HIPPOMEDON, a son of Nisimachus and Mythidice, was one of the seven chiefs that went against Thebes. He was killed by Ismarus, son of Acastus. (Apollod., 3, 6.-Pausan., 2, 36.) HIPPOMENES, son of Megareus, was, according to some authorities, the successful suiter of Atalanta. (Vid. Atalanta, and consult Heyne, ad Apollod., 3, 9, 2, and the authorities there cited.) -Heyne, ad loc.-Ovid, Met., 15, 492, seqq.-Virg., | ters in the style of Archilochus; but there is no conEn., 7, 761, seqq.-Consult Buttmann, Mythologus, clusive evidence that he mixed them with scazons. vol. 2, p. 145, seq.) Ananius has hardly any individual character in literary history distinct from that of Hipponax. In Alexandrea their poems seem to have been regarded as forming one collection; and thus the criterion by which to determine whether a particular passage belonged to the one or the other, was often lost or never existed. Hence, in the uncertainty which is the true author, the same verse is occasionally ascribed to both (as in Athenæus, 14, p. 625, c.) The few fragments which are attributed with certainty to Ananius are so completely in the tone of Hipponax, that it would be a vain labour to attempt to point out any characteristic difference. The fragments of Hipponax and Ananius were edited by Welcker, Götting., 1817, 4to. (Müller, Hist. Græc. Lit., p. 141, seqq.—Philological Museum, vol. 1, p. 281.). HIPPOMOLGI, or, more correctly, HIPPEMOLGI ('ITπμoλyoí), a people of Scythia, who, as the name imports, lived on the milk of mares. (Dionys. Perieg., 309.-Bernhardy, ad loc.) HIPPONA, a goddess who presided over horses. Her statues were placed in horses' stables. (Juv., 8, 157. -Consult Ruperti, ad loc., who gives Epona as the reading demanded by the line.) HIPPOPODES, a people of Scythia, who were fabled to have horses' feet (iññоν пóðas), whence their name. The Hippopodes are mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes, Mela, Pliny, and St. Augustine. The truth appears to be, that they had this appellation given them on account of their swiftness of foot. (Dionys. Perieg., 310.-Mela, 3, 6, 83.) HIPPONIUM, called also Vibo Valentia, a town of HIPPONAX, a Greek poet, who flourished about the Italy, on the western coast of the territory of the Bru60th Olympiad, or 540 B.C. He was born at Ephe- tii, southwest from Scylacium. According to Strabo sus, and was compelled by the tyrants Athenagoras (56) it was founded by the Epizephyrian Locri. We and Comas to quit his home, and to establish him- learn from Diodorus (14, 107; 15, 24), that not long self in another Ionian city, Clazomena. This politi- afterward it was destroyed by Dionysius the elder, who cal persecution (which affords a presumption of his transplanted the inhabitants to Syracuse. It was revehement love of liberty) probably laid the foundation stored, however, by the Carthaginians, who were then for some of the bitterness and disgust with which he at war with that prince. Subsequently it fell into the regarded mankind. Precisely the same fierce and in-hands of the Brutii, together with all the Greek setdignant scorn, which found an utterance in the iam- tlements on the coast. (Strab., l. c.) About 297 B.C., bics of Archilochus, is ascribed to Hipponax. What Agathocles, tyrant of Sicily, seized upon the harbour the family of Lycambes was to Archilochus, Bupalus of Hipponium, which he fortified, and even succeeded (a sculptor belonging to a family of Chios, which had in obtaining possession of the town for a short period. produced several generations of artists) was to Hip- He was soon, however, compelled by the Brutii to reponax. He had made his small, meager, and ugly linquish it, together with the port. (Diod. Sic., Experson the subject of caricature; an insult which Hip- cerpt., 21, 8.—Strab., l. c.) This city became a colponax avenged in the bitterest and most pungent iam- ony of the Romans, A.U.C. 560, and took the name bics, of which some remains are extant. In this in- of Vibo Valentia. (Liv., 35, 40.) Antiquaries and stance, also, the satirist is said to have caused his en- topographers are generally of opinion that the modern emy to hang himself. The satire of Hipponax, how- town of Monte Leone represents the ancient Hipponiever, was not concentrated so entirely on certain in- um, and they recognise its haven in the present hardividuals. From existing fragments it appears rather bour of Bivona. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 420.) to have been founded on a general view of life, taken, however, on its ridiculous and grotesque side. His language is filled with words taken from common life, such as the names of articles of food and clothing, and of ordinary utensils, current among the working people. He evidently strives to make his iambics local pictures, full of freshness, nature, and homely truth. For this purpose, the change which Hipponax devised in the iambic metre was as felicitous as it was bold. He crippled the rapid, agile gait of the iambus, by transforming the last foot from an iambic into a spondee, contrary to the fundamental principle of the whole mode of versification. The metre, thus maimed and stripped of its beauty and regularity, was a perfectly appropriate rhythmical form for the delineation of such pictures of intellectual deformity as Hipponax delighted in. Iambics of this kind (called choliambics, or trimeter scazons) are still more cumbrous and halting when the fifth foot is also a spondec; which, indeed, according to the original structure, is not forbidden. These were called broken-backed (ischiorrhogic) iambics, and a grammarian (ap Tyrwhitt, Dissert. de Babrio, p. 17) settles the dispute (which, according to ancient testimony, was so hard to decide), how far the innovation of this kind of verse ought to be ascribed to Hipponax, and how far to another iambographer, Ananius, by pronouncing, that Ananius invented the ischiorrhogic variety, and Hipponax the common scazon. It appears, however, from the fragments attributed to him, that Hipponax sometimes used the spondee in the fifth place. In the same manner, and with the same effect, these poets also changed the trochaic tetrameter by regularly lengthening the penultimate short syllable. Some remains of this kind are extant. Hipponax likewise composed pure trime HIRA OF ALEXANDREA, now Mesjid-ali, or Mehamali, a town of Asia in Babylonia, situate on a lake, a short distance from the western bank of the Euphrates. It was the residence of a dynasty of princes who aided the Persians and Parthians against the Romans. They are called in history by the general name of Alamundari, after the term Al-Mondar, common to many of these princes at the fall of their dynasty under the Mohammedan power. The body of Ali was here interred; and hence, from the sepulchre of the calif, came the modern name. (Bischoff und Möller, Wörterb. der Geogr., p. 615.) HIRPINI, a people of Italy, who formed a part of the Samnites, and were situate to the south of Samnium Proper. As the term Hirpus signified in the Samnite dialect a wolf, they are said to have been thus called from their having followed the tracks of these animals in migrating to this quarter. Towards the end of the second Punic war they began to be distinguished from the rest of the Samnites. Their territory comprehended the towns of Beneventum, Caudium, Abellinum, and Compsa. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 248.) HIRTIUS AULUS, a Roman of a distinguished family. He applied himself in early life to the study of rhetoric, and spoke on several occasions with great success. He followed Cæsar in the war against the Gauls, and merited the esteem of that great captain. On his re turn from this expedition, he eagerly courted the friend- | Straits of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean, which ship of Cicero, and accompanied him in his retreat to last bounds it also on the east. Many conjectures have Tusculum. Here he exercised himself in declama-been formed concerning the origin of the name Hispation, under the eyes of this illustrious orator, who nia. Bochart (Geogr. Sacr.-Phaleg., 3, 7) derives speaks highly of his talents in many of his letters, and its name from the Phoenician (or Hebrew) saphan, “a particularly in that addressed to Volumnius (8, 32). rabbit," from the vast numbers of those animals which Cicero sent Hirtius to Cæsar, on the return of the lat- the country was found by the early Phoenician coloter from Africa, with the view of bringing about a rec- nists to contain. (Compare Catullus, 37, 18.-Varro, onciliation with the dictator, whom the orator had of- R. R., 3, 12.-Elian, de An., 13, 15.-Plin., 8, 29, fended by the freedom of some of his discourses. &c.-Bochart, Geogr. Sacr. Canaan., 1, 35.) Others Hirtius, either from affection or gratitude, was always deduce the name in question from the Phoenician span, attached to the party of Cæsar; but after the death of concealed," and consider it as referring to the cirthe dictator, he declared against Antony.