CHAPTER XXIV

THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS
OR
THE ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES ^
The Pseudo-Callisthenes — Its unhistoric character — Julius Valerius — Oriental versions — Medieval epitomes of Julius Valerius — Letters of Alexander — Leo's Historia de pracliis — Medieval metamorphosis of an- cient tradition — Survival of magical and scientific features — Who was Nectanebus ?— A scientific key-note — Magic of Nectanebus — Nectanebus as an astrologer — A magic dream — Lucian on Olympias and the serpeht — More dream-sending; magic transformation — An omen interpreted — The birth of Alexander — The death of Nectanebus — The Amazons and Gymnosophists — The Letter to Aristotle.
The oldest version of the legend or romance of Alexan- The
der is naturally believed to have been written in the Greek Cailis-'
language but is thought to have been produced in Egypt thenes. at Alexandria. But the Greek manuscripts of the story are
* The following bibliography in- thenes and other writers. D. eludes the editions of the texts Carrarioli, La leggenda di Ales- concerned and the chief critical sandro Magna, 1892. G. G. Cillie, researches in the field. A. Aus- De lulii Valerii epitoma Oxonien- f eld, Zur Kritik des griechischen si, Strasburg, 1905. _ G. Favre, Alexanderromans ; Untersuchung- Recherches sur les histoires fabu- en iiber die unechten Telle der leuses d'Alexandre le Grand, in altesten Ueberlieferung, Karls- Melanges d'hist. litt., II (1856), 5- ruhe, 1894. A. Ausfeld and W. 184. Ethe, Alexanders Zug zur Kroll, Der griechische Alexan- Lebensquelle ini Lande der Fin- derroman, Leipzig, 1907. H. sterniss, in Atti dell' Accadcniia di Becker, Die Brahindnnen in der Monaco, 1871. B. Kiibler, Julius Alexandersage, Konigsberg, 1889, Valerius; Res gestae Alexandri 34 pp. E. A. W. Budge, History Maccdonis, Leipzig, 1888 (see pp. of Alexander the Great, Cam- xxv-xxvi for further bibliog- bridge University Press, 1889; the raphy). Levi, La legende d'Alex- Syriac version of the Pseudo- aiidre dans le Talmud, in Revue Co//ij^/i^n^^ edited from five MSS, des Etudes juives, I (1880), with an English translation and 293-300. Meusel, Pseudo-Callis- HOtes. E. A. W. Budge, The Life thenes nach der Leidener Hand- and Exploits of Alexander the schrift herausgegeben, Leipzig, Great, Cambridge University 1871. M. P. H. Meyer, Alexandre Press, 1896; Ethiopic Histories of le Grand dans la litterature fran- Alexander by the Pseudo-Callis- gaise du moyen age, 2 vols., Paris,
551
552
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
all of the medieval or Renaissance period; indeed, none of them antedates the eleventh or twelfth century. Further- more, they differ very considerably in content and arrange- ment, so that the problem of distinguishing or recovering the original text of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, as the work is commonly called, and of dating it, is one with which vari- ous scholars have grappled. It has been held that the orig- inal Greek text which lies back of the later versions was written not later than 200 A. D. But Basil, writing in Greek in the fourth century and well-versed in Greek cul- ture, is apparently unfamiliar with the story of Nectanebus, since he says, "Without doubt there has never been a king who has taken measures to have his son born under the star of royalty," ^ Fortunately we are less interested in the orig- inal version than in the medieval development of the tradi- tion. It should, however, perhaps be premised that certain features of the Alexander legend may be detected in embryo in Plutarch's Life of him.
the Mechitarists, Venice, 1842. F. Pfister, Kleine Texte zum Alex- anderroman, Heidelberg, 1910; Sammlung vulgdrlateinischer Tex- te herausg. v. W. Heraeus u. H. Morf, 4 Heft. Spiegel, Die Alex- andersage bei den Orientalen, Leipzig, 1851. Vogelstein, Adno- tationes quaedam ex litteris orientalibus petitae quae de Alex- andra Magna circumferuntur, Warsaw, 1^5. A. Westermann, De Callisthene Olynthia et Pseudo-Callisthene Cammentatio, 1 838- 1842. J. Zacher, Pseudo- Callisthenes: Forschungen zur Kritik und Geschichte der dl- t est en Aufscichnung der Alcxan- dersage, Halle, 1867 (see pp. 2-3 for further bibliography of works written before 1851). J. Zacher, Julii Valerii Epitome, sum ersten tnal herausgcgeben, Halle, 1867.
