Basil Argyros

Basil Argyros was a magistrianos in the Byzantium Empire. He was sent to Alexandria, Egypt by George Lakhanodrakon, the Master of Offices, to expedite the stall reconstruction of the lighthouse.

He presented a letter of introduction to Mouamet Dekanos, the deputy of the Augustal prefect, in order to determine what was being done to rebuild the pharos and why recronstruction had stopped. Dekanos explained the Egyptian practice of "khoresis" or "withdrawal". In ancient days, peasant farmers could run away from their farms if taxes became too heavy or the spring floods failed. This practise over time had spread to the villages and then the cities of Egypt including the guilds. If the authorities attempted to force people back to the farms or their other labors, the khoresis could spread. A couple of times the whole Nile valley had been paralyzed, from the delta to the first rapids.

With the lighthouse, the skilled craftsmen, the stone-cutters, the concrete-spreaders and the carpenters who built the necessary scafolding had all withdrawn their labors. Dekanos feared forcing them to work would cause a khoresis of all the population as bad as any in the past. When Argyros asked what had caused the khoresis, since some work had been done previously, Dekanos replied no one knew. Argyros planned to find out.