Photographs by Ron Fritze
Digital post production by Joe Dempsey

A Squalid Grandeur

By Ron Fritze
DATELINE: At sea after departing Alexandria, Egypt
May 19, 2009

Rhodes is an island in the sea.
It had been hidden
below the sea for a long time,
but then Helios revealed it,
and requested of the gods
that the new island be his own.
— Philo of Byzantium

We arrived at the Isle of Rhodes about 8 o’clock on the morning of 16 May. I had read that Rhodes is a beautiful island. We were about to see for ourselves.

Located about twenty miles (thirty km) off the coast of southwest Turkey, Rhodes is part of the group of islands known as the Dodecanese. It is the fourth largest of the Greek islands with a length of 45 miles (72 km) and a breadth, at its widest point, of 22 miles (35 km). That makes it about the same size as the English county of Berkshire, or about half the size of the state of Rhode Island.

An Age-Old Pattern of Conquest

Rhodes was first settled by Minoans from Crete during the 16th century BC to promote trade. They were followed by Mycenaean Greeks, who settled the island during the 14th century BC. During the Dark Ages of Greece, Dorian Greeks settled on the island, and three city-states arose: Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus. The island’s people submitted to Persian rule in 490. After the defeat of Persia by the mainland Greeks, they joined the Delian League of Athens. During the Peloponnesian War, they revolted from Athens in 412 BC.

In 408 and 407, the three city-states agreed to renounce their independence to form a federal state with a new capital city called Rhodes. Over time much of the island’s population migrated to the new capital. Because the Rhodians did not enthusiastically join with Alexander the Great in 332 BC, the island had to endure an unpopular Macedonian garrison. After Alexander died in 323 BC, Rhodes experienced great prosperity. The Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire opened up vast opportunities for trade. Rhodes with its wonderful harbors was well placed to take advantage of the situation.

Following the age-old pattern, more would-be conquerors coveted Rhodes and its wealth. One of Alexander the Great’s generals, Antigonus Monophthalmus [one-eyed] (c381-301), deciding to set himself up as the ruler of Asia Minor and Syria, sought to strengthen his position by conquering Greece in the Four Years War of 307-304 BC. Rhodes became one of his targets. Antigonus demanded that Rhodes form an alliance with him against rival Macedonian general Ptolemy I, who controlled Egypt. The Rhodians enjoyed a lucrative trading arrangement with Egypt, so they offered to be Antigonus’s ally against any other power but Egypt. At that point Antigonus decided to conquer Rhodes.

Demetrius Lays Siege to Rhodes.

Antigonus’s greatest general and admiral was his own son Demetrius (336-283 BC). After capturing Athens from a rival general in Macedon in 307 and defeating the Egyptian fleet of Ptolemy at Cyprus during 306, Demetrius descended on Rhodes in 305 with a siege force of four hundred ships, forty thousand soldiers, and thirty thousand workmen. His force also included an array of siege engines, one of which was a massive siege tower of well over a hundred feet in height and sixty feet wide at the base. The siege engine, known as Helepolis, the city stormer, sat on massive wheels and rumbled forward from the muscle power of a huge number of attendants. Helepolis was also heavily armored and equipped with its own catapults.

Both sides employed the latest offensive and defensive technology of siege warfare, pummeling each other with fire arrows and catapult missiles. The siege of Rhodes lasted for over a year with Demetrius failing to force the city to surrender or to take it by storm. It earned him the nickname of Poliorcetes (besieger).

The Rhodians resisted fiercely. Even their slaves loyally manned the walls against the attacks of Demetrius’s troops. Ptolemy of Egypt’s fleet was also able to continue supplying the Rhodians during the siege, further thwarting the assault.

A Colossus to Commemorate Deliverance

Greatly impressed by the bravery of the Rhodians, Demetrius sued for peace. The Rhodians agreed to ally themselves with Antigonus, but won the exemption from fighting against Egypt, which is what they had offered in the first place. When he lifted the siege, Demetrius in an act of magnanimity left the Rhodians all of his siege engines, which they sold to finance the building of the Colossus to commemorate their deliverance from Demetrius.

The Colossus at its conception was a great statue of the sun god Helios, the patron deity of the island. In that day and age, the word “colossus” simply meant any great statute. It was a word that the Dorian Greeks had borrowed from a western Asiatic language of Asia Minor. After the Colossus of Rhodes became recognized as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the meaning of the word became restricted to gigantic statues.

