Chapter 43

earnest. They contain barracks for the Royal Engineers and Army Service Corps, the general parade, which stretches east and west, and five infantry barracks called after battles (other than those of Wellington), of the wars with France, 1793-1815. There are also barracks for the Royal Army Medical Corps. The old permanent barracks (which were built for the most part about 1857) have been renamed Wellington Lines, with cavalry and artillery barracks; and three infantry barracks called after Wellington's victories in the Peninsula. For the sick there are the Connaught Hospital in the Marlborough Lines, the Cambridge Hospital in Stanhope Lines, and the Union Hospital in Wellington Lines, besides the Louise Margaret Hospital for women and children and the isolated infection hospital.

The drainage of the station is all modern, and the sewage is disposed of on a sewage farm under the direction of the war department. The water supply is partly from the Aldershot Water Company, and partly from springs and reservoirs collecting water from a reserved area of war department property.

Most of the barracks can accommodate not only the units they are constructed for, but also detachments going through courses of instruction. The total of men, women and children for whom quarters are provided is at times as high as 24,000.

Besides the regimental buildings there are a large number of buildings for garrison purposes, such as quarters and offices for general, staff and departmental officers, with the warrant and non-commissioned officers employed under them; the supply depot with abattoir and bakery; the ordnance stores; barrack stores for furniture and bedding, shops and stores for R. E. services; the balloon establishment; the detention barracks; fire brigade stations; five churches; recreation grounds for officers and men; schools; and especially the military technical schools of army cooking, gymnastics, signalling, ballooning and of mounted infantry, Army Service Corps, Royal Army Medical Corps and veterinary duties. The work of these schools is, however, only a small part of the military training afforded at Aldershot; of greater importance is the field and musketry training, for the carrying out of which a considerable extent of land is essential. The land required for these purposes extends at present over an area about 9 1/4 m. in extreme length by 7 3/4 m. in extreme width. In addition to this there is the land at Sandhurst and the Staff College (Camberley) about 6 1/2 m. distant, and at Woolmer Forest, 12 m. distant. The musketry practice of the troops at Aldershot is carried out at the Ash ranges, 2 m. east of the barracks, while the Pirbright ranges, alongside those of the National Rifle Association at Bisley, are utilized by the Household Cavalry and Guards, who are encamped there in succession. Suitable grounds in the vicinity of the barracks, of which Caesar's Camp, the Long Valley and Laffan's Plain are best known, are utilized for company, battalion and brigade training of infantry, while the mounted branches work over a wider area, and the engineers carry out their practices where most convenient. For the field-days of the combined arms, the whole of the war department property is available. Aldershot is the headquarters of the ``Aldershot Army Corps,'' which is the largest organized force maintained in the United Kingdom.

Besides the troops in barracks, during the drill season there is often a considerable force in camp, both regular troops from other stations and militia and volunteer units, so that, including the regular garrison, sometimes as many as 40,000 troops have been concentrated at the station for training and manoeuvres.

ALDHELM (c. 640-709), bishop of Sherborne, English scholar, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex, but who was certainly not, as Aldhelm's early biographer Faritius asserts, the brother of King Ine. He received his first education in the school of an Irish scholar and monk, Maildulf, Maeldubh or Meldun (d. c. 675), who had settled in the British stronghold of Bladon or Bladow on the site of the town called Mailduberi, Maldubesburg, Meldunesburg, &c., and finally Malmesbury,1 after him. In 668 Pope Vitalian sent Theodore of Tarsus to be archbishop of Canterbury, and about the same time came the African scholar Hadrian, who became abbot of St Augustine's at Canterbury. Aldhelm was one of his disciples, for he addresses him as the ``venerable preceptor of my rude childhood.'' He must, nevertheless, have been thirty years of age when he began to study with Hadrian. His studies included Roman law, astronomy, astrology, the art of reckoning and the difficulties of the calendar. He learned, according to the doubtful statements of the early lives, both Greek and Hebrew. He certainly introduces many Latinized Greek words into his works. Ill-health compelled him to leave Canterbury, and he returned to Malmesbury, where he was a monk under Maildulf for fourteen years, dating probably from 661, and including the period of his studies with Hadrian. When Maildulf died, Aldhelm was appointed in 675, according to a charter of doubtful authenticity cited by William of Malmesbury, by Leutherius, bishop of Dorchester from 671 to 676, to succeed to the direction of the monastery, of which he became the first abbot. He introduced the Benedictine rule, and secured the right of the election of the abbot to the monks themselves. The community at Malmesbury increased, and Aldhelm was able to found two other monasteries to be centres of learning at Frome and at Bradford on Avon. The little church of St Lawrence at Bradford dates back to his time and may safely be regarded as his. At Malmesbury he built a new church to replace Maildulf's modest building, and obtained considerable grants of land for the monastery. His fame as a scholar rapidly spread into other countries. Artwil, the son of an Irish king, submitted his writings for Aldhelm's approval, and Cellanus, an Irish monk from Peronne, was one of his correspondents. Aldhelm was the first Englishman, so far as we know, to write in Latin verse, and his letter to Acircius (Aldfrith or Eadfrith, king of Northumbria) is a treatise on Latin prosody for the use of his countrymen. In this work he included his most famous productions, 101 riddles in Latin hexameters. Each of them is a complete picture, and one of them runs to 83 lines. That his merits as a scholar were early recognized in his own country is shown by the encomium of Bede (Eccl. Hist. v. 18), who speaks of him as a wonder of erudition. His fame reached Italy, and at the request of Pope Sergius I. (687-701) he paid a visit to Rome, of which, however, there is no notice in his extant writings. On his return, bringing with him privileges for his monastery and a magnificent altar, he received a popular ovation. He was deputed by a synod of the church in Wessex to remonstrate with the Britons of Domnonia (Devon and Cornwall) on their differences from the Roman practice in the shape of the tonsure and the date of Easter. This he did in a long and rather acrimonious letter to their king Geraint (Geruntius), and their ultimate agreement with Rome is referred by William of Malmesbury to his efforts. In 705, or perhaps earlier, Haeddi, bishop of Winchester, died, and the diocese was divided into two parts. Sherborne was the new see, of which Aldhelm reluctantly became the first bishop. He wished to resign the abbey of Malmesbury which he had governed for thirty years, but yielding to the remonstrances of the monks he continued to direct it until his death. He was now an old man, but he showed great activity in his new functions. The cathedral church which he built at Sherborne, though replaced later by a Norman church, is described by William of Malmesbury. He was on his rounds in his diocese when he died in the church of Doulting on the 25th of May 709. The body was taken to Malmesbury, and crosses were set up by the pious care of his friend, Bishop Ecgwine of Worcester, at the various halting- places. He was buried in the church of St Michael. His biographers relate miracles due to his sanctity worked during his lifetime and at his shrine.

Aldhelm wrote poetry in Anglo-Saxon also, and set his own compositions to music, but none of his songs, which were still popular in the time of Alfred, have come down to us. Finding his people slow to come to church, he is said to have stood at the end of a bridge singing songs in the vernacular, thus collecting a crowd to listen to exhortations on sacred subjects. Aldhelm wrote in elaborate and grandiloquent Latin, which soon came to be regarded as barbarous. Much admired as he was by his contemporaries, his fame as a scholar therefore soon declined, but his reputation as a pioneer in Latin scholarship in England and as a teacher remains.

Aldhelm's works were collected in J. A. Giles's Patres eccl. Angl. (Oxford, 1844), and reprinted by J. P. Migne in his Patrologiae Cursus, vol. 89 (1850). The letter to Geraint, king of Domnonia, was supposed to have been destroyed by the Britons (W. of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, p. 361), but was discovered with others of Aldhelm's in the correspondence of St Boniface, archbishop of Mainz. A long letter to Eahfrid, a scholar just returned from Ireland (first printed in Usserii Veterum Epistt. Hiber. Sylloge, 1632), is of interest as casting light on the relations between English and Irish scholars. Next to the riddles, Aldhelm's best-known work is De Laude Virginitatis sive de Virginitate Sanctorum, a Latin treatise addressed about 705 to the nuns of Barking,2 in which he commemorates a great number of saints. This was afterwards turned by Aldhelm into Latin verse (printed by Delrio, Mainz, 1601). The chief source of his Epistola ad Acircium sive liber de septenario, et de metris, aenigmatibus ac pedum regulis (ed. A. Mai, Class. Auct. vol. v.) is Priscian. For the riddles included in it, his model was the collection known as Symposii aenigmata. The acrostic introduction gives the sentence, ``Aldhelmus cecinit millenis versibus odas,'' whether read from the initial or final letters of the lines. His Latin poems include one on the dedication of a basilica built by Bugge (or Eadburga), a royal lady of the house of Wessex.

AUTHORITIES.--Faritius (d. 1117), an Italian monk of Malmesbury, afterwards abbot of Abingdon, wrote a Vita S. Aldhelmi (MS. Cotton, Faustina, B. 4), printed by Giles and Migne, also in Original Lives of Anglo-Saxons (Caxton Soc., 1834); but the best authority is William of Malmesbury, who in the fifth book, devoted to St Aldhelm, of the Gesta Pontificum proposes to fill up the outline of Faritius, using the church records, the traditions of Aldhelm's miracles preserved by the monks of Malmesbury, and the lost ``Handboc'' or commonplace book of King Alfred. His narrative is divided into four parts: the birth and attainments of Aldhelm, the religious houses he had established and endowed, the miracles recorded of him, and the history of the abbey down to the writer's own time (see De Gestis Pontificum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, 1870, for the Rolls Series. pp. 330-443). The life by John Capgrave in his Legenda Nova (1516) is chiefly an abridgment of Malmesbury's narrative. Consult also L. Bonhoff, Aldhelm von Malmesbury (Dresden, 1894); T. D. Hardy. Descriptive Catalogue (1862), vol. i. pp. 389-396; T. Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit. (A.-S. Period, 1842); G. F. Browne, bishop of Bristol, St Aldhelm; his Life and Times (1903); and W. B. Wildman, Life of S. Ealdhelm, frst Bishop of Sherborne (1905), containing many interesting local details. For some poems attributed to Aldhelm, and printed in Dummler's edition of the letters of St Boniface and Lul in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (epistt. tom. iii.), see H. Bradley in Eng. Hist. Review, xv. p. 291 (1900), where they are attributed to Aldhelm's disciple AEthilwald. The very varied sources and the chronology of Aldhelm's work are discussed in ``Zu Aldhelm und Baeda,'' by Max Manitius, in Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akad. der Wissenschaften (Vienna, 1886).

An excellent account of his ecclesiastical importance is given by W. Bright in Chapters on Early English Church History (Oxford, 1878). For his position as a writer of Latin verse consult A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte d. Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, vol. i. new edition (1889); M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich- lateinischen Poesie &c. (Stuttgart, 1891), pp. 487-496; also H. Hahn, Bonifaz und Lul ihre angelsachsischen Korrespondenten, chap. i. (Leipzig, 1883). The two last-named works contain many further bibliographical references.

1 For the disputed etymology of Malmesbury, which some connect with Aldhelm's name, see Bishop Browne, St Aldhelin: his Life and Times, p. 73.

2 Cuthburga, sister of King Ine of Wessex, and therefore related to Andhelm, left her husband Aldfrith, king of Northumbria, to enter the nunnery at Barking. She afterwards founded the nunnery of Wimborne, of which she became abbess.

ALDINE PRESS, the printing office started by Aldus Manutius at the end of the 15th century in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics of that time. (See MANUTIUS.) The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography (q.v.), among other things, for the introduction of italics.

ALDINI, GIOVANNI (1762--1834), Italian physicist, born at Bologna on the 10th of April 1762, was a brother of the statesman Count Antonio Aldini (1756-1826) and nephew of L. Galvani, whose treatise on muscular electricity he edited with notes in 1791. He became professor of physics at Bologna in 1798, in succession to his teacher Sebastiano Canterzani (1734-1819). His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. He wrote in French and English in addition to his native Italian. In recognition of his merits, the emperor of Austria made him a knight of the Iron Crown and a councillor of state at Milan, where he died on the 17th of January 1834. He left by will a considerable sum to found a school of natural science for artisans at Bologna.

ALDRED, or EALDRED (d. 1069), English ecclesiastic, became abbot of Tavistock about 1027, in 1044 was made bishop of Worcester, and in 1060 archbishop of York. He had considerable influence over King Edward the Confessor, and as his interests were secular rather than religious he took a prominent part in affairs of state, and in 1046 led an unsuccessful expedition against the Welsh. In 1050 he was largely instrumental in restoring Sweyn, the son of Earl Godwin, to his earldom, and about the same time went to Rome ``on the king's errand.'' In 1054 he was sent to the emperor Henry III. to obtain that monarch's influence in securing the return to England of Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, who was in Hungary with King Andrew I. In this mission he was successful and obtained some insight into the working of the German church during a stay of a year with Hermann II., archbishop of Cologne. After his return to England he took charge of the sees of Hereford and Ramsbury, although not appointed to these bishoprics; and in 1058 made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, being the first English bishop to take this journey. Having previously given up Hereford and Ramsbury, Aldred was elected archbishop of York in 1060, and in 1061 he proceeded to Rome to receive the pallium. On his arrival there, however, various charges were brought against him by a synod, and Pope Nicholas II. not only refused his request but degraded him from the episcopate. The sentence was, however, subsequently reversed, and Aldred received the pallium and was restored to his former station. It is stated by Florence of Worcester that Aldred crowned King Harold II. in 1066, although the Norman authorities mention Stigand as the officiating prelate. After the battle of Hastings Aldred joined the party who sought to bestow the throne upon Edgar the AEtheling, but when these efforts appeared hopeless he was among those who submitted to William the Conqueror at Berkhampstead. Selected to crown the new king he performed the ceremony on Christmas Day 1066, and in 1068 performed the same office at the coronation of Matilda, the Conqueror's wife. But though often at court, he seems to have been no sympathiser with Norman oppression, and is even said to have bearded the king himself. He died at York on the 11th of September 1069 and was buried in his own cathedral. Aldred did much for the restoration of discipline in the monasteries and churches under his authority, and was liberal in his gifts for ecclesiastical purposes. He built the monastic church of St Peter at Gloucester, and rebuilt a large part of that of St John at Beverley. At his instigation, Folcard, a monk of Canterbury, wrote the Life of St John of Beverley.

See The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1892-1899); Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex Chronicis, edited by B. Thorpe (London, 1848-1849); William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, edited by N. E. S. A. Hamilton (London, 1870); W. H. Dixon, Fasti Eboracenses, vol. i., edited by J. Raine (London, 1863); T. Stubbs, Chronica Pontificum Ecclesiae Eboracensis, edited by J. Raine (London, 1879-1894); E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vols. ii., iii., iv. (Oxford, 1867-1879).

ALDRICH, HENRY (1647-1710), English theologian and philosopher, was born in 1647 at Westminster, and was educated at the collegiate school there, under Dr Busby. In 1662 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1689 was made dean in succession to the Roman Catholic, John Massey, who had fled to the continent. In 1692 he was vice-chancellor of the University. In 1702 he was appointed rector of Wem in Shropshire, but continued to reside at Oxford, where he died on the 14th of December 1710. He was buried in the cathedral without any memorial at his own desire. Aldrich was a man of unusually varied gifts. A classical scholar of fair merits, he is best known as the author of a little book on logic (Compendium Artis Logicae), a work of little value in itself, but used at Oxford (in Mansel's revised edition) till long past the middle of the 19th century. Aldrich also composed a number of anthems and church services of high merit, and adapted much of the music of Palestrina and Carissimi to English words with great skill and judgment. To him we owe the well-known catch, ``Hark, the bonny Christ Church bells.'' Evidence of his skill as an architect may be seen in the church and campanile of All Saints, Oxford, and in three sides of the so-called Peckwater Quadrangle of Christ Church, which were erected after his designs. He bore a great reputation for conviviality, and wrote a humorous Latin version of the popular ballad--

A soldier and a sailor, A tinker and a tailor, &c. Another specimen of his wit is furnished by the following epigram of the five reasons for drinking:--

Si bene quid memini, causae sunt quinque bibendi; Hospitis adventus, praesens sitis atque futura, Aut vini bonitas, aut quaelibet altera causa. The translation runs:--

If on my theme I rightly think, There are five reasons why men drink:-- Good wine; a friend; because I'm dry; Or lest I should be by and by; Or--any other reason why. ALDRICH, NELSON WILMARTH (1841- ), American politician, was born at Foster, Rhode Island, on the 6th of November 1841. His first political service was as a member (1869-1875) and president (1871-1872) of the Providence common council. He was a member of the lower house of the Rhode Island legislature in 1875 and 1876, and speaker in the latter year. By this time he had become a power in Republican state politics, and in 1878 and 1880 was elected to Congress. Early in his second term he was chosen United States senator, and was re-elected in 1886, 1892, 1898 and 1905. In the Senate he was looked upon as the special representative of the high protective industries and moneyed interests, and he took a prominent part in all legislation dealing with the tariff, banking and the merchant marine.

ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1907), American author, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 11th of November 1836. When he was but a child his father moved to New Orleans, but after ten years the boy was sent back to Portsmouth--the ``Rivermouth'' of several of his stories--to prepare for college. This period of his life is partly described in his Story of a Bad Boy (1870), of which ``Tom Bailey'' is the juvenile hero.1 His father's death in 1852 compelled Aldrich to abandon the idea of college and enter a business office in New York. Here he soon became a constant contributor to the newspapers and magazines, and the intimate friend of the young poets, artists and wits of the metropolitan Bohemia of the early'sixties, among whom were E. C. Stedman, R. H. Stoddard, Bayard Taylor and Walt Whitman. From 1856 to 1859 he was on the staff of the Home Journal, then edited by N. P. Willis, while during the Civil War he was himself editor of the New York Illustrated News. In 1865 he moved to Boston and was editor for ten years for Ticknor and Fields--then at the height of their prestige--of the eclectic weekly Every Saturday, discontinued in 1875. From 1881 to 1890 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Meanwhile Aldrich had written much, both in prose and verse. His genius was many-sided, and it is surprising that so busy an editor and so prolific a writer should have attained the perfection of form for which he was remarkable. His successive volumes of verse, chiefly The Ballad of Babie Bell (1856), Pampinea, and Other Poems (1861), Cloth of Gold (1874), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book (1881), Mercedes and Later Lyrics (1883), Wyndham Towers (1889), and the collected editions of 1865, 1882, 1897 and 1900, showed him to be a poet of lyrical skill, dainty touch and felicitous conceit, the influence of Herrick being constantly apparent. He repeatedly essayed the long narrative or dramatic poem, but seldom with success, save in such earlier work as Garnaut Hall. But no American poet has shown more skill in describing some single picture, mood, conceit or episode. His best things are such lyrics as ``Hesperides,'' ``When the Sultan goes to Ispahan,'' ``Before the Rain,'' ``Nameless Pain,'' ``The Tragedy,'' ``Seadrift,'' ``Tiger Lilies,'' ``The One White Rose,'' ``Palabras Carinosas,'' ``Destiny,'' or the eight-line poem ``Identity,'' which did more to spread Aldrich's reputation than any of his writing after Babie Bell. Beginning with the collection of stories entitled Marjorie Daw and Other People (1873), Aldrich applied to his later prose work that minute care in composition which had previously characterized his verse--taking a near, new or salient situation, and setting it before the reader in a pretty combination of kindly realism and reticent humour. In the novels, Prudence Palfrey (1874), The (Queen of Sheba (1877), and The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), there is more rapid action; but the Portsmouth pictures in the first are elaborated with the affectionate touch shown in the shorter humourous tale, A Rivermouth Romance (1877). In An Old Town by the Sea (1893) the author's birthplace was once more commemorated, while travel and description are the theme of From Ponkapog to Pesth (1883). Aldrich died at Boston on the 19th of March 1907.

His Life was written by Ferris Greenslet (1908).

1 This book has been translated into French as Education et recreation, and into German as a specimen of American humour.

ALDRINGER (ALTRINGER, ALDRINGEN), JOHANN, COUNT VON (1588-1634), Austrian soldier, was born at Diedenhofen (Thionville) in Lorraine. After travelling as page to a nobleman in France, Italy and the Netherlands, he went to the university of Paris. In 1606 he entered the service of Spain, in which he remained until 1618, when he joined the imperial army. Here he distinguished himself in the field and in the cabinet. Made a colonel in 1622, two years later he was employed on the council of war and on diplomatic missions. At the bridge of Dessau in 1626 he performed very distinguished service against Ernst von Mansfeld. He and his constant comrade Matthias Gallas (q.v.) were ennobled on the same day, and in the course of the Italian campaign of 1630 the two officers married the two daughters of Count d'Arco. Aldringer served as Count Rambold Collalto's major-general in this campaign and was present at the taking of Mantua. The plunder of the duke of Mantua's treasures made Gallas and Aldringer wealthy men. Back in Germany in 1631, he served after Breitenfeld as Tilly's artillery commander, and, elevated to the dignity of count of the Empire, he was present at the battle of the Lech, where he was wounded. When Tilly died of his wounds Aldringer succeeded to the command. Made field-marshal after the assault of the Alte Veste near Nuremberg, at which he had been second in command under Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (with whom he was a great favourite), he was next placed at the head of the corps formed by Maximilian I. of Bavaria to support Wallenstein. In this post his tact and diplomatic ability were put to a severe test in the preservation of harmony between the two dukes. Finally Count Aldringer was won over by the court party which sought to displace the too successful duke of Friedland. After Wallenstein's death Aldringer commanded against the Swedes on the Danube, and at the defence of Landshut he fell (July 22, 1634). His great possessions descended to his sister, and thence to the family of Clary and Aldringen.

See Brohm, Johann von Aldringen (Halle, 1882), and Hermann Hallwich, Johann von Aldringen (Leipzig, 1885); also Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, s.v. Gallas, correcting earlier biography of Aldringer in the same work.

ALDROVANDI, ULISSI (1522-1605), Italian naturalist, was, born of noble parentage at Bologna on the 11th of September 1522. He was apprenticed to a merchant in Brescia, but a commercial career being distasteful to him, he turned his attention to law and medicine, studying first in his native town and afterwards at Padua. In 1550 he was accused of heresy, but succeeded in clearing himself before the Inquisition. In 1553 he took his doctor's degree in medicine at Bologna, and in the following year was appointed professor of philosophy and also lecturer on botany at the university. In 1560 he was transferred to the chair of natural history. At his instance the senate of Bologna established in 1568 a botanical garden, of which he was appointed the first director. About the same time he became inspector of drugs, and in that capacity published in 1574 a work entitled Antidotarii Bononiensis Epitome, which formed the model for many subsequent pharmacopoeias. He was also instrumental in founding the public museum of Bologna, which contains, especially in the natural history department, a large number of specimens collected by him. The results of his various researches were embodied in a magnum opus, which was designed to include everything that was known about natural history. The first three volumes, comprising his ornithology, were published in 1599, and a fourth, treating of insects, appeared in 1602. After his death a number of other volumes were compiled from his manuscript materials, under the editorship of several of his pupils, to whom the task was entrusted by the senate of Bologna. The work was enriched by a large number of illustrations prepared at great expense, the author having, it is said, employed several celebrated artists for thirty years. Among these were Lorenzo Benini of Florence and Christopher Coriolanus of Nuremberg. It has been said, indeed, that the cost of the undertaking was so great as to exhaust its author's means, and that he died penniless and blind in the public hospital of Bologna. This, however, is probably incorrect, at least as regards the allegation of poverty. Published records of the senate of Bologna show that it liberally supported Aldrovandi in his undertaking, doubling his salary soon after his appointment as professor, and bestowing on him from time to time sums amounting in all to 40,000 crowns. If, therefore, he died in the public hospital, he probably went there for the better treatment of his disease. His death occurred on the 10th of May 1605. Aldrovandi was chiefly remarkable for laborious and patient research. He seems to have been totally destitute of the critical faculty, and hardly any attempt is made in his great work to classify facts or to distinguish between the true and the fabulous, the important and the trivial. Much is thus included that is of no scientific value, but it also contains much information of very great interest to the naturalist.

ALE, an old word for a fermented liquor obtained chiefly from malt. In England ``ale'' is nowadays practically synonymous with ``beer.'' Before the introduction of hops into England from Flanders in the 16th century ale was the name exclusively applied to malt liquor, the term beer being gradually introduced to describe liquor brewed with an infusion of hops. This distinction does not apply at the present time, except in so far as the term ale is not applied to black beers (stout and porter) nor to lager beer. In the United States, however, it is customary to confine the designation beer to the article obtained by the bottom fermentation process. In former times the Welsh and Scots had two distinct kinds of ale, called common and spiced ales, the relative values of which were appraised by law in the following terms: ``If a farmer have no mead, he shall pay two casks of spiced ale, or four casks of common ale, for one cask of mead.'' There are numerous varieties of English ales, such as mild ale, which is a full, sweetish beer, of a dark colour and with relatively little hop; pale ale, which is relatively dry, of light colour and of a more pronounced hop flavour than the mild ale; and bitter and stock ales, the latter term being generally reserved for superior beers, such as are used for bottling. The terms pale, bitter, stock, light, &c., are to be regarded as trade distinctions and not as exact definitions of quality or type. (See BEER and BREWING.)

Parish Ales.--In old England an ``ale'' was synonymous with a parish festival or merry-making at which ale was the chief drink. The word was generally used in composition. Thus there were leet-ales (that held on leet or manorial court day); lamb-ales (that held at lamb-shearing); Whitsun-ales, clerk-ales, church-ales and so on. The word bridal is really bride-ale, the wedding feast. Bid-ales, once very common throughout England, were ``benefit'' feasts to which a general invitation was given, and all the neighbours attending were expected to make some contribution to help the object of the ``benefit.'' (See ``Bidding-Weddings'' under BRIDE.) These parish festivals were of much ecclesiastical and social importance in medieval England. The chief purpose of church-ales and clerk-ales, at least, was to facilitate the collection of parish-dues, or to make an actual profit for the church from the sale of the liquor by the church wardens. These profits kept the parish church in repair, or were distributed as alms to the poor. At Sygate, Norfolk, on the gallery of the church is inscribed--

God speed the plough And give us good ale enow . . . Be merry and glade, With good ale was this work made. On the beam of a screen in the church of Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, is the following inscription in raised Gothic letters, on a scroll held by two angels--``This cost is the bachelers made by ales thesn be ther med.'' The date is about 1480. The feast was usually held in a barn near the church or in the churchyard. In Tudor times church-ales were held on Sundays. Gradually the parish-ales were limited to the Whitsun season, and these still have local survivals. The colleges of the universities used formerly to brew their own ales and hold festivals known as college-ales. Some of these ales are still brewed and famous, like ``chancellor'' at Queen's College, and ``archdeacon'' at Morton College, Oxford, and ``audit ale'' at Trinity, Cambridge.

See Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (Wm. Carew Hazlitt's edition, 1905).

ALEANDRO, GIROLAMO (HIERONYMUS ALEANDER) (1480- 1542), Italian cardinal, was born at Motta, near Venice, on the 13th of February 1480. He studied at Venice, where he became acquainted with Erasmus and Aldus Manutius, and at an early age was reputed one of the most learned men of the time. In 1508 he went to Paris on the invitation of Louis XII. as professor of belles lettres, and held for a time the position of rector in the university. Entering the service of Eberhard, prince-bishop of Liege, he was sent by that prelate on a mission to Rome, where Pope Leo X. retained him, giving him (1519) the office of librarian of the Vatican. In the following year he went to Germany to be present as papal nuncio at the coronation of Charles V., and was also present at the diet of Worms, where he headed the opposition to Luther, advocating the most extreme measures to repress the doctrines of the reformer. His conduct evoked the fiercest denunciations of Luther, but it also displeased more moderate men and especially Erasmus. The edict against the reformer, which was finally adopted by the emperor and the diet, was drawn up and proposed by Aleandro. After the close of the diet the papal nuncio went to the Netherlands; where he kindled the flames of persecution, two monks of Antwerp, the first martyrs of the Reformation, being burnt in Brussels at his instigation. In 1523 Clement VII., having appointed him archbishop of Brindisi and Oria, sent him as nuncio to the court of Francis I. He was taken prisoner along with that monarch at the battle of Pavia (1525), and was released only on payment of a heavy ransom. He was subsequently employed on various papal missions, especially to Germany, but was unsuccessful in preventing the German princes from making a truce with the reformers, or in checking to any extent the progress of the new doctrines. He was created cardinal in 1536 by Paul III. (at the same time as Reginald Pole) and died at Rome on the 1st of February 1542.

Aleandro compiled a Lexicon Graeco-Latinum (Paris, 1512), and wrote Latin verse of considerable merit inserted in M. Tuscanus's Carmina Illustrium Poetarum Italiorum. The Vatican library contains a volume of manuscript letters and other documents written by him in connexion with his various missions against Luther. They were utilized by Pallavicino in his Istoria del Concilio Tridentino (i. 23-28), who gives a very partial account of the Worms conference.

Aleandro, who is sometimes called ``the elder,'' must be distinguished from his grand-nephew, also called Girolamo Aleandro (1374-1629). The younger Aleandro was a very distinguished scholar, and wrote Psalmi poenitentiales versibus elegiacis expressi (Treves, 1593), Gaii, veteris juris consulti Institutionum fragmenta, cum commentario (Venice, 1600), Explicatio veteris tabulae marmorcae solis effigie symbolisque exculptae (Rome, 1616).

ALEARDI, ALEARDO, COUNT (1812-1878), Italian poet, was born at Verona on the 4th of November 1812, and thus soon after his birth became an Austrian subject. Inspired from his cradle with a hatred of the foreigner, he found himself disqualified for the position in the public service to which his rank would have entitled him, and unable to publish his patriotic verses. Arnaldo da Rocca, a narrative poem, nevertheless appeared in 1842, and the revolutionary year 1848 made an opening for his Lettere a Maria. He took an active part in the popular uprising, and was for some time imprisoned. In 1856 he produced the finest of his pieces, an ode to the maritime cities of Italy, and in 1858 a poem on his own misfortunes. After the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy he returned to Verona, published his poems in a collected edition (1862), became professor at the Academy of Fine Art, member of the Italian parliament and eventually senator. He died on the 17th of July 1878. Aleardi's warmth of patriotic feeling hardly finds adequate expression in his poetry; it is his merit to excel in description, but his fault to substitute description for action.

ALE-CONNER, an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English manors for the assize of ale and ale-measures. The gustatores cervisiae--called in different localities by the different names ``ale-tasters,'' ``ale-founders,'' and ``ale- conners''--were sworn to examine beer and ale, to take care that they were good and wholesome and were sold at proper prices. In London four ale-conners, whose duty it is to examine the measures used by beer and liquor sellers to guard against fraud, are still chosen annually by the liverymen in common hall assembled on Midsummer Day. Since ale and beer have become excisable commodities the custom of appointing ale-tasters has in most places fallen into disuse. (See also ADULTERATION.)

ALECSANDRI, or ALEXANDRI, VASILE (1821-1890), Rumanian lyric poet, was born at Bacau in Moldavia on the 21st of July 1821. His father was the Spatar Alecsandri, of Jewish and Italian origin, who had settled in Moldavia in the 18th century. Vasile was educated first in Jassy and afterwards (1834-1839) in Paris. In 1839 he started on a long journey through the Carpathian Mountains, and was the first to collect Rumanian popular songs, no doubt influenced by Western examples. He first published his collection in 1844. His Doine si Lacrimioare, lyrical poems, appeared at Paris in 1852, and in 1852-1853 he produced at Jassy a fuller collection of popular ballads and songs. He then adapted some French plays for the newly founded Rumanian theatre, and wrote some original pieces. His connexion with the revolutionary movement of 1848 compelled him to seek shelter in the west of Europe, and he visited England. where a beautifully illuminated edition of his poems was printed in the original Rumanian language. In 1867 he published some fugitive pieces, written in a lighter vein, and entitled Pastele; these were followed in 1871 by the Legende of similar character. More serious are his dramatic writings which began with Despot Voda and culminated in Ovid. In later life Alecsandri took an active part in politics; he became minister for foreign affairs from 1859 to 1860, and in 1885 was appointed Rumanian minister in Paris. He died on the 26th of August 1890 at his country seat, Mircesti. His best title to fame consists in the fact that he gave the first impetus to the collection of Rumanian popular songs and first drew attention to their inimitable charm.

See L. Sainsanu, Autorii Romani moderni (1891), pp. 90 and 318. A complete edition of Alecsandri's writings in nine volumes was published at Bucharest in 1875 seq. (M. G.)

