Alexander Romance

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Armenian illuminated manuscript of the 14th century Alexander romance. Armenian illuminated manuscript of XIV century (Venice, San Lazzaro, 424).jpg
Armenian illuminated manuscript of the 14th century

The Alexander Romance is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. Of uncertain authorship, it has been described as "antiquity's most successful novel". [1] The Romance describes Alexander the Great from his birth, to his succession of the throne of Macedon, his conquests including that of the Persian Empire, and finally his death. Although constructed around a historical core, the romance is mostly fantastical, including many miraculous tales and encounters with mythical creatures such as sirens or centaurs. [2] In this context, the term Romance refers not to the meaning of the word in modern times but in the Old French sense of a novel or roman , a "lengthy prose narrative of a complex and fictional character" (although Alexander's historicity did not deter ancient authors from using this term). [3]

Contents

It was widely copied and translated, accruing various legends and fantastical elements at different stages. The original version was composed in Ancient Greek some time before 338 AD, when a Latin translation was made, although the exact date is unknown. Some manuscripts pseudonymously attribute the text's authorship to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, and so the author is commonly called Pseudo-Callisthenes.

In premodern times, the Alexander Romance underwent more than 100 translations, elaborations, and derivations in dozens of languages, including almost all European vernaculars as well as in every language from the Islamicized regions of Asia and Africa, from Mali to Malaysia. [4] Some of the more notable translations were made into Coptic, Ge'ez, Middle Persian, Byzantine Greek, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Syriac, and Hebrew. Owing to the great variety of distinct works derived from the original Greek romance, the "Alexander romance" is sometimes treated as a literary genre, instead of a single work. [5]

Plot

Nectanebo II, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, foresees that his kingdom will fall to the Persians and so flees to the Macedonian court under the guise of the identity of a magician. In his time there, he falls in love with the wife of king Philip II of Macedon, Olympias. Olympias becomes pregnant by Nectanebo, but his paternity is kept a secret. Philip develops a suspicion of an affair between the two, but Nectanebo allays Philip's suspicions by sending a magic sea-hawk to him in a dream. Alexander is born from this pregnancy, but while he is growing up he kills Nectanebo, who reveals Alexander's paternity as he dies. Alexander begins to be educated by Aristotle and competes in the Olympics. [6]

After Philip dies, Alexander begins his campaigns into Asia, although the story is written in a confused manner with respect to the order and location of the campaigns. Once he reaches Egypt, an oracle of the god Amun instructs him where to go to create the city that will become Alexandria. The march into Asia continues and Alexander conquers Tyre. He begins exchanging letters with the Persian emperor Darius III, though the story now delves into more campaigns in Greece. The Persian march resumes and eventually Alexander conquers the Persians. He marries Roxane, the daughter of Darius, and writes letters to Olympias describing all he saw and his adventures during his conquests, including his wandering through the Land of Darkness, search for the Water of Life, and more. [6]

Next, he proceeds to conquer India from which he writes letters to Aristotle, though he also receives an omen about his coming death in this time. He visits the temples of the sun and moon, and makes the Amazons his subjects. During his return, as he reaches Babylonia, he meets the son of Antipater (the figure ruling Macedonia in Alexander's stead during the journeys of the latter) who was sent to poison Alexander. The conspiracy succeeds, and Alexander begins to die, though he names the rulers who will control the provinces of his empire after he is gone before ultimately succumbing to the poison. Ptolemy I Soter receives his body in the Egyptian city of Memphis where the priests order it to be sent to Alexandria, the greatest city he had built during his march. The work concludes by providing a list of all the cities that Alexander founded. [6]

Motifs and themes

Gates of Alexander

The Darial Gorge before 1906 Darielpass 1906.jpg
The Darial Gorge before 1906

The Romance locates the Gates of Alexander between two mountains called the "Breasts of the North" (Greek : Μαζοί Βορρά [7] ). The mountains are initially 18 feet apart and the pass is rather wide, but Alexander's prayers to God causes the mountains to draw nearer, thus narrowing the pass. There he builds the Caspian Gates out of bronze, coating them with fast-sticking oil. The gates enclosed twenty-two nations and their monarchs, including Gog and Magog (therein called "Goth and Magoth"). The geographic location of these mountains is rather vague, described as a 50-day march away northwards after Alexander put to flight his Belsyrian enemies (the Bebrykes, [8] of Bithynia in modern-day North Turkey). [9] [10]

Horns of Alexander

In the α recension of the Alexander Romance, Alexander's father is an Egyptian priest named Nectanebo who sports a set of ram horns. After his death, Alexander is described as "the horned king" (βασιλέα κερασφόρον) by an oracle instructing Ptolemy, a general of Alexander, on where to bury him. This statement was repeated in the Armenian recension of the Alexander Romance in the 5th century. [11] The use of the horned motif, representing the horns of Zeus Ammon to visualize Alexander stems from much earlier, originally in coinage depicting Alexander by his immediate successors Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt and more prominently the king of Thrace Lysimachus were the earliest produce coinage of Alexander with the rams horns. [12] [13] The motif would be carried over into later Alexander legends, such as the Armenian translation of α and the Syriac Alexander Legend . [14]