-Being cre- cumstance of the country's being little known at an ated consul elect along with C. Vibius Pansa, he fell early period to the Phoenician traders. Neither of sick soon after his election, and Cicero informs us these etymologies is of much value, though the former (Phil., 37), that the people testified the warmest con- is certainly the better of the two. It would seem to cern in his recovery. Hirtius was scarcely restored have been adopted by the Romans, as appears from a to health, when he set out with his colleague to attack medal of Hadrian, on which Spain is represented by Antony, who was besieging Brutus in Mutina, now the figure of a woman with a rabbit at her side. Modena. They gained a victory over Antony, near (Flores, Medalles de Espania, vol. 1, p. 109.) The the city, B.C. 43; but Hirtius fell in the battle, and Romans borrowed the name Hispania, appending their Pansa died a few days after of his wounds. The re- own termination to it, from the Phoenicians, through port was spread abroad, that Octavius had caused the whom they first became acquainted with the country. two consuls to be poisoned in order to appropriate The Greeks called it Iberia, but attached at different to himself all the glory of the day. (Sueton., Vit. periods different ideas to the name. Up to the time Aug, 11.)-It cannot be affirmed with any degree of of the Achæan league and their more intimate accertainty that Hirtius was the author of the continua-quaintance with the Romans, they understood by this tion of Caesar's Commentaries which commonly goes name all the seacoast from the Pillars of Hercules to by his name. Even as far back as the time of Sueto- the mouth even of the Rhodanus or Rhone in Gaul. nius, great difference of opinion prevailed on this point; | (Scylax, p. 1, seqq.—Scymnus Chius, v. 198.—Polysome, according to that writer, attributing the contin- bus, 3, 37.-Strabo, 116.—Mannert, Geogr., vol. 1, p. uation in question to Oppius, and others to Hirtius: 233.) The coast of Spain on the Atlantic they called the latter opinion, however, has, in general, gained the Tartessis. (Scymnus Chius, v. 164, v. 198.-Herod., ascendancy. This continuation forms the eighth book 1, 163.) The interior of the country they termed Celof the Gallic war. The author addresses himself, in a tice (KɛλTiký), a name which they applied, in fact, to letter, to Balbus, in which he apologizes for having the whole northwestern part of Europe. (Aristot., de presumed to terminate a work so perfect in its nature, Mundo.-Opp., ed. Duval, vol. 1, p. 850.) The that Cæsar seems to have had in view, in composing Greeks in after ages understood by Iberia the whole it, not so much the collecting together of materials, as of Spain. The name Iberia is derived from the Iberi, the leaving a model of composition to historical wri- of whom the Greeks had heard as one of the most ters. We learn by the same letter, that the book on powerful nations of the country. The origin of the the Alexandrine War, and that on the African War, ancient population of Spain is altogether uncertain. proceeded from the same pen; and these three works, Some suppose that a colony first settled on the shores in a style at once simple and elegant, do not appear of this country from the island of Atlantis; an asunworthy of the friend of Cæsar and Cicero. We sumption as probable as the opinion supported by sevhave also, under the name of Hirtius, a book on the eral Spanish authors, that the first inhabitants were Spanish War, so inferior to the preceding that judi- descended from Tubal, a son of Noah, who landed in cious critics regard it as the mere journal of a soldier, Spain twenty-two centuries before the Christian era. who was an eyewitness of the events which he relates. The Iberi, according to the ancient writers, were di(Biogr. Univ., vol. 20, p. 423, seqq.-Bähr, Gesch. vided into six tribes; the Cynetes, Gletes, Tartessii, Röm. Lit., vol. 1, p. 360.) Elbysinii, Mastieni, and Calpiani. (Herodori, fragm. ap. Const. Porphyrog. de adm. Imp., 2, 23.-Compare Steph. Byz., ed. Berkel, p. 408.-Ukert, Geogr., vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 252.) Diodorus Siculus (5, 31, seqq.) mentions the invasion of Spain by the Celts. Iberi made war against them for a long time, but, after an obstinate resistance on the part of the natives, the two people entered into an agreement, according to which they were to possess the country in common, bear the same name, and remain for ever united; such, says the same historian, was the origin of the Celtiberi in Spain. These warlike people, continues Diodorus, were equally formidable as cavalry and infantry; for, when the horse had broken the enemy's ranks, the men dismounted and fought on foot. Their dress consisted of a sagum, or coarse woollen mantle; they wore greaves made of hair, an iron helmet adorned with a red feather, a round buckler, and a broad two-edged sword, of so fine a temper as to pierce through the enemy's armour. Although they boasted of cleanliness both in their nourishment and their dress, it was