Alexander

a name common in both ancient and modern history. A round dozen Greek Alexanders,--philosophers, poets, and physicians-may be mentioned. Eight popes, three emperors of Russia, and three kings of Scotland have borne the name. As a surname Alexander is well represented in the list of substantial scholars, physicians, merchants, and soldiers of both England and the United States.

Alexander the Great (356-323 B. C.), son of Philip of Macedon and the Princess Olympias. Philip was a king of wide views. He provided the best possible education for his promising son, employing as a private tutor no less a person than the great Aristotle. Alexander was trained in manly exercises and showed a fondness for Grecian literature, particularly Homer's Iliad. He traced a fancied relationship between himself and Achilles and made that hero his model. Alexander was a handsome youth, skilled in the handling of horses, and, according to popular accounts, absolutely without fear. Philip was assassinated 336 B. C., while preparing for a war with Persia. Some accounts have it that Alexander was privy to the crime, being actuated by the double motive of avenging the wrongs of his divorced mother, Olympias, and of desiring to assume charge of the expedition. The truth can never be known.

Alexander succeeded his father at the age of twenty. The accession of a mere stripling to the throne of Macedon was the signal for a general revolt, not only of the ruder tribes, but of the Grecian cities as well. Alexander's subsequent movements have been compared to bolts of lightning. He struck this way and that, reducing his allies to abject submission. Thebes with its temples and palaces he devoted to plunder and destruction, sparing, it is said, the home of Pindar, the poet, for whose odes to the victors in the various Olympic and Delphian games he had the greatest admiration.

Having set the internal affairs of his kingdom in order, Alexander next turned his mind to the conquest of the world. He decided to prosecute with vigor the campaign against the Persians his father had commenced. He crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 334 B. C. with 35,000 thoroughly disciplined troops. This was before the day of gunpowder. Each soldier carried a shield to ward off the darts of his assailants. The front of each charging phalanx bristled with spears that prevented the enemy from coming within ten feet of the front rank. Although the Persians met Alexander's force with large armies and fought, particularly the nobles, with the most desperate bravery, it is said that he made himself master of Asia Minor with a loss of but 120 men. Mercenary Greek soldiers found fighting in the ranks of the Persian hosts were cut down without mercy.

Alexander's next step was to gain possession of the Syrian coast and of the Mediterranean. At Issus, a narrow plain between the mountains and the sea, he met King Darius in person at the head of a large army. The very narrowness of space enabled the Grecian phalanx to sweep this force before them. Darius fled to organize another army and make another stand for his life and kingdom.

Alexander now took time to enter Egypt, where he founded Alexandria. He laid siege to the ancient city of Tyre. In the following October, 331 B. C., Alexander's army met and routed a vast host, the last army of the Persians, in the battle of Arbela. This settled the fate of the Persian empire and made Alexander master of the eastern world. Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis, the ancient capitals of the East, with their war chests and enormous board of treasure, fell in time into his hands.

During the next six years Alexander carried the arms of Greece eastward to the shores of the Indus. He established a series of seventy walled towns with paved and lighted streets, reaching from Greece to the farthest limits of his conquest. Garrisons of soldiers were placed in each post, and traders with their caravans were encouraged to trade and travel in security. In one sense of the word Alexander's conquest was a laying hold of the entire trade of the east,--the monopolizing of the caravan traffic between the Mediterranean Sea and the Orient. Goods passing to or from China, India, Afghanistan, Persia, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece were safe from robbery and plunder at the trading posts established by Alexander, and along the routes patrolled by the soldiers of Greece. A period of immense wealth and commercial prosperity followed the policing of the eastern world in accordance with Alexander's large plans.

In the midst of all his calculations for further conquest and a still more universal commercial supremacy, including, it is thought, the subjugation and the policing of China, Alexander died in a drunken orgy at Babylon, at the age of thirty-three. The story of his love for his mother; his boyhood; his war horse, Bucephalus; his affection for Aristotle, to whom he never ceased to send new plants and animals, curious shells, and other articles of interest picked up during his campaign; his admiration for Homer; the cutting of the Gordian knot; the siege of Tyre; his humane treatment of Darius and his unfortunate family; his handsome face and licentious life, and his vast plans for a world organization of industries and commerce into one thoroughly governed and protected system-are full of interest and would require volumes for their complete discussion. Scholars are just beginning to appreciate the tremendous significance of the Grecian conquest of the eastern world.

