Anectanabus.
The Egyptian king who figures in our story as Anectanabus is known to history as Necht-neb-f (Nakhtenephen). His mutilated statue and two inscriptions are in the British Museum. He was overthrown by Ochus, and retreated into Ethiopia some four years after the birth of Alexander. We have already referred to the reputation for magic that attached to him early in the Christian era. The form Anectanabus is used as being the form (sometimes shortened to Anec) in which the name appears in Gower and the poet of “The Wars of Alexander.” His history may be read in Wiedemann, “Aegyptische Geschichte,” p. 716, or in Maspero, “Histoire du Peuples de l’Orient,” pp. 566-7.
Plutarch and the Alexander Story.
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Plutarch had before him such a collection of tales as the “Pseud-Callisthenes,” and was thinking of them when he wrote his first pages of the Life of Alexander. The tradition of his birth from the visit of a dragon is accounted for by the habits of the Macedonian women, who are accustomed to pet large snakes. Justin XI. 2, 3, and XII. 16, and Solinus, cap. XV., also mention the tradition. Other points where Plutarch is contradicting the legend will readily suggest themselves. However, this is saying nothing more than that many of the stories must have grown up about the time of Alexander, or soon after his death. The filiation of Alexander and Ammon is one of these, the cartouche of Alexander being “Alexander, son of Amen.”
There has been no attempt to give a Greek character to the story. Even when the alteration of a letter would have made a good Greek name, as in the case of Pausanius, it has not been altered, and Sir Samson, Sir Balaan, speak for themselves. But, on the other hand, as the tales make him Christian or Pagan by turns, we have not tried to make him consistent. In the same way, it was found impossible to leave out the visit to Jerusalem, which makes such a central point in the medieval stories.
Medieval Illuminated Copies.
A word as to the illustrations—not those of our book, but those of the veritable medieval illuminators. Among the chief treasures of the British Museum are its illuminated copies of the Alexander Romance, notably 19. D. I and 20. B. XX. Some others are older, but these are filled with most beautiful paintings of the incidents of the story. I may be allowed to mention one thing here which I have noticed. In each of them, at the beginning, is a sort of frontispiece divided into compartments, and labelled The Castle of Cairo, The Town of Babylon (with Anectanabus shown on the walls or elsewhere), The Garden of Balm, and The Mills of Babylon. Now, these seem to have no connection with the French prose translation in which they are found. Cairo is not mentioned in it, there is no story of a garden of balm, and there is no story of the mills of Babylon, which are large floating water-mills like those at Old London Bridge.
FINISHED THIS THIRTIETH DAY OF MAY 1894 BY ME, ROBERT STEELE, AND PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO., LONDON, FOR DAVID NUTT IN THE STRAND.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE