Map 17 Map of early Ptolemaic Alexandria, drawing by Wolfram Hoepfner, with additions by Günter
Grimm.
Source: Reproduced from Alexandria and Alexandrianism (Malibu, CA 1996) p. 303.
GOD: What is this that you hold in your hands? Tell me now.
moses: A staff to punish beasts and men.
GOD: Cast it upon the ground and step back quickly. For it will become a frightful and awe-
inspiring serpent.
MOSES: There, it has been cast down. Lord, be merciful. Oh! How frightful, how prodigious!
Have pity on me! I am terrified to look upon it and my limbs are shaking with fear.
GOD: Be not afraid. Stretch out your hand and take it by the tail; it will be a staff again as it was
before. (Ezekiel, The Exodus 120–8)That is not to say that oral performance of literary works ceased in the Hellenistic Period. Old dramas
continued to be performed and new ones continued to be written for the stage, and poets still recited their
latest compositions to receptive audiences. The audience, however, was no longer the circumscribed
community of the polis. Rather, literature was now intended for an educated class of Greeks and
Hellenized non-Greeks, who lived in the cities, scattered over three continents, of the Macedonian
kingdoms. In the fifth century, Euripides had composed his tragedies for an audience and cast of Athenian
citizens. Now Euripides’ works were performed as “classics” in Greek theaters built in places like