ALEXANDER THE UB BAT ALEXANDER SEVEKUS. 



Hi sen, hitherto unknown to tin- Greeks. In- 

 sati.Jile of glory, aiul thirsting far conquest, he 

 |iaitti IKII even the hordes of the Scythians. Re- 

 turning to Baeiriana, he hoped to gain the anVrtions 

 nt' the Prr-ians, liy asMiining their dress and man- 

 ii. TS. l)iit this hope was not realized. The discontent 

 nf the army gave occasion to the scene which ended 

 in the death of Clitus. A., whose pride he had 

 offended, killed him with his own hand al a banquet, 

 rlitus had been one of his most faithful friends and 

 hravest generals, and A. was afterwards a prey to 

 the keeue-i remorse. In the following year, he 

 subdued the whole of Sogdiana. Oxyantes, one of 

 the leaders of the enemy, had secured his family in 

 a castle built on lofty rocks. The Macedonians 

 stormed it. Roxana, the daughter of Oxyantes, one 

 of i lie mi ist beautiful virgins of Asia, was among the 

 prisoners. A. fell in love with and marriea her. 

 Upon the news of this, Oxyantes thought it best to 

 sulimit, and came to Bactra, where A. received him 

 with distinction. Here a new conspiracy was dis- 

 covered, at the head of which was Hermolaus, and, 

 among the accomplices, Callisthenes. All the con- 

 spirators were condemned to death, except Callis- 

 thenes, who was mutilated, and carried about with 

 the army in an iron cage, until he terminated his 

 torments by poison. A. now formed the idea of 

 conquering India, the name of which was scarcely 

 known. He passed the Indus, and formed an alli- 

 ance with Taxilus, the ruler of the region beyond 

 this river, who assisted him with troops, and 130 ele- 

 pliants. Conducted by Taxilus, he marched to- 

 wards the river Hydaspes, the passage of which, 

 Porus, another king, defended at the head of his 

 army. A. conquered him in a bloody battle, took 

 him prisoner, but restored him to his kingdom. He 

 then marched victoriously through India, established 

 Greek colonies, and built, according to Plutarch, 

 seventy towns, one of which he called Bucephala, 

 after his horse, which had been killed on the Hydas- 

 pes. Intoxicated by success, he intended to ad- 

 vance as far as the Ganges, when the murmurs of 

 his army compelled him to return, in doing which 

 he was exposed to great dangers. When he had 

 reached the Hydaspes, he built a fleet, in which he 

 sent a part of his army down the river, while the rest 

 proceeded along the banks. On his march, he en- 

 countered several Indian princes, and, during the 

 siege of a town belonging to the Mallii, was severe- 

 ly wounded. Having recovered, he continued his 

 march, sailed down the Indus, and thus reached the 

 tea. Nearchus, his admiral, sailed hence to the 

 Persian gulf, while A. directed his march by land to 

 Babylon. He had to wander through immense 

 deserts, in which the greater part of his army, desti- 

 tute of water and food, perished in the sand. Only 

 the fourth part of the troops, with which he had set 

 out, returned to Persia. On his route, he quelled 

 several mutinies, and placed governors over various 

 provinces. In Susa, he married two Persian prin- 



-, and rewarded those of his Macedonians who 

 lud married Persian women, because it was his in- 

 tention to unite the two nations as closely as pos- 

 lible. He distributed rich rewards among his troops. 

 At Opis, on the Tigris, he declared his intention of 

 sending the invalids home with presents. The rest 

 of the army mutinied ; but he persisted, and effected 

 his purpose. Soon after, his favourite, Hephaestion, 

 died. His grief was unbounded, and he buried his 

 body with royal splendour. On his return from 

 Ecbalauu to Babylon, the magicians are said to have 

 predicted Uiat this city would be fatal to him. The 

 representations of his friends induced him to despise 

 tbese warnings. He went to Babylon, where many 

 foreign amliassadors waited for him, and was engag- 



ed in extensive plans for the t'ntnrr, when IIP Iw- 

 came suddenly sicL, after a banquet, and died in a 

 few days, 323 B. (.'. Such was the end of this con- 

 queror, in his 3vd year, after a reiyn of twelve years 

 and eight months. He left Iwhind him an immense 

 empire, which In'came the scene of continual wars. 

 He liad designated no heir, and, being asked by his 

 friends to whom he left the empire, answered, " To 

 the worthiest." After many distnrlKinces, the gene- 

 nils acknowledged Aridotus, a man of a very weak 

 mind, the son of Philip and the dancer Philiima, 

 and Alexander, the. posthumous son of A. and 

 Roxana, as kings, and divided the provinces among 

 themselves, under the name of aatrajiit-f. They 

 appointed Perdiccas, to whom A. on his dentil-bed 

 had given his ring, prime minister of the infant 

 kind's. The body of A. was interred, by Ptolemy 

 in Alexandria, in a golden coffin, and divine honours 

 were paid to him, not only in Egypt, but also ii- 

 other countries. His sarcopliagus, since 1802, lia. 

 been in the British museum. Arrian, Diodoms 

 Plutarch, and Curtius are the sources from whence 

 the history of A. is drawn. (See also St < 

 Exam, critique det Historieru d' Alex., 4to, Paris, 

 1804.) Secunder is the oriental name of A. 



ALEXANDER BALAS, king of Syria, was, accord- 

 ing to some, the natural son of Antiochus Epiphancs, 

 but, according to others, a young man of mean ex - 

 traction at Rhodes, suborned by Ilcniclides. at the 

 instigation of Ptolemy, Attalus, and Ariarathes, to 

 personate the son of Antiochus, and under that title 

 to lay claim to the crown of Syria, in opposition to 

 Demetrius. In a war between the two competitors^ 

 A. was slain, B. C. 145. 



ALEXANDER JANN.ETO, king of the Jews, suc- 

 ceeded to the throne, B. C. 106. His fourth bro- 

 ther endeavoured to deprive him of the crown, and 

 was put to death. A. began his reign by leading an 

 army against Ptolemais, but was obliged to return 

 to defend his own dominions against Ptolemy 

 Lathyrus, and was defeated on the banks of the 

 Jordan. He subsequently conquered Gaza, made 

 war on the Arabians, and was engaged in quarrels 

 with his own subjects. After reducing them to 

 order, he extended his conquest through Syria, 

 Idunuea, Arabia, and Phoenicia. On returning to 

 Jerusalem, he devoted himself to drinking and de.- 

 bauchery, and died, B. C. 79. 



ALEXANDER SEVERUS, a Roman emperor, wa." 

 born at Acre, in Phoenicia, in the year 205. He 

 was the son of Genesius Marcianus and of Mamina-a, 

 niece to the emperor Severus. He was admirably 

 educated by his mother, and was adopted and made 

 Caesar by his cousin Heliogabalus, then but a few 

 years older than himself, at the prudent instigation 

 of their common grandmother, Massa. That con- 

 temptible emperor, however, soon grew jealous of his 

 cousin, and would have destroyed him, but for the in- 

 terference of the praetorian guards, who soon after 

 put Heliogabalus himself to death, and raised Alex- 

 ander to the imperial dignity in his 17th year. Alex- 

 ander 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 elo- 

 quently described by Gibbon. On the whole, he 

 governed ably both in peace and war ; but, whatever 

 he might owe to the good education given him 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 in- 

 direct exercise of female political influence. A. be- 

 haved with great magnanimity in one of the frequent 

 insurrections of the praetorian guards ; but, either 

 from fear or necessity, he allowed many of their se- 



