e fabulous versions of the legend
(a proof of its age), Nectanabus, an Egyptian king and magician,
having ascertained by sortilege (a sort of _kriegs-spiel_ on a basin
of water with wax ships) that his throne is doomed, quits the country
and goes to Macedonia. There he falls in love with Olympias, and
during the absence of her husband succeeds by magic arts not only in
persuading her that the god Ammon is her lover, but to some extent in
persuading King Philip to believe this, and to accept the
consequences, the part of Ammon having been played of course by
Nectanabus himself. Bucephalus makes a considerable figure in the
story, and Nectanabus devotes much attention to Alexander's
education--care which the Prince repays (for no very discernible
reason) by pushing his father and tutor into a pit, where the sorcerer
dies after revealing the relationship. The rest of the story is mainly
occupied by the wars with Darius and Porus (the former a good deal
travestied), and two important parts, or rather appendices, of it are
epistolary communications between Aristotle and Alexander on the one
hand, Alexander and Dindymus (Dandamis, &c.), King of the Brahmins, on
the other. After his Indian adventures the king is poisoned by
Cassander or at his instigation.

[Sidenote: _Its developments._]

Into a framework of this kind fables of the sort above mentioned had,
it will be seen, not the remotest difficulty in fitting themselves;
and it was not even a very long step onward to make Alexander a
Christian, equip him with twelve peers, and the like. But it has been
well demonstrated by M. Paul Meyer that though the fictitious
narrative obtained wide acceptance, and even admission into their
historical compilations by Vincent of Beauvais, Ekkehard, and others,
a more sober tradition as to the hero obtained likewise. If we were
more certain than we are as to the exact age of Quintus Curtius, it
would be easier to be certain likewise how far he represents and how
far he is the source of this more sober tradition. It seems clear that
the Latin _Alexandreis_ of Walter of Chatillon is derived from him, or
from a common source, rather than from Valerius-Callisthenes: while M.
Meyer has dwelt upon a Latin compilation perhaps as old as the great
outburst of vernacular romance on Alexander, preserved only in English
MSS. at Oxford and Cambridge, and probably of English composition,
which is a perfectly common-sense account based upon historian