Francis Peabody Magoun
The Gests of King Alexander of Macedon
1929
|
NOTE |
The Alexander Romance is often described as Antiquity's most successful novel. The Romance is a collection of legendary narratives about Alexander the Great that blend history, myth, and fantasy into a highly imaginative biography. Probably originating in the Hellenistic period, but certainly before the Latin translation of 334 CE, and later attributed falsely to Callisthenes (hence the “Pseudo-Callisthenes”), the text recounts Alexander’s miraculous birth, his conquests across the known world, and a series of fantastical adventures—such as encounters with strange peoples and monsters, journeys to the ends of the earth, and even ascents into the sky and descents beneath the sea. Over centuries, the work was translated and adapted into numerous languages. The sheer volume of these translations and adaptations, and their complex relationship to one another, is astonishing.
In 1929, Francis Peabody Magoun, a scholar of medieval literature, produced an outline of the many versions of the Alexander Romance for an edition of two Middle English Alexander poems. I reproduce below his analysis, minus the specific focus on those two poems. The text below differs from the original in that I have omitted his voluminous footnotes (which run twice the length of the text) giving the manuscript and publication history of each text, I added a translation of a long Latin passage he quoted in the original, and I have renumbered his chaotic and inconsistent headings, which made the hierarchy of sections and their relationship to one another unclear. The interested reader is referred to Magoun’s volume, listed at the end of this article, for the complete notes and bibliography. |
Sources of the Alexander Legend
GENERAL SOURCES OF THE ALEXANDER LEGEND
The total mass of extant documents devoted in whole or in part to the life and deeds of Alexander of Macedon is so great in volume and so diverse in substance as to prove a veritable source of amazement, not to say bewilderment, to the reader who would pursue their history. But the tireless activities of a generation of scholars of history and of letters, the generous coöperation of orientalists, occidentalists, and specialists in the period of Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages has gone far towards reducing a chaotic mêlée to a very considerable degree of order and has made possible a certain amount of classification. These materials may be conveniently arranged in six general groups: (1) historians such as Arrian and his fragmentarily preserved predecessors, Ptolemy and Aristobulus; (2) Callisthenes, Cleitarchus, Diodorus the Sicilian, Pompeius Trogus, his epitomizer Justin, Paulus Orosius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, and St Jerome; these may be regarded as writers of historical novels, that is, making literary use of historical material; (3) the romantic, in part folkloristic, Greek novel of the so-called Pseudo-Callisthenes and interpolated redactions and translations of the same into other languages, eastern and western; also popular traditions richly represented in Greek, Slavic, and oriental volksbücher, chronicles, and even in living popular tradition; (4) documents in various ways associated with the Pseudo-Callisthenes, such as the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotilem, the Commonitorium Paladii, the Collatio Alexandri et Dindimi, the Iter ad Paradisum, and the Secretum Secretorum; (5) items and anecdotes in Pliny the Elder, Valerius Maximus, Solinus, and St Isidore of Seville, in works of the liber monstrorum type, in the Pseudo-Epiphanius, Pseudo-Methodius, and the like; and finally, (6) large or small excerpts from any of the above as incorporated in oriental and occidental chronicles, so-called history-bibles, and exempla. Cross-currents abound and frequent conflation of sources confronts the reader on every hand; yet careful study will one day probably yield a full understanding of this vast complex of history, pseudohistory, and saga. […]
THE PSEUDO-CALLISTHENES TRADITION OF THE ALEXANDER LEGEND
Almost all legendary accounts of Alexander the Great must be ultimately referred, directly or indirectly, to a Greek prose romance of uncertain date (200 B.C.—A.D. 200) attributed to an anonymous Alexandrine, now known as Pseudo-Callisthenes (abbrev. Ps.-Call.), and whose name serves as a generic term for the various redactions of the Greek text and the tradition implicit in these. Unfortunately, the text of this work has not come down to us in its original form, and it is evident that it underwent at an early date revision and modification in the hands of various transcribers. Thus the textual tradition, as we have it to-day, requires a classification into four main groups customarily designated by the letters α, β, γ, *δ, and it is according to these lines of tradition that the manifold later translations are most conveniently arranged.
1. The α Tradition
The α -tradition appears to stand closest to the no longer extant original text of Ps.-Call., and is best represented: (i) in Bibl. Natl. (Paris), MS. fonds grec 1711; (ii) in an Armenian translation; (iii) in the Latin translation by Julius Valerius; and (iv), probably in the Ahbâr el-Iskender of Muššabir ibn Fâtik.
1.1. Paris, Bibl. Natl. MS. fonds grec 1711
Bibl. Natl. (Paris), MS. fonds grec 1711 (saec. xi, vellum), fol. 395r ff.,1 best serves to represent the a-tradition in Greek, but of importance for controlling this are also the following translations from other a-type Greek texts (now lost):
1.2. The Armenian Translation
From a Greek text belonging to the a-tradition was made in the fifth-century an Armenian translation, Patmut’iun Ateksandri Makedonatsvoy [‘History of Alexander the Macedonian’], preserved in several MSS. A similar text may lie behind certain passages in the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene.
1.3. Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae Alexandri Macedonis
Of great importance to students of occidental literature is a Latin translation of a Greek manuscript of the a-type (perhaps ca. 300 A.D.) by one Julius Valerius under the title Res Gestae Alexandri Macedonis.
1.3.1. Itinerarium Alexandri
In either 346 or 359 A.D. Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae was extensively utilized, together with Arrian’s Anabasis, by an unidentified Roman writer of a life of Alexander, Itinerarium Alexandri, dedicated to Constantius, son of Constantine, and preserved in a unique manuscript.
1.3.2 Vernacular Descendants of Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae
To present in short compass and in logical order the vernacular romances derived essentially from Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae is an almost hopeless task; for many of these works draw to a greater or less degree upon supplementary sources, often to such an extent as to admit a double classification. It is to be hoped that the following arrangement may not prove misleading and may furnish a convenient introduction to this material.
The earliest known use of Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae by a vernacular writer appears in the incorporation by Alfred the Great (901) of a phrase from this work (i, 23) into his Old-English translation of Orosius.
1.3.3 Albéric, Pfaffe Lamprecht, and the OFr. Roman
At the head of a long line of descent, with Julius Valerius as the main source and noteworthy as the oldest occidental vernacular version, stands a late eleventh-century Provençal fragment (110 vv.) of an octosyllabic poem attributed by Pfaffe Lamprecht to one Albéric of Besançon (perhaps Briançon); in this are also traces of the J1-recension of the Historia de Preliis (see 4.5.1 below).
Albéric’s work early became the source of a German version (ca. 1130), Pfaffe Lamprecht’s Alexander, best represented in a Vorau MS. (Vorau Alexander, ca. 1150). Lamprecht’s text was then elaborated, and from a lost redaction drawing again on an early version of the Historia de Preliis closely resembling Ba. (see 4.3 below) and the Iter ad Paradisum (see 1.3.4 below) two redactions have survived, one (ca. 1175) in a Strassburg MS. (Strassburg Alexander), a second (ca. 1275) in a Basel MS. (Basel Alexander). The Strassburg Alexander contains some additional material, while the Basel Alexander drew upon the J2-recension of the Historia de Preliis as a supplementary source.
From Albéric’s Provençal poem also are derived two Old-French poems, of which the oldest (ca. 1160) is known as the Decasyllabic Alexander. This decasyllabic poem, possibly by one ‘clerc Symon,’ stands in a sense as a link between Albéric’s fragmentarily preserved work and the famous dodecasyllabic Roman d’Alixandre 5 (ca. saec. xii ad fin.) with which are conspicuously associated the names of Lambert li Tors, Alexandre de Bernay, Pierre (Perrot) de St Cloud.
The literary history of the dodecasyllabic Roman is complicated by problems of multiple authorship, supplementary sources, and interpolations woven early and late into the numerous MSS of the poem. Here space permits the enumeration of only a few of such works and widespread motifs as have been interpolated or utilized in the Roman.
1.3.4. The Fuerre de Gadres
The story of the Fuerre de Gadres, going back to oriental saga material, was developed and interpolated in the Roman where it plays an important rôle. Subsequently, the version used in the Roman passed into the Roman de Toute Chevalerie. In a greatly abridged and possibly more primitive form, this same material was also used by the author of the Latin J3-recension of the Historia de Preliis for the episode of the siege of Tyre. In English the Fuerre is represented as an interpolated episode in the Middle-English J3a Wars of Alexander, where it is much abridged, and in two Scottish poems, the Buik of Alexander (Arbuthnot’s print of 1580) and Sir Gilbert Hay’s Buik of King Alexander (1493). In an abbreviated form the Fuerre de Gadres was utilized in the thirteenth-century English romance, Richard Cœur de Lion, vv. 6225-6364, based in the main upon a lost French original; the name of the town here appears as ‘Gatrys.’ Interesting to note is an incomplete fourteenth-century Latin digest of the Fuerre, at one time thought to have belonged to Boccaccio.
