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From excess soil to resurrection: the many ways Egyptians used wine
To the ancient Egyptians, wine played a pivotal part in mythology, ritual and the natural processes that enabled their survival. Islam Issa explores six key roles it fulfilled in their society over the millennia
Fermenting change Today we associate it with relaxation and refinement, ritual and religion, even industry and investment. And the varied uses of wine are nothing new. After grapes arrived in Egypt, over 5,000 years ago, wine made major, lasting – and often surprising – impacts on its society and culture. The earliest vineyard remains in Egypt date from the fourth millennium BC. The oldest wine jar yet discovered was made c3000 BC – and jars continue to be found. Following the introduction of grape cultivation from the Levant sometime before 3000 BC, grapes became the main ingredient fermented to make irep (wine), which was typically red. For lengthy periods, wine made from the fruit (dates) or sap of palm trees was more affordable, and other fruits such as figs and pomegranates were also fermented with sugar to make wine. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/BAL501122cmyk-16147f1.jpg" width="3420" height="2278" alt="To the left of the image, 5 people are harvesting grapes from the vine, while another person appears on the right, bending over a well" title="Grape harvesting is shown in a tomb painting in Thebes dating from at least the 14th century BC – perhaps two millennia after vines were first cultivated in Egypt" /> Wine was both a staple and a valuable commodity to be bought and sold. Vineyards were largely owned by nobles who could also enjoy wine on an everyday basis, while ordinary people typically drank it only during festivals, or might receive it as a work bonus. Scenes of the grape harvest appear in several tombs, the earliest from the Old Kingdom in the third millennium BC. Some tomb depictions show the whole winemaking process from harvesting, treading and pressing to fermentation. In these illustrations, wine is most often presented in a small round cup. Read more | Life in Ancient Egypt: what was it like? Over time, Egyptian wine began to be exported, particularly after Alexandria, founded in the fourth century BC by Alexander the Great, became a global trading hub. Recently discovered wine amphorae – bottles with two small looped handles – demonstrate that wine from around Lake Mareotis (or Mariout), lying immediately south of Alexandria, reached destinations on the Strait of Sicily and as far as the coast of what’s now southern France near Marseille. Several classical writers, including the Roman poets Horace and Virgil, mentioned Mareotic wine; the Greek writer Athenaeus described it as “pleasant [and] fragrant”. Cleopatra is said to have carried Mareotic wine on her fleet. God of wine Wine wasn’t just a pleasant drink in ancient Egypt – it was linked to significant episodes in foundational mythology. In a pivotal tale, green-faced Osiris (below) – one of the most significant gods in the ancient Egyptian pantheon – was murdered by his jealous brother, Set, who locked him in a coffin and threw it into the Nile. Osiris’s blood infused the river with rich minerals, and caused the annual flooding that underpins the Egyptian soil’s fertility – an event that, to the ancient population, was nothing short of divine. According to Greek and Roman historians, excess soil washed into the Nile turned the river a reddish colour. In the ancient myth, though, it was Osiris’s blood that was not only turning the waters red but also irrigating and nourishing crops. In the story, Osiris’s remains were found by his wife, Isis, who carefully put his body parts back together. He returned to life, and impregnated her with the god Horus. Naturally, Osiris’s death and resurrection led him to become associated with rejuvenation, paralleling the cycle of the land from one harvest to the next – including the renewing grapevine. In the Temple of Edfu, built 237–57 BC on the site of an earlier monument between Luxor and Aswan, one inscription reveals how the local “vineyard flourishes” when the “inundation” of the Nile takes place and the land “bears fruit with more grapes than [the sand of] the riverbanks”. Because wine production depended on the annual flooding, Osiris became closely connected with the drink – especially red wine, which closely resembles soil and blood. In the Pyramid Texts – the oldest funerary texts, dating to the third millennium BC – Osiris, earlier venerated as the god of agriculture and resurrection, is described as the “lord of wine in flood”. He was regarded by Egyptians as the originator and teacher of viticulture and winemaking. Drunken deities Considered the blood of the gods, red wine was a common offering in temples. Osiris, in particular, was honoured through annual offerings of grain and wine. Because red wine wasn’t always affordable, barley wine (essentially a kind of beer) was often substituted. In everyday life, Egyptians referred to wine as the ‘eye of Horus’, the divine child of Osiris and Isis. One ritual involved pouring wine into a depression on the temple altar, also called the Eye of Horus – a reference to the injury he sustained during the battle with his uncle Set, god of violence. In that episode, Horus’s eye lost its blood, so filling the altar depression with wine represented rejuvenation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/GettyImages-815688130cmyk-5f2f18c.jpg" width="3543" height="2360" alt="Lion-headed warrior deity Sekhmet (left), depicted on an Egyptian jewel. A Festival of Drunkenness recalled the myth in which other gods quelled Sekhmet’s violence with wine (Image by Getty Images)" title="Lion-headed warrior deity Sekhmet (left), depicted on an Egyptian jewel. A Festival of Drunkenness recalled the myth in which other gods quelled Sekhmet’s violence with wine" /> In another myth, when the rule of sun god Ra was coming to an end, he sent his daughter Hathor – in the form of Sekhmet, a lion-headed warrior – to destroy the mortals who’d conspired against him. Sekhmet got carried away, and looked set to destroy all of humanity, so Ra and the other gods devised a strategy to stop her. They poured red-dyed beer, or wine, to create lakes throughout the land. Believing that these pools were filled with blood, Sekhmet quaffed them, became intoxicated and fell asleep. In another version of the tale, her wrath was quelled using the power of music, dance and wine. Recalling this story, at a new year Festival of Drunkenness people celebrated and re-enacted the god’s plan that saved humanity, while also being sure to appease the wrathful goddess. Other deities were honoured with wine, not least Shesmu, god of the wine press. Texts from the third