ing fresh overtures from the humbled Darius, fought the decisive battle of Arbela, which determined the fate of Asia. Babylon was soon entered by the victor, as also Susa and Persepolis, the last of which cities was burnt to gratify the cruel caprice of his courtezan

being mastered with dreadful slaughter, was razed to the ground, with the ostentatious exception of the house of the poet Pindar alone; while the unfortunate surviving inhabitants were stripped of all their possessions and sold indiscriminately into slavery. Intimidating by this cruel policy, the Macedonian party gained Thais. He then marched into Media, in pur

the ascendancy in every state throughout Greece, and Athens particularly distinguished itself by the meanness of its submission. Alexander then repaired to Corinth, where, in a general assembly of the states, his office of superior commander was recognized and defined; and in the twenty-second year of his age, leaving Antipater his viceroy in Macedon, he passed the Hellespont to overturn the Persian empire with an army not exceeding 4500 horse and 30,000 foot. The first battle was fought on the Granicus, where the Persians made a spirited resistance, but were unable to withstand the united skill and valour of the Greeks, inspirited by the daring personal courage of their leader. The immediate consequence of this victory was the freedom and restoration of all the Greek cities in Asia Minor. The battle of Issus in Cilicia was the next great general advantage obtained by Alexander over the Persians, in which struggle the camp of Darius, with his mother, wife, and children, fell into the hands of the victor. His humane and generous treatment of his illustrious captives has been always highly praised by historians; a panegyric that implies no great compliment to ancient gallantry, which no doubt was sufficiently barbarous to captives of every rank. From Cilicia, Alexander marched to Phœnicia; and all the country surrendered to him except Tyre, which cost him a siege of seven months. This delay so exasperated him, that he put many thousands of the inhabitants to death, and even carried his cruelty so far as to crucify two thousand for the crime of bravely defending their countryan act of atrocity which, with his treatment of Thebes, has incurably darkened the character of Alexander. After the reduction of Tyre, according to Josephus, he went to Jerusalem, where he was received by the high-priest and offered sacrifice in the temple; but as that writer is the only one who mentions the transaction, which at the same time is inconsistent with the accounts of other historians; and as the narrative is otherwise marvellous and contradictory to known facts, the more judicious of the modern critics deem it unworthy of confidence. Alexander next proceeded to Gaza, where he acted with as little credit to his character as at Tyre, sacrificing the inhabitants after its capture, and, in puerile imitation of his chosen hero Achilles, dragging the body of its valiant governor Betlis round the walls of the place. He then visited Egypt, and

suit of Darius, but was stopped by an account of the execrable assassination of that unfortunate monarch by his own subject Bessus. About this time the army, enriched by spoil and indulgence, began to fall into factions; and a formidable conspiracy against Alexander broke out in his own camp, of which Philotas, and eventually his father, the veteran Parmenio, became the victims. This domestic danger surmounted, he pushed his conquests in the countries north-east of Persia, and captured in a fortress the famous Roxana, daughter of the Sogdian prince Oxyartes, whom he formally espoused. He then marched southward, and about 327 B.C. crossed the Indus, when several petty princes of the country submitted; but a king of greater consequence, named Porus, valiantly withstood the invader; and although conquered and made prisoner, the victor, (with the generosity by which he was occasionally distinguished) pleased with his spirit, restored him his dominions, and made him an ally. The last place that he took was the city of Sangala, after which he was preparing to pass the Hyphasis, now the Beyah, when the discontent of his army obliged him to terminate his progress, and return. He accordingly erected twelve altars of an extraordinary size, to mark the limits of his progress, remnants of which are said to be still in existence. Retreating to the Hydaspes, he built on its banks two cities, Nicæa and Bucpehala, and embarked himself and his light troops on board the fleet commanded by Nearchus, leaving the main army to march by land. After a severe contest witlı the Malli, in which he was wounded and his whole army nearly lost, he proceeded down the river to Patala, an island formed by the branching of the Indus. Having entered the Indian ocean, and performed some rites in honour of Neptune, he left his fleet; and after ordering Nearchus, as soon as the season would permit, to sail to the Persian gulf, and thence up the Tigris to Mesopotamia, he himself prepared to march to Babylon, towards which capital he proceeded in a kind of triumphal progress. Reaching Susa, he began to give way to a passion for pleasure and joviality; and with the view of uniting his Grecian with his Persian subjects, he himself with eastern licence married Statira, daughter of Darius, and Parasatis, daughter of Ochus, and promoted similar matches among his nobles. Desirous of exploring the maritime parts of his empire, he descended with a fleet into the Persian