not unusual for them to wash their teeth and bodies with urine, a custom which they considered favourable to health. Their habitual drink was a sort of hydromel; wine was brought into the country by foreign merchants. The land was equally distributed, and the harvests were divided HISPALIS, a famous city of Spain, situate on the Bætis, and corresponding to the modern Seville. Mannert thinks that it was the same as the ancient Tartessus. (Geogr., vol. 1, p. 312.) The name is supposed to be of Phoenician origin, and, according to Isidorus, has reference to the city's being founded on piles or stakes of wood, on account of the insecurity of the ground where it stood. (Isidor., lib. etymol., 15, 1.) Some ascribe the origin of the place to Hercules; probably, however, it was a Phoenician colony. It was a place of great commerce, the Bætis being navigable in ancient times for the largest ships up to the city. Now, however, vessels drawing more than ten feet of water are compelled to unload eight miles below the town, and the largest vessels stop at the mouth of the river. When Hispalis became a Roman colony, the name was changed to Julia Romulensis. (Cas., B. C., 2, 18.-Id., Bell. Hisp., 27, 35, seqq. Isidor, Chron. Goth., p. 168.-Id., Chron. Vand., p. 176. Id., Hist. Suev., p. 180.-Plin., 3, 1.) HISPANIA, an extensive country, forming a kind of peninsula, in the southwest of Europe. It was bounded on the north by the Pyrenees and Sinus Cantabricus or Bay of Biscay, on the west by the Atlantic, on the south by the Atlantic, Fretum Herculeum or The among all the citizens; the law punished with death | Bætica, were skilled in different kinds of industry long the person who appropriated more than his just share. before their neighbours. When the Phoenicians arThey were hospitable; nay, they considered it a spe- rived on their coasts, silver was so common among cial favour to entertain a stranger, being convinced them that their ordinary utensils were made of it. that the presence of a foreigner called down the pro- What was afterward done by the Spaniards in Amertection of the gods on the family that received him. ica was then done by the Phoenicians in Spain: they They sacrificed human victims to their divinities, and exchanged iron and other articles of little value for silthe priests pretended to read future events in the pal- ver; nay, if ancient authors can be credited, they not pitating entrails. At every full moon, according to only loaded their ships with the same metal, but if Strabo, they celebrated the festival of a god without a their anchors at any time gave way, others of silver name; from this circumstance, their religion has been were used in their places.-The people in Gallæcia, a considered a corrupt deism.-The Phoenicians were subdivision of Tarraconensis, were, the Artabri, who the first people who established colonies on the coast derived their name from the promontory of Artabrum, of Spain: Tartessus was perhaps the most ancient; now Cape Finisterre; the Bracari, whose chief town at a later period they founded Gades, now Cadiz, on was Bracara, the present Braga; and, lastly, the Luthe isle of Leon. They carried on there a very lucra- cences, the capital of whose country was Lucus Autive trade, inasmuch as it was unknown to other na- gusti, now Lugo. These tribes and some others tions; but, in time, the Rhodians, the Samians, the formed the nation of the Callaici or Callæci, who, acPhocæans, and other Greeks established factories on cording to the ancients, had no religious notions. The different parts of the coast. Carthage had been found- Astures, now the Asturians, inhabited the banks of the ed by the Phoenicians; but the inhabitants, regardless Asturis, or the country on the east of the Gallacian of their connexion with that people, took possession of mountains. Their capital was Asturica Augusta, now the Phoenician stations, and conquered the whole of Astorga. The Vaccæi, the least barbarous of the Celmaritime Spain. The government of these republi- tiberians, cultivated the country on the east of the cans was still less supportable: the Carthaginians were Astures. The fierce Cantabri occupied Biscay and unable to form any friendly intercourse with the Span- part of Asturias: it was customary for two to mount iards in the interior; their rapine and cruelty excited on the same horse when they went to battle. The the indignation of the natives. The ruin of Carthage Vascones, the ancestors of the present Gascons, were paved the way to new invaders, and Spain was con- settled on the north of the Iberus or Ebro. The Jacesidered a Roman province two centuries before the tani were scattered over the Pyrenæan declivities