chapter 28._
ALSO IN _W. H. Dall, Alaska and its Resources, part 2, chapter 2._
For some account of the aboriginal inhabitants,
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY and ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.
ALATOONA, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).
ALBA. Alban Mount.
"Cantons ... having their rendezvous in some stronghold, and including a certain number of clanships, form the primitive political unities with which Italian history begins. At what period, and to what extent, such cantons were formed in Latium, cannot be determined with precision; nor is it a matter of special historical interest. The isolated Alban range, that natural stronghold of Latium, which offered to settlers the most wholesome air, the freshest springs, and the most secure position, would doubtless be first occupied by the new comers. Here accordingly, along the narrow plateau above Palazzuola, between the Alban lake (Lago di Castello) and the Alban mount (Monte Cavo) extended the town of Alba, which was universally regarded as the primitive seat of the Latin stock, and the mother-city of Rome, as well as of all the other Old Latin communities. Here, too, on the slopes lay the very ancient Latin canton-centres of Lanuvium, Aricia, and Tusculum. ... All these cantons were in primitive times politically sovereign, and each of them was governed by its prince with the co-operation of the council of elders and the assembly of warriors. Nevertheless the feeling of fellowship based on community of descent and of language not only pervaded the whole of them, but manifested itself in an important religious and political institution--the perpetual league of the collective Latin cantons. The presidency belonged originally, according to the universal Italian as well as Hellenic usage, to that canton within whose bounds lay the meeting-place of the league; in this case it was the canton of Alba. ... The communities entitled to participate in the league were in the beginning thirty. ... The rendezvous of this union was, like the Pambœotia and the Panionia among the similar confederacies of the Greeks, the 'Latin festival' (feriæ Latinæ) at which, on the Mount of Alba, upon a day annually appointed by the chief magistrate for the purpose, an ox was offered in sacrifice by the assembled Latin stock to the 'Latin god' (Jupiter Latiaris)."
_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 3._
ALSO IN _Sir W. Gell, Topography of Rome, volume 1._
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ALBA DE TORMES, Battle of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).
ALBAIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
ALBAN, Kingdom of.
See ALBION; also, SCOTLAND: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES.
ALBANI, The.
See BRITAIN, TRIBES OF CELTIC.
ALBANIANS: Ancient.
See EPIRUS and ILLYRIANS.
ALBANIANS: Mediæval.
"From the settlement of the Servian Sclavonians within the bounds of the empire [during the reign of Heraclius, first half of the seventh century], we may ... venture to date the earliest encroachments of the Illyrian or Albanian race on the Hellenic population. The Albanians or Arnauts, who are now called by themselves Skiptars, are supposed to be remains of the great Thracian race which, under various names, and more particularly as Paionians, Epirots and Macedonians, take an important part in early Grecian history. No distinct trace of the period at which they began to be co-proprietors of Greece with the Hellenic race can be found in history. ... It seems very difficult to trace back the history of the Greek nation without suspecting that the germs of their modern condition, like those of their neighbours, are to be sought in the singular events which occurred in the reign of Heraclius."
_G. Finlay, Greece Under the Romans, chapter 4, section 6._
ALBANIANS: A. D. 1443-1467. Scanderbeg's War with the Turks.
"John Castriot, Lord of Emalthia (the modern district of Moghlene) [in Epirus or Albania] had submitted, like the other petty despots of those regions, to Amurath early in his reign, and had placed his four sons in the Sultan's hands as hostages for his fidelity. Three of them died young. The fourth, whose name was George, pleased the Sultan by his beauty, strength and intelligence. Amurath caused him to be brought up in the Mahometan creed; and, when he was only eighteen, conferred on him the government of one of the Sanjaks of the empire. The young Albanian proved his courage and skill in many exploits under Amurath's eye, and received from him the name of Iskanderbeg, the lord Alexander. When John Castriot died, Amurath took possession of his principalities and kept the son constantly employed in distant wars. Scanderbeg brooded over this injury; and when the Turkish armies were routed by Hunyades in the campaign of 1443, Scanderbeg determined to escape from their side and assume forcible possession of his patrimony. He suddenly entered the tent of the Sultan's chief secretary, and forced that functionary, with the poniard at his throat, to write and seal a formal order to the Turkish commander of the strong city of Croia, in Albania, to deliver that place and the adjacent territory to Scanderbeg, as the Sultan's viceroy. He then stabbed the secretary and hastened to Croia, where his strategem gained him instant admittance and submission. He now publicly abjured the Mahometan faith, and declared his intention of defending the creed of his forefathers, and restoring the independence of his native land. The Christian population flocked readily to his banner and the Turks were massacred without mercy. For nearly twenty-five years Scanderbeg contended against all the power of the Ottomans, though directed by the skill of Amurath and his successor Mahomet, the conqueror of Constantinople."
_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 4._
"Scanderbeg died a fugitive at Lissus on the Venetian territory [A. D. 1467]. His sepulchre was soon violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the janizaries, who wore his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious amulet their involuntary reverence for his valour. ... His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the Castriots were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm."
_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 67. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_
ALSO IN _A. Lamartine, History of Turkey, book 11, sections 11-25._
ALBANIANS: A. D. 1694-1696. Conquests by the Venetians.
See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.
----------ALBANIANS: End----------
ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1623. The first Settlement.
In 1614, the year after the first Dutch traders had established their operations on Manhattan Island, they built a trading house, which they called Fort Nassau, on Castle Island, in the Hudson River, a little below the site of the present city of Albany. Three years later this small fort was carried away by a flood and the island abandoned. In 1623 a more important fortification, named Fort Orange, was erected on the site afterwards covered by the business part of Albany. That year, "about eighteen families settled themselves at Fort Orange, under Adriaen Joris, who 'staid with them all winter,' after sending his ship home to Holland in charge of his son. As soon as the colonists had built themselves 'some huts of bark' around the fort, the Mahikanders or River Indians [Mohegans], the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, with the Mahawawa or Ottawawa Indians, 'came and made covenants of friendship ... and desired that they might come and have a constant free trade with them, which was concluded upon.'"
