ALEXANDER. 



99 



ditious mutinies to pass unpunished, although, in one 

 of them, they murdered their prefect, the learned 

 Liwyt-r 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 gigan- 

 tic Tiiracian, Maximin, who took advantage ol their 

 discontent at the emperor's attempts to restore disci- 

 pline. This event happened in tile year 235, after 

 a reign of twelve years. A. was favourable to Chris- 

 tianity, following the predilections of his mother, 

 Mammaea ; and he is said to liave 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 favour- 

 ably 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 cliaracter on all occasions, in a way that 

 renders his evidence very suspicious. He was 

 thrice married, but left no children. Ml'ms Lampri- 

 dius tells the following singular story of A. : Ovi- 

 nius Camillus, a Roman senator, conspired against 

 him. A., learning the fact, sent for Ovinius, thank- 

 ed him for his willingness to relieve him from the 

 burden of government, and then proclaimed him his 

 colleague. A. now gave him so much to do, that he 

 nad hardly time to breathe, and, on the breaking out 

 of a war with Artaxerxes, the fatigues to which A. 

 exposed himself, and which Ovinius was compelled 

 to share, so overwhelmed the latter, that, at last, he 

 besought A. to permit him to return to a private sta- 

 tion. He was accordingly allowed to resign the im- 

 perial dignity. 



ALEXANDER ; the name of several popes. Alex- 

 ander I. reigned from 109 to 119, and is known only 

 as having introduced the use of holy water. A. II., 

 Anselm of Milan, previously bishop of Lucca, was, 

 in 1061, raised to the papal throne by the party of 

 Hildebrand, afterward Gregory VII., while the ad- 

 herents of the German king, and of the nobility of 

 Rome, chose Honorius II. at Basle. This antipope 

 expelled A. from Rome, but Hildebrand, then the 

 soul of the papal government supported him ; a synod 

 at Cologne acknowledged him in 1062, and the Ro- 

 mans themselves revolted, in 1063, from Honorius. 

 Thus A. attained quiet possession of 'Rome, and of 

 the papal power, which, however, Hildebrand ad- 

 ministered in his name. The papal bulls, therefore, 

 against lay investiture, against the marriage of 

 priests, and the divorce of Henry IV., and the 

 liaughty summons of this king to appear before the 

 papal chair, must be ascribed to the influence of 

 Hildebrand, who used the weak A. II. as his tool. A. 

 died in 1073. (See Gregory VII.) A. III. reigned 

 from 1 1 59 to 1181, and struggled with various fortune, 

 but undaunted courage, against the party of the 

 emperor Frederick I., and the antipopes Victor III., 

 Paschal III., and Calixtus III., who rose, one after 

 the other, against him. He was obliged to flee to 

 France in 1161, where he lived in Sens, until the 

 dissatisfaction of the Lombards with the government 

 of Frederick, the assistance of the German ecclesias- 

 tical princes, and the desire of the Romans, opened 

 a way for his return, in 1165. He now strengthened 

 his power by a league with the cities of Lombardy, 

 but was obliged to retire, in 1167, before the imperial 

 army, and resided in Benevento, Anagni, and 

 Venice, until after the victory of the Lombards over 

 the emperor at Legnano, followed by the peace of 

 Venice (so humiliating to the pride of the emperor 

 Frederick, who was compelled to kiss the feel and 

 hold the stirrup of A., in 1177), the abdication of the 



third antipope, and the return of the victor to Rome. 

 A. humbled, also, Henry II., king of England, who 

 had exposed himself to the pnpaFvengeance by the 

 assassination of Becket. The terms on which the 

 German and English sovereigns were restored to fa- 

 vour, were such as to increase the power of the pope 

 in both countries. He placed Alfonso II. on the 

 throne of Portugal, and laid Scotland under an in 

 terdict on account of the disobedience of the king. 

 The rest of his labours to augment the papal power, 

 and his persevering efforts, in the spirit of Gregory 

 VII., till the period of his death, are related in the 

 article Popery. A. IV., count of Segni and bishop 

 of Ostia, ascended the papal throne in 1254, at a 

 very unfavourable time. Conquered by Manfred of 

 Sicily, implicated in the quarrels of the Guelphs and 

 Ghibellines, despised in Italy, this pope, with good 

 intentions, and a peaceable disposition, was not able 

 to prevent, either by his prayers or his excommuni- 

 cations (which were only laughed at), the distur- 

 bances prevailing over the whole country. At his 

 death, in 1261, he left the papal power in a state of 

 great weakness A. V., a Greek from Candia, un- 

 der the name of Peter Philargi, a mendicant friar, 

 rose to the dignity of cardinal, and was chosen pope 

 in 1409, at the same time with the antipopes Gre- 

 gory XII. and Benedict XIII. He was considered 

 by the greater part of Christendom legitimate pope, 

 but carried his prodigality and luxury in Bologna, 

 where he constantly resided, to an extent injurious to 

 the interests of the church. At the council of Pisa, 

 he promised to reform the abuses prevailing in the 

 church, but took no steps towards it. While 

 occupied in the condemnation of the doctrines 

 of Wickliffe, and hi preparations for the trial 

 of the Bohemian reformer, Huss, he died in 1410, 

 probably by poison. A. VI. See the following arti- 

 cle. A. VII., who was employed, when cardinal 

 Chigi, as papal nuncio, in negotiations of peace at 

 Munster and Osnabruck, and was revered on ac- 

 count of his pious zeal for the church and holy life, 

 laid aside the mask of sanctity after his elevation to 

 the papal throne, April 8, 1655, and gave himself 

 openly up to luxury and voluptuousness. He sur- 

 rounded himself with show and splendour, and ap- 

 peared in the character of an intriguing politician. 

 For an account of his condemnation of the five points 

 of Jansen's Augustinus, and the quarrels in which 

 he was consequently involved in France, see Jansen. 

 He quarrelled not only with the Sorboime, and the 

 parliament, but even with king Louis XIV. ; so 

 that the latter declared war against him, took Avig- 

 non and Venaissin, and forced him, in 1663, to make 

 a disgraceful peace at Pisa. His improvements in 

 the city of Rome, his attempts at poetry, and en- 

 couragement of learned men, could not indemnify the 

 Roman court for the loss of authority in France, an d 

 he died without glory, May 22, 1667. A. VIII., 

 an Ottoboni from Venice, became pope in 1689. 

 By artful negotiations, he induced Louis XIV. to 

 deliver up Avignon and Venaissin, and to renounc e 

 the privileges Delonging to the quarter of his am- 

 bassador in Rome. He supplied the Venetians with 

 men, money, and ships to carry on a war against the 

 Turks. Less intent upon the weal of the churc h 

 than on enriching his own family, he delayed th 

 condemnation of the four articles of the Gallican 

 church, in order to gain advantages for his relations. 

 He was hostile towards the Jesuits, and condemned 

 their doctrine of the philosophical sin ; at the same 

 time, however, thirty-one theses of the Jansenists. 

 (See Jansen.) The library of the Vatican is indebt- 

 ed to him for the purchase of the excellent library ol 

 the queen Christina of Sweden. He died in 1691, 

 eighty-one years old. 



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