ALEMAN, LOUIS (c. 1390-1450), French cardinal, was born of a noble family at the castle of Arbent near Bugey about the year 1390. He was successively bishop of Maguelonne (1418), archbishop of Arles (1423) and cardinal priest of St Cecilia (1426). He was a prominent member of the council of Basel, and, together with Cardinal Julian, led the party which maintained the supremacy of general councils over the pope's authority. In 1440 Aleman obtained the support of the emperor Sigismund and of the duke of Milan to his views, and proclaiming the deposition of Pope Eugenius IV., placed the tiara upon the head of Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy (henceforward known as antipope Felix V.). Eugenius retorted by.excommunicating the antipope and depriving Aleman of all his ecclesiastical dignities. In order to make an end of the schism, Felix V. finally abdicated on Aleman's advice, and Nicholas V., who had succeeded in 1447, restored the cardinal to all his honours and employed him as legate to Germany in 1449. On his return he retired to his diocese of Arles, where he devoted himself zealously to the instruction of his people. He died on the 16th of September 1450, and was beatified by Pope Clement VII. in 1527.

See U. Chevalier, Repert. des sources hist. (Paris, 1905), p. 130.

ALEMAN, MATEO (1547-1609?), Spanish novelist and man of letters, was born at Seville in 1547. He graduated at Seville University in 1564, studied later at Salamanca and Alcala, and from 1571 to 1588 held a post in the treasury; in 1594 he was arrested on suspicion of malversation, but was speedily released. In 1599 he published the first part of Guzman de Alfarache, a celebrated picaresque novel which passed through not less than sixteen editions in five years; a spurious sequel was issued in 1602, but the authentic continuation did not appear till 1604. In 1608 Aleman emigrated to America, and is said to have carried on business as a printer in Mexico; his Ortografia castellana (1609), published in that city, contains ingenious and practical proposals for the reform of Spanish spelling. Nothing is recorded of Aleman after 1609, but it is sometimes asserted that he was still living in 1617. He married, unhappily, Catalina de Espinosa in 1571, and was constantly in money difficulties, being imprisoned for debt at Seville at the end of 1602. He is the author of a life (1604) of St Antony of Padua, and versions of two odes of Horace bear witness to his taste and metrical accomplishment. His chief title to remembrance, however, is Guzman de Alfarache, which was translated into French in 1600, into English in 1623 and into Latin in 1623.

See J. Hazanas y la Rua, Discursos leidos en la Real Academia Sevillana de Buenas letras el 25 de mar zo de 1892 (Sevilla, 1892); J. Gestoso y Perez, Nuevos datos para`ilustrar las biografias del Maestro Juan de Malara y de Mateo Aleman (Sevilla, 1896). (J. F.-K.)

ALEMBERT, DEAN LE ROND D' (1717-1783), French mathematician and philosopher, was born at Paris in November 1717. He was a foundling, having been exposed near the church of St Jean le Rond, Paris, where he was discovered on the 17th of November. It afterwards became known that he was the illegitimate son of the chevalier Destouches and Madame de Tencin. The infant was entrusted to the wife of a glazier named Rousseau who lived close by. He was called Jean le Rond from the church near which he was found; the surname Alembert was added by himself at a later period. His father, without disclosing himself, having settled an annuity on him, he was sent at four years of age to a boarding-school. In 1730 he entered the Mazarin College under the Jansenists, who soon perceived his exceptional talent, and, prompted perhaps by a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans which he produced in the first year of his philosophical course, sought to direct it to theology. His knowledge of the higher mathematics was acquired by his own unaided efforts after he had left the college. This fact naturally led to his crediting himself with many discoveries which he afterwards found had been already established, often by more direct and elegant processes than his own.

On leaving college he returned to the house of his foster-mother, where he continued to live for thirty years. Having studied law, he was admitted as an advocate in 1738, but did not enter upon practice. He next devoted himself to medicine, but his natural inclination proved too strong for him, and within a year he resolved to give his whole time to mathematics. In 1741 he received his first public distinction in being admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences, to which he had previously presented several papers, including a Memoire sur le calcul integral (1739). In his Memoire sur le refraction des corps solides (1741) he was the first to give a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon which is witnessed when a body passes from one fluid to another more dense in a direction not perpendicular to the surface which separates the two fluids. In 1743 he published his Traite de dynamique, a work famous as developing the mechanical principle, known as ``Alembert's Principle,'' first enunciated in 1742 (see MECHANICS.) In 1744 Alembert applied this principle to the theory of the equilibrium and the motion of fluids (Traite de l'equilibre et du mouvement des fluides), and all the problems before solved by geometricians became in some measure its corollaries. This discovery was followed by that of the calculus of partial differences, the first trials of which were published in his Reflexion sur la cause generale des vents (1747). This work was crowned by the Academy of Berlin, and was dedicated to Frederick the Great, who made several unsuccessful attempts to induce him to settle in Berlin. In 1763 he visited Berlin, and on that occasion finally refused the office of president of the Academy of Berlin, which had been already offered to him more than once. In 1747 he applied his new calculus to the problem of vibrating chords, the solution of which, as well as the theory of the oscillation of the air and the propagation of sound, had been given but incompletely by the geometricians who preceded him. In 1749 he furnished a method of applying his principles to the motion of any body of a given figure; and in 1754 he solved the problem of the precession of the equinoxes, determined its quantity and explained the phenomenon of the nutation of the earth's axis. In 1752 he published an Essai d'une nouvelle theorie sur la resistance des fluides, which contains a large number of original ideas and new observations. In 1746 and 1748 he published in the Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin ``Recherches sur le calcul integral,'' a branch of mathematical science which is greatly indebted to him. In his Recherches sur differents points importants du systeme du monde (1754-1756) he perfected the solution of the problem of the perturbations of the planets, which he had presented to the academy some years before.

Alembert's association with Diderot in the preparation of the Dictionnaire Encyclopedique led him to take a someuhat wider range than that to which he had previously confined himself. He wrote for that work the Discours preliminaire on the rise, progress and affinities of the various sciences, which he read to the French Academy on the day of his admission as a member, the 18th of December 1754. He also wrote several literary articles for the first two volumes of the Encyclopaedia, and to the remaining volumes he contributed mathematical articles chiefly. One of the few exceptions was the article on ``Geneva,'' which involved him in a somewhat keen controversy in regard to Calvinism and the suppression of theatrical performances within the town. During the time he was engaged on the Encyclopaedia he wrote a number of literary and philosophical works which extended his reputation and also exposed him to criticism and controversy, as in the case of his Melanges de Philosophie, d'Histoire, et de Litterature. His Essai sur la societe des gens de lettres avec les grands was a worthy vindication of the independence of literary men, and a thorough exposure of the evils of the system of patronage. He broke new ground and showed great skill as a translator in his Traduction de quelques morceaux choisis de Tacite. One of his most important works was the Elements de Philosophie published in 1759, in which he discussed the principles and methods of the different sciences. He maintained that the laws of motion were necessary, not contingent. A treatise, Sur la destruction des Jesuites (1765), involved him in a fresh controversy, his own share in which was rendered very easy by the violence and extravagance of his adversaries. The list of his more noteworthy literary works is completed by the mention of the Histoire des membres de l'Academie francaise, containing biographical notices of all the members of the Academy who died between 1700 and 1772, the year in which he himself became secretary. Alembert was much interested in music both as a science and as an art, and wrote Elements de musique theorique et pratique (1779), which was based upon the system of J. P. Rameau with important modifications and differences.

Alembert's fame spread rapidly throughout Europe and procured for him more than one opportunity of quitting the comparative retirement in which he lived in Paris for more lucrative and prominent positions. The offer of Frederick the Great has already been mentioned. In 1762 he was invited by Catherine of Russia to become tutor to her son at a yearly salary of 100,000 francs. On his refusal the offer was repeated with the additional inducement of accommodation for as many of his friends as he chose to bring with him to the Russian capital. Alembert persisted in his refusal, and the letter of Catherine was ordered to be engrossed in the minutes of the French Academy. In 1755, on the recommendation of Pope Benedict XIV., he was admitted a member of the Institute of Bologna. A legacy of L. 200 from David Hume showed the esteem in which he was held by that philosopher.

Alembert continued to the end to lead the quiet and frugal life dictated by his limited means as well as his simple tastes. His later years were saddened by circumstances connected with a romantic attachment he had formed for Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, whose acquaintance he made at the house of Madame du Deffand, a noted resort of literary men and savants. She nursed him assiduously during an illness he had in 1765, and from that period till her death in 1776 they lived in the same house without any scandal. On her part there seems to have been from first to last nothing more than warm friendship, but his feelings towards her were of a stronger kind and her death deeply affected him. He never recovered his elasticity of spirits, though he continued to occupy himself with his favourite pursuits, and to frequent the society of his brother philosophers. After the death of Voltaire (1778), whose friend and correspondent he had been for more than thirty years, he was regarded as the leader of the philosophical party in the Academy. He died at Paris on the 29th of October 1783.

The chief features of Alembert's character were benevolence, simplicity and independence. Though his income was never large, and during the greater part of his life was very meagre, he contrived to find means to support his foster-mother in her old age, to educate the children of his first teacher, and to help various deserving students during their college career. His cheerful conversation, his smart and lively sallies, a singular mixture of malice of speech with goodness of heart, and of delicacy of wit with simplicity of manners, rendered him a pleasing and interesting companion; and if his manner was sometimes plain almost to the extent of rudeness, it probably set all the better an example of a much-needed reform to the class to which he belonged. The controversy as to the nature of his religious opinions, arising as it did chiefly out of his connexion with the Encyclopaedia, has no longer any living interest now that the Encyclopaedists generally have ceased to be regarded with unqualified suspicion by those who count themselves orthodox. It is to be observed, moreover, that as Alembert confined himself chiefly to mathematical articles, his work laid him less open to charges of heresy and infidelity than that of some of his associates. The fullest revelation of his religious convictions is given in his correspondence with Voltaire, which was published along with that with Frederick the Great in Bossange's edition of his works.

The scientific works of Alembert have never been published in a collected form. The most important of them have been mentioned above, with the exception of the Opuscules mathematiques (1761-1780), 8 vols. 4to. His literary and philosophical works were collected and edited by Bastien (Paris, 1805, 18 vols. 8vo). A better edition by Bossange was published at Paris in 1821 (5 vols. 8vo). The best account of the life and writings of Alembert is contained in Condorcet's Eloge, presented to the Academy and published in 1784.

ALEMBIC (Arab. al, definite article, anbiq, a still; cognate to the Gr. ambix, a cup), an apparatus for distillation, used chiefly by the alchemists, and now superseded by the retort and the worm-still. It varied considerably in form and construction, but consisted essentially of three parts--a vessel containing the material to be distilled and called, from its gourd-like shape, the cucurbit or mattrass; a vessel to receive and condense the vapour, called the head or capital; and a receiver for the spirit, connected by a pipe with the capital. The entire apparatus was sometimes constructed of glass, but it was more usual to make the cucurbit of copper or earthenware, and the capital alone of glass.

ALEMTEJO (i.e. ``Beyond the Tagus''), an ancient province of central and southern Portugal; bounded on the N. by Beira, E. by Spanish Estremadura and Andalusia, S. by Algarve and W. by the Atlantic Ocean and Portuguese Estremadura. Pop. (1900) 416,105; area 9219 sq. m. Alemtejo is traversed by several mountain ranges, whose height does not generally rise much above 2000 ft. The low and sandy coast has a length of less than 25 m. and includes no harbour, except at the unimportant town of Villa Nova de Milfontes (pop. 1900, 825), which overlooks the Mira estuary. The principal rivers are the Tagus, which divides Alemtejo from Beira; its tributary the Zatas, or Sorraia, fed by a whole system of lesser affluents; the Guadiana, which, crossing the Spanish frontier, flows southwards through the province; the Sado, which rises in the Serra de Monchique, and flows to the north; and the Mira, which waters the valley between the Caldeirao and Monchique ranges. There are several extensive plains, notably those of Alemtejo, lying south-west of the Serra de Portalegre; of Beja, between the Sado and Guadiana; and of Ourique, farther south between the same rivers. Some portions of these plains are fruitful, others marshy, while large tracts are mere desolate wastes.

The climate in the lower parts of the country is exceedingly hot and is rendered unhealthy in summer by the stagnant marshes. Towards the Spanish frontier the soil is fertile, and in the south the country is covered by extensive forests of oak, pine, chestnut, cork and ilex, especially on the sides of the Mezquita and Caldeirao ranges. In the more fertile parts, grapes, figs, citrons, pomegranates and other fruits are produced. Wheat, maize and rice are grown, and some attention is given to the rearing of mules, asses, goats, cattle and sheep; while the Alter breed of horses, named after the villages of Alter do Chao and Alter Pedroso (3971), near Portalegre, is often accounted the best in the kingdom. Agriculture, however, is in a backward state, the sparse population being mostly concentrated in the towns, leaving extensive districts uncultivated and almost uninhabited. Droves of swine are fed on the waste lands, growing to a great size and affording excellent hams. The mineral wealth of Alemtejo is little exploited, although there are copper and iron mines and marble quarries. Medicinal springs exist at Aljustrel (3790), Castello de Vide (5192), Mertola (3873), Portalegre, Vimieiro (1838) and elsewhere. Chief among the local industries are the preparation of exceptionally fine olive oil, and the manufacture of cloth, pottery and leather. Alemtejo is traversed by three very important main lines of railway, the Madrid-Caceres-Lisbon, Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon and Lisbon-Faro; while the two last are connected by a branch line from Casa Branca to Evora and Elvas. For administrative purposes the province is divided into the districts of Portalegre in the north, Evora in the central region and Beja in the south; but the titles of these new districts have not superseded the ancient name of Alemtejo in ordinary usage. The chief towns Beja (8885), Elvas (13,981), Estremoz (7920), Evora (16,020) and Portalegre (11,820) are described in separate articles.

ALENCON, COUNTS AND DUKES OF. The first line of the counts of Alencon was founded by Yves, lord of Bellesme, who in the middle of the 10th century possessed and fortified the town of Alencon. His successors, involved in all the wars of the kings of England in Normandy, were alternately deprived and repossessed of their domains, according to the fluctuations of fortune between the rival parties. Mabille, countess of Alencon and heiress of this family (d. 1082 ), married Roger of Montgomery, and from them descended a second house of Alencon which became extinct in the person of Robert IV.; the county of Alencon was then joined to the royal domain. It was successively granted as an appanage to Peter, son of St Louis (1268), and to Charles, count of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair (1293). The third house of Alencon sprang from Charles, second son of the count of Valois, who was killed at the battle of Crecy in 1346. The countship of Alencon was raised to a peerage in 1367 and into a dukedom in 1414. John, 1st duke of Alencon, was killed at Agincourt on the 25th of October 1415, after having with his own hand slain the duke of York. His son, also named John, was dispossessed of his duchy by the king of England, but reconquered it in 1449. In 1524 the dukedom of Alencon reverted to the crown, in consequence of the death of the duke Charles IV. without issue of his marriage with Margaret, sister of Francis I. It was given as a jointure to Catherine de'Medici in 1559, and as an appanage to her son Francis in 1566. It was pawned by Henry IV. to the duke of Wurttemberg, and subsequently it passed to Gaston, duke of Orleans, by grant of Louis XIII.; to Elizabeth of Orleans, duchess of Guise; to Charles, duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV. (1710); and to Monsieur (Louis XVIII.), brother of Louis XVI.

The title of duc d'Alencon was given to Ferdinand of Orleans, son of the duc de Nemours, and grandson of Louis-Philippe. (M. P.*)

ALENCON, a town of north-western France, capital of the department of Orne, 36 m. N. of Le Mans on a branch line of the Western railway. Pop (1906) 14,378. Alencon, a clean, regularly built town with broad handsome streets, is situated in a wide and fertile plain, on the Sarthe at its confluence with the Briante. The only remains of the ancient castle of Alencon are two towers of the 15th century, which serve as a prison, and a third of the 14th century known as the Tour Couronnee, to which they are united. Notre-Dame, the chief church, dates from the 15th century. It is remarkable for a porch ornamented in the richest Gothic style, and for its stained windows of the 16th century. Alencon has a large circular corn-market and a cloth- market. The manufacture of the point d'Alencon lace has greatly diminished. The weaving and bleaching of cloth, which is of less importance than formerly, the manufacture of vehicles, and tanning are carried on; there is a large trade in the horses of the district, and granite is worked in the neighbourhood. Alencon is the seat of a prefect and a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a lycee, training-colleges and a chamber of arts and manufactures.

ALENIO, GIULIO (1582-1649), Italian Jesuit missionary, was born at Brescia. He entered the Society of Jesus and was sent to the East. He landed at Macao in 1610, and while waiting a favourable opportunity to penetrate into China busied himself for three years in teaching mathematics. His thirty years' residence in China was marked by unceasing zeal and considerable success. He adopted the dress and manners of the country, was the first Christian missionary in Kiang-si, and built several churches in Fo-Kien. He wrote in Chinese a Life of Christ (Pekin, 1635-1637, 8 vols.; often reprinted, e.g. in 1887 in 3 vols., and used even by Protestant missionaries) and a cosmography (Iche fang wai ki Hang-chow, 1623, 6 vols.), which was translated into Manchu under the title The True Origin of 10,000 Things, a copy of which was sent from Pekin to Paris in 1789. Alenio died at Fu-chow in 1649.

For bibliography see de Backer and Sommervogel, Bibl. de la Cie. de Jesus, i. 158-160.

ALEPPO (native Haleb.) (1) A vilayet of Asiatic Turkey, comprising N. Syria and N.W. Mesopotamia, with an extension N. of Taurus to the neighbourhood of Gorun. It comprises three sanjaks, Aleppo, Marash and Urfa. About half is mountain, but there are fertile plains of great extent N. of Antakia, S. of Marash and around the city of Aleppo (see below). The only seaport of importance is Alexandretta (q.v..) The exports are, on the average, over one million sterling, and imports about double in value. The settled population is barely a million; but there is a considerable unsettled element in the S.E. which cannot well be estimated. The Christians, mainly Jacobite Syrian, but including also Armenians of several denominations (e.g. those of Marash and Zeitun), Maronites and Greeks, form about one-fifth. There are some 20,000 Jews, resident chiefly in the provincial capital; and of the Moslem majority the bulk is Arab, Turkoman and Ansarieh. In the N.W. and N. is a considerable Kurdish population.

(2) The provincial capital (anc. Khalep; Gr. Chaljbon- Beroea), situated on a plateau in the valley of the Kuwaik (anc. Chalus) about 10 m. above its dissipation in the great salt-marsh of Matkh. Pop. about 130,000, three-quarters Moslem. Aleppo is about midway between the sea and the Euphrates, a little nearer the latter.

The modern city stands on both banks of the Kuwaik, and the older portions are contained within a Saracenic wall, 3 1/2 m. in circuit with seven gates. The European residents and Christians live outside in the Kitab and new Azizieh quarters, and the Jews in that of Bahsita. A modern citadel occupies the N.W., the medieval castle on its mound (partly artificial and not a strong position, according to Istakhri) being almost deserted but still forbidden to visitors. There are two mosques of special interest--the Umawi (or Zakaria) on the site of a church ascribed to the empress Helena and containing a tomb reputed to be that of the Baptist's father, and the Kakun. Many minor ones serve the needs of a population traditionally fanatical. Gardens extend for miles along the river, and the bazaars and khans are unusually large. The climate is cold, dry and healthy, despite the prevalence of the famous ``Aleppo button,'' a swelling which appears either on the face or on the hands, and breaks into an ulcer which lasts a year and leaves a permanent scar. It has been ascribed to a fly, to the water and to other causes; but it is not peculiar to Aleppo, being rife also at Aintab, Bagdad, &c.

The attempt made by the British Euphrates expedition in 1841 to connect Aleppo with the sea by steamer through the nearest point on the Euphrates, Meskine, failed owing to the obstructed state of the stream and the insecurity of the riparian districts. The latter drawback has been minimized by the continued success of the Aleppo administration in inducing the Anazeh Bedouins to become fellahin; but river traffic has not been resumed. A railway, however, connects southward with the Beirut-Damascus line at Rayak. Aleppo is an important consular station for all European powers, the residence of the Greek and Armenian Patriarchs of Antioch, and of Jacobite and Maronite bishops, and a station of Roman Catholic and Protestant missions. It is the emporium of N. Syria, and manufactures textiles in silk, cotton and wool, carpets and leather commodities, besides being the centre of a large district growing cereals, pistachios and fruit. The Turks regard it as one of the strongholds of their dominion and faith, and a future capital of their empire should they be forced into Asia. As a centre from which good natural roads lead N., N.E., W. and S., Aleppo would make a good capital.

History and Remains.--The site lies high (1400 ft.) on eight hillocks in a fertile oasis plain, beyond which stretch on the S. and S.E. grassy steppes merging ere long into desert, and on the other quarters rather sterile downs. It has superseded Antioch as the economic centre of N. Syria, and Palmyra as the great road-station for eastern caravans. But it is rather a revived than a new capital; Khalep was a very ancient Syrian and probably ``Hittite'' city of importance, known from Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian records. Seleucus Nicator gave it a Macedonian name, Beroea; but Chalcis, some distance S., was the capital of the province, Chalcidice (later, Kinnasrin), in which it lay, and the centre of that hellenized region, now a vast field of ruins, which stretches W. to the Orontes. Khalep-Beroea, we may infer, remained a native town and a focus of Aramaic influence, a fact which will explain the speedy oblivion of its Macedonian name and the permanent revival of its ancient title, even by Greeks.

As Beroea we hear of the place in Seleucid wars and dissensions. There Menelaus, the fomenter of war with the Asmoneans, was put to death by Lysias in 164 B. C., ``as the manner is in that place'' (Macc. ii. 13. 4), being thrown into a lofty tower full of cinders. There Heracleon, the court favourite and murderer of Antiochus Grypus, was born and made himself a principality (96 B.C.); and there the son of the latter king besieged his brother Philip in the last struggle for the heritage of Seleucus. As Chalybon, the town is called by Ptolemy head of a district, Chalybonitis; but we continue to hear of it as Beroea up to the Arab conquest, e.g. in the history of Julian's eastward march in A.D. 363, and in that of the Persian raid of 540. It was occupied in 611 by Chosroes II. Overwhelmed by the Saracen flood in A.D. 638, Beroea disappears, and as Moslem society settles down Halep emerges again as the great gathering-place of caravans passing from Asia Minor and Syria to Mesopotamia, Bagdad and the Persian and Indian kingdoms. Like Antioch it suffered from earthquakes, and late in the 12th century, after a terrible shock, had to be rebuilt by Nur ed-Din. But neither earthquakes nor the plague, to which it was also peculiarly liable, could divert trade and prosperity from it. It belonged to the Eastern Caliphate (the Hanidanids) until temporarily reoccupied by John Zimisces, emperor of Byzantium and a native of neighbouring Hierapolis (q.v.), A.D. 974, after an abortive attempt by Nicephorus thirteen years earlier. Thirteen years later it recognized and received the Fatimites, and passed under various Moslem dynasties, forming part of the Seljuk dominion from 1090 to 1117. The crusading princes of Antioch never held the place, though they attacked it in 1124; and Saladin, who took it in 1183, made it a stronghold against them and the northern capital of himself and his successors until the Tatar invasion of 1260. Thereafter the Mamelukes took and kept possession, despite the renewed Tatar inroad of 1401, until the final conquest by the Ottomans in 1517. Under the strong hand of the latter the trade of Aleppo with the East revived. One of the first provincial factories and consulates of the British Turkey (Levant) Company was established there in the reign of James I.; and a British agent had been in residence there even in Elizabeth's time. As the eastern outpost of the company's operations, it was connected with the western outpost of the East India Company in Bagdad by a private postal service, and its name became very familiar in England from the part that its merchants (largely Jewish) bore in the transmission of Eastern products to Europe (cf., e.g. Shakespeare, Macb. i. 3. 7; Oth. v. 2. 352). Through it passed the silks of Bambyce, called bombazines, the light textiles of Mosul (mosulines--muslins) and many other commodities for the wealthy and luxurious. The first blow was struck at this trade by the discovery of the Cape route to India; the second by the opening of a land route through Egypt to the Red Sea; the third and final one by the making of the Suez Canal. Long ere this last event, however, Aleppo had been declining from internal causes. In the latter part of the 18th century and the first years of the 19th it was constantly the scene of bloody dissensions between two rival parties, one led by the local janissaries, the other by the sherifs (religious); and the Ottoman governors took the side, now of one, now of the other, in order to plunder a distracted city, too far removed from the centre to be controlled by the sultans, and too near the rebellious pashalik of Acre and the unsettled district of Lebanon not to be affected by the disorders natural to a frontier province. This state of things led to the suspension of the British consulate by the Turkey Company in 1791; and it was not revived till 1800, after which date till 1825 it was maintained jointly by the East India Company. In 1803 Jezzar of Acre advanced as near as Hamah; but his death occurred in the following year; and after a sanguinary rising in 1805, Aleppo settled down, but was not at peace, even after a local janissary massacre in 1814, till Mahmud II. had dealt finally with the corps at headquarters (1826). Meanwhile there had been a frightful earthquake in 1822, and a visitation of cholera in the following year. More cholera in 1827 and 1832 and another earthquake in 1830 had left the place a wreck, with only half its former population, when Mehemet Ali of Cairo invaded and took Syria. Aleppo shared, and to some extent headed, the Syrian discontent with Egyptian rule, and was strongly held by troops whose huge barracks are still one of the sights of the city. Ready to rise behind Ibrahim Pasha in 1839, it was only prevented by the news of Nezib. Tumults and massacres of Christians occurred in 1850 and 1862, accompanied by great destruction of property; but on the whole, since the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Syria by Abdul Mejid's ministers, Aleppo has been reviving, although its trade is more local than of old.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F. R. Chesney, The Euphrates Expedition (1850) H. Guys, Statistique du Pachalik d'Alep (1853), and Esquisse de l'etat de la Syrie (1862); E. B. B. Barker, Syria and Egypt (1876); W. F. Ainsworth, Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (1888); E. R. Bevan, Heuse of Seleucas (1902); G. le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890). (D. G. H.)

ALES (ALESIUS), ALEXANDER (1500-1565), Scottish divine of the school of Augsburg, whose family name was ALANE, was born at Edinburgh on the 23rd of April 1500. He studied at St Andrews in the newly-founded college of St Leonard's, where he graduated in 1515. Some time afterwards he was appointed a canon of the collegiate church, and at first contended vigorously for the scholastic theology as against the doctrines of the Reformers. His views were entirely changed, however, on the execution of Patrick Hamilton, abbot of Fern, in 1528. He had been chosen to meet Hamilton in controversy, with a view to convincing him of his errors, but the arguments of the Scottish proto-martyr, and above all the spectacle of his heroism at the stake, impressed Alesius so powerfully that he was entirely won over to the cause of the Reformers. A sermon which he preached before the Synod at St Andrews against the dissoluteness of the clergy gave great offence to the provost, who cast him into prison, and might have carried his resentment to the extremest limit had not Alesius contrived to escape to Germany in 1532. After travelling in various countries of northern Europe, he settled down at Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon, and signed the Augsburg confession. Meanwhile he was tried in Scotland for heresy and condemned without a hearing. In 1533 a decree of the Scottish clergy, prohibiting the reading of the New Testament by the laity, drew from Alesius a defence of the right of the people, in the form of a letter to James V. A reply to this by John Cochlaeus, also addressed to the Scottish king, occasioned a second letter from Alesius, in which he not only amplifies his argument with great force, but enters into more general questions connected with the Reformation. In August 1534 he and a few others were excommunicated at Holyrood by the deputy of the archbishop of St Andrews. When Henry VIII. broke with the church of Rome Alesius was induced to go to England, where he was very cordially received (August 1535) by the king and his advisers Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell. After a short residence at Lambeth he was appointed, through the influence of Cromwell, then chancellor of the university, to lecture on theology at Cambridge; but when he had delivered a few expositions of the Hebrew psalms, he was compelled by the opposition of the papal party to desist. Returning to London he supported himself for some time by practising as a physician. In 1537 he attended a convocation of the clergy, and at the request of Cromwell conducted a controversy with Stokesley, bishop of London, on the nature of the sacraments. His argument was afterwards published under the title Of the Auctorite of the Word of God concerning the number of the Sacraments. In 1539 Alesius was compelled to flee for the second time to Germany, in consequence of the enactment of the statute of the Six Articles. He was appointed to a theological chair in the university of Frankfort-on-Oder, where he was the first professor who taught the reformed doctrines. In 1543 he quitted Frankfort for a similar position at Leipzig, his contention that it was the duty of the civil magistrate to punish fornication, and his sudden departure, having given offence to the authorities of the former university. He was in England again for a short time during Edward VI.'s reign, and was commissioned by Cranmer to make a Latin version of the First Prayer-Book (1549) for the information of Bucer, whose opinion was desired. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of March 1565.

Alesius was the author of a large number of exegetical, dogmatic and polemical works, of which over twenty are mentioned by Bale in his List of English Writers. (See also the British Museum catalogue.) In his controversial works he upholds the synergistic views of the Scottish theologian John Major. He displayed his interest in his native land by the publication of a Cohortatio ad Concordiam Pietatis, missa in Patriam suam (1544), which had the express approval of Luther, and a Cohortatio ad Pietatis Concordiam ineundam (1559).

The best early account of Alesius is the Oratio de Alexandro Alesio of Jacob Thomasius (April 1661), printed in the latter's Orationes (No. XIV., Leipzia, 1683): the best modern account is by Dr A. W. Ward in the Dictionary of National Biography. See also A. F. Mitchell's introduction to Gau's Richt Vay (Scottish Text Society, 1888).

ALESIA, the ancient name for a hill in central France, now Alise-Ste-Reine (department Cote d'Or), where in 52 B.C. Caesar besieged the Gaulish national leader Vercingetorix within enormous entrenchments, forced him to surrender, and thus practically ended his conquest of Gaul. The siege-works have been excavated by Napoleon III. and others, down to the present day. The site seems to have been inhabited also during the Roman empire, but its importance is limited to Caesar's siege.

ALESSANDRI, ALESSANDRO (ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO) (1461-1523), Italian jurist, was born at Naples about the year 1461. He studied law at Naples and Rome, and afterwards practised for a time as advocate in both cities. He is said to have been royal proto-notary at Naples in 1490. Dissatisfied, according to his own account, with the corrupt administration of justice, he at length quitted the bar and devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits, especially to the study of philology and antiquities. A sinecure appointment, which he owed to the favour of the pope, enabled him to lead a life of learned leisure at Rome, where he died on the 2nd of October 1523. His work entitled Dies Geniales appeared at Rome in 1522, and was constructed after the model of the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius. It consists of a confused mass of heterogeneous materials relating to philology, antiquities, law, dreams, spectres, &c., and is characterized by considerable credulity.

ALESSANDRIA, a city and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, capital of a province which bears its name, situated on the river Tanaro, 57 m. E. by S. of Turin by rail. Pop. (1901) 71,298, of which about half reside in the actual town: the rest are distributed over the suburbs. Alessandria was founded in 1168 by the inhabitants of the district in order to defend themselves against the marquis of Monferrato and the town of Pavia, at whose request it was besieged in 1174 by Frederick Barbarossa for six months, but without success. The Lombard League now included it among the allied cities and named it Alessandria, after Pope Alexander III. The traditional account of its foundation by the Lombard League has been disproved by F. Graf, Die Grundung Alessandrias: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Lombardenbunides (1888). After falling into various hands, it was ceded to Savoy by the peace of Utrecht in 1713, and its citadel was begun in 1728. During the French occupation (1800-1814), which began after the battle of Marengo, it was still more strongly fortified; the works were entirely destroyed by the Austrians in 1815, but were afterwards reconstructed, and Alessandria is still an important fortress and the headquarters of the second army corps. The citadel is on the left bank of the Tanaro, the town being on the right bank. It is regularly built and contains few buildings of architectural interest, but is a flourishing and important commercial town, not merely owing to its own manufactures (which are miscellaneous) but for the products of the district, and one of the greatest railway centres in Italy. Lines diverge from it to Turin via Asti, to Valenza (and thence to Vercelli, Mortara--for Novara or Milan--and Pavia), to Tortona, to Novi, to Acqui and to Bra.

ALESSI, GALEAZZO (1512-1572), Italian architect, was born at Perugia, and was probably a pupil of Caporali. He was an enthusiastic student of ancient architecture, and his style gained for him a European reputation. Genoa is indebted to him for a number of its most magnificent palaces, and specimens of his skill may be seen in the churches of San Paolo and Santa Vittoria at Milan, in certain parts of the Escurial, and in numerous churches and palaces throughout Sicily, Flanders and Germany.

See Rossi, Di Galeazzo Alessi memorie (Perugia, 1873).

ALETHIOLOGY (from the Gr. aletheia, truth), an uncommon expression for the doctrine of truth, used by Sir William Hamilton in his philosophic writings when treating of the rules for the discrimination of truth and error.

