Chapter 13

(W. Y. S.; J. G*.)

1The date is determined by the poem on the death of Quintilius Varus (who died 24B.C.), and by the reference inOdei. 12 to the young Marcellus (died in autumn 23B.C.) as still alive. Cf. Wickham’s Introduction to theOdes.

HORAE(Lat.hora, hour), the Hours, in Greek mythologyὩραι, originally the personification of a series of natural phenomena. In theIliad(v. 749) they are the custodians of the gates of Olympus, which they open or shut by scattering or condensing the clouds; that is, they are weather goddesses, who send down or withhold the fertilizing dews and rain. In theOdyssey, where they are represented as bringing round the seasons in regular order, they are an abstraction rather than a concrete personification. The brief notice in Hesiod (Theog.901), where they are called the children of Zeus and Themis, who superintend the operations of agriculture, indicates by the names assigned to them (Eunomia, Dikē, Eirenē,i.e.Good Order, Justice, Peace) the extension of their functions as goddesses of order from nature to the events of human life, and at the same time invests them with moral attributes. Like the Moerae (Fates), they regulate the destinies of man, watch over the newly born, secure good laws and the administration of justice. The selection of three as their number has been supposed to refer to the most ancient division of the year into spring, summer and winter, but it is probably only another instance of the Greek liking for that particular number or its multiples in such connexions (three Moerae, Charites, Gorgons, nine Muses). Order and regularity being indispensable conditions of beauty, it was easy to conceive of the Horae as the goddesses of youthful bloom and grace, inseparably associated with the idea of springtime. As such they are companions of the Nymphs and Graces, with whom they are often confounded, and of other superior deities connected with the spring growth of vegetation (Demeter, Dionysus). At Athens they were two (or three) in number: Thallo and Carpo, the goddesses of the flowers of spring and of the fruits of summer, to whom Auxo, the goddess of the growth of plants, may be added, although some authorities make her only one of the Graces. In honour of the Horae a yearly festival (Horaea) was celebrated, at which protection was sought against the scorching heat and drought, and offerings were made of boiled meat as less insipid and more nutritious than roast. In later mythology, under Alexandrian influence, the Horae become the four seasons, daughters of Helios and Selene, each represented with the conventional attributes. Subsequently, when the day was divided into twelve equal parts, each of them took the name of Hora. Ovid (Metam.ii. 26) describes them as placed at equal intervals on the throne of Phoebus, with whom are also associated the four seasons. Nonnus (5th centuryA.D.) in theDionysiacaalso unites the twelve Horae as representing the day and the four Horae as the seasons in the palace of Helios.

See C. Lehrs,Populäre Aufsätze(1856); J. H. Krause,Die Musen, Grazien, Horen, und Nymphen(1871); and the articles in Daremberg and Saglio’sDictionnaire des antiquités, J. A. Hild; and in Roscher’sLexikon der Mythologie, W. Rapp.

HORAPOLLON,of Phaenebythis in the nome of Panopolis in Egypt, Greek grammarian, flourished in the 4th centuryA.D.during the reign of Theodosius I. According to Suidas, he wrote commentaries on Sophocles, Alcaeus and Homer, and a work (Τεμενικά) on places consecrated to the gods. Photius (cod. 279), who calls him a dramatist as well as a grammarian, ascribes to him a history of the foundation and antiquities of Alexandria (unless this is by an Egyptian of the same name, who lived In the reign of Zeno, 474-491). Under the name of Horapollon two books onHieroglyphicsare extant, which profess to be a translation from an Egyptian original into Greek by a certain Philippus, of whom nothing is known. The inferior Greek of the translation, and the character of the additions in the second book point to its being of late date; some have even assigned it to the 15th century. Though a very large proportion of the statements seem absurd and cannot be accounted for by anything known in the latest and most fanciful usage, yet there is ample evidence in both the books, in individual cases, that the tradition of the values of the hieroglyphic signs was not yet extinct in the days of their author.

Bibliography.—Editions by C. Leemans (1835) and A. T. Cory (1840) with English translation and notes; see also G. Rathgeber in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie; H. Schäfer,Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache(1905), p. 72.

HORATIIandCURIATII, in Roman legend, two sets of three brothers born at one birth on the same day—the former Roman, the latter Alban—the mothers being twin sisters. During the war between Rome and Alba Longa it was agreed that the issue should depend on a combat between the two families. Two of the Horatii were soon slain; the third brother feigned flight, and when the Curiatii, who were all wounded, pursued him without concert he slew them one by one. When he entered Rome in triumph, his sister recognized a cloak which he was wearing as a trophy as one she had herself made for her lover, one of the Curiatii. She thereupon invoked a curse upon her brother, who slew her on the spot. Horatius was condemned to be scourged to death, but on his appealing to the people his life was spared (Livy i. 25, 26; Dion. Halic. iii. 13-22). Monuments of the tragic story were shown by the Romans in the time of Livy (the altar of Janus Curiatius near thesororium tigillum, the “sister’s beam,” or yoke under which Horatius had to pass; and the altar of Juno Sororia). The legend was probably invented to account for the origin of theprovocatio(right of appeal to the people), while at the same time it points to the close connexion and final struggle for supremacy between the older city on the mountain and the younger city on the plain. Their relationship and origin from three tribes are symbolically represented by the twin sisters and the two sets of three brothers.

