Alexander’s ventures underwater

When Alexander dived into the depths

Alexander or Iskandar the great warrior from Macedonia was a very interesting person to say the least, mainly for having stoked the imaginations of so many over centuries. So many books have been written about him, about his wars, about his loves and about his death. Mystery continues to linger around him, and the search for his tomb continues to this very day. Alexander as you would all know,  spent most of his life on various military campaigns far across his borders, through Asia and northeast Africa, going on to create one of the largest empires of the ancient world by the age of thirty, stretching from Greece to northwestern India between 334 BC and 324 BC.

I still recall that he was known as Iskandar in Turkey, they have a city there called Iskenderun and a famous and tasty kakab dish with yogurt splashed over it is called the Iskandar Kebab (I found out later that it had nothing to do with the king, and that its real inventor was from the İskenderoğlu restaurant family belonging to the 19^th century!).

The long campaigns made his troops weary and homesick, so much so they rebelled and Alexander had to return from India. It is said that fearing the prospect of facing larger Indian armies and exhausted by years of campaigning, Alexander's army finally mutinied at Beas, and refused to march farther east. Their huge army had almost been defeated by Porus and his army comprising just 20,000 and a number of war elephants. Now faced with a prospect of crossing the dreaded Ganges River and facing an enemy with over 80,000 soldiers, they decided wisely to disobey their young master. I wrote about the earlypart of that retreat and the person who accompanied him, the Indian gymnosophist Guru Calanus. 

The rest of the young kings days were filled with treachery, rebellion, mutiny and finally perhaps mysterious death in 323 BC by poisoning or disease. This story however, goes back to the beginning years of his campaigns, and to the tiring and testing time he had in the siege of Tyre during 331BC. It was particularly difficult as the island of New Tyre was well fortified with strong 150’ high walls and unapproachable to a land army. For the Phoenicians an ancient civilization later controlled by the Persians, and which included the coastal areas of today's Lebanon, northern Israel and southern Syria reaching as far north as Arwad, it was an important harbor base. Alexander had requested that he wished to make a sacrifice at the temple of Heracles in New Tyre. The Tyreians seeing through the ploy replied that he could do the same at the temple in Old Tyre on the mainland.

Alexander was aware of Tyre's fortifications and impregnability and convened his council, explaining to his generals the strategic importance of securing all Phoenician cities before moving on to Egypt. Tyre was considered a stronghold for the Persian fleet and he could not afford to have it threaten from the rear. The story of the 7 month long siege is interesting reading for those interested in such matters, but not something we will retell. Alexander did not have his navy initially to support him in this campaign and so it was proving to be very difficult to make a breakthrough. Suffice to note that Alexander had to work on unconventional methods (you can read more details here) o figure out how to breach the Tyrian defenses and eventually blockaded the island completely (I have also to add a cautionary note that there are conflicting opinions about this long battle). Anyway much of the time was spent how to get through some of the underwater defenses built by the Tyreans. He also managed to rebuild a mile long causeway over the ancient sand bridge a few feet underwater, in this process.

It was during this siege that Alexander used demolition divers to remove underwater obstacles from the harbor. He also observed that Tyrean divers remaining underwater for long durations and cut anchor ropes on his ships resulting in them crashing on the rocks. As time went by, he supposedly made several dives in a crude bell to observe all this, first hand. This was stated to have been reconfirmed by Aristotle when he mentioned of such diving devices in his Problematum ( but more connected to sponge divers where the diving bell actually has an open bottom like an inverted bell or a kettle and is lowered upright) and popular with sponge divers in the Aegean.

Numerous books and accounts appeared connecting Alexander to the siege of Tyre, and underwater explorations during the siege. In fact Alexander some even consider Alexander to be a submarine inventor, following this incident! All this is regrettably not seemingly correct and the whole story of Alexander going underwater appears elsewhere, in different fashion, though one could of course claim links to Tyre as the location where it happened.

The exploits of Alexander underwater comes from an anonymous work with came out in the 3^rd century AD. This then got translated into so many versions, second only to the Bible and is titled the Alexander Romance, initially attributed to Aristotle’s nephew (Pseudo because it was wrongly attributed) Pseudo Callisthenes. Now many people dealing with the Macedonian king’s exploits have written about Alexander’s legends with 2-16 griffin power flying machines, but his ventures underwater are less talked about. In the Alexander romance, the king writing to his mother Queen Olympias talks about his adventures. In the story where the submarine or bathysphere comes up, he had been chasing a giant crab, which was finally killed off, and in it they come across six magnificent pearls. This according to the story was the reason for his foray underwater, in order to find more pearls (not for any attack or study of the Tyrean defenses).

And that was why the great king Iskandar decided to go underwater to check things himself, in the fable. The version of the bathysphere used by Alexander was named the Colimpha and he did this under guidance from his astrologer Ethicus.  The design remained as such for another 21 centuries. Let us now take a look at the design of the bell used by him. It was a very fine barrel made entirely of white glass, which kept its occupants dry and admitted light. That proved the bottom was closed but according to the story, it also had a hatch which could be opened through which Alexander could insert his hand and draw pearls from the ocean floor (that water would gush up through the opening is not considered, but then again a story is a story!). It had to be towed out into the sea and was then lowered with a long chain.

Let’s take a look at some differing versions of the fable. In the first dealing with the crab, Alexander asks his men (350 of them up above in 4 ships) to lower his bell into the ocean holding on to a long chain with the order that is he twitched the chain, they should haul him up. Twice this signal was generated when fishes brushed against the chain resulting in his men prematurely drawing the bell up, in alarm. In the third attempt he goes all the way down 308 cubits. Once he hit the bottom, a giant fish, perhaps a whale comes by. This fish swallows the bell and drags it (and the 4 ships up above) on with his chain for a mile or so, after which I guess it got tired of the caper and spat the barrel out on the shores. Alexander is left thanking his gods and providence for a lucky escape.

