and when subsequently Herod, under false pretences, put her father Hyrcanus and her daughter Mariamne to death, she endeavoured to seize upon the fortified places, and to rouse the people to revolt. But having failed in this attempt, she was arrested by Herod's order, and cruelly put to death.—S.
ALEXANDRA, the wife of Alexander Janneus, reigned over Judea nine years after the death of her husband, but was herself in complete subjection to the Pharisees. Josephus mentions her as a woman of great courage and sagacity. She died 70 b.c., at the age of seventy-three.
ALEXANDROS, an Athenian painter, of whom four monochromatic pictures on marble have been found at Resina, near Herculaneum, 1746. He is supposed to have flourished 180 b.c.
ALEXIS, a Greek comic poet. He died at the age of 106, about the year 288 b.c. He was the uncle and teacher of Menander, and is said to have written 245 plays.
ALEXIS, patriarch of Constantinople. He was nominated to the dignity by the Emperor Basil in 1025, and consecrated on the same day on which that emperor died. Died 1043.
ALEXIS, his real name being Hieronymo Rosello, was a Piedmontese, and the reputed author of the "Book of Secrets," which was printed at Basil in 1536. This book, a medical treatise, the result, according to its boastful author, of long experience and many years of travel, was given to the world in pure beneficence.
ALEXIS, Guillaume, surnamed the Good Monk, a learned Benedictine, who flourished about the end of the fifteenth century. He died in 1486, leaving numerous works.
ALEXIS, Mikhaylovich, son of the Czar Michael Theodorvich, and father of Peter the Great, was born in 1629, and came to the throne of Russia in 1645. During the earlier years of his reign, he cared little for the affairs of state, which he left almost entirely in the hands of a brother-in-law. A revolt of the inhabitants of Moscow against the measures of the favourite, roused him to his duty. With the assistance of councillors chosen from among the nobles and people, he revised and improved the whole code of laws, and made regulations as to commerce, which greatly benefited Russia, and won for him the surname of the Wise. His reign was occupied with wars against Poland and Charles Gustav of Sweden; the former undertaken to assert the liberties of the Cossacks, or rather, to transfer their allegiance to himself; the latter, in fulfilment of the terms of a temporary truce with Poland. In the treaty then made it was agreed that, on the death of John Cassimir, Alexis should succeed to the throne of Poland; and though the Poles refused to sanction this arrangement, and in subsequent campaigns fought nobly in defence of their liberties, yet such was the prowess of Alexis, that, during his reign, the foundation was laid for the future subjugation of that unhappy country. His wise policy raised Russia to a position of consequence among foreign powers; and he was courageous enough to stand alone as the only European prince who refused to acknowledge Oliver Cromwell and the English Commonwealth. He was twice married; the second time to a poor girl, who had been charitably adopted by one of his nobles. She became the mother of Peter the Great. Alexis died in 1676.—J. B.
ALEXIS, Petrovich, son of Peter the Great of Russia, was born at Moscow in 1690. His early training little disposed him to sympathize with his father's policy. Indeed, his mother Eudocia, who had too good reason to regard her husband with jealousy, had taught him to view with positive aversion the changes that were being introduced into Russian manners. His tutors did not counteract her influence, but rather encouraged his studious habits and the tastes he had acquired, which were so much opposed to those of his father. The czar soon regarded him with contempt, and spoke of him as one unworthy to succeed to the throne. His mother's divorce and his father's marriage to Catherine increased the causes of estrangement. Several letters passed between them, in which Peter proposed that Alexis should resign all claim to the crown, and the latter professed his willingness to comply and enter on a religious life. But while the czar was absent on a campaign against the Swedes, Alexis, consulting his own safety, fled from Russia, and placed himself under the protection of the Austrian government. He was for some time concealed in Austria, and thence removed to Naples. His flight enraged his father, who immediately sent two of his nobles to induce him to come back. They were the bearers of a letter, in which it was promised that an immediate return would secure pardon. Trusting the pledge, he came back to Moscow; but no sooner had he thus placed himself in his father's power, than he was arraigned on a charge of rebellion. He professed submission, and the czar declared his willingness to grant a pardon, provided he would then formally renounce all claim to the crown; and an oath of allegiance to Peter, the son of Catherine, was taken from the assembled nobles. A condition was affixed to the pardon, that Alexis should reveal all the circumstances of his flight, and the names of those who had in any way given him countenance or assistance. After extorting every possible confession, and visiting with the severest punishment all who were implicated in his flight, or who had shown sympathy with him in his love for the ancient customs, the inexorable czar declared that Alexis had forfeited his claim to pardon by concealing some particulars. A sentence of death was pronounced; but the unfortunate prince died in prison before its execution.—J. B.
