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According to Pliny, Dinocrates planned and built the city of Alexandria. "I cannot conceive," said Spence, the author of Polymetis, to Pope, "how Dinocrates could ever have carried his proposal of forming Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the Great, into execution."
Vitruvius relates that the architect Dinocrates proposed to Alexander the Great to carve Mount Athos in such a way as to give it the shape of a man, whose one hand should support an entire city, and whose other should carry a cup which received all the waters from the mountain, and from which they overflowed into the sea.
But on Alexander asking how the inhabitants were to live, Dinocrates answered that he had not thought of that. Whereupon, Alexander laughed, and leaving Mount Athos as it stood, built Alexandria; where, the fruitfulness of the soil, and the vicinity of the Nile and the sea, might attract many to take up their abode.
A few days after, news came that Dinocrates the Messenian, a particular enemy to Philopoemen, and for his wickedness and villanies generally hated, had induced Messene to revolt from the Achaeans, and was about to seize upon a little place called Colonis. Philopoemen lay then sick of a fever at Argos.
Having ascertained that the provisioning could only be done by sea, Alexander said: "Dinocrates, I grant the beauty of your project; it pleases me, but I think that any one who should take it into his head to establish a colony in the place you propose would run the risk of being taxed with want of foresight; for, just as a child can neither feed nor develop without the milk of a nurse, so a city cannot increase without fertile fields, have a large population without plenty of food, and allow its inhabitants to subsist without rich harvests; so, while giving the originality of your plan my approval, I have to say to you that I disapprove of the place that you have selected for putting it into execution.
This first caused disorder among themselves; they then turned their backs, and at last, throwing away their arms, and flying with precipitation, made the best of their way to Bargylii. To the same place Dinocrates also made his escape. The Rhodians continued the pursuit as long as the day lasted, and then retired to their camp.
A few other cities there have been which have arisen at the command of man, potentate or pirate, besides those of the quaker Penn and the tzar Peter Alexandria, the old and the new, with Constantinople between; the first by order of the poor world conqueror, at the hand of the architect Dinocrates, two or three centuries before Caesar, Cleopatra, and Antony, but made fit for them and their chariots by streets a hundred feet wide.
While these things passed in Achaea, Dinocrates, fearing that any delay would save Philopoemen, and resolving to be beforehand with the Achaeans, as soon as night had dispersed the multitude, sent in the executioner with poison, with orders not to stir from him till he had taken it.
In 183 the Messenians, under the leadership of Dinocrates, having revolted from the league, Philopoemen, who had now attained the age of 70, led an expedition against them; but having fallen from his horse in a skirmish of cavalry, he was captured, and conveyed with many circumstances of ignominy to Messene, where, after a sort of mock trial, he was executed.
In the mean time, the courage of the troops in garrison at Stratonice revived; and shortly after, Dinocrates, with the troops which had escaped from the battle, came into the town, which, after that, was besieged and assaulted without effect; nor could it be reduced until a long time after that, when Antiochus took it.
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