ALETRIUM (mod. Alatri), a town of the Hernici, about 6 m. due N. of Frusino, Italy, mentioned in 306 B.C. for its fidelity to Rome. In Cicero's time it was a municipium, and continued in this position throughout the imperial period. It is chiefly remarkable for its finely preserved fortifications constructed of tetrahedral and polygonal blocks of local limestone well jointed, with maximum dimensions of about 3 by 1 1/2 ft.; the outer circuit of the city wall measures about 2 1/2 m. It is almost entirely an embanking wall, as is the rule in the cities of this part of Italy, with a maximum height, probably, of about 30 ft. Two of the gates (of which there were perhaps five) are still to some extent preserved, and three posterns are to be found. In the centre of the city rises a hill (1647 ft.) which was adopted as the citadel. Remains of the fortifications of three successive periods can be traced, of which the last, perhaps a little more recent than that of the city wall, is the best preserved. In the first two periods the construction is rough, while in the third the blocks are very well and finely jointed, and the faces smoothed; they are mostly polygonal in form and are much larger (the maximum about 10 by 6 ft.) than those of the city wall. A flat surface was formed partly by smoothing off the rock and partly by the erection of huge terrace walls which rise to a height of over 50 ft., enclosing a roughly rectangular area of 235 by 115 yds. Two approaches to the citadel were constructed, both passing through the wall; the openings of both are rectangular. The architrave of the larger, known as Porta di Civita, measures about 17 ft. in length, 5 ft. in height, 6 ft. in thickness; while that of the smaller is decorated with three phalli in relief. Later, though probably in ancient times, a ramp was added on the northern side. In the centre of the arx was a building on the site of the present cathedral, of which only a small portion is preserved. Remains of a high-pressure aqueduct, which supplied the town with water and was constructed with other public buildings (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x., Berlin, 1883, p. 5807) by L. Betilienus Varus, may still be traced. A temple was excavated in 1889 about 1/2 m. to the north of the town and many fragments of the painted terra-cottas with which it was decorated were found. A reconstruction of it has been erected in the Museo di Villa Giulia at Rome. The present town (pop. in 1901, 15,322) has a picturesque aspect, and contains many buildings in the Gothic style.

See R. Bassel, Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 1881, 121, p. 134; H. Winnefeld, Romische Mitteilungen, 1889, 126; G. Fiorelli in Notizie degli Scavi, 1882, 417. (T. As.)

ALEURITES (Gr. aleuritus, pertaining to aleuron, ground meal, from alein, to grind), a genus of trees belonging to the natural order Euphorbiaceae. Aleurites moluccana, or triloba, is widely cultivated throughout the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world for its fruit, which is about the size of a walnut, and contains several seeds which are rich in oil. The oil is extracted and used for food and light; it is known in India as kekuna, and the tree as the ``candle-nut.'' In the Sandwich Islands the nuts are strung upon strips of wood and used as torches. The oil is exported to Europe for candle-making. A. cordata flourishes in China, where it is known as the varnish- tree, on account of the lac contained in its seeds.

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS (possibly from Chukchi aliat, ``island''), a chain of small islands situated in the Northern Pacific Ocean, and extending about 1200 m. westward from the extremity of the Alaskan peninsula toward the peninsula of Kamchatka; they constitute part of the District of Alaska, U.S.A. The islands, of which an alternative collective name is the Catherine Archipelago, comprise four groups--the Fox, Andreanof, Rat and Near Islands. They are all included between 52 deg. and 55 deg. N. lat. and 172 deg. E. and 163 deg. W. long.

The axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska has a S.W. trend, but near the 129th meridian its direction changes to the N.W. This change of direction corresponds to a curve in the line of volcanic fissures which have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kurile Islands, the Japanese chain, the Philippines, &c. The general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands and least in the western. The island chain is really a western continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland.

The great majority of the islands bear evident marks of volcanic origin, and there are numerous volcanic cones on the north side of the chain, some of them active; many of the islands, however, are not wholly volcanic, but contain crystalline or sedimentary rocks, and also amber and beds of lignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising immediately from the coasts to steep, bold mountains.

The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Fogs are almost constant. The summers are much cooler than on the mainland at Sitka (q.v.), but the winter temperature of the islands and of south-eastern Alaska is very nearly the same. The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most important island of the group, is about 38 deg. F.; being about 30 deg. for January and about 52 deg. for August. The highest and lowest temperatures recorded on the islands are 78 deg. and 5 deg. . The average annual amount of rainfall is about 80 in., and Unalaska, with about 250 rainy days per year, is said to be the rainiest place within the territory of the United States. The growing season lasts about 135 days, from early in May till late in September, but agriculture is limited to the raising of a few vegetables. With the exception of some stunted willows the islands are practically destitute of trees, but are covered with a luxuriant growth of herbage, including grasses, sedges and many flowering plants. On the less mountainous islands the raising of sheep and reindeer is believed to be practicable. The principal occupations of the natives have always been fishing and hunting, and the women weave basketry of exquisite fineness. From the end of the 18th century the Russian fur traders had settlements here for the capture of the seal and the sea otter and the blue and the Arctic fox. Under the American regime seal fishing off the Aleutians save by the natives has never been legal, but the depletion of the Pribilof herd, the almost complete extinction of the sea otter, and the rapid decrease of the foxes and other fur animals, have threatened the Aleuts (as the natives are commonly called) with starvation. In recent years enterprising traders have raised foxes by culture and by especially protecting certain small islands, and this has furnished employment to whole communities of natives. Fish and sea-fowl are extremely abundant.

The natives are rather low in stature, but plump and well shaped, with short necks, swarthy faces, black eyes and long black hair. They are a branch of the Esquimauan family, but differ greatly from the Eskimo of the mainland in language, habits, disposition and mental ability. They were good fighters until they were cowed by the treatment of the Russians, who practically reduced them to slavery. Sporadic efforts to Christianize the Aleuts were made in the latter half of the 18th century, but little impression was made before the arrival in 1824 of Father Ivan Venyaminov, who in 1840 became the first Greek bishop of Alaska. While the missionaries of the Greek Church have nominally converted the natives to Christianity, white adventurers have more effectually converted them to various bad habits. In dress and mode of life they have adopted outwardly civilized customs. From the position of the Aleutian islands, stretching like a broken bridge from Asia to America, some ethnologists have supposed that by means of them America was first peopled. Raised shore-lines, occasional earthquakes, and slow measurable elevation of the land about active volcanoes, indicate that elevation is now in progress, but the geological evidence shows no sign of former submergence of a connecting isthmus. There is granite at the core of the Shaler range of mountains in southern Unalaska.

It is stated that before the advent of the Russians there were 25,000 Aleuts on the archipelago, but that the barbarities of the traders eventually reduced the population to one-tenth of this number. The number of Aleuts in 1890 was reported as 968; the total population of the archipelago in 1900 was 2000.

The principal settlements are on the Unalaska Island. Of these Iliuliuk (also called Unalaska), the oldest, settled in 1760-1775, has a custom house, a Russian-Greek Church, and a Methodist Mission and orphanage, and is the headquarters for a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters which patrol the sealing grounds of the Pribilofs; adjacent is Dutch Harbor (so named, it is said, because a Dutch vessel was the first to enter it), which is an important port for Bering Sea commerce. The volcano Makushin (5691 ft.) is visible from Iliuliuk, and the volcanic islets Bogoslof and Grewingk, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about 30 m. W. of the bay. The latter is still active; in 1906 a new cone rose between the two earlier islets, and in 1907 still another: these were nearly demolished by an explosive eruption on the 1st of September 1907. The population of Unalaska Island in 1900 was 575 Aleuts and 66 whites. The Commander Islands group near the Asiatic coast is geographically, but since the acquisition of the Russian possessions in America not politically, a part of the Aleutian system.

In 1741 the Russian government sent out Vitus Bering, a Dane, and Alexei Chirikov, a Russian, in the ships ``Saint Peter'' and ``Saint Paul'' on a voyage of discovery in the Northern Pacific. After the ships were separated by a storm, Chirikov discovered several eastern islands of the Aleutian group, and Bering discovered several of the western islands, finally being wrecked and losing his life on the island of the Commander group that now bears his name. The survivors of Bering's party reached Kamchatka in a boat constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported that the islands were rich in fur-bearing animals. Siberian fur hunters at once flocked to the Commander Islands and gradually moved eastward across the Aleutian Islands to the mainland. In this manner Russia gained a foothold on the north-western coast of North America. The Aleutian Islands consequently belonged to Russia, until that country in 1867 transferred to the United States all its possessions in America. During his third and last voyage, in 1778, Captain James Cook surveyed the eastern portion of the Aleutian archipelago, accurately determined the position of some of the more important islands and corrected many errors of former navigators. Some preliminary surveys have been made by the United States government with a view to establishing a naval station on the island Kiska, in the western part of the Aleutian Chain.

ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG) (1857-1893), first prince of Bulgaria, was the second son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and the Rhine by his morganatic marriage with Julia, countess von Hauke. The title of princess of Battenberg, derived from an old residence of the grand-dukes of Hesse, was conferred, with the prefix Durchlaucht or ``Serene Highness,'' on the countess and her descendants in 1858. Prince Alexander, who was born on the 5th of April 1857, was nephew of the tsar Alexander II., who had married a sister of Prince Alexander of Hesse; his mother, a daughter of Count Moritz von Hauke, had been lady-in-waiting to the tsaritsa. In his boyhood and early youth he was frequently at St Petersburg, and he accompanied his uncle, who was much attached to him, during the Bulgarian campaign of 1877. When Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty was constituted an autonomous principality under the suzerainty of Turkey, the tsar recommended his nephew to the Bulgarians as a candidate for the newly created throne, and Prince Alexander was elected prince of Bulgaria by unanimous vote of the Grand Sobranye (April 29, 1879). He was at that time serving as a lieutenant in the Prussian life-guards at Potsdam. Before proceeding to Bulgaria, Prince Alexander paid visits to the tsar at Livadia, to the courts of the great powers and to the sultan; he was then conveyed on a Russian warship to Varna, and after taking the oath to the new constitution at Tirnova (July 8, 1879) he repaired to Sofia, being everywhere greeted with immense enthusiasm by the people. (For the political history of Prince Alexander's reign, see BULGARIA.) Without any previous training in the art of government, the young prince from the outset found himself confronted with difficulties which would have tried the sagacity of an experienced ruler. On the one hand he was exposed to numberless humiliations on the part of the representatives of official Russia, who made it clear to him that he was expected to play the part of a roi faineant; on the other he was compelled to make terms with the Bulgarian politicians, who, intoxicated with newly won liberty, prosecuted their quarrels with a crude violence which threatened to subvert his authority and to plunge the nation in anarchy. After attempting to govern under these conditions for nearly two years, the prince, with the consent of the tsar Alexander III., assumed absolute power (May 9, 1881), and a suspension of the ultra-democratic constitution for a period of seven years was voted by a specially convened assembly (July 13). The experiment, however, proved unsuccessful; the Bulgarian Liberal and Radical politicians were infuriated, and the real power fell into the hands of two Russian generals, Sobolev and Kaulbars, who had been specially despatched from St Petersburg. The prince, after vainly endeavouring to obtain the recall of the generals, restored the constitution with the concurrence of all the Bulgarian political parties (September 18, 1883). A serious breach with Russia followed, which was widened by the part which the prince subsequently played in encouraging the national aspirations of the Bulgarians. The revolution of Philippopolis (September 18, 1885), which brought about the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, was carried out with his consent, and he at once assumed the government of the revolted province. In the anxious year which followed, the prince gave evidence of considerable military and diplomatic ability. He rallied the Bulgarian army, now deprived of its Russian officers, to resist the Servian invasion, and after a brilliant victory at Slivnitza (November 19) pursued King Milan into Servian territory as far as Pirot, which he captured (November 27). Although Servia was protected from the consequences of defeat by the intervention of Austria, Prince Alexander's success sealed the union with Eastern Rumelia, and after long negotiations he was nominated governor-general of that province for five years by the sultan (April 5, 1886). This arrangement, however, cost him much of his popularity in Bulgaria, while discontent prevailed among a certain number of his officers, who considered themselves slighted in the distribution of rewards at the close of the campaign. A military conspiracy was formed, and on the night of the 20th of August the prince was seized in the palace at Sofia, and compelled to sign his abdication; he was then hurried to the Danube at Rakhovo, transported on his yacht to Reni, and handed over to Russian authorities, by whom he was allowed to proceed to Lemberg. He soon, however, returned to Bulgaria, owing to the success of the counter- revolution led by Stamboloff, which overthrew the provisional government set up by the Russian party at Sofia. But his position had become untenable, partly owing to an ill-considered telegram which he addressed to the tsar on his return; partly in consequence of the attitude of Prince Bismarck, who, in conjunction with the Russian and Austrian governments, forbade him to punish the leaders of the military conspiracy. He therefore issued a manifesto resigning the throne, and left Bulgaria on the 8th of September 1886. He now retired into private life. A few years later he married Fraulein Loisinger, an actress, and assumed the style of Count Hartenau (February 6, 1889). The last years of his life were spent principally at Gratz, where he held a local command in the Austrian army. Here, after a short illness, he died on the 23rd of October 1893. His remains were brought to Sofia, where they received a public funeral, and were eventually deposited in a mausoleum erected in his memory. Prince Alexander possessed much charm and amiability of manner; he was tall, dignified and strikingly handsome. His capabilities as a soldier have been generally recognized by competent authorities. As a ruler he committed some errors, but his youth and inexperience and the extreme difficulty of his position must be taken into consideration. He was not without aptitude for diplomacy, and his intuitive insight and perception of character sometimes enabled him to outwit the crafty politicians by whom he was surrounded. His principal fault was a want of tenacity and resolution; his tendency to unguarded language undoubtedly increased the number of his enemies.

See Drandar, Le Prince Alexandre de Battenberg en Bulgarie (Paris, 1884); Koch, Furst Alexander von Bulgarien (Darmstadt, 1887); Matveyev, Bulgarien nach dem Berliner Congress (Petersburg, 1887); Bourchier, ``Prince Alexander of Battenberg,'' in Fortnightly Review, January 1894. (J. D. B.)

ALEXANDER I., king of Epirus about 342 B.C., brother of Olympias the mother of Alexander the Great, and son-in-law of Philip of Macedon, whose daughter Cleopatra he married (336). In 332 he crossed over to Italy to assist the Tarentines against the Lucanians, Bruttians and Samnites. He gained considerable successes and made an arrangement with the Romans for a joint attack upon the Samnites; but the Tarentines, suspecting him of the design of founding an independent kingdom, turned against him. Although the advantage at first rested with Alexander, he gradually lost it, and his supporters dwindled away. In 330 (or earlier) he was defeated at Pandosia and slain by a Lucanian emigrant.

See Justin viii. 6, ix. 6, xii. 2; Livy viii. 3, 17, 24; Aulus Gellius xvii. 21; and article MACEDONIAN EMPIRE.

ALEXANDER II., king of Epirus, succeeded his father Pyrrhus, 272 B.C. He attacked Antigonus Gonatas and conquered the greater part of Macedonia, but was in turn driven out of both Epirus and Macedonia by Demetrius the son of Antigonus. He subsequently recovered his kingdom by the aid of the Acarnanians and Aetolians. He died about 260 (Polybius ii. 45, ix. 34; Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 9; Justin xviii. 1, xxvi. 2, xxviii. 1).

See Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. viii.; Droysen, Hellenismus; B. Niese, Gesch. d. griech. u. maked. Staaten; J. Beloch, Griech. Gesch. vol. iii.

ALEXANDER III., known as THE GREAT1 (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon, was the son of Philip II. of Macedon, and Olympias, an Epirote princess. His father was pre-eminent for practical genius, his mother a woman of half-wild blood, weird, visionary and terrible; and Alexander himself is singular among men of action for the imaginative splendours which guided him, and among romantic dreamers for the things he achieved.

Youth.

We was born in 356 B.C., probably about October (Hogarth, pp. 284 ff.). The court at which he grew up was the focus of great activities, for Philip, by war and diplomacy, was raising Macedon to the headship of the Greek states, and the air was charged with great ideas. To unite the Greek race in a war against the Persian empire was set up as the ultimate mark for ambition, the theme of idealists. The great literary achievements of the Greeks in the 5th century lay already far enough behind to have become invested with a classical dignity; the meaning of Hellenic civilization had been made concrete in a way which might sustain enthusiasm for a body of ideal values, authoritative by tradition. And upon Alexander in his fourteenth year this sum of tradition was brought to bear through the person of the man who beyond all others had gathered it up into an organic whole: in 343-342 Aristotle (q.v.) came to Pella at Philip's bidding to direct the education of his son. We do not know what faculty the master-thinker may have had for captivating this ardent spirit; at any rate Alexander carried with him through life a passion for Homer, however he may have been disposed to greyer philosophic theory. But his education was not all from books. The coming and going of envoys from many states, Greek and Oriental, taught him something of the actual conditions of the world. He was early schooled in war. At the age of sixteen he commanded in Macedonia during Philip's absence and quelled a rising of the hill-tribes on the northern border; in the following year (338) he headed the charge which broke the Sacred Band at Chaeronea. Then came family dissensions such as usually vex the polygamous courts of the East. In 337 Philip repudiated Olympias for another wife, Cleopatra, Alexander went with his mother to her home in Epirus, and, though he soon returned and an outward reconciliation between father and son was contrived, their hearts were estranged. The king's new wife was with child; her kinsmen were in the ascendant; the succession of Alexander was imperilled. Some negotiations which Pixodarus, the satrap of Caria, opened with the Macedonian court with a view to effecting a marriage alliance between his house and Philip's, brought Alexander into fresh broils. In 336 Philip was suddenly assassinated whilst celebrating at Aegae the marriage of his daughter to Alexander I. of Epirus in the presence of a great concourse from all the Greek world. It is certain that the hand of the assassin was prompted by some one in the background; suspicion could not fail to fall upon Alexander among others. But guilt of that sort would hardly be consistent with his character as it appears in those early day's.

Accession.

Alexander was not the only claimant to the vacant throne, but, recognized by the army, he soon swept all rivals from his path. The newly born son of Philip by Cleopatra, and Alexander's cousin Amyntas, were put to death, and Alexander took up the interrupted work of his father. That work was on the point of opening its most brilliant chapter by an invasion of the great king's dominions; the army was concentrated and certain forces had already been sent on to occupy the opposite shore of the Hellespont. The assassination of Philip delayed the blow, for it immediately made the base, Macedonia, insecure, and in such an enterprise, plunging into the vast territories of the Persian empire, a secure base was everything. Philip's removal had made all the hill-peoples of the north and west raise their heads and set the Greek states free from their fears. A demonstration in Greece, led by the new king of Macedonia, momentarily checked the agitation, and at the diet at Corinth Alexander was recognized as captain-general (egemon autokrator) of the Hellenes against the barbarians, in the place of his father Philip.

Leader of the Hellenes.

In the spring of 335 he went out from Macedonia northwards, struck across the Balkans, probably by the Shipka Pass, frustrating the mountain warfare of its tribes by a precision of discipline which, probably, no other army of the time could have approached, and traversed the land of the Triballians (Rumelia) to the Danube. To gratify his own imagination or strike the imagination of the world he took his army over the Danube and burnt a settlement of the Getae upon the other side. Meanwhile the Illyrians had seized Pelion (Pliassa), which commanded the passes on the west of Macedonia, and from the Danube Alexander marched straight thither over the hills. He had hardly restored Macedonian prestige in this quarter when he heard that Greece was aflame. Thebes had taken up arms. By a forced march he took the Thebans completely by surprise, and in a few days the city, which a generation before had won the headship of Greece, was taken. There were to be no half-measures now; the city was wiped out of existence with the exception of its temples and the house which had been Pindar's. Greece might now be trusted to lie quiet for some time to come. The Panhellenic alliance (from which Sparta still stood aloof) against the barbarians was renewed. Athens, although known to be hostile at heart to the cities of Macedonian power, Alexander treated all through with eager courtesy.

Invasion of Asia Minor.

In the spring of 334, Alexander crossed with an army of between 30,000 and 40,000 men, Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians and the contingents of the Greek states, into Asia. The place of concentration was Arisbe on the Hellespont. Alexander himself first visited the site of Troy and there went through those dramatic acts of sacrifice to the Ilian Athena, assumption of the shield believed to be that of Achilles; and offerings to the great Homeric dead, which are significant of the poetic glamour shed, in the young king's mind, over the whole enterprise, and which men will estimate differently according to the part they assign to imagination in human affairs.

Battle of Granicus.

To meet the invader the great king had in Asia Minor an army slightly larger, it would seem, than Alexander's, gathered under the satraps of the western provinces at Zeleia. He had also, what was more serious, command of the Aegean. Alexander could communicate with his base only by the narrow line of the Hellespont, and ran the risk, if he went far from it, of being cut off altogether. To draw him after them, while avoiding a conflict, was sound strategy for the Persian generals. It was urged upon them by their colleague the Rhodian Memnon. But strategic considerations were cancelled by the Persian barons' code of chivalry, and Alexander found them waiting for him on the banks of the Granicus. It was a cavalry melee, in which the common code of honour caused Macedonian and Persian chieftains to engage hand to hand, and at the end of the day the relics of the Persian army were in flight, leaving the high-roads of Asia Minor clear for the invader. Alexander could now accomplish the first part of the task belonging to him as captain-general to the Hellenes, that liberation of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, for which Panhellenic enthusiasts had cried out so long. He first went to take possession of the old Lydian capital Sardis, the headquarters of the Persian government on this side of the Taurus, and the strong city surrendered without a blow. And now in all the Greek cities of Aeolis and Ionia the oligarchies or tyrants friendly to Persia fell, and democracies were established under the eye of Alexander's officers. Only where the cities were held by garasons in the Persian service, garrisons composed mainly of Greek mercenaries, was the liberator likely to meet with any resistance. From Ephesus indeed the garrison fled upon the news of Granicus, but Miletus required a siege. The Persian fleet in vain endeavoured to relieve it, and Miletus did not long hold out against Alexander's attack. It was at Halicarnassus that Alexander first encountered stubborn resistance, at Halicarnassus where Memnon and the satraps of Caria had rallied what land-forces yet belonged to Persia in the west. When winter fell, Alexander had captured indeed the city itself, but the two citadels still held out against his blockade.

Meanwhile Alexander was making it plain that he had come not merely as captain-general for a war of reprisals, but to take the Persian's place as king of the land. The conquered provinces were organized under Macedonian governors and in Caria a dethroned princess of the native dynasty, Ada, was restored to power. In the winter, whilst Parmenio advanced upon the central plateau to make the occupation of Phrygia effective, Alexander himself passed along the coast to receive the submission of the Lycians and the adherence of the Greek cities of the Pamphylian sea-board. The hills inland were the domain of fighting tribes which the Persian government had never been able to subdue. To conquer them, indeed, Alexander had no time, but he stormed some of their fortresses to hold them in check, and marched through their territory when he turned north from Pamphylia into the interior. The point of concentration for next year's campaign had been fixed at Gordium, a meeting-place of roads in Northern Phrygia. The story of Alexander's cutting the fatal ``Gordian knot'' on the chariot of the ancient Phrygian king Gordius is connected with his stay in this place.

Extension of Alexander's power.

Whilst Alexander had been grounding his power in Asia Minor, he had run a narrow risk of losing his base in Europe. He had after the siege of Miletus disbanded the Graeco- Macedonian fleet, surrendering for the time all attempts to challenge the command of the Aegean. Memnon the Rhodian, now in supreme command of the Persian fleet, saw the European coasts exposed and set out to raise Greece, where discontent always smouldered in Alexander's rear. But Memnon died at the critical moment whilst laying siege to Mytilene and the great plan collapsed. A Persian fleet still held the sea, but it effected little, and presently fresh Graeco-Macedonian squadrons began to hold it in check. It was, however, the need to ensure command of the sea and free all lines of communication behind him that determined Alexander's plan for the next campaign. If he mastered the whole coast-line of the Levant, the enemy's fleet would find itself left in the air. The Syrian coast was accordingly his immediate objective when he broke up from Gordium for the campaign of 333. He was through the Cicilian Gates before the Persian king, Darius III., had sent up a force adequate to hold them. His passage through Cilicia was marked by a violent fever that arrested him for a while in Tarsus, and meantime a great Persian army was waiting for him in northern Syria under the command of Darius himself. In the knot of mountains which close in about the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta, Alexander, following hard by the coast, marched past the Persian army encamped on the plains to the east. To cut Alexander's communications with the rear, Darius now committed the error of entangling his large force in the mountain defiles.

Battle of Issus.

Alexander turned, and near the town of Issus fought his second pitched battle, sending Darius and the relic of his army in wild flight back to the east.2 It was an incident which did not modify Alexander's plan. He did not press the pursuit far, although the great king's camp with his harem fell into his hands. The chivalrous courtesy which he showed to the captive princesses was a favourite theme for later rhetoricians. He went on his way to occupy Syria and Phoenicia. It is now that we get definite evidence as to the reach of Alexander's designs; for Darius opened negotiations in which he ultimately went so far as to offer a partition of the empire, all west of the Euphrates, to be Alexander's. Alexander refused the bargain and definitely claimed the whole.3 The conquest of the Phoenician coast was not to be altogether easy, for Tyre shut its gates and for seven months Alexander had to sit before it--one of those obstinate sieges which mark the history of the Semitic races. When it fell, Alexander had the old Tyrian people scattered to the winds, 30,000 sold as slaves. Gaza offered a resistance equally heroic, lasting two months, and here too the old population was dispersed. The occupation of the rest of Syria and Palestine proceeded smoothly, and after the fall of Gaza Alexander's way lay open into Egypt.4 Egypt was the last of the Mediterranean provinces to be won, and here no defence was made. To the native Egyptians Alexander appeared as a deliverer from the Persian tyranny, and he sacrificed piously to the gods of Memphis. The winter (332-331) which Alexander spent in Egypt saw two memorable actions on his part. One was the expedition (problematic in its motive and details) to the oracle of Zeus Ammon (Oasis of Siwa), where Alexander was hailed by the priest as son of the god, a belief which the circle of Alexander, and perhaps Alexander himself, seem hereafter to have liked to play with in that sort of semi-serious vein which still allowed him in the moments of every-day commonplace to be the son of Philip. The other action was the foundation of Alexandria at the Canopic mouth of the Nile, the place destined to be a new commercial centre for the eastern Mediterranean world which Alexander had now taken in possession, to rise to an importance which the founder, although obviously acting with intention, can hardly have foreseen (E. Keller, Alex. d. Grosse nach der Schlacht bei Issus, 1904).

Invasion of Persia.

In the spring of 331 Alexander could at last leave the Mediterranean to strike into the heart of the Persian empire, for by his occupation of the Coasts the Persian command of the sea had inevitably collapsed. Returning through Syria, and stopping at Tyre to make final arrangements for the conquered provinces, he traversed Mesopotamia and struck the Tigris some four marches above the site of Nineveh. It was near Nineveh that Darius was waiting with the immense host which a supreme effort could muster from all parts of the empire. The happy coincidence of a lunar eclipse gives us the 20th of September 331 as the exact day upon which the Macedonian army crossed the Tigris. Alexander came within sight of the Persian host without having met with any opposition since he quitted Tyre. He had now to settle the most serious problem which had yet faced him, for in the plains the Persian army was formidable by sheer bulk. But the day showed the Macedonian army equal to the task.

Battle of Arbela.

The last army gathered by an Achaemenian king was shattered in the battle called popularly after the city of Arbela some 60 m. distant, or more precisely after the village of Gaugamela hard by. Darius fled eastwards into Media and again Alexander waited till he had secured the provinces to the south. He followed the Tigris into Babylonia, the central seat of the empire and its richest region, and from Babylon went on to seize the fabulous riches which the Persian kings had amassed in their spring residence, Susa. Thence he at last ascended upon the Iranian plateau. The mountain tribes on the road (the Oxii, Pers, Huzha), accustomed to exact blackmail even from the king's train, learnt by a bitter lesson that a stronger hand had come to wield the empire. Alexander entered Persis, the cradle of the Achaemenian house, and came upon fresh masses of treasure in the royal city, Persepolis. He destroyed the royal palace by fire, an act which has been variously estimated by historians. Ostensibly a solemn revenge for the burning of Greek temples by Xerxes, it has been justified as a symbolical act calculated to impress usefully the imagination of the East, and condemned as a senseless and vainglorious work of destruction.

With the spring of 330 Alexander was prepared for further pursuit. Darius fled northwards from Ecbatana upon his approach. At Ecbatana new masses of treasure were seized, but when once the necessary measures which its disposal and the occupation of the Median capital entailed were taken, Alexander continued the pursuit. It was an exciting chase of king by king, in which each covered the ground by incredible exertions, shedding their slower-going followers as they went, past Rhagae (Rai) and the Caspian gates, till early one morning Alexander came in sight of the broken train which still clung to the fallen king. He had become a puppet in the hands of his cousin Bessus and the Persian magnates with him (see DARIUS III.), and at this extremity they stabbed him and allowed Alexander to become master only of his corpse (summer 330).

The pursuit had brought Alexander into that region of mountains to the south of the Caspian which connects western Iran with the provinces to the east of the great central desert. To conquer this remaining portion of the empire, Alexander now went on through the mountain belt, teaching the power of his arms to the hillsmen, Tapyri and Mardi, till he came, passing through Zadracarta (Asterabad), to Parthia and thence to Aria. In these further provinces of Iran the Macedonian invader had for the first time to encounter a serious national opposition, for in the west the Iranian rule had been merely the supremacy of an alien power over native populations indifferent or hostile. Here the ruling race was at home. In Asia Alexander learnt that Bessus, had taken the diadem as Darius' successor in Bactria, but so soon as he marched against him Aria rose in his rear, and Alexander had to return in all haste to bring the revolt under. Nor did he, when this was accomplished, again strike directly at Bactria, but made a wide turning movement through Seistan over Kandahar into the Kabul valley. It was on the way, in Seistan at Prophthasia (mod. Farrah?), that the alienation between Alexander and his Macedonian followers, which becomes sensible in the latter part of his career, first showed itself in an ugly form. Alexander had come to merge the characters of Macedonian king and Hellenic Captain-general, with which he had set out, in that of Oriental despot (Spieker. Hof u. Hofordnung Al. d. Gr., 1904). He wore on occasions of state the Persian dress. (According to pseudo-Plutarch, de fort. Al. i. 8, it was the simpler Persian dress, not the Median.) A discontent began to work among the Macedonians, and at Prophthasia the commander of the Macedonian cavalry Philotas, the son of Parmenio, and certain others were arraigned before the army on the charge of conspiring against the king's life. They were condemned and put to death. Not satisfied with procuring this, Alexander had Parmenio himself, who had been left in command in Media, put to death by secret orders. It is perhaps the worst crime, because the most cold-blooded and ungenerous, which can be laid to his charge. By the winter of 329-328 Alexander had reached the Kabul valley at the foot of the Paropamisadae (Hindu Kush).

The ordinarily received chronology makes Alexander reach the Kabul valley in the winter of 330-329. That to fit the actions and distances covered by Alexander into such a scheme, assuming that he went by Seistan and Kandahar, would involve physical impossibilities has been pointed out by Count Yorck v. Wartenburg and Mr D. G. Hogarth. Kaerst and Beloch continue to give the ordinary chronology untroubled.

Invasion of Northern India.

In the spring of 328 Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush into Bactria and followed the retreat of Bessus across the Oxus and into Sogdiana (Bokhara). Here Bessus was at last caught and treated with the barbaric cruelty which the rule of the old Persian monarchy prescribed for rebels. Till the spring of 327 Alexander was moving to and fro in Bactria and Sogdiana, beating down the recurrent rebellions and planting Greek cities. Just as in 335 he had crossed the Danube, so he now made one raid across the frontier river, the Jaxartes (Sir Daria), to teach the fear of his name to the outlying peoples of the steppe (summer 328). And meanwhile the rift between Alexander and his European followers continued to show itself in dark incidents--the murder of Clitus at Maracanda (Samarkand), when Alexander struck down an old friend, both being hot with wine; the claim that Alexander should be approached with prostration (proskynesis), urged in the spring of 327, and opposed boldly by the philosopher Callisthenes, Aristotle's nephew, who had come in the king's train; the conspiracy of the pages at Bactria, which was made an occasion for putting Callisthenes to death. It was now that Alexander completed the conquest of the provinces north of the Hindu Kush by the reduction of the last mountain strongholds of the native princes. In one of them he captured Roxana, the daughter of Oxyartes, whom he made his wife. Before the summer of 327 he had once more crossed the Hindu Kush on his way to India (for the campaigns in the N.E. see F. von Schwarz, Alex. d. Grossen Feldzuge in Turkestan, 1893, v.).

