Temple of Serapis-Pompeys Pillar

Pompey’s Pillar is a Roman triumphal column located in Alexandria, Egypt. Despite its commonly known name, the column was not associated with the Roman general Pompey but was actually erected in honor of Emperor Diocletian between 298 and 302 AD. This massive Corinthian column once supported a colossal statue of Diocletian dressed in military armor. It stands on the eastern side of what was once the Serapeum of Alexandria—a grand temple complex now in ruins—and is notable as the only ancient monument in Alexandria that remains in its original location.

The name “Pompey’s Pillar” originated from a misinterpretation by early modern European travelers and scholars. They mistakenly read the Greek inscription on the column’s base, confusing the name  (Pouplios) with (Pompeios), the Greek form of “Pompey.” As a result, the monument was incorrectly linked to Pompey the Great.

In 297 AD, Diocletian—who had ruled as emperor since 284—led a campaign in Egypt to quash a rebellion by the usurper Domitius Domitianus. Following a lengthy siege, Diocletian captured Alexandria and executed Domitianus’s successor, Aurelius Achilleus, in 298. Upon his return to Alexandria in 302, Diocletian inaugurated a public grain supply and commissioned the erection of the column and statue in his honor.

The dedication refers to Diocletian as the polioúchos meaning “city guardian of Alexandria”—a title that, by the 4th century AD, was also associated with Serapis, the male counterpart of the goddess Isis in the Greco-Egyptian pantheon established under the Ptolemies. The column originally stood within the Serapeum, a grand sanctuary complex built during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes in the 3rd century BC and later reconstructed under Roman rule, likely during the reign of Emperor Caracalla in the early 3rd century AD.

By the late 4th century, the Serapeum was regarded as one of the greatest religious sites of the ancient world. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus even compared it to Rome’s famed Capitolium, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Pompey’s Pillar, as the most prominent surviving feature of this once-glorious complex, remains a powerful symbol of Alexandria’s Roman past.