enemies of Stilicho reproached him for having gained his
victory by taking an unfair advantage of the great Christian
festival. The wife of Alaric is said to have been taken
prisoner after this battle; and there is some reason to suppose
that he was hampered in his movements by the presence with
his forces of large numbers of women and children, having
given to his invasion of Italy the character of a national
migration. After another defeat before Verona, Alaric quitted
Italy, probably in 403. He had not indeed ``penetrated to
the city,'' but his invasion of Italy had produced important
results; it had caused the imperial residence to be transferred
from Milan to Ravenna, it had necessitated the withdrawal
of the Twentieth Legion from Britain, and it had lirobably
facilitated the great invasion of Vandals, Suevi and Alani
into Gaul, by which that province and Spain were lost to the
empire. We next hear of Alaric as the friend and ally of his
late opponent Stilicho. The estrangement between the eastern
and western courts had in 407 become so bitter as to threaten
civil war, and Stilicho was actually proposing to use the arms
of Alaric in order to enforce the claims of Honorius to the
prefecture of Illyricum. The death of Arcadius in May 408
caused milder counsels to prevail in the western cabinet, but
Alaric, who had actually entered Epirus, demanded in a somewhat
threatening manner that if he were thus suddenly bidden to
desist from war, he should be paid handsomely for what in
modern language would be called the expenses of mobilization.
The sum which he named was a large one, 4000 pounds of gold
(about L. 160,000 sterling), but under strong pressure from
Stilicho the Roman senate consented to promise its payment.
Three months later Stilicho himself and the chief ministers
of his party were treacherously slain in pursuance of an
order extracted from the timid and jealous Honorius; and in
the disturbances which followed the wives and children of the
barbarian foederati throughout Italy were slain. The natural
consequence was that these men to the number of 30,000 flocked to
the camp of Alaric. clamouring to be led against their cowardly
enemies. IIe accordingly crossed the Julian Alps, and in
September 408 stood before the walls of Rome (now with no capable
general like Stihcho to defend her) and began a strict blockade.
No blood was shed this time; hunger was the weapon on which Alaric
relied. When the ambassadors of the senate in treating for peace
tried to terrify him with their hints of what the despairing
citizens might accomplish, he gave with a laugh his celebrated
answer, ``The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!'' After much
bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom
of more than a quarter of a million sterling, besides precious
garments of silk and leather and three thousand pounds of
pepper. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome.
At this time, and indeed throughout his career, the one
dominant idea of Alaric was not to pull down the fabric of
the empire but to Secure for himself, by negotiation with
its rulers, a regular and recognized position within its
borders. His demands were certainly large---the concession
of a block of territory 200 m. long by 150 wide between the
Danube and the Gulf of Venice (to be held probably on some
terms of nominal dependence on the empire), and the title
of commander-in-chief of the imperial army. Yet large as
the terms were, the emperor would probably have been well
advised to grant them; but Honorius was one of those timid
and feeble folk who are equally unable to make war or peace,
and refused to look beyond the question of his own personal
safety, guaranteed as it was by the dikes and marshes of
Ravenna. As all attempts to conduct a satisfactory negotiation
with this emperor failed before his impenetrable stupidity,
Alaric, after instituting a second siege and blockade of
Rome in 409, came to terms with the senate, and with their
consent set up a rival emperor and invested the prefect of the
city, a Creek named Attalus, with the diadem and the purple
robe. He, however, proved quite unfit for his high position;
he rejected the advice of Alaric and lost in consequence the
province of Africa, the granary of Rome, which was defended by
the partisans of Honorius. The weapon of famine, formerly in
the hand of Alaric, was thus turned against him, and loud in
consequence were the murmurs of the Roman populace. Honorius
was also greatly strengthened by the arrival of six legions sent
from Constantinople to his assistance by his nephew Theodosius
II. Alaric therefore cashiered his puppet emperor Attalus
after eleven months of ineffectual rule, and once more tried
to reopen negotiations with Honorius. These negotiatio1(s
would probably have succeeded but for the malign influence of
another Goth, Sarus, the hereditary enemy of Alaric and his
house. When Alaric found himself once more outwitted by the
machinations of such a foe, he marched southward and began in
deadly earnest his third, his ever-memorable siege of Rome.
No defence apparently was possible; there are hints, not well
substantiated, of treachery; there is greater probability of
surprise. However this may be--for our information at this
point of the story is miserably meagre----on the 24th of
August 410 Alaric and his . Goths burst in by the Salarian
gate on the north-east of the city, and she who was of
late the mistress of the world lay at the feet of the
barbarians. The Goths showed themselves not absolutely ruthless
conquerors. The contemporary ecclesiastics recorded with
wonder many instances of their clemency: the Christian churches
saved from ravage; protection granted to vast multitudes both
of pagans and Christians who took refuge therein; vessels
of gold and silver which were found in a private dwelling,
spared because they ``belonged to St. Peter''; at least one
case in which a beautiful Roman matron appealed, not in vain,
to the better feelings of the Cothic soldier who attempted
her dishonour; but even these exceptional instances show that
Rome was not enlirely spared those scenes of horror which
usually accompany the storming of a besieged city. We do
not, however, hear of any damage wrought by fire, save in
the case of Sallust's palace, which was situated close to
the gate by which the Goths had made their entrance; nor
is there any reason to attribute any extensive destruction
of the buildings of the city to Alaric and his followers.