millennium BC record a feast during which grapes were pressed as the people sang that god’s name. Because red wine looked similar to blood, Shesmu came to be associated with punishment for serious crimes. In coffin texts and one discovered papyrus, Shesmu fills his wine press not with grapes but with the heads of criminals, then squeezes them into agonising oblivion for their unforgivable sins. Pharaoh's finest In ancient Egyptian texts, the pharaoh is variously described as a “winegrower” and “brewer”, as well as the “cupbearer” to the gods. And around 400 scenes depicting wine offerings are found in temples from the Greco-Roman period, especially near wine-producing locations. These show pharaohs using wine to get closer to the gods and to bless the lands. For example, in the Temple of Dendera, on the Nile north of Luxor, an illustration alongside the inscription “good wine, I pour it on the ground” shows a cup being tilted downwards, its liquid flowing out in zigzags. And the Temple of Abydos to the west features a clear depiction of Pharaoh Seti I making an offering to Osiris. The grapevine – which grows fresh leaves and appears renewed each year – was an important item in funerary rituals, too, increasing a deceased person’s chances of resurrection. When a pharaoh was laid to rest, their tomb was filled with enough wine to take into the afterlife, either in real jars or in the form of wall paintings. Wine was placed in tombs as early as the fourth millennium BC – for example, in the resting place of Scorpion I (c3250 BC). Read more | Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun: was the tomb really cursed? Among the 5,398 items found in the tomb of Tutankhamun were jars of wine inscribed with the winemaker’s name and the year of production, indicating a sophisticated wine culture. These included eight jars of the most exclusive variety, shedeh. Analysis of the residues in these vessels revealed that they’d contained both red and white wines. Some wines, oils and foods were stored in the annex but, notably, two wine jars were placed alongside Tutankhamun’s body in the burial chamber. The red wine was placed to the west of his remains, while the white wine was set to the east, suggesting that this placement was an essential part of the burial ritual and held huge symbolic value, representing regeneration and rebirth. Doctoring drinks Wine was an ingredient in medicinal recipes from the fourth millennium BC. Evidence from papyri reveals that its uses varied widely: in treating infections, as an anaesthetic, applied to wounds as an antiseptic, mixed with herbs to create a sedative. As Greek influence in Egypt increased, the theories of Hippocrates (c460–c375 BC) spread – including that wine was a useful cooling agent for fevers, and that it could be used to nourish the body, purge sadness and help urine flow. Wine jars retaining residues of herbs and balms have been discovered. Medicinal plants were added to create infused wines, or elixirs: fenugreek to treat fevers and indigestion, honey to make an antibiotic, mandrake as a narcotic and, under the instruction of a priest, opium as a sedative. Coriander-infused wine was consumed by women to ease menstrual pain. Wine was mixed with water to make cleansing vaginal douches, with myrrh sometimes added as an antiseptic. It was even used in a kind of pregnancy test referenced in a papyrus dating from 1550 BC, which explains how a doctor should mix a urine sample with wine. A reaction between the fermented liquid and the urine’s chemical compounds would indicate that a baby was on the way. Wine also became a key component of the embalming process, which was believed to guarantee a better afterlife. After most internal organs had been scooped out of a cadaver in preparation for mummification, it was cleansed thoroughly with a mixture of water and wine. The retained organs – stomach, intestines, liver and lungs – were also washed with wine ready for dehydration. This inhibited bacterial growth, slowing decomposition. Wine-powered wonders After the Ptolemies moved Egypt’s capital to Alexandria in the late fourth century BC, the state began organising grandiose festivals – demonstrations of power and wealth. These aimed to deter potential invaders and boosted the economy, with traders travelling to the city from far and wide during festival season. We have a fascinating first-hand account by Callixenus of Rhodes, who likely lived in the second or third century BC and whose original writing – now lost – was quoted by the Greek writer Athenaeus a few centuries later. He described a magnificent and highly choreographed festival featuring performances by sileni, the drunken followers of Dionysus, Greek god of wine. An incredible float pulled by 300 men carried a wine press measuring 11 by 7 metres, dispensing local wine to the cheering crowds. Such mechanical innovations were possible thanks to scholars at the city’s Great Library. Third-century BC inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria even devised singing statues. One of these, which depicted Arsinoë II (who co-ruled Egypt with her brother and husband Ptolemy II) as the goddess Aphrodite, played music as wine flowed out. He may also have created a hydraulic pump to transfer wine. Working in the first or second century AD, Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria produced more such innovations; his Pneumatica contained no fewer than 16 wine-related inventions. He created the first vending machine, which dispensed measured amounts of liquid when a coin was inserted, and a self-filling wine bowl. He also invented a vessel with multiple spouts that alternately poured water and wine, or a mixture. So in Alexandria, water could indeed be turned into wine. This article was first published in the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Long road to paradise: the life of John Milton and how he created his masterpiece, Paradise Lost
John Milton was an English radical polemicist and poet, whose magnum opus, Paradise Lost, has influenced artistic endeavours since its publication. On the 350th anniversary of his death, Islam Issa explores the story of the man who lived in revolutionary times, and who lost two wives, his liberty and his sight – but never his hope
