The mod-
em appellation is Musco-Nisi.
em appellation is Musco-Nisi.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
After receiving several
tributary streams, it falls into the iEgean, near the city
of . Enus. An estuary, which it forms at its mouth,
was known to Herodotus by the name of Stentoria
Palus (ZrevTopiSoc A. ipvti--7, 58. --Compare Plin. ,
4, 11). The Hcbrus is now called the Maritza. Dr.
Clarke found the Mantza a broad and muddy stream,
much swollen by rains. (Travels, vol. 8, p. 94, Lon-
don cd. ) Plutarch (dr. Fluv. ) states, that this river
once bore the name of Rhombus; and there grew upon
? ts banks, perhaps the identical plant now constituting
a principal part of the commerce of the country; be-
ing then used, as it is now. for its intoxicating quali-
ties. It is, moreover, related of the Hcbrus by Pliny
(33, 4), that its sands were auriferous; and Bclon has
confirmed this observation, by stating that the inhabi-
tants annually collected the sand for the gold it con-
tained. (Observat. en Greet, p. 63, Paris, 1655. )
According to the ancient mythologists, after Orpheus
had been torn in pieces by the Thracian Bacchantes,
his head and lyre were cast into the Hebrus, and, being
carried down that river to the sea, were borne by the
waves to Methymna, in the island of Lesbos. The
Methymneans buried the head of the unfortunate bard,
and suspended the lyre in the temple of Apollo. (Ovid,
Met. , 11, bb. --Philarg. ad Vrrg. , Gcorg. , 4, 523. --
Eustath. in Dionys. , v. 536. --Hygin. , Astron. Poet. ,
2, 7. ) Servius adds, that the head was at one time
carried to the bank of the river, and that a serpent
thereupon sought to devour it, but was changed into
stone, (ad Virg. , Gcorg. , I. c. ) Dr. Clarke thinks,
that this part of the old legend may have originated in
an appearance presented by ono of those extraneous
fossils called Serpent-stones or Ammonita, found near
this river. (Travels, vol. 8, p. 100, Land, ed. ) At
the junction of the Hebrus with the Tonsus and Ar-
discus, Orestes is said to have purified himself from
his mother's blood. (Vid. Orcstias. )
HecalesIa, a festival at Athens, in honour of Jupi-
ter Hecalesiua. It was instituted by Theseus, in com-
memoration of the kindness of Hccale towards him,
when he was going on his enterprise against the Ma-
cedonian bull. This Hecale was an aged female, ac-
cording to the common account, while others referred
the name to one of the borough towns of the I. eon-
tian tribe in Attica. (Steph. Byz. , s. v. --Pint. , Vit.
Thes. --Castellamis, de Fest. Grac. , p. 108. )
Hixat. e Fanum, a celebrated temple sacred to Hec-
ate, near Stratonicea in Caria. (Strabo, 660. )
Hkcat. eus, I. a native of Miletus. We learn from
Suidas, s. v. 'EKaraioc, that his father's name was
Hegesander; that he flourished about the sixty-fifth
Olympiad, during the reign of Darius, who succeeded
Cambyses; that he was a scholar of Protagoras, and
the first who composed a history in prose; and that
Herodotus was much indebted to his writings. Under
the word 'EXTluvikoc, Suidas sr/s that Hecalajus flour-
ished during the Persian wars. This account is in
part confirmed by Herodotus, who tells us that, when
Aristagoras planned the revolt of the Ionian cities
from Darius (5, 36), Hecataeus, in the first instance,
sondemned the enterprise; and afterward (5, 125),
when the unfortunate events of the war had detnon-
ttiated the wisdom of his former opinion, he recom-
. nended Aristaeoras, in case he found himself under
the necessity of quitting Ionia, to fortify some strong
position in the island of Lcros, and there to remain
? ? quiet until a favourable opportunity occurred of reoc-
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? HfcC
HEC
wist be referred to the Hellenistic Jews, as ft fabri-
? auon'of theirs. Sainte-Croix, on the other hand,
undertakes to support their authenticity. (Examcn
its Hisloriens d Alcxandrc-le-Grand, p. 558. ) It ap-
pears, however, that Hecataeus of Abdera actually wrote
a work on Egypt, for Diodorus Siculus (1, 47) and
Plutarch (De Is. et Os. , p. 143, ed. Wyttenb. --ed.
Kciske, vol. 7, p. 392) both cite it. The fragments
of Hecataeus of Abdera were published by Zorn, Al-
(ona. 1730, 8vo, and are given in part also by Crcuzcr,
h his Hist. Grcee. Antiquiss. Fragm. , p. 28, seqq. --
III. A native of Tcos, supposed to have flourished
about the ninetieth Olympiad. Compare the remarks
sf Creuzcr, {Hist. Gr. Ant. Fragm. , p. 6, seqq. )--IV.
A native i( Eretria, who wrote Flfoi Hootuv, "On
the wanderings of the Grecian chieftains returning from
Troy. " He is mentioned also by Plutarch among the
historians of Alexander. (Scholl, Hist. Litt. Gr. , vol.
4, p. 133. )
Hecate {'EKurn), the name of a goddess in the
Grecian mythology. In the Theogony of Hesiod (v.
