The historical Alexander the Great, Macedonian
king and world conqueror, was clearly not a medieval figure. However, the character of Alexander
became the central figure of a number of medieval
ROMANCES, comparable to though less numerous
than the cycles of legends surrounding the figures
of CHARLEMAGNE and KING ARTHUR.
Historically, Alexander was the son of Philip II,
king of Macedon, and in his youth was educated by
the great philosopher Aristotle. He became king of
Macedonia at the age of 20 upon his father’s assassination. In 334 B.C.E., he crossed the Hellespont
with 35,000 men to invade the Persian Empire. He
conquered Egypt and founded the city of Alexandria. He captured the family of the Persian emperor Darius, then crushed the Persians at the
Battle of Arbela in 331. He captured the city of
Babylon and the Persian capital of Persepolis,
which he burned to the ground in retaliation for
the Persian burning of Athens in 480 B.C.E. He
married Roxana, daughter of the Bactrian prince
Oxytares, and took a second wife, Barsine, the
daughter of Darius. Alexander then advanced into
India, where he defeated the northern Indian
prince Porus in 326 B.C.E. That same year, he contracted a fever and died at the age of 32, having
conquered virtually the entire world as he knew it.
The medieval versions of the Alexander legend
derive ultimately from a third-century Greek account purported to be by a certain Callisthenes.
Latin versions of Callisthenes’ story were circulating by the early Middle Ages, and these ultimately
were the source of the great 12th-century French
Roman d’Alexandre. This poem, attributed to Lambert le Tort and Alexandre de Bernay, is a text of
some 20,000 12-syllable lines of verse. As the first
known poem to use the 12-syllable line, the Roman
has given its name to that verse form—12-syllable
lines are now known as alexandrines. The poem is
a fanciful blend of myth and history. Alexander is
presented as a king with a retinue of knights and
vassals, as if he were Charlemagne, and he visits
fantastic lands and enchanted castles, like an
Arthurian knight.
Other 12th-century Alexander poems include a
Provençal version by Alberic de Pisonçon and the
famous German ALEXANDERLIED. An Anglo-Norman Roman de toute chevalrie was apparently the
source of the best-known English version of the
legend, the early 14th-century King Alisaunder.
King Alisaunder is an anonymous romance of
8,032 verses in octosyllabic (eight-syllable) couplets. Written in MIDDLE ENGLISH in the dialect of
London and apparently intended for oral delivery, the poem narrates Alisaunder’s mythologized
history from his magical conception to his death.
In this version, Alexander is not the son of Philip
but rather of the Egyptian king Nectanabus, who
through magic is able to deceive Philip’s wife into
sleeping with him. (The scene recalls the legendary events surrounding the conception of
King Arthur in the liaison between Uther Pendragon and Igraine, brought about through Merlin’s magic.) The first half of the poem relates
Alisaunder’s youth, succession to the throne, conquest of Carthage, and his Persian war and defeat
of Darius. The second half of the poem, focused
on Alisaunder in the eastern lands, contains a
number of fanciful geographical descriptions and
relations of the wonders of those far-off lands. It
also tells of Alisaunder’s visit with and seduction
by Candace, queen of Meroe (historically
Ethiopia), and ultimately of Alisaunder’s death by
poison.
Texts and fragments of other treatments of the
Alexander legend survive in Middle English in
both verse and prose from the 14th century on.
One of these, called the Alexander Buik, is a Scottish version once thought to be the work of John
BARBOUR. The popularity of Alexander as a romance hero was widespread throughout Europe
in the later Middle Ages, and it is not surprising
that he, like Arthur and Charlemagne, is consistently represented in late medieval art and literature as among the NINE WORTHIES of the world.
Bibliography
Aertsen, Henk, and Alasdair A. MacDonald. Companion to Middle English Romance. Amsterdam: VU
University Press, 1990.
Barbour, John. The Buik of Alexander, or, The Buik of
the most noble and valiant conquerour Alexander
the Grit. Edited with introductions, and notes by
R. L. Graeme Ritchie. Scottish Text Society New
Series 17, 12, 21, 25. 4 vols. Edinburgh: Printed
for the Scottish Text Society by W. Blackwood and
Sons, 1921–1929.
Kyng Alisaunder. Edited by G. V. Smithers. Early English Text Society 227, 237. 2 vols. London: Published for the Early English Text Society by Oxford
University Press, 1952–1957.