could be dealing with a somewhat ironic name adopted by the Egyptians to designate
the capital under construction (Chauveau 1997).
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 sanctu-
aries ‘‘of the Greek gods and the Egyptian Isis’’ in Alexandria (Anabasis3.1.5).
According to the anonymous author of theExpositio 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.’’ TheNotitia Urbis Alexandrinaefor 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 (Idylls15).
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 docu-
ments from the third century BC, for example those from the Zenon Archive, or the
DikaiomataofP.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
254 Franc ̧oise Dunand