Alexandria (Radio Edit)

0:01Hello and welcome to You're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are packing our travel guides and venturing back over 2 ,000 years as we trek all the way to Egypt to trace the cultural and intellectual history of the city of Alexandria. And to help me do that, I'm joined by two very special guests in History Corner. He's a multi-award winning author, broadcaster, curator and academic. He's a professor of literature and history at Birmingham City University and an expert in the cultural history of the Middle East.

0:34He's also the author of the award-winning book, Alexandria, The City That Changed the World. It's a brilliant book. I highly recommend it. It's Professor Islam Issa. Welcome, Islam. Thank you. I'm excited. And a little confused why we're not doing this recording in Alexandria. The budget didn't quite stretch. Sorry, Athena. All the money was spent on me. That's what the problem is. And in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, writer and podcaster. You may have heard her on numerous Radio 4 shows or on her podcasts, Bust or Trust, a kids' mystery podcast and keeping Athena company. She's even written a funny history book for kids, history's most epic fibs.

1:09But you'll know her best from past appearances on this very podcast. It's Athena Kablenu. Welcome back, Athena. Thanks for having me back. Delighted to have you back. We've had you on many times because you're very good at this. Plus, you also write history books for kids. I do, yes. Do you know much about the history of Alexandria? I know very much like Stevenage is named after Stephen. Alexandria might be named after someone called Alexander yeah? that's a good start yeah is that alright? we're halfway there yeah and I know it had a library that burnt down loads it did it did so what do you know?

1:48this is where I have it go at guessing what you our lovely listener will know about today's subject and I think like Athena you will have heard of the city of Alexandria I think you will have heard of the library and the famous fire that burned it down. Alexandria pops up quite a lot in pop culture. It is in the Liz Taylor iconic movie Cleopatra, of course. The famed Egyptian director Yusuf Shaheen set many of his films in the city, including Alexandria. Why? Clues in the name. And if gaming is more your thing, you may have roamed the streets of Ptolemaic Alexandria in Assassin's Creed Origins.

2:18But how did a small fishing village become one of the greatest intellectual hubs of the world? And how exactly do you smuggle a dead saint out of a city Let's find out. Right, Professor Islam, let's start with the basics, please. Where is Alexandria? I know it's in Egypt, but like, you know, where? What time period are we starting on? I know we're doing like a big old history. Why is Alexandria important? Three big questions for you to start the show. So it's on the Mediterranean, on the Nile Delta. So that's where the Nile River spreads into the Mediterranean. So it's sort of south of Greece, but it's also in Africa, in the northeast of Africa.

2:58In terms of time period, how long do we have? Radiocarbon dating of the seashells there tells us that there was a settlement as early as the 27th century BC. So we're talking like 2600 BC. It's originally a series of small fishing villages. and then Alexandria itself, the city, is founded in 331 BC. It's founded by Alexander the Great. 4th century BC it's founded and it quickly develops into the capital of Egypt, the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Ptolemy I is Alexander's friend in general and the Ptolemies go all the way to the famous Cleopatra, Cleopatra VII. It becomes a global knowledge capital and a trade capital and it lives on today.

3:49You know, by 1950, it's still got a million people in it and today it has about six million people in it. So it's... Wow, I'm actually amazed at the site. That's like London's like eight million, right? So Alexander supposedly visualises the city in front of him, right? And he plants it out with seeds? Yeah, so he's already read about it in Homer. You know, it's inspired him to go and he arrives and he realises that the location is great because it's at the intersection of three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe. And obviously his main goal is world domination. So he thinks this will be a great place to build and carry on with his ventures.

4:29It's like a place in the sun, but for like megalomaniacs. Isn't that a great view of places you can invade? Yeah, great. I'll take it. So he gets down on his knees, according to legend, and he puts with grain on the sand a map of the city as he imagines it. It has, you know, the markets and the temples and the shrine to the muses, which will become the library. It's probably also worth mentioning, though, that when he arrives there, there's already a canal system, for example, that the ancient Egyptians had built that will make transporting the grain easier. There's access to the Nile that will make him have irrigation systems, sewage systems and so on.

5:09and then he leaves it to the most famous architect of the time, Denocrates, to build the city. After he designs the city, he leaves straight away to Siwa, further south in Egypt, because there's an oracle there where he wants to find out if he's divine. And true enough, he finds out that he is divine. What are the chances? Yeah, you're divine, Alex, yeah. Now please let me live. Actually, for that reason, he never sees a building go up in Alexandria. He never returns. And the interesting story actually is, you know, you mentioned the Ptolemaic dynasty, Islam, which obviously gives us Cleopatra much, much later on.

