121 



ALEXANDER. 



ALEXANDER I. 



123 



he should do to make them quite content ? " Die," they replied. He 

 did die at the siege of Ragaba, in Gerasena, in consequence of his 

 gluttony, in the 27th year of his reign. He had two sons ; but left 

 the government to his widow. (Joseph., ' Archaeolog.,' xiii. c. 12-15.) 

 There is a small copper coin of Jannseus in the Britiah Museum, but 

 the Samaritan inscription between the rays of the stars, mentioned by 

 others, ia not discernible. (Compare Bayeri ' Vindiciae Num. Hebr.,' 

 plate, fig. 5.) There is another coin extant, which shows that Jona- 

 than was his Hebrew name, and that Alexander was the name assumed 

 by him according to the prevalent custom. 



ALEXANDER, a son of king Aristobulus II., ^ud gramlson of 

 Jannseus, was taken captive in Judaea by Pompseus, who. intended to 

 exhibit him with his father and brother in his triumph at Rome. 

 Alexander escaped on the journey, and returned to Judaea, where he 

 raised an army of 10,000 foot and 1500 horse to attack Hyrcanus, who 

 had been appointed by I'ompicus to govern Judaea. Alexander took 

 several castles in the mountains; but Uyrcauus imploring the assist- 

 ance of the Romans, Marcus Autouius, who was sent by Gabinius, 

 governor of Syria, defeated Alexander near Jerusalem, B.C. 57, and 

 besieged him in Alexandrion, a small town with a fine castle, about 

 six miles south of Tyre, where he capitulated. After his father Aris- 

 tobulus had escaped from Rome to Jud;ea, and been again defeated 

 and put into prison, Alexander once more took up arms, conquered 

 Judaea, put many Romans to death, and besieged the rest in Garizin. 

 But his army of 30,000 men was finally defeated by Gabinius, in a 

 battle near Mount Tabor, in which 10,000 Jews perished. Alexander 

 at last fell Into the hands of Metellus Scipio, and was beheaded at 

 Antioch. in the year B.C. 49. 

 ALEXANDER POLYHISTOR. [POLYHISTOR.] 

 ALEXANDER SEVERUS. [SEVERUS.] 



ALEXANDER I., one of the earliest bishops of Rome, succeeded 

 Evaristus about the beginning of the 2nd century of our era, but the 

 precise epoch is not well ascertained. 



ALEXANDER II., a Milanese, succeeded Nicholas II. in 1061. 

 This was at the beginning of the dispute between the see of Rome and 

 the emperors of Germany, concerning the investitures. The imperial 

 party assembled a conclave at Basle, where they elected Cadalous, 

 bishop of Parma, who took the name of Honorius II. Cadalous was 

 taken prisoner, and confined in the castle of St. Angelo at Rome, and 

 Alexander was generally acknowledged as pope. He died in 1073, and 

 was succeeded by Gregory VII. 



ALEXANDER III., Cardinal Rinaldo of Siena, succeeded Adrian IV. 

 in 1159. Hia long pontificate of twenty-one years was agitated by 

 wars against the emperor Frederick I., and by a schi.-m in the church, 

 during which three successive antipopes were raised in opposition to 

 Alexander. The latter took part with the Lombard cities in their 

 struggle against Frederick. [FREDERICK I., BARBAROSSA.] At last 

 peace was made, and Alexander was universally acknowledged as pope. 

 He held a great council in the Lateran palace in 1180, when a decretal 

 was passed, that two-thirds of the cardinals should be requisite to 

 make an election valid. He died at Rome in 1181, and was succeeded 

 by Lucius II. Alexander took part with Thomas a Becket in his 

 contest with King Henry II., and canonised him after he had been 

 murdered. 



ALEXANDER IV., of Anagnj, succeeded Innocent IV. in 1254. 

 He inherited the ambition, but not the talents of his predecessor. 

 He manifested the same inveterate hostility against the house of 

 Suabia, and its representative Manfred, king of the Two Sicilies, but 

 did not succeed in his attempt at overthrowing the latter, which 

 became the work of his two immediate successors. Alexander died hi 

 1261, and was succeeded by Urban IV. 



ALEXANDER V., a native of Candia, and monk of the Franciscan 

 order, was elected in 1409, and died the following year. He was suc- 

 ceeded by John XXIII. 