For a critical examination of the story, see Schwegler,Römische Geschichte, bk. xii. 11. 14; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis,Credibility of Early Roman History, ch. xi. 15; W. Ihne,Hist. of Rome, i.; E. Pais,Storia di Roma, i. ch. 3 (1898), andAncient Legends of Roman History(Eng. trans., 1906), where the story is connected with the ceremonies performed in honour of Jupiter Tigillus and Juno Sororia; C. Pascal,Fatti e legende di Roma antica(Florence, 1903); O. Gilbert,Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum(1883-1885).

HORATIUS COCLES,a legendary hero of ancient Rome. With two companions he defended the Sublician bridge against Lars Porsena and the whole army of the Etruscans, while the Romans cut down the bridge behind. Then Horatius threw himself into the Tiber and swam in safety to the shore. A statue was erected in his honour in the temple of Vulcan, and he received as much land as he could plough round in a single day. According to another version, Horatius alone defended the bridge, and was drowned in the Tiber.

There is an obvious resemblance between the legend of Horatius Codes and that of the Horatii and Curiatii. In both cases three Romans come forward as the champions of Rome at a critical moment of her fortunes, and only one successfully holds his ground. In the one case, the locality is the land frontier, in the other, the boundary stream of Roman territory. E. Pais finds the origin of the story in the worship of Vulcan, and identifies Cocles (the “one-eyed”) with one of the Cyclopes, who in mythology were connected with Hephaestus, and later with Vulcan. He concludes that the supposed statue of Cocles was really that of Vulcan, who, as one of the most ancient Roman divinities and, in fact, the protecting deity of the state, would naturally be confounded with the hero who saved it by holding the bridge against the invaders. He suggests that the legend arose from some religious ceremony, possibly the practice of throwing the stuffed figures called Argei into the Tiber from the Pons Sublicius on the ides of May. The conspicuous part played in Roman history by members of the Horatian family, who were connected with the worship of Jupiter Vulcanus, will explain the attribution of the name Horatius to Vulcan-Cocles.

See Livy ii. 10; Dion. Halic. v. 23-25; Polybius vi. 55; Plutarch,Poplicola, 16. For a critical examination of the legend, see Schwegler,Römische Geschichte, bk. xxi. 18; W. Ihne,History of Rome, i.; E. Pais,Storia di Roma, i. ch. 4 (1898), andAncient Legends of Roman History(Eng. trans., 1906).

HORDE,a manufacturing town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, is 2 m. S.E. from Dortmund on the railway to Soest. Pop. (1905) 28,461. It has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, a synagogue and an old castle dating from about 1300. There are large smelting-works, foundries, puddling-works, rolling-mills and manufactures of iron and plated wares. In the neighbourhood there are large iron and coal mines. A tramway connects the town with Dortmund.

HOREB,the ancient seat of Yahweh, the tribal god of the Kenites, adopted by His covenant by Israel. This is the name preferred by the Elohistic writer (E) whose work is interwoven into the Old Testament narrative, and he is followed by the Deuteronomist school (D). The Yahwistic writer (J), on the other hand, prefers to call the mountain Sinai (q.v.), and so do the priestly writers (P). This latter form became the more usual. There is no ground for distinguishing between Horeb as the range and Sinai as the single mountain, or between Horeb and Sinai as respectively the N. and S. parts of the range.

HOREHOUND(O. Eng.harhune, Ger.Andorn, Fr.marrube). Common or white horehound,Marrubium vulgare, of the natural orderLabiatae, is a perennial herb with a short stout rootstock, and thick stems, about 1 ft. in height, which, as well as their numerous branches, are coated with a white or hoary felt—whence the popular name of the plant. The leaves have long petioles, and are roundish or rhombic-ovate, with a bluntly toothed margin, much wrinkled, white and woolly below and pale green and downy above; the flowers are sessile, in dense whorls or clusters, small and dull-white, with a 10-toothed calyx and the upper lobe of the corolla long and bifid. The plant occurs in Europe, North Africa and West Asia to North-West India, and has been naturalized in parts of America. In Britain, where it is found generally on sandy or dry chalky ground, it is far from common. White horehound contains a volatile oil, resin, a crystallizable bitter principle termedmarrubiinand other substances, and has a not unpleasant aromatic odour, and a persistent bitter taste. Formerly it was official in British pharmacopoeias; and the infusion, syrup or confection of horehound has long been in popular repute for the treatment of a host of dissimilar affections. Black horehound,Ballota nigra, is a hairy perennial herb, belonging to the same order, of foetid odour, is 2 to 3 ft. in height, and has stalked, roundish-ovate, toothed leaves and numerous flowers, in dense axillary clusters, with a green or purplish calyx, and a pale red-purple corolla. It occurs in Europe, North Africa and West Asia, and in Britain south of the Forth and Clyde, and has been introduced into North America.