^ Hexacmeron, VI, 7. On the other hand, Augustine, De civitate dei, V, 6-7, alludes to the sage who selected a certain hour for inter- course with his wife in order that he might beget a marvelous son.
1886. C. Miiller, Scriptores rerum^ Alexandri Magni, Firmin-Didot, Paris, 1846 and 1877 (bound with Arrian, ed. Fr. Diibner) ; the first edition of the Greek text of the Pseudo-Callisthenes from three Paris MSS, also Julius Valerius, etc. Noeldeke, Beitrdge zur Ge- schichte des Alexanderromatis, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philos. Hist. Classe, vol. 38, Vienna, 1890; Budge says of this work, "Professor Noeldeke dis- cusses in his characteristic mas- terly manner the Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic ver- sions, and ably shows how each is related to the other, and how certain variations in the narrative have arisen. No other writer be- fore him was able to control, by knowledge at first hand, the state- ments of both the Aryan and Semitic versions ; his work is therefore of unique value." Pad- muthiun Achcksandri Makcto- nazwui, I Wenedig i dparani serbuin Chazaru, Hami, 1842; the Armenian version published by
acter.
XXIV THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS 553
The true Callisthenes was a historian who accompanied Alexander upon his Asiatic campaigns but then offended the conqueror by opposing his adoption of oriental dress, abso- lutism, and deification, and was therefore cast into prison on a charge of treason, and there died in 328 B. C. either from ill treatment or disease.^ Since Callisthenes was also a relative and pupil of Aristotle, his name was an excellent one upon which to father the romance. However, the old- est Latin version of it professes to employ a Greek text by one Aesopus, possibly because Aesop's fables accompany the story of Alexander in some of the manuscripts. Yet other versions cite an Onesicritus,^ and the Pseudo-CaUisthenes has also been attributed to Antisthenes, Aristotle, and Ar- rian.
Perhaps no better single illustration of the totally un- Its unhis- historical and romantic character of the Pseudo-Callisthenes j^"*;^ ^^" can be given than the perversion of Alexander's line of march in most of the Greek and all of the Latin versions. He is represented as first proceeding to Italy and receiving royal honors at Rome ; then he goes to Carthage and reaches the shrine of Ammon by traversing Libya; next he passes through Egypt into Syria and destroys Tyre, after which he crosses Arabia and has his first battle with Darius. Pres- ently he is found back in Greece sacking Thebes and dealing with Corinth, Athens, and Sparta. Then his Asiatic con- quests are resumed.
The oldest Latin version of the Alexander romance is Julius the Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis of Julius Valerius. Who he was and when he lived are matters still veiled in obscurity ; but it is customary to place him in the early fourth century on the basis of Zacher's contention that the Res ges- tae is copied in certain portions of the Itinerarium Alexan- dri, which was written during the years 340-345 A. D. This
* Seneca in the Natural Ques- outweigh, — a passage which did
tions (VI, 23) called the death of not keep Nero from forcing
Callisthenes "the eternal crime" of Seneca to commit suicide.
Alexander which all his military ^ Reitzenstein, Pohnandres, Leip-
victories and conquests could not zig, 1904, pp. 308-309.
Valerius.
