Chapter 2

Authorities.—On the subject generally, see J. G. T. Grässe,Die grossen Sagenkreise des Mittelalters(Dresden, 1842), forming part of hisLehrbuch einer Literärgeschichte der berühmtesten Völker des Mittelalters; W. P. Ker,Epic and Romance(2nd ed., 1908).Teutonic.—B. Symons, “Germanische Heldensage” in H. Paul’sGrundris der germanischen Philologie, iii. (Strassburg, 1900), 2nd revised edition, separately printed (ib., 1905); W. Grimm,Die deutsche Heldensage(1829, 3rd ed., 1889), still one of the most important works; W. Müller,Mythologie der deutschen Heldensage(Heilbronn, 1886) and supplement,Zur Mythologie der griechischen und deutschen Heldensage(ib., 1889); O. L. Jiriczek,Deutsche Heldensagen, i. (Strassburg, 1898) andDie deutsche Heldensage(3rd revised edition, Leipzig, 1906); Chantepie de la Saussaye,The Religion of the Teutons(Eng. tr., Boston, U.S.A., 1902); J. G. Robertson,History of German Literature(1902). See alsoHeldenbuch.Celtic.—M. H. d’Arbois de Jubainville,Cours de littérature celtique(12 vols., 1883-1902), one vol. trans. into English by R. I. Best,The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology(1903); L. Petit de Julleville,Hist. de la langue et de la litt. française, i.Moyen âge(1896); C. Squire,The Mythology of the British Isles: an Introduction to Celtic Myth and Romance(1905); J. Rhys,Celtic Britain(3rd ed., 1904).Slavonic.—A. N. Rambaud,La Russie épique(1876); W. Wollner,Untersuchungen über die Volksepik der Grossrussen(1879); W. R. Morfill,Slavonic Literature(1883).

Celtic.—M. H. d’Arbois de Jubainville,Cours de littérature celtique(12 vols., 1883-1902), one vol. trans. into English by R. I. Best,The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology(1903); L. Petit de Julleville,Hist. de la langue et de la litt. française, i.Moyen âge(1896); C. Squire,The Mythology of the British Isles: an Introduction to Celtic Myth and Romance(1905); J. Rhys,Celtic Britain(3rd ed., 1904).Slavonic.—A. N. Rambaud,La Russie épique(1876); W. Wollner,Untersuchungen über die Volksepik der Grossrussen(1879); W. R. Morfill,Slavonic Literature(1883).

HERO AND LEANDER,two lovers celebrated in antiquity. Hero, the beautiful priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen by Leander, a youth of Abydos, at the celebration of the festival of Aphrodite and Adonis. He became deeply enamoured of her; but, as her position as priestess and the opposition of her parents rendered their marriage impossible they agreed to carry on a clandestine intercourse. Every night Hero placed a lamp in the top of the tower where she dwelt by the sea, and Leander, guided by it, swam across the dangerous Hellespont. One stormy night the lamp was blown out and Leander perished. On finding his body next morning on the shore, Hero flung herself into the waves. The story is referred to by Virgil (Georg.iii. 258), Statius (Theb.vi. 535) and Ovid (Her.xviii. and xix.). The beautiful little epic of Musaeus has been frequently translated, and is expanded in theHero and Leanderof C. Marlowe and G. Chapman. It is also the subject of a ballad by Schiller and a drama by F. Grillparzer.

See M. H. Jellinek,Die Sage von Hero und Leander in der Dichtung(1890), and G. Knaack “Hero und Leander” inFestgabe für Franz Susemihl(1898). A careful collection of materials will be found in F. Köppner,Die Sage von Hero und Leander in der Literatur und Kunst des Altertums(1894).

HERO OF ALEXANDRIA,Greek geometer and writer on mechanical and physical subjects, probably flourished in the second half of the 1st century. This is the more modern view, in contrast to the earlier theory most generally accepted, according to which he flourished about 100B.C.The earlier theory started from the superscription of one of his works,Ἥρωνος Κτησιβίου βελοποιϊκά, from which it was inferred that Hero was a pupil of Ctesibius. Martin, Hultsch and Cantor took this Ctesibius to be a barber of that name who lived in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes II. (d. 117B.C.) and is credited with having invented an improved water-organ. But this identification is far from certain, as a Ctesibiusmechanicusis mentioned by Athenaeus as having lived under Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285-247B.C.). Nor can the relation of master and pupil be certainly inferred from the superscription quoted (observe the omission of any article), which really asserts no more than that Hero re-edited an earlier treatise by Ctesibius, and implies nothing about his being animmediatepredecessor. Further, it is certain that Hero used physical and mathematical writings by Posidonius, the Stoic, of Apamea, Cicero’s teacher, who lived until about the middle of the 1st centuryB.C.The positive arguments for the more modern view of Hero’s date are (1) the use by him of Latinisms from which Diels concluded that the 1st centuryA.D.was the earliest possible date, (2) the description in Hero’sMechanicsiii. of a small olive-press with one screw which is alluded to by Pliny (Nat. Hist.viii.) as having been introduced sinceA.D.55, (3) an allusion by Plutarch (who diedA.D.120) to the proposition that light is reflected from a surface at an angle equal to the angle of incidence, which Hero proved in hisCatoptrica, the words used by Plutarch fitting well with the corresponding passage of that work (as to which see below). Thus we arrive at the latter half of the 1st centuryA.D.as the approximate date of Hero’s activity.

The geometrical treatises which have survived (though not interpolated) in Greek are entitled respectivelyDefinitiones,Geometria,Geodaesia,Stereometrica(i. and ii.),Mensurae,Liber Geoponicus, to which must now be added theMetricarecently discovered by R. Schöne in a MS. at Constantinople. These books, except theDefinitiones, mostly consist of directions for obtaining, from given parts, the areas or volumes, and other parts, of plane or solid figures. A remarkable feature is the bare statement of a number of very close approximations to the square roots of numbers which are not complete squares. Others occur in theMetricawhere also a method of finding such approximate square, and even approximate cube, roots is shown. Hero’s expressions for the areas of regular polygons of from 5 to 12 sides in terms of the squares of the sides show interesting approximations to the values of trigonometrical ratios. Akin to the geometrical works is thatOn the Dioptra, a remarkable book on land-surveying, so called from the instrument described in it, which was used for the same purposes as the modern theodolite. It is in this book that Hero proves the expression for the area of a triangle in terms of its sides. ThePneumaticain two books is also extant in Greek as is also theAutomatopoietica. In the former will be found such things as siphons, “Hero’s fountain,” “penny-in-the-slot” machines, a fire-engine, a water-organ, and arrangements employing the force of steam. Pappus quotes from three books ofMechanicsand from a work calledBarulcus, both by Hero. The three books onMechanicssurvive in an Arabic translation which, however, bears a title “On the lifting of heavy objects.” This corresponds exactly toBarulcus, and it is probable thatBarulcusandMechanicswere only alternative titles for one and the same work. It is indeed not credible that Hero wrote twoseparate treatises on the subject of the mechanical powers, which are fully discussed in theMechanics, ii., iii. TheBelopoiica(on engines of war) is extant in Greek, and both this and theMechanicscontain Hero’s solution of the problem of the two mean proportionals. Hero also wroteCatoptrica(on reflecting surfaces), and it seems certain that we possess this in a Latin work, probably translated from the Greek by Wilhelm van Moerbeek, which was long thought to be a fragment of Ptolemy’sOptics, because it bore the titlePtolemaei de speculisin the MS. But the attribution to Ptolemy was shown to be wrong as soon as it was made clear (especially by Martin) that another translation by an Admiral Eugenius Siculus (12th century) of an optical work from the Arabic was Ptolemy’sOptics. Of other treatises by Hero only fragments remain. One was four books onWater Clocks(Περὶ ὑδρίων ὡροσκοπείων), of which Proclus (Hypotyp. astron., ed. Halma) has preserved a fragment, and to which Pappus also refers. Another work was a commentary on Euclid (referred to by the Arabs as “the book of the resolution of doubts in Euclid”) from which quotations have survived in an-Nairīzī’s commentary.

ThePneumatica,Automatopoietica,BelopoiicaandCheiroballistraof Hero were published in Greek and Latin in Thévenot’sVeterum mathematicorum opera graece et latine pleraque nunc primum edita(Paris, 1693); the first important critical researches on Hero were G. B. Venturi’sCommentari sopra la storia e la teoria dell’ottica(Bologna, 1814) and H. Martin’s “Recherches sur la vie et les ouvrages d’Héron d’Alexandrie disciple de Ctésibius et sur tous les ouvrages mathématiques grecs conservés ou perdus, publiés ou inédits, qui ont été attribués à un auteur nommé Héron” (Mém. presentés à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, i. série, iv., 1854). The geometrical works (except of course theMetrica) were edited (Greek only) by F. Hultsch (Heronis Alexandrini geometricorum et stereometricorum reliquiae, 1864), theDioptraby Vincent (Extraits des manuscrits relatifs à la géométrie pratique des Grecs, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, xix. 2, 1858), the treatises onEngines of Warby C. Wescher (Poliorcétique des Grecs, Paris, 1867). TheMechanicswas first published by Carra de Vaux in theJournal asiatique(ix. série, ii., 1893). In 1899 began the publication in Teubner’s series ofHeronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia. Vol. i. and Supplement (by W. Schmidt) contains thePneumaticaandAutomata, the fragment onWater Clocks, theDe ingeniis spiritualibusof Philon of Byzantium and extracts on Pneumatics by Vitruvius. Vol. ii. pt. i., by L. Nix and W. Schmidt, contains theMechanicsin Arabic, Greek fragments of the same, theCatoptricain Latin with appendices of extracts from Olympiodorus, Vitruvius, Pliny, &c. Vol. iii. (by Hermann Schöne) contains theMetrica(in three books) and theDioptra. A German translation is added throughout. The approximation to square roots in Hero has been the subject of papers too numerous to mention. But reference should be made to the exhaustive studies on Hero’s arithmetic by Paul Tannery, “L’Arithmétique des Grecs dans Héron d’Alexandrie” (Mém. de la Soc. des sciences phys. et math. de Bordeaux, ii. série, iv., 1882), “La Stéréométrie d’Héron d’Alexandrie” and “Études Héroniennes” (ibid.v., 1883), “Questions Héroniennes” (Bulletin des sciences math., ii. série, viii., 1884), “Un Fragment des Métriques d’Héron” (Zeitschrift für Math. und Physik, xxxix., 1894;Bulletin des sciences math., ii. série, xviii., 1894). A good account of Hero’s works will be found in M. Cantor’sGeschichte der Mathematik, i.² (1894), chapters 18 and 19, and in G. Loria’s studies,Le Scienze esatte nell’ antica Grecia, especially libro iii. (Modena, 1900), pp. 103-128.

(T. L. H.)

HERO,the Younger, the name given without any sufficient reason to a Byzantine land-surveyor who wrote (aboutA.D.938) a treatise on land-surveying modelled on the works of Hero of Alexandria, especially theDioptra.

See “Géodésie de Héron de Byzance,” published by Vincent inNotices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothéque Impériale, xix. 2 (Paris, 1858), and T. H. Martin inMémoires présentés à l’ Académie des Inscriptions, 1st series, iv. (Paris, 1854).

HEROD,the name borne by the princes of a dynasty which reigned in Judaea from 40B.C.

