eggs which Leda the wife of king Tyndarus brought forth after her
amour with Jupiter metamorphosed into a swan. _See:_ Leda. According
to some authors, Helen was daughter of Nemesis by Jupiter, and Leda
was only her nurse; and to reconcile this variety of opinions, some
imagine that Nemesis and Leda are the same persons. Her beauty was
so universally admired, even in her infancy, that Theseus, with his
friend Pirithous, carried her away before she had attained her 10th
year, and concealed her at Aphidnæ, under the care of his mother
Æthra. Her brothers Castor and Pollux recovered her by force of arms,
and she returned safe and unpolluted to Sparta, her native country.
There existed, however, a tradition recorded by Pausanius, that
Helen was of nubile years when carried away by Theseus, and that
she had a daughter by her ravisher, who was entrusted to the care
of Clytemnestra. This violence offered to her virtue did not in
the least diminish, but it rather augmented, her fame, and her
hand was eagerly solicited by the young princes of Greece. The most
celebrated of her suitors were Ulysses son of Laertes, Antilochus
son of Nestor, Sthenelus son of Capaneus, Diomedes son of Tydeus,
Amphilochus son of Cteatus, Meges son of Phileus, Agapenor son of
Ancæus, Thalpius son of Eurytus, Mnestheus son of Peteus, Schedius
son of Epistrophus, Polyxenus son of Agasthenes, Amphilochus son
of Amphiaraus, Ascalaphus and Ialmus sons of the god Mars, Ajax
son of Oileus, Eumelus son of Admetus, Polypœtes son of Pirithous,
Elphenor son of Chalcodon, Podalirius and Machaon sons of Æsculapius,
Leonteus son of Coronus, Philoctetes son of Pœan, Protesilaus son of
Iphiclus, Eurypilus son of Evemon, Ajax and Teucer sons of Telamon,
Patroclus son of Menœtius, Menelaus son of Atreus, Thoas, Idomeneus,
and Merion. Tyndarus was rather alarmed than pleased at the sight of
such a number of illustrious princes who eagerly solicited each to
become his son-in-law. He knew that he could not prefer one without
displeasing all the rest, and from this perplexity he was at last
drawn by the artifice of Ulysses, who began to be already known in
Greece by his prudence and sagacity. This prince, who clearly saw
that his pretensions to Helen would not probably meet with success
in opposition to so many rivals, proposed to extricate Tyndarus from
all his difficulties if he would promise him his niece Penelope in
marriage. Tyndarus consented, and Ulysses advised the king to bind,
by a solemn oath, all the suitors, that they would approve of the
uninfluenced choice which Helen should make of one among them; and
engage to unite together to defend her person and character, if ever
any attempts were made to ravish her from the arms of her husband.
The advice of Ulysses was followed, the princes consented, and Helen
fixed her choice upon Menelaus and married him. Hermione was the
early fruit of this union, which continued for three years with
mutual happiness. After this, Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, came
to Lacedæmon on pretence of sacrificing to Apollo. He was kindly
received by Menelaus, but shamefully abused his favours, and in
his absence in Crete he corrupted the fidelity of his wife Helen,
and persuaded her to follow him to Troy, B.C. 1198. At his return
Menelaus, highly sensible of the injury which he had received,
assembled the Grecian princes, and reminded them of their solemn
promises. They resolved to make war against the Trojans, but they
previously sent ambassadors to Priam to demand the restitution of
Helen. The influence of Paris at his father’s court prevented the
restoration, and the Greeks returned home without receiving the
satisfaction they required. Soon after their return their combined
forces assembled and sailed for the coast of Asia. The behaviour of
Helen during the Trojan war is not clearly known. Some assert that
she had willingly followed Paris, and that she warmly supported
the cause of the Trojans; while others believe that she always
sighed after her husband, and cursed the day in which she had
proved faithless to his bed. Homer represents her as in the last
instance, and some have added that she often betrayed the schemes
