The English Historical Review 1896 Vol 11 Classic Reprint

Excerpt from The English Historical Review, 1896, Vol. 11 N evertheless it must be admitted that there is really no sort of necessity to find so studious a motive for such a fairy tale as this of the pseudo-callisthenes. Really nothing more is required than the natural decay of that famous pretence, promulgated devoutly by Alexander's successors, if not by himself, that he was son of Ammon. In the centuries of little faith, that immediately preceded and fol lowed the Christian era, no one believed much in deities, but every one believed in magic. For what once gods did directly human agents came to be preferred, and the last Egyptian Pharaoh took inevitably the place of the Egyptian god. Nectanebo may have won already a place in folklore, if not by the merits of his reign, at least by the strange and sudden ending of it but, after all, the popular mind under the early Empire needed only to be assured that he was an Egyptian to accord him also the credit of being a magician. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.