Extract

Pseudo-Callisthenes, the so-called Alexander-Romance, falsely ascribed to *Callisthenes, survives in several versions, beginning in the 3rd cent. ce. It is popular fiction, a pseudo-historical narrative interspersed with an ‘epistolary novel’, bogus correspondence between *Alexander (3) ‘the Great’ and *Darius III. Some of the material is comparatively early; the account of Alexander's death may echo propaganda of the early Successors and the will contains a Rhodian interpolation of Hellenistic origin. There is also an Egyptian strand which introduces the last Pharaoh, Nectanebos II, as a significant actor (seducer of *Olympias) and adds curious detail about *Alexandria (1), including its foundation date. But the historical nucleus is small and unusable. What matters is the fiction which had an enormous international vogue, translated into most major languages in medieval times and transmuted into innumerable variations in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic tradition.