Herod(surnamedthe Great), the son of Antipater, who supported Hyrcanus II. against Aristobulus II. with the aid first of the Nabataean Arabs and then of Rome. The family seems to have been of Idumaean origin, so that its members were liable to the reproach of being half-Jews or even foreigners. Justin Martyr has a tradition that they were originally Philistines of Ascalon (Dial.c. 52), and on the other hand Nicolaus of Damascus (apudJos.Ant.xiv. 1. 3) asserted that Herod, his royal patron, was descended from the Jews who first returned from the Babylonian Captivity. The tradition and the assertion are in all probability equally fictitious and proceed respectively from the foes and the friends of the Herodian dynasty.

Antipas (or Antipater), the father of Antipater, had been governor of Idumaea under Alexander Jannaeus. His son allied himself by marriage with the Arabian nobility and became the real ruler of Palestine under Hyrcanus II. When Rome intervened in Asia in the person of Pompey, the younger Antipater realized her inevitable predominance and secured the friendship of her representative. After the capture of Jerusalem in 63B.C.Pompey installed Hyrcanus, who was little better than a figurehead, in the high-priesthood; and when in 55B.C.the son of Aristobulus renewed the civil war in Palestine, the Roman governor of Syria in the exercise of his jurisdiction arranged a settlement “in accordance with the wishes of Antipater” (Jos.Ant.xiv. 6. 4). To this policy of dependence upon Rome Antipater adhered, and he succeeded in commending himself to Mark Antony and Caesar in turn. After the battle of Pharsalia Caesar made him procurator and a Roman citizen.

At this point Herod appears on the scene as ruler of Galilee (Jos.Ant.xiv. 9. 2) appointed by his father at the age of fifteen or, since he died at seventy, twenty-five. In spite of his youth he soon found an opportunity of displaying his mettle; for he arrested Hezekiah the arch-brigand, who had overrun the Syrian border, and put him to death. The Jewish nobility at Jerusalem seized upon this high-handed action as a pretext for satisfying their jealousy of their Idumaean rulers. Herod was cited in the name of Hyrcanus to appear before the Sanhedrin, whose prerogative he had usurped in executing Hezekiah. He appeared with a bodyguard, and the Sanhedrin was overawed. Only Sameas, a Pharisee, dared to insist upon the legal verdict of condemnation. But the governor of Syria had sent a demand for Herod’s acquittal, and so Hyrcanus adjourned the trial and persuaded the accused to abscond. Herod returned with an army, but his father prevailed upon him to depart to Galilee without wreaking his vengeance upon his enemies. About this time (47-46B.C.) he was createdstrategusof Coelesyria by the provincial governor. The episode is important for the light which it throws upon Herod’s relations with Rome and with the Jews.

In 44B.C.Cassius arrived in Syria for the purpose of filling his war-chest: Antipater and Herod collected the sum of money at which the Jews of Palestine had been assessed. In 43B.C.Antipater was poisoned at the instigation of one Malichus, who was perhaps a Jewish patriot animated by hatred of the Herods and their Roman patrons.

With the connivance of Cassius Herod had Malichus assassinated; but the country was in a state of anarchy, thanks to the extortions of Cassius and the encroachments of neighbouring powers. Antony, who became master of the East after Philippi, was ready to support the sons of his friend Antipater; but he was absent in Egypt when the Parthians invaded Palestine to restore Antigonus to the throne of his father Aristobulus (40B.C.). Herod escaped to Rome: the Arabians, his mother’s people, had repudiated him. Antony had made him tetrarch, and now with the assent of Octavian persuaded the Senate to declare him king of Judaea.

In 39B.C.Herod returned to Palestine and, when the presence of Antony put the reluctant Roman troops entirely at his disposal, he was able to lay siege to Jerusalem two years later. Secure of the support of Rome he was concerned also to legitimize his position in the eyes of the Jews by taking, for love as well as policy, the Hasmonaean princess Mariamne to be his second wife. Jerusalem was taken by storm; the Roman troops withdrew to behead Antigonus the usurper at Antioch. In 37B.C.Herod was king of Judaea, being the client of Antony and the husband of Mariamne.

The Pharisees, who dominated the bulk of the Jews, were content to accept Herod’s rule as a judgment of God. Hyrcanus returned from his prison: mutilated, he could no longer hold office as high-priest; but his mutilation probably gave him the prestige of a martyr, and his influence—whatever it was worth—seemsto have been favourable to the new dynasty. On the other hand Herod’s marriage with Mariamne brought some of his enemies into his own household. He had scotched the faction of Hasmonaean sympathizers by killing forty-five members of the Sanhedrin and confiscating their possessions. But so long as there were representatives of the family alive, there was always a possible pretender to the throne which he occupied; and the people had not lost their affection for their former deliverers. Mariamne’s mother used her position to further her plots for the overthrow of her son-in-law; and she found an ally in Cleopatra of Egypt, who was unwilling to be spurned by him, even if she was not weary of his patron, Antony.

The events of Herod’s reign indicate the temporary triumphs of his different adversaries. His high-priest, a Babylonian, was deposed in order that Aristobulus III., Mariamne’s brother, might hold the place to which he had some ancestral right. But the enthusiasm with which the people received him at the Feast of Tabernacles convinced Herod of the danger; and the youth was drowned by order of the king at Jericho. Cleopatra had obtained from Antony a grant of territory adjacent to Herod’s domain and even part of it. She required Herod to collect arrears of tribute. So it fell out that, when Octavian and the Senate declared war against Antony and Cleopatra, Herod was preoccupied in obedience to her commands and was thus prevented from fighting against the future emperor of Rome.