HORGEN,a small town in the Swiss canton of Zürich, situated on the left or west shore of the Lake of Zürich, and by rail 10½ m. S.E. of the town of Zürich. Pop. (1900) 6883, mostly German-speaking and Protestants. It possesses many industrial establishments of various kinds, and is a centre of the Zürich silk manufacture. It came in 1406 into the possession of Zürich, with which it communicates by means of steamers on the lake, as well as by rail.

HORIZON(Gr.ὁρίζων, dividing), the apparent circle around which the sky and earth seem to meet. At sea this circle is well defined, the line being called the sea horizon, which divides the visible surface of the ocean from the sky. In astronomy the horizon is that great circle of the sphere the plane of which is at right angles to the direction of the plumb line. Sometimes a distinction is made between the rational and the apparent horizon, the former being the horizon as determined by a plane through the centre of the earth, parallel to that through the station of an observer. But on the celestial sphere the great circles of these two planes are coincident, so that this distinction is not necessary (seeAstronomy:Spherical). TheDipof the horizon at sea is the angular depression of the apparent seahorizon, or circle bounding the visible ocean, below the apparent celestial horizon as above defined. It is due to the rotundity of the earth, and the height of the observer’s eye above the water. The dip of the horizon and its distance in sea-miles when the height of the observer’s eye above the sea-level ishfeet, are approximately given by the formulae: Dip = 0′.97 √h; Distance = 1m·17 √h. The difference between the coefficients 0.97 and 1.17 arises from the refraction of the ray, but for which they would be equal.

HORMAYR, JOSEPH,Baron von(1782-1848), German statesman and historian, was born at Innsbruck on the 20th of January 1782. After studying law in his native town, and attaining the rank of captain in the Tirolese Landwehr, the young man, who had the advantage of being the grandson of Joseph von Hormayr (1705-1778), chancellor of Tirol, obtained a post in the foreign office at Vienna (1801), from which he rose in 1803 to be court secretary and, being a near friend of the Archduke John, director of the secret archives of the state and court for thirteen months. In 1803 he married Therese Anderler von Hohenwald. During the insurrection of 1809, by which the Tirolese sought to throw off the Bavarian supremacy confirmed by the treaty of Pressburg, Hormayr was the mainstay of the Austrian party, and assumed the administration of everything (especially the composition of proclamations and pamphlets); but, returning home without the prestige of success, he fell, in spite of the help of the Archduke John, into disfavour both with the emperor Francis I. and with Prince Metternich, and at length, when in 1813 he tried to stir up a new insurrection in Tirol, he was arrested and imprisoned at Munkatt. In 1816 some amends were made to him by his appointment as imperial historiographer; but so little was he satisfied with the general policy and conduct of the Austrian court that in 1828 he accepted an invitation of King Louis I. to the Bavarian capital, where he became ministerial councillor in the department of foreign affairs. In 1832 he was appointed Bavarian minister-resident at Hanover, and from 1837 to 1846 he held the same position at Bremen. Together with Count Johann Friedrich von der Decken (1769-1840) he founded the Historical Society of Lower Saxony (Historischer Verein für Niedersachsen). The last two years of his life were spent at Munich as superintendent of the national archives. He died on the 5th of October 1848.

Hormayr’s literary activity was closely conditioned by the circumstances of his political career and by the fact that Johannes von Müller (d. 1611) was his teacher: while his access to original documents gave value to his treatment of the past, his record or criticism of contemporary events received authority and interest from his personal experience. But his history of the Tirolese rebellion is far from being impartial; for he always liked to put himself into the first place, and the merits of Andreas Hofer and of other leaders are not sufficiently acknowledged. In his later writings he appears as a keen opponent of the policy of the court of Vienna.

