The emergence of this kind of superrich family subtly undermined imperial authority. They were no longer one of several dividing up the power in a region and sharing a sense of rivalry and patriotism, but were now far more dominant as a family unit and growing unconcerned with matters beyond their personal ken. Like Dioscoros, the Apiones also left a huge trove of documents unearthed in modern times, where we can read memos from a senior estate steward to a junior colleague, resolving a quarrel over the use of a cistern or ordering a boat repair for a trip downriver to Alexandria.
Much as the cities of Ireland had to wait for the Vikings to come by sea and “discover” the virtues of the ports of Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick, so Alexandria was brought to glory by conquering Alexander and his successors from far away. For them, linking Egypt with the Mediterranean world was an obvious step and building the city and port of Alexandria the obvious way to do it, after the many generations of Egyptian rulers who had been content with their riverine world and the tribute that came overland from the east In matters of government and religion.
Alexandria and Egypt
Alexandria and Egypt were natural magnets for Jews, some of whom settled there before Romans were even heard of, at Elephantine far south on the Nile at the first cataract. They were probably planted there as a military garrison in the pay of the Persians, when the great kings dominated Egypt long before the time of Augustus, and they kept up their rituals in astonishing isolation from Jerusalem. And where there were Jews, from very early times there were usually Christians. While Athens remained doggedly faithful to its traditions and its irreligion until the threat of brute force intervened, Alexandria was more cosmopolitan and diverse at every period. There were ugly moments, as in the early 400s when a Christian mob murdered Hypatia, an intellectual prodigy who refused to accept or acknowledge the new creed. But prevailing powers usually forget the violence they had used to clear their paths, and so by the sixth century it was possible to think of Alexandria as a place that had naturally and uncomplicatedly endured in its role as the great city of the Mediterranean world. Rome and Constantinople had imperial pomp, but Alexandria had urban flair—think of staid Berlin or Washington compared with cosmopolitan Paris or New York. The ships still came and went, while caravans brought Mesopotamian and Syrian trade over land. The Nile also brought men and commerce, some of it from the Red Sea voyages of Cosmas and his kind.
