A Study on the Monumental Center of Ancient Alexandria: The Identification of the Ptolemaic Mouseion and the Urban Transformation in Late Antiquity
Date
2018ISSN
0075-63342192-7669
Source
KlioVolume
100Issue
1Pages
242-287Google Scholar check
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Among the whole burden of the written sources dealing with the urban appearance of Ptolemaic and Roman Alexandria, five or six ancient authors give us precious information which could finally offer a lead to the reconstruction of the monumental center of Alexandria: 1) Strabo, 2) Diodorus, 3) Zenobius, 4) Achilles Tatius, 5) Pseudo-Libanius and 6) Pseudo-Callisthenes. Nowadays, the written testimonia concerning the historical topography of Alexandria are severely withstanding to a hypercritical treatment, to a disapproval instead of a reappraisal.1 Yet, there is no other way to solve the puzzle of the monumental center of Ptolemaic Alexandria, but to explain the thinking behind what the ancient authors, principally Strabo, may have seen in Alexandria as eyewitnesses.