Alexander the Alabarch

Origins and early life

Alexander Lysimachus, called the Alabarch, lived in Alexandria in the first decades of our era, one of the wealthiest and most prominent Jews of the Roman world according to Josephus.

Work and career

He was the brother — or, by some sources, the uncle — of the philosopher Philo of Alexandria, and he held the office of alabarch, the chief customs official who taxed the goods entering Egypt from the East. His wealth served his people and his age: he financed the plating in gold and silver of the gates of the Temple in Jerusalem, and he lent money to Herod Agrippa I in the years before Agrippa wore a crown. Under Caligula he was imprisoned in Rome, and freed by his old connection Claudius when the throne changed hands in 41.

His sons carried the family into Roman history — Marcus Julius Alexander married the princess Berenice, and Tiberius Julius Alexander rose to the highest commands of the empire. Through Josephus's Antiquities and his brother's works, Alexander remains the pivotal figure linking Alexandrian Jewish wealth, Herodian politics and Roman administration. He died after the year 45.