Alexander II., son of Amyntas II., king of Macedonia, was treacherously murdered, B.C. 370, by his younger brother Ptolemy, who held the kingdom for four years, and made way for Perdiccas and Philip. Justin, bk. 7, ch. 5, says Eurydice, the wife of Amyntas, was the cause of his murder.
Alexander III., surnamed the Great, was son of Philip and Olympias. He was born B.C. 355, that night on which the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus was burnt by Erostratus. This event, according to the magicians, was an early prognostic of his future greatness, as well as the taming of Bucephalus, a horse which none of the king’s courtiers could manage; upon which Philip said, with tears in his eyes, that his son must seek another kingdom, as that of Macedonia would not be sufficiently large for the display of his greatness. Olympias, during her pregnancy, declared that she was with child by a dragon; and the day that Alexander was born, two eagles perched for some time on the house of Philip, as if foretelling that his son would become master of Europe and Asia. He was pupil to Aristotle during five years, and he received his learned preceptor’s instructions with becoming deference and pleasure, and ever respected his abilities. When Philip went to war, Alexander, in his 15th year, was left governor of Macedonia, where he quelled a dangerous sedition, and soon after followed his father to the field, and saved his life in a battle. He was highly offended when Philip divorced Olympias to marry Cleopatra, and he even caused the death of Attalus, the new queen’s brother. After this he retired from court to his mother Olympias, but was recalled; and when Philip was assassinated, he punished his murderers; and, by his prudence and moderation, gained the affections of his subjects. He conquered Thrace and Illyricum, and destroyed Thebes; and after he had been chosen chief commander of all the forces of Greece, he declared war against the Persians, who under Darius and Xerxes had laid waste and plundered the noblest of the Grecian cities. With 32,000 foot and 5000 horse, he invaded Asia, and after the defeat of Darius at the Granicus, he conquered all the provinces of Asia Minor. He obtained two other celebrated victories over Darius at Issus and Arbela, took Tyre after an obstinate siege of seven months, and the slaughter of 2000 of the inhabitants in cold blood, and made himself master of Egypt, Media, Syria, and Persia. From Egypt he visited the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and bribed the priests, who saluted him as the son of their god, and enjoined his army to pay him divine honours. He built a town which he called Alexandria, on the western side of the Nile, near the coast of the Mediterranean, an eligible situation which his penetrating eye marked as best entitled to become the future capital of his immense dominions, and to extend the commerce of his subjects from the Mediterranean to the Ganges. His conquests were spread over India, where he fought with Porus, a powerful king of the country; and after he had invaded Scythia, and visited the Indian ocean, he retired to Babylon loaded with the spoils of the east. His entering the city was foretold by the magicians as fatal, and their prediction was fulfilled. He died at Babylon the 21st of April, in the 32nd year of his age, after a reign of 12 years and 8 months of brilliant and continued success, 323 B.C. His death was so premature that some have attributed it to the effects of poison, and excess of drinking. Antipater has been accused of causing the fatal poison to be given him at a feast; and perhaps the resentment of the Macedonians, whose services he seemed to forget, by entrusting the guard of his body to the Persians, was the cause of his death. He was so universally regretted, that Babylon was filled with tears and lamentations; and the Medes and Macedonians declared that no one was able or worthy to succeed him. Many conspiracies were formed against him by the officers of his army, but they were all seasonably suppressed. His tender treatment of the wife and mother of king Darius, who were taken prisoners, has been greatly praised; and the latter, who had survived the death of her son, killed herself when she heard that Alexander was dead. His great intrepidity more than once endangered his life; he always fought as if sure of victory, and the terror of his name was often more powerfully effectual than his arms. He was always