41! ), this deity is made the daughter of Perses and
Astern. Bacchylidcs speaks of her as the daughter
of Night, while Musobus gave her Jupiter as a sire in
place of Perses. (Schol. ad Apolt. Rh. , 3, 467. )
Others again made her the offspring of the Olympian
king by Phcraea, the daughter of . Solus (Tzelz. , ad
Lye, 1180), or by Ceres (Schol. ad Thcocril. , 2, 12).
According to Pherecydes, her sire was Arisleus.
(Schol. at Apoll. Rh. , I. e. ) It is said in the Thcog-
onj (412, seqq), that Hecate was highly honoured by
Jupiter, who allowed her to exercise extensive power
over land and sea, and to share in all the honours en-
joyed by the children of Heaven and Earth. She re-
wards sacrifice and prayer to her with prosperity.
She presides over the deliberations of the popular as-
sembly, over war, and the administration of justice.
She gives success in wrestling and horse-racing. The
fisherman prays to her and Neptune; the herdsman to
U-: and Hermes; for she can increase and diminish
at her will. Though an only child (in contrast to
Apollo and Diana, who have similar power), she is hon-
oured with all power among the immortals, and is, by
the appointment of Jupiter, the rearer of children,
whom she has brought to see the light of day. --This
passage, however, is plainly an interpolation in the
Theogony, with which it is not in harmony. It has
all the appearance of being an Orphic composition,
and is, perhaps, the work of the notorious forger Ono-
macritus. (Gottling, ad loe. -- Thiersch, iiber Hesio-
das, p. 24. --Keightley's Mythology, p. 66. )--Hecate
is evidently a stranger-divinity in the mythology of
the Greeks. It would appear that she was one of the
hurtful class of deities, transported by Hesiod, or his
interpolator, into the Grecian mythology, and placed
behind the popular divinities of the day, as a being of
earlier existence. Hence the remark of the bard, that
Jupiter respected all the prerogatives which Hecate had
enjoyed previous to his ascending the throne of his
father. Indeed, the sphere which the poet assigns her,
places her out of the reach of all contact with the act-
ing divinities of the day. She is mentioned neither
in tl c Iliad nor Odyssey, and the attributes assigned
her in the more recent poem of the Argonauts are the
san>> rilh those of Proserpina in Homer. (Creuzer,
8ymi>y:ik, vol. 1, p. 158-- Id. , 2, 120 -- Goerrcs,
Miftheng. , vol. 1, p. 254. -- Hermann, Handb. der
? ? Myth. , vol. 2, p. 45. ) Jablonski {Panlh. JEgypt. ) re-
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? MEG
HEO
w the district of Comisene, and southwest part of the
pro'ince of Panhiene. The name is of Grecian origin,
probably a translation of the native term, and has a
fig irative ai'usion to the numerous routes which di-
veigo from this place to the adjacent country. D'An-
vilte makes it correspond with the modern Demegan.
{Plin , 6, 15. --Curl. , 6, 2. --Ammian. Marcell. , 23,
ti. --Folyb. , 10, 25. --Diod. Sir. . , 17, 25. )
Hkcatonnesi, small islands between Lesbos and
Asii. They derived their names, according to Stra-
Oi>> (13), from luaroc, an epithet of Apollo, that deity
being particularly worshipped along the continent of
Asia, off which they lay. It seems more probable,
however, that they had their name from Uarov, a hun-
dred, and were called so from their great number,
which is about forty or over. And Herodotus, in fact,
writes the name 'Ekutov N7001 (I, 151).
The mod-
em appellation is Musco-Nisi. (Cramer's Asia Mi-
nor, vol. 1, p. 165. )
Hector, son of Priam and Hecuba, was the most
valiant of all the Trojan chiefs that fought against the
Greeks. He married Andromache, daughter of Eetion,
by whom he became the father of Astyanax. Hector
was appointed commander of all the Trojan forces, and
for a long period proved the bulwark of his native city.
He was not only the bravert and most powerful, but
also the most amiable, of his countrymen, and particu-
larly distinguished himself in his conflicts with Ajax,
Diomede, and many other of the most formidable lead-
ers. The fates had decreed that Troy should never
be destroyed as long as Hector lived. The Greeks,
therefore, after the death of Patroclus, who had fallen
by Hector's hand, made a ]>owerful effort under the
command of Achillea; and, by the intervention of
Minerva, who assumed the form of Dci'phohus, and
urged Hector to encounter the Grecian chief, contrary
to the remonstrances of Priam and Hecuba, their effort
was crowned with success. Hector fell, and his death
>>c< implished the overthrow of his father's kingdom.
The deal body of the Trojan warrior was attached to
the chariot of Achilles, and insultingly dragged away
to the Grecian fleet; and thrice everv day, for the
space of twelve days, was it also dragged by the victor
around the tomb of Patroclus. (11. , 22, 399, seqq. --
lb. , 24, 14, seqq. ) During all this time, the corpse
of Hector was shielded from dogs and birds, and pre-
served from corruption, by the united care of Venus
and Apollo. (II. , 23, 185, seqq. ) The body was at
last ransomed by Priam, who went in person, for this
purpose, to the tent of Achilles. Splendid obsequies
were rendered to the deceased, and with these the ac-
tion of the Iliad terminates. --Virgil makes Achilles to
nave dragged the corpse of Hector thrice round the
walls of Troy. (vEn. , 1, 483. ) Homer, however, is
silent on this point. According to the latter, Hector
fled thrice round the city-walls before engaging with
Aclntles; and, after he was slain, his bodv was imme-
diately attached to the car of the victor, and dragged
away to the ships. (//. , 22, 399. ) The incident,
therefore, alluded to by Virgil must have been borrowed
from some one of the Cyclic bards, or some tragic
poet, for these, it is well known, allowed themselves
great license in diversifying and altering the features
of the ancient heroic legends. (Heyne, Excurs. , 18,
ad Virg. , Mn. , \. -- Wernsdorff. ad Epit. 11. in Poet
iMt. Min. , vol. 4. p. 742. )
Hecuba ('E<<rrf<<i7), daughter of Dymas, a Phrygian
? ? prince, or, according to others, of Cisseus, a Thracian
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? H i;
HELENA.
