Welcome to Cosmographia. This post is part of our Manūscriptum series, where we take a look at some of history’s most beautiful documents. For the full map of Cosmographia posts, see here.
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Who lives in a pineapple barrel under the sea?SpongeBob SquarePants Alexander!
There’s an old legend of uncertain origin that tells the story of Alexander the Great descending into the sea in the confines of a glass barrel. Why he did so depends on which version you read.
In Problemata, a text that may or may not have been written by Aristotle, it’s alluded that the Macedonian conqueror was worried about submarine defences of Tyre, during his siege of the city in 332 BC. He submerges to have a look at them.
Another version has Alexander diving to discover the secrets of the sea, but the plan backfires when he has an existential crisis instead. He resurfaces depressed with the realisation that “the world is damned and lost. The large and powerful fish devour the small fry.”
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In another, quite strange, version, Alexander descends with a dog, a cat, and a cockerel. He entrusts the chain to a mistress, who is unfortunately seduced by another man and leaves, dropping the barrel to the bottom of the sea. Alexander survives with the help of his companions: the cockerel keeps track of time; the cat purifies the air (it was once believed that cat’s breath cleaned the air around them); while the dog’s body was used as a sort of makeshift pump that propelled the container back to the surface.
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The story grew ever more elaborate, as did the illuminated manuscripts that depicted the scene. Sometimes the artists drew mysterious people living underwater eating various foods.
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Another time, Alexander was joined by a mysterious sea scorpion.
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Other times Alexander appears next to a two-tailed mermaid or siren. This one looks suspiciously like the woman from the Starbucks logo, and she seems to have stolen his crown.
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I’m not going to even try to guess the creatures in the next one.
But my favourite, just because it looks so uncomfortable, is this one.
I like this story because (a) it’s very silly, and (b) though it isn’t true, it speaks to the human urge to explore the deep.
Though Alexander never used a diving bell, in later centuries many brave inventors, explorers, and crackpots did, or died trying. We got there eventually.
I like the version where Alex is a Soviet submarine captain trying to defect!
;)
What an amazing photograph at the end of your post!