The following are among Hormayr’s more important works:Geschichte des Grafen von Andechs(1796);Lexikon für Reisenden in Tirol(1796);Kritisch-diplomatische Beiträge zur Geschichte Tirols im Mittelalter(2 vols., Innsbruck, 1802-1803, new ed., 1805);Gesch. der gefürst. Grafschaft Tirol(2 vols., Tübingen, 1806-1808);Österreichischer Plutarch, 20 vols., collection of portraits and biographies of the most celebrated administrators, commanders and statesmen of Austria (Vienna, 1807); an edition of Beauchamp’sHistoire de la guerre en Vendée(1809);Geschichte Hofers(1817, 2nd ed., 2 vols., 1845) and other pamphlets;Archiv für Gesch., Stat., Lit. und Kunst(20 vols., 1809-1828);Allgemeine Geschichte der neuesten Zeit vom Tod Friedricks des Grossen bis zum zweiten Pariser Frieden(3 vols., Vienna, 1814-1819, 2nd ed., 1891);Wien, seine Gesch. und Denkwürdigkeiten(5 vols., Vienna, 1823-1824); together withFragmente über Deutschland, in Sonderheit Bayerns Welthandel; Lebensbilder aus dem Befreiungskriege(3 vols., Jena, 1841-1844, 2nd ed., 1845);Die goldene Chronik von Hohenschwangau(Munich, 1842);Anemonen aus dem Tagebuch eines alten Pilgersmanns(4 vols., Jena, 1845-1847). Together with Mednyanski (1784-1844) he founded theTaschenbuch für die Vaterland. Gesch.(Vienna, 1811-1848).See T. H. Merdau,Biographische Züge aus dem Leben deutscher Männer(Leipzig, 1815); Gräffer,Österreichische National-Encyclopädie, ii. (1835);Taschenbuch für vaterländische Geschichte(1836 and 1847);Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen(1848);Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung(1849); Wurzbach,Österreichisches biographisches Lexikon, ix. (1863); K. Th. von Heigel in theAllgemeine deutsche Biographie(1881) and F. X. Wegele,Geschichte der deutschen Historiographie(Munich and Leipzig, 1885); F. v. Krones,Aus Österreichs stillen und bewegten Jahren 1810-1815;Biographie und Briefe an Erzhz. Johann(Innsbruck, 1892); Hirn,Tiroler Aufstand(1909).

See T. H. Merdau,Biographische Züge aus dem Leben deutscher Männer(Leipzig, 1815); Gräffer,Österreichische National-Encyclopädie, ii. (1835);Taschenbuch für vaterländische Geschichte(1836 and 1847);Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen(1848);Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung(1849); Wurzbach,Österreichisches biographisches Lexikon, ix. (1863); K. Th. von Heigel in theAllgemeine deutsche Biographie(1881) and F. X. Wegele,Geschichte der deutschen Historiographie(Munich and Leipzig, 1885); F. v. Krones,Aus Österreichs stillen und bewegten Jahren 1810-1815;Biographie und Briefe an Erzhz. Johann(Innsbruck, 1892); Hirn,Tiroler Aufstand(1909).

(J. Hn.)

HORMISDAS,pope from 514 to 523 in succession to Symmachus, was a native of Campania. He is known as having succeeded in obtaining the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches, which had been separated since the excommunication of Acacius in 484. After two unsuccessful attempts under the emperor Anastasius I., Hormisdas had no difficulty in coming to an understanding in 518 with his successor Justin. Legates were despatched to Constantinople; the memorial of the schismatic patriarchs was condemned; and union was resumed with the Holy See.

Details of this transaction have come down to us in theCollectio Avellana(Corpus script. eccl. Vindobon., vol. xxv., Nos. 105-203; cf. Andreas Thiel,Epp. Rom. Pont.i. 741 seq.).

HORMIZD,orHormizdas, the name of five kings of the Sassanid dynasty (seePersia:Ancient History). The name is another form of Ahuramazda or Ormuzd (Ormazd), which under the Sassanids became a common personal name and was borne not only by many generals and officials of their time (it therefore occurs very often on Persian seals), but even by the pope of Rome noticed above. It is strictly an abbreviation of Hormuzd-dad, “given by Ormuzd,” which form is preserved by Agathias iv. 24-25 as name of King Hormizd I. and II. (Ὁρμισδάτης).

1.Hormizd I.(272-273) was the son of Shapur I., under whom he was governor of Khorasan, and appears in his wars against Rome (Trebellius Pollio,Trig. Tyr.2, where Nöldeke has corrected the name Odomastes into Oromastes,i.e.Hormizd). In the Persian tradition of the history of Ardashir I., preserved in a Pahlavi text (Nöldeke,Geschichte des Artachsir I. Pāpakān), he is made the son of a daughter of Mithrak, a Persian dynast, whose family Ardashir had extirpated because the magians had predicted that from his blood would come the restorer of the empire of Iran. Only this daughter is preserved by a peasant; Shapur sees her and makes her his wife, and her son Hormizd is afterwards recognized and acknowledged by Ardashir. In this legend, which has been partially preserved also in Tabari, the great conquests of Shapur are transferred to Hormizd. In reality he reigned only one year and ten days.

2.Hormizd II., son of Narseh, reigned for seven years five months, 302-309. Of his reign nothing is known. After his death his son Adarnases was killed by the grandees after a very short reign, as he showed a cruel disposition; another son, Hormizd, was kept a prisoner, and the throne reserved for the child with which a concubine of Hormizd II. was pregnant and which received the name Shapur II. Hormizd escaped from prison by the help of his wife in 323, and found refuge at the court of Constantine the Great (Zosim. ii. 27; John of Antioch, fr. 178; Zonar. 13.5), In 363 Hormizd served in the army of Julian against Persia; his son, with the same name, became consul in 366 (Ammian. Marc. 26. 8. 12).

3.Hormizd III., son of Yazdegerd I., succeeded his father in 457. He had continually to fight with his brothers and with the Ephthalites in Bactria, and was killed by Peroz in 459.