Mention must also be made of the wide-spread tale of the unclean people of Gog and Magog and of the Iter ad Paradisum—both ultimately of Jewish origin—found in Old French and also translated into German by the redactor of the lost source of the Strassburg and Basel recensions of Lamprecht’s Alexander.
1.3.5 Later Continuators of the Roman
Few mediaeval poems enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than the Vœux du Paon ou le Roman de Cassamus, written and apparently invented by Jacques de Longuyon ca. 1312; this poem has been copied into so many MSS of the Roman that it may almost claim to be an integral part of this branch of the Alexander Legend. Circulated in separate MSS and translated into other vernaculars this was variously utilized: thus, among the translations may be counted a lost Spanish Votos del Pavon, a fragmentarily preserved Middle-English Romance of Cassamus, and an incomplete Dutch Roman van Cassamus.” The Vœux du Paon also appears as an episode, The Avowis, in the two Scottish Alexander books cited above (see 1.3.4), and was utilized in the fourteenth-century French prose-romance Perceforest, later translated into Italian, where one finds the Arthurian and the Alexander cycles curiously mingled. As a continuation of the Vœux du Paon was written (before 1338) the Restor du Paon by Jean Brisebarre, and in further continuation the Parfait du Paon by Jean de Le Mote in 1340.
The ethics of the mediaeval chivalric code demanded a complete and prompt vengeance of Alexander’s traitorous murder; since this was not furnished by the Roman or its sources, the deficiency was supplied not once but twice: in 1191 by the Vengement Alixandre of Gui de Cambrai and probably somewhat earlier (before 1181?) by the Venjance Alixandre of Jean le Névelon. Both poems were freely appended to the Roman; indeed in a Parma MS. the two are amalgamated. One or the other or both of these poems were apparently known to Jacob van Maerlant, author of Alexanders Geesten (ca. 1260).
The Roman was twice rendered into prose. The first redaction is the anonymous Fais et Concquestes du Noble Roy Alexandre, preserved in MS. Besançon 836 (saec. xv?); this includes various of the later continuations. The Roman is likewise the main source of the considerable prose work, L’Histoire du Roi Alexandre, composed before 1448 by Jean Wauquelin of Mons who made supplementary use of the Fuerre de Gadres, the Venjance of Jean le Névelon, a version of the Historia de Preliis, and other material.
Finally may be noted an unpublished romance, Florimont, by Aimon de Varennes (1188), in which is given a fanciful invented account of the antecedents of Philip and Alexander. The Roman de Madien by Perrinet du Pin (1447) is a variant version of this.
1.3.6. The Zacher Epitome
In the ninth century Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae was made the basis of an exceedingly popular and much used digest, the so-called Zacher Epitome; besides this there are several kindred epitomes of lesser contemporary fame.
1.3.7. The Roman de Toute Chevalerie
The outstanding vernacular work based primarily upon the Zacher Epitome is the yet unpublished Roman de Toute Chevalerie by Thomas (possibly Eustache) of Kent (ca. 1280). This text makes important supplementary use of the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotilem (see 4.4.1.4 below), the Iter ad Paradisum (see 1.3.4 above), various historical writers, and, as an interpolation, the Fuerre de Gadres (see 1.3.4. above). Making some supplementary use of a J-recension of the Historia de Preliis, John Gower drew upon the Roman de Toute Chevalerie for much of his ‘Tale of Nectanabus’ (Conf. Amant. vi, 1789-2336), whence it passed into Portuguese through Robert Payn’s (lost) translation, later to be rendered into Spanish by Juan de Cuenca.
1.3.8. Kyng Alisaunder
Based upon the Roman de Toute Chevalerie, yet treating its sources with considerable freedom and individuality, is the Middle-English metrical romance Kyng Alisaunder (before 1330); important to note is the complete omission of the episode of the Fuerre de Gadres. Fragments of an expanded version of Kyng Alisaunder (including the Epistola ad Aristotilem) survive in six printed leaves, tentatively dated ca. 1550.
1.4 Muššabir ibn Fâtik’s Ahbâr el-Iskender
An Arabic story of Alexander, Ahbâr el-Iskender, written by the famous physician Muššabir ibn Fatik (1053/4) makes extensive use of the a-tradition of Ps.-Call.; from the Arabic was made a Spanish translation, in turn rendered into Latin.
1.5. The Coptic Fragments
Placed here, pending further study, are nine Coptic fragments (Sahidic or Thebaic dialect), thought by Oscar von Lemm to belong to a branch of the Ps.-Call. tradition not represented in the ordinary α-, β-, γ-, *δ -categories.
1.1. Paris, Bibl. Natl. MS. fonds grec 1711
Bibl. Natl. (Paris), MS. fonds grec 1711 (saec. xi, vellum), fol. 395r ff.,1 best serves to represent the a-tradition in Greek, but of importance for controlling this are also the following translations from other a-type Greek texts (now lost):
1.2. The Armenian Translation
From a Greek text belonging to the a-tradition was made in the fifth-century an Armenian translation, Patmut’iun Ateksandri Makedonatsvoy [‘History of Alexander the Macedonian’], preserved in several MSS. A similar text may lie behind certain passages in the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene.
1.3. Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae Alexandri Macedonis
Of great importance to students of occidental literature is a Latin translation of a Greek manuscript of the a-type (perhaps ca. 300 A.D.) by one Julius Valerius under the title Res Gestae Alexandri Macedonis.
1.3.1. Itinerarium Alexandri
In either 346 or 359 A.D. Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae was extensively utilized, together with Arrian’s Anabasis, by an unidentified Roman writer of a life of Alexander, Itinerarium Alexandri, dedicated to Constantius, son of Constantine, and preserved in a unique manuscript.
1.3.2 Vernacular Descendants of Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae
To present in short compass and in logical order the vernacular romances derived essentially from Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae is an almost hopeless task; for many of these works draw to a greater or less degree upon supplementary sources, often to such an extent as to admit a double classification. It is to be hoped that the following arrangement may not prove misleading and may furnish a convenient introduction to this material.
The earliest known use of Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae by a vernacular writer appears in the incorporation by Alfred the Great (901) of a phrase from this work (i, 23) into his Old-English translation of Orosius.
1.3.3 Albéric, Pfaffe Lamprecht, and the OFr. Roman
At the head of a long line of descent, with Julius Valerius as the main source and noteworthy as the oldest occidental vernacular version, stands a late eleventh-century Provençal fragment (110 vv.) of an octosyllabic poem attributed by Pfaffe Lamprecht to one Albéric of Besançon (perhaps Briançon); in this are also traces of the J1-recension of the Historia de Preliis (see 4.5.1 below).
Albéric’s work early became the source of a German version (ca. 1130), Pfaffe Lamprecht’s Alexander, best represented in a Vorau MS. (Vorau Alexander, ca. 1150). Lamprecht’s text was then elaborated, and from a lost redaction drawing again on an early version of the Historia de Preliis closely resembling Ba. (see 4.3 below) and the Iter ad Paradisum (see 1.3.4 below) two redactions have survived, one (ca. 1175) in a Strassburg MS. (Strassburg Alexander), a second (ca. 1275) in a Basel MS. (Basel Alexander). The Strassburg Alexander contains some additional material, while the Basel Alexander drew upon the J2-recension of the Historia de Preliis as a supplementary source.
From Albéric’s Provençal poem also are derived two Old-French poems, of which the oldest (ca. 1160) is known as the Decasyllabic Alexander. This decasyllabic poem, possibly by one ‘clerc Symon,’ stands in a sense as a link between Albéric’s fragmentarily preserved work and the famous dodecasyllabic Roman d’Alixandre 5 (ca. saec. xii ad fin.) with which are conspicuously associated the names of Lambert li Tors, Alexandre de Bernay, Pierre (Perrot) de St Cloud.
The literary history of the dodecasyllabic Roman is complicated by problems of multiple authorship, supplementary sources, and interpolations woven early and late into the numerous MSS of the poem. Here space permits the enumeration of only a few of such works and widespread motifs as have been interpolated or utilized in the Roman.
