DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4023#0047
ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA8.
H E ancient Alexandria has been subje&ed to sb many
revolutions, and so often ruined, that we should have
at present some difficulty to find it, if the situation of
its ports, and some antique monuments did not diredl:
us to its true place.
Those infallible guides will lead me to describe, in
a kind of order, what I have been able to observe; I
do not propose however to give a complete description,
nor to write the entire history of the rife and fallof
this great city. My only aim is, to communicate
a Q^ Curtius relates, " That Alexander, in his
return from Jupiter Ammon, when he came from
the sea to the lake Mareotis, not far distant from
the issand Pharos, having observed the nature of
the place, determined at first to build a new city
in the issand itself: but afterwards, when it appear-
ed the issand was not spacious enough for a o-reat
city, he chose for it the place where Alexandria now
stands, which derives its appellation from the name of
the founder. Having included all the ground that
lay between the lake and the sea, he assigned for the
walls, a circuit of eighty Jiadia, that is, ten Ro-
man miles." Lib. iv. cap. 8.
C;£sar gives the following account of Alexan-
dria, as it was in his time : " The Pharos is a tower,
exceeding high, and of wonderful strufture, situ-
ated on an issand; from which it took its name.
This issand, opposed to Alexandria, forms an har-
bour ; but vast heaps of stones, fetched from the
mountainous countries, having been thrown into
the sea to the length of nine hundred paces, it is
now joined by a narrow road and bridge to the
B faith-