ALEXANDER THE GREAT, king of Macedonia. His father Philip laid the plan of that extensive empire which his son afterwards completed. Philip, having made himself master of Greece, began to cast his eyes upon Persia, with a view to retaliate upon that haughty empire the injuries of former times. It was the popular topic of the day. But this prince was cut off in the midst of his enterprise. Such, however, was the influence of Alexander in the assembly of the Grecian states, that he was created general of their combined forces, in the room of his father. Having made every needful preparation, at the head of a veteran army he invaded Asia. The lieutenants of Darius, who was then king of Persia, opposed him at the river Granicus, where Alexander obtained a complete victory, after which he pursued his march through Asia. At Issus, near Scanderoon, he was met by Darius in person, at the head of a prodigious army. Here he obtained a second victory, and took the camp of Darius, together with his family, whom he treated with the utmost humanity. Contrary to all the maxims of war, instead of pursuing Darius, he made an excursion into Egypt, and, as far as appears, through no better motives than those of vanity. Here he was acknowledged to be the son of Jupiter Ammon. In the mean time Darius recruited his strength, and got together an army superior to what he brought into the plain of Issus. Alexander, having finished his Egyptian expedition, traversed Asia, and passed the Euphrates. At Arbela, a town in Assyria, he met Darius. Here a decisive battle was fought, which put all Persia into the hands of Alexander. His ambition not being satisfied with the conquest of that vast country, he projected an expedition into India. Here he met with great opposition from Porus, a gallant prince, whom in the end he reduced. Beyond the Ganges lay a country still unsubdued. He notified it to his army, that he proposed to pass the river. But these veterans, harassed with their fatigues, and seeing no end of their labour, mutinied, and refused to march further. The disappointed chief was therefore obliged to return. At Babylon he proposed to receive ambassadors, appoint governors, and settle his vast monarchy; but his excesses put an end to his life in the midst of his designs, and in the flower of his age.

The character of this hero is so familiar to every body, that it is almost needless labour to draw it. All the world knows, says Mr Bayle, that it was equally composed of very great virtues and very great vices. He had no me- diocrity in any thing but his stature: in his other properties, whether good or bad, he was all extremes. His ambition rose even to madness. His father was not at all mistaken in supposing the bounds of Macedon too small for his son; for how could Macedon bound the ambition of a man who reckoned the whole world too small a dominion? He wept at hearing the philosopher Anaxarchus say that there was an infinite number of worlds: his tears were owing to his despair of conquering them all, since he had not yet been able to conquer one. Livy, in a short digression, has attempted to inquire into the events which might have happened if Alexander, after the conquest of Asia, had brought his arms into Italy. Doubtless, things might have taken a very different turn with him; and all the grand projects which succeeded so well against an effe- minate Persian monarch might easily have miscarried if he had had to do with rough, hardy, Roman armies. And yet the vast aims of this mighty conqueror, if seen under another point of view, may appear to have been confined in a very narrow compass; since, as we are told, the utmost Alexander, wish of that great heart, for which the whole earth was not big enough, was, after all, to be praised by the Athe- nians: for it is related, that the difficulties which he encoun- tered in order to pass the Hydaspes, forced him to cry out, "O Athenians, could you believe to what dangers I expose myself for the sake of being celebrated by you?" But Bayle affirms that this was quite consistent with the vast unbounded extent of his ambition, as he wanted to make all future time his own, and be an object of admira- tion to the latest posterity; yet did not expect this from the conquest of worlds, but from books. "He was perfectly in the right," says Bayle; "for if Greece had not furnish- ed him with good writers, he would long ago have been as much forgotten as the kings who reigned in Macedon before Amphitryon."

His excesses with regard to wine were notorious, and he committed, when drunk, a thousand extravagancies. It was owing to wine that he killed Clitus, who saved his life, and burnt Persepolis, one of the most beautiful cities of the East: he did this last, indeed, at the instigation of the courtesan Thais; but this circumstance made it only the more heinous. It is generally believed that he died by drinking immoderately; and even Plutarch, who affects to contradict it, owns that he did nothing but drink the whole day he was taken ill. The reader who is desirous of further information in regard to Alexander and his his- torians, may consult M. de St Croix's Critical Inquiry con- cerning his Life, of which there is an English translation by Clayton.

ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO, a Neapolitan lawyer, of great learning, who flourished toward the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. He followed the pro- fession of the law, first at Naples, afterwards at Rome: but he devoted all the time he could spare to the study of polite literature; and at length he entirely left the bar, that he might lead a more easy and agreeable life with the Muses. The particulars of his life are to be gathered from his work entitled Dies Geniales. We are there informed that he lodged at Rome, in a house that was haunted; and he relates many surprising particulars about the ghost. He says also, that when he was very young, he went to the lectures of Philoibus, who explained at Rome the Tuscan Questions of Cicero. He was there also when Nicholas Perot and Domitius Calderinus read their lec- tures upon Martial. The particular time when he died is not known; but he was buried in the monastery of the Olivets. Tiraqueau wrote a learned commentary upon his work, which was printed at Lyons in 1587, and reprinted at Leyden in 1673, with the notes of Dennis Godfrey, Christopher Colerus, and Nicholas Mercerus.