554 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
dating would also serve to explain why Basil, writing in Greek before 379, had never heard of a king who had taken steps to have his son born under the star of royalty, while Augustine, writing in Latin between 413 and 426, men- tions the story of a sage who selected a certain hour for in- tercourse with his wife in order that he might beget a mar- velous son. This would also suggest that the Latin version was older than the Greek, as in fact the extant manuscripts of it are. The oldest manuscript of Valerius, however, is a badly damaged palimpsest of the seventh century at Turin. Other manuscripts are one at Milan of the tenth century and another at Paris dating about 1200.^ The text of Va- lerius differs considerably from the Greek Pseudo-Callis- thenes and was to undergo further alteration in later me- dieval Latin versions.
Before speaking of these we may mention other oriental versions of the story. An Armenian text dates from the fifth century. A Syriac version, which dates from the sev- enth or eighth century and was "much read by the Nestori- ans," was itself derived from an earlier Persian rendering. It seems to make use of both the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes and Julius Valerius since it includes incidents from either which are not found in the other. And it omits a consider- able section of the Greek version besides adding episodes which are not found in it, although contained in Julius Va- lerius. We hear further of Arabic and Hebrew versions of the romance, while manuscripts of recent date supply an Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes of unknown authorship and date, together with other Ethiopic histories and romances of Alexander. These are based partly upon Arabic and Jewish works but take great liberties with their sources in making alterations to suit a Christian audience, omitting for example, as Budge points out, Alexander's vic-
^Res gestae of Alexander of twelfth centuries: Royal 13-A-I,
Macedon, contained in three MSS Royal 12-C-IV, and Royal 15-C-
of the Royal Library in the British VI, are not the full text of Julius
Museum, dating according to the Valerius, but the epitome of which
catalogue from the eleventh and I shall soon speak.
XXIV
THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS
555
tory in the chariot race, and transforming Philip and Alex- ander into Christian martyrs, or the Greek gods into patri- archs and prophets like Enoch and Elijah. Even the Greek version did not remain unaltered in the Byzantine period v^^hen two recensions in prose and two more in verse are dis- tinguished. Indeed, none of the Greek manuscripts of the work antedates the eleventh or twelfth century, they differ greatly, and some of them ascribe the romance to Alexander himself.
Such variations in the eastern versions of the story of Alexander illustrate how the middle ages made the classical heritage their own and prepare us for similar alterations in the Latin account current in western Europe. The work of Julius Valerius, though written in the rhetorical style char- acteristic of the declining Roman Empire and composed al- most on the verge of the middle ages, was to undergo fur- ther alterations to adapt it more closely to medieval taste and use. By the ninth century, if not earlier, two epitomes of it had been made, and, beginning with that century, manu- scripts of the shorter of these epitomes become far more numerous than those of the original Valerius.^
Two sections of the Alexander legend were omitted in the Epitome, not because medieval men had lost interest in them but because they had become so fond of them as to enlarge upon them and issue them as distinct works. They often, however, accompany the Epitome in the manuscripts. One of these was the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle on the Marvels of India. ^ It is longer than the corresponding
* The longer epitome is known from an Oxford MS, Corpus Christi MS 82, and was believed by Meyer to be intermediary be- tween Valerius and the other briefer epitome. Cillie, however, tries to prove the shorter epitome to be the older.
' Alexandri Magni Epistola ad Aristoteletn de mirabilibus Indiae, first printed with Synesii Epis- tolae, graece: adcedunt aliorum Epistolae, Venice, 1499; then
Bologna, 1501; Basel, 1517; Paris, 1520, fols. I02V-I4V, following the Pseudo-Aristotle, Secret of Se- crets; etc. These early printed editions give the oldest Latin text, dating back as we have seen to at least 800.
Some MSS of the same version are :
BM Royal 13-A-I, fols. 5iv-78r, a beautifully clear MS of the late nth century with clubbed strokes. The Epistola is preceded by the
Medieval epitomes of Julius Valerius.
Letters of Alex- ander.
