ALEXANDRIA: A TRIBUTE TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT

With Alexander the Great in Alexandria, Egypt

Today is a very special date. The trip along the Nile River has a very special stop in Alexandria the ancient city which was witness of the most splendorous ages. Symbol of culture and knowledge, Alexandria is a modern city nowadays which tries to find the ruins of its wonderful past.

Claire Fontaine is very interested in the history of the Lighthouse of Alexandria while Tina Picotes wants to visit the Pompey's Pillar. Joseph de Ca'th Lon loves Archaeology and he wants to dive in the Mediterranean Sea to contemplate the ancient ruins of Alexandria and discover more things about the Cleopatra's Palace.

Before arriving to the Egyptian city, The Grandma has studied two new lessons of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 11 & 12). She is very happy with this visit because she loves the Ancient Library of Alexandria and she considers a great privilege to visit this place which once was considered the capital of knowledge and learning. She also wants to visit the Saint George's Church in Sporting.

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Alexandria is the second-largest city in Egypt and a major economic centre, extending about 32 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country. Its low elevation on the Nile delta makes it highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Tina Picotes at the Pompey's Pillar, Alexandria

Alexandria was founded around a small, ancient Egyptian town c.332 BC by Alexander the Great.

It became an important center of Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Ptolemaic (Greek) Egypt and Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost 1,000 years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat, later absorbed into Cairo. Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library, the largest in the ancient world; now replaced by a modern one; and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. 

Alexandria was at one time the second most powerful city of the ancient Mediterranean region, after Rome. Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, which began in 1994, is revealing details of Alexandria both before the arrival of Alexander, when a city named Rhacotis existed there, and during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

More information: Ancient

From the late 18th century, Alexandria became a major center of the international shipping industry and one of the most important trading centers in the world, because it profited from the easy overland connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the trade in Egyptian cotton.

The Grandma at Stanley Bridge, Alexandria

Alexandria is believed to have been founded by Alexander the Great in April 332 BC. Alexander's chief architect for the project was Dinocrates. Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis as a Hellenistic center in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley. Although it has long been believed only a small village there, recent radiocarbon dating of seashell fragments and lead contamination show significant human activity at the location for two millennia preceding Alexandria's founding .

Alexandria was the intellectual and cultural center of the ancient world for some time. The city and its museum attracted many of the greatest scholars, including Greeks, Jews and Syrians. The city was later plundered and lost its significance.

In the early Christian Church, the city was the center of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which was one of the major centers of early Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the modern world, the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria both lay claim to this ancient heritage.

More information: UNESCO

Alexandria was not only a center of Hellenism, but was also home to the largest urban Jewish community in the world. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Tanakh, was produced there. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Hellenistic center of learning, Library of Alexandria, but were careful to maintain the distinction of its population's three largest ethnicities: Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian.

Alexandria underwater

By the time of Augustus, the city walls encompassed an area of 5.34 sq.kilometres, and the total population in Roman times was around 500-600,000.

In AD 115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the Kitos War, which gave Hadrian and his architect, Decriannus, an opportunity to rebuild it. In 215, the emperor Caracalla visited the city and, because of some insulting satires that the inhabitants had directed at him, abruptly commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a tsunami, 365 Crete earthquake, an event annually commemorated years later as a day of horror.

Due to the constant presence of war in Alexandria in ancient times, very little of the ancient city has survived into the present day. Much of the royal and civic quarters sank beneath the harbour due to earthquake subsidence in AD 365, and the rest has been built over in modern times.

Pompey's Pillar, a Roman triumphal column, is one of the best-known ancient monuments still standing in Alexandria today. It is located on Alexandria's ancient acropolis, a modest hill located adjacent to the city's Arab cemetery, and was originally part of a temple colonnade.

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Alexandria's catacombs, known as Kom El Shoqafa, are a short distance southwest of the pillar, consist of a multi-level labyrinth, reached via a large spiral staircase, and featuring dozens of chambers adorned with sculpted pillars, statues, and other syncretic Romano-Egyptian religious symbols, burial niches, and sarcophagi, as well as a large Roman-style banquet room, where memorial meals were conducted by relatives of the deceased. The catacombs were long forgotten by the citizens until they were discovered in 1900.

