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Ahmad Shah Durrani
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Ahmad Shāh Durrānī (; ), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī (), was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded as the founder of the modern Afghanistan. In July 1747, Ahmad Shah was appointed as King of the Afghans by a "loya jirga" in Kandahar, where he set up his capital. Primarily with the support of the Pashtun tribes, Ahmad Shah pushed east towards the Mughal and Maratha Empires of India, west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Iran, and north towards the Khanate of Bukhara of Turkestan. Within a few years, he extended his control from Khorasan in the west to North India in the east, and from the Amu Darya in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.
Soon after accession, Ahmad Shah adopted the epithet "Shāh Durr-i-Durrān", "King, Pearl of Pearls", and changed the name of his Abdali tribe to "Durrani" after himself. The Tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani is located in the center of Kandahar, adjacent to Kirka Sharif (Shrine of the Cloak), which contains a cloak believed to have been worn by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Afghans often refer to Ahmad Shah as "Ahmad Shāh Bābā", "Ahmad Shah the Father."
Early years.
Ahmad's father, Mohammad Zaman Khan, was the Governor of Herat and chief of the Pashtun Abdali tribe, while his mother, Zarghona Anaa, was daughter of Khalu Khan Alakozai and belonged to the Alakozai tribe. Ahmad was born in Herat (then Sadozai Sultanate of Herat, present-day Afghanistan), or Multan (then Mughal Empire, present-day Pakistan) in 1720–1722 around the time of his father's death, when the Abdali leadership still controlled the Herat region.
In June 1729, the Abdali forces under Zulfiqar had surrendered to Nader Shah Afshar, the rising new ruler of Persia. However, they soon began a rebellion and took over Herat as well as Mashad. In July 1730, he defeated Ibrahim Khan, a military commander and brother of Nader Shah. This prompted Nader Shah to retake Mashad and also intervene in the power struggle of Harat. By July 1731, Zulfiqar returned to his capital Farah where he had been serving as the governor since 1726. A year later Nadir's brother Ibrahim Khan took control of Farah. During this time Zulfiqar and the young Durrani fled to Kandahar where they took refuge with the Ghiljis. They were later made political prisoners by Hussain Hotak, the Ghilji ruler of the Kandahar region.
Nader Shah had been enlisting the Abdalis in his army since around 1729. After conquering Kandahar in 1738, Durrani and his brother Zulfiqar were freed and provided with leading careers in Nader Shah's administration. Zulfiqar was made Governor of Mazandaran while Durrani remained working as Nader Shah's personal attendant. The Ghiljis, who are originally from the territories east of the Kandahar region, were expelled from Kandahar in order to resettle the Abdalis along with some Qizilbash and other Persians.
Durrani proved himself in Nader Shah's service and was promoted from a personal attendant ("yasāwal") to command the Abdali Regiment, a cavalry of four thousand soldiers and officers. The Abdali Regiment was part of Nader Shah's military during his invasion of the Mughal Empire in 1738.
Popular history has it that the Shah could see the talent in his young commander. Later on, according to Pashtun legend, it is said that in Delhi Nader Shah summoned Durrani, and said, "Come forward Ahmad Abdali. Remember Ahmad Khan Abdali, that after me the Kingship will pass on to you. Nader Shah recruited him because of his "impressive personality and valour" also because of his "loyalty to the Persian monarch".
Rise to power.
Nader Shah's rule abruptly ended in June 1747 when he was assassinated by his own guards. The guards involved in the assassination did so secretly so as to prevent the Abdalis from coming to their King's rescue. However, Durrani was told that the Shah had been killed by one of his wives. Despite the danger of being attacked, the Abdali contingent led by Durrani rushed either to save the Shah or to confirm what happened. Upon reaching the Shah's tent, they were only to see his body and severed head. Having served him so loyally, the Abdalis wept at having failed their leader, and headed back to Kandahar. Before the retreat to Kandahar, he had "removed" the royal seal from Nader Shah's finger and the Koh-i-Noor diamond tied "around the arm of his deceased master". On their way back to Kandahar, the Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Durrani as their new leader. Hence he "assumed the insignia of royalty" as the "sovereign ruler of Afghanistan".
One of Durrani's first acts as chief was to adopt the epithet "Shāh Durr-i-Durrān", "King, Pearl of Pearls."
Forming the last Afghan empire.
Although Ahmad Shah appointed his fellow Durrani (Abdali) clansmen for most senior military posts, his army was otherwise ethnically diverse with soldiers also from various other ethnic and tribal groups, including non-Durrani Pashtun tribes like the Ghilji, and non-Pashtun groups such as Qizilbash, Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Baloch. He began his military conquest by capturing Qalati Ghilji from its governor Ashraf Tokhi and installed his own governor in Ghazni. He then wrestled Kabul and Peshawar from Mughal-appointed governor Nasir Khan, and conquered the area up to the Indus River. On 15 July 1747, Ahmad Shah appointed Muhammad Hashim Afridi as chief of the Afridi of Peshawar. Ahmad Shah conquered Herat in 1750, Balkh and Badakhshan in 1751, and Kashmir in 1752.
He also made two campaigns into Khorasan (1750–51 and 1754–55). During the first campaign he besieged Mashhad in July 1750 but retreated after four months and on November 10 moved onto Nishapur. His forces suffered heavy casualties and were forced to retreat in early 1751. In 1754 he invaded again. In June 1754 he took Tun and on July 23 had besieged Mashhad. Mashhad fell on December 2 and although Shahrokh Shah was re-appointed as leader of Khorasan in May 1755 he was forced to cede Torshiz, Bakharz, Jam, Khaf, and Turbat-e Haidari to the Afghans. He invaded Nishapur again and after a 7-day siege the city fell on June 24, 1755, and was utterly destroyed.
Indian invasions.
Early invasions.
Peshawar served as a convenient point for Ahmad Shah for his military conquests in Hindustan. From 1748 to 1767, he invaded Hindustan eight times. He first crossed the Indus River in 1748, the year after his ascension – his forces sacked and absorbed Lahore. In 1749, Ahmad Shah captured the area of Punjab around Lahore. In the same year, the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh and all of the Punjab including the vital trans-Indus River to him, in order to save his capital from being attacked by the forces of the Durrani Empire Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah and his forces turned westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nader Shah's grandson, Shah Rukh. The city fell to the Afghans in 1750, after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict; the Afghan forces then pushed on into present-day Iran, capturing Nishapur and Mashhad in 1751. Following the recapture of Mashhad in 1754, Ahmad Shah visited the eighth Imam's sepulchre and ordered repairs to be made. Ahmad Shah then pardoned Shah Rukh and reconstituted Khorasan, but a tributary of the Durrani Empire. This marked the westernmost border of the Afghan Empire as set by the Pul-i-Abrisham, on the Mashhad-Tehran road.
Third battle of Panipat.
The Mughal power in northern India had been declining since the reign of Aurangzeb, who died in 1707. In 1751–52, the "Ahamdiya" treaty was signed between the Marathas and Mughals, when Balaji Bajirao was the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire. Through this treaty, the Marathas controlled large parts of India from their capital at Pune and Mughal rule was restricted only to Delhi (Mughals remained the nominal heads of Delhi). Marathas were now straining to expand their area of control towards the Northwest of India. Durrani sacked the Mughal capital and withdrew with the booty he coveted. To counter the Afghans, Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent Raghunathrao. He succeeded in ousting Timur Shah and his court from India and brought northwest of India up to Peshawar under Maratha rule. Thus, upon his return to Kandahar in 1757, Durrani chose to return to India and confront the Maratha forces to regain northwestern part of the subcontinent.
In 1761, Durrani set out on his campaign to win back lost territories. The early skirmishes ended in victory for the Afghans against the Maratha garrisons in northwest India. By 1759, Durrani and his army had reached Lahore and were poised to confront the Marathas. By 1760, the Maratha groups had coalesced into a big enough army under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau. Once again, Panipat was the scene of a battle for control of northern India. The Third battle of Panipat was fought between Durrani's Afghan forces and the Maratha forces in January 1761, and resulted in a decisive Durrani victory.
Central Asia.
The historical area of what is modern day Xinjiang consisted of the distinct areas of the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria, and was originally populated by Indo-European Tocharian and Eastern Iranian Saka peoples who practiced the Buddhist religion. The area was subjected to Turkification and Islamification at the hands of invading Turkic Muslims. Both the Buddhist Turkic Uyghurs and Muslim Turkic Karluks participated in the Turkification and conquest of the native Buddhist Indo-European inhabitants of the Tarim Basin. The Turkic Muslims then proceeded to conquer the Turkic Buddhists in Islamic holy wars and converted them to Islam. The mixture between the invading Turkic peoples and the native Caucasian Indo-European inhabitants resulted in the modern day Turkic speaking hybrid Europoid-East Asian inhabitants of Xinjiang. The Turkification was carried out in the 9th and 10th centuries by two different Turkic Kingdoms, the Buddhist Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho and the Muslim Karluk Kara-Khanid Khanate. Halfway in the 10th century the Saka Iranic Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan came under attack by the Turkic Muslim Karakhanid ruler Musa, and in what proved to be a pivotal moment in the Turkification and Islamification of the Tarim Basin, the Karakhanid leader Yusuf Qadir Khan conquered Khotan around 1006.
The Turkic Muslim sedentary people of the Tarim Basin of Altishahr were originally ruled by the Chagatai Khanate while the nomadic Buddhist Dzungar Oirats in Dzungaria ruled over the Dzungar Khanate. The Naqshbandi Sufi Khojas, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, had replaced the Chagatayid Khans as the ruling authority of the Tarim Basin in the early 17th century. There was a struggle between two factions of Khojas, the Afaqi (White Mountain) faction and the Ishaqi (Black Mountain) faction. The Ishaqi defeated the Afaqi, which resulted in the Afaqi Khoja inviting the 5th Dalai Lama, the leader of the Tibetan Buddhists, to intervene on his behalf in 1677. The 5th Dalai Lama then called upon his Dzungar Buddhist followers in the Zunghar Khanate to act on this invitation. The Dzungar Khanate then conquered the Tarim Basin in 1680, setting up the Afaqi Khoja as their puppet ruler.
Khoja Afaq asked the 5th Dalai Lama when he fled to Lhasa to help his Afaqi faction take control of the Tarim Basin (Kashgaria). The Dzungar leader Galdan was then asked by the Dalai Lama to restore Khoja Afaq as ruler of Kashgararia. Khoja Afaq collaborated with Galdan's Dzungars when the Dzungars conquered the Tarim Basin from 1678 to 1680 and set up the Afaqi Khojas as puppet client rulers. The Dalai Lama blessed Galdan's conquest of the Tarim Basin and Turfan Basin.
Since 1680 the Dzungars had ruled as suzerain masters over the Tarim, for 16 more years using the Chagatai as their puppet rulers. The Dzungars used a hostage arrangement to rule over the Tarim Basin, keeping as hostages in Ili either the sons of the leaders like the Khojas and Khans or the leaders themselves. Although the Uighur's culture and religion was left alone, the Dzungars substantially exploited them economically . The Uighurs were forced with multiple taxes by the Dzungars which were burdensome and set by a determined amount, and which they did not even have the ability to pay. They included water conservancy tax, draught animal tax, fruit tax, poll tax, land tax, tress and grass tax, gold and silver tax, and trade tax. Annually the Dzungars extracted a tax of 67,000 tangas of silver from the Kashgar people in Galdan Tseren's reign, a five percent tax was imposed on foreign traders and a ten percent tax imposed on Muslim merchants, people had to pay a fruit tax if they owned orchards and merchants had to pay a copper and silver tax. Annually the Dzungars extracted 100,000 silver tangas in tax from Yarkand and slapped livestock, stain, commerce, and a gold tax on them. The Dzungars extracted 700 taels of gold, and also extracted cotton, copper, and cloth, from the six regions of Keriya, Kashgar, Khotan, Kucha, Yarkand, and Aksu as stated by Russian topographer Yakoff Filisoff. The Dzungars extracted over 50% of the wheat harvests of Muslims according to Qi-yi-shi (Chun Yuan), 30–40% of the wheat harvests of Muslims according to the Xiyu tuzhi, which labelled the tax as "plunder" of the Muslims. The Dzungars also extorted extra taxes on cotton, silver, gold, and traded goods from the Muslims besides making them pay the official tax. "Wine, meat, and women" and "a parting gift" were forcibly extracted from the Uighurs daily by the Dzungars who went to physically gather the taxes from the Uighur Muslims, and if they dissatisfied with what they received, they would rape women, and loot and steal property and livestock. Gold necklaces, diamonds, pearls, and precious stones from India were extracted from the Uighurs under Dāniyāl Khoja by Tsewang Rabtan when his daughter was getting married.
67,000 patman (each patman is 4 piculs and 5 pecks) of grain 48,000 silver ounces were forced to be paid yearly by Kashgar to the Dzungars and cash was also paid by the rest of the cities to the Dzungars. Trade, milling, and distilling taxes, corvée labor, saffron, cotton, and grain were also extracted by the Dzungars from the Tarim Basin. Every harvest season, women and food had to be provided to Dzungars when they came to extract the taxes from them.
When the Dzungars levied the traditional nomadic Alban poll tax upon the Muslims of Altishahr, the Muslims viewed it as the payment of jizyah (a tax traditionally taken from non-Muslims by Muslim conquerors).
The Qing defeat of the Dzungars went hand in hand with the anti-Dzungar resistance of the ordinary Uighurs, "many of them, unable to bear their misery, which was like living in a sea of fire, fled but were not able to find a place to settle peacefully." The Uighurs carried out "acts of resistance" like hiding the goods which were collected as taxes or violently resisting the Dzungar Oirat tax collectors, but these incidents were infrequent and widespread anti-Dzungar opposition failed to materialize. Many opponents of Dzungar rule like Uighurs and some dissident Dzungars escaped and defected to Qing China during 1737–1754 and provided the Qing with intelligence on the Dzungars and voiced their grievances. Abdullāh Tarkhān Beg and his Hami Uighurs defected and submitted to Qing China after the Qing inflicted a devastating defeat at Chao-mo-do on the Dzungar leader Galdan in September 1696. The Uighur leader Emin Khoja (Amīn Khoja) of Turfan revolted against the Dzungars in 1720 while the Dzungars under Tsewang Rabtan were being attacked by the Qing, and then he also defected and submitted to the Qing. The Uighurs in Kashgar under Yūsuf and his older brother Jahān Khoja of Yarkand revolted in 1754 against the Dzungars, but Jahān was taken prisoner by the Dzungars after he was betrayed by the Uch-Turfan Uighur Xi-bo-ke Khoja and Aksu Uighur Ayyūb Khoja. Kashgar and Yarkand were assaulted by 7,000 Khotan Uighurs under Sādiq, the son of Jahān Khoja. The Uighurs supported the 1755 Qing assault against the Dzungars in Ili, which occurred at the same time as the Uighur revolts against the Dzungars. Uighurs like Emin Khoja, 'Abdu'l Mu'min and Yūsuf Beg supported the Qing attack against Dawachi, the Dzungar Khan. The Uch-Turfan UighurnBeg Khojis (Huojisi) supported the Qing General Ban-di against in tricking Davachi and taking him prisoner. The Qing and Amin Khoja and his sons worked together to defeat the Dzungars under Amursana.
From the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, between China proper and Transoxania, all the land was under the sway of the Dzungars. In Semirechye the Kyrgyz and Kazakahs were forcibly driven out by the Dzungars and the Kashgar Khanate was conquered. However, the Dzungar Empire was annihilated by Qing China from 1755 to 1758 in a formidable assault, ending the Central Asian states danger from the Dzungar menace. Uighur Muslims like Emin Khoja from Turfan revolted against their Dzungar Buddhist rulers and pledged allegiance to Qing China to deliver them from Dzungar Buddhist rule. The Qing crushed and annihilated the Dzungars in the Dzungar genocide.
The Dzungar Buddhists brought back the Aqtaghliq Afaqi Khoja Burhan-ud-din and his brother Khan Khoja and installed them as puppet rulers in Kashgar. During the Qing's war against the Dzungars, Burhan-ud-din and his brother Khan Khoja then pledged allegiance to Qing China in exchange for delivering them from Dzungar rule. However, after the Qing defeated the Dzungars, the Afaqi Khoja brothers Burhan-ud-din and Khan Khoja reneged on the deal with the Qing, declared independence and revolted against the Qing. The Qing and loyal Uighurs like Emin Khoja crushed the revolt and drove Burhan-ud-din and Khan Khoja to Badakhshan. The Qing armies reached far in Central Asia and came to the outskirts of Tashkent while the Kazakh rulers made their submissions as vassals to the Qing. The Afaqi brothers died in Badakhshan and the ruler Sultan Shah delivered their bodies to the Qing. Ahmad Shah Durrani accused Sultan Shah of having caused the Afaqi brothers to die.
Durrani dispatched troops to Kokand after rumours that the Qing dynasty planned to launch an expedition to Samarkand, but the alleged expedition never happened and Ahmad Shah subsequently withdrew his forces when his attempt at an anti-Qing alliance among Central Asian states failed. Durrani then sent envoys to Beijing to discuss the situation regarding the Afaqi Khojas.
Indian invasions.
Early invasions.
Peshawar served as a convenient point for Ahmad Shah for his military conquests in Hindustan. From 1748 to 1767, he invaded Hindustan eight times. He first crossed the Indus River in 1748, the year after his ascension – his forces sacked and absorbed Lahore. In 1749, Ahmad Shah captured the area of Punjab around Lahore. In the same year, the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh and all of the Punjab including the vital trans-Indus River to him, in order to save his capital from being attacked by the forces of the Durrani Empire Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah and his forces turned westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nader Shah's grandson, Shah Rukh. The city fell to the Afghans in 1750, after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict; the Afghan forces then pushed on into present-day Iran, capturing Nishapur and Mashhad in 1751. Following the recapture of Mashhad in 1754, Ahmad Shah visited the eighth Imam's sepulchre and ordered repairs to be made. Ahmad Shah then pardoned Shah Rukh and reconstituted Khorasan, but a tributary of the Durrani Empire. This marked the westernmost border of the Afghan Empire as set by the Pul-i-Abrisham, on the Mashhad-Tehran road.
Early invasions.
Peshawar served as a convenient point for Ahmad Shah for his military conquests in Hindustan. From 1748 to 1767, he invaded Hindustan eight times. He first crossed the Indus River in 1748, the year after his ascension – his forces sacked and absorbed Lahore. In 1749, Ahmad Shah captured the area of Punjab around Lahore. In the same year, the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh and all of the Punjab including the vital trans-Indus River to him, in order to save his capital from being attacked by the forces of the Durrani Empire Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah and his forces turned westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nader Shah's grandson, Shah Rukh. The city fell to the Afghans in 1750, after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict; the Afghan forces then pushed on into present-day Iran, capturing Nishapur and Mashhad in 1751. Following the recapture of Mashhad in 1754, Ahmad Shah visited the eighth Imam's sepulchre and ordered repairs to be made. Ahmad Shah then pardoned Shah Rukh and reconstituted Khorasan, but a tributary of the Durrani Empire. This marked the westernmost border of the Afghan Empire as set by the Pul-i-Abrisham, on the Mashhad-Tehran road.
Third battle of Panipat.
The Mughal power in northern India had been declining since the reign of Aurangzeb, who died in 1707. In 1751–52, the "Ahamdiya" treaty was signed between the Marathas and Mughals, when Balaji Bajirao was the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire. Through this treaty, the Marathas controlled large parts of India from their capital at Pune and Mughal rule was restricted only to Delhi (Mughals remained the nominal heads of Delhi). Marathas were now straining to expand their area of control towards the Northwest of India. Durrani sacked the Mughal capital and withdrew with the booty he coveted. To counter the Afghans, Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent Raghunathrao. He succeeded in ousting Timur Shah and his court from India and brought northwest of India up to Peshawar under Maratha rule. Thus, upon his return to Kandahar in 1757, Durrani chose to return to India and confront the Maratha forces to regain northwestern part of the subcontinent.
In 1761, Durrani set out on his campaign to win back lost territories. The early skirmishes ended in victory for the Afghans against the Maratha garrisons in northwest India. By 1759, Durrani and his army had reached Lahore and were poised to confront the Marathas. By 1760, the Maratha groups had coalesced into a big enough army under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau. Once again, Panipat was the scene of a battle for control of northern India. The Third battle of Panipat was fought between Durrani's Afghan forces and the Maratha forces in January 1761, and resulted in a decisive Durrani victory.
Central Asia.
The historical area of what is modern day Xinjiang consisted of the distinct areas of the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria, and was originally populated by Indo-European Tocharian and Eastern Iranian Saka peoples who practiced the Buddhist religion. The area was subjected to Turkification and Islamification at the hands of invading Turkic Muslims. Both the Buddhist Turkic Uyghurs and Muslim Turkic Karluks participated in the Turkification and conquest of the native Buddhist Indo-European inhabitants of the Tarim Basin. The Turkic Muslims then proceeded to conquer the Turkic Buddhists in Islamic holy wars and converted them to Islam. The mixture between the invading Turkic peoples and the native Caucasian Indo-European inhabitants resulted in the modern day Turkic speaking hybrid Europoid-East Asian inhabitants of Xinjiang. The Turkification was carried out in the 9th and 10th centuries by two different Turkic Kingdoms, the Buddhist Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho and the Muslim Karluk Kara-Khanid Khanate. Halfway in the 10th century the Saka Iranic Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan came under attack by the Turkic Muslim Karakhanid ruler Musa, and in what proved to be a pivotal moment in the Turkification and Islamification of the Tarim Basin, the Karakhanid leader Yusuf Qadir Khan conquered Khotan around 1006.
The Turkic Muslim sedentary people of the Tarim Basin of Altishahr were originally ruled by the Chagatai Khanate while the nomadic Buddhist Dzungar Oirats in Dzungaria ruled over the Dzungar Khanate. The Naqshbandi Sufi Khojas, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, had replaced the Chagatayid Khans as the ruling authority of the Tarim Basin in the early 17th century. There was a struggle between two factions of Khojas, the Afaqi (White Mountain) faction and the Ishaqi (Black Mountain) faction. The Ishaqi defeated the Afaqi, which resulted in the Afaqi Khoja inviting the 5th Dalai Lama, the leader of the Tibetan Buddhists, to intervene on his behalf in 1677. The 5th Dalai Lama then called upon his Dzungar Buddhist followers in the Zunghar Khanate to act on this invitation. The Dzungar Khanate then conquered the Tarim Basin in 1680, setting up the Afaqi Khoja as their puppet ruler.
Khoja Afaq asked the 5th Dalai Lama when he fled to Lhasa to help his Afaqi faction take control of the Tarim Basin (Kashgaria). The Dzungar leader Galdan was then asked by the Dalai Lama to restore Khoja Afaq as ruler of Kashgararia. Khoja Afaq collaborated with Galdan's Dzungars when the Dzungars conquered the Tarim Basin from 1678 to 1680 and set up the Afaqi Khojas as puppet client rulers. The Dalai Lama blessed Galdan's conquest of the Tarim Basin and Turfan Basin.
Since 1680 the Dzungars had ruled as suzerain masters over the Tarim, for 16 more years using the Chagatai as their puppet rulers. The Dzungars used a hostage arrangement to rule over the Tarim Basin, keeping as hostages in Ili either the sons of the leaders like the Khojas and Khans or the leaders themselves. Although the Uighur's culture and religion was left alone, the Dzungars substantially exploited them economically . The Uighurs were forced with multiple taxes by the Dzungars which were burdensome and set by a determined amount, and which they did not even have the ability to pay. They included water conservancy tax, draught animal tax, fruit tax, poll tax, land tax, tress and grass tax, gold and silver tax, and trade tax. Annually the Dzungars extracted a tax of 67,000 tangas of silver from the Kashgar people in Galdan Tseren's reign, a five percent tax was imposed on foreign traders and a ten percent tax imposed on Muslim merchants, people had to pay a fruit tax if they owned orchards and merchants had to pay a copper and silver tax. Annually the Dzungars extracted 100,000 silver tangas in tax from Yarkand and slapped livestock, stain, commerce, and a gold tax on them. The Dzungars extracted 700 taels of gold, and also extracted cotton, copper, and cloth, from the six regions of Keriya, Kashgar, Khotan, Kucha, Yarkand, and Aksu as stated by Russian topographer Yakoff Filisoff. The Dzungars extracted over 50% of the wheat harvests of Muslims according to Qi-yi-shi (Chun Yuan), 30–40% of the wheat harvests of Muslims according to the Xiyu tuzhi, which labelled the tax as "plunder" of the Muslims. The Dzungars also extorted extra taxes on cotton, silver, gold, and traded goods from the Muslims besides making them pay the official tax. "Wine, meat, and women" and "a parting gift" were forcibly extracted from the Uighurs daily by the Dzungars who went to physically gather the taxes from the Uighur Muslims, and if they dissatisfied with what they received, they would rape women, and loot and steal property and livestock. Gold necklaces, diamonds, pearls, and precious stones from India were extracted from the Uighurs under Dāniyāl Khoja by Tsewang Rabtan when his daughter was getting married.
67,000 patman (each patman is 4 piculs and 5 pecks) of grain 48,000 silver ounces were forced to be paid yearly by Kashgar to the Dzungars and cash was also paid by the rest of the cities to the Dzungars. Trade, milling, and distilling taxes, corvée labor, saffron, cotton, and grain were also extracted by the Dzungars from the Tarim Basin. Every harvest season, women and food had to be provided to Dzungars when they came to extract the taxes from them.
When the Dzungars levied the traditional nomadic Alban poll tax upon the Muslims of Altishahr, the Muslims viewed it as the payment of jizyah (a tax traditionally taken from non-Muslims by Muslim conquerors).
The Qing defeat of the Dzungars went hand in hand with the anti-Dzungar resistance of the ordinary Uighurs, "many of them, unable to bear their misery, which was like living in a sea of fire, fled but were not able to find a place to settle peacefully." The Uighurs carried out "acts of resistance" like hiding the goods which were collected as taxes or violently resisting the Dzungar Oirat tax collectors, but these incidents were infrequent and widespread anti-Dzungar opposition failed to materialize. Many opponents of Dzungar rule like Uighurs and some dissident Dzungars escaped and defected to Qing China during 1737–1754 and provided the Qing with intelligence on the Dzungars and voiced their grievances. Abdullāh Tarkhān Beg and his Hami Uighurs defected and submitted to Qing China after the Qing inflicted a devastating defeat at Chao-mo-do on the Dzungar leader Galdan in September 1696. The Uighur leader Emin Khoja (Amīn Khoja) of Turfan revolted against the Dzungars in 1720 while the Dzungars under Tsewang Rabtan were being attacked by the Qing, and then he also defected and submitted to the Qing. The Uighurs in Kashgar under Yūsuf and his older brother Jahān Khoja of Yarkand revolted in 1754 against the Dzungars, but Jahān was taken prisoner by the Dzungars after he was betrayed by the Uch-Turfan Uighur Xi-bo-ke Khoja and Aksu Uighur Ayyūb Khoja. Kashgar and Yarkand were assaulted by 7,000 Khotan Uighurs under Sādiq, the son of Jahān Khoja. The Uighurs supported the 1755 Qing assault against the Dzungars in Ili, which occurred at the same time as the Uighur revolts against the Dzungars. Uighurs like Emin Khoja, 'Abdu'l Mu'min and Yūsuf Beg supported the Qing attack against Dawachi, the Dzungar Khan. The Uch-Turfan UighurnBeg Khojis (Huojisi) supported the Qing General Ban-di against in tricking Davachi and taking him prisoner. The Qing and Amin Khoja and his sons worked together to defeat the Dzungars under Amursana.
From the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, between China proper and Transoxania, all the land was under the sway of the Dzungars. In Semirechye the Kyrgyz and Kazakahs were forcibly driven out by the Dzungars and the Kashgar Khanate was conquered. However, the Dzungar Empire was annihilated by Qing China from 1755 to 1758 in a formidable assault, ending the Central Asian states danger from the Dzungar menace. Uighur Muslims like Emin Khoja from Turfan revolted against their Dzungar Buddhist rulers and pledged allegiance to Qing China to deliver them from Dzungar Buddhist rule. The Qing crushed and annihilated the Dzungars in the Dzungar genocide.
The Dzungar Buddhists brought back the Aqtaghliq Afaqi Khoja Burhan-ud-din and his brother Khan Khoja and installed them as puppet rulers in Kashgar. During the Qing's war against the Dzungars, Burhan-ud-din and his brother Khan Khoja then pledged allegiance to Qing China in exchange for delivering them from Dzungar rule. However, after the Qing defeated the Dzungars, the Afaqi Khoja brothers Burhan-ud-din and Khan Khoja reneged on the deal with the Qing, declared independence and revolted against the Qing. The Qing and loyal Uighurs like Emin Khoja crushed the revolt and drove Burhan-ud-din and Khan Khoja to Badakhshan. The Qing armies reached far in Central Asia and came to the outskirts of Tashkent while the Kazakh rulers made their submissions as vassals to the Qing. The Afaqi brothers died in Badakhshan and the ruler Sultan Shah delivered their bodies to the Qing. Ahmad Shah Durrani accused Sultan Shah of having caused the Afaqi brothers to die.
Durrani dispatched troops to Kokand after rumours that the Qing dynasty planned to launch an expedition to Samarkand, but the alleged expedition never happened and Ahmad Shah subsequently withdrew his forces when his attempt at an anti-Qing alliance among Central Asian states failed. Durrani then sent envoys to Beijing to discuss the situation regarding the Afaqi Khojas.
Death and legacy.
Ahmad Shah may have suffered a wound on his nose during a horse-riding accident in Kabul in 1768, or he may have developed the ingury due to a flaying brick when the Harimandar Sahib was destroyed with gunpowder, which gradually worsened and spread to other parts of his face, including his left eye. Following the advise of his physicians, he would spend part of the summer in the cooler climate of the Margha plain in the Toba Achakzai range during the last few years of his life. He died of his illness on 4 June 1772 (2 Rabi' al-Awwal 1186) in Maruf, Toba Achakzai, east of Kandahar.
He was buried in the city of Kandahar adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak, where a large mausoleum was built. It has been described in the following way:
In his tomb his epitaph is written:
Durrani's victory over the Marathas influenced the history of the subcontinent and, in particular, the policies of the East India Company in the region. His refusal to continue his campaigns deeper into India prevented a clash with the company and allowed them to continue to acquire power and influence after they established complete control over the former Mughal province of Bengal in 1793. However, fear of another Afghan invasion would influence Company policy-makers for almost half a century after the Battle of Panipat. The acknowledgment of Durrani's military accomplishments is reflected in an intelligence report made by Company officials on the Battle of Panipat, which referred to Ahmad Shah as the 'King of Kings'. This fear led in 1798 to a Company envoy being sent to the Persian court in part to instigate the Persians in their claims on Herat to forestall a possible Afghan invasion of India that might have halted Company expansion. Mountstuart Elphinstone wrote of Ahmad Shah:
His successors, beginning with his son Timur Shah and ending with Shuja Shah Durrani, proved largely incapable of governing the last Afghan empire and faced with advancing enemies on all sides. Much of the territory conquered by Ahmad Shah fell to others by the end of the 19th century. Timur Shah would consolidate the holdings of the Durrani Empire, and fight off civil war and rebellion throughout his reign, he would also lead multiple campaigns into Punjab to try and repeat his fathers success. After the death of Timur Shah, his son, Zaman Shah Durrani ascended to the throne, throughout his reign he would lose the outlying territories but also alienated some Pashtun tribes and those of other Durrani lineages. Zaman Shah would lead campaigns into Punjab, capturing Lahore, however due to internal strife, he was forced to withdraw on all attempts. Zaman Shah would later be deposed by Mahmud Shah Durrani, his brother, and the Durrani Realm would continue to disintegrate in the following years from progressive succession crises, usually between Timur Shah's sons, with Mahmud Shah Durrani, Zaman Shah Durrani, and Shah Shuja Durrani. Afghanistan would remain disunited Until Dost Mohammad Khan's ascendancy in 1826, chaos reigned in Afghanistan, which effectively ceased to exist as a single entity, disintegrating into a fragmented collection of small countries or units. Dost Mohammad throughout his reign had focused on re-uniting Afghanistan and had succeeded in doing so, with the Herat Campaign of 1862-63 in the recapture of Herat, and the eventual conquest of the Principality of Qandahar.
In Pakistan, a short-range ballistic missile Abdali-I, is named in the honour of Ahmad Shah Abdali.
Durrani's poetry.
Durrani wrote a collection of odes in his native Pashto. He was also the author of several poems in Persian. One of his most famous Pashto poems was "Love of a Nation":
Personal life.
During Nader Shah's invasion of India in 1739, Ahmad Shah also accompanied him and stayed some days in the Red Fort of Delhi. When he was standing "outside the Jali gate near Diwan-i-Am", Asaf Jah I saw him. He was "an expert in physiognomy" and predicted that Ahmad Shah was "destined to become a king". When Nader Shah learned of it, he "purportedly clipped" his ears with his dagger and made the remark "When you become a king, this will remind you of me". According to other sources, Nader Shah did not believe in it and asked him to be kind to his descendants "on the attaintment of royalty".
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1570
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Alaric I
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Alaric I (; , , "ruler of all"; c. 370 – 410 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.
Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the Roman army. Once an ally of Rome under the Roman emperor Theodosius, Alaric helped defeat the Franks and other allies of a would-be Roman usurper. Despite losing many thousands of his men, he received little recognition from Rome and left the Roman army disappointed. After the death of Theodosius and the disintegration of the Roman armies in 395, he is described as king of the Visigoths. As the leader of the only effective field force remaining in the Balkans, he sought Roman legitimacy, never quite achieving a position acceptable to himself or to the Roman authorities.
He operated mainly against the successive Western Roman regimes, and marched into Italy, where he died. He is responsible for the sack of Rome in 410, one of several notable events in the Western Roman Empire's eventual decline.
Early life, federate status in the Balkans.
According to Jordanes, a 6th-century Roman bureaucrat of Gothic origin—who later turned his hand to history—Alaric was born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania and belonged to the noble Balti dynasty of the Thervingian Goths. There is no way to verify this claim. Historian Douglas Boin does not make such an unequivocal assessment about Alaric's Gothic heritage and instead claims he came from either the Thervingi or the Greuthung tribes. When the Goths suffered setbacks against the Huns, they made a mass migration across the Danube, and fought a war with Rome. Alaric was probably a child during this period who grew up along Rome's periphery. Alaric's upbringing was shaped by living along the border of Roman territory in a region that the Romans viewed as a veritable "backwater"; some four centuries before, the Roman poet Ovid regarded the area along the Danube and Black Sea where Alaric was reared as a land of "barbarians", among "the most remote in the vast world."
Alaric's childhood in the Balkans, where the Goths had settled by way of an agreement with Theodosius, was spent in the company of veterans who had fought at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, during which they had annihilated much of the Eastern army and killed Emperor Valens. Imperial campaigns against the Visigoths were conducted until a treaty was reached in 382. This treaty was the first "foedus" on imperial Roman soil and required these semi-autonomous Germanic tribes—among whom Alaric was raised—to supply troops for the Roman army in exchange for peace, control of cultivatable land, and freedom from Roman direct administrative control. Correspondingly, there was hardly a region along the Roman frontier during Alaric's day without Gothic slaves and servants of one form or another. For several subsequent decades, many Goths like Alaric were "called up into regular units of the eastern field army" while others served as auxiliaries in campaigns led by Theodosius against the western usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius.
Rebellion against Rome, rise to Gothic leadership.
A new phase in the relationship between the Goths and the empire resulted from the treaty signed in 382, as more and more Goths attained aristocratic rank from their service in the imperial army. Alaric began his military career under the Gothic soldier Gainas, and later joined the Roman army. He first appeared as leader of a mixed band of Goths and allied peoples, who invaded Thrace in 391 but were stopped by the half-Vandal Roman General Stilicho. While the Roman poet Claudian belittled Alaric as "a little-known menace" terrorizing southern Thrace during this time, Alaric's abilities and forces were formidable enough to prevent the Roman emperor Theodosius from crossing the Maritsa River.
Service under Theodosius I.
By 392, Alaric had entered Roman military service, which coincided with a reduction of hostilities between Goths and Romans. In 394, he led a Gothic force that helped Emperor Theodosius defeat the Frankish usurper Arbogast—fighting at the behest of Eugenius—at the Battle of Frigidus. Despite sacrificing around 10,000 of his men, who had been victims of Theodosius' callous tactical decision to overwhelm the enemies front lines using Gothic "foederati", Alaric received little recognition from the emperor. Alaric was among the few who survived the protracted and bloody affair. Many Romans considered it their "gain" and a victory that so many Goths had died during the Battle of Frigidus River. Recent biographer, Douglas Boin, posits that seeing ten thousand of his (Alaric's) dead kinsmen likely elicited questions about what kind of ruler Theodosius actually had been and whether remaining in direct Roman service was best for men like him. Refused the reward he expected, which included a promotion to the position of magister militum and command of regular Roman units, Alaric mutinied and began to march against Constantinople.
On 17 January 395, Theodosius died of an illness, leaving his two young and incapable sons Arcadius and Honorius in Stilicho's guardianship. Modern writers regard Alaric as king of the Visigoths from 395. According to historian Peter Heather, it is not entirely clear in the sources if Alaric rose to prominence at the time the Goths revolted following Theodosius's death, or if he had already risen within his tribe as early as the war against Eugenius. Whatever the circumstances, Jordanes recorded that the new king persuaded his people to "seek a kingdom by their own exertions rather than serve others in idleness."
Semi-independent action in Eastern Roman interests, Eastern Roman recognition.
Whether or not Alaric was a member of an ancient Germanic royal clan—as claimed by Jordanes and debated by historians—is less important than his emergence as a leader, the first of his kind since Fritigern. Theodosius's death left the Roman field armies collapsing and the Empire divided again between his two sons, one taking the eastern and the other the western portion of the Empire. Stilicho made himself master of the West and attempted to establish control in the East as well, and led an army into Greece. Alaric rebelled again. Historian Roger Collins points out that while the rivalries created by the two halves of the Empire vying for power worked to Alaric's advantage and that of his people, simply being called to authority by the Gothic people did not solve the practicalities of their needs for survival. He needed Roman authority in order to be supplied by Roman cities.
Alaric took his Gothic army on what Stilicho's propagandist Claudian described as a "pillaging campaign" that began first in the East. Historian Thomas Burns's interpretation is that Alaric and his men were recruited by Rufinus's Eastern regime in Constantinople, and sent to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat. No battle took place. Alaric's forces made their way down to Athens and along the coast, where he sought to force a new peace upon the Romans. His march in 396 included passing through Thermopylae. Stilicho's propagandist Claudian accuses his troops of plundering for the next year or so as far south as the mountainous Peloponnese peninsula, and reports that only Stilicho's surprise attack with his western field army (having sailed from Italy) stemmed the plundering as he pushed Alaric's forces north into Epirus. Zosimus adds that Stilicho's troops destroyed and pillaged too, and let Alaric's men escape with their plunder.
Stilicho was forced to send some of his Eastern forces home. They went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome, who, Zosimus claims, controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep". A poem by Synesius advises Arcadius to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably referring to Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of this advice, but it had no recorded effect.
Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign indecisively against the Eastern empire; again he was opposed by Alaric and his men. During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as "magister militum per Illyricum" Alaric thus acquired entitlement to gold and grain for his followers and negotiations were underway for a more permanent settlement. Stilicho's supporters in Milan were outraged at this seeming betrayal; meanwhile, Eutropius was celebrated in 398 by a parade through Constantinople for having achieved victory over the "wolves of the North". Alaric's people were relatively quiet for the next couple of years. In 399, Eutropius fell from power. The new Eastern regime now felt that they could dispense with Alaric's services and they nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West. This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army—the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans—as a problem for Stilicho.
In search of Western Roman recognition; invading Italy.
According to historian Michael Kulikowski, sometime in the spring of 402 Alaric decided to invade Italy, but no sources from antiquity indicate to what purpose. Burns suggests that Alaric was probably desperate for provisions. Using Claudian as his source, historian Guy Halsall reports that Alaric's attack actually began in late 401, but since Stilicho was in "Raetia" "dealing with frontier issues" the two did not first confront one another in Italy until 402. Alaric's entry into Italy followed the route identified in the poetry of Claudian, as he crossed the peninsula's Alpine frontier near the city of Aquileia. For a period of six to nine months, there were reports of Gothic attacks along the northern Italian roads, where Alaric was spotted by Roman townspeople. Along the route on "Via Postumia", Alaric first encountered Stilicho.
Two battles were fought. The first was at Pollentia on Easter Sunday, where Stilicho (according to Claudian) achieved an impressive victory, taking Alaric's wife and children prisoner, and more significantly, seizing much of the treasure that Alaric had amassed over the previous five years' worth of plundering. Pursuing the retreating forces of Alaric, Stilicho offered to return the prisoners but was refused. The second battle was at Verona, where Alaric was defeated for a second time. Stilicho once again offered Alaric a truce and allowed him to withdraw from Italy. Kulikowski explains this confusing, if not outright conciliatory behavior by stating, "given Stilicho's cold war with Constantinople, it would have been foolish to destroy as biddable and violent a potential weapon as Alaric might well prove to be". Halsall's observations are similar, as he contends that the Roman general's "decision to permit Alaric's withdrawal into "Pannonia" makes sense if we see Alaric's force entering Stilicho's service, and Stilicho's victory being less total than Claudian would have us believe". Perhaps more revealing is a report from the Greek historian Zosimus—writing a half a century later—that indicates an agreement was concluded between Stilicho and Alaric in 405, which suggests Alaric being in "western service at that point", likely stemming from arrangements made back in 402. Between 404 and 405, Alaric remained in one of the four "Pannonian" provinces, from where he could "play East off against West while potentially threatening both".
Historian A.D. Lee observes, "Alaric's return to the north-west Balkans brought only temporary respite to Italy, for in 405 another substantial body of Goths and other barbarians, this time from outside the empire, crossed the middle Danube and advanced into northern Italy, where they plundered the countryside and besieged cities and towns" under their leader Radagaisus. Although the imperial government was struggling to muster enough troops to contain these barbarian invasions, Stilicho managed to stifle the threat posed by the tribes under Radagaisus, when the latter split his forces into three separate groups. Stilicho cornered Radagaisus near Florence and starved the invaders into submission. Meanwhile, Alaric—bestowed with codicils of "magister militum" by Stilicho and now supplied by the West—awaited for one side or the other to incite him to action as Stilicho faced further difficulties from more barbarians.
Second invasion of Italy, agreement with Western Roman regime.
Sometime in 406 and into 407, more large groups of barbarians, consisting primarily of Vandals, Sueves and Alans, crossed the Rhine into Gaul while about the same time a rebellion occurred in Britain. Under a common soldier named Constantine it spread to Gaul. Burdened by so many enemies, Stilicho's position was strained. During this crisis in 407, Alaric again marched on Italy, taking a position in Noricum (modern Austria), where he demanded a sum of 4,000 pounds of gold to buy off another full-scale invasion. The Roman Senate loathed the idea of supporting Alaric; Zosimus observed that one senator famously declaimed "Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis" ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude"). Stilicho paid Alaric the 4,000 pounds of gold nevertheless. This agreement, sensible in view of the military situation, fatally weakened Stilicho's standing at Honorius's court. Twice Stilicho had allowed Alaric to escape his grasp, and Radagaisus had advanced all the way to the outskirts of Florence.
Renewed hostilities after Western Roman coup.
In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself. He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before Stilicho could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Honorius's minister, Olympius. Stilicho's small escort of Goths and Huns was commanded by a Goth, Sarus, whose Gothic troops massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and then withdrew towards the cities in which their own families were billeted. Stilicho ordered that Sarus's Goths should not be admitted, but, now without an army, he was forced to flee for sanctuary. Agents of Olympius promised Stilicho his life, but instead betrayed and killed him.
Alaric was again declared an enemy of the emperor. Olympius's men then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected "en masse" to Alaric. Many thousands of barbarian auxiliaries, along with their wives and children, joined Alaric in Noricum. The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate, and had no policy except hunting down supporters of Stilicho. Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter.
As a declared 'enemy of the emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes, but he was refused because Olympius's regime regarded him as a supporter of Stilicho.
First siege of Rome, agreed ransom.
When Alaric was rebuffed, he led his force of around 30,000 men—many newly enlisted and understandably motivated—on a march toward Rome to avenge their murdered families. He moved across the Julian Alps into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and in September 408 he menaced the city of Rome, imposing a strict blockade. No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. When the ambassadors of the Senate, entreating for peace, tried to intimidate him with hints of what the despairing citizens might accomplish, he laughed and gave his celebrated answer: "The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!" After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper. Alaric also recruited some 40,000 freed Gothic slaves. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome.
Failed agreement with the Western Romans, Alaric sets up his own emperor.
After having provisionally agreed to the terms offered by Alaric for lifting the blockade, Honorius recanted; historian A.D. Lee highlights that one of the points of contention for the emperor was Alaric's expectation of being named head of the Roman Army, a post Honorius was not prepared to grant to Alaric. When this title was not bestowed onto Alaric, he proceeded to not only "besiege Rome again in late 409, but also to proclaim a leading senator, Priscus Attalus, as a rival emperor, from whom Alaric then received the appointment" he desired. Meanwhile, Alaric's newly appointed "emperor" Attalus, who seems not to have understood the limits of his power or his dependence on Alaric, failed to take Alaric's advice and lost the grain supply in Africa to a pro-Honorian "comes Africae", Heraclian. Then, sometime in 409, Attalus—accompanied by Alaric—marched on Ravenna and after receiving unprecedented terms and concessions from the legitimate emperor Honorius, refused him and instead demanded that Honorius be deposed and exiled. Fearing for his safety, Honorius made preparations to flee to Ravenna when ships carrying 4,000 troops arrived from Constantinople, restoring his resolve. Now that Honorius no longer felt the need to negotiate, Alaric (regretting his choice of puppet emperor) deposed Attalus, perhaps to re-open negotiations with Ravenna.
Sack of Rome.
Negotiations with Honorius might have succeeded had it not been for another intervention by Sarus, of the Amal family, and therefore a hereditary enemy of Alaric and his house. He attacked Alaric's men. Why Sarus, who had been in imperial service for years under Stilicho, acted at this moment remains a mystery, but Alaric interpreted this attack as directed by Ravenna and as bad faith from Honorius. No longer would negotiations suffice for Alaric, as his patience had reached its end, which led him to march on Rome for a third and final time.
On 24 August 410, Alaric and his forces began the sack of Rome, an assault that lasted three days. After hearing reports that Alaric had entered the city—possibly aided by Gothic slaves inside—there were reports that Emperor Honorius (safe in Ravenna) broke into "wailing and lamentation" but quickly calmed once "it was explained to him that it was the city of Rome that had met its end and not 'Roma'," his pet fowl. Writing from Bethlehem, St. Jerome (Letter 127.12, to the lady "Principia") lamented: "A dreadful rumour reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold . . . The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell to the sword." Nonetheless, Christian apologists also cited how Alaric ordered that anyone who took shelter in a Church was to be spared. When liturgical vessels were taken from the basilica of St. Peter and Alaric heard of this, he ordered them returned and had them ceremoniously restored in the church. If the account from the historian Orosius can be seen as accurate, there was even a celebratory recognition of Christian unity by way of a procession through the streets where Romans and barbarians alike "raised a hymn to God in public"; historian Edward James concludes that such stories are likely more political rhetoric of the "noble" barbarians than a reflection of historical reality.
According to historian Patrick Geary, Roman booty was not the focus of Alaric's sack of Rome; he came for needed food supplies. Historian Stephen Mitchell asserts that Alaric's followers seemed incapable of feeding themselves and relied on provisions "supplied by the Roman authorities." Whatever Alaric's intentions were cannot be known entirely, but Kulikowski certainly sees the issue of available treasure in a different light, writing that "For three days, Alaric's Goths sacked the city, stripping it of the wealth of centuries." The barbarian invaders were not gentle in their treatment of property as substantial damage was still evident into the sixth century. Certainly the Roman world was shaken by the fall of the Eternal City to barbarian invaders, but as Guy Halsall emphasizes, "Rome's fall had less striking political effects. Alaric, unable to treat with Honorius, remained in the political cold." Kulikowski sees the situation similarly, commenting:
But for Alaric the sack of Rome was an admission of defeat, a catastrophic failure. Everything he had hoped for, had fought for over the course of a decade and a half, went up in flames with the capital of the ancient world. Imperial office, a legitimate place for himself and his followers inside the empire, these were now forever out of reach. He might seize what he wanted, as he had seized Rome, but he would never be given it by right. The sack of Rome solved nothing and when the looting was over Alaric's men still had nowhere to live and fewer future prospects than ever before.
Still, the importance of Alaric cannot be "overestimated" according to Halsall, since he had desired and obtained a Roman command even though he was a barbarian; his real misfortune was being caught between the rivalry of the Eastern and Western empires and their court intrigue. According to historian Peter Brown, when one compares Alaric with other barbarians, "he was almost an Elder Statesman." Nonetheless, Alaric's respect for Roman institutions as a former servant to its highest office did not stay his hand in violently sacking the city that had for centuries exemplified Roman glory, leaving behind physical destruction and social disruption, while Alaric took clerics and even the emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, with him when he left the city. Many other Italian communities beyond the city of Rome itself fell victim to the forces under Alaric, as Procopius ("Wars" 3.2.11–13) writing in the sixth century later relates:
For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated.
Whether Alaric's forces wrought the level of destruction described by Procopius or not cannot be known, but evidence speaks to a significant population decrease, as the number of people on the food dole dropped from 800,000 in 408 to 500,000 by 419. Rome's fall to the barbarians was as much a psychological blow to the empire as anything else, since some Romans citizens saw the collapse as resulting from the conversion to Christianity, while Christian apologists like Augustine (writing "City of God") responded in turn. Lamenting Rome's capture, famed Christian theologian Jerome, wrote how "day and night" he could not stop thinking of everyone's safety, and moreover, how Alaric had extinguished "the bright light of all the world." Some contemporary Christian observers even saw Alaric—a professed Christian—as God's wrath upon a still pagan Rome.
Move to southern Italy, death from disease.
Not only had Rome's sack been a significant blow to the Roman people's morale, they had also endured two years' worth of trauma brought about by fear, hunger (due to blockades), and illness. However, the Goths were not long in the city of Rome, as only three days after the sack, Alaric marched his men south to Campania, from where he intended to sail to Sicily—probably to obtain grain and other supplies—when a storm destroyed his fleet. During the early months of 411, while on his northward return journey through Italy, Alaric took ill and died at Consentia in Bruttium. His cause of death was likely fever, and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento in accordance with the pagan practices of the Visigothic people. The stream was 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 labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret.
Second invasion of Italy, agreement with Western Roman regime.
Sometime in 406 and into 407, more large groups of barbarians, consisting primarily of Vandals, Sueves and Alans, crossed the Rhine into Gaul while about the same time a rebellion occurred in Britain. Under a common soldier named Constantine it spread to Gaul. Burdened by so many enemies, Stilicho's position was strained. During this crisis in 407, Alaric again marched on Italy, taking a position in Noricum (modern Austria), where he demanded a sum of 4,000 pounds of gold to buy off another full-scale invasion. The Roman Senate loathed the idea of supporting Alaric; Zosimus observed that one senator famously declaimed "Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis" ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude"). Stilicho paid Alaric the 4,000 pounds of gold nevertheless. This agreement, sensible in view of the military situation, fatally weakened Stilicho's standing at Honorius's court. Twice Stilicho had allowed Alaric to escape his grasp, and Radagaisus had advanced all the way to the outskirts of Florence.
Renewed hostilities after Western Roman coup.
In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself. He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before Stilicho could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Honorius's minister, Olympius. Stilicho's small escort of Goths and Huns was commanded by a Goth, Sarus, whose Gothic troops massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and then withdrew towards the cities in which their own families were billeted. Stilicho ordered that Sarus's Goths should not be admitted, but, now without an army, he was forced to flee for sanctuary. Agents of Olympius promised Stilicho his life, but instead betrayed and killed him.
Alaric was again declared an enemy of the emperor. Olympius's men then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected "en masse" to Alaric. Many thousands of barbarian auxiliaries, along with their wives and children, joined Alaric in Noricum. The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate, and had no policy except hunting down supporters of Stilicho. Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter.
As a declared 'enemy of the emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes, but he was refused because Olympius's regime regarded him as a supporter of Stilicho.
First siege of Rome, agreed ransom.
When Alaric was rebuffed, he led his force of around 30,000 men—many newly enlisted and understandably motivated—on a march toward Rome to avenge their murdered families. He moved across the Julian Alps into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and in September 408 he menaced the city of Rome, imposing a strict blockade. No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. When the ambassadors of the Senate, entreating for peace, tried to intimidate him with hints of what the despairing citizens might accomplish, he laughed and gave his celebrated answer: "The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!" After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper. Alaric also recruited some 40,000 freed Gothic slaves. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome.
Failed agreement with the Western Romans, Alaric sets up his own emperor.
After having provisionally agreed to the terms offered by Alaric for lifting the blockade, Honorius recanted; historian A.D. Lee highlights that one of the points of contention for the emperor was Alaric's expectation of being named head of the Roman Army, a post Honorius was not prepared to grant to Alaric. When this title was not bestowed onto Alaric, he proceeded to not only "besiege Rome again in late 409, but also to proclaim a leading senator, Priscus Attalus, as a rival emperor, from whom Alaric then received the appointment" he desired. Meanwhile, Alaric's newly appointed "emperor" Attalus, who seems not to have understood the limits of his power or his dependence on Alaric, failed to take Alaric's advice and lost the grain supply in Africa to a pro-Honorian "comes Africae", Heraclian. Then, sometime in 409, Attalus—accompanied by Alaric—marched on Ravenna and after receiving unprecedented terms and concessions from the legitimate emperor Honorius, refused him and instead demanded that Honorius be deposed and exiled. Fearing for his safety, Honorius made preparations to flee to Ravenna when ships carrying 4,000 troops arrived from Constantinople, restoring his resolve. Now that Honorius no longer felt the need to negotiate, Alaric (regretting his choice of puppet emperor) deposed Attalus, perhaps to re-open negotiations with Ravenna.
Sack of Rome.
Negotiations with Honorius might have succeeded had it not been for another intervention by Sarus, of the Amal family, and therefore a hereditary enemy of Alaric and his house. He attacked Alaric's men. Why Sarus, who had been in imperial service for years under Stilicho, acted at this moment remains a mystery, but Alaric interpreted this attack as directed by Ravenna and as bad faith from Honorius. No longer would negotiations suffice for Alaric, as his patience had reached its end, which led him to march on Rome for a third and final time.
On 24 August 410, Alaric and his forces began the sack of Rome, an assault that lasted three days. After hearing reports that Alaric had entered the city—possibly aided by Gothic slaves inside—there were reports that Emperor Honorius (safe in Ravenna) broke into "wailing and lamentation" but quickly calmed once "it was explained to him that it was the city of Rome that had met its end and not 'Roma'," his pet fowl. Writing from Bethlehem, St. Jerome (Letter 127.12, to the lady "Principia") lamented: "A dreadful rumour reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold . . . The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell to the sword." Nonetheless, Christian apologists also cited how Alaric ordered that anyone who took shelter in a Church was to be spared. When liturgical vessels were taken from the basilica of St. Peter and Alaric heard of this, he ordered them returned and had them ceremoniously restored in the church. If the account from the historian Orosius can be seen as accurate, there was even a celebratory recognition of Christian unity by way of a procession through the streets where Romans and barbarians alike "raised a hymn to God in public"; historian Edward James concludes that such stories are likely more political rhetoric of the "noble" barbarians than a reflection of historical reality.
According to historian Patrick Geary, Roman booty was not the focus of Alaric's sack of Rome; he came for needed food supplies. Historian Stephen Mitchell asserts that Alaric's followers seemed incapable of feeding themselves and relied on provisions "supplied by the Roman authorities." Whatever Alaric's intentions were cannot be known entirely, but Kulikowski certainly sees the issue of available treasure in a different light, writing that "For three days, Alaric's Goths sacked the city, stripping it of the wealth of centuries." The barbarian invaders were not gentle in their treatment of property as substantial damage was still evident into the sixth century. Certainly the Roman world was shaken by the fall of the Eternal City to barbarian invaders, but as Guy Halsall emphasizes, "Rome's fall had less striking political effects. Alaric, unable to treat with Honorius, remained in the political cold." Kulikowski sees the situation similarly, commenting:
But for Alaric the sack of Rome was an admission of defeat, a catastrophic failure. Everything he had hoped for, had fought for over the course of a decade and a half, went up in flames with the capital of the ancient world. Imperial office, a legitimate place for himself and his followers inside the empire, these were now forever out of reach. He might seize what he wanted, as he had seized Rome, but he would never be given it by right. The sack of Rome solved nothing and when the looting was over Alaric's men still had nowhere to live and fewer future prospects than ever before.
Still, the importance of Alaric cannot be "overestimated" according to Halsall, since he had desired and obtained a Roman command even though he was a barbarian; his real misfortune was being caught between the rivalry of the Eastern and Western empires and their court intrigue. According to historian Peter Brown, when one compares Alaric with other barbarians, "he was almost an Elder Statesman." Nonetheless, Alaric's respect for Roman institutions as a former servant to its highest office did not stay his hand in violently sacking the city that had for centuries exemplified Roman glory, leaving behind physical destruction and social disruption, while Alaric took clerics and even the emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, with him when he left the city. Many other Italian communities beyond the city of Rome itself fell victim to the forces under Alaric, as Procopius ("Wars" 3.2.11–13) writing in the sixth century later relates:
For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated.
Whether Alaric's forces wrought the level of destruction described by Procopius or not cannot be known, but evidence speaks to a significant population decrease, as the number of people on the food dole dropped from 800,000 in 408 to 500,000 by 419. Rome's fall to the barbarians was as much a psychological blow to the empire as anything else, since some Romans citizens saw the collapse as resulting from the conversion to Christianity, while Christian apologists like Augustine (writing "City of God") responded in turn. Lamenting Rome's capture, famed Christian theologian Jerome, wrote how "day and night" he could not stop thinking of everyone's safety, and moreover, how Alaric had extinguished "the bright light of all the world." Some contemporary Christian observers even saw Alaric—a professed Christian—as God's wrath upon a still pagan Rome.
Move to southern Italy, death from disease.
Not only had Rome's sack been a significant blow to the Roman people's morale, they had also endured two years' worth of trauma brought about by fear, hunger (due to blockades), and illness. However, the Goths were not long in the city of Rome, as only three days after the sack, Alaric marched his men south to Campania, from where he intended to sail to Sicily—probably to obtain grain and other supplies—when a storm destroyed his fleet. During the early months of 411, while on his northward return journey through Italy, Alaric took ill and died at Consentia in Bruttium. His cause of death was likely fever, and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento in accordance with the pagan practices of the Visigothic people. The stream was 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 labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret.
Aftermath.
Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius' sister Galla Placidia three years later. Following in the wake of Alaric's leadership, which Kulikowski claims, had given his people "a sense of community that survived his own death...Alaric's Goths remained together inside the empire, going on to settle in Gaul. There, in the province of Aquitaine, they put down roots and created the first autonomous barbarian kingdom inside the frontiers of the Roman empire." The Goths were able to settle in Aquitaine only after Honorius granted the once Roman province to them, sometime in 418 or 419. Not long after Alaric's exploits in Rome and Athaulf's settlement in Aquitaine, there is a "rapid emergence of Germanic barbarian groups in the West" who begin controlling many western provinces. These barbarian peoples included: Vandals in Spain and Africa, Visigoths in Spain and Aquitaine, Burgundians along the upper Rhine and southern Gaul, and Franks on the lower Rhine and in northern and central Gaul.
Sources.
The chief authorities on the career of Alaric are: the historian Orosius and the poet Claudian, both contemporary, neither disinterested; Zosimus, a historian who lived probably about half a century after Alaric's death; and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation in 551, basing his work on Cassiodorus's "Gothic History".
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1573
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USS Feland (AP-18)
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1575
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Alboin
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Alboin (530s – 28 June 572) was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572. He had a lasting effect on Italy and the Pannonian Basin; in the former his invasion marked the beginning of centuries of Lombard rule, and in the latter his defeat of the Gepids and his departure from Pannonia ended the dominance there of the Germanic peoples.
The period of Alboin's reign as king in Pannonia following the death of his father, Audoin, was one of confrontation and conflict between the Lombards and their main neighbors, the Gepids. The Gepids initially gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied. The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, and he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire's vulnerability in defending its territory in the wake of the Gothic War.
After gathering a large coalition of peoples, Alboin crossed the Julian Alps in 568, entering an almost undefended Italy. He rapidly took control of most of Venetia and Liguria. In 569, unopposed, he took northern Italy's main city, Milan. Pavia offered stiff resistance however, and was taken only after a siege lasting three years. During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army increasingly began to manifest themselves.
Alboin was assassinated on 28 June 572, in a coup d'état instigated by the Byzantines. It was organized by the king's foster brother, Helmichis, with the support of Alboin's wife, Rosamund, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier. The coup failed in the face of opposition from a majority of the Lombards, who elected Cleph as Alboin's successor, forcing Helmichis and Rosamund to flee to Ravenna under imperial protection. Alboin's death deprived the Lombards of the only leader who could have kept the newborn Germanic entity together, the last in the line of hero-kings who had led the Lombards through their migrations from the vale of the Elbe to Italy. For many centuries following his death Alboin's heroism and his success in battle were celebrated in Saxon and Bavarian epic poetry.
Etymology.
The name Alboin derives from the Proto-Germanic roots ("elf") and ("friend"); it is thus cognate with the Old English name "Ælfwine". He was known in Latin as "Alboinus" and in Greek as Ἀλβοΐνος ("Alboinos"). In modern Italian he is "Alboino" and in modern Lombard "Albuì".
Father's rule.
The Lombards under King Wacho had migrated towards the east into Pannonia, taking advantage of the difficulties facing the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy following the death of its founder, Theodoric, in 526. Wacho's death in about 540 brought his son Walthari to the throne, but, as the latter was still a minor, the kingdom was governed in his stead by Alboin's father, Audoin, of the Gausian clan. Seven years later Walthari died, giving Audoin the opportunity to crown himself and overthrow the reigning Lethings.
Alboin was probably born in the 530s in Pannonia, the son of Audoin and his wife, Rodelinda. She may have been the niece of King Theodoric and betrothed to Audoin through the mediation of Emperor Justinian. Like his father, Alboin was raised a pagan, although Audoin had at one point attempted to gain Byzantine support against his neighbours by professing himself a Christian. Alboin took as his first wife the Christian Chlothsind, daughter of the Frankish King Chlothar. This marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, who had been lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids. The new Frankish alliance was important because of the Franks' known hostility to the Byzantine empire, providing the Lombards with more than one option. However, the "Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire" interprets events and sources differently, believing that Alboin married Chlothsind when already a king in or shortly before 561, the year of Chlothar's death.
Alboin first distinguished himself on the battlefield in a clash with the Gepids. At the Battle of Asfeld (552), he killed Turismod, son of the Gepid king Thurisind, in a victory that resulted in the Emperor Justinian's intervention to maintain equilibrium between the rival regional powers. After the battle, according to a tradition reported by Paul the Deacon, to be granted the right to sit at his father's table, Alboin had to ask for the hospitality of a foreign king and have him donate his weapons, as was customary. For this initiation, he went to the court of Thurisind, where the Gepid king gave him Turismod's arms. Walter Goffart believes it is probable that in this narrative Paul was making use of an oral tradition, and is sceptical that it can be dismissed as merely a typical "topos" of an epic poem.
Reign in Pannonia.
Alboin came to the throne after the death of his father, sometime between 560 and 565. As was customary among the Lombards, Alboin took the crown after an election by the tribe's freemen, who traditionally selected the king from the dead sovereign's clan. Shortly afterwards, in 565, a new war erupted with the Gepids, now led by Cunimund, Thurisind's son. The cause of the conflict is uncertain, as the sources are divided; the Lombard Paul the Deacon accuses the Gepids, while the Byzantine historian Menander Protector places the blame on Alboin, an interpretation favoured by historian Walter Pohl.
An account of the war by the Byzantine Theophylact Simocatta sentimentalises the reasons behind the conflict, claiming it originated with Alboin's vain courting and subsequent kidnapping of Cunimund's daughter Rosamund, that Alboin proceeded then to marry. The tale is treated with scepticism by Walter Goffart, who observes that it conflicts with the "Origo Gentis Langobardorum", where she was captured only after the death of her father. The Gepids obtained the support of the Emperor in exchange for a promise to cede him the region of Sirmium, the seat of the Gepid kings. Thus in 565 or 566 Justinian's successor Justin II sent his son-in-law Baduarius as "magister militum" (field commander) to lead a Byzantine army against Alboin in support of Cunimund, ending in the Lombards' complete defeat.
Faced with the possibility of annihilation, Alboin made an alliance in 566 with the Avars under Bayan I, at the expense of some tough conditions: the Avars demanded a tenth of the Lombards' cattle, half of the war booty, and on the war's conclusion all of the lands held by the Gepids. The Lombards played on the pre-existing hostility between the Avars and the Byzantines, claiming that the latter were allied with the Gepids. Cunimund, on the other hand, encountered hostility when he once again asked the Emperor for military assistance, as the Byzantines had been angered by the Gepids' failure to cede Sirmium to them, as had been agreed. Moreover, Justin II was moving away from the foreign policy of Justinian, and believed in dealing more strictly with bordering states and peoples. Attempts to mollify Justin II with tributes failed, and as a result the Byzantines kept themselves neutral if not outright supportive of the Avars.
In 567 the allies made their final move against Cunimund, with Alboin invading the Gepids' lands from the northwest while Bayan attacked from the northeast. Cunimund attempted to prevent the two armies joining up by moving against the Lombards and clashing with Alboin somewhere between the Tibiscus and Danube rivers. The Gepids were defeated in the ensuing battle, their king slain by Alboin, and Cunimund's daughter Rosamund taken captive, according to references in the "Origo". The full destruction of the Gepid kingdom was completed by the Avars, who overcame the Gepids in the east. As a result, the Gepids ceased to exist as an independent people, and were partly absorbed by the Lombards and the Avars. Some time before 568, Alboin's first wife Chlothsind died, and after his victory against Cunimund Alboin married Rosamund, to establish a bond with the remaining Gepids. The war also marked a watershed in the geo-political history of the region, as together with the Lombard migration the following year, it signalled the end of six centuries of Germanic dominance in the Pannonian Basin.
Preparations and departure from Pannonia.
Despite his success against the Gepids, Alboin had failed to greatly increase his power, and was now faced with a much stronger threat from the Avars. Historians consider this the decisive factor in convincing Alboin to undertake a migration, even though there are indications that before the war with the Gepids a decision was maturing to leave for Italy, a country thousands of Lombards had seen in the 550s when hired by the Byzantines to fight in the Gothic War. Additionally, the Lombards would have known of the weakness of Byzantine Italy, which had endured a number of problems after being retaken from the Goths. In particular the so-called Plague of Justinian had ravaged the region and conflict remained endemic, with the Three-Chapter Controversy sparking religious opposition and administration at a standstill after the able governor of the peninsula, Narses, was recalled. Nevertheless, the Lombards viewed Italy as a rich land which promised great booty, assets Alboin used to gather together a horde which included not only Lombards but many other peoples of the region, including Heruli, Suebi, Gepids, Thuringii, Bulgars, Sarmatians, the remaining Romans and a few Ostrogoths. But the most important group, other than the Lombards, were the Saxons, of whom 20,000 male warriors with their families participated in the trek. These Saxons were tributaries to the Frankish King Sigebert, and their participation indicates that Alboin had the support of the Franks for his venture.
The precise size of the heterogeneous group gathered by Alboin is impossible to know, and many different estimates have been made. Neil Christie considers 150,000 to be a realistic size, a number which would make the Lombards a more numerous force than the Ostrogoths on the eve of their invasion of Italy. Jörg Jarnut proposes 100,000–150,000 as an approximation; Wilfried Menghen in "Die Langobarden" estimates 150,000 to 200,000; while Stefano Gasparri cautiously judges the peoples united by Alboin to be somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000.
As a precautionary move Alboin strengthened his alliance with the Avars, signing what Paul calls a "foedus perpetuum" ("perpetual treaty") and what is referred to in the 9th-century "Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani" as a "pactum et foedus amicitiae" ("pact and treaty of friendship"), adding that the treaty was put down on paper. By the conditions accepted in the treaty, the Avars were to take possession of Pannonia and the Lombards were promised military support in Italy should the need arise; also, for a period of 200 years the Lombards were to maintain the right to reclaim their former territories if the plan to conquer Italy failed, thus leaving Alboin with an alternative open. The accord also had the advantage of protecting Alboin's rear, as an Avar-occupied Pannonia would make it difficult for the Byzantines to bring forces to Italy by land. The agreement proved immensely successful, and relations with the Avars were almost uninterruptedly friendly during the lifetime of the Lombard Kingdom.
A further cause of the Lombard migration into Italy may have been an invitation from Narses. According to a controversial tradition reported by several medieval sources, Narses, out of spite for having been removed by Justinian's successor Justin II, called the Lombards to Italy. Often dismissed as an unreliable tradition, it has been studied with attention by modern scholars, in particular Neil Christie, who see in it a possible record of a formal invitation by the Byzantine state to settle in northern Italy as "foederati", to help protect the region against the Franks, an arrangement that may have been disowned by Justin II after Narses' removal.
March to Italy.
The Lombard migration started on Easter Monday, 2 April 568. The decision to combine the departure with a Christian celebration can be understood in the context of Alboin's recent conversion to Arian Christianity, as attested by the presence of Arian Gothic missionaries at his court. The conversion is likely to have been motivated mostly by political considerations, and intended to consolidate the migration's cohesion, distinguishing the migrants from the Catholic Romans. It also connected Alboin and his people to the Gothic heritage, and in this way obtain the support of the Ostrogoths serving in the Byzantine army as "foederati". It has been speculated that Alboin's migration could have been partly the result of a call from surviving Ostrogoths in Italy.
The season chosen for leaving Pannonia was unusually early; the Germanic peoples generally waited until autumn before beginning a migration, giving themselves time to do the harvesting and replenish their granaries for the march. The reason behind the spring departure could be the anxiety induced by the neighboring Avars, despite the friendship treaty. Nomadic peoples like the Avars also waited for autumn to begin their military campaigns, as they needed enough forage for their horses. A sign of this anxiety can also be seen in the decision taken by Alboin to ravage Pannonia, which created a safety zone between the Lombards and the Avars.
The road followed by Alboin to reach Italy has been the subject of controversy, as is the length of the trek. According to Neil Christie the Lombards divided themselves into migrational groups, with a vanguard scouting the road, probably following the Poetovio – Celeia – Emona – Forum Iulii route, while the wagons and most of the people proceeded slowly behind because of the goods and chattels they brought with them, and possibly also because they were waiting for the Saxons to join them on the road. By September raiding parties were looting Venetia, but it was probably only in 569 that the Julian Alps were crossed at the Vipava Valley; the eyewitness Secundus of Non gives the date as 20 or 21 May. The 569 date for the entry into Italy is not void of difficulties however, and Jörg Jarnut believes the conquest of most of Venetia had already been completed in 568. According to Carlo Guido Mor, a major difficulty remains in explaining how Alboin could have reached Milan on 3 September assuming he had passed the border only in the May of the same year.
March to Italy.
The Lombard migration started on Easter Monday, 2 April 568. The decision to combine the departure with a Christian celebration can be understood in the context of Alboin's recent conversion to Arian Christianity, as attested by the presence of Arian Gothic missionaries at his court. The conversion is likely to have been motivated mostly by political considerations, and intended to consolidate the migration's cohesion, distinguishing the migrants from the Catholic Romans. It also connected Alboin and his people to the Gothic heritage, and in this way obtain the support of the Ostrogoths serving in the Byzantine army as "foederati". It has been speculated that Alboin's migration could have been partly the result of a call from surviving Ostrogoths in Italy.
The season chosen for leaving Pannonia was unusually early; the Germanic peoples generally waited until autumn before beginning a migration, giving themselves time to do the harvesting and replenish their granaries for the march. The reason behind the spring departure could be the anxiety induced by the neighboring Avars, despite the friendship treaty. Nomadic peoples like the Avars also waited for autumn to begin their military campaigns, as they needed enough forage for their horses. A sign of this anxiety can also be seen in the decision taken by Alboin to ravage Pannonia, which created a safety zone between the Lombards and the Avars.
The road followed by Alboin to reach Italy has been the subject of controversy, as is the length of the trek. According to Neil Christie the Lombards divided themselves into migrational groups, with a vanguard scouting the road, probably following the Poetovio – Celeia – Emona – Forum Iulii route, while the wagons and most of the people proceeded slowly behind because of the goods and chattels they brought with them, and possibly also because they were waiting for the Saxons to join them on the road. By September raiding parties were looting Venetia, but it was probably only in 569 that the Julian Alps were crossed at the Vipava Valley; the eyewitness Secundus of Non gives the date as 20 or 21 May. The 569 date for the entry into Italy is not void of difficulties however, and Jörg Jarnut believes the conquest of most of Venetia had already been completed in 568. According to Carlo Guido Mor, a major difficulty remains in explaining how Alboin could have reached Milan on 3 September assuming he had passed the border only in the May of the same year.
Invasion of Italy.
Foundation of the Duchy of Friuli.
The Lombards penetrated into Italy without meeting any resistance from the border troops ("milities limitanei"). The Byzantine military resources available on the spot were scant and of dubious loyalty, and the border forts may well have been left unmanned. What seems certain is that archaeological excavations have found no sign of violent confrontation in the sites that have been excavated. This agrees with Paul the Deacon's narrative, who speaks of a Lombard takeover in Friuli "without any hindrance".
The first town to fall into the Lombards' hands was Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli), the seat of the local "magister militum". Alboin chose this walled town close to the frontier to be capital of the Duchy of Friuli and made his nephew and shield bearer, Gisulf, duke of the region, with the specific duty of defending the borders from Byzantine or Avar attacks from the east. Gisulf obtained from his uncle the right to choose for his duchy those "farae", or clans, that he preferred.
Alboin's decision to create a duchy and designate a duke were both important innovations; until then, the Lombards had never had dukes or duchies based on a walled town. The innovation adopted was part of Alboin's borrowing of Roman and Ostrogothic administrative models, as in Late Antiquity the "comes civitatis" (city count) was the main local authority, with full administrative powers in his region. But the shift from count ("comes") to duke ("dux") and from county ("comitatus") to duchy ("ducatus") also signalled the progressive militarization of Italy. The selection of a fortified town as the centre for the new duchy was also an important change from the time in Pannonia, for while urbanized settlements had previously been ignored by the Lombards, now a considerable part of the nobility settled itself in Forum Iulii, a pattern that was repeated regularly by the Lombards in their other duchies.
Conquest of Milan.
From Forum Iulii, Alboin next reached Aquileia, the most important road junction in the northeast, and the administrative capital of Venetia. The imminent arrival of the Lombards had a considerable impact on the city's population; the Patriarch of Aquileia Paulinus fled with his clergy and flock to the island of Grado in Byzantine-controlled territory.
From Aquileia, Alboin took the Via Postumia and swept through Venetia, taking in rapid succession Tarvisium (Treviso), Vicentia (Vicenza), Verona, Brixia (Brescia) and Bergomum (Bergamo). The Lombards faced difficulties only in taking Opitergium (Oderzo), which Alboin decided to avoid, as he similarly avoided tackling the main Venetian towns closer to the coast on the Via Annia, such as Altinum, Patavium (Padova), Mons Silicis (Monselice), Mantua and Cremona. The invasion of Venetia generated a considerable level of turmoil, spurring waves of refugees from the Lombard-controlled interior to the Byzantine-held coast, often led by their bishops, and resulting in new settlements such as Torcello and Heraclia.
Alboin moved west in his march, invading the region of Liguria (north-west Italy) and reaching its capital Mediolanum (Milan) on 3 September 569, only to find it already abandoned by the "vicarius Italiae" (vicar of Italy), the authority entrusted with the administration of the diocese of Annonarian Italy. Archbishop Honoratus, his clergy, and part of the laity accompanied the "vicarius Italiae" to find a safe haven in the Byzantine port of Genua (Genoa). Alboin counted the years of his reign from the capture of Milan, when he assumed the title of "dominus Italiae" (Lord of Italy). His success also meant the collapse of Byzantine defences in the northern part of the Po plain, and large movements of refugees to Byzantine areas.
Several explanations have been advanced to explain the swiftness and ease of the initial Lombard advance in northern Italy. It has been suggested that the towns' doors may have been opened by the betrayal of the Gothic auxiliaries in the Byzantine army, but historians generally hold that Lombard success occurred because Italy was not considered by Byzantium as a vital part of the empire, especially at a time when the empire was imperilled by the attacks of Avars and Slavs in the Balkans and Sassanids in the east. The Byzantine decision not to contest the Lombard invasion reflects the desire of Justinian's successors to reorient the core of the Empire's policies eastward.
Impact of the migration on Annonarian Italy.
The impact of the Lombard migration on the Late Roman aristocracy was disruptive, especially in combination with the Gothic War; the latter conflict had finished in the north only in 562, when the last Gothic stronghold, Verona, was taken. Many men of means (Paul's "possessores") either lost their lives or their goods, but the exact extent of the despoliation of the Roman aristocracy is a subject of heated debate. The clergy was also greatly affected. The Lombards were mostly pagans, and displayed little respect for the clergy and Church property. Many churchmen left their sees to escape from the Lombards, like the two most senior bishops in the north, Honoratus and Paulinus. However, most of the suffragan bishops in the north sought an accommodation with the Lombards, as did in 569 the bishop of Tarvisium, Felix, when he journeyed to the Piave river to parley with Alboin, obtaining respect for the Church and its goods in return for this act of homage. It seems certain that many sees maintained an uninterrupted episcopal succession through the turmoil of the invasion and the following years. The transition was eased by the hostility existing among the northern Italian bishops towards the papacy and the empire due to the religious dispute involving the "Three-Chapter Controversy". In Lombard territory, churchmen were at least sure to avoid imperial religious persecution.
In the view of Pierre Riché, the disappearance of 220 bishops' seats indicates that the Lombard migration was a crippling catastrophe for the Church. Yet according to Walter Pohl the regions directly occupied by Alboin suffered less devastation and had a relatively robust survival rate for towns, whereas the occupation of territory by autonomous military bands interested mainly in raiding and looting had a more severe impact, with the bishoprics in such places rarely surviving.
Siege of Ticinum.
The first attested instance of strong resistance to Alboin's migration took place at the town of Ticinum (Pavia), which he started to besiege in 569 and captured only after three years. The town was of strategic importance, sitting at the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino and connected by waterways to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy and the seat of the Praetorian prefecture of Italy. Its fall cut direct communications between the garrisons stationed on the Alpes Maritimae and the Adriatic coast.
Careful to maintain the initiative against the Byzantines, by 570 Alboin had taken their last defences in northern Italy except for the coastal areas of Liguria and Venetia and a few isolated inland centres such as Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), Segusio (Susa), and the island of Amacina in the Larius Lucus (Lake Como). During Alboin's kingship the Lombards crossed the Apennines and plundered Tuscia, but historians are not in full agreement as to whether this took place under his guidance and if this constituted anything more than raiding. According to Herwig Wolfram, it was probably only in 578–579 that Tuscany was conquered, but Jörg Jarnut and others believe this began in some form under Alboin, although it was not completed by the time of his death.
Alboin's problems in maintaining control over his people worsened during the siege of Ticinum. The nature of the Lombard monarchy made it difficult for a ruler to exert the same degree of authority over his subjects as had been exercised by Theodoric over his Goths, and the structure of the army gave great authority to the military commanders or "duces", who led each band ("fara") of warriors. Additionally, the difficulties encountered by Alboin in building a solid political entity resulted from a lack of imperial legitimacy, as unlike the Ostrogoths, they had not entered Italy as "foederati" but as enemies of the Empire.
The king's disintegrating authority over his army was also manifested in the invasion of Frankish Burgundy which from 569 or 570 was subject to yearly raids on a major scale. The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus' victory at Embrun. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard-Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram in about 571. Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia, Sigebert I. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham.
The weakening of royal authority may also have resulted in the conquest of much of southern Italy by the Lombards, in which modern scholars believe Alboin played no role at all, probably taking place in 570 or 571 under the auspices of individual warlords. However it is far from certain that the Lombard takeover occurred during those years, as very little is known of Faroald and Zotto's respective rises to power in Spoletium (Spoleto) and Beneventum (Benevento).
Foundation of the Duchy of Friuli.
The Lombards penetrated into Italy without meeting any resistance from the border troops ("milities limitanei"). The Byzantine military resources available on the spot were scant and of dubious loyalty, and the border forts may well have been left unmanned. What seems certain is that archaeological excavations have found no sign of violent confrontation in the sites that have been excavated. This agrees with Paul the Deacon's narrative, who speaks of a Lombard takeover in Friuli "without any hindrance".
The first town to fall into the Lombards' hands was Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli), the seat of the local "magister militum". Alboin chose this walled town close to the frontier to be capital of the Duchy of Friuli and made his nephew and shield bearer, Gisulf, duke of the region, with the specific duty of defending the borders from Byzantine or Avar attacks from the east. Gisulf obtained from his uncle the right to choose for his duchy those "farae", or clans, that he preferred.
Alboin's decision to create a duchy and designate a duke were both important innovations; until then, the Lombards had never had dukes or duchies based on a walled town. The innovation adopted was part of Alboin's borrowing of Roman and Ostrogothic administrative models, as in Late Antiquity the "comes civitatis" (city count) was the main local authority, with full administrative powers in his region. But the shift from count ("comes") to duke ("dux") and from county ("comitatus") to duchy ("ducatus") also signalled the progressive militarization of Italy. The selection of a fortified town as the centre for the new duchy was also an important change from the time in Pannonia, for while urbanized settlements had previously been ignored by the Lombards, now a considerable part of the nobility settled itself in Forum Iulii, a pattern that was repeated regularly by the Lombards in their other duchies.
Conquest of Milan.
From Forum Iulii, Alboin next reached Aquileia, the most important road junction in the northeast, and the administrative capital of Venetia. The imminent arrival of the Lombards had a considerable impact on the city's population; the Patriarch of Aquileia Paulinus fled with his clergy and flock to the island of Grado in Byzantine-controlled territory.
From Aquileia, Alboin took the Via Postumia and swept through Venetia, taking in rapid succession Tarvisium (Treviso), Vicentia (Vicenza), Verona, Brixia (Brescia) and Bergomum (Bergamo). The Lombards faced difficulties only in taking Opitergium (Oderzo), which Alboin decided to avoid, as he similarly avoided tackling the main Venetian towns closer to the coast on the Via Annia, such as Altinum, Patavium (Padova), Mons Silicis (Monselice), Mantua and Cremona. The invasion of Venetia generated a considerable level of turmoil, spurring waves of refugees from the Lombard-controlled interior to the Byzantine-held coast, often led by their bishops, and resulting in new settlements such as Torcello and Heraclia.
Alboin moved west in his march, invading the region of Liguria (north-west Italy) and reaching its capital Mediolanum (Milan) on 3 September 569, only to find it already abandoned by the "vicarius Italiae" (vicar of Italy), the authority entrusted with the administration of the diocese of Annonarian Italy. Archbishop Honoratus, his clergy, and part of the laity accompanied the "vicarius Italiae" to find a safe haven in the Byzantine port of Genua (Genoa). Alboin counted the years of his reign from the capture of Milan, when he assumed the title of "dominus Italiae" (Lord of Italy). His success also meant the collapse of Byzantine defences in the northern part of the Po plain, and large movements of refugees to Byzantine areas.
Several explanations have been advanced to explain the swiftness and ease of the initial Lombard advance in northern Italy. It has been suggested that the towns' doors may have been opened by the betrayal of the Gothic auxiliaries in the Byzantine army, but historians generally hold that Lombard success occurred because Italy was not considered by Byzantium as a vital part of the empire, especially at a time when the empire was imperilled by the attacks of Avars and Slavs in the Balkans and Sassanids in the east. The Byzantine decision not to contest the Lombard invasion reflects the desire of Justinian's successors to reorient the core of the Empire's policies eastward.
Impact of the migration on Annonarian Italy.
The impact of the Lombard migration on the Late Roman aristocracy was disruptive, especially in combination with the Gothic War; the latter conflict had finished in the north only in 562, when the last Gothic stronghold, Verona, was taken. Many men of means (Paul's "possessores") either lost their lives or their goods, but the exact extent of the despoliation of the Roman aristocracy is a subject of heated debate. The clergy was also greatly affected. The Lombards were mostly pagans, and displayed little respect for the clergy and Church property. Many churchmen left their sees to escape from the Lombards, like the two most senior bishops in the north, Honoratus and Paulinus. However, most of the suffragan bishops in the north sought an accommodation with the Lombards, as did in 569 the bishop of Tarvisium, Felix, when he journeyed to the Piave river to parley with Alboin, obtaining respect for the Church and its goods in return for this act of homage. It seems certain that many sees maintained an uninterrupted episcopal succession through the turmoil of the invasion and the following years. The transition was eased by the hostility existing among the northern Italian bishops towards the papacy and the empire due to the religious dispute involving the "Three-Chapter Controversy". In Lombard territory, churchmen were at least sure to avoid imperial religious persecution.
In the view of Pierre Riché, the disappearance of 220 bishops' seats indicates that the Lombard migration was a crippling catastrophe for the Church. Yet according to Walter Pohl the regions directly occupied by Alboin suffered less devastation and had a relatively robust survival rate for towns, whereas the occupation of territory by autonomous military bands interested mainly in raiding and looting had a more severe impact, with the bishoprics in such places rarely surviving.
Siege of Ticinum.
The first attested instance of strong resistance to Alboin's migration took place at the town of Ticinum (Pavia), which he started to besiege in 569 and captured only after three years. The town was of strategic importance, sitting at the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino and connected by waterways to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy and the seat of the Praetorian prefecture of Italy. Its fall cut direct communications between the garrisons stationed on the Alpes Maritimae and the Adriatic coast.
Careful to maintain the initiative against the Byzantines, by 570 Alboin had taken their last defences in northern Italy except for the coastal areas of Liguria and Venetia and a few isolated inland centres such as Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), Segusio (Susa), and the island of Amacina in the Larius Lucus (Lake Como). During Alboin's kingship the Lombards crossed the Apennines and plundered Tuscia, but historians are not in full agreement as to whether this took place under his guidance and if this constituted anything more than raiding. According to Herwig Wolfram, it was probably only in 578–579 that Tuscany was conquered, but Jörg Jarnut and others believe this began in some form under Alboin, although it was not completed by the time of his death.
Alboin's problems in maintaining control over his people worsened during the siege of Ticinum. The nature of the Lombard monarchy made it difficult for a ruler to exert the same degree of authority over his subjects as had been exercised by Theodoric over his Goths, and the structure of the army gave great authority to the military commanders or "duces", who led each band ("fara") of warriors. Additionally, the difficulties encountered by Alboin in building a solid political entity resulted from a lack of imperial legitimacy, as unlike the Ostrogoths, they had not entered Italy as "foederati" but as enemies of the Empire.
The king's disintegrating authority over his army was also manifested in the invasion of Frankish Burgundy which from 569 or 570 was subject to yearly raids on a major scale. The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus' victory at Embrun. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard-Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram in about 571. Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia, Sigebert I. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham.
The weakening of royal authority may also have resulted in the conquest of much of southern Italy by the Lombards, in which modern scholars believe Alboin played no role at all, probably taking place in 570 or 571 under the auspices of individual warlords. However it is far from certain that the Lombard takeover occurred during those years, as very little is known of Faroald and Zotto's respective rises to power in Spoletium (Spoleto) and Beneventum (Benevento).
Assassination.
Earliest narratives.
Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.
It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on 28 June 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin's death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by Marius of Aventicum in his "Chronica", written about a decade after Alboin's murder. According to his version the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called Hilmegis (Paul's Helmechis), with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. Roger Collins describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.
Also contemporary is Gregory of Tours' account presented in the "Historia Francorum", and echoed by the later Fredegar. Gregory's account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband's servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the "Historia" and calls its account of Alboin's demise "a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity".
Skull cup.
Elements present in Marius' account are echoed in Paul's "Historia Langobardorum", which also contains distinctive features. One of the best known aspects unavailable in any other source is that of the skull cup. In Paul, the events that led to Alboin's downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast, Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin "invited her to drink merrily with her father". This reignited the queen's determination to avenge her father.
The tale has been often dismissed as a fable and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason, he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king Ratchis. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples and, in particular, among the Lombards' neighbors, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a shamanistic ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man's powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund's skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy's skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen's answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.
The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the promised land, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites original sin and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull, but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.
Death.
In her plan to kill her husband Rosamund found an ally in Helmichis, the king's foster brother and "spatharius" (arms bearer). According to Paul the queen then recruited the king's "cubicularius" (bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on 28 June, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin's sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him. Alboin's remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.
Peredeo's figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the "Origo" had for the first time mentioned his name as "Peritheus", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo's name and the Latin word "peritus", meaning "lost", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.
Alboin's death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elbe to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and Bavarians celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.
Earliest narratives.
Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.
It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on 28 June 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin's death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by Marius of Aventicum in his "Chronica", written about a decade after Alboin's murder. According to his version the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called Hilmegis (Paul's Helmechis), with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. Roger Collins describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.
Also contemporary is Gregory of Tours' account presented in the "Historia Francorum", and echoed by the later Fredegar. Gregory's account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband's servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the "Historia" and calls its account of Alboin's demise "a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity".
Skull cup.
Elements present in Marius' account are echoed in Paul's "Historia Langobardorum", which also contains distinctive features. One of the best known aspects unavailable in any other source is that of the skull cup. In Paul, the events that led to Alboin's downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast, Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin "invited her to drink merrily with her father". This reignited the queen's determination to avenge her father.
The tale has been often dismissed as a fable and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason, he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king Ratchis. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples and, in particular, among the Lombards' neighbors, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a shamanistic ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man's powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund's skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy's skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen's answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.
The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the promised land, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites original sin and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull, but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.
Death.
In her plan to kill her husband Rosamund found an ally in Helmichis, the king's foster brother and "spatharius" (arms bearer). According to Paul the queen then recruited the king's "cubicularius" (bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on 28 June, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin's sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him. Alboin's remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.
Peredeo's figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the "Origo" had for the first time mentioned his name as "Peritheus", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo's name and the Latin word "peritus", meaning "lost", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.
Alboin's death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elbe to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and Bavarians celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.
Aftermath.
To complete the coup d'état and legitimize his claim to the throne, Helmichis married the queen, whose high standing arose not only from being the king's widow but also from being the most prominent member of the remaining Gepid nation, and as such her support was a guarantee of the Gepids' loyalty to Helmichis. The latter could also count on the support of the Lombard garrison of Verona, where many may have opposed Alboin's aggressive policy and could have cultivated the hope of reaching an entente with the Empire. The Byzantines were almost certainly deeply involved in the plot. It was in their interest to stem the Lombard tide by bringing a pro-Byzantine regime into power in Verona, and possibly in the long run break the unity of the Lombards' kingdom, winning over the dukes with honors and emoluments.
The coup ultimately failed, as it met with the resistance of most of the warriors, who were opposed to the king's assassination. As a result, the Lombard garrison in Ticinum proclaimed Duke Cleph the new king, and Helmichis, rather than going to war against overwhelming odds, escaped to Ravenna with Longinus' assistance, taking with him his wife, his troops, the royal treasure and Alboin's daughter Albsuinda. In Ravenna the two lovers became estranged and killed each other. Subsequently, Longinus sent Albsuinda and the treasure to Constantinople.
Cleph kept the throne for only 18 months before being assassinated by a slave. Possibly he too was killed at the instigation of the Byzantines, who had every interest in avoiding a hostile and solid leadership among the Lombards. An important success for the Byzantines was that no king was proclaimed to succeed Cleph, opening a decade of interregnum, thus making them more vulnerable to attacks from Franks and Byzantines. It was only when faced with the danger of annihilation by the Franks in 584 that the dukes elected a new king in the person of Authari, son of Cleph, who began the definitive consolidation and centralization of the Lombard kingdom while the remaining imperial territories were reorganized under the control of an exarch in Ravenna with the capacity to defend the country without the Emperor's assistance.
The consolidation of Byzantine and Lombard dominions had long-lasting consequences for Italy, as the region was from that moment on fragmented among multiple rulers until Italian unification in 1871.
Cultural references.
Alboin, together with other tribal leaders is mentioned in the 10th century Old English poem called "Widsith" (lines 70–75) :
The historical period also formed the basis of the 1961 Italian adventure film "Sword of the Conqueror" (Italian: "Rosmunda e Alboino", German title "Alboin, König der Langobarden"), with Jack Palance as Alboin.
There have been several artistic depictions of events from Alboin's life including Peter Paul Rubens' "Alboin and Rosamunde" (1615); Charles Landseer's "Assassination of Alboin, King of the Lombards" (1856); and Fortunino Matania's illustration "Rosamund captive before King Alboin of the Lombards" (1942).
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1566
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Akkadian Empire
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The Akkadian Empire () was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer. It was centered in the city of Akkad () and its surrounding region. The empire united Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire exercised influence across Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Anatolia, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan (modern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman) in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad. Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was briefly imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam and Gutium. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though the meaning of this term is not precise, and there are earlier Sumerian claimants.
History of research.
The Bible refers to Akkad in Genesis 10:10–12, which states:
Nimrod's historical identity is unknown or debated, but Nimrod has been identified as Sargon of Akkad by some, and others have compared him with the legendary Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Today, scholars have documented some 7,000 texts from the Akkadian period, written in both Sumerian and Akkadian. Many later texts from the successor states of Assyria and Babylonia also deal with the Akkadian Empire.
Understanding of the Akkadian Empire continues to be hampered by the fact that its capital Akkad has not yet been located, despite numerous attempts. Precise dating of archaeological sites is hindered by the fact that there are no clear distinctions between artifact assemblages thought to stem from the preceding Early Dynastic period, and those thought to be Akkadian. Likewise, material that is thought to be Akkadian continues to be in use into the Ur III period.
Many of the more recent insights on the Akkadian Empire have come from excavations in the Upper Khabur area in modern northeastern Syria which was to become a part of Assyria after the fall of Akkad. For example, excavations at Tell Mozan (ancient Urkesh) brought to light a sealing of Tar'am-Agade, a previously unknown daughter of Naram-Sin, who was possibly married to an unidentified local "endan" (ruler). The excavators at nearby Tell Leilan (ancient Shekhna/Shubat-Enlil) have used the results from their investigations to argue that the Akkadian Empire came to an end due to a sudden drought, the so-called 4.2 kiloyear event. The impact of this climate event on Mesopotamia in general, and on the Akkadian Empire in particular, continues to be hotly debated.
Excavation at the modern site of Tell Brak has suggested that the Akkadians rebuilt a city ("Brak" or "Nagar") on this site, for use as an administrative center. The city included two large buildings including a complex with temple, offices, courtyard, and large ovens.
Dating and periodization.
The Akkadian period is generally dated to 2334–2154 BC (according to the middle chronology). The short-chronology dates of 2270–2083 BC are now considered less likely. It was preceded by the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia (ED) and succeeded by the Ur III Period, although both transitions are blurry. For example, it is likely that the rise of Sargon of Akkad coincided with the late ED Period and that the final Akkadian kings ruled simultaneously with the Gutian kings alongside rulers at the city-states of both Uruk and Lagash. The Akkadian Period is contemporary with EB IV (in Israel), EB IVA and EJ IV (in Syria), and EB IIIB (in Turkey).
Timeline of rulers.
The relative order of Akkadian kings is clear, while noting that the Ur III version of the Sumerian King List inverts the order of Rimush and Manishtushu. The absolute dates of their reigns are approximate (as with all dates prior to the Late Bronze Age collapse "c." 1200 BC).
Timeline of rulers.
The relative order of Akkadian kings is clear, while noting that the Ur III version of the Sumerian King List inverts the order of Rimush and Manishtushu. The absolute dates of their reigns are approximate (as with all dates prior to the Late Bronze Age collapse "c." 1200 BC).
History and development of the empire.
Pre-Sargonic Akkad.
The Akkadian Empire takes its name from the region and the city of Akkad, both of which were localized in the general confluence area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Although the city of Akkad has not yet been identified on the ground, it is known from various textual sources. Among these is at least one text predating the reign of Sargon. Together with the fact that the name Akkad is of non-Akkadian origin, this suggests that the city of Akkad may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times.
Sargon of Akkad.
Sargon of Akkad defeated and captured Lugal-zage-si in the Battle of Uruk and conquered his empire. The earliest records in the Akkadian language date to the time of Sargon. Sargon was claimed to be the son of La'ibum or Itti-Bel, a humble gardener, and possibly a hierodule, or priestess to Ishtar or Inanna. One legend related to Sargon in Assyrian times says that
Later claims made on behalf of Sargon were that his mother was an "entu" priestess (high priestess). The claims might have been made to ensure a pedigree of nobility, since only a highly placed family could achieve such a position.
Originally a cupbearer (Rabshakeh) to a king of Kish with a Semitic name, Ur-Zababa, Sargon thus became a gardener, responsible for the task of clearing out irrigation canals. The royal cupbearer at this time was in fact a prominent political position, close to the king and with various high level responsibilities not suggested by the title of the position itself. This gave him access to a disciplined corps of workers, who also may have served as his first soldiers. Displacing Ur-Zababa, Sargon was crowned king, and he entered upon a career of foreign conquest. Four times he invaded Syria and Canaan, and he spent three years thoroughly subduing the countries of "the west" to unite them with Mesopotamia "into a single empire".
However, Sargon took this process further, conquering many of the surrounding regions to create an empire that reached westward as far as the Mediterranean Sea and perhaps Cyprus ("Kaptara"); northward as far as the mountains (a later Hittite text asserts he fought the Hattian king Nurdaggal of Burushanda, well into Anatolia); eastward over Elam; and as far south as Magan (Oman) — a region over which he reigned for purportedly 56 years, though only four "year-names" survive. He consolidated his dominion over his territories by replacing the earlier opposing rulers with noble citizens of Akkad, his native city where loyalty would thus be ensured.
Trade extended from the silver mines of Anatolia to the lapis lazuli mines in modern Afghanistan, the cedars of Lebanon and the copper of Magan. This consolidation of the city-states of Sumer and Akkad reflected the growing economic and political power of Mesopotamia. The empire's breadbasket was the rain-fed agricultural system and a chain of fortresses was built to control the imperial wheat production.
Images of Sargon were erected on the shores of the Mediterranean, in token of his victories, and cities and palaces were built at home with the spoils of the conquered lands. Elam and the northern part of Mesopotamia were also subjugated, and rebellions in Sumer were put down. Contract tablets have been found dated in the years of the campaigns against Canaan and against Sarlak, king of Gutium. He also boasted of having subjugated the "four-quarters" — the lands surrounding Akkad to the north, the south (Sumer), the east (Elam), and the west (Martu). Some of the earliest historiographic texts (ABC 19, 20) suggest he rebuilt the city of Babylon ("Bab-ilu") in its new location near Akkad.
Sargon, throughout his long life, showed special deference to the Sumerian deities, particularly Inanna (Ishtar), his patroness, and Zababa, the warrior god of Kish. He called himself "The anointed priest of Anu" and "the great" ensi" of Enlil" and his daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as priestess to Nanna at the temple in Ur.
Troubles multiplied toward the end of his reign. A later Babylonian text states:
It refers to his campaign in "Elam", where he defeated a coalition army led by the King of Awan and forced the vanquished to become his vassals.
Also shortly after, another revolt took place:
Rimush and Manishtushu.
Sargon had crushed opposition even at old age. These difficulties broke out again in the reign of his sons, where revolts broke out during the nine-year reign of Rimush (2278–2270 BC), who fought hard to retain the empire, and was successful until he was assassinated by some of his own courtiers. According to his inscriptions, he faced widespread revolts, and had to reconquer the cities of Ur, Umma, Adab, Lagash, Der, and Kazallu from rebellious "ensis": Rimush introduced mass slaughter and large scale destruction of the Sumerian city-states, and maintained meticulous records of his destructions. Most of the major Sumerian cities were destroyed, and Sumerian human losses were enormous:
Rimush's elder brother, Manishtushu (2269–2255 BC) succeeded him. The latter seems to have fought a sea battle against 32 kings who had gathered against him and took control over their pre-Arab country, consisting of modern-day United Arab Emirates and Oman. Despite the success, like his brother he seems to have been assassinated in a palace conspiracy.
Naram-Sin.
Manishtushu's son and successor, Naram-Sin (2254–2218 BC), due to vast military conquests, assumed the imperial title "King Naram-Sin, king of the four-quarters" ("Lugal Naram-Sîn, Šar kibrat 'arbaim"), the four-quarters as a reference to the entire world. He was also for the first time in Sumerian culture, addressed as "the god (Sumerian = DINGIR, Akkadian = "ilu") of Agade" (Akkad), in opposition to the previous religious belief that kings were only representatives of the people towards the gods.
He also faced revolts at the start of his reign, but quickly crushed them.
Naram-Sin also recorded the Akkadian conquest of Ebla as well as Armanum and its king. The location of Armanum is debated: it is sometimes identified with a Syrian kingdom mentioned in the tablets of Ebla as Armi, whose location is also debated; while historian Adelheid Otto identifies it with the Citadel of Bazi at the Tell Banat complex on the Euphrates River between Ebla and Tell Brak, others like Wayne Horowitz identify it with Aleppo. Further, while most scholars place Armanum in Syria, Michael C. Astour believes it to be located north of the Hamrin Mountains in northern Iraq.
To better police Syria, he built a royal residence at Tell Brak, a crossroads at the heart of the Khabur River basin of the Jezirah. Naram-Sin campaigned against Magan which also revolted; Naram-Sin "marched against Magan and personally caught Mandannu, its king", where he instated garrisons to protect the main roads. The chief threat seemed to be coming from the northern Zagros Mountains, the Lulubis and the Gutians. A campaign against the Lullubi led to the carving of the "Victory Stele of Naram-Suen", now in the Louvre. Hittite sources claim Naram-Sin of Akkad even ventured into Anatolia, battling the Hittite and Hurrian kings Pamba of Hatti, Zipani of Kanesh, and 15 others.
The economy was highly planned. Grain was cleaned, and rations of grain and oil were distributed in standardized vessels made by the city's potters. Taxes were paid in produce and labour on public walls, including city walls, temples, irrigation canals and waterways, producing huge agricultural surpluses. This newfound Akkadian wealth may have been based upon benign climatic conditions, huge agricultural surpluses and the confiscation of the wealth of other peoples.
In later Assyrian and Babylonian texts, the name "Akkad", together with "Sumer", appears as part of the royal title, as in the Sumerian LUGAL KI-EN-GI KI-URI or Akkadian "Šar māt Šumeri u Akkadi", translating to "king of Sumer and Akkad". This title was assumed by the king who seized control of Nippur, the intellectual and religious center of southern Mesopotamia.
During the Akkadian period, the Akkadian language became the lingua franca of the Middle East, and was officially used for administration, although the Sumerian language remained as a spoken and literary language. The spread of Akkadian stretched from Syria to Elam, and even the Elamite language was temporarily written in Mesopotamian cuneiform. Akkadian texts later found their way to far-off places, from Egypt (in the Amarna Period) and Anatolia, to Persia (Behistun).
Submission of Sumerian kings.
The submission of some Sumerian rulers to the Akkadian Empire, is recorded in the seal inscriptions of Sumerian rulers such as Lugal-ushumgal, governor (ensi) of Lagash ("Shirpula"), circa 2230-2210 BC. Several inscriptions of Lugal-ushumgal are known, particularly seal impressions, which refer to him as governor of Lagash and at the time a vassal (, "arad", "servant" or "slave") of Naram-Sin, as well as his successor Shar-kali-sharri. One of these seals proclaims:
It can be considered that Lugal-ushumgal was a collaborator of the Akkadian Empire, as was Meskigal, ruler of Adab. Later however, Lugal-ushumgal was succeeded by Puzer-Mama who, as Akkadian power waned, achieved independence from Shar-Kali-Sharri, assuming the title of "King of Lagash" and starting the illustrious Second Dynasty of Lagash.
Collapse.
The empire of Akkad likely fell in the 22nd century BC, within 180 years of its founding, ushering in a "Dark Age" with no prominent imperial authority until the Third Dynasty of Ur. The region's political structure may have reverted to the "status quo ante" of local governance by city-states.
By the end of Sharkalisharri's reign, the empire had begun to unravel.
After several years (and 4 kings) of chaos Shu-turul and Dudu appear to have restored some centralized authority for several decades however they were unable to prevent the empire eventually collapsing outright, eventually ceding power to Gutians, based in Adab, who had been conquered by Akkad in the reign of Sharkalisharri.
Little is known about the Gutian period, or how long it endured. Cuneiform sources suggest that the Gutians' administration showed little concern for maintaining agriculture, written records, or public safety; they reputedly released all farm animals to roam about Mesopotamia freely and soon brought about famine and rocketing grain prices. The Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (2112–2095 BC) cleared the Gutians from Mesopotamia during his reign.
The "Sumerian King List", describing the Akkadian Empire after the death of Shar-kali-shari, states:
However, there are no known year-names or other archaeological evidence verifying any of these later kings of Akkad or Uruk, apart from several artefact referencing king Dudu of Akkad and Shu-turul. The named kings of Uruk may have been contemporaries of the last kings of Akkad, but in any event could not have been very prominent.
The period between BC and 2004 BC is known as the Ur III period. Documents again began to be written in Sumerian, although Sumerian was becoming a purely literary or liturgical language, much as Latin later would be in Medieval Europe.
One explanation for the end of the Akkadian empire is simply that the Akkadian dynasty could not maintain its political supremacy over other independently powerful city-states.
Drought.
One theory associates regional decline at the end of the Akkadian period (and of the First Intermediary Period following the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt) with rapidly increasing aridity, and failing rainfall in the region of the Ancient Near East, caused by a global centennial-scale drought. Harvey Weiss has shown that Peter B. de Menocal has shown "there was an influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation on the streamflow of the Tigris and Euphrates at this time, which led to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire". More recent analysis of simulations from the HadCM3 climate model indicate that there was a shift to a more arid climate on a timescale that is consistent with the collapse of the empire.
Excavation at Tell Leilan suggests that this site was abandoned soon after the city's massive walls were constructed, its temple rebuilt and its grain production reorganized. The debris, dust, and sand that followed show no trace of human activity. Soil samples show fine wind-blown sand, no trace of earthworm activity, reduced rainfall and indications of a drier and windier climate. Evidence shows that skeleton-thin sheep and cattle died of drought, and up to 28,000 people abandoned the site, presumably seeking wetter areas elsewhere. Tell Brak shrank in size by 75%. Trade collapsed. Nomadic herders such as the Amorites moved herds closer to reliable water suppliers, bringing them into conflict with Akkadian populations. This climate-induced collapse seems to have affected the whole of the Middle East, and to have coincided with the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom.
This collapse of rain-fed agriculture in the Upper Country meant the loss to southern Mesopotamia of the agrarian subsidies which had kept the Akkadian Empire solvent. Water levels within the Tigris and Euphrates fell 1.5 meters beneath the level of 2600 BC, and although they stabilized for a time during the following Ur III period, rivalries between pastoralists and farmers increased. Attempts were undertaken to prevent the former from herding their flocks in agricultural lands, such as the building of a wall known as the "Repeller of the Amorites" between the Tigris and Euphrates under the Ur III ruler Shu-Sin. Such attempts led to increased political instability; meanwhile, severe depression occurred to re-establish demographic equilibrium with the less favorable climatic conditions.
Richard Zettler has critiqued the drought theory, observing that the chronology of the Akkadian empire is very uncertain and that available evidence is not sufficient to show its economic dependence on the northern areas excavated by Weiss and others. He also criticizes Weiss for taking Akkadian writings literally to describe certain catastrophic events.
According to Joan Oates, at Tell Brak, the soil "signal" associated with the drought lies below the level of Naram-Sin's palace. However, evidence
may suggest a tightening of Akkadian control following the Brak 'event', for example, the construction of the heavily fortified 'palace' itself and the apparent introduction of greater numbers of Akkadian as opposed to local officials, perhaps a reflection of unrest in the countryside of the type that often follows some natural catastrophe. Furthermore, Brak remained occupied and functional after the fall of the Akkadians.
In 2019, a study by Hokkaido University on fossil corals in Oman provides an evidence that prolonged winter shamal seasons led to the salinization of the irrigated fields; hence, a dramatic decrease in crop production triggered a widespread famine and eventually the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire.
Pre-Sargonic Akkad.
The Akkadian Empire takes its name from the region and the city of Akkad, both of which were localized in the general confluence area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Although the city of Akkad has not yet been identified on the ground, it is known from various textual sources. Among these is at least one text predating the reign of Sargon. Together with the fact that the name Akkad is of non-Akkadian origin, this suggests that the city of Akkad may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times.
Sargon of Akkad.
Sargon of Akkad defeated and captured Lugal-zage-si in the Battle of Uruk and conquered his empire. The earliest records in the Akkadian language date to the time of Sargon. Sargon was claimed to be the son of La'ibum or Itti-Bel, a humble gardener, and possibly a hierodule, or priestess to Ishtar or Inanna. One legend related to Sargon in Assyrian times says that
Later claims made on behalf of Sargon were that his mother was an "entu" priestess (high priestess). The claims might have been made to ensure a pedigree of nobility, since only a highly placed family could achieve such a position.
Originally a cupbearer (Rabshakeh) to a king of Kish with a Semitic name, Ur-Zababa, Sargon thus became a gardener, responsible for the task of clearing out irrigation canals. The royal cupbearer at this time was in fact a prominent political position, close to the king and with various high level responsibilities not suggested by the title of the position itself. This gave him access to a disciplined corps of workers, who also may have served as his first soldiers. Displacing Ur-Zababa, Sargon was crowned king, and he entered upon a career of foreign conquest. Four times he invaded Syria and Canaan, and he spent three years thoroughly subduing the countries of "the west" to unite them with Mesopotamia "into a single empire".
However, Sargon took this process further, conquering many of the surrounding regions to create an empire that reached westward as far as the Mediterranean Sea and perhaps Cyprus ("Kaptara"); northward as far as the mountains (a later Hittite text asserts he fought the Hattian king Nurdaggal of Burushanda, well into Anatolia); eastward over Elam; and as far south as Magan (Oman) — a region over which he reigned for purportedly 56 years, though only four "year-names" survive. He consolidated his dominion over his territories by replacing the earlier opposing rulers with noble citizens of Akkad, his native city where loyalty would thus be ensured.
Trade extended from the silver mines of Anatolia to the lapis lazuli mines in modern Afghanistan, the cedars of Lebanon and the copper of Magan. This consolidation of the city-states of Sumer and Akkad reflected the growing economic and political power of Mesopotamia. The empire's breadbasket was the rain-fed agricultural system and a chain of fortresses was built to control the imperial wheat production.
Images of Sargon were erected on the shores of the Mediterranean, in token of his victories, and cities and palaces were built at home with the spoils of the conquered lands. Elam and the northern part of Mesopotamia were also subjugated, and rebellions in Sumer were put down. Contract tablets have been found dated in the years of the campaigns against Canaan and against Sarlak, king of Gutium. He also boasted of having subjugated the "four-quarters" — the lands surrounding Akkad to the north, the south (Sumer), the east (Elam), and the west (Martu). Some of the earliest historiographic texts (ABC 19, 20) suggest he rebuilt the city of Babylon ("Bab-ilu") in its new location near Akkad.
Sargon, throughout his long life, showed special deference to the Sumerian deities, particularly Inanna (Ishtar), his patroness, and Zababa, the warrior god of Kish. He called himself "The anointed priest of Anu" and "the great" ensi" of Enlil" and his daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as priestess to Nanna at the temple in Ur.
Troubles multiplied toward the end of his reign. A later Babylonian text states:
It refers to his campaign in "Elam", where he defeated a coalition army led by the King of Awan and forced the vanquished to become his vassals.
Also shortly after, another revolt took place:
Rimush and Manishtushu.
Sargon had crushed opposition even at old age. These difficulties broke out again in the reign of his sons, where revolts broke out during the nine-year reign of Rimush (2278–2270 BC), who fought hard to retain the empire, and was successful until he was assassinated by some of his own courtiers. According to his inscriptions, he faced widespread revolts, and had to reconquer the cities of Ur, Umma, Adab, Lagash, Der, and Kazallu from rebellious "ensis": Rimush introduced mass slaughter and large scale destruction of the Sumerian city-states, and maintained meticulous records of his destructions. Most of the major Sumerian cities were destroyed, and Sumerian human losses were enormous:
Rimush's elder brother, Manishtushu (2269–2255 BC) succeeded him. The latter seems to have fought a sea battle against 32 kings who had gathered against him and took control over their pre-Arab country, consisting of modern-day United Arab Emirates and Oman. Despite the success, like his brother he seems to have been assassinated in a palace conspiracy.
Naram-Sin.
Manishtushu's son and successor, Naram-Sin (2254–2218 BC), due to vast military conquests, assumed the imperial title "King Naram-Sin, king of the four-quarters" ("Lugal Naram-Sîn, Šar kibrat 'arbaim"), the four-quarters as a reference to the entire world. He was also for the first time in Sumerian culture, addressed as "the god (Sumerian = DINGIR, Akkadian = "ilu") of Agade" (Akkad), in opposition to the previous religious belief that kings were only representatives of the people towards the gods.
He also faced revolts at the start of his reign, but quickly crushed them.
Naram-Sin also recorded the Akkadian conquest of Ebla as well as Armanum and its king. The location of Armanum is debated: it is sometimes identified with a Syrian kingdom mentioned in the tablets of Ebla as Armi, whose location is also debated; while historian Adelheid Otto identifies it with the Citadel of Bazi at the Tell Banat complex on the Euphrates River between Ebla and Tell Brak, others like Wayne Horowitz identify it with Aleppo. Further, while most scholars place Armanum in Syria, Michael C. Astour believes it to be located north of the Hamrin Mountains in northern Iraq.
To better police Syria, he built a royal residence at Tell Brak, a crossroads at the heart of the Khabur River basin of the Jezirah. Naram-Sin campaigned against Magan which also revolted; Naram-Sin "marched against Magan and personally caught Mandannu, its king", where he instated garrisons to protect the main roads. The chief threat seemed to be coming from the northern Zagros Mountains, the Lulubis and the Gutians. A campaign against the Lullubi led to the carving of the "Victory Stele of Naram-Suen", now in the Louvre. Hittite sources claim Naram-Sin of Akkad even ventured into Anatolia, battling the Hittite and Hurrian kings Pamba of Hatti, Zipani of Kanesh, and 15 others.
The economy was highly planned. Grain was cleaned, and rations of grain and oil were distributed in standardized vessels made by the city's potters. Taxes were paid in produce and labour on public walls, including city walls, temples, irrigation canals and waterways, producing huge agricultural surpluses. This newfound Akkadian wealth may have been based upon benign climatic conditions, huge agricultural surpluses and the confiscation of the wealth of other peoples.
In later Assyrian and Babylonian texts, the name "Akkad", together with "Sumer", appears as part of the royal title, as in the Sumerian LUGAL KI-EN-GI KI-URI or Akkadian "Šar māt Šumeri u Akkadi", translating to "king of Sumer and Akkad". This title was assumed by the king who seized control of Nippur, the intellectual and religious center of southern Mesopotamia.
During the Akkadian period, the Akkadian language became the lingua franca of the Middle East, and was officially used for administration, although the Sumerian language remained as a spoken and literary language. The spread of Akkadian stretched from Syria to Elam, and even the Elamite language was temporarily written in Mesopotamian cuneiform. Akkadian texts later found their way to far-off places, from Egypt (in the Amarna Period) and Anatolia, to Persia (Behistun).
Submission of Sumerian kings.
The submission of some Sumerian rulers to the Akkadian Empire, is recorded in the seal inscriptions of Sumerian rulers such as Lugal-ushumgal, governor (ensi) of Lagash ("Shirpula"), circa 2230-2210 BC. Several inscriptions of Lugal-ushumgal are known, particularly seal impressions, which refer to him as governor of Lagash and at the time a vassal (, "arad", "servant" or "slave") of Naram-Sin, as well as his successor Shar-kali-sharri. One of these seals proclaims:
It can be considered that Lugal-ushumgal was a collaborator of the Akkadian Empire, as was Meskigal, ruler of Adab. Later however, Lugal-ushumgal was succeeded by Puzer-Mama who, as Akkadian power waned, achieved independence from Shar-Kali-Sharri, assuming the title of "King of Lagash" and starting the illustrious Second Dynasty of Lagash.
Collapse.
The empire of Akkad likely fell in the 22nd century BC, within 180 years of its founding, ushering in a "Dark Age" with no prominent imperial authority until the Third Dynasty of Ur. The region's political structure may have reverted to the "status quo ante" of local governance by city-states.
By the end of Sharkalisharri's reign, the empire had begun to unravel.
After several years (and 4 kings) of chaos Shu-turul and Dudu appear to have restored some centralized authority for several decades however they were unable to prevent the empire eventually collapsing outright, eventually ceding power to Gutians, based in Adab, who had been conquered by Akkad in the reign of Sharkalisharri.
Little is known about the Gutian period, or how long it endured. Cuneiform sources suggest that the Gutians' administration showed little concern for maintaining agriculture, written records, or public safety; they reputedly released all farm animals to roam about Mesopotamia freely and soon brought about famine and rocketing grain prices. The Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (2112–2095 BC) cleared the Gutians from Mesopotamia during his reign.
The "Sumerian King List", describing the Akkadian Empire after the death of Shar-kali-shari, states:
However, there are no known year-names or other archaeological evidence verifying any of these later kings of Akkad or Uruk, apart from several artefact referencing king Dudu of Akkad and Shu-turul. The named kings of Uruk may have been contemporaries of the last kings of Akkad, but in any event could not have been very prominent.
The period between BC and 2004 BC is known as the Ur III period. Documents again began to be written in Sumerian, although Sumerian was becoming a purely literary or liturgical language, much as Latin later would be in Medieval Europe.
One explanation for the end of the Akkadian empire is simply that the Akkadian dynasty could not maintain its political supremacy over other independently powerful city-states.
Drought.
One theory associates regional decline at the end of the Akkadian period (and of the First Intermediary Period following the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt) with rapidly increasing aridity, and failing rainfall in the region of the Ancient Near East, caused by a global centennial-scale drought. Harvey Weiss has shown that Peter B. de Menocal has shown "there was an influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation on the streamflow of the Tigris and Euphrates at this time, which led to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire". More recent analysis of simulations from the HadCM3 climate model indicate that there was a shift to a more arid climate on a timescale that is consistent with the collapse of the empire.
Excavation at Tell Leilan suggests that this site was abandoned soon after the city's massive walls were constructed, its temple rebuilt and its grain production reorganized. The debris, dust, and sand that followed show no trace of human activity. Soil samples show fine wind-blown sand, no trace of earthworm activity, reduced rainfall and indications of a drier and windier climate. Evidence shows that skeleton-thin sheep and cattle died of drought, and up to 28,000 people abandoned the site, presumably seeking wetter areas elsewhere. Tell Brak shrank in size by 75%. Trade collapsed. Nomadic herders such as the Amorites moved herds closer to reliable water suppliers, bringing them into conflict with Akkadian populations. This climate-induced collapse seems to have affected the whole of the Middle East, and to have coincided with the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom.
This collapse of rain-fed agriculture in the Upper Country meant the loss to southern Mesopotamia of the agrarian subsidies which had kept the Akkadian Empire solvent. Water levels within the Tigris and Euphrates fell 1.5 meters beneath the level of 2600 BC, and although they stabilized for a time during the following Ur III period, rivalries between pastoralists and farmers increased. Attempts were undertaken to prevent the former from herding their flocks in agricultural lands, such as the building of a wall known as the "Repeller of the Amorites" between the Tigris and Euphrates under the Ur III ruler Shu-Sin. Such attempts led to increased political instability; meanwhile, severe depression occurred to re-establish demographic equilibrium with the less favorable climatic conditions.
Richard Zettler has critiqued the drought theory, observing that the chronology of the Akkadian empire is very uncertain and that available evidence is not sufficient to show its economic dependence on the northern areas excavated by Weiss and others. He also criticizes Weiss for taking Akkadian writings literally to describe certain catastrophic events.
According to Joan Oates, at Tell Brak, the soil "signal" associated with the drought lies below the level of Naram-Sin's palace. However, evidence
may suggest a tightening of Akkadian control following the Brak 'event', for example, the construction of the heavily fortified 'palace' itself and the apparent introduction of greater numbers of Akkadian as opposed to local officials, perhaps a reflection of unrest in the countryside of the type that often follows some natural catastrophe. Furthermore, Brak remained occupied and functional after the fall of the Akkadians.
In 2019, a study by Hokkaido University on fossil corals in Oman provides an evidence that prolonged winter shamal seasons led to the salinization of the irrigated fields; hence, a dramatic decrease in crop production triggered a widespread famine and eventually the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire.
Drought.
One theory associates regional decline at the end of the Akkadian period (and of the First Intermediary Period following the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt) with rapidly increasing aridity, and failing rainfall in the region of the Ancient Near East, caused by a global centennial-scale drought. Harvey Weiss has shown that Peter B. de Menocal has shown "there was an influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation on the streamflow of the Tigris and Euphrates at this time, which led to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire". More recent analysis of simulations from the HadCM3 climate model indicate that there was a shift to a more arid climate on a timescale that is consistent with the collapse of the empire.
Excavation at Tell Leilan suggests that this site was abandoned soon after the city's massive walls were constructed, its temple rebuilt and its grain production reorganized. The debris, dust, and sand that followed show no trace of human activity. Soil samples show fine wind-blown sand, no trace of earthworm activity, reduced rainfall and indications of a drier and windier climate. Evidence shows that skeleton-thin sheep and cattle died of drought, and up to 28,000 people abandoned the site, presumably seeking wetter areas elsewhere. Tell Brak shrank in size by 75%. Trade collapsed. Nomadic herders such as the Amorites moved herds closer to reliable water suppliers, bringing them into conflict with Akkadian populations. This climate-induced collapse seems to have affected the whole of the Middle East, and to have coincided with the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom.
This collapse of rain-fed agriculture in the Upper Country meant the loss to southern Mesopotamia of the agrarian subsidies which had kept the Akkadian Empire solvent. Water levels within the Tigris and Euphrates fell 1.5 meters beneath the level of 2600 BC, and although they stabilized for a time during the following Ur III period, rivalries between pastoralists and farmers increased. Attempts were undertaken to prevent the former from herding their flocks in agricultural lands, such as the building of a wall known as the "Repeller of the Amorites" between the Tigris and Euphrates under the Ur III ruler Shu-Sin. Such attempts led to increased political instability; meanwhile, severe depression occurred to re-establish demographic equilibrium with the less favorable climatic conditions.
Richard Zettler has critiqued the drought theory, observing that the chronology of the Akkadian empire is very uncertain and that available evidence is not sufficient to show its economic dependence on the northern areas excavated by Weiss and others. He also criticizes Weiss for taking Akkadian writings literally to describe certain catastrophic events.
According to Joan Oates, at Tell Brak, the soil "signal" associated with the drought lies below the level of Naram-Sin's palace. However, evidence
may suggest a tightening of Akkadian control following the Brak 'event', for example, the construction of the heavily fortified 'palace' itself and the apparent introduction of greater numbers of Akkadian as opposed to local officials, perhaps a reflection of unrest in the countryside of the type that often follows some natural catastrophe. Furthermore, Brak remained occupied and functional after the fall of the Akkadians.
In 2019, a study by Hokkaido University on fossil corals in Oman provides an evidence that prolonged winter shamal seasons led to the salinization of the irrigated fields; hence, a dramatic decrease in crop production triggered a widespread famine and eventually the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire.
Government.
The Akkadian government formed a "classical standard" with which all future Mesopotamian states compared themselves. Traditionally, the "ensi" was the highest functionary of the Sumerian city-states. In later traditions, one became an "ensi" by marrying the goddess Inanna, legitimising the rulership through divine consent.
Initially, the monarchical "lugal" ("lu" = man, "gal" =Great) was subordinate to the priestly "ensi", and was appointed at times of troubles, but by later dynastic times, it was the "lugal" who had emerged as the preeminent role, having his own "é" (= house) or "palace", independent from the temple establishment. By the time of Mesalim, whichever dynasty controlled the city of Kish was recognised as "šar kiššati" (= king of Kish), and was considered preeminent in Sumer, possibly because this was where the two rivers approached, and whoever controlled Kish ultimately controlled the irrigation systems of the other cities downstream.
As Sargon extended his conquest from the "Lower Sea" (Persian Gulf), to the "Upper Sea" (Mediterranean), it was felt that he ruled "the totality of the lands under heaven", or "from sunrise to sunset", as contemporary texts put it. Under Sargon, the "ensi"s generally retained their positions, but were seen more as provincial governors. The title "šar kiššati" became recognised as meaning "lord of the universe". Sargon is even recorded as having organised naval expeditions to Dilmun (Bahrain) and Magan, amongst the first organised military naval expeditions in history. Whether he also did in the case of the Mediterranean with the kingdom of Kaptara (possibly Cyprus), as claimed in later documents, is more questionable.
With Naram-Sin, Sargon's grandson, this went further than with Sargon, with the king not only being called "Lord of the Four-Quarters (of the Earth)", but also elevated to the ranks of the "dingir" (= gods), with his own temple establishment. Previously a ruler could, like Gilgamesh, become divine after death but the Akkadian kings, from Naram-Sin onward, were considered gods on earth in their lifetimes. Their portraits showed them of larger size than mere mortals and at some distance from their retainers.
One strategy adopted by both Sargon and Naram-Sin, to maintain control of the country, was to install their daughters, Enheduanna and Emmenanna respectively, as high priestess to Sin, the Akkadian version of the Sumerian moon deity, Nanna, at Ur, in the extreme south of Sumer; to install sons as provincial "ensi" governors in strategic locations; and to marry their daughters to rulers of peripheral parts of the Empire (Urkesh and Marhashe). A well documented case of the latter is that of Naram-Sin's daughter Tar'am-Agade at Urkesh.
Records at the Brak administrative complex suggest that the Akkadians appointed locals as tax collectors.
Economy.
The population of Akkad, like nearly all pre-modern states, was entirely dependent upon the agricultural systems of the region, which seem to have had two principal centres: the irrigated farmlands of southern Iraq that traditionally had a yield of 30 grains returned for each grain sown and the rain-fed agriculture of northern Iraq, known as the "Upper Country."
Southern Iraq during Akkadian period seems to have been approaching its modern rainfall level of less than per year, with the result that agriculture was totally dependent upon irrigation. Before the Akkadian period, the progressive salinisation of the soils, produced by poorly drained irrigation, had been reducing yields of wheat in the southern part of the country, leading to the conversion to more salt-tolerant barley growing. Urban populations there had peaked already by 2,600 BC, and demographic pressures were high, contributing to the rise of militarism apparent immediately before the Akkadian period (as seen in the Stele of the Vultures of Eannatum). Warfare between city states had led to a population decline, from which Akkad provided a temporary respite. It was this high degree of agricultural productivity in the south that enabled the growth of the highest population densities in the world at this time, giving Akkad its military advantage.
The water table in this region was very high and replenished regularly—by winter storms in the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates from October to March and from snow-melt from March to July. Flood levels, that had been stable from about 3,000 to 2,600 BC, had started falling, and by the Akkadian period were a half-meter to a meter lower than recorded previously. Even so, the flat country and weather uncertainties made flooding much more unpredictable than in the case of the Nile; serious deluges seem to have been a regular occurrence, requiring constant maintenance of irrigation ditches and drainage systems. Farmers were recruited into regiments for this work from August to October—a period of food shortage—under the control of city temple authorities, thus acting as a form of unemployment relief. Gwendolyn Leick has suggested that this was Sargon's original employment for the king of Kish, giving him experience in effectively organising large groups of men; a tablet reads, "Sargon, the king, to whom Enlil permitted no rival—5,400 warriors ate bread daily before him".
Harvest was in the late spring and during the dry summer months. Nomadic Amorites from the northwest would pasture their flocks of sheep and goats to graze on the crop residue and be watered from the river and irrigation canals. For this privilege, they would have to pay a tax in wool, meat, milk, and cheese to the temples, who would distribute these products to the bureaucracy and priesthood. In good years, all would go well, but in bad years, wild winter pastures would be in short supply, nomads would seek to pasture their flocks in the grain fields, and conflicts with farmers would result. It would appear that the subsidizing of southern populations by the import of wheat from the north of the Empire temporarily overcame this problem, and it seems to have allowed economic recovery and a growing population within this region.
Foreign trade.
As a result, Sumer and Akkad had a surplus of agricultural products but was short of almost everything else, particularly metal ores, timber and building stone, all of which had to be imported. The spread of the Akkadian state as far as the "silver mountain" (possibly the Taurus Mountains), the "cedars" of Lebanon, and the copper deposits of Magan, was largely motivated by the goal of securing control over these imports. One tablet reads:
International trade developed during the Akkadian period. Indus-Mesopotamia relations also seem to have expanded: Sargon of Akkad (circa 2300 or 2250 BC), was the first Mesopotamian ruler to make an explicit reference to the region of Meluhha, which is generally understood as being the Baluchistan or the Indus area.
Foreign trade.
As a result, Sumer and Akkad had a surplus of agricultural products but was short of almost everything else, particularly metal ores, timber and building stone, all of which had to be imported. The spread of the Akkadian state as far as the "silver mountain" (possibly the Taurus Mountains), the "cedars" of Lebanon, and the copper deposits of Magan, was largely motivated by the goal of securing control over these imports. One tablet reads:
International trade developed during the Akkadian period. Indus-Mesopotamia relations also seem to have expanded: Sargon of Akkad (circa 2300 or 2250 BC), was the first Mesopotamian ruler to make an explicit reference to the region of Meluhha, which is generally understood as being the Baluchistan or the Indus area.
Culture.
Akkadian art.
In art, there was a great emphasis on the kings of the dynasty, alongside much that continued earlier Sumerian art. Little architecture remains. In large works and small ones such as seals, the degree of realism was considerably increased, but the seals show a "grim world of cruel conflict, of danger and uncertainty, a world in which man is subjected without appeal to the incomprehensible acts of distant and fearful divinities who he must serve but cannot love. This sombre mood ... remained characteristic of Mesopotamian art..."
Akkadian sculpture is remarkable for its fineness and realism, which shows a clear advancement compared to the previous period of Sumerian art.
Seals.
The Akkadians used visual arts as a vehicle of ideology. They developed a new style for cylinder seals by reusing traditional animal decorations but organizing them around inscriptions, which often became central parts of the layout. The figures also became more sculptural and naturalistic. New elements were also included, especially in relation to the rich Akkadian mythology.
Language.
During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a "sprachbund".
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around 2000 BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.
Poet–priestess Enheduanna.
Sumerian literature continued in rich development during the Akkadian period. Enheduanna, the "wife (Sumerian "dam" = high priestess) of Nanna [the Sumerian moon god] and daughter of Sargon" of the temple of Sin at Ur, who lived –2250 BC, is the first poet in history whose name is known. Her known works include hymns to the goddess Inanna, the "Exaltation of Inanna" and "In-nin sa-gur-ra". A third work, the "Temple Hymns", a collection of specific hymns, addresses the sacred temples and their occupants, the deity to whom they were consecrated. The works of this poet are significant, because although they start out using the third person, they shift to the first person voice of the poet herself, and they mark a significant development in the use of cuneiform. As poet, princess, and priestess, she was a person who, according to William W. Hallo, "set standards in all three of her roles for many succeeding centuries"
In the "Exultation of Inanna",
Curse of Akkad.
Later material described how the fall of Akkad was due to Naram-Sin's attack upon the city of Nippur. When prompted by a pair of inauspicious oracles, the king sacked the E-kur temple, supposedly protected by the god Enlil, head of the pantheon. As a result of this, eight chief deities of the Anunnaki pantheon were supposed to have come together and withdrawn their support from Akkad.
The kings of Akkad were legendary among later Mesopotamian civilizations, with Sargon understood as the prototype of a strong and wise leader, and his grandson Naram-Sin considered the wicked and impious leader ("Unheilsherrscher" in the analysis of Hans Gustav Güterbock) who brought ruin upon his kingdom.
Akkadian art.
In art, there was a great emphasis on the kings of the dynasty, alongside much that continued earlier Sumerian art. Little architecture remains. In large works and small ones such as seals, the degree of realism was considerably increased, but the seals show a "grim world of cruel conflict, of danger and uncertainty, a world in which man is subjected without appeal to the incomprehensible acts of distant and fearful divinities who he must serve but cannot love. This sombre mood ... remained characteristic of Mesopotamian art..."
Akkadian sculpture is remarkable for its fineness and realism, which shows a clear advancement compared to the previous period of Sumerian art.
Seals.
The Akkadians used visual arts as a vehicle of ideology. They developed a new style for cylinder seals by reusing traditional animal decorations but organizing them around inscriptions, which often became central parts of the layout. The figures also became more sculptural and naturalistic. New elements were also included, especially in relation to the rich Akkadian mythology.
Seals.
The Akkadians used visual arts as a vehicle of ideology. They developed a new style for cylinder seals by reusing traditional animal decorations but organizing them around inscriptions, which often became central parts of the layout. The figures also became more sculptural and naturalistic. New elements were also included, especially in relation to the rich Akkadian mythology.
Language.
During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a "sprachbund".
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around 2000 BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.
Poet–priestess Enheduanna.
Sumerian literature continued in rich development during the Akkadian period. Enheduanna, the "wife (Sumerian "dam" = high priestess) of Nanna [the Sumerian moon god] and daughter of Sargon" of the temple of Sin at Ur, who lived –2250 BC, is the first poet in history whose name is known. Her known works include hymns to the goddess Inanna, the "Exaltation of Inanna" and "In-nin sa-gur-ra". A third work, the "Temple Hymns", a collection of specific hymns, addresses the sacred temples and their occupants, the deity to whom they were consecrated. The works of this poet are significant, because although they start out using the third person, they shift to the first person voice of the poet herself, and they mark a significant development in the use of cuneiform. As poet, princess, and priestess, she was a person who, according to William W. Hallo, "set standards in all three of her roles for many succeeding centuries"
In the "Exultation of Inanna",
Curse of Akkad.
Later material described how the fall of Akkad was due to Naram-Sin's attack upon the city of Nippur. When prompted by a pair of inauspicious oracles, the king sacked the E-kur temple, supposedly protected by the god Enlil, head of the pantheon. As a result of this, eight chief deities of the Anunnaki pantheon were supposed to have come together and withdrawn their support from Akkad.
The kings of Akkad were legendary among later Mesopotamian civilizations, with Sargon understood as the prototype of a strong and wise leader, and his grandson Naram-Sin considered the wicked and impious leader ("Unheilsherrscher" in the analysis of Hans Gustav Güterbock) who brought ruin upon his kingdom.
Technology.
A tablet from the periods reads, "(From the earliest days) no-one had made a statue of lead, (but) Rimush king of Kish, had a statue of himself made of lead. It stood before Enlil; and it recited his (Rimush's) virtues to the idu of the gods". The copper Bassetki Statue, cast with the lost wax method, testifies to the high level of skill that craftsmen achieved during the Akkadian period.
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1580
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Alcidamas
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Alcidamas (), of Elaea, in Aeolis, was a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the 4th century BC.
Life.
He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates, to whom he was a rival and opponent. We possess two declamations under his name: "On Sophists" (Περὶ Σοφιστῶν), directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date); "Odysseus" (perhaps spurious) in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy.
According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speaking "ex tempore" on every conceivable subject. Aristotle ("Rhet." iii. 3) criticizes his writings as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived: "Messeniakos", advocating the freedom of the Messenians and containing the sentiment that "God has left all men free; nature has made no man a slave"; a "Eulogy of Death", in consideration of the wide extent of human sufferings; a "Techne" or instruction-book in the art
of rhetoric; and a "Phusikos logos". Lastly, his "Mouseion" (a word invoking the Muses) seems to have contained the narrative of the "Contest of Homer and Hesiod", of which the version that has survived is the work of a grammarian in the time of Hadrian, based on Alcidamas. This hypothesis of the contents of the "Mouseion", originally suggested by Nietzsche ("Rheinisches Museum" 25 (1870) & 28 (1873)), appears to have been confirmed by three papyrus findsone 3rd century BC ("Flinders Petrie Papyri", ed. Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.), one 2nd century BC (Basil Mandilaras, 'A new papyrus fragment of the "Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi"' "Platon" 42 (1990) 45–51) and one 2nd or 3rd century AD (University of Michigan pap. 2754: Winter, J. G., 'A New Fragment on the Life of Homer' "TAPA" 56 (1925) 120–129 ).
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1578
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Alcamenes
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Alcamenes () was an ancient Greek sculptor of Lemnos and Athens, who flourished in the 2nd half of the 5th century BC. He was a younger contemporary of Phidias and noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an Aphrodite of the Gardens were conspicuous.
Pausanias says that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. Pausanias also refers to a statue of Ares by Alcamenes that was erected on the Athenian agora, which some have related to the Ares Borghese. However, the temple of Ares to which he refers had only been moved from Acharnes and re-sited in the Agora in Augustus's time, and statues known to derive from Alcamenes' statue show the god in a breastplate, so the identification of Alcamenes' Ares with the Ares Borghese is not secure.
At Pergamum there was discovered in 1903 a Hellenistic copy of the head of the Hermes "Propylaeus" of Alcamenes. As, however, the deity is represented in a Neo-Attic, archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive and original artist.
It is safer to judge him by the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon, in which he must almost certainly have taken a share under the direction of Phidias. He is said to be the most eminent sculptor in Athens after the departure of Phidias for Olympia, but enigmatic in that none of the sculptures associated with his name in classical literature can be securely connected with existing copies.
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984
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Agatha Christie
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Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery "The Mousetrap", which has been performed in the West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. "Guinness World Records" lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Christie was born into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed in 1920 when "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", featuring detective Hercule Poirot, was published. Her first husband was Archibald Christie; they married in 1914 and had one child before divorcing in 1928. Following the breakdown of her marriage in 1926 she made international headlines by going missing for eleven days. During both World Wars, she served in hospital dispensaries, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the poisons that featured in many of her novels, short stories, and plays. Following her marriage to archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930, she spent several months each year on digs in the Middle East and used her first-hand knowledge of this profession in her fiction.
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author. Her novel "And Then There Were None" is one of the top-selling books of all time, with approximately 100 million copies sold. Christie's stage play "The Mousetrap" holds the world record for the longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and by September 2018 there had been more than 27,500 performances. The play was temporarily closed in March 2020 because of COVID-19 lockdowns in London before it reopened in May 2021.
In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Later that year, "Witness for the Prosecution" received an Edgar Award for best play. In 2013, she was voted the best crime writer and "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" the best crime novel ever by 600 professional novelists of the Crime Writers' Association. In September 2015, "And Then There Were None" was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Many of Christie's books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games, and graphic novels. More than 30 feature films are based on her work.
Life and career.
Childhood and adolescence: 1890–1907.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890, into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon. She was the youngest of three children born to Frederick Alvah Miller, "a gentleman of substance", and his wife Clarissa Margaret "Clara" Miller, née Boehmer.
Christie's mother Clara was born in Dublin in 1854 to British Army officer Frederick Boehmer and his wife Mary Ann Boehmer née West. Boehmer died in Jersey in 1863, leaving his widow to raise Clara and her brothers on a meagre income. Two weeks after Boehmer's death, Mary's sister Margaret West married widowed dry goods merchant Nathaniel Frary Miller, a US citizen. To assist Mary financially, they agreed to foster nine-year-old Clara; the family settled in Timperley, Cheshire. Margaret and Nathaniel had no children together, but Nathaniel had a 17-year-old son, Fred Miller, from his previous marriage. Fred was born in New York City and travelled extensively after leaving his Swiss boarding school. He and Clara were married in London in 1878. Their first child, Margaret Frary ("Madge"), was born in Torquay in 1879. The second, Louis Montant ("Monty"), was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880, while the family was on an extended visit to the United States.
When Fred's father died in 1869, he left Clara £2,000 (approximately ); in 1881 they used this to buy the leasehold of a villa in Torquay named Ashfield. It was here that their third and last child, Agatha, was born in 1890. She described her childhood as "very happy". The Millers lived mainly in Devon but often visited her step-grandmother/great-aunt Margaret Miller in Ealing and maternal grandmother Mary Boehmer in Bayswater. A year was spent abroad with her family, in the French Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey. Because her siblings were so much older, and there were few children in their neighbourhood, Christie spent much of her time playing alone with her pets and imaginary companions. She eventually made friends with other girls in Torquay, noting that "one of the highlights of my existence" was her appearance with them in a youth production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Yeomen of the Guard", in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax.
According to Christie, Clara believed she should not learn to read until she was eight; thanks to her curiosity, she was reading by the age of four. Her sister had been sent to a boarding school, but their mother insisted that Christie receive her education at home. As a result, her parents and sister supervised her studies in reading, writing and basic arithmetic, a subject she particularly enjoyed. They also taught her music, and she learned to play the piano and the mandolin.
Christie was a voracious reader from an early age. Among her earliest memories were of reading children's books by Mrs Molesworth and Edith Nesbit. When a little older, she moved on to the surreal verse of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. As an adolescent, she enjoyed works by Anthony Hope, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas. In April 1901, aged 10, she wrote her first poem, "The Cow Slip".
By 1901, her father's health had deteriorated, because of what he believed were heart problems. Fred died in November 1901 from pneumonia and chronic kidney disease. Christie later said that her father's death when she was 11 marked the end of her childhood.
The family's financial situation had, by this time, worsened. Madge married the year after their father's death and moved to Cheadle, Cheshire; Monty was overseas, serving in a British regiment. Christie now lived alone at Ashfield with her mother. In 1902, she began attending Miss Guyer's Girls' School in Torquay but found it difficult to adjust to the disciplined atmosphere. In 1905, her mother sent her to Paris, where she was educated in a series of (boarding schools), focusing on voice training and piano playing. Deciding she lacked the temperament and talent, she gave up her goal of performing professionally as a concert pianist or an opera singer.
Early literary attempts, marriage, literary success: 1907–1926.
After completing her education, Christie returned to England to find her mother ailing. They decided to spend the northern winter of 1907–1908 in the warm climate of Egypt, which was then a regular tourist destination for wealthy Britons. They stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel in Cairo. Christie attended many dances and other social functions; she particularly enjoyed watching amateur polo matches. While they visited some ancient Egyptian monuments such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, she did not exhibit the great interest in archaeology and Egyptology that developed in her later years. Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities, writing and performing in amateur theatrics. She also helped put on a play called "The Blue Beard of Unhappiness" with female friends.
At 18, Christie wrote her first short story, "The House of Beauty", while recovering in bed from an illness. It consisted of about 6,000 words about "madness and dreams", subjects of fascination for her. Her biographer Janet Morgan has commented that, despite "infelicities of style", the story was "compelling". (The story became an early version of her story "The House of Dreams".) Other stories followed, most of them illustrating her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Magazines rejected all her early submissions, made under pseudonyms (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and Sydney West); some submissions were later revised and published under her real name, often with new titles.
Around the same time, Christie began work on her first novel, "Snow Upon the Desert". Writing under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she set the book in Cairo and drew upon her recent experiences there. She was disappointed when the six publishers she contacted declined the work. Clara suggested that her daughter ask for advice from the successful novelist Eden Phillpotts, a family friend and neighbour, who responded to her enquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent her an introduction to his own literary agent, Hughes Massie, who also rejected "Snow Upon the Desert" but suggested a second novel.
Meanwhile, Christie's social activities expanded, with country house parties, riding, hunting, dances, and roller skating. She had short-lived relationships with four men and an engagement to another. In October 1912, she was introduced to Archibald "Archie" Christie at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about from Torquay. The son of a barrister in the Indian Civil Service, Archie was a Royal Artillery officer who was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1913. The couple quickly fell in love. Three months after their first meeting, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted.
With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Archie was sent to France to fight. They married on Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Church, Clifton, Bristol, close to the home of his mother and stepfather, when Archie was on home leave. Rising through the ranks, he was posted back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry. Christie involved herself in the war effort as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross. From October 1914 to May 1915, then from June 1916 to September 1918, she worked 3,400 hours in the Town Hall Red Cross Hospital, Torquay, first as a nurse (unpaid) then as a dispenser at £16 (approximately ) a year from 1917 after qualifying as an apothecary's assistant. Her war service ended in September 1918 when Archie was reassigned to London, and they rented a flat in St. John's Wood.
Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone", and Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her first detective novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", in 1916. It featured Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer with "magnificent moustaches" and a head "exactly the shape of an egg", who had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration for the character came from Belgian refugees living in Torquay, and the Belgian soldiers she helped to treat as a volunteer nurse during the First World War. Her original manuscript was rejected by Hodder & Stoughton and Methuen. After keeping the submission for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Christie change how the solution was revealed. She did so, and signed a contract committing her next five books to The Bodley Head, which she later felt was exploitative. It was published in 1920.
Christie settled into married life, giving birth to her only child, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa (later Hicks), in August 1919 at Ashfield. Archie left the Air Force at the end of the war and began working in the City financial sector on a relatively low salary. They still employed a maid. Her second novel, "The Secret Adversary" (1922), featured a new detective couple Tommy and Tuppence, again published by The Bodley Head. It earned her £50 (approximately ). A third novel, "Murder on the Links", again featured Poirot, as did the short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of "The Sketch" magazine, from 1923. She now had no difficulty selling her work.
In 1922, the Christies joined an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition, led by Major Ernest Belcher. Leaving their daughter with Agatha's mother and sister, in 10 months they travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada. They learned to surf prone in South Africa; then, in Waikiki, they were among the first Britons to surf standing up, and extended their time there by three months to practice. She is remembered at the British Surfing Museum as having said about surfing, “"Oh it was heaven! Nothing like rushing through the water at what seems to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour. It is one of the most perfect physical pleasures I have known".”
When they returned to England, Archie resumed work in the city, and Christie continued to work hard at her writing. After living in a series of apartments in London, they bought a house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they renamed Styles after the mansion in Christie's first detective novel.
Christie's mother, Clarissa Miller, died in April 1926. They had been exceptionally close, and the loss sent Christie into a deep depression. In August 1926, reports appeared in the press that Christie had gone to a village near Biarritz to recuperate from a "breakdown" caused by "overwork".
Disappearance: 1926.
In August 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, a friend of Major Belcher. On 3December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening, Christie disappeared from their home in Sunningdale. The following morning, her car, a Morris Cowley, was discovered at Newlands Corner in Surrey, parked above a chalk quarry with an expired driving licence and clothes inside. It was feared that she may have drowned herself in the Silent Pool, a nearby beauty spot.
The disappearance quickly became a news story, as the press sought to satisfy their readers' "hunger for sensation, disaster, and scandal". Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks pressured police, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward (approximately ). More than a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes searched the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her. Christie's disappearance made international headlines, including featuring on the front page of "The New York Times". Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for another 10 days. On 14 December 1926, she was located at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, north of her home in Sunningdale, registered as "Mrs Tressa Neele" (the surname of her husband's lover) from " S.A." (South Africa). The next day, Christie left for her sister's residence at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away".
Christie's autobiography makes no reference to the disappearance. Two doctors diagnosed her with "an unquestionable genuine loss of memory", yet opinion remains divided over the reason for her disappearance. Some, including her biographer Morgan, believe she disappeared during a fugue state. The author Jared Cade concluded that Christie planned the event to embarrass her husband but did not anticipate the resulting public melodrama. Christie biographer Laura Thompson provides an alternative view that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder.
Second marriage and later life: 1927–1976.
In January 1927, Christie, looking "very pale", sailed with her daughter and secretary to Las Palmas, Canary Islands, to "complete her convalescence", returning three months later. Christie petitioned for divorce and was granted a decree nisi against her husband in April 1928, which was made absolute in October 1928. Archie married Nancy Neele a week later. Christie retained custody of their daughter, Rosalind, and kept the Christie surname for her writing.
Reflecting on the period in her autobiography, Christie wrote, "So, after illness, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak. There is no need to dwell on it."
In 1928, Christie left England and took the (Simplon) Orient Express to Istanbul and then to Baghdad. In Iraq, she became friends with archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930. On that second trip, she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 13 years her junior. In a 1977 interview, Mallowan recounted his first meeting with Christie, when he took her and a group of tourists on a tour of his expedition site in Iraq. Christie and Mallowan married in Edinburgh in September 1930. Their marriage lasted until Christie's death in 1976. She accompanied Mallowan on his archaeological expeditions, and her travels with him contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as "Peril at End House") were set in and around Torquay, where she was raised. Christie drew on her experience of international train travel when writing her 1934 novel "Murder on the Orient Express". The Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, the eastern terminus of the railway, claims the book was written there and maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.
Christie and Mallowan lived in Chelsea, first in Cresswell Place and later in Sheffield Terrace. Both properties are now marked by blue plaques. In 1934, they bought Winterbrook House in Winterbrook, a hamlet near Wallingford. This was their main residence for the rest of their lives and the place where Christie did much of her writing. This house also bears a blue plaque. Christie led a quiet life despite being known in Wallingford; from 1951 to 1976 she served as president of the local amateur dramatic society.
The couple acquired the Greenway Estate in Devon as a summer residence in 1938; it was given to the National Trust in 2000. Christie frequently stayed at Abney Hall, Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, and based at least two stories there: a short story, "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of the same name and the novel "After the Funeral". One Christie compendium notes that "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country house life, with all its servants and grandeur being woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys, Stonygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney Hall in various forms."
During World War II, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital (UCH), London, where she updated her knowledge of poisons. Her later novel "The Pale Horse" was based on a suggestion from Harold Davis, the chief pharmacist at UCH. In 1977, a thallium poisoning case was solved by British medical personnel who had read Christie's book and recognised the symptoms she described.
The British intelligence agency MI5 investigated Christie after a character called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller "N or M?", which was about a hunt for a pair of deadly fifth columnists in wartime England. MI5 was concerned that Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie told her friend, the codebreaker Dilly Knox, "I was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the name to one of my least lovable characters."
Christie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. In honour of her many literary works, Christie was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1956 New Year Honours. She was co-president of the Detection Club from 1958 to her death in 1976. In 1961, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by the University of Exeter. In the 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work. After her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady Mallowan.
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, but she continued to write. Her last novel was "Postern of Fate" in 1973. Textual analysis suggested that Christie may have begun to develop Alzheimer's disease or other dementia at about this time.
Personal qualities.
In 1946, Christie said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones and cinemas. I dislike the taste of alcohol and do not like smoking. I "do" like sun, sea, flowers, travelling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, and doing embroidery."
Christie was a lifelong, "quietly devout" member of the Church of England, attended church regularly, and kept her mother's copy of "The Imitation of Christ" by her bedside. After her divorce, she stopped taking the sacrament of communion.
The Agatha Christie Trust For Children was established in 1969, and shortly after Christie's death a charitable memorial fund was set up to "help two causes that she favoured: old people and young children".
Christie's obituary in "The Times" notes that "she never cared much for the cinema, or for wireless and television." Further,
Childhood and adolescence: 1890–1907.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890, into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon. She was the youngest of three children born to Frederick Alvah Miller, "a gentleman of substance", and his wife Clarissa Margaret "Clara" Miller, née Boehmer.
Christie's mother Clara was born in Dublin in 1854 to British Army officer Frederick Boehmer and his wife Mary Ann Boehmer née West. Boehmer died in Jersey in 1863, leaving his widow to raise Clara and her brothers on a meagre income. Two weeks after Boehmer's death, Mary's sister Margaret West married widowed dry goods merchant Nathaniel Frary Miller, a US citizen. To assist Mary financially, they agreed to foster nine-year-old Clara; the family settled in Timperley, Cheshire. Margaret and Nathaniel had no children together, but Nathaniel had a 17-year-old son, Fred Miller, from his previous marriage. Fred was born in New York City and travelled extensively after leaving his Swiss boarding school. He and Clara were married in London in 1878. Their first child, Margaret Frary ("Madge"), was born in Torquay in 1879. The second, Louis Montant ("Monty"), was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880, while the family was on an extended visit to the United States.
When Fred's father died in 1869, he left Clara £2,000 (approximately ); in 1881 they used this to buy the leasehold of a villa in Torquay named Ashfield. It was here that their third and last child, Agatha, was born in 1890. She described her childhood as "very happy". The Millers lived mainly in Devon but often visited her step-grandmother/great-aunt Margaret Miller in Ealing and maternal grandmother Mary Boehmer in Bayswater. A year was spent abroad with her family, in the French Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey. Because her siblings were so much older, and there were few children in their neighbourhood, Christie spent much of her time playing alone with her pets and imaginary companions. She eventually made friends with other girls in Torquay, noting that "one of the highlights of my existence" was her appearance with them in a youth production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Yeomen of the Guard", in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax.
According to Christie, Clara believed she should not learn to read until she was eight; thanks to her curiosity, she was reading by the age of four. Her sister had been sent to a boarding school, but their mother insisted that Christie receive her education at home. As a result, her parents and sister supervised her studies in reading, writing and basic arithmetic, a subject she particularly enjoyed. They also taught her music, and she learned to play the piano and the mandolin.
Christie was a voracious reader from an early age. Among her earliest memories were of reading children's books by Mrs Molesworth and Edith Nesbit. When a little older, she moved on to the surreal verse of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. As an adolescent, she enjoyed works by Anthony Hope, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas. In April 1901, aged 10, she wrote her first poem, "The Cow Slip".
By 1901, her father's health had deteriorated, because of what he believed were heart problems. Fred died in November 1901 from pneumonia and chronic kidney disease. Christie later said that her father's death when she was 11 marked the end of her childhood.
The family's financial situation had, by this time, worsened. Madge married the year after their father's death and moved to Cheadle, Cheshire; Monty was overseas, serving in a British regiment. Christie now lived alone at Ashfield with her mother. In 1902, she began attending Miss Guyer's Girls' School in Torquay but found it difficult to adjust to the disciplined atmosphere. In 1905, her mother sent her to Paris, where she was educated in a series of (boarding schools), focusing on voice training and piano playing. Deciding she lacked the temperament and talent, she gave up her goal of performing professionally as a concert pianist or an opera singer.
Early literary attempts, marriage, literary success: 1907–1926.
After completing her education, Christie returned to England to find her mother ailing. They decided to spend the northern winter of 1907–1908 in the warm climate of Egypt, which was then a regular tourist destination for wealthy Britons. They stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel in Cairo. Christie attended many dances and other social functions; she particularly enjoyed watching amateur polo matches. While they visited some ancient Egyptian monuments such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, she did not exhibit the great interest in archaeology and Egyptology that developed in her later years. Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities, writing and performing in amateur theatrics. She also helped put on a play called "The Blue Beard of Unhappiness" with female friends.
At 18, Christie wrote her first short story, "The House of Beauty", while recovering in bed from an illness. It consisted of about 6,000 words about "madness and dreams", subjects of fascination for her. Her biographer Janet Morgan has commented that, despite "infelicities of style", the story was "compelling". (The story became an early version of her story "The House of Dreams".) Other stories followed, most of them illustrating her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Magazines rejected all her early submissions, made under pseudonyms (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and Sydney West); some submissions were later revised and published under her real name, often with new titles.
Around the same time, Christie began work on her first novel, "Snow Upon the Desert". Writing under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she set the book in Cairo and drew upon her recent experiences there. She was disappointed when the six publishers she contacted declined the work. Clara suggested that her daughter ask for advice from the successful novelist Eden Phillpotts, a family friend and neighbour, who responded to her enquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent her an introduction to his own literary agent, Hughes Massie, who also rejected "Snow Upon the Desert" but suggested a second novel.
Meanwhile, Christie's social activities expanded, with country house parties, riding, hunting, dances, and roller skating. She had short-lived relationships with four men and an engagement to another. In October 1912, she was introduced to Archibald "Archie" Christie at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about from Torquay. The son of a barrister in the Indian Civil Service, Archie was a Royal Artillery officer who was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1913. The couple quickly fell in love. Three months after their first meeting, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted.
With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Archie was sent to France to fight. They married on Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Church, Clifton, Bristol, close to the home of his mother and stepfather, when Archie was on home leave. Rising through the ranks, he was posted back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry. Christie involved herself in the war effort as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross. From October 1914 to May 1915, then from June 1916 to September 1918, she worked 3,400 hours in the Town Hall Red Cross Hospital, Torquay, first as a nurse (unpaid) then as a dispenser at £16 (approximately ) a year from 1917 after qualifying as an apothecary's assistant. Her war service ended in September 1918 when Archie was reassigned to London, and they rented a flat in St. John's Wood.
Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone", and Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her first detective novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", in 1916. It featured Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer with "magnificent moustaches" and a head "exactly the shape of an egg", who had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration for the character came from Belgian refugees living in Torquay, and the Belgian soldiers she helped to treat as a volunteer nurse during the First World War. Her original manuscript was rejected by Hodder & Stoughton and Methuen. After keeping the submission for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Christie change how the solution was revealed. She did so, and signed a contract committing her next five books to The Bodley Head, which she later felt was exploitative. It was published in 1920.
Christie settled into married life, giving birth to her only child, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa (later Hicks), in August 1919 at Ashfield. Archie left the Air Force at the end of the war and began working in the City financial sector on a relatively low salary. They still employed a maid. Her second novel, "The Secret Adversary" (1922), featured a new detective couple Tommy and Tuppence, again published by The Bodley Head. It earned her £50 (approximately ). A third novel, "Murder on the Links", again featured Poirot, as did the short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of "The Sketch" magazine, from 1923. She now had no difficulty selling her work.
In 1922, the Christies joined an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition, led by Major Ernest Belcher. Leaving their daughter with Agatha's mother and sister, in 10 months they travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada. They learned to surf prone in South Africa; then, in Waikiki, they were among the first Britons to surf standing up, and extended their time there by three months to practice. She is remembered at the British Surfing Museum as having said about surfing, “"Oh it was heaven! Nothing like rushing through the water at what seems to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour. It is one of the most perfect physical pleasures I have known".”
When they returned to England, Archie resumed work in the city, and Christie continued to work hard at her writing. After living in a series of apartments in London, they bought a house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they renamed Styles after the mansion in Christie's first detective novel.
Christie's mother, Clarissa Miller, died in April 1926. They had been exceptionally close, and the loss sent Christie into a deep depression. In August 1926, reports appeared in the press that Christie had gone to a village near Biarritz to recuperate from a "breakdown" caused by "overwork".
Disappearance: 1926.
In August 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, a friend of Major Belcher. On 3December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening, Christie disappeared from their home in Sunningdale. The following morning, her car, a Morris Cowley, was discovered at Newlands Corner in Surrey, parked above a chalk quarry with an expired driving licence and clothes inside. It was feared that she may have drowned herself in the Silent Pool, a nearby beauty spot.
The disappearance quickly became a news story, as the press sought to satisfy their readers' "hunger for sensation, disaster, and scandal". Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks pressured police, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward (approximately ). More than a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes searched the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her. Christie's disappearance made international headlines, including featuring on the front page of "The New York Times". Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for another 10 days. On 14 December 1926, she was located at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, north of her home in Sunningdale, registered as "Mrs Tressa Neele" (the surname of her husband's lover) from " S.A." (South Africa). The next day, Christie left for her sister's residence at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away".
Christie's autobiography makes no reference to the disappearance. Two doctors diagnosed her with "an unquestionable genuine loss of memory", yet opinion remains divided over the reason for her disappearance. Some, including her biographer Morgan, believe she disappeared during a fugue state. The author Jared Cade concluded that Christie planned the event to embarrass her husband but did not anticipate the resulting public melodrama. Christie biographer Laura Thompson provides an alternative view that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder.
Second marriage and later life: 1927–1976.
In January 1927, Christie, looking "very pale", sailed with her daughter and secretary to Las Palmas, Canary Islands, to "complete her convalescence", returning three months later. Christie petitioned for divorce and was granted a decree nisi against her husband in April 1928, which was made absolute in October 1928. Archie married Nancy Neele a week later. Christie retained custody of their daughter, Rosalind, and kept the Christie surname for her writing.
Reflecting on the period in her autobiography, Christie wrote, "So, after illness, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak. There is no need to dwell on it."
In 1928, Christie left England and took the (Simplon) Orient Express to Istanbul and then to Baghdad. In Iraq, she became friends with archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930. On that second trip, she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 13 years her junior. In a 1977 interview, Mallowan recounted his first meeting with Christie, when he took her and a group of tourists on a tour of his expedition site in Iraq. Christie and Mallowan married in Edinburgh in September 1930. Their marriage lasted until Christie's death in 1976. She accompanied Mallowan on his archaeological expeditions, and her travels with him contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as "Peril at End House") were set in and around Torquay, where she was raised. Christie drew on her experience of international train travel when writing her 1934 novel "Murder on the Orient Express". The Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, the eastern terminus of the railway, claims the book was written there and maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.
Christie and Mallowan lived in Chelsea, first in Cresswell Place and later in Sheffield Terrace. Both properties are now marked by blue plaques. In 1934, they bought Winterbrook House in Winterbrook, a hamlet near Wallingford. This was their main residence for the rest of their lives and the place where Christie did much of her writing. This house also bears a blue plaque. Christie led a quiet life despite being known in Wallingford; from 1951 to 1976 she served as president of the local amateur dramatic society.
The couple acquired the Greenway Estate in Devon as a summer residence in 1938; it was given to the National Trust in 2000. Christie frequently stayed at Abney Hall, Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, and based at least two stories there: a short story, "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of the same name and the novel "After the Funeral". One Christie compendium notes that "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country house life, with all its servants and grandeur being woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys, Stonygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney Hall in various forms."
During World War II, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital (UCH), London, where she updated her knowledge of poisons. Her later novel "The Pale Horse" was based on a suggestion from Harold Davis, the chief pharmacist at UCH. In 1977, a thallium poisoning case was solved by British medical personnel who had read Christie's book and recognised the symptoms she described.
The British intelligence agency MI5 investigated Christie after a character called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller "N or M?", which was about a hunt for a pair of deadly fifth columnists in wartime England. MI5 was concerned that Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie told her friend, the codebreaker Dilly Knox, "I was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the name to one of my least lovable characters."
Christie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. In honour of her many literary works, Christie was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1956 New Year Honours. She was co-president of the Detection Club from 1958 to her death in 1976. In 1961, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by the University of Exeter. In the 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work. After her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady Mallowan.
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, but she continued to write. Her last novel was "Postern of Fate" in 1973. Textual analysis suggested that Christie may have begun to develop Alzheimer's disease or other dementia at about this time.
Personal qualities.
In 1946, Christie said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones and cinemas. I dislike the taste of alcohol and do not like smoking. I "do" like sun, sea, flowers, travelling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, and doing embroidery."
Christie was a lifelong, "quietly devout" member of the Church of England, attended church regularly, and kept her mother's copy of "The Imitation of Christ" by her bedside. After her divorce, she stopped taking the sacrament of communion.
The Agatha Christie Trust For Children was established in 1969, and shortly after Christie's death a charitable memorial fund was set up to "help two causes that she favoured: old people and young children".
Christie's obituary in "The Times" notes that "she never cared much for the cinema, or for wireless and television." Further,
Death and estate.
Death and burial.
Christie died peacefully on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her home at Winterbrook House. When her death was announced, two West End theatresthe St. Martin's, where "The Mousetrap" was playing, and the Savoy, which was home to a revival of "Murder at the Vicarage"dimmed their outside lights in her honour. She was buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey, in a plot she had chosen with her husband 10 years previously. The simple funeral service was attended by about 20 newspaper and TV reporters, some having travelled from as far away as South America. Thirty wreaths adorned Christie's grave, including one from the cast of her long-running play "The Mousetrap" and one sent "on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers" by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.
Mallowan, who remarried in 1977, died in 1978 and was buried next to Christie.
Estate and subsequent ownership of works.
Christie was unhappy about becoming "an employed wage slave", and for tax reasons set up a private company in 1955, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold the rights to her works. In about 1959 she transferred her 278-acre home, Greenway Estate, to her daughter, Rosalind Hicks. In 1968, when Christie was almost 80, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and the works it owned) to Booker Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), which by 1977 had increased its stake to 64%. Agatha Christie Limited still owns the worldwide rights for more than 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.
In the late 1950s, Christie had reputedly been earning around £100,000 (approximately ) per year. Christie sold an estimated 300 million books during her lifetime. At the time of her death in 1976, "she was the best-selling novelist in history."
One estimate of her total earnings from more than a half-century of writing is $20 million (approximately $ million in ). As a result of her tax planning, her will left only £106,683 (approximately ) net, which went mostly to her husband and daughter along with some smaller bequests. Her remaining 36% share of Agatha Christie Limited was inherited by Hicks, who passionately preserved her mother's works, image, and legacy until her own death 28 years later. The family's share of the company allowed them to appoint 50% of the board and the chairman, and retain a veto over new treatments, updated versions, and republications of her works.
In 2004, Hicks' obituary in "The Telegraph" noted that she had been "determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the integrity of her creations" and disapproved of "merchandising" activities. Upon her death on 28 October 2004, the Greenway Estate passed to her son Mathew Prichard. After his stepfather's death in 2005, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents to the National Trust.
Christie's family and family trusts, including great-grandson James Prichard, continue to own the 36% stake in Agatha Christie Limited, and remain associated with the company. In 2020, James Prichard was the company's chairman. Mathew Prichard also holds the copyright to some of his grandmother's later literary works including "The Mousetrap". Christie's work continues to be developed in a range of adaptations.
In 1998, Booker sold its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2,100,000, approximately annual revenue) for £10,000,000 (approximately ) to Chorion, whose portfolio of authors' works included the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley. In February 2012, after a management buyout, Chorion began to sell off its literary assets. This included the sale of Chorion's 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media UK. In 2014, RLJ Entertainment Inc. (RLJE) acquired Acorn Media UK, renamed it Acorn Media Enterprises, and incorporated it as the RLJE UK development arm.
In late February 2014, media reports stated that the BBC had acquired exclusive TV rights to Christie's works in the UK (previously associated with ITV) and made plans with Acorn's co-operation to air new productions for the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth in 2015. As part of that deal, the BBC broadcast "Partners in Crime" and "And Then There Were None", both in 2015. Subsequent productions have included "The Witness for the Prosecution" but plans to televise "Ordeal by Innocence" at Christmas 2017 were delayed because of controversy surrounding one of the cast members. The three-part adaptation aired in April 2018. A three-part adaptation of "The A.B.C. Murders" starring John Malkovich and Rupert Grint began filming in June 2018 and was first broadcast in December 2018. A two-part adaptation of "The Pale Horse" was broadcast on BBC1 in February 2020. "Death Comes as the End" will be the next BBC adaptation.
Death and burial.
Christie died peacefully on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her home at Winterbrook House. When her death was announced, two West End theatresthe St. Martin's, where "The Mousetrap" was playing, and the Savoy, which was home to a revival of "Murder at the Vicarage"dimmed their outside lights in her honour. She was buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey, in a plot she had chosen with her husband 10 years previously. The simple funeral service was attended by about 20 newspaper and TV reporters, some having travelled from as far away as South America. Thirty wreaths adorned Christie's grave, including one from the cast of her long-running play "The Mousetrap" and one sent "on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers" by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.
Mallowan, who remarried in 1977, died in 1978 and was buried next to Christie.
Estate and subsequent ownership of works.
Christie was unhappy about becoming "an employed wage slave", and for tax reasons set up a private company in 1955, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold the rights to her works. In about 1959 she transferred her 278-acre home, Greenway Estate, to her daughter, Rosalind Hicks. In 1968, when Christie was almost 80, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and the works it owned) to Booker Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), which by 1977 had increased its stake to 64%. Agatha Christie Limited still owns the worldwide rights for more than 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.
In the late 1950s, Christie had reputedly been earning around £100,000 (approximately ) per year. Christie sold an estimated 300 million books during her lifetime. At the time of her death in 1976, "she was the best-selling novelist in history."
One estimate of her total earnings from more than a half-century of writing is $20 million (approximately $ million in ). As a result of her tax planning, her will left only £106,683 (approximately ) net, which went mostly to her husband and daughter along with some smaller bequests. Her remaining 36% share of Agatha Christie Limited was inherited by Hicks, who passionately preserved her mother's works, image, and legacy until her own death 28 years later. The family's share of the company allowed them to appoint 50% of the board and the chairman, and retain a veto over new treatments, updated versions, and republications of her works.
In 2004, Hicks' obituary in "The Telegraph" noted that she had been "determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the integrity of her creations" and disapproved of "merchandising" activities. Upon her death on 28 October 2004, the Greenway Estate passed to her son Mathew Prichard. After his stepfather's death in 2005, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents to the National Trust.
Christie's family and family trusts, including great-grandson James Prichard, continue to own the 36% stake in Agatha Christie Limited, and remain associated with the company. In 2020, James Prichard was the company's chairman. Mathew Prichard also holds the copyright to some of his grandmother's later literary works including "The Mousetrap". Christie's work continues to be developed in a range of adaptations.
In 1998, Booker sold its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2,100,000, approximately annual revenue) for £10,000,000 (approximately ) to Chorion, whose portfolio of authors' works included the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley. In February 2012, after a management buyout, Chorion began to sell off its literary assets. This included the sale of Chorion's 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media UK. In 2014, RLJ Entertainment Inc. (RLJE) acquired Acorn Media UK, renamed it Acorn Media Enterprises, and incorporated it as the RLJE UK development arm.
In late February 2014, media reports stated that the BBC had acquired exclusive TV rights to Christie's works in the UK (previously associated with ITV) and made plans with Acorn's co-operation to air new productions for the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth in 2015. As part of that deal, the BBC broadcast "Partners in Crime" and "And Then There Were None", both in 2015. Subsequent productions have included "The Witness for the Prosecution" but plans to televise "Ordeal by Innocence" at Christmas 2017 were delayed because of controversy surrounding one of the cast members. The three-part adaptation aired in April 2018. A three-part adaptation of "The A.B.C. Murders" starring John Malkovich and Rupert Grint began filming in June 2018 and was first broadcast in December 2018. A two-part adaptation of "The Pale Horse" was broadcast on BBC1 in February 2020. "Death Comes as the End" will be the next BBC adaptation.
Works.
Works of fiction.
Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Christie's first published book, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", was released in 1920 and introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of her novels and more than 50 short stories.
Over the years, Christie grew tired of Poirot, much as Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her diary that she was finding Poirot "insufferable", and by the 1960s she felt he was "an egocentric creep". Thompson believes Christie's occasional antipathy to her creation is overstated, and points out that "in later life she sought to protect him against misrepresentation as powerfully as if he were her own flesh and blood." Unlike Doyle, she resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She married off Poirot's "Watson", Captain Arthur Hastings, in an attempt to trim her cast commitments.
Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began publication in December 1927 and were subsequently collected under the title "The Thirteen Problems". Marple was a genteel, elderly spinster who solved crimes using analogies to English village life. Christie said, "Miss Marple was not in any way a picture of my grandmother; she was far more fussy and spinsterish than my grandmother ever was," but her autobiography establishes a firm connection between the fictional character and Christie's step-grandmother Margaret Miller ("Auntie-Grannie") and her "Ealing cronies". Both Marple and Miller "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right". Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories.
During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, "Curtain" and "Sleeping Murder", featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, respectively. Both books were sealed in a bank vault, and she made over the copyrights by deed of gift to her daughter and her husband to provide each with a kind of insurance policy. Christie had a heart attack and a serious fall in 1974, after which she was unable to write. Her daughter authorised the publication of "Curtain" in 1975, and "Sleeping Murder" was published posthumously in 1976. These publications followed the success of the 1974 film version of "Murder on the Orient Express".
Shortly before the publication of "Curtain", Poirot became the first fictional character to have an obituary in "The New York Times", which was printed on page one on 6August 1975.
Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady. Hercule Poirota professional sleuthwould not be at home at all in Miss Marple's world."
In 2013, the Christie family supported the release of a new Poirot story, "The Monogram Murders", written by British author Sophie Hannah. Hannah later published three more Poirot mysteries, "Closed Casket" in 2016, "The Mystery of Three Quarters" in 2018., and "The Killings at Kingfisher Hill" in 2020.
Formula and plot devices.
Christie has been called the "Duchess of Death", the "Mistress of Mystery", and the "Queen of Crime". Early in her career, a reporter noted that "her plots are possible, logical, and always new." According to Hannah, "At the start of each novel, she shows us an apparently impossible situation and we go mad wondering 'How can this be happening?' Then, slowly, she reveals how the impossible is not only possible but the only thing that could have happened."
She developed her storytelling techniques during what has been called the "Golden Age" of detective fiction. Author Dilys Winn called Christie "the doyenne of Coziness", a sub-genre which "featured a small village setting, a hero with faintly aristocratic family connections, a plethora of red herrings and a tendency to commit homicide with sterling silver letter openers and poisons imported from Paraguay". At the end, in a Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one room, explains the course of their deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party; there are exceptions where it is left to the guilty party to explain all (such as "And Then There Were None" and "Endless Night").
Christie did not limit herself to quaint English villagesthe action might take place on a small island ("And Then There Were None"), an aeroplane ("Death in the Clouds"), a train ("Murder on the Orient Express"), a steamship ("Death on the Nile"), a smart London flat ("Cards on the Table"), a resort in the West Indies ("A Caribbean Mystery"), or an archaeological dig ("Murder in Mesopotamia")but the circle of potential suspects is usually closed and intimate: family members, friends, servants, business associates, fellow travellers. Stereotyped characters abound (the , the stolid policeman, the devoted servant, the dull colonel), but these may be subverted to stymie the reader; impersonations and secret alliances are always possible. There is always a motivemost often, money: "There are very few killers in Christie who enjoy murder for its own sake."
Professor of Pharmacology Michael C. Gerald noted that "in over half her novels, one or more victims are poisoned, albeit not always to the full satisfaction of the perpetrator." Guns, knives, garrottes, tripwires, blunt instruments, and even a hatchet were also used, but "Christie never resorted to elaborate mechanical or scientific means to explain her ingenuity," according to John Curran, author and literary adviser to the Christie estate. Many of her clues are mundane objects: a calendar, a coffee cup, wax flowers, a beer bottle, a fireplace used during a heat wave.
According to crime writer P. D. James, Christie was prone to making the unlikeliest character the guilty party. Alert readers could sometimes identify the culprit by identifying the least likely suspect. Christie mocked this insight in her foreword to "Cards on the Table": "Spot the person least likely to have committed the crime and in nine times out of ten your task is finished. Since I do not want my faithful readers to fling away this book in disgust, I prefer to warn them beforehand "that this is not that kind of book"."
On "Desert Island Discs" in 2007, Brian Aldiss said Christie had told him she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. Based upon a study of her working notebooks, Curran describes how Christie would first create a cast of characters, choose a setting, and then produce a list of scenes in which specific clues would be revealed; the order of scenes would be revised as she developed her plot. Of necessity, the murderer had to be known to the author before the sequence could be finalised and she began to type or dictate the first draft of her novel. Much of the work, particularly dialogue, was done in her head before she put it on paper.
In 2013, the 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association chose "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" as "the best whodunit... ever written". Author Julian Symons observed, "In an obvious sense, the book fits within the conventions... The setting is a village deep within the English countryside, Roger Ackroyd dies in his study; there is a butler who behaves suspiciously... Every successful detective story in this period involved a deceit practised upon the reader, and here the trick is the highly original one of making the murderer the local doctor, who tells the story and acts as Poirot's Watson." Critic Sutherland Scott stated, "If Agatha Christie had made no other contribution to the literature of detective fiction she would still deserve our grateful thanks" for writing this novel.
In September 2015, to mark her 125th birthday, "And Then There Were None" was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. The novel is emblematic of both her use of formula and her willingness to discard it. ""And Then There Were None" carries the 'closed society' type of murder mystery to extreme lengths," according to author Charles Osborne. It begins with the classic set-up of potential victim(s) and killer(s) isolated from the outside world, but then violates conventions. There is no detective involved in the action, no interviews of suspects, no careful search for clues, and no suspects gathered together in the last chapter to be confronted with the solution. As Christie herself said, "Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious." Critics agreed she had succeeded: "The arrogant Mrs. Christie this time set herself a fearsome test of her own ingenuity... the reviews, not surprisingly, were without exception wildly adulatory."
Character stereotypes.
Christie included stereotyped descriptions of characters in her work, especially before 1945 (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, she described "men of Hebraic extraction, sallow men with hooked noses, wearing rather flamboyant jewellery" in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier" from the collection "The Mysterious Mr Quin". In 1947, the Anti-Defamation League in the US sent an official letter of complaint to Christie's American publishers, Dodd, Mead and Company, regarding perceived antisemitism in her works. Christie's British literary agent later wrote to her US representative, authorising American publishers to "omit the word 'Jew' when it refers to an unpleasant character in future books."
In "The Hollow", published in 1946, one of the characters is described by another as "a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake ... a small woman with a thick nose, henna red and a disagreeable voice". To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie portrayed some "foreign" characters as victims, or potential victims, at the hands of English malefactors, such as, respectively, Olga Seminoff ("Hallowe'en Party") and Katrina Reiger (in the short story "How Does Your Garden Grow?"). Jewish characters are often seen as un-English (such as Oliver Manders in "Three Act Tragedy"), but they are rarely the culprits.
Other detectives.
In addition to Poirot and Marple, Christie also created amateur detectives Thomas Beresford and his wife, Prudence "Tuppence" "née" Cowley, who appear in four novels and one collection of short stories published between 1922 and 1974. Unlike her other sleuths, the Beresfords were only in their early twenties when introduced in "The Secret Adversary", and were allowed to age alongside their creator. She treated their stories with a lighter touch, giving them a "dash and verve" which was not universally admired by critics. Their last adventure, "Postern of Fate", was Christie's last novel.
Harley Quin was "easily the most unorthodox" of Christie's fictional detectives. Inspired by Christie's affection for the figures from the Harlequinade, the semi-supernatural Quin always works with an elderly, conventional man called Satterthwaite. The pair appear in 14 short stories, 12 of which were collected in 1930 as "The Mysterious Mr. Quin". Mallowan described these tales as "detection in a fanciful vein, touching on the fairy story, a natural product of Agatha's peculiar imagination". Satterthwaite also appears in a novel, "Three Act Tragedy", and a short story, "Dead Man's Mirror", both of which feature Poirot.
Another of her lesser-known characters is Parker Pyne, a retired civil servant who assists unhappy people in an unconventional manner. The 12 short stories which introduced him, "Parker Pyne Investigates" (1934), are best remembered for "The Case of the Discontented Soldier", which features Ariadne Oliver, "an amusing and satirical self-portrait of Agatha Christie". Over the ensuing decades, Oliver reappeared in seven novels. In most of them she assists Poirot.
Plays.
In 1928, Michael Morton adapted "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" for the stage under the title "Alibi". The play enjoyed a respectable run, but Christie disliked the changes made to her work and, in future, preferred to write for the theatre herself. The first of her own stage works was "Black Coffee", which received good reviews when it opened in the West End in late 1930. She followed this up with adaptations of her detective novels: "And Then There Were None" in 1943, "Appointment with Death" in 1945, and "The Hollow" in 1951.
In the 1950s, "the theatre ... engaged much of Agatha's attention." She next adapted her short radio play into "The Mousetrap", which premiered in the West End in 1952, produced by Peter Saunders and starring Richard Attenborough as the original Detective Sergeant Trotter. Her expectations for the play were not high; she believed it would run no more than eight months. "The Mousetrap" has long since made theatrical history as the world's longest-running play, staging its 27,500th performance in September 2018. The play temporarily closed in March 2020, when all UK theatres shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, before it re-opened on 17 May 2021.
In 1953, she followed this with "Witness for the Prosecution", whose Broadway production won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for best foreign play of 1954 and earned Christie an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. "Spider's Web", an original work written for actress Margaret Lockwood at her request, premiered in the West End in 1954 and was also a hit. Christie became the first female playwright to have three plays running simultaneously in London: "The Mousetrap", "Witness for the Prosecution" and "Spider's Web". She said, "Plays are much easier to "write" than books, because you can "see" them in your mind's eye, you are not hampered by all that description which clogs you so terribly in a book and stops you from getting on with what's happening." In a letter to her daughter, Christie said being a playwright was "a lot of fun!"
As Mary Westmacott.
Christie published six mainstream novels under the name Mary Westmacott, a pseudonym which gave her the freedom to explore "her most private and precious imaginative garden". These books typically received better reviews than her detective and thriller fiction. Of the first, "Giant's Bread" published in 1930, a reviewer for "The New York Times" wrote, "...her book is far above the average of current fiction, in fact, comes well under the classification of a 'good book'. And it is only a satisfying novel that can claim that appellation." It was publicized from the very beginning that "Mary Westmacott" was a pen name of a well-known author, although the identity behind the pen name was kept secret; the dust jacket of "Giant's Bread" mentions that the author had previously written "under her real name...half a dozen books that have each passed the thirty thousand mark in sales." (In fact, though this was technically true, it disguised Christie's identity through understatement. By the publication of "Giant's Bread", Christie had published 10 novels and two short story collections, all of which had sold considerably more than 30,000 copies.) After Christie's authorship of the first four Westmacott novels was revealed by a journalist in 1949, she wrote two more, the last in 1956.
The other Westmacott titles are: "Unfinished Portrait" (1934), "Absent in the Spring" (1944), "The Rose and the Yew Tree" (1948), "A Daughter's a Daughter" (1952), and "The Burden" (1956).
Non-fiction works.
Christie published few non-fiction works. "Come, Tell Me How You Live", about working on an archaeological dig, was drawn from her life with Mallowan. "The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery" is a collection of correspondence from her 1922 Grand Tour of the British empire, including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. "" was published posthumously in 1977 and adjudged the Best Critical/Biographical Work at the 1978 Edgar Awards.
Titles.
Many of Christie's works from 1940 onward have titles drawn from literature, with the original context of the title typically printed as an epigraph.
The inspirations for some of Christie's titles include:
Christie biographer Gillian Gill said, "Christie's writing has the sparseness, the directness, the narrative pace, and the universal appeal of the fairy story, and it is perhaps as modern fairy stories for grown-up children that Christie's novels succeed." Reflecting a juxtaposition of innocence and horror, numerous Christie titles were drawn from well-known children's nursery rhymes: "And Then There Were None" (from "Ten Little Niggers"), "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" (from "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe"), "Five Little Pigs" (from "This Little Piggy"), "Crooked House" (from "There Was a Crooked Man"), "A Pocket Full of Rye" (from "Sing a Song of Sixpence"), "Hickory Dickory Dock" (from "Hickory Dickory Dock"), and "Three Blind Mice" (from "Three Blind Mice").
Works of fiction.
Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Christie's first published book, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", was released in 1920 and introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of her novels and more than 50 short stories.
Over the years, Christie grew tired of Poirot, much as Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her diary that she was finding Poirot "insufferable", and by the 1960s she felt he was "an egocentric creep". Thompson believes Christie's occasional antipathy to her creation is overstated, and points out that "in later life she sought to protect him against misrepresentation as powerfully as if he were her own flesh and blood." Unlike Doyle, she resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She married off Poirot's "Watson", Captain Arthur Hastings, in an attempt to trim her cast commitments.
Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began publication in December 1927 and were subsequently collected under the title "The Thirteen Problems". Marple was a genteel, elderly spinster who solved crimes using analogies to English village life. Christie said, "Miss Marple was not in any way a picture of my grandmother; she was far more fussy and spinsterish than my grandmother ever was," but her autobiography establishes a firm connection between the fictional character and Christie's step-grandmother Margaret Miller ("Auntie-Grannie") and her "Ealing cronies". Both Marple and Miller "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right". Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories.
During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, "Curtain" and "Sleeping Murder", featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, respectively. Both books were sealed in a bank vault, and she made over the copyrights by deed of gift to her daughter and her husband to provide each with a kind of insurance policy. Christie had a heart attack and a serious fall in 1974, after which she was unable to write. Her daughter authorised the publication of "Curtain" in 1975, and "Sleeping Murder" was published posthumously in 1976. These publications followed the success of the 1974 film version of "Murder on the Orient Express".
Shortly before the publication of "Curtain", Poirot became the first fictional character to have an obituary in "The New York Times", which was printed on page one on 6August 1975.
Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady. Hercule Poirota professional sleuthwould not be at home at all in Miss Marple's world."
In 2013, the Christie family supported the release of a new Poirot story, "The Monogram Murders", written by British author Sophie Hannah. Hannah later published three more Poirot mysteries, "Closed Casket" in 2016, "The Mystery of Three Quarters" in 2018., and "The Killings at Kingfisher Hill" in 2020.
Formula and plot devices.
Christie has been called the "Duchess of Death", the "Mistress of Mystery", and the "Queen of Crime". Early in her career, a reporter noted that "her plots are possible, logical, and always new." According to Hannah, "At the start of each novel, she shows us an apparently impossible situation and we go mad wondering 'How can this be happening?' Then, slowly, she reveals how the impossible is not only possible but the only thing that could have happened."
She developed her storytelling techniques during what has been called the "Golden Age" of detective fiction. Author Dilys Winn called Christie "the doyenne of Coziness", a sub-genre which "featured a small village setting, a hero with faintly aristocratic family connections, a plethora of red herrings and a tendency to commit homicide with sterling silver letter openers and poisons imported from Paraguay". At the end, in a Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one room, explains the course of their deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party; there are exceptions where it is left to the guilty party to explain all (such as "And Then There Were None" and "Endless Night").
Christie did not limit herself to quaint English villagesthe action might take place on a small island ("And Then There Were None"), an aeroplane ("Death in the Clouds"), a train ("Murder on the Orient Express"), a steamship ("Death on the Nile"), a smart London flat ("Cards on the Table"), a resort in the West Indies ("A Caribbean Mystery"), or an archaeological dig ("Murder in Mesopotamia")but the circle of potential suspects is usually closed and intimate: family members, friends, servants, business associates, fellow travellers. Stereotyped characters abound (the , the stolid policeman, the devoted servant, the dull colonel), but these may be subverted to stymie the reader; impersonations and secret alliances are always possible. There is always a motivemost often, money: "There are very few killers in Christie who enjoy murder for its own sake."
Professor of Pharmacology Michael C. Gerald noted that "in over half her novels, one or more victims are poisoned, albeit not always to the full satisfaction of the perpetrator." Guns, knives, garrottes, tripwires, blunt instruments, and even a hatchet were also used, but "Christie never resorted to elaborate mechanical or scientific means to explain her ingenuity," according to John Curran, author and literary adviser to the Christie estate. Many of her clues are mundane objects: a calendar, a coffee cup, wax flowers, a beer bottle, a fireplace used during a heat wave.
According to crime writer P. D. James, Christie was prone to making the unlikeliest character the guilty party. Alert readers could sometimes identify the culprit by identifying the least likely suspect. Christie mocked this insight in her foreword to "Cards on the Table": "Spot the person least likely to have committed the crime and in nine times out of ten your task is finished. Since I do not want my faithful readers to fling away this book in disgust, I prefer to warn them beforehand "that this is not that kind of book"."
On "Desert Island Discs" in 2007, Brian Aldiss said Christie had told him she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. Based upon a study of her working notebooks, Curran describes how Christie would first create a cast of characters, choose a setting, and then produce a list of scenes in which specific clues would be revealed; the order of scenes would be revised as she developed her plot. Of necessity, the murderer had to be known to the author before the sequence could be finalised and she began to type or dictate the first draft of her novel. Much of the work, particularly dialogue, was done in her head before she put it on paper.
In 2013, the 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association chose "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" as "the best whodunit... ever written". Author Julian Symons observed, "In an obvious sense, the book fits within the conventions... The setting is a village deep within the English countryside, Roger Ackroyd dies in his study; there is a butler who behaves suspiciously... Every successful detective story in this period involved a deceit practised upon the reader, and here the trick is the highly original one of making the murderer the local doctor, who tells the story and acts as Poirot's Watson." Critic Sutherland Scott stated, "If Agatha Christie had made no other contribution to the literature of detective fiction she would still deserve our grateful thanks" for writing this novel.
In September 2015, to mark her 125th birthday, "And Then There Were None" was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. The novel is emblematic of both her use of formula and her willingness to discard it. ""And Then There Were None" carries the 'closed society' type of murder mystery to extreme lengths," according to author Charles Osborne. It begins with the classic set-up of potential victim(s) and killer(s) isolated from the outside world, but then violates conventions. There is no detective involved in the action, no interviews of suspects, no careful search for clues, and no suspects gathered together in the last chapter to be confronted with the solution. As Christie herself said, "Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious." Critics agreed she had succeeded: "The arrogant Mrs. Christie this time set herself a fearsome test of her own ingenuity... the reviews, not surprisingly, were without exception wildly adulatory."
Character stereotypes.
Christie included stereotyped descriptions of characters in her work, especially before 1945 (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, she described "men of Hebraic extraction, sallow men with hooked noses, wearing rather flamboyant jewellery" in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier" from the collection "The Mysterious Mr Quin". In 1947, the Anti-Defamation League in the US sent an official letter of complaint to Christie's American publishers, Dodd, Mead and Company, regarding perceived antisemitism in her works. Christie's British literary agent later wrote to her US representative, authorising American publishers to "omit the word 'Jew' when it refers to an unpleasant character in future books."
In "The Hollow", published in 1946, one of the characters is described by another as "a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake ... a small woman with a thick nose, henna red and a disagreeable voice". To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie portrayed some "foreign" characters as victims, or potential victims, at the hands of English malefactors, such as, respectively, Olga Seminoff ("Hallowe'en Party") and Katrina Reiger (in the short story "How Does Your Garden Grow?"). Jewish characters are often seen as un-English (such as Oliver Manders in "Three Act Tragedy"), but they are rarely the culprits.
Other detectives.
In addition to Poirot and Marple, Christie also created amateur detectives Thomas Beresford and his wife, Prudence "Tuppence" "née" Cowley, who appear in four novels and one collection of short stories published between 1922 and 1974. Unlike her other sleuths, the Beresfords were only in their early twenties when introduced in "The Secret Adversary", and were allowed to age alongside their creator. She treated their stories with a lighter touch, giving them a "dash and verve" which was not universally admired by critics. Their last adventure, "Postern of Fate", was Christie's last novel.
Harley Quin was "easily the most unorthodox" of Christie's fictional detectives. Inspired by Christie's affection for the figures from the Harlequinade, the semi-supernatural Quin always works with an elderly, conventional man called Satterthwaite. The pair appear in 14 short stories, 12 of which were collected in 1930 as "The Mysterious Mr. Quin". Mallowan described these tales as "detection in a fanciful vein, touching on the fairy story, a natural product of Agatha's peculiar imagination". Satterthwaite also appears in a novel, "Three Act Tragedy", and a short story, "Dead Man's Mirror", both of which feature Poirot.
Another of her lesser-known characters is Parker Pyne, a retired civil servant who assists unhappy people in an unconventional manner. The 12 short stories which introduced him, "Parker Pyne Investigates" (1934), are best remembered for "The Case of the Discontented Soldier", which features Ariadne Oliver, "an amusing and satirical self-portrait of Agatha Christie". Over the ensuing decades, Oliver reappeared in seven novels. In most of them she assists Poirot.
Plays.
In 1928, Michael Morton adapted "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" for the stage under the title "Alibi". The play enjoyed a respectable run, but Christie disliked the changes made to her work and, in future, preferred to write for the theatre herself. The first of her own stage works was "Black Coffee", which received good reviews when it opened in the West End in late 1930. She followed this up with adaptations of her detective novels: "And Then There Were None" in 1943, "Appointment with Death" in 1945, and "The Hollow" in 1951.
In the 1950s, "the theatre ... engaged much of Agatha's attention." She next adapted her short radio play into "The Mousetrap", which premiered in the West End in 1952, produced by Peter Saunders and starring Richard Attenborough as the original Detective Sergeant Trotter. Her expectations for the play were not high; she believed it would run no more than eight months. "The Mousetrap" has long since made theatrical history as the world's longest-running play, staging its 27,500th performance in September 2018. The play temporarily closed in March 2020, when all UK theatres shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, before it re-opened on 17 May 2021.
In 1953, she followed this with "Witness for the Prosecution", whose Broadway production won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for best foreign play of 1954 and earned Christie an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. "Spider's Web", an original work written for actress Margaret Lockwood at her request, premiered in the West End in 1954 and was also a hit. Christie became the first female playwright to have three plays running simultaneously in London: "The Mousetrap", "Witness for the Prosecution" and "Spider's Web". She said, "Plays are much easier to "write" than books, because you can "see" them in your mind's eye, you are not hampered by all that description which clogs you so terribly in a book and stops you from getting on with what's happening." In a letter to her daughter, Christie said being a playwright was "a lot of fun!"
As Mary Westmacott.
Christie published six mainstream novels under the name Mary Westmacott, a pseudonym which gave her the freedom to explore "her most private and precious imaginative garden". These books typically received better reviews than her detective and thriller fiction. Of the first, "Giant's Bread" published in 1930, a reviewer for "The New York Times" wrote, "...her book is far above the average of current fiction, in fact, comes well under the classification of a 'good book'. And it is only a satisfying novel that can claim that appellation." It was publicized from the very beginning that "Mary Westmacott" was a pen name of a well-known author, although the identity behind the pen name was kept secret; the dust jacket of "Giant's Bread" mentions that the author had previously written "under her real name...half a dozen books that have each passed the thirty thousand mark in sales." (In fact, though this was technically true, it disguised Christie's identity through understatement. By the publication of "Giant's Bread", Christie had published 10 novels and two short story collections, all of which had sold considerably more than 30,000 copies.) After Christie's authorship of the first four Westmacott novels was revealed by a journalist in 1949, she wrote two more, the last in 1956.
The other Westmacott titles are: "Unfinished Portrait" (1934), "Absent in the Spring" (1944), "The Rose and the Yew Tree" (1948), "A Daughter's a Daughter" (1952), and "The Burden" (1956).
Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Christie's first published book, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", was released in 1920 and introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of her novels and more than 50 short stories.
Over the years, Christie grew tired of Poirot, much as Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her diary that she was finding Poirot "insufferable", and by the 1960s she felt he was "an egocentric creep". Thompson believes Christie's occasional antipathy to her creation is overstated, and points out that "in later life she sought to protect him against misrepresentation as powerfully as if he were her own flesh and blood." Unlike Doyle, she resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She married off Poirot's "Watson", Captain Arthur Hastings, in an attempt to trim her cast commitments.
Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began publication in December 1927 and were subsequently collected under the title "The Thirteen Problems". Marple was a genteel, elderly spinster who solved crimes using analogies to English village life. Christie said, "Miss Marple was not in any way a picture of my grandmother; she was far more fussy and spinsterish than my grandmother ever was," but her autobiography establishes a firm connection between the fictional character and Christie's step-grandmother Margaret Miller ("Auntie-Grannie") and her "Ealing cronies". Both Marple and Miller "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right". Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories.
During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, "Curtain" and "Sleeping Murder", featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, respectively. Both books were sealed in a bank vault, and she made over the copyrights by deed of gift to her daughter and her husband to provide each with a kind of insurance policy. Christie had a heart attack and a serious fall in 1974, after which she was unable to write. Her daughter authorised the publication of "Curtain" in 1975, and "Sleeping Murder" was published posthumously in 1976. These publications followed the success of the 1974 film version of "Murder on the Orient Express".
Shortly before the publication of "Curtain", Poirot became the first fictional character to have an obituary in "The New York Times", which was printed on page one on 6August 1975.
Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady. Hercule Poirota professional sleuthwould not be at home at all in Miss Marple's world."
In 2013, the Christie family supported the release of a new Poirot story, "The Monogram Murders", written by British author Sophie Hannah. Hannah later published three more Poirot mysteries, "Closed Casket" in 2016, "The Mystery of Three Quarters" in 2018., and "The Killings at Kingfisher Hill" in 2020.
Formula and plot devices.
Christie has been called the "Duchess of Death", the "Mistress of Mystery", and the "Queen of Crime". Early in her career, a reporter noted that "her plots are possible, logical, and always new." According to Hannah, "At the start of each novel, she shows us an apparently impossible situation and we go mad wondering 'How can this be happening?' Then, slowly, she reveals how the impossible is not only possible but the only thing that could have happened."
She developed her storytelling techniques during what has been called the "Golden Age" of detective fiction. Author Dilys Winn called Christie "the doyenne of Coziness", a sub-genre which "featured a small village setting, a hero with faintly aristocratic family connections, a plethora of red herrings and a tendency to commit homicide with sterling silver letter openers and poisons imported from Paraguay". At the end, in a Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one room, explains the course of their deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party; there are exceptions where it is left to the guilty party to explain all (such as "And Then There Were None" and "Endless Night").
Christie did not limit herself to quaint English villagesthe action might take place on a small island ("And Then There Were None"), an aeroplane ("Death in the Clouds"), a train ("Murder on the Orient Express"), a steamship ("Death on the Nile"), a smart London flat ("Cards on the Table"), a resort in the West Indies ("A Caribbean Mystery"), or an archaeological dig ("Murder in Mesopotamia")but the circle of potential suspects is usually closed and intimate: family members, friends, servants, business associates, fellow travellers. Stereotyped characters abound (the , the stolid policeman, the devoted servant, the dull colonel), but these may be subverted to stymie the reader; impersonations and secret alliances are always possible. There is always a motivemost often, money: "There are very few killers in Christie who enjoy murder for its own sake."
Professor of Pharmacology Michael C. Gerald noted that "in over half her novels, one or more victims are poisoned, albeit not always to the full satisfaction of the perpetrator." Guns, knives, garrottes, tripwires, blunt instruments, and even a hatchet were also used, but "Christie never resorted to elaborate mechanical or scientific means to explain her ingenuity," according to John Curran, author and literary adviser to the Christie estate. Many of her clues are mundane objects: a calendar, a coffee cup, wax flowers, a beer bottle, a fireplace used during a heat wave.
According to crime writer P. D. James, Christie was prone to making the unlikeliest character the guilty party. Alert readers could sometimes identify the culprit by identifying the least likely suspect. Christie mocked this insight in her foreword to "Cards on the Table": "Spot the person least likely to have committed the crime and in nine times out of ten your task is finished. Since I do not want my faithful readers to fling away this book in disgust, I prefer to warn them beforehand "that this is not that kind of book"."
On "Desert Island Discs" in 2007, Brian Aldiss said Christie had told him she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. Based upon a study of her working notebooks, Curran describes how Christie would first create a cast of characters, choose a setting, and then produce a list of scenes in which specific clues would be revealed; the order of scenes would be revised as she developed her plot. Of necessity, the murderer had to be known to the author before the sequence could be finalised and she began to type or dictate the first draft of her novel. Much of the work, particularly dialogue, was done in her head before she put it on paper.
In 2013, the 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association chose "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" as "the best whodunit... ever written". Author Julian Symons observed, "In an obvious sense, the book fits within the conventions... The setting is a village deep within the English countryside, Roger Ackroyd dies in his study; there is a butler who behaves suspiciously... Every successful detective story in this period involved a deceit practised upon the reader, and here the trick is the highly original one of making the murderer the local doctor, who tells the story and acts as Poirot's Watson." Critic Sutherland Scott stated, "If Agatha Christie had made no other contribution to the literature of detective fiction she would still deserve our grateful thanks" for writing this novel.
In September 2015, to mark her 125th birthday, "And Then There Were None" was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. The novel is emblematic of both her use of formula and her willingness to discard it. ""And Then There Were None" carries the 'closed society' type of murder mystery to extreme lengths," according to author Charles Osborne. It begins with the classic set-up of potential victim(s) and killer(s) isolated from the outside world, but then violates conventions. There is no detective involved in the action, no interviews of suspects, no careful search for clues, and no suspects gathered together in the last chapter to be confronted with the solution. As Christie herself said, "Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious." Critics agreed she had succeeded: "The arrogant Mrs. Christie this time set herself a fearsome test of her own ingenuity... the reviews, not surprisingly, were without exception wildly adulatory."
Character stereotypes.
Christie included stereotyped descriptions of characters in her work, especially before 1945 (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, she described "men of Hebraic extraction, sallow men with hooked noses, wearing rather flamboyant jewellery" in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier" from the collection "The Mysterious Mr Quin". In 1947, the Anti-Defamation League in the US sent an official letter of complaint to Christie's American publishers, Dodd, Mead and Company, regarding perceived antisemitism in her works. Christie's British literary agent later wrote to her US representative, authorising American publishers to "omit the word 'Jew' when it refers to an unpleasant character in future books."
In "The Hollow", published in 1946, one of the characters is described by another as "a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake ... a small woman with a thick nose, henna red and a disagreeable voice". To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie portrayed some "foreign" characters as victims, or potential victims, at the hands of English malefactors, such as, respectively, Olga Seminoff ("Hallowe'en Party") and Katrina Reiger (in the short story "How Does Your Garden Grow?"). Jewish characters are often seen as un-English (such as Oliver Manders in "Three Act Tragedy"), but they are rarely the culprits.
Other detectives.
In addition to Poirot and Marple, Christie also created amateur detectives Thomas Beresford and his wife, Prudence "Tuppence" "née" Cowley, who appear in four novels and one collection of short stories published between 1922 and 1974. Unlike her other sleuths, the Beresfords were only in their early twenties when introduced in "The Secret Adversary", and were allowed to age alongside their creator. She treated their stories with a lighter touch, giving them a "dash and verve" which was not universally admired by critics. Their last adventure, "Postern of Fate", was Christie's last novel.
Harley Quin was "easily the most unorthodox" of Christie's fictional detectives. Inspired by Christie's affection for the figures from the Harlequinade, the semi-supernatural Quin always works with an elderly, conventional man called Satterthwaite. The pair appear in 14 short stories, 12 of which were collected in 1930 as "The Mysterious Mr. Quin". Mallowan described these tales as "detection in a fanciful vein, touching on the fairy story, a natural product of Agatha's peculiar imagination". Satterthwaite also appears in a novel, "Three Act Tragedy", and a short story, "Dead Man's Mirror", both of which feature Poirot.
Another of her lesser-known characters is Parker Pyne, a retired civil servant who assists unhappy people in an unconventional manner. The 12 short stories which introduced him, "Parker Pyne Investigates" (1934), are best remembered for "The Case of the Discontented Soldier", which features Ariadne Oliver, "an amusing and satirical self-portrait of Agatha Christie". Over the ensuing decades, Oliver reappeared in seven novels. In most of them she assists Poirot.
Plays.
In 1928, Michael Morton adapted "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" for the stage under the title "Alibi". The play enjoyed a respectable run, but Christie disliked the changes made to her work and, in future, preferred to write for the theatre herself. The first of her own stage works was "Black Coffee", which received good reviews when it opened in the West End in late 1930. She followed this up with adaptations of her detective novels: "And Then There Were None" in 1943, "Appointment with Death" in 1945, and "The Hollow" in 1951.
In the 1950s, "the theatre ... engaged much of Agatha's attention." She next adapted her short radio play into "The Mousetrap", which premiered in the West End in 1952, produced by Peter Saunders and starring Richard Attenborough as the original Detective Sergeant Trotter. Her expectations for the play were not high; she believed it would run no more than eight months. "The Mousetrap" has long since made theatrical history as the world's longest-running play, staging its 27,500th performance in September 2018. The play temporarily closed in March 2020, when all UK theatres shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, before it re-opened on 17 May 2021.
In 1953, she followed this with "Witness for the Prosecution", whose Broadway production won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for best foreign play of 1954 and earned Christie an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. "Spider's Web", an original work written for actress Margaret Lockwood at her request, premiered in the West End in 1954 and was also a hit. Christie became the first female playwright to have three plays running simultaneously in London: "The Mousetrap", "Witness for the Prosecution" and "Spider's Web". She said, "Plays are much easier to "write" than books, because you can "see" them in your mind's eye, you are not hampered by all that description which clogs you so terribly in a book and stops you from getting on with what's happening." In a letter to her daughter, Christie said being a playwright was "a lot of fun!"
As Mary Westmacott.
Christie published six mainstream novels under the name Mary Westmacott, a pseudonym which gave her the freedom to explore "her most private and precious imaginative garden". These books typically received better reviews than her detective and thriller fiction. Of the first, "Giant's Bread" published in 1930, a reviewer for "The New York Times" wrote, "...her book is far above the average of current fiction, in fact, comes well under the classification of a 'good book'. And it is only a satisfying novel that can claim that appellation." It was publicized from the very beginning that "Mary Westmacott" was a pen name of a well-known author, although the identity behind the pen name was kept secret; the dust jacket of "Giant's Bread" mentions that the author had previously written "under her real name...half a dozen books that have each passed the thirty thousand mark in sales." (In fact, though this was technically true, it disguised Christie's identity through understatement. By the publication of "Giant's Bread", Christie had published 10 novels and two short story collections, all of which had sold considerably more than 30,000 copies.) After Christie's authorship of the first four Westmacott novels was revealed by a journalist in 1949, she wrote two more, the last in 1956.
The other Westmacott titles are: "Unfinished Portrait" (1934), "Absent in the Spring" (1944), "The Rose and the Yew Tree" (1948), "A Daughter's a Daughter" (1952), and "The Burden" (1956).
Non-fiction works.
Christie published few non-fiction works. "Come, Tell Me How You Live", about working on an archaeological dig, was drawn from her life with Mallowan. "The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery" is a collection of correspondence from her 1922 Grand Tour of the British empire, including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. "" was published posthumously in 1977 and adjudged the Best Critical/Biographical Work at the 1978 Edgar Awards.
Titles.
Many of Christie's works from 1940 onward have titles drawn from literature, with the original context of the title typically printed as an epigraph.
The inspirations for some of Christie's titles include:
Christie biographer Gillian Gill said, "Christie's writing has the sparseness, the directness, the narrative pace, and the universal appeal of the fairy story, and it is perhaps as modern fairy stories for grown-up children that Christie's novels succeed." Reflecting a juxtaposition of innocence and horror, numerous Christie titles were drawn from well-known children's nursery rhymes: "And Then There Were None" (from "Ten Little Niggers"), "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" (from "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe"), "Five Little Pigs" (from "This Little Piggy"), "Crooked House" (from "There Was a Crooked Man"), "A Pocket Full of Rye" (from "Sing a Song of Sixpence"), "Hickory Dickory Dock" (from "Hickory Dickory Dock"), and "Three Blind Mice" (from "Three Blind Mice").
Critical reception.
Christie is regularly referred to as the "Queen of Crime"—which is now trademarked by the Christie estate—or "Queen of Mystery", and is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterisation. In 1955, she became the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. She was named "Best Writer of the Century" and the Hercule Poirot series of books was named "Best Series of the Century" at the 2000 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. In 2013, she was voted "best crime writer" in a survey of 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association of professional novelists. However, the writer Raymond Chandler criticised the artificiality of her books, as did writer Julian Symons. The literary critic Edmund Wilson described her prose as banal and her characterisations as superficial.
In 2011, Christie was named by digital crime drama TV channel Alibi as the second most financially successful crime writer of all time in the United Kingdom, after James Bond author Ian Fleming, with total earnings around £100 million. In 2012, Christie was among the people selected by the artist Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous work, the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album cover, "to celebrate the British cultural figures he most admires". On the record-breaking longevity of Christie's "The Mousetrap" which had marked its 60th anniversary in 2012, Stephen Moss in "The Guardian" wrote, "the play and its author are the stars".
In 2015, marking the 125th anniversary of her birthday, 25 contemporary mystery writers and one publisher gave their views on Christie's works. Many of the authors had read Christie's novels first, before other mystery writers, in English or in their native language, influencing their own writing, and nearly all still viewed her as the "Queen of Crime" and creator of the plot twists used by mystery authors. Nearly all had one or more favourites among Christie's mysteries and found her books still good to read nearly 100 years after her first novel was published. Just one of the 25 authors held with Wilson's views.
Book sales.
In her prime, Christie was rarely out of the bestseller list. She was the first crime writer to have 100,000 copies of 10 of her titles published by Penguin on the same day in 1948. , "Guinness World Records" listed Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time. , her novels had sold more than two billion copies in 44 languages. Half the sales are of English-language editions, and half are translations. According to Index Translationum, , she was the most-translated individual author. Christie is one of the most-borrowed authors in UK libraries. She is also UK's best-selling spoken-book author. In 2002, 117,696 Christie audiobooks were sold, in comparison to 97,755 for J. K. Rowling, 78,770 for Roald Dahl and 75,841 for J. R. R. Tolkien. In 2015, the Christie estate claimed "And Then There Were None" was "the best-selling crime novel of all time", with approximately 100 million sales, also making it one of the highest-selling books of all time. More than two million copies of her books were sold in English in 2020.
Book sales.
In her prime, Christie was rarely out of the bestseller list. She was the first crime writer to have 100,000 copies of 10 of her titles published by Penguin on the same day in 1948. , "Guinness World Records" listed Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time. , her novels had sold more than two billion copies in 44 languages. Half the sales are of English-language editions, and half are translations. According to Index Translationum, , she was the most-translated individual author. Christie is one of the most-borrowed authors in UK libraries. She is also UK's best-selling spoken-book author. In 2002, 117,696 Christie audiobooks were sold, in comparison to 97,755 for J. K. Rowling, 78,770 for Roald Dahl and 75,841 for J. R. R. Tolkien. In 2015, the Christie estate claimed "And Then There Were None" was "the best-selling crime novel of all time", with approximately 100 million sales, also making it one of the highest-selling books of all time. More than two million copies of her books were sold in English in 2020.
Legacy.
In 2016, the Royal Mail marked the centenary of Christie's first detective story by issuing six first class postage stamps of her works: "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", "Murder on the Orient Express", "And Then There Were None", "The Body in the Library", and "A Murder is Announced". "The Guardian" reported that, "Each design incorporates microtext, UV ink and thermochromic ink. These concealed clues can be revealed using either a magnifying glass, UV light or body heat and provide pointers to the mysteries' solutions."
Her characters and her face appeared on the stamps of many countries like Dominica and the Somali Republic. In 2020, Christie was commemorated on a £2 coin by the Royal Mint for the first time to mark the centenary of her first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles".
Adaptations.
Christie's works have been adapted for cinema and television. The first was the 1928 British film "The Passing of Mr. Quin". Poirot's first film appearance was in 1931 in "Alibi", which starred Austin Trevor as Christie's sleuth. Margaret Rutherford played Marple in a series of films released in the 1960s. Christie liked her acting, but considered the first film "pretty poor" and thought no better of the rest.
She felt differently about the 1974 film "Murder on the Orient Express", directed by Sidney Lumet, which featured major stars and high production values; her attendance at the London premiere was one of her last public outings. In 2016, a new film version was released, directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred, wearing "the most extravagant mustache moviegoers have ever seen".
The television adaptation "Agatha Christie's Poirot" (1989–2013), with David Suchet in the title role, ran for 70 episodes over 13 series. It received nine BAFTA award nominations and won four BAFTA awards in 1990–1992. The television series "Miss Marple" (1984–1992), with Joan Hickson as "the BBC's peerless Miss Marple", adapted all 12 Marple novels. The French television series (2009–2012, 2013–2020), adapted 36 of Christie's stories.
Christie's books have also been adapted for BBC Radio, a video game series, and graphic novels.
Adaptations.
Christie's works have been adapted for cinema and television. The first was the 1928 British film "The Passing of Mr. Quin". Poirot's first film appearance was in 1931 in "Alibi", which starred Austin Trevor as Christie's sleuth. Margaret Rutherford played Marple in a series of films released in the 1960s. Christie liked her acting, but considered the first film "pretty poor" and thought no better of the rest.
She felt differently about the 1974 film "Murder on the Orient Express", directed by Sidney Lumet, which featured major stars and high production values; her attendance at the London premiere was one of her last public outings. In 2016, a new film version was released, directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred, wearing "the most extravagant mustache moviegoers have ever seen".
The television adaptation "Agatha Christie's Poirot" (1989–2013), with David Suchet in the title role, ran for 70 episodes over 13 series. It received nine BAFTA award nominations and won four BAFTA awards in 1990–1992. The television series "Miss Marple" (1984–1992), with Joan Hickson as "the BBC's peerless Miss Marple", adapted all 12 Marple novels. The French television series (2009–2012, 2013–2020), adapted 36 of Christie's stories.
Christie's books have also been adapted for BBC Radio, a video game series, and graphic novels.
Interests and influences.
Pharmacology.
During the First World War, Christie took a break from nursing to train for the Apothecaries Hall Examination. While she subsequently found dispensing in the hospital pharmacy monotonous, and thus less enjoyable than nursing, her new knowledge provided her with a background in potentially toxic drugs. Early in the Second World War, she brought her skills up to date at Torquay Hospital.
As Michael C. Gerald puts it, her "activities as a hospital dispenser during both World Wars not only supported the war effort but also provided her with an appreciation of drugs as therapeutic agents and poisons... These hospital experiences were also likely responsible for the prominent role physicians, nurses, and pharmacists play in her stories." There were to be many medical practitioners, pharmacists, and scientists, naïve or suspicious, in Christie's cast of characters; featuring in "Murder in Mesopotamia", "Cards on the Table", "The Pale Horse", and "Mrs. McGinty's Dead", among many others.
Gillian Gill notes that the murder method in Christie's first detective novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", "comes right out of Agatha Christie's work in the hospital dispensary". In an interview with journalist Marcelle Bernstein, Christie stated, "I don't like messy deaths... I'm more interested in peaceful people who die in their own beds and no one knows why." With her expert knowledge, Christie had no need of poisons unknown to science, which were forbidden under Ronald Knox's "Ten Rules for Detective Fiction". Arsenic, aconite, strychnine, digitalis, thallium, and other substances were used to dispatch victims in the ensuing decades.
Archaeology.
In her youth, Christie showed little interest in antiquities. After her marriage to Mallowan in 1930, she accompanied him on annual expeditions, spending three to four months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud. The Mallowans also took side trips whilst travelling to and from expedition sites, visiting Italy, Greece, Egypt, Iran, and the Soviet Union, among other places. Their experiences travelling and living abroad are reflected in novels such as "Murder on the Orient Express", "Death on the Nile", and "Appointment with Death".
For the 1931 digging season at Nineveh, Christie bought a writing table to continue her own work; in the early 1950s, she paid to add a small writing room to the team's house at Nimrud. She also devoted time and effort each season in "making herself useful by photographing, cleaning, and recording finds; and restoring ceramics, which she especially enjoyed". She also provided funds for the expeditions.
Many of the settings for Christie's books were inspired by her archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East; this is reflected in the detail with which she describes themfor instance, the temple of Abu Simbel as depicted in "Death on the Nile"while the settings for "They Came to Baghdad" were places she and Mallowan had recently stayed. Similarly, she drew upon her knowledge of daily life on a dig throughout "Murder in Mesopotamia". Archaeologists and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artefacts featured in her works include Dr Eric Leidner in "Murder in Mesopotamia" and Signor Richetti in "Death on the Nile".
After the Second World War, Christie chronicled her time in Syria in "Come, Tell Me How You Live", which she described as "small beera very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings". From 8November 2001 to March 2002, The British Museum presented a "colourful and episodic exhibition" called "Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia" which illustrated how her activities as a writer and as the wife of an archaeologist intertwined.
Pharmacology.
During the First World War, Christie took a break from nursing to train for the Apothecaries Hall Examination. While she subsequently found dispensing in the hospital pharmacy monotonous, and thus less enjoyable than nursing, her new knowledge provided her with a background in potentially toxic drugs. Early in the Second World War, she brought her skills up to date at Torquay Hospital.
As Michael C. Gerald puts it, her "activities as a hospital dispenser during both World Wars not only supported the war effort but also provided her with an appreciation of drugs as therapeutic agents and poisons... These hospital experiences were also likely responsible for the prominent role physicians, nurses, and pharmacists play in her stories." There were to be many medical practitioners, pharmacists, and scientists, naïve or suspicious, in Christie's cast of characters; featuring in "Murder in Mesopotamia", "Cards on the Table", "The Pale Horse", and "Mrs. McGinty's Dead", among many others.
Gillian Gill notes that the murder method in Christie's first detective novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", "comes right out of Agatha Christie's work in the hospital dispensary". In an interview with journalist Marcelle Bernstein, Christie stated, "I don't like messy deaths... I'm more interested in peaceful people who die in their own beds and no one knows why." With her expert knowledge, Christie had no need of poisons unknown to science, which were forbidden under Ronald Knox's "Ten Rules for Detective Fiction". Arsenic, aconite, strychnine, digitalis, thallium, and other substances were used to dispatch victims in the ensuing decades.
Archaeology.
In her youth, Christie showed little interest in antiquities. After her marriage to Mallowan in 1930, she accompanied him on annual expeditions, spending three to four months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud. The Mallowans also took side trips whilst travelling to and from expedition sites, visiting Italy, Greece, Egypt, Iran, and the Soviet Union, among other places. Their experiences travelling and living abroad are reflected in novels such as "Murder on the Orient Express", "Death on the Nile", and "Appointment with Death".
For the 1931 digging season at Nineveh, Christie bought a writing table to continue her own work; in the early 1950s, she paid to add a small writing room to the team's house at Nimrud. She also devoted time and effort each season in "making herself useful by photographing, cleaning, and recording finds; and restoring ceramics, which she especially enjoyed". She also provided funds for the expeditions.
Many of the settings for Christie's books were inspired by her archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East; this is reflected in the detail with which she describes themfor instance, the temple of Abu Simbel as depicted in "Death on the Nile"while the settings for "They Came to Baghdad" were places she and Mallowan had recently stayed. Similarly, she drew upon her knowledge of daily life on a dig throughout "Murder in Mesopotamia". Archaeologists and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artefacts featured in her works include Dr Eric Leidner in "Murder in Mesopotamia" and Signor Richetti in "Death on the Nile".
After the Second World War, Christie chronicled her time in Syria in "Come, Tell Me How You Live", which she described as "small beera very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings". From 8November 2001 to March 2002, The British Museum presented a "colourful and episodic exhibition" called "Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia" which illustrated how her activities as a writer and as the wife of an archaeologist intertwined.
In popular culture.
Some of Christie's fictional portrayals have explored and offered accounts of her disappearance in 1926. The film "Agatha" (1979), with Vanessa Redgrave, has Christie sneaking away to plan revenge against her husband; Christie's heirs sued unsuccessfully to prevent the film's distribution. The "Doctor Who" episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (17 May 2008) stars Fenella Woolgar as Christie, and explains her disappearance as being connected to aliens. The film "Agatha and the Truth of Murder" (2018) sends her under cover to solve the murder of Florence Nightingale's goddaughter, Florence Nightingale Shore. A fictionalised account of Christie's disappearance is also the central theme of a Korean musical, "Agatha". "The Christie Affair", a Christie-like mystery story of love and revenge by author Nina de Gramont, was a 2022 novel loosely based on Christie's disappearance.
Other portrayals, such as the Hungarian film "Kojak Budapesten" (1980), create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill. In the TV play "Murder by the Book" (1986), Christie (Dame Peggy Ashcroft) murders one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot. Christie features as a character in Gaylord Larsen's "Dorothy and Agatha" and "The London Blitz Murders" by Max Allan Collins. The American television program "Unsolved Mysteries" devoted a segment to her famous disappearance, with Agatha portrayed by actress Tessa Pritchard. A young Agatha is depicted in the Spanish historical television series "Gran Hotel" (2011) in which she finds inspiration to write her new novel while aiding local detectives. In the alternative history television film "Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar" (2018), Christie becomes involved in a murder case at an archaeological dig in Iraq. In 2019, Honeysuckle Weeks portrayed Christie in an episode, "No Friends Like Old Friends", in a Canadian drama, "Frankie Drake Mysteries." In 2020 Heather Terrell who writes under pseudonym Marie Benedict published The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, a fictional reconstruction of Christie's December 1926 disappearance in form of a novel. The book was a "New York Times" and "USA Today" bestseller. In December 2020, Library Reads named Terrell a Hall of Fame author for the book.
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Alcaeus of Mytilene
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Alcaeus of Mytilene (; , "Alkaios ho Mutilēnaios"; – BC) was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was a contemporary of Sappho, with whom he may have exchanged poems. He was born into the aristocratic governing class of Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos, where he was involved in political disputes and feuds.
Biography.
The broad outlines of the poet's life are well known. He was born into the aristocratic, warrior class that dominated Mytilene, the strongest city-state on the island of Lesbos and, by the end of the seventh century BC, the most influential of all the North Aegean Greek cities, with a strong navy and colonies securing its trade-routes in the Hellespont. The city had long been ruled by kings born to the Penthilid clan but, during the poet's life, the Penthilids were a spent force and rival aristocrats and their factions contended with each other for supreme power. Alcaeus and his older brothers were passionately involved in the struggle but experienced little success. Their political adventures can be understood in terms of three tyrants who came and went in succession:
Sometime before 600 BC, Mytilene fought Athens for control of Sigeion and Alcaeus was old enough to participate in the fighting. According to the historian Herodotus, the poet threw away his shield to make good his escape from the victorious Athenians then celebrated the occasion in a poem that he later sent to his friend, Melanippus. It is thought that Alcaeus travelled widely during his years in exile, including at least one visit to Egypt. His older brother, Antimenidas, appears to have served as a mercenary in the army of Nebuchadnezzar II and probably took part in the conquest of Askelon. Alcaeus wrote verses in celebration of Antimenides' return, including mention of his valour in slaying the larger opponent (frag. 350), and he proudly describes the military hardware that adorned their family home (frag. 357).
Alcaeus was a contemporary and a countryman of Sappho and, since both poets composed for the entertainment of Mytilenean friends, they had many opportunities to associate with each other on a quite regular basis, such as at the "Kallisteia", an annual festival celebrating the island's federation under Mytilene, held at the 'Messon' (referred to as "temenos" in frs. 129 and 130), where Sappho performed publicly with female choirs. Alcaeus' reference to Sappho in terms more typical of a divinity, as "holy/pure, honey-smiling Sappho" (fr. 384), may owe its inspiration to her performances at the festival. The Lesbian or Aeolic school of poetry "reached in the songs of Sappho and Alcaeus that high point of brilliancy to which it never after-wards approached" and it was assumed by later Greek critics and during the early centuries of the Christian era that the two poets were in fact lovers, a theme which became a favourite subject in art (as in the urn pictured above).
Poetry.
The poetic works of Alcaeus were collected into ten books, with elaborate commentaries, by the Alexandrian scholars Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace sometime in the 3rd century BC, and yet his verses today exist only in fragmentary form, varying in size from mere phrases, such as "wine, window into a man" (fr. 333) to entire groups of verses and stanzas, such as those quoted below (fr. 346). Alexandrian scholars numbered him in their canonic nine (one lyric poet per Muse). Among these, Pindar was held by many ancient critics to be pre-eminent, but some gave precedence to Alcaeus instead. The canonic nine are traditionally divided into two groups, with Alcaeus, Sappho and Anacreon, being 'monodists' or 'solo-singers', with the following characteristics:
The other six of the canonic nine composed verses for public occasions, performed by choruses and professional singers and typically featuring complex metrical arrangements that were never reproduced in other verses. However, this division into two groups is considered by some modern scholars to be too simplistic and often it is practically impossible to know whether a lyric composition was sung or recited, or whether or not it was accompanied by musical instruments and dance. Even the private reflections of Alcaeus, ostensibly sung at dinner parties, still retain a public function.
Critics often seek to understand Alcaeus in comparison with Sappho:
The Roman poet, Horace, also compared the two, describing Alcaeus as "more full-throatedly singing" – see Horace's tribute below. Alcaeus himself seems to underscore the difference between his own 'down-to-earth' style and Sappho's more 'celestial' qualities when he describes her almost as a goddess (as cited above), and yet it has been argued that both poets were concerned with a balance between the divine and the profane, each emphasising different elements in that balance.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus exhorts us to "Observe in Alcaeus the sublimity, brevity and sweetness coupled with stern power, his splendid figures, and his clearness which was unimpaired by the dialect; and above all mark his manner of expressing his sentiments on public affairs", while Quintilian, after commending Alcaeus for his excellence "in that part of his works where he inveighs against tyrants and contributes to good morals; in his language he is concise, exalted, careful and often like an orator"; goes on to add: "but he descended into wantonness and amours, though better fitted for higher things".
Poetic genres.
The works of Alcaeus are conventionally grouped according to five genres.
A drinking poem (fr. 346).
The following verses demonstrate some key characteristics of the Alcaic style (square brackets indicate uncertainties in the ancient text):
The Greek meter here is relatively simple, comprising the Greater Asclepiad, adroitly used to convey, for example, the rhythm of jostling cups (). The language of the poem is typically direct and concise and comprises short sentences — the first line is in fact a model of condensed meaning, comprising an exhortation ("Let's drink!"), a rhetorical question ("Why are we waiting for the lamps?") and a justifying statement ("Only an inch of daylight left"). The meaning is clear and uncomplicated, the subject is drawn from personal experience, and there is an absence of poetic ornament, such as simile or metaphor. Like many of his poems (e.g., frs. 38, 326, 338, 347, 350), it begins with a verb (in this case "Let's drink!") and it includes a proverbial expression ("Only an inch of daylight left") though it is possible that he coined it himself.
A hymn (fr. 34).
Alcaeus rarely used metaphor or simile and yet he had a fondness for the allegory of the storm-tossed ship of state. The following fragment of a hymn to Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri) is possibly another example of this though some scholars interpret it instead as a prayer for a safe voyage.
The poem was written in Sapphic stanzas, a verse form popularly associated with his compatriot, Sappho, but in which he too excelled, here paraphrased in English to suggest the same rhythms. There were probably another three stanzas in the original poem but only nine letters of them remain. The 'far-away light' () is a reference to St. Elmo's Fire, an electrical discharge supposed by ancient Greek mariners to be an epiphany of the Dioscuri, but the meaning of the line was obscured by gaps in the papyrus until reconstructed by a modern scholar; such reconstructions are typical of the extant poetry (see Scholars, fragments and sources below). This poem does not begin with a verb but with an adverb (Δευτέ) but still communicates a sense of action. He probably performed his verses at drinking parties for friends and political allies – men for whom loyalty was essential, particularly in such troubled times.
Poetic genres.
The works of Alcaeus are conventionally grouped according to five genres.
A drinking poem (fr. 346).
The following verses demonstrate some key characteristics of the Alcaic style (square brackets indicate uncertainties in the ancient text):
The Greek meter here is relatively simple, comprising the Greater Asclepiad, adroitly used to convey, for example, the rhythm of jostling cups (). The language of the poem is typically direct and concise and comprises short sentences — the first line is in fact a model of condensed meaning, comprising an exhortation ("Let's drink!"), a rhetorical question ("Why are we waiting for the lamps?") and a justifying statement ("Only an inch of daylight left"). The meaning is clear and uncomplicated, the subject is drawn from personal experience, and there is an absence of poetic ornament, such as simile or metaphor. Like many of his poems (e.g., frs. 38, 326, 338, 347, 350), it begins with a verb (in this case "Let's drink!") and it includes a proverbial expression ("Only an inch of daylight left") though it is possible that he coined it himself.
A hymn (fr. 34).
Alcaeus rarely used metaphor or simile and yet he had a fondness for the allegory of the storm-tossed ship of state. The following fragment of a hymn to Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri) is possibly another example of this though some scholars interpret it instead as a prayer for a safe voyage.
The poem was written in Sapphic stanzas, a verse form popularly associated with his compatriot, Sappho, but in which he too excelled, here paraphrased in English to suggest the same rhythms. There were probably another three stanzas in the original poem but only nine letters of them remain. The 'far-away light' () is a reference to St. Elmo's Fire, an electrical discharge supposed by ancient Greek mariners to be an epiphany of the Dioscuri, but the meaning of the line was obscured by gaps in the papyrus until reconstructed by a modern scholar; such reconstructions are typical of the extant poetry (see Scholars, fragments and sources below). This poem does not begin with a verb but with an adverb (Δευτέ) but still communicates a sense of action. He probably performed his verses at drinking parties for friends and political allies – men for whom loyalty was essential, particularly in such troubled times.
Tributes from other poets.
Horace.
The Roman poet Horace modelled his own lyrical compositions on those of Alcaeus, rendering the Lesbian poet's verse-forms, including 'Alcaic' and 'Sapphic' stanzas, into concise Latin – an achievement he celebrates in his third book of odes. In his second book, in an ode composed in Alcaic stanzas on the subject of an almost fatal accident he had on his farm, he imagines meeting Alcaeus and Sappho in Hades:
Ovid.
Ovid compared Alcaeus to Sappho in Letters of the Heroines, where Sappho is imagined to speak as follows:
Horace.
The Roman poet Horace modelled his own lyrical compositions on those of Alcaeus, rendering the Lesbian poet's verse-forms, including 'Alcaic' and 'Sapphic' stanzas, into concise Latin – an achievement he celebrates in his third book of odes. In his second book, in an ode composed in Alcaic stanzas on the subject of an almost fatal accident he had on his farm, he imagines meeting Alcaeus and Sappho in Hades:
Ovid.
Ovid compared Alcaeus to Sappho in Letters of the Heroines, where Sappho is imagined to speak as follows:
Scholars, fragments and sources.
The story of Alcaeus is partly the story of the scholars who rescued his work from oblivion. His verses have not come down to us through a manuscript tradition – generations of scribes copying an author's collected works, such as delivered intact into the modern age four entire books of Pindar's odes – but haphazardly, in quotes from ancient scholars and commentators whose own works have chanced to survive, and in the tattered remnants of papyri uncovered from an ancient rubbish pile at Oxyrhynchus and other locations in Egypt: sources that modern scholars have studied and correlated exhaustively, adding little by little to the world's store of poetic fragments.
Ancient scholars quoted Alcaeus in support of various arguments. Thus for example Heraclitus "The Allegorist" quoted fr. 326 and part of fr. 6, about ships in a storm, in his study on Homer's use of allegory. The hymn to Hermes, fr308(b), was quoted by Hephaestion and both he and Libanius, the rhetorician, quoted the first two lines of fr. 350, celebrating the return from Babylon of Alcaeus' brother. The rest of fr. 350 was paraphrased in prose by the historian/geographer Strabo. Many fragments were supplied in quotes by Athenaeus, principally on the subject of wine-drinking, but fr. 333, "wine, window into a man", was quoted much later by the Byzantine grammarian, John Tzetzes.
The first 'modern' publication of Alcaeus' verses appeared in a Greek and Latin edition of fragments collected from the canonic nine lyrical poets by Michael Neander, published at Basle in 1556. This was followed by another edition of the nine poets, collected by Henricus Stephanus and published in Paris in 1560. Fulvius Ursinus compiled a fuller collection of Alcaic fragments, including a commentary, which was published at Antwerp in 1568. The first separate edition of Alcaeus was by Christian David Jani and it was published at Halle in 1780. The next separate edition was by August Matthiae, Leipzig 1827.
Some of the fragments quoted by ancient scholars were able to be integrated by scholars in the nineteenth century. Thus for example two separate quotes by Athenaeus were united by Theodor Bergk to form fr. 362. Three separate sources were combined to form fr. 350, as mentioned above, including a prose paraphrase from Strabo that first needed to be restored to its original meter, a synthesis achieved by the united efforts of Otto Hoffmann, Karl Otfried Müller and Franz Heinrich Ludolf Ahrens. The discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri towards the end of the nineteenth century dramatically increased the scope of scholarly research. In fact, eight important fragments have now been compiled from papyri – frs. 9, 38A, 42, 45, 34, 129, 130 and most recently S262. These fragments typically feature lacunae or gaps that scholars fill with 'educated guesses', including for example a "brilliant supplement" by Maurice Bowra in fr. 34, a hymn to the Dioscuri that includes a description of St. Elmo's fire in the ship's rigging. Working with only eight letters (; tr. "pró...tr...ntes"), Bowra conjured up a phrase that develops the meaning and the euphony of the poem (; tr. "próton' ontréchontes"), describing luminescence "running along the forestays".
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1585
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Alexander I of Epirus
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Alexander I of Epirus (; c. 371 BC – 331 BC), also known as Alexander Molossus (), was a king of Epirus (343/2–331 BC) of the Aeacid dynasty. As the son of Neoptolemus I and brother of Olympias, Alexander I was an uncle, and a brother-in-law, of Alexander the Great. He was also an uncle of Pyrrhus of Epirus, (Aeacides of Epirus was a cousin of Alexander I and the father of Pyrrhus).
Life.
Neoptolemus I ruled jointly with his brother Arybbas. When Neoptolemus died in c. 357 BC, his son Alexander was only a child and Arrybas became the sole king. In c. 350 BC, Alexander was brought to the court of Philip II of Macedon in order to protect him. In 343/2 in his late 20s, Philip made him king of Epirus, after dethroning his uncle Arybbas.
When Olympias was repudiated by her husband in 337 BC, she went to her brother, and endeavoured to induce him to make war on Philip. Alexander, however, declined the contest, and formed a second alliance with Philip by agreeing to marry the daughter of Philip (Alexander's niece) Cleopatra. During the wedding in 336 BC, Philip was assassinated by Pausanias of Orestis.
In 334 BC, Alexander I, at the request of the Greek colony of Taras (in Magna Graecia), crossed over into Italy, to aid them in battle against several Italic tribes, including the Lucanians and Bruttii. After a victory over the Samnites and Lucanians near Paestum in 332 BC, he made a treaty with the Romans. He then took Heraclea from the Lucanians, and Terina and Sipontum from the Bruttii. Through the treachery of some Lucanian exiles, he was compelled to engage under unfavourable circumstances in the Battle of Pandosia and was killed by a Lucanian. He left a son, Neoptolemus, and a daughter, Cadmea.
In a famous passage, Livy speculates on what would have been the outcome of a military showdown between Alexander the Great and the Roman Republic. He reports that as Alexander of Epirus lay mortally wounded on the battlefield at Pandosia he compared his fortunes to those of his famous nephew and said that the latter "waged war against women".
External links.
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1588
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Alexander II of Epirus
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Alexander II (Greek: Άλέξανδρος) was a king of Epirus, and the son of Pyrrhus and Lanassa, the daughter of the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles.
Reign.
He succeeded his father as king in 272 BC, and continued the war which his father had begun with Antigonus II Gonatas, whom he succeeded in driving from the kingdom of Macedon. He was, however, dispossessed of both Macedon and Epirus by Demetrius II of Macedon, the son of Antigonus II; upon which he took refuge amongst the Acarnanians. By their assistance and that of his own subjects, who entertained a great attachment for him, he recovered Epirus. It appears that he was in alliance with the Aetolians.
Alexander married his paternal half-sister Olympias, by whom he had two sons, Pyrrhus ΙΙ, Ptolemy ΙΙ and a daughter, Phthia. Beloch places the death of King Alexander II "about 255", and supports this date with an elaborate chain of reasoning. On the death of Alexander, Olympias assumed the regency on behalf of her sons, and married Phthia to Demetrius. There are extant silver and copper coins of this king. The former bear a youthful head covered with the skin of an elephant's head. The reverse represents Pallas holding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, and before her stands an eagle on a thunderbolt.
Sources.
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1589
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Alexander Jagiellon
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Alexander Jagiellon (, ; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon. He was elected grand duke of Lithuania on the death of his father (1492) and king of Poland on the death of his brother John I Albert (1501).
Biography.
Alexander was born as the fourth son of King Casimir IV of Poland and Elisabeth, daughter of the King Albert of Hungary. At the time of his father's death in 1492, his eldest brother Vladislaus had already become king of Bohemia (1471) and Hungary and Croatia (1490), and the next oldest brother, Casimir, had died (1484) after leading an ascetic and pious life in his final years, resulting in his eventual canonization. While the third oldest brother, John I Albert was chosen by the Polish nobility ("szlachta") to be the next king of Poland, the Lithuanians instead elected Alexander to be their next grand duke.
The greatest challenge that Alexander faced upon assuming control of the grand duchy was an attack on Lithuania by Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia and his allies, the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, which commenced shortly after his accession. Ivan III considered himself the heir to the lands of Kievan Rus', and was striving to take back the territory previously gained by Lithuania. Unable to successfully stop the incursions, Alexander sent a delegation to Moscow to make a peace settlement, which was signed in 1494 and ceded extensive land over to Ivan. In an additional effort to instill a peace between the two countries, Alexander was betrothed to Helena, the daughter of Ivan III; they were married in Vilnius on 15 February 1495. The peace did not last long, however, as Ivan III resumed hostilities in 1500. The most Alexander could do was to garrison Smolensk and other strongholds and employ his wife Helena to mediate another truce between him and her father after the disastrous Battle of Vedrosha (1500). In the terms of this truce, Lithuania had to surrender about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state.
On 17 June 1501, Alexander's older brother John I Albert died suddenly, and Alexander was crowned king of Poland on 12 December of that year. Alexander's shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and "szlachta", who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position. In 1505, the "Sejm" passed the Act of "Nihil novi", which forbade the king to issue laws without the consent of the nobility, represented by the two legislative chambers, except for laws governing royal cities, crown lands, mines, fiefdoms, royal peasants, and Jews. This was another step in Poland's progression towards a "Noble's Democracy".
During Alexander's reign, Poland suffered additional humiliation at the hands of her subject principality, Moldavia. Only the death of Stephen, the great "hospodar" of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube River. Meanwhile, the liberality of Pope Julius II, who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favor of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled him to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order.
Alexander Jagiellon never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favor principally upon his fellow Lithuanians, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michael Glinski, who justified his master's confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at Kleck (5 August 1506), news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed in Vilnius.
Alexander was the last known ruler of the Gediminid dynasty to have maintained the family's ancestral Lithuanian language. After his death, Polish became the sole language of the family, thus fully Polonising the Jagiellons.
In 1931, during the refurbishment of Vilnius Cathedral, the forgotten sarcophagus of Alexander was discovered, and has since been put on display.
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1587
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Alexander of Pherae
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Alexander () was Tyrant or Despot of Pherae in Thessaly, ruling from 369 to c. 356 BC. Following the assassination of Jason, the tyrant of Pherae and Tagus of Thessaly, in 370 BC, his brother Polydorus ruled for a year, but he was then poisoned by another brother (or nephew, according to Xenephon), Alexander. Alexander governed tyrannically and was constantly seeking to control Thessaly and the kingdom of Macedonia. He also engaged in piratical raids on Attica. Alexander was murdered by the brothers of his wife, Thebe, as it was said that she lived in fear of her husband and hated Alexander's cruel and brutal character.
Reign.
The accounts of how Alexander came to power vary somewhat in minor points. Diodorus Siculus tells us that upon the assassination of the tyrant Jason of Pherae, in 370 BC, his brother Polydorus ruled for a year, but he was then poisoned by Alexander, another brother. However, according to Xenophon, Polydorus was murdered by his brother Polyphron, who was, in turn, murdered by his nephew Alexander —son of Jason, in 369 BC. Plutarch relates that Alexander worshipped the spear he slew his uncle with as if it were a god. Alexander governed tyrannically, and according to Diodorus, differently from the former rulers, but Polyphron, at least, seems to have set him the example. The states of Thessaly, which had previously acknowledged the authority of Jason of Pherae, were not so willing to submit to Alexander the tyrant, (especially the old family of the Aleuadae of Larissa, who had most reason to fear him). Therefore, they applied for help from Alexander II of Macedon.
Alexander prepared to meet his enemy in Macedonia, but the king anticipated him, and, reaching Larissa, was admitted into the city. Alexander withdrew to Pherae whilst the Macedonian King placed a garrison in Larissa, as well as in Crannon, which had also come over to him. But once the bulk of the Macedonian army had retired, the states of Thessaly feared the return and vengeance of Alexander, and so sent for aid to Thebes, whose policy it was to put a check on any neighbour who might otherwise become too formidable. Thebes accordingly dispatched Pelopidas to the aid of Thessaly. On arrival of Pelopidas at Larissa, whence according to Diodorus, he dislodged the Macedonian garrison, Alexander presented himself and offered submission. When Pelopidas expressed indignation at the tales of Alexander's profligacy and cruelty, Alexander took alarm and fled.
These events appear to refer to the early part of 368 BC. In the summer of that year Pelopidas was again sent into Thessaly, in consequence of fresh complaints against Alexander. Accompanied by Ismenias, he went merely as a negotiator, without any military force, and was seized by Alexander and thrown into prison. The scholar William Mitford suggested that Pelopidas was taken prisoner in battle, but the language of Demosthenes hardly supports such an inference. The Thebans sent a large army into Thessaly to rescue Pelopidas, but they could not keep the field against the superior cavalry of Alexander, who, aided by auxiliaries from Athens, pursued them with great slaughter. The destruction of the whole Theban army is said to only have been averted by the ability of Epaminondas, who was serving in the campaign, but not as general.
In 367 BC, Alexander carried out a massacre of the citizens of Scotussa. A fresh Theban expedition into Thessaly, under Epaminondas resulted, according to Plutarch, in a three-year truce and the release of prisoners, including Pelopidas. During the next three years, Alexander seemed to renew his attempts to subdue the states of Thessaly, especially Magnesia and Phthiotis, for upon the expiry of the truce, in 364 BC, they again applied to Thebes for protection from him. The Theban army under Pelopidas is said to have been dismayed by an eclipse on 13 July 364 BC, and Pelopidas, leaving the bulk of his army behind, entered Thessaly at the head of three hundred volunteer horsemen and some mercenaries. At Cynoscephalae, the Thebans defeated Alexander, but Pelopidas was killed. This was closely followed by another Theban victory under Malcites and Diogiton. Alexander was then forced to restore the conquered towns to the Thessalians, confine himself to Pherae, join the Boeotian League, and become a dependent ally of Thebes.
If the death of Epaminondas in 362 freed Athens from fear of Thebes, it appears at the same time to have exposed it to further aggression from Alexander, who made a piratical raid on Tinos and other cities of the Cyclades, plundering them, and making slaves of the inhabitants. He also besieged Peparethus, and "even landed troops in Attica itself, and seized the port of Panormus, a little eastward of Sounion." The Athenian admiral Leosthenes defeated Alexander and managed to relieve Peparethus, but Alexander escaped from being blockaded in Panormus, took several Attic triremes, and plundered the Piraeus.
Death.
The murder of Alexander is assigned by Diodorus to 357/356. Plutarch gives a detailed account of it, with a lively picture of the palace. Guards watched throughout the night, except at Alexander's bedchamber, which was at the top of a ladder with a ferocious chained dog guarding the door. Thebe, Alexander's wife and cousin (or half-sister, as the daughter of Jason of Pherae), concealed her three brothers in the house during the day, had the dog removed when Alexander had gone to rest, and, having covered the steps of the ladder with wool, brought up the young men to her husband's chamber. Though she had taken away Alexander's sword, they feared to set about the deed until she threatened to wake him. Her brothers then entered and killed Alexander. His body was cast into the streets, and exposed to every indignity.
Of Thebe's motive for the murder different accounts are given. Plutarch states it to have been fear of her husband, together with hatred of Alexander's cruel and brutal character, and ascribes these feelings principally to the representations of Pelopidas, when she visited him in his prison. In Cicero the deed is ascribed to jealousy. Other accounts have it that Alexander had taken Thebe's youngest brother as his eromenos and tied him up. Exasperated by his wife's pleas to release the youth, he murdered the boy, which drove her to revenge.
Other.
It is written in Plutarch's Second Oration On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great (see "Moralia"), and in Claudius Aelianus' "Varia Historia" that Alexander left a tragedy in a theatre because he did not wish to weep at fiction when unmoved by his own cruelty. This suggests that while Alexander was a tyrant, perhaps his iron heart could be softened. The actor was threatened with punishment because Alexander was so moved while watching.
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1581
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Aldine Press
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The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495.
The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics. The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and like that intended for portability and ease of reading. According to Curt F. Bühler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus Manutius. After Aldus’s death in 1515, the press was continued by his wife Maria and her father, Andrea Torresani (), until his son, Paulus Manutius (1512–1574) took over. His grandson Aldus Manutius the Younger then ran the firm until his death in 1597. Today, the antique books printed by the Aldine Press in Venice are referred to as "Aldines," as are the letterforms and typefaces pioneered by the Aldine Press.
The press enjoyed a monopoly of works printed in Greek in the Republic of Venice, effectively giving it copyright protection. Protection outside the Republic was more problematic, however. The firm maintained an agency in Paris, but its commercial success was affected by many counterfeit editions, produced in Lyons and elsewhere.
Beginnings.
Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine Press, was originally a humanist scholar and a teacher. Manutius met Andrea Torresani, who had acquired publishing equipment from the widow of Nicholas Jenson. The ownership of the press was originally split in two, with one half belonging to Pier Francesco Barbarigo, the nephew of Agostino Barbarigo, who was the doge at the time, and the other half belonging to Andrea Torresani. Manutius owned one fifth of Torresani's share of the press. Manutius was mainly in charge of the scholarship and editing, leaving financial and operating concerns to Barbarigo and Torresani. In 1496, Aldus established his own location of the press in a building called the "Thermae" in the Sestiere di San Polo on the campo Sant'Agostin, today "numero civico" (house number) 2343 San Polo on the "Calle della Chiesa" (Alley of the Church), now the location of the restaurant "Due Colonne". Though there are two commemorative plaques located on the building "numero civico" 2311 "Rio Terà Secondo," historians regard them to be erroneously placed based on contemporaneous letters addressed to Manutius. The first erroneous plaque had been placed by Abbot don Vincenzo Zenier in 1828.
Manutius lived and worked in the "Thermae" in order to produce published books from the Aldine Press. This was also the location of the "New Academy", where a group of Manutius' friends, associates, and editors came together to translate Greek and Latin texts. In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Andrea Torresani of Asola. Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but the marriage combined the two partners' shares in the publishing business. After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani's house. Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to Torresani's house in the parish of San Paternian. It was later demolished in 1873 and was covered by a bank building in the Venice square, "Campo Manin."
Accomplishments.
The press was started by Manutius due to a combination of his love of classics and the need for preservation of Hellenic studies. During its initial era the press printed new copies of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek and Latin classics.
The first edition of Plato's works (known as the Aldine edition) was dedicated to Pope Leo X, and included the poem of Musurus and the life of Plato by Diogenes Laertius, which were also included in the first two editions of Plato's works printed in Basel. The two Basel editions were introduced by a Latin preface written by the Greek scholar Simon Grynaeus, who dedicated the work to the humanist Thomas More.
Manutius also printed dictionaries and grammars to help people interpret the books, used by scholars wanting to learn Greek who would employ learned Greeks in order to teach them directly. Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein claims that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had placed under threat the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but that publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it once more. Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text. The Aldine Press also expanded into modern languages, mainly Italian and French.
Humanist typefaces.
Aldus Manutius eventually took on a project to improve upon the Humanistic font designs of Jenson's typefaces, hiring Francesco Griffo to design and cut typefaces for his print editions of classical literature. Humanistic fonts, based on the formal hand of Renaissance humanist scribes and notaries, had been in development from the time movable print arrived in Italy, notably by Nicolas Jenson in 1470. Griffo developed his own further refinements of style, resulting in one of the earliest roman typefaces produced.
Italic typeface.
Adapting this admired and influential roman-faced font, Manutius and Griffo went on to produce a cursive variant, the first of what is now known as italic type. The word "italic" is derived from early Italian versions of italic faces, which were designed primarily in order to save on the cost of paper. The Aldine Press first used italic type in a woodcut of Saint Catherine of Siena in 1500. Their 1501 edition of Virgil's "Opera" was the first book to be printed in italic type. The roman typeface and italic form created and pioneered by Aldus Manutius and Francesco Griffo were highly influential in typographic development.
Portable books (or "libelli portatiles").