The Rhodians hired Chares of Lindos as the sculptor. He was a student of the famous sculptor Lysippus, who flourished c360-316 BC. The colossus was made of bronze, towering to a height of 70 cubits, or 110 feet (33 meters). For comparison, the Statue of Liberty is 152 ft (46 meters) tall. The construction of the Colossus took twelve years from 294-282 BC.

Was the Colossus here at present-day Fort St. Nicholas?

What Does the Evidence Show?

It is popular to locate the Colossus on the site of Fort St. Nicholas at the end of the mole that formed part of the entrance to the Mandriki harbor, making it a prominent landmark to guide ships. Some speculate the statue might even have served as a lighthouse. There is little archaeological evidence to bear out either contention.

Others suggest that the Colossus would have been built beside the Temple of Helios because this was the common practice of the ancient world. Items commemorating a god were placed in or next to that god’s temple. In Rhodes the Temple of Helios was probably located on the Street of the Knights. Archaeological evidence tends to support this location for the temple but again, no evidence of the Colossus has been found.

The Colossus stood intact a mere fifty-six years, making it the shortest lived of any of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Completed in 282 BC, it was knocked down by an earthquake in 226 BC. The shaking of the earthquake caused the statue to break at the knees and collapse. Ptolemy III of Egypt offered to pay for the Rhodians to rebuild the Colossus, but a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi forbade it. Instead, the ruins of the Colossus lay where they fell for another nine hundred years. The ruins became as much of a tourist attraction as the intact Colossus itself.

Bit by Bit . . . .

In the early years of the expansion of Islam, plundering Arab raiders landed on Rhodes in 654 and pilfered the ruins, hauling the bronze remains of the Colossus across the strait to Asia Minor. There they sold the bronze to a Jew from Emesa, who carried the bronze to Syria on nine hundred camels. That was the end of the Colossus of Rhodes.

During the age of the Crusades, the Knights Hospitaler took control of Rhodes in 1309 after the Mamelukes of Egypt drove the last of the Crusaders out of Palestine in 1291. They made Rhodes their headquarters and stayed there until the Ottoman Turks drove them out in 1523 after two great sieges in the 1480s and 1522. During the time the Knights controlled Rhodes, they built up its fortifications to such an extent that it became one of the most heavily fortified places on the earth. After the fall of Rhodes, the Knights Hospitaler were granted Malta as a replacement by the Emperor Charles V.

The walls and towers are visible the moment you enter the harbor of Rhodes. Twylia and I got off The Brilliance of the Seas and walked into the town. It was clean and full of tourist shops. I had hoped to get a Colossus figurine but couldn’t find anything I liked. We made our way over to the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights and paid admission to walk the walls of the old town of ancient Rhodes. They are huge. After walking on the walls for about thirty minutes, I studied the map and figured we had covered about two-thirds of the perimeter, but it was a hot and getting hotter. We needed a break and something cool to drink.

Descending the wall, we read the sign: Pythagoras Street. We could see some Byzantine era fortifications. Right across Pythagoras Street from the fortifications is a café call Anakata, run by a woman from Belgrade and her husband. The café doubled as an art gallery. The woman was very friendly, although we didn’t get her name. I would highly recommend stopping there after a wall walk.

Heading back to the center of the Old Town, we looked for Fort St. Nicholas, which separates the Grand Harbor from the Mandraki Harbor. It is also a possible location for the Colossus. Our walk was pleasant with a nice view. The peninsula of Fort St. Nicholas is home to a large tribe of feral cats, which the locals feed.

The courtyard of the Hospital

Patrons and Pirates

Our next stop was the great Hospital of the Knights, completed in 1489 after the first unsuccessful Ottoman siege. In their heyday, the Knights were not just patrons of hospitals. They were pirates, too. Some centuries later they are still patrons of hospitals — and the great Hospital they raised over five hundred years ago is now an archaeological museum, and well worth a visit.

Well, practically speaking, I wanted to buy a Colossus t-shirt — a desire heightened by my disappointment at not being able to find a suitable figurine of the Ancient Great Wonder. That bit of kitsch out of the way, we were ready for another cool drink. Mythos is a very good Greek beer, so we saw a place that offered Mythos. Free internet, too. The restaurant was called Sintrivani. We were able to sit outside under one of their canopies.