John Milton was an early riser. He woke each morning with poetry in his head, itching for it to be recorded. The verses came to him during the night, he said – a special delivery from his very own lyrical muse. By 1652, he had completely lost his sight, so the disgruntled Milton had to wait patiently for a scribe to arrive. In the popular imagination, one of them was his daughter, Deborah, who has been depicted putting pen to paper as her father dictates his intricate poetry. Milton’s biographer wrote that on some days, when it took longer than usual for someone to begin transcribing, the poet “would complain, saying he wanted to be milked”. That was in the mid-1660s, when Milton – in an effort to evade the Great Plague of London – had relocated to a cottage in Chalfont St Giles, rural Buckinghamshire. The move to the country had worked wonders for his writing, and he set to putting the final touches on a magnum opus that had occupied his thoughts for decades and taken years to complete. It hadn’t always been his intention to compose an epic poem. In the early 1640s he’d had in mind a drama, scribbling the outline for a tragedy titled Adam Unparadised. But the political and social turmoil of the couple of decades before his country sojourn had changed his mind about writing a play. Instead, he decided to compose a lengthy poem of more than 10,000 unrhymed lines. Its title was Paradise Lost. Tumultuous times John Milton was born in 1608 in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, the son of a scrivener and composer, also named John. In early adulthood he had developed a habit of opposing the status quo, especially when it came to religion and politics. The Church of England was too hierarchical, he said, proposing that regular people should be able to read the scriptures without being influenced by religious leaders. As for the Roman Catholic church, its obsession with popery and rituals was a form of heresy. In 1642, Milton went to Oxfordshire to collect an interest payment from a landowner to whom his father had lent money years earlier. By the time he returned to London, he had tied the knot with the debtor’s daughter. This marriage to Mary Powell – at 17, half his age – lasted just a few weeks. It’s long been assumed that Milton must have been difficult to live with. A more obvious cause of the rift was politics: the first rumblings of the Civil War were growing, and the Powell family’s strong royalist views were incompatible with Milton’s staunch republicanism. In any case, when Mary abandoned him and returned to her family, Milton redirected his intellectual energies to addressing the topic of divorce. The law of the time offered a separation agreement “from bed and board” that didn’t go as far as terminating the marriage. Dissolution “from the bond of marriage” was valid only on grounds of adultery. Milton’s Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, published as an anonymous and unlicensed pamphlet, made the radical argument that a breakdown due to “indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind” should be sufficient grounds. Milton was well ahead of his time. It was another three centuries before parliament passed the Divorce Reform Act 1969, legalising no-fault divorce on the grounds of an “irretrievable breakdown”. To his contemporaries, however, Milton’s justifications for divorce were likely the most controversial of all his opinions. They led to open attacks that reached parliament (by now his name was associated publicly with the book), where he was condemned and where members pushed for state control over unregistered books, including Milton’s contentious tract. Under the Licensing Order of 1643, every book produced had to be read and approved by a censor before publication. Milton penned a strong and impassioned case opposing the policy. In Areopagitica, which became his most famous polemic, he defended freedom of expression and compared suppressing books to killing humans – in fact, he wrote, it might be even more deplorable, because it “slays an immortality rather than a life”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/11/BAL348130-5dfa773-e1731929244146.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The Milton memorial window in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, made by Clayton & Bell in 1888. Here, Satan spies on Adam and Eve (Photo by Neil Holmes/Bridgeman Images)" title="The Milton memorial window in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, made by Clayton & Bell in 1888. Here, Satan spies on Adam and Eve (Photo by Neil Holmes/Bridgeman Images)" /> Republican ideals Milton was most prolific when expounding his diehard republican beliefs. During the 1640s, he spent much of his time writing poetry and prose that supported the militant anti-monarchical movement. When the republican army’s commander-in-chief, Thomas Fairfax, besieged Colchester in 1648, Milton wrote a sonnet in praise of “Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings”. That poem also suggested that the job of opposing the tyranny of inherited power remained unfinished: “O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand; / For what can war, but endless war still breed, / Till truth, and right from violence be freed.” Early the next year, parliament indicted Charles I. Fairfax, meanwhile, was overshadowed by a subordinate commander, Oliver Cromwell, who became the island’s most influential statesman – and in whom Milton placed high hopes. Listen | Browse the HistoryExtra archive of podcasts on the Civil War, from female spies to Charles I's killers Charles I’s trial lasted eight days in January 1649. During that time, Milton quickly put together the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, its title page boasting “that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked KING, and after due conviction, to depose, and put him to death”. On 30 January, the king was decapitated by a single axe blow and his head held up, blood dripping from the neck, to the cheering crowd. The monarchy and the House of Lords were swiftly abolished. Some years later, Cromwell became head of state, taking the (unmistakably regal) title of lord protector. Speaking in tongues Within six weeks of Charles I’s execution, Milton was called upon to serve the republican government in the role of secretary for foreign tongues. Tasked with translating official communications, largely from the period’s international language of Latin, Milton received a handsome annual salary of £288, 13 shillings and 6½d (around £45,000 today). Foreign governments were still wary of the new regime in Britain, so Milton’s talents were mainly channelled into writings in defence of the revolution. His Eikonoklastes (The Image Breaker), published in October 1649, attempted to justify the regicide. It was written in response to Eikon Basilike (The Royal Image), subtitled The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings, published shortly after the execution and purportedly written by the king himself before he died. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/11/GettyImages-1288501833-86a56ff-e1731928903323.