As time went by, succeeding authors brought about subtle or for that matter even large changes to the story.

In the so called French prose version, he had the barrel bound with chains and with burning lamps inside. He saw various types of fishes underwater, whales and fish (which looked like men and women) which walked about like humans on the ocean floor, plucking fruits of trees which grew underwater. The whales it appears, were frightened of the bright light inside the bell. Alexander also saw more wonders which he never mentioned for fear that they would sound incredible to humans. Upon reaching ashore, his men castigated him for having taken such a huge risk, but Alexander brushed it off saying that he had learnt a lot of tactics watching fish battles.

Other versions mention of his men abandoning him by letting go of the chain. Floundering on the ocean floor, Alexander hit upon the idea of letting some blood into the ocean, for there is a saying that water does not like blood pollution and thus it quickly returned the clever king ashore with a mighty wave. This version was also altered over time, with Alexander carrying a dog, a cat and a fowl with him and in some versions, the fowl is killed for the blood, by the stricken Alexander. The lantern is replaced by a bright light emitting stone in some books, the abandoning part is changed to the men getting into trouble during a huge storm. In versions which came out closer to the 15^th century, Roxanne, his wife and a lover are seen on illustrations of the boat over water. Stories of deceit now creep in the Enikel version, with Roxanne (or another mistress) letting go of the chain so that she could go and live with her lover. Authors who felt this was stretching fact too far (Ulrich) made the mistress let go of the chain as she was too weak to hold on to it.

Some curious persons would ask about the significance of the cat, dog and cock. Well, like the tale which itself was fantastic, the cat was meant to be an air purifier (how, nobody knew), the cock told Alexander when it was day by crowing and the dog (until then acting as a scavenger) to be sacrificed in order to spill blood so that the sea would cast them back ashore.

In yet another version, two companions accompanied Alexander and all were stunned by what they saw by the bright lights emanating from the diving machine. Alexander is quoted as observing, from what he had seen underwater, that "...the world is damned and lost. The large and powerful fish devour the small fry."

A number of illustrations appeared showing differing types of bells, lowered vertically or horizontally, men holding its chain or in later versions the queen Roxanne and her lover.

And well, it also appeared in the Moghul collection based on the texts of the Alexander Romance, replete with an exquisitely illustrated Khamsa, authored by none other than the great Amir Khusru Dilhavi (this sixteenth-century manuscript of the Khamsa of Amir Khusraw Dihlavi containing eight paintings). The Khamsa of the poet Amir Khusrau includes a section Aina I Sikandari on Alexander the Great, who in Khusrau’s telling of his life, led expeditions to China, Russia, and the Western Isles. In this copy of the Khamsa, Alexander is shown being lowered into the sea in a glass diving bell. While underwater, he receives a visit from an angel who foretells his death.

Khusrau’s poem was a response to the great poet Nizami’s similar work on Alexander in his Khamza, where the final poem called the Sikandar-nama, which again covers many events in the life of Alexander the Great. The illustrations show Alexander with headgear very much like those worn by the Mughal emperor Humayun, whom he also resembles. Alexander is seen wearing a vermilion robe over a somber green jama as he receives the devotion of violently saluting courtiers, who have brought him golden vessels, a hunting cheetah, and a hawk.

According to Khusraw, Alexander embarks on a long sea voyage toward the Western Isles with Khizr, Elias, and Aristotle, pausing once to send his son Iskandar a letter bequeathing him the empire. So many other events are retold. Meanwhile, a curious Alexander presses on with his study of the world and its mysteries, and as we now know, he also decides to descend into the sea in a glass diving bell to examine submarine mysteries. In Khusrau’s version, once beneath the waters he meets an angel who reveals the infinite scope of all experience and informs him of the little time remaining to him. Alexander is relieved by this revelation and brings his journey to a close. Soon the aged (but he was just 32!) king dies, and his death is kept secret for a time….

The painting is by the Mughal period artist Mukunda. As expected, this minor pictorial tradition is occasioned by the position of the illustration in the text, which provides a description of the crew fastening ropes to the pearly glass vessel and setting it onto the water like a bubble.

If one were to wonder if others had tried these types of diving bells before Alexander, there are but brief mentions in History. Herodotus writes of a Persian diver Sycillias in 500BC who traveled eighty furlongs in his contraption and there are mentions of a sphere developed later in China during 200BC. Many centuries later, bells were reinvented in 1240 and 1535 after which came the instance of a submersible vessel which was built around 1620 by the Dutchman Cornelius Van Drebbel. A wooden watertight boat carrying 12 rowers and a total of 20 men made successful dives in the Thames River to a depth of some 20 meters. Tin this invention, oarsmen rowed one oar each, each oar protruding from the side of the boat through waterproofed leather seals.

Air was supplied through snorkel-like tubes that were held above the water's surface by flotation devices, and this allowed the submarine to remain underwater for long periods. Some reports of the time suggest that King James I actually rode in the third submarine for a trip under the Thames in 1626. He must have been the first monarch to have gone underwater, after Alexander’s feat, many thousands of years earlier.

And that brings up a question. We talked of Alexander and diving bells. What connection could it have to the inventor Alexander Graham Bell? Well, none whatsoever….

References

The Alexander Romance in the east and west – John Andrew Boyle

Studies in the Alexander Romance – DJA Ross

Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Walters Art Museum "Khamsa" of Amīr Khusraw of Delhi - John Seyller

Pics - Internet sources, wiki etc acknowledged with thanks