Alexandria in White Moon Colours

The nocturnal custodian of the City – Cosmos of Alexander is dressed in its regular apparel; it is time for evening walkings and endeavours. Alexandria reflects all its magic in white nights. Inhabitants and travelers meet the Unknown in the lengthy, curvy Corniche, a highly personified location that resembles the paasionate, naked body of a Sea Lady.

As the wind blows, millions of Mediterranean sea drops are thrown on the faces of buildings and on the eyes of the wanderers. In some spots, like the Shatby beach in front of the Library or the rocky edges before the Mustafa Kamel hospital, an unusually strong odour of iodium suggests the correct location for ideal homeotherapy. This is a place for meditation and nocturnal contemplation of the Alexandrian stars.

And as you are about to forget the 4th century CE Coptic massacres of the followers of Ancient Egyptian rites, the Muslim massacres of Copts in the Mamelouk and the Ottoman times, the terrible strifes and clashes between the Greeks and the Jews that highlighted Alexandria's exasperations during the Ptolemaic and Roman times, you come to meet Eratosthenes, the great Geographer and wise librarian. In the beginning of the second half of the third pre-Christian century, he concluded in a groundbreaking study that the (flat) Earth's Equator (Isemerinos) crosses Syene, today's Aswan, no less than 1080 km in the south of Alexandria!

It was the first time, a Wise scholar stipulated that there was in the south of Egypt's southernmost city as much surface to cross as from that point to the northernmost confines of the then world. To the eyes of the Egyptians, of the Phoenicians who had been famous in sailing in the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, of the Aramaeans who had already organized the land trade with China, and of the Greeks who had reached as far as India (thanks to Alexander King of Macedonia) and Thule (Iceland – the famous trip of Pytheas of Marseille), it must have sounded incredible!

In our times, we conspicuously forget that our civilization, the Human Civilization, our Destiny, our Path have been predominantly a matter of the Northern Hemisphere. The only important and sizeable civilization developed in the south of the Equator was that of the Incas on the Andes mountains. All the rest have been just.... Northerners!

What was known in the south of Syene at the times of Eratosthenes? First of all, Ethiopia, which corresponds to modern Sudan, with Meroe as capital. In the south of Ethiopia, Abyssinia was a small and backward realm with Axum as capital. Never be confused, modern Abyssinia has usurped the name of Ethiopia for political – theological reasons. On the other side of the Red Sea, the Yemenite countries of Saba (Sheba), Qataban, Himyar, and Hadhramawt were known. And then, part of the Eastern African coast (the area called Punt by the Ancient Egyptians) and the Western coast of India.

Now, if you draw the Equator line at Syene/Aswan, and you calculate the distance between Aswan's and Iceland's latitude (24 N - 65 N), you realize that Eratosthenes told his peers that the surface of the Earth extended far in the south of Cape Town, Africa's southernmost point (33 S). According to the great Geographer's calculations, the Earth extended in the south as far as ....Tasmania in Oceania, and the Chubut province of Central Patagonia in Argentina (far more in the south of the Inca empire's southernmost point in today's Bolivia and Northern Chile).

This was the result of so many Alexandrian White nights!

Leave the Eratosthenes' era, and come closer. Having disembarked in the Western Harbour, you enjoy your nocturnal promenade along with your captain, at the times of the Roman Emperor Nero. You go past the famous Pharos lighthouse, and you walk on the Heptastadion.

You admire the Alexandrian White Moon reflexions in the waters of the Eastern Harbour, and you are astounded by what your captain has achieved in great secrecy.... He just unveiled to you his secret activities. He told you everything when back in Alexandria!

Tomorrow morning, he will go up to the Library to submit his manuscript for later use by scholars, merchants and navigators; its title is 'Periplus of the Red Sea'.

You have been sailing for years under his orders, you saw him dealing with Yemenite and Indian merchants in Ptolemais Theron (today's Suakin in Sudan), in Adulis (today's Eritrea), in Malao (todays' Berbera in Somaliland), and in Rhapta (today's Dar es Salam in Tanzania).

He has been a long date friend with harbour authorities at Arabia Felix (today's Aden), with the Parthians of Barbarikon (in the east of today's Karachi), and with the princes of Ariake at Barygaza (nearby today's Mumbai).

You circumnavigated Taprobane (Sri Lanka) with difficulty, and you arrived as far as Chryse (the Golden – today's Indochina).

You risked your lives, trying to anchor in Dioskouridou (Socotra)'s northern coast's harbours; and yet, he did not say to you anything about his personal notes. The distances among the harbours frequented, the products available in the local markets, political authorities involved in the trade organization, social and natural phenomena; he wrote it all down, and now he is about to submit it to the Library for later use. A great posteriority!

After having reached the end of the world, you found yourself back in Alexandria. Still full of questions!

For a fleeing moment, your eyes were fixed in the White Moon's reflexions in the Eastern Harbour's waters, and you asked him:

- And what is the meaning of all our travels, and the faraway parts of the world that we came to see and know?

He asnwered to you:

- Perhaps now we learned to appreciate Alexandria in a way we never had, before traveling!

- And what is the meaning of Alexandria?

- The meaning that we give the city, bringing here all the products of the world; Alexandria is the World!

Then, you asked a last question:

- And what is the most important point in Alexandria?

Your captain smiled and replied:

- I thought you knew; the rest of the world!

On these words, he disappeared in the White Moon's reflexions, taken by the sea, the wind, and the stars of the nocturnal Alexandrian skies.

And you were left alone - with all the world for you!