_J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of N. Y., volume 1, pages 55 and 151._
ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1630.- Embraced in the land-purchase of Patroon Van Rensselaer.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646.
ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1664. Occupied and named by the English.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.
ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1673. Again occupied by the Dutch.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.
ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress and its plans of Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.
----------ALBANY, NEW YORK: End----------
ALBANY AND SCHENECTADY RAILROAD OPENING.
See STEAM LOCOMOTION ON LAND.
ALBANY REGENCY, The.
See NEW YORK; A. D. 1823.
ALBEMARLE, The Ram, and her destruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (APRIL-MAY: NORTH CAROLINA), and (OCTOBER: N. CAROLINA).
ALBERONI, Cardinal, The Spanish Ministry of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.
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ALBERT, King of Sweden, A. D. 1365-1388. Albert, Elector of Brandenburg, A. D. 1470-1486. Albert I., Duke of Austria and King of Germany, A. D. 1298-1308. Albert II., Duke of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, A. D. 1437-1440; King of Germany, A. D. 1438-1440.
ALBERTA, The District of.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORIES OF CANADA.
ALBERTINE LINE OF SAXONY.
See SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553.
ALBICI, The.
A Gallic tribe which occupied the hills above Massilia (Marseilles) and who are described as a savage people even in the time of Cæsar, when they helped the Massiliots to defend their city against him.
_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 4._
ALBIGENSES, OR ALBIGEOIS, The.
"Nothing is more curious in Christian history than the vitality of the Manichean opinions. That wild, half poetic, half rationalistic theory of Christianity, ... appears almost suddenly in the 12th century, in living, almost irresistible power, first in its intermediate settlement in Bulgaria, and on the borders of the Greek Empire, then in Italy, in France, in Germany, in the remoter West, at the foot of the Pyrenees. ... The chief seat of these opinions was the south of France. Innocent III., on his accession, found not only these daring insurgents scattered in the cities of Italy, even, as it were, at his own gates (among his first acts was to subdue the Paterines of Viterbo), he found a whole province, a realm, in some respects the richest and noblest of his spiritual domain, absolutely dissevered from his Empire, in almost universal revolt from Latin Christianity. ... In no [other] European country had the clergy so entirely, or it should seem so deservedly, forfeited its authority. In none had the Church more absolutely ceased to perform its proper functions."
_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 9, chapter 8._
"By mere chance, the sects scattered in South France received the common name of Albigenses, from one of the districts where the agents of the church who came to combat them found them mostly to abound,--the district around the town of Alba, or Alby; and by this common name they were well known from the commencement of the thirteenth century. Under this general denomination parties of different tenets were comprehended together, but the Catharists seem to have constituted a predominant element among the people thus designated."
_A. Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, 5th per., division 2, section 4, part 3._
"Of the sectaries who shared the errors of Gnosticism and Manichæism and opposed the Catholic Church and her hierarchy, the Albigenses were the most thorough and radical. Their errors were, indeed, partly Gnostic and partly Manichæan, but the latter was the more prominent and fully developed. They received their name from a district of Languedoc, inhabited by the Albigeois and surrounding the town of Albi. They are called Cathari and Patarini in the acts of the Council of Tours (A. D. 1163), and in those of the third Lateran, Publiciani (i. e., Pauliciani). Like the Cathari, they also held that the evil spirit created all visible things."
_Johannes Baptist Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, period 2, epoch 2, part 1, chapter 3, section 236. https://archive.org/details/manualofuniversa02alzo_
"The imputations of irreligion, heresy, and shameless debauchery, which have been cast with so much bitterness on the Albigenses by their persecutors, and which have been so zealously denied by their apologists, are probably not ill founded, if the word Albigenses be employed as synonymous with the words Provençaux or Languedocians; for they were apparently a race among whom the hallowed charities of domestic life, and the reverence due to divine ordinances and the homage due to divine truth, were often impaired, and not seldom extinguished, by ribald jests, by infidel scoffings, and by heart-hardening impurities. Like other voluptuaries, the Provençaux (as their remaining literature attests) were accustomed to find matter for merriment in vices which would have moved wise men to tears. But if by the word Albigenses be meant the Vaudois, or those followers (or associates) of Peter Waldo who revived the doctrines against which the Church of Rome directed her censures, then the accusation of dissoluteness of manners may be safely rejected as altogether calumnious, and the charge of heresy may be considered, if not as entirely unfounded, yet as a cruel and injurious exaggeration."
_Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 7._
ALSO IN _L. Mariotti, Frà Dolcino and his Times._
See, also, Paulicians, and Catharists.
ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1209. The First Crusade.