Fountain of Life

Traditions about Alexander's search for the Fountain of Life were influenced by earlier legends about the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh and his search for immortality, such as in the Epic of Gilgamesh . [15] Alexander is travelling along with his company in search of the Land of the Blessed. On the way to the Land, Alexander becomes hungry and asks one of his cooks, Andreas, to get him some meat. Andreas gets some fish and begins to wash it in a fountain. Immediately upon being washed, the fish sprang to life and escaped into the fountain. Realizing the has discovered the Fountain of Life, Andreas tells no one else about it and drinks the water for himself. He also stores away some of the water into a silver vessel, hoping to use some of it to seduce Alexander's daughter. Meanwhile, Alexander eventually reaches the Land of the Blessed but is unable to enter it. At the same time, he learns of Andreas losing the fish and questions him over it. Andreas confesses about what happened with the fish, and he is whipped for it, but he denies that he drank any and does not mention that he stored some, and asks Alexander over why he should worry about the past. At a later point, Andreas manages to use the water to seduce Alexander's daughter, who is enticed by the opportunity to drink from it, which she does and becomes immortal. Alexander learns of the miracle and punishes both Andreas and his daughter greatly: for Andreas is turned into a daimōn of the sea and his daughter into a daimōn of the desert. [16] This story was elaborated on in subsequent versions of the Romance, such as in the Syriac Song of Alexander and in the Talmud. [17] [18]

Land of Darkness

The original Alexander Romance contains a few statements that would develop into the fully-fledged myths of episodes in the Land of Darkness, especially in versions of the Romance in Islamicate lands. In a journey that is directed towards Polaris, the Polar constellation, he is to find the Land of the Blessed at the edge of the world which in "a region where the sun does not shine" (2.39). [19]

The Land of Darkness becomes a prominent feature in subsequent recensions of the Alexander Romance. [20] [21]

Sources

Two books appear to be the main sources used by the author of the Alexander Romance. One was a collection of Alexander fictions involving pseudepigraphical letters between Alexander and other figures such as Aristotle and adversaries of his like Darius III, as well as dialogues with Indian philosophers among other material. The second was a history written by Cleitarchus (c. 300 BC), containing an already mythologized account of Alexander. Historians also suspect the use of Greek-language Egyptian sources underlying traditions about the pharaohs Nectanebo II and Sesostris. By contrast, oral tradition did not play an important role. [22] A strikingly close parallel to Alexander's relentless quest, though one limited by the constraints of human and mortal existence, is in the Epic of Gilgamesh . [15]

Commentaries

The first commentary to the Romance was a German work titled Der griechische Alexanderroman, published by Adolf Ausfeld in 1907. In 2017, a commentary of the entire Alexander Romance was published in English by Krzysztof Nawotka. [23]

Editions and translations

The first modern English translation of the Romance was produced by E.H. Haight in 1955. The major modern English translation of the Romance is that of Richard Stoneman in 1991. Significant French translations include those of Tallet-Bonvalot in 1994, and Bounoure & Serret in 2004. An Italian translation was produced by Franco in 2001. In 2010, a Polish translation was published by Krzysztof Nawotka. [24]

In 2007, Richard Stoneman published an Italian edition of the Romance in three volumes, titled Il Romanzo di Alessandro.

Transmission

Throughout classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Romance experienced numerous expansions and revisions exhibiting a variability unknown for more formal literary forms. Distinctively, and unlike other texts, none of the recensions (including in Greek) of the Romance can be considered canonical. Furthermore, translations were not merely so but were also typically variant versions of the text. [25] The legendary Alexander was also widely assimilated into the religion and culture of those who wrote about him: in Christian legends, Alexander became a Christian; in Islamic legends, Alexander became a Muslim; he was an Egyptian for the Egyptian, a Persian for the Persians, and so forth. [26] [27]

West

In Europe, the popularity of the Alexander Romance resurged when Leo the Archpriest discovered a Greek copy in Constantinople while he was on a diplomatic missions. He produced a translation into Latin titled the Nativitas et historia Alexandri Magni regis, which became the basis of the far more successful and expanded version known as the Historia de Proeliis , which went through three recensions between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries and made Alexander a household name throughout the Middle Ages, [28] being translated more times in the next three centuries than any other text except for the Gospels. [29] Another very popular Latin version was the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon. [30] Before Leo, versions of the Romance were still known: an abridged 9th-century version of the much earlier Latin translation by Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius, the Zacher Epitome, achieved some popularity. In addition, in 781, Alcuin sent Charlemagne a copy of a text known as Alexander and Dindimus King of the Brahmans. The principal manuscript of Beowulf also contains a translation of Alexander's letter to Aristotle. [31]

Translations from Leo's Latin version and its recension would subsequently be made into all the major languages of Europe as versions of the Alexander romance became the most popular form of medieval European literature after the Bible, [32] such as Old French (12th century), [33] Middle Scots ( The Buik of Alexander , 13th century), [34] Italian, [35] Spanish (the Libro de Alexandre ), Central German (Lamprecht's Alexanderlied, and a 15th-century version by Johannes Hartlieb), Slavonic, [36] Romanian, Hungarian, Irish, and more. [32] [37]