5:43But it's the first Ptolemy, a man called Ptolemy, who founds the dynasty, who kind of puts Alexandria on the map in terms of its power and status. He then uses Alexander's death to put himself on the map too. Do you want to know how? Oh, does he write a book? A single? He sings a song like Handling the Wind.

6:06and people would... Is that not it, Craig? I mean, that's a lovely idea. You lift your life like a candle in the wind, never failing to conquer Egypt and India. No, he literally stole Alexander's body. Oh, OK. And just stuck it on his wall like a big antelope. A lion. Not quite, no. It's a heist, right? He takes an army, he intercepts the funeral cortege, which is moving from Syria to... It's around Babylon. Right, okay. And it's heading towards sort of Macedon, you know, where Alexander is originally from. Okay. Alexander's request apparently was to be buried in Siwa, which is the oracle where he found out he was divine.

6:48So he claims, Ptolemy, that he's taking him, you know, to Egypt because that's where Alexander would want to go. Sure. But he realises, actually, if I go to Alexandria, then I can really legitimise it as a capital. Yeah. And as Alexander's city. And so he takes the corpse to Alexandria and builds an amazing mausoleum there that actually became like a site of pilgrimage for Roman emperors, but is now lost. Ptolemy puts Alexander on the map. He's taken the corpse of Alexander to legitimate himself. And what does he do for the city of Alexandria? What has the city become under Ptolemy I? He tries to develop like a very unique identity for the city that's Greco-Egyptian.

7:29He also continues to invite people from all around the region. So we have people coming from the Holy Land. There's a lot of Jews who come to Alexandria and have freedom of worship in the Jewish quarter. There's people from the Levant. There's even evidence of people from as far as India in the Ptolemaic days coming to Alexandria. So there's jobs and there's freedom of worship. The idea is that they can live in relative tolerance. He also commissions important monuments. We've mentioned Alexander's tomb. There's big temples, public gardens. It becomes a very populous city. It's thought by some to be the first city that reaches a million people.

8:03But that sounds incredible, right? Isn't that the model of the kind of cities you'd like to live in now? Yeah, it's a 15-minute city. Alexandria is now in its sort of Ptolemaic era. We get these new building projects. As well as the Garden of Eleusis, we also get the Pharos Lighthouse, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. Yes, and I know this because I used to play Civilization. Yeah, there we go. Another classic game for our elder millennial listeners. And that was a big landmark when you built the lighthouse. Yeah, I mean, a little graphic come up with the lighthouse. Exactly, a little fanfare.

8:33Yeah. I mean, the Ferros Lighthouse is one of the seven wonders of the world. So it's incredibly important in the ancient world. And it's still, I mean, archaeologists were digging and diving down there like last month, I think. Amazing, isn't it? It is. The remains are still there. And that was on the Ferros Island. So when Alexander arrived, he connected the fishing villages with Ferros Island, with a causeway. And that's where the lighthouse was built. and the lighthouse's remains are there and now there's a citadel there in modern Alexandria. That's very handy. And of course, also at the same time, they build the famous library, the one you mentioned on the way in, Athena.

9:07How many texts do you think were held in that library? Oh, goodness. OK, it's going to be silly. 10 ,000. I mean, that's a lot of books, right? Well, wouldn't they be like scrolls? They would be scrolls. I think 20 ,000. Oh, you've gone bigger. Yeah, go on, hit me. We don't really know for sure. All right, we can ruin the tension. Well, let me say this. When Ptolemy hired Demetrius to found the library, he said to him to find every book in the world, I'm quoting from a letter that's been found. The job description was every book in the world. Just too many. So the estimates are sort of from 500 ,000 to a million.

9:47So basically the internet. To over a million. Put the internet in here. Yeah. There are like letters from Ptolemy to the librarian saying, have you got all the books yet? he's checking in and we get incredible scholars coming to the city don't we? Maths fans will know Euclid of geometry fame who else is showing up and playing their intellectual trade? Eratosthenes who said that the world's not flat. Aristarchus said that the earth goes around the sun which was a very odd thing to say at the time they developed fields like alchemy someone called Maria the Dues was somebody who developed alchemy and her main aim was basically turning anything into gold and living forever.