"Pope Innocent III., in organizing the persecution of the Catharins [or Catharists], the Patarins, and the Pauvres de Lyons, exercised a spirit, and displayed a genius similar to those which had already elevated him to almost universal dominion; which had enabled him to dictate at once to Italy and to Germany; to control the kings of France, of Spain, and of England; to overthrow the Greek Empire, and to substitute in its stead a Latin dynasty at Constantinople. In the zeal of the Cistercian Order, and of their Abbot, Arnaud Amalric; in the fiery and unwearied preaching of the first Inquisitor, the Spanish Missionary, Dominic; in the remorseless activity of Foulquet, Bishop of Toulouse; and above all, in the strong and unpitying arm of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, Innocent found ready instruments for his purpose. Thus aided; he excommunicated Raymond of Toulouse [A. D. 1207], as Chief of the Heretics, and he promised remission of sins, and all the privileges which had hitherto been exclusively conferred on adventurers in Palestine, to the champions who should enroll themselves as Crusaders in the far more easy enterprise of a Holy War against the Albigenses. In the first invasion of his territories [A. D. 1209], Raymond VI. gave way before the terrors excited by the 300,000 fanatics who precipitated themselves on Languedoc; and loudly declaring his personal freedom from heresy, he surrendered his chief castles, underwent a humiliating penance, and took the cross against his own subjects. The brave resistance of his nephew Raymond Roger, Viscount of Bezières, deserved but did not obtain success. When the crusaders surrounded his capital, which was occupied by a mixed population of the two Religions, a question was raised how, in the approaching sack, the Catholics should be distinguished from the Heretics. 'Kill them all,' was the ferocious reply of Amalric; 'the Lord will easily know His own.' In compliance with this advice, not one human being within the walls was permitted to survive; {33} and the tale of slaughter has been variously estimated, by those who have perhaps exaggerated the numbers, at 60,000, but even in the extenuating despatch, which the Abbot himself addressed to the Pope, at not fewer than 15,000. Raymond Roger was not included in this fearful massacre, and he repulsed two attacks upon Carcassonne, before a treacherous breach of faith placed him at the disposal of de Montfort, by whom he was poisoned after a short imprisonment. The removal of that young and gallant Prince was indeed most important to the ulterior project of his captor, who aimed at permanent establishment in the South. The family of de Montfort had ranked among the nobles of France for more than two centuries; and it is traced by some writers through an illegitimate channel even to the throne: but the possessions of Simon himself were scanty; necessity had compelled him to sell the County of Evreux to Philippe Auguste; and the English Earldom of Leicester which he inherited maternally, and the Lordship of a Castle about ten leagues distant from Paris, formed the whole of his revenues."
_E. Smedley, History of France, chapter _4.
ALSO IN _J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Crusades against the Albigenses, chapter 1._
_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 9, chapter 8._
_J. Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, period 2, epoch 2, part 1, chapter 3 https://archive.org/details/manualofuniversa02alzo_.
See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.
ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1210-1213. The Second Crusade.
"The conquest of the Viscounty of Beziers had rather inflamed than satiated the cupidity of De Montfort and the fanaticism of Amalric [legate of the Pope] and of the monks of Citeaux. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, still possessed the fairest part of Languedoc, and was still suspected or accused of affording shelter, if not countenance, to his heretical subjects. ... The unhappy Raymond was ... again excommunicated from the Christian Church, and his dominions offered as a reward to the champions who should execute her sentence against him. To earn that reward De Montfort, at the head of a new host of Crusaders, attracted by the promise of earthly spoils and of heavenly blessedness, once more marched through the devoted land [A. D. 1210], and with him advanced Amalric. At each successive conquest, slaughter, rapine, and woes such as may not be described tracked and polluted their steps. Heretics, or those suspected of heresy, wherever they were found, were compelled by the legate to ascend vast piles of burning faggots. ... At length the Crusaders reached and laid siege to the city of Toulouse. ... Throwing himself into the place, Raymond ... succeeded in repulsing De Montfort and Amalric. It was, however, but a temporary respite, and the prelude to a fearful destruction. From beyond the Pyrenees, at the head of 1,000 knights, Pedro of Arragon had marched to the rescue of Raymond, his kinsman, and of the counts of Foix and of Comminges, and of the Viscount of Béarn, his vassals; and their united forces came into communication with each other at Muret, a little town which is about three leagues distant from Toulouse. There, also, on the 12th of September [A. D. 1213], at the head of the champions of the Cross, and attended by seven bishops, appeared Simon de Montfort in full military array. The battle which followed was fierce, short and decisive. ... Don Pedro was numbered with the slain. His army, deprived of his command, broke and dispersed, and the whole of the infantry of Raymond and his allies were either put to the sword, or swept a way by the current of the Garonne. Toulouse immediately surrendered, and the whole of the dominions of Raymond submitted to the conquerors. At a council subsequently held at Montpellier, composed of five archbishops and twenty-eight bishops, De Montfort was unanimously acknowledged as prince of the fief and city of Toulouse, and of the other counties conquered by the Crusaders under his command."
_Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 7._
ALSO IN _J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of Crusades against the Albigenses, chapter 2._
ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1217-1229. The Renewed Crusades. Dissolution of the County of Toulouse. Pacification of Languedoc.