East

The Syriac Alexander Romance , the most important Syriac translation of the Greek Romance, as well as the much shorter and abridged version known in the Syriac Alexander Legend , composed either in ~630 shortly after Heraclius defeated the Persians [38] or in the mid-6th century during the reign of Justinian I, [39] contains additional motifs not found in the earliest Greek version of the Romance, including the apocalypticization of the wall built against Gog and Magog. [40] Subsequent Middle Eastern recensions of the Alexander legend were generated following the Syriac traditions, including versions in Arabic, Persian ( Iskandarnameh ), Ethiopic, Hebrew (in the first part of Sefer HaAggadah), Ottoman Turkish [41] (14th century), and Middle Mongolian (13th-14th century). [42] Knowledge of Romance tradition entered Chinese texts by the 12th century, [43] but ancient Indian texts do not mention Alexander. [44]

The Epic of Sundiata , an epic poem for the Mandinka people, structures the story of the hero and founder of the Mali Empire, Sundiata Keita, in a way that resembles the biography and legends of Alexander. [45] [46]

Versions

Greek

The Alexander Romance in a 14th century Byzantine manuscript kept in the Church of San Giorgio dei Greci, Venice. Byzantine Alexander Romance Vraka.JPG
The Alexander Romance in a 14th century Byzantine manuscript kept in the Church of San Giorgio dei Greci, Venice.

The most important Greek recensions of the Alexander Romance are the α, β, γ and ε recensions. There is also a variant of β called λ, and the now-lost δ was perhaps the most important in the transmission of the text into the non-Greek world as it was the basis of the 10th-century Latin translation produced by Leo the Archpriest. [25]

Alpha (α) recension

The Recensio α, also known as the Historia Alexandri Magni, is the oldest and can be dated to the 3rd century AD. It is known from one manuscript, called A. It was subjected to various revisions during the Byzantine Empire, some of them recasting it into poetical form in Medieval Greek vernacular. Recensio α is the source of a Latin version by Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius (4th century), as well as an Armenian version (5th century). [47]

Beta (β) recension

The β recension was composed between 300 and 550 AD. It rephrases much material in α and also adds new material to it. Compared to α, it lacks the end of Book I and the first six chapters of Book II. However, it contains the end of Book II, which is missing from α. [48]

Other recensions (ε, γ, etc)

A combination of α and some material from β was used to create the ε recension in the 8th century. Furthermore, the β and ε recensions were combined to generate the much larger γ recension later still. [47]

Recension manuscripts

  • Recensio α sive Recensio vetusta: Wilhelm Kroll, Historia Alexandri Magni, vol. 1. Berlin: Weidmann, 1926
  • Recensio β:
    • L. Bergson, Der griechische Alexanderroman. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965
    • e cod. Leidensi Vulc. 93. L. Bergson, Der griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension β. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965
    • e cod. Paris. gr. 1685 et cod. Messinensi 62): L. Bergson, Der griechische Alexanderroman. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965
  • Recension γ:
    • lib. 1: U. von Lauenstein, Der griechische Alexanderroman. [Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 4. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1962]
    • lib. 2: H. Engelmann, Der griechische Alexanderroman. [Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 12. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1963]
    • lib. 3: F. Parthe, Der griechische Alexanderroman. [Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 33. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1969]
  • Recensio δ:
    • e cod. Vat. gr. 1700, 88v‑89r: G. Ballaira, "Frammenti inediti della perduta recensione δ del romanzo di Alessandro in un codice Vaticano", Bollettino del comitato per la preparazione dell'edizione nazionale dei classici greci e latini 13 (1965)
  • Recensio ε: Jürgen Trumpf, Anonymi Byzantini vita Alexandri regis Macedonum. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1974
  • Recensio λ:
    • lib. 3: Helmut van Thiel, Die Rezension λ des Pseudo-Kallisthenes. Bonn: Habelt 1959
    • Pseudo-Methodius redactio 1: H. van Thiel, Die Rezension λ des Pseudo-Callisthenes. Bonn: Habelt 1959
    • Pseudo-Methodius redactio 2: H. van Thiel, Die Rezension λ des Pseudo-Kallisthenes. Bonn: Habelt 1959
  • Recensio F (cod. Flor. Laurentianus Ashburn 1444), vernacular: V.L. Konstantinopulos and A.C. Lolos, Ps.-Kallisthenes ‑ Zwei mittelgriechische Prosa-Fassungen des Alexanderromans, 2 vols [Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 141 & 150, Meisenheim am Glan: Hain 1983]
  • Recensio φ: G. Veloudis, Ἡ φυλλάδα τοῦ Μεγαλέξαντρου. Διήγησις Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Μακεδόνος [Νέα Ἑλληνικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη 39. Athens: Hermes, 1977]
  • Recensio Byzantina poetica (cod. Marcianus 408): S. Reichmann, Das byzantinische Alexandergedicht nach dem codex Marcianus 408 herausgegeben [Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 13. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1963]
  • Recensio E (cod. Eton College 163), vernacular: V.L. Konstantinopulos and A.C. Lolos, Ps.-Kallisthenes, Zwei mittelgriechische Prosa. Fassungen des Alexanderromans, 2 vols [Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 141 & 150‑ Meisenheim am Glan: Hain 1983]
  • Recensio V (cod. Vind. theol. gr. 244): K. Mitsakis, Der byzantinische Alexanderroman nach dem Codex Vind. Theol. gr. 244 [Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 7. Munich: Institut für Byzantinistik und neugriechische Philologie der Universität, 1967]
  • Recensio K (cod. 236 Kutlumussiu, Athos), vernacular: K. Mitsakis, "Διήγησις περὶ τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου καὶ τῶν μεγάλων πολέμων", Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher 20 (1970)
  • Recensio poetica (recensio R), vernacular: D. Holton, Διήγησις τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου. The Tale of Alexander. The Rhymed Version [Βυζαντινὴ καὶ Νεοελληνικὴ βιβλιοθήκη. Thessalonica, 1974]