4.Hormizd IV., son of Chosroes I., reigned 578-590. He seems to have been imperious and violent, but not without some kindness of heart. Some very characteristic stories are told of him by Ṭabari (Nöldeke,Geschichte d. Perser und Araber unter den Sasaniden, 264 ff.). His father’s sympathies had been with the nobles and the priests. Hormizd protected the common people and introduced a severe discipline in his army and court. When the priests demanded a persecution of the Christians, he declined on the ground that the throne and the government could only be safe if it gained the goodwill of both concurring religions. The consequence was that he raised a strong opposition in the ruling classes, which led to many executions and confiscations. When he came to the throne he killed his brothers,according to the oriental fashion. From his father he had inherited a war against the Byzantine empire and against the Turks in the east, and negotiations of peace had just begun with the emperor Tiberius, but Hormizd haughtily declined to cede anything of the conquests of his father. Therefore the accounts given of him by the Byzantine authors, Theophylact, Simocatta (iii. 16 ff.), Menander Protector and John of Ephesus (vi. 22), who give a full account of these negotiations, are far from favourable. In 588 his general, Bahram Chobin, defeated the Turks, but in the next year was beaten by the Romans; and when the king superseded him he rebelled with his army. This was the signal for a general insurrection. The magnates deposed and blinded Hormizd and proclaimed his son Chosroes II. king. In the war which now followed between Bahram Chobin and Chosroes II. Hormizd was killed by some partisans of his son (590).

5.Hormizd V.was one of the many pretenders who rose after the murder of Chosroes II. (628). He maintained himself about two years (631, 632) in the district of Nisibis.

(Ed. M.)

HORMUZ(Hurmuz,Ormuz,Ormus), a famous city on the shores of the Persian Gulf, which occupied more than one position in the course of history, and has now long practically ceased to exist. The earliest mention of the name occurs in the voyage of Nearchus (325B.C.). When that admiral beached his fleet at the mouth of the river Anamis on the shore of Harmozia, a coast district of Carmania, he found the country to be kindly, rich in every product except the olive. The Anamis appears to be the river now known as the Minab, discharging into the Persian Gulf near the entrance of the latter. The name Hormuz is derived by some from that of the Persian god Hormuzd (Ormazd), but it is more likely that the original etymology was connected withkhurma, “a date”; for the meaning of Moghistan the modern name of the territory Harmozia is “the region of date-palms.” The foundation of the city of Hormuz in this territory is ascribed by one Persian writer to the Sassanian Ardashir Babegan (c.230A.D.). But it must have existed at an earlier date, for Ptolemy takes note ofἍρμονζα πόλις(vi. 8).

Hormuz is mentioned by Idrisi, who wrotec.1150, under the title of Hormuz-al-sāhilīah, “Hormuz of the shore” (to distinguish it from inland cities of the same name then existing), as a large and well-built city, the chief mart of Kirman. Siraf and Kish (Ḳais), farther up the gulf, had preceded it as ports of trade with India, but in the 13th century Hormuz had become the chief seat of this traffic. It was at this time the seat also of a petty dynasty of kings, of which there is a history by one of their number (Turan Shah); an abstract of it is given by the Jesuit Teixeira. According to this history the founder of the dynasty was Shah Mohammed Dirhem-Kub (“the Drachma-coiner”), an Arab chief who crossed the gulf and established himself here. The date is not given, but it must have been before 1100A.D., as Ruḳnuddīn Mahmūd, who succeeded in 1246, was the twelfth of the line. These princes appear to have been at times in dependence necessarily on the atabegs of Fars and on the princes of Kirman. About the year 1300 Hormuz was so severely and repeatedly harassed by raids of Tatar horsemen that the king and his people abandoned their city on the mainland and transferred themselves to the island of Jerun (Organa of Nearchus), about 12 m. westward and 4 m. from the nearest shore.

The site of the continental or ancient Hormuz was first traced in modern times by Colonel (Sir Lewis) Pelly when resident at Bushire. It stands in the present district of Minab, several miles from the sea, and on a creek which communicates with the Minab river, but is partially silted up and not now accessible for vessels. There remain traces of a long wharf and extensive ruins. The new city occupied a triangular plain forming the northern part of the island, the southern wall, as its remains still show, being about 2 m. in extent from east to west. A suburb with a wharf or pier, called Turan Bagh (garden of Turan) after one of the kings, a name now corrupted to Trumpak, stood about 3 m. from the town to the south-east.

