Alexandria

Assembled from 26 blocks · 2 evidence · 42 related

1. Story
2. The largest city of the Roman East and the hinge of the empire's food supply: Egyptian grain shipped from Alexandria fed Rome and later Constantinople. It was also the empire's most important centre of Greek learning, and a standing reminder that the Roman Empire was administratively Latin but culturally bilingual - Greek was the working language of the eastern provinces throughout.
3. Knowledge
4. Alexandria
5. Latin as an Administrative Language
6. The Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostrum)
7. Connections
8. Christianity
9. The Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostrum)
10. Latin as an Administrative Language
11. Battle of Actium
12. Dedication of Constantinople
13. The Egyptian cable land crossing
14. Rome
15. The Roman Road Network
16. Alexandria
17. The Punic Wars
18. The Punic Wars
19. Battle of Actium
20. Dedication of Constantinople
21. Alexandria
22. Roman Law
23. Compilation of the Corpus Iuris Civilis
24. Evidence
25. Empire-wide population at the mid-2nd century CE is estimated in a range of roughly 59-72 million, with the wider scholarly spread running from c. 46 million under Augustus (Frier) to 60-90 million at the high end. The familiar '60 million' is one point inside a contested range, not a measured figure; the underlying Italian census debate (low count vs high count) is unresolved.
26. Augustus's own account of his achievements, in Latin and Greek, listing offices, benefactions, conquests and the claim that he 'transferred the state to the free disposal of the Senate and People'. It is the founding document of the Principate's self-presentation and simultaneously a piece of political advocacy, not a neutral record.