of the Middle Ages and became available to Western scholarship only with the Revival of Learning [the Renaissance]. The perpetuation of Alexander's fame through so many ages and amongst so many peoples is due in the main to the innumerable recensions and transmogrifications of a work known as the Alexander Romance or Pseudo-Callisthenes. Dating and origins of the Alexander legends The legendary Alexander material originated as early as the time of the Ptolemaic dynasty (305 BC to 30 BC) and its unknown authors are sometimes referred to as the Pseudo-Callisthenes (not to be confused with Callisthenes of Olynthus, who was Alexander's official historian). The earliest surviving manuscript of the Alexander romance, called the α (alpha) recension, can be dated to the 3rd century AD and was written in Greek in Alexandria: There have been many theories regarding the date and sources of this curious work [the Alexander romance]. According to the most recent authority, ... it was compiled by a Greco-Egyptian writing in Alexandria about A.D. 300. The sources on which the anonymous author drew were twofold. On the one hand he made use of a `romanticized history of Alexander of a highly rhetorical type depending on the Cleitarchus tradition, and with this he amalgamated a collection of imaginary letters derived from an Epistolary Romance of Alexander written in the first century B.C. He also included two long letters from Alexander to his mother Olympias and his tutor Aristotle describing his marvellous adventures in India and at the end of the World. These are the literary expression of a living popular tradition and as such are the most remarkable and interesting part of the work. The Greek variants of the Alexander romance continued to evolve until, in the 4th century, the Greek legend was translated into Latin by Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius (where it is called the Res gestae Alexandri Magni) and from Latin it spread to all major vernacular languages of Europe in the Middle Ages. Around the same as its translation into Latin, the Greek text was also translated into the Syriac language and from Syriac it spread to eastern cultures and languages as far afield as China and Southeast Asia. The Syriac legend was the source of an Arabic variant called the Qisas Dhul-Qarnayn (Tales of Dhul-Qarnayn) and a Persian variant called the (Book of Alexander), as well as Armenian and Ethiopic translations. The Syriac Legend The