556 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
chapter of Valerius ^ where a letter of Alexander to Aris- totle is quoted and also differs from any known Greek text. The fact that reference is made to it in the longer Epitome leads to the conclusion that the Letter is older. This would also seem to be the case with the other work, a short series of letters interchanged between Alexander and Dindimus, the king of the Brahmans, since the Epitome omits the two chapters of Valerius which tell of Alexander's interview with the Brahmans. It is believed that Alcuin, who died in 804, in one of his letters to Charlemagne speaks of sending these epistles exchanged between Alexander and Dindimus along with the equally apocryphal correspondence of the apostle Paul and the philosopher Seneca. No such letters are found in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, for the ten chapters on the Brahmans found in one Greek codex are interpolated from the treatise of Palladius, likewise in the form of a correspondence.^ Julius Valerius does not even mention Dindimus, but a third epistolary discussion of the Brahmans exists in Latin, De moribus Brachnmnnorum, ascribed to St. Ambrose.^
Epitome of Valerius and followed and followed at fol. 97 by the
by the correspondence with Din- Dindimus.
dimus. In the library of Eton College
Royal 12-C-IV, I2th century. an imperfect copy of the Epistola
Royal 15-C-VI, i2th century. follows Orosius in a MS of the
Cotton Nero D VIII, fol. 169. early 13th century, 133, BL 4, 6,
Sloane 1619, 13th century, fols. fols. Ssr-S/.
12-17. A somewhat different and later
Arundel 242, 15th century, fols. version of the Letter to Aristotle
160-83. was published in 1910 at Heidel-
BL Laud. Misc. 247, 12th cen- berg by Friedrich Pfister from a
tury, fol. 186; preceded at fol. 171 Bamberg MS of the nth cen-
by the "Ortus vita et obitus Alex- tury, together with Palladius and
andri Macedonis," and followed the correspondence with Dindi-
at fol. 196V by the letter to Din- mus. Pfister believed all these to
dimus. be translations from the Greek.
BN MSS 2874, 4126, 4877, 4880, An Anglo-Saxon version of the
5062, 6121, 6365, 6503, 6831, 7561, Letter to Aristotle was edited by
8518, 8521 A, Epistola de itinere et Cockayne in 1861 (see T. Wright,
situ Indiae; 8607, Epistolae eius RS 34; xxvii).
nomine scriptae; and 269SA, * III, 17.
6186, 6365, 6385, 6811, 6831, 8501A, 'First published by Joachim
for Responsio ad Dindimum. Camerarius about 1571.
CLM 11319, 13th century, fol. 'Published with Palladius by
88, Alexandri epistola ad Aris- Sir Edward Bisse in 1665; MSS
totelem de rebus in India gestis, are numerous, preceded at fol. 72 by the Epitome
XXIV
THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS
557
Leo, an archpriest of Naples, who went to Constanti- nople about 941-944 on an embassy for two dukes of Cam- pania, John and Marinus, brought back with him a History containing the conflicts and victories of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. Later Duke John, who was fond of sci- ence, had Leo translate this work from Greek into Latin, in which tongue it is entitled Historia de praeliis. We learn these facts from its prologue which is found only in the oldest extant manuscript, a Bamberg codex of the eleventh century,^ and in a manuscript of the twelfth or thirteenth century at Munich. The location of these two manuscripts suggests that the work was early carried from Italy to Ger- many, lands then connected in the Holy Roman Empire. Of the De praeliis apart from the prologue there came to be many copies, but most of them date from the later middle ages, and the importance of the work as a source for the vernacular romances of Alexander has been somewhat over- estimated, since Meyer has shown that no manuscript of it is found in France until the thirteenth century and since the manuscripts of the Epitome are far more numerous.^
In the foregoing observations we may seem to have di- gressed too far from our main theme of science and magic into the domain of literary history. But the development of the Alexander legend, which happens to have been traced more thoroughly than perhaps any other one thread in the medieval metamorphosis of ancient tradition, throws light at least by analogy upon many matters in which we are in- terested : the state of medieval manuscript material, the continuity and yet the alteration of ancient culture during the early middle ages, the process of translation from the Greek which went on even then, and the varying rapidity or slowness with which books circulated and ideas perme- ated.
Leo's His- toria de praeliis.
* From this same MS Pfister published the Letter to Aristotle and other treatises mentioned above.