which he belonged, even to absurdity, >>nd, ty the lorce
of consequences, came to a result directly opposite to
that of the founder of the school. From the position
that pleasure is the sovereign good, he deduced the
inference that man cannot be truly happy, since, as his
body is exposed to too many evils, of which the soul
jlao partakes, he cannot attain to the sovereign good:
hence it follows that death is more desirable than life.
Hegesias upheld this doctrine with so much ability
ind success, that many of his auditors, on leaving his
lectures, put an end to their existence. Ptolemy I.
,udged it necessary to send him into exile. (Scholl,
Bat. Litt. Gr. , vol. 3, p 249. )
HKGKSIPPUS, I. an historian, mentioned by Diony-
? ins of Hahcarnassus (Ant. Rom. , 1, 49 et 72). He
wrote on the antiquities of Pallene, a peninsula of
Thrace, where . Knoas was supposed to have taken
refuge after the capture of Troy. He made the Tro-
jan chief to have ended his days here. --II. A comic
poet, a native of Tarcntum, surnamed Crobylus (Kpw-
WXof), or "Toupee," from his peculiar manner of
wearing his hair. . His pieces have not reached us:
we have eight epigrams ascribed to him, which are
remarkable for their simplicity. --III. An ecclesiastical
historian, by birth a Jew, and educated in the religion
of his fathers. He was afterward converted to Chris-
tianity, and became bishop of Rome about the year 177,
where he died in the reign of the Emperor ComrViodus,
about the year 180. He was the author of an eccle-
tiastical history, from the period of our Saviour's death
down to his own time, which, according to Eusebius,
contained a faithful relation of the apostolic preaching,
written in a very simple style. The principal value
of the existing fragments, which hare been preserved
lor us by Eusebius and Photius, arises from the testi-
mony that may be deduced from scriptural passages
tooted in them in favour of the genuineness of the
books of the New Testament. There has been as-
cribed to Hegesippus a history of the destruction of
Jerusalem, written in Latin, under the title of "De
Bdlo Judaico et urbis Hicrosolymitana eicidio histo-
ric" It is not, however, by Hegesippus; and appears,
indeed, to be nothing more than a somewhat enlarged
translation of Josephus. A Milan manuscript ascribes
it to St. Ambrose, and perhaps correctly, since there
is a great conformity between its style and that of the
prelate just mentioned. The fragments of the eccle-
siastical history of Hegisippus were published at Ox-
ford in 1698, in the 2d volume of Grabe's Spicilcg.
u. Patrum, p. 205; in the 2d volume of Halloix's
work " De Scriplorum Oriental, titis," p. 703; and in
Galland's BMiolh. Gr. Lot. Vet. Patr. , Venei. , 1788,
fal. vol. 2, p. 69.
HILKNA, the most beautiful woman of her age.
There are different accounts of her birth and parentage.
The common, and probably the most ancient, one is,
that she was the daughter of Leda by Jupiter, who took
the form of a white swan. According to the Cyprian
Epic, she was the offspring of Jupiter and Nemesis,
who had long fled the pursuit of the god, and, to elude
him, had taken the form of all kinds of animals.
(Atktn. , 8, p. 334. ) At length, while she was under
that of a goose, the god became a swan, and she laid
an egg, which was found by a shepherd in the woods.
He brought it to Leda, who laid it up in a coffer, and
m doe time Helena was produced from it. (Apollod. ,
3, 10, 4. ) Hesiod, on the other hand, calls Helena
? ? the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. (Sehol. ad
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? HELENA.
HELLitA.