1.3.4. The Fuerre de Gadres
The story of the Fuerre de Gadres, going back to oriental saga material, was developed and interpolated in the Roman where it plays an important rôle. Subsequently, the version used in the Roman passed into the Roman de Toute Chevalerie. In a greatly abridged and possibly more primitive form, this same material was also used by the author of the Latin J3-recension of the Historia de Preliis for the episode of the siege of Tyre. In English the Fuerre is represented as an interpolated episode in the Middle-English J3a Wars of Alexander, where it is much abridged, and in two Scottish poems, the Buik of Alexander (Arbuthnot’s print of 1580) and Sir Gilbert Hay’s Buik of King Alexander (1493). In an abbreviated form the Fuerre de Gadres was utilized in the thirteenth-century English romance, Richard Cœur de Lion, vv. 6225-6364, based in the main upon a lost French original; the name of the town here appears as ‘Gatrys.’ Interesting to note is an incomplete fourteenth-century Latin digest of the Fuerre, at one time thought to have belonged to Boccaccio.
Mention must also be made of the wide-spread tale of the unclean people of Gog and Magog and of the Iter ad Paradisum—both ultimately of Jewish origin—found in Old French and also translated into German by the redactor of the lost source of the Strassburg and Basel recensions of Lamprecht’s Alexander.
1.3.5 Later Continuators of the Roman
Few mediaeval poems enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than the Vœux du Paon ou le Roman de Cassamus, written and apparently invented by Jacques de Longuyon ca. 1312; this poem has been copied into so many MSS of the Roman that it may almost claim to be an integral part of this branch of the Alexander Legend. Circulated in separate MSS and translated into other vernaculars this was variously utilized: thus, among the translations may be counted a lost Spanish Votos del Pavon, a fragmentarily preserved Middle-English Romance of Cassamus, and an incomplete Dutch Roman van Cassamus.” The Vœux du Paon also appears as an episode, The Avowis, in the two Scottish Alexander books cited above (see 1.3.4), and was utilized in the fourteenth-century French prose-romance Perceforest, later translated into Italian, where one finds the Arthurian and the Alexander cycles curiously mingled. As a continuation of the Vœux du Paon was written (before 1338) the Restor du Paon by Jean Brisebarre, and in further continuation the Parfait du Paon by Jean de Le Mote in 1340.
The ethics of the mediaeval chivalric code demanded a complete and prompt vengeance of Alexander’s traitorous murder; since this was not furnished by the Roman or its sources, the deficiency was supplied not once but twice: in 1191 by the Vengement Alixandre of Gui de Cambrai and probably somewhat earlier (before 1181?) by the Venjance Alixandre of Jean le Névelon. Both poems were freely appended to the Roman; indeed in a Parma MS. the two are amalgamated. One or the other or both of these poems were apparently known to Jacob van Maerlant, author of Alexanders Geesten (ca. 1260).
The Roman was twice rendered into prose. The first redaction is the anonymous Fais et Concquestes du Noble Roy Alexandre, preserved in MS. Besançon 836 (saec. xv?); this includes various of the later continuations. The Roman is likewise the main source of the considerable prose work, L’Histoire du Roi Alexandre, composed before 1448 by Jean Wauquelin of Mons who made supplementary use of the Fuerre de Gadres, the Venjance of Jean le Névelon, a version of the Historia de Preliis, and other material.
Finally may be noted an unpublished romance, Florimont, by Aimon de Varennes (1188), in which is given a fanciful invented account of the antecedents of Philip and Alexander. The Roman de Madien by Perrinet du Pin (1447) is a variant version of this.
1.3.6. The Zacher Epitome
In the ninth century Julius Valerius’ Res Gestae was made the basis of an exceedingly popular and much used digest, the so-called Zacher Epitome; besides this there are several kindred epitomes of lesser contemporary fame.
1.3.7. The Roman de Toute Chevalerie
The outstanding vernacular work based primarily upon the Zacher Epitome is the yet unpublished Roman de Toute Chevalerie by Thomas (possibly Eustache) of Kent (ca. 1280). This text makes important supplementary use of the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotilem (see 4.4.1.4 below), the Iter ad Paradisum (see 1.3.4 above), various historical writers, and, as an interpolation, the Fuerre de Gadres (see 1.3.4. above). Making some supplementary use of a J-recension of the Historia de Preliis, John Gower drew upon the Roman de Toute Chevalerie for much of his ‘Tale of Nectanabus’ (Conf. Amant. vi, 1789-2336), whence it passed into Portuguese through Robert Payn’s (lost) translation, later to be rendered into Spanish by Juan de Cuenca.
1.3.8. Kyng Alisaunder
Based upon the Roman de Toute Chevalerie, yet treating its sources with considerable freedom and individuality, is the Middle-English metrical romance Kyng Alisaunder (before 1330); important to note is the complete omission of the episode of the Fuerre de Gadres. Fragments of an expanded version of Kyng Alisaunder (including the Epistola ad Aristotilem) survive in six printed leaves, tentatively dated ca. 1550.
1.4 Muššabir ibn Fâtik’s Ahbâr el-Iskender
An Arabic story of Alexander, Ahbâr el-Iskender, written by the famous physician Muššabir ibn Fatik (1053/4) makes extensive use of the a-tradition of Ps.-Call.; from the Arabic was made a Spanish translation, in turn rendered into Latin.
1.5. The Coptic Fragments
Placed here, pending further study, are nine Coptic fragments (Sahidic or Thebaic dialect), thought by Oscar von Lemm to belong to a branch of the Ps.-Call. tradition not represented in the ordinary α-, β-, γ-, *δ -categories.
2. The ẞ-Tradition
The ẞ-tradition of Ps.-Call., available in the editions of Müller (B′) and Meusel, 4 presents a revision of the a-tradition. Stud. XIII (1889), 145 ff., with corrective note by G. L. Kittredge, Engl. Stud. XIV (1890), 392. These fragments are listed as item 321 in A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, ed. A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, London, 1926. It is the type to which belongs the majority of Greek MSS of Ps.-Call.
2.1. The Russian Chronographs
A Greek MS. of the p-type, not unlike the Leyden MS. edited by Meusel, served not later than the twelfth century as the source of the Alexander story in Bulgaria, whence it was translated and incorporated in the Russian chronographs.
2.2 Ὁ Βίος ̓Αλεξάνδρου and the Syriac Chronicle
A ẞ-MS. is likewise the chief source of a fourteenth-century Byzantine Greek poem (ca. 1385), ̔Ο Βίος Αλεξάνδρου. Α MS. of a similar type appears to have been used in the Syriac chronicle formerly attributed to Dionysius Telmaharensis (i. e. of Tell-Mahre).
2.1. The Russian Chronographs
A Greek MS. of the p-type, not unlike the Leyden MS. edited by Meusel, served not later than the twelfth century as the source of the Alexander story in Bulgaria, whence it was translated and incorporated in the Russian chronographs.
2.2 Ὁ Βίος ̓Αλεξάνδρου and the Syriac Chronicle
A ẞ-MS. is likewise the chief source of a fourteenth-century Byzantine Greek poem (ca. 1385), ̔Ο Βίος Αλεξάνδρου. Α MS. of a similar type appears to have been used in the Syriac chronicle formerly attributed to Dionysius Telmaharensis (i. e. of Tell-Mahre).
3. The γ-Tradition
The γ-tradition, represented by Bibl. Natl. MS. Suppl. Grec. 113 (A.D. 1567; C’ of Müller’s edition), is the work of a Jew who expanded a modified ẞ-manuscript; the various interpolations give this branch of the tradition a special interest.
Based in part upon a MS. of the y-type, is a Hebrew romance, in the main a farrago of fanciful adventures.
3.1. The Serbian Alexander
The investigations of A. N. Veselovskii point to the existence of a Greek text based on Ps.-Call. (Müller C′) with use of a Byzantine text similar to Διήγησις καὶ Γέννησις καὶ ἡ Ζωή τοῦ Αλεξάνδρου, 4 the New-Greek chapbook (1699), and possibly the Historia de Preliis; this composite (lost) Greek text Veselovskii designates C1 and considers it the source of the Serbian Alexander (ca. saec. xiv).
3.2. The Georgian (Gruzinian) Alexander
The Serbian Alexander is the source of a Georgian prose translation (saec. xiv?), later versified (saec. xvi?); both are inedited.
3.3. The Rumanian Alexander
Closely related to the Serbian Alexander and to the New-Greek chapbook, ̓Αλέξανδρος Μακέδων (Venice, 1699 and later), is the Rumanian prose Alexander preserved in late MSS and printed books, all now thought to be derived from a single Rumanian archetype.
Based in part upon a MS. of the y-type, is a Hebrew romance, in the main a farrago of fanciful adventures.
3.1. The Serbian Alexander
The investigations of A. N. Veselovskii point to the existence of a Greek text based on Ps.-Call. (Müller C′) with use of a Byzantine text similar to Διήγησις καὶ Γέννησις καὶ ἡ Ζωή τοῦ Αλεξάνδρου, 4 the New-Greek chapbook (1699), and possibly the Historia de Preliis; this composite (lost) Greek text Veselovskii designates C1 and considers it the source of the Serbian Alexander (ca. saec. xiv).