' Its influence would therefore seem to have been upon the later
prose romances and not upon French vernacular poetry. Known at first only in Italy and Ger- many, its popularity became gen- eral in western Europe toward the close of the middle ages.
Medieval metamor- phosis of ancient tradition.
558
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap-
Survival of magi- cal and scientific features.
Who was Nectane- bus?
Moreover, the story of Alexander, especially as adapted by the middle ages, contained a large amount of magic and science, more especially the former. The Epitome might omit a great deal else, but it kept intact the opening portion of the Pseudo-Callisthenes and of Julius Valerius concern- ing the adventures of Nectanebus, the sage and magician from Egypt, the astrologer and the natural father of Alex- ander, Indeed, the titles in some manuscripts suggest that Nectanebus came to rival Alexander for medieval readers as the hero of the story. Thus we find a History of Alexander, King of Macedon, and of Nectanebo, King' of Egypf,^ or an account Of the Life and Deeds of Neptanabus, astrono- mer of Egypt/ or a Latin metrical version by "Uilikinus" or Aretinus Quilichinus of Spoleto in 1236 entitled. The History of the Science of the Egyptians and of Neptana- bus their king who afterwards was the true father of Alex- ander.^
Pliny in the Natural, History describes the obelisk of Necthebis, king of Egypt, whom he places five centuries be- fore Alexander the Great.* Plutarch, however, in his life of Agesilaus and Nepos in his life of Chabrias mention a Nectanebus II who struggled against Persia for the throne of Egypt about 361 B. C. and later was forced to flee to Ethiopia. In the Alexander romance, however, it is to Macedon that Nectanebus retreats. A Nectabis is listed as a magician along with Ostanes, Typhon, Dardanus, Dami- geron, and Berenice, by Tertullian, writing about 200 A. D.^ As a matter of fact, in the Thirtieth Dynasty were two kings named respectively Nektanebes or Nekht-Har-ehbet, who ruled 378 to 361 B. C, and Nektanebos or Nekhte-nebof, who ruled 358 to 341 B. C. Both have left considerable
* Harleian 527, fols. 47-S6.
^Amplon. Quarto 12, fols. 200- 201 ; presumably it includes only those chapters concerned with Nectanebus.
'CUL 1429 (Gg. I, 34), 14th century, No. 5, 35 fols. Also in CU Trinity 1041, 14th century,
fols. 200V-2I2V,
mago quomodo
"De Nectanabo magnum genu- erit Alexandrum. Egipti sapien- tes ." * NH XXXVI, 14 and 19. ^ De anitna, cap. 57, in Migne, PL II, 792.
XXIV THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS 559
buildings.^ It is the latter who was forced by the Persians to flee to Ethiopia nine years before Alexander conquered Egypt and who is the hero of our story. The stele of Met- temich is covered with magical formulae ascribed to Nec- tanebo.^
A note suggestive of both natural science and occult sci- A scien- ence is struck by the opening passage of the Latin epitomes note. ^^' and of the oldest Greek manuscript ; the first page of Julius Valerius is missing and has to be supplied from the epitomes. The first words are "The Egyptian sages," and the first sen- tence describes their scientific ability in measuring the earth and in tracing the revolutions of the heavens and numbering the stars. "And of them all Nectanabus is recognized to have been the most prudent . . . for the elements of the universe obeyed him." In the opening sentences of the oldest Greek version and of the Ethiopic version even more emphasis is laid than in the Epitomes upon the learning of the Egyptians in general and of Nectanebus in particular, and of the close connection of that learning with astrology and magic.^ We read, "Now there lived in the land of Egypt a king who was called Bektanis, and he was a famous magician and a sage, and he was deeply learned in the wis- dom of the Egyptians. And he had more knowledge than all the wise men who knew what was in the depths of the Nile and in the abysses, and who were skilled in the knowl- edge of the stars and of their seasons and in the knowledge of the astrolabe and in the casting of nativities. . . . And by his learning and by his observations of the stars Nectanebus was able to predict what would befall anyone who was about to be born." ^ In one Latin manuscript of the fifteenth cen- tury the History of Alexander the Great begins with the
^ The former built a Temple of tanebos before the Temple of the
Isis, now a heap of ruins, at Eighteenth Dynasty at Medinet
Behbit el-Hagar and a colonnade Habu.
to the Temple of Hibis in the ' Berthelot (1885), pp. 29-30.
oasis of Khirgeh ; and his name ^ The Syriac version, on the
appears upon a gate in the Temple contrary, emphasizes this point
of Mont at Karnak. Besides the less.
