Chapter XCVI: Act 1890: was passed and the reconstruction commenced in (2)

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.