"The cruel spirit of De Montfort would not allow him to rest quiet in his new Empire. Violence and persecution marked his rule; he sought to destroy the Provençal population by the sword or the stake, nor could he bring himself to tolerate the liberties of the citizens of Toulouse. In 1217 the Toulousans again revolted, and war once more broke out betwixt Count Raymond and Simon de Montfort. The latter formed the siege of the capital, and was engaged in repelling a sally, when a stone from one of the walls struck him and put an end to his existence. ... Amaury de Montfort, son of Simon, offered to cede to the king all his rights in Languedoc, which he was unable to defend against the old house of Toulouse. Philip [Augustus] hesitated to accept the important cession, and left the rival houses to the continuance of a struggle carried feebly on by either side." King Philip died in 1223 and was succeeded by a son, Louis VIII., who had none of his father's reluctance to join in the grasping persecution of the unfortunate people of the south. Amaury de Montfort had been fairly driven out of old Simon de Montfort's conquests, and he now sold them to King Louis for the office of constable of France. "A new crusade was preached against the Albigenses; and Louis marched towards Languedoc at the head of a formidable army in the spring of the year 1226. The town of Avignon had proferred to the crusaders the facilities of crossing the Rhone under her walls, but refused entry within them to such a host. Louis having arrived at Avignon, insisted on passing through the town: the Avignonais shut their gates, and defied the monarch, who instantly formed the siege. One of the rich municipalities of the south was almost a match for the king of France. He was kept three months under its walls; his army a prey to famine, to disease and to the assaults of a brave garrison. The crusaders lost 20,000 men. The people of Avignon at length submitted, but on no dishonourable terms. This was the only resistance that Louis experienced in Languedoc. ... All submitted. Louis retired from his facile conquest; he himself, and the chiefs of his army stricken by an epidemy which had prevailed in the conquered regions. The monarch's feeble frame could not resist it; he expired at Montpensier, in Auvergne, in November, 1226." Louis VIII. was succeeded by his young son, Louis IX. (Saint Louis), then a boy, under the regency of his energetic and capable mother, Blanche of Castile. {34} "The termination of the war with the Albigenses, and the pacification, or it might be called the acquisition, of Languedoc, was the chief act of Queen Blanche's regency. Louis VIII. had overrun the country without resistance in his last campaign; still, at his departure, Raymond VI. again appeared, collected soldiers and continued to struggle against the royal lieutenant. For upward of two years he maintained himself; the attention of Blanche being occupied by the league of the barons against her. The successes of Raymond VII., accompanied by cruelties, awakened the vindictive zeal of the pope. Languedoc was threatened with another crusade; Raymond was willing to treat, and make considerable cessions, in order to avoid such extremities. In April, 1229, a treaty was signed: in it the rights of De Montfort were passed over. About two-thirds of the domains of the count of Toulouse were ceded to the king of France; the remainder was to fall, after Raymond's death, to his daughter Jeanne, who by the same treaty was to marry one of the royal princes: heirs failing them, it was to revert to the crown [which it did in 1271]. On these terms, with the humiliating addition of a public penance, Raymond VII. once more was allowed peaceable possession of Toulouse, and of the part of his domains reserved to him. Alphonse, brother of Louis IX., married Jeanne of Toulouse soon after, and took the title of count of Poitiers; that province being ceded to him in apanage. Robert, another brother, was made count of Artois at the same time. Louis himself married Margaret, the eldest daughter of Raymond Berenger, count of Provence."
_E. E. Crowe, History of France, volume 1, chapter 2-3._
"The struggle ended in a vast increase of the power of the French crown, at the expense alike of the house of Toulouse and of the house of Aragon. The dominions of the count of Toulouse were divided. A number of fiefs, Beziers, Narbonne, Nimes, Albi, and some other districts were at once annexed to the crown. The capital itself and its county passed to the crown fifty years later. ... The name of Toulouse, except as the name of the city itself, now passed away, and the new acquisitions of France came in the end to be known by the name of the tongue which was common to them with Aquitaine and Imperial Burgundy [Provence]. Under the name of Languedoc they became one of the greatest and most valuable provinces of the French kingdom."
_E. A. Freeman, History Geography of Europe, chapter 9._
The brutality and destructiveness of the Crusades.
"The Church of the Albigenses had been drowned in blood. These supposed heretics had been swept away from the soil of France. The rest of the Languedocian people had been overwhelmed with calamity, slaughter, and devastation. The estimates transmitted to us of the numbers of the invaders and of the slain are such as almost surpass belief. We can neither verify nor correct them; but we certainly know that, during a long succession of years, Languedoc had been invaded by armies more numerous than had ever before been brought together in European warfare since the fall of the Roman empire. We know that these hosts were composed of men inflamed by bigotry and unrestrained by discipline; that they had neither military pay nor magazines; that they provided for all their wants by the sword, living at the expense of the country, and seizing at their pleasure both the harvests of the peasants and the merchandise of the citizens. More than three-fourths of the landed proprietors had been despoiled of their fiefs and castles. In hundreds of villages, every inhabitant had been massacred. ... Since the sack of Rome by the Vandals, the European world had never mourned over a national disaster so wide in its extent or so fearful in its character."
_Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 7._
----------ALBIGENSES: End----------
ALBION.
"The most ancient name known to have been given to this island [Britain] is that of Albion. ... There is, however, another allusion to Britain which seems to carry us much further back, though it has usually been ill understood. It occurs in the story of the labours of Hercules, who, after securing the cows of Geryon, comes from Spain to Liguria, where he is attacked by two giants, whom he kills before making his way to Italy. Now, according to Pomponius Mela, the names of the giants were Albiona and Bergyon, which one may, without much hesitation, restore to the forms of Albion and Iberion, representing, undoubtedly, Britain and Ireland, the position of which in the sea is most appropriately symbolized by the story making them sons of Neptune or the sea-god. ... Even in the time of Pliny, Albion, as the name of the island, had fallen out of use with Latin authors; but not so with the Greeks, or with the Celts themselves, at any rate those of the Goidelic branch; for they are probably right who suppose that we have but the same word in the Irish and Scotch Gælic Alba, genitive Alban, the kingdom of Alban or Scotland beyond the Forth. Albion would be a form of the name according to the Brythonic pronunciation of it. ... It would thus appear that the name Albion is one that has retreated to a corner of the island, to the whole of which it once applied."
_J. Rhys, Celtic Britain, chapter 6._
ALSO IN _E. Guest, Origines Celticae, chapter 1._
See SCOTLAND: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES.
ALBIS, The. The ancient name of the river Elbe.
ALBOIN, King of the Lombards, A. D. 569-573.
ALCALDE.--ALGUAZIL.--CORREGIDOR.
"The word alcalde is from the Arabic 'al cadi,' the judge or governor. ... Alcalde mayor signifies a judge, learned in the law, who exercises [in Spain] ordinary jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in a town or district." In the Spanish colonies the Alcalde mayor was the chief judge. "Irving (Columbus, ii. 331) writes erroneously alguazil mayor, evidently confounding the two offices. ... An alguacil mayor, was a chief constable or high sheriff." "Corregidor, a magistrate having civil and criminal jurisdiction in the first instance ('nisi prius') and gubernatorial inspection in the political and economical government in all the towns of the district assigned to him."