Latin

Romance languages

French

There are several Old and Middle French and one Anglo-Norman Alexander romances. The following list of works is taken from the one provided by Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox 2002. [53]

Italian

Italian versions of the Alexander Romance include: [55]

Romanian

The Romanian Alexander Romance, entitled the Alexandria, was derived from a Greek and Serbian variant and became the most widely-read literary text in Romania between the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. [58] In 1833, the Romanian legend was translated into Bulgarian in a copy of an earlier work, Paisiy Hilendarski's Slavic-Bulgarian History (1762). [59]

Spanish

The two most important Spanish versions of the Alexander Romance are: [60]

  • The Libro de Alexandre . This was a famous anonymous poem of the Alexander Romance from Christian Spain.
  • The Historia novelada de Alejandro Magno. This is an obscure Spanish version, only having been discovered an edition of Part 4 of Alfonso X's General Estoria in a recently printed edition.

Germanic languages

English and Scots

In medieval England, the Alexander Romance experienced remarkable popularity. It is even referred to in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , where the monk apologizes to the pilgrimage group for treating a material so well known. There are five major romances in Middle English that survive, though most only in fragments. There are also two versions from Scotland, one sometimes ascribed to the Early Scots poet John Barbour, which exists only in a sixteenth-century printing; and a Middle Scots version from 1499:

  • King Alisaunder from c. 1275. [61]
  • The Romance of Alisaunder (or Alexander of Macedon), sometimes referred to as Alexander A, is a fragment of 1247 lines written in alliterative verse. It was probably written between 1340 and 1370, soon before the beginning of the Alliterative Revival, of which it is believed to be one of the oldest remaining poems. It has been preserved in a school notebook dating from 1600. Alexander A deals with the begetting of Alexander by Nectanebo II (Nectanebus), his birth, and his early years, and ends with the midst of the account of Philip's siege of Byzantium. It is likely that the source for this fragment has been the I²-recension of the Historia de Preliis . Beside that it has been expanded with additional material taken from Paulus Orosius's Historiae adversum paganos, the adverse remarks, which are typical of Orosius, however have been omitted by the poet, whose main concern is Alexander's heroic conduct.
  • Alexander and Dindimus , sometimes referred to as Alexander B, is also written in alliterative verse. This fragment is found in the MS Bodley 264  [ it ] and consists of five letters which are passed between Alexander and Dindimus, who is the king of the Brahmins, a people of philosophers who shun all worldly lusts, ambitions and entertainments. In this respect their way of life resembles the ideal of an aescetic life, which was also preached by medieval monastic orders, such as the Franciscans. The source of Alexander B again is the I²-recension of the Historia de Preliis.
  • The Wars of Alexander , sometimes referred to as Alexander C, is the longest of the alliterative versions of the Middle English Alexander Romances. It goes back to the I³-recension of the Historia de Preliis and can be found in the MS Ashmole 44 and in the Dublin Trinity College MS 213. Although both manuscripts are incomplete they supplement each other fairly well. In this version much space is given to letters and prophecies, which often bear a moralizing and philosophical tenor. The letters are an integral part of the Pseudo-Callisthenes tradition. The dominant theme is pride, which inevitably results in the downfall of kings. In The Wars of Alexander the hero is endowed with superhuman qualities, which shows in the romance insofar as his enemies fall to him by the dozens and he is always at the center of action.
  • The Prose Life of Alexander copied by Robert Thornton, c. 1440.

Middle Scots versions include:

German

  • The German Song of Alexander by Lamprecht, composed around 1150 as an adaptation of a poem by Albéric of Pisançon some fifty years earlier. It does not directly survive but in a version of it, close to the original, produced by Vorau. [63]
  • Alexander of Strasbourg. [63]
  • Alexander of Basel. [63]

Norse

Slavic

17th-century manuscript of an Alexandrine novel (Russia): Alexander exploring the depths of sea. Alexandria serbskaya.jpg
17th-century manuscript of an Alexandrine novel (Russia): Alexander exploring the depths of sea.

There were two translations of the Alexander Romance into Old Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian.