Whilst the heavier troops moved down the Kabul valley to Pencelaotis (Charsadda) under Perdiccas and Hephaestion, Alexander with a body of lighter-armed troops and cavalry pushed up the valleys which join the Kabul from the north--through the regions now known as Bajour, Swat and Buner, inhabited by Indian hill peoples, as fierce then against the western intruder as their Pathan successors are against the British columns. The books give a number of their ``cities'' reduced by Alexander--walled mountain villages which can in some cases be identified more or less certainly with places where the clans are established to-day. The crowning exploit was the reduction of Aornus,5 a stronghold perched on a precipitous summit above the Indus, which it was said that Heracles had failed to take. How much of the story of Alexander's discovery of the sacred mountain of the Nysa and the traces of Dionysus is due to the invention of Aristobulus and Clitarchus (Arrian did not find it in Ptolemy) we cannot say. Meantime Perdiccas and Hephaestion had built a bridge over the Indus, and by this in the spring of 326 Alexander passed into the Punjab (at Ohind, 16 m. above Attock, according to Foucher, Notes sur la geogr. anc. du Gandhara, 1902). The country into which he came was dominated by three principalities, that of Ambhi (Gr. Omphis, Curt. viii. 12. 6) between the Indus and the Hydaspes (Jhelum, Jehlam), centred in the great city of Takkasila (Gr. Taxila), that of the Paurara rajah (Gr. Porus) between the Hydaspes and Acesines (Chenab), and that of Abhisara (Gr. Abisares) between the same two rivers higher up, on the confines of Kashmir (Stein, Rajatarangini, transl. bk. i. 180, v. 217). The kings of Taxila and Porus were at enmity, and for this cause the invader could reckon upon Omphis as a firm ally. Porus was prepared to contest the passage of the Hydaspes with all his strength. Abisares preferred to play a double game and wait upon events. Alexander reached the Hydaspes just as the rains broke, when the river was already swollen. Porus held the opposite bank with a powerful army, including 200 elephants. Alexander succeeded in taking a part of his forces across the river higher up during a night of torrential rain, and then he fought the fourth and last of his pitched battles in Asia, the one which put to proof more shrewdly than any of the others the quality of the Macedonian army as an instrument of war, and yet again emerged victorious. Porus fell sorely wounded into his hands.6 Porus had saved his honour, and now Alexander tried, and not in vain, to gain him as a friend. When he continued his progress eastwards across the Acesines, Porus was an active ally. Alexander moved along close under the hills. After crossing the Hydraotes (Ravi) he once more came into contact with hostile tribes, and the work of storming petty towns began again. Then the Hyphasis (Beas) was reached, and here the Macedonian army refused to go any farther. It was a bitter mortification to Alexander, before whose imagination new vistas had just opened out eastwards, where there beckoned the unknown world of the Ganges and its splendid kings. For three days the will of king and people were locked in antagonism; then Alexander gave way; the long eastward movement was ended; the return began.

The return.

Alexander left the conquered portion of India east of the Indus to be governed under Porus, Omphis of Taxila, and Abisares, the country west of the Indus under Macedonian governors, and set out to explore the great river to its mouth (for the organization of the Indian provinces, see especially Niese, vol. i. pp. 500 f.). The fleet prepared on the Hydaspes sailed in October, while a land army moved along the bank. The confluence of the Hydaspes and Acesines passed, the Macedonians were once more in a region of hostile tribes with towns to be stormed. It was at one of these, a town of the Malli, that a memorable incident occurred, such as characterized the personality of Alexander for all succeeding time. He leapt from the wall with only three companions into the hostile town, and, before the army behind him could effect an entrance, lay wounded almost to death.7 He recovered and beat down the resistance of the tribes, leaving them annexed to the Macedonian satrapy west of the Indus. Below the confluence of the Punjab rivers into the single stream of the Indus the territory of loose tribes was succeeded by another group of regular principalities, under the rajahs called by the Greeks Musicanus, Oxycanus and Sambus. These opposed a national resistance to the Macedonians, the fires of which were fanned by the Brahmins, but still the strong arm of the western people prevailed. The rajah of Patala at the apex of the Indus delta abandoned his country and fled. It was the high summer of 325 when Alexander reached Patala. From here he explored both arms of the delta to the ocean, now seen by the Macedonians for the first time. He had determined that the Indus fleet should be used to explore this new world and try to find a waterway between the Indus and the Persian Gulf. A great part of the land-forces had been already sent off under Craterus in the earlier summer to return west by Kandahar and Seistan; the fleet was to sail under the Greek Nearchus from the Indus mouth with the winter monsoon; Alexander himself with the rest of the land-forces set out in October to go by the coast of Baluchistan, through the appalling sand-wastes of the Mekran.8

He would seem to have kept down to the coast until the headland of Ras Malan was reached, scattering before him the bands of Arabitae and Oritae who were the inhabitants of this well-provisioned tract. For the 150 miles between Ras Malan and Pasni Alexander was compelled by the natural barriers to march inland, and it was here that his troops sank under the horrors of heat and thirst and sand. The coast once regained, the way was easy; no such desert had to be traversed, when Alexander again struck inland for the chief city of the Gedrosians (Pura), and thence made his way into Carmania. Here the spent troops rested; here the army of Craterus joined them, and Nearchus came to announce his safe arrival at the entrance of the Persian Gulf.9

The machine of empire had not functioned altogether smoothly while the king had been absent, and on Alexander's re-appearance many incapables and rogues in high office had to be replaced by better men. In Carmania, in Persis, complaints from the provinces continued to reach him, as well as the news of disorders in Macedonia and Greece. New orders and appointments served to bring the empire into hand again, and at Susa in the spring of 324 Alexander rested, the task of conquering and compassing the Achaemenian realm achieved. The task of its internal reorganization now began to occupy him--changes, for instance, in the military system which tended to assimilate Macedonians and Orientals. The same policy of fusion was furthered by the great marriage festival at Susa, when Alexander took two more wives from the Persian royal house, married a number of his generals to Oriental princesses, and even induced as many as he could of the rank-and-file to take Asiatic wives. This policy did not allay the discontent of the Macedonian army, and when Alexander in the summer of 324 moved to the cooler region of Media, an actual mutiny of the Macedonians broke out on the way at Opis on the Tigris. It was occasioned by the discharge of the Macedonian veterans, and only the personal magnetism of Alexander and his threat to entrust himself altogether to the Orientals availed to quell it. At Ecbatana the death of Hephaestion for a time plunged Alexander into a passion of mourning. But by the winter (324-323) he was again active, bringing the hill- tribes on the S.W. border of Media, the Cossaei, into subjection. In the spring of 323 he moved down to Babylon, receiving on the way embassies from lands as far as the confines of the known world, for the eyes of all nations were now turned with fear or wonder to the figure which had appeared with so superhuman an effect upon the world's stage. The embassy from Rome, however, is almost certainly a later, and an inevitable, invention. The exploration of the waterways round about the empire was Alexander's immediate concern, the discovery of the presumed connexion of the Caspian with the Northern Ocean, the opening of a maritime route from Babylon to Egypt round Arabia. The latter enterprise Alexander designed to conduct in person; under his supervision was prepared in Babylon an immense fleet, a great basin dug out to contain 1000 ships, and the water- communications of Babylonia taken in hand. Innovations were carried out in the tactical system of the army which were to modify considerably the methods of future battle-fields. At last all was ready; the 20th of the month Daesius (? June 5) was fixed for the king's setting forth.

Illness and death.

On the 15th and 16th Alexander caroused deep into the night at the house of the favourite Medius. On the 17th he developed fever; for a time he treated it as a momentary impediment to the expedition; but on the 27th his speech was gone, and the Macedonian army were suffered to pass man by man through his chamber to bid him farewell. On the 28th (? June 13) Alexander died.10

His son by Roxana, the so-called ALEXANDER ``AEGUS,'' was born a few months later. He and his uncle Philip, as joint kings, were placed under the guardianship of Perdiccas, Peithon and Antipater in succession. After the death of Antipater (319) Roxana fled with him to Epirus, and was afterwards taken back to Macedonia, together with Olympias, by Polyperchon. All three fell into the hands of Cassander; Alexander and his mother were in 310-309 put to death by order of Cassander (Justin xiv. 6, xv. 2). The meaningless surname of Aegus, still given in some books to this Alexander, is derived simply from a modern misreading of the text of the Astronomical Canon, AIGOU for ALLOU.

Character and policy.

Alexander the Great is one of the instances of the vanity of appealing from contemporary disputes to ``the verdict of posterity''; his character and his policy are estimated to-day as variously as ever. Certain features--the high physical courage, the impulsive energy, the fervid imagination--stand out clear; beyond that disagreement begins. That he was a great master of war is admitted by most of those who judge his character unfavourably, but even this has been seriously questioned (e.g. by Beloch, Griech. Gesch. iii. (i.), p. 66). There is a dispute as to his real designs. That he aimed at conquering the whole world and demanded to be worshipped as a god is the traditional view. Droysen denies the former, and Niese maintains that his ambition was limited by the bounds of the Persian empire and that the claim to divine honours is fabulous (Historische Zeitschr. lxxix., 1897, 1 f.). It is true that our best authority, Arrian, fails to substantiate the traditional view satisfactorily; on the other hand those who maintain it urge that Arrian's interests were mainly military, and that the other authorities, if inferior in trustworthiness, are completer in range of vision. Of those, again, who maintain the traditional view, some, like Niebuhr and Grote, regard it as convicting Alexander of mad ambition and vainglory, whilst to Kaerst Alexander only incorporates ideas which were the timely fruit of a long historical development. The policy of fusing Greeks and Orientals again is diversely judged. To Droysen and Kaerst it accords with the historical conditions; to Grote and to Beloch it is a betrayal of the prerogative of Hellenism.

Some notion of the personal appearance of Alexander may be got from the literature and the surviving monuments. He is described as of an athletic frame, though not taller than the common, and a white and ruddy complexion. The expression of his eyes had something ``liquid and melting'' (ton ommaton ten diachusin kai ugroteta), and the hair which stood up over his forehead gave the suggestion of a lion. He had a way of carrying his head somewhat aslant. (See especially Plut. Alex. 4; de Alex. fort. ii. 2.) The greatest masters of the time executed portraits of him, Lysippus in sculpture, Apelles in painting and Pyrgoteles in graven gems. Among surviving monuments, we have no completely certified portraits except the Tivoli herm (now in the Louvre) and the coins struck by his successors. The herm is a dry work and the head upon the coins shows various degrees of idealization. There are, however, a considerable number of works which can make out a better or worse claim either to be portraits of Alexander or to reproduce his type, and a large field of discussion is therefore open as to their values and classification (F. Kopp, Uber das Bildnis Alexanders d. Grossen (1892); K. J. Ujfalvy, Le Type physique d'Alexandre le Grand (1902); T. Schreiber, Studien uber das Bildnis Alexanders d. Grossen (1903); J. J. Bernoulli, Die erhaltenen Darstellungen Alexanders d. Grossen (1905). Alexander shaved clean, and set the fashion in this respect for the Graeco-Roman world for the next 500 years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The campaigns and life of Alexander did not lack contemporary historians, some of them eye-witnesses and even associates. They included the philosopher Callisthenes, put to death by Alexander in 327, whose history went up to the death of Darius, Alexander's general Ptolemy, afterwards king in Egypt, Nearchus who commanded the fleet that sailed from the Indus to the Persian Gulf, Onesicritus who served as pilot in the same fleet, Aristobulus who was with Alexander in India, Clitarchus, a contemporary, if not an eye-witness, important from the fact that his highly coloured version of the life of Alexander became the popular authority for the succeeding centuries. Besides the historical narrative, there were works mainly geographical or topographical left by persons like Baeton and Diognetus, whom Alexander had employed (as bematistai) to survey the roads over which he passed. All such original sources have now perished. The fragments are collected in the Didot edition of Arrian by Karl Muller. Not reckoning scattered notices, we depend principally opon five later compositions, Diodorus, book xvii. (c. 20 B.C.), the work of Quintus Curtius (c. A.D. 42), Plutarch's (c. 45-125 A.D.) Life of Alexander, Arrian's Anabasis and Indica (c. A.D. 150), and the relevant books of Justin's abridgment (2nd cent. A.D.) of the history of Trogus (c. 10 B.C.?). To these we may add the Latin Itinerarium Alexandri, a skeleton outline of Alexander's campaigns dedicated to the emperor Constantius (A.D. 324-361), printed at the end of the Didot edition of Arrian, and the Epitome Rerum Gestarum Alexandri magni, an abridgment made in the 4th or 5th century of a lost Latin work of uncertain date, combining history with elements taken from the Romance (edited by O. Wagner, Leipzig, 1900). The relation of these works to the various original sources constitutes the critical problem before the modern historian in reference to the history of Alexander. See Droysen vol. i. appendix i.; A. Schoene, De rerum Alexandri Magni scriptorum imprimis Arriani & Plutarchi fontibus (1870); Fraenkel, Die Geschichtschreiber Alex. d. Grossen (1883); O. Maas, Kleitarch und Diodor (Petersburg, 1894); Kaerst, Ferechungen zur Gesch. Alex. d. Grossen (1887), and Gesch. d. hellenist. Zeitalters (vol. i., 1901 ), pp. 421 f.; F. L. Schoenle, Diodorstudien ( 1891 ); E. Schwartz, articles ``Aristobulos (14),'' ``Arrianus,'' ``Quintus Curtius,'' ``Diodorus'' in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie.

For modern views of Alexander see Thirlwall, History of Greece; Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History (Eng. trans. rev. by author, 1852) Grote, History of Greece; Droysen, Histoire de l'Hellenisme (translation by Bouche-Leclerq); Ad. Holm, History of Greece (Eng. trans., 1898); B. Niese, Gesch. der griech. u. maked. Staaten (vol. i.); Kaerst, Gesch. des hellenist. Zeitalters (1901); J. Beloch, Griechische Gesch. (vol. iii., 1904); J. B. Bury, History of Greece (1902); A. von Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans (1888). Among the mass of monographs and special articles, reference may be made to Freeman, Historical Essays, 2nd series, pp. 182 f.; Dodge, Alexander (in a series called Great Captains) 1890; Mahaffy, Problems in Greek History (1892, ch. viii.; D. G. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander of Macedon (1897), a striking effort of historical imagination to reconstruct Alexander as a man of the real world: Benjamin I. Wheeler, Alexander the Great (1900) in the ``Heroes of the Nations Series.'' The purely military aspect of Alexander's campaigns is treated in general histories of warfare (Rustow-Kochly, Bauer, Delbruck, Verdy du Vernois), and in special monographs by Hogarth, Journ. of Philol. vol. xvii., 1888, pp. 1 foll.; H. Droysen, Untersuchungen uber A. des Gr. Heerwesen (1885), and Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Kurze Ubersicht der Feldzuge A. de Gr. (1897). For further references to the literature on Alexander, see Kaerst's article in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie (1894). (E. R. B.)

1 The use of the surname is proved as far back as the 1st century B.C. (Nepos, De Reg. 2).

2 See Bauer,``Die Schlacht bei Issus'' in Jahreshefte d.osterr. archaol. Instit. ii. pp. 105 f.; A. Janke. Auf Alex. d. grossen Pfaden; Gruhn, Das Schlachtfeld von Issus; Lammert in Berl. Philol. Wochenschr. (1905), col. 1596 f.

3 Pridik, De Alex. Mog. epist. commercio (Dorpat, 1893); Schwartz, art. ``Curtius'' in Pauly-Wissowa, col. 1884.

4 The story of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem rests on no better authority than a later Jewish romance.

5 The best opinion now confirms Abbott's identification of Aornus with Mahaban--Deane, Journ. R. Asiat. Soc. (Oct. 1896), p. 673; them, Report of an Archaeological Tour with the Buner Field Force (Lahore, 1898), pp. 45-48.

6 Beside V. Smith (cited below) see Schubert, ``Die Porusschlacht,'' in Rhein. Mus. lvi., 1901, p. 543.

7 There seems nothing to fix the exact spot of this town; the common identification with Multan is, according to Raverty and V. Smith, certainly wrong.

8 For the indian campaigns of Alexander see especially McCrindle, Invasion of India by Alexander the Great (1896); Vincent A. Smith, Early History of India (1904), and the references there given to the researches of Sir T. H. Holdich, Raverty and Foucher; A. Anspach, De Alex. Magni exped. ind. (1903).

9 Tomaschek, ``Topographische Erlauterung der Kustenfahrt Nearchs'' in the Sitzungsberichte der kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissensch. of Vienna (Philosoph.-histor. Klasse, vol. cxxi.); Major P. M. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia (1902), pp. 166 f.

10 For Alexander's funeral, see F. Jacoby in Rhein. Mus. (1903), pp. 461 f.

The Romance of Alexander.

The figure of Alexander naturally impressed itself upon the imagination of the world which his career had shaken. Even in India we are told that he was held in honour by the native kings who took his farthest provinces in possession. But Eastern tradition, so tenacious of the old myths of primitive man, has a short memory for actual history, and five centuries later Alexander was only remembered in Iran as the accursed destroyer of the sacred books, whose wisdom he had at the same time pilfered by causing translations to be made into ``Roman.'' That the East to-day has so much to tell about Alexander is only due to the fact that old mythical stories of gods or heroes who go travelling through lands of monsters and darkness, of magical fountains and unearthly oceans, became attached to his name in the popular literature of the Roman empire, and this mythical Alexander was reintroduced in the 7th century A.D. into the farther East, where the historical Alexander was almost forgotten. The romance of Alexander is found written in the languages of nearly all peoples from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, but all these versions are derived, mediately or immediately, from the Greek original which circulated under the false name of Callisthenes. The Greek pseudo-Callisthenes (otherwise Aisopos we possess in three recensions, based all upon a book produced in Egypt in the 2nd century A.D. But this book itself was a farrago of heterogeneous elements--pieces of genuine history, ancient stories once told in Babylon of Gilgamesh or Etanna, literary forgeries of the days soon after Alexander, like the oldest part of the ``Testament of Alexander,'' variations due to Egyptian patriotic sentiment, like that which made Alexander the son of the last Pharaoh, Nectanebus. As the story was reproduced, variations were freely introduced according to the bent of different times and peoples; in the Persian version Alexander (Iskander) became a son of Darius; among the Mahommedans he turned into a prophet, hot against idols; the pen of Christian monks made him an ascetic saint.

The Alexander romance found its way into Europe through the medium of Latin, but originated mainly from the versions of the pseudo-Callisthenes, not from the more sober narrative of Quintus Curtius. The pseudo-Callisthenes, in a recension which has not been preserved, was translated into Latin by Julius Valerius about the end of the 3rd century, and an epitome of this translation, also in Latin, was made some time before the 9th century, and is introduced by Vincent de Beauvais into his Speculum historiale. Much of the legend is a running travesty of the true history of the conqueror. The first book deals with his birth and early exploits. The trace of Alexandrian influence is to be found in the pretence that his actual father was Nectanebus, a fugitive king of Egypt. The latter was a great magician, able, by operating upon waxen figures of the armies and ships of his enemies, to obtain complete power over their real actions. Obliged, however, to flee to Pella in Macedonia, he established himself as an astrologer, and as such was consulted by the childless Olympias. Having promised that Zeus Ammon would visit her in the form of a dragon, he himself assumed the disguise. In due course Alexander was born, and Philip's suspicions were overcome by a second appearance of the dragon, which was held to prove the divine fatherhood. The child was small and somewhat deformed, but of great courage and intelligence. When he was twelve years old he was instructed in starcraft by Nectanebus, who was killed by a fall into a pit, into which he had been playfully pushed by Alexander. The first book also relates his conquests in Italy, Africa, Syria and Asia Minor; his return to Macedonia and the submission of Greece. The second book continues the history of his conquests, and the third contains the victory over Porus, the relations with the Brahmins, the letter to Aristotle on the wonders of India, the histories of Candace and the Amazons, the letter to Olympias on the marvels of Farther Asia, and lastly the account of Alexander's death in Babylon.

The most wide-spread Latin version of the story, however, was the Historia de proeliis,1 printed at Strassburg in 1486, which began to supersede the Epitome of Julius Valerius in general favour about the end of the 13th century. It is said to have been written by the Neapolitan arch-presbyter Leo, who was sent by Johannes and Marinus, dukes of Campania (941-965) to Constantinople, where he found his Greek original. Auxiliary sources for the medieval romance-writers were:--the opuscule (4th century) known as Alexandri magni iter ad Paradisum, a fable of Eastern origin directed against ambition; the Itinerarium Alexandri (340), based partly on Julius Valerius and dedicated to Constans, son of the emperor Constantine; the letter of Alexander to Aristotle (Epist. de situ et mirabilibus Indiae), and the correspondence between Alexander and the king of the Brahmins, Dindimus, both of which are often contained in MSS. of the Epitome; and the treatise (based on a lost history of Alexander by Onesicritus), De gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus, ascribed without certainty to Palladius (d. c. 430), successively bishop of Helenopolis and Aspona.

The Ethiopic versions are of great interest as a striking example of literary ``accommodation.'' Not only is the whole atmosphere Christian in colouring, but we actually find the Greek gods in the guise of Enoch, Elijah, &c., while Philip is a Christian martyr, and Alexander himself a great apostle, even a saint; quotations from the Bible are frequent. Syriac and Armenian versions were made in the 5th century. Persians and Arabs told the deeds of Iskander; and Firdousi made use of the story in the Shahnama. Another early Persian poet, Nizami, made the story specially his own. The crusaders brought back fresh developments; Gog and Magog (partly Arab and partly Greek) and some Jewish stories were then added. In the 11th century Simeon Seth, protovestiarius at the Byzantine court, translated the fabulous history from the Persian back into Greek.

The Alexander legend was the theme of poetry in all European languages; six or seven German poets dealt with the subject, and it may be read in French, English, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Flemish and Bohemian.

French.--The earliest known French romance of Alexander, by Alberic of Besancon (or more properly Briancon), was, until the discovery of a fragment of 100 lines at Florence in 1852, known only through the German adaptation by Lamprecht the preacher, who wrote towards the end of the 12th century, and by the version made by a Poitevin poet named Simon in decasyllabic lines. Alberic followed the epitome of Julius Valerius. He had some knowledge of authentic history, and rejected the more marvellous elements of the story. The French feudal romance, Li Romans d'Alexandre, was written in the 12th century by Lambert li Tors of Chateaudun, Alexandre de Bernai, surnamed de Paris, and others. It contained 20,000 lines, and was written in twelve-syllabled lines, whence the term ``alexandrine'' verse. The authors endowed Alexander with the fashionable virtues of the chivalric hero, making him especially the type of lavish generosity. They used as their sources Valerius, the letter to Aristotle and the Iter ad Paradisum, adding much of their own. Pierre de Saint Cloud, the writer of the fourth section of the romance, was evidently acquainted with the Historia de proeliis. The incident of the Fuerre de Gadres (Foray of Gaza), interpolated in the second section, is assigned to a certain Eustache. The redaction of the whole work is due to Alexandre de Bernai, who replaced the original assonance by rhyme. According to all the traditions of romance it was necessary to avenge the death of Alexander. At the end of the 12th century Gui de Cambrai and Jean le Nevelon (or Nevelaux or Venelais), each wrote a Vengeance d'Alexandre. Jean le Nevelon relates how Alior, the son of Alexander and Candace, avenged his father's death on Antipater and others. Between 1310 and 1315 Jacques de Longuyon (or Langhion) introduced into the account of the Indian war Les Voeux du paon, a romanesque and fantastic episode very loosely connected with Alexander. It is interesting for its connexion with the 15th-century romance of Perceforest, since in it Alexander visits Britain, where he bestows Scotland on Gadifer and England on Betis (otherwise Perceforest). Les Voeux du paon enjoyed great popularity, and had two sequels, Le Restor du paon, written before 1338 by Jean Brisebarre de Douai, and Le Parfait du paon, written in 1340 by Jean de la Mote. Florimont, a 12th-century poem by Aimon de Varenne, relates to a fictitious personage said to have been the grandfather of Alexander. This poem gave rise to two prose romances--La Conqueste de Grece faicte par Philippe de Madien, by Perrinet du Pin, first printed in 1527, and Histoire du roi Florimond (1528). Quintus Curtius was largely used for the Alexandreis (c. 1180) of Gaultier de Lille or de Chatillon (Galtherus ab Insulis or de Castellione). It is a Latin poem in ten books of hexameters, and contains a curious admixture of Biblical history. It was translated at the end of the next century into Flemish by J. van Maerlant and into German by Ulrich von Eschenbach.

Of the French prose versions of the Historia de proeliis may be noticed the late romance, L'Histoire du noble et vaillant roy Alixandre le Grant (1506). After an account of the ancient history of Macedonia and of the intrigue of Nectanebus we are told how Philip dies, and how Alexander subdues Rome and receives tribute from all European nations. He then makes his Persian expedition; the Indian campaign gives occasion for descriptions of all kinds of wonders. The conqueror visits a cannibal kingdom and finds many marvels in the palace of Porus, among them a vine with golden branches, emerald leaves and fruit of other precious stones. In one country he meets with women who, after the burial in the winter, become alive again in the spring full of youth and beauty. Having reached the ends of the earth and conquered all nations, he aspires to the dominion of the air. He obtains a magic glass cage, yoked with eight griffins, flies through the clouds, and, thanks to enchanters who know the language of birds, gets information as to their manners and customs, and ultimately receives their submission. The excessive heat of the upper regions compels him to descend, and he next visits the bottom of the sea in a kind of diving-bell. The fish crowd round him and pay homage. Alexander returns to Babylon, is crowned with much pomp and mass is celebrated. He dies by poison soon afterwards.

English Versions.--The Alexander cycle was no less popular in Great Britain. The letter from Alexander to Aristotle and his correspondence with Dindimus are found in Early English versions dating from the 11th century. These are printed by O. Cockayne in his Narratiunculae Anglice conscriptae (1861). The Monk (De Cas. ill. vir.) in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales prefaces his account of Alexander with the statement that his story is so common

That every wight that hath discrecioun Hath herd somewhat or all of his fortune. There are two considerable fragments of an English alliterative romance on the subject written in the west midland dialect, and dating from the second half of the 14th century. The first, The Gestes of the Worthy King and Emperor Alisaunder of Macedoine (ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1877, with William of Palermo) contains an account of the wars of Philip, of Nectanebus and of the education of Alexander. A second fragment (ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1878) contains Alexander's visit to the Gymnosophists and his correspondence with Dindimus. Another alliterative poem in the northern dialect, of 15th-century origin, is based on the Historia de proeliis, and was edited by Skeat for the E.E.T.S. (1886) as The Wars of Alexander. Earlier than any of these is the rhyming Lyfe of Alisaunder (c. 1330) which is printed in H. Weber's Metrical Romances (vol. i., 1810). It is written in unusually picturesque and vigorous language, and is based on the Roman de toute chevalerie, a French compilation made about 1250 by a certain Eustace or Thomas of Kent. Fragments of another rhyming poem (pr. c. 1550) are preserved in the British Museum. The Scots Buik of the most noble and vailyzeand Conqueror Alexander the Great, printed by Alexander Arbuthnot (d. 1585) about 1580, reprinted in 1831 for the Bannatyne Club, is not really a life. It contains three episodes of the cycle, the ``Forray of Gadderis'' (not taken from the Fuerre de Gadres but from the Assaut de Tyr in the Romans d'Alixandre), ``The Avowes of Alexander,'' and ``The Great Battel of Effesoun,'' taken from the Voeux du paon. Many passages in John Barbour's Bruce are almost identical with this book, and it is suggested by G. Neilson (John Barbour, Poet and Translator, London, 1900) that Barbour was the author, although the colophon states that it was written in 1438. Bruce at Bannockburn makes the same oration as Alexander at ``Effesoun.'' A Buke of the Conqueror Alexander the Great by Sir Gilbert Hay (fl. 1456) is in MS. at Taymouth Castle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best sketch of the Alexander romance literature is by Paul Meyer. Alexandre le grand dans la litterature francaise au moyen age (2 vols., Paris, 1886). The first volume contains some French texts, and the second a detailed discussion of the various versions from the pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. See also J. Zacher, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Forschungen zur . . . . Alexandersage (Halle, 1867), and for Oriental versions, T. Noldeke, ksl. Akad. d. Wissenschaben, Phil.-hist. Klasse, vol. 38: Vienna, 1890). For early printed versions see Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. ``Alexandre.''

The text of the pseudo-Callisthenes was edited by C. W. Muller from three MSS. in the Bibl. Nat. and printed in the Arrian of the Coll. Didot (Paris, 1846), and by H. Meusel (Leipzig, 1871) from a Leiden MS. A. Mai edited Julius Valerius (Milan, 1817) and the Itinerarium Alexandri (Class. Auct. vol. vii.; Milan, 1835); J. Zacher, the Epitome Halle, 1867) and Alex. iter ad Paradisum (Regensburg, 1859); the Oxford MS. of the Epitome was edited by G. Cilli (Strassburg, 1903); G. Landgraf, Die ``Vita Alexandri'' . . . des Archpresbyter Leo (Historia de proeliis), (Erlangen, 1885); Alexander's letter to Aristotle and his correspondence with Dindimus are included in the Teubner edition of Julius Valerius (ed. B. Kubler, Leipzig, 1888). A newly discovered anonymous Epitome was edited by O. Wagner (Leipzig, 1900).

The fragment by Alberic was edited by P. Heyse (Berlin, 1856); Lamprecht's German text by H. Weismann (Frankfort, 1850) and by C. Kinzel (Halle, 1884); the Alexandreis of Gaultier de Lille, by F. A. W. Muldener (Leipzig, 1863); an Icelandic prose version (c. 1250) of the same, Alexanders Saga, by C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1848); Li Romans d'Alexandre, by H. Michelant (Stuttgart, 1846); the Ethiopic version by E. A. T. Wallis Budge (1896, 2 vols., with English translation); the Syriac text of pseudo-Callisthenes by Budge (Cambridge, 1889); cp. K. F. Weymann, Die athiopische und arabische Ubersetzungen des Pseudo-Kallisthenes (Kirchhain, 1901).

Besides the English editions quoted in the text, the alliterative English poems were partially edited by J. Stevenson for the Roxburghe Club (1849). There is a great deal of information on the various texts in H. L. Wood's Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum (1883, vol. i. pp. 94 et seq.). See also A. Hermann, Untersuchungen uber das Scottische Alexanderbuch (1893); and Unters. uber das med. Gedicht, The Wars of Alexander (Berlin, 1889). Among other works see E. Ronde, Der griechische Roman (2nd ed. Leipzig, 1900); B. Meissner, Alexander u. Gilgamos (Leipzig, 1894); F. Kampers, ``Alex. d. Grosse und die Idee des Weltimperiums in Prophetic und Sage'' (in H. Granert's Studien, &c., Freiburg, 1901); Adolf Ausfeld, Der griechische Alexanderroman (Leipzig, 1907), edited after the author's death by W. Kroll; Wilhelm Hertz, ``Aristoteles in den Alex. Dichtungen d. Mittelalters'' (Kgl. Acad. d. Wissenschaften, Munich, 1891); H. Becker, Die Brahmanen in d. Alex. Sage (Konigsberg, 1889). (M. BR.)

1 Nativitas et victoriae Alexandri magni regis was the original title.

ALEXANDER, tagus or despot of Pherae in Thessaly, ruled from 369 to 358 B.C. His tyranny caused the Aleuadae of Larissa to invoke the aid of Alexander II. of Macedon, whose intervention was successful, but after his withdrawal Alexander treated his subjects as cruelly as before. The Thessalians now applied to Thebes; Pelopidas, who was sent to their assistance, was treacherously seized and thrown into prison (368), and it was necessary to send Epaminondas with a large army to secure his release. Alexander's conduct caused renewed intervention; in 364 he was defeated at Cynoscephalae by the Thebans, although the victory was dearly bought by the loss of Pelopidas, who fell in the battle. Alexander was at last crushed by the Thebans, compelled to acknowledge the freedom of the Thessalian cities and to limit his rule to Pherae, and forced to join the Boeotian league. He was murdered by his wife's brother at her instigation. Ancient accounts agree in describing Alexander as a typically cruel and suspicious tyrant.

ALEXANDER (1461-1506), king of Poland and grand- duke of Lithuania, fourth son of Casimir IV., king of Poland, was elected grand-duke of Lithuania on the death of his father in 1492, and king of Poland on the death of his brother John Albert in 1501. His extreme impecuniosity made him from the first subservient to the Polish senate and nobles (szlachta), who deprived him of the control of the mint--then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kings--curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III. from ravaging Lithuania with the Tatars. The utmost the king could do was to garrison Smolensk and other fortresses and employ his wife Helena, the tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself. During his reign Poland suffered much humiliation from the attempts of her subject principalities, Prussia and Moldavia, to throw off her yoke. Only the death of Stephen, the great hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube; while the liberality of Pope Julius II., who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favour of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled the Polish king to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order. In Alexander the characteristic virtues of the Jagiellos, patience and generosity, degenerated into slothfulness and extravagance. Frequently he was too poor to pay the expenses of his own table. But he never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favour principally upon his fellow-countrymen, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michael Glinsky, who justified his master's confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at Kleck (August 5, 1506), the news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed.

See V. Czerny, The Reigns of John Albert and Alexander Jagiello (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).

ALEXANDER, the name of eight popes:--

ALEXANDER I. was bishop of Rome from about 106 to 115. He has been identified, without any foundation, with Alexander, a martyr of the Via Nomentana, whose day is the 3rd of May.