of Christian era. Those who had been the allies became Aragon. The brave Ilergetes resided in the country masters of the Spaniards, and the manners, customs, round Lerida. As to the country on the east of these and even language of the conquerors were introduced tribes, the whole of Catalonia was peopled by the Ceinto the peninsula. But Rome paid dearly for her retani, Indigetes, Ausetani, Cosetani, and others. The conquest; the north, or the present Old Castile, Ara- lands on the south of the Ebro were inhabited by the gon, and Catalonia, were constantly in a state of revolt: Arevaci and Pelendones; the former were so called the mountaineers shook off the yoke, and it was not from the river Areva; they were settled in the neighbefore the reign of Augustus that the country was bourhood of Arevola, and in the province of Segovia: wholly subdued. The peninsula was then divided into the latter possessed the high plains of Soria and MonHispania Citerior and Ulterior. Hispania Citerior cayo. The space between the mountains of Albarawas also called Tarraconensis, from Tarraco, its cap-cino and the river was peopled by the Edetani, one of ital, and extended from the foot of the Pyrenees to the mouth of the Durius or Douro, on the Atlantic shore; comprehending all the north of Spain, together with the south as far as a line drawn below Carthago Nova or Carthagena, and continued in an oblique direction to Salamantica or Salamanca, on the Durius. Hispania Ulterior was divided into two provinces; Bætica, on the south of Spain, between the Anas or Gaudiana, and Citerior, and above it Lusitania, corresponding in a great degree, though not entirely, to modern Portugal. In the age of Dioclesian and Constantine, Tarraconensis was subdivided into a province towards the limits of Bætica, and adjacent to the Mediterranean, called Carthaginiensis, from its chief city Carthago Nova, and another, north of Lusitania, called Gallæcia from the Callaici. The province of Lusitania was partly peopled by the Cynetes or Cynesii, the earliest inhabitants of Algarve. The Celtici possessed the land between the Guadiana (Anas) and the Tagus. The country round the mountains of Gredos belonged to the Vettones, a people that passed from a state of inactivity and repose to the vicissitudes and hardships of war. The Lusitani, a nation of freebooters, were settled in the middle of Estremadura: they were distinguished by their activity and patience of fatigue; their food was flour and sweet acorns; beer was their common beverage. They were swift in the race; they had a martial dance, which the men danced while they advanced to battle. The part of Bætica near the Mediterranean was peopled by the Bastuli Pœni. The Turduli inhabited the shores of the ocean, near the mouth of the Bætis. The Bæturi dwelt on the Montes Mariani, and the Turdetani inhabited the southern declivities of the Sierra d'Aracena. The last people, more enlightened than any other in the most powerful tribes of Spain. The Ilercaones, Strabo enters into some details concerning the dress over to the side of the Greeks, and eventually obtainof the ancient Spaniards. The Lusitani covered them-ed the command of a small squadron of eight triremes, selves with black mantles, because their sheep were with which he sailed to Byzantium. But the subjumostly of that colour. The Celtiberian women wore gation of Ionia by the arms of Persia was soon effectiron collars, with rods of the same metal rising behind, ed, and Histiæus himself did not long survive the misand bent in front; to these rods was attached the veil, ery he had brought upon his countrymen. Having their usual ornament. Others wore a sort of broad made a descent on the Persian territory, for the purturban, and some twisted their hair round a small ring pose of reaping the harvest in the vale of the Caïcus, about a foot above the head, and from the ring was he was surprised and routed by Harpagus, a Persian appended a black veil. Lastly, a shining forehead was commander, who happened to be at hand with a conconsidered a great beauty; on that account they pull-siderable force; and, being taken prisener, was led to ed out their hair and rubbed their brows with oil. Artaphernes, the king's satrap in that quarter, who orThe different tribes were confounded while the Ro- dered him to be crucified, and sent his head to Susa. mans oppressed the country; but, in the beginning of (Herodot., 4, 137. — Id., 5, 11, seqq. - Thirlwall's the fifth century, the Suevi, Vandals, and Visigoths Greece, vol. 2, p. 222, seq.) invaded the Peninsula, and, mixing with the Celts and HOMERUS, a celebrated Greek poet, whose life is Iberians, produced the different races which the