Irish

The Irish Alexander Romance , also known as the Imthusa Alexandair, was composed around 1100, representing the first complete vernacular version of the Romance in a European vernacular. [70] It includes episodes such as Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, talking trees, encounters with Dindimus, and more. Two sources the author identified for his work were Orosius and Josephus. [71]

Semitic languages

Arabic

  • The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn ("The Two-Horned One") in the Quran is generally seen in tradition and among contemporary historians to represent an allusive synopsis of the Romance tradition in the way it was expressed by the Syriac Alexander Legend. [72] [73] [21] [74] The names Alexander and Dhu al-Qarnayn were widely merged in subsequent Muslim literature when describing the legends and accomplishments of the former. [75]
  • The Qissat al-Iskandar (fully the Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar wa-mā fīhā min al-amr al-ʿadjīb, or "The story of Alexander and the wonderful things it contains") is a late eighth or early ninth-century recension of the Syriac Alexander Legend composed by ‘Umara ibn Zayd (767-815). [76]
  • The Qissat Dhulqarnayn (Qissat Dhulqarnayn, "Story of Dhulqarnayn") is a Hispano-Arabic legend of Alexander the Great preserved in two fourteenth-century manuscripts in Madrid and likely dates as a ninth-century Arabic translation of the Syriac Alexander Legend produced in Al-Andalus. [77]
  • A second Qissat Dhulqarnayn containing a synopsis of the Alexander Romance is known from the eleventh-century Ara'is al-majalis fi Qisas al-anbiya' (Book of Prophets) of al-Tha'labi (d. 1036). [78] [79]
  • A third Qissat Dhulqarnayn known from one 18th-century manuscript from Timbuktu, whose manuscript was recently edited and published in an Arabic edition and French translation by Bohas and Sinno. [80]
  • The Hadith Dhulqarnayn , like the Qissat Dhulqarnayn, is another Hispano-Arabic version of the Alexander legend. It dates to the 15th century.
  • The Sīrat al-Iskandar is a 15th century Arabic popular romance about Alexander the Great. It belongs to the sīra shaʿbiyya genre.
  • The Tārīkh al-Iskandar al-Makdūni (History of Alexander of Macedon), translated into Arabic by the Melkite bishop Yuwāsif ibn Suwaydān (c. 1669) from the Byzantine ζ-recension of Pseudo-Callisthenes. [81]
  • The Sirat al-malek Eskandar Dhu’ l-Qarneyn , known from one 17th century manuscript copied by Yusof Ebn-Atiye (or Qozmân). [82]
  • The Kitāb Qiṣṣat Dhīʾl-Qarnayn from Mali. [83]

Ethiopic

An Ethiopic version of the Alexander Romance was first composed in the Geʽez language between the 14th and 16th centuries was produced as a translation of an intermediary 9th-century Arabic text of what ultimately goes back to the Syriac recension. [84] The Ethiopic version also integrates motifs from the Syriac Alexander Legend within the Romance narrative. [84] There are seven known Ethiopian Alexander Romances: [85]

Hebrew

There are three or four medieval Hebrew versions of the Alexander Romance:

  • The Josippon , a 10th-century text into which a version of the Alexander Romance was interpolated into in later times.
  • A literal and slightly abridged translation from the original Greek is found in the manuscript Parma, Bibliotheca I. B. de Rossi, MS Heb. 1087. This version was also partially interpolated into the Sefer Yosippon in the 10th century. [86]
  • In the 12th or 13th century, an anonymous translator or translators translated a lost Arabic translation of the Latin Historia de Preliis into Hebrew. This is found in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Héb. 671.5 and London, Jews' College Library, MS 145. These may represent a single translation in different versions or else two translations, with the Paris version having been used to complete the London. The translator (or one of them) may have been Samuel ibn Tibbon, who made other translations from Arabic. [86]
  • In the 14th century Immanuel Bonfils translated the Historia de Preliis directly from Latin into Hebrew. This is found today only in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Héb. 750.3, but an illuminated copy once resided in the Royal Library of Turin (c. 1880) before being destroyed in a fire. [86]

Syriac

There are four texts in the tradition of the Alexander Romance in Syriac, and they have been often mistaken with one another. [87] All four were translated in the same 1889 volume by E. A. Wallis Budge, though some of them have appeared in newer editions since then. [88]

  • The Syriac Alexander Romance (Tašʿītā d̄ʾAleksandrōs), A Syriac translation of the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes and the most influential of the Syriac versions of the Alexander legends. [87]
  • The prose Syriac Alexander Legend (Neṣḥānā d-Aleksandrōs), which may be completely independent of Pseudo-Callisthenes. The text is commonly attributed in its provenance to north Mesopotamia around 629-630 AD, shortly after Heraclius defeated the Persians, [38] though more recent suggestions place it in the mid-6th century under Justinian I. [39] The Syriac Legend contains additional motifs not found in the earliest Greek Romance, including the episode where Alexander builds a wall against Gog and Magog. [40]
  • The Song of Alexander , a poem spuriously attributed to Jacob of Serugh and is slightly later than the Legend. Its author is sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Jacob. [89]
  • Another prose version though shorter than the Legend. [89]

