tribes.[1341] He derived his information from Frutolf’s _Chronica_,[1342] whence, in turn, it had come from the version of the Romance of Alexander known as the _Historia de praeliis_. In the days of Heraclius, Otto says, the “Agareni” (Saracens) devastated the lands of the empire and destroyed part of the army of Heraclius. In revenge the latter opened the Caspian Gates and let out those most savage tribes, which Alexander the Great had enclosed along the Caspian Sea on account of their heinousness, and inaugurated a war against the Saracens. By night, as a punishment sent by the Deity for this sacrilegious act, fifty-two thousand of Heraclius’ army were struck down by lightning, and, as a result of this terrible visitation, Heraclius himself died in the twenty-seventh year of his reign. There were many variations of the legend of Gog and Magog. Elsewhere in Otto of Freising’s _Chronicon_[1343] we find an account, taken from Orosius, of the way in which Artaxerxes forced many of the Jews to dwell in Hyrcania near the Caspian Sea. It was believed that these people had multiplied greatly,[1344] and they were expected to burst forth on the world in the days of Antichrist. Though not here expressly called Gog and Magog, the connection is plain; and Godfrey of Viterbo relates how Alexander enclosed Gog and Magog, the “eleven [_sic_] tribes of the Jews.”[1345] We have already quoted[1346] Matthew Paris’ description of the Tatars who, he said, might be the same as the tribes whom Alexander enclosed—the ten tribes of Israel. WESTERN ASIA