3.2. The Georgian (Gruzinian) Alexander
The Serbian Alexander is the source of a Georgian prose translation (saec. xiv?), later versified (saec. xvi?); both are inedited.
3.3. The Rumanian Alexander
Closely related to the Serbian Alexander and to the New-Greek chapbook, ̓Αλέξανδρος Μακέδων (Venice, 1699 and later), is the Rumanian prose Alexander preserved in late MSS and printed books, all now thought to be derived from a single Rumanian archetype.
4. The δ-Tradition
The δ-tradition is preserved in no Greek MS., but is indirectly represented in the ultimate (lost) source of a Syriac and an Ethiopian version and in the (lost) Greek MS. translated by the Archpresbyter Leo of Naples. The δ-type probably grew out of an independent reworking of a good α-type MS.
4.1. The Syriac Prose Translation
The Syriac prose version is not based directly upon a Greek MS. but is thought by Nöldeke to have been translated not later than the sixth century from a lost Persian (Pahlavi) redaction of a Ps.-Call. Greek MS. of the type designated as 8.1 In the sixth century Bishop Jacob of Sarūg (Serūg) (521) worked up a portion—chiefly the episode of the Spring of Life—of the Syriac prose version into a metrical homily.
4.2. The Ethiopian Translation
The Syriac prose version was again drawn upon and in the ninth century was translated into Arabic. This Arabic redaction has not survived but, with the addition of interpolations from a Greek MS. of the ɑ-tradition, it became the source of an extant Ethiopian translation.
The relation to this Ethiopian version, or to its lost source, of the Alexander material in the works of the Persian writers Dînawarî and Firdusî (Firdausî) is still undetermined.
4.3. Archpresbyter Leo and the Historia de Preliis
About 950 Archpresbyter Leo of Naples undertook at the command of the learned Duke John III of Naples a mission to Constantinople. There, in the course of his sojourn, he came upon a Greek MS. of Ps.-Call. and, transcribing it, brought his copy home, where, in time, Duke John ordered him to translate it into Latin. The circumstances under which this important translation came into being is of such immense interest as an illustration of contemporary Neapolitan letters and Byzantine relations that some of Leo’s prefatory words may well be given here:
in eandem Constantinopolitanam urbem coepit inquirere libros ad legendum. Inter quos inuenit historiam continentem certamina et uictorias Alexandri regis Macedoniae. Et nullam neglegentiam uel pigritiam habendo sine mora scripsit et secum usque Neapolim deduxit ad suos predictos excellentissimos seniores [John and Marius of Naples] et ad praeclaram et beatissimam coniugem eius [of John], Theodoram Quae iuuenili aetate cursum uitae finiens infra tricesimum octauum annum migrauit ad Dominum. Post cuius transitum praefatus Johannes, excellentissimus consul et dux, uir eius et deo amabilis, statuit mente sua ordinem scripturarum inquirere et praeclare ordinare. Primum uero libros, quos in sua dominatione inuenit, renouauit atque meliores effectus, deinde anxie inquirens sicut philosophus, quoscumque audire uel habere potuit, siue rogando seu precando multos et diuersos libros accumulauit et diligenter scribere iussit. Maxime ecclesiasticos libros, Vetus scilicet atque Nouum Testamentum, funditus renouauit atque composuit. Inter quos historiographiam uidelicet uel chronographiam, Ioseppum uero et Titum Liuium atque Dyonisium, caelestium uirtutum optimum predicatorem, atque ceteros quam plurimos et diuersos doctores, quos enumerare nobis longum esse uidetur, instituit. Eodem namque tempore commemorans ille sagacissimus predictus consul et dux prefatum Leonem archipresbiterum habere iam dictum librum, historiam scilicet Alexandri regis, uocauit eum ad se et de Greco in Latinum transferri precepit.
[He began to search for books to read in the same city of Constantinople. Among which he found a history containing the battles and victories of Alexander, king of Macedonia. And having no negligence or laziness, he wrote it without delay and took it with him to Naples to his aforementioned most excellent elders [John and Marius of Naples] and to his illustrious and most blessed wife [of John], Theodora. Who, ending her life at a young age, passed away to the Lord within the thirty-eighth year. After whose passing the aforementioned John, most excellent consul and leader, her husband and beloved by God, decided in his mind to search for and splendidly arrange the order of the Scriptures. First, however, he renewed and improved the books which he found during his rule, then, anxiously searching like a philosopher, he accumulated many and diverse books, whatever he could hear or have, either by asking or praying. He thoroughly renewed and composed especially the ecclesiastical books, namely the Old and New Testaments. Among which he instituted historiography, namely chronography, Josephus, and Titus Livius, and Dionysius, the excellent preacher of the heavenly virtues, and other teachers as numerous and diverse as it seems to us too long to enumerate. For at the same time, that most sagacious consul and leader, recalling that the aforementioned Leo the archpriest had the aforementioned book, namely the history of King Alexander, summoned him to him and ordered it to be translated from Greek into Latin.]
Leo’s finished work, Natiuitas et Victoria Alexandri Magni, generally (but loosely) known as the Historia de Preliis, is the source of one of the most fruitful and conspicuous lines of transmission of Ps.-Call. from East to West and is, as we shall see, the source of numerous Latin and vernacular recensions. Leo’s original translation is not preserved, but closest to it is the version in the now famous Bamberg MS. E. III. 14., fol. 192v—219v (abbr. Ba.).
4.4. The Descendants of the Bamberg Version
Probably going back to a version of the Historia de Preliis very similar to that furnished by the unexpanded Ba. and perhaps making some supplementary use of the Zacher Epitome (1.3.6 above) and of the Iter ad Paradisum (1.3.4 above), is the greatly abridged Alexander story set forth in Der Selen Troyst (first printed Cologne 1474). Closely related to this work are (1) the Low-German Fabelhafte Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen (prose), (2) a fourteenth-century Dutch prose version (3) an early fourteenth-century Swedish prose version in the Swedish Själens Trost, and (4) the very similar Swedish De Alexandro Rege, itself in all probability a translation of the Low-German Fabelhafte Geschichte just mentioned.
About 1100 Ba. was drawn upon by Abbot Ekkehard von Aura a. d. Saale (near Bad-Kissingen) in his Excerptum de Vita Alexandri Magni. Apparently derived from Ba. is a lost Bavarian recension (B. R.) which was the source of two important early MSS, Cod. Monac. Lat. 23489 (M) and Bibl. Natl. (Paris) MS. Nouv. Acquis. Lat. 310 (P); in P supplementary use is made of Julius Valerius and Orosius. In the late fifteenth century P was translated by Johann Hartlieb, Das Buch der Geschicht des Grossen Allexanders, a work that enjoyed considerable popularity and of which a detached portion exists in Heidelberg MS. (cod. germ. 172), Konig Dindimus Buech. In the sixteenth century Hartlieb’s work became the main source of a tragedy (1558) by Hans Sachs and was translated into Danish by Peder Pedersen Galthen in 1584 as Eenn Historie om den Stoer, Megtige Förstis, Keyser Alexandri … nu först aff Tydsken udsaat ... Anno MDLXXXIII.
4.4.1. The Indian Tractates
The Bamberg MS. stands unique among the early forms of the Historia de Preliis complex in having appended to it four short treatises or tractates which deal primarily with Indian life and the Christianization of India. These tractates are as follows:
4.4.1.1. The Commonitorium Palladii
The Commonitorium Palladii exists in four distinct forms, two in Greek and two in Latin. (i) In the Greek Ps.-Call. this document appears in Müller’s edition as an interpolation (= iii, 7-16) of which only ch. 7-10 can be attributed to Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis (ca. 363-ca. 430); 5 (ii) under the title Παλλαδίου περὶ τῶν τῆς Ἰνδίας Ἐθνῶν καὶ τῶν Βραχμάνων (= Ps.-Call. iii, 7-10) the same is found in MSS independent of the romance,1 and also exists in an epitomized form. This Greek work was rendered twice into Latin: (iii) first in the form found in Ba., and (iv) again and independently of (iii) in a version traditionally associated with the name of St Ambrose, the De Moribus Brachmanorum.
4.4.1.2. Dindimus on the Brahmins
The second tractate in question corresponds to Müller’s Ps.-Call. iii, 11-12, sometimes erroneously attributed to Palladius. In tone it reflects a late survival of the Cynic attitude toward Alexander and in content presents an unfavorable comparison of the Macedonians with the Indians. Besides the text in Ba.,” there exists a second Latin version, Anonymus de Brachmanibus.