ALEXANDER VI., Roderic Borgia, of Valencia in Spain, a man of 

 great personal wealth, and of some ability, but of loose conduct. He 

 had been made a cardinal by bis uncle Calixtus III., and was elected 

 pope in 1492, after the death of Innocent VIII. At the time of his 

 election, he had four children by his mistress Vanozia ; and, during 

 his reign, he made no scruple at employing every means in his power 

 to confer on them honour and riches. The politics of the pope were 

 capricious and faithless in the extreme. At first he was hostile to the 

 house of Aragon then reigning at Naples, and showed himself favour- 

 able to the French, who were at that time attempting to invade Italy, 

 but afterwards his younger son, Gioffredo, having married a daughter 

 of Alfonso II. of Naples, Alexander allied himself with the latter, for 

 the purpose of arresting the progress of the invaders. As, however, 

 Charles VIII., at the head of his army, advanced upon Rome, the 

 pope received him with honour, and promised him his support for the 

 conquest of Naples, and even gave him his son, Cardinal Caesar, as a 

 hostage. But the cardinal found means to escape ; and Alexander 

 joined the league formed in the north by the Venetians and Sforza 

 against the French, which led to the expulsion of the latter. He 

 afterwards allied himself to Lewis XII. of France, successor of 

 Charles VIII., who wanted the pope's sanction for divorcing his first 

 wife : he was also a party to the double treachery by which Ferdinand 

 of Spaib first betrayed the cause of his relative, Frederic of Naples, 

 partitioning that kingdom between Lewis XII. and himself; and tben, 



breaking his engagement with the French, he seized upon the whole of 

 the conquest by means of his general, Gonsalvo. Alexander's internal 

 policy was, if possible, still more perfidious. He was bent upon the 

 destruction of the great Roman families of Colonna, Oraini, and 

 Savelli ; and either by treachery or open violence he succeeded in 

 putting most of them to death, and seizing on their extensive pos- 

 sessions. He sent his son, the Duke Valentine, into the Romagna, 

 where, by means of similar practices, the latter made himself master 

 of that country. Alexander gave his only daughter, Lucretia Borgia, 

 in marriage, first, to Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, whom she after- 

 wards divorced ; then to a prince of the house of Aragon, who was 

 murdered by her brother Caesar. She was married a third time, in 

 1501, to Alfonso d'Este, son of Hercules, duke of Ferrara, to whom 

 she brought as a dowry 100,000 golden pistoles, besides jewels. Alex- 

 ander's eldest son, John, duke of Gandia, was murdered one night 

 while returning from a debauch, by unknown assassins, and thrown 

 into the Tiber. (Roscoe's ' Leo X.,' vol. i.) At last Alexander himself 

 died on the 18th of August, 1503, being 74 years of age. It was 

 said, and several historians have repeated the assertion, that he died 

 of poison which was intended for his guest, the Cardinal of Corneto. 

 This crime however is not clearly proved. He was succeeded nomi- 

 nally by Pius III., who died twenty-six days after his election, and 

 then by the famous Julius II. The pontificate of Alexander VI. is 

 certainly the blackest page jn the history of modern Rome. The 

 general demoralisation of that period, of which abundant details are 

 found in John Burchard's ' Diarium," as well as in Panvinius, Mura- 

 tori, Fabre's continuation of Fleury's 'Ecclesiastical History," and 

 other writers, Catholic aa well as Protestant, appears in our times 

 almost incredible. 



Alexander VI. 



ALEXANDER VII., Fabio Chigi of Siena, succeeded Innocent X. 

 in 1 655. He embellished Rome, and protected learning, but was accused 

 of favouring too much his relatives and connexions. He was embroiled 

 in a dispute with the imperious Louis XIV. of France, in consequence 

 of some insult which had been offered by the populace to the Duke of 

 Crequi, French ambassador at Rome. He died in May, 1667, and was 

 succeeded by Clement IX. 



ALEXANDER VIII., Cardinal Ottoboni of Venice, succeeded 

 Innocent XI. in 1689. He assisted his native country in its wars 

 against the Turks. He died in February, 1691, at the age of eighty- 

 two, and was succeeded by Innocent XII. 



ALEXANDER I., king of Scotland, was a younger son of 

 Malcolm III. (Canmore), and succeeded his eldest brother Edgar, who 

 died without issue, on the 8th of January, 1107. In those times, iu 

 Scotland, aa well as in other countries, the succession to the throne 

 was frequently regulated, at least to a certain extent, by the will of 

 the reigning king ; and Edgar, at his death, left part of his dominions 

 to his younger brother David. Lord Hailes thinks that David's share 

 was ouly the Scottish portion of Cumberland ; but it probably included 

 the whole territory that was considered subject to the Scottish crowu 

 to the south of the Forth, except the Lothians. Alexander eventually 

 acquiesced in this apportionment. The instructions of his mother, 

 Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atheling, and the advantages which he 

 enjoyed from the society of the English exiles, who crowded, after the 

 Conquest, to his father's court, had given to Alexander a degree of 

 literary cultivation which none of his predecessors had possessed. 

 His natural talents seem also to have been of a superior order ; while) 

 he possessed in an eminent degree the energy of character suited to 

 the times in which he governed. His reign was agitated by successive 

 insurrections ; every one of which, however, he promptly put down. 

 One of the most serious was that excited in the district of Moray, in 

 1120, by Angus, the grandson of Lulach, son of the wife of Macbeth, 

 and the occupant of the throne for a few months after the death of 

 that usurper. Angus claimed the crown in virtue of this descent ; 

 but Alexander speedily quelled the attempt. From his energy on 