_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, pages 297 and 250, foot-notes._
ALCANIZ, Battle of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
ALCANTARA, Battle of the (1580).
See PORTUGAL; A. D. 1579-1580.
{35}
ALCANTARA, Knights of.
"Towards the close of Alfonso's reign [Alfonso VIII. of Castile and Leon, who called himself 'the Emperor,' A. D. 1126-1157], may be assigned the origin of the military order of Alcantara. Two cavaliers of Salamanca, don Suero and don Gomez, left that city with the design of choosing and fortifying some strong natural frontier, whence they could not only arrest the continual incursions of the Moors, but make hostile irruptions themselves into the territories of the misbelievers. Proceeding along the banks of the Coales, they fell in with a hermit, Amando by name, who encouraged them in their patriotic design and recommended the neighbouring hermitage of St. Julian as an excellent site for a fortress. Having examined and approved the situation, they applied to the bishop of Salamanca for permission to occupy the place: that permission was readily granted: with his assistance, and that of the hermit Amando, the two cavaliers erected a castle around the hermitage. They were now joined by other nobles and by more adventurers, all eager to acquire fame and wealth in this life, glory in the next. Hence the foundation of an order which, under the name, first, of St. Julian, and subsequently of Alcantara, rendered good service alike to king and church."
_S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 2, chapter 1, division. 2._
ALCAZAR, OR "THE THREE KINGS," Battle of (1578 or 1579).
See MAROCCO: THE ARAB CONQUEST AND SINCE.
ALCIBIADES, The career of.
See GREECE: B. C. 421-418, and 411-407; and ATHENS: B. C. 415, and 413-411.
ALCLYDE.
Rhydderch, a Cumbrian prince of the sixth century who was the victor in a civil conflict, "fixed his headquarters on a rock in the Clyde, called in the Welsh Alclud [previously a Roman town known as Theodosia], whence it was known to the English for a time as Alclyde; but the Goidels called it Dunbrettan, or the fortress of the Brythons, which has prevailed in the slightly modified form of Dumbarton. ... Alclyde was more than once destroyed by the Northmen."
_J. Rhys; Celtic Britain, chapter 4._
See, also, CUMBRIA.
ALCMÆONIDS, The curse and banishment of the.
See ATHENS: B. C. 612-595.
ALCOLEA, Battle of (1868).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1866-1873.
ALDIE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA).
ALDINE PRESS, The.
See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1469-1515.
ALEMANNIA: The Mediæval Duchy.
See GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.
ALEMANNI, OR ALAMANNI: A. D. 213. Origin and first appearance.
"Under Antoninus, the Son of Severus, a new and more severe war once more (A. D. 213) broke out in Raetia. This also was waged against the Chatti; but by their side a second people is named, which we here meet for the first time--the Alamanni. Whence they came, we known not. According to a Roman writing a little later, they were a conflux of mixed elements; the appellation also seems to point to a league of communities, as well as the fact that, afterwards, the different tribes comprehended under this name stand forth--more than is the case among the other great Germanic peoples--in their separate character, and the Juthungi, the Lentienses, and other Alamannic peoples not seldom act independently. But that it is not the Germans of this region who here emerge, allied under the new name and strengthened by the alliance, is shown as well by the naming of the Alamanni along side of the Chatti, as by the mention of the unwonted skilfulness of the Alamanni in equestrian combat. On the contrary, it was certainly, in the main, hordes coming on from the East that lent new strength to the almost extinguished German resistance on the Rhine; it is not improbable that the powerful Semnones, in earlier times dwelling on the middle Elbe, of whom there is no further mention after the end of the second century, furnished a strong contingent to the Alamanni."
_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 4._
"The standard quotation respecting the derivation of the name from 'al'='all' and m-n= man', so that the word (somewhat exceptionably) denotes 'men of all sorts,' is from Agathias, who quotes Asinius Quadratus. ... Notwithstanding this, I think it is an open question, whether the name may not have been applied by the truer and more unequivocal Germans of Suabia and Franconia, to certain less definitely Germanic allies from Wurtemberg and Baden,--parts of the Decumates Agri--parts which may have supplied a Gallic, a Gallo-Roman, or even a Slavonic element to the confederacy; in which case, a name so German as to have given the present French and Italian name for Germany, may, originally, have applied to a population other than Germanic. I know the apparently paradoxical elements in this view; but I also know that, in the way of etymology, it is quite as safe to translate 'all' by 'alii' as by 'omnes': and I cannot help thinking that the 'al-' in Ale-manni is the 'al-' in 'alir-arto' (a foreigner or man of another sort), 'eli-benzo' (an alien), and 'ali-land' (captivity in foreign land).--Grimm, ii. 628.--Rechsalterth, page 359. And still more satisfied am I that the 'al-' in Al-emanni is the 'al-' in Alsatia='el-sass'='ali-satz'='foreign settlement.' In other words, the prefix in question is more probably the 'al-' in 'el-se', than the 'al-' in 'all.' Little, however, of importance turns on this. The locality of the Alemanni was the parts about the Limes Romanus, a boundary which, in the time of Alexander Severus, Niebuhr thinks they first broke through. Hence they were the Marchmen of the frontier, whoever those Marchmen were. Other such Marchmen were the Suevi; unless, indeed, we consider the two names as synonymous. Zeuss admits that, between the Suevi of Suabia, and the Alemanni, no tangible difference can be found."
_R. G. Lathan, The Germania of Tacitus; Epilegomena, section 11._
ALSO IN _T. Smith, Arminius, part 2, chapter 1._
See also, SUEVI, and BAVARIANS.
ALEMANNI: A. D. 259. Invasion of Gaul and Italy.
The Alemanni, "hovering on the frontiers of the Empire ... increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhætian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome [A. D. 259]. The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of their ancient virtue. Both the Emperors were engaged in far distant wars--Valerian in the East and Galienus on the Rhine." The senators, however, succeeded in confronting the audacious invaders with a force which checked their advance, and they "retired into Germany laden with spoil."