10:31Two good aims. It was heron or hero of Alexandria who invented all sorts of things like the first steam engine, also the first vending machine. Oh, what a king. Usually for holy water. And there was a school of medicine which allowed women in, which wasn't the case in Athens where it was only men. Different types of poetry were invented. And we also get Ptolemy IV. So, you know, once you've got Ptolemy I, you get two, three and four. He builds a shrine to Homer, the great poet who gave us the Odyssey. Well, he may not have existed, but, you know, the idea of him. What? I think you're part of that.

11:08He may not have been a real guy, but that's a different episode, Athena. But there are also scammers, right? There were people showing up pretending to be great intellectuals or pretending to have been taught by great intellectuals. That's right. But certainly, yeah, the library, all sorts of issues arose because, you know, getting every book in the world, is not very selective and it's borderline obsessive. Yeah. Anyone who could write would write anything because they were guaranteed to sell it. And then even better, you could scam the librarians. Was there no quality control? No. Is this what you're saying?

11:38Eventually there was. Okay. You could then scam the librarians by pretending you heard someone famous speak and that you're writing their speeches, for example. Oh, okay. So it's like the kind of AI slop on Amazon where there's just like sort of dodgy knockoffs of famous books. Exactly. So the city was flourishing intellectually. And then obviously, as is the case with all libraries, was it sort of devastated by budget cuts? Because that's what seems to be happening to modern libraries. It's not far off. I mean, a library is a good way of understanding the priorities of government and under later Ptolemy.

12:12So basically the Ptolemies were all called Ptolemy or Cleopatra, pretty much. So by the time you get to Ptolemy VIII, Ptolemy IX, they'd evicted some scholars. They'd given the job of librarian to their allies, for example, to an army general rather than a scholar. Oh, no. And then, of course, you have the fire in the first century BC when Julius Caesar was at war with Cleopatra's brother. And actually, he writes about the fire. His autobiographies in the third person, Caesar did this and Caesar did that. Caesar set a fire in Alexandria. So he confessed to it. Yeah, he thinks it was a great idea, but he set some ships on fire and it kind of spread into the city.

12:55It didn't completely destroy the library, actually. Yeah, one of the wings goes. as I say. It's kind of a partial, but there is also a book burning by the next Roman, or the first Roman emperor, Octavian, who becomes Augustus, and he orders the burning of books. That's right. And more of those occasions, actually. Caracula, in the third century, he thinks that Alexander was assassinated by Aristotle, who was his teacher. So he burns all the Aristotelian books. So this is something that would have happened hundreds of years ago, but he's like, time to get my vengeance. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I mean, Caracalla's in the 3rd century, so he's, what, 500 years, 600 years?

13:33Yeah, he thinks he's the new Alexander. Oh, OK. And then, you know, Aurelian burns the royal quarter, which has the library in it. You know, we've got the rise of Christianity that had some book burning. In the 5th century, we have a Roman historian called Orosius who talks about empty shelves. So we know it's still there in the 5th century, but there's a slow decline. That's a shame. I mean, you mentioned the rise of Christianity. So the city had already been multi-ethnic, multicultural. You talked about Jews coming and living there beforehand. But the rise of Christianity is a really interesting and important story in the city's history.

14:06Can you tell us more? Yes, it's largely based on the fact that St. Mark the Evangelist brought Christianity to Africa through Alexandria. He arrived in Alexandria and founded the church there and would end up being murdered there as well. Alexandria was a kind of open-minded place traditionally you know the Greeks of Alexandria were seen as very liberal compared to the Greeks of Athens the Jews of Alexandria there's there's a quote about them that they're more interested in the theater than the synagogue they were different to the Jews of Jerusalem so it made sense for this new faith to gravitate towards Alexandria and be influenced by all these other faiths as well that were already there.

14:51So if like so what was they into then because if you've got like jewish people into the theater what was that what was their thing debate i think yeah sorry a painer bring back the theater guys um so obviously we've talked about pagans we've talked about polytheistic people we've talked about jews and christians and now we need to talk about the arrival of the arab caliphate that's in the 7th century is it yeah so that ends seven centuries of roman rule the arabs are led by somebody called Ahmad ibn al-Az, who is a commander who knew the prophet Muhammad. And, you know, he turns Egypt into part of the caliphate.

15:30What that does for Alexandria is that about a millennium after it's founded, it's no longer the capital of Egypt. So they move the capital because Alexandria for the Arabs is too diverse. They don't know how to deal with all these different groups. And also they don't have a navy. They're desert people. So it's a hard place to defend. And so they moved the capital. To Cairo? To what is now Old Cairo. Old Cairo. OK, thank you. The initial idea is there's still freedom of worship, there's still freedom of expression. But as far as buildings are concerned, you know, we do see temples become churches and churches become mosques.

