Alexander Romance

Alexander Romance

The Alexander Romance is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. Although constructed around a historical core, the romance is largely fictional. It was widely copied and translated, accruing legends and fantastical elements at different stages. The original version was composed in the Greek language before 338 AD, when a Latin translation was made. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but the historical person died before Alexander and could not have written a full account of his life. The unknown author is still sometimes known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. Between the 4th and the 16th centuries the Alexander Romance was translated into Coptic, Ge'ez, Byzantine Greek, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Syriac, Hebrew and most medieval European vernaculars. The romance was also put into verse, as in a Byzantine recension of 1388. Owing to the great variety of distinct works derived from the original Greek romance, the "Alexander romance" is sometimes treated as a literary genre and not a single work.

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