. ;ars ,\jih Menelaiis, who forgave her infidelity; but,
"[iuii hia death, she was driven from the Peloponnesus
by Megapenthes and Nicostratus, the illegitimate sons
of her husband, and she retired to Rhodes, where at
that time Polyxo, a native of Argos, reigned over the
country. Polyxo remembered that her widowhood ori-
ginated in Helen, and that her husband, Tlepolemua,
had been k'. led in the Trojan war, and she therefore
revolved upon revenge. While Helen one day retired
to bathe in the river, Polyxo disguised her attendants in
<. ! . e habits of Furies, and sent them with orders to mur-
der her enemy. Helen was tied to a tree and stran-
gled, and her misfortunes were afterward commemo-
rated, and the crime of Polyxo expiated, by the tem-
ple which the Rhodians raised to Helena Dendritis, or
Helena " tied to a tree. "--There is a tradition men-
tioned by Herodotus, which says that Paris was driven,
as he returned from Sparta, upon the coast of Egypt,
where Proteus, king of the country, expelled him from
his dominions for his ingratitude to Menelaiis, and
confined Helen. From that circumstance, therefore,
Priam informed the Grecian ambassadors that nei-
ther Helen nor her possessions were in Troy, but in
the hands of the King of Egypt. In spite of this as-
sertion, the Greeks besieged the city, and took it after
ten years' siege; and Menelaiis, visiting Egypt as he
returned home, recovered Helen at the court of Pro-
teus, and was convinced that the Trojan war had been
undertaken upon unjust grounds. Herodotus adds,
that, in his opinion, Homer was acquainted with these
circumstances, but did not think them so well calcu-
lated as the popular legend for the basis of an epic
poem. (Herod. , 2, 112, 116, scqq. )--It was fabled,
that, after death, Helen was united in marriage with
Achilles, in the island of Leuce, in the Euxine, where
she bore him a son named Euphorion. (Pausamas,
3, 19. --Cotton, lS. --Ptol. , Hephast. , 4. ) Nothing,
however, can be more uncertain than the whole history
of Helen. The account of Herodotus has been al-
ready given in the course of this article. According
to Euripides (Helena, 25, scqq), Juno, piqued at be-
holding Venus bear away the prize of beauty, caused
Mercury to carry away the true Helen from Greece to
Egypt, and gave Paris a phantom in her stead. After
the destruction of Troy, the phantom bears witness to
the innocence of Helen, a storm carries Menelaiis to
the coast of Egypt, and he there regains possession of
bis bride. Others pretend that Helen never married
Menelaiis; that she preferred Paris to all the princes
that sought her in marriage; and that Menelaiis, irri-
tated at this, raised an army against Troy. Some wri-
ters think they see, in these conflicting and varying
statements, a confirmation of the opinion entertained by
many, that the ancient quarrel of Hercules and Laome-
don, and the violence ofTered to Hcsione, the daughter
of that monarch, and not the carrying off of Helen, were
the causes of the Trojan war. Others treat the story
of the oath exacted from the suiters with very little cer-
emony, and make the Grecian princes to have followed
Agamemnon to the field as their liege lord, and as stand-
ing at the head of the Achaean race, to whom therefore
they, as commanding the several divisions and tribes
of that race, were bound to render service. But the
more we consider the history of Helen, the greater will
be the difficulties that arise. It seems strange indeed,
supposing the common account to be true, that so
many cities and slates should combine to regain her
? ? whon she went away voluntarily with Paris, and that
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? HEl
HEL
? f the same age; 'or one, if not both, was hatched
from the same egg. Yet these children, so little past
their infant state, are said to have pursued Theseus,
? nd to have regained their sister. They must have
been sturdy urchins, and little short of the sons of
Aloeus. (Consult, on this whole subject, Bryant, Die-
nrtation on the War of Troy, p. 9, seqq. )--It is more
dan probable, indeed, that the whole legend relative to
Helen was originally a religious and allegorical myth.
The remarkable circumstance of her two brothers liv-
ing and dying alternately, leads at once to a suspicion
of their oeing personifications of natural powers and
objects. This is confirmed by the names in the myth,
all of which'seem to refer to light or its opposite.
Thus Leda differs little from Leto, and may therefore
be regarded as darkness. She is married to Tyndarus,
a Dame which seems to belong to a family of words
relating to light, flame, or heat (Viil. Tyndarus); her
children by him or Jupiter, that is, by Jupiter-Tynda-
rus, tie bright god, are Helena, Brightness (? Aa,
"light"); Castor, Adorner, (<c<<fu, " to adorn"); and
Polydcukes, Devcful (6eiu, Acvktjc). In Helen, there-
fore, we have only another form of Selene; the Adorn-
er is a very appropriate term for the day, the light
of which adonis all nature; and nothing can be more
apparent than the suitableness of Dewful to the night.
(Keightley'i Mytxology, p. 432. ) -- II. (commonly
known in ecclesiastical history by the name of St.
Helena), the first wife of Constantius Chlorus, was
born of obscure parents, in a village called Drepanum,
in Bilhynia, which was afterward raised by her son
Constantine to the rank of a city, under the name of
Helenopolis. Her husband Constantius, on being
made Cesar by Dioclesian and Maximian (A. D. 292),
repudiated Helena, and married Theodora, daughter
of Maximian. Helena withdrew into retirement until
her son Constantine, having become emperor, called
his mother to court, and gave her the title of Augus-
ta. He also supplied her with large sums of money,
which she employed in building and endowing church-
's, and in relieving the poor. About A. D. 325 she
set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine, and, having ex-
plored the site of Jerusalem, she thought that she had
discovered the sepulchre of Jesus, and also the cross
on which he died. The identity of the cross which
she found has been, of course, much doubted: she,
however, built a church on the spot, supposed to be
that of the Sepulchre, which has continued to be ven-
erated by that name to the present day. She also built
a church at Bethlehem, in honour of the nativity of
our Saviour. From Palestine she rejoined her son at
Ntcomedia, in Bithvnia, where she expired, in the year
327, at a very advanced age. She is numbered by the
Roman church among the saints. (Euseb. , Vtt. Const.
--Hiibner, de Crucist Dominica per Helenam inven-
tione, Helmstadt, 1724. )--III. A deserted and rugged
island in the Aegean, opposite to Thorikos, and ex-
tending from that parallel to Sunimn. It received its
name from the circumstance of Paris's having landed
on it, as was said, in company with Helena, when they
were fleeing from Sparta. (Plin. , 4, 12. --Mela, 2,
7. ) Strabo, who follows Artemidorus, conceived it
was the Crane of Homer. (II. , 3, 444. ) Pliny calls
it Macris.
tributary streams, it falls into the iEgean, near the city
of . Enus. An estuary, which it forms at its mouth,
was known to Herodotus by the name of Stentoria
Palus (ZrevTopiSoc A. ipvti--7, 58. --Compare Plin. ,
4, 11). The Hcbrus is now called the Maritza. Dr.
