DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0049
CHAP. V.]
ALEXANDRIA.
23
nothing but its ruins and its name," I could observe few traces*
of what it once had been—the emporium of the East, the seat
of Empire, the centre of learning and civilisation. Though
earth and sea remained unchanged, imagination can scarcely
find a place for the ancient walls, fifteen miles in circumference;
the vast streets, through the vista of whose marble porticoes the
galleys on Lake Mareotis exchanged signals with thot>« upon
the sea; the magnificent temple of Serapis, on its platform of
one hundred steps ; the four thousand palaces, and the stately
homes of six hundred thousand inhabitants.
All that is now visible within the shrunken and mouldering
walls is a piebald town : one half European, with its regular
houses, tall, and white, and stiff; the other half oriental, with
its mud-colored buildings and terraced roofs, varied with fat
mosques and lean minarets. The suburbs are encrusted with
the wretched hovels of the Arab poor ; and immense mounds
and tracts of rubbish occupy the wide space between the city
and its walls: all beyond is a dreary waste. Yet this is the
site Alexander selected from his wide dominions, and which
Napoleon pronounced to be unrivalled in importance. Here
luxury and literature, the Epicurean and the Christian, philo-
sophy and commerce, once dwelt together. Here stood the
great library of antiquity, " the assembled souls of all that men
held wise." Here the Hebrew Scriptures expanded into Greek
under the hands of the Septuagint. Here Cleopatra, " vain-
queur des vainqueurs du monde," revelled with her Roman con-
querors. Here St. Mark preached the truth upon which Origen
attempted to refine,! an(^ here Athanasius held warlike contro-
versy. Here Amru conquered, and here Abercrombie fell.
* Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle are mere exotics here; the
former, having ventured on a pilgrimage, was kidnapped by Pompeios, a
prefect, and pressed into the service of Diocletian or Adrian : the latter,
with its fallen sister, was transplanted from Heliopolis, near Cairo.
f The results of Origen's preaching show strikingly the dangers of at-
tempting to improve God's truth by man's wisdom. His followers divided
themselves into two sects—Origenists, whose faith, though tinctured with
gnostism, was comparatively pure ; and Origenians, whose doctrines the
devil must have smiled on.
ALEXANDRIA.
23
nothing but its ruins and its name," I could observe few traces*
of what it once had been—the emporium of the East, the seat
of Empire, the centre of learning and civilisation. Though
earth and sea remained unchanged, imagination can scarcely
find a place for the ancient walls, fifteen miles in circumference;
the vast streets, through the vista of whose marble porticoes the
galleys on Lake Mareotis exchanged signals with thot>« upon
the sea; the magnificent temple of Serapis, on its platform of
one hundred steps ; the four thousand palaces, and the stately
homes of six hundred thousand inhabitants.
All that is now visible within the shrunken and mouldering
walls is a piebald town : one half European, with its regular
houses, tall, and white, and stiff; the other half oriental, with
its mud-colored buildings and terraced roofs, varied with fat
mosques and lean minarets. The suburbs are encrusted with
the wretched hovels of the Arab poor ; and immense mounds
and tracts of rubbish occupy the wide space between the city
and its walls: all beyond is a dreary waste. Yet this is the
site Alexander selected from his wide dominions, and which
Napoleon pronounced to be unrivalled in importance. Here
luxury and literature, the Epicurean and the Christian, philo-
sophy and commerce, once dwelt together. Here stood the
great library of antiquity, " the assembled souls of all that men
held wise." Here the Hebrew Scriptures expanded into Greek
under the hands of the Septuagint. Here Cleopatra, " vain-
queur des vainqueurs du monde," revelled with her Roman con-
querors. Here St. Mark preached the truth upon which Origen
attempted to refine,! an(^ here Athanasius held warlike contro-
versy. Here Amru conquered, and here Abercrombie fell.
* Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle are mere exotics here; the
former, having ventured on a pilgrimage, was kidnapped by Pompeios, a
prefect, and pressed into the service of Diocletian or Adrian : the latter,
with its fallen sister, was transplanted from Heliopolis, near Cairo.
f The results of Origen's preaching show strikingly the dangers of at-
tempting to improve God's truth by man's wisdom. His followers divided
themselves into two sects—Origenists, whose faith, though tinctured with
gnostism, was comparatively pure ; and Origenians, whose doctrines the
devil must have smiled on.