and resolutions of the Trojans, and secretly favoured the cause
of Greece. When Paris was killed in the ninth year of the war, she
voluntarily married Deiphobus, one of Priam’s sons, and when Troy
was taken she made no scruple to betray him, and to introduce the
Greeks into his chamber, to ingratiate herself with Menelaus. She
returned to Sparta, and the love of Menelaus forgave the errors
which she had committed. Some, however, say that she obtained her
life even with difficulty from her husband, whose resentment she
had kindled by her infidelity. After she had lived for some years
in Sparta, Menelaus died, and she was driven from Peloponnesus by
Megapenthes and Nicostratus, the illegitimate sons of her husband,
and she retired to Rhodes, where at that time Polyxo, a native
of Argos, reigned over the country. Polyxo remembered that her
widowhood originated in Helen, and that her husband Tlepolemus
had been killed in the Trojan war, which had been caused by the
debaucheries of Helen, therefore she meditated revenge. While
Helen retired one day to bathe in the river, Polyxo disguised her
attendants in the habits of furies, and sent them with orders to
murder her enemy. Helen was tied to a tree and strangled, and her
misfortunes were afterwards remembered, and the crimes of Polyxo
expiated by the temple which the Rhodians raised to Helen Dendritis,
or _tied to a tree_. There is a tradition mentioned by Herodotus,
which says that Paris was driven, as he returned from Sparta, upon
the coast of Egypt, where Proteus king of the country expelled him
from his dominions for his ingratitude to Menelaus, and confined
Helen. From that circumstance, therefore, Priam informed the Grecian
ambassadors that neither Helen nor her possessions were in Troy,
but in the hands of the king of Egypt. In spite of this assertion
the Greeks besieged the town and took it after 10 years’ siege, and
Menelaus by visiting Egypt, as he returned home, recovered Helen
at the court of Proteus, and was convinced that the Trojan war had
been undertaken on very unjust and unpardonable grounds. Helen was
honoured after death as a goddess, and the Spartans built her a
temple at Therapne, which had the power of giving beauty to all
the deformed women that entered it. Helen, according to some, was
carried into the island of Leuce after death, where she married
Achilles, who had been one of her warmest admirers. The age of Helen
has been a matter of deep inquiry among the chronologists. If she
was born of the same eggs as Castor and Pollux, who accompanied the
Argonauts in their expedition against Colchis about 35 years before
the Trojan war, according to some, she was no less than 60 years
old when Troy was reduced to ashes, supposing that her brothers
were only 15 when they embarked with the Argonauts. But she is
represented by Homer so incomparably beautiful during the siege of
Troy, that though seen at a ♦distance she influenced the counsellors
of Priam by the brightness of her charms; therefore we must suppose,
with others, that her beauty remained long undiminished, and
was extinguished only at her death. _Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 19,
&c.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 10, &c.――_Hyginus_, fable 77.
――_Herodotus_, bk. 2, ch. 112.――_Plutarch_, _Theseus_, &c.――_Cicero_,
_de Officiis_, bk. 3.――_Horace_, bk. 3, ode 3.――_Dictys Cretensis_,
bk. 1, &c.――_Quintus Smyrnæus_, chs. 10, 13, &c.――_Homer_, _Iliad_,
bk. 2, & _Odyssey_, bks. 4 & 15.――――A young woman of Sparta,
often confounded with the daughter of Leda. As she was going to be
sacrificed, because the lot had fallen upon her, an eagle came and
carried away the knife of the priest, upon which she was released,
and the barbarous custom of offering human victims was abolished.
――――An island on the coast of Attica, where Helen came after the
siege of Troy. _Pliny_, bk. 4, ch. 12.――――A daughter of the emperor
Constantine, who married Julian.――――The mother of Constantine. She
died in her 80th year, A.D. 328.
♦ ‘distane’ replaced with ‘distance’
=Helĕnia=, a festival in Laconia, in honour of Helen, who received
there divine honours. It was celebrated by virgins riding upon mules,
and in chariots made of reeds and bulrushes.