marked out the plan of the city since so flou-gulf, and sailed up the Tigris to the camp of rishing under the name of Alexandria. His Hephæstion, where he quelled a dangerous innext step was a romantic expedition to the surrection among his Macedonian troops with temple of Jupiter Ammon in the desert, where great address and magnanimity. At Ecbatana priestly adulation bestowed upon him the title he lost by disease his favourite Hephæstion, his of Son of Jupiter. He subsequently crossed grief for which event approached to extravathe Euphrates and the Tigris, and after reject-gance. At length he reached Babylon, wher

he gave orders and set about inquiries, all in- Apelles; and his munificent presents to Aris dicating future undertakings of great magnitude totle, to enable him to pursue his inquiries in and importance, when he was seized with a fever natural history, were very serviceable to in consequence of excess in drinking, and died science. Alexander also exhibited that unein the thirteenth year of his eventful reign, and quivocal test of strong intellect, a disposition the thirty-third of his life, B. C. 323. When to employ and reward men of talents in every required to name his successor, he is said to department of knowledge. In person this have replied, "To the most worthy." By his extraordinary conqueror, monarch, and man,

various wives he left but one son, who, with his mother Roxana, was murdered by Cassander. Pursuant to his own direction, his body was conveyed to Alexandria in a golden coffin, and enclosed in a sarcophagus, which is now said to be in the British Museum. No character in history has afforded matter for more discussion than that of Alexander; and the exact quality of his ambition is to this day a subject of dispute. By some he is regarded as little more than an heroic madman, actuated by the mere desire of personal glory; others give him the honour of vast and enlightened views of policy, embracing the consolidation and establishment of an empire in which commerce, learning, and the arts, should flourish in common with energy and enterprise of every description. Each class of reasoners find facts to countenance their opinion of the mixed character and actions of Alexander. The former quote the wildness of his personal daring, the barren nature of much of his transient mastery, and his remorseless and unnecessary cruelty to the vanquished on some occasions, and capricious magnanimity and lenity on others. The latter advert to facts like the foundation of Alexandria, and other acts indicative of large and pro spective views of true policy; and regard his expeditions rather as schemes of discovery and exploration, than mere enterprises for fruitless conquest. The truth appears to embrace a portion of both these opinions. Alexander was too much smitten with military glory and the common self-engrossment of the mere conqueror, to be a great and consistent politician; while such was the strength of his intellect and the light opened to him by success, that a glimpse of the genuine sources of lasting greatness could not but break in upon him. The fate of a not very dissimilar character in our days shows the nature of this mixture of lofty intellect and personal ambition, which has seldom effected much permanent good for mankind in any age. The fine qualities and defects of the man were, in Alexander, very similar to those of the ruler. His treatment of Parmenio and of Clytus, and various acts of capricious cruelty and ingratitude, are contrasted by many instances of extraordinary greatness of mind. The anecdote of the manner in which he swallowed the draught administered by his friend and physician Philip, while he gave the latter the letter to read, informing Lim it was poison, has been admired in every succeeding age. He was also a lover and favourer of the arts and literature, and carried with him a train of poets, orators, and philosophers, although his choice of his attendants of this description did not always do honour to his judgment. He however encouraged and patronised the artists Praxiteles, Lysippus, and

was of the middle size, with a neck something awry, but possessed of a fierce and majestic countenance. His death immediately divided his empire; and in one or two generations his successors dwindled into as mere Asiatics and Egyptians as the subjects whom they ruled.Q. Curtius. Univ. Hist.