Clarke found the Mantza a broad and muddy stream,
much swollen by rains. (Travels, vol. 8, p. 94, Lon-
don cd. ) Plutarch (dr. Fluv. ) states, that this river
once bore the name of Rhombus; and there grew upon
? ts banks, perhaps the identical plant now constituting
a principal part of the commerce of the country; be-
ing then used, as it is now. for its intoxicating quali-
ties. It is, moreover, related of the Hcbrus by Pliny
(33, 4), that its sands were auriferous; and Bclon has
confirmed this observation, by stating that the inhabi-
tants annually collected the sand for the gold it con-
tained. (Observat. en Greet, p. 63, Paris, 1655. )
According to the ancient mythologists, after Orpheus
had been torn in pieces by the Thracian Bacchantes,
his head and lyre were cast into the Hebrus, and, being
carried down that river to the sea, were borne by the
waves to Methymna, in the island of Lesbos. The
Methymneans buried the head of the unfortunate bard,
and suspended the lyre in the temple of Apollo. (Ovid,
Met. , 11, bb. --Philarg. ad Vrrg. , Gcorg. , 4, 523. --
Eustath. in Dionys. , v. 536. --Hygin. , Astron. Poet. ,
2, 7. ) Servius adds, that the head was at one time
carried to the bank of the river, and that a serpent
thereupon sought to devour it, but was changed into
stone, (ad Virg. , Gcorg. , I. c. ) Dr. Clarke thinks,
that this part of the old legend may have originated in
an appearance presented by ono of those extraneous
fossils called Serpent-stones or Ammonita, found near
this river. (Travels, vol. 8, p. 100, Land, ed. ) At
the junction of the Hebrus with the Tonsus and Ar-
discus, Orestes is said to have purified himself from
his mother's blood. (Vid. Orcstias. )
HecalesIa, a festival at Athens, in honour of Jupi-
ter Hecalesiua. It was instituted by Theseus, in com-
memoration of the kindness of Hccale towards him,
when he was going on his enterprise against the Ma-
cedonian bull. This Hecale was an aged female, ac-
cording to the common account, while others referred
the name to one of the borough towns of the I. eon-
tian tribe in Attica. (Steph. Byz. , s. v. --Pint. , Vit.
Thes. --Castellamis, de Fest. Grac. , p. 108. )
Hixat. e Fanum, a celebrated temple sacred to Hec-
ate, near Stratonicea in Caria. (Strabo, 660. )
Hkcat. eus, I. a native of Miletus. We learn from
Suidas, s. v. 'EKaraioc, that his father's name was
Hegesander; that he flourished about the sixty-fifth
Olympiad, during the reign of Darius, who succeeded
Cambyses; that he was a scholar of Protagoras, and
the first who composed a history in prose; and that
Herodotus was much indebted to his writings. Under
the word 'EXTluvikoc, Suidas sr/s that Hecalajus flour-
ished during the Persian wars. This account is in
part confirmed by Herodotus, who tells us that, when
Aristagoras planned the revolt of the Ionian cities
from Darius (5, 36), Hecataeus, in the first instance,
sondemned the enterprise; and afterward (5, 125),
when the unfortunate events of the war had detnon-
ttiated the wisdom of his former opinion, he recom-
. nended Aristaeoras, in case he found himself under
the necessity of quitting Ionia, to fortify some strong
position in the island of Lcros, and there to remain
? ? quiet until a favourable opportunity occurred of reoc-
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? HfcC
HEC
wist be referred to the Hellenistic Jews, as ft fabri-
? auon'of theirs. Sainte-Croix, on the other hand,
undertakes to support their authenticity. (Examcn
its Hisloriens d Alcxandrc-le-Grand, p. 558. ) It ap-
pears, however, that Hecataeus of Abdera actually wrote
a work on Egypt, for Diodorus Siculus (1, 47) and
Plutarch (De Is. et Os. , p. 143, ed. Wyttenb. --ed.
Kciske, vol. 7, p. 392) both cite it. The fragments
of Hecataeus of Abdera were published by Zorn, Al-
(ona. 1730, 8vo, and are given in part also by Crcuzcr,
h his Hist. Grcee. Antiquiss. Fragm. , p. 28, seqq. --
III. A native of Tcos, supposed to have flourished
about the ninetieth Olympiad. Compare the remarks
sf Creuzcr, {Hist. Gr. Ant. Fragm. , p. 6, seqq. )--IV.
A native i( Eretria, who wrote Flfoi Hootuv, "On
the wanderings of the Grecian chieftains returning from
Troy. " He is mentioned also by Plutarch among the
historians of Alexander. (Scholl, Hist. Litt. Gr. , vol.
4, p. 133. )
Hecate {'EKurn), the name of a goddess in the
Grecian mythology. In the Theogony of Hesiod (v.
41! ), this deity is made the daughter of Perses and
Astern. Bacchylidcs speaks of her as the daughter
of Night, while Musobus gave her Jupiter as a sire in
place of Perses. (Schol. ad Apolt. Rh. , 3, 467. )
Others again made her the offspring of the Olympian
king by Phcraea, the daughter of . Solus (Tzelz. , ad
Lye, 1180), or by Ceres (Schol. ad Thcocril. , 2, 12).