=Hĕlēnor=, a Lydian prince who accompanied Æneas to Italy, and was
killed by the Rutulians. His mother’s name was Licymnia. _Virgil_,
_Æneid_, bk. 9, li. 444, &c.
=Hĕlĕnus=, a celebrated soothsayer, son of Priam and Hecuba, greatly
respected by all the Trojans. When Deiphobus was given in marriage
to Helen in preference to himself, he resolved to leave his country,
and he retired to mount Ida, where Ulysses took him prisoner by
the advice of Calchas. As he was well acquainted with futurity, the
Greeks made use of prayers, threats, and promises, to induce him to
reveal the secrets of the Trojans, and either the fear of death or
gratification of resentment seduced him to disclose to the enemies
of his country, that Troy could not be taken whilst it was in
possession of the Palladium, nor before Philoctetes came from his
retreat at Lemnos and assisted to support the siege. After the ruin
of his country, he fell to the share of Pyrrhus the son of Achilles,
and saved his life by warning him to avoid the dangerous tempest
which in reality proved fatal to all those who set sail. This
endeared him to Pyrrhus, and he received from his hand Andromache
the widow of his brother Hector, by whom he had a son called
Cestrinus. This marriage, according to some, was consummated
after the death of Pyrrhus, who lived with Andromache as his wife.
Helenus was the only one of Priam’s sons who survived the ruin of
his country. After the death of Pyrrhus, he reigned over part of
the Epirus, which he called Chaonia, in memory of his brother Chaon,
whom he had inadvertently killed. Helenus received Æneas as he
voyaged towards Italy, and foretold him some of the calamities which
attended his fleet. The manner in which he received the gift of
prophecy is doubtful. _See:_ Cassandra. _Homer_, _Iliad_, bk. 6,
li. 76; bk. 7, li. 47.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 3, li. 295, &c.
――_Pausanias_, bk. 1, ch. 11; bk. 2, ch. 33.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_,
bk. 13, lis. 99 & 723; bk. 15, li. 437.――――A Rutulian killed by
Pallas. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 10, li. 388.
=Helerni Lucus=, a place near Rome. _Ovid_, _Fasti_, bk. 6, li. 105.
=Heles=, or =Hales=, a river of Lucania near Velia. _Cicero_, _Letters
to Atticus_, bk. 16, ltr. 7; _Letters to his Friends_, bk. 7, ltr. 20.
=Hēliădes=, the daughters of the sun and Clymene. They were three in
number, Lampetie, Phaetusa, and Lampethusa, or seven, according to
Hyginus: Merope, Helie, Ægle, Lampetie, Phœbe, Ætheria, and Dioxippe.
They were so afflicted at the death of their brother Phaeton [_See:_
Phaeton], that they were changed by the gods into poplars, and their
tears into precious amber, on the banks of the river Po. _Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 2, li. 340.――_Hyginus_, fable 154.――――The first
inhabitants of Rhodes. This island being covered with mud when the
world was first created, was warmed by the cherishing beams of the
sun, and from thence sprang seven men, which were called Heliades,
ἀπο του ἡλιου, from the _sun_. The eldest of these, called Ochimus,
married Hegetoria, one of the nymphs of the island, and his brothers
fled from the country for having put to death, through jealousy, one
of their number. _Diodorus_, bk. 5.
=Heliastæ=, a name given to the judges of the most numerous tribunal
at Athens. They consisted of 1000, and sometimes of 1500, they were
seldom assembled, and only upon matters of the greatest importance.
_Demosthenes_, _Against Timocrates_.――_Diogenes Laërtius_, _Solon_.
=Helicāon=, a Trojan prince, son of Antenor. He married Laodice the
daughter of Priam, whose form Iris assumed to inform Helen of the
state of the rival armies before Troy. Helicaon was wounded in a
night engagement, but his life was spared by Ulysses, who remembered
the hospitality which he had received from his father Antenor.
_Homer_, _Iliad_, bk. 2, li. 123.
=Hĕlĭce=, a star near the north pole, generally called Ursa Major. It
is supposed to receive its name from the town of Helice, of which
Calisto, who was changed into the Great Bear, was an inhabitant.
