Why Alexandria? could have meant so many things: from Why is this place as it stands now so central to the history of the West? down to something as whimsical as Why did we choose to come here? I’d wanted to reply, Because everything that’s meant anything to either of us—Ephesus, Athens, Syracuse—probably ended here. I was thinking of the Greeks, of Alexander and his lover Hephaestion, of the Library, and Hypatia, and ultimately of the modern Greek poet Cavafy. But I also knew why he was asking.
