War, was a son of George Hepburn of Athelstaneford near Haddington. In
1620 and in the following years he served in Bohemia, on the lower Rhine
and in the Netherlands, and in 1623 he entered the service of Gustavus
Adolphus, who, two years later, appointed him colonel of a Scottish
regiment of his army. He took part with his regiment in Gustavus's
Polish wars, and in 1631, a few months before the battle of Breitenfeld
he was placed in command of the "Scots" or "Green" brigade of the
Swedish army. At Breitenfeld it was Hepburn's brigade which delivered
the decisive stroke, and after this he remained with the king, who
placed the fullest reliance on his skill and courage, until the battle
of the Alte Veste near Nuremberg. He then entered the French service,
and raised two thousand men in Scotland for the French army, to which
force was added in France the historic Scottish archer bodyguard of the
French kings. The existing Royal Scots (Lothian) regiment (late 1st
Foot) represents in the British army of to-day Hepburn's French
regiment, and indirectly, through the amalgamation referred to, the
Scottish contingent of the Hundred Years' War. Hepburn's claim to the
right of the line of battle was bitterly resented by the senior French
regiments. Shortly after this, in 1633, Hepburn was under a _marechal de
camp_, and he took part in the campaigns in Alsace and Lorraine
(1634-36). In 1635 Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, on entering the French
service, brought with him Hepburn's former Swedish regiment, which was
at once amalgamated with the French "regiment d'Hebron," the latter thus
attaining the unusual strength of 8300 men. Sir John Hepburn was killed
shortly afterwards during the siege of Saverne (Zabern) on the 8th of
July 1636. He was buried in Toul cathedral. With his friend Sir Robert
Monro, Hepburn was the foremost of the Scottish soldiers of fortune who
bore so conspicuous a part in the Thirty Years' War. He was a sincere
Roman Catholic. It is stated that he left Gustavus owing to a jest about
his religion, and at any rate he found in the French service, in which
he ended his days, the opportunity of reconciling his beliefs with the
desire of military glory which had led him into the Swedish army, and
with the patriotic feeling which had first brought him out to the wars
to fight for the Stuart princess, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia.
See James Grant, _Memoirs of Sir John Hepburn_.
HEPHAESTION, a Macedonian general, celebrated as the friend of Alexander
the Great, who, comparing himself with Achilles, called Hephaestion his
Patroclus. In the later campaigns in Bactria and India, he was entrusted
with the task of founding cities and colonies, and built the fleet
intended to sail down the Indus. He was rewarded with a golden crown and
the hand of Drypetis, the sister of Alexander's wife Stateira (324). In
the same year he died suddenly at Ecbatana. A general mourning was
ordered throughout Asia; at Babylon a funeral pile was erected at
enormous cost, and temples were built in his honour (see ALEXANDER THE
GREAT).
HEPHAESTION, a grammarian of Alexandria, who flourished in the age of
the Antonines. He was the author of a manual (abridged from a larger
work in 48 books) of Greek metres ([Greek: Hegcheiridion peri metron]),
which is most valuable as the only complete treatise on the subject that
has been preserved. The concluding chapter ([Greek: Peri poiematos])
discusses the various kinds of poetical composition. It is written in a
clear and simple style, and was much used as a school-book.
Editions by T. Gaisford (1855, with the valuable scholia); R. Westphal
(1886, in _Scriptores metrici Graeci_) and M. Consbruch (1906);
translation by T. F. Barham (1843); see also W. Christ, _Gesch. der
griech. Litt._ (1898); M. Consbruch, _De veterum_ [Greek: Peri
poiematos] _doctrina_ (1890); J. E. Sandys, _Hist. Class. Schol._ i.
(1906).
HEPHAESTUS, in Greek mythology, the god of fire, analogous to, and by
the ancients often confused with, the Roman god Vulcan (q.v.); the
derivation of the name is uncertain, but it may well be of Greek origin.
The elemental character of Hephaestus is far more apparent than is the
case with the majority of the Olympian gods; the word Hephaestus was
used as a synonym for fire not only in poetry (Homer, _Il._ ii. 426 and
later), but also in common speech (Diod. v. 74). It is doubtful whether
the origin of the god can be traced to any specific form of fire. As all
earthly fire was thought to have come from heaven, Hephaestus has been
identified with the lightning. This is supported by the myth of his fall
from heaven, and by the fact that, according to the Homeric tradition,
his father was Zeus, the heaven-god. On the other hand, the lightning is
not associated with him in literature or cult, and his connexion with
volcanic fires is so close as to suggest that he was originally a
volcano-god. The connexion, however, though it may be early, is probably
not primitive, and it seems reasonable to conclude that Hephaestus was a
general fire-god, though some of his characteristics were due to
particular manifestations of the element.