ALEXANDER (SEVERUS) Roman emperor, was born at Acre in Phoenicia, in the year 205. He was the son of Genesius Marcianus and of Mamæa, niece to the emperor Severus. He was admirably educated by his mother, and was adopted and made Cæsar by his cousin Heliogabalus, then but a few years older than himself, at the prudent instigation of their common grandmother Mæsa. That contemptible emperor however soon grew jealous of his cousin, and would have destroyed him, but for the interference of the prætorian guards, who soon after put Heliogabalus himself to death, and raised Alexander to the imperial dignity in his seventeenth year. Alexander adopted the noble model of Trajan and the Antonines; and the mode in which he administered the affairs of the empire, and otherwise occupied himself in poetry, philosophy, and literature, is eloquently described by Gibbon. On the whole he governed ably, both in peace and war; but whatever he might owe to the good education bestowed by his mother, he allowed her a degree of influence in the government, which threw a cloud over the latter part of his reign, as is usually the case with the indirect exercise of female political influence in all cases. Alexander behaved with great magnanimity in one of the frequent insurrections of the prætorian guards; but either from fear or necessity he allowed many of their seditious mutinies to pass unpunished, although in one of them they murdered their prefect, the learned lawyer Ulpian, and in another compelled Dion Cassius the historian, then consul, to retire into Bithynia. At length, undertaking an expedition into Gaul to repress an incursion of the Germans, he was murdered, with his mother, in an insurrection of his Gallic troops, headed by the brutal and gigantic Thracian Maximin, who took advantage of their discontent at the Emperor's attempts to restore discipline. This event happened in the year 235, after a reign of twelve years. Alexander was favourable to Christianity, following the predilections of his mother Mamæa, and he is said to have placed the statue of Jesus Christ in his private temple, in company with those of Orpheus and Apollonius Tyaneus. In return the Christian writers all speak very favourably of him. Herodian, on the contrary, accuses him of great timidity, weakness, and undue subjection to his mother; but exhibits a disposition to detract from his good character on all occasions, in a way that renders his evi- | efforts. Alexander died in May 1261 at Vidence very suspicious. He was thrice married, terbo. Ibid.

but left no children. - Gibbon.

Crevier.

ALEXANDER I (pope) succeeded Eoaristus in the see of Rome in the tenth year of Trajan, while the persecution in which Ignatius perished was at its height. He subsequently himself suffered martyrdom in 119, during the fourth persecution under Hadrian. The epistles yet extant under his name, are unquestionably the forgeries of a later age; but the tradition that he first introduced the use of holy water into the Romish church rests on better foundation. - Nouv. Dict. Hist.

ALEXANDER II (pope) assumed the tiara, and succeeded in establishing himself on the papal throne in 1061, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the Emperor, who supported the pretensions of the bishop of Parma, and even recognized him by the title of Honorius II. The faction of Alexander prevailing, his rival was driven into exile. The new pope was a man of a humane and tolerant disposition, though the licentiousness of his life and manners caused great scandal. The better part of his character was evinced in the protection he afforded the persecuted Jews, by whom in particular his death was much lamented. It took place in April 1073, at Rome, in the twelfth year of his pontificate. -Ibid.

ALEXANDER III succeeded Adrian IV in the papal throne in 1159. He was a pontiff of great ability, and deservedly popular with his subjects. His elevation was not unattended either with difficulties or dangers, but his perseverance and talents surmounted them all. Two rivals for the popedom were successively started against him by the emperor Frederic; first Victor, appointed at Pavia; and after his decease, cardinal Guy, who assumed the name of Paschal III. Alexander, who was for a while compelled to yield to the storm, having procured the recognition of his pretensions by the courts of France and England, took measures towards asserting them in earnest. The Venetian states were prevailed upon to arm in his cause, and the then powerful weapon of excommunication was also hurled against his imperial antagonist, whose subjects were formally released from their allegiance. This strong measure brought his enemy to terms,

ALEXANDER V was raised to the papa. throne in 1409 by the council of Pisa. He was a Milanese of the lowest origin, his parents being so por, that he himself, while a child, was forced to beg for his subsistence. Having the good fortune to attract the notice of a monk, he was through his interest admitted into his order. Distinguishing himself afterwards by his love for learning, opportunities were afforded him of prosecuting his studies both at Oxford and Paris. On his return to his native country he became, through the favour of the reigning duke, bishop of Vicenza, and subsequently archbishop of Milan. His next step was to the purple, which he attained through the favour of Innocent VII, whose legate he was in Lombardy. Cardinal Cossa, to whom he had committed the reins of government, was suspected of being the cause of his death, which took place abruptly, May 3, 1410. under circumstances inducing a belief that it was occasioned by poison.-Ibid.