Odoric gives the earliest notice we have of the new city (c.1320). He calls it Ormes, a city strongly fortified and abounding in costly wares, situated on an island 5 m. distant from the main, having no trees and no fresh water, unhealthy and (as all evidence confirms) incredibly hot. Some years later it was visited more than once by Ibn Batuta, who seems to speak of the old city as likewise still standing. The new Hormuz, called also Jerun (i.e.still retaining the original name of the island), was a great and fine city rising out of the sea, and serving as a mart for all the products of India, which were distributed hence over all Persia. The hills on the island were of rock-salt, from which vases and pedestals for lamps were carved. Near the gate of the chief mosque stood an enormous skull, apparently that of a sperm-whale. The king at this time was Kutbuddīn Tahamtan, and the traveller gives a curious description of him, seated on the throne, in patched and dirty raiment, holding a rosary of enormous pearls, procured from the Bahrein fisheries, which at one time or another belonged, with other islands in the gulf and on the Oman shores from Rās-el-had (C. Rosalgat of the Portuguese) on the ocean round to Julfar on the gulf, to the princes of Hormuz. Abdurazzāk, the envoy of Shah Rukh on his way to the Hindu court of Vijayanagar, was in Hormuz in 1442, and speaks of it as a mart which had no equal, frequented by the merchants of all the countries of Asia, among which he enumerates China, Java, Bengal, Tenasserim, Shahr-ī-nao (i.e.Siam) and the Maldives. Nikitin, the Russian (c.1470), gives a similar account; he calls it “a vast emporium of all the world.”

In September 1507 the king of Hormuz, after for some time hearing of the terrible foe who was carrying fire and sword along the shores of Arabia, saw the squadron of Alphonso d’Albuquerque appear before his city, an appearance speedily followed by extravagant demands, by refusal of these from the ministers of the young king, and by deeds of matchless daring and cruelty on the part of the Portuguese, which speedily broke down resistance. The king acknowledged himself tributary to Portugal, and gave leave to the Portuguese to build a castle, which was at once commenced on the northern part of the island, commanding the city and the anchorage on both sides. But the mutinous conduct and desertion of several of Albuquerque’s captains compelled him suddenly to abandon the enterprise; and it was not till 1514, after the great leader had captured Goa and Malacca, and had for five years been viceroy, that he returned to Hormuz (or Ormuz, as the Portuguese called it), and without encountering resistance to a name now so terrible, laid his grasp again on the island and completed his castle. For more than a century Hormuz remained practically in the dominions of Portugal, though the hereditary prince, paying from his revenues a tribute to Portugal (in lieu of which eventually the latter took the whole of the customs collections), continued to be the instrument of government. The position of things during the Portuguese rule may be understood from the description of Cesare de’ Federici, a Venetian merchant who was at Hormuz about 1565. After speaking of the great trade in spices, drugs, silk and silk stuffs, and pearls of Bahrein, and in horses for export to India, he says the king was a Moor (i.e.Mahommedan), chosen by and subordinate to the Portuguese. “At the election of the king I was there and saw the ceremonies that they use.... The old king being dead, the captain of the Portugals chooseth another of the blood-royal, and makes this election in the castle with great ceremony. And when he is elected the captain sweareth him to be true ... to the K. of Portugal as his lord and governor, and then he giveth him the sceptre regal. After this ... with great pomp ... he is brought into the royal palace in the city. The king keeps a good train and hath sufficient revenues, ... because the captain of the castle doth maintain and defend his right ... he is honoured as a king, yet he cannot ride abroad with his train, without the consent of the captain first had” (in Hakluyt).1

The rise of the English trade and factories in the Indian seas in the beginning of the 17th century led to constant jealousies and broils with the Portuguese, and the successful efforts of the English company to open traffic with Persia especially embittered their rivals, to whom the possession of Hormuz had long given a monopoly of that trade. The officers of Shāh Abbās, who looked with a covetous and resentful eye on the Portuguese occupation of such a position, were strongly desirous of the aid of English ships in attacking Hormuz. During 1620 and 1621 the ships of Portugal and of the English company had more than once come to action in the Indian seas, and in November of the latter year the council at Surat had resolved on what was practically maritime war with the Portuguese flag. There was hardly a step between this and the decision come to in the following month to join with “the duke of Shirāz” (Imām Kūlī Khān, the governor of Fars) in the desired expedition against Hormuz. There was some pretext of being forced into the alliance by a Persian threat to lay embargo on the English goods at Jashk; but this seems to have been only brought forward by the English agents when, at a later date, their proceedings were called in question. The English crews were at first unwilling to take part in what they justly said was “no merchandizing business, nor were they engaged for the like,” but they were persuaded, and five English vessels aided, first, in the attack of Kishm, where (at the east end of the large island so called) the Portuguese had lately built a fort,2and afterwards in that of Hormuz itself. The latter siege was opened on the 18th of February 1622, and continued to the 1st of May, when the Portuguese, after a gallant defence of ten weeks, surrendered. It is to be recollected that Portugal was at this time subject to the crown of Spain, with which England was at peace; indeed, it was but a year later that the prince of Wales went on his wooing adventure to the Spanish court. The irritation there was naturally great, though it is surprising how little came of it. The company were supposed (apparently without foundation) to have profited largely by the Hormuz booty; and both the duke of Buckingham and the king claimed to be “sweetened,” as the record phrases it, from this supposed treasure. The former certainly received a large bribe (£10,000). The conclusion of the transaction with the king was formerly considered doubtful; but entries in the calendar of East India papers seem to show that James received an equal sum.3