_Lucan_, bk. 2, li. 237.――――A town of Achaia, on the bay of Corinth,
overwhelmed by the inundation of the sea. _Pliny_, bk. 2, ch. 92.
――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 15, li. 293.――――A daughter of Silenus
king of Ægiale. _Pausanias_, bk. 7, ch. 24.――――A daughter of Lycaon
king of Arcadia.
=Hĕlīcon=, now _Zagaro-Vouni_, a mountain of Bœotia, on the borders
of Phocis. It was sacred to the muses, who had there a temple. The
fountain Hippocrene flowed from this mountain. _Strabo_, bk. 8.
――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 2, li. 219.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch.
28, &c.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 7, li. 641.――――A river of Macedonia
near Dium. _Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 30.
=Hĕlīcŏniădes=, a name given to the Muses because they lived upon
mount Helicon, which was sacred to them.
=Helĭcōnis=, a daughter of Thespius. _Apollodorus._
=Heliodōrus=, one of the favourites of Seleucus Philopator king
of Syria. He attempted to plunder the temple of the Jews, about
176 years before Christ, by order of his master, &c.――――A Greek
mathematician of Larissa.――――A famous sophist, the best editions
of whose entertaining romance, called _Æthiopica_, are by Commelin,
8vo, 1596, and Bourdelot, 8vo, Paris, 1619.――――A learned Greek
rhetorician in the age of Horace.――――A man who wrote a treatise on
tombs.――――A poet.――――A geographer.――――A surgeon at Rome in Juvenal’s
age. _Juvenal_, satire 6, li. 372.
=Heliogabālus=, a deity among the Phœnicians.――――Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus, a Roman emperor, son of Varius Marcellus, called
Heliogabalus, because he had been priest of that divinity in
Phœnicia. After the death of Macrinus he was invested with the
imperial purple, and the senate, however unwilling to submit to a
youth only 14 years of age, approved of his election, and bestowed
upon him the title of Augustus. Heliogabalus made his grandmother
Mœsa and his mother Sœmias his colleagues on the throne; and to
bestow more dignity upon the sex, he chose a senate of women, over
which his mother presided, and prescribed all the modes and fashions
which prevailed in the empire. Rome, however, soon displayed a
scene of cruelty and debauchery; the imperial palace was full of
prostitution, and the most infamous of the populace became the
favourites of the prince. He raised his horse to the honours of the
consulship, and obliged his subjects to pay adoration to the god
Heliogabalus, which was no other than a large black stone, whose
figure resembled that of a cone. To this ridiculous deity temples
were raised at Rome, and the altars of the gods plundered to
deck those of the new divinity. In the midst of his extravagances
Heliogabalus married four wives, and not satisfied with following
the plain laws of nature, he professed himself to be a woman,
and gave himself up to one of his officers, called Hierocles. In
this ridiculous farce he suffered the greatest indignities from
his pretended husband without dissatisfaction, and Hierocles, by
stooping to infamy, became the most powerful of the favourites,
and enriched himself by selling favours and offices to the people.
Such licentiousness soon displeased the populace, and Heliogabalus,
unable to appease the seditions of his soldiers, whom his rapacity
and debaucheries had irritated, hid himself in the filth and
excrements of the camp, where he was found in the arms of his mother.
His head was severed from his body the 10th of March, A.D. 222, in
the 18th year of his age, after a reign of three years, nine months,
and four days. He was succeeded by Alexander Severus. His cruelties
were as conspicuous as his licentiousness. He burdened his subjects
with the most oppressive taxes; his halls were covered with carpets
of gold and silver tissue, and his mats were made with the down of
hares, and with the soft feathers which were found under the wings
of partridges. He was fond of covering his shoes with precious
stones, to draw the admiration of the people as he walked along
the streets, and he was the first Roman who ever wore a dress of
silk. He often invited the most common of the people to share his
banquets, and made them sit down on large bellows full of wind,
which, by suddenly emptying themselves, threw the guests on the
ground, and left them a prey to wild beasts. He often tied some of
his favourites on a large wheel, and was particularly delighted to
see them whirled round like Ixions, and sometimes suspended in the
air, or sunk beneath the water.
