:28Speaker 02

  part of it is also an ambition to control what is not just geographically well-positioned place, but a place that has a long history and a reputation and its own traditions and cultures.

• 5:43Dan Snow?

  Because that's what really comes across with Alexander, 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?

• 5:53Speaker 02

  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.

• 6:06Dan Snow?

  So the island of Pharos is mentioned?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  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 loud the billows roar, Pharos 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

• 6:49Speaker 02

  already which helps him in that quest. But I do think Alexandria is unique in its founding in that 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,

• 7:34Speaker 02

  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.

• 7:52Dan Snow?

  Yeah, I love that. That's such an interesting insight that it was a place 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.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Yes, it's the intersection of the continents. It's a crossroads through which the Hellenistic world can connect with the, particularly with the treasures of Asia and Persia. It's uniquely connected to Africa via the Nile, the Levant and Euruk via the Mediterranean, obviously, and then Arabia and India through the Red Sea. So Alexandria can be 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 Hellenise in the way that might have been expected at that time.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  I think he chooses rather to harmonise. 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 and of how to build a population. Because the first thing you need when you create a city from scratch is people as well.

• 9:22Dan Snow?

  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, that city that bears his name, one of his most famous legacies. He's there for what, a couple of months?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  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 seawater 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 over excited and leaves, but his stamp on it, his stamp on the city is present through these legends.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  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, Aristotle, Aristotle's taught by Plato, Plato's taught by Socrates. I mean, that that is quite the line of teachers.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  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.

• 11:13Dan Snow?

  Islam, can I ask, is there any of that original street plan or planning visible in your native city today?

• 11:19Speaker 02

  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.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  And that's probably what's felt today from that initial design because it's at the same angle.

• 12:10Dan Snow?

  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.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the population is obviously something that's intended to be. So I'd say two things in the very early design confirm this. The first is the systems. So the fact that they really sorted a whole sewage system immediately suggests that they wanted people to live there. And the second, spaced also on Hippodamus's urban planning, which Aristotle and the engineer Denocritis, who was charged with building Alexandria, believed in, was the 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.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  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 moslem around it. So it's got this attraction. But also the creation of Serapis as a unifying god. So the Ptolemies bring this amalgam

• 13:53Speaker 02

  of a god who's Greek or 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, uh, many people working on the harbour, many people working in 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

• 14:32Speaker 02

  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 centre, it's also a transport hub where people can transit in between travelling east and west.

• 14:46Dan Snow?

  And although it doesn't appear to be all Sunday uplands, it's a place where different nationalities and ethnicities seem to be able to.

• 14:56Dan Snow?

  Carve a path through life with perhaps slightly less interference, they might have gone another places.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, as far as 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 favour of that because it means that people can say what they want and do what they want for the large part. And as you've mentioned, the population increases by the first century B.C. 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

• 15:43Speaker 02

  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.

• 15:57Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's history hit, The Best Is Yet To Come. Stick with us.

• 16:06Dan Snow?

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• 16:48Dan Snow?

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• 17:33Dan Snow?

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• 18:00Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 18:34Speaker 03

  After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 19:13Dan Snow?

  Let's do the lighthouse. What was it about this lighthouse that was one of the wonders of the world?

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, it's really tall. I mean, it's potentially the tallest or second tallest manmade 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. 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.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  It shows that this is a powerful dynasty, the Ptolemais. And it shows that people, as they come into the city, they can follow that Alexandrian dream as the Pharos lighthouse, it was called, rises majestically. So at least 100 metres tall, some narrations put it around 117, 135 metres. It's white limestone, so it reflects the light. And like I said, it costs a huge amount of money. 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.

• 20:39Dan Snow?

  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, you talked 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?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  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 there. 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 the first, and then it's followed by Ptolemy the second and third. They hire Demetrius, who has to found the city. He's a former Athenian governor.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  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, then knowledge equals power. And they build a museum adjacent to the library, which is a kind of research centre where the scholars are free to stay. They 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.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  They go to great measures and lengths in order to do so. By the first century B.C., 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.

• 22:43Dan Snow?

  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.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Well, she's the greatest female philosopher of her generation. She is interested in renewing and analysing the early mathematicians of Alexandria. And she takes a very public role of philosopher. So philosopher at the time in Alexandria isn't just somebody who sits in a room and philosophises alone. No, 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 Hypatia is that she appears to time when Christianity is spreading in Alexandria and when there's some Serious doubts placed on the philosophy, what would have been termed pagan philosophy.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  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.