His work being done, his fated task, and Alaric having
penetrated to the city, nothing remained for him but to
die. He marched southwards into Calabria. He desired to
invade Africa, which on account of its corn crops was now
the key of the position; but his ships were dashed to pieces
by a storm in which many of his soldiers perished. He died
soon after, probably of fever, and his body was bulied under
the river-bed of the Busento, the stream being temporarily
turned aside from its course while the grave was dug wherein
the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were
interred. When the work was finished the river was turned
back into its usual channel, and the captives by whose hands
the labour had been accomplished were put to death that
none might learn their secret. He was succeeded in the
command of the Gothic army by his brotherin-law, Ataulphus.,
Our chief authorities for the career of Alaric are the historian
Orosius and the poet Claudian, both strictly contemporary;
Zosimus, a somewhat prejudiced heathen historian, who lived
probably about half a century after the death of Alaric;
and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation
in the year 551, basing his work on the earlier history of
Cassiodorus (now lost), which was written about 520. (T. II.)
ALARIC II. (d. 507), eighth king of the Goths in Spain,
succeeded his father Euric or Evaric in 485. His dominions
not only included the whole of Spain except its north-western
corner, but also Aquitaine and the greater part of Provence.
In religion Alaric was an Arian, but he greatly mitigated
the persecuting policy of his father Euric towards the
Catholics and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of
Agde. He displayed similar wisdom and liberality in
political affairs by appointing a commission to prepare
an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which
should form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects.
This is generally known as the Breviarium Alaricianuni,
or Breviary of Alaric (q.v..) Alaric . was of a peaceful
disposition, and endeavoured strictly to main- tain the treaty
which his father had concluded with the Franks, whose king
Clovis, however, desiring to obtain the Gothic province in
Gaul, found a pretext for war in the Arianism of Alaric.
The intervention of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths and
father-in-law of Alaric, proved unavailing. The two armies
met in 507 at the Campus Vogladensis, near Poitiers, where
the Goths were defeated, and their king, who took to flight,
was overtaken and slain, it is said, by Clovis himself.
ALA-SHEHR (anc. Philadelphia), a town of Asia Minor, in
the Aidin vilayet, situated in the valley of the Kuzu Chai
(Cogamus), at the foot of the Boz Dagh (Mt. Tmolus) 83
m. E. of Smyrna (105 by railway). Pop. 22,000 (Moslems,
17,000; Christians, 5000). Philadelphia was founded by Attalus
II. of Pergamum about 150 B.C., became one of the ``Seven
Churches'' of Asia, and was called ``Little Athens'' on account
of its festivals and temples. It was subject to frequent
earthquakes. Philadelphia was an independent neutral city,
under the influence of the Latin Knights of Rhodes, when taken
in . 1390 by Sultan Bayezid I. and an auxiliary Christian force
under the emperor Manuel II. after a prolonged resistance,
when all the other cities of Asia Minor had surrendered.
Twelve years later it was captured by Timur, who built a
wall with the corpses of his prisoners. A fragment of the
ghastly structure is in the library of Lincoln cathedral.
The town is connected by railway with Afium-Kara-Hissar and
Smyrna. It is dirty and ill-built; but, standing on elevated
ground and commanding the extensive and fertile plain of the
Hermus, presents at a distance an imposing appearance. It is
the seat of an archbishop and has several mosques and Christian
churches. There are small industries and a fair trade. From
one of the mineral springs comes a heavily charged water known
in commerce as ``Eau de Vals,'' and in great request in Smyrna.
See W. M. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Ghurches (Ioo4).
ALASKA, formerly called RUSSIAN AMERICA, a district
of the United States of America, occupying the extreme
northwestern part of North America and the adjacent
islands. The name is a corruption of a native word possibly
meaning ``mainland'' or ``peninsula.'' The district of Alaska
comprises, first, all that part of the continent W. of the
141st meridian of W longitude from Greenwich;secondly,the
eastern Diomede island in Bering Strait, and all islands in
Bering Sea and the Aleutian chain lying E. of a line drawn
from the Diomedes to pass midway between Copper Island, off
Kamchatka, and Attu Island of the Aleutians; thirdly, a
narrow strip of coast and adjacent islands N. of a line drawn
from Cape Muzon, in lat. 54 deg. 40, N., E. and N. up Portland
Canal to its head, and thence, as defined in the treaty of
cession to the United States, quoting a boundary treaty of
1825 between Great Britain and Russia, following ``the summit
of the mountains situated parallel to the coast', to the
