Here all the finny tribe press around to do him homage; and after receiving their oaths of fealty, and viewing all the marvels of the deep, as conceived by the mediaeval writer's fancy, Alexander returns to Babylon.
Earth, air, and sea having all been subdued, the writer, unable to follow the course of Alexander's conquests any further, now minutely describes a grand coronation scene at Babylon, where, with the usual disregard for chronology which characterizes all the productions of this age, he makes the hero participate in a solemn mass! The story ends with a highly sensational description of the death of Alexander by poisoning, and an elaborate enumeration of the pomps of his obsequies.
[Sidenote: Rome la Grant.] A third order of romances, also belonging to this cycle, includes a lengthy poem known as "Rome la Grant." Here Virgil appears as a common enchanter.

With the exception of a few well-known names, all trace of antiquity is lost.

The heroes are now exposed to hairbreadth escapes; wonderful adventures succeed one another without any pause; and there is a constant series of enchantments, such as the Italian poets loved to revel in, as is shown in the works by Boiardo and Ariosto already mentioned.
These tales, and those on the same theme which had preceded them, gave rise to a generally accepted theory of European colonization subsequent to the Trojan war; and every man of note and royal family claimed to descend from the line of Priam.
[Sidenote: Story of Brutus.] As the Romans insisted that their city owed its existence to the descendants of Aeneas, so the French kings Dagobert and Charles the Bald claimed to belong to the illustrious Trojan race.

The same tradition appeared in England about the third century, and from Gildas and Nennius was adopted by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

It is from this historian that Wace drew the materials for the metrical tale of Brutus (Brute), the supposed founder of the British race and kingdom.