Vestibule of Nektanebos at * Budge's translation of the
Philae there is a court of Nek- Ethiopic version.
56o
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Magic of Nectane- bus.
Nectane- bus as an astrologer.
sentence, "Books tell us how powerful the race of the Egyptians were in mathematics and the magic art." ^
Next we are told, and the account Is practically the same in all the versions of the story, how by means of his basin filled with water, his wax images of ships and men, his rod or wand of ebony, and the incantations with which he addressed the gods above and below, Nectanebus had been hitherto able to destroy all the armies and to sink all the fleets that had come against him. But when one day he found his magic unavailing to save him, he shaved his head and beard and fled to Macedon, where in linen garb he plied the trade of an astrologer.
In this he soon became so celebrated that the fame of his predictions reached the ears of the queen Olympias, who con- sulted him during an absence of Philip. When she asked Nectanebus by means of what art he divined the future so truthfully, he answered that there were many varieties of divination. Julius Valerius and the Latin epitomes mention specifically only interpreters of dreams and astrologers, but the Greek, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions give more elab- orate lists of various kinds of diviners.^ Nectanebus next produced an astrological tablet adorned with gold and ivory and with each planet and the horoscope represented by a dif- ferent stone or metal. With the aid of this he read the
*CLM 215, fols. 176-94, "Egip- tiorum gentem in mathematica magica quam in arte fuisse valen- tem littere tradunt."
^ Pseudo-Callisthenes, 1, 4, "cast- ers of horoscopes, readers of signs, interpreters of dreams, ventriloquists, augurs, genethli- alogists, the so-called magi to whom divination is an open book." Budge, Syriac version, p. 4, "The interpreters of dreams are of many kinds and the knowers of signs, those who understand divination, Chaldean augurs and casters of nativities ; the Greeks call the signs of the zodiac 'sor- cerers' ; and others are counters of the stars. As for me, all of these are in my hands and I my-
self am an Egyptian prophet, a magus, and a counter of the stars." Budge, Ethiopic Histories, p. II, "Then Nectanebus answered and said unto her, 'Yea. Those who have knowledge of the orbs of heaven are of many kinds. Some are interpreters of dreams, and some have knowledge of what shall happen in the future, and some understand omens, and some cast nativities, and there are besides all those who know magic and who are renowned be- cause they are learned in their art, and some are skilled in the motion of the stars of heaven : but I have full knowledge of all these things.' "
XXIV
THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS
561
queen's horoscope and told her that she would have a son by the God Ammon and w^ould be forewarned soon to that effect in a dream. Olympias replied that if such a dream came to her, she would no longer employ Nectanebus as a magus but honor him as a god.
Nectanebus thereupon sought for herbs useful to com- mand dreams, plucked them, and pressed a syrup out of them. He placed a wax image of the queen inscribed with her name upon a little couch, lighted lamps, and poured his syrup over the wax figure, muttering a secret and efficacious incanta- tion the while. By this means he brought it about that the queen would dream or think she dreamed whatever he said to the wax image of her. Later Nectanebus himself played the part of the god Ammon, announcing his coming before- hand to Olympias by making by his "science" a dragon which glided into her presence.