After the battle of Actium (31B.C.) Herod executed Hyrcanus and proceeded to wait upon the victorious Octavian at Rhodes. His position was confirmed and his territories were restored. On his return he took in hand to heal with the Hasmonaeans, and in 25B.C.the old intriguers, their victims like Mariamne, and all pretenders were dead. From this time onwards Herod was free to govern Palestine, as a client-prince of the Roman Empire should govern his kingdom. In order to put down the brigands who still infested the country and to check the raids of the Arabs on the frontier, he built or rebuilt fortresses, which were of material assistance to the Jews in the great revolt against Rome. Within and without Judaea he erected magnificent buildings and founded cities. He established games in honour of the emperor after the ancient Greek model in Caesarea and Jerusalem and revived the splendour of the Olympic games. At Athens and elsewhere he was commemorated as a benefactor; and as Jew and king of the Jews he restored the temple at Jerusalem. The emperor recognized his successful government by putting the districts of Ulatha and Panias under him in 20B.C.

But Herod found new enemies among the members of his household. His brother Pheroras and sister Salome plotted for their own advantage and against the two sons of Mariamne. The people still cherished a loyalty to the Hasmonaean lineage, although the young princes were also the sons of Herod. The enthusiasm with which they were received fed the suspicion, which their uncle instilled into their father’s mind, and they were strangled at Sebaste. On his deathbed Herod discovered that his eldest son, Antipater, whom Josephus calls a “monster of iniquity,” had been plotting against him. He proceeded to accuse him before the governor of Syria and obtained leave from Augustus to put him to death. The father died five days after his son in 4B.C.He had done much for the Jews, thanks to the favour he had won and kept in spite of all from the successive heads of the Roman state; he had observed the Law publicly—in fact, as the traditional epigram of Augustus says, “it was better to be Herod’sswinethan asonof Herod.”

Josephus,Ant.xv., xvi., xvii. 1-8,B.J.i. 18-33; Schürer,Gesch. d. jüd. Völk., 4th ed., i. pp. 360-418.

Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great by the Samaritan Malthace, and full brother of Archelaus, received as his share of his father’s dominions the provinces of Galilee and Peraea, with the title of tetrarch. Like his father, Antipas had a turn for architecture: he rebuilt and fortified the town of Sepphoris in Galilee; he also fortified Betharamptha in Peraea, and called it Julias after the wife of the emperor. Above all he founded the important town of Tiberias on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee, with institutions of a distinctly Greek character. He reigned 4B.C.-A.D.39. In the gospels he is mentioned as Herod. He it was who was called a “fox” by Christ (Luke xiii. 32). He is erroneously spoken of as a king in Mark vi. 14. It was to him that Jesus was sent by Pilate to be tried. But it is in connexion with his wife Herodias that he is best known, and it was through her that his misfortunes arose. He was married first of all to a daughter of Aretas, the Arabian king; but, making the acquaintance of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip (not the tetrarch), during a visit to Rome, he was fascinated by her and arranged to marry her. Meantime his Arabian wife discovered the plan and escaped to her father, who made war on Herod, and completely defeated his army. John the Baptist condemned his marriage with Herodias, and in consequence was put to death in the way described in the gospels and in Josephus. When Herodias’s brother Agrippa was appointed king by Caligula, she was determined to see her husband attain to an equal eminence, and persuaded him, though naturally of a quiet and unambitious temperament, to make the journey to Rome to crave a crown from the emperor. Agrippa, however, managed to influence Caligula against him. Antipas was deprived of his dominions and banished to Lyons, Herodias voluntarily sharing his exile.

Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great by Cleopatra of Jerusalem, received the tetrarchate of Ituraea and other districts to E. and N.E. of the Lake of Galilee, the poorest part of his father’s kingdom. His subjects were mainly Greeks or Syrians, and his coins bear the image of Augustus or Tiberius. He is described as an excellent ruler, who loved peace and was careful to maintain justice, and spent his time in his own territories. He was also a builder of cities, one of which was Caesarea Philippi, and another was Bethsaida, which he called Julias. He died after a reign of thirty-seven years (4B.C.-A.D.34); and his dominions were incorporated in the province of Syria.

(J. H. A. H.)

HERODAS(Gr.Ἡρῴδας), orHerondas(the name is spelt differently in the few places where he is mentioned), Greek poet, the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, written under the Alexandrian empire in the 3rd centuryB.C.Apart from the intrinsic merit of these pieces, they are interesting in the history of Greek literature as being a new species, illustrating Alexandrian methods. They are calledΜιμίαμβοι, “Mimeiambics.” Mimes were the Dorian product of South Italy and Sicily, and the most famous of them—from which Plato is said to have studied the drawing of character—were the work of Sophron. These were scenes in popular life, written in the language of the people, vigorous with racy proverbs such as we get in other reflections of that region—in Petronius and thePentamerone. Two of the best known and the most vital among theIdyllsof Theocritus, the 2nd and the 15th, we know to have been derived from mimes of Sophron. What Theocritus is doing there, Herodas, his younger contemporary, is doing in another manner—casting old material into novel form, upon a small scale, under strict conditions of technique. The method is entirely Alexandrian: Sophron had written in a peculiar kind of rhythmical prose; Theocritus uses the hexameter and Doric, Herodas thescazonor “lame” iambic (with a dragging spondee at the end) and the old Ionic dialect with which that curious metre was associated. That, however, hardly goes beyond the choice and form of words; the structure of the sentences is close-knit Attic. But the grumbling metre and quaint language suit the tone of common life which Herodas aims at realizing; for, as Theocritus may be called idealist, Herodas is a realist unflinching. His persons talk in vehement exclamations and emphatic turns of speech, with proverbs and fixed phrases; and occasionally, where it is designed as proper to the part, with the most naked coarseness of expression.