ALEXANDER II. (Anselmo Baggio), pope from 1061 to 1073, was a native of Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy. His election, which Hildebrand had arranged in conformity with the decree of 1059 (see NICHOLAS II.), was not sanctioned by the imperial court of Germany. This court, faithful to the practice observed by it in the preceding elections, nominatod another candidate, Cadalus, bishop of Parma, who was proclaimed at the council of Basel under the name of Honorius II., marched to Rome, and for a long time jeopardized his rival's position. At length, however, he was abandoned by the Germanic court and deposed by a council held at Mantua; and Alexander's position remained unchallenged. Alexander was succeeded by his associate Hildebrand, who took the title of Gregory VII. (L. D.*)

ALEXANDER III. (Orlando Bandinelli), pope from 1159 to 1181, was a Siennese, and as a teacher of canon law in Bologna composed the Stroma or the Summa Magistri Rolandi, one of the earliest commentaries on the Decretum Gratiani. In October 1150 Eugenius III. created him cardinal deacon SS. Cosmae and Damiani; later he became cardinal priest of St Mark's. Probably about this time he composed his Sentences, based on the Introductio ad theologiam of Abelard. In 1153 he became papal chancellor, and was the leader of the cardinals opposed to Frederick Barbarossa. On the 7th of September 1159 he was chosen the successor of Adrian IV., a minority of the cardinals, however, electing the cardinal priest Octavian, who assumed the name of Victor IV. This antipope, and his successors Paschal III. (1164-1168) and Calixtus III. (1168-1178), had the imperial support; but after the defeat of Legnano, Barbarossa finally (in the peace of Venice, 1177) recognized Alexander as pope. On the 12th of March 1178 Alexander returned to Rome, which he had been compelled to leave twice, namely, from 1162 until the 23rd of November 1165, and again in 1167. The first period he spent in France, the latter chiefly in Gaeta, Benevento, Anagni and Venice. In March 1179 Alexander held the third Lateran synod, a brilliant assemblage, reckoned by the Roman church as the eleventh oecumenical council; its acts embody several of the pope's proposals for the betterment of the condition of the church, among them the present law requiring that no one may be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals. This synod marks the summit of Alexander's power. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, he had humbled Henry II. of England in the affair of Thomas Becket, he had confirmed the right of Alphonso I. of Portugal to the crown, and even as a fugitive had enjoyed the favour and protection of Louis VII. of France. Nevertheless, soon after the close of the synod the Roman republic forced Alexander to leave the city, which he never re-entered; and on the 29th of September 1179 some nobles set up the antipope Innocent III. By the judicious use of money, however, Alexander got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January 1180. In 1181 Alexander excommunicated William the Lion of Scotland and put the kingdom under the interdict. The great pope died at Civita Castellana on the 30th of August 1181.

See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, 3rd ed., i. 340-344; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., 1481. The most elaborate biography is H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders III. und der Kirche seiner Zeit (3 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1860). (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER IV. (Rinaldo), pope from 1254 to 1261, was, like Innocent III. and Gregory IX., a member of the family of the counts of Segni. His uncle Gregory IX. made him cardinal deacon in 1227 and cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1231. On the death of Innocent IV. he was elected pope at Naples on the 12th of December 1254. He is described as a stout man, kindly, cheerful, but of no great brilliancy. He succeeded Innocent IV. as guardian of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, promising him his benevolent protection; but in less than a fortnight he conspired against him and bitterly opposed Conradin's uncle Manfred. Alexander fulminated with excommunication and interdict against the party of Manfred, but in vain; nor could he enlist the kings of England and Norway in a crusade against the Hohenstaufen. Rome itself became too Ghibelline for the pope, who withdrew to Viterbo, where he died on the 25th of May 1261. His pontificate was signalized by efforts to unite the Greek and Latin churches, by the establishment of the Inquisition in France, by favours shown to the mendicant orders, and by an attempt to organize a crusade against the Tatars.

The registers of Alexander IV. are published by Bourel de la Ronciere and others in the Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, Paris, 1895 ff. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER V. (Peter Philarges), pope 1409-1410, was born in Crete of unknown parents and entered the order of St Francis, for which, as for the other mendicant orders, he later manifested his affection in a striking manner. He was a member in turn of the universities of Oxford and Paris, and finally settled in Lombardy, where, thanks to the favour of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he became bishop, first of Piacenza, then of Vincenza, then of Novara, and afterwards archbishop of Milan. On being created cardinal by Innocent VII. he devoted all his energies from 1408 onwards to the realization of the union of the church, in spite of the two rival popes. He was one of the promoters of the council of Pisa, and after that assembly had declared Gregory XII. and Benedict NIII. deposed, the cardinals assembled in conclave thought they could not do better than crown with the tiara this cosmopolitan prelate, who had an equal mastery of the Latin and Greek languages, and was renowned not only for his learning in theology but for his affability (June 26, 1409). As a matter of fact, the only effect of this election was to aggravate the schism by adding a third to the number of rival pontiffs. During his short reign of ten months Alexander V.'s aim was to extend his obedience with the assistance of France, and, notably, of the duke Louis II. of Anjou, upon whom he conferred the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily, together with the title of gonfalonier of the church. He proclaimed and promised rather than effected a certain number of reforms: the abandonment of the rights of ``spoils'' and ``procurations,'' the re-establishment of the system of canonical election in the cathedral churches and principal monasteries, &c. But death came upon him almost without warning at Bologna, in the night of the 3rd-4th May 1410. A rumour went about that he had been poisoned by the cardinal Baldassare Cossa, impatient to be his successor, who succeeded him in fact under the name of John XXIII. The crime has, however, never been proved, though a Milanese physician, who performed the task of dissecting the corpse of Peter Philarges, seems to have thought that he found traces of poison. (N. V.)

ALEXANDER VI. (Rodrigo Borgia) (1431-1503), pope from 1492 to his death, is the most memorable of the corrupt and secular popes of the Renaissance. He was born (January 1, 1431) at Xativa, near Valencia in Spain, and his father's surname was Lanzol or Llancol; that of his mother's family, Borgia or Borja, was assumed by him on the elevation of his maternal uncle to the papacy as Calixtus III. (April 8, 1455). He studied law at Bologna, and after his uncle's election he was created successively bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church, an act of nepotism characteristic of the age. He served in the Curia under five popes and acquired much administrative experience, influence and wealth, although no great power; he was economical in his habits; on occasion he displayed great splendour and lived in a fine palace. His manners were agreeable and his appearance fascinating, but, like many other prelates of the day, his morals were far from blameless, his two dominant passions being greed of gold and love of women, and he was devotedly fond of the children whom his mistresses bore him. Although ecclesiastical corruption was then at its height, his riotous mode of life called down upon him a very severe reprimand from Pope Pius II., who succeeded Calixtus III. in 1458. Of his many mistresses the one for whom his passion lasted longest was a certain Vannozza (Giovanna) dei Cattani, born in 1442, and wife of three successive husbands. The connexion began in 1470, and she bore him many children whom he openly acknowledged as his own: Giovanni, afterwards duke of Gandia (born 1474), Cesare (born 1476), Lucrezia (born 1480), and Goffredo or Giuffre (born 1481 or 1482). His other children--Girolamo, Isabella and Pier Luigi--were of uncertain parentage. Before his elevation to the papacy Cardinal Borgia's passion for Vannozza somewhat diminished, and she subsequently led a very retired life. Her place in his affections was filled by the beautiful Giulia Farnese (Giulia Bella), wife of an Orsini, but his love for his children by Vannozza remained as strong as ever and proved, indeed, the determining factor of his whole career. He lavished vast sums on them and loaded them with every honour. A characteristic instance of the corruption of the papal court is the fact that Borgia's daughter Lucrezia (see BORGIA, LUCREZIA) lived with his mistress Giulia, who bore him a daughter Laura in 1492.

On the death of Pope Innocent VIII. the three likely candidates for the Holy See were Cardinals Borgia, Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere; at no previous or subsequent election were such immense sums of money spent on bribery, and Borgia by his great wealth succeeded in buying the largest number of votes, including that of Sforza, and to his intense joy he was elected on the 10th of August 1492, assuming the name of Alexander VI. Borgia's elevation did not at the time excite much alarm, except in some of the cardinals who knew him, and at first his reign was marked by a strict administration of justice and an orderly method of government in satisfactory contrast with the anarchy of the previous pontificate, as well as by great outward splendour. But it was not long before his unbridled passion for endowing his relatives at the expense of the church and of his neighbours became manifest. For this object he was ready to commit any crime and to plunge all Italy into war. Cesare, then a youth of sixteen and a student at Pisa, was made archbishop of Valencia, his nephew Giovanni received a cardinal's hat, and for the duke of Gandia and Giuffre the pope proposed to carve fiefs out of the papal states and the kingdom of Naples. Among the fiefs destined for the duke of Gandia were Cervetri and Anguillara, lately acquired by Virginio Orsini, head of that powerful and turbulent house, with the pecuniary help of Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples (Don Ferrante). This brought the latter into conflict with Alexander, who determined to revenge himself by making an alliance with the king's enemies, especially the Sforza family, lords of Milan. In this he was opposed by Cardinal della Rovere, whose candidature for the papacy had been backed by Ferdinand. Della Rovere, feeling that Rome was a dangerous place for him, fortified himself in his bishopric of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, while Ferdinand allied himself with Florence, Milan, Venice, and the pope formed a league against Naples (April 25, 1493) and prepared for war. Ferdinand appealed to Spain for help; but Spain was anxious to be on good terms with the pope to obtain a title over the newly discovered continent of America and could not afford to quarrel with him.

Alexander meditated great marriages for his children. Lucrezia had been married to the Spaniard Don Gasparo de Procida, but on her father's elevation to the papacy the union was annulled, and in 1493 she was married to Giovanni Sforza. lord of Pesaro, the ceremony being celebrated at the Vatican with unparalleled magnificence. But in spite of the splendours of the court, the condition of Rome became every day more deplorable. The city swarmed with Spanish adventurers, assassins, prostitutes and informers; murder and robbery were committed with impunity, heretics and Jews were admitted to the city on payment of bribes, and the pope himself shamelessly cast aside all show of decorum, living a purely secular and immoral life, and indujging in the chase, dancing, stage plays and indecent orgies. One of his boon companions was Jem, the brother of the sultan Bayezid, detained as a hostage.

The general political outlook in Italy was of the gloomiest, and the country was on the eve of the catastrophe of foreign invasion. At Milan Lodovico Sforza (il Moro) ruled, nominally as regent for the youthful duke Gian Galeazzo, but really with a view to making himself master of the state. He made many alliances to secure his position, but fearing himself isolated he sought help from Charles VIII. of France, and as the king of Naples threatened to come to the aid of Gian Galeazzo, who had married his grand- daughter, he encouraged the French king in his schemes for the conquest of Naples. Alexander carried on a double policy, always ready to seize opportunities to aggrandize his family. But through the intervention of the Spanish ambassador he made peace with Naples in July 1493 and also with the Orsini; the peace was cemented by a marriage between the pope's son Giuffre and Dona Sancha, Ferdinand's grand-daughter. In order to dominate the Sacred College more completely he created twelve new cardinals, among them his own son Cesare, then only eighteen years old, and Alessandro Farnese, the brother of Giulia Bella, one of the pope's mistresses, creations which caused much scandal. On the 25th of January 1494 Ferdinand died and was succeeded by his son Alphonso II. Charles of France now advanced formal claims on the kingdom, and Alexander drew him to his side and authorized him to pass through Rome ostensibly on a crusade against the Turks, without mentioning Naples. But when the French invasion became a reality he was alarmed, recognized Alphonso as king, and concluded an alliance with him in exchange for various fiefs to his sons (July 1494). Preparations for defence were made; a Neapolitan army was to advance through the Romagna and attack Milan, while the fleet was to seize Genoa; but both expeditions were badly conducted and failed, and on the 8th of September Charles crossed the Alps and joined Lodovico il Moro at Milan. The papal states were in a turmoil, and the powerful Colonna faction seized Ostia in the name of France. Charles rapidly advanced southward, and after a short stay in Florence set out for Rome (November 1494). Alexander appealed to Ascanio Sforza for help, and even to the sultan. He tried to collect troops and put Rome in a state of defence, but his position was most insecure, and the Orsini offered to admit the French to their castles. This defection decided the pope to come to terms, and on the 31st of December Charles entered Rome with his troops and the cardinals of the French faction. Alexander now feared that the king might depose him for simony and summon a council, but he won over the bishop of St Malo, who had much influence over the king, with a cardinal's hat, and agreed to send Cesare, as legate, to Naples with the French army, to deliver Jem to Charles and to give him Civitavecchia (January 16, 1495). On the 28th Charles departed for Naples with Jem and Cesare, but the latter escaped to Spoleto. Neapolitan resistance collapsed; Alphonso fled and abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand II., who also had to fly abandoned by all, and the kingdom was conquered with surprising ease. But a reaction against Charles soon set in, for all the powers were alarmed at his success, and on the 31st of March a league between the pope, the emperor, Venice, Lodovico il Moro and Ferdinand of Spain was formed, ostensibly against the Turks, but in reality to expel the French from Italy. Charles had himself crowned king of Naples on the 12th of May, but a few days later began his retreat northward. He encountered the allies at Fornovo, and after a drawn battle cut his way through them and was back in France by November; Ferdinand II. with Spanish help was reinstated at Naples soon afterwards. The expedition, if it produced no material results, laid bare the weakness of the Italian political system and the country's incapacity for resistance.

Alexander availed himself of the defeat of the French to break the power of the Orsini, following the general tendency of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories and establish a centralized despotism. Virginio Orsini, who had been captured by the Spaniards, died a prisoner at Naples, and the pope confiscated his property. But the rest of the clan still held out, and the papal troops sent against them under Guidobaldo duke of Urbino and the duke of Gandia were defeated at Soriano (January 1497). Peace was made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000 ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the duke of Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay his own ransom. The Orsini still remained very powerful, and Alexander could count on none but his 3000 Spaniards. His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and Savelli.

Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for which the house of Borgia remained famous. On the 14th of June the duke of Gandia, lately created duke of Benevento, disappeared; the next day his corpse was found in the Tiber. Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castle St Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the church would be the sole object of his life henceforth--a resolution which he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed personages. Suddenly the rumour spread about that Cesare, the pope's second son, was the author of the deed, and although the inquiries then ceased and no conclusive evidence has yet come to light, there is every probability that the charge was well founded. No doubt Cesare, who contemplated quitting the church, was inspired by jealousy. of Gandia's influence with the pope. Violent and revengeful, he now became the most powerful man in Rome, and even his father quailed before him. As he needed funds to carry out his various schemes, the pope began a series of confiscations, of which one of the victims was his own secretary, in order to enrich him. The process was a simple one: any cardinal, nobleman or official who was known to be rich would be accused of some offence; imprisonment and perhaps murder followed at once, and then the confiscation of his property. The disorganization of the Curia was appalling, the sale of offices became a veritable scandal, the least opposition to the Borgia was punished with death, and even in that corrupt age the state of things shocked public opinion. The story of Alexander's relations with Savonarola is narrated under the latter heading; it is sufficient to say here that the pope's hostility was due to the friar's outspoken invectives against papal corruption and to his appeals for a General Council. Alexander, although he could not get Savonarola into his own hands, browbeat the Florentine government into condemning the reformer to death (May 23, 1498). The pope was unable to maintain order in his own dominions; the houses of Colonna and Orsini were at open war with each other, but after much fighting they made peace on a basis of alliance against the pope. Thus further weakened, he felt more than ever that he had only his own kin to rely upon, and his thoughts were ever turned on family aggrandizement. He had annulled Lucrezia's marriage with Sforza in 1497, and, unable to arrange a union between Cesare and the daughter of Frederick, king of Naples (who had succeeded Ferdinand II. the previous year), he induced the latter by threats to agree to a marriage between the duke of Bisceglie, a natural son of Alphonso II., and Lucrezia. Cesare, who renounced his cardinalate, was sent on a mission to France at the end of the year, bearing a bull of divorce for the new king Louis XII., in exchange for which he obtained the duchy of Valentinois (hence his title of Duca Valentino) and a promise of material assistance in his schemes to subjugate the feudal princelings of Romagna; he married a princess of Navarre. Alexander hoped that Louis's help would be more profitable to his house than that of Charles had been and, in spite of the remonstrances of Spain and of the Sforza, he allied himself with France in January 1499 and was joined by Venice. By the autumn Louis was in Italy and expelled Lodovico Sforza from the Milanese. In order to consolidate his possessions still further, now that French success seemed assured, the pope determined to deal drastically with Romagna, which although nominally under papal rule was divided up into a number of practically independent lordships on which Venice, Milan and Florence cast hungry eyes. Cesare, nominated gonfaloniere of the Church, and strong in French favour, proceeded to attack the turbulent cities one by one (for detail see BORGIA CESARE.) But the expulsion of the French from Milan and the return of Lodovico Sforza interrupted his conquests, and he returned to Rome early in 1500. This year was a jubilee year, and crowds of pilgrims flocked to the city from all parts of the world bringing money for the purchase of indulgences, so that Alexander was able to furnish Cesare with funds for his enterprise. In the north the pendulum swung back once more and the French reoccupied Milan in April, causing the downfall of the Sforzas, much to Alexander's gratification. But there was no end to the Vatican tragedies, and in July the duke of Bisceglie, whose existence was no longer advantageous, was murdered by Cesare's orders; this left Lucrezia free to contract another marriage. The pope, ever in need of money, now created twelve new cardinals, from whom he received 120,000 ducats, and fresh conquests for Cesare were considered. But while a crusade was talked of, the real object was central Italy, and in the autumn Cesare, favoured by France and Venice, set forth with 10,000 men to complete his interrupted enterprise. The local despots of Romagna were dispossessed and an administration was set up, which, if tyrannical and cruel, was at least orderly and strong, and aroused the admiration of Machiavelli (q.v..) On his return to Rome (June 1501) he was created duke of Romagna. Louis XII., having succeeded in the north, determined to conquer southern Italy as well, and concluded a treaty with Spain for the division of the Neapolitan kingdom, which was ratified by the pope on the 25th of June, Frederick being formally deposed. The French army proceeded to invade Naples, and Alexander took the opportunity, with the help of the Orsini, to reduce the Colonna to obedience. In his absence he left Lucrezia as regent, offering the astounding spectacle of a pope's natural daughter in charge of the Holy See. Shortly afterwards he induced Alphonso d'Este, son of the duke of Ferrara, to marry her, thus establishing her as heiress to one of the most important principalities in Italy (January 1502). About this time a Borgia of doubtful parentage was born, Giovanni, described in some papal documents as Alexander's son and in others as Cesare's.

As France and Spain were quarrelling over the division of Naples and the Campagna barons were quiet, Cesare set out once more in search of conquests. In June he seized Camerino and Urbino, the news of which capture filled the pope with childish joy. But his military force was uncertain, for the condottieri were not to be trusted. His attempt to draw Florence into an alliance failed, but in July Louis of France again invaded Italy and was at once bombarded with complaints from the Borgia's enemies. Alexander's diplomacy, however, turned the tide, and Cesare, in exchange for promising to assist the French in the south, was given a free hand in central Italy. A new danger now arose in the shape of a conspiracy against him on the part of the deposed despots, the Orsini and some of his own condottieri. At first the papal troops were defeated and things looked black for the house of Borgia. But a promise of French help at once forced the confederates to come to terms, and Cesare by an act of treachery seized the ringleaders at Senigallia, and put Oliverotto da Fermo and Vitellozzo Vitelli to death (Dec. 31, 1502). As soon as Alexander heard the news he decoyed Cardinal Orsini to the Vatican and cast him into a dungeon, where he died. His goods were confiscated, his aged mother turned into the street and numbers of other members of the clan in Rome were arrested, while Giuffre Borgia led an expedition into the Campagna and seized their castles. Thus the two great houses of Orsini and Colonna, who had long fought for predominance in Rome and often flouted the pope's authority, were subjugated, and a great step achieved towards consolidating the Borgia's power. Cesare then returned to Rome, where his father wished him to assist Giuffre in reducing the last Orsini strongholds; this for some reason he was unwilling to do, much to Alexander's annoyance, but he eventually marched out, captured Ceri and made peace with Giulio Orsini, who surrendered Bracciano. Three more high personages fell victims to the Borgia's greed this year, viz. Cardinal Michiel, who was poisoned in April, J. da Santa Croce, who had helped to seize Cardinal Orsini, and Troches or Troccio, one of the family's most faithful assassins; all these murders brought immense sums to the pope. About Cardinal Ferrari's death there is more doubt; he probably died of fever, but the pope immediately confiscated his goods.

The war between France and Spain for the possession of Naples dragged on, and Alexander was ever intriguing, ready to ally himself with whichever power promised at the moment most advantageous terms. He offered to help Louis on condition that Sicily be given to Cesare, and then offered to help Spain in exchange for Siena, Pisa and Bologna. Cesare was preparing for another expedition into central Italy in July 1503, when, in the midst of all these projects and negotiations, both he and his father were taken ill with fever. The occurrence was of course attributed to poison, although quite without foundation, being merely due to malaria, at that time very prevalent in Rome. On the 18th of August Alexander died at the age of 72. His death was followed by scenes of wild disorder, and Cesare, being himself ill, could not attend to business, but sent Don Michelotto, his chief bravo, to seize the pope's treasures before the demise was publicly announced. When the body was exhibited to the people the next day it was in a shocking state of decomposition, which of course strengthened the suspicion of poison. At the funeral a brawl occurred between the soldiers and the priests, and the coffin having been made too short the body without the mitre was driven into it by main force and covered with an oil-cloth. Alexander's successor on the chair of St Peter was Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, who assumed the name of Pius III.

Alexander VI. has become almost a mythical character, and countless legends and traditions are attached to his name. As a matter of fact he cannot be regarded in any sense as a great man. His career shows no great political ideas, and none of his actions indicate genius. His one thought was family aggrandizement, and while it is unlikely that he meditated making the papacy hereditary in the house of Borgia, he certainly gave away its temporal estates to his children as though they belonged to him. The secularization of the church was carried to a pitch never before dreamed of, and it was clear to all Italy that he regarded the papacy as an instrument of worldly schemes with no thought of its religious aspect. During his pontificate the church was brought to its lowest level of degradation. The condition of his subjects was deplorable, and if Cesare's rule in Romagna was an improvement on that of the local tyrants, the people of Rome have seldom been more oppressed than under the Borgia. Alexander was not the only person responsible for the general unrest in Italy and the foreign invasions, but he was ever ready to profit by them. Even if we do not accept all the stories of his murders and poisonings and immoralities as true, there is no doubt that his greed for money and his essentially vicious nature led him to commit a great number of crimes. For many of his misdeeds his terrible son Cesare was responsible, but of others the pope cannot be acquitted. The one pleasing aspect of his life is his patronage of the arts, and in his days a new architectural era was initiated in Rome with the coming of Bramante. Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio all worked for him, and a curious contrast, characteristic of the age, is afforded by the fact that a family so steeped in vice and crime could take pleasure in the most exquisite works of art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief contemporary authorities for this reign are: the diary of Alexander's master of ceremonies, Johannes Burchardus, edited by L. Thuasne (Paris, 1883-1884), which is characterized by accuracy and extraordinary candour often amounting to gross indecency; the despatches of Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, edited by P. Villari (Florence, 1876), which show great insight and are based on the most accurate information; and Paolo Cappelli's ``Diarii'' in E. Alberi's Relazioni, series ii., iii. Among modern works the most important are: F. Gregorovius's Geschichte der Stadt Rom (3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1881), a work of immense research and admirable synthesis, giving a very unfavourable view of the Borgia; A. von Reumont's Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1867-1870), also a valuable book; M. Creighton's History of the Papacy (London, 1897) is very learned and accurate, but the author is more lenient towards Alexander; F. Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart, 1874) contains a great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length. Of the Catholic writers L. Pastor, Geschichte der Papste (Freiburg i. B, 1886) should be consulted, for although the author tries to extenuate the pope to some extent, on the whole he is fair. (L. V.*)

ALEXANDER VII. (Fabio Chigi), pope from 1655 to 1667, was born at Siena on the 13th of February 1599. He was successively inquisitor at Malta, vice-legate at Ferrara and nuncio in Cologne (1639-1651). Though expected to take part in the negotiations which led in 1648 to the peace of Westphalia, he refused to deliberate with heretics, and protested against the treaties when completed. Innocent X. subsequently made him cardinal secretary of state. When Innocent died, Chigi, the candidate favoured by Spain, was elected pope on the 7th of April 1655. The conclave believed he was strongly opposed to the nepotism then prevalent. In the first year of his reign Alexander VII. forbade his relations even to visit Rome; but in 1656 he gave them the best-paid civil and ecclesiastical offices, also palaces and princely estates. Alexander disliked business of state, preferring literature and philosophy; a collection of his Latin poems appeared at Paris in 1656 under the title Philomathi Labores Juveniles. He also encouraged architecture, and in particular constructed the beautiful colonnade in the piazza of St Peter's. He favoured the Jesuits, especially in their conflict with the Jansenists, forbade in 1661 the translation of the Roman Missal into French, and in 1665 canonized Francis of Sales. His pontificate was marked by protracted controversies with France and Portugal. He died on the 22nd of May 1667. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER VIII. (Pietro Ottoboni), pope from 1689 to 1691, was born in 1610 of a noble Venetian family, was created cardinal, and then successively bishop of Brescia and datary. The ambassador of Louis XIV. succeeded in procuring his election on the 6th of October 1689 as successor to Innocent XI.; nevertheless, after months of negotiation Alexander finally condemned the declaration made in 1682 by the French clergy concerning the liberties of the Gallican church. Charities on a large scale and unbounded nepotism exhausted the papal treasury. He bought the books and manuscripts of Queen Christina of Sweden for the Vatican library. Alexander condemned in 1690 the doctrines of so-called philosophic sin, taught in the Jesuit schools. He died on the 1st of February 1691. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER I. (ALEKSANDER PAVLOVICH) (1777-1825), emperor of Russia, son of the grand-duke Paul Petrovich, afterwards Paul I., and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of Frederick Eugene of Wurttemberg, was born on the 28th of December 1777. The strange contradictions of his character make Alexander one of the most interesting as he is one of the most important figures in the history of the 19th century. Autocrat and ``Jacobin,'' man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him a ``shifty Byzantine,'' and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for ``grand qualities,'' but adds that he is ``suspicious and undecided.'' His complex nature was, in truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early environment and education. Reared in the free-thinking atmosphere of the court of Catherine II. he had imbibed from his Swiss tutor, Frederic Cesar de Laharpe, the principles of Rousseau's gospel of humanity; from his military governor, General Soltikov, the traditions of Russian autocracy; while his father had inspired him with his own passion of military parade, and taught him to combine a theoretical love of mankind with a practical contempt for men. These contradictory tendencies remained with him through life, revealed in the fluctuations of his policy and influencing through him the fate of the world. Another element in his character discovered itself when in 1801 he mounted the throne over the body of his murdered father: a mystic melancholy liable at any moment to issue in extravagant action. At first, indeed, this exercised but little influence on the emperor's life. Young, emotional, impressionable, well-meaning and egotistic, Alexander displayed from the first an intention of playing a great part on the world's stage, and plunged with all the ardour of youth into the task of realizing his political ideals. While retaining for a time the old ministers who had served and overthrown the emperor Paul, one of the first acts of his reign was to appoint a secret committee, called ironically the ``Comite du salut public,'' consisting of young and enthusiastic friends of his own--Victor Gavovich Kochubey, Nikolai Nikolaevich Novosiltsov, Paul Alexandrovich Strogonov and Adam Czartoryski--to draw up a scheme of internal reform. Their aims, inspired by their admiration for English institutions, were far in advance of the possibilities of the time, and even after they had been raised to regular ministerial positions but little of their programme could be realized. For Russia was not ripe for liberty; and Alexander, the disciple of the revolutionist Laharpe, was--as he himself said--but ``a happy accident'' on the throne of the tsars. He spoke, indeed, bitterly of ``the state of barbarism in which the country had been left by the traffic in men.'' ``Under Paul,'' he said, ``three thousand peasants had been given away like a bag of diamonds. If civilization were more advanced, I would abolish this slavery, if it cost me my head.''1 But the universal corruption, he complained, had left him no men; and the filling up of the government offices with Germans and other foreigners merely accentuated the sullen resistance of the ``old Russians'' to his reforms. That Alexander's reign, which began with so large a promise of amelioration, ended by riveting still tighter the chains of the Russian people was, however, due less to the corruption and backwardness of Russian life than to the defects of the tsar himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in fact unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as the dispenser of benefits; but his theoretical liberalism was mated with an autocratic will which brooked no contradiction. ``You always want to instruct me!'' he exlaimed to Derzhavin, the minister of justice, ``but I am the autocratic emperor, and I will this, and nothing else!'' ``He would gladly have agreed,'' wrote Adam Czartoryski, ``that every one should be free, if every one had freely done only what he wished.'' Moreover, with this masterful temper was joined an infirmity of purpose which ever let ``I dare not wait upon I would,'' and which seized upon any excuse for postponing measures the principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was done to improve the intolerable status of the Russian peasantry; the constitution drawn up by Speranski, and passed by the emperor, remained unsigned. Alexander, in fact, who, without being consciously tyrannical, possessed in full measure the tyrant's characteristic distrust of men of ability and independent judgment, lacked also the first requisite for a reforming sovereign: confidence in his people; and it was this want that vitiated such reforms as were actually realized. He experimented in the outlying provinces of his empire; and the Russians noted with open murmurs that, not content with governing through foreign instruments, he was conferring on Poland, Finland and the Baltic provinces benefits denied to themselves. In Russia, too, certain reforms were carried out; but they could not survive the suspicious interference of the autocrat and his officials. The newly created council of ministers, and the senate, endowed for the first time with certain theoretical powers, became in the end but the slavish instruments of the tsar and his favourites of the moment. The elaborate system of education, culminating in the reconstituted, or new-founded, universities of Dorpat, Vilna, Kazan and Kharkov, was strangled in the supposed interests of ``order'' and of orthodox piety; while the military colonies which Alexander proclaimed as a blessing to both soldiers and state were forced on the unwilling peasantry and army with pitiless cruelty. Even the Bible Society, through which the emperor in his later mood of evangelical zeal proposed to bless his people, was conducted on the same ruthless lines. The Roman archbishop and the Orthodox metropolitans were forced to serve on its committee side by side with Protestant pastors; and village popes, trained to regard any tampering with the letter of the traditional documents of the church as mortal sin, became the unwilling instruments for the propagation of what they regarded as works of the devil.

Alexander's grandiose imagination was, however, more strongly attracted by the great questions of European politics than by attempts at domestic reform which, on the whole, wounded his pride by proving to him the narrow limits of absolute power. On the morrow of his accession he had reversed the policy of Paul, denounced the League of Neutrals, and made peace with England (April 1801), at the same time opening negotiations with Austria. Soon afterwards at Memel he entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted from motives of policy, but in the spirit of true chivalry, out of friendship for the young king Frederick William and his beautiful wife. The development of this alliance was interrupted by the short-lived peace of October 1801; and for a while it seemed as though France and Russia might come to an understanding. Carried away by the enthusiasm of Laharpe, who had returned to Russia from Paris, Alexander began openly to proclaim his admiration for French institutions and for the person of Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a change. Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the tsar his Reflexions on the True Nature of the Consulship for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte ``as not a true patriot,'' but only as ``the most famous tyrant the world has produced.'' His disillusionment was completed by the murder of the duc d'Enghien. The Russian court went into mourning for the last of the Condes, and diplomatic relations with Paris were broken off.

The events of the war that followed belong to the general history of Europe; but the tsar's attitude throughout is personal to himself, though pregnant with issues momentous for the world. In opposing Napoleon, ``the oppressor of Europe and the disturber of the world's peace,'' Alexander in fact already believed himself to be fulfilling a divine mission. In his instructions to Novosiltsov, his special envoy in London, the tsar elaborated the motives of his policy in language which appealed as little to the common sense of Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of Castlereagh. Yet the document is of great interest, as in it we find formulated for the first time in an official despatch those exalted ideals of international policy which were to play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the world at the close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of the 19th century in the Rescript of Nicholas II.2 and the conference of the Hague. The outcome of the war, Alexander argued, was not to be only the liberation of France, but the universal triumph of ``the sacred rights of humanity.'' To attain this it would be necessary ``after having attached the nations to their government by making these incapable of acting save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the states amongst each other on more precise rules, and such as it is to their interest to respect.'' A general treaty was to become the basis of the relations of the states forming ``the European Confederation''; and this, though ``it was no question of realizing the dream of universal peace, would attain some of its results if, at the conclusion of the general war, it were possible to establish on clear principles the prescriptions of the rights of nations.'' ``Why could not one submit to it,'' the tsar continued, ``the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources which the mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted, having by this means brought to light the respective grievances, and tried to remove them? It is on such principles as these that one could proceed to a general pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which, sanctioned by the greater part of the nations of Europe, would without difficulty become the immutable rule of the cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union.''3

Meanwhile Napoleon, little deterred by the Russian autocrat's youthful idealogy, never gave up hope of detaching him from the coalition. He had no sooner entered Vienna in triumph than he opened negotiations with him; he resumed them after Austerlitz. Russia and France, he urged, were ``geographical allies''; there was, and could be, between them no true conflict of interests; together they might rule the world. But Alexander was still determined ``to persist in the system of disinterestedness in respect of all the states of Europe which he had thus far followed,'' and he again allied himself with Prussia. The campaign of Jena and the battle of Eylau followed; and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance, stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of the tsar. A party too in Russia itself, headed by the tsar's brother the grand-duke Constantine, was clamorous for peace; but Alexander, after a vain attempt to form a new coalition, summoned the Russian nation to a holy war against Napoleon as the enemy of the orthodox faith. The outcome was the rout of Friedland (June 13 and 14, 1807). Napoleon saw his chance and seized it. Instead of making heavy terms, he offered to the chastened autocrat his alliance, and a partnership in his glory.