Hormuz never recovered from this blow. The Persians transferred their establishments to Gombroon on the mainland, about 12 m. to the north-west, which the king had lately set up as a royal port under the name of Bander Abbāsi. The English stipulations for aid had embraced an equal division of the customs duties. This division was apparently recognized by the Persians as applying to the new Bander, and, though the trade with Persia was constantly decaying and precarious, the company held to their factory at Gombroon for the sake of this claim to revenue, which of course was most irregularly paid. In 1683-1684 the amount of debt due to the company in Persia, including their proportion of customs duties, was reckoned at a million sterling. As late as 1690-1691 their right seems to have been admitted, and a payment of 3495 sequins was received by them on this account. The factory at Gombroon lingered on till 1759, when it was seized by two French ships of war under Comte d’Estaing. It was re-established, but at the time of Niebuhr’s visit to the gulf a few years later no European remained. Niebuhr mentions that in his time (c.1765) Mulla ’Ali Shāh, formerly admiral of Nādir Shāh, was established on the island of Hormuz and part of Kishm as an independent chief.

See also Barros,Asia;Commentaries of Albuquerque, trans. by Birch (Hak. Society);Relaciones de Pedro Teixeira(Antwerp, 1610); Narratives in Hakluyt’sCollection(reprint in 1809, vol. ii.) and in Purchas’sPilgrims, vol. ii.; Pietro della Valle,Persia, lett. xii.-xvii.;Calendar of E. I. Papers, by Sainsbury, vol. iii.; Ritter,Erdkunde, xii.;Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc., Kempthorne in vol. v., White-locke in vol. viii., Pelly in vol. xxxiv.; Fraser,Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan(1825); Constable and Stifle,Persian Gulf Pilot(1864); Bruce,Annals of the E. I. Company, &c. (1810).

(H. Y.)

The island has a circumference of 16 m. and its longest axis measures 4½ m. The village is in 27° 6′ N., 56° 29′ E. The Portuguese fort still stands, but is sadly out of repair and much of its western wall has been undermined and washed away by the action of the sea. It is a bastioned fort with orillons and loopholed casemates under the ramparts and was separated from the town by a deep moat, now silted up, cut E.-W. across the isthmus and crossed by a bridge. It has three cisterns for collecting rainwater; two are 17-18 ft. deep, have a capacity of about 60,000 gallons and are covered by arched roofs supported on six stone pillars. The third cistern is smaller and has no roof. Five rusty old iron guns are lying prone on the roof; six others on the strand before the village are used for fastening boats, another serves as a socket for a flagstaff before the representative of the government. The island is under the jurisdiction of the governor of the Persian Gulf ports who resides at Bushire. Of the old city hardly anything stands except a minaret, 70 ft. high, with a winding staircase inside and much worn away at the base, part of a former mosque used by the Portuguese as a lighthouse, but the traces of buildings, massive foundations constructed of stone quarried in the hills on the island, of many cisterns (some say 300), &c., are numerous and extensive. The modern settlement, situated south of the fort on the eastern shore, has a population of about 1000 during the cool season, but less in the hot season, when many people go over to Minab on the mainland to the east. Most of the people live in huts constructed of the branches and leaves of the date palm. They own about sixty small sailing vessels trading to Muscat and other ports and also do some pearl-fishing. At Turan Bagh on the east coast 4½ m. S.E. of the fort are some considerable ruins, irrigation canals, an extensive burial ground and some huts occupied by a few families who cultivate a small garden on a terrace supported by old retaining walls. On a hill near the shore 1½ m. S.E. of the fort is the ruin of a small chapel called “Santa Lucia” on an old map in Astley’sCollection of Voyages, and on the summit of a salt hill 1½ m. south of the fort are the remains of another chapel called “N.S. de la Pena” on the same map, and a “Monastery” in a sketch of Hormuz made by David Davies, a mate on board the East India Company’s ship “Discovery” in 1627. With the exception of the northern part, where the old city stood, and the little patch at Turan Bagh, the island is covered with reddish brown hills with sharp serrated ridges composed of gypsum, rock-salt and clay. These hills, which do not exceed 300 ft. in height, are broken through in four places by conical, whitish peaks of volcanic rocks (greenstone, trachyte); the highest of these peaks with an altitude of 690 ft. is situated almost in the centre of the island.

The island has extensive beds of red ochre in which nodules of very pure hematite are often found. The ochre, here calledgīlek, has been an important article of export for centuries4and great quantities of it are exported at the present time to England (in 1906-1907, 10,000 tons; local price 27s. the ton). The climate of Hormuz, although hot, is, according to medical experts, the best in the Persian Gulf. Rain falls in January, February and March, and the annual rainfall is said to be about the same as that of Bushire, 12 to 13 in.

Capt. A. W. Stiffe inGeogr. Mag.(April 1874); William Foster inGeogr. Journal(Aug. 1894); writer’s notes taken on island.

