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 Látigo, published at Madrid. The extreme violence of his polemics led to a duel between him and the Byronic poet, José 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 Mañanas de Abril y Mayo (1856), proves that Alarcón 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 Alarcón 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 Alarcón’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 Alarcón 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, Alarcón 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 Alarcón’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 Narraciones inverosimiles (1882) are pleasing, they have not the delightful gaiety and charm of their predecessor. In a longer novel, El Escándalo (1875), Alarcón 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 Radicals 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. Alarcón 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, Alarcón 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 Maîtres 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 Peucè (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 foederati, 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 officer 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
