Herpa, a town of Cappadocia.
Herse, a daughter of Cecrops king of Athens, beloved by Mercury. The god disclosed his love to Aglauros, Herse’s sister, in hopes of procuring an easy admission to Herse; but Aglauros, through jealousy, discovered the amour. Mercury was so offended at her behaviour, that he struck her with his caduceus and changed her into a stone. Herse became mother of Cephalus by Mercury, and after death she received divine honours at Athens. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, li. 559, &c.——A wife of Danaus. Apollodorus.
Hersephoria, festivals of Athens in honour of Minerva, or more probably of Herse.
Hersĭlia, one of the Sabines, carried away by the Romans at the celebration of the Consualia. She was given and married to Romulus, though, according to some, she married Hostus, a youth of Latium, by whom she had Hostus Hostilius. After death she was presented with immortality by Juno, and received divine honours under the name of Ora. Livy, bk. 1, ch. 11.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 832.
Hertha and Herta, a goddess among the Germans, supposed to be the same as the earth. She had a temple and a chariot dedicated to her service in a remote island, and was supposed to visit the earth at stated times, when her coming was celebrated with the greatest rejoicings and festivity. Tacitus, Germania.
Herŭli, a savage nation in the northern parts of Europe, who attacked the Roman power in its decline.
Hesænus, a mountain near Pæonia.
Hēsiŏdus, a celebrated poet, born at Ascra in Bœotia. His father’s name was Dius, and his mother’s Pycimede. He lived in the age of Homer, and even obtained a poetical prize in competition with him, according to Varro and Plutarch. Quintilian, Philostratus, and others maintain that Hesiod lived before the age of Homer; but Velleius Paterculus and others support that he flourished about 100 years after him. Hesiod is the first who wrote a poem on agriculture. This composition is called The Works and the Days; and besides the instructions which are given to the cultivator of the field, the reader is pleased to find many moral reflections worthy of a refined Socrates or a Plato. His Theogony is a miscellaneous narration executed without art, precision, choice, judgment, or connection, yet it is the more valuable for the faithful account it gives of the gods of antiquity. His Shield of Hercules is but a fragment of a larger poem, in which it is supposed he gave an account of the most celebrated heroines among the ancients. Hesiod, without being master of the fire and sublimity of Homer, is admired for the elegance of his diction, and the sweetness of his poetry. Besides these poems he wrote others, now lost. Pausanias says that, in his age, Hesiod’s verses were still written on tablets in the temple of the Muses, of which the poet was a priest. If we believe Clement of Alexandria, bk. 6, Stromateis, the poet borrowed much from Musæus. One of Lucian’s dialogues bears the name of Hesiod, and in it the poet is introduced as speaking of himself. Virgil, in his Georgics, has imitated the compositions of Hesiod, and taken his opera and dies for model, as he acknowledges. Cicero strongly commends him, and the Greeks were so partial to his poetry and moral instructions, that they ordered their children to learn all by heart. Hesiod was murdered by the sons of Ganyctor of Naupactum, and his body was thrown into the sea. Some dolphins brought back the body to the shore, which was immediately known, and the murderers were discovered by the poet’s dogs, and thrown into the sea. If Hesiod flourished in the age of Homer, he lived 907 B.C. The best editions of this poet are that of Robinson, 4to, Oxford, 1737; that of Loesner, 8vo, Lipscomb, 1778; and that of Parma, 4to, 1785. Cicero, Letters to his Friends, bk. 6, ltr. 18.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 3, &c.—Quintilian, bk. 10, ch. 1.—Paterculus.—Varro.—Plutarch, Septem Sapientium Convivium, & De Sollertia Animalium.
Hēsiŏne, a daughter of Laomedon king of Troy, by Strymo the daughter of Scamander. It fell to her lot to be exposed to a sea monster, to whom the Trojans yearly presented a marriageable virgin, to appease the resentment of Apollo and Neptune, whom [♦]Laomedon had offended; but Hercules promised to deliver her, provided he received as a reward six beautiful horses. Laomedon consented, and Hercules attacked the monster just as he was going to devour Hesione, and he killed him with his club. Laomedon, however, refused to reward the hero’s services; and Hercules, incensed at his treachery, besieged Troy, and put the king and all his family to the sword, except Podarces, or Priam, who had advised his father to give the promised horses to his sister’s deliverer. The conqueror gave Hesione in marriage to his friend Telamon, who had assisted him during the war, and he established Priam upon his father’s throne. The removal of Hesione to Greece proved at last fatal to the Trojans; and Priam, remembering with indignation that his sister had been forcibly given to a foreigner, sent his son Paris to Greece to reclaim the possessions of Hesione, or more probably to revenge his injuries upon the Greeks by carrying away Helen, which gave rise, soon after, to the Trojan war. Lycophron mentions that Hercules threw himself, armed from head to foot, into the mouth of the monster to which Hesione was exposed, and that he tore his belly to pieces, and came out safe only with the loss of his hair, after a confinement of three days. Homer, Iliad, bk. 5, li. 638.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 5, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 11, li. 212.——The wife of Nauplius.
[♦] ‘Lamedon’ replaced with ‘Laomedon’