taste within a radius farther than the eye could reach. To be gently borne in bark or ship on its waters, to watch the strange vegetation and fauna of its banks; to gaze beyond, where they merged into the trackless desert; to wander under the shade of its gigantic monuments, or within the wierd avenues of its colossal temples, to see the scroll of mysterious hieroglyphics; to note the sameness of manner and of people as of old, and to watch the unique rites of its ancient religion, this was indeed to be again in the old far-away world, and that amidst a dreaminess bewitching the senses, and a gorgeousness dazzling the imagination. [1 What charm Egypt had for the Romans may be gathered from so many of their mosaics and frescoes. Comp. Friedlander, u. s. vol. ii. pp. 134-136.
We are still far out at sea, making for the port of Alexandria, the only safe shelter all along the coast of Asia and Africa. Quite thirty miles out the silver sheen of the lighthouse on the island of Pharos [1 This immense lighthous was square up to the middle, then covered by an octagon, the top being round. The last recorded repairs to this magnificent structure of blocks of marble were made in the year 1303 of our era.], connected by a mole with Alexandria, is burning like a star on the edge of the horizon. Now we catch sight of the palmgroves of Pharos; presently the anchor rattles and grates on the sand, and we are ashore. What crowd of vessels of all sizes, shapes and nationalities; what a multitude of busy people; what a very Babel of languages; what a commingling of old and new world civilisation; and what a variety of wares piled up, loading or unloading!
Alexandria itself was not an old Egyptian, but a comparatively modern, city; in Egypt and yet not of Egypt. Everything was in character, the city, its inhabitants, public life, art, literature, study, amusements, the very aspect of the place. Nothing original anywhere, but combination of all that had been in the ancient world, or that was at the time, most fitting place therefore to be the capital of Jewish Hellenism.
As its name indicates, the city was founded by Alexander the Great. It was built in the form of an open fan, or rather, of the outspread cloak of a Macedonian horseman. Altogether, it measured (16,360 paces) 3,160 paces more than Rome; but its houses were neither so crowded nor so many-storied. It had been a large city when Rome was still inconsiderable, and to the last held the second place in the Empire. One of the five quarters into which the city was divided, and which were named according to the first letters of the alphabet, was wholly covered by the royal palaces, with their gardens, and similar buildings, including the royal mausoleum, where the body of Alexander the Great, preserved in honey, was kept in a glass coffin. But these, and its three miles of colonnades along the principal highway, were only some of the magnificent architectural adornments of a city full of palaces. The population amounted, probably, to nearly a million, drawn from the East and West by trade, the attractions of wealth, the facilities for study, or the amusements of a singularly frivolous city. A strange mixture of elements among the people, combining the quickness and versatility of the Greek with the gravity, the conservatism, the dream-grandeur, and the luxury of the Eastern.
Three worlds met in Alexandria: Europe, Asia, and Africa; and brought to it, or fetched from it, their treasures. Above all, it was a commercial city, furnished with an excellent harbour, or rather with five harbours. A special fleet carried, as tribute, from Alexandria to Italy, two-tenths of the corn produce of Egypt, which sufficed to feed the capital for four months of the year. A magnificent fleet it was, from the light quick sailer to those immense corn-ships which hoisted a special flag, and whose early arrival was awaited at Puteoli [1 The average passage from Alexandria to Puteoli was twelve days, the ships touching at Malta and in Sicily. It was in such a ship, the 'Castor and Pollux' carrying wheat, that St. Paul sailed from Malta to Puteoli, where it would be among the first arrivals of the season.] with more eagerness than that of any modern ocean-steamer. [2 They bore, painted on the two sides of the prow, the emblems of the gods to whom they were dedicated, and were navigated by Egyptian pilots, the most reowned in the world. One of these vessels is described as 180 by 45 feet and of about 1,575 tons, and is computed to have returned to its owner nearly 3,0001. annually. (Comp. Friedlander, u.s. vol. ii. p.