16:12And even today, there are mosques that have gone through that journey. OK. We start to get what's called the Islamic Golden Age. The Abbasid dynasty bring that about in Baghdad. Does it spread out to Alexandria? To some extent, because of the texts and ideas that have come out of it. So even though Baghdad has become the kind of knowledge capital of the Arabs, they're still looking at texts that existed in Alexandria. So Alexandria was sort of coming back to its best. We have to do, I mean, we must mention another famous heist. So we've had one heist where they stole Alexander's body. Now we get another one.

16:48Venetian travellers stole the body of St Mark out of Alexandria. How do you think they pulled this off? Oh, how would you steal a body? Well, what you'd do is you'd go to a fancy dress shop and you'd kind of like, you'd get a costume for it. And then you'd be like, oh, don't mind my mate. He's had too much. you know when people have too much to drink and they pass that and they're just dead weight and so and the question would be or they could be like the back end of a camel and you're the front end like a pantomime horse yeah basically so costumes costume fancy dress i quite like that that's that's fun islam is that how they pulled it off Is it?

17:27It's probably as eccentric or more eccentric, isn't it? They covered it in pork. And then swapped it with the body of another saint. So they just sort of hid it under a massive ham? Yeah, in a basket. I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we were pitching an idea and someone said, great idea about how you dress Athena but how about pork? I'd be like yeah do the pork one I'm really humble like that that's a better idea Then we get the Fatimid dynasty but then the 14th century brings some disasters Athena do you know what happens in the 1340s? Black Death Yeah But it reached all the way to Alexandria Yeah Because of the harbour everything reached Alexandria Good stuff and bad stuff Some real tough times happening in the 1300s 14th century and then you get the city under new management again this time it's the ottoman turks islam and this is where the city does actually decline and that's yeah so the ottomans kept Egypt in 1517 okay and that's probably the the least exciting part of alexandria's history it does dwindle we know the population during the later ottoman time so sort of 18th centuries it's about 15 000 but there is of course uh a famously big guy well he's famously not big of course but he he shows up in the late 1700s.

18:53He's a Corsican, he's a Frenchman. Napoleon! Napoleon! He arrives in Alexandria because he's a big fanboy of Alexander Grey. And his trip to Egypt is famously violent. He goes around, you know, attacking armies and whatnot. But he also brings scholars, his famous savants, his artists, his archaeologists, right? He arrives at Pharos, you know, where Alexander was because he wants to emulate him. He does this wonderful speech to his soldiers about how they have to respect the locals and respect the faith of the locals as Alexander did and then he literally blows up the synagogue which by the way has recently been renovated and very beautifully he kills 700 locals as he as he enters the city they are serious about Egyptian archaeology yeah they draw lots of really nice pictures of Egypt at the time and but they also take or help themselves to lots of stuff from Egypt as well.

19:50And I don't mean like little things. I mean things like obelisks. Yeah. And of course, the British are there too. I mean, famously, you know, the Battle of the Nile. You've got Lord Nelson fighting against Napoleon. The British presence in Alexandria did not last that long. In 1817, they signed an agreement to leave Egypt. And in comes a guy called Muhammad Ali. Not that one. Not that one. That'd have been amazing, but not that one. He's ruling with Ottoman support. And the city becomes interesting and culturally again. In 1897, the Lumiere brothers shot a film there in the city. So it's, you know, the Egyptian cinema industry is famous, like they're great filmmakers.

20:23But it starts so early, 1897. So we get something called the Nada, the Arab Enlightenment. Have I mispronounced that? Nada, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So as you said, the Lumiere brothers go to Alexandria. Everyone's excited. You know, we have E.M. Forster, among others, who writes a history of the city. we have the Egyptian cultural renaissance as well because don't forget that the Europeans are there and and you know we said Egyptology European Egyptology has begun well you know there's lots of stuff being plundered reports of you know tomb findings being used as decor for homes yeah and they use mummy cases for cooking fuel and things like that so Egyptians want to have some autonomy and one way of doing that is through this what's called this kind of Arab cultural awakening yeah The Nahda, which is a way of sort of creating cultural autonomy as a way of countering the European influence at the time.

