XERXES II. - XIMENES. 



135 





or that was as worthy to preside over a great and 

 extensive empire. Justin exclaims, that the vast 

 armament which invaded Greece was without a 

 head. It is said of Xerxes, that, when he reviewed 

 his army from a stately throne in the plains of 

 Asia, he suddenly shed tears on the recollection 

 that, of the multitude of men whom he saw before 

 his eyes, in one hundred years, none would be liv- 

 ing. He is also said to have ordered chains to be 

 thrown into the sea, and the waves to be whipped, 

 because tie first bridge which he had laid across the 

 Hellespont had been destroyed by a storm. He 

 cut a channel through mount Athos, and saw his 

 fleet sail in a place which before was dry ground. 

 The very rivers are said to have been dried up by 

 his army as he advanced towards Greece, and the 

 cities which he entered reduced to want and po- 

 verty. 



XERXES II. succeeded his father, Artaxerxes 

 Longimatius, on the throne of Persia, about 425 

 years B. C., and was assassinated in the first year 

 of his reign, by his brother Sogdianus. 



XIMENES, FRANCISCO, cardinal, archbishop of 

 Toledo, and prime minister of Spain, a great states- 

 man, to whom Spain is very much indebted, was 

 born in 1437, at Torrelaguna, a small village in Old 

 Castile, where his father was a lawyer. He studied 

 at Salamanca, travelled afterwards to Rome, and 

 obtained a papal bull, which secured to him the 

 first vacant benefice in Spain. The archbishop of 

 Toledo refused to give him any place ; and, 

 Ximenes having manifested, irritation upon this re- 

 fusal, he caused him to be imprisoned. Ximenes, 

 nevertheless, recovered his freedom, and the cardinal 

 Gonzalez Mendoza, bishop of Siguen9a, appointed 

 him his grand vicar. He afterwards entered the 

 Franciscan order, became father confessor to queen 

 Isabella of Castile, and, in 1495, archbishop of To- 

 ledo. He did not accept this dignity till after 

 many refusals, and an express command from the 

 pope. As an archbishop, he was very zealous, con- 

 ducting as a father towards the poor, abolishing a 

 multitude of abuses, and adhering stedfastly ^o his 

 resolution, that the public offices should be filled 

 with honourable and well-qualified men. He gave 

 'excellent rules to the clergy of his diocese, and, in 

 spite of all opposition, effected a reform in the 

 mendicant orders of Spain, founded, in 1499, a uni- 

 versity at Alcala de Henares, and undertook, some 

 years after, an edition of the Old Testament in six 

 languages. (See Polyglot.) Before this, in 1514, 

 he had published at Henares, an edition of the 

 New Testament, in the original tongue. His ac- 

 tivity was also displayed in other ways. Dissen- 

 sions prevailed in the royal family. Philip of Aus- 

 tria, son of the emperor Maximilian I., had married 

 Joanna, the only daughter of Ferdinand the Catho- 

 lic of Arragon, and of Isabella of Castile. After 

 the death of the latter, Philip received the king- 

 dom of Castile, in right of his wife, the sole heiress 

 of her mother. This gave rise to disputes between 

 him and his father-in-law, which were composed 

 by Ximenes. After Philip's early death (1506), 

 Ferdinand became regent of Castile, for his grand- 

 son, afterwards the emperor Charles V., who was 

 a minor. On this occasion he had been much as- 

 sisted by Ximenes. ' Ximenes now received from 

 the pope the cardinal's hat, was appointed grand 

 inquisitor of Spain, and had a great share in the 

 affairs of state. But as he knew Ferdinand's jeal- 

 ous disposition, he left the court, and returned to 

 his archbishopric. The conversion of the Moors, 



and the plan of wresting some provinces from these 

 unbelievers, particularly occupied his attention. 

 With this view, he formed the project of passing 

 over to Africa, in order to take the fortress of Oran, 

 which was in the possession of the Moors. He ap- 

 plied the income of his archbishopric (300,000 

 ducats), the richest in Europe, to this purpose. A 

 mutiny which arose among a part of his troops, who 

 disliked the idea of having a clergyman for their 

 leader, he suppressed immediately by strict mea- 

 sures. In May, 1509, he landed on the coast of 

 Africa. In the dress of an archbishop, over which 

 he wore a suit of armour, surrounded by priests and 

 monks, as if in a religious procession, he led the 

 land forces. A battle soon followed in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Oran, in which the Moors were de- 

 feated. The fortress was immediately taken, and 

 the garrison put to the sword. Ximenes caused 

 Oran to be fortified anew, changed the mosques 

 into churches, and then returned as a conqueror to 

 Spain, where Ferdinand received him with much 

 pomp. When the latter died, in 1516, his grandson 

 Charles being still a minor, Ximenes became regent 

 of Spain, and effected many important changes dur- 

 ing his regency, which continued only two years. 

 He brought the finances into order, paid the crown 

 debts, and restored the royal domains which had 

 been alienated. He humbled the Spanish nobility, 

 who hated him on account of his pride and severity. 

 He caused the laws to be observed, and placed the 

 Spanish military force upon a respectable footing. 

 All his plans and conceptions were great. He pos- 

 sessed great sagacity and firmness, was slow in de- 

 cision, but quick in execution. The Spanish cabi- 

 net was much indebted to him for the consideration 

 in which it was held in Europe for a long time af- 

 ter his death. We have already mentioned that he 

 was a patron of science. He was truly a great man. 

 He has been accused, not entirely without founda- 

 tion, of pride, severity, and even cruelty ; but cir- 

 cumstances sometimes rendered such conduct neces- 

 sary : his severity was particularly directed against 

 the arrogance of the nobility of the kingdom. Upon 

 various occasions he showed a benevolent spirit. 

 Upon his entrance into Oran, when he saw the 

 numerous corpses of the Moors who had fallen, he 

 shed tears. " They were unbelievers," said he, 

 " but men, who might have been brought to Christ. 

 Their death has deprived me of the principal ad- 

 vantage of this victory." He died in 1517. His 

 life, and his administration, have been the subject 

 of various works See Histoire du Cardinal Xi- 

 menes, par Flechier, Eveque de Nismes (Amsterdam, 

 1700), and the Historic von dem Staatsministerio 

 des Cardinal Ximenes (Hamburg, 1791). 



XIMENES, ACGUSTIN Louis, marquis de, a 

 well-known French poet, descended from a family 

 originally Spanish, was born in Paris in 1726. He 

 was a soldier in his youth, and fought at the battle 

 of Fontenai (May 11, 1745). He then became the 

 associate of the most distinguished French savans 

 of the eighteenth century, particularly Voltaire. 

 Ximenes wrote some tragedies, among them Don 

 Carlos ; a poem called Cesar au Senat Romain ; and 

 another, in which he illustrates the idea, that the 

 sciences contributed as much to the glory of Louis 

 XIV., as he did to their progress. Two Discours 

 of his, one in praise of Voltaire, the other on the in- 

 fluence of Boileau on his century, are esteemed. 

 He also wrote Lettres sur la Nouvelle Heloise de J. 

 J. Rousseau. His works appeared in 1772 and 

 1792 ; the later ones under the title of Codicilh 