4.4.1.3. Collatio Alexandri cum Dindimo per Litteras facta
The Collatio Alexandri cum Dindimo per Litteras facta consists of five letters exchanged between Alexander and Dindimus, three from Alexander, two from Dindimus: Alexander begins and ends the correspondence. The Collatio exists in three forms, based ultimately upon the (same?) lost Latin original, in turn a translation of a lost Greek original: Collatio I, the oldest; Collatio II, a less rhetorical version found only in Ba., in turn the source of what I venture to designate as Collatio III, a fuller and more elaborate form of Collatio II, especially important for its use in the so-called J-recensions of the Historia de Preliis. Of general interest and as testimony of knowledge of this phase of the Alexander legend in late eighth-century England is the fact that Alcuin of York (804) communicated some form of the Collatio to Charlemagne. The popularity of this correspondence is witnessed by its occurrence outside of the Alexander romances. We have already (4.4 above) remarked on this material in Hartlieb, Konig Dindimus Buech. A Middle-Irish version of the Collatio likewise exists detached from an Irish life of Alexander based largely on Orosius and Justin with supplementary use of the Epistola and the Collatio. A portion was used by Gower, also by Jean d’Outremeuse for his Mandeville. Furthermore, the Collatio was apparently known to the author, possibly Thomas Randolph, of The Drinking Academy (ca. 1626), and later we find it restored to its original didactic use in a curious tractate, The Upright Lives of the Heathen briefly noted: or, Epistles and Discourses between Alexander the Great and Dindimus pub. Andrew Soule: London, [1683]. The Alexander-Dindimus correspondence in Latin form appears, for example, in Brit. Mus. MS. Sloane 289, fol. 113-114V 6 and in Corpus Christi College MS. 219, fol. 64 ff. where the correspondence appears as an appendix to the Compilation of St Albans. References of this sort can no doubt be easily multiplied.
4.4.1.4. Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem
In the Greek Ps.-Call. iii, 17, there is preserved the scanty remains of a once more complete letter from Alexander to his master Aristotle. The original character of this document we may infer, however, from an exceedingly widespread Latin text, Epistola Alexandri Macedonis ad Aristotelem magistrum suum de itinere suo et de situ Indiae often found independent of, and isolated from, the romance proper: it may be conveniently designated Epistola I. Epistola I was translated into Old English at least as early as 1000, later into Middle Irish, by the fourteenth century into Icelandic, into French probably in the fifteenth, and into German early in the seventeenth by Gabriel Rollenhagen. The Epistola was also used in the Letter of Prester John.
Of Epistola I there is a revised and abbreviated version, known as Epistola II found only in Ba., where it is incorporated in Leo’s Nativitas et Victoria.
4.4.1.5. De Rebus in Oriente Mirabilibus
Closely allied in type, and to a certain extent in substance, to the Epistola is a tract De Rebus in Oriente Mirabilibus, of which there are two related Old-English translations known as the Wonders of the East; in the Middle Ages the De Rebus sometimes passed as the Epistola.
4.5. The J-Recensions of the Historia de Preliis
It has already been observed (4.4 above) that Leo’s translation of a *δ-MS. of Ps.-Call. was early elaborated and altered by the scribes of MSS Ba., P, and M. While these recensions became, as we have seen, the source of but few later works, there are three interpolated recensions of Leo’s Natiuitas et Victoria, designated J1, J2, and J3, which both in the original Latin and in translation enjoyed a far greater popularity.
4.5.1. The J1-Recension
The J1-recension represents Leo’s original in which some later redactor incorporated inconsiderable extracts from Josephus, St Jerome, Orosius, Solinus, St Isidore, a version of the Liber Monstrorum, the first three Indian tractates, and Epistola I: of all of the supplementary sources only the Collatio (i. e. Collatio III) was at all extensively used. Among the vernacular writers, J1, the earliest of the J-recensions, was drawn upon as a secondary source by Albéric (whence Pfaffe Lamprecht), later by Rudolf von Ems, the Roman, and by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry (Jacobus de Vitriaco) in his Historia Orientalis (before 1226). This relatively limited use of the Latin J1-recension (witness, too, the paucity of MSS) may be explained by the fact that it was early eclipsed by two independent revisions of itself; the first of these is known as J2, the second as J3.
4.5.2. The J3-Recension
The J3-recension, as yet inedited, is a systematic reworking of J1, both stylistically and materially, with the inclusion of a few verses, probably made some years prior to 1150, by which time it would appear to have undergone a further reworking (J3a).2 It is represented in a considerable number of MSS and early prints; the latter represent in the main a dry and tasteless abridgment of the MS. versions. From the J3-recension were made one Latin and a number of vernacular redactions.
4.5.2.1. The Alexandreis of Quilichinus of Spoleto
In 1236 a certain Quilichinus of Spoleto composed a Latin poem in distichs, Alexandreis, based upon J3,2 which became in turn the source of a late fourteenth-century Allemanian poem, the so-called Wernigerode Alexander.
4.5.2.1.1. The Darmstadt Alexander
In the Gesta Alexandri Magni, preserved in MS. Darmstadt 231 (saec. xv) and known as the Darmstadt Alexander, we have a J3-text into which has been woven portions of Quilichinus’ poem.
4.5.2.2. Three Italian Prose Versions
The Latin J3 prose was translated no less than three times into Italian: (1) a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century translation, of which seven fragments are preserved; (2) a version preserved in a Florentine MS. independent of (1); 2 and (3) a version, distinct from (1) and (2) and frequently printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
4.5.2.3. Kronika o Alexandru Velikém
The preservation of a closely executed Czech prose translation of the J3-recension in four fifteenth-century manuscripts bears witness to the popularity of the Historia de Preliis in Bohemia in the later Middle Ages; 4 apparently, from the Neuberg MS. was taken the text for the rare Kniha o Wssech Skutzjech Welikeho Alexandra Macedonskeho, printed by M. Bakalář, Pilsen, 1513.
4.5.2.4. Polish Versions
About 1510 a very literal translation of the text of one of the Strassburg incunabula was made into Polish by an unknown writer; the manuscript, Zamojskii Library (Warsaw) MS. Cim. 79, bears the title Hystorja Aleksandra Wielkiego, Króla Macedońskiego, o Walkach.
Apparently also based upon a J3-incunabulum is a series of early printed editions; the first was published in Cracow in 1550 under the title Historya o Zywoćie i Známienitich Spráwach Alexandra, Króla Macedońskiego; then follow eight editions between 1611 and 1766.
4.5.2.5. Haller’s Magyar Version
In 1682, while prisoner in the fortress of Fogaras, John Haller of Hallerkő prepared a Magyar translation of the text of a 1494 J3 incunabulum as the first part of his Hármas Istoria (‘Tripartite History’), first published at Kolozsvár in 1695.
4.5.2.6. Russian Version
In a late seventeenth-century Moscow manuscript, Lenin Library (formerly Rumiantsev Museum) MS. 2405, fol. 395r—468v, is a Russian translation of a Polish version of the Historia de Preliis. This translation, incorporated in the South-Russian Chronograph, exhibits the characteristic J3-interpolations.
4.5.2.7. Meister Babiloth’s Alexanderchronik
Mention may be finally made of a German prose work (printed 1472), the Alexanderchronik of Meister Babiloth; of mixed origin, the first and by far the larger portion is based on the J2-recension, the conclusion, however, belongs to the J3-tradition.
4.5.3. The J3a-Recension
Shortly before 1150 the Latin J3-recension underwent, probably in England, further elaboration by additions from the J2-recension and the Res Gestae of Julius Valerius. No Latin MS. of this postulated recension, conveniently designated J3a, has been discovered, but its existence is rendered likely and its general character ascertainable by certain striking features common to three works thought to have been drawn upon or translated from it. Thus, besides the Anglo-Latin romance, Gesta Herewardi, composed ca. 1150 and apparently drawing upon recension J3a for parts of the description of the hero and one or two episodes, we have the Wars of Alexander and the Thornton Prose Life of Alexander.
4.5.3.1. The Wars of Alexander
The Wars of Alexander is an early fifteenth-century alliterative poem based on recension J3a, with supplementary use made of the Fuerre de Gadres. This work is completely preserved in two MSS, which, though fragmentary, happily supplement one another.
4.5.3.2. The Thornton Alexander
Likewise from the fifteenth century we have an independent, somewhat abridged prose version of J3a, the Thornton Alexander.
