Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/114

 'Aristopfianea and Aristarchns, the critics and gram- marians, the two Heros, Ainmoiuus Saccas, Po- lemo, Clemens, Origen, Athanasios, Theon and his celebrated daughter Hypatia, with many others. Amid the turbulent factions and frequent calamities of Alexandreia, the Museum maintained its reputa- tion, until the Saracen invasion in a. d. 640. The emperors, Uke their predecessors the Ptolemies, kept in their own hands the nomination of the President of the Museum, who was considered one oS the four chief magistrates of the citj. For the Alexandrian Library and Museum the following works may be con- sulted: — Strab. pp. 609, 791, seq. ; Vitruv. vii. prooetn,; Joseph. Antiq. zii. 2, c, Apion, ii. 7; Glom. Alex. Strom, i. 22 ; Cyrill. Hieros. CiOechet. iv. 34; Epiphim. Mens, et Pond, c. 9; Augustin. Civ. D. xviii. 42; Lipdus, dc Biblioth. § ii.; Bo- namy, M^. de I Acad, des Inscr. ix. 10; Matter, rEcole d'AlexandrUf vol. i. p. 47; Fabric j9i6/. Graec. vol. iii. p. 500.

In the Brucheium also stood the Caesarium, or Temple of the Caesars, where divine hcnsours were paid to the emperors, deceased or living. Its site is still marked by the two granite obelisks called ** Cleo- patra's Needles," near which is a tower perhaps not inappropriately named the " Tower of the Romans." Proceeding westward, we come to the public gra- naries (Caesar, B. Civ. iii. 112) and the Mausoleum of the Ptolemies, which, from its containing the body of Alexander the Great, was denominated Soma (X&fta^ or ^rjfM, Strab. p. 794). The remains of the Macedonian hero were originally indosed in a A / coffin of gold, which, about b. c. 118, was stolen by jb, Jy^, which the corpse was viewed by Augustus in b. c. 30. (Sueton. Odaio. 18.) A building to whidi tradition assigns the name of the " Tomb of Alex- ander " is found among the ruins of the old city, but its site does not correspond with that of the Soma. It is much reverenced by the Moslems. In form it resembles an ordinary sheikh's tomb, and it stands to the west of the road leading from the Frank Quarter to the Pompey's -Pillar Gate. In the Soma were also deposited the remains of M. Antonius, the only alien admitted into the i^Iausoleum (Plut. Ant. 82). In tins quarter also were the High Court of Justice (i>i- castenum), in which, under the Ptolemies, the senate assembled and discharged such magisterial duties as a nearly despotic government allowed to them, and where afterwards the Roman Juridicus held his court A stadium, a gymnasium, a palaestra, and an amphitheatre, provided exercise and amusement for the spectacle-loving Alexandrians. The Arsinoeum, on the western side of the Brucheium, wa.s a monu- ment raised by Ptolemy Philadelphus to the memory of Ms favourite sister Arsinoe; and the Panium was a stone moimd, or cone, with a spiral ascent on the outside, from whose summit was visible every quarter of tlie city. The purpose of this structure is, how- ever, not ascertained. The edifices of the Brudieium had been so arranged by Deinocrates as to command a prospect of the Great Harbour and ike Pharus. In its centre was a spacious square, surrounded by cloisters and flanked to tiie north by the quays — the Emporium, or Alexandrian £lxchange. Hither, for nearly eight centuries, every nation of the civil- ized world sent its representatives. Alexandria had inherited the commerce of both Tyre and Carthage, and collected in this area the traffic and speculation of three contincntR. The Romans admitted Alex- andreia to be the second aty of the world; but thequays of the Tiber presented no such spectacle m the Emporium. In the seventh century, when the Arabs entered Alexandreia, the Brucheinm was in ruins and almost deserted.
 * ^*^ ^'^z Ptolemy Soter II., and replaced by one of glass, in

3. The RhacdtiSy or Egyptian Quarter^ occaped the site of the ancient Rhacotia. Its principal build- ings were granariea along the western arm of the cibotus or basin, a stadium, and the Tonple of Se- rapis. The Serapeion wa s erected by the first or^ second of the raiemies. The image of the god, whidi was of wood, was according to Clemens (Cle- mens Alex. Protrepi, c. 4. § 48), indoaed or pUted over with layers of every kind of metal and precious stcmes : it seems also, either from the smoke of in- cense or from vanush, to have been of a black cdoor. Its origin and import are doubtfuL Serapis is some- timos defined to be Osiri-Apis; and sometimes the Sinopite Zeus, which may imply either that he was brought from the hill Sinopeion near Memphis, or from Sinope in Pontus, whence Ptdemy Stater or Philadelphus is said to have imported it to adorn his new capital. That tJie idd was a pan- theistic emblem may be inferred, both from the ma* terials of which it was composed, and finom its being adopted by a dynasty of sovereigns who sought to blend in one mass the creeds of Hellas and Egypt. The Serapdon was destroyed in a. d. 390 by Theo- philus, patriarch of Alexandreia, in obedience to the rescript of the emperor Theododus, whidi abolished paganism (^Codex Theodos. xvi. 1, 2).* The Cop- tic population of this quarter were not properly Alex- andrian dtizens, but rajoyed a franduse inferior to that of the Greeks. (Plin. EpieL x. 5. 22, 23; Joseph, c, Apion. c. 2. § 6.) The Alexandreia which the Arabs besieged was nearly identical with the Rhac6tis. It had sufiered many calamities both from civil feud and from foreign war. Its Serapeion was twice consumed by fire, once in the reign of Marcus Aurolius, and again in that of C<»nmodu5. But this district survived both the Begio Judaeortm and the Brttcheium.^

Of the renuurkaSle oeauty of Alexandreia (yi KaX 'AAc(<£y8f»e<a, Athoi. i. p. 3), we have the testi- mony oi numerous writers who saw it in its prime. Ammianus (xxli. 16) calls it " vertex omnium dri- tatum;" Strabo (xvii.p. 832) describes it as ftiytff- roy iforopuov t^j oMoi/juii^t; Theocritus {IdsjH xvii.), Philo {ad Flacc. ii. p. 541), Enstathius (/t B.), Gregory of Nyssa ( ViL Gregor. Thamnaturg.)f aiKi many others, write in the same strain. (Comp. Diodor. xvii. 52 ; Pausan. viii. 33.) Perhaps, how* ever, one of the most striking descriptions of its effect upon a stranger is that of Achilles Tatius in his romance of Cleitophon and Leudppe (v. 1). Its dilapidation was not the effect of time, but of the hand of man. Its dry atmosphere preserved, for cen- turies after their erection, the sliarp outline and gay colours of its buildings; and when in A. d. 120 the emperor Hadrian siirveyed Alexandreia, he behdd almost the virgin dty of the Ptolemies. (Spartian.

forming his own opinion respecting the much con- troverted question of the origin and meaning of Serapis: — Tac. ffisi. iv. 84; Macrob. Sat. i. 29; • Vopiscus, SaturrUn. 8; Amm. Marc. xx. 16^ Plut. Is. et Osir. cc. 27, 28; Lactant. InsL i. 21 ; Clem. Alex. Cohort, ad Gent. 4. § 31, Strom. L 1 ; Au- gust. Civ. D. xviii. 5 ; Mem. de TAcad. des Inscr,. vol. X. p. 500; Gibbon, Z>. and F, xxviii. p. 113.
 * The following references will aid the reader in