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A Guide to the Places of Alexandria
Alexandria in the year 1 CE: what each place on the game map was for, and the story behind it. Tap a place to jump to it.
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Pharos lighthouse
In the games you meet Kleon, keeper of the Pharos light
What it was
A lighthouse at the eastern tip of the island of Pharos, guiding ships into Alexandria’s Great Harbour. A fire burned at the top, and its light could be seen far out at sea.
Its story
It was built around 280 BCE under King Ptolemy II, designed by the architect Sostratus of Cnidus, and stood well over 100 metres high, in three stages. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and its name became the word for “lighthouse” in Greek, Latin, French (phare), Spanish (faro) and Italian.
In Philo’s time, and today
In 1 CE it had been shining for nearly three hundred years. Earthquakes damaged it in the Middle Ages, and in 1480 the Fort of Qaitbay was built on its ruins, partly with its stones. Divers have found its blocks on the seabed.
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Heptastadion
In the games you meet Nikias, toll-collector on the causeway
What it was
A causeway joining the island of Pharos to the city. It divided the sea into two harbours: the Great Harbour to the east and Eunostos (“Happy Return”) to the west. Bridged openings let ships pass from one harbour to the other.
Its story
Its name means “seven stadia”, about 1.2 kilometres, its length. It was built in the early days of the city under the first Ptolemies, and it also carried an aqueduct bringing fresh water to the island.
In Philo’s time, and today
Over the centuries sand piled up on both sides, and the causeway became a wide strip of land. Much of modern Alexandria’s old town is built on top of it.
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Sailors’ quay (the Kibotos)
In the games you meet Hasdrubal, a Phoenician sea captain
What it was
A small artificial harbour dug inside the western harbour of Eunostos, with docks for ships and a canal leading inland towards Lake Mareotis.
Its story
Kibotos means “the box” in Greek, because of its square shape. Ships from all over the Mediterranean unloaded here, and sailors of many nations filled its quays: Greeks, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Romans, Jews and many more.
In Philo’s time, and today
The geographer Strabo, who lived in Alexandria about twenty-five years before our story, described it in his Geography, one of our best guides to the city in the time of Philo.
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Rhakotis
In the games you meet Amunet, a potter of the Egyptian quarter
What it was
The old Egyptian district in the west of the city, where most native Egyptians lived and worked: potters, weavers, fishermen and labourers.
Its story
Rhakotis was an Egyptian village long before Alexander the Great founded his city here in 331 BCE. In the Egyptian language Alexandria was still called Rakote for centuries afterwards. The great temple of Serapis stood on the hill in this quarter.
In Philo’s time, and today
In 1 CE Alexandria was a mixed city: Greeks, Egyptians, Jews, Romans and others lived side by side, sometimes peacefully, sometimes not.
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Emporium
In the games you meet Eirene, a spice merchant
What it was
The great market and warehouse district along the Great Harbour, where goods from three continents were bought, sold and stored.
Its story
Grain, papyrus, linen, glass, perfume and spices passed through here. Above all, Egypt fed Rome: every year great grain fleets sailed from Alexandria to Italy, and the emperors watched them closely.
In Philo’s time, and today
Strabo says Alexandria was the greatest trading place in the inhabited world. Spices from India and Arabia came up the Nile and across the desert, and left again from the Emporium.
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Timonium
In the games you meet Timon, a grumpy hermit
What it was
A small retreat built on a breakwater sticking out into the Great Harbour, near the royal palaces.
Its story
After his defeat at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, Mark Antony, the Roman general and partner of Queen Cleopatra, built this lonely house and withdrew there. He named it after Timon of Athens, a famous man who hated everybody and lived alone. Antony and Cleopatra both died the next year, and Egypt became a Roman province.
In Philo’s time, and today
By 1 CE the Timonium was a reminder of the end of the Ptolemies. Today it lies under the sea: underwater archaeologists have explored the sunken royal quarter of the harbour.
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The obelisks (Cleopatra’s Needles)
In the games you meet Kallias, a guide
What it was
Two tall pink granite obelisks standing in front of the Caesareum, the great temple first begun by Cleopatra and finished by the Romans to honour the emperor.
Its story
They are far older than Alexandria. They were cut at Aswan and set up at Heliopolis by Pharaoh Thutmose III around 1450 BCE, and Ramesses II later added inscriptions. In 13–12 BCE the Romans moved them to Alexandria, only a few years before our story. People later called them Cleopatra’s Needles, although she had nothing to do with them.
In Philo’s time, and today
One now stands on the Thames Embankment in London (since 1878) and the other in Central Park, New York (since 1881).
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Royal palace
In the games you meet Aristarchos, the palace steward
What it was
The palaces of the kings, in the Brucheion district by the Great Harbour, with gardens, halls, the royal harbour and the tombs of the kings nearby.
