Alexander the Great in the Quran into Arabic. The Greek work "Thesaurus Alexandri" was attributed to Hermes (the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology) and similarly contained supposed letters from Aristotle addressed to Alexander. A more direct Arabic translation of the "Alexander romance," called "Sirat Al-Iskandar", was discovered in Constantinople, at the Hagia Sophia, and is dated to the 13th century. This version includes the letter from Alexander to his mother about his travels in India and at the end of the World. It also includes features which occur exclusively in the Syriac version. The Arabic legend also retains certain pagan elements of the
The Feast of the Gods enjoying themselves in a gorgeous landscape" and "presented figures from classical mythology as laymen engaged in lay pursuits of love and war, embodied in the new realistic naturalism which had only just been developed... Secular life came into high art by the back door as the representation of the stories of the classical gods, in whom no one believed, but who, since they were not real gods, could be placed in embarrassing situations. The pictures in the "Camerino" were perhaps the crucial stage in this revolution". The paintings stayed in the room for which they were painted until 1598 when