Re: Burial of Alexander's body at Memphis

[Kate]

Hi Ruth,
I always thought it was Alexandria too. However, a few days ago I found a site on the Web with extracts form Diodorus and Pausanias. Diodorus gives a long description of Alexander's funerary cart and then about Ptolemy hijacking the body and burying it at Memphis. According to him it was Ptolemy's son, P. Philadelphus, who transported the body to Alexandria, by then his captial, which does make a kind of sense sinnce Memphis was once the capital of Egypt and Alexandria at the time of Alexander's death would have only been a half-finished town.I posted the question in the hope that someone might know if these writers were correct. All I know is that Ptolemy II reigned 293-246, but I would love to find out when this transfer happened (if it did!). I suppose if he wanted to make the most of the situation he probably transferred the body early in his reign,Cheers,Kate

[marcus]

Hi Kate,I honestly don't know the answer, but here are a couple of thoughts.Alexander's body is originally taken to Memphis, which is where Ptolemy is crowned king in 305 (or whenever it was) - which would make sense.For some time into Ptolemy's reign in Egypt, Alexandria cannot have been particularly well developed, so Ptolemy reigns in Memphis and keeps Alexander's body there. After all, even Rome wasn't built in a day, and it's reasonable to expect that it was a good 20 or 30 years before Alexandria was built and populated sufficiently for it to become the capital.Towards the end of Ptolemy's reign he starts using Alexandria as the capital, but it only really gains the distinction when Ptol II succeeds, at which point all the trappings move from Memphis, the Library is built etc. etc.As I say, I base this on no facts that I know, but it seems fairly reasonable supposition to me :-)All the bestMarcus