History of Alexandria
The capital of Egypt for almost 1000 years, Alexandria has a long and distinguished history.
The Greco-Roman Period
Founded by (and named for) Alexander the Great in 332 BC, Alexandria quickly became one of the greatest cities in the world. It was center of Greek scholarship, hosting such figures as Euclid, Archimedes, Plotinus, Ptolemy and Eratosthenes. It was also the home of Philo Judaeus and other important Jewish scholars, and it is reputed to be the site of the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament.
In the last centuries BC, Alexandria played a major role in the rise of the Roman Empire. It was at Alexandria that the famous intrigues between Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony took place. The emperor Octavian brought Alexandria and all of Egypt under Roman rule in 30 BC.
The Christian Period
Christianity arrived in Alexandria in the 1st century AD. According to tradition, it was St. Mark the Evangelist who brought the Gospel to the important Egyptian city. The growing Christian and Jewish communities of Alexandria united against Rome's attempts to impose official paganism and endured periodic persecutions under various Roman emperors.
The 2nd century saw the rise of an important Christian catechetical school in Alexandria, led by Clement and then Origen, two important early Christian theologians. After the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, Alexandria flourished as a major center of Christianity and Christian theology.
One of the most important conflicts in the early church began in Alexandria as a dispute between Alexandrian clergymen. Arius taught that Christ was created by God the Father and two were not equal. Bishop Alexander, and then his successor Athanasius, instead affirmed the eternal equality and unity of the Father and Son. Both sides had many adherents, and the conflict became so divisive that Emperor Constantine called bishops from around the empire to Council of Nicea in 325 AD to resolve it. Athanasius' views won out and remain orthodox Christian doctrine to this day.
Over the following century, Greek pagan culture was gradually eradicated in Alexandria. In 391, Christians destroyed the Sarapeum, sanctum of the Ptolemaic cult and what Cleopatra had saved of the great Alexandrian library. In 415, a Christian faction killed the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia, and Greek culture in Alexandria quickly declined.
The division of the Roman Empire in 364 established an imperial capital in Constantinople in addition to Rome, and the church of Alexandria became subject to the see of Constantinople. Alexandria resisted this, and adopted Monophysitism (the doctrine that Christ had only one nature, the divine) in part to assert its independence. Even after the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) rejected Monophysitism, an underground church developed in opposition to the established one and was closely tied with Egyptian loyalties against Byzantine rule.
The Islamic Period
These conflicts contributed to the conditions in which Alexandria fell, without resistance, to the Persians in 616 and then to the Arabs in 642. The Arab conquest ended Alexandria's status as the capital of Egypt and as a Christian city. Though soon eclipsed by Cairo in importance, Alexandria continued to flourish as an important trading center and naval base. After the Crusades, which had little impact on Alexandria, the city profited greatly through the East-West spice trade, which Egypt monopolized.
The loss of the spice trade, due to the discovery of the sea route to India in 1498, and the Turkish conquest of Egypt in 1517 were devastating to Alexandria. Under Turkish rule, the canal linking Alexandria to the Nile was allowed to silt up and the once-great city lost its lifeline. By the time Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, Alexandria had been reduced to a small fishing village.
The Modern Period
Napoleon's troops stormed the city on July 2, 1798, and it remained under French control until the arrival of the British expedition of 1801. The battle of Alexandria, fought on March 21 of that year between the French and the British, took place near the ruins of Nicopolis on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Abukir.
Alexandria's rebirth began under the Ottoman leader Muhammad Ali. Hoping to modernize Egypt, Ali reopened Alexandria's access to the Nile by building the 45-mile-long Al-Mahmudiyah Canal (completed in 1820). Foreign traders began to settle in the city, and cotton was introduced to Egypt in the 1820s. This valued commodity soon made Alexandria prosper again, and the city became an important banking and commercial center. The opening of a rail line to Cairo in 1856 and the opening of Suez Canal in 1869 further added to Alexandria's fortunes.
Much favored by the earlier viceroys of Muhammad Ali's house, and removed from the Mameluke troubles, Alexandria was the real capital of Egypt until Said Pasha died there in 1863 and Ismail Pasha came into power. Though this prince continued to develop the city, giving it a municipality in 1861 and new harbor works in 1871–1878, he developed Cairo still more; and the center of gravity definitely shifted to the inland capital.
Fate, however, again brought Alexandria to the forefront. After a mutiny of soldiers there in 1881, the town was greatly excited by the arrival of an Anglo-French fleet in May 1882, and on June 11 a terrible riot and massacre took place, resulting in the death of 400 Europeans.
A British military expedition landed at Alexandria on August 10, following which the British engaged in the occupation of the whole country. Under British occupation between 1882 and 1922, Alexandria continued to grow and prosper. More Greeks continued to settle the city, establishing financial and cultural centers.
During World War I, Alexandria was the main naval base of Allied forces in the eastern Mediterranean. In World War II, Alexandria was nearly captured by Axis armies and was repeatedly bombarded. The nationalist struggle that followed the world wars led most of Alexandria's foreign population to leave the city.
The Egyptian military coup of 1952 saw the destruction of the Egyptian monarchy and the British protectorate status. Colonel Nasser took power and the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1954 made provision for the withdrawal of British troops. The numbers of the city's foreign population dwindled ever since. A small Greek community, however, remains today.