Beginning in 1505 Manutius produced plain texts in a portable form, using the term "enchiridion", meaning "handbook" (later misnamed "pocketbook"). The octavo was the first version of the editio minor. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment comparable to that of large volumes of text and commentary during this era. These books consisted on an edited text issued without commentary, printed in a typeface mimicking chancery script (the cursive handwriting of the humanist), produced in a small book which could sit comfortably in the hand. The editio minor, in many ways, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual no longer had to go to the book, but rather the book came along with them.
Imprint and motto.
In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher's device the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. "The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately to Pietro Bembo. Aldus told Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Roman Emperor Vespasian bearing an image of this device. The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with the saying "Festina Lente", meaning "make haste slowly." This would later become the motto for the Aldine Press.
Humanist typefaces.
Aldus Manutius eventually took on a project to improve upon the Humanistic font designs of Jenson's typefaces, hiring Francesco Griffo to design and cut typefaces for his print editions of classical literature. Humanistic fonts, based on the formal hand of Renaissance humanist scribes and notaries, had been in development from the time movable print arrived in Italy, notably by Nicolas Jenson in 1470. Griffo developed his own further refinements of style, resulting in one of the earliest roman typefaces produced.
Italic typeface.
Adapting this admired and influential roman-faced font, Manutius and Griffo went on to produce a cursive variant, the first of what is now known as italic type. The word "italic" is derived from early Italian versions of italic faces, which were designed primarily in order to save on the cost of paper. The Aldine Press first used italic type in a woodcut of Saint Catherine of Siena in 1500. Their 1501 edition of Virgil's "Opera" was the first book to be printed in italic type. The roman typeface and italic form created and pioneered by Aldus Manutius and Francesco Griffo were highly influential in typographic development.
Portable books (or "libelli portatiles").
Beginning in 1505 Manutius produced plain texts in a portable form, using the term "enchiridion", meaning "handbook" (later misnamed "pocketbook"). The octavo was the first version of the editio minor. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment comparable to that of large volumes of text and commentary during this era. These books consisted on an edited text issued without commentary, printed in a typeface mimicking chancery script (the cursive handwriting of the humanist), produced in a small book which could sit comfortably in the hand. The editio minor, in many ways, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual no longer had to go to the book, but rather the book came along with them.
Imprint and motto.
In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher's device the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. "The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately to Pietro Bembo. Aldus told Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Roman Emperor Vespasian bearing an image of this device. The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with the saying "Festina Lente", meaning "make haste slowly." This would later become the motto for the Aldine Press.
After 1515.
Aldus Manutius died on February 6, 1515. Following his death the firm was run by Andrea Torresani and his daughter, Maria, the widow of Aldus Manutius. The name of the press was changed in 1508 to "In the House of Aldus and Andrea Torresano," and kept this name until 1529. In 1533, Paulus Manutius managed the firm, starting it up again and changing its name to "Heirs of Aldus and Andrea Torresano". In 1539, the imprint changed to "Sons of Aldo Manuzio". In 1567, Aldus Manutius the Younger (grandson of Aldus Manutius) took over and maintained the business until his death.
Publications.
A partial list of publications from the Aldine Press, cited from "Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze".
Works published from the Greeks. Manutius printed thirty editiones principes of Greek texts, allowing these texts to escape the fragility of the manuscript tradition.
Latin works
Libelli Portatiles
Archives.
The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was originally housed in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, and is now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at University of California, Los Angeles, at the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, and at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
Archives.
The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was originally housed in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, and is now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at University of California, Los Angeles, at the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, and at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
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1593
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Alexander I of Scotland
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Alexander I (medieval Gaelic: "Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim"; modern Gaelic: "Alasdair mac Mhaol Chaluim"; c. 1078 – 23 April 1124), posthumously nicknamed The Fierce, was the King of Scotland from 1107 to his death. He succeeded his brother, King Edgar, and his successor was his brother David. He was married to Sybilla of Normandy, an illegitimate daughter of Henry I of England.
Life.
Alexander was the fifth (some sources say fourth) son of Malcolm III and his wife Margaret of Wessex, grandniece of Edward the Confessor. Alexander was named after Pope Alexander II.
He was the younger brother of King Edgar, who was unmarried, and his brother's heir presumptive by 1104 (and perhaps earlier). In that year, he was the senior layman present at the examination of the remains of Saint Cuthbert at Durham prior to their re-interment. He held lands in Scotland north of the Forth and in Lothian.
On the death of Edgar in 1107, Alexander succeeded to the Scottish crown but, in accordance with Edgar's instructions, their brother David was granted an appanage in southern Scotland. Edgar's will granted David the lands of the former kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria, and this was apparently agreed in advance by Edgar, Alexander, David and their brother-in-law Henry I of England. In 1113, perhaps at Henry's instigation, and with the support of his Anglo-Norman allies, David demanded and received, additional lands in Lothian along the Upper Tweed and Teviot. David did not receive the title of king, but of "prince of the Cumbrians", and his lands remained under Alexander's final authority.
The dispute over Tweeddale and Teviotdale does not appear to have damaged relations between Alexander and David, although it was unpopular in some quarters. A Gaelic poem laments:It's bad what Malcolm's son has done,<br>dividing us from Alexander;<br>he causes, like each king's son before,<br>the plunder of stable Alba.
The dispute over the eastern marches does not appear to have caused lasting trouble between Alexander and Henry of England. In 1114, he joined Henry on campaign in Wales against Gruffudd ap Cynan of Gwynedd. Alexander's marriage with Henry's illegitimate daughter Sybilla of Normandy may have occurred as early as 1107, or as at late as 1114.
William of Malmesbury's account attacks Sybilla, but the evidence argues that Alexander and Sybilla were a devoted but childless couple and Sybilla was of noteworthy piety. Sybilla died in unrecorded circumstances at "Eilean nam Ban" (Kenmore on Loch Tay) in July 1122 and was buried at Dunfermline Abbey. Alexander did not remarry and Walter Bower wrote that he planned an Augustinian Priory at the "Eilean nam Ban" dedicated to Sybilla's memory, and he may have taken steps to have her venerated.
Alexander had at least one illegitimate child, Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair, who was later involved in a revolt against David I in the 1130s. He was imprisoned at Roxburgh for many years afterwards, perhaps until his death some time after 1157.
Alexander was, like his brothers Edgar and David, a notably pious king. He was responsible for foundations at Scone and Inchcolm, the latter founded in thanks for his survival of a tempest at sea nearby. He had the two towers built which flanked the great western entrance of Dunfermline Abbey, where his mother was buried.
His mother's chaplain and hagiographer Thurgot was named Bishop of Saint Andrews (or "Cell Rígmonaid") in 1107, presumably by Alexander's order. The case of Thurgot's would-be successor Eadmer shows that Alexander's wishes were not always accepted by the religious community, perhaps because Eadmer had the backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ralph d'Escures, rather than Thurstan of York. Alexander also patronised Saint Andrews, granting lands intended for an Augustinian Priory, which may have been the same as that intended to honour his wife.
For all his religiosity, Alexander was not remembered as a man of peace. John of Fordun says of him:
He manifested the terrible aspect of his character in his reprisals in the Province of Moray. Andrew of Wyntoun's "Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland" says that Alexander was holding court at Invergowrie when he was attacked by "men of the Isles". Walter Bower says the attackers were from Moray and Mearns. Alexander pursued them north, to "Stockford" in Ross (near Beauly) where he defeated them. This, says Wyntoun, is why he was named the "Fierce". The dating of this is uncertain, as are his enemies' identities. However, in 1116 the Annals of Ulster report: "Ladhmann son of Domnall, grandson of the king of Scotland, was killed by the men of Moray." The king referred to is Alexander's father, Malcolm III, and Domnall was Alexander's half brother. The Province or Kingdom of Moray was ruled by the family of Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláich) and Lulach (Lulach mac Gille Coemgáin): not overmighty subjects, but a family who had ruled Alba within little more than a lifetime. Who the Mormaer or King was at this time is not known; it may have been Óengus of Moray or his father, whose name is not known. As for the Mearns, the only known Mormaer of Mearns, Máel Petair, had murdered Alexander's half-brother Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maíl Coluim) in 1094.
Alexander died in April 1124 at his court at Stirling; his brother David, probably the acknowledged heir since the death of Sybilla, succeeded him.
Fictional portrayals.
Alexander was depicted in a fantasy novel, "Pater Nostras Canis Dirus: The Garrison Effect" (2010). Alexander is depicted as troubled by his lack of direct heirs, having no child with his wife Sybilla of Normandy. He points out that his father-in-law Henry I of England is asking them for a grandson.
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1576
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Afonso de Albuquerque
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Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa (; – 16 December 1515) was a Portuguese general, admiral, and statesman. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander.
Albuquerque advanced the three-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. Among his achievements, Albuquerque managed to conquer Goa and was the first European of the Renaissance to raid the Persian Gulf, and he led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He is generally considered a highly effective military commander, and "probably the greatest naval commander of the age", given his successful strategy — he attempted to close all the Indian Ocean naval passages to the Atlantic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to the Pacific, transforming it into a Portuguese "mare clausum". He was appointed head of the "fleet of the Arabian and Persian sea" in 1506.
Many of the conflicts in which he was directly involved took place in the Indian Ocean, in the Persian Gulf regions for control of the trade routes, and on the coasts of India. It was his military brilliance in these initial campaigns that enabled Portugal to become the first global empire in history. He led the Portuguese forces in numerous battles, including the conquest of Goa in 1510 and the capture of Malacca in 1511.
During the last five years of his life, he turned to administration, where his actions as the second governor of Portuguese India were crucial to the longevity of the Portuguese Empire. He oversaw expeditions that resulted in the establishment of diplomatic contacts: with Thailand through his envoy Duarte Fernandes, with Pegu in Myanmar, and with Timor and the Moluccas through a voyage headed by António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão. He laid the path for European trade with Ming China through Rafael Perestrello. He also aided in establishing diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, and established diplomatic ties with Persia during the Safavid dynasty.
Throughout his career, he received epithets such as "the Terrible", "the Great", "the Lion of the Seas", "the Portuguese Mars", and "the Caesar of the East".
Early life.
Afonso de Albuquerque was born in 1453 in Alhandra, near Lisbon. He was the second son of Gonçalo de Albuquerque, Lord of Vila Verde dos Francos, and Dona Leonor de Menezes. His father held an important position at court and was connected by remote illegitimate descent with the Portuguese monarchy. He was a descendant of King Denis’s illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches, Lord of Albuquerque. He was educated in mathematics and Latin at the court of Afonso V of Portugal, where he befriended Prince John, the future King John II of Portugal.
Early military service.
In 1471, under the command of Afonso V, he was present at the conquest of Tangier and Arzila in Morocco, and he served there as an officer for some years. In 1476 he accompanied Prince John in wars against Castile, including the Battle of Toro. He participated in the campaign on the Italian peninsula in 1480 to assist Ferdinand I of Naples in repelling the Ottoman invasion of Otranto. On his return in 1481, when Prince John was crowned as King John II, Albuquerque was made Master of the Horse and chief equerry ("estribeiro-mor") to the King, a post which he held throughout John's reign. In 1489 he returned to military campaigning in North Africa, as commander of defense in the Graciosa fortress, an island in the river Luco near the city of Larache. In 1490 Albuquerque was part of the guard of King John II. He returned to Arzila in 1495, where his younger brother Martim died fighting by his side.
First expedition to India, 1503.
When King Manuel I of Portugal ascended to the throne following the death of his cousin John II, he held a cautious attitude towards Albuquerque, who was a close friend of his predecessor and seventeen years Manuel's senior. Eight years later, on 6 April 1503 Albuquerque was sent on his first expedition to India together with his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque. Each commanded three ships, sailing with Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Nicolau Coelho. They engaged in several battles against the forces of the Zamorin of Calicut ("Calecute", Kozhikode) and succeeded in establishing the King of Cochin ("Cohim", Kochi) securely on his throne. In return, the King of Cochin gave the Portuguese permission to build the Portuguese fort "Immanuel" (Fort Kochi) and establish trade relations with Quilon ("Coulão", Kollam). This laid the foundation for the eastern Portuguese Empire.
Second expedition to India, 1506.
Albuquerque returned home in July 1504 and was well received by King Manuel I. After he assisted with the creation of a strategy for the Portuguese efforts in the east, King Manuel entrusted him with the command of a squadron of five vessels in the fleet of sixteen sailing for India in early 1506, headed by Tristão da Cunha. The aim of the expedition was to conquer Socotra and build a fortress there, hoping to close the trade in the Red Sea.
Albuquerque went as "chief-captain for the Coast of Arabia", sailing under da Cunha's orders until reaching Mozambique. He carried a sealed letter with a secret mission ordered by the King: after fulfilling the first mission, he was to replace the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, whose term ended two years later. Before departing, he legitimized his son Brás ("Braz" in the old Portuguese spelling), born to a common Portuguese woman named Joana Vicente in 1500.
First conquest of Socotra and Ormuz, 1507.
The fleet left Lisbon on 6 April 1506. Albuquerque piloted his ship himself, having lost his appointed pilot on departure. In Mozambique Channel, they rescued Captain João da Nova, who had encountered difficulties on his return from India; da Nova and his ship, the "Frol de la mar", joined da Cunha's fleet. From Malindi, da Cunha sent envoys to Ethiopia, which at the time was thought to be closer to India than it actually is, under the aegis of Albuquerque. After failing to reach Ethiopia, he managed to land the envoys in Filuk. After successful attacks on Arab cities on the East African coast, the expedition conquered the island of Socotra and built a fortress at Suq, hoping to establish a base to stop the Red Sea commerce to the Indian Ocean. However, Socotra was abandoned four years later, as it was eventually realised to be a poor location for a base.
At Socotra, they parted ways: Tristão da Cunha sailed for India, where he would relieve the Portuguese besieged at Cannanore, while Afonso took seven ships and 500 men to Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, one of the chief eastern centers of commerce. On his way, he conquered the cities of Curiati (Kuryat), Muscat in July 1507, and Khor Fakkan, accepting the submission of the cities of Kalhat and Sohar. He arrived at Hormuz on 25 September and soon captured the city, which agreed to become a tributary state of the Portuguese king.
Ormuz was then a tributary state of Shah Ismail of Persia. In a famous episode, shortly after its conquest, Albuquerque was confronted by Persian envoys, who demanded the payment of the due tribute from him instead. He ordered them to be given a stock of cannonballs, arrows and weapons, retorting that "such was the currency struck in Portugal to pay the tribute demanded from the dominions of King Manuel". According to Brás de Albuquerque, it was Shah Ismael who first addressed Albuquerque as "Lion of the seas".
Afonso began building the Fort of Our Lady of Victory (later renamed Fort of Our Lady of the Conception) on Hormuz Island, engaging his men of all ranks in the work. However, some of his officers, claiming that Afonso was exceeding his orders, revolted against the heavy work and climate and departed for India. With his fleet reduced to two ships and left without supplies, he was unable to maintain his position. In January 1508, he was forced to abandon Ormuz. He raided coastal villages to resupply the settlement of Socotra, returned to Ormuz, and then headed to India.
Arrest at Cannanore, 1509.
Afonso arrived at Cannanore on the Malabar coast in December 1508, where he opened the sealed letter that he had received from the King before the viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, which named him as governor to succeed Almeida. The viceroy, supported by the officers who had abandoned Afonso at Ormuz, had a matching royal order but declined to yield. He protested that his term ended only in January and stated his intention to avenge his son's death by fighting the Mamluk fleet of Mirocem, refusing Afonso's offer to fight the Mamluk fleet himself. Afonso avoided confrontation, which could have led to civil war, and moved to Kochi, India, to await further instruction from the King. Increasingly isolated, he wrote to Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who arrived in India with a new fleet, but was ignored as Sequeira joined Almeida. At the same time, Afonso refused approaches from opponents of Almeida who encouraged him to seize power.
On 3 February 1509, Almeida fought the naval Battle of Diu against a joint fleet of Mamluks, Ottomans, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Sultan of Gujarat. His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Mamluks abandoned the Indian Ocean, easing the way for Portuguese rule there for the next century. In August, after a petition from Afonso's former officers with the support of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira claiming him unfit for governance, Afonso was sent in custody to St. Angelo Fort in Cannanore. There he remained under what he considered as imprisonment.
First expedition to India, 1503.
When King Manuel I of Portugal ascended to the throne following the death of his cousin John II, he held a cautious attitude towards Albuquerque, who was a close friend of his predecessor and seventeen years Manuel's senior. Eight years later, on 6 April 1503 Albuquerque was sent on his first expedition to India together with his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque. Each commanded three ships, sailing with Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Nicolau Coelho. They engaged in several battles against the forces of the Zamorin of Calicut ("Calecute", Kozhikode) and succeeded in establishing the King of Cochin ("Cohim", Kochi) securely on his throne. In return, the King of Cochin gave the Portuguese permission to build the Portuguese fort "Immanuel" (Fort Kochi) and establish trade relations with Quilon ("Coulão", Kollam). This laid the foundation for the eastern Portuguese Empire.
Second expedition to India, 1506.
Albuquerque returned home in July 1504 and was well received by King Manuel I. After he assisted with the creation of a strategy for the Portuguese efforts in the east, King Manuel entrusted him with the command of a squadron of five vessels in the fleet of sixteen sailing for India in early 1506, headed by Tristão da Cunha. The aim of the expedition was to conquer Socotra and build a fortress there, hoping to close the trade in the Red Sea.
Albuquerque went as "chief-captain for the Coast of Arabia", sailing under da Cunha's orders until reaching Mozambique. He carried a sealed letter with a secret mission ordered by the King: after fulfilling the first mission, he was to replace the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, whose term ended two years later. Before departing, he legitimized his son Brás ("Braz" in the old Portuguese spelling), born to a common Portuguese woman named Joana Vicente in 1500.
First conquest of Socotra and Ormuz, 1507.
The fleet left Lisbon on 6 April 1506. Albuquerque piloted his ship himself, having lost his appointed pilot on departure. In Mozambique Channel, they rescued Captain João da Nova, who had encountered difficulties on his return from India; da Nova and his ship, the "Frol de la mar", joined da Cunha's fleet. From Malindi, da Cunha sent envoys to Ethiopia, which at the time was thought to be closer to India than it actually is, under the aegis of Albuquerque. After failing to reach Ethiopia, he managed to land the envoys in Filuk. After successful attacks on Arab cities on the East African coast, the expedition conquered the island of Socotra and built a fortress at Suq, hoping to establish a base to stop the Red Sea commerce to the Indian Ocean. However, Socotra was abandoned four years later, as it was eventually realised to be a poor location for a base.
At Socotra, they parted ways: Tristão da Cunha sailed for India, where he would relieve the Portuguese besieged at Cannanore, while Afonso took seven ships and 500 men to Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, one of the chief eastern centers of commerce. On his way, he conquered the cities of Curiati (Kuryat), Muscat in July 1507, and Khor Fakkan, accepting the submission of the cities of Kalhat and Sohar. He arrived at Hormuz on 25 September and soon captured the city, which agreed to become a tributary state of the Portuguese king.
Ormuz was then a tributary state of Shah Ismail of Persia. In a famous episode, shortly after its conquest, Albuquerque was confronted by Persian envoys, who demanded the payment of the due tribute from him instead. He ordered them to be given a stock of cannonballs, arrows and weapons, retorting that "such was the currency struck in Portugal to pay the tribute demanded from the dominions of King Manuel". According to Brás de Albuquerque, it was Shah Ismael who first addressed Albuquerque as "Lion of the seas".
Afonso began building the Fort of Our Lady of Victory (later renamed Fort of Our Lady of the Conception) on Hormuz Island, engaging his men of all ranks in the work. However, some of his officers, claiming that Afonso was exceeding his orders, revolted against the heavy work and climate and departed for India. With his fleet reduced to two ships and left without supplies, he was unable to maintain his position. In January 1508, he was forced to abandon Ormuz. He raided coastal villages to resupply the settlement of Socotra, returned to Ormuz, and then headed to India.
Arrest at Cannanore, 1509.
Afonso arrived at Cannanore on the Malabar coast in December 1508, where he opened the sealed letter that he had received from the King before the viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, which named him as governor to succeed Almeida. The viceroy, supported by the officers who had abandoned Afonso at Ormuz, had a matching royal order but declined to yield. He protested that his term ended only in January and stated his intention to avenge his son's death by fighting the Mamluk fleet of Mirocem, refusing Afonso's offer to fight the Mamluk fleet himself. Afonso avoided confrontation, which could have led to civil war, and moved to Kochi, India, to await further instruction from the King. Increasingly isolated, he wrote to Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who arrived in India with a new fleet, but was ignored as Sequeira joined Almeida. At the same time, Afonso refused approaches from opponents of Almeida who encouraged him to seize power.
On 3 February 1509, Almeida fought the naval Battle of Diu against a joint fleet of Mamluks, Ottomans, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Sultan of Gujarat. His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Mamluks abandoned the Indian Ocean, easing the way for Portuguese rule there for the next century. In August, after a petition from Afonso's former officers with the support of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira claiming him unfit for governance, Afonso was sent in custody to St. Angelo Fort in Cannanore. There he remained under what he considered as imprisonment.
First conquest of Socotra and Ormuz, 1507.
The fleet left Lisbon on 6 April 1506. Albuquerque piloted his ship himself, having lost his appointed pilot on departure. In Mozambique Channel, they rescued Captain João da Nova, who had encountered difficulties on his return from India; da Nova and his ship, the "Frol de la mar", joined da Cunha's fleet. From Malindi, da Cunha sent envoys to Ethiopia, which at the time was thought to be closer to India than it actually is, under the aegis of Albuquerque. After failing to reach Ethiopia, he managed to land the envoys in Filuk. After successful attacks on Arab cities on the East African coast, the expedition conquered the island of Socotra and built a fortress at Suq, hoping to establish a base to stop the Red Sea commerce to the Indian Ocean. However, Socotra was abandoned four years later, as it was eventually realised to be a poor location for a base.
At Socotra, they parted ways: Tristão da Cunha sailed for India, where he would relieve the Portuguese besieged at Cannanore, while Afonso took seven ships and 500 men to Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, one of the chief eastern centers of commerce. On his way, he conquered the cities of Curiati (Kuryat), Muscat in July 1507, and Khor Fakkan, accepting the submission of the cities of Kalhat and Sohar. He arrived at Hormuz on 25 September and soon captured the city, which agreed to become a tributary state of the Portuguese king.
Ormuz was then a tributary state of Shah Ismail of Persia. In a famous episode, shortly after its conquest, Albuquerque was confronted by Persian envoys, who demanded the payment of the due tribute from him instead. He ordered them to be given a stock of cannonballs, arrows and weapons, retorting that "such was the currency struck in Portugal to pay the tribute demanded from the dominions of King Manuel". According to Brás de Albuquerque, it was Shah Ismael who first addressed Albuquerque as "Lion of the seas".
Afonso began building the Fort of Our Lady of Victory (later renamed Fort of Our Lady of the Conception) on Hormuz Island, engaging his men of all ranks in the work. However, some of his officers, claiming that Afonso was exceeding his orders, revolted against the heavy work and climate and departed for India. With his fleet reduced to two ships and left without supplies, he was unable to maintain his position. In January 1508, he was forced to abandon Ormuz. He raided coastal villages to resupply the settlement of Socotra, returned to Ormuz, and then headed to India.
Arrest at Cannanore, 1509.
Afonso arrived at Cannanore on the Malabar coast in December 1508, where he opened the sealed letter that he had received from the King before the viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, which named him as governor to succeed Almeida. The viceroy, supported by the officers who had abandoned Afonso at Ormuz, had a matching royal order but declined to yield. He protested that his term ended only in January and stated his intention to avenge his son's death by fighting the Mamluk fleet of Mirocem, refusing Afonso's offer to fight the Mamluk fleet himself. Afonso avoided confrontation, which could have led to civil war, and moved to Kochi, India, to await further instruction from the King. Increasingly isolated, he wrote to Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who arrived in India with a new fleet, but was ignored as Sequeira joined Almeida. At the same time, Afonso refused approaches from opponents of Almeida who encouraged him to seize power.
On 3 February 1509, Almeida fought the naval Battle of Diu against a joint fleet of Mamluks, Ottomans, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Sultan of Gujarat. His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Mamluks abandoned the Indian Ocean, easing the way for Portuguese rule there for the next century. In August, after a petition from Afonso's former officers with the support of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira claiming him unfit for governance, Afonso was sent in custody to St. Angelo Fort in Cannanore. There he remained under what he considered as imprisonment.
Governor of Portuguese India, 1509–1515.
Afonso was released after three months' confinement, on the arrival at Cannanore of the Marshal of Portugal Fernando Coutinho with a large fleet sent by the King. Coutinho was the most important Portuguese noble to visit India up to that point. He brought an armada of fifteen ships and 3,000 men to defend Afonso's rights, and to take Calicut.
On 4 November 1509, Afonso became the second Governor of Portuguese India, a position he would hold until his death. Almeida set off to return to Portugal, but he was killed before he got there in a skirmish with the Khoekhoe. Upon his assuming office, Afonso intended to dominate the Muslim world and control the Spice trade.
Initially, King Manuel I and his council in Lisbon tried to distribute the power by outlining three areas of jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean. In 1509, the nobleman Diogo Lopes de Sequeira was sent with a fleet to Southeast Asia, to seek an agreement with Sultan Mahmud Shah of Malacca, but failed and returned to Portugal. To Jorge de Aguiar was given the region between the Cape of Good Hope and Gujarat. He was succeeded by Duarte de Lemos, but left for Cochin and then for Portugal, leaving his fleet to Afonso.
Conquest of Goa, 1510.
In January 1510, obeying the orders from the King and aware of the absence of the Zamorin, Afonso advanced on Calicut. The attack was initially successful, but unravelled when Marshal Coutinho, infuriated by Albuquerque's success against Calicut and desiring glory for himself, attacked the Zamorin's palace against Albuquerque's advice, and was ambushed. During the retreat, Afonso was badly wounded and was forced to flee to the ships, barely escaping with his life, while Coutinho was killed.
Soon after the failed attack, Afonso assembled a fleet of 23 ships and 1200 men. Contemporary reports state that he wanted to fight the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate fleet in the Red Sea or return to Hormuz. However, he had been informed by Timoji (a privateer in the service of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire) that it would be easier to fight them in Goa, where they had sheltered after the Battle of Diu, and also of the illness of the Sultan Yusuf Adil Shah, and war between the Deccan sultanates. So he relied on surprise in the capture of Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur.
A first assault took place in Goa from 4 March to 20 May 1510. After the initial occupation, feeling unable to hold the city given the poor condition of its fortifications, the cooling of Hindu residents' support and insubordination among his ranks following an attack by Ismail Adil Shah, Afonso refused a truce offered by the Sultan and abandoned the city in August. His fleet was scattered, and a palace revolt in Kochi hindered his recovery, so he headed to Fort Anjediva. New ships arrived from Portugal, which were intended for the nobleman Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos at Malacca, who had been given a rival command of the region.
Three months later, on 25 November Afonso reappeared at Goa with a renovated fleet. Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos was compelled to accompany him with the reinforcements for Malacca and about 300 Malabari reinforcements from Cannanore. In less than a day, they took Goa from Ismail Adil Shah and his Ottoman allies, who surrendered on 10 December. It is estimated that 6000 of the 9000 Muslim defenders of the city died, either in the fierce battle in the streets or by drowning while trying to escape. Afonso regained the support of the Hindu population, although he frustrated the initial expectations of Timoji, who aspired to become governor. Afonso rewarded him by appointing him chief "Aguazil" of the city, an administrator and representative of the Hindu and Muslim people, as a knowledgeable interpreter of the local customs. He then made an agreement to lower the yearly tribute.
In Goa, Afonso established the first Portuguese mint in the East, after Timoja's merchants had complained of the scarcity of currency, taking it as an opportunity to solidify the territorial conquest. The new coin, based on the existing local coins, showed a cross on the obverse and an armillary sphere (or "esfera"), King Manuel's badge, on the reverse. Gold cruzados or "manueis", silver "esferas" and "alf-esferas", and bronze "leais" were issued.
Albuquerque founded at Goa the "Hospital Real de Goa" or Royal Hospital of Goa, by the Church of Santa Catarina. Upon hearing that the doctors were extorting the sickly with excessive fees, Albuquerque summoned them, declaring that "You charge a physician's pay and don't know what disease the men who serve our lord the King suffer from. Thus, I want to teach you what is it that they die from" and put them to work building the city walls all day till nightfall before releasing them.
Despite constant attacks, Goa became the center of Portuguese India, with the conquest triggering the compliance of neighbouring kingdoms: the Sultan of Gujarat and the Zamorin of Calicut sent embassies, offering alliances and local grants to fortify.
Afonso then used Goa to secure the Spice trade in favor of Portugal and sell Persian horses to Vijayanagara and Hindu princes in return for their assistance.
Conquest of Malacca, 1511.
Afonso explained to his armies why the Portuguese wanted to capture Malacca:
In February 1511, through a friendly Hindu merchant, Nina Chatu, Afonso received a letter from Rui de Araújo, one of the nineteen Portuguese held at Malacca since 1509. It urged moving forward with the largest possible fleet to demand their release, and gave details of the fortifications. Afonso showed it to Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos, as an argument to advance as a joint fleet. In April 1511, after fortifying Goa, he gathered a force of about 900 Portuguese, 200 Hindu mercenaries and about eighteen ships. He then sailed to Malacca against orders and despite the protest of Diogo Mendes, who claimed command of the expedition. Afonso eventually centralized the Portuguese government in the Indian Ocean. After the Malaccan conquest, he wrote a letter to the King to explain his disagreement with Diogo Mendes, suggesting that further divisions could be harmful to the Portuguese in India. Under his command was Ferdinand Magellan, who had participated in the failed embassy of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509.
After a false start towards the Red Sea, they sailed to the Strait of Malacca. It was the richest city that the Portuguese tried to take, and a focal point in the trade network where Malay traders met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Bengali, Persian and Arabic, among others, described by Tomé Pires as of invaluable richness. Despite its wealth, it was mostly a wooden-built city, with few masonry buildings but was defended by a mercenary force estimated at 20,000 men and more than 2000 pieces of artillery. Its greatest weakness was the unpopularity of the government of Sultan Mahmud Shah, who favoured Muslims, arousing dissatisfaction amongst other merchants.
Afonso made a bold approach to the city, his ships decorated with banners, firing cannon volleys. He declared himself lord of all the navigation, demanded the Sultan release the prisoners and pay for damages, and demanded consent to build a fortified trading post. The Sultan eventually freed the prisoners, but was unimpressed by the small Portuguese contingent. Afonso then burned some ships at the port and four coastal buildings as a demonstration. The city being divided by the Malacca River, the connecting bridge was a strategic point, so at dawn on 25 July, the Portuguese landed and fought a tough battle, facing poisoned arrows, taking the bridge in the evening. After fruitlessly waiting for the Sultan's reaction, they returned to the ships and prepared a junk (offered by Chinese merchants), filling it with men, artillery and sandbags. Commanded by António de Abreu, it sailed upriver at high tide to the bridge. The day after, all had landed. After a fierce fight during which the Sultan appeared with an army of war elephants, the defenders were dispersed and the Sultan fled. Afonso waited for the reaction of the Sultan. Merchants approached, asking for Portuguese protection. They were given banners to mark their premises, a sign that they would not be looted. On 15 August, the Portuguese attacked again, but the Sultan had fled the city. Under strict orders, they looted the city, but respected the banners.
Afonso prepared Malacca's defenses against a Malay counterattack, building a fortress, assigning his men to shifts and using stones from the mosque and the cemetery. Despite the delays caused by heat and malaria, it was completed in November 1511, its surviving door now known as "A Famosa" ('the famous'). It was possibly then that Afonso had a large stone engraved with the names of the participants in the conquest. To quell disagreements over the order of the names, he had it set facing the wall, with the single inscription "Lapidem quem reprobaverunt aedificantes" (Latin for "The stone the builders rejected", from David's prophecy, Psalm 118:22–23) on the front.
He settled the Portuguese administration, reappointing Rui de Araújo as factor, a post assigned before his 1509 arrest, and appointing rich merchant Nina Chatu to replace the previous Bendahara. Besides assisting in the governance of the city and the first Portuguese coinage, he provided the junks for several diplomatic missions. Meanwhile, Afonso arrested and had executed the powerful Javanese merchant Utimuti Raja who, after being appointed to a position in the Portuguese administration as representative of the Javanese population, had maintained contacts with the exiled royal family.
Shipwreck on the "Flor de la mar", 1511.
On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old "Flor de la Mar" carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King Manuel a show of Malaccan treasures. There were also offerings from the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) to the King of Portugal, and all his own fortune. On the voyage, the "Flor de la Mar" was wrecked in a storm, and Afonso barely escaped drowning.
Missions from Malacca.
Embassies to Pegu, Sumatra and Siam, 1511.
Most Muslim and Gujarati merchants having fled the city, Afonso invested in diplomatic efforts demonstrating generosity to Southeast Asian merchants, like the Chinese, to encourage good relations with the Portuguese. Trade and diplomatic missions were sent to continental kingdoms: Rui Nunes da Cunha was sent to Pegu (Burma), from where King Binyaram sent back a friendly emissary to Kochi in 1514 and Sumatra, Sumatran kings of Kampar and Indragiri sending emissaries to Afonso accepting the new power, as vassal states of Malacca. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Afonso sent Duarte Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), returning in a Chinese junk. He was one of the Portuguese who had been arrested in Malacca, having gathered knowledge about the culture of the region. There he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between the kingdom of Portugal and the court of the King of Siam Ramathibodi II, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Afonso and the King of Portugal.
Expedition to the "spice islands" (Maluku islands), 1512.
In November, after having secured Malacca and learning the location of the then secret "spice islands", Afonso sent three ships to find them, led by trusted António de Abreu with deputy commander Francisco Serrão. Malay sailors were recruited to guide them through Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Ambon Island to Banda Islands, where they arrived in early 1512. There they remained for a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg and cloves. António de Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst Serrão sailed towards the Moluccas, but he was shipwrecked near Seram. Sultan Abu Lais of Ternate heard of their stranding, and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, brought them to Ternate in 1512 where they were permitted to build a fort on the island, the "", built in 1522.
Return to Cochin and Goa.
Afonso returned from Malacca to Cochin, but could not sail to Goa as it faced a serious revolt headed by the forces of Ismael Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, commanded by Rasul Khan and his countrymen. During Afonso's absence from Malacca, the Portuguese who opposed the taking of Goa had waived its possession, even writing to the King that it would be best to let it go. Held up by the monsoon and with few forces available, Afonso had to wait for the arrival of reinforcement fleets headed by his nephew D. Garcia de Noronha, and Jorge de Mello Pereira.
While at Cochin, Albuquerque started a school. In a private letter to King Manuel I, he stated that he had found a chest full of books with which to teach the children of married Portuguese settlers ("casados") and Christian converts, of which there were about a hundred, to read and write.
On 10 September 1512, Afonso sailed from Cochin to Goa with fourteen ships carrying 1,700 soldiers. Determined to recapture the fortress, he ordered trenches dug and a wall breached. But on the day of the planned final assault, Rasul Khan surrendered. Afonso demanded the fort be handed over with its artillery, ammunition and horses, and the deserters to be given up. Some had joined Rasul Khan when the Portuguese were forced to flee Goa in May 1510, others during the recent siege. Rasul Khan consented, on condition that their lives be spared. Afonso agreed and he left Goa. He did spare the lives of the deserters, but had them horribly mutilated. One such renegade was Fernão Lopes, bound for Portugal in custody, who escaped at the island of Saint Helena and led a 'Robinson Crusoe' life for many years. After such measures the town became the most prosperous Portuguese settlement in India.
Campaign in the Red Sea, 1513.
In December 1512 an envoy from Ethiopia arrived at Goa. Mateus was sent by the regent queen Eleni, following the arrival of the Portuguese from Socotra in 1507, as an ambassador for the king of Portugal in search of a coalition to help face growing Muslim influence. He was received in Goa with great honour by Afonso, as a long-sought "Prester John" envoy. His arrival was announced by King Manuel to Pope Leo X in 1513. Although Mateus faced the distrust of Afonso's rivals, who tried to prove he was some impostor or Muslim spy, Afonso sent him to Portugal. The King is described as having wept with joy at their report.
In February 1513, while Mateus was in Portugal, Afonso sailed to the Red Sea with a force of about 1000 Portuguese and 400 Malabaris. He was under orders to secure that channel for Portugal. Socotra had proved ineffective to control the Red Sea entrance and was abandoned, and Afonso's hint that Massawa could be a good Portuguese base might have been influenced by Mateus' reports.
Knowing that the Mamluks were preparing a second fleet at Suez, he wanted to advance before reinforcements arrived in Aden, and accordingly laid siege to the city. Aden was a fortified city, but although he had scaling ladders they broke during the chaotic attack. After half a day of fierce battle, Afonso was forced to retreat. He cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, with the first European fleet to have sailed this route. He attempted to reach Jeddah, but the winds were unfavourable and so he sheltered at Kamaran island in May, until sickness among the men and lack of fresh water forced him to retreat. In August 1513, after a second attempt to reach Aden, he returned to India with no substantial results. In order to destroy the power of Egypt, he wrote to King Manuel of the idea of diverting the course of the Nile river to render the whole country barren. He also intended to steal the body of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left the Holy Land.
Although Albuquerque's expedition failed to reach Suez, such an incursion into the Red Sea by a Christian fleet for the first time in history stunned the Muslim world, and panic spread in Cairo.
Submission of Calicut.
Albuquerque achieved during his term a favourable end to hostilities between the Portuguese and the Zamorin of Calicut, which had lasted since the massacre of the Portuguese in Calicut in 1502. As naval trade faltered and vassals defected, with no foreseeable solutions to the conflict with the Portuguese, the court of the Zamorin fell to in-fighting. The ruling Zamorin was assassinated and replaced by a rival, under the instigation of Albuquerque, permitting peace talks to commence. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fortress in Calicut itself, and acquired rights to obtain as much pepper and ginger as they wished, at stipulated prices, and half the customs duties of Calicut as yearly tribute. Construction of the fortress began immediately, under the supervision of chief architect Tomás Fernandes.
Administration and diplomacy in Goa, 1514.
With peace concluded, in 1514 Afonso devoted himself to governing Goa and receiving embassies from Indian governors, strengthening the city and encouraging marriages of Portuguese men and local women. At that time, Portuguese women were barred from traveling overseas in order to maintain discipline among the men on board the ships. In 1511 under a policy which Afonso promulgated, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local women. To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as "casados", or "married men") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Afonso's encouragement, mixed marriages flourished, giving birth to Portuguese-Indians or "mestiços". He appointed local people for positions in the Portuguese administration and did not interfere with local traditions (except "sati", the practice of immolating widows, which he banned).
In March 1514 King Manuel sent to Pope Leo X a huge and exotic embassy led by Tristão da Cunha, who toured the streets of Rome in an extravagant procession of animals from the colonies and wealth from the Indies. His reputation reached its peak, laying foundations of the Portuguese Empire in the East.
In early 1514, Afonso sent ambassadors to Gujarat's Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay, to seek permission to build a fort on Diu, India. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including an Indian rhinoceros, Afonso sent the rhino to King Manuel, making it the first living example of a rhinoceros seen in Europe since the Roman Empire.
Conquest of Ormuz and Illness.
In 1513, at Cannanore, Afonso was visited by a Persian ambassador from Shah Ismail I, who had sent ambassadors to Gujarat, Ormuz and Bijapur. The shah's ambassador to Bijapur invited Afonso to send back an envoy to Persia. Miguel Ferreira was sent via Ormuz to Tabriz, where he had several interviews with the shah about common goals of defeating the Mamluk sultan.
At the same time, Albuquerque decided to conclude the effective conquest of Hormuz. He had learned that after the Portuguese retreat in 1507, a young king was reigning under the influence of a powerful Persian vizier, Reis Hamed, whom the king greatly feared. At Ormuz in March 1515, Afonso met the king and asked the vizier to be present. He then had him immediately stabbed and killed by his entourage, thus "freeing" the terrified king, so the island in the Persian Gulf yielded to him without resistance and remained a vassal state of the Portuguese Empire. Ormuz itself would not be Persian territory for another century, until an English-Persian alliance finally expelled the Portuguese in 1622. At Ormuz, Afonso met with Miguel Ferreira, returning with rich presents and an ambassador, carrying a letter from the Persian potentate Shah Ismael, inviting Afonso to become a leading lord in Persia. There he remained, engaging in diplomatic efforts, receiving envoys and overseeing the construction of the new fortress, while becoming increasingly ill. His illness was reported as early as September 1515. In November 1515, he embarked on a journey back to Goa.
Death.
At this time, his political enemies at the Portuguese court were planning his downfall. They had lost no opportunity in stirring up the jealousy of King Manuel against him, insinuating that Afonso intended to usurp power in Portuguese India. While on his return voyage from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, near the harbor of Chaul, he received news of a Portuguese fleet arriving from Europe, bearing dispatches announcing that he was to be replaced by his personal foe, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Realizing the plot that his enemies had moved against him, profoundly disillusioned, he voiced his bitterness: "Grave must be my sins before the King, for I am in ill favor with the King for love of the men, and with the men for love of the King."
Feeling himself near death, he donned the surcoat of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a knight, and drew up his will, appointed the captain and senior officials of Ormuz, and organized a final council with his captains to decide the main matters affecting the Portuguese State of India. He wrote a brief letter to King Manuel, asking him to confer onto his natural son "all of the high honors and rewards" that Afonso had received, and assuring Manuel of his loyalty.
On 16 December 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque died within sight of Goa. As his death was known, in the city "great wailing arose", and many took to the streets to witness his body carried on a chair by his main captains, in a procession lit by torches amidst the crowd. Afonso's body was buried in Goa, according to his will, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill), which he had been built in 1513 to thank the Madonna for his escape from Kamaran island. That night, the population of Goa, both Hindu and Portuguese, gathered to mourn his death.
In Portugal, King Manuel's zigzagging policies continued, still trapped by the constraints of real-time medieval communication between Lisbon and India and unaware that Afonso was dead. Hearing rumours that the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was preparing a magnificent army at Suez to prevent the conquest of Ormuz, he repented of having replaced Afonso, and in March 1516 urgently wrote to Albergaria to return the command of all operations to Afonso and provide him with resources to face the Egyptian threat. He organized a new Portuguese navy in Asia, with orders that Afonso (if he was still in India), be made commander-in-chief against the Sultan of Cairo's armies. Manuel would afterwards learn that Afonso had died many months earlier, and that his reversed decision had been delivered many months too late.
After 51 years, in 1566, his body was moved to Nossa Senhora da Graça church in Lisbon, which was ruined and rebuilt after the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake.
Conquest of Goa, 1510.
In January 1510, obeying the orders from the King and aware of the absence of the Zamorin, Afonso advanced on Calicut. The attack was initially successful, but unravelled when Marshal Coutinho, infuriated by Albuquerque's success against Calicut and desiring glory for himself, attacked the Zamorin's palace against Albuquerque's advice, and was ambushed. During the retreat, Afonso was badly wounded and was forced to flee to the ships, barely escaping with his life, while Coutinho was killed.
Soon after the failed attack, Afonso assembled a fleet of 23 ships and 1200 men. Contemporary reports state that he wanted to fight the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate fleet in the Red Sea or return to Hormuz. However, he had been informed by Timoji (a privateer in the service of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire) that it would be easier to fight them in Goa, where they had sheltered after the Battle of Diu, and also of the illness of the Sultan Yusuf Adil Shah, and war between the Deccan sultanates. So he relied on surprise in the capture of Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur.
A first assault took place in Goa from 4 March to 20 May 1510. After the initial occupation, feeling unable to hold the city given the poor condition of its fortifications, the cooling of Hindu residents' support and insubordination among his ranks following an attack by Ismail Adil Shah, Afonso refused a truce offered by the Sultan and abandoned the city in August. His fleet was scattered, and a palace revolt in Kochi hindered his recovery, so he headed to Fort Anjediva. New ships arrived from Portugal, which were intended for the nobleman Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos at Malacca, who had been given a rival command of the region.
Three months later, on 25 November Afonso reappeared at Goa with a renovated fleet. Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos was compelled to accompany him with the reinforcements for Malacca and about 300 Malabari reinforcements from Cannanore. In less than a day, they took Goa from Ismail Adil Shah and his Ottoman allies, who surrendered on 10 December. It is estimated that 6000 of the 9000 Muslim defenders of the city died, either in the fierce battle in the streets or by drowning while trying to escape. Afonso regained the support of the Hindu population, although he frustrated the initial expectations of Timoji, who aspired to become governor. Afonso rewarded him by appointing him chief "Aguazil" of the city, an administrator and representative of the Hindu and Muslim people, as a knowledgeable interpreter of the local customs. He then made an agreement to lower the yearly tribute.
In Goa, Afonso established the first Portuguese mint in the East, after Timoja's merchants had complained of the scarcity of currency, taking it as an opportunity to solidify the territorial conquest. The new coin, based on the existing local coins, showed a cross on the obverse and an armillary sphere (or "esfera"), King Manuel's badge, on the reverse. Gold cruzados or "manueis", silver "esferas" and "alf-esferas", and bronze "leais" were issued.
Albuquerque founded at Goa the "Hospital Real de Goa" or Royal Hospital of Goa, by the Church of Santa Catarina. Upon hearing that the doctors were extorting the sickly with excessive fees, Albuquerque summoned them, declaring that "You charge a physician's pay and don't know what disease the men who serve our lord the King suffer from. Thus, I want to teach you what is it that they die from" and put them to work building the city walls all day till nightfall before releasing them.
Despite constant attacks, Goa became the center of Portuguese India, with the conquest triggering the compliance of neighbouring kingdoms: the Sultan of Gujarat and the Zamorin of Calicut sent embassies, offering alliances and local grants to fortify.
Afonso then used Goa to secure the Spice trade in favor of Portugal and sell Persian horses to Vijayanagara and Hindu princes in return for their assistance.
Conquest of Malacca, 1511.
Afonso explained to his armies why the Portuguese wanted to capture Malacca:
In February 1511, through a friendly Hindu merchant, Nina Chatu, Afonso received a letter from Rui de Araújo, one of the nineteen Portuguese held at Malacca since 1509. It urged moving forward with the largest possible fleet to demand their release, and gave details of the fortifications. Afonso showed it to Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos, as an argument to advance as a joint fleet. In April 1511, after fortifying Goa, he gathered a force of about 900 Portuguese, 200 Hindu mercenaries and about eighteen ships. He then sailed to Malacca against orders and despite the protest of Diogo Mendes, who claimed command of the expedition. Afonso eventually centralized the Portuguese government in the Indian Ocean. After the Malaccan conquest, he wrote a letter to the King to explain his disagreement with Diogo Mendes, suggesting that further divisions could be harmful to the Portuguese in India. Under his command was Ferdinand Magellan, who had participated in the failed embassy of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509.
After a false start towards the Red Sea, they sailed to the Strait of Malacca. It was the richest city that the Portuguese tried to take, and a focal point in the trade network where Malay traders met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Bengali, Persian and Arabic, among others, described by Tomé Pires as of invaluable richness. Despite its wealth, it was mostly a wooden-built city, with few masonry buildings but was defended by a mercenary force estimated at 20,000 men and more than 2000 pieces of artillery. Its greatest weakness was the unpopularity of the government of Sultan Mahmud Shah, who favoured Muslims, arousing dissatisfaction amongst other merchants.
Afonso made a bold approach to the city, his ships decorated with banners, firing cannon volleys. He declared himself lord of all the navigation, demanded the Sultan release the prisoners and pay for damages, and demanded consent to build a fortified trading post. The Sultan eventually freed the prisoners, but was unimpressed by the small Portuguese contingent. Afonso then burned some ships at the port and four coastal buildings as a demonstration. The city being divided by the Malacca River, the connecting bridge was a strategic point, so at dawn on 25 July, the Portuguese landed and fought a tough battle, facing poisoned arrows, taking the bridge in the evening. After fruitlessly waiting for the Sultan's reaction, they returned to the ships and prepared a junk (offered by Chinese merchants), filling it with men, artillery and sandbags. Commanded by António de Abreu, it sailed upriver at high tide to the bridge. The day after, all had landed. After a fierce fight during which the Sultan appeared with an army of war elephants, the defenders were dispersed and the Sultan fled. Afonso waited for the reaction of the Sultan. Merchants approached, asking for Portuguese protection. They were given banners to mark their premises, a sign that they would not be looted. On 15 August, the Portuguese attacked again, but the Sultan had fled the city. Under strict orders, they looted the city, but respected the banners.
Afonso prepared Malacca's defenses against a Malay counterattack, building a fortress, assigning his men to shifts and using stones from the mosque and the cemetery. Despite the delays caused by heat and malaria, it was completed in November 1511, its surviving door now known as "A Famosa" ('the famous'). It was possibly then that Afonso had a large stone engraved with the names of the participants in the conquest. To quell disagreements over the order of the names, he had it set facing the wall, with the single inscription "Lapidem quem reprobaverunt aedificantes" (Latin for "The stone the builders rejected", from David's prophecy, Psalm 118:22–23) on the front.
He settled the Portuguese administration, reappointing Rui de Araújo as factor, a post assigned before his 1509 arrest, and appointing rich merchant Nina Chatu to replace the previous Bendahara. Besides assisting in the governance of the city and the first Portuguese coinage, he provided the junks for several diplomatic missions. Meanwhile, Afonso arrested and had executed the powerful Javanese merchant Utimuti Raja who, after being appointed to a position in the Portuguese administration as representative of the Javanese population, had maintained contacts with the exiled royal family.
Shipwreck on the "Flor de la mar", 1511.
On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old "Flor de la Mar" carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King Manuel a show of Malaccan treasures. There were also offerings from the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) to the King of Portugal, and all his own fortune. On the voyage, the "Flor de la Mar" was wrecked in a storm, and Afonso barely escaped drowning.
Shipwreck on the "Flor de la mar", 1511.
On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old "Flor de la Mar" carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King Manuel a show of Malaccan treasures. There were also offerings from the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) to the King of Portugal, and all his own fortune. On the voyage, the "Flor de la Mar" was wrecked in a storm, and Afonso barely escaped drowning.
Missions from Malacca.
Embassies to Pegu, Sumatra and Siam, 1511.
Most Muslim and Gujarati merchants having fled the city, Afonso invested in diplomatic efforts demonstrating generosity to Southeast Asian merchants, like the Chinese, to encourage good relations with the Portuguese. Trade and diplomatic missions were sent to continental kingdoms: Rui Nunes da Cunha was sent to Pegu (Burma), from where King Binyaram sent back a friendly emissary to Kochi in 1514 and Sumatra, Sumatran kings of Kampar and Indragiri sending emissaries to Afonso accepting the new power, as vassal states of Malacca. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Afonso sent Duarte Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), returning in a Chinese junk. He was one of the Portuguese who had been arrested in Malacca, having gathered knowledge about the culture of the region. There he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between the kingdom of Portugal and the court of the King of Siam Ramathibodi II, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Afonso and the King of Portugal.
Expedition to the "spice islands" (Maluku islands), 1512.
In November, after having secured Malacca and learning the location of the then secret "spice islands", Afonso sent three ships to find them, led by trusted António de Abreu with deputy commander Francisco Serrão. Malay sailors were recruited to guide them through Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Ambon Island to Banda Islands, where they arrived in early 1512. There they remained for a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg and cloves. António de Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst Serrão sailed towards the Moluccas, but he was shipwrecked near Seram. Sultan Abu Lais of Ternate heard of their stranding, and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, brought them to Ternate in 1512 where they were permitted to build a fort on the island, the "", built in 1522.
Embassies to Pegu, Sumatra and Siam, 1511.
Most Muslim and Gujarati merchants having fled the city, Afonso invested in diplomatic efforts demonstrating generosity to Southeast Asian merchants, like the Chinese, to encourage good relations with the Portuguese. Trade and diplomatic missions were sent to continental kingdoms: Rui Nunes da Cunha was sent to Pegu (Burma), from where King Binyaram sent back a friendly emissary to Kochi in 1514 and Sumatra, Sumatran kings of Kampar and Indragiri sending emissaries to Afonso accepting the new power, as vassal states of Malacca. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Afonso sent Duarte Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), returning in a Chinese junk. He was one of the Portuguese who had been arrested in Malacca, having gathered knowledge about the culture of the region. There he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between the kingdom of Portugal and the court of the King of Siam Ramathibodi II, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Afonso and the King of Portugal.
Expedition to the "spice islands" (Maluku islands), 1512.
In November, after having secured Malacca and learning the location of the then secret "spice islands", Afonso sent three ships to find them, led by trusted António de Abreu with deputy commander Francisco Serrão. Malay sailors were recruited to guide them through Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Ambon Island to Banda Islands, where they arrived in early 1512. There they remained for a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg and cloves. António de Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst Serrão sailed towards the Moluccas, but he was shipwrecked near Seram. Sultan Abu Lais of Ternate heard of their stranding, and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, brought them to Ternate in 1512 where they were permitted to build a fort on the island, the "", built in 1522.
Return to Cochin and Goa.
Afonso returned from Malacca to Cochin, but could not sail to Goa as it faced a serious revolt headed by the forces of Ismael Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, commanded by Rasul Khan and his countrymen. During Afonso's absence from Malacca, the Portuguese who opposed the taking of Goa had waived its possession, even writing to the King that it would be best to let it go. Held up by the monsoon and with few forces available, Afonso had to wait for the arrival of reinforcement fleets headed by his nephew D. Garcia de Noronha, and Jorge de Mello Pereira.
While at Cochin, Albuquerque started a school. In a private letter to King Manuel I, he stated that he had found a chest full of books with which to teach the children of married Portuguese settlers ("casados") and Christian converts, of which there were about a hundred, to read and write.
On 10 September 1512, Afonso sailed from Cochin to Goa with fourteen ships carrying 1,700 soldiers. Determined to recapture the fortress, he ordered trenches dug and a wall breached. But on the day of the planned final assault, Rasul Khan surrendered. Afonso demanded the fort be handed over with its artillery, ammunition and horses, and the deserters to be given up. Some had joined Rasul Khan when the Portuguese were forced to flee Goa in May 1510, others during the recent siege. Rasul Khan consented, on condition that their lives be spared. Afonso agreed and he left Goa. He did spare the lives of the deserters, but had them horribly mutilated. One such renegade was Fernão Lopes, bound for Portugal in custody, who escaped at the island of Saint Helena and led a 'Robinson Crusoe' life for many years. After such measures the town became the most prosperous Portuguese settlement in India.
Campaign in the Red Sea, 1513.
In December 1512 an envoy from Ethiopia arrived at Goa. Mateus was sent by the regent queen Eleni, following the arrival of the Portuguese from Socotra in 1507, as an ambassador for the king of Portugal in search of a coalition to help face growing Muslim influence. He was received in Goa with great honour by Afonso, as a long-sought "Prester John" envoy. His arrival was announced by King Manuel to Pope Leo X in 1513. Although Mateus faced the distrust of Afonso's rivals, who tried to prove he was some impostor or Muslim spy, Afonso sent him to Portugal. The King is described as having wept with joy at their report.
In February 1513, while Mateus was in Portugal, Afonso sailed to the Red Sea with a force of about 1000 Portuguese and 400 Malabaris. He was under orders to secure that channel for Portugal. Socotra had proved ineffective to control the Red Sea entrance and was abandoned, and Afonso's hint that Massawa could be a good Portuguese base might have been influenced by Mateus' reports.
Knowing that the Mamluks were preparing a second fleet at Suez, he wanted to advance before reinforcements arrived in Aden, and accordingly laid siege to the city. Aden was a fortified city, but although he had scaling ladders they broke during the chaotic attack. After half a day of fierce battle, Afonso was forced to retreat. He cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, with the first European fleet to have sailed this route. He attempted to reach Jeddah, but the winds were unfavourable and so he sheltered at Kamaran island in May, until sickness among the men and lack of fresh water forced him to retreat. In August 1513, after a second attempt to reach Aden, he returned to India with no substantial results. In order to destroy the power of Egypt, he wrote to King Manuel of the idea of diverting the course of the Nile river to render the whole country barren. He also intended to steal the body of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left the Holy Land.
Although Albuquerque's expedition failed to reach Suez, such an incursion into the Red Sea by a Christian fleet for the first time in history stunned the Muslim world, and panic spread in Cairo.
Submission of Calicut.
Albuquerque achieved during his term a favourable end to hostilities between the Portuguese and the Zamorin of Calicut, which had lasted since the massacre of the Portuguese in Calicut in 1502. As naval trade faltered and vassals defected, with no foreseeable solutions to the conflict with the Portuguese, the court of the Zamorin fell to in-fighting. The ruling Zamorin was assassinated and replaced by a rival, under the instigation of Albuquerque, permitting peace talks to commence. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fortress in Calicut itself, and acquired rights to obtain as much pepper and ginger as they wished, at stipulated prices, and half the customs duties of Calicut as yearly tribute. Construction of the fortress began immediately, under the supervision of chief architect Tomás Fernandes.
Administration and diplomacy in Goa, 1514.
With peace concluded, in 1514 Afonso devoted himself to governing Goa and receiving embassies from Indian governors, strengthening the city and encouraging marriages of Portuguese men and local women. At that time, Portuguese women were barred from traveling overseas in order to maintain discipline among the men on board the ships. In 1511 under a policy which Afonso promulgated, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local women. To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as "casados", or "married men") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Afonso's encouragement, mixed marriages flourished, giving birth to Portuguese-Indians or "mestiços". He appointed local people for positions in the Portuguese administration and did not interfere with local traditions (except "sati", the practice of immolating widows, which he banned).
In March 1514 King Manuel sent to Pope Leo X a huge and exotic embassy led by Tristão da Cunha, who toured the streets of Rome in an extravagant procession of animals from the colonies and wealth from the Indies. His reputation reached its peak, laying foundations of the Portuguese Empire in the East.
In early 1514, Afonso sent ambassadors to Gujarat's Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay, to seek permission to build a fort on Diu, India. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including an Indian rhinoceros, Afonso sent the rhino to King Manuel, making it the first living example of a rhinoceros seen in Europe since the Roman Empire.
Conquest of Ormuz and Illness.
In 1513, at Cannanore, Afonso was visited by a Persian ambassador from Shah Ismail I, who had sent ambassadors to Gujarat, Ormuz and Bijapur. The shah's ambassador to Bijapur invited Afonso to send back an envoy to Persia. Miguel Ferreira was sent via Ormuz to Tabriz, where he had several interviews with the shah about common goals of defeating the Mamluk sultan.
At the same time, Albuquerque decided to conclude the effective conquest of Hormuz. He had learned that after the Portuguese retreat in 1507, a young king was reigning under the influence of a powerful Persian vizier, Reis Hamed, whom the king greatly feared. At Ormuz in March 1515, Afonso met the king and asked the vizier to be present. He then had him immediately stabbed and killed by his entourage, thus "freeing" the terrified king, so the island in the Persian Gulf yielded to him without resistance and remained a vassal state of the Portuguese Empire. Ormuz itself would not be Persian territory for another century, until an English-Persian alliance finally expelled the Portuguese in 1622. At Ormuz, Afonso met with Miguel Ferreira, returning with rich presents and an ambassador, carrying a letter from the Persian potentate Shah Ismael, inviting Afonso to become a leading lord in Persia. There he remained, engaging in diplomatic efforts, receiving envoys and overseeing the construction of the new fortress, while becoming increasingly ill. His illness was reported as early as September 1515. In November 1515, he embarked on a journey back to Goa.
Death.
At this time, his political enemies at the Portuguese court were planning his downfall. They had lost no opportunity in stirring up the jealousy of King Manuel against him, insinuating that Afonso intended to usurp power in Portuguese India. While on his return voyage from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, near the harbor of Chaul, he received news of a Portuguese fleet arriving from Europe, bearing dispatches announcing that he was to be replaced by his personal foe, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Realizing the plot that his enemies had moved against him, profoundly disillusioned, he voiced his bitterness: "Grave must be my sins before the King, for I am in ill favor with the King for love of the men, and with the men for love of the King."
Feeling himself near death, he donned the surcoat of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a knight, and drew up his will, appointed the captain and senior officials of Ormuz, and organized a final council with his captains to decide the main matters affecting the Portuguese State of India. He wrote a brief letter to King Manuel, asking him to confer onto his natural son "all of the high honors and rewards" that Afonso had received, and assuring Manuel of his loyalty.
On 16 December 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque died within sight of Goa. As his death was known, in the city "great wailing arose", and many took to the streets to witness his body carried on a chair by his main captains, in a procession lit by torches amidst the crowd. Afonso's body was buried in Goa, according to his will, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill), which he had been built in 1513 to thank the Madonna for his escape from Kamaran island. That night, the population of Goa, both Hindu and Portuguese, gathered to mourn his death.
In Portugal, King Manuel's zigzagging policies continued, still trapped by the constraints of real-time medieval communication between Lisbon and India and unaware that Afonso was dead. Hearing rumours that the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was preparing a magnificent army at Suez to prevent the conquest of Ormuz, he repented of having replaced Afonso, and in March 1516 urgently wrote to Albergaria to return the command of all operations to Afonso and provide him with resources to face the Egyptian threat. He organized a new Portuguese navy in Asia, with orders that Afonso (if he was still in India), be made commander-in-chief against the Sultan of Cairo's armies. Manuel would afterwards learn that Afonso had died many months earlier, and that his reversed decision had been delivered many months too late.
After 51 years, in 1566, his body was moved to Nossa Senhora da Graça church in Lisbon, which was ruined and rebuilt after the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake.
Death.
At this time, his political enemies at the Portuguese court were planning his downfall. They had lost no opportunity in stirring up the jealousy of King Manuel against him, insinuating that Afonso intended to usurp power in Portuguese India. While on his return voyage from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, near the harbor of Chaul, he received news of a Portuguese fleet arriving from Europe, bearing dispatches announcing that he was to be replaced by his personal foe, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Realizing the plot that his enemies had moved against him, profoundly disillusioned, he voiced his bitterness: "Grave must be my sins before the King, for I am in ill favor with the King for love of the men, and with the men for love of the King."
Feeling himself near death, he donned the surcoat of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a knight, and drew up his will, appointed the captain and senior officials of Ormuz, and organized a final council with his captains to decide the main matters affecting the Portuguese State of India. He wrote a brief letter to King Manuel, asking him to confer onto his natural son "all of the high honors and rewards" that Afonso had received, and assuring Manuel of his loyalty.
On 16 December 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque died within sight of Goa. As his death was known, in the city "great wailing arose", and many took to the streets to witness his body carried on a chair by his main captains, in a procession lit by torches amidst the crowd. Afonso's body was buried in Goa, according to his will, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill), which he had been built in 1513 to thank the Madonna for his escape from Kamaran island. That night, the population of Goa, both Hindu and Portuguese, gathered to mourn his death.
In Portugal, King Manuel's zigzagging policies continued, still trapped by the constraints of real-time medieval communication between Lisbon and India and unaware that Afonso was dead. Hearing rumours that the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was preparing a magnificent army at Suez to prevent the conquest of Ormuz, he repented of having replaced Afonso, and in March 1516 urgently wrote to Albergaria to return the command of all operations to Afonso and provide him with resources to face the Egyptian threat. He organized a new Portuguese navy in Asia, with orders that Afonso (if he was still in India), be made commander-in-chief against the Sultan of Cairo's armies. Manuel would afterwards learn that Afonso had died many months earlier, and that his reversed decision had been delivered many months too late.
After 51 years, in 1566, his body was moved to Nossa Senhora da Graça church in Lisbon, which was ruined and rebuilt after the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake.
Legacy.
King Manuel I of Portugal was belatedly convinced of Afonso's loyalty, and endeavoured to atone for his lack of confidence in Afonso by heaping honours upon his son, Brás de Albuquerque (1500–1580), whom he renamed "Afonso" in memory of the father. Afonso de Albuquerque was a prolific writer, having sent numerous letters during his governorship, covering topics from minor issues to major strategies. In 1557 his son published his biography under the title "Commentarios do Grande Affonso d'Alboquerque".
In 1572, Afonso's actions were described in "The Lusiads", the Portuguese main epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões (Canto X, strophes 40–49). The poet praises his achievements, but has the muses frown upon the harsh rule of his men, of whom Camões was almost a contemporary fellow. In 1934, Afonso was celebrated by Fernando Pessoa in "Mensagem", a symbolist epic. In the first part of this work, called "Brasão" (Coat-of-Arms), he relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields in the Portuguese coat-of-arms, Afonso being one of the wings of the griffin headed by Henry the Navigator, the other wing being King John II.
A variety of mango, which was created by Portuguese Jesuits in Goa via grafting techniques, was named in his honour.
Numerous homages have been paid to Afonso; he is featured in the Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument; there is a square named after him in Lisbon, which also features a bronze statue, and two Portuguese Navy ships have been named in his honour: the sloop NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque" (1884) and the warship NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque".
References.
Bibliography.
In other languages
Primary sources
Bibliography.
In other languages
Primary sources
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Ealdred (archbishop of York)
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Ealdred (or Aldred; died 11 September 1069) was Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York in early medieval England. He was related to a number of other ecclesiastics of the period. After becoming a monk at the monastery at Winchester, he was appointed Abbot of Tavistock Abbey in around 1027. In 1046 he was named to the Bishopric of Worcester. Ealdred, besides his episcopal duties, served Edward the Confessor, the King of England, as a diplomat and as a military leader. He worked to bring one of the king's relatives, Edward the Exile, back to England from Hungary to secure an heir for the childless king.
In 1058 he undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the first bishop from England to do so. As administrator of the Diocese of Hereford, he was involved in fighting against the Welsh, suffering two defeats at the hands of raiders before securing a settlement with Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, a Welsh ruler.
In 1060, Ealdred was elected to the archbishopric of York but had difficulty in obtaining papal approval for his appointment, managing to do so only when he promised not to hold the bishoprics of York and Worcester simultaneously. He helped secure the election of Wulfstan as his successor at Worcester. During his archiepiscopate, he built and embellished churches in his diocese, and worked to improve his clergy by holding a synod which published regulations for the priesthood.
Some sources say that following King Edward the Confessor's death in 1066, it was Ealdred who crowned Harold Godwinson as King of England. Ealdred supported Harold as king, but when Harold was defeated at the Battle of Hastings, Ealdred backed Edgar the Ætheling and then endorsed King William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy and a distant relative of King Edward's. Ealdred crowned King William on Christmas Day in 1066. William never quite trusted Ealdred or the other English leaders, and Ealdred had to accompany William back to Normandy in 1067, but he had returned to York by the time of his death in 1069. Ealdred supported the churches and monasteries in his diocese with gifts and building projects.
Early life.
Ealdred was probably born in the west of England, and could be related to Lyfing, his predecessor as bishop of Worcester. His family, from Devonshire, may have been well-to-do. Another relative was Wilstan or Wulfstan, who under Ealdred's influence became Abbot of Gloucester. Ealdred was a monk in the cathedral chapter at Winchester Cathedral before becoming abbot of Tavistock Abbey about 1027, an office he held until about 1043. Even after leaving the abbacy of Tavistock, he continued to hold two properties from the abbey until his death. No contemporary documents relating to Ealdred's time as abbot have been discovered.
Ealdred was made bishop of Worcester in 1046, a position he held until his resignation in 1062. He may have acted as suffragan, or subordinate bishop, to his predecessor Lyfing before formally assuming the bishopric, as from about 1043 Ealdred witnessed as an "episcopus", or bishop, and a charter from 1045 or early 1046 names Sihtric as abbot of Tavistock. Lyfing died on 26 March 1046, and Ealdred became bishop of Worcester shortly after. However, Ealdred did not receive the other two dioceses Lyfing had held, Crediton and Cornwall; King Edward the Confessor (reigned 1043–1066) granted these to Leofric, who combined the two sees at Crediton in 1050.
Bishop and royal advisor.
Ealdred was an advisor to King Edward the Confessor, and was often involved in the royal government. He was also a military leader, and in 1046 he led an unsuccessful expedition against the Welsh. This was in retaliation for a raid led by the Welsh rulers Gruffydd ap Rhydderch, Rhys ap Rhydderch, and Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. Ealdred's expedition was betrayed by some Welsh soldiers who were serving with the English, and Ealdred was defeated.
In 1050, Ealdred went to Rome "on the king's errand", apparently to secure papal approval to move the seat, or centre, of the bishopric of Crediton to Exeter. It may also have been to secure the release of the king from a vow to go on pilgrimage, if sources from after the Norman Conquest are to be believed. While in Rome, he attended a papal council, along with his fellow English bishop Herman. That same year, as Ealdred was returning to England he met Sweyn, a son of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and probably absolved Sweyn for having abducted the abbess of Leominster Abbey in 1046. Through Ealdred's intercession, Sweyn was restored to his earldom, which he had lost after abducting the abbess and murdering his cousin Beorn Estrithson. Ealdred helped Sweyn not only because Ealdred was a supporter of Earl Godwin's family but because Sweyn's earldom was close to his bishopric. As recently as 1049 Irish raiders had allied with Gruffydd ap Rhydderch of Gwent in raiding along the River Usk. Ealdred unsuccessfully tried to drive off the raiders, but was again routed by the Welsh. This failure underscored Ealdred's need for a strong earl in the area to protect against raids. Normally, the bishop of Hereford would have led the defence in the absence of an Earl of Hereford, but in 1049 the incumbent, Æthelstan, was blind, so Ealdred took on the role of defender.
Diplomatic travels.
Earl Godwin's rebellion against the king in 1051 came as a blow to Ealdred, who was a supporter of the earl and his family. Ealdred was present at the royal council at London that banished Godwin's family. Later in 1051, when he was sent to intercept Harold Godwinson and his brothers as they fled England after their father's outlawing, Ealdred "could not, or would not" capture the brothers. The banishment of Ealdred's patron came shortly after the death of Ælfric Puttoc, the Archbishop of York. York and Worcester had long had close ties, and the two sees had often been held in plurality, or at the same time. Ealdred probably wanted to become Archbishop of York after Ælfric's death, but his patron's eclipse led to the king appointing Cynesige, a royal chaplain, instead. In September 1052, though, Godwin returned from exile and his family was restored to power. By late 1053 Ealdred was once more in royal favour. At some point, he was alleged to have accompanied Swein on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but proof is lacking.
In 1054 King Edward sent Ealdred to Germany to obtain Emperor HenryIII's help in returning Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside, to England. Edmund (reigned 1016) was an elder half-brother of King Edward the Confessor, and Edmund's son Edward was in Hungary with King AndrewI, having left England as an infant after his father's death and the accession of Cnut as King of England. In this mission Ealdred was somewhat successful and obtained insight into the working of the German church during a stay of a year with HermannII, the Archbishop of Cologne. He also was impressed with the buildings he saw, and later incorporated some of the German styles into his own constructions. The main objective of the mission, however, was to secure the return of Edward; but this failed, mainly because HenryIII's relations with the Hungarians were strained, and the emperor was unable or unwilling to help Ealdred. Ealdred was able to discover that Edward was alive, and had a place at the Hungarian court. Although some sources say Ealdred attended the coronation of Emperor HenryIV, this is not possible, as on the date Henry was crowned, Ealdred was in England consecrating an abbot.
Ealdred had returned to England by 1055, and brought with him a copy of the "Pontificale Romano-Germanicum", a set of liturgies. An extant copy of this work, currently manuscript Cotton Vitellus E xii, has been identified as a copy owned by Ealdred. It appears likely that the "Rule of Chrodegang", a continental set of ordinances for the communal life of secular canons, was introduced into England by Ealdred sometime before 1059. Probably he brought it back from Germany, possibly in concert with Harold.
After Ealdred's return to England he took charge of the sees of Hereford and Ramsbury. Ealdred also administered Winchcombe Abbey and Gloucester Abbey. The authors of the "Handbook of British Chronology Third Edition" say he was named bishop of Hereford in 1056, holding the see until he resigned it in 1060, but other sources say he merely administered the see while it was vacant, or that he was bishop of Hereford from 1055 to 1060.
Ealdred became involved with the see of Ramsbury after its bishop Herman got into a dispute with King Edward over the movement of the seat of his bishopric to Malmesbury Abbey. Herman wished to move the seat of his see, but Edward refused permission for the move. Ealdred was a close associate of Herman's, and the historian H. R. Loyn called Herman "something of an alter ego" to Ealdred. According to the medieval chronicler John of Worcester, Ealdred was given the see of Ramsbury to administer while Herman remained outside England. Herman returned in 1058, and resumed his bishopric. There is no contemporary documentary evidence of Ealdred's administration of Ramsbury.
Welsh affairs, Jerusalem, and Worcester.
The king again employed Ealdred as a diplomat in 1056, when he assisted Earls Harold and Leofric in negotiations with the Welsh. Edward sent Ealdred after the death in battle of Bishop Leofgar of Hereford, who had attacked Gruffydd ap Llywelyn after encouragement from the king. However, Leofgar lost the battle and his life, and Edward had to sue for peace. Although details of the negotiations are lacking, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn swore loyalty to King Edward, but the oath may not have had any obligations on Gruffydd's part to Edward. The exact terms of the submission are not known in total, but Gruffydd was not required to assist Edward in war nor attend Edward's court. Ealdred was rewarded with the administration of the see of Hereford, which he held until 1061, and was appointed Archbishop of York. The diocese had suffered a serious raid from the Welsh in 1055, and during his administration, Ealdred continued the rebuilding of the cathedral church as well as securing the cathedral chapter's rights. Ealdred was granted the administration in order that the area might have someone with experience with the Welsh in charge.
In 1058 Ealdred made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the first English bishop to make the journey. He travelled through Hungary, and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" said that "he went to Jerusalem in such state as no-one had done before him." While in Jerusalem he made a gift of a gold chalice to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is possible that the reason Ealdred travelled through Hungary was to arrange the travel of Edward the Exile's family to England. Another possibility is that he wished to search for other possible heirs to King Edward in Hungary. It is not known exactly when Edward the Exile's family returned to England, whether they returned with Edward in 1057, or sometime later, so it is only a possibility that they returned with Ealdred in 1058.
Very little documentary evidence is available from Ealdred's time as Bishop of Worcester. Only five leases that he signed survive, and all date from 1051 to 1053. Two further leases exist in "Hemming's Cartulary" as copies only. How the diocese of Worcester was administered when Ealdred was abroad is unclear, although it appears Wulfstan, the prior of the cathedral chapter, performed the religious duties in the diocese. On the financial side, the "Evesham Chronicle" states that Æthelwig, who became abbot of Evesham Abbey in 1058, administered Worcester before he became abbot.
Archbishop of York.
Cynesige, the archbishop of York, died on 22 December 1060, and Ealdred was elected Archbishop of York on Christmas Day, 1060. Although a bishop was promptly appointed to Hereford, none was named to Worcester, and it appears Ealdred intended to retain Worcester along with York, which several of his predecessors had done. There were a few reasons for this, one of which was political, as the kings of England preferred to appoint bishops from the south to the northern bishoprics, hoping to counter the northern tendency towards separatism. Another reason was that York was not a wealthy see, and Worcester was. Holding Worcester along with York allowed the archbishop sufficient revenue to support himself.
In 1061 Ealdred travelled to Rome to receive the pallium, the symbol of an archbishop's authority. Journeying with him was Tostig, another son of Earl Godwin, who was now earl of Northumbria. William of Malmesbury says that Ealdred, by "amusing the simplicity of King Edward and alleging the custom of his predecessors, had acquired, more by bribery than by reason, the archbishopric of York while still holding his former see." On his arrival in Rome, however, charges of simony, or the buying of ecclesiastical office, and lack of learning were brought against him, and his elevation to York was refused by Pope Nicholas II, who also deposed him from Worcester. The story of Ealdred being deposed comes from the "Vita Edwardi", a life of Edward the Confessor, but the "Vita Wulfstani", an account of the life of Ealdred's successor at Worcester, Wulfstan, says Nicholas refused the pallium until a promise to find a replacement for Worcester was given by Ealdred. Yet another chronicler, John of Worcester, mentions nothing of any trouble in Rome, and when discussing the appointment of Wulfstan, says Wulfstan was elected freely and unanimously by the clergy and people. John of Worcester also claims that at Wulfstan's consecration, Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury extracted a promise from Ealdred that neither he nor his successors would lay claim to any jurisdiction over the diocese of Worcester. Given that John of Worcester wrote his chronicle after the eruption of the Canterbury–York supremacy struggle, the story of Ealdred renouncing any claims to Worcester needs to be considered suspect.
For whatever reason, Ealdred gave up the see of Worcester in 1062, when papal legates arrived in England to hold a council and make sure Ealdred relinquished Worcester. This happened at Easter in 1062. Ealdred was succeeded by Wulfstan, chosen by Ealdred, but John of Worcester relates that Ealdred had a hard time deciding between Wulfstan and Æthelwig. The legates had urged the selection of Wulfstan because of his saintliness. Because the position of Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, was irregular, Wulfstan sought and received consecration as a bishop from Ealdred. Normally, Wulfstan would have gone to the archbishop of Canterbury, as the see of Worcester was within Canterbury's province. Although Ealdred gave up the bishopric, the appointment of Wulfstan was one that allowed Ealdred to continue his considerable influence on the see of Worcester. Ealdred retained a number of estates belonging to Worcester. Even after the Norman Conquest, Ealdred still controlled some events in Worcester, and it was Ealdred, not Wulfstan, who opposed Urse d'Abetot's attempt to extend the castle of Worcester into the cathedral after the Norman Conquest.
While archbishop, Ealdred built at Beverley, expanding on the building projects begun by his predecessor Cynesige, as well as repairing and expanding other churches in his diocese. He also built refectories for the canons at York and Southwell. He also was the one bishop who published ecclesiastical legislation during Edward the Confessor's reign, attempting to discipline and reform the clergy. He held a synod of his clergy shortly before 1066.
After the death of Edward the Confessor.
John of Worcester, a medieval chronicler, said Ealdred crowned King HaroldII in 1066, although the Norman chroniclers mention Stigand as the officiating prelate. Given Ealdred's known support of Godwin's family, John of Worcester is probably correct. Stigand's position as archbishop was canonically suspect, and as earl Harold had not allowed Stigand to consecrate one of the earl's churches, it is unlikely Harold would have allowed Stigand to perform the much more important royal coronation. Arguments for Stigand having performed the coronation, however, rely on the fact that no other English source names the ecclesiastic who performed the ceremony; all Norman sources name Stigand as the presider. In all events, Ealdred and Harold were close, and Ealdred supported Harold's bid to become king. Ealdred perhaps accompanied Harold when the new king went to York and secured the support of the northern magnates shortly after Harold's consecration.
According to the medieval chronicler Geoffrey Gaimar, after the Battle of Stamford Bridge Harold entrusted the loot gained from Harald Hardrada to Ealdred. Gaimar asserts that King Harold did this because he had heard of Duke William's landing in England, and needed to rush south to counter it. After the Battle of Hastings, Ealdred joined the group who tried to elevate Edgar the Ætheling, Edward the Exile's son, as king, but eventually he submitted to William the Conqueror at Berkhamsted. John of Worcester says the group supporting Edgar vacillated over what to do while William ravaged the countryside, which led to Ealdred and Edgar's submission to William.
Ealdred crowned William king on Christmas Day 1066. An innovation in William's coronation ceremony was that before the actual crowning, Ealdred asked the assembled crowd, in English, if it was their wish that William be crowned king. The Bishop of Coutances then did the same, but in Norman French. In March 1067, William took Ealdred with him when William returned to Normandy, along with the other English leaders Earl Edwin of Mercia, Earl Morcar, Edgar the Ætheling, and Archbishop Stigand. Ealdred at Whitsun 1068 performed the coronation of Matilda, William's wife. The "Laudes Regiae", or song commending a ruler, that was performed at Matilda's coronation may have been composed by Ealdred himself for the occasion. In 1069, when the northern thegns rebelled against William and attempted to install Edgar the Ætheling as king, Ealdred continued to support William. He was the only northern leader to support William, however. Ealdred was back at York by 1069. He died there on 11 September 1069, and his body was buried in his episcopal cathedral. He may have taken an active part in trying to calm the rebellions in the north in 1068 and 1069. The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury records a story that when the new sheriff of Worcester, Urse d'Abetot, encroached on the cemetery of the cathedral chapter for Worcester Cathedral, Ealdred pronounced a rhyming curse on him, saying "Thou are called Urse. May you have God's curse."
Legacy.
After Ealdred's death, one of the restraints on William's treatment of the English was removed. Ealdred was one of a few native Englishmen who William appears to have trusted, and his death led to fewer attempts to integrate Englishmen into the administration, although such efforts did not entirely stop. In 1070, a church council was held at Westminster and a number of bishops were deposed. By 1073 there were only two Englishmen in episcopal sees, and by the time of William's death in 1087 there was only one, WulfstanII of Worcester.
Ealdred did much to restore discipline in the monasteries and churches under his authority, and was liberal with gifts to the churches of his diocese. He built the monastic church of St Peter at Gloucester (now Gloucester Cathedral, though nothing of his fabric remains), then part of his diocese of Worcester. He also repaired a large part of Beverley Minster in the diocese of York, adding a presbytery and an unusually splendid painted ceiling covering "all the upper part of the church from the choir to the tower... intermingled with gold in various ways, and in a wonderful fashion." He added a pulpit "in German style" of bronze, gold and silver, surmounted by an arch with a rood cross in the same materials; these were examples of the lavish decorations added to important churches in the years before the conquest.
Ealdred encouraged Folcard, a monk of Canterbury, to write the "Life" of Saint John of Beverley. This was part of Ealdred's promotion of the cult of Saint John, who had been canonised only since 1037. Along with the "Pontificale", Ealdred may have brought back from Cologne the first manuscript of the "Cambridge Songs" to enter England, a collection of Latin Goliardic songs which became famous in the Middle Ages. The historian Michael Lapidge suggests that the "Laudes Regiae", which are included in Cotton Vitellius Exii, might have been composed by Ealdred, or a member of his household. Another historian, H. J. Cowdrey, argued that the "laudes" were composed at Winchester. These praise songs are probably the same performed at Matilda's coronation, but might have been used at other court ceremonies before Ealdred's death.
Historians have seen Ealdred as an "old-fashioned prince-bishop". Others say he "raised the see of York from its former rustic state". He was known for his generosity and for his diplomatic and administrative abilities. After the Conquest, Ealdred provided a degree of continuity between the pre- and post-Conquest worlds. One modern historian feels it was Ealdred who was behind the compilation of the D version of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", and gives a date in the 1050s as its composition. Certainly, Ealdred is one of the leading figures in the work, and it is likely one of his clerks compiled the version.
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1586
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Alexander Balas
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Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas (), was the ruler of the Seleucid Empire from 150/Summer 152 – August 145 BC. Picked from obscurity and supported by the neighboring Roman-allied Kingdom of Pergamon, Alexander landed in Phoenicia in 152 BC and started a civil war against Seleucid King Demetrius I Soter. Backed by mercenaries and factions of the Seleucid Empire unhappy with the existing government, he defeated Demetrius and took the crown in 150 BC. He married the princess Cleopatra Thea to seal an alliance with the neighboring Ptolemaic kingdom. His reign saw the steady retreat of the Seleucid Empire's eastern border, with important eastern satrapies such as Media being lost to the nascent Parthian Empire. In 147 BC, Demetrius II Nicator, the young son of Demetrius I, began a campaign to overthrow Balas, and civil war resumed. Alexander's ally, Ptolemaic king Ptolemy VI Philometor, moved troops into Coele-Syria to support Alexander, but then switched sides and threw his support behind Demetrius II. At the Battle of the Oenoparus River in Syria, he was defeated by Ptolemy VI and he died shortly afterward.
Life.
Origins and mission to Rome.
Alexander Balas claimed to be the son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodice IV and heir to the Seleucid throne. The ancient sources, Polybius and Diodorus say that this claim was false and that he and his sister Laodice VI were really natives of Smyrna of humble origin. However, Polybius became friends with Balas's rival King Demetrius I when both were hostages in Rome, so Polybius is not an unbiased source on this matter. Modern scholars disagree about whether the story of Attalus finding a commoner who looked the part is true or was propaganda put about by Alexander's opponents.
According to Diodorus, Alexander was originally put forward as a candidate for the Seleucid throne by Attalus II of Pergamum. Attalus had been disturbed by the Seleucid king Demetrius I's interference in Cappadocia, where he had dethroned king Ariarathes V. Boris Chrubasik is sceptical, noting that there is little subsequent evidence for Attalid involvement with Alexander. However, Selene Psoma has proposed that a large set of coins minted in a number of cities under Attalid control in this period was produced by Attalus II in order to fund Alexander's bid for the kingship.
Alexander and his sister were maintained in Cilicia by Heracleides, a former minister of Antiochus IV and brother of Timarchus, an usurper in Media who had been executed by the reigning king Demetrius I Soter. In 153 BC, Heracleides brought Alexander and his sister to Rome, where he presented Alexander to the Roman Senate, which recognised him as the legitimate Seleucid king and agreed to support him in his bid to take the throne. Polybius mentions that Attalus II and Demetrius I also met with the Senate at this time but does not state how this was connected to the recognition of Alexander - if at all.
War with Demetrius I (152–150 BC).
After recruiting mercenaries, Alexander and Heracleides departed to Ephesus. From there, they invaded Phoenicia by sea, seizing Ptolemais Akko. Numismatic evidence shows that Alexander had also gained control of Seleucia Pieria, Byblos, Beirut, Tyre by 151 BC. On this coinage, Alexander heavily advertised his (claimed) connection to Antiochus IV, depicting Zeus Nicephorus on his coinage as Antiochus had done. He also assumed the title of "Theopator" ('Divinely Fathered'), which recalled Antiochus' epithet "Theos Epiphanes" ('God Manifest'). The coinage also presented Alexander Balas in the guise of Alexander the Great, with pronounced facial features and long flowing hair. This was intended to emphasise his military prowess to his soldiers.
Alexander and Demetrius I competed with another to win over Jonathan Apphus, the leader of the ascendant faction in Judaea. Jonathan was won over to Alexander's side by the grant of a high position in the Seleucid court and the high priesthood in Jerusalem. Reinforced by Jonathan's hardened soldiers, Alexander fought a decisive battle with Demetrius in July 150 BC, in which Demetrius was killed. By autumn, Alexander's kingship was recognised throughout the Seleucid realm.
Reign (150–147 BC).
Alexander gained control of Antioch at this time and his chancellor, Ammonius, murdered all the courtiers of Demetrius I, as well as his wife Laodice and his eldest son Antigonus. Ptolemy VI Philometor of Egypt entered into an alliance with Alexander, which was sealed by Alexander's marriage to his daughter Cleopatra Thea. The wedding took place at Ptolemais, with Ptolemy VI and Jonathan Apphus in attendance. Alexander took the opportunity to shower honours on Jonathan, whom he treated as his main agent in Judaea. The marriage was advertised by a special coinage issue, depicting the royal pair side by side - only the second depiction of a queen on Seleucid coinage. She is shown with divine attributes (a cornucopia and a calathus) and is depicted in front of the king. Some scholars have seen Alexander as little more than a Ptolemaic puppet, arguing that this coinage emphasises Cleopatra's dominance over him and that the chancellor Ammonius was a Ptolemaic agent. Other scholars argue that the alliance was advertised as an important one, but that the arguments for Alexander's subservience have been overstated.
Collapse of the East.
Meanwhile, the Seleucid positions in the eastern Upper Satrapies, already weakened by the previous kings' failure to contain the Parthians and the Greco-Bactrians, suffered almost complete collapse. The Parthians under Mithridates I took advantage of the general instability to invade Media. The region had been lost to Seleucid control by the middle of 148 BC. At around the same time the local nobles in Elymais and Persis asserted their own ephemeral independence, only to be soon also subdued by the Parthians. By 148 BC at the latest the Parthians also secured their hold over Hyrcania at the coast of the Caspian Sea. By 147 BC the Parthians stood at the doorsteps of Babylonia, one of the Seleucid empire's hearthlands and location of one of its two capital cities, Seleucia-on-Tigris.
Alexander is not recorded to do anything of note to stem the steady erosion of Seleucid power in the East. Ancient historians hostile to him depict him as too distracted by a life of debauchery to take action to stop the Parthians, unlike earlier Seleucid Kings who would mount expeditions to the eastern satrapies to deter the Parthians. He was reputed to hand the administration over to two commanders, Hierax and Diodotus, neither of whom seemed to care for anything but their own interests. This representation is at least partially a product of his opponents' propaganda, but it is true that under Alexander, the Seleucid Empire continued to see its reach and power slip away.
War with Demetrius II and death (147–145 BC).
In early 147 BC Demetrius' son Demetrius II returned to Syria with a force of Cretan mercenaries led by a man called Lasthenes. Much of Coele Syria was lost to him immediately, possibly as a result of the succession of the regional commander. Jonathan attacked Demetrius's position from the south, seizing Jaffa and Ashdod, while Alexander Balas was occupied with a revolt in Cilicia. In 145 BC Ptolemy VI of Egypt invaded Syria, ostensibly in support of Alexander Balas. In practice, Ptolemy's intervention came at a heavy cost; with Alexander's permission, he took control of all the Seleucid cities along the coast, including Seleucia Pieria. He may also have started minting his own coinage in the Syrian cities.
While he was at Ptolemais Akko, however, Ptolemy switched sides. According to Josephus, Ptolemy discovered that Alexander's chancellor, Ammonius, had been plotting to assassinate him, but when he demanded that Ammonius be punished, Alexander refused. Ptolemy remarried his Cleopatra Thea to Demetrius II and continued his march northward. Alexander's commanders of Antioch, Diodotus and Hierax, surrendered the city to Ptolemy.
Alexander returned from Cilicia with his army, but Ptolemy VI and Demetrius II defeated his forces in a Battle of the Oenoparus River. Earlier, Alexander had sent his infant son Antiochus to an Arabian dynast called Zabdiel Diocles. Alexander now fled to Arabia in order to join up with Zabdiel, but he was killed. Sources disagree about whether the killer was a pair of his own generals who had decided to switch sides or Zabdiel himself. Alexander's severed head was brought to Ptolemy, who also died shortly after from wounds sustained in the battle.
Zabdiel continued to look after Alexander's infant son Antiochus, until 145 BC when the general Diodotus declared him king, in order to serve as the figurehead of a rebellion against Demetrius II. In 130 BC, another claimant to the throne, Alexander Zabinas, would also claim to be Alexander Balas' son; almost certainly spuriously. Alexander is the title character of the oratorio "Alexander Balus", written in 1747 by George Frideric Handel.
Origins and mission to Rome.
Alexander Balas claimed to be the son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodice IV and heir to the Seleucid throne. The ancient sources, Polybius and Diodorus say that this claim was false and that he and his sister Laodice VI were really natives of Smyrna of humble origin. However, Polybius became friends with Balas's rival King Demetrius I when both were hostages in Rome, so Polybius is not an unbiased source on this matter. Modern scholars disagree about whether the story of Attalus finding a commoner who looked the part is true or was propaganda put about by Alexander's opponents.
According to Diodorus, Alexander was originally put forward as a candidate for the Seleucid throne by Attalus II of Pergamum. Attalus had been disturbed by the Seleucid king Demetrius I's interference in Cappadocia, where he had dethroned king Ariarathes V. Boris Chrubasik is sceptical, noting that there is little subsequent evidence for Attalid involvement with Alexander. However, Selene Psoma has proposed that a large set of coins minted in a number of cities under Attalid control in this period was produced by Attalus II in order to fund Alexander's bid for the kingship.
Alexander and his sister were maintained in Cilicia by Heracleides, a former minister of Antiochus IV and brother of Timarchus, an usurper in Media who had been executed by the reigning king Demetrius I Soter. In 153 BC, Heracleides brought Alexander and his sister to Rome, where he presented Alexander to the Roman Senate, which recognised him as the legitimate Seleucid king and agreed to support him in his bid to take the throne. Polybius mentions that Attalus II and Demetrius I also met with the Senate at this time but does not state how this was connected to the recognition of Alexander - if at all.
War with Demetrius I (152–150 BC).
After recruiting mercenaries, Alexander and Heracleides departed to Ephesus. From there, they invaded Phoenicia by sea, seizing Ptolemais Akko. Numismatic evidence shows that Alexander had also gained control of Seleucia Pieria, Byblos, Beirut, Tyre by 151 BC. On this coinage, Alexander heavily advertised his (claimed) connection to Antiochus IV, depicting Zeus Nicephorus on his coinage as Antiochus had done. He also assumed the title of "Theopator" ('Divinely Fathered'), which recalled Antiochus' epithet "Theos Epiphanes" ('God Manifest'). The coinage also presented Alexander Balas in the guise of Alexander the Great, with pronounced facial features and long flowing hair. This was intended to emphasise his military prowess to his soldiers.
Alexander and Demetrius I competed with another to win over Jonathan Apphus, the leader of the ascendant faction in Judaea. Jonathan was won over to Alexander's side by the grant of a high position in the Seleucid court and the high priesthood in Jerusalem. Reinforced by Jonathan's hardened soldiers, Alexander fought a decisive battle with Demetrius in July 150 BC, in which Demetrius was killed. By autumn, Alexander's kingship was recognised throughout the Seleucid realm.
Reign (150–147 BC).
Alexander gained control of Antioch at this time and his chancellor, Ammonius, murdered all the courtiers of Demetrius I, as well as his wife Laodice and his eldest son Antigonus. Ptolemy VI Philometor of Egypt entered into an alliance with Alexander, which was sealed by Alexander's marriage to his daughter Cleopatra Thea. The wedding took place at Ptolemais, with Ptolemy VI and Jonathan Apphus in attendance. Alexander took the opportunity to shower honours on Jonathan, whom he treated as his main agent in Judaea. The marriage was advertised by a special coinage issue, depicting the royal pair side by side - only the second depiction of a queen on Seleucid coinage. She is shown with divine attributes (a cornucopia and a calathus) and is depicted in front of the king. Some scholars have seen Alexander as little more than a Ptolemaic puppet, arguing that this coinage emphasises Cleopatra's dominance over him and that the chancellor Ammonius was a Ptolemaic agent. Other scholars argue that the alliance was advertised as an important one, but that the arguments for Alexander's subservience have been overstated.
Collapse of the East.
Meanwhile, the Seleucid positions in the eastern Upper Satrapies, already weakened by the previous kings' failure to contain the Parthians and the Greco-Bactrians, suffered almost complete collapse. The Parthians under Mithridates I took advantage of the general instability to invade Media. The region had been lost to Seleucid control by the middle of 148 BC. At around the same time the local nobles in Elymais and Persis asserted their own ephemeral independence, only to be soon also subdued by the Parthians. By 148 BC at the latest the Parthians also secured their hold over Hyrcania at the coast of the Caspian Sea. By 147 BC the Parthians stood at the doorsteps of Babylonia, one of the Seleucid empire's hearthlands and location of one of its two capital cities, Seleucia-on-Tigris.
Alexander is not recorded to do anything of note to stem the steady erosion of Seleucid power in the East. Ancient historians hostile to him depict him as too distracted by a life of debauchery to take action to stop the Parthians, unlike earlier Seleucid Kings who would mount expeditions to the eastern satrapies to deter the Parthians. He was reputed to hand the administration over to two commanders, Hierax and Diodotus, neither of whom seemed to care for anything but their own interests. This representation is at least partially a product of his opponents' propaganda, but it is true that under Alexander, the Seleucid Empire continued to see its reach and power slip away.
War with Demetrius II and death (147–145 BC).
In early 147 BC Demetrius' son Demetrius II returned to Syria with a force of Cretan mercenaries led by a man called Lasthenes. Much of Coele Syria was lost to him immediately, possibly as a result of the succession of the regional commander. Jonathan attacked Demetrius's position from the south, seizing Jaffa and Ashdod, while Alexander Balas was occupied with a revolt in Cilicia. In 145 BC Ptolemy VI of Egypt invaded Syria, ostensibly in support of Alexander Balas. In practice, Ptolemy's intervention came at a heavy cost; with Alexander's permission, he took control of all the Seleucid cities along the coast, including Seleucia Pieria. He may also have started minting his own coinage in the Syrian cities.
While he was at Ptolemais Akko, however, Ptolemy switched sides. According to Josephus, Ptolemy discovered that Alexander's chancellor, Ammonius, had been plotting to assassinate him, but when he demanded that Ammonius be punished, Alexander refused. Ptolemy remarried his Cleopatra Thea to Demetrius II and continued his march northward. Alexander's commanders of Antioch, Diodotus and Hierax, surrendered the city to Ptolemy.
Alexander returned from Cilicia with his army, but Ptolemy VI and Demetrius II defeated his forces in a Battle of the Oenoparus River. Earlier, Alexander had sent his infant son Antiochus to an Arabian dynast called Zabdiel Diocles. Alexander now fled to Arabia in order to join up with Zabdiel, but he was killed. Sources disagree about whether the killer was a pair of his own generals who had decided to switch sides or Zabdiel himself. Alexander's severed head was brought to Ptolemy, who also died shortly after from wounds sustained in the battle.
Zabdiel continued to look after Alexander's infant son Antiochus, until 145 BC when the general Diodotus declared him king, in order to serve as the figurehead of a rebellion against Demetrius II. In 130 BC, another claimant to the throne, Alexander Zabinas, would also claim to be Alexander Balas' son; almost certainly spuriously. Alexander is the title character of the oratorio "Alexander Balus", written in 1747 by George Frideric Handel.
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1594
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Alexander II of Scotland
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Alexander II (Medieval Gaelic: '; Modern Gaelic: '; 24 August 1198 – 6 July 1249) was King of Scotland from 1214 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of York (1237) which defined the boundary between England and Scotland, virtually unchanged today.
Early life.
He was born at Haddington, East Lothian, the only son of the Scottish king William the Lion and Ermengarde de Beaumont. He spent time in England (John of England knighted him at Clerkenwell Priory in 1213) before succeeding to the kingdom on the death of his father on 4 December 1214, being crowned at Scone on 6 December the same year.
King of Scots.
In 1215, the year after his accession, the clans Meic Uilleim and MacHeths, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but loyalist forces speedily quelled the insurrection. In the same year, Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against King John of England, and led an army into the Kingdom of England in support of their cause. This action led to the sacking of Berwick-upon-Tweed as John's forces ravaged the north.
The Scottish forces reached the south coast of England at the port of Dover where in September 1216, Alexander paid homage to the pretender Louis VIII of France for his lands in England, chosen by the barons to replace John. But since John died, the papacy and the English aristocracy changed their allegiance to his nine-year-old son, Henry III, forcing the French and the Scots armies to return home. Peace between Henry, Louis and Alexander followed on 12 September 1217 with the Treaty of Kingston. Diplomacy further strengthened the reconciliation by the marriage of Alexander to Henry's sister Joan on 18 June or 25 June 1221.
In 1222 Jon Haraldsson, the last native Scandinavian to be Jarl of Orkney, was indirectly implicated in the burning of Adam of Melrose at his hall at Halkirk by local farmers when this part of Caithness was still part of the Kingdom of Norway. A contemporary chronicler, Boethius the Dane blamed Haraldsson for the bishop's death. After the jarl swore oaths to his own innocence, Alexander took the opportunity to assert his claims to the mainland part of the Orkney jarldom. He visited Caithness in person, and hanged the majority of the farmers, while mutilating the rest. His actions were applauded by Pope Honorius III, and a quarter of a century later, he was continuing to receive commendation from the Catholic Church, as in the reward of a bull from Pope Celestine IV.
During the same period, Alexander subjugated the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll (much smaller than the modern area by that name, it only comprised Craignish, Ardscotnish, Glassary, Glenary and Cowal; Lorn was a separate province, while Kintyre and Knapdale were part of Suðreyar). Royal forces crushed a revolt in Galloway in 1235 without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with success. Soon afterwards, a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The two kingdoms, however, settled this dispute by a compromise in 1237. This was the Treaty of York, which defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east).
Alexander's first wife, Joan, died in March 1238 in Essex. Alexander married his second wife, Marie de Coucy, the following year on 15 May 1239. Together they had one son, Alexander III, born in 1241.
A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace the next year at Newcastle.
Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which were still part of the Norwegian domain of Suðreyjar. He repeatedly attempted negotiations and purchase, but without success. Alexander set out to conquer these islands but died on the way in 1249. This dispute over the Western Isles, also known as the Hebrides, was not resolved until 1266 when Magnus VI of Norway ceded them to Scotland along with the Isle of Man.
The English chronicler Matthew Paris in his "Chronica Majora" described Alexander as red-haired:
[King John] taunted King Alexander, and because he was red-headed, sent word to him, saying, 'so shall we hunt the red fox-cub from his lairs.
Death.
Alexander attempted to persuade Ewen, the son of Duncan, Lord of Argyll (and King of the Isles), to sever his allegiance to Haakon IV of Norway. When Ewen rejected these attempts, Alexander sailed forth to compel him, but on the way he suffered a fever at the Isle of Kerrera in the Inner Hebrides. He died there in 1249 and was buried at Melrose Abbey.
The "Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar" records additional information, in that before attempting to invade the Isles, where Ewen held power, he was supposedly warned in a dream by St. Columba, St. Olaf and St. Magnus to desist. King Ewen of the Isles' status as Monarch had been confirmed by Haakon IV and was disputed by Alexander. The episode might be emblematic of a broader desire on the part of Alexander to bring the Kingdom of the Isles fully into the power of the Scottish Crown. In any case, when he finally decided to continue in his endeavour, despite the dream, and having been advised against it by his men, he died shortly afterwards. The incident was portrayed in the saga as divine punishment. His body was then transported back to the mainland.
He was succeeded by his son, the seven-year-old Alexander III of Scotland.
Family.
Alexander II had two wives:
1. Joan of England (22 July 12104 March 1238), who was the eldest legitimate daughter and third child of John of England and Isabella of Angoulême. She and Alexander II married on 21 June 1221, at York Minster. Alexander was 23; Joan was 11. They had no children. Joan died in Essex in 1238, and was buried at Tarant Crawford Abbey in Dorset.
2. Marie de Coucy, who became mother of Alexander III of Scotland.
He also had an illegitimate daughter, Marjorie, who married Alan Durward.
Fictional portrayals.
Alexander II has been depicted in historical novels:
Further reading.
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1595
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Alexander I of Serbia
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Alexander I (; 14 August 187611 June 1903) reigned as the king of Serbia from 1889 to 1903 when he and his wife, Draga Mašin, were assassinated by a group of Royal Serbian Army officers, led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević.
Accession.
Alexander was born on 14 August 1876 to King Milan and Queen Natalie of Serbia. He belonged to the Obrenović dynasty.
In 1889, King Milan unexpectedly abdicated and withdrew to private life, proclaiming Alexander king of Serbia under a regency until he should attain his majority at eighteen years of age. His mother became his regent. His parents were second cousins. In 1893, King Alexander, aged sixteen, arbitrarily proclaimed himself of full age, dismissed the regents and their government, and took the royal authority into his own hands. His action won popular support, as did his appointment of a radical ministry. In May 1894 King Alexander arbitrarily abolished King Milan's liberal constitution of 1888 and restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during the Greco-Turkish War (1897) was one of strict neutrality.
In 1894, the young King brought his father, Milan, back to Serbia and, in 1898, appointed him commander-in-chief of the army. During that time, Milan was regarded as the "de facto" ruler of the country.
Marriage.
In the summer of 1900, King Alexander suddenly announced his engagement to Draga Mašin, a disreputable widow of an obscure engineer. Alexander had met Draga in 1897 when she was serving as a maid of honor to his mother. Draga was nine years older than the king, unpopular with Belgrade society, well known for her allegedly numerous sexual liaisons, and widely believed to be infertile. Since Alexander was an only child, it was imperative to secure the succession by producing an heir. So intense was the opposition to Mašin among the political classes that the king found it impossible for a time to recruit suitable candidates for senior posts.
Before making the announcement, Alexander did not consult with his father, who had been on vacation in Karlsbad and making arrangements to secure the hand of German Princess Alexandra Karoline zu Schaumburg-Lippe, sister of Queen Charlotte of Württemberg, for his son, or his Prime Minister Dr. Vladan Đorđević, who was visiting the Universal Exhibition in Paris at the time of the announcement. Both immediately resigned, and Alexander had difficulty in forming a new cabinet. Alexander's mother also opposed the marriage and was subsequently banished from the kingdom.
Opposition to the union seemed to subside somewhat for a time upon the publication of congratulations of Nicholas II of Russia to the king on his engagement and of his agreement to act as the principal witness at the wedding. The marriage duly took place in August 1900. Even so, the unpopularity of the union weakened the king's position in the eyes of the army and the country at large.
Politics and the constitution.
King Alexander tried to reconcile political parties by unveiling a liberal constitution of his own initiative in 1901, introducing for the first time in the constitutional history of Serbia the system of two chambers ("skupština" and "senate"). This reconciled the political parties, but did not placate the army which, already dissatisfied with the king's marriage, became still more so at the rumors that one of the two unpopular brothers of Queen Draga, Lieutenant Nikodije, was to be proclaimed heir presumptive to the throne.
Alexander's good relations and the country's growing dependence on Austria-Hungary were detested by the Serbian public. Two million Serbs lived in Austria-Hungary, with another million in the Ottoman Empire, although many migrated to Serbia.
Meanwhile, the independence of the senate and of the council of state caused increasing irritation to King Alexander. In March 1903, the king suspended the constitution for half an hour, time enough to publish decrees dismissing and replacing the old senators and councillors of state. This arbitrary act increased dissatisfaction in the country.
Assassination.
The general impression was that, as much as the senate was packed with men devoted to the royal couple and the government obtained a large majority at the general elections, King Alexander would not hesitate any longer to proclaim Queen Draga's brother as the heir presumptive to the throne. In spite of this, it had been agreed with the Serbian Government that Prince Mirko of Montenegro, who was married to Natalija Konstantinović, the granddaughter of Princess Anka Obrenović, an aunt of King Milan, would be proclaimed heir presumptive in the event that the marriage of King Alexander and Queen Draga was childless.
Apparently to prevent Queen Draga's brother being named heir presumptive, but in reality, to replace Alexander Obrenović with Peter Karađorđević, a conspiracy was organized by a group of Army officers headed by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević, also known as "Apis", and Novak Perišić, a young Serbian Orthodox militant who was in the pay of the Russian Empire, as well as the leader of the Black Hand secret society which would assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Several politicians were also members of the conspiracy and allegedly included former Prime Minister Nikola Pašić. The royal couple's palace was invaded and they hid in a wardrobe in the queen's bedroom. (There is another possibility, used in a Serbian TV history series "The End of the Obrenović Dynasty" in which the royal couple was in a secret safe room hidden behind the mirror in a common bedroom. The room contained an entrance to a secret passage leading out of the palace, but the entrance was inaccessible due to the placement of the queen's wardrobe over it after the wedding.)
The conspirators searched the palace and eventually discovered the royal couple and murdered them in the early morning of June 11, 1903. They were shot and their bodies mutilated and disembowelled, after which, according to eyewitness accounts, they were thrown from a second-floor window of the palace onto piles of garden manure. The king was only 26 years old. King Alexander and Queen Draga were buried in the crypt of St. Mark's Church, Belgrade.
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1596
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Alexander III of Scotland
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Alexander III (Medieval ; Modern Gaelic: ; 4 September 1241 – 19 March 1286) was King of Scots from 1249 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of Perth, by which Scotland acquired sovereignty over the Western Isles and the Isle of Man. His heir, Margaret, Maid of Norway, died before she could be crowned.
Life.
Alexander was born at Roxburgh, the only son of Alexander II by his second wife Marie de Coucy. Alexander's father died on 6 July 1249 and he became king at the age of seven, inaugurated at Scone on 13 July 1249.
The years of his minority featured an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, Justiciar of Scotia. The former dominated the early years of Alexander's reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III of England seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but Alexander did not comply. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso led to Menteith and his party losing to Durward's party. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence, and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties.
On attaining his majority at the age of 21 in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which the death of his father thirteen years before had cut short. He laid a formal claim before the Norwegian king Haakon. Haakon rejected the claim, and in the following year responded with a formidable invasion. Sailing around the west coast of Scotland he halted off the Isle of Arran, and negotiations commenced. Alexander artfully prolonged the talks until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The Battle of Largs (October 1263) proved indecisive, but even so, Haakon's position was hopeless. Baffled, he turned homewards, but died in Orkney on 15 December 1263. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266 Haakon's successor concluded the Treaty of Perth by which he ceded the Isle of Man and the Western Isles to Scotland in return for a monetary payment. Norway retained Orkney and Shetland until 1469 when they became a dowry for James III's bride, Margaret of Denmark.
Death of Alexander III.
Alexander had married Margaret, daughter of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, on 26 December 1251, when he was ten years old and she was eleven. She died in 1275, after they had had three children.
According to the "Lanercost Chronicle", Alexander did not spend his decade as a widower alone: "he used never to forbear on account of season nor storm, nor for perils of flood or rocky cliffs, but would visit none too creditably nuns or matrons, virgins or widows as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise."
Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all three of his children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his granddaughter Margaret, the "Maid of Norway". The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux on 1 November 1285.
Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife on 19 March 1286 because it was her birthday the next day. He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and overseeing a meeting with royal advisors. He was cautioned against making the journey to Fife because of weather conditions, but crossed the Forth from Dalmeny to Inverkeithing anyway. On arriving in Inverkeithing, he insisted on not stopping for the night, despite the pleas of the nobles accompanying him and one of the burgesses of the town, Alexander Le Saucier. Le Saucier (who was either linked to the King's kitchen or the master of the local saltpans) must have been known to the King, since his rather blunt warning to the King lacks the usual deference: "My lord, what are you doing out in such weather and darkness? How many times have I tried to persuade you that midnight travelling will do you no good?"
However, Alexander ignored the repeated warnings about travelling in a storm, and set off with his retinue and two local guides. The king became separated from his party near Kinghorn, and was found dead with a broken neck near the shore the following morning. It is assumed that his horse lost its footing in the dark. While some texts say that he fell off a cliff, there is none at the site where his body was found; however, there is a very steep rocky embankment, which "would have been fatal in the dark." After Alexander's death, his realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England. He was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.
As Alexander left no surviving children, the heir to the throne was his unborn child by Queen Yolande. When Yolande's pregnancy ended, probably with a miscarriage, Alexander's three-year-old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, became the heir. Margaret died, still uncrowned, on her way to Scotland in 1290. The inauguration of John Balliol as king on 30 November 1292 ended the six years of the Guardians of Scotland governing the land.
The death of Alexander and the subsequent period of instability in Scotland was lamented in an early Scots poem recorded by Andrew of Wyntoun in his Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.
In 1886, a monument to Alexander III was erected at the approximate location of his death in Kinghorn.
Fictional portrayals.
Alexander III has been depicted in historical novels. They include:
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1605
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Alexander Aetolus
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Alexander Aetolus (, "Ἀléxandros ὁ Aἰtōlós") was a Greek poet and grammarian, the only known representative of Aetolian poetry.
Life.
Alexander was the son of Satyrus (Σάτυρος) and Stratocleia (Στρατόκλεια), and was a native of Pleuron in Aetolia, although he spent the greater part of his life at Alexandria, where he was reckoned one of the seven tragic poets who constituted the Tragic Pleiad.
Alexander flourished about 280 BC, in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. He had an office in the Library of Alexandria, and was commissioned by Ptolemy to make a collection of all the tragedies and satyric dramas that were extant. He spent some time, together with Antagoras and Aratus, at the court of Antigonus II Gonatas.
Notwithstanding the distinction Alexander enjoyed as a tragic poet, he appears to have had greater merit as a writer of epic poems, elegies, epigrams, and cynaedi. Among his epic poems, we possess the titles and some fragments of three pieces: the "Fisherman", "Kirka" or "Krika", which, however, is designated by Athenaeus as doubtful, and "Helena", Of his elegies, some beautiful fragments are still extant. His Cynaedi, or "Ionic poems" (), are mentioned by Strabo and Athenaeus. Some anapaestic verses in praise of Euripides are preserved in Gellius.
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1606
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Alexander Jannaeus
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Alexander Jannaeus ( ; "Yannaʾy"; born Jonathan ) was the second king of the Hasmonean dynasty, who ruled over an expanding kingdom of Judea from 103 to 76 BCE. A son of John Hyrcanus, he inherited the throne from his brother Aristobulus I, and married his brother's widow, Queen Salome Alexandra. From his conquests to expand the kingdom to a bloody civil war, Alexander's reign has been generalised as cruel and oppressive with never-ending conflict. The major historical sources of Alexander's life are Josephus's "Antiquities of the Jews" and "The Jewish War".
The kingdom of Alexander Jannaeus was the largest and strongest known Jewish State outside of biblical sources, having conquered most of Palestine's Mediterranean coastline and regions surrounding the Jordan River. Alexander also had many of his subjects killed for their disapproval of his handling of state affairs. Due to his territorial expansion and interactions with his subjects, he was continuously embroiled with foreign wars and domestic turmoil.
Family.
Alexander Jannaeus was the third son of John Hyrcanus by his second wife. When Aristobulus I, Hyrcanus' son by his first wife, became king, he deemed it necessary for his own security to imprison his half-brother. Aristobulus died after a reign of one year. Upon his death, his widow, Salome Alexandra had Alexander and his brothers released from prison. One of these brothers is said to have unsuccessfully sought the throne.
Alexander, as the oldest living brother, had the right not only to the throne, but also to Salome, the widow of his deceased brother, who had died childless; and, although she was thirteen years older than him, he married her in accordance with the Jewish law of Levirate Marriage. By her he had two sons: the eldest, Hyrcanus II, became high-priest in 62 BCE; and Aristobulus II, who was high-priest from 66 - 62 BCE and started a bloody civil war with his brother, ending in his capture by Pompey the Great. Like his brother, Alexander was an avid supporter of the aristocratic priestly faction known as the Sadducees. His wife Salome on the other hand, came from a pharisaic family (her brother was Simeon ben Shetach, a famous Pharisee leader) and was more sympathetic to their cause and protected them throughout his turbulent reign.
Like his father, Alexander also served as the high priest. This raised the ire of the religious authorities who insisted that these two offices should not be combined. According to the Talmud, Yannai was a questionable desecrated priest (rumour had it that his mother was captured in Modiin and violated) and, in the opinion of the Pharisees, was not allowed to serve in the temple. This infuriated the king and he sided with the Sadducees who defended him. This incident led the king to turn against the Pharisees and he persecuted them until his death.
War with Ptolemy Lathyrus.
Alexander's first expedition was against the city of Ptolemais. While Alexander went ahead to besiege the city, Zoilus of Dora took the opportunity to see if he could relieve Ptolemais in hopes of establishing his rule over coastal territories. Alexander's Hasmonean army quickly defeated Zoilus's forces. Ptolemais then requested aid from Ptolemy IX Lathyros, who had been banished by his mother Cleopatra III; Ptolemy founded a kingdom in Cyprus after being cast out by his mother. The situation at Ptolemais was seized as an opportunity by Ptolemy to possibly gain a stronghold and control the Judean coast in order to invade Egypt by sea. However, an individual named Demaenetus convinced the inhabitants of their imprudence in requesting Ptolemy's assistance. They realised that by allying themselves with Ptolemy, they had unintentionally declared war on Cleopatra. When Ptolemy arrived at the city, the inhabitants denied him access.
Alexander too didn't want to be involved in a war between Cleopatra and Ptolemy, so he abandoned his campaign against Ptolemais and returned to Jerusalem. After offering Ptolemy four hundred talents and a peace treaty in return for Zoilus's death, Alexander met him with treachery by negotiating an alliance with Cleopatra. Once he had formed an alliance with Ptolemy, Alexader continued his conquests by capturing the coastal cities of Dora and Straton's Tower. As soon as Ptolemy learned of Alexander's scheme, he was determined to kill him. Ptolemy put Ptolemais under siege, but left his generals to attack the city, while he continued to pursue Alexander. Ptolemy's pursuit caused much destruction in the Galilee region. Here he captured Asochis on the Sabbath, taking ten thousand people as prisoners. Ptolemy also initiated an unsuccessful attack on Sepphoris.
Battle of Asophon.
Ptolemy and Alexander engaged in battle at Asophon near the Jordan River. Estimated to have fifty to eighty thousand soldiers, Alexander's army consisted of both Jews and pagans. At the head of his armed forces were his elite pagan mercenaries; they were specialised in Greek-style phalanx. One of Ptolemy's commanders, Philostephanus, commenced the first attack by crossing the river that divided both forces. The Hasmoneans had the advantage, however, Philostephanus held back a certain amount of his forces whom he sent to recover lost ground. Perceiving them as vast reinforcements, Alexander's army fled. Some of his retreating forces tried to push back, but quickly dispersed as Ptolemy's forces pursued Alexander's fleeing army; thirty to fifty thousand Hasmonean soldiers died.
Ptolemy's forces at Ptolemais also succeeded in capturing the city. He then continued to conquer much of the Hasmonean kingdom, occupying the entirety of northern Judea, the coast, and territories east of the Jordan River. While doing so, he pillaged villages and ordered his soldiers to cannibalise women and children to create psychological fear towards his enemies. At the time, Salome Alexandra was notified of Cleopatra's approachment to Judea.
Intervention of Cleopatra III.
Realising that her son had amassed a formidable force in Judea, Cleopatra appointed Jewish generals Ananias and Chelkias to command her forces. She too also went with a fleet towards Judea. When Cleopatra arrived at Ptolemais, the people refused her entry, so she besieged the city. Ptolemy, believing Syria was defenseless, withdrew to Cyprus after his miscalculation. While in pursuit of Ptolemy, Chelkias died in Coele-Syria.
The war abruptly came to an end with Ptolemy fleeing to Cyprus. Alexander then approached Cleopatra. Bowing before her, he requested to retain his rule. Cleopatra was urged by her subordinates to annex Judea. However, Ananias demanded she consider the residential Egyptian Jews who were the main support of her throne. This induced Cleopatra to modify her longings for Judea. Alexander though would meet her demands and suspend his campaigns. These negotiations took place at Scythopolis. Cleopatra died five years later. Confident, after her death, Alexander found himself free to continue with new campaigns.
Battle of Asophon.
Ptolemy and Alexander engaged in battle at Asophon near the Jordan River. Estimated to have fifty to eighty thousand soldiers, Alexander's army consisted of both Jews and pagans. At the head of his armed forces were his elite pagan mercenaries; they were specialised in Greek-style phalanx. One of Ptolemy's commanders, Philostephanus, commenced the first attack by crossing the river that divided both forces. The Hasmoneans had the advantage, however, Philostephanus held back a certain amount of his forces whom he sent to recover lost ground. Perceiving them as vast reinforcements, Alexander's army fled. Some of his retreating forces tried to push back, but quickly dispersed as Ptolemy's forces pursued Alexander's fleeing army; thirty to fifty thousand Hasmonean soldiers died.
Ptolemy's forces at Ptolemais also succeeded in capturing the city. He then continued to conquer much of the Hasmonean kingdom, occupying the entirety of northern Judea, the coast, and territories east of the Jordan River. While doing so, he pillaged villages and ordered his soldiers to cannibalise women and children to create psychological fear towards his enemies. At the time, Salome Alexandra was notified of Cleopatra's approachment to Judea.
Intervention of Cleopatra III.
Realising that her son had amassed a formidable force in Judea, Cleopatra appointed Jewish generals Ananias and Chelkias to command her forces. She too also went with a fleet towards Judea. When Cleopatra arrived at Ptolemais, the people refused her entry, so she besieged the city. Ptolemy, believing Syria was defenseless, withdrew to Cyprus after his miscalculation. While in pursuit of Ptolemy, Chelkias died in Coele-Syria.
The war abruptly came to an end with Ptolemy fleeing to Cyprus. Alexander then approached Cleopatra. Bowing before her, he requested to retain his rule. Cleopatra was urged by her subordinates to annex Judea. However, Ananias demanded she consider the residential Egyptian Jews who were the main support of her throne. This induced Cleopatra to modify her longings for Judea. Alexander though would meet her demands and suspend his campaigns. These negotiations took place at Scythopolis. Cleopatra died five years later. Confident, after her death, Alexander found himself free to continue with new campaigns.
Transjordan and coastal conquest.
Alexander captured Gadara and fought to capture the strong fortress of Amathus in the Transjordan region, but was defeated. He was more successful in his expedition against the coastal cities, capturing Raphia and Anthedon. In 96 BCE, Jannaeus defeated the inhabitants of Gaza. This victory gained Judean control over the Mediterranean outlet of the main Nabataean trade route. Alexander initially returned his focus back to the Transjordan region where, avenging his previous defeat, he destroyed Amathus.
Battle of Gaza.
Determined to proceed with future campaigns despite his initial defeat at Amathus, Alexander set his focus on Gaza. A victory against the city wasn't so easily achieved. Gaza's general Apollodotus strategically employed a night attack against the Hasmonean army. With a force of two thousand less-skilled soldiers and ten thousand slaves, Gaza's military was able to deceive the Hasmonean army into believing they were being attacked by Ptolemy. The Gazans killed many and the Hasmonean army fled the battle. When morning exposed the delusive tactic, Alexander continued his assault but lost a thousand additional soldiers.
The Gazans still remained defiant in hopes that the Nabataean kingdom would come to their aid. The city, however, would eventually suffer defeat due to its own leadership. Gaza at the time was governed by two brothers, Lysimachus and Apollodotus. Lysimachus finally convinced the people to surrender, and Alexander peacefully entered the city. Though he at first seemed peaceful, Alexander suddenly turned against the inhabitants. Some men killed their wives and children out of desperation, to ensure they wouldn't be captured and enslaved. Others burned down their homes to prevent the soldiers from plundering. The town council and five hundred civilians took refuge at the Temple of Apollo, where Alexander had them massacred.
Battle of Gaza.
Determined to proceed with future campaigns despite his initial defeat at Amathus, Alexander set his focus on Gaza. A victory against the city wasn't so easily achieved. Gaza's general Apollodotus strategically employed a night attack against the Hasmonean army. With a force of two thousand less-skilled soldiers and ten thousand slaves, Gaza's military was able to deceive the Hasmonean army into believing they were being attacked by Ptolemy. The Gazans killed many and the Hasmonean army fled the battle. When morning exposed the delusive tactic, Alexander continued his assault but lost a thousand additional soldiers.
The Gazans still remained defiant in hopes that the Nabataean kingdom would come to their aid. The city, however, would eventually suffer defeat due to its own leadership. Gaza at the time was governed by two brothers, Lysimachus and Apollodotus. Lysimachus finally convinced the people to surrender, and Alexander peacefully entered the city. Though he at first seemed peaceful, Alexander suddenly turned against the inhabitants. Some men killed their wives and children out of desperation, to ensure they wouldn't be captured and enslaved. Others burned down their homes to prevent the soldiers from plundering. The town council and five hundred civilians took refuge at the Temple of Apollo, where Alexander had them massacred.
Judean Civil War.
War with Obodas I.
The Judean Civil War initially began after the conquest of Gaza around 99 BCE. Due to Jannaeus's victory at Gaza, the Nabataean kingdom no longer had direct access to the Mediterranean Sea. Alexander soon captured Gadara, which together with the loss of Gaza caused the Nabataeans to lose their main trade routes leading to Rome and Damascus. After losing Gadara, the Nabataean king Obodas I launched an attack against Alexander in a steep valley at Gadara, where Alexander barely managed to escape. After his defeat in the Battle of Gadara, Jannaeus returned to Jerusalem, only to be met with fierce Jewish opposition.
Feast of Tabernacles.
During the Jewish holiday Sukkot, Alexander Jannaeus, while officiating as the High Priest at the Temple in Jerusalem, demonstrated his displeasure against the Pharisees by refusing to perform the water libation ceremony properly: instead of pouring it on the altar, he poured it on his feet. The crowd responded with shock at his mockery and showed their displeasure by pelting him with etrogim (citrons). They made the situation worse by insulting him. They called him a descendant of a captive woman and unsuitable to hold office and to sacrifice. Outraged, he killed six thousand people. Alexander also had wooden barriers built around the altar and the temple preventing people from going near him. Only the priests were permitted to enter. This incident during the Feast of Tabernacles was a major factor leading up to the Judean Civil War.
War with Demetrius III and conclusion of the Civil War.
After Jannaeus succeeded early in the war, the rebels asked for Seleucid assistance. Judean insurgents joined forces with Demetrius III Eucaerus to fight against Jannaeus. Alexander had gathered six thousand two hundred mercenaries and twenty thousand Jews for battle as Demetrius had forty thousand soldiers and three thousand horses. There were attempts from both sides to persuade each other to abandon positions but were unsuccessful. The Seleucid forces defeated Jannaeus at Shechem, and all of Alexander's mercenaries were killed in battle. This defeat forced Alexander to take refuge in the mountains. In sympathy towards Jannaeus, six thousand Judean rebels ultimately returned to him. In fear of this news, Demetrius withdrew. Nevertheless, war between Jannaeus and the rebels who returned to him continued. They fought until Alexander achieved victory. Most of the rebels died in battle, while the remaining rebels fled to the city of Bethoma until they were defeated.
Jannaeus had brought the surviving rebels back to Jerusalem where he had eight hundred Jews, primarily Pharisees, crucified. Before their deaths, Alexander had the rebels' wives and children executed before their eyes as Jannaeus ate with his concubines. Alexander later returned the land he had seized in Moab and Galaaditis from the Nabataeans in order to have them end their support for the Jewish rebels. The remaining rebels who numbered eight thousand, fled by night in fear of Alexander. Afterward, all rebel hostility ceased and Alexander's reign continued undisturbed.
War with Obodas I.
The Judean Civil War initially began after the conquest of Gaza around 99 BCE. Due to Jannaeus's victory at Gaza, the Nabataean kingdom no longer had direct access to the Mediterranean Sea. Alexander soon captured Gadara, which together with the loss of Gaza caused the Nabataeans to lose their main trade routes leading to Rome and Damascus. After losing Gadara, the Nabataean king Obodas I launched an attack against Alexander in a steep valley at Gadara, where Alexander barely managed to escape. After his defeat in the Battle of Gadara, Jannaeus returned to Jerusalem, only to be met with fierce Jewish opposition.
Feast of Tabernacles.
During the Jewish holiday Sukkot, Alexander Jannaeus, while officiating as the High Priest at the Temple in Jerusalem, demonstrated his displeasure against the Pharisees by refusing to perform the water libation ceremony properly: instead of pouring it on the altar, he poured it on his feet. The crowd responded with shock at his mockery and showed their displeasure by pelting him with etrogim (citrons). They made the situation worse by insulting him. They called him a descendant of a captive woman and unsuitable to hold office and to sacrifice. Outraged, he killed six thousand people. Alexander also had wooden barriers built around the altar and the temple preventing people from going near him. Only the priests were permitted to enter. This incident during the Feast of Tabernacles was a major factor leading up to the Judean Civil War.
War with Demetrius III and conclusion of the Civil War.
After Jannaeus succeeded early in the war, the rebels asked for Seleucid assistance. Judean insurgents joined forces with Demetrius III Eucaerus to fight against Jannaeus. Alexander had gathered six thousand two hundred mercenaries and twenty thousand Jews for battle as Demetrius had forty thousand soldiers and three thousand horses. There were attempts from both sides to persuade each other to abandon positions but were unsuccessful. The Seleucid forces defeated Jannaeus at Shechem, and all of Alexander's mercenaries were killed in battle. This defeat forced Alexander to take refuge in the mountains. In sympathy towards Jannaeus, six thousand Judean rebels ultimately returned to him. In fear of this news, Demetrius withdrew. Nevertheless, war between Jannaeus and the rebels who returned to him continued. They fought until Alexander achieved victory. Most of the rebels died in battle, while the remaining rebels fled to the city of Bethoma until they were defeated.
Jannaeus had brought the surviving rebels back to Jerusalem where he had eight hundred Jews, primarily Pharisees, crucified. Before their deaths, Alexander had the rebels' wives and children executed before their eyes as Jannaeus ate with his concubines. Alexander later returned the land he had seized in Moab and Galaaditis from the Nabataeans in order to have them end their support for the Jewish rebels. The remaining rebels who numbered eight thousand, fled by night in fear of Alexander. Afterward, all rebel hostility ceased and Alexander's reign continued undisturbed.
Final campaigns and death.
From 83 - 80 BCE, Alexander continued campaigning in the east. The Nabataean king Aretas III managed to defeat Alexander in battle. However, Alexander continued expanding the Hasmonean kingdom into Transjordan. In Gaulanitis, he captured the cities of Golan, Seleucia, and Gamala. In Galaaditis, the cities of Pella, Dium, and Gerasa. Alexander had Pella destroyed because its inhabitants refused to Judaize.
He is believed to have expanded and fortified the Hasmonean palace near Jericho.
For the last three years of his life, Alexander Jannaeus suffered from the combined effects of alcoholism and "quartan ague". After a reign of 27 years, he died c. 76 BCE at the age of forty-nine, during the siege of Ragaba.
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1599
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Alexander of Aphrodisias
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Alexander of Aphrodisias (; AD) was a Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria, and lived and taught in Athens at the beginning of the 3rd century, where he held a position as head of the Peripatetic school. He wrote many commentaries on the works of Aristotle, extant are those on the "Prior Analytics", "Topics", "Meteorology", "Sense and Sensibilia", and "Metaphysics". Several original treatises also survive, and include a work "On Fate", in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one "On the Soul". His commentaries on Aristotle were considered so useful that he was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the commentator" ().
Life and career.
Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria (present-day Turkey) and came to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century. He was a student of the two Stoic, or possibly Peripatetic, philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus, and perhaps of Aristotle of Mytilene. At Athens he became head of the Peripatetic school and lectured on Peripatetic philosophy. Alexander's dedication of "On Fate" to Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in gratitude for his position at Athens, indicates a date between 198 and 209. A recently published inscription from Aphrodisias confirms that he was head of one of the Schools at Athens and gives his full name as Titus Aurelius Alexander. His full nomenclature shows that his grandfather or other ancestor was probably given Roman citizenship by the emperor Antoninus Pius, while proconsul of Asia. The inscription honours his father, also called Alexander and also a philosopher. This fact makes it plausible that some of the suspect works that form part of Alexander's corpus should be ascribed to his father.
Commentaries.
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His extant commentaries are on "Prior Analytics" (Book 1), "Topics", "Meteorology", "Sense and Sensibilia", and "Metaphysics" (Books 1–5). The commentary on the "Sophistical Refutations" is deemed spurious, as is the commentary on the final nine books of the "Metaphysics". The lost commentaries include works on the "De Interpretatione", "Posterior Analytics", "Physics", "On the Heavens", "On Generation and Corruption", "On the Soul", and "On Memory". Simplicius of Cilicia mentions that Alexander provided commentary on the quadrature of the lunes, and the corresponding problem of squaring the circle. In April 2007, it was reported that imaging analysis had discovered an early commentary on Aristotle's "Categories" in the Archimedes Palimpsest, and Robert Sharples suggested Alexander as the most likely author.
Original treatises.
There are also several extant original writings by Alexander. These include: "On the Soul", "Problems and Solutions", "Ethical Problems", "On Fate", and "On Mixture and Growth". Three works attributed to him are considered spurious: "Medical Questions", "Physical Problems", and "On Fevers". Additional works by Alexander are preserved in Arabic translation, these include: "On the Principles of the Universe", "On Providence", and "Against Galen on Motion".
"On the Soul" ("De anima") is a treatise on the soul written along the lines suggested by Aristotle in his own "De anima". Alexander contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material ("nous hylikos") and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul's immortality. He identified the active intellect ("nous poietikos"), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God. A second book is known as the "Supplement to On the Soul" ("Mantissa"). The "Mantissa" is a series of twenty-five separate pieces of which the opening five deal directly with psychology. The remaining twenty pieces cover problems in physics and ethics, of which the largest group deals with questions of vision and light, and the final four with fate and providence. The "Mantissa" was probably not written by Alexander in its current form, but much of the actual material may be his.
"Problems and Solutions" ("Quaestiones") consists of three books which, although termed "problems and solutions of physical questions," treat of subjects which are not all physical, and are not all problems. Among the sixty-nine items in these three books, twenty-four deal with physics, seventeen with psychology, eleven with logic and metaphysics, and six with questions of fate and providence. It is unlikely that Alexander wrote all of the "Quaestiones", some may be Alexander's own explanations, while others may be exercises by his students.
"Ethical Problems" was traditionally counted as the fourth book of the "Quaestiones". The work is a discussion of ethical issues based on Aristotle, and contains responses to questions and problems deriving from Alexander's school. It is likely that the work was not written by Alexander himself, but rather by his pupils on the basis of debates involving Alexander.
"On Fate" is a treatise in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity. In "On Fate" Alexander denied three things - necessity (), the foreknowledge of fated events that was part of the Stoic identification of God and Nature, and determinism in the sense of a sequence of causes that was laid down beforehand () or predetermined by antecedents (). He defended a view of moral responsibility we would call libertarianism today.
"On Mixture and Growth" discusses the topic of mixture of physical bodies. It is both an extended discussion (and polemic) on Stoic physics, and an exposition of Aristotelian thought on this theme.
"On the Principles of the Universe" is preserved in Arabic translation. This treatise is not mentioned in surviving Greek sources, but it enjoyed great popularity in the Muslim world, and a large number of copies have survived. The main purpose of this work is to give a general account of Aristotelian cosmology and metaphysics, but it also has a polemical tone, and it may be directed at rival views within the Peripatetic school. Alexander was concerned with filling the gaps of the Aristotelian system and smoothing out its inconsistencies, while also presenting a unified picture of the world, both physical and ethical. The topics dealt with are the nature of the heavenly motions and the relationship between the unchangeable celestial realm and the sublunar world of generation and decay. His principal sources are the "Physics" (book 7), "Metaphysics" (book 12), and the Pseudo-Aristotelian "On the Universe".
"On Providence" survives in two Arabic versions. In this treatise, Alexander opposes the Stoic view that divine Providence extends to all aspects of the world; he regards this idea as unworthy of the gods. Instead, providence is a power that emanates from the heavens to the sublunar region, and is responsible for the generation and destruction of earthly things, without any direct involvement in the lives of individuals.
Commentaries.
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His extant commentaries are on "Prior Analytics" (Book 1), "Topics", "Meteorology", "Sense and Sensibilia", and "Metaphysics" (Books 1–5). The commentary on the "Sophistical Refutations" is deemed spurious, as is the commentary on the final nine books of the "Metaphysics". The lost commentaries include works on the "De Interpretatione", "Posterior Analytics", "Physics", "On the Heavens", "On Generation and Corruption", "On the Soul", and "On Memory". Simplicius of Cilicia mentions that Alexander provided commentary on the quadrature of the lunes, and the corresponding problem of squaring the circle. In April 2007, it was reported that imaging analysis had discovered an early commentary on Aristotle's "Categories" in the Archimedes Palimpsest, and Robert Sharples suggested Alexander as the most likely author.
Original treatises.
There are also several extant original writings by Alexander. These include: "On the Soul", "Problems and Solutions", "Ethical Problems", "On Fate", and "On Mixture and Growth". Three works attributed to him are considered spurious: "Medical Questions", "Physical Problems", and "On Fevers". Additional works by Alexander are preserved in Arabic translation, these include: "On the Principles of the Universe", "On Providence", and "Against Galen on Motion".
"On the Soul" ("De anima") is a treatise on the soul written along the lines suggested by Aristotle in his own "De anima". Alexander contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material ("nous hylikos") and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul's immortality. He identified the active intellect ("nous poietikos"), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God. A second book is known as the "Supplement to On the Soul" ("Mantissa"). The "Mantissa" is a series of twenty-five separate pieces of which the opening five deal directly with psychology. The remaining twenty pieces cover problems in physics and ethics, of which the largest group deals with questions of vision and light, and the final four with fate and providence. The "Mantissa" was probably not written by Alexander in its current form, but much of the actual material may be his.
"Problems and Solutions" ("Quaestiones") consists of three books which, although termed "problems and solutions of physical questions," treat of subjects which are not all physical, and are not all problems. Among the sixty-nine items in these three books, twenty-four deal with physics, seventeen with psychology, eleven with logic and metaphysics, and six with questions of fate and providence. It is unlikely that Alexander wrote all of the "Quaestiones", some may be Alexander's own explanations, while others may be exercises by his students.
"Ethical Problems" was traditionally counted as the fourth book of the "Quaestiones". The work is a discussion of ethical issues based on Aristotle, and contains responses to questions and problems deriving from Alexander's school. It is likely that the work was not written by Alexander himself, but rather by his pupils on the basis of debates involving Alexander.
"On Fate" is a treatise in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity. In "On Fate" Alexander denied three things - necessity (), the foreknowledge of fated events that was part of the Stoic identification of God and Nature, and determinism in the sense of a sequence of causes that was laid down beforehand () or predetermined by antecedents (). He defended a view of moral responsibility we would call libertarianism today.
"On Mixture and Growth" discusses the topic of mixture of physical bodies. It is both an extended discussion (and polemic) on Stoic physics, and an exposition of Aristotelian thought on this theme.
"On the Principles of the Universe" is preserved in Arabic translation. This treatise is not mentioned in surviving Greek sources, but it enjoyed great popularity in the Muslim world, and a large number of copies have survived. The main purpose of this work is to give a general account of Aristotelian cosmology and metaphysics, but it also has a polemical tone, and it may be directed at rival views within the Peripatetic school. Alexander was concerned with filling the gaps of the Aristotelian system and smoothing out its inconsistencies, while also presenting a unified picture of the world, both physical and ethical. The topics dealt with are the nature of the heavenly motions and the relationship between the unchangeable celestial realm and the sublunar world of generation and decay. His principal sources are the "Physics" (book 7), "Metaphysics" (book 12), and the Pseudo-Aristotelian "On the Universe".
"On Providence" survives in two Arabic versions. In this treatise, Alexander opposes the Stoic view that divine Providence extends to all aspects of the world; he regards this idea as unworthy of the gods. Instead, providence is a power that emanates from the heavens to the sublunar region, and is responsible for the generation and destruction of earthly things, without any direct involvement in the lives of individuals.
Influence.
By the 6th century Alexander's commentaries on Aristotle were considered so useful that he was referred to as "the commentator" (). His commentaries were greatly esteemed among the Arabs, who translated many of them, and he is heavily quoted by Maimonides.
In 1210, the Church Council of Paris issued a condemnation, which probably targeted the writings of Alexander among others.
In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi (against the Thomists and the Averroists), and by his successor Cesare Cremonini. This school is known as Alexandrists.
Alexander's band, an optical phenomenon, is named after him.
Modern editions.
Several of Alexander's works were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice, 1495–1498; his "De Fato" and "De Anima" were printed along with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also by Schulthess, was edited by J. C. Orelli, Zürich, 1824; and his commentaries on the "Metaphysica" by H. Bonitz, Berlin, 1847. In 1989 the first part of his "On Aristotle Metaphysics" was published in English translation as part of the Ancient commentators project. Since then, other works of his have been translated into English.
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1592
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Alexander III of Russia
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Alexander III (; 10 March 18451 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894. He was highly reactionary and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II. This policy is known in Russia as "counter-reforms" (). Under the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827–1907), he opposed any reform that limited his autocratic rule. During his reign, Russia fought no major wars; he was therefore styled "The Peacemaker" (). It was he who helped forge the Russo-French Alliance.
Personality.
Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich was born on 10 March 1845 at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the second son and third child of Tsesarevich Alexander (Future Alexander II) and his first wife Maria Alexandrovna (née Princess Marie of Hesse). He was born during the reign of his grandfather Nicholas I.
In disposition, Alexander bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning great-uncle Emperor Alexander I. Although an enthusiastic amateur musician and patron of the ballet, Alexander was seen as lacking refinement and elegance. Indeed, he rather relished the idea of being of the same rough texture as some of his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn, immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His education was not such as to soften these peculiarities.
Alexander was extremely strong. He tore packs of cards in half with his bare hands to entertain his children. When the Austrian ambassador in St. Petersburg said that Austria would mobilize two or three army corps against Russia, he twisted a silver fork into a knot and threw it onto the plate of the ambassador. He said, "That is what I am going to do to your two or three army corps."
Unlike his extroverted wife, Alexander disliked social functions and avoided St. Petersburg. At palace balls, he was impatient for the events to end. He would order each musician of the orchestra to leave and turn off the lights until the guests left.
Alexander was afraid of horses. In his childhood, he had had an unpleasant experience on a bad-tempered mount. His wife once convinced him to go on a carriage ride with her. As he reluctantly entered the carriage, the ponies reared back. He immediately left the carriage and no amount of pleading from his wife could convince him to get back in.
An account from the memoirs of the artist Alexander Benois gives one impression of Alexander III:
After a performance of the ballet "Tsar Kandavl" at the Mariinsky Theatre, I first caught sight of the Emperor. I was struck by the size of the man, and although cumbersome and heavy, he was still a mighty figure. There was indeed something of the muzhik "[Russian peasant]" about him. The look of his bright eyes made quite an impression on me. As he passed where I was standing, he raised his head for a second, and to this day I can remember what I felt as our eyes met. It was a look as cold as steel, in which there was something threatening, even frightening, and it struck me like a blow. The Tsar's gaze! The look of a man who stood above all others, but who carried a monstrous burden and who every minute had to fear for his life and the lives of those closest to him. In later years I came into contact with the Emperor on several occasions, and I felt not the slightest bit timid. In more ordinary cases Tsar Alexander III could be at once kind, simple, and even almost homely.
Early life.
Though he was destined to be a strongly counter-reforming emperor, Alexander had little prospect of succeeding to the throne during the first two decades of his life, as he had an elder brother, Nicholas, who seemed of robust constitution. Even when Nicholas first displayed symptoms of delicate health, the notion that he might die young was never taken seriously, and he was betrothed to Princess Dagmar of Denmark, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and Queen-consort Louise of Denmark, and whose siblings included King Frederick VIII of Denmark, Queen-consort Alexandra of the United Kingdom and King George I of Greece. Great solicitude was devoted to the education of Nicholas as tsesarevich, whereas Alexander received only the training of an ordinary Grand Duke of that period. This included acquaintance with French, English and German, and military drill.
As Tsarevich.
Alexander became tsesarevich upon Nicholas's sudden death in 1865. He had been very close to his older brother, and he was devastated by Nicholas' death. When he became tsar, he reflected that “no one had such an impact on my life as my dear brother and friend Nixa [Nicholas]" and lamented that "a terrible responsibility fell on my shoulders" when Nicholas died.
As tsesarevich, Alexander began to study the principles of law and administration under Konstantin Pobedonostsev, then a professor of civil law at Moscow State University and later (from 1880) chief procurator of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Pobedonostsev instilled into the young man's mind the belief that zeal for Russian Orthodox thought was an essential factor of Russian patriotism to be cultivated by every right-minded emperor. While he was heir apparent from 1865 to 1881 Alexander did not play a prominent part in public affairs, but allowed it to become known that he had ideas which did not coincide with the principles of the existing government.
On his deathbed, Nicholas allegedly expressed the wish that his fiancée, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry Alexander. Alexander's parents encouraged the match. On 2 June 1866, Alexander went to Copenhagen to visit Dagmar. When they were looking at photographs of the deceased Nicholas, Alexander proposed to Dagmar. On in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Alexander wed Dagmar, who converted to Orthodox Christianity and took the name Maria Feodorovna. The union proved a happy one to the end; unlike nearly all of his predecessors since Peter I, there was no adultery in his marriage. The couple spent their wedding night at the Tsarevich's private dacha known as "My Property".
Alexander and his father became estranged due to their different political views. In 1870, Alexander II supported Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War, which angered the younger Alexander. Influenced by his Danish wife Dagmar, Alexander criticized the "shortsighted government" for helping the "Prussian pigs".
Alexander resented his father for having a long-standing relationship with Catherine Dolgorukov (with whom he had several illegitimate children) while his mother, the Empress, was suffering from chronic ill-health. Two days after Empress Marie died, his father told him, “I shall live as I wish, and my union with Princess Dolgorukova is definite" but assured him that "your rights will be safeguarded.” Alexander was furious over his father's decision to marry Catherine a month after his mother's death, which he believed “forever ruined all the dear good memories of family life.” His father threatened to disinherit him if he left court out of protest against the marriage. He privately denounced Catherine as "the outsider" and complained that she was "designing and immature". After his father's assassination, he reflected that his father's marriage to Catherine had caused the tragedy: “All the scum burst out and swallowed all that was holy. The guardian angel flew away and everything turned to ashes, finally culminating in the dreadful incomprehensible 1 March."
Reign.
On 13 March 1881 (N.S.) Alexander's father, Alexander II, was assassinated by members of the extremist organization Narodnaya Volya. As a result, he ascended to the Russian imperial throne in Nennal. He and Maria Feodorovna were officially crowned and anointed at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 27 May 1883. Alexander's ascension to the throne was followed by an outbreak of anti-Jewish riots.
Alexander III disliked the extravagance of the rest of his family. It was also expensive for the Crown to pay so many grand dukes each year. Each one received an annual salary of 250,000 rubles, and grand duchesses received a dowry of a million when they married. He limited the title of grand duke and duchess to only children and male-line grandchildren of emperors. The rest would bear a princely title and the style of Serene Highness. He also forbade morganatic marriages, as well as those outside of the Orthodoxy.
Domestic policies.
On the day of his assassination, Alexander II signed an ukaz setting up consultative commissions to advise the monarch. On ascending to the throne, however, Alexander III took Pobedonostsev's advice and cancelled the policy before its publication. He made it clear that his autocracy would not be limited.
All of Alexander III's internal reforms aimed to reverse the liberalization that had occurred in his father's reign. The new Emperor believed that remaining true to Russian Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality (the ideology introduced by his grandfather, emperor Nicholas I) would save Russia from revolutionary agitation.
Alexander weakened the power of the "zemstvo" (elective local administrative bodies) and placed the administration of peasant communes under the supervision of land-owning proprietors appointed by his government. These "land captains" ("zemskiye nachalniki") were feared and resented throughout the Empire's peasant communities. These acts weakened the nobility and the peasantry and brought Imperial administration under the Emperor's personal control. In such policies Alexander III followed the advice of Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who retained control of the Church in Russia through his long tenure as Procurator of the Holy Synod (from 1880 to 1905) and who became tutor to Alexander's son and heir, Nicholas. (Pobedonostsev appears as "Toporov" in Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection".) Other conservative advisors included Count D. A. Tolstoy (minister of education, and later of internal affairs) and I. N. Durnovo (D. A. Tolstoy's successor in the latter post). Mikhail Katkov and other journalists supported the emperor in his autocracy.
The Russian famine of 1891–92, which caused 375,000 to 500,000 deaths, and the ensuing cholera epidemic permitted some liberal activity, as the Russian government could not cope with the crisis and had to allow zemstvos to help with relief (among others, Leo Tolstoy helped with relief efforts on his estate and through the British press, and Chekhov directed anti-cholera precautions in several villages).
Alexander had the political goal of Russification, which involved homogenizing the language and religion of Russia's people. He implemented changes such as teaching only the Russian language in Russian schools in Germany, Poland, and Finland. He also patronized Eastern Orthodoxy and destroyed German, Polish, and Swedish cultural and religious institutions.
Alexander was hostile to Jews; his reign witnessed a sharp deterioration in the Jews' economic, social, and political condition. His policy was eagerly implemented by tsarist officials in the "May Laws" of 1882. These laws encouraged open anti-Jewish sentiment and dozens of pogroms across the western part of the empire. As a result, many Jews emigrated to Western Europe and the United States. They banned Jews from inhabiting rural areas and shtetls (even within the Pale of Settlement) and restricted the occupations in which they could engage.
Encouraged by its successful assassination of Alexander II, the Narodnaya Volya movement began planning the murder of Alexander III. The Okhrana uncovered the plot and five of the conspirators, including Aleksandr Ulyanov, the older brother of Vladimir Lenin, were captured and hanged in May 1887.
Foreign policy.
The general negative consensus about the tsar's foreign policy follows the conclusions of the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury in 1885:
In foreign affairs Alexander III was a man of peace, but not at any price, and held that the best means of averting war is to be well-prepared for it. Diplomat Nikolay Girs, scion of a rich and powerful family, served as his Foreign Minister from 1882 to 1895 and established the peaceful policies for which Alexander has been given credit. Girs was an architect of the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1891, which was later expanded into the Triple Entente with the addition of Great Britain. That alliance brought France out of diplomatic isolation, and moved Russia from the German orbit to a coalition with France, one that was strongly supported by French financial assistance to Russia's economic modernization. Girs was in charge of a diplomacy that featured numerous negotiated settlements, treaties and conventions. These agreements defined Russian boundaries and restored equilibrium to dangerously unstable situations. The most dramatic success came in 1885, settling long-standing tensions with Great Britain, which was fearful that Russian expansion to the south would be a threat to India. Girs was usually successful in restraining the aggressive inclinations of Tsar Alexander convincing him that the very survival of the Tsarist system depended on avoiding major wars. With a deep insight into the tsar's moods and views, Girs was usually able to shape the final decisions by outmaneuvering hostile journalists, ministers, and even the Tsarina, as well as his own ambassadors.
Though Alexander was indignant at the conduct of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided an open rupture with Germany—even reviving the League of Three Emperors for a period of time and in 1887, signed the Reinsurance Treaty with the Germans. However, in 1890, the expiration of the treaty coincided with the dismissal of Bismarck by the new German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II (for whom the Tsar had an immense dislike), and the unwillingness of Wilhelm II's government to renew the treaty. In response Alexander III then began cordial relations with France, eventually entering into an alliance with the French in 1892.
Despite chilly relations with Berlin, the Tsar nevertheless confined himself to keeping a large number of troops near the German frontier. With regard to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of Prince Alexander and afterwards of Stambolov to destroy Russian influence in the principality roused his indignation, but he vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of arms.
In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional policy of gradually extending Russian domination without provoking conflict with the United Kingdom (see Panjdeh incident), and he never allowed the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of hand. His reign cannot be regarded as an eventful period of Russian history; but under his hard rule the country made considerable progress.
Alexander and his wife regularly spent their summers at Langinkoski manor along the Kymi River near Kotka on the Finnish coast, where their children were immersed in a Scandinavian lifestyle of relative modesty.
Alexander rejected foreign influence, German influence in particular, thus the adoption of local national principles was deprecated in all spheres of official activity, with a view to realizing his ideal of a Russia homogeneous in language, administration and religion. These ideas conflicted with those of his father, who had German sympathies despite being a patriot; Alexander II often used the German language in his private relations, occasionally ridiculed the Slavophiles and based his foreign policy on the Prussian alliance.
Some differences between father and son had first appeared during the Franco-Prussian War, when Alexander II supported the cabinet of Berlin while the Tsesarevich made no effort to conceal his sympathies for the French. These sentiments would resurface during 1875–1879, when the Eastern question excited Russian society. At first, the Tsesarevich was more Slavophile than the Russian government. However, his phlegmatic nature restrained him from many exaggerations, and any popular illusions he may have imbibed were dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria where he commanded the left wing of the invading army. Never consulted on political questions, Alexander confined himself to military duties and fulfilled them in a conscientious and unobtrusive manner. After many mistakes and disappointments, the army reached Constantinople and the Treaty of San Stefano was signed, but much that had been obtained by that important document had to be sacrificed at the Congress of Berlin.
Bismarck failed to do what was expected of him by the Russian emperor. In return for the Russian support which had enabled him to create the German Empire, it was thought that he would help Russia to solve the Eastern question in accordance with Russian interests, but to the surprise and indignation of the cabinet of Saint Petersburg he confined himself to acting the part of "honest broker" at the Congress, and shortly afterwards contracted an alliance with Austria-Hungary for the purpose of counteracting Russian designs in Eastern Europe.
The Tsesarevich could refer to these results as confirmation of the views he had expressed during the Franco-Prussian War; he concluded that for Russia, the best thing was to recover as quickly as possible from her temporary exhaustion, and prepare for future contingencies by military and naval reorganization. In accordance with this conviction, he suggested that certain reforms should be introduced.
Trade and Industry.
Alexander III took initiatives to stimulate the development of trade and industry, as his father did before him. Russia's economy was still challenged by the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–1878, which created a deficit, so he imposed customs duties on imported goods. To further alleviate the budget deficit, he implemented increased frugality and accounting in state finances. Industrial development increased during his reign. Also during his reign, construction of the Trans Siberian Railway was started.
Family life.
Following his father's assassination, Alexander III was advised that it would be difficult for him to be kept safe at the Winter Palace. As a result, Alexander relocated his family to the Gatchina Palace, located south of St. Petersburg. The palace was surrounded by moats, watch towers, and trenches, and soldiers were on guard night and day. Under heavy guard, he would make occasional visits into St. Petersburg, but even then he would stay in the Anichkov Palace, as opposed to the Winter Palace. Alexander resented having to take refuge at Gatchina. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia remembered hearing Alexander say, “To think that after having faced the guns of the Turks I must retreat now before these skunks."
In the 1860s, Alexander fell in love with his mother's lady-in-waiting, Princess Maria Elimovna Meshcherskaya. Dismayed to learn that Prince Wittgenstein had proposed to her in early 1866, he told his parents that he was prepared to give up his rights of succession in order to marry his beloved "Dusenka". On 19 May 1866, Alexander II informed his son that Russia had come to an agreement with the parents of Princess Dagmar of Denmark, the fiancée of his late elder brother Nicholas. Initially, Alexander refused to travel to Copenhagen because he wanted to marry Maria. Enraged, Alexander II ordered him to go straight to Denmark and propose to Princess Dagmar. Alexander wrote in his diary "Farewell, dear Dusenka."
Despite his initial reluctance, Alexander grew fond of Dagmar. By the end of his life, they loved each other deeply. A few weeks after their wedding, he wrote in his diary: "God grant that... I may love my darling wife more and more... I often feel that I am not worthy of her, but even if this was true, I will do my best to be." When she left his side, he missed her bitterly and complained: "My sweet darling Minny, for five years we've never been apart and Gatchina is empty and sad without you." In 1885, he commissioned Peter Carl Fabergé to produce the first of what were to become a series of jeweled Easter eggs (now called "Fabergé eggs") for her as an Easter gift. Dagmar was so delighted by the First Hen egg that Alexander gave her an egg every year as an Easter tradition. After Alexander died, his heir Nicholas continued the tradition and commissioned two eggs, one for his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and one for his mother, Dagmar, every Easter. When she nursed him in his final illness, Alexander told Dagmar, "Even before my death, I have got to known an angel." He died in Dagmar's arms, and his daughter Olga noted that "my mother still held him in her arms" long after he died.
Alexander had six children by Dagmar, five of whom survived into adulthood: Nicholas (b. 1868), George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878) and Olga (b. 1882). He told Dagmar that "only with [our children] can I relax mentally, enjoy them and rejoice, looking at them." He wrote in his diary that he "was crying like a baby" when Dagmar gave birth to their first child, Nicholas. He was much more lenient with his children than most European monarchs, and he told their tutors, "I do not need porcelain, I want normal healthy Russian children.” General Cherevin believed that the clever George was "the favourite of both parents". Alexander enjoyed a more informal relationship with his youngest son Michael and doted on his youngest daughter, Olga.
Alexander was concerned that his heir-apparent, Nicholas, was too gentle and naive to become an effective Emperor. When Witte suggested that Nicholas participate in the Trans-Siberian Committee, Alexander said, “Have you ever tried to discuss anything of consequence with His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke? Don’t tell me you never noticed the Grand Duke is . . . an absolute child. His opinions are utterly childish. How could he preside over such a committee?” He was worried that Nicholas had no experiences with women and arranged for the Polish ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya to become his son's mistress. Even at the end of his life, he considered Nicholas a child and told him, "I can't imagine you as a fiancé – how strange and unusual!"
Each summer his parents-in-law, King Christian IX and Queen Louise, held family reunions at the Danish royal palaces of Fredensborg and Bernstorff, bringing Alexander, Maria and their children to Denmark. His sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, would come from Great Britain with some of her children, and his brother-in-law and cousin-in-law, King George I of Greece, his wife, Queen Olga, who was a first cousin of Alexander and a Romanov Grand Duchess by birth, came with their children from Athens. In contrast to the strict security observed in Russia, Alexander and Maria revelled in the relative freedom that they enjoyed in Denmark, Alexander once commenting to the Prince and Princess of Wales near the end of a visit that he envied them being able to return to a happy home in England, while he was returning to his Russian prison. In Denmark, he was able to enjoy joining his children, nephews and nieces, in muddy ponds looking for tadpoles, sneaking into his father-in-law's orchard to steal apples, and playing pranks, such as turning a water hose on the visiting King Oscar II of Sweden.
Alexander had an extremely poor relationship with his brother Grand Duke Vladimir. At a restaurant, Grand Duke Vladimir had a brawl with the French actor Lucien Guitry when the latter kissed his wife, Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The prefect of St. Petersburg needed to escort Vladimir out of the restaurant. Alexander was so furious that he temporarily exiled Vladimir and his wife and threatened to exile them permanently to Siberia if they did not leave immediately. When Alexander and his family survived the Borki train disaster in 1888, Alexander joked, "I can imagine how disappointed Vladimir is going to be when he learns that we all stayed alive!" This tension was reflected in the rivalry between Maria Feodorovna and Vladimir's wife, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna.
Alexander had better relationships with his other brothers: Alexei (who he made rear admiral and then a grand admiral of the Russian Navy), Sergei (who he made governor of Moscow) and Paul.
Despite the antipathy that Alexander had towards his stepmother, Catherine Dolgorukov, he nevertheless allowed her to remain in the Winter Palace for some time after his father's assassination and to retain various keepsakes of him. These included Alexander II's blood-soaked uniform that he died wearing, and his reading glasses.
Even though he disliked their mother, Alexander was kind to his half-siblings. His youngest half-sister Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya remembered when he would play with her and her siblings: "The Emperor... seemed a playful and kind Goliath among all the romping children."
On the Imperial train derailed in an accident at Borki. At the moment of the crash, the imperial family was in the dining car. Its roof collapsed, and Alexander held its remains on his shoulders as the children fled outdoors. The onset of Alexander's kidney failure was later attributed to the blunt trauma suffered in this incident.
Domestic policies.
On the day of his assassination, Alexander II signed an ukaz setting up consultative commissions to advise the monarch. On ascending to the throne, however, Alexander III took Pobedonostsev's advice and cancelled the policy before its publication. He made it clear that his autocracy would not be limited.
All of Alexander III's internal reforms aimed to reverse the liberalization that had occurred in his father's reign. The new Emperor believed that remaining true to Russian Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality (the ideology introduced by his grandfather, emperor Nicholas I) would save Russia from revolutionary agitation.
Alexander weakened the power of the "zemstvo" (elective local administrative bodies) and placed the administration of peasant communes under the supervision of land-owning proprietors appointed by his government. These "land captains" ("zemskiye nachalniki") were feared and resented throughout the Empire's peasant communities. These acts weakened the nobility and the peasantry and brought Imperial administration under the Emperor's personal control. In such policies Alexander III followed the advice of Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who retained control of the Church in Russia through his long tenure as Procurator of the Holy Synod (from 1880 to 1905) and who became tutor to Alexander's son and heir, Nicholas. (Pobedonostsev appears as "Toporov" in Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection".) Other conservative advisors included Count D. A. Tolstoy (minister of education, and later of internal affairs) and I. N. Durnovo (D. A. Tolstoy's successor in the latter post). Mikhail Katkov and other journalists supported the emperor in his autocracy.
The Russian famine of 1891–92, which caused 375,000 to 500,000 deaths, and the ensuing cholera epidemic permitted some liberal activity, as the Russian government could not cope with the crisis and had to allow zemstvos to help with relief (among others, Leo Tolstoy helped with relief efforts on his estate and through the British press, and Chekhov directed anti-cholera precautions in several villages).
Alexander had the political goal of Russification, which involved homogenizing the language and religion of Russia's people. He implemented changes such as teaching only the Russian language in Russian schools in Germany, Poland, and Finland. He also patronized Eastern Orthodoxy and destroyed German, Polish, and Swedish cultural and religious institutions.
Alexander was hostile to Jews; his reign witnessed a sharp deterioration in the Jews' economic, social, and political condition. His policy was eagerly implemented by tsarist officials in the "May Laws" of 1882. These laws encouraged open anti-Jewish sentiment and dozens of pogroms across the western part of the empire. As a result, many Jews emigrated to Western Europe and the United States. They banned Jews from inhabiting rural areas and shtetls (even within the Pale of Settlement) and restricted the occupations in which they could engage.
Encouraged by its successful assassination of Alexander II, the Narodnaya Volya movement began planning the murder of Alexander III. The Okhrana uncovered the plot and five of the conspirators, including Aleksandr Ulyanov, the older brother of Vladimir Lenin, were captured and hanged in May 1887.
Foreign policy.
The general negative consensus about the tsar's foreign policy follows the conclusions of the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury in 1885:
In foreign affairs Alexander III was a man of peace, but not at any price, and held that the best means of averting war is to be well-prepared for it. Diplomat Nikolay Girs, scion of a rich and powerful family, served as his Foreign Minister from 1882 to 1895 and established the peaceful policies for which Alexander has been given credit. Girs was an architect of the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1891, which was later expanded into the Triple Entente with the addition of Great Britain. That alliance brought France out of diplomatic isolation, and moved Russia from the German orbit to a coalition with France, one that was strongly supported by French financial assistance to Russia's economic modernization. Girs was in charge of a diplomacy that featured numerous negotiated settlements, treaties and conventions. These agreements defined Russian boundaries and restored equilibrium to dangerously unstable situations. The most dramatic success came in 1885, settling long-standing tensions with Great Britain, which was fearful that Russian expansion to the south would be a threat to India. Girs was usually successful in restraining the aggressive inclinations of Tsar Alexander convincing him that the very survival of the Tsarist system depended on avoiding major wars. With a deep insight into the tsar's moods and views, Girs was usually able to shape the final decisions by outmaneuvering hostile journalists, ministers, and even the Tsarina, as well as his own ambassadors.
Though Alexander was indignant at the conduct of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided an open rupture with Germany—even reviving the League of Three Emperors for a period of time and in 1887, signed the Reinsurance Treaty with the Germans. However, in 1890, the expiration of the treaty coincided with the dismissal of Bismarck by the new German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II (for whom the Tsar had an immense dislike), and the unwillingness of Wilhelm II's government to renew the treaty. In response Alexander III then began cordial relations with France, eventually entering into an alliance with the French in 1892.
Despite chilly relations with Berlin, the Tsar nevertheless confined himself to keeping a large number of troops near the German frontier. With regard to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of Prince Alexander and afterwards of Stambolov to destroy Russian influence in the principality roused his indignation, but he vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of arms.
In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional policy of gradually extending Russian domination without provoking conflict with the United Kingdom (see Panjdeh incident), and he never allowed the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of hand. His reign cannot be regarded as an eventful period of Russian history; but under his hard rule the country made considerable progress.
Alexander and his wife regularly spent their summers at Langinkoski manor along the Kymi River near Kotka on the Finnish coast, where their children were immersed in a Scandinavian lifestyle of relative modesty.
Alexander rejected foreign influence, German influence in particular, thus the adoption of local national principles was deprecated in all spheres of official activity, with a view to realizing his ideal of a Russia homogeneous in language, administration and religion. These ideas conflicted with those of his father, who had German sympathies despite being a patriot; Alexander II often used the German language in his private relations, occasionally ridiculed the Slavophiles and based his foreign policy on the Prussian alliance.
Some differences between father and son had first appeared during the Franco-Prussian War, when Alexander II supported the cabinet of Berlin while the Tsesarevich made no effort to conceal his sympathies for the French. These sentiments would resurface during 1875–1879, when the Eastern question excited Russian society. At first, the Tsesarevich was more Slavophile than the Russian government. However, his phlegmatic nature restrained him from many exaggerations, and any popular illusions he may have imbibed were dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria where he commanded the left wing of the invading army. Never consulted on political questions, Alexander confined himself to military duties and fulfilled them in a conscientious and unobtrusive manner. After many mistakes and disappointments, the army reached Constantinople and the Treaty of San Stefano was signed, but much that had been obtained by that important document had to be sacrificed at the Congress of Berlin.
Bismarck failed to do what was expected of him by the Russian emperor. In return for the Russian support which had enabled him to create the German Empire, it was thought that he would help Russia to solve the Eastern question in accordance with Russian interests, but to the surprise and indignation of the cabinet of Saint Petersburg he confined himself to acting the part of "honest broker" at the Congress, and shortly afterwards contracted an alliance with Austria-Hungary for the purpose of counteracting Russian designs in Eastern Europe.
The Tsesarevich could refer to these results as confirmation of the views he had expressed during the Franco-Prussian War; he concluded that for Russia, the best thing was to recover as quickly as possible from her temporary exhaustion, and prepare for future contingencies by military and naval reorganization. In accordance with this conviction, he suggested that certain reforms should be introduced.
Trade and Industry.
Alexander III took initiatives to stimulate the development of trade and industry, as his father did before him. Russia's economy was still challenged by the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–1878, which created a deficit, so he imposed customs duties on imported goods. To further alleviate the budget deficit, he implemented increased frugality and accounting in state finances. Industrial development increased during his reign. Also during his reign, construction of the Trans Siberian Railway was started.
Family life.
Following his father's assassination, Alexander III was advised that it would be difficult for him to be kept safe at the Winter Palace. As a result, Alexander relocated his family to the Gatchina Palace, located south of St. Petersburg. The palace was surrounded by moats, watch towers, and trenches, and soldiers were on guard night and day. Under heavy guard, he would make occasional visits into St. Petersburg, but even then he would stay in the Anichkov Palace, as opposed to the Winter Palace. Alexander resented having to take refuge at Gatchina. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia remembered hearing Alexander say, “To think that after having faced the guns of the Turks I must retreat now before these skunks."
In the 1860s, Alexander fell in love with his mother's lady-in-waiting, Princess Maria Elimovna Meshcherskaya. Dismayed to learn that Prince Wittgenstein had proposed to her in early 1866, he told his parents that he was prepared to give up his rights of succession in order to marry his beloved "Dusenka". On 19 May 1866, Alexander II informed his son that Russia had come to an agreement with the parents of Princess Dagmar of Denmark, the fiancée of his late elder brother Nicholas. Initially, Alexander refused to travel to Copenhagen because he wanted to marry Maria. Enraged, Alexander II ordered him to go straight to Denmark and propose to Princess Dagmar. Alexander wrote in his diary "Farewell, dear Dusenka."
Despite his initial reluctance, Alexander grew fond of Dagmar. By the end of his life, they loved each other deeply. A few weeks after their wedding, he wrote in his diary: "God grant that... I may love my darling wife more and more... I often feel that I am not worthy of her, but even if this was true, I will do my best to be." When she left his side, he missed her bitterly and complained: "My sweet darling Minny, for five years we've never been apart and Gatchina is empty and sad without you." In 1885, he commissioned Peter Carl Fabergé to produce the first of what were to become a series of jeweled Easter eggs (now called "Fabergé eggs") for her as an Easter gift. Dagmar was so delighted by the First Hen egg that Alexander gave her an egg every year as an Easter tradition. After Alexander died, his heir Nicholas continued the tradition and commissioned two eggs, one for his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and one for his mother, Dagmar, every Easter. When she nursed him in his final illness, Alexander told Dagmar, "Even before my death, I have got to known an angel." He died in Dagmar's arms, and his daughter Olga noted that "my mother still held him in her arms" long after he died.
Alexander had six children by Dagmar, five of whom survived into adulthood: Nicholas (b. 1868), George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878) and Olga (b. 1882). He told Dagmar that "only with [our children] can I relax mentally, enjoy them and rejoice, looking at them." He wrote in his diary that he "was crying like a baby" when Dagmar gave birth to their first child, Nicholas. He was much more lenient with his children than most European monarchs, and he told their tutors, "I do not need porcelain, I want normal healthy Russian children.” General Cherevin believed that the clever George was "the favourite of both parents". Alexander enjoyed a more informal relationship with his youngest son Michael and doted on his youngest daughter, Olga.
Alexander was concerned that his heir-apparent, Nicholas, was too gentle and naive to become an effective Emperor. When Witte suggested that Nicholas participate in the Trans-Siberian Committee, Alexander said, “Have you ever tried to discuss anything of consequence with His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke? Don’t tell me you never noticed the Grand Duke is . . . an absolute child. His opinions are utterly childish. How could he preside over such a committee?” He was worried that Nicholas had no experiences with women and arranged for the Polish ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya to become his son's mistress. Even at the end of his life, he considered Nicholas a child and told him, "I can't imagine you as a fiancé – how strange and unusual!"
Each summer his parents-in-law, King Christian IX and Queen Louise, held family reunions at the Danish royal palaces of Fredensborg and Bernstorff, bringing Alexander, Maria and their children to Denmark. His sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, would come from Great Britain with some of her children, and his brother-in-law and cousin-in-law, King George I of Greece, his wife, Queen Olga, who was a first cousin of Alexander and a Romanov Grand Duchess by birth, came with their children from Athens. In contrast to the strict security observed in Russia, Alexander and Maria revelled in the relative freedom that they enjoyed in Denmark, Alexander once commenting to the Prince and Princess of Wales near the end of a visit that he envied them being able to return to a happy home in England, while he was returning to his Russian prison. In Denmark, he was able to enjoy joining his children, nephews and nieces, in muddy ponds looking for tadpoles, sneaking into his father-in-law's orchard to steal apples, and playing pranks, such as turning a water hose on the visiting King Oscar II of Sweden.
Alexander had an extremely poor relationship with his brother Grand Duke Vladimir. At a restaurant, Grand Duke Vladimir had a brawl with the French actor Lucien Guitry when the latter kissed his wife, Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The prefect of St. Petersburg needed to escort Vladimir out of the restaurant. Alexander was so furious that he temporarily exiled Vladimir and his wife and threatened to exile them permanently to Siberia if they did not leave immediately. When Alexander and his family survived the Borki train disaster in 1888, Alexander joked, "I can imagine how disappointed Vladimir is going to be when he learns that we all stayed alive!" This tension was reflected in the rivalry between Maria Feodorovna and Vladimir's wife, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna.
Alexander had better relationships with his other brothers: Alexei (who he made rear admiral and then a grand admiral of the Russian Navy), Sergei (who he made governor of Moscow) and Paul.
Despite the antipathy that Alexander had towards his stepmother, Catherine Dolgorukov, he nevertheless allowed her to remain in the Winter Palace for some time after his father's assassination and to retain various keepsakes of him. These included Alexander II's blood-soaked uniform that he died wearing, and his reading glasses.
Even though he disliked their mother, Alexander was kind to his half-siblings. His youngest half-sister Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya remembered when he would play with her and her siblings: "The Emperor... seemed a playful and kind Goliath among all the romping children."
On the Imperial train derailed in an accident at Borki. At the moment of the crash, the imperial family was in the dining car. Its roof collapsed, and Alexander held its remains on his shoulders as the children fled outdoors. The onset of Alexander's kidney failure was later attributed to the blunt trauma suffered in this incident.
Illness and death.
In 1894, Alexander III became ill with terminal kidney disease (nephritis). His first cousin, Queen Olga of Greece, offered him to stay at her villa Mon Repos, on the island of Corfu, in the hope that it might improve the Tsar's condition. By the time that they reached Crimea, they stayed at the Maly Palace in Livadia, as Alexander was too weak to travel any farther. Recognizing that the Tsar's days were numbered, various imperial relatives began to descend on Livadia. Even the famed clergyman John of Kronstadt paid a visit and administered Communion to the Tsar. On 21 October, Alexander received Nicholas's fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, who had come from her native Darmstadt to receive the Tsar's blessing. Despite being exceedingly weak, Alexander insisted on receiving Alix in full dress uniform, an event that left him exhausted. Soon after, his health began to deteriorate more rapidly. He died in the arms of his wife, and in the presence of his physician, Ernst Viktor von Leyden, at Maly Palace in Livadia on the afternoon of at the age of forty-nine, and was succeeded by his eldest son Tsesarevich Nicholas, who took the throne as Nicholas II. After leaving Livadia on 6 November and traveling to St. Petersburg by way of Moscow, his remains were interred on 18 November at the Peter and Paul Fortress, with his funeral being attended by numerous foreign relatives, including King Christian IX of Denmark, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Duke of York, and Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and his daughter-in-law to be, Alix of Hesse, and her brother, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse.
Monuments.
In 1909, a bronze equestrian statue of Alexander III sculpted by Paolo Troubetzkoy was placed in Znamenskaya Square in front of the Moscow Rail Terminal in St. Petersburg. Both the horse and rider were sculpted in massive form, leading to the nickname of "hippopotamus". Troubetzkoy envisioned the statue as a caricature, jesting that he wished "to portray an animal atop another animal", and it was quite controversial at the time, with many, including the members of the Imperial Family, opposed to the design, but it was approved because the Empress Dowager unexpectedly liked the monument. Following the Revolution of 1917 the statue remained in place as a symbol of tsarist autocracy until 1937 when it was placed in storage. In 1994 it was again put on public display, in front of the Marble Palace.
Another memorial is located in the city of Irkutsk at the Angara embankment.
On 18 November 2017, Vladimir Putin unveiled a bronze monument to Alexander III on the site of the former Maly Livadia Palace in Crimea. The four-meter monument by Russian sculptor Andrey Kovalchuk depicts Alexander III sitting on a stump, his stretched arms resting on a sabre. An inscription repeats his saying "Russia has only two allies: the Army and the Navy." Alexander III is believed to be Putin's favorite predecessor. On 5 June 2021 he unveiled a further monument to him on the site of Gatchina Palace, Leningrad Oblast.
Honours.
Domestic
Foreign
Issue.
Alexander III had six children (five of whom survived to adulthood) of his marriage with Princess Dagmar of Denmark, also known as Marie Feodorovna.
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Severus Alexander
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Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy.
Alexander was the heir to his cousin, the 18-year-old Emperor Elagabalus. The latter had been murdered along with his mother Julia Soaemias by his own guards, who, as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into the Tiber river. Alexander and his cousin were both grandsons of Julia Maesa, the sister of empress Julia Domna, who had arranged for Elagabalus's acclamation as emperor by the Third Gallic Legion.
Alexander's 13-year reign was the longest reign of a sole emperor since Antoninus Pius. He was also the second-youngest ever sole legal Roman emperor during the existence of the united empire, the youngest being Gordian III. Alexander's peacetime reign was prosperous. However, Rome was militarily confronted with the rising Sassanid Empire and growing incursions from the tribes of Germania. He managed to check the threat of the Sassanids. But when campaigning against Germanic tribes, Alexander attempted to bring peace by engaging in diplomacy and bribery. This alienated many in the Roman army, leading to a conspiracy that resulted in the assassination of Alexander, his mother Julia Avita Mamaea, and his advisors. After their deaths, the accession of Maximinus Thrax followed. Alexander's death marked the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century.
Early life.
The future emperor Severus Alexander was born on 1 October 208 in Arca Caesarea, Phoenicia. Of his birth name, only two cognomina are known, from literary sources: Bassianus () according to the historian Cassius Dio, and Alexianus () according to Herodian. "Bassianus" was also borne by several family members, while "Alexianus" was probably later converted to Alexander.
The historian Cassius Dio thought Alexianus was the son of Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus, but Icks disputes this, saying the latter could not have married the emperor's mother before 212 and that Alexianus must have been fathered by his mother's first husband, who is of unknown name but of certain existence. The priest Marcus Julius Gessius Bassianus may have been his younger brother.
Emperor.
Early reign.
Severus Alexander became emperor when he was around 14 years old, making him the youngest emperor in Rome's history, until the accession of Gordian III. Alexander's grandmother Maesa believed that he had more potential to rule and gain support from the Praetorian Guard than her other grandson, the increasingly unpopular emperor Elagabalus. Thus, to preserve her own position, she had Elagabalus adopt the young Alexander and then arranged for Elagabalus' assassination, securing the throne for Alexander. The Roman army hailed Alexander as emperor on 13 March 222, immediately conferring on him the titles of "Pater Patriae" and "Pontifex maximus" on the following day.
Throughout his life, Alexander relied heavily on guidance from his grandmother, Maesa, before her death in 224, and mother, Julia Mamaea. As a young, immature, and inexperienced adolescent, Alexander knew little about government, warcraft, or the role of ruling over an empire. In time, however, the army came to admire what Jasper Burns refers to as "his simple virtues and moderate behavior, so different from [Elagabalus]".
Domestic achievements.
Under the influence of his mother, Alexander did much to improve the morals and condition of the people, and to enhance the dignity of the state. He employed noted jurists, such as Ulpian, to oversee the administration of justice. His advisers were men like the senator and historian Cassius Dio, and historical sources claimed that with the help of his family, he created a select board of 16 senators, although this claim is sometimes disputed. Some scholars have rejected Herodian's view that Alexander expanded senatorial powers. He also created a municipal council of 14 who assisted the urban prefect in administering the affairs of the 14 districts of Rome. Excessive luxury and extravagance at the imperial court were diminished, and he restored the Baths of Nero in 227 or 229; consequently, they are sometimes also known as the Baths of Alexander after him. He extended the imperial residence at the Horti Lamiani with elaborate buildings and created the Nymphaeum of Alexander (known as the Trophies of Marius), which still stands in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. This was the great fountain he built at the end of the Aqua Claudia aqueduct.
Upon his accession he reduced the silver purity of the denarius from 46.5% to 43%the actual silver weight dropped from 1.41 grams to 1.30 grams; however, in 229 he revalued the denarius, increasing the silver purity and weight to 45% and 1.46 grams. The following year he decreased the amount of base metal in the denarius while adding more silver, raising the silver purity and weight again to 50.5% and 1.50 grams. Additionally, during his reign taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; 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. According to the "Historia Augusta", he wished to erect a temple to Jesus but was dissuaded by the pagan priests; however, this claim is unreliable as the "Historia Augusta" is considered untrustworthy by historians, containing significant amounts of information that is false and even invented, extending to when it was written and the number of authors it was written by. He allowed a synagogue to be built in Rome, and he gave as a gift to this synagogue a scroll of the Torah known as the Severus Scroll.
In legal matters, Alexander did much to aid the rights of his soldiers. He confirmed that soldiers could name anyone as heirs in their will, whereas civilians had strict restrictions over who could become heirs or receive a legacy. He also confirmed that soldiers could free their slaves in their wills, protected the rights of soldiers to their property when they were on campaign, and reasserted that a soldier's property acquired in or because of military service (his "castrense peculium") could be claimed by no one else, not even the soldier's father.
Persian War.
On the whole, Alexander's reign was prosperous until the rise of the Sassanids under Ardashir I. In 231 AD, Ardashir invaded the Roman provinces of the east, overrunning Mesopotamia and penetrating possibly as far as Syria and Cappadocia, forcing from the young Alexander a vigorous response. Of the war that followed there are various accounts. According to the most detailed authority, Herodian, the Roman armies suffered a number of humiliating setbacks and defeats, while according to the Historia Augusta as well as Alexander's own dispatch to the Roman Senate, he gained great victories. Making Antioch his base, he organized in 233 a three-fold invasion of the Sassanian Empire; at the head of the main body he himself advanced to recapture northern Mesopotamia, while another army invaded Media through the mountains of Armenia, and a third advanced from the south in the direction of Babylon. The northernmost army gained some success, fighting in mountainous territory favorable to the Roman infantry, but the southern army was surrounded and destroyed by Ardashir's skilful horse-archers, and Alexander himself retreated after an indecisive campaign, his army wracked by indiscipline and disease. Further losses were incurred by the retreating northern army in the inclement cold of Armenia as it retired into winter quarters, due to a failure through incompetence to establish adequate supply lines. Still, Mesopotamia was retaken, and Ardashir was not thereafter able to extend his conquests, though his son, Shapur, would obtain some success later in the century.
Although the Sassanids were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. In 232, there was a mutiny in the Syrian legion, which proclaimed Taurinus emperor. Alexander managed to suppress the uprising, and Taurinus drowned while attempting to flee across the Euphrates. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph in 233.
Military discipline.
Alexander's reign was also characterized by a significant breakdown of military discipline. In 228, the Praetorian Guard murdered their prefect, Ulpian, in Alexander's presence. Alexander could not openly punish the ringleader of the riot, and instead removed him to a nominal post of honor in Egypt and then Crete, where he was "quietly put out of the way" sometime after the excitement had abated. The soldiers then fought a three-day battle against the populace of Rome, and this battle ended after several parts of the city were set on fire.
Dio was among those who gave a highly critical account of military discipline during the time, saying that the soldiers would rather just surrender to the enemy. Different reasons are given for this issue; Campbell points to ...the decline in the prestige of the Severan dynasty, the feeble nature of Alexander himself, who appeared to be no soldier and to be completely dominated by his mother's advice, and lack of real military success at a time during which the empire was coming under increasing pressure.
Herodian, on the other hand, was convinced that "the emperor's miserliness (partly the result of his mother's greed) and slowness to bestow donatives" were instrumental in the fall of military discipline under Alexander.
Germanic War.
After the Persian war, Alexander returned to Antioch with Origen, one of the Fathers of the Christian Church. Alexander's mother, Julia Mamaea, asked for Origen to tutor Alexander in Christianity.
While Alexander was being educated in the Christian doctrines, the northern portion of his empire was being invaded by Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. A new and menacing enemy started to emerge directly after Alexander's success in the Persian war. In 234, the barbarians crossed the Rhine and Danube in hordes that caused alarm as far as Rome. The soldiers serving under Alexander, already demoralized after their costly war against the Persians, were further discontented with their emperor when their homes were destroyed by the barbarian invaders.
As word of the invasion spread, the emperor took the front line and went to battle against the Germanic invaders. The Romans prepared heavily for the war, building a fleet to carry the entire army across. However, at this point in Alexander's career, he still knew little about being a general. Because of this, he hoped the mere threat of his armies would be sufficient to persuade the hostile tribes to surrender. Severus enforced a strict military discipline in his men that sparked a rebellion among his legions. Due to incurring heavy losses against the Persians, and on the advice of his mother, Alexander attempted to buy the Germanic tribes off, so as to gain time.
It was this decision that resulted in the legionaries looking down upon Alexander. They considered him dishonorable and feared he was unfit to be Emperor. Under these circumstances the army swiftly looked to replace Alexander.
Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus was the next best option. He was a soldier from Thrace who had a golden reputation and was working hard to increase his military status. He was also a man with superior personal strength, who rose to his present position from a peasant background. With the Thracian's hailing came the end of the Severan Dynasty, and, with the growing animosity of Severus' army towards him, the path for his assassination was paved.
Early reign.
Severus Alexander became emperor when he was around 14 years old, making him the youngest emperor in Rome's history, until the accession of Gordian III. Alexander's grandmother Maesa believed that he had more potential to rule and gain support from the Praetorian Guard than her other grandson, the increasingly unpopular emperor Elagabalus. Thus, to preserve her own position, she had Elagabalus adopt the young Alexander and then arranged for Elagabalus' assassination, securing the throne for Alexander. The Roman army hailed Alexander as emperor on 13 March 222, immediately conferring on him the titles of "Pater Patriae" and "Pontifex maximus" on the following day.
Throughout his life, Alexander relied heavily on guidance from his grandmother, Maesa, before her death in 224, and mother, Julia Mamaea. As a young, immature, and inexperienced adolescent, Alexander knew little about government, warcraft, or the role of ruling over an empire. In time, however, the army came to admire what Jasper Burns refers to as "his simple virtues and moderate behavior, so different from [Elagabalus]".
Domestic achievements.
Under the influence of his mother, Alexander did much to improve the morals and condition of the people, and to enhance the dignity of the state. He employed noted jurists, such as Ulpian, to oversee the administration of justice. His advisers were men like the senator and historian Cassius Dio, and historical sources claimed that with the help of his family, he created a select board of 16 senators, although this claim is sometimes disputed. Some scholars have rejected Herodian's view that Alexander expanded senatorial powers. He also created a municipal council of 14 who assisted the urban prefect in administering the affairs of the 14 districts of Rome. Excessive luxury and extravagance at the imperial court were diminished, and he restored the Baths of Nero in 227 or 229; consequently, they are sometimes also known as the Baths of Alexander after him. He extended the imperial residence at the Horti Lamiani with elaborate buildings and created the Nymphaeum of Alexander (known as the Trophies of Marius), which still stands in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. This was the great fountain he built at the end of the Aqua Claudia aqueduct.
Upon his accession he reduced the silver purity of the denarius from 46.5% to 43%the actual silver weight dropped from 1.41 grams to 1.30 grams; however, in 229 he revalued the denarius, increasing the silver purity and weight to 45% and 1.46 grams. The following year he decreased the amount of base metal in the denarius while adding more silver, raising the silver purity and weight again to 50.5% and 1.50 grams. Additionally, during his reign taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; 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. According to the "Historia Augusta", he wished to erect a temple to Jesus but was dissuaded by the pagan priests; however, this claim is unreliable as the "Historia Augusta" is considered untrustworthy by historians, containing significant amounts of information that is false and even invented, extending to when it was written and the number of authors it was written by. He allowed a synagogue to be built in Rome, and he gave as a gift to this synagogue a scroll of the Torah known as the Severus Scroll.
In legal matters, Alexander did much to aid the rights of his soldiers. He confirmed that soldiers could name anyone as heirs in their will, whereas civilians had strict restrictions over who could become heirs or receive a legacy. He also confirmed that soldiers could free their slaves in their wills, protected the rights of soldiers to their property when they were on campaign, and reasserted that a soldier's property acquired in or because of military service (his "castrense peculium") could be claimed by no one else, not even the soldier's father.
Persian War.
On the whole, Alexander's reign was prosperous until the rise of the Sassanids under Ardashir I. In 231 AD, Ardashir invaded the Roman provinces of the east, overrunning Mesopotamia and penetrating possibly as far as Syria and Cappadocia, forcing from the young Alexander a vigorous response. Of the war that followed there are various accounts. According to the most detailed authority, Herodian, the Roman armies suffered a number of humiliating setbacks and defeats, while according to the Historia Augusta as well as Alexander's own dispatch to the Roman Senate, he gained great victories. Making Antioch his base, he organized in 233 a three-fold invasion of the Sassanian Empire; at the head of the main body he himself advanced to recapture northern Mesopotamia, while another army invaded Media through the mountains of Armenia, and a third advanced from the south in the direction of Babylon. The northernmost army gained some success, fighting in mountainous territory favorable to the Roman infantry, but the southern army was surrounded and destroyed by Ardashir's skilful horse-archers, and Alexander himself retreated after an indecisive campaign, his army wracked by indiscipline and disease. Further losses were incurred by the retreating northern army in the inclement cold of Armenia as it retired into winter quarters, due to a failure through incompetence to establish adequate supply lines. Still, Mesopotamia was retaken, and Ardashir was not thereafter able to extend his conquests, though his son, Shapur, would obtain some success later in the century.
Although the Sassanids were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. In 232, there was a mutiny in the Syrian legion, which proclaimed Taurinus emperor. Alexander managed to suppress the uprising, and Taurinus drowned while attempting to flee across the Euphrates. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph in 233.
Military discipline.
Alexander's reign was also characterized by a significant breakdown of military discipline. In 228, the Praetorian Guard murdered their prefect, Ulpian, in Alexander's presence. Alexander could not openly punish the ringleader of the riot, and instead removed him to a nominal post of honor in Egypt and then Crete, where he was "quietly put out of the way" sometime after the excitement had abated. The soldiers then fought a three-day battle against the populace of Rome, and this battle ended after several parts of the city were set on fire.
Dio was among those who gave a highly critical account of military discipline during the time, saying that the soldiers would rather just surrender to the enemy. Different reasons are given for this issue; Campbell points to ...the decline in the prestige of the Severan dynasty, the feeble nature of Alexander himself, who appeared to be no soldier and to be completely dominated by his mother's advice, and lack of real military success at a time during which the empire was coming under increasing pressure.
Herodian, on the other hand, was convinced that "the emperor's miserliness (partly the result of his mother's greed) and slowness to bestow donatives" were instrumental in the fall of military discipline under Alexander.
Germanic War.
After the Persian war, Alexander returned to Antioch with Origen, one of the Fathers of the Christian Church. Alexander's mother, Julia Mamaea, asked for Origen to tutor Alexander in Christianity.
While Alexander was being educated in the Christian doctrines, the northern portion of his empire was being invaded by Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. A new and menacing enemy started to emerge directly after Alexander's success in the Persian war. In 234, the barbarians crossed the Rhine and Danube in hordes that caused alarm as far as Rome. The soldiers serving under Alexander, already demoralized after their costly war against the Persians, were further discontented with their emperor when their homes were destroyed by the barbarian invaders.
As word of the invasion spread, the emperor took the front line and went to battle against the Germanic invaders. The Romans prepared heavily for the war, building a fleet to carry the entire army across. However, at this point in Alexander's career, he still knew little about being a general. Because of this, he hoped the mere threat of his armies would be sufficient to persuade the hostile tribes to surrender. Severus enforced a strict military discipline in his men that sparked a rebellion among his legions. Due to incurring heavy losses against the Persians, and on the advice of his mother, Alexander attempted to buy the Germanic tribes off, so as to gain time.
It was this decision that resulted in the legionaries looking down upon Alexander. They considered him dishonorable and feared he was unfit to be Emperor. Under these circumstances the army swiftly looked to replace Alexander.
Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus was the next best option. He was a soldier from Thrace who had a golden reputation and was working hard to increase his military status. He was also a man with superior personal strength, who rose to his present position from a peasant background. With the Thracian's hailing came the end of the Severan Dynasty, and, with the growing animosity of Severus' army towards him, the path for his assassination was paved.
Assassination.
Alexander was forced to face his German enemies in the early months of 235. By the time he and his mother arrived, the situation had settled, and so his mother convinced him that to avoid violence, trying to bribe the German army to surrender was the more sensible course of action. According to historians, it was this tactic combined with insubordination from his own men that destroyed his reputation and popularity. Alexander was thus assassinated together with his mother on 21 or 22 March, in a mutiny of the Legio XXII "Primigenia" at Moguntiacum (Mainz) while at a meeting with his generals. These assassinations secured the throne for Maximinus.
The Historia Augusta documents two theories that elaborate on Severus's assassination. The first claims that the disaffection of Mamaea was the main motive behind the homicide. However, Lampridius makes it clear that he is more supportive of an alternative theory, that Alexander was murdered in Sicilia (located in Britain).
This theory has it that, in an open tent after his lunch, Alexander was consulting with his insubordinate troops, who compared him to his cousin Elagabalus, the divisive and unpopular Emperor whose own assassination paved the way for Alexander's reign. A German servant entered the tent and initiated the call for Alexander's assassination, at which point many of the troops joined in the attack. Alexander's attendants fought against the other troops but could not hold off the combined might of those seeking the Emperor's assassination. Within minutes, Alexander was dead. His mother, Julia Mamaea, was in the same tent with Alexander and soon fell victim to the same group of assassins.
Alexander's body was buried together with the body of his mother, Julia Mamaea, in a mausoleum in Rome. The actual mausoleum, called , is the third largest in Rome after those of Hadrian and Augustus. It is still visible in Piazza dei Tribuni, in the Quadraro area in Rome, where it resembles a large earth mound. The large sarcophagus found inside the tomb in the 16th century, and which contained the emperor's remains, is in the Palazzo dei Conservatori Museum in Rome. According to some sources inside the same sarcophagus in 1582 a precious glass urn was found, the Portland Vase, currently on display at the British Museum in London.
Legacy.
Alexander's death marked the end of the Severan dynasty. He was the last of the Syrian emperors and the first emperor to be overthrown by military discontent on a wide scale. After his death his economic policies were completely discarded, and the Roman currency was devalued; this signaled the beginning of the chaotic period known as the Crisis of the Third Century, which brought the empire to the brink of collapse.
Alexander's death at the hands of his troops can also be seen as the heralding of a new role for Roman emperors. Though they were not yet expected to personally fight in battle during Alexander's time, emperors were increasingly expected to display general competence in military affairs. Thus, Alexander's taking of his mother's advice to not get involved in battle, his dishonorable and unsoldierly methods of dealing with the Germanic threat, and the relative failure of his military campaign against the Persians were all deemed highly unacceptable by the soldiers. Indeed, Maximinus was able to overthrow Alexander by "harping on his own military excellence in contrast to that feeble coward". Yet by arrogating the power to dethrone their emperor, the legions paved the way for a half-century of widespread chaos and instability.
Alexander was deified after the death of Maximinus in 238.
Perhaps his most tangible legacy was the emergence in the 16th century of the "Barberini Vase". This was allegedly found at the mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus and his family at . The discovery of the vase is described by Pietro Santi Bartoli. Pietro Bartoli indicates that the vase contained the ashes of Severus Alexander. However, this together with the interpretations of the scenes depicted are the source of countless theories and disputed 'facts'. The vase passed through the hands of Sir William Hamilton Ambassador to the Royal Court in Naples and was later sold to the Duke and Duchess of Portland, and has subsequently been known as the Portland Vase. Following catastrophic damage in 1845, this vase has been reconstructed three times and resides in the British Museum. The Portland vase itself was borrowed and near copied by Josiah Wedgewood who appears to have added modesty drapery. The vase formed the basis of Jasperware.
Personal life.
Family.
Alexander's only known wife was Sallustia Orbiana, "Augusta", whom he married in 225 when she was 16 years old. Their marriage was arranged by Alexander's mother, Mamaea. According to historian Herodian, however, as soon as Orbiana received the title of "Augusta", Mamaea became increasingly jealous and resentful of Alexander's wife due to Mamaea's excessive desire of all regal female titles. Alexander divorced and exiled Orbiana in 227, after her father, Seius Sallustius, was executed after being accused of treason.
According to "Historia Augusta", a late Roman work containing biographies of emperors and others, and considered by scholars to be a work of dubious historical reliability, Alexander was also at some point married to Sulpicia Memmia, a member of one of the most ancient Patrician families in Rome and a daughter to a man of consular rank; her grandfather's name was "Catulus". She is mentioned as his wife only in this later text, thus the marriage has been questioned.
The ancient historian Zosimus claimed that Alexander was married three times. A man named Varius Macrinus may have been Alexander's father-in-law, but it is uncertain if he was the same man as Seius Sallustius, the father of Memmia or the father of an entirely unknown third wife.
Alexander is not known to have fathered any children.
Also, according to the "Historia Augusta", Alexander's "chief amusement consisted in having young dogs play with little pigs." Herodian portrays him as a mother's boy.
Christianity.
The "Historia Augusta" claims that Alexander prayed every morning in his private chapel. He was extremely tolerant of Jews and Christians alike. He continued all privileges towards Jews during his reign, and the Augustan History relates that Alexander placed images of Abraham and Jesus in his oratory, along with other Roman deities and classical figures.
Family.
Alexander's only known wife was Sallustia Orbiana, "Augusta", whom he married in 225 when she was 16 years old. Their marriage was arranged by Alexander's mother, Mamaea. According to historian Herodian, however, as soon as Orbiana received the title of "Augusta", Mamaea became increasingly jealous and resentful of Alexander's wife due to Mamaea's excessive desire of all regal female titles. Alexander divorced and exiled Orbiana in 227, after her father, Seius Sallustius, was executed after being accused of treason.
According to "Historia Augusta", a late Roman work containing biographies of emperors and others, and considered by scholars to be a work of dubious historical reliability, Alexander was also at some point married to Sulpicia Memmia, a member of one of the most ancient Patrician families in Rome and a daughter to a man of consular rank; her grandfather's name was "Catulus". She is mentioned as his wife only in this later text, thus the marriage has been questioned.
The ancient historian Zosimus claimed that Alexander was married three times. A man named Varius Macrinus may have been Alexander's father-in-law, but it is uncertain if he was the same man as Seius Sallustius, the father of Memmia or the father of an entirely unknown third wife.
Alexander is not known to have fathered any children.
Also, according to the "Historia Augusta", Alexander's "chief amusement consisted in having young dogs play with little pigs." Herodian portrays him as a mother's boy.
Christianity.
The "Historia Augusta" claims that Alexander prayed every morning in his private chapel. He was extremely tolerant of Jews and Christians alike. He continued all privileges towards Jews during his reign, and the Augustan History relates that Alexander placed images of Abraham and Jesus in his oratory, along with other Roman deities and classical figures.
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1615
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Alexios II Komnenos
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Alexios II Komnenos (; 14 September 1169September 1183), Latinized Alexius II Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1180 to 1183. He ascended to the throne as a minor. For the duration of his short reign, the imperial power was "de facto" held by regents.
Biography.
Early years.
Born in the purple at Constantinople, Alexios was the long-awaited son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (who gave him a name that began with the letter alpha as a fulfillment of the AIMA prophecy) and Maria of Antioch. In 1171 he was crowned co-emperor, and in 1175 he accompanied his father at Dorylaion in Asia Minor in order to have the city rebuilt. On 2 March 1180, at the age of eleven, he was married to Agnes of France aged 10, daughter of King Louis VII of France. She was thereafter known as Anna, and after Alexios' murder three years later, Anna would be remarried to the person responsible, Andronikos, then aged 65.
Regency of Maria and Alexios.
When Manuel I died in September 1180, Alexios II succeeded him as emperor. At this time, however, he was an uneducated boy with only amusement in mind. The imperial regency was then undertaken by the dowager empress and the "prōtosebastos" Alexios Komnenos (a namesake cousin of Alexios II), who was popularly believed to be her lover.
The regents depleted the imperial treasury by granting privileges to Italian merchants and to the Byzantine aristocracy. When Béla III of Hungary and Kilij Arslan II of Rum began raiding within the Byzantine western and eastern borders respectively, the regents were forced to ask for help to the pope and to Saladin. Furthermore, a party supporting Alexios II's right to reign, led by his half-sister Maria Komnene and her husband the "caesar" John, stirred up riots in the streets of the capital.
The regents managed to defeat the party on April 1182, but Andronikos Komnenos, a first cousin of Manuel I, took advantage of the disorder to aim at the crown. He entered Constantinople, received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the government. His arrival was celebrated by a massacre of the Latins in Constantinople, especially the Venetian merchants, which he made no attempt to stop.
Regency of Andronikos and death.
On 16 May 1182 Andronikos, posing as Alexios' protector, officially restored him on the throne. As for 1180, the young emperor was uninterested in ruling matters, and Andronikos effectively acted as the power behind the throne, not allowing Alexios any voice in public affairs. One after another, Andronikos suppressed most of Alexios' defenders and supporters: his half-sister Maria Komnene, the "caesar" John, his loyal generals Andronikos Doukas Angelos, Andronikos Kontostephanos and John Komnenos Vatatzes, while Empress Dowager Maria was put in prison.
In 1183, Alexios was compelled to condemn his own mother to death. In September 1183, Andronikos was formally proclaimed emperor before the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè. Probably by the end of the same month, Andronikos ordered Alexios' assassination; the young emperor was secretly strangled with a bow-string and his body buried in the Bósporos.
In the years following Alexios' mysterious disappearance, many young men resembling him tried to claim the throne. In the end, none of those "pseudo-Alexioi" managed to become emperor.
Early years.
Born in the purple at Constantinople, Alexios was the long-awaited son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (who gave him a name that began with the letter alpha as a fulfillment of the AIMA prophecy) and Maria of Antioch. In 1171 he was crowned co-emperor, and in 1175 he accompanied his father at Dorylaion in Asia Minor in order to have the city rebuilt. On 2 March 1180, at the age of eleven, he was married to Agnes of France aged 10, daughter of King Louis VII of France. She was thereafter known as Anna, and after Alexios' murder three years later, Anna would be remarried to the person responsible, Andronikos, then aged 65.
Regency of Maria and Alexios.
When Manuel I died in September 1180, Alexios II succeeded him as emperor. At this time, however, he was an uneducated boy with only amusement in mind. The imperial regency was then undertaken by the dowager empress and the "prōtosebastos" Alexios Komnenos (a namesake cousin of Alexios II), who was popularly believed to be her lover.
The regents depleted the imperial treasury by granting privileges to Italian merchants and to the Byzantine aristocracy. When Béla III of Hungary and Kilij Arslan II of Rum began raiding within the Byzantine western and eastern borders respectively, the regents were forced to ask for help to the pope and to Saladin. Furthermore, a party supporting Alexios II's right to reign, led by his half-sister Maria Komnene and her husband the "caesar" John, stirred up riots in the streets of the capital.
The regents managed to defeat the party on April 1182, but Andronikos Komnenos, a first cousin of Manuel I, took advantage of the disorder to aim at the crown. He entered Constantinople, received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the government. His arrival was celebrated by a massacre of the Latins in Constantinople, especially the Venetian merchants, which he made no attempt to stop.
Regency of Andronikos and death.
On 16 May 1182 Andronikos, posing as Alexios' protector, officially restored him on the throne. As for 1180, the young emperor was uninterested in ruling matters, and Andronikos effectively acted as the power behind the throne, not allowing Alexios any voice in public affairs. One after another, Andronikos suppressed most of Alexios' defenders and supporters: his half-sister Maria Komnene, the "caesar" John, his loyal generals Andronikos Doukas Angelos, Andronikos Kontostephanos and John Komnenos Vatatzes, while Empress Dowager Maria was put in prison.
In 1183, Alexios was compelled to condemn his own mother to death. In September 1183, Andronikos was formally proclaimed emperor before the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè. Probably by the end of the same month, Andronikos ordered Alexios' assassination; the young emperor was secretly strangled with a bow-string and his body buried in the Bósporos.
In the years following Alexios' mysterious disappearance, many young men resembling him tried to claim the throne. In the end, none of those "pseudo-Alexioi" managed to become emperor.
Portrayal in fiction.
Alexios is a character in the historical novel "Agnes of France" (1980) by Greek writer Kostas Kyriazis. The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel I, Alexios II, and Andronikos I through the eyes of Agnes.
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1616
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Alexios III Angelos
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Alexios III Angelos (; 1211), Latinized as Alexius III Angelus, was Byzantine Emperor from March 1195 to 17/18 July 1203. He reigned under the name Alexios Komnenos (), associating himself with the Komnenos dynasty (from which he was descended matrilineally). A member of the extended imperial family, Alexios came to the throne after deposing, blinding and imprisoning his younger brother Isaac II Angelos. The most significant event of his reign was the attack of the Fourth Crusade on Constantinople in 1203, on behalf of Alexios IV Angelos. Alexios III took over the defence of the city, which he mismanaged, and then fled the city at night with one of his three daughters. From Adrianople, and then Mosynopolis, he attempted unsuccessfully to rally his supporters, only to end up a captive of Marquis Boniface of Montferrat. He was ransomed and sent to Asia Minor where he plotted against his son-in-law Theodore I Laskaris, but was eventually captured and spent his last days confined to the Monastery of Hyakinthos in Nicaea, where he died.
Early life.
Alexios III was the second son of Andronikos Doukas Angelos and Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa. Andronikos was himself a son of Theodora Komnene, the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina. Thus, Alexios III was a member of the extended imperial family. Together with his father and brothers, Alexios had conspired against Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (), and thus he spent several years in exile in Muslim courts, including that of Saladin.
His younger brother Isaac II was threatened with execution under orders of Andronikos I, their first-cousin once-removed, on 11 September 1185. Isaac made a desperate attack on the imperial agents and soon killed their leader Stephen Hagiochristophorites. He then took refuge in the church of Hagia Sophia and from there appealed to the populace. His actions provoked a riot, which resulted in the deposition of Andronikos I and the proclamation of Isaac as Emperor. Alexios was now closer to the imperial throne than ever before.
Reign.
By 1190 Alexios had returned to the court of his younger brother, from whom he received the elevated title of "sebastokratōr". In March 1195 while Isaac II was away hunting in Thrace, Alexios was acclaimed as emperor by the troops with the covert support of Alexios' wife Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera. Alexios captured Isaac at Stagira in Macedonia, put out his eyes, and thenceforth kept him a close prisoner, despite having previously been redeemed by Alexios from captivity at Antioch and showered with honours.
To compensate for this crime and to solidify his position as emperor, Alexios 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. These actions inevitably led to the financial ruin of the state. At Christmas 1196, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI attempted to force Alexios to pay him a tribute of 5,000 pounds (later negotiated down to 1,600 pounds) of gold or face invasion. Alexios gathered the money by plundering imperial tombs at the church of the Holy Apostles and heavily taxing the people through the "Alamanikon". Because of Henry's death in September 1197, the gold was never dispatched. The Empress Euphrosyne tried in vain to sustain his credit and his court; Vatatzes, the favourite instrument in her attempts at reform, was assassinated by the emperor's orders.
In the east the Empire was overrun by the Seljuk Turks; from the north, the Kingdom of Hungary and the rebellious Bulgarians and Vlachs descended unchecked to ravage the Balkan provinces of the Empire, sometimes penetrating as far as Greece, while Alexios squandered the public treasure on his palaces and gardens and attempted to deal with the crisis through diplomatic means. The Emperor's attempts to bolster the empire's defences by special concessions to "pronoiai" (notables) in the frontier zone backfired, as the latter increased their regional autonomy. Byzantine authority survived, but in a much weakened state. In 1197, local lord Dobromir Chrysos established himself in the region of Vardar Macedonia, defying the imperial power for several years.
During the first years of Alexios' reign, relations between Byzantium and Serbia were good, since his daughter Eudokia Angelina was married to Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanjić II, who was granted the title of "sebastokrator". But in 1200, those relations deteriorated. The marriage between Stefan and Eudokia was dissolved, and the alliance between Serbia and Byzantium ended, leaving Byzantium without a single ally in Southeastern Europe.
Fourth Crusade.
Soon, Alexios was threatened by a new and more formidable danger. In 1202, soldiers assembled at Venice to launch the Fourth Crusade. Alexios IV Angelos, the son of the deposed Isaac II, had recently escaped from Constantinople and now appealed for support to the crusaders, promising to end the East–West Schism, to pay for their transport, and to provide military support if they would help him depose his uncle and ascend to his father's throne.
The crusaders, whose objective had been Egypt, were persuaded to set their course for Constantinople, arriving there in June 1203, proclaiming Alexios IV as emperor, and inviting the populace of the capital to depose his uncle. Alexios III took no effective measures to resist, and his attempts to bribe the crusaders failed. His son-in-law, Theodore I Laskaris, who was the only one to attempt anything significant, was defeated at Scutari, and the siege of Constantinople began. Misgovernment by Alexios III had left the Byzantine navy with only 20 worm-eaten hulks by the time the crusaders arrived.
In July, the crusaders, led by the aged Doge Enrico Dandolo, scaled the walls and took control of a major section of the city. In the ensuing fighting, the crusaders set the city on fire, ultimately leaving 20,000 people homeless. On 17 July, Alexios III finally took action and led 17 divisions from the Gate of St. Romanus, vastly outnumbering the crusaders. His courage failed, however, and the Byzantine army returned to the city without a fight. His courtiers demanded action, and Alexios III promised to fight. Instead, that night (17/18 July), Alexios III hid in the palace, and finally, with one of his daughters, Eirene, and as much treasure (1,000 pounds of gold) as he could collect, got into a boat and escaped to Develtos in Thrace, leaving his wife and his other daughters behind. Isaac II, drawn from his prison and robed once more in the imperial purple, received his son, Alexios IV, in state.
Life in exile.
Alexios III attempted to organize resistance to the new regime from Adrianople and then Mosynopolis, where he was joined by the later usurper Alexios V Doukas in April 1204, after the definitive fall of Constantinople to the crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire. At first, Alexios III received Alexios V well, even allowing him to marry his daughter Eudokia Angelina. Later, Alexios V was blinded and deserted by his father-in-law, who fled from the crusaders into Thessaly. Here Alexios III eventually surrendered, with Euphrosyne, to Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, who was establishing himself as ruler of the Kingdom of Thessalonica.
Alexios III attempted to escape Boniface's "protection" in 1205, seeking shelter with Michael I Komnenos Doukas, the ruler of Epirus. Captured by Boniface, Alexios and his retinue were sent to Montferrat before being brought back to Thessalonica in . At that point the deposed emperor was ransomed by Michael I, who sent him to Asia Minor, where Alexios' son-in-law Theodore – now emperor of Nicaea – was holding his own against the Latins. Here Alexios conspired against his son-in-law after the latter refused to recognize Alexios' authority, receiving the support of Kaykhusraw I, the sultan of Rûm. In the Battle of Antioch on the Meander in 1211, the sultan was defeated and killed, and Alexios was captured by Theodore. Alexios was then confined to a monastery at Nicaea, where he died later in 1211.
Family.
By his marriage to Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera, Alexios had three daughters:
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1617
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Alexios V Doukas
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Alexios V Doukas (; – December 1204), in Latinised spelling Alexius V Ducas, was Byzantine emperor from February to April 1204, just prior to the sack of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth Crusade. His family name was Doukas, but he was also known by the nickname Mourtzouphlos or Murtzuphlus (), referring to either bushy, overhanging eyebrows or a sullen, gloomy character. He achieved power through a palace coup, killing his predecessors in the process. Though he made vigorous attempts to defend Constantinople from the crusader army, his military efforts proved ineffective. His actions won the support of the mass of the populace, but he alienated the elite of the city. Following the fall, sack, and occupation of the city, Alexios V was blinded by another ex-emperor and later executed by the new Latin regime. He was the last Byzantine emperor to rule in Constantinople until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople in 1261.
Origins and character.
Though in possession of the surname used by a leading Byzantine aristocratic family, there is very little definitely known concerning the ancestry of Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos. The noble Doukas clan were not the only Doukai, as the surname was also employed by many families of humble origins. It has been claimed that Alexios Doukas was a great-great-grandson of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos () in the female line (cognatic descent). This is not improbable, as all other Byzantine emperors, and the majority of attempted usurpers, of the period had a connection with the former imperial house of the Komnenoi, either by descent or marriage. A more precise theory has been proposed, that he was the son of an Isaac Doukas, and was the second cousin of Alexios IV Angelos (). A letter sent to Pope Innocent III, stated that Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos was 'a blood relation' of Alexios IV Angelos.
The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates was dismissed from office as logothete of the "sekreta" by Mourtzouphlos. His assessment of the emperor's character might therefore be biased; however, Choniates allows that he was extremely clever by nature, though arrogant in his manner and lecherous.
Political intrigues and usurpation.
The participation of Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos in the attempted overthrow of Alexios III Angelos () by John Komnenos the Fat in 1200 had led to his imprisonment. Mourtzouphlos was probably imprisoned from 1201 until the restoration to the throne of Isaac II Angelos (), the brother and predecessor of Alexios III. Isaac II, along with his son Alexios IV Angelos, were restored to the throne through the intervention of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in July 1203. On release, Mourtzouphlos was invested with the court position of "protovestiarios" (head of the imperial finances). He had been married twice but was allegedly the lover of Eudokia Angelina, a daughter of Alexios III.
By the beginning of 1204, Isaac II and Alexios IV had inspired little confidence among the people of Constantinople with their efforts to protect the city from the Latin crusaders and their Venetian allies, and the citizens were becoming restless. The crusaders were also losing patience with the emperors; they rioted and set fires in the city when the money and aid promised by Alexios IV was not forthcoming. The fires affected about a sixth of the area of Constantinople and may have made up to a third of the population homeless; the dislocation and desperation of those affected eventually sapped the will of the people to resist the crusaders. Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos emerged as a leader of the anti-Latin movement in the city. He won the approval of the populace by his valour in leading an attack on the Latins at "Trypetos Lithos"; in this clash his mount stumbled and he would have been killed or captured had a band of youthful archers from the city not defended him. Mourtzouphlos exploited the hatred of the people for the Latins to serve his personal ambition.
The citizens of Constantinople rebelled in late January 1204, and in the chaos an otherwise obscure nobleman named Nicholas Kanabos was acclaimed emperor, though he was unwilling to accept the crown. The two co-emperors barricaded themselves in the Palace of Blachernae and entrusted Mourtzouphlos with a mission to seek help from the crusaders, or at least they informed him of their intentions. Instead of contacting the crusaders, Mourtzouphlos, on the night of 28–29 January 1204, used his access to the palace to bribe the "ax-bearers" (the Varangian Guard), and with their backing arrest the emperors. Choniates states that Mourtzouphlos, when bribing the guards, had the help of a eunuch with access to the imperial treasury. The support of the Varangians seems to have been of major importance in the success of the coup, though Mourtzouphlos also had help from his relations and associates. The young Alexios IV was eventually strangled in prison; while his father Isaac, both enfeebled and blind, died at around the time of the coup, his death variously attributed to fright, sorrow, or mistreatment. Kanabos was initially spared and offered an office under Alexios V, but he refused both this and a further summons from the emperor and took sanctuary in the Hagia Sophia; he was forcibly removed and killed on the steps of the cathedral.
Emperor.
The timing of the deaths of the deposed emperors and of Kanabos, and their relation to the coronation of Alexios V are problematic. Alexios V appears to have been acclaimed emperor as early as the night he moved against the Angeloi co-emperors, on 27 January. He was crowned soon after, on or around 5 February.
Finding the treasury empty, the new emperor confiscated money from the aristocracy and high officials to be put to public use. These actions endeared Alexios V to the citizens, but alienated his relations and other prominent supporters. Once in firm control, Alexios V closed the gates of the city to the crusaders and strengthened the fortifications. Sword in hand, he was active in leading attacks on sorties made by the crusaders in search of supplies. On 2 February, Henry of Flanders led a part of the crusader army to Filea (or Phileas), in order to obtain food supplies. As he returned towards Constantinople, Alexios V attacked his rearguard. The Byzantines were defeated, the imperial standard and an important icon of the Virgin (the "Panagia Nikopoios") were captured. The Byzantines lost some of their best soldiers in the clash, and Alexios V was lucky to escape alive. At about this time Alexios V attempted to destroy the crusader fleet with fire-ships, but to little effect.
The loss of the icon, traditionally seen as a physical embodiment of divine protection for the city, was a severe psychological blow. Its possession by the crusaders convinced many of the population of Constantinople that the victory of the Westerners was now divinely sanctioned, as a punishment for the sins of the Byzantines.
Around 8 February, Alexios V met the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, for peace talks. The conditions demanded by the Venetian, however, were too harsh for the Byzantines to consider. Choniates states that the meeting was brought to a close by a sudden attack by crusader cavalry on Alexios V and his entourage, the emperor narrowly escaping capture. Alexios IV was probably killed the same day; the insistence by the crusaders that he be restored to the throne may have precipitated his death. When news of the death of Alexios IV reached the crusaders, relations between them and Alexios V deteriorated further. The forcible expulsion of all Latins resident in Constantinople in March seems to have been the tipping point which led the crusaders to begin actively negotiating amongst themselves regarding the partition of the Byzantine Empire. They also began to prepare for their final assault on the city, which took place the following month.
The fall of Constantinople, flight and death.
The defenders of Constantinople held out against a crusader assault on 9 April. The crusaders' second attack three days later, however, proved too strong to repel. Breaking through the walls near the Petria Gate, the crusaders entered the city and looted the Blachernae Palace. Alexios V attempted to rally the people to the defence of the city, but with no success. Alexios V then boarded a fishing boat and fled the city towards Thrace on the night of 12 April 1204, accompanied by Eudokia Angelina and her mother Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera. In the Hagia Sophia Constantine Laskaris was acclaimed as emperor, but being unable to persuade the Varangians to continue the fight, in the early hours of 13 April he also fled, leaving Constantinople under crusader control.
Alexios V and his companions eventually reached Mosynopolis, which had been occupied by the deposed emperor Alexios III Angelos and his followers. At first they were well received, with Alexios V marrying Eudokia Angelina. Later, however, Alexios III arranged for his new son-in-law to be made captive and blinded, thereby rendering him ineligible for the imperial throne. Having been abandoned by both his supporters and his father-in-law, Alexios V was captured near Mosynopolis, or possibly in Anatolia, by the advancing Latins under Thierry de Loos in November 1204. On his return to Constantinople as a prisoner, Alexios V was tried for treason against Alexios IV. In his trial the blind ex-emperor argued that it was Alexios IV who had committed treason to his country, through his intention to invite the crusaders to enter Constantinople in force. On being condemned, he was executed by novel means: he was thrown to his death from the top of the Column of Theodosius.
The new, alien, Latin regime of conquerors in Constantinople may have viewed the public trial and execution of the man who murdered the last "legitimate emperor" as a way to cast an aura of legitimacy on themselves. Alexios V was the last Byzantine Emperor to reign in Constantinople before the establishment of the Latin Empire, which controlled the city for the next 57 years, until it was recovered by the Nicaean Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261.
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783
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193 BCE
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1000
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Hercule Poirot
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Hercule Poirot (, ) is a fictional Belgian detective created by British writer Agatha Christie. Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-running characters, appearing in 33 novels, two plays ("Black Coffee" and "Alibi"), and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.
Poirot has been portrayed on radio, in film and on television by various actors, including Austin Trevor, John Moffatt, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina, Orson Welles, David Suchet, Kenneth Branagh, and John Malkovich.
Overview.
Influences.
Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. Evans' Jules Poiret "was small and rather heavyset, hardly more than five feet, but moved with his head held high. The most remarkable features of his head were the stiff military moustache. His apparel was neat to perfection, a little quaint and frankly dandified." He was accompanied by Captain Harry Haven, who had returned to London from a Colombian business venture ended by a civil war.
A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In "An Autobiography", Christie states, "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp". For his part, Conan Doyle acknowledged basing his detective stories on the model of Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and his anonymous narrator, and basing his character Sherlock Holmes on Joseph Bell, who in his use of "ratiocination" prefigured Poirot's reliance on his "little grey cells".
Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté, who first appeared in the 1910 novel "At the Villa Rose" and predates the first Poirot novel by 10 years.
Christie's Poirot was clearly the result of her early development of the detective in her first book, written in 1916 and published in 1920. Belgium's occupation by Germany during World War I provided a plausible explanation of why such a skilled detective would be available to solve mysteries at an English country house. At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's "casus belli" for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium".
Popularity.
Poirot first appeared in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (published in 1920) and exited in "Curtain" (published in 1975). Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of "The New York Times".
By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and by 1960 she felt that he was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Despite this, Poirot remained an exceedingly popular character with the general public. Christie later stated that she refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked.
Appearance and proclivities.
Captain Arthur Hastings's first description of Poirot:
Agatha Christie's initial description of Poirot in "The Murder on the Orient Express":
In the later books, his limp is not mentioned, suggesting it may have been a temporary wartime injury. (In "", Poirot admits he was wounded when he first came to England.) Poirot has green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a cat's" when he is struck by a clever idea, and dark hair, which he dyes later in life. In "Curtain", he admits to Hastings that he wears a wig and a false moustache. However, in many of his screen incarnations, he is bald or balding.
Frequent mention is made of his patent leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a source of misery for him, but comical for the reader. Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, later falls hopelessly out of fashion.
Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of his stomach:
He suffers from sea sickness, and, in "Death in the Clouds", he states that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told:
Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a pocket watch almost to the end of his career. He is also particular about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence. Actor David Suchet, who portrayed Poirot on television, said "there's no question he's obsessive-compulsive". Film portrayer Kenneth Branagh said that he "enjoyed finding the sort of obsessive-compulsive" in Poirot.
As mentioned in "Curtain" and "The Clocks", he is fond of classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach.
Methods.
In "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based and logical detective; reflected in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Hastings is irritated by the fact that Poirot sometimes conceals important details of his plans, as in "The Big Four". In this novel, Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator to mislead.
In "Murder on the Links," still largely dependent on clues himself, Poirot mocks a rival "bloodhound" detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues established in detective fiction (e.g., Sherlock Holmes depending on footprints, fingerprints, and cigar ash). From this point on, Poirot establishes his psychological bona fides. Rather than painstakingly examining crime scenes, he enquires into the nature of the victim or the psychology of the murderer. He predicates his actions in the later novels on his underlying assumption that particular crimes are committed by particular types of people.
Poirot focuses on getting people to talk. In the early novels, he casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. In later works, Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background to assist him in obtaining information. In "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Poirot speaks of a non-existent mentally disabled nephew to uncover information about homes for the mentally unfit. In "Dumb Witness", Poirot invents an elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate local nurses. In "The Big Four", Poirot pretends to have (and poses as) an identical twin brother named Achille: however, this brother was mentioned again in "The Labours of Hercules".
"If I remember rightly – though my memory isn't what it was – you also had a brother called Achille, did you not?” Poirot's mind raced back over the details of Achille Poirot's career. Had all that really happened? "Only for a short space of time," he replied.
Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much:
It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. ... Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much." ... And so, you see, I put people off their guard.
He also has a tendency to refer to himself in the third person.
In later novels, Christie often uses the word "mountebank" when characters describe Poirot, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.
Poirot's investigating techniques assist him solving cases; "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away..." At the end, Poirot usually reveals his description of the sequence of events and his deductions to a room of suspects, often leading to the culprit's apprehension.
Influences.
Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. Evans' Jules Poiret "was small and rather heavyset, hardly more than five feet, but moved with his head held high. The most remarkable features of his head were the stiff military moustache. His apparel was neat to perfection, a little quaint and frankly dandified." He was accompanied by Captain Harry Haven, who had returned to London from a Colombian business venture ended by a civil war.
A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In "An Autobiography", Christie states, "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp". For his part, Conan Doyle acknowledged basing his detective stories on the model of Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and his anonymous narrator, and basing his character Sherlock Holmes on Joseph Bell, who in his use of "ratiocination" prefigured Poirot's reliance on his "little grey cells".
Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté, who first appeared in the 1910 novel "At the Villa Rose" and predates the first Poirot novel by 10 years.
Christie's Poirot was clearly the result of her early development of the detective in her first book, written in 1916 and published in 1920. Belgium's occupation by Germany during World War I provided a plausible explanation of why such a skilled detective would be available to solve mysteries at an English country house. At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's "casus belli" for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium".
Popularity.
Poirot first appeared in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (published in 1920) and exited in "Curtain" (published in 1975). Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of "The New York Times".
By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and by 1960 she felt that he was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Despite this, Poirot remained an exceedingly popular character with the general public. Christie later stated that she refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked.
Appearance and proclivities.
Captain Arthur Hastings's first description of Poirot:
Agatha Christie's initial description of Poirot in "The Murder on the Orient Express":
In the later books, his limp is not mentioned, suggesting it may have been a temporary wartime injury. (In "", Poirot admits he was wounded when he first came to England.) Poirot has green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a cat's" when he is struck by a clever idea, and dark hair, which he dyes later in life. In "Curtain", he admits to Hastings that he wears a wig and a false moustache. However, in many of his screen incarnations, he is bald or balding.
Frequent mention is made of his patent leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a source of misery for him, but comical for the reader. Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, later falls hopelessly out of fashion.
Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of his stomach:
He suffers from sea sickness, and, in "Death in the Clouds", he states that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told:
Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a pocket watch almost to the end of his career. He is also particular about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence. Actor David Suchet, who portrayed Poirot on television, said "there's no question he's obsessive-compulsive". Film portrayer Kenneth Branagh said that he "enjoyed finding the sort of obsessive-compulsive" in Poirot.
As mentioned in "Curtain" and "The Clocks", he is fond of classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach.
Methods.
In "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based and logical detective; reflected in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Hastings is irritated by the fact that Poirot sometimes conceals important details of his plans, as in "The Big Four". In this novel, Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator to mislead.
In "Murder on the Links," still largely dependent on clues himself, Poirot mocks a rival "bloodhound" detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues established in detective fiction (e.g., Sherlock Holmes depending on footprints, fingerprints, and cigar ash). From this point on, Poirot establishes his psychological bona fides. Rather than painstakingly examining crime scenes, he enquires into the nature of the victim or the psychology of the murderer. He predicates his actions in the later novels on his underlying assumption that particular crimes are committed by particular types of people.
Poirot focuses on getting people to talk. In the early novels, he casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. In later works, Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background to assist him in obtaining information. In "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Poirot speaks of a non-existent mentally disabled nephew to uncover information about homes for the mentally unfit. In "Dumb Witness", Poirot invents an elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate local nurses. In "The Big Four", Poirot pretends to have (and poses as) an identical twin brother named Achille: however, this brother was mentioned again in "The Labours of Hercules".
"If I remember rightly – though my memory isn't what it was – you also had a brother called Achille, did you not?” Poirot's mind raced back over the details of Achille Poirot's career. Had all that really happened? "Only for a short space of time," he replied.
Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much:
It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. ... Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much." ... And so, you see, I put people off their guard.
He also has a tendency to refer to himself in the third person.
In later novels, Christie often uses the word "mountebank" when characters describe Poirot, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.
Poirot's investigating techniques assist him solving cases; "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away..." At the end, Poirot usually reveals his description of the sequence of events and his deductions to a room of suspects, often leading to the culprit's apprehension.
Life.
Origins.
Christie was purposely vague about Poirot's origins, as he is thought to be an elderly man even in the early novels. In "An Autobiography," she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. At the time, however, she had no idea she would write works featuring him for decades to come.
A brief passage in "The Big Four" provides original information about Poirot's birth or at least childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium: "But we did not go into Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet and an isolated white villa high on the hillside." Christie strongly implies that this "quiet retreat in the Ardennes" near Spa is the location of the Poirot family home.
An alternative tradition holds that Poirot was born in the village of Ellezelles (province of Hainaut, Belgium). A few memorials dedicated to Hercule Poirot can be seen in the centre of this village. There appears to be no reference to this in Christie's writings, but the town of Ellezelles cherishes a copy of Poirot's birth certificate in a local memorial 'attesting' Poirot's birth, naming his father and mother as Jules-Louis Poirot and Godelieve Poirot.
Christie wrote that Poirot is a Catholic by birth, but not much is described about his later religious convictions, except sporadic references to his "going to church". Christie provides little information regarding Poirot's childhood, only mentioning in "Three Act Tragedy" that he comes from a large family with little wealth, and has at least one younger sister. Apart from French and English, Poirot is also fluent in German.
Policeman.
Gustave ... was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I "know". He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself.
Hercule Poirot was active in the Brussels police force by 1893. Very little mention is made about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer ... poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". As Poirot was often misleading about his past to gain information, the truthfulness of that statement is unknown; it does, however, scare off a would-be wife-killer.
In the short story "The Chocolate Box" (1923), Poirot reveals to Captain Arthur Hastings an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:
I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success.
Nevertheless, he regards the 1893 case in "The Chocolate Box", as his only actual failure of detection. Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth. During his police career, Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof into the public below. In "Lord Edgware Dies", Poirot reveals that he learned to read writing upside down during his police career. Around that time he met Xavier Bouc, director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
Inspector Japp offers some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:
You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here.
In "The Double Clue," Poirot mentions that he was Chief of Police of Brussels, until "the Great War" (World War I) forced him to leave for England.
Private detective.
I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot.
During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for England as a refugee, although he returned a few times. On 16 July 1916 he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, as Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years" ("Agatha Christie's Poirot" has Hastings reveal that they met on a shooting case where Hastings was a suspect). Particulars such as the date of 1916 for the case and that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, are given in "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", Chapter 1. After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister. Readers were told that the British authorities had learned of Poirot's keen investigative ability from certain members of Belgium's royal family.
After the war, Poirot became a private detective and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, Flat 203 at 56B Whitehaven Mansions. Hastings first visits the flat when he returns to England in June 1935 from Argentina in "The A.B.C. Murders", Chapter 1. The TV programmes place this in Florin Court, Charterhouse Square, in the wrong part of London. According to Hastings, it was chosen by Poirot "entirely on account of its strict geometrical appearance and proportion" and described as the "newest type of service flat". (The Florin Court building was actually built in 1936, decades after Poirot fictionally moved in.) His first case in this period was "The Affair at the Victory Ball", which allowed Poirot to enter high society and begin his career as a private detective.
Between the world wars, Poirot travelled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and solving murders. Most of his cases occurred during this time and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. In "The Murder on the Links", the Belgian pits his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East, he solved the cases "Death on the Nile" and "Murder in Mesopotamia" with ease and even survived "An Appointment with Death". As he passed through Eastern Europe on his return trip, he solved "The Murder on the Orient Express". However, he did not travel to Africa or Asia, probably to avoid seasickness.
It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The "mal de mer" – it is horrible suffering!
It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff offered wildly varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.
It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the countess held for him.
Although letting the countess escape was morally questionable, it was not uncommon. In "The Nemean Lion", Poirot sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, allowing her to evade prosecution by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who, Poirot discovered, had plans to commit murder. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff prior to the conclusion of her dog kidnapping campaign. In "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Poirot allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then withheld the truth to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In "The Augean Stables", he helped the government to cover up vast corruption. In "Murder on the Orient Express", Poirot allowed the murderers to go free after discovering that twelve different people participated in the murder, each one stabbing the victim in a darkened carriage after drugging him into unconsciousness so that there was no way for anyone to definitively determine which of them actually delivered the killing blow. The victim had committed a disgusting crime which led to the deaths of at least five people, and there was no question of his guilt, but he had been acquitted in America in a miscarriage of justice. Considering it poetic justice that twelve jurors had acquitted him and twelve people had stabbed him, Poirot produced an alternative sequence of events to explain the death involving an unknown additional passenger on the train, with the medical examiner agreeing to doctor his own report to support this theory.
After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain. Apart from some of the so-called Labours of Hercules (see next section) he very rarely went abroad during his later career. He moved into Styles Court towards the end of his life.
While Poirot was usually paid handsomely by clients, he was also known to take on cases that piqued his curiosity, although they did not pay well.
Poirot shows a love of steam trains, which Christie contrasts with Hastings' love of autos: this is shown in "The Plymouth Express", "The Mystery of the Blue Train", "Murder on the Orient Express", and "The ABC Murders" (in the TV series, steam trains are seen in nearly all of the episodes).
Retirement.
That’s the way of it. Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna’s farewell performance won’t be in it with yours, Poirot.
Confusion surrounds Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". It has been said that the twelve cases related in "The Labours of Hercules" (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before "Roger Ackroyd", and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" of the twenty-year gap between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the "Labours" precede the events in "Roger Ackroyd", then the Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years "later" than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself. Also, in "The Erymanthian Boar", a character is said to have been turned out of Austria by the Nazis, implying that the events of "The Labours of Hercules" took place after 1937. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the "Labours" takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive.
In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of "The Big Four" (1927) which places that novel out of published order before "Roger Ackroyd". He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of "Peril at End House" (1932). He has certainly retired at the time of "Three Act Tragedy" (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and repeatedly takes cases thereafter when his curiosity is engaged. He continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in "Hickory Dickory Dock" and "Dead Man's Folly", which take place in the mid-1950s. It is, therefore, better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective, or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.
One consistent element about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters (especially younger characters) recognise neither him nor his name:
"I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am "Hercule Poirot"."
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
"What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?"
Post–World War II.
Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with "Three Act Tragedy" (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a subgenre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as "Taken at the Flood", "After the Funeral", and "Hickory Dickory Dock", he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In "Cat Among the Pigeons", Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of Christie's distaste for him, is impossible to assess. "Crooked House" (1949) and "Ordeal by Innocence" (1957), which could easily have been Poirot novels, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of his presence in such works.
Towards the end of his career, it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction. He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels. He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic riddles as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand.
Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator) becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up-and-coming generation's young people. In "Hickory Dickory Dock", he investigates the strange goings-on in a student hostel, while in "Third Girl" (1966) he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the sixties, he proves himself once again but has become heavily reliant on other investigators (especially the private investigator, Mr. Goby) who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself.
Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically, and by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in "Curtain", he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.
Death.
On the ITV television series, Poirot died in October 1949 from complications of a heart condition at the end of "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case". This took place at Styles Court, the scene of his first English case in 1916. In Christie's novels, he lived into the early 1970s, perhaps even until 1975 when "Curtain" was published. In both the novel and the television adaptation, he had moved his amyl nitrite pills out of his own reach, possibly because of guilt. He thereby became the murderer in "Curtain", although it was for the benefit of others. Poirot himself noted that he wanted to kill his victim shortly before his own death so that he could avoid succumbing to the arrogance of the murderer, concerned that he might come to view himself as entitled to kill those whom he deemed necessary to eliminate.
The "murderer" that he was hunting had never actually killed anyone, but he had manipulated others to kill for him, subtly and psychologically manipulating the moments where others desire to commit murder so that they carry out the crime when they might otherwise dismiss their thoughts as nothing more than a momentary passion. Poirot thus was forced to kill the man himself, as otherwise he would have continued his actions and never been officially convicted, as he did not legally do anything wrong. It is revealed at the end of "Curtain" that he fakes his need for a wheelchair to fool people into believing that he is suffering from arthritis, to give the impression that he is more infirm than he is. His last recorded words are "Cher ami!", spoken to Hastings as the Captain left his room. (The TV adaptation adds that as Poirot is dying alone, he whispers out his final prayer to God in these words: "Forgive me... forgive...") Poirot was buried at Styles, and his funeral was arranged by his best friend Hastings and Hastings' daughter Judith. Hastings reasoned, "Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here at the last."
Poirot's actual death and funeral occurred in "Curtain", years after his retirement from the active investigation, but it was not the first time that Hastings attended the funeral of his best friend. In "The Big Four" (1927), Poirot feigned his death and subsequent funeral to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.
Origins.
Christie was purposely vague about Poirot's origins, as he is thought to be an elderly man even in the early novels. In "An Autobiography," she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. At the time, however, she had no idea she would write works featuring him for decades to come.
A brief passage in "The Big Four" provides original information about Poirot's birth or at least childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium: "But we did not go into Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet and an isolated white villa high on the hillside." Christie strongly implies that this "quiet retreat in the Ardennes" near Spa is the location of the Poirot family home.
An alternative tradition holds that Poirot was born in the village of Ellezelles (province of Hainaut, Belgium). A few memorials dedicated to Hercule Poirot can be seen in the centre of this village. There appears to be no reference to this in Christie's writings, but the town of Ellezelles cherishes a copy of Poirot's birth certificate in a local memorial 'attesting' Poirot's birth, naming his father and mother as Jules-Louis Poirot and Godelieve Poirot.
Christie wrote that Poirot is a Catholic by birth, but not much is described about his later religious convictions, except sporadic references to his "going to church". Christie provides little information regarding Poirot's childhood, only mentioning in "Three Act Tragedy" that he comes from a large family with little wealth, and has at least one younger sister. Apart from French and English, Poirot is also fluent in German.
Policeman.
Gustave ... was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I "know". He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself.
Hercule Poirot was active in the Brussels police force by 1893. Very little mention is made about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer ... poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". As Poirot was often misleading about his past to gain information, the truthfulness of that statement is unknown; it does, however, scare off a would-be wife-killer.
In the short story "The Chocolate Box" (1923), Poirot reveals to Captain Arthur Hastings an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:
I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success.
Nevertheless, he regards the 1893 case in "The Chocolate Box", as his only actual failure of detection. Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth. During his police career, Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof into the public below. In "Lord Edgware Dies", Poirot reveals that he learned to read writing upside down during his police career. Around that time he met Xavier Bouc, director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
Inspector Japp offers some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:
You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here.
In "The Double Clue," Poirot mentions that he was Chief of Police of Brussels, until "the Great War" (World War I) forced him to leave for England.
Private detective.
I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot.
During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for England as a refugee, although he returned a few times. On 16 July 1916 he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, as Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years" ("Agatha Christie's Poirot" has Hastings reveal that they met on a shooting case where Hastings was a suspect). Particulars such as the date of 1916 for the case and that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, are given in "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", Chapter 1. After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister. Readers were told that the British authorities had learned of Poirot's keen investigative ability from certain members of Belgium's royal family.
After the war, Poirot became a private detective and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, Flat 203 at 56B Whitehaven Mansions. Hastings first visits the flat when he returns to England in June 1935 from Argentina in "The A.B.C. Murders", Chapter 1. The TV programmes place this in Florin Court, Charterhouse Square, in the wrong part of London. According to Hastings, it was chosen by Poirot "entirely on account of its strict geometrical appearance and proportion" and described as the "newest type of service flat". (The Florin Court building was actually built in 1936, decades after Poirot fictionally moved in.) His first case in this period was "The Affair at the Victory Ball", which allowed Poirot to enter high society and begin his career as a private detective.
Between the world wars, Poirot travelled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and solving murders. Most of his cases occurred during this time and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. In "The Murder on the Links", the Belgian pits his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East, he solved the cases "Death on the Nile" and "Murder in Mesopotamia" with ease and even survived "An Appointment with Death". As he passed through Eastern Europe on his return trip, he solved "The Murder on the Orient Express". However, he did not travel to Africa or Asia, probably to avoid seasickness.
It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The "mal de mer" – it is horrible suffering!
It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff offered wildly varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.
It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the countess held for him.
Although letting the countess escape was morally questionable, it was not uncommon. In "The Nemean Lion", Poirot sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, allowing her to evade prosecution by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who, Poirot discovered, had plans to commit murder. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff prior to the conclusion of her dog kidnapping campaign. In "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Poirot allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then withheld the truth to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In "The Augean Stables", he helped the government to cover up vast corruption. In "Murder on the Orient Express", Poirot allowed the murderers to go free after discovering that twelve different people participated in the murder, each one stabbing the victim in a darkened carriage after drugging him into unconsciousness so that there was no way for anyone to definitively determine which of them actually delivered the killing blow. The victim had committed a disgusting crime which led to the deaths of at least five people, and there was no question of his guilt, but he had been acquitted in America in a miscarriage of justice. Considering it poetic justice that twelve jurors had acquitted him and twelve people had stabbed him, Poirot produced an alternative sequence of events to explain the death involving an unknown additional passenger on the train, with the medical examiner agreeing to doctor his own report to support this theory.
After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain. Apart from some of the so-called Labours of Hercules (see next section) he very rarely went abroad during his later career. He moved into Styles Court towards the end of his life.
While Poirot was usually paid handsomely by clients, he was also known to take on cases that piqued his curiosity, although they did not pay well.
Poirot shows a love of steam trains, which Christie contrasts with Hastings' love of autos: this is shown in "The Plymouth Express", "The Mystery of the Blue Train", "Murder on the Orient Express", and "The ABC Murders" (in the TV series, steam trains are seen in nearly all of the episodes).
Retirement.
That’s the way of it. Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna’s farewell performance won’t be in it with yours, Poirot.
Confusion surrounds Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". It has been said that the twelve cases related in "The Labours of Hercules" (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before "Roger Ackroyd", and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" of the twenty-year gap between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the "Labours" precede the events in "Roger Ackroyd", then the Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years "later" than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself. Also, in "The Erymanthian Boar", a character is said to have been turned out of Austria by the Nazis, implying that the events of "The Labours of Hercules" took place after 1937. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the "Labours" takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive.
In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of "The Big Four" (1927) which places that novel out of published order before "Roger Ackroyd". He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of "Peril at End House" (1932). He has certainly retired at the time of "Three Act Tragedy" (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and repeatedly takes cases thereafter when his curiosity is engaged. He continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in "Hickory Dickory Dock" and "Dead Man's Folly", which take place in the mid-1950s. It is, therefore, better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective, or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.
One consistent element about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters (especially younger characters) recognise neither him nor his name:
"I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am "Hercule Poirot"."
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
"What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?"
Post–World War II.
Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with "Three Act Tragedy" (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a subgenre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as "Taken at the Flood", "After the Funeral", and "Hickory Dickory Dock", he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In "Cat Among the Pigeons", Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of Christie's distaste for him, is impossible to assess. "Crooked House" (1949) and "Ordeal by Innocence" (1957), which could easily have been Poirot novels, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of his presence in such works.
Towards the end of his career, it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction. He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels. He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic riddles as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand.
Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator) becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up-and-coming generation's young people. In "Hickory Dickory Dock", he investigates the strange goings-on in a student hostel, while in "Third Girl" (1966) he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the sixties, he proves himself once again but has become heavily reliant on other investigators (especially the private investigator, Mr. Goby) who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself.
Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically, and by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in "Curtain", he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.
Death.
On the ITV television series, Poirot died in October 1949 from complications of a heart condition at the end of "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case". This took place at Styles Court, the scene of his first English case in 1916. In Christie's novels, he lived into the early 1970s, perhaps even until 1975 when "Curtain" was published. In both the novel and the television adaptation, he had moved his amyl nitrite pills out of his own reach, possibly because of guilt. He thereby became the murderer in "Curtain", although it was for the benefit of others. Poirot himself noted that he wanted to kill his victim shortly before his own death so that he could avoid succumbing to the arrogance of the murderer, concerned that he might come to view himself as entitled to kill those whom he deemed necessary to eliminate.
The "murderer" that he was hunting had never actually killed anyone, but he had manipulated others to kill for him, subtly and psychologically manipulating the moments where others desire to commit murder so that they carry out the crime when they might otherwise dismiss their thoughts as nothing more than a momentary passion. Poirot thus was forced to kill the man himself, as otherwise he would have continued his actions and never been officially convicted, as he did not legally do anything wrong. It is revealed at the end of "Curtain" that he fakes his need for a wheelchair to fool people into believing that he is suffering from arthritis, to give the impression that he is more infirm than he is. His last recorded words are "Cher ami!", spoken to Hastings as the Captain left his room. (The TV adaptation adds that as Poirot is dying alone, he whispers out his final prayer to God in these words: "Forgive me... forgive...") Poirot was buried at Styles, and his funeral was arranged by his best friend Hastings and Hastings' daughter Judith. Hastings reasoned, "Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here at the last."
Poirot's actual death and funeral occurred in "Curtain", years after his retirement from the active investigation, but it was not the first time that Hastings attended the funeral of his best friend. In "The Big Four" (1927), Poirot feigned his death and subsequent funeral to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.
Recurring characters.
Captain Arthur Hastings.
Hastings, a former British Army officer, meets Poirot during Poirot's years as a police officer in Belgium and almost immediately after they both arrive in England. He becomes Poirot's lifelong friend and appears in many cases. Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal or seeing things the way the average man would see them and for his tendency to unknowingly "stumble" onto the truth. Hastings marries and has four children – two sons and two daughters. As a loyal, albeit somewhat naïve companion, Hastings is to Poirot what Watson is to Sherlock Holmes.
Hastings is capable of great bravery and courage, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by "The Big Four" and displaying unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. However, when forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he initially chooses to betray Poirot to protect his wife. Later, though, he tells Poirot to draw back and escape the trap.
The two are an airtight team until Hastings meets and marries Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age, after investigating the "Murder on the Links". They later emigrated to Argentina, leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man". However, Poirot and Hastings reunite during the novels "The Big Four", "Peril at End House", "The ABC Murders", "Lord Edgware Dies", and "Dumb Witness," when Hastings arrives in England for business, with Poirot noting in "ABC Murders" that he enjoys having Hastings over because he feels that he always has his most interesting cases with Hastings. The two collaborate for the final time in "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" when the seemingly-crippled Poirot asks Hastings to assist him in his final case. When the killer they are tracking nearly manipulates Hastings into committing murder, Poirot describes this in his final farewell letter to Hastings as the catalyst that prompted him to eliminate the man himself, as Poirot "knew" that his friend was not a murderer and refused to let a man capable of manipulating Hastings in such a manner go on.
Mrs Ariadne Oliver.
Detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Christie, she is not overly fond of the detective whom she is most famous for creating–in Ariadne's case, Finnish sleuth Sven Hjerson. We never learn anything about her husband, but we do know that she hates alcohol and public appearances and has a great fondness for apples until she is put off them by the events of "Hallowe'en Party". She also has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle, and in every appearance by her much is made of her clothes and hats. Her maid Maria prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer but does nothing to prevent her from becoming too much of a burden on others.
She has authored more than 56 novels and greatly dislikes people modifying her characters. She is the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It’s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot in the story "Cards on the Table" and has bothered him ever since.
Miss Felicity Lemon.
Poirot's secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, has few human weaknesses. The only mistakes she makes within the series are a typing error during the events of "Hickory Dickory Dock" and the mis-mailing of an electricity bill, although she was worried about strange events surrounding her sister at the time. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system. She also worked for the government statistician-turned-philanthropist Parker Pyne. Whether this was during one of Poirot's numerous retirements or before she entered his employment is unknown. In "The Agatha Christie Hour", she was portrayed by Angela Easterling, while in "Agatha Christie's Poirot" she was portrayed by Pauline Moran. On a number of occasions, she joins Poirot in his inquiries or seeks out answers alone at his request.
Chief Inspector James Harold Japp.
Japp is a Scotland Yard Inspector and appears in many of the stories trying to solve cases that Poirot is working on. Japp is outgoing, loud, and sometimes inconsiderate by nature, and his relationship with the refined Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot's world. He first met Poirot in Belgium in 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery. Later that year they joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp and lets him take credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail Poirot being supplied with other interesting cases. In "Agatha Christie's Poirot", Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson. In the film, "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), adapted from "Lord Edgware Dies", the role of Japp was taken by the actor David Suchet, who would later star as Poirot in the ITV adaptations.
Captain Arthur Hastings.
Hastings, a former British Army officer, meets Poirot during Poirot's years as a police officer in Belgium and almost immediately after they both arrive in England. He becomes Poirot's lifelong friend and appears in many cases. Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal or seeing things the way the average man would see them and for his tendency to unknowingly "stumble" onto the truth. Hastings marries and has four children – two sons and two daughters. As a loyal, albeit somewhat naïve companion, Hastings is to Poirot what Watson is to Sherlock Holmes.
Hastings is capable of great bravery and courage, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by "The Big Four" and displaying unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. However, when forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he initially chooses to betray Poirot to protect his wife. Later, though, he tells Poirot to draw back and escape the trap.
The two are an airtight team until Hastings meets and marries Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age, after investigating the "Murder on the Links". They later emigrated to Argentina, leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man". However, Poirot and Hastings reunite during the novels "The Big Four", "Peril at End House", "The ABC Murders", "Lord Edgware Dies", and "Dumb Witness," when Hastings arrives in England for business, with Poirot noting in "ABC Murders" that he enjoys having Hastings over because he feels that he always has his most interesting cases with Hastings. The two collaborate for the final time in "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" when the seemingly-crippled Poirot asks Hastings to assist him in his final case. When the killer they are tracking nearly manipulates Hastings into committing murder, Poirot describes this in his final farewell letter to Hastings as the catalyst that prompted him to eliminate the man himself, as Poirot "knew" that his friend was not a murderer and refused to let a man capable of manipulating Hastings in such a manner go on.
Mrs Ariadne Oliver.
Detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Christie, she is not overly fond of the detective whom she is most famous for creating–in Ariadne's case, Finnish sleuth Sven Hjerson. We never learn anything about her husband, but we do know that she hates alcohol and public appearances and has a great fondness for apples until she is put off them by the events of "Hallowe'en Party". She also has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle, and in every appearance by her much is made of her clothes and hats. Her maid Maria prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer but does nothing to prevent her from becoming too much of a burden on others.
She has authored more than 56 novels and greatly dislikes people modifying her characters. She is the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It’s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot in the story "Cards on the Table" and has bothered him ever since.
Miss Felicity Lemon.
Poirot's secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, has few human weaknesses. The only mistakes she makes within the series are a typing error during the events of "Hickory Dickory Dock" and the mis-mailing of an electricity bill, although she was worried about strange events surrounding her sister at the time. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system. She also worked for the government statistician-turned-philanthropist Parker Pyne. Whether this was during one of Poirot's numerous retirements or before she entered his employment is unknown. In "The Agatha Christie Hour", she was portrayed by Angela Easterling, while in "Agatha Christie's Poirot" she was portrayed by Pauline Moran. On a number of occasions, she joins Poirot in his inquiries or seeks out answers alone at his request.
Chief Inspector James Harold Japp.
Japp is a Scotland Yard Inspector and appears in many of the stories trying to solve cases that Poirot is working on. Japp is outgoing, loud, and sometimes inconsiderate by nature, and his relationship with the refined Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot's world. He first met Poirot in Belgium in 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery. Later that year they joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp and lets him take credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail Poirot being supplied with other interesting cases. In "Agatha Christie's Poirot", Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson. In the film, "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), adapted from "Lord Edgware Dies", the role of Japp was taken by the actor David Suchet, who would later star as Poirot in the ITV adaptations.
Major novels.
The Poirot books take readers through the whole of his life in England, from the first book ("The Mysterious Affair at Styles"), where he is a refugee staying at Styles, to the last Poirot book ("Curtain"), where he visits Styles before his death. In between, Poirot solves cases outside England as well, including his most famous case, "Murder on the Orient Express" (1934).
