Pseudo-Callisthenes’ popularity is testified by a rich and complex textual tradition. A complete cycle of illustrations was probably attached to the Romance at an early date; nevertheless, the ascension episode was the only one to give rise to extensive iconographic exploitation. Pseudo-Callisthenes’ literary influence was more many-sided, although it has often been overestimated: quotations and imitations appear in works which, if of a very different character, belong nearly all to popular literature: fictional narrative, lives of saints, chronicles – where the Pseudo-Callisthenes was particularly influential, in a direct or indirect way. By studying these testimonia, we better grasp how much popular each branch of the Romance was, and it appears that the oldest recension (a) was not almost completely supplanted by subsequent rewritings, as often alleged. https://ancientnarrative.com/article/view/24290