ALEXANDER VI, one of the greatest monsters of profligacy and debauchery that ever disgraced the papal or any other throne. Through the interest of his uncle, pope Calixtus III, Roderic Borgia, as he was then stiled, obtained a cardinal's hat, with the archbishopric of Valencia. Notwithstanding the notoriety and enormity of his crimes, among which might be ranked incest and murder, his intrigues raised him to the popedom on the death of Innocent VIII in 1492. One of the first acts of his reign was to load his four illegitimate sons with dignities and honours. Of these the infamous Cæsar Borgia was the second, who, like a true descendant of so worthy a sire, not only assassinated his elder brother, Francis duke of Gandia, but is said to have shared with him and with his father the embraces of his own sister Lucretia. As an ecclesiastic, Alexander was in the highest degree ambitious, bigotted, and intolerant. The dissentions he managed to excite among the potentates of Europe, his crooked policy contrived to turn entirely to his own profit; while the execution of Savanarola, whom he burned at the stake in 1498 for denouncing the crimes of the clergy from the pulpit, is a proof of the

and a reconciliation was effected between unrelenting savageness of his disposition. The them, in which the interdicts were mutually death of this monster was suitable to his life. removed. Alexander, who was born at Sienna, At a banquet which he, in conjunction with his died at Rome, August 30, 1181.-Ibid.

ALEXANDER IV was raised to the papal throne in 1254. He followed the policy adopted by his predecessor, Innocent IV, in opposing the pretensions of Mainfroy to the crown of Sicily, and having failed in a negociation for that kingdom with Richard earl of Cornwall, finally concluded a bargain with Henry III of England, who advanced him large sums on condition of his securing the Sicilian succession to his second son, Edmund earl of Lancaster. The Pope received the

favourite son Cæsar, had prepared for Corneto and eight other newly created cardinals, the poison intended to take off one or more of them, for the sake of appropriating their revenues, was by some mistake administered to the contrivers of the plot. The Pope died the next day, August 8, 1503, in great agony; his son, by the timely application of powerful antidotes and his own natural strength of constitution, escaped, but only to perish as miserably four years afterwards at the siege of Viana. Two accounts of the life of this pope have ap

money, but was either unable or unwilling to peared, the one written in Latin by Burchard, perform his part of the agreement, Mainfroy the other in English, published in 1729 by maintaining himself in spite of their united | Alexander Gordon.--Ibid.

ALEXANDER VII (FABIO CHIGI, pope) was born at Sienna in 1599. Through the interest of the Pallavicini family, he was introduced to the notice of Urban VIII, and by him appointed, first, inquisitor at Malta, afterwards vice-legate to Ferrara, and eventually raised to the purple, and sent as nuncio into Germany. cardinal Mazarin, though at first opposed to him, was at length won over to his party, through the mediation of their mutual friend Saccheti; and, by their joint intrigues, Chigi was, on the death of Innocent X, placed in St Peter's chair by the unanimous vote of the conclave, which consisted of sixty-four cardinals. His disposition was liberal, and even magnificent; to which his patronage of learned men, and the embellishments he lavished on his ca

ALEXANDER, an abbot in Sicily, who wrote a history of the life and reign of Roger king of Sicily, which is to be found in the collection entitled " Hispania Illustrata." He lived in the 12th century.-Dupin.

ALEXANDER, an English abbot, sent to Rome by Henry III, in order to support the rights of the English nation; for which, on his return to England, he was imprisoned and excommunicated by Pandulphus the papal legate. He wrote several works, among which are "Victoria a Proteo; de Potestate Ecclesiæ; de Cessione Papali," &c.-Biog. Brit.

ALEXANDER (AB ALEXANDRO) a Neapolitan jurisconsult; celebrated, however, more for his attachment to polite literature than for eminence in his profession. He died

pital (especially the college Della Sapienza, in the early part of the 16th century. An edi

which he completed and furnished with a noble library,) bear testimony. He was himself an author; and a collection of his poems, in one volume, has come down to us. His death took place in May 1667, in his sixty-eighth year. Ibid.