Hercule Poirot became famous in 1926 with the publication of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", whose surprising solution proved controversial. The novel is still among the most famous of all detective novels: Edmund Wilson alludes to it in the title of his well-known attack on detective fiction, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Aside from "Roger Ackroyd", the most critically acclaimed Poirot novels appeared from 1932 to 1942, including "Murder on the Orient Express" (1934); "The ABC Murders" (1935)"; Cards on the Table" (1936); and "Death on the Nile" (1937), a tale of multiple homicide upon a Nile steamer. "Death on the Nile" was judged by detective novelist John Dickson Carr to be among the ten greatest mystery novels of all time.
The 1942 novel "Five Little Pigs" (a.k.a. "Murder in Retrospect"), in which Poirot investigates a murder committed sixteen years before by analysing various accounts of the tragedy, has been called "the best Christie of all" by critic and mystery novelist Robert Barnard.
In 2014, the Poirot canon was added to by Sophie Hannah, the first author to be commissioned by the Christie estate to write an original story. The novel was called "The Monogram Murders", and was set in the late 1920s, placing it chronologically between "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and "Peril at End House". A second Hannah-penned Poirot came out in 2016, called "Closed Casket", and a third, "The Mystery of Three Quarters", in 2018.
Portrayals.
Stage.
The first actor to portray Hercule Poirot was Charles Laughton. He appeared on the West End in 1928 in the play "Alibi" which had been adapted by Michael Morton from the novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd".
In 1932, the play was performed as "The Fatal Alibi" on Broadway. Another Poirot play, "Black Coffee" opened in London at the Embassy Theatre on 8 December 1930 and starred Francis L. Sullivan as Poirot. Another production of "Black Coffee" ran in Dublin, Ireland from 23 to 28 June 1931, starring Robert Powell. American playwright Ken Ludwig adapted "Murder on the Orient Express" into a play, which premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey on 14 March 2017. It starred Allan Corduner in the role of Hercule Poirot.
Film.
Austin Trevor.
Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film "Alibi". The film was based on the stage play. Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in "Black Coffee" and "Lord Edgware Dies". Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent. Notably, Trevor's Poirot did not have a moustache. Leslie S. Hiscott directed the first two films, and Henry Edwards took over for the third.
Tony Randall.
Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in "The Alphabet Murders", a 1965 film also known as "The ABC Murders". This was more a satire of Poirot than a straightforward adaptation and was greatly changed from the original. Much of the story, set in modern times, was played for comedy, with Poirot investigating the murders while evading the attempts by Hastings (Robert Morley) and the police to get him out of England and back to Belgium.
Albert Finney.
Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of "Murder on the Orient Express". As of today, Finney is the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win.
Peter Ustinov.
Peter Ustinov played Poirot six times, starting with "Death on the Nile" (1978). He reprised the role in "Evil Under the Sun" (1982) and "Appointment with Death" (1988).
Christie's daughter Rosalind Hicks observed Ustinov during a rehearsal and said, "That's not Poirot! He isn't at all like that!" Ustinov overheard and remarked "He is "now!""
He appeared again as Poirot in three television films: "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), "Dead Man's Folly" (1986), and "Murder in Three Acts" (1986). Earlier adaptations were set during the time in which the novels were written, but these television films were set in the contemporary era. The first of these was based on "Lord Edgware Dies" and was made by Warner Bros. It also starred Faye Dunaway, with David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play Poirot. David Suchet considers his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career".
Kenneth Branagh.
Kenneth Branagh played Poirot in film adaptations of "Murder on the Orient Express" in 2017 and "Death on the Nile" in 2022, both of which he also directed. He is currently set to return for a third film.
Television.
David Suchet.
David Suchet starred as Poirot in the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" from 1989 until June 2013, when he announced that he was bidding farewell to the role. "No one could've guessed then that the series would span a quarter-century or that the classically trained Suchet would complete the entire catalogue of whodunits featuring the eccentric Belgian investigator, including 33 novels and dozens of short stories." His final appearance was in an adaptation of "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", aired on 13 November 2013.
The writers of the "Binge!" article of "Entertainment Weekly" Issue #1343–44 (26 December 2014 – 3 January 2015) picked Suchet as "Best Poirot" in the "Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple" timeline.
The episodes were shot in various locations in the UK and abroad (for example "Triangle at Rhodes" and "Problem at Sea"), whilst other scenes were shot at Twickenham Studios.
Anime.
In 2004, NHK (Japanese public TV network) produced a 39 episode anime series titled "Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple", as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005. The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from 4 July 2004 through 15 May 2005, and in repeated reruns on NHK and other networks in Japan. Poirot was voiced by Kōtarō Satomi and Miss Marple was voiced by Kaoru Yachigusa.
Radio.
From 1985 to 2007, BBC Radio 4 produced a series of twenty-seven adaptations of Poirot novels and short stories, adapted by Michael Bakewell and directed by Enyd Williams. Twenty five starred John Moffatt as Poirot; Maurice Denham and Peter Sallis played Poirot on BBC Radio 4 in the first two adaptations, "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and in "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" respectively.
In 1939, Orson Welles and the Mercury Players dramatised "Roger Ackroyd" on CBS's "Campbell Playhouse".
On 6 October 1942, the Mutual radio series "Murder Clinic" broadcast "The Tragedy at Marsden Manor" starring Maurice Tarplin as Poirot.
A 1945 radio series of at least 13 original half-hour episodes (none of which apparently adapt any Christie stories) transferred Poirot from London to New York and starred character actor Harold Huber, perhaps better known for his appearances as a police officer in various Charlie Chan films. On 22 February 1945, "speaking from London, Agatha Christie introduced the initial broadcast of the Poirot series via shortwave".
An adaptation of "Murder in the Mews" was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1955 starring Richard Williams as Poirot; this program was thought lost, but was discovered in the BBC archives in 2015.
Other audio.
In 2017, Audible released an original audio adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express" starring Tom Conti as Poirot. The cast included Jane Asher as Mrs. Hubbard, Jay Benedict as Monsieur Bouc, Ruta Gedmintas as Countess Andrenyi, Sophie Okonedo as Mary Debenham, Eddie Marsan as Ratchett, Walles Hamonde as Hector MacQueen, Paterson Joseph as Colonel Arbuthnot, Rula Lenska as Princess Dragimiroff and Art Malik as the Narrator. According to the Publisher's Summary on Audible.com, "sound effects [were] recorded on the Orient Express itself."
In 2021, L.A. Theatre Works produced an adaptation of "The Murder on the Links", dramatised by Kate McAll. Alfred Molina starred as Poirot, with Simon Helberg as Hastings.
Video games.
The game "Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases" has Poirot voice acted by Will De Renzy-Martin.
Parodies and references.
Parodies of Hercule Poirot have appeared in a number of movies, including "Revenge of the Pink Panther", where Poirot makes a cameo appearance in a mental asylum, portrayed by Andrew Sachs and claiming to be "the greatest detective in all of France, the greatest in all the world"; Neil Simon's "Murder by Death", where "Milo Perrier" is played by American actor James Coco; the 1977 film "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It" (1977); the film "Spice World", where Hugh Laurie plays Poirot; and in "", Poirot appears as a young boy on the train transporting Holmes and Watson. Holmes helps the boy in opening a puzzle-box, with Watson giving the boy advice about using his "little grey cells".
In the book series "Geronimo Stilton", the character Hercule Poirat is inspired by Hercule Poirot.
The Belgian brewery Brasserie Ellezelloise makes a stout called "Hercule" with a moustachioed caricature of Hercule Poirot on the label.
In season 2, episode 4 of TVFPlay's Indian web series "Permanent Roommates", one of the characters refers to Hercule Poirot as her inspiration while she attempts to solve the mystery of the cheating spouse. Throughout the episode, she is mocked as Hercule Poirot and Agatha Christie by the suspects. TVFPlay also telecasted a spoof of Indian TV suspense drama "CID" as "Qissa Missing Dimaag Ka: C.I.D Qtiyapa". In the first episode, when Ujjwal is shown to browse for the best detectives of the world, David Suchet appears as Poirot in his search.
Stage.
The first actor to portray Hercule Poirot was Charles Laughton. He appeared on the West End in 1928 in the play "Alibi" which had been adapted by Michael Morton from the novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd".
In 1932, the play was performed as "The Fatal Alibi" on Broadway. Another Poirot play, "Black Coffee" opened in London at the Embassy Theatre on 8 December 1930 and starred Francis L. Sullivan as Poirot. Another production of "Black Coffee" ran in Dublin, Ireland from 23 to 28 June 1931, starring Robert Powell. American playwright Ken Ludwig adapted "Murder on the Orient Express" into a play, which premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey on 14 March 2017. It starred Allan Corduner in the role of Hercule Poirot.
Film.
Austin Trevor.
Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film "Alibi". The film was based on the stage play. Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in "Black Coffee" and "Lord Edgware Dies". Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent. Notably, Trevor's Poirot did not have a moustache. Leslie S. Hiscott directed the first two films, and Henry Edwards took over for the third.
Tony Randall.
Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in "The Alphabet Murders", a 1965 film also known as "The ABC Murders". This was more a satire of Poirot than a straightforward adaptation and was greatly changed from the original. Much of the story, set in modern times, was played for comedy, with Poirot investigating the murders while evading the attempts by Hastings (Robert Morley) and the police to get him out of England and back to Belgium.
Albert Finney.
Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of "Murder on the Orient Express". As of today, Finney is the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win.
Peter Ustinov.
Peter Ustinov played Poirot six times, starting with "Death on the Nile" (1978). He reprised the role in "Evil Under the Sun" (1982) and "Appointment with Death" (1988).
Christie's daughter Rosalind Hicks observed Ustinov during a rehearsal and said, "That's not Poirot! He isn't at all like that!" Ustinov overheard and remarked "He is "now!""
He appeared again as Poirot in three television films: "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), "Dead Man's Folly" (1986), and "Murder in Three Acts" (1986). Earlier adaptations were set during the time in which the novels were written, but these television films were set in the contemporary era. The first of these was based on "Lord Edgware Dies" and was made by Warner Bros. It also starred Faye Dunaway, with David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play Poirot. David Suchet considers his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career".
Kenneth Branagh.
Kenneth Branagh played Poirot in film adaptations of "Murder on the Orient Express" in 2017 and "Death on the Nile" in 2022, both of which he also directed. He is currently set to return for a third film.
Austin Trevor.
Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film "Alibi". The film was based on the stage play. Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in "Black Coffee" and "Lord Edgware Dies". Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent. Notably, Trevor's Poirot did not have a moustache. Leslie S. Hiscott directed the first two films, and Henry Edwards took over for the third.
Tony Randall.
Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in "The Alphabet Murders", a 1965 film also known as "The ABC Murders". This was more a satire of Poirot than a straightforward adaptation and was greatly changed from the original. Much of the story, set in modern times, was played for comedy, with Poirot investigating the murders while evading the attempts by Hastings (Robert Morley) and the police to get him out of England and back to Belgium.
Albert Finney.
Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of "Murder on the Orient Express". As of today, Finney is the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win.
Peter Ustinov.
Peter Ustinov played Poirot six times, starting with "Death on the Nile" (1978). He reprised the role in "Evil Under the Sun" (1982) and "Appointment with Death" (1988).
Christie's daughter Rosalind Hicks observed Ustinov during a rehearsal and said, "That's not Poirot! He isn't at all like that!" Ustinov overheard and remarked "He is "now!""
He appeared again as Poirot in three television films: "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), "Dead Man's Folly" (1986), and "Murder in Three Acts" (1986). Earlier adaptations were set during the time in which the novels were written, but these television films were set in the contemporary era. The first of these was based on "Lord Edgware Dies" and was made by Warner Bros. It also starred Faye Dunaway, with David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play Poirot. David Suchet considers his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career".
Kenneth Branagh.
Kenneth Branagh played Poirot in film adaptations of "Murder on the Orient Express" in 2017 and "Death on the Nile" in 2022, both of which he also directed. He is currently set to return for a third film.
Television.
David Suchet.
David Suchet starred as Poirot in the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" from 1989 until June 2013, when he announced that he was bidding farewell to the role. "No one could've guessed then that the series would span a quarter-century or that the classically trained Suchet would complete the entire catalogue of whodunits featuring the eccentric Belgian investigator, including 33 novels and dozens of short stories." His final appearance was in an adaptation of "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", aired on 13 November 2013.
The writers of the "Binge!" article of "Entertainment Weekly" Issue #1343–44 (26 December 2014 – 3 January 2015) picked Suchet as "Best Poirot" in the "Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple" timeline.
The episodes were shot in various locations in the UK and abroad (for example "Triangle at Rhodes" and "Problem at Sea"), whilst other scenes were shot at Twickenham Studios.
David Suchet.
David Suchet starred as Poirot in the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" from 1989 until June 2013, when he announced that he was bidding farewell to the role. "No one could've guessed then that the series would span a quarter-century or that the classically trained Suchet would complete the entire catalogue of whodunits featuring the eccentric Belgian investigator, including 33 novels and dozens of short stories." His final appearance was in an adaptation of "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", aired on 13 November 2013.
The writers of the "Binge!" article of "Entertainment Weekly" Issue #1343–44 (26 December 2014 – 3 January 2015) picked Suchet as "Best Poirot" in the "Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple" timeline.
The episodes were shot in various locations in the UK and abroad (for example "Triangle at Rhodes" and "Problem at Sea"), whilst other scenes were shot at Twickenham Studios.
Anime.
In 2004, NHK (Japanese public TV network) produced a 39 episode anime series titled "Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple", as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005. The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from 4 July 2004 through 15 May 2005, and in repeated reruns on NHK and other networks in Japan. Poirot was voiced by Kōtarō Satomi and Miss Marple was voiced by Kaoru Yachigusa.
Radio.
From 1985 to 2007, BBC Radio 4 produced a series of twenty-seven adaptations of Poirot novels and short stories, adapted by Michael Bakewell and directed by Enyd Williams. Twenty five starred John Moffatt as Poirot; Maurice Denham and Peter Sallis played Poirot on BBC Radio 4 in the first two adaptations, "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and in "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" respectively.
In 1939, Orson Welles and the Mercury Players dramatised "Roger Ackroyd" on CBS's "Campbell Playhouse".
On 6 October 1942, the Mutual radio series "Murder Clinic" broadcast "The Tragedy at Marsden Manor" starring Maurice Tarplin as Poirot.
A 1945 radio series of at least 13 original half-hour episodes (none of which apparently adapt any Christie stories) transferred Poirot from London to New York and starred character actor Harold Huber, perhaps better known for his appearances as a police officer in various Charlie Chan films. On 22 February 1945, "speaking from London, Agatha Christie introduced the initial broadcast of the Poirot series via shortwave".
An adaptation of "Murder in the Mews" was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1955 starring Richard Williams as Poirot; this program was thought lost, but was discovered in the BBC archives in 2015.
Other audio.
In 2017, Audible released an original audio adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express" starring Tom Conti as Poirot. The cast included Jane Asher as Mrs. Hubbard, Jay Benedict as Monsieur Bouc, Ruta Gedmintas as Countess Andrenyi, Sophie Okonedo as Mary Debenham, Eddie Marsan as Ratchett, Walles Hamonde as Hector MacQueen, Paterson Joseph as Colonel Arbuthnot, Rula Lenska as Princess Dragimiroff and Art Malik as the Narrator. According to the Publisher's Summary on Audible.com, "sound effects [were] recorded on the Orient Express itself."
In 2021, L.A. Theatre Works produced an adaptation of "The Murder on the Links", dramatised by Kate McAll. Alfred Molina starred as Poirot, with Simon Helberg as Hastings.
Video games.
The game "Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases" has Poirot voice acted by Will De Renzy-Martin.
Parodies and references.
Parodies of Hercule Poirot have appeared in a number of movies, including "Revenge of the Pink Panther", where Poirot makes a cameo appearance in a mental asylum, portrayed by Andrew Sachs and claiming to be "the greatest detective in all of France, the greatest in all the world"; Neil Simon's "Murder by Death", where "Milo Perrier" is played by American actor James Coco; the 1977 film "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It" (1977); the film "Spice World", where Hugh Laurie plays Poirot; and in "", Poirot appears as a young boy on the train transporting Holmes and Watson. Holmes helps the boy in opening a puzzle-box, with Watson giving the boy advice about using his "little grey cells".
In the book series "Geronimo Stilton", the character Hercule Poirat is inspired by Hercule Poirot.
The Belgian brewery Brasserie Ellezelloise makes a stout called "Hercule" with a moustachioed caricature of Hercule Poirot on the label.
In season 2, episode 4 of TVFPlay's Indian web series "Permanent Roommates", one of the characters refers to Hercule Poirot as her inspiration while she attempts to solve the mystery of the cheating spouse. Throughout the episode, she is mocked as Hercule Poirot and Agatha Christie by the suspects. TVFPlay also telecasted a spoof of Indian TV suspense drama "CID" as "Qissa Missing Dimaag Ka: C.I.D Qtiyapa". In the first episode, when Ujjwal is shown to browse for the best detectives of the world, David Suchet appears as Poirot in his search.
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. A prominent Soviet dissident, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, in particular the Gulag system.
Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church. While still young, Solzhenitsyn lost his faith in Christianity, became an atheist, and embraced Marxism–Leninism. While serving as a captain in the Red Army during World War II, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by the SMERSH and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then internal exile for criticizing Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a private letter. As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically-minded Eastern Orthodox Christian.
As a result of the Khrushchev Thaw, Solzhenitsyn was released and exonerated. He pursued writing novels about repressions in the Soviet Union and his experiences. He published his first novel, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1962, with approval from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, which was an account of Stalinist repressions. Solzhenitsyn's last work to be published in the Soviet Union was "Matryona's Place" in 1963. Following the removal of Khrushchev from power, the Soviet authorities attempted to discourage Solzhenitsyn from continuing to write. He continued to work on further novels and their publication in other countries including "Cancer Ward" in 1966, "In the First Circle" in 1968, "August 1914" in 1971, and "The Gulag Archipelago" in 1973, the publication of which outraged the Soviet authorities. In 1974 Solzhenitsyn lost his Soviet citizenship and was flown to West Germany. In 1976, he moved with his family to the United States, where he continued to write. In 1990, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his citizenship was restored, and four years later he returned to Russia, where he remained until his death in 2008.
He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature", and "The Gulag Archipelago" was a highly influential work that "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state", and sold tens of millions of copies.
Biography.
Early years.
Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk (now in Stavropol Krai, Russia). His father, Isaakiy Semyonovich Solzhenitsyn, was of Russian descent and his mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak), was of Ukrainian descent. Taisiya's father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, acquiring a large estate in the Kuban region in the northern foothills of the Caucasus and during World War I, Taisiya had gone to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy, a young officer in the Imperial Russian Army of Cossack origin and fellow native of the Caucasus region. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the opening chapters of "August 1914", and in the later "Red Wheel" novels.
In 1918, Taisiya became pregnant with Aleksandr. On 15 June, shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr was raised by his widowed mother and his aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the Russian Civil War. By 1930 the family property had been turned into a collective farm. Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and that they had to keep his father's background in the old Imperial Army a secret. His educated mother encouraged his literary and scientific learnings and raised him in the Russian Orthodox faith; she died in 1944 having never remarried.
As early as 1936, Solzhenitsyn began developing the characters and concepts for planned epic work on World War I and the Russian Revolution. This eventually led to the novel "August 1914"; some of the chapters he wrote then still survive. Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics and physics at Rostov State University. At the same time, he took correspondence courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, which by this time were heavily ideological in scope. As he himself makes clear, he did not question the state ideology or the superiority of the Soviet Union until he spent time in the camps.
World War II.
During the war, Solzhenitsyn served as the commander of a sound-ranging battery in the Red Army, was involved in major action at the front, and was twice decorated. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star on 8 July 1944 for sound-ranging two German artillery batteries and adjusting counterbattery fire onto them, resulting in their destruction.
A series of writings published late in his life, including the early uncompleted novel "Love the Revolution!", chronicle his wartime experience and growing doubts about the moral foundations of the Soviet regime.
While serving as an artillery officer in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn witnessed war crimes against local German civilians by Soviet military personnel. Of the atrocities, Solzhenitsyn wrote: "You know very well that we've come to Germany to take our revenge" for Nazi atrocities committed in the Soviet Union. The noncombatants and the elderly were robbed of their meager possessions and women and girls were gang-raped. A few years later, in the forced labor camp, he memorized a poem titled "Prussian Nights" about a woman raped to death in East Prussia. In this poem, which describes the gang-rape of a Polish woman whom the Red Army soldiers mistakenly thought to be a German, the first-person narrator comments on the events with sarcasm and refers to the responsibility of official Soviet writers like Ilya Ehrenburg.
In "The Gulag Archipelago", Solzhenitsyn wrote, "There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were "we" any better?'"
Imprisonment.
In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he called "Khozyain" ("the boss"), and "Balabos" (Yiddish rendering of Hebrew "baal ha-bayit" for "master of the house"). He also had talks with the same friend about the need for a new organization to replace the Soviet regime.
Solzhenitsyn was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58, paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organization" under paragraph 11. Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated. On 9 May 1945, it was announced that Germany had surrendered and all of Moscow broke out in celebrations with fireworks and searchlights illuminating the sky to celebrate the victory in the Great Patriotic War. From his cell in the Lubyanka, Solzhenitsyn remembered: "Above the muzzle of our window, and from all the other cells of the Lubyanka, and from all the windows of the Moscow prisons, we too, former prisoners of war and former front-line soldiers, watched the Moscow heavens, patterned with fireworks and crisscrossed with beams of searchlights. There was no rejoicing in our cells and no hugs and no kisses for us. That victory was not ours." On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by Special Council of the NKVD to an eight-year term in a labour camp. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time.
The first part of Solzhenitsyn's sentence was served in several work camps; the "middle phase", as he later referred to it, was spent in a "sharashka" (a special scientific research facility run by Ministry of State Security), where he met Lev Kopelev, upon whom he based the character of Lev Rubin in his book "The First Circle", published in a self-censored or "distorted" version in the West in 1968 (an English translation of the full version was eventually published by Harper Perennial in October 2009). In 1950, Solzhenitsyn was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". One of his fellow political prisoners, Ion Moraru, remembers that Solzhenitsyn spent some of his time at Ekibastuz writing. While there, Solzhenitsyn had a tumor removed. His cancer was not diagnosed at the time.
In March 1953, after his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn was sent to internal exile for life at Birlik, a village in Baidibek District of South Kazakhstan. His undiagnosed cancer spread until, by the end of the year, he was close to death. In 1954, Solzhenitsyn was permitted to be treated in a hospital in Tashkent, where his tumor went into remission. His experiences there became the basis of his novel "Cancer Ward" and also found an echo in the short story "The Right Hand."
It was during this decade of imprisonment and exile that Solzhenitsyn developed the philosophical and religious positions of his later life, gradually becoming a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian as a result of his experience in prison and the camps. He repented for some of his actions as a Red Army captain, and in prison compared himself to the perpetrators of the Gulag. His transformation is described at some length in the fourth part of "The Gulag Archipelago" ("The Soul and Barbed Wire"). The narrative poem "The Trail" (written without benefit of pen or paper in prison and camps between 1947 and 1952) and the 28 poems composed in prison, forced-labour camp, and exile also provide crucial material for understanding Solzhenitsyn's intellectual and spiritual odyssey during this period. These "early" works, largely unknown in the West, were published for the first time in Russian in 1999 and excerpted in English in 2006.
Marriages and children.
On 7 April 1940, while at the university, Solzhenitsyn married Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya. They had just over a year of married life before he went into the army, then to the Gulag. They divorced in 1952, a year before his release because the wives of Gulag prisoners faced the loss of work or residence permits. After the end of his internal exile, they remarried in 1957, divorcing a second time in 1972. Reshetovskaya wrote negatively of Solzhenitsyn in her memoirs, accusing him of having affairs, and said of the relationship that "[Solzhenitsyn]'s despotism ... would crush my independence and would not permit my personality to develop." In her 1974 memoir, "Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn", she wrote that she was "perplexed" that the West had accepted "The Gulag Archipelago" as "the solemn, ultimate truth", saying its significance had been "overestimated and wrongly appraised". Pointing out that the book's subtitle is "An Experiment in Literary Investigation", she said that her husband did not regard the work as "historical research, or scientific research". She contended that it was, rather, a collection of "camp folklore", containing "raw material" which her husband was planning to use in his future productions.
In 1973, Solzhenitsyn married his second wife, Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova, a mathematician who had a son, Dmitri Turin, from a brief prior marriage. He and Svetlova (born 1939) had three sons: Yermolai (1970), Ignat (1972), and Stepan (1973). Dmitri Turin died on 18 March 1994, aged 32, at his home in New York City.
After prison.
After Khrushchev's Secret Speech in 1956, Solzhenitsyn was freed from exile and exonerated. Following his return from exile, Solzhenitsyn was, while teaching at a secondary school during the day, spending his nights secretly engaged in writing. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he wrote that "during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known."
In 1960, aged 42, Solzhenitsyn approached Aleksandr Tvardovsky, a poet and the chief editor of the "Novy Mir" magazine, with the manuscript of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". It was published in edited form in 1962, with the explicit approval of Nikita Khrushchev, who defended it at the presidium of the Politburo hearing on whether to allow its publication, and added: "There's a Stalinist in each of you; there's even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil." The book quickly sold out and became an instant hit. In the 1960s, while Solzhenitsyn was publicly known to be writing "Cancer Ward", he was simultaneously writing "The Gulag Archipelago". During Khrushchev's tenure, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was studied in schools in the Soviet Union, as were three more short works of Solzhenitsyn's, including his short story "Matryona's Home", published in 1963. These would be the last of his works published in the Soviet Union until 1990.
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" brought the Soviet system of prison labour to the attention of the West. It caused as much of a sensation in the Soviet Union as it did in the West—not only by its striking realism and candour, but also because it was the first major piece of Soviet literature since the 1920s on a politically charged theme, written by a non-party member, indeed a man who had been to Siberia for "libelous speech" about the leaders, and yet its publication had been officially permitted. In this sense, the publication of Solzhenitsyn's story was almost unheard of instance of free, unrestrained discussion of politics through literature. However, after Khrushchev had been ousted from power in 1964, the time for such raw, exposing works came to an end.
Later years in the Soviet Union.
Solzhenitsyn made an unsuccessful attempt, with the help of Tvardovsky, to have his novel "Cancer Ward" legally published in the Soviet Union. This required the approval of the Union of Writers. Though some there appreciated it, the work was ultimately denied publication unless it was to be revised and cleaned of suspect statements and anti-Soviet insinuations.
After Khrushchev's removal in 1964, the cultural climate again became more repressive. Publishing of Solzhenitsyn's work quickly stopped; as a writer, he became a non-person, and, by 1965, the KGB had seized some of his papers, including the manuscript of "The First Circle". Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn continued to secretly and feverishly work on the most well-known of his writings, "The Gulag Archipelago". The seizing of his novel manuscript first made him desperate and frightened, but gradually he realized that it had set him free from the pretenses and trappings of being an "officially acclaimed" writer, a status which had become familiar but which was becoming increasingly irrelevant.
After the KGB had confiscated Solzhenitsyn's materials in Moscow, in the years 1965 to 1967, the preparatory drafts of "The Gulag Archipelago" were turned into finished typescript in hiding at his friends' homes in Soviet Estonia. Solzhenitsyn had befriended Arnold Susi, a lawyer and former Minister of Education of Estonia in a Lubyanka Building prison cell. After completion, Solzhenitsyn's original handwritten script was kept hidden from the KGB in Estonia by Arnold Susi's daughter Heli Susi until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Union of Writers. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He could not receive the prize personally in Stockholm at that time, since he was afraid he would not be let back into the Soviet Union. Instead, it was suggested he should receive the prize in a special ceremony at the Swedish embassy in Moscow. The Swedish government refused to accept this solution because such a ceremony and the ensuing media coverage might upset the Soviet Union and damage Swedish-Soviet relations. Instead, Solzhenitsyn received his prize at the 1974 ceremony after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union. In 1973, another manuscript written by Solzhenitsyn was confiscated by the KGB after his friend Elizaveta Voronyanskaya was questioned non-stop for five days until she revealed its location, according to a statement by Solzhenitsyn to Western reporters on September 6, 1973. According to Solzhenitsyn, "When she returned home, she hanged herself."
"The Gulag Archipelago" was composed from 1958 to 1967, and has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. It was a three-volume, seven-part work on the Soviet prison camp system, which drew from Solzhenitsyn's experiences and the testimony of 256 former prisoners and Solzhenitsyn's own research into the history of the Russian penal system. It discusses the system's origins from the founding of the Communist regime, with Vladimir Lenin having responsibility, detailing interrogation procedures, prisoner transports, prison camp culture, prisoner uprisings and revolts such as the Kengir uprising, and the practice of internal exile. Soviet and Communist studies historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft wrote that the book was essentially a "literary and political work", and "never claimed to place the camps in a historical or social-scientific quantitative perspective" but that in the case of qualitative estimates, Solzhenitsyn gave his high estimate as he wanted to challenge the Soviet authorities to show that "the scale of the camps was less than this." Historian J. Arch Getty wrote of Solzhenitsyn's methodology that "such documentation is methodically unacceptable in other fields of history", which gives priority to vague hearsay and leads towards selective bias. According to journalist Anne Applebaum, who has made extensive research on the Gulag, "The Gulag Archipelago"'s rich and varied authorial voice, its unique weaving together of personal testimony, philosophical analysis, and historical investigation, and its unrelenting indictment of Communist ideology made it one of the most influential books of the 20th century.
On 8 August 1971, the KGB allegedly attempted to assassinate Solzhenitsyn using an unknown chemical agent (most likely ricin) with an experimental gel-based delivery method. The attempt left him seriously ill but he survived.
Although "The Gulag Archipelago" was not published in the Soviet Union, it was extensively criticized by the Party-controlled Soviet press. An editorial in "Pravda" on 14 January 1974 accused Solzhenitsyn of supporting "Hitlerites" and making "excuses for the crimes of the Vlasovites and Bandera gangs." According to the editorial, Solzhenitsyn was "choking with pathological hatred for the country where he was born and grew up, for the socialist system, and for Soviet people."
During this period, he was sheltered by the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who suffered considerably for his support of Solzhenitsyn and was eventually forced into exile himself.
Expulsion from the Soviet Union.
In a discussion of its options in dealing with Solzhenitsyn, the members of the Politburo considered his arrest and imprisonment and his expulsion to a capitalist country willing to take him. Guided by KGB chief Yuri Andropov, and following a statement from West German Chancellor Willy Brandt that Solzhenitsyn could live and work freely in West Germany, it was decided to deport the writer directly to that country.
In the West.
On 12 February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and deported the next day from the Soviet Union to Frankfurt, West Germany and stripped of his Soviet citizenship. The KGB had found the manuscript for the first part of "The Gulag Archipelago". U.S. military attaché William Odom managed to smuggle out a large portion of Solzhenitsyn's archive, including the author's membership card for the Writers' Union and his Second World War military citations. Solzhenitsyn paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir "Invisible Allies" (1995).
In West Germany, Solzhenitsyn lived in Heinrich Böll's house in . He then moved to Zürich, Switzerland before Stanford University invited him to stay in the United States to "facilitate your work, and to accommodate you and your family". He stayed at the Hoover Tower, part of the Hoover Institution, before moving to Cavendish, Vermont, in 1976. He was given an honorary literary degree from Harvard University in 1978 and on 8 June 1978 he gave a commencement address, condemning, among other things, the press, the lack of spirituality and traditional values, and the anthropocentrism of Western culture.
On 19 September 1974, Yuri Andropov approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with Soviet dissidents. The plan was jointly approved by Vladimir Kryuchkov, Philipp Bobkov, and Grigorenko (heads of First, Second and Fifth KGB Directorates). The residencies in Geneva, London, Paris, Rome and other European cities participated in the operation. Among other active measures, at least three StB agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem "Prussian Nights"), keeping the KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn.
The KGB also sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service", according to historian Christopher Andrew. Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that the people around him were KGB agents, and deceiving him at every opportunity. Among other things, he continually received envelopes with photographs of car crashes, brain surgery and other disturbing imagery. After the KGB harassment in Zürich, Solzhenitsyn settled in Cavendish, Vermont, reduced communications with others. His influence and moral authority for the West diminished as he became increasingly isolated and critical of Western individualism. KGB and CPSU experts finally concluded that he alienated American listeners by his "reactionary views and intransigent criticism of the US way of life", so no further active measures would be required.
Over the next 17 years, Solzhenitsyn worked on his dramatized history of the Russian Revolution of 1917, "The Red Wheel". By 1992, four sections had been completed and he had also written several shorter works.
Solzhenitsyn's warnings about the dangers of Communist aggression and the weakening of the moral fiber of the West were generally well received in Western conservative circles (e.g. Ford administration staffers Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld advocated on Solzhenitsyn's behalf for him to speak directly to President Gerald Ford about the Soviet threat), prior to and alongside the tougher foreign policy pursued by US President Ronald Reagan. At the same time, liberals and secularists became increasingly critical of what they perceived as his reactionary preference for Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox religion.
Solzhenitsyn also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant pop culture of the modern West, including television and much of popular music: "...the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits... by TV stupor and by intolerable music." Despite his criticism of the "weakness" of the West, Solzhenitsyn always made clear that he admired the political liberty which was one of the enduring strengths of Western democratic societies. In a major speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein on 14 September 1993, Solzhenitsyn implored the West not to "lose sight of its own values, its historically unique stability of civic life under the rule of law—a hard-won stability which grants independence and space to every private citizen."
In a series of writings, speeches, and interviews after his return to his native Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn spoke about his admiration for the local self-government he had witnessed first hand in Switzerland and New England. He "praised 'the sensible and sure process of grassroots democracy, in which the local population solves most of its problems on its own, not waiting for the decisions of higher authorities.'" Solzhenitsyn's patriotism was inward-looking. He called for Russia to "renounce all mad fantasies of foreign conquest and begin the peaceful long, long long period of recuperation," as he put it in a 1979 BBC interview with Latvian-born BBC journalist Janis Sapiets.
Return to Russia.
In 1990, his Soviet citizenship was restored, and, in 1994, he returned to Russia with his wife, Natalia, who had become a United States citizen. Their sons stayed behind in the United States (later, his eldest son Yermolai returned to Russia). From then until his death, he lived with his wife in a dacha in Troitse-Lykovo in west Moscow between the dachas once occupied by Soviet leaders Mikhail Suslov and Konstantin Chernenko. A staunch believer in traditional Russian culture, Solzhenitsyn expressed his disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia in works such as "Rebuilding Russia", and called for the establishment of a strong presidential republic balanced by vigorous institutions of local self-government. The latter would remain his major political theme. Solzhenitsyn also published eight two-part short stories, a series of contemplative "miniatures" or prose poems, and a literary memoir on his years in the West "The Grain Between the Millstones", translated and released as two works by the University of Notre Dame as part of the Kennan Institute's Solzhenitsyn Initiative. The first, "Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile (1974–1978)", was translated by Peter Constantine and published in October 2018, the second, "Book 2: Exile in America (1978–1994)" translated by Clare Kitson and Melanie Moore and published in October 2020.
Once back in Russia Solzhenitsyn hosted a television talk show program. Its eventual format was Solzhenitsyn delivering a 15-minute monologue twice a month; it was discontinued in 1995. Solzhenitsyn became a supporter of Vladimir Putin, who said he shared Solzhenitsyn's critical view towards the Russian Revolution.
All of Solzhenitsyn's sons became U.S. citizens. One, Ignat, is a pianist and conductor. Another Solzhenitsyn son, Yermolai, works for the Moscow office of McKinsey & Company, a management consultancy firm, where he is a senior partner.
Death.
Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure near Moscow on 3 August 2008, at the age of 89. A burial service was held at Donskoy Monastery, Moscow, on 6 August 2008. He was buried the same day in the monastery, in a spot he had chosen. Russian and world leaders paid tribute to Solzhenitsyn following his death.
Views on history and politics.
On Christianity, Tsarism, and Russian nationalism.
According to William Harrison, Solzhenitsyn was an "arch-reactionary", who argued that the Soviet State "suppressed" traditional Russian and Ukrainian culture, called for the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and who was a fierce opponent of Ukrainian independence. It is well documented that his negative views on Ukrainian independence became more radical over the years. Harrison also alleged that Solzhenitsyn held Pan-Slavist and monarchist views. According to Harrison, "His historical writing is imbued with a hankering after an idealized Tsarist era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism."
In his writings and speeches, Solzhenitsyn, however, sharply criticized the policies of every Tsar from the House of Romanov. A persistent theme in his criticism is that the Romanovs preferred, like Nicholas I during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign countries while governing poorly at home.
Solzhenitsyn also repeatedly denounced Tsar Alexis of Russia and Patriarch Nikon of Moscow for causing the Great Schism of 1666, which Solzhenitsyn said both divided and weakened the Russian Orthodox Church at a time when unity was desperately needed. Solzhenitsyn also attacked both the Tsar and the Patriarch for using excommunication, Siberian exile, imprisonment, torture, and even burning at the stake against the Old Believers, who rejected the liturgical changes which caused the Schism.
Solzhenitsyn also argued that the Dechristianization of Russian culture, which he considered most responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution, began in 1666, became much worse during the Reign of Tsar Peter the Great, and accelerated into an epidemic during The Enlightenment, the Romantic era, and the Silver Age.
Expanding upon this theme, Solzhenitsyn once declared, "Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'"
In an interview with Joseph Pearce, however, Solzhenitsyn commented, "[The Old Believers were] treated amazingly unjustly because some very insignificant, trifling differences in ritual which were promoted with poor judgment and without much sound basis. Because of these small differences, they were persecuted in very many cruel ways, they were suppressed, they were exiled. From the perspective of historical justice, I sympathise with them and I am on their side, but this in no way ties in with what I have just said about the fact that religion in order to keep up with mankind must adapt its forms toward modern culture. In other words, do I agree with the Old Believers that religion should freeze and not move at all? Not at all!"
When asked by Pearce for his opinions about the division within the Roman Catholic Church over the Second Vatican Council and the Mass of Paul VI, Solzhenitsyn replied, "A question peculiar to the Russian Orthodox Church is, should we continue to use Old Church Slavonic, or should we start to introduce more of the contemporary Russian language into the service? I understand the fears of both those in the Orthodox and in the Catholic Church, the wariness, the hesitation, and the fear that this is lowering the Church to the modern condition, the modern surroundings. I understand this, but alas, I fear that if religion does not allow itself to change, it will be impossible to return the world to religion because the world is incapable on its own of rising as high as the old demands of religion. Religion needs to come and meet it somewhat."
Surprised to hear Solzhenitsyn, "so often perceived as an arch-traditionalist, apparently coming down on the side of the reformers", Pearce then asked Solzhenitsyn what he thought of the division caused within the Anglican Communion by the decision to ordain female priests.
Solzhenitsyn replied, "Certainly there are many firm boundaries that should not be changed. When I speak of some sort of correlation between the cultural norms of the present, it is really only a small part of the whole thing." Solzhenitsyn then added, "Certainly, I do not believe that women priests is the way to go!"
On Russia and the Jews.
OGPU officer Naftaly Frenkel, whom Solzhenitsyn identified as "a Turkish Jew born in Constantinople", is represented as having played a major role in the organisation of work in the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn claimed that Frenkel was the "nerve of the Archipelago". This claim is discredited.
In his 1974 essay "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations", Solzhenitsyn urged "Russian Gentiles" and Jews alike to take moral responsibility for the "renegades" from both communities who enthusiastically embraced atheism and Marxism–Leninism and participated in the Red Terror and many other acts of torture and mass murder following the October Revolution. Solzhenitsyn argued that both Russian Gentiles and Jews should be prepared to treat the atrocities committed by Jewish and Gentile Bolsheviks as though they were the acts of their own family members, before their consciences and before God. Solzhenitsyn said that if we deny all responsibility for the crimes of our national kin, "the very concept of a people loses all meaning."
In a review of Solzhenitsyn's novel "August 1914" in "The New York Times" on 13 November 1985, Jewish American historian Richard Pipes wrote: "Every culture has its own brand of anti-Semitism. In Solzhenitsyn's case, it's not racial. It has nothing to do with blood. He's certainly not a racist; the question is fundamentally religious and cultural. He bears some resemblance to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who was a fervent Christian and patriot and a rabid anti-Semite. Solzhenitsyn is unquestionably in the grip of the Russian extreme right's view of the Revolution, which is that it was the doing of the Jews". Award-winning Jewish novelist and the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel disagreed and wrote that Solzhenitsyn was "too intelligent, too honest, too courageous, too great a writer" to be an anti-Semite. In his 1998 book "Russia in Collapse", Solzhenitsyn criticized the Russian far-right's obsession with anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy theories.
In 2001, Solzhenitsyn published a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations ("Two Hundred Years Together" 2001, 2002). The book triggered renewed accusations of anti-Semitism. In the book, he repeated his call for Russian Gentiles and Jews to share responsibility for everything that happened in the Soviet Union. He also downplayed the number of victims of an 1882 pogrom despite current evidence, and failed to mention the Beilis affair, a 1911 trial in Kiev where a Jew was accused of ritually murdering Christian children. He was also criticized for relying on outdated scholarship, ignoring current western scholarship, and for selectively quoting to strengthen his preconceptions, such as that the Jews were often treated better than non-Jewish Russians during the Soviet Union. Similarities between "Two Hundred Years Together" and an anti-Semitic essay titled "Jews in the USSR and in the Future Russia", attributed to Solzhenitsyn, have led to the inference that he stands behind the anti-Semitic passages. Solzhenitsyn himself explained that the essay consists of manuscripts stolen from him by the KGB, and then carefully edited to appear anti-Semitic, before being published, forty years before, without his consent. According to the historian Semyon Reznik, textological analyses have proven Solzhenitsyn's authorship.
Criticism of communism.
Solzhenitsyn emphasized the significantly more oppressive character of the Soviet police state, in comparison to the Russian Empire of the House of Romanov. He asserted that Imperial Russia did not censor literature or the media to the extreme style of the Soviet Glavlit, that political prisoners typically were not forced into labor camps, and that the number of political prisoners and exiles was only one ten-thousandth of the numbers of prisoners and Exiles following the Bolshevik Revolution. He noted that the Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana, was only present in the three largest cities, and not at all in the Imperial Russian Army.
Shortly before his return to Russia, Solzhenitsyn delivered a speech in Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Vendée Uprising. During his speech, Solzhenitsyn compared Lenin's Bolsheviks with the Jacobin Club during the French Revolution. He also compared the Vendean rebels with the Russian, Ukrainian, and Cossack peasants who rebelled against the Bolsheviks, saying that both were destroyed mercilessly by revolutionary despotism. He commented that, while the French Reign of Terror ended with the Thermidorian reaction and the toppling of the Jacobins and the execution of Maximilien Robespierre, its Soviet equivalent continued to accelerate until the Khrushchev thaw of the 1950s.
According to Solzhenitsyn, Russians were not the ruling nation in the Soviet Union. He believed that all the traditional culture of all ethnic groups were equally oppressed in favor of atheism and Marxist–Leninism. Russian culture was even more repressed than any other culture in the Soviet Union, since the regime was more afraid of ethnic uprisings among Russian Christians than among any other ethnicity. Therefore, Solzhenitsyn argued, Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox Church should not be regarded as a threat by the West but rather as allies.
Solzhenitsyn made a speaking tour after Francisco Franco's death, and "told liberals not to push too hard for changes because Spain had more freedoms now than the Soviet Union had ever known." As reported by "The New York Times", he "blamed Communism for the death of 110 million Russians and derided those in Spain who complained of dictatorship." Solzhenitsyn recalled: "I had to explain to the people of Spain in the most concise possible terms what it meant to have been subjugated by an ideology as we in the Soviet Union had been, and give the Spanish to understand what a terrible fate they escaped in 1939", a reference to the Spanish Civil War between the Nationalists and the Republicans, which was not a common view at that time among American diplomats. For Winston Lord, a protégé of the then United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Solzhenitsyn was "just about a fascist." According to Elisa Kriza, Solzhenitsyn held "benevolent views" on Franco's dictatorship and Francoist Spain because it was a Christian one, and his Christian worldview operated ideologically. In "The Little Grain Managed to Land Between Two Millstones", Franco's Spain is "held up as a model of a proper Christian response to the evil of Bolshevism." According to Peter Brooke, Solzhenitsyn approached the position argued by Christian Dmitri Panin, with whom he had a fall out in exile, namely that evil "must be confronted by force, and the centralised, spiritually independent Roman Catholic Church is better placed to do it than Orthodoxy with its otherworldliness and tradition of subservience to the state."
In "Rebuilding Russia", an essay first published in 1990 in "Komsomolskaya Pravda", Solzhenitsyn urged the Soviet Union to grant independence to all the non-Slav republics, which he claimed were sapping the Russian nation and he called for the creation of a new Slavic state bringing together Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Kazakhstan that he considered to be Russified.
On post-Soviet Russia.
In some of his later political writings, such as "Rebuilding Russia" (1990) and "Russia in Collapse" (1998), Solzhenitsyn criticized the oligarchic excesses of the new Russian democracy, while opposing any nostalgia for Soviet Communism. He defended moderate and self-critical patriotism (as opposed to extreme nationalism). He also urged for local self-government similar to what he had seen in New England town meetings and in the cantons of Switzerland. He also expressed concern for the fate of the 25 million ethnic Russians in the "near abroad" of the former Soviet Union.
In an interview with Joseph Pearce, Solzhenitsyn was asked whether he felt that the socioeconomic theories of E.F. Schumacher were, "the key to society rediscovering its sanity". He replied, "I do believe that it would be the key, but I don't think this will happen, because people succumb to fashion, and they suffer from inertia and it is hard to them to come round to a different point of view."
Solzhenitsyn refused to accept Russia's highest honor, the Order of St. Andrew, in 1998. Solzhenitsyn later said: "In 1998, it was the country's low point, with people in misery; ... Yeltsin decreed I be honored the highest state order. I replied that I was unable to receive an award from a government that had led Russia into such dire straits." In a 2003 interview with Joseph Pearce, Solzhenitsyn said: "We are exiting from communism in a most unfortunate and awkward way. It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed."
In a 2007 interview with "Der Spiegel", Solzhenitsyn expressed disappointment that the "conflation of 'Soviet' and 'Russian'", against which he spoke so often in the 1970s, had not passed away in the West, in the ex-socialist countries, or in the former Soviet republics. He commented, "The elder political generation in communist countries is not ready for repentance, while the new generation is only too happy to voice grievances and level accusations, with present-day Moscow [as] a convenient target. They behave as if they heroically liberated themselves and lead a new life now, while Moscow has remained communist. Nevertheless, I dare [to] hope that this unhealthy phase will soon be over, that all the peoples who have lived through communism will understand that communism is to blame for the bitter pages of their history."
In 2008, Solzhenitsyn praised Putin, saying Russia was rediscovering what it meant to be Russian. Solzhenitsyn also praised the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev as a "nice young man" who was capable of taking on the challenges Russia was facing.
Criticism of the West.
Once in the United States, Solzhenitsyn sharply criticized the West.
Solzhenitsyn criticized the Allies for not opening a new front against Nazi Germany in the west earlier in World War II. This resulted in Soviet domination and control of the nations of Eastern Europe. Solzhenitsyn claimed the Western democracies apparently cared little about how many died in the East, as long as they could end the war quickly and painlessly for themselves in the West.
Delivering the commencement address at Harvard University in 1978, he called the United States "Dechristianized" and mired in boorish consumerism. The American people, he said, speaking in Russian through a translator, were also suffering from a "decline in courage" and a "lack of manliness." Few were willing to die for their ideals, he said. He also condemned the 1960s counterculture for forcing the United States federal government to accept a "hasty" capitulation in the Vietnam War.
In a reference to the Communist governments in Southeast Asia's use of re-education camps, politicide, human rights abuses, and genocide following the Fall of Saigon, Solzhenitsyn said: "But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there?"
He also accused the Western news media of left-wing bias, of violating the privacy of celebrities, and of filling up the "immortal souls" of their readers with celebrity gossip and other "vain talk". He also said that the West erred in thinking that the whole world should embrace this as model. While faulting Soviet society for rejecting basic human rights and the rule of law, he also critiqued the West for being too legalistic: "A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities." Solzhenitsyn also argued that the West erred in "denying [Russian culture's] autonomous character and therefore never understood it".
Solzhenitsyn criticized the 2003 invasion of Iraq and accused the United States of the "occupation" of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Solzhenitsyn was critical of NATO's eastward expansion towards Russia's borders. In 2006, Solzhenitsyn accused NATO of trying to bring Russia under its control; he claimed this was visible because of its "ideological support for the 'colour revolutions' and the paradoxical forcing of North Atlantic interests on Central Asia". In a 2006 interview with "Der Spiegel" he stated "This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc."
On the Holodomor.
Solzhenitsyn gave a speech to AFL–CIO in Washington, D.C., on 30 June 1975 in which he mentioned how the system created by the Bolsheviks in 1917 caused dozens of problems in the Soviet Union. He described how this system was responsible for the Holodomor: "It was a system which, in time of peace, artificially created a famine, causing 6 million people to die in the Ukraine in 1932 and 1933." Solzhenitsyn added, "they died on the very edge of Europe. And Europe didn't even notice it. The world didn't even notice it—6 million people!"
Shortly before his death, Solzhenitsyn opined in an interview published 2 April 2008 in "Izvestia" that, while the famine in Ukraine was both artificial and caused by the state, it was no different than the Russian famine of 1921. Solzhenitsyn expressed the belief that both famines were caused by systematic armed robbery of the harvests from both Russian and Ukrainian peasants by Bolshevik units, which were under orders from the Politburo to bring back food for the starving urban population centers while refusing for ideological reasons to permit any private sale of food supplies in the cities or to give any payment to the peasants in return for the food that was seized. Solzhenitsyn further alleged that the theory that the Holodomor was a genocide which only victimized the Ukrainian people was created decades later by believers in an anti-Russian form of extreme Ukrainian nationalism. Solzhenitsyn also cautioned that the ultranationalists' claims risked being accepted without question in the West due to widespread ignorance and misunderstanding there of both Russian and Ukrainian history.
Legacy.
The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center in Worcester, Massachusetts promotes the author and hosts the official English-language website dedicated to him.
Television documentaries on Solzhenitsyn.
In October 1983, French literary journalist Bernard Pivot made an hour-long television interview with Solzhenitsyn at his rural home in Vermont, US. Solzhenitsyn discussed his writing, the evolution of his language and style, his family and his outlook on the future—and stated his wish to return to Russia in his lifetime, not just to see his books eventually printed there. Earlier the same year, Solzhenitsyn was interviewed on separate occasions by two British journalists, Bernard Levin and Malcolm Muggeridge.
In 1998, Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov made a four-part television documentary, "Besedy s Solzhenitsynym" ("The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn"). The documentary was shot in Solzhenitsyn's home depicting his everyday life and his reflections on Russian history and literature.
In December 2009, the Russian channel "Rossiya K" broadcast the French television documentary "L'Histoire Secrète de l'Archipel du Goulag" ("The Secret History of the Gulag Archipelago") made by Jean Crépu and Nicolas Miletitch and translated into Russian under the title "Taynaya Istoriya "Arkhipelaga Gulag"" (Тайная история "Архипелага ГУЛАГ"). The documentary covers events related to creation and publication of "The Gulag Archipelago".
Early years.
Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk (now in Stavropol Krai, Russia). His father, Isaakiy Semyonovich Solzhenitsyn, was of Russian descent and his mother, Taisiya Zakharovna (née Shcherbak), was of Ukrainian descent. Taisiya's father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, acquiring a large estate in the Kuban region in the northern foothills of the Caucasus and during World War I, Taisiya had gone to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy, a young officer in the Imperial Russian Army of Cossack origin and fellow native of the Caucasus region. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the opening chapters of "August 1914", and in the later "Red Wheel" novels.
In 1918, Taisiya became pregnant with Aleksandr. On 15 June, shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr was raised by his widowed mother and his aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the Russian Civil War. By 1930 the family property had been turned into a collective farm. Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and that they had to keep his father's background in the old Imperial Army a secret. His educated mother encouraged his literary and scientific learnings and raised him in the Russian Orthodox faith; she died in 1944 having never remarried.
As early as 1936, Solzhenitsyn began developing the characters and concepts for planned epic work on World War I and the Russian Revolution. This eventually led to the novel "August 1914"; some of the chapters he wrote then still survive. Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics and physics at Rostov State University. At the same time, he took correspondence courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, which by this time were heavily ideological in scope. As he himself makes clear, he did not question the state ideology or the superiority of the Soviet Union until he spent time in the camps.
World War II.
During the war, Solzhenitsyn served as the commander of a sound-ranging battery in the Red Army, was involved in major action at the front, and was twice decorated. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star on 8 July 1944 for sound-ranging two German artillery batteries and adjusting counterbattery fire onto them, resulting in their destruction.
A series of writings published late in his life, including the early uncompleted novel "Love the Revolution!", chronicle his wartime experience and growing doubts about the moral foundations of the Soviet regime.
While serving as an artillery officer in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn witnessed war crimes against local German civilians by Soviet military personnel. Of the atrocities, Solzhenitsyn wrote: "You know very well that we've come to Germany to take our revenge" for Nazi atrocities committed in the Soviet Union. The noncombatants and the elderly were robbed of their meager possessions and women and girls were gang-raped. A few years later, in the forced labor camp, he memorized a poem titled "Prussian Nights" about a woman raped to death in East Prussia. In this poem, which describes the gang-rape of a Polish woman whom the Red Army soldiers mistakenly thought to be a German, the first-person narrator comments on the events with sarcasm and refers to the responsibility of official Soviet writers like Ilya Ehrenburg.
In "The Gulag Archipelago", Solzhenitsyn wrote, "There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were "we" any better?'"
Imprisonment.
In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he called "Khozyain" ("the boss"), and "Balabos" (Yiddish rendering of Hebrew "baal ha-bayit" for "master of the house"). He also had talks with the same friend about the need for a new organization to replace the Soviet regime.
Solzhenitsyn was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58, paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organization" under paragraph 11. Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated. On 9 May 1945, it was announced that Germany had surrendered and all of Moscow broke out in celebrations with fireworks and searchlights illuminating the sky to celebrate the victory in the Great Patriotic War. From his cell in the Lubyanka, Solzhenitsyn remembered: "Above the muzzle of our window, and from all the other cells of the Lubyanka, and from all the windows of the Moscow prisons, we too, former prisoners of war and former front-line soldiers, watched the Moscow heavens, patterned with fireworks and crisscrossed with beams of searchlights. There was no rejoicing in our cells and no hugs and no kisses for us. That victory was not ours." On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by Special Council of the NKVD to an eight-year term in a labour camp. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time.
The first part of Solzhenitsyn's sentence was served in several work camps; the "middle phase", as he later referred to it, was spent in a "sharashka" (a special scientific research facility run by Ministry of State Security), where he met Lev Kopelev, upon whom he based the character of Lev Rubin in his book "The First Circle", published in a self-censored or "distorted" version in the West in 1968 (an English translation of the full version was eventually published by Harper Perennial in October 2009). In 1950, Solzhenitsyn was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". One of his fellow political prisoners, Ion Moraru, remembers that Solzhenitsyn spent some of his time at Ekibastuz writing. While there, Solzhenitsyn had a tumor removed. His cancer was not diagnosed at the time.
In March 1953, after his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn was sent to internal exile for life at Birlik, a village in Baidibek District of South Kazakhstan. His undiagnosed cancer spread until, by the end of the year, he was close to death. In 1954, Solzhenitsyn was permitted to be treated in a hospital in Tashkent, where his tumor went into remission. His experiences there became the basis of his novel "Cancer Ward" and also found an echo in the short story "The Right Hand."
It was during this decade of imprisonment and exile that Solzhenitsyn developed the philosophical and religious positions of his later life, gradually becoming a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian as a result of his experience in prison and the camps. He repented for some of his actions as a Red Army captain, and in prison compared himself to the perpetrators of the Gulag. His transformation is described at some length in the fourth part of "The Gulag Archipelago" ("The Soul and Barbed Wire"). The narrative poem "The Trail" (written without benefit of pen or paper in prison and camps between 1947 and 1952) and the 28 poems composed in prison, forced-labour camp, and exile also provide crucial material for understanding Solzhenitsyn's intellectual and spiritual odyssey during this period. These "early" works, largely unknown in the West, were published for the first time in Russian in 1999 and excerpted in English in 2006.
Marriages and children.
On 7 April 1940, while at the university, Solzhenitsyn married Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya. They had just over a year of married life before he went into the army, then to the Gulag. They divorced in 1952, a year before his release because the wives of Gulag prisoners faced the loss of work or residence permits. After the end of his internal exile, they remarried in 1957, divorcing a second time in 1972. Reshetovskaya wrote negatively of Solzhenitsyn in her memoirs, accusing him of having affairs, and said of the relationship that "[Solzhenitsyn]'s despotism ... would crush my independence and would not permit my personality to develop." In her 1974 memoir, "Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn", she wrote that she was "perplexed" that the West had accepted "The Gulag Archipelago" as "the solemn, ultimate truth", saying its significance had been "overestimated and wrongly appraised". Pointing out that the book's subtitle is "An Experiment in Literary Investigation", she said that her husband did not regard the work as "historical research, or scientific research". She contended that it was, rather, a collection of "camp folklore", containing "raw material" which her husband was planning to use in his future productions.
In 1973, Solzhenitsyn married his second wife, Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova, a mathematician who had a son, Dmitri Turin, from a brief prior marriage. He and Svetlova (born 1939) had three sons: Yermolai (1970), Ignat (1972), and Stepan (1973). Dmitri Turin died on 18 March 1994, aged 32, at his home in New York City.
After prison.
After Khrushchev's Secret Speech in 1956, Solzhenitsyn was freed from exile and exonerated. Following his return from exile, Solzhenitsyn was, while teaching at a secondary school during the day, spending his nights secretly engaged in writing. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he wrote that "during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known."
In 1960, aged 42, Solzhenitsyn approached Aleksandr Tvardovsky, a poet and the chief editor of the "Novy Mir" magazine, with the manuscript of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". It was published in edited form in 1962, with the explicit approval of Nikita Khrushchev, who defended it at the presidium of the Politburo hearing on whether to allow its publication, and added: "There's a Stalinist in each of you; there's even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil." The book quickly sold out and became an instant hit. In the 1960s, while Solzhenitsyn was publicly known to be writing "Cancer Ward", he was simultaneously writing "The Gulag Archipelago". During Khrushchev's tenure, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was studied in schools in the Soviet Union, as were three more short works of Solzhenitsyn's, including his short story "Matryona's Home", published in 1963. These would be the last of his works published in the Soviet Union until 1990.
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" brought the Soviet system of prison labour to the attention of the West. It caused as much of a sensation in the Soviet Union as it did in the West—not only by its striking realism and candour, but also because it was the first major piece of Soviet literature since the 1920s on a politically charged theme, written by a non-party member, indeed a man who had been to Siberia for "libelous speech" about the leaders, and yet its publication had been officially permitted. In this sense, the publication of Solzhenitsyn's story was almost unheard of instance of free, unrestrained discussion of politics through literature. However, after Khrushchev had been ousted from power in 1964, the time for such raw, exposing works came to an end.
Later years in the Soviet Union.
Solzhenitsyn made an unsuccessful attempt, with the help of Tvardovsky, to have his novel "Cancer Ward" legally published in the Soviet Union. This required the approval of the Union of Writers. Though some there appreciated it, the work was ultimately denied publication unless it was to be revised and cleaned of suspect statements and anti-Soviet insinuations.
After Khrushchev's removal in 1964, the cultural climate again became more repressive. Publishing of Solzhenitsyn's work quickly stopped; as a writer, he became a non-person, and, by 1965, the KGB had seized some of his papers, including the manuscript of "The First Circle". Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn continued to secretly and feverishly work on the most well-known of his writings, "The Gulag Archipelago". The seizing of his novel manuscript first made him desperate and frightened, but gradually he realized that it had set him free from the pretenses and trappings of being an "officially acclaimed" writer, a status which had become familiar but which was becoming increasingly irrelevant.
After the KGB had confiscated Solzhenitsyn's materials in Moscow, in the years 1965 to 1967, the preparatory drafts of "The Gulag Archipelago" were turned into finished typescript in hiding at his friends' homes in Soviet Estonia. Solzhenitsyn had befriended Arnold Susi, a lawyer and former Minister of Education of Estonia in a Lubyanka Building prison cell. After completion, Solzhenitsyn's original handwritten script was kept hidden from the KGB in Estonia by Arnold Susi's daughter Heli Susi until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Union of Writers. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He could not receive the prize personally in Stockholm at that time, since he was afraid he would not be let back into the Soviet Union. Instead, it was suggested he should receive the prize in a special ceremony at the Swedish embassy in Moscow. The Swedish government refused to accept this solution because such a ceremony and the ensuing media coverage might upset the Soviet Union and damage Swedish-Soviet relations. Instead, Solzhenitsyn received his prize at the 1974 ceremony after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union. In 1973, another manuscript written by Solzhenitsyn was confiscated by the KGB after his friend Elizaveta Voronyanskaya was questioned non-stop for five days until she revealed its location, according to a statement by Solzhenitsyn to Western reporters on September 6, 1973. According to Solzhenitsyn, "When she returned home, she hanged herself."
"The Gulag Archipelago" was composed from 1958 to 1967, and has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. It was a three-volume, seven-part work on the Soviet prison camp system, which drew from Solzhenitsyn's experiences and the testimony of 256 former prisoners and Solzhenitsyn's own research into the history of the Russian penal system. It discusses the system's origins from the founding of the Communist regime, with Vladimir Lenin having responsibility, detailing interrogation procedures, prisoner transports, prison camp culture, prisoner uprisings and revolts such as the Kengir uprising, and the practice of internal exile. Soviet and Communist studies historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft wrote that the book was essentially a "literary and political work", and "never claimed to place the camps in a historical or social-scientific quantitative perspective" but that in the case of qualitative estimates, Solzhenitsyn gave his high estimate as he wanted to challenge the Soviet authorities to show that "the scale of the camps was less than this." Historian J. Arch Getty wrote of Solzhenitsyn's methodology that "such documentation is methodically unacceptable in other fields of history", which gives priority to vague hearsay and leads towards selective bias. According to journalist Anne Applebaum, who has made extensive research on the Gulag, "The Gulag Archipelago"'s rich and varied authorial voice, its unique weaving together of personal testimony, philosophical analysis, and historical investigation, and its unrelenting indictment of Communist ideology made it one of the most influential books of the 20th century.
On 8 August 1971, the KGB allegedly attempted to assassinate Solzhenitsyn using an unknown chemical agent (most likely ricin) with an experimental gel-based delivery method. The attempt left him seriously ill but he survived.
Although "The Gulag Archipelago" was not published in the Soviet Union, it was extensively criticized by the Party-controlled Soviet press. An editorial in "Pravda" on 14 January 1974 accused Solzhenitsyn of supporting "Hitlerites" and making "excuses for the crimes of the Vlasovites and Bandera gangs." According to the editorial, Solzhenitsyn was "choking with pathological hatred for the country where he was born and grew up, for the socialist system, and for Soviet people."
During this period, he was sheltered by the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who suffered considerably for his support of Solzhenitsyn and was eventually forced into exile himself.
Expulsion from the Soviet Union.
In a discussion of its options in dealing with Solzhenitsyn, the members of the Politburo considered his arrest and imprisonment and his expulsion to a capitalist country willing to take him. Guided by KGB chief Yuri Andropov, and following a statement from West German Chancellor Willy Brandt that Solzhenitsyn could live and work freely in West Germany, it was decided to deport the writer directly to that country.
In the West.
On 12 February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and deported the next day from the Soviet Union to Frankfurt, West Germany and stripped of his Soviet citizenship. The KGB had found the manuscript for the first part of "The Gulag Archipelago". U.S. military attaché William Odom managed to smuggle out a large portion of Solzhenitsyn's archive, including the author's membership card for the Writers' Union and his Second World War military citations. Solzhenitsyn paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir "Invisible Allies" (1995).
In West Germany, Solzhenitsyn lived in Heinrich Böll's house in . He then moved to Zürich, Switzerland before Stanford University invited him to stay in the United States to "facilitate your work, and to accommodate you and your family". He stayed at the Hoover Tower, part of the Hoover Institution, before moving to Cavendish, Vermont, in 1976. He was given an honorary literary degree from Harvard University in 1978 and on 8 June 1978 he gave a commencement address, condemning, among other things, the press, the lack of spirituality and traditional values, and the anthropocentrism of Western culture.
On 19 September 1974, Yuri Andropov approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with Soviet dissidents. The plan was jointly approved by Vladimir Kryuchkov, Philipp Bobkov, and Grigorenko (heads of First, Second and Fifth KGB Directorates). The residencies in Geneva, London, Paris, Rome and other European cities participated in the operation. Among other active measures, at least three StB agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem "Prussian Nights"), keeping the KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn.
The KGB also sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service", according to historian Christopher Andrew. Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that the people around him were KGB agents, and deceiving him at every opportunity. Among other things, he continually received envelopes with photographs of car crashes, brain surgery and other disturbing imagery. After the KGB harassment in Zürich, Solzhenitsyn settled in Cavendish, Vermont, reduced communications with others. His influence and moral authority for the West diminished as he became increasingly isolated and critical of Western individualism. KGB and CPSU experts finally concluded that he alienated American listeners by his "reactionary views and intransigent criticism of the US way of life", so no further active measures would be required.
Over the next 17 years, Solzhenitsyn worked on his dramatized history of the Russian Revolution of 1917, "The Red Wheel". By 1992, four sections had been completed and he had also written several shorter works.
Solzhenitsyn's warnings about the dangers of Communist aggression and the weakening of the moral fiber of the West were generally well received in Western conservative circles (e.g. Ford administration staffers Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld advocated on Solzhenitsyn's behalf for him to speak directly to President Gerald Ford about the Soviet threat), prior to and alongside the tougher foreign policy pursued by US President Ronald Reagan. At the same time, liberals and secularists became increasingly critical of what they perceived as his reactionary preference for Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox religion.
Solzhenitsyn also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant pop culture of the modern West, including television and much of popular music: "...the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits... by TV stupor and by intolerable music." Despite his criticism of the "weakness" of the West, Solzhenitsyn always made clear that he admired the political liberty which was one of the enduring strengths of Western democratic societies. In a major speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein on 14 September 1993, Solzhenitsyn implored the West not to "lose sight of its own values, its historically unique stability of civic life under the rule of law—a hard-won stability which grants independence and space to every private citizen."
In a series of writings, speeches, and interviews after his return to his native Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn spoke about his admiration for the local self-government he had witnessed first hand in Switzerland and New England. He "praised 'the sensible and sure process of grassroots democracy, in which the local population solves most of its problems on its own, not waiting for the decisions of higher authorities.'" Solzhenitsyn's patriotism was inward-looking. He called for Russia to "renounce all mad fantasies of foreign conquest and begin the peaceful long, long long period of recuperation," as he put it in a 1979 BBC interview with Latvian-born BBC journalist Janis Sapiets.
Return to Russia.
In 1990, his Soviet citizenship was restored, and, in 1994, he returned to Russia with his wife, Natalia, who had become a United States citizen. Their sons stayed behind in the United States (later, his eldest son Yermolai returned to Russia). From then until his death, he lived with his wife in a dacha in Troitse-Lykovo in west Moscow between the dachas once occupied by Soviet leaders Mikhail Suslov and Konstantin Chernenko. A staunch believer in traditional Russian culture, Solzhenitsyn expressed his disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia in works such as "Rebuilding Russia", and called for the establishment of a strong presidential republic balanced by vigorous institutions of local self-government. The latter would remain his major political theme. Solzhenitsyn also published eight two-part short stories, a series of contemplative "miniatures" or prose poems, and a literary memoir on his years in the West "The Grain Between the Millstones", translated and released as two works by the University of Notre Dame as part of the Kennan Institute's Solzhenitsyn Initiative. The first, "Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile (1974–1978)", was translated by Peter Constantine and published in October 2018, the second, "Book 2: Exile in America (1978–1994)" translated by Clare Kitson and Melanie Moore and published in October 2020.
Once back in Russia Solzhenitsyn hosted a television talk show program. Its eventual format was Solzhenitsyn delivering a 15-minute monologue twice a month; it was discontinued in 1995. Solzhenitsyn became a supporter of Vladimir Putin, who said he shared Solzhenitsyn's critical view towards the Russian Revolution.
All of Solzhenitsyn's sons became U.S. citizens. One, Ignat, is a pianist and conductor. Another Solzhenitsyn son, Yermolai, works for the Moscow office of McKinsey & Company, a management consultancy firm, where he is a senior partner.
Death.
Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure near Moscow on 3 August 2008, at the age of 89. A burial service was held at Donskoy Monastery, Moscow, on 6 August 2008. He was buried the same day in the monastery, in a spot he had chosen. Russian and world leaders paid tribute to Solzhenitsyn following his death.
Views on history and politics.
On Christianity, Tsarism, and Russian nationalism.
According to William Harrison, Solzhenitsyn was an "arch-reactionary", who argued that the Soviet State "suppressed" traditional Russian and Ukrainian culture, called for the creation of a united Slavic state encompassing Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and who was a fierce opponent of Ukrainian independence. It is well documented that his negative views on Ukrainian independence became more radical over the years. Harrison also alleged that Solzhenitsyn held Pan-Slavist and monarchist views. According to Harrison, "His historical writing is imbued with a hankering after an idealized Tsarist era when, seemingly, everything was rosy. He sought refuge in a dreamy past, where, he believed, a united Slavic state (the Russian empire) built on Orthodox foundations had provided an ideological alternative to western individualistic liberalism."
In his writings and speeches, Solzhenitsyn, however, sharply criticized the policies of every Tsar from the House of Romanov. A persistent theme in his criticism is that the Romanovs preferred, like Nicholas I during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign countries while governing poorly at home.
Solzhenitsyn also repeatedly denounced Tsar Alexis of Russia and Patriarch Nikon of Moscow for causing the Great Schism of 1666, which Solzhenitsyn said both divided and weakened the Russian Orthodox Church at a time when unity was desperately needed. Solzhenitsyn also attacked both the Tsar and the Patriarch for using excommunication, Siberian exile, imprisonment, torture, and even burning at the stake against the Old Believers, who rejected the liturgical changes which caused the Schism.
Solzhenitsyn also argued that the Dechristianization of Russian culture, which he considered most responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution, began in 1666, became much worse during the Reign of Tsar Peter the Great, and accelerated into an epidemic during The Enlightenment, the Romantic era, and the Silver Age.
Expanding upon this theme, Solzhenitsyn once declared, "Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'"
In an interview with Joseph Pearce, however, Solzhenitsyn commented, "[The Old Believers were] treated amazingly unjustly because some very insignificant, trifling differences in ritual which were promoted with poor judgment and without much sound basis. Because of these small differences, they were persecuted in very many cruel ways, they were suppressed, they were exiled. From the perspective of historical justice, I sympathise with them and I am on their side, but this in no way ties in with what I have just said about the fact that religion in order to keep up with mankind must adapt its forms toward modern culture. In other words, do I agree with the Old Believers that religion should freeze and not move at all? Not at all!"
When asked by Pearce for his opinions about the division within the Roman Catholic Church over the Second Vatican Council and the Mass of Paul VI, Solzhenitsyn replied, "A question peculiar to the Russian Orthodox Church is, should we continue to use Old Church Slavonic, or should we start to introduce more of the contemporary Russian language into the service? I understand the fears of both those in the Orthodox and in the Catholic Church, the wariness, the hesitation, and the fear that this is lowering the Church to the modern condition, the modern surroundings. I understand this, but alas, I fear that if religion does not allow itself to change, it will be impossible to return the world to religion because the world is incapable on its own of rising as high as the old demands of religion. Religion needs to come and meet it somewhat."
Surprised to hear Solzhenitsyn, "so often perceived as an arch-traditionalist, apparently coming down on the side of the reformers", Pearce then asked Solzhenitsyn what he thought of the division caused within the Anglican Communion by the decision to ordain female priests.
Solzhenitsyn replied, "Certainly there are many firm boundaries that should not be changed. When I speak of some sort of correlation between the cultural norms of the present, it is really only a small part of the whole thing." Solzhenitsyn then added, "Certainly, I do not believe that women priests is the way to go!"
On Russia and the Jews.
OGPU officer Naftaly Frenkel, whom Solzhenitsyn identified as "a Turkish Jew born in Constantinople", is represented as having played a major role in the organisation of work in the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn claimed that Frenkel was the "nerve of the Archipelago". This claim is discredited.
In his 1974 essay "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations", Solzhenitsyn urged "Russian Gentiles" and Jews alike to take moral responsibility for the "renegades" from both communities who enthusiastically embraced atheism and Marxism–Leninism and participated in the Red Terror and many other acts of torture and mass murder following the October Revolution. Solzhenitsyn argued that both Russian Gentiles and Jews should be prepared to treat the atrocities committed by Jewish and Gentile Bolsheviks as though they were the acts of their own family members, before their consciences and before God. Solzhenitsyn said that if we deny all responsibility for the crimes of our national kin, "the very concept of a people loses all meaning."
In a review of Solzhenitsyn's novel "August 1914" in "The New York Times" on 13 November 1985, Jewish American historian Richard Pipes wrote: "Every culture has its own brand of anti-Semitism. In Solzhenitsyn's case, it's not racial. It has nothing to do with blood. He's certainly not a racist; the question is fundamentally religious and cultural. He bears some resemblance to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who was a fervent Christian and patriot and a rabid anti-Semite. Solzhenitsyn is unquestionably in the grip of the Russian extreme right's view of the Revolution, which is that it was the doing of the Jews". Award-winning Jewish novelist and the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel disagreed and wrote that Solzhenitsyn was "too intelligent, too honest, too courageous, too great a writer" to be an anti-Semite. In his 1998 book "Russia in Collapse", Solzhenitsyn criticized the Russian far-right's obsession with anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy theories.
In 2001, Solzhenitsyn published a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations ("Two Hundred Years Together" 2001, 2002). The book triggered renewed accusations of anti-Semitism. In the book, he repeated his call for Russian Gentiles and Jews to share responsibility for everything that happened in the Soviet Union. He also downplayed the number of victims of an 1882 pogrom despite current evidence, and failed to mention the Beilis affair, a 1911 trial in Kiev where a Jew was accused of ritually murdering Christian children. He was also criticized for relying on outdated scholarship, ignoring current western scholarship, and for selectively quoting to strengthen his preconceptions, such as that the Jews were often treated better than non-Jewish Russians during the Soviet Union. Similarities between "Two Hundred Years Together" and an anti-Semitic essay titled "Jews in the USSR and in the Future Russia", attributed to Solzhenitsyn, have led to the inference that he stands behind the anti-Semitic passages. Solzhenitsyn himself explained that the essay consists of manuscripts stolen from him by the KGB, and then carefully edited to appear anti-Semitic, before being published, forty years before, without his consent. According to the historian Semyon Reznik, textological analyses have proven Solzhenitsyn's authorship.
Criticism of communism.
Solzhenitsyn emphasized the significantly more oppressive character of the Soviet police state, in comparison to the Russian Empire of the House of Romanov. He asserted that Imperial Russia did not censor literature or the media to the extreme style of the Soviet Glavlit, that political prisoners typically were not forced into labor camps, and that the number of political prisoners and exiles was only one ten-thousandth of the numbers of prisoners and Exiles following the Bolshevik Revolution. He noted that the Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana, was only present in the three largest cities, and not at all in the Imperial Russian Army.
Shortly before his return to Russia, Solzhenitsyn delivered a speech in Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Vendée Uprising. During his speech, Solzhenitsyn compared Lenin's Bolsheviks with the Jacobin Club during the French Revolution. He also compared the Vendean rebels with the Russian, Ukrainian, and Cossack peasants who rebelled against the Bolsheviks, saying that both were destroyed mercilessly by revolutionary despotism. He commented that, while the French Reign of Terror ended with the Thermidorian reaction and the toppling of the Jacobins and the execution of Maximilien Robespierre, its Soviet equivalent continued to accelerate until the Khrushchev thaw of the 1950s.
According to Solzhenitsyn, Russians were not the ruling nation in the Soviet Union. He believed that all the traditional culture of all ethnic groups were equally oppressed in favor of atheism and Marxist–Leninism. Russian culture was even more repressed than any other culture in the Soviet Union, since the regime was more afraid of ethnic uprisings among Russian Christians than among any other ethnicity. Therefore, Solzhenitsyn argued, Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox Church should not be regarded as a threat by the West but rather as allies.
Solzhenitsyn made a speaking tour after Francisco Franco's death, and "told liberals not to push too hard for changes because Spain had more freedoms now than the Soviet Union had ever known." As reported by "The New York Times", he "blamed Communism for the death of 110 million Russians and derided those in Spain who complained of dictatorship." Solzhenitsyn recalled: "I had to explain to the people of Spain in the most concise possible terms what it meant to have been subjugated by an ideology as we in the Soviet Union had been, and give the Spanish to understand what a terrible fate they escaped in 1939", a reference to the Spanish Civil War between the Nationalists and the Republicans, which was not a common view at that time among American diplomats. For Winston Lord, a protégé of the then United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Solzhenitsyn was "just about a fascist." According to Elisa Kriza, Solzhenitsyn held "benevolent views" on Franco's dictatorship and Francoist Spain because it was a Christian one, and his Christian worldview operated ideologically. In "The Little Grain Managed to Land Between Two Millstones", Franco's Spain is "held up as a model of a proper Christian response to the evil of Bolshevism." According to Peter Brooke, Solzhenitsyn approached the position argued by Christian Dmitri Panin, with whom he had a fall out in exile, namely that evil "must be confronted by force, and the centralised, spiritually independent Roman Catholic Church is better placed to do it than Orthodoxy with its otherworldliness and tradition of subservience to the state."
In "Rebuilding Russia", an essay first published in 1990 in "Komsomolskaya Pravda", Solzhenitsyn urged the Soviet Union to grant independence to all the non-Slav republics, which he claimed were sapping the Russian nation and he called for the creation of a new Slavic state bringing together Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Kazakhstan that he considered to be Russified.
On post-Soviet Russia.
In some of his later political writings, such as "Rebuilding Russia" (1990) and "Russia in Collapse" (1998), Solzhenitsyn criticized the oligarchic excesses of the new Russian democracy, while opposing any nostalgia for Soviet Communism. He defended moderate and self-critical patriotism (as opposed to extreme nationalism). He also urged for local self-government similar to what he had seen in New England town meetings and in the cantons of Switzerland. He also expressed concern for the fate of the 25 million ethnic Russians in the "near abroad" of the former Soviet Union.
In an interview with Joseph Pearce, Solzhenitsyn was asked whether he felt that the socioeconomic theories of E.F. Schumacher were, "the key to society rediscovering its sanity". He replied, "I do believe that it would be the key, but I don't think this will happen, because people succumb to fashion, and they suffer from inertia and it is hard to them to come round to a different point of view."
Solzhenitsyn refused to accept Russia's highest honor, the Order of St. Andrew, in 1998. Solzhenitsyn later said: "In 1998, it was the country's low point, with people in misery; ... Yeltsin decreed I be honored the highest state order. I replied that I was unable to receive an award from a government that had led Russia into such dire straits." In a 2003 interview with Joseph Pearce, Solzhenitsyn said: "We are exiting from communism in a most unfortunate and awkward way. It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed."
In a 2007 interview with "Der Spiegel", Solzhenitsyn expressed disappointment that the "conflation of 'Soviet' and 'Russian'", against which he spoke so often in the 1970s, had not passed away in the West, in the ex-socialist countries, or in the former Soviet republics. He commented, "The elder political generation in communist countries is not ready for repentance, while the new generation is only too happy to voice grievances and level accusations, with present-day Moscow [as] a convenient target. They behave as if they heroically liberated themselves and lead a new life now, while Moscow has remained communist. Nevertheless, I dare [to] hope that this unhealthy phase will soon be over, that all the peoples who have lived through communism will understand that communism is to blame for the bitter pages of their history."
In 2008, Solzhenitsyn praised Putin, saying Russia was rediscovering what it meant to be Russian. Solzhenitsyn also praised the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev as a "nice young man" who was capable of taking on the challenges Russia was facing.
Criticism of the West.
Once in the United States, Solzhenitsyn sharply criticized the West.
Solzhenitsyn criticized the Allies for not opening a new front against Nazi Germany in the west earlier in World War II. This resulted in Soviet domination and control of the nations of Eastern Europe. Solzhenitsyn claimed the Western democracies apparently cared little about how many died in the East, as long as they could end the war quickly and painlessly for themselves in the West.
Delivering the commencement address at Harvard University in 1978, he called the United States "Dechristianized" and mired in boorish consumerism. The American people, he said, speaking in Russian through a translator, were also suffering from a "decline in courage" and a "lack of manliness." Few were willing to die for their ideals, he said. He also condemned the 1960s counterculture for forcing the United States federal government to accept a "hasty" capitulation in the Vietnam War.
In a reference to the Communist governments in Southeast Asia's use of re-education camps, politicide, human rights abuses, and genocide following the Fall of Saigon, Solzhenitsyn said: "But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there?"
He also accused the Western news media of left-wing bias, of violating the privacy of celebrities, and of filling up the "immortal souls" of their readers with celebrity gossip and other "vain talk". He also said that the West erred in thinking that the whole world should embrace this as model. While faulting Soviet society for rejecting basic human rights and the rule of law, he also critiqued the West for being too legalistic: "A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities." Solzhenitsyn also argued that the West erred in "denying [Russian culture's] autonomous character and therefore never understood it".
Solzhenitsyn criticized the 2003 invasion of Iraq and accused the United States of the "occupation" of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Solzhenitsyn was critical of NATO's eastward expansion towards Russia's borders. In 2006, Solzhenitsyn accused NATO of trying to bring Russia under its control; he claimed this was visible because of its "ideological support for the 'colour revolutions' and the paradoxical forcing of North Atlantic interests on Central Asia". In a 2006 interview with "Der Spiegel" he stated "This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc."
On the Holodomor.
Solzhenitsyn gave a speech to AFL–CIO in Washington, D.C., on 30 June 1975 in which he mentioned how the system created by the Bolsheviks in 1917 caused dozens of problems in the Soviet Union. He described how this system was responsible for the Holodomor: "It was a system which, in time of peace, artificially created a famine, causing 6 million people to die in the Ukraine in 1932 and 1933." Solzhenitsyn added, "they died on the very edge of Europe. And Europe didn't even notice it. The world didn't even notice it—6 million people!"
Shortly before his death, Solzhenitsyn opined in an interview published 2 April 2008 in "Izvestia" that, while the famine in Ukraine was both artificial and caused by the state, it was no different than the Russian famine of 1921. Solzhenitsyn expressed the belief that both famines were caused by systematic armed robbery of the harvests from both Russian and Ukrainian peasants by Bolshevik units, which were under orders from the Politburo to bring back food for the starving urban population centers while refusing for ideological reasons to permit any private sale of food supplies in the cities or to give any payment to the peasants in return for the food that was seized. Solzhenitsyn further alleged that the theory that the Holodomor was a genocide which only victimized the Ukrainian people was created decades later by believers in an anti-Russian form of extreme Ukrainian nationalism. Solzhenitsyn also cautioned that the ultranationalists' claims risked being accepted without question in the West due to widespread ignorance and misunderstanding there of both Russian and Ukrainian history.
Legacy.
The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center in Worcester, Massachusetts promotes the author and hosts the official English-language website dedicated to him.
Television documentaries on Solzhenitsyn.
In October 1983, French literary journalist Bernard Pivot made an hour-long television interview with Solzhenitsyn at his rural home in Vermont, US. Solzhenitsyn discussed his writing, the evolution of his language and style, his family and his outlook on the future—and stated his wish to return to Russia in his lifetime, not just to see his books eventually printed there. Earlier the same year, Solzhenitsyn was interviewed on separate occasions by two British journalists, Bernard Levin and Malcolm Muggeridge.
In 1998, Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov made a four-part television documentary, "Besedy s Solzhenitsynym" ("The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn"). The documentary was shot in Solzhenitsyn's home depicting his everyday life and his reflections on Russian history and literature.
In December 2009, the Russian channel "Rossiya K" broadcast the French television documentary "L'Histoire Secrète de l'Archipel du Goulag" ("The Secret History of the Gulag Archipelago") made by Jean Crépu and Nicolas Miletitch and translated into Russian under the title "Taynaya Istoriya "Arkhipelaga Gulag"" (Тайная история "Архипелага ГУЛАГ"). The documentary covers events related to creation and publication of "The Gulag Archipelago".
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1643
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Alger of Liège
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Alger of Liège (1055–1131), known also as Alger of Cluny and Algerus Magister, was a learned clergyman and canonist from Liège, author of several notable works.
Alger was first deacon and scholaster of church of St Bartholomew in his native Liège and was then appointed () as a canon in St. Lambert's Cathedral. Moreover, he acted as the personal secretary of bishop Otbert from 1103. He declined offers from German bishops and finally retired to the monastery of Cluny after 1121, where he died at a high age, leaving behind a solid reputation for piety and intelligence.
He played a leading role in the trial of Rupert of Deutz in 1116.
His "History of the Church of Liège", and many of his other works, are lost. The most important remaining are:
A biography was written by Nicholas of Liège: De Algero veterum testimonia.
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1642
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Alessandro Algardi
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Alessandro Algardi (July 31, 1598 – June 10, 1654) was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity.
Early years.
Algardi was born in Bologna, where at a young age, he was apprenticed in the studio of Agostino Carracci. However, his aptitude for sculpture led him to work for Giulio Cesare Conventi (1577–1640), an artist of modest talents. His two earliest known works date back to this period: two statues of saints, made of chalk, in the Oratory of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna. By the age of twenty, Ferdinando I, Duke of Mantua, began commissioning works from him, and he was also employed by local jewelers for figurative designs. After a short residence in Venice, he went to Rome in 1625 with an introduction from the Duke of Mantua to the late pope's nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, who employed him for a time in the restoration of ancient statues.
Tomb of Pope Leo XI.
Propelled by the Borghese and Barberini patronage, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his studio garnered most of the major Roman sculptural commissions. For nearly a decade, Algardi struggled for recognition. In Rome he was aided by friends that included Pietro da Cortona and his fellow Bolognese, Domenichino. His early Roman commissions included terracotta and some marble portrait busts, while he supported himself with small works like crucifixes. In the 1630s he worked on the tombs of the Mellini family in the Mellini Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo.
Algardi's first major commission came about in 1634, when Cardinal Ubaldini (Medici) contracted for a funeral monument for his great-uncle, Pope Leo XI, the third of the Medici popes, who had reigned for less than a month in 1605. The monument was started in 1640, and mostly completed by 1644. The arrangement mirrors the one designed by Bernini for the Tomb of Urban VIII (1628–47), with a central hieratic sculpture of the pope seated in full regalia and offering a hand of blessing, while at his feet, two allegorical female figures flank his sarcophagus. However, in Bernini's tomb, the vigorous upraised arm and posture of the pope is counterbalanced by an active drama below, wherein the figures of "Charity" and "Justice" are either distracted by "putti" or lost in contemplation, while skeletal "Death" actively writes the epitaph. Algardi's tomb is much less dynamic. The allegorical figures of "Magnanimity" and "Liberality" have an impassive, ethereal dignity. Some have identified the helmeted figure of "Magnanimity" with that of Athena and iconic images of "Wisdom". "Liberality" resembles Duquesnoy's famous "Santa Susanna", but rendered more elegant. The tomb is somberly monotone and lacks the polychromatic excitement that detracts from the elegiac mood of Urban VIII's tomb.
In 1635–38, Pietro Boncompagni commissioned from Algardi a colossal statue of Philip Neri with kneeling angels for Santa Maria in Vallicella, completed in 1640. Immediately after this, Algardi produced a sculptural group of the beheading of Saint Paul with two figures: a kneeling, resigned saint and the executioner poised to strike the sword-blow, for the church of San Paolo, Bologna. These works established his reputation, alongside two reliefs of "The Martyrdom of St Paul" and "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt" (a contemporary replica of the latter is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). Like Bernini's characteristic works, they often express the Baroque aesthetic of depicting dramatic attitudes and emotional expressions, yet Algardi's sculpture has a restraining sobriety in contrast to those of his rival.
Papal favour under Innocent X and Spanish commissions.
With the death of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII in 1644 and the accession of the Pamphilj Pope Innocent X, the Barberini family and fell into disrepute, resulting in fewer commissions for Bernini. Algardi, on the other hand, was embraced by the new pope and the pope's nephew, Camillo Pamphilj. Algardi's portraits were highly prized, and their formal severity contrasts with Bernini's more vivacious expression. A large hieratic bronze of Innocent X by Algardi is now to be found in the Capitoline Museums.
Algardi was not renowned for his architectural abilities. Although he was in charge of the project for the papal villa, the Villa Pamphili, now Villa Doria Pamphili, outside the Porta San Pancrazio in Rome, he may have had professional guidance on the design of the casino from the architect/engineer Girolamo Rainaldi and help with supervising its construction from his assistant Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi. The casino was a showcase for the Pamphili collection of sculpture, ancient and contemporary, on which Algardi was well able to advise. In the villa grounds, Algardi and his studio executed sculpture-encrusted fountains and other garden features, where some of his free-standing sculpture and bas-reliefs remain.
In 1650 Algardi met Diego Velázquez, who obtained commissions for his work from Spain. As a consequence there are four chimney-pieces by Algardi in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, and in the gardens, the figures on the fountain of Neptune are also by him. The Augustinian monastery at Salamanca contains the tomb of the Count and Countess de Monterey, another work by Algardi.
Fuga d'Attila relief.
Algardi's large, dramatic, high-relief marble panel of Pope Leo and Attila, created from 1646 to 1653, is commonly referred to as "Fuga d'Attila" or "Flight of Attila". It was created for St Peter's Basilica, and it reinvigorated the use of such marble reliefs. There had been large marble reliefs used previously in Roman churches, but for most patrons, sculpted marble altarpieces were far too costly. In this relief, the two principal figures, the stern and courageous pope and the dismayed and frightened Attila, surge forward from the center into three dimensions. Only they two see the descending angelic warriors rallying to the pope's defense, while all others in the background reliefs, persist in performing their respective earthly duties.
The subject was apt for a papal state seeking to increase its power, since it depicts the historical legend wherein Saint Leo the Great, the first pope to receive the epithet, with supernatural aid, deterred the Huns from looting Rome. From a baroque standpoint, the incident is common theme: a moment of divine intervention in the affairs of man. Algardi's patron's message through the relief would be that all viewers should be sternly reminded of the papal capacity to invoke divine retribution against enemies.
In his later years Algardi controlled a large studio and amassed a great fortune. Algardi's classicizing manner was carried on by pupils, including Ercole Ferrata and Domenico Guidi, and Antonio Raggi initially trained with him. The latter two completed his design for an altarpiece of the "Vision of Saint Nicholas" at San Nicola da Tolentino, Rome, using two separate marble pieces linked together in one event and place, yet successfully separating the divine and earthly spheres. Other lesser known assistants from his studio include Francesco Barrata, Girolamo Lucenti, and Giuseppe Peroni.
Algardi died in Rome within a year of completing his famous relief, which was admired by contemporaries.
Critical assessment and legacy.
Algardi was also known for his portraiture which shows an obsessive attention to details of psychologically revealing physiognomy in a sober but immediate naturalism, and minute attention to costume and draperies, such as in the busts of Laudivio Zacchia, Camillo Pamphilj, and of Muzio Frangipane and his two sons Lello and Roberto.
In temperament, his style was more akin to the classicized and restrained baroque of Duquesnoy than to the emotive works of other baroque artists. From an artistic point of view, he was most successful in portrait-statues and groups of children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely. His terracotta models, some of them finished works of art, were prized by collectors. An outstanding series of terracotta models is at the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
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1627
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Koinonia Community
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Koinonia is a lay Christian community with social and humanitarian projects in Kenya, Zambia and the Nuba Mountains of Sudan.
Origin and Community.
The Koinonia Community was initially founded in 1988 by Father Renato Kizito Sesana, a Comboni Priest, and a group of young men from different professions and backgrounds. Members of the community live as one family, sharing dreams, successes and failures, with their inspiration being the life of the early biblical Christians as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Today, the community has about thirty members, all of whom are financially independent.
Koinonia Community members are committed to the growth of the local society within which Koinonia is based. In line with their calling, the members strive to counteract the economic and social evils bred by individualism and abject poverty.
The members try, in their daily lives, to integrate the best of African tradition and Gospel values into a commitment to belong to the modern world. To achieve this aspiration, the Community gives special attention to modern means of social communication and their role in fostering a sense of unity and belonging within the society.
Activities and Social Enterprises.
Since its registration as a corporate body in 1996, Koinonia Kenya has undertaken a host of activities and social enterprises in the societies within which the community is based. The activities and projects give priority to the marginalized members of the society, such as children in difficult circumstances – especially street children – as well as women and young people from poor backgrounds.
The community runs the following activities and projects:
Kivuli Centre, a rehabilitation center for children rescued from the streets. The centre houses 60 boys and provides a variety of activities for the resident children as well as the youth of the surrounding area. Located along Kabiria Road, in Nairobi’s Dagoretti Division, the centre has a dispensary, a computer school, micro credit programmes and a number of income generating initiatives.
Anita’s Home, a rehabilitation and formation home for former female street children. The home is situated at Ngong Town, 20 kilometers south of Nairobi, and holds 60 girls.
Ndugu Mdogo, a rehabilitation home that offers a hospitable environment for vulnerable children from the streets of the expansive Kibera slum. The home is located at Kerarapon, between Nairobi’s affluent Karen suburb and Ngong town. It has 30 resident children, whom it provides with basic needs, medical services and a family lifestyle.
Ndugu Mdogo Drop-In Centre, an initiative at the expansive Kibera slum, where Koinonia social workers initiate the rehabilitation process through activities targeting children living on the streets. The Drop-In centre also provides shelter for children in emergency situations such as sickness, abuse by adults or any other immediate danger.
Tone la Maji, a children’s rehabilitation centre with a special focus on pedagogical activities and research. Located at Ongata Rongai in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, the centre is a partnership with La Goccia, an Italian association based in Senago – Milano, Italy. It holds 60 resident children.
Domus Mariae, a modern secondary school that affords academically outstanding children from unfortunate backgrounds access to quality education, in line with the Millennium Development Goals.
Paolo’s Home, A rehabilitation centre that provides physiotherapy services to physically disabled children in Nairobi's Kibera slum. It is named after Paolo, a talented, courageous, physically handicapped Italian man who died in 2005.
Koinonia House (also called The Mother House), a premises in Riruta Satellite, Nairobi, which hosts Koinonia Community members and students from the Nuba Mountains of Central Sudan, who have scholarships to study in Nairobi. The house also hosts several Koinonia initiatives, including Kivuli Ndogo, a programme which allows street boys from the surrounding areas to visits on Saturdays and Wednesday to wash, attend informal classes, and share a meal.
Affiliated Initiatives.
Various Koinonia Kenya initiatives have grown to obtain an identity of their own. These include the following;
NAREC (Nairobi Recyclers), a community based environmental conservation initiative which engages street children in the collection, recycling and reselling of plastic and glass waste. NAREC currently generates income for about 25 street boys.
White Gazelle tours, a non-profit travel agent that specializes in social tourism and reinvests its earnings in other Koinonia Community projects.
Shalom House, a building complex with accommodation, dining and workshop facilities. Shalom house also houses a documentation centre on peace and reconciliation in Africa, as well as the offices of various organizations and associations. Located on St. Daniel Comboni road, off Ngong Road in Nairobi, Shalom House also serves as the Koinonia Kenya Headquarters.
Koinonia Advisory Research and Development Services (KARDS), a Community Development consultancy with special focus on organizational capacity building and training of community based staff. KARDS undertakes projects in Eastern and Central Africa, the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.
Shalom IT Centre, an Information Technology training institute that aims to provide professional standards to talented youth, who are then empowered to contribute their skills towards the economic, social and human growth of Kenya.
NewsFromAfrica.org, an electronic news bulletin that publishes news, features, press reviews and editorials. All published material is written from the perspective of the African grassroots people in their struggle for freedom, dignity and justice.
Africa Peace Link, a non profit coalition of volunteer persons and corporate bodies that offer their skills to help integrate Information and Communication Technology development into the growth of the African people. Africa PeaceLink lays its underlying emphasis on the promotion of peace, justice, human rights, environment awareness and freedom of expression in Africa. All volunteers offer their services absolutely free of charge.
Nafsi Afrika Acrobats, a registered community-based organization that sources and nurtures artistic talent.
Koinonia in Africa.
The Koinonia Community has spread to the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, where a sister community, Koinonia Nuba, runs two primary schools and the Yousif Kuwa Teachers Training Institute (YKTTI), which is named after Yousif Kuwa, a legendary commander in the Sudan People's Liberation Army and longtime leader of the Nuba people.
Another sister community is in Zambia (Koinonia Zambia). It runs a children’s home and a large farm in the outskirts of the capital, Lusaka.
Trivia.
The term “Koinonia” is an ancient Greek word that roughly means “deep fellowship.” It is used often in the New Testament of the Bible to denote the broad concept of communion through intimate participation, as exhibited by the relationship between the apostles in the early Christian church.
See also.
Koinonia
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1017
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Allen Ginsberg
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Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions.
Ginsberg is best known for his poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. San Francisco police and US Customs seized "Howl" in 1956, and it attracted widespread publicity in 1957 when it became the subject of an obscenity trial, as it described heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made (male) homosexual acts a crime in every state. The poem reflected Ginsberg's own sexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner. Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that "Howl" was not obscene, asking: "Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"
Ginsberg was a Buddhist who extensively studied Eastern religious disciplines. He lived modestly, buying his clothing in second-hand stores and residing in apartments in New York City's East Village. One of his most influential teachers was Tibetan Buddhist Chögyam Trungpa, the founder of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. At Trungpa's urging, Ginsberg and poet Anne Waldman started The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics there in 1974.
Ginsberg took part in decades of political protest against everything from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs. His poem "September on Jessore Road" called attention to the plight of Bengali refugees which was caused by the 1971 Genocide and it exemplifies what literary critic Helen Vendler described as Ginsberg's persistence in protesting against "imperial politics" and "persecution of the powerless". His collection "The Fall of America" shared the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979, he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book "Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992".
Biography.
Early life and family.
Ginsberg was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paterson. He was the second son of Louis Ginsberg, also born in Newark, a schoolteacher and sometime poet, and the former Naomi Levy, born in Nevel (Russia) and a fervent Marxist.
As a teenager, Ginsberg began to write letters to "The New York Times" about political issues, such as World War II and workers' rights. He published his first poems in the "Paterson Morning Call". While in high school, Ginsberg became interested in the works of Walt Whitman, inspired by his teacher's passionate reading. In 1943, Ginsberg graduated from Eastside High School and briefly attended Montclair State College before entering Columbia University on a scholarship from the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Paterson.
In 1945, he joined the Merchant Marine to earn money to continue his education at Columbia. While at Columbia, Ginsberg contributed to the "Columbia Review" literary journal, the "Jester" humor magazine, won the Woodberry Poetry Prize, served as president of the Philolexian Society (literary and debate group), and joined Boar's Head Society (poetry society).
He was a resident of Hartley Hall, where other Beat Generation poets such as Jack Kerouac and Herbert Gold also lived. Ginsberg has stated that he considered his required freshman seminar in Great Books, taught by Lionel Trilling, to be his favorite Columbia course.
According to The Poetry Foundation, Ginsberg spent several months in a mental institution after he pleaded insanity during a hearing. He was allegedly being prosecuted for harboring stolen goods in his dorm room. It was noted that the stolen property was not his, but belonged to an acquaintance. Ginsberg also took part in public readings at the Episcopal St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery which would later hold a memorial service for him after his death.
Relationship with his parents.
Ginsberg referred to his parents in a 1985 interview as "old-fashioned delicatessen philosophers". His mother was also an active member of the Communist Party and took Ginsberg and his brother Eugene to party meetings. Ginsberg later said that his mother "made up bedtime stories that all went something like: 'The good king rode forth from his castle, saw the suffering workers and healed them.'" Of his father Ginsberg said: "My father would go around the house either reciting Emily Dickinson and Longfellow under his breath or attacking T. S. Eliot for ruining poetry with his 'obscurantism.' I grew suspicious of both sides."
Naomi Ginsberg had schizophrenia which often manifested as paranoid delusions, disordered thinking and multiple suicide tentatives. She would claim, for example, that the president had implanted listening devices in their home and that her mother-in-law was trying to kill her. Her suspicion of those around her caused Naomi to draw closer to young Allen, "her little pet," as Bill Morgan says in his biography of Ginsberg, titled "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg". She also tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists and was soon taken to Greystone, a mental hospital; she would spend much of Ginsberg's youth in mental hospitals. His experiences with his mother and her mental illness were a major inspiration for his two major works, "Howl" and his long autobiographical poem "Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg (1894–1956)".
When he was in junior high school, he accompanied his mother by bus to her therapist. The trip deeply disturbed Ginsberg—he mentioned it and other moments from his childhood in "Kaddish". His experiences with his mother's mental illness and her institutionalization are also frequently referred to in "Howl." For example, "Pilgrim State, Rockland, and Grey Stone's foetid halls" is a reference to institutions frequented by his mother and Carl Solomon, ostensibly the subject of the poem: Pilgrim State Hospital and Rockland State Hospital in New York and Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. This is followed soon by the line "with mother finally ******." Ginsberg later admitted the deletion was the expletive "fucked." He also says of Solomon in section three, "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother," once again showing the association between Solomon and his mother.
Ginsberg received a letter from his mother after her death responding to a copy of "Howl" he had sent her. It admonished Ginsberg to be good and stay away from drugs; she says, "The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight at the window—I have the key—Get married Allen don't take drugs—the key is in the bars, in the sunlight in the window." In a letter she wrote to Ginsberg's brother Eugene, she said, "God's informers come to my bed, and God himself I saw in the sky. The sunshine showed too, a key on the side of the window for me to get out. The yellow of the sunshine, also showed the key on the side of the window." These letters and the absence of a facility to recite kaddish inspired Ginsberg to write "Kaddish", which makes references to many details from Naomi's life, Ginsberg's experiences with her, and the letter, including the lines "the key is in the light" and "the key is in the window."
New York Beats.
In Ginsberg's first year at Columbia he met fellow undergraduate Lucien Carr, who introduced him to a number of future Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and John Clellon Holmes. They bonded, because they saw in one another an excitement about the potential of American youth, a potential that existed outside the strict conformist confines of post–World War II, McCarthy-era America. Ginsberg and Carr talked excitedly about a "New Vision" (a phrase adapted from Yeats' "A Vision"), for literature and America. Carr also introduced Ginsberg to Neal Cassady, for whom Ginsberg had a long infatuation. In the first chapter of his 1957 novel "On the Road" Kerouac described the meeting between Ginsberg and Cassady. Kerouac saw them as the dark (Ginsberg) and light (Cassady) side of their "New Vision", a perception stemming partly from Ginsberg's association with communism, of which Kerouac had become increasingly distrustful. Though Ginsberg was never a member of the Communist Party, Kerouac named him "Carlo Marx" in "On the Road". This was a source of strain in their relationship.
Also, in New York, Ginsberg met Gregory Corso in the Pony Stable Bar. Corso, recently released from prison, was supported by the Pony Stable patrons and was writing poetry there the night of their meeting. Ginsberg claims he was immediately attracted to Corso, who was straight, but understood of homosexuality after three years in prison. Ginsberg was even more struck by reading Corso's poems, realizing Corso was "spiritually gifted." Ginsberg introduced Corso to the rest of his inner circle. In their first meeting at the Pony Stable, Corso showed Ginsberg a poem about a woman who lived across the street from him and sunbathed naked in the window. Amazingly, the woman happened to be Ginsberg's girlfriend that he was living with during one of his forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg took Corso over to their apartment. There the woman proposed sex with Corso, who was still very young and fled in fear. Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac and Burroughs and they began to travel together. Ginsberg and Corso remained lifelong friends and collaborators.
Shortly after this period in Ginsberg's life, he became romantically involved with Elise Nada Cowen after meeting her through Alex Greer, a philosophy professor at Barnard College whom she had dated for a while during the burgeoning Beat generation's period of development. As a Barnard student, Elise Cowen extensively read the poetry of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, when she met Joyce Johnson and Leo Skir, among other Beat players. As Cowen had felt a strong attraction to darker poetry most of the time, Beat poetry seemed to provide an allure to what suggests a shadowy side of her persona. While at Barnard, Cowen earned the nickname "Beat Alice" as she had joined a small group of anti-establishment artists and visionaries known to outsiders as beatniks, and one of her first acquaintances at the college was the beat poet Joyce Johnson who later portrayed Cowen in her books, including "Minor Characters" and "Come and Join the Dance", which expressed the two women's experiences in the Barnard and Columbia Beat community. Through his association with Elise Cowen, Ginsberg discovered that they shared a mutual friend, Carl Solomon, to whom he later dedicated his most famous poem "Howl." This poem is considered an autobiography of Ginsberg up to 1955, and a brief history of the Beat Generation through its references to his relationship to other Beat artists of that time.
"Blake vision".
In 1948, in an apartment in Harlem, Ginsberg had an auditory hallucination while reading the poetry of William Blake (later referred to as his "Blake vision"). At first, Ginsberg claimed to have heard the voice of God but later interpreted the voice as that of Blake himself reading "Ah! Sun-flower", "The Sick Rose", and The "Little Girl Lost", also described by Ginsberg as "voice of the ancient of days." The experience lasted several days. Ginsberg believed that he had witnessed the interconnectedness of the universe. He looked at latticework on the fire escape and realized some hand had crafted that; he then looked at the sky and intuited that some hand had crafted that also, or rather, that the sky was the hand that crafted itself. He explained that this hallucination was not inspired by drug use but said he sought to recapture that feeling later with various drugs. Ginsberg stated: "[...] not that some hand had placed the sky but that the sky was the living blue hand itself. Or that God was in front of my eyes—existence itself was God," and "[...] it was a sudden awakening into a totally deeper real universe than I'd been existing in."
San Francisco Renaissance.
Ginsberg moved to San Francisco during the 1950s. Before "Howl and Other Poems" was published in 1956 by City Lights, he worked as a market researcher.
In 1954, in San Francisco, Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010), with whom he fell in love and who remained his lifelong partner. Selections from their correspondence have been published.
Also in San Francisco, Ginsberg met members of the San Francisco Renaissance (James Broughton, Robert Duncan, Madeline Gleason and Kenneth Rexroth) and other poets who would later be associated with the Beat Generation in a broader sense. Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams wrote an introductory letter to San Francisco Renaissance figurehead Kenneth Rexroth, who then introduced Ginsberg into the San Francisco poetry scene. There, Ginsberg also met three budding poets and Zen enthusiasts who had become friends at Reed College: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Lew Welch. In 1959, along with poets John Kelly, Bob Kaufman, A. D. Winans, and William Margolis, Ginsberg was one of the founders of the "Beatitude" poetry magazine.
Wally Hedrick—a painter and co-founder of the Six Gallery—approached Ginsberg in mid-1955 and asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Six Gallery. At first, Ginsberg refused, but once he had written a rough draft of "Howl," he changed his "fucking mind," as he put it. Ginsberg advertised the event as "Six Poets at the Six Gallery." One of the most important events in Beat mythos, known simply as "The Six Gallery reading" took place on October 7, 1955. The event, in essence, brought together the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation. Of more personal significance to Ginsberg, the reading that night included the first public presentation of "Howl," a poem that brought worldwide fame to Ginsberg and to many of the poets associated with him. An account of that night can be found in Kerouac's novel "The Dharma Bums", describing how change was collected from audience members to buy jugs of wine, and Ginsberg reading passionately, drunken, with arms outstretched.
Ginsberg's principal work, "Howl," is well known for its opening line: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked [...]." "Howl" was considered scandalous at the time of its publication, because of the rawness of its language. Shortly after its 1956 publication by San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The ban became a cause célèbre among defenders of the First Amendment, and was later lifted, after Judge Clayton W. Horn declared the poem to possess redeeming artistic value. Ginsberg and Shig Murao, the City Lights manager who was jailed for selling "Howl," became lifelong friends.
Biographical references in "Howl".
Ginsberg claimed at one point that all of his work was an extended biography (like Kerouac's "Duluoz Legend"). "Howl" is not only a biography of Ginsberg's experiences before 1955, but also a history of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg also later claimed that at the core of "Howl" were his unresolved emotions about his schizophrenic mother. Though "Kaddish" deals more explicitly with his mother, "Howl" in many ways is driven by the same emotions. "Howl" chronicles the development of many important friendships throughout Ginsberg's life. He begins the poem with "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", which sets the stage for Ginsberg to describe Cassady and Solomon, immortalizing them into American literature. This madness was the "angry fix" that society needed to function—madness was its disease. In the poem, Ginsberg focused on "Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland", and, thus, turned Solomon into an archetypal figure searching for freedom from his "straightjacket". Though references in most of his poetry reveal much about his biography, his relationship to other members of the Beat Generation, and his own political views, "Howl," his most famous poem, is still perhaps the best place to start.
To Paris and the "Beat Hotel", Tangier and India.
In 1957, Ginsberg surprised the literary world by abandoning San Francisco. After a spell in Morocco, he and Peter Orlovsky joined Gregory Corso in Paris. Corso introduced them to a shabby lodging house above a bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur that was to become known as the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by Burroughs and others. It was a productive, creative time for all of them. There, Ginsberg began his epic poem "Kaddish," Corso composed "Bomb" and "Marriage", and Burroughs (with help from Ginsberg and Corso) put together "Naked Lunch" from previous writings. This period was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who moved in at about the same time, and took pictures constantly of the residents of the "hotel" until it closed in 1963. During 1962–1963, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travelled extensively across India, living half a year at a time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Benares (Varanasi). On his road to India he stayed two months in Athens ( 29/08/1961 - 31/10/1961) where he visited various cites such as Delphi, Mycines, Crete, and then he continued his journey to Israel, Kenya and finally India. Also during this time, he formed friendships with some of the prominent young Bengali poets of the time including Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay. Ginsberg had several political connections in India; most notably Pupul Jayakar who helped him extend his stay in India when the authorities were eager to expel him.
England and the International Poetry Incarnation.
In May 1965, Ginsberg arrived in London, and offered to read anywhere for free. Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, which was described by Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind." Tom McGrath wrote: "This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England—or at least in the history of English Poetry."
Soon after the bookshop reading, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation, which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 11, 1965. The event attracted an audience of 7,000, who heard readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi, Harry Fainlight, Anselm Hollo, Christopher Logue, George MacBeth, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horovitz, Simon Vinkenoog, Spike Hawkins and Tom McGrath. The event was organized by Ginsberg's friend, the filmmaker Barbara Rubin.
Peter Whitehead documented the event on film and released it as "Wholly Communion". A book featuring images from the film and some of the poems that were performed was also published under the same title by Lorrimer in the UK and Grove Press in US.
Continuing literary activity.
Though the term "Beat" is most accurately applied to Ginsberg and his closest friends (Corso, Orlovsky, Kerouac, Burroughs, etc.), the term "Beat Generation" has become associated with many of the other poets Ginsberg met and became friends with in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A key feature of this term seems to be a friendship with Ginsberg. Friendship with Kerouac or Burroughs might also apply, but both writers later strove to disassociate themselves from the name "Beat Generation." Part of their dissatisfaction with the term came from the mistaken identification of Ginsberg as the leader. Ginsberg never claimed to be the leader of a movement. He claimed that many of the writers with whom he had become friends in this period shared many of the same intentions and themes. Some of these friends include: David Amram, Bob Kaufman; Diane di Prima; Jim Cohn; poets associated with the Black Mountain College such as Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov; poets associated with the New York School such as Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch. LeRoi Jones before he became Amiri Baraka, who, after reading "Howl", wrote a letter to Ginsberg on a sheet of toilet paper. Baraka's independent publishing house Totem Press published Ginsberg's early work. Through a party organized by Baraka, Ginsberg was introduced to Langston Hughes while Ornette Coleman played saxophone.
Later in his life, Ginsberg formed a bridge between the beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, befriending, among others, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bob Dylan. Ginsberg gave his last public reading at Booksmith, a bookstore in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, a few months before his death. In 1993, Ginsberg visited the University of Maine at Orono to pay homage to the 90-year-old great Carl Rakosi.
Buddhism and Krishna.
In 1950, Kerouac began studying Buddhism and shared what he learned from Dwight Goddard's "Buddhist Bible" with Ginsberg. Ginsberg first heard about the Four Noble Truths and such sutras as the Diamond Sutra at this time.
Ginsberg's spiritual journey began early on with his spontaneous visions, and continued with an early trip to India with Gary Snyder. Snyder had previously spent time in Kyoto to study at the First Zen Institute at Daitoku-ji Monastery. At one point, Snyder chanted the Prajnaparamita, which in Ginsberg's words "blew my mind." His interest piqued, Ginsberg traveled to meet the Dalai Lama as well as the Karmapa at Rumtek Monastery. Continuing on his journey, Ginsberg met Dudjom Rinpoche in Kalimpong, who taught him: "If you see something horrible, don't cling to it, and if you see something beautiful, don't cling to it."
After returning to the United States, a chance encounter on a New York City street with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (they both tried to catch the same cab), a Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist master, led to Trungpa becoming his friend and lifelong teacher. Ginsberg helped Trungpa and New York poet Anne Waldman in founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
Ginsberg was also involved with Krishnaism. He had started incorporating chanting the Hare Krishna mantra into his religious practice in the mid-1960s. After learning that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement in the Western world had rented a store front in New York, he befriended him, visiting him often and suggesting publishers for his books, and a fruitful relationship began. This relationship is documented by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami in his biographical account "Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta". Ginsberg donated money, materials, and his reputation to help the Swami establish the first temple, and toured with him to promote his cause.
Despite disagreeing with many of Bhaktivedanta Swami's required prohibitions, Ginsberg often sang the Hare Krishna mantra publicly as part of his philosophy and declared that it brought a state of ecstasy. He was glad that Bhaktivedanta Swami, an authentic swami from India, was now trying to spread the chanting in America. Along with other counterculture ideologists like Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder, and Alan Watts, Ginsberg hoped to incorporate Bhaktivedanta Swami and his chanting into the hippie movement, and agreed to take part in the Mantra-Rock Dance concert and to introduce the swami to the Haight-Ashbury hippie community.
On January 17, 1967, Ginsberg helped plan and organize a reception for Bhaktivedanta Swami at San Francisco International Airport, where fifty to a hundred hippies greeted the Swami, chanting Hare Krishna in the airport lounge with flowers in hands. To further support and promote Bhaktivendata Swami's message and chanting in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg agreed to attend the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event 1967 held at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. It featured some leading rock bands of the time: Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Moby Grape, who performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami and donated proceeds to the Krishna temple. Ginsberg introduced Bhaktivedanta Swami to some three thousand hippies in the audience and led the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra.
Music and chanting were both important parts of Ginsberg's live delivery during poetry readings. He often accompanied himself on a harmonium, and was often accompanied by a guitarist. It is believed that the Hindi and Buddhist poet Nagarjun had introduced Ginsberg to the harmonium in Banaras. According to Malay Roy Choudhury, Ginsberg refined his practice while learning from his relatives, including his cousin Savitri Banerjee. When Ginsberg asked if he could sing a song in praise of Lord Krishna on William F. Buckley, Jr.'s TV show "Firing Line" on September 3, 1968, Buckley acceded and the poet chanted slowly as he played dolefully on a harmonium. According to Richard Brookhiser, an associate of Buckley's, the host commented that it was "the most unharried Krishna I've ever heard."
At the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the 1970 Black Panther rally at Yale campus Allen chanted "Om" repeatedly over a sound system for hours on end.
Ginsberg further brought mantras into the world of rock and roll when he recited the Heart Sutra in the song "Ghetto Defendant." The song appears on the 1982 album Combat Rock by British first wave punk band The Clash.
Ginsberg came in touch with the Hungryalist poets of Bengal, especially Malay Roy Choudhury, who introduced Ginsberg to the three fish with one head of Indian emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar. The three fish symbolised coexistence of all thought, philosophy, and religion.
In spite of Ginsberg's attraction to Eastern religions, the journalist Jane Kramer argues that he, like Whitman, adhered to an "American brand of mysticism" that was "rooted in humanism and in a romantic and visionary ideal of harmony among men."
The Allen Ginsberg Estate and Jewel Heart International partnered to present "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends," a gallery and online exhibition of images of Gelek Rimpoche by Allen Ginsberg, a student with whom he had an “indissoluble bond,” in 2021 at Tibet House US in New York City. Fifty negatives from Ginsberg's Stanford University photo archive celebrated "the unique relationship between Allen and Rimpoche." The selection of never-before presented images, featuring great Tibetan masters including the Dalai Lama, Tibetologists, and students were "guided by Allen’s extensive notes on the contact sheets and images he’d circled with the intention to print."
Illness and death.
In 1960, he was treated for a tropical disease, and it is speculated that he contracted hepatitis from an unsterilized needle administered by a doctor, which played a role in his death 37 years later.
Ginsberg was a lifelong smoker, and though he tried to quit for health and religious reasons, his busy schedule in later life made it difficult, and he always returned to smoking.
In the 1970s, Ginsberg had two minor strokes which were first diagnosed as Bell's palsy, which gave him significant paralysis and stroke-like drooping of the muscles in one side of his face.
Later in life, he also had constant minor ailments such as high blood pressure. Many of these symptoms were related to stress, but he never slowed down his schedule.
Ginsberg won a 1974 National Book Award for ' (split with Adrienne Rich, ').
In 1986, Ginsberg was awarded the Golden Wreath by the Struga Poetry Evenings International Festival in Macedonia, the second American poet to be so awarded since W. H. Auden. At Struga, Ginsberg met with the other Golden Wreath winners, Bulat Okudzhava and Andrei Voznesensky.
In 1989, Ginsberg appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's award-winning film "Silence = Death" about the fight of gay artists in New York City for AIDS-education and the rights of HIV infected people.
In 1993, the French Minister of Culture appointed Ginsberg a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Ginsberg continued to help his friends as much as he could: he gave money to Herbert Huncke out of his own pocket, regularly supplied neighbor Arthur Russell with an extension cord to power his home recording setup, and housed a broke, drug-addicted Harry Smith.
With the exception of a special guest appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam on February 20, 1997, Ginsberg gave what is thought to be his last reading at The Booksmith in San Francisco on December 16, 1996.
After returning home from the hospital for the last time, where he had been unsuccessfully treated for congestive heart failure, Ginsberg continued making phone calls to say goodbye to nearly everyone in his address book. Some of the phone calls, were sad and interrupted by crying, and others were joyous and optimistic. Ginsberg continued to write through his final illness, with his last poem, "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)", written on March 30.
He died on April 5, 1997, surrounded by family and friends in his East Village loft in Manhattan, succumbing to liver cancer via complications of hepatitis at the age of 70. Gregory Corso, Roy Lichtenstein, Patti Smith and others came by to pay their respects. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in his family plot in Gomel Chesed Cemetery in Newark. He was survived by Orlovsky.
In 1998, various writers, including Catfish McDaris read at a gathering at Ginsberg's farm to honor Allen and the Beats.
"Good Will Hunting" (released in December 1997) was dedicated to Ginsberg, as well as Burroughs, who died four months later.
Early life and family.
Ginsberg was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paterson. He was the second son of Louis Ginsberg, also born in Newark, a schoolteacher and sometime poet, and the former Naomi Levy, born in Nevel (Russia) and a fervent Marxist.
As a teenager, Ginsberg began to write letters to "The New York Times" about political issues, such as World War II and workers' rights. He published his first poems in the "Paterson Morning Call". While in high school, Ginsberg became interested in the works of Walt Whitman, inspired by his teacher's passionate reading. In 1943, Ginsberg graduated from Eastside High School and briefly attended Montclair State College before entering Columbia University on a scholarship from the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Paterson.
In 1945, he joined the Merchant Marine to earn money to continue his education at Columbia. While at Columbia, Ginsberg contributed to the "Columbia Review" literary journal, the "Jester" humor magazine, won the Woodberry Poetry Prize, served as president of the Philolexian Society (literary and debate group), and joined Boar's Head Society (poetry society).
He was a resident of Hartley Hall, where other Beat Generation poets such as Jack Kerouac and Herbert Gold also lived. Ginsberg has stated that he considered his required freshman seminar in Great Books, taught by Lionel Trilling, to be his favorite Columbia course.
According to The Poetry Foundation, Ginsberg spent several months in a mental institution after he pleaded insanity during a hearing. He was allegedly being prosecuted for harboring stolen goods in his dorm room. It was noted that the stolen property was not his, but belonged to an acquaintance. Ginsberg also took part in public readings at the Episcopal St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery which would later hold a memorial service for him after his death.
Relationship with his parents.
Ginsberg referred to his parents in a 1985 interview as "old-fashioned delicatessen philosophers". His mother was also an active member of the Communist Party and took Ginsberg and his brother Eugene to party meetings. Ginsberg later said that his mother "made up bedtime stories that all went something like: 'The good king rode forth from his castle, saw the suffering workers and healed them.'" Of his father Ginsberg said: "My father would go around the house either reciting Emily Dickinson and Longfellow under his breath or attacking T. S. Eliot for ruining poetry with his 'obscurantism.' I grew suspicious of both sides."
Naomi Ginsberg had schizophrenia which often manifested as paranoid delusions, disordered thinking and multiple suicide tentatives. She would claim, for example, that the president had implanted listening devices in their home and that her mother-in-law was trying to kill her. Her suspicion of those around her caused Naomi to draw closer to young Allen, "her little pet," as Bill Morgan says in his biography of Ginsberg, titled "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg". She also tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists and was soon taken to Greystone, a mental hospital; she would spend much of Ginsberg's youth in mental hospitals. His experiences with his mother and her mental illness were a major inspiration for his two major works, "Howl" and his long autobiographical poem "Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg (1894–1956)".
When he was in junior high school, he accompanied his mother by bus to her therapist. The trip deeply disturbed Ginsberg—he mentioned it and other moments from his childhood in "Kaddish". His experiences with his mother's mental illness and her institutionalization are also frequently referred to in "Howl." For example, "Pilgrim State, Rockland, and Grey Stone's foetid halls" is a reference to institutions frequented by his mother and Carl Solomon, ostensibly the subject of the poem: Pilgrim State Hospital and Rockland State Hospital in New York and Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. This is followed soon by the line "with mother finally ******." Ginsberg later admitted the deletion was the expletive "fucked." He also says of Solomon in section three, "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother," once again showing the association between Solomon and his mother.
Ginsberg received a letter from his mother after her death responding to a copy of "Howl" he had sent her. It admonished Ginsberg to be good and stay away from drugs; she says, "The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight at the window—I have the key—Get married Allen don't take drugs—the key is in the bars, in the sunlight in the window." In a letter she wrote to Ginsberg's brother Eugene, she said, "God's informers come to my bed, and God himself I saw in the sky. The sunshine showed too, a key on the side of the window for me to get out. The yellow of the sunshine, also showed the key on the side of the window." These letters and the absence of a facility to recite kaddish inspired Ginsberg to write "Kaddish", which makes references to many details from Naomi's life, Ginsberg's experiences with her, and the letter, including the lines "the key is in the light" and "the key is in the window."
New York Beats.
In Ginsberg's first year at Columbia he met fellow undergraduate Lucien Carr, who introduced him to a number of future Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and John Clellon Holmes. They bonded, because they saw in one another an excitement about the potential of American youth, a potential that existed outside the strict conformist confines of post–World War II, McCarthy-era America. Ginsberg and Carr talked excitedly about a "New Vision" (a phrase adapted from Yeats' "A Vision"), for literature and America. Carr also introduced Ginsberg to Neal Cassady, for whom Ginsberg had a long infatuation. In the first chapter of his 1957 novel "On the Road" Kerouac described the meeting between Ginsberg and Cassady. Kerouac saw them as the dark (Ginsberg) and light (Cassady) side of their "New Vision", a perception stemming partly from Ginsberg's association with communism, of which Kerouac had become increasingly distrustful. Though Ginsberg was never a member of the Communist Party, Kerouac named him "Carlo Marx" in "On the Road". This was a source of strain in their relationship.
Also, in New York, Ginsberg met Gregory Corso in the Pony Stable Bar. Corso, recently released from prison, was supported by the Pony Stable patrons and was writing poetry there the night of their meeting. Ginsberg claims he was immediately attracted to Corso, who was straight, but understood of homosexuality after three years in prison. Ginsberg was even more struck by reading Corso's poems, realizing Corso was "spiritually gifted." Ginsberg introduced Corso to the rest of his inner circle. In their first meeting at the Pony Stable, Corso showed Ginsberg a poem about a woman who lived across the street from him and sunbathed naked in the window. Amazingly, the woman happened to be Ginsberg's girlfriend that he was living with during one of his forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg took Corso over to their apartment. There the woman proposed sex with Corso, who was still very young and fled in fear. Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac and Burroughs and they began to travel together. Ginsberg and Corso remained lifelong friends and collaborators.
Shortly after this period in Ginsberg's life, he became romantically involved with Elise Nada Cowen after meeting her through Alex Greer, a philosophy professor at Barnard College whom she had dated for a while during the burgeoning Beat generation's period of development. As a Barnard student, Elise Cowen extensively read the poetry of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, when she met Joyce Johnson and Leo Skir, among other Beat players. As Cowen had felt a strong attraction to darker poetry most of the time, Beat poetry seemed to provide an allure to what suggests a shadowy side of her persona. While at Barnard, Cowen earned the nickname "Beat Alice" as she had joined a small group of anti-establishment artists and visionaries known to outsiders as beatniks, and one of her first acquaintances at the college was the beat poet Joyce Johnson who later portrayed Cowen in her books, including "Minor Characters" and "Come and Join the Dance", which expressed the two women's experiences in the Barnard and Columbia Beat community. Through his association with Elise Cowen, Ginsberg discovered that they shared a mutual friend, Carl Solomon, to whom he later dedicated his most famous poem "Howl." This poem is considered an autobiography of Ginsberg up to 1955, and a brief history of the Beat Generation through its references to his relationship to other Beat artists of that time.
"Blake vision".
In 1948, in an apartment in Harlem, Ginsberg had an auditory hallucination while reading the poetry of William Blake (later referred to as his "Blake vision"). At first, Ginsberg claimed to have heard the voice of God but later interpreted the voice as that of Blake himself reading "Ah! Sun-flower", "The Sick Rose", and The "Little Girl Lost", also described by Ginsberg as "voice of the ancient of days." The experience lasted several days. Ginsberg believed that he had witnessed the interconnectedness of the universe. He looked at latticework on the fire escape and realized some hand had crafted that; he then looked at the sky and intuited that some hand had crafted that also, or rather, that the sky was the hand that crafted itself. He explained that this hallucination was not inspired by drug use but said he sought to recapture that feeling later with various drugs. Ginsberg stated: "[...] not that some hand had placed the sky but that the sky was the living blue hand itself. Or that God was in front of my eyes—existence itself was God," and "[...] it was a sudden awakening into a totally deeper real universe than I'd been existing in."
San Francisco Renaissance.
Ginsberg moved to San Francisco during the 1950s. Before "Howl and Other Poems" was published in 1956 by City Lights, he worked as a market researcher.
In 1954, in San Francisco, Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010), with whom he fell in love and who remained his lifelong partner. Selections from their correspondence have been published.
Also in San Francisco, Ginsberg met members of the San Francisco Renaissance (James Broughton, Robert Duncan, Madeline Gleason and Kenneth Rexroth) and other poets who would later be associated with the Beat Generation in a broader sense. Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams wrote an introductory letter to San Francisco Renaissance figurehead Kenneth Rexroth, who then introduced Ginsberg into the San Francisco poetry scene. There, Ginsberg also met three budding poets and Zen enthusiasts who had become friends at Reed College: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Lew Welch. In 1959, along with poets John Kelly, Bob Kaufman, A. D. Winans, and William Margolis, Ginsberg was one of the founders of the "Beatitude" poetry magazine.
Wally Hedrick—a painter and co-founder of the Six Gallery—approached Ginsberg in mid-1955 and asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Six Gallery. At first, Ginsberg refused, but once he had written a rough draft of "Howl," he changed his "fucking mind," as he put it. Ginsberg advertised the event as "Six Poets at the Six Gallery." One of the most important events in Beat mythos, known simply as "The Six Gallery reading" took place on October 7, 1955. The event, in essence, brought together the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation. Of more personal significance to Ginsberg, the reading that night included the first public presentation of "Howl," a poem that brought worldwide fame to Ginsberg and to many of the poets associated with him. An account of that night can be found in Kerouac's novel "The Dharma Bums", describing how change was collected from audience members to buy jugs of wine, and Ginsberg reading passionately, drunken, with arms outstretched.
Ginsberg's principal work, "Howl," is well known for its opening line: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked [...]." "Howl" was considered scandalous at the time of its publication, because of the rawness of its language. Shortly after its 1956 publication by San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The ban became a cause célèbre among defenders of the First Amendment, and was later lifted, after Judge Clayton W. Horn declared the poem to possess redeeming artistic value. Ginsberg and Shig Murao, the City Lights manager who was jailed for selling "Howl," became lifelong friends.
Biographical references in "Howl".
Ginsberg claimed at one point that all of his work was an extended biography (like Kerouac's "Duluoz Legend"). "Howl" is not only a biography of Ginsberg's experiences before 1955, but also a history of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg also later claimed that at the core of "Howl" were his unresolved emotions about his schizophrenic mother. Though "Kaddish" deals more explicitly with his mother, "Howl" in many ways is driven by the same emotions. "Howl" chronicles the development of many important friendships throughout Ginsberg's life. He begins the poem with "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", which sets the stage for Ginsberg to describe Cassady and Solomon, immortalizing them into American literature. This madness was the "angry fix" that society needed to function—madness was its disease. In the poem, Ginsberg focused on "Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland", and, thus, turned Solomon into an archetypal figure searching for freedom from his "straightjacket". Though references in most of his poetry reveal much about his biography, his relationship to other members of the Beat Generation, and his own political views, "Howl," his most famous poem, is still perhaps the best place to start.
Biographical references in "Howl".
Ginsberg claimed at one point that all of his work was an extended biography (like Kerouac's "Duluoz Legend"). "Howl" is not only a biography of Ginsberg's experiences before 1955, but also a history of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg also later claimed that at the core of "Howl" were his unresolved emotions about his schizophrenic mother. Though "Kaddish" deals more explicitly with his mother, "Howl" in many ways is driven by the same emotions. "Howl" chronicles the development of many important friendships throughout Ginsberg's life. He begins the poem with "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", which sets the stage for Ginsberg to describe Cassady and Solomon, immortalizing them into American literature. This madness was the "angry fix" that society needed to function—madness was its disease. In the poem, Ginsberg focused on "Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland", and, thus, turned Solomon into an archetypal figure searching for freedom from his "straightjacket". Though references in most of his poetry reveal much about his biography, his relationship to other members of the Beat Generation, and his own political views, "Howl," his most famous poem, is still perhaps the best place to start.
To Paris and the "Beat Hotel", Tangier and India.
In 1957, Ginsberg surprised the literary world by abandoning San Francisco. After a spell in Morocco, he and Peter Orlovsky joined Gregory Corso in Paris. Corso introduced them to a shabby lodging house above a bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur that was to become known as the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by Burroughs and others. It was a productive, creative time for all of them. There, Ginsberg began his epic poem "Kaddish," Corso composed "Bomb" and "Marriage", and Burroughs (with help from Ginsberg and Corso) put together "Naked Lunch" from previous writings. This period was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who moved in at about the same time, and took pictures constantly of the residents of the "hotel" until it closed in 1963. During 1962–1963, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travelled extensively across India, living half a year at a time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Benares (Varanasi). On his road to India he stayed two months in Athens ( 29/08/1961 - 31/10/1961) where he visited various cites such as Delphi, Mycines, Crete, and then he continued his journey to Israel, Kenya and finally India. Also during this time, he formed friendships with some of the prominent young Bengali poets of the time including Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay. Ginsberg had several political connections in India; most notably Pupul Jayakar who helped him extend his stay in India when the authorities were eager to expel him.
England and the International Poetry Incarnation.
In May 1965, Ginsberg arrived in London, and offered to read anywhere for free. Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, which was described by Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind." Tom McGrath wrote: "This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England—or at least in the history of English Poetry."
Soon after the bookshop reading, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation, which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 11, 1965. The event attracted an audience of 7,000, who heard readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi, Harry Fainlight, Anselm Hollo, Christopher Logue, George MacBeth, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horovitz, Simon Vinkenoog, Spike Hawkins and Tom McGrath. The event was organized by Ginsberg's friend, the filmmaker Barbara Rubin.
Peter Whitehead documented the event on film and released it as "Wholly Communion". A book featuring images from the film and some of the poems that were performed was also published under the same title by Lorrimer in the UK and Grove Press in US.
Continuing literary activity.
Though the term "Beat" is most accurately applied to Ginsberg and his closest friends (Corso, Orlovsky, Kerouac, Burroughs, etc.), the term "Beat Generation" has become associated with many of the other poets Ginsberg met and became friends with in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A key feature of this term seems to be a friendship with Ginsberg. Friendship with Kerouac or Burroughs might also apply, but both writers later strove to disassociate themselves from the name "Beat Generation." Part of their dissatisfaction with the term came from the mistaken identification of Ginsberg as the leader. Ginsberg never claimed to be the leader of a movement. He claimed that many of the writers with whom he had become friends in this period shared many of the same intentions and themes. Some of these friends include: David Amram, Bob Kaufman; Diane di Prima; Jim Cohn; poets associated with the Black Mountain College such as Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov; poets associated with the New York School such as Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch. LeRoi Jones before he became Amiri Baraka, who, after reading "Howl", wrote a letter to Ginsberg on a sheet of toilet paper. Baraka's independent publishing house Totem Press published Ginsberg's early work. Through a party organized by Baraka, Ginsberg was introduced to Langston Hughes while Ornette Coleman played saxophone.
Later in his life, Ginsberg formed a bridge between the beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, befriending, among others, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bob Dylan. Ginsberg gave his last public reading at Booksmith, a bookstore in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, a few months before his death. In 1993, Ginsberg visited the University of Maine at Orono to pay homage to the 90-year-old great Carl Rakosi.
Buddhism and Krishna.
In 1950, Kerouac began studying Buddhism and shared what he learned from Dwight Goddard's "Buddhist Bible" with Ginsberg. Ginsberg first heard about the Four Noble Truths and such sutras as the Diamond Sutra at this time.
Ginsberg's spiritual journey began early on with his spontaneous visions, and continued with an early trip to India with Gary Snyder. Snyder had previously spent time in Kyoto to study at the First Zen Institute at Daitoku-ji Monastery. At one point, Snyder chanted the Prajnaparamita, which in Ginsberg's words "blew my mind." His interest piqued, Ginsberg traveled to meet the Dalai Lama as well as the Karmapa at Rumtek Monastery. Continuing on his journey, Ginsberg met Dudjom Rinpoche in Kalimpong, who taught him: "If you see something horrible, don't cling to it, and if you see something beautiful, don't cling to it."
After returning to the United States, a chance encounter on a New York City street with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (they both tried to catch the same cab), a Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist master, led to Trungpa becoming his friend and lifelong teacher. Ginsberg helped Trungpa and New York poet Anne Waldman in founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
Ginsberg was also involved with Krishnaism. He had started incorporating chanting the Hare Krishna mantra into his religious practice in the mid-1960s. After learning that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement in the Western world had rented a store front in New York, he befriended him, visiting him often and suggesting publishers for his books, and a fruitful relationship began. This relationship is documented by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami in his biographical account "Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta". Ginsberg donated money, materials, and his reputation to help the Swami establish the first temple, and toured with him to promote his cause.
Despite disagreeing with many of Bhaktivedanta Swami's required prohibitions, Ginsberg often sang the Hare Krishna mantra publicly as part of his philosophy and declared that it brought a state of ecstasy. He was glad that Bhaktivedanta Swami, an authentic swami from India, was now trying to spread the chanting in America. Along with other counterculture ideologists like Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder, and Alan Watts, Ginsberg hoped to incorporate Bhaktivedanta Swami and his chanting into the hippie movement, and agreed to take part in the Mantra-Rock Dance concert and to introduce the swami to the Haight-Ashbury hippie community.
On January 17, 1967, Ginsberg helped plan and organize a reception for Bhaktivedanta Swami at San Francisco International Airport, where fifty to a hundred hippies greeted the Swami, chanting Hare Krishna in the airport lounge with flowers in hands. To further support and promote Bhaktivendata Swami's message and chanting in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg agreed to attend the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event 1967 held at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. It featured some leading rock bands of the time: Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Moby Grape, who performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami and donated proceeds to the Krishna temple. Ginsberg introduced Bhaktivedanta Swami to some three thousand hippies in the audience and led the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra.
Music and chanting were both important parts of Ginsberg's live delivery during poetry readings. He often accompanied himself on a harmonium, and was often accompanied by a guitarist. It is believed that the Hindi and Buddhist poet Nagarjun had introduced Ginsberg to the harmonium in Banaras. According to Malay Roy Choudhury, Ginsberg refined his practice while learning from his relatives, including his cousin Savitri Banerjee. When Ginsberg asked if he could sing a song in praise of Lord Krishna on William F. Buckley, Jr.'s TV show "Firing Line" on September 3, 1968, Buckley acceded and the poet chanted slowly as he played dolefully on a harmonium. According to Richard Brookhiser, an associate of Buckley's, the host commented that it was "the most unharried Krishna I've ever heard."
At the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the 1970 Black Panther rally at Yale campus Allen chanted "Om" repeatedly over a sound system for hours on end.
Ginsberg further brought mantras into the world of rock and roll when he recited the Heart Sutra in the song "Ghetto Defendant." The song appears on the 1982 album Combat Rock by British first wave punk band The Clash.
Ginsberg came in touch with the Hungryalist poets of Bengal, especially Malay Roy Choudhury, who introduced Ginsberg to the three fish with one head of Indian emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar. The three fish symbolised coexistence of all thought, philosophy, and religion.
In spite of Ginsberg's attraction to Eastern religions, the journalist Jane Kramer argues that he, like Whitman, adhered to an "American brand of mysticism" that was "rooted in humanism and in a romantic and visionary ideal of harmony among men."
The Allen Ginsberg Estate and Jewel Heart International partnered to present "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends," a gallery and online exhibition of images of Gelek Rimpoche by Allen Ginsberg, a student with whom he had an “indissoluble bond,” in 2021 at Tibet House US in New York City. Fifty negatives from Ginsberg's Stanford University photo archive celebrated "the unique relationship between Allen and Rimpoche." The selection of never-before presented images, featuring great Tibetan masters including the Dalai Lama, Tibetologists, and students were "guided by Allen’s extensive notes on the contact sheets and images he’d circled with the intention to print."
Illness and death.
In 1960, he was treated for a tropical disease, and it is speculated that he contracted hepatitis from an unsterilized needle administered by a doctor, which played a role in his death 37 years later.
Ginsberg was a lifelong smoker, and though he tried to quit for health and religious reasons, his busy schedule in later life made it difficult, and he always returned to smoking.
In the 1970s, Ginsberg had two minor strokes which were first diagnosed as Bell's palsy, which gave him significant paralysis and stroke-like drooping of the muscles in one side of his face.
Later in life, he also had constant minor ailments such as high blood pressure. Many of these symptoms were related to stress, but he never slowed down his schedule.
Ginsberg won a 1974 National Book Award for ' (split with Adrienne Rich, ').
In 1986, Ginsberg was awarded the Golden Wreath by the Struga Poetry Evenings International Festival in Macedonia, the second American poet to be so awarded since W. H. Auden. At Struga, Ginsberg met with the other Golden Wreath winners, Bulat Okudzhava and Andrei Voznesensky.
In 1989, Ginsberg appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's award-winning film "Silence = Death" about the fight of gay artists in New York City for AIDS-education and the rights of HIV infected people.
In 1993, the French Minister of Culture appointed Ginsberg a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Ginsberg continued to help his friends as much as he could: he gave money to Herbert Huncke out of his own pocket, regularly supplied neighbor Arthur Russell with an extension cord to power his home recording setup, and housed a broke, drug-addicted Harry Smith.
With the exception of a special guest appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam on February 20, 1997, Ginsberg gave what is thought to be his last reading at The Booksmith in San Francisco on December 16, 1996.
After returning home from the hospital for the last time, where he had been unsuccessfully treated for congestive heart failure, Ginsberg continued making phone calls to say goodbye to nearly everyone in his address book. Some of the phone calls, were sad and interrupted by crying, and others were joyous and optimistic. Ginsberg continued to write through his final illness, with his last poem, "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)", written on March 30.
He died on April 5, 1997, surrounded by family and friends in his East Village loft in Manhattan, succumbing to liver cancer via complications of hepatitis at the age of 70. Gregory Corso, Roy Lichtenstein, Patti Smith and others came by to pay their respects. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in his family plot in Gomel Chesed Cemetery in Newark. He was survived by Orlovsky.
In 1998, various writers, including Catfish McDaris read at a gathering at Ginsberg's farm to honor Allen and the Beats.
"Good Will Hunting" (released in December 1997) was dedicated to Ginsberg, as well as Burroughs, who died four months later.
Social and political activism.
Free speech.
Ginsberg's willingness to talk about taboo subjects made him a controversial figure during the conservative 1950s, and a significant figure in the 1960s. In the mid-1950s, no reputable publishing company would even consider publishing "Howl". At the time, such "sex talk" employed in "Howl" was considered by some to be vulgar or even a form of pornography, and could be prosecuted under law. Ginsberg used phrases such as "cocksucker", "fucked in the ass", and "cunt" as part of the poem's depiction of different aspects of American culture. Numerous books that discussed sex were banned at the time, including "Lady Chatterley's Lover". The sex that Ginsberg described did not portray the sex between heterosexual married couples, or even longtime lovers. Instead, Ginsberg portrayed casual sex. For example, in "Howl", Ginsberg praises the man "who sweetened the snatches of a million girls." Ginsberg used gritty descriptions and explicit sexual language, pointing out the man "who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup." In his poetry, Ginsberg also discussed the then-taboo topic of homosexuality. The explicit sexual language that filled "Howl" eventually led to an important trial on First Amendment issues. Ginsberg's publisher was brought up on charges for publishing pornography, and the outcome led to a judge going on record dismissing charges, because the poem carried "redeeming social importance," thus setting an important legal precedent. Ginsberg continued to broach controversial subjects throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. From 1970 to 1996, Ginsberg had a long-term affiliation with PEN American Center with efforts to defend free expression. When explaining how he approached controversial topics, he often pointed to Herbert Huncke: he said that when he first got to know Huncke in the 1940s, Ginsberg saw that he was sick from his heroin addiction, but at the time heroin was a taboo subject and Huncke was left with nowhere to go for help.
Role in Vietnam War protests.
Ginsberg was a signer of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority", circulated among draft resistors in 1967 by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST. Other signers and RESIST members included Mitchell Goodman, Henry Braun, Denise Levertov, Noam Chomsky, William Sloane Coffin, Dwight Macdonald, Robert Lowell, and Norman Mailer. In 1968, Ginsberg signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War, and later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest.
He was present the night of the Tompkins Square Park riot (1988) and provided an eyewitness account to "The New York Times".
Relationship to communism.
Ginsberg talked openly about his connections with communism and his admiration for past communist heroes and the labor movement at a time when the Red Scare and McCarthyism were still raging. He admired Fidel Castro and many other Marxist figures from the 20th century. In "America" (1956), Ginsberg writes: "America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry". Biographer Jonah Raskin has claimed that, despite his often stark opposition to communist orthodoxy, Ginsberg held "his own idiosyncratic version of communism." On the other hand, when Donald Manes, a New York City politician, publicly accused Ginsberg of being a member of the Communist Party, Ginsberg objected: "I am not, as a matter of fact, a member of the Communist party, nor am I dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government or any government by violence ... I must say that I see little difference between the armed and violent governments both Communist and Capitalist that I have observed".
Ginsberg travelled to several communist countries to promote free speech. He claimed that communist countries, such as China, welcomed him because they thought he was an enemy of capitalism, but often turned against him when they saw him as a troublemaker. For example, in 1965 Ginsberg was deported from Cuba for publicly protesting the persecution of homosexuals. The Cubans sent him to Czechoslovakia, where one week after being named the "Král majálesu" ("King of May", a students' festivity, celebrating spring and student life), Ginsberg was arrested for alleged drug use and public drunkenness, and the security agency StB confiscated several of his writings, which they considered to be lewd and morally dangerous. Ginsberg was then deported from Czechoslovakia on May 7, 1965, by order of the StB. Václav Havel points to Ginsberg as an important inspiration.
Gay rights.
One contribution that is often considered his most significant and most controversial was his openness about homosexuality. Ginsberg was an early proponent of freedom for gay people. In 1943, he discovered within himself "mountains of homosexuality." He expressed this desire openly and graphically in his poetry. He also struck a note for gay marriage by listing Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong companion, as his spouse in his "Who's Who" entry. Subsequent gay writers saw his frank talk about homosexuality as an opening to speak more openly and honestly about something often before only hinted at or spoken of in metaphor.
In writing about sexuality in graphic detail and in his frequent use of language seen as indecent, he challenged—and ultimately changed—obscenity laws. He was a staunch supporter of others whose expression challenged obscenity laws (William S. Burroughs and Lenny Bruce, for example).
Association with NAMBLA.
Ginsberg was a supporter and member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States that works to abolish age of consent laws and legalize sexual relations between adults and children. Saying that he joined the organization "in defense of free speech", Ginsberg stated: "Attacks on NAMBLA stink of politics, witchhunting for profit, humorlessness, vanity, anger and ignorance ... I'm a member of NAMBLA because I love boys too—everybody does, who has a little humanity". In 1994, Ginsberg appeared in a documentary on NAMBLA called "" (playing on the gay male slang term "Chickenhawk"), in which he read a "graphic ode to youth".
In her 2002 book "Heartbreak", Andrea Dworkin claimed Ginsberg had ulterior motives for allying with NAMBLA. In reference to his onetime friend Dworkin, Ginsberg stated:
Demystification of drugs.
Ginsberg talked often about drug use. He organized the New York City chapter of LeMar (Legalize Marijuana). Throughout the 1960s he took an active role in the demystification of LSD, and, with Timothy Leary, worked to promote its common use. He remained for many decades an advocate of marijuana legalization, and, at the same time, warned his audiences against the hazards of tobacco in his "Put Down Your Cigarette Rag (Don't Smoke):" "Don't Smoke Don't Smoke Nicotine Nicotine No / No don't smoke the official Dope Smoke Dope Dope."
CIA drug trafficking.
Ginsberg worked closely with Alfred W. McCoy on the latter's book "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia", which claimed that the CIA was knowingly involved in the production of heroin in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. In addition to working with McCoy, Ginsberg personally confronted Richard Helms, the director of the CIA in the 1970s, about the matter, but Helms denied that the CIA had anything to do with selling illegal drugs. Allen wrote many essays and articles, researching and compiling evidence of the CIA's alleged involvement in drug trafficking, but it took ten years, and the publication of McCoy's book in 1972, before anyone took him seriously. In 1978, Ginsberg received a note from the chief editor of "The New York Times", apologizing for not having taken his allegations seriously. The political subject is dealt with in his song/poem "CIA Dope calypso". The United States Department of State responded to McCoy's initial allegations stating that they were "unable to find any evidence to substantiate them, much less proof." Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General of the CIA, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a.k.a. the Church Committee, also found the charges to be unsubstantiated.
Free speech.
Ginsberg's willingness to talk about taboo subjects made him a controversial figure during the conservative 1950s, and a significant figure in the 1960s. In the mid-1950s, no reputable publishing company would even consider publishing "Howl". At the time, such "sex talk" employed in "Howl" was considered by some to be vulgar or even a form of pornography, and could be prosecuted under law. Ginsberg used phrases such as "cocksucker", "fucked in the ass", and "cunt" as part of the poem's depiction of different aspects of American culture. Numerous books that discussed sex were banned at the time, including "Lady Chatterley's Lover". The sex that Ginsberg described did not portray the sex between heterosexual married couples, or even longtime lovers. Instead, Ginsberg portrayed casual sex. For example, in "Howl", Ginsberg praises the man "who sweetened the snatches of a million girls." Ginsberg used gritty descriptions and explicit sexual language, pointing out the man "who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup." In his poetry, Ginsberg also discussed the then-taboo topic of homosexuality. The explicit sexual language that filled "Howl" eventually led to an important trial on First Amendment issues. Ginsberg's publisher was brought up on charges for publishing pornography, and the outcome led to a judge going on record dismissing charges, because the poem carried "redeeming social importance," thus setting an important legal precedent. Ginsberg continued to broach controversial subjects throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. From 1970 to 1996, Ginsberg had a long-term affiliation with PEN American Center with efforts to defend free expression. When explaining how he approached controversial topics, he often pointed to Herbert Huncke: he said that when he first got to know Huncke in the 1940s, Ginsberg saw that he was sick from his heroin addiction, but at the time heroin was a taboo subject and Huncke was left with nowhere to go for help.
Role in Vietnam War protests.
Ginsberg was a signer of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority", circulated among draft resistors in 1967 by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST. Other signers and RESIST members included Mitchell Goodman, Henry Braun, Denise Levertov, Noam Chomsky, William Sloane Coffin, Dwight Macdonald, Robert Lowell, and Norman Mailer. In 1968, Ginsberg signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War, and later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest.
He was present the night of the Tompkins Square Park riot (1988) and provided an eyewitness account to "The New York Times".
Relationship to communism.
Ginsberg talked openly about his connections with communism and his admiration for past communist heroes and the labor movement at a time when the Red Scare and McCarthyism were still raging. He admired Fidel Castro and many other Marxist figures from the 20th century. In "America" (1956), Ginsberg writes: "America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry". Biographer Jonah Raskin has claimed that, despite his often stark opposition to communist orthodoxy, Ginsberg held "his own idiosyncratic version of communism." On the other hand, when Donald Manes, a New York City politician, publicly accused Ginsberg of being a member of the Communist Party, Ginsberg objected: "I am not, as a matter of fact, a member of the Communist party, nor am I dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government or any government by violence ... I must say that I see little difference between the armed and violent governments both Communist and Capitalist that I have observed".
Ginsberg travelled to several communist countries to promote free speech. He claimed that communist countries, such as China, welcomed him because they thought he was an enemy of capitalism, but often turned against him when they saw him as a troublemaker. For example, in 1965 Ginsberg was deported from Cuba for publicly protesting the persecution of homosexuals. The Cubans sent him to Czechoslovakia, where one week after being named the "Král majálesu" ("King of May", a students' festivity, celebrating spring and student life), Ginsberg was arrested for alleged drug use and public drunkenness, and the security agency StB confiscated several of his writings, which they considered to be lewd and morally dangerous. Ginsberg was then deported from Czechoslovakia on May 7, 1965, by order of the StB. Václav Havel points to Ginsberg as an important inspiration.
Gay rights.
One contribution that is often considered his most significant and most controversial was his openness about homosexuality. Ginsberg was an early proponent of freedom for gay people. In 1943, he discovered within himself "mountains of homosexuality." He expressed this desire openly and graphically in his poetry. He also struck a note for gay marriage by listing Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong companion, as his spouse in his "Who's Who" entry. Subsequent gay writers saw his frank talk about homosexuality as an opening to speak more openly and honestly about something often before only hinted at or spoken of in metaphor.
In writing about sexuality in graphic detail and in his frequent use of language seen as indecent, he challenged—and ultimately changed—obscenity laws. He was a staunch supporter of others whose expression challenged obscenity laws (William S. Burroughs and Lenny Bruce, for example).
Association with NAMBLA.
Ginsberg was a supporter and member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States that works to abolish age of consent laws and legalize sexual relations between adults and children. Saying that he joined the organization "in defense of free speech", Ginsberg stated: "Attacks on NAMBLA stink of politics, witchhunting for profit, humorlessness, vanity, anger and ignorance ... I'm a member of NAMBLA because I love boys too—everybody does, who has a little humanity". In 1994, Ginsberg appeared in a documentary on NAMBLA called "" (playing on the gay male slang term "Chickenhawk"), in which he read a "graphic ode to youth".
In her 2002 book "Heartbreak", Andrea Dworkin claimed Ginsberg had ulterior motives for allying with NAMBLA. In reference to his onetime friend Dworkin, Ginsberg stated:
Demystification of drugs.
Ginsberg talked often about drug use. He organized the New York City chapter of LeMar (Legalize Marijuana). Throughout the 1960s he took an active role in the demystification of LSD, and, with Timothy Leary, worked to promote its common use. He remained for many decades an advocate of marijuana legalization, and, at the same time, warned his audiences against the hazards of tobacco in his "Put Down Your Cigarette Rag (Don't Smoke):" "Don't Smoke Don't Smoke Nicotine Nicotine No / No don't smoke the official Dope Smoke Dope Dope."
CIA drug trafficking.
Ginsberg worked closely with Alfred W. McCoy on the latter's book "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia", which claimed that the CIA was knowingly involved in the production of heroin in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. In addition to working with McCoy, Ginsberg personally confronted Richard Helms, the director of the CIA in the 1970s, about the matter, but Helms denied that the CIA had anything to do with selling illegal drugs. Allen wrote many essays and articles, researching and compiling evidence of the CIA's alleged involvement in drug trafficking, but it took ten years, and the publication of McCoy's book in 1972, before anyone took him seriously. In 1978, Ginsberg received a note from the chief editor of "The New York Times", apologizing for not having taken his allegations seriously. The political subject is dealt with in his song/poem "CIA Dope calypso". The United States Department of State responded to McCoy's initial allegations stating that they were "unable to find any evidence to substantiate them, much less proof." Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General of the CIA, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a.k.a. the Church Committee, also found the charges to be unsubstantiated.
Work.
Most of Ginsberg's very early poetry was written in formal rhyme and meter like that of his father, and of his idol William Blake. His admiration for the writing of Jack Kerouac inspired him to take poetry more seriously. In 1955, upon the advice of a psychiatrist, Ginsberg dropped out of the working world to devote his entire life to poetry. Soon after, he wrote "Howl", the poem that brought him and his Beat Generation contemporaries to national attention and allowed him to live as a professional poet for the rest of his life. Later in life, Ginsberg entered academia, teaching poetry as Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College from 1986 until his death.
Inspiration from friends.
Ginsberg claimed throughout his life that his biggest inspiration was Kerouac's concept of "spontaneous prose." He believed literature should come from the soul without conscious restrictions. Ginsberg was much more prone to revise than Kerouac. For example, when Kerouac saw the first draft of "Howl," he disliked the fact that Ginsberg had made editorial changes in pencil (transposing "negro" and "angry" in the first line, for example). Kerouac only wrote out his concepts of spontaneous prose at Ginsberg's insistence because Ginsberg wanted to learn how to apply the technique to his poetry.
The inspiration for "Howl" was Ginsberg's friend, Carl Solomon, and "Howl" is dedicated to him. Solomon was a Dada and Surrealism enthusiast (he introduced Ginsberg to Artaud) who had bouts of clinical depression. Solomon wanted to commit suicide, but he thought a form of suicide appropriate to dadaism would be to go to a mental institution and demand a lobotomy. The institution refused, giving him many forms of therapy, including electroshock therapy. Much of the final section of the first part of "Howl" is a description of this.
Ginsberg used Solomon as an example of all those ground down by the machine of "Moloch." Moloch, to whom the second section is addressed, is a Levantine god to whom children were sacrificed. Ginsberg may have gotten the name from the Kenneth Rexroth poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill," a poem about the death of one of Ginsberg's heroes, Dylan Thomas. Moloch is mentioned a few times in the Torah and references to Ginsberg's Jewish background are frequent in his work. Ginsberg said the image of Moloch was inspired by peyote visions he had of the Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco which appeared to him as a skull; he took it as a symbol of the city (not specifically San Francisco, but all cities). Ginsberg later acknowledged in various publications and interviews that behind the visions of the Francis Drake Hotel were memories of the Moloch of Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" (1927) and of the woodcut novels of Lynd Ward. Moloch has subsequently been interpreted as any system of control, including the conformist society of post-World War II America, focused on material gain, which Ginsberg frequently blamed for the destruction of all those outside of societal norms.
He also made sure to emphasize that Moloch is a part of humanity in multiple aspects, in that the decision to "defy" socially created systems of control—and therefore go against Moloch—is a form of self-destruction. Many of the characters Ginsberg references in "Howl", such as Neal Cassady and Herbert Huncke, destroyed themselves through excessive substance abuse or a generally wild lifestyle. The personal aspects of "Howl" are perhaps as important as the political aspects. Carl Solomon, the prime example of a "best mind" destroyed by defying society, is associated with Ginsberg's schizophrenic mother: the line "with mother finally fucked" comes after a long section about Carl Solomon, and in Part III, Ginsberg says: "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother." Ginsberg later admitted that the drive to write "Howl" was fueled by sympathy for his ailing mother, an issue which he was not yet ready to deal with directly. He dealt with it directly with 1959's "Kaddish", which had its first public reading at a Catholic Worker Friday Night meeting, possibly due to its associations with Thomas Merton.
Inspiration from mentors and idols.
Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by Modernism (most importantly the American style of Modernism pioneered by William Carlos Williams), Romanticism (specifically William Blake and John Keats), the beat and cadence of jazz (specifically that of bop musicians such as Charlie Parker), and his Kagyu Buddhist practice and Jewish background. He considered himself to have inherited the visionary poetic mantle handed down from the English poet and artist William Blake, the American poet Walt Whitman and the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The power of Ginsberg's verse, its searching, probing focus, its long and lilting lines, as well as its New World exuberance, all echo the continuity of inspiration that he claimed.
He corresponded with William Carlos Williams, who was then in the middle of writing his epic poem "Paterson" about the industrial city near his home. After attending a reading by Williams, Ginsberg sent the older poet several of his poems and wrote an introductory letter. Most of these early poems were rhymed and metered and included archaic pronouns like "thee." Williams disliked the poems and told Ginsberg, "In this mode perfection is basic, and these poems are not perfect."
Though he disliked these early poems, Williams loved the exuberance in Ginsberg's letter. He included the letter in a later part of "Paterson". He encouraged Ginsberg not to emulate the old masters, but to speak with his own voice and the voice of the common American. From Williams, Ginsberg learned to focus on strong visual images, in line with Williams' own motto "No ideas but in things." Studying Williams' style led to a tremendous shift from the early formalist work to a loose, colloquial free verse style. Early breakthrough poems include "Bricklayer's Lunch Hour" and "Dream Record".
Carl Solomon introduced Ginsberg to the work of Antonin Artaud ("To Have Done with the Judgement of God" and "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society"), and Jean Genet ("Our Lady of the Flowers"). Philip Lamantia introduced him to other Surrealists and Surrealism continued to be an influence (for example, sections of "Kaddish" were inspired by André Breton's "Free Union"). Ginsberg claimed that the anaphoric repetition of "Howl" and other poems was inspired by Christopher Smart in such poems as "Jubilate Agno". Ginsberg also claimed other more traditional influences, such as: Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson.
Ginsberg also made an intense study of haiku and the paintings of Paul Cézanne, from which he adapted a concept important to his work, which he called the "Eyeball Kick". He noticed in viewing Cézanne's paintings that when the eye moved from one color to a contrasting color, the eye would spasm, or "kick." Likewise, he discovered that the contrast of two seeming opposites was a common feature in haiku. Ginsberg used this technique in his poetry, putting together two starkly dissimilar images: something weak with something strong, an artifact of high culture with an artifact of low culture, something holy with something unholy. The example Ginsberg most often used was "hydrogen jukebox" (which later became the title of a song cycle composed by Philip Glass with lyrics drawn from Ginsberg's poems). Another example is Ginsberg's observation on Bob Dylan during Dylan's hectic and intense 1966 electric-guitar tour, fueled by a cocktail of amphetamines, opiates, alcohol, and psychedelics, as a "Dexedrine Clown". The phrases "eyeball kick" and "hydrogen jukebox" both show up in "Howl", as well as a direct quote from Cézanne: "Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus".
Inspiration from music.
Allen Ginsberg also found inspiration in music. He frequently included music in his poetry, invariably composing his tunes on an old Indian harmonium, which he often played during his readings. He wrote and recorded music to accompany William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience". He also recorded a handful of other albums. To create music for "Howl" and "Wichita Vortex Sutra," he worked with the minimalist composer, Philip Glass.
Ginsberg worked with, drew inspiration from, and inspired artists such as Bob Dylan, The Clash, Patti Smith, Phil Ochs, and The Fugs. He worked with Dylan on various projects and maintained a friendship with him over many years.
In 1981, Ginsberg recorded a song called "Birdbrain." He was backed by the Gluons, and the track was released as a single. In 1996, he recorded a song co-written with Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, "The Ballad of the Skeletons," which reached number 8 on the Triple J Hottest 100 for that year.
Style and technique.
From the study of his idols and mentors and the inspiration of his friends—not to mention his own experiments—Ginsberg developed an individualistic style that's easily identified as Ginsbergian. Ginsberg stated that Whitman's long line was a dynamic technique few other poets had ventured to develop further, and Whitman is also often compared to Ginsberg because their poetry sexualized aspects of the male form.
Many of Ginsberg's early long line experiments contain some sort of anaphora, repetition of a "fixed base" (for example "who" in "Howl", "America" in "America") and this has become a recognizable feature of Ginsberg's style. He said later this was a crutch because he lacked confidence; he did not yet trust "free flight." In the 1960s, after employing it in some sections of "Kaddish" ("caw" for example) he, for the most part, abandoned the anaphoric form.
Several of his earlier experiments with methods for formatting poems as a whole became regular aspects of his style in later poems. In the original draft of "Howl", each line is in a "stepped triadic" format reminiscent of William Carlos Williams. He abandoned the "stepped triadic" when he developed his long line although the stepped lines showed up later, most significantly in the travelogues of "The Fall of America". "Howl" and "Kaddish", arguably his two most important poems, are both organized as an inverted pyramid, with larger sections leading to smaller sections. In "America", he also experimented with a mix of longer and shorter lines.
Ginsberg's mature style made use of many specific, highly developed techniques, which he expressed in the "poetic slogans" he used in his Naropa teaching. Prominent among these was the inclusion of his unedited mental associations so as to reveal the mind at work ("First thought, best thought." "Mind is shapely, thought is shapely.") He preferred expression through carefully observed physical details rather than abstract statements ("Show, don't tell." "No ideas but in things.") In these he carried on and developed traditions of modernism in writing that are also found in Kerouac and Whitman.
In "Howl" and in his other poetry, Ginsberg drew inspiration from the epic, free verse style of the 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman. Both wrote passionately about the promise (and betrayal) of American democracy, the central importance of erotic experience, and the spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence. J. D. McClatchy, editor of the "Yale Review", called Ginsberg "the best-known American poet of his generation, as much a social force as a literary phenomenon." McClatchy added that Ginsberg, like Whitman, "was a bard in the old manner—outsized, darkly prophetic, part exuberance, part prayer, part rant. His work is finally a history of our era's psyche, with all its contradictory urges." McClatchy's barbed eulogies define the essential difference between Ginsberg ("a beat poet whose writing was [...] journalism raised by combining the recycling genius with a generous mimic-empathy, to strike audience-accessible chords; always lyrical and sometimes truly poetic") and Kerouac ("a poet of singular brilliance, the brightest luminary of a 'beat generation' he came to symbolise in popular culture [...] [though] in reality he far surpassed his contemporaries [...] Kerouac is an originating genius, exploring then answering—like Rimbaud a century earlier, by necessity more than by choice—the demands of authentic self-expression as applied to the evolving quicksilver mind of America's only literary virtuoso [...]").
Inspiration from friends.
Ginsberg claimed throughout his life that his biggest inspiration was Kerouac's concept of "spontaneous prose." He believed literature should come from the soul without conscious restrictions. Ginsberg was much more prone to revise than Kerouac. For example, when Kerouac saw the first draft of "Howl," he disliked the fact that Ginsberg had made editorial changes in pencil (transposing "negro" and "angry" in the first line, for example). Kerouac only wrote out his concepts of spontaneous prose at Ginsberg's insistence because Ginsberg wanted to learn how to apply the technique to his poetry.
The inspiration for "Howl" was Ginsberg's friend, Carl Solomon, and "Howl" is dedicated to him. Solomon was a Dada and Surrealism enthusiast (he introduced Ginsberg to Artaud) who had bouts of clinical depression. Solomon wanted to commit suicide, but he thought a form of suicide appropriate to dadaism would be to go to a mental institution and demand a lobotomy. The institution refused, giving him many forms of therapy, including electroshock therapy. Much of the final section of the first part of "Howl" is a description of this.
Ginsberg used Solomon as an example of all those ground down by the machine of "Moloch." Moloch, to whom the second section is addressed, is a Levantine god to whom children were sacrificed. Ginsberg may have gotten the name from the Kenneth Rexroth poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill," a poem about the death of one of Ginsberg's heroes, Dylan Thomas. Moloch is mentioned a few times in the Torah and references to Ginsberg's Jewish background are frequent in his work. Ginsberg said the image of Moloch was inspired by peyote visions he had of the Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco which appeared to him as a skull; he took it as a symbol of the city (not specifically San Francisco, but all cities). Ginsberg later acknowledged in various publications and interviews that behind the visions of the Francis Drake Hotel were memories of the Moloch of Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" (1927) and of the woodcut novels of Lynd Ward. Moloch has subsequently been interpreted as any system of control, including the conformist society of post-World War II America, focused on material gain, which Ginsberg frequently blamed for the destruction of all those outside of societal norms.
He also made sure to emphasize that Moloch is a part of humanity in multiple aspects, in that the decision to "defy" socially created systems of control—and therefore go against Moloch—is a form of self-destruction. Many of the characters Ginsberg references in "Howl", such as Neal Cassady and Herbert Huncke, destroyed themselves through excessive substance abuse or a generally wild lifestyle. The personal aspects of "Howl" are perhaps as important as the political aspects. Carl Solomon, the prime example of a "best mind" destroyed by defying society, is associated with Ginsberg's schizophrenic mother: the line "with mother finally fucked" comes after a long section about Carl Solomon, and in Part III, Ginsberg says: "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother." Ginsberg later admitted that the drive to write "Howl" was fueled by sympathy for his ailing mother, an issue which he was not yet ready to deal with directly. He dealt with it directly with 1959's "Kaddish", which had its first public reading at a Catholic Worker Friday Night meeting, possibly due to its associations with Thomas Merton.
Inspiration from mentors and idols.
Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by Modernism (most importantly the American style of Modernism pioneered by William Carlos Williams), Romanticism (specifically William Blake and John Keats), the beat and cadence of jazz (specifically that of bop musicians such as Charlie Parker), and his Kagyu Buddhist practice and Jewish background. He considered himself to have inherited the visionary poetic mantle handed down from the English poet and artist William Blake, the American poet Walt Whitman and the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The power of Ginsberg's verse, its searching, probing focus, its long and lilting lines, as well as its New World exuberance, all echo the continuity of inspiration that he claimed.
He corresponded with William Carlos Williams, who was then in the middle of writing his epic poem "Paterson" about the industrial city near his home. After attending a reading by Williams, Ginsberg sent the older poet several of his poems and wrote an introductory letter. Most of these early poems were rhymed and metered and included archaic pronouns like "thee." Williams disliked the poems and told Ginsberg, "In this mode perfection is basic, and these poems are not perfect."
Though he disliked these early poems, Williams loved the exuberance in Ginsberg's letter. He included the letter in a later part of "Paterson". He encouraged Ginsberg not to emulate the old masters, but to speak with his own voice and the voice of the common American. From Williams, Ginsberg learned to focus on strong visual images, in line with Williams' own motto "No ideas but in things." Studying Williams' style led to a tremendous shift from the early formalist work to a loose, colloquial free verse style. Early breakthrough poems include "Bricklayer's Lunch Hour" and "Dream Record".
Carl Solomon introduced Ginsberg to the work of Antonin Artaud ("To Have Done with the Judgement of God" and "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society"), and Jean Genet ("Our Lady of the Flowers"). Philip Lamantia introduced him to other Surrealists and Surrealism continued to be an influence (for example, sections of "Kaddish" were inspired by André Breton's "Free Union"). Ginsberg claimed that the anaphoric repetition of "Howl" and other poems was inspired by Christopher Smart in such poems as "Jubilate Agno". Ginsberg also claimed other more traditional influences, such as: Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson.
Ginsberg also made an intense study of haiku and the paintings of Paul Cézanne, from which he adapted a concept important to his work, which he called the "Eyeball Kick". He noticed in viewing Cézanne's paintings that when the eye moved from one color to a contrasting color, the eye would spasm, or "kick." Likewise, he discovered that the contrast of two seeming opposites was a common feature in haiku. Ginsberg used this technique in his poetry, putting together two starkly dissimilar images: something weak with something strong, an artifact of high culture with an artifact of low culture, something holy with something unholy. The example Ginsberg most often used was "hydrogen jukebox" (which later became the title of a song cycle composed by Philip Glass with lyrics drawn from Ginsberg's poems). Another example is Ginsberg's observation on Bob Dylan during Dylan's hectic and intense 1966 electric-guitar tour, fueled by a cocktail of amphetamines, opiates, alcohol, and psychedelics, as a "Dexedrine Clown". The phrases "eyeball kick" and "hydrogen jukebox" both show up in "Howl", as well as a direct quote from Cézanne: "Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus".
Inspiration from music.
Allen Ginsberg also found inspiration in music. He frequently included music in his poetry, invariably composing his tunes on an old Indian harmonium, which he often played during his readings. He wrote and recorded music to accompany William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience". He also recorded a handful of other albums. To create music for "Howl" and "Wichita Vortex Sutra," he worked with the minimalist composer, Philip Glass.
Ginsberg worked with, drew inspiration from, and inspired artists such as Bob Dylan, The Clash, Patti Smith, Phil Ochs, and The Fugs. He worked with Dylan on various projects and maintained a friendship with him over many years.
In 1981, Ginsberg recorded a song called "Birdbrain." He was backed by the Gluons, and the track was released as a single. In 1996, he recorded a song co-written with Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, "The Ballad of the Skeletons," which reached number 8 on the Triple J Hottest 100 for that year.
Style and technique.
From the study of his idols and mentors and the inspiration of his friends—not to mention his own experiments—Ginsberg developed an individualistic style that's easily identified as Ginsbergian. Ginsberg stated that Whitman's long line was a dynamic technique few other poets had ventured to develop further, and Whitman is also often compared to Ginsberg because their poetry sexualized aspects of the male form.
Many of Ginsberg's early long line experiments contain some sort of anaphora, repetition of a "fixed base" (for example "who" in "Howl", "America" in "America") and this has become a recognizable feature of Ginsberg's style. He said later this was a crutch because he lacked confidence; he did not yet trust "free flight." In the 1960s, after employing it in some sections of "Kaddish" ("caw" for example) he, for the most part, abandoned the anaphoric form.
Several of his earlier experiments with methods for formatting poems as a whole became regular aspects of his style in later poems. In the original draft of "Howl", each line is in a "stepped triadic" format reminiscent of William Carlos Williams. He abandoned the "stepped triadic" when he developed his long line although the stepped lines showed up later, most significantly in the travelogues of "The Fall of America". "Howl" and "Kaddish", arguably his two most important poems, are both organized as an inverted pyramid, with larger sections leading to smaller sections. In "America", he also experimented with a mix of longer and shorter lines.
Ginsberg's mature style made use of many specific, highly developed techniques, which he expressed in the "poetic slogans" he used in his Naropa teaching. Prominent among these was the inclusion of his unedited mental associations so as to reveal the mind at work ("First thought, best thought." "Mind is shapely, thought is shapely.") He preferred expression through carefully observed physical details rather than abstract statements ("Show, don't tell." "No ideas but in things.") In these he carried on and developed traditions of modernism in writing that are also found in Kerouac and Whitman.
In "Howl" and in his other poetry, Ginsberg drew inspiration from the epic, free verse style of the 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman. Both wrote passionately about the promise (and betrayal) of American democracy, the central importance of erotic experience, and the spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence. J. D. McClatchy, editor of the "Yale Review", called Ginsberg "the best-known American poet of his generation, as much a social force as a literary phenomenon." McClatchy added that Ginsberg, like Whitman, "was a bard in the old manner—outsized, darkly prophetic, part exuberance, part prayer, part rant. His work is finally a history of our era's psyche, with all its contradictory urges." McClatchy's barbed eulogies define the essential difference between Ginsberg ("a beat poet whose writing was [...] journalism raised by combining the recycling genius with a generous mimic-empathy, to strike audience-accessible chords; always lyrical and sometimes truly poetic") and Kerouac ("a poet of singular brilliance, the brightest luminary of a 'beat generation' he came to symbolise in popular culture [...] [though] in reality he far surpassed his contemporaries [...] Kerouac is an originating genius, exploring then answering—like Rimbaud a century earlier, by necessity more than by choice—the demands of authentic self-expression as applied to the evolving quicksilver mind of America's only literary virtuoso [...]").
Honors.
His collection "The Fall of America" shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979, he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book "Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992". In 1993, he received a John Jay Award posthumously from Columbia.
In 2014, Ginsberg was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."
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1647
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Alessandro Allori
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Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori (Florence, 31 May 153522 September 1607) was an Italian painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.
Biography.
In 1540, after the death of his father, Allori was brought up and trained in art by a close friend, often referred to as his 'uncle', the mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino, whose name he sometimes assumed in his pictures. Allori supplemented this training with a study trip to Rome, between 1554 and 1560, and with anatomical research which included the dissection of human corpses, provided by the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
In the prime of his career, Allori headed one of the "two most important workshops in Florence in the second half of the 16th century" (the other being headed by Santi di Tito). He served as First Consul of the Accademia del Disegno in 1573, and was made head of the "Arazzeria Medicea", Florence's state-owned tapestry workshop, in 1581. Allori also worked, under the guidance of Giorgio Vasari, among the team of artists who decorated the Studiolo of Francesco I. He contributed two painted panels, depicting a "Banquet of Cleopatra" and a landscape with figures diving for pearls.
S. J. Freedberg derides Allori as derivative, claiming he illustrates "the ideal of Maniera by which art (and style) are generated out of pre-existing art." The cold and polished appearance of his painted figures makes them resemble statues as much as living beings. The art historian Simona Lecchini Giovannoni is more positive, remarking that Allori lends life and immediacy to his paintings through his minute and realistic depictions of vegetal motifs (especially flowers), household articles, and textiles of all kinds; the "grandiose, introverted figures" are thus enabled to "approach the spectator, not with dialogue and sentiment, but through the tangible evidence of objects and details".
Among his collaborators was Giovanni Maria Butteri and his main pupil was Giovanni Bizzelli. Cristofano dell'Altissimo, Cesare Dandini, Aurelio Lomi, John Mosnier, Alessandro Pieroni, Giovanni Battista Vanni, and Monanni also were his pupils. He was the father of the painter Cristofano Allori (1577–1621).
In some ways, Allori is the last of the line of prominent Florentine painters, of generally undiluted Tuscan artistic heritage: Andrea del Sarto worked with Fra Bartolomeo (as well as Leonardo da Vinci), Pontormo briefly worked under Andrea, and trained Bronzino, who trained Allori. Subsequent generations in the city would be strongly influenced by the tide of Baroque styles pre-eminent in other parts of Italy.
Main works.
In 2006 the BBC foreign correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler returned an original Alessandro Allori painting to the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. He had been given it in Germany in 1952, but only recently realized its origin and that it must have been looted in the wake of World War II. The work is possibly a portrait of Eleonora (Dianora) di Toledo de' Medici, niece of Eleonora di Toledo, and measures 12 cm x 16 cm.
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1614
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Alexis (poet)
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Alexis (; c. 375 – c. 275 BC) was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period. He was born at Thurii (in present-day Calabria, Italy) in Magna Graecia and taken early to Athens, where he became a citizen, being enrolled in the deme "Oion" () and the tribe Leontides. It is thought he lived to the age of 106 and died on the stage while being crowned. According to the "Suda", a 10th-century encyclopedia, Alexis was the paternal uncle of the dramatist Menander and wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments now survive, including some 130 preserved titles.
Life.
He appears to have been rather addicted to the pleasures of the table, according to Athenaeus. He had a son named Stephanus (Στέφανος) who was also a comic poet.
He won his first Lenaean victory in the 350s BC, most likely, where he was sixth after Eubulus, and fourth after Antiphanes. While being a Middle Comic poet, Alexis was contemporary with several leading figures of New Comedy, such as Philippides, Philemon, Diphilus, and even Menander. There is also some evidence that, during his old age, he wrote plays in the style of New Comedy.
Plutarch says that he lived to the age of 106 and 5 months, and that he died on the stage while being crowned victor. He was certainly alive after 345 BC, for Aeschines mentions him as alive in that year. He was also living at least as late as 288 BC, from which his birth date is calculated. According to the "Suda" he wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments including some 130 titles survive. His plays include "Meropis", "Ankylion", "Olympiodoros", "Parasitos" (exhibited in 360 BC, in which he ridiculed Plato), "Agonis" (in which he ridiculed Misgolas), and the "Adelphoi" and the "Stratiotes", in which he satirized Demosthenes, and acted shortly after 343 BC.
Also "Hippos" (316 BC) (in which he referred to the decree of Sophocles against the philosophers), "Pyraunos" (312 BC), "Pharmakopole" (306 BC), "Hypobolimaios" (306 BC), and "Ankylion".
Because he wrote a lot of plays, the same passages often appear in more than 3 plays. It was said that he also borrowed from Eubulus and many other playwrights in some of his plays. According to Carytius of Pergamum, Alexis was the first to use the part of the parasite. Alexis was known in Roman times; Aulus Gellius noted that Alexis' poetry was used by Roman comedians, including Turpilius and possibly Plautus.
Surviving titles and fragments.
Only fragments have survived from any of Alexis's plays – about 340 in all, totaling about 1,000 lines. They attest to the author's wit and refinement, which Athenaeus praises. The surviving fragments also show that Alexis invented a great many words, mostly compound words, that he used normal words in an unusual way, and made strange and unusual forms of common words. The main sources of the fragments of Alexis are Stobaeus and Athenaeus.
The following 139 titles of Alexis's plays have been preserved:
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1613
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Alexios I Komnenos
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Alexios I Komnenos (, 1057 – 15 August 1118; Latinized Alexius I Comnenus) was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the first emperor of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power and initiated a hereditary succession to the throne. Inheriting a collapsing empire and faced with constant warfare during his reign against both the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor and the Normans in the western Balkans, Alexios was able to curb the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration. His appeals to Western Europe for help against the Turks were also the catalyst that contributed to the convoking of the Crusades.
Life.
Alexios was the son of John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene, and the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos (emperor 1057–1059). Alexios' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was thus succeeded by Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059–1067), and died as a monk in 1067. Alexios and his elder brother, Manuel Komnenos served under Romanos IV Diogenes (r. 1068–1071) with distinction against the Seljuk Turks. Under Michael VII Doukas "Parapinakes" (1071–1078) and Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–1081), he was militarily employed, along with his elder brother Isaac, against rebels in Asia Minor, Thrace, and in Epirus.
In 1074, western mercenaries led by Roussel de Bailleul rebelled in Asia Minor, but Alexios successfully subdued them by 1076. In 1078, he was appointed commander of the field army in the West by Nikephoros III. In this capacity, Alexios defeated the rebellions of Nikephoros Bryennios the Elder (whose son or grandson later married Alexios' daughter Anna) and Nikephoros Basilakes, the first at the Battle of Kalavrye and the latter in a surprise night attack on his camp. Alexios was ordered to march against his brother-in-law Nikephoros Melissenos in Asia Minor but refused to fight his kinsman. This did not, however, lead to a demotion, as Alexios was needed to counter the expected invasion of the Normans of Southern Italy, led by Robert Guiscard.
Conspiracy and revolt of the Komnenoi against Botaneiates.
While Byzantine troops were assembling for the expedition, the Doukas faction at court approached Alexios and convinced him to join a conspiracy against Nikephoros III. The mother of Alexios, Anna Dalassene, was to play a prominent role in this coup d'état of 1081, along with the current empress, Maria of Alania. First married to Michael VII Doukas and secondly to Nikephoros III Botaneiates, she was preoccupied with the future of her son by Michael VII, Constantine Doukas. Nikephoros III intended to leave the throne to one of his close relatives, and this resulted in Maria's ambivalence and alliance with the Komnenoi, though the real driving force behind this political alliance was Anna Dalassene.
The empress was already closely connected to the Komnenoi through Maria's cousin Irene's marriage to Isaac Komnenos, so the Komnenoi brothers were able to see her under the pretense of a friendly family visit. Furthermore, to aid the conspiracy Maria had adopted Alexios as her son, though she was only five years older than he. Maria was persuaded to do so on the advice of her own "Alans" and her eunuchs, who had been instigated by Isaac Komnenos. Given Anna's tight hold on her family, Alexios must have been adopted with her implicit approval. As a result, Alexios and Constantine, Maria's son, were now adoptive brothers, and both Isaac and Alexios took an oath that they would safeguard his rights as emperor. By secretly giving inside information to the Komnenoi, Maria was an invaluable ally.
As stated in the Alexiad, Isaac and Alexios left Constantinople in mid-February 1081 to raise an army against Botaneiates. However, when the time came, Anna quickly and surreptitiously mobilized the remainder of the family and took refuge in the Hagia Sophia. From there she negotiated with the emperor for the safety of family members left in the capital, while protesting her sons' innocence of hostile actions. Under the falsehood of making a vesperal visit to worship at the church, she deliberately excluded the grandson of Botaneiates and his loyal tutor, met with Alexios and Isaac, and fled for the forum of Constantine. The tutor discovered they were missing and eventually found them on the palace grounds, but Anna was able to convince him that they would return to the palace shortly. Then to gain entrance to both the outer and inner sanctuary of the church, the women pretended to the gatekeepers that they were pilgrims from Cappadocia who had spent all their funds and wanted to worship before starting their return trip. However, before they were to gain entry into the sanctuary, Straboromanos and royal guards caught up with them to summon them back to the palace. Anna then protested that the family was in fear for their lives, her sons were loyal subjects (Alexios and Isaac were discovered absent without leave), and had learned of a plot by enemies of the Komnenoi to have them both blinded and had, therefore, fled the capital so they may continue to be of loyal service to the emperor. She refused to go with them and demanded that they allow her to pray to the Mother of God for protection. This request was granted and Anna then manifested her true theatrical and manipulative capabilities:
Nikephoros III Botaneiates was forced into a public vow that he would grant protection to the family. Straboromanos tried to give Anna his cross, but for her it was not large enough for all bystanders to witness the oath. She also demanded that the cross be personally sent by Botaneiates as a vow of his good faith. He obliged, sending a complete assurance for the family with his own cross. At the emperor's further insistence, and for their own protection, they took refuge at the convent of Petrion, where they were eventually joined by Maria of Bulgaria, mother of Irene Doukaina. Botaneiates allowed them to be treated as refugees rather than as guests. They were allowed to have family members bring in their own food and were on good terms with the guards from whom they learned the latest news. Anna was highly successful in three important aspects of the revolt: she bought time for her sons to steal imperial horses from the stables and escape the city; she distracted the emperor, giving her sons time to gather and arm their troops; and she gave a false sense of security to Botaneiates that there was no real treasonous plot against him. After bribing the Western troops guarding the city, Isaac and Alexios Komnenos entered the capital victoriously on 1 April 1081.
During this time, Alexios was rumored to be the lover of Empress Maria, the daughter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, who had been successively married to Michael VII Doukas and his successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, and who was renowned for her beauty. Alexios arranged for Maria to stay on the palace grounds, and it was thought that he was considering marrying her. However, his mother consolidated the Doukas family connection by arranging the Emperor's marriage to Irene Doukaina, granddaughter of the Caesar John Doukas, the uncle of Michael VII, who would not have supported Alexios otherwise. As a measure intended to keep the support of the Doukai, Alexios restored Constantine Doukas, the young son of Michael VII and Maria, as co-emperor and a little later betrothed him to his own first-born daughter Anna, who moved into the Mangana Palace with her fiancé and his mother.
This situation changed drastically, however, when Alexios' first son John II Komnenos was born in 1087: Anna's engagement to Constantine was dissolved, and she was moved to the main Palace to live with her mother and grandmother. Alexios became estranged from Maria, who was stripped of her imperial title and retired to a monastery, and Constantine Doukas was deprived of his status as co-emperor. Nevertheless, he remained on good terms with the imperial family and succumbed to his weak constitution soon afterwards.
Wars against the Normans, Pechenegs, and Tzachas.
The thirty-seven year reign of Alexios was full of struggle. At the outset he faced the formidable attack of the Normans, led by Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund, who took Dyrrhachium and Corfu and laid siege to Larissa in Thessaly (see Battle of Dyrrhachium). Alexios suffered several defeats before he was able to strike back with success. He enhanced his resistance by bribing the German king Henry IV with 360,000 gold pieces to attack the Normans in Italy, which forced the Normans to concentrate on their defenses at home in 1083–84. He also secured the alliance of Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo, who controlled the Gargano Peninsula and dated his charters by Alexios' reign. Henry's allegiance would be the last example of Byzantine political control on peninsular Italy. The Norman danger subsided with the death of Guiscard in 1085, and the Byzantines recovered most of their losses.
Alexios next had to deal with disturbances in Thrace, where the heretical sects of the Bogomils and the Paulicians revolted and made common cause with the Pechenegs from beyond the Danube. Paulician soldiers in imperial service likewise deserted during Alexios' battles with the Normans. As soon as the Norman threat had passed, Alexios set out to punish the rebels and deserters, confiscating their lands. This led to a further revolt near Philippopolis, and the commander of the field army in the west, Gregory Pakourianos, was defeated and killed in the ensuing battle. In 1087 the Pechenegs raided into Thrace, and Alexios crossed into Moesia to retaliate but failed to take Dorostolon (Silistra). During his retreat, the emperor was surrounded and worn down by the Pechenegs, who forced him to sign a truce and to pay protection money. In 1090 the Pechenegs invaded Thrace again, while Tzachas, the brother-in-law of the Sultan of Rum, launched a fleet and attempted to arrange a joint siege of Constantinople with the Pechenegs. Alexios overcame this crisis by entering into an alliance with a horde of 40,000 Cumans, with whose help he crushed the Pechenegs at Levounion in Thrace on 29 April 1091.
This put an end to the Pecheneg threat, but in 1094 the Cumans began to raid the imperial territories in the Balkans. Led by a pretender claiming to be Constantine Diogenes, a long-dead son of the Emperor Romanos IV, the Cumans crossed the mountains and raided into eastern Thrace until their leader was eliminated at Adrianople. With the Balkans more or less pacified, Alexios could now turn his attention to Asia Minor, which had been almost completely overrun by the Seljuq Turks.
Byzantine–Seljuq Wars and the First Crusade.
By the time Alexios ascended the throne, the Seljuqs had taken most of Asia Minor. Alexios was able to secure much of the coastal regions by sending peasant soldiers to raid the Seljuq camps, but these victories were unable to stop the Turks altogether. As early as 1090, Alexios had taken reconciliatory measures towards the Papacy, with the intention of seeking western support against the Seljuqs. In 1095 his ambassadors appeared before Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. The help he sought from the West was simply some mercenary forces, not the immense hosts that arrived, to his consternation and embarrassment, after the pope preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont later that same year. This was the People's Crusade: a mob of mostly unarmed pilgrims led by the preacher Peter the Hermit. Not quite ready to supply this number of people as they traversed his territories, the emperor saw his Balkan possessions subjected to further pillage at the hands of his own allies. Eventually Alexios dealt with the People's Crusade by hustling them on to Asia Minor. There, they were massacred by the Turks of Kilij Arslan I at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096.
The "Prince's Crusade", the second and much more formidable host of crusaders, gradually made its way to Constantinople, led in sections by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond of Taranto, Raymond IV of Toulouse, and other important members of the western nobility. Alexios used the opportunity to meet the crusader leaders separately as they arrived, extracting from them oaths of homage and the promise to turn over conquered lands to the Byzantine Empire. Transferring each contingent into Asia, Alexios promised to supply them with provisions in return for their oaths of homage. The crusade was a notable success for Byzantium, as Alexios recovered a number of important cities and islands. The siege of Nicaea by the crusaders forced the city to surrender to the emperor in 1097, and the subsequent crusader victory at Dorylaion allowed the Byzantine forces to recover much of western Asia Minor. John Doukas re-established Byzantine rule in Chios, Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, and Philadelphia in 1097–1099. This success is ascribed by Alexios' daughter Anna to his policy and diplomacy, but by the Latin historians of the crusade to his treachery and deception. In 1099, a Byzantine fleet of ten ships was sent to assist the crusaders in capturing Laodicea and other coastal towns as far as Tripoli. The crusaders believed their oaths were made invalid when the Byzantine contingent under Tatikios failed to help them during the siege of Antioch; Bohemund, who had set himself up as Prince of Antioch, briefly went to war with Alexios in the Balkans, but he was blockaded by the Byzantine forces and agreed to become a vassal of Alexios by the Treaty of Deabolis in 1108.
Around this time, in 1106, the twentieth year of his reign, Hesychius of Miletus records that the sky suddenly darkened and a "violent southern wind" blew the great statue of Constantine at the Strategion from its column, killing a number of men and women nearby.
In 1116, though already terminally ill, Alexios conducted a series of defensive operations in Bithynia and Mysia to defend his Anatolian territories against the inroads of Malik Shah, the Seljuq Sultan of Iconium. In 1117 he moved onto the offensive and pushed his army deep into the Turkish-dominated Anatolian Plateau, where he defeated the Seljuq sultan at the Battle of Philomelion.
Personal life.
During the last twenty years of his life Alexios lost much of his popularity. The years were marked by persecution of the followers of the Paulician and Bogomil heresies—one of his last acts was to publicly burn at the stake Basil, a Bogomil leader, with whom he had engaged in a theological dispute. In spite of the success of the First Crusade, Alexios also had to repel numerous attempts on his territory by the Seljuqs in 1110–1117.
Alexios was for many years under the strong influence of an "eminence grise", his mother Anna Dalassene, a wise and immensely able politician whom, in a uniquely irregular fashion, he had crowned as "Augusta" instead of the rightful claimant to the title, his wife Irene Doukaina. Alexios was never happier than when taking part in military exercises and he assumed personal command of his troops whenever possible. As such, Dalassene was the effective administrator of the Empire during Alexios' long absences in military campaigns: she was constantly at odds with her daughter-in-law and had assumed total responsibility for the upbringing and education of her granddaughter Anna Komnene.
Succession.
Alexios' last years were also troubled by anxieties over the succession. Although he had crowned his son John II Komnenos co-emperor at the age of five in 1092, his wife Irene Doukaina wished to alter the succession in favor of their daughter Anna and Anna's husband, Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger. Bryennios had been made "kaisar" (Caesar) and received the newly created title of "panhypersebastos" ("honoured above all"), and remained loyal to both Alexios and John.
Conspiracy and revolt of the Komnenoi against Botaneiates.
While Byzantine troops were assembling for the expedition, the Doukas faction at court approached Alexios and convinced him to join a conspiracy against Nikephoros III. The mother of Alexios, Anna Dalassene, was to play a prominent role in this coup d'état of 1081, along with the current empress, Maria of Alania. First married to Michael VII Doukas and secondly to Nikephoros III Botaneiates, she was preoccupied with the future of her son by Michael VII, Constantine Doukas. Nikephoros III intended to leave the throne to one of his close relatives, and this resulted in Maria's ambivalence and alliance with the Komnenoi, though the real driving force behind this political alliance was Anna Dalassene.
The empress was already closely connected to the Komnenoi through Maria's cousin Irene's marriage to Isaac Komnenos, so the Komnenoi brothers were able to see her under the pretense of a friendly family visit. Furthermore, to aid the conspiracy Maria had adopted Alexios as her son, though she was only five years older than he. Maria was persuaded to do so on the advice of her own "Alans" and her eunuchs, who had been instigated by Isaac Komnenos. Given Anna's tight hold on her family, Alexios must have been adopted with her implicit approval. As a result, Alexios and Constantine, Maria's son, were now adoptive brothers, and both Isaac and Alexios took an oath that they would safeguard his rights as emperor. By secretly giving inside information to the Komnenoi, Maria was an invaluable ally.
As stated in the Alexiad, Isaac and Alexios left Constantinople in mid-February 1081 to raise an army against Botaneiates. However, when the time came, Anna quickly and surreptitiously mobilized the remainder of the family and took refuge in the Hagia Sophia. From there she negotiated with the emperor for the safety of family members left in the capital, while protesting her sons' innocence of hostile actions. Under the falsehood of making a vesperal visit to worship at the church, she deliberately excluded the grandson of Botaneiates and his loyal tutor, met with Alexios and Isaac, and fled for the forum of Constantine. The tutor discovered they were missing and eventually found them on the palace grounds, but Anna was able to convince him that they would return to the palace shortly. Then to gain entrance to both the outer and inner sanctuary of the church, the women pretended to the gatekeepers that they were pilgrims from Cappadocia who had spent all their funds and wanted to worship before starting their return trip. However, before they were to gain entry into the sanctuary, Straboromanos and royal guards caught up with them to summon them back to the palace. Anna then protested that the family was in fear for their lives, her sons were loyal subjects (Alexios and Isaac were discovered absent without leave), and had learned of a plot by enemies of the Komnenoi to have them both blinded and had, therefore, fled the capital so they may continue to be of loyal service to the emperor. She refused to go with them and demanded that they allow her to pray to the Mother of God for protection. This request was granted and Anna then manifested her true theatrical and manipulative capabilities:
Nikephoros III Botaneiates was forced into a public vow that he would grant protection to the family. Straboromanos tried to give Anna his cross, but for her it was not large enough for all bystanders to witness the oath. She also demanded that the cross be personally sent by Botaneiates as a vow of his good faith. He obliged, sending a complete assurance for the family with his own cross. At the emperor's further insistence, and for their own protection, they took refuge at the convent of Petrion, where they were eventually joined by Maria of Bulgaria, mother of Irene Doukaina. Botaneiates allowed them to be treated as refugees rather than as guests. They were allowed to have family members bring in their own food and were on good terms with the guards from whom they learned the latest news. Anna was highly successful in three important aspects of the revolt: she bought time for her sons to steal imperial horses from the stables and escape the city; she distracted the emperor, giving her sons time to gather and arm their troops; and she gave a false sense of security to Botaneiates that there was no real treasonous plot against him. After bribing the Western troops guarding the city, Isaac and Alexios Komnenos entered the capital victoriously on 1 April 1081.
During this time, Alexios was rumored to be the lover of Empress Maria, the daughter of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, who had been successively married to Michael VII Doukas and his successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, and who was renowned for her beauty. Alexios arranged for Maria to stay on the palace grounds, and it was thought that he was considering marrying her. However, his mother consolidated the Doukas family connection by arranging the Emperor's marriage to Irene Doukaina, granddaughter of the Caesar John Doukas, the uncle of Michael VII, who would not have supported Alexios otherwise. As a measure intended to keep the support of the Doukai, Alexios restored Constantine Doukas, the young son of Michael VII and Maria, as co-emperor and a little later betrothed him to his own first-born daughter Anna, who moved into the Mangana Palace with her fiancé and his mother.
This situation changed drastically, however, when Alexios' first son John II Komnenos was born in 1087: Anna's engagement to Constantine was dissolved, and she was moved to the main Palace to live with her mother and grandmother. Alexios became estranged from Maria, who was stripped of her imperial title and retired to a monastery, and Constantine Doukas was deprived of his status as co-emperor. Nevertheless, he remained on good terms with the imperial family and succumbed to his weak constitution soon afterwards.
Wars against the Normans, Pechenegs, and Tzachas.
The thirty-seven year reign of Alexios was full of struggle. At the outset he faced the formidable attack of the Normans, led by Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund, who took Dyrrhachium and Corfu and laid siege to Larissa in Thessaly (see Battle of Dyrrhachium). Alexios suffered several defeats before he was able to strike back with success. He enhanced his resistance by bribing the German king Henry IV with 360,000 gold pieces to attack the Normans in Italy, which forced the Normans to concentrate on their defenses at home in 1083–84. He also secured the alliance of Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo, who controlled the Gargano Peninsula and dated his charters by Alexios' reign. Henry's allegiance would be the last example of Byzantine political control on peninsular Italy. The Norman danger subsided with the death of Guiscard in 1085, and the Byzantines recovered most of their losses.
Alexios next had to deal with disturbances in Thrace, where the heretical sects of the Bogomils and the Paulicians revolted and made common cause with the Pechenegs from beyond the Danube. Paulician soldiers in imperial service likewise deserted during Alexios' battles with the Normans. As soon as the Norman threat had passed, Alexios set out to punish the rebels and deserters, confiscating their lands. This led to a further revolt near Philippopolis, and the commander of the field army in the west, Gregory Pakourianos, was defeated and killed in the ensuing battle. In 1087 the Pechenegs raided into Thrace, and Alexios crossed into Moesia to retaliate but failed to take Dorostolon (Silistra). During his retreat, the emperor was surrounded and worn down by the Pechenegs, who forced him to sign a truce and to pay protection money. In 1090 the Pechenegs invaded Thrace again, while Tzachas, the brother-in-law of the Sultan of Rum, launched a fleet and attempted to arrange a joint siege of Constantinople with the Pechenegs. Alexios overcame this crisis by entering into an alliance with a horde of 40,000 Cumans, with whose help he crushed the Pechenegs at Levounion in Thrace on 29 April 1091.
This put an end to the Pecheneg threat, but in 1094 the Cumans began to raid the imperial territories in the Balkans. Led by a pretender claiming to be Constantine Diogenes, a long-dead son of the Emperor Romanos IV, the Cumans crossed the mountains and raided into eastern Thrace until their leader was eliminated at Adrianople. With the Balkans more or less pacified, Alexios could now turn his attention to Asia Minor, which had been almost completely overrun by the Seljuq Turks.
Byzantine–Seljuq Wars and the First Crusade.
By the time Alexios ascended the throne, the Seljuqs had taken most of Asia Minor. Alexios was able to secure much of the coastal regions by sending peasant soldiers to raid the Seljuq camps, but these victories were unable to stop the Turks altogether. As early as 1090, Alexios had taken reconciliatory measures towards the Papacy, with the intention of seeking western support against the Seljuqs. In 1095 his ambassadors appeared before Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. The help he sought from the West was simply some mercenary forces, not the immense hosts that arrived, to his consternation and embarrassment, after the pope preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont later that same year. This was the People's Crusade: a mob of mostly unarmed pilgrims led by the preacher Peter the Hermit. Not quite ready to supply this number of people as they traversed his territories, the emperor saw his Balkan possessions subjected to further pillage at the hands of his own allies. Eventually Alexios dealt with the People's Crusade by hustling them on to Asia Minor. There, they were massacred by the Turks of Kilij Arslan I at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096.
The "Prince's Crusade", the second and much more formidable host of crusaders, gradually made its way to Constantinople, led in sections by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond of Taranto, Raymond IV of Toulouse, and other important members of the western nobility. Alexios used the opportunity to meet the crusader leaders separately as they arrived, extracting from them oaths of homage and the promise to turn over conquered lands to the Byzantine Empire. Transferring each contingent into Asia, Alexios promised to supply them with provisions in return for their oaths of homage. The crusade was a notable success for Byzantium, as Alexios recovered a number of important cities and islands. The siege of Nicaea by the crusaders forced the city to surrender to the emperor in 1097, and the subsequent crusader victory at Dorylaion allowed the Byzantine forces to recover much of western Asia Minor. John Doukas re-established Byzantine rule in Chios, Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, and Philadelphia in 1097–1099. This success is ascribed by Alexios' daughter Anna to his policy and diplomacy, but by the Latin historians of the crusade to his treachery and deception. In 1099, a Byzantine fleet of ten ships was sent to assist the crusaders in capturing Laodicea and other coastal towns as far as Tripoli. The crusaders believed their oaths were made invalid when the Byzantine contingent under Tatikios failed to help them during the siege of Antioch; Bohemund, who had set himself up as Prince of Antioch, briefly went to war with Alexios in the Balkans, but he was blockaded by the Byzantine forces and agreed to become a vassal of Alexios by the Treaty of Deabolis in 1108.
Around this time, in 1106, the twentieth year of his reign, Hesychius of Miletus records that the sky suddenly darkened and a "violent southern wind" blew the great statue of Constantine at the Strategion from its column, killing a number of men and women nearby.
In 1116, though already terminally ill, Alexios conducted a series of defensive operations in Bithynia and Mysia to defend his Anatolian territories against the inroads of Malik Shah, the Seljuq Sultan of Iconium. In 1117 he moved onto the offensive and pushed his army deep into the Turkish-dominated Anatolian Plateau, where he defeated the Seljuq sultan at the Battle of Philomelion.
Personal life.
During the last twenty years of his life Alexios lost much of his popularity. The years were marked by persecution of the followers of the Paulician and Bogomil heresies—one of his last acts was to publicly burn at the stake Basil, a Bogomil leader, with whom he had engaged in a theological dispute. In spite of the success of the First Crusade, Alexios also had to repel numerous attempts on his territory by the Seljuqs in 1110–1117.
Alexios was for many years under the strong influence of an "eminence grise", his mother Anna Dalassene, a wise and immensely able politician whom, in a uniquely irregular fashion, he had crowned as "Augusta" instead of the rightful claimant to the title, his wife Irene Doukaina. Alexios was never happier than when taking part in military exercises and he assumed personal command of his troops whenever possible. As such, Dalassene was the effective administrator of the Empire during Alexios' long absences in military campaigns: she was constantly at odds with her daughter-in-law and had assumed total responsibility for the upbringing and education of her granddaughter Anna Komnene.
Succession.
Alexios' last years were also troubled by anxieties over the succession. Although he had crowned his son John II Komnenos co-emperor at the age of five in 1092, his wife Irene Doukaina wished to alter the succession in favor of their daughter Anna and Anna's husband, Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger. Bryennios had been made "kaisar" (Caesar) and received the newly created title of "panhypersebastos" ("honoured above all"), and remained loyal to both Alexios and John.
Pretenders and rebels.
Apart from all of his external enemies, a host of rebels also sought to overthrow Alexios from the imperial throne, thereby posing another major threat to his reign. Due to the troubled times the empire was enduring, he had by far the greatest number of rebellions against him of all the Byzantine emperors. These included:
Reform of the monetary system.
Under Alexios the debased "solidus" ("tetarteron" and "histamenon") was discontinued and a gold coinage of higher fineness (generally .900–.950) was established in 1092, commonly called the "hyperpyron" at 4.45 grs. The "hyperpyron" was slightly smaller than the "solidus".
It was introduced along with the electrum "aspron trachy" worth a third of a "hyperpyron" and about 25% gold and 75% silver, the billon "aspron trachy" or "stamenon", valued at 48 to the "hyperpyron" and with 7% silver wash and the copper "tetarteron" and "noummion" worth 18 and 36 to the billon "aspron trachy".
Alexios' reform of the Byzantine monetary system was an important basis for the financial recovery and therefore supported the so-called Komnenian restoration, as the new coinage restored financial confidence.
Legacy.
Alexios I had overcome a dangerous crisis and stabilized the Byzantine Empire, inaugurating a century of imperial prosperity and success. He had also profoundly altered the nature of the Byzantine government. By seeking close alliances with powerful noble families, Alexios put an end to the tradition of imperial exclusivity and co-opted most of the nobility into his extended family and, through it, his government. Those who did not become part of this extended family were deprived of power and prestige. This measure, which was intended to diminish opposition, was paralleled by the introduction of new courtly dignities, like that of "panhypersebastos" given to Nikephoros Bryennios, or that of "sebastokrator" given to the emperor's brother Isaac Komnenos. Although this policy met with initial success, it gradually undermined the relative effectiveness of imperial bureaucracy by placing family connections over merit. Alexios' policy of integration of the nobility bore the fruit of continuity: every Byzantine emperor who reigned after Alexios I Komnenos was related to him by either descent or marriage.
Family.
By his marriage with Irene Doukaina, Alexios I had the following children:
Later Russian sources also claim the existence of another daughter, Barbara, who supposedly married Grand Prince of Kiev Sviatopolk II Iziaslavich, but her existence is considered as a later invention by modern historians.
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Alyattes
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Alyattes (Lydian language: ; ; reigned c. 635-585 BC), sometimes described as Alyattes I, was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Sadyattes, grandson of Ardys, and great-grandson of Gyges. He died after a reign of 57 years and was succeeded by his son Croesus.
Alyattes was the first monarch who issued coins, made from electrum (and his successor Croesus was the first to issue gold coins). Alyattes is therefore sometimes mentioned as the originator of coinage, or of currency.
Name.
The most likely etymology for the name derives it, via a form with initial digamma (), itself originally from a Lydian (Lydian alphabet: ). The name meant "lion-ness" (i.e. the state of being a lion), and was composed of the Lydian term (), meaning "lion", to which was added an abstract suffix ().
Chronology.
Dates for the Mermnad kings are uncertain and are based on a computation by J. B. Bury and Russell Meiggs (1975) who estimated c.687–c.652 BC for the reign of Gyges. Herodotus 1.16, 1.25, 1.86 gave reign lengths for Gyges' successors, but there is uncertainty about these as the total exceeds the timespan between 652 (probable death of Gyges, fighting the Cimmerians) and 547/546 (fall of Sardis to Cyrus the Great). Bury and Meiggs concluded that Ardys and Sadyattes reigned through an unspecified period in the second half of the 7th century BC, but they did not propose dates for Alyattes except their assertion that his son Croesus succeeded him in 560 BC. The timespan 560–546 BC for the reign of Croesus is almost certainly accurate.
However, based on an analysis of sources contemporary with Gyges, such as Neo-Assyrian records, Anthony Spalinger has convincingly deduced dated Gyges's death to 644 BCE, and Alexander Dale has consequently dated Alyattes's reign as starting in c. 635 BCE and ending in 585 BCE.
Life and reign.
Alyattes was the son of the king Sadyattes of Lydia and his sister and queen, Lyde of Lydia, both the children of the king Ardys of Lydia. Alyattes ascended to the kingship of Lydia during period of severe crisis: during the 7th century BCE, the Cimmerians, a nomadic people from the Eurasian Steppe who had invaded Western Asia, attacked Lydia several times but had been repelled by Alyattes's great-grandfather, Gyges. In 644 BCE, the Cimmerians, led by their king Lygdamis, attacked Lydia for the third time. The Lydians were defeated, Sardis was sacked, and Gyges was killed, following which he was succeeded by his son Ardys. In 637 BCE, during the seventh regnal year of Ardys, the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia, under their king Kobos, and in alliance with the Cimmerians and the Lycians, attacked Lydia. They defeated the Lydians again and for a second time sacked the Lydian capital of Sardis, except for its citadel. It is probable that Ardys was killed during this Cimmerian attack or was deposed in 637 BC for being unable to protect Lydia from the Cimmerian attacks, and Ardys's son and successor Sadyattes might have also been either killed during another Cimmerian attack in 653 BCE or deposed that year for his inability to successfully protect Lydia from the Cimmerian incursions. Alyattes thus succeeded his father Sadyattes amidst extreme turmoil in 635 BCE.
Initial relations with the Ionians.
Alyattes started his reign by continuing the hostilities with the Ionian city of Miletus started by Sadyattes. Alyattes's war with Miletus consisted largely of a series of raids to capture the Milesians' harvest of grain, which were severely lacking in the Lydian core regions. These hostilities lasted until Alyattes's sixth year (c. 630 BCE), when he finally made peace with the city's tyrant Thrasybulus, and a treaty of friendship as well as one of military alliance was concluded between Lydia and Miletus whereby, since Miletus lacked auriferous and other metallurgic resources while cereals were scarce in Lydia, trade of Lydian metal in exchange of Milesian cereal was initiated to seal these treaties, according to which Miletus voluntarily provided Lydia with military auxiliaries and would profit from the Lydian control of the routes in inner Anatolia, and Lydia would gain access to the markets and maritime networks of the Milesians in the Black Sea and at Naucratis. Herodotus's account of Alyattes's illness, caused by Lydian troops' destruction of the temple Athena in Assesos, and which was cured after he heeded the Pythia and rebuilt two temples of Athena in Assesos and then made peace with Miletus, is a largely legendary account of these events which appears to not be factual. This legendary account likely arose as a result of Alyattes's offerings to the sanctuary of Delphi.
Unlike with the other Greek cities of Anatolia, Alyattes always maintained very good relations with Ephesus, to whose ruling dynasty the Mermnads were connected by marriage: Alyattes's great-grandfather had married one of his daughters to the Ephesian tyrant Melas the Elder: Alyattes's grandfather Ardys had married his daughter Lyde to a grandson of Melas the Elder named Miletus (Lyde would later marry her own brother Sadyattes, and Alyattes would be born from this marriage); and Alyattes himself married one of his own daughters to the then tyrant of Miletus, a descendant of Miletus named Melas the Younger, and from this union would be born Pindar of Ephesus. One of the daughters of Melas the Younger might have in turn married Alyattes and become the mother of his less famous son, Pantaleon. Thanks to these close ties, Ephesus had never been subject to Lydian attacks and was exempt from paying tribute and offering military support to Lydia, and both the Greeks of Ephesus and the Anatolian peoples of the region, that is the Lydians and Carians, shared in common the temple of an Anatolian goddess equated by the Greeks to their own goddess Artemis. Lydia and Ephesus also shared important economic interests which allowed Ephesus to hold an advantageous position between the maritime trade routes of the Aegean Sea and the continental trade routes going through inner Anatolia and reaching Assyria, thus acting as an intermediary between the Lydian kingdom which controlled access to the trade routes leading to the inside of Asia and the Greeks inhabiting the European continent and the Aegean islands, and allowing Ephesus to profit from the goods transiting across its territory without fear of any military attack by the Lydians. These connections in turn provided Lydia with a port through which it could have access to the Mediterranean Sea.
Offerings to Delphi.
Like his great-grandfather Gyges, Alyattes also dedicated lavish offerings to the oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Alyattes's offerings consisted of a large silver crater and an iron crater-stand which had been made by welding by Glaucus of Chios, thus combining Lydian and Ionian artistic traditions.
Alyattes's offering to Delphi might have been sent to please the sanctuary of Apollo and the Delphains, especially the priests, to impress the Greek visitors of the sanctuary, and to influence the oracle to advise to Periander of Corinth, an ally of Thrasybulus of Miletus, to convince the latter to make peace with Alyattes.
Relations with Caria.
In the south, Alyattes continued what had been the Lydian policy since Gyges's reign of maintaining alliances with the city-states of the Carians, with whom the Lydians also had strong cultural connections, such as sharing the sanctuary of the god Zeus of Mylasa with the Carians and the Mysians because they believed these three peoples descended from three brothers. These alliances between the Lydian kings and the various Carian dynasts required the Lydian and Carian rulers had to support each other, and to solidify these alliances, Alyattes married a woman from the Carian aristocracy with whom he had a son, Croesus, who would eventually succeed him. These connections established between the Lydian kings and the Carian city-states ensured that the Lydians were able to control Caria through alliances with Carian dynasts ruling over fortified settlements, such as Mylasa and Pedasa, and through Lydian aristocrats settled in Carian cities, such as in Aphrodisias.
Wars against the Cimmerians.
Alyattes had inherited more than one war from his father, and soon after his ascension and early during his reign, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BCE. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, who Strabo credits with expelling the Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Alyattes, whom Herodotus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.
Immediately after this first victory of his over the Cimmerians, Alyattes expelled from the Lydian borderlands a final remaining pocket of Cimmerian presence who had been occupying the nearby city of Antandrus for one century, and to facilitate this he re-founded the city of Adramyttium in Aeolis. Alyattes installed his son Croesus as the governor of Adramyttium, and he soon expelled these last remaining Cimmerians from Asia Minor. Adramyttium was moreso an important site for Lydia because it was situated near Atarneus and Astyra, where rich mines were located.
Eastern conquests.
Alyattes turned towards Phrygia in the east. The kings of Lydia and of the former Phrygian kingdom had already entertained friendly relations before the destruction of the latter by the Cimmerians. After defeating the Cimmerians, Alyattes took advantage of the weakening of the various polities all across Anatolia by the Cimmerian raids and used the lack of a centralised Phrygian state and the traditionally friendly relations between the Lydian and Phrygian elites to extend Lydian rule eastwards to Phrygia. Lydian presence in Phrygia is archaeologically attested by the existence of a Lydian citadel in the Phrygian capital of Gordion, as well as Lydian architectural remains in northwest Phrygia, such as in Dascylium, and in the Phrygian Highlands at Midas City. Lydian troops might have been stationed in the aforementioned locations as well as in Hacıtuğrul, Afyonkarahisar, and Konya, which would have provided to the Lydian kingdom access to the produce and roads of Phrygia. The presence of a Lydian ivory plaque at Kerkenes Daǧ suggests that Alyattes's control of Phrygia might have extended to the east of the Halys River to include the city of Pteria, with the possibility that he may have rebuilt this city and placed a Phrygian ruler there: Pteria's strategic location would have been useful in protecting the Lydian Empire from attacks from the east, and its proximity to the Royal Road would have made of the city an important centre from which caravans could be protected. Phrygia under Lydian rule would continue to be administered by its local elites, such as the ruler of Midas City who held Phrygian royal titles such as (king) and (commander of the armies), but were under the authority of the Lydian kings of Sardis and had a Lydian diplomatic presence at their court, following the framework of the traditional vassalage treaties used since the period of the Hittite and Assyrian empires, and according to which the Lydian king imposed on the vassal rulers a "treaty of vassalage" which allowed the local Phrygian rulers to remain in power, in exchange of which the Phrygian vassals had the duty to provide military support and sometimes offer rich tribute to the Lydian kingdom. The status of Gordion and Dascylium is however less clear, and it is uncertain whether they were also ruled by local Phrygian kings vassal to the Lydian king, or whether they were directly ruled by Lydian governors.
With the defeat of the Cimmerians having created a power vacuum in Anatolia, Alyattes continued his expansionist policy in the east, and of all the peoples to the west of the Halys River whom Herodotus claimed Alyattes's successor Croesus ruled over - the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandyni, Chalybes, Paphlagonians, Thyni and Bithyni Thracians, Carians, Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians, and Pamphylians - it is very likely that a number of these populations had already been conquered under Alyattes, especially since information is attested only about the relations between the Lydians and the Phrygians in both literary and archaeological sources, and there is no available data concerning relations between the other mentioned peoples and the Lydian kings. The only populations Herodotus claimed were independent of the Lydian Empire were the Lycians, who lived in a mountainous country which would not have been accessible to the Lydian armies, and the Cilicians, who had already been conquered by Neo-Babylonian Empire. Modern estimates nevertheless suggest that it is not impossible that the Lydians might have subjected Lycia, given that the Lycian coast would have been important for the Lydians because it was close to a trade route connecting the Aegean region, the Levant, and Cyprus.
At some point in the later years of his reign, Alyattes conducted a military campaign in Caria, although the reason for this intervention is yet unknown. Alyattes's son Croesus, as governor of Adramyttium, had to provide his father with Ionian Greek mercenaries for this war.
Later wars against the Ionians.
In 600 BCE, Alyattes resumed his military activities in the west, and the second Ionian city he attacked was Smyrna despite the Lydian kings having previously established good relations with the Smyrniotes in the aftermath of a failed attack of Gyges on the city, leading to the Lydians using the port of Smyrna to export their products and import grain, Lydian craftsmen being allowed to settle in Smyrniot workshops, and Alyattes having provided funding to the inhabitants of the city for the construction of their temple of Athena. Alyattes was thus able to acquire a port which gave the Lydian kingdom permanent access to the sea and a stable source of grain to feed the population of his kingdom through this attack. Smyrna was placed under the direct rule of a member of the Mermnad dynasty, and Alyattes had new fortification walls built for Smyrna from around 600 to around 590 BCE. Although under direct Lydian rule Smyrna's temple of Athena and its houses were rebuilt and the city was not forced to provide the Lydian kingdom with military troops or tribute, Smyrna itself was in ruins, and it would only be around 580 BCE, under the reign of Alyattes's son Croesus, that Smyrna would finally start to recover.
Alyattes also initially initiated friendly relations with the Ionian city of Colophon, which included a military alliance according to which the city had to offer the service of its famous and feared cavalry, which was itself made up of the aristocracy of Colophon, to the Lydian kingdom should Alyattes request their help. Following the capture of Smyrna, Alyattes attacked the Ionian city of Clazomenae, but the inhabitants of the city managed to successfully repel him with the help of the Colophonian cavalry. Following Alyattes's defeat, the Lydian kingdom and the city of Clazomenae concluded a reconciliation agreement which allowed Lydian craftsmen to operate in Clazomenae and allowed the kingdom of Lydia itself to participate in maritime trade, most especially in the olive oil trade produced by the craftsmen of Clazomenae, but also to use the city's port to export products manufactured in Lydia proper. Soon after capturing Smyrna and his failure to capture Clazomenae, Alyattes summoned the Colophonian cavalry to Sardis, where he had them massacred in violation of hospitality laws and redistributed their horses to Lydian cavalrymen, following which he placed Colophon itself under direct Lydian rule. The reason for Alyattes's breaking of the friendly relations with Colophon are unknown, although the archaeologist John Manuel Cook has suggested that Alyattes might have concluded a treaty of friendship and a military alliance with Colophon to secure the city's non-interference in his military operations against the other Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, but Colophon first violated these agreements with Alyattes by supporting Clazomenae with its cavalry against Alyattes's attack, prompting the Lydian king to retaliate by massacring the mounted aristocracy of Colophon.
The status of the other Ionian Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, that is Teos, Lebedus, Teichiussa, Melie, Erythrae, Phocaea and Myus, is still uncertain for the period of Alyattes's reign, although they would all eventually be subjected by his son Croesus.
War against the Medes.
Alyattes's eastern conquests extended the Lydian Empire till the Upper Euphrates according to the scholar Igor Diakonoff, who identified Alyattes with the Biblical Gog. This expansionism brought the Lydian Empire in conflict in the 590s BCE with the Medes, an Iranian people who had expelled the majority of the Scythians from Western Asia after participating in the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After the majority of the Scythians were expelled by the Medes during that decade out of Western Asia and into the Pontic Steppe, a war broke out between the Median Empire and another group of Scythians, probably members of a splinter group who had formed a kingdom in what is now Azerbaijan. These Scythians left Median-ruled Transcaucasia and fled to Sardis, because the Lydians had been allied to the Scythians. After Alyattes refused to accede to the demands of the Median king Cyaxares that these Scythian refugees be handed to him, a war broke out between the Median and Lydian Empires in 590 BCE which was waged in eastern Anatolia beyond Pteria. This war lasted five years, until a solar eclipse occurred in 585 BCE during a battle (hence called the Battle of the Eclipse) opposing the Lydian and Median armies, which both sides interpreted as an omen to end the war. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the king Syennesis of Cilicia acted as mediators in the ensuing peace treaty, which was sealed by the marriage of Cyaxares's son Astyages with Alyattes's daughter Aryenis, and the possible wedding of a daughter of Cyaxares with either Alyattes or with his son Croesus. The border between the Lydian and Median empires was fixed at a yet undetermined location in eastern Anatolia; the Graeco-Roman historians' traditional account of the Halys River as having been set as the border between the two kingdoms appears to have been a retroactive narrative construction based on symbolic role assigned by Greeks to the Halys as the separation between Lower Asia and Upper Asia as well as on the Halys being a later provincial border within the Achaemenid Empire.
Death.
Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BCE itself, following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from a Greek woman, and his other son Croesus, born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which the latter emerged successful. The tomb of Alyattes is located in Sardis at the site now called Bin Tepe, in a large tumulus measuring sixty metres in height and of a diameter of two hundred and fifty metres. The tomb consisted of an antechamber and a chamber with a door separating them, was built of well fitted and clamped large marble blocks, its walls were finely finished on the inside, and it contained a now lost crepidoma. The tomb of Alyattes was excavated by the Prussian Consul General Ludwig Peter Spiegelthal in 1853, and by American excavators in 1962 and the 1980s, although by then it had been broken in and looted by tomb robbers who left only alabastra and ceramic vessels. Before it was plundered, the tomb of Alyattes would likely have contained burial gifts consisting of furniture made of wood and ivory, textiles, jewellery, and large sets of solver and gold bowls, pitchers, craters, and ladles.
He created the first coins in history made from electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. The weight of either precious metal could not just be weighed so they contained an imprint that identified the issuer who guaranteed the value of its contents. Today we still use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state and not by the value of the metal used in the coins. Almost all coins used today descended from his invention after the technology passed into Greek usage through Hermodike II - a Greek princess from Cyme who was likely one of his wives (assuming he was referred to a dynastic 'Midas' because of the wealth his coinage amassed and because the electrum was sourced from Midas' famed river Pactolus); she was also likely the mother of Croesus (see croeseid symbolism). He standardised the weight of coins (1 stater = 168 grains of wheat). The coins were produced using an anvil die technique and stamped with a lion's head, the symbol of the Mermnadae.
Initial relations with the Ionians.
Alyattes started his reign by continuing the hostilities with the Ionian city of Miletus started by Sadyattes. Alyattes's war with Miletus consisted largely of a series of raids to capture the Milesians' harvest of grain, which were severely lacking in the Lydian core regions. These hostilities lasted until Alyattes's sixth year (c. 630 BCE), when he finally made peace with the city's tyrant Thrasybulus, and a treaty of friendship as well as one of military alliance was concluded between Lydia and Miletus whereby, since Miletus lacked auriferous and other metallurgic resources while cereals were scarce in Lydia, trade of Lydian metal in exchange of Milesian cereal was initiated to seal these treaties, according to which Miletus voluntarily provided Lydia with military auxiliaries and would profit from the Lydian control of the routes in inner Anatolia, and Lydia would gain access to the markets and maritime networks of the Milesians in the Black Sea and at Naucratis. Herodotus's account of Alyattes's illness, caused by Lydian troops' destruction of the temple Athena in Assesos, and which was cured after he heeded the Pythia and rebuilt two temples of Athena in Assesos and then made peace with Miletus, is a largely legendary account of these events which appears to not be factual. This legendary account likely arose as a result of Alyattes's offerings to the sanctuary of Delphi.
Unlike with the other Greek cities of Anatolia, Alyattes always maintained very good relations with Ephesus, to whose ruling dynasty the Mermnads were connected by marriage: Alyattes's great-grandfather had married one of his daughters to the Ephesian tyrant Melas the Elder: Alyattes's grandfather Ardys had married his daughter Lyde to a grandson of Melas the Elder named Miletus (Lyde would later marry her own brother Sadyattes, and Alyattes would be born from this marriage); and Alyattes himself married one of his own daughters to the then tyrant of Miletus, a descendant of Miletus named Melas the Younger, and from this union would be born Pindar of Ephesus. One of the daughters of Melas the Younger might have in turn married Alyattes and become the mother of his less famous son, Pantaleon. Thanks to these close ties, Ephesus had never been subject to Lydian attacks and was exempt from paying tribute and offering military support to Lydia, and both the Greeks of Ephesus and the Anatolian peoples of the region, that is the Lydians and Carians, shared in common the temple of an Anatolian goddess equated by the Greeks to their own goddess Artemis. Lydia and Ephesus also shared important economic interests which allowed Ephesus to hold an advantageous position between the maritime trade routes of the Aegean Sea and the continental trade routes going through inner Anatolia and reaching Assyria, thus acting as an intermediary between the Lydian kingdom which controlled access to the trade routes leading to the inside of Asia and the Greeks inhabiting the European continent and the Aegean islands, and allowing Ephesus to profit from the goods transiting across its territory without fear of any military attack by the Lydians. These connections in turn provided Lydia with a port through which it could have access to the Mediterranean Sea.
Offerings to Delphi.
Like his great-grandfather Gyges, Alyattes also dedicated lavish offerings to the oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Alyattes's offerings consisted of a large silver crater and an iron crater-stand which had been made by welding by Glaucus of Chios, thus combining Lydian and Ionian artistic traditions.
Alyattes's offering to Delphi might have been sent to please the sanctuary of Apollo and the Delphains, especially the priests, to impress the Greek visitors of the sanctuary, and to influence the oracle to advise to Periander of Corinth, an ally of Thrasybulus of Miletus, to convince the latter to make peace with Alyattes.
Relations with Caria.
In the south, Alyattes continued what had been the Lydian policy since Gyges's reign of maintaining alliances with the city-states of the Carians, with whom the Lydians also had strong cultural connections, such as sharing the sanctuary of the god Zeus of Mylasa with the Carians and the Mysians because they believed these three peoples descended from three brothers. These alliances between the Lydian kings and the various Carian dynasts required the Lydian and Carian rulers had to support each other, and to solidify these alliances, Alyattes married a woman from the Carian aristocracy with whom he had a son, Croesus, who would eventually succeed him. These connections established between the Lydian kings and the Carian city-states ensured that the Lydians were able to control Caria through alliances with Carian dynasts ruling over fortified settlements, such as Mylasa and Pedasa, and through Lydian aristocrats settled in Carian cities, such as in Aphrodisias.
Wars against the Cimmerians.
Alyattes had inherited more than one war from his father, and soon after his ascension and early during his reign, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BCE. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, who Strabo credits with expelling the Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Alyattes, whom Herodotus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.
Immediately after this first victory of his over the Cimmerians, Alyattes expelled from the Lydian borderlands a final remaining pocket of Cimmerian presence who had been occupying the nearby city of Antandrus for one century, and to facilitate this he re-founded the city of Adramyttium in Aeolis. Alyattes installed his son Croesus as the governor of Adramyttium, and he soon expelled these last remaining Cimmerians from Asia Minor. Adramyttium was moreso an important site for Lydia because it was situated near Atarneus and Astyra, where rich mines were located.
Eastern conquests.
Alyattes turned towards Phrygia in the east. The kings of Lydia and of the former Phrygian kingdom had already entertained friendly relations before the destruction of the latter by the Cimmerians. After defeating the Cimmerians, Alyattes took advantage of the weakening of the various polities all across Anatolia by the Cimmerian raids and used the lack of a centralised Phrygian state and the traditionally friendly relations between the Lydian and Phrygian elites to extend Lydian rule eastwards to Phrygia. Lydian presence in Phrygia is archaeologically attested by the existence of a Lydian citadel in the Phrygian capital of Gordion, as well as Lydian architectural remains in northwest Phrygia, such as in Dascylium, and in the Phrygian Highlands at Midas City. Lydian troops might have been stationed in the aforementioned locations as well as in Hacıtuğrul, Afyonkarahisar, and Konya, which would have provided to the Lydian kingdom access to the produce and roads of Phrygia. The presence of a Lydian ivory plaque at Kerkenes Daǧ suggests that Alyattes's control of Phrygia might have extended to the east of the Halys River to include the city of Pteria, with the possibility that he may have rebuilt this city and placed a Phrygian ruler there: Pteria's strategic location would have been useful in protecting the Lydian Empire from attacks from the east, and its proximity to the Royal Road would have made of the city an important centre from which caravans could be protected. Phrygia under Lydian rule would continue to be administered by its local elites, such as the ruler of Midas City who held Phrygian royal titles such as (king) and (commander of the armies), but were under the authority of the Lydian kings of Sardis and had a Lydian diplomatic presence at their court, following the framework of the traditional vassalage treaties used since the period of the Hittite and Assyrian empires, and according to which the Lydian king imposed on the vassal rulers a "treaty of vassalage" which allowed the local Phrygian rulers to remain in power, in exchange of which the Phrygian vassals had the duty to provide military support and sometimes offer rich tribute to the Lydian kingdom. The status of Gordion and Dascylium is however less clear, and it is uncertain whether they were also ruled by local Phrygian kings vassal to the Lydian king, or whether they were directly ruled by Lydian governors.
With the defeat of the Cimmerians having created a power vacuum in Anatolia, Alyattes continued his expansionist policy in the east, and of all the peoples to the west of the Halys River whom Herodotus claimed Alyattes's successor Croesus ruled over - the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandyni, Chalybes, Paphlagonians, Thyni and Bithyni Thracians, Carians, Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians, and Pamphylians - it is very likely that a number of these populations had already been conquered under Alyattes, especially since information is attested only about the relations between the Lydians and the Phrygians in both literary and archaeological sources, and there is no available data concerning relations between the other mentioned peoples and the Lydian kings. The only populations Herodotus claimed were independent of the Lydian Empire were the Lycians, who lived in a mountainous country which would not have been accessible to the Lydian armies, and the Cilicians, who had already been conquered by Neo-Babylonian Empire. Modern estimates nevertheless suggest that it is not impossible that the Lydians might have subjected Lycia, given that the Lycian coast would have been important for the Lydians because it was close to a trade route connecting the Aegean region, the Levant, and Cyprus.
At some point in the later years of his reign, Alyattes conducted a military campaign in Caria, although the reason for this intervention is yet unknown. Alyattes's son Croesus, as governor of Adramyttium, had to provide his father with Ionian Greek mercenaries for this war.
Later wars against the Ionians.
In 600 BCE, Alyattes resumed his military activities in the west, and the second Ionian city he attacked was Smyrna despite the Lydian kings having previously established good relations with the Smyrniotes in the aftermath of a failed attack of Gyges on the city, leading to the Lydians using the port of Smyrna to export their products and import grain, Lydian craftsmen being allowed to settle in Smyrniot workshops, and Alyattes having provided funding to the inhabitants of the city for the construction of their temple of Athena. Alyattes was thus able to acquire a port which gave the Lydian kingdom permanent access to the sea and a stable source of grain to feed the population of his kingdom through this attack. Smyrna was placed under the direct rule of a member of the Mermnad dynasty, and Alyattes had new fortification walls built for Smyrna from around 600 to around 590 BCE. Although under direct Lydian rule Smyrna's temple of Athena and its houses were rebuilt and the city was not forced to provide the Lydian kingdom with military troops or tribute, Smyrna itself was in ruins, and it would only be around 580 BCE, under the reign of Alyattes's son Croesus, that Smyrna would finally start to recover.
Alyattes also initially initiated friendly relations with the Ionian city of Colophon, which included a military alliance according to which the city had to offer the service of its famous and feared cavalry, which was itself made up of the aristocracy of Colophon, to the Lydian kingdom should Alyattes request their help. Following the capture of Smyrna, Alyattes attacked the Ionian city of Clazomenae, but the inhabitants of the city managed to successfully repel him with the help of the Colophonian cavalry. Following Alyattes's defeat, the Lydian kingdom and the city of Clazomenae concluded a reconciliation agreement which allowed Lydian craftsmen to operate in Clazomenae and allowed the kingdom of Lydia itself to participate in maritime trade, most especially in the olive oil trade produced by the craftsmen of Clazomenae, but also to use the city's port to export products manufactured in Lydia proper. Soon after capturing Smyrna and his failure to capture Clazomenae, Alyattes summoned the Colophonian cavalry to Sardis, where he had them massacred in violation of hospitality laws and redistributed their horses to Lydian cavalrymen, following which he placed Colophon itself under direct Lydian rule. The reason for Alyattes's breaking of the friendly relations with Colophon are unknown, although the archaeologist John Manuel Cook has suggested that Alyattes might have concluded a treaty of friendship and a military alliance with Colophon to secure the city's non-interference in his military operations against the other Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, but Colophon first violated these agreements with Alyattes by supporting Clazomenae with its cavalry against Alyattes's attack, prompting the Lydian king to retaliate by massacring the mounted aristocracy of Colophon.
The status of the other Ionian Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, that is Teos, Lebedus, Teichiussa, Melie, Erythrae, Phocaea and Myus, is still uncertain for the period of Alyattes's reign, although they would all eventually be subjected by his son Croesus.
War against the Medes.
Alyattes's eastern conquests extended the Lydian Empire till the Upper Euphrates according to the scholar Igor Diakonoff, who identified Alyattes with the Biblical Gog. This expansionism brought the Lydian Empire in conflict in the 590s BCE with the Medes, an Iranian people who had expelled the majority of the Scythians from Western Asia after participating in the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After the majority of the Scythians were expelled by the Medes during that decade out of Western Asia and into the Pontic Steppe, a war broke out between the Median Empire and another group of Scythians, probably members of a splinter group who had formed a kingdom in what is now Azerbaijan. These Scythians left Median-ruled Transcaucasia and fled to Sardis, because the Lydians had been allied to the Scythians. After Alyattes refused to accede to the demands of the Median king Cyaxares that these Scythian refugees be handed to him, a war broke out between the Median and Lydian Empires in 590 BCE which was waged in eastern Anatolia beyond Pteria. This war lasted five years, until a solar eclipse occurred in 585 BCE during a battle (hence called the Battle of the Eclipse) opposing the Lydian and Median armies, which both sides interpreted as an omen to end the war. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the king Syennesis of Cilicia acted as mediators in the ensuing peace treaty, which was sealed by the marriage of Cyaxares's son Astyages with Alyattes's daughter Aryenis, and the possible wedding of a daughter of Cyaxares with either Alyattes or with his son Croesus. The border between the Lydian and Median empires was fixed at a yet undetermined location in eastern Anatolia; the Graeco-Roman historians' traditional account of the Halys River as having been set as the border between the two kingdoms appears to have been a retroactive narrative construction based on symbolic role assigned by Greeks to the Halys as the separation between Lower Asia and Upper Asia as well as on the Halys being a later provincial border within the Achaemenid Empire.
Death.
Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BCE itself, following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from a Greek woman, and his other son Croesus, born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which the latter emerged successful. The tomb of Alyattes is located in Sardis at the site now called Bin Tepe, in a large tumulus measuring sixty metres in height and of a diameter of two hundred and fifty metres. The tomb consisted of an antechamber and a chamber with a door separating them, was built of well fitted and clamped large marble blocks, its walls were finely finished on the inside, and it contained a now lost crepidoma. The tomb of Alyattes was excavated by the Prussian Consul General Ludwig Peter Spiegelthal in 1853, and by American excavators in 1962 and the 1980s, although by then it had been broken in and looted by tomb robbers who left only alabastra and ceramic vessels. Before it was plundered, the tomb of Alyattes would likely have contained burial gifts consisting of furniture made of wood and ivory, textiles, jewellery, and large sets of solver and gold bowls, pitchers, craters, and ladles.
He created the first coins in history made from electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. The weight of either precious metal could not just be weighed so they contained an imprint that identified the issuer who guaranteed the value of its contents. Today we still use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state and not by the value of the metal used in the coins. Almost all coins used today descended from his invention after the technology passed into Greek usage through Hermodike II - a Greek princess from Cyme who was likely one of his wives (assuming he was referred to a dynastic 'Midas' because of the wealth his coinage amassed and because the electrum was sourced from Midas' famed river Pactolus); she was also likely the mother of Croesus (see croeseid symbolism). He standardised the weight of coins (1 stater = 168 grains of wheat). The coins were produced using an anvil die technique and stamped with a lion's head, the symbol of the Mermnadae.
Tomb.
Alyattes' tomb still exists on the plateau between Lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the north of the Lydian capital Sardis — a large mound of earth with a substructure of huge stones. (38.5723401, 28.0451151) It was excavated by Spiegelthal in 1854, who found that it covered a large vault of finely cut marble blocks approached by a flat-roofed passage of the same stone from the south. The sarcophagus and its contents had been removed by early plunderers of the tomb. All that was left were some broken alabaster vases, pottery and charcoal. On the summit of the mound were large phalli of stone.
Herodotus described the tomb:
Some authors have suggested that Buddhist stupas were derived from a wider cultural tradition from the Mediterranean to the Indus valley, and can be related to the funeral conical mounds on circular bases that can be found in Lydia or in Phoenicia from the 8th century B.C., such as the tomb of Alyattes.
Sources.
Attribution:
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1654
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Alypius of Antioch
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Alypius of Antioch was a geographer and a vicarius of Roman Britain, probably in the late 350s AD. He replaced Flavius Martinus after that vicarius' suicide. His rule is recorded is Ammianus XXIII 1, 3.
Life.
He came from Antioch and served under Constantius II and was probably appointed to ensure that nobody with western associations was serving in Britain during a time of mistrust, rebellion and suppression symbolised by the brutal acts of the imperial notary Paulus Catena. He may have had to deal with the insurrection of the usurper named Carausius II.
Alypius was afterwards commissioned to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem as part of Julian's systematic attempt to reverse the Christianization of the Roman Empire by restoring pagan and, in this case, Jewish practices. Among the letters of Julian are two (29 and 30) addressed to Alypius; one inviting him to Rome, the other thanking him for a geographical treatise, which no longer exists.
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1620
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Yesuentoemoer haan
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1656
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Amalric of Bena
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Amalric of Bena (; ; died ) was a French theologian, philosopher and sect leader, after whom the Amalricians are named. Reformers such as Martin Luther considered him to be a proto-Protestant.
Biography.
Amalric was born in the latter part of the 12th century at Bennes, a village between Ollé and Chauffours in the diocese of Chartres.
Amalric taught philosophy and theology at the University of Paris and enjoyed a great reputation as a subtle dialectician, his lectures developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large audience. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III, the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors.
His death was caused, it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been subjected.
In 1209, ten of his followers were burnt before the gates of Paris and Amalric's own body was exhumed and burnt and the ashes given to the winds. The doctrines of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Propositions.
Amalric appears to have derived his philosophical system from a selective reading Eriugena, whose expressions he developed in a one-sided and strongly pantheistic form.
Only three propositions can be attributed to him with certainty:
Because of the first proposition, God himself is thought to be invisible and only recognizable in his creation.
These three propositions were further developed by his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself in a threefold revelation, the first in the Biblical patriarch Abraham, marking the "epoch of the Father"; the second in Jesus Christ, who began the "epoch of the Son"; and the third in Amalric and his disciples, who inaugurated the "era of the Holy Ghost."
Amalricians taught:
Due to persecutions, this sect does not appear to have long survived the death of its founder. Not long after the burning of ten of their members (1210), the sect itself lost its importance, while some of the surviving Amalricians became Brethren of the Free Spirit.
According to Hosea Ballou, then Pierre Batiffol and George T. Knight (1914) Amalric believed that all people would eventually be saved and this was one of the counts upon which he was declared a heretic by Pope Innocent III.
References.
Attribution:
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1655
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Amalasuintha
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Amalasuintha (495 – 30 April 534/535) was a ruler of Ostrogothic Kingdom from 526 to 535. She ruled first as regent for her son and thereafter as queen on throne. A regent is "a person who governs a kingdom in the minority, absence, or disability of the sovereign." In Amalasuintha’s case it was the minority of her son Athalaric who was only 10 at the time of her father and King Theodoric’s death. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogothic Kingdom’s borders stretched a little farther than modern-day Italy’s borders. Amalasuintha was highly educated, especially as a woman in the 6th century, a time where education for any human was extremely rare. In fact, she was praised by both Cassiodorus, and Procopius for her wisdom and her ability to speak three languages, (Greek, Gothic, Latin). Along with being wise, she was known for her Roman virtues and values, which became an issue amongst her inner circle of people during her regency. Of all the things to have occurred during her time as ruler, she is mostly known for her cousin Theohadad’s betrayal and assassination of her in the year 535. There has been little modern literature on Amalasuintha, and it’s unfortunate that her assassination is what’s most known about her because it undervalues her time on the throne and her ability to rule.
Family.
To understand Amalasuintha’s life and connection to the throne, it's necessary to begin with her family. Amalasuintha was likely born in Ravenna in 495 and was the only child of Theodoric and his wife Audofleda, the sister of Clovis, King of the Franks. The union of Amalasuintha’s parents were of a political purpose, as many royal marriages were at the time. Theodoric married Audofleda about the year 493, after Theodoric had defeated the various Gothic kingdoms and sought an alliance with the Franks. Amalasuintha was born into the Amali dynasty on her father’s side of the family. The Amali dynasty was a dynasty of Goths, who were of Germanic descent. Like her father, Amalasuintha married out of political reasons. In 515, Amalasuintha married Eutheric, a prince of the Amali dynasty, to ensure a legitimate heir to the throne. It would seem odd to modern readers for someone marry within their own family dynasty, but it’s important to understand it was common during this time and was seen as a way to strengthen the heirs right to the throne. Together Amalasuintha and Eutheric had two children together Athalaric and Matasuntha. Eutheric died in 522 a few years before Amalasuintha's father and King Theodoric's death in 526, this concerned Theodoric because his Kingdom lacked an adult male heir to the throne. Indeed, as Amalasuintha's son Athalaric was only 10 years old at the time of Theodoric's death, Amalasuintha took control of the Kingdom alongside her son as regent. Although accounts by Cassiodorus and Procopius refer Athalaric as King, nevertheless Amalasuintha effectively ruled on behalf of Athalaric.
Rule.
Regent.
After the death of her father in 526, Amalasuintha served alongside her son as a regent queen from 526 to 534 when Athalaric died from what was most likely from the combination of excessive drinking, which was a part of Gothic culture, and it being likely that he had diabetes. All though some sources refer to Athalaric as King, Amalasuintha effectively ruled on his behalf. A child of his age would not have been able to rule effectively. Theodoric most likely named him his heir due to the Ostrogothic Society being a patriarchy. With many people in the Senate wanting a male ruler rather than Amalasuintha, she had to make decisive decisions to combat the tensions. Her being female wasn’t the only reason individuals in the gothic senate didn’t like her was because of her Roman education and influence on her son. According to Procopius, the Gothic Aristocracy wanted Athalaric to be grown up in the barbarian way, but Amalasuintha wanted him to be raised to resemble the Roman princes. Amalasuintha had close ties to Justinian I, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Knowing how the gothic aristocrats viewed Amalasuintha’s roman virtues and education, her ties to Justinian would have certainly made the nobles object her rule more. Before Athalaric could get to the proper age he began to become ill. With the news that Athalaric was becoming too Ill, Amalasuintha new as an unmarried woman, it would be unlikely for her to remain in power. To secure the power in the Amali name, Amalasuintha created the consortium regni that allowed her to continue to rule as queen while still presenting a public face that honored conservative Gothic tradition. Also, she appointed her older cousin Theohadad to rule as co-regent, in which Amalasuintha would play the male character and Theohadad would play the woman, as male and female monarchs sharing powers. Masculinity is the main characteristic attributed to Amalasuintha by Procopius and Cassiodorus, because she had a strong determination and temperament.
----Her tremendous influence in her position as regent can be seen in a diptych of Rufius Gennadius Probus Orestes in which she appears alongside her son, Athalaric, in 530. Deeply imbued with the old Roman culture, she gave to that son's education a more refined and literary turn than suited the ideas of her Gothic subjects. Conscious of her unpopularity she banished – and afterwards put to death – three Gothic nobles whom she suspected of conspiring against her rule. At the same time, she opened negotiations with the Byzantine emperor Justinian I with the view of removing herself and the Gothic treasure to Constantinople.
Queen Regnant.
After Athalaric's death, Amalasuintha became queen, ruling alone only for a short while before making her cousin Theodahad co-ruler (not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was still living), with the intent of strengthening her position. Theodahad was a prominent leader of the Gothic military aristocracy, the very group that so opposed her pro-Roman stances. Amalasuintha believed this pairing would help to make supporters out of her harshest critics. However, Theodahad fostered the disaffection of the Goths, and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuintha was imprisoned on the island of Martana, located in the lake of Bolsena in northern Lazio, where on 30 April in the spring of 534/535, she was murdered in her bath.
Regent.
After the death of her father in 526, Amalasuintha served alongside her son as a regent queen from 526 to 534 when Athalaric died from what was most likely from the combination of excessive drinking, which was a part of Gothic culture, and it being likely that he had diabetes. All though some sources refer to Athalaric as King, Amalasuintha effectively ruled on his behalf. A child of his age would not have been able to rule effectively. Theodoric most likely named him his heir due to the Ostrogothic Society being a patriarchy. With many people in the Senate wanting a male ruler rather than Amalasuintha, she had to make decisive decisions to combat the tensions. Her being female wasn’t the only reason individuals in the gothic senate didn’t like her was because of her Roman education and influence on her son. According to Procopius, the Gothic Aristocracy wanted Athalaric to be grown up in the barbarian way, but Amalasuintha wanted him to be raised to resemble the Roman princes. Amalasuintha had close ties to Justinian I, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Knowing how the gothic aristocrats viewed Amalasuintha’s roman virtues and education, her ties to Justinian would have certainly made the nobles object her rule more. Before Athalaric could get to the proper age he began to become ill. With the news that Athalaric was becoming too Ill, Amalasuintha new as an unmarried woman, it would be unlikely for her to remain in power. To secure the power in the Amali name, Amalasuintha created the consortium regni that allowed her to continue to rule as queen while still presenting a public face that honored conservative Gothic tradition. Also, she appointed her older cousin Theohadad to rule as co-regent, in which Amalasuintha would play the male character and Theohadad would play the woman, as male and female monarchs sharing powers. Masculinity is the main characteristic attributed to Amalasuintha by Procopius and Cassiodorus, because she had a strong determination and temperament.
----Her tremendous influence in her position as regent can be seen in a diptych of Rufius Gennadius Probus Orestes in which she appears alongside her son, Athalaric, in 530. Deeply imbued with the old Roman culture, she gave to that son's education a more refined and literary turn than suited the ideas of her Gothic subjects. Conscious of her unpopularity she banished – and afterwards put to death – three Gothic nobles whom she suspected of conspiring against her rule. At the same time, she opened negotiations with the Byzantine emperor Justinian I with the view of removing herself and the Gothic treasure to Constantinople.
Queen Regnant.
After Athalaric's death, Amalasuintha became queen, ruling alone only for a short while before making her cousin Theodahad co-ruler (not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was still living), with the intent of strengthening her position. Theodahad was a prominent leader of the Gothic military aristocracy, the very group that so opposed her pro-Roman stances. Amalasuintha believed this pairing would help to make supporters out of her harshest critics. However, Theodahad fostered the disaffection of the Goths, and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuintha was imprisoned on the island of Martana, located in the lake of Bolsena in northern Lazio, where on 30 April in the spring of 534/535, she was murdered in her bath.
Death.
The death of Amalasuintha gave Justinian I a reason to go to war with the Ostrogoths and attempt to take Italy. According to the Eastern Roman historian Procopius, Amalasuintha was thinking about handing over Italy to Justinian around the time of her death. Shortly after Amalasuintha's murder, Theodahad was replaced by Witigis, Amalasuintha's son-in-law. With the people's support, Witigis had Theodahad put to death.
Sources.
The letters of Cassiodorus, chief minister and literary adviser of Amalasuintha, and the histories of Procopius and Jordanes, give us our chief information as to the character of Amalasuintha. Cassiodorus was a part of a greater pro-Roman party that desired to Romanize the traditional Ostrogothic kingship, further evidence of the pro-Roman circle that Amalasuintha surrounded herself with.
Legacy.
The life of Amalasuintha was made the subject of a tragedy, the first play written by the young Carlo Goldoni and presented at Milan in 1733.
Romanian poet George Coșbuc wrote a poem entitled "Regina Ostrogotilor (The Queen of the Ostrogoths)" in which Amalasuintha (named Amalasunda in the poem) speaks to Theodahad (mentioned as Teodat in the poem) shortly before he kills her.
Asteroid 650 Amalasuntha is named in her honour.
Amalasuintha is portrayed by Honor Blackman in the 1968 film "Kampf um Rom."
Further reading.
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1658
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Afonso II of Portugal
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Afonso II (; English: "Alphonzo"; Archaic Portuguese: "Affonso"; Portuguese-Galician: "Alfonso" or "Alphonso"; Latin: "Alphonsus"; 23 April 118525 March 1223), nicknamed the Fat ("o Gordo") or the Leper ("o Gafo"), was the third king of Portugal and the second but eldest surviving son of Sancho I of Portugal and Dulce of Aragon. Afonso succeeded his father on 27 March 1211.