Armenian

Coptic

A Coptic translation of the Romance from the Greek was already being revised in the sixth century. A fragmentary manuscript, originally 220 pages long, in the Sahidic dialect was discovered in the White Monastery. [94] It draws on older Demotic Egyptian traditions, which existed in written form perhaps as early as 275 BC. [95] It has been edited and published by Oscar von Lemm. [96] Several fragments of it have been collected and translated. [97]

Georgian

Though Georgian versions of the Alexander Romance have not survived, that they existed is known; it is thought that two versions existed. The earlier came into existence between the fourth and seventh centuries and its influence is detectable in extant Georgian texts such as The Conversion of Kartli chronicles and in The Life of Kings. The second was produced sometime between the ninth to twelfth centuries, and fragments of it were kept by the chronicler of David the Builder and by a Mongolian-era Georgian chronicler. Legends of Alexander would continue to influence varieties of Georgian literature from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Later, in the eighteenth century, the 18th-century king Archil of Imereti would produce a translation of a Serbian or Russian Alexander Romance into Georgian, and this one has survived. [98]

Malay

Mongolian

Persian

Turkish

See also

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Dhu al-Qarnayn, is a mythical leader who appears in the Qur'an, Surah al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101, as one who travels to the east and west and sets up a barrier between a certain people and Gog and Magog. Elsewhere, the Qur'an tells how the end of the world will be signaled by the release of Gog and Magog from behind the barrier. Other apocalyptic writings predict that their destruction by God in a single night will usher in the Day of Resurrection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gates of Alexander</span> Mountain passes linked with Alexander the Great

The Gates of Alexander, also known as the Caspian Gates, are one of several mountain passes in eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Persia, often imagined as an actual fortification, or as a symbolic boundary separating the civilized from the uncivilized world. The original Gates of Alexander were just south of the Caspian Sea, at Rhagae, where Alexander crossed while pursuing Darius III. The name was transferred to passes through the Caucasus, on the other side of the Caspian, by the more fanciful historians of Alexander.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Odontotyrannos</span> Legendary creature appearing in stories of Alexander the Great

Odontotyrannos, also odontotyrannus or dentityrannus ("tooth-tyrant") is a mythical three-horned beast said to have attacked Alexander the Great and his men at their camp in India, according to the apocryphal Letter from Alexander to Aristotle and other medieval romantic retellings of Alexandrian legend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander the Great in legend</span> Legendary accounts surrounding the life of Alexander the Great

The vast conquests of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great quickly inspired the formation and diffusion of legendary material about his deity, journeys, and tales. These appeared shortly after his death, and some may have already begun forming during his lifetime. Common themes and symbols among legends about Alexander include the Gates of Alexander, the Horns of Alexander, and the Gordian Knot.

The Syriac Alexander Legend, is a Syriac legendary account of the exploits of Alexander the Great composed in the sixth or seventh century. For the first time in this text, the motifs of Gates of Alexander, an apocalyptic incursion, and the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog are fused into a single narrative. The Legend would go on to influence Syriac literature about Alexander, like in the Song of Alexander. It would also exert a strong influence on subsequent apocalyptic literature, like the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius composed in the late seventh century. In Quranic studies, the representation of Alexander in the Legend is also seen as closely related to the Quranic figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn.

The Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni (History of Alexander's Battles), more commonly known as the Historia de preliis (History of Battles), refers to a Latin translation and the main abridgements of a work that was originally as the Nativitas et victoria Alexandri Magni regis. Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the Historia went through three major recensions and it is through these recensions that the text is known today as the original is lost. The three recensions are called I1, I2, and I3 (also called J1, J2, and J3 in some publications). Their influence was enormous on medieval European literature, spawning an immense number of translations into almost every vernacular and subsequently making Alexander a household name in the European Middle Ages. The Alexander Romance, through the Latin Historia, underwent more translations than any text with the exception of the Gospels.

<i>Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem</i>

The Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem is a purported letter from Alexander the Great to the philosopher Aristotle concerning his adventures in India. Although accepted for centuries as genuine, it is today regarded as apocryphal. It is the primary source for most of the tales of the marvellous and fabulous found in later Alexander traditions.

The Sīrat al-Iskandar is a 13th-century Arabic popular romance about Alexander the Great. It belongs to the sīra shaʿbiyya genre and was composed by Mufarrij al-Ṣūrī in the 15th century.