ALEXANDER VIII, the last pope of that name, succeeded Innocent XI in 1689. He sprang from a Venetian family named Ottoboni, and was in his eightieth year when he exchanged his cardinal's hat and the bishopric of Brescia and Frescati, for the triple crown. The immediate promotion of his nephews to offices of trust and dignity excited much conversation, which is said to have drawn from the pontiff the observation, that "he had no time to lose, it being twenty-three and a half o'clock with him already;" in allusion to the Italian method of counting the hours. The truth of his remark was established by his decease within two years, at the age of eighty

two.-Nouv. Dict. Hist.

ALEXANDER (DE MEDICI) the natural

tion of his principal work, "Dies Geniales," written in imitation of the "Noctes Attice" of Gellius, was published in 1587, with notes, by his commentator Tiraqueau.Vossius.

ALEXANDER (NOEL) a French dominican, and a doctor of the Sorbonne, in the seventeenth century. He wrote a treatise on the conformity of the Chinese ceremonies with those of Greece and tome, and various theologica, works of more or less magnitude. The production, however, by which he is most known, is "An Ecclesiastical History of the Old and New Testament," in Latin, 8 vol3. folio. Having written in defence of the Gallican church, his works were proscribed by the court of Rome, which however much respected him. This very laborious writer died in the year 1724.-Nouv. Dict. Hist.

ALEXANDER (OF PARIS) a Norman poet of the twelfth century, who removed to Paris, and was esteemed in the court of Philip Augustus. He wrote a metrical poem called

son of Lorenzo de Medici, became first duke of "Alexander the Great," in verses of twelve

Florence, by the influence of Charles V, who married him to his natural daughter, Margaret of Austria. He was no sooner installed than he governed with the greatest tyranny, and insulted not only the best families, but the very cloisters of Florence, with the grossness of his unbridled licentiousness. Among the companions of his debauchery was Lorenzo de Medici, a relation, a young man of the age of twenty-two, who allowed himself to be excited by the indignant republican, Philip Strozzi, to undertake the assassination of the Duke. This scheme was accomplished by seducing him into a private chamber, in the expectation of meeting a lady with whom he was enamoured He had no sooner entered than he was poniarded. This murder took place in the twenty-sixth year of his age, in 1537. Assassination seldom brings about the desired result; and the crime of Lorenzo was useless, for the Florentines did not recover their liberty. The assassin made his escape, first to Venice, and then to Constantinople, but was himself assassinated ten years after by two soldiers who had been guards to the duke, both of whom refused a very considerable sum which had been placed upon the head of the murderer. - Nouv. Dict. Hist.

syllables, and gave the first idea of what could be done in that measure in the French language. It is supposed, that from Alexander and his poem, lines of twelve syllables are called Alexandrines.-Moreri.

ALEXANDER (NEUSKOI) a grand duke of Russia in the early part of the thirteenth century, whose merits civil, military and religious, procured him, eventually, the honours of canonization, and the institution, by Peter the Great, of an order of knighthood consisting of 135 members, bearing his name, and recognising him as their patron saint. The most celebrated action of his life was a great victory obtained by him over the more northern tribes on the banks of the Neva, where his remains were deposited with great pomp, and a monastery and mausoleum, since become the favourite burial place of the sovereigns of Russia, raised over them by Peter the Great and Catherine II. He was born in 1218, but the date of his decease is uncertain. Mod. Un. History. Cor's Travels.

ALEXANDER (TRALLIANUS) a physician of Tralles, in Lydia, in the sixth century. His works in Greek have come down to us, and in medical estimation they prove him the best aged forty-six. Peter the Great was his son by his second wife Natalia, daughter of a captain of hussars.-Mod. Univ. Hist.

Grecian physician after Hippocrates. They | Sobieski at Choksim. He died A. D. 1677, are published both in the original Greek and in Latin. Of the latter version, Haller gave an edition at Lausanne in 1772. - Friend's Hist. Phys.

