1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

7
Some Other Aspects of the Scientific
Revolution
7.1 Urban Planning
The influence of the scientific revolution on everyday life is particularly page 227
evident in the changes undergone by cities in the early Hellenistic period.
Hellenistic architecture revels in experimentation, a feature connected
with an increasing interest in complex structures. It does not limit itself to
designing buildings, but, thanks to new engineering possibilities, it intervenes
actively in the landscape, urban or otherwise: roads built on causeways
transform islands into peninsulas, canals create new islands, hills are
terraced, artificial hills are made. 1 As a project worthy of the ruler’s fame,
the architect Dinocrates even proposed to Alexander that Mount Athos be
carved into human shape, with a city placed in one hand and a lake in
another. The plan was not viable, but Alexander so liked this intention of
moulding nature, grandiose to the point of folly, that he put Dinocrates in
charge of designing Alexandria. 2
The new city soon became the most populous on earth. It was a cosmopolitan
metropolis: its inhabitants were mainly Greeks, Egyptians and
Jews, but there were immigrants from all parts of the known world. Dio
Chrysostom mentions Syrians, Persians, Romans, Libyans, Cilicians, Ethiopians,
Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians and Indians. 3
The two main roads, over thirty meters wide, were flanked by porticos page 228
lit all night by torches. An underground network of canals distributed
1 See [Lauter], Sections C.I and D.I.
2 Vitruvius, De architectura, II, preface.
3 Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, xxxii, 40.
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