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ALEXANDER SEVERUS ALEXANDRIA 289 of all the other sovereign Russian dukes. To an embassy from Pope Innocent IV., sent to unite the western and eastern churches, he answered : " We know the true teaching of the church ; we will neither accept yours nor hear anything about it." The Russian church can- onized him, and his name is preserved in the na- tional songs. Peter the Great erected to his memory a great monastery on the spot where the battle on the Neva was won, and created the order of Alexander Nevskoi. ALEXANDER SEVERUS, Roman emperor from A. D. 222 to 235, the son of Gessius Marcianus and Julia Mammroa, born at Arce in Phoenicia, in the temple of Alexander the Great, during the attendance of his parents there at a reli- gious festival. The date of his birth is uncer- tain, but most historians ascribe it to the au- tumn of 205. His original name was Alexia- nus Bassianus. On the elevation of his cousin Elagabalus to the purple, he accompanied his mother to Rome. In 221 he was adopted by the emperor, and created Cffisar, pontiff, con- sul elect, and princeps juventutis. He now as- sumed the name of Marcus Aurelius Alexan- der. Elagabalus soon regarded him as a rival whose destruction was essential to his own safety ; but Alexander's life was preserved by the watchfulness of his mother and the affec- tion of the soldiers, who ultimately avenged his injuries by sacrificing his enemy. On the death of Elagabalus he was proclaimed em- peror by the praetorians, and the choice was confirmed by the senate. He now took the appellation of Severus, as he was ambitious of being thought a descendant of the emperor Septimius Severus. During nine years of peace he reformed abuses, promoted men of merit and capacity, and restored health to the em- pire. In 231, however, he assumed command of the eastern legions to defend his Asiatic provinces from a Persian invasion. Crossing the Euphrates, he encountered the hostile hosts in Mesopotamia, and defeated them with great slaughter. Receiving intelligence that the Germans were up in arms and preparing for an irruption into Gaul, he hastened back to place himself at the head of the Rhenish army ; but at the very opening of the campaign he was waylaid and slain, along with his mother (to whose care his elevated character, in the midst of corruption, is attributed), by a party of mutineers, who had probably been instigated to the deed by his 1 successor Maximin. ALEX ANDRE, Aaron, a chess player, born at Hohenfeld, Bavaria, about 1766, died in Lon- don, Nov. 16, 1850. He was for some time rabbi at Fiirth, and afterward teacher of Ger- man at Paris, where he established a boarding school. His Encyclopedic dcs echecs (Paris, 1837), and his Collection des plus beaux pro- llemes d'ecJiecs (Paris, 1846), established for him a high reputation as an authority on chess. He was among the first chess players of the century, and in his 80th year continued to be a thorough master of the game. In France 20 VOL. i. 20 and in Europe generally he was known among chess players as "Father Alexandre." ALEXANDRETTA (Turk. Iskariderun; anc. Alexandria ad Issum), a Turkish seaport on the N. coast of Syria, in the vilayet of Aleppo, situated on the E. side of the bay of Iskanderun, in lat. 36 35' N., Ion. 36 E., 23 m. N. of Antioch ; pop. about 1,000. Though much improved of late years, especially by the drainage of a pestilential marsh in its rear, it is still a wretched and unhealthy village. The harbor is capacious, and the town has consid- erable commercial importance as the port of Antioch and Aleppo. The products of north- ern Syria and Mesopotamia, consisting of grain, oils, soaps, gallnuts, wool, cotton, tobacco, &c., and European manufactures, pass through this port. English capitalists have projected a rail- road from this port through the valley of the Eu- phrates to the Persian gulf, to be ultimately ex- tended N. W. to Constantinople. Alexandretta was founded by Alexander the Great to com- memorate his victory over Darius III. in 333 on the neighboring plains of Issus. In 1097 it was taken by Tancred ; and in 1832 it was the scene of a victory by the army of Mehemet All over the Turks. ALEXANDRIA, a N. E. county of Virginia, on the Potomac, opposite Washington; area, 36 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 16,755, of whom 7,310 were colored. It was once a part of the Dis- trict of Columbia, and was retroceded to Vir- ginia by act of congress in 1846. Its sur- face is hilly and its soil is poor and thin. The staple products are corn, wheat, oats, and hay. ALEXANDRIA, a port of entry and capital of Alexandria county, Va., on the right bank of the Potomac, 7 m. below Washington ; pop. in 1860, 12,652 ; in 1870, 13,570, of whom 5,300 were colored. The Potomac is here a mile wide, forming a harbor able to accommo- date the largest ships. The city is generally well paved and lighted with gas, and water has been introduced by machinery. It is con- nected by a railroad 90 m. long with the Ches- apeake and Ohio railroad at Gordonsville, and has a railroad to Leesburg, 40 m. distant, and one to Washington connecting with the Balti- more and Ohio railroad. It also has a canal joining the Chesapeake and Ohio canal at Georgetown. The imports from foreign coun- tries in 1870 amounted to $33,822, and the ex- ports to $39,648 ; 24 vessels were entered from foreign countries with a tonnage of 5,697 and crews of 192 men, 4 vessels with a ton- nage of 1,029 were cleared for foreign countries. The number of vessels registered, enrolled, and licensed was 128, with a tonnage of 7,646. Two daily newspapers with tri-weekly editions and one monthly are published here. The city of Alexandria belongs to the territory ceded by Virginia in 1789 to the Union as part of the District of Columbia, and retro- ceded in 1846. At the opening of the civil war Alexandria was in possession of the con- federates. On the 24th of May it was entered