4.5.4. The J2-Recension
As has already been noted (4.5 above), the J2-recension of the Historia de Preliis is a reworking of J1, which was carried out quite independently of J3, and of uncertain date. The nature of this rifaccimento has long been understood and is characterized in the main by an extensive use of those portions of Orosius’ Historia which treat of Alexander the Great (hence earlier called the ‘Orosius-recension’), also of Valerius Maximus, Pseudo-Methodius, Josephus, Pseudo-Epiphanius and, as in J3, of the Indian tractates. The redactor of J2, unlike the redactor of J3, in general adhered closely to the wording of his J1 original, although he attempted to enrich the story and regrouped certain sections in such a fashion as to give greater coherence to the narrative. The J2 MSS exhibit within themselves slight variations in matters of detail, but never to an extent which admits of doubt as to their classification.
The J2-recension, like J3, is noteworthy for the number of vernacular translations (whole or selections) made of it from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
As a secondary source this recension was utilized (ca. 1250) by Rudolf von Ems (whose main source is the history of Quintus Curtius Rufus); 4 by Ulrich von Eschenbach (drawing [ca. 1280] mainly upon the Alexandreis of Philippe Gautier de Châtillon); by Seifried aus Oesterreich (ca. 1352); by the redactor of the Basel revision of Lamprecht; by Babiloth for the larger first part of his Alexanderchronik; apparently by John Gower ([1390], drawing mainly on the Roman de Toute Chevalerie); and by the author of the Hebrew Josippon for Book ii, cap. 9-25, of that work.
Besides the above-mentioned works in which portions of the J2-recension appear more or less prominently, there are a number of independent works based on this same interesting and important recension of the Historia de Preliis.
4.5.4.1. Two Hebrew J2-Versions
Anon. A (by Samuel ibn Tibbon?) and Anon. B Among the earliest translations of the J2-recension are two renderings into Hebrew through the intermediary of a somewhat free lost Arabic translation (translations?); these may be designated Anon. A and Anon. B. Of Anon. A, attributed perhaps uncritically to the famous eleventh- or twelfth-century translator, Samuel ben Jehuda ibn Tibbon, excerpts have been published, and Anon. B has been published in full. The problems of date, place of composition, and the relation of Anon. A to Anon. B (and of both to the corresponding portion of Josippon) are still unsettled; it has been suggested that they, like Josippon, were written in Southern Italy or Sicily and not far from the time of Samuel ibn Tibbon.
4.5.4.2. The Old-French Prose Version
From the second half of the thirteenth century we have the Old-French prose translation preserved in many MSS and in several early prints (1506-1587) under the title L’Histoire du Noble et tres Vaillant Roy Alexander le Grand. The prologue is a translation of part of the Compilation of St Albans.
4.5.4.3. Middle-Swedish Konung Alexander
From about 1380 we have a metrical Swedish version of the J2-recension, Konung Alexander, by Bo Jonsson 2 (1386).
4.5.4.4. Two Italian Prose Versions
Italian B and C
At least two Italian prose versions of the J2-recension can be identified: (1) the older text (MS. early 15th c.) already published in full by Grion and here designated Ital. B; (2) Florence, Bibl. Naz. MS. II. i. 62 (MS. 1470 A.D.), here designated Ital. C, of which Grion published only portions to fill out lacunae in Ital. B. Ital. B and Ital. C appear to be independent of one another, though possibly they may represent independent reworkings of a lost vernacular translation of a Latin J2-text closely related to Cod. Monac. Lat. 824; they are certainly not, as Grion thought, translations from OFr.
4.5.5. Some Unclassified Versions of the Historia de Preliis
Grouped here are a number of texts, Latin manuscripts and vernacular versions, probably translated from the Historia de Preliis. These, so far as I know, have not been studied with a view to determining their relation to recensions J1, J2, or J3.
4.5.5.1. Latin Manuscripts
Here may be mentioned Latin MSS in the Bibliotheca Nazionale, Naples, Bodleian Latin MS. Rawlinson 273, fol. 31-60,3 and Jagellonian Library (Cracow), MS. CC. V. 29, fol. 1457—180v (saec. xv).4
4.5.5.2. The Erfurt Alexander
Still requiring further study is the so-called Erfurt Alexander, giving an account of the Nectanabus episode or the ‘enfance’ of Alexander, composed as a prologue to the Alexandreis of Gautier de Châtillon.
4.5.5.3. The Hebrew History of Alexander
In the middle of the fourteenth century the distinguished Jewish astronomer, Immanuel (Bonfils) ben Jacob de Tarascon, translated the Historia de Preliis, perhaps from the J3-recension.3
4.5.5.4. The Walkenberger Compilation
Possibly based upon the Historia de Preliis is a Czech compilation by Matauš Walkenberger, Hystorya o Králi Alexandrovi Welikém Makedonském, w níš se jeho Chvalitebný Žiwot, published in Olmütz (Olomouc) by Girijk Handle about 1610.4
4.5.5.5. The Dublin Epitome
As yet unstudied is the brief epitome in Trinity Coll. Dublin, MS. D, 4, 12, edited by Skeat as ‘The Story of Alexander.’
4.1. The Syriac Prose Translation
The Syriac prose version is not based directly upon a Greek MS. but is thought by Nöldeke to have been translated not later than the sixth century from a lost Persian (Pahlavi) redaction of a Ps.-Call. Greek MS. of the type designated as 8.1 In the sixth century Bishop Jacob of Sarūg (Serūg) (521) worked up a portion—chiefly the episode of the Spring of Life—of the Syriac prose version into a metrical homily.
4.2. The Ethiopian Translation
The Syriac prose version was again drawn upon and in the ninth century was translated into Arabic. This Arabic redaction has not survived but, with the addition of interpolations from a Greek MS. of the ɑ-tradition, it became the source of an extant Ethiopian translation.
The relation to this Ethiopian version, or to its lost source, of the Alexander material in the works of the Persian writers Dînawarî and Firdusî (Firdausî) is still undetermined.
4.3. Archpresbyter Leo and the Historia de Preliis
About 950 Archpresbyter Leo of Naples undertook at the command of the learned Duke John III of Naples a mission to Constantinople. There, in the course of his sojourn, he came upon a Greek MS. of Ps.-Call. and, transcribing it, brought his copy home, where, in time, Duke John ordered him to translate it into Latin. The circumstances under which this important translation came into being is of such immense interest as an illustration of contemporary Neapolitan letters and Byzantine relations that some of Leo’s prefatory words may well be given here:
in eandem Constantinopolitanam urbem coepit inquirere libros ad legendum. Inter quos inuenit historiam continentem certamina et uictorias Alexandri regis Macedoniae. Et nullam neglegentiam uel pigritiam habendo sine mora scripsit et secum usque Neapolim deduxit ad suos predictos excellentissimos seniores [John and Marius of Naples] et ad praeclaram et beatissimam coniugem eius [of John], Theodoram Quae iuuenili aetate cursum uitae finiens infra tricesimum octauum annum migrauit ad Dominum. Post cuius transitum praefatus Johannes, excellentissimus consul et dux, uir eius et deo amabilis, statuit mente sua ordinem scripturarum inquirere et praeclare ordinare. Primum uero libros, quos in sua dominatione inuenit, renouauit atque meliores effectus, deinde anxie inquirens sicut philosophus, quoscumque audire uel habere potuit, siue rogando seu precando multos et diuersos libros accumulauit et diligenter scribere iussit. Maxime ecclesiasticos libros, Vetus scilicet atque Nouum Testamentum, funditus renouauit atque composuit. Inter quos historiographiam uidelicet uel chronographiam, Ioseppum uero et Titum Liuium atque Dyonisium, caelestium uirtutum optimum predicatorem, atque ceteros quam plurimos et diuersos doctores, quos enumerare nobis longum esse uidetur, instituit. Eodem namque tempore commemorans ille sagacissimus predictus consul et dux prefatum Leonem archipresbiterum habere iam dictum librum, historiam scilicet Alexandri regis, uocauit eum ad se et de Greco in Latinum transferri precepit.
[He began to search for books to read in the same city of Constantinople. Among which he found a history containing the battles and victories of Alexander, king of Macedonia. And having no negligence or laziness, he wrote it without delay and took it with him to Naples to his aforementioned most excellent elders [John and Marius of Naples] and to his illustrious and most blessed wife [of John], Theodora. Who, ending her life at a young age, passed away to the Lord within the thirty-eighth year. After whose passing the aforementioned John, most excellent consul and leader, her husband and beloved by God, decided in his mind to search for and splendidly arrange the order of the Scriptures. First, however, he renewed and improved the books which he found during his rule, then, anxiously searching like a philosopher, he accumulated many and diverse books, whatever he could hear or have, either by asking or praying. He thoroughly renewed and composed especially the ecclesiastical books, namely the Old and New Testaments. Among which he instituted historiography, namely chronography, Josephus, and Titus Livius, and Dionysius, the excellent preacher of the heavenly virtues, and other teachers as numerous and diverse as it seems to us too long to enumerate. For at the same time, that most sagacious consul and leader, recalling that the aforementioned Leo the archpriest had the aforementioned book, namely the history of King Alexander, summoned him to him and ordered it to be translated from Greek into Latin.]