phys- involved in great obscurity. The only accounts which iologist still observes in Spain. The first-mentioned have been preserved on this subject are a few popular people, or Suevi, descended the Durius or Duero under traditions, together with conjectures of the grammarithe conduct of Ermeric, and chose Braga for the cap- ans founded on inferences from different passages of ital of their kingdom. Genseric led his Vandals to his poems; yet even these, if examined with patience the centre of the peninsula, and fixed his residence at and candour, furnish some materials for arriving at Toletum or Toledo; but fifteen years had not elapsed probable results. With regard to the native country after the settlement of the barbarous horde, when The- of Homer, the traditions do not differ so much as odoric, conquered by Clovis, abandoned Tolosa or might at first view appear to be the case. Although Toulouse, penetrated into Spain, and compelled the seven cities contended for the honour of having given Vandals to fly into Africa. During the short period birth to the great poet, the claims of many of them that the Vandals remained in the country, the ancient were only indirect. Thus the Athenians only laid province of Batica was called Vandalousia, and all the claim to Homer from their having been the founders of country, from the Ebro to the Straits of Gibraltar, sub- Smyrna, as is clearly expressed in the epigram on Pismitted to them. The ancient Celtiberians, who had istratus contained in Bekker's Anecdota (vol. 2, p. so long resisted the Romans, made then no struggle 768), and the opinion of Aristarchus, the Alexandrean for liberty or independence; they yielded without re- critic, which admitted their claim, was probably quali sistance to their new masters. Powers and privileges fied with the same explanation. This opinion is briefwere the portion of the Gothic race, and the title of ly stated by the pseudo-Plutarch (Vit. Hom., 2, 2). hijo del Goda, or the son of the Goth, which the Span- Even Chios cannot establish its right to be considered iards changed into hidalgo, became the title of a noble as the original source of the Homeric poetry, although or a free and powerful man among a people of slaves. the claims of this Ionic island are supported by the A number of petty and almost independent states were high authority of the lyric poet Simonides (ap. Pseu formed by the chiefs of the conquering tribes; but the do-Plutarch, 2, 2.) It is true that in Chios lived barons or freemen acknowledged a liege lord. Spain the race of the Homerida, who, from the analogy of and Portugal were thus divided, and the feudal sys- other yévn, or races, are to be considered not as a tem was thus established. Among the Visigoths, family, but as a society of persons, who followed the however, the crown was not hereditary, or, at least, same art, and therefore worshipped the same gods, and the law of regular succession was often set at defiance placed at their head a hero, from whom they derived by usurpers. The sovereign authority was limited by their name. (Niebuhr, Rom. Hist., vol. 1, note 747.) the assemblies of the great vassals, some of whom A member of this house of Homerida was probably were very powerful; indeed, the Count Julian, to "the blind poet," who, in the Homeric hymn to Apolavenge himself on King Roderic for an outrage com-lo, relates of himself, that he dwelt on the rocky Chios, mitted on his daughter, delivered Spain to the Mohammedan yoke. (Malte-Brun, Geog., vol. 8, p. 18, seqq., Am. ed.) HISTLEA. Vid. Oreus. whence he crossed to Delos for the festival of the Ionians and the contests of the poets, and whom Thucydides (3, 104) took for Homer himself; a supposition which at least shows that this great historian considered Chios as the dwelling-place of Homer. But, HISTIUS, a tyrant of Miletus, who, when the notwithstanding the ascertained existence of this clan Scythians had almost persuaded the Ionian princes to of Homerida at Chios; nay, if we even, with Thucyddestroy the bridge over the Ister, in order that the ides, take the blind man of the hymn for Homer himPersian army might perish, opposed the plan, and in- self, it would not follow that Chios was the birthplace duced them to abandon the design. His argument of Homer; indeed, the ancient writers have reconciled was, that if the Persian army were destroyed, and the these accounts by representing Homer as having, in power of Darius brought to an end, a popular govern- his wanderings, touched at Chios, and afterwerd fixed ment would be established in every Ionian city, and his residence there. A notion of this kind is evidentthe tyrants expelled. He was held in high estimation ly implied