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Alexander's Cities
He named cities after himself the way other kings named children — and meant them to last. Counting them is harder than you'd think.
How many?
The ancient sources claim anywhere from a dozen to seventy foundations; Plutarch (On the Fortune of Alexander) gives the high numbers. Modern historians accept on the order of twenty genuine foundations or re-foundations, with perhaps six to ten securely attested. The inflation is ancient propaganda meeting medieval romance; the real figure is impressive enough.
The survivors
- Alexandria in Egypt (331 BC) — the one that mattered most. Founded on the Mediterranean coast between the sea and Lake Mareotis, laid out (in the tradition) by Alexander himself with the help of the architect Dinocrates. It became the greatest city of the Hellenistic world: the Library, the Museum, the Pharos lighthouse, and — eventually — Alexander’s tomb (see the lost tomb).
- Alexandria in Arachosia (Kandahar, Afghanistan) — a major Hellenistic city; Greek inscriptions (including Ashokan edicts in Greek) attest its character.
- Alexandria Eschate (“the Farthest,” in Tajikistan) — the northernmost foundation, on the Jaxartes, a garrison against the steppe nomads.
- Bucephala — named for the horse, not the king (see Bucephalas).
- Alexandria in Margiana (Merv, Turkmenistan), Alexandria in Susiana, and others across the empire’s eastern half.
What the foundations were for
Not vanity — or not only vanity. The cities were instruments of empire: garrisons of veteran soldiers (often the wounded and the discharged, settled where they could hold the roads), administrative centers, and nodes of Greek civic culture planted in conquered territory. They secured the lines of communication that the campaigns had opened and gave the empire’s Greek and Macedonian settlers somewhere to be Greek.
The darker side: foundations meant forced population transfers — the sources describe whole communities moved to populate new cities — and the garrisons were also occupation forces. The cities that survived did so because they worked as cities, not because they were monuments.
The Alexandria plan
The foundation story of Alexandria in Egypt (Arrian 3.1–2; Plutarch, Alex. 26) has Alexander tracing the city walls with barley meal, which flocks of birds descended to eat — taken as an omen of prosperity. Whether or not the omen happened, the site selection was masterful: a Mediterranean port, a lake harbor, the Nile’s grain behind it. Of all Alexander’s decisions, this may be the one with the longest afterlife — the city is still there, still called Alexandria, 2,357 years later.
Source notes
- Foundation lists: Plutarch, De Alex. fort.; Arrian’s campaign narrative (each foundation in its geographical context); Curtius.
- Modern: Fraser, Cities of Alexander the Great (1996) — the standard catalogue; Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in the East.
- Alexandria in Egypt: Strabo 17.1; the foundation omen in Arrian 3.2 and Plutarch, Alex. 26.
Limitations
- The exact count of genuine foundations is disputed; “about twenty” is the working consensus.
- Several eastern Alexandrias are identified by tradition with modern sites (Kandahar, Merv) on good but not conclusive evidence.