In Homer the fire-god was the son of Zeus and Hera, and found a place in
the Olympian system as the divine smith. The _Iliad_ contains two
versions of his fall from heaven. In one account (i. 590) he was cast
out by Zeus and fell on Lemnos; in the other, Hera threw him down
immediately after his birth in disgust at his lameness, and he was
received by the sea-goddesses Eurynome and Thetis. The Lemnian version
is due to the prominence of his cult at Lemnos in very early times; and
his fall into the sea may have been suggested by volcanic activity in
Mediterranean islands, as at Lipara and Thera. The subsequent return of
Hephaestus to Olympus is a favourite theme in early art. His wife was
Charis, one of the Graces (in the _Iliad_) or Aphrodite (in the
_Odyssey_). The connexion of the rough Hephaestus with these goddesses
is curious; it may be due to the beautiful works of the smith-god
([Greek: charienta erga]), but it is possibly derived from the supposed
fertilizing and productive power of fire, in which case Hephaestus is a
natural mate of Charis, a goddess of spring, and Aphrodite the goddess
of love. In Homer, the skill of Hephaestus in metallurgy is often
mentioned; his forge was on Olympus, where he was served by images of
golden handmaids which he had animated. Similar myths are found in
relation to the Finnish smith-god Ilmarinen, who made a golden woman,
and the Teutonic Wieland; a belief in the magical power of metal-workers
is a common survival from an age in which their art was new and
mysterious. In epic poetry Hephaestus is rather a comic figure, and his
limping gait provokes "Homeric laughter" among the gods. In Vedic poetry
Agni, the fire-god, is footless; and the ancients themselves attributed
this lameness to the crooked appearance of flame (Servius on _Aen._
viii. 814), and possibly no better explanation can be found, though it
has been suggested that in an early stage of society the trade of a
smith would be suitable for the lame; Hephaestus and the lame Wieland
would thus conform to the type of their human counterparts.
Except in Lemnos and Attica, there are few indications of any cult of
Hephaestus. His association with Lemnos can be traced from Homer to the
Roman age. A town in the island was called Hephaestia, and the functions
of the god must have been wide, as we are told that his Lemnian priests
could cure snake-bites. Once a year every fire was extinguished on the
island for nine days, during which period sacrifice was offered to the
gods of the underworld and the dead. After the nine days were passed,
new fire was brought from the sacred hearth at Delos. The significance
of this and similar customs is examined by J. G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_,
iii. ch. 4. The close connexion of Hephaestus with Lemnos and especially
with its mountain Mosychlus has been explained by the supposed existence
of a volcano; but no crater or other sign of volcanic agency is now
apparent, and the "Lemnian fire"--a phenomenon attributed to
Hephaestus--may have been due to natural gas (see LEMNOS). In Sicily,
however, the volcanic nature of the god is prominent in his cult at
Etna, as well as in the neighbouring Liparaean isles. The Olympian forge
had been transferred to Etna or some other volcano, and Hephaestus had
become a subterranean rather than a celestial power.
The divine smith naturally became a "culture-god"; in Crete the
invention of forging in iron was attributed to him, and he was honoured
by all metal-workers. But we have little record of his cult in this
aspect, except at Athens, where his worship was of real importance,
belonging to the oldest stratum of Attic religion. A tribe was called
after his name, and Erichthonius, the mythical father of the Attic
people, was the son of Hephaestus. Terra-cotta statuettes of the god
seem to have been placed before the hearths of Athenian houses. This
temple has been identified, not improbably, with the so-called
"Theseum"; it contained a statue of Athena, and the two deities are
often associated, in literature and cult, as the joint givers of
civilization to the Athenians. The class of artisans was under their
special protection; and the joint festival of the two divinities--the
Chalceia--commemorated the invention of bronze-working by Hephaestus. In
the Hephaesteia (the particular festival of the god) there was a torch
race, a ceremonial not indeed confined to fire-gods like Hephaestus and
Prometheus, but probably in its origin connected with them, whether its
object was to purify and quicken the land, or (according to another
theory) to transmit a new fire with all possible speed to places where
the fire was polluted. If the latter view is correct, the torch race
would be closely akin to the Lemnian fire-ritual which has been
mentioned. The relation between Hephaestus and Prometheus is in some
respects close, though the distinction between these gods is clearly
marked. The fire, as an element, belongs to the Olympian Hephaestus; the
Titan Prometheus, a more human character, steals it for the use of man.
Prometheus resembles the Polynesian Maui, who went down to fetch fire
from the volcano of Mahuika, the fire-god. Hephaestus is a culture-god
mainly in his secondary aspect as the craftsman, whereas Prometheus
originates all civilization with the gift of fire. But the importance of
Prometheus is mainly mythological; the Titan belonged to a fallen
dynasty, and in actual cult was largely superseded by Hephaestus.
In archaic art Hephaestus is generally represented as bearded, though
occasionally a younger beardless type is found, as on a vase (in the
British Museum), on which he appears as a young man assisting Athena in
the creation of Pandora. At a later time the bearded type prevails. The
god is usually clothed in a short sleeveless tunic, and wears a round
close-fitting cap. His face is that of a middle-aged man, with unkempt
hair. He is in fact represented as an idealized Greek craftsman, with
the hammer, and sometimes the pincers. Some mythologists have compared
the hammer of Hephaestus with that of Thor, and have explained it as the
emblem of a thunder-god; but it is Zeus, not Hephaestus, who causes the
thunder, and the emblems of the latter god are merely the signs of his
occupation as a smith. In art no attempt was made, as a rule, to
indicate the lameness of Hephaestus; but one sculptor (Alcamenes) is
said to have suggested the deformity without spoiling the statue.
