HORT, FENTON JOHN ANTHONY (1828-1892), English theologian, was born in Dublin on the 23rd of April 1828, the great-grandson of Josiah Hort, archbishop of Tuam in the 18th century. In 1846 he passed from Rugby to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was the contemporary of E. W. Benson, B. F. Westcott and J. B. Lightfoot. The four men became lifelong friends and fellow-workers. In 1850 Hort took his degree, being third in the classical tripos, and in 1852 he became fellow of his college. In 1854, in conjunction with J. E. B. Mayor and Lightfoot, he established the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, and plunged eagerly into theological and patristic study. He had been brought up in the strictest principles of the Evangelical school, but at Rugby he fell under the influence of Arnold and Tait, and his acquaintance with Maurice and Kingsley finally gave his opinions a direction towards Liberalism. In 1857 he married, and accepted the college living of St Ippolyts, near Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, where he remained for fifteen years. During his residence there he took some part in the discussions on university reform, continued his studies, and wrote essays for various periodicals. In 1870 he was appointed a member of the committee for revising the translation of the New Testament, and in 1871 he delivered the Hulsean lectures before the university. Their title was The Way, the Truth, and the Life, but they were not prepared for publication until many years after their delivery. In 1872 he accepted a fellowship and lectureship at Emmanuel College; in 1878 he was made Hulsean professor of divinity, and in 1887 Lady Margaret reader in divinity. In the meantime he had published, with his friend Westcott, an edition of the text of the New Testament. The Revision Committee had very largely accepted this text, even before its publication, as a basis for their translation of the New Testament. The work on its appearance created an immense sensation among scholars, and was vehemently attacked in many quarters, but on the whole it was received as being much the nearest approximation yet made to the original text of the New Testament (see [Bible]: New Testament, “Textual Criticism”). The introduction was the work of Hort, and its depth and fulness convinced all who read it that they were under the guidance of a master. Hort died on the 30th of November 1892, worn out by intense mental labour. Next to his Greek Testament his best-known work is The Christian Ecclesia (1897). Other publications are: Judaistic Christianity (1894); Village Sermons (two series); Cambridge and other Sermons; Prolegomena to ... Romans and Ephesians (1895); The Ante-Nicene Fathers (1895); and two Dissertations, on the reading μονογενὴς θεός in John i. 18, and on The Constantinopolitan and other Eastern Creeds in the Fourth Century. All are models of exact scholarship and skilful use of materials.
His Life and Letters was edited by his son, Sir Arthur Hort, Bart. (1896).
HORTA, the capital of an administrative district comprising the islands of Pico, Fayal, Flores and Corvo, in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Pop. (1900) 6574. Horta is a seaport on the south-east coast of Fayal. It is defended by two castles and a wall, but these fortifications are obsolete. The harbour, a bay 2 m. long and nearly 1 m. broad, affords good anchorage in 5 to 20 fathoms of water, but is dangerous in south-westerly and south-easterly winds. It is the headquarters of profitable whale, tunny, bonito and mullet fisheries. Its exports include sperm-oil, fruit, wine and grain. Between 1897 and 1904 the port annually accommodated about 140 vessels of 220,000 tons, mostly of British or Portuguese nationality.
HORTEN, a seaport of Norway, in Jarlsberg-Laurvik amt (county), beautifully situated on the west bank of the Christiania Fjord, opposite Moss, 38 m. by water and 66 by rail S. of Christiania. Pop. (1900) 8460. It is practically united with Karl-Johansvaern, which is defended by strong fortifications, is the headquarters of the Norwegian fleet, and possesses an arsenal and shipbuilding yards. There are also an observatory and a nautical museum.
HORTENSIUS, QUINTUS (114-50 B.C.), surnamed Hortalus, Roman orator and advocate. At the age of nineteen he made his first speech at the bar, and shortly afterwards successfully defended Nicomedes III. of Bithynia, one of Rome’s dependants in the East, who had been deprived of his throne by his brother. From that time his reputation as an advocate was established. As the son-in-law of Q. Lutatius Catulus he was attached to the aristocratic party. During Sulla’s ascendancy the courts of law were under the control of the senate, the judges being themselves senators. To this circumstance perhaps, as well as to his own merits, Hortensius may have been indebted for much of his success. Many of his clients were the governors of provinces which they were accused of having plundered. Such men were sure to find themselves brought before a friendly, not to say a corrupt, tribunal, and Hortensius, according to Cicero (Div. in Caecil. 7), was not ashamed to avail himself of this advantage. Having served during two campaigns (90-89) in the Social War, he became quaestor in 81, aedile in 75, praetor in 72, and consul in 69. In the year before his consulship he came into collision with Cicero in the case of Verres, and from that time his supremacy at the bar was lost. After 63 Cicero was himself drawn towards the party to which Hortensius belonged. Consequently, in political cases, the two men were often engaged on the same side (e.g. in defence of Rabirius, Murena, Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Milo). After Pompey’s return from the East in 61, Hortensius withdrew from public life and devoted himself to his profession. In 50, the year of his death, he successfully defended Appius Claudius Pulcher when accused of treason and corrupt practices by P. Cornelius Dolabella, afterwards Cicero’s son-in-law.
Hortensius’s speeches are not extant. His oratory, according to Cicero, was of the Asiatic style, a florid rhetoric, better to hear than to read. He had a wonderfully tenacious memory (Cicero, Brutus, 88, 95), and could retain every single point in his opponent’s argument. His action was highly artificial, and his manner of folding his toga was noted by tragic actors of the day (Macrobius, Sat. iii. 13. 4). He also possessed a fine musical voice, which he could skilfully command. The vast wealth he had accumulated he spent on splendid villas, parks, fish-ponds and costly entertainments. He was the first to introduce peacocks as a table delicacy at Rome. He was a great buyer of wine, pictures and works of art. He wrote a treatise on general questions of oratory, erotic poems (Ovid, Tristia, ii. 441), and an Annales, which gained him considerable reputation as an historian (Vell. Pat. ii. 16. 3).