in Pindar's statements, who in one place on this account by Darius, and rewarded with a grant called Homer a Smyrnean by origin, in another a Chian of land in Thrace. But Megabyzus having convinced and Smyrnean. (Bockh, Pind., Fragm. inc., 86.) the king that it was bad policy to permit a Grecian The same idea is also indicated in the passage of an settlement in Thrace, Darius induced Histiæus, who orator incidentally cited by Aristotle; which says, was already founding a city there, to come to Susa, that the Chians greatly honoured Homer, although he having allured him by magnificent promises. Here was not a citizen. (Aristot., Rhet., 2, 23.) On the he was detained under various pretences, the king be- other hand, the opinion that Homer was a Smyrnean ing afraid of his influence and turbulent spirit at home. not only appears to have been the prevalent belief in Histiæus, tired of this restraint, urged, by means of the flourishing times of Greece, but is supported by secret messengers, his nephew Aristagoras to effect a the two following considerations: first, the important revolt of the Ionians. This was done, and Histiæus fact that it appears in the form of a popular legend, a was sent by Darius to stop the revolt. Availing him-mythus, the divine poet being called a son of a nymph, self of the earliest opportunity of escape, he passed Critheis, and the Smyrnean river Meles; secondly, 2 and a schoolmaster in that city, and that, in due tline aferward, while she was in or near the baths on the river Meles, she gave birth to a child who was called Melesigenes from this circumstance. Aristotle relates (pseud-Plut., V. H.), that a young woman of the island of los, being with child by a dæmon or genius, a familiar of the Muses, fled to the coast, where she was seized that, by assuming Smyrna as the central point of Homer's life and celebrity, the claims of all the other cities which rest on good authority, may be explained and reconciled in a simple and natural manner.-If one may venture to follow the faint light afforded by the dawnings of tradition, and by the memorials that have come down to us relative to the origin of the bard, the following may be considered as the sum of our inqui-by pirates, who presented her as a gift to Mæon, king of ries. Homer was an Ionian, belonging to one of the the Lydians, at that time resident in, and ruler over, families which went from Ephesus to Smyrna, at a Smyrna. Mæon married her; she, Critheis, gave time when Æolians and Achæans composed the chief birth to Melesigenes, as before mentioned, and upon part of the population of the city, and when, more- her death, soon after, Mæon brought up the child as his over, their hereditary traditions respecting the expedi- own. Here we have an origin of the two epithets or tion of the Greeks against Troy excited the greatest appellations Melesigenes and Mæonides. Ephorus says interest; whence he reconciles, in his poetical capaci- (pseud-Plut., V. H.) he was called Homer ("Oμnpoc) ty, the conflict of the contending races, inasmuch as when he became blind, the Ionians so styling blind he treats an Achæan subject with the elegance and men, because they were followers of a guide (unpeugeniality of an Ionian. But when Smyrna drove out wv). Aristotle's account is, that the Lydians being the Ionians, it deprived itself of this poetical renown; pressed by the Æolians, and resolved to abandon Smyrand the settlement of the Homerida in Chios was, in na, made a proclamation, that whoever wished to folall probability, a consequence of the expulsion of the low them should go out of the city, and that thereupon Ionians from Smyrna. It may, moreover, be observed, Melesigenes said he would follow or accompany them that, according to this account, founded on the history (óunpeiv); upon which he acquired the name of Hoof the colonies of Asia Minor, the time of Homer mer. Another derivation of the name is from ó un would fall a few generations after the Ionic migration ópuv, one not seeing; as to which notion of blindto Asia; and with this determination the best testi-ness, Paterculus says, that whoever thinks Homer was monies of antiquity agree. Such are the computa- born blind must needs be blind himself in all his tions of Herodotus, who places Homer, with Hesiod, senses. It was said also that he was so called from 400 years before his time (Herod., 2, 53), and tható unpos (the thigh), because he had some marks on his of the Alexandrean chronologists, who place him 100 thigh to denote his illegitimacy. In the life of Homer years after the Ionic migration, 60 years before the le- by Proclus, the story is, that the poet was delivered up gislation of Lycurgus (Apollod., Fragm., 1, p. 410, by the people of Smyrna to those of Chios as a pledge ed. Heyne); although the variety of opinions on this or hostage (unpos) on the conclusion of a truce. The subject, which prevailed among the learned writers of derivation that favours the theories both of Wolfe and antiquity, cannot be reduced within these limits.