_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 10. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_
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ALEMANNI: A. D. 270. Invasion of Italy.
Italy was invaded by the Alemanni, for the second time, in the reign of Anrelian, A. D. 270. They ravaged the provinces from the Danube to the Po, and were retreating, laden with spoils, when the vigorous Emperor intercepted them, on the banks of the former river. Half the host was permitted to cross the Danube; the other half was surprised and surrounded. But these last, unable to regain their own country, broke through the Roman lines at their rear and sped into Italy again, spreading havoc as they went. It was only after three great battles,--one near Placentia, in which the Romans were almost beaten, another on the Metaurus (where Hasdrubal was defeated), and a third near Pavia,--that the Germanic invaders were destroyed.
_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 11. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_
ALEMANNI: A. D. 355-361. Repulse by Julian.
See GAUL: A. D. 355-361.
ALEMANNI: A. D. 365-367. Invasion of Gaul.
The Alemanni invaded Gaul in 365, committing widespread ravages and carrying away into the forests of Germany great spoil and many captives. The next winter they crossed the Rhine, again, in still greater numbers, defeated the Roman forces and captured the standards of the Herulian and Batavian auxiliaries. But Valentinian was now Emperor, and he adopted energetic measures. His lieutenant Jovinus overcame the invaders in a great battle fought near Chalons and drove them back to their own side of the river boundary. Two years later, the Emperor, himself, passed the Rhine and inflicted a memorable chastisement on the Alemanni. At the same time he strengthened the frontier defences, and, by diplomatic arts, fomented quarrels between the Alemanni and their neighbors, the Burgundians, which weakened both.
_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 25. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_
ALEMANNI: A. D. 378. Defeat by Gratian.
On learning that the young Emperor Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul and the West to the help of his uncle and colleague, Valens, against the Goths, the Alemanni swarmed across the Rhine into Gaul. Gratian instantly recalled the legions that were marching to Pannonia and encountered the German invaders in a great battle fought near Argentaria (modern Colmar) in the month of May, A. D. 378. The Alemanni were routed with such slaughter that no more than 5,000 out of 40,000 to 70,000, are said to have escaped. Gratian afterwards crossed the Rhine and humbled his troublesome neighbors in their own country.
_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 26. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_
ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504. Overthrow by the Franks.
"In the year 496 A. D. the Salians [Salian Franks] began that career of conquest which they followed up with scarcely any intermission until the death of their warrior king. The Alemanni, extending themselves from their original seats on the right bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Danube, had pushed forward into Germanica Prima, where they came into collision with the Frankish subjects of King Sigebert of Cologne. Clovis flew to the assistance of his kinsman and defeated the Alemanni in a great battle in the neighbourhood of Zülpich [called, commonly, the battle of Tolbiac]. He then established a considerable number of his Franks in the territory of the Alemanni, the traces of whose residence are found in the names of Franconia and Frankfort."
_V. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2._
"Clovis had been intending to cross the Rhine, but the hosts of the Alamanni came upon him, as it seems, unexpectedly and forced a battle on the left bank of the river. He seemed to be overmatched, and the horror of an impending defeat overshadowed the Frankish king. Then, in his despair, he bethought himself of the God of Clotilda [his queen, a Burgundian Christian princess, of the orthodox or Catholic faith]. Raising his eyes to heaven, he said: 'Oh Jesus Christ, whom Clotilda declares to be the Son of the living God, who art said to give help to those who are in trouble and who trust in Thee, I humbly beseech Thy succour! I have called on my gods and they are far from my help. If Thou wilt deliver me from mine enemies, I will believe in Thee, and be baptised in Thy name.' At this moment, a sudden change was seen in the fortunes of the Franks. The Alamanni began to waver, they turned, they fled. Their king, according to one account was slain; and the nation seems to have accepted Clovis as its over-lord." The following Christmas day Clovis was baptised at Reims and 3,000 of his warriors followed the royal example. "In the early years of the new century, probably about 503 or 504, Clovis was again at war with his old enemies, the Alamanni. ... Clovis moved his army into their territories and won a victory much more decisive, though less famous than that of 496. This time the angry king would make no such easy terms as he had done before. From their pleasant dwellings by the Main and the Neckar, from all the valley of the Middle Rhine, the terrified Alamanni were forced to flee. Their place was taken by Frankish settlers, from whom all this district received in the Middle Ages the name of the Duchy of Francia, or, at a rather later date, that of the Circle of Franconia. The Alamanni, with their wives and children, a broken and dispirited host, moved southward to the shores of the Lake of Constance and entered the old Roman province of Rhætia. Here they were on what was held to be, in a sense, Italian ground; and the arm of Theodoric, as ruler of Italy, as successor to the Emperors of the West, was stretched forth to protect them. ... Eastern Switzerland, Western Tyrol, Southern Baden and Würtemberg and Southwestern Bavaria probably formed this new Alamannis, which will figure in later history as the 'Ducatus Alamanniæ,' or the Circle of Swabia."
_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 4, chapter 9._
ALSO IN _P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 11._
See, also, SUEVI: A. D. 460-500; and FRANKS: A. D. 481-511.
ALEMANNI: A. D. 528-729. Struggles against the Frank Dominion.
See GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
ALEMANNI: A. D. 547. Final subjection to the Franks.
See BAVARIA: A. D. 547.
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ALEPPO: A. D. 638-969. Taken by the Arab followers of Mahomet in 638, this city was recovered by the Byzantines in 969.
See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 963-1025.
ALEPPO: A. D. 1260. Destruction by the Mongols.