At Alexander's death the empire fell into fragments, three of which were considerable kingdoms. Alexandria became the capital of Egypt; Antioch of Syria; Athens of Macedonia. Of the smaller fragments, Rhodes and Pergamus were centers of culture. Alexander's body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum at Alexandria.

See Philip; Macedon; Phalanx; Gordian Knot; Alexandria

Alexander I (1777-1825), emperor of Russia. In 1801 Alexander succeeded his father, Paul, on the Russian throne. The history of Alexander is intimately connected with that of Napoleon. In 1805 he joined Great Britain, Austria, and Sweden in a coalition against France. This combination was hit hard by the great battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805. Alexander led his shattered army home. After the disastrous battle of Jena, October 14, 1806, Alexander met Napoleon on a raft in the river Niemen and agreed to the treaty of Tilsit, which was signed July 7, 1807. Alexander agreed to give Napoleon a free hand in the west, and Napoleon was to allow Alexander to extend the territory of Russia in the east. Neither was to join a combination against the other. Five years later, however, Alexander joined his old allies against France. This resumption of hostilities aroused Napoleon's ire, and led to the assembling of the greatest army that France had ever sent forth. The story of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the burning of Moscow, and the humiliating retreat of Napoleon, form one of the most interesting chapters of modern history. Alexander participated in the final campaign against France, and was one of the monarchs who entered Paris in 1814 at the head of 150,000 men. Alexander was a party to the Holy Alliance. During the closing years of his reign Alexander did much to improve the internal conditions of his vast dominions. In this respect he ranks with Peter the Great. He prepared the way for the abolition of serfdom, encouraged the opening of schools and better methods of tillage, and sought to secure the spread of manufactures and the extension of commerce. He made St. Petersburg a center of literature and fine arts. He was succeeded by his second brother, Nicholas I.

Alexander II (1818-1881), emperor of Russia. He succeeded Nicholas I in 1855. He began his reign with progressive ideas. Though bitterly opposed by the nobles, he completely emancipated the serfs by edict, March 2, 1861. He reorganized the Russian army, and is given credit for important reforms in departments of administration and justice. He introduced trial by jury. He gave the press more freedom, and allowed the universities greater liberty. The professors and students were allowed a degree of free speech hitherto unknown in Russia. As might be expected, a spirit of radicalism took root rapidly. It grew too fast to please the emperor. He lacked the nerve to go on with the work he had begun. He began to hesitate, then to withdraw some of the privileges he had granted. The Nihilists began to attack him. He instructed the police to stop the spread of socialistic doctrines, especially among working men. The police took severe measures. Meeting were broken up with barbaric cruelty. The Nihilists took up the issue, and finally Alexander was assassinated by them in St. Petersburg, March 13, 1881. A dynamite bomb took his life away on the very day before he had purposed issuing an edict granting some of the popular demands. He was succeeded by his son Alexander III.

Alexander III (1241-1286), king of Scotland. He ascended the Scottish throne in 1249. Alexander was betrothed in infancy to the daughter of Henry III, king of England. The marriage was hastened for state reasons, and was hastened for state reasons, and was celebrated in York Christmas Day, 1251, when Alexander was but ten years old. During Alexander's minority the kingdom was managed by nobles, who strove for the position. In 1260, while at the court of England, his daughter Margaret, afterward the wife of Eric of Norway, was born. In 1263 the battle of Largs freed Scotland from an invasion led by Haco, king of Norway. Alexander's administration of his kingdom was energetic and far-seeing. He improved the condition of the Scottish people, enforced justice in the collection of taxes, and repressed violence in every direction. He was killed March 12, 1286, by a fall from his horse while riding on the coast near Edinburgh. The spot is still pointed out. The independence of Scotland received a severe blow in Alexander's death. His immediate successors were not able to cope with the superior strength and craft of England.