According to Pherecydes, her sire was Arisleus.
(Schol. at Apoll. Rh. , I. e. ) It is said in the Thcog-
onj (412, seqq), that Hecate was highly honoured by
Jupiter, who allowed her to exercise extensive power
over land and sea, and to share in all the honours en-
joyed by the children of Heaven and Earth. She re-
wards sacrifice and prayer to her with prosperity.
She presides over the deliberations of the popular as-
sembly, over war, and the administration of justice.
She gives success in wrestling and horse-racing. The
fisherman prays to her and Neptune; the herdsman to
U-: and Hermes; for she can increase and diminish
at her will. Though an only child (in contrast to
Apollo and Diana, who have similar power), she is hon-
oured with all power among the immortals, and is, by
the appointment of Jupiter, the rearer of children,
whom she has brought to see the light of day. --This
passage, however, is plainly an interpolation in the
Theogony, with which it is not in harmony. It has
all the appearance of being an Orphic composition,
and is, perhaps, the work of the notorious forger Ono-
macritus. (Gottling, ad loe. -- Thiersch, iiber Hesio-
das, p. 24. --Keightley's Mythology, p. 66. )--Hecate
is evidently a stranger-divinity in the mythology of
the Greeks. It would appear that she was one of the
hurtful class of deities, transported by Hesiod, or his
interpolator, into the Grecian mythology, and placed
behind the popular divinities of the day, as a being of
earlier existence. Hence the remark of the bard, that
Jupiter respected all the prerogatives which Hecate had
enjoyed previous to his ascending the throne of his
father. Indeed, the sphere which the poet assigns her,
places her out of the reach of all contact with the act-
ing divinities of the day. She is mentioned neither
in tl c Iliad nor Odyssey, and the attributes assigned
her in the more recent poem of the Argonauts are the
san>> rilh those of Proserpina in Homer. (Creuzer,
8ymi>y:ik, vol. 1, p. 158-- Id. , 2, 120 -- Goerrcs,
Miftheng. , vol. 1, p. 254. -- Hermann, Handb. der
? ? Myth. , vol. 2, p. 45. ) Jablonski {Panlh. JEgypt. ) re-
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? MEG
HEO
w the district of Comisene, and southwest part of the
pro'ince of Panhiene. The name is of Grecian origin,
probably a translation of the native term, and has a
fig irative ai'usion to the numerous routes which di-
veigo from this place to the adjacent country. D'An-
vilte makes it correspond with the modern Demegan.
{Plin , 6, 15. --Curl. , 6, 2. --Ammian. Marcell. , 23,
ti. --Folyb. , 10, 25. --Diod. Sir. . , 17, 25. )
Hkcatonnesi, small islands between Lesbos and
Asii. They derived their names, according to Stra-
Oi>> (13), from luaroc, an epithet of Apollo, that deity
being particularly worshipped along the continent of
Asia, off which they lay. It seems more probable,
however, that they had their name from Uarov, a hun-
dred, and were called so from their great number,
which is about forty or over. And Herodotus, in fact,
writes the name 'Ekutov N7001 (I, 151).
The mod-
em appellation is Musco-Nisi. (Cramer's Asia Mi-
nor, vol. 1, p. 165. )
Hector, son of Priam and Hecuba, was the most
valiant of all the Trojan chiefs that fought against the
Greeks. He married Andromache, daughter of Eetion,
by whom he became the father of Astyanax. Hector
was appointed commander of all the Trojan forces, and
for a long period proved the bulwark of his native city.
He was not only the bravert and most powerful, but
also the most amiable, of his countrymen, and particu-
larly distinguished himself in his conflicts with Ajax,
Diomede, and many other of the most formidable lead-
ers. The fates had decreed that Troy should never
be destroyed as long as Hector lived. The Greeks,
therefore, after the death of Patroclus, who had fallen
by Hector's hand, made a ]>owerful effort under the
command of Achillea; and, by the intervention of
Minerva, who assumed the form of Dci'phohus, and
urged Hector to encounter the Grecian chief, contrary
to the remonstrances of Priam and Hecuba, their effort
was crowned with success. Hector fell, and his death
>>c< implished the overthrow of his father's kingdom.
The deal body of the Trojan warrior was attached to
the chariot of Achilles, and insultingly dragged away
to the Grecian fleet; and thrice everv day, for the
space of twelve days, was it also dragged by the victor
around the tomb of Patroclus. (11. , 22, 399, seqq. --
lb. , 24, 14, seqq. ) During all this time, the corpse
of Hector was shielded from dogs and birds, and pre-
served from corruption, by the united care of Venus
and Apollo. (II. , 23, 185, seqq. ) The body was at
last ransomed by Priam, who went in person, for this
purpose, to the tent of Achilles. Splendid obsequies
were rendered to the deceased, and with these the ac-
tion of the Iliad terminates. --Virgil makes Achilles to
nave dragged the corpse of Hector thrice round the
walls of Troy. (vEn. , 1, 483. ) Homer, however, is
silent on this point. According to the latter, Hector
fled thrice round the city-walls before engaging with
Aclntles; and, after he was slain, his bodv was imme-
diately attached to the car of the victor, and dragged
away to the ships. (//. , 22, 399. ) The incident,
therefore, alluded to by Virgil must have been borrowed
from some one of the Cyclic bards, or some tragic
poet, for these, it is well known, allowed themselves
great license in diversifying and altering the features
of the ancient heroic legends. (Heyne, Excurs. , 18,
ad Virg. , Mn. , \. -- Wernsdorff. ad Epit. 11. in Poet
iMt. Min. , vol. 4. p. 742. )
Hecuba ('E<<rrf<<i7), daughter of Dymas, a Phrygian
? ? prince, or, according to others, of Cisseus, a Thracian
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? H i;
HELENA.
which he belonged, even to absurdity, >>nd, ty the lorce
of consequences, came to a result directly opposite to
that of the founder of the school. From the position
that pleasure is the sovereign good, he deduced the
inference that man cannot be truly happy, since, as his
body is exposed to too many evils, of which the soul
jlao partakes, he cannot attain to the sovereign good:
hence it follows that death is more desirable than life.
Hegesias upheld this doctrine with so much ability
ind success, that many of his auditors, on leaving his
lectures, put an end to their existence. Ptolemy I.
,udged it necessary to send him into exile. (Scholl,
Bat. Litt. Gr. , vol. 3, p 249. )
HKGKSIPPUS, I. an historian, mentioned by Diony-
? ins of Hahcarnassus (Ant. Rom. , 1, 49 et 72). He
wrote on the antiquities of Pallene, a peninsula of
Thrace, where . Knoas was supposed to have taken
refuge after the capture of Troy. He made the Tro-
jan chief to have ended his days here. --II. A comic
poet, a native of Tarcntum, surnamed Crobylus (Kpw-
WXof), or "Toupee," from his peculiar manner of
wearing his hair. . His pieces have not reached us:
we have eight epigrams ascribed to him, which are
remarkable for their simplicity. --III. An ecclesiastical
historian, by birth a Jew, and educated in the religion
of his fathers. He was afterward converted to Chris-
tianity, and became bishop of Rome about the year 177,
where he died in the reign of the Emperor ComrViodus,
about the year 180. He was the author of an eccle-
tiastical history, from the period of our Saviour's death
down to his own time, which, according to Eusebius,
contained a faithful relation of the apostolic preaching,
written in a very simple style. The principal value
of the existing fragments, which hare been preserved
lor us by Eusebius and Photius, arises from the testi-
mony that may be deduced from scriptural passages
tooted in them in favour of the genuineness of the
books of the New Testament. There has been as-
cribed to Hegesippus a history of the destruction of
Jerusalem, written in Latin, under the title of "De
Bdlo Judaico et urbis Hicrosolymitana eicidio histo-
ric" It is not, however, by Hegesippus; and appears,
indeed, to be nothing more than a somewhat enlarged
translation of Josephus. A Milan manuscript ascribes
it to St. Ambrose, and perhaps correctly, since there
is a great conformity between its style and that of the
prelate just mentioned. The fragments of the eccle-
siastical history of Hegisippus were published at Ox-
ford in 1698, in the 2d volume of Grabe's Spicilcg.
u. Patrum, p. 205; in the 2d volume of Halloix's
work " De Scriplorum Oriental, titis," p. 703; and in
Galland's BMiolh. Gr. Lot. Vet. Patr. , Venei. , 1788,
fal. vol. 2, p. 69.
HILKNA, the most beautiful woman of her age.
There are different accounts of her birth and parentage.
The common, and probably the most ancient, one is,
that she was the daughter of Leda by Jupiter, who took
the form of a white swan. According to the Cyprian
Epic, she was the offspring of Jupiter and Nemesis,
who had long fled the pursuit of the god, and, to elude
him, had taken the form of all kinds of animals.
(Atktn. , 8, p. 334. ) At length, while she was under
that of a goose, the god became a swan, and she laid
an egg, which was found by a shepherd in the woods.
He brought it to Leda, who laid it up in a coffer, and
m doe time Helena was produced from it. (Apollod. ,
3, 10, 4. ) Hesiod, on the other hand, calls Helena
? ? the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. (Sehol. ad
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? HELENA.
HELLitA.