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The frontispiece of Eikon Basilike, purportedly written by Charles I, depicting the deposed monarch as a saintly martyr; Milton wrote in justification of the king’s execution (Photo by Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="The frontispiece of Eikon Basilike, purportedly written by Charles I, depicting the deposed monarch as a saintly martyr; Milton wrote in justification of the king’s execution (Photo by Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> Held in high regard by royalists, the title page of Eikon Basilike featured an allegorical image depicting Charles as a saintly martyr, engraved by William Marshall. That artist had earlier drawn Milton for his 1645 poetry collection – a depiction that the author hated. In retribution, Milton instructed Marshall to engrave a caption in Greek, describing the latter as “a rank beginner” and “a good-for-nothing artist” – barbs which, not speaking that language, he would have been unable to understand. Milton and Mary Powell had reconciled in 1645, but different problems soon arose. For one thing, the writer’s eyesight was weakening: by 1648, he’d lost all vision in one eye, and in 1652 he became permanently blind. In that same devastating year, Mary died from complications during the birth of their third daughter, Deborah. Milton’s second marriage, to Katherine Woodcock in 1656, appears to have been more amicable. Like his first wife, though, Katherine died in 1658 following childbirth. In one of his most emotive pieces, Milton writes about encountering his late beloved, whom he met only after losing his sight, during his vivid sleep: “But O as to embrace me she inclined, / I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.” Perhaps tellingly, it was around this time that Milton – a blind man left to raise his three daughters alone – began to work on Paradise Lost. Despite the overthrow of the monarchy, on Oliver’s death in September 1658 the Cromwellian government reverted to dynastic succession. Richard Cromwell succeeded his father as lord protector, but lacked the qualities that had prompted Milton to describe his father as “chief of men… Guided by faith and matchless fortitude”. Parliament soon retook control, much to Milton’s delight. Within a few months, however, the army had dissolved parliament – something that Milton condemned in no uncertain terms. As the royalists regained power, and with the restoration of the monarchy looking inevitable, Milton remained outspoken in opposition. The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth proposed the formation of a permanent republican federation, or at the very least an elected sovereign. Yet such a scheme was, by 1660, hopelessly utopian. Writer on the run The monarchy was restored that May, when Charles II returned from exile and succeeded his father. Like his fellow republicans, Milton had to either run or hide. With an arrest warrant issued, and in real danger of assassination, he went into hiding. A proclamation was issued ordering that all of his books should be collected for burning, and Milton’s writings were consigned to the flames at the Old Bailey. Read more | Art, culture and science in the Restoration period Execution loomed, and many of his friends were put to death. A general pardon issued later in the summer of 1660 exempted Milton from suffering the same fate, but it didn’t mean that he was safe. By autumn, Milton had been arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. It’s not known why he was pardoned, around three months later; it may have been because of his visual impairment, or thanks to support from his friend Andrew Marvell, a poet who was also an influential MP. Still, Milton emerged from prison having lost many of his acquaintances, and in financial difficulty; he’d paid £150 – a large sum – to be released, and £2,000 of his savings had been seized. More detrimentally still, his dream of a republic – one in which he had believed, that he’d promoted and that had, for a short while, lived – had all but vanished. The Restoration complete, plague arrived to ravage England, driving Milton to take refuge in Buckinghamshire in July 1665. When that epidemic abated, he made his way back to London early the following year – only to be met by another disaster: the Great Fire of London. Though his house survived, the majority of his city was razed. Milton had spent the first half of the 1660s focusing on Paradise Lost, with an inevitably different outlook on life. “I now must change / Those notes to tragic,” laments the poem’s narrator. Milton was by then blind, lonely and essentially under house arrest, the powers he had challenged now restored: “fallen on evil days, / On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues; / In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, / And solitude.” Read more | Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London The well-read Milton alluded to the scriptures, poetry and tragedy from across the continent to tell his epic tale of humanity’s fall from grace. The result is a dramatic, imaginative take on Satan’s rebellion against God, and the subsequent fall of Adam and Eve. Set at the beginning of human history, it boasts an expansive setting, with Heaven at the top and Earth dangling from it, Hell at the bottom and a dark Chaos in between. Its story is one of ambition and rebellion, questioning the extent of free will and divine justice. Its characters – even God the Father and Son – are complicated and imperfect. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/11/GettyImages-463907993-5e42463-e1731929089161.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels, by William Blake, 1808. The English artist created the illustration for John Milton's Paradise Lost (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels, by William Blake, 1808. The English artist created the illustration for John Milton's Paradise Lost (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> And no Miltonic character is more famous than the deeply intense Satan, who rallies the fallen angels with populist rhetoric but also contemplates his condition with psychological rigour: “Me miserable! Which way shall I fly / Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? / Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.” It’s difficult not to read Milton’s politics into his great epic. In the preface, entitled ‘The Verse’, he explains why the poem doesn’t rhyme – a fact that appears to have disconcerted his publisher. Milton decries “the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming”. Not only had royalist poets used rhyming couplets, but rhyme served as a symbol for the shackles of the ruling powers, he thought. By opposing rhyme and writing freely, Milton’s style was inherently nonconformist. Even more surprising is Satan’s often justified, if overambitious, opposition to the omnipotent but stubborn and out-of-touch God. It’s no surprise that this has long been