Leo’s finished work, Natiuitas et Victoria Alexandri Magni, generally (but loosely) known as the Historia de Preliis, is the source of one of the most fruitful and conspicuous lines of transmission of Ps.-Call. from East to West and is, as we shall see, the source of numerous Latin and vernacular recensions. Leo’s original translation is not preserved, but closest to it is the version in the now famous Bamberg MS. E. III. 14., fol. 192v—219v (abbr. Ba.).
4.4. The Descendants of the Bamberg Version
Probably going back to a version of the Historia de Preliis very similar to that furnished by the unexpanded Ba. and perhaps making some supplementary use of the Zacher Epitome (1.3.6 above) and of the Iter ad Paradisum (1.3.4 above), is the greatly abridged Alexander story set forth in Der Selen Troyst (first printed Cologne 1474). Closely related to this work are (1) the Low-German Fabelhafte Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen (prose), (2) a fourteenth-century Dutch prose version (3) an early fourteenth-century Swedish prose version in the Swedish Själens Trost, and (4) the very similar Swedish De Alexandro Rege, itself in all probability a translation of the Low-German Fabelhafte Geschichte just mentioned.
About 1100 Ba. was drawn upon by Abbot Ekkehard von Aura a. d. Saale (near Bad-Kissingen) in his Excerptum de Vita Alexandri Magni. Apparently derived from Ba. is a lost Bavarian recension (B. R.) which was the source of two important early MSS, Cod. Monac. Lat. 23489 (M) and Bibl. Natl. (Paris) MS. Nouv. Acquis. Lat. 310 (P); in P supplementary use is made of Julius Valerius and Orosius. In the late fifteenth century P was translated by Johann Hartlieb, Das Buch der Geschicht des Grossen Allexanders, a work that enjoyed considerable popularity and of which a detached portion exists in Heidelberg MS. (cod. germ. 172), Konig Dindimus Buech. In the sixteenth century Hartlieb’s work became the main source of a tragedy (1558) by Hans Sachs and was translated into Danish by Peder Pedersen Galthen in 1584 as Eenn Historie om den Stoer, Megtige Förstis, Keyser Alexandri … nu först aff Tydsken udsaat ... Anno MDLXXXIII.
4.4.1. The Indian Tractates
The Bamberg MS. stands unique among the early forms of the Historia de Preliis complex in having appended to it four short treatises or tractates which deal primarily with Indian life and the Christianization of India. These tractates are as follows:
4.4.1.1. The Commonitorium Palladii
The Commonitorium Palladii exists in four distinct forms, two in Greek and two in Latin. (i) In the Greek Ps.-Call. this document appears in Müller’s edition as an interpolation (= iii, 7-16) of which only ch. 7-10 can be attributed to Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis (ca. 363-ca. 430); 5 (ii) under the title Παλλαδίου περὶ τῶν τῆς Ἰνδίας Ἐθνῶν καὶ τῶν Βραχμάνων (= Ps.-Call. iii, 7-10) the same is found in MSS independent of the romance,1 and also exists in an epitomized form. This Greek work was rendered twice into Latin: (iii) first in the form found in Ba., and (iv) again and independently of (iii) in a version traditionally associated with the name of St Ambrose, the De Moribus Brachmanorum.
4.4.1.2. Dindimus on the Brahmins
The second tractate in question corresponds to Müller’s Ps.-Call. iii, 11-12, sometimes erroneously attributed to Palladius. In tone it reflects a late survival of the Cynic attitude toward Alexander and in content presents an unfavorable comparison of the Macedonians with the Indians. Besides the text in Ba.,” there exists a second Latin version, Anonymus de Brachmanibus.
4.4.1.3. Collatio Alexandri cum Dindimo per Litteras facta
The Collatio Alexandri cum Dindimo per Litteras facta consists of five letters exchanged between Alexander and Dindimus, three from Alexander, two from Dindimus: Alexander begins and ends the correspondence. The Collatio exists in three forms, based ultimately upon the (same?) lost Latin original, in turn a translation of a lost Greek original: Collatio I, the oldest; Collatio II, a less rhetorical version found only in Ba., in turn the source of what I venture to designate as Collatio III, a fuller and more elaborate form of Collatio II, especially important for its use in the so-called J-recensions of the Historia de Preliis. Of general interest and as testimony of knowledge of this phase of the Alexander legend in late eighth-century England is the fact that Alcuin of York (804) communicated some form of the Collatio to Charlemagne. The popularity of this correspondence is witnessed by its occurrence outside of the Alexander romances. We have already (4.4 above) remarked on this material in Hartlieb, Konig Dindimus Buech. A Middle-Irish version of the Collatio likewise exists detached from an Irish life of Alexander based largely on Orosius and Justin with supplementary use of the Epistola and the Collatio. A portion was used by Gower, also by Jean d’Outremeuse for his Mandeville. Furthermore, the Collatio was apparently known to the author, possibly Thomas Randolph, of The Drinking Academy (ca. 1626), and later we find it restored to its original didactic use in a curious tractate, The Upright Lives of the Heathen briefly noted: or, Epistles and Discourses between Alexander the Great and Dindimus pub. Andrew Soule: London, [1683]. The Alexander-Dindimus correspondence in Latin form appears, for example, in Brit. Mus. MS. Sloane 289, fol. 113-114V 6 and in Corpus Christi College MS. 219, fol. 64 ff. where the correspondence appears as an appendix to the Compilation of St Albans. References of this sort can no doubt be easily multiplied.
4.4.1.4. Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem
In the Greek Ps.-Call. iii, 17, there is preserved the scanty remains of a once more complete letter from Alexander to his master Aristotle. The original character of this document we may infer, however, from an exceedingly widespread Latin text, Epistola Alexandri Macedonis ad Aristotelem magistrum suum de itinere suo et de situ Indiae often found independent of, and isolated from, the romance proper: it may be conveniently designated Epistola I. Epistola I was translated into Old English at least as early as 1000, later into Middle Irish, by the fourteenth century into Icelandic, into French probably in the fifteenth, and into German early in the seventeenth by Gabriel Rollenhagen. The Epistola was also used in the Letter of Prester John.
Of Epistola I there is a revised and abbreviated version, known as Epistola II found only in Ba., where it is incorporated in Leo’s Nativitas et Victoria.
4.4.1.5. De Rebus in Oriente Mirabilibus
Closely allied in type, and to a certain extent in substance, to the Epistola is a tract De Rebus in Oriente Mirabilibus, of which there are two related Old-English translations known as the Wonders of the East; in the Middle Ages the De Rebus sometimes passed as the Epistola.
4.5. The J-Recensions of the Historia de Preliis
It has already been observed (4.4 above) that Leo’s translation of a *δ-MS. of Ps.-Call. was early elaborated and altered by the scribes of MSS Ba., P, and M. While these recensions became, as we have seen, the source of but few later works, there are three interpolated recensions of Leo’s Natiuitas et Victoria, designated J1, J2, and J3, which both in the original Latin and in translation enjoyed a far greater popularity.
4.5.1. The J1-Recension
The J1-recension represents Leo’s original in which some later redactor incorporated inconsiderable extracts from Josephus, St Jerome, Orosius, Solinus, St Isidore, a version of the Liber Monstrorum, the first three Indian tractates, and Epistola I: of all of the supplementary sources only the Collatio (i. e. Collatio III) was at all extensively used. Among the vernacular writers, J1, the earliest of the J-recensions, was drawn upon as a secondary source by Albéric (whence Pfaffe Lamprecht), later by Rudolf von Ems, the Roman, and by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry (Jacobus de Vitriaco) in his Historia Orientalis (before 1226). This relatively limited use of the Latin J1-recension (witness, too, the paucity of MSS) may be explained by the fact that it was early eclipsed by two independent revisions of itself; the first of these is known as J2, the second as J3.
4.5.2. The J3-Recension
The J3-recension, as yet inedited, is a systematic reworking of J1, both stylistically and materially, with the inclusion of a few verses, probably made some years prior to 1150, by which time it would appear to have undergone a further reworking (J3a).2 It is represented in a considerable number of MSS and early prints; the latter represent in the main a dry and tasteless abridgment of the MS. versions. From the J3-recension were made one Latin and a number of vernacular redactions.
4.5.2.1. The Alexandreis of Quilichinus of Spoleto
In 1236 a certain Quilichinus of Spoleto composed a Latin poem in distichs, Alexandreis, based upon J3,2 which became in turn the source of a late fourteenth-century Allemanian poem, the so-called Wernigerode Alexander.
