CHAPTER XV.

ALEXANDER AND PHILIP IN FOLK-TRADITION.

EVERYTHING that savours of antiquity is by the Macedonian peasant attributed to the two great kings of his country. His songs and traditions, of which he is vastly and justly proud, are often described as having come down "from the times of Philip and Alexander-and Herakles," a comprehensive period to which all remnants of the past are allotted with undiscriminating impartiality.

On the way from Drama to Cavalla, and a little back from the road, stand the massive relics of an ancient gate, facing the ruins of Philippi. This pile is known to the people by the name of " Alexander the Great's Palace" (Tò Пaλáτ TOÛ Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου).

At Demir Hissar, or "The Iron Castle," on the SalonicaSerres railway line, there are some remnants of an old citadel, or fortress (xáoтpo), overlooking the ravine between the flanks of which the town is wedged. These ruins are assigned to King Philip. A big stone jar discovered among them some time ago was promptly labelled "King Philip's money-jar, or treasury." The same romantic tradition discerns in two smooth stones, lying on the rocky bank of the local river, the “Washingboards" on which "The Princesses" (Baotλoπovλais)—the daughters of King Philip-used to bleach (Nevкaívovv) their clothes in the manner of Macedonian women at the present day.

The two solitary rocks in the plain of Serres, already noted as the "Dragon's Quoits," are by the inhabitants of Nigrita

called the "Quoits of Alexander the Great" (IIéтpais TOÛ Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου), who is supposed to have thrown them ; for did he not live in the age when, according to a muleteer's phrase, “God was wont to vouchsafe heroic might to men” (ἀξίωνε τοὺς ἀντρειωμένους)?

Again, near the village of Stavros, or "The Cross," close to the eastern coast of the Chalcidic Peninsula, and a little to the north of the site where Stageira, Aristotle's birthplace, is generally located,' there rises a mountain, unnamed in maps, but known to the peasantry as "Alexander's Mount" (Tò Bovvò TOÛ ̓Αλεξάνδρου, or, less correctly, τῆς ̓Αλεξάνδρας)—a designation especially appropriate in a neighbourhood which is associated with the name of Alexander's famous tutor.

To the south of Stavros lies the village of Lympsiasda, which the natives derive from the name of Alexander's mother (Olympias), according to Col. Leake "not without probability.” This traveller gives the name, less correctly, as Lybjádha and on the local etymology remarks that "the omission of the initial o, the third case, and the conversion of Avμπiáda into AνμπτÇiáda, are all in the ordinary course of Romaic corruption."

In the same paragraph he records that "a situation a little below the serái of the Agá at Kastro, where some fragments of columns are still seen, is said to have been the site of Alexander's mint. Both Turks and Greeks, and even the poorest peasants, are full of the history of Alexander, though it is sometimes strangely disfigured, and not unfrequently Alexander is confounded with Skanderbeg."

The incantation in which the name of Alexander the Great is employed to drive away the demons of the whirlwind is a further instance of the tenacity of tradition, and it also points to the curious halo which in the course of centuries of ignorance

1 Col. Leake thinks that the village itself is on the site of the old Stageirus : "These remains (viz. of ancient walls), the position, and the name Stavros, which, the accent in Zráуepos being on the first syllable, is a natural contraction of that name, seem decisive of Stavros being the site of Stageirus." Travels in Northern Greece, vol. 1. p. 168.

has gathered round the great King's personality. In popular estimation Alexander fills a place analogous to that occupied by Solomon in the Arabian Nights and other oriental compositions. He is credited with a mysterious power over the spirits of evil, and his is a name to conjure with.

Legendary History of Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great has from the earliest times been the favourite hero of romance. Even in his life-time, so strong was the glamour of his wonderful personality and exploits, that no legend was deemed by his contemporaries too wild for credence. In Strabo's words "all those who attended on Alexander preferred the marvellous to the true." If such was the tendency among men who knew the hero in the flesh, we can easily imagine the attitude of people removed from him in time and space. Hence arose a cycle of narratives, at first nebulous enough, no doubt, but which were soon condensed into the fable known as the Alexander story. It has been surmised that this extraordinary production, which is redeemed from the charge of being a bad history by being a bad romance, originated in the Valley of the Nile immediately after the conqueror's death, and thence spread like an epidemic over Europe and Asia. However that may be, the oldest version that has come down to us is in Greek and goes under the name of Pseudo-Callisthenes, who is supposed to have lived in the second century of our era.2 This Greek Life of Alexander (Bíos 'Aλeçávdpov) has directly or indirectly been the prolific parent of a numerous progeny extending through many ages and languages. In the East we find the legend popular among the Syrians, the Armenians, the Copts, the Abyssinians, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks, the Malays and the Siamese. Hebrew literature is also rich in stories concerning Alexander's career; but for these neither Pseudo-Callisthenes nor his conjectural Egyptian progenitor

1 πάντες μὲν γὰρ οἱ περὶ ̓Αλέξανδρον τὸ θαυμαστὸν ἀντὶ τἀληθοῦς ἀπεδέχοντο μâov. Geogr. xv. 1. 28.