The waiter took my order for a beer. I asked for draft Mythos. He asked if I wanted a large Mythos. I saw a couple of tables over that a guy was drinking a large boot of the brew — quite large, say 25 ounces. I was thirsty. I said, “Yes.” The waiter returned with a gigantic boot, twice as large as the one the other guy was drinking. It was 2000 ml, or two liters full!

We were not in a hurry, so I got down to some serious drinking. I ordered garlic bread to soak up some of the alcohol. It took a bit over an hour, but I finished the boot — and it was good. The garlic bread, too — some of the best I’ve ever tasted. I never used the free internet. The computers were all tied up and besides, I was a little bit busy with my Mythos.

Leaving Sintrivani, we wandered back to the ship. Along the way, I picked up a sample of Rhodian beach sand for George Williams’ collection. I would definitely return to Rhodes. It is beautiful, clean, and friendly.

At Limassol, a Castle and Some Keo

The next day we steamed on over to Limassol, Cyprus, for a six-hour stopover. Limassol is supposed to be Cyprus’s resort area, but all we saw was the town, which is nothing more than a smaller and a bit slower version of Palermo. Limassol Castle is now a museum, displaying Christian artifacts from churches that were turned into mosques in the Turkish part of Cyprus. The displays demonstrate the importance of Latin Christianity in the long ago when the island belonged to Venice.

I would have loved to have visited Famagusta, which served as the headquarters of the Venetians, a heavily fortified outpost like Rhodes. It was besieged and captured by the Ottoman Turks right before the great naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 when an allied Christian fleet destroyed the Ottoman fleet. From what I have read and the pictures I have seen, Famagusta was heavily fortified just like Rhodes. Instead we got Limassol.

One story tells that King Richard the Lionhearted married Beregaria of Navarre at Limassol in 1191, but I heard a museum guard tell a visitor that there is no proof of that story one way or the other. I tend to agree with him because Limassol Castle does not have a room large enough for a royal wedding. Of course, Richard the Lionhearted was on crusade, but still he needed an adequately sized room for the ceremony and reception.

After Limassol Castle we walked around the shops and bought a few postcards. There was a café in the promenade, so we sat down in anticipation of something cool to drink. That gave me a chance to try the Cypriot beer Keo. Alas, it was not up to the Mythos standard. I also tried some black olives and taramasalata. The olives were excellent and the taramasalata was the best I’ve ever tasted. Taramasalata is a fish paste, sort of like humus but made from salmon roe. Back on the ship, we looked forward to Alexandria the next day.

In Search of the Mysteries
and Wonders of Ancient Egypt

“Alexandria is justly worthy of praise.”
— Pliny the Elder

The next morning, 18 May, we entered Alexandria harbor and set out to see if Pliny’s two-thousand-year-old judgment still holds true.

When we left home to join the cruise, I thought we would be touring Alexandria. Once on the ship, I discovered there were also scheduled excursions to Cairo and the pyramids. So we put Alexandria with its legends of the great Pharos lighthouse and its wondrous library on the back burner for another cruise.

When our bus roared onto the road at 7:45 am with others in the convoy, the cast of passengers included a security guard toting a machine gun.

For all of you who are fascinated by the mysteries and wonders of Egypt, I am afraid to tell you that the reality is rather squalid. The mysteries and wonders must remain matters of imagination and one’s ability to put away any cynicism that might be engendered by all that the eye reveals.

A Gritty, Rundown State of Being

Alexandria is a dirty industrial port. It reminds me of Gary, Indiana, in its declining years. Fortunately our tour bus was modern and nice with good air conditioning and a competent driver. Our guide was a friendly and knowledgeable Egyptian woman named Heba. The two-and-a-half-hour drive to Cairo passed through terrain Heba said was farmland, although much of it looked like desert to me. Litter was strewn everywhere along the highway.

Heading toward the Citadel of Saladin and the Alabaster Mosque of Mohammed Ali, we passed through the city of Gizeh, which gradually blended into Cairo. Gritty and rundown, the city reminded me of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina — but, instead of being the result of a natural disaster, Cairo’s condition is simply a state of being.

It is not as bad as it appears. Egypt’s social structure expects and demands that when a man marries a woman, he houses her in a dwelling they own, not rent. Most young Egyptian guys can’t afford a house on their own, so Mom and Dad provide one. Frequently mom and dad buy the shell of a flat when the kid is around age twelve, and then pay on it until the son is ready to marry in his early twenties. Meanwhile the shell of the flat remains unfinished until the day approaches that the son is ready to marry. As a result, many Egyptian residential buildings have these unfinished flats that give the buildings a derelict appearance to western eyes.

