crushing retort to Lope de Vega in Los pechos privilegiados
is an unsurpassable example of cold, scornful invective.
More than any other Spanish dramatist, Alarcon is preoccupied
with ethical aims, and his gift of dramatic presentation is
as brilliant as his dialogue is natural and vivacious. It
has been alleged that his foreign origin is noticeable in his
plays, and there is some foundation for the criticism; but
his workmanship is exceptionally conscientious, and in El
Tejedor de Segovia he had produced a masterpiece of national
art, national sentiment and national expression. (J. F.-K.)
ALARCON, PEDRO ANTONIO DE (1833-1891), Spanish writer, was
born on the 10th of March 1833 at Guadix. He graduated at
the university of Granada, studied law and theology privately,
and made his first appearance as a dramatist before he was of
age. Deciding to follow literature as a profession, he joined
with Torcuato Tarrago y Mateos in editing a Cailiz newspaper
entitled El Eco de Occidente. In 1853 he travelled to Madrid
in the hope of finding a publisher for his continuation of
Espronceda's celebrated poem, El Diablo Mundo. Disappointed
in his object, and finding no opening at the capital, he
settled at Granada, became a radical journalist in that city,
and showed so much ability that in 1854 he was appointed
editor of a republican journal, El Latigo, published at
Madrid. The extreme violence of his polemics led to a duel
between him and the Byronic poet, Jose Heriberto Garcia
Quevedo. The earliest of his novels, El Final de Norma,
was published in 1855, and though its construction is feeble
it brought the writer into notice as a master of elegant
prose. A small anthology, called Mananias de Abril y Mayo
(1856), proves that Alarcon was recognized as a leader
by young men of promise, for among the contributors were
Castelar, Manuel del Palacio and Lopez de Ayala. A dramatic
piece, El Hijo prodigo, was hissed off the stage in
1857, and the failure so stung Alarcon that he enlisted
under O'Donnell's command as a volunteer for the war in
Morocco. His Diario de un testigo de la guerra de Africa
(1859) is a brilliant account of the expedition. The first
edition, amounting to fifty thousand copies, was sold within a
fortnight, and Alarcon's name became famous throughout the
peninsula. The book is not in any sense a formal history; it
is a series of picturesque impressions rendered with remarkable
force. On his return from Africa Alarcon did the Liberal
party much good service as editor of La Politica, but after
his marriage in 1866 to a devout lady, Paulina Contrera y
Reyes, he modified his political views considerably. On
the overthrow of the monarchy in 1868, Alarcon advocated
the claims of the duc de Montpensier, was neutral during the
period of the republic, and declared himself a Conservative
upon the restoration of the dynasty in December 1874. These
political variations alienated Alarcon's old allies and
failed to conciliate the royalists. But though his political
influence was ruined, his success as a writer was greater than
ever. The publication in the Revista Europea (1874) of a short
story, El Sombrero de tres picos, a most ingenious resetting
of an old popular tale, made him almost as well known out of
Spain as in it. This remarkable triumph in the picturesque
vein encouraged him to produce other works of the same kind;
yet though his Cuentos amatorios (1881), his Historietas
nacionales (1881) and his Narracionies inverosimiles (1882)
are pleasing, they have not the delightful gaiety and charm
of their predecessor. In a longer novel, El Escandalo
(1875), Alarcon had appeared as a partisan of the neo-Catholic
reaction, and this change of opinion brought upon him many
attacks, mostly unjust. His usual bad fortune followed
him, for while the Padicals denounced him as an apostate, the
neo-Catholics alleged that El Escandalo was tainted with
Jansenism. Of his later volumes, written in failing health
and spirits, it is only necessary to mention El Capitan
Veneno and the Historia de mis libros, both issued in
1881. Alarcon was elected a member of the Spanish
Academy in 1875. He died at Madrid on the 20th of July
1891. His later novels and tales are disfigured by their
didactic tendency, by feeble drawing of character, and
even by certain gallicisms of style. But, at his best,
Alarcon may be read with great pleasure. The Diario de
un testigo is still unsurpassed as a picture of campaigning
life, while El Sombrero de tres picos is a very perfect
example of malicious wit and minute observation. (J. F.-K.)
ALARD, JEAN DELPHIN (1815-1888), French violinist and teacher,
was born at Bayonne on the 8th of May 1815. From 1827 he was
a pupil of F. A. Habeneck at the Paris Conservatoire, where he
succeeded P. de Sales Baillot as professor in 1843, retaining
the post till 1875. His playing was full of fire and point,
and his compositions had a great success in France, while
his violin school had a wider vogue and considerably greater
value. Mention should also be made of his edition in 40 parts
of a selection of violin compositions by the most eminent
masters of the 18th century, Les Maitres classiques du violon
(Schott). Alard died in Paris on the 22nd of February 1888.
