Alexander Romance Explained

See also: Alexander the Great in legend. The Alexander Romance, once described as "antiquity's most successful novel", is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. 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 an historical core, the romance is mostly fantastical, including many miraculous tales and encounters with mythical creatures such as sirens or centaurs.[1] 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).[2]

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 texts 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 25 languages, including almost all European vernaculars as well as in every language from the Islamicized regions of Asia and Africa, from Mali to Malaysia.[3] 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.[4]

Plot

Nectanebo II, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, foresees that his kingdom will fall to the Persians and so flees to the Macedonian court. In his time there, he falls in love with Olympias, the wife of Philip II of Macedon. She becomes pregnant but Philip's suspicions are allayed by a magic sea-hawk that Nectanebo sends 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.[5]

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.

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.

Motifs and themes

Gates of Alexander

See main article: Gates of Alexander. The Romance locates the Gates of Alexander between two mountains called the "Breasts of the North" (Μαζοί Βορρά). 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, of Bithynia in modern-day North Turkey).

Horns of Alexander

See main article: 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.[6] 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.[7] The motif would be carried over into later Alexander legends, such as the Armenian translation of α and the Syriac Alexander Legend.[8]

Fountain of Life

See main article: 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.[9] 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.[10] This story was elaborated on in subsequent versions of the Romance, such as in the Syriac Song of Alexander and in the Talmud.[11] [12]

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).[13]

The Land of Darkness becomes a prominent feature in subsequent recensions of the Alexander Romance.

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. 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.[9]

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.[14]

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.[15]

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

Versions of the Romance

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.[16]

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,[17] being translated more times in the next three centuries than any other text except for the Gospels.[18] Another very popular Latin version was the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon.[19] 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.

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,[20] such as Old French (12th century),[21] Middle Scots (The Buik of Alexander, 13th century), Italian, Spanish (the Libro de Alexandre), Central German (Lamprecht's Alexanderlied, and a 15th-century version by Johannes Hartlieb), Slavonic,[22] Romanian, Hungarian, Irish, and more.[23]

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[24] or in the mid-6th century during the reign of Justinian I,[25] contains additional motifs not found in the earliest Greek version of the Romance, including the apocalypticization of the wall built against Gog and Magog.[26] 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[27] (14th century), and Middle Mongolian (13th-14th century).[28]

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.[29] [30]

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.[31] [32]

Greek

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. 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). The β recension was likely composed between 300 and 550 AD. 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.[33]

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.[38]

Italian

Italian versions of the Alexander Romance include:[40]

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.[43] In 1833, the Romanian legend was translated into Bulgarian in a copy of an earlier work, Paisiy Hilendarski's Slavic-Bulgarian History (1762).[44]

Spanish

The two most important Spanish versions of the Alexander Romance are:[45]

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:

Middle Scots versions include:

German

Norse

Slavic

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.[55] 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.[56]

Semitic languages

Arabic

See main article: Alexander the Great in Arabic tradition.

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. The Ethiopic version also integrates motifs from the Syriac Alexander Legend within the Romance narrative.[66] There are seven known Ethiopian Alexander Romances:[67]

Hebrew

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

Syriac

There are four texts in the tradition of the Alexander Romance in Syriac, and they have been often mistaken with one another. 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.[69]

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.[74] It draws on older Demotic Egyptian traditions, which existed in written form perhaps as early as 275 BC. It has been edited and published by Oscar von Lemm.[75] Several fragments of it have been collected and translated.[76]

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.[77]

