An architect and civil engineer with few contemporaries in his time, Dinocrates of Rhodes was the technical adviser to Alexander the Great, and designed the city of Alexandria, reconstructed the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and designed Hephaestion’s funeral pyre during the end of the fourth century BC.
Born on the isle of Rhodes, in the South Aegean Sea, he rose to become a technical adviser to Alexander the Great, the king of Macedon who was tutored by Aristotle and created one of the largest empires in the history of the world. His birth and death dates are not known. In 332 BC, however, he was appointed to be the director of survey and planning for the eponymous city of Alexandria, which he would build in Egypt on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The city was founded in 331 BC. It was conceived to be the greatest city in the world, and quickly grew in size and scope of importance as the years passed. He designed it using the Hippodamian grid plan where streets run at right angles to one another, making it easy for even newcomers to find their ways around and allowing key buildings to be set up as wayfinders. Among the great works inside the city were the Lighthouse of Alexandria on the coast, and the Great Library, which is thought to have contained between 40,000-400,000 scrolls at the height of its prowess.
Alexander had a favorite general named Hephaestion who was said to be the king’s best friend. He had been a personal bodyguard of the king’s and eventually became his second in command. He died of a fever at age 32 and determined that he was divine and worthy of such a tribute in the afterlife. Alexander commissioned Dinocrates to build a stone monument to Hephaestion that was six stories tall, completely gilded, and made of stone, which was not available in Egypt or Greece and had to be transported long miles.
He also helped reconstruct the Temple of Artemis, another of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which had been burned in 356, the same day that Alexander was born. It was located in Ephesus, which is in modern-day Turkey. The temple was rebuilt larger than it had been, 60 feet high and 450 feet in length. It only lasted another 600 years after that, with the site a mystery until the late 1860s.
Dinocrates also designed several other cities and temples in Delos and Delphi.