ALARIC (Ala-reiks, ``All-ruler''), (c. 370-410), Gothic
conqueror, the first Teutonic leader who stood as a conqueror
in the city of Rome, was probably born about 370 in an island
named Peuce (the Fir) at the mouth of the Danube. He was of
noble descent, his father being a scion of the family of the
Balthi or Bold-men, next in dignity among Gothic warriors
to the Amals. He was a Goth and belonged to the western
branch of that nation --sometimes called the Visigoths--who
at the time of his birth were quartered in the region now
known as Bulgaria, having taken refuge on the southern shore
of the Danube from the pursuit of their enemies the Huns.
In the year 394 he served as a general of foederati (Gothic
irregulars) under the emperor Theodosius in the campaign in
which he crushed the usurper Eugenius. As the battle which
terminated this campaign, the battle of the Frigidus, was fought
near the passes of the Julian Alps, Alaric probably learnt
at this time the weakness of the natural defences of Italy on
her northeastern frontier. The employment of barbarians as
foederali, which became a common practice with the emperors
in the 4th century, was both a symptom of disease in the
body politic of the empire and a hastener of its impending
ruin. The provincial population, crushed under a load of
unjust taxation, could no longer furnish soldiers in the
numbers required for the defence of the empire; and on the
other hand, the emperors, ever fearful that a brilliantly
successful general of Roman extraction might be proclaimed
Augustus by his followers, preferred that high military command
should be in the hands of a man to whom such an accession
of dignity was as yet impossible. But there was obviously
a danger that one day a barbarian leader of barbarian troops
in the service of the empire might turn his armed force and
the skill in war, which he had acquired in that service,
against his trembling masters, and without caring to assume
the title of Augustus might ravage and ruin the countries
which he had undertaken to defend. This danger became a
reality when in the year 395 the able and valiant Theodosius
died, leaving the empire to be divided between his imbecile
sons Arcadius and Honorius, the former taking the eastern and
the latter the western portion, and each under the control
of a minister who bitterly hated the minister of the other.
In the shifting of offices which took place at the beginning
of the new reigns, Alaric apparently hoped that he would
receive one of the great war ministries of the empire, and
thus instead of being a mere commander of irregulars would
have under his orders a large part of the imperial legions.
This, however, was denied him, and he found that he was doomed
to remain an oflicer of foederati. His disappointed ambition
prompted him to take the step for which his countrymen were
longing, for they too were grumbling at the withdrawal of the
``presents,'' in other words the veiled ransom-money, which
for many years they had been accustomed to receive. They
raised him on a shield and acclaimed him as a king; leader and
followers both resolving (says Jordanes the Gothic historian)
``rather to seek new kingdoms by their own labour, than
to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others.''
Alaric struck first at the eastern empire. He marched to
the neighbourhood of Constantinople, but finding himself
unable to undertake the siege of that superbly strong city,
he retraced his steps westward and then marched southward
through Thessaly and the unguarded pass of Thermopylae into
Greece. The details of his campaign are not very clearly
stated, and the story is further complicated by the plots and
counterplots of Rufinus, chief minister of the eastern, and
Stilicho, the virtual regent of the western empire, and the
murder of the former by his rebellious soldiers. With these
we have no present concern; it is sufficient to say that
Alaric's invasion of Greece lasted two years (395-396), that
he ravaged Attica but spared Athens, which at once capitulated
to the conqueror, that he penetrated into Peloponnesus and
captured its most famous cities, Corinth, Argos and Sparta,
selling many of their inhabitants into slavery. Here,
however, his victorious career ended. Stilicho, who had
come a second time to the assistance of Arcadius and who was
undoubtedly a skilful general, succeeded in shutting up the
Goths in the mountains of Pholoe on the borders of Elis and
Arcadia. From thence Alaric escaped with difficulty, and
not without some suspicion of connivance on the part of
Stilicho. He crossed the Corinthian Gulf and marched with
the plunder of Greece northwards to Epirus. Next came an
astounding transformation. For some mysterious reason,
probably connected with the increasing estrangement between
the two sections of the empire, the ministers of Arcadius
conferred upon Alaric the government of some part--it can
hardly have been the whole--of the important prefecture of
Illyricum. Here, ruling the Danubian provinces, he was on
the confines of the two empires, and, in the words of the poet
Claudian, he ``sold his alternate oaths to either throne,''
and made the imperial arsenals prepare the weapons with which
to aim his Gothic followers for the next campaign. It was
probably in the year 400 (but the dates of these events are
rather uncertain) that Alaric made his first invasion of
Italy, co-operating with another Gothic chieftain named
Radagaisus. Supernatural influences were not wanting to
urge him to this great enterprise. Some lines of the Roman
poet inform us that he heard a voice proceeding from a sacred
grove, ``Break off all delays, Alaric. This very year
thou shalt force the Alpine barrier of Italy; thou shalt
penetrate to the city.'' The prophecy was not at this time
fulfilled. After spreading desolation through North Italy
and striking terror into the citizens of Pome, Alaric was met
by Stilicho at Pollentia (a Roman municipality in what is now
Piedmont), and the battle which then followed on the 6th of
April 402 (Easter-day) was a victory, though a costly one for
Rome, and effectually barred the further progress of the
barbarians. Alaric was an Arian Christian who trusted to
the sanctity of Easter for immunity from attack, and the
