Changes

====The Construction of the Lighthouse====

Although located in Egypt, the city of Alexandria was founded by the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great when the wrested Egypt away from the Persians in 331 BC. Alexander liked the location of the area because of its natural harbor and so decided to build a city there as a monument to his greatness and to promote the Greek concept of Hellenism. Construction of the city began under the first of the Greek-Macedonian rulers of Egypt, Ptolemy I (ruled 305-282 BC), who commissioned the architect Dinocrates of Rhodes to design the city on a grid-pattern, which was quite revolutionary at the time. <ref> Clayton, Peter A. “The Pharos at Alexandria.” In <i>The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.</i> Edited by Peter Clayton and Martin J. Price. (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 140</ref> The centerpiece of this bold new city would be the landmark known as the Pharos Lighthouse or Lighthouse of Alexandria.

====Ancient Descriptions of the Lighthouse====

Besides their references to the Lighthouse’s possible architect, the ancient writers are the best source for the modern understanding of the Lighthouse’s size, structure, and uses. Julius Caesar mentioned the Lighthouse in his military memoirs about the Civil Wars in the first century BC. By his own admission, Caesar’s troops caused damage to buildings on the Pharos Island near the Lighthouse during the Alexandria campaign in 48 BC and according to the first century BC Greek geographer, Strabo, the damage was significant.

Although Caesar’s troops caused a certain amount of destruction on the Pharos Island and also apparently to the Lighthouse itself, it took little time for the Romans to rebuild Egypt’s second entry into the Seven Wonders of the World. Alexandria continued to be an important city once its control passed from the Ptolemies to the Romans. The Romans apparently quickly repaired the damage to the Lighthouse because when the first century AD Jewish historian Josephus wrote about it, no damage was mentioned.

“For Egypt is difficult to enter by land, and the coast is almost harbourless. . . It is difficult even in peacetime for ships to approach the harbour of Alexandria; the entrance is narrow, and submerged rocks make a straight course impossible. The left side is shut in by artificial moles; on the right the island of Pharos lies off shore, and from this rises an enormous lighthouse whose fires are visible thirty-five miles away, warning visiting ships to anchor at night well away from the shore because of the difficulty of making port.” <ref> Josephus. <i> The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged.</i> Translated by William Whiston. (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1987), Book IV, 6043</ref>