Reign.
As a king, Afonso II set a different approach of government. Hitherto, his father Sancho I and his grandfather Afonso I were mostly concerned with military issues either against the neighbouring Kingdom of Castile or against the Moorish lands in the south. Afonso did not pursue territory enlargement policies and managed to ensure peace with Castile during his reign. Despite this, some towns were conquered from the Moors by the private initiative of noblemen and clergy, as when Bishop Soeiro Viegas initiated the conquest of Alcácer do Sal. This does not mean that he was a weak or somehow cowardly man. The first years of his reign were marked instead by internal disturbances between Afonso and his brothers and sisters. The king managed to keep security within Portuguese borders only by outlawing and exiling his kin.
Since military issues were not a government priority, Afonso established the state's administration and centralized power on himself. He designed the first set of Portuguese written laws. These were mainly concerned with private property, civil justice, and minting. Afonso also sent ambassadors to European kingdoms outside the Iberian Peninsula and began amicable commercial relations with most of them.
Other reforms included the always delicate matters with the pope. In order to get the independence of Portugal recognized by Rome, his grandfather, Afonso I, had to legislate an enormous number of privileges to the Church. These eventually created a state within the state. With Portugal's position as a country firmly established, Afonso II endeavoured to weaken the power of the clergy and to apply a portion of the enormous revenues of the Catholic Church to purposes of national utility. These actions led to a serious diplomatic conflict between the pope and Portugal. After being excommunicated for his audacities by Pope Honorius III, Afonso II promised to make amends to the church, but he died in Coimbra on 25 March 1223 before making any serious attempts to do so.
King Afonso was buried originally at the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra where his body remained for nearly ten years. His remains were transferred subsequently to Alcobaça Monastery, as he had stipulated in his will. He and his wife, Queen Urraca, were buried at its Royal Pantheon.
Marriage and descendants.
In 1206, he married Urraca, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of England. The couple were both descendants of King Alfonso VI of León. The offspring of this marriage were:
Out of wedlock, he had two illegitimate sons:
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1657
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Afonso I of Portugal
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Afonso I of Portugal (; born 1106, 1109 or 1111; died 1185), also called Afonso Henriques, nicknamed the Conqueror () by the Portuguese, and El-Bortukali (in Arabic "the Portuguese") and "Ibn-Arrink" or "Ibn Arrinq" (in Arabic or "son of Henry", "Henriques") by the Moors whom he fought, was the first king of Portugal. He achieved the independence of the County of Portugal, establishing a new kingdom and doubling its area with the "", an objective that he pursued until his death.
Afonso was the son of Teresa of León and Henry of Burgundy, rulers of the County of Portugal. Henry died in 1112, leaving Theresa to rule alone. Unhappy with Theresa's romantic relationship with Galician Fernando Pérez de Traba and his political influence, the Portuguese nobility rallied around Afonso, who revolted and defeated his mother at the Battle of São Mamede in 1128 and became Count of Portugal soon afterwards. In 1139, Afonso renounced the suzerainty of the Kingdom of León and established the independent Kingdom of Portugal.
Afonso actively campaigned against the Moors in the south. In 1139 he won a decisive victory at the Battle of Ourique, and in 1147 he conquered Santarém and Lisbon from the Moors, with help from men on their way to the Holy Land for the Second Crusade. He secured the independence of Portugal following a victory over León at Valdevez and received papal approval through "Manifestis Probatum". Afonso died in 1185 and was succeeded by his son, Sancho I.
Youth.
Afonso was the son of Teresa, the illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso VI of León and Castile, and her husband, Henry of Burgundy. According to the "Crónica de Portugal de 1419" the future Portuguese king was born in Guimarães, which was at the time the most important political center of his parents. This was accepted by most Portuguese scholarship until in 1990 Torquato de Sousa Soares proposed Coimbra, the center of the county of Coimbra and another political center of Afonso's progenitors, as his birthplace, which caused outrage in Guimarães and a polemic between this historian and José Hermano Saraiva. Almeida Fernandes later proposed Viseu as the birthplace of Afonso basing himself on the "Chronica Gothorum", which states Afonso was born in 1109, a position followed by José Mattoso in his biography of the king. Abel Estefânio has suggested a different date and thesis, proposing 1106 as the birth date and the region of Tierra de Campos or even Sahagún as likely birth places based on the known itineraries of Henry and Teresa. His place of baptism is also under suspicion: according to tradition the place is indicated as being in the Church of São Miguel do Castelo, in Guimarães, however there are doubts because of the date of the consecration of the Church, made in 1239. There are those who argue that the baptism actually took place in the Cathedral of Braga where he was baptized by Primate Archbishop Saint Gerald of Braga, which is politically sound for Count Henry to have the highest ranking clergy baptize his heir.
Henry and Teresa reigned jointly as count and countess of Portugal until his death on 22 May 1112 during the siege of Astorga, after which Teresa ruled Portugal alone. She would proclaim herself queen (a claim recognised by Pope Paschal II in 1116) but was captured and forced to reaffirm her vassalage to her half-sister, Urraca of León.
It is not known who was the tutor of Afonso. Later traditions, probably started with João Soares Coelho (a bastard descendant of Egas Moniz through a female line) in the mid-13th century and ampliated by later chronicles such as the "Crónica de Portugal de 1419", asserted he had been Egas Moniz de Ribadouro, possibly with the help of oral memories that associated the tutor to the house of Ribadouro. Yet, contemporary documents, namely from the chancery of Afonso in his early years as count of Portucale, indicate according to the historian José Mattoso that the most likely tutor of Afonso Henriques was Egas Moniz's oldest brother, Ermígio Moniz, who, besides being the senior brother within the family of Ribadouro, became the "dapifer" and "majordomus" of Afonso I from 1128 until his death in 1135, which indicates his closer proximity to the prince.
In an effort to pursue a larger share in the Leonese inheritance, his mother Teresa joined forces with Fernando Pérez de Trava, the most powerful count in Galicia. The Portuguese nobility disliked the alliance between Galicia and Portugal and rallied around Afonso. The Archbishop of Braga was also concerned with the dominance of Galicia, apprehensive of the ecclesiastical pretensions of his new rival the Galician Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Diego Gelmírez, who had claimed an alleged discovery of relics of Saint James in his town, as a way to gain power and riches over the other cathedrals in the Iberian Peninsula. In order to stop her son Afonso from overthrowing her, Teresa exiled him when he was twelve in the year 1120. In 1122, Afonso turned fourteen, the adult age in the 12th century. In symmetry with his cousin, Afonso made himself a knight on his own account in the Cathedral of Zamora in 1125. After the military campaign of Alfonso VII against his mother in 1127, Afonso revolted against her and proceeded to take control of the county from its queen.
Sole count.
In 1128, near Guimarães at the Battle of São Mamede, Afonso and his supporters overcame troops under both his mother and her lover, Count Fernando Peres de Trava of Galicia. Afonso exiled his mother to Galicia, and took over rule of the County of Portucale. Thus the possibility of re-incorporating Portucale into a Kingdom of Portugal and Galicia as before was eliminated and Afonso became sole ruler following demands for greater independence from the county's church and nobles. The battle was mostly ignored by the Leonese suzerain who was occupied at the time with a revolt in Castille. He was also, most likely, waiting for the reaction of the Galician families. After Teresa's death in 1131, Afonso VII of León and Castille proceeded to demand vassalage from his cousin. On 6 April 1129, Afonso Henriques dictated the writ in which he proclaimed himself Prince of Portugal or Prince of the Portuguese, an act informally allowed by Afonso VII, as it was thought to be Afonso Henriques's right by blood, as one of two grandsons of the Emperor of Hispania.
Afonso then turned his arms against the persistent problem of the Moors in the south. His campaigns were successful and, on 25 July 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was (possibly unanimously) proclaimed King of the Portuguese by his soldiers, establishing his equality in rank to the other realms of the Peninsula, although the first reference to his royal title dates from 1140. The first assembly of the Portuguese Cortes convened at Lamego (wherein he would have been given the crown from the Archbishop of Braga, to confirm his independence) is a 17th-century embellishment of Portuguese history.
Kingship.
Complete independence from Alfonso VII of León's suzerainty, however, could not be achieved by military means alone. The County of Portugal still had to be acknowledged diplomatically by the neighboring lands as a kingdom and, most importantly, by the Catholic Church and the pope. Afonso wed Mafalda of Savoy, daughter of Count Amadeus III of Savoy, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate with the pope. He succeeded in renouncing the suzerainty of his cousin, Alfonso VII of León, becoming instead a vassal of the papacy, as the kings of Sicily and Aragon had done before him.
In Portugal he built several monasteries and convents and bestowed important privileges to religious orders. He is notably the builder of Alcobaça Monastery, to which he called the Cistercian Order of his uncle Bernard of Clairvaux of Burgundy. In 1143, he wrote to Pope Innocent II to declare himself and the kingdom servants of the church, swearing to pursue driving the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula. Bypassing any king of León, Afonso declared himself the direct liege man of the papacy. Afonso continued to distinguish himself by his exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarém (see Conquest of Santarém) and Lisbon in 1147 (see Siege of Lisbon). He also conquered an important part of the land south of the Tagus River, although this was lost again to the Moors in the following years.
Meanwhile, King Alfonso VII of León regarded the independent ruler of Portugal as nothing but a rebel. Conflict between the two was constant and bitter in the following years. Afonso became involved in a war, taking the side of the Aragonese king, an enemy of Castile. To ensure the alliance, his son Sancho was engaged to Dulce of Aragon. Finally after winning the Battle of Valdevez, the Treaty of Zamora (1143) established peace between the cousins and the recognition by the Kingdom of León that Portugal was a fully independent kingdom.
In 1169 the now old King Afonso was possibly disabled in an engagement near Badajoz, by a fall from his horse and slamming against the castle gate, and made prisoner by the soldiers of King Ferdinand II of León, his son-in-law. He spent months at the hot springs of São Pedro do Sul, but never recovered and from this time onward the Portuguese king never rode a horse again. However, it is not certain if this was because of the disability: according to the later Portuguese chronistic tradition, this happened because Afonso would have to surrender himself again to Ferdinand or risk war between the two kingdoms if he ever rode a horse again. Portugal was obliged to surrender as his ransom almost all the conquests Afonso had made in Galicia (north of the Minho River) in the previous years. This event became known in Portuguese history as the Disaster of Badajoz ("o Desastre de Badajoz").
In 1179 the privileges and favors given to the Catholic Church were compensated. With consistent effort by several parties, such as the primate archbishop of Braga, Paio Mendes, in the papal court, the papal bull "Manifestis Probatum" was promulgated accepting the new king as vassal to the pope exclusively. In it Pope Alexander III also acknowledged Afonso as king and Portugal as an independent kingdom with the right to conquer lands from the Moors.
In 1184, the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf rallied a great Almohad force to retaliate against the Portuguese raids done since the end of a five-year truce in 1178 and besieged Santarém, which was defended by Afonso's son Sancho. The Almohad siege failed when news arrived the archbishop of Compostella had come to the defense of the city and Fernando II of León himself with his army. The Almohads ended the siege and their retreat turned into a rout due to panic in their camp, with the Almohad caliph being injured in the process (according to one version, because of a crossbow bolt) and dying on the way back to Seville. Afonso died shortly after on 6 December 1185. The Portuguese revere him as a hero, both on account of his personal character and as the founder of their nation. There are mythical stories that it took 10 men to carry his sword, and that Afonso wanted to engage other monarchs in personal combat, but no one would dare accept his challenge. It is also told, despite his honourable character, that he had a temper. Several chronicles give the example of a papal legate that brought a message from Pope Paschal II refusing to acknowledge Afonso's claim as king: either after committing or saying a small offense against him or after being simply read the letter, Afonso almost killed, in his rage, the papal representative, taking several portucalense nobles and soldiers to physically restrain the young would-be king.
Scientific research.
In July 2006, the tomb of the king (which is located in the Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra) was to be opened for scientific purposes by researchers from the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and the University of Granada (Spain). The opening of the tomb provoked considerable concern among some sectors of Portuguese society and Portuguese State Agency for Architectural Patrimony ("Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico" – IPPAR) halted the opening, requesting more protocols from the scientific team because of the importance of the king in the nation's heart and public thought.
Descendants.
In 1146, Afonso married Mafalda, daughter of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy and Mahaut of Albon, both appearing together for the first time in May of that year confirming royal charters. They had the following issue:
Before his marriage to Mafalda, King Afonso fathered his first son with Chamoa Gómez, daughter of Count Gómez Núñez and Elvira Pérez, sister of Fernando and Bermudo Pérez de Traba:
The extramarital offspring by Elvira Gálter were:
King Afonso was also the father of:
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1660
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Afonso IV of Portugal
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Afonso IV (; 8 February 129128 May 1357), called the Brave (), was King of Portugal from 1325 until his death in 1357. He was the only legitimate son of King Denis of Portugal and Elizabeth of Aragon.
Early life.
Afonso, born in Lisbon, was the rightful heir to the Portuguese throne. However, he was not Denis' favourite son, the old king preferring his illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches. The notorious rivalry between the half brothers led to civil war several times. On 7 January 1325, Afonso IV's father died and he became king, whereupon he exiled his rival, Afonso Sanches, to Castile, and stripped him of all the lands and fiefdom given by their father. From Castile, Afonso Sanches orchestrated a series of attempts to usurp the crown. After a few failed attempts at invasion, the brothers signed a peace treaty, arranged by Afonso IV's mother, Elizabeth.
In 1309, Afonso married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile and María de Molina. The first-born of this union was a daughter, Maria of Portugal.
King of Portugal and Algarve.
In 1325 Alfonso XI of Castile entered a child-marriage with Constanza Manuel of Castile, the daughter of one of his regents. Two years later, he had the marriage annulled so he could marry Afonso's daughter, Maria of Portugal. Maria became Queen of Castile in 1328 upon her marriage to Alfonso XI, who soon became involved publicly with a mistress. Constanza was imprisoned in a castle in Toro while her father, Don Juan Manuel, waged war against Alfonso XI until 1329. Eventually, the two reached a peaceful accord after mediation by Juan del Campo, Bishop of Oviedo; this secured Constanza's release from prison.
The public humiliation of his daughter led Afonso IV to have his son and heir, Peter I of Portugal, marry the no less aggrieved Castilian "infanta", Constanza. Afonso subsequently started a war against Castile, peace arriving four years later, through the intervention of the "infanta" Maria herself. A year after the peace treaty was signed in Seville, Portuguese troops played an important role in defeating the Moors at the Battle of Río Salado in October 1340.
Later life.
Political intrigue marked the last part of Afonso IV's reign, although Castille was torn by civil war after Alfonso XI died. Henry of Trastámara challenged the new King Peter of Castile, who sent many Castilian nobles into exile in Portugal. Afonso's son Peter fell in love with his new wife's lady-in-waiting, Inês de Castro. Inês was the daughter of an important noble family from Galicia, with links (albeit illegitimate) to both the royal houses of Castile and Portugal. Her brothers were aligned with the Trastamara faction, and became favorites of Peter, much to the dismay of others at the Portuguese court, who considered them Castilian upstarts. When Constanza died weeks after giving birth to their third child, Peter began living openly with Inês, recognized all her children as his and refused to marry anyone other than Inês herself. His father refused to go to war again against Castile, hoping the heir apparent's infatuation would end, and tried to arrange another dynastic marriage for him.
The situation became worse as the years passed and the aging Afonso lost control over his court. His grandson and Peter's only legitimate son, Ferdinand I of Portugal, was a sickly child, while Inês' illegitimate children thrived. Worried about his legitimate grandson's life, and the growing power of Castile within Portugal's borders, Afonso ordered Inês de Castro first imprisoned in his mother's old convent in Coimbra, and then murdered in 1355. He expected his son to give in and marry a princess, but Peter became enraged upon learning of his wife's decapitation in front of their young children. Peter put himself at the head of an army and devastated the country between the Douro and the Minho rivers before he was reconciled to his father in early 1357. Afonso died almost immediately after, in Lisbon in May.
Afonso IV's nickname "the Brave" alludes to his martial exploits. However, his most important accomplishments were the relative peace enjoyed by the country during his long reign and the support he gave to the Portuguese Navy. Afonso granted public funding to raise a proper commercial fleet and ordered the first Portuguese maritime explorations. The conflict with Pedro, and the explorations he initiated, eventually became the foundation of the Portuguese national epic, "Os Lusíadas" by Luís de Camões.
The dramatic circumstances of the relationship between father, son and Inês was used as the basis for the plot of more than twenty operas and ballets. The story with its tragic dénouement is immortalized in several plays and poems in Portuguese, such as "Os Lusíadas" by Luís de Camões (canto iii, stanzas 118–135), and in Spanish, including "Nise lastimosa" and "Nise laureada" (1577) by Jerónimo Bermúdez, "Reinar despues de morir" by Luis Vélez de Guevara, as well as a play by French playwright Henry de Montherlant called "La Reine morte" ("The Dead Queen"). Mary Russell Mitford also wrote a drama based on the story entitled "Inez de Castro". "Inês de Castro" is a novel by Maria Pilar Queralt del Hierro in Spanish and Portuguese.
Marriage and descendants.
On 12 September 1309, Afonso married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of Sancho IV of Castile, and María de Molina, and had four sons and three daughters. Afonso broke the tradition of previous kings and did not have any children out of wedlock.
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1659
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Afonso III of Portugal
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Afonso III (; rare English alternatives: "Alphonzo" or "Alphonse"), or "Affonso" (Archaic Portuguese), "Alfonso" or "Alphonso" (Portuguese-Galician) or "Alphonsus" (Latin), the Boulonnais (Port. "o Bolonhês"), King of Portugal (5 May 121016 February 1279) was the first to use the title "King of Portugal and the Algarve", from 1249. He was the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal and his wife, Urraca of Castile; he succeeded his brother, King Sancho II of Portugal, who died on 4 January 1248.
Early life.
Afonso was born in Coimbra. As the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal, he was not expected to inherit the throne, which was destined to go to his elder brother Sancho.
He lived mostly in France, where he married Countess Matilda II of Boulogne in 1238, thereby becoming count of Boulogne, Mortain, Aumale and Dammartin-en-Goële "jure uxoris".
Reign.
In 1246, conflicts between his brother, the king, and the church became unbearable. In 1247, Pope Innocent IV ordered Sancho II to be removed from the throne and to be replaced by the Count of Boulogne. Afonso, naturally, did not refuse the papal order and consequently marched to Portugal. Since Sancho was not a popular king the order was not hard to enforce, and he fled in exile to Toledo, Castile, where he died on 4 January 1248. Until his brother's death and his own eventual coronation, Afonso retained and used the title of "Visitador, Curador e Defensor do Reino" (Overseer, Curator and Defender of the Kingdom).
In order to ascend the throne Afonso abdicated his rights to the county of Boulogne in 1248. In 1253, he divorced Matilde in order to marry Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán.
Determined not to make the same mistakes as his brother, Afonso III paid special attention to what the middle class, composed of merchants and small land owners, had to say. In 1254, in the city of Leiria, he held the first session of the "Cortes", a general assembly comprising the nobility, the middle class and representatives of all municipalities. He also made laws intended to restrain the upper classes from abusing the least favored part of the population. Remembered as a notable administrator, Afonso III founded several towns, granted the title of city to many others and reorganized public administration.
Afonso showed extraordinary vision for the time. Progressive measures taken during his kingship include: representatives of the commons, besides the nobility and clergy, were involved in governance; the end of preventive arrests such that henceforward all arrests had to be first presented to a judge to determine the detention measure; and fiscal innovation, such as negotiating extraordinary taxes with the mercantile classes and direct taxation of the Church, rather than debasement of the coinage. These may have led to his excommunication by the holy see and possibly precipitated his death, and his son Denis's premature rise to the throne at only 18 years old.
Secure on the throne, Afonso III then proceeded to make war with the Muslim communities that still thrived in the south. In his reign the Algarve became part of the kingdom, following the capture of Faro.
Final years and death.
Following his success against the Moors, Afonso III had to deal with a political situation concerning the country's borders with Castile. The neighbouring kingdom considered that the newly acquired lands of the Algarve should be Castilian, not Portuguese, which led to a series of wars between the two kingdoms. Finally, in 1267, the Treaty of Badajoz (1267) was signed in Badajoz, determining that the southern border between Castile and Portugal should be the River Guadiana, as it is today.
Afonso died in Alcobaça, Coimbra or Lisbon, aged 68.
Final years and death.
Following his success against the Moors, Afonso III had to deal with a political situation concerning the country's borders with Castile. The neighbouring kingdom considered that the newly acquired lands of the Algarve should be Castilian, not Portuguese, which led to a series of wars between the two kingdoms. Finally, in 1267, the Treaty of Badajoz (1267) was signed in Badajoz, determining that the southern border between Castile and Portugal should be the River Guadiana, as it is today.
Afonso died in Alcobaça, Coimbra or Lisbon, aged 68.
Marriages and descendants.
Afonso's first wife was Matilda II, Countess of Boulogne, daughter of Renaud, Count of Dammartin, and Ida, Countess of Boulogne. They had no surviving children. He divorced Matilda in 1253 and, in the same year, married Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán.
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1649
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Almoravid dynasty
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The Almoravid dynasty () was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus, starting in the 1050s and lasting until its fall to the Almohads in 1147. The Almoravid capital was Marrakesh, a city founded by the Almoravid leader Abu Bakr ibn Umar circa 1070. The dynasty emerged from a coalition of the Lamtuna, Gudala, and Massufa, nomadic Berber tribes living in what is now Mauritania and the Western Sahara, traversing the territory between the Draa, the Niger, and the Senegal rivers.
The Almoravids were crucial in preventing the fall of Al-Andalus (Muslim rule in Iberia) to the Iberian Christian kingdoms, when they decisively defeated a coalition of the Castilian and Aragonese armies at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086. This enabled them to control an empire that stretched 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) North to South. Their rulers never claimed the title of caliph and instead took on the title of "Amir al-Muslimīn" ("Prince of the Muslims") while formally acknowledging the overlordship of the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad. However, the rule of the dynasty was relatively short-lived. The Almoravids fell—at the height of their power—when they failed to stop the Masmuda-led rebellion initiated by Ibn Tumart. As a result, their last king Ishaq ibn Ali was killed in Marrakesh in April 1147 by the Almohad Caliphate, which replaced them as a ruling dynasty both in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus.
Name.
The term "Almoravid" comes from the Arabic "al-Murabit" (), through the . The transformation of the "b" in "al-Murabit" to the "v" in "almorávide" is an example of betacism in Spanish.
In Arabic, "al-Murabit" literally means "one who is tying" but figuratively means "one who is ready for battle at a fortress". The term is related to the notion of "ribat" , a North African frontier monastery-fortress, through the root r-b-t ( "rabat": "to tie, to unite" or "raabat": "to encamp").
The name "Almoravid" was tied to a school of Malikite law called "Dar al-Murabitin" founded in Sus al-Aksa, modern day Morocco, by a scholar named Waggag ibn Zallu. Ibn Zallu sent his student Abdallah ibn Yasin to preach Malikite Islam to the Sanhaja Berbers of the Adrar (present-day Mauritania). Hence, the name of the Almoravids comes from the followers of the Dar al-Murabitin, "the house of those who were bound together in the cause of God."
It is uncertain exactly when or why the Almoravids acquired that appellation. al-Bakri, writing in 1068, before their apex, already calls them the "al-Murabitun", but does not clarify the reasons for it. Writing three centuries later, Ibn Abi Zar suggested it was chosen early on by Abdallah ibn Yasin because, upon finding resistance among the Gudala Berbers of Adrar (Mauritania) to his teaching, he took a handful of followers to erect a makeshift "ribat" (monastery-fortress) on an offshore island (possibly Tidra island, in the Bay of Arguin). Ibn Idhari wrote that the name was suggested by Ibn Yasin in the "persevering in the fight" sense, to boost morale after a particularly hard-fought battle in the Draa valley c. 1054, in which they had taken many losses. Whichever explanation is true, it seems certain the appellation was chosen by the Almoravids for themselves, partly with the conscious goal of forestalling any tribal or ethnic identifications.
The name might be related to the "ribat" of Waggag ibn Zallu in the village of Aglu (near present-day Tiznit), where the future Almoravid spiritual leader Abdallah ibn Yasin got his initial training. The 13th-century Moroccan biographer Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili, and Qadi Ayyad before him in the 12th century, note that Waggag's learning center was called "Dar al-Murabitin" (The house of the Almoravids), and that might have inspired Ibn Yasin's choice of name for the movement.
Contemporaries frequently referred to them as the "al-mulathimun" ("the veiled ones", from "litham", Arabic for "veil"). The Almoravids veiled themselves below the eyes with a tagelmust, a custom they adapted from southern Sanhaja Berbers. (This can still be seen among the modern Tuareg people, but it was unusual further north.) Although practical for the desert dust, the Almoravids insisted on wearing the veil everywhere, as a badge of "foreignness" in urban settings, partly as a way of emphasizing their puritan credentials. It served as the uniform of the Almoravids. Under their rule, sumptuary laws forbade anybody else from wearing the veil, thereby making it the distinctive dress of the ruling class. In turn, the succeeding Almohads made a point of mocking the Almoravid veil as symbolic of effeminacy and decadence.
History.
Origins.
The Berbers of the Maghreb in the early Middle Ages could be roughly classified into three major groups: the Zenata across the north, the Masmuda, concentrated in central Morocco, and the Sanhaja, clustered in the western part of the Sahara and the hills of the eastern Maghreb. The eastern Sanhaja included the Kutama Berbers, who had been the base of the Fatimid rise in the early 10th century, and the Zirid dynasty, who ruled Ifriqiya as vassals of the Fatimids after the latter moved to Egypt in 972. The western Sanhaja were divided into several tribes: the Gazzula and the Lamta in the Draa valley and the foothills of the Anti-Atlas range; further south, encamped in the western Sahara, were the Massufa, the Banu Warith; and most southerly of all, the Lamtuna and Gudala, in littoral Mauritania down to the borderlands of the Senegal River.
The western Sanhaja had been converted to Islam some time in the 9th century. They were subsequently united in the 10th century and, with the zeal of new converts, launched several campaigns against the "Sudanese" (pagan peoples of sub-Saharan Africa). Under their king Tinbarutan ibn Usfayshar, the Sanhaja Lamtuna erected (or captured) the citadel of Aoudaghost, a critical stop on the trans-Saharan trade route. After the collapse of the Sanhaja union, Aoudaghost passed over to the Ghana Empire; and the trans-Saharan routes were taken over by the Zenata Maghrawa of Sijilmasa. The Maghrawa also exploited this disunion to dislodge the Sanhaja Gazzula and Lamta out of their pasturelands in the Sous and Draa valleys. Around 1035, the Lamtuna chieftain Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Tifat (alias Tarsina), tried to reunite the Sanhaja desert tribes, but his reign lasted less than three years.
Around 1040, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, a chieftain of the Gudala (and brother-in-law of the late Tarsina), went on pilgrimage to Mecca. On his return, he stopped by Kairouan in Ifriqiya, where he met Abu Imran al-Fasi, a native of Fez and a jurist and scholar of the Sunni Maliki school. At this time, Ifriqiya was in ferment. The Zirid ruler, al-Mu'izz ibn Badis, was openly contemplating breaking with his Shi'ite Fatimid overlords in Cairo, and the jurists of Kairouan were agitating for him to do so. Within this heady atmosphere, Yahya and Abu Imran fell into conversation on the state of the faith in their western homelands, and Yahya expressed his disappointment at the lack of religious education and negligence of Islamic law among his southern Sanhaja people. With Abu Imran's recommendation, Yahya ibn Ibrahim made his way to the "ribat" of Waggag ibn Zelu in the Sous valley of southern Morocco, to seek out a Maliki teacher for his people. Waggag assigned him one of his residents, Abdallah ibn Yasin.
Abdallah ibn Yasin was a Gazzula Berber, and probably a convert rather than a born Muslim. His name can be read as "son of Ya-Sin" (the title of the 36th "surah" of the Quran), suggesting he had obliterated his family past and was "re-born" of the Holy Book. Ibn Yasin certainly had the ardor of a puritan zealot; his creed was mainly characterized by a rigid formalism and a strict adherence to the dictates of the Quran, and the Orthodox tradition. (Chroniclers such as al-Bakri allege Ibn Yasin's learning was superficial.) Ibn Yasin's initial meetings with the Godala people went poorly. As he had more ardor than depth, Ibn Yasin's arguments were disputed by his audience. He responded to questioning with charges of apostasy and handed out harsh punishments for the slightest deviations. The Godala soon had enough and expelled him almost immediately after the death of his protector, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, sometime in the 1040s.
Ibn Yasin, however, found a more favorable reception among the neighboring Lamtuna people. Probably sensing the useful organizing power of Ibn Yasin's pious fervor, the Lamtuna chieftain Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni invited the man to preach to his people. The Lamtuna leaders, however, kept Ibn Yasin on a careful leash, forging a more productive partnership between them. Invoking stories of the early life of Muhammad, Ibn Yasin preached that conquest was a necessary addendum to Islamicization, that it was not enough to merely adhere to God's law, but necessary to also destroy opposition to it. In Ibn Yasin's ideology, anything and everything outside of Islamic law could be characterized as "opposition". He identified tribalism, in particular, as an obstacle. He believed it was not enough to urge his audiences to put aside their blood loyalties and ethnic differences, and embrace the equality of all Muslims under the Sacred Law, it was necessary to make them do so. For the Lamtuna leadership, this new ideology dovetailed with their long desire to refound the Sanhaja union and recover their lost dominions. In the early 1050s, the Lamtuna, under the joint leadership of Yahya ibn Umar and Abdallah ibn Yasin—soon calling themselves the "al-Murabitin" (Almoravids)—set out on a campaign to bring their neighbors over to their cause.
Conquests.
Northern Africa.
From 1053, the Almoravids began to Islamize the Berber areas of the Sahara and the regions south of the desert. After winning over the Sanhaja Berber tribe, they quickly took control of the entire desert trade route, seizing Sijilmasa at the northern end in 1054, and Aoudaghost (Awdaghust) at the southern end in 1055. Yahya ibn Umar was killed in a battle in 1057, but Abdullah ibn Yasin, whose influence as a religious teacher was paramount, named his brother Abu Bakr ibn Umar as chief. Under him, the Almoravids soon began to spread their power beyond the desert, and conquered the tribes of the Atlas Mountains. In 1058 they crossed the High Atlas and conquered Aghmat, a prosperous commercial town near the foothills of the mountains, and made it their capital. They then came in contact with the Barghawata, a Berber tribal confederation, who followed an Islamic "heresy" preached by Salih ibn Tarif three centuries earlier. The Barghawata resisted. Abdullah ibn Yasin was killed in battle with them in 1059, in Krifla, a village near Rommani, Morocco. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu Bakr ibn Umar, and were forced to convert to orthodox Islam. Abu Bakr married a noble and wealthy Berber woman, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, who would become very influential in the development of the dynasty. Zaynab was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Houara, who was said to be from Kairouan.
In 1061, Abu Bakr ibn Umar made a division of the power he had established, handing over the more-settled parts to his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin as viceroy, and also assigning to him his favourite wife Zaynab. Ibn Umar kept the task of suppressing the revolts that had broken out in the desert. When he returned to resume control, he found his cousin too powerful to be superseded. Abu Bakr ibn Umar founded the new capital of Marrakesh around this time. Historical sources cite a variety of dates for this event ranging from 1062, given by Ibn Abi Zar and Ibn Khaldun, to 1078 (470 AH), given by Muhammad al-Idrisi. The year 1070, given by Ibn Idhari, is more commonly cited by modern historians. Some writers cite the year 1062. In November 1087 Abu Bakr was killed in battle – according to oral tradition by an arrow – while fighting in the historic region of the Sudan.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin had in the meantime brought the large area of what is now Morocco, Western Sahara, and Mauritania under Almoravid control. He spent at least several years capturing each fort and settlement in the region around Fez and in northern Morocco. After most of the surrounding region was under his control, he was finally able to conquer Fez definitively. However, there is some contradiction and uncertainty among historical sources regarding the exact chronology of these conquests, with some sources dating the main conquests to the 1060s and others dating them to the 1070s. Some modern authors cite the date of the final conquest of Fez as 1069 (461 AH). Historian Ronald Messier gives the date more specifically as 18 March 1070 (462 AH). Other historians date this conquest to 1074 or 1075.
In 1079 Ibn Tashfin sent an army 20,000 strong from Marrakesh to push towards what is now Tlemcen to attack the Banu Ya'la, the Zenata tribe occupying the area. Led by a commander named Mazdali Ibn Tilankan, the army defeated the Banu Ya'la and executed their leader, Mali Ibn Ya'la, but did not push to Tlemcen right away. Instead, Ibn Tashfin himself led an army in 1081 that conquered Tlemcen, massacring the Maghrawa forces there and their leader, al-Abbas Ibn Bakhti al-Maghrawi. He pressed on and by 1082 he had captured Algiers. Ibn Tashfin subsequently treated Tlemcen as his eastern base. At that time the city had consisted of an older settlement called Agadir, but Ibn Tashfin founded a new city next to it called Takrart, which later merged with Agadir in the Almohad period to become the present city.
The Almoravids subsequently clashed with the Hammadids to the east multiple times, but they did not make a sustained effort to conquer the central Maghrib and instead focused their efforts on other fronts. Eventually, in 1104, they signed a peace treaty with the Hammadids. Algiers became their easternmost outpost. Before campaigning in Al-Andalus, where the "Taifas" emirs were requesting his help, Ibn Tashfin made the capture of Ceuta his primary objective instead. Ceuta, controlled by Zenata forces under the command of Diya al-Dawla Yahya, was the last major city on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar that still held out against him. In return for a promise to help him against the encroaching Christian kingdoms, Ibn Tashfin demanded that al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, the ruler of Seville, provide assistance in besieging the city. Al-Mu'tamid obliged and sent a fleet to blockade the city by sea, while Ibn Tashfin's son Tamim led the siege by land. The city finally surrendered in August 1084.
Ghana Empire and the southern wing.
According to Arab tradition, the Almoravids conquered the Ghana Empire sometime around 1076 CE. An example of this tradition is the record of historian Ibn Khaldun, who cited Shaykh Uthman, the faqih of Ghana, writing in 1394. According to this source, the Almoravids weakened Ghana and collected tribute from the Sudan, to the extent that the authority of the rulers of Ghana dwindled away, and they were subjugated and absorbed by the Sosso, a neighboring people of the Sudan. Traditions in Mali related that the Sosso attacked and took over Mali as well, and the ruler of the Sosso, Sumaouro Kanté, took over the land.
However criticism from Conrad and Fisher (1982) argued that the notion of any Almoravid military conquest at its core is merely perpetuated folklore, derived from a misinterpretation or naive reliance on Arabic sources. According to Professor Timothy Insoll, the archaeology of ancient Ghana simply does not show the signs of rapid change and destruction that would be associated with any Almoravid-era military conquests.
Dierke Lange agreed with the original military incursion theory but argues that this doesn't preclude Almoravid political agitation, claiming that the main factor of the demise of the Ghana Empire owed much to the latter. According to Lange, Almoravid religious influence was gradual, rather than the result of military action; there the Almoravids gained power by marrying among the nation's nobility. Lange attributes the decline of ancient Ghana to numerous unrelated factors, one of which is likely attributable to internal dynastic struggles instigated by Almoravid influence and Islamic pressures, but devoid of military conquest.
This interpretation of events has been disputed by later scholars like Sheryl L. Burkhalter (1992), who argued that, whatever the nature of the "conquest" in the south of the Sahara, the influence and success of the Almoravid movement in securing west African gold and circulating it widely necessitated a high degree of political control.
The traditional position says that the ensuing war with the Almoravids pushed Ghana over the edge, ending the kingdom's position as a commercial and military power by 1100. It collapsed into tribal groups and chieftaincies, some of which later assimilated into the Almoravids while others founded the Mali Empire.
The Arab geographer Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri wrote that the Almoravids ended Ibadi Islam in Tadmekka in 1084 and that Abu Bakr "arrived at the mountain of gold" in the deep south.
After the death of Abu Bakr (1087), the confederation of Berber tribes in the Sahara was divided between the descendants of Abu Bakr and his brother Yahya, and would have lost control of Ghana. Sheryl Burkhalter suggests that Abu Bakr's son Yahya was the leader of the Almoravid expedition that conquered Ghana in 1076, and that the Almoravids would have survived the loss of Ghana and the defeat in the Maghreb by the Almohads, and would have ruled the Sahara until the end of the 12th century.
Southern Iberia and the northern wing.
In 1086 Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by the Muslim "taifa" princes of Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula to defend their territories from the encroachment of Alfonso VI, King of León and Castile. In that year, Ibn Tashfin crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Algeciras, and defeated Castile at the Battle of Sagrajas. He was prevented from following up his victory by trouble in Africa, which he chose to settle in person.
He returned to Iberia in 1090, avowedly for the purpose of annexing the "taifa" principalities of Iberia. He was supported by most of the Iberian people, who were discontented with the heavy taxation imposed upon them by their spendthrift rulers. Their religious teachers, as well as others in the east (most notably, al-Ghazali in Persia and al-Turtushi in Egypt, who was himself an Iberian by birth from Tortosa), detested the "taifa" rulers for their religious indifference. The clerics issued a "fatwa" (a non-binding legal opinion) that Yusuf was of sound morals and had the religious right to dethrone the rulers, whom he saw as heterodox in their faith. By 1094, Yusuf had annexed most of the major "taifas", with the exception of the one at Zaragoza. The Almoravids were victorious at the Battle of Consuegra, during which the son of El Cid, Diego Rodríguez, perished. Alfonso, with some Leónese, retreated into the castle of Consuegra, which was besieged for eight days until the Almoravids withdrew to the south.
After friendly correspondence with the caliph at Baghdad, whom he acknowledged as "Amir al-Mu'minin" ("Commander of the Faithful"), Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 1097 assumed the title of "Amir al Muslimin" ("Commander of the Muslims"). He died in 1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100. The Almoravid power was at its height at Yusuf's death: the Moorish empire then included all of Northwest Africa as far eastward as Algiers, and all of Iberia south of the Tagus and as far eastward as the mouth of the Ebro, and including the Balearic Islands.
In 1108 Tamim Al Yusuf defeated the Kingdom of Castile at the Battle of Uclés. Yusuf did not reconquer much territory from the Christian kingdoms, except that of Valencia; but he did hinder the progress of the Christian Reconquista by uniting al-Andalus. In 1134, at the Battle of Fraga, the Almoravids were victorious and even succeeded in slaying Alfonso the Battler in the battle.
Decline.
Under Yusuf's son and successor, Ali ibn Yusuf, Sintra and Santarém were added, and he invaded Iberia again in 1119 and 1121, but the tide had turned, as the French had assisted the Aragonese to recover Zaragoza. In 1138, Ali ibn Yusuf was defeated by Alfonso VII of León and Castile, and in the Battle of Ourique (1139), by Afonso I of Portugal, who thereby won his crown. Lisbon was conquered by the Portuguese in 1147.
According to some scholars, Ali ibn Yusuf represented a new generation of leadership that had forgotten the desert life for the comforts of the city. He was defeated by the combined action of his Christian foes in Iberia and the agitation of the Almohads (Muwahhids) in Morocco. After Ali ibn Yusuf's death in 1143, his son Tashfin ibn Ali lost ground rapidly before the Almohads. In 1146 he was killed in a fall from a precipice while attempting to escape after a defeat near Oran.
His two successors were Ibrahim ibn Tashfin and Ishaq ibn Ali, but their reigns were short. The conquest of the city of Marrakesh by the Almohads in 1147 marked the fall of the dynasty, though fragments of the Almoravids continued to struggle throughout the empire. Among these fragments, there was the rebel Yahya Al-Sahrāwiyya, who resisted Almohad rule in the Maghreb for eight years after the fall of Marrakesh before surrendering in 1155. Also in 1155, the remaining Almoravids were forced to retreat to the Balearic Islands and later Ifriqiya under the leadership of the Banu Ghaniya, who were eventually influential in the downfall of their conquerors, the Almohads, in the Eastern part of the Maghreb.
Origins.
The Berbers of the Maghreb in the early Middle Ages could be roughly classified into three major groups: the Zenata across the north, the Masmuda, concentrated in central Morocco, and the Sanhaja, clustered in the western part of the Sahara and the hills of the eastern Maghreb. The eastern Sanhaja included the Kutama Berbers, who had been the base of the Fatimid rise in the early 10th century, and the Zirid dynasty, who ruled Ifriqiya as vassals of the Fatimids after the latter moved to Egypt in 972. The western Sanhaja were divided into several tribes: the Gazzula and the Lamta in the Draa valley and the foothills of the Anti-Atlas range; further south, encamped in the western Sahara, were the Massufa, the Banu Warith; and most southerly of all, the Lamtuna and Gudala, in littoral Mauritania down to the borderlands of the Senegal River.
The western Sanhaja had been converted to Islam some time in the 9th century. They were subsequently united in the 10th century and, with the zeal of new converts, launched several campaigns against the "Sudanese" (pagan peoples of sub-Saharan Africa). Under their king Tinbarutan ibn Usfayshar, the Sanhaja Lamtuna erected (or captured) the citadel of Aoudaghost, a critical stop on the trans-Saharan trade route. After the collapse of the Sanhaja union, Aoudaghost passed over to the Ghana Empire; and the trans-Saharan routes were taken over by the Zenata Maghrawa of Sijilmasa. The Maghrawa also exploited this disunion to dislodge the Sanhaja Gazzula and Lamta out of their pasturelands in the Sous and Draa valleys. Around 1035, the Lamtuna chieftain Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Tifat (alias Tarsina), tried to reunite the Sanhaja desert tribes, but his reign lasted less than three years.
Around 1040, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, a chieftain of the Gudala (and brother-in-law of the late Tarsina), went on pilgrimage to Mecca. On his return, he stopped by Kairouan in Ifriqiya, where he met Abu Imran al-Fasi, a native of Fez and a jurist and scholar of the Sunni Maliki school. At this time, Ifriqiya was in ferment. The Zirid ruler, al-Mu'izz ibn Badis, was openly contemplating breaking with his Shi'ite Fatimid overlords in Cairo, and the jurists of Kairouan were agitating for him to do so. Within this heady atmosphere, Yahya and Abu Imran fell into conversation on the state of the faith in their western homelands, and Yahya expressed his disappointment at the lack of religious education and negligence of Islamic law among his southern Sanhaja people. With Abu Imran's recommendation, Yahya ibn Ibrahim made his way to the "ribat" of Waggag ibn Zelu in the Sous valley of southern Morocco, to seek out a Maliki teacher for his people. Waggag assigned him one of his residents, Abdallah ibn Yasin.
Abdallah ibn Yasin was a Gazzula Berber, and probably a convert rather than a born Muslim. His name can be read as "son of Ya-Sin" (the title of the 36th "surah" of the Quran), suggesting he had obliterated his family past and was "re-born" of the Holy Book. Ibn Yasin certainly had the ardor of a puritan zealot; his creed was mainly characterized by a rigid formalism and a strict adherence to the dictates of the Quran, and the Orthodox tradition. (Chroniclers such as al-Bakri allege Ibn Yasin's learning was superficial.) Ibn Yasin's initial meetings with the Godala people went poorly. As he had more ardor than depth, Ibn Yasin's arguments were disputed by his audience. He responded to questioning with charges of apostasy and handed out harsh punishments for the slightest deviations. The Godala soon had enough and expelled him almost immediately after the death of his protector, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, sometime in the 1040s.
Ibn Yasin, however, found a more favorable reception among the neighboring Lamtuna people. Probably sensing the useful organizing power of Ibn Yasin's pious fervor, the Lamtuna chieftain Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni invited the man to preach to his people. The Lamtuna leaders, however, kept Ibn Yasin on a careful leash, forging a more productive partnership between them. Invoking stories of the early life of Muhammad, Ibn Yasin preached that conquest was a necessary addendum to Islamicization, that it was not enough to merely adhere to God's law, but necessary to also destroy opposition to it. In Ibn Yasin's ideology, anything and everything outside of Islamic law could be characterized as "opposition". He identified tribalism, in particular, as an obstacle. He believed it was not enough to urge his audiences to put aside their blood loyalties and ethnic differences, and embrace the equality of all Muslims under the Sacred Law, it was necessary to make them do so. For the Lamtuna leadership, this new ideology dovetailed with their long desire to refound the Sanhaja union and recover their lost dominions. In the early 1050s, the Lamtuna, under the joint leadership of Yahya ibn Umar and Abdallah ibn Yasin—soon calling themselves the "al-Murabitin" (Almoravids)—set out on a campaign to bring their neighbors over to their cause.
Conquests.
Northern Africa.
From 1053, the Almoravids began to Islamize the Berber areas of the Sahara and the regions south of the desert. After winning over the Sanhaja Berber tribe, they quickly took control of the entire desert trade route, seizing Sijilmasa at the northern end in 1054, and Aoudaghost (Awdaghust) at the southern end in 1055. Yahya ibn Umar was killed in a battle in 1057, but Abdullah ibn Yasin, whose influence as a religious teacher was paramount, named his brother Abu Bakr ibn Umar as chief. Under him, the Almoravids soon began to spread their power beyond the desert, and conquered the tribes of the Atlas Mountains. In 1058 they crossed the High Atlas and conquered Aghmat, a prosperous commercial town near the foothills of the mountains, and made it their capital. They then came in contact with the Barghawata, a Berber tribal confederation, who followed an Islamic "heresy" preached by Salih ibn Tarif three centuries earlier. The Barghawata resisted. Abdullah ibn Yasin was killed in battle with them in 1059, in Krifla, a village near Rommani, Morocco. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu Bakr ibn Umar, and were forced to convert to orthodox Islam. Abu Bakr married a noble and wealthy Berber woman, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, who would become very influential in the development of the dynasty. Zaynab was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Houara, who was said to be from Kairouan.
In 1061, Abu Bakr ibn Umar made a division of the power he had established, handing over the more-settled parts to his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin as viceroy, and also assigning to him his favourite wife Zaynab. Ibn Umar kept the task of suppressing the revolts that had broken out in the desert. When he returned to resume control, he found his cousin too powerful to be superseded. Abu Bakr ibn Umar founded the new capital of Marrakesh around this time. Historical sources cite a variety of dates for this event ranging from 1062, given by Ibn Abi Zar and Ibn Khaldun, to 1078 (470 AH), given by Muhammad al-Idrisi. The year 1070, given by Ibn Idhari, is more commonly cited by modern historians. Some writers cite the year 1062. In November 1087 Abu Bakr was killed in battle – according to oral tradition by an arrow – while fighting in the historic region of the Sudan.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin had in the meantime brought the large area of what is now Morocco, Western Sahara, and Mauritania under Almoravid control. He spent at least several years capturing each fort and settlement in the region around Fez and in northern Morocco. After most of the surrounding region was under his control, he was finally able to conquer Fez definitively. However, there is some contradiction and uncertainty among historical sources regarding the exact chronology of these conquests, with some sources dating the main conquests to the 1060s and others dating them to the 1070s. Some modern authors cite the date of the final conquest of Fez as 1069 (461 AH). Historian Ronald Messier gives the date more specifically as 18 March 1070 (462 AH). Other historians date this conquest to 1074 or 1075.
In 1079 Ibn Tashfin sent an army 20,000 strong from Marrakesh to push towards what is now Tlemcen to attack the Banu Ya'la, the Zenata tribe occupying the area. Led by a commander named Mazdali Ibn Tilankan, the army defeated the Banu Ya'la and executed their leader, Mali Ibn Ya'la, but did not push to Tlemcen right away. Instead, Ibn Tashfin himself led an army in 1081 that conquered Tlemcen, massacring the Maghrawa forces there and their leader, al-Abbas Ibn Bakhti al-Maghrawi. He pressed on and by 1082 he had captured Algiers. Ibn Tashfin subsequently treated Tlemcen as his eastern base. At that time the city had consisted of an older settlement called Agadir, but Ibn Tashfin founded a new city next to it called Takrart, which later merged with Agadir in the Almohad period to become the present city.
The Almoravids subsequently clashed with the Hammadids to the east multiple times, but they did not make a sustained effort to conquer the central Maghrib and instead focused their efforts on other fronts. Eventually, in 1104, they signed a peace treaty with the Hammadids. Algiers became their easternmost outpost. Before campaigning in Al-Andalus, where the "Taifas" emirs were requesting his help, Ibn Tashfin made the capture of Ceuta his primary objective instead. Ceuta, controlled by Zenata forces under the command of Diya al-Dawla Yahya, was the last major city on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar that still held out against him. In return for a promise to help him against the encroaching Christian kingdoms, Ibn Tashfin demanded that al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, the ruler of Seville, provide assistance in besieging the city. Al-Mu'tamid obliged and sent a fleet to blockade the city by sea, while Ibn Tashfin's son Tamim led the siege by land. The city finally surrendered in August 1084.
Ghana Empire and the southern wing.
According to Arab tradition, the Almoravids conquered the Ghana Empire sometime around 1076 CE. An example of this tradition is the record of historian Ibn Khaldun, who cited Shaykh Uthman, the faqih of Ghana, writing in 1394. According to this source, the Almoravids weakened Ghana and collected tribute from the Sudan, to the extent that the authority of the rulers of Ghana dwindled away, and they were subjugated and absorbed by the Sosso, a neighboring people of the Sudan. Traditions in Mali related that the Sosso attacked and took over Mali as well, and the ruler of the Sosso, Sumaouro Kanté, took over the land.
However criticism from Conrad and Fisher (1982) argued that the notion of any Almoravid military conquest at its core is merely perpetuated folklore, derived from a misinterpretation or naive reliance on Arabic sources. According to Professor Timothy Insoll, the archaeology of ancient Ghana simply does not show the signs of rapid change and destruction that would be associated with any Almoravid-era military conquests.
Dierke Lange agreed with the original military incursion theory but argues that this doesn't preclude Almoravid political agitation, claiming that the main factor of the demise of the Ghana Empire owed much to the latter. According to Lange, Almoravid religious influence was gradual, rather than the result of military action; there the Almoravids gained power by marrying among the nation's nobility. Lange attributes the decline of ancient Ghana to numerous unrelated factors, one of which is likely attributable to internal dynastic struggles instigated by Almoravid influence and Islamic pressures, but devoid of military conquest.
This interpretation of events has been disputed by later scholars like Sheryl L. Burkhalter (1992), who argued that, whatever the nature of the "conquest" in the south of the Sahara, the influence and success of the Almoravid movement in securing west African gold and circulating it widely necessitated a high degree of political control.
The traditional position says that the ensuing war with the Almoravids pushed Ghana over the edge, ending the kingdom's position as a commercial and military power by 1100. It collapsed into tribal groups and chieftaincies, some of which later assimilated into the Almoravids while others founded the Mali Empire.
The Arab geographer Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri wrote that the Almoravids ended Ibadi Islam in Tadmekka in 1084 and that Abu Bakr "arrived at the mountain of gold" in the deep south.
After the death of Abu Bakr (1087), the confederation of Berber tribes in the Sahara was divided between the descendants of Abu Bakr and his brother Yahya, and would have lost control of Ghana. Sheryl Burkhalter suggests that Abu Bakr's son Yahya was the leader of the Almoravid expedition that conquered Ghana in 1076, and that the Almoravids would have survived the loss of Ghana and the defeat in the Maghreb by the Almohads, and would have ruled the Sahara until the end of the 12th century.
Southern Iberia and the northern wing.
In 1086 Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by the Muslim "taifa" princes of Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula to defend their territories from the encroachment of Alfonso VI, King of León and Castile. In that year, Ibn Tashfin crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Algeciras, and defeated Castile at the Battle of Sagrajas. He was prevented from following up his victory by trouble in Africa, which he chose to settle in person.
He returned to Iberia in 1090, avowedly for the purpose of annexing the "taifa" principalities of Iberia. He was supported by most of the Iberian people, who were discontented with the heavy taxation imposed upon them by their spendthrift rulers. Their religious teachers, as well as others in the east (most notably, al-Ghazali in Persia and al-Turtushi in Egypt, who was himself an Iberian by birth from Tortosa), detested the "taifa" rulers for their religious indifference. The clerics issued a "fatwa" (a non-binding legal opinion) that Yusuf was of sound morals and had the religious right to dethrone the rulers, whom he saw as heterodox in their faith. By 1094, Yusuf had annexed most of the major "taifas", with the exception of the one at Zaragoza. The Almoravids were victorious at the Battle of Consuegra, during which the son of El Cid, Diego Rodríguez, perished. Alfonso, with some Leónese, retreated into the castle of Consuegra, which was besieged for eight days until the Almoravids withdrew to the south.
After friendly correspondence with the caliph at Baghdad, whom he acknowledged as "Amir al-Mu'minin" ("Commander of the Faithful"), Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 1097 assumed the title of "Amir al Muslimin" ("Commander of the Muslims"). He died in 1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100. The Almoravid power was at its height at Yusuf's death: the Moorish empire then included all of Northwest Africa as far eastward as Algiers, and all of Iberia south of the Tagus and as far eastward as the mouth of the Ebro, and including the Balearic Islands.
In 1108 Tamim Al Yusuf defeated the Kingdom of Castile at the Battle of Uclés. Yusuf did not reconquer much territory from the Christian kingdoms, except that of Valencia; but he did hinder the progress of the Christian Reconquista by uniting al-Andalus. In 1134, at the Battle of Fraga, the Almoravids were victorious and even succeeded in slaying Alfonso the Battler in the battle.
Northern Africa.
From 1053, the Almoravids began to Islamize the Berber areas of the Sahara and the regions south of the desert. After winning over the Sanhaja Berber tribe, they quickly took control of the entire desert trade route, seizing Sijilmasa at the northern end in 1054, and Aoudaghost (Awdaghust) at the southern end in 1055. Yahya ibn Umar was killed in a battle in 1057, but Abdullah ibn Yasin, whose influence as a religious teacher was paramount, named his brother Abu Bakr ibn Umar as chief. Under him, the Almoravids soon began to spread their power beyond the desert, and conquered the tribes of the Atlas Mountains. In 1058 they crossed the High Atlas and conquered Aghmat, a prosperous commercial town near the foothills of the mountains, and made it their capital. They then came in contact with the Barghawata, a Berber tribal confederation, who followed an Islamic "heresy" preached by Salih ibn Tarif three centuries earlier. The Barghawata resisted. Abdullah ibn Yasin was killed in battle with them in 1059, in Krifla, a village near Rommani, Morocco. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu Bakr ibn Umar, and were forced to convert to orthodox Islam. Abu Bakr married a noble and wealthy Berber woman, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, who would become very influential in the development of the dynasty. Zaynab was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Houara, who was said to be from Kairouan.
In 1061, Abu Bakr ibn Umar made a division of the power he had established, handing over the more-settled parts to his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin as viceroy, and also assigning to him his favourite wife Zaynab. Ibn Umar kept the task of suppressing the revolts that had broken out in the desert. When he returned to resume control, he found his cousin too powerful to be superseded. Abu Bakr ibn Umar founded the new capital of Marrakesh around this time. Historical sources cite a variety of dates for this event ranging from 1062, given by Ibn Abi Zar and Ibn Khaldun, to 1078 (470 AH), given by Muhammad al-Idrisi. The year 1070, given by Ibn Idhari, is more commonly cited by modern historians. Some writers cite the year 1062. In November 1087 Abu Bakr was killed in battle – according to oral tradition by an arrow – while fighting in the historic region of the Sudan.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin had in the meantime brought the large area of what is now Morocco, Western Sahara, and Mauritania under Almoravid control. He spent at least several years capturing each fort and settlement in the region around Fez and in northern Morocco. After most of the surrounding region was under his control, he was finally able to conquer Fez definitively. However, there is some contradiction and uncertainty among historical sources regarding the exact chronology of these conquests, with some sources dating the main conquests to the 1060s and others dating them to the 1070s. Some modern authors cite the date of the final conquest of Fez as 1069 (461 AH). Historian Ronald Messier gives the date more specifically as 18 March 1070 (462 AH). Other historians date this conquest to 1074 or 1075.
In 1079 Ibn Tashfin sent an army 20,000 strong from Marrakesh to push towards what is now Tlemcen to attack the Banu Ya'la, the Zenata tribe occupying the area. Led by a commander named Mazdali Ibn Tilankan, the army defeated the Banu Ya'la and executed their leader, Mali Ibn Ya'la, but did not push to Tlemcen right away. Instead, Ibn Tashfin himself led an army in 1081 that conquered Tlemcen, massacring the Maghrawa forces there and their leader, al-Abbas Ibn Bakhti al-Maghrawi. He pressed on and by 1082 he had captured Algiers. Ibn Tashfin subsequently treated Tlemcen as his eastern base. At that time the city had consisted of an older settlement called Agadir, but Ibn Tashfin founded a new city next to it called Takrart, which later merged with Agadir in the Almohad period to become the present city.
The Almoravids subsequently clashed with the Hammadids to the east multiple times, but they did not make a sustained effort to conquer the central Maghrib and instead focused their efforts on other fronts. Eventually, in 1104, they signed a peace treaty with the Hammadids. Algiers became their easternmost outpost. Before campaigning in Al-Andalus, where the "Taifas" emirs were requesting his help, Ibn Tashfin made the capture of Ceuta his primary objective instead. Ceuta, controlled by Zenata forces under the command of Diya al-Dawla Yahya, was the last major city on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar that still held out against him. In return for a promise to help him against the encroaching Christian kingdoms, Ibn Tashfin demanded that al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, the ruler of Seville, provide assistance in besieging the city. Al-Mu'tamid obliged and sent a fleet to blockade the city by sea, while Ibn Tashfin's son Tamim led the siege by land. The city finally surrendered in August 1084.
Ghana Empire and the southern wing.
According to Arab tradition, the Almoravids conquered the Ghana Empire sometime around 1076 CE. An example of this tradition is the record of historian Ibn Khaldun, who cited Shaykh Uthman, the faqih of Ghana, writing in 1394. According to this source, the Almoravids weakened Ghana and collected tribute from the Sudan, to the extent that the authority of the rulers of Ghana dwindled away, and they were subjugated and absorbed by the Sosso, a neighboring people of the Sudan. Traditions in Mali related that the Sosso attacked and took over Mali as well, and the ruler of the Sosso, Sumaouro Kanté, took over the land.
However criticism from Conrad and Fisher (1982) argued that the notion of any Almoravid military conquest at its core is merely perpetuated folklore, derived from a misinterpretation or naive reliance on Arabic sources. According to Professor Timothy Insoll, the archaeology of ancient Ghana simply does not show the signs of rapid change and destruction that would be associated with any Almoravid-era military conquests.
Dierke Lange agreed with the original military incursion theory but argues that this doesn't preclude Almoravid political agitation, claiming that the main factor of the demise of the Ghana Empire owed much to the latter. According to Lange, Almoravid religious influence was gradual, rather than the result of military action; there the Almoravids gained power by marrying among the nation's nobility. Lange attributes the decline of ancient Ghana to numerous unrelated factors, one of which is likely attributable to internal dynastic struggles instigated by Almoravid influence and Islamic pressures, but devoid of military conquest.
This interpretation of events has been disputed by later scholars like Sheryl L. Burkhalter (1992), who argued that, whatever the nature of the "conquest" in the south of the Sahara, the influence and success of the Almoravid movement in securing west African gold and circulating it widely necessitated a high degree of political control.
The traditional position says that the ensuing war with the Almoravids pushed Ghana over the edge, ending the kingdom's position as a commercial and military power by 1100. It collapsed into tribal groups and chieftaincies, some of which later assimilated into the Almoravids while others founded the Mali Empire.
The Arab geographer Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri wrote that the Almoravids ended Ibadi Islam in Tadmekka in 1084 and that Abu Bakr "arrived at the mountain of gold" in the deep south.
After the death of Abu Bakr (1087), the confederation of Berber tribes in the Sahara was divided between the descendants of Abu Bakr and his brother Yahya, and would have lost control of Ghana. Sheryl Burkhalter suggests that Abu Bakr's son Yahya was the leader of the Almoravid expedition that conquered Ghana in 1076, and that the Almoravids would have survived the loss of Ghana and the defeat in the Maghreb by the Almohads, and would have ruled the Sahara until the end of the 12th century.
Southern Iberia and the northern wing.
In 1086 Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by the Muslim "taifa" princes of Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula to defend their territories from the encroachment of Alfonso VI, King of León and Castile. In that year, Ibn Tashfin crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Algeciras, and defeated Castile at the Battle of Sagrajas. He was prevented from following up his victory by trouble in Africa, which he chose to settle in person.
He returned to Iberia in 1090, avowedly for the purpose of annexing the "taifa" principalities of Iberia. He was supported by most of the Iberian people, who were discontented with the heavy taxation imposed upon them by their spendthrift rulers. Their religious teachers, as well as others in the east (most notably, al-Ghazali in Persia and al-Turtushi in Egypt, who was himself an Iberian by birth from Tortosa), detested the "taifa" rulers for their religious indifference. The clerics issued a "fatwa" (a non-binding legal opinion) that Yusuf was of sound morals and had the religious right to dethrone the rulers, whom he saw as heterodox in their faith. By 1094, Yusuf had annexed most of the major "taifas", with the exception of the one at Zaragoza. The Almoravids were victorious at the Battle of Consuegra, during which the son of El Cid, Diego Rodríguez, perished. Alfonso, with some Leónese, retreated into the castle of Consuegra, which was besieged for eight days until the Almoravids withdrew to the south.
After friendly correspondence with the caliph at Baghdad, whom he acknowledged as "Amir al-Mu'minin" ("Commander of the Faithful"), Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 1097 assumed the title of "Amir al Muslimin" ("Commander of the Muslims"). He died in 1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100. The Almoravid power was at its height at Yusuf's death: the Moorish empire then included all of Northwest Africa as far eastward as Algiers, and all of Iberia south of the Tagus and as far eastward as the mouth of the Ebro, and including the Balearic Islands.
In 1108 Tamim Al Yusuf defeated the Kingdom of Castile at the Battle of Uclés. Yusuf did not reconquer much territory from the Christian kingdoms, except that of Valencia; but he did hinder the progress of the Christian Reconquista by uniting al-Andalus. In 1134, at the Battle of Fraga, the Almoravids were victorious and even succeeded in slaying Alfonso the Battler in the battle.
Decline.
Under Yusuf's son and successor, Ali ibn Yusuf, Sintra and Santarém were added, and he invaded Iberia again in 1119 and 1121, but the tide had turned, as the French had assisted the Aragonese to recover Zaragoza. In 1138, Ali ibn Yusuf was defeated by Alfonso VII of León and Castile, and in the Battle of Ourique (1139), by Afonso I of Portugal, who thereby won his crown. Lisbon was conquered by the Portuguese in 1147.
According to some scholars, Ali ibn Yusuf represented a new generation of leadership that had forgotten the desert life for the comforts of the city. He was defeated by the combined action of his Christian foes in Iberia and the agitation of the Almohads (Muwahhids) in Morocco. After Ali ibn Yusuf's death in 1143, his son Tashfin ibn Ali lost ground rapidly before the Almohads. In 1146 he was killed in a fall from a precipice while attempting to escape after a defeat near Oran.
His two successors were Ibrahim ibn Tashfin and Ishaq ibn Ali, but their reigns were short. The conquest of the city of Marrakesh by the Almohads in 1147 marked the fall of the dynasty, though fragments of the Almoravids continued to struggle throughout the empire. Among these fragments, there was the rebel Yahya Al-Sahrāwiyya, who resisted Almohad rule in the Maghreb for eight years after the fall of Marrakesh before surrendering in 1155. Also in 1155, the remaining Almoravids were forced to retreat to the Balearic Islands and later Ifriqiya under the leadership of the Banu Ghaniya, who were eventually influential in the downfall of their conquerors, the Almohads, in the Eastern part of the Maghreb.
Culture.
Religion.
The Almoravid movement started as a conservative Islamic reform movement inspired by the Maliki school of jurisprudence. The writings of Abu Imran al-Fasi, a Moroccan Maliki scholar, influenced Yahya Ibn Ibrahim and the early Almoravid movement.
Art.
Amira Bennison describes the art of the Almoravid period as influenced by the "integration of several areas into a single political unit and the resultant development of a widespread Andalusi–Maghribi style", as well as the tastes of the Sanhaja rulers as patrons of art. Bennison also challenges Robert Hillenbrand's characterization of the art of al-Andalus and the Maghreb as provincial and peripheral in consideration of Islamic art globally, and of the contributions of the Almoravids as "sparse" as a result of the empire's "puritanical fervour" and "ephemerality."
At first, the Almoravids, subscribing to the conservative Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, rejected what they perceived as decadence and a lack of piety among the Iberian Muslims of the Andalusi taifa kingdoms. However, monuments and textiles from Almería from the late Almoravid period indicate that the empire had changed its attitude with time.
Artistic production under the Almoravids included finely constructed minbars produced in Córdoba; marble basins and tombstones in Almería; fine textiles in Almería, Málaga, Seville; and luxury ceramics.
Marble work.
A large group of marble tombstones have been preserved from the first half of the 12th century. They were crafted in Almería in Al-Andalus, at a time when it was a prosperous port city under Almoravid control. The tombstones were made of Macael marble, which was quarried locally, and carved with extensive Kufic inscriptions that were sometimes adorned with vegetal or geometric motifs. These demonstrate that the Almoravids not only reused Umayyad marble columns and basins, but also commissioned new works. The inscriptions on them are dedicated to various individuals, both men and women, from a range of different occupations, indicating that such tombstones were relatively affordable. The stones take the form of either rectangular stelae or of long horizontal prisms known as "mqabriyya"s (similar to the ones found in the much later Saadian Tombs of Marrakesh). They have been found in many locations across West Africa and Western Europe, which is evidence that a wide-reaching industry and trade in marble existed. A number of pieces found in France were likely acquired from later pillaging. Some of the most ornate tombstones found outside Al-Andalus were discovered in Gao-Saney in the African Sahel, testament to the reach of Almoravid influence into the African continent.
Two Almoravid-period marble columns have also been found reused as spolia in later monuments in Fes. One is incorporated into the window of the Dar al-Muwaqqit (timekeeper's house) overlooking the courtyard of the Qarawiyyin Mosque, built in the Marinid period. The other is embedded into the decoration of the exterior southern façade of the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II, a structure which was rebuilt by Ismail Ibn Sharif.
Textiles.
The fact that Ibn Tumart, leader of the Almohad movement, is recorded as having criticized Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf for "sitting on a luxurious silken cloak" at his grand mosque in Marrakesh indicates the important role of textiles under the Almoravids.
Many of the remaining fabrics from the Almoravid period were reused by Christians, with examples in the reliquary of San Isidoro in León, a chasuble from Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, the Chasuble of San Juan de Ortega in the church of Quintanaortuña (near Burgos), the shroud of San Pedro de Osma, and a fragment found at the church of Thuir in the eastern Pyrenees. Some of these pieces are characterized by the appearance of Kufic or "Hispano-Kufic" woven inscriptions, with letters sometimes ending in ornamental vegetal flourishes. The Chasuble of San Juan de Ortega is one such example, made of silk and gold thread and dating to the first half of the 12th century. The Shroud of San Pedro de Osma is notable for its inscription stating "this was made in Baghdad", suggesting that it was imported. However, more recent scholarship has suggested that the textile was instead produced locally in centres such as Almeria, but that they were copied or based on eastern imports. It's even possible that the inscription was knowingly falsified in order to exaggerate its value to potential sellers; Al-Saqati of Málaga, a 12th-century writer and market inspector, wrote that there were regulations designed to prohibit the practice of making such false inscriptions. As a result of the inscription, many of these textiles are known in scholarship as the "Baghdad group", representing a stylistically coherent and artistically rich group of silken textiles seemingly dating to reign of Ali ibn Yusuf or the first half of the 12th century. Aside from the inscription, the shroud of San Pedro de Osma is decorated with images of two lions and harpies inside roundels that are ringed by images of small men holding griffins, repeating across the whole fabric. The chasuble from Saint-Sernin is likewise decorated with figural images, in this case a pair of peacocks repeating in horizontal bands, with vegetal stems separating each pair and small kufic inscriptions running along the bottom.
The decorative theme of having a regular grid of roundels containing images of animals and figures, with more abstract motifs filling the spaces in between, has origins traced as far back as Persian Sasanian textiles. In subsequent periods, starting with the Almohads, these roundels with figurative imagery are progressively replaced with more abstract roundels, while epigraphic decoration becomes more prominent than before.
Calligraphy and manuscript illumination.
In early Islamic manuscripts, Kufic was the main script used for religious texts. Western or Maghrebi Kufic evolved from the standard (or eastern) Kufic style and was marked by the transformation of the low swooping sections of letters from rectangular forms to long semi-circular forms. It is found in 10th century Qurans before the Almoravid period. Almoravid Kufic is the variety of Maghrebi Kufic script that was used as an official display script during the Almoravid period.
Eventually, Maghrebi Kufic gave rise to a distinctive cursive script known as "Maghrebi", the only cursive script of Arabic derived from Kufic, which was fully formed by the early 12th century under the Almoravids. This style was commonly used in Qurans and other religious works from this period onward, but it was rarely ever used in architectural inscriptions. One version of this script during this early period is the Andalusi script, which was associated with Al-Andalus. It was usually finer and denser, and while the loops of letters below the line are semi-circular, the extensions of letters above the line continue to use straight lines that recall its Kufic origins. Another version of the script is rounder and larger, and is more associated with the Maghreb, although it is nonetheless found in Andalusi volumes too.
The oldest known illuminated Quran from the western Islamic world (i.e. the Maghreb and Al-Andalus) dates from 1090, towards the end of the first Taifas period and the beginning of the Almoravid domination in Al-Andalus. It was produced either in the Maghreb or Al-Andalus and is now kept at the Uppsala University Library. Its decoration is still in the earliest phases of artistic development, lacking the sophistication of later volumes, but many of the features that were standard in later manuscripts are present: the script is written in the Maghrebi style in black ink, but the diacritics (vowels and other orthographic signs) are in red or blue, simple gold and black roundels mark the end of verses, and headings are written in gold Kufic inside a decorated frame and background. It also contains a frontispiece, of relatively simple design, consisting of a grid of lozenges variously filled with gold vegetal motifs, gold netting, or gold Kufic inscriptions on red or blue backgrounds.
More sophisticated illumination is already evident in a copy of a "sahih" dated to 1120 (during the reign of Ali ibn Yusuf), also produced in either the Maghreb or Al-Andalus, with a rich frontispiece centered around a large medallion formed by an interlacing geometric motif, filled with gold backgrounds and vegetal motifs. A similarly sophisticated Quran, dated to 1143 (at the end of Ali ibn Yusuf's reign) and produced in Córdoba, contains a frontispiece with an interlacing geometric motif forming a panel filled with gold and a knotted blue roundel at the middle.
Ceramics.
The Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus caused a temporary rupture in ceramic production, but it returned in the 12th century. There is a collection of about 2,000 Maghrebi-Andalusi ceramic basins or bowls () in Pisa, where they were used to decorated churches from the early 11th to fifteenth centuries. There were a number of varieties of ceramics under the Almoravids, including "cuerda seca" pieces. The most luxurious form was iridescent lustreware, made by applying a metallic glaze to the pieces before a second firing. This technique came from Iraq and flourished in Fatimid Egypt.
Minbars.
The Almoravid minbars — such as the minbar of the Grand Mosque of Marrakesh commissioned by Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf (1137), or the minbar for the University of al-Qarawiyyin (1144) — expressed the Almoravids' Maliki legitimacy, their "inheritance of the Umayyad imperial role", and the extension of that imperial power into the Maghreb. Both minbars are exceptional works of marquetry and woodcarving, decorated with geometric compositions, inlaid materials, and arabesque reliefs.
Architecture.
The Almoravid period, along with the subsequent Almohad period, is considered one of the most formative stages of Moroccan and Moorish architecture, establishing many of the forms and motifs of this style that were refined in subsequent centuries. Manuel Casamar Perez remarks that the Almoravids scaled back the Andalusi trend towards heavier and more elaborate decoration which had developed since the Caliphate of Córdoba and instead prioritized a greater balance between proportions and ornamentation.
The two centers of artistic production in the Islamic west before the rise of the Almoravids were Kairouan and Córdoba, both former capitals in the region which served as sources of inspiration. The Almoravids were responsible for establishing a new imperial capital at Marrakesh, which became a major center of architectural patronage thereafter. The Almoravids adopted the architectural developments of al-Andalus, such as the complex interlacing arches of the Great Mosque in Córdoba and of the Aljaferia palace in Zaragoza, while also introducing new ornamental techniques from the east such as "muqarnas" ("stalactite" or "honeycomb" carvings).
After taking control of Al-Andalus in the Battle of Sagrajas, the Almoravids sent Muslim, Christian and Jewish artisans from Iberia to North Africa to work on monuments. The Great Mosque in Algiers (c. 1097), the Great Mosque of Tlemcen (1136) and al-Qarawiyyin (expanded in 1135) in Fez are important examples of Almoravid architecture. The Almoravid Qubba is one of the few Almoravid monuments in Marrakesh surviving, and is notable for its highly ornate interior dome with carved stucco decoration, complex arch shapes, and minor "muqarnas" cupolas in the corners of the structure. The central nave of the expanded Qarawiyyin Mosque notably features the earliest full-fledged example of muqarnas vaulting in the western Islamic world. The complexity of these muqarnas vaults at such an early date – only several decades after the first simple muqarnas vaults appeared in distant Iraq – has been noted by architectural historians as surprising. Another high point of Almoravid architecture is the intricate ribbed dome in front of the mihrab of the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, which likely traces its origins to the 10th-century ribbed domes of the Great Mosque of Córdoba. The structure of the dome is strictly ornamental, consisting of multiple ribs or intersecting arches forming a twelve-pointed star pattern. It is also partly see-through, allowing some outside light to filter through a screen of pierced and carved arabesque decoration that fills the spaces between the ribs.
Aside from more ornamental religious structures, the Almoravids also built many fortifications, although most of these in turn were demolished or modified by the Almohads and later dynasties. The new capital, Marrakesh, initially had no city walls but a fortress known as the Ksar el-Hajjar ("Fortress of Stone") was built by the city's founder, Abu Bakr ibn Umar, in order to house the treasury and serve as an initial residence. Eventually, circa 1126, Ali Ibn Yusuf also constructed a full set of walls, made of rammed earth, around the city in response to the growing threat of the Almohads. These walls, although much restored and partly expanded in later centuries, continue to serve as the walls of the medina of Marrakesh today. The medina's main gates were also first built at this time, although many of them have since been significantly modified. Bab Doukkala, one of the western gates, is believed to have best preserved its original Almoravid layout. It has a classic bent entrance configuration, of which variations are found throughout the medieval period of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. Elsewhere, the archaeological site of Tasghîmût, southeast of Marrakesh, and Amargu, northeast of Fes, provide evidence about other Almoravid forts. Built out of rubble stone or rammed earth, they illustrate similarities with older Hammadid fortifications, as well as an apparent need to build quickly during times of crisis. The walls of Tlemcen (present-day Algeria) were likewise partly built by the Almoravids, using a mix of rubble stone at the base and rammed earth above.
In domestic architecture, none of the Almoravid palaces or residences have survived, and they are known only through texts and archaeology. During his reign, Ali Ibn Yusuf added a large palace and royal residence on the south side of the Ksar el-Hajjar (on the present site of the Kutubiyya Mosque). This palace was later abandoned and its function was replaced by the Almohad Kasbah, but some of its remains have been excavated and studied in the 20th century. These remains have revealed the earliest known example in Morocco of a riad garden (an interior garden symmetrically divided into four parts). In 1960 other excavations near Chichaoua revealed the remains of a domestic complex or settlement dating from the Almoravid period or even earlier. It consisted of several houses, two hammams, a water supply system, and possibly a mosque. On the site were found many fragments of architectural decoration which are now preserved at the Archeological Museum of Rabat. These fragments are made of deeply-carved stucco featuring Kufic and cursive Arabic inscriptions as well as vegetal motifs such as palmettes and acanthus leaves. The structures also featured painted decoration in red ochre, typically consisting of border motifs composed of two interlacing bands. Similar decoration has also been found in the remains of former houses excavated in 2006 under the 12th-century Almoravid expansion of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fes. In addition to the usual border motifs were larger interlacing geometric motifs as well as Kufic inscriptions with vegetal backgrounds, all executed predominantly in red.
Literature.
The Almoravid movement has its intellectual origins in the writings and teachings of Abu Imran al-Fasi, who first inspired Yahya Ibn Ibrahim of the Godala tribe in Kairouan. Ibn Ibrahim then inspired Abdallah ibn Yasin to organize for jihad and start the Almoravid movement.
Moroccan literature flourished in the Almoravid period. The political unification of Morocco and al-Andalus under the Almoravid dynasty rapidly accelerated the cultural interchange between the two continents, beginning when Yusuf ibn Tashfin sent al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, former poet king of the Taifa of Seville, into exile in Tangier and ultimately Aghmat.
The historians Ibn Hayyan, Al-Bakri, Ibn Bassam, and al-Fath ibn Khaqan all lived in the Almoravid period. Ibn Bassam authored , Al-Fath ibn Khaqan authored "Qala'idu l-'Iqyan," and Al-Bakri authored "al-Masālik wa ’l-Mamālik" (Book of Roads and Kingdoms).
In the Almoravid period two writers stand out: Qadi Ayyad and Avempace. Ayyad is known for having authored "Kitāb al-Shifāʾ bī Taʾrif Ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafá". Many of the Seven Saints of Marrakesh were men of letters.
The muwashshah was an important form of poetry and music in the Almoravid period. Great poets from the period are mentioned in anthologies such as , "Rawd al-Qirtas," and "Mu'jam as-Sifr".
The Moroccan historian noted that there were 104 paper mills in Fez under Yusuf ibn Tashfin in the 11th century.
Religion.
The Almoravid movement started as a conservative Islamic reform movement inspired by the Maliki school of jurisprudence. The writings of Abu Imran al-Fasi, a Moroccan Maliki scholar, influenced Yahya Ibn Ibrahim and the early Almoravid movement.
Art.
Amira Bennison describes the art of the Almoravid period as influenced by the "integration of several areas into a single political unit and the resultant development of a widespread Andalusi–Maghribi style", as well as the tastes of the Sanhaja rulers as patrons of art. Bennison also challenges Robert Hillenbrand's characterization of the art of al-Andalus and the Maghreb as provincial and peripheral in consideration of Islamic art globally, and of the contributions of the Almoravids as "sparse" as a result of the empire's "puritanical fervour" and "ephemerality."
At first, the Almoravids, subscribing to the conservative Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, rejected what they perceived as decadence and a lack of piety among the Iberian Muslims of the Andalusi taifa kingdoms. However, monuments and textiles from Almería from the late Almoravid period indicate that the empire had changed its attitude with time.
Artistic production under the Almoravids included finely constructed minbars produced in Córdoba; marble basins and tombstones in Almería; fine textiles in Almería, Málaga, Seville; and luxury ceramics.
Marble work.
A large group of marble tombstones have been preserved from the first half of the 12th century. They were crafted in Almería in Al-Andalus, at a time when it was a prosperous port city under Almoravid control. The tombstones were made of Macael marble, which was quarried locally, and carved with extensive Kufic inscriptions that were sometimes adorned with vegetal or geometric motifs. These demonstrate that the Almoravids not only reused Umayyad marble columns and basins, but also commissioned new works. The inscriptions on them are dedicated to various individuals, both men and women, from a range of different occupations, indicating that such tombstones were relatively affordable. The stones take the form of either rectangular stelae or of long horizontal prisms known as "mqabriyya"s (similar to the ones found in the much later Saadian Tombs of Marrakesh). They have been found in many locations across West Africa and Western Europe, which is evidence that a wide-reaching industry and trade in marble existed. A number of pieces found in France were likely acquired from later pillaging. Some of the most ornate tombstones found outside Al-Andalus were discovered in Gao-Saney in the African Sahel, testament to the reach of Almoravid influence into the African continent.
Two Almoravid-period marble columns have also been found reused as spolia in later monuments in Fes. One is incorporated into the window of the Dar al-Muwaqqit (timekeeper's house) overlooking the courtyard of the Qarawiyyin Mosque, built in the Marinid period. The other is embedded into the decoration of the exterior southern façade of the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II, a structure which was rebuilt by Ismail Ibn Sharif.
Textiles.
The fact that Ibn Tumart, leader of the Almohad movement, is recorded as having criticized Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf for "sitting on a luxurious silken cloak" at his grand mosque in Marrakesh indicates the important role of textiles under the Almoravids.
Many of the remaining fabrics from the Almoravid period were reused by Christians, with examples in the reliquary of San Isidoro in León, a chasuble from Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, the Chasuble of San Juan de Ortega in the church of Quintanaortuña (near Burgos), the shroud of San Pedro de Osma, and a fragment found at the church of Thuir in the eastern Pyrenees. Some of these pieces are characterized by the appearance of Kufic or "Hispano-Kufic" woven inscriptions, with letters sometimes ending in ornamental vegetal flourishes. The Chasuble of San Juan de Ortega is one such example, made of silk and gold thread and dating to the first half of the 12th century. The Shroud of San Pedro de Osma is notable for its inscription stating "this was made in Baghdad", suggesting that it was imported. However, more recent scholarship has suggested that the textile was instead produced locally in centres such as Almeria, but that they were copied or based on eastern imports. It's even possible that the inscription was knowingly falsified in order to exaggerate its value to potential sellers; Al-Saqati of Málaga, a 12th-century writer and market inspector, wrote that there were regulations designed to prohibit the practice of making such false inscriptions. As a result of the inscription, many of these textiles are known in scholarship as the "Baghdad group", representing a stylistically coherent and artistically rich group of silken textiles seemingly dating to reign of Ali ibn Yusuf or the first half of the 12th century. Aside from the inscription, the shroud of San Pedro de Osma is decorated with images of two lions and harpies inside roundels that are ringed by images of small men holding griffins, repeating across the whole fabric. The chasuble from Saint-Sernin is likewise decorated with figural images, in this case a pair of peacocks repeating in horizontal bands, with vegetal stems separating each pair and small kufic inscriptions running along the bottom.
The decorative theme of having a regular grid of roundels containing images of animals and figures, with more abstract motifs filling the spaces in between, has origins traced as far back as Persian Sasanian textiles. In subsequent periods, starting with the Almohads, these roundels with figurative imagery are progressively replaced with more abstract roundels, while epigraphic decoration becomes more prominent than before.
Calligraphy and manuscript illumination.
In early Islamic manuscripts, Kufic was the main script used for religious texts. Western or Maghrebi Kufic evolved from the standard (or eastern) Kufic style and was marked by the transformation of the low swooping sections of letters from rectangular forms to long semi-circular forms. It is found in 10th century Qurans before the Almoravid period. Almoravid Kufic is the variety of Maghrebi Kufic script that was used as an official display script during the Almoravid period.
Eventually, Maghrebi Kufic gave rise to a distinctive cursive script known as "Maghrebi", the only cursive script of Arabic derived from Kufic, which was fully formed by the early 12th century under the Almoravids. This style was commonly used in Qurans and other religious works from this period onward, but it was rarely ever used in architectural inscriptions. One version of this script during this early period is the Andalusi script, which was associated with Al-Andalus. It was usually finer and denser, and while the loops of letters below the line are semi-circular, the extensions of letters above the line continue to use straight lines that recall its Kufic origins. Another version of the script is rounder and larger, and is more associated with the Maghreb, although it is nonetheless found in Andalusi volumes too.
The oldest known illuminated Quran from the western Islamic world (i.e. the Maghreb and Al-Andalus) dates from 1090, towards the end of the first Taifas period and the beginning of the Almoravid domination in Al-Andalus. It was produced either in the Maghreb or Al-Andalus and is now kept at the Uppsala University Library. Its decoration is still in the earliest phases of artistic development, lacking the sophistication of later volumes, but many of the features that were standard in later manuscripts are present: the script is written in the Maghrebi style in black ink, but the diacritics (vowels and other orthographic signs) are in red or blue, simple gold and black roundels mark the end of verses, and headings are written in gold Kufic inside a decorated frame and background. It also contains a frontispiece, of relatively simple design, consisting of a grid of lozenges variously filled with gold vegetal motifs, gold netting, or gold Kufic inscriptions on red or blue backgrounds.
More sophisticated illumination is already evident in a copy of a "sahih" dated to 1120 (during the reign of Ali ibn Yusuf), also produced in either the Maghreb or Al-Andalus, with a rich frontispiece centered around a large medallion formed by an interlacing geometric motif, filled with gold backgrounds and vegetal motifs. A similarly sophisticated Quran, dated to 1143 (at the end of Ali ibn Yusuf's reign) and produced in Córdoba, contains a frontispiece with an interlacing geometric motif forming a panel filled with gold and a knotted blue roundel at the middle.
Ceramics.
The Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus caused a temporary rupture in ceramic production, but it returned in the 12th century. There is a collection of about 2,000 Maghrebi-Andalusi ceramic basins or bowls () in Pisa, where they were used to decorated churches from the early 11th to fifteenth centuries. There were a number of varieties of ceramics under the Almoravids, including "cuerda seca" pieces. The most luxurious form was iridescent lustreware, made by applying a metallic glaze to the pieces before a second firing. This technique came from Iraq and flourished in Fatimid Egypt.
Minbars.
The Almoravid minbars — such as the minbar of the Grand Mosque of Marrakesh commissioned by Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf (1137), or the minbar for the University of al-Qarawiyyin (1144) — expressed the Almoravids' Maliki legitimacy, their "inheritance of the Umayyad imperial role", and the extension of that imperial power into the Maghreb. Both minbars are exceptional works of marquetry and woodcarving, decorated with geometric compositions, inlaid materials, and arabesque reliefs.
Marble work.
A large group of marble tombstones have been preserved from the first half of the 12th century. They were crafted in Almería in Al-Andalus, at a time when it was a prosperous port city under Almoravid control. The tombstones were made of Macael marble, which was quarried locally, and carved with extensive Kufic inscriptions that were sometimes adorned with vegetal or geometric motifs. These demonstrate that the Almoravids not only reused Umayyad marble columns and basins, but also commissioned new works. The inscriptions on them are dedicated to various individuals, both men and women, from a range of different occupations, indicating that such tombstones were relatively affordable. The stones take the form of either rectangular stelae or of long horizontal prisms known as "mqabriyya"s (similar to the ones found in the much later Saadian Tombs of Marrakesh). They have been found in many locations across West Africa and Western Europe, which is evidence that a wide-reaching industry and trade in marble existed. A number of pieces found in France were likely acquired from later pillaging. Some of the most ornate tombstones found outside Al-Andalus were discovered in Gao-Saney in the African Sahel, testament to the reach of Almoravid influence into the African continent.
Two Almoravid-period marble columns have also been found reused as spolia in later monuments in Fes. One is incorporated into the window of the Dar al-Muwaqqit (timekeeper's house) overlooking the courtyard of the Qarawiyyin Mosque, built in the Marinid period. The other is embedded into the decoration of the exterior southern façade of the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II, a structure which was rebuilt by Ismail Ibn Sharif.
Textiles.
The fact that Ibn Tumart, leader of the Almohad movement, is recorded as having criticized Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf for "sitting on a luxurious silken cloak" at his grand mosque in Marrakesh indicates the important role of textiles under the Almoravids.
Many of the remaining fabrics from the Almoravid period were reused by Christians, with examples in the reliquary of San Isidoro in León, a chasuble from Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, the Chasuble of San Juan de Ortega in the church of Quintanaortuña (near Burgos), the shroud of San Pedro de Osma, and a fragment found at the church of Thuir in the eastern Pyrenees. Some of these pieces are characterized by the appearance of Kufic or "Hispano-Kufic" woven inscriptions, with letters sometimes ending in ornamental vegetal flourishes. The Chasuble of San Juan de Ortega is one such example, made of silk and gold thread and dating to the first half of the 12th century. The Shroud of San Pedro de Osma is notable for its inscription stating "this was made in Baghdad", suggesting that it was imported. However, more recent scholarship has suggested that the textile was instead produced locally in centres such as Almeria, but that they were copied or based on eastern imports. It's even possible that the inscription was knowingly falsified in order to exaggerate its value to potential sellers; Al-Saqati of Málaga, a 12th-century writer and market inspector, wrote that there were regulations designed to prohibit the practice of making such false inscriptions. As a result of the inscription, many of these textiles are known in scholarship as the "Baghdad group", representing a stylistically coherent and artistically rich group of silken textiles seemingly dating to reign of Ali ibn Yusuf or the first half of the 12th century. Aside from the inscription, the shroud of San Pedro de Osma is decorated with images of two lions and harpies inside roundels that are ringed by images of small men holding griffins, repeating across the whole fabric. The chasuble from Saint-Sernin is likewise decorated with figural images, in this case a pair of peacocks repeating in horizontal bands, with vegetal stems separating each pair and small kufic inscriptions running along the bottom.
The decorative theme of having a regular grid of roundels containing images of animals and figures, with more abstract motifs filling the spaces in between, has origins traced as far back as Persian Sasanian textiles. In subsequent periods, starting with the Almohads, these roundels with figurative imagery are progressively replaced with more abstract roundels, while epigraphic decoration becomes more prominent than before.
Calligraphy and manuscript illumination.
In early Islamic manuscripts, Kufic was the main script used for religious texts. Western or Maghrebi Kufic evolved from the standard (or eastern) Kufic style and was marked by the transformation of the low swooping sections of letters from rectangular forms to long semi-circular forms. It is found in 10th century Qurans before the Almoravid period. Almoravid Kufic is the variety of Maghrebi Kufic script that was used as an official display script during the Almoravid period.
Eventually, Maghrebi Kufic gave rise to a distinctive cursive script known as "Maghrebi", the only cursive script of Arabic derived from Kufic, which was fully formed by the early 12th century under the Almoravids. This style was commonly used in Qurans and other religious works from this period onward, but it was rarely ever used in architectural inscriptions. One version of this script during this early period is the Andalusi script, which was associated with Al-Andalus. It was usually finer and denser, and while the loops of letters below the line are semi-circular, the extensions of letters above the line continue to use straight lines that recall its Kufic origins. Another version of the script is rounder and larger, and is more associated with the Maghreb, although it is nonetheless found in Andalusi volumes too.
The oldest known illuminated Quran from the western Islamic world (i.e. the Maghreb and Al-Andalus) dates from 1090, towards the end of the first Taifas period and the beginning of the Almoravid domination in Al-Andalus. It was produced either in the Maghreb or Al-Andalus and is now kept at the Uppsala University Library. Its decoration is still in the earliest phases of artistic development, lacking the sophistication of later volumes, but many of the features that were standard in later manuscripts are present: the script is written in the Maghrebi style in black ink, but the diacritics (vowels and other orthographic signs) are in red or blue, simple gold and black roundels mark the end of verses, and headings are written in gold Kufic inside a decorated frame and background. It also contains a frontispiece, of relatively simple design, consisting of a grid of lozenges variously filled with gold vegetal motifs, gold netting, or gold Kufic inscriptions on red or blue backgrounds.
More sophisticated illumination is already evident in a copy of a "sahih" dated to 1120 (during the reign of Ali ibn Yusuf), also produced in either the Maghreb or Al-Andalus, with a rich frontispiece centered around a large medallion formed by an interlacing geometric motif, filled with gold backgrounds and vegetal motifs. A similarly sophisticated Quran, dated to 1143 (at the end of Ali ibn Yusuf's reign) and produced in Córdoba, contains a frontispiece with an interlacing geometric motif forming a panel filled with gold and a knotted blue roundel at the middle.
Ceramics.
The Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus caused a temporary rupture in ceramic production, but it returned in the 12th century. There is a collection of about 2,000 Maghrebi-Andalusi ceramic basins or bowls () in Pisa, where they were used to decorated churches from the early 11th to fifteenth centuries. There were a number of varieties of ceramics under the Almoravids, including "cuerda seca" pieces. The most luxurious form was iridescent lustreware, made by applying a metallic glaze to the pieces before a second firing. This technique came from Iraq and flourished in Fatimid Egypt.
Minbars.
The Almoravid minbars — such as the minbar of the Grand Mosque of Marrakesh commissioned by Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf (1137), or the minbar for the University of al-Qarawiyyin (1144) — expressed the Almoravids' Maliki legitimacy, their "inheritance of the Umayyad imperial role", and the extension of that imperial power into the Maghreb. Both minbars are exceptional works of marquetry and woodcarving, decorated with geometric compositions, inlaid materials, and arabesque reliefs.
Architecture.
The Almoravid period, along with the subsequent Almohad period, is considered one of the most formative stages of Moroccan and Moorish architecture, establishing many of the forms and motifs of this style that were refined in subsequent centuries. Manuel Casamar Perez remarks that the Almoravids scaled back the Andalusi trend towards heavier and more elaborate decoration which had developed since the Caliphate of Córdoba and instead prioritized a greater balance between proportions and ornamentation.
The two centers of artistic production in the Islamic west before the rise of the Almoravids were Kairouan and Córdoba, both former capitals in the region which served as sources of inspiration. The Almoravids were responsible for establishing a new imperial capital at Marrakesh, which became a major center of architectural patronage thereafter. The Almoravids adopted the architectural developments of al-Andalus, such as the complex interlacing arches of the Great Mosque in Córdoba and of the Aljaferia palace in Zaragoza, while also introducing new ornamental techniques from the east such as "muqarnas" ("stalactite" or "honeycomb" carvings).
After taking control of Al-Andalus in the Battle of Sagrajas, the Almoravids sent Muslim, Christian and Jewish artisans from Iberia to North Africa to work on monuments. The Great Mosque in Algiers (c. 1097), the Great Mosque of Tlemcen (1136) and al-Qarawiyyin (expanded in 1135) in Fez are important examples of Almoravid architecture. The Almoravid Qubba is one of the few Almoravid monuments in Marrakesh surviving, and is notable for its highly ornate interior dome with carved stucco decoration, complex arch shapes, and minor "muqarnas" cupolas in the corners of the structure. The central nave of the expanded Qarawiyyin Mosque notably features the earliest full-fledged example of muqarnas vaulting in the western Islamic world. The complexity of these muqarnas vaults at such an early date – only several decades after the first simple muqarnas vaults appeared in distant Iraq – has been noted by architectural historians as surprising. Another high point of Almoravid architecture is the intricate ribbed dome in front of the mihrab of the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, which likely traces its origins to the 10th-century ribbed domes of the Great Mosque of Córdoba. The structure of the dome is strictly ornamental, consisting of multiple ribs or intersecting arches forming a twelve-pointed star pattern. It is also partly see-through, allowing some outside light to filter through a screen of pierced and carved arabesque decoration that fills the spaces between the ribs.
Aside from more ornamental religious structures, the Almoravids also built many fortifications, although most of these in turn were demolished or modified by the Almohads and later dynasties. The new capital, Marrakesh, initially had no city walls but a fortress known as the Ksar el-Hajjar ("Fortress of Stone") was built by the city's founder, Abu Bakr ibn Umar, in order to house the treasury and serve as an initial residence. Eventually, circa 1126, Ali Ibn Yusuf also constructed a full set of walls, made of rammed earth, around the city in response to the growing threat of the Almohads. These walls, although much restored and partly expanded in later centuries, continue to serve as the walls of the medina of Marrakesh today. The medina's main gates were also first built at this time, although many of them have since been significantly modified. Bab Doukkala, one of the western gates, is believed to have best preserved its original Almoravid layout. It has a classic bent entrance configuration, of which variations are found throughout the medieval period of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. Elsewhere, the archaeological site of Tasghîmût, southeast of Marrakesh, and Amargu, northeast of Fes, provide evidence about other Almoravid forts. Built out of rubble stone or rammed earth, they illustrate similarities with older Hammadid fortifications, as well as an apparent need to build quickly during times of crisis. The walls of Tlemcen (present-day Algeria) were likewise partly built by the Almoravids, using a mix of rubble stone at the base and rammed earth above.
In domestic architecture, none of the Almoravid palaces or residences have survived, and they are known only through texts and archaeology. During his reign, Ali Ibn Yusuf added a large palace and royal residence on the south side of the Ksar el-Hajjar (on the present site of the Kutubiyya Mosque). This palace was later abandoned and its function was replaced by the Almohad Kasbah, but some of its remains have been excavated and studied in the 20th century. These remains have revealed the earliest known example in Morocco of a riad garden (an interior garden symmetrically divided into four parts). In 1960 other excavations near Chichaoua revealed the remains of a domestic complex or settlement dating from the Almoravid period or even earlier. It consisted of several houses, two hammams, a water supply system, and possibly a mosque. On the site were found many fragments of architectural decoration which are now preserved at the Archeological Museum of Rabat. These fragments are made of deeply-carved stucco featuring Kufic and cursive Arabic inscriptions as well as vegetal motifs such as palmettes and acanthus leaves. The structures also featured painted decoration in red ochre, typically consisting of border motifs composed of two interlacing bands. Similar decoration has also been found in the remains of former houses excavated in 2006 under the 12th-century Almoravid expansion of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fes. In addition to the usual border motifs were larger interlacing geometric motifs as well as Kufic inscriptions with vegetal backgrounds, all executed predominantly in red.
Literature.
The Almoravid movement has its intellectual origins in the writings and teachings of Abu Imran al-Fasi, who first inspired Yahya Ibn Ibrahim of the Godala tribe in Kairouan. Ibn Ibrahim then inspired Abdallah ibn Yasin to organize for jihad and start the Almoravid movement.
Moroccan literature flourished in the Almoravid period. The political unification of Morocco and al-Andalus under the Almoravid dynasty rapidly accelerated the cultural interchange between the two continents, beginning when Yusuf ibn Tashfin sent al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, former poet king of the Taifa of Seville, into exile in Tangier and ultimately Aghmat.
The historians Ibn Hayyan, Al-Bakri, Ibn Bassam, and al-Fath ibn Khaqan all lived in the Almoravid period. Ibn Bassam authored , Al-Fath ibn Khaqan authored "Qala'idu l-'Iqyan," and Al-Bakri authored "al-Masālik wa ’l-Mamālik" (Book of Roads and Kingdoms).
In the Almoravid period two writers stand out: Qadi Ayyad and Avempace. Ayyad is known for having authored "Kitāb al-Shifāʾ bī Taʾrif Ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafá". Many of the Seven Saints of Marrakesh were men of letters.
The muwashshah was an important form of poetry and music in the Almoravid period. Great poets from the period are mentioned in anthologies such as , "Rawd al-Qirtas," and "Mu'jam as-Sifr".
The Moroccan historian noted that there were 104 paper mills in Fez under Yusuf ibn Tashfin in the 11th century.
Military organization.
Abdallah ibn Yasin imposed very strict disciplinary measures on his forces for every breach of his laws. The Almoravids' first military leader, Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni, gave them a good military organization. Their main force was infantry, armed with javelins in the front ranks and pikes behind, which formed into a phalanx, and was supported by camelmen and horsemen on the flanks. They also had a flag carrier at the front who guided the forces behind him; when the flag was upright, the combatants behind would stand and when it was turned down, they would sit.
Al-Bakri reports that, while in combat, the Almoravids did not pursue those who fled in front of them. Their fighting was intense and they did not retreat when disadvantaged by an advancing opposing force; they preferred death over defeat. These characteristics were possibly unusual at the time.
Legends.
After the death of El Cid, Christian chronicles reported a legend of a Turkish woman leading a band of 300 "Amazons", black female archers. This legend was possibly inspired by the ominous veils on the faces of the warriors and their dark skin colored blue by the indigo of their robes.
Legends.
After the death of El Cid, Christian chronicles reported a legend of a Turkish woman leading a band of 300 "Amazons", black female archers. This legend was possibly inspired by the ominous veils on the faces of the warriors and their dark skin colored blue by the indigo of their robes.
Dynasty.
Rulers.
Sanhaja tribal leaders recognizing the spiritual authority of Abdallah ibn Yasin (d. 1058 or 1059):
Subsequent rulers:
Rulers.
Sanhaja tribal leaders recognizing the spiritual authority of Abdallah ibn Yasin (d. 1058 or 1059):
Subsequent rulers:
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1662
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Afonso VI of Portugal
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Afonso VI (; 21 August 164312 September 1683), known as "the Victorious" (), was the second king of Portugal of the House of Braganza from 1656 until his death. He was initially under the regency of his mother, Luisa de Guzmán, until 1662, when he removed her to a convent and took power with the help of his favourite, the Luís de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor.
Afonso's reign saw the end of the Restoration War (1640–68) and Spain's recognition of Portugal's independence. He also negotiated a French alliance through his marriage. However, the king was physically and mentally weak. In 1668, his brother Pedro II conspired to have him declared incapable of ruling, and took supreme "de facto" power as regent, although nominally Afonso was still sovereign. Queen Maria Francisca, Afonso's wife, received an annulment and subsequently married Pedro. Afonso spent the rest of his life and reign practically a prisoner.
Early life.
At the age of three, Afonso experienced an illness that left him paralysed on the left side of his body, also leaving him mentally unstable. His father created him 10th Duke of Braganza.
After the death of his eldest brother Teodósio, Prince of Brazil in 1653, Afonso became the heir apparent to the throne of the kingdom. He also received the crown-princely title 2nd Prince of Brazil.
Succession.
He succeeded his father, John IV, in 1656 at the age of thirteen. His mother, Luisa de Guzmán, was named regent in his father's will. His mental instability and paralysis, plus his lack of interest in government, left his mother as regent for six years, until 1662. Afonso oversaw decisive military victories over the Spanish at Elvas (14 January 1659), Ameixial (8 June 1663) and Montes Claros (17 June 1665), culminating in the final Spanish recognition of sovereignty of Portugal's new ruling dynasty, the House of Braganza, on 13 February 1668 in the Treaty of Lisbon.
Colonial affairs.
Colonial affairs saw the Dutch conquest of Jaffna, Portugal's last colony in Portuguese Ceylon (1658) and the cession of Bombay and Tangier to England (23 June 1661) as dowry for Afonso's sister, Catherine of Braganza, who had married King Charles II of England. English mediation in 1661 saw the Netherlands acknowledge Portuguese rule of Brazil in return for uncontested control of Sri Lanka.
Marriage.
Afonso married Maria Francisca of Savoy, a relative of the duke of savoy in 1666, but the marriage was short-lived. Maria Francisca filed for an annulment in 1667 based on the impotence of the king. The church granted her the annulment, and she married Afonso's brother, Peter II, Duke of Beja.
Downfall.
That same year, Peter managed to gain enough support to force Afonso to relinquish control of the government to him, and he became prince regent in 1668. While Pedro never formally usurped the throne, Afonso was king in name only for the rest of his life. (The proceedings which the annulment of Afonso's marriage involved formed the basis of João Mário Grilo's 1989 film, "The King's Trial".) For seven years after Peter's coup, Afonso was kept on the island of Terceira in the Azores. His health broken by this captivity, he was eventually permitted to return to the Portuguese mainland, but he remained powerless and kept under guard. At Sintra he died in 1683.
The room where he was imprisoned is preserved at Sintra National Palace.
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1664
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Alfonso II of Asturias
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Alfonso II of Asturias (842), nicknamed the Chaste (), was the king of Asturias during two different periods: first in the year 783 and later from 791 until his death in 842. Upon his death, Nepotian, a family member of undetermined relation, attempted to usurp the crown in place of the future Ramiro I.
During his reign, which covered a span of 51 years, Alfonso discovered the supposed tomb of St. James the Great (called in Spanish) in the town of Compostela, which later became known as the city of Santiago de Compostela. He was the son of Fruela I and Munia, a Basque woman captured and brought back to Asturias by the former following a military campaign.
Early life.
He was born in Oviedo in 759 or 760. He was put under the guardianship of his aunt Adosinda after his father's death, but one tradition relates his being put in the Monastery of San Xulián de Samos. He was the governor of the palace during the reign of Adosinda's husband Silo. On Silo's death, he was elected king by Adosinda's allies, but the magnates raised his uncle Mauregatus to the throne instead. Alfonso fled to Álava where he found shelter with his maternal relatives. Mauregatus was succeeded by Bermudo I, Alfonso's cousin, who abdicated after his defeat at the Battle of the Burbia River.
Alfonso proclaimed king.
Alfonso was subsequently elected king on 14 September 791. Poets of a later generation invented the story of the secret marriage between his sister Ximena and Sancho, count of Saldana, and the feats of their son Bernardo del Carpio. Bernardo is the hero of a "" written to please the anarchical spirit of the nobles.
Andalusian raids into Asturias.
On accession to the throne, Hisham I, son of Abd al-Rahman I, commenced a string of military campaigns in the eastern Pyrenees and to the north-west. In 794, a raid spearheaded by Abd al-Karim dealt a major military blow to Alfonso II on the eastern fringes of the Kingdom of Asturias (Cantabria and Castile). The Asturian king asked for the assistance of the Basque Frankish vassal Belasco, master of Álava and bordering regions at the time. Abd al-Karim advanced deeper west into Asturias and pillaged the region, while his brother Abd al-Malik ventured into the western Asturian lands.
Relations with Charlemagne and the Papacy.
Under pressure from his enemies, Alfonso II reached out to Charlemagne, sending delegations to Toulouse and Aix-la-Chapelle in 796, 797, and 798. These diplomatic efforts may have aimed to strengthen his legitimacy and the Asturian government against ongoing internal unrest——"viz.", troubles in Galicia——and external attacks of the Ibn Mugait brothers, the generals Abd al-Karim and Abd al-Malik.
Alfonso was acknowledged as a king by Charlemagne and the Pope, and Asturias as a kingdom for the first time. The king showed an interest in the Frankish cult of Saint Martin of Tours, and he encouraged Carolingian Church influence in Asturias. Also, during Alfonso's reign, the alleged resting place of St. James was revealed. Alfonso's envoys to Charlemagne's courts may have also dealt with the adoptionist controversy, which had brought Bermudo's kingdom into Charlemagne's view. It seems that Carolingian support did much to spur his raid into Andalusian territory up to Lisbon, which was captured and sacked by his troops in 798.
Later events.
In 825, he defeated Cordovan forces at Narón and Anceo and, thanks to these victories, the "repopulation" of parts of Galicia, León, and Castile was started— with charters granted that confirmed the possession of the territories.
Alfonso also moved the capital from Pravia, where Silo had located it, to Oviedo, the city of his father's founding and his birth. There he constructed churches and a palace. He built San Tirso, where he is buried, and Santullano, on the outskirts. The "Crónica Sebastianense" records his death in 842, saying:
Tradition relates that in 814, the body of Saint James was discovered in Compostela and that Alfonso was the first pilgrim to that famous medieval (and modern) shrine.
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1669
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Amarasimha
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Amarasimha (IAST: Amara-siṃha, c. CE 375) was a Sanskrit grammarian and poet from ancient India, of whose personal history hardly anything is known. He is said to have been "one of the nine gems that adorned the throne of Vikramaditya," and according to the evidence of Xuanzang, this is the Chandragupta Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) who flourished about CE 375. Other sources describe him as belonging to the period of Vikramaditya of 7th century. Most of Amarasiṃha's works were lost, with the exception of the celebrated "Amara-Kosha" (IAST: "Amarakośa") ("Treasury of Amara"). The first reliable mention of the "Amarakosha" is in the Amoghavritti of Shakatayana composed during the reign of Amoghavarsha (814-867CE)
The "Amarakosha" is a lexicon of Sanskrit words in three books, and hence is sometimes called the "Trikāṇḍī" or the "Tripartite". It is also known as "Namalinganushasana". The "Amarakosha" contains 10,000 words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in metre, to aid the memory.
The first chapter of the "Kosha" was printed at Rome in Tamil character in 1798. An edition of the entire work, with English notes and an index by HT Colebrooke appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanskrit text was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by ALA Loiseleur-Deslongchamps was published at Paris in 1839. B. L. Rice compiled the text in Kannada script with meanings in English and Kannada in 1927.
References.
Attribution:
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1661
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Afonso V of Portugal
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Afonso V () (15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was King of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Africa.
As of 1471, Afonso V was the first king of Portugal to claim dominion over a plural "Kingdom of the Algarves", instead of the singular "Kingdom of the Algarve". Territories added to the Portuguese crown lands in North Africa during the 15th century came to be referred to as possessions of the Kingdom of the Algarve (now a region of southern Portugal), not the Kingdom of Portugal. The "Algarves" then were considered to be the southern Portuguese territories on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.
Early life.
Afonso was born in Sintra, the second son of King Edward of Portugal by his wife Eleanor of Aragon. Following the death of his older brother, Infante João (1429–1433), Afonso acceded to the position of heir apparent and was made the first Prince of Portugal by his father, who sought to emulate the English Court's custom of a dynastic title that distinguished the heir apparent from the other children of the monarch. He was only six years old when he succeeded his father in 1438.
During his minority, Afonso was placed under the regency of his mother, Leonor, in accordance with the will left by his late father. As both a foreigner and a woman, the queen was not a popular choice for regent. When the "cortes" met in late 1438, a law was passed requiring a joint regency consisting of Leonor and Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, the younger brother of the late king. The dual regency was a failure and in 1439, the "cortes" named Pedro "protector and guardian" of the king and "ruler and defender" of the kingdom. Leonor attempted to resist, but without support in Portugal she fled to Castile.
Pedro's main policies were concerned with restricting the political power of the great noble houses and expanding the powers of the crown. The country prospered under his rule, but not peacefully, as his laws interfered with the ambition of powerful nobles. The count of Barcelos, a personal enemy of the Duke of Coimbra (despite being half-brothers) eventually became the king's favourite uncle and began a constant struggle for power. In 1442, the king made Afonso the first Duke of Braganza. With this title and its lands, he became the most powerful man in Portugal and one of the richest men in Europe. To secure his position as regent, Pedro had Afonso marry his daughter, Isabella of Coimbra, in 1445.
But on 9 June 1448, when the king came of age, Pedro had to surrender his power to Afonso V. The years of conspiracy by the Duke of Braganza finally came to a head. On 15 September of the same year, Afonso V nullified all the laws and edicts approved under the regency. In the following year, led by what were later discovered to be false accusations, Afonso declared Pedro a rebel and defeated his army in the Battle of Alfarrobeira, in which his uncle (and father-in-law) was killed.
Invasion of Morocco.
Afonso V then turned his attentions to North Africa. In the reign of his grandfather John I, Ceuta had been conquered and taken over from the king of Morocco, and now the new king wanted to expand the conquests. The king's army conquered Alcácer Ceguer in 1458 and Arzila in 1471. Tangiers, on the other hand, was won and lost several times between 1460 and 1464. These achievements granted the king the nickname of "the African" or "Africano". The king also supported the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean led by prince Henry the Navigator but after Henry's death in 1460, he did nothing to continue Henry's work. Administratively, Afonso V was a passive king. He chose not to pursue the revision of laws or development of commerce, preferring instead to preserve the legacy of his father Edward and grandfather John I. In 1469, King Afonso V of Portugal granted Fernão Gomes the monopoly of trade in the Gulf of Guinea.
In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull "Dum Diversas", which granted Afonso V the right to reduce "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. This was reaffirmed and extended in the Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455 (also by Nicholas V). These papal bulls came to be seen by some as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonialism.
Castile.
When the campaigns in Africa were over, Afonso V found new grounds for battle in neighboring Castile. On December 11, 1474, King Henry IV of Castile died without a male heir, leaving just one daughter, Joanna. However, her paternity was questioned; it was rumored that his wife, Queen Joan of Portugal (Afonso's sister) had an affair with a nobleman named Beltrán de La Cueva. The death of Henry ignited a war of succession with one faction supporting Joanna and the other supporting Isabella, Henry's half-sister. Afonso V was persuaded to intervene on behalf of Joanna, his niece. He betrothed himself to her, proclaimed himself king of Castile and led troops into the kingdom. Because of their close blood-relationship, a formal marriage had to wait for papal dispensation.
On May 12, 1475, Afonso entered Castile with an army of 5,600 cavalry and 14,000 foot soldiers. In March 1476, after several skirmishes and much maneuvering, the 8, 000 men of Afonso and Prince João, faced a Castilian force of similar size in the battle of Toro. The Castilians were led by Isabella's husband, Prince Ferdinand II of Aragon, Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba. The fight was fierce and confusing but the result was a stalemate: While the forces of Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba won over their opponents led by the Portuguese King –who left the battlefield to take refuge in Castronuño, the troops commanded by Prince Joao defeated and persecuted the troops of the Castilian right wing, recovered the Portuguese royal standard, remaining ordered in the battlefield where they collected the fugitives of Afonso. Both sides claimed victory but Afonso's prospects for obtaining the Castilian crown were severely damaged.
After the battle, Afonso sailed to France hoping to obtain the assistance of King Louis XI in his fight against Castile. But finding himself deceived by the French monarch, he returned to Portugal in 1477. Disillusioned, he abdicated for a few days in November 1477 in favor of his son John II, then after returning to the throne, he retired to a monastery in Sintra, where he died in 1481.
Marriages and descendants.
Afonso married firstly, in 1447, Isabella of Coimbra, with whom he had three children:
Afonso married secondly, in 1475, his niece Joanna of Castile, known as "La Beltraneja".
Bibliography.
English
Non-English
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1676
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Alfonso XII
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Alfonso XII (Alfonso Francisco de Asís Fernando Pío Juan María de la Concepción Gregorio Pelayo; 28 November 185725 November 1885), also known as El Pacificador or the Peacemaker, was King of Spain from 29 December 1874 to his death in 1885. After a revolution that deposed his mother Isabella II from the throne in 1868, Alfonso studied in Austria and France. His mother abdicated in his favour in 1870, and he returned to Spain as king in 1874 following a military coup against the First Republic. Alfonso died aged 27 in 1885, and was succeeded by his son, Alfonso XIII, who was born the following year. He is the most recent monarch of Spain to have died while on the throne.
Political background, early life and paternity.
Alfonso was born in Madrid as the eldest son of Queen Isabella II on 28 November 1857. His official father, Isabella's husband Francisco de Asís, has been generally viewed as effeminate, impotent or homosexual, leading writers to question his biological paternity. There is speculation that Alfonso's biological father may have been Enrique Puigmoltó y Mayans, a captain of the guard. The relationship of the queen with Puigmoltó was so much of a public hearsay at the time that Francisco de Asís initially refused to attend the baptism ceremony of Alfonso (the heir apparent) even if he was eventually forced to do so. These rumours were used as political propaganda against Alfonso by the Carlists, and he came to be widely nicknamed "Puigmoltejo" in reference to his supposed father. Others have assigned the fatherhood to Federico Puig Romero, a colonel who was murdered under unclear circumstances in 1866.
His mother's accession created the second cause of instability, the Carlist Wars. The supporters of the Count of Molina as King of Spain rose to have him enthroned. In addition, within the context of the post-Napoleonic restorations and revolutions which engulfed the West both in Europe and the Americas, both the Carlistas and the Isabelino conservatives were opposed to the new Napoleonic constitutional system. Much like in Britain, which subtracted itself from the liberal constitutional process, Spanish conservatives wanted to continue with the Traditional Spanish Organic Laws such as the Fuero Juzgo, the Novísima Recopilación and the Partidas of Alfonso X. This led to the third cause of instability of note, the independence of most of the American possessions, recognized between 1823 and 1850.
A split nation.
When Queen Isabella II and her husband were forced to leave Spain by the Revolution of 1868, Alfonso accompanied them to Paris. From there, he was sent to the Theresianum in Vienna to continue his studies. On 25 June 1870, he was recalled to Paris, where his mother abdicated in his favour, in the presence of a number of Spanish nobles who had tied their fortunes to those of the exiled queen. He assumed the name Alfonso XII, for although no king of united Spain had borne the name "Alfonso", the Spanish monarchy was regarded as continuous with the more ancient monarchy represented by the 11 kings of Asturias, León and Castile also named Alfonso.
The Republic.
After the revolution, the "Cortes" decided to set up a new dynasty on the throne. Prince Amadeo of Savoy, the younger son of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and a distant cousin of Alfonso by common descent from Charles III, was recognized as King of Spain in November 1870. During a tumultuous reign, Amadeo was targeted by assassination attempts and struggled with opposition from both Carlists and republicans while his own faction split. After the Carlists revolted and the Third Carlist War broke out, he abdicated and returned to Italy in early 1873.
Following Amadeo's abandonment, the First Spanish Republic was established, including the territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Pacific Archipelagos. The first act of President Estanislao Figueras was to extend the abolition of slavery to Puerto Rico; Cuban slaves would have to wait until 1889. The republicans were not in agreement either, and they had to contend with a war in Cuba and Muslim uprisings in Spanish Morocco. In the midst of these crises, the Carlist War continued and the Carlist party made itself strong in areas with claims over their national and institutional specificity such as Catalonia and the Basque Country. This unrest led to the creation of a group in favour of the Bourbon Restoration, led by the moderate conservative Antonio Cánovas del Castillo.
Alfonso was well-educated and cultured, especially compared to his mother. His tutors took great care to have him educated in good schools and to familiarize him with different cultures, languages and government models throughout Europe. During the Franco-Prussian War, Alfonso relocated from Paris to Geneva with his family, and then continued his studies at the Theresianum in Vienna in 1872. Cánovas began to take responsibility for Alfonso's education with the goal of shaping him into the ideal king for the planned Bourbon Restoration, and next sent him to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in England. The training he received there was severe but more cosmopolitan than it would have been in Spain, given its atmosphere at the time.
On 1 December 1874, Alfonso issued the Sandhurst Manifesto, where he set the ideological basis of the Bourbon Restoration. It was drafted in reply to a birthday greeting from his followers, a manifesto proclaiming himself the sole representative of the Spanish monarchy. At the end of 1874, Brigadier Martínez Campos, who had long been working more or less openly for the king, led some battalions of the central army to Sagunto, rallied the troops sent against him to his own flag, and entered Valencia in the king's name. Thereupon the President resigned, and his power was transferred to the king's plenipotentiary and adviser, Cánovas. The 29 December 1874 military coup of Gen. Martínez Campos in Sagunto ended the failed republic and meant the rise of the young Prince Alfonso.
Reign.
Within a few days after Cánovas del Castillo took power as Premier, the new king, proclaimed on 29 December 1874, arrived at Madrid, passing through Barcelona and Valencia and was acclaimed everywhere (1875). In 1876, a vigorous campaign against the Carlists, in which the young king took part, resulted in the defeat of Don Carlos and the Duke's abandonment of the struggle.
Initially led by Cánovas del Castillo as moderate prime minister, what was thought at one time as a coup aimed at placing the military in the political-administrative positions of power, in reality ushered in a civilian regime that lasted until Primo de Rivera's 1923 coup d'état. Cánovas was the real architect of the new regime of the Restoration.
In order to eliminate one of the problems of the reign of Isabel II, the single party and its destabilizing consequences, the Liberal Party was allowed to incorporate and participate in national politics, and the 'turnismo' or alternation was to become the new system. Turnismo would be endorsed in the Constitution of 1876 and the Pact of El Pardo (1885). It meant that liberal and conservative prime ministers would succeed each other ending thus the troubles.
This led to the end of the Carlist revolts and the victory over the New York-backed Cuban revolutionaries, and led to a huge backing both by insular and peninsular Spaniards of Alfonso. His government continued the operations of the Ministry for Overseas Affairs which began under his mother's reign. The ministry was responsible for the theft of indigenous human remains and artifacts throughout colonized lands from 1863 to 1899. To this day, the majority of the stolen bodies of indigenous peoples, some still displayed in Spanish museums, have yet to be returned to their ancestral lands.
Alfonso's short reign established the foundations for the final socioeconomic recuperation of Spain after the 1808–1874 crisis. Both European (the coastal regions, such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Asturias) and Overseas – Antilles and Pacific were able to grow steadily. Cuba and Puerto Rico prospered to the point that Spain's first train was between Havana and Camagüey, and the first telegraph in Latin America was in Puerto Rico, established by Samuel Morse, whose daughter lived there with her husband. Upon the American invasion of Puerto Rico, ten US dollars were needed to buy one Puerto Rican peso.
First marriage.
On 23 January 1878 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid, Alfonso married his first cousin, Princess María de las Mercedes, but she died within six months of the marriage.
Second marriage and rule.
On 29 November 1879 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid, Alfonso married his double third cousin, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria. During the honeymoon, a pastry cook named Otero fired at the young sovereign and his wife as they were driving in Madrid.
The children of this marriage were:
Alfonso had two sons by Elena Armanda Nicolasa Sanz y Martínez de Arizala (15 December 1849, in Castellón de la Plana – 24 December 1898, in Paris):
In 1881 Alfonso refused to sanction a law by which the ministers were to remain in office for a fixed term of 18 months. Upon the consequent resignation of Cánovas del Castillo, he summoned Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, the Liberal leader, to form a new cabinet.
Death and impact.
In November 1885, Alfonso died, just short of his 28th birthday, at the Royal Palace of El Pardo near Madrid. He had been suffering from tuberculosis, but the immediate cause of his death was a recurrence of dysentery.
In 1902, his widow Maria Cristina initiated a national contest to build a monument in memory of Alfonso. The winning design, by José Grases Riera, was erected in an artificial lake in Madrid's Parque del Buen Retiro in 1922.
Coming to the throne at such an early age Alfonso had served no apprenticeship in the art of ruling. Benevolent and sympathetic in disposition, he won the affection of his people by fearlessly visiting districts ravaged by cholera or devastated by 1884 Andalusian earthquake. His capacity for dealing with men was considerable, and he never allowed himself to become the instrument of any particular party. During his short reign, peace was established both at home and abroad, finances were well regulated, and the various administrative services were placed on a basis that afterwards enabled Spain to pass through the disastrous war with the United States without the threat of a revolution.
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1683
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Alfonso III of Aragon
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Alfonso III (4 November 1265, in Valencia – 18 June 1291), called the Liberal ("el Liberal") or the Free (also "the Frank," from "el Franc"), was the king of Aragon and Valencia, count of Roussillon, Cerdanya and Barcelona (as ) from 1285. He conquered the Kingdom of Majorca between his succession and 1287.
He was a son of King Peter III of Aragon and Constance, daughter and heiress of King Manfred of Sicily.
Soon after assuming the throne, he conducted a campaign to reincorporate the Balearic Islands into the Kingdom of Aragon – which had been lost due to the division of the kingdom by his grandfather, James I of Aragon. Thus in 1285 he declared war on his uncle, James II of Majorca, and conquered both Majorca (1285) and Ibiza (1286), effectively reassuming suzerainty over the Kingdom of Majorca. He followed this with the conquest of Menorca – until then, an autonomous Muslim state (Manûrqa) within the Kingdom of Majorca – on 17 January 1287, the anniversary of which now serves as Menorca's national holiday.
He initially sought to maintain Aragonese control over Sicily early in his reign by supporting the claims to the island of his brother, James II of Aragon. However, he later retracted the support for his brother shortly before his death and instead tried to make peace with the Papal States France.
His reign was marred by a constitutional struggle with the Aragonese nobles, which eventually culminated in the articles of the Union of Aragon – the so-called "Magna Carta of Aragon", which devolved several key royal powers into the hands of lesser nobles. His inability to resist the demands of his nobles was to leave a heritage of disunity in Aragon and further dissent amongst the nobility, who increasingly saw little reason to respect the throne, and brought the Kingdom of Aragon close to anarchy.
During his lifetime a dynastic marriage with Eleanor, daughter of King Edward I of England, was arranged. However Alfonso died before meeting his bride. He died at the age of 25 in 1291, and was buried in the Franciscan convent in Barcelona; since 1852 his remains have been buried in Barcelona Cathedral.
Dante Alighieri, in the Divine Comedy, recounts that he saw Alfonso's spirit seated outside the gates of Purgatory with the other monarchs whom Dante blamed for the chaotic political state of Europe during the 13th century.
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1679
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Alfonso the Battler
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Alfonso I ("c". 1073/10747 September 1134), called the Battler or the Warrior (), was King of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. With his marriage to Urraca, queen regnant of Castile, León and Galicia, in 1109, he began to use, with some justification, the grandiose title Emperor of Spain, formerly employed by his father-in-law, Alfonso VI. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the Reconquista. He won his greatest military successes in the middle Ebro, where he conquered Zaragoza in 1118 and took Ejea, Tudela, Calatayud, Borja, Tarazona, Daroca, and Monreal del Campo. He died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the Muslims at the Battle of Fraga.
His nickname comes from the Aragonese version of the "Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña" (c. 1370), which says that "they called him lord Alfonso the battler because in Spain there wasn't as good a knight who won twenty-nine battles" ("clamabanlo don Alfonso batallador porque en Espayna no ovo tan buen cavallero que veynte nueve batallas vençió").
Early life.
His earliest years were passed in the monastery of Siresa, learning to read and write and to practice the military arts under the tutelage of Lope Garcés the Pilgrim, who was repaid for his services by his former charge with the county of Pedrola when Alfonso came to the throne.
During his brother's reign, he participated in the taking of Huesca (the Battle of Alcoraz, 1096), which became the largest city in the kingdom and the new capital. He also joined El Cid's expeditions in Valencia. His father gave him the lordships of Biel, Luna, Ardenes, and Bailo.
A series of deaths put Alfonso directly in line for the throne. His brother's children, Isabella and Peter (who married María Rodríguez, daughter of El Cid), died in 1103 and 1104 respectively.
Matrimonial conflicts.
A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine battles against Christian or Moor), he was married (when well over 30 years and a habitual bachelor) in 1109 to the ambitious Queen Urraca of León, a passionate woman unsuited for a subordinate role. The marriage had been arranged by her father Alfonso VI of León in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravids, and to supply them with a capable military leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as queen regnant and had not learnt chastity in the polygamous household of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality of the age and came to open war, even placing Urraca under siege at Astorga in 1112. Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his opponents he won the Battle of Candespina and the Battle of Viadangos, but his only trustworthy supporters were his Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep Castile and León subjugated. The marriage of Alfonso and Urraca was declared null by the pope, as they were second cousins, in 1110, but he ignored the papal nuncio and clung to his liaison with Urraca until 1114. During his marriage, he had called himself "King and Emperor of Castile, Toledo, Aragón, Pamplona, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza" in recognition of his rights as Urraca's husband; of his inheritance of the lands of his father, including the kingdom of his great-uncle Gonzalo; and his prerogative to conquer Andalusia from the Muslims. He inserted the title of "imperator" on the basis that he had three kingdoms under his rule.
Alfonso's late marriage and his failure to remarry and produce the essential legitimate heir that should have been a dynastic linchpin of his aggressive territorial policies have been adduced as a lack of interest in women. Ibn al-Athir (1166–1234) describes Alfonso as a tireless soldier who would sleep in his armor without benefit of cover, whom when asked why he did not take his pleasure from one of the captives of Muslim chiefs, responded that the man devoted to war needs the companionship of men not women.
Church relations.
The king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost as violently as with his wife. As he defeated her, so he drove Archbishop Bernard into exile and replaced the abbot of Sahagún with his brother. He was finally compelled to give way in Castile and León to his stepson, Alfonso VII of Castile, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II brought about an arrangement between the old man and his young namesake.
In 1122 in Belchite, he founded a confraternity of knights to fight against the Almoravids. It was the start of the military orders in Aragon. Years later, he organised a branch of the "Militia Christi" of the Holy Land at Monreal del Campo.
Military expansion.
Alfonso spent his first four years as king in near-constant war with the Muslims. In 1105, he conquered Ejea and Tauste and refortified Castellar and Juslibol. In 1106, he defeated Ahmad II al-Musta'in of Zaragoza at Valtierra. In 1107, he took Tamarite de Litera and Esteban de la Litera. Then followed a period dominated by his relations with Castile and León through his wife, Urraca. He resumed his conquest in 1117 by conquering Fitero, Corella, Cintruénigo, Murchante, Monteagudo, and Cascante.
In 1118, the Council of Toulouse declared a crusade to assist in the conquest of Zaragoza. Many Frenchmen consequently joined Alfonso at Ayerbe. They took Almudévar, Gurrea de Gállego, and Zuera, besieging Zaragoza itself by the end of May. The city fell on 18 December, and the forces of Alfonso occupied the Azuda, the government tower. The great palace of the city was given to the monks of Bernard. Promptly, the city was made Alfonso's capital. Two years later, in 1120, he defeated a Muslim army intent on reconquering his new capital at the Battle of Cutanda. He promulgated the "fuero" of "tortum per tortum", facilitating taking the law into one's own hands, which among others reassumed the Muslim right to dwell in the city and their right to keep their properties and practice their religion under their own jurisdiction as long as they maintained tax payment and relocated to the suburbs.
In 1119, he retook Cervera, Tudejen, Castellón, Tarazona, Ágreda, Magallón, Borja, Alagón, Novillas, Mallén, Rueda, Épila and populated the region of Soria. He began the siege of Calatayud, but left to defeat the army at Cutanda trying to retake Zaragoza. When Calatayud fell, he took Bubierca, Alhama de Aragón, Ariza, and Daroca (1120). In 1123, he besieged and took Lleida, which was in the hands of the count of Barcelona. From the winter of 1124 to September 1125, he was on a risky expedition to Peña Cadiella deep in Andalusia.
In the great raid of 1125, he carried away a large part of the subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of France, he had rights as king of Navarre. From 1125 to 1126, he was on campaign against Granada, where he was trying to install a Christian prince, and Córdoba, where he got only as far as Motril. In 1127, he reconquered Longares, but simultaneously lost all his Castilian possessions to Alfonso VII. He confirmed a treaty with Castile the next year (1128) with the Peace of Támara, which fixed the boundaries of the two realms.
He conquered Molina de Aragón and populated Monzón in 1129, before besieging Valencia, which had fallen again upon the Cid's death.
He went north of the Pyrenees in October 1130 to protect the Val d'Aran. Early in 1131, he besieged Bayonne. It is said he ruled "from Belorado to Pallars and from Bayonne to Monreal."
At the siege of Bayonne in October 1131, three years before his death, he published a will leaving his kingdom to three autonomous religious orders based in Palestine and politically largely independent - the Knights Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, whose influences might have been expected to cancel one another out. The will has greatly puzzled historians, who have read it as a bizarre gesture of extreme piety uncharacteristic of Alfonso's character, one that effectively undid his life's work. Elena Lourie (1975) suggested instead that it was Alfonso's attempt to neutralize the papacy's interest in a disputed succession — Aragon had been a fief of the papacy since 1068 — and to fend off Urraca's son from her first marriage, Alfonso VII of Castile, for the papacy would be bound to press the terms of such a pious testament. Generous bequests to important churches and abbeys in Castile had the effect of making the noble churchmen there beneficiaries who would be encouraged by the will to act as a brake on Alfonso VII's ambitions to break it — and yet among the magnates witnessing the will in 1131 there is not a single cleric. In the event it was a will that his nobles refused to carry out — instead bringing his brother Ramiro from the monastery to assume royal powers — an eventuality that Lourie suggests was Alfonso's hidden intent.
His final campaigns were against Mequinenza (1133) and Fraga (1134), where García Ramírez, the future king of Navarre, and a mere 500 other knights fought with him. It fell on 17 July. He was dead by September. His tomb is in the monastery of San Pedro in Huesca.
Death.
Succession.
The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought. Alfonso's only brother, Ramiro, had been a Benedictine monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession. The step-son of the deceased king, Alfonso VII of León, as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of Sancho III of Navarre, put himself forward but garnered no local support. The nobility of Navarre aligned behind Pedro de Atarés, the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro. A convention was called at Borja in order to develop a consensus. Pedro de Atarés had so alienated his own partisans there with his perceived arrogance that they had abandoned him, yet at the same time were unwilling to accept Alfonso's younger brother Ramiro. The convention then broke up without ever arriving at a compromise, and the two regional factions proceeded to act independently.
The choice of the Navarrese lords fell on García Ramírez, Lord of Monzón, descendant of an illegitimate son of García Sánchez III and protégé of Alfonso VII to be their king. The Aragonese took Ramiro out of a monastery and made him king, marrying him without papal dispensation to Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine, then betrothing their newborn daughter to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, who was then named Ramiro's heir. "The result of the crisis produced by the result of Alfonso I's will was a major reorientation of the peninsula's kingdoms: the separation of Aragon and Navarre, the union of Aragon and Catalonia and — a moot point but stressed particularly by some Castilian historians — the affirmation of 'Castilian hegemony' in Spain" by the rendering of homage for Zaragoza by Alfonso's eventual heir, Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona.
Pseudo-Alfonso the Battler.
Sometime during the reign of Alfonso II of Aragon, the Battler's grandnephew, a man came forward claiming to be Alfonso the Battler. The only contemporary references to this event are two letters of Alfonso II addressed to Louis VII of France; they were carried to Louis by Berengar, the Bishop of Lleida, but are not dated. According to the second of these, the pretender was then living in Louis's domains, meaning the Principality of Catalonia, which was ruled by Alfonso under Louis's suzerainty. This pretender was an old man (appropriately, since the Battler had died some decades earlier) and Alfonso II expressed confidence that Louis would arrest him at the earliest possible moment and bring him to justice. The first letter supplies sufficient information to date it approximately, since the Bishop sojourned at the court of Louis on his way to Rome. It is known from other sources that Berengar attended the Third Lateran Council in March 1179. The letters were probably written towards the end of 1178 or in January 1179 at the latest. According to an annalist source for the years 1089–1196, the pretender was received with honour and pomp in Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca, which the Battler had conquered, but after it was found out that he was false he was executed before the city of Barcelona in 1181. Modern historian Antonio Ubieto Arteta has hypothesised that the Aragonese lords of the tenancies of Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca — Pedro de Luesia, Loferrench de Luna, Pedro de Castillazuelo (lord of Calatayud), Pedro Cornel (lord of Murillo de Gállego), and the majordomo Jimeno de Artusilla, all of whom disappear between 1177 and 1181 in the documentation of their tenancies — supported, at least initially, the pretender. These lords also appear in the later legend of the Bell of Huesca, which has no historical basis, as the victims of Ramiro II (1136). Since, historically, they were not active in the 1130s, it is possible that the historically based legend of the pseudo-Alfonso had some influence on the genesis of the Bell of Huesca.
The earliest chronicle source for the imposture is Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, writing in the middle of the thirteenth century, who records that there were several legends then current about the death of Alfonso the Battler: some believed he perished in the battle of Fraga, some that his body had never been recovered, others that he was buried in the monastery of Montearagón, and still others that he had fled from Fraga in shame after his defeat and became a pilgrim as an act of penance. Some years later, Rodrigo writes, though he does not give a year, an impostor arose and was received by many as the Battler, though Alfonso II had him arrested and hanged. This is the earliest reference to the impostor's end. The legend was amplified in later years. According to the fourteenth-century "Crónica de los Estados Peninsulares", the Battler went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he lived for many years. The "Crónica de San Juan de la Peña" also recounts the incident, but it depends entirely on Rodrigo and the "Estados Peninsulares". It is not until the seventeenth-century historian Jerónimo Zurita penned his "Anales de la Corona de Aragón" that new details were added to the legend. Zurita dates the impostor's appearance to the death of Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona, who had been exercising power in Aragon, and the succession of the child Alfonso II in 1162. The death of the impostor, by hanging, must have occurred in 1163.
Succession.
The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought. Alfonso's only brother, Ramiro, had been a Benedictine monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession. The step-son of the deceased king, Alfonso VII of León, as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of Sancho III of Navarre, put himself forward but garnered no local support. The nobility of Navarre aligned behind Pedro de Atarés, the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro. A convention was called at Borja in order to develop a consensus. Pedro de Atarés had so alienated his own partisans there with his perceived arrogance that they had abandoned him, yet at the same time were unwilling to accept Alfonso's younger brother Ramiro. The convention then broke up without ever arriving at a compromise, and the two regional factions proceeded to act independently.
The choice of the Navarrese lords fell on García Ramírez, Lord of Monzón, descendant of an illegitimate son of García Sánchez III and protégé of Alfonso VII to be their king. The Aragonese took Ramiro out of a monastery and made him king, marrying him without papal dispensation to Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine, then betrothing their newborn daughter to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, who was then named Ramiro's heir. "The result of the crisis produced by the result of Alfonso I's will was a major reorientation of the peninsula's kingdoms: the separation of Aragon and Navarre, the union of Aragon and Catalonia and — a moot point but stressed particularly by some Castilian historians — the affirmation of 'Castilian hegemony' in Spain" by the rendering of homage for Zaragoza by Alfonso's eventual heir, Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona.
Pseudo-Alfonso the Battler.
Sometime during the reign of Alfonso II of Aragon, the Battler's grandnephew, a man came forward claiming to be Alfonso the Battler. The only contemporary references to this event are two letters of Alfonso II addressed to Louis VII of France; they were carried to Louis by Berengar, the Bishop of Lleida, but are not dated. According to the second of these, the pretender was then living in Louis's domains, meaning the Principality of Catalonia, which was ruled by Alfonso under Louis's suzerainty. This pretender was an old man (appropriately, since the Battler had died some decades earlier) and Alfonso II expressed confidence that Louis would arrest him at the earliest possible moment and bring him to justice. The first letter supplies sufficient information to date it approximately, since the Bishop sojourned at the court of Louis on his way to Rome. It is known from other sources that Berengar attended the Third Lateran Council in March 1179. The letters were probably written towards the end of 1178 or in January 1179 at the latest. According to an annalist source for the years 1089–1196, the pretender was received with honour and pomp in Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca, which the Battler had conquered, but after it was found out that he was false he was executed before the city of Barcelona in 1181. Modern historian Antonio Ubieto Arteta has hypothesised that the Aragonese lords of the tenancies of Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca — Pedro de Luesia, Loferrench de Luna, Pedro de Castillazuelo (lord of Calatayud), Pedro Cornel (lord of Murillo de Gállego), and the majordomo Jimeno de Artusilla, all of whom disappear between 1177 and 1181 in the documentation of their tenancies — supported, at least initially, the pretender. These lords also appear in the later legend of the Bell of Huesca, which has no historical basis, as the victims of Ramiro II (1136). Since, historically, they were not active in the 1130s, it is possible that the historically based legend of the pseudo-Alfonso had some influence on the genesis of the Bell of Huesca.
The earliest chronicle source for the imposture is Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, writing in the middle of the thirteenth century, who records that there were several legends then current about the death of Alfonso the Battler: some believed he perished in the battle of Fraga, some that his body had never been recovered, others that he was buried in the monastery of Montearagón, and still others that he had fled from Fraga in shame after his defeat and became a pilgrim as an act of penance. Some years later, Rodrigo writes, though he does not give a year, an impostor arose and was received by many as the Battler, though Alfonso II had him arrested and hanged. This is the earliest reference to the impostor's end. The legend was amplified in later years. According to the fourteenth-century "Crónica de los Estados Peninsulares", the Battler went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he lived for many years. The "Crónica de San Juan de la Peña" also recounts the incident, but it depends entirely on Rodrigo and the "Estados Peninsulares". It is not until the seventeenth-century historian Jerónimo Zurita penned his "Anales de la Corona de Aragón" that new details were added to the legend. Zurita dates the impostor's appearance to the death of Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona, who had been exercising power in Aragon, and the succession of the child Alfonso II in 1162. The death of the impostor, by hanging, must have occurred in 1163.
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1624
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Andrew Johnson
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Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, coming to office as the Civil War concluded. He favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the newly freed people who were formerly enslaved. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
Johnson was born into poverty and never attended school. He was apprenticed as a tailor and worked in several frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee. He served as alderman and mayor there before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835. After briefly serving in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857. During his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. Southern slave states seceded to form the Confederate States of America, including Tennessee, but Johnson remained firmly with the Union. He was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his state's secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as Military Governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. In 1864, Johnson was a logical choice as running mate for Lincoln, who wished to send a message of national unity in his re-election campaign; and became vice president after a victorious election in 1864.
Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction, a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to reform their civil governments. Southern states returned many of their old leaders and passed Black Codes to deprive the freedmen of many civil liberties, but Congressional Republicans refused to seat legislators from those states and advanced legislation to overrule the Southern actions. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congressional Republicans overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency. Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves. In 1866, he went on an unprecedented national tour promoting his executive policies, seeking to break Republican opposition. As the conflict grew between the branches of government, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act restricting Johnson's ability to fire Cabinet officials. He persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, but ended up being impeached by the House of Representatives and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate. He did not win the 1868 Democratic presidential nomination and left office the following year.
Johnson returned to Tennessee after his presidency and gained some vindication when he was elected to the Senate in 1875, making him the only president to afterwards serve in the Senate. He died five months into his term. Johnson's strong opposition to federally guaranteed rights for black Americans is widely criticized. Historians have consistently ranked him one of the worst presidents in American history.
Early life and career.
Childhood.
Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 29, 1808, to Jacob Johnson (1778–1812) and Mary ("Polly") McDonough (1783–1856), a laundress. He was of English, Scots-Irish, and Irish ancestry. He had a brother William, four years his senior, and an older sister Elizabeth, who died in childhood. Johnson's birth in a two-room shack was a political asset in the mid-19th century, and he would frequently remind voters of his humble origins. Jacob Johnson was a poor man, as had been his father, William Johnson, but he became town constable of Raleigh before marrying and starting a family. Both Jacob and Mary were illiterate, and had worked as tavern servants, while Johnson never attended school and grew up in poverty. Jacob died of an apparent heart attack while ringing the town bell, shortly after rescuing three drowning men, when his son Andrew was three. Polly Johnson worked as a washerwoman and became the sole support of her family. Her occupation was then looked down on, as it often took her into other homes unaccompanied. Since Andrew did not resemble either of his siblings, there are rumors that he may have been fathered by another man. Polly Johnson eventually remarried to a man named Turner Doughtry, who was as poor as she was.
Johnson's mother apprenticed her son William to a tailor, James Selby. Andrew also became an apprentice in Selby's shop at age ten and was legally bound to serve until his 21st birthday. Johnson lived with his mother for part of his service, and one of Selby's employees taught him rudimentary literacy skills. His education was augmented by citizens who would come to Selby's shop to read to the tailors as they worked. Even before he became an apprentice, Johnson came to listen. The readings caused a lifelong love of learning, and one of his biographers, Annette Gordon-Reed, suggests that Johnson, later a gifted public speaker, learned the art as he threaded needles and cut cloth.
Johnson was not happy at James Selby's, and after about five years, both he and his brother ran away. Selby responded by placing a reward for their return: "Ten Dollars Reward. Ran away from the subscriber, two apprentice boys, legally bound, named William and Andrew Johnson ... [payment] to any person who will deliver said apprentices to me in Raleigh, or I will give the above reward for Andrew Johnson alone." The brothers went to Carthage, North Carolina, where Andrew Johnson worked as a tailor for several months. Fearing he would be arrested and returned to Raleigh, Johnson moved to Laurens, South Carolina. He found work quickly, met his first love, Mary Wood, and made her a quilt as a gift. However, she rejected his marriage proposal. He returned to Raleigh, hoping to buy out his apprenticeship, but could not come to terms with Selby. Unable to stay in Raleigh, where he risked being apprehended for abandoning Selby, he decided to move west.
Move to Tennessee.
Johnson left North Carolina for Tennessee, traveling mostly on foot. After a brief period in Knoxville, he moved to Mooresville, Alabama. He then worked as a tailor in Columbia, Tennessee, but was called back to Raleigh by his mother and stepfather, who saw limited opportunities there and who wished to emigrate west. Johnson and his party traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains to Greeneville, Tennessee. Andrew Johnson fell in love with the town at first sight, and when he became prosperous purchased the land where he had first camped and planted a tree in commemoration.
In Greeneville, Johnson established a successful tailoring business in the front of his home. In 1827, at the age of 18, he married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle, the daughter of a local shoemaker. The pair were married by Justice of the Peace Mordecai Lincoln, first cousin of Thomas Lincoln, whose son would become president. The Johnsons were married for almost 50 years and had five children: Martha (1828), Charles (1830), Mary (1832), Robert (1834), and Andrew Jr. (1852). Though she had tuberculosis, Eliza supported her husband's endeavors. She taught him mathematics skills and tutored him to improve his writing. Shy and retiring by nature, Eliza Johnson usually remained in Greeneville during Johnson's political rise. She was not often seen during her husband's presidency; their daughter Martha usually served as official hostess.
Johnson's tailoring business prospered during the early years of the marriage, enabling him to hire help and giving him the funds to invest profitably in real estate. He later boasted of his talents as a tailor, "my work never ripped or gave way". He was a voracious reader. Books about famous orators aroused his interest in political dialogue, and he had private debates on the issues of the day with customers who held opposing views. He also took part in debates at Greeneville College.
Johnson's slaves.
In 1843, Johnson purchased his first slave, Dolly, who was 14 years old at the time. Dolly had three children—Liz, Florence and William. Soon after his purchase of Dolly, he purchased Dolly's half-brother Sam. Sam Johnson and his wife Margaret had nine children. Sam became a commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau and was known for being a proud man who negotiated the nature of his work with the Johnson family. Notably, he received some monetary compensation for his labors and negotiated with Andrew Johnson to receive a tract of land which Andrew Johnson gave him for free in 1867.
In 1857, Andrew Johnson purchased Henry, who was 13 at the time and would later accompany the Johnson family to the White House. Ultimately, Johnson owned at least ten slaves.
Andrew Johnson freed his slaves on August 8, 1863; they remained with him as paid servants. A year later, Johnson, as military governor of Tennessee, proclaimed the freedom of Tennessee's slaves. Sam and Margaret, Johnson's former slaves, lived in his tailor shop while he was president, without rent. As a sign of appreciation for proclaiming freedom, Andrew Johnson was given a watch by newly emancipated people in Tennessee inscribed with "for his Untiring Energy in the Cause of Freedom".
Childhood.
Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 29, 1808, to Jacob Johnson (1778–1812) and Mary ("Polly") McDonough (1783–1856), a laundress. He was of English, Scots-Irish, and Irish ancestry. He had a brother William, four years his senior, and an older sister Elizabeth, who died in childhood. Johnson's birth in a two-room shack was a political asset in the mid-19th century, and he would frequently remind voters of his humble origins. Jacob Johnson was a poor man, as had been his father, William Johnson, but he became town constable of Raleigh before marrying and starting a family. Both Jacob and Mary were illiterate, and had worked as tavern servants, while Johnson never attended school and grew up in poverty. Jacob died of an apparent heart attack while ringing the town bell, shortly after rescuing three drowning men, when his son Andrew was three. Polly Johnson worked as a washerwoman and became the sole support of her family. Her occupation was then looked down on, as it often took her into other homes unaccompanied. Since Andrew did not resemble either of his siblings, there are rumors that he may have been fathered by another man. Polly Johnson eventually remarried to a man named Turner Doughtry, who was as poor as she was.
Johnson's mother apprenticed her son William to a tailor, James Selby. Andrew also became an apprentice in Selby's shop at age ten and was legally bound to serve until his 21st birthday. Johnson lived with his mother for part of his service, and one of Selby's employees taught him rudimentary literacy skills. His education was augmented by citizens who would come to Selby's shop to read to the tailors as they worked. Even before he became an apprentice, Johnson came to listen. The readings caused a lifelong love of learning, and one of his biographers, Annette Gordon-Reed, suggests that Johnson, later a gifted public speaker, learned the art as he threaded needles and cut cloth.
Johnson was not happy at James Selby's, and after about five years, both he and his brother ran away. Selby responded by placing a reward for their return: "Ten Dollars Reward. Ran away from the subscriber, two apprentice boys, legally bound, named William and Andrew Johnson ... [payment] to any person who will deliver said apprentices to me in Raleigh, or I will give the above reward for Andrew Johnson alone." The brothers went to Carthage, North Carolina, where Andrew Johnson worked as a tailor for several months. Fearing he would be arrested and returned to Raleigh, Johnson moved to Laurens, South Carolina. He found work quickly, met his first love, Mary Wood, and made her a quilt as a gift. However, she rejected his marriage proposal. He returned to Raleigh, hoping to buy out his apprenticeship, but could not come to terms with Selby. Unable to stay in Raleigh, where he risked being apprehended for abandoning Selby, he decided to move west.
Move to Tennessee.
Johnson left North Carolina for Tennessee, traveling mostly on foot. After a brief period in Knoxville, he moved to Mooresville, Alabama. He then worked as a tailor in Columbia, Tennessee, but was called back to Raleigh by his mother and stepfather, who saw limited opportunities there and who wished to emigrate west. Johnson and his party traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains to Greeneville, Tennessee. Andrew Johnson fell in love with the town at first sight, and when he became prosperous purchased the land where he had first camped and planted a tree in commemoration.
In Greeneville, Johnson established a successful tailoring business in the front of his home. In 1827, at the age of 18, he married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle, the daughter of a local shoemaker. The pair were married by Justice of the Peace Mordecai Lincoln, first cousin of Thomas Lincoln, whose son would become president. The Johnsons were married for almost 50 years and had five children: Martha (1828), Charles (1830), Mary (1832), Robert (1834), and Andrew Jr. (1852). Though she had tuberculosis, Eliza supported her husband's endeavors. She taught him mathematics skills and tutored him to improve his writing. Shy and retiring by nature, Eliza Johnson usually remained in Greeneville during Johnson's political rise. She was not often seen during her husband's presidency; their daughter Martha usually served as official hostess.
Johnson's tailoring business prospered during the early years of the marriage, enabling him to hire help and giving him the funds to invest profitably in real estate. He later boasted of his talents as a tailor, "my work never ripped or gave way". He was a voracious reader. Books about famous orators aroused his interest in political dialogue, and he had private debates on the issues of the day with customers who held opposing views. He also took part in debates at Greeneville College.
Johnson's slaves.
In 1843, Johnson purchased his first slave, Dolly, who was 14 years old at the time. Dolly had three children—Liz, Florence and William. Soon after his purchase of Dolly, he purchased Dolly's half-brother Sam. Sam Johnson and his wife Margaret had nine children. Sam became a commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau and was known for being a proud man who negotiated the nature of his work with the Johnson family. Notably, he received some monetary compensation for his labors and negotiated with Andrew Johnson to receive a tract of land which Andrew Johnson gave him for free in 1867.
In 1857, Andrew Johnson purchased Henry, who was 13 at the time and would later accompany the Johnson family to the White House. Ultimately, Johnson owned at least ten slaves.
Andrew Johnson freed his slaves on August 8, 1863; they remained with him as paid servants. A year later, Johnson, as military governor of Tennessee, proclaimed the freedom of Tennessee's slaves. Sam and Margaret, Johnson's former slaves, lived in his tailor shop while he was president, without rent. As a sign of appreciation for proclaiming freedom, Andrew Johnson was given a watch by newly emancipated people in Tennessee inscribed with "for his Untiring Energy in the Cause of Freedom".
Political rise.
Tennessee politician.
Johnson helped organize a mechanics' (working men's) ticket in the 1829 Greeneville municipal election. He was elected town alderman, along with his friends Blackston McDannel and Mordecai Lincoln. Following the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion, a state convention was called to pass a new constitution, including provisions to disenfranchise free people of color. The convention also wanted to reform real estate tax rates, and provide ways of funding improvements to Tennessee's infrastructure. The constitution was submitted for a public vote, and Johnson spoke widely for its adoption; the successful campaign provided him with statewide exposure. On January 4, 1834, his fellow aldermen elected him mayor of Greeneville.
In 1835, Johnson made a bid for election to the "floater" seat which Greene County shared with neighboring Washington County in the Tennessee House of Representatives. According to his biographer, Hans L. Trefousse, Johnson "demolished" the opposition in debate and won the election with almost a two to one margin. During his Greeneville days, Johnson joined the Tennessee Militia as a member of the 90th Regiment. He attained the rank of colonel, though while an enrolled member, Johnson was fined for an unknown offense. Afterwards, he was often addressed or referred to by his rank.
In his first term in the legislature, which met in the state capital of Nashville, Johnson did not consistently vote with either the Democratic or the newly formed Whig Party, though he revered President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat and fellow Tennessean. The major parties were still determining their core values and policy proposals, with the party system in a state of flux. The Whig Party had organized in opposition to Jackson, fearing the concentration of power in the Executive Branch of the government; Johnson differed from the Whigs as he opposed more than minimal government spending and spoke against aid for the railroads, while his constituents hoped for improvements in transportation. After Brookins Campbell and the Whigs defeated Johnson for reelection in 1837, Johnson would not lose another race for thirty years. In 1839, he sought to regain his seat, initially as a Whig, but when another candidate sought the Whig nomination, he ran as a Democrat and was elected. From that time he supported the Democratic party and built a powerful political machine in Greene County. Johnson became a strong advocate of the Democratic Party, noted for his oratory, and in an era when public speaking both informed the public and entertained it, people flocked to hear him.
In 1840, Johnson was selected as a presidential elector for Tennessee, giving him more statewide publicity. Although Democratic President Martin Van Buren was defeated by former Ohio senator William Henry Harrison, Johnson was instrumental in keeping Greene County in the Democratic column. He was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1841, where he served a two-year term. He had achieved financial success in his tailoring business, but sold it to concentrate on politics. He had also acquired additional real estate, including a larger home and a farm (where his mother and stepfather took residence), and among his assets numbered eight or nine slaves.
United States Representative (1843–1853).
Having served in both houses of the state legislature, Johnson saw election to Congress as the next step in his political career. He engaged in a number of political maneuvers to gain Democratic support, including the displacement of the Whig postmaster in Greeneville, and defeated Jonesborough lawyer John A. Aiken by 5,495 votes to 4,892. In Washington, he joined a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Johnson advocated for the interests of the poor, maintained an anti-abolitionist stance, argued for only limited spending by the government and opposed protective tariffs. With Eliza remaining in Greeneville, Congressman Johnson shunned social functions in favor of study in the Library of Congress. Although a fellow Tennessee Democrat, James K. Polk, was elected president in 1844, and Johnson had campaigned for him, the two men had difficult relations, and President Polk refused some of his patronage suggestions.
Johnson believed, as did many Southern Democrats, that the Constitution protected private property, including slaves, and thus prohibited the federal and state governments from abolishing slavery. He won a second term in 1845 against William G. Brownlow, presenting himself as the defender of the poor against the aristocracy. In his second term, Johnson supported the Polk administration's decision to fight the Mexican War, seen by some Northerners as an attempt to gain territory to expand slavery westward, and opposed the Wilmot Proviso, a proposal to ban slavery in any territory gained from Mexico. He introduced for the first time his Homestead Bill, to grant to people willing to settle the land and gain title to it. This issue was especially important to Johnson because of his own humble beginnings.
In the presidential election of 1848, the Democrats split over the slavery issue, and abolitionists formed the Free Soil Party, with former president Van Buren as their nominee. Johnson supported the Democratic candidate, former Michigan senator Lewis Cass. With the party split, Whig nominee General Zachary Taylor was easily victorious, and carried Tennessee. Johnson's relations with Polk remained poor; the President recorded of his final New Year's reception in 1849 that
Johnson, due to national interest in new railroad construction and in response to the need for better transportation in his own district, also supported government assistance for the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad.
During his campaign for a fourth term, Johnson concentrated on three issues: slavery, homesteads and judicial elections. He defeated his opponent, Nathaniel G. Taylor, in August 1849, with a greater margin of victory than in previous campaigns. When the House convened in December, the party division caused by the Free Soil Party precluded the formation of the majority needed to elect a Speaker. Johnson proposed adoption of a rule allowing election of a Speaker by a plurality; some weeks later others took up a similar proposal, and Democrat Howell Cobb was elected.
Once the Speaker election had concluded and Congress was ready to conduct legislative business, the issue of slavery took center stage. Northerners sought to admit California, a free state, to the Union. Kentucky's Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a series of resolutions, the Compromise of 1850, to admit California and pass legislation sought by each side. Johnson voted for all the provisions except for the abolition of slavery in the nation's capital. He pressed resolutions for constitutional amendments to provide for popular election of senators (then elected by state legislatures) and of the president (chosen by the Electoral College), and limiting the tenure of federal judges to 12 years. These were all defeated.
A group of Democrats nominated Landon Carter Haynes to oppose Johnson as he sought a fifth term; the Whigs were so pleased with the internecine battle among the Democrats in the general election that they did not nominate a candidate of their own. The campaign included fierce debates: Johnson's main issue was the passage of the Homestead Bill; Haynes contended it would facilitate abolition. Johnson won the election by more than 1600 votes. Though he was not enamored of the party's presidential nominee in 1852, former New Hampshire senator Franklin Pierce, Johnson campaigned for him. Pierce was elected, but he failed to carry Tennessee. In 1852, Johnson managed to get the House to pass his Homestead Bill, but it failed in the Senate. The Whigs had gained control of the Tennessee legislature, and, under the leadership of Gustavus Henry, redrew the boundaries of Johnson's First District to make it a safe seat for their party. The "Nashville Union" termed this "Henry-mandering"; lamented Johnson, "I have no political future."
Governor of Tennessee (1853–1857).
If Johnson considered retiring from politics upon deciding not to seek reelection, he soon changed his mind. His political friends began to maneuver to get him the nomination for governor. The Democratic convention unanimously named him, though some party members were not happy at his selection. The Whigs had won the past two gubernatorial elections, and still controlled the legislature. That party nominated Henry, making the "Henry-mandering" of the First District an immediate issue. The two men debated in county seats the length of Tennessee before the meetings were called off two weeks before the August 1853 election due to illness in Henry's family. Johnson won the election by 63,413 votes to 61,163; some votes for him were cast in return for his promise to support Whig Nathaniel Taylor for his old seat in Congress.
Tennessee's governor had little power: Johnson could propose legislation but not veto it, and most appointments were made by the Whig-controlled legislature. Nevertheless, the office was a "bully pulpit" that allowed him to publicize himself and his political views. He succeeded in getting the appointments he wanted in return for his endorsement of John Bell, a Whig, for one of the state's U.S. Senate seats. In his first biennial speech, Johnson urged simplification of the state judicial system, abolition of the Bank of Tennessee, and establishment of an agency to provide uniformity in weights and measures; the last was passed. Johnson was critical of the Tennessee common school system and suggested funding be increased via taxes, either statewide or county by county—a mixture of the two was passed. Reforms carried out during Johnson's time as governor included the foundation of the State's public library (making books available to all) and its first public school system, and the initiation of regular state fairs to benefit craftsmen and farmers.
Although the Whig Party was on its final decline nationally, it remained strong in Tennessee, and the outlook for Democrats there in 1855 was poor. Feeling that reelection as governor was necessary to give him a chance at the higher offices he sought, Johnson agreed to make the run. Meredith P. Gentry received the Whig nomination. A series of more than a dozen vitriolic debates ensued. The issues in the campaign were slavery, the prohibition of alcohol, and the nativist positions of the Know Nothing Party. Johnson favored the first, but opposed the others. Gentry was more equivocal on the alcohol question, and had gained the support of the Know Nothings, a group Johnson portrayed as a secret society. Johnson was unexpectedly victorious, albeit with a narrower margin than in 1853.
When the presidential election of 1856 approached, Johnson hoped to be nominated; some Tennessee county conventions designated him a "favorite son". His position that the best interests of the Union were served by slavery in some areas made him a practical compromise candidate for president. He was never a major contender; the nomination fell to former Pennsylvania senator James Buchanan. Though he was not impressed by either, Johnson campaigned for Buchanan and his running mate, John C. Breckinridge, who were elected.
Johnson decided not to seek a third term as governor, with an eye towards election to the U.S. Senate. In 1857, while returning from Washington, his train derailed, causing serious damage to his right arm. This injury would trouble him in the years to come.
United States Senator.
Homestead Bill advocate.
The victors in the 1857 state legislative campaign would, once they convened in October, elect a United States Senator. Former Whig governor William B. Campbell wrote to his uncle, "The great anxiety of the Whigs is to elect a majority in the legislature so as to defeat Andrew Johnson for senator. Should the Democrats have the majority, he will certainly be their choice, and there is no man living to whom the Americans and Whigs have as much antipathy as Johnson." The governor spoke widely in the campaign, and his party won the gubernatorial race and control of the legislature. Johnson's final address as governor gave him the chance to influence his electors, and he made proposals popular among Democrats. Two days later the legislature elected him to the Senate. The opposition was appalled, with the Richmond "Whig" newspaper referring to him as "the vilest radical and most unscrupulous demagogue in the Union".
Johnson gained high office due to his proven record as a man popular among the small farmers and self-employed tradesmen who made up much of Tennessee's electorate. He called them the "plebeians"; he was less popular among the planters and lawyers who led the state Democratic Party, but none could match him as a vote-getter. After his death, one Tennessee voter wrote of him, "Johnson was always the same to everyone ... the honors heaped upon him did not make him forget to be kind to the humblest citizen." Always seen in impeccably tailored clothing, he cut an impressive figure, and had the stamina to endure lengthy campaigns with daily travel over bad roads leading to another speech or debate. Mostly denied the party's machinery, he relied on a network of friends, advisers, and contacts. One friend, Hugh Douglas, stated in a letter to him, "you have been in the way of our would be great men for a long time. At heart many of us never wanted you to be Governor only none of the rest of us Could have been elected at the time and we only wanted to use you. Then we did not want you to go to the Senate but "the people would send you"."
The new senator took his seat when Congress convened in December 1857 (the term of his predecessor, James C. Jones, had expired in March). He came to Washington as usual without his wife and family; Eliza would visit Washington only once during Johnson's first time as senator, in 1860. Johnson immediately set about introducing the Homestead Bill in the Senate, but as most senators who supported it were Northern (many associated with the newly founded Republican Party), the matter became caught up in suspicions over the slavery issue. Southern senators felt that those who took advantage of the provisions of the Homestead Bill were more likely to be Northern non-slaveholders. The issue of slavery had been complicated by the Supreme Court's ruling earlier in the year in "Dred Scott v. Sandford" that slavery could not be prohibited in the territories. Johnson, a slaveholding senator from a Southern state, made a major speech in the Senate the following May in an attempt to convince his colleagues that the Homestead Bill and slavery were not incompatible. Nevertheless, Southern opposition was key to defeating the legislation, 30–22. In 1859, it failed on a procedural vote when Vice President Breckinridge broke a tie against the bill, and in 1860, a watered-down version passed both houses, only to be vetoed by Buchanan at the urging of Southerners. Johnson continued his opposition to spending, chairing a committee to control it.
He argued against funding to build infrastructure in Washington, D.C., stating that it was unfair to expect state citizens to pay for the city's streets, even if it was the seat of government. He opposed spending money for troops to put down the revolt by the Mormons in Utah Territory, arguing for temporary volunteers as the United States should not have a standing army.
Secession crisis.
In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown and sympathizers raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia). Tensions in Washington between pro- and anti-slavery forces increased greatly. Johnson gave a major speech in the Senate in December, decrying Northerners who would endanger the Union by seeking to outlaw slavery. The Tennessee senator stated that "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence did not apply to African Americans, since the Constitution of Illinois contained that phrase—and that document barred voting by African Americans. Johnson, by this time, was a wealthy man who owned 14 slaves.
Johnson hoped that he would be a compromise candidate for the presidential nomination as the Democratic Party tore itself apart over the slavery question. Busy with the Homestead Bill during the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, he sent two of his sons and his chief political adviser to represent his interests in the backroom deal-making. The convention deadlocked, with no candidate able to gain the required two-thirds vote, but the sides were too far apart to consider Johnson as a compromise. The party split, with Northerners backing Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas while Southerners, including Johnson, supported Vice President Breckinridge for president. With former Tennessee senator John Bell running a fourth-party candidacy and further dividing the vote, the Republican Party elected its first president, former Illinois representative Abraham Lincoln. The election of Lincoln, known to be against the spread of slavery, was unacceptable to many in the South. Although secession from the Union had not been an issue in the campaign, talk of it began in the Southern states.
Johnson took to the Senate floor after the election, giving a speech well received in the North, "I will not give up this government ... No; I intend to stand by it ... and I invite every man who is a patriot to ... rally around the altar of our common country ... and swear by our God, and all that is sacred and holy, that the Constitution shall be saved, and the Union preserved." As Southern senators announced they would resign if their states seceded, he reminded Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis that if Southerners would only hold to their seats, the Democrats would control the Senate, and could defend the South's interests against any infringement by Lincoln. Gordon-Reed points out that while Johnson's belief in an indissoluble Union was sincere, he had alienated Southern leaders, including Davis, who would soon be the president of the Confederate States of America, formed by the seceding states. If the Tennessean had backed the Confederacy, he would have had small influence in its government.
Johnson returned home when his state took up the issue of secession. His successor as governor, Isham G. Harris, and the legislature organized a referendum on whether to have a constitutional convention to authorize secession; when that failed, they put the question of leaving the Union to a popular vote. Despite threats on Johnson's life, and actual assaults, he campaigned against both questions, sometimes speaking with a gun on the lectern before him. Although Johnson's eastern region of Tennessee was largely against secession, the second referendum passed, and in June 1861, Tennessee joined the Confederacy. Believing he would be killed if he stayed, Johnson fled through the Cumberland Gap, where his party was in fact shot at. He left his wife and family in Greeneville.
As the only member from a seceded state to remain in the Senate and the most prominent Southern Unionist, Johnson had Lincoln's ear in the early months of the war. With most of Tennessee in Confederate hands, Johnson spent congressional recesses in Kentucky and Ohio, trying in vain to convince any Union commander who would listen to conduct an operation into East Tennessee.
Military Governor of Tennessee.
Johnson's first tenure in the Senate came to a conclusion in March 1862 when Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee. Much of the central and western portions of that seceded state had been recovered. Although some argued that civil government should simply resume once the Confederates were defeated in an area, Lincoln chose to use his power as commander in chief to appoint military governors over Union-controlled Southern regions. The Senate quickly confirmed Johnson's nomination along with the rank of brigadier general. In response, the Confederates confiscated his land and his slaves, and turned his home into a military hospital. Later in 1862, after his departure from the Senate and in the absence of most Southern legislators, the Homestead Bill was finally enacted. Along with legislation for land-grant colleges and for the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Bill has been credited with opening the Western United States to settlement.
As military governor, Johnson sought to eliminate rebel influence in the state. He demanded loyalty oaths from public officials, and shut down all newspapers owned by Confederate sympathizers. Much of eastern Tennessee remained in Confederate hands, and the ebb and flow of war during 1862 sometimes brought Confederate control again close to Nashville. However, the Confederates allowed his wife and family to pass through the lines to join him. Johnson undertook the defense of Nashville as well as he could, though the city was continually harassed by cavalry raids led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Relief from Union regulars did not come until General William S. Rosecrans defeated the Confederates at Murfreesboro in early 1863. Much of eastern Tennessee was captured later that year.
When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, declaring freedom for all slaves in Confederate-held areas, he exempted Tennessee at Johnson's request. The proclamation increased the debate over what should become of the slaves after the war, as not all Unionists supported abolition. Johnson finally decided that slavery had to end. He wrote, "If the institution of slavery ... seeks to overthrow it [the Government], then the Government has a clear right to destroy it". He reluctantly supported efforts to enlist former slaves into the Union Army, feeling that African-Americans should perform menial tasks to release white Americans to do the fighting. Nevertheless, he succeeded in recruiting 20,000 black soldiers to serve the Union.
Tennessee politician.
Johnson helped organize a mechanics' (working men's) ticket in the 1829 Greeneville municipal election. He was elected town alderman, along with his friends Blackston McDannel and Mordecai Lincoln. Following the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion, a state convention was called to pass a new constitution, including provisions to disenfranchise free people of color. The convention also wanted to reform real estate tax rates, and provide ways of funding improvements to Tennessee's infrastructure. The constitution was submitted for a public vote, and Johnson spoke widely for its adoption; the successful campaign provided him with statewide exposure. On January 4, 1834, his fellow aldermen elected him mayor of Greeneville.
In 1835, Johnson made a bid for election to the "floater" seat which Greene County shared with neighboring Washington County in the Tennessee House of Representatives. According to his biographer, Hans L. Trefousse, Johnson "demolished" the opposition in debate and won the election with almost a two to one margin. During his Greeneville days, Johnson joined the Tennessee Militia as a member of the 90th Regiment. He attained the rank of colonel, though while an enrolled member, Johnson was fined for an unknown offense. Afterwards, he was often addressed or referred to by his rank.
In his first term in the legislature, which met in the state capital of Nashville, Johnson did not consistently vote with either the Democratic or the newly formed Whig Party, though he revered President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat and fellow Tennessean. The major parties were still determining their core values and policy proposals, with the party system in a state of flux. The Whig Party had organized in opposition to Jackson, fearing the concentration of power in the Executive Branch of the government; Johnson differed from the Whigs as he opposed more than minimal government spending and spoke against aid for the railroads, while his constituents hoped for improvements in transportation. After Brookins Campbell and the Whigs defeated Johnson for reelection in 1837, Johnson would not lose another race for thirty years. In 1839, he sought to regain his seat, initially as a Whig, but when another candidate sought the Whig nomination, he ran as a Democrat and was elected. From that time he supported the Democratic party and built a powerful political machine in Greene County. Johnson became a strong advocate of the Democratic Party, noted for his oratory, and in an era when public speaking both informed the public and entertained it, people flocked to hear him.
In 1840, Johnson was selected as a presidential elector for Tennessee, giving him more statewide publicity. Although Democratic President Martin Van Buren was defeated by former Ohio senator William Henry Harrison, Johnson was instrumental in keeping Greene County in the Democratic column. He was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1841, where he served a two-year term. He had achieved financial success in his tailoring business, but sold it to concentrate on politics. He had also acquired additional real estate, including a larger home and a farm (where his mother and stepfather took residence), and among his assets numbered eight or nine slaves.
United States Representative (1843–1853).
Having served in both houses of the state legislature, Johnson saw election to Congress as the next step in his political career. He engaged in a number of political maneuvers to gain Democratic support, including the displacement of the Whig postmaster in Greeneville, and defeated Jonesborough lawyer John A. Aiken by 5,495 votes to 4,892. In Washington, he joined a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Johnson advocated for the interests of the poor, maintained an anti-abolitionist stance, argued for only limited spending by the government and opposed protective tariffs. With Eliza remaining in Greeneville, Congressman Johnson shunned social functions in favor of study in the Library of Congress. Although a fellow Tennessee Democrat, James K. Polk, was elected president in 1844, and Johnson had campaigned for him, the two men had difficult relations, and President Polk refused some of his patronage suggestions.
Johnson believed, as did many Southern Democrats, that the Constitution protected private property, including slaves, and thus prohibited the federal and state governments from abolishing slavery. He won a second term in 1845 against William G. Brownlow, presenting himself as the defender of the poor against the aristocracy. In his second term, Johnson supported the Polk administration's decision to fight the Mexican War, seen by some Northerners as an attempt to gain territory to expand slavery westward, and opposed the Wilmot Proviso, a proposal to ban slavery in any territory gained from Mexico. He introduced for the first time his Homestead Bill, to grant to people willing to settle the land and gain title to it. This issue was especially important to Johnson because of his own humble beginnings.
In the presidential election of 1848, the Democrats split over the slavery issue, and abolitionists formed the Free Soil Party, with former president Van Buren as their nominee. Johnson supported the Democratic candidate, former Michigan senator Lewis Cass. With the party split, Whig nominee General Zachary Taylor was easily victorious, and carried Tennessee. Johnson's relations with Polk remained poor; the President recorded of his final New Year's reception in 1849 that
Johnson, due to national interest in new railroad construction and in response to the need for better transportation in his own district, also supported government assistance for the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad.
During his campaign for a fourth term, Johnson concentrated on three issues: slavery, homesteads and judicial elections. He defeated his opponent, Nathaniel G. Taylor, in August 1849, with a greater margin of victory than in previous campaigns. When the House convened in December, the party division caused by the Free Soil Party precluded the formation of the majority needed to elect a Speaker. Johnson proposed adoption of a rule allowing election of a Speaker by a plurality; some weeks later others took up a similar proposal, and Democrat Howell Cobb was elected.
Once the Speaker election had concluded and Congress was ready to conduct legislative business, the issue of slavery took center stage. Northerners sought to admit California, a free state, to the Union. Kentucky's Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a series of resolutions, the Compromise of 1850, to admit California and pass legislation sought by each side. Johnson voted for all the provisions except for the abolition of slavery in the nation's capital. He pressed resolutions for constitutional amendments to provide for popular election of senators (then elected by state legislatures) and of the president (chosen by the Electoral College), and limiting the tenure of federal judges to 12 years. These were all defeated.
A group of Democrats nominated Landon Carter Haynes to oppose Johnson as he sought a fifth term; the Whigs were so pleased with the internecine battle among the Democrats in the general election that they did not nominate a candidate of their own. The campaign included fierce debates: Johnson's main issue was the passage of the Homestead Bill; Haynes contended it would facilitate abolition. Johnson won the election by more than 1600 votes. Though he was not enamored of the party's presidential nominee in 1852, former New Hampshire senator Franklin Pierce, Johnson campaigned for him. Pierce was elected, but he failed to carry Tennessee. In 1852, Johnson managed to get the House to pass his Homestead Bill, but it failed in the Senate. The Whigs had gained control of the Tennessee legislature, and, under the leadership of Gustavus Henry, redrew the boundaries of Johnson's First District to make it a safe seat for their party. The "Nashville Union" termed this "Henry-mandering"; lamented Johnson, "I have no political future."
Governor of Tennessee (1853–1857).
If Johnson considered retiring from politics upon deciding not to seek reelection, he soon changed his mind. His political friends began to maneuver to get him the nomination for governor. The Democratic convention unanimously named him, though some party members were not happy at his selection. The Whigs had won the past two gubernatorial elections, and still controlled the legislature. That party nominated Henry, making the "Henry-mandering" of the First District an immediate issue. The two men debated in county seats the length of Tennessee before the meetings were called off two weeks before the August 1853 election due to illness in Henry's family. Johnson won the election by 63,413 votes to 61,163; some votes for him were cast in return for his promise to support Whig Nathaniel Taylor for his old seat in Congress.
Tennessee's governor had little power: Johnson could propose legislation but not veto it, and most appointments were made by the Whig-controlled legislature. Nevertheless, the office was a "bully pulpit" that allowed him to publicize himself and his political views. He succeeded in getting the appointments he wanted in return for his endorsement of John Bell, a Whig, for one of the state's U.S. Senate seats. In his first biennial speech, Johnson urged simplification of the state judicial system, abolition of the Bank of Tennessee, and establishment of an agency to provide uniformity in weights and measures; the last was passed. Johnson was critical of the Tennessee common school system and suggested funding be increased via taxes, either statewide or county by county—a mixture of the two was passed. Reforms carried out during Johnson's time as governor included the foundation of the State's public library (making books available to all) and its first public school system, and the initiation of regular state fairs to benefit craftsmen and farmers.
Although the Whig Party was on its final decline nationally, it remained strong in Tennessee, and the outlook for Democrats there in 1855 was poor. Feeling that reelection as governor was necessary to give him a chance at the higher offices he sought, Johnson agreed to make the run. Meredith P. Gentry received the Whig nomination. A series of more than a dozen vitriolic debates ensued. The issues in the campaign were slavery, the prohibition of alcohol, and the nativist positions of the Know Nothing Party. Johnson favored the first, but opposed the others. Gentry was more equivocal on the alcohol question, and had gained the support of the Know Nothings, a group Johnson portrayed as a secret society. Johnson was unexpectedly victorious, albeit with a narrower margin than in 1853.
When the presidential election of 1856 approached, Johnson hoped to be nominated; some Tennessee county conventions designated him a "favorite son". His position that the best interests of the Union were served by slavery in some areas made him a practical compromise candidate for president. He was never a major contender; the nomination fell to former Pennsylvania senator James Buchanan. Though he was not impressed by either, Johnson campaigned for Buchanan and his running mate, John C. Breckinridge, who were elected.
Johnson decided not to seek a third term as governor, with an eye towards election to the U.S. Senate. In 1857, while returning from Washington, his train derailed, causing serious damage to his right arm. This injury would trouble him in the years to come.
United States Senator.
Homestead Bill advocate.
The victors in the 1857 state legislative campaign would, once they convened in October, elect a United States Senator. Former Whig governor William B. Campbell wrote to his uncle, "The great anxiety of the Whigs is to elect a majority in the legislature so as to defeat Andrew Johnson for senator. Should the Democrats have the majority, he will certainly be their choice, and there is no man living to whom the Americans and Whigs have as much antipathy as Johnson." The governor spoke widely in the campaign, and his party won the gubernatorial race and control of the legislature. Johnson's final address as governor gave him the chance to influence his electors, and he made proposals popular among Democrats. Two days later the legislature elected him to the Senate. The opposition was appalled, with the Richmond "Whig" newspaper referring to him as "the vilest radical and most unscrupulous demagogue in the Union".
Johnson gained high office due to his proven record as a man popular among the small farmers and self-employed tradesmen who made up much of Tennessee's electorate. He called them the "plebeians"; he was less popular among the planters and lawyers who led the state Democratic Party, but none could match him as a vote-getter. After his death, one Tennessee voter wrote of him, "Johnson was always the same to everyone ... the honors heaped upon him did not make him forget to be kind to the humblest citizen." Always seen in impeccably tailored clothing, he cut an impressive figure, and had the stamina to endure lengthy campaigns with daily travel over bad roads leading to another speech or debate. Mostly denied the party's machinery, he relied on a network of friends, advisers, and contacts. One friend, Hugh Douglas, stated in a letter to him, "you have been in the way of our would be great men for a long time. At heart many of us never wanted you to be Governor only none of the rest of us Could have been elected at the time and we only wanted to use you. Then we did not want you to go to the Senate but "the people would send you"."
The new senator took his seat when Congress convened in December 1857 (the term of his predecessor, James C. Jones, had expired in March). He came to Washington as usual without his wife and family; Eliza would visit Washington only once during Johnson's first time as senator, in 1860. Johnson immediately set about introducing the Homestead Bill in the Senate, but as most senators who supported it were Northern (many associated with the newly founded Republican Party), the matter became caught up in suspicions over the slavery issue. Southern senators felt that those who took advantage of the provisions of the Homestead Bill were more likely to be Northern non-slaveholders. The issue of slavery had been complicated by the Supreme Court's ruling earlier in the year in "Dred Scott v. Sandford" that slavery could not be prohibited in the territories. Johnson, a slaveholding senator from a Southern state, made a major speech in the Senate the following May in an attempt to convince his colleagues that the Homestead Bill and slavery were not incompatible. Nevertheless, Southern opposition was key to defeating the legislation, 30–22. In 1859, it failed on a procedural vote when Vice President Breckinridge broke a tie against the bill, and in 1860, a watered-down version passed both houses, only to be vetoed by Buchanan at the urging of Southerners. Johnson continued his opposition to spending, chairing a committee to control it.
He argued against funding to build infrastructure in Washington, D.C., stating that it was unfair to expect state citizens to pay for the city's streets, even if it was the seat of government. He opposed spending money for troops to put down the revolt by the Mormons in Utah Territory, arguing for temporary volunteers as the United States should not have a standing army.
Secession crisis.
In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown and sympathizers raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia). Tensions in Washington between pro- and anti-slavery forces increased greatly. Johnson gave a major speech in the Senate in December, decrying Northerners who would endanger the Union by seeking to outlaw slavery. The Tennessee senator stated that "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence did not apply to African Americans, since the Constitution of Illinois contained that phrase—and that document barred voting by African Americans. Johnson, by this time, was a wealthy man who owned 14 slaves.
Johnson hoped that he would be a compromise candidate for the presidential nomination as the Democratic Party tore itself apart over the slavery question. Busy with the Homestead Bill during the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, he sent two of his sons and his chief political adviser to represent his interests in the backroom deal-making. The convention deadlocked, with no candidate able to gain the required two-thirds vote, but the sides were too far apart to consider Johnson as a compromise. The party split, with Northerners backing Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas while Southerners, including Johnson, supported Vice President Breckinridge for president. With former Tennessee senator John Bell running a fourth-party candidacy and further dividing the vote, the Republican Party elected its first president, former Illinois representative Abraham Lincoln. The election of Lincoln, known to be against the spread of slavery, was unacceptable to many in the South. Although secession from the Union had not been an issue in the campaign, talk of it began in the Southern states.
Johnson took to the Senate floor after the election, giving a speech well received in the North, "I will not give up this government ... No; I intend to stand by it ... and I invite every man who is a patriot to ... rally around the altar of our common country ... and swear by our God, and all that is sacred and holy, that the Constitution shall be saved, and the Union preserved." As Southern senators announced they would resign if their states seceded, he reminded Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis that if Southerners would only hold to their seats, the Democrats would control the Senate, and could defend the South's interests against any infringement by Lincoln. Gordon-Reed points out that while Johnson's belief in an indissoluble Union was sincere, he had alienated Southern leaders, including Davis, who would soon be the president of the Confederate States of America, formed by the seceding states. If the Tennessean had backed the Confederacy, he would have had small influence in its government.
Johnson returned home when his state took up the issue of secession. His successor as governor, Isham G. Harris, and the legislature organized a referendum on whether to have a constitutional convention to authorize secession; when that failed, they put the question of leaving the Union to a popular vote. Despite threats on Johnson's life, and actual assaults, he campaigned against both questions, sometimes speaking with a gun on the lectern before him. Although Johnson's eastern region of Tennessee was largely against secession, the second referendum passed, and in June 1861, Tennessee joined the Confederacy. Believing he would be killed if he stayed, Johnson fled through the Cumberland Gap, where his party was in fact shot at. He left his wife and family in Greeneville.
As the only member from a seceded state to remain in the Senate and the most prominent Southern Unionist, Johnson had Lincoln's ear in the early months of the war. With most of Tennessee in Confederate hands, Johnson spent congressional recesses in Kentucky and Ohio, trying in vain to convince any Union commander who would listen to conduct an operation into East Tennessee.
Homestead Bill advocate.
The victors in the 1857 state legislative campaign would, once they convened in October, elect a United States Senator. Former Whig governor William B. Campbell wrote to his uncle, "The great anxiety of the Whigs is to elect a majority in the legislature so as to defeat Andrew Johnson for senator. Should the Democrats have the majority, he will certainly be their choice, and there is no man living to whom the Americans and Whigs have as much antipathy as Johnson." The governor spoke widely in the campaign, and his party won the gubernatorial race and control of the legislature. Johnson's final address as governor gave him the chance to influence his electors, and he made proposals popular among Democrats. Two days later the legislature elected him to the Senate. The opposition was appalled, with the Richmond "Whig" newspaper referring to him as "the vilest radical and most unscrupulous demagogue in the Union".
Johnson gained high office due to his proven record as a man popular among the small farmers and self-employed tradesmen who made up much of Tennessee's electorate. He called them the "plebeians"; he was less popular among the planters and lawyers who led the state Democratic Party, but none could match him as a vote-getter. After his death, one Tennessee voter wrote of him, "Johnson was always the same to everyone ... the honors heaped upon him did not make him forget to be kind to the humblest citizen." Always seen in impeccably tailored clothing, he cut an impressive figure, and had the stamina to endure lengthy campaigns with daily travel over bad roads leading to another speech or debate. Mostly denied the party's machinery, he relied on a network of friends, advisers, and contacts. One friend, Hugh Douglas, stated in a letter to him, "you have been in the way of our would be great men for a long time. At heart many of us never wanted you to be Governor only none of the rest of us Could have been elected at the time and we only wanted to use you. Then we did not want you to go to the Senate but "the people would send you"."
The new senator took his seat when Congress convened in December 1857 (the term of his predecessor, James C. Jones, had expired in March). He came to Washington as usual without his wife and family; Eliza would visit Washington only once during Johnson's first time as senator, in 1860. Johnson immediately set about introducing the Homestead Bill in the Senate, but as most senators who supported it were Northern (many associated with the newly founded Republican Party), the matter became caught up in suspicions over the slavery issue. Southern senators felt that those who took advantage of the provisions of the Homestead Bill were more likely to be Northern non-slaveholders. The issue of slavery had been complicated by the Supreme Court's ruling earlier in the year in "Dred Scott v. Sandford" that slavery could not be prohibited in the territories. Johnson, a slaveholding senator from a Southern state, made a major speech in the Senate the following May in an attempt to convince his colleagues that the Homestead Bill and slavery were not incompatible. Nevertheless, Southern opposition was key to defeating the legislation, 30–22. In 1859, it failed on a procedural vote when Vice President Breckinridge broke a tie against the bill, and in 1860, a watered-down version passed both houses, only to be vetoed by Buchanan at the urging of Southerners. Johnson continued his opposition to spending, chairing a committee to control it.
He argued against funding to build infrastructure in Washington, D.C., stating that it was unfair to expect state citizens to pay for the city's streets, even if it was the seat of government. He opposed spending money for troops to put down the revolt by the Mormons in Utah Territory, arguing for temporary volunteers as the United States should not have a standing army.
Secession crisis.
In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown and sympathizers raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia). Tensions in Washington between pro- and anti-slavery forces increased greatly. Johnson gave a major speech in the Senate in December, decrying Northerners who would endanger the Union by seeking to outlaw slavery. The Tennessee senator stated that "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence did not apply to African Americans, since the Constitution of Illinois contained that phrase—and that document barred voting by African Americans. Johnson, by this time, was a wealthy man who owned 14 slaves.
Johnson hoped that he would be a compromise candidate for the presidential nomination as the Democratic Party tore itself apart over the slavery question. Busy with the Homestead Bill during the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, he sent two of his sons and his chief political adviser to represent his interests in the backroom deal-making. The convention deadlocked, with no candidate able to gain the required two-thirds vote, but the sides were too far apart to consider Johnson as a compromise. The party split, with Northerners backing Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas while Southerners, including Johnson, supported Vice President Breckinridge for president. With former Tennessee senator John Bell running a fourth-party candidacy and further dividing the vote, the Republican Party elected its first president, former Illinois representative Abraham Lincoln. The election of Lincoln, known to be against the spread of slavery, was unacceptable to many in the South. Although secession from the Union had not been an issue in the campaign, talk of it began in the Southern states.
Johnson took to the Senate floor after the election, giving a speech well received in the North, "I will not give up this government ... No; I intend to stand by it ... and I invite every man who is a patriot to ... rally around the altar of our common country ... and swear by our God, and all that is sacred and holy, that the Constitution shall be saved, and the Union preserved." As Southern senators announced they would resign if their states seceded, he reminded Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis that if Southerners would only hold to their seats, the Democrats would control the Senate, and could defend the South's interests against any infringement by Lincoln. Gordon-Reed points out that while Johnson's belief in an indissoluble Union was sincere, he had alienated Southern leaders, including Davis, who would soon be the president of the Confederate States of America, formed by the seceding states. If the Tennessean had backed the Confederacy, he would have had small influence in its government.
Johnson returned home when his state took up the issue of secession. His successor as governor, Isham G. Harris, and the legislature organized a referendum on whether to have a constitutional convention to authorize secession; when that failed, they put the question of leaving the Union to a popular vote. Despite threats on Johnson's life, and actual assaults, he campaigned against both questions, sometimes speaking with a gun on the lectern before him. Although Johnson's eastern region of Tennessee was largely against secession, the second referendum passed, and in June 1861, Tennessee joined the Confederacy. Believing he would be killed if he stayed, Johnson fled through the Cumberland Gap, where his party was in fact shot at. He left his wife and family in Greeneville.
As the only member from a seceded state to remain in the Senate and the most prominent Southern Unionist, Johnson had Lincoln's ear in the early months of the war. With most of Tennessee in Confederate hands, Johnson spent congressional recesses in Kentucky and Ohio, trying in vain to convince any Union commander who would listen to conduct an operation into East Tennessee.
Military Governor of Tennessee.
Johnson's first tenure in the Senate came to a conclusion in March 1862 when Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee. Much of the central and western portions of that seceded state had been recovered. Although some argued that civil government should simply resume once the Confederates were defeated in an area, Lincoln chose to use his power as commander in chief to appoint military governors over Union-controlled Southern regions. The Senate quickly confirmed Johnson's nomination along with the rank of brigadier general. In response, the Confederates confiscated his land and his slaves, and turned his home into a military hospital. Later in 1862, after his departure from the Senate and in the absence of most Southern legislators, the Homestead Bill was finally enacted. Along with legislation for land-grant colleges and for the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Bill has been credited with opening the Western United States to settlement.
As military governor, Johnson sought to eliminate rebel influence in the state. He demanded loyalty oaths from public officials, and shut down all newspapers owned by Confederate sympathizers. Much of eastern Tennessee remained in Confederate hands, and the ebb and flow of war during 1862 sometimes brought Confederate control again close to Nashville. However, the Confederates allowed his wife and family to pass through the lines to join him. Johnson undertook the defense of Nashville as well as he could, though the city was continually harassed by cavalry raids led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Relief from Union regulars did not come until General William S. Rosecrans defeated the Confederates at Murfreesboro in early 1863. Much of eastern Tennessee was captured later that year.
When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, declaring freedom for all slaves in Confederate-held areas, he exempted Tennessee at Johnson's request. The proclamation increased the debate over what should become of the slaves after the war, as not all Unionists supported abolition. Johnson finally decided that slavery had to end. He wrote, "If the institution of slavery ... seeks to overthrow it [the Government], then the Government has a clear right to destroy it". He reluctantly supported efforts to enlist former slaves into the Union Army, feeling that African-Americans should perform menial tasks to release white Americans to do the fighting. Nevertheless, he succeeded in recruiting 20,000 black soldiers to serve the Union.
Vice presidency (1865).
In 1860, Lincoln's running mate had been Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. Although Hamlin had served competently, was in good health, and was willing to run again, Johnson emerged as running mate for Lincoln's reelection bid in 1864.
Lincoln considered several War Democrats for the ticket in 1864, and sent an agent to sound out General Benjamin Butler as a possible running mate. In May 1864, the president dispatched General Daniel Sickles to Nashville on a fact-finding mission. Although Sickles denied that he was there either to investigate or interview the military governor, Johnson biographer Hans L. Trefousse believes that Sickles's trip was connected to Johnson's subsequent nomination for vice president. According to historian Albert Castel in his account of Johnson's presidency, Lincoln was impressed by Johnson's administration of Tennessee. Gordon-Reed points out that while the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket might have been considered geographically balanced in 1860, "having Johnson, the "southern" War Democrat, on the ticket sent the right message about the folly of secession and the continuing capacity for union within the country." Another factor was the desire of Secretary of State William Seward to frustrate the vice-presidential candidacy of fellow New Yorker and former senator Daniel S. Dickinson, a War Democrat, as Seward would probably have had to yield his place if another New Yorker became vice president. Johnson, once he was told by reporters the likely purpose of Sickles' visit, was active on his own behalf, delivering speeches and having his political friends work behind the scenes to boost his candidacy.
To sound a theme of unity in 1864, Lincoln ran under the banner of the National Union Party, rather than that of the Republicans. At the party's convention in Baltimore in June, Lincoln was easily nominated, although there had been some talk of replacing him with a cabinet officer or one of the more successful generals. After the convention backed Lincoln, former Secretary of War Simon Cameron offered a resolution to nominate Hamlin, but it was defeated. Johnson was nominated for vice president by C.M. Allen of Indiana with an Iowa delegate seconding it. On the first ballot, Johnson led with 200 votes to 150 for Hamlin and 108 for Dickinson. On the second ballot, Kentucky switched its vote for Johnson, beginning a stampede. Johnson was named on the second ballot with 491 votes to Hamlin's 17 and eight for Dickinson; the nomination was made unanimous. Lincoln expressed pleasure at the result, "Andy Johnson, I think, is a good man." When word reached Nashville, a crowd assembled and the military governor obliged with a speech contending his selection as a Southerner meant that the rebel states had not actually left the Union.
Although it was unusual at the time for a national candidate to actively campaign, Johnson gave a number of speeches in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. He also sought to boost his chances in Tennessee while reestablishing civil government by making the loyalty oath even more restrictive, in that voters would now have to swear that they opposed making a settlement with the Confederacy. The Democratic candidate for president, George McClellan, hoped to avoid additional bloodshed by negotiation, and so the stricter loyalty oath effectively disenfranchised his supporters. Lincoln declined to override Johnson, and their ticket took the state by 25,000 votes. Congress refused to count Tennessee's electoral votes, but Lincoln and Johnson did not need them, having won in most states that had voted, and easily secured the election.
Now Vice President-elect, Johnson was eager to complete the work of reestablishing civilian government in Tennessee, although the timetable for the election of a new governor did not allow it to take place until after Inauguration Day, March 4. He hoped to remain in Nashville to complete his task, but was told by Lincoln's advisers that he could not stay, but would be sworn in with Lincoln. In these months, Union troops finished the retaking of eastern Tennessee, including Greeneville. Just before his departure, the voters of Tennessee ratified a new constitution, which abolished slavery, on February 22, 1865. One of Johnson's final acts as military governor was to certify the results.
Johnson traveled to Washington to be sworn into office, although according to Gordon-Reed, "in light of what happened on March 4, 1865, it might have been better if Johnson had stayed in Nashville." Johnson may have been ill; Castel cited typhoid fever, though Gordon-Reed notes that there is no independent evidence for that diagnosis. On the evening of March 3, Johnson attended a party in his honor at which he drank heavily. Hung over the following morning at the Capitol, he asked Vice President Hamlin for some whiskey. Hamlin produced a bottle, and Johnson took two stiff drinks, stating "I need all the strength for the occasion I can have." In the Senate Chamber, Johnson delivered a rambling address as Lincoln, the Congress, and dignitaries looked on. Almost incoherent at times, he finally meandered to a halt, whereupon Hamlin hastily swore him in as vice president. Lincoln, who had watched sadly during the debacle, then went to his own swearing-in outside the Capitol, and delivered his acclaimed Second Inaugural Address.
In the weeks after the inauguration, Johnson only presided over the Senate briefly, and hid from public ridicule at the Maryland home of a friend, Francis Preston Blair. When he did return to Washington, it was with the intent of leaving for Tennessee to reestablish his family in Greeneville. Instead, he remained after word came that General Ulysses S. Grant had captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, presaging the end of the war. Lincoln stated, in response to criticism of Johnson's behavior, that "I have known Andy Johnson for many years; he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain't a drunkard."
Presidency (1865–1869).
Accession.
On the afternoon of April 14, 1865, Lincoln and Johnson met for the first time since the inauguration. Trefousse states that Johnson wanted to "induce Lincoln not to be too lenient with traitors"; Gordon-Reed agrees.
That night, President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. The shooting of the President was part of a conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward the same night. Seward barely survived his wounds, while Johnson escaped attack as his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, got drunk instead of killing the vice president. Leonard J. Farwell, a fellow boarder at the Kirkwood House, awoke Johnson with news of Lincoln's shooting. Johnson rushed to the President's deathbed, where he remained a short time, on his return promising, "They shall suffer for this. They shall suffer for this." Lincoln died at 7:22 am the next morning; Johnson's swearing-in occurred between 10 and 11 am with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding in the presence of most of the Cabinet. Johnson's demeanor was described by the newspapers as "solemn and dignified". Some Cabinet members had last seen Johnson, apparently drunk, at the inauguration. At noon, Johnson conducted his first Cabinet meeting in the Treasury Secretary's office, and asked all members to remain in their positions.
The events of the assassination resulted in speculation, then and subsequently, concerning Johnson and what the conspirators might have intended for him. In the vain hope of having his life spared after his capture, Atzerodt spoke much about the conspiracy, but did not say anything to indicate that the plotted assassination of Johnson was merely a ruse. Conspiracy theorists point to the fact that on the day of the assassination, Booth came to the Kirkwood House and left one of his cards with Johnson's private secretary, William A. Browning. The message on it was: "Don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth."
Johnson presided with dignity over Lincoln's funeral ceremonies in Washington, before his predecessor's body was sent home to Springfield, Illinois, for interment. Shortly after Lincoln's death, Union General William T. Sherman reported he had, without consulting Washington, reached an armistice agreement with Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston for the surrender of Confederate forces in North Carolina in exchange for the existing state government remaining in power, with private property rights (slaves) to be respected. This did not even grant freedom to those in slavery. This was not acceptable to Johnson or the Cabinet, who sent word for Sherman to secure the surrender without making political deals, which he did. Further, Johnson placed a $100,000 bounty (equivalent to $ in ) on Confederate President Davis, then a fugitive, which gave Johnson the reputation of a man who would be tough on the South. More controversially, he permitted the execution of Mary Surratt for her part in Lincoln's assassination. Surratt was executed with three others, including Atzerodt, on July 7, 1865.
Reconstruction.
Background.
Upon taking office, Johnson faced the question of what to do with the former Confederacy. President Lincoln had authorized loyalist governments in Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee as the Union came to control large parts of those states and advocated a ten percent plan that would allow elections after ten percent of the voters in any state took an oath of future loyalty to the Union. Congress considered this too lenient; its own plan, requiring a majority of voters to take the loyalty oath, passed both houses in 1864, but Lincoln pocket vetoed it.
Johnson had three goals in Reconstruction. He sought a speedy restoration of the states, on the grounds that they had never truly left the Union, and thus should again be recognized once loyal citizens formed a government. To Johnson, African-American suffrage was a delay and a distraction; it had always been a state responsibility to decide who should vote. Second, political power in the Southern states should pass from the planter class to his beloved "plebeians". Johnson feared that the freedmen, many of whom were still economically bound to their former masters, might vote at their direction. Johnson's third priority was election in his own right in 1868, a feat no one who had succeeded a deceased president had managed to accomplish, attempting to secure a Democratic anti-Congressional Reconstruction coalition in the South.
The Republicans had formed a number of factions. The Radical Republicans sought voting and other civil rights for African Americans. They believed that the freedmen could be induced to vote Republican in gratitude for emancipation, and that black votes could keep the Republicans in power and Southern Democrats, including former rebels, out of influence. They believed that top Confederates should be punished. The Moderate Republicans sought to keep the Democrats out of power at a national level, and prevent former rebels from resuming power. They were not as enthusiastic about the idea of African-American suffrage as their Radical colleagues, either because of their own local political concerns, or because they believed that the freedman would be likely to cast his vote badly. Northern Democrats favored the unconditional restoration of the Southern states. They did not support African-American suffrage, which might threaten Democratic control in the South.
Presidential Reconstruction.
Johnson was initially left to devise a Reconstruction policy without legislative intervention, as Congress was not due to meet again until December 1865. Radical Republicans told the President that the Southern states were economically in a state of chaos and urged him to use his leverage to insist on rights for freedmen as a condition of restoration to the Union. But Johnson, with the support of other officials including Seward, insisted that the franchise was a state, not a federal matter. The Cabinet was divided on the issue.
Johnson's first Reconstruction actions were two proclamations, with the unanimous backing of his Cabinet, on May 29. One recognized the Virginia government led by provisional Governor Francis Pierpont. The second provided amnesty for all ex-rebels except those holding property valued at $20,000 or more; it also appointed a temporary governor for North Carolina and authorized elections. Neither of these proclamations included provisions regarding black suffrage or freedmen's rights. The President ordered constitutional conventions in other former rebel states.
As Southern states began the process of forming governments, Johnson's policies received considerable public support in the North, which he took as unconditional backing for quick reinstatement of the South. While he received such support from the white South, he underestimated the determination of Northerners to ensure that the war had not been fought for nothing. It was important, in Northern public opinion, that the South acknowledge its defeat, that slavery be ended, and that the lot of African Americans be improved. Voting rights were less important—after all, only a handful of Northern states (mostly in New England) gave African-American men the right to vote on the same basis as whites, and in late 1865, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota voted down African-American suffrage proposals by large margins. Northern public opinion tolerated Johnson's inaction on black suffrage as an experiment, to be allowed if it quickened Southern acceptance of defeat. Instead, white Southerners felt emboldened. A number of Southern states passed Black Codes, binding African-American laborers to farms on annual contracts they could not quit, and allowing law enforcement at whim to arrest them for vagrancy and rent out their labor. Most Southerners elected to Congress were former Confederates, with the most prominent being Georgia Senator-designate and former Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens. Congress assembled in early December 1865; Johnson's conciliatory annual message to them was well received. Nevertheless, Congress refused to seat the Southern legislators and established a committee to recommend appropriate Reconstruction legislation.
Northerners were outraged at the idea of unrepentant Confederate leaders, such as Stephens, rejoining the federal government at a time when emotional wounds from the war remained raw. They saw the Black Codes placing African Americans in a position barely above slavery. Republicans also feared that restoration of the Southern states would return the Democrats to power. In addition, according to David O. Stewart in his book on Johnson's impeachment, "the violence and poverty that oppressed the South would galvanize the opposition to Johnson".
Break with the Republicans: 1866.
Congress was reluctant to confront the President, and initially only sought to fine-tune Johnson's policies towards the South. According to Trefousse, "If there was a time when Johnson could have come to an agreement with the moderates of the Republican Party, it was the period following the return of Congress." The President was unhappy about the provocative actions of the Southern states, and about the continued control by the antebellum elite there, but made no statement publicly, believing that Southerners had a right to act as they did, even if it was unwise to do so. By late January 1866, he was convinced that winning a showdown with the Radical Republicans was necessary to his political plans – both for the success of Reconstruction and for reelection in 1868. He would have preferred that the conflict arise over the legislative efforts to enfranchise African Americans in the District of Columbia, a proposal that had been defeated overwhelmingly in an all-white referendum. A bill to accomplish this passed the House of Representatives, but to Johnson's disappointment, stalled in the Senate before he could veto it.
Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, leader of the Moderate Republicans and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was anxious to reach an understanding with the President. He ushered through Congress a bill extending the Freedmen's Bureau beyond its scheduled abolition in 1867, and the first Civil Rights Bill, to grant citizenship to the freedmen. Trumbull met several times with Johnson and was convinced the President would sign the measures (Johnson rarely contradicted visitors, often fooling those who met with him into thinking he was in accord). In fact, the President opposed both bills as infringements on state sovereignty. Additionally, both of Trumbull's bills were unpopular among white Southerners, whom Johnson hoped to include in his new party. Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau bill on February 18, 1866, to the delight of white Southerners and the puzzled anger of Republican legislators. He considered himself vindicated when a move to override his veto failed in the Senate the following day. Johnson believed that the Radicals would now be isolated and defeated and that the moderate Republicans would form behind him; he did not understand that Moderates also wanted to see African Americans treated fairly.
On February 22, 1866, Washington's Birthday, Johnson gave an impromptu speech to supporters who had marched to the White House and called for an address in honor of the first president. In his hour-long speech, he instead referred to himself over 200 times. More damagingly, he also spoke of "men ... still opposed to the Union" to whom he could not extend the hand of friendship he gave to the South. When called upon by the crowd to say who they were, Johnson named Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and accused them of plotting his assassination. Republicans viewed the address as a declaration of war, while one Democratic ally estimated Johnson's speech cost the party 200,000 votes in the 1866 congressional midterm elections.
Although strongly urged by moderates to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. In his veto message, he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress, and that it discriminated in favor of African Americans and against whites. Within three weeks, Congress had overridden his veto, the first time that had been done on a major bill in American history. The veto, often seen as a key mistake of Johnson's presidency, convinced moderates there was no hope of working with him. Historian Eric Foner, in his volume on Reconstruction, views it as "the most disastrous miscalculation of his political career". According to Stewart, the veto was "for many his defining blunder, setting a tone of perpetual confrontation with Congress that prevailed for the rest of his presidency".
Congress also proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the states. Written by Trumbull and others, it was sent for ratification by state legislatures in a process in which the president plays no part, though Johnson opposed it. The amendment was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but also went further. The amendment extended citizenship to every person born in the United States (except Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It also guaranteed that the federal debt would be paid and forbade repayment of Confederate war debts. Further, it disqualified many former Confederates from office, although the disability could be removed — by Congress, not the president. Both houses passed the Freedmen's Bureau Act a second time, and again the President vetoed it; this time, the veto was overridden. By the summer of 1866, when Congress finally adjourned, Johnson's method of restoring states to the Union by executive fiat, without safeguards for the freedmen, was in deep trouble. His home state of Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment despite the President's opposition. When Tennessee did so, Congress immediately seated its proposed delegation, embarrassing Johnson.
Efforts to compromise failed, and a political war ensued between the united Republicans on one side, and on the other, Johnson and his Northern and Southern allies in the Democratic Party. He called a convention of the National Union Party. Republicans had returned to using their previous identifier; Johnson intended to use the discarded name to unite his supporters and gain election to a full term, in 1868. The battleground was the election of 1866; Southern states were not allowed to vote. Johnson campaigned vigorously, undertaking a public speaking tour, known as the "Swing Around the Circle". The trip, including speeches in Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Columbus, proved politically disastrous, with the President making controversial comparisons between himself and Jesus, and engaging in arguments with hecklers. These exchanges were attacked as beneath the dignity of the presidency. The Republicans won by a landslide, increasing their two-thirds majority in Congress, and made plans to control Reconstruction. Johnson blamed the Democrats for giving only lukewarm support to the National Union movement.
Radical Reconstruction.
Even with the Republican victory in November 1866, Johnson considered himself in a strong position. The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified by none of the Southern or border states except Tennessee, and had been rejected in Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland. As the amendment required ratification by three-quarters of the states to become part of the Constitution, he believed the deadlock would be broken in his favor, leading to his election in 1868. Once it reconvened in December 1866, an energized Congress began passing legislation, often over a presidential veto; this included the District of Columbia voting bill. Congress admitted Nebraska to the Union over a veto, and the Republicans gained two senators and a state that promptly ratified the amendment. Johnson's veto of a bill for statehood for Colorado Territory was sustained; enough senators agreed that a district with a population of 30,000 was not yet worthy of statehood to win the day.
In January 1867, Congressman Stevens introduced legislation to dissolve the Southern state governments and reconstitute them into five military districts, under martial law. The states would begin again by holding constitutional conventions. African Americans could vote for or become delegates; former Confederates could not. In the legislative process, Congress added to the bill that restoration to the Union would follow the state's ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and completion of the process of adding it to the Constitution. Johnson and the Southerners attempted a compromise, whereby the South would agree to a modified version of the amendment without the disqualification of former Confederates, and for limited black suffrage. The Republicans insisted on the full language of the amendment, and the deal fell through. Although Johnson could have pocket vetoed the First Reconstruction Act as it was presented to him less than ten days before the end of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, he chose to veto it directly on March 2, 1867; Congress overruled him the same day. Also on March 2, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over the President's veto, in response to statements during the Swing Around the Circle that he planned to fire Cabinet secretaries who did not agree with him. This bill, requiring Senate approval for the firing of Cabinet members during the tenure of the president who appointed them and for one month afterwards, was immediately controversial, with some senators doubting that it was constitutional or that its terms applied to Johnson, whose key Cabinet officers were Lincoln holdovers.
Impeachment.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was an able and hard-working man, but difficult to deal with. Johnson both admired and was exasperated by his War Secretary, who, in combination with General of the Army Grant, worked to undermine the president's Southern policy from within his own administration. Johnson considered firing Stanton, but respected him for his wartime service as secretary. Stanton, for his part, feared allowing Johnson to appoint his successor and refused to resign, despite his public disagreements with his president.
The new Congress met for a few weeks in March 1867, then adjourned, leaving the House Committee on the Judiciary behind, tasked in the first impeachment inquiry against Johnson with reporting back to the full House whether there were grounds for Johnson to be impeached. This committee duly met, examined the President's bank accounts, and summoned members of the Cabinet to testify. When a federal court released former Confederate president Davis on bail on May 13 (he had been captured shortly after the war), the committee investigated whether the President had impeded the prosecution. It learned that Johnson was eager to have Davis tried. A bipartisan majority of the committee voted down impeachment charges; the committee adjourned on June 3.
Later in June, Johnson and Stanton battled over the question of whether the military officers placed in command of the South could override the civil authorities. The President had Attorney General Henry Stanbery issue an opinion backing his position that they could not. Johnson sought to pin down Stanton either as for, and thus endorsing Johnson's position, or against, showing himself to be opposed to his president and the rest of the Cabinet. Stanton evaded the point in meetings and written communications. When Congress reconvened in July, it passed a Reconstruction Act against Johnson's position, waited for his veto, overrode it, and went home. In addition to clarifying the powers of the generals, the legislation also deprived the President of control over the Army in the South. With Congress in recess until November, Johnson decided to fire Stanton and relieve one of the military commanders, General Philip Sheridan, who had dismissed the governor of Texas and installed a replacement with little popular support. Johnson was initially deterred by a strong objection from Grant, but on August 5, the President demanded Stanton's resignation; the secretary refused to quit with Congress out of session. Johnson then suspended him pending the next meeting of Congress as permitted under the Tenure of Office Act; Grant agreed to serve as temporary replacement while continuing to lead the Army.
Grant, under protest, followed Johnson's order transferring Sheridan and another of the district commanders, Daniel Sickles, who had angered Johnson by firmly following Congress's plan. The President also issued a proclamation pardoning most Confederates, exempting those who held office under the Confederacy, or who had served in federal office before the war but had breached their oaths. Although Republicans expressed anger with his actions, the 1867 elections generally went Democratic. No seats in Congress were directly elected in the polling, but the Democrats took control of the Ohio General Assembly, allowing them to defeat for reelection one of Johnson's strongest opponents, Senator Benjamin Wade. Voters in Ohio, Connecticut, and Minnesota turned down propositions to grant African Americans the vote.
The adverse results momentarily put a stop to Republican calls to impeach Johnson, who was elated by the elections. Nevertheless, once Congress met in November, the Judiciary Committee reversed itself and passed a resolution of impeachment against Johnson. After much debate about whether anything the President had done was a high crime or misdemeanor, the standard under the Constitution, the resolution was defeated by the House of Representatives on December 7, 1867, by a vote of 57 in favor to 108 opposed.
Johnson notified Congress of Stanton's suspension and Grant's interim appointment. In January 1868, the Senate disapproved of his action, and reinstated Stanton, contending the President had violated the Tenure of Office Act. Grant stepped aside over Johnson's objection, causing a complete break between them. Johnson then dismissed Stanton and appointed Lorenzo Thomas to replace him. Stanton refused to leave his office, and on February 24, 1868, the House impeached the President for intentionally violating the Tenure of Office Act, by a vote of 128 to 47. The House subsequently adopted eleven articles of impeachment, for the most part alleging that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act, and had questioned the legitimacy of Congress.
On March 5, 1868, the impeachment trial began in the Senate and lasted almost three months; Congressmen George S. Boutwell, Benjamin Butler and Thaddeus Stevens acted as managers for the House, or prosecutors, and William M. Evarts, Benjamin R. Curtis and former Attorney General Stanbery were Johnson's counsel; Chief Justice Chase served as presiding judge.
The defense relied on the provision of the Tenure of Office Act that made it applicable only to appointees of the current administration. Since Lincoln had appointed Stanton, the defense maintained Johnson had not violated the act, and also argued that the President had the right to test the constitutionality of an act of Congress. Johnson's counsel insisted that he make no appearance at the trial, nor publicly comment about the proceedings, and except for a pair of interviews in April, he complied.
Johnson maneuvered to gain an acquittal; for example, he pledged to Iowa Senator James W. Grimes that he would not interfere with Congress's Reconstruction efforts. Grimes reported to a group of Moderates, many of whom voted for acquittal, that he believed the President would keep his word. Johnson also promised to install the respected John Schofield as War Secretary. Kansas Senator Edmund G. Ross received assurances that the new, Radical-influenced constitutions ratified in South Carolina and Arkansas would be transmitted to the Congress without delay, an action which would give him and other senators political cover to vote for acquittal.
One reason senators were reluctant to remove the President was that his successor would have been Ohio Senator Wade, the president "pro tempore" of the Senate. Wade, a lame duck who left office in early 1869, was a Radical who supported such measures as women's suffrage, placing him beyond the pale politically in much of the nation. Additionally, a President Wade was seen as an obstacle to Grant's ambitions.
With the dealmaking, Johnson was confident of the result in advance of the verdict, and in the days leading up to the ballot, newspapers reported that Stevens and his Radicals had given up. On May 16, the Senate voted on the 11th article of impeachment, accusing Johnson of firing Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office of Act once the Senate had overturned his suspension. Thirty-five senators voted "guilty" and 19 "not guilty", thus falling short by a single vote of the two-thirds majority required for conviction under the Constitution. Ten Republicans—Senators Grimes, Ross, Trumbull, James Dixon, James Rood Doolittle, Daniel Sheldon Norton, William Pitt Fessenden, Joseph S. Fowler, John B. Henderson, and Peter G. Van Winkle—voted to acquit the President. With Stevens bitterly disappointed at the result, the Senate then adjourned for the Republican National Convention; Grant was nominated for president. The Senate returned on May 26 and voted on the second and third articles, with identical 35–19 results. Faced with those results, Johnson's opponents gave up and dismissed proceedings. Stanton "relinquished" his office on May 26, and the Senate subsequently confirmed Schofield. When Johnson renominated Stanbery to return to his position as Attorney General after his service as a defense manager, the Senate refused to confirm him.
Allegations were made at the time and again later that bribery dictated the outcome of the trial. Even when it was in progress, Representative Butler began an investigation, held contentious hearings, and issued a report, unendorsed by any other congressman. Butler focused on a New York–based "Astor House Group", supposedly led by political boss and editor Thurlow Weed. This organization was said to have raised large sums of money from whiskey interests through Cincinnati lawyer Charles Woolley to bribe senators to acquit Johnson. Butler went so far as to imprison Woolley in the Capitol building when he refused to answer questions, but failed to prove bribery.
Foreign policy.
Soon after taking office as president, Johnson reached an accord with Secretary of State William H. Seward that there would be no change in foreign policy. In practice, this meant that Seward would continue to run things as he had under Lincoln. Seward and Lincoln had been rivals for the nomination in 1860; the victor hoped that Seward would succeed him as president in 1869. At the time of Johnson's accession, the French had intervened in Mexico, sending troops there. While many politicians had indulged in saber rattling over the Mexican matter, Seward preferred quiet diplomacy, warning the French through diplomatic channels that their presence in Mexico was unacceptable. Although the President preferred a more aggressive approach, Seward persuaded him to follow his lead. In April 1866, the French government informed Seward that its troops would be brought home in stages, to conclude by November 1867. On August 14, 1866, Johnson and his cabinet gave a reception for Queen Emma of Hawaii who was returning to Hawaii after her trip to Britain and Europe.
Seward was an expansionist, and sought opportunities to gain territory for the United States. After the loss of the Crimean War in the 1850s, the Russian government saw its North American colony (today Alaska) as a financial liability, and feared losing control to Britain whose troops would easily swoop in and annex the territory from neighboring Canada in any future conflict. Negotiations between Russia and the U.S. over the sale of Alaska were halted due to the outbreak of the Civil War, but after the U.S. victory in the war, talks resumed. Russia instructed its minister in Washington, Baron Eduard de Stoeckl, to negotiate a sale. De Stoeckl did so deftly, getting Seward to raise his offer from $5 million (coincidentally, the minimum that Russia had instructed de Stoeckl to accept) to $7 million, and then getting $200,000 added by raising various objections. This sum of $7.2 million is equivalent to $ in present-day terms. On March 30, 1867, de Stoeckl and Seward signed the treaty, working quickly as the Senate was about to adjourn. Johnson and Seward took the signed document to the President's Room in the Capitol, only to be told there was no time to deal with the matter before adjournment. The President summoned the Senate into session to meet on April 1; that body approved the treaty, 37–2. Emboldened by his success in Alaska, Seward sought acquisitions elsewhere. His only success was staking an American claim to uninhabited Wake Island in the Pacific, which would be officially claimed by the U.S. in 1898. He came close with the Danish West Indies as Denmark agreed to sell and the local population approved the transfer in a plebiscite, but the Senate never voted on the treaty and it expired.
Another treaty that fared badly was the Johnson-Clarendon convention, negotiated in settlement of the "Alabama" Claims, for damages to American shipping from British-built Confederate raiders. Negotiated by the United States Minister to Britain, former Maryland senator Reverdy Johnson, in late 1868, it was ignored by the Senate during the remainder of the President's term. The treaty was rejected after he left office, and the Grant administration later negotiated considerably better terms from Britain.
Administration and Cabinet.
Judicial appointments.
Johnson appointed nine Article III federal judges during his presidency, all to United States district courts; he did not appoint a justice to serve on the Supreme Court. In April 1866, he nominated Henry Stanbery to fill the vacancy left with the death of John Catron, but Congress eliminated the seat to prevent the appointment, and to ensure that he did not get to make any appointments eliminated the next vacancy as well, providing that the court would shrink by one justice when one next departed from office. Johnson appointed his Greeneville crony, Samuel Milligan, to the United States Court of Claims, where he served from 1868 until his death in 1874.
Reforms initiated.
In June 1866, Johnson signed the Southern Homestead Act into law, believing that the legislation would assist poor whites. Around 28,000 land claims were successfully patented, although few former slaves benefitted from the law, fraud was rampant, and much of the best land was off-limits, reserved for grants to veterans or railroads. In June 1868, Johnson signed an eight-hour law passed by Congress that established an eight-hour workday for laborers and mechanics employed by the Federal Government. Although Johnson told members of a Workingmen's party delegation in Baltimore that he could not directly commit himself to an eight-hour day, he nevertheless told the same delegation that he greatly favoured the "shortest number of hours consistent with the interests of all". According to Richard F. Selcer, however, the good intentions behind the law were "immediately frustrated" as wages were cut by 20%.
Completion of term.
Johnson sought nomination by the 1868 Democratic National Convention in New York in July 1868. He remained very popular among Southern whites, and boosted that popularity by issuing, just before the convention, a pardon ending the possibility of criminal proceedings against any Confederate not already indicted, meaning that only Davis and a few others still might face trial. On the first ballot, Johnson was second to former Ohio representative George H. Pendleton, who had been his Democratic opponent for vice president in 1864. Johnson's support was mostly from the South, and fell away as the ballots passed. On the 22nd ballot, former New York governor Horatio Seymour was nominated, and the President received only four votes, all from Tennessee.
The conflict with Congress continued. Johnson sent Congress proposals for amendments to limit the president to a single six-year term and make the president and the Senate directly elected, and for term limits for judges. Congress took no action on them. When the President was slow to officially report ratifications of the Fourteenth Amendment by the new Southern legislatures, Congress passed a bill, again over his veto, requiring him to do so within ten days of receipt. He still delayed as much as he could, but was required, in July 1868, to report the ratifications making the amendment part of the Constitution.
Seymour's operatives sought Johnson's support, but he long remained silent on the presidential campaign. It was not until October, with the vote already having taken place in some states, that he mentioned Seymour at all, and he never endorsed him. Nevertheless, Johnson regretted Grant's victory, in part because of their animus from the Stanton affair. In his annual message to Congress in December, Johnson urged the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act and told legislators that had they admitted their Southern colleagues in 1865, all would have been well. He celebrated his 60th birthday in late December with a party for several hundred children, though not including those of President-elect Grant, who did not allow his to go.
On Christmas Day 1868, Johnson issued a final amnesty, this one covering everyone, including Davis. He also issued, in his final months in office, pardons for crimes, including one for Dr. Samuel Mudd, controversially convicted of involvement in the Lincoln assassination (he had set Booth's broken leg) and imprisoned in on Florida's Dry Tortugas.
On March 3, the President hosted a large public reception at the White House on his final full day in office. Grant had made it known that he was unwilling to ride in the same carriage as Johnson, as was customary, and Johnson refused to go to the inauguration at all. Despite an effort by Seward to prompt a change of mind, he spent the morning of March 4 finishing last-minute business, and then shortly after noon rode from the White House to the home of a friend.
Accession.
On the afternoon of April 14, 1865, Lincoln and Johnson met for the first time since the inauguration. Trefousse states that Johnson wanted to "induce Lincoln not to be too lenient with traitors"; Gordon-Reed agrees.
That night, President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. The shooting of the President was part of a conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward the same night. Seward barely survived his wounds, while Johnson escaped attack as his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, got drunk instead of killing the vice president. Leonard J. Farwell, a fellow boarder at the Kirkwood House, awoke Johnson with news of Lincoln's shooting. Johnson rushed to the President's deathbed, where he remained a short time, on his return promising, "They shall suffer for this. They shall suffer for this." Lincoln died at 7:22 am the next morning; Johnson's swearing-in occurred between 10 and 11 am with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding in the presence of most of the Cabinet. Johnson's demeanor was described by the newspapers as "solemn and dignified". Some Cabinet members had last seen Johnson, apparently drunk, at the inauguration. At noon, Johnson conducted his first Cabinet meeting in the Treasury Secretary's office, and asked all members to remain in their positions.
The events of the assassination resulted in speculation, then and subsequently, concerning Johnson and what the conspirators might have intended for him. In the vain hope of having his life spared after his capture, Atzerodt spoke much about the conspiracy, but did not say anything to indicate that the plotted assassination of Johnson was merely a ruse. Conspiracy theorists point to the fact that on the day of the assassination, Booth came to the Kirkwood House and left one of his cards with Johnson's private secretary, William A. Browning. The message on it was: "Don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth."
Johnson presided with dignity over Lincoln's funeral ceremonies in Washington, before his predecessor's body was sent home to Springfield, Illinois, for interment. Shortly after Lincoln's death, Union General William T. Sherman reported he had, without consulting Washington, reached an armistice agreement with Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston for the surrender of Confederate forces in North Carolina in exchange for the existing state government remaining in power, with private property rights (slaves) to be respected. This did not even grant freedom to those in slavery. This was not acceptable to Johnson or the Cabinet, who sent word for Sherman to secure the surrender without making political deals, which he did. Further, Johnson placed a $100,000 bounty (equivalent to $ in ) on Confederate President Davis, then a fugitive, which gave Johnson the reputation of a man who would be tough on the South. More controversially, he permitted the execution of Mary Surratt for her part in Lincoln's assassination. Surratt was executed with three others, including Atzerodt, on July 7, 1865.
Reconstruction.
Background.
Upon taking office, Johnson faced the question of what to do with the former Confederacy. President Lincoln had authorized loyalist governments in Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee as the Union came to control large parts of those states and advocated a ten percent plan that would allow elections after ten percent of the voters in any state took an oath of future loyalty to the Union. Congress considered this too lenient; its own plan, requiring a majority of voters to take the loyalty oath, passed both houses in 1864, but Lincoln pocket vetoed it.
Johnson had three goals in Reconstruction. He sought a speedy restoration of the states, on the grounds that they had never truly left the Union, and thus should again be recognized once loyal citizens formed a government. To Johnson, African-American suffrage was a delay and a distraction; it had always been a state responsibility to decide who should vote. Second, political power in the Southern states should pass from the planter class to his beloved "plebeians". Johnson feared that the freedmen, many of whom were still economically bound to their former masters, might vote at their direction. Johnson's third priority was election in his own right in 1868, a feat no one who had succeeded a deceased president had managed to accomplish, attempting to secure a Democratic anti-Congressional Reconstruction coalition in the South.
The Republicans had formed a number of factions. The Radical Republicans sought voting and other civil rights for African Americans. They believed that the freedmen could be induced to vote Republican in gratitude for emancipation, and that black votes could keep the Republicans in power and Southern Democrats, including former rebels, out of influence. They believed that top Confederates should be punished. The Moderate Republicans sought to keep the Democrats out of power at a national level, and prevent former rebels from resuming power. They were not as enthusiastic about the idea of African-American suffrage as their Radical colleagues, either because of their own local political concerns, or because they believed that the freedman would be likely to cast his vote badly. Northern Democrats favored the unconditional restoration of the Southern states. They did not support African-American suffrage, which might threaten Democratic control in the South.
Presidential Reconstruction.
Johnson was initially left to devise a Reconstruction policy without legislative intervention, as Congress was not due to meet again until December 1865. Radical Republicans told the President that the Southern states were economically in a state of chaos and urged him to use his leverage to insist on rights for freedmen as a condition of restoration to the Union. But Johnson, with the support of other officials including Seward, insisted that the franchise was a state, not a federal matter. The Cabinet was divided on the issue.
Johnson's first Reconstruction actions were two proclamations, with the unanimous backing of his Cabinet, on May 29. One recognized the Virginia government led by provisional Governor Francis Pierpont. The second provided amnesty for all ex-rebels except those holding property valued at $20,000 or more; it also appointed a temporary governor for North Carolina and authorized elections. Neither of these proclamations included provisions regarding black suffrage or freedmen's rights. The President ordered constitutional conventions in other former rebel states.
As Southern states began the process of forming governments, Johnson's policies received considerable public support in the North, which he took as unconditional backing for quick reinstatement of the South. While he received such support from the white South, he underestimated the determination of Northerners to ensure that the war had not been fought for nothing. It was important, in Northern public opinion, that the South acknowledge its defeat, that slavery be ended, and that the lot of African Americans be improved. Voting rights were less important—after all, only a handful of Northern states (mostly in New England) gave African-American men the right to vote on the same basis as whites, and in late 1865, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota voted down African-American suffrage proposals by large margins. Northern public opinion tolerated Johnson's inaction on black suffrage as an experiment, to be allowed if it quickened Southern acceptance of defeat. Instead, white Southerners felt emboldened. A number of Southern states passed Black Codes, binding African-American laborers to farms on annual contracts they could not quit, and allowing law enforcement at whim to arrest them for vagrancy and rent out their labor. Most Southerners elected to Congress were former Confederates, with the most prominent being Georgia Senator-designate and former Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens. Congress assembled in early December 1865; Johnson's conciliatory annual message to them was well received. Nevertheless, Congress refused to seat the Southern legislators and established a committee to recommend appropriate Reconstruction legislation.
Northerners were outraged at the idea of unrepentant Confederate leaders, such as Stephens, rejoining the federal government at a time when emotional wounds from the war remained raw. They saw the Black Codes placing African Americans in a position barely above slavery. Republicans also feared that restoration of the Southern states would return the Democrats to power. In addition, according to David O. Stewart in his book on Johnson's impeachment, "the violence and poverty that oppressed the South would galvanize the opposition to Johnson".
Break with the Republicans: 1866.
Congress was reluctant to confront the President, and initially only sought to fine-tune Johnson's policies towards the South. According to Trefousse, "If there was a time when Johnson could have come to an agreement with the moderates of the Republican Party, it was the period following the return of Congress." The President was unhappy about the provocative actions of the Southern states, and about the continued control by the antebellum elite there, but made no statement publicly, believing that Southerners had a right to act as they did, even if it was unwise to do so. By late January 1866, he was convinced that winning a showdown with the Radical Republicans was necessary to his political plans – both for the success of Reconstruction and for reelection in 1868. He would have preferred that the conflict arise over the legislative efforts to enfranchise African Americans in the District of Columbia, a proposal that had been defeated overwhelmingly in an all-white referendum. A bill to accomplish this passed the House of Representatives, but to Johnson's disappointment, stalled in the Senate before he could veto it.
Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, leader of the Moderate Republicans and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was anxious to reach an understanding with the President. He ushered through Congress a bill extending the Freedmen's Bureau beyond its scheduled abolition in 1867, and the first Civil Rights Bill, to grant citizenship to the freedmen. Trumbull met several times with Johnson and was convinced the President would sign the measures (Johnson rarely contradicted visitors, often fooling those who met with him into thinking he was in accord). In fact, the President opposed both bills as infringements on state sovereignty. Additionally, both of Trumbull's bills were unpopular among white Southerners, whom Johnson hoped to include in his new party. Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau bill on February 18, 1866, to the delight of white Southerners and the puzzled anger of Republican legislators. He considered himself vindicated when a move to override his veto failed in the Senate the following day. Johnson believed that the Radicals would now be isolated and defeated and that the moderate Republicans would form behind him; he did not understand that Moderates also wanted to see African Americans treated fairly.
On February 22, 1866, Washington's Birthday, Johnson gave an impromptu speech to supporters who had marched to the White House and called for an address in honor of the first president. In his hour-long speech, he instead referred to himself over 200 times. More damagingly, he also spoke of "men ... still opposed to the Union" to whom he could not extend the hand of friendship he gave to the South. When called upon by the crowd to say who they were, Johnson named Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and accused them of plotting his assassination. Republicans viewed the address as a declaration of war, while one Democratic ally estimated Johnson's speech cost the party 200,000 votes in the 1866 congressional midterm elections.
Although strongly urged by moderates to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. In his veto message, he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress, and that it discriminated in favor of African Americans and against whites. Within three weeks, Congress had overridden his veto, the first time that had been done on a major bill in American history. The veto, often seen as a key mistake of Johnson's presidency, convinced moderates there was no hope of working with him. Historian Eric Foner, in his volume on Reconstruction, views it as "the most disastrous miscalculation of his political career". According to Stewart, the veto was "for many his defining blunder, setting a tone of perpetual confrontation with Congress that prevailed for the rest of his presidency".
Congress also proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the states. Written by Trumbull and others, it was sent for ratification by state legislatures in a process in which the president plays no part, though Johnson opposed it. The amendment was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but also went further. The amendment extended citizenship to every person born in the United States (except Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It also guaranteed that the federal debt would be paid and forbade repayment of Confederate war debts. Further, it disqualified many former Confederates from office, although the disability could be removed — by Congress, not the president. Both houses passed the Freedmen's Bureau Act a second time, and again the President vetoed it; this time, the veto was overridden. By the summer of 1866, when Congress finally adjourned, Johnson's method of restoring states to the Union by executive fiat, without safeguards for the freedmen, was in deep trouble. His home state of Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment despite the President's opposition. When Tennessee did so, Congress immediately seated its proposed delegation, embarrassing Johnson.
Efforts to compromise failed, and a political war ensued between the united Republicans on one side, and on the other, Johnson and his Northern and Southern allies in the Democratic Party. He called a convention of the National Union Party. Republicans had returned to using their previous identifier; Johnson intended to use the discarded name to unite his supporters and gain election to a full term, in 1868. The battleground was the election of 1866; Southern states were not allowed to vote. Johnson campaigned vigorously, undertaking a public speaking tour, known as the "Swing Around the Circle". The trip, including speeches in Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Columbus, proved politically disastrous, with the President making controversial comparisons between himself and Jesus, and engaging in arguments with hecklers. These exchanges were attacked as beneath the dignity of the presidency. The Republicans won by a landslide, increasing their two-thirds majority in Congress, and made plans to control Reconstruction. Johnson blamed the Democrats for giving only lukewarm support to the National Union movement.
Radical Reconstruction.
Even with the Republican victory in November 1866, Johnson considered himself in a strong position. The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified by none of the Southern or border states except Tennessee, and had been rejected in Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland. As the amendment required ratification by three-quarters of the states to become part of the Constitution, he believed the deadlock would be broken in his favor, leading to his election in 1868. Once it reconvened in December 1866, an energized Congress began passing legislation, often over a presidential veto; this included the District of Columbia voting bill. Congress admitted Nebraska to the Union over a veto, and the Republicans gained two senators and a state that promptly ratified the amendment. Johnson's veto of a bill for statehood for Colorado Territory was sustained; enough senators agreed that a district with a population of 30,000 was not yet worthy of statehood to win the day.
In January 1867, Congressman Stevens introduced legislation to dissolve the Southern state governments and reconstitute them into five military districts, under martial law. The states would begin again by holding constitutional conventions. African Americans could vote for or become delegates; former Confederates could not. In the legislative process, Congress added to the bill that restoration to the Union would follow the state's ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and completion of the process of adding it to the Constitution. Johnson and the Southerners attempted a compromise, whereby the South would agree to a modified version of the amendment without the disqualification of former Confederates, and for limited black suffrage. The Republicans insisted on the full language of the amendment, and the deal fell through. Although Johnson could have pocket vetoed the First Reconstruction Act as it was presented to him less than ten days before the end of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, he chose to veto it directly on March 2, 1867; Congress overruled him the same day. Also on March 2, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over the President's veto, in response to statements during the Swing Around the Circle that he planned to fire Cabinet secretaries who did not agree with him. This bill, requiring Senate approval for the firing of Cabinet members during the tenure of the president who appointed them and for one month afterwards, was immediately controversial, with some senators doubting that it was constitutional or that its terms applied to Johnson, whose key Cabinet officers were Lincoln holdovers.
Background.
Upon taking office, Johnson faced the question of what to do with the former Confederacy. President Lincoln had authorized loyalist governments in Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee as the Union came to control large parts of those states and advocated a ten percent plan that would allow elections after ten percent of the voters in any state took an oath of future loyalty to the Union. Congress considered this too lenient; its own plan, requiring a majority of voters to take the loyalty oath, passed both houses in 1864, but Lincoln pocket vetoed it.
Johnson had three goals in Reconstruction. He sought a speedy restoration of the states, on the grounds that they had never truly left the Union, and thus should again be recognized once loyal citizens formed a government. To Johnson, African-American suffrage was a delay and a distraction; it had always been a state responsibility to decide who should vote. Second, political power in the Southern states should pass from the planter class to his beloved "plebeians". Johnson feared that the freedmen, many of whom were still economically bound to their former masters, might vote at their direction. Johnson's third priority was election in his own right in 1868, a feat no one who had succeeded a deceased president had managed to accomplish, attempting to secure a Democratic anti-Congressional Reconstruction coalition in the South.
The Republicans had formed a number of factions. The Radical Republicans sought voting and other civil rights for African Americans. They believed that the freedmen could be induced to vote Republican in gratitude for emancipation, and that black votes could keep the Republicans in power and Southern Democrats, including former rebels, out of influence. They believed that top Confederates should be punished. The Moderate Republicans sought to keep the Democrats out of power at a national level, and prevent former rebels from resuming power. They were not as enthusiastic about the idea of African-American suffrage as their Radical colleagues, either because of their own local political concerns, or because they believed that the freedman would be likely to cast his vote badly. Northern Democrats favored the unconditional restoration of the Southern states. They did not support African-American suffrage, which might threaten Democratic control in the South.
Presidential Reconstruction.
Johnson was initially left to devise a Reconstruction policy without legislative intervention, as Congress was not due to meet again until December 1865. Radical Republicans told the President that the Southern states were economically in a state of chaos and urged him to use his leverage to insist on rights for freedmen as a condition of restoration to the Union. But Johnson, with the support of other officials including Seward, insisted that the franchise was a state, not a federal matter. The Cabinet was divided on the issue.
Johnson's first Reconstruction actions were two proclamations, with the unanimous backing of his Cabinet, on May 29. One recognized the Virginia government led by provisional Governor Francis Pierpont. The second provided amnesty for all ex-rebels except those holding property valued at $20,000 or more; it also appointed a temporary governor for North Carolina and authorized elections. Neither of these proclamations included provisions regarding black suffrage or freedmen's rights. The President ordered constitutional conventions in other former rebel states.
As Southern states began the process of forming governments, Johnson's policies received considerable public support in the North, which he took as unconditional backing for quick reinstatement of the South. While he received such support from the white South, he underestimated the determination of Northerners to ensure that the war had not been fought for nothing. It was important, in Northern public opinion, that the South acknowledge its defeat, that slavery be ended, and that the lot of African Americans be improved. Voting rights were less important—after all, only a handful of Northern states (mostly in New England) gave African-American men the right to vote on the same basis as whites, and in late 1865, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota voted down African-American suffrage proposals by large margins. Northern public opinion tolerated Johnson's inaction on black suffrage as an experiment, to be allowed if it quickened Southern acceptance of defeat. Instead, white Southerners felt emboldened. A number of Southern states passed Black Codes, binding African-American laborers to farms on annual contracts they could not quit, and allowing law enforcement at whim to arrest them for vagrancy and rent out their labor. Most Southerners elected to Congress were former Confederates, with the most prominent being Georgia Senator-designate and former Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens. Congress assembled in early December 1865; Johnson's conciliatory annual message to them was well received. Nevertheless, Congress refused to seat the Southern legislators and established a committee to recommend appropriate Reconstruction legislation.
Northerners were outraged at the idea of unrepentant Confederate leaders, such as Stephens, rejoining the federal government at a time when emotional wounds from the war remained raw. They saw the Black Codes placing African Americans in a position barely above slavery. Republicans also feared that restoration of the Southern states would return the Democrats to power. In addition, according to David O. Stewart in his book on Johnson's impeachment, "the violence and poverty that oppressed the South would galvanize the opposition to Johnson".
Break with the Republicans: 1866.
Congress was reluctant to confront the President, and initially only sought to fine-tune Johnson's policies towards the South. According to Trefousse, "If there was a time when Johnson could have come to an agreement with the moderates of the Republican Party, it was the period following the return of Congress." The President was unhappy about the provocative actions of the Southern states, and about the continued control by the antebellum elite there, but made no statement publicly, believing that Southerners had a right to act as they did, even if it was unwise to do so. By late January 1866, he was convinced that winning a showdown with the Radical Republicans was necessary to his political plans – both for the success of Reconstruction and for reelection in 1868. He would have preferred that the conflict arise over the legislative efforts to enfranchise African Americans in the District of Columbia, a proposal that had been defeated overwhelmingly in an all-white referendum. A bill to accomplish this passed the House of Representatives, but to Johnson's disappointment, stalled in the Senate before he could veto it.
Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, leader of the Moderate Republicans and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was anxious to reach an understanding with the President. He ushered through Congress a bill extending the Freedmen's Bureau beyond its scheduled abolition in 1867, and the first Civil Rights Bill, to grant citizenship to the freedmen. Trumbull met several times with Johnson and was convinced the President would sign the measures (Johnson rarely contradicted visitors, often fooling those who met with him into thinking he was in accord). In fact, the President opposed both bills as infringements on state sovereignty. Additionally, both of Trumbull's bills were unpopular among white Southerners, whom Johnson hoped to include in his new party. Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau bill on February 18, 1866, to the delight of white Southerners and the puzzled anger of Republican legislators. He considered himself vindicated when a move to override his veto failed in the Senate the following day. Johnson believed that the Radicals would now be isolated and defeated and that the moderate Republicans would form behind him; he did not understand that Moderates also wanted to see African Americans treated fairly.
On February 22, 1866, Washington's Birthday, Johnson gave an impromptu speech to supporters who had marched to the White House and called for an address in honor of the first president. In his hour-long speech, he instead referred to himself over 200 times. More damagingly, he also spoke of "men ... still opposed to the Union" to whom he could not extend the hand of friendship he gave to the South. When called upon by the crowd to say who they were, Johnson named Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and accused them of plotting his assassination. Republicans viewed the address as a declaration of war, while one Democratic ally estimated Johnson's speech cost the party 200,000 votes in the 1866 congressional midterm elections.
Although strongly urged by moderates to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. In his veto message, he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress, and that it discriminated in favor of African Americans and against whites. Within three weeks, Congress had overridden his veto, the first time that had been done on a major bill in American history. The veto, often seen as a key mistake of Johnson's presidency, convinced moderates there was no hope of working with him. Historian Eric Foner, in his volume on Reconstruction, views it as "the most disastrous miscalculation of his political career". According to Stewart, the veto was "for many his defining blunder, setting a tone of perpetual confrontation with Congress that prevailed for the rest of his presidency".
Congress also proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the states. Written by Trumbull and others, it was sent for ratification by state legislatures in a process in which the president plays no part, though Johnson opposed it. The amendment was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but also went further. The amendment extended citizenship to every person born in the United States (except Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It also guaranteed that the federal debt would be paid and forbade repayment of Confederate war debts. Further, it disqualified many former Confederates from office, although the disability could be removed — by Congress, not the president. Both houses passed the Freedmen's Bureau Act a second time, and again the President vetoed it; this time, the veto was overridden. By the summer of 1866, when Congress finally adjourned, Johnson's method of restoring states to the Union by executive fiat, without safeguards for the freedmen, was in deep trouble. His home state of Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment despite the President's opposition. When Tennessee did so, Congress immediately seated its proposed delegation, embarrassing Johnson.
Efforts to compromise failed, and a political war ensued between the united Republicans on one side, and on the other, Johnson and his Northern and Southern allies in the Democratic Party. He called a convention of the National Union Party. Republicans had returned to using their previous identifier; Johnson intended to use the discarded name to unite his supporters and gain election to a full term, in 1868. The battleground was the election of 1866; Southern states were not allowed to vote. Johnson campaigned vigorously, undertaking a public speaking tour, known as the "Swing Around the Circle". The trip, including speeches in Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Columbus, proved politically disastrous, with the President making controversial comparisons between himself and Jesus, and engaging in arguments with hecklers. These exchanges were attacked as beneath the dignity of the presidency. The Republicans won by a landslide, increasing their two-thirds majority in Congress, and made plans to control Reconstruction. Johnson blamed the Democrats for giving only lukewarm support to the National Union movement.
Radical Reconstruction.
Even with the Republican victory in November 1866, Johnson considered himself in a strong position. The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified by none of the Southern or border states except Tennessee, and had been rejected in Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland. As the amendment required ratification by three-quarters of the states to become part of the Constitution, he believed the deadlock would be broken in his favor, leading to his election in 1868. Once it reconvened in December 1866, an energized Congress began passing legislation, often over a presidential veto; this included the District of Columbia voting bill. Congress admitted Nebraska to the Union over a veto, and the Republicans gained two senators and a state that promptly ratified the amendment. Johnson's veto of a bill for statehood for Colorado Territory was sustained; enough senators agreed that a district with a population of 30,000 was not yet worthy of statehood to win the day.
In January 1867, Congressman Stevens introduced legislation to dissolve the Southern state governments and reconstitute them into five military districts, under martial law. The states would begin again by holding constitutional conventions. African Americans could vote for or become delegates; former Confederates could not. In the legislative process, Congress added to the bill that restoration to the Union would follow the state's ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and completion of the process of adding it to the Constitution. Johnson and the Southerners attempted a compromise, whereby the South would agree to a modified version of the amendment without the disqualification of former Confederates, and for limited black suffrage. The Republicans insisted on the full language of the amendment, and the deal fell through. Although Johnson could have pocket vetoed the First Reconstruction Act as it was presented to him less than ten days before the end of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, he chose to veto it directly on March 2, 1867; Congress overruled him the same day. Also on March 2, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over the President's veto, in response to statements during the Swing Around the Circle that he planned to fire Cabinet secretaries who did not agree with him. This bill, requiring Senate approval for the firing of Cabinet members during the tenure of the president who appointed them and for one month afterwards, was immediately controversial, with some senators doubting that it was constitutional or that its terms applied to Johnson, whose key Cabinet officers were Lincoln holdovers.
Impeachment.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was an able and hard-working man, but difficult to deal with. Johnson both admired and was exasperated by his War Secretary, who, in combination with General of the Army Grant, worked to undermine the president's Southern policy from within his own administration. Johnson considered firing Stanton, but respected him for his wartime service as secretary. Stanton, for his part, feared allowing Johnson to appoint his successor and refused to resign, despite his public disagreements with his president.
The new Congress met for a few weeks in March 1867, then adjourned, leaving the House Committee on the Judiciary behind, tasked in the first impeachment inquiry against Johnson with reporting back to the full House whether there were grounds for Johnson to be impeached. This committee duly met, examined the President's bank accounts, and summoned members of the Cabinet to testify. When a federal court released former Confederate president Davis on bail on May 13 (he had been captured shortly after the war), the committee investigated whether the President had impeded the prosecution. It learned that Johnson was eager to have Davis tried. A bipartisan majority of the committee voted down impeachment charges; the committee adjourned on June 3.
Later in June, Johnson and Stanton battled over the question of whether the military officers placed in command of the South could override the civil authorities. The President had Attorney General Henry Stanbery issue an opinion backing his position that they could not. Johnson sought to pin down Stanton either as for, and thus endorsing Johnson's position, or against, showing himself to be opposed to his president and the rest of the Cabinet. Stanton evaded the point in meetings and written communications. When Congress reconvened in July, it passed a Reconstruction Act against Johnson's position, waited for his veto, overrode it, and went home. In addition to clarifying the powers of the generals, the legislation also deprived the President of control over the Army in the South. With Congress in recess until November, Johnson decided to fire Stanton and relieve one of the military commanders, General Philip Sheridan, who had dismissed the governor of Texas and installed a replacement with little popular support. Johnson was initially deterred by a strong objection from Grant, but on August 5, the President demanded Stanton's resignation; the secretary refused to quit with Congress out of session. Johnson then suspended him pending the next meeting of Congress as permitted under the Tenure of Office Act; Grant agreed to serve as temporary replacement while continuing to lead the Army.
Grant, under protest, followed Johnson's order transferring Sheridan and another of the district commanders, Daniel Sickles, who had angered Johnson by firmly following Congress's plan. The President also issued a proclamation pardoning most Confederates, exempting those who held office under the Confederacy, or who had served in federal office before the war but had breached their oaths. Although Republicans expressed anger with his actions, the 1867 elections generally went Democratic. No seats in Congress were directly elected in the polling, but the Democrats took control of the Ohio General Assembly, allowing them to defeat for reelection one of Johnson's strongest opponents, Senator Benjamin Wade. Voters in Ohio, Connecticut, and Minnesota turned down propositions to grant African Americans the vote.
The adverse results momentarily put a stop to Republican calls to impeach Johnson, who was elated by the elections. Nevertheless, once Congress met in November, the Judiciary Committee reversed itself and passed a resolution of impeachment against Johnson. After much debate about whether anything the President had done was a high crime or misdemeanor, the standard under the Constitution, the resolution was defeated by the House of Representatives on December 7, 1867, by a vote of 57 in favor to 108 opposed.
Johnson notified Congress of Stanton's suspension and Grant's interim appointment. In January 1868, the Senate disapproved of his action, and reinstated Stanton, contending the President had violated the Tenure of Office Act. Grant stepped aside over Johnson's objection, causing a complete break between them. Johnson then dismissed Stanton and appointed Lorenzo Thomas to replace him. Stanton refused to leave his office, and on February 24, 1868, the House impeached the President for intentionally violating the Tenure of Office Act, by a vote of 128 to 47. The House subsequently adopted eleven articles of impeachment, for the most part alleging that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act, and had questioned the legitimacy of Congress.
On March 5, 1868, the impeachment trial began in the Senate and lasted almost three months; Congressmen George S. Boutwell, Benjamin Butler and Thaddeus Stevens acted as managers for the House, or prosecutors, and William M. Evarts, Benjamin R. Curtis and former Attorney General Stanbery were Johnson's counsel; Chief Justice Chase served as presiding judge.
The defense relied on the provision of the Tenure of Office Act that made it applicable only to appointees of the current administration. Since Lincoln had appointed Stanton, the defense maintained Johnson had not violated the act, and also argued that the President had the right to test the constitutionality of an act of Congress. Johnson's counsel insisted that he make no appearance at the trial, nor publicly comment about the proceedings, and except for a pair of interviews in April, he complied.
Johnson maneuvered to gain an acquittal; for example, he pledged to Iowa Senator James W. Grimes that he would not interfere with Congress's Reconstruction efforts. Grimes reported to a group of Moderates, many of whom voted for acquittal, that he believed the President would keep his word. Johnson also promised to install the respected John Schofield as War Secretary. Kansas Senator Edmund G. Ross received assurances that the new, Radical-influenced constitutions ratified in South Carolina and Arkansas would be transmitted to the Congress without delay, an action which would give him and other senators political cover to vote for acquittal.
One reason senators were reluctant to remove the President was that his successor would have been Ohio Senator Wade, the president "pro tempore" of the Senate. Wade, a lame duck who left office in early 1869, was a Radical who supported such measures as women's suffrage, placing him beyond the pale politically in much of the nation. Additionally, a President Wade was seen as an obstacle to Grant's ambitions.
With the dealmaking, Johnson was confident of the result in advance of the verdict, and in the days leading up to the ballot, newspapers reported that Stevens and his Radicals had given up. On May 16, the Senate voted on the 11th article of impeachment, accusing Johnson of firing Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office of Act once the Senate had overturned his suspension. Thirty-five senators voted "guilty" and 19 "not guilty", thus falling short by a single vote of the two-thirds majority required for conviction under the Constitution. Ten Republicans—Senators Grimes, Ross, Trumbull, James Dixon, James Rood Doolittle, Daniel Sheldon Norton, William Pitt Fessenden, Joseph S. Fowler, John B. Henderson, and Peter G. Van Winkle—voted to acquit the President. With Stevens bitterly disappointed at the result, the Senate then adjourned for the Republican National Convention; Grant was nominated for president. The Senate returned on May 26 and voted on the second and third articles, with identical 35–19 results. Faced with those results, Johnson's opponents gave up and dismissed proceedings. Stanton "relinquished" his office on May 26, and the Senate subsequently confirmed Schofield. When Johnson renominated Stanbery to return to his position as Attorney General after his service as a defense manager, the Senate refused to confirm him.