The Grandma and Claire visit the Qaetbay Castle

Temple of Taposiris Magna was built in the Ptolemy era and dedicated to Osiris, which finished the construction of Alexandria. It is located in Abusir, the western suburb of Alexandria in Borg el Arab city. Only the outer wall and the pylons remain from the temple. There is evidence to prove that sacred animals were worshiped there. 

Archaeologists found an animal necropolis near the temple. Remains of a Christian church show that the temple was used as a church in later centuries. Also found in the same area are remains of public baths built by the emperor Justinian, a seawall, quays and a bridge. Near the beach side of the area, there are the remains of a tower built by Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The tower was an exact scale replica of the destroyed Alexandrine Pharos Lighthouse.

The most famous mosque in Alexandria is El-Mursi Abul Abbas Mosque in Bahary. Other notable mosques in the city include Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in Somouha, Bilal mosque, al-Gamaa al-Bahari in Mandara, Hatem mosque in Somouha, Hoda el-Islam mosque in Sidi Bishr, al-Mowasah mosque in Hadara, Sharq al-Madina mosque in Miami, al-Shohadaa mosque in Mostafa Kamel, Al Qa'ed Ibrahim Mosque, Yehia mosque in Zizinia, Sidi Gaber mosque in Sidi Gaber, and Sultan mosque. Alexandria is the base of the Salafi movements in Egypt.

More information: Lonely Planet

After Rome and Constantinople, Alexandria was considered the third-most important seat of Christianity in the world. The Pope of Alexandria was second only to the bishop of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire until 430. The Church of Alexandria had jurisdiction over most of the continent of Africa. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, the Church of Alexandria was split between the Miaphysites and the Melkites. The Miaphysites went on to constitute what is known today as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Melkites went on to constitute what is known today as the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

Saint George's Church in Sporting

Today, the Patriarchal seat of the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church is Saint Mark Cathedral in Ramleh. The most important Coptic Orthodox churches in Alexandria include Pope Cyril I Church in Cleopatra, Saint George's Church in Sporting, Saint Mark & Pope Peter I Church in Sidi Bishr, Saint Mary Church in Assafra, Saint Mary Church in Gianaclis, Saint Mina Church in Fleming, Saint Mina Church in Mandara and Saint Takla Haymanot's Church in Ibrahimeya.

Alexandria's once-flourishing Jewish community declined rapidly following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, after which negative reactions towards Zionism among Egyptians led to Jewish residents in the city, and elsewhere in Egypt, being perceived as Zionist collaborators. Most Jewish residents of Egypt fled to the newly established Israel, France, Brazil and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s. The community once numbered 50,000 but is now estimated at below 50. The most important synagogue in Alexandria is the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue.

More information: The Planet D

The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, with collections of works, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and gardens.  

Alexandria was considered the capital of knowledge and learning, in part because of the Great Library. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Musaeum of Alexandria, where many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world studied.

The library was created by Ptolemy I Soter, who was a Macedonian general and the successor of Alexander the Great. Most of the books were kept as papyrus scrolls. It is unknown precisely how many such scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height.

Claire at The Great Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha

Arguably, this library is most famous for having been burned down resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books; its destruction has become a symbol for the loss of cultural knowledge. Sources differ on who was responsible for its destruction and when it occurred. The library may in truth have suffered several fires over many years. 

In addition to fires, at least one earthquake damaged the city and the library during this time. Possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria include a fire set by the army of Julius Caesar in 48 BC and an attack by Aurelian in the 270s AD.

After the main library was destroyed, scholars used a daughter library in a temple known as the Serapeum of Alexandria, located in another part of the city. According to Socrates of Constantinople, Coptic Pope Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum in AD 391, although it is not certain what it contained or if it contained any significant fraction of the documents that were in the main library.

More information: Ancient History

The real tragedy of the Library 

at Alexandria was not 

that the incendiaries burned immensely, 

but that they had neither the leisure

nor the taste to discriminate.

Arthur Quiller-Couch

THE ANCIENT EGYPT IN LUXOR WITH HERCULE POIROT

The Grandma in Luxor some decades ago

With a total length of 6,853 km between the region of Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile is the longest river on the African continent. The Nile basin is complex, and because of this, the discharge at any given point along the mainstem depends on many factors including groundwater flow, diversions, weather and evaporation. It covers about 10% of the area of Africa.

