Alexandria Troas ("Alexandria of the Troad", modern Turkish: Eski Stambul) is an ancient Greek city situated on the Aegean Sea near the northern tip of Turkey's western coast, a little south of Tenedos (modern Bozcaada). It is located in the modern Turkish province of Çanakkale. The site sprawls over an estimated 400 hectares (1,000 acres); among the few structures still extant today are a ruined bath and gymnasium complex and a recently uncovered stadium.

According to Strabo, this site was first called Sigeia; around 306 BC Antigonus refounded the city as the much-expanded Antigonia Troas by settling the people of five other towns in Sigeia, including the once influential city of Neandria. Its name was changed by Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in memory of Alexander III of Macedon (Pliny merely states that the name changed from Antigonia to Alexandria). As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place prospered greatly in Roman times, becoming a "free and autonomous city" as early as 188 BC, and the existing remains sufficiently attest its former importance. In its heyday, the city may have had a population of about 100,000.Strabo mentions that a Roman colony was created at the location in the reign of Augustus, named Colonia Alexandria Augusta Troas (called simply Troas during this period). Augustus, Hadrian and the rich grammarian Herodes Atticus contributed greatly to its embellishment; the aqueduct still preserved is due to the latter. Constantine considered making Troas the capital of the Roman Empire.

Alexandria (Arabic: الإسكندرية‎ Al Iskandariyya, Coptic: Ⲣⲁⲕⲟⲧⲉ Rakotə, Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Alexándria, Koine Greek: Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ κατ' Αἴγυπτον IPA: [ɑlɛˈksɑndɾiɑ e kɑt ˈɛʝypton] "Alexandria in Egypt", Egyptian Arabic: اسكندريه [eskendeˈrejːæ]) is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about 32 km (20 mi) along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypt's imports and exports. Alexandria is also an important tourist resort. It is home to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (the new Library of Alexandria). It is an important industrial centre because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez.

Alexandria was founded around a small pharaonic town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great. It remained Egypt's capital for nearly a thousand years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (Fustat was later absorbed into Cairo). Alexandria was known because of its Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its library (the largest library in the ancient world); and the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, which began in 1994, is revealing details of Alexandria both before the arrival of Alexander, when a city named Rhacotis existed there, and during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, otherwise known as Herodes Atticus (Ἡρῴδης ὁ Ἀττικός, 101-177) was a very distinguished, rich Greek aristocrat who served as a Roman Senator and a sophist. He is notable as a proponent in the Second Sophistic by Philostratus.

Herodes Atticus was a Greek of Athenian descent. His ancestry can be traceable to the Athenian noble woman Elpinice (a half sister of statesman Cimon and daughter of politician Miltiades the Younger). He claimed his lineage from the Athenian King Theseus; the Athenian Monarch named Cecrops; King Aeacus and the God Zeus. He had an ancestor four generations removed from him called Polycharmus. Polycharmus from 9/8 BC-22/23, could have served as an Archon of Athens. His family bore the Roman family name, Claudius. There is a possibility that a paternal ancestor of his, received Roman citizenship, from an unknown member of the Claudian gens.

Herodes Atticus was born to a distinguished and very rich family of consular rank. He was born to a Roman Senator, Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes and the wealthy heiress Vibullia Alcia Agrippina. Herodes Atticus had a brother named Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodianus and a sister named Claudia Tisamenis. His maternal grandparents were Claudia Alcia and Lucius Vibullius Rufus, while his paternal grandfather was Hipparchus and his unnamed wife.