ALEXANDER THE GREAT - THE ROMANCE OF ALEXANDER The figure of Alexander naturally impressed itself upon the imagination of the world which his career had shaken. The ro mance of Alexander is found written in the languages of nearly all peoples from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, but all these versions are derived, mediately or immediately, from the Greek original which circulated under the false name of Callisthenes. The Greek pseudo-Callisthenes (otherwise Aisopos) we possess in three recensions, based all upon a book produced in Egypt in the end century A.D. But this book itself was a farrago of hetero geneous elements—pieces of genuine history, ancient stories once told in Babylon of Gilgamesh or Etanna; literary forgeries of the days soon after Alexander, like the oldest part of the "Testament of Alexander," and variations according to the bent of different times and peoples. In the Persian version Alexander (Iskander) became a son of Darius ; among the Mohammedans he turned into a prophet, hot against idols; the pen of Christian monks made him an ascetic saint.
The Alexander romance found its way into Europe through the Latin versions of the pseudo-Callisthenes, not from the more sober narrative of Quintus Curtius. The pseudo-Callisthenes, in a recension which has not been preserved, was translated into Latin by Julius Valerius about the end of the 3rd century, and an epi tome of this translation, also in Latin, was made some time before the 9th century, and is introduced by Vincent de Beauvais into his Speculum /iistoriale. The first book deals with his birth and early exploits. The trace of Alexandrian influence is to be found in the pretence that his actual father was Nectanebus, a fugitive king of Egypt. The latter was a great magician, able, by operating upon waxen figures of the armies and ships of his enemies, to ob tain complete power over their real actions. Obliged, however, to flee to Pella in Macedonia, he established himself as an astrologer, and as such was consulted by the childless Olympias. Having promised that Zeus Ammon would visit her in the form of a dragon, he himself assumed the disguise. In due course Alexander was born, and Philip's suspicions were overcome by a second appearance of the dragon, which was held to prove the divine fatherhood. The child was small and somewhat deformed, but of great courage and intelligence. When he was twelve years old he was instructed in starcraft by Nectanebus, who was killed by a fall into a pit, into which he had been playfully pushed by Alex ander. The first book also relates his conquests in Italy, Africa, Syria and Asia Minor ; his return to Macedonia and the submission of Greece. The second book continues the history of his con quests, and the third contains the victory over Porus, the rela tions with the Brahmans, the letter to Aristotle on the wonders of India, the histories of Candace and the Amazons, the letter to Olympias on the marvels of Farther Asia and lastly the account of Alexander's death in Babylon.
The most widespread Latin version of the story, however, was the Historia de proeliis, printed at Strasbourg in 1486, which began to supersede the Epitome of Julius Valerius in general fa vour about the end of the i3th century. It is said to have been written in the loth century by the Neapolitan arch-presbyter Leo. Auxiliary sources for the mediaeval romance-writers were : the opuscule (4th century) known as Alexandri magni • iter ad Paradisum, a fable of Eastern origin directed against ambition ; the Itinerarium Alexandri (340), based partly on Julius Valerius and dedicated to Constans, son of the emperor Constantine; the letter of Alexander to Aristotle (Epist. de situ et mirabilibus Indiae) and the correspondence between Alexander and the king of the Brahmans, Dindimus, both of which are often contained in mss. of the Epitome; and the treatise (based on a lost history of Alexander by Onesicritus), De gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus, ascribed without certainty to Palladius (d. c. 430), successively bishop of Helenopolis and Aspona.
In the Ethiopic versions we find the Greek gods in the guise of Enoch, Elijah, etc., while Philip is a Christian martyr, and Alex ander himself a great apostle, even a saint; quotations from the Bible are frequent. Syriac and Armenian versions were made in the sth century. Persians and Arabs told the deeds of Iskander ; and Firdousi made use of the story in the Shdhncima. Another early Persian poet, Nizami, made the story specially his own. In the th century Simeon Seth, protovestiarius at the Byzantine court, translated the fabulous history from the Persian back into Greek.
The Alexander legend was the theme of poetry in all European languages; six or seven German poets dealt with the subject, and it may be read in French, English, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Ice landic, Flemish and Bohemian.