=Heliŏpŏlis=, now _Matarea_, a famous city of Lower Egypt, in which
was a temple sacred to the sun. The inhabitants worshipped a bull
called Mnevis, with the same ceremonies as the Apis of Memphis.
Apollo had an oracle there. _Cicero_, _de Natura Deorum_, bk. 3,
ch. 21.――_Pliny_, bk. 36, ch. 26.――_Strabo_, bk. 17.――_Diodorus_,
bk. 1.――――There was a small village of the same name without the
Delta, near Babylon.――――A town of Syria, now _Balbeck_. _Pliny_,
bk. 5, ch. 22.
=Helisson=, a town and river of Arcadia. _Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 29.
=Helium=, a name given to the mouth of the Maese in Germany. _Pliny_,
bk. 4, ch. 15.
=Helius=, a celebrated favourite of the emperor Nero, put to death by
order of Galba, for his cruelties.――――The Greek name of the sun, or
Apollo.
=Helixus=, a river of Cos.
=Hellanĭce=, a sister of Clitus, who was nurse to Alexander. _Curtius_,
bk. 8, ch. 1.
=Hellanĭcus=, a celebrated Greek historian, born at Mitylene. He
wrote a history of the ancient kings of the earth, with an account
of the founders of the most famous towns in every kingdom, and died
B.C. 411, in the 85th year of his age. _Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 3.
――_Cicero_, _On Oratory_, bk. 2, ch. 53.――_Aulus Gellius_, bk. 15,
ch. 23.――――A brave officer rewarded by Alexander. _Curtius_, bk. 5,
ch. 2.――――An historian of Miletus, who wrote a description of the
earth.
=Hellanocrătes=, a man of Larissa, &c. _Aristotle_, _Politics_, bk. 5,
ch. 10.
=Hellas=, an ancient name of Thessaly, more generally applied to the
territories of Acarnania, Attica, Ætolia, Doris, Locris, Bœotia, and
Phocis, and also to all Greece. It received this name from Deucalion,
and now forms a part of Livadia. _Pliny_, bk. 4, ch. 7.――_Strabo_,
bk. 8.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.――_Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 20.――――A
beautiful woman, mentioned by Horace as beloved by Marius: the lover
killed her in a fit of passion, and afterwards destroyed himself.
_Horace_, bk. 2, satire 3, li. 277.
=Helle=, a daughter of Athamas and Nephele, sister of Phryxus. She
fled from her father’s house, with her brother, to avoid the cruel
oppression of her mother-in-law Ino. According to some accounts she
was carried through the air on a golden ram, which her mother had
received from Neptune, and in her passage she became giddy, and fell
from her seat into that part of the sea which from her received the
name of Hellespont. Others say that she was carried on a cloud, or
rather upon a ship, from which she fell into the sea and was drowned.
Phryxus, after he had given his sister a burial on the neighbouring
coasts, pursued his journey and arrived safe in Colchus. _See:_
Phryxus. _Ovid_, _Heroides_, poem 13, &c. _Metamorphoses_, bk. 4,
fable 14.――_Pindar_, bk. 4, _Pythian_.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 34.
=Hellen=, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, reigned in Phthiotis about 1495
years before the christian era, and gave the name of Hellenians to
his subjects. He had by his wife Orseis three sons, Æolus, Dorus,
and Xuthus, who gave their names to the three different nations
known under the name of Æolians, Dorians, and Ionians. These last
derive their name from Ion son of Xuthus, and from the difference
either of expression or pronunciation in their respective languages,
arose the different dialects well known in the Greek language.
_Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 20; bk. 7, ch. 1.――_Diodorus_, bk. 5.
=Hellēnes=, the inhabitants of Greece. _See:_ Hellen.
=Hellespontias=, a wind blowing from the north-east. _Pliny_, bk. 2,
ch. 47.
