Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/389

ALEXANDRE LE GRAND. in this piece was the cause of a bitter rivalry between Rai.ine and ilolifre.

AL'EXANDRET'TA, or ISKANDERUN, ts-lviin'de-ruon'. A seaport of Asiatic Turkey, in the vilayet of Adana, on the (Jiilf of Iskandenni, which forms the extreme northeast nook of the Mediterranean Sea (Map: Turkey in Asia, (4 4). It is surrounded by hills in a very picturesque locality. The harbor is naturally one of the best on this coast. The town is the seat of an extensive trade in silk goods, cloth, and some raw products, amounting to about $5,000,000 annually. The population is estimated all the way from 1500 to 7000. Alexandrctta is the seat of a United States vice-consul.

ALEXANDRI, ii'leks-iin'dre. See.

AL'EXAN'DRIA (Ar. Ishanderieh). A city founded by Alexander the Great, in the win- ter of 332 B.C., on the site of an Egyptian town. Rhacotis (Map; Africa, O 1). It was situatefl at the Canopic mouth of the Nile, on the low ridge separating Lake Mareotis from the Mediterranean, and was laid out by the architect Dinocrates of Rhodes in the form of a parallelo- gram, with two main streets, crossing at right angles, though somewhat to the north and east of the centre lines. The other streets were also at right angles with one another, and the arrangement seems to have remained undisturbed for a long period, although the level of the city was raised and new streets laid out above the old ones. The city had a fine (builile harbor, formed by building a mole {the llcptastadion), seven furlongs in length, to the island of Pharos, on the northeast end of w-hich was a lighthouse, regarded as one of the wonders of the world. ( See Pharos. ) The small harbor, on the west, was open, but the large harbor was entered only by a narrow passage between the Pharos and a mole built out from the promon- tory Lochias on the east of the city. Tlie city grew rapidly, and became one of the chief centres of the trade between the east and the west, while the generous policy of the Ptolemies, who made it their capital, attracted a large foreign popula- tion.

KgjTJtians, Greeks, and Jews were the chief elements, each gathering in a special quarter I of the city. On Lochias was the royal palace, I and the neighboring ])art of the city was filled with magnificent buildings, including the mu- seum and the famous library (see Alexanori- AN Library), the monument of Alexander, the graves of the Ptolemies, the temple of Poseidon, and the Csesareura — afterward a cluirch, and once marked by the two obelisks known as Cleopatra's Needles, of which one was transported to the Thames Embankment in Lon- don in 1878, and the other to Central Park, New York, in 1881. These obelisks were originally erected by Thothmes III., and were brought to Alexandria bj' the Romans. Near here was the great emporium, and somewhat to the south lay the Rruchion (/3pi)v'OV I, a residence quarter. The great temple of Serapis lay in the southwest, or Egyptian quarter, where now stands a solitary column, the so-called Pompey's Pillar, a mono- lith of red granite 73 feet high, erected in 302 a.d. by the Roman eparch, Pompeius, in honor of Dio- cletian. Earthquakes and floods have changed the surface of the ground, and but few remains are now visible, though excavations conducted for Napoleon III. in 1800 by Mahmond Bey re- vealed a number of paved streets, and those of 1S08-99 by Dr. Noaek have thrown mucli light upon the successive periods of building in the city. The original foundations of tlie time of Alexander rest on the natural rock, and are about 14% feet below the paved streets, which seem to belong to an extensive rebuilding of the city by Antoninus Pius, and are now covered with the earth on which the modern city stands. The pol- icy of Ptolemy Philadelphus and his immediate successors drew not only trsulers but learned men to the city, and Alexandria became the cen tre of Greek intellectual life dining the third and second centuries B.C. (See Alexandrian Age.) The city also developed a very charac- teristic type of art, which vied with that of Per- gamus. and seems to have had great influence on the west. Alexandrian influence is marked at Pompeii and in Provence. Consult Mahmoud Bey, .1/c'moire sur V Antique Alexandrie (Copenhagen, 1872).

In 30 B.C. Egypt passed into the hands of the Romans under Octavius. Lender Roman rule Alexandria lost nnicli of its former (neeminence as the capital of the Hellenistic world; and though for many centuries it continued to be one of the greatest cities of the Empire, its decline from the magnificent prosperity it had enjoyed under the Ptolemies was rapid after the first century of the Christian era. The Jewish inhabitants of Alexandria joined in the great national revolt of IIG A.n., and in the desperate struggle which ensued the .Jewish population was annihilated and a large part of the city was destroyed. The excesses of the Alexandrian mob, famous throughout the em])ire for its fickleness and its violence, plunged the city into misfortune twice during the third century. In 21.5 the seditious conduct of the populace led to a general massacre of the inhabitants at the order of the Emperor Caracalla. Forty-fie years later civil war broke out among the different quarters of the city, lasting for twelve years and resulting in the destruction of the Rruchion, the richest district of Alexandria. with its ancient palaces, temples, and public buildings. With the rise of Alexandria as one of the great Christian capitals of the empire, religious tumult took the place, in large measure, of political dissension, and paganism and Christianity fought out their battle in many bloody riots. The triumph of the new faith was signalized in 389 by the destruction of the Serapion, the last refuge of the pagan belief, but religious peace was by no means secured. Between 413 and 415 the patriarch Cyril led mobs of monks against the heretics and .Tews, and one of these militant bands tore to pieces the beautiful pagan priestess, Hypatia (q.v. ). In 61G Alexandria was taken by Chosroes, King of Persia. In December, 041, it fell into the hands of Amru, the Mohammedan conqueror of Egypt. The story of the destruction of the famous library at the command of the Caliph Omar is discredited. With the Arabian conquest a period of swift decay set in. The commerce of the city was almost entirely diverted to other cities, the last remnants of its prosperity being destroyed by the discovery of the all-water route to India. Toward the end of the eighteenth century its population was probably less than 7000. " On July 2, 1708, Alexandria was taken by the French, who held it until August 31, 1801. In the nineteenth century the