The Mongols, under Khulagu, or Houlagou, brother of Mangu Khan, having overrun Mesopotamia and extinguished the Caliphate at Bagdad, crossed the Euphrates in the spring of 1260 and advanced to Aleppo. The city was taken after a siege of seven days and given up for five days to pillage and slaughter. "When the carnage ceased, the streets were cumbered with corpses. ... It is said that 100,000 women and children were sold as slaves. The walls of Aleppo were razed, its mosques destroyed, and its gardens ravaged." Damascus submitted and was spared. Khulagu was meditating, it is said, the conquest of Jerusalem, when news of the death of the Great Khan called him to the East.
_H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, pages 209-211._
ALEPPO: A. D. 1401. Sack and Massacre by Timour.
See TIMOUR.
ALESIA, Siege of, by Cæsar.
See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.
ALESSANDRIA: The creation of the city (1168).
See ITALY: A. D. 1174--1183.
ALEUTS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMO.
ALEXANDER ALEXANDER the Great, B. C. 334-323. Conquests and Empire.
See MACEDONIA, &c., B. C. 334-330, and after.
Alexander, King of Poland, A. D. 1501-1507.
Alexander, Prince of Bulgaria.--Abduction and Abdication.
See BULGARIA: A. D. 1878-1886..
Alexander I., Czar of Russia, A. D. 1801-1825..
Alexander I., King of Scotland, A. D. 1107-1124.
Alexander II., Pope, A. D. 1061-1073.
Alexander II., Czar of Russia, A. D. 1855-1881.
Alexander II., King of Scotland, A. D. 1214--1249..
Alexander III., Pope, A. D. 1159-1181.
Alexander III., Czar of Russia, A. D. 1881-.
Alexander III., King of Scotland, A. D. 1249-1286.
Alexander IV., Pope, A. D. 1254--1261.
Alexander V., Pope, A. D. 1409-1410 (elected by the Council of Pisa).
Alexander VI., Pope, A. D. 1492-1503.
Alexander VII., Pope, A. D. 1655-1667.
Alexander VIII., Pope, A. D. 1689-1691.
Alexander Severus, Roman Emperor, A. D. 222-235.
ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 332. The Founding of the City.
"When Alexander reached the Egyptian military station at the little town or village of Rhakotis, he saw with the quick eye of a great commander how to turn this petty settlement into a great city, and to make its roadstead, out of which ships could be blown by a change of wind, into a double harbour roomy enough to shelter the navies of the world. All that was needed was to join the island by a mole to the continent. The site was admirably secure and convenient, a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean and the great inland Lake Mareotis. The whole northern side faced the two harbours, which were bounded east and west by the mole, and beyond by the long, narrow rocky island of Pharos, stretching parallel with the coast. On the south was the inland port of Lake Mareotis. The length of the city was more than three miles, the breadth more than three-quarters of a mile; the mole was above three-quarters of a mile long and six hundred feet broad; its breadth is now doubled, owing to the silting up of the sand. Modern Alexandria until lately only occupied the mole, and was a great town in a corner of the space which Alexander, with large provision for the future, measured out. The form of the new city was ruled by that of the site, but the fancy of Alexander designed it in the shape of a Macedonian cloak or chlamys, such as a national hero wears on the coins of the kings of Macedon, his ancestors. The situation is excellent for commerce. Alexandria, with the best Egyptian harbour on the Mediterranean, and the inland port connected with the Nile streams and canals, was the natural emporium of the Indian trade. Port Said is superior now, because of its grand artificial port and the advantage for steamships of an unbroken sea route."
_R. S. Poole, Cities of Egypt, chapter 12._--
See, also, MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 334-330; and EGYPT: B. C. 332.
ALEXANDRIA: Reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 282-246. Greatness and splendor of the City. Its Commerce. Its Libraries. Its Museum. Its Schools.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Soter, succeeded to the throne of Egypt in 282 B. C. when his father retired from it in his favor, and reigned until 246 B. C. "Alexandria, founded by the great conqueror, increased and beautified by Ptolemy Soter, was now far the greatest city of Alexander's Empire. It was the first of those new foundations which are a marked feature in Hellenism; there were many others of great size and importance--above all, Antioch, then Seleucia on the Tigris, then Nicomedia, Nicæa, Apamea, which lasted; besides such as Lysimacheia, Antigoneia, and others, which early disappeared. ... Alexandria was the model for all the rest. The intersection of two great principal thoroughfares, adorned with colonnades for the footways, formed the centre point, the omphalos of the city. The other streets were at right angles with these thoroughfares, so that the whole place was quite regular. Counting its old part, Rhakotis, which was still the habitation of native Egyptians, Alexandria had five quarters, one at least devoted to Jews who had originally settled there in great numbers. The mixed population there of Macedonians, Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians gave a peculiarly complex and variable character to the population. Let us not forget the vast number of strangers from all parts of the world whom trade and politics brought there. It was the great mart where the wealth of Europe and of Asia changed hands. Alexander had opened the sea-way by exploring the coasts of Media and Persia. Caravans from the head of the Persian Gulf, and ships on the Red Sea, brought all the wonders of Ceylon and China, as well as of Further India, to Alexandria. There, too, the wealth of Spain and Gaul, the produce of Italy and Macedonia, the amber of the Baltic and the salt fish of Pontus, the silver of Spain and the copper of Cyprus, the timber of Macedonia and Crete, the pottery and oil of Greece--a thousand imports from all the Mediterranean--came to be exchanged for the spices of Arabia, the splendid birds and embroideries of India and Ceylon, the gold and ivory of Africa, the antelopes, the apes, the leopards, the elephants of tropical climes. Hence the enormous wealth of the Lagidæ, for in addition to the marvellous fertility and great population--it is said to have been seven millions--of Egypt, they made all the profits of this enormous carrying trade. {38} We gain a good idea of what the splendours of the capital were by the very full account preserved to us by Athenæus of the great feast which inaugurated the reign of Philadelphus. ... All this seems idle pomp, and the doing of an idle sybarite. Philadelphus was anything but that. ... It was he who opened up the Egyptian trade with Italy, and made Puteoli the great port for ships from Alexandria, which it remained for centuries. It was he who explored Ethiopia and the southern parts of Africa, and brought back