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 B. Hauréau, ''Hist. de philos. scholast. (Paris, 1880); F. Picavet, “Abélard et A. de H.” in the Bibliothèque de l’école des hautes-études (2nd series, Paris, 1896, pp. 222-230); Schwane, Dogmengesch. (Freiburg, 1882); A. Harnack, Dogmengesch.'' (1890); J. Endres, “Des A. von H. Leben und psychol. Lehre” in ''Philos. Jahrb. (i. Fulda, 1888, pp. 24-55, 203-296); also Vacant’s Dict. de théologie catholique'', vol. i.

ALEXANDER OF TRALLES, Greek physician, born at Tralles in Lydia, lived probably about the middle of the 6th century and practised medicine with success at Rome. The Greek text of his  was printed at Paris in 1548 and his De Lumbricis at Venice in 1570.

ALEXANDER SEVERUS (208–235), Roman emperor from  222 to 235, was born at Arca Caesarea in Palestine on the 1st of October 208. His father, Gessius Marcianus, held office more than once as an imperial procurator; his mother, Julia Mamaea, was the daughter of Julia Maesa and the aunt of Heliogabalus. His original name was Bassianus, but he changed it in 221 when his grandmother, Maesa, persuaded the emperor Heliogabalus to adopt his cousin as successor and create him Caesar. In the next year, on the 11th of March, Heliogabalus was murdered, and Alexander was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians and accepted by the senate. He was then a mere lad, amiable, well-meaning, but entirely under the dominion of his mother, a woman of many virtues, who surrounded him with wise counsellors, watched over the development of his character and improved the tone of the administration, but on the other hand was inordinately jealous, and alienated the army by extreme parsimony, while neither she nor her son had a strong enough hand to keep tight the reins of military discipline. Mutinies became frequent in all parts of the empire; to ore of them the life of the jurist and praetorian praefect Ulpian was sacrificed; another compelled the retirement of Dio Cassius from his command. On the whole, however, the reign of Alexander was prosperous till he was summoned to the East to face the new power of the Sassanians (see : History). Of the war that followed we have very various accounts; Mommsen leans to that which is least favourable to the Romans. According to Alexander’s own despatch to the senate he gained great victories. At all events, though the Persians were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph (233), but next year he was called to face German invaders in Gaul, where he was slain (on the 18th or 19th of March 235), together with his mother, in a mutiny which was probably led by Maximinus, a Thracian legionary, and at any rate secured him the throne. Alexander was the last of the Syrian princes. During his reign, acting, as he did in most things, under the influence of his mother, he did much to improve the morals and condition of the people. His advisers were men like the famous jurist Ulpian, the historian Dio Cassius and a select board of sixteen senators; a municipal council of fourteen assisted the city praefect in administering the affairs of the fourteen districts of Rome. The luxury and extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; the lot of the soldiers was improved; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest. In religious matters Alexander preserved an open mind. In his private chapel he had busts of Orpheus, Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus Christ. It is said that he was desirous of erecting a temple to the founder of Christianity, but was dissuaded by the pagan priests. There is no doubt that, had Alexander’s many excellent qualities been supported by the energy and strength of will necessary for the government of a military empire, he would have been one of the greatest of the Roman emperors.

ALEXANDER THE PAPHLAGONIAN, a celebrated impostor and worker of false oracles, was born at Abonouteichos (see ) in Paphlagonia in the early part of the 2nd century The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius (J. H. Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum veterum, ii. pp. 383, 384) and of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras (Apology, c. 26) to have stood in the forum of Parium. After a period of instruction in medicine by a doctor who also, according to Lucian, was an impostor, he succeeded in establishing an oracle of Aesculapius at his native town. Having circulated a prophecy that the son of Apollo was to be born again, he contrived that there should be found in the foundations of the temple to Aesculapius, then in course of construction at Abonouteichos, an egg in which a small live snake had been placed. In an age of superstition no people had so great a reputation for credulity as the Paphlagonians, and Alexander had little difficulty in convincing them of the second coming of the god under the name of Glycon. A large tame snake with a false human head, wound round Alexander’s body as he sat in a shrine in the temple, gave “autophones” or oracles unasked, but the usual methods practised were those of the numerous oracle-mongers of the time, of which Lucian gives a detailed account, the opening of sealed inquiries by heated needles, a neat plan of forging broken seals, and the giving of vague or meaningless replies to difficult questions, coupled with a lucrative blackmailing of those whose inquiries were compromising. The reputation of the oracle, which was in origin medical, spread, and with it grew Alexander’s skilled plans of organized deception. He set up an “intelligence bureau” in Rome, instituted mysteries like those of Eleusis, from which his particular enemies the Christians and Epicureans were alike excluded as “profane,” and celebrated a mystic marriage between himself and the moon. During the plague of 166 a verse from the oracle was used as an amulet and was inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection, and an oracle was sent, at Marcus Aurelius’ request, by Alexander to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian’s own close investigations into Alexander’s methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner working of one among the many new oracles that were springing up at this period. Alexander had remarkable beauty and the striking personality of the successful charlatan, and must have been a man of considerable intellectual abilities and power of organization. His income is said by Lucian to have reached an enormous figure. He died of gangrene of the leg in his seventieth year.

ALEXANDERS (botanical name, Smyrnium Olusatrum, natural order Umbelliferae), a stout herbaceous plant with a furrowed, much-branched stem 1-3 ft. high, and large compound leaves with broad sheathing stalks, and broad, cut or lobed segments. The small yellow flowers are borne in compound umbels. The plant is a native of the Mediterranean region, and was formerly cultivated as a pot-herb. It is now found apparently wild in Great Britain and Ireland, growing in waste places, especially near the sea and amongst ruins.

In England the plant is sometimes popularly termed “alisander”; in North America Thaspium aureum is sometimes called “alexanders.” “Alexander’s foot,” botanical name Anacyclus Pyrethrum, is the pellitory of Spain.

ALEXANDERSBAD, a watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, romantically situated in the Fichtelgebirge, near Wunsiedel, at a height of 1900 ft. above the sea. Pop. 1200. Its waters, which are ferruginous and largely charged with carbonic acid gas, are of use in nervous and rheumatic