Allegations were made at the time and again later that bribery dictated the outcome of the trial. Even when it was in progress, Representative Butler began an investigation, held contentious hearings, and issued a report, unendorsed by any other congressman. Butler focused on a New York–based "Astor House Group", supposedly led by political boss and editor Thurlow Weed. This organization was said to have raised large sums of money from whiskey interests through Cincinnati lawyer Charles Woolley to bribe senators to acquit Johnson. Butler went so far as to imprison Woolley in the Capitol building when he refused to answer questions, but failed to prove bribery.
Foreign policy.
Soon after taking office as president, Johnson reached an accord with Secretary of State William H. Seward that there would be no change in foreign policy. In practice, this meant that Seward would continue to run things as he had under Lincoln. Seward and Lincoln had been rivals for the nomination in 1860; the victor hoped that Seward would succeed him as president in 1869. At the time of Johnson's accession, the French had intervened in Mexico, sending troops there. While many politicians had indulged in saber rattling over the Mexican matter, Seward preferred quiet diplomacy, warning the French through diplomatic channels that their presence in Mexico was unacceptable. Although the President preferred a more aggressive approach, Seward persuaded him to follow his lead. In April 1866, the French government informed Seward that its troops would be brought home in stages, to conclude by November 1867. On August 14, 1866, Johnson and his cabinet gave a reception for Queen Emma of Hawaii who was returning to Hawaii after her trip to Britain and Europe.
Seward was an expansionist, and sought opportunities to gain territory for the United States. After the loss of the Crimean War in the 1850s, the Russian government saw its North American colony (today Alaska) as a financial liability, and feared losing control to Britain whose troops would easily swoop in and annex the territory from neighboring Canada in any future conflict. Negotiations between Russia and the U.S. over the sale of Alaska were halted due to the outbreak of the Civil War, but after the U.S. victory in the war, talks resumed. Russia instructed its minister in Washington, Baron Eduard de Stoeckl, to negotiate a sale. De Stoeckl did so deftly, getting Seward to raise his offer from $5 million (coincidentally, the minimum that Russia had instructed de Stoeckl to accept) to $7 million, and then getting $200,000 added by raising various objections. This sum of $7.2 million is equivalent to $ in present-day terms. On March 30, 1867, de Stoeckl and Seward signed the treaty, working quickly as the Senate was about to adjourn. Johnson and Seward took the signed document to the President's Room in the Capitol, only to be told there was no time to deal with the matter before adjournment. The President summoned the Senate into session to meet on April 1; that body approved the treaty, 37–2. Emboldened by his success in Alaska, Seward sought acquisitions elsewhere. His only success was staking an American claim to uninhabited Wake Island in the Pacific, which would be officially claimed by the U.S. in 1898. He came close with the Danish West Indies as Denmark agreed to sell and the local population approved the transfer in a plebiscite, but the Senate never voted on the treaty and it expired.
Another treaty that fared badly was the Johnson-Clarendon convention, negotiated in settlement of the "Alabama" Claims, for damages to American shipping from British-built Confederate raiders. Negotiated by the United States Minister to Britain, former Maryland senator Reverdy Johnson, in late 1868, it was ignored by the Senate during the remainder of the President's term. The treaty was rejected after he left office, and the Grant administration later negotiated considerably better terms from Britain.
Administration and Cabinet.
Judicial appointments.
Johnson appointed nine Article III federal judges during his presidency, all to United States district courts; he did not appoint a justice to serve on the Supreme Court. In April 1866, he nominated Henry Stanbery to fill the vacancy left with the death of John Catron, but Congress eliminated the seat to prevent the appointment, and to ensure that he did not get to make any appointments eliminated the next vacancy as well, providing that the court would shrink by one justice when one next departed from office. Johnson appointed his Greeneville crony, Samuel Milligan, to the United States Court of Claims, where he served from 1868 until his death in 1874.
Judicial appointments.
Johnson appointed nine Article III federal judges during his presidency, all to United States district courts; he did not appoint a justice to serve on the Supreme Court. In April 1866, he nominated Henry Stanbery to fill the vacancy left with the death of John Catron, but Congress eliminated the seat to prevent the appointment, and to ensure that he did not get to make any appointments eliminated the next vacancy as well, providing that the court would shrink by one justice when one next departed from office. Johnson appointed his Greeneville crony, Samuel Milligan, to the United States Court of Claims, where he served from 1868 until his death in 1874.
Reforms initiated.
In June 1866, Johnson signed the Southern Homestead Act into law, believing that the legislation would assist poor whites. Around 28,000 land claims were successfully patented, although few former slaves benefitted from the law, fraud was rampant, and much of the best land was off-limits, reserved for grants to veterans or railroads. In June 1868, Johnson signed an eight-hour law passed by Congress that established an eight-hour workday for laborers and mechanics employed by the Federal Government. Although Johnson told members of a Workingmen's party delegation in Baltimore that he could not directly commit himself to an eight-hour day, he nevertheless told the same delegation that he greatly favoured the "shortest number of hours consistent with the interests of all". According to Richard F. Selcer, however, the good intentions behind the law were "immediately frustrated" as wages were cut by 20%.
Completion of term.
Johnson sought nomination by the 1868 Democratic National Convention in New York in July 1868. He remained very popular among Southern whites, and boosted that popularity by issuing, just before the convention, a pardon ending the possibility of criminal proceedings against any Confederate not already indicted, meaning that only Davis and a few others still might face trial. On the first ballot, Johnson was second to former Ohio representative George H. Pendleton, who had been his Democratic opponent for vice president in 1864. Johnson's support was mostly from the South, and fell away as the ballots passed. On the 22nd ballot, former New York governor Horatio Seymour was nominated, and the President received only four votes, all from Tennessee.
The conflict with Congress continued. Johnson sent Congress proposals for amendments to limit the president to a single six-year term and make the president and the Senate directly elected, and for term limits for judges. Congress took no action on them. When the President was slow to officially report ratifications of the Fourteenth Amendment by the new Southern legislatures, Congress passed a bill, again over his veto, requiring him to do so within ten days of receipt. He still delayed as much as he could, but was required, in July 1868, to report the ratifications making the amendment part of the Constitution.
Seymour's operatives sought Johnson's support, but he long remained silent on the presidential campaign. It was not until October, with the vote already having taken place in some states, that he mentioned Seymour at all, and he never endorsed him. Nevertheless, Johnson regretted Grant's victory, in part because of their animus from the Stanton affair. In his annual message to Congress in December, Johnson urged the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act and told legislators that had they admitted their Southern colleagues in 1865, all would have been well. He celebrated his 60th birthday in late December with a party for several hundred children, though not including those of President-elect Grant, who did not allow his to go.
On Christmas Day 1868, Johnson issued a final amnesty, this one covering everyone, including Davis. He also issued, in his final months in office, pardons for crimes, including one for Dr. Samuel Mudd, controversially convicted of involvement in the Lincoln assassination (he had set Booth's broken leg) and imprisoned in on Florida's Dry Tortugas.
On March 3, the President hosted a large public reception at the White House on his final full day in office. Grant had made it known that he was unwilling to ride in the same carriage as Johnson, as was customary, and Johnson refused to go to the inauguration at all. Despite an effort by Seward to prompt a change of mind, he spent the morning of March 4 finishing last-minute business, and then shortly after noon rode from the White House to the home of a friend.
Post-presidency (1869–1875).
After leaving the presidency, Johnson remained for some weeks in Washington, then returned to Greeneville for the first time in eight years. He was honored with large public celebrations along the way, especially in Tennessee, where cities hostile to him during the war hung out welcome banners. He had arranged to purchase a large farm near Greeneville to live on after his presidency.
Some expected Johnson to run for Governor of Tennessee or for the Senate again, while others thought that he would become a railroad executive. Johnson found Greeneville boring, and his private life was embittered by the suicide of his son Robert in 1869. Seeking vindication for himself, and revenge against his political enemies, he launched a Senate bid soon after returning home. Tennessee had gone Republican, but court rulings restoring the vote to some whites and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan suppressing the African-American vote, leading to a Democratic victory in the legislative elections in August 1869. Johnson was seen as a likely victor in the Senate election, although hated by Radical Republicans, and by some Democrats because of his wartime activities. Although he was at one point within a single vote of victory in the legislature's balloting, the Republicans eventually elected Henry Cooper over Johnson, 54–51. In 1872, there was a special election for an ; Johnson initially sought the Democratic nomination, but when he saw that it would go to former Confederate general Benjamin F. Cheatham, decided to run as an independent. The former president was defeated, finishing third, but the split in the Democratic Party defeated Cheatham in favor of an old Johnson Unionist ally, Horace Maynard.
In 1873, Johnson contracted cholera during an epidemic but recovered; that year he lost about $73,000 when the First National Bank of Washington went under, though he was eventually repaid much of the sum.
Return to the Senate.
He began looking towards the next Senate election to take place in the legislature in early 1875. Johnson began to woo the farmers' Grange movement; with his Jeffersonian leanings, he easily gained their support. He spoke throughout the state in his final campaign tour. Few African Americans outside the large towns were now able to vote as Reconstruction faded in Tennessee, setting a pattern that would be repeated in the other Southern states; the white domination would last almost a century. In the Tennessee legislative elections in August, the Democrats elected 92 legislators to the Republicans' eight, and Johnson went to Nashville for the legislative session. When the balloting for the Senate seat began on January 20, 1875, he led with 30 votes, but did not have the required majority as three former Confederate generals, one former colonel, and a former Democratic congressman split the vote with him. Johnson's opponents tried to agree on a single candidate who might gain majority support and defeat him, but failed, and he was elected on January 26 on the 54th ballot, with a margin of a single vote. Nashville erupted in rejoicing; remarked Johnson, "Thank God for the vindication."
Johnson's comeback garnered national attention, with the "St. Louis Republican" calling it "the most magnificent personal triumph which the history of American politics can show". At his swearing-in in the Senate on March 5, 1875, he was greeted with flowers, and sworn in alongside Hamlin (his predecessor as vice president) by incumbent Vice President Henry Wilson (who as senator had voted for Johnson's ouster). Many Republicans ignored Senator Johnson, though some, such as Ohio's John Sherman (who had voted for conviction), shook his hand. Johnson remains the only former president to serve in the Senate. He spoke only once in the short session, on March 22 lambasting President Grant for his use of federal troops in support of Louisiana's Reconstruction government. The former president asked, "How far off is military despotism?" and concluded his speech, "may God bless this people and God save the Constitution".
Death.
Johnson returned home after the special session concluded. In late July 1875, convinced some of his opponents were defaming him in the Ohio gubernatorial race, he decided to travel there to give speeches. He began the trip on July 28, and broke the journey at his daughter Mary's farm near Elizabethton, where his daughter Martha was also staying. That evening he had a stroke, but refused medical treatment until the next day, when he did not improve and two doctors were sent for from Elizabethton. He seemed to respond to their ministrations, but had another stroke on the evening of July 30, and died early the following morning at the age of 66. President Grant had the "painful duty" of announcing the death of the only surviving past president. Northern newspapers, in their obituaries, tended to focus on Johnson's loyalty during the war, while Southern ones paid tribute to his actions as president. Johnson's funeral was held on August 3 in Greeneville. He was buried with his body wrapped in an American flag and a copy of the U.S. Constitution placed under his head, according to his wishes. The burial ground was dedicated as the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in 1906, and with his home and tailor's shop, is part of the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site.
Return to the Senate.
He began looking towards the next Senate election to take place in the legislature in early 1875. Johnson began to woo the farmers' Grange movement; with his Jeffersonian leanings, he easily gained their support. He spoke throughout the state in his final campaign tour. Few African Americans outside the large towns were now able to vote as Reconstruction faded in Tennessee, setting a pattern that would be repeated in the other Southern states; the white domination would last almost a century. In the Tennessee legislative elections in August, the Democrats elected 92 legislators to the Republicans' eight, and Johnson went to Nashville for the legislative session. When the balloting for the Senate seat began on January 20, 1875, he led with 30 votes, but did not have the required majority as three former Confederate generals, one former colonel, and a former Democratic congressman split the vote with him. Johnson's opponents tried to agree on a single candidate who might gain majority support and defeat him, but failed, and he was elected on January 26 on the 54th ballot, with a margin of a single vote. Nashville erupted in rejoicing; remarked Johnson, "Thank God for the vindication."
Johnson's comeback garnered national attention, with the "St. Louis Republican" calling it "the most magnificent personal triumph which the history of American politics can show". At his swearing-in in the Senate on March 5, 1875, he was greeted with flowers, and sworn in alongside Hamlin (his predecessor as vice president) by incumbent Vice President Henry Wilson (who as senator had voted for Johnson's ouster). Many Republicans ignored Senator Johnson, though some, such as Ohio's John Sherman (who had voted for conviction), shook his hand. Johnson remains the only former president to serve in the Senate. He spoke only once in the short session, on March 22 lambasting President Grant for his use of federal troops in support of Louisiana's Reconstruction government. The former president asked, "How far off is military despotism?" and concluded his speech, "may God bless this people and God save the Constitution".
Death.
Johnson returned home after the special session concluded. In late July 1875, convinced some of his opponents were defaming him in the Ohio gubernatorial race, he decided to travel there to give speeches. He began the trip on July 28, and broke the journey at his daughter Mary's farm near Elizabethton, where his daughter Martha was also staying. That evening he had a stroke, but refused medical treatment until the next day, when he did not improve and two doctors were sent for from Elizabethton. He seemed to respond to their ministrations, but had another stroke on the evening of July 30, and died early the following morning at the age of 66. President Grant had the "painful duty" of announcing the death of the only surviving past president. Northern newspapers, in their obituaries, tended to focus on Johnson's loyalty during the war, while Southern ones paid tribute to his actions as president. Johnson's funeral was held on August 3 in Greeneville. He was buried with his body wrapped in an American flag and a copy of the U.S. Constitution placed under his head, according to his wishes. The burial ground was dedicated as the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in 1906, and with his home and tailor's shop, is part of the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site.
Historical reputation and legacy.
According to Castel, "historians [of Johnson's presidency] have tended to concentrate to the exclusion of practically everything else upon his role in that titanic event [Reconstruction]." Through the remainder of the 19th century, there were few historical evaluations of Johnson and his presidency. Memoirs from Northerners who had dealt with him, such as former vice president Henry Wilson and Maine Senator James G. Blaine, depicted him as an obstinate boor who tried to favor the South in Reconstruction but was frustrated by Congress. According to historian Howard K. Beale in his journal article about the historiography of Reconstruction, "Men of the postwar decades were more concerned with justifying their own position than they were with painstaking search for truth. Thus [Alabama congressman and historian] Hilary Herbert and his corroborators presented a Southern indictment of Northern policies, and Henry Wilson's history was a brief for the North."
The turn of the 20th century saw the first significant historical evaluations of Johnson. Leading the wave was Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James Ford Rhodes, who wrote of the former president:
Rhodes ascribed Johnson's faults to his personal weaknesses, and blamed him for the problems of the postbellum South. Other early 20th-century historians, such as John Burgess, future president Woodrow Wilson, and William Dunning, concurred with Rhodes, believing Johnson flawed and politically inept but concluding that he had tried to carry out Lincoln's plans for the South in good faith. Author and journalist Jay Tolson suggests that Wilson "depict[ed Reconstruction] as a vindictive program that hurt even repentant southerners while benefiting northern opportunists, the so-called Carpetbaggers, and cynical white southerners, or Scalawags, who exploited alliances with blacks for political gain."
Even as Rhodes and his school wrote, another group of historians (Dunning School) was setting out on the full rehabilitation of Johnson, using for the first time primary sources such as his papers, provided by his daughter Martha before her death in 1901, and the diaries of Johnson's Navy Secretary, Gideon Welles, first published in 1911. The resulting volumes, such as David Miller DeWitt's "The Impeachment and Trial of President Andrew Johnson" (1903), presented him far more favorably than they did those who had sought to oust him. In James Schouler's 1913 "History of the Reconstruction Period", the author accused Rhodes of being "quite unfair to Johnson", though agreeing that the former president had created many of his own problems through inept political moves. These works had an effect; although historians continued to view Johnson as having deep flaws which sabotaged his presidency, they saw his Reconstruction policies as fundamentally correct.
Castel writes:
Beale wondered in 1940, "is it not time that we studied the history of Reconstruction without first assuming, at least subconsciously, that carpetbaggers and Southern white Republicans were wicked, that Negroes were illiterate incompetents, and that the whole white South owes a debt of gratitude to the restorers of 'white supremacy'?" Despite these doubts, the favorable view of Johnson survived for a time. In 1942, Van Heflin portrayed the former president as a fighter for democracy in the Hollywood film "Tennessee Johnson". In 1948, a poll of his colleagues by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger deemed Johnson among the average presidents; in 1956, one by Clinton L. Rossiter named him as one of the near-great chief executives. Foner notes that at the time of these surveys, "the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War was regarded as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote."
Earlier historians, including Beale, believed that money drove events, and had seen Reconstruction as an economic struggle. They also accepted, for the most part, that reconciliation between North and South should have been the top priority of Reconstruction. In the 1950s, historians began to focus on the African-American experience as central to Reconstruction. They rejected completely any claim of black inferiority, which had marked many earlier historical works, and saw the developing civil rights movement as a second Reconstruction; some neoabolitionist writers stated they hoped their work on the postbellum era would advance the cause of civil rights. These authors sympathized with the Radical Republicans for their desire to help the African American, and saw Johnson as callous towards the freedman. In a number of works from 1956 onwards by such historians as Fawn Brodie, the former president was depicted as a successful saboteur of efforts to better the freedman's lot. These volumes included major biographies of Stevens and Stanton. Reconstruction was increasingly seen as a noble effort to integrate the freed slaves into society.
In the early 21st century, Johnson is among those commonly mentioned as the worst presidents in U.S. history. According to historian Glenn W. Lafantasie, who believes James Buchanan the worst president, "Johnson is a particular favorite for the bottom of the pile because of his impeachment ... his complete mishandling of Reconstruction policy ... his bristling personality, and his enormous sense of self-importance." Tolson suggests that "Johnson is now scorned for having resisted Radical Republican policies aimed at securing the rights and well-being of the newly emancipated African-Americans." Gordon-Reed notes that Johnson, along with his contemporaries Pierce and Buchanan, is generally listed among the five worst presidents, but states "there have never been more difficult times in the life of this nation. The problems these men had to confront were enormous. It would have taken a succession of Lincolns to do them justice."
Trefousse considers Johnson's legacy to be "the maintenance of white supremacy. His boost to Southern conservatives by undermining Reconstruction was his legacy to the nation, one that would trouble the country for generations to come." Gordon-Reed states of Johnson:
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Alfonso IV of Aragon
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Alfonso IV, called the Kind (also "the Gentle" or "the Nice", ) (2 November 1299 – 24 January 1336) was King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona (as Alfons III) from 1327 to his death. His reign saw the incorporation of the County of Urgell, Duchy of Athens, and Duchy of Neopatria into the Crown of Aragon.
Biography.
Alfonso was born in Naples, the second son of James II and Blanche of Anjou. In 1314, aged 14, he married Teresa d'Entença y Cabrera, heiress of Urgell, who was the same age as him. Teresa's granduncle Ermengol X of Urgell had died childless in La Llitera; before his death, he had agreed to make Alfonso his heir, on condition that Alfonso would marry Teresa, who was his nearest kin. Alfonso was at this time only the second son (and not the heir) of the king of Aragon. He and his father readily agreed to Ermengol's condition, and Alfonso married Teresa in 1314 in the Cathedral of Lerida. The teenage bridegroom is reputed to have been so liberal in the expenses during the wedding, that the local counsels imposed restrictions on how much he could spend. Alfonso and Teresa became the parents of seven children.
Alfonso became heir to the throne in December 1319 after his older brother James renounced his rights to become a monk. During the reign of his father, Alfonso was the procurator-general of the Crown, and in 1323–1324, he undertook the conquest of Sardinia.
Alfonso's father and first wife Teresa died within a few days of each other in 1327. Teresa died in childbirth on 20 October 1327, and James II died on 2 November 1327, whereupon Alfonso became king. In 1329, he began a long war with the Republic of Genoa. The city of Sassari had previously surrendered to Alfonso in 1323, but rebelled three more times; its possession was contested by Genoa, which led to the protracted war.
In February 1329, Alfonso married Eleanor of Castile (1308–1359), the sister of king Alfonso XI of Castile. Eleanor had been briefly married to Alfonso's elder brother James the monk. That marriage, which James had refused to consummate, had been annulled in 1319–20. Eleanor had thereafter retired to a convent (although she never took the veil) and had remained unmarried. By December the same year, the couple were rejoiced to become the parents of a son, Ferdinand, who was followed five years later by another son, John.
Eleanor earnestly sought to advance the interests of her own infant sons over those of her stepson, the "Infante" Peter, who was the heir-apparent. She convinced her husband to grant very large and significant territories to her sons. on 28 December 1329, Alfonso granted his new-born son Ferdinand the Marquisate of Tortosa and the cities of Albarracín, Orihuela, Callosa d'en Sarrià, Guardamar, Alicante, Monforte, Elda, La Mola, Novelda and Aspe. Eleanor's younger son John, who was born five years later, was also granted several lordships when he was only a toddler: Elche, Biel and Bolsa were all bestowed upon him. These territories would be controlled by Eleanor, who had also received the city of Huesca and some other villages and castles belonging to the Aragonese crown at the time of her wedding. Nor was this all. While all of the above grants had been made from among the possessions of the Aragonese crown, the King also sought to bestow estates located within the Kingdom of Valencia upon the toddler Ferdinand, but he was prevented from doing so. When the King granted Ferdinand the cities of Xàtiva, Alzira, Sagunto, Morella, Burriana and Castellón de la Plana, all located in the Kingdom of Valencia, the local subjects protested, and for this reason the King decided to revoked these patents. These grants of land diminished the territorial patrimony of the crown and mainly affected the "Infante" Peter, Alfonso's son by his first wife, who however was too young to make any significant protest. However, the issue agitated the court, created a climate of resentment and divided the nobility into two camps.
Alfonso died in January 1336, aged only 36. He was succeeded by Peter IV, his 16-year-old son from his first marriage.
Children.
By Teresa d'Entença:
By Eleanor of Castile:
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1685
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Amasis II
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Amasis II ( ; "ḤMS") or Ahmose II was a pharaoh (reigned 570526 BCE) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the successor of Apries at Sais. He was the last great ruler of Egypt before the Persian conquest.
Life.
Most of our information about him is derived from Herodotus (2.161ff) and can only be imperfectly verified by monumental evidence. According to the Greek historian, he was of common origins. He was originally an officer in the Egyptian army. His birthplace was Siuph at Saïs. He took part in a general campaign of Pharaoh Psamtik II in 592 BC in Nubia.
A revolt which broke out among native Egyptian soldiers gave him his opportunity to seize the throne. These troops, returning home from a disastrous military expedition to Cyrene in Libya, suspected that they had been betrayed in order that Apries, the reigning king, might rule more absolutely by means of his Greek mercenaries; many Egyptians fully sympathized with them. General Amasis, sent to meet them and quell the revolt, was proclaimed king by the rebels instead, and Apries, who then had to rely entirely on his mercenaries, was defeated. Apries fled to the Babylonians and was captured and killed mounting an invasion of his native homeland in 567 BCE with the aid of a Babylonian army. An inscription confirms the struggle between the native Egyptian and the foreign soldiery, and proves that Apries was killed and honourably buried in the third year of Amasis ( BCE). Amasis then married Khedebneithirbinet II, one of the daughters of his predecessor Apries, in order to legitimise his kingship.
Some information is known about the family origins of Amasis: his mother was a certain Tashereniset, as a bust of her, today located in the British Museum, shows. A stone block from Mehallet el-Kubra also establishes that his maternal grandmother—Tashereniset's mother—was a certain Tjenmutetj.
His court is relatively well known. The head of the gate guard Ahmose-sa-Neith appears on numerous monuments, including the location of his sarcophagus. He was referenced on monuments of the 30th Dynasty and apparently had a special significance in his time. Wahibre was 'Leader of the southern foreigners' and 'Head of the doors of foreigners', so he was the highest official for border security. Under Amasis the career of the doctor, Udjahorresnet, began, who was of particular importance to the Persians. Several "heads of the fleet" are known. Psamtek Meryneit and Pasherientaihet / Padineith are the only known viziers.
Herodotus describes how Amasis II would eventually cause a confrontation with the Persian armies. According to Herodotus, Amasis was asked by Cambyses II or Cyrus the Great for an Egyptian ophthalmologist on good terms. Amasis seems to have complied by forcing an Egyptian physician into mandatory labor, causing him to leave his family behind in Egypt and move to Persia in forced exile. In an attempt to exact revenge for this, the physician grew very close to Cambyses and suggested that Cambyses should ask Amasis for a daughter in marriage in order to solidify his bonds with the Egyptians. Cambyses complied and requested a daughter of Amasis for marriage.
Amasis, worrying that his daughter would be a concubine to the Persian king, refused to give up his offspring; Amasis also was not willing to take on the Persian empire, so he concocted a deception in which he forced the daughter of the ex-pharaoh Apries, whom Herodotus explicitly confirms to have been killed by Amasis, to go to Persia instead of his own offspring.
This daughter of Apries was none other than Nitetis, who was, as per Herodotus's account, "tall and beautiful." Nitetis naturally betrayed Amasis and upon being greeted by the Persian king explained Amasis's trickery and her true origins. This infuriated Cambyses and he vowed to take revenge for it. Amasis died before Cambyses reached him, but his heir and son Psamtik III was defeated by the Persians.
Herodotus also describes how, just like his predecessor, Amasis relied on Greek mercenaries and councilmen. One such figure was Phanes of Halicarnassus, who would later leave Amasis, for reasons that Herodotus does not clearly know, but suspects were personal between the two figures. Amasis sent one of his eunuchs to capture Phanes, but the eunuch was bested by the wise councilman and Phanes fled to Persia, meeting up with Cambyses and providing advice for his invasion of Egypt. Egypt was finally lost to the Persians during the battle of Pelusium in 525 BC.
Egypt's wealth.
Amasis brought Egypt into closer contact with Greece than ever before. Herodotus relates that under his prudent administration, Egypt reached a new level of wealth; Amasis adorned the temples of Lower Egypt especially with splendid monolithic shrines and other monuments (his activity here is proved by existing remains). For example, a temple built by him was excavated at Tell Nebesha.
Amasis assigned the commercial colony of Naucratis on the Canopic branch of the Nile to the Greeks, and when the temple of Delphi was burnt, he contributed 1,000 talents to the rebuilding. He also married a Greek princess named Ladice daughter of King Battus III and made alliances with Polycrates of Samos and Croesus of Lydia. Montaigne cites the story by Herodotus that Ladice cured Amasis of his impotence by praying to Venus/Aphropdite.
Under Amasis, Egypt's agricultural based economy reached its zenith. Herodotus, who visited Egypt less than a century after Amasis II's death, writes that:
His kingdom consisted probably of Egypt only, as far as the First Cataract, but to this he added Cyprus, and his influence was great in Cyrene, Libya. In his fourth year ( BCE), Amasis was able to defeat an invasion of Egypt by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II; henceforth, the Babylonians experienced sufficient difficulties controlling their empire that they were forced to abandon future attacks against Amasis. However, Amasis was later faced with a more formidable enemy with the rise of Persia under Cyrus who ascended to the throne in 559 BCE; his final years were preoccupied by the threat of the impending Persian onslaught against Egypt. With great strategic skill, Cyrus had destroyed Lydia in 546 BCE and finally defeated the Babylonians in 538 BCE which left Amasis with no major Near Eastern allies to counter Persia's increasing military might. Amasis reacted by cultivating closer ties with the Greek states to counter the future Persian invasion into Egypt but died in 526 BCE shortly before the Persians attacked. The final assault instead fell upon his son Psamtik III, whom the Persians defeated in 525 BCE after he had reigned for only six months.
Tomb and desecration.
Amasis II died in 526 BC. He was buried at the royal necropolis of Sais, and while his tomb has not been rediscovered, Herodotus describes it for us:
Herodotus also relates the desecration of Amasis' mummy when the Persian king Cambyses conquered Egypt and thus ended the 26th (Saite) Dynasty:
Later reputation.
From the fifth century BCE, there is evidence of stories circulating about Amasis, in Egyptian sources (including a demotic papyrus of the third century BCE), Herodotus, Hellanikos, and Plutarch's "Convivium Septem Sapientium". 'In those tales Amasis was presented as a non-conventional Pharaoh, behaving in ways unbecoming to a king but gifted with practical wisdom and cunning, a trickster on the throne or a kind of comic Egyptian Solomon'.
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1700
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August Wilhelm Ambros
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August Wilhelm Ambros (17 November 181628 June 1876) was an Austrian composer and music historian of Czech descent.
Life.
He was born in Mýto, Rokycany District, Bohemia. His father was a cultured man, and his mother was the sister of Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773–1850), the musical archaeologist and collector. Ambros studied at the University of Prague and was well-educated in music and the arts, which were his abiding passion. He was, however, destined for the law and an official career in the Austrian civil service, and from 1839 he occupied various important posts under the ministry of justice, music being an avocation.
From 1850 onwards, he became well known as a critic and essay-writer, and in 1860 he began working on his magnum opus, his "History of Music", which was published at intervals from 1862 in five volumes, the last two (1878, 1882) being edited and completed by Otto Kade and Wilhelm Langhans.
Ambros was a professor of the history of music at Prague from 1869 to 1871. Also in Prague, he sat on the board of governors in the Prague Royal Conservatory. By 1872, he was living in Vienna and was employed by the Department of Justice as an officer and by Prince Rudolf's family as his tutor. Through his work in Vienna, he was given a leave of absence for half the year in order to let him travel the world to collect musical information to include in his "History of Music" book. He was an excellent pianist, and the author of numerous compositions reminiscent of Felix Mendelssohn.
Ambros died at Vienna, Austria at the age of 59.
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1687
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Amathus
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Amathus or Amathous () was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its impressive remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about west of Larnaca and east of Limassol. Its ancient cult sanctuary of Aphrodite was the second most important in Cyprus, her homeland, after Paphos.
Archaeological work has recently been continued at the site and many finds are exhibited in the Limassol Museum.
History.
Pre-history and ancient era.
The pre-history of Amathus survives in both myth and archaeology. Archaeology has detected human activity from the earliest Iron Age, BC.
The city's legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, who called the city after his mother Amathous. According to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb. According to Plutarch's source, Amathousians called the sacred grove where her shrine was situated the Wood of Aphrodite Ariadne. More purely Hellenic myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles, thus accounting for the fact that he was worshiped there.
It was said in antiquity that the people of Amathus were autochthonous, most likely Eteocyprian or "Pelasgian". Their non-Greek language is confirmed on the site by Eteocypriot inscriptions in the Cypriot syllabary which alone in the Aegean world survived the Bronze Age collapse and continued to be used down to the 4th century BC.
Amathus was built on the coastal cliffs with a natural harbour and flourished at an early date, soon requiring several cemeteries. Greeks from Euboea left their pottery at Amathus from the 10th century BC. During the post-Phoenician era of the 8th century BC, a palace was erected and a port was also constructed, which served the trade with the Greeks and the Levantines. A special burial ground for infants, a "tophet" served the culture of the Phoenicians. For the Hellenes, high on the cliff a temple was built, which became a worship site devoted to Aphrodite, in her particular local presence as "Aphrodite Amathusia" along with a bearded male Aphrodite called "Aphroditos". The excavators discovered the final stage of the Temple of Aphrodite, also known as Aphrodisias, which dates approximately to the 1st century BC. According to the legend, it was where festive Adonia took place, in which athletes competed in hunting wild boars during sport competitions; they also competed in dancing and singing, all to the honour of Adonis.
The earliest remains hitherto found on the site are tombs of the early Iron Age period of Graeco-Phoenician influences (1000-600 BC). Amathus is identified with "Kartihadasti" (Phoenician "New-Town") in the Cypriote tribute-list of Esarhaddon of Assyria (668 BC). It certainly maintained strong Phoenician sympathies, for it was its refusal to join the philhellene league of Onesilos of Salamis which provoked the revolt of Cyprus from Achaemenid Persia in 500-494 BC, when Amathus was besieged unsuccessfully and avenged itself by the capture and execution of Onesilos. Herodotus reports
Amathus was a rich and densely populated kingdom with a flourishing agriculture (grain and sheep) and copper mines situated very close to the northeast Kalavasos.
Hellenistic era.
About 385-380 BC, the philhellene Evagoras of Salamis was similarly opposed by Amathus, allied with Citium and Soli; and even after Alexander the city resisted annexation, and was bound over to give hostages to Seleucus. Its political importance was now ended but its temple of Adonis and Aphrodite Amathusia remained famous in Roman times. The epithet "Amathusia" in Roman poetry often means little more than "Cypriote," but attesting to the fame of the city.
From the 4th century BC the pedestals of two sculptures donated by the last Basileus of Amathous, Androkles, representing his two sons, Orestheus and Andragoras, have survived. Their inscriptions are in both Eteocyprian and Greek languages.
The decline of Amathus is often measured by the Ptolemaic gifts to Argos, where Amathus donated only 40 drachmas in 170-160 BC, but Kition and Salamis gave 208, Kourion 172, and Paphos 100. However, this figure contradicts the archaeologic evidence of new buildings in this period including a balneion, a bath, a gymnasium, as well as fortifications of the Acropolis, including a new tower. The port of Paphos appears to have lost traffic compared to Amathus in the Ptolemaic period, an indication that Paphos, as the capital of the island, perhaps offered fewer drachmas than the other cities for different reasons, like Amathus.
Roman era.
In the Roman era Amathus became the capital of one of the four administrative regions of Cyprus.
A Roman temple was built in the 1st century AD on top of the Hellenistic predecessor. The temple facilities remained so important in Roman times that 'Amathusia' was used as a synonym for 'Cypriot'.
Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Later, in the 4th century AD, Amasus became the see of a Christian bishop and continued to flourish until the Byzantine period. Of its bishops, Heliodorus was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and Alexander at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In the late 6th century, Saint Ioannis Eleimonas (John the Charitable), protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus and after 614 sent Theodorus, bishop of Amathus, to Jerusalem to ransom some slaves.
Today, Amathus is a see of the Church of Cyprus and is also listed (under the name "Amathus in Cypro", to distinguish it from "Amathus in Transjordan") as a titular see by the Catholic Church, which however, in line with the practice adopted after the Second Vatican Council, has made no appointments to the bishopric since the death of the last Latin titular bishop in 1984.
Anastasius Sinaita, the famous 7th-century prolific monk of Saint Catherine's Monastery, was born here. It is thought that he left Cyprus after the 649 Arab conquest of the island, setting out for the Holy Land, and eventually becoming a monk on Sinai.
Amathus declined and was already almost deserted when Richard Plantagenet won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The tombs were plundered and the stones from the beautiful edifices were brought to Limassol to be used for new constructions. Much later, in 1869, a great number of blocks of stone from Amathus were used for the construction of the Suez Canal. A ruined Byzantine church marks its site.
In modern times.
A new settlement close to Amathus but further inland, Agios Tychonas, is named after the bishop Saint Tychon of Amathus. The site of the ruins is within the borders of this village, though the expansion of the Limassol tourist area has threatened the ruins: it is speculated that some of the hotels are on top of the Amathus necropolis.
Pre-history and ancient era.
The pre-history of Amathus survives in both myth and archaeology. Archaeology has detected human activity from the earliest Iron Age, BC.
The city's legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, who called the city after his mother Amathous. According to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb. According to Plutarch's source, Amathousians called the sacred grove where her shrine was situated the Wood of Aphrodite Ariadne. More purely Hellenic myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles, thus accounting for the fact that he was worshiped there.
It was said in antiquity that the people of Amathus were autochthonous, most likely Eteocyprian or "Pelasgian". Their non-Greek language is confirmed on the site by Eteocypriot inscriptions in the Cypriot syllabary which alone in the Aegean world survived the Bronze Age collapse and continued to be used down to the 4th century BC.
Amathus was built on the coastal cliffs with a natural harbour and flourished at an early date, soon requiring several cemeteries. Greeks from Euboea left their pottery at Amathus from the 10th century BC. During the post-Phoenician era of the 8th century BC, a palace was erected and a port was also constructed, which served the trade with the Greeks and the Levantines. A special burial ground for infants, a "tophet" served the culture of the Phoenicians. For the Hellenes, high on the cliff a temple was built, which became a worship site devoted to Aphrodite, in her particular local presence as "Aphrodite Amathusia" along with a bearded male Aphrodite called "Aphroditos". The excavators discovered the final stage of the Temple of Aphrodite, also known as Aphrodisias, which dates approximately to the 1st century BC. According to the legend, it was where festive Adonia took place, in which athletes competed in hunting wild boars during sport competitions; they also competed in dancing and singing, all to the honour of Adonis.
The earliest remains hitherto found on the site are tombs of the early Iron Age period of Graeco-Phoenician influences (1000-600 BC). Amathus is identified with "Kartihadasti" (Phoenician "New-Town") in the Cypriote tribute-list of Esarhaddon of Assyria (668 BC). It certainly maintained strong Phoenician sympathies, for it was its refusal to join the philhellene league of Onesilos of Salamis which provoked the revolt of Cyprus from Achaemenid Persia in 500-494 BC, when Amathus was besieged unsuccessfully and avenged itself by the capture and execution of Onesilos. Herodotus reports
Amathus was a rich and densely populated kingdom with a flourishing agriculture (grain and sheep) and copper mines situated very close to the northeast Kalavasos.
Hellenistic era.
About 385-380 BC, the philhellene Evagoras of Salamis was similarly opposed by Amathus, allied with Citium and Soli; and even after Alexander the city resisted annexation, and was bound over to give hostages to Seleucus. Its political importance was now ended but its temple of Adonis and Aphrodite Amathusia remained famous in Roman times. The epithet "Amathusia" in Roman poetry often means little more than "Cypriote," but attesting to the fame of the city.
From the 4th century BC the pedestals of two sculptures donated by the last Basileus of Amathous, Androkles, representing his two sons, Orestheus and Andragoras, have survived. Their inscriptions are in both Eteocyprian and Greek languages.
The decline of Amathus is often measured by the Ptolemaic gifts to Argos, where Amathus donated only 40 drachmas in 170-160 BC, but Kition and Salamis gave 208, Kourion 172, and Paphos 100. However, this figure contradicts the archaeologic evidence of new buildings in this period including a balneion, a bath, a gymnasium, as well as fortifications of the Acropolis, including a new tower. The port of Paphos appears to have lost traffic compared to Amathus in the Ptolemaic period, an indication that Paphos, as the capital of the island, perhaps offered fewer drachmas than the other cities for different reasons, like Amathus.
Roman era.
In the Roman era Amathus became the capital of one of the four administrative regions of Cyprus.
A Roman temple was built in the 1st century AD on top of the Hellenistic predecessor. The temple facilities remained so important in Roman times that 'Amathusia' was used as a synonym for 'Cypriot'.
Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Later, in the 4th century AD, Amasus became the see of a Christian bishop and continued to flourish until the Byzantine period. Of its bishops, Heliodorus was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and Alexander at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In the late 6th century, Saint Ioannis Eleimonas (John the Charitable), protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus and after 614 sent Theodorus, bishop of Amathus, to Jerusalem to ransom some slaves.
Today, Amathus is a see of the Church of Cyprus and is also listed (under the name "Amathus in Cypro", to distinguish it from "Amathus in Transjordan") as a titular see by the Catholic Church, which however, in line with the practice adopted after the Second Vatican Council, has made no appointments to the bishopric since the death of the last Latin titular bishop in 1984.
Anastasius Sinaita, the famous 7th-century prolific monk of Saint Catherine's Monastery, was born here. It is thought that he left Cyprus after the 649 Arab conquest of the island, setting out for the Holy Land, and eventually becoming a monk on Sinai.
Amathus declined and was already almost deserted when Richard Plantagenet won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The tombs were plundered and the stones from the beautiful edifices were brought to Limassol to be used for new constructions. Much later, in 1869, a great number of blocks of stone from Amathus were used for the construction of the Suez Canal. A ruined Byzantine church marks its site.
In modern times.
A new settlement close to Amathus but further inland, Agios Tychonas, is named after the bishop Saint Tychon of Amathus. The site of the ruins is within the borders of this village, though the expansion of the Limassol tourist area has threatened the ruins: it is speculated that some of the hotels are on top of the Amathus necropolis.
The site and archaeology.
The city had vanished, except for fragments of wall and of a great stone urn on the acropolis, dating from the 6th century BC of which a similar vessel was taken to the Musée du Louvre in 1867. It is tall and weighs 14 tons. It was made from a single piece of stone and has four curved handles carved with bulls. In the 1870s, Luigi Palma di Cesnola excavated the necropolis of Amathus, as elsewhere in Cyprus, enriching the early collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; some objects went to the British Museum. More modern archaeological joint Cypriote-French excavations started in 1980 and still continue. The Acropolis, the Temple of Aphrodite, the agora, the city's walls, the basilica and the port have all been excavated.
Further archaeological objects found during the excavations are preserved at both the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia and the Limassol District Archaeological Museum.
In the agora there are marble columns decorated with spirals and a huge paved squares. On the coastal side of the city there is an Early Christian basilica with mosaic floors decorated with semi-precious stones. Further, near the terraced road leading to the Temple, situated on the top of the cliff, several houses built in a row dating to the Hellenistic period have been discovered. At the east and west extremes of the city the two acropoleis are situated where a number of tombs have been found, many of which are intact.
Two small sanctuaries, with terracotta votive offerings of Graeco-Phoenician age, lie not far off, but the location of the great shrines of Adonis and Aphrodite have not been identified (M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, "Kypros," i. ch.1).
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1686
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Alfonso V of Aragon
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Alfonso the Magnanimous (139627 June 1458) was King of Aragon and King of Sicily (as Alfonso V) and the ruler of the Crown of Aragon from 1416 and King of Naples (as Alfonso I) from 1442 until his death. He was involved with struggles to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples with Louis III of Anjou, Joanna II of Naples and their supporters, but ultimately failed and lost Naples in 1424. He recaptured it in 1442 and was crowned king of Naples. He had good relations with his vassal, Stjepan Kosača, and his ally, Skanderbeg, providing assistance in their struggles in the Balkans. He led diplomatic contacts with the Ethiopian Empire and was a prominent political figure of the early Renaissance, being a supporter of literature as well as commissioning several constructions for the Castel Nuovo.
Early life.
Born at Medina del Campo, he was the son of Ferdinand of Trastámara and Eleanor of Alburquerque. Ferdinand was the brother of King Henry III of Castile, and Alfonso was betrothed to his uncle King Henry's daughter Maria in 1408. In 1412, Ferdinand was selected to succeed to the territories of the Crown of Aragon. Alfonso and Maria's marriage was celebrated in Valencia on 12 June 1415.
King Ferdinand died on 2 April 1416, and Alfonso succeeded him as king of Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca and count of Barcelona. He also claimed the island of Sardinia, though it was then in the possession of Genoa. Alfonso was also in possession of much of Corsica by the 1420s.
Alfonso's marriage with Maria was childless. His mistress Lucrezia d'Alagno served as a "de facto" queen at the Neapolitan court as well as an inspiring muse. With another mistress, , Alfonso had three children: Ferdinand (1423–1494), Maria (who married Leonello d'Este), and Eleanor (who married Mariano Marzano). With
the last mistress Ippolita, married de'Giudici, Alfonso had one daughther Colia (1430-1473/5) married in 1445 with Emanuele d'Appiano, Lord of Piombino, Count of Holy Roman Empire. The d'Appiano d'Aragona family receive, in 1509 the title of Prince of Holy Roman Empire.
Alfonso was the object of diplomatic contacts from the Empire of Ethiopia. In 1428, he received a letter from Yeshaq I of Ethiopia, borne by two dignitaries, which proposed an alliance against the Muslims and would be sealed by a dual marriage that would require Alfonso's brother Peter to bring a group of artisans to Ethiopia where he would marry Yeshaq's daughter. In return, Alfonso sent a party of 13 craftsmen, all of whom perished on the way to Ethiopia. He later sent a letter to Yeshaq's successor Zara Yaqob in 1450, in which he wrote that he would be happy to send artisans to Ethiopia if their safe arrival could be guaranteed, but it probably never reached Zara Yaqob.
Struggle for Naples.
In 1421 the childless Queen Joanna II of Naples adopted and named him as heir to the Kingdom of Naples, and Alfonso went to Naples. Here he hired the condottiero Braccio da Montone with the task of reducing the resistance of his rival claimant, Louis III of Anjou, and his forces led by Muzio Attendolo Sforza. With Pope Martin V supporting Sforza, Alfonso switched his religious allegiance to the Aragonese antipope Benedict XIII. When Sforza abandoned Louis' cause, Alfonso seemed to have all his problems solved; however, his relationship with Joanna suddenly worsened, and in May 1423 he had her lover, Gianni Caracciolo, a powerful figure in the Neapolitan court, arrested.
After an attempt to arrest the queen herself had failed, Joan called on Sforza who defeated the Aragonese militias near Castel Capuano in Naples. Alfonso fled to Castel Nuovo, but the help of a fleet of 22 galleys led by Giovanni da Cardona improved his situation. Sforza and Joanna ransomed Caracciolo and retreated to the fortress of Aversa. Here she repudiated her earlier adoption of Alfonso and, with the backing of Martin V, named Louis III as her heir instead.
The duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, joined the anti-Aragonese coalition. Alfonso requested support from Braccio da Montone, who was besieging Joanna's troops in L'Aquila, but had to set sail for Spain, where a war had broken out between his brothers and the Kingdom of Castile. On his way towards Barcelona, Alfonso sacked Marseille, a possession of Louis III.
In late 1423 the Genoese fleet of Filippo Maria Visconti moved in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, rapidly conquering Gaeta, Procida, Castellammare and Sorrento. Naples, which was held by Alfonso's brother, Pedro de Aragon, was besieged in 1424 by the Genoese ships and Joanna's troops, now led by Francesco Sforza, the son of Muzio Sforza (who had met his death at L'Aquila). The city fell in April 1424. Pedro, after a short resistance in Castel Nuovo, fled to Sicily in August. Joanna II and Louis III again took possession of the realm, although the true power was in the hands of Gianni Caracciolo.
An opportunity for Alfonso to reconquer Naples occurred in 1432, when Caracciolo was killed in a conspiracy. Alfonso tried to regain the favour of the queen, but failed, and had to wait for the death of both Louis (at Cosenza in 1434) and Joanna herself (February 1435). In her will, she bequeathed her realm to René of Anjou, Louis III's younger brother. This solution was opposed by the new pope, Eugene IV, who was the feudal overlord of the Kingdom of Naples. The Neapolitans having called in the French, Alfonso decided to intervene and, with the support of several barons of the kingdom, captured Capua and besieged the important sea fortress of Gaeta. His fleet of 25 galleys was met by the Genoese ships sent by Visconti, led by Biagio Assereto. In the Battle of Ponza that ensued, Alfonso was defeated and taken prisoner.
In Milan, Alfonso impressed his captor with his cultured demeanor and persuaded him to let him go by persuading that it was not in Milan's interest to prevent the victory of the Aragonese party in Naples. Helped by a Sicilian fleet, Alfonso recaptured Capua and set his base in Gaeta in February 1436. Meanwhile, papal troops had invaded the Neapolitan kingdom, but Alfonso bribed their commander, Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi, and their successes waned.
In the meantime, René had managed to reach Naples on 19 May 1438. Alfonso tried to besiege the city in the following September, but failed. His brother Pedro was killed during the battle. Castel Nuovo, where an Aragonese garrison resisted, fell to the Angevine mercenaries in August 1439. After the death of his condottiero Jacopo Caldora, however, René's fortune started to decline: Alfonso could easily capture Aversa, Salerno, Benevento, Manfredonia and Bitonto. René, whose possession included now only part of the Abruzzi and Naples, obtained 10,000 men from the pope, but the cardinal leading them signed a truce with Alfonso. Giovanni Sforza came with a reduced corps, as troops sent by Eugene IV had halted his father Francesco in the Marche.
Alfonso, provided with the most impressive artillery of the times, again besieged Naples. The siege began on 10 November 1441, ending on 2 June the following year. After the return of René to Provence, Alfonso easily reduced the remaining resistance and made his triumphal entrance in Naples on 26 February 1443, as the monarch of a pacified kingdom.
Alfonso then reunited under his dominion the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, divided since the Sicilian Vespers. After the personal union, he began to call himself "Rex Utriusque Siciliae"; this was then used by other kings and his successors who ruled over those territories.
Art and administration.
Like many Renaissance rulers, Alfonso V was a patron of the arts. He founded the Academy of Naples under Giovanni Pontano, and for his entrance into the city in 1443 had a magnificent triumphal arch added to the main gate of Castel Nuovo. Alfonso V supplied the theme of Renaissance sculptures over the west entrance.
Alfonso was particularly attracted to classical literature. He reportedly brought copies of the works of Livy and Julius Caesar on his campaigns; the poet Antonio Beccadelli even claimed that Alfonso was cured of a disease by the reading of a few pages from Quintus Curtius Rufus' history of Alexander the Great. Although this reputed erudition attracted scholars to his court, Alfonso apparently enjoyed pitting them against each other in spectacles of bawdy Latin rhetoric.
After his conquest of Naples in 1442, Alfonso ruled primarily through his mercenaries and political lackeys. In his Italian kingdom, he maintained the former political and administrative institutions. His holdings in Spain were governed by his wife Maria.
A unified General Chancellorship for the whole Aragonese realm was set up in Naples, although the main functionaries were of Aragonese nationality. Apart from financial, administrative and artistic improvements, his other accomplishments in the Sicilian kingdom include the restoration of the aqueducts, the drainage of marshy areas, and the paving of streets.
Alfonso founded the first university of Sicily, the "Siciliae Studium Generale".
Later life.
Alfonso was also a powerful and faithful supporter of Skanderbeg, whom he decided to take under his protection as a vassal in 1451, shortly after the latter had scored his second victory against Murad II. In addition to financial assistance, he supplied the Albanian leader with troops, military equipment, and sanctuary for himself and his family if such a need should arise. This was because in 1448, while Skanderbeg was fighting off the Turkish invasions, three military columns, commanded by Demetrio Reres along with his sons Giorgio and Basilio, had been dispatched to help Alfonso V defeat the barons of Naples who had rebelled against him.
He also supported Bosnian duke, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, who turned to the king for help in his affairs in Bosnia. Alfonso made him "Knight of the Virgin", but did not provide any troops. On 15 February 1444, Stjepan signed a treaty with the king of Aragon and Naples, becoming his vassal in exchange for Alfonso's help against his enemies—Stephen Thomas and Ivaniš Pavlović (1441–1450) of the Pavlović noble family as well as the Republic of Venice. In the same treaty, Stjepan promised to pay Alfonso regular tribute instead of paying the Ottoman sultan as he had done until then.
Alfonso, by formally submitting his reign to the Papacy, obtained the consent of Pope Eugene IV that the Kingdom of Naples would go to his illegitimate son, Ferdinand. He died in Castel dell'Ovo in 1458, while he was planning the conquest of Genoa. At the time, Alfonso was at odds with Pope Callixtus III, who died shortly afterwards. Alfonso's Iberian possessions had been ruled for him by his brother, who succeeded him as John II of Aragon. Sicily and Sardinia were also inherited by John II.
Marriage and issue.
Alfonso had been betrothed to Maria of Castile (1401–1458; sister of John II of Castile) in Valladolid in 1408; the marriage was celebrated in Valencia on 12 June 1415. They failed to produce children. Alfonso had been in love with a woman of noble family named Lucrezia d'Alagno, who served as a "de facto" queen at the Neapolitan court as well as an inspiring muse.
Genealogical records in the Old Occitan Chronicle of Montpellier in "Le petit Thalamus de Montpellier" indicate that Alphonso's relationship with his mistress, Giraldona Carlino (daughter of Enrique Carlino and his wife, Isabel), produced three children:
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1702
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Alfred of Beverley
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Alfred of Beverley (fl. 1143) was an English chronicler and the sacristan of the church of Beverley in the first half of the twelfth century.
He wrote, apparently about the year 1143, a chronicle entitled "Annales sive Historia de gestis regum Britanniae", which begins with Brutus and carries the history of England down to 1129. Geoffrey of Monmouth and Simeon of Durham are Alfred's chief sources.
Biography.
Alfred of Beverley, was a priest of Beverley, and is described in the preface to his book as "treasurer of the church of Beverley" and "Master Alfred, sacrist of the church of Beverley".
Alfred of Beverley speaks of himself as contemporary with the removal of the Flemings from the north of England to Ross in Herefordshire in 1112, and writes that he compiled his chronicle "when the church was silent, owing to the number of persons excommunicated under the decree of the council of London", an apparent reference to the council held at Mid-Lent, 1143. His attention, by his own account, was first drawn to history by the publication (before 1139) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and he looked forward to following up the chronicle which bears his name, and which largely depends on Geoffrey's work, with a collection of excerpts from the credible portions of the Historia Regum Britanniae, but no trace of such a work is extant.
Alfred of Beverley's chronicle is entitled "Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales sive Historia de gestis Regum Britanniæ libris ix. ad annum 1129". It is largely devoted to the fabulous history of Britain, and is mainly borrowed from Bede, Henry of Huntingdon, and Symeon of Durham, when Geoffrey of Monmouth is not laid under contribution. Alfred quotes occasionally from Suetonius, Orosius, and Nennius, and names many Roman authors whom he had consulted in vain for references to Britain. The chronicle is of no real use to the historical student, since it adds no new fact to the information to be found in well-known earlier authorities.
According to Sidney Lee (1885) the best manuscript of Alfred's "Annales" was among the Hengwrt MSS. belonging to W. W. E. Wynne, Esq., of Peniarth, Merionethshire, and had not been printed. Hearne printed the ‘Annales’ in 1716 from an inferior Bodleian MS. (Rawl. B. 200).
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1714
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Autpert Ambrose
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Autpert Ambrose (Ambroise) () (ca. 730 – 784) was a Frankish Benedictine monk.
He became abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno in South Italy in the time of Desiderius, king of the Lombards. Autpert's election as abbot caused internal dissent at St. Vicenzo, and both Pope Stephen III and Charlemagne intervened. The disagreement was based both on objections to Autpert's personality and to his Frankish origin.
He wrote a considerable number of works on the Bible and religious subjects generally. Among these are commentaries on the Apocalypse, on the Psalms, and on the Song of Solomon; "Lives of Saints Paldo, Tuto and Vaso"; "Assumption of the Virgin"; and a "Combat between the Virtues and the Vices".
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI gave a homily about him in Saint Peter's square. In this homily, Autpert's death date is given as 784 (older scholarship had given a date between 778 and 779).
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1698
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Ambiorix
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Ambiorix (Gaulish "king of the surroundings", or "king-protector") ( 54–53 BC) was, together with Cativolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of north-eastern Gaul (Gallia Belgica), where modern Belgium is located. In the nineteenth century Ambiorix became a Belgian national hero because of his resistance against Julius Caesar, as written in Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico".
Name.
It is generally accepted that "Ambiorix" is a Gaulish personal name formed with the prefix "ambio-" attached to "rix" ('king'), but the meaning of the first element is debated. Some scholars translate "Ambiorix" as the 'king of the surroundings' or 'king of the enclosure', by interpreting "ambio-" as a thematized form of "ambi-" ('around, on both sides') meaning 'surroundings' or else 'enclosure' (cf. Old Irish "imbe" 'enclosure'). Alternatively, Fredrik Otto Lindeman renders "Ambiorix" as the 'protector-king', by deriving "ambio-" from the Proto-Indo-European compound ('protector'; cf. Old Indic "adhi-pá-" 'protector, ruler, master, king').
Biography.
Early history.
In 57 BC Julius Caesar conquered parts of Gaul and also Belgica (Belgium, modern-day Northern France, Luxembourg, part of present-day Netherlands below the Rhine River; and the north-western portion of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). There were several tribes in the country who fought against each other frequently. The Eburones were ruled by Ambiorix and Catuvolcus. In 54 BC Caesar's troops urgently needed more food, and so the local tribes were forced to give up part of their harvest, which had not been good that year. Understandably the starving Eburones were reluctant to do so and Caesar ordered that camps be built near the Eburones' villages. Each centurion was ordered to make sure the food supplies were delivered to the Roman soldiers. This created resentment among the Eburones.
Although Julius Caesar had freed him from paying tribute to the Atuatuci, Ambiorix joined Catuvolcus in the winter of 54 BC in an uprising against the Roman forces under Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta.
Resisting the Romans.
Because a drought had disrupted his grain supply, Caesar was forced to winter his legions among the rebellious Belgic tribes. Roman troops led by Sabinus and Cotta were wintering among the Eburones when they were attacked by them, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Ambiorix deceived the Romans, telling them the attack was made without his consent, and further advised them to flee as a large Germanic force was preparing to cross the Rhine. Trusting Ambiorix, Sabinus and Cotta's troops left the next morning. A short distance from their camp, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Eburones and massacred.
Elsewhere, another Roman force under Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of the orator Marcus, were wintering amongst the Nervii. Leading a coalition of rebellious Belgic tribes, Ambiorix surrounded Cicero's camp. After a long while, a Roman messenger was finally able to slip through the Belgic lines and get word of the uprising to Caesar. Mobilizing his legions, Caesar immediately marched to Cicero's aid. As they approached the besieged Roman camp, the Belgae moved to engage Caesar's troops. Vastly outnumbered, Caesar ordered his troops to appear confused and frightened, and they successfully lured the Belgae to attack them on ground favourable to the Romans. Caesar's forces launched a fierce counterattack, and soon put the Belgae to flight. Later, Caesar's troops entered Cicero's camp to find most of the men wounded.
Meanwhile, Indutiomarus, a leader of the Treveri, began to harass Labienus's camp daily, eventually provoking Labienus to send out his cavalry with specific orders to kill Indutiomarus. They did so, and routed the remnants of Indutiomarus's army. Caesar personally remained in Gaul for the remainder of winter due to the renewed Gallic threat.
Caesar's revenge.
When the Roman senate heard what had happened, Caesar swore to destroy all the Belgic tribes. Ambiorix had killed fifteen cohorts. A Belgic attack on Cicero, then stationed with a legion in the territory of the Nervii, failed due to the timely appearance of Caesar. The Roman campaigns against the Belgae took a few years, but eventually the tribes were slaughtered or driven out and their fields burned. The Eburones disappeared from history after this genocidal event. According to the writer Florus, Ambiorix and his men succeeded in escaping across the Rhine. They do not appear in Roman records after this point.
Early history.
In 57 BC Julius Caesar conquered parts of Gaul and also Belgica (Belgium, modern-day Northern France, Luxembourg, part of present-day Netherlands below the Rhine River; and the north-western portion of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). There were several tribes in the country who fought against each other frequently. The Eburones were ruled by Ambiorix and Catuvolcus. In 54 BC Caesar's troops urgently needed more food, and so the local tribes were forced to give up part of their harvest, which had not been good that year. Understandably the starving Eburones were reluctant to do so and Caesar ordered that camps be built near the Eburones' villages. Each centurion was ordered to make sure the food supplies were delivered to the Roman soldiers. This created resentment among the Eburones.
Although Julius Caesar had freed him from paying tribute to the Atuatuci, Ambiorix joined Catuvolcus in the winter of 54 BC in an uprising against the Roman forces under Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta.
Resisting the Romans.
Because a drought had disrupted his grain supply, Caesar was forced to winter his legions among the rebellious Belgic tribes. Roman troops led by Sabinus and Cotta were wintering among the Eburones when they were attacked by them, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Ambiorix deceived the Romans, telling them the attack was made without his consent, and further advised them to flee as a large Germanic force was preparing to cross the Rhine. Trusting Ambiorix, Sabinus and Cotta's troops left the next morning. A short distance from their camp, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Eburones and massacred.
Elsewhere, another Roman force under Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of the orator Marcus, were wintering amongst the Nervii. Leading a coalition of rebellious Belgic tribes, Ambiorix surrounded Cicero's camp. After a long while, a Roman messenger was finally able to slip through the Belgic lines and get word of the uprising to Caesar. Mobilizing his legions, Caesar immediately marched to Cicero's aid. As they approached the besieged Roman camp, the Belgae moved to engage Caesar's troops. Vastly outnumbered, Caesar ordered his troops to appear confused and frightened, and they successfully lured the Belgae to attack them on ground favourable to the Romans. Caesar's forces launched a fierce counterattack, and soon put the Belgae to flight. Later, Caesar's troops entered Cicero's camp to find most of the men wounded.
Meanwhile, Indutiomarus, a leader of the Treveri, began to harass Labienus's camp daily, eventually provoking Labienus to send out his cavalry with specific orders to kill Indutiomarus. They did so, and routed the remnants of Indutiomarus's army. Caesar personally remained in Gaul for the remainder of winter due to the renewed Gallic threat.
Caesar's revenge.
When the Roman senate heard what had happened, Caesar swore to destroy all the Belgic tribes. Ambiorix had killed fifteen cohorts. A Belgic attack on Cicero, then stationed with a legion in the territory of the Nervii, failed due to the timely appearance of Caesar. The Roman campaigns against the Belgae took a few years, but eventually the tribes were slaughtered or driven out and their fields burned. The Eburones disappeared from history after this genocidal event. According to the writer Florus, Ambiorix and his men succeeded in escaping across the Rhine. They do not appear in Roman records after this point.
Legacy.
Caesar wrote about Ambiorix in his commentary about his battles against the Gauls, "De Bello Gallico". In this text he also famously wrote: "Of these [three regions], the Belgae are the bravest." ("... "Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae" ...").
Ambiorix remained a relatively obscure figure until the nineteenth century. The independence of Belgium in 1830 spurred a search for national heroes. In Caesar's "De Bello Gallico", Ambiorix and his deeds were rediscovered. In 1841, the Belgian poet Joannes Nolet de Brauwere Van Steeland wrote a lyrical epic about Ambiorix. Furthermore, on September 5, 1866, a statue of Ambiorix was erected on the main market square in Tongeren, Belgium, referred to by Caesar as Atuatuca, i.e. Atuatuca Tungrorum.
Today, Ambiorix is one of the most famous characters in Belgian history. Many companies, bars and friteries have named themselves after him, and in many Belgian comics such as Suske en Wiske and Jommeke he plays a guest role. There was also a short-lived comic called "Ambionix", which featured a scientist teleporting a Belgic chief, loosely based on Ambiorix, to modern-day Belgium.
In the French comic Asterix, in the album "Asterix in Belgium", Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix and Vitalstatistix go to Belgium because they are angry with Caesar about his remark that the Belgians are the bravest of all the Gauls.
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1716
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Ambrose Traversari
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Ambrogio Traversari, also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli (138620 October 1439), was an Italian monk and theologian who was a prime supporter of the papal cause in the 15th century. He is honored as a saint by the Camaldolese Order.
Biography.
Traversari was born near Forlì, in the village of Portico di Romagna in 1386. At the age of 14 he entered the Camaldolese Order in the Monastery of St. Mary of the Angels in Florence, and rapidly became a leading theologian and Hellenist. In his study of Greek literature his master was Emmanuel Chrysoloras. He worked primarily as a scholar until he became prior general of the Order in 1431.
Ambrose emerged as a leading advocate of papal primacy. This attitude he showed clearly when he attended the Council of Basel as legate of Pope Eugene IV and defended the primacy of the pope, adjuring the council not to "rend asunder Christ's seamless robe". He was next sent by the pope to the Emperor Sigismund to ask his aid in the pope's efforts to end this council, which for five years had been encroaching on papal prerogatives. The pope transferred the council from Basel to Ferrara on 18 September 1437.
So strong was Ambrose's hostility to some of the delegates that he described Basel as a western Babylon. He likewise supported the pope at Ferrara and Florence, and worked hard in the attempt to reconcile the Eastern and Western Churches. But in this council, and later, in that of Florence, Ambrose, by his efforts and charity toward some poor Greek bishops, greatly helped to bring about a union of the two Churches, the decree for which, 6 July 1439, he was called on to draw up.
He died soon after. His feastday is celebrated by the Camaldolese Order on 20 November.
Character.
According to the author of his biography in the eleventh edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica": "Ambrose is interesting as typical of the new humanism which was growing up within the church. Thus while among his own colleagues he seemed merely a hypocritical and arrogant priest, in his relations with his brother humanists, such as Cosimo de' Medici, he appeared as the student of classical antiquities and especially of Greek theological authors".
Works.
His works include a treatise on the Holy Eucharist, one on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, many lives of saints, as well as a history of his term as prior general of the Camaldolese. He also translated from Greek into Latin a life of John Chrysostom (Venice, 1533); the "Spiritual Wisdom" of John Moschus; "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" of John Climacus (Venice, 1531), P.G., LXXXVIII. Between 1424 and 1433 he worked on the translation of the "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" by Diogenes Laërtius, which came to be widely circulated in manuscript form. He also translated four books against the errors of the Greeks, by Manuel Kalekas, Patriarch of Constantinople, a Dominican friar (Ingolstadt, 1608), P.G., CLII, col. 13-661, a work known only through Ambrose's translation.
He also translated many homilies of John Chrysostom; the writings of Dionysius Areopagita (1436); Basil of Caesarea's treatise on virginity; thirty-nine discourses of Ephrem the Syrian, and many other works of the Fathers and writers of the Greek Church. Dom Mabillon's "Letters and Orations of St. Ambrose of Camaldoli" was published in Florence in 1759.
Selected works:
A number of his manuscripts remain in the library of Saint Mark in Venice.
References.
Attribution
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1718
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Ambrosiaster
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Ambrosiaster or Pseudo-Ambrose is the name given to the unknown author of a commentary on the epistles of Saint Paul, written some time between 366 and 384AD. This commentary was erroneously attributed for a long time to St. Ambrose, hence the name "Ambrosiaster" (literally in Latin: "would-be Ambrose"). Various conjectures have been made as to Ambrosiaster's true identity, and several other works have been attributed to the same author, with varying degrees of certainty.
Biography.
Pseudo-Ambrose was the name given by Erasmus to refer to the author of a volume containing the first complete Latin commentary on the Pauline epistles. Alexander Souter has established that the same author wrote the "Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testament", which had long been attributed to Saint Augustine. Other works ascribed to the same author, less definitely, are the "Lex Dei sive Mosaicarum et Romanorum legum collatio," "De bello judaico", and the fragmentary "Contra Arianos" sometimes ascribed to the pseudo-Hilary and the "sermo 246" of pseudo-Augustine. They mention Simon Magus.
Internal evidence from the documents has been taken to suggest that the author was active in Rome during the period of Pope Damasus, and, almost certainly, a member of the clergy.
Commentary on Paul.
The "Commentary on Thirteen Pauline Letters" is considered valuable as evidence of the state of the Latin text of Paul's epistles before the appearance of the Vulgate of Jerome, and as an example of Pauline interpretation prior to Augustine of Hippo. It was traditionally ascribed to Ambrose, but in 1527, Erasmus threw doubt on the accuracy of this ascription, and the anonymous author came to be known as "Ambrosiaster". It was once thought that Erasmus coined this name; however, René Hoven, in 1969, showed that this was incorrect, and that credit should actually be given to the Maurists. Later scholars have followed Hoven in this assessment, although it has also been suggested that the name originated with Franciscus Lucas Brugensis.
Attempts to identify Ambrosiaster with known authors has continued, but with no success. Because Augustine cites Ambrosiaster's commentary on Romans 5:12 under the name of "Hilary", many critics have attempted to identify Ambroasiaster with one of the many writers named "Hilary" active in the period. In 1899, Germain Morin suggested that the writer was Isaac, a converted Jew and writer of a tract on the Trinity and Incarnation, who was exiled to Spain in 378-380 and then relapsed to Judaism. Morin afterwards abandoned this theory of the authorship in favour of Decimus Hilarianus Hilarius, proconsul of Africa in 377. Alternatively, Paolo Angelo Ballerini attempted to sustain the traditional attribution of the work to Ambrose, in his complete edition of that Father's work. This is extremely problematic, though, since it would require Ambrose to have written the book before he became a bishop, and then added to it in later years, incorporating later remarks of Hilary of Poitiers on Romans. No identifications, therefore, have acquired lasting popularity with scholars, and Ambrosiaster's identity remains a mystery.
Other works.
Several other works which now survive only as fragments have been attributed to this same author. These include a commentary on Matthew 24, and discussions on the parable of the leaven, the denial of Peter, and Jesus's arrest. In 1905, Alexander Souter established that Ambrosiaster was also the author of the "Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti," a lengthy collection of exegetical and polemical tractates which manuscripts have traditionally ascribed to Augustine.
Influence.
Many scholars argue that Ambrosiaster's works were essentially Pelagian, although this is disputed. Pelagius cited him extensively. For example, Alfred Smith argued that Pelagius' "view of Predestination he seems to have taken from Ambrosiaster. His doctrine with regard to Original Sin appears to have come from the same source". However, Augustine also made use of Ambrosiaster's commentaries.
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1677
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Alfonso XIII
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Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.
Alfonso XIII's upbringing and public image were closely linked to the military estate, often presenting himself as a soldier-king. His effective reign started four years after the so-called 1898 Disaster, with various social factions projecting their expectations of national regeneration upon him. Similarly to other European monarchs of his time, he played an important political role, entailing a highly controversial use of his constitutional executive powers. His wedding with Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906 was marked by a regicide attempt, from which he escaped unharmed.
With a divided opinion of the public eye on World War I, and moreover a split between the pro-German and pro-entente sympathizers, Alfonso XIII leveraged his family relations to every major European royal family to help preserve the stance of neutrality espoused by the government. Several factors led to undermine the monarch's constitutional legitimacy: the rupture of the system, the further deepening of the Restoration system crisis in the 1910s, a trio of crises in 1917, the spiral of violence in Morocco, and the lead up to the installment of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera through a 1923 military coup d'etat that won the acquiescence from Alfonso XIII.
Upon the political failure of the dictatorship, Alfonso XIII removed support from Primo de Rivera (who was thereby forced to resign in 1930) and favoured (during the so-called "dictablanda") a return to the pre-1923 state of affairs. Nevertheless, he had lost most of his political capital along the way. He left Spain voluntarily after the municipal elections of April 1931 – which was understood as a plebiscite on maintaining the monarchy or declaring a republic – the result of which led to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic on 14 April 1931.
His efforts with the European War Office during World War I earned him a nomination on the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, which was ultimately won by the Red Cross. To date, he remains the only monarch to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Reign.
Early life and education.
Alfonso XIII was born at Royal Palace of Madrid on 17 May 1886. He was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII of Spain, who had died in November 1885, and became King upon his birth. Just after he was born, he was carried naked to the prime minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta on a silver tray.
Five days later he was carried in a solemn court procession with a Golden Fleece round his neck and was baptised with water specially brought from the River Jordan in Palestine. The French newspaper "Le Figaro" described the young king in 1889 as "the happiest and best-loved of all the rulers of the earth". His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as his regent until his sixteenth birthday. During the regency, in 1898, Spain lost its colonial rule over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War.
Alfonso became seriously ill during the 1889–1890 pandemic. His health deteriorated around 10 January 1890 and doctors reported his condition as the flu attacked his nervous system leaving the young king in a state of indolence. He eventually recovered.
When Alfonso came of age in May 1902, the week of his majority was marked by festivities, bullfights, balls and receptions throughout Spain. He took his oath to the constitution before members of the Cortes on 17 May.
Alfonso received, to a large extent, a military education that imbued him with "a Spanish nationalism strengthened by his military vocation". Besides the clique of military tutors, Alfonso also received political teachings from a liberal——and moral precepts from an integrist, José Fernández de la Montaña.
Engagement and marriage.
By 1905, Alfonso was looking for a suitable consort. On a state visit to the United Kingdom, he stayed in London at Buckingham Palace with King Edward VII. There he met Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, the daughter of Edward's youngest sister Princess Beatrice, and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. He found her attractive, and she returned his interest. There were obstacles to the marriage. Victoria was a Protestant, and would have to become a Catholic. Victoria's brother Leopold was a haemophiliac, so there was a 50 percent chance that Victoria was a carrier of the trait. Finally, Alfonso's mother Maria Christina wanted him to marry a member of her family, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, or some other Catholic princess, as she considered the Battenbergs to be non-dynastic.
Victoria was willing to change her religion, and her being a haemophilia carrier was only a possibility. Maria Christina was eventually persuaded to drop her opposition. In January 1906 she wrote an official letter to Princess Beatrice proposing the match. Victoria met Maria Christina and Alfonso in Biarritz, France, later that month, and converted to Catholicism in San Sebastián in March.
In May, diplomats of both kingdoms officially executed the agreement of marriage. Alfonso and Victoria were married at the Royal Monastery of San Jerónimo in Madrid on 31 May 1906, with British royalty in attendance, including Victoria's cousins the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary). The wedding was marked by an assassination attempt on Alfonso and Victoria by Catalan anarchist Mateu Morral. As the wedding procession returned to the palace, he threw a bomb from a window which killed 30 bystanders and members of the procession, while 100 others were wounded.
On 10 May 1907, the couple's first child, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, was born. Victoria was in fact a haemophilia carrier, and Alfonso inherited the condition.
Neither of the two daughters born to the King and Queen were haemophilia carriers, but another of their sons, Gonzalo (1914–1934), had the condition. Alfonso distanced himself from his wife for transmitting the condition to their sons. From 1914 on, he had several mistresses, and fathered five illegitimate children. A sixth illegitimate child had been born before his marriage.
World War I.
During World War I, because of his family connections with both sides and the division of popular opinion, Spain remained neutral. The King established an office for assistance to prisoners of war on all sides. This office used the Spanish diplomatic and military network abroad to intercede for thousands of POWs – transmitting and receiving letters for them, and other services. The office was located in the Royal Palace.
Alfonso attempted to save the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family from the Bolsheviks who captured them, sending two telegrams offering the Russian royal family refuge in Spain. He later learned of the execution of the Romanov family, but was mistaken in believing that only Nicholas II and his son Alexi had been killed. As such, he continued to push for the Tsaress Alexandra and her four daughters to be brought to Spain, not having realized that they had also been murdered.
Alfonso became gravely ill during the 1918 flu pandemic. Spain was neutral and thus under no wartime censorship restrictions, so his illness and subsequent recovery were reported to the world, while flu outbreaks in the belligerent countries were concealed. This gave the misleading impression that Spain was the most affected area and led to the pandemic being dubbed "the Spanish Flu".
Cracking of the system and dictatorship.
Following World War I, Spain entered the lengthy yet victorious Rif War (1920–1926) to preserve its colonial rule over northern Morocco. Critics of the monarchy thought the war was an unforgivable loss of money and lives, and nicknamed Alfonso "el Africano" ("the African"). Alfonso had not acted as a strict constitutional monarch, and supported the Africanists who wanted to conquer for Spain a new empire in Africa to compensate for the lost empire in the Americas and elsewhere. The Rif War had starkly polarized Spanish society between the Africanists who wanted to conquer an empire in Africa vs. the "abandonistas" who wanted to abandon Morocco as not worth the blood and treasure. Alfonso liked to play favourites with his generals, and one of his most favoured generals was Manuel Fernández Silvestre. In 1921, when Silvestre advanced up into the Rif mountains of Morocco, Alfonso sent him a telegram whose first line read "Hurrah for real men!", urging Silvestre not to retreat at a time when Silvestre was experiencing major difficulties. Silvestre stayed the course, leading his men into the Battle of Annual, one of Spain's worst defeats. Alfonso, who was on holiday in the south of France at the time, was informed of the "Disaster of the Annual" while he was playing golf. Reportedly, Alfonso's response to the news was to shrug his shoulders and say "Chicken meat is cheap", before resuming his game. Alfonso remained in France and did not return to Spain to comfort the families of the soldiers lost in the battle, which many people at the time saw as a callous and cold act, a sign that the King was indifferent over the lives of his soldiers. In 1922, the Cortes started an investigation into the responsibility for the Annual disaster and soon discovered evidence that the King had been one of the main supporters of Silvestre's advance into the Rif mountains.
After the "Disaster of the Annual", Spain's war in the Rif went from bad to worse, and as the Spanish were barely hanging on to Morocco, support for the "abandonistas" grew as many people could see no point to the war. In August 1923, Spanish soldiers embarking for Morocco mutinied, other soldiers in Málaga simply refused to board the ships that were to take them to Morocco, while in Barcelona huge crowds of left-wingers had staged anti-war protests at which Spanish flags were burned while the flag of the Rif Republic was waved about. With the Africanists comprising only a minority, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the "abandonistas" forced the Spanish to give up on the Rif, which was part of the reason for the military coup d'état later in 1923.
On 13 September 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera, Captain General of Catalonia, staged a military coup with the collaboration from a quad of "Africanist" generals based in Madrid who were associated to the innermost military clique of Alfonso XIII and who wanted to prevent investigations about Annual from tarnishing the monarch (José Cavalcanti, Federico Berenguer, Leopoldo Saro and Antonio Dabán), even if Primo de Rivera had embraced "Abandonista" positions prior to that point. Primo de Rivera ruled as a dictator with the king's support until January 1930.
On 28 January 1930, amid economic problems, general unpopularity and a putschist plot led by General Manuel Goded in motion, of which Alfonso XIII was most probably aware, Miguel Primo de Rivera was forced to resign, exiling to Paris, only to die a few weeks later of the complications from diabetes in combination with the effects of a flu. Alfonso XIII appointed General Dámaso Berenguer as the new prime minister. Back in 1926, Alfonso XIII had appointed Berenguer as Chief of Staff of the Military House of the King, a post conventionally fit for burned-out generals in order to move them away from the spotlight for a time in a show of affection. The new period was nicknamed as "dictablanda". The King was so closely associated with the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera that it was difficult for him to distance himself from the regime that he had supported for almost seven years. The enforced changes relied on the incorrect assumption that Spaniards would accept the notion that nothing had happened after 1923 and that going back to the prior state of things was possible.
Dethronement and politics in exile.
On 12 April, the Republican coalition, short of winning a majority of councillors overall, won a sweeping majority in major cities in the 1931 municipal elections, which were perceived as a plebiscite on monarchy. The results shocked the government, with foreign minister Romanones admitting to the press an "absolute monarchist defeat" and Civil Guard honcho José Sanjurjo reportedly telling government ministers that, given circumstances, the Armed Forces could not be "absolutely" relied upon for the sustainment of the monarchy. Alfonso XIII fled the country and the Second Spanish Republic was peacefully proclaimed on 14 April 1931.
In November 1931, the Constituent Republican Cortes held an impassionate debate about the political responsibilities of the former monarch. Some of the grievances against the action of Alfonso XIII as a king included interference in the institutions to reinforce his personal power, bargaining personal support from the military clique with rewards and merits, his abuse of the power to dissolve the legislature, rendering the co-sovereingty between the Nation and the Crown a total fiction; that he had disproportionately fostered the Armed forces (often to contain internal protest), had used the armed forces abroad with imperialist aims alien to the interests of the nation but his own, that he had personally devised the military operation of Annual behind the back of the Council of Ministers, and that following the massacre of Annual that "cost the lives of thousands of Spanish lads", he had decided to launch a coup with the help of a few generals rather than facing scrutiny in the legislature. Other than Romanones, who exculpated the actions of the monarch, disconformity towards the Primo de Rivera dictatorship notwithstanding, no other legislator intervened in his favour, with the debate focusing on whether labelling the monarch's actions as a military rebellion, lèse-majesté, high treason, or even condemning "a delinquent personality" or "a wholly punishable life". The debate ended with an eloquent speech by Prime Minister Manuel Azaña pleading for the unanimity of the house "to condemn and exclude D. Alfonso de Borbón from the law, proclaiming the majesty of our republic, the unbreakable will of our civism and the permanence of the Spanish glories framed by the institutions freely given by the Nation". The house passed the act brought forward by the Commission of Responsibilities, summarizing Alfonso de Borbón's responsibilities as being guilty of high treason.
Involved in anti-Republican plots from his exile, and keen to draw support from the Carlists in the context of the uneasy and competing relations between the Carlist and Alfonsist factions within the radicalised monarchist camp, in the aftermath of so-called Pact of Territet he issued a statement dated 23 January 1932 endorsing the manifesto launched by Carlist claimant Alfonso Carlos (in which the latter hinted at the cession of dynastic rights should the former king accept "those fundamental principles which in our traditional regime have been demanded of all Kings with precedence of personal rights"), with the dethroned king likewise accusing in the document the reformist Republic to be "inspired and sponsored by communism, freemasonry and judaism".
In 1933, his two eldest sons, Alfonso and Jaime, renounced their claims to the defunct throne on the same day, and in 1934 his youngest son Gonzalo died. This left his third son Juan his only male heir.
After the July 1936 attempted coup d'état against the democratically elected Republican government a war broke out in Spain. On 30 July 1936, Alfonso's son Juan took the initiative of leaving Cannes to go to Spain to join the rebel faction, with the former king (then in a hunting trip in Czechoslovakia) reportedly giving consent, so Juan de Borbón crossed the border set to join the front in Somosierra dressed in a blue jumpsuit and red beret under the fake name "Juan López". However, rebel general Emilio Mola, mastermind behind the putschist plot, was warned of the move and had Juan returned. The former king made it clear he favoured the rebel faction against the Republican government. In September 1936, the general who had emerged as leader of the rebel faction, Francisco Franco, declared that he would not restore Alfonso as king.
Death.
On 15 January 1941, Alfonso XIII renounced his rights to the defunct Spanish throne in favour of Juan. He died of a heart attack in Rome on 28 February that year.
In Spain, dictator Francisco Franco ordered three days of national mourning. The ex-king's funeral was held in Rome in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. He was buried in the Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli, the Spanish national church in Rome, immediately below the tombs of Popes Callixtus III and Alexander VI. In January 1980 his remains were transferred to El Escorial in Spain.
Early life and education.
Alfonso XIII was born at Royal Palace of Madrid on 17 May 1886. He was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII of Spain, who had died in November 1885, and became King upon his birth. Just after he was born, he was carried naked to the prime minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta on a silver tray.
Five days later he was carried in a solemn court procession with a Golden Fleece round his neck and was baptised with water specially brought from the River Jordan in Palestine. The French newspaper "Le Figaro" described the young king in 1889 as "the happiest and best-loved of all the rulers of the earth". His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as his regent until his sixteenth birthday. During the regency, in 1898, Spain lost its colonial rule over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War.
Alfonso became seriously ill during the 1889–1890 pandemic. His health deteriorated around 10 January 1890 and doctors reported his condition as the flu attacked his nervous system leaving the young king in a state of indolence. He eventually recovered.
When Alfonso came of age in May 1902, the week of his majority was marked by festivities, bullfights, balls and receptions throughout Spain. He took his oath to the constitution before members of the Cortes on 17 May.
Alfonso received, to a large extent, a military education that imbued him with "a Spanish nationalism strengthened by his military vocation". Besides the clique of military tutors, Alfonso also received political teachings from a liberal——and moral precepts from an integrist, José Fernández de la Montaña.
Engagement and marriage.
By 1905, Alfonso was looking for a suitable consort. On a state visit to the United Kingdom, he stayed in London at Buckingham Palace with King Edward VII. There he met Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, the daughter of Edward's youngest sister Princess Beatrice, and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. He found her attractive, and she returned his interest. There were obstacles to the marriage. Victoria was a Protestant, and would have to become a Catholic. Victoria's brother Leopold was a haemophiliac, so there was a 50 percent chance that Victoria was a carrier of the trait. Finally, Alfonso's mother Maria Christina wanted him to marry a member of her family, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, or some other Catholic princess, as she considered the Battenbergs to be non-dynastic.
Victoria was willing to change her religion, and her being a haemophilia carrier was only a possibility. Maria Christina was eventually persuaded to drop her opposition. In January 1906 she wrote an official letter to Princess Beatrice proposing the match. Victoria met Maria Christina and Alfonso in Biarritz, France, later that month, and converted to Catholicism in San Sebastián in March.
In May, diplomats of both kingdoms officially executed the agreement of marriage. Alfonso and Victoria were married at the Royal Monastery of San Jerónimo in Madrid on 31 May 1906, with British royalty in attendance, including Victoria's cousins the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary). The wedding was marked by an assassination attempt on Alfonso and Victoria by Catalan anarchist Mateu Morral. As the wedding procession returned to the palace, he threw a bomb from a window which killed 30 bystanders and members of the procession, while 100 others were wounded.
On 10 May 1907, the couple's first child, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, was born. Victoria was in fact a haemophilia carrier, and Alfonso inherited the condition.
Neither of the two daughters born to the King and Queen were haemophilia carriers, but another of their sons, Gonzalo (1914–1934), had the condition. Alfonso distanced himself from his wife for transmitting the condition to their sons. From 1914 on, he had several mistresses, and fathered five illegitimate children. A sixth illegitimate child had been born before his marriage.
World War I.
During World War I, because of his family connections with both sides and the division of popular opinion, Spain remained neutral. The King established an office for assistance to prisoners of war on all sides. This office used the Spanish diplomatic and military network abroad to intercede for thousands of POWs – transmitting and receiving letters for them, and other services. The office was located in the Royal Palace.
Alfonso attempted to save the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family from the Bolsheviks who captured them, sending two telegrams offering the Russian royal family refuge in Spain. He later learned of the execution of the Romanov family, but was mistaken in believing that only Nicholas II and his son Alexi had been killed. As such, he continued to push for the Tsaress Alexandra and her four daughters to be brought to Spain, not having realized that they had also been murdered.
Alfonso became gravely ill during the 1918 flu pandemic. Spain was neutral and thus under no wartime censorship restrictions, so his illness and subsequent recovery were reported to the world, while flu outbreaks in the belligerent countries were concealed. This gave the misleading impression that Spain was the most affected area and led to the pandemic being dubbed "the Spanish Flu".
Cracking of the system and dictatorship.
Following World War I, Spain entered the lengthy yet victorious Rif War (1920–1926) to preserve its colonial rule over northern Morocco. Critics of the monarchy thought the war was an unforgivable loss of money and lives, and nicknamed Alfonso "el Africano" ("the African"). Alfonso had not acted as a strict constitutional monarch, and supported the Africanists who wanted to conquer for Spain a new empire in Africa to compensate for the lost empire in the Americas and elsewhere. The Rif War had starkly polarized Spanish society between the Africanists who wanted to conquer an empire in Africa vs. the "abandonistas" who wanted to abandon Morocco as not worth the blood and treasure. Alfonso liked to play favourites with his generals, and one of his most favoured generals was Manuel Fernández Silvestre. In 1921, when Silvestre advanced up into the Rif mountains of Morocco, Alfonso sent him a telegram whose first line read "Hurrah for real men!", urging Silvestre not to retreat at a time when Silvestre was experiencing major difficulties. Silvestre stayed the course, leading his men into the Battle of Annual, one of Spain's worst defeats. Alfonso, who was on holiday in the south of France at the time, was informed of the "Disaster of the Annual" while he was playing golf. Reportedly, Alfonso's response to the news was to shrug his shoulders and say "Chicken meat is cheap", before resuming his game. Alfonso remained in France and did not return to Spain to comfort the families of the soldiers lost in the battle, which many people at the time saw as a callous and cold act, a sign that the King was indifferent over the lives of his soldiers. In 1922, the Cortes started an investigation into the responsibility for the Annual disaster and soon discovered evidence that the King had been one of the main supporters of Silvestre's advance into the Rif mountains.
After the "Disaster of the Annual", Spain's war in the Rif went from bad to worse, and as the Spanish were barely hanging on to Morocco, support for the "abandonistas" grew as many people could see no point to the war. In August 1923, Spanish soldiers embarking for Morocco mutinied, other soldiers in Málaga simply refused to board the ships that were to take them to Morocco, while in Barcelona huge crowds of left-wingers had staged anti-war protests at which Spanish flags were burned while the flag of the Rif Republic was waved about. With the Africanists comprising only a minority, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the "abandonistas" forced the Spanish to give up on the Rif, which was part of the reason for the military coup d'état later in 1923.
On 13 September 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera, Captain General of Catalonia, staged a military coup with the collaboration from a quad of "Africanist" generals based in Madrid who were associated to the innermost military clique of Alfonso XIII and who wanted to prevent investigations about Annual from tarnishing the monarch (José Cavalcanti, Federico Berenguer, Leopoldo Saro and Antonio Dabán), even if Primo de Rivera had embraced "Abandonista" positions prior to that point. Primo de Rivera ruled as a dictator with the king's support until January 1930.
On 28 January 1930, amid economic problems, general unpopularity and a putschist plot led by General Manuel Goded in motion, of which Alfonso XIII was most probably aware, Miguel Primo de Rivera was forced to resign, exiling to Paris, only to die a few weeks later of the complications from diabetes in combination with the effects of a flu. Alfonso XIII appointed General Dámaso Berenguer as the new prime minister. Back in 1926, Alfonso XIII had appointed Berenguer as Chief of Staff of the Military House of the King, a post conventionally fit for burned-out generals in order to move them away from the spotlight for a time in a show of affection. The new period was nicknamed as "dictablanda". The King was so closely associated with the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera that it was difficult for him to distance himself from the regime that he had supported for almost seven years. The enforced changes relied on the incorrect assumption that Spaniards would accept the notion that nothing had happened after 1923 and that going back to the prior state of things was possible.
Dethronement and politics in exile.
On 12 April, the Republican coalition, short of winning a majority of councillors overall, won a sweeping majority in major cities in the 1931 municipal elections, which were perceived as a plebiscite on monarchy. The results shocked the government, with foreign minister Romanones admitting to the press an "absolute monarchist defeat" and Civil Guard honcho José Sanjurjo reportedly telling government ministers that, given circumstances, the Armed Forces could not be "absolutely" relied upon for the sustainment of the monarchy. Alfonso XIII fled the country and the Second Spanish Republic was peacefully proclaimed on 14 April 1931.
In November 1931, the Constituent Republican Cortes held an impassionate debate about the political responsibilities of the former monarch. Some of the grievances against the action of Alfonso XIII as a king included interference in the institutions to reinforce his personal power, bargaining personal support from the military clique with rewards and merits, his abuse of the power to dissolve the legislature, rendering the co-sovereingty between the Nation and the Crown a total fiction; that he had disproportionately fostered the Armed forces (often to contain internal protest), had used the armed forces abroad with imperialist aims alien to the interests of the nation but his own, that he had personally devised the military operation of Annual behind the back of the Council of Ministers, and that following the massacre of Annual that "cost the lives of thousands of Spanish lads", he had decided to launch a coup with the help of a few generals rather than facing scrutiny in the legislature. Other than Romanones, who exculpated the actions of the monarch, disconformity towards the Primo de Rivera dictatorship notwithstanding, no other legislator intervened in his favour, with the debate focusing on whether labelling the monarch's actions as a military rebellion, lèse-majesté, high treason, or even condemning "a delinquent personality" or "a wholly punishable life". The debate ended with an eloquent speech by Prime Minister Manuel Azaña pleading for the unanimity of the house "to condemn and exclude D. Alfonso de Borbón from the law, proclaiming the majesty of our republic, the unbreakable will of our civism and the permanence of the Spanish glories framed by the institutions freely given by the Nation". The house passed the act brought forward by the Commission of Responsibilities, summarizing Alfonso de Borbón's responsibilities as being guilty of high treason.
Involved in anti-Republican plots from his exile, and keen to draw support from the Carlists in the context of the uneasy and competing relations between the Carlist and Alfonsist factions within the radicalised monarchist camp, in the aftermath of so-called Pact of Territet he issued a statement dated 23 January 1932 endorsing the manifesto launched by Carlist claimant Alfonso Carlos (in which the latter hinted at the cession of dynastic rights should the former king accept "those fundamental principles which in our traditional regime have been demanded of all Kings with precedence of personal rights"), with the dethroned king likewise accusing in the document the reformist Republic to be "inspired and sponsored by communism, freemasonry and judaism".
In 1933, his two eldest sons, Alfonso and Jaime, renounced their claims to the defunct throne on the same day, and in 1934 his youngest son Gonzalo died. This left his third son Juan his only male heir.
After the July 1936 attempted coup d'état against the democratically elected Republican government a war broke out in Spain. On 30 July 1936, Alfonso's son Juan took the initiative of leaving Cannes to go to Spain to join the rebel faction, with the former king (then in a hunting trip in Czechoslovakia) reportedly giving consent, so Juan de Borbón crossed the border set to join the front in Somosierra dressed in a blue jumpsuit and red beret under the fake name "Juan López". However, rebel general Emilio Mola, mastermind behind the putschist plot, was warned of the move and had Juan returned. The former king made it clear he favoured the rebel faction against the Republican government. In September 1936, the general who had emerged as leader of the rebel faction, Francisco Franco, declared that he would not restore Alfonso as king.
Death.
On 15 January 1941, Alfonso XIII renounced his rights to the defunct Spanish throne in favour of Juan. He died of a heart attack in Rome on 28 February that year.
In Spain, dictator Francisco Franco ordered three days of national mourning. The ex-king's funeral was held in Rome in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. He was buried in the Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli, the Spanish national church in Rome, immediately below the tombs of Popes Callixtus III and Alexander VI. In January 1980 his remains were transferred to El Escorial in Spain.
Legacy.
Alfonso was a promoter of tourism in Spain. The need for the lodging of his wedding guests prompted the construction of the luxurious Hotel Palace in Madrid. He also supported the creation of a network of state-run lodges, Paradores, in historic buildings of Spain. His fondness for the sport of football led to the patronage of several "royal" ("real" in Spanish) football clubs, the first being Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña in 1907. Selected others include Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Real Betis, Real Unión, Espanyol, Real Zaragoza and Real Racing Club.
An avenue in the northern Madrid neighbourhood of Chamartín, Avenida de Alfonso XIII, is named after him. A street in Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales, was built especially to house Spanish immigrants in the mining industry and named Alphonso Street after Alfonso XIII.
Ratoncito Pérez first appeared as the Spanish equivalent to the Tooth Fairy in a 1894 tale written by Luis Coloma for King Alfonso XIII, who had just lost a milk tooth at the age of eight, with the King appearing in the tale as "King Buby". The tale has been adapted into further literary works and movies since then, with the character of King Buby appearing in some. The tradition of Ratoncito Pérez replacing the lost milk teeth with a small payment or gift while the child sleeps is almost universally followed today in Spain and Hispanic America. Alfonso XIII is also mentioned on the plaque that the City Council of Madrid dedicated in 2003 to Ratoncito Pérez on the second floor of number eight of , where the mouse was said to have lived.
Personal life.
Legitimate and illegitimate children.
Alfonso and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (Ena) had seven children:
Alfonso also had a number of reported illegitimate children that are known, including: (1905–1980; by French aristocrat Mélanie de Gaufridy de Dortan, married to Philippe de Vilmorin); Juana Alfonsa Milán y Quiñones de León (1916–2005; by Alfonso's "governess" Béatrice Noon); Anna María Teresa Ruiz y Moragas (1925–1965) and (1929–2016; both last two by Spanish actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas); and Carmen Gravina (1926–2006; by Carmen de Navascués).
Attitude towards Jews.
Alfonso was known for his friendly attitude towards Jews, taking several actions to offer them protection. In 1917, Alfonso instructed the Spanish consul in Jerusalem, Antonio de la Cierva y Lewita, Count of Ballobar, to help protect Palestinian Jews. On another occasion, after a high official in Tetuan had committed onslaughts against Jews, a delegation composed of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims appealed to Alfonso. The King then removed the Tetuan official from power, in spite of the fact that the official possessed the support of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to the Jewish Professor Abraham S.E. Yahuda, Alfonso told Yahuda in private conversations that he would issue no policies of discrimination towards Jews, believing all of his Spanish subjects to be entitled to equal rights and protection.
Pornographic cinema.
Alfonso is occasionally referred to as "the playboy king", due in part to his promotion and collection of Spanish pornographic films, as well as his extramarital affairs. As King, Alfonso commissioned pornographic films through the Barcelona production company "Royal Films", with the Count of Romanones acting as an intermediary figure between him and the company. Between forty to seventy pornographic films are said to have been shot in total (three of which have been preserved) and were screened in Barcelona's Chinatown, as well as during Alfonso's private screenings. The films, while silent and in black and white, were nonetheless very explicit for the time, showing full nudity and sex scenes. These films featured content considered immoral and degenerate, including sexual relationships involving Catholic priests, lesbianism, and "women with enormous breasts" (the last of which is said to have been Alfonso's passion). Most of these films were later destroyed during Franco's regime.
This has led some to speculate that Alfonso may have possessed a sex addiction.
Legitimate and illegitimate children.
Alfonso and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (Ena) had seven children:
Alfonso also had a number of reported illegitimate children that are known, including: (1905–1980; by French aristocrat Mélanie de Gaufridy de Dortan, married to Philippe de Vilmorin); Juana Alfonsa Milán y Quiñones de León (1916–2005; by Alfonso's "governess" Béatrice Noon); Anna María Teresa Ruiz y Moragas (1925–1965) and (1929–2016; both last two by Spanish actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas); and Carmen Gravina (1926–2006; by Carmen de Navascués).
Attitude towards Jews.
Alfonso was known for his friendly attitude towards Jews, taking several actions to offer them protection. In 1917, Alfonso instructed the Spanish consul in Jerusalem, Antonio de la Cierva y Lewita, Count of Ballobar, to help protect Palestinian Jews. On another occasion, after a high official in Tetuan had committed onslaughts against Jews, a delegation composed of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims appealed to Alfonso. The King then removed the Tetuan official from power, in spite of the fact that the official possessed the support of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to the Jewish Professor Abraham S.E. Yahuda, Alfonso told Yahuda in private conversations that he would issue no policies of discrimination towards Jews, believing all of his Spanish subjects to be entitled to equal rights and protection.
Pornographic cinema.
Alfonso is occasionally referred to as "the playboy king", due in part to his promotion and collection of Spanish pornographic films, as well as his extramarital affairs. As King, Alfonso commissioned pornographic films through the Barcelona production company "Royal Films", with the Count of Romanones acting as an intermediary figure between him and the company. Between forty to seventy pornographic films are said to have been shot in total (three of which have been preserved) and were screened in Barcelona's Chinatown, as well as during Alfonso's private screenings. The films, while silent and in black and white, were nonetheless very explicit for the time, showing full nudity and sex scenes. These films featured content considered immoral and degenerate, including sexual relationships involving Catholic priests, lesbianism, and "women with enormous breasts" (the last of which is said to have been Alfonso's passion). Most of these films were later destroyed during Franco's regime.
This has led some to speculate that Alfonso may have possessed a sex addiction.
Honours.
Foreign honours.
In the Royal Library of Madrid, there are books containing emblems of the Spanish monarch.
Foreign honours.
In the Royal Library of Madrid, there are books containing emblems of the Spanish monarch.
Ancestry.
Alfonso XIII is a rare example of endogamy. In the eleventh generation he has only 111 ancestors whereas in a standard situation one expects to identify 1024 of them. Here we are with a situation of implex of 89%.
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1723
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Ammonius Hermiae
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Ammonius Hermiae (; ; – between 517 and 526) was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria in the eastern Roman empire during Late Antiquity. A Neoplatonist, he was the son of the philosophers Hermias and Aedesia, the brother of Heliodorus of Alexandria and the grandson of Syrianus. Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Roman Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, having obtained a public chair in the 470s.
According to Olympiodorus of Thebes's "Commentaries" on Plato's "Gorgias" and "Phaedo" texts, Ammonius gave lectures on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry of Tyre, and wrote commentaries on Aristotelian works and three lost commentaries on Platonic texts. He is also the author of a text on the astrolabe published in the "Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum", and lectured on astronomy and geometry. Ammonius taught numerous Neoplatonists, including Damascius, Olympiodorus of Thebes, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Asclepius of Tralles. Also among his pupils were the physician Gessius of Petra and the ecclesiastical historian Zacharias Rhetor, who became the bishop of Mytilene.
As part of the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, the Alexandrian school was investigated by the Roman imperial authorities; Ammonius made a compromise with the Patriarch of Alexandria, Peter III, voluntarily limiting his teaching in return for keeping his own position. This alienated a number of his colleagues and pupils, including Damascius, who nonetheless called him "the greatest commentator who ever lived" in his own "Life of Isidore of Alexandria".
Life.
Ammonius' father Hermias died when he was a child, and his mother Aedesia raised him and his brother Heliodorus in Alexandria. When they reached adulthood, Aedesia accompanied her sons to Athens where they studied under Proclus. Eventually, they returned to Alexandria where Ammonius, as head of the Neoplatonist school in the city, lectured on Plato and Aristotle for the rest of his life. According to Damascius, during the persecution of the pagans at Alexandria in the late 480s, Ammonius made concessions to the Christian authorities so that he could continue his lectures. Damascius, who scolds Ammonius for the agreement that he made, does not say what the concessions were, but it may have involved limitations on the doctrines he could teach or promote. He was still teaching in 515; Olympiodorus heard him lecture on Plato's "Gorgias" in that year. He was also an accomplished astronomer; he lectured on Ptolemy and is known to have written a treatise on the astrolabe.
Writings.
Of his reputedly numerous writings, only his commentary on Aristotle's "De Interpretatione" survives intact. A commentary on Porphyry's "Isagoge" may also be his, but it is somewhat corrupt and contains later interpolations.
In "De Interpretatione", Ammonius contends that divine foreknowledge makes void the contingent. Like Boethius in his second "Commentary" and in "The Consolation of Philosophy," this argument maintains the effectiveness of prayer. Ammonius cites Iamblichus, who said "knowledge is intermediate between the knower and the known, since it is the activity of the knower concerning the known."
In addition, there are some notes of Ammonius' lectures written by various students which also survive:
There is Greek-language work called "Life of Aristotle", which is usually ascribed to Ammonius, but "is more probable that it is the work of Joannes Philoponus, the pupil of Ammonius, to whom it is ascribed in some MSS."
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1724
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Ammonius Saccas
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Ammonius Saccas (; ; 175 AD242 AD) was a Hellenistic Platonist self-taught philosopher from Alexandria, generally regarded as the precursor of Neoplatonism and/or one of its founders. He is mainly known as the teacher of Plotinus, whom he taught from 232 to 242. He was undoubtedly the biggest influence on Plotinus in his development of Neoplatonism, although little is known about his own philosophical views. Later Christian writers stated that Ammonius was a Christian, but it is now generally assumed that there was a different Ammonius of Alexandria who wrote biblical texts.
Life.
The origins and meaning of Ammonius' cognomen, "Sakkas," are disputed. Many scholars have interpreted it as indicating he was a porter in his youth, a view supported in antiquity by Byzantine bishop Theodoret. Others have asserted that this is a misreading of "Sakkas" for "sakkophoros" (porter). Some others have connected the cognomen with the "Śākyas," an ancient ruling clan of India, claiming that Ammonius Saccas was of Indian origin. This view has both been subsequently contested and supported by more recent scholarship. Some scholars supporting Ammonius' Indian origin have also contended that this ancestry is consistent with the passion of his foremost student Plotinus for India, and helps to explain the philosophical similarities between Vedanta and neoplatonism, which many scholars attribute to Indian influence. On the other hand, scholars contesting his Indian origins, point out that Ammonius was from the Brucheion quarter of Alexandria, which was the royal quarter of the city inhabited mostly by Greeks, and that the name "Ammonius" was common to many Greeks, with a number of scholars and historians supporting a Greek origin for Ammonius. Though his name is theophoric to the deity Amun, indicating an Egyptian origin.
Most details of Ammonius' life come from the fragments left from Porphyry's writings. The most famous pupil of Ammonius Saccas was Plotinus who studied under Ammonius for eleven years. According to Porphyry, in 232, at the age of 28, Plotinus went to Alexandria to study philosophy:
In his twenty-eighth year he [Plotinus] felt the impulse to study philosophy and was recommended to the teachers in Alexandria who then had the highest reputation; but he came away from their lectures so depressed and full of sadness that he told his trouble to one of his friends. The friend, understanding the desire of his heart, sent him to Ammonius, whom he had not so far tried. He went and heard him, and said to his friend, "This is the man I was looking for." From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians.
According to Porphyry, the parents of Ammonius were Christians, but upon learning Greek philosophy, Ammonius rejected his parents' religion for paganism. This conversion is contested by the Christian writers Jerome and Eusebius, who state that Ammonius remained a Christian throughout his lifetime:
[Porphyry] plainly utters a falsehood (for what will not an opposer of Christians do?) when he says that ... Ammonius fell from a life of piety into heathen customs. ... Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and unadulterated to the end of his life. His works yet extant show this, as he is celebrated among many for the writings which he has left.
However, we are told by Longinus that Ammonius wrote nothing, and if Ammonius was the principal influence on Plotinus, then it is unlikely that Ammonius would have been a Christian. One way to explain much of the confusion concerning Ammonius is to assume that there were two people called Ammonius: Ammonius Saccas who taught Plotinus, and an Ammonius the Christian who wrote biblical texts. Another explanation might be that there was only one Ammonius but that Origen, who found the Neo-Platonist views of his teacher essential to his own beliefs about the essential nature of Christianity, chose to suppress Ammonius' choice of Paganism over Christianity. The insistence of Eusebius, Origen's pupil, and Jerome, all of whom were recognized Fathers of the Christian Church, that Ammonius Saccas had not rejected his Christian roots would be easier for Christians to accept than the assertion of Prophyry, who was a Pagan, that Ammonius had chosen Paganism over Christianity.
To add to the confusion, it seems that Ammonius had two pupils called Origen: Origen the Christian, and Origen the Pagan. It is quite possible that Ammonius Saccas taught both Origens. And since there were two Origens who were accepted as contemporaries it was easy for later Christians to accept that there were two individuals named Ammonius, one a Christian and one a Pagan. Among Ammonius' other pupils there were Herennius and Cassius Longinus.
Philosophy.
Hierocles, writing in the 5th century, states that Ammonius' fundamental doctrine was that Plato and Aristotle were in full agreement with each other:
He was the first who had a godly zeal for the truth in philosophy and despised the views of the majority, which were a disgrace to philosophy. He apprehended well the views of each of the two philosophers [Plato and Aristotle] and brought them under one and the same "nous" and transmitted philosophy without conflicts to all of his disciples, and especially to the best of those acquainted with him, Plotinus, Origen, and their successors.
According to Nemesius, a bishop and neoplatonist c. 400, Ammonius held that the soul was immaterial.
Little is known about Ammonius's role in the development of neoplatonism. Porphyry seems to suggest that Ammonius was instrumental in helping Plotinus think about philosophy in new ways:
But he [Plotinus] did not just speak straight out of these books but took a distinctive personal line in his consideration, and brought the mind of Ammonius' to bear on the investigation in hand.
Two of Ammonius's students – Origen the Pagan, and Longinus – seem to have held philosophical positions which were closer to middle Platonism than neoplatonism, which perhaps suggests that Ammonius's doctrines were also closer to those of middle Platonism than the neoplatonism developed by Plotinus (see the "Enneads"), but Plotinus does not seem to have thought that he was departing in any significant way from that of his master.
Like Porphyry ("The Life of Plotinus", 3, 24–29), also Nemesius refers of Ammonius Saccas as the teacher or the master of Plotinus (Nemesius, "Nature of Man", 2.103).
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1729
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Amyntas I of Macedon
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Amyntas I (Greek: Ἀμύντας Aʹ; 498 BC) was king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (c. 547 – 512 / 511 BC) and then a vassal of Darius I from 512/511 to his death 498 BC, at the time of Achaemenid Macedonia. He was a son of Alcetas I of Macedon. He married Eurydice and they had a son Alexander.
Amyntas was a vassal of Darius I, king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, from 512/511 BC. Amyntas gave the present of "Earth and Water" to Megabazus, which symbolised submission to the Achaemenid Emperor. One of the daughters of Amyntas, named Gygaea, was married to the Persian General, called Bubares, possibly as a way of reinforcing the alliance.
The history of Macedonia may be said to begin with Amyntas' reign. He was the first of its rulers to have diplomatic relations with other states. In particular, he entered into an alliance with Hippias of Athens, and when Hippias was driven out of Athens he offered him the territory of Anthemus on the Thermaic Gulf with the object of taking advantage of the feuds between the Greeks. Hippias refused the offer and also rejected the offer of Iolcos, as Amyntas probably did not control Anthemous at that time, but was merely suggesting a plan of joint occupation to Hippias.
Sources.
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1730
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Amyntas III of Macedon
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Amyntas III (Greek: Αμύντας Γ΄ της Μακεδονίας) (420 – 370 BC) was king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia in 393 BC and again from 392 to 370 BC. He was the son of Arrhidaeus and grandson of Amyntas, one of the sons of Alexander I. His most famous son is Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.
Reign.
He came to the throne after the ten years of confusion which followed the death of Archelaus I. But he had many enemies at home; in 393 he was driven out by the Illyrians, but in the following year, with the aid of the Thessalians, he recovered his kingdom. Medius, head of the house of the Aleuadae of Larissa, is believed to have provided aid to Amyntas in recovering his throne. The mutual relationship between the Argeadae and the Aleuadae dates to the time of Archelaus.
To shore up his country against the threat of the Illyrians, Amyntas established an alliance with the Chalcidian League led by Olynthus. In exchange for this support, Amyntas granted them rights to Macedonian timber, which was sent back to Athens to help fortify their fleet. With money flowing into Olynthus from these exports, their power grew. In response, Amyntas sought additional allies. He established connections with Kotys, chief of the Odrysians. Kotys had already married his daughter to the Athenian general Iphicrates. Prevented from marrying into Kotys' family, Amyntas soon adopted Iphicrates as his son.
After the King's Peace of 387 BC, Sparta was anxious to re-establish its presence in northern Greece. In 385 BC, Bardylis and his Illyrians attacked Epirus instigated and aided by Dionysius I of Syracuse, in an attempt to restore the Molossian king Alcetas I of Epirus to the throne. When Amyntas sought Spartan aid against the growing threat of Olynthus, the Spartans eagerly responded. That Olynthus was backed by Athens and Thebes, rivals to Sparta for the control of Greece, provided them with an additional incentive to break up this growing power in the north. Amyntas thus concluded a treaty with the Spartans, who assisted him in a war against Olynthus. First Spartan-Macedonian forces suffered two defeats but in 379 they managed to destroy Olynthus. He also entered into a league with Jason of Pherae, and assiduously cultivated the friendship of Athens. In 371 BC at a Panhellenic congress of the Lacedaemonian allies, he voted in support of the Athenians' claim and joined other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis.
With Olynthus defeated, Amyntas was now able to conclude a treaty with Athens and keep the timber revenues for himself. Amyntas shipped the timber to the house of the Athenian Timotheus, in Piraeus.
Family.
Amyntas married first Eurydice, daughter of Sirras of Lynkestis, in 390 BC. By her, Amyntas had three sons, all of whom became kings of Macedonia one after the other, and a daughter:
Justin also mentions that Amyntas had three sons by his second wife, Gygaea. She was the daughter of Archelaus I and thus Amyntas's second cousin. To make peace with Argaeus II, Amyntas's second cousin-once-removed, Amyntas chose to marry Gygaea because she was the aunt of Argaeus but to do so he had to divorce Eurydice. Eurydice and her children considered the divorce to be against the permission of the gods because they considered the reason illegitimate. As a result, they considered Amyntas to have committed adultery. Justin also mentions that Amyntas had three sons by another wife, Gygaea (probably an Argead): Archelaus, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus. The fact that they did not try to take the throne before the 350s suggests that they were younger than Amyntas' children by Eurydice. They were ultimately eliminated by their half-brother Philip II because they had a claim to the throne.
Amyntas died aged 50, leaving his throne to his eldest son, Alexander II.
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1719
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Ambrosius Aurelianus
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Ambrosius Aurelianus (; Anglicised as Ambrose Aurelian and called Aurelius Ambrosius in the "Historia Regum Britanniae" and elsewhere) was a war leader of the Romano-British who won an important battle against the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century, according to Gildas. He also appeared independently in the legends of the Britons, beginning with the 9th-century "Historia Brittonum". Eventually, he was transformed by Geoffrey of Monmouth into the uncle of King Arthur, the brother of Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, as a ruler who precedes and predeceases them both. He also appears as a young prophet who meets the tyrant Vortigern; in this guise, he was later transformed into the wizard Merlin.
According to Gildas.
Ambrosius Aurelianus is one of the few people whom Gildas identifies by name in his sermon "De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae", and the only one named from the 5th century. "De Excidio" is considered the oldest extant British document about the so-called Arthurian period of Sub-Roman Britain. Following the destructive assault of the Saxons, the survivors gather together under the leadership of Ambrosius, who is described as:
Some basic information on Ambrosius can be deduced from the brief passage: Ambrosius was possibly of high birth and very likely a Christian (Gildas says that he won his battles "with God's help"). Ambrosius's parents were slain by the Saxons and he was among the few survivors of their initial invasion.
According to Gildas, Ambrosius organised the survivors into an armed force and achieved the first military victory over the Saxon invaders. However, this victory was not decisive: "Sometimes the Saxons and sometimes the citizens [meaning the Romano-British inhabitants] were victorious." Due to Gildas's description of him, Ambrosius is one of the figures called the Last of the Romans.
Scholarship questions.
Two points in Gildas's description have attracted much scholarly commentary. The first is what Gildas meant by saying Ambrosius' family "had worn the purple". Roman emperors and male Patricians wore clothes with a purple band to denote their class so the reference to purple may be to an aristocratic heritage. Roman military tribunes ("tribuni militum"), senior officers in Roman legions, wore a similar purple band so the reference may be to a family background of military leadership. The tradition was old, as the togas and pallia of already ancient senators and tribunes were trimmed with the purple band. In the church, "the purple" is a euphemism for blood and therefore "wearing the purple" may be a reference to martyrdom or a bishop's robe. In addition, in the later Roman Empire both Roman consuls and governors of consular rank also wore clothes with a purple fringe. The "Notitia Dignitatum", a Roman catalogue of official posts, lists four or five provincial governors in Roman Britain and two of them were of consular rank. One was the governor of Maxima Caesariensis and the other that of Valentia. The parent who wore the purple may well have been one of these governors, whose names were not recorded.
It has been suggested by historian Alex Woolf that Ambrosius may have been related to the 5th-century Romano-British usurpers Marcus or Gratian – Woolf expresses a preference based on nomenclature for Marcus. Frank D. Reno, an Arthurian scholar, has instead argued that the name "Aurelianus" indicates the descent of Ambrosius from the Illyrian Roman emperor Aurelian (reigned 270–275). Aurelian's military campaigns included the conquest of the Gallic Empire. N. J. Higham suggests that Ambrosius may have been distantly related to imperial families of the late Roman Empire, such as the Theodosian dynasty. Branches of this particular dynasty were known to be active in western Roman provinces like Hispania.
Mike Ashley instead focuses on the name "Ambrosius" and its possible connection to Saint Ambrosius, a fourth-century Bishop of Milan, who also served as consular governor in areas of Roman Italy. The father of the Bishop is sometimes claimed to be a fourth century Praetorian prefect of Gaul named Aurelius Ambrosius, whose areas included Britain, though some modern scholars doubt that Saint Ambrosius was related to this man (instead identifying his father with an official named Uranius mentioned in an extract from the Theodosian Code). Ashley suggests that Ambrosius Aurelianus was related to the two Aurelii Ambrosii. Tim Venning points out that the name "Aurelianus" could be the result of a Roman adoption. When a boy was adopted into a new gens (clan), he received the family names of his new family but was often additionally called by a cognomen indicating his descent from his original family. The additional cognomen often had the form "-anus". When Gaius Octavius from gens Octavia was adopted by his uncle Gaius Julius Caesar, he was often distinguished from his adoptive father by the addition "Octavianus". In this case, Ambrosius may have been a member of gens Aurelia who was adopted by another gens/family.
The second question is the meaning of the word "avita": Gildas could have meant "ancestors", or intended it to mean more specifically "grandfather" – thus indicating Ambrosius lived about a generation before the Battle of Badon. Lack of information prevents sure answers to these questions.
Gildas's motives.
N. J. Higham wrote a book on Gildas and the literary tropes that he used. He has suggested that Gildas may have had considerable motive for drawing attention to Ambrosius. He was not attempting to write a historical biography of the man, according to Higham, but setting him as an example to his contemporaries. It was essential to the philosophy of Gildas that Briton leaders who achieved victory over the barbarians were only able to do so because of divine aid. And only those who had superior Christian virtues were deserving of this aid. Ambrosius Aurelianus was apparently known for at least one such victory over the barbarians. To fit him into his worldview, Gildas was almost required to feature the former warrior as a man of exceptional virtues and obedience to God. He was made to fit Gildas's version of a model leader.
Higham also suggests that the Roman lineage of Ambrosius was highlighted for a reason. Gildas was apparently intentionally connecting him with the legitimate authority and military virtues of the Romans. He was also contrasting him with the subsequent Briton rulers whose reigns lacked in such legitimacy.
Identifying historical figures.
Gildas is a primary source for the Battle of Badon, yet he never mentions the names of the combatants. Therefore, we cannot know if Ambrosius Aurelianus or his successors took part in the battle. The names of the Saxon leaders in the battle are also not recorded.
The identities of Ambrosius's descendants are unknown, since Gildas never identifies them by name. It is safe to assume that they were Gildas's contemporaries and known to the author. Higham suggests that they were prominent figures of the time. Their lineage and identities were probably sufficiently familiar to his intended audience that they did not have to be named. The work portrays Ambrosius's descendants as inferior to their ancestor as part of his criticism on rulers of his time, according to Higham. Those criticised were likely aware that the vitriol was intended for them, but probably would not challenge a work offering such a glowing report of their illustrious ancestor.
Mike Ashley suggests that the descendants of Ambrosius could include other people named by Gildas. He favours the inclusion in this category of one Aurelius Caninus ("Aurelius the dog-like"), whom Gildas accuses of parricide, fornication, adultery, and warmongering. His name "Aurelius" suggests Romano-British descent. The insulting nickname "Caninus" was probably invented by Gildas himself, who similarly insults other contemporary rulers. Due to the name used by Gildas, there are theories that this ruler was actually named Conan/Cynan/Kenan. Some identify him with Cynan Garwyn, a 6th-century King of Powys, though it is uncertain if he was a contemporary of Gildas or lived one or two generations following him. Another theory is that this ruler did not reign in Britain but in Brittany. Caninus, in this view, might be Conomor ("Great Dog"). Conomor is considered a likelier contemporary of Gildas. Conomor was likely from Domnonée, an area of Brittany controlled by British immigrants from Dumnonia. He might be remembered in British legend as Mark of Cornwall.
Gildas primarily features the Saxons as barbarian raiders; their invasions involved a slow and difficult process of military conquest. By AD 500, possibly the time described by Gildas, Anglo-Saxons controlled the Isle of Wight, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and coastal areas of Northumberland and Yorkshire. The rest of the former Roman Britain was still under the control of the local Britons or remnants of the Roman provincial administration. Gildas also mentions depopulation of cities and this probably reflects historical facts. Londinium, once a major city, was completely abandoned during the 5th century.
Scholarship questions.
Two points in Gildas's description have attracted much scholarly commentary. The first is what Gildas meant by saying Ambrosius' family "had worn the purple". Roman emperors and male Patricians wore clothes with a purple band to denote their class so the reference to purple may be to an aristocratic heritage. Roman military tribunes ("tribuni militum"), senior officers in Roman legions, wore a similar purple band so the reference may be to a family background of military leadership. The tradition was old, as the togas and pallia of already ancient senators and tribunes were trimmed with the purple band. In the church, "the purple" is a euphemism for blood and therefore "wearing the purple" may be a reference to martyrdom or a bishop's robe. In addition, in the later Roman Empire both Roman consuls and governors of consular rank also wore clothes with a purple fringe. The "Notitia Dignitatum", a Roman catalogue of official posts, lists four or five provincial governors in Roman Britain and two of them were of consular rank. One was the governor of Maxima Caesariensis and the other that of Valentia. The parent who wore the purple may well have been one of these governors, whose names were not recorded.
It has been suggested by historian Alex Woolf that Ambrosius may have been related to the 5th-century Romano-British usurpers Marcus or Gratian – Woolf expresses a preference based on nomenclature for Marcus. Frank D. Reno, an Arthurian scholar, has instead argued that the name "Aurelianus" indicates the descent of Ambrosius from the Illyrian Roman emperor Aurelian (reigned 270–275). Aurelian's military campaigns included the conquest of the Gallic Empire. N. J. Higham suggests that Ambrosius may have been distantly related to imperial families of the late Roman Empire, such as the Theodosian dynasty. Branches of this particular dynasty were known to be active in western Roman provinces like Hispania.
Mike Ashley instead focuses on the name "Ambrosius" and its possible connection to Saint Ambrosius, a fourth-century Bishop of Milan, who also served as consular governor in areas of Roman Italy. The father of the Bishop is sometimes claimed to be a fourth century Praetorian prefect of Gaul named Aurelius Ambrosius, whose areas included Britain, though some modern scholars doubt that Saint Ambrosius was related to this man (instead identifying his father with an official named Uranius mentioned in an extract from the Theodosian Code). Ashley suggests that Ambrosius Aurelianus was related to the two Aurelii Ambrosii. Tim Venning points out that the name "Aurelianus" could be the result of a Roman adoption. When a boy was adopted into a new gens (clan), he received the family names of his new family but was often additionally called by a cognomen indicating his descent from his original family. The additional cognomen often had the form "-anus". When Gaius Octavius from gens Octavia was adopted by his uncle Gaius Julius Caesar, he was often distinguished from his adoptive father by the addition "Octavianus". In this case, Ambrosius may have been a member of gens Aurelia who was adopted by another gens/family.
The second question is the meaning of the word "avita": Gildas could have meant "ancestors", or intended it to mean more specifically "grandfather" – thus indicating Ambrosius lived about a generation before the Battle of Badon. Lack of information prevents sure answers to these questions.
Gildas's motives.
N. J. Higham wrote a book on Gildas and the literary tropes that he used. He has suggested that Gildas may have had considerable motive for drawing attention to Ambrosius. He was not attempting to write a historical biography of the man, according to Higham, but setting him as an example to his contemporaries. It was essential to the philosophy of Gildas that Briton leaders who achieved victory over the barbarians were only able to do so because of divine aid. And only those who had superior Christian virtues were deserving of this aid. Ambrosius Aurelianus was apparently known for at least one such victory over the barbarians. To fit him into his worldview, Gildas was almost required to feature the former warrior as a man of exceptional virtues and obedience to God. He was made to fit Gildas's version of a model leader.
Higham also suggests that the Roman lineage of Ambrosius was highlighted for a reason. Gildas was apparently intentionally connecting him with the legitimate authority and military virtues of the Romans. He was also contrasting him with the subsequent Briton rulers whose reigns lacked in such legitimacy.
Identifying historical figures.
Gildas is a primary source for the Battle of Badon, yet he never mentions the names of the combatants. Therefore, we cannot know if Ambrosius Aurelianus or his successors took part in the battle. The names of the Saxon leaders in the battle are also not recorded.
The identities of Ambrosius's descendants are unknown, since Gildas never identifies them by name. It is safe to assume that they were Gildas's contemporaries and known to the author. Higham suggests that they were prominent figures of the time. Their lineage and identities were probably sufficiently familiar to his intended audience that they did not have to be named. The work portrays Ambrosius's descendants as inferior to their ancestor as part of his criticism on rulers of his time, according to Higham. Those criticised were likely aware that the vitriol was intended for them, but probably would not challenge a work offering such a glowing report of their illustrious ancestor.
Mike Ashley suggests that the descendants of Ambrosius could include other people named by Gildas. He favours the inclusion in this category of one Aurelius Caninus ("Aurelius the dog-like"), whom Gildas accuses of parricide, fornication, adultery, and warmongering. His name "Aurelius" suggests Romano-British descent. The insulting nickname "Caninus" was probably invented by Gildas himself, who similarly insults other contemporary rulers. Due to the name used by Gildas, there are theories that this ruler was actually named Conan/Cynan/Kenan. Some identify him with Cynan Garwyn, a 6th-century King of Powys, though it is uncertain if he was a contemporary of Gildas or lived one or two generations following him. Another theory is that this ruler did not reign in Britain but in Brittany. Caninus, in this view, might be Conomor ("Great Dog"). Conomor is considered a likelier contemporary of Gildas. Conomor was likely from Domnonée, an area of Brittany controlled by British immigrants from Dumnonia. He might be remembered in British legend as Mark of Cornwall.
Gildas primarily features the Saxons as barbarian raiders; their invasions involved a slow and difficult process of military conquest. By AD 500, possibly the time described by Gildas, Anglo-Saxons controlled the Isle of Wight, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and coastal areas of Northumberland and Yorkshire. The rest of the former Roman Britain was still under the control of the local Britons or remnants of the Roman provincial administration. Gildas also mentions depopulation of cities and this probably reflects historical facts. Londinium, once a major city, was completely abandoned during the 5th century.
According to Bede.
Bede follows Gildas's account of Ambrosius in his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People", but in his "Chronica Majora" he dates Ambrosius's victory to the reign of the Emperor Zeno (474–491).
Bede's treatment of the 5th century history of Great Britain is not particularly valuable as a source. Until about the year 418, Bede could choose between several historical sources and often followed the writings of Orosius. Following the end of Orosius's history, Bede apparently lacked other available sources and relied extensively on Gildas. Entries from this period tend to be close paraphrases of Gildas's account with mostly stylistic changes. Bede's account of Ambrosius Aurelianus has been translated as following:
Bede does not mention the descendants of Ambrosius Aurelianus, nor their supposed degeneracy.
According to Nennius.
The "Historia Brittonum", attributed to Nennius, preserves several snippets of lore about Ambrosius. Despite the traditional attribution, the authorship of the work and the period of its writing are open questions for modern historians. There are several extant manuscript versions of the work, varying in details. The most important ones have been dated to between the 9th and the 11th century. Some modern scholars think it unlikely that the work was composed by a single writer or compiler, suggesting that it may have taken centuries to reach its final form, though this theory is not conclusive.
In Chapter 31, we are told that Vortigern ruled in fear of Ambrosius. This is the first mention of Ambrosius in the work. According to Frank D. Reno, this would indicate that Ambrosius's influence was formidable, since Vortigern considered him more of a threat than northern invaders and attempts to restore Roman rule in Britain. The chapter relates events following the end of Roman rule in Britain and preceding Vortigern's alliance with the Saxons.
The most significant appearance of Ambrosius is the story about Ambrosius, Vortigern, and the two dragons beneath Dinas Emrys, "Fortress of Ambrosius" in Chapters 40–42. In this account, Ambrosius is still an adolescent but has supernatural powers. He intimidates Vortigern and the royal magicians. When it is revealed that Ambrosius is the son of a Roman consul, Vortigern is convinced to cede to the younger man the castle of Dinas Emrys and all the kingdoms in the western part of Britain. Vortigern then retreats to the north, in an area called Gwynessi. This story was later retold with more detail by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his fictionalised "Historia Regum Britanniae", conflating the personage of Ambrosius with the Welsh tradition of Myrddin the visionary, known for oracular utterances that foretold the coming victories of the native Celtic inhabitants of Britain over the Saxons and the Normans. Geoffrey also introduces him into the "Historia" under the name Aurelius Ambrosius as one of three sons of Constantine III, along with Constans and Uther Pendragon.
In Chapter 48, Ambrosius Aurelianus is described as "king among all the kings of the British nation". The chapter records that Pascent, the son of Vortigern, was granted rule over the regions of Buellt and Gwrtheyrnion by Ambrosius. Finally, in Chapter 66, various events are dated from a Battle of Guoloph (often identified with Wallop, ESE of Amesbury near Salisbury), which is said to have been between Ambrosius and Vitolinus. The author dates this battle as taking place 12 years from the reign of Vortigern.
It is not clear how these various traditions about Ambrosius relate to each other, or whether they come from the same tradition; it is very possible that these references are to different men with the same name. Frank D. Reno points out that the works call all these men "Ambrosius"/"Emrys". The cognomen "Aurelianus" is never used. The "Historia Brittonum" dates the battle of Guoloph to "the twelfth year of Vortigern", by which the year 437 seems to be meant. This is perhaps a generation before the battle that Gildas may imply was commanded by Ambrosius Aurelianus.
The text never identifies who Ambrosius's father is, just gives his title as a Roman consul. When an adolescent Ambrosius speaks of his father, there is no suggestion that this father is deceased. The boy is not identified as an orphan. The exact age of Ambrosius is not given in his one encounter with Vortigern. Frank D. Reno suggests that he might be as young as 13 years old, barely a teenager.
It is impossible to know to what degree Ambrosius actually wielded political power, and over what area. Ambrosius and Vortigern are shown as being in conflict in the "Historia Brittonum", and some historians have suspected that this preserves a historical core of the existence of two parties in opposition to one another, one headed by Ambrosius and the other by Vortigern. J. N. L. Myres built upon this suspicion and speculated that belief in Pelagianism reflected an actively provincial outlook in Britain and that Vortigern represented the Pelagian party, while Ambrosius led the Catholic one. Subsequent historians accepted Myres's speculation as fact, creating a narrative of events in 5th century Britain with various degrees of elaborate detail. Yet a simpler alternative interpretation of the conflict between these two figures is that the "Historia Brittonum" is preserving traditions hostile to the purported descendants of Vortigern, who at this time were a ruling house in Powys. This interpretation is supported by the negative character of all of the stories retold about Vortigern in the "Historia Brittonum", which include his alleged practice of incest.
The identity of Ambrosius's last mentioned enemy, Vitalinus, is somewhat obscure. Various manuscripts of the "Historia" and translations also render his name as "Guitolin," "Guitolini," and "Guitholini." He is mentioned in chapter 49 as one of four sons of Gloiu and co-founder of the city of Gloucester. No other background information is given. There are theories that Gloiu is also the father of Vortigern, but the genealogy is obscure and no supporting primary text can be found. There have been further attempts to identify Vitalinus with a pro-Vortigern or anti-Roman faction in Britain, opposed to the rise of the Romano-British Ambrosius. However, this is rendered problematic since Vitalinus seems to also have a Romano-British name. The traditional view of pro-Roman and pro-Briton factions active in this period might oversimplify a more complex situation.
According to William of Malmesbury.
Ambrosius appears briefly in the "Gesta Regum Anglorum" ("Deeds of the Kings of the English") by William of Malmesbury. Despite its name, the work attempted to reconstruct British history in general by drawing together the varying accounts of Gildas, Bede, Nennius, and various chroniclers. The work features Ambrosius as the apparent employer of Arthur. The relevant passage has been translated as follows:
William swiftly shifts attention from Ambrosius to Arthur, and proceeds to narrate Arthur's supposed victory in the Battle of Badon. The narrative is probably the first to connect Ambrosius and Arthur. William had to reconcile the accounts of Gildas and Bede who implied that Ambrosius was connected to the battle, and that of Nennius which clearly stated that it was Arthur who was connected to the battle. He solved the apparent discrepancy by connecting both of them to it. Ambrosius as the king of the Britons and Arthur as his most prominent general and true victor of the battle.
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Ambrosius Aurelianus appears in later pseudo-chronicle tradition beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae" with the slightly garbled name "Aurelius Ambrosius", now presented as son of a King Constantine. King Constantine's eldest son Constans is murdered at Vortigern's instigation, and the two remaining sons (Ambrosius and Uther, still very young) are quickly hustled into exile in Brittany. (This does not fit with Gildas' account, in which Ambrosius' family perished in the turmoil of the Saxon uprisings.) Later, the two brothers return from exile with a large army when Vortigern's power has faded. They destroy Vortigern and become friends with Merlin. They go on to defeat the Saxon leader Hengist in two battles at Maisbeli (probably Ballifield, near Sheffield) and Cunengeburg. Hengist is executed and Ambrosius becomes king of Britain. However, he is poisoned by his enemies, and Uther succeeds him. The text identifies the poisoner as Eopa.
Judgements tend to vary wildly of the value of Geoffrey as both a historian and a literary storyteller. He has been praised for giving us detailed information about an otherwise obscure period and possibly preserving information from lost sources, and condemned for an excessive use of artistic licence and possibly inventing stories wholecloth.
According to Frank D. Reno, whenever Geoffrey uses extant sources, the details in the text tend to be accurate. Assuming that he was also using sources lost to us, it may be difficult to decide which details are truthful. Reno suggests that "individual judgements" have to be made about various elements of his narrative.
Geoffrey changed the word "Aurelianus" to "Aurelius", which is the name of a Roman gens. Geoffrey retains the story of Emrys and the dragons from Nennius, but identifies the figure with Merlin. Merlin is Geoffrey's version of a historical figure known as Myrddin Wyllt. Myrddin is only mentioned once in the "Annales Cambriae", at an entry dated to 573. The name of Merlin is given in Latin as Ambrosius Merlinus. "Merlinus" may have been intended as the agnomen of a Roman or Romano-British individual like Ambrosius.
Elements of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the traditional warrior king, are used by Geoffrey for other characters. Ambrosius' supposed supernatural powers are passed to Merlin. Geoffrey's Aurelius Ambrosius rises to the throne but dies early, passing the throne to a previously unknown brother called Uther Pendragon. The role of warrior king is shared by Uther and his son Arthur.
Geoffrey also uses the character Gloiu, father of Vitalinus/Vitolinus, derived from Nennius. He names this character as a son of Claudius and appointed by his father as Duke of the Welsh. His predecessor as Duke is called Arvirargus. Assuming that Claudius and Arvirargus are supposed to be contemporaries, then this Claudius is the Roman emperor Claudius I (reigned 41–54). It seems unlikely that Claudius would have living grandsons in the 5th century, four centuries following his death. Reno suggests that Claudius II (reigned 268–270) would be a more likely "Claudius" to have living descendants in the 5th century.
Geoffrey for the first time gives a genealogy of Ambrosius. He is supposedly a paternal nephew of , King of Brittany, son of Constantine and an unnamed Briton noblewoman, adoptive grandson (on his mother's side) of Guthelinus/Vitalinus, Bishop of London, younger brother of Constans and older brother of Uther Pendragon. Ambrosius and Uther are supposedly raised by their adoptive maternal grandfather Guthelinus/Vitalinus. It is not explicitly covered in Geoffrey's narrative, but this genealogy makes Constantine and his children descendants of Conan Meriadoc, legendary founder of the line of Kings of Brittany. Conan is also featured in the "Historia Regum Britanniae", where he is appointed king by Roman emperor Magnus Maximus (reigned 383–388).
Constantine's reign is placed by Geoffrey as following the Groans of the Britons mentioned by Gildas. Constantine is reported killed by a Pict and his reign is followed by a brief succession crisis. Candidates for the throne included all three sons of Constantine, but there were problems for their eventual rise to the throne. Constans was a monk, and Ambrosius and Uther were underage and still in their cradle. The crisis is resolved when Vortigern places Constans on the throne, and then serves as his chief adviser and power behind the throne. When Constans is killed by the Picts serving as bodyguards of Vortigern, Vortigern feigns anguish and has the killers executed. Ambrosius is still underage and Vortigern rises to the throne.
The chronology offered by Geoffrey for the early life of Ambrosius contradicts Gildas and Nennius, and is also internally inconsistent. The Groans of the Britons involves an appeal by the Britons to Roman consul "Agitius". This person has been identified with Flavius Aetius (d. 454), magister militum ("master of soldiers") of the Western Roman Empire and consul of the year 446. The Groans are generally dated to the 440s and 450s, preceding the death of Aetius. If Geoffrey's Constantine rose to the throne immediately following the Groans, this would place his reign in this period. Geoffrey gives a 10-year reign for Constantine and his marriage lasts just as long. However the eldest son Constans is clearly older than 10 years by the time his father dies. He is already an adult candidate of the throne and has had time to follow a monastic career. Even assuming there is a time gap between the death of Constantine and the adulthood of Constans, his younger brothers
have not aged at all in the narrative.
Geoffrey's narrative has an underage Ambrosius, if not a literal infant, in the 460s. Accounts deriving from Gildas and Nennius place Ambrosius in the prime of his life in the same decade. Most telling is that Geoffrey has Vortigern rising to the throne in the 460s. Nennius places the rise of Vortigern in the year 425, and Vortigern is entirely absent in chronologies of the 460s. Suggesting that he was deceased by that time.
Geoffrey's narrative includes as a major character Hengist, as leader of the Saxons. He is featured as the father of Queen Rowena and father-in-law of Vortigern. Other Saxon characters in the narrative tend to receive less attention by the writer, but their names tend to correspond to Anglo-Saxons known from other sources. Henginst's supposed son Octa is apparently Octa of Kent, a 6th-century ruler variously connected to Hengist as a son or descendant. The other son, Ebissa, is more difficult to identify. He might correspond to kinsmen of Hengist variously identified as "Ossa", "Oisc", and "Aesc". A minor Saxon character called "Cherdic" is probably Cerdic of Wessex, though elsewhere Geoffrey calls the same king "Cheldric". He actually may appear under three different names in the narrative, since Geoffrey elsewhere calls the interpreter of Hengist "Ceretic", a variant of the same name.
Geoffrey, in the last chapters featuring Vortigern, has the king served by magicians. This detail derives from Nennius, though Nennius was talking about Vortigern's "wise men". They may not have been magic users but advisers. Vortigern's encounter with Emrys/Merlin takes place in this part of the narrative. Merlin warns Vortigern that Ambrosius and Uther have already sailed for Britain and are soon to arrive, apparently to claim his throne. Ambrosius soon arrives at the head of the army and is crowned king. He besieges Vortigern at the castle of "Genoreu", which is identified with Nennius' "Cair Guorthigirn" ("Fort Vortigern") and the hillfort at Little Doward. Ambrosius burns the castle down and Vortigern dies with it.
Having killed Vortigern, Ambrosius next turns his attention to Hengist. Despite the fact that no earlier military actions of Ambrosius are recorded, the Saxons have already heard of his bravery and battle prowess. They immediately retreat beyond the Humber. Hengist soon amasses a massive army to face Ambrosius. His army counts 200,000 men and Ambrosius' only 10,000 men. He marches south and the first battle between the two armies takes place in Maisbeli, where Ambrosius emerges the victor. It is unclear what location Geoffrey had in mind. Maisbeli translates to "the field of Beli", and could be related to the Beli Mawr of Welsh legend and/or the Celtic god Belenus. Alternatively it could be a field where the Beltane festival was celebrated. Geoffrey could derive the name from a similar-sounding toponym. For example, Meicen of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North"), traditionally identified with Hatfield.
Following his defeat, Hengist retreats towards Cunungeburg. Geoffrey probably had in mind Conisbrough, not far from Hatfield. Ambrosius leads his army against the new position of the Saxons. The second battle is more evenly fought, and Hengist has a chance to achieve victory. However, Ambrosius receives reinforcements from Brittany and the tide of the battle turns in favour of the Britons. Hengist himself is captured by his old enemy Eldol, Consul of Gloucester and decapitated. Soon after the battle, the surviving Saxon leaders Octa and Eosa submit themselves to Ambrosius' rule. He pardons them and grants them an area near Scotland. The area is not named, but Geoffrey could be basing this on Bernicia, a real Ango-Saxon kingdom covering areas in the modern borders of Scotland and England.
Geoffrey closely connects the deaths of Vortigern and Hengist, which are elsewhere poorly recorded. Vortigern historically died in the 450s, and various dates for the death of Hengist have been proposed, between the 450s and the 480s. Octa of Kent, the supposed son and heir of Hengist, was still alive in the 6th century and seems to belong to a later historical era than his father. The ruling family of the Kingdom of Kent were called the Oiscingas, a term identifying them as descendants of Oisc of Kent, not of Hengist. In effect, none of them was likely a literal son of Hengist and their relation to Hengist may have been a later invention. Geoffrey did not invent the connection, but his sources here were likely legendary in nature.
Following his victories and the end of the wars, Ambrosius organises the burial of killed nobles at Kaercaradduc. Geoffrey identifies this otherwise unknown location with Caer-Caradog (Salisbury). Ambrosius wants a permanent memorial for the slain and assigns the task to Merlin. The result is the so-called Giants' Ring. Its location in the vicinity of Salisbury has led to its identification with Stonehenge, though Geoffrey never uses that term. Stonehenge is closer to Amesbury than Salisbury. The ring formation of the monument could equally apply to Avebury, the largest stone circle in Europe.
In other texts.
In Welsh legend and texts, Ambrosius appears as "Emrys Wledig" (Emperor Ambrose). The term "Wledig" is a title used by senior royal and military commanders who have achieved notable success. The term is mostly used for famous figures such as Cunedda, though a few obscure figures have been given the title. For example the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus is known as "Macsen Wledig" when he appears in Welsh folklore.
In Robert de Boron's "Merlin" he is called simply "Pendragon" and his younger brother is named "Uter", which he changes to "Uterpendragon" after the death of the elder sibling. This is probably a confusion that entered oral tradition from Wace's "Roman de Brut". Wace usually only refers to "li roi" ("the king") without naming him, and someone has taken an early mention of Uther's epithet "Pendragon" as the name of his brother.
Richard Carew's "Survey of Cornwall" (1602) drew on an earlier French writer, Nicholas Gille, who mentions Moigne, brother of Aurelius and Uther, who was duke of Cornwall, and "governer of the Realme" under Emperor Honorius.
Possible identification with other figures.
Riothamus.
Léon Fleuriot has suggested Ambrosius is identical to Riothamus, a Brythonic leader who fought a major battle against the Goths in France around the year 470. Fleuriot argues that Ambrosius led the Britons in the battle, in which he was defeated and forced to retreat to Burgundy. Fleuriot proposed that he then returned to Britain to continue the war against the Saxons.
Riothamus.
Léon Fleuriot has suggested Ambrosius is identical to Riothamus, a Brythonic leader who fought a major battle against the Goths in France around the year 470. Fleuriot argues that Ambrosius led the Britons in the battle, in which he was defeated and forced to retreat to Burgundy. Fleuriot proposed that he then returned to Britain to continue the war against the Saxons.
Place-name evidence.
It has been suggested that the place-name Amesbury in Wiltshire might preserve the name of Ambrosius, and that perhaps Amesbury was the seat of his power base in the later fifth century. Scholars such as Shimon Applebaum have found a number of place names through the Midland dialect regions of Britain that incorporate the "ambre-" element; examples include Ombersley in Worcestershire, Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, Amberley in Herefordshire, Amberley in Gloucestershire, and Amberley in West Sussex. These scholars have claimed that this element represents an Old English word "amor", the name of a woodland bird. However, Amesbury in Wiltshire is in a different dialect region and does not easily fit into the pattern of the Midland dialect place names.
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1732
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Anacharsis
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Anacharsis (; ) was a Scythian philosopher; he travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea, to Ancient Athens, in the early 6th century BC, and made a great impression as a forthright and outspoken barbarian, that is, a non-Greek speaker. He very well could have been a forerunner of the Cynics, in part because of his strong, but playful, "parrhesia". None of his works have survived.
Life.
Anacharsis the son of Gnurus, a Scythian chief, was half Greek and from a mixed Hellenic culture, apparently in the region of the Cimmerian Bosporus. He left his native country to travel in pursuit of knowledge, and came to Athens about 589 BC, at a time when Solon was occupied with his legislative measures.
According to the story recounted by Hermippus, Anacharsis arrived at the house of Solon and said, "I have traveled here from afar to make you my friend." Solon replied, "It's better to make friends at home." Thereupon the Scythian replied, "Then it is necessary for you, being at home, to make friends with me." Solon laughed and accepted him as his friend.
Anacharsis cultivated the outsider's knack of seeing the illogic in familiar things. For example, Plutarch remarks that he "expressed his wonder at the fact that in Greece wise men spoke and fools decided." His conversation was droll and frank, and Solon and the Athenians took to him as a sage and philosopher. His rough and free discourse became proverbial among Athenians as 'Scythian discourse'.
Anacharsis was the first foreigner (metic) who received the privileges of Athenian citizenship. He was reckoned by some ancient authors as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, and it is said that he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Great Goddess, a privilege denied to those who did not speak fluent Greek.
According to Herodotus, when Anacharsis returned to the Scythians he was killed by his own brother for his Greek ways and especially for the impious attempt to sacrifice to the Mother Goddess Cybele, whose cult was unwelcome among the Scythians.
Ideas.
None of the works ascribed to him in ancient times, if indeed they were written by him, have survived. He was said to have written a book comparing the laws of the Scythians with the laws of the Greeks, as well as work on the art of war. All that remains of his thought is what later tradition ascribes to him. He became famous for the simplicity of his way of living and his acute observations on the institutions and customs of the Greeks. He exhorted moderation in everything, saying that the vine bears three clusters of grapes: the first, pleasure; the second, drunkenness; the third, disgust. So he became a kind of emblem to the Athenians, who inscribed on his statues: 'Restrain your tongues, your appetites, your passions.'
There are ten extant letters ascribed to him, one of which is also quoted by Cicero:
Greetings from Anacharsis to Hanno: My clothing is a Scythian cloak, my shoes are the hard soles of my feet, my bed is the earth, my food is only seasoned by hunger - and I eat nothing but milk and cheese and meat. Come and visit me, and you will find me at peace. You want to give me something. But give it to your fellow-citizens instead, or let the immortal gods have it.
All of the letters are spurious. The first nine probably date from the 3rd century BC, they are usually included among the "Cynic epistles", and reflect how the Cynic philosophers viewed him as prefiguring many of their ideas; the tenth letter is quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, it is addressed to Croesus, the proverbially rich king of Lydia. It too is fictitious:
Anacharsis to Croesus: O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of yours.
Strabo makes him the (probably legendary) inventor of the anchor with two flukes, and others made him the inventor of the potter's wheel.
Having been informed that Solon was employed to draw up a code of laws for the Athenians, Anacharsis described his occupation, saying:
"Solon showed Anacharsis some laws that he was drafting for the Athenians. Anacharsis laughed at Solon for imagining that the dishonesty and greed of the Athenians could be restrained by written laws. Such laws, said Anacharsis, are like spiderwebs: they catch the weak and poor, but the rich can rip right through them."
Revival in the 18th century.
In 1788 Jean Jacques Barthelemy (1716–95), a highly esteemed classical scholar and Jesuit, published "The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece" about a young Scythian descended from Anacharsis. The 4-volume work was an imaginary travel journal, one of the first historical novels, which Klemperer called "the encyclopedia of the new cult of the antique" in the late 18th century. It affected the growth of philhellenism in France at the time. The book went through many editions, was reprinted in the United States and translated into German and other languages. It later inspired European sympathy for the Greek struggle for independence and spawned sequels and imitations through the 19th century.
Sir William Gell signed some of the letters he wrote to the diarist and author of ‘Diary Of The Times of George IV’ with the pseudonym ‘Anacharsis’ see page 263 volume 3.
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1727
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Amphipolis
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Amphipolis (; ) is a municipality in the Serres regional unit, Macedonia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is Rodolivos. It was an important ancient Greek polis (city), and later a Roman city, whose large remains can still be seen.
Amphipolis was originally a colony of ancient Athenians and was the site of the battle between the Spartans and Athenians in 422 BC. It was later the place where Alexander the Great prepared for campaigns leading to his invasion of Asia in 335 BC. Alexander's three finest admirals, Nearchus, Androsthenes and Laomedon, resided in Amphipolis. After Alexander's death, his wife Roxana and their son Alexander IV were imprisoned and murdered in 311 BC.
Excavations in and around the city have revealed important buildings, ancient walls and tombs. The finds are displayed at the archaeological museum of Amphipolis. At the nearby vast Kasta burial mound, an ancient Macedonian tomb has recently been revealed. The Lion of Amphipolis monument nearby is a popular destination for visitors.
It was located within the region of Edonis.
History.
Origins.
Throughout the 5th century BC, Athens sought to consolidate its control over Thrace, which was strategically important because of its raw materials (the gold and silver of the Pangaion hills and the dense forests that provided timber for naval construction), and the sea routes vital for Athens' supply of grain from Scythia.
A first unsuccessful attempt at colonisation was in 497 BC by the Milesian Tyrant Histiaeus. After the defeat of the Persians in 490 BC, the Athenian general Kimon managed to occupy Eion a few km south on the coast in 476 BC, and turned it into a military base and commercial port. The Athenians founded a first colony at "Ennea-Hodoi" (‘Nine Ways’) in 465 BC, but the first ten thousand colonists were massacred by the Thracians. A second attempt took place in 437 BC on the same site under general Hagnon which was successful. The city and its first impressive and elaborately built walls of 7.5 km length date from this time. The new Athenian colony became quickly of considerable size and wealth.
The new settlement took the name of Amphipolis (literally, "around the city"), a name which is the subject of much debate about its etymology. Thucydides claims the name comes from the fact that the Strymon River flows "around the city" on two sides; however a note in the "Suda" (also given in the lexicon of Photius) offers a different explanation apparently given by Marsyas, son of Periander: that a large proportion of the population lived "around the city". However, a more probable explanation is the one given by Julius Pollux: that the name indicates the vicinity of an isthmus.
Amphipolis quickly became the main power base of the Athenians in Thrace and, consequently, a target of choice for their Spartan adversaries. In 424 BC during the Peloponnesian War the Spartan general Brasidas captured Amphipolis.
Two years later in 422 BC, a new Athenian force under the general Kleon failed once more during the Battle of Amphipolis at which both Kleon and Brasidas lost their lives. Brasidas survived long enough to hear of the defeat of the Athenians and was buried at Amphipolis with impressive pomp. From then on he was regarded as the founder of the city and honoured with yearly games and sacrifices.
The Athenian population remained very much in the minority in the city and hence Amphipolis remained an independent city and an ally of the Athenians, rather than a colony or member of the Athens-led Delian League. It entered a new phase of prosperity as a cosmopolitan centre.
Macedonian rule.
The city itself kept its independence until the reign of king Philip II () despite several Athenian attacks, notably because of the government of Callistratus of Aphidnae. In 357 BC, Philip succeeded where the Athenians had failed and conquered the city, thereby removing the obstacle which Amphipolis presented to Macedonian control over Thrace. According to the historian Theopompus, this conquest came to be the object of a secret accord between Athens and Philip II, who would return the city in exchange for the fortified town of Pydna, but the Macedonian king betrayed the accord, refusing to cede Amphipolis and laying siege to Pydna as well.
The city was not immediately incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom, and for some time preserved its institutions and a certain degree of autonomy. The border of Macedonia was not moved further east; however, Philip sent a number of Macedonian governors to Amphipolis, and in many respects the city was effectively "Macedonianized". Nomenclature, the calendar and the currency (the gold stater, created by Philip to capitalise on the gold reserves of the Pangaion hills, replaced the Amphipolitan drachma) were all replaced by Macedonian equivalents. In the reign of Alexander the Great, Amphipolis was an important naval base, and the birthplace of three of the most famous Macedonian admirals: Nearchus, Androsthenes and Laomedon, whose burial place is most likely marked by the famous lion of Amphipolis.
The importance of the city in this period is shown by Alexander the Great's decision that it was one of the six cities at which large luxurious temples costing 1,500 talents were built. Alexander prepared for campaigns here against Thrace in 335 BC and his army and fleet assembled near the port before the invasion of Asia. The port was also used as naval base during his campaigns in Asia. After Alexander's death, his wife Roxana and their young son Alexander IV were exiled by Cassander and later murdered here.
Throughout Macedonian sovereignty Amphipolis was a strong fortress of great strategic and economic importance, as shown by inscriptions. Amphipolis became one of the main stops on the Macedonian royal road (as testified by a border stone found between Philippi and Amphipolis giving the distance to the latter), and later on the "Via Egnatia", the principal Roman road which crossed the southern Balkans. Apart from the ramparts of the lower town, the gymnasium and a set of well-preserved frescoes from a wealthy villa are the only artifacts from this period that remain visible. Though little is known of the layout of the town, modern knowledge of its institutions is in considerably better shape thanks to a rich epigraphic documentation, including a military ordinance of Philip V and an ephebarchic law from the gymnasium.
Conquest by the Romans.
After the final victory of Rome over Macedonia in the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC, Amphipolis became the capital of one of the four mini-republics, or "merides", which were created by the Romans out of the kingdom of the Antigonids which succeeded Alexander's empire in Macedon. These "merides" were gradually incorporated into the Roman client state, and later province, of Thracia. According to the "Acts of the Apostles", the apostles Paul and Silas passed through Amphipolis in the early AD 50s, on their journey between Philippi and Thessalonica; where hence they proselytized to the Greeks, including Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
In the 1st c. BC the city was badly damaged in the Thracian revolt against Roman rule.
Revival in Late Antiquity.
During the period of Late Antiquity, Amphipolis benefited from the increasing economic prosperity of Macedonia, as is evidenced by the large number of Christian churches that were built. Significantly however, these churches were built within a restricted area of the town, sheltered by the walls of the acropolis. This has been taken as evidence that the large fortified perimeter of the ancient town was no longer defendable, and that the population of the city had considerably diminished.
Nevertheless, the number, size and quality of the churches constructed between the 5th and 6th centuries are impressive. Four basilicas adorned with rich mosaic floors and elaborate architectural sculptures (such as the ram-headed column capitals – see picture) have been excavated, as well as a church with a hexagonal central plan which evokes that of the basilica of St Vitalis in Ravenna. It is difficult to find reasons for such municipal extravagance in such a small town. One possible explanation provided by the historian André Boulanger is that an increasing ‘willingness’ on the part of the wealthy upper classes in the late Roman period to spend money on local gentrification projects (which he terms "euergetism", from the Greek verb ; meaning 'I do good') was exploited by the local church to its advantage, which led to a mass gentrification of the urban centre and of the agricultural riches of the city's territory. Amphipolis was also a diocese under the metropolitan see of Thessalonica – the Bishop of Amphipolis is first mentioned in 533. The bishopric is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.
Final decline of the city.
The Slavic invasions of the late 6th century gradually encroached on the back-country Amphipolitan lifestyle and led to the decline of the town, during which period its inhabitants retreated to the area around the acropolis. The ramparts were maintained to a certain extent, thanks to materials plundered from the monuments of the lower city, and the large unused cisterns of the upper city were occupied by small houses and the workshops of artisans. Around the middle of the 7th century, a further reduction of the inhabited area of the city was followed by an increase in the fortification of the town, with the construction of a new rampart with pentagonal towers cutting through the middle of the remaining monuments. The acropolis, the Roman baths, and especially the episcopal basilica were crossed by this wall.
The city was probably abandoned in the eighth century, as the last bishop was attested at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Its inhabitants probably moved to the neighbouring site of ancient Eion, port of Amphipolis, which had been rebuilt and refortified in the Byzantine period under the name “Chrysopolis”. This small port continued to enjoy some prosperity, before being abandoned during the Ottoman period. The last recorded sign of activity in the region of Amphipolis was the construction of a fortified tower to the north in 1367 by the "megas primikerios" John and the "stratopedarches" Alexios to protect the land that they had given to the monastery of Pantokrator on Mount Athos.
Origins.
Throughout the 5th century BC, Athens sought to consolidate its control over Thrace, which was strategically important because of its raw materials (the gold and silver of the Pangaion hills and the dense forests that provided timber for naval construction), and the sea routes vital for Athens' supply of grain from Scythia.
A first unsuccessful attempt at colonisation was in 497 BC by the Milesian Tyrant Histiaeus. After the defeat of the Persians in 490 BC, the Athenian general Kimon managed to occupy Eion a few km south on the coast in 476 BC, and turned it into a military base and commercial port. The Athenians founded a first colony at "Ennea-Hodoi" (‘Nine Ways’) in 465 BC, but the first ten thousand colonists were massacred by the Thracians. A second attempt took place in 437 BC on the same site under general Hagnon which was successful. The city and its first impressive and elaborately built walls of 7.5 km length date from this time. The new Athenian colony became quickly of considerable size and wealth.
The new settlement took the name of Amphipolis (literally, "around the city"), a name which is the subject of much debate about its etymology. Thucydides claims the name comes from the fact that the Strymon River flows "around the city" on two sides; however a note in the "Suda" (also given in the lexicon of Photius) offers a different explanation apparently given by Marsyas, son of Periander: that a large proportion of the population lived "around the city". However, a more probable explanation is the one given by Julius Pollux: that the name indicates the vicinity of an isthmus.
Amphipolis quickly became the main power base of the Athenians in Thrace and, consequently, a target of choice for their Spartan adversaries. In 424 BC during the Peloponnesian War the Spartan general Brasidas captured Amphipolis.
Two years later in 422 BC, a new Athenian force under the general Kleon failed once more during the Battle of Amphipolis at which both Kleon and Brasidas lost their lives. Brasidas survived long enough to hear of the defeat of the Athenians and was buried at Amphipolis with impressive pomp. From then on he was regarded as the founder of the city and honoured with yearly games and sacrifices.
The Athenian population remained very much in the minority in the city and hence Amphipolis remained an independent city and an ally of the Athenians, rather than a colony or member of the Athens-led Delian League. It entered a new phase of prosperity as a cosmopolitan centre.
Macedonian rule.
The city itself kept its independence until the reign of king Philip II () despite several Athenian attacks, notably because of the government of Callistratus of Aphidnae. In 357 BC, Philip succeeded where the Athenians had failed and conquered the city, thereby removing the obstacle which Amphipolis presented to Macedonian control over Thrace. According to the historian Theopompus, this conquest came to be the object of a secret accord between Athens and Philip II, who would return the city in exchange for the fortified town of Pydna, but the Macedonian king betrayed the accord, refusing to cede Amphipolis and laying siege to Pydna as well.
The city was not immediately incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom, and for some time preserved its institutions and a certain degree of autonomy. The border of Macedonia was not moved further east; however, Philip sent a number of Macedonian governors to Amphipolis, and in many respects the city was effectively "Macedonianized". Nomenclature, the calendar and the currency (the gold stater, created by Philip to capitalise on the gold reserves of the Pangaion hills, replaced the Amphipolitan drachma) were all replaced by Macedonian equivalents. In the reign of Alexander the Great, Amphipolis was an important naval base, and the birthplace of three of the most famous Macedonian admirals: Nearchus, Androsthenes and Laomedon, whose burial place is most likely marked by the famous lion of Amphipolis.
The importance of the city in this period is shown by Alexander the Great's decision that it was one of the six cities at which large luxurious temples costing 1,500 talents were built. Alexander prepared for campaigns here against Thrace in 335 BC and his army and fleet assembled near the port before the invasion of Asia. The port was also used as naval base during his campaigns in Asia. After Alexander's death, his wife Roxana and their young son Alexander IV were exiled by Cassander and later murdered here.
Throughout Macedonian sovereignty Amphipolis was a strong fortress of great strategic and economic importance, as shown by inscriptions. Amphipolis became one of the main stops on the Macedonian royal road (as testified by a border stone found between Philippi and Amphipolis giving the distance to the latter), and later on the "Via Egnatia", the principal Roman road which crossed the southern Balkans. Apart from the ramparts of the lower town, the gymnasium and a set of well-preserved frescoes from a wealthy villa are the only artifacts from this period that remain visible. Though little is known of the layout of the town, modern knowledge of its institutions is in considerably better shape thanks to a rich epigraphic documentation, including a military ordinance of Philip V and an ephebarchic law from the gymnasium.
Conquest by the Romans.
After the final victory of Rome over Macedonia in the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC, Amphipolis became the capital of one of the four mini-republics, or "merides", which were created by the Romans out of the kingdom of the Antigonids which succeeded Alexander's empire in Macedon. These "merides" were gradually incorporated into the Roman client state, and later province, of Thracia. According to the "Acts of the Apostles", the apostles Paul and Silas passed through Amphipolis in the early AD 50s, on their journey between Philippi and Thessalonica; where hence they proselytized to the Greeks, including Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
In the 1st c. BC the city was badly damaged in the Thracian revolt against Roman rule.
Revival in Late Antiquity.
During the period of Late Antiquity, Amphipolis benefited from the increasing economic prosperity of Macedonia, as is evidenced by the large number of Christian churches that were built. Significantly however, these churches were built within a restricted area of the town, sheltered by the walls of the acropolis. This has been taken as evidence that the large fortified perimeter of the ancient town was no longer defendable, and that the population of the city had considerably diminished.
Nevertheless, the number, size and quality of the churches constructed between the 5th and 6th centuries are impressive. Four basilicas adorned with rich mosaic floors and elaborate architectural sculptures (such as the ram-headed column capitals – see picture) have been excavated, as well as a church with a hexagonal central plan which evokes that of the basilica of St Vitalis in Ravenna. It is difficult to find reasons for such municipal extravagance in such a small town. One possible explanation provided by the historian André Boulanger is that an increasing ‘willingness’ on the part of the wealthy upper classes in the late Roman period to spend money on local gentrification projects (which he terms "euergetism", from the Greek verb ; meaning 'I do good') was exploited by the local church to its advantage, which led to a mass gentrification of the urban centre and of the agricultural riches of the city's territory. Amphipolis was also a diocese under the metropolitan see of Thessalonica – the Bishop of Amphipolis is first mentioned in 533. The bishopric is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.
Final decline of the city.
The Slavic invasions of the late 6th century gradually encroached on the back-country Amphipolitan lifestyle and led to the decline of the town, during which period its inhabitants retreated to the area around the acropolis. The ramparts were maintained to a certain extent, thanks to materials plundered from the monuments of the lower city, and the large unused cisterns of the upper city were occupied by small houses and the workshops of artisans. Around the middle of the 7th century, a further reduction of the inhabited area of the city was followed by an increase in the fortification of the town, with the construction of a new rampart with pentagonal towers cutting through the middle of the remaining monuments. The acropolis, the Roman baths, and especially the episcopal basilica were crossed by this wall.
The city was probably abandoned in the eighth century, as the last bishop was attested at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Its inhabitants probably moved to the neighbouring site of ancient Eion, port of Amphipolis, which had been rebuilt and refortified in the Byzantine period under the name “Chrysopolis”. This small port continued to enjoy some prosperity, before being abandoned during the Ottoman period. The last recorded sign of activity in the region of Amphipolis was the construction of a fortified tower to the north in 1367 by the "megas primikerios" John and the "stratopedarches" Alexios to protect the land that they had given to the monastery of Pantokrator on Mount Athos.
Archaeology.
The site was discovered and described by many travellers and archaeologists during the 19th century, including E. Cousinéry (1831) (engraver), Leon Heuzey (1861), and P. Perdrizet (1894–1899). However, excavations did not truly begin until after the Second World War. The Greek Archaeological Society under D. Lazaridis excavated in 1972 and 1985, uncovering a necropolis, the city wall (see photograph), the basilicas, and the acropolis. Further excavations have since uncovered the river bridge, the gymnasium, Greek and Roman villas and numerous tombs etc.
Parts of the lion monument and tombs were discovered during World War I by Bulgarian and British troops whilst digging trenches in the area. In 1934, M. Feyel, of the École française d'Athènes (EfA), led an epigraphical mission to the site and uncovered further remains of the lion monument (a reconstruction was given in the "Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique", a publication of the EfA which is available on line).
The silver ossuary containing the cremated remains of Brasidas and a gold crown (see image) was found in a tomb in pride of place under the Agora.
The Tomb of Amphipolis.
In 2012 Greek archaeologists unearthed a large tomb within the Kasta Hill, the biggest burial mound in Greece, northeast of Amphipolis. The large size and quality of the tumulus indicates the prominence of the burials made there, and its dating and the connections of the city with Alexander the Great suggest important occupants. The perimeter wall of the tumulus is long, and is made of limestone covered with marble.
The tomb comprises three chambers separated by walls. There are two sphinxes just outside the entrance to the tomb. Two of the columns supporting the roof in the first section are in the form of Caryatids, in the 4th century BC style. The excavation revealed a pebble mosaic directly behind the Caryatids and in front of the Macedonian marble door leading to the "third" chamber. The mosaic shows the allegory of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, but the persons depicted are Philip and Olympias of Macedon. Hades' chariot is drawn by two white horses and led to the underworld by Hermes. The mosaic verifies the Macedonian character of the tomb. As the head of one of the sphinxes was found inside the tomb behind the broken door, it is clear that there were intruders, probably in antiquity.
Fragments of bones from 5 individuals were found in the cist tomb, the most complete of which is a 60+ year old woman in the deepest layer. Dr. Katerina Peristeri, the archaeologist heading the excavation of the tomb, dates the tomb to the late 4th century BC, the period after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). One theory is that the tomb was built for the mother of Alexander the Great, Olympias.
Restoration of the tomb is due for completion in 2023 in the course of which building materials of the grave site which were later used by the Romans elsewhere will be rebuilt in their original location.
The city walls.
The original 7.5 km long walls are generally visible, particularly the northern section which is preserved to a height of 7.5m. 5 preserved gates can be seen and notably the gate in front of the wooden bridge.
In early Christian times another, inner, wall was built around the acropolis.
The ancient wooden bridge of Amphipolis.
The ancient bridge that crossed the river Strymon was mentioned by Thucydides, was strategic as it controlled access between Macedonia and the Chalkidike in the west to Thrace in the east, and was important for the economy and trade. It was therefore incorporated into the city walls.
It was discovered in 1977 and is a unique find for Greek antiquity. The hundreds of wooden piles have been carbon-dated and show the vast life of the bridge with some piles dating from 760 BC, and others used till about 1800 AD.
The Gymnasium.
This was a major public building for the military and gymnastic training of youth as well as for their artistic and intellectual education. It was built in the 4th c. BC and includes a palaestra, the rectangular court surrounded by colonnades with adjoining rooms for many athletic functions. The covered stoa or xystos for indoor training in inclement weather is a long portico 75m long and 7m wide to allow 6 runners to compete simultaneously. There was also a parallel outdoor track, "paradromida", for training in good weather and a system of cisterns for water supply.
During the Macedonian era it became a major institution.
The stone stela bearing the rules of the gymnasium was found in the north wing, detailing the duties and powers of the master and the education of the athletes.
After it was destroyed in the 1st c. BC in the Thracian rebellion against Roman rule, it was rebuilt in Augustus's time in the 1st c. AD along with the rest of the city.
The Tomb of Amphipolis.
In 2012 Greek archaeologists unearthed a large tomb within the Kasta Hill, the biggest burial mound in Greece, northeast of Amphipolis. The large size and quality of the tumulus indicates the prominence of the burials made there, and its dating and the connections of the city with Alexander the Great suggest important occupants. The perimeter wall of the tumulus is long, and is made of limestone covered with marble.
The tomb comprises three chambers separated by walls. There are two sphinxes just outside the entrance to the tomb. Two of the columns supporting the roof in the first section are in the form of Caryatids, in the 4th century BC style. The excavation revealed a pebble mosaic directly behind the Caryatids and in front of the Macedonian marble door leading to the "third" chamber. The mosaic shows the allegory of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, but the persons depicted are Philip and Olympias of Macedon. Hades' chariot is drawn by two white horses and led to the underworld by Hermes. The mosaic verifies the Macedonian character of the tomb. As the head of one of the sphinxes was found inside the tomb behind the broken door, it is clear that there were intruders, probably in antiquity.
Fragments of bones from 5 individuals were found in the cist tomb, the most complete of which is a 60+ year old woman in the deepest layer. Dr. Katerina Peristeri, the archaeologist heading the excavation of the tomb, dates the tomb to the late 4th century BC, the period after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). One theory is that the tomb was built for the mother of Alexander the Great, Olympias.
Restoration of the tomb is due for completion in 2023 in the course of which building materials of the grave site which were later used by the Romans elsewhere will be rebuilt in their original location.
The city walls.
The original 7.5 km long walls are generally visible, particularly the northern section which is preserved to a height of 7.5m. 5 preserved gates can be seen and notably the gate in front of the wooden bridge.
In early Christian times another, inner, wall was built around the acropolis.
The ancient wooden bridge of Amphipolis.
The ancient bridge that crossed the river Strymon was mentioned by Thucydides, was strategic as it controlled access between Macedonia and the Chalkidike in the west to Thrace in the east, and was important for the economy and trade. It was therefore incorporated into the city walls.
It was discovered in 1977 and is a unique find for Greek antiquity. The hundreds of wooden piles have been carbon-dated and show the vast life of the bridge with some piles dating from 760 BC, and others used till about 1800 AD.
The Gymnasium.
This was a major public building for the military and gymnastic training of youth as well as for their artistic and intellectual education. It was built in the 4th c. BC and includes a palaestra, the rectangular court surrounded by colonnades with adjoining rooms for many athletic functions. The covered stoa or xystos for indoor training in inclement weather is a long portico 75m long and 7m wide to allow 6 runners to compete simultaneously. There was also a parallel outdoor track, "paradromida", for training in good weather and a system of cisterns for water supply.
During the Macedonian era it became a major institution.
The stone stela bearing the rules of the gymnasium was found in the north wing, detailing the duties and powers of the master and the education of the athletes.
After it was destroyed in the 1st c. BC in the Thracian rebellion against Roman rule, it was rebuilt in Augustus's time in the 1st c. AD along with the rest of the city.
Municipality.
The municipality Amfipoli was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following four former municipalities, that became municipal units:
The municipality has an area of 411.773 km2, the municipal unit 152.088 km2.
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1715
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Abu Bakr
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Abu Bakr Abdallah ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa (; – 23 August 634) was the senior companion and was, through his daughter Aisha, a father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as the first caliph of Islam. He is known with the honorific title ""al-Siddiq" by Sunni Muslims.
Abu Bakr was born in 573 CE to Abu Quhafa and Umm Khayr. He belonged to the tribe of Banu Taym. In the Age of Ignorance, he was a monotheist and condemned idol-worshipping. As a wealthy trader, Abu Bakr used to free slaves. Following his conversion to Islam in 610, Abu Bakr served as a close aide to Muhammad, who bestowed on him the title "al-Siddiq"" ('the Truthful'). The former took part in almost all battles under the Islamic prophet. He extensively contributed his wealth in support of Muhammad's work and among Muhammad's closest companions, He also accompanied Muhammad on his migration to Medina. By the invitations of Abu Bakr, many prominent "Sahabis" became Muslims. He remained the closest advisor to Muhammad, being present at almost all his military conflicts. In the absence of Muhammad, Abu Bakr led the prayers and expeditions.
Following Muhammad's death in 632, Abu Bakr succeeded the leadership of the Muslim community as the first Rashidun Caliph. His election was opposed by a large number of rebellious tribal leaders, who had apostatized from Islam. During his reign, he overcame a number of uprisings, collectively known as the Ridda Wars, as a result of which he was able to consolidate and expand the rule of the Muslim state over the entire Arabian Peninsula. He also commanded the initial incursions into the neighbouring Sassanian and Byzantine empires, which in the years following his death, would eventually result in the Muslim conquests of Persia and the Levant. Apart from politics, Abu Bakr is also credited for the compilation of the Quran, of which he had a personal caliphal codex. Abu Bakr nominated his principal adviser Umar () as his successor before dying in August 634. Along with Muhammad, Abu Bakr is buried in the Green Dome at the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, the second holiest site in Islam. He died of illness after a reign of 2 years, 2 months and 14 days, the only Rashidun caliph to die of natural causes.
Though the period of his caliphate was short, it included successful invasions of the two most powerful empires of the time, a remarkable achievement in its own right. He set in motion a historical trajectory that in a few decades would lead to one of the largest empires in history. His victory over the local rebel Arab forces is a significant part of Islamic history. Abu Bakr is widely honored among Muslims.
Lineage and title.
Abu Bakr's full name was Abdullah ibn Abi Quhafa ibn Amir ibn Amr ibn Ka'b ibn Sa'd ibn Taym ibn Murrah ibn Ka'b ibn Lu'ayy ibn Ghalib ibn Fihr.
In Arabic, the name "Abd Allah" means "servant of Allah". One of his early titles, preceding his conversion to Islam, was "Ateeq", meaning "saved one". Muhammad later restated this title when he said that Abu Bakr is the "Ateeq". He was called "Al-Siddiq" (the truthful) by Muhammad after he believed him in the event of Isra and Mi'raj when other people didn't, and Ali confirmed that title several times. He was also reportedly referred to in the Quran as the "second of the two in the cave" in reference to the event of hijra, where with Muhammad he hid in the cave in Jabal Thawr from the Meccan party that was sent after them.
Early life.
Abu Bakr was born in Mecca sometime in 573 CE, to a rich family in the Banu Taym tribe of the Quraysh tribal confederacy. His father's name was Uthman and given the kunya "Abu Quhafa", and his mother was Salma bint Sakhar who was given the laqab of "Umm ul-Khair".
He spent his early childhood like other Arab children of the time, among the Bedouins who called themselves "Ahl-i-Ba'eer"- the people of the camel, and developed a particular fondness for camels. In his early years he played with the camel calves and goats, and his love for camels earned him the nickname ("kunya") "Abu Bakr", the father of the camel's calf.
Like other children of the rich Meccan merchant families, Abu Bakr was literate and developed a fondness for poetry. He used to attend the annual fair at Ukaz, and participate in poetical symposia. He had a very good memory and had a good knowledge of the genealogy of the Arab tribes, their stories and their politics.
A story is preserved that once when he was a child, his father took him to the Kaaba, and asked him to pray before the idols. His father went away to attend to some other business, and Abu Bakr was left alone. Addressing an idol, Abu Bakr said "O my God, I am in need of beautiful clothes; bestow them on me". The idol remained indifferent. Then he addressed another idol, saying, "O God, give me some delicious food. See that I am so hungry". The idol remained cold. That exhausted the patience of young Abu Bakr. He lifted a stone, and, addressing an idol, said, "Here I am aiming a stone; if you are a god protect yourself". Abu Bakr hurled the stone at the idol and left the Kaaba. Regardless, it recorded that prior to converting to Islam, Abu Bakr practiced as a "hanif" and never worshipped idols.
Acceptance of Islam.
On his return from a business trip in Yemen, friends informed him that in his absence, Muhammad had declared himself the messenger of God and proclaimed a new religion. The historian Al-Tabari, in his "Tarikh al-Tabari", quotes from Muhammad ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, who said:
Some Sunni and all the Shi'a believe that the second person to publicly accept Muhammed as the messenger of God was Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first being Muhammad's wife Khadija. Ibn Kathir, in his "Al Bidaya Wal Nihayah", disregards this. He stated that the first woman to embrace Islam was Khadijah. Zayd ibn Harithah was the first freed slave to embrace Islam. Ali ibn Abi Talib was the first child to embrace Islam, for he has not even reached the age of puberty at that time, while Abu Bakr was the first free man to embrace Islam.
Subsequent life in Mecca.
His wife Qutaylah bint Abd-al-Uzza did not accept Islam and he divorced her. His other wife, Um Ruman, became a Muslim. All his children accepted Islam except Abd al-Rahman, from whom Abu Bakr disassociated himself. His conversion also brought many people to Islam. He persuaded his intimate friends to convert, and presented Islam to other friends in such a way that many of them also accepted the faith. Those who converted to Islam at the insistence of Abu Bakr were:
Abu Bakr's acceptance proved to be a milestone in Muhammad's mission. Slavery was common in Mecca, and many slaves accepted Islam. When an ordinary free man accepted Islam, despite opposition, he would enjoy the protection of his tribe. For slaves, however, there was no such protection and they commonly experienced persecution. Abu Bakr felt compassion for slaves, so he purchased eight (four men and four women) and then freed them, paying 40,000 dinar for their freedom.
The men were:
The women were:
Most of the slaves liberated by Abu Bakr were either women or old and frail men. When the father of Abu Bakr asked him why he didn't liberate strong and young slaves, who could be a source of strength for him, Abu Bakr replied that he was freeing the slaves for the sake of God, and not for his own sake.
Persecution by the Quraysh, 613.
For three years after the birth of Islam, Muslims kept their faith private. In 613, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was commanded by God to call people to Islam openly. The first public address inviting people to offer allegiance to Muhammad was delivered by Abu Bakr. In a fit of fury, the young men of the Quraysh tribe rushed at Abu Bakr and beat him until he lost consciousness. Following this incident, Abu Bakr's mother converted to Islam. Abu Bakr was persecuted many times by the Quraysh. Though Abu Bakr's beliefs would have been defended by his own clan, it would not be so for the entire Quraysh tribe.
Last years in Mecca.
In 617, the Quraysh enforced a boycott against the Banu Hashim. Muhammad along with his supporters from Banu Hashim, were cut off in a pass away from Mecca. All social relations with the Banu Hashim were cut off and their state was that of imprisonment. Before it many Muslims migrated to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Abu Bakr, feeling distressed, set out for Yemen and then to Abyssinia from there. He met a friend of his named Ad-Dughna (chief of the Qarah tribe) outside Mecca, who invited Abu Bakr to seek his protection against the Quraysh. Abu Bakr went back to Mecca, it was a relief for him, but soon due to the pressure of Quraysh, Ad-Dughna was forced to renounce his protection. Once again the Quraysh were free to persecute Abu Bakr.
In 620, Muhammad's uncle and protector, Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib, and Muhammad's wife Khadija died. Abu Bakr's daughter Aisha was betrothed to Muhammad; however, it was decided that the actual marriage ceremony would be held later. In 620 Abu Bakr was the first person to testify to Muhammad's Isra and Mi'raj (Night Journey).
Subsequent life in Mecca.
His wife Qutaylah bint Abd-al-Uzza did not accept Islam and he divorced her. His other wife, Um Ruman, became a Muslim. All his children accepted Islam except Abd al-Rahman, from whom Abu Bakr disassociated himself. His conversion also brought many people to Islam. He persuaded his intimate friends to convert, and presented Islam to other friends in such a way that many of them also accepted the faith. Those who converted to Islam at the insistence of Abu Bakr were:
Abu Bakr's acceptance proved to be a milestone in Muhammad's mission. Slavery was common in Mecca, and many slaves accepted Islam. When an ordinary free man accepted Islam, despite opposition, he would enjoy the protection of his tribe. For slaves, however, there was no such protection and they commonly experienced persecution. Abu Bakr felt compassion for slaves, so he purchased eight (four men and four women) and then freed them, paying 40,000 dinar for their freedom.
The men were:
The women were:
Most of the slaves liberated by Abu Bakr were either women or old and frail men. When the father of Abu Bakr asked him why he didn't liberate strong and young slaves, who could be a source of strength for him, Abu Bakr replied that he was freeing the slaves for the sake of God, and not for his own sake.
Persecution by the Quraysh, 613.
For three years after the birth of Islam, Muslims kept their faith private. In 613, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was commanded by God to call people to Islam openly. The first public address inviting people to offer allegiance to Muhammad was delivered by Abu Bakr. In a fit of fury, the young men of the Quraysh tribe rushed at Abu Bakr and beat him until he lost consciousness. Following this incident, Abu Bakr's mother converted to Islam. Abu Bakr was persecuted many times by the Quraysh. Though Abu Bakr's beliefs would have been defended by his own clan, it would not be so for the entire Quraysh tribe.
Last years in Mecca.
In 617, the Quraysh enforced a boycott against the Banu Hashim. Muhammad along with his supporters from Banu Hashim, were cut off in a pass away from Mecca. All social relations with the Banu Hashim were cut off and their state was that of imprisonment. Before it many Muslims migrated to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Abu Bakr, feeling distressed, set out for Yemen and then to Abyssinia from there. He met a friend of his named Ad-Dughna (chief of the Qarah tribe) outside Mecca, who invited Abu Bakr to seek his protection against the Quraysh. Abu Bakr went back to Mecca, it was a relief for him, but soon due to the pressure of Quraysh, Ad-Dughna was forced to renounce his protection. Once again the Quraysh were free to persecute Abu Bakr.
In 620, Muhammad's uncle and protector, Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib, and Muhammad's wife Khadija died. Abu Bakr's daughter Aisha was betrothed to Muhammad; however, it was decided that the actual marriage ceremony would be held later. In 620 Abu Bakr was the first person to testify to Muhammad's Isra and Mi'raj (Night Journey).
Migration to Medina.
In 622, on the invitation of the Muslims of Medina, Muhammad ordered Muslims to migrate to Medina. The migration began in batches. Ali was the last to remain in Mecca, entrusted with responsibility for settling any loans the Muslims had taken out, and famously slept in the bed of Muhammad when the Quraysh, led by Ikrima, attempted to murder Muhammad as he slept. Meanwhile, Abu Bakr accompanied Muhammad to Medina. Due to the danger posed by the Quraysh, they did not take the road, but moved in the opposite direction, taking refuge in a cave in Jabal Thawr, some five miles south of Mecca. Abd Allah ibn Abi Bakr, the son of Abu Bakr, would listen to the plans and discussions of the Quraysh, and at night he would carry the news to the fugitives in the cave. Asma bint Abi Bakr, the daughter of Abu Bakr, brought them meals every day. Aamir, a servant of Abu Bakr, would bring a flock of goats to the mouth of the cave every night, where they were milked. The Quraysh sent search parties in all directions. One party came close to the entrance to the cave, but was unable to see them. Due to this, Quranic verse was revealed. Aisha, Abu Saʽid al-Khudri and Abd Allah ibn Abbas in interpreting this verse said that Abu Bakr was the companion who stayed with Muhammad in the cave.
After staying at the cave for three days and three nights, Abu Bakr and Muhammad proceed to Medina, staying for some time at Quba, a suburb of Medina.
Life in Medina.
In Medina, Muhammad decided to construct a mosque. A piece of land was chosen and the price of the land was paid for by Abu Bakr. The Muslims, including Abu Bakr, constructed a mosque named Al-Masjid al-Nabawi at the site. Abu Bakr was paired with Khaarijah bin Zaid Ansari (who was from Medina) as a brother in faith. Abu Bakr's relationship with Khaarijah was most cordial, which was further strengthened when Abu Bakr married Habiba, a daughter of Khaarijah. Khaarijah bin Zaid Ansari lived at Sunh, a suburb of Medina, and Abu Bakr also settled there. After Abu Bakr's family arrived in Medina, he bought another house near Muhammad's.
While the climate of Mecca was dry, the climate of Medina was damp and because of this, most of the migrants fell sick on arrival. Abu Bakr contracted a fever for several days, during which time he was attended to by Khaarijah and his family. In Mecca, Abu Bakr was a wholesale trader in cloth and he started the same business in Medina. He opened his new store at Sunh, and from there cloth was supplied to the market at Medina. Soon his business flourished. Early in 623, Abu Bakr's daughter Aisha, who was already married to Muhammad, was sent on to Muhammad's house after a simple marriage ceremony, further strengthening relations between Abu Bakr and Muhammad.
Life in Medina.
In Medina, Muhammad decided to construct a mosque. A piece of land was chosen and the price of the land was paid for by Abu Bakr. The Muslims, including Abu Bakr, constructed a mosque named Al-Masjid al-Nabawi at the site. Abu Bakr was paired with Khaarijah bin Zaid Ansari (who was from Medina) as a brother in faith. Abu Bakr's relationship with Khaarijah was most cordial, which was further strengthened when Abu Bakr married Habiba, a daughter of Khaarijah. Khaarijah bin Zaid Ansari lived at Sunh, a suburb of Medina, and Abu Bakr also settled there. After Abu Bakr's family arrived in Medina, he bought another house near Muhammad's.
While the climate of Mecca was dry, the climate of Medina was damp and because of this, most of the migrants fell sick on arrival. Abu Bakr contracted a fever for several days, during which time he was attended to by Khaarijah and his family. In Mecca, Abu Bakr was a wholesale trader in cloth and he started the same business in Medina. He opened his new store at Sunh, and from there cloth was supplied to the market at Medina. Soon his business flourished. Early in 623, Abu Bakr's daughter Aisha, who was already married to Muhammad, was sent on to Muhammad's house after a simple marriage ceremony, further strengthening relations between Abu Bakr and Muhammad.
Military campaigns under Muhammad.
Battle of Badr.
In 624, Abu Bakr was involved in the first battle between the Muslims and the Quraysh of Mecca, known as the Battle of Badr, but did not fight, instead acting as one of the guards of Muhammad's tent. In relation to this, Ali allegedly later asked his associates as to who they thought was the bravest among men. Everyone stated that Ali was the bravest of all men. Ali then replied:
In Sunni accounts, during one such attack, two discs from Abu Bakr's shield penetrated into Muhammad's cheeks. Abu Bakr went forward with the intention of extracting these discs but Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah requested he leave the matter to him, losing his two incisors during the process. In these stories subsequently Abu Bakr, along with other companions, led Muhammad to a place of safety.
Battle of Uhud.
In 625, he participated in the Battle of Uhud, in which the majority of the Muslims were routed and he himself was wounded. Before the battle had begun, his son Abd al-Rahman, at that time still non-Muslim and fighting on the side of the Quraysh, came forward and threw down a challenge for a duel. Abu Bakr accepted the challenge but was stopped by Muhammad. Later, Abd al-Rahman approached his father and said to him "You were exposed to me as a target, but I turned away from you and did not kill you." To this Abu Bakr replied "However, if you had been exposed to me as a target I would not have turned away from you."
In the second phase of the battle, Khalid ibn al-Walid's cavalry attacked the Muslims from behind, changing a Muslim victory to defeat. Many fled from the battlefield, including Abu Bakr. However, according to his own account, he was "the first to return".
Battle of the Trench.
In 627 he participated in the Battle of the Trench and also in the Invasion of Banu Qurayza. In the Battle of the Trench, Muhammad divided the ditch into a number of sectors and a contingent was posted to guard each sector. One of these contingents was under the command of Abu Bakr. The enemy made frequent assaults in an attempt to cross the ditch, all of which were repulsed. To commemorate this event a mosque, later known as 'Masjid-i-Siddiq', was constructed at the site where Abu Bakr had repulsed the charges of the enemy.
Battle of Khaybar.
Abu Bakr took part in the Battle of Khaybar. Khaybar had eight fortresses, the strongest and most well-guarded of which was called Al-Qamus. Muhammad sent Abu Bakr with a group of warriors to attempt to take it, but they were unable to do so. Muhammad also sent Umar with a group of warriors, but Umar could not conquer Al-Qamus either. Some other Muslims also attempted to capture the fort, but they were unsuccessful as well. Finally, Muhammad sent Ali, who defeated the enemy leader, Marhab.
Military campaigns during final years of Muhammad.
In 629 Muhammad sent 'Amr ibn al-'As to Zaat-ul-Sallasal, followed by Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah in response to a call for reinforcements. Abu Bakr and Umar commanded an army under al-Jarrah, and they attacked and defeated the enemy.
In 630, when the Muslims conquered Mecca, Abu Bakr was part of the army. Before the conquest of Mecca his father Abu Quhafa converted to Islam.
Battles of Hunayn and Ta'if.
In 630, the Muslim army was ambushed by archers from the local tribes as it passed through the valley of Hunayn, some eleven miles northeast of Mecca. Taken unaware, the advance guard of the Muslim army fled in panic. There was considerable confusion, and the camels, horses and men ran into one another in an attempt to seek cover. Muhammad, however, stood firm. Only nine companions remained around him, including Abu Bakr. Under Muhammad's instruction, his uncle Abbas shouted at the top of his voice, "O Muslims, come to the Prophet of Allah". The call was heard by the Muslim soldiers and they gathered beside Muhammad. When the Muslims had gathered in sufficient number, Muhammad ordered a charge against the enemy. In the hand-to-hand fight that followed the tribes were routed and they fled to Autas.
Muhammad posted a contingent to guard the Hunayn pass and led the main army to Autas. In the confrontation at Autas the tribes could not withstand the Muslim onslaught. Believing continued resistance useless, the tribes broke camp and retired to Ta'if.
Abu Bakr was commissioned by Muhammad to lead the attack against Ta'if. The tribes shut themselves in the fort and refused to come out in the open. The Muslims employed catapults, but without tangible result. The Muslims attempted to use a testudo formation, in which a group of soldiers shielded by a cover of cowhide advanced to set fire to the gate. However, the enemy threw red hot scraps of iron on the testudo, rendering it ineffective.
The siege dragged on for two weeks, and still there was no sign of weakness in the fort. Muhammad held a council of war. Abu Bakr advised that the siege might be raised and that God make arrangements for the fall of the fort. The advice was accepted, and in February 630, the siege of Ta'if was raised and the Muslim army returned to Mecca. A few days later Malik bin Auf, the commander, came to Mecca and became a Muslim.
Abu Bakr as Amir-ul-Hajj.
In 631 AD, Muhammad sent from Medina a delegation of three hundred Muslims to perform the Hajj according to the new Islamic way and appointed Abu Bakr as the leader of the delegation. The day after Abu Bakr and his party had left for the Hajj, Muhammad received a new revelation: Surah Tawbah, the ninth chapter of the Quran. It is related that when this revelation came, someone suggested to Muhammad that he should send news of it to Abu Bakr. Muhammad said that only a man of his house could proclaim the revelation.
Muhammad summoned Ali, and asked him to proclaim a portion of Surah Tawbah to the people on the day of sacrifice when they assembled at Mina. Ali went forth on Muhammad's slit-eared camel, and overtook Abu Bakr. When Ali joined the party, Abu Bakr wanted to know whether he had come to give orders or to convey them. Ali said that he had not come to replace Abu Bakr as Amir-ul-Hajj, and that his only mission was to convey a special message to the people on behalf of Muhammad.
At Mecca, Abu Bakr presided at the Hajj ceremony, and Ali read the proclamation on behalf of Muhammad. The main points of the proclamation were:
From the day this proclamation was made a new era dawned, and Islam alone was to be supreme in Arabia.
Expedition of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq.
Abu Bakr led one military expedition, the Expedition of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, which took place in Najd, in July 628 (third month 7AH in the Islamic calendar). Abu Bakr led a large company in Nejd on the order of Muhammad. Many were killed and taken prisoner. The Sunni Hadith collection "Sunan Abu Dawud" mentions the event.
Expedition of Usama bin Zayd.
In 632, during the final weeks of his life, Muhammad ordered an expedition into Syria to avenge the defeat of the Muslims in the Battle of Mu'tah some years previously. Leading the campaign was Usama ibn Zayd, whose father, Muhammad's erstwhile adopted son Zayd ibn Harithah, had been killed in the earlier conflict. No more than twenty years old, inexperienced and untested, Usama's appointment was controversial, becoming especially problematic when veterans such as Abu Bakr, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah and Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas were placed under his command. Nevertheless, the expedition was dispatched, though soon after setting off, news was received of Muhammad's death, forcing the army to return to Medina. The campaign was not reengaged until after Abu Bakr's ascension to the caliphate, at which point he chose to reaffirm Usama's command, which ultimately led to its success.
Battle of Badr.
In 624, Abu Bakr was involved in the first battle between the Muslims and the Quraysh of Mecca, known as the Battle of Badr, but did not fight, instead acting as one of the guards of Muhammad's tent. In relation to this, Ali allegedly later asked his associates as to who they thought was the bravest among men. Everyone stated that Ali was the bravest of all men. Ali then replied:
In Sunni accounts, during one such attack, two discs from Abu Bakr's shield penetrated into Muhammad's cheeks. Abu Bakr went forward with the intention of extracting these discs but Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah requested he leave the matter to him, losing his two incisors during the process. In these stories subsequently Abu Bakr, along with other companions, led Muhammad to a place of safety.
Battle of Uhud.
In 625, he participated in the Battle of Uhud, in which the majority of the Muslims were routed and he himself was wounded. Before the battle had begun, his son Abd al-Rahman, at that time still non-Muslim and fighting on the side of the Quraysh, came forward and threw down a challenge for a duel. Abu Bakr accepted the challenge but was stopped by Muhammad. Later, Abd al-Rahman approached his father and said to him "You were exposed to me as a target, but I turned away from you and did not kill you." To this Abu Bakr replied "However, if you had been exposed to me as a target I would not have turned away from you."
In the second phase of the battle, Khalid ibn al-Walid's cavalry attacked the Muslims from behind, changing a Muslim victory to defeat. Many fled from the battlefield, including Abu Bakr. However, according to his own account, he was "the first to return".
Battle of the Trench.
In 627 he participated in the Battle of the Trench and also in the Invasion of Banu Qurayza. In the Battle of the Trench, Muhammad divided the ditch into a number of sectors and a contingent was posted to guard each sector. One of these contingents was under the command of Abu Bakr. The enemy made frequent assaults in an attempt to cross the ditch, all of which were repulsed. To commemorate this event a mosque, later known as 'Masjid-i-Siddiq', was constructed at the site where Abu Bakr had repulsed the charges of the enemy.
Battle of Khaybar.
Abu Bakr took part in the Battle of Khaybar. Khaybar had eight fortresses, the strongest and most well-guarded of which was called Al-Qamus. Muhammad sent Abu Bakr with a group of warriors to attempt to take it, but they were unable to do so. Muhammad also sent Umar with a group of warriors, but Umar could not conquer Al-Qamus either. Some other Muslims also attempted to capture the fort, but they were unsuccessful as well. Finally, Muhammad sent Ali, who defeated the enemy leader, Marhab.
Military campaigns during final years of Muhammad.
In 629 Muhammad sent 'Amr ibn al-'As to Zaat-ul-Sallasal, followed by Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah in response to a call for reinforcements. Abu Bakr and Umar commanded an army under al-Jarrah, and they attacked and defeated the enemy.
In 630, when the Muslims conquered Mecca, Abu Bakr was part of the army. Before the conquest of Mecca his father Abu Quhafa converted to Islam.
Battles of Hunayn and Ta'if.
In 630, the Muslim army was ambushed by archers from the local tribes as it passed through the valley of Hunayn, some eleven miles northeast of Mecca. Taken unaware, the advance guard of the Muslim army fled in panic. There was considerable confusion, and the camels, horses and men ran into one another in an attempt to seek cover. Muhammad, however, stood firm. Only nine companions remained around him, including Abu Bakr. Under Muhammad's instruction, his uncle Abbas shouted at the top of his voice, "O Muslims, come to the Prophet of Allah". The call was heard by the Muslim soldiers and they gathered beside Muhammad. When the Muslims had gathered in sufficient number, Muhammad ordered a charge against the enemy. In the hand-to-hand fight that followed the tribes were routed and they fled to Autas.
Muhammad posted a contingent to guard the Hunayn pass and led the main army to Autas. In the confrontation at Autas the tribes could not withstand the Muslim onslaught. Believing continued resistance useless, the tribes broke camp and retired to Ta'if.
Abu Bakr was commissioned by Muhammad to lead the attack against Ta'if. The tribes shut themselves in the fort and refused to come out in the open. The Muslims employed catapults, but without tangible result. The Muslims attempted to use a testudo formation, in which a group of soldiers shielded by a cover of cowhide advanced to set fire to the gate. However, the enemy threw red hot scraps of iron on the testudo, rendering it ineffective.
The siege dragged on for two weeks, and still there was no sign of weakness in the fort. Muhammad held a council of war. Abu Bakr advised that the siege might be raised and that God make arrangements for the fall of the fort. The advice was accepted, and in February 630, the siege of Ta'if was raised and the Muslim army returned to Mecca. A few days later Malik bin Auf, the commander, came to Mecca and became a Muslim.
Battles of Hunayn and Ta'if.
In 630, the Muslim army was ambushed by archers from the local tribes as it passed through the valley of Hunayn, some eleven miles northeast of Mecca. Taken unaware, the advance guard of the Muslim army fled in panic. There was considerable confusion, and the camels, horses and men ran into one another in an attempt to seek cover. Muhammad, however, stood firm. Only nine companions remained around him, including Abu Bakr. Under Muhammad's instruction, his uncle Abbas shouted at the top of his voice, "O Muslims, come to the Prophet of Allah". The call was heard by the Muslim soldiers and they gathered beside Muhammad. When the Muslims had gathered in sufficient number, Muhammad ordered a charge against the enemy. In the hand-to-hand fight that followed the tribes were routed and they fled to Autas.
Muhammad posted a contingent to guard the Hunayn pass and led the main army to Autas. In the confrontation at Autas the tribes could not withstand the Muslim onslaught. Believing continued resistance useless, the tribes broke camp and retired to Ta'if.
Abu Bakr was commissioned by Muhammad to lead the attack against Ta'if. The tribes shut themselves in the fort and refused to come out in the open. The Muslims employed catapults, but without tangible result. The Muslims attempted to use a testudo formation, in which a group of soldiers shielded by a cover of cowhide advanced to set fire to the gate. However, the enemy threw red hot scraps of iron on the testudo, rendering it ineffective.
The siege dragged on for two weeks, and still there was no sign of weakness in the fort. Muhammad held a council of war. Abu Bakr advised that the siege might be raised and that God make arrangements for the fall of the fort. The advice was accepted, and in February 630, the siege of Ta'if was raised and the Muslim army returned to Mecca. A few days later Malik bin Auf, the commander, came to Mecca and became a Muslim.
Abu Bakr as Amir-ul-Hajj.
In 631 AD, Muhammad sent from Medina a delegation of three hundred Muslims to perform the Hajj according to the new Islamic way and appointed Abu Bakr as the leader of the delegation. The day after Abu Bakr and his party had left for the Hajj, Muhammad received a new revelation: Surah Tawbah, the ninth chapter of the Quran. It is related that when this revelation came, someone suggested to Muhammad that he should send news of it to Abu Bakr. Muhammad said that only a man of his house could proclaim the revelation.
Muhammad summoned Ali, and asked him to proclaim a portion of Surah Tawbah to the people on the day of sacrifice when they assembled at Mina. Ali went forth on Muhammad's slit-eared camel, and overtook Abu Bakr. When Ali joined the party, Abu Bakr wanted to know whether he had come to give orders or to convey them. Ali said that he had not come to replace Abu Bakr as Amir-ul-Hajj, and that his only mission was to convey a special message to the people on behalf of Muhammad.
At Mecca, Abu Bakr presided at the Hajj ceremony, and Ali read the proclamation on behalf of Muhammad. The main points of the proclamation were:
From the day this proclamation was made a new era dawned, and Islam alone was to be supreme in Arabia.
Expedition of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq.
Abu Bakr led one military expedition, the Expedition of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, which took place in Najd, in July 628 (third month 7AH in the Islamic calendar). Abu Bakr led a large company in Nejd on the order of Muhammad. Many were killed and taken prisoner. The Sunni Hadith collection "Sunan Abu Dawud" mentions the event.
Expedition of Usama bin Zayd.
In 632, during the final weeks of his life, Muhammad ordered an expedition into Syria to avenge the defeat of the Muslims in the Battle of Mu'tah some years previously. Leading the campaign was Usama ibn Zayd, whose father, Muhammad's erstwhile adopted son Zayd ibn Harithah, had been killed in the earlier conflict. No more than twenty years old, inexperienced and untested, Usama's appointment was controversial, becoming especially problematic when veterans such as Abu Bakr, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah and Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas were placed under his command. Nevertheless, the expedition was dispatched, though soon after setting off, news was received of Muhammad's death, forcing the army to return to Medina. The campaign was not reengaged until after Abu Bakr's ascension to the caliphate, at which point he chose to reaffirm Usama's command, which ultimately led to its success.
Death of Muhammad.
There are a number of traditions regarding Muhammad's final days which have been used to reinforce the idea of the great friendship and trust which is said to have existed between him and Abu Bakr. In one such episode, as Muhammad was nearing death, he found himself unable to lead prayers as he usually would. He instructed Abu Bakr to take his place, ignoring concerns from Aisha that her father was too emotionally delicate for the role. Abu Bakr subsequently took up the position, and when Muhammad entered the prayer hall one morning during Fajr prayers, Abu Bakr attempted to step back to let him to take up his normal place and lead. Muhammad, however, allowed him to continue. In a related incident, around this time, Muhammad ascended the pulpit and addressed the congregation, saying, "God has given his servant the choice between this world and that which is with God and he has chosen the latter." Abu Bakr, understanding this to mean that Muhammad did not have long to live, responded "Nay, we and our children will be your ransom." Muhammad consoled his friend and ordered that all the doors leading to the mosque be closed aside from that which led from Abu Bakr's house, "for I know no one who is a better friend to me than he."
Upon Muhammad's death, the Muslim community was unprepared for the loss of its leader and many experienced a profound shock. Umar was particularly affected, instead declaring that Muhammad had gone to consult with God and would soon return, threatening anyone who would say that Muhammad was dead. Abu Bakr, having returned to Medina, calmed Umar by showing him Muhammad's body, convincing him of his death. He then addressed those who had gathered at the mosque, saying, "If anyone worships Muhammad, Muhammad is dead. If anyone worships God, God is alive, immortal", thus putting an end to any idolising impulse in the population. He then concluded with verses from the Quran: "(O Muhammad) Verily you will die, and they also will die." (), "Muhammad is no more than an Apostle; and indeed many Apostles have passed away, before him, If he dies Or is killed, will you then Turn back on your heels? And he who turns back On his heels, not the least Harm will he do to Allah And Allah will give reward to those Who are grateful." ()
Saqifa.
In the immediate aftermath of the death of Muhammad, a gathering of the Ansar (natives of Medina) took place in the "Saqifah" (courtyard) of the Banu Sa'ida clan. The general belief at the time was that the purpose of the meeting was for the Ansar to decide on a new leader of the Muslim community among themselves, with the intentional exclusion of the Muhajirun (migrants from Mecca), though this has later become the subject of debate.
Nevertheless, Abu Bakr and Umar, upon learning of the meeting, became concerned of a potential coup and hastened to the gathering. Upon arriving, Abu Bakr addressed the assembled men with a warning that an attempt to elect a leader outside of Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh, would likely result in dissension, as only they can command the necessary respect among the community. He then took Umar and Abu Ubaidah, by the hand and offered them to the Ansar as potential choices. Habab ibn Mundhir, a veteran from the battle of Badr, countered with his own suggestion that the Quraysh and the Ansar choose a leader each from among themselves, who would then rule jointly. The group grew heated upon hearing this proposal and began to argue amongst themselves. The orientalist William Muir gives the following observation of the situation:
Umar hastily took Abu Bakr's hand and swore his own allegiance to the latter, an example followed by the gathered men. The meeting broke up when a violent scuffle erupted between Umar and the chief of the Banu Sa'ida, Sa'd ibn Ubadah. This may indicate that the choice of Abu Bakr may not have been unanimous, with emotions running high as a result of the disagreement.
Abu Bakr was near-universally accepted as head of the Muslim community (under the title of Caliph) as a result of Saqifah, though he did face contention because of the rushed nature of the event. Several companions, most prominent among them being Ali ibn Abi Talib, initially refused to acknowledge his authority. Among Shi'ites, it is also argued that Ali had previously been appointed as Muhammad's heir, with the election being seen as in contravention to the latter's wishes. Abu Bakr later sent Umar to confront Ali, resulting in an altercation which may have involved violence. However, after six months the group made peace with Abu Bakr and Ali offered him his allegiance.
Reign.
After assuming the office of Caliph, Abu Bakr's first address was as follows:
Abu Bakr's reign lasted for 27 months, during which he crushed the rebellion of the Arab tribes throughout the Arabian Peninsula in the successful Ridda Wars. In the last months of his rule, he sent Khalid ibn al-Walid on conquests against the Sassanid Empire in Mesopotamia and against the Byzantine Empire in Syria. This would set in motion a historical trajectory (continued later on by Umar and Uthman ibn Affan) that in just a few short decades would lead to one of the largest empires in history. He had little time to pay attention to the administration of state, though state affairs remained stable during his Caliphate. On the advice of Umar and Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, he agreed to draw a salary from the state treasury and discontinue his cloth trade.
Ridda wars.
Troubles emerged soon after Abu Bakr's succession, with several Arab tribes launching revolts, threatening the unity and stability of the new community and state. These insurgencies and the caliphate's responses to them are collectively referred to as the Ridda wars ("Wars of Apostasy").
The opposition movements came in two forms. One type challenged the political power of the nascent caliphate as well as the religious authority of Islam with the acclamation of rival ideologies, headed by political leaders who claimed the mantle of prophethood in the manner that Muhammad had done. These rebellions include:
These leaders are all denounced in Islamic histories as "false prophets".
The second form of opposition movement was more strictly political in character. Some of the revolts of this type took the form of tax rebellions in Najd among tribes such as the Banu Fazara and Banu Tamim. Other dissenters, while initially allied to the Muslims, used Muhammad's death as an opportunity to attempt to restrict the growth of the new Islamic state. They include some of the Rabīʿa in Bahrayn, the Azd in Oman, as well as among the Kindah and Khawlan in Yemen.
Abu Bakr, likely understanding that maintaining firm control over the disparate tribes of Arabia was crucial to ensuring the survival of the state, suppressed the insurrections with military force. He dispatched Khalid ibn Walid and a body of troops to subdue the uprisings in Najd as well as that of Musaylimah, who posed the most serious threat. Concurrent to this, Shurahbil ibn Hasana and Al-Ala'a Al-Hadrami were sent to Bahrayn, while Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl, Hudhayfah al-Bariqi and Arfaja al-Bariqi were instructed to conquer Oman. Finally, Al-Muhajir ibn Abi Umayya and Khalid ibn Asid were sent to Yemen to aid the local governor in re-establishing control. Abu Bakr also made use of diplomatic means in addition to military measures. Like Muhammad before him, he used marriage alliances and financial incentives to bind former enemies to the caliphate. For instance, a member of the Banu Hanifa who had sided with the Muslims was rewarded with the granting of a land estate. Similarly, a Kindah rebel named Al-Ash'ath ibn Qays, after repenting and re-joining Islam, was later given land in Medina as well as the hand of Abu Bakr's sister Umm Farwa in marriage.
At their heart, the Ridda movements were challenges to the political and religious supremacy of the Islamic state. Through his success in suppressing the insurrections, Abu Bakr had in effect continued the political consolidation which had begun under Muhammad's leadership with relatively little interruption. By wars' end, he had established an Islamic hegemony over the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula.
Expeditions into Persia and Syria.
With Arabia having united under a single centralised state with a formidable military, the region could now be viewed as a potential threat to the neighbouring Byzantine and Sasanian empires. It may be that Abu Bakr, reasoning that it was inevitable that one of these powers would launch a pre-emptive strike against the youthful caliphate, decided that it was better to deliver the first blow himself. Regardless of the caliph's motivations, in 633, small forces were dispatched into Iraq and Palestine, capturing several towns. Though the Byzantines and Sassanians were certain to retaliate, Abu Bakr had reason to be confident; the two empires were militarily exhausted after centuries of war against each other, making it likely that any forces sent to Arabia would be diminished and weakened.
A more pressing advantage though was the effectiveness of the Muslim fighters as well as their zeal, the latter of which was partially based on their certainty of the righteousness of their cause. Additionally, the general belief among the Muslims was that the community must be defended at all costs. Historian Theodor Nöldeke gives the somewhat controversial opinion that this religious fervour was intentionally used to maintain the enthusiasm and momentum of the "ummah":
Though Abu Bakr had started these initial conflicts which eventually resulted in the Islamic conquests of Persia and the Levant, he did not live to see those regions conquered by Islam, instead leaving the task to his successors.
Preservation of the Quran.
Abu Bakr was instrumental in preserving the Quran in written form. It is said that after the hard-won victory over Musaylimah in the Battle of Yamama in 632, Umar saw that some five hundred of the Muslims who had memorised the Quran had been killed. Fearing that it may become lost or corrupted, Umar requested that Abu Bakr authorise the compilation and preservation of the scriptures in written format. The caliph was initially hesitant, being quoted as saying, "how can we do that which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and keep him, did not himself do?" He eventually relented, however, and appointed Zayd ibn Thabit, who had previously served as one of the scribes of Muhammad, for the task of gathering the scattered verses. The fragments were recovered from every quarter, including from the ribs of palm branches, scraps of leather, stone tablets and "from the hearts of men". The collected work was transcribed onto sheets and verified through comparison with Quran memorisers. The finished codex, termed the "Mus'haf", was presented to Abu Bakr, who prior to his death, bequeathed it to his successor Umar. Upon Umar's own death, the "Mus'haf" was left to his daughter Hafsa, who had been one of the wives of Muhammad. It was this volume, borrowed from Hafsa, which formed the basis of Uthman's legendary prototype, which became the definitive text of the Quran. All later editions are derived from this original.
Ridda wars.
Troubles emerged soon after Abu Bakr's succession, with several Arab tribes launching revolts, threatening the unity and stability of the new community and state. These insurgencies and the caliphate's responses to them are collectively referred to as the Ridda wars ("Wars of Apostasy").
The opposition movements came in two forms. One type challenged the political power of the nascent caliphate as well as the religious authority of Islam with the acclamation of rival ideologies, headed by political leaders who claimed the mantle of prophethood in the manner that Muhammad had done. These rebellions include:
These leaders are all denounced in Islamic histories as "false prophets".
The second form of opposition movement was more strictly political in character. Some of the revolts of this type took the form of tax rebellions in Najd among tribes such as the Banu Fazara and Banu Tamim. Other dissenters, while initially allied to the Muslims, used Muhammad's death as an opportunity to attempt to restrict the growth of the new Islamic state. They include some of the Rabīʿa in Bahrayn, the Azd in Oman, as well as among the Kindah and Khawlan in Yemen.
Abu Bakr, likely understanding that maintaining firm control over the disparate tribes of Arabia was crucial to ensuring the survival of the state, suppressed the insurrections with military force. He dispatched Khalid ibn Walid and a body of troops to subdue the uprisings in Najd as well as that of Musaylimah, who posed the most serious threat. Concurrent to this, Shurahbil ibn Hasana and Al-Ala'a Al-Hadrami were sent to Bahrayn, while Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl, Hudhayfah al-Bariqi and Arfaja al-Bariqi were instructed to conquer Oman. Finally, Al-Muhajir ibn Abi Umayya and Khalid ibn Asid were sent to Yemen to aid the local governor in re-establishing control. Abu Bakr also made use of diplomatic means in addition to military measures. Like Muhammad before him, he used marriage alliances and financial incentives to bind former enemies to the caliphate. For instance, a member of the Banu Hanifa who had sided with the Muslims was rewarded with the granting of a land estate. Similarly, a Kindah rebel named Al-Ash'ath ibn Qays, after repenting and re-joining Islam, was later given land in Medina as well as the hand of Abu Bakr's sister Umm Farwa in marriage.
At their heart, the Ridda movements were challenges to the political and religious supremacy of the Islamic state. Through his success in suppressing the insurrections, Abu Bakr had in effect continued the political consolidation which had begun under Muhammad's leadership with relatively little interruption. By wars' end, he had established an Islamic hegemony over the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula.
Expeditions into Persia and Syria.
With Arabia having united under a single centralised state with a formidable military, the region could now be viewed as a potential threat to the neighbouring Byzantine and Sasanian empires. It may be that Abu Bakr, reasoning that it was inevitable that one of these powers would launch a pre-emptive strike against the youthful caliphate, decided that it was better to deliver the first blow himself. Regardless of the caliph's motivations, in 633, small forces were dispatched into Iraq and Palestine, capturing several towns. Though the Byzantines and Sassanians were certain to retaliate, Abu Bakr had reason to be confident; the two empires were militarily exhausted after centuries of war against each other, making it likely that any forces sent to Arabia would be diminished and weakened.
A more pressing advantage though was the effectiveness of the Muslim fighters as well as their zeal, the latter of which was partially based on their certainty of the righteousness of their cause. Additionally, the general belief among the Muslims was that the community must be defended at all costs. Historian Theodor Nöldeke gives the somewhat controversial opinion that this religious fervour was intentionally used to maintain the enthusiasm and momentum of the "ummah":
Though Abu Bakr had started these initial conflicts which eventually resulted in the Islamic conquests of Persia and the Levant, he did not live to see those regions conquered by Islam, instead leaving the task to his successors.
Preservation of the Quran.
Abu Bakr was instrumental in preserving the Quran in written form. It is said that after the hard-won victory over Musaylimah in the Battle of Yamama in 632, Umar saw that some five hundred of the Muslims who had memorised the Quran had been killed. Fearing that it may become lost or corrupted, Umar requested that Abu Bakr authorise the compilation and preservation of the scriptures in written format. The caliph was initially hesitant, being quoted as saying, "how can we do that which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and keep him, did not himself do?" He eventually relented, however, and appointed Zayd ibn Thabit, who had previously served as one of the scribes of Muhammad, for the task of gathering the scattered verses. The fragments were recovered from every quarter, including from the ribs of palm branches, scraps of leather, stone tablets and "from the hearts of men". The collected work was transcribed onto sheets and verified through comparison with Quran memorisers. The finished codex, termed the "Mus'haf", was presented to Abu Bakr, who prior to his death, bequeathed it to his successor Umar. Upon Umar's own death, the "Mus'haf" was left to his daughter Hafsa, who had been one of the wives of Muhammad. It was this volume, borrowed from Hafsa, which formed the basis of Uthman's legendary prototype, which became the definitive text of the Quran. All later editions are derived from this original.
Death.
On 23 August 634, Abu Bakr fell sick and did not recover. He developed a high fever and was confined to bed. His illness was prolonged, and when his condition worsened, he felt that his end was near. Realising this, he sent for Ali and requested him to perform his ghusl since Ali had also done it for Muhammad.
Abu Bakr felt that he should nominate his successor so that the issue should not be a cause of dissension among the Muslims after his death, though there was already controversy over Ali not having been appointed. He appointed Umar for this role after discussing the matter with some companions. Some of them favoured the nomination and others disliked it, due to the tough nature of Umar.
Abu Bakr thus dictated his last testament to Uthman ibn Affan as follows:
Umar led the funeral prayer for him and he was buried beside the grave of Muhammad.
Appearance.
The historian Al-Tabari, in regards to Abu Bakr's appearance, records the following interaction between Aisha and her paternal nephew, Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr:
When she was in her howdah and saw a man from among the Arabs passing by, she said, "I have not seen a man more like Abu Bakr than this one." We said to her, "Describe Abu Bakr." She said, "A slight, white man, thin-bearded and bowed. His waist wrapper would not hold but would fall down around his loins. He had a lean face, sunken eyes, a bulging forehead, and trembling knuckles."
Referencing another source, Al-Tabari further describes him as being "white mixed with yellowness, of good build, slight,
bowed, thin, tall like a male palm tree, hook-nosed, lean-faced, sunken-eyed, thin-shanked, and strong-thighed. He used to dye himself with henna and black dye."
Legacy.
Though the period of his caliphate covers only two years, two months and fifteen days, it included successful invasions of the two most powerful empires of the time: the Sassanid Empire and Byzantine Empire.
Abu Bakr had the distinction of being the first Caliph in the history of Islam and also the first Caliph to nominate a successor. He was the only Caliph in the history of Islam who refunded to the state treasury at the time of his death the entire amount of the allowance that he had drawn during the period of his caliphate. He has the distinction of purchasing the land for Al-Masjid al-Nabawi.
Sunni view.
Sunni Muslims view Abu Bakr as one of the best men of all the human beings after the prophets. They also consider Abu Bakr as one of the Ten Promised Paradise ("al-‘Ashara al-Mubashshara") whom Muhammad had testified were destined for Paradise. He is regarded as the "Successor of Allah's Messenger" ("Khalifa Rasulullah"), and first of the Rightly Guided Caliphs—i.e. Rashidun—and as the rightful successor to Muhammad. Abu Bakr had always been the closest friend and confidant of Muhammad throughout his life, being beside Muhammad at every major event. It was Abu Bakr's wisdom that Muhammad always honored. Abu Bakr is regarded among the best of Muhammad's followers; as Umar ibn al-Khattab stated, "If the faith of Abu Bakr was weighed against the faith of the people of the earth, the faith of Abu Bakr would outweigh the others."
Shia view.
Shia Muslims believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib was supposed to assume the leadership, and that he had been publicly and unambiguously appointed by Muhammad as his successor at Ghadir Khumm. It is also believed that Abu Bakr and Umar conspired to take over power in the Muslim nation after Muhammad's death, in a coup d'état against Ali.
Most Twelver Shia (as the main branch of Shia Islam, with 85% of all Shias) have a negative view of Abu Bakr because, after Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr refused to grant Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah, the lands of the village of Fadak which she claimed her father had given to her as a gift before his death. He refused to accept the testimony of her witnesses, so she claimed the land would still belong to her as inheritance from her deceased father. However, Abu Bakr replied by saying that Muhammad had told him that the prophets of God do not leave as inheritance any worldly possessions and on this basis he refused to give her the lands of Fadak. However, as Sayed Ali Asgher Razwy notes in his book "A Restatement of the History of Islam & Muslims", Muhammad inherited a maid servant, five camels, and ten sheep. Shia Muslims believe that prophets can receive inheritance, and can pass on inheritance to others as well. In addition, Shias claim that Muhammad had given Fadak to Fatimah during his lifetime, and Fadak was therefore a gift to Fatimah, not inheritance. This view has also been supported by the Abbasid ruler Al-Ma'mun.
Twelvers also accuse Abu Bakr of participating in the burning of the house of Ali and Fatima. The Twelver Shia believe that Abu Bakr sent Khalid ibn Walid to crush those who were in favour of Ali's caliphate ("see Ridda wars"). The Twelver Shia strongly refute the idea that Abu Bakr or Umar were instrumental in the collection or preservation of the "Quran", claiming that they should have accepted the copy of the book in the possession of Ali.
However, Sunnis argue that Ali and Abu Bakr were not enemies and that Ali named his sons Abi Bakr in honor of Abu Bakr. After the death of Abu Bakr, Ali raised Abu Bakr's son Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. The Twelver Shia view Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr as one of the greatest companions of Ali. When Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr was killed by the Umayyads, Aisha, the third wife of Muhammad, raised and taught her nephew Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr's mother was from Ali's family and Qasim's daughter Farwah bint al-Qasim was married to Muhammad al-Baqir and was the mother of Jafar al-Sadiq. Therefore, Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr was the grandson of Abu Bakr and the grandfather of Jafar al-Sadiq.
Zaydi Shias, the largest group amongst the Shia before the Safavid dynasty and currently the second-largest group (although its population is only about 5% of all Shia Muslims), believe that on the last hour of Zayd ibn Ali (the uncle of Jafar al-Sadiq), he was betrayed by the people in Kufa who said to him: "May God have mercy on you! What do you have to say on the matter of Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab?" Zayd ibn Ali said, "I have not heard anyone in my family renouncing them both nor saying anything but good about them...when they were entrusted with government they behaved justly with the people and acted according to the Quran and the Sunnah".
Sunni view.
Sunni Muslims view Abu Bakr as one of the best men of all the human beings after the prophets. They also consider Abu Bakr as one of the Ten Promised Paradise ("al-‘Ashara al-Mubashshara") whom Muhammad had testified were destined for Paradise. He is regarded as the "Successor of Allah's Messenger" ("Khalifa Rasulullah"), and first of the Rightly Guided Caliphs—i.e. Rashidun—and as the rightful successor to Muhammad. Abu Bakr had always been the closest friend and confidant of Muhammad throughout his life, being beside Muhammad at every major event. It was Abu Bakr's wisdom that Muhammad always honored. Abu Bakr is regarded among the best of Muhammad's followers; as Umar ibn al-Khattab stated, "If the faith of Abu Bakr was weighed against the faith of the people of the earth, the faith of Abu Bakr would outweigh the others."
Shia view.
Shia Muslims believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib was supposed to assume the leadership, and that he had been publicly and unambiguously appointed by Muhammad as his successor at Ghadir Khumm. It is also believed that Abu Bakr and Umar conspired to take over power in the Muslim nation after Muhammad's death, in a coup d'état against Ali.
Most Twelver Shia (as the main branch of Shia Islam, with 85% of all Shias) have a negative view of Abu Bakr because, after Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr refused to grant Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah, the lands of the village of Fadak which she claimed her father had given to her as a gift before his death. He refused to accept the testimony of her witnesses, so she claimed the land would still belong to her as inheritance from her deceased father. However, Abu Bakr replied by saying that Muhammad had told him that the prophets of God do not leave as inheritance any worldly possessions and on this basis he refused to give her the lands of Fadak. However, as Sayed Ali Asgher Razwy notes in his book "A Restatement of the History of Islam & Muslims", Muhammad inherited a maid servant, five camels, and ten sheep. Shia Muslims believe that prophets can receive inheritance, and can pass on inheritance to others as well. In addition, Shias claim that Muhammad had given Fadak to Fatimah during his lifetime, and Fadak was therefore a gift to Fatimah, not inheritance. This view has also been supported by the Abbasid ruler Al-Ma'mun.
Twelvers also accuse Abu Bakr of participating in the burning of the house of Ali and Fatima. The Twelver Shia believe that Abu Bakr sent Khalid ibn Walid to crush those who were in favour of Ali's caliphate ("see Ridda wars"). The Twelver Shia strongly refute the idea that Abu Bakr or Umar were instrumental in the collection or preservation of the "Quran", claiming that they should have accepted the copy of the book in the possession of Ali.
However, Sunnis argue that Ali and Abu Bakr were not enemies and that Ali named his sons Abi Bakr in honor of Abu Bakr. After the death of Abu Bakr, Ali raised Abu Bakr's son Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. The Twelver Shia view Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr as one of the greatest companions of Ali. When Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr was killed by the Umayyads, Aisha, the third wife of Muhammad, raised and taught her nephew Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr's mother was from Ali's family and Qasim's daughter Farwah bint al-Qasim was married to Muhammad al-Baqir and was the mother of Jafar al-Sadiq. Therefore, Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr was the grandson of Abu Bakr and the grandfather of Jafar al-Sadiq.
Zaydi Shias, the largest group amongst the Shia before the Safavid dynasty and currently the second-largest group (although its population is only about 5% of all Shia Muslims), believe that on the last hour of Zayd ibn Ali (the uncle of Jafar al-Sadiq), he was betrayed by the people in Kufa who said to him: "May God have mercy on you! What do you have to say on the matter of Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab?" Zayd ibn Ali said, "I have not heard anyone in my family renouncing them both nor saying anything but good about them...when they were entrusted with government they behaved justly with the people and acted according to the Quran and the Sunnah".
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Apple Inc.
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Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, , is the world's biggest company by market capitalization, the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales and second-largest mobile phone manufacturer. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.
Apple was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976, by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. It was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. in 1977 and the company's next computer, the Apple II, became a best seller and one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple went public in 1980 to instant financial success. The company developed computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, including the 1984 original Macintosh, announced that year in a critically acclaimed advertisement. By 1985, the high cost of its products and power struggles between executives caused problems. Wozniak stepped back from Apple amicably and pursued other ventures, while Jobs resigned bitterly and founded NeXT, taking some Apple employees with him.
As the market for personal computers expanded and evolved throughout the 1990s, Apple lost considerable market share to the lower-priced duopoly of the Microsoft Windows operating system on Intel-powered PC clones (also known as "Wintel"). In 1997, weeks away from bankruptcy, the company bought NeXT to resolve Apple's unsuccessful operating system strategy and entice Jobs back to the company. Over the next decade, Jobs guided Apple back to profitability through a number of tactics including introducing the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad to critical acclaim, launching "Think different" and other memorable advertising campaigns, opening the Apple Store retail chain, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the company's product portfolio. When Jobs resigned in 2011 for health reasons, and died two months later, he was succeeded as CEO by Tim Cook.
Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion in August 2018, then $2 trillion in August 2020, and most recently $3 trillion in January 2022. The company receives criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors, its environmental practices, and its business ethics, including anti-competitive practices and materials sourcing. Nevertheless, the company has a large following and enjoys a high level of brand loyalty. It is ranked as one of the world's most valuable brands.
History.
1976–1980: Founding and incorporation.
Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne as a partnership. The company's first product was the Apple I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Wozniak. To finance its creation, Jobs sold his Volkswagen Bus, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator. Wozniak debuted the first prototype Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which would not yet be marketed as a complete personal computer. It went on sale soon after debut for . Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits".
Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated on January 3, 1977, without Wayne, who had left and sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 only twelve days after having co-founded Apple. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of to Jobs and Wozniak during the incorporation of Apple. During the first five years of operations, revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980, yearly sales grew from $775,000 to $118 million, an average annual growth rate of 533%.
The Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics and open architecture. While the Apple I and early Apple II models used ordinary audio cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a -inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II in 1978.
The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer application" of the business world: VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program released in 1979. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II: compatibility with the office. Before VisiCalc, Apple had been a distant third place competitor to Commodore and Tandy. By the end of the 1970s, Apple had become the leading computer manufacturer in the United States.
On December 12, 1980, Apple (ticker symbol "AAPL") went public selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share ($.10 per share when adjusting for stock splits ), generating over $100 million, which was more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. By the end of the day, 300 millionaires were created, from a stock price of $29 per share and a market cap of $1.778 billion.
1980–1990: Success with Macintosh.
A critical moment in the company's history came in December 1979 when Jobs and several Apple employees, including human–computer interface expert Jef Raskin, visited Xerox PARC in to see a demonstration of the Xerox Alto, a computer using a graphical user interface. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (22.4 million split-adjusted shares ) of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share. After the demonstration, Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface, and development of a GUI began for the Apple Lisa, named after Jobs's daughter.
The Lisa division would be plagued by infighting, and in 1982 Jobs was pushed off the project. The Lisa launched in 1983 and became the first personal computer sold to the public with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price and limited software titles.
Jobs, angered by being pushed off the Lisa team, took over the company's Macintosh division. Wozniak and Raskin had envisioned the Macintosh as a low-cost computer with a text-based interface like the Apple II, but a plane crash in 1981 forced Wozniak to step back from the project. Jobs quickly redefined the Macintosh as a graphical system that would be cheaper than the Lisa, undercutting his former division. Jobs was also hostile to the Apple II division, which at the time, generated most of the company's revenue.
In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer to be sold without a programming language. Its debut was signified by "1984", a $1.5 million television advertisement directed by Ridley Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. This is now hailed as a watershed event for Apple's success and was called a "masterpiece" by CNN and one of the greatest TV advertisements of all time by "TV Guide".
The advertisement created great interest in the original Macintosh, and sales were initially good, but began to taper off dramatically after the first three months as reviews started to come in. Jobs had made the decision to equip the original Macintosh with 128 kilobytes of RAM, attempting to reach a price point, which limited its speed and the software that could be used. The Macintosh would eventually ship for , a price panned by critics in light of its slow performance. In early 1985, this sales slump triggered a power struggle between Steve Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired away from Pepsi two years earlier by Jobs saying, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?" Sculley decided to remove Jobs as the head of the Macintosh division, with unanimous support from the Apple board of directors.
The board of directors instructed Sculley to contain Jobs and his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Informed by Jean-Louis Gassée, Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup and called an emergency meeting at which Apple's executive staff sided with Sculley and stripped Jobs of all operational duties. Jobs resigned from Apple in September 1985 and took a number of Apple employees with him to found NeXT. Wozniak had also quit his active employment at Apple earlier in 1985 to pursue other ventures, expressing his frustration with Apple's treatment of the Apple II division and stating that the company had "been going in the wrong direction for the last five years." Despite Wozniak's grievances, he officially remained employed by Apple, and to this day continues to work for the company as a representative, receiving a stipend estimated to be $120,000 per year for this role. Both Jobs and Wozniak remained Apple shareholders after their departures.
After the departures of Jobs and Wozniak, Sculley worked to improve the Macintosh in 1985 by quadrupling the RAM and introducing the LaserWriter, the first reasonably priced PostScript laser printer. PageMaker, an early desktop publishing application taking advantage of the PostScript language, was also released by Aldus Corporation in July 1985. It has been suggested that the combination of Macintosh, LaserWriter and PageMaker was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market.
This dominant position in the desktop publishing market allowed the company to focus on higher price points, the so-called "high-right policy" named for the position on a chart of price vs. profits. Newer models selling at higher price points offered higher profit margin, and appeared to have no effect on total sales as power users snapped up every increase in speed. Although some worried about pricing themselves out of the market, the high-right policy was in full force by the mid-1980s, notably due to Jean-Louis Gassée's mantra of "fifty-five or die", referring to the 55% profit margins of the Macintosh II.
This policy began to backfire in the last years of the decade as desktop publishing programs appeared on PC clones that offered some or much of the same functionality of the Macintosh, but at far lower price points. The company lost its dominant position in the desktop publishing market and estranged many of its original consumer customer base who could no longer afford their high-priced products. The Christmas season of 1989 was the first in the company's history to have declining sales, which led to a 20% drop in Apple's stock price. During this period, the relationship between Sculley and Gassée deteriorated, leading Sculley to effectively demote Gassée in January 1990 by appointing Michael Spindler as the chief operating officer. Gassée left the company later that year.
1990–1997: Decline and restructuring.
The company pivoted strategy and in October 1990 introduced three lower-cost models, the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC, and the Macintosh IIsi, all of which saw significant sales due to pent-up demand. In 1991, Apple introduced the hugely successful PowerBook with a design that set the current shape for almost all modern laptops. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system, adding color to the interface and introducing new networking capabilities.
The success of the lower-cost Macs and PowerBook brought increasing revenue. For some time, Apple was doing incredibly well, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine "MacAddict" named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.
The success of Apple's lower-cost consumer models, especially the LC, also led to the cannibalization of their higher-priced machines. To address this, management introduced several new brands, selling largely identical machines at different price points, aimed at different markets: the high-end Quadra models, the mid-range Centris line, and the consumer-marketed Performa series. This led to significant market confusion, as customers did not understand the difference between models.
The early 1990s also saw the discontinuation of the Apple II series, which was expensive to produce, and the company felt was still taking sales away from lower-cost Macintosh models. After the launch of the LC, Apple began encouraging developers to create applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II, and authorized salespersons to direct consumers towards Macintosh and away from Apple II. The Apple IIe was discontinued in 1993.
Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with its Windows graphical user interface that it sold to manufacturers of generally less expensive PC clones. While the Macintosh was more expensive, it offered a more tightly integrated user experience, but the company struggled to make the case to consumers.
Apple also experimented with a number of other unsuccessful consumer targeted products during the 1990s, including digital cameras, portable CD audio players, speakers, video game consoles, the eWorld online service, and TV appliances. Most notably, enormous resources were invested in the problem-plagued Newton tablet division, based on John Sculley's unrealistic market forecasts.
Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with Windows by focusing on delivering software to inexpensive personal computers, while Apple was delivering a richly engineered but expensive experience. Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response; instead, they sued Microsoft for using a GUI similar to the Apple Lisa in "Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp." The lawsuit dragged on for years before it was finally dismissed.
The major product flops and the rapid loss of market share to Windows sullied Apple's reputation, and in 1993 Sculley was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler.
With Spindler at the helm Apple, IBM, and Motorola formed the AIM alliance in 1994 with the goal of creating a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform; PReP), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind and thus counter the dominance of Windows. The same year, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh, the first of many Apple computers to use Motorola's PowerPC processor.
In the wake of the alliance, Apple opened up to the idea of allowing Motorola and other companies to build Macintosh clones. Over the next two years, 75 distinct Macintosh clone models were introduced. However, by 1996 Apple executives were worried that the clones were cannibalizing sales of their own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.
In 1996, Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio as CEO. Hired for his reputation as a corporate rehabilitator, Amelio made deep changes, including extensive layoffs and cost-cutting.
This period was also marked by numerous failed attempts to modernize the Macintosh operating system (MacOS). The original Macintosh operating system (System 1) was not built for multitasking (running several applications at once). The company attempted to correct this with by introducing cooperative multitasking in System 5, but the company still felt it needed a more modern approach. This led to the Pink project in 1988, A/UX that same year, Copland in 1994, and the attempted purchase of BeOS in 1996. Talks with Be stalled when the CEO, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée, demanded $300 million instead of the $125 million Apple wanted to pay.
Only weeks away from bankruptcy, Apple's board decided NeXTSTEP was a better choice for its next operating system and purchased NeXT in late 1996 for $400 million, bringing back Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
1997–2007: Return to profitability.
The NeXT acquisition was finalized on February 9, 1997, and the board brought Jobs back to Apple as an advisor. On July 9, 1997, Jobs staged a boardroom coup that resulted in Amelio's resignation after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses.
The board named Jobs as interim CEO and he immediately began a review of the company's products. Jobs would order 70% of the company's products to be cancelled, resulting in the loss of 3,000 jobs, and taking Apple back to the core of its computer offerings. The next month, in August 1997, Steve Jobs convinced Microsoft to make a $150 million investment in Apple and a commitment to continue developing software for the Mac. The investment was seen as an "antitrust insurance policy" for Microsoft who had recently settled with the Department of Justice over anti-competitive practices. Jobs also ended the Mac clone deals and in September 1997, purchased the largest clone maker, Power Computing. On November 10, 1997, Apple introduced the Apple Store website, which was tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing that had been successfully used by PC manufacturer Dell.
The moves paid off for Jobs, at the end of his first year as CEO, the company turned a $309 million profit.
On May 6, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one computer reminiscent of the original Macintosh: the iMac. The iMac was a huge success for Apple selling 800,000 units in its first five months and ushered in major shifts in the industry by abandoning legacy technologies like the -inch diskette, being an early adopter of the USB connector, and coming pre-installed with internet connectivity (the "i" in iMac) via Ethernet and a dial-up modem. The device also had a striking teardrop shape and translucent materials, designed by Jonathan Ive, who although hired by Amelio, would go on to work collaboratively with Jobs for the next decade to chart a new course the design of Apple's products.
A little more than a year later on July 21, 1999, Apple introduced the iBook, a laptop for consumers. It was the culmination of a strategy established by Jobs to produce only four products: refined versions of the Power Macintosh G3 desktop and PowerBook G3 laptop for professionals, along with the iMac desktop and iBook laptop for consumers. Jobs felt the small product line allowed for a greater focus on quality and innovation.
At around the same time, Apple also completed numerous acquisitions to create a portfolio of digital media production software for both professionals and consumers. Apple acquired of Macromedia's Key Grip digital video editing software project which was renamed Final Cut Pro when it was launched on the retail market in April 1999. The development of Key Grip also led to Apple's release of the consumer video-editing product iMovie in October 1999. Next, Apple successfully acquired the German company Astarte in April 2000, which had developed the DVD authoring software DVDirector, which Apple would sell as the professional-oriented DVD Studio Pro software product, and used the same technology to create iDVD for the consumer market. In 2000, Apple purchased the SoundJam MP audio player software from Casady & Greene. Apple renamed the program iTunes, while simplifying the user interface and adding the ability to burn CDs.
2001 would be a pivotal year for the Apple with the company making three announcements that would change the course of the company.
The first announcement came on March 24, 2001, that Apple was nearly ready to release a new modern operating system, Mac OS X. The announcement came after numerous failed attempts in the early 1990s, and several years of development. Mac OS X was based on NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, and BSD Unix, with Apple aiming to combine the stability, reliability, and security of Unix with the ease of use afforded by an overhauled user interface, heavily influenced by NeXTSTEP. To aid users in migrating from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications within Mac OS X via the Classic Environment.
In May 2001, the company opened its first two Apple Store retail locations in Virginia and California, offering an improved presentation of the company's products. At the time, many speculated that the stores would fail, but they went on to become highly successful, and the first of more than 500 stores around the world.
On October 23, 2001, Apple debuted the iPod portable digital audio player. The product, which was first sold on November 10, 2001, was phenomenally successful with over 100 million units sold within six years.
In 2003, Apple's iTunes Store was introduced. The service offered music downloads for 99¢ a song and integration with the iPod. The iTunes Store quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over five billion downloads by June 19, 2008. Two years later, the iTunes Store was the world's largest music retailer.
In 2002, Apple purchased Nothing Real for their advanced digital compositing application Shake, as well as Emagic for the music productivity application Logic. The purchase of Emagic made Apple the first computer manufacturer to own a music software company. The acquisition was followed by the development of Apple's consumer-level GarageBand application. The release of iPhoto in the same year completed the iLife suite.
At the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 6, 2005, Jobs announced that Apple would move away from PowerPC processors, and the Mac would transition to Intel processors in 2006. On January 10, 2006, the new MacBook Pro and iMac became the first Apple computers to use Intel's Core Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel chips for the entire Mac product line—over one year sooner than announced. The Power Mac, iBook, and PowerBook brands were retired during the transition; the Mac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro became their respective successors. On April 29, 2009, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Apple was building its own team of engineers to design microchips. Apple also introduced Boot Camp in 2006 to help users install Windows XP or Windows Vista on their Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X.
Apple's success during this period was evident in its stock price. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around $6 per share (split-adjusted) to over $80. When Apple surpassed Dell's market cap in January 2006, Jobs sent an email to Apple employees saying Dell's CEO Michael Dell should eat his words. Nine years prior, Dell had said that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders".
2007–2011: Success with mobile devices.
During his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would thereafter be known as "Apple Inc.", because the company had shifted its emphasis from computers to consumer electronics. This event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV. The company sold 270,000 iPhone units during the first 30 hours of sales, and the device was called "a game changer for the industry".
In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management (DRM), thereby allowing tracks to be played on third-party players, if record labels would agree to drop the technology. On April 2, 2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May 2007. Other record labels eventually followed suit and Apple published a press release in January 2009 to announce that all songs on the iTunes Store are available without their FairPlay DRM.
In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store to sell third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and registered an average daily revenue of $1 million, with Jobs speculating in August 2008 that the App Store could become a billion-dollar business for Apple. By October 2008, Apple was the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world due to the popularity of the iPhone.
On January 14, 2009, Jobs announced in an internal memo that he would be taking a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple until the end of June 2009 and would spend the time focusing on his health. In the email, Jobs stated that "the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well", and explained that the break would allow the company "to focus on delivering extraordinary products". Though Jobs was absent, Apple recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the recession with revenue of $8.16 billion and profit of $1.21 billion.
After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks", Apple unveiled a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the iPad on January 27, 2010. The iPad ran the same touch-based operating system as the iPhone, and all iPhone apps were compatible with the iPad. This gave the iPad a large app catalog on launch, though having very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the iPad was launched in the US. It sold more than 300,000 units on its first day, and 500,000 by the end of the first week. In May of the same year, Apple's market cap exceeded that of competitor Microsoft for the first time since 1989.
In June 2010, Apple released the iPhone 4, which introduced video calling using FaceTime, multitasking, and a new uninsulated stainless steel design that acted as the phone's antenna. Later that year, Apple again refreshed its iPod line of MP3 players by introducing a multi-touch iPod Nano, an iPod Touch with FaceTime, and an iPod Shuffle that brought back the clickwheel buttons of earlier generations. It also introduced the smaller, cheaper second generation Apple TV which allowed renting of movies and shows.
On January 17, 2011, Jobs announced in an internal Apple memo that he would take another medical leave of absence for an indefinite period to allow him to focus on his health. Chief operating officer Tim Cook assumed Jobs's day-to-day operations at Apple, although Jobs would still remain "involved in major strategic decisions". Apple became the most valuable consumer-facing brand in the world. In June 2011, Jobs surprisingly took the stage and unveiled iCloud, an online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files, and software which replaced MobileMe, Apple's previous attempt at content syncing. This would be the last product launch Jobs would attend before his death.
On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple. He was replaced by Cook and Jobs became Apple's chairman. Apple did not have a chairman at the time and instead had two co-lead directors, Andrea Jung and Arthur D. Levinson, who continued with those titles until Levinson replaced Jobs as chairman of the board in November after Jobs' death.
2011–present: Post-Jobs era, Cook's leadership.
On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs died, marking the end of an era for Apple. The first major product announcement by Apple following Jobs's passing occurred on January 19, 2012, when Apple's Phil Schiller introduced iBook's Textbooks for iOS and iBook Author for Mac OS X in New York City. Jobs stated in the biography "Jobs" that he wanted to reinvent the textbook industry and education.
From 2011 to 2012, Apple released the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, which featured improved cameras, an intelligent software assistant named Siri, and cloud-synced data with iCloud; the third- and fourth-generation iPads, which featured Retina displays; and the iPad Mini, which featured a 7.9-inch screen in contrast to the iPad's 9.7-inch screen. These launches were successful, with the iPhone 5 (released September 21, 2012) becoming Apple's biggest iPhone launch with over two million pre-orders and sales of three million iPads in three days following the launch of the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad (released November 3, 2012). Apple also released a third-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display and new iMac and Mac Mini computers.
On August 20, 2012, Apple's rising stock price increased the company's market capitalization to a then-record $624 billion. This beat the non-inflation-adjusted record for market capitalization previously set by Microsoft in 1999. On August 24, 2012, a US jury ruled that Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion (£665m) in damages in an intellectual property lawsuit. Samsung appealed the damages award, which was reduced by $450 million and further granted Samsung's request for a new trial. On November 10, 2012, Apple confirmed a global settlement that dismissed all existing lawsuits between Apple and HTC up to that date, in favor of a ten-year license agreement for current and future patents between the two companies. It is predicted that Apple will make $280 million a year from this deal with HTC.
In May 2014, the company confirmed its intent to acquire Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's audio company Beats Electronics—producer of the "Beats by Dr. Dre" line of headphones and speaker products, and operator of the music streaming service Beats Music—for $3 billion, and to sell their products through Apple's retail outlets and resellers. Iovine believed that Beats had always "belonged" with Apple, as the company modeled itself after Apple's "unmatched ability to marry culture and technology." The acquisition was the largest purchase in Apple's history.
During a press event on September 9, 2014, Apple introduced a smartwatch, the Apple Watch. Initially, Apple marketed the device as a fashion accessory and a complement to the iPhone, that would allow people to look at their smartphones less. Over time, the company has focused on developing health and fitness-oriented features on the watch, in an effort to compete with dedicated activity trackers.
In January 2016, it was announced that one billion Apple devices were in active use worldwide.
On June 6, 2016, Fortune released Fortune 500, their list of companies ranked on revenue generation. In the trailing fiscal year (2015), Apple appeared on the list as the top tech company. It ranked third, overall, with $233 billion in revenue. This represents a movement upward of two spots from the previous year's list.
In June 2017, Apple announced the HomePod, its smart speaker aimed to compete against Sonos, Google Home, and Amazon Echo. Towards the end of the year, "TechCrunch" reported that Apple was acquiring Shazam, a company that introduced its products at WWDC and specializing in music, TV, film and advertising recognition. The acquisition was confirmed a few days later, reportedly costing Apple $400 million, with media reports noting that the purchase looked like a move to acquire data and tools bolstering the Apple Music streaming service. The purchase was approved by the European Union in September 2018.
Also in June 2017, Apple appointed Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to head the newly formed worldwide video unit. In November 2017, Apple announced it was branching out into original scripted programming: a drama series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and a reboot of the anthology series Amazing Stories with Steven Spielberg. In June 2018, Apple signed the Writers Guild of America's minimum basic agreement and Oprah Winfrey to a multi-year content partnership. Additional partnerships for original series include Sesame Workshop and DHX Media and its subsidiary Peanuts Worldwide, as well as a partnership with A24 to create original films.
During the Apple Special Event in September 2017, the AirPower wireless charger was announced alongside the iPhone X, 8 and Watch Series 3. The AirPower was intended to wirelessly charge multiple devices, simultaneously. Though initially set to release in early 2018, the AirPower would be canceled in March 2019, marking the first cancellation of a device under Cook's leadership.
On August 19, 2020, Apple's share price briefly topped $467.77, making Apple the first US company with a market capitalization of $2 trillion.
During its annual WWDC keynote speech on June 22, 2020, Apple announced it would move away from Intel processors, and the Mac would transition to processors developed in-house. The announcement was expected by industry analysts, and it has been noted that Macs featuring Apple's processors would allow for big increases in performance over current Intel-based models. On November 10, 2020, the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the Mac Mini became the first Mac devices powered by an Apple-designed processor, the Apple M1.
In April 2022, it was reported that Samsung Electro-Mechanics would be collaborating with Apple on its M2 chip instead of LG Innotek. Developer logs showed that at least nine Mac models with four different M2 chips were being tested.
The Wall Street Journal reported that an effort to develop its own chips left Apple better prepared to deal with the semiconductor shortage that emerged during the pandemic era and led to increased profitability, with sales of Mac computers that included M1 chips rising sharply in 2020 and 2021. It also inspired other companies like Tesla, Amazon, and Meta Platforms to pursue a similar path.
In April 2022, Apple opened an online store that allowed anyone in the US to view repair manuals and order replacement parts for specific recent iPhones, although the difference in cost between this method and official repair is anticipated to be minimal.
In May 2022, a trademark was filed for RealityOS, an operating system reportedly intended for virtual and augmented reality headsets, first mentioned in 2017. According to Bloomberg, the headset may come out in 2023. Further insider reports state that the device uses iris scanning for payment confirmation and signing into accounts.
On June 18, 2022, the Apple Store in Towson, Maryland became the first to unionize in the U.S., with the employees voting to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
On July 7, 2022, Apple added Lockdown Mode to macOS 13 and iOS 16, as a response to the earlier Pegasus revelations; the mode increases security protections for high-risk users against targeted zero-day malware.
1976–1980: Founding and incorporation.
Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne as a partnership. The company's first product was the Apple I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Wozniak. To finance its creation, Jobs sold his Volkswagen Bus, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator. Wozniak debuted the first prototype Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which would not yet be marketed as a complete personal computer. It went on sale soon after debut for . Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits".
Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated on January 3, 1977, without Wayne, who had left and sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 only twelve days after having co-founded Apple. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of to Jobs and Wozniak during the incorporation of Apple. During the first five years of operations, revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980, yearly sales grew from $775,000 to $118 million, an average annual growth rate of 533%.
The Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics and open architecture. While the Apple I and early Apple II models used ordinary audio cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a -inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II in 1978.
The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer application" of the business world: VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program released in 1979. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II: compatibility with the office. Before VisiCalc, Apple had been a distant third place competitor to Commodore and Tandy. By the end of the 1970s, Apple had become the leading computer manufacturer in the United States.
On December 12, 1980, Apple (ticker symbol "AAPL") went public selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share ($.10 per share when adjusting for stock splits ), generating over $100 million, which was more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. By the end of the day, 300 millionaires were created, from a stock price of $29 per share and a market cap of $1.778 billion.
1980–1990: Success with Macintosh.
A critical moment in the company's history came in December 1979 when Jobs and several Apple employees, including human–computer interface expert Jef Raskin, visited Xerox PARC in to see a demonstration of the Xerox Alto, a computer using a graphical user interface. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (22.4 million split-adjusted shares ) of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share. After the demonstration, Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface, and development of a GUI began for the Apple Lisa, named after Jobs's daughter.
The Lisa division would be plagued by infighting, and in 1982 Jobs was pushed off the project. The Lisa launched in 1983 and became the first personal computer sold to the public with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price and limited software titles.
Jobs, angered by being pushed off the Lisa team, took over the company's Macintosh division. Wozniak and Raskin had envisioned the Macintosh as a low-cost computer with a text-based interface like the Apple II, but a plane crash in 1981 forced Wozniak to step back from the project. Jobs quickly redefined the Macintosh as a graphical system that would be cheaper than the Lisa, undercutting his former division. Jobs was also hostile to the Apple II division, which at the time, generated most of the company's revenue.
In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer to be sold without a programming language. Its debut was signified by "1984", a $1.5 million television advertisement directed by Ridley Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. This is now hailed as a watershed event for Apple's success and was called a "masterpiece" by CNN and one of the greatest TV advertisements of all time by "TV Guide".
The advertisement created great interest in the original Macintosh, and sales were initially good, but began to taper off dramatically after the first three months as reviews started to come in. Jobs had made the decision to equip the original Macintosh with 128 kilobytes of RAM, attempting to reach a price point, which limited its speed and the software that could be used. The Macintosh would eventually ship for , a price panned by critics in light of its slow performance. In early 1985, this sales slump triggered a power struggle between Steve Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired away from Pepsi two years earlier by Jobs saying, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?" Sculley decided to remove Jobs as the head of the Macintosh division, with unanimous support from the Apple board of directors.
The board of directors instructed Sculley to contain Jobs and his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Informed by Jean-Louis Gassée, Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup and called an emergency meeting at which Apple's executive staff sided with Sculley and stripped Jobs of all operational duties. Jobs resigned from Apple in September 1985 and took a number of Apple employees with him to found NeXT. Wozniak had also quit his active employment at Apple earlier in 1985 to pursue other ventures, expressing his frustration with Apple's treatment of the Apple II division and stating that the company had "been going in the wrong direction for the last five years." Despite Wozniak's grievances, he officially remained employed by Apple, and to this day continues to work for the company as a representative, receiving a stipend estimated to be $120,000 per year for this role. Both Jobs and Wozniak remained Apple shareholders after their departures.