=Hellespontus=, now the _Dardanelles_, a narrow strait between Asia
and Europe, near the Propontis, which received its name from Helle,
who was drowned there in her voyage to Colchis. _See:_ Helle. It is
about 60 miles long, and in the broadest parts, the Asiatic coast
is about three miles distant from the European, and only half a mile
in the narrowest, according to modern investigation; so that people
can converse one with the other from the opposite shores. It was
celebrated for the love and death of Leander [_See:_ Hero], and
for the bridge of boats which Xerxes built over it when he invaded
Greece. The folly of this great prince is well known in beating
and fettering the waves of the sea, whose impetuosity destroyed his
ships, and rendered all his labours ineffectual. _Strabo_, bk. 13.
――_Pliny_, bk. 8, ch. 32.――_Herodotus_, bk. 7, ch. 34.――_Polybius.
_――_Mela_, bk. 1, ch. 1.――_Ptolemy_, bk. 5, ch. 2.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 13, li. 407.――_Livy_, bk. 31, ch. 15; bk. 33,
ch. 33.――――The country along the Hellespont on the Asiatic coast
bears the same name. _Cicero_, _Against Verres_, bk. 1, ch. 24;
_Letters to his Friends_, bk. 13, ltr. 53.――_Strabo_, bk. 12.
――_Pliny_, bk. 5, ch. 30.
=Hellopia=, a small country of Eubœa. The people were called
_Hellopes_. The whole island bore the same name, according to Strabo,
bk. 10.――_Pliny_, bk. 4, ch. 12.
=Hellōtia=, two festivals, one of which was observed in Crete, in
honour of Europa, whose bones were then carried in solemn procession,
with a myrtle garland no less than 20 cubits in circumference,
called ἑλλωτις. The other festival was celebrated at Corinth with
games and races, where young men entered the lists and generally
ran with burning torches in their hands. It was instituted in honour
of Minerva, surnamed Hellotis, ἀπο του ἑλους, _from a certain pond_
of Marathon, where one of her statues was erected, or ἀπο του ἑλειν
τον ἱππον τον Πεγασον, because by her assistance Bellerophon took
and managed the horse Pegasus, which was the original cause of the
institution of the festival. Others derive the name from Hellotis, a
Corinthian woman, from the following circumstance: When the Dorians
and the Heraclidæ invaded Peloponnesus, they took and burnt Corinth;
the inhabitants, and particularly the women, escaped by flight,
except Hellotis and her sister Eurytione, who took shelter in
Minerva’s temple, relying for safety upon the sanctity of the place.
When this was known, the Dorians set fire to the temple, and the
two sisters perished in the flames. This wanton cruelty was followed
by a dreadful plague; and the Dorians, to alleviate the misfortunes
which they suffered, were directed by the oracle to appease the
manes of the two sisters, and therefore they raised a new temple to
the goddess Minerva, and established the festivals which bore the
name of one of the unfortunate women.
=Helnes=, an ancient king of Arcadia, &c. _Polyænus_, bk. 1.
=Helōris=, a general of the people of Rhegium, sent to besiege Messana,
which Dionysius the tyrant defended. He fell in battle, and his
troops were defeated. _Diodorus_, bk. 14.
=Helōrum= and =Helōrus=, now _Muri Ucci_, a town and river of Sicily,
whose swollen waters generally inundate the neighbouring country.
_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 3, li. 698.――_Silius Italicus_, bk. 11,
li. 270.――――A river of Magna Græcia.
