Home -> Articoli -> Egitto Fantasmi e magia nell'antichità

Alessandria foundation

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

The first underwater fisherman of history

Alessandria Nobody can deny that from his birth in Pella until when, still a young man, he died in the Babylonian gardens Alexander didn’t lead an enchanted life. It was magical, and magic is the legend about Alexandria’s foundation. However the tale is completely fantastic and it belongs to a more recent date, a fable, we can say that is found in the book of the Arab historian Ma’sudi who told us a legend that – so he assured - dated back to Alexander times. It was about the fact that, having the very young king ordered to found Alexandria, for a long time he didn’t saw his wish fullfilled. As a matter of fact all walls that had been erected one day were found destroyed the day after. It was known that was the deed of bands of wild animals that every night surfaced from the sea and demolished everything.
Guards were set all around to watch the area, but everything seemed to be of no use. Then to find what happened Alexander devised a plan. He ordered to make a kind of big box measuring 4.50 x 2.25 m with its inner surfaces made of glass panels fixed to a scaffolding and all the structure had to be made waterproof with pitch and resin. Then he ordered it to be towed to the high seas. Here, after that this glass cage had been well tied to long ropes, Alexander and his companions entered in it and were lowered in the water until the structure didn’t hit the bottom. Then Alexander and his companions were able to see many sea monsters swimming around them. They had human bodies but animals’ head and each one of them grasped the kind of tools that workmen use; pickaxes, hammers, axes and saws. While they were seeing them passing before their glass box, Alexander and his companions drew them very carefully and not only copied their shape but they put down also their dimensions: Then they asked the boats to haul them up.
Once ashore Alexander called all the best sculptors and ordered them to very accurately mold images of the monsters they saw represented in their drawing. The statues had to be absolutely like them and they had to be put all along the coast. When this was done the Alexandrian went on building their city. When the night came the monsters arrived to the shore, but seeing their portraits set on the pedestals, they were afraid and withdrew. Thus Alexandria was built an finished and until this moment the monsters never went back.
It really looked as if there was nothing more to worry, instead the trouble began anew. When the night fell just after the town’s inauguration the monsters came back and from this moment they always turned up. Moreover each day people noticed that many of their fellows citizens had disappeared. However also this time Alexander succeeded in solving the problem. He put all around the town brass pedestals shaped in the form of arrows and 35 feet high: Ma’sudi assured that at his times they were still there. On their bases there were statues representing some very special beings and magic formulae were written over them. After that these images were placed following all the magic rules, to wit after having solved accurate studies and complex astronomical calculations to establish which could be the better moment to locate them and to form the magic belt that would protect the town. the monsters never came again. Alexandria flourished and became this headlight of civilization that history has handed down to us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
E.A. WALLIS BUDGE, Egyptian Magi, Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk, 1975, first published in 1899 pp.152-155.
MA’SUDI. Arab legend on Alexsndria's foundation