Alexander the Great in the Quran called them the Caspian Gates. Twenty and two Kings did I shut up therein. These pseudepigraphic letters from Alexander to his mother Olympias and his tutor Aristotle, describing his marvellous adventures at the end of the World, date back to the original Greek recension α written in the 4th century in Alexandria. The letters are "the literary expression of a living popular tradition" that had been evolving for at least three centuries before the Quran was written. Several historical figures, both Muslim and Christian, searched for Alexander's Gate and several different identifications were made with actual walls. During the Middle
Diogenes and Alexander shown opposed to the false greatness of the do-nothing philosopher, whose rhetoric is not carried through to action. In the Chapter XXX of François Rabelais' "Pantagruel" (c.1532), Pantagruel's tutor Epistemon had his head cut off after a battle. After he had his head reattached and was brought back to life, he recounts his experience of the damned in hell: "Their estate and condition of living is but only changed after a very strange manner; for I saw Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts upon old breeches and stockings, whereby he got but a very poor living."..."After this