21:18Does it work? Arguably it does, because of course Britain had ruled Egypt from 1882 until the revolution of 1919. And then in 1922, there is an independence granted, a partial independence granted. But certainly it's an important date, isn't it, in Egyptian history? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, it works in the sense that people realise they have an autonomous identity, that their culture is capable of creating amazing things, just like English and French culture is. And also simply the subject matter of the things being written was calling for people to realise their independence. So, you know, to give an example, you have an operetta called Cleopatra and Antony, where Cleopatra is the hero and it's played by you know Alexandrian artists and actors that kind of use of Egyptian instruments all of these things that suggest autonomy and independence yeah so they did Alexandria and Cleopatra the musical before like Tina the musical before back to the future they were like on it that's very ahead of their time yeah by the mid 20th century so the 40s, 50s, 60s, Alexandria is the home of anti-monarchical revolution and radicalism as well, isn't it?

22:31It's a city of politics. Yeah, and it's interesting because the king was often residing in Alexandria in the palace there. And then when he's kicked out of Egypt, he's kicked out from Alexandria. This is King Farouk, is it? King Farouk, exactly. So he's replaced in 1952 by Nasser, the prime minister, who sort of becomes a president figure, doesn't he? He does. I mean, Nasser doesn't become the first president. He's sort of the deputy to Naguib who becomes the first president, but Nasser becomes the famous president from a few months later. It's a time of rising Arab nationalism. OK, so there is a sort of sense of the city becoming an Arab cultural centre.

23:10And today Alexandria is a beautiful city and is still linked back to its history. I mean, it's an extraordinary story, Athena, isn't it? It's sort of weird how it kind of goes around in circles as well. Like it's kind of like multiculturalism, liberalism, and then something else. and then back to that and then back to that and back to that. So it's a city that's always fighting to be a certain place. The Nuance Window!

23:34Time now for The Nuance Window. This is where Athena and I sit in the quiet section of the library for two minutes while Professor Islam tells us something we need to know about Alexandria. So take it away, Professor Issa. I want to say something obvious. that there's much to gain when Egypt is studied by an Egyptian, or in this case, an Alexandrian. Like me, Alexandrians today are the 100th generation to carry that name. Even as a child, darting across the promenade, Cleopatra embossed pocket money clinking in my pocket, I felt the city's magnitude, its history in the air. To capture this tapestry, scholarship alone isn't enough.

24:17I discovered and translated 9th century Islamic poetry about Alexander and 11th century letters from Alexandrian Jews. I took in folk tales and oral histories. I drank tea with family elders and friendly strangers. I chatted with librarians and eccentric vagabonds. Coffee reached Alexandria before Italy and a century before England, so cafes fittingly became central to my experience. In one, the barista wrote my name on the cup in beautiful Arabic and I almost wept, overwhelmed by its sheer normality. In another, I paused at a portrait of Alexander blowing a big pink bubble. In cafes, I heard a dozen theories about his tomb's location.

25:02It confirmed, impossible to a non-native speaker or cultural outsider that Alexander lives on in the city's collective consciousness. Armed with linguistic and colloquial fluency, with cultural knowledge and memory, I roamed Alexandria's streets, unravelling the threads woven into its soul. With its universal appeal, Egypt continues to be explored, even claimed, by scholars whose narratives at best miss the nuances of its culture and history, and at worst undermine or erase the people for whom that history isn't a mere curiosity or day job, but a defining, enduring identity. People often ask what Alexandria means to me, expecting facts and figures about an ancient city.

25:49But for me, it's people watching from the balcony. It's cats weaving around my feet. It's the sound of a classical Egyptian melody echoing in a moonlit cafe. Thank you so much. That's beautiful. I've done a few You're Dead to Me's, which is a real honour. This is probably the one that makes me want to go and book a holiday. like right now. What a lovely way to contextualise history as something that's here today and it's inherited by the people who are present there and the diversity of it. And I think that's a wonderful advertisement rather than in 1066. It's more like, come and have a coffee.

26:27We'll write your name in Arabic on it. It's lovely. Thank you so much, Athena. And listener, if you want more from Athena, check out our past episodes on Haitian Revolution. We did Madam CJ Walker. We did Injinka River, Dongo and Matamba. if cities you're a thing have a listen to our episode on Istanbul in the Ottoman Golden Age with Sue Perkins and Professor Ebru Boyar I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner we had the wonderful Professor Islam Issa from Birmingham City University thank you Islam thank you Greg and in Comedy Corner we had the awesome Athena Kablanu thank you Athena thank you for having me and to you lovely listener join me next time as we explore another historical hotspot but for now I'm off to go and smuggle out my favourite library books hiding them inside a ham sandwich bye Bye!