=Helos=, a place of Arcadia. _Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 36.――――A town of
Laconia, taken and destroyed by the Lacedæmonians under Agis III.,
of the race of the Heraclidæ, because they refused to pay the
tribute which was imposed upon them. The Lacedæmonians carried
their resentment so far, that, not satisfied with the ruin of the
city, they reduced the inhabitants to the lowest and most miserable
slavery, and made a law which forbade their masters either to
give them their liberty, or to sell them in any other country. To
complete their infamy, all the slaves of the state and the prisoners
of war were called by the mean appellation of _Helotæ_. Not only
the servile offices in which they were employed denoted their misery
and slavery, but they were obliged to wear peculiar garments, which
exposed them to greater contempt and ridicule. They never were
instructed in the liberal arts, and their cruel masters often
obliged them to drink to excess, to show the free-born citizens of
Sparta the beastliness and disgrace of intoxication. They once every
year received a number of stripes, that by this wanton flagellation
they might recollect that they were born and died slaves. The
Spartans even declared war against them; but Plutarch, who, from
interested motives, endeavours to palliate the guilt and cruelty
of the people of Lacedæmon, declares that it was because they
had assisted the Messenians in their war against Sparta, after it
had been overthrown by a violent earthquake. This earthquake was
supposed by all the Greeks to be a punishment from heaven for the
cruelties which the Lacedæmonians had exercised against the Helots.
In the Peloponnesian war, these miserable slaves behaved with
uncommon bravery, and were rewarded with their liberty by the
Lacedæmonians, and appeared in the temples and at public shows
crowned with garlands, and with every mark of festivity and triumph.
This exultation did not continue long, and the sudden disappearance
of these 2000 manumitted slaves was attributed to the inhumanity
of the Lacedæmonians. _Thucydides_, bk. 4.――_Pollux_, bk. 3, ch. 8.
――_Strabo_, bk. 8.――_Plutarch_, _Lycurgus_, &c.――_Aristotle_,
_Politics_, bk. 2.――_Pausanias_, _Laconia_, &c.
=Helōtæ= and =Helōtes=, the public slaves of Sparta, &c. _See:_ Helos.
=Helvetia=, a vestal virgin struck dead with lightning in Trajan’s
reign.
=Helvetii=, an ancient nation of Gaul, conquered by Julius Cæsar.
Their country is the modern Switzerland. _Cæsar_, _Gallic War_,
bk. 1, &c.――_Tacitus_, _Histories_, bk. 1, chs. 67 & 69.
=Helvia=, the mother of Cicero.――――Ricina, a town of Picenum.
=Helvidia=, the name of a Roman family.
=Helvii=, now _Viviers_, a people of Gaul, along the Rhone. _Pliny_,
bk. 3, ch. 4.
=Helvillum=, a town of Umbria, supposed to be the same as Sullium, now
_Sigillo_. _Pliny_, bk. 3, ch. 14.
=Helvīna=, a fountain of Aquinum where Ceres had a temple. _Juvenal_,
satire 3, li. 320.
=Helvius Cinna=, proposed a law, which, however, was not passed, to
permit Cæsar to marry whatever woman he chose. _Suetonius_, _Cæsar_,
bk. 52.――――A poet. _See:_ Cinna.
=Helum=, a river of Scythia.
=Helymus= and =Panopes=, two hunters at the court of Acestes in Sicily.
_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 5, li. 73, &c.
=Hemathion=, a son of Aurora and Cephalus, or Tithonus. _Apollodorus_,
bk. 3.
=Hemĭthea=, a daughter of Cycnus and Proclea. She was so attached to
her brother Tenes, that she refused to abandon him when his father
Cycnus exposed him on the sea. They were carried by the wind to
Tenedos, where Hemithea long enjoyed tranquillity, till Achilles,
captivated by her charms, offered her violence. She was rescued from
his embrace by her brother Tenes, who was instantly slaughtered by
the offended hero. Hemithea could not have been rescued from the
attempts of Achilles, had not the earth opened and swallowed her,
after she had fervently entreated the assistance of the gods. _See:_
Tenes. _Pausanias_, bk. 10, ch. 14.――_Diodorus_, bk. 4.
=Hemon.= _See:_ Hæmon.
=Hemus.= _See:_ Hæmus.――――A Roman. _Juvenal_, satire 6, li. 197.
=Henĕti=, a people of Paphlagonia, who are said to have settled in
Italy near the Adriatic, where they gave the name of _Venetia_ to
their habitation. _Livy_, bk. 1, ch. 1.――_Euripides._