interpreted as a metaphor for brave opposition against the seemingly immovable monarchy. In 1667, publisher Samuel Simmons paid Milton £5 for the rights to Paradise Lost; according to his contract, he received a further £5 once sales reached an agreed figure. In 1674, he republished the most authoritative version of Paradise Lost, in 12 books – like the classic epics with which he may have felt it was on a par. A few weeks later, Milton prepared his will, in which he mentioned the money still owed by his first wife’s father. He died in November that year. All is not lost It’s both intriguing and telling that Milton didn’t venture to North America. As well as Puritans and Quakers, many anti-monarchists crossed the Atlantic to set up republican structures in the colonies. Indeed, the founding fathers of the US drew on Milton’s work as they shaped the fundamental republican ideals of their new nation. In an alternative universe, he might have been America’s greatest poet. Yet though Milton was a radical, he was also an idealist who stayed put, believing that he could change the system. Read more | "They decided that God must be leading them to North America": the Puritan journey to the Mayflower He had seen some of the world beyond England, travelling to Italy, Geneva and France in 1638. He appears to have had no trouble mastering Italian, claiming that it’s “easily learned at any odd hour”. It’s even said that Milton rolled his letter R when he spoke in Europe, in an effort to differentiate himself from other embarrassing compatriots on the continent. That trip had a formative effect on Milton, evident in Paradise Lost. When Satan ventures from Hell to Eden with the intention of taking down Adam and Eve, his shield, “massy, large and round… Hung on his shoulders like the moon”. Satan is essentially carrying his shield like a big backpack: it looks like the moon only if “through optic glass the Tuscan artist views” it. That artist was the astronomer Galileo Galilei, who’d championed the idea that the Earth moves around the sun. This view was officially deemed “foolish and absurd… formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of holy scripture”. By the time Milton met him, the Italian was elderly and blind. He had challenged authority but been forced to retract his beliefs, and was under house arrest – just as Milton was when writing Paradise Lost. No wonder Milton also challenged authority. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/11/GettyImages-600041375-c1a0392-e1731928957762.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 19th-century painting of John Milton visiting Galileo Galilei in Florence in 1638, when the astronomer was blind and under house arrest – echoed in the poet’s later life (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="A 19th-century painting of John Milton visiting Galileo Galilei in Florence in 1638, when the astronomer was blind and under house arrest – echoed in the poet’s later life (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> Never to yield Yet there is much to suggest that a spark of idealism lived on. Adam, Eve and Satan seemingly all lose in Paradise Lost. But its ending sees the human couple locking hands as they step into a new world, free from Eden’s baggage – a world in which they can explore themselves and engage their free will. Even Satan, “in dubious battle… shook his (God’s) throne”. Here, Milton holds on to the thought that, for a short while, he played a part in shaking the establishment. “What though the field be lost?” Satan asks himself, before continuing to declare that “All is not lost; the unconquerable will… And courage never to submit or yield.” Milton’s influence on the English language is as profound as his views on politics and religion were radical. It’s claimed that he invented almost three times as many words as William Shakespeare did. Throughout his career, too, he conceived phrases, many of which speak to the enduring necessity of optimism. In his masque Comus, the character of the Lady spots a “cloud / Turn forth her silver lining”. And in the elegy Lycidas, Milton ends by confirming the temporary nature of grieving – that life must go on: “At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: / Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.” John Milton’s artistic legacy In the 350 years since its creator’s death, Paradise Lost has inspired generations of painters, musicians and writers Painting and poetry Poet and painter William Blake quipped that Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it”. The protagonist of Blake’s illustrated Milton: A Poem is that author, whose soul is re-embodied from Heaven. Describing blindness, the narrator of Paradise Lost mentions that a “cloud” of “ever-during dark Surrounds me”; in the first picture of his illustrated epic, Blake drew a naked Milton surrounded by darkness and clouds. In the 1800s, Blake also created a series of striking watercolour plates illustrating Paradise Lost. Sculpture Milton’s Satan is a complicated character with altered perceptions over the centuries. Jacob Epstein’s Lucifer is a towering and unsettling bronze statue completed during the Second World War. The figure’s asymmetry, suggestive stance and possible androgyny reflect Satan’s sexual tensions in Paradise Lost and the poem’s description of how “spirits when they please / Can either sex assume, or both”. Several decades earlier, Spanish sculptor Ricardo Bellver’s Fallen Angel portrayed Satan’s agonising fall from heaven – a move away from the stern and hypermasculine pre-Miltonic devil. Literature In Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, the creature discovers a book inside an abandoned bag: Paradise Lost. He assumes that it’s a true story, and compares himself to lonely Adam and mistreated Satan. “Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence,” he reflects, “I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.” More recently, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy drew heavily on the plot and themes of Paradise Lost. Its very title borrows the epic’s description of the mysterious elements that God employs during the act of creation. Landscape art A footpath in San Diego, California, takes the form of a beguiling serpent that turns Paradise Lost into a physical journey. Since 1992, artist Alexis Smith’s 170-metre-long Snake Path has invited individuals to walk through temptation, passing a small Edenic garden of fruit trees and a granite statue of an oversized book. It is carved with words from the finale of Paradise Lost, in which the angel Michael reminds Adam – and, in turn, readers – about the path to true bliss: “Then wilt thou not be loath / To leave this paradise, but shalt possess / A paradise within thee, happier far.” Stained glass During the 