The two emperors met at Tilsit on the 25th of June. Alexander, dazzled by Napoleon's genius and overwhelmed by his apparent generosity, was completely won. Napoleon knew well how to appeal to the exuberant imagination of his new-found friend. He would divide with Alexander the empire of the world; as a first step he would leave him in possession of the Danubian principalities and give him a free hand to deal with Finland; and, afterwards, the emperors of the East and West, when the time should be ripe, would drive the Turks from Europe and march across Asia to the conquest of India. A programme so stupendous awoke in Alexander's impressionable mind an ambition to which he had hitherto been a stranger. The interests of Europe were forgotten. ``What is Europe?'' he exclaimed to the French ambassador. ``Where is it, if it is not you and we?''4

The brilliance of these new visions did not, however, blind Alexander to the obligations of friendship; and he refused to retain the Danubian principalities as the price for suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia. ``We have made loyal war,'' he said, ``we must make a loyal peace.'' It was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to wane. Napoleon was prodigal of promises, but niggard of their fulfilment. The French remained in Prussia, the Russians on the Danube; and each accused the other of breach of faith. Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of Alexander and Napoleon were of the most cordial character; and it was hoped that a fresh meeting might adjust all differences between them. The meeting took place at Erfurt in October 1808, and resulted in a treaty which defined the common policy of the two emperors. But Alexander's relations with Napoleon none the less suffered a change. He realized that in Napoleon sentiment never got the better of reason, that as a matter of fact he had never intended his proposed ``grand enterprise'' seriously, and had only used it to preoccupy the mind of the tsar while he consolidated his own power in central Europe. From this moment the French alliance was for Alexander also not a fraternal agreement to rule the world, but an affair of pure policy. He used it, in the first instance, to remove ``the geographical enemy'' from the gates of St Petersburg by wresting Finland from the Swedes (1809); and he hoped by means of it to make the Danube the southern frontier of Russia. Events were in fact rapidly tending to the rupture of the Franco-Russian alliance. Alexander, indeed, assisted Napoleon in the war of 1809, but he declared plainly that he would not allow Austria to be crushed out of existence; and Napoleon complained bitterly of the inactivity of the Russian troops during the campaign. The tsar in his turn protested against Napoleon's encouragement of the Poles. In the matter of the French alliance he knew himself to be practically isolated in Russia, and he declared that he could not sacrifice the interest of his people and empire to his affection for Napoleon. ``I don't want anything for myself,'' he said to the French ambassador, ``therefore the world is not large enough to come to an understanding on the affairs of Poland, if it is a question of its restoration.''5 The treaty of Vienna, which added largely to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, he complained had ``ill requited him for his loyalty,'' and he was only mollified for the time by Napoleon's public declaration that he had no intention of restoring Poland, and by a convention, signed on the 4th of January 1810 but not ratified, abolishing the Polish name and orders of chivalry.

But if Alexander suspected Napoleon, Napoleon was no less suspicious of Alexander; and, partly to test his sincerity, he sent an almost peremptory request for the hand of the grand- duchess Anne, the tsar's youngest sister. After some little delay Alexander returned a polite refusal, on the plea of the princess's tender age and the objection of the dowager empress to the marriage. Napoleon's answer was to refuse to ratify the convention of the 4th of January, and to announce his engagement to the archduchess Marie Louise in such a way as to lead Alexander to suppose that the two marriage treaties had been negotiated simultaneously. From this time the relation between the two emperors gradually became more and more strained. The annexation of Oldenburg, of which the duke was the tsar's uncle, to France in December 1810, added another to the personal grievances of Alexander against Napoleon; while the ruinous reaction of ``the continental system'' on Russian trade made it impossible for the tsar to maintain a policy which was Napoleon's chief motive for the alliance. An acid correspondence followed, and ill-concealed armaments, which culminated in the summer of 1812 in Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Yet, even after the French had passed the frontier, Alexander still protested that his personal sentiments towards the emperor were unaltered; ``but,'' he added, ``God Himself cannot undo the past.'' It was the occupation of Moscow and the desecration of the Kremlin, the sacred centre of Holy Russia, that changed his sentiment for Napoleon into passionate hatred. In vain the French emperor, within eight days of his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was one long cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits of the Grand Army, and appealed to ``any remnant of his former sentiments.'' Alexander returned no answer to these ``fanfaronnades.'' ``No more peace with Napoleon!'' he cried, ``He or I, I or He: we cannot longer reign together!''6

The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander's life; and its horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of the responsibility, overset still more a mind never too well balanced. At the burning of Moscow, he declared afterwards, his own soul had found illumination, and he had realized once for all the divine revelation to him of his mission as the peacemaker of Europe. He tried to calm the unrest of his conscience by correspondence with the leaders of the evangelical revival on the continent, and sought for omens and supernatural guidance in texts and passages of scripture. It was not, however, according to his own account, till he met the Baroness de Krudener--a religious adventuress who made the conversion of princes her special mission--at Basel, in the autumn of 1813, that his soul found peace. From this time a mystic pietism became the avowed force of his political, as of his private actions. Madame de Krudener, and her colleague, the evangelist Empaytaz, became the confidants of the emperor's most secret thoughts; and during the campaign that ended in the occupation of Paris the imperial prayer-meetings were the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.

Such was Alexander's mood when the downfall of Napoleon left him the most powerful sovereign in Europe. With the memory of Tilsit still fresh in men's minds, it was not unnatural that to cynical men of the world like Metternich he merely seemed to be disguising ``under the language of evangelical abnegation'' vast and perilous schemes of ambition. The puzzled powers were, in fact, the more inclined to be suspicious in view of other, and seemingly inconsistent, tendencies of the emperor, which yet seemed all to point to a like disquieting conclusion. For Madame de Krudener was not the only influence behind the throne; and, though Alexander had declared war against the Revolution, Laharpe was once more at his elbow, and the catchwords of the gospel of humanity were still on his lips. The very proclamations which denounced Napoleon as ``the genius of evil,'' denounced him in the name of ``liberty,'' and of ``enlightenment.'' A monstrous intrigue was suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat with the Jacobinism of all Europe, which would have issued in the substitution of an all-powerful Russia for an all-powerful France. At the congress of Vienna Alexander's attitude accentuated this distrust. Castlereagh, whose single-minded aim was the restoration of ``a just equilibrium'' in Europe, reproached the tsar to his face for a ``conscience'' which suffered him to imperil the concert of the powers by keeping his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty obligation.7

Yet Alexander was sincere. Even the Holy Alliance, the pet offspring of his pietism, does not deserve the sinister reputation it has since obtained. To the other powers it seemed, at best ``verbiage'' and ``exalted nonsense,'' at worst an effort of the tsar to establish the hegemony of Russia on the goodwill of the smaller signatory powers. To the Liberals, then and afterwards it was clearly a hypocritical conspiracy against freedom. Yet to Alexander himself it seemed the only means of placing the ``confederation of Europe'' on a firm basis of principle8 and, so far from its being directed against liberty he declared roundly to all the signatory powers that ``free constitutions were the logical outcome of its doctrines.'' Europe, in fact, owed much at this time to Alexander's exalted temper. During the period when his influence was supreme, the fateful years, that is, between the Moscow campaign and the close of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, it had been used largely in the interests of moderation and liberty. To him mainly it was due that France was saved from dismemberment, and received a constitution which, to use his own words, ``united crown and representatives of the people in a sense of common interests.''9 By his wise intervention Switzerland was saved from violent reaction, and suffered to preserve the essential gains of the Revolution. To his protection it was due that the weak beginnings of constitutional freedom in Germany were able for a while to defy the hatred of Austria. Lastly, whatever its ultimate outcome, the constitution of Poland was, in its inception, a genuine effort to respond to the appeal of the Poles for a national existence.

From the end of the year 1818 Alexander's views began to change. A revolutionary conspiracy among the officers of the guard, and a foolish plot to kidnap him on his way to the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (q.v.), are said to have shaken the foundations of his Liberalism. At Aix he came for the first time into intimate contact with Metternich, and the astute Austrian was swift to take advantage of the psychological moment. From this time dates the ascendancy of Metternich over the mind of the Russian emperor and in the councils of Europe. It was, however, no case of sudden conversion. Though alarmed by the revolutionary agitation in Germany, which culminated in the murder of his agent, the dramatist Kotzebue (q.v.), Alexander approved of Castlereagh's protest against Metternich's policy of ``the governments contracting an alliance against the peoples,'' as formulated in the Carlsbad decrees, 1819, and deprecated any intervention of Europe to support ``a league of which the sole object is the absurd pretensions of absolute power.''10 He still declared his belief in ``free institutions, though not in such as age forced from feebleness, nor contracts ordered by popular leaders from their sovereigns, nor constitutions granted in difficult circumstances to tide over a crisis. ``Liberty,'' he maintained, ``should be confined within just limits. And the limits of liberty are the principles of order.''11

It was the apparent triumph of the principles of disorder in the revolutions of Naples and Piedmont, combined with increasingly disquieting symptoms of discontent in France, Germany and among his own people, that completed Alexander's conversion. In the seclusion of the little town of Troppau, where in October of 1820 the powers met in conference, Metternich found an opportunity for cementing his influence over Alexander which had been wanting amid the turmoil and feminine intrigues of Vienna and Aix. Here, in confidence begotten of friendly chats over afternoon tea, the disillusioned autocrat confessed his mistake. ``You have nothing to regret,'' he said sadly to the exultant chancellor, ``but I have!''12 The issue was momentous. In January Alexander had still upheld the ideal of a free confederation of the European states, symbolized by the Holy Alliance, against the policy of a dictatorship of the great powers, symbolized by the Quadruple Treaty; he had still protested against the claims of collective Europe to interfere in the internal concerns of the sovereign states. On the 19th of November he signed the Troppau Protocol, which consecrated the principle of intervention and wrecked the harmony of the concert. (See TROPPAU, CONGRESS OF.)

At Laibach, whither in the spring of 1821 the congress had been adjourned, Alexander first heard of the revolt of the Greeks. From this time until his death his mind was torn between his anxiety to realize his dream of a confederation of Europe and his traditional mission as leader of the Orthodox crusade against the Turks. At first, under the careful nursing of Metternich, the former motive prevailed. He struck the name of Alexander Ypsilanti from the Russian army list, and directed his foreign minister, Count Capo d'Istria, himself a Greek, to disavow all sympathy of Russia with his enterprise; and, next year, a deputation of the Greeks of the Morea on its way to the congress of Verona was turned back by his orders on the road. He made, indeed, some effort to reconcile the principles at conflict in his mind. He offered to surrender the claim, successfully asserted when the sultan had been excluded from the Holy Alliance and the affairs of the Ottoman empire from the deliberations of Vienna, that the affairs of the East were the ``domestic concerns of Russia,'' and to march into Turkey, as Austria had marched into Naples, ``as the mandatory of Europe.''13 Metternich's opposition to this, illogical, but natural from the Austrian point of view, first opened his eyes to the true character of Austria's attitude towards his ideals. Once more in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, the immemorial spirit of his people drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of 1825, he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of Russia, in order--as all Europe supposed--to place himself at the head of the great army concentrated near the Ottoman frontiers, his language was no longer that of ``the peace-maker of Europe,'' but of the Orthodox tsar determined to take the interests of his people and of his religion ``into his own hands.'' Before the momentous issue could be decided, however, Alexander died at Taganrog on the 1st of December (November 18, O.S.) 1825, ``crushed'', to use his own words, ``beneath the terrible burden of a crown'' which he had more than once declared his intention of resigning. A report, current at the time and often revived, affirmed that he did not in fact die. By some it is supposed that a mysterious hermit named Fomich, who lived at Tomsk until 1870 and was treated with peculiar deference by successive tsars, was none other than Alexander.14

Modern history knows no more tragic figure than that of Alexander. The brilliant promise of his early years; the haunting memory of the crime by which he had obtained the power to realize his ideals; and, in the end, the terrible legacy he left to Russia: a principle of government which, under lofty pretensions, veiled a tyranny supported by spies and secret police; an uncertain succession; an army permeated by organized disaffection; an armed Poland, whose hunger for liberty the tsar had whetted but not satisfied; the quarrel with Turkey, with its alternative of war or humiliation for Russia; an educational system rotten with official hypocrisy; a Church in which conduct counted for nothing, orthodoxy and ceremonial observance for everything; economical and financial conditions scarce recovering from the verge of ruin; and lastly, that curse of Russia,--serfdom.

In private life Alexander displayed many lovable qualities. All authorities combine in praising his handsome presence and the affability and charm of his address, together with a certain simplicity of personal tastes, which led him in his intercourse with his friends or with the representatives of friendly powers to dispense with ceremonial and etiquette. His personal friendship, too, once bestowed, was never lightly withdrawn. By nature he was sociable and pleasure-loving, he proved himself a notable patron of the arts and he took a conspicuous part in all the gaieties of the congress of Vienna. In his later years, however, he fell into a mood of settled melancholy; and, though still accessible to all who chose to approach him with complaints or petitions, he withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity. His gloom had been increased by domestic misfortune. He had been married, in 1793, without his wishes being consulted, to the beautiful and amiable Princess Maria Louisa of Baden (Elizabeth Feodorovna), a political match which, as he regretfully confessed to his friend Frederick William of Prussia, had proved the misfortune of both; and he consoled himself in the traditional manner. The only child of the marriage, a little grand-duchess, died on the 12th of May 1808; and their common sorrow drew husband and wife closer together. Towards the close of his life their reconciliation was completed by the wise charity of the empress in sympathizing deeply with him over the death of his beloved daughter by Madame Narishkine.

See also EUROPE; RUSSIA; FRANCE; TURKEY; VIENNA, CONGRESS OF; NAPOLEON; METTERNICH; CAPO D'ISTARIA.

AUTHORITIES.--F. de Martins, Recueil des traites conclus par la Russie, &c. (St Petersb., 1874, &c.); Wellington Despatches Castlereagh Correspondence; Prince Adam Czartoryski, Memoires et correspondance avec l'empereur Alexandre I. (Paris, 1887, 2 vols.). P. Bailleu (ed). Briefwechsel Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's III. und der Konigin Luise mit Kaiser Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1900); Laharpe, Le Gouverneur d'un Prince (F. C de Laharpe et Alexandre I. de Russie) 1902; Serge Tatischeff, Alexandre I. et Napoleon d'apres leur correspondance inedite (Paris, 1901); Joseph de Maistre, Memoires historiques et correspondance diplomatique, ed. A. Blanc (2nd ed., 1859); Comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier, Memoires historiques sur l'empereur Alexandre (1829), and Reminiscences sur l'empereur Alexandre I., &c. (Paris, 1862); Rulemann Friedrich Eylert, Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's III. (1846); H. L. Empaytaz, Notice sur Alexandre Empereur de Russie (2nd ed., Paris, 1840); Comte A. de la Garde- Chambonas, Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne; publ. avec introd. et notes par le Cte. Fleury (1901).

LIVES.--The principal life of Alexander I. is that, in Russian, by Nikolai Karlovich Schilder, Imperator Aleksander, &c. (4 vols., St Petersb., 1897, 1898). See also Bogdanovich, History of the Government of the Emperor Alexander I. (St Petersburg, 1869-1871, Nikolaus I. Band i. Kaiser Alexander I. und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit (Berl., 1904), a valuable study based upon much new material from the state archives of St Petersburg, Paris, Berlin and Vienna; A. Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I.: l'alliance Russe sous le premier empire (3 vols., Paris, 1891-1896); A. N. Pypin, Political and Literary Movements under Alexander I. (Russian, 2nd ed. St Petersburg, 1885; German, Berlin, 1894). Among the numerous less authoritative biographies may be mentioned Ivan Golovin, Histoire d'Alexandre I. (Leipzig, 1859), and C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I. (3 vols., 1875). This last contains much valuable information, but the references in footnotes are often wanting in precision, and it has no index. (W. A. P.)

1 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 4, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 226.

2 Circular of Count Muraviev, Aug. 24, 1898.

3 Instructions to M. Novosiltsov, Sept. 11, 1804. Tatiseheff, p. 82.

4 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 18, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 232.

5 Coulaincourt to Napoleon, 4th report, Aug. 3, 1809. Tatischeff, p. 496.

6 Alexander speaking to Colonel Michaud. Tatischeff, p. 612.

7 Castlereagh to Liverpool, Oct. 2, 1814. F.O. Papers. Vienna VII.

8 Martens IV. oart i. p. 49.

9 Etat des negociations actueelles, &c., mem. prepared by order of the Tsar, July 16, 1815, enclosed in Castlereagh to Liverpool, F.O. Cont. papers. Congress Paris, Castlereagh, 22.

10 Despatch of Lieven, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1819, and Russ. Circular of Jan. 27, 1820. Martens IV. part i. p. 270.

11 Apercu des idees de l'Empereur, Martens IV. part i. p. 269.

12 Metternich Mem.

13 Martens IV. part i. pp. 307, &c.

14 See W. Gasiorowski, Tragic Russia, translated by Viscount de Busancy (London, 1908).

ALEXANDER II. (1818-1881), emperor of Russia, eldest son of Nicholas I., was born on the 29th of April 1818. His early life gave little indication of his subsequent activity, and up to the moment of his accession in 1855 no one ever imagined that he would be known to posterity as a great reformer. In so far as he had any decided political convictions, he seemed to be animated with that reactionary spirit which was predominant in Europe at the time of his birth, and continued in Russia to the end of his father's reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was very unfavourable to the development of any originality of thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in general conversation, and books or newspapers in which the most keen-scented press-censor could detect the least odour of political or religious free-thinking were strictly prohibited. Criticism of existing authorities was regarded as a serious offence. The common policeman, the insignificant scribe in a public office, and even the actors in the ``imperial'' theatres, were protected against public censure as effectually as the government itself; for the whole administration was considered as one and indivisible, and an attack on the humblest representative of the imperial authority was looked on as an indirect attack on the fountain from which that authority flowed. Such was the moral atmosphere in which young Alexander Nicolaevich grew up to manhood. He received the education commonly given to young Russians of good family at that time--a smattering of a great many subjects, and a good practical acquaintance with the chief modern European languages. Like so many of his countryman he displayed great linguistic ability, and his quick ear caught up even peculiarities of dialect. His ordinary life was that of an officer of the Guards, modified by the ceremonial duties incumbent on him as heir to the throne. Nominally he held the post of director of the military schools, but he took little personal interest in military affairs. To the disappointment of his father, in whom the military instinct was ever predominant, he showed no love of soldiering, and gave evidence of a kindliness of disposition and a tender-heartedness which were considered out of place in one destined to become a military autocrat. These tendencies had been fostered by his tutor Zhukovsky, the amiable humanitarian poet, who had made the Russian public acquainted with the literature of the German romantic school, and they remained with him all through life, though they did not prevent him from being severe in his official position when he believed severity to be necessary. In 1841 he married the daughter of the grand-duke Louis II. of Hesse, Maximilienne Wilhelmine Marie, thenceforward known as Maria Alexandrovna, who bore him six sons and two daughters. He did not travel much abroad, for his father, in his desire to exclude from Holy Russia the subversive ideas current in Western Europe, disapproved foreign tours, and could not consistently encourage in his own family what he tried to prevent among the rest of his subjects. He visited England, however, in 1839, and in the years immediately preceding his accession he was entrusted with several missions to the courts of Berlin and Vienna. On the 2nd of March 1855, during the Crimean War, he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father.

The first year of the new reign was devoted to the prosecution of the war, and after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace. Then began a period of radical reforms, recommended by public opinion and carried out by the autocratic power. The rule of Nicholas, which had sacrificed all other interests to that of making Russia an irresistibly strong military power, had been tried by the Crimean War and found wanting. A new system must, therefore, be adopted. All who had any pretensions to enlightenment declared loudly that the country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war, and that the only way of restoring it to its proper position in Europe was to develop its natural resources and to reform thoroughly all branches of the administration. The government found, therefore, in the educated classes a new-born public spirit, anxious to assist it in any work of reform that it might think fit to undertake. Fortunately for Russia the autocratic power was now in the hands of a man who was impressionable enough to be deeply influenced by the spirit of the time, and who had sufficient prudence and practical common-sense to prevent his being carried away by the prevailing excitement into the dangerous region of Utopian dreaming. Unlike some of his predecessors, he had no grand, original schemes of his own to impose by force on unwilling subjects, and no pet crotchets to lead his judgment astray; and he instinctively looked with a suspicious, critical eye on the panaceas which more imaginative and less cautious people recommended. These traits of character, together with the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, determined the part which he was to play. He moderated, guided and in great measure realized the reform aspirations of the educated classes.

Emancipation of the serfs.

Though he carefully guarded his autocratic rights and privileges, and obstinately resisted all efforts to push him farther than he felt inclined to go he acted for several years somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental type. At first he moved so slowly that many of the impatient, would-be reformers began to murmur at the unnecessary delay. In reality not much time was lost. Soon after the conclusion of peace important changes were made in the legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus accorded produced a large number of limited liability companies. At the same time plans were formed for constructing a great network of railways, partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its powers of defence and attack. Then it was found that further progress was blocked by a great obstacle, the existence of serfage: and Alexander II. showed that, unlike his father, he meant to grapple boldly with the difficult and dangerous problem. Taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way--meaning in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors--he authorized the formation of committees ``for ameliorating the condition of the peasants,'' and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected. This was a decided step and it was followed by one still more significant. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, his majesty ordered the minister of the interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken, of course, and in all provinces where serfage existed emancipation committees were formed. The deliberations at once raised a host of important, thorny questions. The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukaz. It contained very complicated problems affecting deeply the economic, social and political future of the nation. Alexander II. had little of the special knowledge required for dealing successfully with such problems, and he had to restrict himself to choosing between the different measures recommended to him. The main point at issue was whether the serfs should become agricultural labourers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or should be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors. The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry accordingly acquired rights and privileges such as are enjoyed by no other peasantry in Europe. In the numerous other questions submitted to him be{sic} began by consulting carefully the conflicting authorities, and while leaning as a rule rather to the side of those who were known as ``Liberals,'' he never went so far as they desired, and always sought some middle course by which conflicting interests might be reconciled. On the 3rd of March 1861, the sixth anniversary of his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published. Other reforms followed in quick succession during the next five or six years: army and navy organization, a new judicial administration on the French model, a new penal code and a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure, an elaborate scheme of local self-government for the rural districts and the large towns, with elective assemhljes possessing a restricted right of taxation, and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of the minister of the interior. These new institutions were incomparably better than the old ones which they replaced, but they did not work such miracles as inexperienced enthusiasts expected. Comparisons were made, not with the past, but with an ideal state of things which never existed in Russia or elsewhere. Hence arose a general feeling of disappointment, which acted on different natures in different ways. Some of the enthusiasts sank into a sceptical, reactionary frame of mind; while others, with deeper convictions or capable of more lasting excitement, attributed the failure to the fact that only half- measures and compromises had been adopted by the government. Thus appeared in the educated classes two extreme groups: on the one hand, the discontented Conservatives, who recommended a return to a more severe disciplinarian regime; and on the other, the discontented Radicals, who would have been satisfied with nothing less than the adoption of a throughgoing socialistic programme. Between the two extremes stood the discontented Moderates, who indulged freely in grumbling without knowing how the unsatisfactory state of things was to be remedied. For some years the emperor, with his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation, he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.

Nihilism.

The revolutionary agitation was of a very peculiar kind. It was confined to a section of the educated classes, and emanated from the universities and higher technical schools. At the beginning of the reform period there had been enthusiasm for scientific as opposed to classical education. Russia required, it was said, not classical scholars, but practical, scientific men, capable of developing her natural resources. The government, in accordance with this view, had encouraged scientific studies until it discovered to its astonishment that there was some mysterious connexion between natural science and revolutionary tendencies. Many of the young men and women, who were supposed to be qualifying as specialists in the various spheres of industrial and commercial enterprise, were in reality devoting their time to considering how human society in general, and Russian society in particular, could be reconstructed in accordance with the latest physiological, biological and sociological principles. Some of these young people wished to put their crude notions immediately into practice, and as their desire to make gigantic socialist experiments naturally alarmed the government, their activity was opposed by the police. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to distant provinces, but the revolutionary work was continued with unabated zeal. Thus arose a struggle between the youthful, hot-headed partisans of revolutionary physical science and the zealous official guardians of political order--a struggle which has made the strange term Nihilism (q.v.) a familiar word not only in Russia but also in western Europe. The movement gradually assumed the form of terrorism, and aimed at the assassination of prominent officials, and even of the emperor himself, and the natural result was that the reactionary tendencies of the government were strengthened.

Foreign policy.

In foreign policy Alexander II. showed the same qualities of character as in internal affairs, ever trying prudently to steer a middle course. When he came to the throne a peace policy was imposed on him by circumstances. The Crimean War was still going on, but as there was no doubt as to the final issue, and the country was showing symptoms of exhaustion, he concluded peace with the allies as soon as he thought the national honour had been satisfied. Prince Gorchakov could then declare to Europe, ``La Russie ne boude pas elle se recueille''; and for fifteen years he avoided foreign complications, so that the internal strength of the country might be developed, while the national pride and ambition received a certain satisfaction by the expansion of Russian influence and domination in Asia. Twice, indeed, during that period the chancellor ran the risk of provoking war. The first occasion was in 1863, when the Western powers seemed inclined to interfere in the Polish question, and the Russian chancery declared categorically that no interference would be tolerated. The second occasion was during the Franco-German War of 1870-71, when the cabinet of St Petersburg boldly declared that it considered itself no longer bound by the Black Sea clause of the treaty of Paris. On both these occasions hostilities were averted. Not so on the next occasion, when Russia abandoned her attitude of recueillement. When the Eastern question was raised in 1875 by the insurrection of Herzegovina, Alexander II. had no intention or wish to provoke a great European war. No doubt he was waiting for an opportunity of recovering the portion of Bessarabia which had been ceded by the treaty of Paris, and he perceived in the disturbed state of Eastern Europe a possibility of obtaining the desired rectification of frontier, but he hoped to effect his purpose by diplomatic means in conjunction with Austria. At the same time he was anxious to obtain for the Christians of Turkey some amelioration of their condition, and to give thereby some satisfaction to his own subjects. As autocratic ruler of the nation which had long considered itself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the protector of the Slav nationalities, he could not remain inactive at such a crisis, and he gradually allowed himself to drift into a position from which he could not retreat without obtaining some tangible result. Supposing that the Porte would yield to diplomatic pressure and menace so far as to make some reasonable concessions, he delivered his famous Moscow speech, in which he declared that if Europe would not secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs he would act alone. The diplomatic pressure failed and war became inevitable. During the campaign he displayed the same perseverance and the same moderation that he had shown in the emancipation of the serfs. To those who began to despair of success, and advised him to conclude peace on almost any terms so as to avoid greater disasters, he turned a deaf ear, and brought the campaign to a successful conclusion; but when his more headstrong advisers urged him to insist on terms which would probably have produced a conflict with Great Britain and Austria, he resolved, after some hesitation, to make the requisite concessions. In this resolution he was influenced by the discovery that he could not rely on the expected support of Germany, and the discovery made him waver in his devotion to the German alliance, which had been the main pivot of his foreign policy; but his personal attachment to the emperor William prevented him from adopting a hostile attitude towards the empire he had helped to create.

The patriotic excitement produced by the war did not weaken the revolutionary agitation. The struggle between the Terrorists and the police authorities became more and more intense, and attempts at assassination became more and more frequent. Alexander II. succumbed by degrees to the mental depression produced originally by the disappointments which he experienced in his home and foreign policy; and in 1880, when he had reigned twenty-five years, he entrusted to Count Loris-Melikov a large share of the executive power. In that year the empress died, and a few weeks afterwards he married secretly a Princess Dolgoruki, with whom he had already entertained intimate relations for some years. Early in 1881, on the advice of Count Loris-Melikov, he determined to try the effect of some moderate liberal reforms on the revolutionary agitation, and for this purpose he caused a ukaz to be prepared creating special commissions, composed of high officials and private personages who should prepare reforms in various branches of the administration. On the very day on which this ukaz was signed--13th of March 1881--he fell a victim to a Nihilist plot. When driving in one of the central streets of St Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of some small bombs and died a few hours afterwards. (D. M. W.)

ALEXANDER III. (1845-1894), emperor of Russia, second son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845. In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of ``the first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea of being of the same rough texture as the great majority of his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn, immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities. During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother, Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health it was believed that his life might be indefinitely prolonged by proper care and attention, and precautions had been taken for the succession by his betrothal with Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Under these circumstances the greatest solicitude was devoted to the education of Nicholas as cesarevich, whereas Alexander received only the perfunctory and inadequate training of an ordinary grand- duke of that period, which did not go much beyond primary and secondary instruction, practical acquaintance with French, English and German, and a certain amount of drill. When he became heir-apparent by the death of his elder brother in 1865, he began to study the principles of law and administration under Professor Pobedonostsef, who did not succeed in awakening in his pupil a love of abstract studies or prolonged intellectual exertion, but who influenced the character of his reign by instilling into his mind the belief that zeal for Eastern Orthodoxy ought, as an essential factor of Russian patriotism, to be specially cultivated by every right-minded tsar. His elder brother when on his deathbed had expressed a wish that his affianced bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry his successor, and this wish was realized on the 9th of November 1866. The union proved a most happy one and remained unclouded to the end. During those years when he was heir-apparent--1865 to 1881--he did not play a prominent part in public affairs, but he allowed it to become known that he had certain ideas of his own which did not coincide with the principles of the existing government. He deprecated what he considered undue foreign influence in general, and German influence in particular, and he longed to see the adoption of genuine national principles in all spheres of official activity, with a view to realizing his ideal of a homogeneous Russia--homogeneous in language, administration and religion. With such ideas and aspirations he could hardly remain permanently in cordial agreement with his father, who, though a good patriot according to his lights, had strong German sympathies, often used the German language in his private relations, occasionally ridiculed the exaggerations and eccentricities of the Slavophils and based his foreign policy on the Prussian alliance. The antagonism first appeared publicly during the Franco-German War, when the tsar supported the cabinet of Berlin and the cesarevich did not conceal his sympathies with the French. It reappeared in an intermittent fashion during the years 1875-1879, when the Eastern question produced so much excitement in all ranks of Russian society. At first the cesarevich was more Slavophil than the government, but his phlegmatic nature preserved him from many of the exaggerations indulged in by others, and any of the prevalent popular illusions he may have imbibed were soon dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria, where he commanded the left wing of the invading army. The Bulgarians had been represented in St Petersburg and Moscow not only as martyrs but also as saints, and a very little personal experience sufficed to correct the error. Like most of his brother officers he could not feel any very great affection for the ``little brothers,'' as the Bulgarians were then commonly called, and he was constrained to admit that the Turks were by no means so black as they had been painted. He did not, however, scandalize the believers by any public expression of his opinions, and did not indeed make himself conspicuous in any way during the campaign. Never consulted on political questions, he confined himself to his military duties and fulfilled them in a conscientious and unobtrusive manner. After many mistakes and disappointments, the army reached Constantinople and the treaty of San Stefano was signed, but much that had been obtained by that important document had to be sacrificed at the congress of Berlin. Prince Bismarck failed to do what was confidently expected of him. In return for the Russian support, which had enabled him to create the German empire, it was thought that he would help Russia to solve the Eastern question in accordance with her own interests, but to the surprise and indignation of the cabinet of St Petersburg he confined himself to acting the part of ``honest broker'' at the congress, and shortly afterwards he ostentatiously contracted an alliance with Austria for the express purpose of counteracting Russian designs in Eastern Europe. The cesarevich could point to these results as confirming the views he had expressed during the Franco-German War, and he drew from them the practical conclusion that for Russia the best thing to do was to recover as quickly as possible from her temporary exhaustion and to prepare for future contingencies by a radical scheme of military and naval reorganization. In accordance with this conviction, he suggested that certain reforms should be introduced. During the campaign in Bulgaria he had found by painful experience that grave disorders and gross corruption existed in the military administration, and after his return to St Petersburg he had discovered that similar abuses existed in the naval department. For these abuses, several high-placed personages--among others two of the grand-dukes-- were believed to be responsible, and he called his father's attention to the subject. His representations were not favourably received. Alexander II. had lost much of the reforming zeal which distinguished the first decade of his reign, and had no longer the energy required to undertake the task suggested to him. The consequence was that the relations between father and son became more strained. The latter must have felt that there would be no important reforms until he himself succeeded to the direction of affairs. That change was much nearer at hand than was commonly supposed. On the 13th of March 1881 Alexander II. was assassinated by a band of Nihilists, and the autocratic power passed to the hands of his son.