forward in every engagement, and bore the labours of the field as well as the meanest of his soldiers. During his conquests in Asia, he founded many cities, which he called Alexandria, after his own name. When he had conquered Darius, he ordered himself to be worshipped as a god; and Callisthenes, who refused to do it, was shamefully put to death. He also murdered at a banquet, his friend Clitus, who had once saved his life in a battle, because he enlarged upon the virtues and exploits of Philip, and preferred them to those of his son. His victories and success increased his pride; he dressed himself in the Persian manner, and, giving himself up to pleasure and dissipation, he set on fire the town of Persepolis in a fit of madness and intoxication, encouraged by the courtesan Thais. Yet, among all his extravagances, he was fond of candour and of truth; and when one of his officers read to him, as he sailed on the Hydaspes, a history which he had composed of his wars with Porus, and in which he had too liberally panegyrized him, Alexander snatched the book from his hand, and threw it into the river, saying, “What need is there of such flattery? Are not the exploits of Alexander sufficiently meritorious in themselves, without the colourings of falsehood?” He in like manner rejected a statuary, who offered to cut mount Athos like him, and represent him as holding a town in one hand, and pouring a river from the other. He forbade any statuary to make his statue except Lysippus, and any painter to draw his picture except Apelles. On his death-bed he gave his ring to Perdiccas, and it was supposed that by this singular present he wished to make him his successor. Some time before his death, his officers asked him whom he appointed to succeed him on the throne; and he answered, “The worthiest among you; but I am afraid,” added he, “my best friends will perform my funeral obsequies with bloody hands.” Alexander, with all his pride, was humane and liberal, easy and familiar with his friends, a great patron of learning, as may be collected from his assisting Aristotle with a purse of money to effect the completion of his natural history. He was brave often to rashness; he frequently lamented that his father conquered everything, and left him nothing to do; and exclaimed, in all the pride of regal dignity, “Give me kings for competitors, and I will enter the lists at Olympia.” All his family and infant children were put to death by Cassander. The first deliberation that was made after his decease, among his generals, was to appoint his brother Philip Aridæus successor, until Roxane, who was then pregnant by him, brought into the world a legitimate heir. Perdiccas wished to be supreme regent as Aridæus wanted capacity; and, more strongly to establish himself, he married Cleopatra, Alexander’s sister, and made alliance with Eumenes. As he endeavoured to deprive Ptolemy of Egypt, he was defeated in a battle by Seleucus and Antigonus, on the banks of the river Nile, and assassinated by his own cavalry. Perdiccas was the first of Alexander’s generals who took up arms against his fellow-soldiers, and he was the first who fell a sacrifice to his rashness and cruelty. To defend himself against him, Ptolemy made a treaty of alliance with some generals, among whom was Antipater, who had strengthened himself by giving his daughter Phila, an ambitious and aspiring woman, in marriage to Craterus, another of the generals of Alexander. After many dissensions and bloody wars among themselves, the generals of Alexander laid the foundation of several great empires in the three quarters of the globe. Ptolemy seized Egypt, where he firmly established himself, and where his successors were called Ptolemies, in honour of the founder of their empire, which subsisted till the time of Augustus. Seleucus and his posterity reigned in Babylon and Syria. Antigonus at first established himself in Asia Minor, and Antipater in Macedonia. The descendants of Antipater were conquered by the successors of Antigonus, who reigned in Macedonia till it was reduced by the Romans in the time of king Perseus. Lysimachus made himself master of Thrace; and Leonatus, who had taken possession of Phrygia, meditated for a while to drive Antipater from Macedonia. Eumenes established himself in Cappadocia, but was soon overpowered by the combinations of his rival Antigonus, and starved to death. During his lifetime, Eumenes appeared so formidable to the successors of Alexander, that none of them dared to assume the title of king. Curtius, Arrian, & Plutarch have written an account of Alexander’s life. Diodorus, bks. 17 & 18.