2 Several of the extant Greek Mss. have been collated and edited. See C. Müller, Pseudo-Callisthenes (in Arriani Anabasis, by F. Dübner), Paris, 1846 H. Meusel, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Leipzig, 1871.

can be held responsible. In the West the Historia de preliis and many other Latin works, both in prose and in verse, held the field for centuries until they passed into the vernacular of various countries and became known to French, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians and Slavonians. In the hands of the Troubadours Alexander was metamorphosed - into a mediaeval knight, and in this guise he crossed the channel and found a home as Kyng Alisaunder among our old English metrical romances.1 Needless to say, the Macedonian in these posthumous peregrinations was obliged to change not only his garb and speech but also his religion. In the East, as in the West, he frequently adopts the Christian creed and distinguishes himself by his piety and scriptural erudition. Some of these traits of character will appear in the History of the Great Alexander of Macedon: his life, wars, and death", of which a résumé is given below.

Whether this modern edition is the lineal descendant of a version from an old Greek text, or is derived from some mediaeval source, Eastern or Western, is a question to which I dare give no answer. Its vocabulary and style, though modern in the main, reveal numerous traces of a mediaeval origin. The story itself bears to that of Pseudo-Callisthenes the same degree of relationship which is found in most of the other romances. But this is not the place for a minute comparison and analysis. For our present purpose it is sufficient to state that the story, under the popular designation of "Chap-book of Alexander the Great” (Φυλλάδα τοῦ Μεγάλου ̓Αλεξάνδρου), has long been, and still is, a favourite reading among the lower classes all over the Greek world, and has helped more than anything else to keep the Conqueror's memory fresh and

1 Among the works to be consulted by those interested in the development of the Alexander myth are E. A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great (Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes; text with English translation and notes), Cambridge, 1889; The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great (Translation of the Ethiopic versions of Pseudo-Callisthenes and other writers), London, 1896; Giusto Grion, I Nobili Fatti di Alessandro Magno (Old Italian versions from the French), Bologna, 1872; etc.

2 ‘Ιστορία τοῦ Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου τοῦ Μακεδόνος: Βίος, Πόλεμοι καὶ Θάνατος auroû,' Athens, I. Nicolaïdes, 1898.

confused. Numbers of these pamphlets are yearly sold to the peasants of Macedonia by itinerant booksellers, and it was from one of these diffusers of doubtful light that I obtained my copy for the modest sum of one piastre (equal to 24d. sterling). After what has already been said about the other versions of the Alexander legend it would be superfluous to add that this also is a "History" beside which Milton's History of England reads like a sober record of facts. A flippant critic might describe it as a work conceived in dyspepsia and executed in delirium.

In this mytho-historical composition, as in all the kindred productions mentioned above, the birth of Alexander is attributed to the miraculous intervention of the god Ammon, assisted by a somewhat questionable character, Nektenabos,1 late king of Egypt, subsequently Court magician and astrologer in ordinary to Philip of Macedon. The child's entry into the world was heralded by much thunder and lightning and other indications of an abnormal origin. His education was entrusted to Aristotle and Nektenabos jointly. "The lad used to go to the former in the morning and to the latter in the afternoon": the one taught him his letters, the other initiated him into the mysteries of the stars.

Alexander's boyhood was signalized by many deeds foreshadowing his future pushfulness. One of these was the act by which he repaid Nektenabos for his tuition. Master and disciple were one evening standing on the top of a high tower gazing at the heavenly bodies. Alexander suddenly, and rather irrelevantly, remarked:

"O thou who knowest so many things, dost thou know how thou wilt come by thy death?"

"I shall meet my death at the hands of my son," answered the astrologer.

1 The name NeкTevaßós of our text appears in the old мss. of the PseudoCallisthenes as Νεκτανεβώς οι Νεκταναβώς, and occasionally as Νεκτεναβώς; in the Syriac version as Naktîbôs; in the Ethiopic as Bekţânîs etc. In the Italian versions it is Nattanabus, Natanabus, Nathabor, Natabor, Natanabor or Natanabo. All these and innumerable other forms are corruptions of the Egyptian Nekhtneb-f, or Nectanebus II, who was defeated by the Persians in about 358 B.C.