This way of doing business is also a function of the uncertainty of the economy and the currency. When the value of a currency is uncertain, people invest in other things that will supposedly hold their value over time, so improvements to a house or flat are seen here as a good investment. But Egyptians do not have access to credit, which would allow them to finish the job in a timely fashion. As a result construction projects last for years and years.

The Citadel of Saladin

He Beat Egypt and the Crusaders.

We arrived at the Citadel of Saladin and the Alabaster Mosque after passing over a bridge on the Nile. The Citadel and Mosque are located on a high point in the city. Saladin was the Kurdish leader who conquered Egypt and ousted the Fatimid Caliphs from power. He played a prominent role in the history of the Crusades, defeating the Crusaders at the battle of Hattim. The chivalrous opponent of Richard the Lionhearted, Saladin was commemorated in fictional form by Sir Walter Scott in his novel The Talisman.

The Citadel is impressive. They say it is the largest medieval citadel in the Islamic Middle East. Within its precincts is the Alabaster Mosque, built in the nineteenth century by Mohammed Ali, the Ottoman official who tried to modernize Egypt. Based on what our guide told us, Ali is apparently well thought of by Egyptians. Older western accounts tend to portray him as a somewhat megalomaniac Oriental potentate, while recent scholars with a politically correct viewpoint describe him as a nationalist fighting against Western Imperialism.

Partly true, but Mohammed Ali was, I believe, an Albanian, and while he wanted to modernize Egypt, he did it so that he would have a solid power base for his quest to control the Ottoman Empire and move its center of power to Egypt. In fact, Ali was an Islamic Ottoman imitator of Napoleon.

Mohammed Ali's Alabaster Mosque

No Shoes and Not Much Skin

It was my first time in a mosque. This one is huge with the typical great dome. It was rather dark on the inside and relatively plain compared to Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox churches. We had to take off our shoes. They give you a bag to hold them. Women with too much shoulder, arm, and leg showing are given a cloak. It is all handled by young Egyptian females.

Getting back on the bus, we went to a buffet lunch on a riverboat ride on the Nile. Heba gave us little guidance on Egyptian cuisine. I ate some pretty good vegetables and some nice grilled lamb sausage, but some of the stuff was a little scary. Based on what I tried, I might have a good chance at losing a few pounds if I lived in Egypt. Between the heat and the food, my appetite was at low ebb.

On the day of our excursion it was unseasonably hot for Egypt, over a hundred degrees at the Citadel. By the time we arrived at the Gizeh Plateau the mercury had climbed to a hundred and ten. In case you are wondering, it was not a particularly dry heat either. No matter what they tell you, the Nile is a river in Egypt — and prone to humid conditions.

On the Nile

Suddenly, a Belly Dancer Appeared.

Meanwhile on the riverboat, a band played some traditional music. Then a belly dancer appeared. She was quite pretty and, as you might imagine, exotically Middle Eastern in appearance. Some black lady from America was rousted from the audience to dance with the local exotic— and she held her own on the dance floor.

I got some good shots of the Nile River from the boat. While the Nile is the world’s longest river, it is not as wide as I had expected. It appeared to me to be about the same width as Tennessee River at Decatur, Alabama, not counting the shallow area flooded due to the TVA dams. It is also comparable in its width to the lower reaches of the Trinity and the Sabine Rivers in Texas. Sadly, the Nile is marred with floating trash, which spoils the vista of this great and ancient river, especially in places where great masses of it gather along the banks. Clearly the Egyptians need to start a “Don’t Mess with Egypt” campaign.

Finishing lunch, we headed back to Gizeh to see the Pyramids and Sphinx. It was an inferno, but I wanted to experience the planet’s last remaining survivors of the Seven Ancient Wonders.

“I take your picture . . . for five euros”

Helpful All the Way to the Bank

We got off the bus listening to Heba’s warning about aggressive peddlers and guys renting camels. Within minutes, a dust devil formed up and headed our way. I yelled, “Hey Twylia, look at that dust devil coming toward us.” She turned to get a face full of sand. The dust devil was moving fast but hung around long enough to deposit a heavy sprinkling of sand in our hair and ears.

Heading toward the Great Pyramid, we encountered the helpful Mustapha, who turned out to one of those aggressive peddlers. I ended up dropping fifteen euros to get rid of him, leaving me with some cheap souvenirs and postcards. But we got some good pictures.