Lucian of Samosata in the second century tells us that it was a common story in his time that Olympias had lain with a serpent before giving birth to Alexander. He sug- gests as the explanation of how this tale originated the fact that at Pella in Macedonia there is a breed of large serpents, "so tame and gentle that women make pets of them, children take them to bed, they will let you tread on them, have no objection to being squeezed, and will draw milk from the breasts like infants. ... It was doubtless one of these that was her bedfellow." ^ As is apt to be the case in ancient efforts to give a natural explanation of what purports to be miraculous or supernatural, Lucian's biology is only slightly less incredible than Nectanebus's magic transformations.
As the queen became pregnant, "Nectanebus consecrated a hawk and told it to go to Philip," who was still absent, "to stand by him through the night and to instruct him in a dream as it was ordered." ^ The vision in question was ex-
^ From Fowler's translation of Alexander: the False Prophet. See also Plutarch's Alexander.
' The Syriac and Ethiopic ver- sions are somewhat more de- tailed as to the magic by which
Philip's dream was produced. Budge, Syriac version, p. 8, "Then Nectanebus . . . brought a hawk and muttered over it his charms and made it fly away with a small Quantity of a drug, and that night
A magic dream.
Lucian on Olympias and the serpent.
More dream- sending : magic transfor- mation.
S62
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
An omen inter- preted.
The birth of Alex- ander.
plained by an interpreter of dreams to Philip as signifying that his wife would have a son by the god Ammon. Never- theless Philip was somewhat suspicious and hastened to bring his wars to a close and hurry home. Nectanebus, how- ever, rendering himself invisible by means of the magic art, continued to deceive both king and queen. Once he terri- fied the court by appearing again in the form of a huge hiss- ing serpent, but put his head in Olympias's lap and then kissed her. Thereupon he turned from a serpent into an eagle and flew away. Philip was then really convinced that his wife's lover was the god Ammon.
Before the birth of Alexander the following omen befell Philip. As he sat absorbed in thought in a place where there were many birds flying about, one of them laid an egg in his lap. It rolled to the ground, the shell broke, and a snake issued forth. It circled about the egg-shell but when it tried to reenter the shell was prevented by death. When Antiphon, the interpreter of omens, was consulted concern- ing this portent, he said that it signified that a son should be born who would conquer the world but die before he could regain his native land.
The day of Olympias's delivery now approached and Nectanebus, in his office of astrologer, stood by her side to tell her when the favorable moment had arrived for the birth of her child. Once he urged her to wait, since a child bom at that moment would be a slave and a captive. Again he bade her restrain herself, for at that moment an effeminate would be born. At last the favorable instant came for the birth of a world conqueror, and Alexander was born amid an earthquake, thunder, and lightning. In this case, there- fore, the moment of birth is regarded as controlling the des- tiny. Many astrologers, however, considered the moment of conception as of greater importance; we have already
it shewed Philip a dream." Budge, Ethiopic Histories, p. 21, "Then Nectanebus took a swift bird and muttered over it certain charms and names, and ... in one day and one night it traversed
many lands and countries and seas, and it came to Philip by night and stopped. And it came to pass at that very hour . . . that Philip saw a marvelous dream."
XXIV THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS 563
heard Augustine tell of the sage who chose a certain hour for intercourse with his wife in order to beget a marvelous son; and in the thirteenth century Albertus Magnus, in his treatise on animals, informs us that "Nectanebus, the natural father of Alexander, in having intercourse with his mother Olympias, observed the time when the sun was entering Leo and Saturn was in Taurus, since he wished his son to receive the form and power of those planets." ^
The death of Nectanebus was as closely in accord with The the stars as was the birth of Alexander. At the age of Nectane- twelve Alexander found Nectanebus in consultation with bus. Olympias and, attracted by his astrological tablet, made him promise to show him the stars at night. Then as Nectanebus walked along star-gazing, Alexander pushed him into a steep pit which they chanced to pass, and Nectanebus lay there with a broken neck. When he asked Alexander the reason for his act, the boy replied that it was in order to convince him of the futility of his art, since he gazed at the stars unmind- ful of what threatened him from the ground. But Nectane- bus rebuts this revised version of the maid servant's taunt to Thales by telling Alexander that he had been forewarned by the stars that he should be killed by his own son, and by revealing to Alexander the secret of his birth.^
In concluding the story of Nectanebus it is perhaps worth while to emphasize the fact that the epitomes and Julius Valerius often use the word magus of Nectanebus as an as- trologer and that in general magic, astrology, and divina- tion are indissolubly connected.
