Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

ORIGIN OF THE ALEXANDER STORY. IX
displays his religious toleration; similarly, if theReugious
* , . , , . ^^ . - , toleration of
narrative of the way m which Lambyses shewed Alexander.
his hatred for the gods of Egypt and for all that
the Egyptians held in reverence be only true in
a very small degree, he must appear as an in-
tolerant fanatic.
The first fabulous history of the life and travels The Egyp-
and exploits of Alexander the Great was, I believe, o^theTiel"
composed and written in Egypt soon after
^""^^ ^""^
his
death by an Egyptian, or by one whose interests
were wholly Egyptian; if it was written by a
Greek he made use of materials which had been
invented by the Egyptians. The chief aim of the
writer of the story was to prove that Alexander
was an Egyptian and the son of the last native
king of Egypt, Nectanebus II. That, in proving
his point, he ruined the reputation of Olympias,
the wife of Philip of Macedon, was nothing to
him; on the contrary, in shewing that she was
held to be worthy of continuing the race of the gods
by the person of Nectanebus, he probably imagined
that he was doing her honour. It is possible, of
course, that the story of a fugitive king becoming
the father of a future king of the country from
which he had fled, by the queen of a foreign land,
..... -r^
is borrowed from a still older story—for nothing
in the way of legends and stories seems to have The cwef
. . aim of the
a beginning in the East—and one day we may^ort,.
even find it. In any case, if the writer of the
Alexander story succeeded in making his readers
believe that the mighty warrior was both an