ALBA FUCENS (mod. Albe), an ancient Italian town on a lofty site (3,347ft.) t.) at the foot of Monte Velino, 4m. N. of Avezzano. Originally a town of the Aequi, on the frontier of the Marsi, it was occupied by a Roman colony and its fortifica tions (c. 30o B.c.) persist. It lay on a hill just to the north of the Via Valeria, which was probably prolonged beyond Tibur at this very period. Later it became a regular place of detention for important State prisoners, such as Syphax of Numidia, Perseus of Macedonia, Bituitus, king of the Arverni. Its strong position made it important in the civil wars. The external walls, a circuit of about 2m., are of polygonal masonry; carefully jointed, with faces smoothed. The gates as a rule come at the end of a long, straight stretch of wall, and are placed so as to expose the right side of an attacking force. On the north there is, for a length of about 15oyds., a triple line of defences of later date, possibly added by the Roman colonists, inasmuch as both the city wall proper and the double wall thrown out in front of it are partly constructed of concrete and faced with finer polygonal masonry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-C. Promis, L'Antichita di Alba Fucense (1836) ;Bibliography.-C. Promis, L'Antichita di Alba Fucense (1836) ; R. Gardner in Papers of the British School at Rome X. (1927). ALBA IULIA, a town of Transylvania, Rumania (Ger. Karlsburg, Hung. Gyula-Fehervdr), situated on the Mures, 73m.
S. of Cluj by rail. Pop. (193o) 12,457. Alba Iulia, which consists of an upper town or citadel, and a lower town, is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop and has a fine cathedral in I I th century Romanesque, rebuilt in 1443 by John Hunyady in Gothic style. It contains among other tombs that of John Hunyady. Near the cathedral are the episcopal palace and the Batthyaneum, founded by Bishop Count Batthyany in 1794, containing a valuable library with many incunabula and old manuscripts, amongst which is one of the Nibelungenlied, an observatory, a collection of antiquities and of minerals. The citadel was built in I 716-3 5 by the emperor Charles VI. Alba Iulia occupies the site of the Roman colony Apulum, and many Roman relics are in the museum. The bishopric was founded in the IIth century by King Ladislaus I. (1078-95). In the i6th century the town became the residence of the independent Transylvanian princes. From this period dates the castle and also the buildings of the university, founded by Gabriel Bethlen and now used as barracks. Alba Iulia with Cluj was the traditional centre of the Rumanian national movement in Transylvania ; it was here that Michael the Brave proclaimed himself prince of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia ; here the union of Transylvania with Rumania was proclaimed in 1918 and King Ferdinand of Rumania was crowned in 1922. A peasant congress assembled at Alba Iulia in the spring of 1928, to protest against the Bratiano policies, but was without result.
(Ahmad ibn Yahya) (d. 892), native of Baghdad; one of the earliest Arab historians and the best authority for the period of the formation of the Arab empire. His chief work, Futuli al-Buldan, gives an account of the conquest of Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Egypt and north Africa, Spain, the Mediterranean islands, Nubia, Persia, and Media. It has been translated into English by P. K. Hitti under the title The Origins of the Islamic State in the Studies in History, Economics and Public Law series of Columbia university (1916). A second work, Ansdb al-Asliraf (Lineage of Nobles), was edited by Fliigel (Leipzig