The scene of the second and the fourth is laid at Cos, and the speaking characters in each are never more than three. In Mime I. the old nurse, now the professional go-between or bawd, calls on Metriche, whose husband has been long away in Egypt, and endeavours to excite her interest in a most desirable young man, fallen deeply in love with her at first sight. After hearing all the arguments Metriche declines with dignity, but consoles the old woman with an ample glass of wine, this kind being alwaysrepresented with the taste of Mrs Gamp. II. is a monologue by theΠορνοβοσκός(“Whoremonger”) prosecuting a merchant-trader for breaking into his establishment at night and attempting to carry off one of the inmates, who is produced in court. The vulgar blackguard, who is a stranger to any sort of shame, remarking that he has no evidence to call, proceeds to a peroration in the regular oratorical style, appealing to the Coan judges not to be unworthy of their traditional glories. In fact, the whole oration is also a burlesque in every detail of an Attic speech at law; and in this case we have the material from which to estimate the excellence of the parody. In III. a desperate mother brings to the schoolmaster a truant urchin, with whom neither she nor his incapable old father can do anything. In a voluble stream of interminable sentences she narrates his misdeeds and implores the schoolmaster to flog him. The boy accordingly is hoisted on another’s back and flogged; but his spirit does not appear to be subdued, and the mother resorts to the old man after all. IV. is a visit of two poor women with an offering to the temple of Asclepius at Cos. While the humble cock is being sacrificed, they turn, like the women in theIonof Euripides, to admire the works of art; among them a small boy strangling a vulpanser—doubtless the work of Boëthus that we know—and a sacrificial procession by Apelles, “the Ephesian,” of whom we have an interesting piece of contemporary eulogy. The oily sacristan is admirably painted in a few slight strokes. V. brings us very close to some unpleasant facts of ancient life. The jealous woman accuses one of her slaves, whom she has made her favourite, of infidelity; has him bound and sent degraded through the town to receive 2000 lashes; no sooner is he out of sight than she recalls him to be branded “at one job.” The only pleasing person in the piece is the little maidservant—permitted liberties as avernabrought up in the house—whose ready tact suggests to her mistress an excuse for postponing execution of a threat made in ungovernable fury. VI. is a friendly chat or a private conversation. The subject is an ugly one, but the dialogue is as clever and amusing as the rest, with some delicious touches. Our interest is engaged here in a certain Kerdon, the artistic shoemaker, to whom we are introduced in VII. (the name had already become generic for the shoemaker as the typical representative of retail trade), a little bald man with a fluent tongue, complaining of hard times, who bluffs and wheedles by turns. VII. opens with a mistress waking up her maids to listen to her dream; but we have only the beginning, and the other fragments are very short.

Within the limits of 100 lines or less Herodas presents us with a highly entertaining scene and with characters definitely drawn. Some of these had been perfected no doubt upon the Attic stage, where the tendency in the 4th century had been gradually to evolve accepted types—not individuals, but generalizations from a class, an art in which Menander’s was esteemed the master-hand. TheΠορνοβοσκόςand theΜαστροπόςwe can piece together from succeeding literature, and see how skilfully the established traits are indicated here. This is achieved by true dramatic means, with touches never wasted and the more delightful often because they do not clamour for attention. The execution has the qualities of first-rate Alexandrian work in miniature, such as the epigrams of Asclepiades possess, the finish and firm outlines; and these little pictures bear the test of all artistic work—they do not lose their freshness with familiarity, and gain in interest as one learns to appreciate their subtle points.

The papyrus MS., obtained from the Fayum, is in the possession of the British Museum, and was first printed by F. G. Kenyon in 1891. Editions by O. Crusius (1905, text only, in Teubner series) and J. A. Nairn (1904), with introduction, notes and bibliography. There is an English verse translation of the mimes by H. Sharpley (1906) under the titleA Realist of the Aegean.

(W. G. H.)

HERODIANS(Ἡρωδιανοί), a sect or party mentioned in Scripture as having on two occasions—once in Galilee, and again in Jerusalem—manifested an unfriendly disposition towards Jesus (Mark iii. 6, xii. 13; Matt. xxii. 6; cf. also Mark viii. 15). In each of these cases their name is coupled with that of the Pharisees. According to many interpreters the courtiers or soldiers of Herod Antipas (“Milites Herodis,” Jerome) are intended; but more probably the Herodians were a public political party, who distinguished themselves from the two great historical parties of post-exilian Judaism by the fact that they were and had been sincerely friendly to Herod the Great and to his dynasty (cf. such formations as “Caesariani,” “Pompeiani”). It is possible that, to gain adherents, the Herodian party may have been in the habit of representing that the establishment of a Herodian dynasty would be favourable to the realization of the theocracy; and this in turn may account for Tertullian’s (De praescr.) allegation that the Herodians regarded Herod himself as the Messiah. The sect was called by the Rabbis Boethusians as being friendly to the family of Boethus, whose daughter Mariamne was one of Herod the Great’s wives.

(J. H. A. H.)

HERODIANUS,Greek historian, flourished during the third centuryA.D.He is supposed to have been a Syrian Greek. In 203 he was in Rome, where he held some minor posts. He does not appear to have attained high official rank; the statement that he was imperial procurator and legate of the Sicilian provinces rests upon conjecture only. His historical work (Ἡρωδιανοῦ τῆς μετὰ Μάρκον βασιλείας ἱστοριῶν βιβλία ὀκτώ) narrates the events of the fifty-eight years between the death of Marcus Aurelius and the proclamation of Gordianus III. (180-238). The narrative is of special value as supplementing Dion Cassius, whose history ends with Alexander Severus. His work has the value that attaches to a record written by one chronicling the events of his own times, gifted with ordinary powers of observation, indubitable candour and independence of view. But while he gives a lively account of external events—such as the death of Commodus and the assassination of Pertinax—the barbarian invasions, the spread of Christianity, the extension of the franchise by Caracalla are unnoticed. The dates are often wrong, and little attention is paid to geographical details, which makes the narrative of military expeditions beyond the borders of the empire difficult to understand. Herodian has been accused of prejudice against Alexander Severus. His style, modelled on that of Thucydides and unreservedly praised by Photius, is on the whole pure, though somewhat rhetorical and showing a fondness for Latinisms.