Malay

Mongolian

Persian

Turkish

See also

References

Sources

Translations

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Pseudo-Callisthenes . The Greek Alexander romance . Stoneman . Richard . 1991 . Penguin Books . 978-0-14-044560-2 . Penguin classics . London, England; New York, NY, USA . 11–23.
  2. Book: Djurslev, Christine Thrue . The Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great . 2024 . Cambridge University Press . Ogden . Daniel . 452 . The Alexander Romance.
  3. Book: Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina . A Companion to World Literature . 2020 . Wiley . 978-1-118-99318-7 . Seigneurie . Ken . 1–11 . en . The Arabic Alexander Romance: Mirror of a Bold, Clever, and Devout Prince . 10.1002/9781118635193.ctwl0072.
  4. Web site: Alexander romance Ancient Greek Epic, Legends & Mythology Britannica . 2024-03-11 . www.britannica.com . en.
  5. Book: Pseudo-Callisthenes . The Greek Alexander romance . Stoneman . Richard . 1991 . Penguin Books . 978-0-14-044560-2 . Penguin classics . London, England; New York, NY, USA . 5–7.
  6. Book: Tesei, Tommaso . The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate . 2023 . Oxford University Press . 137–146 . Alexander's Horns.
  7. Anderson . Andrew Runni . 1927 . Alexander's Horns . Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association . 58 . 102–103 . 10.2307/282906 . 0065-9711 . 282906.
  8. Book: Tesei, Tommaso . The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate . 2023 . Oxford University Press . 137–155 . Alexander's Horns.
  9. 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 . 43927088 . 0392-4866.
  10. Book: Crone, Patricia . Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness: Collected Studies in Three Volumes, Volume 3 . 2016 . Brill . 66. 978-90-04-31931-8 .
  11. Book: Crone, Patricia . Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness: Collected Studies in Three Volumes, Volume 3 . 2016 . Brill . 67–68. 978-90-04-31931-8 .
  12. Book: Reynolds, Gabriel Said . The Qur'an and the Bible: text and commentary . 2018 . Yale University Press . 978-0-300-18132-6 . New Haven, CT . 463–465.
  13. Book: Casari, Mario . The Alexander romance in Persia and the East . 2012 . Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library . 978-94-91431-04-3 . Stoneman . Richard . Ancient Narrative. Supplementum . Groningen . 179 . The King Explorer: A Cosmographic Approach to the Persian Alexander . 794706981 . Erickson . Kyle . Netton . Ian Richard.
  14. Book: Nawotka, Krzysztof . The Alexander romance by Ps.-Callisthenes: a historical commentary . 2017 . Brill . 978-90-04-33521-9 .
  15. Book: Nawotka, Krzysztof . The Alexander romance by Ps.-Callisthenes: a historical commentary . 2017 . Brill . 978-90-04-33521-9 . ix, 273.
  16. Book: Nawotka, Krzysztof . The Alexander romance by Ps.-Callisthenes: a historical commentary . 2017 . Brill . 978-90-04-33521-9 . Mnemosyne. Supplements; volume 399 . Leiden; Boston . 30–33.
  17. Book: Stoneman, Richard . A history of Alexander the Great in world culture . 2022 . Cambridge University Press . 978-1-107-16769-8 . Stoneman . Richard . Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY . 7–8 . Introduction: Formation and Diffusion of the Alexander Legend.
  18. Book: Latin fiction: the Latin novel in context . 2004 . Routledge . 978-0-415-14722-4 . Hofmann . Heinz . London . 140.
  19. Book: Townsend, David . The Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon: a twelfth-century epic: a verse translation . 1996 . University of Pennsylvania Press . 978-0-8122-3347-6 . The Middle Ages series . Philadelphia, Pa.
  20. Book: Mínguez Cornelles . Víctor . The visual legacy of Alexander the Great from the Renaissance to the age of revolution . Rodríguez Moya . Inmaculada . 2024 . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group . 978-1-032-54990-3 . Routledge research in art history . New York London . 22.
  21. Book: Damian-Grint, Peter . The new historians of the twelfth-century Renaissance: inventing vernacular authority . 1999 . Boydell Press . 978-0-85115-760-3 . Rochester, N.Y . 2–3.
  22. Book: Minaéva . Oxana . Scandinavia and the Balkans: cultural interactions with Byzantium and Eastern Europe in the first Millennium AD . Holmquist Olausson . Lena . 2015 . Cambridge Scholars Publishing . 978-1-4438-7761-9 . Newcastle upon Tyne (GB) . 107–108.
  23. Book: Pseudo-Callisthenes . The Greek Alexander romance . Stoneman . Richard . 1991 . Penguin Books . 978-0-14-044560-2 . Penguin classics . London, England; New York, NY, USA . 7–8.
  24. 10.2143/MUS.114.1.302. 114. 1–2. 121–140. Ciancaglini. Claudia A.. The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance. Le Muséon. 2001.
  25. Book: Tesei, Tommaso . The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate . 2023-10-19 . Oxford University Press . 10.1093/oso/9780197646878.001.0001 . 978-0-19-764687-8.
  26. Book: Brill. 978-90-04-17416-0. Donzel. Emeri J. van. Schmidt. Andrea Barbara. Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam's Quest for Alexander's Wall. 2010. 17. 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..
  27. Web site: Ahmedi, Taceddin . universalium.academic.ru . 19 December 2011.