French.—Theprincipal extant French romances based on the Alexander legend are: (I) A fragment by Alberic of Besancon (more properly Briancon), nth century; (2) Li romans d'Alex andre, i2th century, by Alexandre de Bernai and other poets, in rhymed verse; (3) l'Histoire du noble et vaillant roy Alixandre le Grant ( so6), a prose romance taken from the Historia de proeliis; and the Alexandreis (c.II8o) of Gaultier de l'Isle or de Chatellon, a Latin poem based on Quintus Curtius.
There exist fragments of an English alliterative romance on the subject written in the west midland dialect, dating from the second half of the 14th century. Another alliterative poem in the north ern dialect, of sth-century origin, is based on the Historia de proeliis. Earlier than any of these is the rhyming Lyfe of Alisaunder (c. 133o), which is printed in H. Weber's Metrical Romances (vol. i., 181o). The Scots Buik of the most noble and vailyzeand Conqueror Alexander the Great, printed by Alexander Arbuthnot (d. 1580 about s8o, reprinted in 183i for the Banna tyne Club, contains three episodes of the cycle, the "Forray of Gadderis" (not taken from the Fuerre de Gadres, but from the Assaut de Tyr in the Romans d'Alixandre), "The Avowes of Alexander" and "The Great Battel of Effesoun," taken from the Voeux du paon. A Buke of the Conqueror Alexander the Great by Sir Gilbert Hay (fl. 1456) is in ms. at Taymouth Castle.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The best sketch of the Alexander romance literature Bibliography.-The best sketch of the Alexander romance literature is by Paul Meyer, Alexandre le grand dans la litterature francaise au moyen dge (1886). The first volume contains some French texts, and the second a detailed discussion of the various versions from the pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. See also J. Zacher, Pseudo Callisthenes, Forschungen zur . . . Alexandersage (Halle, 1867), and for Oriental versions, T. NOldeke, "Beitrage zur Geschichte des Alex anderromans" (Denkschriften der ksl. Akad. d. Wissenschaften, Phil. hist. Klasse, vol. 38: Vienna, 189o). For early printed versions see Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. "Alexandre." The text of the pseudo-Callisthenes was edited by C. W. Miiller from three mss. in the Bibl. Nat. and printed in the Arrian of the Coll. Didot (Paris, 1846), and by H. Meusel (Leipzig, 1871) from a Leyden ms. A. Mai ed. Julius Valerius (Milan, 1817). Itinerarium Alexandri (Class. Auct. vol. vii.; Milan, 1835) ; J. Zacher, Alex. iter ad Paradisum (Regensburg, 1859) ; and the Epitome (Halle, 1867) ; the Oxford ms. of the Epitome was edited by G. Cilli (Strasbourg, 19o5) ; G. Landgraf, Die "Vita Alexandri" . . . des Archpresbyter Leo (His toria de proeliis) (Erlangen, 1885) ; Alexander's letter to Aristotle and his correspondence with Dindimus are included in the Teubner edition of Julius Valerius (ed. B. Kiibler, Leipzig, 1888). A newly discovered anonymous Epitome was edited by O. Wagner (Leipzig, i9oo) .
The fragment by Alberic was edited by P. Heyse (Berlin, 1856) ; Lamprecht's German text by H. Weismann (Frankfurt, 185o) and by C. Kinzel (Halle, 1884) ; the Alexandreis of Gaultier de Lille, by F. A. Muldener (Leipzig, 1863) ; an Icelandic prose version (c. 125o) of the same, Alexanders Saga, by C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1848) ; Li Romans d'Alixandre, by H. Michelant (Stuttgart, 1846) ; the Ethio pic version by E. A. T. Wallis Budge (1896, with English translation) ; the Syriac text of pseudo-Callisthenes by Budge (Cambridge, 1889).
Besides the English editions quoted in the text, the alliterative Eng lish poems were partially edited by J. Stevenson for the Roxburghe Club (1849). There is a great deal of information on the various texts in H. L. Wood's Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum (1883, vol. i., pp. 94 et seq.). Among other works see E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman (2nd ed., Leipzig, 19oo) ; F. Kampers, "Alex. d. Grosse und die Idee des Weltimperiums in Prophetie und Sage" (in H. Granert's Studien, etc., Freiburg, 19oi) ; Adolf Ausfeld, Der griechische Alexanderroman (Leipzig, 19o7), edited after the author's death by W. Kroll. (X.)