4.5.2.1.1. The Darmstadt Alexander
In the Gesta Alexandri Magni, preserved in MS. Darmstadt 231 (saec. xv) and known as the Darmstadt Alexander, we have a J3-text into which has been woven portions of Quilichinus’ poem.
4.5.2.2. Three Italian Prose Versions
The Latin J3 prose was translated no less than three times into Italian: (1) a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century translation, of which seven fragments are preserved; (2) a version preserved in a Florentine MS. independent of (1); 2 and (3) a version, distinct from (1) and (2) and frequently printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
4.5.2.3. Kronika o Alexandru Velikém
The preservation of a closely executed Czech prose translation of the J3-recension in four fifteenth-century manuscripts bears witness to the popularity of the Historia de Preliis in Bohemia in the later Middle Ages; 4 apparently, from the Neuberg MS. was taken the text for the rare Kniha o Wssech Skutzjech Welikeho Alexandra Macedonskeho, printed by M. Bakalář, Pilsen, 1513.
4.5.2.4. Polish Versions
About 1510 a very literal translation of the text of one of the Strassburg incunabula was made into Polish by an unknown writer; the manuscript, Zamojskii Library (Warsaw) MS. Cim. 79, bears the title Hystorja Aleksandra Wielkiego, Króla Macedońskiego, o Walkach.
Apparently also based upon a J3-incunabulum is a series of early printed editions; the first was published in Cracow in 1550 under the title Historya o Zywoćie i Známienitich Spráwach Alexandra, Króla Macedońskiego; then follow eight editions between 1611 and 1766.
4.5.2.5. Haller’s Magyar Version
In 1682, while prisoner in the fortress of Fogaras, John Haller of Hallerkő prepared a Magyar translation of the text of a 1494 J3 incunabulum as the first part of his Hármas Istoria (‘Tripartite History’), first published at Kolozsvár in 1695.
4.5.2.6. Russian Version
In a late seventeenth-century Moscow manuscript, Lenin Library (formerly Rumiantsev Museum) MS. 2405, fol. 395r—468v, is a Russian translation of a Polish version of the Historia de Preliis. This translation, incorporated in the South-Russian Chronograph, exhibits the characteristic J3-interpolations.
4.5.2.7. Meister Babiloth’s Alexanderchronik
Mention may be finally made of a German prose work (printed 1472), the Alexanderchronik of Meister Babiloth; of mixed origin, the first and by far the larger portion is based on the J2-recension, the conclusion, however, belongs to the J3-tradition.
4.5.3. The J3a-Recension
Shortly before 1150 the Latin J3-recension underwent, probably in England, further elaboration by additions from the J2-recension and the Res Gestae of Julius Valerius. No Latin MS. of this postulated recension, conveniently designated J3a, has been discovered, but its existence is rendered likely and its general character ascertainable by certain striking features common to three works thought to have been drawn upon or translated from it. Thus, besides the Anglo-Latin romance, Gesta Herewardi, composed ca. 1150 and apparently drawing upon recension J3a for parts of the description of the hero and one or two episodes, we have the Wars of Alexander and the Thornton Prose Life of Alexander.
4.5.3.1. The Wars of Alexander
The Wars of Alexander is an early fifteenth-century alliterative poem based on recension J3a, with supplementary use made of the Fuerre de Gadres. This work is completely preserved in two MSS, which, though fragmentary, happily supplement one another.
4.5.3.2. The Thornton Alexander
Likewise from the fifteenth century we have an independent, somewhat abridged prose version of J3a, the Thornton Alexander.
4.5.4. The J2-Recension
As has already been noted (4.5 above), the J2-recension of the Historia de Preliis is a reworking of J1, which was carried out quite independently of J3, and of uncertain date. The nature of this rifaccimento has long been understood and is characterized in the main by an extensive use of those portions of Orosius’ Historia which treat of Alexander the Great (hence earlier called the ‘Orosius-recension’), also of Valerius Maximus, Pseudo-Methodius, Josephus, Pseudo-Epiphanius and, as in J3, of the Indian tractates. The redactor of J2, unlike the redactor of J3, in general adhered closely to the wording of his J1 original, although he attempted to enrich the story and regrouped certain sections in such a fashion as to give greater coherence to the narrative. The J2 MSS exhibit within themselves slight variations in matters of detail, but never to an extent which admits of doubt as to their classification.
The J2-recension, like J3, is noteworthy for the number of vernacular translations (whole or selections) made of it from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
As a secondary source this recension was utilized (ca. 1250) by Rudolf von Ems (whose main source is the history of Quintus Curtius Rufus); 4 by Ulrich von Eschenbach (drawing [ca. 1280] mainly upon the Alexandreis of Philippe Gautier de Châtillon); by Seifried aus Oesterreich (ca. 1352); by the redactor of the Basel revision of Lamprecht; by Babiloth for the larger first part of his Alexanderchronik; apparently by John Gower ([1390], drawing mainly on the Roman de Toute Chevalerie); and by the author of the Hebrew Josippon for Book ii, cap. 9-25, of that work.
Besides the above-mentioned works in which portions of the J2-recension appear more or less prominently, there are a number of independent works based on this same interesting and important recension of the Historia de Preliis.
4.5.4.1. Two Hebrew J2-Versions
Anon. A (by Samuel ibn Tibbon?) and Anon. B Among the earliest translations of the J2-recension are two renderings into Hebrew through the intermediary of a somewhat free lost Arabic translation (translations?); these may be designated Anon. A and Anon. B. Of Anon. A, attributed perhaps uncritically to the famous eleventh- or twelfth-century translator, Samuel ben Jehuda ibn Tibbon, excerpts have been published, and Anon. B has been published in full. The problems of date, place of composition, and the relation of Anon. A to Anon. B (and of both to the corresponding portion of Josippon) are still unsettled; it has been suggested that they, like Josippon, were written in Southern Italy or Sicily and not far from the time of Samuel ibn Tibbon.
4.5.4.2. The Old-French Prose Version
From the second half of the thirteenth century we have the Old-French prose translation preserved in many MSS and in several early prints (1506-1587) under the title L’Histoire du Noble et tres Vaillant Roy Alexander le Grand. The prologue is a translation of part of the Compilation of St Albans.
4.5.4.3. Middle-Swedish Konung Alexander
From about 1380 we have a metrical Swedish version of the J2-recension, Konung Alexander, by Bo Jonsson 2 (1386).
4.5.4.4. Two Italian Prose Versions
Italian B and C
At least two Italian prose versions of the J2-recension can be identified: (1) the older text (MS. early 15th c.) already published in full by Grion and here designated Ital. B; (2) Florence, Bibl. Naz. MS. II. i. 62 (MS. 1470 A.D.), here designated Ital. C, of which Grion published only portions to fill out lacunae in Ital. B. Ital. B and Ital. C appear to be independent of one another, though possibly they may represent independent reworkings of a lost vernacular translation of a Latin J2-text closely related to Cod. Monac. Lat. 824; they are certainly not, as Grion thought, translations from OFr.
4.5.5. Some Unclassified Versions of the Historia de Preliis
Grouped here are a number of texts, Latin manuscripts and vernacular versions, probably translated from the Historia de Preliis. These, so far as I know, have not been studied with a view to determining their relation to recensions J1, J2, or J3.
4.5.5.1. Latin Manuscripts
Here may be mentioned Latin MSS in the Bibliotheca Nazionale, Naples, Bodleian Latin MS. Rawlinson 273, fol. 31-60,3 and Jagellonian Library (Cracow), MS. CC. V. 29, fol. 1457—180v (saec. xv).4
4.5.5.2. The Erfurt Alexander
Still requiring further study is the so-called Erfurt Alexander, giving an account of the Nectanabus episode or the ‘enfance’ of Alexander, composed as a prologue to the Alexandreis of Gautier de Châtillon.
4.5.5.3. The Hebrew History of Alexander
In the middle of the fourteenth century the distinguished Jewish astronomer, Immanuel (Bonfils) ben Jacob de Tarascon, translated the Historia de Preliis, perhaps from the J3-recension.3
4.5.5.4. The Walkenberger Compilation
Possibly based upon the Historia de Preliis is a Czech compilation by Matauš Walkenberger, Hystorya o Králi Alexandrovi Welikém Makedonském, w níš se jeho Chvalitebný Žiwot, published in Olmütz (Olomouc) by Girijk Handle about 1610.4
4.5.5.5. The Dublin Epitome
As yet unstudied is the brief epitome in Trinity Coll. Dublin, MS. D, 4, 12, edited by Skeat as ‘The Story of Alexander.’
Source: Francis Peabody Magoun, The Gests of King Alexander of Macedon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), 15-62.
