It was opened in 1899 and is a naval station, being free
from ice all the year round. It is also called Port
Catherine. Pop. (1901) 300. (2) A town of S. Russia, 83
m. S. of Ekaterinoslav, on the railway to the Crimea, near
the left bank of the Dnieper, below its rapids. Pop. (1897)
16,393. Opposite it is the island of Khortitsa, upon which was
the sich (or syech) or camp of the Zaporozhian cossacks.
All its neighbouthood is strewn with kurgans (tumuli).
ALEXIS, Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy, was born
about 394 B.C. at Thurii and taken early to Athens,
where he became a citizen. Plutarch says that he lived to
the age of 106, and that he died on the stage while being
crowned. According to Suidas, who calls him Monander's
uncle, he wrote 245 comedies, of which some 130 titles are
preserved. The fragments (about 1000 lines) attest the wit and
refinement of the author (Koch, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta).
ALEXIS, WILLIBALD, the pseudonym of GEORG WILHELM HEINRICH
HARING (1798--1871), German historical novelist. He was
born on the 29th of June 1798 at Breslau, where his father,
who came of a French refugee family, named Hareng, held a high
position in the war department. He attended the Werdersche
Gymnasium in Berlin, and then, serving as a volunteer in
the campaign of 1815, took part in the siege of the Ardenne
fortresses. On his return he studied law at the universities
of Berlin and Breslau and entered the legal profession, but he
soon abandoned this career and devoted himself to literature.
Settling in Berlin he edited, 1827-1835, the Berliner
Konversationsblatt, in which for the first two years he was
assisted by Friedrich Christoph Forster (1791--1868); and in
1828 was created a doctor of philosophy by the university of
Halle. In 1852 he retired to Arnstadt in Thuringia, where after
many years of broken health he died on the 16th of December 1871.
Haring made his name first known as a writer by an idyll in
hexameters, Die Treibjagd (1820), and several short stories
in which the influence of Tieck is observable; but his
literary reputation was first established by the historical
romance Walladmor (1823), which, published as being ``freely
translated from the English of Sir Walter Scott, with a
preface by Willibald Alexis,'' so closely imitated the style
of the famous Scotsman as really to deceive even Scott's
admirers. The work became immediately popular and was
translated into several languages, including English. It
was followed by Schloss Avalon (1827), with regard to
which the author adopted the same tactics and with equal
success. These historical novels, however, were of considerable
literary merit, and would doubtless have achieved popularity
even without the borrowed plumage. Soon afterwards Haring
published a number of successful short stories (Gesammelte
Novellen, 4 vols., 1830-1831), some books of travel, and in
the novels Das Haus Dusterweg (1835) and Zwolf Nachte
(1838) showed for a while a leaning towards the ``Young German''
school. In Cabanis (1832), however, a story of the time
of Frederick the Great, he entered the field of patriotic-
historical romance, in which he so far excelled as to have
earned the name of ``der Markische Walter Scott'' (Walter
Scott of the Mark). From 1840 onwards he published at
short intervals a series of romances, each dealing with
some epoch in the history of Brandenburg. Among them may
be especially noted Der Roland von Berlin (1840), Der
falsche Woldemar (1842), Die Hosen des Herrn von Bredow
(1846-1848), Ruhe ist die erste Burgerpflicht (1852),
Isegrimm (1854) and Dorothe (1856). In all these the
author shows himself as a keen observer of men and things; the
characters, situations and natural surroundings are excellently
delineated, and the patriotic feeling which pervades them is
not overdone. Haring also made a name for himself in the
field of criminology by commencing in 1842, in conjunction
with the publicist, Julius Eduard Hitzig (1780- 1849), the
publication of Der neue Pitaval (continued by A. Vollert, 36
vols., Leipzig, 1842-1865; new edition, 24 vols., Leipzig,
1866-1891), a, collection of criminal anecdotes culled from
all nations and all times. This publication attained great
popularity, and is to-day of psychological interest and value.
His Gesammelte Werke were published in 20 volumes (Berlin,
1874); the Vaterlandische Romane separately in 8 volumes
(Berlin, 1881, 1884), and, since the expiry of the copyright in
1901, in many cheap reprints. Cp. W. Alexis' Erinnerungen,
edited by M. Ewert (1900), and essays by Julian Schmidt (Neue
Bilaer aus dere geistigen Leben unsrer Zeit, 1873), G. Freytag
(Werke, vols. 16 and 23), A. Stern Zur Literatur der Gegenwart,
1880) and T. Fontane (in Bayreuther Blatter, vi., 1883).
ALEXISBAD, a spa of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt, lying
under the Harz mountains, 1000 ft. above the sea, on the railway
from Gernrode to Harzgerode. Pop. 1000. It is celebrated for
its medicinal waters, of which the Abexisbrunnen, a ferruginous
spring, is used for drinking, while the Selkebrunnen supplies
the baths, which are of use in feminine disorders. The
place was founded in 1810 by Duke Alexius of Anhalt-Bernburg.
ALEXIUS I. (1048-1118), emperor of the East, was the third
son of John Comnenus, nephew of Isaac Comnenus, emperor
1057-1059. His father declined the throne on the abdication
of Isaac, who was accordingly succeeded by four emperors
of other families between that date and 1081. Under one
of these emperors, Romanus Diogenes (1067-1071), he served
with distinction against the Seljuk Turks. Under Michael
Parapinaces (1071-1078) and Nicephorus Botaniates (1078-1081)
he was also employed, along with his elder brother Isaac,
against rebels in Asia Minor, Thrace and in Epirus (1071).
