ALYATTES, king of Lydia (609–560 B.C.), the real founder of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house of the Mermnadae. For several years he continued the war against Miletus begun by his father, but was obliged to turn his attention to the Medes and Babylonians. On the 28th of May 585, during a battle on the Halys between him and Cyaxares, king of Media, an eclipse of the sun took place; hostilities were suspended, peace concluded, and the Halys fixed as the boundary between the two kingdoms. Alyattes drove the Cimmerii (see Scythia) from Asia, subdued the Carians, and took several Ionian cities (Smyrna, Colophon). He was succeeded by his son Croesus. His tomb still exists on the plateau between lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the north of Sardis—a large mound of earth with a substructure of huge stones. 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 being some broken alabaster vases, pottery and charcoal. On the summit of the mound were large phalli of stone.
See A. von Ölfers, “Über die lydischen Königsgräber bei Sardes,” Abh. Berl. Ak., 1858.
ALYPIUS, a Greek writer on music whose works, with those of six others, were collected and published with a commentary and explanatory notes (Antiquae Musicae Auctores Septem, Amstel., 1652), by Mark Meibomius (1630–1711). He is said to have written before Euclid and Ptolemy; and Cassiodorus arranges his Introduction to Music between those of Nicomachus and Gaudentius. The work consists solely of a list of symbols of the various scales and modes, and is probably only a fragment.
ALYPIUS of Antioch, a geographer of the 4th century, who was sent by the emperor Julian into Britain as first prefect, and was afterwards commissioned to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. 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.
See also Ammianus Marcellinus xxiii. 1, § 2.
ALYTES, the midwife toad, first discovered by P. Demours in 1741, on the border of a small pond in the Jardin des Plantes, in the very act of parturition which has rendered it famous, and described as Petit crapaud mâle accoucheur de sa femelle. Alytes obstetricans is of special interest as the first known example of paternal solicitude in Batrachians, and although many no less wonderful cases of nursing instinct have since been revealed to us, it remains the only one among European forms.
Alytes obstetricans is a small toad-like Batrachian, two inches in length, of dull greyish coloration, plump form with warty skin and large eyes with vertical pupils. Although toad—like it is not really related to the toads proper, but belongs to the family Discoglossidae, characterized by a circular, adherent tongue, teeth in the upper jaw and on the palate, short but distinct ribs on the anterior vertebrae, and convex-concave vertebrae. It inhabits France, Belgium, Switzerland, Western Germany (eastwards to the Weser), Spain and Portugal. A second species, A. cisternasii, occurs in Spain and Portugal.
Alytes is nocturnal and slow in its movements. It is thoroughly terrestrial, selecting for its retreat in the daytime holes made by small mammals, or interstices between stones. Towards evening it reveals its presence by a clear whistling note, which has often been compared to the sound of a little bell, or to a chime when produced by numerous individuals. The breeding season lasts throughout spring and summer, and the female is able to spawn two, three or even four times in the year. Pairing and oviposition take place on land; the male seizes the female round the waist. The eggs are large and yellow, and produced in two rosary-like strings, as if strung together by elastic filaments continuous with the gelatinous capsules. After impregnation, the male twists them round his legs and returns to his usual retreat, going about at night in order to feed himself and to keep up the moisture of the eggs, even resorting to a short immersion in the water during exceptionally dry nights. The development of the embryo within the egg takes about three weeks. When the time for eclosion has come, the male enters the water with his burden; the larvae, in the full tadpole condition, measuring 14 to 17 millimetres, bite their way through their tough envelope, which is not abandoned by the father until all the young are liberated, and complete in the ordinary way their metamorphosis. The tadpoles grow to a large size considering that of the adult, the body equalling in size a sparrow's or even a small pigeon's egg, and they often remain more than a year in that condition.
See A. de l'Isle, “Mémoire sur les mœurs et l’accouchement de l’Alytes obstetricans,” Ann. Sci. Nat. (6) iii. 1876; G. A. Boulenger. Tailless Batrachians of Europe (Ray Society, 1897). (G. A. B.)
ALZEY, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, 18 m. S. of Mainz by rail. Pop. (1900) 6893. There are a Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, several high-grade schools and a teachers' seminary. Alzey has industries of dyeing and weaving, breweries, and does a considerable trade in wine. It is immortalized in the Nibelungenlied in the person of “Volkêr von Alzeie,” the warrior who in the last part of the epic plays a part second only to that of Hagen, and who “was called the minstrel (spilman) because he could fiddle.” It became an imperial city in 1277. In 1620 it was sacked by the Spaniards and in 1689 burnt by the French. Annexed to France during the Napoleonic wars, it passed in 1815 to the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt.
ALZOG, JOHANN BAPTIST (1808–1878), German theologian, was born at Ohlau, in Silesia, on the 29th of June 1808. He studied at Breslau and Bonn and was ordained priest at Cologne in 1834. In the following year he accepted the chairs of exegesis and church history at the seminary of Posen. He removed in 1844 to Hildesheim, where he had been appointed rector of the seminary. He became professor of church history at the university of Freiburg in the Breisgau in 1853 and held that post till his death on the 1st of March 1878. Together with Döllinger, Alzog was instrumental in convoking the famous Munich assembly of Catholic scholars in 1863. He also took part, with Bishops Hefele and Haseberg, in the preparatory work of the Vatican Council and voted in favour of the doctrine of papal infallibility but against the opportuneness of its promulgation. Alzog’s fame rests mainly on his Handbuch der Universal-Kirchengeschichte (Mainz, 1841, often reprinted under various titles; Eng. trans. by Pabisch and Byrne, A Manual of Church History, 4 vols. Cincinnati, 1874). Based upon the foundations laid by Möhler, this manual was generally accepted as the best exposition of Catholic views, in opposition to the Protestant manual by C. A. Hase, and was translated into several languages. Besides a host of minor writings on ecclesiastical subjects, and an active collaboration in the great Kirchenlexicon of Wetzer and Welte, Alzog was also the author of Grundriss der Patrologie (Freiburg, 1866, 4th ed. 1888), a scholarly work, though now superseded by that of O. Bardenhewer.
A full list of Alzog’s writings is given in H. Hurter’s Nomenclator literarius recentioris theologiae catholicae, vol. iii. For an account of his life see the funeral oration by F. X. Kraus, entitled: Gedächtnissrede auf Johannes Alzog (Freiburg, 1879).
AMADÍS DE GAULA. This famous romance of chivalry survives only in a Castilian text, but it is claimed by Portugal as well as by Spain. The date of its composition, the name of its author, and the language in which it was originally written are not yet settled. It is not even certain when the romance was first printed, for though the oldest known edition (a unique copy of which is in the British Museum) appeared at Saragossa in 1508, it is highly probable that Amadís was in print before this date: an edition is reported to have been issued at Seville in 1496. As it exists in Spanish, Amadís de Gaula consists of four books, the last of which is generally believed to be by the regidor of Medina del Campo, Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo (whose name is given as Garci Ordoñez de Montalvo in all editions of Amadís later than that of 1508, and as Garci Gutiérrez de Montalvo in some editions of the Sergas de Esplandián). Montalvo alleges that the first three books were arranged and corrected by him from “the ancient originals,” and a reference in the prologue to the siege of Granada points to the conclusion that the Spanish recast was made shortly after 1492; it is
