HARMOSTAE (ἁρμοσταί, from ἁρμόζω, to fit or join together), the name of the governors whom the Lacedaemonians, after the Peloponnesian war, sent into their subject or conquered towns, partly to keep them in submission, and partly to abolish the democratical form of government, and establish in its stead one similar to their own. Although in many cases they were ostensibly sent for the purpose of abolishing the tyrannical government of a town, and to restore the people to freedom, yet they themselves acted like kings or tyrants.
Flesh-hook. (British Museum.)
HARPĂGO (ἁρπάγη: λύκος: κρεάγρα), a grappling-iron, a drag, a flesh-hook. In war the grappling-iron, thrown at an enemy’s ship, seized the rigging, and was then used to drag the ship within reach, so that it might be easily boarded or destroyed. These instruments appear to have been much the same as the manus ferreae. The flesh-hook (κρεάγρα) was an instrument used in cookery, resembling a hand with the fingers bent inwards, used to take boiled meat out of the caldron.
HARPASTUM. [[Pila].]
HĂRUSPĬCES, or ĂRUSPĬCES (ἱεροσκόποι), soothsayers or diviners, who interpreted the will of the gods. They originally came to Rome from Etruria, whence haruspices were often sent for by the Romans on important occasions. The art of the haruspices resembled in many respects that of the augurs; but they never acquired that political importance which the latter possessed, and were regarded rather as means for ascertaining the will of the gods than as possessing any religious authority. They did not in fact form any part of the ecclesiastical polity of the Roman state during the republic; they are never called sacerdotes, they did not form a collegium, and had no magister at their head. The art of the haruspices, which was called haruspicina, consisted in explaining and interpreting the will of the gods from the appearance of the entrails (exta) of animals offered in sacrifice, whence they are sometimes called extispices, and their art extispicium; and also from lightning, earthquakes, and all extraordinary phenomena in nature, to which the general name of portenta was given. Their art is said to have been invented by the Etruscan Tages, and was contained in certain books called libri haruspicini, fulgurales, and tonitruales. This art was considered by the Romans so important at one time, that the senate decreed that a certain number of young Etruscans, belonging to the principal families in the state, should always be instructed in it. In later times, however, their art fell into disrepute among well-educated Romans; and Cicero relates a saying of Cato, that he wondered that one haruspex did not laugh when he saw another. The name of haruspex is sometimes applied to any kind of soothsayer or prophet.
Hastae, spears.
HASTA (ἔγχος), a spear. The spear is defined by Homer, δόρυ χαλκήρες, “a pole fitted with bronze,” and δόρυ χαλκοβάρες, “a pole heavy with bronze.” The bronze, for which iron was afterwards substituted, was indispensable to form the point (αἰχμή, ἀκωκή, Homer; λόγχη, Xenophon; acies, cuspis, spiculum) of the spear. Each of these two essential parts is often put for the whole, so that a spear is called δόρυ and δοράτιον, αἰχμή, and λόγχη. Even the more especial term μελία, meaning an ash-tree, is used in the same manner, because the pole of the spear was often the stem of a young ash, stripped of its bark and polished. The bottom of the spear was often inclosed in a pointed cap of bronze, called by the Ionic writers σαυρωτῆρ and οὐρίαχος, and in Attic or common Greek στύραξ. By forcing this into the ground the spear was fixed erect. Many of the lancers who accompanied the king of Persia, had, instead of this spike at the bottom of their spears, an apple or a pomegranate, either gilt or silvered. Fig. 1. in the annexed woodcut shows the top and bottom of a spear, which is held by one of the king’s guards in the sculptures at Persepolis. The spear was used as a weapon of attack in three different ways:—1. It was thrown from catapults and other engines [[Tormentum]]. 2. It was thrust forward as a pike. 3. It was commonly thrown by the hand. The spear frequently had a leathern thong tied to the middle of the shaft, which was called ἀγκύλη by the Greeks, and amentum by the Romans, and which was of assistance in throwing the spear. The annexed figure represents the amentum attached to the spear at the centre of gravity, a little above the middle.
