CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ETHIOPIC ALEXANDER ROMANCE

Peter Christos Kotar

Introduction

The Ethiopic Alexander romance is written in the old Ethiopic language Ge’ez, a Semitic language, belonging to the south-Semitic branch.1 Ge’ez has been used in literature from the 4th century on in the north- ern part of Ethiopia (Eritrea). Center of the Ethiopic culture after 100 A.D. was the city of Aksum. Shortly after 340, the kingdom of Aksum was Christianized.2 In the 13th century, beginning with the so-called “Salomonian dynasty” (1270–1285), founded by Jekuno Amlak, a new orientation of Ethiopic literature took place with a strong dependence on the Christian-Arabic literature of the Coptic church of Egypt.3 In this golden era of Ethiopic literature, at the end of the 14th century, falls the Zēnā Eskender [history of Alexander the Great], a genuine creation of Ethiopic literature, not to be confused with the Alexan- der romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes (PC).4 Later, both the 16th and 17th centuries were further high points of Ethiopic literature. Dur- ing this period, the monastery of Dabra Libanos was the most impor- tant center of Arabo-Ethiopic translation.5 It can be assumed that the

1 J. Tropper, Altäthiopisch. Grammatik des Ge’ez mit Übungstext und Glossar. pp. 1–3; F. Prätorius, Äthiopische Grammatik mit Paradigmen, Litteratur, Chrestoma- thie und Glossar. pp. 3–4; T.O. Lambdin, Introduction to Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez); S. Procházka, Altäthiopische Studiengrammatik. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis. Subsidia linguistica 2; O. Raineri, Introduzione alla lingua Ge’ez. 2 Ge’ez as language of the clergy is still used in the Ethiopic church as language of the scripts and liturgy. 3 E. Cerulli, Storia della letteratura Etiopica, p. 67: The oldest translation from Ara- bic into Ethiopic is the “Legend of the Prophet Habakuk,” from the end of the 13th century. 4 J. Assfalg, P. Krüger (eds.), Kleines Wörterbuch des christlichen Orients, pp. 66–70; E. Cerulli, Storia della letteratura etiopica, pp. 58–62. 5 A. Baumstark, Die christlichen Literaturen des Orients II, pp. 36–61. 158 peter christos kotar

literary production during these centuries was much richer than what the remains lead one to believe.6 Ethiopic literature in general, whether hagiographical, historical or theological, has always been marked by its fantastic, miraculous, and visionary elements, which reveal an attitude among the authors of Ethiopia similar to the Copts’ preference for magic.7 Translations of non-Christian material from popular Arabic fiction mainly centered around the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, the Enbâqôm (trans- lated in 1553) and the Alexander romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes. In addition to the translation of the Alexander romance, the genu- ine Ethiopic Alexander legend transforms the figure of the conqueror Alexander into a man of God, according to the conception of oriental Christian monks. Within the Alexander romance tradition, the Ethiopic text belongs to the δ recension of the Alexander romance. The stemma of the vari- ous recensions has been put together by F. Pfister.8 Theδ recension is directly derived from the Greek α recension, which W. Kroll has tried to reconstruct.9 Theδ recension consists of two branches, one estab- lished by the Latin version of the Archpresbyter Leo of Naples from the 10th century, the other by the lost Middle-Persian (Pehlevi) version of the Alexander romance. The Persian Alexander romance was trans- lated during the last years of the Sasanidian empire, around the middle of the 7th century. Shortly after that, around 670, the Syriac transla- tion was made, based on the Persian Alexander romance.10 Again, the

6 K.F. Weymann, Die äthiopische und arabische Übersetzung des Pseudocallisthenes, p. 1: One of those witnesses is the Alexander romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes. 7 A. Baumstark, Die christlichen Literaturen des Orients II, p. 46. 8 F. Pfister, Kleine Schriften zum Alexanderroman, (Meisenheim am Glan, 1976), p. 30. 9 W. Kroll, Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes) vol. 1, based its α version on the Latin version of Julius Valerius Polemius (before 330, B. Kübler, ed., Leipzig, 1888), the Armenian version of the fifth century (retranslation into Greek by R. Raabe, Historia Alexandrou, Leipzig, 1896; an English translation by A. M. Wolo- hojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes) and the codex A (cod. Paris. 1711; Historia Alexandri Magni, W. Kroll, ed., Berlin, 1926). 10 Th. Nöldeke, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans, pp. 17, 34; About the discussion regarding whether the base text of the Syriac Alexander romance was a Pehlevi or Neo-Persian Alexander romance, see the chapter on Alexander The Great in the Syriac Literary tradition in this book.