  28. Cleaves . Francis Woodman . 1959 . An Early Mongolian Version of The Alexander Romance . Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies . 22 . 1–99 . 10.2307/2718540 . 2718540 . 0073-0548.
  29. Book: E. A. Wallis Budge . The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes . xxxvi . English.
  30. Book: Kotar, Peter Christos . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . Leiden; Boston . 167 . The Ethiopic Alexander Romance.
  31. Web site: Tronson . Adrian . 1982 . The 'Life of Alexander' and West Africa . 2024-03-20 . History Today.
  32. Tronson . Adrian . 2014 . From Jerusalem to Timbuktu: the appropriation of Alexander the Great by national narratives . Acta Classica: Proceedings of the Classical Association of South Africa.
  33. Book: Stoneman, Richard . The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Greece and Rome: Volume 1 . 2010 . Oxford University Press . Gagarin . Michael . 62–64 . Alexander Romance.
  34. Book: Stone, Charles Russell . The Roman de toute chevalerie: reading Alexander romance in late medieval England . 2019 . University of Toronto Press . 978-1-4875-0189-1 . Toronto; Buffalo; London . 16 . on1089840999.
  35. Book: Wulfram, Hartmut . The Alexander Romance: history and literature . 2018 . Barkhuis & Groningen University Library . 978-94-92444-71-4 . Ancient narrative . Groningen . 169–188 . Intertextuality through translation: the foundation of Alexandria and Virgil in Julius Valerius' Alexander Romance.
  36. Book: Ibn Tibbon, Shmuel . A Hebrew Alexander romance according to MS London, Jews' College no. 145 . 1992 . Peeters . 978-90-6831-395-6 . Bekkum . Wouter J. van . Leuven . 15.
  37. Book: Latin fiction: the Latin novel in context . 2004 . Routledge . 978-0-415-14722-4 . Hofmann . Heinz . London . 239.
  38. Book: Maddox . Donald . The Medieval French Alexander . Sturm-Maddox . Sara . 2002 . State University of New York Press . 978-0-7914-5443-5 . Maddox . Donald . Albany . 18–19 . Introduction: Alexander the Great in the French Middle Ages . Sturm-Maddox . Sara.
  39. Book: Stone, Charles Russell . The Roman de toute chevalerie: reading Alexander romance in late medieval England . 2019 . University of Toronto Press . 978-1-4875-0189-1 . Toronto; Buffalo; London . on1089840999.
  40. Book: Morosini . Roberta . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . Vitti . Franceso . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . 329–364 . The Alexander Romance in Italy.
  41. Book: Morosini . Roberta . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . Vitti . Franceso . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . 341–349 . The Alexander Romance in Italy.
  42. Book: Morosini . Roberta . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . Vitti . Franceso . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . 352–355 . The Alexander Romance in Italy.
  43. Book: Boia . Lucian . Forever young: a cultural history of longevity . Selous . Trista . Boia . Lucian . 2004 . Reaktion Books . 978-1-86189-154-9 . 1. publ. in English . London . 50–51.
  44. Book: Entangled histories of the Balkans . 2013 . Brill . 978-90-04-25075-8 . Daskalov . Rumen . Balkan studies library . Leiden; Boston . 282 . Marinov . Tchavdar.
  45. Book: Zuwiyya, Z. David . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . Leiden; Boston . 231–254 . The Alexander Tradition in Spain.
  46. In medieval orthography, "king" could be "kyng" and "Alisaunder" could be "Alysaunder".
  47. Book: Caughey, Anna . The exploitations of medieval romance . 2010 . D.S. Brewer . 978-1-84384-212-5 . Ashe . Laura . Studies in medieval romance . Cambridge, UK; Rochester, NY . 139–158 . 'A1s for the worthyness of be romance': Exploitation of Genre in the Buik of Kyng Alexander the Conquerour . 426810057 . Djordjević . Ivana . Weiss . Judith.
  48. Book: Buschinger, Danielle . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . Leiden; Boston . 291–314 . German Alexander Romances.
  49. Book: Wolf, Kirsten . Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia . Garland . 1993 . 0824047877 . Pulsiano . Phillip . New York . 7–8 . Alexanders saga . Wolf . Kirsten.
  50. Wolf . Kirsten . 1988 . Gydinga Saga, Alexanders Saga, and Bishop Brande Jónsson . Scandinavian Studies . 60 . 3 . 371–400 . 0036-5637 . 40918962.
  51. Book: Ashurst . David . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . Vitti . Franceso . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . Leiden; Boston . 315–328 . Alexander Literature in Scandinavia.
  52. Book: Stoneman, Richard . A companion to Alexander literature in the Middle Ages . 2011 . Brill . 978-90-04-18345-2 . Zuwiyya . Z. David . Brill's companions to the Christian tradition . Leiden; Boston . 7–10 . Primary sources from the classical and early medieval periods.
  53. Usakiewicz . Krzysztof . 2013 . The Greek Phyllada and the Old Serbian Alexander Romance . Colloquia Humanistica . en . 2 . 257–289 . 10.11649/ch.2013.012 . 2392-2419.
  54. Gogoladze . Andro . 2018 . THE MYTH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN MEDIEVAL GEORGIAN CHRONICLES . Études Balkaniques . English . 2 . 291 . 0324-1645.
  55. Peters . Erik . 1967 . Die irische Alexandersage' Zeitschrift für . Celtische Philologie . 30 . 71–264.
  56. Book: Latin fiction: the Latin novel in context . 2004 . Routledge . 978-0-415-14722-4 . Hofmann . Heinz . London . 240.