19th-century Gothic revival, Paradise Lost appeared in stained glass – a form that Milton described as “storied windows richly dight [ie adorned]”. The Milton memorial window in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, made by Clayton & Bell in 1888, includes portraits of Milton at various stages of his life: at school, visiting Galileo, dictating to his daughters. Its Paradise Lost scenes show Satan rousing the fallen angels in one panel and spying on Adam and Eve in another. Music Themes and images from Paradise Lost have influenced countless musicians over the decades, from a metal band of the same name to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Eminem. Lana Del Rey reimagined the epic story in her short film Tropico, with songs Body Electric, Gods and Monsters and Bel Air exploring the states of bliss, fall and redemption. It takes cues from Milton’s epic poem: there’s a “muttering thunder” when Adam and Eve eat the fruit, while at the end the first couple depart “hand in hand”. “It’s innocence lost,” sings Del Rey, “like Paradise, Paradise Lost.” This article was first published in the December 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
Islam Issa tells the colourful story of ancient Alexandria, a multicultural city dreamt up by Alexander the Great
According to legend, when Alexander the Great rocked up on the island of Pharos in northern Egypt, he had a vision of a spectacular city – a vision that later became reality in the form of Alexandria. On the mainland nearby, connected by a new causeway to Pharos, the metropolis grew and thrived, drawing people in from far and wide. Its power was symbolised by the remarkable Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the Great Library, which aspired to be home to all the world's knowledge. Speaking to Rebecca Franks, Islam Issa explores the origin story of this remarkable city. View Green Video on the source website
Alexandria: the ancient world's greatest city
When Alexander the Great founded a settlement at the junction of three continents in 331 BC, he created a metropolitan powerhouse that would shape global history. Islam Issa hails the genius of ancient Alexandria.
When the Macedonian king Alexander the Great arrived at the barren island of Pharos in 331 BC, he was still in his mid-twenties and barely five years into his reign. The ambitious young warrior had been drawn to this spot on Egypt’s Mediterranean shore after reading about it in the epic poetry of Homer, most revered of the ancient Greek writers. A lover of literature, Alexander had even styled his hair in long locks to emulate Homer’s hero, Achilles. What he found was a tiny, lifeless island facing a series of small fishing villages scattered across a windswept coast. A few miles to the south on the mainland spread a vast freshwater lake, around which the ancient Egyptians had constructed a canal network. In his unceasing quest for world domination, this was just the location for which Alexander had long searched – at the intersection of Africa, Europe and Asia. Read more | Alternate history: what if Alexander the Great had lived longer? And when he arrived at this strategic hotspot, he dropped to his knees in a state of ecstasy and began scattering barley across the sandy ground, roughly designing the layout of what would soon become the world’s first modern city – a magnificent capital that would change the course of history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/02/GettyImages-1163969991-05e4f01.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An aerial drone shot over Alexandria and The Citadel of Qaitbay" title="The 15th-century Citadel of Qaitbay, which is on the site of Pharos island, where Alexander the Great arrived in 331 BC. The city that he founded here has been a powerhouse for more than two millennia. (Photo from Getty Images)" /> Named in honour of its founder, Alexandria was established that very same year, with a causeway measuring seven stadia (around 1.2km) built to connect Pharos to the coast. Alexander himself was soon on his way eastward in search of his next adventure; he didn’t even wait to watch his new city being built. But its fate was now set, associated with a founding myth and a living hero, and with both Alexander’s city plan and a trusted architect to enact it. The design Alexander had drawn on the sand included harbours, palaces, temples, markets – and a library dedicated to the muses. Within decades, this once-desolate place had undergone an incredible transformation into a city that transported its visitors into the future. When the Greek geographer Strabo visited Alexandria three centuries later, he gasped at its grandeur, comprising “building upon building”. The promenade, designed by the renowned Greek architect Dinocrates, was angled to encourage a welcome breeze from the ocean that infused the streets with the scents of cinnamon and honeysuckle; even five centuries after Alexander’s fateful visit, Roman civil servant Herodian described “billows of perfume” and “sweet aromas throughout the city”. Horses and chariots traversed eight-lane- wide roads, while marbled colonnades provided shade for pedestrians. Grand courts and statues – including many depicting the city’s founder – dotted the paths. Around a main square, locals drove mules and donkeys to bustling markets where stalls were stacked high with fruits, vegetables, loaves of bread and barrels of cloudy beer. Artisans showed off colourful, decorative mosaics of glass, stone and clay. There were bathhouses, tree-studded gardens and a gleaming temple dedicated to Alexandria’s very own god, Serapis, looming over the city at the top of the hill. Listen | Islam Issa tells the colourful story of ancient Alexandria, a multicultural city dreamt up by Alexander the Great Shrines to learning In the complex called the Museum (the ‘shrine of muses’), scholars gathered to think and to debate, to read and to write. At its heart stood the Biblion (the ‘shrine of books’) housing ceiling-high book- shelves brimming with scrolls stacked on top of one another like wooden logs. But the real focus of energy was the dock, at the exact spot where Alexander had arrived on Pharos. The previously lifeless island now boasted one of the tallest man-made structures in the world: the three-tiered Pharos Lighthouse. This extraordinary building was well over 100 metres high, made of reflective white limestone – a lofty beacon of light that symbolised the power and grandeur of the city. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/02/GettyImages-918999940-af36b76.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An illustration of the Pharos Lighthouse." title="The jewel in Alexandria’s crown, the Pharos Lighthouse, shown in a 16th-century engraving. When it was completed in the third century BC, the lighthouse was one of the tallest man-made buildings in the world. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> It also served a practical purpose, guiding ships into the two busy harbours on either side – “beautifully enclosed both by the embankment and by nature”, as Strabo put it. In the light- house’s top storey, mirrors reflected the sun’s bright rays during the day and, by night, fire from its furnace created a magnificent glow. The city of Alexandria was an idealistic endeavour, intended from the very start to be a global capital. Though conceived by its founder, it was implemented by his childhood friend and general, Ptolemy I, and his successors. Alexandria’s founders had a unique and innovative vision of what makes a city successful – and it was nothing short of radical. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/02/GettyImages-639178612-3efe082.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A black and white illustration of a group of people." title="An 18th-century depiction of Ptolemy I planning the construction of the Great Library, which helped make Alexandria the global capital of knowledge. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> They imagined and enacted two outrageous theories. First, that bringing together diverse people from far and wide in a strategically located spot would produce economic prosperity and make the city a world trade capital. Second, that gathering and generating knowledge – via the Library and Museum – would consolidate the city as a global powerhouse. Within a single century, these two premises had combined to make Alexandria the global capital of both trade and knowledge. Built from scratch Alexander knew that taking control of such a prime location could play a part in expanding and strengthening his realm, bolstering his grand plan to build a unified empire that stretched as far east as Persia and India. To do so, he envisioned roads and ports connecting Europe with Asia. However, unlike most cities, Alexandria was born not from war or geographical division but was created from scratch. Rather than developing organically, Alexandria was purposely visualised, conceived, shaped and expanded. People from across the region were invited to populate the new city. With trade a key aspect of its identity, welcoming rather than othering citizens was part of the economic plan. This was to be a polis (city state) founded on the notion that it is possible to harmonise different cultures and traditions in order to achieve a greater goal. At a time when the Hellenistic world regarded non-Greeks as barbarians, and when Egyptians were highly protective of their own traditions, this was a brave new ideology. Drawn by the Alexandrian dream, thousands of people flocked to the new city from every direction. Egyptians travelled north through the desert, Europeans sailed across the Mediterranean, and Jews made their way west from the Holy Land, to be joined by many more groups including Ethiopians, Levantines, Romans and Indians. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who married a woman from Alexandria, wrote that Jews moved to the new city “invited by the goodness of the soil, and by the liberality” of its early leaders. Indeed, it’s said that, in his very first design, Alexander allocated a district for Jews in his new city. In an attempt to grow the populace, Jews were exempted from tax and promised freedom of worship, with grand synagogues and special theatres built here. And during the reign of Ptolemy II, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Alexandria’s very own dialect of Koine Greek. Thanks to Serapis, the newly amalgamated Greco-Egyptian god championed by the Ptolemies, the Greeks and Egyptians were also able to find common ground. Migration and multiculturalism were effective ways of increasing the city’s population and, in turn, its military, commercial and economic power. Before long, Alexandria became a significant regional trading centre and transport hub that welcomed merchants and travellers from east and west. It imported goods from as far as Persia and India, and exported a range of items to Europe – even the British Isles – that included art, oils, spices, wine and grain, becoming Rome’s key breadbasket. Alexander’s successors also put his second priority – gathering and generating knowledge – into action. A second-century BC letter, the earliest reference to the Library of Alexandria, tells us that the Ptolemies gave the first chief librarian, Demetrius of Phalerum, an unprecedented budget “in order to collect... all the books in the world” – a seemingly impossible task. The Library nonetheless came to house hundreds of thousands of works – by far the biggest collection of writing ever gathered up to that point in history. The Museum, too, became the world’s leading research centre, with scholars coming from across the region to work here, given stipends, food and accommodation by the state. They created novel philosophies and pioneered original inventions in a range of fields, from astronomy to geography and from mathematics to poetry. Alexandria’s medical school made huge advances and, unlike its Greek counterpart, welcomed women through its doors. Knowledge capital To Alexandria’s leaders, knowledge equalled power. They put into place various policies to ensure that this authority was maintained, and that the city’s library would outshine all others. Books were not allowed to leave the city and ships docking at the harbour were searched for written materials, which would be confiscated immediately. The export of papyrus was even banned to stop rival cities and libraries from increasing their stocks. By gathering hundreds of thousands of books from around the world (there were half a million scrolls, according to the second librarian, Callimachus), and by researching and disseminating new philosophies, theories and inventions, Alexandria’s rulers became the global custodians of knowledge. Coupled with the city’s economic success, the Great Library brought Alexander’s burgeoning capital incredible influence. Alexandria’s architects successfully executed its founder’s radical vision of how to create a city – and, more, how to make it a global power. By utilising a strategic location to build a metropolis from scratch, by gathering diverse people to live and prosper together in harmony, and by collating and generating knowledge, Alexandria redefined what it means to successfully construct and maintain a city and society. As the centuries went on, Alexandria’s fame and status made it a key target for the most powerful empires, from the Romans and Ottomans, to the French and British, attracting the likes of Julius Caesar, Saladin, Napoleon and Admiral Nelson. As migration to its shores continued, its various residents