In the last years of his reign, Alexander II. had been much exercised by the spread of Nihilist doctrines and the increasing number of anarchist conspiracies, and for some time he had hesitated between strengthening the hands of the executive and making concessions to the widespread political aspirations of the educated classes. Finally he decided in favour of the latter course, and on the very day of his death he signed a ukaz, creating a number of consultative commissions which might have been easily transformed into an assembly of notables. Alexander III. determined to adopt the opposite policy. He at once cancelled the ukaz before it was published, and in the manifesto announcing his accession to the throne he let it be very clearly understood that he had no intention of limiting or weakening the autocratic power which he had inherited from his ancestors. Nor did he afterwards show any inclination to change his mind. All the internal reforms which he initiated were intended to correct what he considered as the too liberal tendencies of the previous reign, so that he left behind him the reputation of a sovereign of the retrograde type. In his opinion Russia was to be saved from anarchical disorders and revolutionary agitation, not by the parliamentary institutions and so-called liberalism of western Europe, but by the three principles which the elder generation of the Slavophils systematically recommended--nationality, Eastern Orthodoxy and autocracy. His political ideal was a nation containing only one nationality, one language, one religion and one form of administration; and he did his utmost to prepare for the realization of this ideal by imposing the Russian language and Russian schools on his German, Polish and Finnish subjects, by fostering Eastern Orthodoxy at the expense of other confessions, by persecuting the Jews and by destroying the remnants of German, Polish and Swedish institutions in the outlying provinces. In the other provinces he sought to counteract what he considered the excessive liberalism of his father's reign. For this purpose he clipped the feeble wings of the zemstvo, an elective local administration resembling the county and parish councils in England, and placed the autonomous administration of the peasant communes under the supervision of landed proprietors appointed by the government. At the same time he sought to strengthen and centralize the imperial administration, and to bring it more under his personal control. In foreign affairs he was emphatically a man of peace, but not at all a partisan of the docrrine of peace at any price, and he followed the principle that the best means of averting war is to be well prepared for it. Though indignant at the conduct of Prince Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided an open rupture with Germany, and even revived for a time the Three Emperors' Alliance. It was only in the last years of his reign, when M. Katkov had acquired a certain influence over him, that he adopted towards the cabinet of Berlin a more hostile attitude, and even then he confined himself to keeping a large quantity of troops near the German frontier, and establishing cordial relations with France. With regard to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of Prince Alexander and afterwards of Stamboloff to destroy Russian influence in the principality excited his indignation, but he persistently vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of arms. In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional policy of gradually extending Russian domination without provoking a conflict with Great Britain, and he never allowed the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of hand. As a whole his reign cannot be regarded as one of the eventful periods of Russian history; but it must be admitted that under his hard unsympathetic rule the country made considerable progress. He died at Livadia on the 1st of November 1894, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nicholas II. (D. M. W.)

ALEXANDER I. (c. 1078-1124), king of Scotland, was the fourth son of Malcolm Canmore by his wife (St) Margaret, grand-niece of Edward the Confessor. On the death of his brother Edgar in 1107 he succeeded to the Scottish crown; but, in accordance with Edgar's instructions, he inherited only a part of its possessions. By a partition, the motive of which is not quite certain, the districts south of the Forth and Clyde were erected into an earldom for Alexander's younger brother, David. Alexander, dissatisfied, sought to obtain the whole, but without success. A curious combination of the fierce warrior and the pious churchman, he manifested the one aspect of his character in his ruthless suppression of an insurrection in his northern dominion (thus gaining for himself the title of ``the Fierce''), the other in his munificent foundation of bishoprics and abbeys. Among the latter were those of Scone and Inchcolm. His strong championship of the independence of the Scottish church involved him in struggles with both the English metropolitan sees. He died on the 27th of April 1124, and was succeeded by his brother, David I.

ALEXANDER II. (1198-1249), king of Scotland, son of William the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont, was born at Haddington in 1198, and succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his father in 1214. The year after his accession the clans MacWilliam and MacHeth, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but the insurrection was speedily quelled. In the same year Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against John, and led an army into England in support of their cause; but on the conclusion of peace after John's death between his youthful son Henry III. and the French prince Louis, the Scottish king was included in the pacification. The reconciliation thus effected was further strengthened by the marriage of Alexander to Henry's sister Joanna in 1221. The next year was marked by the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll. A revolt in Galloway in 1235 was crushed without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with any better fortune. Soon afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The dispute, however, was settled by a compromise in 1237. A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle. Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which still owned a nominal dependence on Norway. Negotiations and purchase were successively tried but without success. Alexander next attempted to seduce Ewen, the son of Duncan, lord of Argyll, from his allegiance to the Norwegian king. Ewen refused his overtures, and Alexander sailed forth to compel him. But on the way he was seized with fever at Kerrera, and died there on the 8th of July 1249.

ALEXANDER III. (1241-1285), king of Scotland, son of Alexander II. by his second wife Mary de Coucy, was born in 1241. At the age of eight years the death of his father called him to the throne. The years of his minority were marked by an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, the justiciar. The former was in the ascendant during the early years of the reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III. seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but the claim was refused. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso resulted in the deposition of Menteith and his party in favour of their opponents. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence; and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties. On attaining his majority in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which had been cut short by the death of his father thirteen years before. A formal claim was laid before the Norwegian king Haakon. Not only was this unsuccessful, but next year Haakon replied by a formidable invasion. Sailing round the west coast of Scotland he halted off Arran, where negotiations were opened. These were artfully prolonged by Alexander until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The battle of Largs, fought next day, was indecisive. But even so Haakon's position was hopeless. Baffled he turned homewards, but died on the way. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266 Haakon's successor concluded a treaty by which the Isle of Man and the Western Isles were ceded to Scotland in return for a money payment, Orkney and Shetland alone being retained. Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all his three children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his grand-daughter Margaret, the ``Maid of Norway''; and next year the desire for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage. But all such hopes were defeated by the sudden death of the king, who was killed by a fall from his horse in the dark while riding to visit the queen at Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285.

ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OBRENOVICH) (1876-1903), king of Servia, was born on the 14th of August 1876. On the 6th of March 1889 his father, King Milan, abdicated and proclaimed him king of Servia under a regency until he should attain his majority at eighteen years of age. King Alexander, on the 13th of April 1893, being then in his seventeenth year, made his notable first coup d'etat, proclaimed himself of full age, dismissed the regents and their government, and took the royal authority into his own hands. His action was popular, and was rendered still more so by his appointment of a radical ministry. In May 1894 King Alexander, by another coup d'etat, abolished the liberal constitution of 1889 and restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during the Turco-Greek war of 1897 was one of strict neutrality. In 1898 he appointed his father commander-in-chief of the Servian army, and from that time, or rather from his return to Servia in 1894 until 1900, ex-king Milan was regarded as the de facto ruler of the country. But while, during the summer of 1900, Milan was away from Servia taking waters in Carlsbad, and making arrangements to secure the hand of a German princess for his son, and while the premier, Dr Vladan Dyorevich, was visiting the Paris Universal Exhibition, King Alexander suddenly announced to the people of Servia his engagement to Mme Draga Mashin, a widow, formerly a lady-in-waiting to Queen Natalie. The projected union aroused great opposition at first. Ex-King Milan resigned his post; so did the government; and King Alexander had great difficulty in forming a new cabinet. But the opposition subsided somewhat on the publication of Tsar Nicholas's congratulations to the king on his engagement and of his acceptance to act as the principal witness at the wedding. The marriage was then duly celebrated on the 5th of August 1900. Still this union was unpopular and weakened the position of King Alexander in the army and the country. He tried to reconcile political parties by granting from his own initiative a liberal constitution (April 6, 1901), introducing for the first time in the constitutional history of Servia the system of two chambers (skupshtina and senate). This did in a certain measure reconcile the political parties, but did not reconcile the army, which, already dissatisfied with the king's marriage, became still more so at the rumours that one of the two unpopular brothers of Queen Draga, Lieutenant Nicodiye, was to be proclaimed heir- apparent to the throne. Meanwhile the independence of the senate and of the council of state caused growing irritation to King Alexander, which led him to another coup d'etat. He suspended (March 1903) the constitution for half an hour, time enough to publish the decrees by which the old senators and councillors of state were dismissed and replaced by new ones. This arbitrary act naturally increased the dissatisfaction in the country. The general impression was that inasmuch as the senate was packed with men devoted to the royal couple, and inasmuch as the government obtained a large majority at the general elections, King Alexander would not hesitate any longer to proclaim Queen Draga's brother as the heir to the throne. Apparently to prevent this, but in reality to replace Alexander Obrenovich by Peter Karageorgevich, a military conspiracy was organized. The conspirators penetrated into the palace and savagely murdered King Alexander and Queen Draga in the early morning of the 11th of June 1903. (C. MI.)

ALEXANDER, son of Numenius, Greek rhetorician, flourished in the first half of the second century A.D. In addition to general treatises on rhetoric, he wrote a special work Peri ton tes dianoias kai tes lexeos schematon, of which only an abridgment is extant; later epitomes were made in Latin by Aquila Romanus and Julius Rufinianus under the title De Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis. Another epitome was made in the fourth century by a Christian for use in Christian schools, containing additional examples from Gregory of Nazianzus.

Text in Spengel, Rhetores Graeci (1856).

ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD (1772-1851), American Presbyterian divine, was born, of Scottish-Irish descent, in that part of Augusta county which is now Rockbridge county, Virginia, on the 17th of April 1772. After completing his preliminary education in the little school at Lexington, Virginia, which later developed into Washington and Lee University, he came under the influence of the religious movement known as the ``great revival'' (1789-1790) and devoted himself to the study of theology. Licensed to preach in 1791, he was engaged for several years as an itinerant Presbyterian preacher in his native state, and acquired during this period the facility in extemporaneous speaking for which he was remarkable. He was president of Hampden-Sidney College from 1796 to 1807, with a short intermission (in 1801-1802), and in 1807 became pastor of Pine Street Church, Philadelphia. In 1812 he became first professor in the newly established Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, where he remained until his death at Princeton on the 22nd of October 1851, filling successively the chairs of didactic and polemic theology (1812-1840), and pastoral and polemic theology (1840-1851). He married, in 1802, Janetta Waddel, the daughter of the celebrated blind preacher, James Waddel (1739-1805), whose eloquence was described in William Wirt's Letters of a British Spy (1803). Dr Alexander wrote a considerable number of theological works, which had a large circulation. Among these may be mentioned his Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian Religion (1825), which passed through several editions, and was translated into various languages; The Canon of the Old and New Testament Ascertained; or the Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions (1826); A History of the Israelitish Nation (1852), and Outlines of Moral Science (1852), the last two being published posthumously.

See the biography (New York, 1854) by his son James W. Alexander.

ALEXANDER, FRANCIS (1800-1881), American portrait- painter, was born in Windham county, Connecticut, in February 1800. Brought up on a farm, he taught himself the use of colours, and in 1820 went to New York City and studied painting with Alexander Robertson. He spent the winters of 1831 and 1832 in Rome, and then for nearly a decade he lived in Boston, Massachusetts, where he had considerable vogue, and where in 1842 he painted a portrait of Charles Dickens. One of his best portraits is that of Mrs Fletcher Webster in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He died in 1881 in Florence.

ALEXANDER, GEORGE (1858- ), English actor, whose family name was Samson, was born in Reading on the 19th of June 1858, the son of a Scottish manufacturer. He went into business in London after leaving school, but having acted as an amateur he determined to make the stage his profession. His first appearance was at Nottingham in 1879, and after some seasons of provincial experience he made his first London appearance as Caleb Deecie in Two Roses in 1881 with Irving at the Lyceum. He was selected by W. S. Gilbert to support Mary Anderson in Comedy and Tragedy, returned for a time to the Lyceum, where he was Irving's principal associate, especially as Faust (1886) and Macduff (1888); and, after starting successfully under his own management at the Avenue Theatre in 1890 with Dr Bill, in 1891 became manager of the St James's Theatre. There he produced a number of successful plays, notably Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of being Earnest, Pinero's Second Mrs Tanqueray, The Princess and the Butterfiy, His House in Order and The Thunderbolt; C. Haddon Chambers's The Idler; H. A. Jones's Masqueraders; Alfred Sutro's John Glayde's Honour and The Builder of Bridges; Carton's Liberty Hall and The Tree of Knowledge; Anthony Hope's Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau; and Stephen Phillips's Paolo and Francesca, himself playing the leading parts with great distinction. In 1907 he was elected a member of the London County Council as a municipal reformer, but continued to act regularly at the St James's.

ALEXANDER, SIR JAMES EDWARD (1803-1885), British soldier and traveller, was born on the 16th of October 1803. He joined the East India Company's army in 1820, transferring into the British army in 1825. As aide-de-camp to the British envoy to Persia, he was an eye-witness of the fighting in the war between Persia and Russia (1826), and in 1829 was present in the Balkans during the Russo-Turkish war. In 1832-1834 he was in Portugal during the Miguelete war, and in 1835 served in the Kaffir war in South Africa as aide-de-camp to Sir Benjamin D'Urban. Subsequently he conducted an exploring expedition into Namaqualand and Damaraland, and was knighted for his services (1838). From 1841 to 1855 he served in Canada, proceeding thence to the Crimea, and in 1862 held an important command in New Zealand during the Maori war. He retired from the service in 1877, and in 1881 was given the honorary rank of general. He was largely responsible for the preservation and transfer to England of Cleopatra's Needle in 1877. His varied experiences provided material for a large number of books, among which were Travels from India to England (1827); Transatlantic Sketches (1833); An Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa (1838); Passages in the Life of a Soldier (1857); Incidents of the Maori War (1863). He was also the author of a Life of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington (1840). He died on the 2nd of April 1885.

ALEXANDER, JOHN WHITE (1856- ), American painter, was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on the 7th of October 1836. He was left an orphan when very young, became an illustrator for Harper's Magazine, studied in Europe, became a pupil of the Royal Academy at Munich, and also worked in Venice, in Holland and in Paris, where he attracted much attention by his exhibition at the Salon of two female portraits entitled ``Gris'' and ``Noir.'' He became a member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts (Paris), of the National Academy of Design (New York), of the International Society (London), and of the Vienna and Munich Societies of Painters. In 1901 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He executed decorative panels for the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C., and a large decoration for the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; and his works include numerous portraits and subject pictures.

ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON (1809-1860), American biblical scholar, the third son of Archibald Alexander, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of April 1809. He graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1826, having devoted himself especially to the study of Hebrew and other oriental languages, and from 1830 to 1833 was adjunct professor of ancient languages and literature there. In 1834 he became an assistant to Dr Charles Hodge, professor of oriental and biblical literature in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and in 1838 became associate professor of oriental and biblical literature there, succeeding Dr Hodge in that chair in 1840 and being transferred in 1851 to the chair of biblical and ecclesiastical history, and in 1859 to that of Hellenistic and New Testament literature, which he occupied until his death at Princeton on the 28th of January 1860. Alexander was a remarkable linquist and exegete. He had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1839, and was well known for his pulpit eloquence. He was the author of The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah (1846), The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (1847), and an abbreviation of these two volumes, Isaiah Illustrated and Explained (2 vols., 1851), The Psalms Translated and Explained (3 vols., 1850), commentaries on Acts (2 vols., 1857), Mark (1858) and Matthew (1860), and two volumes of Sermons (1860).

See The Life of Joseph A. Alexander (2 vols., 2nd ed., New York, 1875) by his nephew, Henry C. Alexander.

His brother, JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER (1804-1859), born in Louisa county, Virginia, on the 13th of March 1804, was a famous Presbyterian preacher. He graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1820, studied theology in the Princeton Seminary, and was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Charlotte county, Virginia, from 1826 to 1828, and of the First Presbyterian church in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1829-1832. From 1833 to 1844 he was professor of belles-lettres and Latin language and literature in the College of New Jersey, from 1844 to 1849 was pastor of the Duane Street Presbyterian church in New York City, from 1849 to 1851 was professor of ecclesiastical history, church government and sacred rhetoric in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and from 1851 until his death, at Red Sweet Springs, Virginia, on the 31st of July 1859, was pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church in New York City. He wrote numerous magazine articles and published a number of books, including The American Mechanic and Workingman (2 vols., 1847, a coltection of papers to mechanics first printed under the pseudonym of ``Charles Quill''), Thoughts on Family Worship (1847), Sacramental Addresses (1854), The Revival and its Lessons (1859), Thoughts on Preaching (1861), Faith (1862), and many juvenile books for Sunday-school libraries.

See Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander (2 vols., New York, 1860), edited by Dr John Hall (1806-1894) of Trenton, N. J.

ALEXANDER, WILLIAM (1824- ), Protestant archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, was born at Londonderry on the 13th of April 1824 and educated at Tonbridge Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. After holding several livings in the north of Ireland he was made bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1867, and was elevated to the primacy in 1896. He was Bampton lecturer in 1816. An eloquent preacher and the author of numerous theological works, he is best known to literature as a master of dignified and animated verse. His poems were collected in 1887 under the title of St Augustine's Holiday, and other Poems. His wife, Cecil Francis Humphreys (1818-1895), wrote some tracts in connexion with the Oxford movement, but is famous as the author of ``Jesus calls us o'er the tumult,'' ``There is a green hill far away'' and other well-known hymns (nearly four hundred in all). A collection of her verse was published in 1896.

ALEXANDER, WILLIAM LINDSAY (1808-1884), Scottish divine, was born at Leith on the 24th of August 1808. He was educated at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where he gained a lasting reputation for classical scholarship. He entered Glasgow Theological Academy under Ralph Wardlaw in September 1827, but in December of the same year he left to become classical tutor at the Blackburn Theological Academy (afterwards the Lancashire Independent College). At Blackburn he stayed till 1831, lecturing on biblical literature, metaphysics, Greek and Latin. After short visits to Germany and London he was invited in November 1834 to become minister of North College Street church (afterwards Argyle Square), Edinburgh, an independent church which had arisen out of the evangelical movement associated with the Haldanes. He deliberately put aside the ambition to become a pulpit orator in favour of the practice of biblical exposition, which he invested with a singular charm and impressiveness. In 1836 he became one of the editors of the Congregational Magazine, to which he contributed articles on biblical literature and theology and on the ``voluntary'' controversy. In 1840 he delivered the Congregational Lecture in London on the ``Connexion and Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.''

Alexander took an active part in the ``voluntary'' controversy which ended in the Disruption, but he also maintained broad and catholic views of the spiritual relations between different sections of the Christian church. In 1845 he visited Switzerland with the special object of inquiring into the religious life of the churches there. He published an account of his journey in a book, Switzerland and the Swiss Churches, which led to an interchange of correspondence between the Swiss and Scottish churches. In 1845 he received the degree of D.D. from the university of St Andrews. In 1861 he undertook the editorship of the third edition of Kitto's Biblical Encyclopaedia with the understanding that the whole work should be thoroughly revised and brought up to date. In January 1870 he became one of the committee of Old Testament revisers, and by his thorough biblical scholarship rendered exceptional service to the board; he enjoyed the work and devoted much time to it for the next fourteen years. In 1877 he became principal of the Edinburgh Theological Hall, a position which he held, in spite of many tempting offers of preferment elsewhere, until his death on the 20th of December 1884.

See his Life and Work by James Ross (1887). (D. Mn.)

ALEXANDER AETOLUS, of Pleuron in Aetolia, Greek poet and man of letters, the only representative of Aetolian poetry, flourished about 280 B.C. When living in Alexandria he was commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus to arrange the tragedies and satyric dramas in the library; some ten years later he took up his residence at the court of Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia. His reputation as a tragic poet was so high that he was allotted a place in the Alexandrian tragic Pleiad; we only know the title of one play (Astragalistae.) He also wrote short epics, epigrams and elegies, the considerable fragments of which show learning and eloquence.

Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1853); Bergk, Poetae Lyrioi Graeci; Couat, La Poesie alexandrine (1882).

ALEXANDER BALAS (i.e. ``lord''), ruler of the Greek kingdom of Syria 150-146 B.C., was a native of Smyrna of humble origin, but gave himself out to be the son of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes and heir to the Syrian throne. His claims were recognized by the Roman senate, Ptolemy Philometor of Egypt and others. At first unsuccessful, he finally defeated the reigning king Demetrius Soter in 150 B.C. Being now undisputed master of Syria, he abandoned himself to a life of debauchery. Demetrius Soter's son profited by the opportunity to regain the throne. Ptolemy Philometor, who was Alexander's father-in-law, went over to his side, and Alexander was defeated in a pitched battle near Antioch in Syria. He fled for refuge to a Nabataean prince, who murdered him and sent his head to Ptolemy, who had been mortally wounded in the engagement.

See 1 Maccab. 10 ff.; Justin xxxv. 1 and 2; Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 2; Appian, Sir. 67; Polybius xxxiii. 14.

ALEXANDER CORNELIUS, Greek grammarian, surnamed POLYHISTOR from his great learning, born at Miletus or Myndus in Caria, flourished about 70 B.C. He was taken prisoner in the Mithridatic war by Sulla, from whom (or from Cornelius Lentulus) he received his freedom and assumed the name Cornelius. He accompanied Crassus on his Parthian campaigns, and perished at the destruction by fire of his house at Laurentum. He is said to have written ``books without number,'' chiefly on historical and geographical subjects. Of the extant fragments (Muller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii:) those relating to the Jews are important as containing quotations from lost Jewish authors.

ALEXANDER JANNAEUS, king of the Jews, succeeded his brother Aristobulus in 103 B.C. and died in 76 B.C. His first act was the murder of one of his brothers who claimed the throne, and his reign was disgraced by the cruelties that he perpetrated in order to retain his position. (See JEWS and PHARISEES.)

ALEXANDER NEVSKY, SAINT (1220-1263), grand-duke of Vladimir, was the second son of the grand-duke Yaroslav. His childhood and youth were spent at Great Novgorod, whither his father sent him to rule (1228) with some guardian boyars. In 1239 he married Alexandra, daughter of Prince Bryachislav of Polotsk. At an early age he distinguished himself in constant warfare with the Germans, Swedes and Lithuanians, who tried to wrest Novgorod and Pskov from Russia while she was still suffering from the effects of the terrible Tatar invasion. The most notable of these battles, whereby he won his honorific epithet of Nevsky (i.e. of the Neva), was fought on the banks of the Neva (July 15 1240) against the famous Swedish statesman, Birger Jarl, whom he utterly defeated, besides wounding him with his lance. In the following year the Teutonic Order, in conjunction with the Order of the Sword, succeeded in capturing Pskov; but Alexander recovered it in 1242, advanced into Livonia, and on the 5th of April defeated the knights on the ice of Lake Peipus and compelled them in the ensuing peace to renounce all their conquests. He also prevented the Swedes (in 1256) from settling in South Finland. On the death of his father (1246) Alexander and his younger brother Andrew went on a two years' journey into Mongolia to obtain their yarluiki, or letters of investiture, from the Grand Khan, who then disposed of the fate of all the Russian princes. He returned (1250) as grand-duke of Kiev and Novgorod, while to Andrew was given the far more important grand- duchy of Vladimir. In 1252, however, the Tatars themselves expelled Andrew and placed Alexander on the throne of Vladimir. Alexander henceforth did his best for his country by humbling himself before the Tatars so as to give them no pretext for ravaging the land again. Most of his spare money he devoted to the ransoming of the numerous Russian captives detained at the Golden Horde. But the men of Novgorod, in their semi-independent republic, continued (1255-1257) to give the grand-duke trouble, their chief grievance being the imposition of a Tatar tribute, which they only submitted to in 1259 on the rumour of an impending Tatar invasion. In 1262 the Tatar tribute was felt so grievously all over Russia that preparations were made for a general insurrection, and Alexander, who knew that an abortive rebellion would make the yoke heavier, was obliged to go to the Horde in person to prevent the Tatars from again attacking Russia. He stayed at Sarai, their Volgan capital, all the Winter, and not only succeeded in obtaining a mitigation of the tribute, but also the abolition of the military service previously rendered by the Russians to the Tatars. This was his last service to his country. He died on his way home from the Horde, and in the words of his contemporary, the metropolitan Cyril, ``with him the sun of Russia set.'' The Orthodox Church has canonized the ruler who gave his whole life for Russia and the Orthodox faith. His relics, discovered in 1380, were in 1724 translated by Peter the Great from Vladimir to St Petersburg.

See Sergyei Mikhailovich Solovev, History of Russia (Rus., 2nd ed., St Petersburg, 1897, vol. 3). (R. N. B.)

ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS, pupil of Aristocles of Messene, the most celebrated of the Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle, and styled, by way of pre-eminence, o exegetes (``the expositor''), was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria. He came to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century A.D., became head of the Lyceum and lectured on peripatetic philosophy. The object of his work was to free the doctrine from the syncretism of Ammonius and to reproduce the pure doctrine of Aristotle. Commentaries by Alexander on the following works of Aristotle are still extant:--the Analytica Priora, i.; the Topica; the Meteorologica; the De Sensu; and the Metaphysica, i.-v., together with an abridgment of what he wrote on the remaining books of the Metaphysica. His commentaries were greatly esteemed among the Arabians, who translated many of them. There are also several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work On Fate, in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (nous ulikos) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God. Several of Alexander's works were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice, 1495-1498; his De Fato and De Anima were printed along with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also by Schulthess, was edited by J. C. Orelli, Zurich, 1824; and his commentaries on the Metaphysica by H. Bonitz, Berlin, 1847. J. Nourisson has treated of his doctrine of fate (De la liberte et du hazard, Paris, 1870). In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by F. Pomponazzi against the Thomists and the Averroists.

See PERIPATETICS (ad fin.); ALEXANDRISTS; POMPONAZZI, PIETRO; also A. Apelt, ``Die Schrift d. Alex. v. Aphr.,'' Philolegus, xlv., 1886: C. Ruelle, ``Alex. d'Aphr. et le pretendu Alex. d'Alexandrie,'' Rev. des etudes grecques, v., 1892; E. Zeller's Outlines of Gk. Phil. (Eng. trans., ed. 1905, p. 296).

ALEXANDER OF HALES (ALEXANDER HALENSIS), surnamed DOCTOR IRREFRAGABILIS, THEOLOGORUM MONARCHA and FONS VITAE, a celebrated English theologian of the 13th century, was born in Gloucestershire. Trained in the monastery of Hales he was early raised to an archdeaconry. He went, like most of the scholars of his day, to study at Paris, where he took the degree of doctor and became celebrated as a teacher. It is generally held that he taught Bonaventura, Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, but a comparison of dates makes it clear that the two latter could not have been his pupils and that the statement about Bonaventura is open to doubt. In 1222 (or 1231, see Denifle, Chartul. Univers. Paris, Paris, 1889, i. 135) Alexander entered the order of Minorite Friars and thenceforward lived in strict seclusion. He refused, however, to renounce his degree of doctor, and was the first of his order who continued to bear that title after initiation. He died in 1245 and was buried in the convent of the Cordeliers at Paris. His most celebrated work was the Summa Theologiae (Nuremberg, 1452; Venice, 1576; Cologne, 1611), undertaken by the orders of Pope Innocent IV. and approved by Alexander IV., on the report of seventy learned theologians, as a system of instruction for all the schools in Christendom. The form is that of question and answer, and the method is rigidly scholastic. Of small intrinsic value, it is interesting partly as the first philosophical contribution of the Franciscans who were afterwards to take a prominent part in medieval thought (see SCHOLASTICISM), and partly as the first work based on a knowledge of the whole Aristotelian corpus and the Arabian commentators.

See Wadding, Script. ord. minor. (Rome, 1650); for his method B. Haureau, Hist. de philos. scholast. (Paris, 1880); F. Picavet, ``Abelard et A. de H.'' in the Bibliothieque de l'ecole des hautes-etudes (2nd series, Paris, 1896, pp. 222-230); Schwane, Dogmengesch. (Freiburg, 1882); A. Harnack, Dogmengesch. (1890); J. Endres, ``Des A. von H. Leben und psvchol. Lehre'' in Philos. Jahrb. (i. Fulda, 1888, pp. 24-55, 203-296): also Vacant's Dict. de theologie catholique, vol. i.

ALEXANDER OP TRALLES (ALEXANDER TRALLIANUS), Greek physician, born at Tralles in Lydia, lived probably about the middle of the 6th century and practised medicine with success at Rome. The Greek text of his Biblia iatrika was printed at Paris in 1548 and his De Lumbricis at Venice in 1570.

See E. Milward, Trallianus Reviviscens (London, 1734).

ALEXANDER SEVERUS (MARCUS AURELIUS SEVERUS ALEXAXDER) (208-235), Roman emperor from A.D. 222 to 235, was born at Arca Caesarea in Palestine on the 1st of October 208. His father, Gessius Marcianus, held office more than once as an imperial procurator; his mother, Julia Mamaea, was the daughter of Julia Maesa and the aunt of Heliogabalus. His original name was Bassianus, but he changed it in 221 when his grandmother, Maesa, persuaded the emperor Heliogabalus to adopt his cousin as successor and create him Caesar. In the next year, on the 11th of March, Heliogabalus was murdered, and Alexander was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians and accepted by the senate. He was then a mere lad, amiable, well-meaning, but entirely under the dominion of his mother, a woman of many virtues, who surrounded him with wise counsellors, watched over the development of his character and improved the tone of the administration, but on the other hand was inordinately jealous, and alienated the army by extreme parsimony, while neither she nor her son had a strong enough hand to keep tight the reins of military discipline. Mutinies became frequent in all parts of the empire; to one of them the life of the jurist and praetorian praefect Ulpian was sacrificed; another compelled the retirement of Dio Cassius from his command) On the whole, however, the reign of Alexander was prosperous till he was summoned to the East to face the new power of the Sassanians (see PERSIA: History.) Of the war that followed we have very various accounts; Mommsen leans to that which is least favourable to the Romans. According to Alexander's own despatch to the senate he gained great victories. At all events, though the Persians were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph (233), but next year he was called to face German invaders in Gaul, where he was slain (on the 18th or 19th of March 235), together with his mother, in a mutiny which was probably led by Maximinus, a Thracian legionary, and at any rate secured him the throne. Alexander was the last of the Syrian princes. During his reign, acting, as he did in most things, under the influence of his mother, he did much to improve the morals and condition of the people. His advisers were men like the famous jurist Ulpian, the historian Dio Cassius and a select board of sixteen senators; a municipal council of fourteen assisted the city praefect in administering the affairs of the fourteen districts of Rome. The luxury and extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; the lot of the soldiers was improved; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest. In religious matters Alexander preserved an open mind. In his private chapel he had busts of Orpheus, Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus Christ. It is said that he was desirous of erecting a temple to the founder of Christianity, but was dissuaded by the pagan priests. There is no doubt that, had Alexander's many excellent qualities been supported by the energy and strength of will necessary for the government of a military empire, he would have been one of the greatest of the Roman emperors.

See Lampridius, Alexander Severus; Dio Cassius lxxviii. 30, lxxix. 17, lxxx. 1; Herodian vi. 1-18; Porrath, Der Kaiser Alex. Sev. (1876); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, ii. 2526 foll. (Groebe); monograph by R. V. Nind Hopkins, Cambridge Historical Essays, No. xiv. (1907).

ALEXANDER THE PAPHLAGONIAN, a celebrated impostor and worker of false oracles, was born at Abonouteichos (see INEBOLI) in Paphlagonia in the early part of the 2nd century A.D. The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius (J. H. Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum veterum, ii. pp. 383, 384) and of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras (Apology, c. 26) to have stood in the forum of Parium. After a period of instruction in medicine by a doctor who also, according to Lucian, was an impostor, he succeeded in establishing an oracle of Aesculapius at his native town. Having circulated a prophecy that the son of Apollo was to be born again, he contrived that there should be found in the foundations of the temple to Aesculapius, then in course of construction at Abonouteichos, an egg in which a small live snake had been placed. In an age of superstition no people had so great a reputation for credulity as the Paphlagonians, and Alexander had little difficulty in convincing them of the second coming of the god under the name of Glycon. A large tame snake with a false human head, wound round Alexander's body as he sat in a shrine in the temple, gave ``autophones'' or oracles unasked, but the usual methods practised were those of the numerous oracle-mongers of the time, of which Lucian gives a detailed account, the opening of sealed inquiries by heated needles, a neat plan of forging broken seals, and the giving of vague or meaningless replies to difficult questions, coupled with a lucrative blackmailing of those whose inquiries were compromising. The reputation of the oracle, which was in origin medical, spread, and with it grew Alexander's skilled plans of organized deception. He set up an ``intelligence bureau'' in Rome, instituted mysteries like those of Eleusis, from which his particular enemies the Christians and Epicureans were alike excluded as ``profane,'' and celebrated a mystic marriage between himself and the moon. During the plague of A.D. 166 a verse from the oracle was used as an amulet and was inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection, and an oracle was sent, at Marcus Aurelius' request, by Alexander to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian's own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner working of one among the many new oracles that were springing up at this period. Alexander had remarkable beauty and the striking personality of the successful charlatan, and must have been a man of considerable intellectual abilities and power of organization. His income is said by Lucian to have reached an enormous figure. He died of gangrene of the leg in his seventieth year.

