Hephæstia, the capital town of Lemnos.——A festival in honour of Vulcan (Ἡφαιστος) at Athens. There was then a race with torches between three young men. Each in his turn ran a race with a lighted torch in his hand, and whoever could carry it to the end of the course before it was extinguished, obtained the prize. They delivered it one to the other after they finished their course, and from that circumstance we see many allusions in ancient authors who compare the vicissitudes of human affairs to this delivering of the torch, particularly in these lines of Lucretius bk. 2:
Inque brevi spatio mutantur sæcla animantum,
Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.
Hephæstiădes, a name applied to the Lipari isles as sacred to Vulcan.
Hephæstii, mountains in Lycia which are set on fire by the lightest touch of a burning torch. Their very stones burnt in the middle of water, according to Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 106.
Hephæstio, a Greek grammarian of Alexandria in the age of the emperor Verus. There remains of his compositions a treatise entitled Enchiridion de metris & poemate, the best edition of which is that of Pauw, 4to, Utrecht, 1726.
Hephæstion, a Macedonian famous for his intimacy with Alexander. He accompanied the conqueror in his Asiatic conquests, and was so faithful and attached to him, that Alexander often observed that Craterus was the friend of the king, but Hephæstion the friend of Alexander. He died at Ecbatana 325 years before the christian era, according to some from excess of drinking, or eating. Alexander was so inconsolable at the death of this faithful subject, that he shed tears at the intelligence, and ordered the sacred fire to be extinguished, which was never done but at the death of a Persian monarch. The physician who attended Hephæstion in his illness was accused of negligence, and by the king’s order inhumanly put to death, and the games were interrupted. His body was entrusted to the care of Perdiccas, and honoured with the most magnificent funeral at Babylon. He was so like the king in features and stature, that he was often saluted by the name of Alexander. Curtius.—Arrian, bk. 7, &c.—Plutarch, Alexander.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 7, ch. 8.
Heptaphōnos, a portico, which received this name, because the voice was re-echoed seven times in it. Pliny, bk. 36, ch. 15.
Heptapŏlis, a country of Egypt, which contained seven cities.
Heptapy̆los, a surname of Thebes in Bœotia, from its seven gates.