Extensive use has been made of Herodianus by later chroniclers, especially the “Scriptores historiae Augustae” and John of Antioch. His history was first translated into Latin at the end of the 15th century by Politian. The most complete edition is by G. W. Irmisch (1789-1805), with elaborate indices, but the notes are very diffuse; critical editions by I. Bekker (1855), L. Mendelssohn (1883); see also C. Dändliker.

HERODIANUS, AELIUS,calledὁ τεχνικός, Alexandrian grammarian, flourished in the 2nd centuryA.D.He early took up his residence at Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Marcus Aurelius (161-180), to whom he dedicated his great treatise on prosody. This work in twenty-one books (Καθολικὴ προσῳδία) included also an account of the etymological part of grammar. The work itself is lost, but several epitomes of it have been preserved. HisἘπιμερισμοίdealt with difficult words and peculiar forms in Homer. Herodianus also wrote numerous grammatical treatises, of which only one has come down to us in a complete form (Περὶ μονήρους λέξεως, on peculiar style), articles on exceptional or anomalous words. Numerous quotations and fragments still exist, chiefly in the Homeric scholiasts and Stephanus of Byzantium. Herodianus enjoyed a great reputation as a grammarian, and Priscian styles him “maximus auctor artis grammaticae.”

The best edition is by A. Lentz,Herodiani. Technici reliquiae(1867-1870); a supplementary volume is included in Uhling’sCorpus grammaticorum Graecorum; for further bibliographical information see W. Christ,Geschichte der griechischen Literatur(1898).

HERODOTUS(c.484-425B.C.), Greek historian, called the Father of History, was born at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, then dependent upon the Persians, in or about the year 484B.C.Herodotus was thus born a Persian subject, and such he continued until he was thirty or five-and-thirty years of age. At the time of his birth Halicarnassus was under the rule of a queenArtemisia (q.v.). The year of her death is unknown; but she left her crown to her son Pisindelis (born about 498B.C.), who was succeeded upon the throne by his son Lygdamis about the time that Herodotus grew to manhood. The family of Herodotus belonged to the upper rank of the citizens. His father was named Lyxes, and his mother Rhaeo, or Dryo. He had a brother Theodore, and an uncle or cousin Panyasis (q.v.), the epic poet, a personage of so much importance that the tyrant Lygdamis, suspecting him of treasonable projects, put him to death. It is probable that Herodotus shared his relative’s political opinions, and either was exiled from Halicarnassus or quitted it voluntarily at the time of his execution.

Of the education of Herodotus no more can be said than that it was thoroughly Greek, and embraced no doubt the three subjects essential to a Greek liberal education—grammar, gymnastic training and music. His studies would be regarded as completed when he attained the age of eighteen, and took rank among theephebioreirenesof his native city. In a free Greek state he would at once have begun his duties as a citizen, and found therein sufficient employment for his growing energies. But in a city ruled by a tyrant this outlet was wanting; no political life worthy of the name existed. Herodotus may thus have had his thoughts turned to literature as furnishing a not unsatisfactory career, and may well have been encouraged in his choice by the example of Panyasis, who had already gained a reputation by his writings when Herodotus was still an infant. At any rate it is clear from the extant work of Herodotus that he must have devoted himself early to the literary life, and commenced that extensive course of reading which renders him one of the most instructive as well as one of the most charming of ancient writers. The poetical literature of Greece was already large; the prose literature was more extensive than is generally supposed; yet Herodotus shows an intimate acquaintance with the whole of it. TheIliadand theOdysseyare as familiar to him as Shakespeare to the educated Englishman. He is acquainted with the poems of the epic cycle, theCypria, theEpigoni, &c. He quotes or otherwise shows familiarity with the writings of Hesiod, Olen, Musaeus, Bacis, Lysistratus, Archilochus of Paros, Alcaeus, Sappho, Solon, Aesop, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Simonides of Ceos, Phrynichus, Aeschylus and Pindar. He quotes and criticizes Hecataeus, the best of the prose writers who had preceded him, and makes numerous allusions to other authors of the same class.

It must not, however, be supposed that he was at any time a mere student. It is probable that from an early age his inquiring disposition led him to engage in travels, both in Greece and in foreign countries. He traversed Asia Minor and European Greece probably more than once; he visited all the most important islands of the Archipelago—Rhodes, Cyprus, Delos, Paros, Thasos, Samothrace, Crete, Samos, Cythera and Aegina. He undertook the long and perilous journey from Sardis to the Persian capital Susa, visited Babylon, Colchis, and the western shores of the Black Sea as far as the estuary of the Dnieper; he travelled in Scythia and in Thrace, visited Zante and Magna Graecia, explored the antiquities of Tyre, coasted along the shores of Palestine, saw Gaza, and made a long stay in Egypt. At the most moderate estimate, his travels covered a space of thirty-one degrees of longitude, or 1700 miles, and twenty-four of latitude, or nearly the same distance. At all the more interesting sites he took up his abode for a time; he examined, he inquired, he made measurements, he accumulated materials. Having in his mind the scheme of his great work, he gave ample time to the elaboration of all its parts, and took care to obtain by personal observation a full knowledge of the various countries.