. ;ars ,\jih Menelaiis, who forgave her infidelity; but,
"[iuii hia death, she was driven from the Peloponnesus
by Megapenthes and Nicostratus, the illegitimate sons
of her husband, and she retired to Rhodes, where at
that time Polyxo, a native of Argos, reigned over the
country. Polyxo remembered that her widowhood ori-
ginated in Helen, and that her husband, Tlepolemua,
had been k'. led in the Trojan war, and she therefore
revolved upon revenge. While Helen one day retired
to bathe in the river, Polyxo disguised her attendants in
<. ! . e habits of Furies, and sent them with orders to mur-
der her enemy. Helen was tied to a tree and stran-
gled, and her misfortunes were afterward commemo-
rated, and the crime of Polyxo expiated, by the tem-
ple which the Rhodians raised to Helena Dendritis, or
Helena " tied to a tree. "--There is a tradition men-
tioned by Herodotus, which says that Paris was driven,
as he returned from Sparta, upon the coast of Egypt,
where Proteus, king of the country, expelled him from
his dominions for his ingratitude to Menelaiis, and
confined Helen. From that circumstance, therefore,
Priam informed the Grecian ambassadors that nei-
ther Helen nor her possessions were in Troy, but in
the hands of the King of Egypt. In spite of this as-
sertion, the Greeks besieged the city, and took it after
ten years' siege; and Menelaiis, visiting Egypt as he
returned home, recovered Helen at the court of Pro-
teus, and was convinced that the Trojan war had been
undertaken upon unjust grounds. Herodotus adds,
that, in his opinion, Homer was acquainted with these
circumstances, but did not think them so well calcu-
lated as the popular legend for the basis of an epic
poem. (Herod. , 2, 112, 116, scqq. )--It was fabled,
that, after death, Helen was united in marriage with
Achilles, in the island of Leuce, in the Euxine, where
she bore him a son named Euphorion. (Pausamas,
3, 19. --Cotton, lS. --Ptol. , Hephast. , 4. ) Nothing,
however, can be more uncertain than the whole history
of Helen. The account of Herodotus has been al-
ready given in the course of this article. According
to Euripides (Helena, 25, scqq), Juno, piqued at be-
holding Venus bear away the prize of beauty, caused
Mercury to carry away the true Helen from Greece to
Egypt, and gave Paris a phantom in her stead. After
the destruction of Troy, the phantom bears witness to
the innocence of Helen, a storm carries Menelaiis to
the coast of Egypt, and he there regains possession of
bis bride. Others pretend that Helen never married
Menelaiis; that she preferred Paris to all the princes
that sought her in marriage; and that Menelaiis, irri-
tated at this, raised an army against Troy. Some wri-
ters think they see, in these conflicting and varying
statements, a confirmation of the opinion entertained by
many, that the ancient quarrel of Hercules and Laome-
don, and the violence ofTered to Hcsione, the daughter
of that monarch, and not the carrying off of Helen, were
the causes of the Trojan war. Others treat the story
of the oath exacted from the suiters with very little cer-
emony, and make the Grecian princes to have followed
Agamemnon to the field as their liege lord, and as stand-
ing at the head of the Achaean race, to whom therefore
they, as commanding the several divisions and tribes
of that race, were bound to render service. But the
more we consider the history of Helen, the greater will
be the difficulties that arise. It seems strange indeed,
supposing the common account to be true, that so
many cities and slates should combine to regain her
? ? whon she went away voluntarily with Paris, and that
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? HEl
HEL
? f the same age; 'or one, if not both, was hatched
from the same egg. Yet these children, so little past
their infant state, are said to have pursued Theseus,
? nd to have regained their sister. They must have
been sturdy urchins, and little short of the sons of
Aloeus. (Consult, on this whole subject, Bryant, Die-
nrtation on the War of Troy, p. 9, seqq. )--It is more
dan probable, indeed, that the whole legend relative to
Helen was originally a religious and allegorical myth.
The remarkable circumstance of her two brothers liv-
ing and dying alternately, leads at once to a suspicion
of their oeing personifications of natural powers and
objects. This is confirmed by the names in the myth,
all of which'seem to refer to light or its opposite.
Thus Leda differs little from Leto, and may therefore
be regarded as darkness. She is married to Tyndarus,
a Dame which seems to belong to a family of words
relating to light, flame, or heat (Viil. Tyndarus); her
children by him or Jupiter, that is, by Jupiter-Tynda-
rus, tie bright god, are Helena, Brightness (? Aa,
"light"); Castor, Adorner, (<c<<fu, " to adorn"); and
Polydcukes, Devcful (6eiu, Acvktjc). In Helen, there-
fore, we have only another form of Selene; the Adorn-
er is a very appropriate term for the day, the light
of which adonis all nature; and nothing can be more
apparent than the suitableness of Dewful to the night.
(Keightley'i Mytxology, p. 432. ) -- II. (commonly
known in ecclesiastical history by the name of St.
Helena), the first wife of Constantius Chlorus, was
born of obscure parents, in a village called Drepanum,
in Bilhynia, which was afterward raised by her son
Constantine to the rank of a city, under the name of
Helenopolis. Her husband Constantius, on being
made Cesar by Dioclesian and Maximian (A. D. 292),
repudiated Helena, and married Theodora, daughter
of Maximian. Helena withdrew into retirement until
her son Constantine, having become emperor, called
his mother to court, and gave her the title of Augus-
ta. He also supplied her with large sums of money,
which she employed in building and endowing church-
's, and in relieving the poor. About A. D. 325 she
set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine, and, having ex-
plored the site of Jerusalem, she thought that she had
discovered the sepulchre of Jesus, and also the cross
on which he died. The identity of the cross which
she found has been, of course, much doubted: she,
however, built a church on the spot, supposed to be
that of the Sepulchre, which has continued to be ven-
erated by that name to the present day. She also built
a church at Bethlehem, in honour of the nativity of
our Saviour. From Palestine she rejoined her son at
Ntcomedia, in Bithvnia, where she expired, in the year
327, at a very advanced age. She is numbered by the
Roman church among the saints. (Euseb. , Vtt. Const.
--Hiibner, de Crucist Dominica per Helenam inven-
tione, Helmstadt, 1724. )--III. A deserted and rugged
island in the Aegean, opposite to Thorikos, and ex-
tending from that parallel to Sunimn. It received its
name from the circumstance of Paris's having landed
on it, as was said, in company with Helena, when they
were fleeing from Sparta. (Plin. , 4, 12. --Mela, 2,
7. ) Strabo, who follows Artemidorus, conceived it
was the Crane of Homer. (II. , 3, 444. ) Pliny calls
it Macris.