(A. H.-S.)

1In Barros,Dec. II.book x. c. 7, there is a curious detail of the revenue and expenditure of the kingdom of Ormuz, which would seem to exhibit the former as not more than £100,000.2The attack on Kishm was notable in that one of the two Englishmen killed there was the great navigator Baffin.3Colonial Series, E. Indies, by Sainsbury, vol. iii.passim, especially see pp. 296 and 329.4“Reddle or Red Ochre from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire is very little inferior to the Sort brought from the Island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulph and so much valued and used by our Painters under the name of Indian Red” (Sir John Hill,Theophrastus’s History of Stones, London, 1774).

1In Barros,Dec. II.book x. c. 7, there is a curious detail of the revenue and expenditure of the kingdom of Ormuz, which would seem to exhibit the former as not more than £100,000.

2The attack on Kishm was notable in that one of the two Englishmen killed there was the great navigator Baffin.

3Colonial Series, E. Indies, by Sainsbury, vol. iii.passim, especially see pp. 296 and 329.

4“Reddle or Red Ochre from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire is very little inferior to the Sort brought from the Island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulph and so much valued and used by our Painters under the name of Indian Red” (Sir John Hill,Theophrastus’s History of Stones, London, 1774).

HORN, ARVID BERNHARD,Count(1664-1742), Swedish statesman, was born at Vuorentaka in Finland on the 6th of April 1664, of a noble but indigent family. After completing his studies at Åbo, he entered the army and served for several years in the Netherlands, in Hungary under Prince Eugene, and in Flanders under Waldeck (1690-1695). He stood highin the favour of the young Charles XII. and was one of his foremost generals in the earlier part of the great Northern War. In 1704 he was entrusted with his first diplomatic mission, the deposition of Augustus II. of Poland and the election of Stanislaus I., a mission which he accomplished with distinguished ability but absolute unscrupulousness. Shortly afterwards he was besieged by Augustus in Warsaw and compelled to surrender. In 1705 he was made a senator, in 1706 a count and in 1707 governor of Charles XII.’s nephew, the young duke Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp. In 1710 he succeeded Nils Gyldenstolpe as prime minister. Transferred to the central point of the administration, he had ample opportunity of regarding with other eyes the situation of the kingdom, and in consequence of his remonstrances he fell rapidly in the favour of Charles XII. Both in 1710 and 1713 Horn was in favour of summoning the estates, but when in 1714 the diet adopted an anti-monarchical attitude, he gravely warned and ultimately dissolved it. In Charles XII.’s later years Horn had little to do with the administration. After the death of Charles XII. (1718) it was Horn who persuaded the princess Ulrica Leonora to relinquish her hereditary claims and submit to beelectedqueen of Sweden. He protested against the queen’s autocratic behaviour, and resigned both the premiership and his senatorship. He was electedlandtmarskalkat the diet of 1720, and contributed, on the resignation of Ulrica Leonora, to the election of Frederick of Hesse as king of Sweden, whose first act was to restore to him the office of prime minister. For the next eighteen years he so absolutely controlled both the foreign and the domestic affairs of Sweden that the period between 1720 and 1738 has well been called the Horn period. His services to his country were indeed inestimable. His strong hand kept the inevitable strife of the parliamentary factions within due limits, and it was entirely owing to his provident care that Sweden so rapidly recovered from the wretched condition in which the wars of Charles XII. had plunged her. In his foreign policy Horn was extremely wary and cautious, yet without compromising either the independence or the self-respect of his country. He was, however, the promoter of a new principle of administration which in later days proved very dangerous to Sweden under ministers less capable than he was. This was to increase the influence of the diet and its secret committees in the solution of purely diplomatic questions, which should have been left entirely to the executive, thus weakening the central government and at the same time facilitating the interference of foreign Powers in Sweden’s domestic affairs. Not till 1731 was there any appearance of opposition in the diet to Horn’s “system”; but Horn, piqued by the growing coolness of the king, the same year offered his resignation, which was not accepted. In 1734, however, the opposition was bold enough to denounce his neutrality on the occasion of the war of the Polish Succession, when Stanislaus I. again appeared upon the scene as a candidate for the Polish throne; but Horn was still strong enough to prevent a rupture with Russia. Henceforth he was bitterly but unjustly accused of want of patriotism, and in 1738 was compelled at last to retire before the impetuous onslaught of the triumphant young Hat party. For the rest of his life he lived in retirement at his estate at Ekebyholm, where he died on the 17th of April 1742. Horn in many respects greatly resembled his contemporary Walpole. The peculiar situation of Sweden, and the circumstances of his time, made his policy necessarily opportunist, but it was an opportunism based on excellent common sense.

See V. E. Svedelius,Arvid Bernard Horn(Stockholm, 1879); R. N. Bain,Gustavus III., vol. i. (London, 1894), andCharles XII.(1895); C. F. Horn,A. B. Horn: hans lefnad(Stockholm, 1852).

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