After the departures of Jobs and Wozniak, Sculley worked to improve the Macintosh in 1985 by quadrupling the RAM and introducing the LaserWriter, the first reasonably priced PostScript laser printer. PageMaker, an early desktop publishing application taking advantage of the PostScript language, was also released by Aldus Corporation in July 1985. It has been suggested that the combination of Macintosh, LaserWriter and PageMaker was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market.
This dominant position in the desktop publishing market allowed the company to focus on higher price points, the so-called "high-right policy" named for the position on a chart of price vs. profits. Newer models selling at higher price points offered higher profit margin, and appeared to have no effect on total sales as power users snapped up every increase in speed. Although some worried about pricing themselves out of the market, the high-right policy was in full force by the mid-1980s, notably due to Jean-Louis Gassée's mantra of "fifty-five or die", referring to the 55% profit margins of the Macintosh II.
This policy began to backfire in the last years of the decade as desktop publishing programs appeared on PC clones that offered some or much of the same functionality of the Macintosh, but at far lower price points. The company lost its dominant position in the desktop publishing market and estranged many of its original consumer customer base who could no longer afford their high-priced products. The Christmas season of 1989 was the first in the company's history to have declining sales, which led to a 20% drop in Apple's stock price. During this period, the relationship between Sculley and Gassée deteriorated, leading Sculley to effectively demote Gassée in January 1990 by appointing Michael Spindler as the chief operating officer. Gassée left the company later that year.
1990–1997: Decline and restructuring.
The company pivoted strategy and in October 1990 introduced three lower-cost models, the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC, and the Macintosh IIsi, all of which saw significant sales due to pent-up demand. In 1991, Apple introduced the hugely successful PowerBook with a design that set the current shape for almost all modern laptops. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system, adding color to the interface and introducing new networking capabilities.
The success of the lower-cost Macs and PowerBook brought increasing revenue. For some time, Apple was doing incredibly well, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine "MacAddict" named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.
The success of Apple's lower-cost consumer models, especially the LC, also led to the cannibalization of their higher-priced machines. To address this, management introduced several new brands, selling largely identical machines at different price points, aimed at different markets: the high-end Quadra models, the mid-range Centris line, and the consumer-marketed Performa series. This led to significant market confusion, as customers did not understand the difference between models.
The early 1990s also saw the discontinuation of the Apple II series, which was expensive to produce, and the company felt was still taking sales away from lower-cost Macintosh models. After the launch of the LC, Apple began encouraging developers to create applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II, and authorized salespersons to direct consumers towards Macintosh and away from Apple II. The Apple IIe was discontinued in 1993.
Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with its Windows graphical user interface that it sold to manufacturers of generally less expensive PC clones. While the Macintosh was more expensive, it offered a more tightly integrated user experience, but the company struggled to make the case to consumers.
Apple also experimented with a number of other unsuccessful consumer targeted products during the 1990s, including digital cameras, portable CD audio players, speakers, video game consoles, the eWorld online service, and TV appliances. Most notably, enormous resources were invested in the problem-plagued Newton tablet division, based on John Sculley's unrealistic market forecasts.
Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with Windows by focusing on delivering software to inexpensive personal computers, while Apple was delivering a richly engineered but expensive experience. Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response; instead, they sued Microsoft for using a GUI similar to the Apple Lisa in "Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp." The lawsuit dragged on for years before it was finally dismissed.
The major product flops and the rapid loss of market share to Windows sullied Apple's reputation, and in 1993 Sculley was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler.
With Spindler at the helm Apple, IBM, and Motorola formed the AIM alliance in 1994 with the goal of creating a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform; PReP), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind and thus counter the dominance of Windows. The same year, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh, the first of many Apple computers to use Motorola's PowerPC processor.
In the wake of the alliance, Apple opened up to the idea of allowing Motorola and other companies to build Macintosh clones. Over the next two years, 75 distinct Macintosh clone models were introduced. However, by 1996 Apple executives were worried that the clones were cannibalizing sales of their own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.
In 1996, Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio as CEO. Hired for his reputation as a corporate rehabilitator, Amelio made deep changes, including extensive layoffs and cost-cutting.
This period was also marked by numerous failed attempts to modernize the Macintosh operating system (MacOS). The original Macintosh operating system (System 1) was not built for multitasking (running several applications at once). The company attempted to correct this with by introducing cooperative multitasking in System 5, but the company still felt it needed a more modern approach. This led to the Pink project in 1988, A/UX that same year, Copland in 1994, and the attempted purchase of BeOS in 1996. Talks with Be stalled when the CEO, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée, demanded $300 million instead of the $125 million Apple wanted to pay.
Only weeks away from bankruptcy, Apple's board decided NeXTSTEP was a better choice for its next operating system and purchased NeXT in late 1996 for $400 million, bringing back Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
1997–2007: Return to profitability.
The NeXT acquisition was finalized on February 9, 1997, and the board brought Jobs back to Apple as an advisor. On July 9, 1997, Jobs staged a boardroom coup that resulted in Amelio's resignation after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses.
The board named Jobs as interim CEO and he immediately began a review of the company's products. Jobs would order 70% of the company's products to be cancelled, resulting in the loss of 3,000 jobs, and taking Apple back to the core of its computer offerings. The next month, in August 1997, Steve Jobs convinced Microsoft to make a $150 million investment in Apple and a commitment to continue developing software for the Mac. The investment was seen as an "antitrust insurance policy" for Microsoft who had recently settled with the Department of Justice over anti-competitive practices. Jobs also ended the Mac clone deals and in September 1997, purchased the largest clone maker, Power Computing. On November 10, 1997, Apple introduced the Apple Store website, which was tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing that had been successfully used by PC manufacturer Dell.
The moves paid off for Jobs, at the end of his first year as CEO, the company turned a $309 million profit.
On May 6, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one computer reminiscent of the original Macintosh: the iMac. The iMac was a huge success for Apple selling 800,000 units in its first five months and ushered in major shifts in the industry by abandoning legacy technologies like the -inch diskette, being an early adopter of the USB connector, and coming pre-installed with internet connectivity (the "i" in iMac) via Ethernet and a dial-up modem. The device also had a striking teardrop shape and translucent materials, designed by Jonathan Ive, who although hired by Amelio, would go on to work collaboratively with Jobs for the next decade to chart a new course the design of Apple's products.
A little more than a year later on July 21, 1999, Apple introduced the iBook, a laptop for consumers. It was the culmination of a strategy established by Jobs to produce only four products: refined versions of the Power Macintosh G3 desktop and PowerBook G3 laptop for professionals, along with the iMac desktop and iBook laptop for consumers. Jobs felt the small product line allowed for a greater focus on quality and innovation.
At around the same time, Apple also completed numerous acquisitions to create a portfolio of digital media production software for both professionals and consumers. Apple acquired of Macromedia's Key Grip digital video editing software project which was renamed Final Cut Pro when it was launched on the retail market in April 1999. The development of Key Grip also led to Apple's release of the consumer video-editing product iMovie in October 1999. Next, Apple successfully acquired the German company Astarte in April 2000, which had developed the DVD authoring software DVDirector, which Apple would sell as the professional-oriented DVD Studio Pro software product, and used the same technology to create iDVD for the consumer market. In 2000, Apple purchased the SoundJam MP audio player software from Casady & Greene. Apple renamed the program iTunes, while simplifying the user interface and adding the ability to burn CDs.
2001 would be a pivotal year for the Apple with the company making three announcements that would change the course of the company.
The first announcement came on March 24, 2001, that Apple was nearly ready to release a new modern operating system, Mac OS X. The announcement came after numerous failed attempts in the early 1990s, and several years of development. Mac OS X was based on NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, and BSD Unix, with Apple aiming to combine the stability, reliability, and security of Unix with the ease of use afforded by an overhauled user interface, heavily influenced by NeXTSTEP. To aid users in migrating from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications within Mac OS X via the Classic Environment.
In May 2001, the company opened its first two Apple Store retail locations in Virginia and California, offering an improved presentation of the company's products. At the time, many speculated that the stores would fail, but they went on to become highly successful, and the first of more than 500 stores around the world.
On October 23, 2001, Apple debuted the iPod portable digital audio player. The product, which was first sold on November 10, 2001, was phenomenally successful with over 100 million units sold within six years.
In 2003, Apple's iTunes Store was introduced. The service offered music downloads for 99¢ a song and integration with the iPod. The iTunes Store quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over five billion downloads by June 19, 2008. Two years later, the iTunes Store was the world's largest music retailer.
In 2002, Apple purchased Nothing Real for their advanced digital compositing application Shake, as well as Emagic for the music productivity application Logic. The purchase of Emagic made Apple the first computer manufacturer to own a music software company. The acquisition was followed by the development of Apple's consumer-level GarageBand application. The release of iPhoto in the same year completed the iLife suite.
At the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 6, 2005, Jobs announced that Apple would move away from PowerPC processors, and the Mac would transition to Intel processors in 2006. On January 10, 2006, the new MacBook Pro and iMac became the first Apple computers to use Intel's Core Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel chips for the entire Mac product line—over one year sooner than announced. The Power Mac, iBook, and PowerBook brands were retired during the transition; the Mac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro became their respective successors. On April 29, 2009, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Apple was building its own team of engineers to design microchips. Apple also introduced Boot Camp in 2006 to help users install Windows XP or Windows Vista on their Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X.
Apple's success during this period was evident in its stock price. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around $6 per share (split-adjusted) to over $80. When Apple surpassed Dell's market cap in January 2006, Jobs sent an email to Apple employees saying Dell's CEO Michael Dell should eat his words. Nine years prior, Dell had said that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders".
2007–2011: Success with mobile devices.
During his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would thereafter be known as "Apple Inc.", because the company had shifted its emphasis from computers to consumer electronics. This event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV. The company sold 270,000 iPhone units during the first 30 hours of sales, and the device was called "a game changer for the industry".
In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management (DRM), thereby allowing tracks to be played on third-party players, if record labels would agree to drop the technology. On April 2, 2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May 2007. Other record labels eventually followed suit and Apple published a press release in January 2009 to announce that all songs on the iTunes Store are available without their FairPlay DRM.
In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store to sell third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and registered an average daily revenue of $1 million, with Jobs speculating in August 2008 that the App Store could become a billion-dollar business for Apple. By October 2008, Apple was the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world due to the popularity of the iPhone.
On January 14, 2009, Jobs announced in an internal memo that he would be taking a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple until the end of June 2009 and would spend the time focusing on his health. In the email, Jobs stated that "the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well", and explained that the break would allow the company "to focus on delivering extraordinary products". Though Jobs was absent, Apple recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the recession with revenue of $8.16 billion and profit of $1.21 billion.
After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks", Apple unveiled a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the iPad on January 27, 2010. The iPad ran the same touch-based operating system as the iPhone, and all iPhone apps were compatible with the iPad. This gave the iPad a large app catalog on launch, though having very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the iPad was launched in the US. It sold more than 300,000 units on its first day, and 500,000 by the end of the first week. In May of the same year, Apple's market cap exceeded that of competitor Microsoft for the first time since 1989.
In June 2010, Apple released the iPhone 4, which introduced video calling using FaceTime, multitasking, and a new uninsulated stainless steel design that acted as the phone's antenna. Later that year, Apple again refreshed its iPod line of MP3 players by introducing a multi-touch iPod Nano, an iPod Touch with FaceTime, and an iPod Shuffle that brought back the clickwheel buttons of earlier generations. It also introduced the smaller, cheaper second generation Apple TV which allowed renting of movies and shows.
On January 17, 2011, Jobs announced in an internal Apple memo that he would take another medical leave of absence for an indefinite period to allow him to focus on his health. Chief operating officer Tim Cook assumed Jobs's day-to-day operations at Apple, although Jobs would still remain "involved in major strategic decisions". Apple became the most valuable consumer-facing brand in the world. In June 2011, Jobs surprisingly took the stage and unveiled iCloud, an online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files, and software which replaced MobileMe, Apple's previous attempt at content syncing. This would be the last product launch Jobs would attend before his death.
On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple. He was replaced by Cook and Jobs became Apple's chairman. Apple did not have a chairman at the time and instead had two co-lead directors, Andrea Jung and Arthur D. Levinson, who continued with those titles until Levinson replaced Jobs as chairman of the board in November after Jobs' death.
2011–present: Post-Jobs era, Cook's leadership.
On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs died, marking the end of an era for Apple. The first major product announcement by Apple following Jobs's passing occurred on January 19, 2012, when Apple's Phil Schiller introduced iBook's Textbooks for iOS and iBook Author for Mac OS X in New York City. Jobs stated in the biography "Jobs" that he wanted to reinvent the textbook industry and education.
From 2011 to 2012, Apple released the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, which featured improved cameras, an intelligent software assistant named Siri, and cloud-synced data with iCloud; the third- and fourth-generation iPads, which featured Retina displays; and the iPad Mini, which featured a 7.9-inch screen in contrast to the iPad's 9.7-inch screen. These launches were successful, with the iPhone 5 (released September 21, 2012) becoming Apple's biggest iPhone launch with over two million pre-orders and sales of three million iPads in three days following the launch of the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad (released November 3, 2012). Apple also released a third-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display and new iMac and Mac Mini computers.
On August 20, 2012, Apple's rising stock price increased the company's market capitalization to a then-record $624 billion. This beat the non-inflation-adjusted record for market capitalization previously set by Microsoft in 1999. On August 24, 2012, a US jury ruled that Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion (£665m) in damages in an intellectual property lawsuit. Samsung appealed the damages award, which was reduced by $450 million and further granted Samsung's request for a new trial. On November 10, 2012, Apple confirmed a global settlement that dismissed all existing lawsuits between Apple and HTC up to that date, in favor of a ten-year license agreement for current and future patents between the two companies. It is predicted that Apple will make $280 million a year from this deal with HTC.
In May 2014, the company confirmed its intent to acquire Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's audio company Beats Electronics—producer of the "Beats by Dr. Dre" line of headphones and speaker products, and operator of the music streaming service Beats Music—for $3 billion, and to sell their products through Apple's retail outlets and resellers. Iovine believed that Beats had always "belonged" with Apple, as the company modeled itself after Apple's "unmatched ability to marry culture and technology." The acquisition was the largest purchase in Apple's history.
During a press event on September 9, 2014, Apple introduced a smartwatch, the Apple Watch. Initially, Apple marketed the device as a fashion accessory and a complement to the iPhone, that would allow people to look at their smartphones less. Over time, the company has focused on developing health and fitness-oriented features on the watch, in an effort to compete with dedicated activity trackers.
In January 2016, it was announced that one billion Apple devices were in active use worldwide.
On June 6, 2016, Fortune released Fortune 500, their list of companies ranked on revenue generation. In the trailing fiscal year (2015), Apple appeared on the list as the top tech company. It ranked third, overall, with $233 billion in revenue. This represents a movement upward of two spots from the previous year's list.
In June 2017, Apple announced the HomePod, its smart speaker aimed to compete against Sonos, Google Home, and Amazon Echo. Towards the end of the year, "TechCrunch" reported that Apple was acquiring Shazam, a company that introduced its products at WWDC and specializing in music, TV, film and advertising recognition. The acquisition was confirmed a few days later, reportedly costing Apple $400 million, with media reports noting that the purchase looked like a move to acquire data and tools bolstering the Apple Music streaming service. The purchase was approved by the European Union in September 2018.
Also in June 2017, Apple appointed Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to head the newly formed worldwide video unit. In November 2017, Apple announced it was branching out into original scripted programming: a drama series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and a reboot of the anthology series Amazing Stories with Steven Spielberg. In June 2018, Apple signed the Writers Guild of America's minimum basic agreement and Oprah Winfrey to a multi-year content partnership. Additional partnerships for original series include Sesame Workshop and DHX Media and its subsidiary Peanuts Worldwide, as well as a partnership with A24 to create original films.
During the Apple Special Event in September 2017, the AirPower wireless charger was announced alongside the iPhone X, 8 and Watch Series 3. The AirPower was intended to wirelessly charge multiple devices, simultaneously. Though initially set to release in early 2018, the AirPower would be canceled in March 2019, marking the first cancellation of a device under Cook's leadership.
On August 19, 2020, Apple's share price briefly topped $467.77, making Apple the first US company with a market capitalization of $2 trillion.
During its annual WWDC keynote speech on June 22, 2020, Apple announced it would move away from Intel processors, and the Mac would transition to processors developed in-house. The announcement was expected by industry analysts, and it has been noted that Macs featuring Apple's processors would allow for big increases in performance over current Intel-based models. On November 10, 2020, the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the Mac Mini became the first Mac devices powered by an Apple-designed processor, the Apple M1.
In April 2022, it was reported that Samsung Electro-Mechanics would be collaborating with Apple on its M2 chip instead of LG Innotek. Developer logs showed that at least nine Mac models with four different M2 chips were being tested.
The Wall Street Journal reported that an effort to develop its own chips left Apple better prepared to deal with the semiconductor shortage that emerged during the pandemic era and led to increased profitability, with sales of Mac computers that included M1 chips rising sharply in 2020 and 2021. It also inspired other companies like Tesla, Amazon, and Meta Platforms to pursue a similar path.
In April 2022, Apple opened an online store that allowed anyone in the US to view repair manuals and order replacement parts for specific recent iPhones, although the difference in cost between this method and official repair is anticipated to be minimal.
In May 2022, a trademark was filed for RealityOS, an operating system reportedly intended for virtual and augmented reality headsets, first mentioned in 2017. According to Bloomberg, the headset may come out in 2023. Further insider reports state that the device uses iris scanning for payment confirmation and signing into accounts.
On June 18, 2022, the Apple Store in Towson, Maryland became the first to unionize in the U.S., with the employees voting to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
On July 7, 2022, Apple added Lockdown Mode to macOS 13 and iOS 16, as a response to the earlier Pegasus revelations; the mode increases security protections for high-risk users against targeted zero-day malware.
Products.
Mac.
The Mac is Apple's family of personal computers. Macs are known for their ease of use and distinctive aluminium, minimalist designs. Macs have been popular among students, creative professionals, and software engineers. The current lineup consists of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro desktop computers. All Macs except the Mac Pro use Apple silicon chips.
Macs run the macOS operating system, and include the Safari web browser, iMovie for home movie editing, GarageBand for music creation, and the iWork productivity suite. Apple also makes pro apps: Final Cut Pro for video production, Logic Pro for musicians and producers, and Xcode for software developers.
Apple also sells a variety of accessories for Macs, including the Pro Display XDR, Apple Studio Display, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard.
iPhone.
The iPhone is Apple's line of smartphones, which run the iOS operating system. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, new models have been released annually. When it was introduced, its multi-touch screen was described as "revolutionary" and a "game-changer" for the mobile phone industry. The device has been credited with creating the app economy.
As of 2022, the iPhone has 15% market share, yet represents 50% of global smartphone revenues, with Android phones accounting for the rest. The iPhone has generated large profits for the company, and is credited with helping to make Apple one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies.
The most recent iPhones are the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
iPad.
iPad is Apple's line of tablets which run iPadOS. The first-generation iPad was announced on January 27, 2010. The iPad is mainly marketed for consuming multimedia, creating art, working on documents, videoconferencing, and playing games. The iPad lineup consists of several base iPad models, and the smaller iPad Mini, upgraded iPad Air, and high-end iPad Pro. Apple has consistently improved the iPad's performance, with the iPad Pro adopting the same M1 and M2 chips as the Mac; but the iPad still receives criticism for its limited OS.
Apple has sold more than 500 million iPads, though sales peaked in 2013. The iPad still remains the most popular tablet computer by sales , and accounted for nine percent of the company's revenue .
Apple sells several iPad accessories, including the Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard, Smart Keyboard Folio, Magic Keyboard, and several adapters.
Other products.
Apple also makes several other products that it categorizes as "Wearables, Home and Accessories". These products include the AirPods line of wireless headphones, Apple TV digital media players, Apple Watch smartwatches, Beats headphones and HomePod Mini smart speakers.
, this broad line of products comprises about 11% of the company's revenues.
Services.
Apple also offers a broad line of services that it earns revenue on, including advertising in the App Store and Apple News app, the AppleCare+ extended warranty plan, the iCloud+ cloud-based data storage service, payment services through the Apple Card credit card and the Apple Pay processing platform, a digital content services including Apple Books, Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+, and the iTunes Store.
, services comprise about 19% of the company's revenue. Many of the services have been launched since 2019 when Apple announced it would be making a concerted effort to expand its service revenues.
Mac.
The Mac is Apple's family of personal computers. Macs are known for their ease of use and distinctive aluminium, minimalist designs. Macs have been popular among students, creative professionals, and software engineers. The current lineup consists of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro desktop computers. All Macs except the Mac Pro use Apple silicon chips.
Macs run the macOS operating system, and include the Safari web browser, iMovie for home movie editing, GarageBand for music creation, and the iWork productivity suite. Apple also makes pro apps: Final Cut Pro for video production, Logic Pro for musicians and producers, and Xcode for software developers.
Apple also sells a variety of accessories for Macs, including the Pro Display XDR, Apple Studio Display, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard.
iPhone.
The iPhone is Apple's line of smartphones, which run the iOS operating system. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, new models have been released annually. When it was introduced, its multi-touch screen was described as "revolutionary" and a "game-changer" for the mobile phone industry. The device has been credited with creating the app economy.
As of 2022, the iPhone has 15% market share, yet represents 50% of global smartphone revenues, with Android phones accounting for the rest. The iPhone has generated large profits for the company, and is credited with helping to make Apple one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies.
The most recent iPhones are the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
iPad.
iPad is Apple's line of tablets which run iPadOS. The first-generation iPad was announced on January 27, 2010. The iPad is mainly marketed for consuming multimedia, creating art, working on documents, videoconferencing, and playing games. The iPad lineup consists of several base iPad models, and the smaller iPad Mini, upgraded iPad Air, and high-end iPad Pro. Apple has consistently improved the iPad's performance, with the iPad Pro adopting the same M1 and M2 chips as the Mac; but the iPad still receives criticism for its limited OS.
Apple has sold more than 500 million iPads, though sales peaked in 2013. The iPad still remains the most popular tablet computer by sales , and accounted for nine percent of the company's revenue .
Apple sells several iPad accessories, including the Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard, Smart Keyboard Folio, Magic Keyboard, and several adapters.
Other products.
Apple also makes several other products that it categorizes as "Wearables, Home and Accessories". These products include the AirPods line of wireless headphones, Apple TV digital media players, Apple Watch smartwatches, Beats headphones and HomePod Mini smart speakers.
, this broad line of products comprises about 11% of the company's revenues.
Services.
Apple also offers a broad line of services that it earns revenue on, including advertising in the App Store and Apple News app, the AppleCare+ extended warranty plan, the iCloud+ cloud-based data storage service, payment services through the Apple Card credit card and the Apple Pay processing platform, a digital content services including Apple Books, Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+, and the iTunes Store.
, services comprise about 19% of the company's revenue. Many of the services have been launched since 2019 when Apple announced it would be making a concerted effort to expand its service revenues.
Corporate identity.
Logo.
According to Steve Jobs, the company's name was inspired by his visit to an apple farm while on a fruitarian diet. Jobs thought the name "Apple" was "fun, spirited and not intimidating."
Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was almost immediately replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. Janoff presented Jobs with several different monochromatic themes for the "bitten" logo, and Jobs immediately took a liking to it. However, Jobs insisted that the logo be colorized to humanize the company. The logo was designed with a bite so that it would not be confused with a cherry. The colored stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and to represent the fact the Apple II could generate graphics in color. This logo is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both Janoff and Apple deny any homage to Turing in the design of the logo.
On August 27, 1999 (the year following the introduction of the iMac G3), Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme and began to use monochromatic logos nearly identical in shape to the previous rainbow incarnation. An Aqua-themed version of the monochrome logo was used from 1998 to 2003, and a glass-themed version was used from 2007 to 2013.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were fans of the Beatles, but Apple Inc. had name and logo trademark issues with Apple Corps Ltd., a multimedia company started by the Beatles in 1968. This resulted in a series of lawsuits and tension between the two companies. These issues ended with the settling of their lawsuit in 2007.
Advertising.
Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think different" was used in advertising campaigns, and is still closely associated with Apple. Apple also has slogans for specific product lines—for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements. "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod.
From the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, with the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement to the more modern Get a Mac adverts, Apple has been recognized for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for its products. However, claims made by later campaigns were criticized, particularly the 2005 Power Mac ads. Apple's product advertisements gained a lot of attention as a result of their eye-popping graphics and catchy tunes. Musicians who benefited from an improved profile as a result of their songs being included on Apple advertisements include Canadian singer Feist with the song "1234" and Yael Naïm with the song "New Soul".
Brand loyalty.
Apple customers gained a reputation for devotion and loyalty early in the company's history. In 1984, "BYTE" stated that:
Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company at one time, but this was after the phenomenon had already been firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon," while Ive explained in 2014 that "People have an incredibly personal relationship" with Apple's products. Apple Store openings and new product releases can draw crowds of hundreds, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening. The opening of New York City's Apple Fifth Avenue store in 2006 was highly attended, and had visitors from Europe who flew in for the event. In June 2017, a newlywed couple took their wedding photos inside the then-recently opened Orchard Road Apple Store in Singapore. The high level of brand loyalty has been criticized and ridiculed, applying the epithet "Apple fanboy" and mocking the lengthy lines before a product launch. An internal memo leaked in 2015 suggested the company planned to discourage long lines and direct customers to purchase its products on its website.
"Fortune" magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. Boston Consulting Group has ranked Apple as the world's most innovative brand every year since 2005.
"The New York Times" in 1985 stated that "Apple above all else is a marketing company". John Sculley agreed, telling "The Guardian" newspaper in 1997 that "People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade." Research in 2002 by NetRatings indicate that the average Apple consumer was usually more affluent and better educated than other PC company consumers. The research indicated that this correlation could stem from the fact that on average Apple Inc. products were more expensive than other PC products.
In response to a query about the devotion of loyal Apple consumers, Jonathan Ive responded: there are 1.65 billion Apple products in active use.
Headquarters and major facilities.
Apple Inc.'s world corporate headquarters are located in Cupertino, in the middle of California's Silicon Valley, at Apple Park, a massive circular groundscraper building with a circumference of . The building opened in April 2017 and houses more than 12,000 employees. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted Apple Park to look less like a business park and more like a nature refuge, and personally appeared before the Cupertino City Council in June 2011 to make the proposal, in his final public appearance before his death.
Apple also operates from the Apple Campus (also known by its address, 1 Infinite Loop), a grouping of six buildings in Cupertino that total located about to the west of Apple Park. The Apple Campus was the company's headquarters from its opening in 1993, until the opening of Apple Park in 2017. The buildings, located at 1–6 Infinite Loop, are arranged in a circular pattern around a central green space, in a design that has been compared to that of a university.
In addition to Apple Park and the Apple Campus, Apple occupies an additional thirty office buildings scattered throughout the city of Cupertino, including three buildings that also served as prior headquarters: "Stephens Creek Three" (1977–1978), Bandley One" (1978–1982), and "Mariani One" (1982–1993). In total, Apple occupies almost 40% of the available office space in the city.
Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland, called the Hollyhill campus. The facility, which opened in 1980, houses 5,500 people and was Apple's first location outside of the United States. Apple's international sales and distribution arms operate out of the campus in Cork.
Apple has two campuses near Austin, Texas: a campus opened in 2014 houses 500 engineers who work on Apple silicon and a campus opened in 2021 where 6,000 people to work in technical support, supply chain management, online store curation, and Apple Maps data management.
The company, also has several other locations in Boulder, Colorado, Culver City, California, Herzliya (Israel), London, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Seattle that each employ hundreds of people.
Stores.
The first Apple Stores were originally opened as two locations in May 2001 by then-CEO Steve Jobs, after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship to consumers, and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. Jobs relaunched Apple's online store in 1997, and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. The media initially speculated that Apple would fail, but its stores were highly successful, bypassing the sales numbers of competing nearby stores and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so. Over the years, Apple has expanded the number of retail locations and its geographical coverage, with 499 stores across 22 countries worldwide . Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011.
In May 2016, Angela Ahrendts, Apple's then Senior Vice President of Retail, unveiled a significantly redesigned Apple Store in Union Square, San Francisco, featuring large glass doors for the entry, open spaces, and re-branded rooms. In addition to purchasing products, consumers can get advice and help from "Creative Pros" – individuals with specialized knowledge of creative arts; get product support in a tree-lined Genius Grove; and attend sessions, conferences and community events, with Ahrendts commenting that the goal is to make Apple Stores into "town squares", a place where people naturally meet up and spend time. The new design will be applied to all Apple Stores worldwide, a process that has seen stores temporarily relocate or close.
Many Apple Stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. It has been granted design patents and received architectural awards for its stores' designs and construction, specifically for its use of glass staircases and cubes. The success of Apple Stores have had significant influence over other consumer electronics retailers, who have lost traffic, control and profits due to a perceived higher quality of service and products at Apple Stores. Apple's notable brand loyalty among consumers causes long lines of hundreds of people at new Apple Store openings or product releases. Due to the popularity of the brand, Apple receives a large number of job applications, many of which come from young workers. Although Apple Store employees receive above-average pay, are offered money toward education and health care, and receive product discounts, there are limited or no paths of career advancement. A May 2016 report with an anonymous retail employee highlighted a hostile work environment with harassment from customers, intense internal criticism, and a lack of significant bonuses for securing major business contracts.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple closed its stores outside China until March 27, 2020. Despite the stores being closed, hourly workers continue to be paid. Workers across the company are allowed to work remotely if their jobs permit it. On March 24, 2020, in a memo, Senior Vice President of People and Retail Deirdre O'Brien announced that some of its retail stores are expected to reopen at the beginning of April.
Logo.
According to Steve Jobs, the company's name was inspired by his visit to an apple farm while on a fruitarian diet. Jobs thought the name "Apple" was "fun, spirited and not intimidating."
Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was almost immediately replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. Janoff presented Jobs with several different monochromatic themes for the "bitten" logo, and Jobs immediately took a liking to it. However, Jobs insisted that the logo be colorized to humanize the company. The logo was designed with a bite so that it would not be confused with a cherry. The colored stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and to represent the fact the Apple II could generate graphics in color. This logo is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both Janoff and Apple deny any homage to Turing in the design of the logo.
On August 27, 1999 (the year following the introduction of the iMac G3), Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme and began to use monochromatic logos nearly identical in shape to the previous rainbow incarnation. An Aqua-themed version of the monochrome logo was used from 1998 to 2003, and a glass-themed version was used from 2007 to 2013.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were fans of the Beatles, but Apple Inc. had name and logo trademark issues with Apple Corps Ltd., a multimedia company started by the Beatles in 1968. This resulted in a series of lawsuits and tension between the two companies. These issues ended with the settling of their lawsuit in 2007.
Advertising.
Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think different" was used in advertising campaigns, and is still closely associated with Apple. Apple also has slogans for specific product lines—for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements. "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod.
From the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, with the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement to the more modern Get a Mac adverts, Apple has been recognized for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for its products. However, claims made by later campaigns were criticized, particularly the 2005 Power Mac ads. Apple's product advertisements gained a lot of attention as a result of their eye-popping graphics and catchy tunes. Musicians who benefited from an improved profile as a result of their songs being included on Apple advertisements include Canadian singer Feist with the song "1234" and Yael Naïm with the song "New Soul".
Brand loyalty.
Apple customers gained a reputation for devotion and loyalty early in the company's history. In 1984, "BYTE" stated that:
Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company at one time, but this was after the phenomenon had already been firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon," while Ive explained in 2014 that "People have an incredibly personal relationship" with Apple's products. Apple Store openings and new product releases can draw crowds of hundreds, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening. The opening of New York City's Apple Fifth Avenue store in 2006 was highly attended, and had visitors from Europe who flew in for the event. In June 2017, a newlywed couple took their wedding photos inside the then-recently opened Orchard Road Apple Store in Singapore. The high level of brand loyalty has been criticized and ridiculed, applying the epithet "Apple fanboy" and mocking the lengthy lines before a product launch. An internal memo leaked in 2015 suggested the company planned to discourage long lines and direct customers to purchase its products on its website.
"Fortune" magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. Boston Consulting Group has ranked Apple as the world's most innovative brand every year since 2005.
"The New York Times" in 1985 stated that "Apple above all else is a marketing company". John Sculley agreed, telling "The Guardian" newspaper in 1997 that "People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade." Research in 2002 by NetRatings indicate that the average Apple consumer was usually more affluent and better educated than other PC company consumers. The research indicated that this correlation could stem from the fact that on average Apple Inc. products were more expensive than other PC products.
In response to a query about the devotion of loyal Apple consumers, Jonathan Ive responded: there are 1.65 billion Apple products in active use.
Headquarters and major facilities.
Apple Inc.'s world corporate headquarters are located in Cupertino, in the middle of California's Silicon Valley, at Apple Park, a massive circular groundscraper building with a circumference of . The building opened in April 2017 and houses more than 12,000 employees. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted Apple Park to look less like a business park and more like a nature refuge, and personally appeared before the Cupertino City Council in June 2011 to make the proposal, in his final public appearance before his death.
Apple also operates from the Apple Campus (also known by its address, 1 Infinite Loop), a grouping of six buildings in Cupertino that total located about to the west of Apple Park. The Apple Campus was the company's headquarters from its opening in 1993, until the opening of Apple Park in 2017. The buildings, located at 1–6 Infinite Loop, are arranged in a circular pattern around a central green space, in a design that has been compared to that of a university.
In addition to Apple Park and the Apple Campus, Apple occupies an additional thirty office buildings scattered throughout the city of Cupertino, including three buildings that also served as prior headquarters: "Stephens Creek Three" (1977–1978), Bandley One" (1978–1982), and "Mariani One" (1982–1993). In total, Apple occupies almost 40% of the available office space in the city.
Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland, called the Hollyhill campus. The facility, which opened in 1980, houses 5,500 people and was Apple's first location outside of the United States. Apple's international sales and distribution arms operate out of the campus in Cork.
Apple has two campuses near Austin, Texas: a campus opened in 2014 houses 500 engineers who work on Apple silicon and a campus opened in 2021 where 6,000 people to work in technical support, supply chain management, online store curation, and Apple Maps data management.
The company, also has several other locations in Boulder, Colorado, Culver City, California, Herzliya (Israel), London, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Seattle that each employ hundreds of people.
Stores.
The first Apple Stores were originally opened as two locations in May 2001 by then-CEO Steve Jobs, after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship to consumers, and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. Jobs relaunched Apple's online store in 1997, and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. The media initially speculated that Apple would fail, but its stores were highly successful, bypassing the sales numbers of competing nearby stores and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so. Over the years, Apple has expanded the number of retail locations and its geographical coverage, with 499 stores across 22 countries worldwide . Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011.
In May 2016, Angela Ahrendts, Apple's then Senior Vice President of Retail, unveiled a significantly redesigned Apple Store in Union Square, San Francisco, featuring large glass doors for the entry, open spaces, and re-branded rooms. In addition to purchasing products, consumers can get advice and help from "Creative Pros" – individuals with specialized knowledge of creative arts; get product support in a tree-lined Genius Grove; and attend sessions, conferences and community events, with Ahrendts commenting that the goal is to make Apple Stores into "town squares", a place where people naturally meet up and spend time. The new design will be applied to all Apple Stores worldwide, a process that has seen stores temporarily relocate or close.
Many Apple Stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. It has been granted design patents and received architectural awards for its stores' designs and construction, specifically for its use of glass staircases and cubes. The success of Apple Stores have had significant influence over other consumer electronics retailers, who have lost traffic, control and profits due to a perceived higher quality of service and products at Apple Stores. Apple's notable brand loyalty among consumers causes long lines of hundreds of people at new Apple Store openings or product releases. Due to the popularity of the brand, Apple receives a large number of job applications, many of which come from young workers. Although Apple Store employees receive above-average pay, are offered money toward education and health care, and receive product discounts, there are limited or no paths of career advancement. A May 2016 report with an anonymous retail employee highlighted a hostile work environment with harassment from customers, intense internal criticism, and a lack of significant bonuses for securing major business contracts.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple closed its stores outside China until March 27, 2020. Despite the stores being closed, hourly workers continue to be paid. Workers across the company are allowed to work remotely if their jobs permit it. On March 24, 2020, in a memo, Senior Vice President of People and Retail Deirdre O'Brien announced that some of its retail stores are expected to reopen at the beginning of April.
Corporate affairs.
Leadership.
Board of directors.
As of October 26, 2019, the board of directors of Apple Inc. includes:
Senior management.
As of March 16, 2021, the management of Apple Inc. includes:
Corporate culture.
Apple is one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of corporate culture. Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple became a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" television advertisement, Apple's informal culture had become a key trait that differentiated it from its competitors. According to a 2011 report in "Fortune," this has resulted in a corporate culture more akin to a startup rather than a multinational corporation. In a 2017 interview, Wozniak credited watching "Star Trek" and attending "Star Trek" conventions while in his youth as a source of inspiration for his co-founding Apple.
As the company has grown and been led by a series of differently opinionated chief executives, it has arguably lost some of its original character. Nonetheless, it has maintained a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably attracts talented workers, particularly after Jobs returned to the company. Numerous Apple employees have stated that projects without Jobs's involvement often took longer than projects with it.
To recognize the best of its employees, Apple created the Apple Fellows program which awards individuals who make extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing while at the company. The Apple Fellowship has so far been awarded to individuals including Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps, Rod Holt, Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki, Al Alcorn, Don Norman, Rich Page, Steve Wozniak, and Phil Schiller.
At Apple, employees are intended to be specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. Jobs saw this as a means of having "best-in-class" employees in every role. For instance, Ron Johnson—Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011—was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet had no control of the inventory in his stores. This was done by Tim Cook, who had a background in supply-chain management. Apple is known for strictly enforcing accountability. Each project has a "directly responsible individual" or "DRI" in Apple jargon. As an example, when iOS senior vice president Scott Forstall refused to sign Apple's official apology for numerous errors in the redesigned Maps app, he was forced to resign. Unlike other major U.S. companies, Apple provides a relatively simple compensation policy for executives that does not include perks enjoyed by other CEOs like country club fees or private use of company aircraft. The company typically grants stock options to executives every other year.
In 2015, Apple had 110,000 full-time employees. This increased to 116,000 full-time employees the next year, a notable hiring decrease, largely due to its first revenue decline. Apple does not specify how many of its employees work in retail, though its 2014 SEC filing put the number at approximately half of its employee base. In September 2017, Apple announced that it had over 123,000 full-time employees.
Apple has a strong culture of corporate secrecy, and has an anti-leak Global Security team that recruits from the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Secret Service.
In December 2017, Glassdoor said Apple was the 48th best place to work, having originally entered at rank 19 in 2009, peaking at rank 10 in 2012, and falling down the ranks in subsequent years.
Finance.
Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue, the world's largest technology company by total assets, and the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung.
In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65-per-share dividend beginning in fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by their board of directors.
The company's worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totaled $170 billion. In May 2013, Apple entered the top ten of the "Fortune" 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position. , Apple has around US$234 billion of cash and marketable securities, of which 90% is located outside the United States for tax purposes.
Apple amassed 65% of all profits made by the eight largest worldwide smartphone manufacturers in quarter one of 2014, according to a report by Canaccord Genuity. In the first quarter of 2015, the company garnered 92% of all earnings.
On April 30, 2017, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Apple had cash reserves of $250 billion, officially confirmed by Apple as specifically $256.8 billion a few days later.
, Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. On August 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market value. Apple was ranked No. 4 on the 2018 "Fortune" 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Tax practices.
Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to "The New York Times," in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s, Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean.
British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple Inc., were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporation tax. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and The Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax they pay on their UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax.
Apple Inc. claims to be the single largest taxpayer to the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America with an effective tax rate of approximately of 26% as of the second quarter of the Apple fiscal year 2016. In an interview with the German newspaper FAZ in October 2017, Tim Cook stated, that Apple is the biggest taxpayer worldwide.
In 2015, Reuters reported that Apple had earnings abroad of $54.4 billion which were untaxed by the IRS of the United States. Under U.S. tax law governed by the IRC, corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits unless the profits are repatriated into the United States and as such Apple argues that to benefit its shareholders it will leave it overseas until a repatriation holiday or comprehensive tax reform takes place in the United States.
On July 12, 2016, the Central Statistics Office of Ireland announced that 2015 Irish GDP had grown by 26.3%, and 2015 Irish GNP had grown by 18.7%. The figures attracted international scorn, and were labelled by Nobel-prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, as leprechaun economics. It was not until 2018 that Irish economists could definitively prove that the 2015 growth was due to Apple restructuring its controversial double Irish subsidiaries (Apple Sales International), which Apple converted into a new Irish capital allowances for intangible assets tax scheme (expires in January 2020). The affair required the Central Bank of Ireland to create a new measure of Irish economic growth, Modified GNI* to replace Irish GDP, given the distortion of Apple's tax schemes. Irish GDP is 143% of Irish Modified GNI*.
On August 30, 2016, after a two-year investigation, the EU Competition Commissioner concluded Apple received "illegal state aid" from Ireland. The EU ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion), plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes for 2004–2014. It is the largest tax fine in history. The Commission found that Apple had benefited from a private Irish Revenue Commissioners tax ruling regarding its double Irish tax structure, Apple Sales International (ASI). Instead of using two companies for its double Irish structure, Apple was given a ruling to split ASI into two internal "branches". The Chancellor of Austria, Christian Kern, put this decision into perspective by stating that "every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand pays more tax in Austria than a multinational corporation".
, Apple agreed to start paying €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish government, the repayments will be held in an escrow account while Apple and the Irish government continue their appeals in EU courts.
On July 15, 2020, the EU General Court annuls the European Commission's decision in Apple State aid case: Apple will not have to repay €13 billion to Ireland.
In July 2022, Apple reported an 11% decline in Q3 profits compared to 2021. Its revenue in the same period rose 2% year-on-year to $83 billion, though this figure was also lower than in 2021, where the increase was at 36%. The general downturn is reportedly caused by the slowing global economy and supply chain disruptions in China.
Litigation.
Apple has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. Some litigation examples include "Apple v. Samsung", "Apple v. Microsoft", "Motorola Mobility v. Apple Inc.", and "Apple Corps v. Apple Computer". Apple has also had to defend itself against charges on numerous occasions of violating intellectual property rights. Most have been dismissed in the courts as shell companies known as patent trolls, with no evidence of actual use of patents in question. On December 21, 2016, Nokia announced that in the U.S. and Germany, it has filed a suit against Apple, claiming that the latter's products infringe on Nokia's patents. Most recently, in November 2017, the United States International Trade Commission announced an investigation into allegations of patent infringement in regards to Apple's remote desktop technology; Aqua Connect, a company that builds remote desktop software, has claimed that Apple infringed on two of its patents. In January 2022, Ericsson sued Apple over payment of royalty of 5G technology.
Leadership.
Board of directors.
As of October 26, 2019, the board of directors of Apple Inc. includes:
Senior management.
As of March 16, 2021, the management of Apple Inc. includes:
Board of directors.
As of October 26, 2019, the board of directors of Apple Inc. includes:
Senior management.
As of March 16, 2021, the management of Apple Inc. includes:
Corporate culture.
Apple is one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of corporate culture. Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple became a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" television advertisement, Apple's informal culture had become a key trait that differentiated it from its competitors. According to a 2011 report in "Fortune," this has resulted in a corporate culture more akin to a startup rather than a multinational corporation. In a 2017 interview, Wozniak credited watching "Star Trek" and attending "Star Trek" conventions while in his youth as a source of inspiration for his co-founding Apple.
As the company has grown and been led by a series of differently opinionated chief executives, it has arguably lost some of its original character. Nonetheless, it has maintained a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably attracts talented workers, particularly after Jobs returned to the company. Numerous Apple employees have stated that projects without Jobs's involvement often took longer than projects with it.
To recognize the best of its employees, Apple created the Apple Fellows program which awards individuals who make extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing while at the company. The Apple Fellowship has so far been awarded to individuals including Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps, Rod Holt, Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki, Al Alcorn, Don Norman, Rich Page, Steve Wozniak, and Phil Schiller.
At Apple, employees are intended to be specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. Jobs saw this as a means of having "best-in-class" employees in every role. For instance, Ron Johnson—Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011—was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet had no control of the inventory in his stores. This was done by Tim Cook, who had a background in supply-chain management. Apple is known for strictly enforcing accountability. Each project has a "directly responsible individual" or "DRI" in Apple jargon. As an example, when iOS senior vice president Scott Forstall refused to sign Apple's official apology for numerous errors in the redesigned Maps app, he was forced to resign. Unlike other major U.S. companies, Apple provides a relatively simple compensation policy for executives that does not include perks enjoyed by other CEOs like country club fees or private use of company aircraft. The company typically grants stock options to executives every other year.
In 2015, Apple had 110,000 full-time employees. This increased to 116,000 full-time employees the next year, a notable hiring decrease, largely due to its first revenue decline. Apple does not specify how many of its employees work in retail, though its 2014 SEC filing put the number at approximately half of its employee base. In September 2017, Apple announced that it had over 123,000 full-time employees.
Apple has a strong culture of corporate secrecy, and has an anti-leak Global Security team that recruits from the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Secret Service.
In December 2017, Glassdoor said Apple was the 48th best place to work, having originally entered at rank 19 in 2009, peaking at rank 10 in 2012, and falling down the ranks in subsequent years.
Finance.
Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue, the world's largest technology company by total assets, and the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung.
In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65-per-share dividend beginning in fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by their board of directors.
The company's worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totaled $170 billion. In May 2013, Apple entered the top ten of the "Fortune" 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position. , Apple has around US$234 billion of cash and marketable securities, of which 90% is located outside the United States for tax purposes.
Apple amassed 65% of all profits made by the eight largest worldwide smartphone manufacturers in quarter one of 2014, according to a report by Canaccord Genuity. In the first quarter of 2015, the company garnered 92% of all earnings.
On April 30, 2017, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Apple had cash reserves of $250 billion, officially confirmed by Apple as specifically $256.8 billion a few days later.
, Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. On August 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market value. Apple was ranked No. 4 on the 2018 "Fortune" 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Tax practices.
Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to "The New York Times," in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s, Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean.
British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple Inc., were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporation tax. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and The Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax they pay on their UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax.
Apple Inc. claims to be the single largest taxpayer to the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America with an effective tax rate of approximately of 26% as of the second quarter of the Apple fiscal year 2016. In an interview with the German newspaper FAZ in October 2017, Tim Cook stated, that Apple is the biggest taxpayer worldwide.
In 2015, Reuters reported that Apple had earnings abroad of $54.4 billion which were untaxed by the IRS of the United States. Under U.S. tax law governed by the IRC, corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits unless the profits are repatriated into the United States and as such Apple argues that to benefit its shareholders it will leave it overseas until a repatriation holiday or comprehensive tax reform takes place in the United States.
On July 12, 2016, the Central Statistics Office of Ireland announced that 2015 Irish GDP had grown by 26.3%, and 2015 Irish GNP had grown by 18.7%. The figures attracted international scorn, and were labelled by Nobel-prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, as leprechaun economics. It was not until 2018 that Irish economists could definitively prove that the 2015 growth was due to Apple restructuring its controversial double Irish subsidiaries (Apple Sales International), which Apple converted into a new Irish capital allowances for intangible assets tax scheme (expires in January 2020). The affair required the Central Bank of Ireland to create a new measure of Irish economic growth, Modified GNI* to replace Irish GDP, given the distortion of Apple's tax schemes. Irish GDP is 143% of Irish Modified GNI*.
On August 30, 2016, after a two-year investigation, the EU Competition Commissioner concluded Apple received "illegal state aid" from Ireland. The EU ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion), plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes for 2004–2014. It is the largest tax fine in history. The Commission found that Apple had benefited from a private Irish Revenue Commissioners tax ruling regarding its double Irish tax structure, Apple Sales International (ASI). Instead of using two companies for its double Irish structure, Apple was given a ruling to split ASI into two internal "branches". The Chancellor of Austria, Christian Kern, put this decision into perspective by stating that "every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand pays more tax in Austria than a multinational corporation".
, Apple agreed to start paying €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish government, the repayments will be held in an escrow account while Apple and the Irish government continue their appeals in EU courts.
On July 15, 2020, the EU General Court annuls the European Commission's decision in Apple State aid case: Apple will not have to repay €13 billion to Ireland.
In July 2022, Apple reported an 11% decline in Q3 profits compared to 2021. Its revenue in the same period rose 2% year-on-year to $83 billion, though this figure was also lower than in 2021, where the increase was at 36%. The general downturn is reportedly caused by the slowing global economy and supply chain disruptions in China.
Tax practices.
Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to "The New York Times," in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s, Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean.
British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple Inc., were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporation tax. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and The Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax they pay on their UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax.
Apple Inc. claims to be the single largest taxpayer to the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America with an effective tax rate of approximately of 26% as of the second quarter of the Apple fiscal year 2016. In an interview with the German newspaper FAZ in October 2017, Tim Cook stated, that Apple is the biggest taxpayer worldwide.
In 2015, Reuters reported that Apple had earnings abroad of $54.4 billion which were untaxed by the IRS of the United States. Under U.S. tax law governed by the IRC, corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits unless the profits are repatriated into the United States and as such Apple argues that to benefit its shareholders it will leave it overseas until a repatriation holiday or comprehensive tax reform takes place in the United States.
On July 12, 2016, the Central Statistics Office of Ireland announced that 2015 Irish GDP had grown by 26.3%, and 2015 Irish GNP had grown by 18.7%. The figures attracted international scorn, and were labelled by Nobel-prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, as leprechaun economics. It was not until 2018 that Irish economists could definitively prove that the 2015 growth was due to Apple restructuring its controversial double Irish subsidiaries (Apple Sales International), which Apple converted into a new Irish capital allowances for intangible assets tax scheme (expires in January 2020). The affair required the Central Bank of Ireland to create a new measure of Irish economic growth, Modified GNI* to replace Irish GDP, given the distortion of Apple's tax schemes. Irish GDP is 143% of Irish Modified GNI*.
On August 30, 2016, after a two-year investigation, the EU Competition Commissioner concluded Apple received "illegal state aid" from Ireland. The EU ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion), plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes for 2004–2014. It is the largest tax fine in history. The Commission found that Apple had benefited from a private Irish Revenue Commissioners tax ruling regarding its double Irish tax structure, Apple Sales International (ASI). Instead of using two companies for its double Irish structure, Apple was given a ruling to split ASI into two internal "branches". The Chancellor of Austria, Christian Kern, put this decision into perspective by stating that "every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand pays more tax in Austria than a multinational corporation".
, Apple agreed to start paying €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish government, the repayments will be held in an escrow account while Apple and the Irish government continue their appeals in EU courts.
On July 15, 2020, the EU General Court annuls the European Commission's decision in Apple State aid case: Apple will not have to repay €13 billion to Ireland.
In July 2022, Apple reported an 11% decline in Q3 profits compared to 2021. Its revenue in the same period rose 2% year-on-year to $83 billion, though this figure was also lower than in 2021, where the increase was at 36%. The general downturn is reportedly caused by the slowing global economy and supply chain disruptions in China.
Litigation.
Apple has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. Some litigation examples include "Apple v. Samsung", "Apple v. Microsoft", "Motorola Mobility v. Apple Inc.", and "Apple Corps v. Apple Computer". Apple has also had to defend itself against charges on numerous occasions of violating intellectual property rights. Most have been dismissed in the courts as shell companies known as patent trolls, with no evidence of actual use of patents in question. On December 21, 2016, Nokia announced that in the U.S. and Germany, it has filed a suit against Apple, claiming that the latter's products infringe on Nokia's patents. Most recently, in November 2017, the United States International Trade Commission announced an investigation into allegations of patent infringement in regards to Apple's remote desktop technology; Aqua Connect, a company that builds remote desktop software, has claimed that Apple infringed on two of its patents. In January 2022, Ericsson sued Apple over payment of royalty of 5G technology.
Corporate practices.
Apple has been criticized for alleged anti-competitive behavior, rash litigation, dubious tax tactics, the use of sweatshop labor, customer service issues involving allegedly misleading warranties and insufficient data security, and its products' environmental footprint. Apple has also received criticism for its willingness to work and conduct business with nations such as China and Russia, engaging in practices that have been criticized by human rights groups. Critics have claimed that Apple products combine stolen or purchased designs that Apple claims are its original creations. It has been criticized for its alleged collaboration with the U.S. surveillance program PRISM. The company denied any collaboration.
Charitable contributions.
Apple is a partner of (PRODUCT)RED, a fundraising campaign for AIDS charity. In November 2014, Apple arranged for all App Store revenue in a two-week period to go to the fundraiser, generating more than US$20 million, and in March 2017, it released an iPhone 7 with a red color finish.
Apple contributes financially to fundraisers in times of natural disasters. In November 2012, it donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, and in 2017 it donated $5 million to relief efforts for both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, as well as for the 2017 Central Mexico earthquake. The company has also used its iTunes platform to encourage donations in the wake of environmental disasters and humanitarian crises, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Japan earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, and the 2015 European migrant crisis. Apple emphasizes that it does not incur any processing or other fees for iTunes donations, sending 100% of the payments directly to relief efforts, though it also acknowledges that the Red Cross does not receive any personal information on the users donating and that the payments may not be tax deductible.
On April 14, 2016, Apple and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that they have engaged in a partnership to, "help protect life on our planet." Apple released a special page in the iTunes App Store, Apps for Earth. In the arrangement, Apple has committed that through April 24, WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from the applications participating in the App Store via both the purchases of any paid apps and the In-App Purchases. Apple and WWF's Apps for Earth campaign raised more than $8 million in total proceeds to support WWF's conservation work. WWF announced the results at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple's CEO Cook announced that the company will be donating "millions" of masks to health workers in the United States and Europe.
On January 13, 2021, Apple announced a $100 million "Racial Equity and Justice Initiative" to help combat institutional racism worldwide.
Customer privacy.
Apple has a notable pro-privacy stance, actively making privacy-conscious features and settings part of its conferences, promotional campaigns, and public image. With its iOS 8 mobile operating system in 2014, the company started encrypting all contents of iOS devices through users' passcodes, making it impossible at the time for the company to provide customer data to law enforcement requests seeking such information. With the popularity rise of cloud storage solutions, Apple began a technique in 2016 to do deep learning scans for facial data in photos on the user's local device and encrypting the content before uploading it to Apple's iCloud storage system. It also introduced "differential privacy", a way to collect crowdsourced data from many users, while keeping individual users anonymous, in a system that "Wired" described as "trying to learn as much as possible about a group while learning as little as possible about any individual in it". Users are explicitly asked if they want to participate, and can actively opt-in or opt-out.
With Apple's release of an update to iOS 14, Apple required all developers of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch applications to directly ask iPhone users permission to track them. The feature, titled "App Tracking Transparency", received heavy criticism from Facebook, whose primary business model revolves around the tracking of users' data and sharing such data with advertisers so users can see more relevant ads, a technique commonly known as targeted advertising. Despite Facebook's measures, including purchasing full-page newspaper advertisements protesting App Tracking Transparency, Apple released the update in mid-spring 2021. A study by Verizon subsidiary Flurry Analytics reported only 4% of iOS users in the United States and 12% worldwide have opted into tracking.
However, Apple aids law enforcement in criminal investigations by providing iCloud backups of users' devices, and the company's commitment to privacy has been questioned by its efforts to promote biometric authentication technology in its newer iPhone models, which don't have the same level of constitutional privacy as a passcode in the United States.
Prior to the release of iOS 15, Apple announced new efforts at combating child sexual abuse material on iOS and Mac platforms. Parents of minor iMessage users can now be alerted if their child sends or receives nude photographs. Additionally, on-device hashing would take place on media destined for upload to iCloud, and hashes would be compared to a list of known abusive images provided by law enforcement; if enough matches were found, Apple would be alerted and authorities informed. The new features received praise from law enforcement and victims rights advocates, however privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, condemned the new features as invasive and highly prone to abuse by authoritarian governments.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission launched a privacy investigation to examine whether Apple complied with the EU's GDPR law following an investigation into how the company processes personal data with targeted ads on its platform.
In December 2019, a report found that the iPhone 11 Pro continues tracking location and collecting user data even after users have disabled location services. In response, an Apple engineer said the Location Services icon "appears for system services that do not have a switch in settings."
According to published reports by Bloomberg News on March 30, 2022, Apple turned over data such as phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers posing as law enforcement officials using forged documents. The law enforcement requests sometimes included forged signatures of real or fictional officials. When asked about the allegations, an Apple representative referred the reporter to a section of the company policy for law enforcement guidelines, which stated, "We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse."
Compliance with governments.
In January 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump and attorney general William P. Barr criticized Apple for refusing to unlock two iPhones of a Saudi national, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who shot and killed three American sailors and injured eight others at Naval Air Station Pensacola. The shooting was declared an "act of terrorism" by the FBI, but Apple denied the request to crack the phones to reveal possible terrorist information citing its data privacy policy.
Apple Inc., shareholders increased pressure on the company to publicly commit "to respect freedom of expression as a human right", upon which Apple committed to freedom of expression and information in its human rights policy document. It said that the policy is based on the guidelines of the United Nations on business and human rights, in early September 2020.
In 2021, Apple complied with a request by the Chinese government to ban a Quran app from its devices and platforms. The request occurred in the context of the Chinese government's ongoing mass repression of Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, in Xinjiang, which some have labeled a genocide.
In December 2021, The Information reported that CEO Tim Cook had negotiated, in 2016, a five-year agreement with the Chinese government, motivated in part to allay regulatory issues that had harmed the company's business in China. The agreement entailed promised investments totaling $275 billion.
In September 2021, Apple removed an app from its App Store created by Alexei Navalny meant to coordinate protest voting during the 2021 Russian legislative election. The Russian government had threatened to arrest individual Apple employees working in the country unless Apple complied.
In November 2022, Apple limited AirDrop filesharing in China weeks before mass protests against COVID-19 lockdowns in the country.
Environmental practices and initiatives.
Apple Energy.
Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Inc. that sells solar energy. , Apple's solar farms in California and Nevada have been declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity. In addition to the company's solar energy production, Apple has received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina. Apple will use the methane emissions to generate electricity. Apple's North Carolina data center is already powered entirely with energy from renewable sources.
Energy and resources.
Following a Greenpeace protest, Apple released a statement on April 17, 2012, committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% renewable clean energy. By 2013, Apple was using 100% renewable energy to power their data centers. Overall, 75% of the company's power came from clean renewable sources.
In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer".
In May 2015, Greenpeace evaluated the state of the Green Internet and commended Apple on their environmental practices saying, "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable Internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for other companies that want to build a sustainable Internet."
, Apple states that 100% of its U.S. operations run on renewable energy, 100% of Apple's data centers run on renewable energy and 93% of Apple's global operations run on renewable energy. However, the facilities are connected to the local grid which usually contains a mix of fossil and renewable sources, so Apple carbon offsets its electricity use. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) allows consumers to see the effect a product has on the environment. Each product receives a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rank depending on its efficiency and sustainability. Every Apple tablet, notebook, desktop computer, and display that EPEAT ranks achieves a Gold rating, the highest possible. Although Apple's data centers recycle water 35 times, the increased activity in retail, corporate and data centers also increase the amount of water use to in 2015.
During an event on March 21, 2016, Apple provided a status update on its environmental initiative to be 100% renewable in all of its worldwide operations. Lisa P. Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives who reports directly to CEO, Tim Cook, announced that , 93% of Apple's worldwide operations are powered with renewable energy. Also featured was the company's efforts to use sustainable paper in their product packaging; 99% of all paper used by Apple in the product packaging comes from post-consumer recycled paper or sustainably managed forests, as the company continues its move to all paper packaging for all of its products. Apple working in partnership with Conservation Fund, have preserved 36,000 acres of working forests in Maine and North Carolina. Another partnership announced is with the World Wildlife Fund to preserve up to of forests in China. Featured was the company's installation of a 40 MW solar power plant in the Sichuan province of China that was tailor-made to coexist with the indigenous yaks that eat hay produced on the land, by raising the panels to be several feet off of the ground so the yaks and their feed would be unharmed grazing beneath the array. This installation alone compensates for more than all of the energy used in Apple's Stores and Offices in the whole of China, negating the company's energy carbon footprint in the country. In Singapore, Apple has worked with the Singaporean government to cover the rooftops of 800 buildings in the city-state with solar panels allowing Apple's Singapore operations to be run on 100% renewable energy. Liam was introduced to the world, an advanced robotic disassembler and sorter designed by Apple Engineers in California specifically for recycling outdated or broken iPhones. Reuses and recycles parts from traded in products.
Apple announced on August 16, 2016, that Lens Technology, one of its major suppliers in China, has committed to power all its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by 2018. The commitment is a large step in Apple's efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint in China. Apple also announced that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation. The standard, which started in January 2015, certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted, or converted into energy (when necessary). Since the program began, nearly 140,000 metric tons of waste have been diverted from landfills.
On July 21, 2020, Apple announced its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. In the next 10 years, Apple will try to lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including: low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal.
In April 2021, Apple said that it had started a $200 million fund in order to combat climate change by removing 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
Toxins.
Following further campaigns by Greenpeace, in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to eliminate all polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in its complete product line. In June 2007, Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass, starting with the upgraded MacBook Pro. Apple offers comprehensive and transparent information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product they currently produce or have sold in the past (and which they have enough data needed to produce the report), in their portfolio on their homepage. Allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions on the products they offer for sale. In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, and BFRs. All Apple products now have mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays, arsenic-free glass, and non-PVC cables. All Apple products have EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in each product's respective regulatory category.
In November 2011, Apple was featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" their products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10. Greenpeace praises Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. It continues to score well on the products rating with all Apple products now being free of PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticizes Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data and for not setting out any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple requested that its cable maker, Volex, begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables.
Green bonds.
In February 2016, Apple issued a US$1.5 billion green bond (climate bond), the first ever of its kind by a U.S. tech company. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to the financing of environmental projects.
In June 2020, Apple committed $100 million for its Racial Equity and Justice initiative (REJI) and in Jan 2021 announced various projects as part of the initiative.
Innovativeness.
An editorial article in "The Verge" in September 2016 by technology journalist Thomas Ricker explored some of the public's perceived lack of innovation at Apple in recent years, specifically stating that Samsung has "matched and even surpassed Apple in terms of smartphone industrial design" and citing the belief that Apple is incapable of producing another breakthrough moment in technology with its products. He goes on to write that the criticism focuses on individual pieces of hardware rather than the Apple ecosystem as a whole, stating "Yes, iteration is boring. But it's also how Apple does business. [...] It enters a new market and then refines and refines and continues refining until it yields a success". He acknowledges that people are wishing for the "excitement of revolution", but argues that people want "the comfort that comes with harmony". Furthermore, he writes that "a device is only the starting point of an experience that will ultimately be ruled by the ecosystem in which it was spawned", referring to how decent hardware products can still fail without a proper ecosystem (specifically mentioning that Walkman did not have an ecosystem to keep users from leaving once something better came along), but how Apple devices in different hardware segments are able to communicate and cooperate through the iCloud cloud service with features including Universal Clipboard (in which text copied on one device can be pasted on a different device) as well as inter-connected device functionality including Auto Unlock (in which an Apple Watch can unlock a Mac in close proximity). He argues that Apple's ecosystem is its greatest innovation.
"The Wall Street Journal" reported in June 2017 that Apple's increased reliance on Siri, its virtual personal assistant, has raised questions about how much Apple can actually accomplish in terms of functionality. Whereas Google and Amazon make use of big data and analyze customer information to personalize results, Apple has a strong pro-privacy stance, intentionally not retaining user data. "Siri is a textbook of leading on something in tech and then losing an edge despite having all the money and the talent and sitting in Silicon Valley", Holger Mueller, a technology analyst, told the "Journal". The report further claims that development on Siri has suffered due to team members and executives leaving the company for competitors, a lack of ambitious goals, and shifting strategies. Though switching Siri's functions to machine learning and algorithms, which dramatically cut its error rate, the company reportedly still failed to anticipate the popularity of Amazon's Echo, which features the Alexa personal assistant. Improvements to Siri stalled, executives clashed, and there were disagreements over the restrictions imposed on third-party app interactions. While Apple acquired an England-based startup specializing in conversational assistants, Google's Assistant had already become capable of helping users select Wi-Fi networks by voice, and Siri was lagging in functionality.
In December 2017, two articles from "The Verge" and "ZDNet" debated what had been a particularly devastating week for Apple's macOS and iOS software platforms. The former had experienced a severe security vulnerability, in which Macs running the then-latest macOS High Sierra software were vulnerable to a bug that let anyone gain administrator privileges by entering "root" as the username in system prompts, leaving the password field empty and twice clicking "unlock", gaining full access. The bug was publicly disclosed on Twitter, rather than through proper bug bounty programs. Apple released a security fix within a day and issued an apology, stating that "regrettably we stumbled" in regards to the security of the latest updates. After installing the security patch, however, file sharing was broken for users, with Apple releasing a support document with instructions to separately fix that issue. Though Apple publicly stated the promise of "auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again", users who installed the security update while running the older 10.13.0 version of the High Sierra operating system rather than the then-newest 10.13.1 release experienced that the "root" security vulnerability was re-introduced, and persisted even after fully updating their systems. On iOS, a date bug caused iOS devices that received local app notifications at 12:15am on December 2, 2017, to repeatedly restart. Users were recommended to turn off notifications for their apps. Apple quickly released an update, done during the nighttime in Cupertino, California time and outside of their usual software release window, with one of the headlining features of the update needing to be delayed for a few days. The combined problems of the week on both macOS and iOS caused "The Verge"s Tom Warren to call it a "nightmare" for Apple's software engineers and described it as a significant lapse in Apple's ability to protect its more than 1 billion devices. "ZDNet"s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote that "it's hard to not come away from the last week with the feeling that Apple is slipping". Kingsley-Hughes also concluded his piece by referencing an earlier article, in which he wrote that "As much as I don't want to bring up the tired old 'Apple wouldn't have done this under Steve Jobs's watch' trope, a lot of what's happening at Apple lately is different from what they came to expect under Jobs. Not to say that things didn't go wrong under his watch, but product announcements and launches felt a lot tighter for sure, as did the overall quality of what Apple was releasing." He did, however, also acknowledge that such failures "may indeed have happened" with Jobs in charge, though returning to the previous praise for his demands of quality, stating "it's almost guaranteed that given his personality that heads would have rolled, which limits future failures".
Manufacturing.
The company's manufacturing, procurement, and logistics enable it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. In 2011, Apple's profit margins were 40 percent, compared with between 10 and 20 percent for most other hardware companies. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational arm is: "Nobody wants to buy sour milk."
In May 2017, the company announced a $1 billion funding project for "advanced manufacturing" in the United States, and subsequently invested $200 million in Corning Inc., a manufacturer of toughened Gorilla Glass technology used in its iPhone devices. The following December, Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, told "CNBC" that the "$1 billion" amount was "absolutely not" the final limit on its spending, elaborating that "We're not thinking in terms of a fund limit... We're thinking about, where are the opportunities across the U.S. to help nurture companies that are making the advanced technology— and the advanced manufacturing that goes with that— that quite frankly is essential to our innovation."
As of 2021, Apple uses components from 43 countries. The majority of assembling is done by Taiwanese original design manufacturer firms Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and Compal Electronics with factories mostly located inside China, but also Brazil, and India.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., (TSMC) is a pure-play semiconductor manufacturing company. They make the majority of Apple's smartphone SoCs, with Samsung Semiconductor, playing a minority role. Apple, alone accounted for over 25% of TSMC's total income in 2021. Apple's Bionic lineup of smartphone SoCs, are currently made exclusively by TSMC from the A7 bionic onwards, previously manufacturing was shared with Samsung. The M series of Apple SoC for consumer computers and tablets is made by TSMC as well.
During the Mac's early history Apple generally refused to adopt prevailing industry standards for hardware, instead creating their own. This trend was largely reversed in the late 1990s, beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the 7500/8500/9500 Power Macs. Apple has since joined the industry standards groups to influence the future direction of technology standards such as USB, AGP, HyperTransport, Wi-Fi, NVMe, PCIe and others in its products. FireWire is an Apple-originated standard that was widely adopted across the industry after it was standardized as IEEE 1394 and is a legally mandated port in all Cable TV boxes in the United States.
Apple has gradually expanded its efforts in getting its products into the Indian market. In July 2012, during a conference call with investors, CEO Tim Cook said that he "[loves] India", but that Apple saw larger opportunities outside the region. India's requirement that 30% of products sold be manufactured in the country was described as "really adds cost to getting product to market". In May 2016, Apple opened an iOS app development center in Bangalore and a maps development office for 4,000 staff in Hyderabad. In March, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Apple would begin manufacturing iPhone models in India "over the next two months", and in May, the "Journal" wrote that an Apple manufacturer had begun production of iPhone SE in the country, while Apple told "CNBC" that the manufacturing was for a "small number" of units. In April 2019, Apple initiated manufacturing of iPhone 7 at its Bengaluru facility, keeping in mind demand from local customers even as they seek more incentives from the government of India. At the beginning of 2020, Tim Cook announced that Apple schedules the opening of its first physical outlet in India for 2021, while an online store is to be launched by the end of the year.
Labor practices.
The company advertised its products as being made in America until the late 1990s; however, as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s, almost all of its manufacturing is now handled abroad. According to a report by "The New York Times", Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories, as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers, have so outpaced their American counterparts that "Made in the USA" is no longer a viable option for most Apple products".
In 2006, one complex of factories in Shenzhen, China that assembled the iPod and other items had over 200,000 workers living and working within it. Employees regularly worked more than 60 hours per week and made around $100 per month. A little over half of the workers' earnings was required to pay for rent and food from the company.
Apple immediately launched an investigation after the 2006 media report, and worked with their manufacturers to ensure acceptable working conditions. In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of all its suppliers regarding worker's rights, slowly raising standards and pruning suppliers that did not comply. Yearly progress reports have been published since 2008. In 2011, Apple admitted that its suppliers' child labor practices in China had worsened.
The Foxconn suicides occurred between January and November 2010, when 18 Foxconn (Chinese: 富士康) employees attempted suicide, resulting in 14 deaths—the company was the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, for clients including Apple, at the time. The suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn were investigated by Apple. Apple issued a public statement about the suicides, and company spokesperson Steven Dowling said:
The statement was released after the results from the company's probe into its suppliers' labor practices were published in early 2010. Foxconn was not specifically named in the report, but Apple identified a series of serious labor violations of labor laws, including Apple's own rules, and some child labor existed in a number of factories. Apple committed to the implementation of changes following the suicides.
Also in 2010, workers in China planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning by a cleaner used to clean LCD screens. One worker claimed that he and his coworkers had not been informed of possible occupational illnesses. After a high suicide rate in a Foxconn facility in China making iPads and iPhones, albeit a lower rate than that of China as a whole, workers were forced to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing that they would not kill themselves. Workers in factories producing Apple products have also been exposed to hexane, a neurotoxin that is a cheaper alternative than alcohol for cleaning the products.
A 2014 BBC investigation found excessive hours and other problems persisted, despite Apple's promise to reform factory practice after the 2010 Foxconn suicides. The Pegatron factory was once again the subject of review, as reporters gained access to the working conditions inside through recruitment as employees. While the BBC maintained that the experiences of its reporters showed that labor violations were continuing since 2010, Apple publicly disagreed with the BBC and stated: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions".
In December 2014, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights published a report which documented inhumane conditions for the 15,000 workers at a Zhen Ding Technology factory in Shenzhen, China, which serves as a major supplier of circuit boards for Apple's iPhone and iPad. According to the report, workers are pressured into 65-hour work weeks which leaves them so exhausted that they often sleep during lunch breaks. They are also made to reside in "primitive, dark and filthy dorms" where they sleep "on plywood, with six to ten workers in each crowded room." Omnipresent security personnel also routinely harass and beat the workers.
In 2019, there were reports stating that some of Foxconn's managers had used rejected parts to build iPhones and that Apple was investigating the issue.
Market power.
The United States Department of Justice also began a review of Big Tech firms to establish whether they could be unlawfully stifling competition in a broad antitrust probe in 2019.
On March 16, 2020, France fined Apple €1.1 billion for colluding with two wholesalers to stifle competition and keep prices high by handicapping independent resellers. The arrangement created aligned prices for Apple products such as iPads and personal computers for about half the French retail market. According to the French regulators, the abuses occurred between 2005 and 2017 but were first discovered after a complaint by an independent reseller, eBizcuss, in 2012.
On August 13, 2020, Epic Games, the maker of the popular game Fortnite, sued Apple and Google after its hugely popular video game was removed from Apple and Google's App Store. The suits come after both Apple and Google blocked the game after it introduced a direct payment system, effectively shutting out the tech titans from collecting fees. In September 2020 Epic Games founded the Coalition for App Fairness together with other thirteen companies, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in the app stores. Later in December 2020, Facebook agreed to assist Epic in their legal game against Apple, planning to support the company by providing materials and documents to Epic. Facebook had, however, stated that the company will not participate directly with the lawsuit, although did commit to helping with the discovery of evidence relating to the trial of 2021. In the months prior to their agreement, Facebook had been dealing with feuds against Apple relating to the prices of paid apps as well as privacy rule changes. Head of ad products for Facebook Dan Levy commented, saying that "this is not really about privacy for them, this is about an attack on personalized ads and the consequences it's going to have on small-business owners," commenting on the full-page ads placed by Facebook in various newspapers in December 2020.
Product-related practices.
Apple's issues regarding music over the years include those with the European Union regarding iTunes, trouble over updating the Spotify app on Apple devices and collusion with record labels.
In 2018–19, Apple faced criticism for its failure to approve Nvidia web drivers for GPUs installed on legacy Mac Pro machines (up to mid 2012 5,1 running macOS Mojave 10.14). Without access to Apple-approved Nvidia web drivers, Apple users faced replacing their Nvidia cards with graphic cards produced by supported brands (such as the AMD Radeon), from a list of recommendations provided by Apple to its consumers.
In June 2019, Apple issued a recall for its 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15" following reports of batteries catching fire. The recall affected 432,000 units, and Apple was criticized for the long waiting periods consumers experienced, sometimes extending up to 3 weeks for replacements to arrive; the company also did not provide alternative replacements or repair options.
In July 2019, following a campaign by the "right to repair" movement, challenging Apple's tech repair restrictions on devices, the FTC held a workshop to establish the framework of a future nationwide Right to Repair rule. The movement argues Apple is preventing consumers from legitimately fixing their devices at local repair shops which is having a negative impact on consumers.
On November 19, 2020, it was announced that Apple will be paying out $113 million related to lawsuits stemming from their iPhone's battery problems and subsequent performance slow-downs. Apple continues to face litigation related to the performance throttling of iPhone 6 and 7 devices, an action that Apple argued was done in order to balance the functionality of the software with the impacts of a chemically aged battery. On January 25, 2021, Apple was hit with another lawsuit from an Italian consumer group, with more groups to follow, despite the rationale for the throttling.
On November 30, 2020, the Italian antitrust authority AGCM fined Apple $12 million for misleading trade practices. AGCM stated that Apple's claims of the iPhone's water resistance weren't true as the phones could only resist water up to 4 meters deep in ideal laboratory conditions and not in regular circumstances. The authority added that Apple provided no assistance to customers with water-damaged phones, which it said constituted an aggressive trade practice.
On September 8, 2022, Brazil announced the ban on the sale of iPhones without power adapters. It has also fined Apple 12.275million reais ($ million). Apple announced it will appeal this decision.
Charitable contributions.
Apple is a partner of (PRODUCT)RED, a fundraising campaign for AIDS charity. In November 2014, Apple arranged for all App Store revenue in a two-week period to go to the fundraiser, generating more than US$20 million, and in March 2017, it released an iPhone 7 with a red color finish.
Apple contributes financially to fundraisers in times of natural disasters. In November 2012, it donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, and in 2017 it donated $5 million to relief efforts for both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, as well as for the 2017 Central Mexico earthquake. The company has also used its iTunes platform to encourage donations in the wake of environmental disasters and humanitarian crises, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Japan earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, and the 2015 European migrant crisis. Apple emphasizes that it does not incur any processing or other fees for iTunes donations, sending 100% of the payments directly to relief efforts, though it also acknowledges that the Red Cross does not receive any personal information on the users donating and that the payments may not be tax deductible.
On April 14, 2016, Apple and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that they have engaged in a partnership to, "help protect life on our planet." Apple released a special page in the iTunes App Store, Apps for Earth. In the arrangement, Apple has committed that through April 24, WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from the applications participating in the App Store via both the purchases of any paid apps and the In-App Purchases. Apple and WWF's Apps for Earth campaign raised more than $8 million in total proceeds to support WWF's conservation work. WWF announced the results at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple's CEO Cook announced that the company will be donating "millions" of masks to health workers in the United States and Europe.
On January 13, 2021, Apple announced a $100 million "Racial Equity and Justice Initiative" to help combat institutional racism worldwide.
Customer privacy.
Apple has a notable pro-privacy stance, actively making privacy-conscious features and settings part of its conferences, promotional campaigns, and public image. With its iOS 8 mobile operating system in 2014, the company started encrypting all contents of iOS devices through users' passcodes, making it impossible at the time for the company to provide customer data to law enforcement requests seeking such information. With the popularity rise of cloud storage solutions, Apple began a technique in 2016 to do deep learning scans for facial data in photos on the user's local device and encrypting the content before uploading it to Apple's iCloud storage system. It also introduced "differential privacy", a way to collect crowdsourced data from many users, while keeping individual users anonymous, in a system that "Wired" described as "trying to learn as much as possible about a group while learning as little as possible about any individual in it". Users are explicitly asked if they want to participate, and can actively opt-in or opt-out.
With Apple's release of an update to iOS 14, Apple required all developers of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch applications to directly ask iPhone users permission to track them. The feature, titled "App Tracking Transparency", received heavy criticism from Facebook, whose primary business model revolves around the tracking of users' data and sharing such data with advertisers so users can see more relevant ads, a technique commonly known as targeted advertising. Despite Facebook's measures, including purchasing full-page newspaper advertisements protesting App Tracking Transparency, Apple released the update in mid-spring 2021. A study by Verizon subsidiary Flurry Analytics reported only 4% of iOS users in the United States and 12% worldwide have opted into tracking.
However, Apple aids law enforcement in criminal investigations by providing iCloud backups of users' devices, and the company's commitment to privacy has been questioned by its efforts to promote biometric authentication technology in its newer iPhone models, which don't have the same level of constitutional privacy as a passcode in the United States.
Prior to the release of iOS 15, Apple announced new efforts at combating child sexual abuse material on iOS and Mac platforms. Parents of minor iMessage users can now be alerted if their child sends or receives nude photographs. Additionally, on-device hashing would take place on media destined for upload to iCloud, and hashes would be compared to a list of known abusive images provided by law enforcement; if enough matches were found, Apple would be alerted and authorities informed. The new features received praise from law enforcement and victims rights advocates, however privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, condemned the new features as invasive and highly prone to abuse by authoritarian governments.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission launched a privacy investigation to examine whether Apple complied with the EU's GDPR law following an investigation into how the company processes personal data with targeted ads on its platform.
In December 2019, a report found that the iPhone 11 Pro continues tracking location and collecting user data even after users have disabled location services. In response, an Apple engineer said the Location Services icon "appears for system services that do not have a switch in settings."
According to published reports by Bloomberg News on March 30, 2022, Apple turned over data such as phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers posing as law enforcement officials using forged documents. The law enforcement requests sometimes included forged signatures of real or fictional officials. When asked about the allegations, an Apple representative referred the reporter to a section of the company policy for law enforcement guidelines, which stated, "We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse."
Compliance with governments.
In January 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump and attorney general William P. Barr criticized Apple for refusing to unlock two iPhones of a Saudi national, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who shot and killed three American sailors and injured eight others at Naval Air Station Pensacola. The shooting was declared an "act of terrorism" by the FBI, but Apple denied the request to crack the phones to reveal possible terrorist information citing its data privacy policy.
Apple Inc., shareholders increased pressure on the company to publicly commit "to respect freedom of expression as a human right", upon which Apple committed to freedom of expression and information in its human rights policy document. It said that the policy is based on the guidelines of the United Nations on business and human rights, in early September 2020.
In 2021, Apple complied with a request by the Chinese government to ban a Quran app from its devices and platforms. The request occurred in the context of the Chinese government's ongoing mass repression of Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, in Xinjiang, which some have labeled a genocide.
In December 2021, The Information reported that CEO Tim Cook had negotiated, in 2016, a five-year agreement with the Chinese government, motivated in part to allay regulatory issues that had harmed the company's business in China. The agreement entailed promised investments totaling $275 billion.
In September 2021, Apple removed an app from its App Store created by Alexei Navalny meant to coordinate protest voting during the 2021 Russian legislative election. The Russian government had threatened to arrest individual Apple employees working in the country unless Apple complied.
In November 2022, Apple limited AirDrop filesharing in China weeks before mass protests against COVID-19 lockdowns in the country.
Environmental practices and initiatives.
Apple Energy.
Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Inc. that sells solar energy. , Apple's solar farms in California and Nevada have been declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity. In addition to the company's solar energy production, Apple has received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina. Apple will use the methane emissions to generate electricity. Apple's North Carolina data center is already powered entirely with energy from renewable sources.
Energy and resources.
Following a Greenpeace protest, Apple released a statement on April 17, 2012, committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% renewable clean energy. By 2013, Apple was using 100% renewable energy to power their data centers. Overall, 75% of the company's power came from clean renewable sources.
In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer".
In May 2015, Greenpeace evaluated the state of the Green Internet and commended Apple on their environmental practices saying, "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable Internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for other companies that want to build a sustainable Internet."
, Apple states that 100% of its U.S. operations run on renewable energy, 100% of Apple's data centers run on renewable energy and 93% of Apple's global operations run on renewable energy. However, the facilities are connected to the local grid which usually contains a mix of fossil and renewable sources, so Apple carbon offsets its electricity use. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) allows consumers to see the effect a product has on the environment. Each product receives a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rank depending on its efficiency and sustainability. Every Apple tablet, notebook, desktop computer, and display that EPEAT ranks achieves a Gold rating, the highest possible. Although Apple's data centers recycle water 35 times, the increased activity in retail, corporate and data centers also increase the amount of water use to in 2015.
During an event on March 21, 2016, Apple provided a status update on its environmental initiative to be 100% renewable in all of its worldwide operations. Lisa P. Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives who reports directly to CEO, Tim Cook, announced that , 93% of Apple's worldwide operations are powered with renewable energy. Also featured was the company's efforts to use sustainable paper in their product packaging; 99% of all paper used by Apple in the product packaging comes from post-consumer recycled paper or sustainably managed forests, as the company continues its move to all paper packaging for all of its products. Apple working in partnership with Conservation Fund, have preserved 36,000 acres of working forests in Maine and North Carolina. Another partnership announced is with the World Wildlife Fund to preserve up to of forests in China. Featured was the company's installation of a 40 MW solar power plant in the Sichuan province of China that was tailor-made to coexist with the indigenous yaks that eat hay produced on the land, by raising the panels to be several feet off of the ground so the yaks and their feed would be unharmed grazing beneath the array. This installation alone compensates for more than all of the energy used in Apple's Stores and Offices in the whole of China, negating the company's energy carbon footprint in the country. In Singapore, Apple has worked with the Singaporean government to cover the rooftops of 800 buildings in the city-state with solar panels allowing Apple's Singapore operations to be run on 100% renewable energy. Liam was introduced to the world, an advanced robotic disassembler and sorter designed by Apple Engineers in California specifically for recycling outdated or broken iPhones. Reuses and recycles parts from traded in products.
Apple announced on August 16, 2016, that Lens Technology, one of its major suppliers in China, has committed to power all its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by 2018. The commitment is a large step in Apple's efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint in China. Apple also announced that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation. The standard, which started in January 2015, certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted, or converted into energy (when necessary). Since the program began, nearly 140,000 metric tons of waste have been diverted from landfills.
On July 21, 2020, Apple announced its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. In the next 10 years, Apple will try to lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including: low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal.
In April 2021, Apple said that it had started a $200 million fund in order to combat climate change by removing 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
Toxins.
Following further campaigns by Greenpeace, in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to eliminate all polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in its complete product line. In June 2007, Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass, starting with the upgraded MacBook Pro. Apple offers comprehensive and transparent information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product they currently produce or have sold in the past (and which they have enough data needed to produce the report), in their portfolio on their homepage. Allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions on the products they offer for sale. In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, and BFRs. All Apple products now have mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays, arsenic-free glass, and non-PVC cables. All Apple products have EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in each product's respective regulatory category.
In November 2011, Apple was featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" their products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10. Greenpeace praises Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. It continues to score well on the products rating with all Apple products now being free of PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticizes Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data and for not setting out any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple requested that its cable maker, Volex, begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables.
Green bonds.
In February 2016, Apple issued a US$1.5 billion green bond (climate bond), the first ever of its kind by a U.S. tech company. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to the financing of environmental projects.
In June 2020, Apple committed $100 million for its Racial Equity and Justice initiative (REJI) and in Jan 2021 announced various projects as part of the initiative.
Apple Energy.
Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Inc. that sells solar energy. , Apple's solar farms in California and Nevada have been declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity. In addition to the company's solar energy production, Apple has received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina. Apple will use the methane emissions to generate electricity. Apple's North Carolina data center is already powered entirely with energy from renewable sources.
Energy and resources.
Following a Greenpeace protest, Apple released a statement on April 17, 2012, committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% renewable clean energy. By 2013, Apple was using 100% renewable energy to power their data centers. Overall, 75% of the company's power came from clean renewable sources.
In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer".
In May 2015, Greenpeace evaluated the state of the Green Internet and commended Apple on their environmental practices saying, "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable Internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for other companies that want to build a sustainable Internet."
, Apple states that 100% of its U.S. operations run on renewable energy, 100% of Apple's data centers run on renewable energy and 93% of Apple's global operations run on renewable energy. However, the facilities are connected to the local grid which usually contains a mix of fossil and renewable sources, so Apple carbon offsets its electricity use. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) allows consumers to see the effect a product has on the environment. Each product receives a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rank depending on its efficiency and sustainability. Every Apple tablet, notebook, desktop computer, and display that EPEAT ranks achieves a Gold rating, the highest possible. Although Apple's data centers recycle water 35 times, the increased activity in retail, corporate and data centers also increase the amount of water use to in 2015.
During an event on March 21, 2016, Apple provided a status update on its environmental initiative to be 100% renewable in all of its worldwide operations. Lisa P. Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives who reports directly to CEO, Tim Cook, announced that , 93% of Apple's worldwide operations are powered with renewable energy. Also featured was the company's efforts to use sustainable paper in their product packaging; 99% of all paper used by Apple in the product packaging comes from post-consumer recycled paper or sustainably managed forests, as the company continues its move to all paper packaging for all of its products. Apple working in partnership with Conservation Fund, have preserved 36,000 acres of working forests in Maine and North Carolina. Another partnership announced is with the World Wildlife Fund to preserve up to of forests in China. Featured was the company's installation of a 40 MW solar power plant in the Sichuan province of China that was tailor-made to coexist with the indigenous yaks that eat hay produced on the land, by raising the panels to be several feet off of the ground so the yaks and their feed would be unharmed grazing beneath the array. This installation alone compensates for more than all of the energy used in Apple's Stores and Offices in the whole of China, negating the company's energy carbon footprint in the country. In Singapore, Apple has worked with the Singaporean government to cover the rooftops of 800 buildings in the city-state with solar panels allowing Apple's Singapore operations to be run on 100% renewable energy. Liam was introduced to the world, an advanced robotic disassembler and sorter designed by Apple Engineers in California specifically for recycling outdated or broken iPhones. Reuses and recycles parts from traded in products.
Apple announced on August 16, 2016, that Lens Technology, one of its major suppliers in China, has committed to power all its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by 2018. The commitment is a large step in Apple's efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint in China. Apple also announced that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation. The standard, which started in January 2015, certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted, or converted into energy (when necessary). Since the program began, nearly 140,000 metric tons of waste have been diverted from landfills.
On July 21, 2020, Apple announced its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. In the next 10 years, Apple will try to lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including: low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal.
In April 2021, Apple said that it had started a $200 million fund in order to combat climate change by removing 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
Toxins.
Following further campaigns by Greenpeace, in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to eliminate all polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in its complete product line. In June 2007, Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass, starting with the upgraded MacBook Pro. Apple offers comprehensive and transparent information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product they currently produce or have sold in the past (and which they have enough data needed to produce the report), in their portfolio on their homepage. Allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions on the products they offer for sale. In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, and BFRs. All Apple products now have mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays, arsenic-free glass, and non-PVC cables. All Apple products have EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in each product's respective regulatory category.
In November 2011, Apple was featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" their products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10. Greenpeace praises Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. It continues to score well on the products rating with all Apple products now being free of PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticizes Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data and for not setting out any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple requested that its cable maker, Volex, begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables.
Green bonds.
In February 2016, Apple issued a US$1.5 billion green bond (climate bond), the first ever of its kind by a U.S. tech company. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to the financing of environmental projects.
In June 2020, Apple committed $100 million for its Racial Equity and Justice initiative (REJI) and in Jan 2021 announced various projects as part of the initiative.
Innovativeness.
An editorial article in "The Verge" in September 2016 by technology journalist Thomas Ricker explored some of the public's perceived lack of innovation at Apple in recent years, specifically stating that Samsung has "matched and even surpassed Apple in terms of smartphone industrial design" and citing the belief that Apple is incapable of producing another breakthrough moment in technology with its products. He goes on to write that the criticism focuses on individual pieces of hardware rather than the Apple ecosystem as a whole, stating "Yes, iteration is boring. But it's also how Apple does business. [...] It enters a new market and then refines and refines and continues refining until it yields a success". He acknowledges that people are wishing for the "excitement of revolution", but argues that people want "the comfort that comes with harmony". Furthermore, he writes that "a device is only the starting point of an experience that will ultimately be ruled by the ecosystem in which it was spawned", referring to how decent hardware products can still fail without a proper ecosystem (specifically mentioning that Walkman did not have an ecosystem to keep users from leaving once something better came along), but how Apple devices in different hardware segments are able to communicate and cooperate through the iCloud cloud service with features including Universal Clipboard (in which text copied on one device can be pasted on a different device) as well as inter-connected device functionality including Auto Unlock (in which an Apple Watch can unlock a Mac in close proximity). He argues that Apple's ecosystem is its greatest innovation.
"The Wall Street Journal" reported in June 2017 that Apple's increased reliance on Siri, its virtual personal assistant, has raised questions about how much Apple can actually accomplish in terms of functionality. Whereas Google and Amazon make use of big data and analyze customer information to personalize results, Apple has a strong pro-privacy stance, intentionally not retaining user data. "Siri is a textbook of leading on something in tech and then losing an edge despite having all the money and the talent and sitting in Silicon Valley", Holger Mueller, a technology analyst, told the "Journal". The report further claims that development on Siri has suffered due to team members and executives leaving the company for competitors, a lack of ambitious goals, and shifting strategies. Though switching Siri's functions to machine learning and algorithms, which dramatically cut its error rate, the company reportedly still failed to anticipate the popularity of Amazon's Echo, which features the Alexa personal assistant. Improvements to Siri stalled, executives clashed, and there were disagreements over the restrictions imposed on third-party app interactions. While Apple acquired an England-based startup specializing in conversational assistants, Google's Assistant had already become capable of helping users select Wi-Fi networks by voice, and Siri was lagging in functionality.
In December 2017, two articles from "The Verge" and "ZDNet" debated what had been a particularly devastating week for Apple's macOS and iOS software platforms. The former had experienced a severe security vulnerability, in which Macs running the then-latest macOS High Sierra software were vulnerable to a bug that let anyone gain administrator privileges by entering "root" as the username in system prompts, leaving the password field empty and twice clicking "unlock", gaining full access. The bug was publicly disclosed on Twitter, rather than through proper bug bounty programs. Apple released a security fix within a day and issued an apology, stating that "regrettably we stumbled" in regards to the security of the latest updates. After installing the security patch, however, file sharing was broken for users, with Apple releasing a support document with instructions to separately fix that issue. Though Apple publicly stated the promise of "auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again", users who installed the security update while running the older 10.13.0 version of the High Sierra operating system rather than the then-newest 10.13.1 release experienced that the "root" security vulnerability was re-introduced, and persisted even after fully updating their systems. On iOS, a date bug caused iOS devices that received local app notifications at 12:15am on December 2, 2017, to repeatedly restart. Users were recommended to turn off notifications for their apps. Apple quickly released an update, done during the nighttime in Cupertino, California time and outside of their usual software release window, with one of the headlining features of the update needing to be delayed for a few days. The combined problems of the week on both macOS and iOS caused "The Verge"s Tom Warren to call it a "nightmare" for Apple's software engineers and described it as a significant lapse in Apple's ability to protect its more than 1 billion devices. "ZDNet"s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote that "it's hard to not come away from the last week with the feeling that Apple is slipping". Kingsley-Hughes also concluded his piece by referencing an earlier article, in which he wrote that "As much as I don't want to bring up the tired old 'Apple wouldn't have done this under Steve Jobs's watch' trope, a lot of what's happening at Apple lately is different from what they came to expect under Jobs. Not to say that things didn't go wrong under his watch, but product announcements and launches felt a lot tighter for sure, as did the overall quality of what Apple was releasing." He did, however, also acknowledge that such failures "may indeed have happened" with Jobs in charge, though returning to the previous praise for his demands of quality, stating "it's almost guaranteed that given his personality that heads would have rolled, which limits future failures".
Manufacturing.
The company's manufacturing, procurement, and logistics enable it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. In 2011, Apple's profit margins were 40 percent, compared with between 10 and 20 percent for most other hardware companies. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational arm is: "Nobody wants to buy sour milk."
In May 2017, the company announced a $1 billion funding project for "advanced manufacturing" in the United States, and subsequently invested $200 million in Corning Inc., a manufacturer of toughened Gorilla Glass technology used in its iPhone devices. The following December, Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, told "CNBC" that the "$1 billion" amount was "absolutely not" the final limit on its spending, elaborating that "We're not thinking in terms of a fund limit... We're thinking about, where are the opportunities across the U.S. to help nurture companies that are making the advanced technology— and the advanced manufacturing that goes with that— that quite frankly is essential to our innovation."
As of 2021, Apple uses components from 43 countries. The majority of assembling is done by Taiwanese original design manufacturer firms Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and Compal Electronics with factories mostly located inside China, but also Brazil, and India.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., (TSMC) is a pure-play semiconductor manufacturing company. They make the majority of Apple's smartphone SoCs, with Samsung Semiconductor, playing a minority role. Apple, alone accounted for over 25% of TSMC's total income in 2021. Apple's Bionic lineup of smartphone SoCs, are currently made exclusively by TSMC from the A7 bionic onwards, previously manufacturing was shared with Samsung. The M series of Apple SoC for consumer computers and tablets is made by TSMC as well.
During the Mac's early history Apple generally refused to adopt prevailing industry standards for hardware, instead creating their own. This trend was largely reversed in the late 1990s, beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the 7500/8500/9500 Power Macs. Apple has since joined the industry standards groups to influence the future direction of technology standards such as USB, AGP, HyperTransport, Wi-Fi, NVMe, PCIe and others in its products. FireWire is an Apple-originated standard that was widely adopted across the industry after it was standardized as IEEE 1394 and is a legally mandated port in all Cable TV boxes in the United States.
Apple has gradually expanded its efforts in getting its products into the Indian market. In July 2012, during a conference call with investors, CEO Tim Cook said that he "[loves] India", but that Apple saw larger opportunities outside the region. India's requirement that 30% of products sold be manufactured in the country was described as "really adds cost to getting product to market". In May 2016, Apple opened an iOS app development center in Bangalore and a maps development office for 4,000 staff in Hyderabad. In March, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Apple would begin manufacturing iPhone models in India "over the next two months", and in May, the "Journal" wrote that an Apple manufacturer had begun production of iPhone SE in the country, while Apple told "CNBC" that the manufacturing was for a "small number" of units. In April 2019, Apple initiated manufacturing of iPhone 7 at its Bengaluru facility, keeping in mind demand from local customers even as they seek more incentives from the government of India. At the beginning of 2020, Tim Cook announced that Apple schedules the opening of its first physical outlet in India for 2021, while an online store is to be launched by the end of the year.
Labor practices.
The company advertised its products as being made in America until the late 1990s; however, as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s, almost all of its manufacturing is now handled abroad. According to a report by "The New York Times", Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories, as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers, have so outpaced their American counterparts that "Made in the USA" is no longer a viable option for most Apple products".
In 2006, one complex of factories in Shenzhen, China that assembled the iPod and other items had over 200,000 workers living and working within it. Employees regularly worked more than 60 hours per week and made around $100 per month. A little over half of the workers' earnings was required to pay for rent and food from the company.
Apple immediately launched an investigation after the 2006 media report, and worked with their manufacturers to ensure acceptable working conditions. In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of all its suppliers regarding worker's rights, slowly raising standards and pruning suppliers that did not comply. Yearly progress reports have been published since 2008. In 2011, Apple admitted that its suppliers' child labor practices in China had worsened.
The Foxconn suicides occurred between January and November 2010, when 18 Foxconn (Chinese: 富士康) employees attempted suicide, resulting in 14 deaths—the company was the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, for clients including Apple, at the time. The suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn were investigated by Apple. Apple issued a public statement about the suicides, and company spokesperson Steven Dowling said:
The statement was released after the results from the company's probe into its suppliers' labor practices were published in early 2010. Foxconn was not specifically named in the report, but Apple identified a series of serious labor violations of labor laws, including Apple's own rules, and some child labor existed in a number of factories. Apple committed to the implementation of changes following the suicides.
Also in 2010, workers in China planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning by a cleaner used to clean LCD screens. One worker claimed that he and his coworkers had not been informed of possible occupational illnesses. After a high suicide rate in a Foxconn facility in China making iPads and iPhones, albeit a lower rate than that of China as a whole, workers were forced to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing that they would not kill themselves. Workers in factories producing Apple products have also been exposed to hexane, a neurotoxin that is a cheaper alternative than alcohol for cleaning the products.
A 2014 BBC investigation found excessive hours and other problems persisted, despite Apple's promise to reform factory practice after the 2010 Foxconn suicides. The Pegatron factory was once again the subject of review, as reporters gained access to the working conditions inside through recruitment as employees. While the BBC maintained that the experiences of its reporters showed that labor violations were continuing since 2010, Apple publicly disagreed with the BBC and stated: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions".
In December 2014, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights published a report which documented inhumane conditions for the 15,000 workers at a Zhen Ding Technology factory in Shenzhen, China, which serves as a major supplier of circuit boards for Apple's iPhone and iPad. According to the report, workers are pressured into 65-hour work weeks which leaves them so exhausted that they often sleep during lunch breaks. They are also made to reside in "primitive, dark and filthy dorms" where they sleep "on plywood, with six to ten workers in each crowded room." Omnipresent security personnel also routinely harass and beat the workers.
In 2019, there were reports stating that some of Foxconn's managers had used rejected parts to build iPhones and that Apple was investigating the issue.
Labor practices.
The company advertised its products as being made in America until the late 1990s; however, as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s, almost all of its manufacturing is now handled abroad. According to a report by "The New York Times", Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories, as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers, have so outpaced their American counterparts that "Made in the USA" is no longer a viable option for most Apple products".
In 2006, one complex of factories in Shenzhen, China that assembled the iPod and other items had over 200,000 workers living and working within it. Employees regularly worked more than 60 hours per week and made around $100 per month. A little over half of the workers' earnings was required to pay for rent and food from the company.
Apple immediately launched an investigation after the 2006 media report, and worked with their manufacturers to ensure acceptable working conditions. In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of all its suppliers regarding worker's rights, slowly raising standards and pruning suppliers that did not comply. Yearly progress reports have been published since 2008. In 2011, Apple admitted that its suppliers' child labor practices in China had worsened.
The Foxconn suicides occurred between January and November 2010, when 18 Foxconn (Chinese: 富士康) employees attempted suicide, resulting in 14 deaths—the company was the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, for clients including Apple, at the time. The suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn were investigated by Apple. Apple issued a public statement about the suicides, and company spokesperson Steven Dowling said:
The statement was released after the results from the company's probe into its suppliers' labor practices were published in early 2010. Foxconn was not specifically named in the report, but Apple identified a series of serious labor violations of labor laws, including Apple's own rules, and some child labor existed in a number of factories. Apple committed to the implementation of changes following the suicides.
Also in 2010, workers in China planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning by a cleaner used to clean LCD screens. One worker claimed that he and his coworkers had not been informed of possible occupational illnesses. After a high suicide rate in a Foxconn facility in China making iPads and iPhones, albeit a lower rate than that of China as a whole, workers were forced to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing that they would not kill themselves. Workers in factories producing Apple products have also been exposed to hexane, a neurotoxin that is a cheaper alternative than alcohol for cleaning the products.
A 2014 BBC investigation found excessive hours and other problems persisted, despite Apple's promise to reform factory practice after the 2010 Foxconn suicides. The Pegatron factory was once again the subject of review, as reporters gained access to the working conditions inside through recruitment as employees. While the BBC maintained that the experiences of its reporters showed that labor violations were continuing since 2010, Apple publicly disagreed with the BBC and stated: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions".
In December 2014, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights published a report which documented inhumane conditions for the 15,000 workers at a Zhen Ding Technology factory in Shenzhen, China, which serves as a major supplier of circuit boards for Apple's iPhone and iPad. According to the report, workers are pressured into 65-hour work weeks which leaves them so exhausted that they often sleep during lunch breaks. They are also made to reside in "primitive, dark and filthy dorms" where they sleep "on plywood, with six to ten workers in each crowded room." Omnipresent security personnel also routinely harass and beat the workers.
In 2019, there were reports stating that some of Foxconn's managers had used rejected parts to build iPhones and that Apple was investigating the issue.
Market power.
The United States Department of Justice also began a review of Big Tech firms to establish whether they could be unlawfully stifling competition in a broad antitrust probe in 2019.
On March 16, 2020, France fined Apple €1.1 billion for colluding with two wholesalers to stifle competition and keep prices high by handicapping independent resellers. The arrangement created aligned prices for Apple products such as iPads and personal computers for about half the French retail market. According to the French regulators, the abuses occurred between 2005 and 2017 but were first discovered after a complaint by an independent reseller, eBizcuss, in 2012.
On August 13, 2020, Epic Games, the maker of the popular game Fortnite, sued Apple and Google after its hugely popular video game was removed from Apple and Google's App Store. The suits come after both Apple and Google blocked the game after it introduced a direct payment system, effectively shutting out the tech titans from collecting fees. In September 2020 Epic Games founded the Coalition for App Fairness together with other thirteen companies, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in the app stores. Later in December 2020, Facebook agreed to assist Epic in their legal game against Apple, planning to support the company by providing materials and documents to Epic. Facebook had, however, stated that the company will not participate directly with the lawsuit, although did commit to helping with the discovery of evidence relating to the trial of 2021. In the months prior to their agreement, Facebook had been dealing with feuds against Apple relating to the prices of paid apps as well as privacy rule changes. Head of ad products for Facebook Dan Levy commented, saying that "this is not really about privacy for them, this is about an attack on personalized ads and the consequences it's going to have on small-business owners," commenting on the full-page ads placed by Facebook in various newspapers in December 2020.
Product-related practices.
Apple's issues regarding music over the years include those with the European Union regarding iTunes, trouble over updating the Spotify app on Apple devices and collusion with record labels.
In 2018–19, Apple faced criticism for its failure to approve Nvidia web drivers for GPUs installed on legacy Mac Pro machines (up to mid 2012 5,1 running macOS Mojave 10.14). Without access to Apple-approved Nvidia web drivers, Apple users faced replacing their Nvidia cards with graphic cards produced by supported brands (such as the AMD Radeon), from a list of recommendations provided by Apple to its consumers.
In June 2019, Apple issued a recall for its 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15" following reports of batteries catching fire. The recall affected 432,000 units, and Apple was criticized for the long waiting periods consumers experienced, sometimes extending up to 3 weeks for replacements to arrive; the company also did not provide alternative replacements or repair options.
In July 2019, following a campaign by the "right to repair" movement, challenging Apple's tech repair restrictions on devices, the FTC held a workshop to establish the framework of a future nationwide Right to Repair rule. The movement argues Apple is preventing consumers from legitimately fixing their devices at local repair shops which is having a negative impact on consumers.
On November 19, 2020, it was announced that Apple will be paying out $113 million related to lawsuits stemming from their iPhone's battery problems and subsequent performance slow-downs. Apple continues to face litigation related to the performance throttling of iPhone 6 and 7 devices, an action that Apple argued was done in order to balance the functionality of the software with the impacts of a chemically aged battery. On January 25, 2021, Apple was hit with another lawsuit from an Italian consumer group, with more groups to follow, despite the rationale for the throttling.
On November 30, 2020, the Italian antitrust authority AGCM fined Apple $12 million for misleading trade practices. AGCM stated that Apple's claims of the iPhone's water resistance weren't true as the phones could only resist water up to 4 meters deep in ideal laboratory conditions and not in regular circumstances. The authority added that Apple provided no assistance to customers with water-damaged phones, which it said constituted an aggressive trade practice.
On September 8, 2022, Brazil announced the ban on the sale of iPhones without power adapters. It has also fined Apple 12.275million reais ($ million). Apple announced it will appeal this decision.
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Anah
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Anah or Ana (, "ʾĀna", ), formerly also known as Anna, is an Iraqi town on the Euphrates river, approximately midway between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Persian Gulf. Anah lies from west to east on the right bank along a bend of the river just before it turns south towards Hit.
Name.
The town was called (d)Ha-na-at in cuneiform texts from the Old Babylonian period, A-na-at by the scribes of Tukulti-Ninurta BC, and An-at by the scribes of Assur-nasir-pal II in 879 BC. The name has been connected with the widely worshipped war goddess Anat. It was known as "Anathō" () to Isidore Charax and "" to Ammianus Marcellinus; early Arabic writers described it variously as "ʾĀna" or (as if plural) "ʾĀnāt".
History.
Middle Bronze.
The earliest references to Anah are probably found in letters of the period of Zimri-Lim of Mari.
Under Hammurapi of Babylon the town was under Babylonian control, being included in the governorate of Sūḫu. Later, the town was under Assyrian rule.
Iron Age.
At the beginning of the 8th century BC, Šamaš-rēša-uṣur and his son Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur succeeded in creating an independent political entity, and called themselves "governors of Sūḫu and Mari". The land of Sūḫu occupied a quite extensive region on the Middle Euphrates, approximately from the area near Falluja in the southeast to the area of Ḫindanu (modern Tell Jabiriyah, near Al-Qa'im) in the northwest. Important evidence for this period was recovered during English and Iraqi salvage excavation campaigns at Sur Jurʿeh and on the island of ʿAna (Anah) in the early 1980s.
Xenophon recorded that the army of Cyrus the Younger resupplied during a campaign in 401 BC at "Charmande" near the end of a 90-parasang march between Korsote and Pylae, which likely intends Anah. It was the site where the Roman emperor Julian first met opposition in his AD 363 expedition against the Sassanid Empire. He got possession of the place and relocated its inhabitants.
Medieval and Ottoman Era.
In 657, during the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Ali's lieutenants Ziyad and Shureih were refused passage across the Euphrates at Anah. Later, in 1058, Anah was the place of exile of the caliph Qaim when al-Basasiri was in power. In the 14th century, Anah was the seat of the catholicos who served as primate over the Persian Christians. Throughout early Islamic rule, it was a prosperous trade town, well known for its date palms and gardens; in the 14th century, Mustafi wrote of the fame of its palm groves. Medieval Arab poets celebrated Anah's wine;
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, Anah served as a headquarters for a host of regional Arab tribes. Starting around 1535, the town served as the de-facto capital of the Abu Rish Bedouin emirs, whom the Ottomans appointed as governors of several ""s (provinces) as well as "çöl beyis" or "desert emirs". In 1574, Leonhart Rauwolff found the town divided into two parts, the Turkish "so surrounded by the river that you cannot go into it but by boats" and the larger Arabian section along one of the banks. In 1610, Texeira said Anah lay on both banks of the river, with which Pietro Della Valle agreed. In that year, Della Valle found the Scot George Strachan resident at Anah, working as the physician to the emir and studying Arabic; he also found some "sun worshippers" (actually Alawites) still living there. Della Valle and Texeira called Anah the principal Arab town on the Euphrates, controlling a major route west from Baghdad and territory reaching Palmyra.
Late Ottoman era.
About 1750, the Ottomans installed a rudimentary administration to run Anah and its district. After roughly a century, a more organized local government was put in place, whereby Anah became the center of a kaza belonging to the Baghdad Vilayet.
At the beginning of the 19th century, G.A. Olivier found only 25 men in service of the local prince, with residents fleeing daily to escape from bedouin attacks against which he offered no protection. He described the city as a single long street of five or six miles along a narrow strip of land between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. W. F. Ainsworth, chronicling the British Euphrates expedition, reported that in 1835 the Arabs inhabited the northwest part of the town, the Christians the center, and the Jews the southeast. The same year, the steamer "Tigris" went down in a storm just above Anah, near where Julian's force had suffered from a similar storm.
By the mid-19th century, the houses were separated from one another by fruit gardens, which also filled the riverine islands near the town. The most easterly island contained a ruined castle, while the ruins of ancient Anatho extended a further two miles along the left bank. It marked the boundary between the olive (north) and date (south) growing regions in the area. With the positioning of Turkish troops in the town around 1890, the locals no longer had to pay blackmail ("") to the bedouins. Through the early 20th century, coarse cotton cloth was the only manufacture. In 1909 Anah had an estimated population of 15,000 and 2,000 houses. Most of the inhabitants were Sunni Muslim Arabs, though a small Jewish community lived on the town's southern edge.
Kingdom of Iraq.
In 1918, the town was captured by British forces and by 1921, became incorporated into the Kingdom of Iraq. It remained an administrative center of a qadaa, part of the larger Ramadi-based liwa of Dulaym. Anah's "qadaa" also included the subdistricts of Hīt, al-Qa'im and Jubba. The townspeople's long feud with the inhabitants of Rawa was settled diplomatically by 1921. Its territory to the west was dominated by the subtribes of Anizzah, while to the east the Jarba branch of the Shammar held sway.
Most of Anah's building were located among a dense belt of date palms and was "reckoned as healthy and picturesque", according to historian S. H. Longrigg. The date palms were irrigated by water wheels. There were also more scattered dwelling in the mid-stream islands of the Euphrates near the town center. The women of the town were well known for their beauty and the weaving of cotton and wool textiles. The men, many of whom were compelled to emigrate to lack of living space, were largely engaged as boatmen and transporters of water to Baghdad. The town had relatively high educational standards, with eight schools built there by 1946.
F. R. Chesney reported about 1800 houses, two mosques, and 16 waterwheels. One minaret is particularly old. Northedge reported the locals commonly attributed it to the 11th century but opined that it was more likely from about a century after that. It rose from one of the islands and belonged to the local mosque. Dr. Muayad Said described it as an octagonal body "enhanced by alcoves, some of which are blind" and noted earlier conservation work undertaken in 1935, 1963 and 1964. When the valley was flooded by the Haditha Dam in 1984/85, the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities cut it into sections and removed it to the new Anah, where it was re-erected to a height of at the end of the 1980s.
ISIS captured the town in 2014. On September 19, 2017, an offensive to retake the town from ISIS control began. After two days of fighting the town was recaptured by the Iraqi army.
Middle Bronze.
The earliest references to Anah are probably found in letters of the period of Zimri-Lim of Mari.
Under Hammurapi of Babylon the town was under Babylonian control, being included in the governorate of Sūḫu. Later, the town was under Assyrian rule.
Iron Age.
At the beginning of the 8th century BC, Šamaš-rēša-uṣur and his son Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur succeeded in creating an independent political entity, and called themselves "governors of Sūḫu and Mari". The land of Sūḫu occupied a quite extensive region on the Middle Euphrates, approximately from the area near Falluja in the southeast to the area of Ḫindanu (modern Tell Jabiriyah, near Al-Qa'im) in the northwest. Important evidence for this period was recovered during English and Iraqi salvage excavation campaigns at Sur Jurʿeh and on the island of ʿAna (Anah) in the early 1980s.
Xenophon recorded that the army of Cyrus the Younger resupplied during a campaign in 401 BC at "Charmande" near the end of a 90-parasang march between Korsote and Pylae, which likely intends Anah. It was the site where the Roman emperor Julian first met opposition in his AD 363 expedition against the Sassanid Empire. He got possession of the place and relocated its inhabitants.
Medieval and Ottoman Era.
In 657, during the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Ali's lieutenants Ziyad and Shureih were refused passage across the Euphrates at Anah. Later, in 1058, Anah was the place of exile of the caliph Qaim when al-Basasiri was in power. In the 14th century, Anah was the seat of the catholicos who served as primate over the Persian Christians. Throughout early Islamic rule, it was a prosperous trade town, well known for its date palms and gardens; in the 14th century, Mustafi wrote of the fame of its palm groves. Medieval Arab poets celebrated Anah's wine;
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, Anah served as a headquarters for a host of regional Arab tribes. Starting around 1535, the town served as the de-facto capital of the Abu Rish Bedouin emirs, whom the Ottomans appointed as governors of several ""s (provinces) as well as "çöl beyis" or "desert emirs". In 1574, Leonhart Rauwolff found the town divided into two parts, the Turkish "so surrounded by the river that you cannot go into it but by boats" and the larger Arabian section along one of the banks. In 1610, Texeira said Anah lay on both banks of the river, with which Pietro Della Valle agreed. In that year, Della Valle found the Scot George Strachan resident at Anah, working as the physician to the emir and studying Arabic; he also found some "sun worshippers" (actually Alawites) still living there. Della Valle and Texeira called Anah the principal Arab town on the Euphrates, controlling a major route west from Baghdad and territory reaching Palmyra.
Late Ottoman era.
About 1750, the Ottomans installed a rudimentary administration to run Anah and its district. After roughly a century, a more organized local government was put in place, whereby Anah became the center of a kaza belonging to the Baghdad Vilayet.
At the beginning of the 19th century, G.A. Olivier found only 25 men in service of the local prince, with residents fleeing daily to escape from bedouin attacks against which he offered no protection. He described the city as a single long street of five or six miles along a narrow strip of land between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. W. F. Ainsworth, chronicling the British Euphrates expedition, reported that in 1835 the Arabs inhabited the northwest part of the town, the Christians the center, and the Jews the southeast. The same year, the steamer "Tigris" went down in a storm just above Anah, near where Julian's force had suffered from a similar storm.
By the mid-19th century, the houses were separated from one another by fruit gardens, which also filled the riverine islands near the town. The most easterly island contained a ruined castle, while the ruins of ancient Anatho extended a further two miles along the left bank. It marked the boundary between the olive (north) and date (south) growing regions in the area. With the positioning of Turkish troops in the town around 1890, the locals no longer had to pay blackmail ("") to the bedouins. Through the early 20th century, coarse cotton cloth was the only manufacture. In 1909 Anah had an estimated population of 15,000 and 2,000 houses. Most of the inhabitants were Sunni Muslim Arabs, though a small Jewish community lived on the town's southern edge.
Late Ottoman era.
About 1750, the Ottomans installed a rudimentary administration to run Anah and its district. After roughly a century, a more organized local government was put in place, whereby Anah became the center of a kaza belonging to the Baghdad Vilayet.
At the beginning of the 19th century, G.A. Olivier found only 25 men in service of the local prince, with residents fleeing daily to escape from bedouin attacks against which he offered no protection. He described the city as a single long street of five or six miles along a narrow strip of land between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. W. F. Ainsworth, chronicling the British Euphrates expedition, reported that in 1835 the Arabs inhabited the northwest part of the town, the Christians the center, and the Jews the southeast. The same year, the steamer "Tigris" went down in a storm just above Anah, near where Julian's force had suffered from a similar storm.
By the mid-19th century, the houses were separated from one another by fruit gardens, which also filled the riverine islands near the town. The most easterly island contained a ruined castle, while the ruins of ancient Anatho extended a further two miles along the left bank. It marked the boundary between the olive (north) and date (south) growing regions in the area. With the positioning of Turkish troops in the town around 1890, the locals no longer had to pay blackmail ("") to the bedouins. Through the early 20th century, coarse cotton cloth was the only manufacture. In 1909 Anah had an estimated population of 15,000 and 2,000 houses. Most of the inhabitants were Sunni Muslim Arabs, though a small Jewish community lived on the town's southern edge.
Kingdom of Iraq.
In 1918, the town was captured by British forces and by 1921, became incorporated into the Kingdom of Iraq. It remained an administrative center of a qadaa, part of the larger Ramadi-based liwa of Dulaym. Anah's "qadaa" also included the subdistricts of Hīt, al-Qa'im and Jubba. The townspeople's long feud with the inhabitants of Rawa was settled diplomatically by 1921. Its territory to the west was dominated by the subtribes of Anizzah, while to the east the Jarba branch of the Shammar held sway.
Most of Anah's building were located among a dense belt of date palms and was "reckoned as healthy and picturesque", according to historian S. H. Longrigg. The date palms were irrigated by water wheels. There were also more scattered dwelling in the mid-stream islands of the Euphrates near the town center. The women of the town were well known for their beauty and the weaving of cotton and wool textiles. The men, many of whom were compelled to emigrate to lack of living space, were largely engaged as boatmen and transporters of water to Baghdad. The town had relatively high educational standards, with eight schools built there by 1946.
F. R. Chesney reported about 1800 houses, two mosques, and 16 waterwheels. One minaret is particularly old. Northedge reported the locals commonly attributed it to the 11th century but opined that it was more likely from about a century after that. It rose from one of the islands and belonged to the local mosque. Dr. Muayad Said described it as an octagonal body "enhanced by alcoves, some of which are blind" and noted earlier conservation work undertaken in 1935, 1963 and 1964. When the valley was flooded by the Haditha Dam in 1984/85, the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities cut it into sections and removed it to the new Anah, where it was re-erected to a height of at the end of the 1980s.
ISIS captured the town in 2014. On September 19, 2017, an offensive to retake the town from ISIS control began. After two days of fighting the town was recaptured by the Iraqi army.
Climate.
Anah has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh"). Most rain falls in the winter. The average annual temperature in Anah is . About of precipitation falls annually.
References.
Attribution:
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1738
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Anaxarchus
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Anaxarchus (; ; ) was a Greek philosopher of the school of Democritus. Together with Pyrrho, he accompanied Alexander the Great into Asia. The reports of his philosophical views suggest that he was a forerunner of Pyrrhonism. Aelian writes that he was called Eudaemonicus or "Happy Man" ().
Life.
Anaxarchus was born at Abdera in Thrace. He was the companion and friend of Alexander the Great in his Asiatic campaigns. According to Diogenes Laërtius, in response to Alexander's claim to have been the son of Zeus-Ammon, Anaxarchus pointed to his bleeding wound and remarked, "See the blood of a mortal, not ichor, such as flows from the veins of the immortal gods." Aelian, writes that Anaxarchus laughed at Alexander for making himself a god and said, "The hopes of our god are in a porringer of broth", when the physician prescribed a broth to Alexander.
Arrian tells a story that at Bactra, in 327 BC, he advised all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime, as they would surely do it after he died.
When Alexander was trying to show that he is divine so that the Macedonians would perform proskynesis to him, Anaxarchus said that Alexander could "more justly be considered a god than Dionysus or Heracles", as Dionysus was Theban while Heracles was Alexander's non-Macedonian ancestor.
Diogenes Laërtius says that Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, commanded him to be pounded to death in a mortar, and that he endured this torture with fortitude. Cicero relates the same story.
Philosophy.
Very little is known about his philosophical views. It is thought that he represents a link between the atomism of Democritus, and the skepticism of Pyrrho.
Anaxarchus is said to have studied under Diogenes of Smyrna, whose teachings were said to be the same as those of Democritus' student Protagoras. Diogenes studied under Metrodorus of Chios, who used to declare that he knew nothing, not even the fact that he knew nothing. According to Sextus Empiricus, Anaxarchus "compared existing things to a scene-painting and supposed them to resemble the impressions experienced in sleep or madness." Anaxarchus's student Pyrrho is said to have adopted "a most noble philosophy, … taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement." Anaxarchus is said to have praised Pyrrho's "indifference and sang-froid." Anaxarchus is said to have possessed "fortitude and contentment in life," which earned him the epithet "eudaimonikos" ("fortunate"), which may imply that he held the end of life to be "eudaimonia."
Plutarch reports that he told Alexander the Great that there were an infinite number of worlds, leading Alexander to weep, for he had not yet conquered even one.
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1623
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Andrew Jackson
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Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Although often praised as an advocate for ordinary Americans and for his work in preserving the union of states, Jackson has also been criticized for his racial policies, particularly his treatment of Native Americans.
Jackson was born in the colonial Carolinas before the American Revolutionary War. He became a frontier lawyer and married Rachel Donelson Robards. He briefly served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, representing Tennessee. After resigning, he served as a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1798 until 1804. Jackson purchased a property later known as the Hermitage, becoming a wealthy planter who owned hundreds of African American slaves. In 1801, he was appointed colonel of the Tennessee militia and was elected its commander the following year. He led troops during the Creek War of 1813–1814, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The subsequent Treaty of Fort Jackson required the Creek to surrender vast tracts of present-day Alabama and Georgia. In the concurrent war against the British, Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He later commanded U.S. forces in the First Seminole War, which led to the annexation of Florida from Spain. Jackson briefly served as Florida's first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in 1824, winning a plurality of the popular and electoral vote, but no candidate won an electoral majority. In a contingent election, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams with Henry Clay's support. Jackson's supporters alleged that there was a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay and began creating their own political organization that would eventually become the Democratic Party.
Jackson ran again in 1828, defeating Adams in a landslide. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act. This act, which has been described as ethnic cleansing, displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi and resulted in thousands of deaths. Under Jackson, the integrity of the federal union was challenged when South Carolina threatened to nullify a high protective tariff set by the federal government. He threatened the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but the crisis was defused when it was amended. In 1832, he vetoed a bill by Congress to reauthorize the Second Bank of the United States, arguing that it was a corrupt institution that benefited the wealthy. After a lengthy struggle, he and his allies dismantled the Bank. In 1835, Jackson became the only president to pay off the national debt. He also survived the first assassination attempt on a sitting president. In one of his final presidential acts, he recognized the Republic of Texas.
In his retirement, Jackson stayed active in politics. He supported the presidencies of Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, as well as the annexation of Texas, which was accomplished shortly before his death. Jackson's legacy remains controversial, and opinions on him are frequently polarized. He has been seen as a defender of democracy and the constitution and also been called a demagogue who ignored the law when it suited him. His opposition towards abolition and his role in the destruction of Native American societies continue to be topics of debate. Jackson generally ranks high in ratings of U.S. presidents, although his rankings have declined in the 21st century.
Early life and education.
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws region of the Carolinas. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Hutchinson, Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ulster, Ireland in 1765. Jackson's father was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, around 1738, and his ancestors had crossed into Northern Ireland from Scotland after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Jackson had two older brothers who came with his parents from Ireland, Hugh (born 1763) and Robert (born 1764).
Jackson's exact birthplace is unclear. Jackson's father died at the age of 29 in a logging accident while clearing land in February 1767, three weeks before his son Andrew was born. Afterwards, Elizabeth and her three sons moved in with her sister and brother-in-law, Jane and James Crawford. Jackson later stated that he was born on the Crawford plantation, which is in Lancaster County, South Carolina, but second-hand evidence suggests that he might have been born at another uncle's home in North Carolina.
When Jackson was young, Elizabeth thought he might become a minister and paid to have him schooled by a local clergyman. He learned to read, write, work with numbers, and was exposed to Greek and Latin, but he was too strong-willed and hot-tempered for the ministry.
Revolutionary War service.
Jackson and his older brothers, Hugh and Robert, performed military service against the British during the Revolutionary War. Hugh served with Colonel William Richardson Davie, dying from heat exhaustion after the Battle of Stono Ferry in June 1779. After anti-British sentiment intensified following the Waxhaws Massacre on May 29, 1780, Elizabeth encouraged Andrew and Robert to participate in militia drills. They served as couriers and scouts, and participated with Davie in the Battle of Hanging Rock on August 6, 1780.
Andrew and Robert were captured in April 1781 when the British occupied the home of a Crawford relative. The British officer in command demanded to have his boots polished. Andrew refused, and the officer slashed him with a sword, leaving him with scars on his left hand and head. Robert also refused and was struck a blow on the head. The brothers were taken to a prison camp in Camden, where they were malnourished and contracted smallpox. In late spring, the brothers were released to their mother in an exchange. Robert died two days after arriving home, but Elizabeth was able to nurse Andrew back to health. Once he recovered, Elizabeth volunteered to nurse American prisoners of war housed in British prison ships in the Charleston harbor. She contracted cholera and died soon afterwards. She was buried in an unmarked grave. The war not only made Jackson an orphan at age 14, it led him to despise values he associated with Britain, particularly aristocracy and political privilege.
Early career.
Legal career and marriage.
After the Revolutionary War, Jackson worked as a saddler, briefly returned to school, and taught reading and writing to children. In 1784, he left the Waxhaws region for Salisbury, North Carolina, where he studied law under attorney Spruce Macay. He completed his training under John Stokes, and was admitted to the North Carolina bar in September 1787. Shortly thereafter, his friend John McNairy helped him get appointed as a prosecuting attorney in the Western District of North Carolina, which would later become the state of Tennessee. While traveling to assume his new position, Jackson stopped in Jonesborough. While there, he bought his first slave, a woman who was around his age. He also fought his first duel, accusing another lawyer, Waightstill Avery, of impugning his character. The duel ended with both men firing in the air.
Jackson began his new career in the frontier town of Nashville in 1788 and quickly moved up in social status. He became a protégé of William Blount, one of the most powerful men in the territory. Jackson was appointed attorney general in 1791 and judge advocate for the militia the following year. He also got involved in land speculation, eventually forming a partnership with fellow lawyer John Overton. Their partnership mainly dealt with claims made under a 'land grab' act of 1783 that opened Cherokee and Chickasaw territory to North Carolina's white residents.
While boarding at the home of Rachel Stockly Donelson, the widow of John Donelson, Jackson became acquainted with their daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. The younger Rachel was in an unhappy marriage with Captain Lewis Robards, and the two were separated by 1789. After the separation, Jackson and Rachel became romantically involved, living together as husband and wife. Robards petitioned for divorce, which was granted on the basis of Rachel's infidelity. The couple legally married in January 1794. In 1796, they acquired their first plantation, Hunter's Hill, on of land near Nashville.
Early public career.
Jackson became a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, the dominant party in Tennessee. He was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention in 1796. When Tennessee achieved statehood that year, he was elected to be its U.S. representative. In Congress, Jackson argued against the Jay Treaty, criticized George Washington for allegedly removing Democratic-Republicans from public office, and joined several other Democratic-Republican congressmen in voting against a resolution of thanks for Washington. He advocated for the right of Tennesseans to militarily oppose Native American interests. The state legislature elected him to be a U.S. senator in 1797, but he resigned after serving only six months.
Upon returning to Tennessee, Jackson was elected as a judge of the Tennessee superior court.
In 1802, he also became major general, or commander, of the Tennessee militia, a position that was determined by a vote of the militia's officers. The vote was tied between Jackson and John Sevier, a popular Revolutionary War veteran and former governor, but the current state governor, Archibald Roane, broke the tie in Jackson's favor. Jackson later accused Sevier of fraud and bribery. Sevier responded by impugning Rachel's honor, resulting in a shootout on a public street. Soon afterwards, they met to duel, but parted without having fired at each other.
Planting career and slavery.
Jackson resigned his judgeship in 1804. He had almost gone bankrupt when the credit he used for land speculation collapsed in the wake of an earlier financial panic. He had to sell Hunters Hill, as well as of land he bought for speculation, and bought a smaller plantation near Nashville that he would call the Hermitage. He focused on recovering from his losses by becoming a successful planter and merchant. The Hermitage would grow to , making it one of the largest cotton-growing plantations in the state.
Like most planters in the Southern United States, Jackson used slave labor. In 1804, Jackson had nine African American slaves; by 1820, he had over 100; and by his death in 1845, he had over 150. Over his lifetime, he owned a total of 300 slaves. Jackson subscribed to the paternalistic idea of slavery, which claimed that slave ownership was morally acceptable as long as slaves were treated with humanity and their basic needs were cared for. In practice, slaves were treated as a form of wealth whose productivity needed to be protected. Slaves who disobeyed or ran away could be harshly punished. For example, in an 1804 advertisement to recover a runaway slave, Jackson offered "ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred". Jackson also participated in the local slave trade. Over time, his accumulation of wealth in both slaves and land placed him among the elite families of Tennessee.
Duel with Dickinson and adventure with Burr.
In May 1806, Jackson fought a duel with Charles Dickinson. They had gotten into an argument over a horse race, and Dickinson allegedly uttered a slur against Rachel. During the duel, Dickinson fired first, and the bullet hit Jackson in the chest. The wound was not life-threatening because the bullet had shattered against his breastbone. Jackson returned fire and killed Dickinson. The killing tarnished Jackson's reputation.
Later in the year, Jackson became involved in former vice president Aaron Burr's plan to conquer Spanish Florida and drive the Spanish from Texas. Jackson had first gotten to know Burr in 1805 when he stayed with the Jacksons at the Hermitage during a tour of what was then the Western United States that he had embarked on after mortally wounding Alexander Hamilton in the infamous Burr–Hamilton duel. Burr eventually persuaded Jackson to join his adventure. In October 1806, Jackson wrote James Winchester that the United States "can conquer not only the Floridas [at that time there was an East Florida and a West Florida], but all Spanish North America". He informed the Tennessee militia that it should be ready to march at a moment's notice "when the government and constituted authority of our country require it", and agreed to provide boats and provisions for the expedition. Jackson sent a letter to president Thomas Jefferson telling him that Tennessee was ready to defend the nation's honor.
Jackson also expressed uncertainty about the enterprise. He warned the Governor of Louisiana William Claiborne and Tennessee Senator Daniel Smith that some of the people involved in the adventure might be intending to break away from the United States. In December, Jefferson ordered Burr to be arrested for treason. Jackson, safe from arrest because of his extensive paper trail, organized the militia to capture the conspirators. Jackson testified before a grand jury at Burr's trial in 1807, implying that it was Burr's associate James Wilkinson who was guilty of treason, not Burr. Burr was acquitted of the charges.
Legal career and marriage.
After the Revolutionary War, Jackson worked as a saddler, briefly returned to school, and taught reading and writing to children. In 1784, he left the Waxhaws region for Salisbury, North Carolina, where he studied law under attorney Spruce Macay. He completed his training under John Stokes, and was admitted to the North Carolina bar in September 1787. Shortly thereafter, his friend John McNairy helped him get appointed as a prosecuting attorney in the Western District of North Carolina, which would later become the state of Tennessee. While traveling to assume his new position, Jackson stopped in Jonesborough. While there, he bought his first slave, a woman who was around his age. He also fought his first duel, accusing another lawyer, Waightstill Avery, of impugning his character. The duel ended with both men firing in the air.
Jackson began his new career in the frontier town of Nashville in 1788 and quickly moved up in social status. He became a protégé of William Blount, one of the most powerful men in the territory. Jackson was appointed attorney general in 1791 and judge advocate for the militia the following year. He also got involved in land speculation, eventually forming a partnership with fellow lawyer John Overton. Their partnership mainly dealt with claims made under a 'land grab' act of 1783 that opened Cherokee and Chickasaw territory to North Carolina's white residents.
While boarding at the home of Rachel Stockly Donelson, the widow of John Donelson, Jackson became acquainted with their daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. The younger Rachel was in an unhappy marriage with Captain Lewis Robards, and the two were separated by 1789. After the separation, Jackson and Rachel became romantically involved, living together as husband and wife. Robards petitioned for divorce, which was granted on the basis of Rachel's infidelity. The couple legally married in January 1794. In 1796, they acquired their first plantation, Hunter's Hill, on of land near Nashville.
Early public career.
Jackson became a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, the dominant party in Tennessee. He was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention in 1796. When Tennessee achieved statehood that year, he was elected to be its U.S. representative. In Congress, Jackson argued against the Jay Treaty, criticized George Washington for allegedly removing Democratic-Republicans from public office, and joined several other Democratic-Republican congressmen in voting against a resolution of thanks for Washington. He advocated for the right of Tennesseans to militarily oppose Native American interests. The state legislature elected him to be a U.S. senator in 1797, but he resigned after serving only six months.
Upon returning to Tennessee, Jackson was elected as a judge of the Tennessee superior court.
In 1802, he also became major general, or commander, of the Tennessee militia, a position that was determined by a vote of the militia's officers. The vote was tied between Jackson and John Sevier, a popular Revolutionary War veteran and former governor, but the current state governor, Archibald Roane, broke the tie in Jackson's favor. Jackson later accused Sevier of fraud and bribery. Sevier responded by impugning Rachel's honor, resulting in a shootout on a public street. Soon afterwards, they met to duel, but parted without having fired at each other.
Planting career and slavery.
Jackson resigned his judgeship in 1804. He had almost gone bankrupt when the credit he used for land speculation collapsed in the wake of an earlier financial panic. He had to sell Hunters Hill, as well as of land he bought for speculation, and bought a smaller plantation near Nashville that he would call the Hermitage. He focused on recovering from his losses by becoming a successful planter and merchant. The Hermitage would grow to , making it one of the largest cotton-growing plantations in the state.
Like most planters in the Southern United States, Jackson used slave labor. In 1804, Jackson had nine African American slaves; by 1820, he had over 100; and by his death in 1845, he had over 150. Over his lifetime, he owned a total of 300 slaves. Jackson subscribed to the paternalistic idea of slavery, which claimed that slave ownership was morally acceptable as long as slaves were treated with humanity and their basic needs were cared for. In practice, slaves were treated as a form of wealth whose productivity needed to be protected. Slaves who disobeyed or ran away could be harshly punished. For example, in an 1804 advertisement to recover a runaway slave, Jackson offered "ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred". Jackson also participated in the local slave trade. Over time, his accumulation of wealth in both slaves and land placed him among the elite families of Tennessee.
Duel with Dickinson and adventure with Burr.
In May 1806, Jackson fought a duel with Charles Dickinson. They had gotten into an argument over a horse race, and Dickinson allegedly uttered a slur against Rachel. During the duel, Dickinson fired first, and the bullet hit Jackson in the chest. The wound was not life-threatening because the bullet had shattered against his breastbone. Jackson returned fire and killed Dickinson. The killing tarnished Jackson's reputation.
Later in the year, Jackson became involved in former vice president Aaron Burr's plan to conquer Spanish Florida and drive the Spanish from Texas. Jackson had first gotten to know Burr in 1805 when he stayed with the Jacksons at the Hermitage during a tour of what was then the Western United States that he had embarked on after mortally wounding Alexander Hamilton in the infamous Burr–Hamilton duel. Burr eventually persuaded Jackson to join his adventure. In October 1806, Jackson wrote James Winchester that the United States "can conquer not only the Floridas [at that time there was an East Florida and a West Florida], but all Spanish North America". He informed the Tennessee militia that it should be ready to march at a moment's notice "when the government and constituted authority of our country require it", and agreed to provide boats and provisions for the expedition. Jackson sent a letter to president Thomas Jefferson telling him that Tennessee was ready to defend the nation's honor.
Jackson also expressed uncertainty about the enterprise. He warned the Governor of Louisiana William Claiborne and Tennessee Senator Daniel Smith that some of the people involved in the adventure might be intending to break away from the United States. In December, Jefferson ordered Burr to be arrested for treason. Jackson, safe from arrest because of his extensive paper trail, organized the militia to capture the conspirators. Jackson testified before a grand jury at Burr's trial in 1807, implying that it was Burr's associate James Wilkinson who was guilty of treason, not Burr. Burr was acquitted of the charges.
Military career.
War of 1812.
Creek War.
On June 18, 1812, the United States Congress declared war on the United Kingdom. The causes of the War of 1812 were primarily about maritime issues, but for the white settlers on the southern frontier, the war provided an opportunity to prevent continued Native American resistance to settlement on their lands, and to undermine British support of the Native American tribes, and to pry Florida from the Spanish.
Jackson immediately offered to raise volunteers for the war, but he was not called to duty until after the United States military was repeatedly defeated in the American Northwest. After these defeats, in January 1813, Jackson enlisted over 2,000 volunteers, who were ordered to head to New Orleans to defend against a British attack. When his forces arrived at Natchez, they were ordered to halt by General Wilkinson, the commander at New Orleans and the man Jackson accused of treason after the Burr adventure. A little later, Jackson received a letter from the Secretary of War, John Armstrong, stating that his volunteers were not needed, and that they were to be disbanded and any supplies were to be handed over to Wilkinson. Jackson refused to disband his troops; instead, he led them on the difficult march back to Nashville, earning the nickname "Hickory" (later "Old Hickory") for his toughness.
After returning to Nashville, Jackson and one of his colonels, John Coffee, got into a street brawl over honor with the brothers Jesse and Thomas Hart Benton. Nobody was killed, but Jackson received a gunshot in the shoulder that nearly killed him.
Jackson had not fully recovered from his wounds when Governor Blount called out the militia in September 1813. A faction of Muscogee (Creek) known as the "Red Sticks" had broken away from the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, which wanted to maintain peace with the United States. The Red Sticks, led by William Weatherford (also called Red Eagle) and Peter McQueen, had allied with Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief who was fighting with the British against the United States. Earlier in the summer, a party of Red Sticks had gone to Pensacola to pick up supplies from the Spanish. During their return, they defeated an ambush at Burnt Corn Creek by American militia. On August 30, the Red Sticks avenged the ambush by attacking Fort Mims, a stockade inhabited by both white Americans and their Creek allies. They killed about 250 militia men and civilians. The attack became known as the Fort Mims massacre.
Jackson's objective was to destroy the Red Sticks. He headed south from Fayetteville, Tennessee in October with 2,500 militia, establishing Fort Strother as his supply base. He sent his cavalry under General Coffee ahead of the main force, destroying Red Stick villages and capturing supplies. On November 3, Coffee defeated a band of Red Sticks at the Battle of Tallushatchee. Later in the month, Jackson defeated another band of Red Sticks who were besieging Creek allies at the Battle of Talladega.
By January 1814, the expiration of enlistments and desertion had reduced Jackson's force by about 1,000 volunteers and Creek allies. Even with this reduced force, Jackson continued the offensive. The Red Sticks counterattacked at the Battles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek. Though outnumbered, Jackson repelled the attacks, but he was forced to withdraw to Fort Strother. After Jackson's army was reinforced by further recruitment, including a regular army unit, the 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel John Williams, their combined forces confronted the Red Sticks at a fort they had constructed at a bend in the Tallapoosa River. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend was fought on March 27. Jackson's forces—including Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek allies–numbered over 3,000 men; the Red Sticks had about 1,000. The Red Sticks were overwhelmed and massacred. Over 800 Red Sticks were killed, and nearly 300 Red Stick women and children were taken prisoner and distributed to Jackson's Native American allies.
After the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, the power of the Red Sticks was broken. Jackson continued his scorched-earth campaign of burning villages, destroying supplies, and starving Red Stick women and children. The campaign ended when Weatherford surrendered, although some Red Sticks, including McQueen, fled to East Florida. On June 8, Jackson was appointed a brigadier general in the United States Army, and 10 days later was made a brevet major general with command of the Seventh Military District, which included Tennessee, Louisiana, the Mississippi Territory, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. With President James Madison's approval, Jackson imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The treaty required all Creek, including those who had remained allies, to surrender of land to the United States.
Jackson then turned his attention to the British and Spanish. He moved his forces to Mobile, Alabama in August. He accused the Spanish governor of West Florida, Mateo González Manrique, of arming the Red Sticks and threatened to attack. The governor responded by inviting the British to land at Pensacola to defend it, which violated Spanish neutrality. The British attempted to capture Mobile, but their invasion fleet was repulsed at Fort Bowyer, located at the mouth of Mobile Bay. Jackson then invaded Florida, defeating the Spanish and British forces at the Battle of Pensacola on November 7. Afterwards, the Spanish surrendered and the British withdrew. Weeks later, Jackson learned that the British were planning an attack on New Orleans, which was the gateway to the Lower Mississippi River and control of the American West. He evacuated Pensacola, strengthened the garrison at Mobile, and led his troops to New Orleans.
Battle of New Orleans.
Jackson arrived in New Orleans on December 1, 1814. There he instituted martial law because he worried about the loyalty of the city's Creole and Spanish inhabitants. He augmented his force by forming an alliance with Jean Lafitte's smugglers and raising units of free African Americans and Creek, paying non-white volunteers the same salary as whites. This gave Jackson a force of about 5,000 men when the British arrived.
The British arrived in New Orleans in mid-December. Admiral Cochrane was the overall commander of the operation; General Edward Pakenham commanded the army of 10,000 soldiers, many of whom had served in the Napoleonic Wars. As the British advanced up the east bank of the Mississippi River, Jackson constructed a fortified position to block them. The climactic battle took place on January 8 when the British launched a frontal assault. Their troops made easy targets for the Americans protected by their parapets, and the attack ended in disaster. General Packenham was killed and the British suffered over 2,000 casualties; the Americans had suffered about 60 casualties.
The British decamped from New Orleans at the end of January, but they still remained a threat. Jackson refused to lift martial law and kept the militia under arms. He approved the execution of six militiamen for desertion. Some Creoles registered as French citizens with the French consul and demanded to be discharged from the militia due to their foreign nationality. Jackson then ordered all French citizens to leave the city within three days, and had a member of the Louisiana legislature, Louis Louaillier, arrested when he wrote a newspaper article criticizing Jackson's continuation of martial law. U.S. District Court Judge Dominic A. Hall signed a writ of "habeas corpus" for Louailler's release. Jackson had Hall arrested too. A military court ordered Louiallier's release, but Jackson kept him in prison and evicted Hall from the city. Although Jackson lifted martial law when he received official word that the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war with the British, had been signed, his previous behavior tainted his reputation in New Orleans.
Jackson's victory made him a national hero, and on February 27, 1815, he was given the Thanks of Congress and awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Though the Treaty of Ghent had been signed in December 1814 before the Battle of New Orleans was fought, Jackson's victory assured that the United States control of the region between Mobile and New Orleans would not be effectively contested by European powers. This control allowed the American government to ignore one of the articles in the treaty, which would have returned the Creek lands taken in the Treaty of Fort Jackson.
First Seminole War.
Following the war, Jackson remained in command of troops in the southern half of the United States and was permitted to make his headquarters at the Hermitage. Jackson continued to displace the Native Americans in areas under his command. Despite resistance from the Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford who tried to help the Native Americans retain their land, Jackson signed five treaties with the Cherokee and Chickasaw between 1816 and 1820 that ceded tens of millions of acres of land to the United States.
Jackson would soon find himself embroiled in another conflict in the Floridas. One source of conflict was the presence of a group of Native American people, known collectively as the Seminoles, who straddled the border between the U.S. and Florida and were in constant conflict with white settlers. Another source was the presence of runaway slaves in Florida. When the War of 1812 ended, the British turned a fort in Northern Florida over to runaway slaves, who they armed, trained and drilled to defend themselves. Negro Fort, as it came to be called, had a garrison of about 300 African Americans and protected about 1000 others living in its vicinity. The fort became a magnet for runaway slaves from both the United States and Spanish Florida, representing a threat to the property rights of slave owners, and heightened fears of slave insurrection. Jackson ordered the fort captured. This was done in July 1816 by Colonel Duncan Clinch, who destroyed the fort and killed most of the garrison. The survivors were returned to slavery.
These skirmishes, the problem of runaway slaves, and Spanish weakness became the focus of President James Monroe's administration, leading to what became known as the First Seminole War. In December 1817, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered Jackson to lead a campaign "with full power to conduct the war as he may think best". Jackson believed the best way to do this was to seize Florida from Spain once and for all. Before departing, Jackson wrote to Monroe, "Let it be signified to me through any channel ... that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished."
Jackson invaded Florida, captured the Spanish fort of St. Marks, and occupied Pensacola. Seminole and Spanish resistance was effectively ended by May 1818. He also captured two British agents, Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, who had been working with the Seminoles. After a brief trial, Jackson executed both of them, causing a diplomatic incident with the British. Jackson's actions polarized Monroe's cabinet. The occupied territories were returned to Spain. Calhoun wanted him censured for violating the Constitution, since the United States had not declared war on Spain. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams defended him as he thought Jackson's occupation of Pensacola would lead Spain to sell Florida, which Spain did in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819. In February 1819, a congressional investigation exonerated Jackson.
War of 1812.
Creek War.
On June 18, 1812, the United States Congress declared war on the United Kingdom. The causes of the War of 1812 were primarily about maritime issues, but for the white settlers on the southern frontier, the war provided an opportunity to prevent continued Native American resistance to settlement on their lands, and to undermine British support of the Native American tribes, and to pry Florida from the Spanish.
Jackson immediately offered to raise volunteers for the war, but he was not called to duty until after the United States military was repeatedly defeated in the American Northwest. After these defeats, in January 1813, Jackson enlisted over 2,000 volunteers, who were ordered to head to New Orleans to defend against a British attack. When his forces arrived at Natchez, they were ordered to halt by General Wilkinson, the commander at New Orleans and the man Jackson accused of treason after the Burr adventure. A little later, Jackson received a letter from the Secretary of War, John Armstrong, stating that his volunteers were not needed, and that they were to be disbanded and any supplies were to be handed over to Wilkinson. Jackson refused to disband his troops; instead, he led them on the difficult march back to Nashville, earning the nickname "Hickory" (later "Old Hickory") for his toughness.
After returning to Nashville, Jackson and one of his colonels, John Coffee, got into a street brawl over honor with the brothers Jesse and Thomas Hart Benton. Nobody was killed, but Jackson received a gunshot in the shoulder that nearly killed him.
Jackson had not fully recovered from his wounds when Governor Blount called out the militia in September 1813. A faction of Muscogee (Creek) known as the "Red Sticks" had broken away from the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, which wanted to maintain peace with the United States. The Red Sticks, led by William Weatherford (also called Red Eagle) and Peter McQueen, had allied with Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief who was fighting with the British against the United States. Earlier in the summer, a party of Red Sticks had gone to Pensacola to pick up supplies from the Spanish. During their return, they defeated an ambush at Burnt Corn Creek by American militia. On August 30, the Red Sticks avenged the ambush by attacking Fort Mims, a stockade inhabited by both white Americans and their Creek allies. They killed about 250 militia men and civilians. The attack became known as the Fort Mims massacre.
Jackson's objective was to destroy the Red Sticks. He headed south from Fayetteville, Tennessee in October with 2,500 militia, establishing Fort Strother as his supply base. He sent his cavalry under General Coffee ahead of the main force, destroying Red Stick villages and capturing supplies. On November 3, Coffee defeated a band of Red Sticks at the Battle of Tallushatchee. Later in the month, Jackson defeated another band of Red Sticks who were besieging Creek allies at the Battle of Talladega.
By January 1814, the expiration of enlistments and desertion had reduced Jackson's force by about 1,000 volunteers and Creek allies. Even with this reduced force, Jackson continued the offensive. The Red Sticks counterattacked at the Battles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek. Though outnumbered, Jackson repelled the attacks, but he was forced to withdraw to Fort Strother. After Jackson's army was reinforced by further recruitment, including a regular army unit, the 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel John Williams, their combined forces confronted the Red Sticks at a fort they had constructed at a bend in the Tallapoosa River. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend was fought on March 27. Jackson's forces—including Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek allies–numbered over 3,000 men; the Red Sticks had about 1,000. The Red Sticks were overwhelmed and massacred. Over 800 Red Sticks were killed, and nearly 300 Red Stick women and children were taken prisoner and distributed to Jackson's Native American allies.
After the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, the power of the Red Sticks was broken. Jackson continued his scorched-earth campaign of burning villages, destroying supplies, and starving Red Stick women and children. The campaign ended when Weatherford surrendered, although some Red Sticks, including McQueen, fled to East Florida. On June 8, Jackson was appointed a brigadier general in the United States Army, and 10 days later was made a brevet major general with command of the Seventh Military District, which included Tennessee, Louisiana, the Mississippi Territory, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. With President James Madison's approval, Jackson imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The treaty required all Creek, including those who had remained allies, to surrender of land to the United States.
Jackson then turned his attention to the British and Spanish. He moved his forces to Mobile, Alabama in August. He accused the Spanish governor of West Florida, Mateo González Manrique, of arming the Red Sticks and threatened to attack. The governor responded by inviting the British to land at Pensacola to defend it, which violated Spanish neutrality. The British attempted to capture Mobile, but their invasion fleet was repulsed at Fort Bowyer, located at the mouth of Mobile Bay. Jackson then invaded Florida, defeating the Spanish and British forces at the Battle of Pensacola on November 7. Afterwards, the Spanish surrendered and the British withdrew. Weeks later, Jackson learned that the British were planning an attack on New Orleans, which was the gateway to the Lower Mississippi River and control of the American West. He evacuated Pensacola, strengthened the garrison at Mobile, and led his troops to New Orleans.
Battle of New Orleans.
Jackson arrived in New Orleans on December 1, 1814. There he instituted martial law because he worried about the loyalty of the city's Creole and Spanish inhabitants. He augmented his force by forming an alliance with Jean Lafitte's smugglers and raising units of free African Americans and Creek, paying non-white volunteers the same salary as whites. This gave Jackson a force of about 5,000 men when the British arrived.
The British arrived in New Orleans in mid-December. Admiral Cochrane was the overall commander of the operation; General Edward Pakenham commanded the army of 10,000 soldiers, many of whom had served in the Napoleonic Wars. As the British advanced up the east bank of the Mississippi River, Jackson constructed a fortified position to block them. The climactic battle took place on January 8 when the British launched a frontal assault. Their troops made easy targets for the Americans protected by their parapets, and the attack ended in disaster. General Packenham was killed and the British suffered over 2,000 casualties; the Americans had suffered about 60 casualties.
The British decamped from New Orleans at the end of January, but they still remained a threat. Jackson refused to lift martial law and kept the militia under arms. He approved the execution of six militiamen for desertion. Some Creoles registered as French citizens with the French consul and demanded to be discharged from the militia due to their foreign nationality. Jackson then ordered all French citizens to leave the city within three days, and had a member of the Louisiana legislature, Louis Louaillier, arrested when he wrote a newspaper article criticizing Jackson's continuation of martial law. U.S. District Court Judge Dominic A. Hall signed a writ of "habeas corpus" for Louailler's release. Jackson had Hall arrested too. A military court ordered Louiallier's release, but Jackson kept him in prison and evicted Hall from the city. Although Jackson lifted martial law when he received official word that the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war with the British, had been signed, his previous behavior tainted his reputation in New Orleans.
Jackson's victory made him a national hero, and on February 27, 1815, he was given the Thanks of Congress and awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Though the Treaty of Ghent had been signed in December 1814 before the Battle of New Orleans was fought, Jackson's victory assured that the United States control of the region between Mobile and New Orleans would not be effectively contested by European powers. This control allowed the American government to ignore one of the articles in the treaty, which would have returned the Creek lands taken in the Treaty of Fort Jackson.
Creek War.
On June 18, 1812, the United States Congress declared war on the United Kingdom. The causes of the War of 1812 were primarily about maritime issues, but for the white settlers on the southern frontier, the war provided an opportunity to prevent continued Native American resistance to settlement on their lands, and to undermine British support of the Native American tribes, and to pry Florida from the Spanish.
Jackson immediately offered to raise volunteers for the war, but he was not called to duty until after the United States military was repeatedly defeated in the American Northwest. After these defeats, in January 1813, Jackson enlisted over 2,000 volunteers, who were ordered to head to New Orleans to defend against a British attack. When his forces arrived at Natchez, they were ordered to halt by General Wilkinson, the commander at New Orleans and the man Jackson accused of treason after the Burr adventure. A little later, Jackson received a letter from the Secretary of War, John Armstrong, stating that his volunteers were not needed, and that they were to be disbanded and any supplies were to be handed over to Wilkinson. Jackson refused to disband his troops; instead, he led them on the difficult march back to Nashville, earning the nickname "Hickory" (later "Old Hickory") for his toughness.
After returning to Nashville, Jackson and one of his colonels, John Coffee, got into a street brawl over honor with the brothers Jesse and Thomas Hart Benton. Nobody was killed, but Jackson received a gunshot in the shoulder that nearly killed him.
Jackson had not fully recovered from his wounds when Governor Blount called out the militia in September 1813. A faction of Muscogee (Creek) known as the "Red Sticks" had broken away from the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, which wanted to maintain peace with the United States. The Red Sticks, led by William Weatherford (also called Red Eagle) and Peter McQueen, had allied with Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief who was fighting with the British against the United States. Earlier in the summer, a party of Red Sticks had gone to Pensacola to pick up supplies from the Spanish. During their return, they defeated an ambush at Burnt Corn Creek by American militia. On August 30, the Red Sticks avenged the ambush by attacking Fort Mims, a stockade inhabited by both white Americans and their Creek allies. They killed about 250 militia men and civilians. The attack became known as the Fort Mims massacre.
Jackson's objective was to destroy the Red Sticks. He headed south from Fayetteville, Tennessee in October with 2,500 militia, establishing Fort Strother as his supply base. He sent his cavalry under General Coffee ahead of the main force, destroying Red Stick villages and capturing supplies. On November 3, Coffee defeated a band of Red Sticks at the Battle of Tallushatchee. Later in the month, Jackson defeated another band of Red Sticks who were besieging Creek allies at the Battle of Talladega.
By January 1814, the expiration of enlistments and desertion had reduced Jackson's force by about 1,000 volunteers and Creek allies. Even with this reduced force, Jackson continued the offensive. The Red Sticks counterattacked at the Battles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek. Though outnumbered, Jackson repelled the attacks, but he was forced to withdraw to Fort Strother. After Jackson's army was reinforced by further recruitment, including a regular army unit, the 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel John Williams, their combined forces confronted the Red Sticks at a fort they had constructed at a bend in the Tallapoosa River. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend was fought on March 27. Jackson's forces—including Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek allies–numbered over 3,000 men; the Red Sticks had about 1,000. The Red Sticks were overwhelmed and massacred. Over 800 Red Sticks were killed, and nearly 300 Red Stick women and children were taken prisoner and distributed to Jackson's Native American allies.
After the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, the power of the Red Sticks was broken. Jackson continued his scorched-earth campaign of burning villages, destroying supplies, and starving Red Stick women and children. The campaign ended when Weatherford surrendered, although some Red Sticks, including McQueen, fled to East Florida. On June 8, Jackson was appointed a brigadier general in the United States Army, and 10 days later was made a brevet major general with command of the Seventh Military District, which included Tennessee, Louisiana, the Mississippi Territory, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. With President James Madison's approval, Jackson imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The treaty required all Creek, including those who had remained allies, to surrender of land to the United States.
Jackson then turned his attention to the British and Spanish. He moved his forces to Mobile, Alabama in August. He accused the Spanish governor of West Florida, Mateo González Manrique, of arming the Red Sticks and threatened to attack. The governor responded by inviting the British to land at Pensacola to defend it, which violated Spanish neutrality. The British attempted to capture Mobile, but their invasion fleet was repulsed at Fort Bowyer, located at the mouth of Mobile Bay. Jackson then invaded Florida, defeating the Spanish and British forces at the Battle of Pensacola on November 7. Afterwards, the Spanish surrendered and the British withdrew. Weeks later, Jackson learned that the British were planning an attack on New Orleans, which was the gateway to the Lower Mississippi River and control of the American West. He evacuated Pensacola, strengthened the garrison at Mobile, and led his troops to New Orleans.
Battle of New Orleans.
Jackson arrived in New Orleans on December 1, 1814. There he instituted martial law because he worried about the loyalty of the city's Creole and Spanish inhabitants. He augmented his force by forming an alliance with Jean Lafitte's smugglers and raising units of free African Americans and Creek, paying non-white volunteers the same salary as whites. This gave Jackson a force of about 5,000 men when the British arrived.
The British arrived in New Orleans in mid-December. Admiral Cochrane was the overall commander of the operation; General Edward Pakenham commanded the army of 10,000 soldiers, many of whom had served in the Napoleonic Wars. As the British advanced up the east bank of the Mississippi River, Jackson constructed a fortified position to block them. The climactic battle took place on January 8 when the British launched a frontal assault. Their troops made easy targets for the Americans protected by their parapets, and the attack ended in disaster. General Packenham was killed and the British suffered over 2,000 casualties; the Americans had suffered about 60 casualties.
The British decamped from New Orleans at the end of January, but they still remained a threat. Jackson refused to lift martial law and kept the militia under arms. He approved the execution of six militiamen for desertion. Some Creoles registered as French citizens with the French consul and demanded to be discharged from the militia due to their foreign nationality. Jackson then ordered all French citizens to leave the city within three days, and had a member of the Louisiana legislature, Louis Louaillier, arrested when he wrote a newspaper article criticizing Jackson's continuation of martial law. U.S. District Court Judge Dominic A. Hall signed a writ of "habeas corpus" for Louailler's release. Jackson had Hall arrested too. A military court ordered Louiallier's release, but Jackson kept him in prison and evicted Hall from the city. Although Jackson lifted martial law when he received official word that the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war with the British, had been signed, his previous behavior tainted his reputation in New Orleans.
Jackson's victory made him a national hero, and on February 27, 1815, he was given the Thanks of Congress and awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Though the Treaty of Ghent had been signed in December 1814 before the Battle of New Orleans was fought, Jackson's victory assured that the United States control of the region between Mobile and New Orleans would not be effectively contested by European powers. This control allowed the American government to ignore one of the articles in the treaty, which would have returned the Creek lands taken in the Treaty of Fort Jackson.
First Seminole War.
Following the war, Jackson remained in command of troops in the southern half of the United States and was permitted to make his headquarters at the Hermitage. Jackson continued to displace the Native Americans in areas under his command. Despite resistance from the Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford who tried to help the Native Americans retain their land, Jackson signed five treaties with the Cherokee and Chickasaw between 1816 and 1820 that ceded tens of millions of acres of land to the United States.
Jackson would soon find himself embroiled in another conflict in the Floridas. One source of conflict was the presence of a group of Native American people, known collectively as the Seminoles, who straddled the border between the U.S. and Florida and were in constant conflict with white settlers. Another source was the presence of runaway slaves in Florida. When the War of 1812 ended, the British turned a fort in Northern Florida over to runaway slaves, who they armed, trained and drilled to defend themselves. Negro Fort, as it came to be called, had a garrison of about 300 African Americans and protected about 1000 others living in its vicinity. The fort became a magnet for runaway slaves from both the United States and Spanish Florida, representing a threat to the property rights of slave owners, and heightened fears of slave insurrection. Jackson ordered the fort captured. This was done in July 1816 by Colonel Duncan Clinch, who destroyed the fort and killed most of the garrison. The survivors were returned to slavery.
These skirmishes, the problem of runaway slaves, and Spanish weakness became the focus of President James Monroe's administration, leading to what became known as the First Seminole War. In December 1817, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered Jackson to lead a campaign "with full power to conduct the war as he may think best". Jackson believed the best way to do this was to seize Florida from Spain once and for all. Before departing, Jackson wrote to Monroe, "Let it be signified to me through any channel ... that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished."
Jackson invaded Florida, captured the Spanish fort of St. Marks, and occupied Pensacola. Seminole and Spanish resistance was effectively ended by May 1818. He also captured two British agents, Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, who had been working with the Seminoles. After a brief trial, Jackson executed both of them, causing a diplomatic incident with the British. Jackson's actions polarized Monroe's cabinet. The occupied territories were returned to Spain. Calhoun wanted him censured for violating the Constitution, since the United States had not declared war on Spain. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams defended him as he thought Jackson's occupation of Pensacola would lead Spain to sell Florida, which Spain did in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819. In February 1819, a congressional investigation exonerated Jackson.
Presidential aspirations.
Election of 1824.
In 1819, mismanagement by the Second Bank of the United States created a financial panic that sent the U.S. into its first prolonged financial depression. The United States reduced its military and Jackson was forced to retire from his major general position. In compensation, Monroe made him the first territorial governor of Florida in 1821. Jackson served as the governor for two months, returning to the Hermitage in ill health. During his convalescence, Jackson, who had been a Freemason since at least 1798, became the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee for 1822–1823. Around this time, he also completed negotiations for Tennessee to purchase Chickasaw lands. This became known as the Jackson Purchase. Jackson, Overton, and another colleague had speculated in some of the land and used their portion to found the town of Memphis.
In 1822, Jackson accepted a plan by Overton to nominate him as a candidate for the 1824 presidential election, and he was nominated by the Tennessee legislature in July. At the time, the Federalist Party had collapsed, and there were four major contenders for the Democratic-Republican Party nomination: William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Jackson was intended to be a stalking horse candidate to prevent Tennessee's electoral votes from going to Crawford, who was seen as a Washington insider. Unexpectedly, Jackson garnered popular support outside of Tennessee and became a serious candidate. He benefited from the expansion of suffrage among white males that followed the conclusion of the War of 1812. He was a popular war hero whose reputation suggested he had the decisiveness and independence to bring change to how the government was run. He also was promoted as a Washington outsider who stood for all the people, blaming banks for the country's depression.
During his presidential candidacy, Jackson relunctantly ran for one of Tennessee's U.S. Senate seats. William Berkeley Lewis and the other U.S. senator John Eaton, who were Jackson's political managers, convinced him that he needed to defeat incumbent John Williams, who openly opposed Jackson. The legislature elected him in October 1823. Jackson was attentive to his senatorial duties. He was appointed chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, but avoided debate or initiating legislation. He used his time in the Senate to form alliances and make peace with old adversaries. Eaton continued to campaign for Jackson's presidency, updating his biography, and writing letters under a pseudonym that were quoted in newspapers around the country and so popular that they were reprinted in pamphlet form—Jackson himself had a part in their composition.
Democratic-Republican presidential nominees had historically been chosen by informal congressional nominating caucuses. In 1824, most of the Democratic-Republicans in Congress boycotted the caucus, and the power to choose nominees was shifting to state nominating committees and legislatures. Jackson was nominated by a Pennsylvania convention, making him not merely a regional candidate from the west but the leading national contender. When Jackson won the Pennsylvania nomination, Calhoun dropped out of the presidential race. Afterwards, Jackson won the nomination in six other states and had a strong second-place finish in three others.
In the presidential election, Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote, receiving 42 percent. More importantly, he won a plurality of electoral votes, receiving 99 votes from states in the South, West, and Mid-Atlantic. He was the only candidate to win states outside of his regional base: Adams dominated New England, Crawford won Virginia and Georgia, and Clay took three western states. Because no candidate had a majority of 131 of electoral votes, the House of Representatives held a contingent election under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment. The amendment specifies that only the top three electoral vote-winners are eligible to be elected by the House, so Clay was eliminated from contention. Clay, who was also Speaker of the House and presided over the election's resolution, saw a Jackson presidency as a disaster for the country. Clay threw his support behind Adams, who won the contingent election on the first ballot. Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State, leading supporters of Jackson to accuse Clay and Adams of having struck a "corrupt bargain". After the Congressional session concluded, Jackson resigned his Senate seat and returned to Tennessee.
Election of 1828 and death of Rachel Jackson.
After the election, Jackson's supporters formed a new party to undermine Adams and ensure he served only one term. Adams' presidency went poorly, and Adam's behavior undermined it. He was perceived as an intellectual elite who ignored the needs of the populace. He was unable to accomplish anything because Congress blocked his proposals. In his First Annual Message to Congress, Adams stated that "we are palsied by the will of our constituents", which was interpreted as his being against representative democracy. Jackson responded by championing the needs of ordinary citizens and declaring that "the voice of the people... must be heard".
Jackson was nominated for president by the Tennessee legislature in October 1825, more than three years before the 1828 election. He gained powerful supporters in both the south and north, including Calhoun, who became Jackson's vice presidential running mate, and New York Senator Martin Van Buren. Meanwhile, Adams's support from the Southern states was eroded when he signed a tax on European imports, the Tariff of 1828, which was called the "Tariff of Abominations" by opponents, into law. Jackson's victory in the presidential race was overwhelming. He won 56 percent of the popular vote and 68 percent of the electoral vote. The election ended the one-party system that had formed during the Era of Good Feelings as Jackson's supporters coalesced into the Democratic Party and the various groups who did not support him eventually formed the Whig Party.
The political campaign was dominated by the personal abuse that partisans flung at both candidates. Jackson was accused of being the son of an English prostitute and a mulatto, and he was labeled a slave trader who trafficked in human flesh. A series of pamphlets known as the Coffin Handbills. accused him of having murdered 18 white men, including the soldiers he had executed for desertion and alleging that he stabbed a man in the back with his cane. They stated that he had intentionally massacred Native American women and children at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, ate the bodies of Native Americans he killed in battle, and threatened to cut off the ears of congressmen who questioned his behavior during the First Seminole War.
Jackson and Rachel were accused of adultery for living together before her divorce was finalized, and Rachel heard about the accusation. She had been under stress throughout the election, and just as Jackson was preparing to head to Washington for his inauguration, she fell ill. She did not live to see her husband become president, dying of a stroke or heart attack a few days later, and was buried on Christmas Eve. Jackson believed that the abuse from Adams' supporters had hastened her death, stating at her funeral: "May God Almighty forgive her murderers, as I know she forgave them. I never can."
Election of 1824.
In 1819, mismanagement by the Second Bank of the United States created a financial panic that sent the U.S. into its first prolonged financial depression. The United States reduced its military and Jackson was forced to retire from his major general position. In compensation, Monroe made him the first territorial governor of Florida in 1821. Jackson served as the governor for two months, returning to the Hermitage in ill health. During his convalescence, Jackson, who had been a Freemason since at least 1798, became the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee for 1822–1823. Around this time, he also completed negotiations for Tennessee to purchase Chickasaw lands. This became known as the Jackson Purchase. Jackson, Overton, and another colleague had speculated in some of the land and used their portion to found the town of Memphis.
In 1822, Jackson accepted a plan by Overton to nominate him as a candidate for the 1824 presidential election, and he was nominated by the Tennessee legislature in July. At the time, the Federalist Party had collapsed, and there were four major contenders for the Democratic-Republican Party nomination: William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Jackson was intended to be a stalking horse candidate to prevent Tennessee's electoral votes from going to Crawford, who was seen as a Washington insider. Unexpectedly, Jackson garnered popular support outside of Tennessee and became a serious candidate. He benefited from the expansion of suffrage among white males that followed the conclusion of the War of 1812. He was a popular war hero whose reputation suggested he had the decisiveness and independence to bring change to how the government was run. He also was promoted as a Washington outsider who stood for all the people, blaming banks for the country's depression.
During his presidential candidacy, Jackson relunctantly ran for one of Tennessee's U.S. Senate seats. William Berkeley Lewis and the other U.S. senator John Eaton, who were Jackson's political managers, convinced him that he needed to defeat incumbent John Williams, who openly opposed Jackson. The legislature elected him in October 1823. Jackson was attentive to his senatorial duties. He was appointed chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, but avoided debate or initiating legislation. He used his time in the Senate to form alliances and make peace with old adversaries. Eaton continued to campaign for Jackson's presidency, updating his biography, and writing letters under a pseudonym that were quoted in newspapers around the country and so popular that they were reprinted in pamphlet form—Jackson himself had a part in their composition.
Democratic-Republican presidential nominees had historically been chosen by informal congressional nominating caucuses. In 1824, most of the Democratic-Republicans in Congress boycotted the caucus, and the power to choose nominees was shifting to state nominating committees and legislatures. Jackson was nominated by a Pennsylvania convention, making him not merely a regional candidate from the west but the leading national contender. When Jackson won the Pennsylvania nomination, Calhoun dropped out of the presidential race. Afterwards, Jackson won the nomination in six other states and had a strong second-place finish in three others.
In the presidential election, Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote, receiving 42 percent. More importantly, he won a plurality of electoral votes, receiving 99 votes from states in the South, West, and Mid-Atlantic. He was the only candidate to win states outside of his regional base: Adams dominated New England, Crawford won Virginia and Georgia, and Clay took three western states. Because no candidate had a majority of 131 of electoral votes, the House of Representatives held a contingent election under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment. The amendment specifies that only the top three electoral vote-winners are eligible to be elected by the House, so Clay was eliminated from contention. Clay, who was also Speaker of the House and presided over the election's resolution, saw a Jackson presidency as a disaster for the country. Clay threw his support behind Adams, who won the contingent election on the first ballot. Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State, leading supporters of Jackson to accuse Clay and Adams of having struck a "corrupt bargain". After the Congressional session concluded, Jackson resigned his Senate seat and returned to Tennessee.
Election of 1828 and death of Rachel Jackson.
After the election, Jackson's supporters formed a new party to undermine Adams and ensure he served only one term. Adams' presidency went poorly, and Adam's behavior undermined it. He was perceived as an intellectual elite who ignored the needs of the populace. He was unable to accomplish anything because Congress blocked his proposals. In his First Annual Message to Congress, Adams stated that "we are palsied by the will of our constituents", which was interpreted as his being against representative democracy. Jackson responded by championing the needs of ordinary citizens and declaring that "the voice of the people... must be heard".
Jackson was nominated for president by the Tennessee legislature in October 1825, more than three years before the 1828 election. He gained powerful supporters in both the south and north, including Calhoun, who became Jackson's vice presidential running mate, and New York Senator Martin Van Buren. Meanwhile, Adams's support from the Southern states was eroded when he signed a tax on European imports, the Tariff of 1828, which was called the "Tariff of Abominations" by opponents, into law. Jackson's victory in the presidential race was overwhelming. He won 56 percent of the popular vote and 68 percent of the electoral vote. The election ended the one-party system that had formed during the Era of Good Feelings as Jackson's supporters coalesced into the Democratic Party and the various groups who did not support him eventually formed the Whig Party.
The political campaign was dominated by the personal abuse that partisans flung at both candidates. Jackson was accused of being the son of an English prostitute and a mulatto, and he was labeled a slave trader who trafficked in human flesh. A series of pamphlets known as the Coffin Handbills. accused him of having murdered 18 white men, including the soldiers he had executed for desertion and alleging that he stabbed a man in the back with his cane. They stated that he had intentionally massacred Native American women and children at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, ate the bodies of Native Americans he killed in battle, and threatened to cut off the ears of congressmen who questioned his behavior during the First Seminole War.
Jackson and Rachel were accused of adultery for living together before her divorce was finalized, and Rachel heard about the accusation. She had been under stress throughout the election, and just as Jackson was preparing to head to Washington for his inauguration, she fell ill. She did not live to see her husband become president, dying of a stroke or heart attack a few days later, and was buried on Christmas Eve. Jackson believed that the abuse from Adams' supporters had hastened her death, stating at her funeral: "May God Almighty forgive her murderers, as I know she forgave them. I never can."
Presidency (1829–1837).
Inauguration.
Jackson arrived in Washington on February 11. His first concern was forming his cabinet. He chose Van Buren as Secretary of State, his friend John Eaton as Secretary of War, Samuel D. Ingham as Secretary of Treasury, John Branch as Secretary of Navy, John M. Berrien as Attorney General, and William T. Barry as Postmaster General. Jackson was inaugurated on March 4, 1829, becoming the first president-elect to take the oath of office on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol. Embittered by his defeat, Adams refused to attend. In his inaugural address, Jackson promised to protect the sovereignty of the states, respect the limits of the presidency, reform the government by removing disloyal or incompetent appointees, and observe a fair policy toward Native Americans. Jackson invited the public to the White House, which was promptly overrun by well-wishers who caused minor damage to its furnishings. The spectacle earned him the nickname "King Mob".
Reforms and rotation in office.
Jackson's administration believed that Adams's had been corrupt and one of Jackson's first acts as president was to initiate investigations into all executive departments. The investigations revealed that $280,000 (equivalent to () today) was stolen from the Treasury, and the reduction in costs to the Department of the Navy saved it $1 million (). One of the people caught in his investigation was the Treasury Auditor Tobias Watkins, a personal friend of Adams' who was found guilty of embezzlement. In the first year of his term Jackson asked Congress to tighten laws on embezzlement, revise laws to reduce tax evasion, and pushed for an improved government accounting system.
Jackson implemented a principle he called "rotation in office" by enforcing the Tenure of Office Act, signed by President Monroe in 1820, that limited appointed office tenure and authorized the president to remove and appoint political party associates. The previous custom had been for the president to leave the existing appointees in office, replacing them through attrition. During his first year in office, Jackson removed hundreds of federal officials, which was about 10% of all Federal employees, and replaced them with loyal Democrats. He argued that rotation in office was a democratic reform that reduced bureaucracy and corruption by preventing hereditary officeholding and made officeholders responsible to the popular will, but it functioned as political patronage, which came to be known as the spoils system.
Petticoat affair.
Jackson spent much of his time during his first two and a half years in office dealing with what came to be known as the "Petticoat Affair" or "Eaton Affair". The affair focused on Secretary of War Eaton's wife, Margaret. She had a reputation for being promiscuous, and like Rachel Jackson, she was accused of adultery. She and Eaton had been close before her first husband John Timberlake died, and they married nine months after his death. With the exception of Barry's wife Catherine, the cabinet members' wives followed the lead of Vice-president Calhoun's wife Floride and refused to socialize with the Eatons. Though Jackson defended Margaret, her presence split the cabinet, which had been so ineffective that he rarely called it into session, and the ongoing disagreement led to its dissolution.
In the spring of 1831, Jackson demanded the resignations of all the cabinet members except Barry, who would resign in 1835 when a Congressional investigation revealed his mismanagement of the Post Office. Jackson tried to compensate Van Buren by appointing him the Minister to Great Britain, but Calhoun blocked the nomination with a tie-breaking vote against it. Van Buren—along with Amos Kendall, who helped organize what would become the Democratic Party, and Francis Preston Blair, the editor of "The Globe" newspaper that served as Jackson's house organ,—would become regular participants in Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet, an unofficial, varying group of advisors that Jackson turned to for decision making even after he had formed a new official cabinet.
Indian Removal Act.
Jackson's presidency marked the beginning of a national policy of Native American removal. Before Jackson took office, the relationship between the southern states and the Native American tribes who lived within their boundaries was strained. The states felt that they had full jurisdiction over their territories; the native tribes saw themselves as autonomous nations that had a right to the land they lived on. Significant portions of the five major tribes in the Southwest—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminoles— began to adopt white culture, including education, agricultural techniques, a road system, and rudimentary manufacturing. In the case of the tensions between the state of Georgia and the Cherokee, Adams had tried to address the issue encouraging Cherokee emigration west of the Mississippi through financial incentives, but most refused.
In the first days of Jackson's presidency, some of the southern states had passed legislation extending state jurisdiction to Native American lands. Jackson supported the states' right to do so. His position was later made clear in the 1832 Supreme Court test case of this legislation, "Worcester v. Georgia". Georgia had arrested a group of missionaries for entering Cherokee territory without a permit; the Cherokee declared these arrests illegal. The court under Chief Justice John Marshall decided in favor of the Cherokee: imposition of Georgia law on the Cherokee was unconstitutional. Horace Greeley alleges that when Jackson heard the ruling, he said, "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, but now let him enforce it." Although the quote may be apocryphal, Jackson made it clear he would not use the federal government to enforce the ruling.
Jackson used the power of the federal government to enforce the separation of the Native American tribes and whites. In May 1830, Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act through Congress. It gave the president the right to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the eastern part of the United States in exchange for lands set aside for Native Americans west of the Mississippi, as well as broad discretion on how to use the federal funds allocated to the negotiations. The law was supposed to be a voluntary relocation program, but it was not implemented as one. Jackson's administration often achieved agreement to relocate through bribes, fraud and intimidation, and the leaders who signed the treaties often did not represent the entire tribe. The relocations could be a source of misery too: the Choctaw relocation was rife with corruption, theft and mismanagement that brought great suffering to that people.
In 1830, Jackson personally negotiated with the Chickasaw, who quickly agreed to move. In the same year, Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek; the majority did not want the treaty but complied with its terms. In 1832, Seminole leaders signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, which stipulated that the Seminoles would move west and become part of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy if they found the new land suitable. Most Seminoles refused to move, leading to the Second Seminole War in 1835 that lasted six years. Members of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ceded their land to the state of Alabama in the Treaty of Cusseta of 1832. Their private ownership of the land was to be protected, but the federal government did not enforce this. The government did encourage voluntary removal until the Creek War of 1836, after which almost all Creek were removed to Oklahoma territory. In 1836, Cherokee leaders ceded their land to the government by the Treaty of New Echota. Their removal, known as the Trail of Tears, was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren.
Jackson also applied the removal policy in the Northwest. He was not successful in removing the Iroquois Confederacy in New York, but when some members of the Meskwaki (Fox) and the Sauk triggered the Black Hawk War by trying to cross back to the east side of the Mississippi, the peace treaties ratified after their defeat reduced their lands further.
During his administration, he made about 70 treaties with American Indian tribes. He had removed almost all the Native Americans east of the Mississippi and south of Lake Michigan, about 70,000 people, from the United States; though it was done at the cost of thousands of Native American lives lost because of the unsanitary conditions and epidemics arising from their dislocation, as well as their resistance to expulsion. Jackson's implementation of the Indian Removal Act contributed to his popularity with his constituency. He added over 170,000 square miles of land to the public domain, which primarily benefited the United States' agricultural interests. The act also benefited small farmers, as Jackson allowed them to purchase moderate plots at low prices and offered squatters on land formerly belonging to Native Americans the option to purchase it before it was offered for sale to others.
Nullification crisis.
Jackson had to confront another challenge that had been building up since the beginning of his first term. The Tariff of 1828, which had been passed in the last year of Adams' administration, set a protective tariff at a very high rate to prevent the manufacturing industries in the Northern states from having to compete with lower-priced imports from Britain. The tariff reduced the income of southern cotton planters: it propped up consumer prices, but not the price of cotton which had severely declined in the previous decade. Immediately after the tariff's passage, the "South Carolina Exposition and Protest" was sent to the U.S. Senate. This document, which had been anonymously written by John C. Calhoun, asserted that the constitution was a compact of individual states and when the federal government went beyond its delegated duties, such as enacting a protective tariff, a state had a right to declare this action unconstitutional and make the act null and void with the borders of that state.
Jackson suspected Calhoun of writing the "Exposition and Protest", and opposed his interpretation. Jackson argued that Congress as a whole had full authority to enact tariffs and that a dissenting state was denying the will of the majority. He also needed the tariff, which generated 90% of the federal revenue, to achieve another of his presidential goals, eliminating the national debt. The issue developed into a personal rivalry between the two men. For example, during a celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday on April 13, 1830, the attendees gave after-dinner toasts. Jackson toasted: "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to nullification. Calhoun whose toast immediately followed, rebutted: "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!"
As a compromise, Jackson supported the Tariff of 1832, which reduced the duties from the Tariff of 1828 by almost half. The bill was signed on July 9, but failed to satisfy extremists on either side. On November 24, South Carolina had passed the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring both tariffs null and void and threatening to secede from the United States if the federal government tried to use force to collect the duties. In response, Jackson sent warships to Charleston harbor, and threatened to hang any man who worked to support nullification or secession.
On December 10, Jackson issued a proclamation against the "nullifiers", stating that he considered "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed". South Carolina, the president declared, stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason", and he appealed to the people of the state to reassert their allegiance to that Union. Jackson also denied the right of secession: "The Constitution ... forms a government not a league ... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation." On December 28, Calhoun, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate, resigned as vice president.
Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" authorizing the military to enforce the tariff. It was attacked by Calhoun as despotism. Meanwhile, Calhoun and Clay began to work on a new compromise tariff. Jackson saw it as an effective way to end the confrontation, but insisted on the passage of the Force Bill before he signed. On March 2, he signed into law the Force Bill and the Tariff of 1833, both of which passed on March 1, 1833. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance, but nullified the Force Bill in a final act of defiance. Two months later, Jackson reflected on South Carolina's nullification: "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question".
Bank War and Election of 1832.
Bank Veto.
A few weeks after his inauguration, Jackson started looking into how he could replace the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank had been chartered by President Madison in 1816 to restore the United States economy after the War of 1812. Monroe had appointed Nicholas Biddle as the Bank's executive. The Bank was a repository for the country's public monies which also serviced the national debt; it was formed as a for-profit entity that looked after the concerns of its shareholders. Under the Bank's stewardship, the country was economically healthy and the currency was stable, but Jackson saw the Bank as a fourth branch of government run by an elite, what he called the "money power" that sought to control the labor and earnings of the "real people", who depend on their own efforts to succeed: the planters, farmers, mechanics, and laborers. Additionally, Jackson's own near bankruptcy in 1804 due to credit-fuelled land speculation had biased him against paper money and toward a policy favorable to hard money.
In his First Annual Address in December 1829, Jackson openly challenged the Bank by questioning its constitutionality and the soundness of its money. Jackson's supporters further alleged that it gave preferential loans to speculators and merchants over artisans and farmers, that it used its money to bribe congressmen and the press, and that it had ties with foreign creditors. Biddle responded to Jackson's challenge in early 1830 by using the Bank's vast financial holding to ensure the Bank's reputation, and his supporters argued that the Bank was the key to prosperity and stable commerce. By the time of the 1832 election, Biddle spent had over $250,000, (), in printing pamphlets, lobbying for pro-Bank legislation, hiring agents and giving loans to editors and congressmen.
On the surface, Jackson's and Biddle's positions did not appear irreconcilable. Jackson seemed open to keeping the Bank if it could include some degree of Federal oversight, limit its real estate holdings, and have its property subject to taxation by the states. Many of Jackson's cabinet members thought a compromise was possible. In 1831, Treasury Secretary Louis McLane told Biddle that Jackson was open to chartering a modified version of the Bank, but Biddle did not consult Jackson directly. Privately, Jackson expressed opposition to the Bank; publicly, he announced that he would leave the decision concerning the Bank in the hands of the people. Biddle was finally convinced to take open action by Henry Clay, who had decided to run for president against Jackson in the 1832 election. Biddle would agree to seek renewal of the charter two years earlier than scheduled. Clay argued that Jackson was in a bind. If he vetoed the charter, he would loose the votes of his pro-Bank constituents in Pennsylvania; but if he signed the charter, he would lose his anti-Bank constituents. After the recharter bill was passed, Jackson vetoed it on July 10, 1832, arguing that the country should not surrender the will of the majority to the desires of the wealthy.
Election of 1832.
The 1832 presidential election demonstrated the rapid development of political parties during Jackson's presidency. The Democratic Party's first national convention, held in Baltimore, nominated Jackson's choice for vice president, Martin Van Buren. The National Republican Party, which had held its first convention in Baltimore earlier in December 1831, nominated Clay, now a senator from Kentucky, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania. An Anti-Masonic Party with a platform built around opposition to Freemasonry, it supported neither Jackson nor Clay, who both were Masons. The party nominated William Wirt of Maryland and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania.
In addition to the votes Jackson would lose because of the Bank veto, Clay hoped that Jackson's Indian Removal Act would alienate voters in the East; but Jackson's losses were offset by the Act's popularity in the West and Southwest. Clay had also expected that Jackson would lose votes because of his stand on internal improvements. Jackson had vetoed the Maysville Road bill, which funded an upgrade of a section of the National Road in Clay's state of Kentucky; as part of his justification, Jackson claimed it was unconstitutional to fund internal improvements using national funds for local projects.
Clay's strategy failed. Jackson was able to mobilize the Democratic Party's strong political networks. The Northeast supported Jackson because he was in favor of maintaining a stiff tariff; the West supported him because the Indian Removal Act reduced the number of Native Americans in the region and made available more public land. Except for South Carolina, which passed the Ordinance of Nullification during the election month and refused to support any party by giving its votes to the future Governor of Virginia John B. Floyd, the South supported Jackson for implementing the Indian Removal Act, as well as for his willingness to compromise by signing the Tariff of 1832. Jackson won the election by a landslide, receiving 55 percent of the popular vote and 219 electoral votes.
Removal of deposits and censure.
Jackson saw his victory as a mandate to continue his war on the Bank's control over the national economy. In 1833, Jackson signed an executive order ending the deposit of Treasury receipts in the bank. When Secretary of the Treasury McLane refused to execute the order, Jackson replaced him with William J. Duane, who also refused. Jackson then appointed Roger B. Taney as acting secretary, who implemented Jackson's policy. With the loss of federal deposits, the Bank had to contract its credit. Biddle used this contraction to create an economic downturn in an attempt to get Jackson to compromise. Biddle wrote, "Nothing but the evidence of suffering abroad will produce any effect in Congress." The attempt did not succeed, the economy recovered and Biddle was blamed for the recession.
Jackson's actions led those who disagreed with him to form the Whig Party. They claimed to oppose Jackson's expansion of executive power, calling him "King Andrew the First", and naming their party after the English Whigs who opposed seventeenth century British monarchy. In March 1832, the Senate censured Jackson for inappropriately taking authority for the Treasury Department when it was the responsibility of Congress and refused to confirm Taney's appointment as secretary of the treasury. In April, however, the House declared that the bank should not be rechartered. By July 1836, the Bank no longer held any federal deposits.
Jackson had Federal funds deposited into state banks friendly to the administration's policies, which critics called pet banks. The number of these state banks more than doubled during Jackson's administration, and investment patterns changed. The Bank, which had been the federal government's fiscal agent, invested heavily in trade and financed interregional and international trade. State banks were more responsive to state governments, and invested heavily in land development, land speculation, and state public works projects. In spite of the efforts of Taney's successor, Levi Woodbury, to control them, the pet banks expanded their loans, helping to create a speculative boom in the final years of Jackson's administration.
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that it had been accomplished. It was paid down through tariff revenues, carefully managing federal funding of internal improvements like roads and canals, and the sale of public lands. Between 1834 and 1836, the government had unprecedented spike in land sales: At its peak in 1836, the profits from land sales were eight to twelve times higher than a typical year. During Jackson's presidency, 63 million acres of public land—about the size of the state of Oklahoma—was sold. After Jackson stepped down from the presidency in 1837, a Democrat-majority Senate expunged Jackson's censure.
Panic of 1837.
Despite the economic boom following Jackson's victory in the Bank War, land speculation in the west caused the Panic of 1837. Jackson's transfer of federal monies to state banks in 1833 caused western banks to relax their lending standards; the Indian Removal Act made large amounts of former Native American lands available for purchase and speculation. Two of Jackson's acts in 1836 contributed to the Panic of 1837. One was the Specie Circular, which mandated western lands only be purchased by money backed by specie. The act was intended to stabilize the economy by reducing speculation on credit, but it caused a drain of gold and silver from the Eastern banks to the Western banks to address the needs of financing land transactions. The other was the Deposit and Distribution Act, which transferred federal monies from eastern to western state banks. Together, they left Eastern banks unable to pay specie to the British when they recalled their loans to address their economic problems in international trade. The panic drove the U.S. economy into a depression that lasted until 1841.
Physical assault and assassination attempt.
Jackson was the first president to be subjected to physical assault as well an assassination attempt. On May 6, 1833, Robert B. Randolph struck Jackson in the face with his hand because Jackson had ordered Randolph's dismissal from the navy for embezzlement. Jackson declined to press charges. While leaving the United States Capitol on January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane until others intervened to restrain Lawrence, who was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and institutionalized.
Slavery.
During Jackson's presidency, slavery remained a minor political issue. Though federal troops were used to crush Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, Jackson ordered them withdrawn immediately afterwards despite the petition of local citizens them to remain for protection. Jackson considered the issue too divisive to the nation and to the delicate alliances of the Democratic Party, while sympathetic newspapers argued for excluding slavery from federal politics and keeping it at the state level.
Jackson's view was challenged when the American Anti-Slavery Society formally agitated for abolition by sending anti-slavery tracts through the postal system into the South in 1835. Jackson condemned these agitators as "monsters" who should atone with their lives because they were attempting to destroy the Union by encouraging sectionalism. The act provoked riots in Charleston, and pro-slavery Southerners demanded that the postal service ban distribution of the materials. To address the issue, Jackson authorized that the tracts could be sent only to subscribers, whose names could be made publicly accountable. That December, Jackson called on Congress to prohibit the circulation through the South of "incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection".
There was a risk of slavery becoming a problem again after Van Buren's presidential nomination in 1835 when abolitionists stepped up their campaign to raise the question of slavery in Congress. Jackson saw these as election year attempts by Whigs to undermine the Democrats. During the 1836 election year, the House addressed the issue by passing a "gag rule", which kept abolition from becoming a topic of debate: Congress would receive documents regarding abolition, but immediately table them without discussion. The strategy worked; the Democratic Party stayed united and Van Buren, Jackson's chosen successor, was successfully elected president in 1836.
Foreign affairs.
The Jackson administration successfully negotiated trade agreements with Great Britain, Spain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Siam. In his First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson addressed the issues of spoliation claims, demands of compensation for the capture of American ships and sailors by foreign nations during the Napoleonic Wars. Using a combination of bluster and tact, he successfully settled these claims with Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, but he had difficulty collecting spoliation claims from France, which was unwilling to pay an indemnity agreed to in an earlier treaty. Jackson asked Congress in 1834 to authorize reprisals against French property if the country failed to make payment, as well as to arm for defense. In response, France put its Caribbean fleet on a wartime footing. Both sides wanted to avoid a conflict, but the French wanted an apology for Jackson's belligerence. In his 1835 Annual Message to the Congress, Jackson asserted that he refused to apologize, but stated that he did not intend to "menace or insult the Government of France". The French were assuaged and agreed to pay $5,000,000 () to settle the claims.
Since the early 1820s, large numbers of Americans had been immigrating into Texas, a territory of the newly independent nation of Mexico. As early as 1824, Jackson had expressed a desire to acquire the region for the United States. In 1829, he attempted to purchase it, but Mexico did not want to sell. By 1830, there were twice as many settlers from the United States as from Mexico, leading to tensions with the Mexican government that started the Texas Revolution. During the conflict, Jackson covertly allowed the settlers to obtain weapons and money from the United States. They defeated the Mexican military in April 1836 and soon afterward declared the region an independent country, the Republic of Texas. The new Republic asked Jackson to recognize and annex it. Although Jackson wanted to do so, he was hesitant because he was unsure it could maintain independence from Mexico. He also was concerned because Texas had legalized slavery, which was an issue that could divide the Democrats during the 1836 election. Jackson recognized the Republic of Texas on the last full day of his presidency, March 3, 1837.
Judicial appointments.
Jackson appointed six justices to the Supreme Court. Most were undistinguished. Jackson nominated Roger B. Taney in January 1835 to the Court in reward for his services, but the nomination failed to win Senate approval. When Chief Justice Marshall died in 1835, Jackson nominated Taney for Chief Justice; he was confirmed by the new Senate, serving as Chief Justice until 1864. He was regarded with respect during his career on the bench, but he is most remembered for his decision in "Dred Scott v. Sandford".
States admitted to the Union.
Two new states were admitted into the Union during Jackson's presidency: Arkansas (June 15, 1836) and Michigan (January 26, 1837). Both states increased Democratic power in Congress and helped Van Buren win the presidency in 1836, as new states tended to support the party that had done the most to admit them.
Inauguration.
Jackson arrived in Washington on February 11. His first concern was forming his cabinet. He chose Van Buren as Secretary of State, his friend John Eaton as Secretary of War, Samuel D. Ingham as Secretary of Treasury, John Branch as Secretary of Navy, John M. Berrien as Attorney General, and William T. Barry as Postmaster General. Jackson was inaugurated on March 4, 1829, becoming the first president-elect to take the oath of office on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol. Embittered by his defeat, Adams refused to attend. In his inaugural address, Jackson promised to protect the sovereignty of the states, respect the limits of the presidency, reform the government by removing disloyal or incompetent appointees, and observe a fair policy toward Native Americans. Jackson invited the public to the White House, which was promptly overrun by well-wishers who caused minor damage to its furnishings. The spectacle earned him the nickname "King Mob".
Reforms and rotation in office.
Jackson's administration believed that Adams's had been corrupt and one of Jackson's first acts as president was to initiate investigations into all executive departments. The investigations revealed that $280,000 (equivalent to () today) was stolen from the Treasury, and the reduction in costs to the Department of the Navy saved it $1 million (). One of the people caught in his investigation was the Treasury Auditor Tobias Watkins, a personal friend of Adams' who was found guilty of embezzlement. In the first year of his term Jackson asked Congress to tighten laws on embezzlement, revise laws to reduce tax evasion, and pushed for an improved government accounting system.
Jackson implemented a principle he called "rotation in office" by enforcing the Tenure of Office Act, signed by President Monroe in 1820, that limited appointed office tenure and authorized the president to remove and appoint political party associates. The previous custom had been for the president to leave the existing appointees in office, replacing them through attrition. During his first year in office, Jackson removed hundreds of federal officials, which was about 10% of all Federal employees, and replaced them with loyal Democrats. He argued that rotation in office was a democratic reform that reduced bureaucracy and corruption by preventing hereditary officeholding and made officeholders responsible to the popular will, but it functioned as political patronage, which came to be known as the spoils system.
Petticoat affair.
Jackson spent much of his time during his first two and a half years in office dealing with what came to be known as the "Petticoat Affair" or "Eaton Affair". The affair focused on Secretary of War Eaton's wife, Margaret. She had a reputation for being promiscuous, and like Rachel Jackson, she was accused of adultery. She and Eaton had been close before her first husband John Timberlake died, and they married nine months after his death. With the exception of Barry's wife Catherine, the cabinet members' wives followed the lead of Vice-president Calhoun's wife Floride and refused to socialize with the Eatons. Though Jackson defended Margaret, her presence split the cabinet, which had been so ineffective that he rarely called it into session, and the ongoing disagreement led to its dissolution.
In the spring of 1831, Jackson demanded the resignations of all the cabinet members except Barry, who would resign in 1835 when a Congressional investigation revealed his mismanagement of the Post Office. Jackson tried to compensate Van Buren by appointing him the Minister to Great Britain, but Calhoun blocked the nomination with a tie-breaking vote against it. Van Buren—along with Amos Kendall, who helped organize what would become the Democratic Party, and Francis Preston Blair, the editor of "The Globe" newspaper that served as Jackson's house organ,—would become regular participants in Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet, an unofficial, varying group of advisors that Jackson turned to for decision making even after he had formed a new official cabinet.
Indian Removal Act.
Jackson's presidency marked the beginning of a national policy of Native American removal. Before Jackson took office, the relationship between the southern states and the Native American tribes who lived within their boundaries was strained. The states felt that they had full jurisdiction over their territories; the native tribes saw themselves as autonomous nations that had a right to the land they lived on. Significant portions of the five major tribes in the Southwest—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminoles— began to adopt white culture, including education, agricultural techniques, a road system, and rudimentary manufacturing. In the case of the tensions between the state of Georgia and the Cherokee, Adams had tried to address the issue encouraging Cherokee emigration west of the Mississippi through financial incentives, but most refused.
In the first days of Jackson's presidency, some of the southern states had passed legislation extending state jurisdiction to Native American lands. Jackson supported the states' right to do so. His position was later made clear in the 1832 Supreme Court test case of this legislation, "Worcester v. Georgia". Georgia had arrested a group of missionaries for entering Cherokee territory without a permit; the Cherokee declared these arrests illegal. The court under Chief Justice John Marshall decided in favor of the Cherokee: imposition of Georgia law on the Cherokee was unconstitutional. Horace Greeley alleges that when Jackson heard the ruling, he said, "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, but now let him enforce it." Although the quote may be apocryphal, Jackson made it clear he would not use the federal government to enforce the ruling.
Jackson used the power of the federal government to enforce the separation of the Native American tribes and whites. In May 1830, Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act through Congress. It gave the president the right to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the eastern part of the United States in exchange for lands set aside for Native Americans west of the Mississippi, as well as broad discretion on how to use the federal funds allocated to the negotiations. The law was supposed to be a voluntary relocation program, but it was not implemented as one. Jackson's administration often achieved agreement to relocate through bribes, fraud and intimidation, and the leaders who signed the treaties often did not represent the entire tribe. The relocations could be a source of misery too: the Choctaw relocation was rife with corruption, theft and mismanagement that brought great suffering to that people.
In 1830, Jackson personally negotiated with the Chickasaw, who quickly agreed to move. In the same year, Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek; the majority did not want the treaty but complied with its terms. In 1832, Seminole leaders signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, which stipulated that the Seminoles would move west and become part of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy if they found the new land suitable. Most Seminoles refused to move, leading to the Second Seminole War in 1835 that lasted six years. Members of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ceded their land to the state of Alabama in the Treaty of Cusseta of 1832. Their private ownership of the land was to be protected, but the federal government did not enforce this. The government did encourage voluntary removal until the Creek War of 1836, after which almost all Creek were removed to Oklahoma territory. In 1836, Cherokee leaders ceded their land to the government by the Treaty of New Echota. Their removal, known as the Trail of Tears, was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren.
Jackson also applied the removal policy in the Northwest. He was not successful in removing the Iroquois Confederacy in New York, but when some members of the Meskwaki (Fox) and the Sauk triggered the Black Hawk War by trying to cross back to the east side of the Mississippi, the peace treaties ratified after their defeat reduced their lands further.
During his administration, he made about 70 treaties with American Indian tribes. He had removed almost all the Native Americans east of the Mississippi and south of Lake Michigan, about 70,000 people, from the United States; though it was done at the cost of thousands of Native American lives lost because of the unsanitary conditions and epidemics arising from their dislocation, as well as their resistance to expulsion. Jackson's implementation of the Indian Removal Act contributed to his popularity with his constituency. He added over 170,000 square miles of land to the public domain, which primarily benefited the United States' agricultural interests. The act also benefited small farmers, as Jackson allowed them to purchase moderate plots at low prices and offered squatters on land formerly belonging to Native Americans the option to purchase it before it was offered for sale to others.
Nullification crisis.
Jackson had to confront another challenge that had been building up since the beginning of his first term. The Tariff of 1828, which had been passed in the last year of Adams' administration, set a protective tariff at a very high rate to prevent the manufacturing industries in the Northern states from having to compete with lower-priced imports from Britain. The tariff reduced the income of southern cotton planters: it propped up consumer prices, but not the price of cotton which had severely declined in the previous decade. Immediately after the tariff's passage, the "South Carolina Exposition and Protest" was sent to the U.S. Senate. This document, which had been anonymously written by John C. Calhoun, asserted that the constitution was a compact of individual states and when the federal government went beyond its delegated duties, such as enacting a protective tariff, a state had a right to declare this action unconstitutional and make the act null and void with the borders of that state.
Jackson suspected Calhoun of writing the "Exposition and Protest", and opposed his interpretation. Jackson argued that Congress as a whole had full authority to enact tariffs and that a dissenting state was denying the will of the majority. He also needed the tariff, which generated 90% of the federal revenue, to achieve another of his presidential goals, eliminating the national debt. The issue developed into a personal rivalry between the two men. For example, during a celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday on April 13, 1830, the attendees gave after-dinner toasts. Jackson toasted: "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to nullification. Calhoun whose toast immediately followed, rebutted: "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!"
As a compromise, Jackson supported the Tariff of 1832, which reduced the duties from the Tariff of 1828 by almost half. The bill was signed on July 9, but failed to satisfy extremists on either side. On November 24, South Carolina had passed the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring both tariffs null and void and threatening to secede from the United States if the federal government tried to use force to collect the duties. In response, Jackson sent warships to Charleston harbor, and threatened to hang any man who worked to support nullification or secession.
On December 10, Jackson issued a proclamation against the "nullifiers", stating that he considered "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed". South Carolina, the president declared, stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason", and he appealed to the people of the state to reassert their allegiance to that Union. Jackson also denied the right of secession: "The Constitution ... forms a government not a league ... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation." On December 28, Calhoun, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate, resigned as vice president.
Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" authorizing the military to enforce the tariff. It was attacked by Calhoun as despotism. Meanwhile, Calhoun and Clay began to work on a new compromise tariff. Jackson saw it as an effective way to end the confrontation, but insisted on the passage of the Force Bill before he signed. On March 2, he signed into law the Force Bill and the Tariff of 1833, both of which passed on March 1, 1833. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance, but nullified the Force Bill in a final act of defiance. Two months later, Jackson reflected on South Carolina's nullification: "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question".
Bank War and Election of 1832.
Bank Veto.
A few weeks after his inauguration, Jackson started looking into how he could replace the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank had been chartered by President Madison in 1816 to restore the United States economy after the War of 1812. Monroe had appointed Nicholas Biddle as the Bank's executive. The Bank was a repository for the country's public monies which also serviced the national debt; it was formed as a for-profit entity that looked after the concerns of its shareholders. Under the Bank's stewardship, the country was economically healthy and the currency was stable, but Jackson saw the Bank as a fourth branch of government run by an elite, what he called the "money power" that sought to control the labor and earnings of the "real people", who depend on their own efforts to succeed: the planters, farmers, mechanics, and laborers. Additionally, Jackson's own near bankruptcy in 1804 due to credit-fuelled land speculation had biased him against paper money and toward a policy favorable to hard money.
In his First Annual Address in December 1829, Jackson openly challenged the Bank by questioning its constitutionality and the soundness of its money. Jackson's supporters further alleged that it gave preferential loans to speculators and merchants over artisans and farmers, that it used its money to bribe congressmen and the press, and that it had ties with foreign creditors. Biddle responded to Jackson's challenge in early 1830 by using the Bank's vast financial holding to ensure the Bank's reputation, and his supporters argued that the Bank was the key to prosperity and stable commerce. By the time of the 1832 election, Biddle spent had over $250,000, (), in printing pamphlets, lobbying for pro-Bank legislation, hiring agents and giving loans to editors and congressmen.
On the surface, Jackson's and Biddle's positions did not appear irreconcilable. Jackson seemed open to keeping the Bank if it could include some degree of Federal oversight, limit its real estate holdings, and have its property subject to taxation by the states. Many of Jackson's cabinet members thought a compromise was possible. In 1831, Treasury Secretary Louis McLane told Biddle that Jackson was open to chartering a modified version of the Bank, but Biddle did not consult Jackson directly. Privately, Jackson expressed opposition to the Bank; publicly, he announced that he would leave the decision concerning the Bank in the hands of the people. Biddle was finally convinced to take open action by Henry Clay, who had decided to run for president against Jackson in the 1832 election. Biddle would agree to seek renewal of the charter two years earlier than scheduled. Clay argued that Jackson was in a bind. If he vetoed the charter, he would loose the votes of his pro-Bank constituents in Pennsylvania; but if he signed the charter, he would lose his anti-Bank constituents. After the recharter bill was passed, Jackson vetoed it on July 10, 1832, arguing that the country should not surrender the will of the majority to the desires of the wealthy.
Election of 1832.
The 1832 presidential election demonstrated the rapid development of political parties during Jackson's presidency. The Democratic Party's first national convention, held in Baltimore, nominated Jackson's choice for vice president, Martin Van Buren. The National Republican Party, which had held its first convention in Baltimore earlier in December 1831, nominated Clay, now a senator from Kentucky, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania. An Anti-Masonic Party with a platform built around opposition to Freemasonry, it supported neither Jackson nor Clay, who both were Masons. The party nominated William Wirt of Maryland and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania.
In addition to the votes Jackson would lose because of the Bank veto, Clay hoped that Jackson's Indian Removal Act would alienate voters in the East; but Jackson's losses were offset by the Act's popularity in the West and Southwest. Clay had also expected that Jackson would lose votes because of his stand on internal improvements. Jackson had vetoed the Maysville Road bill, which funded an upgrade of a section of the National Road in Clay's state of Kentucky; as part of his justification, Jackson claimed it was unconstitutional to fund internal improvements using national funds for local projects.
Clay's strategy failed. Jackson was able to mobilize the Democratic Party's strong political networks. The Northeast supported Jackson because he was in favor of maintaining a stiff tariff; the West supported him because the Indian Removal Act reduced the number of Native Americans in the region and made available more public land. Except for South Carolina, which passed the Ordinance of Nullification during the election month and refused to support any party by giving its votes to the future Governor of Virginia John B. Floyd, the South supported Jackson for implementing the Indian Removal Act, as well as for his willingness to compromise by signing the Tariff of 1832. Jackson won the election by a landslide, receiving 55 percent of the popular vote and 219 electoral votes.
Removal of deposits and censure.
Jackson saw his victory as a mandate to continue his war on the Bank's control over the national economy. In 1833, Jackson signed an executive order ending the deposit of Treasury receipts in the bank. When Secretary of the Treasury McLane refused to execute the order, Jackson replaced him with William J. Duane, who also refused. Jackson then appointed Roger B. Taney as acting secretary, who implemented Jackson's policy. With the loss of federal deposits, the Bank had to contract its credit. Biddle used this contraction to create an economic downturn in an attempt to get Jackson to compromise. Biddle wrote, "Nothing but the evidence of suffering abroad will produce any effect in Congress." The attempt did not succeed, the economy recovered and Biddle was blamed for the recession.
Jackson's actions led those who disagreed with him to form the Whig Party. They claimed to oppose Jackson's expansion of executive power, calling him "King Andrew the First", and naming their party after the English Whigs who opposed seventeenth century British monarchy. In March 1832, the Senate censured Jackson for inappropriately taking authority for the Treasury Department when it was the responsibility of Congress and refused to confirm Taney's appointment as secretary of the treasury. In April, however, the House declared that the bank should not be rechartered. By July 1836, the Bank no longer held any federal deposits.
Jackson had Federal funds deposited into state banks friendly to the administration's policies, which critics called pet banks. The number of these state banks more than doubled during Jackson's administration, and investment patterns changed. The Bank, which had been the federal government's fiscal agent, invested heavily in trade and financed interregional and international trade. State banks were more responsive to state governments, and invested heavily in land development, land speculation, and state public works projects. In spite of the efforts of Taney's successor, Levi Woodbury, to control them, the pet banks expanded their loans, helping to create a speculative boom in the final years of Jackson's administration.
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that it had been accomplished. It was paid down through tariff revenues, carefully managing federal funding of internal improvements like roads and canals, and the sale of public lands. Between 1834 and 1836, the government had unprecedented spike in land sales: At its peak in 1836, the profits from land sales were eight to twelve times higher than a typical year. During Jackson's presidency, 63 million acres of public land—about the size of the state of Oklahoma—was sold. After Jackson stepped down from the presidency in 1837, a Democrat-majority Senate expunged Jackson's censure.
Panic of 1837.
Despite the economic boom following Jackson's victory in the Bank War, land speculation in the west caused the Panic of 1837. Jackson's transfer of federal monies to state banks in 1833 caused western banks to relax their lending standards; the Indian Removal Act made large amounts of former Native American lands available for purchase and speculation. Two of Jackson's acts in 1836 contributed to the Panic of 1837. One was the Specie Circular, which mandated western lands only be purchased by money backed by specie. The act was intended to stabilize the economy by reducing speculation on credit, but it caused a drain of gold and silver from the Eastern banks to the Western banks to address the needs of financing land transactions. The other was the Deposit and Distribution Act, which transferred federal monies from eastern to western state banks. Together, they left Eastern banks unable to pay specie to the British when they recalled their loans to address their economic problems in international trade. The panic drove the U.S. economy into a depression that lasted until 1841.
Bank Veto.
A few weeks after his inauguration, Jackson started looking into how he could replace the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank had been chartered by President Madison in 1816 to restore the United States economy after the War of 1812. Monroe had appointed Nicholas Biddle as the Bank's executive. The Bank was a repository for the country's public monies which also serviced the national debt; it was formed as a for-profit entity that looked after the concerns of its shareholders. Under the Bank's stewardship, the country was economically healthy and the currency was stable, but Jackson saw the Bank as a fourth branch of government run by an elite, what he called the "money power" that sought to control the labor and earnings of the "real people", who depend on their own efforts to succeed: the planters, farmers, mechanics, and laborers. Additionally, Jackson's own near bankruptcy in 1804 due to credit-fuelled land speculation had biased him against paper money and toward a policy favorable to hard money.
In his First Annual Address in December 1829, Jackson openly challenged the Bank by questioning its constitutionality and the soundness of its money. Jackson's supporters further alleged that it gave preferential loans to speculators and merchants over artisans and farmers, that it used its money to bribe congressmen and the press, and that it had ties with foreign creditors. Biddle responded to Jackson's challenge in early 1830 by using the Bank's vast financial holding to ensure the Bank's reputation, and his supporters argued that the Bank was the key to prosperity and stable commerce. By the time of the 1832 election, Biddle spent had over $250,000, (), in printing pamphlets, lobbying for pro-Bank legislation, hiring agents and giving loans to editors and congressmen.
On the surface, Jackson's and Biddle's positions did not appear irreconcilable. Jackson seemed open to keeping the Bank if it could include some degree of Federal oversight, limit its real estate holdings, and have its property subject to taxation by the states. Many of Jackson's cabinet members thought a compromise was possible. In 1831, Treasury Secretary Louis McLane told Biddle that Jackson was open to chartering a modified version of the Bank, but Biddle did not consult Jackson directly. Privately, Jackson expressed opposition to the Bank; publicly, he announced that he would leave the decision concerning the Bank in the hands of the people. Biddle was finally convinced to take open action by Henry Clay, who had decided to run for president against Jackson in the 1832 election. Biddle would agree to seek renewal of the charter two years earlier than scheduled. Clay argued that Jackson was in a bind. If he vetoed the charter, he would loose the votes of his pro-Bank constituents in Pennsylvania; but if he signed the charter, he would lose his anti-Bank constituents. After the recharter bill was passed, Jackson vetoed it on July 10, 1832, arguing that the country should not surrender the will of the majority to the desires of the wealthy.
Election of 1832.
The 1832 presidential election demonstrated the rapid development of political parties during Jackson's presidency. The Democratic Party's first national convention, held in Baltimore, nominated Jackson's choice for vice president, Martin Van Buren. The National Republican Party, which had held its first convention in Baltimore earlier in December 1831, nominated Clay, now a senator from Kentucky, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania. An Anti-Masonic Party with a platform built around opposition to Freemasonry, it supported neither Jackson nor Clay, who both were Masons. The party nominated William Wirt of Maryland and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania.
In addition to the votes Jackson would lose because of the Bank veto, Clay hoped that Jackson's Indian Removal Act would alienate voters in the East; but Jackson's losses were offset by the Act's popularity in the West and Southwest. Clay had also expected that Jackson would lose votes because of his stand on internal improvements. Jackson had vetoed the Maysville Road bill, which funded an upgrade of a section of the National Road in Clay's state of Kentucky; as part of his justification, Jackson claimed it was unconstitutional to fund internal improvements using national funds for local projects.
Clay's strategy failed. Jackson was able to mobilize the Democratic Party's strong political networks. The Northeast supported Jackson because he was in favor of maintaining a stiff tariff; the West supported him because the Indian Removal Act reduced the number of Native Americans in the region and made available more public land. Except for South Carolina, which passed the Ordinance of Nullification during the election month and refused to support any party by giving its votes to the future Governor of Virginia John B. Floyd, the South supported Jackson for implementing the Indian Removal Act, as well as for his willingness to compromise by signing the Tariff of 1832. Jackson won the election by a landslide, receiving 55 percent of the popular vote and 219 electoral votes.
Removal of deposits and censure.
Jackson saw his victory as a mandate to continue his war on the Bank's control over the national economy. In 1833, Jackson signed an executive order ending the deposit of Treasury receipts in the bank. When Secretary of the Treasury McLane refused to execute the order, Jackson replaced him with William J. Duane, who also refused. Jackson then appointed Roger B. Taney as acting secretary, who implemented Jackson's policy. With the loss of federal deposits, the Bank had to contract its credit. Biddle used this contraction to create an economic downturn in an attempt to get Jackson to compromise. Biddle wrote, "Nothing but the evidence of suffering abroad will produce any effect in Congress." The attempt did not succeed, the economy recovered and Biddle was blamed for the recession.
Jackson's actions led those who disagreed with him to form the Whig Party. They claimed to oppose Jackson's expansion of executive power, calling him "King Andrew the First", and naming their party after the English Whigs who opposed seventeenth century British monarchy. In March 1832, the Senate censured Jackson for inappropriately taking authority for the Treasury Department when it was the responsibility of Congress and refused to confirm Taney's appointment as secretary of the treasury. In April, however, the House declared that the bank should not be rechartered. By July 1836, the Bank no longer held any federal deposits.
Jackson had Federal funds deposited into state banks friendly to the administration's policies, which critics called pet banks. The number of these state banks more than doubled during Jackson's administration, and investment patterns changed. The Bank, which had been the federal government's fiscal agent, invested heavily in trade and financed interregional and international trade. State banks were more responsive to state governments, and invested heavily in land development, land speculation, and state public works projects. In spite of the efforts of Taney's successor, Levi Woodbury, to control them, the pet banks expanded their loans, helping to create a speculative boom in the final years of Jackson's administration.
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that it had been accomplished. It was paid down through tariff revenues, carefully managing federal funding of internal improvements like roads and canals, and the sale of public lands. Between 1834 and 1836, the government had unprecedented spike in land sales: At its peak in 1836, the profits from land sales were eight to twelve times higher than a typical year. During Jackson's presidency, 63 million acres of public land—about the size of the state of Oklahoma—was sold. After Jackson stepped down from the presidency in 1837, a Democrat-majority Senate expunged Jackson's censure.
Panic of 1837.
Despite the economic boom following Jackson's victory in the Bank War, land speculation in the west caused the Panic of 1837. Jackson's transfer of federal monies to state banks in 1833 caused western banks to relax their lending standards; the Indian Removal Act made large amounts of former Native American lands available for purchase and speculation. Two of Jackson's acts in 1836 contributed to the Panic of 1837. One was the Specie Circular, which mandated western lands only be purchased by money backed by specie. The act was intended to stabilize the economy by reducing speculation on credit, but it caused a drain of gold and silver from the Eastern banks to the Western banks to address the needs of financing land transactions. The other was the Deposit and Distribution Act, which transferred federal monies from eastern to western state banks. Together, they left Eastern banks unable to pay specie to the British when they recalled their loans to address their economic problems in international trade. The panic drove the U.S. economy into a depression that lasted until 1841.
Physical assault and assassination attempt.
Jackson was the first president to be subjected to physical assault as well an assassination attempt. On May 6, 1833, Robert B. Randolph struck Jackson in the face with his hand because Jackson had ordered Randolph's dismissal from the navy for embezzlement. Jackson declined to press charges. While leaving the United States Capitol on January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane until others intervened to restrain Lawrence, who was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and institutionalized.
Slavery.
During Jackson's presidency, slavery remained a minor political issue. Though federal troops were used to crush Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, Jackson ordered them withdrawn immediately afterwards despite the petition of local citizens them to remain for protection. Jackson considered the issue too divisive to the nation and to the delicate alliances of the Democratic Party, while sympathetic newspapers argued for excluding slavery from federal politics and keeping it at the state level.
Jackson's view was challenged when the American Anti-Slavery Society formally agitated for abolition by sending anti-slavery tracts through the postal system into the South in 1835. Jackson condemned these agitators as "monsters" who should atone with their lives because they were attempting to destroy the Union by encouraging sectionalism. The act provoked riots in Charleston, and pro-slavery Southerners demanded that the postal service ban distribution of the materials. To address the issue, Jackson authorized that the tracts could be sent only to subscribers, whose names could be made publicly accountable. That December, Jackson called on Congress to prohibit the circulation through the South of "incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection".
There was a risk of slavery becoming a problem again after Van Buren's presidential nomination in 1835 when abolitionists stepped up their campaign to raise the question of slavery in Congress. Jackson saw these as election year attempts by Whigs to undermine the Democrats. During the 1836 election year, the House addressed the issue by passing a "gag rule", which kept abolition from becoming a topic of debate: Congress would receive documents regarding abolition, but immediately table them without discussion. The strategy worked; the Democratic Party stayed united and Van Buren, Jackson's chosen successor, was successfully elected president in 1836.
Foreign affairs.
The Jackson administration successfully negotiated trade agreements with Great Britain, Spain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Siam. In his First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson addressed the issues of spoliation claims, demands of compensation for the capture of American ships and sailors by foreign nations during the Napoleonic Wars. Using a combination of bluster and tact, he successfully settled these claims with Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, but he had difficulty collecting spoliation claims from France, which was unwilling to pay an indemnity agreed to in an earlier treaty. Jackson asked Congress in 1834 to authorize reprisals against French property if the country failed to make payment, as well as to arm for defense. In response, France put its Caribbean fleet on a wartime footing. Both sides wanted to avoid a conflict, but the French wanted an apology for Jackson's belligerence. In his 1835 Annual Message to the Congress, Jackson asserted that he refused to apologize, but stated that he did not intend to "menace or insult the Government of France". The French were assuaged and agreed to pay $5,000,000 () to settle the claims.
Since the early 1820s, large numbers of Americans had been immigrating into Texas, a territory of the newly independent nation of Mexico. As early as 1824, Jackson had expressed a desire to acquire the region for the United States. In 1829, he attempted to purchase it, but Mexico did not want to sell. By 1830, there were twice as many settlers from the United States as from Mexico, leading to tensions with the Mexican government that started the Texas Revolution. During the conflict, Jackson covertly allowed the settlers to obtain weapons and money from the United States. They defeated the Mexican military in April 1836 and soon afterward declared the region an independent country, the Republic of Texas. The new Republic asked Jackson to recognize and annex it. Although Jackson wanted to do so, he was hesitant because he was unsure it could maintain independence from Mexico. He also was concerned because Texas had legalized slavery, which was an issue that could divide the Democrats during the 1836 election. Jackson recognized the Republic of Texas on the last full day of his presidency, March 3, 1837.
Judicial appointments.
Jackson appointed six justices to the Supreme Court. Most were undistinguished. Jackson nominated Roger B. Taney in January 1835 to the Court in reward for his services, but the nomination failed to win Senate approval. When Chief Justice Marshall died in 1835, Jackson nominated Taney for Chief Justice; he was confirmed by the new Senate, serving as Chief Justice until 1864. He was regarded with respect during his career on the bench, but he is most remembered for his decision in "Dred Scott v. Sandford".
States admitted to the Union.
Two new states were admitted into the Union during Jackson's presidency: Arkansas (June 15, 1836) and Michigan (January 26, 1837). Both states increased Democratic power in Congress and helped Van Buren win the presidency in 1836, as new states tended to support the party that had done the most to admit them.
Later life and death (1837–1845).
In 1837, Jackson retired to the Hermitage and immediately began putting its affairs in order, as it had been poorly managed in his absence. Though Jackson was in ill health and had lost some of his popularity because he was blamed for the Panic of 1837, he remained influential in national and state politics.
Jackson supported an Independent Treasury system as a solution to the panic, which would hold the money balances of the government in the form of gold or silver and would be restricted from printing paper money to prevent further inflation. This system was implemented in 1846. The depression still continued, and Van Buren became unpopular. The Whig Party nominated war hero William Henry Harrison and former Democrat John Tyler for the 1840 presidential election. They used a campaign style similar to that of the Democrats: Van Buren was depicted as an uncaring aristocrat, while Harrison's war record was glorified, and he was portrayed as a man of the people. Jackson campaigned loyally for Van Buren in Tennessee. He favored James K. Polk as vice presidential candidate, but no candidate for that office was chosen.
To Jackson's dismay, Harrison won the 1840 election with the Whigs capturing majorities in both houses of Congress. Harrison died only a month into his term, and was replaced by Tyler. Jackson was encouraged because Tyler was not bound to party loyalties. Tyler angered the Whigs in 1841 when he vetoed two Whig-sponsored bills to establish a new national bank. Jackson and other Democrats praised Tyler, but Tyler's entire cabinet, except Daniel Webster, resigned.
Jackson lobbied for the annexation of Texas, insisting that it belonged to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. He thought that annexation would cause national division over slavery, but feared the British could use Texas as a base to threaten the United States. Jackson wrote several letters to Texas president Sam Houston, urging him to wait for the Senate to approve annexation and explaining how much Texas would benefit as a part of the United States. Tyler signed a treaty of annexation in April 1844, but it became associated with the expansion of slavery and was not ratified. Henry Clay, the Whig nominee for the 1844 presidential election, and Van Buren, Jackson's preferred candidate for the Democratic Party, both opposed annexation. Disappointed by Van Buren, Jackson convinced Polk, who was to be Van Buren's running mate, to run as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee instead. Polk defeated Van Buren for the nomination, and Jackson convinced Tyler not to run as an independent by bringing him back into the Democratic Party. Polk won the election, the Senate passed a bill to annex Texas, and it was signed on March 1, 1845.
Jackson died of dropsy and heart failure at 78 years of age on June 8, 1845. He was surrounded by family and friends at his deathbed, and his last words were, "Oh, do not cry. Be good children and we will all meet in Heaven." He was buried in the same tomb as his wife Rachel.
Personal life.
Family.
Jackson and Rachel had no children together but adopted Andrew Jackson Jr., the son of Rachel's deceased brother Severn Donelson. The Jacksons acted as guardians for Donelson's other children: John Samuel, Daniel Smith, and Andrew Jackson. They were also guardians for Andrew Jackson Hutchings, Rachel's orphaned grand nephew, and the orphaned children of a friend, Edward Butler – Caroline, Eliza, Edward, and Anthony – who lived with the Jacksons after their father died. Jackson also had three Creek children living with them: Lyncoya, a Creek orphan Jackson had adopted after the Battle of Tallushatchee, and two boys they called Theodore and Charley.
For the only time in U.S. history, two women acted simultaneously as unofficial First Lady for the widower Jackson. Rachel's niece Emily Donelson was married to Andrew Jackson Donelson (who acted as Jackson's private secretary) and served as hostess at the White House. The president and Emily became estranged for over a year during the Petticoat affair, but they eventually reconciled and she resumed her duties as White House hostess. Sarah Yorke Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson Jr., became co-hostess of the White House in 1834, and took over all hostess duties after Emily died from tuberculosis in 1836.
Temperament.
Jackson had a reputation for being short-tempered and violent, which terrified his opponents. He was able to use his temper strategically to accomplish what he wanted. He could keep it in check when necessary: his behavior was friendly and urbane when he went to Washington as senator during the campaign leading up to the 1824 election. According to Van Buren, he remained calm in times of difficulty and made his decisions deliberatively.
He had the tendency to take things personally. If someone crossed him, he would often become obsessed with crushing them. For example, on the last day of his presidency, Jackson declared he had only two regrets: that he had not hanged Henry Clay or shot John C. Calhoun. He also had a strong sense of loyalty. He considered threats to his friends as threats to himself, but he demanded unquestioning loyalty in return.
Jackson was self-confident, without projecting a sense of self-importance. This self-confidence gave him the ability to persevere in the face of adversity. Once he decided on a plan of action, he would adhere to it. His reputation for being both quick-tempered and confident worked to his advantage; it misled opponents to see him as simple and direct, leading them to often understimate his political shrewdness.
Religious faith.
In 1838, Jackson became an official member of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Both his mother and his wife had been devout Presbyterians all their lives, but Jackson stated that he had postponed officially entering the church until after his retirement to avoid accusations that he had done so for political reasons.
Family.
Jackson and Rachel had no children together but adopted Andrew Jackson Jr., the son of Rachel's deceased brother Severn Donelson. The Jacksons acted as guardians for Donelson's other children: John Samuel, Daniel Smith, and Andrew Jackson. They were also guardians for Andrew Jackson Hutchings, Rachel's orphaned grand nephew, and the orphaned children of a friend, Edward Butler – Caroline, Eliza, Edward, and Anthony – who lived with the Jacksons after their father died. Jackson also had three Creek children living with them: Lyncoya, a Creek orphan Jackson had adopted after the Battle of Tallushatchee, and two boys they called Theodore and Charley.
For the only time in U.S. history, two women acted simultaneously as unofficial First Lady for the widower Jackson. Rachel's niece Emily Donelson was married to Andrew Jackson Donelson (who acted as Jackson's private secretary) and served as hostess at the White House. The president and Emily became estranged for over a year during the Petticoat affair, but they eventually reconciled and she resumed her duties as White House hostess. Sarah Yorke Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson Jr., became co-hostess of the White House in 1834, and took over all hostess duties after Emily died from tuberculosis in 1836.
Temperament.
Jackson had a reputation for being short-tempered and violent, which terrified his opponents. He was able to use his temper strategically to accomplish what he wanted. He could keep it in check when necessary: his behavior was friendly and urbane when he went to Washington as senator during the campaign leading up to the 1824 election. According to Van Buren, he remained calm in times of difficulty and made his decisions deliberatively.
He had the tendency to take things personally. If someone crossed him, he would often become obsessed with crushing them. For example, on the last day of his presidency, Jackson declared he had only two regrets: that he had not hanged Henry Clay or shot John C. Calhoun. He also had a strong sense of loyalty. He considered threats to his friends as threats to himself, but he demanded unquestioning loyalty in return.
Jackson was self-confident, without projecting a sense of self-importance. This self-confidence gave him the ability to persevere in the face of adversity. Once he decided on a plan of action, he would adhere to it. His reputation for being both quick-tempered and confident worked to his advantage; it misled opponents to see him as simple and direct, leading them to often understimate his political shrewdness.
Religious faith.
In 1838, Jackson became an official member of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Both his mother and his wife had been devout Presbyterians all their lives, but Jackson stated that he had postponed officially entering the church until after his retirement to avoid accusations that he had done so for political reasons.
Legacy.
The year after Jackson's death, Benjamin Dusenbery, who collected eulogies to him, wrote that Jackson's "opponents have ever been his most bitter enemies, and his friends almost his worshippers". Jackson continues to polarize opinions and his legacy—his impact on American politics, his Native American policy, and his personality—remains controversial.
Jacksonian democracy.
Jackson became president during a time of increasing white male suffrage. His political victories led to the emergence of the Democratic Party, which committed itself to abolishing all voting restrictions based on property or tax payments. This change in political outlook became known as "Jacksonian democracy". Jackson believed that the country should be run by majority rule: the government should be responsive to its constituents, voters should be able to elect their representatives without mediating institutions like the Electoral College, and the president directly represents the American people. He argued that the sovereign power of the people lies in the constitution, not the state or the courts, and that the president had a right to interpret laws independently of the judiciary. Jackson asserted that because the government represents the majority, it has no right to grant favors such as corporate charters or subsidies to a privileged few. The role of the government is to administer justice but otherwise to stay out of people's affairs.
During Jackson's presidency, Alexis de Tocqueville described America as an experiment in self-government by a sovereign people but warned of its dangers, such as becoming a tyranny of the majority. Jackson's Whig opponents expressed this concern, characterizing him as a king, and Whig historians during the nineteenth century described Jacksonian democracy as a program of exclusion in which capable people were replaced with mob rule.
In the 1920s, the Jacksonian era became associated with the idea of the "common man"; a connection that remains strong today. This idea defined the age as a populist rejection of social elites and a vindication of every person's value independent of class and status. Jackson was seen as its personification, an individual free of societal constraints who can achieve great things. In 1945, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s influential "Age of Jackson" redefined Jacksonian Democracy through the lens of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, describing the common man as a member of the working class struggling against exploitation by business concerns. Schlesinger quotes Roosevelt as saying that Jackson's heritage is "his unending contributions to the vitality of our democracy".
In the 21st century, Jacksonian democracy's value as a distinct concept has been brought into question, as many of its characteristics were already developing before Jackson's time.
Critics of Jacksonian democracy have argued that it was fundamentally racist, and that its egalitarianism is based on the assumption of white supremacy in what has been called a "master race democracy". During this era, condescending and hostile racist arguments were used to deny suffrage to free African Americans across most of the country. Abolition was not considered a threat because of its moral significance, but because of its potential to disrupt national unity. Abolitionists were seen as fanatics who amassed local power and flouted the democratic process to privilege African Americans over whites. The anti-slavery movement eventually replaced "money power" as the enemy of Jacksonian politics.
Native American policy.
The removal of Native Americans from lands claimed by the United States had been a long-term goal of the federal government. Before he became president, Jackson had played a key role in negotiating treaties that required Native American tribes to cede their lands. In addition to the Creek territory he took at the Treaty of Fort Jackson after the Creek War in 1814, he negotiated further cessions from the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw in 1816. He helped negotiate the Treaty of Tuscaloosa with the Chickasaw that resulted in the Jackson Purchase in 1818 and obtained additional cessions from the Choctaw at the Treaty of Doak's Stand in 1820. Jackson's victory in the First Seminole War was instrumental in convincing the Seminoles to sign Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823, which surrendered much of their land in Florida.
The Indian Removal Act made Native American displacement an official federal policy.
Jackson felt the act was the key to national development. Native Americans still occupied rich lands, and their existence as separate nations was seen to threaten American sovereignty. Jackson presented the act as voluntary. He argued that deportation was the most humane solution to address the ongoing problems between Native Americans and whites; otherwise, Native Americans would eventually be conquered by war or subjugated by the states, which would lead to their annihilation.
When the Indian Removal Act was passed, it was seen to have positive benefits. It increased Jackson's popularity in the states that were directly impacted by Native American removal, expanded the amount of land available for cotton cultivation, and almost doubled the rate of land improvement. Its implementation infused federal money into the Western states. In his Farewell Address in 1837, Jackson described the act as one of his successes, arguing that it had increased the well-being of Americans while allowing the federal government to oversee and protect the well-being of Native Americans. Some contemporary historians have agreed with Jackson, adding that his solution was the best available at the time and it achieved its goal of allowing the Native American tribes to survive.
More recently, Jackson's Indian Removal Act has been described as ethnic cleansing: the use of force, terror and violence to make an area ethnically homogeneous. To achieve the goal of separating Native Americans from the whites, coercive force such as threats and bribes were used to effect removal and unauthorized military force was used when there was resistance, as in the case of the Second Seminole War. The act has also been discussed in the context of genocide. On its own, it does not easily fit into a definition of genocide because its aim was separation, not annihilation; but its role in the long-term destruction of Native American societies and their cultures continues to be a source of controversy.
Historical reputation.
Jackson's complex personality made him a controversial figure. Writing just fifteen years after Jackson's death, James Parton summed him up as follows:
These apparent contradictions still remain part of Jackson's legacy. Since the 1900s, he has been described as a frontiersman personifying the independence of the American West, a slave-owning member of the Southern gentry, a populist who promoted faith in the wisdom of the ordinary citizen and the will of the majority, and an autocratic demagogue who incited violence for political ends. He has been represented as a statesman who substantially advanced the spirit of democracyand upheld the foundations of American constitutionalism, as well as a dominating personality who knew how to wield power to crush opposition and trampled the law.
His legacy has been variously interpreted by other presidents. Abraham Lincoln used Jackson's ideas to negotiate the challenges to the Union that he faced during 1861, including Jackson's understanding of the constitution during the nullification crisis and the president's right to interpret the constitution as he understood it. Franklin D. Roosevelt used Jackson to redefine the Democratic Party, describing him as a defender of the exploited and downtrodden and as a fighter for social justice and human rights.
Donald Trump used Jackson's legacy to present an image of himself as the president of the common man, praising Jackson for saving the country from a rising aristocracy and protecting American workers with a tariff.
Jackson's contradictory legacy is seen in opinion polls. In a 2014 survey asking political scientists to rate presidential greatness, Jackson was the ninth-highest rated president, but the second-most polarizing. He was also rated the second-most overrated president. Jackson usually scores in the top half of presidents in public opinion polls looking at their performance, but his ratings have been dropping. In a C-SPAN poll, Jackson was ranked the 13th in 2009, 18th in 2017, and 22nd in 2021.
In 2016, President Barack Obama's administration announced it was removing Jackson's portrait from the $20 bill and replacing it with one of Harriet Tubman. Though the plan was put on hold during Trump's presidency, President Joe Biden's administration resumed it in 2021.
The continuing debate over Jackson's significance is part of what makes his legacy relevant today. The unresolved issues about the meaning of Jackson's actions reflect the ongoing questions that Americans face when judging the origins and meaning of their democracy.
Jacksonian democracy.
Jackson became president during a time of increasing white male suffrage. His political victories led to the emergence of the Democratic Party, which committed itself to abolishing all voting restrictions based on property or tax payments. This change in political outlook became known as "Jacksonian democracy". Jackson believed that the country should be run by majority rule: the government should be responsive to its constituents, voters should be able to elect their representatives without mediating institutions like the Electoral College, and the president directly represents the American people. He argued that the sovereign power of the people lies in the constitution, not the state or the courts, and that the president had a right to interpret laws independently of the judiciary. Jackson asserted that because the government represents the majority, it has no right to grant favors such as corporate charters or subsidies to a privileged few. The role of the government is to administer justice but otherwise to stay out of people's affairs.
During Jackson's presidency, Alexis de Tocqueville described America as an experiment in self-government by a sovereign people but warned of its dangers, such as becoming a tyranny of the majority. Jackson's Whig opponents expressed this concern, characterizing him as a king, and Whig historians during the nineteenth century described Jacksonian democracy as a program of exclusion in which capable people were replaced with mob rule.
In the 1920s, the Jacksonian era became associated with the idea of the "common man"; a connection that remains strong today. This idea defined the age as a populist rejection of social elites and a vindication of every person's value independent of class and status. Jackson was seen as its personification, an individual free of societal constraints who can achieve great things. In 1945, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s influential "Age of Jackson" redefined Jacksonian Democracy through the lens of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, describing the common man as a member of the working class struggling against exploitation by business concerns. Schlesinger quotes Roosevelt as saying that Jackson's heritage is "his unending contributions to the vitality of our democracy".
In the 21st century, Jacksonian democracy's value as a distinct concept has been brought into question, as many of its characteristics were already developing before Jackson's time.
Critics of Jacksonian democracy have argued that it was fundamentally racist, and that its egalitarianism is based on the assumption of white supremacy in what has been called a "master race democracy". During this era, condescending and hostile racist arguments were used to deny suffrage to free African Americans across most of the country. Abolition was not considered a threat because of its moral significance, but because of its potential to disrupt national unity. Abolitionists were seen as fanatics who amassed local power and flouted the democratic process to privilege African Americans over whites. The anti-slavery movement eventually replaced "money power" as the enemy of Jacksonian politics.
Native American policy.
The removal of Native Americans from lands claimed by the United States had been a long-term goal of the federal government. Before he became president, Jackson had played a key role in negotiating treaties that required Native American tribes to cede their lands. In addition to the Creek territory he took at the Treaty of Fort Jackson after the Creek War in 1814, he negotiated further cessions from the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw in 1816. He helped negotiate the Treaty of Tuscaloosa with the Chickasaw that resulted in the Jackson Purchase in 1818 and obtained additional cessions from the Choctaw at the Treaty of Doak's Stand in 1820. Jackson's victory in the First Seminole War was instrumental in convincing the Seminoles to sign Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823, which surrendered much of their land in Florida.
The Indian Removal Act made Native American displacement an official federal policy.
Jackson felt the act was the key to national development. Native Americans still occupied rich lands, and their existence as separate nations was seen to threaten American sovereignty. Jackson presented the act as voluntary. He argued that deportation was the most humane solution to address the ongoing problems between Native Americans and whites; otherwise, Native Americans would eventually be conquered by war or subjugated by the states, which would lead to their annihilation.
When the Indian Removal Act was passed, it was seen to have positive benefits. It increased Jackson's popularity in the states that were directly impacted by Native American removal, expanded the amount of land available for cotton cultivation, and almost doubled the rate of land improvement. Its implementation infused federal money into the Western states. In his Farewell Address in 1837, Jackson described the act as one of his successes, arguing that it had increased the well-being of Americans while allowing the federal government to oversee and protect the well-being of Native Americans. Some contemporary historians have agreed with Jackson, adding that his solution was the best available at the time and it achieved its goal of allowing the Native American tribes to survive.
More recently, Jackson's Indian Removal Act has been described as ethnic cleansing: the use of force, terror and violence to make an area ethnically homogeneous. To achieve the goal of separating Native Americans from the whites, coercive force such as threats and bribes were used to effect removal and unauthorized military force was used when there was resistance, as in the case of the Second Seminole War. The act has also been discussed in the context of genocide. On its own, it does not easily fit into a definition of genocide because its aim was separation, not annihilation; but its role in the long-term destruction of Native American societies and their cultures continues to be a source of controversy.
Historical reputation.
Jackson's complex personality made him a controversial figure. Writing just fifteen years after Jackson's death, James Parton summed him up as follows:
These apparent contradictions still remain part of Jackson's legacy. Since the 1900s, he has been described as a frontiersman personifying the independence of the American West, a slave-owning member of the Southern gentry, a populist who promoted faith in the wisdom of the ordinary citizen and the will of the majority, and an autocratic demagogue who incited violence for political ends. He has been represented as a statesman who substantially advanced the spirit of democracyand upheld the foundations of American constitutionalism, as well as a dominating personality who knew how to wield power to crush opposition and trampled the law.
His legacy has been variously interpreted by other presidents. Abraham Lincoln used Jackson's ideas to negotiate the challenges to the Union that he faced during 1861, including Jackson's understanding of the constitution during the nullification crisis and the president's right to interpret the constitution as he understood it. Franklin D. Roosevelt used Jackson to redefine the Democratic Party, describing him as a defender of the exploited and downtrodden and as a fighter for social justice and human rights.
Donald Trump used Jackson's legacy to present an image of himself as the president of the common man, praising Jackson for saving the country from a rising aristocracy and protecting American workers with a tariff.
Jackson's contradictory legacy is seen in opinion polls. In a 2014 survey asking political scientists to rate presidential greatness, Jackson was the ninth-highest rated president, but the second-most polarizing. He was also rated the second-most overrated president. Jackson usually scores in the top half of presidents in public opinion polls looking at their performance, but his ratings have been dropping. In a C-SPAN poll, Jackson was ranked the 13th in 2009, 18th in 2017, and 22nd in 2021.
In 2016, President Barack Obama's administration announced it was removing Jackson's portrait from the $20 bill and replacing it with one of Harriet Tubman. Though the plan was put on hold during Trump's presidency, President Joe Biden's administration resumed it in 2021.
The continuing debate over Jackson's significance is part of what makes his legacy relevant today. The unresolved issues about the meaning of Jackson's actions reflect the ongoing questions that Americans face when judging the origins and meaning of their democracy.
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1746
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Anaximenes of Lampsacus
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Anaximenes of Lampsacus (; ; 320 BC) was a Greek rhetorician and historian. He was one of the teachers of Alexander the Great and accompanied him on his campaigns.
Family.
His father was named Aristocles (). His nephew (son of his sister), was also named Anaximenes and was a historian.
Rhetorical works.
Anaximenes was a pupil of Diogenes the Cynic and Zoilus and, like his teacher, wrote a work on Homer. As a rhetorician, he was a determined opponent of Isocrates and his school. He is generally regarded as the author of the "Rhetoric to Alexander", an "Art of Rhetoric" included in the traditional corpus of Aristotle's works. Quintilian seems to refer to this work under Anaximenes' name in "Institutio Oratoria" 3.4.9, as the Italian Renaissance philologist Piero Vettori first recognized. This attribution has, however, been disputed by some scholars.
The hypothesis to Isocrates' "Helen" mentions that Anaximenes, too, had written a "Helen", "though it is more a defense speech ("apologia") than an encomium," and concludes that he was "the man who has written about Helen" to whom Isocrates refers (Isoc. "Helen" 14). Jebb entertained the possibility that this work survives in the form of the "Encomium of Helen" ascribed to Gorgias: "It appears not improbable that Anaximenes may have been the real author of the work ascribed to Gorgias."
According to Pausanias (6.18.6), Anaximenes was "the first who practised the art of speaking extemporaneously." He also worked as a logographer, having written the speech prosecuting Phryne according to Diodorus Periegetes (quoted by Athenaeus XIII.591e). The "ethical" fragments preserved in Stobaeus' "Florilegium" may represent "some philosophical book."
According to Suda, no one before Anaximenes had invented improvised speeches.
Historical works.
Anaximenes wrote a history of Greece in twelve books, stretching from the gods' origins to the death of Epaminondas at the Battle of Mantinea ("Hellenica", ), and a history of Philip of Macedon ("Philippica"). He was a favorite of Alexander the Great, whom he accompanied in his Persian campaigns, and wrote a third historical work on Alexander (however, Pausanias 6.18.6 expresses doubt about his authorship of an epic poem on Alexander). He was one of the eight exemplary historiographers included in the Alexandrian canon.
Didymus reports that the work transmitted as speech 11 of Demosthenes ("Against the Letter of Philip") could be found in almost identical form in Book 7 of Anaximenes' "Philippica", and many scholars regard the work as a historiographic composition by Anaximenes. The "Letter of Philip" (speech 12) to which speech 11 seems to respond may also be by Anaximenes, or it may be an authentic letter by Philip, perhaps written with the aid of his advisers. The more ambitious theory of Wilhelm Nitsche, which assigned to Anaximenes a larger part of the Demosthenic corpus (speeches 10-13 and 25, letters 1–4, proems), can be rejected.
Anaximenes was hostile to Theopompus, whom he sought to discredit with a libelous parody, "Trikaranos", published in Theopompus' style and under his name, attacking Athens, Sparta, and Thebes.
Pausanias wrote: "He imitated the style of Theopompus with perfect accuracy, inscribed his name upon the book and sent it round to the cities. Though Anaximenes was the author of the treatise, hatred of Theopompus grew throughout the length of Greece."
Plutarch criticizes Anaximenes, together with Theopompus and Ephorus, for the "rhetorical effects and grand periods" these historians implausibly gave to men in the midst of urgent battlefield circumstances ("Praecepta gerendae reipublicae" 803b).
Saving Lampsacus.
The people of Lampsacus were pro-Persian, or were suspected of doing so and Alexander was furiously angry, and threatened to do them massive harm. They sent Anaximenes to intercede for them. Alexander knew why he had come, and swore by the gods that he would do the opposite of what he would ask, so Anaximenes said, 'Please do this for me, your majesty: enslave the women and children of Lampsacus, burn their temples, and raze the city to the ground.' Alexander had no way round this clever trick, and since he was bound by his oath he reluctantly pardoned the people of Lampsacus.
Statue at Olympia.
The people of Lampsacus dedicated a statue of him at Olympia, Greece.
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1751
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Alexander Anderson (mathematician)
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Alexander Anderson ( in Aberdeen – in Paris) was a Scottish mathematician.
Life.
He was born in Aberdeen, possibly in 1582, according to a print which suggests he was aged 35 in 1617. It is unknown where he was educated, but it is likely that he initially studied writing and philosophy (the "belles lettres") in his home city of Aberdeen.
He then went to the continent, and was a professor of mathematics in Paris by the start of the seventeenth century. There he published or edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various geometric and algebraic tracts. He described himself as having "more wisdom than riches" in the dedication of "Vindiciae Archimedis" (1616).
He was first cousin of David Anderson of Finshaugh, a celebrated mathematician, and David Anderson's daughter was the mother of mathematician James Gregory.
Work.
He was selected by the executors of François Viète to revise and edit Viète's manuscript works. Viète died in 1603, and it is unclear if Anderson knew him, but his eminence was sufficient to attract the attention of the dead man's executors. Anderson corrected and expanded upon Viète's manuscripts, which extended known geometry to the new algebra, which used general symbols to represent quantities.
Publications.
The known works of Anderson amount to six thin quarto volumes, and as the last of them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown. He wrote other works that have since been lost. From his last work it appears he wrote another piece, "A Treatise on the Mensuration of Solids," and copies of two other works, "Ex. Math." and "Stereometria Triangulorum Sphæricorum", were in the possession of Sir Alexander Hume until the after the middle of the seventeenth century.
Publications.
The known works of Anderson amount to six thin quarto volumes, and as the last of them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown. He wrote other works that have since been lost. From his last work it appears he wrote another piece, "A Treatise on the Mensuration of Solids," and copies of two other works, "Ex. Math." and "Stereometria Triangulorum Sphæricorum", were in the possession of Sir Alexander Hume until the after the middle of the seventeenth century.
References.
Attribution:
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1754
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Andrea Andreani
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Andrea Andreani (1540–1623) was an Italian engraver on wood, who was among the first printmakers in Italy to use chiaroscuro, which required multiple colours.
Andreani was born and generally active in Mantua about 1540 (Brulliot says 1560) and died at Rome in 1623. His engravings are scarce and valuable, and are chiefly copies of Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, Parmigianino and Titian. The most remarkable of his works are "Mercury and Ignorance", the "Deluge", "Pharaoh's Host Drowned in the Red Sea" (after Titian), the "Triumph of Caesar" (after Mantegna), and "Christ retiring from the judgment-seat of Pilate" after a relief by Giambologna. He was active 1584–1610 in Florence.
Andreani's work is held in several museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Ackland Art Museum, the Clark Art Institute, the Harvard Art Museums, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, the Cooper Hewitt, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the British Museum.
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1748
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Anaximenes of Miletus
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Anaximenes of Miletus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greek, Ionian Pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), active in the latter half of the 6th century BC. The details of his life are obscure because none of his work has been preserved. Anaximenes' ideas are only known today because of comments about him made by later writers, such as Aristotle.
As the last of the three philosophers of the Milesian School, considered the first philosophers of the Western world, Anaximenes is best known and identified as a younger friend or student of Anaximander, who was himself taught by the first philosopher Thales. Each developed a distinct cosmology without completely rejecting their predecessors views. Each were material monists who sought to discover the "arche;" the one, underlying physical yet divine basis of everything. Thales proposed all was made of water; Anaximander proposed all was made of "apeiron" or something indefinite rather than something specific, and Anaximenes proposed all was made of air, or literally "aer" which may also include mist or vapor. More condensed air made for colder, denser objects and more rarefied air made for hotter, lighter objects.
Much of his astronomical thought was based on Anaximander's, though he altered Anaximander's astrological ideas to better fit his own philosophical views on physics and the natural world. Anaximenes believed the Earth was flat like a disc and rode on air like a frisbee. The Anaximenes crater on the Moon is named in his honor.
Some of Anaximenes' writings are referenced during the Hellenistic Age, but no record of these documents currently exist. Apollodorus of Damascus estimated Anaximenes' lifespan as having flourished during the same time period in which Cyrus the Great defeated Croesus at the Battle of Thymbra in 546 BC. Philosophy may have spread elsewhere because Miletus was captured by the Persian army in 494 BC.
Air as the Arche.
Anaximenes thought air was the primary substance that held the universe together. He believed that air was infinite and divine. He was the first to use the word "pneuma" (“breath of life”) as a synonym for air. One of the only surviving quotes by Anaximenes reads: “Just as our soul...being air holds us together, so "pneuma" and air encompass [and guard] the whole world.” The analogy compared atmospheric air as the divine and human air as souls that animate people. This relation of the macroscopic and microscopic suggested Anaximenes believed there was an overarching principle that regulated all life and behaviour. Interestingly, the Old Testament features a similar analogy to the founding of the world and creation of man, but Anaximenes did not recognize a creator of the universe and did not think of the "pneuma" as a creator to guide man.
Condensation and rarefaction.
The choice of air may seem arbitrary, but Anaximenes based his conclusion on naturally observable phenomena in the water cycle, and the processes of rarefaction and condensation. The primary difference in the forms of air as matter was the degree of condensation and density. When air condenses it becomes visible, and according to Anaximenes, the spread-out, invisible, infinite air was condensed to wind, then formed into clouds, which condensed further to produce mist, rain, and other forms of precipitation. As the condensed air cooled, Anaximenes supposed that Earth itself was an early condensate of air—the process continued until the air was condensed enough to form solids like the Earth and ultimately stones. By contrast, Anaximenes was able to visually see how water evaporates into air and based his concept of rarefaction on this observation. According to him, any object that held light was made of fire, and fire was made from the rarefaction of air.
While other philosophers also recognized such transitions in states of matter, Anaximenes was the first to associate the qualitative change in hot/dry and cold/wet pairings with the density of a single material, effectively adding a quantitative dimension to the Milesian monistic system. He attributed condensation to cold/wet air and rarefaction to the interaction of hot/dry air.
Cosmology.