not only the curious fauna to his zoological gardens, but the first knowledge of the Troglodytes for men of science. The cultivation of science and of letters too was so remarkably one of his pursuits that the progress of the Alexandria of his day forms an epoch in the world's history, and we must separate his University and its professors from this summary, and devote to them a separate section. ... The history of the organization of the University and its staff is covered with almost impenetrable mist. For the Museum and Library were in the strictest sense what we should now call an University, and one, too, of the Oxford type, where learned men were invited to take Fellowships, and spend their learned leisure close to observatories in science, and a great library of books. Like the mediæval universities, this endowment of research naturally turned into an engine for teaching, as all who desired knowledge flocked to such a centre, and persuaded the Fellow to become a Tutor. The model came from Athens. There the schools, beginning with the Academy of Plato, had a fixed property--a home with its surrounding garden, and in order to make this foundation sure, it was made a shrine where the Muses were worshipped, and where the head of the school, or a priest appointed, performed stated sacrifices. This, then, being held in trust by the successors of the donor, who bequeathed it; to them, was a property which it would have been sacrilegious to invade, and so the title Museum arose for a school of learning. Demetrius the Phalerean, the friend and protector of Theophrastus, brought this idea with him to Alexandria, when his namesake drove him into exile [see GREECE: B. C. 307-197] and it was no doubt his advice to the first Ptolemy which originated the great foundation, though Philadelphus, who again exiled Demetrius, gets the credit of it. The pupil of Aristotle moreover impressed on the king the necessity of storing up in one central repository all that the world knew or could produce, in order to ascertain the laws of things from a proper analysis of detail. Hence was founded not only the great library, which in those days had a thousand times the value a great library has now, but also observatories, zoological gardens, collections of exotic plants, and of other new and strange things brought by exploring expeditions from the furthest regions of Arabia and Africa. This library and museum proved indeed a home for the Muses, and about it a most brilliant group of students in literature and science was formed. The successive librarians were Zenodotus, the grammarian or critic; Callimachus, to whose poems we shall presently return; Eratosthenes, the astronomer, who originated the process by which the size of the earth is determined to-day; Appollonius the Rhodian, disciple and enemy of Callimachus; Aristophanes of Byzantium, founder of a school of philological criticism; and Aristarchus of Samos, reputed to have been the greatest critic of ancient times. The study of the text of Homer was the chief labour of Zenodotus, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus, and it was Aristarchus who mainly fixed the form in which the Iliad and Odyssey remain to this day. ... The vast collections of the library and museum actually determined the whole character of the literature of Alexandria. One word sums it all up--erudition, whether in philosophy, in criticism, in science, even in poetry. Strange to say, they neglected not only oratory, for which there was no scope, but history, and this we may attribute to the fact that history before Alexander had no charms for Hellenism. Mythical lore, on the other hand, strange uses and curious words, were departments of research dear to them. In science they did great things, so did they in geography. ... But were they original in nothing? Did they add nothing of their own to the splendid record of Greek literature? In the next generation came the art of criticism, which Aristarchus developed into a real science, and of that we may speak in its place; but even in this generation we may claim for them the credit of three original, or nearly original, developments in literature--the pastoral idyll, as we have it in Theocritus; the elegy, as we have it in the Roman imitators of Philetas and Callimachus; and the romance, or love story, the parent of our modern novels. All these had early prototypes in the folk songs of Sicily, in the love songs of Mimnermus and of Antimachus, in the tales of Miletus, but still the revival was fairly to be called original. Of these the pastoral idyll was far the most remarkable, and laid hold upon the world for ever."
_J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 13-14._
"There were two Libraries of Alexandria under the Ptolemies, the larger one in the quarter called the Bruchium, and the smaller one, named 'the daughter,' in the Serapeum, which was situated in the quarter called Rhacotis. The former was totally destroyed in the conflagration of the Bruchium during Cæsar's Alexandrian War [see below: B. C. 48-47]; but the latter, which was of great value, remained uninjured (see Matter, _Histoire de l'École d'Alexandrie, volume 1, page 133 seg., 237 seq.)_ It is not stated by any ancient writer where the collection of Pergamus [see PERGAMUM] was placed, which Antony gave to Cleopatra (Plutarch, Anton., c. 58); but it is most probable that it was deposited in the Bruchium, as that quarter of the city was now without a library, and the queen was anxious to repair the ravages occasioned by the civil war. If this supposition is correct, two Alexandrian libraries continued to exist after the time of Cæsar, and this is rendered still more probable by the fact that during the first three centuries of the Christian era the Bruchium was still the literary quarter of Alexandria. But a great change took place in the time of Aurelian. This Emperor, in suppressing the revolt of Firmus in Egypt, A. D. 273 [see below: A. D. 273] is said to have destroyed the Bruchium; and though this statement is hardly to be taken literally, the Bruchium ceased from this time to be included within the walls of Alexandria, and was regarded only as a suburb of the city. {39} Whether the great library in the Bruchium with the museum and its other literary establishments, perished at this time, we do not know; but the Serapeum for the next century takes its place as the literary quarter of Alexandria, and becomes the chief library in the city. Hence later writers erroneously speak of the Serapeum as if it had been from the beginning the great Alexandrian library. ... Gibbon seems to think that the whole of the Serapeum was destroyed [A. D. 389, by order of the Emperor Theodosius--see below]; but this was not the case. It would appear that it was only the sanctuary of the god that was levelled with the ground, and that the library, the halls and other buildings in the consecrated ground remained standing long afterwards."
_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,