brought with them a wide range of traditions, values and faiths, and developed the philosophies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When 15th-century explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Asia by sailing all the way around Africa, Alexandria’s unique claim to linking the east and west began to diminish. Nonetheless, the city continued to attract different groups and by the 19th and 20th centuries, Armenians, Greeks, Italians and Turks called it home. With the rise of Arab nationalism in the mid-20th century, many of these departed. Today, Alexandria is a bustling metropolis with a population exceeding 6 million and responsible for 40 per cent of Egypt’s industrial capacity. Its founder died at 32, eight years after he first set foot on Pharos. He never returned to see Alexandria in all its glory. More than two millennia later, the city that Alexander the Great envisaged during a brief visit to a barren island off the windswept coast of north Africa still stands proud. The seven wonders of Alexandria The landmarks that helped make the city a masterpiece of the ancient world. 1. Knowledge bank “The place of the cure of the soul.” So, according to ancient sources, read the inscription above the shelves of Alexandria’s vast book collection: the Great Library. The Library was probably architecturally very grand, with several halls and ceiling-high wooden cabinets filled with scrolls. This impressive building was sited inside Alexandria’s extensive Museum complex. The Museum’s entrance had a grand porch reminiscent of Greek temples, while expansive gardens and colonnaded walkways led to private study rooms, lecture halls and a banquet room. There was an outdoor seating space with a semi-circular arrangement of stone benches, as well as small theatres. 2. Leisure gardens From its initial design in the fourth century BC, Alexandria featured vast gardens. The most famous of these was the Park of Pan, a pleasure garden that included such amenities as a marble-seated amphitheatre and a public bath. That century also saw the construction of the Eleusis (Advent) Park. Now in the centre of the modern city, it is the oldest surviving garden in the world. 3. The glowing god “The most magnificent building in the whole world.” That’s how the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus described Alexandria’s Serapeum. This suitably splendid temple was constructed on the city’s highest hill for Alexandria’s divine protector, Serapis, in the third century BC. A staircase in the temple complex led down to a nilometer, a device to measure the level of the Nile’s waters; placing it here enabled Serapis to protect the river from drying up or overflowing. More than 100 marble steps led up to the Serapeum. In the centre stood a vast statue of Serapis, covered with ivory and gold. Windows were positioned so the sun’s rays made the god glow. The Serapeum was used to store thousands of books that couldn’t fit into the library. It was damaged during a second-century AD Jewish revolt before Christians destroyed it in the late fourth century. 4. Sky and thunder By the early third century BC, after 14 years of construction, Alexandria’s harbour was guarded by the Pharos Lighthouse, soaring over 100 metres high. One of the seven ancient Wonders of the World, it was built from white limestone that reflected the sunlight, and comprised three tiers resting on a 10-metre-wide cylindrical base. At the top stood a sculpture of Zeus, the god of sky and thunder, holding a thunderbolt. The 12th-century explorer Ibn Jubayr from Al-Andalus (the Islamic state then ruling the Iberian peninsula) wrote that “description falls short of it and the eyes fail to comprehend it; relating it [in words] is inadequate, and the spectacle is vast”. 5. Lost in translation When Roman emperor Diocletian visited Alexandria at the turn of the fourth century AD, he created a triumphal monument to himself: an armour-clad statue atop one of the largest monolithic columns in history. Pompey’s Pillar was a 27-metre-high column of rose granite, with a grey granite capital and a sparkling porphyry statue. The sculpture no longer stands atop the pillar but in the 18th century a fragment of Diocletian’s thigh was discovered, suggesting a statue 7 metres high. But it had nothing to do with Pompey the Great. When the crusaders arrived in Alexandria, they misread the pedestal’s inscription of Egypt’s governor Publius as ‘Pompey’ – and the name stuck. 6. A heavenly poet The role of Greek writer Homer was pivotal in the city’s founding: lines about this location in his poetry had come to Alexander the Great in a dream, driving the king to make the journey here to found his city. In the third century BC, Ptolemy IV Philopator built a shrine in Alexandria dedicated to Homer – the Homereion, representing the first deity-like veneration of a western poet. Writing sometime around the turn of the third century AD, Roman author Aelian described a magnificent statue of Homer seated in a semi-circular arc in the shrine, with an inscription confirming Alexandria as the universalising home of the greatest writer. 7. Cleopatra’s love affair In the first century BC, Alexandria’s most famous queen, Cleopatra VII, began constructing a temple in honour of her lover, Julius Caesar. The Caesareum of Alexandria was completed by Octavian – later the emperor Augustus – who defeated Cleopatra. The contemporary philosopher Philo of Alexandria described the harbour- side temple as “huge and conspicuous... embellished with porticoes, libraries, chambers, groves, gateways and wide open courts” and decorated with “pictures and statues in silver and gold”. Octavian also transferred two enormous 15th-century BC obelisks from the temple of the sun-god Re 200 miles away to be re-erected in front of the Caesareum. In the 18th century, the French called these obelisks Cleopatra’s Needles; today, one stands on London’s Victoria Embankment, the other in New York City’s Central Park. This article was first published in the March 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
According to legend, when Alexander the Great rocked up on the island of Pharos in northern Egypt, he had a vision of a spectacular city – a vision that later became reality in the form of Alexandria. On the mainland nearby, connected by a new causeway to Pharos, the metropolis grew and thrived, drawing people in from far and wide. Its power was symbolised by the remarkable Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the Great Library, which aspired to be home to all the world's knowledge. Speaking to Rebecca Franks, Islam Issa explores the origin story of this remarkable city. Islam Issa is the author of Alexandria: The City that Changed the World (Sceptre, 2023) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones