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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The association of Alexander the Great with the Mongols begins with the identification of the latter with the peoples of Gog and Magog. The evolution of this legend, which has its origin in the Book of Genesis, is curious in the extreme. In Genesis Magog is mentioned as one of the sons of Japhet, his name occurring between those of Gomer and Madai. Since Madai is clearly intended as the eponym of the Medes and Gomer has been located in Cappadocia and Phrygia it has been plausibly suggested that Magog at this stage corresponded to the territory in between, i.e. the region immediately south of the Caucasus in Eastern and Northern Armenia. In Ezekiel we hear for the first time of Gog “of the land of Magog”, who will come from his place out of the uttermost parts of the north, he and many peoples with him, “all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.” It will be seen that the “land of Magog” can no longer be located south of the Caucasus, and indeed Ezekiel's prophecy of the invasion of Gog has been interpreted as an echo of the invasions of the Cimmerians, who came southwards from the steppes through the Darial pass towards the end of the eighth century B.C.; or more probably of the invasion of the Scythians which took place in the following century by way of Darband. Finally we are told in Revelation that “when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea”.
2 See Anderson, A. R., Alexander's Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations, Cambridge, Mass., 1932, 3–8.Google Scholar
3 X, 2.
4 XXXVIII, 1–3.
5 XX, 7–8.
6 Antiquities of the Jews, VI, 1, 1.Google Scholar
7 Wars of the Jews, VII, 7, 4.Google Scholar On the basis of these two passages Pfister propounded the view ”that the legend of Alexander's Gate built to exclude Gog and Magog was of Jewish origin and made in Alexandria in the first century of our era, and that from this Jewish legend ultimately are derived all our versions of Alexander's Gate, even the Syrian Christian (prose) Legend ….” See Anderson, , Alexander's Gate, p. 20, n. 1.Google Scholar Anderson himself disagrees with this view, holding that while “the elements of the legend … are to be found in Josephus … there is no indication that these elements have been put together in the time of Josephus, or, if put together, that they had gained general acceptance …”. Czeglédy, K., “The Syriac legend concerning Alexander the Great”, AOH, VII, 231–49 (237, n. 20), accepts Anderson's argument, though with some qualifications.Google Scholar
8 This has usually been taken to be Darband, most recently by Grousset, René, Histoire de l'Armenie des origines à 1071, Paris, 1947, 109.Google Scholar Indeed, until the publication of Anderson's article “Alexander at the Caspian Gates”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, LIX, 1929, 130–63Google Scholar, it was generally accepted that while the Alexander of history was associated only with the Caspian Gates proper, i.e. a defile in the mountains to the south-east of Tehran, the Alexander of the Romance was associated only with the pass of Darband. In this study however, Anderson demonstrates that the legendary Alexander does not appear at Darband until the time of Heraclius and that in the original form of the legend the building of the Gate took place in the pass of Darial in the Central Caucasus between Tiflis and Vladikavkaz.
9 For a translation of the Syriac text see Budge, E. A. Wallis (ed. and tr.), The history of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Cambridge, 1889, 144–58.Google Scholar
10 On the incursions of the Sabir into Armenia and Asia Minor see Christensen, Arthur, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, Copenhagen, 1936, 348.Google Scholar
11 Nöldeke, Theodor, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans”, Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Classe XXXVIII, 1890, Abhandlung, V, 31.Google Scholar
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17 Based on Comestor, (quoted by Anderson, , Alexander's Gate, 64Google Scholar): “‘…et obsedit [sc. Shalmaneser] Samariam tribus annis, et cepit eam anno novo Osee et sexto Ezechiae, et transtulit Israel in Assyrios,’ scilicet septem tribus quae remanserant, ‘et posuit eos juxta fluvium Gozan ultra montes Medorum et Persarum’”. What liberties have been taken with the text of II Kings, XVII. 5–6 may be seen from a comparison with the version in Gray, John, I and II Kings: a commentary, second ed., London, 1970, 642Google Scholar: “…and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah and the Habor region, the river of Gozan, and in the mountains of Media”. For a commentary on the passage see Gray, , 643–4.Google Scholar The “river of Gozan”, transferred by Comestor beyond the Elburz mountains, is in fact the Khabur, a left-bank affluent of the Euphrates. The substitution of Tiglath-pileser for his successor Shalmaneser seems to be due to Ricoldo himself.