  57. "It is generally agreed both by Muslim commentators and modéra [sic] occidental scholars that Dhu ’l-Ḳarnayn [...] is to be identified with Alexander the Great." : "[...] (usually identified with Alexander the Great) [...]".

  58. Griffith . Sidney . 2022-03-15 . Narratives of "the Companions of the Cave," Moses and His Servant, and Dhū 'l-Qarnayn in Sūrat al-Kahf . Journal of the International Qur'anic Studies Association . 6 . 1 . 146–147 . 10.5913/jiqsa.6.2021.a005 . 2474-8420 . 251486595.
  59. Book: Daneshgar, Majid . Studying the Qur'ān in the Muslim Academy . 2020 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-006754-0 . AAR reflection and theory in the study of religion . New York (N.Y.) . 77.
  60. Book: C.W. Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina . Fictional storytelling in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean and beyond . 2016 . Brill . 978-90-04-28999-4 . Cupane . Carolina . Brill's companions to the Byzantine world . Leiden Boston . 202 . A Hero Without Borders: 2 Alexander the Great in the Syriac and Arabic Tradition . Krönung . Bettina.
  61. Book: Donzel . Emeri Johannes van . Gog and Magog in early syriac and islamic sources: Sallam's quest for Alexander's wall . Schmidt . Andrea Barbara . Ott . Claudia . 2009 . Brill . 978-90-04-17416-0 . Brill's Inner Asian Library . Leiden . 176–178.
  62. Book: Islamic legends concerning Alexander the Great: taken from two medieval Arabic manuscripts in Madrid . 2001 . State Univ. of New York Press . 978-1-58684-132-4 . Zuwiyya . Zachary D. . Albany, NY.
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  66. 10.2143/JECS.55.3.504417. 55. 3–4. Doufikar-Aerts. Faustina C.W.. Alexander the Flexible Friend: Some Reflections on the Representation of Alexander the Great in the Arabic Alexander Romance. Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 2003. 196, 204. Moreover, the integration of the Gog and Magog episode based on the Christian Syriac Alexander Legend, the allusions to the principle of Trinity, and many other signs determine the text as a Christianized revision of the Romance..
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  74. Encyclopedia: 1991 . Romances . . Macmillan Publishers . New York . Müller . Detlef . Atiya . Aziz Suryal . Aziz Suryal Atiya . 7 . cols. 2059b–2061a.
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  76. Book: Maspero, Sir Gaston . Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt . 2004 . Oxford University Press.
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  79. Book: Daneshgar, Majid . The Qurʼan in the Malay-Indonesian world: context and interpretation . 2019 . Routledge . 978-0-367-28109-0 . Daneshgar . Majid . First issued in paperback . Routledge studies in the Quran . London New York . 212–228 . Dhu l-Qarnayn in Modern Malay Qurʾānic Commentaries and Other Literature on Qurʾānic Themes . Riddell . Peter G. . Rippin . Andrew.
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  83. Web site: De Blois . François . ESKANDAR-NĀMA OF NEẒĀMĪ . Encyclopedia Iranica . en-US.
  84. Book: Gaullier-Bougassas . Catherine . Literature: A World History, Volumes 1-4 . Doufikar-Aerts . Faustina . 2022 . Wiley . 538 . Alexander the Great in Medieval Literature.
  85. Web site: Hanaway . William L. . 1998 . ESKANDAR-NĀMA . 2024-03-08 . Encyclopedia Iranica . en-US.
  86. Book: Vasunia, Phiroze . The classics and colonial India . 2013 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-920323-9 . Classical presences . Oxford, United Kingdom . 107 . 847943593.
  87. Book: Kastritsis, Dimitris J. . The sons of Bayezid: empire building and representation in the Ottoman civil war of 1402-1413 . 2007 . Brill . 978-90-04-15836-8 . The Ottoman empire and its heritage . Leiden; Boston . 33–37.
  88. Book: Schimmel, Annemarie . A two-colored brocade: the imagery of Persian poetry . 1992 . University of North Carolina Press . 978-0-8078-2050-6 . Chapel Hill . 116.
  89. Book: The Alexander romance in Persia and the East . 2012 . Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library . 978-94-91431-04-3 . Stoneman . Richard . 117–126 . 794706981 . Erickson . Kyle . Netton . Ian Richard.

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