Pharos: The Lighthouse at Alexandria

Summary

"The voyage along the coast of this sea [the Mediterranean] is exceedingly long, and any landing is especially difficult; for from Paraetonium in Libya as far as Iop� in Coele-Syria, a voyage along the coast of some five thousand stades, there is not to be found a safe harbour except Pharos. And, apart from these considerations, a sandbank extends along practically the whole length of Egypt, not discernible to any who approach without previous experience of these waters. Consequently those who think that they have escaped the peril of the sea, and in their ignorance turn with gladness towards the shore, suffer unexpected shipwreck when their vessels suddenly run aground; and now and then mariners who cannot see land in time because the country lies so low are cast ashore before they realize it, some of them on marshy and swampy places and others on a desert region." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History (I.31.2-5) The low and featureless coastline of Egypt, with its broad delta and endless desert, offered no prominent landmarks by which a mariner could plot a course. For Homer, the only harbor in the "long and painful way" to Egypt (Odyssey, IV.542, also Hyginus, Fables, CXVIII) was at Pharos, where Menelaus was said to have been stranded on his return from Troy. "Now, there's an island out in the ocean's heavy surge, well off the Egyptian coast�they call it Pharos....There's a snug harbor there, good landing beach where crews pull in, draw water from the dark wells then push their vessels off for passage out" (IV.395ff). It was ruled by Proteus, the prophetic, polymorphic "Old Man of the Sea" who resided in caves along the shore, bedded down with his herd of vile-smelling seals (IV.430ff). Only by grappling with the seer and holding him tight was Menelaus able to learn why he had been marooned by the gods and how, by appeasing them with burnt offerings, he could return home. There is a variant of Homer's epic, one in which Helen, the wife of Menelaus, is herself str...