Ṣaʿb Dhu Marāthid was a mythical world-conqueror figure described in the medieval Islamic tradition as the tenth South Arabian king of the Himyarite Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horns of Alexander</span> Tradition in depictions of Alexander the Great

The Horns of Alexander represent an artistic tradition that depicted Alexander the Great with two horns on his head, a form of expression that was associated originally as the Horns of Ammon. Alexander's horns came with connotations of political and/or religious legitimacy, including indications of his status as a god, and these representations of Alexander under his successors carried implications of their divine lineage or succession from his reign. Mediums of expression of the horns of Alexander included coinage, sculpture, medallions, textiles, and literary texts, such as in the tradition of the Alexander Romance literature. Rarely was anyone other than Alexander depicted with the two horns as this was considered unique to his imagery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander the Great in Islamic tradition</span>

Alexander the Great was a king of ancient Greece and Macedon who forged one of the largest empires in world history. Soon after his death, a body of legend began to accumulate about his life and exploits. With the Greek Alexander Romance and its translation into numerous languages including Armenian, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, and more, an entire genre of literature was dedicated to the exploits of Alexander in both Christian and Muslim realms. Alexander was also the one most frequently identified with Dhu al-Qarnayn, a figure that appears in Surah Al-Kahf in the Quran, the holy text of Islam, which greatly expanded the attention paid to him in the traditions of the Muslim world.

The Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar is the earliest narrative of Alexander the Great in the tradition of the Alexander Romance genre in the Arabic language. It was composed by ‘Umara ibn Zayd (767-815) between the late 8th to the early 9th century as a recension on the Syriac Alexander Legend. It is not to be confused with the Qissat Dhulqarnayn or the Sirat al-Iskandar.

The Iskandarnameh, not to be confused with the Iskandarnameh of Nizami, is the oldest Persian recension of the Alexander Romance tradition, anonymous and dated to some time between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, although recently its compilation has been placed in the eleventh century by Evangelos Venetis, during the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni in the court of the Ghaznavid Empire. Alexander is described as a Muslim king and prophet and is identified with the conqueror named Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Quran. This identification is also witnessed in the Arabic recensions of the Alexander romance, such as the Qissat al-Iskandar and the Qissat Dhulqarnayn. As such, he is double-horned and builds the famous Gates of Alexander against Gog and Magog.

The Hadīth Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn, also known as the Leyenda de Alejandro, is an anonymous Hispano-Arabic legend of Alexander the Great. It dates to the 15th century.

<i>Armenian Alexander Romance</i> Armenian version of the Alexander Romance

The Armenian Alexander Romance, known in Armenian as The History of Alexander of Macedon, is an Armenian recension of the Greek Alexander Romance from the fifth-century. It incorporates many of its own elements, materials, and narratives not found in the original Greek version. While the text did not substantially influence Eastern legend, the Armenian romance is considered to be a highly important resource in reconstructing the text of the original Greek romance. The text continued to be copied until the eighteenth century, and the first Armenian and scholar to substantially study the text was Father Raphael Tʿreanc. He published an Armenian edition of it in 1842.

The Song of Alexander is a Christian Syriac text written between the 6th and 7th centuries AD concerning legends about Alexander the Great. It had been falsely attributed nearly unanimously in the manuscript tradition to Jacob of Serugh (451–521), and for this reason, the author is sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Jacob. It is also presently thought to have been written closely after and have been influenced by the Syriac Alexander Legend, and so its date is closely tied to when the latter is dated.

The Syriac Alexander Romance is an anonymous Christian text in the tradition of the Greek Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, potentially translated into Syriac the late sixth or early seventh century. Just like the Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis of Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius, the Armenian Alexander Romance and the Historia de preliis of Leo the Archpriest, the Syriac Romance belongs to the α recension of the Greek Romance, as is represented by the Greek manuscript A. Another text, the Syriac Alexander Legend, appears as an appendix in manuscripts of the Syriac Alexander Romance, but the inclusion of the Legend into manuscripts of the Romance is the work of later redactors and does not reflect an original relationship between the two.