Claire Fontaine is reading some information about the ancient ruins and the importance of places like the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens and The Grandma is studying two new lessons of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 7 & 8). 

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The Grandma visited these places some decades ago when she was a teenager and she wants to keep those memories alive because it was an amazing travel. Sometimes, visiting places twice can help you to discover little things that you hadn't seen before but it can be also a way to change some good memories. The Grandma thinks that you can not  return to a place where you had been happy because, perhaps, this second visit can change your memories and create new ones.

Travelling along the Nile River is like travelling along the History of Civilizations. Joseph de Ca'th Lon is very interested in visiting Luxor and Karnak Temples witnesses of the most splendorous age of the Ancient Egypt.

Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the world's greatest open-air museum, as the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city.

Joseph de Ca'th Lon with Ramesses II in Luxor

As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the world's greatest open-air museum, as the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city.

Immediately opposite, across the River Nile, lie the monuments, temples and tombs of the West Bank Necropolis, which includes the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

The name Luxor comes from the Arabic al-ʾuqṣur, the palaces,which may be a loanword from the Latin castrum fortified camp.

Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the great capital of Upper Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the glorious city of Amun, later to become the god Amun-Ra. The city was regarded in the Ancient Egyptian texts as Waset, which meant city of the sceptre, and also ta ipet and meaning the shrine, and then, in a later period, the Greeks called it Thebai and the Romans after them Thebae.

More information: Lonely Planet

Thebes was also known as the city of the 100 gates, sometimes being called southern Heliopolis Iunu-shemaa in Ancient Egyptian, to distinguish it from the city of Iunu or Heliopolis, the main place of worship for the god Ra in the north. It was also often referred to as niw.t, which simply means city, and was one of only three cities in Egypt for which this noun was used, the other two were Memphis and Heliopolis; it was also called niw.t rst, southern city, as the southernmost of them.

Tina Picotes in the Luxor Temples

The importance of the city started as early as the 11th Dynasty, when the town grew into a thriving city. Montuhotep II who united Egypt after the troubles of the first intermediate period brought stability to the lands as the city grew in stature.

The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom in their expeditions to Kush, in today's northern Sudan, and to the lands of Canaan, Phoenicia and Syria saw the city accumulate great wealth and rose to prominence, even on a world scale. Thebes played a major role in expelling the invading forces of the Hyksos from Upper Egypt, and from the time of the 18th Dynasty to the 20th Dynasty, the city had risen as the political, religious and military capital of Ancient Egypt.

More information: Live Science

The city attracted peoples such as the Babylonians, the Mitanni, the Hittites of Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, the Canaanites of Ugarit, the Phoenicians of Byblos and Tyre, the Minoans from the island of Crete. A Hittite prince from Anatolia even came to marry with the widow of Tutankhamun, Ankhesenamun. 

The political and military importance of the city, however, faded during the Late Period, with Thebes being replaced as political capital by several cities in Northern Egypt, such as Bubastis, Sais and finally Alexandria.

Claire Fontaine in the Avenue of the Sphinxes, Luxor

However, as the city of the god Amun-Ra, Thebes remained the religious capital of Egypt until the Greek period. The main god of the city was Amun, who was worshipped together with his wife, the Goddess Mut, and their son Khonsu, the God of the moon. 

With the rise of Thebes as the foremost city of Egypt, the local god Amon rose in importance as well and became linked to the sun god Ra, thus creating the new king of gods Amon-Ra. His great temple, at Karnak just north of Thebes, was the most important temple of Egypt right until the end of antiquity.

Later, the city was attacked by Assyrian emperor Assurbanipal who installed the Libyan prince on the throne, Psamtik I. The city of Thebes was in ruins and fell in significance. 

 More information: Discovering Egypt

However, Alexander the Great did arrive at the temple of Amun, where the statue of the god was transferred from Karnak during the Opet Festival, the great religious feast. Thebes remained a site of spirituality up to the Christian era, and attracted numerous Christian monks in the Roman Empire who established monasteries amidst several ancient monuments including the temple of Hatshepsut, now called Deir el-Bahri the northern monastery.

Joseph in King Seti I Burial Chamber, Luxor

Luxor Temple is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the Nile River in the city today known as Luxor, ancient Thebes, and was constructed approximately 1400 BCE. In the Egyptian language it is known as ipet resyt, the southern sanctuary. 

In Luxor there are several great temples on the east and west banks. Four of the major mortuary temples visited by early travelers and tourists include the Temple of Seti I at Gurnah, the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri, the Temple of Ramesses II, aka Ramesseum, and the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu; and the two primary cults temples on the east bank are known as the Karnak and Luxor. Unlike the other temples in Thebes, Luxor temple is not dedicated to a cult god or a deified version of the king in death.

Instead Luxor temple is dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship; it may have been where many of the kings of Egypt were crowned in reality or conceptually, as in the case of Alexander the Great who claimed he was crowned at Luxor but may never have traveled south of Memphis, near modern Cairo.

More information: Ancient Facts

To the rear of the temple are chapels built by Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty, and Alexander. Other parts of the temple were built by Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. During the Roman era, the temple and its surroundings were a legionary fortress and the home of the Roman government in the area.

The Grandma with Ramesses II, Luxor

The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak, from Arabic Khurnak meaning fortified village, comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings.

Construction at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period, although most of the extant buildings date from the New Kingdom. The area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut, The Most Selected of Places and the main place of worship of the 18th Dynasty Theban Triad with the god Amun as its head. 

It is part of the monumental city of Thebes. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly surrounded, modern village of El-Karnak, 2.5 kilometres north of Luxor.

More information: History

The Valley of the Kings also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock cut tombs were excavated for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom, the 18th to the 20th Dynasties of Ancient Egypt.

The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, modern Luxor, within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. The wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley, where the majority of the royal tombs are situated, and West Valley.

Visiting the Valley of the Kings, Egypt

This area has been a focus of archaeological and egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, and its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest. 

In modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, with its rumours of the Curse of the Pharaohs, and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis. Exploration, excavation and conservation continues in the valley, and a new tourist centre has recently been opened.

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The Valley of the Queens is a site in Egypt, where wives of Pharaohs were buried in ancient times. In ancient times, it was known as Ta-Set-Neferu, meaning the place of beauty.

Using the limits as described by Christian Leblanc, the Valley of the Queens consists of the main wadi which contains most of the tombs, as well as the Valley of Prince Ahmose, the Valley of the Rope, the Valley of the Three Pits, and the Valley of the Dolmen. The main wadi contains 91 tombs and the subsidiary valleys add another 19 tombs. The burials in the subsidiary valleys all date to the 18th Dynasty.

The Grandma & Claire visit the Luxor Temples

The reason for choosing the Valley of the Queens as a burial site is not known. The location in close proximity to the worker's village in Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Kings may have been a factor. 

Another consideration may be the existence of a sacred grotto dedicated to Hathor at the entrance of the Valley. This grotto may be associated with rejuvenation for the dead.

The Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu is an important New Kingdom period structure in the West Bank of Luxor in Egypt. Aside from its size and architectural and artistic importance, the temple is probably best known as the source of inscribed reliefs depicting the advent and defeat of the Sea Peoples during the reign of Ramesses III.

The Ramesseum is the memorial temple, or mortuary temple, of Pharaoh Ramesses II, Ramesses the Great, also spelled Ramses and Rameses. It is located in the Theban necropolis in Upper Egypt, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor. 

More information: Ancient Egypt

Deir el-Medina is an ancient Egyptian village which was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th Dynasties of the New Kingdom of Egypt, ca. 1550–1080 BCE.

The settlement's ancient name was Set maat The Place of Truth, and the workmen who lived there were called Servants in the Place of Truth. During the Christian era, the temple of Hathor was converted into a church from which the Arabic name Deir el-Medina, the monastery of the town, is derived.

The Grandma & the Colossi of Memnon years ago

The Theban Necropolis is located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor. As well as the more famous royal tombs located in the Valley of the Kings and Queens, there are numerous other tombs, more commonly referred to as Tombs of the Nobles, the burial places of some of the powerful courtiers and persons of the ancient city.

There are at least 415 cataloged tombs, designated TT for Theban Tomb. There are other tombs whose position has been lost, or for some other reason do not conform to this classification. Theban tombs tended to have clay Funerary cones placed over the entrance of the tomb chapels. During the New Kingdom they were inscribed with the title and name of the tomb owner, sometimes with short prayers. Of the 400 recorded sets of cones, only about 80 come from cataloged tombs.

Deir el-Bahari or Dayr al-Bahri or the Monastery of the Sea is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor. This is a part of the Theban Necropolis. The first monument built at the site was the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II of the 11th Dynasty. It was constructed during the 15th century BCE. During the 18th Dynasty, Amenhotep I and Hatshepsut also built extensively at the site.

More information: Ancient Pages

Malkata or Malqata, meaning the place where things are picked up in Arabic, is the site of an Ancient Egyptian palace complex built during the New Kingdom, by the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III. 

It is located on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes, Upper Egypt, in the desert to the south of Medinet Habu. The site also included a temple dedicated to Amenhotep III's Great Royal Wife, Tiy, and honors Sobek, the crocodile deity.

Tina Picotes visits the Colossi of Memnon

The Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned in Egypt during the 18th Dynasty. For the past 3,400 years, since 1350 BC, they have stood in the Theban Necropolis, located west of the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor.

Memnon was a hero of the Trojan War, a King of Ethiopia who led his armies from Africa into Asia Minor to help defend the beleaguered city but was ultimately slain by Achilles.  

Memnon, whose name means the Steadfast or Resolute was said to be the son of Eos, the goddess of dawn. He was associated with colossi built several centuries earlier, because of the reported cry at dawn of the northern statue, which became known as the Colossus of Memnon. Eventually, the entire Theban Necropolis became generally referred to as the Memnonium making him Ruler of the west as in the case of the god Osiris who was called chief of the west.

More information: Ancient History

By 3000 B.C. the art of Egypt was so ripe and so far advanced 

that it is surprising to find any student of early culture proposing 

that the crude contemporary art of the early Babylonians 

is the product of a civilization earlier than that of the Nile. 

James Henry Breasted

ALEXANDER THE GREAT & THE HELLENIZATION

Alexander the Great

Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty. 

He spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, and he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world by the age of thirty, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of history's most successful military commanders.

During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. After Philip's assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia. In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire, and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.

More information: History.com

He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC, winning an important victory over the Pauravas at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals and heirs.

Alexander the Great

Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD and the presence of Greek speakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the 1920s. 

Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics. He is often ranked among the most influential people in human history.

Apart from a few inscriptions and fragments, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander were all lost. Contemporaries who wrote accounts of his life included Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman. 

Their works are lost, but later works based on these original sources have survived. The earliest of these is Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), followed by Quintus Curtius Rufus (mid-to-late 1st century AD), Arrian (1st to 2nd century AD), the biographer Plutarch (1st to 2nd century AD), and finally Justin, whose work dated as late as the 4th century.

More information: History of Macedonia

 I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; 

I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. 

 Alexander the Great

RHODES & ADRIANA: A LOVE STORY

Alexander The Great

Dear Family,

I want to talk to you about Rhodes.

Rhodes Island is the largest Greek one in the Dodecanese. The legend says that there was a statue of extraordinary dimensions called The Colossus of Rhodes. 

It was one of the Seven Wonders of Ancient World and it was destroyed by an earthquake. Rhodes belonged to Alexander the Great. You can find a great diversity of cultures: the Egyptians; the Romans, who managed to conquer the island and built numerous theatres, statues and temples; the Byzantine Empire and the Venetians dominated it in different ages. It has an Arabian influence until the Germans and Italians arrived and occupied the island. Finally, it was delivered to Greece.

Rhodes is an incredible and beautiful place plenty of nice people, where you can smell the Mediterranean essence visiting its Coliseum, its Medieval Wall or walking across the Old City considered a World Heritage Site.

I hope you like it!

Today, we've reviewed the possessive and the object pronouns. We've listened Adriana talking about her island and we’ve walked around it. It has been a wonderful trip with the family. This evening we must get a boat to sail along the Cretan Sea but David is still ill and we’ve decided to postpose our cruise until he will be fine. Meanwhile, we will dedicate our free time to look for a new house for living all together. It will be exciting!

More information: Object pronouns