ABSTRACT
The Old English Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle is found in MS BL Cotton Vitellius A.xv, folios 107 recto to 131 verso, where it ends just before the opening page of Beowulf. It has the distinction of being the oldest surviving vernacular translation of the fourthcentury Latin Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem (of the same meaning). The Latin work was a forgery, but popular, surviving in many manuscripts. Alexander, who inspired a wealth of literature in the Middle Ages, including the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon (of the late eleventh century), died famously at the age of 33 in 323 bc, having conquered much of the known world. His empire then began to break up immediately. He had lost the love of his tribe by becoming a new Persian potentate rather than remaining the young prodigy of Macedon. But his fame magnifi ed with each century, each time a despot used his model as a path to power. Arguments about the morally or intellectually attractive character of Alexander continue until this day, both passionately for (Renault 1975) and carefully against (Worthington 2004). Philosopher king, or alcoholic war-monger? This fi erce division of opinion started, on the positive side, with contemporary biographers such as General Ptolemy, and later with Plutarch (second century ad). On the negative side, there was Cicero, a failed politician whose anxieties were focused on Julius Caesar (50s bc); Seneca (50s ad); and even the opening verses of the First Book of the Maccabees (Orchard 1995: 116-19; Worthington 2004: 2-7). The Church Fathers took Alexander as a model of tyrannical pride. St Jerome’s dim view was further darkened by Orosius in his History Against the Pagans in Seven Books (of the fi fth century). Since this work was translated into West Saxon, probably in the 890s as part of Alfred’s programme to rebuild learning in England, it is likely that it has infl uenced the Old English translation of the Epistola, in whose sparse Latin Alexander is generally admired.