^ In another place, however, Nectanebus into the pit, but only
Albert calls Philip Alexander's fulfills it. In the Ethiopia ver-
father, De causis et proprietatibus sion Nectanebus is represented as
elementorum et planetarum, II, educating Alexander from his
ii, I. seventh year on in "philosophy
' The story is better told in the and letters and the working of Syriac version (Budge, 14-17), magic and the stars and their where Alexander does not push seasons." Aristotle becomes Alex- Nectanebus into the pit until after ander's tutor only after the death he has asked the astrologer if he of Nectanebus. Aristotle, too, is knows his own fate and has been represented as an adept in as- told that Nectanebus is to be slain trology, amulets, and the use of by his own son. Alexander then magic wax images. (Budge, attempts to foil fate by pushing Ethiopic Histories, pp. 31, xlv).
564
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
The Ama- zons and Gymno- sophists.
The letter to Aris- totle.
Some account is given both in Julius Valerius and the longer epitome of Alexander's exchange of letters with the Amazons and of questions which he put to the Gymnoso- phists of India (i. e. the Brahmans) and their replies. Nei- ther of these promising themes, however, results in the in- troduction of any magic or occult science. We also find in the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria ^ a list of ten ques- tions which Alexander propounded to ten of the Gymnoso- phists of India and their ingenious answers given under pain of death if their responses proved unsatisfactory.
Nor does Alexander's letter to Aristotle on the marvels of India reveal many specific instances of superstition that are at all interesting. For the most part it recounts his marches, the sufferings of his army from thirst, combats with wild beasts, serpents, and hippopotamuses, and the treasures which he captured. Alexander states that "in for- mer letters I informed you about the eclipse of the sun and moon and the constancy of the stars and the signs of the air." ^ He tells now, however, of a place where there are two trees of the sun and moon, speaking Indian and Greek, one masculine and the other feminine, from which one may learn what the future has in store for good or evil. As to this Alexander was inclined to be incredulous, but the natives swore that it was true, and his companions urged him "not to be defrauded of the experience of so great a thing." Ac- cordingly he made his way to the spot despite the innumer- able beasts and snakes which beset his path. Chastity was essential in order to approach the trees, and he also had to lay aside his rings, royal robes, and shoes. The sun tree then told him at dawn that he would never see home or his mother and sisters again. At eventide the moon tree added that he would die at Babylon.^ The third and final response,
'VI, 4.
'Royal 13-A-I, fol. 53V.
Mn CU Trinity 1446 (1250 A. D.) The Romance of Alex- ander in French verse by Eu- stache (or Thomas) of Kent, among 152 pictures listed by
James (III, 483-91) are two rep- resenting the hero's colloquy with the moon tree (fol. 3ir). Marco Polo also tells of these marvelous trees. And see Roux de Rochelle, "Notice sur I'Arbre du Soleil, ou Arbre Sec, decrit dans la relation
XXIV THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS 565
vouchsafed by the sun tree, was that his death would be from poison, but the name of the poisoner the oracular tree refused to divulge lest Alexander try to kill him first and thus cheat the three Fates. Alexander has consequently had to content himself, as he informs Aristotle in the closing sen- tence of his letter, with building a monument to perpetuate his name among all mortals.^
Of other spurious treatises ascribed to Alexander in the middle ages, works of alchemy and works of astrology, we shall treat in a later chapter on the Pseudo-Aristotle.
des voyages de Marco Polo," in edition and Royal 13-A-I, which
Bulletin de la Societe de geog- follow the early Latin version.
raphie, serie 3, III (1845), 187- As stated above, Pfister's edition
94. (Heidelberg, 1910) gives a later
^ For the Letter to Aristotle I version probably translated from
have employed the Paris, 1520 the Greek,