18 Josephus says nothing of the kind, and the peoples enclosed by Alexander according to Pseudo-Methodius do not include the Lost Tribes. See Sackur, Ernst, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen, Halle, 1898, 74–5Google Scholar; Anderson, , Alexander's Gate, 47–8.Google Scholar
19 That the Mongol system of writing is derived from the Aramaic script is perfectly correct, and Ricoldo appears to be the first European to have recorded the fact.
20 Doerfer, Gerhard, “Der Name der Mongolen bei Rašīd ad-Dīn”, CAJ, XIV, 1970, 68–77 (74–5Google Scholar) sees in the forms moghōl and mōghāl in the Persian historians a Persian “Verballhornung” of the native mongghol/mongghal.
21 In fact, Pseudo-Methodius, as Anderson, , Alexander's Gate, 67–8, points out, makes no mention of the Lost Tribes.Google Scholar
22 See Boyle, J. A., “The Alexander Legend in Central Asia”, Folklore, LXXXV, 217–28 (224–5)Google Scholar; idem, “Narayrgen or the People of the Sun” in Altaica collecta, Wiesbaden, 1976, 131–6 (132–5).Google Scholar
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27 On Baljuna see Boyle, , “The Longer Introduction to the Zīj-i-Īlkhānī of Naṣīr-ad-Dīn Tūsī”, JSS, VIII, 1963, 244–54 (250, n. 1).Google Scholar
28 Nine was a sacred or mystic number amongst the Altaic peoples, cf. the “nine feet” in the following sentence. See Roux, Jean-Paul, “Les chiffres symboliques 7 et 9 chez les Turcs non musulmans”, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, CLXVIII, 1965, 29–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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30 Consolatio philosophiae, II. 8: “Aetate denique Marci Tullii, sicut ipse quodam loco significat, nondum Caucasum montem Romanae rei publicae fama transcenderat…”.Google Scholar
31 See Anderson, , Alexander's Gate, 83–5Google Scholar; Sinor, Denis, “La Mort de Batu et les trompettes mues par le vent chez Herberstein”, JA, 1941–1942, 201–8 (206–8).Google Scholar
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39 i.e. 
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46 The practice is referred to briefly by John de Piano Carpini. See Dawson, , 36.Google Scholar
47 See Juvainī, , The history of the World-Conqueror, tr. Boyle, J. A., Manchester, 1958, II, 406 and n. 40.Google Scholar
48 “Eine mongolische Fassung der Alexandersage”, ZDMG, CVII, 1957, 105–29.Google Scholar
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50 Cleaves, , 2.Google Scholar
51 pp. 7–9.
52 As Cleaves, remarks, p. 94, n. 405, this unrecorded word appears to designate some sort of receptacle.Google Scholar
53 p. 27.
54 Cleaves, , 4Google Scholar; Poppe, , 105.Google Scholar
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58 p. 124, n. 123. See also Cleaves, , 26 and 95–6, n. 428.Google Scholar
59 Iqbāl-nāma ed. Dastgirdī, Vaḥīd, Tehran, 1317/1938, 259.Google Scholar
60 Muṣībat-nāma ed. Viṣāl, Nurānī, Tehran, 1338/1959, 94–5.Google Scholar
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65 van Thiel, Helmut (ed. and tr.), Leben und Taten Alexanders von Makedonien, Darmstadt, 1974, 155.Google Scholar
66 Van Thiel, , 155Google Scholar; Pfister, , 111–12Google Scholar; Budge, , The history of Alexander the Great, 101–2.Google Scholar
67 In the Syriac version the chain was girt around the temple; it was suspended inside it according to the β recension. On the other hand Leo describes it as hanging down from a bank underneath the mountain, which is nearer to the Mongolian version.
68 London, 1967.
69 It occurs only in the β recension (van Thiel, , 111 and 113).Google Scholar
70 Budge, , The Alexander Book, 169–72.Google Scholar
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72 p. 7.
73 See Friedländer, Israel, Die Chadirlegende und der Alexanderroman, Leipzig, 1913.Google Scholar
74 p. 30.