Having concluded that everything in the world is composed of air, Anaximenes used his theory to devise a scheme that explains the origins and nature of the earth and the surrounding celestial bodies. Air felted to create the flat disk of the earth, which he said was table-like and behaved like a leaf floating on air. Anaximenes did not think that stars were floating leaf-like bodies similar to the earth and sun; instead, he thought of stars being similar to nails that are stuck in a transparent shell. In keeping with the prevailing view of celestial bodies as balls of fire in the sky, Anaximenes proposed that the earth let out an exhalation of air that rarefied, ignited and became the stars. While the sun is similarly described as being aflame, it is not composed of rarefied air like the stars, but rather of earth like the moon; its burning comes not from its composition but rather from its rapid motion. Similarly, he considered the moon and sun to be flat and floating on streams of air. In his theory, when the sun sets it does not pass under the earth, but is merely obscured by higher parts of the earth as it circles around and becomes more distant. Anaximenes likens the motion of the sun and the other celestial bodies around the earth to the way that a cap may be turned around the head. Anaximenes believed that the sky was a dome, and day and night are caused by celestial bodies being carried North until they are no longer seen. There is evidence that suggests Anaximenes may have been the first person to distinguish between planets and fixed stars.
Other phenomena.
Anaximenes used his observations and reasoning to provide causes for other natural phenomena on the earth as well. Earthquakes, he asserted, were the result either of lack of moisture, which causes the earth to break apart because of how parched it is, or of superabundance of water, which also causes cracks in the earth. In either case the earth becomes weakened by its cracks, so that hills collapse and cause earthquakes. Lightning is similarly caused by the violent separation of clouds by the wind, creating a bright, fire-like flash. Rainbows, on the other hand, are formed when densely compressed air is touched by the rays of the sun. These examples show how Anaximenes, like the other Milesian philosophers, looked for the broader picture in nature. They sought unifying causes for diversely occurring events, rather than treating each one on a case-by-case basis, or attributing them to gods or to a personified nature.
Condensation and rarefaction.
The choice of air may seem arbitrary, but Anaximenes based his conclusion on naturally observable phenomena in the water cycle, and the processes of rarefaction and condensation. The primary difference in the forms of air as matter was the degree of condensation and density. When air condenses it becomes visible, and according to Anaximenes, the spread-out, invisible, infinite air was condensed to wind, then formed into clouds, which condensed further to produce mist, rain, and other forms of precipitation. As the condensed air cooled, Anaximenes supposed that Earth itself was an early condensate of air—the process continued until the air was condensed enough to form solids like the Earth and ultimately stones. By contrast, Anaximenes was able to visually see how water evaporates into air and based his concept of rarefaction on this observation. According to him, any object that held light was made of fire, and fire was made from the rarefaction of air.
While other philosophers also recognized such transitions in states of matter, Anaximenes was the first to associate the qualitative change in hot/dry and cold/wet pairings with the density of a single material, effectively adding a quantitative dimension to the Milesian monistic system. He attributed condensation to cold/wet air and rarefaction to the interaction of hot/dry air.
Cosmology.
Having concluded that everything in the world is composed of air, Anaximenes used his theory to devise a scheme that explains the origins and nature of the earth and the surrounding celestial bodies. Air felted to create the flat disk of the earth, which he said was table-like and behaved like a leaf floating on air. Anaximenes did not think that stars were floating leaf-like bodies similar to the earth and sun; instead, he thought of stars being similar to nails that are stuck in a transparent shell. In keeping with the prevailing view of celestial bodies as balls of fire in the sky, Anaximenes proposed that the earth let out an exhalation of air that rarefied, ignited and became the stars. While the sun is similarly described as being aflame, it is not composed of rarefied air like the stars, but rather of earth like the moon; its burning comes not from its composition but rather from its rapid motion. Similarly, he considered the moon and sun to be flat and floating on streams of air. In his theory, when the sun sets it does not pass under the earth, but is merely obscured by higher parts of the earth as it circles around and becomes more distant. Anaximenes likens the motion of the sun and the other celestial bodies around the earth to the way that a cap may be turned around the head. Anaximenes believed that the sky was a dome, and day and night are caused by celestial bodies being carried North until they are no longer seen. There is evidence that suggests Anaximenes may have been the first person to distinguish between planets and fixed stars.
Other phenomena.
Anaximenes used his observations and reasoning to provide causes for other natural phenomena on the earth as well. Earthquakes, he asserted, were the result either of lack of moisture, which causes the earth to break apart because of how parched it is, or of superabundance of water, which also causes cracks in the earth. In either case the earth becomes weakened by its cracks, so that hills collapse and cause earthquakes. Lightning is similarly caused by the violent separation of clouds by the wind, creating a bright, fire-like flash. Rainbows, on the other hand, are formed when densely compressed air is touched by the rays of the sun. These examples show how Anaximenes, like the other Milesian philosophers, looked for the broader picture in nature. They sought unifying causes for diversely occurring events, rather than treating each one on a case-by-case basis, or attributing them to gods or to a personified nature.
Influence on philosophy.
Since language and communication were very limited in his time, Anaximenes's analogies were key in explaining the uncertain through the certain. For example, he knew for certain that blowing air on his hand with his mouth wide open produced hot air, while blowing on his hand with half-closed lips produced cold air. These observations were key in his postulate that the hot air was due to rarefaction and expansion, whereas the cold air was due to condensation and compression. Although in modern times it is known that this is actually the opposite, Anaximenes was key in arriving at this conclusion. His analogies often connected parallels between man and the cosmos, insinuating that the same natural laws observable on earth applied to the heavens. Over 2000 years later, Isaac Newton proved this to be true. Throughout history, Anaximenes's observations proved helpful to uncover powerful theories, such as quantum physics and chemical properties. By the end of the Milesian philosophy era, there were many questions left unanswered; this sparked the stimulation of Pre-socratic thought to continue through many other notable philosophers such as Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Democritus.
Anaximenes greatest influence is not from his theories of matter, but instead it is from how he thought about these ideas. For instance, his theory of air being the underlying substance was disproved, but when looking at his idea from a fundamental aspect, in which a substance is capable of changing forms, his theory was the first of its kind.
Pre-Socratic philosophy.
The theories of Anaximenes were likely influential upon later Presocratic philosophers, and, according to classicist John Burnet, he was in his time a more important figure than his teacher Anaximander.
Similarly to Anaximenes, the Pythagoreans, according to Aristotle, believed that there was "boundless breath" which was "outside the heavens, and … was inhaled by the world". The cosmology of Anaxagoras shared many similarities with that of Anaximenes, and was likely influenced by it, while the Atomists Democritus and Leucippus adopted Anaximenes' view that the world was flat. Diogenes of Apollonia took up the view of Anaximenes' that air was the "arche", that it was the governing force and the source of everything in creation, and that all substances were the result of the condensation and rarefaction of air.
Plato and Aristotle.
Many similarities to Anaximenes' theories are apparent in Plato's theory. So much so, that some scholars have said Plato has based his theory of matter on Anaximenes's theory. In Aristotle's view on Anaximenes, he interprets the theory as the one substance being air, and all other states of matter are different condensations of air. In Plato's interpretation of Anaximenes's theory, he considers the seven states of matter: fire, air, wind, clouds, earth and stone as different densities. Acknowledging that these seven states of matter are different densities shows how the intrinsic properties of the matter have changed, and they are actually different substances. Anaximenes supports this conclusion by his explanation using the concept of felting. Felting is a technological model used to explain condensation, in which wool turns into felt and has new properties. Just as how wind is compressed into clouds in Anaximenes's theory. Without recognizing Anaximenes's influence on Plato, and simply focusing on Anaximenes's influence on Aristotle, Anaximenes's contributions to scientific thought are not fully recognized. Aristotle interpreted Anaximenes's theory as all substance being different manifestations of air. It was Plato's interpretation of Anaximenes's theory that recognized the fundamental changes of air into other substances.
Because Plato's theory does not recognize Anaximenes's by name, some scholars have doubted that Plato's theory was actually influenced by Anaximenes. The proponents of the influence have written that the uniqueness of Anaximenes's theory and obvious similarities to Plato's theory prove the connection.
Pre-Socratic philosophy.
The theories of Anaximenes were likely influential upon later Presocratic philosophers, and, according to classicist John Burnet, he was in his time a more important figure than his teacher Anaximander.
Similarly to Anaximenes, the Pythagoreans, according to Aristotle, believed that there was "boundless breath" which was "outside the heavens, and … was inhaled by the world". The cosmology of Anaxagoras shared many similarities with that of Anaximenes, and was likely influenced by it, while the Atomists Democritus and Leucippus adopted Anaximenes' view that the world was flat. Diogenes of Apollonia took up the view of Anaximenes' that air was the "arche", that it was the governing force and the source of everything in creation, and that all substances were the result of the condensation and rarefaction of air.
Plato and Aristotle.
Many similarities to Anaximenes' theories are apparent in Plato's theory. So much so, that some scholars have said Plato has based his theory of matter on Anaximenes's theory. In Aristotle's view on Anaximenes, he interprets the theory as the one substance being air, and all other states of matter are different condensations of air. In Plato's interpretation of Anaximenes's theory, he considers the seven states of matter: fire, air, wind, clouds, earth and stone as different densities. Acknowledging that these seven states of matter are different densities shows how the intrinsic properties of the matter have changed, and they are actually different substances. Anaximenes supports this conclusion by his explanation using the concept of felting. Felting is a technological model used to explain condensation, in which wool turns into felt and has new properties. Just as how wind is compressed into clouds in Anaximenes's theory. Without recognizing Anaximenes's influence on Plato, and simply focusing on Anaximenes's influence on Aristotle, Anaximenes's contributions to scientific thought are not fully recognized. Aristotle interpreted Anaximenes's theory as all substance being different manifestations of air. It was Plato's interpretation of Anaximenes's theory that recognized the fundamental changes of air into other substances.
Because Plato's theory does not recognize Anaximenes's by name, some scholars have doubted that Plato's theory was actually influenced by Anaximenes. The proponents of the influence have written that the uniqueness of Anaximenes's theory and obvious similarities to Plato's theory prove the connection.
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1752
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Andocides
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Andocides (; , "Andokides"; c. 440 – c. 390 BC) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC.
Life.
Andocides was the son of Leogoras, and was born in Athens around 440 BC. He belonged to the ancient Eupatrid family of the Kerykes, who traced their lineage up to Odysseus and the god Hermes.
During his youth, Andocides seems to have been employed on various occasions as ambassador to Thessaly, Macedonia, Molossia, Thesprotia, Italy, and Sicily. And although he was frequently attacked for his political opinions, he maintained his ground until, in 415, he became involved in the charge brought against Alcibiades for having profaned the mysteries and mutilated the Herms on the eve of the departure of the Athenian expedition against Sicily. It appeared particularly likely that Andocides was an accomplice in the latter of these crimes, which was believed to be a preliminary step towards overthrowing the democratic constitution, since the Herm standing close to his house in the phyle Aegeis was among the very few which had not been injured.
Andocides was accordingly seized and thrown into prison, but after some time recovered his freedom by a promise that he would become an informer and reveal the names of the real perpetrators of the crime; and on the suggestion of one Charmides or Timaeus, he mentioned four, all of whom were put to death. He is also said to have denounced his own father on the charge of profaning the mysteries, but to have rescued him again in the hour of danger - a charge he strenuously denied. But as Andocides was unable to clear himself from the charge, he was deprived of his rights as a citizen, and left Athens.
Andocides traveled about in various parts of Greece, and was chiefly engaged in commercial enterprise and in forming connections with powerful people. The means he employed to gain the friendship of powerful men were sometimes of the most disreputable kind; among which a service he rendered to a prince in Cyprus is mentioned in particular.
In 411, Andocides returned to Athens on the establishment of the oligarchic government of the Four Hundred, hoping that a certain service he had rendered the Athenian ships at Samos would secure him a welcome reception. But no sooner were the oligarchs informed of the return of Andocides, than their leader Peisander had him seized, and accused him of having supported the party opposed to them at Samos. During his trial, Andocides, who perceived the exasperation prevailing against him, leaped to the altar which stood in the court, and there assumed the attitude of a supplicant. This saved his life, but he was imprisoned. Soon afterwards, however, he was set free, or escaped from prison.
Andocides then went to Cyprus, where for a time he enjoyed the friendship of Evagoras; but, by some circumstance or other, he exasperated his friend, and was consigned to prison. Here again he escaped, and after the restoration of democracy in Athens and the abolition of the Four Hundred, he ventured once more to return to Athens; but as he was still suffering under a sentence of civil disenfranchisement, he endeavored by means of bribes to persuade the prytaneis to allow him to attend the assembly of the people. The latter, however, expelled him from the city. It was on this occasion, in 411, that Andocides delivered the speech still extant "On his return", on which he petitioned for permission to reside at Athens, but in vain. In his third exile, Andocides went to reside in Elis, and during the time of his absence from his native city, his house there was occupied by Cleophon, the leading demagogue.
Andocides remained in exile until after the overthrow of the tyranny of the Thirty by Thrasybulus, when the general amnesty then proclaimed made him hope that its benefit would be extended to him also. He himself says that he returned to Athens from Cyprus, where he claimed to have great influence and considerable property. Because of the general amnesty, he was allowed to remain at Athens, enjoyed peace for the next three years, and soon recovered an influential position. According to Lysias, it was scarcely ten days after his return that he brought an accusation against Archippus or Aristippus, which, however, he dropped on receiving a sum of money. During this period Andocides became a member of the boule, in which he appears to have possessed a great influence, as well as in the popular assembly. He was gymnasiarch at the Hephaestaea, was sent as architheorus to the Isthmian Games and Olympic Games, and was even entrusted with the office of keeper of the sacred treasury.
But in 400, Callias, supported by Cephisius, Agyrrhius, Meletus, and Epichares, urged the necessity of preventing Andocides from attending the assembly, as he had never been formally freed from the civil disenfranchisement. Callias also charged him with violating the laws respecting the temple at Eleusis. The orator pleaded his case in the oration still extant "on the Mysteries" (περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων), in which he argued that he had not been involved in the profanation of the mysteries or the mutilation of the herms, that he had not violated the laws of the temple at Eleusis, that anyway he had received his citizenship back as a result of the amnesty, and that Callias was really motivated by a private dispute with Andocides over inheritance. He was acquitted. After this, he again enjoyed peace until 394, when he was sent as ambassador to Sparta regarding the peace to be concluded in consequence of Conon's victory off Cnidus. On his return he was accused of illegal conduct during his embassy. The speech "On the peace with the Lacedaemonians" (περὶ τῆς πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους εἰρήνης), which is still extant, refers to this affair. It was delivered in 393 (though some scholars place it in 391). Andocides was found guilty, and sent into exile for the fourth time. He never returned afterwards, and seems to have died soon after this blow.
Andocides appears to have fathered no children, since he is described at the age of 70 as being childless, although the scholiast on Aristophanes mentions Antiphon as a son of Andocides. The large fortune which he had inherited from his father, or acquired in his commercial undertakings, was greatly diminished in the latter years of his life.
Oratory.
As an orator Andocides does not appear to have been held in very high esteem by the ancients, as he is seldom mentioned, though Valerius Theon is said to have written a commentary on his orations. We do not hear of his having been trained in any of the sophistical schools of the time, and he had probably developed his talents in the practical school of the popular assembly. Hence his orations have no mannerism in them, and are really, as Plutarch says, simple and free from all rhetorical pomp and ornament.
Sometimes, however, his style is diffuse, and becomes tedious and obscure. The best among his orations is that "on the Mysteries"; but, for the history of the time, all are of the highest importance.
Besides the three orations already mentioned, which are undoubtedly genuine, there is a fourth against Alcibiades (κατὰ Ἀλκιβιάδου), said to have been delivered by Andocides during the ostracism of 415; but it is probably spurious, though it appears to contain genuine historical matter. Some scholars ascribed it to Phaeax, who took part in the ostracism, according to Plutarch. But it is more likely that it is a rhetorical exercise from the early fourth century BC, since formal speeches were not delivered during ostracisms and the accusation or defence of Alcibiades was a standing rhetorical theme. Besides these four orations we possess only a few fragments and some very vague allusions to other orations.
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1758
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André de Longjumeau
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André de Longjumeau (also known as Andrew of Longjumeau in English) was a 13th-century Dominican missionary and diplomat and one of the most active Occidental diplomats in the East in the 13th century. He led two embassies to the Mongols: the first carried letters from Pope Innocent IV and the second bore gifts and letters from Louis IX of France to Güyük Khan. Well acquainted with the Middle-East, he spoke Arabic and "Chaldean" (thought to be either Syriac or Persian).
Mission for the holy Crown of Thorns.
André's first mission to the East was when he was asked by the French king Louis IX to go to Constantinople to obtain the Crown of Thorns which had been sold to him by the Latin Emperor Baldwin II in 1238, who was anxious to obtain support for his empire. André was accompanied on this mission by a Dominican friar, brother Jacques.
Papal mission to the Mongols (1245–1247).
André of Longjumeau led one of four missions dispatched to the Mongols by Pope Innocent IV. He left Lyon in the spring of 1245 for the Levant.
He visited Muslim principalities in Syria and representatives of the Nestorian and Jacobite churches in Persia, finally delivering the papal correspondence to a Mongol general near Tabriz. In Tabriz, André de Longjumeau met with a monk from the Far East, named Simeon Rabban Ata, who had been put in charge by the Khan of protecting the Christians in the Middle-East.
Second mission to the Mongols (1249–1251).
At the Mongol camp near Kars, André had met a certain David, who in December 1248 appeared at the court of King Louis IX of France in Cyprus. André, who was now with the French King, interpreted David's, a real or pretended offer of alliance from the Mongol general Eljigidei, and a proposal of a joint attack upon the Islamic powers of Syria. In reply to this the French sovereign dispatched André as his ambassador to Güyük Khan. Longjumeau went with his brother Jacques (also a Dominican) and several others – John Goderiche, John of Carcassonne, Herbert "Le Sommelier", Gerbert of Sens, Robert (a clerk), a certain William, and an unnamed clerk of Poissy.
The party set out on 16 February 1249, with letters from King Louis and the papal legate, and rich presents, including a chapel-tent lined with scarlet cloth and embroidered with sacred pictures. From Cyprus they went to the port of Antioch in Syria, and thence traveled for a year to the Khan's court, going ten leagues (55.56 kilometers) per day. Their route led them through Persia, along the southern and eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, and certainly through Talas, north-east of Tashkent.
On arrival at the supreme Mongol court – either that on the Imyl river (near Lake Alakol and the present Russo-Chinese frontier in the Altai), or more probably at or near Karakorum itself, south-west of Lake Baikal – André found Güyük Khan dead, poisoned, as the envoy supposed, by Batu Khan's agents. The regent-mother Oghul Qaimish (the "Camus" of William of Rubruck) seems to have received and dismissed him with presents and a dismissive letter for Louis IX. But it is certain that before the friar had left "Tartary", Möngke, Güyük's successor, had been elected.
André's report to his sovereign, whom he rejoined in 1251 at Caesarea in Palestine, appears to have been a mixture of history and fable; the latter affects his narrative of the Mongols' rise to greatness, and the struggles of their leader Genghis Khan with the mythical Prester John, and in the supposed location of the Mongols' homeland, close to the prison of Gog and Magog. On the other hand, the envoy's account of Mongol customs is fairly accurate, and his statements about Mongol Christianity and its prosperity, though perhaps exaggerated (e.g. as to the 800 chapels on wheels in the nomadic host) are likely factual.
Mounds of bones marked his road, witnesses of devastations which other historians record in detail. He found Christian prisoners from Germany in the heart of "Tartary" (at Talas), and was compelled to observe the ceremony of passing between two fires, as a bringer of gifts to a dead Khan, gifts which were treated by the Mongols as evidence of submission. This insulting behaviour, and the language of the letter with which André reappeared, marked the mission a failure: King Louis, says Joinville, "se repenti fort" ("felt very sorry").
Death.
The date and location of André's death is unknown.
We only know of André through references in other writers: see especially William of Rubruck's in "Recueil de voyages", iv. (Paris, 1839), pp. 261, 265, 279, 296, 310, 353, 363, 370; Joinville, ed. Francisque Michel (1858, etc.), pp. 142, etc.; Jean Pierre Sarrasin, in same vol., pp. 254–235; William of Nangis in "Recueil des historiens des Gaules", xx. 359–367; Rémusat, "Mémoires sur les relations politiques des princes chrétiens… avec les… Mongols" (1822, etc.), p. 52.
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1760
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Andronikos III Palaiologos
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Andronikos III Palaiologos (; 25 March 1297 – 15 June 1341), commonly Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus, was the Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341. He was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia. He was proclaimed co-emperor in his youth, before 1313, and in April 1321 he rebelled against his grandfather, Andronikos II Palaiologos. He was formally crowned co-emperor in February 1325, before ousting his grandfather outright and becoming sole emperor on 24 May 1328.
His reign included the last failed attempts to hold back the Ottoman Turks in Bithynia and the defeat at Rusokastro against the Bulgarians, but also the successful recovery of Chios, Lesbos, Phocaea, Thessaly, and Epirus. His early death left a power vacuum that resulted in the disastrous civil war between his widow, Anna of Savoy, and his closest friend and supporter, John VI Kantakouzenos, leading to the establishment of the Serbian Empire.
Life.
Andronikos was born in Constantinople on 25 March 1297. His father, Michael IX Palaiologos, began reigning in full imperial style as co-emperor circa 1295.
In March 1318, Andronikos married Irene of Brunswick, daughter of Henry I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. In circa 1321 she gave birth to a son, who died in infancy.
In 1320, Andronikos accidentally caused the death of his brother Manuel, after which their father, co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos, died in his grief. The homicide and the general dissolute behavior of Andronikos III and his coterie, mostly the young scions of the great aristocratic clans of the Empire, resulted in a deep rift in the relations between young Andronikos and his grandfather, still reigning as Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos.
Emperor Andronikos II disowned his grandson Andronikos, who then fled the capital and rallied his supporters in Thrace and began to reign as rival emperor in 1321. Andronikos then waged the intermittent Byzantine civil war of 1321–28 against his reigning grandfather, who granted him to reign as co-emperor Andronikos III.
Empress Irene died on 16/17 August 1324 with no surviving child. Theodora Palaiologina, sister of Andronikos III, married the new tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria in 1324. Andronikos III, then a widower, married Anna of Savoy in October 1326. In 1327 she gave birth to Maria (renamed Irene) Palaiologina.
Andronikos III concluded the Treaty of Chernomen of 1327, an alliance with tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria against Stephen Uroš III Dečanski of Serbia. The Byzantine civil war flared again and ultimately led to the deposition in 1328 of Emperor Andronikos II, who retired to a monastery.
Reign.
Military history.
Ottoman Turks besieged Nicaea in Asia Minor, historically the provisional capital of the Byzantine Empire from the Fourth Crusade until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople. Andronikos III launched a relief attempt, which Ottoman sultan Orhan defeated at the Battle of Pelekanon on 10 or 15 June 1329.
Also in 1329, Andronikos III sent a naval expedition against Martino Zaccaria, Genoese ruler of the Lordship of Chios (which also included Samos and Cos). The expedition deposed Zaccaria, and regained Byzantine control of the islands.
An alliance with Bulgaria failed to secure any gains for the Byzantine empire. On 28 July 1330, the Serbians decisively defeated the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd (modern Kyustendil, Bulgaria) without significant Byzantine participation. The Ottomans continued to advance in 1331, finally taking Nicaea (İznik). Andronikos III wanted Nicomedia and the other few Byzantine forts in Anatolia not to suffer the same fate and sought to pay off the Ottomans with tribute.
Andronikos III reorganized and attempted to strengthen the weakened Byzantine navy, which comprised only 10 ships by 1332; in emergencies, he still could muster a hundred extra merchant ships.
Having failed to gain anything against Serbia, Andronikos III attempted to annex Bulgarian Thrace, but the new tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria defeated Byzantine forces at the Battle of Rusokastro on 18 July 1332. Andronikos III secured peace with Bulgaria by territorial concessions and the marriage of his daughter Maria (renamed Irene) to Ivan Alexander's son, the future Michael Asen IV of Bulgaria.
The Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Constantinople towards the end of 1332 and mentions meeting Andronikos III in his memoirs. Byzantine sources do not attest to the meeting.
Stephen Gabrielopoulos, ruler over Thessaly, died circa 1333; taking advantage of the secession crisis, Andronikos III extended Byzantine control over the region.
Syrgiannes Palaiologos, entrusted with the governorship of Thessalonica, deserted to the side of king Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia and aided their advance in Macedonia. He led the Serbians to take Kastoria, Ohrid, Prilep, Strumica, and possibly Edessa circa 1334 and advanced as far as Thessalonica. Byzantine general Sphrantzes Palaiologos, posing as a deserter, entered the Serbian camp and killed Syrgiannes Palaiologos, ending his advance and bringing the Serbian army into disarray. In August 1334, the king of Serbia made peace with Andronikos III and allowed his forces to retake control of captured parts of Macedonia.
Andronikos III meanwhile effected the recovery of Phocaea in 1334 from the last Genoese governor, Domenico Cattaneo. However, this victory failed to stem significantly the Ottoman advance in Asia Minor. Byzantine rule gradually vanished from Anatolia as tribute failed to appease Ottoman sultan Orhan, who took Nicomedia in 1337, leaving only Philadelpheia and a handful of ports under Byzantine control.
Despite these troubles, Andronikos III took advantage of a secession crisis in the Despotate of Epirus in 1337, regaining Byzantine control from Nikephoros II Orsini.
Domestic policy.
John Kantakouzenos, "megas domestikos" of Andronikos III and later emperor, wielded effective administrative authority during the reign, while the Emperor personally enjoyed hunting and waging war.
Andronikos III also reformed the judiciary through his creation of a panel of four judges, designated "Universal Justices of the Romans".
Military history.
Ottoman Turks besieged Nicaea in Asia Minor, historically the provisional capital of the Byzantine Empire from the Fourth Crusade until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople. Andronikos III launched a relief attempt, which Ottoman sultan Orhan defeated at the Battle of Pelekanon on 10 or 15 June 1329.
Also in 1329, Andronikos III sent a naval expedition against Martino Zaccaria, Genoese ruler of the Lordship of Chios (which also included Samos and Cos). The expedition deposed Zaccaria, and regained Byzantine control of the islands.
An alliance with Bulgaria failed to secure any gains for the Byzantine empire. On 28 July 1330, the Serbians decisively defeated the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd (modern Kyustendil, Bulgaria) without significant Byzantine participation. The Ottomans continued to advance in 1331, finally taking Nicaea (İznik). Andronikos III wanted Nicomedia and the other few Byzantine forts in Anatolia not to suffer the same fate and sought to pay off the Ottomans with tribute.
Andronikos III reorganized and attempted to strengthen the weakened Byzantine navy, which comprised only 10 ships by 1332; in emergencies, he still could muster a hundred extra merchant ships.
Having failed to gain anything against Serbia, Andronikos III attempted to annex Bulgarian Thrace, but the new tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria defeated Byzantine forces at the Battle of Rusokastro on 18 July 1332. Andronikos III secured peace with Bulgaria by territorial concessions and the marriage of his daughter Maria (renamed Irene) to Ivan Alexander's son, the future Michael Asen IV of Bulgaria.
The Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Constantinople towards the end of 1332 and mentions meeting Andronikos III in his memoirs. Byzantine sources do not attest to the meeting.
Stephen Gabrielopoulos, ruler over Thessaly, died circa 1333; taking advantage of the secession crisis, Andronikos III extended Byzantine control over the region.
Syrgiannes Palaiologos, entrusted with the governorship of Thessalonica, deserted to the side of king Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia and aided their advance in Macedonia. He led the Serbians to take Kastoria, Ohrid, Prilep, Strumica, and possibly Edessa circa 1334 and advanced as far as Thessalonica. Byzantine general Sphrantzes Palaiologos, posing as a deserter, entered the Serbian camp and killed Syrgiannes Palaiologos, ending his advance and bringing the Serbian army into disarray. In August 1334, the king of Serbia made peace with Andronikos III and allowed his forces to retake control of captured parts of Macedonia.
Andronikos III meanwhile effected the recovery of Phocaea in 1334 from the last Genoese governor, Domenico Cattaneo. However, this victory failed to stem significantly the Ottoman advance in Asia Minor. Byzantine rule gradually vanished from Anatolia as tribute failed to appease Ottoman sultan Orhan, who took Nicomedia in 1337, leaving only Philadelpheia and a handful of ports under Byzantine control.
Despite these troubles, Andronikos III took advantage of a secession crisis in the Despotate of Epirus in 1337, regaining Byzantine control from Nikephoros II Orsini.
Domestic policy.
John Kantakouzenos, "megas domestikos" of Andronikos III and later emperor, wielded effective administrative authority during the reign, while the Emperor personally enjoyed hunting and waging war.
Andronikos III also reformed the judiciary through his creation of a panel of four judges, designated "Universal Justices of the Romans".
Family.
Andronikos III was first married in 1318 with Irene of Brunswick, daughter of Henry I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg; she died in 1324. They had an unnamed son, who died shortly after birth in 1321.
In 1326, Andronikos III married as his second wife Anna of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and of his second wife Marie of Brabant, Countess of Savoy. Their marriage produced several children, including:
According to the contemporary Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras (–1360), Andronikos also had an illegitimate daughter, Irene Palaiologina of Trebizond, who married emperor Basil of Trebizond and took over the throne of the Empire of Trebizond from 1340 to 1341. The contemporary traveller Ibn Battuta (1304–1368/69) also records in his "Rihla" the existence of another daughter, who had been married to Öz Beg Khan of the Golden Horde, converted to Islam, and taken the name Bayalun. Ibn Battuta claims to have accompanied her to Constantinople from her husband's court in late 1332 or 1334.
Succession and legacy.
Andronikos III died at Constantinople, aged 44, on 15 June 1341, possibly due to chronic malaria, and was buried in the Hodegon Monastery after lying in state at the Hagia Sophia. Historians contend that his reign ended with the Byzantine Empire in a still-tenable situation and generally do not implicate deficiencies in his leadership in its later demise. John V Palaiologos succeeded his father as Byzantine emperor, but at only nine years of age, he required a regent.
The energetic campaigns of emperor Andronikos III simply lacked sufficient strength to defeat the imperial enemies and led to several significant Byzantine reverses at the hands of Bulgarians, Serbians, and Ottomans. Andronikos III nevertheless provided active leadership and cooperated with able administrators. Under him, the empire came closest to regaining a position of power in the Balkans and Greek peninsula after the Fourth Crusade. The loss of a few imperial territories in Anatolia, however, left the Ottoman Turks poised to expand into Europe.
Within a few months after the death of Andronikos III, controversy over the right to exercise the regency over the new emperor John V Palaiologos and the position of John Kantakouzenos as all-powerful chief minister and friend of Andronikos led to the outbreak of the destructive Byzantine civil war of 1341–47, which consumed the resources of the empire and left it in an untenable position. The weakened Byzantine Empire failed to prevent the formation of the Serbian Empire and, more ominously, the Ottoman invasion of Europe.
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1759
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Andriscus
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Andriscus (, "Andrískos"; 154/153 BC – 146 BC), also often referenced as Pseudo-Philip, was a Greek pretender who became the last independent king of Macedon in 149 BC as Philip VI (, "Philipos"), based on his claim of being Philip, a now-obscure son of the last legitimate Macedonian king, Perseus. His reign lasted just one year and was toppled by the Roman Republic during the Fourth Macedonian War.
Ancient sources generally agree that he was originally a fuller from Adramyttium in Aeolis in western Anatolia. Around 153 BC, his ancestry was supposedly revealed to him, upon which he travelled to the court of his claimed uncle, the Seleucid monarch Demetrius I Soter, to request assistance in claiming his throne. Demetrius refused and had him sent to Rome, where he was judged harmless and exiled to a city in Italy; he managed to escape, and after gathering support, primarily from Thrace, he launched an invasion of Macedon, defeating Rome's clients and establishing his rule as king. The Romans naturally reacted militarily, triggering war; after some initial successes, Andriscus was defeated and captured by the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, who subdued Macedon once again.
He was imprisoned for two years before being paraded in Metellus' triumph in 146 BC, after which he was executed. In the aftermath of his revolt, the Romans established the Roman province of Macedonia, ending Macedonian independence and establishing a permanent presence in the region.
Origins and early life.
Details of his origins are vague and sometimes conflicting, though it is generally believed that he was a fuller from Adramyttium in Aeolis in western Anatolia. His exact date of birth is unknown, though according to his own story, he was "of maturity" when he made his claims of royalty in 154 BC, and had been raised by a Cretan in Adramyttium.
By his own claims, he was educated at Adramyttium until adolescence, until the Cretan died, after which he was raised with his foster mother. Upon reaching maturity, his mother (or foster mother, according to his claim) gave him a sealed parchment that was supposedly written by Perseus himself, along with the knowledge of the location of two hidden treasures, at Amphipolis and Thessalonica; he would later use these to advance his claims. Ancient sources are unanimous in calling him an impostor and dismiss the story as false; Niese suggests that there is a possibility of his claims being true, but generally agrees that he was a pretender; his main advantage in his claims was his close resemblance to Perseus.
Around 154/153 BC, he left Pergamon for Syria, where he declared his claim to be the illegitimate son of Perseus by a concubine. According to his own account, it was due to his mother (or foster mother) urging him to leave Pergamon to avoid the wrath of the pro-Roman Eumenes II.
Claiming the throne.
In Syria.
He first staked his claim in Syria. Livy and Cassius Dio write that he simply went from Pergamon to Syria and directly staked his claim before the Seleucid monarch, Demetrius I Soter. Diodorus Siculus offers a different account. According to him, Andriscus was already a mercenary in Demetrius' army. Due to his resemblance to the former Macedonian king, his comrades started jokingly calling him "son of Perseus"; these jokes soon began becoming serious suspicions, and at one point, Andriscus himself decided to seize the opportunity and claimed that he was indeed the son of Perseus. Niese attempts to reconcile both accounts, suggesting that he might have travelled to Syria and then enlisted as a mercenary before staking his claim.
He appealed to the king to help him win back his "ancestral" throne, and found great popular support among the Seleucid populace, to the extent that there were riots in the capital, Antioch. Large segments of the Seleucid population were of Macedonian descent, nurturing strong anti-Roman sentiment since the Roman conquest of Macedon in the Third Macedonian War; they were eager to help the claimant. They proceeded to such an extent that there were even calls for deposing the king if he did not help the pretender. Unmoved, or perhaps frightened, Demetrius had Andriscus arrested and sent to Rome.
In Rome.
In Rome, he was brought before the Senate, where Dio writes that he stood "in general contempt" due to what was perceived to be his ordinary nature and transparently false claim. The Romans believed his claim to be fake, because the real Philip had died at Alba Fucens two years after his father Perseus. Considering him harmless, they simply exiled him to an Italian city, but he managed to escape; fleeing Italy, he went to the Greek world, to the city of Miletus.
Gaining support.
In Miletus, he tried to advance his claims further, attracting significant attention and sympathy. When the leaders of Miletus learned about this, they arrested him and sought advice from visiting Roman envoys on what to do with him; the envoys were contemptuous of the pretender and told the Miletans he was safe to release. He continued his travels through Ionia, meeting former acquaintances of Perseus and gaining an audience with Kallipa, a former concubine of Perseus who was now married to Athenaios, brother of the Pergamene king Attalus II Philadelphus. Being a Macedonian by birth, and due to her former connections to the Antigonids, she accepted his claim and agreed to help him, giving him money and slaves, and probably recommending that he travel to Thrace, where he would find a following.
He was also received favourably in Byzantium. He finally arrived in Thrace, where he met Teres III, who had married the granddaughter of Perseus and was the son of Cotys IV, who had once been an ally of Perseus. Teres and the other Thracian chieftains, especially a certain Barsabas, received him enthusiastically; he held a coronation ceremony at Teres' court, was given a few hundred Thracian troops, and set off on his campaign.
In Syria.
He first staked his claim in Syria. Livy and Cassius Dio write that he simply went from Pergamon to Syria and directly staked his claim before the Seleucid monarch, Demetrius I Soter. Diodorus Siculus offers a different account. According to him, Andriscus was already a mercenary in Demetrius' army. Due to his resemblance to the former Macedonian king, his comrades started jokingly calling him "son of Perseus"; these jokes soon began becoming serious suspicions, and at one point, Andriscus himself decided to seize the opportunity and claimed that he was indeed the son of Perseus. Niese attempts to reconcile both accounts, suggesting that he might have travelled to Syria and then enlisted as a mercenary before staking his claim.
He appealed to the king to help him win back his "ancestral" throne, and found great popular support among the Seleucid populace, to the extent that there were riots in the capital, Antioch. Large segments of the Seleucid population were of Macedonian descent, nurturing strong anti-Roman sentiment since the Roman conquest of Macedon in the Third Macedonian War; they were eager to help the claimant. They proceeded to such an extent that there were even calls for deposing the king if he did not help the pretender. Unmoved, or perhaps frightened, Demetrius had Andriscus arrested and sent to Rome.
In Rome.
In Rome, he was brought before the Senate, where Dio writes that he stood "in general contempt" due to what was perceived to be his ordinary nature and transparently false claim. The Romans believed his claim to be fake, because the real Philip had died at Alba Fucens two years after his father Perseus. Considering him harmless, they simply exiled him to an Italian city, but he managed to escape; fleeing Italy, he went to the Greek world, to the city of Miletus.
Gaining support.
In Miletus, he tried to advance his claims further, attracting significant attention and sympathy. When the leaders of Miletus learned about this, they arrested him and sought advice from visiting Roman envoys on what to do with him; the envoys were contemptuous of the pretender and told the Miletans he was safe to release. He continued his travels through Ionia, meeting former acquaintances of Perseus and gaining an audience with Kallipa, a former concubine of Perseus who was now married to Athenaios, brother of the Pergamene king Attalus II Philadelphus. Being a Macedonian by birth, and due to her former connections to the Antigonids, she accepted his claim and agreed to help him, giving him money and slaves, and probably recommending that he travel to Thrace, where he would find a following.
He was also received favourably in Byzantium. He finally arrived in Thrace, where he met Teres III, who had married the granddaughter of Perseus and was the son of Cotys IV, who had once been an ally of Perseus. Teres and the other Thracian chieftains, especially a certain Barsabas, received him enthusiastically; he held a coronation ceremony at Teres' court, was given a few hundred Thracian troops, and set off on his campaign.
Conquest of Macedon.
His first attempt to invade was unsuccessful, and he initially did not inspire much enthusiasm among the Macedonians; this made the Romans complacent about the pretender. However, he soon managed to encounter a force of Rome's Macedonian client republics, defeating them in Odomantice; he then invaded Macedon proper, defeating Rome's clients on the banks of the Strymon river. Amidst popular acclaim, he crowned himself king at the old Macedonian capital of Pella in 150/149 BC.
Popular support.
Although the Macedonians' initial attitude had been lukewarm, his successes won him popularity and widespread support in Macedon. Anti-Roman sentiment was common in Macedon; the populace was obliging in overthrowing the old regime. Support for Andriscus was not uniform — there was significantly more hesitation among the gentry and upper classes, and somewhat more enthusiasm among the lower classes — but the popular mood was largely in his favour. His claims were bolstered by his correct prediction of the locations of two treasures, which he claimed were specified in the "sealed writing" that had been handed to his caretakers by Perseus, and had later been given to him. Even if there were apprehensions about the veracity of his claim, Niese notes that "one liked to believe what one wished; the re-establishment of Macedonia enabled liberation from the burden of Roman rule. The longer these burdens had been borne, the happier they [the Macedonians] were at the prospect of Macedonia under a king restored from the old lineage."
However, it has also been suggested that the extent of his support may not have been as widespread as often believed, and that a significant amount of the Macedonian populace remained pro-republican and pro-Roman. The relative lack of reprisals towards Macedon after his defeat, as compared to the destructions of Corinth and Carthage in the same period, has been suggested as evidence for this theory.
Popular support.
Although the Macedonians' initial attitude had been lukewarm, his successes won him popularity and widespread support in Macedon. Anti-Roman sentiment was common in Macedon; the populace was obliging in overthrowing the old regime. Support for Andriscus was not uniform — there was significantly more hesitation among the gentry and upper classes, and somewhat more enthusiasm among the lower classes — but the popular mood was largely in his favour. His claims were bolstered by his correct prediction of the locations of two treasures, which he claimed were specified in the "sealed writing" that had been handed to his caretakers by Perseus, and had later been given to him. Even if there were apprehensions about the veracity of his claim, Niese notes that "one liked to believe what one wished; the re-establishment of Macedonia enabled liberation from the burden of Roman rule. The longer these burdens had been borne, the happier they [the Macedonians] were at the prospect of Macedonia under a king restored from the old lineage."
However, it has also been suggested that the extent of his support may not have been as widespread as often believed, and that a significant amount of the Macedonian populace remained pro-republican and pro-Roman. The relative lack of reprisals towards Macedon after his defeat, as compared to the destructions of Corinth and Carthage in the same period, has been suggested as evidence for this theory.
Reign.
Military campaigns.
Andriscus' reign was defined to a significant degree by his military campaigns, due to his being in a constant state of war with Rome. After his conquest of the Kingdom, he enlarged the army and began campaigns to conquer Thessaly, a key part of the realm of the old Antigonids. Initial resistance to him were from "ad hoc" forces of Roman allies in Greece, a few Roman units and legates in the region and some resistance from the remnants of Rome's client republics in Macedon, some elements of which seem to have survived for some time into his reign. Soon, however, the Romans sent a legion under the praetor Publius Juventius Thalna to defeat the pretender.
Thalna, however, appears to have underestimated Andriscus' strength, not taking into account the fact that the king's army had grown dramatically since his enthronement. Andriscus attacked and fought him at an unspecified location in Thessaly (Dio gives it as "near the borders of Macedon"); details of the engagement are scarce, but Thalna was killed and his forces almost annihilated. It was the worst defeat Rome would suffer at the hands of the Macedonians; Florus remarks on the irony of how "they that were invincible against real kings, were defeated by this imaginary and pretended king". The victory greatly increased the king's prestige; he obtained an alliance with Carthage, and his domestic popularity was increased dramatically, allowing him to stamp out republican resistance and conquer Thessaly.
Foreign policy.
At first, Andriscus attempted to negotiate his position with Rome, but when it became clear that they would not recognize his throne, he embarked on a strongly anti-Roman policy, He continued to cultivate his relations with his Thracian allies, to whom he owed his throne; they would continue to provide significant forces for him during his reign.
Foreign interest in relations with him increased dramatically after his victory over Thalna; as mentioned before, Carthage, which was under attack from Rome in the Third Punic War, allied itself to him and promised him money and ships, though these could not be sent before his ultimate defeat. Significant sympathy, possibly cultivated to a degree by him, arose in Greece; however, the Achaean League remained pro-Roman and continued to resist and fight him. King Attalus II Philadelphus of Pergamon remained staunchly pro-Roman; the Pergamenes were terrified of the prospect of a revived and strong Macedonia on their doorstep.
Domestic policy.
Domestically, Andriscus implemented a strongly anti-Roman and anti-Republican policy. Ancient historians interpreted this as his cruelty and tyranny; it has been suggested that these were simply manifestations of his anti-Roman policy and his persecutions of his opponents, including pro-Roman republicans.
At the same time, it is also possible that he was indeed tyrannical. His persecutions increased significantly after his victory over Thalna, costing him significant popularity; this would have dire consequences for him later.
Coinage.
The extent and nature of Andriscus' coinage is a matter of debate. It has been suggested that many of his coins were overstrikes of previous Antigonid, republican and Roman coinage. He issued a very small amount of silver drachmae, on which he pictured himself as a Hellenistic king, and added Herakles on the reverse. Only three coins of Andriscus are known, two of which are overstruck, one on a drachm of the Thessalian League, the other on a Roman denarius. It is therefore possible that he also used the denarii he seized as booty after his victory against Thalna to mint his own coins. The coins are also of poor quality, due to the short duration of his reign, the need to reuse old dies and the need to quickly produce wartime coinage.
Some non-royal coinage has also been discovered and dated to the period of his reign, possibly struck by the remnants of the pro-Roman republics. It has also been suggested that the king was more liberal than implied by the sources, and allowed some degree of independent coinage.
Military campaigns.
Andriscus' reign was defined to a significant degree by his military campaigns, due to his being in a constant state of war with Rome. After his conquest of the Kingdom, he enlarged the army and began campaigns to conquer Thessaly, a key part of the realm of the old Antigonids. Initial resistance to him were from "ad hoc" forces of Roman allies in Greece, a few Roman units and legates in the region and some resistance from the remnants of Rome's client republics in Macedon, some elements of which seem to have survived for some time into his reign. Soon, however, the Romans sent a legion under the praetor Publius Juventius Thalna to defeat the pretender.
Thalna, however, appears to have underestimated Andriscus' strength, not taking into account the fact that the king's army had grown dramatically since his enthronement. Andriscus attacked and fought him at an unspecified location in Thessaly (Dio gives it as "near the borders of Macedon"); details of the engagement are scarce, but Thalna was killed and his forces almost annihilated. It was the worst defeat Rome would suffer at the hands of the Macedonians; Florus remarks on the irony of how "they that were invincible against real kings, were defeated by this imaginary and pretended king". The victory greatly increased the king's prestige; he obtained an alliance with Carthage, and his domestic popularity was increased dramatically, allowing him to stamp out republican resistance and conquer Thessaly.
Foreign policy.
At first, Andriscus attempted to negotiate his position with Rome, but when it became clear that they would not recognize his throne, he embarked on a strongly anti-Roman policy, He continued to cultivate his relations with his Thracian allies, to whom he owed his throne; they would continue to provide significant forces for him during his reign.
Foreign interest in relations with him increased dramatically after his victory over Thalna; as mentioned before, Carthage, which was under attack from Rome in the Third Punic War, allied itself to him and promised him money and ships, though these could not be sent before his ultimate defeat. Significant sympathy, possibly cultivated to a degree by him, arose in Greece; however, the Achaean League remained pro-Roman and continued to resist and fight him. King Attalus II Philadelphus of Pergamon remained staunchly pro-Roman; the Pergamenes were terrified of the prospect of a revived and strong Macedonia on their doorstep.
Domestic policy.
Domestically, Andriscus implemented a strongly anti-Roman and anti-Republican policy. Ancient historians interpreted this as his cruelty and tyranny; it has been suggested that these were simply manifestations of his anti-Roman policy and his persecutions of his opponents, including pro-Roman republicans.
At the same time, it is also possible that he was indeed tyrannical. His persecutions increased significantly after his victory over Thalna, costing him significant popularity; this would have dire consequences for him later.
Coinage.
The extent and nature of Andriscus' coinage is a matter of debate. It has been suggested that many of his coins were overstrikes of previous Antigonid, republican and Roman coinage. He issued a very small amount of silver drachmae, on which he pictured himself as a Hellenistic king, and added Herakles on the reverse. Only three coins of Andriscus are known, two of which are overstruck, one on a drachm of the Thessalian League, the other on a Roman denarius. It is therefore possible that he also used the denarii he seized as booty after his victory against Thalna to mint his own coins. The coins are also of poor quality, due to the short duration of his reign, the need to reuse old dies and the need to quickly produce wartime coinage.
Some non-royal coinage has also been discovered and dated to the period of his reign, possibly struck by the remnants of the pro-Roman republics. It has also been suggested that the king was more liberal than implied by the sources, and allowed some degree of independent coinage.
Downfall and death.
Thalna's defeat shook Roman prestige in the East, and made the Senate realize the full significance of the revolt. They organized a full consular army of two legions under praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus, to defeat Andriscus and check, if not quell, his uprising. Arriving in Greece in 148 BC, Metellus marched along the Thessalian coast in a combined land and sea advance, while the allied Pergamene fleet threatened the coastal district of northern Macedonia. To protect himself against both offensives, Andriscus took up a defensive position with his main army at Pydna, where Metellus engaged him in battle. In the ensuing Battle of Pydna, Andrisus was decisively defeated. His harsh persecutions during his reign now showed their consequences; this single battle was enough to make him lose control of Macedon, as the people submitted to Metellus. He was forced to flee to Thrace, his original base of support, and began organizing a new army; however, Metellus pursued him swiftly and routed his forces before he could prepare them. Andriscus then fled to the Thracian princeling Byzes; however, Metellus managed to persuade the latter into becoming a Roman ally and handing Andriscus over as a prisoner, ending his reign.
He remained a prisoner over the next two years, while Metellus subdued any remaining Macedonian resistance, organized Macedon as a province and settled the Achaean War of 146 BC. When Metellus returned to Rome in 146 BC, he received the agnomen "Macedonicus" for his victory and was granted a triumph. Andriscus was brought in chains and paraded in the triumph, and later executed — the last king to reign over Macedon.
Assessment and legacy.
Ancient sources are extremely hostile, not only to the origins and claims, but also of the character of Andriscus — Diodorus calls him "shot through with cruelty, greed and every base quality"; Dio and Livy call him "a man of the lowest kind". They also describe him as cruel and tyrannical; accusations of tyranny probably reflect his harsh persecutions of pro-Roman and pro-republican elements in Macedon. At the same time, it is possible that he was indeed tyrannical, especially after his victory over Thalna, and perpetrated acts of terrorism and repression against his subjects.
His main legacy was that in the aftermath of his revolt, the Romans understood the strength of anti-Roman feeling that had arisen in Macedon, and realized that the old administration could not be sustained — a thorough reorganization was necessary. Another reason why reorganization was necessary was that Andriscus' persecutions had killed many pro-Roman republicans and thoroughly disrupted the old administrative structure; it would be difficult to re-establish it. Therefore, the Senate made Macedon a Roman province, with Metellus as its first governor.
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1763
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Andronicus of Cyrrhus
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Andronicus of Cyrrhus or Andronicus Cyrrhestes (, "Andrónikos Kyrrhēstou"), son of Hermias, was a Greek astronomer best known as the architect of the horologion at Athens called the Tower of the Winds. Andronicus also built a multifaced sundial in the sanctuary of Poseidon on the Greek island of Tinos. He flourished about 100 BC.
Life.
He built a "horologion" at Athens, the so-called Tower of the Winds, a considerable portion of which still exists. It is octagonal, with figures carved on each side, representing the eight principal winds. In antiquity a bronze figure of Triton on the summit, with a rod in his hand, turned round by the wind, pointed to the quarter from which it blew. From this model is derived the custom of placing weather cocks on steeples.
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1761
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Andronikos II Palaiologos
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Andronikos II Palaiologos (; 25 March 1259 – 13 February 1332), Latinized as Andronicus II Palaeologus, reigned as Byzantine emperor from 1282 to 1328. Andronikos' reign marked the beginning of the recently-restored empire's final decline. The Turks conquered most of its remaining Anatolian territories and, during the last years of his reign, he also had to fight his own grandson in the First Palaiologan Civil War. The war ended in Andronikos' forced abdication in 1328 after which he retired to a monastery for the remainder of his life.
Life.
Andronikos was born on 25 March 1259, at Nicaea. He was the eldest surviving son of Michael VIII Palaiologos and Theodora Palaiologina, grandniece of John III Doukas Vatatzes.
Andronikos was acclaimed co-emperor in 1261, after his father Michael VIII recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire, but he was not crowned until 8 November 1272. Sole emperor from 1282, Andronikos II immediately repudiated his father's unpopular Church union with the Papacy, which he had been forced to support while his father was still alive, but he was unable to resolve the related schism within the Orthodox clergy until 1310.
Andronikos II was also plagued by economic difficulties. During his reign the value of the Byzantine "hyperpyron" depreciated precipitously, while the state treasury accumulated less than one seventh the revenue (in nominal coins) that it had previously. Seeking to increase revenue and reduce expenses, Andronikos II raised taxes, reduced tax exemptions, and dismantled the Byzantine fleet (80 ships) in 1285, thereby making the Empire increasingly dependent on the rival republics of Venice and Genoa.
In 1291, he hired 50–60 Genoese ships, but the Byzantine weakness resulting from the lack of a navy became painfully apparent in the two wars with Venice in 1296–1302, and later again in 1306–10. In 1320, he tried to resurrect the navy by constructing 20 galleys, but failed.
Andronikos II Palaiologos sought to resolve some of the problems facing the Byzantine Empire through diplomacy. After the death of his first wife, Anne of Hungary, he married Yolanda (renamed Irene) of Montferrat, putting an end to the Montferrat claim to the Kingdom of Thessalonica.
Andronikos II also attempted to marry off his son and co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos to the Latin Empress Catherine I of Courtenay, thus seeking to eliminate Western agitation for a restoration of the Latin Empire. Another marriage alliance attempted to resolve the potential conflict with Serbia in Macedonia, as Andronikos II married off his five-year-old daughter Simonis to King Stefan Milutin in 1298.
In spite of the resolution of problems in Europe, Andronikos II was faced with the collapse of the Byzantine frontier in Asia Minor, despite the successful, but short, governorships of Alexios Philanthropenos and John Tarchaneiotes. The successful military victories in Asia Minor by Alexios Philanthropenos and John Tarchaneiotes against the Turks were largely dependent on a considerable military contingent of Cretan escapees, or exiles from Venetian-occupied Crete, headed by Hortatzis, whom Michael VIII had repatriated to Byzantium through a treaty agreement with the Venetians ratified in 1277. Andronikos II had resettled those Cretans in the region of Meander river, the southeastern Asia Minor frontier of Byzantium with the Turks.
After the failure of the co-emperor Michael IX to stem the Turkish advance in Asia Minor in 1302 and the disastrous Battle of Bapheus, the Byzantine government hired the Catalan Company of Almogavars (adventurers from Catalonia) led by Roger de Flor to clear Byzantine Asia Minor of the enemy.
In spite of some successes, the Catalans were unable to secure lasting gains. Being more ruthless and savage than the enemy they intended to subdue they quarreled with Michael IX, and eventually openly turned on their Byzantine employers after the murder of Roger de Flor in 1305; together with a party of willing Turks they devastated Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly on their road to Latin occupied southern Greece. There they conquered the Duchy of Athens and Thebes. The Turks continued to penetrate the Byzantine possessions, and Prusa fell in 1326.
By the end of Andronikos II's reign, much of Bithynia was in the hands of the Ottoman Turks of Osman I and his son and heir Orhan.
Karasids conquered Mysia-region with Paleokastron after 1296, Germiyan conquered Simav in 1328, Saruhan captured Magnesia in 1313, and Aydinids captured Smyrna in 1310.
The Empire's problems were exploited by Theodore Svetoslav of Bulgaria, who defeated Michael IX and conquered much of northeastern Thrace in . The conflict ended with yet another dynastic marriage, between Michael IX's daughter Theodora and the Bulgarian emperor. The dissolute behavior of Michael IX's son Andronikos III Palaiologos led to a rift in the family, and after Michael IX's death in 1320, Andronikos II disowned his grandson, prompting a civil war that raged, with interruptions, until 1328. The conflict precipitated Bulgarian involvement, and Michael Asen III of Bulgaria attempted to capture Andronikos II under the guise of sending him military support. In 1328 Andronikos III entered Constantinople in triumph and Andronikos II was forced to abdicate.
Andronikos II died as a monk at Constantinople in 1332, and was buried in the Lips Monastery (now the Fenari Isa Mosque).
Fiscal Policy.
The economic destitution which would plague the reign of Andronikos II caused him to undertake drastic measures to cut state spending. These spending cuts included the native army which was reduced to a near token force being largely superseded by foreign mercenary companies who however too would be further reduced down to a near suicidal minimum and be in large part replaced by cheaper but much less experienced rabble, such that a military response to the turk advance became a difficult and as shown by the failed Campaign of Andronikos’s co-emperor Michael XI a dangerous undertaking.
The Byzantine Navy was not left unharmed. In fact it would soon be disbanded completely, leaving the Byzantine State more than ever reliant on Genoese and Venetian assistance — which correspondingly allowed these republics to charge exorbitantly higher prices for their service — the great deal of experienced seamen who were as a result made unemployed also had the disastrous effect of giving the Turkomans — who had just reached the western Anatolian coast and sough to build up their own naval forces —a myriad of destitute but experienced Sailors and Ship-makers who they could draw upon to build up their own fleets which would together with the absence of the Byzantine fleet greatly contribute to the exploding problem of Turkic piracy in the Aegean sea ravaging trade and coastal lands alike.
In 1320 as a result of heightened taxation, and a more rigorous collection of these, Andronikos II was able to raise a total of 1 million Hyperpyra for the budgetary year of 1321, this he planned to use to expand his army to some 3000 horsemen, and recreate the Byzantine Navy to contain 20 ships. Andronikos II's impending civil war with his grandson Andronikos III would however prevent him from ever implementing this plan, yet to his credit this plan does show a more militarily ambitious if still insufficient plan for state spending.
For the sake of comparison it has to be noted that the Hyperpyron from 1320 was worth 1/2 that of the undebased Nomisma from the reign of Basil II.
Early Church policy.
As Andronikos broke the church union of his father he also removed many of his church appointments, including the pro-unionist Patriarch John XI, replacing him with the now very elderly anti-unionist Patriarch Joseph I. When Joseph resigned his office and died the following year he was then replaced by a cypriot who took the name Gregory II.
Aside from the church union Andronikos also faced the Arsenite schism, caused when Patriarch Arsenios protested the blinding and imprisonment of John IV undertaken by Michael VIII, consequently excommunicating Michael VIII for which Arsenios was soon removed. The Arsenites were an anti-unionist group which therefore held that the still imprisoned John was the rightful Byzantine Emperor and that the Patriarchs John XI, Joseph I, and now Gregory II were illegitimate.
To try and mend this schism Gregory called for a church synod to which he invited both the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch asking them to rescind their previous pro-unionist declaration, which The Patriarch of Antioch refused, who then subsequently abdicated from his office and fled to Syria. Gregory also asked Michael VIIIs widow the Empress Theodora for a public avowal that she would never ask that Michael receive a Christian burial, which she ended up agreeing to. Though this Synod did much to satisfy the Orthodox Clergy it failed to do the same with the Arsenites.
A few years later, the Patriarch Gregory II was forced to resign as some of his writings were deemed to be heretical. Andronikos, in order to distract from an ever worsening political situation, succeeded in having a hermit from Mt. Athos, who took the name Athanasius, pronounced as Patriarch. Athanasius became known for his simplistic dress and near fanatical Asceticism spending much of his time repudiating clergymen for their earthly possessions. He would eventually go as far as to attempt and take riches away from some wealthier churches and monasteries. Many clergymen as a result became overtly hostile to him going as far as pelting him with stones as he walked the streets of Constantinople, so that Athanasius would soon no longer be seen in public without a personal bodyguard.
When in the summer of 1293 Andronikos returned from a visit to his swiftly dwindling Anatolian holdings he was already awaited by a delegation of leading clergyman who demanded the deposition of Athanasius, Andronikos attempted to resist these calls however the strong opposition eventually forced him to recall Athanasius from his office, this was not however before Athanasius personally penned a church bull in which he excommunicated the leading clergymen who took opposition to him, hiding it in a pillar in the northern Gallery of the Hagia Sophia where it would only be found a few years later causing much uproar.
Family.
On 8 November 1272 Andronikos II married as his first wife Anna of Hungary, daughter of Stephen V of Hungary and Elizabeth the Cuman, with whom he had two sons:
Anna died in 1281, and in 1284 Andronikos married Yolanda (renamed Irene), a daughter of William VII of Montferrat, with whom he had:
Andronikos II also had at least three illegitimate daughters:
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1038
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Aarhus
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Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest of Copenhagen.
The largest city in Jutland, Aarhus anchors the Central Denmark Region and the statistical region "" ("LØ") (lit.: Province East Jutland). The LØ is the second most populous statistical region in Denmark with an estimated population of 903,974 (). Aarhus Municipality defines the greater Aarhus area as itself and eight adjacent municipalities totalling 952,824 inhabitants () which is roughly analogous to the municipal and commercial collaboration Business Region Aarhus. The city proper, with an estimated population of 285,273 inhabitants (), ranks as the 2nd-largest city in Denmark.
Aarhus dates back to at least the late 8th century and is among the oldest cities in Denmark. It was founded as a harbour settlement at the mouth of the Aarhus River and quickly became a trade hub. The first Christian church was built here around the year 900 and later in the Viking Age the town was fortified with defensive ramparts. The Viking Age was turbulent and violent, also for Aros, as the town was called back then, but in spite of the difficulties, the bishopric of Aarhus grew steadily stronger and more prosperous, building several religious institutions in the town during the early Middle Ages. Trade continued to improve, although it was not until 1441 that Aarhus was granted market town privileges, and the population of Aarhus remained relatively stable until the 19th century. The 1600s, in particular, was a difficult time for Aarhus as the town suffered from several wars and the plague, and trade was also dampened by the state in favour of the royal seat of Copenhagen. Nevertheless, Aarhus grew to become the second-biggest town in Denmark during that time, and in the middle of the 1700s, the once prosperous trade growth returned. The Industrial Revolution became an inflection point in the 19th century, as industry drove a rapid population growth, outpacing regional rivals, and the first railway line in Jutland was built here in 1862. In 1928, the first university in Jutland was founded in Aarhus and today it is a university city and the largest centre for trade, services, industry, and tourism in Jutland.
Designated as a "Sufficiency" global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, the city's major cultural institutions include Den Gamle By, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Moesgaard Museum, Gender Museum Denmark, and Aarhus Theatre. Known as "" (lit. City of Smiles) it is the Danish city with the youngest and fastest growing demographics and home to Scandinavia's largest university, Aarhus University. Commercially, the city is the principal container port in the country and major Danish companies are headquartered here such as Vestas, Arla Foods, Salling Group, and .
Etymology.
The name originates from the city's location at the mouth of (Aarhus River). It is a compound of the two words , genitive of ("river", Modern Danish ), and ("mouth", in Modern Icelandic this word, spelt , is still used for "river delta"). In Valdemar's Census Book (1231) the city was called "Arus", and in Icelandic it was known as , later written as Aars.
Spelling.
The spelling "Aarhus" is first found in 1406 and gradually became the norm in the 17th century. With the Danish spelling reform of 1948, "Aa" was changed to "Å". Some Danish cities resisted the change but Aarhus city council opted to change the name. In 2010, the city council voted to change the name back from to again with effect from 1 January 2011.
It is still grammatically correct to write geographical names with the letter Å and local councils are allowed to use the Aa spelling as an alternative and most newspapers and public institutions will accept either. Some official authorities such as the Danish Language Committee, publisher of the Danish Orthographic Dictionary, still retain as the main name, providing as a second option, in brackets and some institutions are still using explicitly in their official name, such as the local newspaper and the schools and . "Aa" was used by some major institutions between 1948 and 2011 as well, such as Aarhus University or the largest local sports club, (AGF), which has never used the "Å"-spelling. Certain geographically affiliated names have been updated to reflect the name of the city, such as the Aarhus River, changed from to .
Spelling.
The spelling "Aarhus" is first found in 1406 and gradually became the norm in the 17th century. With the Danish spelling reform of 1948, "Aa" was changed to "Å". Some Danish cities resisted the change but Aarhus city council opted to change the name. In 2010, the city council voted to change the name back from to again with effect from 1 January 2011.
It is still grammatically correct to write geographical names with the letter Å and local councils are allowed to use the Aa spelling as an alternative and most newspapers and public institutions will accept either. Some official authorities such as the Danish Language Committee, publisher of the Danish Orthographic Dictionary, still retain as the main name, providing as a second option, in brackets and some institutions are still using explicitly in their official name, such as the local newspaper and the schools and . "Aa" was used by some major institutions between 1948 and 2011 as well, such as Aarhus University or the largest local sports club, (AGF), which has never used the "Å"-spelling. Certain geographically affiliated names have been updated to reflect the name of the city, such as the Aarhus River, changed from to .
History.
Early history.
Founded in the early Viking Age, Aarhus is one of the oldest cities in Denmark, along with Ribe and Hedeby. The original Aros settlement was situated on the northern shores of a fjord by the mouth of the Aarhus River, right where the city center is today. It quickly became a hub for sea-going trade due to its position on intersecting trade routes in the Danish straits and the fertile countryside. The trade, however, was not nearly as prominent as that in Ribe and Hedeby during the Viking Age, and it was primarily linked to Norway as evidenced by archaeological finds. A shipbuilding yard from the Viking Age was uncovered upriver in 2002 by archaeologists. It was located at a place formerly known as "Snekkeeng", or Snekke Meadow in English ('Snekke' is a type of longship), east of the Brabrand Lake close to Viby, and it was in use for more than 400 years from the late 700s till around the mid-1200s.
Archaeological evidence indicate Aarhus was a town as early as the last quarter of the 8th century. Discoveries after a 2003 archaeological dig, includes half-buried longhouses, firepits, glass pearls and a road dated to the late 700s. Several excavations in the inner city since the 1960s, has revealed wells, streets, homes and workshops, and inside the buildings and adjoining archaeological layers, everyday utensils like combs, jewellery and basic multi-purpose tools from approximately the year 900 has been unearthed. The early town was fortified with defensive earthen ramparts in the first part of the 900s, possibly in the year 934 on order from king Gorm the Old. The fortifications were later improved and expanded by his son Harald Bluetooth, encircling the settlement much like the defence structures found at Viking ring fortresses elsewhere. Together with the town's geographical placement, this suggests that Aros became an important military centre in the Viking Age. There are also strong indications of a former royal residence from the same period in Viby, a few kilometres south of the Aarhus city centre.
The centre of Aarhus was originally a pagan burial site until Aarhus's first Christian church, Holy Trinity Church, a timber structure, was built upon it during the reign of Frode, King of Jutland, around 900. The bishopric of Aarhus dates back to at least 948 when Adam of Bremen reported that the missionary bishop Reginbrand of Aros attended the synod of Ingelheim in Germany, but the late Viking Age during the Christianization of Scandinavia was a turbulent and violent time with several naval attacks on the town, such as Harald Hardrada's assault around 1050, when the Holy Trinity Church was burned to the ground. Despite the conflicts, Aarhus continued to prosper from the trade and the finding of six runestones in and around Aarhus indicates the city had some significance around the year 1000, as only wealthy nobles traditionally used them. The bishopric diocese was obliterated for almost a hundred years after Reginbrand in 988, but in 1060 a new bishop Christian was ordained and he founded a new church in Aarhus, "Sankt Nicolai Domkirke" (St. Nicholas Cathedral), this time in stone. It was erected outside the town fortifications, and stood finished in 1070 at the site where Church of Our Lady stands today, but only an underground crypt remains.
Middle Ages.
The growing influence of the Church during the Middle Ages gradually turned Aarhus, with its bishopric, into a prosperous religious centre. Many public and religious buildings were built in and around the town; notably Aarhus Cathedral was initiated in the late 12th century by the influential bishop Peder Vognsen, and around 1200, Aros had a total of four churches. The 13th century also marks a thorough reorganisation, erasing most of the town's original layout with new streets, relocations, dismantling and new constructions. The Church clearly had the upper hand in the Aarhus region during medieval times, and the large bishopric of Aarhus prospered and expanded territory, reaching as far as Viborg in extent. In 1441, Christopher III issued the oldest known charter granting market town status, although similar privileges may have existed as far back as the 12th century. The charter is the first official recognition of the town as a regional power and is by some considered Aarhus's birth certificate.
The commercial and religious status spurred town growth so in 1477 the defensive earthen ramparts, ringing the town since the Viking Age, were abandoned to accommodate expansion. Parts of the ramparts are still in existence today and can be experienced as steep slopes at the riverside and they have also survived in some place names of the inner city, including the streets of Volden (The Rampart) and Graven (The Moat). Aarhus grew to become one of the largest cities in the country by the early 16th century. In 1657, octroi was imposed in larger Danish cities which changed the layout and face of Aarhus over the following decades. Wooden city walls were erected to prevent smuggling, with gates and toll booths on the major thoroughfares, Mejlgade and Studsgade. The city gates funnelled most traffic through a few streets where merchant quarters were built.
In the 17th century, Aarhus entered a period of recession as it suffered blockades and bombardments during the Swedish wars and trade was dampened by the preferential treatment of the capital by the state. It was not until the middle of the 18th century growth returned in large part due to trade with the large agricultural catchment areas around the city; particularly grain proved to be a remunerative export. The first factories were established at this time as the industrial revolution reached the country and in 1810 the harbour was expanded to accommodate growing trade.
Industrialisation.
Following the Napoleonic wars, Denmark lost Norway and was excluded from international trade for some years which caused a recession for Aarhus's trade-based economy that lasted until the 1830s. The economy turned around as the industrial revolution reached the city and factories with steam-driven machinery became more productive.
In 1838, the electoral laws were reformed leading to elections for the 15 seats on the city council. The rules were initially very strict, allowing only the wealthiest citizens to run. In the 1844 elections, only 174 citizens qualified out of a total population of more than 7,000. The first city council, mainly composed of wealthy merchants and industrialists, quickly looked to improve the harbour, situated along the Aarhus River. Larger ships and growing freight volumes made a river harbour increasingly impractical. In 1840, the harbour was moved to the coast, north of the river, where it became the largest industrial harbour outside Copenhagen over the following 15 years. From the outset, the new harbour was controlled by the city council, as it is to this day.
During the First Schleswig War, Aarhus was occupied by German troops from 21 June to 24 July 1849. The city was spared any fighting, but in Vejlby north of the city a cavalry skirmish known as Rytterfægtningen took place which stopped the German advance through Jutland. The war and occupation left a notable impact on the city as many streets, particularly on Frederiksbjerg, are named after Danish officers of the time. Fifteen years later, in 1864, the city was occupied again, this time for seven months, during the Second Schleswig War.
In spite of wars and occupation, the city continued to expand and develop. In 1851, the octroi was abolished and the city walls were removed to provide easier access for trade. Regular steamship links with Copenhagen had begun with the "Jylland" in 1825-26 and the "Dania" (1827–36), and in 1862 Jutland's first railway was established between Aarhus and Randers.
In the second half of the 19th century, industrialisation came into full effect and a number of new industries emerged around production and refinement of agricultural products, especially oil and butter. Many companies from this time would come to leave permanent iconic marks on Aarhus. The Ceres Brewery was established in 1856 and served as Aarhus's local brewery for more than 150 years, gradually expanding into an industrial district known as "Ceres-grunden" (lit.: the Ceres-ground). In 1896, local farmers and businessmen created Korn- og Foderstof Kompagniet (KFK), focused on grain and feedstuffs. KFK established departments all over the country, while its headquarters remained in Aarhus where its large grain silos still stand today. Otto Mønsted created the Danish Preserved Butter Company in 1874, focusing on butter export to England, China and Africa and later founded the Aarhus Butterine Company in 1883, the first Danish margarine factory. His company became an important local employer, with factory employees increasing from 100 in 1896 to 1,000 in 1931, partaking in the effective transformation of the city from a regional trade hub to an industrial centre. Other new factories of note included the dockyard Aarhus Flydedok, the oil mill Århus Oliefabrik and the ironworks Frichs.
Aarhus became the largest provincial city in the country by the turn of the century and the city marketed itself as the "Capital of Jutland". The population increased from 15,000 in 1870 to 52,000 in 1901 and, in response, the city annexed large land areas to develop new residential quarters such as Trøjborg, Frederiksbjerg and Marselisborg. Many of its cultural institutions were also established at this time such as Aarhus Theatre (1900), the original State Library (1902), Aarhus University (1928) and several hospitals.
Second World War.
On 9 April 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, occupying Aarhus the following day and 5 years hence. The occupation was a destructive period with major disasters, loss of life and economic depression. The Port of Aarhus became a hub for supplies to the Baltics and Norway, while the surrounding rail network supplied the Atlantic Wall in west Jutland and cargo headed for Germany. Combined, these factors resulted in a strong German presence, especially in 1944–45. The first years were peaceful in conjunction with the policies of the Danish Protectorate Government, but following the enactment of the Communist Law in August 1941, armed resistance and reprisals escalated.
Small resistance groups first appeared in 1941–42 but the first to co-ordinate with the Freedom Council was the Samsing Group, responsible for most operations from early 1943. The Samsing group, along with others in and around Aarhus, was dismantled in June 1944 when Grethe "Thora" Bartram turned her family and acquaintances over to German authorities. In response, requests for assistance were sent to contacts in England and in October 1944 the Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo headquarters successfully destroying archives and obstructing the ongoing investigation.
In the summer of 1944 the Copenhagen-based resistance group Holger Danske helped establish the 5 Kolonne group and an SOE agent arrived from England to liaison with the L-groups. Subsequently, resistance operations escalated which was countered with Schalburgtage terror operations by the Peter group. The increasingly destructive occupation was compounded when an ammunition barge exploded in July 1944, destroying much of the harbour area. On 5 May 1945 German forces in Denmark surrendered but during the transitional period fighting broke out resulting in 22 dead. On 8 May the British Royal Dragoons entered the city.
Post-World War II years.
In the 1980s the city entered a period of rapid growth and the service sector overtook trade, industry and crafts as the leading sector of employment for the first time. Workers gradually began commuting to the city from most of east and central Jutland as the region became more interconnected. The student population tripled between 1965 and 1977 turning the city into a Danish centre of research and education. The growing and comparably young population initiated a period of creativity and optimism; Gaffa and the KaosPilot school were founded in 1983 and 1991 respectively, and Aarhus was at the centre of a renaissance in Danish rock and pop music launching bands and musicians such as TV2, Gnags, Thomas Helmig, Bamses Venner, Anne Dorte Michelsen, Mek Pek and Shit & Chanel.
The 2000s.
Since the turn of the millennium, Aarhus has seen an unprecedented building boom with many new institutions, infrastructure projects, city districts and recreational areas. Several of the construction projects are among the largest in Europe, such as the New University Hospital (DNU) and the harbourfront redevelopment.
Both the skyline and land use of the inner city is changing, as former industrial sites are being redeveloped into new city districts and neighbourhoods. Starting in 2008, the former docklands known as "De Bynære Havnearealer" (The Peri-urban Harbour-areas), and closest to the city seaside, are being converted to new mixed use districts. It is among the largest harbourfront projects in Europe. The northern part dubbed "Aarhus Ø" (Aarhus Docklands) is almost finished as of 2018, while the southern district dubbed "Sydhavnskvarteret" (The South-harbour neighbourhood) is only starting to be developed. The adjacent site of Frederiks Plads at the former DSB repair facilities have been under construction since 2014 as a new business and residential quarter. The main bus terminal close by is planned to be moved to the central railway station and the site will be redeveloped to a new residential neighbourhood. Elsewhere in the inner city, the site of the former Ceres breweries was redeveloped in 2012-2019 as a new mixed use neighbourhood known as CeresByen.
Construction of Aarhus Letbane, the first light rail system in the country, commenced in 2013, and the first increment was finished in December 2017. Since then, the lightrail service has been expanded with two intercity sections to the towns of Odder and Grenå, respectively, and also includes a northward leg to the suburb of Lisbjerg. The light rail system is planned to tie many other suburbs closer to central Aarhus in the future, with the next phase including local lines to Brabrand in the east and Hinnerup to the north.
Accelerating growth since the early 2000s, brought the inner urban area to roughly 260,000 inhabitants by 2014. The rapid growth is expected to continue until at least 2030 when Aarhus municipality has set an ambitious target for 375,000 inhabitants.
Early history.
Founded in the early Viking Age, Aarhus is one of the oldest cities in Denmark, along with Ribe and Hedeby. The original Aros settlement was situated on the northern shores of a fjord by the mouth of the Aarhus River, right where the city center is today. It quickly became a hub for sea-going trade due to its position on intersecting trade routes in the Danish straits and the fertile countryside. The trade, however, was not nearly as prominent as that in Ribe and Hedeby during the Viking Age, and it was primarily linked to Norway as evidenced by archaeological finds. A shipbuilding yard from the Viking Age was uncovered upriver in 2002 by archaeologists. It was located at a place formerly known as "Snekkeeng", or Snekke Meadow in English ('Snekke' is a type of longship), east of the Brabrand Lake close to Viby, and it was in use for more than 400 years from the late 700s till around the mid-1200s.
Archaeological evidence indicate Aarhus was a town as early as the last quarter of the 8th century. Discoveries after a 2003 archaeological dig, includes half-buried longhouses, firepits, glass pearls and a road dated to the late 700s. Several excavations in the inner city since the 1960s, has revealed wells, streets, homes and workshops, and inside the buildings and adjoining archaeological layers, everyday utensils like combs, jewellery and basic multi-purpose tools from approximately the year 900 has been unearthed. The early town was fortified with defensive earthen ramparts in the first part of the 900s, possibly in the year 934 on order from king Gorm the Old. The fortifications were later improved and expanded by his son Harald Bluetooth, encircling the settlement much like the defence structures found at Viking ring fortresses elsewhere. Together with the town's geographical placement, this suggests that Aros became an important military centre in the Viking Age. There are also strong indications of a former royal residence from the same period in Viby, a few kilometres south of the Aarhus city centre.
The centre of Aarhus was originally a pagan burial site until Aarhus's first Christian church, Holy Trinity Church, a timber structure, was built upon it during the reign of Frode, King of Jutland, around 900. The bishopric of Aarhus dates back to at least 948 when Adam of Bremen reported that the missionary bishop Reginbrand of Aros attended the synod of Ingelheim in Germany, but the late Viking Age during the Christianization of Scandinavia was a turbulent and violent time with several naval attacks on the town, such as Harald Hardrada's assault around 1050, when the Holy Trinity Church was burned to the ground. Despite the conflicts, Aarhus continued to prosper from the trade and the finding of six runestones in and around Aarhus indicates the city had some significance around the year 1000, as only wealthy nobles traditionally used them. The bishopric diocese was obliterated for almost a hundred years after Reginbrand in 988, but in 1060 a new bishop Christian was ordained and he founded a new church in Aarhus, "Sankt Nicolai Domkirke" (St. Nicholas Cathedral), this time in stone. It was erected outside the town fortifications, and stood finished in 1070 at the site where Church of Our Lady stands today, but only an underground crypt remains.
Middle Ages.
The growing influence of the Church during the Middle Ages gradually turned Aarhus, with its bishopric, into a prosperous religious centre. Many public and religious buildings were built in and around the town; notably Aarhus Cathedral was initiated in the late 12th century by the influential bishop Peder Vognsen, and around 1200, Aros had a total of four churches. The 13th century also marks a thorough reorganisation, erasing most of the town's original layout with new streets, relocations, dismantling and new constructions. The Church clearly had the upper hand in the Aarhus region during medieval times, and the large bishopric of Aarhus prospered and expanded territory, reaching as far as Viborg in extent. In 1441, Christopher III issued the oldest known charter granting market town status, although similar privileges may have existed as far back as the 12th century. The charter is the first official recognition of the town as a regional power and is by some considered Aarhus's birth certificate.
The commercial and religious status spurred town growth so in 1477 the defensive earthen ramparts, ringing the town since the Viking Age, were abandoned to accommodate expansion. Parts of the ramparts are still in existence today and can be experienced as steep slopes at the riverside and they have also survived in some place names of the inner city, including the streets of Volden (The Rampart) and Graven (The Moat). Aarhus grew to become one of the largest cities in the country by the early 16th century. In 1657, octroi was imposed in larger Danish cities which changed the layout and face of Aarhus over the following decades. Wooden city walls were erected to prevent smuggling, with gates and toll booths on the major thoroughfares, Mejlgade and Studsgade. The city gates funnelled most traffic through a few streets where merchant quarters were built.
In the 17th century, Aarhus entered a period of recession as it suffered blockades and bombardments during the Swedish wars and trade was dampened by the preferential treatment of the capital by the state. It was not until the middle of the 18th century growth returned in large part due to trade with the large agricultural catchment areas around the city; particularly grain proved to be a remunerative export. The first factories were established at this time as the industrial revolution reached the country and in 1810 the harbour was expanded to accommodate growing trade.
Industrialisation.
Following the Napoleonic wars, Denmark lost Norway and was excluded from international trade for some years which caused a recession for Aarhus's trade-based economy that lasted until the 1830s. The economy turned around as the industrial revolution reached the city and factories with steam-driven machinery became more productive.
In 1838, the electoral laws were reformed leading to elections for the 15 seats on the city council. The rules were initially very strict, allowing only the wealthiest citizens to run. In the 1844 elections, only 174 citizens qualified out of a total population of more than 7,000. The first city council, mainly composed of wealthy merchants and industrialists, quickly looked to improve the harbour, situated along the Aarhus River. Larger ships and growing freight volumes made a river harbour increasingly impractical. In 1840, the harbour was moved to the coast, north of the river, where it became the largest industrial harbour outside Copenhagen over the following 15 years. From the outset, the new harbour was controlled by the city council, as it is to this day.
During the First Schleswig War, Aarhus was occupied by German troops from 21 June to 24 July 1849. The city was spared any fighting, but in Vejlby north of the city a cavalry skirmish known as Rytterfægtningen took place which stopped the German advance through Jutland. The war and occupation left a notable impact on the city as many streets, particularly on Frederiksbjerg, are named after Danish officers of the time. Fifteen years later, in 1864, the city was occupied again, this time for seven months, during the Second Schleswig War.
In spite of wars and occupation, the city continued to expand and develop. In 1851, the octroi was abolished and the city walls were removed to provide easier access for trade. Regular steamship links with Copenhagen had begun with the "Jylland" in 1825-26 and the "Dania" (1827–36), and in 1862 Jutland's first railway was established between Aarhus and Randers.
In the second half of the 19th century, industrialisation came into full effect and a number of new industries emerged around production and refinement of agricultural products, especially oil and butter. Many companies from this time would come to leave permanent iconic marks on Aarhus. The Ceres Brewery was established in 1856 and served as Aarhus's local brewery for more than 150 years, gradually expanding into an industrial district known as "Ceres-grunden" (lit.: the Ceres-ground). In 1896, local farmers and businessmen created Korn- og Foderstof Kompagniet (KFK), focused on grain and feedstuffs. KFK established departments all over the country, while its headquarters remained in Aarhus where its large grain silos still stand today. Otto Mønsted created the Danish Preserved Butter Company in 1874, focusing on butter export to England, China and Africa and later founded the Aarhus Butterine Company in 1883, the first Danish margarine factory. His company became an important local employer, with factory employees increasing from 100 in 1896 to 1,000 in 1931, partaking in the effective transformation of the city from a regional trade hub to an industrial centre. Other new factories of note included the dockyard Aarhus Flydedok, the oil mill Århus Oliefabrik and the ironworks Frichs.
Aarhus became the largest provincial city in the country by the turn of the century and the city marketed itself as the "Capital of Jutland". The population increased from 15,000 in 1870 to 52,000 in 1901 and, in response, the city annexed large land areas to develop new residential quarters such as Trøjborg, Frederiksbjerg and Marselisborg. Many of its cultural institutions were also established at this time such as Aarhus Theatre (1900), the original State Library (1902), Aarhus University (1928) and several hospitals.
Second World War.
On 9 April 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, occupying Aarhus the following day and 5 years hence. The occupation was a destructive period with major disasters, loss of life and economic depression. The Port of Aarhus became a hub for supplies to the Baltics and Norway, while the surrounding rail network supplied the Atlantic Wall in west Jutland and cargo headed for Germany. Combined, these factors resulted in a strong German presence, especially in 1944–45. The first years were peaceful in conjunction with the policies of the Danish Protectorate Government, but following the enactment of the Communist Law in August 1941, armed resistance and reprisals escalated.
Small resistance groups first appeared in 1941–42 but the first to co-ordinate with the Freedom Council was the Samsing Group, responsible for most operations from early 1943. The Samsing group, along with others in and around Aarhus, was dismantled in June 1944 when Grethe "Thora" Bartram turned her family and acquaintances over to German authorities. In response, requests for assistance were sent to contacts in England and in October 1944 the Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo headquarters successfully destroying archives and obstructing the ongoing investigation.
In the summer of 1944 the Copenhagen-based resistance group Holger Danske helped establish the 5 Kolonne group and an SOE agent arrived from England to liaison with the L-groups. Subsequently, resistance operations escalated which was countered with Schalburgtage terror operations by the Peter group. The increasingly destructive occupation was compounded when an ammunition barge exploded in July 1944, destroying much of the harbour area. On 5 May 1945 German forces in Denmark surrendered but during the transitional period fighting broke out resulting in 22 dead. On 8 May the British Royal Dragoons entered the city.
Post-World War II years.
In the 1980s the city entered a period of rapid growth and the service sector overtook trade, industry and crafts as the leading sector of employment for the first time. Workers gradually began commuting to the city from most of east and central Jutland as the region became more interconnected. The student population tripled between 1965 and 1977 turning the city into a Danish centre of research and education. The growing and comparably young population initiated a period of creativity and optimism; Gaffa and the KaosPilot school were founded in 1983 and 1991 respectively, and Aarhus was at the centre of a renaissance in Danish rock and pop music launching bands and musicians such as TV2, Gnags, Thomas Helmig, Bamses Venner, Anne Dorte Michelsen, Mek Pek and Shit & Chanel.
The 2000s.
Since the turn of the millennium, Aarhus has seen an unprecedented building boom with many new institutions, infrastructure projects, city districts and recreational areas. Several of the construction projects are among the largest in Europe, such as the New University Hospital (DNU) and the harbourfront redevelopment.
Both the skyline and land use of the inner city is changing, as former industrial sites are being redeveloped into new city districts and neighbourhoods. Starting in 2008, the former docklands known as "De Bynære Havnearealer" (The Peri-urban Harbour-areas), and closest to the city seaside, are being converted to new mixed use districts. It is among the largest harbourfront projects in Europe. The northern part dubbed "Aarhus Ø" (Aarhus Docklands) is almost finished as of 2018, while the southern district dubbed "Sydhavnskvarteret" (The South-harbour neighbourhood) is only starting to be developed. The adjacent site of Frederiks Plads at the former DSB repair facilities have been under construction since 2014 as a new business and residential quarter. The main bus terminal close by is planned to be moved to the central railway station and the site will be redeveloped to a new residential neighbourhood. Elsewhere in the inner city, the site of the former Ceres breweries was redeveloped in 2012-2019 as a new mixed use neighbourhood known as CeresByen.
Construction of Aarhus Letbane, the first light rail system in the country, commenced in 2013, and the first increment was finished in December 2017. Since then, the lightrail service has been expanded with two intercity sections to the towns of Odder and Grenå, respectively, and also includes a northward leg to the suburb of Lisbjerg. The light rail system is planned to tie many other suburbs closer to central Aarhus in the future, with the next phase including local lines to Brabrand in the east and Hinnerup to the north.
Accelerating growth since the early 2000s, brought the inner urban area to roughly 260,000 inhabitants by 2014. The rapid growth is expected to continue until at least 2030 when Aarhus municipality has set an ambitious target for 375,000 inhabitants.
Geography.
Aarhus is located at the Bay of Aarhus facing the Kattegat sea in the east with the peninsulas of Mols and Helgenæs across the bay to the northeast. Mols and Helgenæs are both part of the larger regional peninsula of Djursland. A number of larger cities and towns is within easy reach from Aarhus by road and rail, including Randers ( by road north), Grenå (northeast), Horsens ( south) and Silkeborg ( east).
Topography.
At Aarhus's location, the Bay of Aarhus provides a natural harbour with a depth of quite close to the shore. Aarhus was founded at the mouth of a brackish water fjord, but the original fjord no longer exists, as it has gradually narrowed into what is now the Aarhus River and the Brabrand Lake, due to natural sedimentation. The land around Aarhus was once covered by forests, remains of which exist in parts of Marselisborg Forest to the south and Riis Skov to the north. Several lakes extend west from the inner city as the landscape merges with the larger region of Søhøjlandet with heights exceeding at Himmelbjerget between Skanderborg and Silkeborg. The highest natural point in Aarhus Municipality is Jelshøj at 128 metres above sea level, in the southern district of Højbjerg. The hilltop is home to a Bronze Age barrow shrouded in local myths and legends.
The hilly area around Aarhus consists of a morainal plateau from the last ice age, broken by a complex system of tunnel valleys. The most prominent valleys of this network are the Aarhus Valley in the south, stretching inland east–west with the Aarhus River, Brabrand Lake, Årslev Lake and Tåstrup Lake, and the Egå Valley to the north, with the stream of Egåen, Egå Engsø, the bog of Geding-Kasted Mose and Geding Lake. Most parts of the two valleys have been drained and subsequently farmed, but in the early 2000s some of the drainage was removed and parts of the wetlands were restored for environmental reasons. The valley system also includes the stream of Lyngbygård Å in the west and valleys to the south of the city, following erosion channels from the pre-quaternary. By contrast, the Aarhus River Valley and the Giber River Valley are late glacial meltwater valleys. The coastal cliffs along the Bay of Aarhus consist of shallow tertiary clay from the Eocene and Oligocene (57 to 24 million years ago).
Climate.
Aarhus has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb") and the weather is constantly influenced by major weather systems from all four ordinal directions, resulting in unstable conditions throughout the year. Temperature varies a great deal across the seasons with a mild spring in April and May, warmer summer months from June to August, frequently rainy and windy autumn months in October and September and cooler winter months, often with frost and occasional snow, from December to March. The city centre experiences the same climatic effects as other larger cities with higher wind speeds, more fog, less precipitation and higher temperatures than the surrounding, open land.
Western winds from the Atlantic and North Sea are dominant resulting in more precipitation in western Denmark. In addition, Jutland rises sufficiently in the centre to lift air to higher, colder altitudes contributing to increased precipitation in eastern Jutland. Combined, these factors make east and south Jutland comparatively wetter than other parts of the country. Average temperature over the year is with February being the coldest month () and August the warmest (). Temperatures in the sea can reach in June to August, but it is not uncommon for beaches to register locally.
The geography in the area affects the local climate of the city with the Aarhus Bay imposing a temperate effect on the low-lying valley floor where central Aarhus is located. Brabrand Lake to the west further contributes to this effect and as a result, the valley has a comparably mild, temperate climate. The sandy ground on the valley floor dries up quickly after winter and warms faster in the summer than the surrounding hills of moist-retaining boulder clay. These conditions affect crops and plants that often bloom 1–2 weeks earlier in the valley than on the northern and southern hillsides.
Because of the northern latitude, the number of daylight hours varies considerably between summer and winter. On the summer solstice, the sun rises at 04:26 and sets at 21:58, providing 17 hours 32 minutes of daylight. On the winter solstice, it rises at 08:37 and sets at 15:39 with 7 hours and 2 minutes of daylight. The difference in length of days and nights between summer and winter solstices is 10 hours and 30 minutes.
Topography.
At Aarhus's location, the Bay of Aarhus provides a natural harbour with a depth of quite close to the shore. Aarhus was founded at the mouth of a brackish water fjord, but the original fjord no longer exists, as it has gradually narrowed into what is now the Aarhus River and the Brabrand Lake, due to natural sedimentation. The land around Aarhus was once covered by forests, remains of which exist in parts of Marselisborg Forest to the south and Riis Skov to the north. Several lakes extend west from the inner city as the landscape merges with the larger region of Søhøjlandet with heights exceeding at Himmelbjerget between Skanderborg and Silkeborg. The highest natural point in Aarhus Municipality is Jelshøj at 128 metres above sea level, in the southern district of Højbjerg. The hilltop is home to a Bronze Age barrow shrouded in local myths and legends.
The hilly area around Aarhus consists of a morainal plateau from the last ice age, broken by a complex system of tunnel valleys. The most prominent valleys of this network are the Aarhus Valley in the south, stretching inland east–west with the Aarhus River, Brabrand Lake, Årslev Lake and Tåstrup Lake, and the Egå Valley to the north, with the stream of Egåen, Egå Engsø, the bog of Geding-Kasted Mose and Geding Lake. Most parts of the two valleys have been drained and subsequently farmed, but in the early 2000s some of the drainage was removed and parts of the wetlands were restored for environmental reasons. The valley system also includes the stream of Lyngbygård Å in the west and valleys to the south of the city, following erosion channels from the pre-quaternary. By contrast, the Aarhus River Valley and the Giber River Valley are late glacial meltwater valleys. The coastal cliffs along the Bay of Aarhus consist of shallow tertiary clay from the Eocene and Oligocene (57 to 24 million years ago).
Climate.
Aarhus has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb") and the weather is constantly influenced by major weather systems from all four ordinal directions, resulting in unstable conditions throughout the year. Temperature varies a great deal across the seasons with a mild spring in April and May, warmer summer months from June to August, frequently rainy and windy autumn months in October and September and cooler winter months, often with frost and occasional snow, from December to March. The city centre experiences the same climatic effects as other larger cities with higher wind speeds, more fog, less precipitation and higher temperatures than the surrounding, open land.
Western winds from the Atlantic and North Sea are dominant resulting in more precipitation in western Denmark. In addition, Jutland rises sufficiently in the centre to lift air to higher, colder altitudes contributing to increased precipitation in eastern Jutland. Combined, these factors make east and south Jutland comparatively wetter than other parts of the country. Average temperature over the year is with February being the coldest month () and August the warmest (). Temperatures in the sea can reach in June to August, but it is not uncommon for beaches to register locally.
The geography in the area affects the local climate of the city with the Aarhus Bay imposing a temperate effect on the low-lying valley floor where central Aarhus is located. Brabrand Lake to the west further contributes to this effect and as a result, the valley has a comparably mild, temperate climate. The sandy ground on the valley floor dries up quickly after winter and warms faster in the summer than the surrounding hills of moist-retaining boulder clay. These conditions affect crops and plants that often bloom 1–2 weeks earlier in the valley than on the northern and southern hillsides.
Because of the northern latitude, the number of daylight hours varies considerably between summer and winter. On the summer solstice, the sun rises at 04:26 and sets at 21:58, providing 17 hours 32 minutes of daylight. On the winter solstice, it rises at 08:37 and sets at 15:39 with 7 hours and 2 minutes of daylight. The difference in length of days and nights between summer and winter solstices is 10 hours and 30 minutes.
Politics and administration.
Aarhus is the seat of Aarhus Municipality, and Aarhus City Council ("Aarhus Byråd") is also the municipal government with headquarters in Aarhus City Hall. The Mayor of Aarhus since 2010 is Jacob Bundsgaard of the Social Democrats. Municipal elections are held every fourth year on the third Tuesday of November with the next election in 2021. The city council consists of 31 members elected for four-year terms. When an election has determined the composition of the council, it elects a mayor, two deputy mayors and five aldermen from their ranks. Anyone who is eligible to vote and who resides within the municipality can run for a seat on the city council provided they can secure endorsements and signatures from 50 inhabitants of the municipality.
The first publicly elected mayor of Aarhus was appointed in 1919. In the 1970 Danish Municipal Reform the current Aarhus municipality was created by merging 20 municipalities. Aarhus was the seat of Aarhus County until the 2007 Danish municipal reform, which substituted the Danish counties with five regions and replaced Aarhus County with Central Denmark Region ("Region Midtjylland"), seated in Viborg.
Subdivisions.
Aarhus Municipality has 45 electoral wards and polling stations in four electoral districts for the Folketing (national Parliament). The diocese of Aarhus has four deaneries composed of 60 parishes within Aarhus municipality. Aarhus municipality contains 21 postal districts and some parts of another 9. The urban area of Aarhus and the immediate suburbs are divided into the districts Aarhus C, Aarhus N, Aarhus V, Viby J, Højbjerg and Brabrand.
Environmental planning.
Aarhus has increasingly been investing in environmental planning and, in accordance with national policy, aims to be -neutral and independent of fossil fuels for heating by 2030. The municipal power plants were adapted for this purpose in the 2010s. In 2015, the municipality took over three private straw-fired heating plants and the year after, a new 77 MW combined heat and power biomass plant at Lisbjerg Power Station was completed while Studstrup Power Station finished a refit to move from coal to wood chips. In conjunction with the development of the Docklands district there are plans for a utility-scale seawater heat pump which will take advantage of fluctuating electricity prices to supply the district heating system. Since 2015, the city has been implementing energy saving LED technology in street lighting; by January 2019, about half of the municipal street lighting had been changed. Apart from reducing the city's CO2 emissions, it saves 30% on the electricity bill, thereby making it a self-financed project over a 20-year period.
The municipality aims for a coherent and holistic administration of the water cycle to protect against, or clean up, previous pollution and encourage green growth and self-sufficiency. The main issues are excessive nutrients, adapting to increased (and increasing) levels of precipitation brought on by climate change, and securing the water supply. These goals have manifested in a number of large water treatment projects often in collaboration with private partners. In the 2000s, underground rainwater basins were built across the city while the two lakes Årslev Engsø and Egå Engsø were created in 2003 and 2006 respectively. The number of sewage treatment plants is planned to be reduced from 17 to 2 by 2025, as the treatment plants in Marselisborg and Egå are scheduled for expansion to take over all waste water treatment. They have already been refitted for biogas production to become net producers of electricity and heat. To aid the new treatment plants, and avoid floodings, sewage and stormwater throughout the municipality is planned to be separated into two different drainage systems. Construction began in 2017 in several areas, but it is a long process that is scheduled to be finished by 2085.
Afforestation projects have been undertaken to prevent groundwater pollution, secure drinking water, sequester, increase biodiversity, create an attractive countryside, provide easy access to nature and offer outdoor activities to the public. In 2000, the first project, the New Forests of Aarhus, was completed, which aimed to double the forest cover in the municipality and, in 2009, another phase was announced to double forest cover once more before the year 2030. The afforestation plans were realised as a local project in collaboration with private landowners, under a larger national agenda. Other projects to expand natural habitats include a rewilding effort in Geding-Kasted Bog and continuous monitoring of the four Natura 2000 areas in the municipality.
Subdivisions.
Aarhus Municipality has 45 electoral wards and polling stations in four electoral districts for the Folketing (national Parliament). The diocese of Aarhus has four deaneries composed of 60 parishes within Aarhus municipality. Aarhus municipality contains 21 postal districts and some parts of another 9. The urban area of Aarhus and the immediate suburbs are divided into the districts Aarhus C, Aarhus N, Aarhus V, Viby J, Højbjerg and Brabrand.
Environmental planning.
Aarhus has increasingly been investing in environmental planning and, in accordance with national policy, aims to be -neutral and independent of fossil fuels for heating by 2030. The municipal power plants were adapted for this purpose in the 2010s. In 2015, the municipality took over three private straw-fired heating plants and the year after, a new 77 MW combined heat and power biomass plant at Lisbjerg Power Station was completed while Studstrup Power Station finished a refit to move from coal to wood chips. In conjunction with the development of the Docklands district there are plans for a utility-scale seawater heat pump which will take advantage of fluctuating electricity prices to supply the district heating system. Since 2015, the city has been implementing energy saving LED technology in street lighting; by January 2019, about half of the municipal street lighting had been changed. Apart from reducing the city's CO2 emissions, it saves 30% on the electricity bill, thereby making it a self-financed project over a 20-year period.
The municipality aims for a coherent and holistic administration of the water cycle to protect against, or clean up, previous pollution and encourage green growth and self-sufficiency. The main issues are excessive nutrients, adapting to increased (and increasing) levels of precipitation brought on by climate change, and securing the water supply. These goals have manifested in a number of large water treatment projects often in collaboration with private partners. In the 2000s, underground rainwater basins were built across the city while the two lakes Årslev Engsø and Egå Engsø were created in 2003 and 2006 respectively. The number of sewage treatment plants is planned to be reduced from 17 to 2 by 2025, as the treatment plants in Marselisborg and Egå are scheduled for expansion to take over all waste water treatment. They have already been refitted for biogas production to become net producers of electricity and heat. To aid the new treatment plants, and avoid floodings, sewage and stormwater throughout the municipality is planned to be separated into two different drainage systems. Construction began in 2017 in several areas, but it is a long process that is scheduled to be finished by 2085.
Afforestation projects have been undertaken to prevent groundwater pollution, secure drinking water, sequester, increase biodiversity, create an attractive countryside, provide easy access to nature and offer outdoor activities to the public. In 2000, the first project, the New Forests of Aarhus, was completed, which aimed to double the forest cover in the municipality and, in 2009, another phase was announced to double forest cover once more before the year 2030. The afforestation plans were realised as a local project in collaboration with private landowners, under a larger national agenda. Other projects to expand natural habitats include a rewilding effort in Geding-Kasted Bog and continuous monitoring of the four Natura 2000 areas in the municipality.
Demographics.
Aarhus has a population of 261,570 on for a density of 2,874/km2 (7,444/sq mi). Aarhus municipality has a population of 330,639 on 468 km2 with a density of 706/km2 (1,829/sq mi). Less than a fifth of the municipal population resides beyond city limits and almost all live in an urban area. The population of Aarhus is both younger and better-educated than the national average which can be attributed to the high concentration of educational institutions. More than 40% of the population have an academic degree while only some 14% have no secondary education or trade. The largest age group is 20- to 29-year-olds and the average age is 37.5, making it the youngest city in the country and one of its youngest municipalities. Women have slightly outnumbered men for many years.
The city is home to 75 different religious groups and denominations, most of which are Christian or Muslim with a smaller number of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish communities. Since the 1990s there has been a marked growth in diverse new spiritual groups although the total number of followers remains small. The majority of the population are members of the Protestant state church, Church of Denmark, which is by far the largest religious institution both in the city and the country as a whole. Some 20% of the population are not officially affiliated with any religion, a percentage that has been slowly rising for many years.
During the 1990s there was significant immigration from Turkey and in the 2000s, there was a fast growth in the overall immigrant community, from 27,783 people in 1999 to 40,431 in 2008. The majority of immigrants have roots outside Europe and the developed world, comprising some 25,000 people from 130 different nationalities, with the largest groups coming from the Middle East and North Africa. Some 15,000 have come from within Europe, with Poland, Germany, Romania and Norway being the largest contributors.
Many immigrants have established themselves in the suburbs of Brabrand, Hasle and Viby, where the percentage of inhabitants with foreign origins has risen by 66% since 2000. This has resulted in a few so-called ghettos, defined as residential areas with more than half of inhabitants from non-Western countries and with relatively high levels of poverty and/or crime. Gellerup is the most notable neighbourhood in that respect. The ghetto-labelling has been criticized as unnecessarily stigmatising and counterproductive for social and economical development of the related areas.
Economy.
The economy of Aarhus is predominantly knowledge- and service-based, strongly influenced by the University of Aarhus and the large healthcare industry. The service sector dominates the economy and is growing as the city transitions away from manufacturing. Trade and transportation remain important sectors, benefiting from the large port and central position on the rail network. Manufacturing has been in slow but steady decline since the 1960s while agriculture has long been a marginal sector within the municipality. The municipality is home to 175,000 jobs with some 100,000 in the private sector and the rest split between state, region and municipality. The region is a major agricultural producer, with many large farms in the outlying districts. People commute to Aarhus from as far away as Randers, Silkeborg and Skanderborg and almost a third of those employed within the Aarhus municipality commute from neighbouring communities. Aarhus is a centre for retail in the Nordic and Baltic countries, with expansive shopping centres, the busiest commercial street in the country and a dense urban core with many speciality shops.
The job market is knowledge- and service-based, and the largest employment sectors are healthcare and social services, trade, education, consulting, research, industry and telecommunications. The municipality has more high- and middle-income jobs, and fewer low-income jobs, than the national average. Today, te majority of the largest companies in the municipality are in the sectors of trade, transport and media. The wind power industry has strong roots in Aarhus and the larger region of Central Jutland, and nationally, most of the revenue in the industry is generated by companies in the greater Aarhus area. The wind industry employs about a thousand people within the municipality, making it a central component in the local economy. The biotech industry is well-established in the city, with many small- and medium-sized companies mainly focused on research and development.
Several major companies are headquartered in Aarhus, including four of the ten largest in the country. These include Arla Foods, one of the largest dairy groups in Europe, Salling Group, Denmark's largest retailer, Jysk, a worldwide retailer of household goods, Vestas, a global wind turbine manufacturer, Terma A/S, a major defence and aerospace manufacturer, Per Aarsleff, a civil engineering company and several large retail companies. Other large employers of note include Krifa, Systematic A/S,), and Bestseller A/S. Since the early 2000s, the city has experienced an influx of larger companies moving from other parts of the Jutland peninsula.
Port of Aarhus.
The Port of Aarhus is one of the largest industrial ports in northern Europe with the largest container terminal in Denmark, processing more than 50% of Denmark's container traffic and accommodating the largest container vessels in the world. It is a municipal self-governing port with independent finances. The facilities handle some 9.5 million tonnes of cargo a year (2012). Grain is the principal export, while feedstuffs, stone, cement and coal are among the chief imports. Since 2012 the port has faced increasing competition from the Port of Hamburg and freight volumes have decreased somewhat from the peak in 2008.
The ferry terminal presents the only alternative to the Great Belt Link for passenger transport between Jutland and Zealand. It has served different ferry companies since the first steamship route to Copenhagen opened in 1830. Currently, Mols-Linien operates the route and annually transports some two million passengers and a million vehicles. Additional roll-on/roll-off cargo ferries serve Finland and Kalundborg on a weekly basis and smaller outlying Danish ports at irregular intervals. Since the early 2000s the port has increasingly become a destination for cruise lines operating in the Baltic Sea.
Tourism.
The ARoS Art Museum, the Old Town Museum and Tivoli Friheden are among Denmark's top tourist attractions. With a combined total of almost 1.4 million visitors they represent the driving force behind tourism but other venues such as Moesgård Museum and Kvindemuseet are also popular. The city's extensive shopping facilities are also said to be a major attraction for tourists, as are festivals, especially NorthSide and SPOT. Many visitors arrive on cruise ships: in 2012, 18 vessels visited the port with over 38,000 passengers.
In the 2010s, there was a significant expansion of tourist facilities, culminating in the opening of the 240-room Comwell Hotel in July 2014, which increased the number of hotel rooms in the city by 25%. Some estimates put the number of visitors spending at least one night as high as 750,000 a year, most of them Danes from other regions, with the remainder coming mainly from Norway, Sweden, northern Germany and the United Kingdom. Overall, they spend roughly DKK 3 billion (€402 million) in the city each year. The primary motivation for tourists choosing Aarhus as a destination is experiencing the city and culture, family and couples vacation or as a part of a round trip in Denmark. The average stay is little more than three days on average.
There are more than 30 tourist information spots across the city. Some of them are staffed, while others are online, publicly accessible touchscreens. The official tourist information service in Aarhus is organised under VisitAarhus, a corporate foundation initiated in 1994 by Aarhus Municipality and local commercial interest organisations.
Research parks.
The largest research park in Aarhus is INCUBA Science Park, focused on IT and biomedical research, It is based on Denmark's first research park, "Forskerpark Aarhus" (Research Park Aarhus), founded in 1986, which in 2007 merged with another research park to form INCUBA Science Park. The organisation is owned partly by Aarhus University and private investors and aims to foster close relationships between public institutions and startup companies. It is physically divided across 4 locations after a new department was inaugurated in Navitas Park in 2015, which it will share with the Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering and AU Engineering. Another major centre for knowledge is Agro Food Park in Skejby, established to facilitate co-operation between companies and public institutions working within food science and agriculture. In January 2017 Arla Foods will open the global innovation centre "Arla Nativa" in Agro Food Park and in 2018 Aarhus University is moving the "Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture" there as well. In 2016, some 1000 people worked at Agro Food Park, spread across 50 companies and institutions and in August 2016 Agro Food Park management published plans to expand facilities from 92,000 m2 to .
In addition, Aarhus is home to the Aarhus School of Architecture, one of two Danish Ministry of Education institutions that provide degree programs in architecture, and some of the largest architecture firms in the Nordic countries such as Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, Arkitema Architects and C. F. Møller Architects. Taken together these organisations form a unique concentration of expertise and knowledge in architecture outside Copenhagen, which the Danish Ministry of Business and Growth refers to as (the architecture cluster). To promote the "cluster", the School of Architecture will be given new school buildings centrally in the new Freight Station Neighborhood, planned for development in the 2020s. In the interim, the city council supports a culture, business and education centre in the area, which may continue in the future neighbourhood in some form. The future occupants of the neighbourhood will be businesses and organisations selected for their ability to be involved in the local community, and it is hoped that the area will evolve into a hotspot for creativity and design.
Port of Aarhus.
The Port of Aarhus is one of the largest industrial ports in northern Europe with the largest container terminal in Denmark, processing more than 50% of Denmark's container traffic and accommodating the largest container vessels in the world. It is a municipal self-governing port with independent finances. The facilities handle some 9.5 million tonnes of cargo a year (2012). Grain is the principal export, while feedstuffs, stone, cement and coal are among the chief imports. Since 2012 the port has faced increasing competition from the Port of Hamburg and freight volumes have decreased somewhat from the peak in 2008.
The ferry terminal presents the only alternative to the Great Belt Link for passenger transport between Jutland and Zealand. It has served different ferry companies since the first steamship route to Copenhagen opened in 1830. Currently, Mols-Linien operates the route and annually transports some two million passengers and a million vehicles. Additional roll-on/roll-off cargo ferries serve Finland and Kalundborg on a weekly basis and smaller outlying Danish ports at irregular intervals. Since the early 2000s the port has increasingly become a destination for cruise lines operating in the Baltic Sea.
Tourism.
The ARoS Art Museum, the Old Town Museum and Tivoli Friheden are among Denmark's top tourist attractions. With a combined total of almost 1.4 million visitors they represent the driving force behind tourism but other venues such as Moesgård Museum and Kvindemuseet are also popular. The city's extensive shopping facilities are also said to be a major attraction for tourists, as are festivals, especially NorthSide and SPOT. Many visitors arrive on cruise ships: in 2012, 18 vessels visited the port with over 38,000 passengers.
In the 2010s, there was a significant expansion of tourist facilities, culminating in the opening of the 240-room Comwell Hotel in July 2014, which increased the number of hotel rooms in the city by 25%. Some estimates put the number of visitors spending at least one night as high as 750,000 a year, most of them Danes from other regions, with the remainder coming mainly from Norway, Sweden, northern Germany and the United Kingdom. Overall, they spend roughly DKK 3 billion (€402 million) in the city each year. The primary motivation for tourists choosing Aarhus as a destination is experiencing the city and culture, family and couples vacation or as a part of a round trip in Denmark. The average stay is little more than three days on average.
There are more than 30 tourist information spots across the city. Some of them are staffed, while others are online, publicly accessible touchscreens. The official tourist information service in Aarhus is organised under VisitAarhus, a corporate foundation initiated in 1994 by Aarhus Municipality and local commercial interest organisations.
Research parks.
The largest research park in Aarhus is INCUBA Science Park, focused on IT and biomedical research, It is based on Denmark's first research park, "Forskerpark Aarhus" (Research Park Aarhus), founded in 1986, which in 2007 merged with another research park to form INCUBA Science Park. The organisation is owned partly by Aarhus University and private investors and aims to foster close relationships between public institutions and startup companies. It is physically divided across 4 locations after a new department was inaugurated in Navitas Park in 2015, which it will share with the Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering and AU Engineering. Another major centre for knowledge is Agro Food Park in Skejby, established to facilitate co-operation between companies and public institutions working within food science and agriculture. In January 2017 Arla Foods will open the global innovation centre "Arla Nativa" in Agro Food Park and in 2018 Aarhus University is moving the "Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture" there as well. In 2016, some 1000 people worked at Agro Food Park, spread across 50 companies and institutions and in August 2016 Agro Food Park management published plans to expand facilities from 92,000 m2 to .
In addition, Aarhus is home to the Aarhus School of Architecture, one of two Danish Ministry of Education institutions that provide degree programs in architecture, and some of the largest architecture firms in the Nordic countries such as Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, Arkitema Architects and C. F. Møller Architects. Taken together these organisations form a unique concentration of expertise and knowledge in architecture outside Copenhagen, which the Danish Ministry of Business and Growth refers to as (the architecture cluster). To promote the "cluster", the School of Architecture will be given new school buildings centrally in the new Freight Station Neighborhood, planned for development in the 2020s. In the interim, the city council supports a culture, business and education centre in the area, which may continue in the future neighbourhood in some form. The future occupants of the neighbourhood will be businesses and organisations selected for their ability to be involved in the local community, and it is hoped that the area will evolve into a hotspot for creativity and design.
Cityscape.
Aarhus has developed in stages, from the Viking Age to modern times, all visible in the city today. Many architectural styles are represented in different parts of the city such as Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, National Romantic, Nordic Classicism, Neoclassical, Empire and Functionalism. The city has developed around the main transport hubs - the river, the harbour, and later the railway station -, and as a result, the oldest parts are also the most central and busiest today.
The streets of Volden (The Rampart) and Graven (The Moat) testify to the defences of the initial Viking town, and "Allégaderingen" in Midtbyen roughly follows the boundaries of that settlement. The street network in the inner city formed during the Middle Ages with narrow, curved streets and low, dense housing by the river and the coast. "Vesterport" (Westward Gate) still bears the name of the medieval city gate and the narrow alleyways "Posthussmøgen" and "Telefonsmøgen" are remnants of toll stations from that time. The inner city has the oldest preserved buildings, especially the Latin Quarter, with houses dating back to the early 17th century in Mejlgade and Skolegade. Medieval merchants' mansions with courtyards can be seen in Klostergade, Studsgade and Skolegade. By far, the largest part of the present-day city was built during and after the industrialization of the late 1800s, and the most represented architectural styles today are historicism and modernism, especially the subgenre of Danish functionalism of which there are many fine examples. The building boom of the 2000s has imprinted itself on Aarhus with a redeveloped harbourfront, many new neighbourhoods (also in the inner city), and a revitalized public space. It is also beginning to change the skyline with several dominating high-rises.
Developments.
In recent years, Aarhus has experienced a large demand in housing and offices, spurring a construction boom in some parts of the city. The newly built city district of Aarhus Ø, formerly docklands where shipping houses major housing developments, mostly consisting of privately owned apartments, designed by architects such as, CEBRA, and JDS Architects.
In the 2nd quarter of 2012, the population of the area stood at only 5, however that number had risen to 3,940 by October 2019.
The main public transportation service is bus line 23, as well as train station Østbanetorvet. In addition to this, the area will be serviced by the light rail line, Aarhus Letbane.
Landmarks.
Aarhus Cathedral ("Århus Domkirke") in the centre of Aarhus, is the longest and tallest church in Denmark at and in length and height respectively. Originally built as a Romanesque basilica in the 13th century, it was rebuilt and enlarged as a Gothic cathedral in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Even though the cathedral stood finished around 1300, it took more than a century to build; the associated cathedral school of "Aarhus Katedralskole" was already founded in 1195 and ranks as the 44th oldest school in the world. Another important and historic landmark in the inner city, is the Church of Our Lady ("Vor Frue Kirke") also from the 13th century in Romanesque and Gothic style. It is smaller and less impressive, but it was the first cathedral of Aarhus and founded on an even older church constructed in 1060; the oldest stone church in Scandinavia. Langelandsgade Kaserne in National Romantic Style from 1889 is the oldest former military barracks left in the country; home to the university Department of Aesthetics and Communication since 1989.
Marselisborg Palace ("Marselisborg Slot"), designed by Hack Kampmann in Neoclassical and Art Nouveau styles, was donated by the city to Prince Christian and Princess Alexandrine as a wedding present in 1898. The Aarhus Custom House ("Toldkammeret") from 1898, is said to be Hack Kampmann's finest work.
Tivoli Friheden (Tivoli Freedom) opened in 1903 and has since been the largest amusement park in the city and a tourist attraction. Aarhus Theatre from 1916 in the Art Nouveau style is the largest provincial theatre in Denmark. The early buildings of Aarhus University, especially the main building completed in 1932, designed by Kay Fisker, Povl Stegmann and by C.F. Møller have gained an international reputation for their contribution to functionalist architecture. The City Hall ("Aarhus Rådhus") from 1941 with an iconic tower clad in marble, was designed by Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller in a modern Functionalist style.
Developments.
In recent years, Aarhus has experienced a large demand in housing and offices, spurring a construction boom in some parts of the city. The newly built city district of Aarhus Ø, formerly docklands where shipping houses major housing developments, mostly consisting of privately owned apartments, designed by architects such as, CEBRA, and JDS Architects.
In the 2nd quarter of 2012, the population of the area stood at only 5, however that number had risen to 3,940 by October 2019.
The main public transportation service is bus line 23, as well as train station Østbanetorvet. In addition to this, the area will be serviced by the light rail line, Aarhus Letbane.
Landmarks.
Aarhus Cathedral ("Århus Domkirke") in the centre of Aarhus, is the longest and tallest church in Denmark at and in length and height respectively. Originally built as a Romanesque basilica in the 13th century, it was rebuilt and enlarged as a Gothic cathedral in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Even though the cathedral stood finished around 1300, it took more than a century to build; the associated cathedral school of "Aarhus Katedralskole" was already founded in 1195 and ranks as the 44th oldest school in the world. Another important and historic landmark in the inner city, is the Church of Our Lady ("Vor Frue Kirke") also from the 13th century in Romanesque and Gothic style. It is smaller and less impressive, but it was the first cathedral of Aarhus and founded on an even older church constructed in 1060; the oldest stone church in Scandinavia. Langelandsgade Kaserne in National Romantic Style from 1889 is the oldest former military barracks left in the country; home to the university Department of Aesthetics and Communication since 1989.
Marselisborg Palace ("Marselisborg Slot"), designed by Hack Kampmann in Neoclassical and Art Nouveau styles, was donated by the city to Prince Christian and Princess Alexandrine as a wedding present in 1898. The Aarhus Custom House ("Toldkammeret") from 1898, is said to be Hack Kampmann's finest work.
Tivoli Friheden (Tivoli Freedom) opened in 1903 and has since been the largest amusement park in the city and a tourist attraction. Aarhus Theatre from 1916 in the Art Nouveau style is the largest provincial theatre in Denmark. The early buildings of Aarhus University, especially the main building completed in 1932, designed by Kay Fisker, Povl Stegmann and by C.F. Møller have gained an international reputation for their contribution to functionalist architecture. The City Hall ("Aarhus Rådhus") from 1941 with an iconic tower clad in marble, was designed by Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller in a modern Functionalist style.
Culture.
Aarhus is home to many annual cultural events and festivals, museums, theatres, and sports events of both national and international importance, and presents some of the largest cultural attractions in Denmark. There is a long tradition in music of all genres and many Danish bands, have emerged from Aarhus. Libraries, cultural centres and educational institutions present free or easy opportunities for the citizens to participate in, engage in, or be creative with cultural events and productions of all kinds.
Since 1938, Aarhus has marketed itself as "Smilets by" (City of smiles) which has become both an informal moniker and official slogan. In 2011, the city council opted to change the slogan to "Aarhus. Danish for Progress" but it was unpopular and abandoned after just a few years. Other slogans that have occasionally been used are "Byen ved havet" (City by the sea), "Mellem bugt og bøgeskov" (Between bay and beechwood) and "Verdens mindste storby" (World's smallest big city). Aarhus is featured in popular songs such as "Hjem til Aarhus" by På Slaget 12, "Lav sol over Aarhus" by Gnags, "8000 Aarhus C" by Flemming Jørgensen, "Pigen ud af Aarhus" by Tina Dickow and "Slingrer ned ad Vestergade" by Gnags. In 1919, the number "Sangen til Aarhus" (Song to Aarhus) had become a popular hit for a time, but the oldest and perhaps best known "national anthem" for the city is the classical "Aarhus Tappenstreg" from 1872 by Carl Christian Møller which is occasionally played at official events or at performances by local marching bands and orchestras.
Museums.
Aarhus has a range of museums, including two of the largest in the country, measured by the number of paying guests, "Den Gamle By" and "ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum". "Den Gamle By" (The Old Town), officially "Danmarks Købstadmuseum" (Denmark's Market Town Museum), presents Danish townscapes from the 16th century to the 1970s with individual areas focused on different time periods. 75 historic buildings collected from different parts of the country have been brought here to create a small town in its own right.
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, the city's main art museum, is one of the largest art museums in Scandinavia with a collection covering Danish art from the 18th century to the present day as well as paintings, installations and sculptures representing international art movements and artists from all over the world. The iconic glass structure on the roof, "Your Rainbow Panorama", was designed by Olafur Eliasson and features a promenade offering a colourful panorama of the city.
The Moesgård Museum specialises in archaeology and ethnography in collaboration with Aarhus University with exhibits on Denmark's prehistory, including weapon sacrifices from Illerup Ådal and the Grauballe Man. Kvindemuseet, the Women's Museum, from 1984 contains collections of the lives and works of women in Danish cultural history. The Occupation Museum ("Besættelsesmuseum") presents exhibits illustrating the German occupation of the city during the Second World War; the University Park on the campus of Aarhus University includes the Natural History Museum with 5,000 species of animals, many in their natural surroundings; and the Steno Museum is a museum of the history of science and medicine with a planetarium. Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus Art Hall) hosts exhibitions of contemporary art including painting, sculpture, photography, performance art, film and video. Strictly speaking it is not a museum but an arts centre, and one of the oldest in Europe, built and founded in 1917.
Libraries and community centres.
Public libraries in Denmark are also cultural and community centres. They play an active role in cultural life and host many events, exhibitions, discussion groups, workshops, educational courses and facilitate everyday cultural activities for and by the citizens. In June 2015, the large central library and cultural centre of Dokk1 opened at the harbour front. Dokk1 also includes civil administrations and services, commercial office rentals and a large underground robotic car park and aims to be a landmark for the city and a public meeting place. The building of Dokk1 and the associated squares and streetscape is also collectively known as Urban Mediaspace Aarhus and it is the largest construction project Aarhus municipality has yet undertaken. Apart from this large main library, some neighbourhoods in Aarhus have a local library engaged in similar cultural and educational activities, but on a more local scale.
The State Library ("Statsbiblioteket") at the university campus has status of a national library. The city is a member of the ICORN organisation (International Cities of Refuge Network) in an effort to provide a safe haven to authors and writers persecuted in their countries of origin.
There are several cultural and community centres throughout the city. This includes Folkestedet in the central Åparken, facilitating events for and by non-commercial associations, organisations and clubs, and activities for the elderly, the nearby Godsbanen at the railway yard, with workshops, events and exhibitions, and Globus1 in Brabrand facilitating sports and various cultural activities.
Performing arts.
The city enjoys strong musical traditions, both classical and alternative, underground and popular, with educational and performance institutions such as the concert halls of Musikhuset, the opera of Den Jyske Opera, Aarhus Symfoniorkester (Aarhus Symphony Orchestra) and Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium (Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg). Musikhuset is the largest concert hall in Scandinavia, with seating for more than 3,600 people. Other major music venues include VoxHall, rebuilt in 1999, and the associated venue of Atlas, Train nightclub at the harbourfront, and Godsbanen, a former rail freight station.
The acting scene in Aarhus is diverse, with many groups and venues engaged in a broad span of genres, from animation theatre and children's theatre to classical theatre and improvisational theatre. Aarhus Teater is the oldest and largest venue with mostly professional classical acting performances. Svalegangen, the second largest theatre, is more experimental with its performances and other notable groups and venues includes EntréScenen, Katapult, Gruppe 38, Helsingør Teater, Det Andet Teater and Teater Refleksion as well as dance venues like Bora Bora. The cultural center of Godsbanen includes several scenes and stages and the Concert Halls of "Musikhuset" also stage theatrical plays regularly and is home to the children's theatre Filuren and a comedy club. The city hosts a biannual international theatre festival, International Living Theatre (ILT), with the next event being scheduled for 2021.
Since 2010 the music production centre of PROMUS ("Produktionscentret for Rytmisk Musik") has supported the rock scene in the city along with the publicly funded ROSA ("Dansk Rock Samråd"), which promotes Danish rock music in general.
Aarhus is known for its musical history. Fuelled by a relatively young population jazz clubs sprang up in the 1950s which became a tour stop for many iconic American Jazz musicians. By the 1960s, the music scene diversified into rock and other genres and in the 1970s and 1980s, Aarhus became a centre for rock music, fostering iconic bands such as Kliché, TV-2 and Gnags and artists such as Thomas Helmig and Anne Linnet. Acclaimed bands since the 1970s include Under Byen, Michael Learns to Rock, Nephew, Carpark North, Spleen United, VETO, Hatesphere and Illdisposed in addition to individual performers such as Medina and Tina Dico.
Events and festivals.
Aarhus hosts many annual or recurring festivals, concerts and events, with the festival of Aarhus Festuge as the most popular and wide-ranging, along with large sports events. Aarhus Festuge is the largest multicultural festival in Scandinavia, always based on a special theme and takes place every year for ten days between late August and early September, transforming the inner city with festive activities and decorations of all kinds.
There are numerous music festivals; the eight-day Aarhus Jazz Festival features jazz in many venues across the city. It was founded in 1988 and usually takes place in July every year, occasionally August or September. There are several annually recurring music festivals for contemporary popular music in Aarhus. NorthSide Festival presents well-known bands every year in mid-June on large outdoor scenes. It is a relatively new event, founded in 2010, but grew from a one-day event to a three-day festival in its first three years, now with 35,000 paying guests in 2015. Spot festival is aiming to showcase up-and-coming Danish and Scandinavian talents at selected venues of the inner city. The outdoor Grøn Koncert music festival takes place every year in many cities across Denmark, including Aarhus. Danmarks grimmeste festival (lit. Denmark's ugliest Festival) is a small summer music festival held in Skjoldhøjkilen, Brabrand.
Aarhus also hosts recurring events dedicated to specific art genres. International Living Theatre (ILT) is a bi-annual festival, established in 2009, with performing arts and stage art on a broad scale. The festival has a vision of showing the best plays and stage art experiences of the world, while at the same time attracting thespians and stage art interested people from both Aarhus and Europe at large. LiteratureXchange is a new annual festival from 2018, focused on literature from around the world as well as regional talents. The city actively promotes its gay and lesbian community and celebrates the annual Aarhus Pride gay pride festival while Aarhus Festuge usually includes exhibits, concerts and events designed for the LGBT communities.
Notable events of a local scope include the university boat-race, held in the University Park since 1991, which has become a local spectator event attracting some 20,000 people. The boat race pits costumed teams from the university departments against each other in inflatable boats in a challenge to win the "Gyldne Bækken" (Golden Chamber Pot) trophy. The annual lighting of the Christmas lights on the Salling department store in Søndergade has also become an attraction in recent times, packing the pedestrianised city centre with thousands of revellers. Significant dates such as Saint Lucy's Day, "Sankt Hans" (Saint John's Eve) and Fastelavn are traditionally celebrated with numerous events across the city.
Parks, nature, and recreation.
The beech forests of Riis Skov and Marselisborg occupy the hills along the coast to the north and south, and apart from the city centre, sandy beaches form the coastline of the entire municipality. There are two public sea baths, the northern "Den Permanente" below Riis Skov and close to the harbour area, and the southern Ballehage Beach in the Marselisborg Forests. As in most of Denmark, there are no private beaches in the municipality, but access to "Den Permanente" requires a membership, except in the summer.
The relatively mild, temperate marine climate, allows for outdoor recreation year round, including walking, hiking, cycling, and outdoor team sports. Mountain biking is usually restricted to marked routes. Watersports like sailing, kayaking, motor boating, etc. are also popular, and since the bay rarely freezes up in winter, they can also be practised most of the year. Recreational and transportational pathways for pedestrians and cyclists, radiate from the city centre to the countryside, providing safety from motorised vehicles and a more tranquil experience. This includes the 19 kilometre long pathway of "Brabrandstien", encircling the Brabrand Lake. The long-range hiking route Aarhus-Silkeborg, starts off from Brabrandstien.
Aarhus has an unusually high number of parks and green spaces, 134 of them, covering a total area of around . The central Botanical Gardens ("Botanisk Have") from 1875 are a popular destination, as they include The Old Town open-air museum and host a number of events throughout the year. Originally used to cultivate fruit trees and other useful plants for the local citizens, there are now a significant collection of trees and bushes from different habitats and regions of the world, including a section devoted to native Danish plants. Recently renovated tropical and subtropical greenhouses, exhibit exotic plants from throughout the world. Also in the city centre is the undulating University Park, recognised for its unique landscaped design with large old oak trees. The Memorial Park ("Mindeparken") at the coast below Marselisborg Palace, offers a panoramic view across the Bay of Aarhus and is popular with locals for outings, picnics or events. Other notable parks include the small central City Hall Park ("Rådhusparken") and Marienlyst Park ("Marienlystparken"). Marienlyst Park is a relatively new park from 1988, situated in Hasle out of the inner city and is less crowded, but it is the largest park in Aarhus, including woodlands, large open grasslands and soccer fields.
Marselisborg Forests and Riis Skov, has a long history of recreational activities of all kinds, including several restaurants, hotels and opportunities for green exercise. There are marked routes here for jogging, running and mountain biking and large events are hosted regularly. This includes running events, cycle racing and orienteering, the annual Classic Race Aarhus with historic racing cars, all attracting thousands of people. Marselisborg Deer Park ("Marselisborg Dyrehave") in Marselisborg Forests, comprises of fenced woodland pastures with free-roaming sika and roe deer. Below the Moesgård Museum in the southern parts of the Marselisborg Forests, is a large historical landscape of pastures and woodlands, presenting different eras of Denmark's prehistory. Sections of the forest comprise trees and vegetation representing specific climatic epochs from the last Ice Age to the present. Dotted across the landscape are reconstructed Stone Age and Bronze Age graves, buildings from the Iron Age, Viking Age and medieval times, with grazing goats, sheep and horses in between.
Food, drink, and nightlife.
Aarhus has a large variety of restaurants and eateries offering food from cultures all over the world, especially Mediterranean and Asian, but also international gourmet cuisine, traditional Danish food and New Nordic Cuisine. Among the oldest restaurants are "Rådhuscafeen" (lit. The City Hall Café), opened in 1924, serving a menu of traditional Danish meals, and "Peter Gift" from 1906, a tavern with a broad beer selection and a menu of smørrebrød and other Danish dishes. In Aarhus, New Nordic can be experienced at "Kähler Villa Dining", "Hærværk" and "Domestic", but local produce can be had at many places, especially at the twice-weekly food markets in Frederiksbjerg. Aarhus and Central Denmark Region was selected as European Region of Gastronomy in 2017. The city (and municipality) is a member of the Délice Network, an international non-profit organization nurturing and facilitating knowledge exchange in gastronomy.
Appraised high-end restaurants serving international gourmet cuisine include Frederikshøj, Substans, Gastromé, Det Glade Vanvid, Nordisk Spisehus, Restaurant Varna, Restaurant ET, Gäst, Brasserie Belli, Møf and Pondus, all considered among the best places to eat in Denmark. Restaurants in Aarhus were the first in provincial Denmark to receive Michelin stars since 2015, when Michelin inspectors ventured outside Copenhagen for the first time.
Vendors of street food are numerous throughout the centre, often selling from small trailers on permanent locations formally known as "Pølsevogne" (lit. sausage wagons), traditionally serving a Danish variety of hot dogs, sausages and other fast food. There are increasingly more outlets inspired by other cultural flavours such as sushi, kebab and currywurst.
The city centre is packed with cafés, especially along the river and the Latin quarter. Some of them also include an evening restaurant, such as "Café Casablanca", "Café Carlton", "Café Cross" and "Gyngen". Aarhus Street Food and Aarhus Central Food Market are two indoor food courts from 2016 in the city centre, comprising a variety of street food restaurants, cafés and bars.
Aarhus has a robust and diverse nightlife. The action tends to concentrate in the inner city, with the pedestrianised riverside, Frederiksgade, the Latin Quarter, and Jægergårdsgade on Frederiksbjerg as the most active centres at night, but things are stirring elsewhere around the city too. The nightlife scene offers everything from small joints with cheap alcohol and a homely atmosphere to fashionable nightclubs serving champagne and cocktails or small and large music venues with bars, dance floors and lounges. A short selection of well-established places where you can have a drink and socialise, include the fashionable lounge and night club of "Kupé" at the harbourfront, the relaxed "Ris Ras Filliongongong" offering waterpipes and an award-winning beer selection, "Fatter Eskild" with a broad selection of Danish bands playing mostly blues and rock, the wine and book café of "Løve's" in Nørregade, "Sherlock Holmes", a British-style pub with live music and the brew pub of "Sct. Clemens" with A Hereford Beefstouw restaurant across the cathedral. A few nightlife spots are aimed at gays and lesbians specifically, including "Gbar" (nightclub) and "Café Sappho".
The "Århus Set" (Danish: Århus Sæt) is a set of drinks often ordered together, named for the city and consisting of two beverages, one Ceres Top beer and one shot Arnbitter, both originally from Aarhus. Ordering "a set" suffices in most bars and pubs. Aarhus Bryghus is a local craft brewery with a sizeable production. The brewery is located in the southern district of Viby and a large variety of their craft brews are available there, in most larger well-assorted stores in the city, and in some bars and restaurants as well. They also export.
Local dialect.
The Aarhus dialect, commonly called "Aarhusiansk" (Aarhusian in English), is a Jutlandic dialect in the Mid-Eastern Jutland dialect area, traditionally spoken in and around Aarhus. Aarhusian, as with most local dialects in Denmark, has diminished in use through the 20th century and most Danes today speak some version of Standard Danish with slight regional features. Aarhusian, however, still has a strong presence in older segments of the population and in areas with high numbers of immigrants, surprisingly. Some examples of common, traditional and unique Aarhusian words are: "træls" (tiresome), "noller" (silly or dumb) and "dælme" (Excl. damn me). The dialect is notable for single-syllable words ending in "d" being pronounced with stød while the same letter in multiple-syllable words is pronounced as "j", i.e., Odder is pronounced "Ojjer". Like other dialects in East Jutland, it has two grammatical genders, similar to Standard Danish, but different from West Jutlandic dialects, which have only one. In 2009, the University of Aarhus compiled a list of contemporary public figures who best exemplify the dialect, including Jacob Haugaard, Thomas Helmig, Steffen Brandt, Stig Tøfting, Flemming Jørgensen, Tina Dickow and Camilla Martin. In popular culture, the dialect features prominently in Niels Malmros's movie "Aarhus by Night" and in 90s comedy sketches by Jacob Haugaard and Finn Nørbygaard.
Museums.
Aarhus has a range of museums, including two of the largest in the country, measured by the number of paying guests, "Den Gamle By" and "ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum". "Den Gamle By" (The Old Town), officially "Danmarks Købstadmuseum" (Denmark's Market Town Museum), presents Danish townscapes from the 16th century to the 1970s with individual areas focused on different time periods. 75 historic buildings collected from different parts of the country have been brought here to create a small town in its own right.
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, the city's main art museum, is one of the largest art museums in Scandinavia with a collection covering Danish art from the 18th century to the present day as well as paintings, installations and sculptures representing international art movements and artists from all over the world. The iconic glass structure on the roof, "Your Rainbow Panorama", was designed by Olafur Eliasson and features a promenade offering a colourful panorama of the city.
The Moesgård Museum specialises in archaeology and ethnography in collaboration with Aarhus University with exhibits on Denmark's prehistory, including weapon sacrifices from Illerup Ådal and the Grauballe Man. Kvindemuseet, the Women's Museum, from 1984 contains collections of the lives and works of women in Danish cultural history. The Occupation Museum ("Besættelsesmuseum") presents exhibits illustrating the German occupation of the city during the Second World War; the University Park on the campus of Aarhus University includes the Natural History Museum with 5,000 species of animals, many in their natural surroundings; and the Steno Museum is a museum of the history of science and medicine with a planetarium. Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus Art Hall) hosts exhibitions of contemporary art including painting, sculpture, photography, performance art, film and video. Strictly speaking it is not a museum but an arts centre, and one of the oldest in Europe, built and founded in 1917.
Libraries and community centres.
Public libraries in Denmark are also cultural and community centres. They play an active role in cultural life and host many events, exhibitions, discussion groups, workshops, educational courses and facilitate everyday cultural activities for and by the citizens. In June 2015, the large central library and cultural centre of Dokk1 opened at the harbour front. Dokk1 also includes civil administrations and services, commercial office rentals and a large underground robotic car park and aims to be a landmark for the city and a public meeting place. The building of Dokk1 and the associated squares and streetscape is also collectively known as Urban Mediaspace Aarhus and it is the largest construction project Aarhus municipality has yet undertaken. Apart from this large main library, some neighbourhoods in Aarhus have a local library engaged in similar cultural and educational activities, but on a more local scale.
The State Library ("Statsbiblioteket") at the university campus has status of a national library. The city is a member of the ICORN organisation (International Cities of Refuge Network) in an effort to provide a safe haven to authors and writers persecuted in their countries of origin.
There are several cultural and community centres throughout the city. This includes Folkestedet in the central Åparken, facilitating events for and by non-commercial associations, organisations and clubs, and activities for the elderly, the nearby Godsbanen at the railway yard, with workshops, events and exhibitions, and Globus1 in Brabrand facilitating sports and various cultural activities.
Performing arts.
The city enjoys strong musical traditions, both classical and alternative, underground and popular, with educational and performance institutions such as the concert halls of Musikhuset, the opera of Den Jyske Opera, Aarhus Symfoniorkester (Aarhus Symphony Orchestra) and Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium (Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg). Musikhuset is the largest concert hall in Scandinavia, with seating for more than 3,600 people. Other major music venues include VoxHall, rebuilt in 1999, and the associated venue of Atlas, Train nightclub at the harbourfront, and Godsbanen, a former rail freight station.
The acting scene in Aarhus is diverse, with many groups and venues engaged in a broad span of genres, from animation theatre and children's theatre to classical theatre and improvisational theatre. Aarhus Teater is the oldest and largest venue with mostly professional classical acting performances. Svalegangen, the second largest theatre, is more experimental with its performances and other notable groups and venues includes EntréScenen, Katapult, Gruppe 38, Helsingør Teater, Det Andet Teater and Teater Refleksion as well as dance venues like Bora Bora. The cultural center of Godsbanen includes several scenes and stages and the Concert Halls of "Musikhuset" also stage theatrical plays regularly and is home to the children's theatre Filuren and a comedy club. The city hosts a biannual international theatre festival, International Living Theatre (ILT), with the next event being scheduled for 2021.
Since 2010 the music production centre of PROMUS ("Produktionscentret for Rytmisk Musik") has supported the rock scene in the city along with the publicly funded ROSA ("Dansk Rock Samråd"), which promotes Danish rock music in general.
Aarhus is known for its musical history. Fuelled by a relatively young population jazz clubs sprang up in the 1950s which became a tour stop for many iconic American Jazz musicians. By the 1960s, the music scene diversified into rock and other genres and in the 1970s and 1980s, Aarhus became a centre for rock music, fostering iconic bands such as Kliché, TV-2 and Gnags and artists such as Thomas Helmig and Anne Linnet. Acclaimed bands since the 1970s include Under Byen, Michael Learns to Rock, Nephew, Carpark North, Spleen United, VETO, Hatesphere and Illdisposed in addition to individual performers such as Medina and Tina Dico.
Events and festivals.
Aarhus hosts many annual or recurring festivals, concerts and events, with the festival of Aarhus Festuge as the most popular and wide-ranging, along with large sports events. Aarhus Festuge is the largest multicultural festival in Scandinavia, always based on a special theme and takes place every year for ten days between late August and early September, transforming the inner city with festive activities and decorations of all kinds.
There are numerous music festivals; the eight-day Aarhus Jazz Festival features jazz in many venues across the city. It was founded in 1988 and usually takes place in July every year, occasionally August or September. There are several annually recurring music festivals for contemporary popular music in Aarhus. NorthSide Festival presents well-known bands every year in mid-June on large outdoor scenes. It is a relatively new event, founded in 2010, but grew from a one-day event to a three-day festival in its first three years, now with 35,000 paying guests in 2015. Spot festival is aiming to showcase up-and-coming Danish and Scandinavian talents at selected venues of the inner city. The outdoor Grøn Koncert music festival takes place every year in many cities across Denmark, including Aarhus. Danmarks grimmeste festival (lit. Denmark's ugliest Festival) is a small summer music festival held in Skjoldhøjkilen, Brabrand.
Aarhus also hosts recurring events dedicated to specific art genres. International Living Theatre (ILT) is a bi-annual festival, established in 2009, with performing arts and stage art on a broad scale. The festival has a vision of showing the best plays and stage art experiences of the world, while at the same time attracting thespians and stage art interested people from both Aarhus and Europe at large. LiteratureXchange is a new annual festival from 2018, focused on literature from around the world as well as regional talents. The city actively promotes its gay and lesbian community and celebrates the annual Aarhus Pride gay pride festival while Aarhus Festuge usually includes exhibits, concerts and events designed for the LGBT communities.
Notable events of a local scope include the university boat-race, held in the University Park since 1991, which has become a local spectator event attracting some 20,000 people. The boat race pits costumed teams from the university departments against each other in inflatable boats in a challenge to win the "Gyldne Bækken" (Golden Chamber Pot) trophy. The annual lighting of the Christmas lights on the Salling department store in Søndergade has also become an attraction in recent times, packing the pedestrianised city centre with thousands of revellers. Significant dates such as Saint Lucy's Day, "Sankt Hans" (Saint John's Eve) and Fastelavn are traditionally celebrated with numerous events across the city.
Parks, nature, and recreation.
The beech forests of Riis Skov and Marselisborg occupy the hills along the coast to the north and south, and apart from the city centre, sandy beaches form the coastline of the entire municipality. There are two public sea baths, the northern "Den Permanente" below Riis Skov and close to the harbour area, and the southern Ballehage Beach in the Marselisborg Forests. As in most of Denmark, there are no private beaches in the municipality, but access to "Den Permanente" requires a membership, except in the summer.
The relatively mild, temperate marine climate, allows for outdoor recreation year round, including walking, hiking, cycling, and outdoor team sports. Mountain biking is usually restricted to marked routes. Watersports like sailing, kayaking, motor boating, etc. are also popular, and since the bay rarely freezes up in winter, they can also be practised most of the year. Recreational and transportational pathways for pedestrians and cyclists, radiate from the city centre to the countryside, providing safety from motorised vehicles and a more tranquil experience. This includes the 19 kilometre long pathway of "Brabrandstien", encircling the Brabrand Lake. The long-range hiking route Aarhus-Silkeborg, starts off from Brabrandstien.
Aarhus has an unusually high number of parks and green spaces, 134 of them, covering a total area of around . The central Botanical Gardens ("Botanisk Have") from 1875 are a popular destination, as they include The Old Town open-air museum and host a number of events throughout the year. Originally used to cultivate fruit trees and other useful plants for the local citizens, there are now a significant collection of trees and bushes from different habitats and regions of the world, including a section devoted to native Danish plants. Recently renovated tropical and subtropical greenhouses, exhibit exotic plants from throughout the world. Also in the city centre is the undulating University Park, recognised for its unique landscaped design with large old oak trees. The Memorial Park ("Mindeparken") at the coast below Marselisborg Palace, offers a panoramic view across the Bay of Aarhus and is popular with locals for outings, picnics or events. Other notable parks include the small central City Hall Park ("Rådhusparken") and Marienlyst Park ("Marienlystparken"). Marienlyst Park is a relatively new park from 1988, situated in Hasle out of the inner city and is less crowded, but it is the largest park in Aarhus, including woodlands, large open grasslands and soccer fields.
Marselisborg Forests and Riis Skov, has a long history of recreational activities of all kinds, including several restaurants, hotels and opportunities for green exercise. There are marked routes here for jogging, running and mountain biking and large events are hosted regularly. This includes running events, cycle racing and orienteering, the annual Classic Race Aarhus with historic racing cars, all attracting thousands of people. Marselisborg Deer Park ("Marselisborg Dyrehave") in Marselisborg Forests, comprises of fenced woodland pastures with free-roaming sika and roe deer. Below the Moesgård Museum in the southern parts of the Marselisborg Forests, is a large historical landscape of pastures and woodlands, presenting different eras of Denmark's prehistory. Sections of the forest comprise trees and vegetation representing specific climatic epochs from the last Ice Age to the present. Dotted across the landscape are reconstructed Stone Age and Bronze Age graves, buildings from the Iron Age, Viking Age and medieval times, with grazing goats, sheep and horses in between.
Food, drink, and nightlife.
Aarhus has a large variety of restaurants and eateries offering food from cultures all over the world, especially Mediterranean and Asian, but also international gourmet cuisine, traditional Danish food and New Nordic Cuisine. Among the oldest restaurants are "Rådhuscafeen" (lit. The City Hall Café), opened in 1924, serving a menu of traditional Danish meals, and "Peter Gift" from 1906, a tavern with a broad beer selection and a menu of smørrebrød and other Danish dishes. In Aarhus, New Nordic can be experienced at "Kähler Villa Dining", "Hærværk" and "Domestic", but local produce can be had at many places, especially at the twice-weekly food markets in Frederiksbjerg. Aarhus and Central Denmark Region was selected as European Region of Gastronomy in 2017. The city (and municipality) is a member of the Délice Network, an international non-profit organization nurturing and facilitating knowledge exchange in gastronomy.
Appraised high-end restaurants serving international gourmet cuisine include Frederikshøj, Substans, Gastromé, Det Glade Vanvid, Nordisk Spisehus, Restaurant Varna, Restaurant ET, Gäst, Brasserie Belli, Møf and Pondus, all considered among the best places to eat in Denmark. Restaurants in Aarhus were the first in provincial Denmark to receive Michelin stars since 2015, when Michelin inspectors ventured outside Copenhagen for the first time.
Vendors of street food are numerous throughout the centre, often selling from small trailers on permanent locations formally known as "Pølsevogne" (lit. sausage wagons), traditionally serving a Danish variety of hot dogs, sausages and other fast food. There are increasingly more outlets inspired by other cultural flavours such as sushi, kebab and currywurst.
The city centre is packed with cafés, especially along the river and the Latin quarter. Some of them also include an evening restaurant, such as "Café Casablanca", "Café Carlton", "Café Cross" and "Gyngen". Aarhus Street Food and Aarhus Central Food Market are two indoor food courts from 2016 in the city centre, comprising a variety of street food restaurants, cafés and bars.
Aarhus has a robust and diverse nightlife. The action tends to concentrate in the inner city, with the pedestrianised riverside, Frederiksgade, the Latin Quarter, and Jægergårdsgade on Frederiksbjerg as the most active centres at night, but things are stirring elsewhere around the city too. The nightlife scene offers everything from small joints with cheap alcohol and a homely atmosphere to fashionable nightclubs serving champagne and cocktails or small and large music venues with bars, dance floors and lounges. A short selection of well-established places where you can have a drink and socialise, include the fashionable lounge and night club of "Kupé" at the harbourfront, the relaxed "Ris Ras Filliongongong" offering waterpipes and an award-winning beer selection, "Fatter Eskild" with a broad selection of Danish bands playing mostly blues and rock, the wine and book café of "Løve's" in Nørregade, "Sherlock Holmes", a British-style pub with live music and the brew pub of "Sct. Clemens" with A Hereford Beefstouw restaurant across the cathedral. A few nightlife spots are aimed at gays and lesbians specifically, including "Gbar" (nightclub) and "Café Sappho".
The "Århus Set" (Danish: Århus Sæt) is a set of drinks often ordered together, named for the city and consisting of two beverages, one Ceres Top beer and one shot Arnbitter, both originally from Aarhus. Ordering "a set" suffices in most bars and pubs. Aarhus Bryghus is a local craft brewery with a sizeable production. The brewery is located in the southern district of Viby and a large variety of their craft brews are available there, in most larger well-assorted stores in the city, and in some bars and restaurants as well. They also export.
Local dialect.
The Aarhus dialect, commonly called "Aarhusiansk" (Aarhusian in English), is a Jutlandic dialect in the Mid-Eastern Jutland dialect area, traditionally spoken in and around Aarhus. Aarhusian, as with most local dialects in Denmark, has diminished in use through the 20th century and most Danes today speak some version of Standard Danish with slight regional features. Aarhusian, however, still has a strong presence in older segments of the population and in areas with high numbers of immigrants, surprisingly. Some examples of common, traditional and unique Aarhusian words are: "træls" (tiresome), "noller" (silly or dumb) and "dælme" (Excl. damn me). The dialect is notable for single-syllable words ending in "d" being pronounced with stød while the same letter in multiple-syllable words is pronounced as "j", i.e., Odder is pronounced "Ojjer". Like other dialects in East Jutland, it has two grammatical genders, similar to Standard Danish, but different from West Jutlandic dialects, which have only one. In 2009, the University of Aarhus compiled a list of contemporary public figures who best exemplify the dialect, including Jacob Haugaard, Thomas Helmig, Steffen Brandt, Stig Tøfting, Flemming Jørgensen, Tina Dickow and Camilla Martin. In popular culture, the dialect features prominently in Niels Malmros's movie "Aarhus by Night" and in 90s comedy sketches by Jacob Haugaard and Finn Nørbygaard.
Sports.
Aarhus has three major men's professional sports teams: the Superliga team Aarhus Gymnastikforening (AGF), Danish Handball League's Aarhus GF Håndbold, and Danish Basketball League's Bakken Bears. Notable or historic clubs include Aarhus 1900, Aarhus Fremad, Idrætsklubben Skovbakken and Aarhus Sejlklub. Aarhus Idrætspark has hosted matches in the premiere Danish soccer league since it was formed in 1920 and matches for the national men's soccer team in 2006 and 2007. The five sailing clubs routinely win national and international titles in a range of disciplines and the future national watersports stadium will be located on the Aarhus Docklands in the city centre. The Bakken Bears have most recently won the Danish basketball championships in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
The municipality actively supports sports organisations in and around the city, providing public organisations that aim to attract major sporting events and strengthen professional sports. The National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark counts some 380 sports organisations within the municipality and about one third of the population are members of one. Soccer is by far the most popular sport followed by Gymnastics, Handball and Badminton.
In recent decades, many free and public sports facilities have sprung up across the city, such as street football, basketball, climbing walls, skateboarding and beach volley. Several natural sites also offer green exercise, with exercise equipment installed along the paths and tracks reserved for mountain biking. The newly reconstructed area of Skjoldhøjkilen is a prime example.
Aarhus has hosted many sporting events including the 2010 European Women's Handball Championship, the 2014 European Men's Handball Championship, the 2013 Men's European Volleyball Championships, the 2005 European Table Tennis Championships, the Denmark Open in badminton, the UCI Women's Road Cycling World Cup, the 2006 World Orienteering Championships, the 2006 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and the GF World Cup (women's handball). On average, Aarhus is hosting one or two international sailing competitions every year. In 2008, the city hosted the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships and in 2018 it was host to the ISAF Sailing World Championships, the world championship for the 12 Olympic sailing disciplines. Aarhus is an important qualifier for the 2020 Olympics.
Education.
Aarhus is the principal centre for education in the Jutland region. It draws students from a large area, especially from the western and southern parts of the peninsula. The relatively large influx of young people and students creates a natural base for cultural activities. Aarhus has the greatest concentration of students in Denmark, fully 12% of citizens attending short, medium or long courses of study. In addition to around 25 institutions of higher education, several research forums have evolved to assist in the transfer of expertise from education to business. The city is home to more than 52,000 students.
Since 2012, Aarhus University (AU) has been the largest university in Denmark by number of students enrolled. It is ranked among the top 100 universities in the world by several of the most influential and respected rankings. The university has approximately 41,500 Bachelor and Master students enrolled as well as about 1,500 PhD students. It is possible to engage in higher academic studies in many areas, from the traditional spheres of natural science, humanities and theology to more vocational academic areas like engineering and dentistry.
Aarhus Tech is one of the largest technical colleges in Denmark, teaching undergraduate study programmes in English, including vocational education and training (VET), continuing vocational training (CVT), and human resource development. Business Academy Aarhus is among the largest business academies in Denmark and offers undergraduate and some academic degrees, in IT, business and technical fields. The academic level technical aspects are covered in a collaboration with Aarhus Tech, Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering and Aarhus Educational Centre for Agriculture. The Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) is the oldest and largest of the colleges, offering journalism courses since 1946, with approximately 1,700 students as of 2014. DMJX has been an independent institution since 1974, conducting research and teaching at undergraduate level, and in 2004, master's courses in journalism was established in a collaboration with Aarhus University. The latter is offered through the Centre for University studies in Journalism, granting degrees through the university.
The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus ("Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium") is a conservatoire, established under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Culture in 1927. In 2010, it merged administratively with the Royal Academy of Music in Aalborg, which was founded in 1930. Under the patronage of His Royal Highness Crown Prince Frederik, it offers graduate level studies in areas such as music teaching, and solo and professional musicianship. VIA University College was established in January 2008 and is one of eight new regional organisations offering bachelor courses of all kinds, throughout the Central Denmark Region. It offers over 50 higher educations, taught in Danish or sometimes in English, with vocational education and it participates in various research and development projects. Aarhus School of Architecture ("Arkitektskolen Aarhus") was founded in 1965. Along with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts of Copenhagen, it is responsible for the education of architects in Denmark. With an enrolment of approximately 900 students, it teaches in five main departments: architecture and aesthetics, urban and landscape, architectonic heritage, design and architectural design. Also of note is KaosPilots and several other higher education centres.
Transport.
Aarhus has two ring roads; Ring 1, roughly encircling the central district of Aarhus C, and the outlying Ring 2. Six major intercity motorways radiate from the city centre, connecting with nearby cities Grenå, Randers, Viborg, Silkeborg, Skanderborg and Odder.
In the inner city, motorised traffic is highly regulated, larger parts are pedestrianised and in the 2000s, a system of roads prioritised for cyclists have been implemented, connecting to suburban areas.
The main railway station in Aarhus is Aarhus Central Station located in the city centre. DSB has connections to destinations throughout Denmark and also services to Flensburg and Hamburg in Germany.
Aarhus Letbane is a local electric light rail or tram system that opened in December 2017, connecting the central station and the inner city with the University Hospital in Skejby and also replaced local railway services to Grenaa and Odder in late 2018. It is the first electric light rail system in Denmark and more routes are planned to open in coming years. Tickets for the light rail are also available in local yellow bus lines.
Most city bus lines go through the inner city and pass through either Park Allé or Banegårdspladsen, or both, right at the central station. Regional and Inter-city buses terminate at Aarhus Bus Terminal, just east of the central station. FlixBus provides long-distance buses that travel to other cities in Denmark and Europe.
Ferries administered by Danish ferry company Mols-Linien transports passengers and motorvehicles between Aarhus and Sjællands Odde on Zealand. The ferries comprises "HSC KatExpress 1" and "HSC KatExpress 2", the world's largest diesel-powered catamarans, and "HSC Max Mols".
Aarhus Airport is located on Djursland, north-east of Aarhus near Tirstrup, and provides links to both Copenhagen and international destinations. The larger Billund Airport is situated south-west of Aarhus. There has been much discussion about constructing a new airport closer to the city for many years, but so far no plans have been realised. In August 2014, the city council officially initiated a process to assert the viability of a new international airport. A small seaplane now operates four flights daily between Aarhus harbour and Copenhagen harbour.
Aarhus has a free bike sharing system, Aarhus Bycykler (Aarhus City Bikes). The bicycles are available from 1 April to 30 October at 57 stands throughout the city and can be obtained by placing a DKK 20 coin in a release slot, like caddies in a supermarket. The coin can be retrieved when the bike is returned at a random stand. Bicycles can also be hired from many shops.
Healthcare.
Aarhus is home to Aarhus University Hospital, one of six Danish "Super Hospitals" officially established in 2007 when the regions reformed the Danish healthcare sector. The university hospital is the result of a series of mergers in the 2000s between the local hospitals of Skejby Sygehus, the Municipal Hospital, the County Hospital, Marselisborg Hospital and Risskov Psychiatric Hospital. It is today the largest hospital in Denmark with a combined staff of some 10,000 and 1,150 patient beds, and has been ranked the best hospital in Denmark consecutively since 2008. In 2012, construction of a new large hospital building began, known as "Det Nye Universitetshospital" (DNU) or The New University Hospital in English, and it is centralising and accommodating all of the former departments, ending in 2019. The new hospital is divided in four clinical centres, a service centre and one administrative unit along with twelve research centres.
Private hospitals specialised in different areas from plastic surgery to fertility treatments operate in Aarhus as well. "Ciconia Aarhus Private Hospital" founded in 1984 is a leading Danish fertility clinic and the first of its kind in Denmark. Ciconia has provided for the birth of 6,000 children by artificial insemination and continually conducts research into the field of fertility. "Aagaard Clinic", established in 2004, is another private fertility and gynaecology clinic which since 2004 has undertaken fertility treatments that has resulted in 1550 births. Aarhus Municipality also offers a number of specialised services in the areas of nutrition, exercise, sex, smoking and drinking, activities for the elderly, health courses and lifestyle.
Media.
The first daily newspaper to appear in Aarhus was "Århus Stiftstidende", established in 1794 as "Aarhuus Stifts Adresse-Contoirs Tidender", with a moderately conservative approach. Once one of Denmark's largest, it was a leading provincial newspaper for a time, but after the Second World War it increasingly faced competition from "Demokraten" (1884–1974) and "Jyllands-Posten", both published in Aarhus. In 1998, it merged with "Randers Amtsavis" and is now run by Midtjyske Medier, part of Berlingske Media. The daily newspaper of "Jyllands-Posten" was established in 1871 in Aarhus, and takes a generally right-wing editorial approach. With a reputation as a serious news publication, the paper has always included news from Jutland in particular, but somewhat less so since its promotion as a national newspaper in the 1960s. Today it is one of the three bestselling serious newspapers in Denmark, the others being "Berlingske" and "Politiken". Jyllands-Posten publishes "JP Aarhus", a section dedicated to news in and around Aarhus, and hosted a free cityguide website from 2010 to 2016. The Copenhagen-based media company of "Politiken", also publishes several free local papers once a week in parts of Denmark and Sweden. In Aarhus, they publish a total of five local newspapers; "Aarhus Midt", "Aarhus Nord", "Aarhus Vest", "Aarhus Syd" and "Aarhus Onsdag". "Aarhus Onsdag" (Aarhus Wednesday) is financed completely by advertisements and available in both paperform and online. It was bought from "Århus Stiftstidende" in June 2017, but has been published for many years previous.
Danmarks Radio has a large department in Aarhus with over 200 employees. It runs the DR Østjylland radio programme, provides local contributions to DR P4, and produces local regional television programmes. In 1999, TV 2 moved its Jutland headquarters from Randers to Skejby in northern Aarhus. The station broadcasts regional news and current affairs television and radio programmes. Since 2012, it has run its own TV channel, TV 2 Østjylland. Aarhus has its own local TV channel TVAarhus, transmitting since 1984. After an agreement on 1 July 2014, TVAarhus can be watched by 130,000 households in Aarhus, making it the largest cable-transmitted local TV channel in Denmark.
With over 1,700 students, the Danish School of Media and Journalism ("Danmarks Medie- og Journalisthøjskole") is the country's largest and oldest school of journalism. The school works closely with Aarhus University, where the first journalism course was established in 1946. In 2004, the two institutions established the Centre for University Studies in Journalism, which offers master's courses.
International relations.
Aarhus is home to 32 consulates:
Aarhus practices twinning on the municipal level. For the twin towns, see twin towns of Aarhus Municipality.
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1764
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Andronicus of Rhodes
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Andronicoos of Rhodes (; ; ) was a Greek philosopher from Rhodes who was also the scholarch (head) of the Peripatetic school. He is most famous for publishing a new edition of the works of Aristotle that forms the basis of the texts that survive today.
Life.
Little is known about Andronicus' life. He is reported to have been the eleventh scholarch of the Peripatetic school. He taught in Rome, about 58 BC, and was the teacher of Boethus of Sidon, with whom Strabo studied.
Works of Aristotle.
Andronicus is of special interest in the history of philosophy, from the statement of Plutarch, that he published a new edition of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which formerly belonged to the library of Apellicon, and were brought to Rome by Sulla with the rest of Apellicon's library in 84. Tyrannion commenced this task, but apparently did not do much towards it. The arrangement which Andronicus made of Aristotle's writings seems to be the one which forms the basis of our present editions and we are probably indebted to him for the preservation of a large number of Aristotle's works.
Writings.
Andronicus wrote a work upon Aristotle, the fifth book of which contained a complete list of the philosopher's writings, and he also wrote commentaries upon the "Physics", "Ethics", and "Categories". None of these works is extant. Two treatises are sometimes erroneously attributed to him, one "On Emotions", the other a commentary on Aristotle's "Ethics" (really by Constantine Paleocappa in the 16th century, or by John Callistus of Thessalonica).
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1767
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Ammianus Marcellinus
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Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the "Res Gestae", chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, although only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive.
Biography.
Ammianus was born in the East Mediterranean, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia, around 330. His native language is unknown but he likely knew Greek as well as Latin. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378.
Ammianus served as an officer in the army of the emperors Constantius II and Julian. He served in Gaul (Julian) and in the east (twice for Constantius, once under Julian). He professes to have been "a former soldier and a Greek" ("miles quondam et graecus"), and his enrollment among the elite "protectores domestici" (household guards) shows that he was of middle class or higher birth. Consensus is that Ammianus probably came from a curial family, but it is also possible that he was the son of a "comes Orientis" of the same family name. He entered the army at an early age, when Constantius II was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and "magister militum". Ammianus campaigned in the East twice under Ursicinus.
He travelled with Ursicinus to Italy when Ursicinus was called on by Constantius to begin an expedition against Silvanus. Silvanus had been forced by the allegedly false accusations of his enemies into proclaiming himself emperor in Gaul. Ursicinus had one of his men assassinate Silvanus, restoring Gaul to Constantius. He then stayed in Gaul to help install Julian as Caesar of Gaul, Spain and Britain. Ammianus probably met Julian for the first time while serving on Ursicinus' staff in Gaul.
In 359 Constantius sent Ursicinus back to the east to help in the defence against a Persian invasion led by king Shapur II himself. Ammianus returned with his commander to the East and again served Ursicinus as a staff officer. Ursicinus, although he was the more experienced commander, was placed under the command of Sabinianus, the "Magister Peditum" of the east. The two did not get along, resulting in a lack of cooperation between the Limitanei (border regiments) of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene under Ursicinus' command and the "comitatus" (field army) of Sabinianus. While on a mission near Nisibis, Ammianus spotted a Persian patrol which was about to try and capture Ursicinus, he was able to warn his commander in time. In an attempt to locate the Persian Royal Army Ursicinus sent Ammianus to Jovinianus, the semi-independent governor of Corduene, and a friend of Ursicinus. Ammianus successfully located the Persian main body and reported his findings to Ursicinus.
After his mission in Corduene, Ammianus accompanied his commander when the latter rode out from his headquarters at Amida on a mission to make sure the bridges across the Euphrates were demolished. They were attacked by the Persian vanguard who had made a night march in an attempt to catch the Romans at Amida off guard. After a protracted cavalry battle the Romans were scattered, Ursicinus evaded capture and fled to Melitene while Ammianus barely made it back to Amida with a wounded comrade. The Persians started to besiege the city. When it fell Ammianus barely escaped with his life.
When Ursicinus was dismissed from his military post by Constantius, Ammianus too seems to have retired from the military; however, reevaluation of his participation in Julian's Persian campaign has led modern scholarship to suggest that he continued his service but did not for some reason include the period in his history.
He accompanied Julian, for whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the Alamanni and the Sassanids.
After Julian's death, Ammianus accompanied the retreat of the new emperor, Jovian, as far as Antioch.
He was residing in Antioch in 372 when a certain Theodorus was thought to have been identified the successor to the emperor Valens by divination.
Speaking as an alleged eyewitness, Marcellinus recounts how Theodorus and several others were made to confess their deceit through the use of torture, and cruelly punished.
He eventually settled in Rome and began the "Res Gestae". The precise year of his death is unknown, but scholarly consensus places it somewhere between 392 and 400 at the latest.
Modern scholarship generally describes Ammianus as a pagan who was tolerant of Christianity. Marcellinus writes of Christianity as being a "plain and simple" religion that demands only what is just and mild, and when he condemns the actions of Christians, he does not do so on the basis of their Christianity as such. His lifetime was marked by lengthy outbreaks of sectarian and dogmatic strife within the new state-backed faith, often with violent consequences (especially the Arian controversy) and these conflicts sometimes appeared unworthy to him, though it was territory where he could not risk going very far in criticism, due to the growing and volatile political connections between the church and imperial power.
Ammianus was not blind to the faults of Christians or of pagans and was especially critical of them; he commented that "no wild beasts are so hostile to men as Christian sects in general are to one another" and he condemns the emperor Julian for excessive attachment to (pagan) sacrifice, and for his edict effectively barring Christians from teaching posts.
Work.
While living in Rome in the 380s, Ammianus wrote a Latin history of the Roman empire from the accession of Nerva (96) to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople (378), in effect writing a continuation of the history of Tacitus. He presumably completed the work before 391, as at 22.16.12 he praises the Serapeum of Alexandria in Egypt as the glory of the empire; it was in that same year the Emperor granted the temple grounds to a Christian bishop, provoking pagans into barricading themselves in the temple, plundering its contents, and torturing Christians, ultimately destroying the temple.
The "Res Gestae" ("Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI") was originally composed of thirty-one books, but the first thirteen have been lost. The surviving eighteen books cover the period from 353 to 378. It constitutes the foundation of modern understanding of the history of the fourth century Roman Empire. It is lauded as a clear, comprehensive, and generally impartial account of events by a contemporary; like many ancient historians, however, Ammianus was in fact not impartial, although he expresses an intention to be so, and had strong moral and religious prejudices. Although criticised as lacking literary merit by his early biographers, he was in fact quite skilled in rhetoric, which significantly has brought the veracity of some of the "Res Gestae" into question.
His work has suffered substantially from manuscript transmission. Aside from the loss of the first thirteen books, the remaining eighteen are in many places corrupt and lacunose. The sole surviving manuscript from which almost every other is derived is a ninth-century Carolingian text, Vatican lat. 1873 ("V"), produced in Fulda from an insular exemplar. The only independent textual source for Ammianus lies in Fragmenta Marbugensia ("M"), another ninth-century Frankish codex which was taken apart to provide covers for account-books during the fifteenth century. Only six leaves of "M" survive; however, before this manuscript was dismantled the Abbot of Hersfeld lent the manuscript to Sigismund Gelenius, who used it in preparing the text of the second Froben edition ("G"). The dates and relationship of V and M were long disputed until 1936 when R. P. Robinson demonstrated persuasively that V was copied from M. As L. D. Reynolds summarizes, "M is thus a fragment of the archetype; symptoms of an insular pre-archetype are evident."
His handling from his earliest printers was little better. The "editio princeps" was printed in 1474 in Rome by Georg Sachsel and Bartholomaeus Golsch, which broke off at the end of Book 26. The next edition (Bologna, 1517) suffered from its editor's conjectures upon the poor text of the 1474 edition; the 1474 edition was pirated for the first Froben edition (Basle, 1518). It was not until 1533 that the last five books of Ammianus' history were put into print by Silvanus Otmar and edited by Mariangelus Accursius. The first modern edition was produced by C.U. Clark (Berlin, 1910–1913). The first English translations were by Philemon Holland in 1609, and later by C.D. Yonge in 1862.
Reception.
Edward Gibbon judged Ammianus "an accurate and faithful guide, who composed the history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary." But he also condemned Ammianus for lack of literary flair: "The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy." Austrian historian praised Ammianus as "the greatest literary genius that the world produced between Tacitus and Dante".
According to Kimberly Kagan, his accounts of battles emphasize the experience of the soldiers but at the cost of ignoring the bigger picture. As a result, it is difficult for the reader to understand why the battles he describes had the outcome they did.
Ammianus' work contains a detailed description of the earthquake and tsunami of 365 in Alexandria, which devastated the metropolis and the shores of the eastern Mediterranean on 21 July 365. His report describes accurately the characteristic sequence of earthquake, retreat of the sea, and sudden incoming giant wave.
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1810
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Actium
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Actium or Aktion () was a town on a promontory in ancient Acarnania at the entrance of the Ambraciot Gulf, off which Octavian gained his celebrated victory, the Battle of Actium, over Antony and Cleopatra, on September 2, 31 BCE.
History.
Actium belonged originally to the Corinthian colonists of Anactorium, who probably founded the sanctuary of Apollo Actius. This temple was of great antiquity. In the 3rd century BCE it fell to the Acarnanians, who subsequently held their religious summits there.
There was also an ancient festival named Actia, celebrated here in honour of the god. Augustus after his victory enlarged the temple, and revived the ancient festival, which was henceforth celebrated once in five years (πενταετηρίς, ludi quinquennales), with musical and gymnastic contests, and horse races. We learn from a Greek inscription found on the site of Actium, and which is probably prior to the time of Augustus, that the chief priest of the temple was called Ἱεραπόλος, and that his name was employed in official documents, like that of the first Archon at Athens, to mark the date. Strabo says that the temple was situated on an eminence, and that below was a plain with a grove of trees, and a dock-yard; and in another passage he describes the harbour as situated outside of the gulf. On the opposite coast of Epirus, Augustus founded the city of Nicopolis in honour of his victory. After the foundation of Nicopolis, a few buildings sprang up around the temple, and it served as a kind of suburb to Nicopolis.
Archaeology.
On October 8, 1980, the Greek Ministry of Transport and Communications reported that shipwrecks from the Battle of Actium had been located at Actium near the entrance to the Ambracan Gulf.
In Summer 2009, archaeologists discovered the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and found two statue heads, one of Apollo, one of Artemis (Diana).
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1789
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Apuleius
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Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day M'Daourouch, Algeria. He studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya. This is known as the "Apologia".
His most famous work is his bawdy picaresque novel the "Metamorphoses", otherwise known as "The Golden Ass". It is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It relates the adventures of its protagonist, Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into a donkey. Lucius goes through various adventures before he is turned back into a human being by the goddess Isis.
Life.
Apuleius was born in Madauros, a "colonia" in Numidia on the North African coast bordering Gaetulia, and he described himself as "half-Numidian half-Gaetulian." Madaurus was the same "colonia" where Augustine of Hippo later received part of his early education, and, though located well away from the Romanized coast, is today the site of some pristine Roman ruins. As to his first name, no "praenomen" is given in any ancient source; late-medieval manuscripts began the tradition of calling him "Lucius" from the name of the hero of his novel. Details regarding his life come mostly from his defense speech ("Apology") and his work "Florida", which consists of snippets taken from some of his best speeches.
His father was a provincial magistrate ("duumvir") who bequeathed at his death the sum of nearly two million sesterces to his two sons. Apuleius studied with a master at Carthage (where he later settled) and later at Athens, where he studied Platonist philosophy among other subjects. He subsequently went to Rome to study Latin rhetoric and, most likely, to speak in the law courts for a time before returning to his native North Africa. He also travelled extensively in Asia Minor and Egypt, studying philosophy and religion, burning up his inheritance while doing so.
Apuleius was an initiate in several Greco-Roman mysteries, including the Dionysian Mysteries. He was a priest of Asclepius and, according to Augustine, "sacerdos provinciae Africae" (i.e., priest of the province of Carthage).
Not long after his return home he set out upon a new journey to Alexandria. On his way there he was taken ill at the town of Oea (modern-day Tripoli) and was hospitably received into the house of Sicinius Pontianus, with whom he had been friends when he had studied in Athens. The mother of Pontianus, Pudentilla, was a very rich widow. With her son's consent – indeed encouragement – Apuleius agreed to marry her. Meanwhile, Pontianus himself married the daughter of one Herennius Rufinus; he, indignant that Pudentilla's wealth should pass out of the family, instigated his son-in-law, together with a younger brother, Sicinius Pudens, a mere boy, and their paternal uncle, Sicinius Aemilianus, to join him in impeaching Apuleius upon the charge that he had gained the affections of Pudentilla by charms and magic spells. The case was heard at Sabratha, near Tripoli, c. 158 AD, before Claudius Maximus, proconsul of Africa. The accusation itself seems to have been ridiculous, and the spirited and triumphant defence spoken by Apuleius is still extant. This is known as the "Apologia (A Discourse on Magic)".
Apuleius accused an extravagant personal enemy of turning his house into a brothel and prostituting his own wife.
Of his subsequent career, we know little. Judging from the many works of which he was author, he must have devoted himself diligently to literature. He occasionally gave speeches in public to great reception; he had the charge of exhibiting gladiatorial shows and wild beast events in the province, and statues were erected in his honour by the senate of Carthage and of other senates.
The date, place and circumstances of Apuleius' death are not known. There is no record of his activities after 170, a fact which has led some people to believe that he must have died about then (say in 171), although other scholars feel that he may still have been alive in 180 or even 190.
Works.
"The Golden Ass".
"The Golden Ass" ("Asinus Aureus") or "Metamorphoses" is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It is an imaginative, irreverent, and amusing work that relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, who introduces himself as related to the famous philosophers Plutarch and Sextus of Chaeronea. Lucius experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into an ass. In this guise, he hears and sees many unusual things, until escaping from his predicament in a rather unexpected way. Within this frame story are found many digressions, the longest among them being the well-known tale of Cupid and Psyche. This story is a rare instance of a fairy tale preserved in an ancient literary text.
The "Metamorphoses" ends with the (once again human) hero, Lucius, eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis; he abstains from forbidden foods, bathes, and purifies himself. He is introduced to the "Navigium Isidis". Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him, and further secrets are revealed before he goes through the process of initiation, which involves a trial by the elements on a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in Rome, and eventually is initiated into the "pastophoroi" – a group of priests that serves Isis and Osiris.
The Apologia.
Apologia ("Apulei Platonici pro Se de Magia") is the version of the defence presented in Sabratha, in 158–159, before the proconsul Claudius Maximus, by Apuleius accused of the crime of magic. Between the traditional exordium and peroratio, the argumentation is divided into three sections:
The main interest of the Apology is historical, as it offers substantial information about its author, magic and life in Africa in the second century.
Other works.
His other works are:
Apuleius wrote many other works which have not survived. He wrote works of poetry and fiction, as well as technical treatises on politics, dendrology, agriculture, medicine, natural history, astronomy, music, and arithmetic, and he translated Plato's "Phaedo".
Spurious works.
The extant works wrongly attributed to Apuleius are:
"The Golden Ass".
"The Golden Ass" ("Asinus Aureus") or "Metamorphoses" is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It is an imaginative, irreverent, and amusing work that relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, who introduces himself as related to the famous philosophers Plutarch and Sextus of Chaeronea. Lucius experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into an ass. In this guise, he hears and sees many unusual things, until escaping from his predicament in a rather unexpected way. Within this frame story are found many digressions, the longest among them being the well-known tale of Cupid and Psyche. This story is a rare instance of a fairy tale preserved in an ancient literary text.
The "Metamorphoses" ends with the (once again human) hero, Lucius, eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis; he abstains from forbidden foods, bathes, and purifies himself. He is introduced to the "Navigium Isidis". Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him, and further secrets are revealed before he goes through the process of initiation, which involves a trial by the elements on a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in Rome, and eventually is initiated into the "pastophoroi" – a group of priests that serves Isis and Osiris.
The Apologia.
Apologia ("Apulei Platonici pro Se de Magia") is the version of the defence presented in Sabratha, in 158–159, before the proconsul Claudius Maximus, by Apuleius accused of the crime of magic. Between the traditional exordium and peroratio, the argumentation is divided into three sections:
The main interest of the Apology is historical, as it offers substantial information about its author, magic and life in Africa in the second century.
Other works.
His other works are:
Apuleius wrote many other works which have not survived. He wrote works of poetry and fiction, as well as technical treatises on politics, dendrology, agriculture, medicine, natural history, astronomy, music, and arithmetic, and he translated Plato's "Phaedo".
Spurious works.
The extant works wrongly attributed to Apuleius are:
Apuleian Sphere.
The Apuleian Sphere described in "Petosiris to Nechepso", also known as "Columcille's Circle" or "Petosiris' Circle", is a magical prognosticating device for predicting the survival of a patient.
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Augustin-Jean Fresnel
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Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular theory, from the late 1830s until the end of the 19th century. He is perhaps better known for inventing the catadioptric (reflective/refractive) Fresnel lens and for pioneering the use of "stepped" lenses to extend the visibility of lighthouses, saving countless lives at sea. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) stepped lens, first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel, is used in screen magnifiers and in condenser lenses for overhead projectors.
By expressing Huygens's principle of secondary waves and Young's principle of interference in quantitative terms, and supposing that simple colors consist of sinusoidal waves, Fresnel gave the first satisfactory explanation of diffraction by straight edges, including the first satisfactory wave-based explanation of rectilinear propagation. Part of his argument was a proof that the addition of sinusoidal functions of the same frequency but different phases is analogous to the addition of forces with different directions. By further supposing that light waves are purely transverse, Fresnel explained the nature of polarization, the mechanism of chromatic polarization, and the transmission and reflection coefficients at the interface between two transparent isotropic media. Then, by generalizing the direction-speed-polarization relation for calcite, he accounted for the directions and polarizations of the refracted rays in doubly-refractive crystals of the "biaxial" class (those for which Huygens's secondary wavefronts are not axisymmetric). The period between the first publication of his pure-transverse-wave hypothesis, and the submission of his first correct solution to the biaxial problem, was less than a year.
Later, he coined the terms "linear polarization", "circular polarization", and "elliptical polarization", explained how optical rotation could be understood as a difference in propagation speeds for the two directions of circular polarization, and (by allowing the reflection coefficient to be complex) accounted for the change in polarization due to total internal reflection, as exploited in the Fresnel rhomb. Defenders of the established corpuscular theory could not match his quantitative explanations of so many phenomena on so few assumptions.
Fresnel had a lifelong battle with tuberculosis, to which he succumbed at the age of 39. Although he did not become a public celebrity in his lifetime, he lived just long enough to receive due recognition from his peers, including (on his deathbed) the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society of London, and his name is ubiquitous in the modern terminology of optics and waves. After the wave theory of light was subsumed by Maxwell's electromagnetic theory in the 1860s, some attention was diverted from the magnitude of Fresnel's contribution. In the period between Fresnel's unification of physical optics and Maxwell's wider unification, a contemporary authority, Humphrey Lloyd, described Fresnel's transverse-wave theory as "the noblest fabric which has ever adorned the domain of physical science, Newton's system of the universe alone excepted."
Early life.
Family.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (also called Augustin Jean or simply Augustin), born in Broglie, Normandy, on 10 May 1788, was the second of four sons of the architect Jacques Fresnel (1755–1805) and his wife Augustine, "née" Mérimée (1755–1833). In 1790, following the Revolution, Broglie became part of the département of Eure. The family moved twice – in 1789/90 to Cherbourg, and in 1794 to Jacques's home town of Mathieu, where Madame Fresnel would spend 25 years as a widow, outliving two of her sons.
The first son, Louis (1786–1809), was admitted to the École Polytechnique, became a lieutenant in the artillery, and was killed in action at Jaca, Spain, the day before his 23rd birthday. The third, Léonor (1790–1869), followed Augustin into civil engineering, succeeded him as secretary of the Lighthouse Commission, and helped to edit his collected works. The fourth, Fulgence Fresnel (1795–1855), became a noted linguist, diplomat, and orientalist, and occasionally assisted Augustin with negotiations. Fulgence died in Bagdad in 1855 having led a mission to explore Babylon. Léonor apparently was the only one of the four who married.
Their mother's younger brother, Jean François "Léonor" Mérimée (1757–1836), father of the writer Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870), was a paint artist who turned his attention to the chemistry of painting. He became the Permanent Secretary of the École des Beaux-Arts and (until 1814) a professor at the École Polytechnique, and was the initial point of contact between Augustin and the leading optical physicists of the day .
Education.
The Fresnel brothers were initially home-schooled by their mother. The sickly Augustin was considered the slow one, not inclined to memorization; but the popular story that he hardly began to read until the age of eight is disputed. At the age of nine or ten he was undistinguished except for his ability to turn tree-branches into toy bows and guns that worked far too well, earning himself the title "l'homme de génie" (the man of genius) from his accomplices, and a united crackdown from their elders.
In 1801, Augustin was sent to the "École Centrale" at Caen, as company for Louis. But Augustin lifted his performance: in late 1804 he was accepted into the École Polytechnique, being placed 17th in the entrance examination. As the detailed records of the École Polytechnique begin in 1808, we know little of Augustin's time there, except that he made few if any friends and – in spite of continuing poor health – excelled in drawing and geometry: in his first year he took a prize for his solution to a geometry problem posed by Adrien-Marie Legendre. Graduating in 1806, he then enrolled at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (National School of Bridges and Roads, also known as "ENPC" or "École des Ponts"), from which he graduated in 1809, entering the service of the Corps des Ponts et Chaussées as an "ingénieur ordinaire aspirant" (ordinary engineer in training). Directly or indirectly, he was to remain in the employment of the "Corps des Ponts" for the rest of his life.
Religious formation.
Fresnel's parents were Roman Catholics of the Jansenist sect, characterized by an extreme Augustinian view of original sin. Religion took first place in the boys' home-schooling. In 1802, his mother said:
Augustin remained a Jansenist. He regarded his intellectual talents as gifts from God, and considered it his duty to use them for the benefit of others. According to his fellow engineer Alphonse Duleau, who helped to nurse him through his final illness, Fresnel saw the study of nature as part of the study of the power and goodness of God. He placed virtue above science and genius. In his last days he prayed for "strength of soul," not against death alone, but against "the interruption of discoveries… of which he hoped to derive useful applications."
Jansenism is considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church, and Grattan-Guinness suggests this is why Fresnel never gained a permanent academic teaching post; his only teaching appointment was at the Athénée in the winter of 1819–20. The article on Fresnel in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" does not mention his Jansenism, but describes him as "a deeply religious man and remarkable for his keen sense of duty."
Family.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (also called Augustin Jean or simply Augustin), born in Broglie, Normandy, on 10 May 1788, was the second of four sons of the architect Jacques Fresnel (1755–1805) and his wife Augustine, "née" Mérimée (1755–1833). In 1790, following the Revolution, Broglie became part of the département of Eure. The family moved twice – in 1789/90 to Cherbourg, and in 1794 to Jacques's home town of Mathieu, where Madame Fresnel would spend 25 years as a widow, outliving two of her sons.
The first son, Louis (1786–1809), was admitted to the École Polytechnique, became a lieutenant in the artillery, and was killed in action at Jaca, Spain, the day before his 23rd birthday. The third, Léonor (1790–1869), followed Augustin into civil engineering, succeeded him as secretary of the Lighthouse Commission, and helped to edit his collected works. The fourth, Fulgence Fresnel (1795–1855), became a noted linguist, diplomat, and orientalist, and occasionally assisted Augustin with negotiations. Fulgence died in Bagdad in 1855 having led a mission to explore Babylon. Léonor apparently was the only one of the four who married.
Their mother's younger brother, Jean François "Léonor" Mérimée (1757–1836), father of the writer Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870), was a paint artist who turned his attention to the chemistry of painting. He became the Permanent Secretary of the École des Beaux-Arts and (until 1814) a professor at the École Polytechnique, and was the initial point of contact between Augustin and the leading optical physicists of the day .
Education.
The Fresnel brothers were initially home-schooled by their mother. The sickly Augustin was considered the slow one, not inclined to memorization; but the popular story that he hardly began to read until the age of eight is disputed. At the age of nine or ten he was undistinguished except for his ability to turn tree-branches into toy bows and guns that worked far too well, earning himself the title "l'homme de génie" (the man of genius) from his accomplices, and a united crackdown from their elders.
In 1801, Augustin was sent to the "École Centrale" at Caen, as company for Louis. But Augustin lifted his performance: in late 1804 he was accepted into the École Polytechnique, being placed 17th in the entrance examination. As the detailed records of the École Polytechnique begin in 1808, we know little of Augustin's time there, except that he made few if any friends and – in spite of continuing poor health – excelled in drawing and geometry: in his first year he took a prize for his solution to a geometry problem posed by Adrien-Marie Legendre. Graduating in 1806, he then enrolled at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (National School of Bridges and Roads, also known as "ENPC" or "École des Ponts"), from which he graduated in 1809, entering the service of the Corps des Ponts et Chaussées as an "ingénieur ordinaire aspirant" (ordinary engineer in training). Directly or indirectly, he was to remain in the employment of the "Corps des Ponts" for the rest of his life.
Religious formation.
Fresnel's parents were Roman Catholics of the Jansenist sect, characterized by an extreme Augustinian view of original sin. Religion took first place in the boys' home-schooling. In 1802, his mother said:
Augustin remained a Jansenist. He regarded his intellectual talents as gifts from God, and considered it his duty to use them for the benefit of others. According to his fellow engineer Alphonse Duleau, who helped to nurse him through his final illness, Fresnel saw the study of nature as part of the study of the power and goodness of God. He placed virtue above science and genius. In his last days he prayed for "strength of soul," not against death alone, but against "the interruption of discoveries… of which he hoped to derive useful applications."
Jansenism is considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church, and Grattan-Guinness suggests this is why Fresnel never gained a permanent academic teaching post; his only teaching appointment was at the Athénée in the winter of 1819–20. The article on Fresnel in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" does not mention his Jansenism, but describes him as "a deeply religious man and remarkable for his keen sense of duty."
Engineering assignments.
Fresnel was initially posted to the western département of Vendée. There, in 1811, he anticipated what became known as the Solvay process for producing soda ash, except that recycling of the ammonia was not considered. That difference may explain why leading chemists, who learned of his discovery through his uncle Léonor, eventually thought it uneconomic.
About 1812, Fresnel was sent to Nyons, in the southern département of Drôme, to assist with the imperial highway that was to connect Spain and Italy. It is from Nyons that we have the first evidence of his interest in optics. On 15 May 1814, while work was slack due to Napoleon's defeat, Fresnel wrote a "P.S." to his brother Léonor, saying in part:
As late as 28 December he was still waiting for information, but he had received Biot's memoir by 10 February 1815. (The "Institut de France" had taken over the functions of the French "Académie des Sciences" and other "académies" in 1795. In 1816 the "Académie des Sciences" regained its name and autonomy, but remained part of the institute.)
In March 1815, perceiving Napoleon's return from Elba as "an attack on civilization", Fresnel departed without leave, hastened to Toulouse and offered his services to the royalist resistance, but soon found himself on the sick list. Returning to Nyons in defeat, he was threatened and had his windows broken. During the Hundred Days he was placed on suspension, which he was eventually allowed to spend at his mother's house in Mathieu. There he used his enforced leisure to begin his optical experiments.
Contributions to physical optics.
Historical context: From Newton to Biot.
The appreciation of Fresnel's reconstruction of physical optics might be assisted by an overview of the fragmented state in which he found the subject. In this subsection, optical phenomena that were unexplained or whose explanations were disputed are named in bold type.
The corpuscular theory of light, favored by Isaac Newton and accepted by nearly all of Fresnel's seniors, easily explained rectilinear propagation: the corpuscles obviously moved very fast, so that their paths were very nearly straight. The wave theory, as developed by Christiaan Huygens in his "Treatise on Light" (1690), explained rectilinear propagation on the assumption that each point crossed by a traveling wavefront becomes the source of a secondary wavefront. Given the initial position of a traveling wavefront, any later position (according to Huygens) was the common tangent surface (envelope) of the secondary wavefronts emitted from the earlier position. As the extent of the common tangent was limited by the extent of the initial wavefront, the repeated application of Huygens's construction to a plane wavefront of limited extent (in a uniform medium) gave a straight, parallel beam. While this construction indeed predicted rectilinear propagation, it was difficult to reconcile with the common observation that wavefronts on the surface of water can bend around obstructions, and with the similar behavior of sound waves – causing Newton to maintain, to the end of his life, that if light consisted of waves it would "bend and spread every way" into the shadows.
Huygens's theory neatly explained the law of ordinary reflection and the law of ordinary refraction ("Snell's law"), provided that the secondary waves traveled slower in denser media (those of higher refractive index). The corpuscular theory, with the hypothesis that the corpuscles were subject to forces acting perpendicular to surfaces, explained the same laws equally well, albeit with the implication that light traveled "faster" in denser media; that implication was wrong, but could not be directly disproven with the technology of Newton's time or even Fresnel's time .
Similarly inconclusive was stellar aberration—that is, the apparent change in the position of a star due to the velocity of the earth across the line of sight (not to be confused with stellar parallax, which is due to the "displacement" of the earth across the line of sight). Identified by James Bradley in 1728, stellar aberration was widely taken as confirmation of the corpuscular theory. But it was equally compatible with the wave theory, as Euler noted in 1746 – tacitly assuming that the aether (the supposed wave-bearing medium) near the earth was not disturbed by the motion of the earth.
The outstanding strength of Huygens's theory was his explanation of the birefringence (double refraction) of "Iceland crystal" (transparent calcite), on the assumption that the secondary waves are spherical for the ordinary refraction (which satisfies Snell's law) and spheroidal for the "extraordinary" refraction (which does not). In general, Huygens's common-tangent construction implies that rays are "paths of least time" between successive positions of the wavefront, in accordance with Fermat's principle. In the special case of isotropic media, the secondary wavefronts must be spherical, and Huygens's construction then implies that the rays are perpendicular to the wavefront; indeed, the law of "ordinary" refraction can be separately derived from that premise, as Ignace-Gaston Pardies did before Huygens.
Although Newton rejected the wave theory, he noticed its potential to explain colors, including the colors of "thin plates" (e.g., "Newton's rings", and the colors of skylight reflected in soap bubbles), on the assumption that light consists of "periodic" waves, with the lowest frequencies (longest wavelengths) at the red end of the spectrum, and the highest frequencies (shortest wavelengths) at the violet end. In 1672 he published a heavy hint to that effect, but contemporary supporters of the wave theory failed to act on it: Robert Hooke treated light as a periodic sequence of pulses but did not use frequency as the criterion of color, while Huygens treated the waves as individual pulses without any periodicity; and Pardies died young in 1673. Newton himself tried to explain colors of thin plates using the corpuscular theory, by supposing that his corpuscles had the wavelike property of alternating between "fits of easy transmission" and "fits of easy reflection", the distance between like "fits" depending on the color and the medium and, awkwardly, on the angle of refraction or reflection into that medium. More awkwardly still, this theory required thin plates to reflect only at the back surface, although "thick" plates manifestly reflected also at the front surface. It was not until 1801 that Thomas Young, in the Bakerian Lecture for that year, cited Newton's hint, and accounted for the colors of a thin plate as the combined effect of the front and back reflections, which reinforce or cancel each other according to the "wavelength" and the thickness. Young similarly explained the colors of "striated surfaces" (e.g., gratings) as the wavelength-dependent reinforcement or cancellation of reflections from adjacent lines. He described this reinforcement or cancellation as interference.
Neither Newton nor Huygens satisfactorily explained diffraction—the blurring and fringing of shadows where, according to rectilinear propagation, they ought to be sharp. Newton, who called diffraction "inflexion", supposed that rays of light passing close to obstacles were bent ("inflected"); but his explanation was only qualitative. Huygens's common-tangent construction, without modifications, could not accommodate diffraction at all. Two such modifications were proposed by Young in the same 1801 Bakerian Lecture: first, that the secondary waves near the edge of an obstacle could diverge into the shadow, but only weakly, due to limited reinforcement from other secondary waves; and second, that diffraction by an edge was caused by interference between two rays: one reflected off the edge, and the other inflected while passing near the edge. The latter ray would be undeviated if sufficiently far from the edge, but Young did not elaborate on that case. These were the earliest suggestions that the degree of diffraction depends on wavelength. Later, in the 1803 Bakerian Lecture, Young ceased to regard inflection as a separate phenomenon, and produced evidence that diffraction fringes "inside" the shadow of a narrow obstacle were due to interference: when the light from one side was blocked, the internal fringes disappeared. But Young was alone in such efforts until Fresnel entered the field.
Huygens, in his investigation of double refraction, noticed something that he could not explain: when light passes through two similarly oriented calcite crystals at normal incidence, the ordinary ray emerging from the first crystal suffers only the ordinary refraction in the second, while the extraordinary ray emerging from the first suffers only the extraordinary refraction in the second; but when the second crystal is rotated 90° about the incident rays, the roles are interchanged, so that the ordinary ray emerging from the first crystal suffers only the extraordinary refraction in the second, and vice versa. This discovery gave Newton another reason to reject the wave theory: rays of light evidently had "sides". Corpuscles could have sides (or "poles", as they would later be called); but waves of light could not, because (so it seemed) any such waves would need to be longitudinal (with vibrations in the direction of propagation). Newton offered an alternative "Rule" for the extraordinary refraction, which rode on his authority through the 18th century, although he made "no known attempt to deduce it from any principles of optics, corpuscular or otherwise."
In 1808, the extraordinary refraction of calcite was investigated experimentally, with unprecedented accuracy, by Étienne-Louis Malus, and found to be consistent with Huygens's spheroid construction, not Newton's "Rule". Malus, encouraged by Pierre-Simon Laplace, then sought to explain this law in corpuscular terms: from the known relation between the incident and refracted ray directions, Malus derived the corpuscular velocity (as a function of direction) that would satisfy Maupertuis's "least action" principle. But, as Young pointed out, the existence of such a velocity law was guaranteed by Huygens's spheroid, because Huygens's construction leads to Fermat's principle, which becomes Maupertuis's principle if the ray speed is replaced by the reciprocal of the particle speed! The corpuscularists had not found a "force" law that would yield the alleged velocity law, except by a circular argument in which a force acting at the "surface" of the crystal inexplicably depended on the direction of the (possibly subsequent) velocity "within" the crystal. Worse, it was doubtful that any such force would satisfy the conditions of Maupertuis's principle. In contrast, Young proceeded to show that "a medium more easily compressible in one direction than in any direction perpendicular to it, as if it consisted of an infinite number of parallel plates connected by a substance somewhat less elastic" admits spheroidal longitudinal wavefronts, as Huygens supposed.
But Malus, in the midst of his experiments on double refraction, noticed something else: when a ray of light is reflected off a non-metallic surface at the appropriate angle, it behaves like "one" of the two rays emerging from a calcite crystal. It was Malus who coined the term polarization to describe this behavior, although the polarizing angle became known as Brewster's angle after its dependence on the refractive index was determined experimentally by David Brewster in 1815. Malus also introduced the term "plane of polarization". In the case of polarization by reflection, his "plane of polarization" was the plane of the incident and reflected rays; in modern terms, this is the plane "normal" to the "electric" vibration. In 1809, Malus further discovered that the intensity of light passing through "two" polarizers is proportional to the squared cosine of the angle between their planes of polarization (Malus's law), whether the polarizers work by reflection or double refraction, and that "all" birefringent crystals produce both extraordinary refraction and polarization. As the corpuscularists started trying to explain these things in terms of polar "molecules" of light, the wave-theorists had "no working hypothesis" on the nature of polarization, prompting Young to remark that Malus's observations "present greater difficulties to the advocates of the undulatory theory than any other facts with which we are acquainted."
Malus died in February 1812, at the age of 36, shortly after receiving the Rumford Medal for his work on polarization.
In August 1811, François Arago reported that if a thin plate of mica was viewed against a white polarized backlight through a calcite crystal, the two images of the mica were of complementary colors (the overlap having the same color as the background). The light emerging from the mica was ""de"polarized" in the sense that there was no orientation of the calcite that made one image disappear; yet it was not ordinary (""un"polarized") light, for which the two images would be of the same color. Rotating the calcite around the line of sight changed the colors, though they remained complementary. Rotating the mica changed the "saturation" (not the hue) of the colors. This phenomenon became known as chromatic polarization. Replacing the mica with a much thicker plate of quartz, with its faces perpendicular to the optic axis (the axis of Huygens's spheroid or Malus's velocity function), produced a similar effect, except that rotating the quartz made no difference. Arago tried to explain his observations in "corpuscular" terms.
In 1812, as Arago pursued further qualitative experiments and other commitments, Jean-Baptiste Biot reworked the same ground using a gypsum lamina in place of the mica, and found empirical formulae for the intensities of the ordinary and extraordinary images. The formulae contained two coefficients, supposedly representing colors of rays "affected" and "unaffected" by the plate – the "affected" rays being of the same color mix as those reflected by amorphous thin plates of proportional, but lesser, thickness.
Arago protested, declaring that he had made some of the same discoveries but had not had time to write them up. In fact the overlap between Arago's work and Biot's was minimal, Arago's being only qualitative and wider in scope (attempting to include polarization by reflection). But the dispute triggered a notorious falling-out between the two men.
Later that year, Biot tried to explain the observations as an oscillation of the alignment of the "affected" corpuscles at a frequency proportional to that of Newton's "fits", due to forces depending on the alignment. This theory became known as "mobile polarization". To reconcile his results with a sinusoidal oscillation, Biot had to suppose that the corpuscles emerged with one of two permitted orientations, namely the extremes of the oscillation, with probabilities depending on the phase of the oscillation. Corpuscular optics was becoming expensive on assumptions. But in 1813, Biot reported that the case of quartz was simpler: the observable phenomenon (now called optical rotation or "optical activity" or sometimes "rotary polarization") was a gradual rotation of the polarization direction with distance, and could be explained by a corresponding rotation ("not" oscillation) of the corpuscles.
Early in 1814, reviewing Biot's work on chromatic polarization, Young noted that the periodicity of the color as a function of the plate thickness – including the factor by which the period exceeded that for a reflective thin plate, and even the effect of obliquity of the plate (but not the role of polarization)—could be explained by the wave theory in terms of the different propagation times of the ordinary and extraordinary waves through the plate. But Young was then the only public defender of the wave theory.
In summary, in the spring of 1814, as Fresnel tried in vain to guess what polarization was, the corpuscularists thought that they knew, while the wave-theorists (if we may use the plural) literally had no idea. Both theories claimed to explain rectilinear propagation, but the wave explanation was overwhelmingly regarded as unconvincing. The corpuscular theory could not rigorously link double refraction to surface forces; the wave theory could not yet link it to polarization. The corpuscular theory was weak on thin plates and silent on gratings; the wave theory was strong on both, but under-appreciated. Concerning diffraction, the corpuscular theory did not yield quantitative predictions, while the wave theory had begun to do so by considering diffraction as a manifestation of interference, but had only considered two rays at a time. Only the corpuscular theory gave even a vague insight into Brewster's angle, Malus's law, or optical rotation. Concerning chromatic polarization, the wave theory explained the periodicity far better than the corpuscular theory, but had nothing to say about the role of polarization; and its explanation of the periodicity was largely ignored. And Arago had founded the study of chromatic polarization, only to lose the lead, controversially, to Biot. Such were the circumstances in which Arago first heard of Fresnel's interest in optics.
Rêveries.
Fresnel's letters from later in 1814 reveal his interest in the wave theory, including his awareness that it explained the constancy of the speed of light and was at least compatible with stellar aberration. Eventually he compiled what he called his "rêveries" (musings) into an essay and submitted it via Léonor Mérimée to André-Marie Ampère, who did not respond directly. But on 19 December, Mérimée dined with Ampère and Arago, with whom he was acquainted through the École Polytechnique; and Arago promised to look at Fresnel's essay.
In mid 1815, on his way home to Mathieu to serve his suspension, Fresnel met Arago in Paris and spoke of the wave theory and stellar aberration. He was informed that he was trying to break down open doors ("il enfonçait des portes ouvertes"), and directed to classical works on optics.
Diffraction.
First attempt (1815).
On 12 July 1815, as Fresnel was about to leave Paris, Arago left him a note on a new topic:
Fresnel would not have ready access to these works outside Paris, and could not read English. But, in Mathieu – with a point-source of light made by focusing sunlight with a drop of honey, a crude micrometer of his own construction, and supporting apparatus made by a local locksmith – he began his own experiments. His technique was novel: whereas earlier investigators had projected the fringes onto a screen, Fresnel soon abandoned the screen and observed the fringes in space, through a lens with the micrometer at its focus, allowing more accurate measurements while requiring less light.
Later in July, after Napoleon's final defeat, Fresnel was reinstated with the advantage of having backed the winning side. He requested a two-month leave of absence, which was readily granted because roadworks were in abeyance.
On 23 September he wrote to Arago, beginning "I think I have found the explanation and the law of colored fringes which one notices in the shadows of bodies illuminated by a luminous point." In the same paragraph, however, Fresnel implicitly acknowledged doubt about the novelty of his work: noting that he would need to incur some expense in order to improve his measurements, he wanted to know "whether this is not useless, and whether the law of diffraction has not already been established by sufficiently exact experiments." He explained that he had not yet had a chance to acquire the items on his reading lists, with the apparent exception of "Young's book", which he could not understand without his brother's help. Not surprisingly, he had retraced many of Young's steps.
In a memoir sent to the institute on 15 October 1815, Fresnel mapped the external and internal fringes in the shadow of a wire. He noticed, like Young before him, that the internal fringes disappeared when the light from one side was blocked, and concluded that "the vibrations of two rays that cross each other under a very small angle can contradict each other…" But, whereas Young took the disappearance of the internal fringes as "confirmation" of the principle of interference, Fresnel reported that it was the internal fringes that first drew his attention to the principle. To explain the diffraction pattern, Fresnel constructed the internal fringes by considering the intersections of circular wavefronts emitted from the two edges of the obstruction, and the external fringes by considering the intersections between direct waves and waves reflected off the nearer edge. For the external fringes, to obtain tolerable agreement with observation, he had to suppose that the reflected wave was inverted; and he noted that the predicted paths of the fringes were hyperbolic. In the part of the memoir that most clearly surpassed Young, Fresnel explained the ordinary laws of reflection and refraction in terms of interference, noting that if two parallel rays were reflected or refracted at other than the prescribed angle, they would no longer have the same phase in a common perpendicular plane, and every vibration would be cancelled by a nearby vibration. He noted that his explanation was valid provided that the surface irregularities were much smaller than the wavelength.
On 10 November, Fresnel sent a supplementary note dealing with Newton's rings and with gratings, including, for the first time, "transmission" gratings – although in that case the interfering rays were still assumed to be "inflected", and the experimental verification was inadequate because it used only two threads.
As Fresnel was not a member of the institute, the fate of his memoir depended heavily on the report of a single member. The reporter for Fresnel's memoir turned out to be Arago (with Poinsot as the other reviewer). On 8 November, Arago wrote to Fresnel:
Fresnel was troubled, wanting to know more precisely where he had collided with Young. Concerning the curved paths of the "colored bands", Young had noted the hyperbolic paths of the fringes in the two-source interference pattern, corresponding roughly to Fresnel's "internal" fringes, and had described the hyperbolic fringes that appear "on the screen" within rectangular shadows. He had not mentioned the curved paths of the "external" fringes of a shadow; but, as he later explained, that was because Newton had already done so. Newton evidently thought the fringes were "caustics". Thus Arago erred in his belief that the curved paths of the fringes were fundamentally incompatible with the corpuscular theory.
Arago's letter went on to request more data on the external fringes. Fresnel complied, until he exhausted his leave and was assigned to Rennes in the département of Ille-et-Vilaine. At this point Arago interceded with Gaspard de Prony, head of the École des Ponts, who wrote to Louis-Mathieu Molé, head of the Corps des Ponts, suggesting that the progress of science and the prestige of the Corps would be enhanced if Fresnel could come to Paris for a time. He arrived in March 1816, and his leave was subsequently extended through the middle of the year.
Meanwhile, in an experiment reported on 26 February 1816, Arago verified Fresnel's prediction that the internal fringes were shifted if the rays on one side of the obstacle passed through a thin glass lamina. Fresnel correctly attributed this phenomenon to the lower wave velocity in the glass. Arago later used a similar argument to explain the colors in the scintillation of stars.
Fresnel's updated memoir was eventually published in the March 1816 issue of "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", of which Arago had recently become co-editor. That issue did not actually appear until May. In March, Fresnel already had competition: Biot read a memoir on diffraction by himself and his student Claude Pouillet, containing copious data and arguing that the regularity of diffraction fringes, like the regularity of Newton's rings, must be linked to Newton's "fits". But the new link was not rigorous, and Pouillet himself would become a distinguished early adopter of the wave theory.
"Efficacious ray", double-mirror experiment (1816).
On 24 May 1816, Fresnel wrote to Young (in French), acknowledging how little of his own memoir was new. But in a "supplement" signed on 14 July and read the next day, Fresnel noted that the internal fringes were more accurately predicted by supposing that the two interfering rays came from some distance "outside" the edges of the obstacle. To explain this, he divided the incident wavefront at the obstacle into what we now call "Fresnel zones", such that the secondary waves from each zone were spread over half a cycle when they arrived at the observation point. The zones on one side of the obstacle largely canceled out in pairs, except the first zone, which was represented by an "efficacious ray". This approach worked for the internal fringes, but the superposition of the efficacious ray and the direct ray did "not" work for the "external" fringes.
The contribution from the "efficacious ray" was thought to be only "partly" canceled, for reasons involving the dynamics of the medium: where the wavefront was continuous, symmetry forbade oblique vibrations; but near the obstacle that truncated the wavefront, the asymmetry allowed some sideways vibration towards the geometric shadow. This argument showed that Fresnel had not (yet) fully accepted Huygens's principle, which would have permitted oblique radiation from all portions of the front.
In the same supplement, Fresnel described his well-known double mirror, comprising two flat mirrors joined at an angle of slightly less than 180°, with which he produced a two-slit interference pattern from two virtual images of the same slit. A conventional double-slit experiment required a preliminary "single" slit to ensure that the light falling on the double slit was "coherent" (synchronized). In Fresnel's version, the preliminary single slit was retained, and the double slit was replaced by the double mirror – which bore no physical resemblance to the double slit and yet performed the same function. This result (which had been announced by Arago in the March issue of the "Annales") made it hard to believe that the two-slit pattern had anything to do with corpuscles being deflected as they passed near the edges of the slits.
But 1816 was the "Year Without a Summer": crops failed; hungry farming families lined the streets of Rennes; the central government organized "charity workhouses" for the needy; and in October, Fresnel was sent back to Ille-et-Vilaine to supervise charity workers in addition to his regular road crew. According to Arago,
Fresnel's letters from December 1816 reveal his consequent anxiety. To Arago he complained of being "tormented by the worries of surveillance, and the need to reprimand…" And to Mérimée he wrote: "I find nothing more tiresome than having to manage other men, and I admit that I have no idea what I'm doing."
Prize memoir (1818) and sequel.
On 17 March 1817, the Académie des Sciences announced that diffraction would be the topic for the biannual physics "Grand Prix" to be awarded in 1819. The deadline for entries was set at 1 August 1818 to allow time for replication of experiments. Although the wording of the problem referred to rays and inflection and did not invite wave-based solutions, Arago and Ampère encouraged Fresnel to enter.
In the fall of 1817, Fresnel, supported by de Prony, obtained a leave of absence from the new head of the Corp des Ponts, Louis Becquey, and returned to Paris. He resumed his engineering duties in the spring of 1818; but from then on he was based in Paris, first on the Canal de l'Ourcq, and then (from May 1819) with the cadastre of the pavements.
On 15 January 1818, in a different context (revisited below), Fresnel showed that the addition of sinusoidal functions of the same frequency but different phases is analogous to the addition of forces with different directions. His method was similar to the phasor representation, except that the "forces" were plane vectors rather than complex numbers; they could be added, and multiplied by scalars, but not (yet) multiplied and divided by each other. The explanation was algebraic rather than geometric.
Knowledge of this method was assumed in a preliminary note on diffraction, dated 19 April 1818 and deposited on 20 April, in which Fresnel outlined the elementary theory of diffraction as found in modern textbooks. He restated Huygens's principle in combination with the superposition principle, saying that the vibration at each point on a wavefront is the sum of the vibrations that would be sent to it at that moment by all the elements of the wavefront in any of its previous positions, all elements acting separately . For a wavefront partly obstructed in a previous position, the summation was to be carried out over the unobstructed portion. In directions other than the normal to the primary wavefront, the secondary waves were weakened due to obliquity, but weakened much more by destructive interference, so that the effect of obliquity alone could be ignored. For diffraction by a straight edge, the intensity as a function of distance from the geometric shadow could then be expressed with sufficient accuracy in terms of what are now called the normalized Fresnel integrals:
The same note included a table of the integrals, for an upper limit ranging from 0 to 5.1 in steps of 0.1, computed with a mean error of 0.0003, plus a smaller table of maxima and minima of the resulting intensity.
In his final "Memoir on the diffraction of light", deposited on 29 July and bearing the Latin epigraph "Natura simplex et fecunda" ("Nature simple and fertile"), Fresnel slightly expanded the two tables without changing the existing figures, except for a correction to the first minimum of intensity. For completeness, he repeated his solution to "the problem of interference", whereby sinusoidal functions are added like vectors. He acknowledged the directionality of the secondary sources and the variation in their distances from the observation point, chiefly to explain why these things make negligible difference in the context, provided of course that the secondary sources do not radiate in the retrograde direction. Then, applying his theory of interference to the secondary waves, he expressed the intensity of light diffracted by a single straight edge (half-plane) in terms of integrals which involved the dimensions of the problem, but which could be converted to the normalized forms above. With reference to the integrals, he explained the calculation of the maxima and minima of the intensity (external fringes), and noted that the calculated intensity falls very rapidly as one moves into the geometric shadow. The last result, as Olivier Darrigol says, "amounts to a proof of the rectilinear propagation of light in the wave theory, indeed the first proof that a modern physicist would still accept."
For the experimental testing of his calculations, Fresnel used red light with a wavelength of 638nm, which he deduced from the diffraction pattern in the simple case in which light incident on a single slit was focused by a cylindrical lens. For a variety of distances from the source to the obstacle and from the obstacle to the field point, he compared the calculated and observed positions of the fringes for diffraction by a half-plane, a slit, and a narrow strip – concentrating on the minima, which were visually sharper than the maxima. For the slit and the strip, he could not use the previously computed table of maxima and minima; for each combination of dimensions, the intensity had to be expressed in terms of sums or differences of Fresnel integrals and calculated from the table of integrals, and the extrema had to be calculated anew. The agreement between calculation and measurement was better than 1.5% in almost every case.
Near the end of the memoir, Fresnel summed up the difference between Huygens's use of secondary waves and his own: whereas Huygens says there is light only where the secondary waves exactly agree, Fresnel says there is complete darkness only where the secondary waves exactly cancel out.
The judging committee comprised Laplace, Biot, and Poisson (all corpuscularists), Gay-Lussac (uncommitted), and Arago, who eventually wrote the committee's report. Although entries in the competition were supposed to be anonymous to the judges, Fresnel's must have been recognizable by the content. There was only one other entry, of which neither the manuscript nor any record of the author has survived. That entry (identified as "no.1") was mentioned only in the last paragraph of the judges' report, noting that the author had shown ignorance of the relevant earlier works of Young and Fresnel, used insufficiently precise methods of observation, overlooked known phenomena, and made obvious errors. In the words of John Worrall, "The competition facing Fresnel could hardly have been less stiff." We may infer that the committee had only two options: award the prize to Fresnel ("no. 2"), or withhold it.
The committee deliberated into the new year. Then Poisson, exploiting a case in which Fresnel's theory gave easy integrals, predicted that if a circular obstacle were illuminated by a point-source, there should be (according to the theory) a bright spot in the center of the shadow, illuminated as brightly as the exterior. This seems to have been intended as a "reductio ad absurdum". Arago, undeterred, assembled an experiment with an obstacle 2mm in diameter – and there, in the center of the shadow, was Poisson's spot.
The unanimous report of the committee, read at the meeting of the Académie on 15 March 1819, awarded the prize to "the memoir marked no. 2, and bearing as epigraph: "Natura simplex et fecunda"." At the same meeting, after the judgment was delivered, the president of the Académie opened a sealed note accompanying the memoir, revealing the author as Fresnel. The award was announced at the public meeting of the Académie a week later, on 22 March.
Arago's verification of Poisson's counter-intuitive prediction passed into folklore as if it had decided the prize. That view, however, is not supported by the judges' report, which gave the matter only two sentences in the penultimate paragraph. Neither did Fresnel's triumph immediately convert Laplace, Biot, and Poisson to the wave theory, for at least four reasons. First, although the professionalization of science in France had established common standards, it was one thing to acknowledge a piece of research as meeting those standards, and another thing to regard it as conclusive. Second, it was possible to interpret Fresnel's integrals as rules for combining "rays". Arago even encouraged that interpretation, presumably in order to minimize resistance to Fresnel's ideas. Even Biot began teaching the Huygens-Fresnel principle without committing himself to a wave basis. Third, Fresnel's theory did not adequately explain the mechanism of generation of secondary waves or why they had any significant angular spread; this issue particularly bothered Poisson. Fourth, the question that most exercised optical physicists at that time was not diffraction, but polarization – on which Fresnel had been working, but was yet to make his critical breakthrough.
Polarization.
Background: Emissionism and selectionism.
An "emission" theory of light was one that regarded the propagation of light as the transport of some kind of matter. While the corpuscular theory was obviously an emission theory, the converse did not follow: in principle, one could be an emissionist without being a corpuscularist. This was convenient because, beyond the ordinary laws of reflection and refraction, emissionists never managed to make testable quantitative predictions from a theory of forces acting on corpuscles of light. But they "did" make quantitative predictions from the premises that rays were countable objects, which were conserved in their interactions with matter (except absorbent media), and which had particular orientations with respect to their directions of propagation. According to this framework, polarization and the related phenomena of double refraction and partial reflection involved altering the orientations of the rays and/or selecting them according to orientation, and the state of polarization of a beam (a bundle of rays) was a question of how many rays were in what orientations: in a fully polarized beam, the orientations were all the same. This approach, which Jed Buchwald has called "selectionism", was pioneered by Malus and diligently pursued by Biot.
Fresnel, in contrast, decided to introduce polarization into interference experiments.
Interference of polarized light, chromatic polarization (1816–21).
In July or August 1816, Fresnel discovered that when a birefringent crystal produced two images of a single slit, he could "not" obtain the usual two-slit interference pattern, even if he compensated for the different propagation times. A more general experiment, suggested by Arago, found that if the two beams of a double-slit device were separately polarized, the interference pattern appeared and disappeared as the polarization of one beam was rotated, giving full interference for parallel polarizations, but no interference for perpendicular polarizations . These experiments, among others, were eventually reported in a brief memoir published in 1819 and later translated into English.
In a memoir drafted on 30 August 1816 and revised on 6 October, Fresnel reported an experiment in which he placed two matching thin laminae in a double-slit apparatus – one over each slit, with their optic axes perpendicular – and obtained two interference patterns offset in opposite directions, with perpendicular polarizations. This, in combination with the previous findings, meant that each lamina split the incident light into perpendicularly polarized components with different velocities – just like a normal (thick) birefringent crystal, and contrary to Biot's "mobile polarization" hypothesis.
Accordingly, in the same memoir, Fresnel offered his first attempt at a wave theory of chromatic polarization. When polarized light passed through a crystal lamina, it was split into ordinary and extraordinary waves (with intensities described by Malus's law), and these were perpendicularly polarized and therefore did not interfere, so that no colors were produced (yet). But if they then passed through an "analyzer" (second polarizer), their polarizations were brought into alignment (with intensities again modified according to Malus's law), and they would interfere. This explanation, by itself, predicts that if the analyzer is rotated 90°, the ordinary and extraordinary waves simply switch roles, so that if the analyzer takes the form of a calcite crystal, the two images of the lamina should be of the same hue (this issue is revisited below). But in fact, as Arago and Biot had found, they are of complementary colors. To correct the prediction, Fresnel proposed a phase-inversion rule whereby "one" of the constituent waves of "one" of the two images suffered an additional 180° phase shift on its way through the lamina. This inversion was a weakness in the theory relative to Biot's, as Fresnel acknowledged, although the rule specified which of the two images had the inverted wave. Moreover, Fresnel could deal only with special cases, because he had not yet solved the problem of superposing sinusoidal functions with arbitrary phase differences due to propagation at different velocities through the lamina.
He solved that problem in a "supplement" signed on 15 January 1818 (mentioned above). In the same document, he accommodated Malus's law by proposing an underlying law: that if polarized light is incident on a birefringent crystal with its optic axis at an angle "θ" to the "plane of polarization", the ordinary and extraordinary vibrations (as functions of time) are scaled by the factors cos"θ" and sin"θ", respectively. Although modern readers easily interpret these factors in terms of perpendicular components of a "transverse" oscillation, Fresnel did not (yet) explain them that way. Hence he still needed the phase-inversion rule. He applied all these principles to a case of chromatic polarization not covered by Biot's formulae, involving "two" successive laminae with axes separated by 45°, and obtained predictions that disagreed with Biot's experiments (except in special cases) but agreed with his own.
Fresnel applied the same principles to the standard case of chromatic polarization, in which "one" birefringent lamina was sliced parallel to its axis and placed between a polarizer and an analyzer. If the analyzer took the form of a thick calcite crystal with its axis in the plane of polarization, Fresnel predicted that the intensities of the ordinary and extraordinary images of the lamina were respectively proportional to
where formula_5 is the angle from the initial plane of polarization to the optic axis of the lamina, formula_6 is the angle from the initial plane of polarization to the plane of polarization of the final ordinary image, and formula_7 is the phase lag of the extraordinary wave relative to the ordinary wave due to the difference in propagation times through the lamina. The terms in formula_7 are the frequency-dependent terms and explain why the lamina must be "thin" in order to produce discernible colors: if the lamina is too thick, formula_9 will pass through too many cycles as the frequency varies through the visible range, and the eye (which divides the visible spectrum into only three bands) will not be able to resolve the cycles.
From these equations it is easily verified that formula_10 for all formula_11 so that the colors are complementary. Without the phase-inversion rule, there would be a "plus" sign in front of the last term in the second equation, so that the formula_7-dependent term would be the same in both equations, implying (incorrectly) that the colors were of the same hue.
These equations were included in an undated note that Fresnel gave to Biot, to which Biot added a few lines of his own. If we substitute
then Fresnel's formulae can be rewritten as
which are none other than Biot's empirical formulae of 1812, except that Biot interpreted formula_17 and formula_18 as the "unaffected" and "affected" selections of the rays incident on the lamina. If Biot's substitutions were accurate, they would imply that his experimental results were more fully explained by Fresnel's theory than by his own.
Arago delayed reporting on Fresnel's works on chromatic polarization until June 1821, when he used them in a broad attack on Biot's theory. In his written response, Biot protested that Arago's attack went beyond the proper scope of a report on the nominated works of Fresnel. But Biot also claimed that the substitutions for formula_17 and formula_20 and therefore Fresnel's expressions for formula_21 and formula_22 were empirically wrong because when Fresnel's intensities of spectral colors were mixed according to Newton's rules, the squared cosine and sine functions varied too smoothly to account for the observed sequence of colors. That claim drew a written reply from Fresnel, who disputed whether the colors changed as abruptly as Biot claimed, and whether the human eye could judge color with sufficient objectivity for the purpose. On the latter question, Fresnel pointed out that different observers may give different names to the same color. Furthermore, he said, a single observer can only compare colors side by side; and even if they are judged to be the same, the identity is of sensation, not necessarily of composition. Fresnel's oldest and strongest point – that thin crystals were subject to the same laws as thick ones and did not need or allow a separate theory – Biot left unanswered. Arago and Fresnel were seen to have won the debate.
Moreover, by this time Fresnel had a new, simpler explanation of his equations on chromatic polarization.
Breakthrough: Pure transverse waves (1821).
In the draft memoir of 30 August 1816, Fresnel mentioned two hypotheses – one of which he attributed to Ampère – by which the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams could be explained if polarized light waves were "partly" transverse. But Fresnel could not develop either of these ideas into a comprehensive theory. As early as September 1816, according to his later account, he realized that the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams, together with the phase-inversion rule in chromatic polarization, would be most easily explained if the waves were "purely" transverse, and Ampère "had the same thought" on the phase-inversion rule. But that would raise a new difficulty: as natural light seemed to be "un"polarized and its waves were therefore presumed to be longitudinal, one would need to explain how the longitudinal component of vibration disappeared on polarization, and why it did not reappear when polarized light was reflected or refracted obliquely by a glass plate.
Independently, on 12 January 1817, Young wrote to Arago (in English) noting that a transverse vibration would constitute a polarization, and that if two longitudinal waves crossed at a significant angle, they could not cancel without leaving a residual transverse vibration. Young repeated this idea in an article published in a supplement to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" in February 1818, in which he added that Malus's law would be explained if polarization consisted in a transverse motion.
Thus Fresnel, by his own testimony, may not have been the first person to suspect that light waves could have a transverse "component", or that "polarized" waves were exclusively transverse. And it was Young, not Fresnel, who first "published" the idea that polarization depends on the orientation of a transverse vibration. But these incomplete theories had not reconciled the nature of polarization with the apparent existence of "unpolarized" light; that achievement was to be Fresnel's alone.
In a note that Buchwald dates in the summer of 1818, Fresnel entertained the idea that unpolarized waves could have vibrations of the same energy and obliquity, with their orientations distributed uniformly about the wave-normal, and that the degree of polarization was the degree of "non"-uniformity in the distribution. Two pages later he noted, apparently for the first time in writing, that his phase-inversion rule and the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams would be easily explained if the vibrations of fully polarized waves were "perpendicular to the normal to the wave"—that is, purely transverse.
But if he could account for "lack" of polarization by averaging out the transverse component, he did not also need to assume a longitudinal component. It was enough to suppose that light waves are "purely" transverse, hence "always" polarized in the sense of having a particular transverse orientation, and that the "unpolarized" state of natural or "direct" light is due to rapid and random variations in that orientation, in which case two "coherent" portions of "unpolarized" light will still interfere because their orientations will be synchronized.
It is not known exactly when Fresnel made this last step, because there is no relevant documentation from 1820 or early 1821 (perhaps because he was too busy working on lighthouse-lens prototypes; see below). But he first "published" the idea in a paper on "Calcul des teintes…" ("calculation of the tints…"), serialized in Arago's "Annales" for May, June, and July 1821. In the first installment, Fresnel described "direct" (unpolarized) light as "the rapid succession of systems of waves polarized in all directions", and gave what is essentially the modern explanation of chromatic polarization, albeit in terms of the analogy between polarization and the resolution of forces in a plane, mentioning transverse waves only in a footnote. The introduction of transverse waves into the main argument was delayed to the second installment, in which he revealed the suspicion that he and Ampère had harbored since 1816, and the difficulty it raised. He continued:
According to this new view, he wrote, "the act of polarization consists not in creating these transverse movements, but in decomposing them into two fixed perpendicular directions and in separating the two components".
While selectionists could insist on interpreting Fresnel's diffraction integrals in terms of discrete, countable rays, they could not do the same with his theory of polarization. For a selectionist, the state of polarization of a beam concerned the distribution of orientations over the "population" of rays, and that distribution was presumed to be static. For Fresnel, the state of polarization of a beam concerned the variation of a displacement over "time". That displacement might be constrained but was "not" static, and rays were geometric constructions, "not" countable objects. The conceptual gap between the wave theory and selectionism had become unbridgeable.
The other difficulty posed by pure transverse waves, of course, was the apparent implication that the aether was an elastic "solid", except that, unlike other elastic solids, it was incapable of transmitting longitudinal waves. The wave theory was cheap on assumptions, but its latest assumption was expensive on credulity. If that assumption was to be widely entertained, its explanatory power would need to be impressive.
Partial reflection (1821).
In the second installment of "Calcul des teintes" (June 1821), Fresnel supposed, by analogy with sound waves, that the density of the aether in a refractive medium was inversely proportional to the square of the wave velocity, and therefore directly proportional to the square of the refractive index. For reflection and refraction at the surface between two isotropic media of different indices, Fresnel decomposed the transverse vibrations into two perpendicular components, now known as the "s" and "p" components, which are parallel to the "surface" and the "plane" of incidence, respectively; in other words, the "s" and "p" components are respectively "square" and "parallel" to the plane of incidence. For the "s" component, Fresnel supposed that the interaction between the two media was analogous to an elastic collision, and obtained a formula for what we now call the "reflectivity": the ratio of the reflected intensity to the incident intensity. The predicted reflectivity was non-zero at all angles.
The third installment (July 1821) was a short "postscript" in which Fresnel announced that he had found, by a "mechanical solution", a formula for the reflectivity of the "p" component, which predicted that "the reflectivity was zero at the Brewster angle". So polarization by reflection had been accounted for – but with the proviso that the direction of vibration in Fresnel's model was "perpendicular" to the plane of polarization as defined by Malus. (On the ensuing controversy, see "Plane of polarization".) The technology of the time did not allow the "s" and "p" reflectivities to be measured accurately enough to test Fresnel's formulae at arbitrary angles of incidence. But the formulae could be rewritten in terms of what we now call the "reflection coefficient": the signed ratio of the reflected amplitude to the incident amplitude. Then, if the plane of polarization of the incident ray was at 45° to the plane of incidence, the tangent of the corresponding angle for the reflected ray was obtainable from the "ratio" of the two reflection coefficients, and this angle could be measured. Fresnel had measured it for a range of angles of incidence, for glass and water, and the agreement between the calculated and measured angles was better than 1.5° in all cases.
Fresnel gave details of the "mechanical solution" in a memoir read to the Académie des Sciences on 7 January 1823. Conservation of energy was combined with continuity of the "tangential" vibration at the interface. The resulting formulae for the reflection coefficients and reflectivities became known as the "Fresnel equations". The reflection coefficients for the "s" and "p" polarizations are most succinctly expressed as
where formula_5 and formula_26 are the angles of incidence and refraction; these equations are known respectively as "Fresnel's sine law" and "Fresnel's tangent law". By allowing the coefficients to be "complex", Fresnel even accounted for the different phase shifts of the "s" and "p" components due to total internal reflection.
This success inspired James MacCullagh and Augustin-Louis Cauchy, beginning in 1836, to analyze reflection from metals by using the Fresnel equations with a complex refractive index. The same technique is applicable to non-metallic opaque media. With these generalizations, the Fresnel equations can predict the appearance of a wide variety of objects under illumination – for example, in computer graphics .
Circular and elliptical polarization, optical rotation (1822).
In a memoir dated 9 December 1822, Fresnel coined the terms "linear polarization" (French: "polarisation rectiligne") for the simple case in which the perpendicular components of vibration are in phase or 180° out of phase, "circular polarization" for the case in which they are of equal magnitude and a quarter-cycle (±90°) out of phase, and "elliptical polarization" for other cases in which the two components have a fixed amplitude ratio and a fixed phase difference. He then explained how optical rotation could be understood as a species of birefringence. Linearly-polarized light could be resolved into two circularly-polarized components rotating in opposite directions. If these components propagated at slightly different speeds, the phase difference between them – and therefore the direction of their linearly-polarized resultant – would vary continuously with distance.
These concepts called for a redefinition of the distinction between polarized and unpolarized light. Before Fresnel, it was thought that polarization could vary in direction, and in degree (e.g., due to variation in the angle of reflection off a transparent body), and that it could be a function of color (chromatic polarization), but not that it could vary in "kind". Hence it was thought that the degree of polarization was the degree to which the light could be suppressed by an analyzer with the appropriate orientation. Light that had been converted from linear to elliptical or circular polarization (e.g., by passage through a crystal lamina, or by total internal reflection) was described as partly or fully "depolarized" because of its behavior in an analyzer. "After" Fresnel, the defining feature of polarized light was that the perpendicular components of vibration had a fixed ratio of amplitudes and a fixed difference in phase. By that definition, elliptically or circularly polarized light is "fully" polarized although it cannot be fully suppressed by an analyzer alone. The conceptual gap between the wave theory and selectionism had widened again.
Total internal reflection (1817–23).
By 1817 it had been discovered by Brewster, but not adequately reported, that plane-polarized light was partly depolarized by total internal reflection if initially polarized at an acute angle to the plane of incidence. Fresnel rediscovered this effect and investigated it by including total internal reflection in a chromatic-polarization experiment. With the aid of his "first" theory of chromatic polarization, he found that the apparently depolarized light was a mixture of components polarized parallel and perpendicular to the plane of incidence, and that the total reflection introduced a phase difference between them. Choosing an appropriate angle of incidence (not yet exactly specified) gave a phase difference of 1/8 of a cycle (45°). Two such reflections from the "parallel faces" of "two coupled prisms" gave a phase difference of 1/4 of a cycle (90°). These findings were contained in a memoir submitted to the Académie on 10 November 1817 and read a fortnight later. An undated marginal note indicates that the two coupled prisms were later replaced by a single "parallelepiped in glass"—now known as a "Fresnel rhomb".
This was the memoir whose "supplement", dated January 1818, contained the method of superposing sinusoidal functions and the restatement of Malus's law in terms of amplitudes. In the same supplement, Fresnel reported his discovery that optical rotation could be emulated by passing the polarized light through a Fresnel rhomb (still in the form of "coupled prisms"), followed by an ordinary birefringent lamina sliced parallel to its axis, with the axis at 45° to the plane of reflection of the Fresnel rhomb, followed by a second Fresnel rhomb at 90° to the first. In a further memoir read on 30 March, Fresnel reported that if polarized light was fully "depolarized" by a Fresnel rhomb – now described as a parallelepiped – its properties were not further modified by a subsequent passage through an optically rotating medium or device.
The connection between optical rotation and birefringence was further explained in 1822, in the memoir on elliptical and circular polarization. This was followed by the memoir on reflection, read in January 1823, in which Fresnel quantified the phase shifts in total internal reflection, and thence calculated the precise angle at which a Fresnel rhomb should be cut in order to convert linear polarization to circular polarization. For a refractive index of 1.51, there were two solutions: about 48.6° and 54.6°.
Double refraction.
Background: Uniaxial and biaxial crystals; Biot's laws.
When light passes through a slice of calcite cut perpendicular to its optic axis, the difference between the propagation times of the ordinary and extraordinary waves has a second-order dependence on the angle of incidence. If the slice is observed in a highly convergent cone of light, that dependence becomes significant, so that a chromatic-polarization experiment will show a pattern of concentric rings. But most minerals, when observed in this manner, show a more complicated pattern of rings involving two foci and a lemniscate curve, as if they had "two" optic axes. The two classes of minerals naturally become known as "uniaxal" and "biaxal"—or, in later literature, "uniaxial" and "biaxial".
In 1813, Brewster observed the simple concentric pattern in "beryl, emerald, ruby &c." The same pattern was later observed in calcite by Wollaston, Biot, and Seebeck. Biot, assuming that the concentric pattern was the general case, tried to calculate the colors with his theory of chromatic polarization, and succeeded better for some minerals than for others. In 1818, Brewster belatedly explained why: seven of the twelve minerals employed by Biot had the lemniscate pattern, which Brewster had observed as early as 1812; and the minerals with the more complicated rings also had a more complicated law of refraction.
In a uniform crystal, according to Huygens's theory, the secondary wavefront that expands from the origin in unit time is the "ray-velocity surface"—that is, the surface whose "distance" from the origin in any direction is the ray velocity in that direction. In calcite, this surface is two-sheeted, consisting of a sphere (for the ordinary wave) and an oblate spheroid (for the extraordinary wave) touching each other at opposite points of a common axis—touching at the north and south poles, if we may use a geographic analogy. But according to Malus's "corpuscular" theory of double refraction, the ray velocity was proportional to the reciprocal of that given by Huygens's theory, in which case the velocity law was of the form
where formula_28 and formula_29 were the ordinary and extraordinary ray velocities "according to the corpuscular theory", and formula_30 was the angle between the ray and the optic axis. By Malus's definition, the plane of polarization of a ray was the plane of the ray and the optic axis if the ray was ordinary, or the perpendicular plane (containing the ray) if the ray was extraordinary. In Fresnel's model, the direction of vibration was normal to the plane of polarization. Hence, for the sphere (the ordinary wave), the vibration was along the lines of latitude (continuing the geographic analogy); and for the spheroid (the extraordinary wave), the vibration was along the lines of longitude.
On 29 March 1819, Biot presented a memoir in which he proposed simple generalizations of Malus's rules for a crystal with "two" axes, and reported that both generalizations seemed to be confirmed by experiment. For the velocity law, the squared sine was replaced by the "product" of the sines of the angles from the ray to the two axes ("Biot's sine law"). And for the polarization of the ordinary ray, the plane of the ray and the axis was replaced by the plane bisecting the dihedral angle between the two planes each of which contained the ray and one axis ("Biot's dihedral law"). Biot's laws meant that a biaxial crystal with axes at a small angle, cleaved in the plane of those axes, behaved nearly like a uniaxial crystal at near-normal incidence; this was fortunate because gypsum, which had been used in chromatic-polarization experiments, is biaxial.
First memoir and supplements (1821–22).
Until Fresnel turned his attention to biaxial birefringence, it was assumed that one of the two refractions was ordinary, even in biaxial crystals. But, in a memoir submitted on 19 November 1821, Fresnel reported two experiments on topaz showing that "neither refraction" was ordinary in the sense of satisfying Snell's law; that is, neither ray was the product of spherical secondary waves.
The same memoir contained Fresnel's first attempt at the biaxial velocity law. For calcite, if we interchange the equatorial and polar radii of Huygens's oblate spheroid while preserving the polar direction, we obtain a "prolate" spheroid touching the sphere at the equator. A plane through the center/origin cuts this prolate spheroid in an ellipse whose major and minor semi-axes give the magnitudes of the extraordinary and ordinary ray velocities in the direction normal to the plane, and (said Fresnel) the directions of their respective vibrations. The direction of the optic axis is the normal to the plane for which the ellipse of intersection reduces to a "circle". So, for the biaxial case, Fresnel simply replaced the prolate spheroid with a triaxial ellipsoid, which was to be sectioned by a plane in the same way. In general there would be "two" planes passing through the center of the ellipsoid and cutting it in a circle, and the normals to these planes would give "two" optic axes. From the geometry, Fresnel deduced Biot's sine law (with the ray velocities replaced by their reciprocals).
The ellipsoid indeed gave the correct ray velocities (although the initial experimental verification was only approximate). But it did not give the correct directions of vibration, for the biaxial case or even for the uniaxial case, because the vibrations in Fresnel's model were tangential to the wavefront—which, for an extraordinary ray, is "not" generally normal to the ray. This error (which is small if, as in most cases, the birefringence is weak) was corrected in an "extract" that Fresnel read to the Académie a week later, on 26 November. Starting with Huygens's spheroid, Fresnel obtained a 4th-degree surface which, when sectioned by a plane as above, would yield the "wave-normal velocities" for a wavefront in that plane, together with their vibration directions. For the biaxial case, he generalized the equation to obtain a surface with three unequal principal dimensions; this he subsequently called the "surface of elasticity". But he retained the earlier ellipsoid as an approximation, from which he deduced Biot's dihedral law.
Fresnel's initial derivation of the surface of elasticity had been purely geometric, and not deductively rigorous. His first attempt at a "mechanical" derivation, contained in a "supplement" dated 13 January 1822, assumed that (i) there were three mutually perpendicular directions in which a displacement produced a reaction in the same direction, (ii) the reaction was otherwise a linear function of the displacement, and (iii) the radius of the surface in any direction was the square root of the component, "in that direction", of the reaction to a unit displacement in that direction. The last assumption recognized the requirement that if a wave was to maintain a fixed direction of propagation and a fixed direction of vibration, the reaction must not be outside the plane of those two directions.
In the same supplement, Fresnel considered how he might find, for the biaxial case, the secondary wavefront that expands from the origin in unit time—that is, the surface that reduces to Huygens's sphere and spheroid in the uniaxial case. He noted that this "wave surface" ("surface de l'onde") is tangential to all possible plane wavefronts that could have crossed the origin one unit of time ago, and he listed the mathematical conditions that it must satisfy. But he doubted the feasibility of deriving the surface "from" those conditions.
In a "second supplement", Fresnel eventually exploited two related facts: (i) the "wave surface" was also the ray-velocity surface, which could be obtained by sectioning the ellipsoid that he had initially mistaken for the surface of elasticity, and (ii) the "wave surface" intersected each plane of symmetry of the ellipsoid in two curves: a circle and an ellipse. Thus he found that the "wave surface" is described by the 4th-degree equation
where formula_32 and formula_33 are the propagation speeds in directions normal to the coordinate axes for vibrations along the axes (the ray and wave-normal speeds being the same in those special cases). Later commentators put the equation in the more compact and memorable form
Earlier in the "second supplement", Fresnel modeled the medium as an array of point-masses and found that the force-displacement relation was described by a symmetric matrix, confirming the existence of three mutually perpendicular axes on which the displacement produced a parallel force. Later in the document, he noted that in a biaxial crystal, unlike a uniaxial crystal, the directions in which there is only one wave-normal velocity are not the same as those in which there is only one ray velocity. Nowadays we refer to the former directions as the "optic" axes or "binormal" axes, and the latter as the "ray" axes or "biradial" axes .
Fresnel's "second supplement" was signed on 31 March 1822 and submitted the next day – less than a year after the publication of his pure-transverse-wave hypothesis, and just less than a year after the demonstration of his prototype eight-panel lighthouse lens .
Second memoir (1822–26).
Having presented the pieces of his theory in roughly the order of discovery, Fresnel needed to rearrange the material so as to emphasize the mechanical foundations; and he still needed a rigorous treatment of Biot's dihedral law. He attended to these matters in his "second memoir" on double refraction, published in the "Recueils" of the Académie des Sciences for 1824; this was not actually printed until late 1827, a few months after his death. In this work, having established the three perpendicular axes on which a displacement produces a parallel reaction, and thence constructed the surface of elasticity, he showed that Biot's dihedral law is exact provided that the binormals are taken as the optic axes, and the wave-normal direction as the direction of propagation.
As early as 1822, Fresnel discussed his perpendicular axes with Cauchy. Acknowledging Fresnel's influence, Cauchy went on to develop the first rigorous theory of elasticity of non-isotropic solids (1827), hence the first rigorous theory of transverse waves therein (1830) — which he promptly tried to apply to optics. The ensuing difficulties drove a long competitive effort to find an accurate mechanical model of the aether. Fresnel's own model was not dynamically rigorous; for example, it deduced the reaction to a shear strain by considering the displacement of one particle while all others were fixed, and it assumed that the stiffness determined the wave velocity as in a stretched string, whatever the direction of the wave-normal. But it was enough to enable the wave theory to do what selectionist theory could not: generate testable formulae covering a comprehensive range of optical phenomena, from "mechanical" assumptions.
Photoelasticity, multiple-prism experiments (1822).
In 1815, Brewster reported that colors appear when a slice of isotropic material, placed between crossed polarizers, is mechanically stressed. Brewster himself immediately and correctly attributed this phenomenon to stress-induced birefringence — now known as "photoelasticity".
In a memoir read in September 1822, Fresnel announced that he had verified Brewster's diagnosis more directly, by compressing a combination of glass prisms so severely that one could actually see a double image through it. In his experiment, Fresnel lined up seven 45°-90°-45° prisms, short side to short side, with their 90° angles pointing in alternating directions. Two half-prisms were added at the ends to make the whole assembly rectangular. The prisms were separated by thin films of turpentine ("térébenthine") to suppress internal reflections, allowing a clear line of sight along the row. When the four prisms with similar orientations were compressed in a vise across the line of sight, an object viewed through the assembly produced two images with perpendicular polarizations, with an apparent spacing of 1.5mm at one metre.
At the end of that memoir, Fresnel predicted that if the compressed prisms were replaced by (unstressed) monocrystalline quartz prisms with matching directions of optical rotation, and with their optic axes aligned along the row, an object seen by looking along the common optic axis would give two images, which would seem unpolarized when viewed through an analyzer but, when viewed through a Fresnel rhomb, would be polarized at ±45° to the plane of reflection of the rhomb (indicating that they were initially circularly polarized in opposite directions). This would show directly that optical rotation is a form of birefringence. In the memoir of December 1822, in which he introduced the term "circular polarization", he reported that he had confirmed this prediction using only one 14°-152°-14° prism and two glass half-prisms. But he obtained a wider separation of the images by replacing the glass half-prism with quartz half-prisms whose rotation was opposite to that of the 14°-152°-14° prism. He added in passing that one could further increase the separation by increasing the number of prisms.
Reception.
For the supplement to Riffault's translation of Thomson's "System of Chemistry", Fresnel was chosen to contribute the article on light. The resulting 137-page essay, titled "De la Lumière" ("On Light"), was apparently finished in June 1821 and published by February 1822. With sections covering the nature of light, diffraction, thin-film interference, reflection and refraction, double refraction and polarization, chromatic polarization, and modification of polarization by reflection, it made a comprehensive case for the wave theory to a readership that was not restricted to physicists.
To examine Fresnel's first memoir and supplements on double refraction, the Académie des Sciences appointed Ampère, Arago, Fourier, and Poisson. Their report, of which Arago was clearly the main author, was delivered at the meeting of 19 August 1822. Then, in the words of Émile Verdet, as translated by Ivor Grattan-Guinness:
Whether Laplace was announcing his conversion to the wave theory – at the age of 73 – is uncertain. Grattan-Guinness entertained the idea. Buchwald, noting that Arago failed to explain that the "ellipsoid of elasticity" did not give the correct planes of polarization, suggests that Laplace may have merely regarded Fresnel's theory as a successful generalization of Malus's ray-velocity law, embracing Biot's laws.
In the following year, Poisson, who did not sign Arago's report, disputed the possibility of transverse waves in the aether. Starting from assumed equations of motion of a fluid medium, he noted that they did not give the correct results for partial reflection and double refraction – as if that were Fresnel's problem rather than his own – and that the predicted waves, even if they were initially transverse, became more longitudinal as they propagated. In reply Fresnel noted, "inter alia", that the equations in which Poisson put so much faith did not even predict viscosity. The implication was clear: given that the behavior of light had not been satisfactorily explained except by transverse waves, it was not the responsibility of the wave-theorists to abandon transverse waves in deference to pre-conceived notions about the aether; rather, it was the responsibility of the aether modelers to produce a model that accommodated transverse waves. According to Robert H. Silliman, Poisson eventually accepted the wave theory shortly before his death in 1840.
Among the French, Poisson's reluctance was an exception. According to Eugene Frankel, "in Paris no debate on the issue seems to have taken place after 1825. Indeed, almost the entire generation of physicists and mathematicians who came to maturity in the 1820s – Pouillet, Savart, Lamé, Navier, Liouville, Cauchy – seem to have adopted the theory immediately." Fresnel's other prominent French opponent, Biot, appeared to take a neutral position in 1830, and eventually accepted the wave theory – possibly by 1846 and certainly by 1858.
In 1826, the British astronomer John Herschel, who was working on a book-length article on light for the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana", addressed three questions to Fresnel concerning double refraction, partial reflection, and their relation to polarization. The resulting article, titled simply "Light", was highly sympathetic to the wave theory, although not entirely free of selectionist language. It was circulating privately by 1828 and was published in 1830. Meanwhile, Young's translation of Fresnel's "De la Lumière" was published in installments from 1827 to 1829. George Biddell Airy, the former Lucasian Professor at Cambridge and future Astronomer Royal, unreservedly accepted the wave theory by 1831. In 1834, he famously calculated the diffraction pattern of a circular aperture from the wave theory, thereby explaining the limited angular resolution of a perfect telescope . By the end of the 1830s, the only prominent British physicist who held out against the wave theory was Brewster, whose objections included the difficulty of explaining photochemical effects and (in his opinion) dispersion.
A German translation of "De la Lumière" was published in installments in 1825 and 1828. The wave theory was adopted by Fraunhofer in the early 1820s and by Franz Ernst Neumann in the 1830s, and then began to find favor in German textbooks.
The economy of assumptions under the wave theory was emphasized by William Whewell in his "History of the Inductive Sciences", first published in 1837. In the corpuscular system, "every new class of facts requires a new supposition," whereas in the wave system, a hypothesis devised in order to explain one phenomenon is then found to explain or predict others. In the corpuscular system there is "no unexpected success, no happy coincidence, no convergence of principles from remote quarters"; but in the wave system, "all tends to unity and simplicity."
Hence, in 1850, when Foucault and Fizeau found by experiment that light travels more slowly in water than in air, in accordance with the wave explanation of refraction and contrary to the corpuscular explanation, the result came as no surprise.
Historical context: From Newton to Biot.
The appreciation of Fresnel's reconstruction of physical optics might be assisted by an overview of the fragmented state in which he found the subject. In this subsection, optical phenomena that were unexplained or whose explanations were disputed are named in bold type.
The corpuscular theory of light, favored by Isaac Newton and accepted by nearly all of Fresnel's seniors, easily explained rectilinear propagation: the corpuscles obviously moved very fast, so that their paths were very nearly straight. The wave theory, as developed by Christiaan Huygens in his "Treatise on Light" (1690), explained rectilinear propagation on the assumption that each point crossed by a traveling wavefront becomes the source of a secondary wavefront. Given the initial position of a traveling wavefront, any later position (according to Huygens) was the common tangent surface (envelope) of the secondary wavefronts emitted from the earlier position. As the extent of the common tangent was limited by the extent of the initial wavefront, the repeated application of Huygens's construction to a plane wavefront of limited extent (in a uniform medium) gave a straight, parallel beam. While this construction indeed predicted rectilinear propagation, it was difficult to reconcile with the common observation that wavefronts on the surface of water can bend around obstructions, and with the similar behavior of sound waves – causing Newton to maintain, to the end of his life, that if light consisted of waves it would "bend and spread every way" into the shadows.
Huygens's theory neatly explained the law of ordinary reflection and the law of ordinary refraction ("Snell's law"), provided that the secondary waves traveled slower in denser media (those of higher refractive index). The corpuscular theory, with the hypothesis that the corpuscles were subject to forces acting perpendicular to surfaces, explained the same laws equally well, albeit with the implication that light traveled "faster" in denser media; that implication was wrong, but could not be directly disproven with the technology of Newton's time or even Fresnel's time .
Similarly inconclusive was stellar aberration—that is, the apparent change in the position of a star due to the velocity of the earth across the line of sight (not to be confused with stellar parallax, which is due to the "displacement" of the earth across the line of sight). Identified by James Bradley in 1728, stellar aberration was widely taken as confirmation of the corpuscular theory. But it was equally compatible with the wave theory, as Euler noted in 1746 – tacitly assuming that the aether (the supposed wave-bearing medium) near the earth was not disturbed by the motion of the earth.
The outstanding strength of Huygens's theory was his explanation of the birefringence (double refraction) of "Iceland crystal" (transparent calcite), on the assumption that the secondary waves are spherical for the ordinary refraction (which satisfies Snell's law) and spheroidal for the "extraordinary" refraction (which does not). In general, Huygens's common-tangent construction implies that rays are "paths of least time" between successive positions of the wavefront, in accordance with Fermat's principle. In the special case of isotropic media, the secondary wavefronts must be spherical, and Huygens's construction then implies that the rays are perpendicular to the wavefront; indeed, the law of "ordinary" refraction can be separately derived from that premise, as Ignace-Gaston Pardies did before Huygens.
Although Newton rejected the wave theory, he noticed its potential to explain colors, including the colors of "thin plates" (e.g., "Newton's rings", and the colors of skylight reflected in soap bubbles), on the assumption that light consists of "periodic" waves, with the lowest frequencies (longest wavelengths) at the red end of the spectrum, and the highest frequencies (shortest wavelengths) at the violet end. In 1672 he published a heavy hint to that effect, but contemporary supporters of the wave theory failed to act on it: Robert Hooke treated light as a periodic sequence of pulses but did not use frequency as the criterion of color, while Huygens treated the waves as individual pulses without any periodicity; and Pardies died young in 1673. Newton himself tried to explain colors of thin plates using the corpuscular theory, by supposing that his corpuscles had the wavelike property of alternating between "fits of easy transmission" and "fits of easy reflection", the distance between like "fits" depending on the color and the medium and, awkwardly, on the angle of refraction or reflection into that medium. More awkwardly still, this theory required thin plates to reflect only at the back surface, although "thick" plates manifestly reflected also at the front surface. It was not until 1801 that Thomas Young, in the Bakerian Lecture for that year, cited Newton's hint, and accounted for the colors of a thin plate as the combined effect of the front and back reflections, which reinforce or cancel each other according to the "wavelength" and the thickness. Young similarly explained the colors of "striated surfaces" (e.g., gratings) as the wavelength-dependent reinforcement or cancellation of reflections from adjacent lines. He described this reinforcement or cancellation as interference.
