Alexandria 158 CHAPTER 8 Religious Conflict in Late Antique Alexandria: Christian Responses to “Pagan” Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries CE Troels Myrup Kristensen 1. Introduction At several points in its history, the city of Alexandria witnessed tension between diferent social, ethnic and religious groups that occasionally erupted into violence. he fourth and ifth centuries CE, a time of religious and social change across the Mediterranean, were no exception. As such, the rise and ultimate “triumph” of Christianity took place within an already complex social, religious and political setting in the Egyptian me- tropolis. 1 Religious violence as the outcome of local tensions between Christian and pagan groups is furthermore observable in both the historical and archaeological record for Late Antique Alexandria. Pagan statues came to play a signiicant role in these conlicts, most notably in the closing of Alexandria’s famous Serapeum in 392 CE. 2 In the Classical world, statues were an important component of civic and religious life in all urban centres, Alexan- dria included. 3 Christian responses to pagan statues demonstrate both continuity and change, and the destruction of the Serapeum’s cult statue only represents one extreme. 1 On Alexandria in Late Antiquity see Haas 1997; Heinen 1991; 1998; McKenzie 2003, 58-61; 2007, 229-60; Hahn 2004, 15-120; Watts 2006a, 143-231; Kiss 2007. On Christianisation and its conse- quences in Alexandria see Kaegi 1966; Bernand 1966, 79; Bagnall 1993, 278-89; Trombley 1993-94, vol. 2, 1-51; Frankfurter 1998, passim. On religious conlict in Late Antiquity see Croke & Harries 1982; Beatrice 1990; Brown 1998; Gaddis 2005; Whitby 2006. 2 Such statues are at present more frequently referred to as “mythological,” “allegorical” or Idealplastik, thus downplaying the religious signiicance that they could have had to some viewers. Note the discussion in Stirling 2005, 22-8. 3 On classical cities as “cities of sculpture” see Beard & Henderson 2001, 83.