ALEXIS (PETROVITCH) son of Peter the Great and his first wife Eudoxia. This unhappy prince, unfortunately for himself opposed the new policy of his father, and expressed an unalterable attachment to the ancient barbarous usages and customs of his country. His private habits were as gross and intemperate as his public views were ignorant and bounded; and Peter, having in vain endeavoured to inspire him with his own sentiments and with a more enlightened love of his country, at length resolved to disinherit him, in order to avoid the certain overthrow of all his plans, if followed by such a successor. The Czarovitch appeared to consent; but taking advantage of the absence of his father from Russia, he made his escape to the emperor of Germany, his brother-in-law. The imperial court concealed him some time at Vienna, from which place he retired, first to Inspruck, and subsequently made secretary of state for Scotland, covered by the Czar, he was induced to return and created viscount Canada and earl of Stir- to Moscow. On his arrival, his sword was

ALEXANDER (sir WILLIAM) earl of Stirling, an eminent Scottish statesman and poet, in the reigns of Charles and James I. He first commenced as an amatory poet, with a complaint of his unsuccessful suit to a lady whom he names Aurora, which poem he published in 1604. He then repaired to the court of James, and in 1607 published some dramas which he entitled "Monarchic Tragedies," and dedicated to the king. In 1613, he became gentleman usher to prince Charles, and received the honour of knighthood; and in 1621 king James made a grant to him of Nova Scotia, with a view to colonization. This scheme was further sanctioned by Charles I, who appointed him lord lieutenant of that colony, and founded the order of Nova Scotia baronets in Scotland, the members of which were to contribute to the formation of the settlement. Sir William Alexander was subsequently to Naples, until, his retreat being dis

ling. He died in 1640. His poems, which make one volume folio, possess much merit of the graver kind. James I used to call him his philosophic poet.-Biog. Brit.

ALEXANDER (WILLIAM) an able artist, born at Maidstone in 1768. His father, who was a coachmaker, gave him a good education, and sent him at an early age to study the fine arts in London, which he did with so much success, that he was selected to accompany the embassy of lord Macartney to China. On his return, besides his drawings in illustration of the work of sir George Staunton, he published a splendid one of his own, entitled "The Costume of China," which obtained so much notice that he was induced to publish a second part. At the time of his death, in 1816, he was keeper of the antiquities at the British Museum, where he made drawings of the ancient marbles and terra cotta, published in 3 vols. 4to, by Mr Taylor Combe. Gent. Mag. ALEXIS, a Greek comic poet, born at Thurium, a colony of the Athenians, in Lucania. He came to Athens when young, and instructed Menander, who was his nephew, in dramatic composition. He flourished in the time of Alexander, B. C. 323. A few fragments of his works alone remain, which are to be found in the "Vetustissimorum Authorum Græcorum Poemata," 1570.-Vossius.

• ALEXIS (MICHAELOVITCH) czar of Russia, was born in 1630, and succeeded his father Michael in 1646. Alexis, who was predecessor and father to Peter the Great, was an able monarch, and the first Russian ruler who acted on the policy of a more intimate connexion with the other states and nations of

taken from him; he was conducted as a criminal into the presence of his father; and in an assembly of the clergy and nobility the czar caused him formally to renounce the succession. At the same time, all his confidants were arrested, some of whom were executed; and his mother Eudoxia was transferred to a monastery near the lake of Ladoga. At last the unhappy prince was tried, and by an excess of rigour which it is difficult on any theory to vindicate, condemned to death. His sentence was reported to him, and the next day he died in prison, a victim to his own weakness and the merciless severity of his extraordinary parent. Alexis left a son, who ascended the throne after the death of the empress Catherine. Opinion is much divided as to the motives and necessity for this unnatural sacrifice. It was of course vindicated by Peter, as demanded by the interests of his rising empire. The fate of Alexis forms at once a comparison and contrast with that of Don Carlos of Spain, the immolated son of Philip II. The former suffered for his predilection for ancient institutions and ideas; the latter, for his implied attachment to the new light that was then rising up in Europe.Nouv. Dict. Hist.

ALEXIS (WILLIAM) a Benedictine monk and prior of Bussi-au-Perche, was living in 1505. He left various pieces of poetry which in his own time were much esteemed. For a monk his subjects are curious, the following being his principal works: 1. "Four Chants royaux, presented at the games du Puy at Rouen," 4to; 2. "Le Passetems de tout Homme et de toute Femme," Paris, 8vo and 4to, which is a grave performance on the mi

Europe. He preceded his celebrated son in sery of man from the cradle to the grave; measures for the civilization and political and 3. " Le grand Blason des Faulses Amours,"

commercial improvement of Russia. Alexis, by his diversion of the Turkish arms, much contributed to the celebrated victory of John

4to, Paris, 1493, being a dialogue on the evils produced by love. Alexis is very circumspect on these subjects, which, says one of his bio