131, &c.) And yet these were small ships compared with those built for the conveyance of marble blocks and columns, and especially of obelisks. One of these is said to have carried, besides an obelisk, 1,200 passenger, a freight of paper, nitre, pepper, linen, and a large cargo of wheat.] The commerce of India was in the hands of the Alexandrian shippers. [3 The journey took aboutthree months, either up the Nile, thence by caravan, and again by sea; or else perhaps by the Ptolemy Canal and the Red Sea.] Since the days of the Ptolemies the Indian trade alone had increased sixfold. [4 It included gold-dust, ivory, and mother-of-pearl from the interior of Africa, spices from Arabia, pearls from the Gulf of Persia, precious stones and byssus from India, and silk from China.] Nor was the native industry inconsiderable. Linen goods, to suit the tastes or costumes of all countries; woolen stuffs of every hue, some curiously wrought with figures, and even scenes; glass of every shade and in every shape; paper from the thinnest sheet to the coarsest packing paper; essences, perfumeries, such were the native products. However idly or luxuriously inclined, still every one seemed busy, in a city where (as the Emperor Hadrian expressed it) 'money was the people's god;' and every one seemed well-to-do in his own way, from the waif in the streets, who with little trouble to himself could pick up sufficient to go to the restaurant and enjoy a comfortable dinner of fresh or smoked fish with garlic, and his pudding, washed down with the favourite Egyptian barley beer, up to the millionaire banker, who owned a palace in the city and a villa by the canal that connected Alexandria with Canobus. What a jostling crowd of all nations in the streets, in the market (where, according to the joke of a contemporary, anything might be got except snow), or by the harbours; what cool shades, delicious retreats, vast halls, magnificent libraries, where the savants of Alexandria assembled and taught every conceivable branch of learning, and its far-famed physicians prescribed for the poor consumptive patients sent thither from all parts of Italy! What bustle and noise among that ever excitable, chatty conceited, vain, pleasure-loving multitude, whose highest enjoyment was the theatre and singers; what scenes on that long canal to Canobus, lined with luxurious inns, where barks full of pleasure-seekers revelled in the cool shade of the banks, or sped to Canobus, that scene of all dissipation and luxury, proverbial even in those days! And yet, close by, on the shores of Lake Mareotis, as if in grim contrast, were the chosen retreats of that sternly ascetic Jewish party, the Therapeutae, [a On theexistence of the Therapeutes comp. Art. Philo in Smith & Wace's Diet, of Chr. Biogr. vol. iv.] whose views and practices in so many points were kindred to those of the Essenes in Palestine!
This sketch of Alexandria will help us to understand the surroundings of the large mass of Jews settled in the Egyptian capital. Altogether more than an eighth of the population of the country (one million in 7,800,000) was Jewish. Whether or not a Jewish colony had gone into Egypt at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, or even earlier, the great mass of its residents had been attracted by Alexander the Great, [b Mommsen (Rom. Gesch. v. p. 489) ascribes this rather to Ptolemy I] who had granted the Jews equally exceptional privileges with the Macedonians. The later troubles of Palestine under the Syrian kings greatly swelled their number, the more so that the Ptolemies, with one exception, favoured them. Originally a special quarter had been assigned to the Jews in the city, the 'Delta' by the eastern harbour and the Canobus canal, probably alike to keep the community separate, and from its convenience for commercial purposes. The priveleges which the Ptolemies had accorded to the Jews were confirmed, and even enlarged, by Julius Caesar. The export trade in grain was now in their hands, and the harbour and river police committed to their charge. Two quarters in the city are named as specially Jewish, not, however, in the sense of their being confined to them. Their Synagogues, surrounded by shady trees, stood in all parts of the city. But the chief glory of the Jewish community in Egypt, of which even the Palestinians boasted, was
the great central Synagogue, built in the shape of a basilica, with double colonnade, and so large that it needed a signal for those most distant to know the proper moment for the responses. The different trade guilds sat there together, so that a stranger would at once know where to find Jewish employers or fellow-workmen, [c Sukk. 51 b.] In the choir of this Jewish cathedral stood seventy chairs of state, encrusted with precious stones, for the seventy elders who constituted the eldership of Alexandria, on the model of the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.
It is a strange, almost inexplicable fact, that the Egyptian Jews had actually built a schismatic Temple. During the terrible Syrian persecutions in Palestine Onias, the son of the murdered High-Priest Onias III, had sought safety in Egypt. Ptolemy Philometor not only received him kindly, but gave a disused heathen temple in the town of Leontopolis for a Jewish sanctuary. Here a new Aaronic priesthood ministered, their support being derived from the revenues of the district around. The new Temple, however, resembled not that of Jerusalem either in outward appearance nor in all its internal fittings. [1 Instead of the seven-branched golden candlestick there was a golden lamp, suspended from a chain of the same metal.] At first the Egyptian Jews were very proud of their new sanctuary, and professed to see in it the fulfilment of the prediction, [a is xix. 18.] that five cities in the land of Egypt should speak the language of Canaan, of which one was to be called Ir-ha-Heres, which the LXX. (in their original form, or by some later emendation) altered into 'the city of righteousness.' This temple continued from about 160 B.C. to shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem. It could scarcely be called a rival to that on Mount Moriah, since the Egyptian Jews also owned that of Jerusalem as their central sanctuary, to which they made pilgrimages and brought their contributions, [b Philo, ii, 646, ed. Mangey.] while the priests at Leontopolis, before