The success of the Comneni roused the jealousy of Botaniates
and his ministers, and the Comneni were almost compelled
to take up arms in self- defence. Botaniates was forced to
abdicate and retire to a monastery, and Isaac declined the
crown in favour of his younger brother Alexius, who then
became emperor in the 33rd year of his age. His long reign of
nearly 37 years was full of difficulties (see ROMAN EMPIRE,
LATER). At the very outset he had to meet the formidable
attack of the Normans (Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund),
who took Dyrrhachium and Corfu, and laid siege to Larissa in
Thessaly. The Norman danger ended for the time with Robert
Guiscard's death (1085) and the conquests were recovered.
He had next to repel the invasions of Patzinaks (Petchenegs)
and Kumans in Thrace, with whom the Manichaean sects of the
Paulicians and Bogomilians made Common cause; and thirdly, he
had to cope with the fast-growing power of the Turks in Asia
Minor. Above all he had to meet the difficulties caused by
the arrival of the warriors of the First Crusade, which had
been in a great degree initiated owing to the representations
of his own ambassadors, though the help which he wanted from
the West was simply mercenary forces and not the immense hosts
which arrived to his consternation and embarrassment. The
first part, under Peter the Hermit, he got rid of by sending
them on to Asia Minor, where they were massacred by the Turks
(1096). The second and much more serious host of warriors,
led by Godfrey of Bouillon, he conducted also into Asia,
promising to supply them with provisions in return for an oath
of homage, and by their victories recovered for the Empire
a number of important cities and islands--Nicaea, Chics,
Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Sardis, and in fact
most of Asia Minor (1097-1099). This is ascribed as a credit
to his policy and diplomacy by his daughter, by the Latin
historians of the crusade to his treachery and falseness, but
during the last twenty years of his life he lost much of his
popularity. They were marked by persecution of the followers
of the Paulician and Bogomilian heresies (one of his last
acts was to burn Basilius, a Bogomilian leader, with whom
he had engaged in a theological controversy), by renewed
struggles with the Turks (1110-1117), by anxieties as to the
succession, which his wife Irene wished to alter in favour of
her daughter Anne's husband, Nicephorus Bryennius for whose
benefit the special title panhypersebastos (i.e. as it were
dugustissimus si quis ahus) was created. This intrigue
disturbed even his dying hours. He deserves the credit of
having raised the Empire from a condition of anarchy and
decay at a time when it was threatened on all sides by new
dangers. No emperor devoted himself more laboriously
or with a greater sense of duty to the task of ruling.
AUTHORITIES.--Zonaras xviii. 27-29; Anna Comnena's Life;
see also Du Cange, Familiae Byzantinae; Friedrich Wilken,
Rerum ab Alexio I., Joanne, Manuele et Alexio II. Comnenis
Romanorum, Byzantinorum imperatoribus gestarum, tibri iv.
Commentatio (Heidelberg, 1811); Finlay, History of Greece
(vol. iii., Oxford, 1877); Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, edited with notes, &c., by Prof. J. B. Bury (London,
1898), where further authorities are cited; F. Chalandon, Essai
sur le regne d'Alexis Ier, Comnene (1900). (J. B. B.)
ALEXIUS II. (COMNENUS) (1167-1183), emperor of the
East, was the son of Manuel Comnenus and Maria, daughter of
Kaymund, prince of Antioch, and was born at Constantinople
on the 10th of September 1167. On Manuel's death, Maria,
who hid been immured in a convent under the name of Xene,
had herself proclaimed regent (1179-1180), and handing over
her son to evil counsellors, who encouraged him in every
vice, supported the government of Alexius the protosebastos
(nephew of Manuel), who was supposed to be her lover. The
young Alexius and his friends now tried to form a party
against the empress mother and the protosebastos; and his
sister Maria, wife of Caesar John, stirred up riots in
the streets of the capital. Their party was defeated (May
2, 1182), but Andronicus Comnenus took advantage of these
disorders to aim at the crown, entered Constantinople, where
he was received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the
regents. His arrival was celebrated by a barbarous massacre
of the Latins in Constantinople, which he made no attempt to
stop. He allowed Alexius to be crowned, but forced him to
consent to the death of all his friends, including his mother,
his sister and the Caesar, and refused to allow him the smallest
voice in public affairs. The betrothal in 1180 of Alexius
with Agnes, daughter of Louis VII. of France, a child of
nine, was quashed, and he was married to Irene, daughter of
Andronicus. The latter was now formally proclaimed as
co-emperor, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that
divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexius
to be strangled with a bow-string (October 1183). (J. B. B.)
ALEXIUS III. (ANGELUS), emperor of the East, was the
second son of Andronicus Angelus, nephew of Alexius I. In
1195, while his brother Isaac II. was away hunting in
Thrace, he was proclaimed emperor by the troops; he captured
Isaac at Stagira in Macedonia, put out his eyes, and
kept him henceforth a close prisoner, though he had been
redeemed by him from captivity at Antioch and loaded with
honours. To compensate for this crime and to confirm his
position as emperor, he had to scatter money so lavishly
as to empty his treasury, and to allow such licence to the
officers of the army as to leave the Empire practically
defenceless. He consummated the financial ruin of the
state. The empress Euphrosyne tried in vain to sustain his
