[2] The Syriac Romance had an enormous influence, with versions of it being produced across late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
[4] Based on its surviving manuscripts, some suggest an origins of the in upper Mesopotamia at the hands of Nestorian religious figure (like a priest or monk).
[5] Nevertheless, these manuscripts are rather late and may provide little support to this theory, and many Syriac speaking Christian communities other than Nestorians were available as candidates for the creation of the text.
The Syriac text lacks a prologue but does have a conclusion which appears in the 22nd chapter of the third book in Budge's edition.
It is a pluri-thematic text and can be divided into three main narratives:[12] The story begins by describing how the Egyptian Pharaoh Nectanebo II, learning of the treason of the gods against him, escapes from Egypt to Macedonia.
Alexander begins to be educated by the wisest men available to the court, and at an early age displays his military prowess, such as at a horse racing competition.
However, the Syriac Romance also contains several of its own episodes not found in the original, such as Alexander's journey to China,[1] the killing of a dragon by feeding it an oxen filled with gypsum, pitch, and sulfur, Alexander's desert-journey fighting nomads, founding the cities of Samarkand and Merv, and construction of a temple of Rhea/Nâni.