Its story
Each Ptolemy added new buildings, until, as Strabo says, the palaces filled a quarter or even a third of the city. The last ruler of the dynasty was Cleopatra VII, who died in 30 BCE.
In Philo’s time, and today
In 1 CE Egypt belonged to the Roman emperor Augustus, and a Roman prefect ruled from here. The Museum, the Library and the tomb of Alexander the Great (the Soma) were in the same royal quarter.
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Museum and Library
In the games you meet Menander, the chief scribe
What it was
The Museum (“shrine of the Muses”) was a community of scholars paid by the king to study, teach and write. Next to it stood the famous Library, which tried to collect every book in the world.
Its story
It was founded by the first Ptolemies around 300 BCE. Euclid wrote his geometry here; Eratosthenes measured the size of the Earth; Callimachus made the first great library catalogue, the Pinakes; and, by tradition, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek in Alexandria (the Septuagint).
In Philo’s time, and today
Some scrolls were burned in a fire in 48 BCE, during Julius Caesar’s war in the city, but in 1 CE the Museum was still a great centre of learning, and young Philo would have studied in its shadow.
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Gymnasium
In the games you meet Lysias, a wrestling trainer
What it was
The centre of Greek education and sport: young men trained their bodies (running, wrestling, boxing) and studied literature, music and philosophy.
Its story
Strabo calls it the most beautiful building in the city, with colonnades more than a stadion (about 185 metres) long. Membership was a mark of Greek citizenship, and it became a place where tensions between Greeks, Egyptians and Jews sometimes broke out.
In Philo’s time, and today
Gymnasium comes from the Greek gymnos, “naked”, because athletes trained without clothes. In Spain and Germany the word now means a secondary school.
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Canopic gate
In the games you meet Gaius, a Roman sentry
What it was
The great eastern gate of the city, at the end of the Canopic Way, Alexandria’s main street.
Its story
The Canopic Way ran straight across the city from west to east, with colonnades on both sides; Strabo says it was more than a plethron (about 30 metres) wide. Through the gate the road led to Eleusis and to Canopus, a town famous for its temples and pleasure-boats.
In Philo’s time, and today
Roman soldiers guarded the gates. In 1 CE Egypt was the emperor’s private province: even Roman senators needed his permission to visit.
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Jewish quarter
In the games you meet Miriam, a weaver
What it was
One of the city’s five districts, known by Greek letters; the Jewish quarter was in the north-east, called the Delta, and Jews lived in other parts of the city too.
Its story
Alexandria had the largest Jewish community outside Judaea, with a council of elders and a famous Great Synagogue so large, later writers said, that flags were waved to tell the people at the back when to answer “Amen”. Here the Torah was translated into Greek, the Septuagint, for Greek-speaking Jews.
In Philo’s time, and today
The real Philo of Alexandria (about 20 BCE – 50 CE) was a Jewish philosopher who lived here and wrote in Greek. Our Philo is a young scholar in his footsteps.
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Serapeum
In the games you meet Petosiris, a priest of Serapis
What it was
The great temple of Serapis, standing on a hill in Rhakotis, with a large courtyard, colonnades and a “daughter library” open to the public.
Its story
Serapis was a god created under the first Ptolemies, mixing the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis with Greek features, so that Greeks and Egyptians could worship together. The temple was built under Ptolemy III (246–222 BCE).
In Philo’s time, and today
It was destroyed in 391 CE. The tall column standing there today, called Pompey’s Pillar, was put up much later, in about 297 CE, in honour of the emperor Diocletian.
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Necropolis
In the games you meet Hapi, an embalmer
What it was
The “city of the dead”, the great cemetery west of the city, with tombs, gardens and workshops where bodies were embalmed.
Its story
Strabo describes its many gardens, graves and places for preparing the dead. Greek and Egyptian customs mixed here: some families buried their dead in the Greek way, others mummified them in the Egyptian way, and some did both.
In Philo’s time, and today
The famous catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, with their Greek-Egyptian carvings, were dug a little later, in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, and can still be visited.
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Canal docks
In the games you meet Iason, a bargeman
What it was
The harbour on Lake Mareotis, south of the city, linked by canals to the Nile and to the sea harbours.
Its story
Barges brought grain, papyrus, wine and stone down the Nile to the lake. Strabo says the lake harbour was even richer than the sea harbour, because so much of Egypt’s trade arrived by river. From here goods went on by canal to the Kibotos and out to sea.
In Philo’s time, and today
The lake was famous for its vineyards and the papyrus that grew on its banks: the paper of the ancient world.
Much of what we know about Alexandria in Philo’s time comes from the Greek geographer Strabo, who lived in the city around 25–20 BCE and described it in Book 17 of his Geography, and from later writers, archaeologists and divers. Some details, such as the exact position of some buildings, are still debated. The people you meet in the games are invented.