• 23:55Dan Snow?

  I love Ptolemy, the geographer, second century A D, was he working?

• 23:59Speaker 02

  He was, and he had some really fascinating notes where he says things like, you know, I wouldn't want to be anywhere but Alexandria. 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 well versed on geography, as we well know, but also on music, for example. So he advanced the sort of science of music. So a lot of these scholars like back Ptolemy 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.

• 24:38Dan Snow?

  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 are so extraordinary. Then we've got Euclid. Euclid, it's math and geometry.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  If it's interesting in the sense that he was very early, so he's before Hypatia and Ptolemy. He arrives in the city within a decade of its founding. He writes books outlining the basics of geometry. He writes the elements, which was a thirteen volume work. And there was a key textbook for those studying mathematics until maybe about a hundred years ago. And interestingly, that because the library and its research centre were state endeavours, 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.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  And Euclid's interesting because Ptolemy the first, 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 the 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 Elements? And there's the famous reply from Uplid, which is there is no royal road to geometry. I think 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.

• 26:07Dan Snow?

  Let's finish off the library sadly, literally. Is there one catastrophic moment where the library is destroyed or did it just get run down?

• 26:15Speaker 02

  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 odd 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 endeavour, in some ways we could say the same about our current situation.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  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 it symbolically, that does start in the first century B.C. when Julius Caesar sets fire to the city.

• 27:41Dan Snow?

  Caesar's trying to conquer the Ptolemaic kingdom, is he? Or he's marched in there with um? Intent to expand the empire.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  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 thirties. The Ptolemies bring it on themselves to some extent because they borrow money from the Romans, especially Cleopatra, the famous Cleopatra, the seventh, her father Ptolemy the twelfth. They borrow a lot of money from Rome and they put collateral on that. It was Ptolemy the tenth 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, but then Ptolemy the twelfth borrows a lot of money from Rome as well.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  And so Caesar actually says, because Ptolemy the twelfth 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 the tenth had done. So that's how the Ptolemies kind of brought it on themselves. And then in forty eight B.C., the Romans then attack Alexandria and Cleopatra signs with Caesar against her brother and sister in that particular occasion.

• 29:03Dan Snow?

  And her love affair with Caesar, or anyway, her relationship, begins in the city, does it?

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Legend has it that she gets unfurled into the palace where Caesar is. So Caesar, when he arrives in Alexandria, makes himself at home in Edioli 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 Harle of forty eight B.C., 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 Caesarion, who's little Caesar, her son from Julius Caesar.

• 29:52Dan Snow?

  As Alexandria is then absorbed into really big empires, Rome, the Eastern Roman Empire, so continuation of the Roman Empire, and then the early Islamic empires, does it decline in importance in those bigger units?

• 30:07Speaker 02

  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 the Nile separating, you know, Mecca and the Red Sea separating Mecca from Alexandria, so it's quite a distance.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  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 as 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.

• 31:15Dan Snow?

  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 as a feel in the city which does hark back to its sort of founding principles, really.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  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 theatre on one corner and, you know, a Mamluk mosque on another corner. So there's an expansive period of history in Alexandria as well.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  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, and 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 theatre than the synagogue." So Alexandria has always been 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.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  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, and they don't say Cairo, they say Egypt. So yeah, there is something of that still in the air for sure.

• 33:24Dan Snow?

  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?

• 33:36Speaker 02

  And the fascinating thing is that so many Roman rulers visit Alexander's tomb, 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 Alexander is. Many think he's near the Prophet Daniel Street,

• 34:20Speaker 02

  which is a lovely street because it has a big 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. There are small wall paintings of Alexander as well in some of the areas. So people have theories about it. And I, 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 for Cleopatra and Antony's tomb as well.

• 34:55Dan Snow?

  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.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  It's Alexandria, the city that changed the world.

• 35:11Dan Snow?

  Nice. Good luck with it, Islam. Thank you very much indeed.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 35:18Dan Snow?

  Thanks so much for listening, folks. We really hope that this has helped you better understand what's going.

• 35:25Speaker 01

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• 36:00Dan Snow?

  On, give me a bit of context. And if you think your friends, family, colleagues would enjoy that, then please, please do share with them. Whatever your podcast player, whatever you're listening on, it will let you share this as a link or even a WhatsApp message. That sharing is the lifeline of this podcast and what keeps us going. So thank you for listening and thanks for sharing. Join us next time for another episode of Dan Snow's History Head.

• 36:29Dan Snow?

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