Neither Newton nor Huygens satisfactorily explained diffraction—the blurring and fringing of shadows where, according to rectilinear propagation, they ought to be sharp. Newton, who called diffraction "inflexion", supposed that rays of light passing close to obstacles were bent ("inflected"); but his explanation was only qualitative. Huygens's common-tangent construction, without modifications, could not accommodate diffraction at all. Two such modifications were proposed by Young in the same 1801 Bakerian Lecture: first, that the secondary waves near the edge of an obstacle could diverge into the shadow, but only weakly, due to limited reinforcement from other secondary waves; and second, that diffraction by an edge was caused by interference between two rays: one reflected off the edge, and the other inflected while passing near the edge. The latter ray would be undeviated if sufficiently far from the edge, but Young did not elaborate on that case. These were the earliest suggestions that the degree of diffraction depends on wavelength. Later, in the 1803 Bakerian Lecture, Young ceased to regard inflection as a separate phenomenon, and produced evidence that diffraction fringes "inside" the shadow of a narrow obstacle were due to interference: when the light from one side was blocked, the internal fringes disappeared. But Young was alone in such efforts until Fresnel entered the field.
Huygens, in his investigation of double refraction, noticed something that he could not explain: when light passes through two similarly oriented calcite crystals at normal incidence, the ordinary ray emerging from the first crystal suffers only the ordinary refraction in the second, while the extraordinary ray emerging from the first suffers only the extraordinary refraction in the second; but when the second crystal is rotated 90° about the incident rays, the roles are interchanged, so that the ordinary ray emerging from the first crystal suffers only the extraordinary refraction in the second, and vice versa. This discovery gave Newton another reason to reject the wave theory: rays of light evidently had "sides". Corpuscles could have sides (or "poles", as they would later be called); but waves of light could not, because (so it seemed) any such waves would need to be longitudinal (with vibrations in the direction of propagation). Newton offered an alternative "Rule" for the extraordinary refraction, which rode on his authority through the 18th century, although he made "no known attempt to deduce it from any principles of optics, corpuscular or otherwise."
In 1808, the extraordinary refraction of calcite was investigated experimentally, with unprecedented accuracy, by Étienne-Louis Malus, and found to be consistent with Huygens's spheroid construction, not Newton's "Rule". Malus, encouraged by Pierre-Simon Laplace, then sought to explain this law in corpuscular terms: from the known relation between the incident and refracted ray directions, Malus derived the corpuscular velocity (as a function of direction) that would satisfy Maupertuis's "least action" principle. But, as Young pointed out, the existence of such a velocity law was guaranteed by Huygens's spheroid, because Huygens's construction leads to Fermat's principle, which becomes Maupertuis's principle if the ray speed is replaced by the reciprocal of the particle speed! The corpuscularists had not found a "force" law that would yield the alleged velocity law, except by a circular argument in which a force acting at the "surface" of the crystal inexplicably depended on the direction of the (possibly subsequent) velocity "within" the crystal. Worse, it was doubtful that any such force would satisfy the conditions of Maupertuis's principle. In contrast, Young proceeded to show that "a medium more easily compressible in one direction than in any direction perpendicular to it, as if it consisted of an infinite number of parallel plates connected by a substance somewhat less elastic" admits spheroidal longitudinal wavefronts, as Huygens supposed.
But Malus, in the midst of his experiments on double refraction, noticed something else: when a ray of light is reflected off a non-metallic surface at the appropriate angle, it behaves like "one" of the two rays emerging from a calcite crystal. It was Malus who coined the term polarization to describe this behavior, although the polarizing angle became known as Brewster's angle after its dependence on the refractive index was determined experimentally by David Brewster in 1815. Malus also introduced the term "plane of polarization". In the case of polarization by reflection, his "plane of polarization" was the plane of the incident and reflected rays; in modern terms, this is the plane "normal" to the "electric" vibration. In 1809, Malus further discovered that the intensity of light passing through "two" polarizers is proportional to the squared cosine of the angle between their planes of polarization (Malus's law), whether the polarizers work by reflection or double refraction, and that "all" birefringent crystals produce both extraordinary refraction and polarization. As the corpuscularists started trying to explain these things in terms of polar "molecules" of light, the wave-theorists had "no working hypothesis" on the nature of polarization, prompting Young to remark that Malus's observations "present greater difficulties to the advocates of the undulatory theory than any other facts with which we are acquainted."
Malus died in February 1812, at the age of 36, shortly after receiving the Rumford Medal for his work on polarization.
In August 1811, François Arago reported that if a thin plate of mica was viewed against a white polarized backlight through a calcite crystal, the two images of the mica were of complementary colors (the overlap having the same color as the background). The light emerging from the mica was ""de"polarized" in the sense that there was no orientation of the calcite that made one image disappear; yet it was not ordinary (""un"polarized") light, for which the two images would be of the same color. Rotating the calcite around the line of sight changed the colors, though they remained complementary. Rotating the mica changed the "saturation" (not the hue) of the colors. This phenomenon became known as chromatic polarization. Replacing the mica with a much thicker plate of quartz, with its faces perpendicular to the optic axis (the axis of Huygens's spheroid or Malus's velocity function), produced a similar effect, except that rotating the quartz made no difference. Arago tried to explain his observations in "corpuscular" terms.
In 1812, as Arago pursued further qualitative experiments and other commitments, Jean-Baptiste Biot reworked the same ground using a gypsum lamina in place of the mica, and found empirical formulae for the intensities of the ordinary and extraordinary images. The formulae contained two coefficients, supposedly representing colors of rays "affected" and "unaffected" by the plate – the "affected" rays being of the same color mix as those reflected by amorphous thin plates of proportional, but lesser, thickness.
Arago protested, declaring that he had made some of the same discoveries but had not had time to write them up. In fact the overlap between Arago's work and Biot's was minimal, Arago's being only qualitative and wider in scope (attempting to include polarization by reflection). But the dispute triggered a notorious falling-out between the two men.
Later that year, Biot tried to explain the observations as an oscillation of the alignment of the "affected" corpuscles at a frequency proportional to that of Newton's "fits", due to forces depending on the alignment. This theory became known as "mobile polarization". To reconcile his results with a sinusoidal oscillation, Biot had to suppose that the corpuscles emerged with one of two permitted orientations, namely the extremes of the oscillation, with probabilities depending on the phase of the oscillation. Corpuscular optics was becoming expensive on assumptions. But in 1813, Biot reported that the case of quartz was simpler: the observable phenomenon (now called optical rotation or "optical activity" or sometimes "rotary polarization") was a gradual rotation of the polarization direction with distance, and could be explained by a corresponding rotation ("not" oscillation) of the corpuscles.
Early in 1814, reviewing Biot's work on chromatic polarization, Young noted that the periodicity of the color as a function of the plate thickness – including the factor by which the period exceeded that for a reflective thin plate, and even the effect of obliquity of the plate (but not the role of polarization)—could be explained by the wave theory in terms of the different propagation times of the ordinary and extraordinary waves through the plate. But Young was then the only public defender of the wave theory.
In summary, in the spring of 1814, as Fresnel tried in vain to guess what polarization was, the corpuscularists thought that they knew, while the wave-theorists (if we may use the plural) literally had no idea. Both theories claimed to explain rectilinear propagation, but the wave explanation was overwhelmingly regarded as unconvincing. The corpuscular theory could not rigorously link double refraction to surface forces; the wave theory could not yet link it to polarization. The corpuscular theory was weak on thin plates and silent on gratings; the wave theory was strong on both, but under-appreciated. Concerning diffraction, the corpuscular theory did not yield quantitative predictions, while the wave theory had begun to do so by considering diffraction as a manifestation of interference, but had only considered two rays at a time. Only the corpuscular theory gave even a vague insight into Brewster's angle, Malus's law, or optical rotation. Concerning chromatic polarization, the wave theory explained the periodicity far better than the corpuscular theory, but had nothing to say about the role of polarization; and its explanation of the periodicity was largely ignored. And Arago had founded the study of chromatic polarization, only to lose the lead, controversially, to Biot. Such were the circumstances in which Arago first heard of Fresnel's interest in optics.
Rêveries.
Fresnel's letters from later in 1814 reveal his interest in the wave theory, including his awareness that it explained the constancy of the speed of light and was at least compatible with stellar aberration. Eventually he compiled what he called his "rêveries" (musings) into an essay and submitted it via Léonor Mérimée to André-Marie Ampère, who did not respond directly. But on 19 December, Mérimée dined with Ampère and Arago, with whom he was acquainted through the École Polytechnique; and Arago promised to look at Fresnel's essay.
In mid 1815, on his way home to Mathieu to serve his suspension, Fresnel met Arago in Paris and spoke of the wave theory and stellar aberration. He was informed that he was trying to break down open doors ("il enfonçait des portes ouvertes"), and directed to classical works on optics.
Diffraction.
First attempt (1815).
On 12 July 1815, as Fresnel was about to leave Paris, Arago left him a note on a new topic:
Fresnel would not have ready access to these works outside Paris, and could not read English. But, in Mathieu – with a point-source of light made by focusing sunlight with a drop of honey, a crude micrometer of his own construction, and supporting apparatus made by a local locksmith – he began his own experiments. His technique was novel: whereas earlier investigators had projected the fringes onto a screen, Fresnel soon abandoned the screen and observed the fringes in space, through a lens with the micrometer at its focus, allowing more accurate measurements while requiring less light.
Later in July, after Napoleon's final defeat, Fresnel was reinstated with the advantage of having backed the winning side. He requested a two-month leave of absence, which was readily granted because roadworks were in abeyance.
On 23 September he wrote to Arago, beginning "I think I have found the explanation and the law of colored fringes which one notices in the shadows of bodies illuminated by a luminous point." In the same paragraph, however, Fresnel implicitly acknowledged doubt about the novelty of his work: noting that he would need to incur some expense in order to improve his measurements, he wanted to know "whether this is not useless, and whether the law of diffraction has not already been established by sufficiently exact experiments." He explained that he had not yet had a chance to acquire the items on his reading lists, with the apparent exception of "Young's book", which he could not understand without his brother's help. Not surprisingly, he had retraced many of Young's steps.
In a memoir sent to the institute on 15 October 1815, Fresnel mapped the external and internal fringes in the shadow of a wire. He noticed, like Young before him, that the internal fringes disappeared when the light from one side was blocked, and concluded that "the vibrations of two rays that cross each other under a very small angle can contradict each other…" But, whereas Young took the disappearance of the internal fringes as "confirmation" of the principle of interference, Fresnel reported that it was the internal fringes that first drew his attention to the principle. To explain the diffraction pattern, Fresnel constructed the internal fringes by considering the intersections of circular wavefronts emitted from the two edges of the obstruction, and the external fringes by considering the intersections between direct waves and waves reflected off the nearer edge. For the external fringes, to obtain tolerable agreement with observation, he had to suppose that the reflected wave was inverted; and he noted that the predicted paths of the fringes were hyperbolic. In the part of the memoir that most clearly surpassed Young, Fresnel explained the ordinary laws of reflection and refraction in terms of interference, noting that if two parallel rays were reflected or refracted at other than the prescribed angle, they would no longer have the same phase in a common perpendicular plane, and every vibration would be cancelled by a nearby vibration. He noted that his explanation was valid provided that the surface irregularities were much smaller than the wavelength.
On 10 November, Fresnel sent a supplementary note dealing with Newton's rings and with gratings, including, for the first time, "transmission" gratings – although in that case the interfering rays were still assumed to be "inflected", and the experimental verification was inadequate because it used only two threads.
As Fresnel was not a member of the institute, the fate of his memoir depended heavily on the report of a single member. The reporter for Fresnel's memoir turned out to be Arago (with Poinsot as the other reviewer). On 8 November, Arago wrote to Fresnel:
Fresnel was troubled, wanting to know more precisely where he had collided with Young. Concerning the curved paths of the "colored bands", Young had noted the hyperbolic paths of the fringes in the two-source interference pattern, corresponding roughly to Fresnel's "internal" fringes, and had described the hyperbolic fringes that appear "on the screen" within rectangular shadows. He had not mentioned the curved paths of the "external" fringes of a shadow; but, as he later explained, that was because Newton had already done so. Newton evidently thought the fringes were "caustics". Thus Arago erred in his belief that the curved paths of the fringes were fundamentally incompatible with the corpuscular theory.
Arago's letter went on to request more data on the external fringes. Fresnel complied, until he exhausted his leave and was assigned to Rennes in the département of Ille-et-Vilaine. At this point Arago interceded with Gaspard de Prony, head of the École des Ponts, who wrote to Louis-Mathieu Molé, head of the Corps des Ponts, suggesting that the progress of science and the prestige of the Corps would be enhanced if Fresnel could come to Paris for a time. He arrived in March 1816, and his leave was subsequently extended through the middle of the year.
Meanwhile, in an experiment reported on 26 February 1816, Arago verified Fresnel's prediction that the internal fringes were shifted if the rays on one side of the obstacle passed through a thin glass lamina. Fresnel correctly attributed this phenomenon to the lower wave velocity in the glass. Arago later used a similar argument to explain the colors in the scintillation of stars.
Fresnel's updated memoir was eventually published in the March 1816 issue of "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", of which Arago had recently become co-editor. That issue did not actually appear until May. In March, Fresnel already had competition: Biot read a memoir on diffraction by himself and his student Claude Pouillet, containing copious data and arguing that the regularity of diffraction fringes, like the regularity of Newton's rings, must be linked to Newton's "fits". But the new link was not rigorous, and Pouillet himself would become a distinguished early adopter of the wave theory.
"Efficacious ray", double-mirror experiment (1816).
On 24 May 1816, Fresnel wrote to Young (in French), acknowledging how little of his own memoir was new. But in a "supplement" signed on 14 July and read the next day, Fresnel noted that the internal fringes were more accurately predicted by supposing that the two interfering rays came from some distance "outside" the edges of the obstacle. To explain this, he divided the incident wavefront at the obstacle into what we now call "Fresnel zones", such that the secondary waves from each zone were spread over half a cycle when they arrived at the observation point. The zones on one side of the obstacle largely canceled out in pairs, except the first zone, which was represented by an "efficacious ray". This approach worked for the internal fringes, but the superposition of the efficacious ray and the direct ray did "not" work for the "external" fringes.
The contribution from the "efficacious ray" was thought to be only "partly" canceled, for reasons involving the dynamics of the medium: where the wavefront was continuous, symmetry forbade oblique vibrations; but near the obstacle that truncated the wavefront, the asymmetry allowed some sideways vibration towards the geometric shadow. This argument showed that Fresnel had not (yet) fully accepted Huygens's principle, which would have permitted oblique radiation from all portions of the front.
In the same supplement, Fresnel described his well-known double mirror, comprising two flat mirrors joined at an angle of slightly less than 180°, with which he produced a two-slit interference pattern from two virtual images of the same slit. A conventional double-slit experiment required a preliminary "single" slit to ensure that the light falling on the double slit was "coherent" (synchronized). In Fresnel's version, the preliminary single slit was retained, and the double slit was replaced by the double mirror – which bore no physical resemblance to the double slit and yet performed the same function. This result (which had been announced by Arago in the March issue of the "Annales") made it hard to believe that the two-slit pattern had anything to do with corpuscles being deflected as they passed near the edges of the slits.
But 1816 was the "Year Without a Summer": crops failed; hungry farming families lined the streets of Rennes; the central government organized "charity workhouses" for the needy; and in October, Fresnel was sent back to Ille-et-Vilaine to supervise charity workers in addition to his regular road crew. According to Arago,
Fresnel's letters from December 1816 reveal his consequent anxiety. To Arago he complained of being "tormented by the worries of surveillance, and the need to reprimand…" And to Mérimée he wrote: "I find nothing more tiresome than having to manage other men, and I admit that I have no idea what I'm doing."
Prize memoir (1818) and sequel.
On 17 March 1817, the Académie des Sciences announced that diffraction would be the topic for the biannual physics "Grand Prix" to be awarded in 1819. The deadline for entries was set at 1 August 1818 to allow time for replication of experiments. Although the wording of the problem referred to rays and inflection and did not invite wave-based solutions, Arago and Ampère encouraged Fresnel to enter.
In the fall of 1817, Fresnel, supported by de Prony, obtained a leave of absence from the new head of the Corp des Ponts, Louis Becquey, and returned to Paris. He resumed his engineering duties in the spring of 1818; but from then on he was based in Paris, first on the Canal de l'Ourcq, and then (from May 1819) with the cadastre of the pavements.
On 15 January 1818, in a different context (revisited below), Fresnel showed that the addition of sinusoidal functions of the same frequency but different phases is analogous to the addition of forces with different directions. His method was similar to the phasor representation, except that the "forces" were plane vectors rather than complex numbers; they could be added, and multiplied by scalars, but not (yet) multiplied and divided by each other. The explanation was algebraic rather than geometric.
Knowledge of this method was assumed in a preliminary note on diffraction, dated 19 April 1818 and deposited on 20 April, in which Fresnel outlined the elementary theory of diffraction as found in modern textbooks. He restated Huygens's principle in combination with the superposition principle, saying that the vibration at each point on a wavefront is the sum of the vibrations that would be sent to it at that moment by all the elements of the wavefront in any of its previous positions, all elements acting separately . For a wavefront partly obstructed in a previous position, the summation was to be carried out over the unobstructed portion. In directions other than the normal to the primary wavefront, the secondary waves were weakened due to obliquity, but weakened much more by destructive interference, so that the effect of obliquity alone could be ignored. For diffraction by a straight edge, the intensity as a function of distance from the geometric shadow could then be expressed with sufficient accuracy in terms of what are now called the normalized Fresnel integrals:
The same note included a table of the integrals, for an upper limit ranging from 0 to 5.1 in steps of 0.1, computed with a mean error of 0.0003, plus a smaller table of maxima and minima of the resulting intensity.
In his final "Memoir on the diffraction of light", deposited on 29 July and bearing the Latin epigraph "Natura simplex et fecunda" ("Nature simple and fertile"), Fresnel slightly expanded the two tables without changing the existing figures, except for a correction to the first minimum of intensity. For completeness, he repeated his solution to "the problem of interference", whereby sinusoidal functions are added like vectors. He acknowledged the directionality of the secondary sources and the variation in their distances from the observation point, chiefly to explain why these things make negligible difference in the context, provided of course that the secondary sources do not radiate in the retrograde direction. Then, applying his theory of interference to the secondary waves, he expressed the intensity of light diffracted by a single straight edge (half-plane) in terms of integrals which involved the dimensions of the problem, but which could be converted to the normalized forms above. With reference to the integrals, he explained the calculation of the maxima and minima of the intensity (external fringes), and noted that the calculated intensity falls very rapidly as one moves into the geometric shadow. The last result, as Olivier Darrigol says, "amounts to a proof of the rectilinear propagation of light in the wave theory, indeed the first proof that a modern physicist would still accept."
For the experimental testing of his calculations, Fresnel used red light with a wavelength of 638nm, which he deduced from the diffraction pattern in the simple case in which light incident on a single slit was focused by a cylindrical lens. For a variety of distances from the source to the obstacle and from the obstacle to the field point, he compared the calculated and observed positions of the fringes for diffraction by a half-plane, a slit, and a narrow strip – concentrating on the minima, which were visually sharper than the maxima. For the slit and the strip, he could not use the previously computed table of maxima and minima; for each combination of dimensions, the intensity had to be expressed in terms of sums or differences of Fresnel integrals and calculated from the table of integrals, and the extrema had to be calculated anew. The agreement between calculation and measurement was better than 1.5% in almost every case.
Near the end of the memoir, Fresnel summed up the difference between Huygens's use of secondary waves and his own: whereas Huygens says there is light only where the secondary waves exactly agree, Fresnel says there is complete darkness only where the secondary waves exactly cancel out.
The judging committee comprised Laplace, Biot, and Poisson (all corpuscularists), Gay-Lussac (uncommitted), and Arago, who eventually wrote the committee's report. Although entries in the competition were supposed to be anonymous to the judges, Fresnel's must have been recognizable by the content. There was only one other entry, of which neither the manuscript nor any record of the author has survived. That entry (identified as "no.1") was mentioned only in the last paragraph of the judges' report, noting that the author had shown ignorance of the relevant earlier works of Young and Fresnel, used insufficiently precise methods of observation, overlooked known phenomena, and made obvious errors. In the words of John Worrall, "The competition facing Fresnel could hardly have been less stiff." We may infer that the committee had only two options: award the prize to Fresnel ("no. 2"), or withhold it.
The committee deliberated into the new year. Then Poisson, exploiting a case in which Fresnel's theory gave easy integrals, predicted that if a circular obstacle were illuminated by a point-source, there should be (according to the theory) a bright spot in the center of the shadow, illuminated as brightly as the exterior. This seems to have been intended as a "reductio ad absurdum". Arago, undeterred, assembled an experiment with an obstacle 2mm in diameter – and there, in the center of the shadow, was Poisson's spot.
The unanimous report of the committee, read at the meeting of the Académie on 15 March 1819, awarded the prize to "the memoir marked no. 2, and bearing as epigraph: "Natura simplex et fecunda"." At the same meeting, after the judgment was delivered, the president of the Académie opened a sealed note accompanying the memoir, revealing the author as Fresnel. The award was announced at the public meeting of the Académie a week later, on 22 March.
Arago's verification of Poisson's counter-intuitive prediction passed into folklore as if it had decided the prize. That view, however, is not supported by the judges' report, which gave the matter only two sentences in the penultimate paragraph. Neither did Fresnel's triumph immediately convert Laplace, Biot, and Poisson to the wave theory, for at least four reasons. First, although the professionalization of science in France had established common standards, it was one thing to acknowledge a piece of research as meeting those standards, and another thing to regard it as conclusive. Second, it was possible to interpret Fresnel's integrals as rules for combining "rays". Arago even encouraged that interpretation, presumably in order to minimize resistance to Fresnel's ideas. Even Biot began teaching the Huygens-Fresnel principle without committing himself to a wave basis. Third, Fresnel's theory did not adequately explain the mechanism of generation of secondary waves or why they had any significant angular spread; this issue particularly bothered Poisson. Fourth, the question that most exercised optical physicists at that time was not diffraction, but polarization – on which Fresnel had been working, but was yet to make his critical breakthrough.
First attempt (1815).
On 12 July 1815, as Fresnel was about to leave Paris, Arago left him a note on a new topic:
Fresnel would not have ready access to these works outside Paris, and could not read English. But, in Mathieu – with a point-source of light made by focusing sunlight with a drop of honey, a crude micrometer of his own construction, and supporting apparatus made by a local locksmith – he began his own experiments. His technique was novel: whereas earlier investigators had projected the fringes onto a screen, Fresnel soon abandoned the screen and observed the fringes in space, through a lens with the micrometer at its focus, allowing more accurate measurements while requiring less light.
Later in July, after Napoleon's final defeat, Fresnel was reinstated with the advantage of having backed the winning side. He requested a two-month leave of absence, which was readily granted because roadworks were in abeyance.
On 23 September he wrote to Arago, beginning "I think I have found the explanation and the law of colored fringes which one notices in the shadows of bodies illuminated by a luminous point." In the same paragraph, however, Fresnel implicitly acknowledged doubt about the novelty of his work: noting that he would need to incur some expense in order to improve his measurements, he wanted to know "whether this is not useless, and whether the law of diffraction has not already been established by sufficiently exact experiments." He explained that he had not yet had a chance to acquire the items on his reading lists, with the apparent exception of "Young's book", which he could not understand without his brother's help. Not surprisingly, he had retraced many of Young's steps.
In a memoir sent to the institute on 15 October 1815, Fresnel mapped the external and internal fringes in the shadow of a wire. He noticed, like Young before him, that the internal fringes disappeared when the light from one side was blocked, and concluded that "the vibrations of two rays that cross each other under a very small angle can contradict each other…" But, whereas Young took the disappearance of the internal fringes as "confirmation" of the principle of interference, Fresnel reported that it was the internal fringes that first drew his attention to the principle. To explain the diffraction pattern, Fresnel constructed the internal fringes by considering the intersections of circular wavefronts emitted from the two edges of the obstruction, and the external fringes by considering the intersections between direct waves and waves reflected off the nearer edge. For the external fringes, to obtain tolerable agreement with observation, he had to suppose that the reflected wave was inverted; and he noted that the predicted paths of the fringes were hyperbolic. In the part of the memoir that most clearly surpassed Young, Fresnel explained the ordinary laws of reflection and refraction in terms of interference, noting that if two parallel rays were reflected or refracted at other than the prescribed angle, they would no longer have the same phase in a common perpendicular plane, and every vibration would be cancelled by a nearby vibration. He noted that his explanation was valid provided that the surface irregularities were much smaller than the wavelength.
On 10 November, Fresnel sent a supplementary note dealing with Newton's rings and with gratings, including, for the first time, "transmission" gratings – although in that case the interfering rays were still assumed to be "inflected", and the experimental verification was inadequate because it used only two threads.
As Fresnel was not a member of the institute, the fate of his memoir depended heavily on the report of a single member. The reporter for Fresnel's memoir turned out to be Arago (with Poinsot as the other reviewer). On 8 November, Arago wrote to Fresnel:
Fresnel was troubled, wanting to know more precisely where he had collided with Young. Concerning the curved paths of the "colored bands", Young had noted the hyperbolic paths of the fringes in the two-source interference pattern, corresponding roughly to Fresnel's "internal" fringes, and had described the hyperbolic fringes that appear "on the screen" within rectangular shadows. He had not mentioned the curved paths of the "external" fringes of a shadow; but, as he later explained, that was because Newton had already done so. Newton evidently thought the fringes were "caustics". Thus Arago erred in his belief that the curved paths of the fringes were fundamentally incompatible with the corpuscular theory.
Arago's letter went on to request more data on the external fringes. Fresnel complied, until he exhausted his leave and was assigned to Rennes in the département of Ille-et-Vilaine. At this point Arago interceded with Gaspard de Prony, head of the École des Ponts, who wrote to Louis-Mathieu Molé, head of the Corps des Ponts, suggesting that the progress of science and the prestige of the Corps would be enhanced if Fresnel could come to Paris for a time. He arrived in March 1816, and his leave was subsequently extended through the middle of the year.
Meanwhile, in an experiment reported on 26 February 1816, Arago verified Fresnel's prediction that the internal fringes were shifted if the rays on one side of the obstacle passed through a thin glass lamina. Fresnel correctly attributed this phenomenon to the lower wave velocity in the glass. Arago later used a similar argument to explain the colors in the scintillation of stars.
Fresnel's updated memoir was eventually published in the March 1816 issue of "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", of which Arago had recently become co-editor. That issue did not actually appear until May. In March, Fresnel already had competition: Biot read a memoir on diffraction by himself and his student Claude Pouillet, containing copious data and arguing that the regularity of diffraction fringes, like the regularity of Newton's rings, must be linked to Newton's "fits". But the new link was not rigorous, and Pouillet himself would become a distinguished early adopter of the wave theory.
"Efficacious ray", double-mirror experiment (1816).
On 24 May 1816, Fresnel wrote to Young (in French), acknowledging how little of his own memoir was new. But in a "supplement" signed on 14 July and read the next day, Fresnel noted that the internal fringes were more accurately predicted by supposing that the two interfering rays came from some distance "outside" the edges of the obstacle. To explain this, he divided the incident wavefront at the obstacle into what we now call "Fresnel zones", such that the secondary waves from each zone were spread over half a cycle when they arrived at the observation point. The zones on one side of the obstacle largely canceled out in pairs, except the first zone, which was represented by an "efficacious ray". This approach worked for the internal fringes, but the superposition of the efficacious ray and the direct ray did "not" work for the "external" fringes.
The contribution from the "efficacious ray" was thought to be only "partly" canceled, for reasons involving the dynamics of the medium: where the wavefront was continuous, symmetry forbade oblique vibrations; but near the obstacle that truncated the wavefront, the asymmetry allowed some sideways vibration towards the geometric shadow. This argument showed that Fresnel had not (yet) fully accepted Huygens's principle, which would have permitted oblique radiation from all portions of the front.
In the same supplement, Fresnel described his well-known double mirror, comprising two flat mirrors joined at an angle of slightly less than 180°, with which he produced a two-slit interference pattern from two virtual images of the same slit. A conventional double-slit experiment required a preliminary "single" slit to ensure that the light falling on the double slit was "coherent" (synchronized). In Fresnel's version, the preliminary single slit was retained, and the double slit was replaced by the double mirror – which bore no physical resemblance to the double slit and yet performed the same function. This result (which had been announced by Arago in the March issue of the "Annales") made it hard to believe that the two-slit pattern had anything to do with corpuscles being deflected as they passed near the edges of the slits.
But 1816 was the "Year Without a Summer": crops failed; hungry farming families lined the streets of Rennes; the central government organized "charity workhouses" for the needy; and in October, Fresnel was sent back to Ille-et-Vilaine to supervise charity workers in addition to his regular road crew. According to Arago,
Fresnel's letters from December 1816 reveal his consequent anxiety. To Arago he complained of being "tormented by the worries of surveillance, and the need to reprimand…" And to Mérimée he wrote: "I find nothing more tiresome than having to manage other men, and I admit that I have no idea what I'm doing."
Prize memoir (1818) and sequel.
On 17 March 1817, the Académie des Sciences announced that diffraction would be the topic for the biannual physics "Grand Prix" to be awarded in 1819. The deadline for entries was set at 1 August 1818 to allow time for replication of experiments. Although the wording of the problem referred to rays and inflection and did not invite wave-based solutions, Arago and Ampère encouraged Fresnel to enter.
In the fall of 1817, Fresnel, supported by de Prony, obtained a leave of absence from the new head of the Corp des Ponts, Louis Becquey, and returned to Paris. He resumed his engineering duties in the spring of 1818; but from then on he was based in Paris, first on the Canal de l'Ourcq, and then (from May 1819) with the cadastre of the pavements.
On 15 January 1818, in a different context (revisited below), Fresnel showed that the addition of sinusoidal functions of the same frequency but different phases is analogous to the addition of forces with different directions. His method was similar to the phasor representation, except that the "forces" were plane vectors rather than complex numbers; they could be added, and multiplied by scalars, but not (yet) multiplied and divided by each other. The explanation was algebraic rather than geometric.
Knowledge of this method was assumed in a preliminary note on diffraction, dated 19 April 1818 and deposited on 20 April, in which Fresnel outlined the elementary theory of diffraction as found in modern textbooks. He restated Huygens's principle in combination with the superposition principle, saying that the vibration at each point on a wavefront is the sum of the vibrations that would be sent to it at that moment by all the elements of the wavefront in any of its previous positions, all elements acting separately . For a wavefront partly obstructed in a previous position, the summation was to be carried out over the unobstructed portion. In directions other than the normal to the primary wavefront, the secondary waves were weakened due to obliquity, but weakened much more by destructive interference, so that the effect of obliquity alone could be ignored. For diffraction by a straight edge, the intensity as a function of distance from the geometric shadow could then be expressed with sufficient accuracy in terms of what are now called the normalized Fresnel integrals:
The same note included a table of the integrals, for an upper limit ranging from 0 to 5.1 in steps of 0.1, computed with a mean error of 0.0003, plus a smaller table of maxima and minima of the resulting intensity.
In his final "Memoir on the diffraction of light", deposited on 29 July and bearing the Latin epigraph "Natura simplex et fecunda" ("Nature simple and fertile"), Fresnel slightly expanded the two tables without changing the existing figures, except for a correction to the first minimum of intensity. For completeness, he repeated his solution to "the problem of interference", whereby sinusoidal functions are added like vectors. He acknowledged the directionality of the secondary sources and the variation in their distances from the observation point, chiefly to explain why these things make negligible difference in the context, provided of course that the secondary sources do not radiate in the retrograde direction. Then, applying his theory of interference to the secondary waves, he expressed the intensity of light diffracted by a single straight edge (half-plane) in terms of integrals which involved the dimensions of the problem, but which could be converted to the normalized forms above. With reference to the integrals, he explained the calculation of the maxima and minima of the intensity (external fringes), and noted that the calculated intensity falls very rapidly as one moves into the geometric shadow. The last result, as Olivier Darrigol says, "amounts to a proof of the rectilinear propagation of light in the wave theory, indeed the first proof that a modern physicist would still accept."
For the experimental testing of his calculations, Fresnel used red light with a wavelength of 638nm, which he deduced from the diffraction pattern in the simple case in which light incident on a single slit was focused by a cylindrical lens. For a variety of distances from the source to the obstacle and from the obstacle to the field point, he compared the calculated and observed positions of the fringes for diffraction by a half-plane, a slit, and a narrow strip – concentrating on the minima, which were visually sharper than the maxima. For the slit and the strip, he could not use the previously computed table of maxima and minima; for each combination of dimensions, the intensity had to be expressed in terms of sums or differences of Fresnel integrals and calculated from the table of integrals, and the extrema had to be calculated anew. The agreement between calculation and measurement was better than 1.5% in almost every case.
Near the end of the memoir, Fresnel summed up the difference between Huygens's use of secondary waves and his own: whereas Huygens says there is light only where the secondary waves exactly agree, Fresnel says there is complete darkness only where the secondary waves exactly cancel out.
The judging committee comprised Laplace, Biot, and Poisson (all corpuscularists), Gay-Lussac (uncommitted), and Arago, who eventually wrote the committee's report. Although entries in the competition were supposed to be anonymous to the judges, Fresnel's must have been recognizable by the content. There was only one other entry, of which neither the manuscript nor any record of the author has survived. That entry (identified as "no.1") was mentioned only in the last paragraph of the judges' report, noting that the author had shown ignorance of the relevant earlier works of Young and Fresnel, used insufficiently precise methods of observation, overlooked known phenomena, and made obvious errors. In the words of John Worrall, "The competition facing Fresnel could hardly have been less stiff." We may infer that the committee had only two options: award the prize to Fresnel ("no. 2"), or withhold it.
The committee deliberated into the new year. Then Poisson, exploiting a case in which Fresnel's theory gave easy integrals, predicted that if a circular obstacle were illuminated by a point-source, there should be (according to the theory) a bright spot in the center of the shadow, illuminated as brightly as the exterior. This seems to have been intended as a "reductio ad absurdum". Arago, undeterred, assembled an experiment with an obstacle 2mm in diameter – and there, in the center of the shadow, was Poisson's spot.
The unanimous report of the committee, read at the meeting of the Académie on 15 March 1819, awarded the prize to "the memoir marked no. 2, and bearing as epigraph: "Natura simplex et fecunda"." At the same meeting, after the judgment was delivered, the president of the Académie opened a sealed note accompanying the memoir, revealing the author as Fresnel. The award was announced at the public meeting of the Académie a week later, on 22 March.
Arago's verification of Poisson's counter-intuitive prediction passed into folklore as if it had decided the prize. That view, however, is not supported by the judges' report, which gave the matter only two sentences in the penultimate paragraph. Neither did Fresnel's triumph immediately convert Laplace, Biot, and Poisson to the wave theory, for at least four reasons. First, although the professionalization of science in France had established common standards, it was one thing to acknowledge a piece of research as meeting those standards, and another thing to regard it as conclusive. Second, it was possible to interpret Fresnel's integrals as rules for combining "rays". Arago even encouraged that interpretation, presumably in order to minimize resistance to Fresnel's ideas. Even Biot began teaching the Huygens-Fresnel principle without committing himself to a wave basis. Third, Fresnel's theory did not adequately explain the mechanism of generation of secondary waves or why they had any significant angular spread; this issue particularly bothered Poisson. Fourth, the question that most exercised optical physicists at that time was not diffraction, but polarization – on which Fresnel had been working, but was yet to make his critical breakthrough.
Polarization.
Background: Emissionism and selectionism.
An "emission" theory of light was one that regarded the propagation of light as the transport of some kind of matter. While the corpuscular theory was obviously an emission theory, the converse did not follow: in principle, one could be an emissionist without being a corpuscularist. This was convenient because, beyond the ordinary laws of reflection and refraction, emissionists never managed to make testable quantitative predictions from a theory of forces acting on corpuscles of light. But they "did" make quantitative predictions from the premises that rays were countable objects, which were conserved in their interactions with matter (except absorbent media), and which had particular orientations with respect to their directions of propagation. According to this framework, polarization and the related phenomena of double refraction and partial reflection involved altering the orientations of the rays and/or selecting them according to orientation, and the state of polarization of a beam (a bundle of rays) was a question of how many rays were in what orientations: in a fully polarized beam, the orientations were all the same. This approach, which Jed Buchwald has called "selectionism", was pioneered by Malus and diligently pursued by Biot.
Fresnel, in contrast, decided to introduce polarization into interference experiments.
Interference of polarized light, chromatic polarization (1816–21).
In July or August 1816, Fresnel discovered that when a birefringent crystal produced two images of a single slit, he could "not" obtain the usual two-slit interference pattern, even if he compensated for the different propagation times. A more general experiment, suggested by Arago, found that if the two beams of a double-slit device were separately polarized, the interference pattern appeared and disappeared as the polarization of one beam was rotated, giving full interference for parallel polarizations, but no interference for perpendicular polarizations . These experiments, among others, were eventually reported in a brief memoir published in 1819 and later translated into English.
In a memoir drafted on 30 August 1816 and revised on 6 October, Fresnel reported an experiment in which he placed two matching thin laminae in a double-slit apparatus – one over each slit, with their optic axes perpendicular – and obtained two interference patterns offset in opposite directions, with perpendicular polarizations. This, in combination with the previous findings, meant that each lamina split the incident light into perpendicularly polarized components with different velocities – just like a normal (thick) birefringent crystal, and contrary to Biot's "mobile polarization" hypothesis.
Accordingly, in the same memoir, Fresnel offered his first attempt at a wave theory of chromatic polarization. When polarized light passed through a crystal lamina, it was split into ordinary and extraordinary waves (with intensities described by Malus's law), and these were perpendicularly polarized and therefore did not interfere, so that no colors were produced (yet). But if they then passed through an "analyzer" (second polarizer), their polarizations were brought into alignment (with intensities again modified according to Malus's law), and they would interfere. This explanation, by itself, predicts that if the analyzer is rotated 90°, the ordinary and extraordinary waves simply switch roles, so that if the analyzer takes the form of a calcite crystal, the two images of the lamina should be of the same hue (this issue is revisited below). But in fact, as Arago and Biot had found, they are of complementary colors. To correct the prediction, Fresnel proposed a phase-inversion rule whereby "one" of the constituent waves of "one" of the two images suffered an additional 180° phase shift on its way through the lamina. This inversion was a weakness in the theory relative to Biot's, as Fresnel acknowledged, although the rule specified which of the two images had the inverted wave. Moreover, Fresnel could deal only with special cases, because he had not yet solved the problem of superposing sinusoidal functions with arbitrary phase differences due to propagation at different velocities through the lamina.
He solved that problem in a "supplement" signed on 15 January 1818 (mentioned above). In the same document, he accommodated Malus's law by proposing an underlying law: that if polarized light is incident on a birefringent crystal with its optic axis at an angle "θ" to the "plane of polarization", the ordinary and extraordinary vibrations (as functions of time) are scaled by the factors cos"θ" and sin"θ", respectively. Although modern readers easily interpret these factors in terms of perpendicular components of a "transverse" oscillation, Fresnel did not (yet) explain them that way. Hence he still needed the phase-inversion rule. He applied all these principles to a case of chromatic polarization not covered by Biot's formulae, involving "two" successive laminae with axes separated by 45°, and obtained predictions that disagreed with Biot's experiments (except in special cases) but agreed with his own.
Fresnel applied the same principles to the standard case of chromatic polarization, in which "one" birefringent lamina was sliced parallel to its axis and placed between a polarizer and an analyzer. If the analyzer took the form of a thick calcite crystal with its axis in the plane of polarization, Fresnel predicted that the intensities of the ordinary and extraordinary images of the lamina were respectively proportional to
where formula_3 is the angle from the initial plane of polarization to the optic axis of the lamina, formula_4 is the angle from the initial plane of polarization to the plane of polarization of the final ordinary image, and formula_5 is the phase lag of the extraordinary wave relative to the ordinary wave due to the difference in propagation times through the lamina. The terms in formula_5 are the frequency-dependent terms and explain why the lamina must be "thin" in order to produce discernible colors: if the lamina is too thick, formula_7 will pass through too many cycles as the frequency varies through the visible range, and the eye (which divides the visible spectrum into only three bands) will not be able to resolve the cycles.
From these equations it is easily verified that formula_8 for all formula_9 so that the colors are complementary. Without the phase-inversion rule, there would be a "plus" sign in front of the last term in the second equation, so that the formula_5-dependent term would be the same in both equations, implying (incorrectly) that the colors were of the same hue.
These equations were included in an undated note that Fresnel gave to Biot, to which Biot added a few lines of his own. If we substitute
then Fresnel's formulae can be rewritten as
which are none other than Biot's empirical formulae of 1812, except that Biot interpreted formula_15 and formula_16 as the "unaffected" and "affected" selections of the rays incident on the lamina. If Biot's substitutions were accurate, they would imply that his experimental results were more fully explained by Fresnel's theory than by his own.
Arago delayed reporting on Fresnel's works on chromatic polarization until June 1821, when he used them in a broad attack on Biot's theory. In his written response, Biot protested that Arago's attack went beyond the proper scope of a report on the nominated works of Fresnel. But Biot also claimed that the substitutions for formula_15 and formula_18 and therefore Fresnel's expressions for formula_19 and formula_20 were empirically wrong because when Fresnel's intensities of spectral colors were mixed according to Newton's rules, the squared cosine and sine functions varied too smoothly to account for the observed sequence of colors. That claim drew a written reply from Fresnel, who disputed whether the colors changed as abruptly as Biot claimed, and whether the human eye could judge color with sufficient objectivity for the purpose. On the latter question, Fresnel pointed out that different observers may give different names to the same color. Furthermore, he said, a single observer can only compare colors side by side; and even if they are judged to be the same, the identity is of sensation, not necessarily of composition. Fresnel's oldest and strongest point – that thin crystals were subject to the same laws as thick ones and did not need or allow a separate theory – Biot left unanswered. Arago and Fresnel were seen to have won the debate.
Moreover, by this time Fresnel had a new, simpler explanation of his equations on chromatic polarization.
Breakthrough: Pure transverse waves (1821).
In the draft memoir of 30 August 1816, Fresnel mentioned two hypotheses – one of which he attributed to Ampère – by which the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams could be explained if polarized light waves were "partly" transverse. But Fresnel could not develop either of these ideas into a comprehensive theory. As early as September 1816, according to his later account, he realized that the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams, together with the phase-inversion rule in chromatic polarization, would be most easily explained if the waves were "purely" transverse, and Ampère "had the same thought" on the phase-inversion rule. But that would raise a new difficulty: as natural light seemed to be "un"polarized and its waves were therefore presumed to be longitudinal, one would need to explain how the longitudinal component of vibration disappeared on polarization, and why it did not reappear when polarized light was reflected or refracted obliquely by a glass plate.
Independently, on 12 January 1817, Young wrote to Arago (in English) noting that a transverse vibration would constitute a polarization, and that if two longitudinal waves crossed at a significant angle, they could not cancel without leaving a residual transverse vibration. Young repeated this idea in an article published in a supplement to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" in February 1818, in which he added that Malus's law would be explained if polarization consisted in a transverse motion.
Thus Fresnel, by his own testimony, may not have been the first person to suspect that light waves could have a transverse "component", or that "polarized" waves were exclusively transverse. And it was Young, not Fresnel, who first "published" the idea that polarization depends on the orientation of a transverse vibration. But these incomplete theories had not reconciled the nature of polarization with the apparent existence of "unpolarized" light; that achievement was to be Fresnel's alone.
In a note that Buchwald dates in the summer of 1818, Fresnel entertained the idea that unpolarized waves could have vibrations of the same energy and obliquity, with their orientations distributed uniformly about the wave-normal, and that the degree of polarization was the degree of "non"-uniformity in the distribution. Two pages later he noted, apparently for the first time in writing, that his phase-inversion rule and the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams would be easily explained if the vibrations of fully polarized waves were "perpendicular to the normal to the wave"—that is, purely transverse.
But if he could account for "lack" of polarization by averaging out the transverse component, he did not also need to assume a longitudinal component. It was enough to suppose that light waves are "purely" transverse, hence "always" polarized in the sense of having a particular transverse orientation, and that the "unpolarized" state of natural or "direct" light is due to rapid and random variations in that orientation, in which case two "coherent" portions of "unpolarized" light will still interfere because their orientations will be synchronized.
It is not known exactly when Fresnel made this last step, because there is no relevant documentation from 1820 or early 1821 (perhaps because he was too busy working on lighthouse-lens prototypes; see below). But he first "published" the idea in a paper on "Calcul des teintes…" ("calculation of the tints…"), serialized in Arago's "Annales" for May, June, and July 1821. In the first installment, Fresnel described "direct" (unpolarized) light as "the rapid succession of systems of waves polarized in all directions", and gave what is essentially the modern explanation of chromatic polarization, albeit in terms of the analogy between polarization and the resolution of forces in a plane, mentioning transverse waves only in a footnote. The introduction of transverse waves into the main argument was delayed to the second installment, in which he revealed the suspicion that he and Ampère had harbored since 1816, and the difficulty it raised. He continued:
According to this new view, he wrote, "the act of polarization consists not in creating these transverse movements, but in decomposing them into two fixed perpendicular directions and in separating the two components".
While selectionists could insist on interpreting Fresnel's diffraction integrals in terms of discrete, countable rays, they could not do the same with his theory of polarization. For a selectionist, the state of polarization of a beam concerned the distribution of orientations over the "population" of rays, and that distribution was presumed to be static. For Fresnel, the state of polarization of a beam concerned the variation of a displacement over "time". That displacement might be constrained but was "not" static, and rays were geometric constructions, "not" countable objects. The conceptual gap between the wave theory and selectionism had become unbridgeable.
The other difficulty posed by pure transverse waves, of course, was the apparent implication that the aether was an elastic "solid", except that, unlike other elastic solids, it was incapable of transmitting longitudinal waves. The wave theory was cheap on assumptions, but its latest assumption was expensive on credulity. If that assumption was to be widely entertained, its explanatory power would need to be impressive.
Partial reflection (1821).
In the second installment of "Calcul des teintes" (June 1821), Fresnel supposed, by analogy with sound waves, that the density of the aether in a refractive medium was inversely proportional to the square of the wave velocity, and therefore directly proportional to the square of the refractive index. For reflection and refraction at the surface between two isotropic media of different indices, Fresnel decomposed the transverse vibrations into two perpendicular components, now known as the "s" and "p" components, which are parallel to the "surface" and the "plane" of incidence, respectively; in other words, the "s" and "p" components are respectively "square" and "parallel" to the plane of incidence. For the "s" component, Fresnel supposed that the interaction between the two media was analogous to an elastic collision, and obtained a formula for what we now call the "reflectivity": the ratio of the reflected intensity to the incident intensity. The predicted reflectivity was non-zero at all angles.
The third installment (July 1821) was a short "postscript" in which Fresnel announced that he had found, by a "mechanical solution", a formula for the reflectivity of the "p" component, which predicted that "the reflectivity was zero at the Brewster angle". So polarization by reflection had been accounted for – but with the proviso that the direction of vibration in Fresnel's model was "perpendicular" to the plane of polarization as defined by Malus. (On the ensuing controversy, see "Plane of polarization".) The technology of the time did not allow the "s" and "p" reflectivities to be measured accurately enough to test Fresnel's formulae at arbitrary angles of incidence. But the formulae could be rewritten in terms of what we now call the "reflection coefficient": the signed ratio of the reflected amplitude to the incident amplitude. Then, if the plane of polarization of the incident ray was at 45° to the plane of incidence, the tangent of the corresponding angle for the reflected ray was obtainable from the "ratio" of the two reflection coefficients, and this angle could be measured. Fresnel had measured it for a range of angles of incidence, for glass and water, and the agreement between the calculated and measured angles was better than 1.5° in all cases.
Fresnel gave details of the "mechanical solution" in a memoir read to the Académie des Sciences on 7 January 1823. Conservation of energy was combined with continuity of the "tangential" vibration at the interface. The resulting formulae for the reflection coefficients and reflectivities became known as the "Fresnel equations". The reflection coefficients for the "s" and "p" polarizations are most succinctly expressed as
where formula_3 and formula_24 are the angles of incidence and refraction; these equations are known respectively as "Fresnel's sine law" and "Fresnel's tangent law". By allowing the coefficients to be "complex", Fresnel even accounted for the different phase shifts of the "s" and "p" components due to total internal reflection.
This success inspired James MacCullagh and Augustin-Louis Cauchy, beginning in 1836, to analyze reflection from metals by using the Fresnel equations with a complex refractive index. The same technique is applicable to non-metallic opaque media. With these generalizations, the Fresnel equations can predict the appearance of a wide variety of objects under illumination – for example, in computer graphics .
Circular and elliptical polarization, optical rotation (1822).
In a memoir dated 9 December 1822, Fresnel coined the terms "linear polarization" (French: "polarisation rectiligne") for the simple case in which the perpendicular components of vibration are in phase or 180° out of phase, "circular polarization" for the case in which they are of equal magnitude and a quarter-cycle (±90°) out of phase, and "elliptical polarization" for other cases in which the two components have a fixed amplitude ratio and a fixed phase difference. He then explained how optical rotation could be understood as a species of birefringence. Linearly-polarized light could be resolved into two circularly-polarized components rotating in opposite directions. If these components propagated at slightly different speeds, the phase difference between them – and therefore the direction of their linearly-polarized resultant – would vary continuously with distance.
These concepts called for a redefinition of the distinction between polarized and unpolarized light. Before Fresnel, it was thought that polarization could vary in direction, and in degree (e.g., due to variation in the angle of reflection off a transparent body), and that it could be a function of color (chromatic polarization), but not that it could vary in "kind". Hence it was thought that the degree of polarization was the degree to which the light could be suppressed by an analyzer with the appropriate orientation. Light that had been converted from linear to elliptical or circular polarization (e.g., by passage through a crystal lamina, or by total internal reflection) was described as partly or fully "depolarized" because of its behavior in an analyzer. "After" Fresnel, the defining feature of polarized light was that the perpendicular components of vibration had a fixed ratio of amplitudes and a fixed difference in phase. By that definition, elliptically or circularly polarized light is "fully" polarized although it cannot be fully suppressed by an analyzer alone. The conceptual gap between the wave theory and selectionism had widened again.
Total internal reflection (1817–23).
By 1817 it had been discovered by Brewster, but not adequately reported, that plane-polarized light was partly depolarized by total internal reflection if initially polarized at an acute angle to the plane of incidence. Fresnel rediscovered this effect and investigated it by including total internal reflection in a chromatic-polarization experiment. With the aid of his "first" theory of chromatic polarization, he found that the apparently depolarized light was a mixture of components polarized parallel and perpendicular to the plane of incidence, and that the total reflection introduced a phase difference between them. Choosing an appropriate angle of incidence (not yet exactly specified) gave a phase difference of 1/8 of a cycle (45°). Two such reflections from the "parallel faces" of "two coupled prisms" gave a phase difference of 1/4 of a cycle (90°). These findings were contained in a memoir submitted to the Académie on 10 November 1817 and read a fortnight later. An undated marginal note indicates that the two coupled prisms were later replaced by a single "parallelepiped in glass"—now known as a "Fresnel rhomb".
This was the memoir whose "supplement", dated January 1818, contained the method of superposing sinusoidal functions and the restatement of Malus's law in terms of amplitudes. In the same supplement, Fresnel reported his discovery that optical rotation could be emulated by passing the polarized light through a Fresnel rhomb (still in the form of "coupled prisms"), followed by an ordinary birefringent lamina sliced parallel to its axis, with the axis at 45° to the plane of reflection of the Fresnel rhomb, followed by a second Fresnel rhomb at 90° to the first. In a further memoir read on 30 March, Fresnel reported that if polarized light was fully "depolarized" by a Fresnel rhomb – now described as a parallelepiped – its properties were not further modified by a subsequent passage through an optically rotating medium or device.
The connection between optical rotation and birefringence was further explained in 1822, in the memoir on elliptical and circular polarization. This was followed by the memoir on reflection, read in January 1823, in which Fresnel quantified the phase shifts in total internal reflection, and thence calculated the precise angle at which a Fresnel rhomb should be cut in order to convert linear polarization to circular polarization. For a refractive index of 1.51, there were two solutions: about 48.6° and 54.6°.
Background: Emissionism and selectionism.
An "emission" theory of light was one that regarded the propagation of light as the transport of some kind of matter. While the corpuscular theory was obviously an emission theory, the converse did not follow: in principle, one could be an emissionist without being a corpuscularist. This was convenient because, beyond the ordinary laws of reflection and refraction, emissionists never managed to make testable quantitative predictions from a theory of forces acting on corpuscles of light. But they "did" make quantitative predictions from the premises that rays were countable objects, which were conserved in their interactions with matter (except absorbent media), and which had particular orientations with respect to their directions of propagation. According to this framework, polarization and the related phenomena of double refraction and partial reflection involved altering the orientations of the rays and/or selecting them according to orientation, and the state of polarization of a beam (a bundle of rays) was a question of how many rays were in what orientations: in a fully polarized beam, the orientations were all the same. This approach, which Jed Buchwald has called "selectionism", was pioneered by Malus and diligently pursued by Biot.
Fresnel, in contrast, decided to introduce polarization into interference experiments.
Interference of polarized light, chromatic polarization (1816–21).
In July or August 1816, Fresnel discovered that when a birefringent crystal produced two images of a single slit, he could "not" obtain the usual two-slit interference pattern, even if he compensated for the different propagation times. A more general experiment, suggested by Arago, found that if the two beams of a double-slit device were separately polarized, the interference pattern appeared and disappeared as the polarization of one beam was rotated, giving full interference for parallel polarizations, but no interference for perpendicular polarizations . These experiments, among others, were eventually reported in a brief memoir published in 1819 and later translated into English.
In a memoir drafted on 30 August 1816 and revised on 6 October, Fresnel reported an experiment in which he placed two matching thin laminae in a double-slit apparatus – one over each slit, with their optic axes perpendicular – and obtained two interference patterns offset in opposite directions, with perpendicular polarizations. This, in combination with the previous findings, meant that each lamina split the incident light into perpendicularly polarized components with different velocities – just like a normal (thick) birefringent crystal, and contrary to Biot's "mobile polarization" hypothesis.
Accordingly, in the same memoir, Fresnel offered his first attempt at a wave theory of chromatic polarization. When polarized light passed through a crystal lamina, it was split into ordinary and extraordinary waves (with intensities described by Malus's law), and these were perpendicularly polarized and therefore did not interfere, so that no colors were produced (yet). But if they then passed through an "analyzer" (second polarizer), their polarizations were brought into alignment (with intensities again modified according to Malus's law), and they would interfere. This explanation, by itself, predicts that if the analyzer is rotated 90°, the ordinary and extraordinary waves simply switch roles, so that if the analyzer takes the form of a calcite crystal, the two images of the lamina should be of the same hue (this issue is revisited below). But in fact, as Arago and Biot had found, they are of complementary colors. To correct the prediction, Fresnel proposed a phase-inversion rule whereby "one" of the constituent waves of "one" of the two images suffered an additional 180° phase shift on its way through the lamina. This inversion was a weakness in the theory relative to Biot's, as Fresnel acknowledged, although the rule specified which of the two images had the inverted wave. Moreover, Fresnel could deal only with special cases, because he had not yet solved the problem of superposing sinusoidal functions with arbitrary phase differences due to propagation at different velocities through the lamina.
He solved that problem in a "supplement" signed on 15 January 1818 (mentioned above). In the same document, he accommodated Malus's law by proposing an underlying law: that if polarized light is incident on a birefringent crystal with its optic axis at an angle "θ" to the "plane of polarization", the ordinary and extraordinary vibrations (as functions of time) are scaled by the factors cos"θ" and sin"θ", respectively. Although modern readers easily interpret these factors in terms of perpendicular components of a "transverse" oscillation, Fresnel did not (yet) explain them that way. Hence he still needed the phase-inversion rule. He applied all these principles to a case of chromatic polarization not covered by Biot's formulae, involving "two" successive laminae with axes separated by 45°, and obtained predictions that disagreed with Biot's experiments (except in special cases) but agreed with his own.
Fresnel applied the same principles to the standard case of chromatic polarization, in which "one" birefringent lamina was sliced parallel to its axis and placed between a polarizer and an analyzer. If the analyzer took the form of a thick calcite crystal with its axis in the plane of polarization, Fresnel predicted that the intensities of the ordinary and extraordinary images of the lamina were respectively proportional to
where formula_3 is the angle from the initial plane of polarization to the optic axis of the lamina, formula_4 is the angle from the initial plane of polarization to the plane of polarization of the final ordinary image, and formula_5 is the phase lag of the extraordinary wave relative to the ordinary wave due to the difference in propagation times through the lamina. The terms in formula_5 are the frequency-dependent terms and explain why the lamina must be "thin" in order to produce discernible colors: if the lamina is too thick, formula_7 will pass through too many cycles as the frequency varies through the visible range, and the eye (which divides the visible spectrum into only three bands) will not be able to resolve the cycles.
From these equations it is easily verified that formula_8 for all formula_9 so that the colors are complementary. Without the phase-inversion rule, there would be a "plus" sign in front of the last term in the second equation, so that the formula_5-dependent term would be the same in both equations, implying (incorrectly) that the colors were of the same hue.
These equations were included in an undated note that Fresnel gave to Biot, to which Biot added a few lines of his own. If we substitute
then Fresnel's formulae can be rewritten as
which are none other than Biot's empirical formulae of 1812, except that Biot interpreted formula_15 and formula_16 as the "unaffected" and "affected" selections of the rays incident on the lamina. If Biot's substitutions were accurate, they would imply that his experimental results were more fully explained by Fresnel's theory than by his own.
Arago delayed reporting on Fresnel's works on chromatic polarization until June 1821, when he used them in a broad attack on Biot's theory. In his written response, Biot protested that Arago's attack went beyond the proper scope of a report on the nominated works of Fresnel. But Biot also claimed that the substitutions for formula_15 and formula_18 and therefore Fresnel's expressions for formula_19 and formula_20 were empirically wrong because when Fresnel's intensities of spectral colors were mixed according to Newton's rules, the squared cosine and sine functions varied too smoothly to account for the observed sequence of colors. That claim drew a written reply from Fresnel, who disputed whether the colors changed as abruptly as Biot claimed, and whether the human eye could judge color with sufficient objectivity for the purpose. On the latter question, Fresnel pointed out that different observers may give different names to the same color. Furthermore, he said, a single observer can only compare colors side by side; and even if they are judged to be the same, the identity is of sensation, not necessarily of composition. Fresnel's oldest and strongest point – that thin crystals were subject to the same laws as thick ones and did not need or allow a separate theory – Biot left unanswered. Arago and Fresnel were seen to have won the debate.
Moreover, by this time Fresnel had a new, simpler explanation of his equations on chromatic polarization.
Breakthrough: Pure transverse waves (1821).
In the draft memoir of 30 August 1816, Fresnel mentioned two hypotheses – one of which he attributed to Ampère – by which the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams could be explained if polarized light waves were "partly" transverse. But Fresnel could not develop either of these ideas into a comprehensive theory. As early as September 1816, according to his later account, he realized that the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams, together with the phase-inversion rule in chromatic polarization, would be most easily explained if the waves were "purely" transverse, and Ampère "had the same thought" on the phase-inversion rule. But that would raise a new difficulty: as natural light seemed to be "un"polarized and its waves were therefore presumed to be longitudinal, one would need to explain how the longitudinal component of vibration disappeared on polarization, and why it did not reappear when polarized light was reflected or refracted obliquely by a glass plate.
Independently, on 12 January 1817, Young wrote to Arago (in English) noting that a transverse vibration would constitute a polarization, and that if two longitudinal waves crossed at a significant angle, they could not cancel without leaving a residual transverse vibration. Young repeated this idea in an article published in a supplement to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" in February 1818, in which he added that Malus's law would be explained if polarization consisted in a transverse motion.
Thus Fresnel, by his own testimony, may not have been the first person to suspect that light waves could have a transverse "component", or that "polarized" waves were exclusively transverse. And it was Young, not Fresnel, who first "published" the idea that polarization depends on the orientation of a transverse vibration. But these incomplete theories had not reconciled the nature of polarization with the apparent existence of "unpolarized" light; that achievement was to be Fresnel's alone.
In a note that Buchwald dates in the summer of 1818, Fresnel entertained the idea that unpolarized waves could have vibrations of the same energy and obliquity, with their orientations distributed uniformly about the wave-normal, and that the degree of polarization was the degree of "non"-uniformity in the distribution. Two pages later he noted, apparently for the first time in writing, that his phase-inversion rule and the non-interference of orthogonally-polarized beams would be easily explained if the vibrations of fully polarized waves were "perpendicular to the normal to the wave"—that is, purely transverse.
But if he could account for "lack" of polarization by averaging out the transverse component, he did not also need to assume a longitudinal component. It was enough to suppose that light waves are "purely" transverse, hence "always" polarized in the sense of having a particular transverse orientation, and that the "unpolarized" state of natural or "direct" light is due to rapid and random variations in that orientation, in which case two "coherent" portions of "unpolarized" light will still interfere because their orientations will be synchronized.
It is not known exactly when Fresnel made this last step, because there is no relevant documentation from 1820 or early 1821 (perhaps because he was too busy working on lighthouse-lens prototypes; see below). But he first "published" the idea in a paper on "Calcul des teintes…" ("calculation of the tints…"), serialized in Arago's "Annales" for May, June, and July 1821. In the first installment, Fresnel described "direct" (unpolarized) light as "the rapid succession of systems of waves polarized in all directions", and gave what is essentially the modern explanation of chromatic polarization, albeit in terms of the analogy between polarization and the resolution of forces in a plane, mentioning transverse waves only in a footnote. The introduction of transverse waves into the main argument was delayed to the second installment, in which he revealed the suspicion that he and Ampère had harbored since 1816, and the difficulty it raised. He continued:
According to this new view, he wrote, "the act of polarization consists not in creating these transverse movements, but in decomposing them into two fixed perpendicular directions and in separating the two components".
While selectionists could insist on interpreting Fresnel's diffraction integrals in terms of discrete, countable rays, they could not do the same with his theory of polarization. For a selectionist, the state of polarization of a beam concerned the distribution of orientations over the "population" of rays, and that distribution was presumed to be static. For Fresnel, the state of polarization of a beam concerned the variation of a displacement over "time". That displacement might be constrained but was "not" static, and rays were geometric constructions, "not" countable objects. The conceptual gap between the wave theory and selectionism had become unbridgeable.
The other difficulty posed by pure transverse waves, of course, was the apparent implication that the aether was an elastic "solid", except that, unlike other elastic solids, it was incapable of transmitting longitudinal waves. The wave theory was cheap on assumptions, but its latest assumption was expensive on credulity. If that assumption was to be widely entertained, its explanatory power would need to be impressive.
Partial reflection (1821).
In the second installment of "Calcul des teintes" (June 1821), Fresnel supposed, by analogy with sound waves, that the density of the aether in a refractive medium was inversely proportional to the square of the wave velocity, and therefore directly proportional to the square of the refractive index. For reflection and refraction at the surface between two isotropic media of different indices, Fresnel decomposed the transverse vibrations into two perpendicular components, now known as the "s" and "p" components, which are parallel to the "surface" and the "plane" of incidence, respectively; in other words, the "s" and "p" components are respectively "square" and "parallel" to the plane of incidence. For the "s" component, Fresnel supposed that the interaction between the two media was analogous to an elastic collision, and obtained a formula for what we now call the "reflectivity": the ratio of the reflected intensity to the incident intensity. The predicted reflectivity was non-zero at all angles.
The third installment (July 1821) was a short "postscript" in which Fresnel announced that he had found, by a "mechanical solution", a formula for the reflectivity of the "p" component, which predicted that "the reflectivity was zero at the Brewster angle". So polarization by reflection had been accounted for – but with the proviso that the direction of vibration in Fresnel's model was "perpendicular" to the plane of polarization as defined by Malus. (On the ensuing controversy, see "Plane of polarization".) The technology of the time did not allow the "s" and "p" reflectivities to be measured accurately enough to test Fresnel's formulae at arbitrary angles of incidence. But the formulae could be rewritten in terms of what we now call the "reflection coefficient": the signed ratio of the reflected amplitude to the incident amplitude. Then, if the plane of polarization of the incident ray was at 45° to the plane of incidence, the tangent of the corresponding angle for the reflected ray was obtainable from the "ratio" of the two reflection coefficients, and this angle could be measured. Fresnel had measured it for a range of angles of incidence, for glass and water, and the agreement between the calculated and measured angles was better than 1.5° in all cases.
Fresnel gave details of the "mechanical solution" in a memoir read to the Académie des Sciences on 7 January 1823. Conservation of energy was combined with continuity of the "tangential" vibration at the interface. The resulting formulae for the reflection coefficients and reflectivities became known as the "Fresnel equations". The reflection coefficients for the "s" and "p" polarizations are most succinctly expressed as
where formula_3 and formula_4 are the angles of incidence and refraction; these equations are known respectively as "Fresnel's sine law" and "Fresnel's tangent law". By allowing the coefficients to be "complex", Fresnel even accounted for the different phase shifts of the "s" and "p" components due to total internal reflection.
This success inspired James MacCullagh and Augustin-Louis Cauchy, beginning in 1836, to analyze reflection from metals by using the Fresnel equations with a complex refractive index. The same technique is applicable to non-metallic opaque media. With these generalizations, the Fresnel equations can predict the appearance of a wide variety of objects under illumination – for example, in computer graphics .
Circular and elliptical polarization, optical rotation (1822).
In a memoir dated 9 December 1822, Fresnel coined the terms "linear polarization" (French: "polarisation rectiligne") for the simple case in which the perpendicular components of vibration are in phase or 180° out of phase, "circular polarization" for the case in which they are of equal magnitude and a quarter-cycle (±90°) out of phase, and "elliptical polarization" for other cases in which the two components have a fixed amplitude ratio and a fixed phase difference. He then explained how optical rotation could be understood as a species of birefringence. Linearly-polarized light could be resolved into two circularly-polarized components rotating in opposite directions. If these components propagated at slightly different speeds, the phase difference between them – and therefore the direction of their linearly-polarized resultant – would vary continuously with distance.
These concepts called for a redefinition of the distinction between polarized and unpolarized light. Before Fresnel, it was thought that polarization could vary in direction, and in degree (e.g., due to variation in the angle of reflection off a transparent body), and that it could be a function of color (chromatic polarization), but not that it could vary in "kind". Hence it was thought that the degree of polarization was the degree to which the light could be suppressed by an analyzer with the appropriate orientation. Light that had been converted from linear to elliptical or circular polarization (e.g., by passage through a crystal lamina, or by total internal reflection) was described as partly or fully "depolarized" because of its behavior in an analyzer. "After" Fresnel, the defining feature of polarized light was that the perpendicular components of vibration had a fixed ratio of amplitudes and a fixed difference in phase. By that definition, elliptically or circularly polarized light is "fully" polarized although it cannot be fully suppressed by an analyzer alone. The conceptual gap between the wave theory and selectionism had widened again.
Total internal reflection (1817–23).
By 1817 it had been discovered by Brewster, but not adequately reported, that plane-polarized light was partly depolarized by total internal reflection if initially polarized at an acute angle to the plane of incidence. Fresnel rediscovered this effect and investigated it by including total internal reflection in a chromatic-polarization experiment. With the aid of his "first" theory of chromatic polarization, he found that the apparently depolarized light was a mixture of components polarized parallel and perpendicular to the plane of incidence, and that the total reflection introduced a phase difference between them. Choosing an appropriate angle of incidence (not yet exactly specified) gave a phase difference of 1/8 of a cycle (45°). Two such reflections from the "parallel faces" of "two coupled prisms" gave a phase difference of 1/4 of a cycle (90°). These findings were contained in a memoir submitted to the Académie on 10 November 1817 and read a fortnight later. An undated marginal note indicates that the two coupled prisms were later replaced by a single "parallelepiped in glass"—now known as a "Fresnel rhomb".
This was the memoir whose "supplement", dated January 1818, contained the method of superposing sinusoidal functions and the restatement of Malus's law in terms of amplitudes. In the same supplement, Fresnel reported his discovery that optical rotation could be emulated by passing the polarized light through a Fresnel rhomb (still in the form of "coupled prisms"), followed by an ordinary birefringent lamina sliced parallel to its axis, with the axis at 45° to the plane of reflection of the Fresnel rhomb, followed by a second Fresnel rhomb at 90° to the first. In a further memoir read on 30 March, Fresnel reported that if polarized light was fully "depolarized" by a Fresnel rhomb – now described as a parallelepiped – its properties were not further modified by a subsequent passage through an optically rotating medium or device.
The connection between optical rotation and birefringence was further explained in 1822, in the memoir on elliptical and circular polarization. This was followed by the memoir on reflection, read in January 1823, in which Fresnel quantified the phase shifts in total internal reflection, and thence calculated the precise angle at which a Fresnel rhomb should be cut in order to convert linear polarization to circular polarization. For a refractive index of 1.51, there were two solutions: about 48.6° and 54.6°.
Double refraction.
Background: Uniaxial and biaxial crystals; Biot's laws.
When light passes through a slice of calcite cut perpendicular to its optic axis, the difference between the propagation times of the ordinary and extraordinary waves has a second-order dependence on the angle of incidence. If the slice is observed in a highly convergent cone of light, that dependence becomes significant, so that a chromatic-polarization experiment will show a pattern of concentric rings. But most minerals, when observed in this manner, show a more complicated pattern of rings involving two foci and a lemniscate curve, as if they had "two" optic axes. The two classes of minerals naturally become known as "uniaxal" and "biaxal"—or, in later literature, "uniaxial" and "biaxial".
In 1813, Brewster observed the simple concentric pattern in "beryl, emerald, ruby &c." The same pattern was later observed in calcite by Wollaston, Biot, and Seebeck. Biot, assuming that the concentric pattern was the general case, tried to calculate the colors with his theory of chromatic polarization, and succeeded better for some minerals than for others. In 1818, Brewster belatedly explained why: seven of the twelve minerals employed by Biot had the lemniscate pattern, which Brewster had observed as early as 1812; and the minerals with the more complicated rings also had a more complicated law of refraction.
In a uniform crystal, according to Huygens's theory, the secondary wavefront that expands from the origin in unit time is the "ray-velocity surface"—that is, the surface whose "distance" from the origin in any direction is the ray velocity in that direction. In calcite, this surface is two-sheeted, consisting of a sphere (for the ordinary wave) and an oblate spheroid (for the extraordinary wave) touching each other at opposite points of a common axis—touching at the north and south poles, if we may use a geographic analogy. But according to Malus's "corpuscular" theory of double refraction, the ray velocity was proportional to the reciprocal of that given by Huygens's theory, in which case the velocity law was of the form
where formula_2 and formula_3 were the ordinary and extraordinary ray velocities "according to the corpuscular theory", and formula_4 was the angle between the ray and the optic axis. By Malus's definition, the plane of polarization of a ray was the plane of the ray and the optic axis if the ray was ordinary, or the perpendicular plane (containing the ray) if the ray was extraordinary. In Fresnel's model, the direction of vibration was normal to the plane of polarization. Hence, for the sphere (the ordinary wave), the vibration was along the lines of latitude (continuing the geographic analogy); and for the spheroid (the extraordinary wave), the vibration was along the lines of longitude.
On 29 March 1819, Biot presented a memoir in which he proposed simple generalizations of Malus's rules for a crystal with "two" axes, and reported that both generalizations seemed to be confirmed by experiment. For the velocity law, the squared sine was replaced by the "product" of the sines of the angles from the ray to the two axes ("Biot's sine law"). And for the polarization of the ordinary ray, the plane of the ray and the axis was replaced by the plane bisecting the dihedral angle between the two planes each of which contained the ray and one axis ("Biot's dihedral law"). Biot's laws meant that a biaxial crystal with axes at a small angle, cleaved in the plane of those axes, behaved nearly like a uniaxial crystal at near-normal incidence; this was fortunate because gypsum, which had been used in chromatic-polarization experiments, is biaxial.
First memoir and supplements (1821–22).
Until Fresnel turned his attention to biaxial birefringence, it was assumed that one of the two refractions was ordinary, even in biaxial crystals. But, in a memoir submitted on 19 November 1821, Fresnel reported two experiments on topaz showing that "neither refraction" was ordinary in the sense of satisfying Snell's law; that is, neither ray was the product of spherical secondary waves.
The same memoir contained Fresnel's first attempt at the biaxial velocity law. For calcite, if we interchange the equatorial and polar radii of Huygens's oblate spheroid while preserving the polar direction, we obtain a "prolate" spheroid touching the sphere at the equator. A plane through the center/origin cuts this prolate spheroid in an ellipse whose major and minor semi-axes give the magnitudes of the extraordinary and ordinary ray velocities in the direction normal to the plane, and (said Fresnel) the directions of their respective vibrations. The direction of the optic axis is the normal to the plane for which the ellipse of intersection reduces to a "circle". So, for the biaxial case, Fresnel simply replaced the prolate spheroid with a triaxial ellipsoid, which was to be sectioned by a plane in the same way. In general there would be "two" planes passing through the center of the ellipsoid and cutting it in a circle, and the normals to these planes would give "two" optic axes. From the geometry, Fresnel deduced Biot's sine law (with the ray velocities replaced by their reciprocals).
The ellipsoid indeed gave the correct ray velocities (although the initial experimental verification was only approximate). But it did not give the correct directions of vibration, for the biaxial case or even for the uniaxial case, because the vibrations in Fresnel's model were tangential to the wavefront—which, for an extraordinary ray, is "not" generally normal to the ray. This error (which is small if, as in most cases, the birefringence is weak) was corrected in an "extract" that Fresnel read to the Académie a week later, on 26 November. Starting with Huygens's spheroid, Fresnel obtained a 4th-degree surface which, when sectioned by a plane as above, would yield the "wave-normal velocities" for a wavefront in that plane, together with their vibration directions. For the biaxial case, he generalized the equation to obtain a surface with three unequal principal dimensions; this he subsequently called the "surface of elasticity". But he retained the earlier ellipsoid as an approximation, from which he deduced Biot's dihedral law.
Fresnel's initial derivation of the surface of elasticity had been purely geometric, and not deductively rigorous. His first attempt at a "mechanical" derivation, contained in a "supplement" dated 13 January 1822, assumed that (i) there were three mutually perpendicular directions in which a displacement produced a reaction in the same direction, (ii) the reaction was otherwise a linear function of the displacement, and (iii) the radius of the surface in any direction was the square root of the component, "in that direction", of the reaction to a unit displacement in that direction. The last assumption recognized the requirement that if a wave was to maintain a fixed direction of propagation and a fixed direction of vibration, the reaction must not be outside the plane of those two directions.
In the same supplement, Fresnel considered how he might find, for the biaxial case, the secondary wavefront that expands from the origin in unit time—that is, the surface that reduces to Huygens's sphere and spheroid in the uniaxial case. He noted that this "wave surface" ("surface de l'onde") is tangential to all possible plane wavefronts that could have crossed the origin one unit of time ago, and he listed the mathematical conditions that it must satisfy. But he doubted the feasibility of deriving the surface "from" those conditions.
In a "second supplement", Fresnel eventually exploited two related facts: (i) the "wave surface" was also the ray-velocity surface, which could be obtained by sectioning the ellipsoid that he had initially mistaken for the surface of elasticity, and (ii) the "wave surface" intersected each plane of symmetry of the ellipsoid in two curves: a circle and an ellipse. Thus he found that the "wave surface" is described by the 4th-degree equation
where formula_6 and formula_7 are the propagation speeds in directions normal to the coordinate axes for vibrations along the axes (the ray and wave-normal speeds being the same in those special cases). Later commentators put the equation in the more compact and memorable form
Earlier in the "second supplement", Fresnel modeled the medium as an array of point-masses and found that the force-displacement relation was described by a symmetric matrix, confirming the existence of three mutually perpendicular axes on which the displacement produced a parallel force. Later in the document, he noted that in a biaxial crystal, unlike a uniaxial crystal, the directions in which there is only one wave-normal velocity are not the same as those in which there is only one ray velocity. Nowadays we refer to the former directions as the "optic" axes or "binormal" axes, and the latter as the "ray" axes or "biradial" axes .
Fresnel's "second supplement" was signed on 31 March 1822 and submitted the next day – less than a year after the publication of his pure-transverse-wave hypothesis, and just less than a year after the demonstration of his prototype eight-panel lighthouse lens .
Second memoir (1822–26).
Having presented the pieces of his theory in roughly the order of discovery, Fresnel needed to rearrange the material so as to emphasize the mechanical foundations; and he still needed a rigorous treatment of Biot's dihedral law. He attended to these matters in his "second memoir" on double refraction, published in the "Recueils" of the Académie des Sciences for 1824; this was not actually printed until late 1827, a few months after his death. In this work, having established the three perpendicular axes on which a displacement produces a parallel reaction, and thence constructed the surface of elasticity, he showed that Biot's dihedral law is exact provided that the binormals are taken as the optic axes, and the wave-normal direction as the direction of propagation.
As early as 1822, Fresnel discussed his perpendicular axes with Cauchy. Acknowledging Fresnel's influence, Cauchy went on to develop the first rigorous theory of elasticity of non-isotropic solids (1827), hence the first rigorous theory of transverse waves therein (1830) — which he promptly tried to apply to optics. The ensuing difficulties drove a long competitive effort to find an accurate mechanical model of the aether. Fresnel's own model was not dynamically rigorous; for example, it deduced the reaction to a shear strain by considering the displacement of one particle while all others were fixed, and it assumed that the stiffness determined the wave velocity as in a stretched string, whatever the direction of the wave-normal. But it was enough to enable the wave theory to do what selectionist theory could not: generate testable formulae covering a comprehensive range of optical phenomena, from "mechanical" assumptions.
Photoelasticity, multiple-prism experiments (1822).
In 1815, Brewster reported that colors appear when a slice of isotropic material, placed between crossed polarizers, is mechanically stressed. Brewster himself immediately and correctly attributed this phenomenon to stress-induced birefringence — now known as "photoelasticity".
In a memoir read in September 1822, Fresnel announced that he had verified Brewster's diagnosis more directly, by compressing a combination of glass prisms so severely that one could actually see a double image through it. In his experiment, Fresnel lined up seven 45°-90°-45° prisms, short side to short side, with their 90° angles pointing in alternating directions. Two half-prisms were added at the ends to make the whole assembly rectangular. The prisms were separated by thin films of turpentine ("térébenthine") to suppress internal reflections, allowing a clear line of sight along the row. When the four prisms with similar orientations were compressed in a vise across the line of sight, an object viewed through the assembly produced two images with perpendicular polarizations, with an apparent spacing of 1.5mm at one metre.
At the end of that memoir, Fresnel predicted that if the compressed prisms were replaced by (unstressed) monocrystalline quartz prisms with matching directions of optical rotation, and with their optic axes aligned along the row, an object seen by looking along the common optic axis would give two images, which would seem unpolarized when viewed through an analyzer but, when viewed through a Fresnel rhomb, would be polarized at ±45° to the plane of reflection of the rhomb (indicating that they were initially circularly polarized in opposite directions). This would show directly that optical rotation is a form of birefringence. In the memoir of December 1822, in which he introduced the term "circular polarization", he reported that he had confirmed this prediction using only one 14°-152°-14° prism and two glass half-prisms. But he obtained a wider separation of the images by replacing the glass half-prism with quartz half-prisms whose rotation was opposite to that of the 14°-152°-14° prism. He added in passing that one could further increase the separation by increasing the number of prisms.
Background: Uniaxial and biaxial crystals; Biot's laws.
When light passes through a slice of calcite cut perpendicular to its optic axis, the difference between the propagation times of the ordinary and extraordinary waves has a second-order dependence on the angle of incidence. If the slice is observed in a highly convergent cone of light, that dependence becomes significant, so that a chromatic-polarization experiment will show a pattern of concentric rings. But most minerals, when observed in this manner, show a more complicated pattern of rings involving two foci and a lemniscate curve, as if they had "two" optic axes. The two classes of minerals naturally become known as "uniaxal" and "biaxal"—or, in later literature, "uniaxial" and "biaxial".
In 1813, Brewster observed the simple concentric pattern in "beryl, emerald, ruby &c." The same pattern was later observed in calcite by Wollaston, Biot, and Seebeck. Biot, assuming that the concentric pattern was the general case, tried to calculate the colors with his theory of chromatic polarization, and succeeded better for some minerals than for others. In 1818, Brewster belatedly explained why: seven of the twelve minerals employed by Biot had the lemniscate pattern, which Brewster had observed as early as 1812; and the minerals with the more complicated rings also had a more complicated law of refraction.
In a uniform crystal, according to Huygens's theory, the secondary wavefront that expands from the origin in unit time is the "ray-velocity surface"—that is, the surface whose "distance" from the origin in any direction is the ray velocity in that direction. In calcite, this surface is two-sheeted, consisting of a sphere (for the ordinary wave) and an oblate spheroid (for the extraordinary wave) touching each other at opposite points of a common axis—touching at the north and south poles, if we may use a geographic analogy. But according to Malus's "corpuscular" theory of double refraction, the ray velocity was proportional to the reciprocal of that given by Huygens's theory, in which case the velocity law was of the form
where formula_2 and formula_3 were the ordinary and extraordinary ray velocities "according to the corpuscular theory", and formula_4 was the angle between the ray and the optic axis. By Malus's definition, the plane of polarization of a ray was the plane of the ray and the optic axis if the ray was ordinary, or the perpendicular plane (containing the ray) if the ray was extraordinary. In Fresnel's model, the direction of vibration was normal to the plane of polarization. Hence, for the sphere (the ordinary wave), the vibration was along the lines of latitude (continuing the geographic analogy); and for the spheroid (the extraordinary wave), the vibration was along the lines of longitude.
On 29 March 1819, Biot presented a memoir in which he proposed simple generalizations of Malus's rules for a crystal with "two" axes, and reported that both generalizations seemed to be confirmed by experiment. For the velocity law, the squared sine was replaced by the "product" of the sines of the angles from the ray to the two axes ("Biot's sine law"). And for the polarization of the ordinary ray, the plane of the ray and the axis was replaced by the plane bisecting the dihedral angle between the two planes each of which contained the ray and one axis ("Biot's dihedral law"). Biot's laws meant that a biaxial crystal with axes at a small angle, cleaved in the plane of those axes, behaved nearly like a uniaxial crystal at near-normal incidence; this was fortunate because gypsum, which had been used in chromatic-polarization experiments, is biaxial.
First memoir and supplements (1821–22).
Until Fresnel turned his attention to biaxial birefringence, it was assumed that one of the two refractions was ordinary, even in biaxial crystals. But, in a memoir submitted on 19 November 1821, Fresnel reported two experiments on topaz showing that "neither refraction" was ordinary in the sense of satisfying Snell's law; that is, neither ray was the product of spherical secondary waves.
The same memoir contained Fresnel's first attempt at the biaxial velocity law. For calcite, if we interchange the equatorial and polar radii of Huygens's oblate spheroid while preserving the polar direction, we obtain a "prolate" spheroid touching the sphere at the equator. A plane through the center/origin cuts this prolate spheroid in an ellipse whose major and minor semi-axes give the magnitudes of the extraordinary and ordinary ray velocities in the direction normal to the plane, and (said Fresnel) the directions of their respective vibrations. The direction of the optic axis is the normal to the plane for which the ellipse of intersection reduces to a "circle". So, for the biaxial case, Fresnel simply replaced the prolate spheroid with a triaxial ellipsoid, which was to be sectioned by a plane in the same way. In general there would be "two" planes passing through the center of the ellipsoid and cutting it in a circle, and the normals to these planes would give "two" optic axes. From the geometry, Fresnel deduced Biot's sine law (with the ray velocities replaced by their reciprocals).
The ellipsoid indeed gave the correct ray velocities (although the initial experimental verification was only approximate). But it did not give the correct directions of vibration, for the biaxial case or even for the uniaxial case, because the vibrations in Fresnel's model were tangential to the wavefront—which, for an extraordinary ray, is "not" generally normal to the ray. This error (which is small if, as in most cases, the birefringence is weak) was corrected in an "extract" that Fresnel read to the Académie a week later, on 26 November. Starting with Huygens's spheroid, Fresnel obtained a 4th-degree surface which, when sectioned by a plane as above, would yield the "wave-normal velocities" for a wavefront in that plane, together with their vibration directions. For the biaxial case, he generalized the equation to obtain a surface with three unequal principal dimensions; this he subsequently called the "surface of elasticity". But he retained the earlier ellipsoid as an approximation, from which he deduced Biot's dihedral law.
Fresnel's initial derivation of the surface of elasticity had been purely geometric, and not deductively rigorous. His first attempt at a "mechanical" derivation, contained in a "supplement" dated 13 January 1822, assumed that (i) there were three mutually perpendicular directions in which a displacement produced a reaction in the same direction, (ii) the reaction was otherwise a linear function of the displacement, and (iii) the radius of the surface in any direction was the square root of the component, "in that direction", of the reaction to a unit displacement in that direction. The last assumption recognized the requirement that if a wave was to maintain a fixed direction of propagation and a fixed direction of vibration, the reaction must not be outside the plane of those two directions.
In the same supplement, Fresnel considered how he might find, for the biaxial case, the secondary wavefront that expands from the origin in unit time—that is, the surface that reduces to Huygens's sphere and spheroid in the uniaxial case. He noted that this "wave surface" ("surface de l'onde") is tangential to all possible plane wavefronts that could have crossed the origin one unit of time ago, and he listed the mathematical conditions that it must satisfy. But he doubted the feasibility of deriving the surface "from" those conditions.
In a "second supplement", Fresnel eventually exploited two related facts: (i) the "wave surface" was also the ray-velocity surface, which could be obtained by sectioning the ellipsoid that he had initially mistaken for the surface of elasticity, and (ii) the "wave surface" intersected each plane of symmetry of the ellipsoid in two curves: a circle and an ellipse. Thus he found that the "wave surface" is described by the 4th-degree equation
where formula_2 and formula_3 are the propagation speeds in directions normal to the coordinate axes for vibrations along the axes (the ray and wave-normal speeds being the same in those special cases). Later commentators put the equation in the more compact and memorable form
Earlier in the "second supplement", Fresnel modeled the medium as an array of point-masses and found that the force-displacement relation was described by a symmetric matrix, confirming the existence of three mutually perpendicular axes on which the displacement produced a parallel force. Later in the document, he noted that in a biaxial crystal, unlike a uniaxial crystal, the directions in which there is only one wave-normal velocity are not the same as those in which there is only one ray velocity. Nowadays we refer to the former directions as the "optic" axes or "binormal" axes, and the latter as the "ray" axes or "biradial" axes .
Fresnel's "second supplement" was signed on 31 March 1822 and submitted the next day – less than a year after the publication of his pure-transverse-wave hypothesis, and just less than a year after the demonstration of his prototype eight-panel lighthouse lens .
Second memoir (1822–26).
Having presented the pieces of his theory in roughly the order of discovery, Fresnel needed to rearrange the material so as to emphasize the mechanical foundations; and he still needed a rigorous treatment of Biot's dihedral law. He attended to these matters in his "second memoir" on double refraction, published in the "Recueils" of the Académie des Sciences for 1824; this was not actually printed until late 1827, a few months after his death. In this work, having established the three perpendicular axes on which a displacement produces a parallel reaction, and thence constructed the surface of elasticity, he showed that Biot's dihedral law is exact provided that the binormals are taken as the optic axes, and the wave-normal direction as the direction of propagation.
As early as 1822, Fresnel discussed his perpendicular axes with Cauchy. Acknowledging Fresnel's influence, Cauchy went on to develop the first rigorous theory of elasticity of non-isotropic solids (1827), hence the first rigorous theory of transverse waves therein (1830) — which he promptly tried to apply to optics. The ensuing difficulties drove a long competitive effort to find an accurate mechanical model of the aether. Fresnel's own model was not dynamically rigorous; for example, it deduced the reaction to a shear strain by considering the displacement of one particle while all others were fixed, and it assumed that the stiffness determined the wave velocity as in a stretched string, whatever the direction of the wave-normal. But it was enough to enable the wave theory to do what selectionist theory could not: generate testable formulae covering a comprehensive range of optical phenomena, from "mechanical" assumptions.
Photoelasticity, multiple-prism experiments (1822).
In 1815, Brewster reported that colors appear when a slice of isotropic material, placed between crossed polarizers, is mechanically stressed. Brewster himself immediately and correctly attributed this phenomenon to stress-induced birefringence — now known as "photoelasticity".
In a memoir read in September 1822, Fresnel announced that he had verified Brewster's diagnosis more directly, by compressing a combination of glass prisms so severely that one could actually see a double image through it. In his experiment, Fresnel lined up seven 45°-90°-45° prisms, short side to short side, with their 90° angles pointing in alternating directions. Two half-prisms were added at the ends to make the whole assembly rectangular. The prisms were separated by thin films of turpentine ("térébenthine") to suppress internal reflections, allowing a clear line of sight along the row. When the four prisms with similar orientations were compressed in a vise across the line of sight, an object viewed through the assembly produced two images with perpendicular polarizations, with an apparent spacing of 1.5mm at one metre.
At the end of that memoir, Fresnel predicted that if the compressed prisms were replaced by (unstressed) monocrystalline quartz prisms with matching directions of optical rotation, and with their optic axes aligned along the row, an object seen by looking along the common optic axis would give two images, which would seem unpolarized when viewed through an analyzer but, when viewed through a Fresnel rhomb, would be polarized at ±45° to the plane of reflection of the rhomb (indicating that they were initially circularly polarized in opposite directions). This would show directly that optical rotation is a form of birefringence. In the memoir of December 1822, in which he introduced the term "circular polarization", he reported that he had confirmed this prediction using only one 14°-152°-14° prism and two glass half-prisms. But he obtained a wider separation of the images by replacing the glass half-prism with quartz half-prisms whose rotation was opposite to that of the 14°-152°-14° prism. He added in passing that one could further increase the separation by increasing the number of prisms.
Reception.
For the supplement to Riffault's translation of Thomson's "System of Chemistry", Fresnel was chosen to contribute the article on light. The resulting 137-page essay, titled "De la Lumière" ("On Light"), was apparently finished in June 1821 and published by February 1822. With sections covering the nature of light, diffraction, thin-film interference, reflection and refraction, double refraction and polarization, chromatic polarization, and modification of polarization by reflection, it made a comprehensive case for the wave theory to a readership that was not restricted to physicists.
To examine Fresnel's first memoir and supplements on double refraction, the Académie des Sciences appointed Ampère, Arago, Fourier, and Poisson. Their report, of which Arago was clearly the main author, was delivered at the meeting of 19 August 1822. Then, in the words of Émile Verdet, as translated by Ivor Grattan-Guinness:
Whether Laplace was announcing his conversion to the wave theory – at the age of 73 – is uncertain. Grattan-Guinness entertained the idea. Buchwald, noting that Arago failed to explain that the "ellipsoid of elasticity" did not give the correct planes of polarization, suggests that Laplace may have merely regarded Fresnel's theory as a successful generalization of Malus's ray-velocity law, embracing Biot's laws.
In the following year, Poisson, who did not sign Arago's report, disputed the possibility of transverse waves in the aether. Starting from assumed equations of motion of a fluid medium, he noted that they did not give the correct results for partial reflection and double refraction – as if that were Fresnel's problem rather than his own – and that the predicted waves, even if they were initially transverse, became more longitudinal as they propagated. In reply Fresnel noted, "inter alia", that the equations in which Poisson put so much faith did not even predict viscosity. The implication was clear: given that the behavior of light had not been satisfactorily explained except by transverse waves, it was not the responsibility of the wave-theorists to abandon transverse waves in deference to pre-conceived notions about the aether; rather, it was the responsibility of the aether modelers to produce a model that accommodated transverse waves. According to Robert H. Silliman, Poisson eventually accepted the wave theory shortly before his death in 1840.
Among the French, Poisson's reluctance was an exception. According to Eugene Frankel, "in Paris no debate on the issue seems to have taken place after 1825. Indeed, almost the entire generation of physicists and mathematicians who came to maturity in the 1820s – Pouillet, Savart, Lamé, Navier, Liouville, Cauchy – seem to have adopted the theory immediately." Fresnel's other prominent French opponent, Biot, appeared to take a neutral position in 1830, and eventually accepted the wave theory – possibly by 1846 and certainly by 1858.
In 1826, the British astronomer John Herschel, who was working on a book-length article on light for the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana", addressed three questions to Fresnel concerning double refraction, partial reflection, and their relation to polarization. The resulting article, titled simply "Light", was highly sympathetic to the wave theory, although not entirely free of selectionist language. It was circulating privately by 1828 and was published in 1830. Meanwhile, Young's translation of Fresnel's "De la Lumière" was published in installments from 1827 to 1829. George Biddell Airy, the former Lucasian Professor at Cambridge and future Astronomer Royal, unreservedly accepted the wave theory by 1831. In 1834, he famously calculated the diffraction pattern of a circular aperture from the wave theory, thereby explaining the limited angular resolution of a perfect telescope . By the end of the 1830s, the only prominent British physicist who held out against the wave theory was Brewster, whose objections included the difficulty of explaining photochemical effects and (in his opinion) dispersion.
A German translation of "De la Lumière" was published in installments in 1825 and 1828. The wave theory was adopted by Fraunhofer in the early 1820s and by Franz Ernst Neumann in the 1830s, and then began to find favor in German textbooks.
The economy of assumptions under the wave theory was emphasized by William Whewell in his "History of the Inductive Sciences", first published in 1837. In the corpuscular system, "every new class of facts requires a new supposition," whereas in the wave system, a hypothesis devised in order to explain one phenomenon is then found to explain or predict others. In the corpuscular system there is "no unexpected success, no happy coincidence, no convergence of principles from remote quarters"; but in the wave system, "all tends to unity and simplicity."
Hence, in 1850, when Foucault and Fizeau found by experiment that light travels more slowly in water than in air, in accordance with the wave explanation of refraction and contrary to the corpuscular explanation, the result came as no surprise.
Lighthouses and the Fresnel lens.
Fresnel was not the first person to focus a lighthouse beam using a lens. That distinction apparently belongs to the London glass-cutter Thomas Rogers, whose first lenses, 53cm in diameter and 14cm thick at the center, were installed at the Old Lower Lighthouse at Portland Bill in 1789. Further samples were installed in about half a dozen other locations by 1804. But much of the light was wasted by absorption in the glass.
Nor was Fresnel the first to suggest replacing a convex lens with a series of concentric annular prisms, to reduce weight and absorption. In 1748, Count Buffon proposed grinding such prisms as steps in a single piece of glass. In 1790, the Marquis de Condorcet suggested that it would be easier to make the annular sections separately and assemble them on a frame; but even that was impractical at the time. These designs were intended not for lighthouses, but for burning glasses. Brewster, however, proposed a system similar to Condorcet's in 1811, and by 1820 was advocating its use in British lighthouses.
Meanwhile, on 21 June 1819, Fresnel was "temporarily" seconded by the "Commission des Phares" (Commission of Lighthouses) on the recommendation of Arago (a member of the Commission since 1813), to review possible improvements in lighthouse illumination. The commission had been established by Napoleon in 1811 and placed under the Corps des Ponts – Fresnel's employer.
By the end of August 1819, unaware of the Buffon-Condorcet-Brewster proposal, Fresnel made his first presentation to the commission, recommending what he called "lentilles à échelons" (lenses by steps) to replace the reflectors then in use, which reflected only about half of the incident light. One of the assembled commissioners, Jacques Charles, recalled Buffon's suggestion, leaving Fresnel embarrassed for having again "broken through an open door". But, whereas Buffon's version was biconvex and in one piece, Fresnel's was plano-convex and made of multiple prisms for easier construction. With an official budget of 500 francs, Fresnel approached three manufacturers. The third, François Soleil, produced the prototype. Finished in March 1820, it had a square lens panel 55cm on a side, containing 97 polygonal (not annular) prisms – and so impressed the Commission that Fresnel was asked for a full eight-panel version. This model, completed a year later in spite of insufficient funding, had panels 76cm square. In a public spectacle on the evening of 13 April 1821, it was demonstrated by comparison with the most recent reflectors, which it suddenly rendered obsolete.
Fresnel's next lens was a rotating apparatus with eight "bull's-eye" panels, made in annular arcs by Saint-Gobain, giving eight rotating beams – to be seen by mariners as a periodic flash. Above and behind each main panel was a smaller, sloping bull's-eye panel of trapezoidal outline with trapezoidal elements. This refracted the light to a sloping plane mirror, which then reflected it horizontally, 7 degrees ahead of the main beam, increasing the duration of the flash. Below the main panels were 128 small mirrors arranged in four rings, stacked like the slats of a louver or Venetian blind. Each ring, shaped as a frustum of a cone, reflected the light to the horizon, giving a fainter steady light between the flashes. The official test, conducted on the unfinished "Arc de Triomphe" on 20 August 1822, was witnessed by the commission – and by Louis and his entourage – from 32km away. The apparatus was stored at Bordeaux for the winter, and then reassembled at Cordouan Lighthouse under Fresnel's supervision. On 25 July 1823, the world's first lighthouse Fresnel lens was lit. Soon afterwards, Fresnel started coughing up blood.
In May 1824, Fresnel was promoted to secretary of the "Commission des Phares", becoming the first member of that body to draw a salary, albeit in the concurrent role of Engineer-in-Chief. He was also an examiner (not a teacher) at the École Polytechnique since 1821; but poor health, long hours during the examination season, and anxiety about judging others induced him to resign that post in late 1824, to save his energy for his lighthouse work.
In the same year he designed the first "fixed" lens – for spreading light evenly around the horizon while minimizing waste above or below. Ideally the curved refracting surfaces would be segments of toroids about a common vertical axis, so that the dioptric panel would look like a cylindrical drum. If this was supplemented by reflecting (catoptric) rings above and below the refracting (dioptric) parts, the entire apparatus would look like a beehive. The second Fresnel lens to enter service was indeed a fixed lens, of third order, installed at Dunkirk by 1 February 1825. However, due to the difficulty of fabricating large toroidal prisms, this apparatus had a 16-sided polygonal plan.
In 1825, Fresnel extended his fixed-lens design by adding a rotating array outside the fixed array. Each panel of the rotating array was to refract part of the fixed light from a horizontal fan into a narrow beam.
Also in 1825, Fresnel unveiled the "Carte des Phares" (Lighthouse Map), calling for a system of 51 lighthouses plus smaller harbor lights, in a hierarchy of lens sizes (called "orders", the first order being the largest), with different characteristics to facilitate recognition: a constant light (from a fixed lens), one flash per minute (from a rotating lens with eight panels), and two per minute (sixteen panels).
In late 1825, to reduce the loss of light in the reflecting elements, Fresnel proposed to replace each mirror with a catadioptric prism, through which the light would travel by refraction through the first surface, then total internal reflection off the second surface, then refraction through the third surface. The result was the lighthouse lens as we now know it. In 1826 he assembled a small model for use on the Canal Saint-Martin, but he did not live to see a full-sized version.
The first fixed lens with toroidal prisms was a first-order apparatus designed by the Scottish engineer Alan Stevenson under the guidance of Léonor Fresnel, and fabricated by Isaac Cookson & Co. from French glass; it entered service at the Isle of May in 1836. The first large catadioptric lenses were fixed third-order lenses made in 1842 for the lighthouses at Gravelines and Île Vierge. The first fully catadioptric "first-order" lens, installed at Ailly in 1852, gave eight rotating beams assisted by eight catadioptric panels at the top (to lengthen the flashes), plus a fixed light from below. The first fully catadioptric lens with "purely revolving" beams – also of first order – was installed at Saint-Clément-des-Baleines in 1854, and marked the completion of Augustin Fresnel's original "Carte des Phares".
Production of one-piece stepped dioptric lenses—roughly as envisaged by Buffon—became practical in 1852, when John L. Gilliland of the Brooklyn Flint-Glass Company patented a method of making such lenses from press-molded glass. By the 1950s, the substitution of plastic for glass made it economic to use fine-stepped Fresnel lenses as condensers in overhead projectors. Still finer steps can be found in low-cost plastic "sheet" magnifiers.
Honors.
Fresnel was elected to the "Société Philomathique de Paris" in April 1819, and in 1822 became one of the editors of the Société's "Bulletin des Sciences". As early as May 1817, at Arago's suggestion, Fresnel applied for membership of the Académie des Sciences, but received only one vote. The successful candidate on that occasion was Joseph Fourier. In November 1822, Fourier's elevation to Permanent Secretary of the Académie created a vacancy in the physics section, which was filled in February 1823 by Pierre Louis Dulong, with 36 votes to Fresnel's 20. But in May 1823, after another vacancy was left by the death of Jacques Charles, Fresnel's election was unanimous. In 1824, Fresnel was made a "chevalier de la Légion d'honneur" (Knight of the Legion of Honour).
Meanwhile, in Britain, the wave theory was yet to take hold; Fresnel wrote to Thomas Young in November 1824, saying in part:
But "the praise of English scholars" soon followed. On 9 June 1825, Fresnel was made a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London. In 1827 he was awarded the society's Rumford Medal for the year 1824, "For his Development of the Undulatory Theory as applied to the Phenomena of Polarized Light, and for his various important discoveries in Physical Optics."
A monument to Fresnel at his birthplace was dedicated on 14 September 1884 with a speech by , Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. "" is among the 72 names embossed on the Eiffel Tower (on the south-east side, fourth from the left). In the 19th century, as every lighthouse in France acquired a Fresnel lens, every one acquired a bust of Fresnel, seemingly watching over the coastline that he had made safer. The lunar features "Promontorium Fresnel" and "Rimae Fresnel" were later named after him.
Decline and death.
Fresnel's health, which had always been poor, deteriorated in the winter of 1822–1823, increasing the urgency of his original research, and (in part) preventing him from contributing an article on polarization and double refraction for the "Encyclopædia Britannica". The memoirs on circular and elliptical polarization and optical rotation, and on the detailed derivation of the Fresnel equations and their application to total internal reflection, date from this period. In the spring he recovered enough, in his own view, to supervise the lens installation at Cordouan. Soon afterwards, it became clear that his condition was tuberculosis.
In 1824, he was advised that if he wanted to live longer, he needed to scale back his activities. Perceiving his lighthouse work to be his most important duty, he resigned as an examiner at the École Polytechnique, and closed his scientific notebooks. His last note to the Académie, read on 13 June 1825, described the first radiometer and attributed the observed repulsive force to a temperature difference. Although his fundamental research ceased, his advocacy did not; as late as August or September 1826, he found the time to answer Herschel's queries on the wave theory. It was Herschel who recommended Fresnel for the Royal Society's Rumford Medal.
Fresnel's cough worsened in the winter of 1826–1827, leaving him too ill to return to Mathieu in the spring. The Académie meeting of 30 April 1827 was the last that he attended. In early June he was carried to Ville-d'Avray, west of Paris. There his mother joined him. On 6 July, Arago arrived to deliver the Rumford Medal. Sensing Arago's distress, Fresnel whispered that "the most beautiful crown means little, when it is laid on the grave of a friend." Fresnel did not have the strength to reply to the Royal Society. He died eight days later, on Bastille Day.
He is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. The is partly eroded away; the legible part says, when translated, "To the memory of Augustin Jean Fresnel, member of the Institute of France".
Posthumous publications.
Fresnel's "second memoir" on double refraction was not printed until late 1827, a few months after his death. Until then, the best published source on his work on double refraction was an extract of that memoir, printed in 1822. His final treatment of partial reflection and total internal reflection, read to the Académie in January 1823, was thought to be lost until it was rediscovered among the papers of the deceased Joseph Fourier (1768–1830), and was printed in 1831. Until then, it was known chiefly through an extract printed in 1823 and 1825. The memoir introducing the parallelepiped form of the Fresnel rhomb, read in March 1818, was mislaid until 1846, and then attracted such interest that it was soon republished in English. Most of Fresnel's writings on polarized light before 1821 – including his first theory of chromatic polarization (submitted 7 October 1816) and the crucial "supplement" of January 1818 — were not published in full until his "Oeuvres complètes" ("complete works") began to appear in 1866. The "supplement" of July 1816, proposing the "efficacious ray" and reporting the famous double-mirror experiment, met the same fate, as did the "first memoir" on double refraction.
Publication of Fresnel's collected works was itself delayed by the deaths of successive editors. The task was initially entrusted to Félix Savary, who died in 1841. It was restarted twenty years later by the Ministry of Public Instruction. Of the three editors eventually named in the "Oeuvres", Sénarmont died in 1862, Verdet in 1866, and Léonor Fresnel in 1869, by which time only two of the three volumes had appeared. At the beginning of vol. 3 (1870), the completion of the project is described in a long footnote by "J. Lissajous."
Not included in the "Oeuvres" are two short notes by Fresnel on magnetism, which were discovered among Ampère's manuscripts. In response to Ørsted's discovery of electromagnetism in 1820, Ampère initially supposed that the field of a permanent magnet was due to a macroscopic circulating current. Fresnel suggested instead that there was a "microscopic" current circulating around each particle of the magnet. In his first note, he argued that microscopic currents, unlike macroscopic currents, would explain why a hollow cylindrical magnet does not lose its magnetism when cut longitudinally. In his second note, dated 5 July 1821, he further argued that a macroscopic current had the counterfactual implication that a permanent magnet should be hot, whereas microscopic currents circulating around the molecules might avoid the heating mechanism. He was not to know that the fundamental units of permanent magnetism are even smaller than molecules . The two notes, together with Ampère's acknowledgment, were eventually published in 1885.
Lost works.
Fresnel's essay "Rêveries" of 1814 has not survived. While its content would have been interesting to historians, its quality may perhaps be gauged from the fact that Fresnel himself never referred to it in his maturity.
More disturbing is the fate of the late article "Sur les Différents Systèmes relatifs à la Théorie de la Lumière" ("On the Different Systems relating to the Theory of Light"), which Fresnel wrote for the newly launched English journal "European Review". This work seems to have been similar in scope to the essay "De la Lumière" of 1821/22, except that Fresnel's views on double refraction, circular and elliptical polarization, optical rotation, and total internal reflection had developed since then. The manuscript was received by the publisher's agent in Paris in early September 1824, and promptly forwarded to London. But the journal failed before Fresnel's contribution could be published. Fresnel tried unsuccessfully to recover the manuscript. The editors of his collected works were also unable to find it, and admitted that it was probably lost.
Unfinished business.
Aether drag and aether density.
In 1810, Arago found experimentally that the degree of refraction of starlight does not depend on the direction of the earth's motion relative to the line of sight. In 1818, Fresnel showed that this result could be explained by the wave theory, on the hypothesis that if an object with refractive index formula_1 moved at velocity formula_2 relative to the external aether (taken as stationary), then the velocity of light inside the object gained the additional component formula_3. He supported that hypothesis by supposing that if the density of the external aether was taken as unity, the density of the internal aether was formula_4, of which the excess, namely formula_5, was dragged along at velocity formula_2, whence the "average" velocity of the internal aether was formula_3. The factor in parentheses, which Fresnel originally expressed in terms of wavelengths, became known as the "Fresnel drag coefficient".
In his analysis of double refraction, Fresnel supposed that the different refractive indices in different directions within the "same medium" were due to a directional variation in elasticity, not density (because the concept of mass per unit volume is not directional). But in his treatment of partial reflection, he supposed that the different refractive indices of "different media" were due to different aether densities, not different elasticities. The latter decision, although puzzling in the context of double refraction, was consistent with the earlier treatment of aether drag.
In 1846, George Gabriel Stokes pointed out that there was no need to divide the aether inside a moving object into two portions; all of it could be considered as moving at a common velocity. Then, if the aether was conserved while its density changed in proportion to formula_4, the resulting velocity of the aether inside the object was equal to Fresnel's additional velocity component.
Dispersion.
The analogy between light waves and transverse waves in elastic solids does not predict "dispersion" — that is, the frequency-dependence of the speed of propagation, which enables prisms to produce spectra and causes lenses to suffer from chromatic aberration. Fresnel, in "De la Lumière" and in the second supplement to his first memoir on double refraction, suggested that dispersion could be accounted for if the particles of the medium exerted forces on each other over distances that were significant fractions of a wavelength. Later, more than once, Fresnel referred to the demonstration of this result as being contained in a note appended to his "second memoir" on double refraction. No such note appeared in print, and the relevant manuscripts found after his death showed only that, around 1824, he was comparing refractive indices (measured by Fraunhofer) with a theoretical formula, the meaning of which was not fully explained.
In the 1830s, Fresnel's suggestion was taken up by Cauchy, Baden Powell, and Philip Kelland, and it was found to be tolerably consistent with the variation of refractive indices with wavelength over the visible spectrum for a variety of transparent media . These investigations were enough to show that the wave theory was at least compatible with dispersion; if the model of dispersion was to be accurate over a wider range of frequencies, it needed to be modified so as to take account of resonances within the medium .
Conical refraction.
The analytical complexity of Fresnel's derivation of the ray-velocity surface was an implicit challenge to find a shorter path to the result. This was answered by MacCullagh in 1830, and by William Rowan Hamilton in 1832.
Hamilton went further, establishing two properties of the surface that Fresnel, in the short time given to him, had overlooked: (i) at each of the four points where the inner and outer sheets of the surface make contact, the surface has a tangent cone (tangential to both sheets), hence a cone of normals, indicating that a cone of wave-normal directions corresponds to a single ray-velocity vector; and (ii) around each of these points, the outer sheet has a circle of contact with a tangent plane, indicating that a cone of ray directions corresponds to a single wave-normal velocity vector. As Hamilton noted, these properties respectively imply that (i) a narrow beam propagating inside the crystal in the direction of the single ray velocity will, on exiting the crystal through a flat surface, break into a hollow cone ("external conical refraction"), and (ii) a narrow beam striking a flat surface of the crystal in the appropriate direction (corresponding to that of the single internal wave-normal velocity) will, on entering the crystal, break into a hollow cone ("internal conical refraction").
Thus a new pair of phenomena, "qualitatively" different from anything previously observed or suspected, had been predicted by mathematics as consequences of Fresnel's theory. The prompt experimental confirmation of those predictions by Humphrey Lloyd brought Hamilton a prize that had never come to Fresnel: immediate fame.
Aether drag and aether density.
In 1810, Arago found experimentally that the degree of refraction of starlight does not depend on the direction of the earth's motion relative to the line of sight. In 1818, Fresnel showed that this result could be explained by the wave theory, on the hypothesis that if an object with refractive index formula_1 moved at velocity formula_2 relative to the external aether (taken as stationary), then the velocity of light inside the object gained the additional component formula_3. He supported that hypothesis by supposing that if the density of the external aether was taken as unity, the density of the internal aether was formula_4, of which the excess, namely formula_5, was dragged along at velocity formula_2, whence the "average" velocity of the internal aether was formula_3. The factor in parentheses, which Fresnel originally expressed in terms of wavelengths, became known as the "Fresnel drag coefficient".
In his analysis of double refraction, Fresnel supposed that the different refractive indices in different directions within the "same medium" were due to a directional variation in elasticity, not density (because the concept of mass per unit volume is not directional). But in his treatment of partial reflection, he supposed that the different refractive indices of "different media" were due to different aether densities, not different elasticities. The latter decision, although puzzling in the context of double refraction, was consistent with the earlier treatment of aether drag.
In 1846, George Gabriel Stokes pointed out that there was no need to divide the aether inside a moving object into two portions; all of it could be considered as moving at a common velocity. Then, if the aether was conserved while its density changed in proportion to formula_4, the resulting velocity of the aether inside the object was equal to Fresnel's additional velocity component.
Dispersion.
The analogy between light waves and transverse waves in elastic solids does not predict "dispersion" — that is, the frequency-dependence of the speed of propagation, which enables prisms to produce spectra and causes lenses to suffer from chromatic aberration. Fresnel, in "De la Lumière" and in the second supplement to his first memoir on double refraction, suggested that dispersion could be accounted for if the particles of the medium exerted forces on each other over distances that were significant fractions of a wavelength. Later, more than once, Fresnel referred to the demonstration of this result as being contained in a note appended to his "second memoir" on double refraction. No such note appeared in print, and the relevant manuscripts found after his death showed only that, around 1824, he was comparing refractive indices (measured by Fraunhofer) with a theoretical formula, the meaning of which was not fully explained.
In the 1830s, Fresnel's suggestion was taken up by Cauchy, Baden Powell, and Philip Kelland, and it was found to be tolerably consistent with the variation of refractive indices with wavelength over the visible spectrum for a variety of transparent media . These investigations were enough to show that the wave theory was at least compatible with dispersion; if the model of dispersion was to be accurate over a wider range of frequencies, it needed to be modified so as to take account of resonances within the medium .
Conical refraction.
The analytical complexity of Fresnel's derivation of the ray-velocity surface was an implicit challenge to find a shorter path to the result. This was answered by MacCullagh in 1830, and by William Rowan Hamilton in 1832.
Hamilton went further, establishing two properties of the surface that Fresnel, in the short time given to him, had overlooked: (i) at each of the four points where the inner and outer sheets of the surface make contact, the surface has a tangent cone (tangential to both sheets), hence a cone of normals, indicating that a cone of wave-normal directions corresponds to a single ray-velocity vector; and (ii) around each of these points, the outer sheet has a circle of contact with a tangent plane, indicating that a cone of ray directions corresponds to a single wave-normal velocity vector. As Hamilton noted, these properties respectively imply that (i) a narrow beam propagating inside the crystal in the direction of the single ray velocity will, on exiting the crystal through a flat surface, break into a hollow cone ("external conical refraction"), and (ii) a narrow beam striking a flat surface of the crystal in the appropriate direction (corresponding to that of the single internal wave-normal velocity) will, on entering the crystal, break into a hollow cone ("internal conical refraction").
Thus a new pair of phenomena, "qualitatively" different from anything previously observed or suspected, had been predicted by mathematics as consequences of Fresnel's theory. The prompt experimental confirmation of those predictions by Humphrey Lloyd brought Hamilton a prize that had never come to Fresnel: immediate fame.
Legacy.
Within a century of Fresnel's initial stepped-lens proposal, more than 10,000 lights with Fresnel lenses were protecting lives and property around the world. Concerning the other benefits, the science historian Theresa H. Levitt has remarked:
In the history of physical optics, Fresnel's successful revival of the wave theory nominates him as the pivotal figure between Newton, who held that light consisted of corpuscles, and James Clerk Maxwell, who established that light waves are electromagnetic. Whereas Albert Einstein described Maxwell's work as "the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton," commentators of the era between Fresnel and Maxwell made similarly strong statements about Fresnel:
What Whewell called the "true theory" has since undergone two major revisions. The first, by Maxwell, specified the physical fields whose variations constitute the waves of light. Without the benefit of this knowledge, Fresnel managed to construct the world's first coherent theory of light, showing in retrospect that his methods are applicable to multiple types of waves. The second revision, initiated by Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect, supposed that the energy of light waves was divided into quanta, which were eventually identified with particles called photons. But photons did not exactly correspond to Newton's corpuscles; for example, Newton's explanation of ordinary refraction required the corpuscles to travel faster in media of higher refractive index, which photons do not. Neither did photons displace waves; rather, they led to the paradox of wave–particle duality. Moreover, the phenomena studied by Fresnel, which included nearly all the optical phenomena known at his time, are still most easily explained in terms of the "wave" nature of light. So it was that, as late as 1927, the astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi declared Fresnel to be "the dominant figure in optics."
Further reading.
Some English translations of works by Fresnel are included in the above Bibliography. For a more comprehensive list, see "External links" below.
The most detailed secondary source on Fresnel in English is apparently Buchwald 1989 —in which Fresnel, although not named in the title, is clearly the central character.
On lighthouse lenses, this article heavily cites Levitt 2013, Elton 2009, and Thomas Tag at the U.S. Lighthouse Society (see "External links" below). All three authors deal not only with Fresnel's contributions but also with later innovations that are not mentioned here (see "Fresnel lens: History").
By comparison with the volume and impact of his scientific and technical writings, biographical information on Fresnel is remarkably scarce. There is no book-length critical biography of him, and anyone who proposes to write one must confront the fact that the letters published in his "Oeuvres complètes"—contrary to the title—are heavily redacted. In the words of Robert H. Silliman (1967, p. 6n): "By an unhappy judgment of the editors, dictated in part, one suspects, by political expediency, the letters appear in fragmentary form, preserving almost nothing beyond the technical discussions of Fresnel and his correspondents." It is not clear from the secondary sources whether the manuscripts of those letters are still extant (cf. Grattan-Guinness, 1990, p.854n).
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Alexander Mackenzie (politician)
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Alexander Mackenzie (January 28, 1822 – April 17, 1892) was a Canadian politician who served as the second prime minister of Canada, in office from 1873 to 1878.
Mackenzie was born in Logierait, Perthshire, Scotland. He left school at the age of 13, following his father's death to help his widowed mother, and trained as a stonemason. Mackenzie immigrated to Canada when he was 19, settling in what became Ontario. His masonry business prospered, allowing him to pursue other interests – such as the editorship of a pro-Reformist newspaper called the" Lambton Shield". Mackenzie was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada in 1862, as a supporter of George Brown.
In 1867, Mackenzie was elected to the new House of Commons of Canada for the Liberal Party. He became leader of the party (thus Leader of the Opposition) in mid-1873, and a few months later succeeded John A. Macdonald as prime minister, following Macdonald's resignation in the aftermath of the Pacific Scandal. Mackenzie and the Liberals won a clear majority at the 1874 election. He was popular among the general public for his humble background and apparent democratic tendencies.
As prime minister, Mackenzie continued the nation-building programme that had been begun by his predecessor. His government established the Supreme Court of Canada and Royal Military College of Canada, and created the District of Keewatin to better administer Canada's newly acquired western territories. However, it made little progress on the transcontinental railway, and struggled to deal with the aftermath of the Panic of 1873. At the 1878 election, Mackenzie's government suffered a landslide defeat. He remained leader of the Liberal Party for another two years, and continued on as a Member of Parliament (MP) until his death, due to a stroke.
Early life.
Mackenzie was born on January 28, 1822, in Logierait, Perthshire, Scotland, the son of Mary Stewart (Fleming) and Alexander Mackenzie Sr. (born 1784) who were married in 1817. The site of his birthplace is known as Clais-'n-deoir (the Hollow of the Weeping), where families said their goodbyes as the convicted were led to nearby Gallows Hill. The house in which he was born was built by his father. He was the third of 10 boys, seven of whom survived infancy. Alexander Mackenzie Sr. was a carpenter and ship's joiner who had to move around frequently for work after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Mackenzie's father died on March 7, 1836, and at the age of 13, Alexander Mackenzie Jr. was thus forced to end his formal education to help support his family. He apprenticed as a stonemason and met his future wife, Helen Neil, in Irvine, where her father was also a stonemason. The Neils were Baptist and shortly thereafter, Mackenzie converted from Presbyterianism to Baptist beliefs. Together with the Neils, he immigrated to Canada in 1842 to seek a better life. Mackenzie's faith was to link him to the increasingly influential temperance cause, particularly strong in Canada West where he lived, a constituency of which he was to represent in the Parliament of Canada.
The Neils and Mackenzie settled in Kingston, Ontario. The limestone in the area proved too hard for his stonemason tools, and not having money to buy new tools, Mackenzie took a job as a labourer constructing a building on Princess Street. The contractor on the job claimed financial difficulty, so Mackenzie accepted a promissory note for summer wages. The note later proved to be worthless. Subsequently, Mackenzie won a contract building a bomb-proof arch at Fort Henry. He later became a foreman on the construction of Kingston's four Martello Towers – Murney Tower, Fort Frederick, Cathcart Tower, and Shoal Tower. He was also a foreman on the construction of the Welland Canal and the Lachine Canal. While working on the Beauharnois Canal, a one-ton stone fell and crushed one of his legs. He recovered, but never regained the strength in that leg. While in Kingston, Mackenzie became a vocal opponent of religious and political entitlement and corruption in government.
Mackenzie married Helen Neil (1826–52) in 1845 and with her had three children, with only one girl, Mary, surviving infancy. Helen and he moved to Sarnia, Ontario (known as Canada West) in 1847 and Mary was born in 1848. They were soon joined from Scotland by the rest of Mackenzie's brothers and his mother. He began working as a general contractor, earning a reputation for being a hard-working, honest man, as well as having a working man's view on fiscal policy. Mackenzie helped construct many courthouses and jails across southern Ontario. A number of these still stand today, including the Sandwich Courthouse and Jail now known as the Mackenzie Hall Cultural Centre in Windsor, Ontario, and the Kent County Courthouse and Jail in Chatham, Ontario. He even bid, unsuccessfully, on the construction of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa in 1859. Helen died in 1852, finally succumbing to the effects of excessive doses of mercury-based calomel used to treat a fever while in Kingston. In 1853, he married Jane Sym (1825–93).
Early political involvement.
Mackenzie involved himself in politics almost from the moment he arrived in Canada. He fought passionately for equality and the elimination of all forms of class distinction. In 1851, he became the secretary for the Reform Party for Lambton. After convincing him to run in Kent/Lambton, Mackenzie campaigned relentlessly for George Brown, owner of the Reformist paper "The Globe" in the 1851 election, helping Brown to win his first seat in the Legislative Assembly. Mackenzie and Brown remained the closest of friends and colleagues for the rest of their lives. In 1852, Mackenzie became editor of another reformist paper, the "Lambton Shield". As an editor, Mackenzie was perhaps a little too vocal, leading the paper to a lawsuit for libel against the local conservative candidate. Because a key witness claimed Cabinet Confidence and would not testify, the paper lost the suit and was forced to fold due to financial hardship. After his brother, Hope Mackenzie, declined to run, Alexander was petitioned to run and won his first seat in the Legislative Assembly as a supporter of George Brown in 1861. When Brown resigned from the Great Coalition in 1865 over reciprocity negotiations with the United States, Mackenzie was invited to replace him as the president of the council. Wary of Macdonald's motivations and true to his principles, Mackenzie declined.
He entered the House of Commons of Canada in 1867, representing the Lambton, Ontario, riding. No cohesive national Liberal Party of Canada existed at the time and with Brown not winning his seat, no official leader emerged. Mackenzie did not believe he was the best qualified for the position, and although he resisted offers of the position, he nevertheless sat as the "de facto" leader of the Official Opposition.
Prime Minister (1873–1878).
When the Macdonald government fell due to the Pacific Scandal in 1873, the Governor General, Lord Dufferin, called upon Mackenzie, who had been chosen as the leader of the Liberal Party a few months earlier, to form a new government. Mackenzie formed a government and asked the Governor General to call an election for January 1874. The Liberals won a majority of the seats in the House of Commons having garnered 40% of the popular vote.
Mackenzie remained prime minister until the 1878 election when Macdonald's Conservatives returned to power with a majority government.
For a man of Mackenzie's humble origins to attain such a position was unusual in an age which generally offered such opportunity only to the privileged. Lord Dufferin expressed early misgivings about a stonemason taking over government, but on meeting Mackenzie, Dufferin revised his opinions:
Mackenzie served concurrently as Minister of Public Works and oversaw the completion of the Parliament buildings. While drawing up the plans for the West Block, he included a circular staircase leading directly from his office to the outside of the building, which allowed him to escape the patronage-seekers waiting for him in his ante-chamber. Proving Dufferin's reflections on his character to be true, Mackenzie disliked intensely the patronage inherent in politics. Nevertheless, he found it a necessary evil to maintain party unity and ensure the loyalty of his fellow Liberals.
In keeping with his democratic ideals, Mackenzie refused the offer of a knighthood three times, and was thus the only one of Canada's first eight Prime Ministers not to be knighted. He also declined appointment to the UK Privy Council and hence does not bear the title "Right Honourable". His pride in his working class origins never left him. Once, while touring Fort Henry as prime minister, he asked the soldier accompanying him if he knew the thickness of the wall beside them. The embarrassed escort confessed that he didn't and Mackenzie replied, "I do. It is five feet, ten inches. I know, because I built it myself!"
As Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie strove to reform and simplify the machinery of government, achieving a remarkable record of reform legislation. He introduced the secret ballot; advised the creation of the Supreme Court of Canada; the establishment of the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston in 1874; and the creation of the Office of the Auditor General in 1878. He completed the Intercolonial Railway, but struggled to progress on the national railway due to a worldwide economic depression, almost coming to blows with the then Governor General Lord Dufferin over imperial interference. Mackenzie stood up for the rights of Canada as a nation and fought for the supremacy of Parliament and honesty in government. Above all else, he was known and loved for his honesty and integrity.
However, his term was marked by economic depression that had grown out of the Panic of 1873, which Mackenzie's government was unable to alleviate. In 1874, Mackenzie negotiated a new free trade agreement with the United States, eliminating the high protective tariffs on Canadian goods in US markets. However, this action did not bolster the economy, and construction of the CPR slowed drastically due to lack of funding. In 1876, the Conservative opposition announced a National Policy of protective tariffs, which resonated with voters. When an election was held at the conclusion of Mackenzie's five-year term, the Conservatives were swept back into office in a landslide victory.
Supreme Court appointments.
Mackenzie chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General:
Later life.
After his government's defeat, Mackenzie remained Leader of the Opposition for another two years, until 1880. In 1881, he became the first president of The North American Life Assurance Company. He was soon struck with a mysterious ailment that sapped his strength and all but took his voice. Sitting in silence, he nevertheless remained an undefeated MP until his death in 1892 from a stroke that resulted from hitting his head during a fall. He died in Toronto and was buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Sarnia, Ontario.
Character.
Mackenzie's first biography in 1892 referred to him as Canada's Stainless Statesman. He was a devout Baptist and teetotaller who found refuge in, and drew strength from, his family, friends, and faith. He was also a loyal friend and an incorrigible prankster (stuffed chimney on young in-laws; rolled boulder down Thunder Cape towards friend A. McKellar; burned Tory campaign placards in hotel woodstove early in morning). Unpretentious and down to earth, his public official austerity was in striking contrast to private compassion and giving nature. He was the soul of honour and integrity, a proud man who sought no recognition or personal enrichment and accepted gifts reluctantly. He preferred to follow than lead (unreferenced – many times he refused leadership offers) and often found duty outweighed heavy burden of office. He was uncompromising on his principles, perhaps too much so. An historian at the time said, "He was, and ever will remain, the Sir Galahad of Canadian politics."
Very proud of his Scottish heritage, he was forever a Scot: "Nemo me impune lacessit" (no one attacks me with impunity). The Upper Canada rebellion leader W.L. Mackenzie referred to him, "He is every whit a self-made, self-educated man. Has large mental capacity and indomitable energy." Canada's Governor General, Lord Dufferin, said of him, he is "as pure as crystal, and as true as steel, with lots of common sense." A close friend, Chief Justice Sir Louis Davies, said he was "the best debater the House of Commons has ever known." A friend and colleague in Cabinet who went on to become prime minister of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, said he was "one of the truest and strongest characters to be met within Canadian history. He was endowed with a warm heart and a copious and rich fancy, though veiled by a somewhat reticent exterior, and he was of friends the most tender and true." Another friend and colleague, who went on to become premier of Ontario, Sir George Ross, said, "Mackenzie was "sui generis" a debater. His humorous sallies blistered like a blast from a flaming smelter. His sterling honesty is a great heritage, and will keep his memory green to all future generations." At his eulogy, Rev. Dr. Thomas compared him to the Duke of Wellington, who "stood four square, to all the winds that blow."
Newspaper around the world and in Canada had this to say about him. "The London Times" – the untiring energy, the business-like accuracy, the keen perception and reliable judgment, and above all the inflexible integrity, which marked his private life, he carried without abatement of one jot into his public career. "The Westminster Review" – a man, who although, through failing health and failing voice, he had virtually passed out of public life, yet retained to the last the affectionate veneration of the Canadian people as no other man of the time can be said to have done. The "Charlottetown Patriot" – in all that constitutes the real man, the honest statesman, the true patriot, the warm friend, and sincere Christian, he had few equals. Possessed of a clear intellect, a retentive memory, and a ready command of appropriate words, he was one of the most logical and powerful speakers we have ever heard. The "St. John Telegraph" – he was loved by the people and his political opponents were compelled to respect him even above their own chosen leader. As a statesman, he has had few equals. The "Montreal Star" – it is one of the very foremost architects of the Canadian nationality that we mourn. In the dark days of ’73, Canadians were in a state of panic, distrusting the stability of their newly-built Dominion; no one can tell what would have happened had not the stalwart form of Alexander Mackenzie lifted itself above the screaming, vociferating and denying mass of politicians, and all Canada felt at once, there was a man who could be trusted. The "Toronto Globe" – he was a man who loved the people and fought for their rights against privilege and monopoly in every form. The "Philadelphia Record" – Like Caesar, who twice refused a knightly crown, Alexander Mackenzie refused knighthood three times. Unlike Caesar, he owed his political overthrow to his incorruptible honesty and unswerving integrity.
Legacy.
In their 1999 study of the Prime Ministers of Canada, which included the results of a survey of Canadian historians, J. L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer found that Mackenzie was in 11th place just after John Sparrow David Thompson.
Namesakes.
The following are named in honour of Alexander Mackenzie:
Namesakes.
The following are named in honour of Alexander Mackenzie:
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1822
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Antoine Lavoisier
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Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution, was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology.
It is generally accepted that Lavoisier's great accomplishments in chemistry stem largely from his changing the science from a qualitative to a quantitative one. Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), and opposed phlogiston theory. Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He predicted the existence of silicon (1787) and discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same.
Lavoisier was a powerful member of a number of aristocratic councils, and an administrator of the "Ferme générale". The "Ferme générale" was one of the most hated components of the "Ancien Régime" because of the profits it took at the expense of the state, the secrecy of the terms of its contracts, and the violence of its armed agents. All of these political and economic activities enabled him to fund his scientific research. At the height of the French Revolution, he was charged with tax fraud and selling adulterated tobacco, and was guillotined.
Biography.
Early life and education.
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was born to a wealthy family of the nobility in Paris on 26 August 1743. The son of an attorney at the Parlement of Paris, he inherited a large fortune at the age of five upon the death of his mother. Lavoisier began his schooling at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris (also known as the Collège Mazarin) in Paris in 1754 at the age of 11. In his last two years (1760–1761) at the school, his scientific interests were aroused, and he studied chemistry, botany, astronomy, and mathematics. In the philosophy class he came under the tutelage of Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a distinguished mathematician and observational astronomer who imbued the young Lavoisier with an interest in meteorological observation, an enthusiasm which never left him. Lavoisier entered the school of law, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1763 and a licentiate in 1764. Lavoisier received a law degree and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced as a lawyer. However, he continued his scientific education in his spare time.
Early scientific work.
Lavoisier's education was filled with the ideals of the French Enlightenment of the time, and he was fascinated by Pierre Macquer's dictionary of chemistry. He attended lectures in the natural sciences. Lavoisier's devotion and passion for chemistry were largely influenced by Étienne Condillac, a prominent French scholar of the 18th century. His first chemical publication appeared in 1764. From 1763 to 1767, he studied geology under Jean-Étienne Guettard. In collaboration with Guettard, Lavoisier worked on a geological survey of Alsace-Lorraine in June 1767. In 1764 he read his first paper to the French Academy of Sciences, France's most elite scientific society, on the chemical and physical properties of gypsum (hydrated calcium sulfate), and in 1766 he was awarded a gold medal by the King for an essay on the problems of urban street lighting. In 1768 Lavoisier received a provisional appointment to the Academy of Sciences. In 1769, he worked on the first geological map of France.
Lavoisier as a social reformer.
Research benefitting the public good.
While Lavoisier is commonly known for his contributions to the sciences, he also dedicated a significant portion of his fortune and work toward benefitting the public. Lavoisier was a humanitarian—he cared deeply about the people in his country and often concerned himself with improving the livelihood of the population by agriculture, industry, and the sciences. The first instance of this occurred in 1765, when he submitted an essay on improving urban street lighting to the French Academy of Sciences.
Three years later in 1768, he focused on a new project to design an aqueduct. The goal was to bring water from the river Yvette into Paris so that the citizens could have clean drinking water. But, since the construction never commenced, he instead turned his focus to purifying the water from the Seine. This was the project that interested Lavoisier in the chemistry of water and public sanitation duties.
Additionally, he was interested in air quality and spent some time studying the health risks associated with gunpowder's effect on the air. In 1772, he performed a study on how to reconstruct the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, after it had been damaged by fire, in a way that would allow proper ventilation and clean air throughout.
At the time, the prisons in Paris were known to be largely unlivable and the prisoners' treatment inhumane. Lavoisier took part in investigations in 1780 (and again in 1791) on the hygiene in prisons and had made suggestions to improve living conditions, suggestions which were largely ignored.
Once a part of the Academy, Lavoisier also held his own competitions to push the direction of research towards bettering the public and his own work. One such project he proposed in 1793 was to better public health on the "insalubrious arts".
Sponsorship of the sciences.
Lavoisier had a vision of public education having roots in "scientific sociability" and philanthropy.
Lavoisier gained a vast majority of his income through buying stock in the General Farm, which allowed him to work on science full-time, live comfortably, and allowed him to contribute financially to better the community. (It would also contribute to his demise during the Reign of Terror many years later.)
It was very difficult to secure public funding for the sciences at the time, and additionally not very financially profitable for the average scientist, so Lavoisier used his wealth to open a very expensive and sophisticated laboratory in France so that aspiring scientists could study without the barriers of securing funding for their research.
He also pushed for public education in the sciences. He founded two organizations, and Musée des Arts et Métiers, which were created to serve as educational tools for the public. Funded by the wealthy and noble, the Lycée regularly taught courses to the public beginning in 1793.
Ferme générale and marriage.
At the age of 26, around the time he was elected to the Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier bought a share in the "Ferme générale", a tax farming financial company which advanced the estimated tax revenue to the royal government in return for the right to collect the taxes. On behalf of the Ferme générale Lavoisier commissioned the building of a wall around Paris so that customs duties could be collected from those transporting goods into and out of the city. His participation in the collection of its taxes did not help his reputation when the Reign of Terror began in France, as taxes and poor government reform were the primary motivators during the French Revolution.
Lavoisier consolidated his social and economic position when, in 1771 at age 28, he married Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, the 13-year-old daughter of a senior member of the "Ferme générale". She was to play an important part in Lavoisier's scientific career—notably, she translated English documents for him, including Richard Kirwan's "Essay on Phlogiston" and Joseph Priestley's research. In addition, she assisted him in the laboratory and created many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues for their scientific works. Madame Lavoisier edited and published Antoine's memoirs (whether any English translations of those memoirs have survived is unknown as of today) and hosted parties at which eminent scientists discussed ideas and problems related to chemistry.
A portrait of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier was painted by the famed artist Jacques-Louis David. Completed in 1788 on the eve of the Revolution, the painting was denied a customary public display at the Paris Salon for fear that it might inflame anti-aristocratic passions.
For three years following his entry into the "Ferme générale", Lavoisier's scientific activity diminished somewhat, for much of his time was taken up with official "Ferme générale" business. He did, however, present one important memoir to the Academy of Sciences during this period, on the supposed conversion of water into earth by evaporation. By a very precise quantitative experiment, Lavoisier showed that the "earthy" sediment produced after long-continued reflux heating of water in a glass vessel was not due to a conversion of the water into earth but rather to the gradual disintegration of the inside of the glass vessel produced by the boiling water. He also attempted to introduce reforms in the French monetary and taxation system to help the peasants.
Adulteration of tobacco.
The Farmers General held a monopoly of the production, import and sale of tobacco in France, and the taxes they levied on tobacco brought revenues of 30 million livres a year. This revenue began to fall because of a growing black market in tobacco that was smuggled and adulterated, most commonly with ash and water. Lavoisier devised a method of checking whether ash had been mixed in with tobacco: "When a spirit of vitriol, "aqua fortis" or some other acid solution is poured on ash, there is an immediate very intense effervescent reaction, accompanied by an easily detected noise." Lavoisier also noticed that the addition of a small amount of ash improved the flavour of tobacco. Of one vendor selling adulterated goods, he wrote "His tobacco enjoys a very good reputation in the province... the very small proportion of ash that is added gives it a particularly pungent flavour that consumers look for. Perhaps the Farm could gain some advantage by adding a bit of this liquid mixture when the tobacco is fabricated." Lavoisier also found that while adding a lot of water to bulk the tobacco up would cause it to ferment and smell bad, the addition of a very small amount improved the product. Thereafter the factories of the Farmers General added, as he recommended, a consistent 6.3% of water by volume to the tobacco they processed. To allow for this addition, the Farmers General delivered to retailers seventeen ounces of tobacco while only charging for sixteen. To ensure that only these authorised amounts were added, and to exclude the black market, Lavoisier saw to it that a watertight system of checks, accounts, supervision and testing made it very difficult for retailers to source contraband tobacco or to improve their profits by bulking it up. He was energetic and rigorous in implementing this, and the systems he introduced were deeply unpopular with the tobacco retailers across the country. This unpopularity was to have consequences for him during the French Revolution.
Royal Commission on Agriculture.
Lavoisier urged the establishment of a Royal Commission on Agriculture. He then served as its Secretary and spent considerable sums of his own money in order to improve the agricultural yields in the Sologne, an area where farmland was of poor quality. The humidity of the region often led to a blight of the rye harvest, causing outbreaks of ergotism among the population. In 1788 Lavoisier presented a report to the Commission detailing ten years of efforts on his experimental farm to introduce new crops and types of livestock. His conclusion was that despite the possibilities of agricultural reforms, the tax system left tenant farmers with so little that it was unrealistic to expect them to change their traditional practices.
Gunpowder Commission.
Lavoisier's researches on combustion were carried out in the midst of a very busy schedule of public and private duties, especially in connection with the "Ferme Générale". There were also innumerable reports for and committees of the Academy of Sciences to investigate specific problems on order of the royal government. Lavoisier, whose organizing skills were outstanding, frequently landed the task of writing up such official reports. In 1775 he was made one of four commissioners of gunpowder appointed to replace a private company, similar to the Ferme Générale, which had proved unsatisfactory in supplying France with its munitions requirements. As a result of his efforts, both the quantity and quality of French gunpowder greatly improved, and it became a source of revenue for the government. His appointment to the Gunpowder Commission brought one great benefit to Lavoisier's scientific career as well. As a commissioner, he enjoyed both a house and a laboratory in the Royal Arsenal. Here he lived and worked between 1775 and 1792.
Lavoisier was a formative influence in the formation of the Du Pont gunpowder business because he trained Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, its founder, on gunpowder-making in France; the latter said that the Du Pont gunpowder mills "would never have been started but for his kindness to me."
During the Revolution.
In June 1791, Lavoisier made a loan of 71,000 livres to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours to buy a printing works so that du Pont could publish a newspaper, "La Correspondance Patriotique". The plan was for this to include both reports of debates in the National Constituent Assembly as well as papers from the Academy of Sciences. The revolution quickly disrupted the elder du Pont's first newspaper, but his son E.I. du Pont soon launched "Le Republicain" and published Lavoisier's latest chemistry texts.
Lavoisier also chaired the commission set up to establish a uniform system of weights and measures which in March 1791 recommended the adoption of the metric system. The new system of weights and measures was adopted by the Convention on 1 August 1793. Lavoisier himself was removed from the commission on weights and measures on 23 December 1793, together with mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace and several other members, for political reasons.
One of his last major works was a proposal to the National Convention for the reform of French education. He also intervened on behalf of a number of foreign-born scientists including mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange, helping to exempt them from a mandate stripping all foreigners of possessions and freedom.
Final days and execution.
As the French Revolution gained momentum, attacks mounted on the deeply unpopular "Ferme générale", and it was eventually abolished in March 1791. In 1792 Lavoisier was forced to resign from his post on the Gunpowder Commission and to move from his house and laboratory at the Royal Arsenal. On 8 August 1793, all the learned societies, including the Academy of Sciences, were suppressed at the request of Abbé Grégoire.
On 24 November 1793, the arrest of all the former tax farmers was ordered. Lavoisier and the other Farmers General faced nine accusations of defrauding the state of money owed to it, and of adding water to tobacco before selling it. Lavoisier drafted their defense, refuting the financial accusations, reminding the court of how they had maintained a consistently high quality of tobacco. The court was however inclined to believe that by condemning them and seizing their goods, it would recover huge sums for the state. Lavoisier was convicted and guillotined on 8 May 1794 in Paris, at the age of 50, along with his 27 co-defendants.
According to popular legend, the appeal to spare his life so that he could continue his experiments was cut short by the judge, Coffinhal: "La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu." ("The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.") The judge Coffinhal himself would be executed less than three months later, in the wake of the Thermidorian reaction.
Lavoisier's importance to science was expressed by Lagrange who lamented the beheading by saying: "Il ne leur a fallu qu'un moment pour faire tomber cette tête, et cent années peut-être ne suffiront pas pour en reproduire une semblable." ("It took them only an instant to cut off this head, and one hundred years might not suffice to reproduce its like.")
Post-mortem.
A year and a half after his execution, Lavoisier was completely exonerated by the French government. During the White Terror, his belongings were delivered to his widow. A brief note was included, reading "To the widow of Lavoisier, who was falsely convicted".
Early life and education.
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was born to a wealthy family of the nobility in Paris on 26 August 1743. The son of an attorney at the Parlement of Paris, he inherited a large fortune at the age of five upon the death of his mother. Lavoisier began his schooling at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris (also known as the Collège Mazarin) in Paris in 1754 at the age of 11. In his last two years (1760–1761) at the school, his scientific interests were aroused, and he studied chemistry, botany, astronomy, and mathematics. In the philosophy class he came under the tutelage of Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a distinguished mathematician and observational astronomer who imbued the young Lavoisier with an interest in meteorological observation, an enthusiasm which never left him. Lavoisier entered the school of law, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1763 and a licentiate in 1764. Lavoisier received a law degree and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced as a lawyer. However, he continued his scientific education in his spare time.
Early scientific work.
Lavoisier's education was filled with the ideals of the French Enlightenment of the time, and he was fascinated by Pierre Macquer's dictionary of chemistry. He attended lectures in the natural sciences. Lavoisier's devotion and passion for chemistry were largely influenced by Étienne Condillac, a prominent French scholar of the 18th century. His first chemical publication appeared in 1764. From 1763 to 1767, he studied geology under Jean-Étienne Guettard. In collaboration with Guettard, Lavoisier worked on a geological survey of Alsace-Lorraine in June 1767. In 1764 he read his first paper to the French Academy of Sciences, France's most elite scientific society, on the chemical and physical properties of gypsum (hydrated calcium sulfate), and in 1766 he was awarded a gold medal by the King for an essay on the problems of urban street lighting. In 1768 Lavoisier received a provisional appointment to the Academy of Sciences. In 1769, he worked on the first geological map of France.
Lavoisier as a social reformer.
Research benefitting the public good.
While Lavoisier is commonly known for his contributions to the sciences, he also dedicated a significant portion of his fortune and work toward benefitting the public. Lavoisier was a humanitarian—he cared deeply about the people in his country and often concerned himself with improving the livelihood of the population by agriculture, industry, and the sciences. The first instance of this occurred in 1765, when he submitted an essay on improving urban street lighting to the French Academy of Sciences.
Three years later in 1768, he focused on a new project to design an aqueduct. The goal was to bring water from the river Yvette into Paris so that the citizens could have clean drinking water. But, since the construction never commenced, he instead turned his focus to purifying the water from the Seine. This was the project that interested Lavoisier in the chemistry of water and public sanitation duties.
Additionally, he was interested in air quality and spent some time studying the health risks associated with gunpowder's effect on the air. In 1772, he performed a study on how to reconstruct the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, after it had been damaged by fire, in a way that would allow proper ventilation and clean air throughout.
At the time, the prisons in Paris were known to be largely unlivable and the prisoners' treatment inhumane. Lavoisier took part in investigations in 1780 (and again in 1791) on the hygiene in prisons and had made suggestions to improve living conditions, suggestions which were largely ignored.
Once a part of the Academy, Lavoisier also held his own competitions to push the direction of research towards bettering the public and his own work. One such project he proposed in 1793 was to better public health on the "insalubrious arts".
Sponsorship of the sciences.
Lavoisier had a vision of public education having roots in "scientific sociability" and philanthropy.
Lavoisier gained a vast majority of his income through buying stock in the General Farm, which allowed him to work on science full-time, live comfortably, and allowed him to contribute financially to better the community. (It would also contribute to his demise during the Reign of Terror many years later.)
It was very difficult to secure public funding for the sciences at the time, and additionally not very financially profitable for the average scientist, so Lavoisier used his wealth to open a very expensive and sophisticated laboratory in France so that aspiring scientists could study without the barriers of securing funding for their research.
He also pushed for public education in the sciences. He founded two organizations, and Musée des Arts et Métiers, which were created to serve as educational tools for the public. Funded by the wealthy and noble, the Lycée regularly taught courses to the public beginning in 1793.
Research benefitting the public good.
While Lavoisier is commonly known for his contributions to the sciences, he also dedicated a significant portion of his fortune and work toward benefitting the public. Lavoisier was a humanitarian—he cared deeply about the people in his country and often concerned himself with improving the livelihood of the population by agriculture, industry, and the sciences. The first instance of this occurred in 1765, when he submitted an essay on improving urban street lighting to the French Academy of Sciences.
Three years later in 1768, he focused on a new project to design an aqueduct. The goal was to bring water from the river Yvette into Paris so that the citizens could have clean drinking water. But, since the construction never commenced, he instead turned his focus to purifying the water from the Seine. This was the project that interested Lavoisier in the chemistry of water and public sanitation duties.
Additionally, he was interested in air quality and spent some time studying the health risks associated with gunpowder's effect on the air. In 1772, he performed a study on how to reconstruct the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, after it had been damaged by fire, in a way that would allow proper ventilation and clean air throughout.
At the time, the prisons in Paris were known to be largely unlivable and the prisoners' treatment inhumane. Lavoisier took part in investigations in 1780 (and again in 1791) on the hygiene in prisons and had made suggestions to improve living conditions, suggestions which were largely ignored.
Once a part of the Academy, Lavoisier also held his own competitions to push the direction of research towards bettering the public and his own work. One such project he proposed in 1793 was to better public health on the "insalubrious arts".
Sponsorship of the sciences.
Lavoisier had a vision of public education having roots in "scientific sociability" and philanthropy.
Lavoisier gained a vast majority of his income through buying stock in the General Farm, which allowed him to work on science full-time, live comfortably, and allowed him to contribute financially to better the community. (It would also contribute to his demise during the Reign of Terror many years later.)
It was very difficult to secure public funding for the sciences at the time, and additionally not very financially profitable for the average scientist, so Lavoisier used his wealth to open a very expensive and sophisticated laboratory in France so that aspiring scientists could study without the barriers of securing funding for their research.
He also pushed for public education in the sciences. He founded two organizations, and Musée des Arts et Métiers, which were created to serve as educational tools for the public. Funded by the wealthy and noble, the Lycée regularly taught courses to the public beginning in 1793.
Ferme générale and marriage.
At the age of 26, around the time he was elected to the Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier bought a share in the "Ferme générale", a tax farming financial company which advanced the estimated tax revenue to the royal government in return for the right to collect the taxes. On behalf of the Ferme générale Lavoisier commissioned the building of a wall around Paris so that customs duties could be collected from those transporting goods into and out of the city. His participation in the collection of its taxes did not help his reputation when the Reign of Terror began in France, as taxes and poor government reform were the primary motivators during the French Revolution.
Lavoisier consolidated his social and economic position when, in 1771 at age 28, he married Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, the 13-year-old daughter of a senior member of the "Ferme générale". She was to play an important part in Lavoisier's scientific career—notably, she translated English documents for him, including Richard Kirwan's "Essay on Phlogiston" and Joseph Priestley's research. In addition, she assisted him in the laboratory and created many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues for their scientific works. Madame Lavoisier edited and published Antoine's memoirs (whether any English translations of those memoirs have survived is unknown as of today) and hosted parties at which eminent scientists discussed ideas and problems related to chemistry.
A portrait of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier was painted by the famed artist Jacques-Louis David. Completed in 1788 on the eve of the Revolution, the painting was denied a customary public display at the Paris Salon for fear that it might inflame anti-aristocratic passions.
For three years following his entry into the "Ferme générale", Lavoisier's scientific activity diminished somewhat, for much of his time was taken up with official "Ferme générale" business. He did, however, present one important memoir to the Academy of Sciences during this period, on the supposed conversion of water into earth by evaporation. By a very precise quantitative experiment, Lavoisier showed that the "earthy" sediment produced after long-continued reflux heating of water in a glass vessel was not due to a conversion of the water into earth but rather to the gradual disintegration of the inside of the glass vessel produced by the boiling water. He also attempted to introduce reforms in the French monetary and taxation system to help the peasants.
Adulteration of tobacco.
The Farmers General held a monopoly of the production, import and sale of tobacco in France, and the taxes they levied on tobacco brought revenues of 30 million livres a year. This revenue began to fall because of a growing black market in tobacco that was smuggled and adulterated, most commonly with ash and water. Lavoisier devised a method of checking whether ash had been mixed in with tobacco: "When a spirit of vitriol, "aqua fortis" or some other acid solution is poured on ash, there is an immediate very intense effervescent reaction, accompanied by an easily detected noise." Lavoisier also noticed that the addition of a small amount of ash improved the flavour of tobacco. Of one vendor selling adulterated goods, he wrote "His tobacco enjoys a very good reputation in the province... the very small proportion of ash that is added gives it a particularly pungent flavour that consumers look for. Perhaps the Farm could gain some advantage by adding a bit of this liquid mixture when the tobacco is fabricated." Lavoisier also found that while adding a lot of water to bulk the tobacco up would cause it to ferment and smell bad, the addition of a very small amount improved the product. Thereafter the factories of the Farmers General added, as he recommended, a consistent 6.3% of water by volume to the tobacco they processed. To allow for this addition, the Farmers General delivered to retailers seventeen ounces of tobacco while only charging for sixteen. To ensure that only these authorised amounts were added, and to exclude the black market, Lavoisier saw to it that a watertight system of checks, accounts, supervision and testing made it very difficult for retailers to source contraband tobacco or to improve their profits by bulking it up. He was energetic and rigorous in implementing this, and the systems he introduced were deeply unpopular with the tobacco retailers across the country. This unpopularity was to have consequences for him during the French Revolution.
Royal Commission on Agriculture.
Lavoisier urged the establishment of a Royal Commission on Agriculture. He then served as its Secretary and spent considerable sums of his own money in order to improve the agricultural yields in the Sologne, an area where farmland was of poor quality. The humidity of the region often led to a blight of the rye harvest, causing outbreaks of ergotism among the population. In 1788 Lavoisier presented a report to the Commission detailing ten years of efforts on his experimental farm to introduce new crops and types of livestock. His conclusion was that despite the possibilities of agricultural reforms, the tax system left tenant farmers with so little that it was unrealistic to expect them to change their traditional practices.
Gunpowder Commission.
Lavoisier's researches on combustion were carried out in the midst of a very busy schedule of public and private duties, especially in connection with the "Ferme Générale". There were also innumerable reports for and committees of the Academy of Sciences to investigate specific problems on order of the royal government. Lavoisier, whose organizing skills were outstanding, frequently landed the task of writing up such official reports. In 1775 he was made one of four commissioners of gunpowder appointed to replace a private company, similar to the Ferme Générale, which had proved unsatisfactory in supplying France with its munitions requirements. As a result of his efforts, both the quantity and quality of French gunpowder greatly improved, and it became a source of revenue for the government. His appointment to the Gunpowder Commission brought one great benefit to Lavoisier's scientific career as well. As a commissioner, he enjoyed both a house and a laboratory in the Royal Arsenal. Here he lived and worked between 1775 and 1792.
Lavoisier was a formative influence in the formation of the Du Pont gunpowder business because he trained Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, its founder, on gunpowder-making in France; the latter said that the Du Pont gunpowder mills "would never have been started but for his kindness to me."
During the Revolution.
In June 1791, Lavoisier made a loan of 71,000 livres to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours to buy a printing works so that du Pont could publish a newspaper, "La Correspondance Patriotique". The plan was for this to include both reports of debates in the National Constituent Assembly as well as papers from the Academy of Sciences. The revolution quickly disrupted the elder du Pont's first newspaper, but his son E.I. du Pont soon launched "Le Republicain" and published Lavoisier's latest chemistry texts.
Lavoisier also chaired the commission set up to establish a uniform system of weights and measures which in March 1791 recommended the adoption of the metric system. The new system of weights and measures was adopted by the Convention on 1 August 1793. Lavoisier himself was removed from the commission on weights and measures on 23 December 1793, together with mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace and several other members, for political reasons.
One of his last major works was a proposal to the National Convention for the reform of French education. He also intervened on behalf of a number of foreign-born scientists including mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange, helping to exempt them from a mandate stripping all foreigners of possessions and freedom.
Final days and execution.
As the French Revolution gained momentum, attacks mounted on the deeply unpopular "Ferme générale", and it was eventually abolished in March 1791. In 1792 Lavoisier was forced to resign from his post on the Gunpowder Commission and to move from his house and laboratory at the Royal Arsenal. On 8 August 1793, all the learned societies, including the Academy of Sciences, were suppressed at the request of Abbé Grégoire.
On 24 November 1793, the arrest of all the former tax farmers was ordered. Lavoisier and the other Farmers General faced nine accusations of defrauding the state of money owed to it, and of adding water to tobacco before selling it. Lavoisier drafted their defense, refuting the financial accusations, reminding the court of how they had maintained a consistently high quality of tobacco. The court was however inclined to believe that by condemning them and seizing their goods, it would recover huge sums for the state. Lavoisier was convicted and guillotined on 8 May 1794 in Paris, at the age of 50, along with his 27 co-defendants.
According to popular legend, the appeal to spare his life so that he could continue his experiments was cut short by the judge, Coffinhal: "La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu." ("The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.") The judge Coffinhal himself would be executed less than three months later, in the wake of the Thermidorian reaction.
Lavoisier's importance to science was expressed by Lagrange who lamented the beheading by saying: "Il ne leur a fallu qu'un moment pour faire tomber cette tête, et cent années peut-être ne suffiront pas pour en reproduire une semblable." ("It took them only an instant to cut off this head, and one hundred years might not suffice to reproduce its like.")
Post-mortem.
A year and a half after his execution, Lavoisier was completely exonerated by the French government. During the White Terror, his belongings were delivered to his widow. A brief note was included, reading "To the widow of Lavoisier, who was falsely convicted".
Post-mortem.
A year and a half after his execution, Lavoisier was completely exonerated by the French government. During the White Terror, his belongings were delivered to his widow. A brief note was included, reading "To the widow of Lavoisier, who was falsely convicted".
Contributions to chemistry.
Oxygen theory of combustion.
During late 1772 Lavoisier turned his attention to the phenomenon of combustion, the topic on which he was to make his most significant contribution to science. He reported the results of his first experiments on combustion in a note to the Academy on 20 October, in which he reported that when phosphorus burned, it combined with a large quantity of air to produce acid spirit of phosphorus, and that the phosphorus increased in weight on burning. In a second sealed note deposited with the Academy a few weeks later (1 November) Lavoisier extended his observations and conclusions to the burning of sulfur and went on to add that "what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain in weight by combustion and calcination: and I am persuaded that the increase in weight of metallic calces is due to the same cause."
Joseph Black's "fixed air".
During 1773 Lavoisier determined to review thoroughly the literature on air, particularly "fixed air," and to repeat many of the experiments of other workers in the field. He published an account of this review in 1774 in a book entitled "Opuscules physiques et chimiques" (Physical and Chemical Essays). In the course of this review, he made his first full study of the work of Joseph Black, the Scottish chemist who had carried out a series of classic quantitative experiments on the mild and caustic alkalies. Black had shown that the difference between a mild alkali, for example, chalk (CaCO3), and the caustic form, for example, quicklime (CaO), lay in the fact that the former contained "fixed air," not common air fixed in the chalk, but a distinct chemical species, now understood to be carbon dioxide (CO2), which was a constituent of the atmosphere. Lavoisier recognized that Black's fixed air was identical with the air evolved when metal calces were reduced with charcoal and even suggested that the air which combined with metals on calcination and increased the weight might be Black's fixed air, that is, CO2.
Joseph Priestley.
In the spring of 1774, Lavoisier carried out experiments on the calcination of tin and lead in sealed vessels, the results of which conclusively confirmed that the increase in weight of metals in combustion was due to combination with air. But the question remained about whether it was in combination with common atmospheric air or with only a part of atmospheric air. In October the English chemist Joseph Priestley visited Paris, where he met Lavoisier and told him of the air which he had produced by heating the red calx of mercury with a burning glass and which had supported combustion with extreme vigor. Priestley at this time was unsure of the nature of this gas, but he felt that it was an especially pure form of common air. Lavoisier carried out his own research on this peculiar substance. The result was his memoir "On the Nature of the Principle Which Combines with Metals during Their Calcination and Increases Their Weight", read to the Academy on 26 April 1775 (commonly referred to as the Easter Memoir). In the original memoir, Lavoisier showed that the mercury calx was a true metallic calx in that it could be reduced with charcoal, giving off Black's fixed air in the process. When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that it was the air itself "undivided, without alteration, without decomposition" which combined with metals on calcination.
After returning from Paris, Priestley took up once again his investigation of the air from mercury calx. His results now showed that this air was not just an especially pure form of common air but was "five or six times better than common air, for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and ... every other use of common air". He called the air dephlogisticated air, as he thought it was common air deprived of its phlogiston. Since it was therefore in a state to absorb a much greater quantity of phlogiston given off by burning bodies and respiring animals, the greatly enhanced combustion of substances and the greater ease of breathing in this air were explained.
Pioneer of stoichiometry.
Lavoisier's researches included some of the first truly quantitative chemical experiments. He carefully weighed the reactants and products of a chemical reaction in a sealed glass vessel so that no gases could escape, which was a crucial step in the advancement of chemistry. In 1774, he showed that, although matter can change its state in a chemical reaction, the total mass of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every chemical change. Thus, for instance, if a piece of wood is burned to ashes, the total mass remains unchanged if gaseous reactants and products are included. Lavoisier's experiments supported the law of conservation of mass. In France it is taught as Lavoisier's Law and is paraphrased from a statement in his "Traité Élémentaire de Chimie": "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) had previously expressed similar ideas in 1748 and proved them in experiments; others whose ideas pre-date the work of Lavoisier include Jean Rey (1583–1645), Joseph Black (1728–1799), and Henry Cavendish (1731–1810).
Chemical nomenclature.
Lavoisier, together with Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy, submitted a new program for the reforms of chemical nomenclature to the Academy in 1787, for there was virtually no rational system of chemical nomenclature at this time. This work, titled "Méthode de nomenclature chimique" ("Method of Chemical Nomenclature", 1787), introduced a new system which was tied inextricably to Lavoisier's new oxygen theory of chemistry.
The classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water were discarded, and instead some 55 substances which could not be decomposed into simpler substances by any known chemical means were provisionally listed as elements. The elements included light; caloric (matter of heat); the principles of oxygen, hydrogen, and azote (nitrogen); carbon; sulfur; phosphorus; the yet unknown "radicals" of muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid), boric acid, and "fluoric" acid; 17 metals; 5 earths (mainly oxides of yet unknown metals such as magnesia, baria, and strontia); three alkalies (potash, soda, and ammonia); and the "radicals" of 19 organic acids.
The acids, regarded in the new system as compounds of various elements with oxygen, were given names which indicated the element involved together with the degree of oxygenation of that element, for example sulfuric and sulfurous acids, phosphoric and phosphorous acids, nitric and nitrous acids, the "ic" termination indicating acids with a higher proportion of oxygen than those with the "ous" ending.
Similarly, salts of the "ic" acids were given the terminal letters "ate," as in copper sulfate, whereas the salts of the "ous" acids terminated with the suffix "ite," as in copper sulfite.
The total effect of the new nomenclature can be gauged by comparing the new name "copper sulfate" with the old term "vitriol of Venus." Lavoisier's new nomenclature spread throughout Europe and to the United States and became common use in the field of chemistry. This marked the beginning of the anti-phlogistic approach to the field.
Chemical revolution and opposition.
Lavoisier is commonly cited as a central contributor to the chemical revolution. His precise measurements and meticulous keeping of balance sheets throughout his experiment were vital to the widespread acceptance of the law of conservation of mass. His introduction of new terminology, a binomial system modeled after that of Linnaeus, also helps to mark the dramatic changes in the field which are referred to generally as the chemical revolution. Lavoisier encountered much opposition in trying to change the field, especially from British phlogistic scientists. Joseph Priestley, Richard Kirwan, James Keir, and William Nicholson, among others, argued that quantification of substances did not imply conservation of mass. Rather than reporting factual evidence, opposition claimed Lavoisier was misinterpreting the implications of his research. One of Lavoisier's allies, Jean Baptiste Biot, wrote of Lavoisier's methodology, "one felt the necessity of linking accuracy in experiments to rigor of reasoning." His opposition argued that precision in experimentation did not imply precision in inferences and reasoning. Despite opposition, Lavoisier continued to use precise instrumentation to convince other chemists of his conclusions, often results to five to eight decimal places. Nicholson, who estimated that only three of these decimal places were meaningful, stated:
Oxygen theory of combustion.
During late 1772 Lavoisier turned his attention to the phenomenon of combustion, the topic on which he was to make his most significant contribution to science. He reported the results of his first experiments on combustion in a note to the Academy on 20 October, in which he reported that when phosphorus burned, it combined with a large quantity of air to produce acid spirit of phosphorus, and that the phosphorus increased in weight on burning. In a second sealed note deposited with the Academy a few weeks later (1 November) Lavoisier extended his observations and conclusions to the burning of sulfur and went on to add that "what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain in weight by combustion and calcination: and I am persuaded that the increase in weight of metallic calces is due to the same cause."
Joseph Black's "fixed air".
During 1773 Lavoisier determined to review thoroughly the literature on air, particularly "fixed air," and to repeat many of the experiments of other workers in the field. He published an account of this review in 1774 in a book entitled "Opuscules physiques et chimiques" (Physical and Chemical Essays). In the course of this review, he made his first full study of the work of Joseph Black, the Scottish chemist who had carried out a series of classic quantitative experiments on the mild and caustic alkalies. Black had shown that the difference between a mild alkali, for example, chalk (CaCO3), and the caustic form, for example, quicklime (CaO), lay in the fact that the former contained "fixed air," not common air fixed in the chalk, but a distinct chemical species, now understood to be carbon dioxide (CO2), which was a constituent of the atmosphere. Lavoisier recognized that Black's fixed air was identical with the air evolved when metal calces were reduced with charcoal and even suggested that the air which combined with metals on calcination and increased the weight might be Black's fixed air, that is, CO2.
Joseph Priestley.
In the spring of 1774, Lavoisier carried out experiments on the calcination of tin and lead in sealed vessels, the results of which conclusively confirmed that the increase in weight of metals in combustion was due to combination with air. But the question remained about whether it was in combination with common atmospheric air or with only a part of atmospheric air. In October the English chemist Joseph Priestley visited Paris, where he met Lavoisier and told him of the air which he had produced by heating the red calx of mercury with a burning glass and which had supported combustion with extreme vigor. Priestley at this time was unsure of the nature of this gas, but he felt that it was an especially pure form of common air. Lavoisier carried out his own research on this peculiar substance. The result was his memoir "On the Nature of the Principle Which Combines with Metals during Their Calcination and Increases Their Weight", read to the Academy on 26 April 1775 (commonly referred to as the Easter Memoir). In the original memoir, Lavoisier showed that the mercury calx was a true metallic calx in that it could be reduced with charcoal, giving off Black's fixed air in the process. When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that it was the air itself "undivided, without alteration, without decomposition" which combined with metals on calcination.
After returning from Paris, Priestley took up once again his investigation of the air from mercury calx. His results now showed that this air was not just an especially pure form of common air but was "five or six times better than common air, for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and ... every other use of common air". He called the air dephlogisticated air, as he thought it was common air deprived of its phlogiston. Since it was therefore in a state to absorb a much greater quantity of phlogiston given off by burning bodies and respiring animals, the greatly enhanced combustion of substances and the greater ease of breathing in this air were explained.
Joseph Black's "fixed air".
During 1773 Lavoisier determined to review thoroughly the literature on air, particularly "fixed air," and to repeat many of the experiments of other workers in the field. He published an account of this review in 1774 in a book entitled "Opuscules physiques et chimiques" (Physical and Chemical Essays). In the course of this review, he made his first full study of the work of Joseph Black, the Scottish chemist who had carried out a series of classic quantitative experiments on the mild and caustic alkalies. Black had shown that the difference between a mild alkali, for example, chalk (CaCO3), and the caustic form, for example, quicklime (CaO), lay in the fact that the former contained "fixed air," not common air fixed in the chalk, but a distinct chemical species, now understood to be carbon dioxide (CO2), which was a constituent of the atmosphere. Lavoisier recognized that Black's fixed air was identical with the air evolved when metal calces were reduced with charcoal and even suggested that the air which combined with metals on calcination and increased the weight might be Black's fixed air, that is, CO2.
Joseph Priestley.
In the spring of 1774, Lavoisier carried out experiments on the calcination of tin and lead in sealed vessels, the results of which conclusively confirmed that the increase in weight of metals in combustion was due to combination with air. But the question remained about whether it was in combination with common atmospheric air or with only a part of atmospheric air. In October the English chemist Joseph Priestley visited Paris, where he met Lavoisier and told him of the air which he had produced by heating the red calx of mercury with a burning glass and which had supported combustion with extreme vigor. Priestley at this time was unsure of the nature of this gas, but he felt that it was an especially pure form of common air. Lavoisier carried out his own research on this peculiar substance. The result was his memoir "On the Nature of the Principle Which Combines with Metals during Their Calcination and Increases Their Weight", read to the Academy on 26 April 1775 (commonly referred to as the Easter Memoir). In the original memoir, Lavoisier showed that the mercury calx was a true metallic calx in that it could be reduced with charcoal, giving off Black's fixed air in the process. When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that it was the air itself "undivided, without alteration, without decomposition" which combined with metals on calcination.
After returning from Paris, Priestley took up once again his investigation of the air from mercury calx. His results now showed that this air was not just an especially pure form of common air but was "five or six times better than common air, for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and ... every other use of common air". He called the air dephlogisticated air, as he thought it was common air deprived of its phlogiston. Since it was therefore in a state to absorb a much greater quantity of phlogiston given off by burning bodies and respiring animals, the greatly enhanced combustion of substances and the greater ease of breathing in this air were explained.
Pioneer of stoichiometry.
Lavoisier's researches included some of the first truly quantitative chemical experiments. He carefully weighed the reactants and products of a chemical reaction in a sealed glass vessel so that no gases could escape, which was a crucial step in the advancement of chemistry. In 1774, he showed that, although matter can change its state in a chemical reaction, the total mass of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every chemical change. Thus, for instance, if a piece of wood is burned to ashes, the total mass remains unchanged if gaseous reactants and products are included. Lavoisier's experiments supported the law of conservation of mass. In France it is taught as Lavoisier's Law and is paraphrased from a statement in his "Traité Élémentaire de Chimie": "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) had previously expressed similar ideas in 1748 and proved them in experiments; others whose ideas pre-date the work of Lavoisier include Jean Rey (1583–1645), Joseph Black (1728–1799), and Henry Cavendish (1731–1810).
Chemical nomenclature.
Lavoisier, together with Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy, submitted a new program for the reforms of chemical nomenclature to the Academy in 1787, for there was virtually no rational system of chemical nomenclature at this time. This work, titled "Méthode de nomenclature chimique" ("Method of Chemical Nomenclature", 1787), introduced a new system which was tied inextricably to Lavoisier's new oxygen theory of chemistry.
The classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water were discarded, and instead some 55 substances which could not be decomposed into simpler substances by any known chemical means were provisionally listed as elements. The elements included light; caloric (matter of heat); the principles of oxygen, hydrogen, and azote (nitrogen); carbon; sulfur; phosphorus; the yet unknown "radicals" of muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid), boric acid, and "fluoric" acid; 17 metals; 5 earths (mainly oxides of yet unknown metals such as magnesia, baria, and strontia); three alkalies (potash, soda, and ammonia); and the "radicals" of 19 organic acids.
The acids, regarded in the new system as compounds of various elements with oxygen, were given names which indicated the element involved together with the degree of oxygenation of that element, for example sulfuric and sulfurous acids, phosphoric and phosphorous acids, nitric and nitrous acids, the "ic" termination indicating acids with a higher proportion of oxygen than those with the "ous" ending.
Similarly, salts of the "ic" acids were given the terminal letters "ate," as in copper sulfate, whereas the salts of the "ous" acids terminated with the suffix "ite," as in copper sulfite.
The total effect of the new nomenclature can be gauged by comparing the new name "copper sulfate" with the old term "vitriol of Venus." Lavoisier's new nomenclature spread throughout Europe and to the United States and became common use in the field of chemistry. This marked the beginning of the anti-phlogistic approach to the field.
Chemical revolution and opposition.
Lavoisier is commonly cited as a central contributor to the chemical revolution. His precise measurements and meticulous keeping of balance sheets throughout his experiment were vital to the widespread acceptance of the law of conservation of mass. His introduction of new terminology, a binomial system modeled after that of Linnaeus, also helps to mark the dramatic changes in the field which are referred to generally as the chemical revolution. Lavoisier encountered much opposition in trying to change the field, especially from British phlogistic scientists. Joseph Priestley, Richard Kirwan, James Keir, and William Nicholson, among others, argued that quantification of substances did not imply conservation of mass. Rather than reporting factual evidence, opposition claimed Lavoisier was misinterpreting the implications of his research. One of Lavoisier's allies, Jean Baptiste Biot, wrote of Lavoisier's methodology, "one felt the necessity of linking accuracy in experiments to rigor of reasoning." His opposition argued that precision in experimentation did not imply precision in inferences and reasoning. Despite opposition, Lavoisier continued to use precise instrumentation to convince other chemists of his conclusions, often results to five to eight decimal places. Nicholson, who estimated that only three of these decimal places were meaningful, stated:
Notable works.
Easter memoir.
The "official" version of Lavoisier's Easter Memoir appeared in 1778. In the intervening period, Lavoisier had ample time to repeat some of Priestley's latest experiments and perform some new ones of his own. In addition to studying Priestley's dephlogisticated air, he studied more thoroughly the residual air after metals had been calcined. He showed that this residual air supported neither combustion nor respiration and that approximately five volumes of this air added to one volume of the dephlogisticated air gave common atmospheric air. Common air was then a mixture of two distinct chemical species with quite different properties. Thus when the revised version of the Easter Memoir was published in 1778, Lavoisier no longer stated that the principle which combined with metals on calcination was just common air but "nothing else than the healthiest and purest part of the air" or the "eminently respirable part of the air". The same year he coined the name oxygen for this constituent of the air, from the Greek words meaning "acid former". He was struck by the fact that the combustion products of such nonmetals as sulfur, phosphorus, charcoal, and nitrogen were acidic. He held that all acids contained oxygen and that oxygen was therefore the acidifying principle.
Dismantling phlogiston theory.
Lavoisier's chemical research between 1772 and 1778 was largely concerned with developing his own new theory of combustion. In 1783 he read to the academy his paper entitled "Réflexions sur le phlogistique" (Reflections on Phlogiston), a full-scale attack on the current phlogiston theory of combustion. That year Lavoisier also began a series of experiments on the composition of water which were to prove an important capstone to his combustion theory and win many converts to it. Many investigators had been experimenting with the combination of Henry Cavendish's inflammable air, which Lavoisier termed hydrogen (Greek for "water-former"), with "dephlogisticated air" (air in the process of combustion, now known to be oxygen) by electrically sparking mixtures of the gases. All of the researchers noted Cavendish's production of pure water by burning hydrogen in oxygen, but they interpreted the reaction in varying ways within the framework of phlogiston theory. Lavoisier learned of Cavendish's experiment in June 1783 via Charles Blagden (before the results were published in 1784), and immediately recognized water as the oxide of a hydroelectric gas.
In cooperation with Laplace, Lavoisier synthesized water by burning jets of hydrogen and oxygen in a bell jar over mercury. The quantitative results were good enough to support the contention that water was not an element, as had been thought for over 2,000 years, but a compound of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. The interpretation of water as a compound explained the inflammable air generated from dissolving metals in acids (hydrogen produced when water decomposes) and the reduction of calces by inflammable air (a combination of gas from calx with oxygen to form water).
Despite these experiments, Lavoisier's antiphlogistic approach remained unaccepted by many other chemists. Lavoisier labored to provide definitive proof of the composition of water, attempting to use this in support of his theory. Working with Jean-Baptiste Meusnier, Lavoisier passed water through a red-hot iron gun barrel, allowing the oxygen to form an oxide with the iron and the hydrogen to emerge from the end of the pipe. He submitted his findings of the composition of water to the Académie des Sciences in April 1784, reporting his figures to eight decimal places. Opposition responded to this further experimentation by stating that Lavoisier continued to draw the incorrect conclusions and that his experiment demonstrated the displacement of phlogiston from iron by the combination of water with the metal. Lavoisier developed a new apparatus which used a pneumatic trough, a set of balances, a thermometer, and a barometer, all calibrated carefully. Thirty savants were invited to witness the decomposition and synthesis of water using this apparatus, convincing many who attended of the correctness of Lavoisier's theories. This demonstration established water as a compound of oxygen and hydrogen with great certainty for those who viewed it. The dissemination of the experiment, however, proved subpar, as it lacked the details to properly display the amount of precision taken in the measurements. The paper ended with a hasty statement that the experiment was "more than sufficient to lay hold of the certainty of the proposition" of the composition of water and stated that the methods used in the experiment would unite chemistry with the other physical sciences and advance discoveries.
"Elementary Treatise of Chemistry".
Lavoisier employed the new nomenclature in his "Traité élémentaire de chimie" ("Elementary Treatise on Chemistry"), published in 1789. This work represents the synthesis of Lavoisier's contribution to chemistry and can be considered the first modern textbook on the subject. The core of the work was the oxygen theory, and the work became a most effective vehicle for the transmission of the new doctrines. It presented a unified view of new theories of chemistry, contained a clear statement of the law of conservation of mass, and denied the existence of phlogiston. This text clarified the concept of an element as a substance that could not be broken down by any known method of chemical analysis and presented Lavoisier's theory of the formation of chemical compounds from elements. It remains a classic in the history of science. While many leading chemists of the time refused to accept Lavoisier's new ideas, demand for "Traité élémentaire" as a textbook in Edinburgh was sufficient to merit translation into English within about a year of its French publication. In any event, the "Traité élémentaire" was sufficiently sound to convince the next generation.
Physiological work.
The relationship between combustion and respiration had long been recognized from the essential role which air played in both processes. Lavoisier was almost obliged, therefore, to extend his new theory of combustion to include the area of respiration physiology. His first memoirs on this topic were read to the Academy of Sciences in 1777, but his most significant contribution to this field was made in the winter of 1782–1783 in association with Laplace. The result of this work was published in a memoir, "On Heat." Lavoisier and Laplace designed an ice calorimeter apparatus for measuring the amount of heat given off during combustion or respiration. The outer shell of the calorimeter was packed with snow, which melted to maintain a constant temperature of around an inner shell filled with ice. By measuring the quantity of carbon dioxide and heat produced by confining a live guinea pig in this apparatus, and by comparing the amount of heat produced when sufficient carbon was burned in the ice calorimeter to produce the same amount of carbon dioxide as that which the guinea pig exhaled, they concluded that respiration was, in fact, a slow combustion process. Lavoisier stated, "la respiration est donc une combustion," that is, respiratory gas exchange is a combustion, like that of a candle burning.
This continuous slow combustion, which they supposed took place in the lungs, enabled the living animal to maintain its body temperature above that of its surroundings, thus accounting for the puzzling phenomenon of animal heat. Lavoisier continued these respiration experiments in 1789–1790 in cooperation with Armand Seguin. They designed an ambitious set of experiments to study the whole process of body metabolism and respiration using Seguin as a human guinea pig in the experiments. Their work was only partially completed and published because of the Revolution's disruption, but Lavoisier's pioneering work in this field inspired similar research on physiological processes for generations.
Easter memoir.
The "official" version of Lavoisier's Easter Memoir appeared in 1778. In the intervening period, Lavoisier had ample time to repeat some of Priestley's latest experiments and perform some new ones of his own. In addition to studying Priestley's dephlogisticated air, he studied more thoroughly the residual air after metals had been calcined. He showed that this residual air supported neither combustion nor respiration and that approximately five volumes of this air added to one volume of the dephlogisticated air gave common atmospheric air. Common air was then a mixture of two distinct chemical species with quite different properties. Thus when the revised version of the Easter Memoir was published in 1778, Lavoisier no longer stated that the principle which combined with metals on calcination was just common air but "nothing else than the healthiest and purest part of the air" or the "eminently respirable part of the air". The same year he coined the name oxygen for this constituent of the air, from the Greek words meaning "acid former". He was struck by the fact that the combustion products of such nonmetals as sulfur, phosphorus, charcoal, and nitrogen were acidic. He held that all acids contained oxygen and that oxygen was therefore the acidifying principle.
Dismantling phlogiston theory.
Lavoisier's chemical research between 1772 and 1778 was largely concerned with developing his own new theory of combustion. In 1783 he read to the academy his paper entitled "Réflexions sur le phlogistique" (Reflections on Phlogiston), a full-scale attack on the current phlogiston theory of combustion. That year Lavoisier also began a series of experiments on the composition of water which were to prove an important capstone to his combustion theory and win many converts to it. Many investigators had been experimenting with the combination of Henry Cavendish's inflammable air, which Lavoisier termed hydrogen (Greek for "water-former"), with "dephlogisticated air" (air in the process of combustion, now known to be oxygen) by electrically sparking mixtures of the gases. All of the researchers noted Cavendish's production of pure water by burning hydrogen in oxygen, but they interpreted the reaction in varying ways within the framework of phlogiston theory. Lavoisier learned of Cavendish's experiment in June 1783 via Charles Blagden (before the results were published in 1784), and immediately recognized water as the oxide of a hydroelectric gas.
In cooperation with Laplace, Lavoisier synthesized water by burning jets of hydrogen and oxygen in a bell jar over mercury. The quantitative results were good enough to support the contention that water was not an element, as had been thought for over 2,000 years, but a compound of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. The interpretation of water as a compound explained the inflammable air generated from dissolving metals in acids (hydrogen produced when water decomposes) and the reduction of calces by inflammable air (a combination of gas from calx with oxygen to form water).
Despite these experiments, Lavoisier's antiphlogistic approach remained unaccepted by many other chemists. Lavoisier labored to provide definitive proof of the composition of water, attempting to use this in support of his theory. Working with Jean-Baptiste Meusnier, Lavoisier passed water through a red-hot iron gun barrel, allowing the oxygen to form an oxide with the iron and the hydrogen to emerge from the end of the pipe. He submitted his findings of the composition of water to the Académie des Sciences in April 1784, reporting his figures to eight decimal places. Opposition responded to this further experimentation by stating that Lavoisier continued to draw the incorrect conclusions and that his experiment demonstrated the displacement of phlogiston from iron by the combination of water with the metal. Lavoisier developed a new apparatus which used a pneumatic trough, a set of balances, a thermometer, and a barometer, all calibrated carefully. Thirty savants were invited to witness the decomposition and synthesis of water using this apparatus, convincing many who attended of the correctness of Lavoisier's theories. This demonstration established water as a compound of oxygen and hydrogen with great certainty for those who viewed it. The dissemination of the experiment, however, proved subpar, as it lacked the details to properly display the amount of precision taken in the measurements. The paper ended with a hasty statement that the experiment was "more than sufficient to lay hold of the certainty of the proposition" of the composition of water and stated that the methods used in the experiment would unite chemistry with the other physical sciences and advance discoveries.
"Elementary Treatise of Chemistry".
Lavoisier employed the new nomenclature in his "Traité élémentaire de chimie" ("Elementary Treatise on Chemistry"), published in 1789. This work represents the synthesis of Lavoisier's contribution to chemistry and can be considered the first modern textbook on the subject. The core of the work was the oxygen theory, and the work became a most effective vehicle for the transmission of the new doctrines. It presented a unified view of new theories of chemistry, contained a clear statement of the law of conservation of mass, and denied the existence of phlogiston. This text clarified the concept of an element as a substance that could not be broken down by any known method of chemical analysis and presented Lavoisier's theory of the formation of chemical compounds from elements. It remains a classic in the history of science. While many leading chemists of the time refused to accept Lavoisier's new ideas, demand for "Traité élémentaire" as a textbook in Edinburgh was sufficient to merit translation into English within about a year of its French publication. In any event, the "Traité élémentaire" was sufficiently sound to convince the next generation.
Physiological work.
The relationship between combustion and respiration had long been recognized from the essential role which air played in both processes. Lavoisier was almost obliged, therefore, to extend his new theory of combustion to include the area of respiration physiology. His first memoirs on this topic were read to the Academy of Sciences in 1777, but his most significant contribution to this field was made in the winter of 1782–1783 in association with Laplace. The result of this work was published in a memoir, "On Heat." Lavoisier and Laplace designed an ice calorimeter apparatus for measuring the amount of heat given off during combustion or respiration. The outer shell of the calorimeter was packed with snow, which melted to maintain a constant temperature of around an inner shell filled with ice. By measuring the quantity of carbon dioxide and heat produced by confining a live guinea pig in this apparatus, and by comparing the amount of heat produced when sufficient carbon was burned in the ice calorimeter to produce the same amount of carbon dioxide as that which the guinea pig exhaled, they concluded that respiration was, in fact, a slow combustion process. Lavoisier stated, "la respiration est donc une combustion," that is, respiratory gas exchange is a combustion, like that of a candle burning.
This continuous slow combustion, which they supposed took place in the lungs, enabled the living animal to maintain its body temperature above that of its surroundings, thus accounting for the puzzling phenomenon of animal heat. Lavoisier continued these respiration experiments in 1789–1790 in cooperation with Armand Seguin. They designed an ambitious set of experiments to study the whole process of body metabolism and respiration using Seguin as a human guinea pig in the experiments. Their work was only partially completed and published because of the Revolution's disruption, but Lavoisier's pioneering work in this field inspired similar research on physiological processes for generations.
Legacy.
Lavoisier's fundamental contributions to chemistry were a result of a conscious effort to fit all experiments into the framework of a single theory. He established the consistent use of the chemical balance, used oxygen to overthrow the phlogiston theory, and developed a new system of chemical nomenclature which held that oxygen was an essential constituent of all acids (which later turned out to be erroneous).
Lavoisier also did early research in physical chemistry and thermodynamics in joint experiments with Laplace. They used a calorimeter to estimate the heat evolved per unit of carbon dioxide produced, eventually finding the same ratio for a flame and animals, indicating that animals produced energy by a type of combustion reaction.
Lavoisier also contributed to early ideas on composition and chemical changes by stating the radical theory, believing that radicals, which function as a single group in a chemical process, combine with oxygen in reactions. He also introduced the possibility of allotropy in chemical elements when he discovered that diamond is a crystalline form of carbon.
He was also responsible for the construction of the gasometer, an expensive instrument he used at his demonstrations. While he used his gasometer exclusively for these, he also created smaller, cheaper, more practical gasometers that worked with a sufficient degree of precision that more chemists could recreate.
Overall, his contributions are considered the most important in advancing chemistry to the level reached in physics and mathematics during the 18th century.
Mount Lavoisier in New Zealand's Paparoa Range was named after him in 1970 by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Awards and honours.
During his lifetime, Lavoisier was awarded a gold medal by the King of France for his work on urban street lighting (1766), and was appointed to the French Academy of Sciences (1768). He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1775.
Lavoisier's work was recognized as an International Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society, Académie des sciences de L'institut de France and the Société Chimique de France in 1999. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier's Louis 1788 publication entitled "Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique", published with colleagues Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, was honored by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, presented at the Académie des Sciences (Paris) in 2015.
A number of Lavoisier Medals have been named and given in Lavoisier's honour, by organizations including the Société chimique de France, the International Society for Biological Calorimetry, and the DuPont company He is also commemorated by the Franklin-Lavoisier Prize, marking the friendship of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin. The prize, which includes a medal, is given jointly by the Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie in Paris, France and the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, PA, USA.
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1825
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Hermann Kolbe
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Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe (27 September 1818 – 25 November 1884) was a major contributor to the birth of modern organic chemistry. He was a professor at Marburg and Leipzig. Kolbe was the first to apply the term synthesis in a chemical context, and contributed to the philosophical demise of vitalism through synthesis of the organic substance acetic acid from carbon disulfide, and also contributed to the development of structural theory. This was done via modifications to the idea of "radicals" and accurate prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols, and to the emerging array of organic reactions through his Kolbe electrolysis of carboxylate salts, the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction in the preparation of aspirin and the Kolbe nitrile synthesis. After studies with Wöhler and Bunsen, Kolbe was involved with the early internationalization of chemistry through work in London (with Frankland). He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and won the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal in the year of his death. Despite these accomplishments and his training important members of the next generation of chemists (including Zaitsev, Curtius, Beckmann, Graebe, Markovnikov, and others), Kolbe is best remembered for editing the for more than a decade, in which his vituperative essays on Kekulé's structure of benzene, van't Hoff's theory on the origin of chirality and Baeyer's reforms of nomenclature were personally critical and linguistically violent. Kolbe died of a heart attack in Leipzig at age 66, six years after the death of his wife, Charlotte. He was survived by four children.
Life.
Kolbe was born in Elliehausen, near Göttingen, Kingdom of Hanover (Germany) as the eldest son of a Protestant pastor. At the age of 13, he entered the Göttingen Gymnasium, residing at the home of one of the professors. He obtained the leaving certificate (the Abitur) six years later. He had become passionate about the study of chemistry, matriculating at the University of Göttingen in the spring of 1838 in order to study with the famous chemist Friedrich Wöhler.
In 1842, he became an assistant to Robert Bunsen at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. He took his doctoral degree in 1843 at the same university. A new opportunity arose in 1845, when he became assistant to Lyon Playfair at the new "Museum of Economic Geology" in London and a close friend of Edward Frankland. From 1847, he was engaged in editing the "Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie" ("Dictionary of Pure and Applied Chemistry") edited by Justus von Liebig, Wöhler, and Johann Christian Poggendorff, and he also wrote an important textbook. In 1851, Kolbe succeeded Bunsen as professor of chemistry at Marburg and, in 1865, he was called to the Universität Leipzig. In 1864, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1874.
In 1853, he married Charlotte, the daughter of General-Major Wilhelm von Bardeleben. His wife died in 1876 after 23 years of happy marriage. They had four children.
Work in chemical research.
As late as the 1840s, and despite Friedrich Wöhler's synthesis of urea in 1828, some chemists still believed in the doctrine of vitalism, according to which a special life-force was necessary to create "organic" (i.e., in its original meaning, biologically derived) compounds. Kolbe promoted the idea that organic compounds could be derived from substances clearly sourced from outside this "organic" context, directly or indirectly, by substitution processes. (Hence, while by modern definitions, he was converting one organic molecule to another, by the parlance of his era, he was converting "inorganic"—"anorganisch"—substances into "organic" ones only thought accessible through vital processes.) He validated his theory by converting carbon disulfide (CS2) to acetic acid () in several steps (1843–45). Kolbe also introduced a modified idea of structural radicals, so contributing to the development of structural theory. A dramatic success came when his theoretical prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols was confirmed by the synthesis of the first of these classes of organic molecules. Kolbe was the first person to use the word synthesis in its present-day meaning, and contributed a number of new chemical reactions.
In particular, Kolbe developed procedures for the electrolysis of the salts of fatty and other carboxylic acids (Kolbe electrolysis) and prepared salicylic acid, a building block of aspirin in a process called Kolbe synthesis or Kolbe-Schmitt reaction. His method for the synthesis of nitriles is called the Kolbe nitrile synthesis, and with Edward Frankland he found that nitriles can be hydrolyzed to the corresponding acids.
In addition to his own bench research and scholarly and editorial work, Kolbe oversaw student research at Leipzig and especially at Marburg; students spending time under his tutelage included Peter Griess, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Zaitsev (known for Zaitsev's rule predicting the product composition of elimination reactions), Theodor Curtius (discoverer of diazo compounds, hydrazines, and the Curtius rearrangement), Ernst Otto Beckmann (discoverer of the Beckmann rearrangement), Carl Graebe (discoverer of alizarin), Oscar Loew, Constantin Fahlberg, Nikolai Menshutkin, Vladimir Markovnikov (first to describe carbocycles smaller and larger than cyclohexane, and known for Markovnikov's rule describing addition reactions to alkenes), Jacob Volhard, Ludwig Mond, Alexander Crum Brown (first to describe the double bond of ethylene), Maxwell Simpson, and Frederick Guthrie.
Work as journal editor.
Besides his work for periodicals he wrote numerous books
Kolbe served for more than a decade as what, in modern terms, would be understood the senior editor of the ("Journal of practical chemistry", from 1870 to 1884), Kolbe was sometimes so severely critical of the work of others, especially after about 1874, that some wondered whether he might have been suffering a mental illness. He was intolerant of what he regarded as loose speculation parading as theory, and sought through his writings to save his beloved science of chemistry from what he regarded as the scourge of modern structural theory.
His rejection of structural chemistry, especially the theories of the structure of benzene by August Kekulé, the theory of the asymmetric carbon atom by J.H. van't Hoff, and the reform of chemical nomenclature by Adolf von Baeyer, was expressed in his vituperative articles in the "Journal für Praktische Chemie". Some translated quotes illustrate his manner of articulating the deep conflict between his interpretation of chemistry and that of the structural chemists: «"...Baeyer is an excellent experimentor, but he is only an empiricist, lacking sense and capability, and his interpretations of his experiments show particular deficiency in his familiarity with the principles of true science...»"The violence of his language worked to limit his posthumous reputation.
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1814
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Adam Smith
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Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics" or "The Father of Capitalism", he wrote two classic works, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759) and "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as "The Wealth of Nations", is considered his "magnum opus" and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and as an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of God's will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic and technological factors and the interactions between them. Among other economic theories, the work introduced Smith's idea of absolute advantage.
Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by fellow Scot John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow, teaching moral philosophy and during this time, wrote and published "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day.
As a reaction to the common policy of protecting national markets and merchants, what came to be known as mercantilism, Smith laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory. "The Wealth of Nations" was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by writers such as Horace Walpole.
Biography.
Early life.
Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, Scotland. His father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (judge advocate) and also served as comptroller of the customs in Kirkcaldy. Smith's mother was born Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife; she married Smith's father in 1720. Two months before Smith was born, his father died, leaving his mother a widow. The date of Smith's baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723 and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, which is unknown.
Although few events in Smith's early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith's biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by Romani at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him. Smith was close to his mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions. He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy—characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period"—from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.
Formal education.
Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was 14 and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here he developed his passion for the philosophical concepts of reason, civilian liberties, and free speech. In 1740, he was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition.
Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling. In Book V, Chapter II of "The Wealth of Nations", he wrote: "In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching."
Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxford officials once discovered him reading a copy of David Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature", and they subsequently confiscated his book and punished him severely for reading it. According to William Robert Scott, "The Oxford of [Smith's] time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework." Nevertheless, he took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach himself several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library. When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, according to his letters. Near the end of his time there, he began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown. He left Oxford University in 1746, before his scholarship ended.
In Book V of "The Wealth of Nations", Smith comments on the low quality of instruction and the meager intellectual activity at English universities, when compared to their Scottish counterparts. He attributes this both to the rich endowments of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, which made the income of professors independent of their ability to attract students, and to the fact that distinguished men of letters could make an even more comfortable living as ministers of the Church of England.
Smith's discontent at Oxford might be in part due to the absence of his beloved teacher in Glasgow, Francis Hutcheson, who was well regarded as one of the most prominent lecturers at the University of Glasgow in his day and earned the approbation of students, colleagues, and even ordinary residents with the fervor and earnestness of his orations (which he sometimes opened to the public). His lectures endeavoured not merely to teach philosophy, but also to make his students embody that philosophy in their lives, appropriately acquiring the epithet, the preacher of philosophy. Unlike Smith, Hutcheson was not a system builder; rather, his magnetic personality and method of lecturing so influenced his students and caused the greatest of those to reverentially refer to him as "the never to be forgotten Hutcheson"—a title that Smith in all his correspondence used to describe only two people, his good friend David Hume and influential mentor Francis Hutcheson.
Teaching career.
Smith began delivering public lectures in 1748 at the University of Edinburgh, sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames. His lecture topics included rhetoric and "belles-lettres", and later the subject of "the progress of opulence". On this latter topic, he first expounded his economic philosophy of "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty". While Smith was not adept at public speaking, his lectures met with success.
In 1750, Smith met the philosopher David Hume, who was his senior by more than a decade. In their writings covering history, politics, philosophy, economics, and religion, Smith and Hume shared closer intellectual and personal bonds than with other important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.
In 1751, Smith earned a professorship at Glasgow University teaching logic courses, and in 1752, he was elected a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, having been introduced to the society by Lord Kames. When the head of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow died the next year, Smith took over the position. He worked as an academic for the next 13 years, which he characterised as "by far the most useful and therefore by far the happiest and most honorable period [of his life]".
Smith published "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures. This work was concerned with how human morality depends on sympathy between agent and spectator, or the individual and other members of society. Smith defined "mutual sympathy" as the basis of moral sentiments. He based his explanation, not on a special "moral sense" as the Third Lord Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had done, nor on utility as Hume did, but on mutual sympathy, a term best captured in modern parlance by the 20th-century concept of empathy, the capacity to recognise feelings that are being experienced by another being.
Following the publication of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith became so popular that many wealthy students left their schools in other countries to enroll at Glasgow to learn under Smith. At this time, Smith began to give more attention to jurisprudence and economics in his lectures and less to his theories of morals. For example, Smith lectured that the cause of increase in national wealth is labour, rather than the nation's quantity of gold or silver, which is the basis for mercantilism, the economic theory that dominated Western European economic policies at the time.
In 1762, the University of Glasgow conferred on Smith the title of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.). At the end of 1763, he obtained an offer from British chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend—who had been introduced to Smith by David Hume—to tutor his stepson, Henry Scott, the young Duke of Buccleuch as preparation for a career in international politics. Smith resigned from his professorship in 1764 to take the tutoring position. He subsequently attempted to return the fees he had collected from his students because he had resigned partway through the term, but his students refused.
Tutoring, travels, European intellectuals.
Smith's tutoring job entailed touring Europe with Scott, during which time he educated Scott on a variety of subjects. He was paid £300 per year (plus expenses) along with a £300 per year pension; roughly twice his former income as a teacher. Smith first travelled as a tutor to Toulouse, France, where he stayed for a year and a half. According to his own account, he found Toulouse to be somewhat boring, having written to Hume that he "had begun to write a book to pass away the time". After touring the south of France, the group moved to Geneva, where Smith met with the philosopher Voltaire.
From Geneva, the party moved to Paris. Here, Smith met American publisher and diplomat Benjamin Franklin, who a few years later would lead the opposition in the American colonies against four British resolutions from Charles Townshend (in history known as the Townshend Acts), which threatened American colonial self-government and imposed revenue duties on a number of items necessary to the colonies. Smith discovered the Physiocracy school founded by François Quesnay and discussed with their intellectuals. Physiocrats were opposed to mercantilism, the dominating economic theory of the time, illustrated in their motto "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" (Let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself!).
The wealth of France had been virtually depleted by Louis XIV and Louis XV in ruinous wars, and was further exhausted in aiding the American insurgents against the British. The excessive consumption of goods and services deemed to have no economic contribution was considered a source of unproductive labour, with France's agriculture the only economic sector maintaining the wealth of the nation. Given that the British economy of the day yielded an income distribution that stood in contrast to that which existed in France, Smith concluded that "with all its imperfections, [the Physiocratic school] is perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy." The distinction between productive versus unproductive labour—the physiocratic "classe steril"—was a predominant issue in the development and understanding of what would become classical economic theory.
Later years.
In 1766, Henry Scott's younger brother died in Paris, and Smith's tour as a tutor ended shortly thereafter. Smith returned home that year to Kirkcaldy, and he devoted much of the next decade to writing his "magnum opus". There, he befriended Henry Moyes, a young blind man who showed precocious aptitude. Smith secured the patronage of David Hume and Thomas Reid in the young man's education. In May 1773, Smith was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London, and was elected a member of the Literary Club in 1775. "The Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776 and was an instant success, selling out its first edition in only six months.
In 1778, Smith was appointed to a post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother (who died in 1784) in Panmure House in Edinburgh's Canongate. Five years later, as a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh when it received its royal charter, he automatically became one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1787 to 1789, he occupied the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.
Death.
Smith died in the northern wing of Panmure House in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 after a painful illness. His body was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard. On his deathbed, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not achieved more.
Smith's literary executors were two friends from the Scottish academic world: the physicist and chemist Joseph Black and the pioneering geologist James Hutton. Smith left behind many notes and some unpublished material, but gave instructions to destroy anything that was not fit for publication. He mentioned an early unpublished "History of Astronomy" as probably suitable, and it duly appeared in 1795, along with other material such as "Essays on Philosophical Subjects".
Smith's library went by his will to David Douglas, Lord Reston (son of his cousin Colonel Robert Douglas of Strathendry, Fife), who lived with Smith. It was eventually divided between his two surviving children, Cecilia Margaret (Mrs. Cunningham) and David Anne (Mrs. Bannerman). On the death in 1878 of her husband, the Reverend W. B. Cunningham of Prestonpans, Mrs. Cunningham sold some of the books. The remainder passed to her son, Professor Robert Oliver Cunningham of Queen's College, Belfast, who presented a part to the library of Queen's College. After his death, the remaining books were sold. On the death of Mrs. Bannerman in 1879, her portion of the library went intact to the New College (of the Free Church) in Edinburgh and the collection was transferred to the University of Edinburgh Main Library in 1972.
Early life.
Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, Scotland. His father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (judge advocate) and also served as comptroller of the customs in Kirkcaldy. Smith's mother was born Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife; she married Smith's father in 1720. Two months before Smith was born, his father died, leaving his mother a widow. The date of Smith's baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723 and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, which is unknown.
Although few events in Smith's early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith's biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by Romani at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him. Smith was close to his mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions. He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy—characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period"—from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.
Formal education.
Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was 14 and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here he developed his passion for the philosophical concepts of reason, civilian liberties, and free speech. In 1740, he was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition.
Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling. In Book V, Chapter II of "The Wealth of Nations", he wrote: "In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching."
Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxford officials once discovered him reading a copy of David Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature", and they subsequently confiscated his book and punished him severely for reading it. According to William Robert Scott, "The Oxford of [Smith's] time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework." Nevertheless, he took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach himself several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library. When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, according to his letters. Near the end of his time there, he began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown. He left Oxford University in 1746, before his scholarship ended.
In Book V of "The Wealth of Nations", Smith comments on the low quality of instruction and the meager intellectual activity at English universities, when compared to their Scottish counterparts. He attributes this both to the rich endowments of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, which made the income of professors independent of their ability to attract students, and to the fact that distinguished men of letters could make an even more comfortable living as ministers of the Church of England.
Smith's discontent at Oxford might be in part due to the absence of his beloved teacher in Glasgow, Francis Hutcheson, who was well regarded as one of the most prominent lecturers at the University of Glasgow in his day and earned the approbation of students, colleagues, and even ordinary residents with the fervor and earnestness of his orations (which he sometimes opened to the public). His lectures endeavoured not merely to teach philosophy, but also to make his students embody that philosophy in their lives, appropriately acquiring the epithet, the preacher of philosophy. Unlike Smith, Hutcheson was not a system builder; rather, his magnetic personality and method of lecturing so influenced his students and caused the greatest of those to reverentially refer to him as "the never to be forgotten Hutcheson"—a title that Smith in all his correspondence used to describe only two people, his good friend David Hume and influential mentor Francis Hutcheson.
Teaching career.
Smith began delivering public lectures in 1748 at the University of Edinburgh, sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames. His lecture topics included rhetoric and "belles-lettres", and later the subject of "the progress of opulence". On this latter topic, he first expounded his economic philosophy of "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty". While Smith was not adept at public speaking, his lectures met with success.
In 1750, Smith met the philosopher David Hume, who was his senior by more than a decade. In their writings covering history, politics, philosophy, economics, and religion, Smith and Hume shared closer intellectual and personal bonds than with other important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.
In 1751, Smith earned a professorship at Glasgow University teaching logic courses, and in 1752, he was elected a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, having been introduced to the society by Lord Kames. When the head of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow died the next year, Smith took over the position. He worked as an academic for the next 13 years, which he characterised as "by far the most useful and therefore by far the happiest and most honorable period [of his life]".
Smith published "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures. This work was concerned with how human morality depends on sympathy between agent and spectator, or the individual and other members of society. Smith defined "mutual sympathy" as the basis of moral sentiments. He based his explanation, not on a special "moral sense" as the Third Lord Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had done, nor on utility as Hume did, but on mutual sympathy, a term best captured in modern parlance by the 20th-century concept of empathy, the capacity to recognise feelings that are being experienced by another being.
Following the publication of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith became so popular that many wealthy students left their schools in other countries to enroll at Glasgow to learn under Smith. At this time, Smith began to give more attention to jurisprudence and economics in his lectures and less to his theories of morals. For example, Smith lectured that the cause of increase in national wealth is labour, rather than the nation's quantity of gold or silver, which is the basis for mercantilism, the economic theory that dominated Western European economic policies at the time.
In 1762, the University of Glasgow conferred on Smith the title of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.). At the end of 1763, he obtained an offer from British chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend—who had been introduced to Smith by David Hume—to tutor his stepson, Henry Scott, the young Duke of Buccleuch as preparation for a career in international politics. Smith resigned from his professorship in 1764 to take the tutoring position. He subsequently attempted to return the fees he had collected from his students because he had resigned partway through the term, but his students refused.
Tutoring, travels, European intellectuals.
Smith's tutoring job entailed touring Europe with Scott, during which time he educated Scott on a variety of subjects. He was paid £300 per year (plus expenses) along with a £300 per year pension; roughly twice his former income as a teacher. Smith first travelled as a tutor to Toulouse, France, where he stayed for a year and a half. According to his own account, he found Toulouse to be somewhat boring, having written to Hume that he "had begun to write a book to pass away the time". After touring the south of France, the group moved to Geneva, where Smith met with the philosopher Voltaire.
From Geneva, the party moved to Paris. Here, Smith met American publisher and diplomat Benjamin Franklin, who a few years later would lead the opposition in the American colonies against four British resolutions from Charles Townshend (in history known as the Townshend Acts), which threatened American colonial self-government and imposed revenue duties on a number of items necessary to the colonies. Smith discovered the Physiocracy school founded by François Quesnay and discussed with their intellectuals. Physiocrats were opposed to mercantilism, the dominating economic theory of the time, illustrated in their motto "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" (Let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself!).
The wealth of France had been virtually depleted by Louis XIV and Louis XV in ruinous wars, and was further exhausted in aiding the American insurgents against the British. The excessive consumption of goods and services deemed to have no economic contribution was considered a source of unproductive labour, with France's agriculture the only economic sector maintaining the wealth of the nation. Given that the British economy of the day yielded an income distribution that stood in contrast to that which existed in France, Smith concluded that "with all its imperfections, [the Physiocratic school] is perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy." The distinction between productive versus unproductive labour—the physiocratic "classe steril"—was a predominant issue in the development and understanding of what would become classical economic theory.
Later years.
In 1766, Henry Scott's younger brother died in Paris, and Smith's tour as a tutor ended shortly thereafter. Smith returned home that year to Kirkcaldy, and he devoted much of the next decade to writing his "magnum opus". There, he befriended Henry Moyes, a young blind man who showed precocious aptitude. Smith secured the patronage of David Hume and Thomas Reid in the young man's education. In May 1773, Smith was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London, and was elected a member of the Literary Club in 1775. "The Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776 and was an instant success, selling out its first edition in only six months.
In 1778, Smith was appointed to a post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother (who died in 1784) in Panmure House in Edinburgh's Canongate. Five years later, as a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh when it received its royal charter, he automatically became one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1787 to 1789, he occupied the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.
Death.
Smith died in the northern wing of Panmure House in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 after a painful illness. His body was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard. On his deathbed, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not achieved more.
Smith's literary executors were two friends from the Scottish academic world: the physicist and chemist Joseph Black and the pioneering geologist James Hutton. Smith left behind many notes and some unpublished material, but gave instructions to destroy anything that was not fit for publication. He mentioned an early unpublished "History of Astronomy" as probably suitable, and it duly appeared in 1795, along with other material such as "Essays on Philosophical Subjects".
Smith's library went by his will to David Douglas, Lord Reston (son of his cousin Colonel Robert Douglas of Strathendry, Fife), who lived with Smith. It was eventually divided between his two surviving children, Cecilia Margaret (Mrs. Cunningham) and David Anne (Mrs. Bannerman). On the death in 1878 of her husband, the Reverend W. B. Cunningham of Prestonpans, Mrs. Cunningham sold some of the books. The remainder passed to her son, Professor Robert Oliver Cunningham of Queen's College, Belfast, who presented a part to the library of Queen's College. After his death, the remaining books were sold. On the death of Mrs. Bannerman in 1879, her portion of the library went intact to the New College (of the Free Church) in Edinburgh and the collection was transferred to the University of Edinburgh Main Library in 1972.
Personality and beliefs.
Character.
Not much is known about Smith's personal views beyond what can be deduced from his published articles. His personal papers were destroyed after his death at his request. He never married, and seems to have maintained a close relationship with his mother, with whom he lived after his return from France and who died six years before him.
Smith was described by several of his contemporaries and biographers as comically absent-minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait, and a smile of "inexpressible benignity". He was known to talk to himself, a habit that began during his childhood when he would smile in rapt conversation with invisible companions. He also had occasional spells of imaginary illness, and he is reported to have had books and papers placed in tall stacks in his study. According to one story, Smith took Charles Townshend on a tour of a tanning factory, and while discussing free trade, Smith walked into a huge tanning pit from which he needed help to escape. He is also said to have put bread and butter into a teapot, drunk the concoction, and declared it to be the worst cup of tea he ever had. According to another account, Smith distractedly went out walking in his nightgown and ended up outside of town, before nearby church bells brought him back to reality.
James Boswell, who was a student of Smith's at Glasgow University, and later knew him at the Literary Club, says that Smith thought that speaking about his ideas in conversation might reduce the sale of his books, so his conversation was unimpressive. According to Boswell, he once told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that "he made it a rule when in company never to talk of what he understood".
Smith has been alternatively described as someone who "had a large nose, bulging eyes, a protruding lower lip, a nervous twitch, and a speech impediment" and one whose "countenance was manly and agreeable". Smith is said to have acknowledged his looks at one point, saying, "I am a beau in nothing but my books." Smith rarely sat for portraits, so almost all depictions of him created during his lifetime were drawn from memory. The best-known portraits of Smith are the profile by James Tassie and two etchings by John Kay. The line engravings produced for the covers of 19th-century reprints of "The Wealth of Nations" were based largely on Tassie's medallion.
Religious views.
Considerable scholarly debate has occurred about the nature of Smith's religious views. Smith's father had shown a strong interest in Christianity and belonged to the moderate wing of the Church of Scotland. The fact that Adam Smith received the Snell Exhibition suggests that he may have gone to Oxford with the intention of pursuing a career in the Church of England.
Anglo-American economist Ronald Coase has challenged the view that Smith was a deist, based on the fact that Smith's writings never explicitly invoke God as an explanation of the harmonies of the natural or the human worlds. According to Coase, though Smith does sometimes refer to the "Great Architect of the Universe", later scholars such as Jacob Viner have "very much exaggerated the extent to which Adam Smith was committed to a belief in a personal God", a belief for which Coase finds little evidence in passages such as the one in the "Wealth of Nations" in which Smith writes that the curiosity of mankind about the "great phenomena of nature", such as "the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals", has led men to "enquire into their causes", and that "superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them, from more familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with than the agency of the gods". Some authors argue that Smith's social and economic philosophy is inherently theological and that his entire model of social order is logically dependent on the notion of God's action in nature. Brendan Long argues that Smith was a theist, whereas according to professor Gavin Kennedy, Smith was "in some sense" a Christian.
Smith was also a close friend of David Hume, who, despite debate about his religious views in modern scholarship, was commonly characterised in his own time as an atheist. The publication in 1777 of Smith's letter to William Strahan, in which he described Hume's courage in the face of death in spite of his irreligiosity, attracted considerable controversy.
Character.
Not much is known about Smith's personal views beyond what can be deduced from his published articles. His personal papers were destroyed after his death at his request. He never married, and seems to have maintained a close relationship with his mother, with whom he lived after his return from France and who died six years before him.
Smith was described by several of his contemporaries and biographers as comically absent-minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait, and a smile of "inexpressible benignity". He was known to talk to himself, a habit that began during his childhood when he would smile in rapt conversation with invisible companions. He also had occasional spells of imaginary illness, and he is reported to have had books and papers placed in tall stacks in his study. According to one story, Smith took Charles Townshend on a tour of a tanning factory, and while discussing free trade, Smith walked into a huge tanning pit from which he needed help to escape. He is also said to have put bread and butter into a teapot, drunk the concoction, and declared it to be the worst cup of tea he ever had. According to another account, Smith distractedly went out walking in his nightgown and ended up outside of town, before nearby church bells brought him back to reality.
James Boswell, who was a student of Smith's at Glasgow University, and later knew him at the Literary Club, says that Smith thought that speaking about his ideas in conversation might reduce the sale of his books, so his conversation was unimpressive. According to Boswell, he once told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that "he made it a rule when in company never to talk of what he understood".
Smith has been alternatively described as someone who "had a large nose, bulging eyes, a protruding lower lip, a nervous twitch, and a speech impediment" and one whose "countenance was manly and agreeable". Smith is said to have acknowledged his looks at one point, saying, "I am a beau in nothing but my books." Smith rarely sat for portraits, so almost all depictions of him created during his lifetime were drawn from memory. The best-known portraits of Smith are the profile by James Tassie and two etchings by John Kay. The line engravings produced for the covers of 19th-century reprints of "The Wealth of Nations" were based largely on Tassie's medallion.
Religious views.
Considerable scholarly debate has occurred about the nature of Smith's religious views. Smith's father had shown a strong interest in Christianity and belonged to the moderate wing of the Church of Scotland. The fact that Adam Smith received the Snell Exhibition suggests that he may have gone to Oxford with the intention of pursuing a career in the Church of England.
Anglo-American economist Ronald Coase has challenged the view that Smith was a deist, based on the fact that Smith's writings never explicitly invoke God as an explanation of the harmonies of the natural or the human worlds. According to Coase, though Smith does sometimes refer to the "Great Architect of the Universe", later scholars such as Jacob Viner have "very much exaggerated the extent to which Adam Smith was committed to a belief in a personal God", a belief for which Coase finds little evidence in passages such as the one in the "Wealth of Nations" in which Smith writes that the curiosity of mankind about the "great phenomena of nature", such as "the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals", has led men to "enquire into their causes", and that "superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them, from more familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with than the agency of the gods". Some authors argue that Smith's social and economic philosophy is inherently theological and that his entire model of social order is logically dependent on the notion of God's action in nature. Brendan Long argues that Smith was a theist, whereas according to professor Gavin Kennedy, Smith was "in some sense" a Christian.
Smith was also a close friend of David Hume, who, despite debate about his religious views in modern scholarship, was commonly characterised in his own time as an atheist. The publication in 1777 of Smith's letter to William Strahan, in which he described Hume's courage in the face of death in spite of his irreligiosity, attracted considerable controversy.
Published works.
"The Theory of Moral Sentiments".
In 1759, Smith published his first work, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," sold by co-publishers Andrew Millar of London and Alexander Kincaid of Edinburgh. Smith continued making extensive revisions to the book until his death. Although "The Wealth of Nations" is widely regarded as Smith's most influential work, Smith himself is believed to have considered "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" to be a superior work.
In the work, Smith critically examines the moral thinking of his time, and suggests that conscience arises from dynamic and interactive social relationships through which people seek "mutual sympathy of sentiments." His goal in writing the work was to explain the source of mankind's ability to form moral judgment, given that people begin life with no moral sentiments at all. Smith proposes a theory of sympathy, in which the act of observing others and seeing the judgments they form of both others and oneself makes people aware of themselves and how others perceive their behaviour. The feedback we receive from perceiving (or imagining) others' judgment creates an incentive to achieve "mutual sympathy of sentiments" with them and leads people to develop habits, and then principles, of behaviour, which come to constitute one's conscience.
Some scholars have perceived a conflict between "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "The Wealth of Nations"; the former emphasises sympathy for others, while the latter focuses on the role of self-interest. In recent years, however, some scholars of Smith's work have argued that no contradiction exists. They claim that in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith develops a theory of psychology in which individuals seek the approval of the "impartial spectator" as a result of a natural desire to have outside observers sympathise with their sentiments. Rather than viewing "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "The Wealth of Nations" as presenting incompatible views of human nature, some Smith scholars regard the works as emphasising different aspects of human nature that vary depending on the situation. In the first part – The Theory of Moral Sentiments – he laid down the foundation of his vision of humanity and society. In the second – The Wealth of Nations – he elaborated on the virtue of prudence, which for him meant the relations between people in the private sphere of the economy. It was his plan to further elaborate on the virtue of justice in the third book. Otteson argues that both books are Newtonian in their methodology and deploy a similar "market model" for explaining the creation and development of large-scale human social orders, including morality, economics, as well as language. Ekelund and Hebert offer a differing view, observing that self-interest is present in both works and that "in the former, sympathy is the moral faculty that holds self-interest in check, whereas in the latter, competition is the economic faculty that restrains self-interest."
"The Wealth of Nations".
Disagreement exists between classical and neoclassical economists about the central message of Smith's most influential work: "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776). Neoclassical economists emphasise Smith's invisible hand, a concept mentioned in the middle of his work – Book IV, Chapter II – and classical economists believe that Smith stated his programme for promoting the "wealth of nations" in the first sentences, which attributes the growth of wealth and prosperity to the division of labour. He elaborated on the virtue of prudence, which for him meant the relations between people in the private sphere of the economy. It was his plan to further elaborate on the virtue of justice in the third book.
Smith used the term "the invisible hand" in "History of Astronomy" referring to "the invisible hand of Jupiter", and once in each of his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759) and "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). This last statement about "an invisible hand" has been interpreted in numerous ways.
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
Those who regard that statement as Smith's central message also quote frequently Smith's dictum:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.However, in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" he had a more sceptical approach to self-interest as driver of behaviour:How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
Smith's statement about the benefits of "an invisible hand" may be meant to answer Mandeville's contention that "Private Vices ... may be turned into Public Benefits". It shows Smith's belief that when an individual pursues his self-interest under conditions of justice, he unintentionally promotes the good of society. Self-interested competition in the free market, he argued, would tend to benefit society as a whole by keeping prices low, while still building in an incentive for a wide variety of goods and services. Nevertheless, he was wary of businessmen and warned of their "conspiracy against the public or in some other contrivance to raise prices". Again and again, Smith warned of the collusive nature of business interests, which may form cabals or monopolies, fixing the highest price "which can be squeezed out of the buyers". Smith also warned that a business-dominated political system would allow a conspiracy of businesses and industry against consumers, with the former scheming to influence politics and legislation. Smith states that the interest of manufacturers and merchants "in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention." Thus Smith's chief worry seems to be when business is given special protections or privileges from government; by contrast, in the absence of such special political favours, he believed that business activities were generally beneficial to the whole society:
It is the great multiplication of the production of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society. ("The Wealth of Nations," I.i.10)
The neoclassical interest in Smith's statement about "an invisible hand" originates in the possibility of seeing it as a precursor of neoclassical economics and its concept of general equilibrium; Samuelson's "Economics" refers six times to Smith's "invisible hand". To emphasise this connection, Samuelson quotes Smith's "invisible hand" statement substituting "general interest" for "public interest". Samuelson concludes: "Smith was unable to prove the essence of his invisible-hand doctrine. Indeed, until the 1940s, no one knew how to prove, even to state properly, the kernel of truth in this proposition about perfectly competitive market."
Very differently, classical economists see in Smith's first sentences his programme to promote "The Wealth of Nations". Using the physiocratical concept of the economy as a circular process, to secure growth the inputs of Period 2 must exceed the inputs of Period 1. Therefore, those outputs of Period 1 which are not used or usable as inputs of Period 2 are regarded as unproductive labour, as they do not contribute to growth. This is what Smith had heard in France from, among others, François Quesnay, whose ideas Smith was so impressed by that he might have dedicated "The Wealth of Nations" to him had he not died beforehand. To this French insight that unproductive labour should be reduced to use labour more productively, Smith added his own proposal, that productive labour should be made even more productive by deepening the division of labour. Smith argued that deepening the division of labour under competition leads to greater productivity, which leads to lower prices and thus an increasing standard of living—"general plenty" and "universal opulence"—for all. Extended markets and increased production lead to the continuous reorganisation of production and the invention of new ways of producing, which in turn lead to further increased production, lower prices, and improved standards of living. Smith's central message is, therefore, that under dynamic competition, a growth machine secures "The Wealth of Nations". Smith's argument predicted Britain's evolution as the workshop of the world, underselling and outproducing all its competitors. The opening sentences of the "Wealth of Nations" summarise this policy:
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes ... . [T]his produce ... bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it ... .[B]ut this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances;
However, Smith added that the "abundance or scantiness of this supply too seems to depend more upon the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter."
Other works.
Shortly before his death, Smith had nearly all his manuscripts destroyed. In his last years, he seemed to have been planning two major treatises, one on the theory and history of law and one on the sciences and arts. The posthumously published "Essays on Philosophical Subjects", a history of astronomy down to Smith's own era, plus some thoughts on ancient physics and metaphysics, probably contain parts of what would have been the latter treatise. "Lectures on Jurisprudence" were notes taken from Smith's early lectures, plus an early draft of "The Wealth of Nations", published as part of the 1976 Glasgow Edition of the works and correspondence of Smith. Other works, including some published posthumously, include "Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms" (1763) (first published in 1896); and "Essays on Philosophical Subjects" (1795).
"The Theory of Moral Sentiments".
In 1759, Smith published his first work, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," sold by co-publishers Andrew Millar of London and Alexander Kincaid of Edinburgh. Smith continued making extensive revisions to the book until his death. Although "The Wealth of Nations" is widely regarded as Smith's most influential work, Smith himself is believed to have considered "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" to be a superior work.
In the work, Smith critically examines the moral thinking of his time, and suggests that conscience arises from dynamic and interactive social relationships through which people seek "mutual sympathy of sentiments." His goal in writing the work was to explain the source of mankind's ability to form moral judgment, given that people begin life with no moral sentiments at all. Smith proposes a theory of sympathy, in which the act of observing others and seeing the judgments they form of both others and oneself makes people aware of themselves and how others perceive their behaviour. The feedback we receive from perceiving (or imagining) others' judgment creates an incentive to achieve "mutual sympathy of sentiments" with them and leads people to develop habits, and then principles, of behaviour, which come to constitute one's conscience.
Some scholars have perceived a conflict between "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "The Wealth of Nations"; the former emphasises sympathy for others, while the latter focuses on the role of self-interest. In recent years, however, some scholars of Smith's work have argued that no contradiction exists. They claim that in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith develops a theory of psychology in which individuals seek the approval of the "impartial spectator" as a result of a natural desire to have outside observers sympathise with their sentiments. Rather than viewing "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "The Wealth of Nations" as presenting incompatible views of human nature, some Smith scholars regard the works as emphasising different aspects of human nature that vary depending on the situation. In the first part – The Theory of Moral Sentiments – he laid down the foundation of his vision of humanity and society. In the second – The Wealth of Nations – he elaborated on the virtue of prudence, which for him meant the relations between people in the private sphere of the economy. It was his plan to further elaborate on the virtue of justice in the third book. Otteson argues that both books are Newtonian in their methodology and deploy a similar "market model" for explaining the creation and development of large-scale human social orders, including morality, economics, as well as language. Ekelund and Hebert offer a differing view, observing that self-interest is present in both works and that "in the former, sympathy is the moral faculty that holds self-interest in check, whereas in the latter, competition is the economic faculty that restrains self-interest."
"The Wealth of Nations".
Disagreement exists between classical and neoclassical economists about the central message of Smith's most influential work: "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776). Neoclassical economists emphasise Smith's invisible hand, a concept mentioned in the middle of his work – Book IV, Chapter II – and classical economists believe that Smith stated his programme for promoting the "wealth of nations" in the first sentences, which attributes the growth of wealth and prosperity to the division of labour. He elaborated on the virtue of prudence, which for him meant the relations between people in the private sphere of the economy. It was his plan to further elaborate on the virtue of justice in the third book.
Smith used the term "the invisible hand" in "History of Astronomy" referring to "the invisible hand of Jupiter", and once in each of his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759) and "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). This last statement about "an invisible hand" has been interpreted in numerous ways.
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
Those who regard that statement as Smith's central message also quote frequently Smith's dictum:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.However, in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" he had a more sceptical approach to self-interest as driver of behaviour:How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
Smith's statement about the benefits of "an invisible hand" may be meant to answer Mandeville's contention that "Private Vices ... may be turned into Public Benefits". It shows Smith's belief that when an individual pursues his self-interest under conditions of justice, he unintentionally promotes the good of society. Self-interested competition in the free market, he argued, would tend to benefit society as a whole by keeping prices low, while still building in an incentive for a wide variety of goods and services. Nevertheless, he was wary of businessmen and warned of their "conspiracy against the public or in some other contrivance to raise prices". Again and again, Smith warned of the collusive nature of business interests, which may form cabals or monopolies, fixing the highest price "which can be squeezed out of the buyers". Smith also warned that a business-dominated political system would allow a conspiracy of businesses and industry against consumers, with the former scheming to influence politics and legislation. Smith states that the interest of manufacturers and merchants "in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention." Thus Smith's chief worry seems to be when business is given special protections or privileges from government; by contrast, in the absence of such special political favours, he believed that business activities were generally beneficial to the whole society:
It is the great multiplication of the production of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society. ("The Wealth of Nations," I.i.10)
The neoclassical interest in Smith's statement about "an invisible hand" originates in the possibility of seeing it as a precursor of neoclassical economics and its concept of general equilibrium; Samuelson's "Economics" refers six times to Smith's "invisible hand". To emphasise this connection, Samuelson quotes Smith's "invisible hand" statement substituting "general interest" for "public interest". Samuelson concludes: "Smith was unable to prove the essence of his invisible-hand doctrine. Indeed, until the 1940s, no one knew how to prove, even to state properly, the kernel of truth in this proposition about perfectly competitive market."
Very differently, classical economists see in Smith's first sentences his programme to promote "The Wealth of Nations". Using the physiocratical concept of the economy as a circular process, to secure growth the inputs of Period 2 must exceed the inputs of Period 1. Therefore, those outputs of Period 1 which are not used or usable as inputs of Period 2 are regarded as unproductive labour, as they do not contribute to growth. This is what Smith had heard in France from, among others, François Quesnay, whose ideas Smith was so impressed by that he might have dedicated "The Wealth of Nations" to him had he not died beforehand. To this French insight that unproductive labour should be reduced to use labour more productively, Smith added his own proposal, that productive labour should be made even more productive by deepening the division of labour. Smith argued that deepening the division of labour under competition leads to greater productivity, which leads to lower prices and thus an increasing standard of living—"general plenty" and "universal opulence"—for all. Extended markets and increased production lead to the continuous reorganisation of production and the invention of new ways of producing, which in turn lead to further increased production, lower prices, and improved standards of living. Smith's central message is, therefore, that under dynamic competition, a growth machine secures "The Wealth of Nations". Smith's argument predicted Britain's evolution as the workshop of the world, underselling and outproducing all its competitors. The opening sentences of the "Wealth of Nations" summarise this policy:
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes ... . [T]his produce ... bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it ... .[B]ut this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances;
However, Smith added that the "abundance or scantiness of this supply too seems to depend more upon the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter."
Other works.
Shortly before his death, Smith had nearly all his manuscripts destroyed. In his last years, he seemed to have been planning two major treatises, one on the theory and history of law and one on the sciences and arts. The posthumously published "Essays on Philosophical Subjects", a history of astronomy down to Smith's own era, plus some thoughts on ancient physics and metaphysics, probably contain parts of what would have been the latter treatise. "Lectures on Jurisprudence" were notes taken from Smith's early lectures, plus an early draft of "The Wealth of Nations", published as part of the 1976 Glasgow Edition of the works and correspondence of Smith. Other works, including some published posthumously, include "Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms" (1763) (first published in 1896); and "Essays on Philosophical Subjects" (1795).
Legacy.
In economics and moral philosophy.
"The Wealth of Nations" was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, Smith expounded how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by Tory writers in the moralising tradition of Hogarth and Swift, as a discussion at the University of Winchester suggests. In 2005, "The Wealth of Nations" was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time.
In light of the arguments put forward by Smith and other economic theorists in Britain, academic belief in mercantilism began to decline in Britain in the late 18th century. During the Industrial Revolution, Britain embraced free trade and Smith's "laissez-faire" economics, and via the British Empire, used its power to spread a broadly liberal economic model around the world, characterised by open markets, and relatively barrier-free domestic and international trade.
George Stigler attributes to Smith "the most important substantive proposition in all of economics". It is that, under competition, owners of resources (for example labour, land, and capital) will use them most profitably, resulting in an equal rate of return in equilibrium for all uses, adjusted for apparent differences arising from such factors as training, trust, hardship, and unemployment.
Paul Samuelson finds in Smith's pluralist use of supply and demand as applied to wages, rents, and profit a valid and valuable anticipation of the general equilibrium modelling of Walras a century later. Smith's allowance for wage increases in the short and intermediate term from capital accumulation and invention contrasted with Malthus, Ricardo, and Karl Marx in their propounding a rigid subsistence–wage theory of labour supply.
Joseph Schumpeter criticised Smith for a lack of technical rigour, yet he argued that this enabled Smith's writings to appeal to wider audiences: "His very limitation made for success. Had he been more brilliant, he would not have been taken so seriously. Had he dug more deeply, had he unearthed more recondite truth, had he used more difficult and ingenious methods, he would not have been understood. But he had no such ambitions; in fact he disliked whatever went beyond plain common sense. He never moved above the heads of even the dullest readers. He led them on gently, encouraging them by trivialities and homely observations, making them feel comfortable all along."
Classical economists presented competing theories to those of Smith, termed the "labour theory of value". Later Marxian economics descending from classical economics also use Smith's labour theories, in part. The first volume of Karl Marx's major work, "Das Kapital", was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labour that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern contention of neoclassical economics, that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing.
The body of theory later termed "neoclassical economics" or "marginalism" formed from about 1870 to 1910. The term "economics" was popularised by such neoclassical economists as Alfred Marshall as a concise synonym for "economic science" and a substitute for the earlier, broader term "political economy" used by Smith. This corresponded to the influence on the subject of mathematical methods used in the natural sciences. Neoclassical economics systematised supply and demand as joint determinants of price and quantity in market equilibrium, affecting both the allocation of output and the distribution of income. It dispensed with the labour theory of value of which Smith was most famously identified with in classical economics, in favour of a marginal utility theory of value on the demand side and a more general theory of costs on the supply side.
The bicentennial anniversary of the publication of "The Wealth of Nations" was celebrated in 1976, resulting in increased interest for "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and his other works throughout academia. After 1976, Smith was more likely to be represented as the author of both "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", and thereby as the founder of a moral philosophy and the science of economics. His "homo economicus" or "economic man" was also more often represented as a moral person. Additionally, economists David Levy and Sandra Peart in "The Secret History of the Dismal Science" point to his opposition to hierarchy and beliefs in inequality, including racial inequality, and provide additional support for those who point to Smith's opposition to slavery, colonialism, and empire. Emphasised also are Smith's statements of the need for high wages for the poor, and the efforts to keep wages low. In The "Vanity of the Philosopher: From Equality to Hierarchy in Postclassical Economics", Peart and Levy also cite Smith's view that a common street porter was not intellectually inferior to a philosopher, and point to the need for greater appreciation of the public views in discussions of science and other subjects now considered to be technical. They also cite Smith's opposition to the often expressed view that science is superior to common sense.
Smith also explained the relationship between growth of private property and civil government:
Men may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days' labour, civil government is not so necessary. Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property. (...) Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
In British imperial debates.
Smith opposed empire. He challenged ideas that colonies were key to British prosperity and power. He rejected that other cultures, such as China and India, were culturally and developmentally inferior to Europe. While he favored "commercial society", he did not support radical social change and the imposition of commercial society on other societies. He proposed that colonies be given independence or that full political rights be extended to colonial subjects.
Smith's chapter on colonies, in turn, would help shape British imperial debates from the mid-19th century onward. "The Wealth of Nations" would become an ambiguous text regarding the imperial question. In his chapter on colonies, Smith pondered how to solve the crisis developing across the Atlantic among the empire's 13 American colonies. He offered two different proposals for easing tensions. The first proposal called for giving the colonies their independence, and by thus parting on a friendly basis, Britain would be able to develop and maintain a free-trade relationship with them, and possibly even an informal military alliance. Smith's second proposal called for a theoretical imperial federation that would bring the colonies and the metropole closer together through an imperial parliamentary system and imperial free trade.
Smith's most prominent disciple in 19th-century Britain, peace advocate Richard Cobden, preferred the first proposal. Cobden would lead the Anti-Corn Law League in overturning the Corn Laws in 1846, shifting Britain to a policy of free trade and empire "on the cheap" for decades to come. This hands-off approach toward the British Empire would become known as Cobdenism or the Manchester School. By the turn of the century, however, advocates of Smith's second proposal such as Joseph Shield Nicholson would become ever more vocal in opposing Cobdenism, calling instead for imperial federation. As Marc-William Palen notes: "On the one hand, Adam Smith's late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Cobdenite adherents used his theories to argue for gradual imperial devolution and empire 'on the cheap'. On the other, various proponents of imperial federation throughout the British World sought to use Smith's theories to overturn the predominant Cobdenite hands-off imperial approach and instead, with a firm grip, bring the empire closer than ever before." Smith's ideas thus played an important part in subsequent debates over the British Empire.
Portraits, monuments, and banknotes.
Smith has been commemorated in the UK on banknotes printed by two different banks; his portrait has appeared since 1981 on the £50 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland, and in March 2007 Smith's image also appeared on the new series of £20 notes issued by the Bank of England, making him the first Scotsman to feature on an English banknote.
A large-scale memorial of Smith by Alexander Stoddart was unveiled on 4 July 2008 in Edinburgh. It is a -tall bronze sculpture and it stands above the Royal Mile outside St Giles' Cathedral in Parliament Square, near the Mercat cross. 20th-century sculptor Jim Sanborn (best known for the "Kryptos" sculpture at the United States Central Intelligence Agency) has created multiple pieces which feature Smith's work. At Central Connecticut State University is "Circulating Capital", a tall cylinder which features an extract from "The Wealth of Nations" on the lower half, and on the upper half, some of the same text, but represented in binary code. At the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, outside the Belk College of Business Administration, is "Adam Smith's Spinning Top". Another Smith sculpture is at Cleveland State University. He also appears as the narrator in the 2013 play "The Low Road", centred on a proponent on "laissez-faire" economics in the late 18th century, but dealing obliquely with the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the recession which followed; in the premiere production, he was portrayed by Bill Paterson.
A bust of Smith is in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.
Residence.
Adam Smith resided at Panmure House from 1778 to 1790. This residence has now been purchased by the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University and fundraising has begun to restore it. Part of the Northern end of the original building appears to have been demolished in the 19th century to make way for an iron foundry.
As a symbol of free-market economics.
Smith has been celebrated by advocates of free-market policies as the founder of free-market economics, a view reflected in the naming of bodies such as the Adam Smith Institute in London, multiple entities known as the "Adam Smith Society", including an historical Italian organization, and the U.S.-based Adam Smith Society, and the Australian Adam Smith Club, and in terms such as the Adam Smith necktie.
Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan argues that, while Smith did not coin the term "laissez-faire", "it was left to Adam Smith to identify the more-general set of principles that brought conceptual clarity to the seeming chaos of market transactions". Greenspan continues that "The Wealth of Nations" was "one of the great achievements in human intellectual history". P.J. O'Rourke describes Smith as the "founder of free market economics".
Other writers have argued that Smith's support for "laissez-faire" (which in French means leave alone) has been overstated. Herbert Stein wrote that the people who "wear an Adam Smith necktie" do it to "make a statement of their devotion to the idea of free markets and limited government", and that this misrepresents Smith's ideas. Stein writes that Smith "was not pure or doctrinaire about this idea. He viewed government intervention in the market with great skepticism...yet he was prepared to accept or propose qualifications to that policy in the specific cases where he judged that their net effect would be beneficial and would not undermine the basically free character of the system. He did not wear the Adam Smith necktie." In Stein's reading, "The Wealth of Nations" could justify the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, mandatory employer health benefits, environmentalism, and "discriminatory taxation to deter improper or luxurious behavior".
Similarly, Vivienne Brown stated in "The Economic Journal" that in the 20th-century United States, Reaganomics supporters, "The Wall Street Journal", and other similar sources have spread among the general public a partial and misleading vision of Smith, portraying him as an "extreme dogmatic defender of "laissez-faire" capitalism and supply-side economics". In fact, "The Wealth of Nations" includes the following statement on the payment of taxes:
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
Some commentators have argued that Smith's works show support for a progressive, not flat, income tax and that he specifically named taxes that he thought should be required by the state, among them luxury-goods taxes and tax on rent. Yet Smith argued for the "impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their economic revenue, by any capitation". Smith argued that taxes should principally go toward protecting "justice" and "certain publick institutions" that were necessary for the benefit of all of society, but that could not be provided by private enterprise.
Additionally, Smith outlined the proper expenses of the government in "The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch. I". Included in his requirements of a government is to enforce contracts and provide justice system, grant patents and copy rights, provide public goods such as infrastructure, provide national defence, and regulate banking. The role of the government was to provide goods "of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual" such as roads, bridges, canals, and harbours. He also encouraged invention and new ideas through his patent enforcement and support of infant industry monopolies. He supported partial public subsidies for elementary education, and he believed that competition among religious institutions would provide general benefit to the society. In such cases, however, Smith argued for local rather than centralised control: "Even those publick works which are of such a nature that they cannot afford any revenue for maintaining themselves ... are always better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the management of a local and provincial administration, than by the general revenue of the state" ("Wealth of Nations," V.i.d.18). Finally, he outlined how the government should support the dignity of the monarch or chief magistrate, such that they are equal or above the public in fashion. He even states that monarchs should be provided for in a greater fashion than magistrates of a republic because "we naturally expect more splendor in the court of a king than in the mansion-house of a doge". In addition, he allowed that in some specific circumstances, retaliatory tariffs may be beneficial:
The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods.
However, he added that in general, a retaliatory tariff "seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people, to do another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them".
Economic historians such as Jacob Viner regard Smith as a strong advocate of free markets and limited government (what Smith called "natural liberty"), but not as a dogmatic supporter of "laissez-faire".
Economist Daniel Klein believes using the term "free-market economics" or "free-market economist" to identify the ideas of Smith is too general and slightly misleading. Klein offers six characteristics central to the identity of Smith's economic thought and argues that a new name is needed to give a more accurate depiction of the "Smithian" identity. Economist David Ricardo set straight some of the misunderstandings about Smith's thoughts on free market. Most people still fall victim to the thinking that Smith was a free-market economist without exception, though he was not. Ricardo pointed out that Smith was in support of helping infant industries. Smith believed that the government should subsidise newly formed industry, but he did fear that when the infant industry grew into adulthood, it would be unwilling to surrender the government help. Smith also supported tariffs on imported goods to counteract an internal tax on the same good. Smith also fell to pressure in supporting some tariffs in support for national defence.
Some have also claimed, Emma Rothschild among them, that Smith would have supported a minimum wage, although no direct textual evidence supports the claim. Indeed, Smith wrote:
The price of labour, it must be observed, cannot be ascertained very accurately anywhere, different prices being often paid at the same place and for the same sort of labour, not only according to the different abilities of the workmen, but according to the easiness or hardness of the masters. Where wages are not regulated by law, all that we can pretend to determine is what are the most usual; and experience seems to show that law can never regulate them properly, though it has often pretended to do so. ("The Wealth of Nations", Book 1, Chapter 8)
However, Smith also noted, to the contrary, the existence of an imbalanced, inequality of bargaining power:
A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
In economics and moral philosophy.
"The Wealth of Nations" was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, Smith expounded how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by Tory writers in the moralising tradition of Hogarth and Swift, as a discussion at the University of Winchester suggests. In 2005, "The Wealth of Nations" was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time.
In light of the arguments put forward by Smith and other economic theorists in Britain, academic belief in mercantilism began to decline in Britain in the late 18th century. During the Industrial Revolution, Britain embraced free trade and Smith's "laissez-faire" economics, and via the British Empire, used its power to spread a broadly liberal economic model around the world, characterised by open markets, and relatively barrier-free domestic and international trade.
George Stigler attributes to Smith "the most important substantive proposition in all of economics". It is that, under competition, owners of resources (for example labour, land, and capital) will use them most profitably, resulting in an equal rate of return in equilibrium for all uses, adjusted for apparent differences arising from such factors as training, trust, hardship, and unemployment.
Paul Samuelson finds in Smith's pluralist use of supply and demand as applied to wages, rents, and profit a valid and valuable anticipation of the general equilibrium modelling of Walras a century later. Smith's allowance for wage increases in the short and intermediate term from capital accumulation and invention contrasted with Malthus, Ricardo, and Karl Marx in their propounding a rigid subsistence–wage theory of labour supply.
Joseph Schumpeter criticised Smith for a lack of technical rigour, yet he argued that this enabled Smith's writings to appeal to wider audiences: "His very limitation made for success. Had he been more brilliant, he would not have been taken so seriously. Had he dug more deeply, had he unearthed more recondite truth, had he used more difficult and ingenious methods, he would not have been understood. But he had no such ambitions; in fact he disliked whatever went beyond plain common sense. He never moved above the heads of even the dullest readers. He led them on gently, encouraging them by trivialities and homely observations, making them feel comfortable all along."
Classical economists presented competing theories to those of Smith, termed the "labour theory of value". Later Marxian economics descending from classical economics also use Smith's labour theories, in part. The first volume of Karl Marx's major work, "Das Kapital", was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labour that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern contention of neoclassical economics, that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing.
The body of theory later termed "neoclassical economics" or "marginalism" formed from about 1870 to 1910. The term "economics" was popularised by such neoclassical economists as Alfred Marshall as a concise synonym for "economic science" and a substitute for the earlier, broader term "political economy" used by Smith. This corresponded to the influence on the subject of mathematical methods used in the natural sciences. Neoclassical economics systematised supply and demand as joint determinants of price and quantity in market equilibrium, affecting both the allocation of output and the distribution of income. It dispensed with the labour theory of value of which Smith was most famously identified with in classical economics, in favour of a marginal utility theory of value on the demand side and a more general theory of costs on the supply side.
The bicentennial anniversary of the publication of "The Wealth of Nations" was celebrated in 1976, resulting in increased interest for "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and his other works throughout academia. After 1976, Smith was more likely to be represented as the author of both "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", and thereby as the founder of a moral philosophy and the science of economics. His "homo economicus" or "economic man" was also more often represented as a moral person. Additionally, economists David Levy and Sandra Peart in "The Secret History of the Dismal Science" point to his opposition to hierarchy and beliefs in inequality, including racial inequality, and provide additional support for those who point to Smith's opposition to slavery, colonialism, and empire. Emphasised also are Smith's statements of the need for high wages for the poor, and the efforts to keep wages low. In The "Vanity of the Philosopher: From Equality to Hierarchy in Postclassical Economics", Peart and Levy also cite Smith's view that a common street porter was not intellectually inferior to a philosopher, and point to the need for greater appreciation of the public views in discussions of science and other subjects now considered to be technical. They also cite Smith's opposition to the often expressed view that science is superior to common sense.
Smith also explained the relationship between growth of private property and civil government:
Men may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days' labour, civil government is not so necessary. Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property. (...) Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
In British imperial debates.
Smith opposed empire. He challenged ideas that colonies were key to British prosperity and power. He rejected that other cultures, such as China and India, were culturally and developmentally inferior to Europe. While he favored "commercial society", he did not support radical social change and the imposition of commercial society on other societies. He proposed that colonies be given independence or that full political rights be extended to colonial subjects.
Smith's chapter on colonies, in turn, would help shape British imperial debates from the mid-19th century onward. "The Wealth of Nations" would become an ambiguous text regarding the imperial question. In his chapter on colonies, Smith pondered how to solve the crisis developing across the Atlantic among the empire's 13 American colonies. He offered two different proposals for easing tensions. The first proposal called for giving the colonies their independence, and by thus parting on a friendly basis, Britain would be able to develop and maintain a free-trade relationship with them, and possibly even an informal military alliance. Smith's second proposal called for a theoretical imperial federation that would bring the colonies and the metropole closer together through an imperial parliamentary system and imperial free trade.
Smith's most prominent disciple in 19th-century Britain, peace advocate Richard Cobden, preferred the first proposal. Cobden would lead the Anti-Corn Law League in overturning the Corn Laws in 1846, shifting Britain to a policy of free trade and empire "on the cheap" for decades to come. This hands-off approach toward the British Empire would become known as Cobdenism or the Manchester School. By the turn of the century, however, advocates of Smith's second proposal such as Joseph Shield Nicholson would become ever more vocal in opposing Cobdenism, calling instead for imperial federation. As Marc-William Palen notes: "On the one hand, Adam Smith's late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Cobdenite adherents used his theories to argue for gradual imperial devolution and empire 'on the cheap'. On the other, various proponents of imperial federation throughout the British World sought to use Smith's theories to overturn the predominant Cobdenite hands-off imperial approach and instead, with a firm grip, bring the empire closer than ever before." Smith's ideas thus played an important part in subsequent debates over the British Empire.
Portraits, monuments, and banknotes.
Smith has been commemorated in the UK on banknotes printed by two different banks; his portrait has appeared since 1981 on the £50 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland, and in March 2007 Smith's image also appeared on the new series of £20 notes issued by the Bank of England, making him the first Scotsman to feature on an English banknote.
A large-scale memorial of Smith by Alexander Stoddart was unveiled on 4 July 2008 in Edinburgh. It is a -tall bronze sculpture and it stands above the Royal Mile outside St Giles' Cathedral in Parliament Square, near the Mercat cross. 20th-century sculptor Jim Sanborn (best known for the "Kryptos" sculpture at the United States Central Intelligence Agency) has created multiple pieces which feature Smith's work. At Central Connecticut State University is "Circulating Capital", a tall cylinder which features an extract from "The Wealth of Nations" on the lower half, and on the upper half, some of the same text, but represented in binary code. At the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, outside the Belk College of Business Administration, is "Adam Smith's Spinning Top". Another Smith sculpture is at Cleveland State University. He also appears as the narrator in the 2013 play "The Low Road", centred on a proponent on "laissez-faire" economics in the late 18th century, but dealing obliquely with the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the recession which followed; in the premiere production, he was portrayed by Bill Paterson.
A bust of Smith is in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.
Residence.
Adam Smith resided at Panmure House from 1778 to 1790. This residence has now been purchased by the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University and fundraising has begun to restore it. Part of the Northern end of the original building appears to have been demolished in the 19th century to make way for an iron foundry.
As a symbol of free-market economics.
Smith has been celebrated by advocates of free-market policies as the founder of free-market economics, a view reflected in the naming of bodies such as the Adam Smith Institute in London, multiple entities known as the "Adam Smith Society", including an historical Italian organization, and the U.S.-based Adam Smith Society, and the Australian Adam Smith Club, and in terms such as the Adam Smith necktie.
Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan argues that, while Smith did not coin the term "laissez-faire", "it was left to Adam Smith to identify the more-general set of principles that brought conceptual clarity to the seeming chaos of market transactions". Greenspan continues that "The Wealth of Nations" was "one of the great achievements in human intellectual history". P.J. O'Rourke describes Smith as the "founder of free market economics".
Other writers have argued that Smith's support for "laissez-faire" (which in French means leave alone) has been overstated. Herbert Stein wrote that the people who "wear an Adam Smith necktie" do it to "make a statement of their devotion to the idea of free markets and limited government", and that this misrepresents Smith's ideas. Stein writes that Smith "was not pure or doctrinaire about this idea. He viewed government intervention in the market with great skepticism...yet he was prepared to accept or propose qualifications to that policy in the specific cases where he judged that their net effect would be beneficial and would not undermine the basically free character of the system. He did not wear the Adam Smith necktie." In Stein's reading, "The Wealth of Nations" could justify the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, mandatory employer health benefits, environmentalism, and "discriminatory taxation to deter improper or luxurious behavior".
Similarly, Vivienne Brown stated in "The Economic Journal" that in the 20th-century United States, Reaganomics supporters, "The Wall Street Journal", and other similar sources have spread among the general public a partial and misleading vision of Smith, portraying him as an "extreme dogmatic defender of "laissez-faire" capitalism and supply-side economics". In fact, "The Wealth of Nations" includes the following statement on the payment of taxes:
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
Some commentators have argued that Smith's works show support for a progressive, not flat, income tax and that he specifically named taxes that he thought should be required by the state, among them luxury-goods taxes and tax on rent. Yet Smith argued for the "impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their economic revenue, by any capitation". Smith argued that taxes should principally go toward protecting "justice" and "certain publick institutions" that were necessary for the benefit of all of society, but that could not be provided by private enterprise.
Additionally, Smith outlined the proper expenses of the government in "The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch. I". Included in his requirements of a government is to enforce contracts and provide justice system, grant patents and copy rights, provide public goods such as infrastructure, provide national defence, and regulate banking. The role of the government was to provide goods "of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual" such as roads, bridges, canals, and harbours. He also encouraged invention and new ideas through his patent enforcement and support of infant industry monopolies. He supported partial public subsidies for elementary education, and he believed that competition among religious institutions would provide general benefit to the society. In such cases, however, Smith argued for local rather than centralised control: "Even those publick works which are of such a nature that they cannot afford any revenue for maintaining themselves ... are always better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the management of a local and provincial administration, than by the general revenue of the state" ("Wealth of Nations," V.i.d.18). Finally, he outlined how the government should support the dignity of the monarch or chief magistrate, such that they are equal or above the public in fashion. He even states that monarchs should be provided for in a greater fashion than magistrates of a republic because "we naturally expect more splendor in the court of a king than in the mansion-house of a doge". In addition, he allowed that in some specific circumstances, retaliatory tariffs may be beneficial:
The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods.
However, he added that in general, a retaliatory tariff "seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people, to do another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them".
Economic historians such as Jacob Viner regard Smith as a strong advocate of free markets and limited government (what Smith called "natural liberty"), but not as a dogmatic supporter of "laissez-faire".
Economist Daniel Klein believes using the term "free-market economics" or "free-market economist" to identify the ideas of Smith is too general and slightly misleading. Klein offers six characteristics central to the identity of Smith's economic thought and argues that a new name is needed to give a more accurate depiction of the "Smithian" identity. Economist David Ricardo set straight some of the misunderstandings about Smith's thoughts on free market. Most people still fall victim to the thinking that Smith was a free-market economist without exception, though he was not. Ricardo pointed out that Smith was in support of helping infant industries. Smith believed that the government should subsidise newly formed industry, but he did fear that when the infant industry grew into adulthood, it would be unwilling to surrender the government help. Smith also supported tariffs on imported goods to counteract an internal tax on the same good. Smith also fell to pressure in supporting some tariffs in support for national defence.
Some have also claimed, Emma Rothschild among them, that Smith would have supported a minimum wage, although no direct textual evidence supports the claim. Indeed, Smith wrote:
The price of labour, it must be observed, cannot be ascertained very accurately anywhere, different prices being often paid at the same place and for the same sort of labour, not only according to the different abilities of the workmen, but according to the easiness or hardness of the masters. Where wages are not regulated by law, all that we can pretend to determine is what are the most usual; and experience seems to show that law can never regulate them properly, though it has often pretended to do so. ("The Wealth of Nations", Book 1, Chapter 8)
However, Smith also noted, to the contrary, the existence of an imbalanced, inequality of bargaining power:
A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
Further reading.
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