The travels of Herodotus seem to have been chiefly accomplished between his twentieth and his thirty-seventh year (464-447B.C.).1It was probably in his early manhood that as a Persian subject he visited Susa and Babylon, taking advantage of the Persian system of posts which he describes in his fifth book. His residence in Egypt must, on the other hand, have been subsequent to 460B.C., since he saw the skulls of the Persians slain by Inarus in that year. Skulls are rarely visible on a battlefield for more than two or three seasons after the fight, and we may therefore presume that it was during the reign of Inarus (460-454B.C.),2when the Athenians had great authority in Egypt, that he visited the country, making himself known as a learned Greek, and therefore receiving favour and attention on the part of the Egyptians, who were so much beholden to his countrymen (seeAthens,Cimon,Pericles). On his return from Egypt, as he proceeded along the Syrian shore, he seems to have landed at Tyre, and from thence to have gone to Thasos. His Scythian travels are thought to have taken place prior to 450B.C.

It is a question of some interest from what centre or centres these various expeditions were made. Up to the time of the execution of Panyasis, which is placed by chronologists in or about the year 457B.C., there is every reason to believe that Herodotus lived at Halicarnassus. His travels in Asia Minor, in European Greece, and among the islands of the Aegean, probably belong to this period, as also his journey to Susa and Babylon. We are told that when he quitted Halicarnassus on account of the tyranny of Lygdamis, in or about the year 457B.C., he took up his abode in Samos. That island was an important member of the Athenian confederacy, and in making it his home Herodotus would have put himself under the protection of Athens. The fact that Egypt was then largely under Athenian influence (seeCimon,Pericles) may have induced him to proceed, in 457 or 456B.C., to that country. The stories that he had heard in Egypt of Sesostris may then have stimulated him to make voyages from Samos to Colchis, Scythia and Thrace. He was thus acquainted with almost all the regions which were to be the scene of his projected history.

After Herodotus had resided for some seven or eight years in Samos, events occurred in his native city which induced him to return thither. The tyranny of Lygdamis had gone from bad to worse, and at last he was expelled. According to Suidas, Herodotus was himself an actor, and indeed the chief actor, in the rebellion against him; but no other author confirms this statement, which is intrinsically improbable. It is certain, however, that Halicarnassus became henceforward a voluntary member of the Athenian confederacy. Herodotus would now naturally return to his native city, and enter upon the enjoyment of those rights of free citizenship on which every Greek set a high value. He would also, if he had by this time composed his history, or any considerable portion of it, begin to make it known by recitation among his friends. There is reason to believe that these first attempts were not received with much favour, and that it was in chagrin at his failure that he precipitately withdrew from his native town, and sought a refuge in Greece proper (about 447B.C.).3We learn that Athens was the place to which he went, and that he appealed from the verdict of his countrymen to Athenian taste and judgment. His work won such approval that in the year 445B.C., on the proposition of a certain Anytus, he was voted a sum of ten talents (£2400) by decree of the people. At one of the recitations, it was said, the future historian Thucydides was present with his father, Olorus, and was so moved that he burst into tears, whereupon Herodotus remarked to the father—“Olorus, your son has a natural enthusiasm for letters.”4

Athens was at this time the centre of intellectual life, and could boast an almost unique galaxy of talent—Pericles, Thucydides the son of Melesias, Aspasia, Antiphon, the musician Damon, Pheidias, Protagoras, Zeno, Cratinus, Crates, Euripides and Sophocles. Accepted into this brilliant society, on familiar terms with all probably, as he certainly was with Olorus,Thucydides and Sophocles, he must have been tempted, like many another foreigner, to make Athens his permanent home. It is to his credit that he did not yield to this temptation. At Athens he must have been a dilettante, an idler, without political rights or duties. As such he would have soon ceased to be respected in a society where literature was not recognized as a separate profession, where a Socrates served in the infantry, a Sophocles commanded fleets, a Thucydides was general of an army, and an Antiphon was for a time at the head of the state. Men were not men according to Greek notions unless they were citizens; and Herodotus, aware of this, probably sharing in the feeling, was anxious, having lost his political status at Halicarnassus, to obtain such status elsewhere. At Athens the franchise, jealously guarded at this period, was not to be attained without great expense and difficulty. Accordingly, in the spring of the following year he sailed from Athens with the colonists who went out to found the colony of Thurii (seePericles), and became a citizen of the new town.

From this point of his career, when he had reached the age of forty, we lose sight of him almost wholly. He seems to have made but few journeys, one to Crotona, one to Metapontum, and one to Athens (about 430B.C.) being all that his work indicates.5No doubt he was employed mainly, as Pliny testifies, in retouching and elaborating his general history. He may also have composed at Thurii that special work on the history of Assyria to which he twice refers in his first book, and which is quoted by Aristotle. It has been supposed by many that he lived to a great age, and argued that “the never-to-be-mistaken fundamental tone of his performance is the quiet talkativeness of a highly cultivated, tolerant, intelligent,oldman” (Dahlmann). But the indications derived from the later touches added to his work, which form the sole evidence on the subject, would rather lead to the conclusion that his life was not very prolonged. There is nothing in the nine books which may not have been written as early as 430B.C.; there is no touch which, even probably, points to a later date than 424B.C.As the author was evidently engaged in polishing his work to the last, and even promises touches which he does not give, we may assume that he did not much outlive the date last mentioned, or in other words, that he died at about the age of sixty. The predominant voice of antiquity tells us that he died at Thurii, where his tomb was shown in later ages.