ALEXIS of Sicyon, a Greek sculptor, pupil of Polyclitus, flourished about 420 years b.c. According to Pausanias he was the father of Cantharos, also a distinguished sculptor.
ALEXIS DEL ARCO, a Spanish painter, also known as the Sordillo of Pereda, because he studied under Pereda. He distinguished himself as a good colourist, but his drawing never was very good. His studio was under the direction of his wife, who used to arrange all the contracts, and often, out of avarice, sold pictures executed by the pupils as being the work of her husband; nevertheless, he died very poor in 1700, seventy-five years of age.—R. M.
ALEXIUS, the name of five emperors of Constantinople:—
Alexius I., Comnenus, son of John Comnenus, deposed Nicephorus Botaniates, and was proclaimed emperor in the year 1081. He succeeded to the purple at a most critical period. The Turks, the hereditary foes of the empire, were rapidly establishing themselves in the Asian provinces, and the formidable Robert Guiscard had landed in Epirus from Italy. Alexius, found himself obliged to make friends of the republic of Venice and the court of Germany, and to supply his treasury by appropriating the wealth of the church. A considerable part of his sacrilegious gains found its way to Henry IV. of Germany, who in return relieved Alexius of his greatest fears, by withdrawing Robert Guiscard from his conquests in Greece to the assistance of the popedom, then threatened by the forces of the German emperor. To rid himself of his other terror, the Turks, was more difficult. They threatened the capital with their fleet, and Alexius had to seek assistance at the hands of the crusaders then being assembled from all parts of Europe. His capital was saved, but the crusaders took offence at some instances of double-dealing on the part of the emperor, a characteristic of his conduct, and, under various leaders, troubled a part of his reign with continual broils. After their departure for the Holy Land, he resumed the defence of his dominions, almost constantly menaced by external or internal foes, and had hardly succeeded in establishing peace, when he died in 1118, at the age of 70. His character has been very variously estimated; absurdly lauded by his daughter Anna, and unfairly depreciated by the Latin historians, we are left considerably in doubt both as to his talents and his virtues.
Alexius II., Comnenus, was born in the year 1167. He succeeded to the empire in his thirteenth year, at first under the regency of his mother Mary, and afterwards of his cousin, Alexius the Sebastocrator, who, after the marriage of the emperor in 1180 to Agnes, daughter of Louis le Jeune of France, had the empress-mother strangled, and in 1183 the emperor himself. He appears to have been at once imbecile and vicious.
Alexius III., Angelus, was the grandson of Theodora Comnena, daughter of Alexius I., and wrested the empire from his brother Isaac, who had a little before dethroned the tyrant Andronicus in 1195. An army of crusaders, whom he had irritated by his treachery, took Constantinople in 1204, and reinstated Isaac. Alexius was allowed to retire into a monastery.
Alexius IV., son of Isaac Angelus, was strangled by Murzufle, his great chamberlain, in 1204, after a very short reign.
Alexius V., Murzufle, took possession of the throne after the murder of Alexius IV., but his reign hardly extended to the length of his predecessor's. At the end of three months he fell into the hands of the French, and was put to death.—J. S., G.
ALEXIUS, called the False, an impostor of the reign of Isaac Angelus, who passed himself off for the son of Alexius II.