—Pausanias, bks. 1, 7, 8, & 9.—Justin, bks. 11 & 12.—Valerius Maximus.—Strabo, bk. 1, &c.——A son of Alexander the Great, by Roxane, put to death, with his mother, by Cassander. Justin, bk. 15, ch. 2.——A man who, after the expulsion of Telestes, reigned in Corinth. Twenty-five years after, Telestes dispossessed him, and put him to death.——A son of Cassander king of Macedonia, who reigned two years conjointly with his brother Antipater, and was prevented by Lysimachus from revenging his mother Thessalonica, whom his brother had murdered. Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, put him to death. Justin, bk. 16, ch. 1.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 7.——A king of Epirus, brother to Olympias, and successor to Arybas. He banished Timolaus to Peloponnesus, and made war in Italy against the Romans, and observed that he fought with men, while his nephew, Alexander the Great, was fighting with an army of women (meaning the Persians). He was surnamed Molossus. Justin, bk. 17, ch. 3.—Diodorus, bk. 16.—Livy, bk. 8, chs. 17 & 27.—Strabo, bk. 16.——A son of Pyrrhus, was king of Epirus. He conquered Macedonia, from which he was expelled by Demetrius. He recovered it by the assistance of the Acarnanians. Justin, bk. 26, ch. 3.—Plutarch, Pyrrhus.——A king of Syria, driven from his kingdom by Nicanor son of Demetrius Soter, and his father-in-law Ptolemy Philometer. Justin, bk. 35, chs. 1 & 2.—Josephus, bk. 13, Antiquities of the Jews.—Strabo, bk. 17.——A king of Syria, first called Bala, was a merchant, and succeeded Demetrius. He conquered Nicanor by means of Ptolemy Physcon, and was afterwards killed by Antiochus Gryphus son of Nicanor. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, bk. 13, ch. 18.——Ptolemy was one of the Ptolemean kings in Egypt. His mother Cleopatra raised him to the throne, in preference to his brother Ptolemy Lathurus, and reigned conjointly with him. Cleopatra, however, expelled him, and soon after recalled him; and Alexander, to prevent being expelled a second time, put her to death, and for this unnatural action was himself murdered by one of his subjects. Josephus, bk. 13, Antiquities of the Jews, ch. 20, &c.—Justin, bk. 39, chs. 3 & 4.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 9.——Ptolemy II., king of Egypt, was son of the preceding. He was educated in the island of Cos, and, falling into the hands of Mithridates, escaped to Sylla, who restored him to his kingdom. He was murdered by his subjects a few days after his restoration. Appian, bk. 1, Civil Wars.——Ptolemy III., was king of Egypt after his brother Alexander the last mentioned. After a peaceful reign, he was banished by his subjects, and died at Tyre, B.C. 65, leaving his kingdom to the Roman people. See: [Ægyptus] and [Ptolemæus]. Cicero, De Lege Agraria contra Rullum.——A youth, ordered by Alexander the Great to climb the rock Aornus, with 30 other youths. He was killed in the attempt. Curtius, bk. 8, ch. 11.——An historian mentioned by Plutarch, Marius.——An Epicurean philosopher. Plutarch.——A governor of Æolia, who assembled a multitude on pretence of showing them an uncommon spectacle, and confined them till they had each bought their liberty with a sum of money. Polyænus, bk. 6, ch. 10.——A name given to Paris son of Priam. See: [Paris].——Jannæus, a king of Judea, son of Hyrcanus and brother of Aristobulus, who reigned as a tyrant, and died through excess of drinking, B.C. 79, after massacring 800 of his subjects for the entertainment of his concubines.——A Paphlagonian, who gained divine honours by his magical tricks and impositions, and likewise procured the friendship of Marcus Aurelius. He died 70 years old.——A native of Caria, in the third century, who wrote a commentary on the writings of Aristotle, part of which is still extant.——Trallianus, a physician and philosopher of the fourth century, some of whose works in Greek are still extant.——A poet of Ætolia, in the age of Ptolemy Philadelphus.——A peripatetic philosopher, said to have been preceptor to Nero.——An historian, called also Polyhistor, who wrote five books on the Roman republic, in which he said that the Jews had received their laws, not from God, but from a woman whom he called Moso. He also wrote treatises on the Pythagorean philosophy, B.C. 88.