-It Heyne is from óuov eipeiv, "to speak together," or is said by Tatian (Fabr., Bibl. Gr., 2, 1, 3), that from ounpeiv, “to assemble together.' Ilgen derives Theagenes of Rhegium, in the time of Cambyses, the name from óuov, "together," and upw, "to fit," Stesimbrotus the Thasian, Antimachus the Colopho-whence comes dμnpevɛiv, synonymous with vraɛidei, nian, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Dionysius the Olyn- and hence "Ounpoc means, according to him, a poet thian, Ephorus of Cuma, Philochorus the Athenian, who accompanies the lyre with his voice, "cantor qui Metaclides and Chamæleon the Peripatetics, and Zen- citharam pulsans vñò кaλòv dɛidet." The stories odotus, Aristophanes, Callimachus, Crates, Eratosthe-proceed in general to state that Homer himself became nes, Aristarchus, and Apollodorus, the grammarians, a schoolmaster and poet of great celebrity at Smyrna, all wrote concerning the poetry, the birth, and the age and remained till Mentes, a foreign merchant, induced of Homer. Of the works of all these authors nothing him to travel. That the author or authors of the Iliad now remains, with the nominal exception of a life of and Odyssey must have travelled pretty extensively for Homer attributed to Herodotus, but which, as well on those times, is unquestionable; for, besides the accurate account of its minute and fabulous details, as of the in- knowledge of Greece proper displayed in the Catalogue, consistency of a statement in it with the undoubted it is clear that the poet had a familiar acquaintance language of Herodotus, is now almost universally con- with the islands both in the Egean and Ionian seas, sidered as spurious. Such as it is, however, the life the coast of Asia Minor from the Hellespont indefinitely of Homer is a very ancient compilation, and the text southward, Crete, Cyprus, and Egypt; and possessed from which all subsequent stories have been taken or also distinct information with respect to Libya, Caria, altered. There is a short life of Homer, also, bearing and Phrygia. In his travels Homer visited Ithaca, the name of Plutarch, but which is, like the former, and there became subject to a disease of the eyes, generally condemned as a forgery; a forgery, however, which afterward terminated in total blindness. From of this unusual nature, that there is reason to believe this island he is said to have gone to Italy and even it more ancient than its supposed author. Thus to Spain; but there is no sign in either of the two poQuintilian (10, 1) and Seneca (Ep., 88), both more ems of any knowledge westward of the Ionian Sea. ancient than Plutarch, seem clearly aware of this life Wherever he went, Homer recited his verses, which of Homer. Some account of the common traditions were universally admired except at Smyrna, where he about Homer will probably be looked for here, and was a prophet in his own country. At Phocæa, a the story will explain the origin of several epithets schoolmaster of the name of Thestorides obtained from which are frequently applied to him, and the meaning Homer a copy of his poetry, and then sailed to Chios of many allusions to be met with in the Greek and and recited the Homeric verses as his own. Homer Latin writers.-There is, then, a general agreement followed, was rescued by Glaucus, a goatherd, from that the name of Homer's mother was Critheis; but the the attack of his dogs, and brought by him to Bolissus, accounts differ a good deal as to his father. Ephorus a town in Chios, where he resided a long time in possays (pseud-Plutarch, Vit. Hom.) that there were three session of wealth and a splendid reputation. Thestorbrothers, natives of Cuma, Atelles, Mæon, and Dius; ides left the island upon Homer's arrival. According that Dius, being in debt, migrated to Ascra in Boeotia, to Herodotus, he died at Ios, on his way to Athens, and and there became the father of Hesiod by his wife Py- was buried near the seashore. Proclus says he died cimede; that Atelles died in Cume, having appointed in consequence of falling over a stone. Plutarch tells his brother Mæon guardian of his daughter Critheïs; a very different story. He preserves two responses that Critheis, becoming with child by her uncle, was of an oracle to Homer, in both of which he was caugiven in marriage to Phemius, a native of Smyrna, tioned to beware of the young men's riddle, and re |