Alexander the Great was the king of the Kingdom of Macedon and the founder of an empire that stretched from Greece to northwestern India. Legends surrounding his life quickly sprung up soon after his own death. His predecessors represented him in their coinage as the son of Zeus Ammon, wearing what would become the Horns of Alexander as originally signified by the Horns of Ammon. Legends of Alexander's exploits coalesced into the third-century Alexander Romance which, in the premodern period, went through over one hundred recensions, translations, and derivations and was translated into almost every European vernacular and every language of the Islamic world. After the Bible, it was the most popular form of European literature. It was also translated into every language from the Islamicized regions of Asia and Africa, from Mali to Malaysia.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Dowden 2019, p. 757.
  2. ↑ Pseudo-Callisthenes; Stoneman, Richard (1991). The Greek Alexander romance. Penguin classics. London, England; New York, NY, USA: Penguin Books. pp. 11–23. ISBN   978-0-14-044560-2.
  3. ↑ Djurslev, Christine Thrue (2024). "The Alexander Romance". In Ogden, Daniel (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great. Cambridge University Press. p. 452.
  4. ↑ Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina (2020). "The Arabic Alexander Romance: Mirror of a Bold, Clever, and Devout Prince". In Seigneurie, Ken (ed.). A Companion to World Literature. Wiley. pp. 1–11. doi:10.1002/9781118635193.ctwl0072. ISBN   978-1-118-99318-7.
  5. ↑ "Alexander romance | Ancient Greek Epic, Legends & Mythology | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
  6. 1 2 3 Pseudo-Callisthenes; Stoneman, Richard (1991). The Greek Alexander romance. Penguin classics. London, England; New York, NY, USA: Penguin Books. pp. 5–7. ISBN   978-0-14-044560-2.
  7. ↑ Anderson 1932, p. 37.
  8. ↑ Anderson 1932, p. 35.
  9. ↑ Stoneman, Richard (tr.), ed. (1991), The Greek Alexander Romance, Penguin, pp. 185–187, ISBN   9780141907116
  10. ↑ Anderson (1932), p. 11.
  11. ↑ Tesei, Tommaso (2023). "Alexander's Horns". The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate. Oxford University Press. pp. 137–146. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197646878.003.0010. ISBN   978-0-19-764687-8.
  12. ↑ Bowden, Hugh (2023), Ogden, Daniel (ed.), "Religion", The Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great, Cambridge University Press, pp. 237–242, ISBN   978-1-108-88834-9
  13. ↑ Anderson, Andrew Runni (1927). "Alexander's Horns". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. 58: 102–103. doi:10.2307/282906. ISSN   0065-9711. JSTOR   282906.
  14. ↑ Tesei, Tommaso (2023). "Alexander's Horns". The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate. Oxford University Press. pp. 137–155. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197646878.003.0010. ISBN   978-0-19-764687-8.
  15. 1 2 Tesei, Tommaso (2010). "Survival and Christianization of the Gilgamesh Quest for Immortality in the Tale of Alexander and the Fountain of Life". Rivista degli studi orientali. 83 (1/4): 417–440. ISSN   0392-4866. JSTOR   43927088.
  16. ↑ Crone, Patricia (2016). Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness: Collected Studies in Three Volumes, Volume 3. Brill. p. 66. ISBN   978-90-04-31931-8.
  17. ↑ Crone, Patricia (2016). Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness: Collected Studies in Three Volumes, Volume 3. Brill. pp. 67–68. ISBN   978-90-04-31931-8.
  18. ↑ Reynolds, Gabriel Said (2018). The Qur'an and the Bible: text and commentary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 463–465. ISBN   978-0-300-18132-6.
  19. ↑ Casari, Mario (2012). "The King Explorer: A Cosmographic Approach to the Persian Alexander". In Stoneman, Richard; Erickson, Kyle; Netton, Ian Richard (eds.). The Alexander romance in Persia and the East. Ancient Narrative. Supplementum. Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library. p. 179. ISBN   978-94-91431-04-3. OCLC   794706981.
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  23. ↑ Nawotka, Krzysztof (2017). The Alexander romance by Ps.-Callisthenes: a historical commentary. Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-33521-9.
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  26. ↑ E. A. Wallis Budge. The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes. pp. xxxvi.
  27. ↑ Kotar, Peter Christos (2011). "The Ethiopic Alexander Romance". In Zuwiyya, Z. David (ed.). A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages. Brill's companions to the Christian tradition. Leiden; Boston: Brill. p. 167. ISBN   978-90-04-18345-2.
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  29. ↑ Hofmann, Heinz, ed. (2004). Latin fiction: the Latin novel in context. London: Routledge. p. 140. ISBN   978-0-415-14722-4.
  30. 1 2 Townsend, David (1996). The Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon: a twelfth-century epic: a verse translation. The Middle Ages series. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN   978-0-8122-3347-6.
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  32. 1 2 Mínguez Cornelles, Víctor; Rodríguez Moya, Inmaculada (2024). The visual legacy of Alexander the Great from the Renaissance to the age of revolution. Routledge research in art history. New York London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 22. ISBN   978-1-032-54990-3.
  33. ↑ Damian-Grint, Peter (1999). The new historians of the twelfth-century Renaissance: inventing vernacular authority. Rochester, N.Y: Boydell Press. pp. 2–3. ISBN   978-0-85115-760-3.
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  36. 1 2 3 Minaéva, Oxana; Holmquist Olausson, Lena (2015). Scandinavia and the Balkans: cultural interactions with Byzantium and Eastern Europe in the first Millennium AD. Newcastle upon Tyne (GB): Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 107–108. ISBN   978-1-4438-7761-9.
  37. ↑ Pseudo-Callisthenes; Stoneman, Richard (1991). The Greek Alexander romance. Penguin classics. London, England; New York, NY, USA: Penguin Books. pp. 7–8. ISBN   978-0-14-044560-2.
  38. 1 2 Ciancaglini, Claudia A. (2001). "The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance". Le Muséon. 114 (1–2): 121–140. doi:10.2143/MUS.114.1.302.
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  40. 1 2 Donzel, Emeri J. van; Schmidt, Andrea Barbara (2010). Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam's Quest for Alexander's Wall. Brill. p. 17. ISBN   978-90-04-17416-0. The episode of Alexander's building a wall against Gog and Magog, however, is not found in the oldest Greek, Latin, Armenian and Syriac versions of the Romance. Though the Alexander Romance was decisive for the spreading of the new and supernatural image of Alexander the king in East and West, the barrier episode has not its origin in this text. The fusion of the motif of Alexander's barrier with the Biblical tradition of the apocalyptic peoples Gog and Magog appears in fact for the first time in the so called Syriac Alexander Legend. This text is a short appendix attached to the Syriac manuscripts of the Alexander Romance.
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