I climbed a little way up the pyramid until a patient guard came and shooed me off. Lots of people were doing it and I suspect that with a few well-placed euros, he’d have let me climb to the top. I demurred as I’m none too good with high places.

We ambled on over to a point where you could snap a good picture of all three pyramids. The point was infested with Egyptian guys pestering the tourists for money to take their picture. By this time, the weary tourists were circling the wagons to fend these jackals off. It was sort of a good laugh as everyone was grinning and saying, “I take your picture . . . for five euros” to each other.

Getting back on the bus, we roared away to see the Sphinx — a wonderful view with the pyramids in the background. Some old guy with a whistle asked to see our tickets. He looked a little scruffy, but so did the tourist police. For all we knew he was the head of the Egyptian park service.

With Experience the Price Begins to Drop.

After inspecting our tickets, the old guy tagged along to show us a great place for pictures. He offered to take some. I gave him my camera, privately preparing to chase him if he decided to run off with it. I figured I could catch him as he was shorter and twenty years older then me. Of course, this being modern Egypt, the old guy might have actually been thirty-five years old. It’s a tough climate.

I figured he would want money. So I offered three euros, which are coins. He wanted ten euros, which is folding money. The Egyptian stalkers claim they need paper money because coins cannot be exchanged. It’s their guise to get their hands on a larger bill. Having made my mistake earlier with Mustapha, I told the leathery old guy that I didn’t have any paper money. He intimated that I was a liar. Then he took the three euros. And the old guy took pretty good pictures. Only one was blurred.

Twylia, fed-up with the heat, headed back to the bus. I wanted to get closer to the Sphinx and headed in that direction. Unfortunately, one cannot get next to the Sphinx, though I did get a lot closer, and got some very good pictures. It is really good sized and enigmatically impressive. I got some shots of the supposed water erosion on the body of the Sphinx, which some pseudo-historians and pseudo-scientists claim is proof the Sphinx is over 9,000 years old and was built when Egypt had a rainy climate.

I was skeptical beforehand, and after viewing the supposed water erosion, I remain unconvinced by the sensationalistic theories. Looking away, I saw a tourist cop and aimed my camera at him, but he asked for money. I decided I was hot, too, and working on an unwanted sunburn. Time to find the bus.

Heba led us to a souvenir shop. She and the other guides were clearly earning a kickback for bringing in our business. The sales people were careful to record the number of our bus. Yes, the Egyptians were squeezing the tourists, but most were friendly and polite in how they went about it. Anyway, it was a petty squeeze. Things are rather cheap in Egypt.

The Skyline of Cairo

No Place Like Home . . . .

Shortly after five o’clock, the shadows getting longer, it was time to head back to the ship. A dreary ride of two and a half hours brought us to another section of Alexandria’s industrial wasteland beside the Mareotic Lake. The bleak landscape, the hellish heat, the blazing sun, and the ubiquitous dust gave me a visceral appreciation of what Napoleon’s army must have experienced when it marched from Alexandria to Cairo. Unlike those forlorn soldiers, we could look forward to a blessed and much needed shower in our comfortable cabin on the great ship at sea.

Seeing the Sphinx, the Pyramids, and the Nile River were great experiences. I am glad we went. It will be a highlight of my travels. Others have told me that Luxor and the Valley of the Kings are even better. Yet, Alexandria and Cairo are sad places. The poverty and inequalities of Egyptian society are obvious. Frankly, I had never imagined it would be quite as squalid as it was.

Samuel Johnson, the English lexicographer and man of letters, once remarked that travel helps a person appreciate all that is good about one’s own country after visiting a country that is among the worst. I suspect most of us returned to The Brilliance of the Seas glad in the knowledge that we were going home and did not have to live in Egypt permanently.

Perhaps, if I were younger, I would give it a try. Perhaps I would have a great experience. But I am at the stage of life where I appreciate the comforts of my home, my friends, my dogs, my books, plenty of space, and a native land that is green, well-watered, and abundant in leafy plants and trees. As for the Beer Chronicles, I read where the Egyptian beer is Stella. I never got a chance to try it.

Let the Cruise Begin

Of Palermo, Pickpockets, a Porthole, the Parthenon

The Greatest Siege: End Game at Malta

Cannes, Florence, Rome, and Sardinia

Of Mountains, Monkeys, and Men

Rambling 'tween the Itchen and the Scratchen

Click on the black panther to read about Ron Fritze's new book, Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science, and Pseudo-religions.