Sources

Sources constitute a basic problem for the historian who wants to learn how Alexandria worked, even though it was probably one of the most economically and culturally important cities of the ancient world for several centuries. These are primarily textual. The most important, and the most detailed, is Strabo’s description. He tells of the advantages of the site and the circumstances of the foundation before going on to list the principal monuments to be found, from the Necropolis in the west to the poor district of Nicopolis in the east (C790-8). In the course of this he mentions several temples: that of Poseidon, above the ‘‘closed port,’’ and in the same quarter the Sebasteion or Kaisareion, built by Cleopatra VII (r. 51-30 BC); the temple of Sarapis, in the ‘‘native’’ quarter, to the southwest of the city; the Paneion on an artificial hill in the Gymnasium quarter. But Strabo also notes that ‘‘other, more ancient, sacred precincts are today [ca. 27/26 BC, the presumed date of his voyage to Egypt] all but abandoned.’’

Other evidence for the city’s religious buildings derives from later sources. Papyri mention the presence of a temple of Hermes, founded by Cleopatra VII, and a temple of Hephaestus (Bernand 1996). Arrian records that Alexander had founded sanctuaries ‘‘of the Greek gods and the Egyptian Isis’’ in Alexandria (Anabasis 3.1.5). According to the anonymous author of the Expositio totius mundi, one could still see in the city, even in his age (ca. AD 350) ‘‘all sorts of sacred sanctuaries and magnificently decorated temples.’’ The Notitia Urbis Alexandrinae for its part lists no fewer than 2,478 temples, situated throughout the Gamma and Delta quarters of the city (Haas 1997). There were probably a great many small private chapels in this number. Literary texts touch upon religious life from time to time, as, for example, in the case of Callixenus of Rhodes’ description of the Ptolemaia celebrated by Philadelphus (Athenaeus 197c-203b; Rice 1983), or as in Theocritus’ evocation of the festival in honor of Adonis (Idylls 15).

Inscriptions, which are very numerous, consist for the most part of dedications addressed to different gods by individuals or associations. They may mention the erection of a statue, the dedication of a plot of a land, or the construction or restoration of a religious building, in whole or in part (Fraser 1972:1.194-285; Kayser 1994). The evidence of papyrus documents is much more limited: the ground of the inhabited areas of the city, from which one could have had some chance of recovering papyrus, has been completely churned in the course of time, and in any case Alexandria’s humid climate hardly favored its preservation. However some interesting evidence does survive, such as references to festivals, particularly in documents from the third century BC, for example those from the Zenon Archive, or the Dikaiomata of P. Hal. 1, an important collection of legislative and juridical texts.

Archaeology provides another important source of information. Unfortunately, the investigation of the city has always been made difficult by the accumulation of successive levels of habitation, entailing the destruction of ancient structures (Bagnall and Rathbone 2004). Some monuments of which the existence is certain cannot even be identified; this is the case with most of the temples. The great temple of Sarapis, the prestige of which was immense until its destruction at the end of the fourth century AD, has left only the most meager traces (McKenzie 2004; Rowe 1946). On the other hand, the cemeteries, which have been quite systematically excavated since the end of the nineteenth century, have provided a great deal of evidence, not only about funerary practices, but about industry and the economy (Adriani 1936, 1940, 1952; Breccia 1912; Empereur and Nenna 2003). Lively images of religious life in the hellenistic and Roman periods are offered by the rich iconographic material in the Alexandrian museums: stelae, statues, and terracotta and bronze figurines.