See Lucian, 'Alexandros e pseudomantis; Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904): and F. Gregorovius, The Emperor Hadrian, trans. by M. E. Robinson (1898).

ALEXANDERS (botanical name, Smyrnium Olusatrum, natural order Umbelliferae), a stout herbaceous plant with a furrowed, much-branched stem 1-3 ft. high, and large compound leaves with broad sheathing stalks, and broad, cut or lobed segments. The small yellow flowers are borne in compound umbels. The plant is a native of the Mediterranean region, and was formerly cultivated as a pot-herb. It is now found apparently wild in Great Britain and Ireland, growing in waste places, especially near the sea and amongst ruins.

In England the plant is sometimes popularly termed ``alisander''; in North America Thaspium aureum is sometimes called ``alexanders.'' ``Alexander's foot,'' botanical name Anacyclus Pyrethrum, is the pellitory of Spain.

ALEXANDERSBAD, a watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, romantically situated in the Fichtelgebirge, near Wunsiedel, at a height of 1900 ft. above the sea. Pop. 1200. Its waters, which are ferruginous and largely charged with carbonic acid gas, are of use in nervous and rheumatic disorders. In the neighbourhood is the Luisenburg (or Luxburg), so called after a visit paid by Queen Louise of Prussia in 1805, a hill covered by majestic granite rocks, commanding a grand view of the whole range of the Fichtelgebirge.

ALEXANDRE, NOEL (NATALIS ALEXANDER) (1639-1724), French theologian and ecclesiastical historian, was born at Rouen on the 19th of January 1639. In his 15th year he joined the Dominicans, and shortly after his ordination was appointed professor of philosophy at the convent of Saint-Jacques in Paris. The success of his subsequent lectures at the Sorbonne led to his selection by Colbert as tutor to his son, Jacques Nicolas Colbert, afterwards archbishop of Rouen. Alexandre obtained the degree of doctor in divinity from the Sorbonne in 1675 and for twelve years taught philosophy, theology and ecclesiastical law to the members of the Saint-Jacques community. He played a prominent part in ecclesiastical affairs and preached several times before Louis XIV., who granted him an annual pension of 800 livres, and in the general assemblies of the French bishops. He became provincial of his order in 1706, but was banished to Chatellerault in 1709 for having subscribed to the Cas de conscience (1703), and was deprived of his pension in 1713 on account of his opposition to the bull Unigenitus. He died in Paris on the 21st of August 1724, having lost his sight some time before owing to his strenuous literary activity. His numerous works are still much valued by ecclesiastical students.

His best-known work, the Selecta historiae ecclesiasticae capita, et in loca ejusdem insignia dissertationes historicae, chronologicae, dogmaticae (26 vols., Paris, 1676-1686), was placed on the Index by Innocent XI., on account of his bold defence of the Gallican claims. In 1689 he brought out at Paris his history of the Old Testament: Selecta historiae Veteris Testamenti capita, &c., in 6 vols. Of the numerous editions of Alexandre's ecclesiastical history the best is that of P. J. D. Mansi, which contains many valuable notes and additions (11 vols., Lucca, 1749) and has been frequently reprinted. Alexandre's principal contribution to theological literature is his Theologia dogmatica et moralis secundum ordinem catechismi concilii Tridentini (10 vols., Paris, 1694), in which he clearly shows himself a disciple of the Thomist school. His Couformite des ceremonies chinoises avec l'idolatrie grecque et romaine and Sept lettres sur les ceremonies de la Chine (both published at Cologne in 1700) are interesting as they mark him out as a pioneer in the study of comparative religion.

See Catalogue complet des oeuvres du Pere Alexandre (Paris, 1716); Quetif-Echard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum (Paris, 1719-1721), t. ii. p. 810; and full bibliography in A. Vacant, Dict. de theologie (scholarly article by P. Mandounet, cols. 769-772).

ALEXANDRETTA, or ISKANDERUN (med. Scanderoon), a town of N. Syria, situated in the N.E. angle of the Levantine Mediterranean on the S.E. of the gulf to which it gives a title. Pop. about 10,000, two-thirds Moslem. Iskanderun preserves the name, but probably not the exact site, of Alexandria ad Issum, founded by Alexander in 333 B.C., about 23 m. S. of the scene of his victory, to supersede Myriandrus as key of the Syrian Gates (Beilan Pass). The importance of the place ever since has been derived from its relation to this pass, the easiest approach to the open ground of N. Syria of which Antioch and Aleppo have been the successive capitals; and this relation has prevailed over the extreme unhealthiness of the site, which lies on marshy deltaic ground, screened by the horseshoe of Elma Dagh from all purifying influences of N. and E. winds. As the main outlet for the overland trade from Bagdad and India, whose importance was great until the establishment of the Egyptian overland route, the place was a great resort, first of Genoese and Venetian merchants, then of those of West and North European nations. The British Levant (Turkey) Company maintained an agency and factory here for 200 years, till 1825, in spite of appalling mortality among its employes. Alexandretta is still the main port for the Aleppo district, to which a good chaussee leads over the Beilan Pass, and it has a considerable export trade in tobacco, silk, cereals, liquorice, textiles. The health of the place has improved with the draining of the marshes and the provision of a better supply of water, but still leaves much to be desired. The wealthier inhabitants have summer residences at Beilan near the summit of the pass, long a stronghold of freebooting Dere Beys and the scene of the victory won by Ibrahim Pasha in 1832, which opened Cilicia to his advance. There are resident consuls of all the principal powers, and the port is well served by coasting steamers under European and Ottoman flags. The distance by road to Aleppo has been shortened to about 70 m., and Antakia (Antioch) is about 45 m. distant by a branch of the same chaussee. (D. G. H.)

ALEXANDRIA (Arab. Iskenderia), a city and chief seaport of Egypt, and for over a thousand years from its foundation the capital of the country, situated on the Mediterranean in 31 deg. 12' N., 29 deg. 15' E., and 129 m. by rail N.W. of Cairo. The ancient Canopic mouth of the Nile (now dry) was 12 m. E.

I. The Modern City.--The city is built on the strip of land which separates the Mediterranean from Lake Mareotis ( Mariut), and on a T-shaped peninsula which forms harbours east and west. The stem of the T was originally a mole leading to an island (Pharos) which formed the cross-piece. In the course of centuries this mole has been silted up and is now an isthmus half a mile wide. On it a part of the modern city is built. The cape at the western end of the peninsula is Ras et-Tin (Cape of Figs); the eastern cape is known as Pharos or Kait Bey. South of the town--between it and Lake Mareotis--runs the Mahmudiya canal, which enters the western harbour by a series of locks.

The customs house and chief warehouses are by the western harbour, but the principal buildings of the city are in the east and south-east quarters. From the landing-stage, by the customs house, roads lead to the Place Mehemet Ali, the centre of the life of the city and the starting-point of the electric tramways. The place, usually called the Grand Square, is an oblong open space, tree-lined, in the centre of which there is an equestrian statue of the prince after whom it is named. The square is faced with handsome buildings mainly in the Italian style. The most important are the law courts, exchange, Ottoman bank, English church and the Abbas Hilmi theatre. A number of short streets lead from the square to the eastern harbour. Here a sea wall, completed in 1905, provides a magnificent drive and promenade along the shore for a distance of about 3 m. In building this quay a considerable area of foreshore was reclaimed and an evil-smelling beach done away with. From the south end of the square the rue Sherif Pasha--in which are the principal shops--and the rue Tewfik Pasha lead to the boulevard, or rue, de Rosette, a long straight road with a general E. and W. direction. In it are the Zizinia theatre and the municipal palace (containing the public library); the museum lies up a short street to the N. Opened in 1895 this museum possesses an important collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, found not only in the city but in all Lower Egypt and the Fayum. The western end of the boulevard leads to the Place Ibrahim, often called Place Ste Catherine, from the Roman Catholic church at its S.E. side. In a street running S. from the boulevard to the railway station is the mosque of Nebi Daniel, containing the tombs of Said Pasha and other members of the khedivial family. Immediately E. of the mosque is Kom ed-Dik, garrisoned by British troops, one of several forts built for the protection of the city. Except Kom ed-Dik the forts have not been repaired since the bombardment of 1882. Equally obsolete is the old line of fortifications which formerly marked the limits of the city south and east and has now been partly demolished. Throughout the central part of Alexandria the streets are paved with blocks of lava and lighted by electricity.

The north quarter is mainly occupied by natives and Levantines. The narrow winding streets and the Arab bazaars present an Oriental scene contrasting with the European aspect of the district already described. This Arab quarter is traversed by the rue Ras et-Tin, leading to the promontory of than name. Here, overlooking the harbour, is the khedivial yacht club (built 1903) and the palace, also called Ras et-Tin, built by Mehemet Ali, a large but not otherwise noteworthy building. In the district between the Grand Square and the western harbour, one of the poorest quarters of the city, is an open space with Fort Caffareli or Napoleon in the centre. This quarter has been pierced by several straight roads, one of which, crossing the Mahmudiya canal by the Pont Neuf, leads to Gabbari, the most westerly part of the city and an industrial and manufacturing region, possessing asphalt works and oil, rice and paper mills. On either side of the canal are the warehouses of wholesale dealers in cotton, wool, sugar, grain and other commodities. In the southern part of the city are the Arab cemetery, ``Pompey's Pillar'' and the catacombs. ``Pompey's Pillar,'' which stands on the highest spot in Alexandria, is nearly 99 ft. high, including the pedestal. The shaft is of red granite and is beautifully polished. Nine feet in diameter at the base, it tapers to eight feet at the top. The catacombs, a short distance S.W. of the pillar, are hewn out of the rocky slope of a hill, and are an elaborate series of chambers adorned with pillars, statues, religious symbols and traces of painting (see below, Ancient City.) Along the northern side of the Mahmudiya canal, which here passes a little S. of the catacombs, are many fine houses and gardens (Moharrem Bey quarter), stretching eastward for a considerable distance, favourite residences of wealthy citizens. A similar residential quarter has also grown up on the N.E., where the line of the old fortifications has become a boulevard. The district extending outside the E. fortifications, in the direction of Hadra, has been laid out with fine avenues, and contains numerous garden-cafes and pleasure resorts. Thence roads lead to the E. suburb known generally as Ramleh, which stretches along the coast, and is served by a local railway. It begins E. of the racecourse with Sidi Gabr, and does not end till the khedivial estates E. of San Stefano are reached, some 5 m. E. All this space is filled with villas, gardens and hotels, and is a favourite summer resort not only of Alexandrians but also of Cairenes.

The eastern bay is rocky, shallow and exposed, and is now used only by native craft. The harbour is on the W. of Pharos and partly formed by a breakwater (built 1871-1873 and prolonged 1906-1907), 2 m. long. The breakwater starts opposite the promontory of Ras et-Tin, on which is a lighthouse, 180 ft. above the sea, built by Mehemet Ali. Another breakwater starts from the Gabbari side, the opening between the two works being about half a mile. A number of scattered rocks lie across the entrance, but through them two fairways have been made, one 600 ft. wide and 35 ft. deep, the other 300 ft. wide and 30 ft. deep. The enclosed water is divided into an outer and inner harbour by a mole, 1000 yds. long, projecting N.W. from the southern shore. The inner harbour covers 464 acres. It is lined for 2 1/2 m. by quays, affording accommodation for ships drawing up to 28 ft. The outer harbour (1400 acres water area) is furnished with a graving dock, completed in 1905, 520 ft. long, and with quays and jetties along the Gabbari foreshore. Their construction was begun in 1906.

Alexandria is linked by a network of railway and telegraph lines to the other towns of Egypt, and there is a trunk telephone line to Cairo. The city secured in 1906 a new and adequate water-supply, modern drainage works having been completed the previous year. Being the great entrepot for the trade of Egypt, the city is the headquarters of the British chamber of commerce and of most of the merchants and companies engaged in the development of the Delta. About 90% of the total exports and imports of the country pass through the port, though the completion, in 1904, of a broad-gauge railway connecting Cairo and Port Said deflected some of the cotton exports to the Suez Canal route. The staple export is raw cotton, the value of which is about 80% of all the exports. The principal imports are manufactured cotton goods and other textiles, machinery, timber and coal. The value of the trade of the port increased from L. 30,000,000 in 1900 to L. 46,000,000 in 1906. In the same period the tonnage of the ships entering the harbour rose from 2,375,000 to 3,695,000. Of the total trade Great Britain supplies from 35 to 40% of the imports and takes over 50% of the exports. Among the exports sent to England are the great majority of the 80,000,000 eggs annually shipped (see also EGYPT: Commerce.)

The population of the city (1907) was 332,246 or including the suburbs, about 400,000. The foreigners numbered over 90,000. The majority of these were Greeks, Italians, Syrians, Armenians and other Levantines, though almost every European and Oriental nation is represented. The predominant languages spoken, besides the Arabic of the natives, are Greek, French, English and Italian. The labouring population is mainly Egyptian; the Greeks and Levantines are usually shopkeepers or petty traders. In its social life Alexandria is the most progressive and occidental of all the cities of North Africa, with the possible exception of Algiers. (F. R. C.)

II. The Ancient City.--The Greek Alexandria was divided into three regions: (1) the Jews' quarter, forming the north-east portion of the city; (2) Rhacotis, on the west, occupied chiefly by Egyptians; (3) Brucheum, the Royal or Greek quarter, forming the most magnificent portion of the city. In Roman times Brucheum was enlarged by the addition of an official quarter, making up the number of four regiones in all. The city was laid out as a gridiron of parallel streets, each of which had an attendant subterranean canal. Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each about 200 ft. wide, intersected in the centre of the city, close to the point where rose the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander (i.e. his Mausoleum). This point is very near the present mosque of Nebi Daniel; and the line of the great east-west ``Canopic'' street only slightly diverged from that of the modern Boulevard de Rosette. Traces of its pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate; but better remains still of streets and canals were exposed in 1899 by the German excavators outside the E. fortifications, which lie well within the area of the ancient city.

Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a mole nearly a mile long and called the Heptastadium. The end of this abutted on the land at the head of the present Grand Square, where rose the ``Moon Gate.'' All that now lies between that point and the modern Ras et-Tin quarter is built on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this mole. The Ras et-Tin quarter represents all that is left of the island of Pharos, the site of the actual lighthouse having been weathered away by the sea. On the east of the mole was the Great Harbour, now an open bay; on the west lay the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin Kibotos, now vastly enlarged to form the modern harbour.

In Strabo's time, (latter half of 1st century B.C.) the principal buildings were as follows, enumerated as they were to be seen from a ship entering the Great Harbour. (1) The Royal Palaces, filling the N.E. angle of the town and occupying the promontory of Lochias, which shut in the Great Harbouron the east. Lochias, the modern Pharillon, has almost entirely disappeared into the sea, together with the palaces, the ``Private Port'' and the island of Antirrhodus. There has been a land subsidence here, as throughout the N. Delta and indeed all the N.E. coast of Africa; and on calm days the foundations of buildings may be seen, running out far under sea, near the Pharillon. Search was made for relics of these palaces by German explorers in 1898-1899, but without much success. (2) The Great Theatre, on the modern Hospital Hill near the Ramleh station. This was used by Caesar as a fortress, where he stood a siege from the city mob after the battle of Pharsalus. (3)The Poseideion or Temple of the Sea God, close to the theatre and in front of it. (4) The Timonium built by Antony. (5, 6, 7) The Emporium (Exchange), Apostases (Magazines) and Navalia (Docks), lying west of (4), along the sea-front as far as the mole. Behind the Emporium rose (8) the Great Caesareum, by which stood the two great obelisks, later known as ``Cleopatra's Needles,'' and now removed to New York and London. This temple became in time the Patriarchal Church, some remains of which have been discovered: but the actual Caesareum, so far as not eroded by the waves, lies under the houses lining the new sea-wall. (9) The Gymnasium and (10) the Palaestra are both inland, near the great Canopic street (Boulevard de Rosette) in the eastern half of the town, but on sites not determined. (11) The Temple of Saturn: site unknown. (12) The Mausolea of Alexander (Soma) and the Ptolemies in one ring-fence, near the point of intersection of the two main streets. (13) The Museum with its library and theatre in the same region; but on a site not identified. (14) The Serapeum, the most famous of all Alexandrian temples Strabo tells us that this stood in the west of the city; and recent discoveries go far to place it near ``Pompey's Pillar'' (see above) which, however, was an independent monument erected to commemorate Diocletian's siege of the city. We know the names of a few other public buildings on the mainland, but nothing as to their position. On the eastern point of the Pharos island stood the Great Lighthouse, one of the ``Seven Wonders,'' reputed to be 400 ft. high. The first Ptolemy began it, and the second completed it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It is the prototype of all lighthouses (q.v.) in the world. A temple of Hephaestus also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole. In the Augustan age the population of Alexandria was estimated at 300,000 free folk, in addition to an immense number of slaves.

III. History.--

Ancient and medieval period.

Founded in 332 B.C. by Alexander the Great, Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis (q.v.) as a Greek centre in Egypt, and to be the link between Macedonia and the rich Nile Valley. If such a city was to be on the Egyptian coast, there was only one possible site, behind the screen of the Pharos island and removed from the silt thrown out by Nile mouths. An Egyptian townlet, Rhacotis, already stood on the shore and was a resort of fishermen and pirates. Behind it (according to the Alexandrian treatise, known as pseudo-Callisthenes) were five native villages scattered along the strip between Lake Mareotis and the sea. Alexander occupied Pharos, and had a walled city marked out by Deinocrates on the mainland to include Rhacotis. A few months later he left Egypt for the East and never returned to his city; but his corpse was ultimately entombed there. His viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the creation of Alexandria. The Heptastadium, however, and the mainland quarters seem to have been mainly Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a century to be larger than Carthage; and for some centuries more it had to acknowledge no superior but Rome. It was a centre not only of Hellenism but of Semitism, and the greatest Jewish city in the world. There the Septuagint was produced. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Greek university; but they were careful to maintain the distinction of its population into three nations, ``Macedonian'' (i.e. Greek), Jew and Egyptian. From this division arose much of the later turbulence which began to manifest itself under Ptolemy Philopater. Nominally a free Greek city, Alexandria retained its senate to Roman times; and indeed the judicial functions of that body were restored by Septimius Severus, after temporary abolition by Augustus. The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 B.C., according to the will of Ptolemy Alexander: but it had been under Roman influence for more than a hundred years previously. There Julius Caesar dallied with Cleopatra in 47 B.C. and was mobbed by the rabble; there his example was followed by Antony, for whose favour the city paid dear to Octavian, who placed over it a prefect from the imperial household. Alexandria seems from this time to have regained its old prosperity, commanding, as it did, an important granary of Rome. This latter fact, doubtless, was one of the chief reasons which induced Augustus to place it directly under the imperial power. In A.D. 215 the emperor Caracalla visited the city; and, in order to repay some insulting satires that the inhabitants had made upon him, he commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. This brutal order seems to have been carried out even beyond the letter, for a general massacre was the result. Notwithstanding this terrible disaster, Alexandria soon recovered its former splendour, and for some time longer was esteemed the first city of the world after Rome. Even as its main historical importance had formerly sprung from pagan learning, so now it acquired fresh importance as a centre of Christian theology and church government. There Arianism was formulated and there Athanasius, the great opponent of both heresy and pagan rcaction, worked and triumphed. As native influences, however, began to reassert themselves in the Nile valley, Alexandria gradually became an alien city, more and more detached from Egypt; and, losing much of its commerce as the peace of the empire broke up during the 3rd century A.D., it declined fast in population and splendour. The Brucheum, and Jewish quarters were desolate in the 5th century, and the central monuments, the Soma and Museum, fallen to ruin. On the mainland life seems to have centred in the vicinity of the Serapeum and Caesareum, both become Christian churches: but the Pharos and Heptastadium quarters remained populous and intact. In 616 it was taken by Chosroes, king of Persia; and in 640 by the Arabians, under `Amr, after a siege that lasted fourteen months, during which Heraclius, the emperor of Constantinople, did not send a single ship to its assistance. Notwithstanding the losses that the city had sustained, `Amr was able to write to his master, the caliph Omar, that he had taken a city containing ``4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 12,000 dealers in fresh oil, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000 Jews who pay tribute, 400 theatres or places of amusement."

The story of the destruction of the library by the Arabs is first told by Bar-hebraeus (Abulfaragius), a Christian writer who lived six centuries later; and it is of very doubtful authority. It is highly improbable that many of the 700,000 volumes collected by the Ptolemies remained at the time of the Arab conquest, when the various calamities of Alexandria from the time of Caesar to that of Diocletian are considered, together with the disgraceful pillage of the library in A.D. 389 under the rule of the Christian bishop, Theophilus, acting on Theodosius' decree concerning pagan monumcnts (see LIBRARIES: Ancient History). The story of Abulfaragius runs as follows:--

John the Grammarian, a famous Peripatetic philosopher, being in Alexandria at the time of its capture, and in high favour with `Amr, begged that he would give him the royal library. `Amr told him that it was not in his power to grant such a request, but promised to write to the caliph for his consent. Omar, on hearing the request of his general, is said to have replied that if those books contained the same doctrine with the Koran, they could be of no use, since the Koran contained all necessary truths; but if they contained anything contrary to that book, they ought to be destroyed; and therefore, whatever their contents were, he ordered them to be burnt. Pursuant to this order, they were distributed among the public baths, of which there was a large number in the city, where, for six months, they served to supply the fires.

Shortly after its capture Alexandria again fell into the hands of the Greeks, who took advantage of `Amr's absence with the greater portion of his army. On hearing what had happened, however, `Amr returned, and quickly regained possession of the city. About the year 646 `Amr was deprived of his government by the caliph Othman. The Egyptians, by whom `Amr was greatly beloved, were so much dissatisfied by this act, and even showed such a tendency to revolt, that the Greek emperor determined to make an effort to reduce Alexandria. The attempt proved perfectly successful. The caliph, perceiving his mistake, immediately restored `Amr, who, on his arrival in Egypt, drove the Greeks within the walls of Alexandria, but was only able to capture the city after a most obstinate resistance by the defenders. This so exasperated him that he completely demolished its fortifications, although he seems to have spared the lives of the inhabitants as far as lay in his power. Alexandria now rapidly declined in importance. The building of Cairo in 969, and, above all, the discovery of the route to the East by the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, nearly ruined its commerce; the canal, which supplied it with Nile water, became blocked; and although it remained a principal Egyptian port, at which most European visitors in the Mameluke and Ottoman periods landed, we hear little of it until about the beginning of the 19th century.

[Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798. The French troops stormed the city on the 2nd of July 1798, and it remained in their hands until the arrival of the British expedition of 1801. The battle of Alexandria, fought on the 21st of March of that year, between the French army under General Menou and the British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercromby, took place near the ruins of Nicopohs, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Aboukir, along which the British troops had advanced towards Alexandria after the actions of Aboukir on the 8th and Mandora on the 13th.

Battle of 1801.

The British position on the night of the 20th extended across the isthmus, the right resting upon the ruins of Nicopolis and the sea, the left on the lake of Aboukir and the Alexandria canal. The line faced generally south-west towards the city, the reserve division under Major-General (Sir) John Moore on the right, the Guards brigade in the centre, and three other brigades on the left. In second line were two brigades and the cavalry (dismounted). On the 21st the troops were under arms at 3 A.M., and at 3.30 the French attacked and drove in the outposts. The French army now moved forward with great rapidity in their usual formation of columns. The brunt of the attack fell upon the command of Moore, and in particular upon the 28th (Gloucestershire Regiment). The first shock was repulsed, but a French column penetrated in the dark between two regiments of the British and a confused fight ensued in the ruins, in which the 42nd (Black Watch) captured a colour. The front and rear ranks of the 28th were simultaneously engaged, and the conduct of the regiment won for it the distinction of wearing badges both at the front and at the back of their head-dress. Other regiments which assisted in the overthrow of the French column were the 23rd, 40th and 58th. In a second attack the enemy's cavalry inflicted severe losses on the 42nd. Sir Ralph Abercromby was here engaged in personal conflict with some French dragoons, and about this time received a mortal wound, though he remained on the field and in command to the end. The attack on the centre was repulsed by the cool and steady fire of the Guards, and the left wing maintained its position with ease, but the French cavalry for the second time came to close quarters with the reserve. About half-past eight the combat began to wane, and the last shots were fired at ten. The real attack had been pressed home on the British right, and the History of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment gives no undue praise to the regiments of the reserve in saying that ``the determined attack would have been successful against almost any other troops.'' Technically, the details of the action show that, while not markedly better in a melee than the war-seasoned French, the British infantry had in its volleys a power which no other troops then existing possessed, and it was these volleys that decided the day even more than the individual stubbornness of the men. The 42nd, twice charged by cavalry, had but thirteen men wounded by the sabre. Part of the French losses, which were disproportionately heavy, were caused by the gunboats which lay close inshore and cannonaded the left flank of the French columns, and by a heavy naval gun which was placed in battery near the position of the 28th. The forces engaged on this day mere approximately 14,000 British to about 20,000 French, and the losses were:-- British, 1468 killed, wounded and missing, including Abercromby (who died on the 28th), Moore and three other generals wounded; French, 1160 killed and (?) 3000 wounded. The British subsequently advanced upon Alexandria, which surrendered on the 31st of August. (C. F. A.)

Modern city.

During the anarchy which accompanied Ottoman rule in Egypt from first to last, Alexandria sank to a small town of about 4000 inhabitants; and it owed its modern renascence solely to Mehemet Ali, who wanted a deep port and naval station for his viceregal domain. He restored its water communication with the Nile by making the Mahmudiya canal, finished in 1820; and he established at Ras et-Tin his favourite residence. The Old Eunostus harbour became the port, and a flourishing city arose on the old Pharos island and the Heptastadium district, with outlying suburbs and villa residences along the coast eastwards and the Mareotic shore. Being the starting-point of the ``overland route'' to India, and the residence of the chief foreign consuls, it quickly acquired a European character and attracted not only Frank residents, but great numbers of Greeks, Jews and Syrians. There most of the negotiations between the powers and Mehemet All were conducted; thence started the Egyptian naval expeditions to Crete, the Morea and Syria; and thither sailed the betrayed Ottoman fleet in 1839. It was twice threatened by hostile fleets, the Greek in 1827 and the combined British, French and Russian squadrons in 1828. The latter withdrew on the viceroy's promise that Ibrahim should evacuate the Morea. The fortifications were strengthened in 1841, and remained in an antiquated condition until 1882, when they were renovated by Arabi Pasha. Alexandria was connected with Cairo by railway in 1856. Much favoured by the earlier viceroys of Mehemet Ali's house, and removed from the Mameluke troubles, Alexandria was the real capital of Egypt till Said Pasha died there in 1863 and Ismail came into power. Though this prince continued to develop the city, giving it a municipality in 18661 and new harbour works in 1871-1878, he developed Cairo still more; and the centre of gravity definitely shifted to the inland capital.

Bombardment of 1882.

Fate, however, again brought Alexandria to the front. After a mutiny of soldiers there in 1881, the town was greatly excited by the arrival of an Anglo-French fleet in May 1882, and on the 11th of June a terrible riot and massacre took place, resulting in the death of four hundred Europeans. Since satisfaction was not given for this and the forts were being strengthened at the instigation of Arabi Pasha, the war minister, the British admiral, Sir Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester), sent an ultimatum on the 10th of July and opened fire on the forts the next day. They were demolished, but as no troops were landed immediately a fresh riot and massacre ensued. As Arabi did not submit, a British military expedition landed at Alexandria on the 10th of August, the sequel being the British occupation of the whole country, the history of which is set forth under EGYPT.

Since the restoration of tranquillity and the establishment of sound political and economic conditions in the Nile valley, Alexandria has greatly expanded. As the British consular report for 1904 says, ``Building . . . for residential and other purposes proceeds with almost feverish rapidity. The cost of living has doubled and the price of land has risen enormously.'' On the E. and S.E. a new town of handsome houses, gardens and boulevards has been called into existence, in the arrangement of which the controlling influence of the municipality is evident (see Modern Gity above).

IV. Antiquities.--Persistent efforts have been made to explore the antiquities of Alexandria. Encouragement and help have been given by the local Archaeological Society, and by many individuals, notably Greeks justly proud of a city which is one of the glories of their national story. The past and present directors of the museum have been enabled from time to time to carry out systematic excavations when opportunity offered; Mr D. G. Hogarth made tentative researches on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in 1895; and a German expedition worked for two years (1898-1899). But two difficulties face the would-be excavator in Alexandria. First, since the great and growing modern city stands right over the ancient one, it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in which to dig, except at enormous cost. Second, the general subsidence of the coast has sunk the lower-lying parts of the ancient town under water. Unfortunately the spaces still most open are the low grounds to N.E. and S.W., where it is practically impossible to get below the Roman strata.

The most important results were those achieved by Dr G. Botti, late director Of the museum, in the neighbourhood of ``Pompey's Pillar,'' where there is a good deal of open ground. Here substructures of a large building or group of buildings have been exposed, which are perhaps part of the Serapeum. Hard by immense catacombs and columbaria have been opened which may have been appendages of the temple. These contain one very remarkable vault with curious painted reliefs, now lighted by electricity and shown to visitors. The objects found in these researches are in the museum, the most notable being a great basalt bull, probably once an object of cult in the Serapeum. Other catacombs and tombs have been opened in Kore es-Shugafa Hadra (Roman) and Ras et-Tin (painted). The Germans found remains of a Ptolemaic colonnade and streets in the north-east of the city, but little else. Mr Hogarth explored part of an immense brick structure under the mound of Kom ed-Dik, which may have been part of the Paneum, the Mausolea or a Roman fortress. The making of the new foreshore led to the dredging up of remains of the Patriarchal Church; and the foundations of modern buildings are seldom laid without some objects of antiquity being discovered. The wealth underground is doubtless immense; but, despite all efforts, there is not much for antiquarians to see in Alexandria outside the museum and the neighbourhood of ``Pompey's Pillar.'' The native tomb- robbers, well-sinkers, dredgers and the like, however, come upon valuable objects from time to time, which find their way into private collections.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--(1) Modern City. See latest editions of guidebooks to Lower Egypt (Baedeker, Murray, Macmillan). (2) History. See authorities for history of EGYPT. (3) Ancient City and Antiquities. Mahmud Bey el Fallaki, Memoire sur l'antique Alexandrie (1872); T. D. Neroutsos, L'A ncienne A lexandrie ( I 888) D.G. Hogarth and E. F. Benson, Report on Prospects of Research in Alexandria Egypt Expl. Fund Archaeological Report, 1894-1895); Bulletin de la Societe Archeologique d'Alexandrie(1898 foll.); O. Puchstein in Pauly- Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, s.v. ``Alexandria''; U. Wilcken, Observationes ad historiam Egypti Provinciae Romanae (1885); G. Lumbroso, L'Egitto al tempo dei Greci e dei Romani (1882); H. Kiepert, Zur Topographie des alten Alexandria (1872). (D. G. H.)

1 This municipality was superseded by a new municipal body, with extensive powers, created in 1890.

ALEXANDRIA, a city of Madison county, Indiana, U.S.A., about 46 m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890) 715; (1900) 7221, (1002 foreign-born); (1910) 5096. Alexandria is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Lake Erie & Western railways, and by the Indiana Union Traction System (electric). In the city are a Carnegie library and Beulah Park (24 acres), the latter belonging to the Northern Indiana Holiness Association, which there holds summer camp-meetings. The city is in a rich farming country, which produces Indian corn, oats and wheat; and is in the Indiana natural gas region, to which fact it owes its rapid growth as a manufacturing centre. It is one of the principal seats of the glass industry in Indiana-- plate glass, lamp chimneys, mirrors, &c., being manufactured here--and also has mineral wool factories and paper mills. The municipality owns and operates the water-works and the gas-lighting plant. Alexandria was founded in 1836 and was chartered as a city in 1893.

ALEXANDRIA, a city of Louisiana, U.S.A., capital of Rapides Parish, on the S. bank of the Red river in almost the exact geographical centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 2861; (1900) 5648 (3142 negroes); (1910) 11,213. The city is served by the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company, the St Louis, Watkins & Gulf, the Texas & Pacific, the Louisiana & Arkansas, the Southern Pacific, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Missouri Pacific railways. The Red river is navigable to Alexandria during the entire year. Alexandria is on a level plain in the centre of the Louisiana long-leaf pine forests, in which pine is interspersed with various hardwoods. The forests stretch on all sides within a radius of 75