the limits of variety 171
The city, founded by Alexander the Great himself three and a half
centuries earlier, was built on a grid plan on a narrow strip of land
bounded by the Mediterranean to the north and Lake Mareotis to the
south, and was equalled only by Rome in size and magnificence. At its
heart were the royal or Greek quarters, with colonnaded streets flanked
by numerous spectacular public buildings in a mixture of Greek and
Egyptian styles. It was dominated by the palace of the Ptolemies, and
the great centre of learning in the Museum, where the famous library of
the city had been housed until it was burned accidentally by Julius Cae-
sar in 48 bce and replaced by another in the Temple of Serapis in the
Egyptian quarter. This was an international city, linked to the rest of the
Mediterranean from the harbour guarded by the Pharos lighthouse, one
of the wonders of the world. Greek Alexandrians retained the sense of
entitlement which derived from the origins of the city as an island of
superior Greek culture deliberately distinguished from the Egyptian
society which surrounded them (and by which they were supported
through fabled wealth).
But by Philo’s time the world of these sophisticated Greeks was under
threat both from the influx of non- Greeks – primarily Egyptians and
Jews, who had long had their own quarters of the city – and from the
apparently arbitrary interventions of Roman governors whose interests
lay less in the welfare of the city than in that of Rome, and indeed them-
selves. The assumptions of Greek Alexandrians about the superiority of
Hellenism were adopted to a considerable extent by at least some of the
Jews of the city. Philo was a full Alexandrian citizen and had enjoyed a
classic Greek education in grammar, mathematics and music as well as
literature, drama and athletics. He moved in the highest Jewish social
circles. One nephew, Marcus Julius Alexander, married the Herodian
princess Berenice who was afterwards to become mistress of the Roman
emperor Titus. Another, Marcus’ brother Tiberius, became, first, gov-
ernor of Judaea on behalf of Rome in 46– 8 ce and then, in the 60s ce,
prefect of Egypt. Tiberius notoriously abandoned his ancestral trad-
itions in the course of this spectacular political career, in marked contrast
to his uncle Philo. Philo himself was unambiguously committed to his
people and his religion: on at least one occasion he made a pilgrimage
to the Jerusalem Temple, and in the autumn of 39 ce he travelled to
Rome to plead with the emperor Gaius Caligula on behalf of the civil
rights of the Alexandrian Jewish community.^20
At some point in his education, Philo became acquainted not just
with Greek rhetoric and the standard Stoic philosophical views of his