Note 2299 — Chapter XXIV · THE STORY OF NECTANEBUS OR THE ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES[2293]
Reading edition
Alexandri Magni Epistola ad Aristotelem de mirabilibus Indiae, first printed with Synesii Epistolae, graece; adcedunt aliorum Epistolae, Venice, 1499; then Bologna, 1501; Basel, 1517; Paris, 1520, fols. 102v-14v, following the Pseudo-Aristotle, Secret of Secrets; 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. 51v-78r, a beautifully clear MS of the late 11th century with clubbed strokes. The Epistola is preceded by the Epitome of Valerius and followed by the correspondence with Dindimus.
Royal 12-C-IV, 12th century.
Royal 15-C-VI, 12th century.
Cotton Nero D VIII, fol. 169.
Sloane 1619, 13th century, fols. 12-17.
Arundel 242, 15th century, fols. 160-83.
BL Laud. Misc. 247, 12th century, fol. 186; preceded at fol. 171 by the “Ortus vita et obitus Alexandri Macedonis,” and followed at fol. 196v by the letter to Dindimus.
BN MSS 2874, 4126, 4877, 4880, 5062, 6121, 6365, 6503, 6831, 7561, 8518, 8521A, Epistola de itinere et situ Indiae; 8607, Epistolae eius nomine scriptae; and 2695A, 6186, 6365, 6385, 6811, 6831, 8501A, for Responsio ad Dindimum.
CLM 11319, 13th century, fol. 88, Alexandri epistola ad Aristotelem de rebus in India gestis, preceded at fol. 72 by the Epitome and followed at fol. 97 by the Dindimus.
In the library of Eton College an imperfect copy of the Epistola follows Orosius in a MS of the early 13th century, 133, BL 4, 6, fols. 85r-87.
A somewhat different and later version of the Letter to Aristotle was published in 1910 at Heidelberg by Friedrich Pfister from a Bamberg MS of the 11th century, together with Palladius and the correspondence with Dindimus. Pfister believed all these to be translations from the Greek.
An Anglo-Saxon version of the Letter to Aristotle was edited by Cockayne in 1861 (see T. Wright, RS 34; xxvii).