Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

After his victory at Actium in 31 bc Augustus pursued his defeated rivals, Antony and Kleopatra, to Alexandria in Egypt. After capturing the city, he soon had the opportunity to view its sights. One of the few places he is known to have visited during his residence there is the tomb of Alexander the Great. Rome's future emperor is said to have reverently placed a golden crown on the embalmed body laid out in front of him and then scattered flowers on it. When asked if he would also like to see the tombs of Ptolemies, the Greco-Macedonian dynasty that had ruled over Egypt since the death of Alexander, he abruptly dismissed the suggestion, saying that ‘he wanted to see a king, not some corpses’. So, at least, reports Suetonius in the early second century ad (Suet. Aug. 18, cf. Dio 51.16, Erskine 2002a ). This story in many ways captures the Hellenistic Age. It was the transforming power of Alexander that brought Alexandria into existence, a major Greek city which had grown up in the foreign land of Egypt, something which would have been unthinkable to a Greek of the fifth century bc . Here, as the dead Alexander lies before the new ruler of the world, the beginning and the end of the Hellenistic period meet, Alexander the Macedonian king who changed the East by his conquest of the Persian empire, Augustus the Roman who overthrew the last of the successor kingdoms with his ... log in or subscribe to read full text