The History.—In estimating the great work of Herodotus, and his genius as its author, it is above all things necessary to conceive aright what that work was intended to be. It has been called “a universal history,” “a history of the wars between the Greeks and the barbarians,” and “a history of the struggle between Greece and Persia.” But these titles are all of them too comprehensive. Herodotus, who omits wholly the histories of Phoenicia, Carthage and Etruria, three of the most important among the states existing in his day, cannot have intended to compose a “universal history,” the very idea of which belongs to a later age. He speaks in places as if his object was to record the wars between the Greeks and the barbarians; but as he omits the Trojan war, in which he fully believes, the expedition of the Teucrians and Mysians against Thrace and Thessaly, the wars connected with the Ionian colonization of Asia Minor and others, it is evident that he does not really aim at embracing in his narrative all the wars between Greeks and barbarians with which he was acquainted. Nor does it even seem to have been his object to give an account of the entire struggle between Greece and Persia. That struggle was not terminated by the battle of Mycale and the capture of Sestos in 479B.C.It continued for thirty years longer, to the peace of Callias (but seeCalliasandCimon). The fact that Herodotus ends his history where he does shows distinctly that his intention was, not to give an account of the entire long contest between the two countries, but to write the history of a particular war—the great Persian war of invasion. His aim was as definite as that of Thucydides, or Schiller, or Napier or any other writer who has made his subject a particular war; only he determined to treat it in a certain way. Every partial history requires an “introduction”; Herodotus, untrammelled by examples, resolved to give his history a magnificent introduction. Thucydides is content with a single introductory book, forming little more than one-eighth of his work; Herodotus has six such books, forming two-thirds of the entire composition.

By this arrangement he is enabled to treat his subject in thegrandway, which is so characteristic of him. Making it his main object in his “introduction” to set before his readers the previous history of the two nations who were the actors in the great war, he is able in tracing their history to bring into his narrative some account of almost all the nations of the known world, and has room to expatiate freely upon their geography, antiquities, manners and customs and the like, thus giving his work a “universal” character, and securing for it, without trenching upon unity, that variety, richness and fulness which are a principal charm of the best histories, and of none more than his. In tracing the growth of Persia from a petty subject kingdom to a vast dominant empire, he has occasion to set out the histories of Lydia, Media, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Scythia, Thrace, and to describe the countries and the peoples inhabiting them, their natural productions, climate, geographical position, monuments, &c.; while, in noting the contemporaneous changes in Greece, he is led to tell of the various migrations of the Greek race, their colonies, commerce, progress in the arts, revolutions, internal struggles, wars with one another, legislation, religious tenets and the like. The greatest variety of episodical matter is thus introduced; but the propriety of the occasion and the mode of introduction are such that no complaint can be made; the episodes never entangle, encumber or even unpleasantly interrupt the main narrative.

It has been questioned, both in ancient and in modern times, whether the history of Herodotus possesses the essential requisite of trustworthiness. Several ancient writers accuse him of intentional untruthfulness. Moderns generally acquit him of this charge; but his severer critics still urge that, from the inherent defects of his character, his credulity, his love of effect and his loose and inaccurate habits of thought, he was unfitted for the historian’s office, and has produced a work of but small historical value. Perhaps it may be sufficient to remark that the defects in question certainly exist, and detract to some extent from the authority of the work, more especially of those parts of it which deal with remoter periods, and were taken by Herodotus on trust from his informants, but that they only slightly affect the portions which treat of later times and form the special subject of his history. In confirmation of this view, it may be noted that the authority of Herodotus for the circumstances of the great Persian war, and for all local and other details which come under his immediate notice, is accepted by even the most sceptical of modern historians, and forms the basis of their narratives.

Among the merits of Herodotus as an historian, the most prominent are the diligence with which he collected his materials, the candour and impartiality with which he has placed his facts before the reader, the absence of party bias and undue national vanity, and the breadth of his conception of the historian’s office. On the other hand, he has no claim to rank as a critical historian; he has no conception of the philosophy of history, no insight into the real causes that underlie political changes, no power of penetrating below the surface, or even of grasping the real interconnexion of the events which he describes. He belongs distinctly to the romantic school; his forte is vivid and picturesque description, the lively presentation of scenes and actions, characters and states of society, not the subtle analysis of motives, the power of detecting the undercurrents or the generalizing faculty.

But it is as a writer that the merits of Herodotus are mostconspicuous. “O that I were in a condition,” says Lucian, “to resemble Herodotus, if only in some measure! I by no means say in all his gifts, but only in some single point; as, for instance, the beauty of his language, or its harmony, or the natural and peculiar grace of the Ionic dialect, or his fulness of thought, or by whatever name those thousand beauties are called which to the despair of his imitator are united in him.” Cicero calls his style “copious and polished,” Quintilian, “sweet, pure and flowing”; Longinus says he was “the most Homeric of historians”; Dionysius, his countryman, prefers him to Thucydides, and regards him as combining in an extraordinary degree the excellences of sublimity, beauty and the true historical method of composition. Modern writers are almost equally complimentary. “The style of Herodotus,” says one, “is universally allowed to be remarkable for its harmony and sweetness.” “The charm of his style,” argues another, “has so dazzled men as to make them blind to his defects.” Various attempts have been made to analyse the charm which is so universally felt; but it may be doubted whether any of them are very successful. All, however, seem to agree that among the qualities for which the style of Herodotus is to be admired are simplicity, freshness, naturalness and harmony of rhythm. Master of a form of language peculiarly sweet and euphonical, and possessed of a delicate ear which instinctively suggested the most musical arrangement possible, he gives his sentences, without art or effort, the most agreeable flow, is never abrupt, never too diffuse, much less prolix or wearisome, and being himself simple, fresh,naif(if we may use the word), honest and somewhat quaint, he delights us by combining with this melody of sound simple, clear and fresh thoughts, perspicuously expressed, often accompanied by happy turns of phrase, and always manifestly the spontaneous growth of his own fresh and unsophisticated mind. Reminding us in some respects of the quaint medieval writers, Froissart and Philippe de Comines, he greatly excels them, at once in the beauty of his language and the art with which he has combined his heterogeneous materials into a single perfect harmonious whole. See alsoGreece, sectionHistory, “Authorities.”

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