——A poet of Ephesus, who wrote a poem on astronomy and geography.——A writer of Myndus, quoted by Athenæus and Ælian.——A sophist of Seleucia, in the age of Antoninus.——A physician in the age of Justinian.——A Thessalian, who, as he was going to engage in a naval battle, gave to his soldiers a great number of missile weapons, and ordered them to dart them continually upon the enemy to render their numbers useless. Polyænus, bk. 6, ch. 27.——A son of Lysimachus. Polyænus, bk. 6, ch. 12.——A governor of Lycia, who brought a reinforcement of troops to Alexander the Great. Curtius, bk. 7, ch. 10.——A son of Polyperchon, killed in Asia by the Dymæans. Diodorus, bks. 18 & 19.——A poet of Pleuron son of Satyrus and Stratoclea, who said that Theseus had a daughter called Iphigenia by Helen. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 22.——A Spartan, killed with 200 of his soldiers by the Argives, when he endeavoured to prevent their passing through the country of Tegea. Diodorus, bk. 15.——A cruel tyrant of Pheræ, in Thessaly, who made war against the Macedonians, and took Pelopidas prisoner. He was murdered, B.C. 357, by his wife called Thebe, whose room he carefully guarded by a Thracian sentinel, and searched every night, fearful of some dagger that might be concealed to take away his life. Cicero, de Inventione, bk. 2, ch. 49; de Officiis, bk. 2, ch. 9.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 9, ch. 13.—Plutarch & Cornelius Nepos, Pelopidas.—Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 5.—Diodorus, bks. 15 & 16.—Ovid, Ibis, li. 321.——Severus, a Roman emperor. See: [Severus].
Alexandra, the name of some queens of Judæa mentioned by Josephus.——A nurse of Nero. Suetonius, Nero, ch. 50.——A name of Cassandra, because she assisted mankind by her prophecies. Lycophron.
Alexandri Aræ, the boundaries, according to some, of Alexander’s victories, near the Tanais. Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 16.
Alexandrīa, the name of several cities which were founded by Alexander, during his conquests in Asia; the most famous are:—A grand and extensive city, built B.C. 332, by Alexander, on the western side of the Delta. The illustrious founder intended it not only for the capital of Egypt, but of his immense conquests, and the commercial advantages which its situation commanded continued to improve from the time of Alexander till the invasion of the Saracens in the seventh century. The commodities of India were brought there, and thence dispersed to the different countries around the Mediterranean. Alexandria is famous, among other curiosities, for the large library which the pride or learning of the Ptolemies had collected there, at a vast expense, from all parts of the earth. This valuable repository was burnt by the orders of the caliph Omar, A.D. 642; and it is said that, during six months, the numerous volumes supplied fuel for the 4000 baths, which contributed to the health and convenience of the populous capital of Egypt. Alexandria has likewise been distinguished for its schools, not only of theology and philosophy, but of physic, where once to have studied was a sufficient recommendation to distant countries. The astronomical school, founded by Philadelphus, maintained its superior reputation for 10 centuries, till the time of the Saracens. The modern town of Scanderoon has been erected upon the ruins of Alexandria, and, as if it were an insult to its former greatness, it scarce contains 6000 inhabitants. Curtius, bk. 4, ch. 8.—Strabo, bk. 17.—Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 10.——Another in Albania, at the foot of mount Caucasus.——Another in Arachosia, in India.——The capital of Aria, between Hecatompylon and Bactra.——Another of Carmania.——Another in Cilicia, on the confines of Syria.——Another the capital of Margiana.——Another of Troas, &c. Curtius, bk. 7.—Pliny, bk. 6, chs. 16, 23, & 25.
Alexandrĭdes, a Lacedæmonian, who married his sister’s daughter, by whom he had Dorycus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus.——A native of Delphi, of which he wrote a history.
Alexandrīna aqua, baths in Rome, built by the emperor Alexander Severus.
Alexandropŏlis, a city of Parthia, built by Alexander the Great. Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 25.
Alexānor, a son of Machaon, who built in Sicyon a temple to his grandfather Æsculapius, and received divine honours after death. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 11.
Alexarchus, a Greek historian.