AUTHORITIES.--L. Preller (ed. C. Robert), _Griech. Mythologie_, i. 174
f. (Berlin, 1894); W. H. Roscher, _Lex. der griech. u. rom.
Mythologie_, s.v. "Hephaistos" (Leipzig, 1884-1886); Harrison, _Myth.
and Mon. of Ancient Athens_, p. 119 f. (London, 1890); O. Gruppe,
_Griech. Mythologie u. Religionsgesch._ p. 1304 f. (Munich, 1906); O.
Schrader and F. B. Jevons, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan
People_, p. 161, &c. (London, 1890); L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the
Greek States_, v. (1909). (E. E. S.)
HEPPENHEIM, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, on
the Bergstrasse, between Darmstadt and Heidelberg, 21 m. N. of the
latter by rail. Pop. (1905), 6364. It possesses a parish church,
occupying the site of one reputed to have been built by Charlemagne
about 805, an interesting town hall and several schools. On an isolated
hill close by stand the extensive ruins of the castle of Starkenburg,
built by the abbot, Ulrich von Lorsch, about 1064 and destroyed during
the Seven Years' War, and another hill, the Landberg, was a place of
assembly in the middle ages. Heppenheim, at first the property of the
abbey of Lorsch, became a town in 1318. After belonging to the Rhenish
Palatinate, it came into the possession of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1803.
Hops, wine and tobacco are grown, and there are large stone quarries,
and several small industries in the town.
HEPPLEWHITE, GEORGE (d. 1786), one of the most famous English
cabinet-makers of the 18th century. There is practically no biographical
material relating to Hepplewhite. The only facts that are known with
certainty are that he was apprenticed to Gillow at Lancaster, that he
carried on business in the parish of Saint Giles, Cripplegate, and that
administration of his estate was granted to his widow Alice on the 27th
of June 1786. The administrator's accounts, which were filed in the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury a year later, indicate that his property
was of considerable value. After his death the business was continued by
his widow under the style of A. Hepplewhite & Co. Our only approximate
means of identifying his work are _The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's
Guide_, which was first published in 1788, two years after his death,
and ten designs in _The Cabinet-maker's London Book of Prices_ (1788),
issued by the London Society of Cabinet-Makers. It is, however,
exceedingly difficult to earmark any given piece of furniture as being
the actual work or design of Hepplewhite, since it is generally
recognized that to a very large extent the name represents rather a
fashion than a man. Lightness, delicacy and grace are the distinguishing
characteristics of Hepplewhite work. The massiveness of Chippendale had
given place to conceptions that, especially in regard to chairs--which
had become smaller as hoops went out of fashion--depended for their
effect more upon inlay than upon carving. In one respect at least the
Hepplewhite style was akin to that of Chippendale--in both cases the
utmost ingenuity was lavished upon the chair, and if Hepplewhite was not
the originator he appears to have been the most constant and successful
user of the shield back. This elegant form was employed by the school in
a great variety of designs, and nearly always in a way artistically
satisfying. Where Chippendale, his contemporaries and his immediate
successors had used the cabriole and the square leg with a good deal of
carving, the Hepplewhite manner preferred a slighter leg, plain, fluted
or reeded, tapering to a spade foot which often became the "spider leg"
that characterized much of the late 18th-century furniture; this form of
leg was indeed not confined to chairs but was used also for tables and
sideboards. Of the dainty drawing-room grace of the style there can be
no question. The great majority of modern chairs are of Hepplewhite
inspiration, while he, or those who worked with him, appears to have a
clear claim to have originated, or at all events popularized, the winged
easy-chair, in which the sides are continued to the same height as the
back. This is probably the most comfortable type of chair that has ever
been made. The backs of Hepplewhite chairs were often adorned with
galleries and festoons of wheat-ears or pointed fern leaves, and not
infrequently with the prince of Wales's feathers in some more or less
decorative form. The frequency with which this badge was used has led to
the suggestion either that A. Hepplewhite & Co. were employed by George
IV. when prince of Wales, or that the feathers were used as a political
emblem. The former suggestion is obviously the more feasible, but there
is little doubt that the feathers were used by other makers working in
the same style. It has been objected as an artistic flaw in
Hepplewhite's chairs that they have the appearance of fragility. They
are, however, constructionally sound as a rule. The painted and japanned
work has been criticized on safer grounds. This delicate type of
furniture, often made of satinwood, and painted with wreaths and
festoons, with amorini and musical instruments or floral motives, is the
most elegant and pleasing that can be imagined. It has, however, no
elements of decorative permanence. With comparatively little use the
paintings wear off and have to be renewed. A piece of untouched painted
satinwood is almost unknown, and one of the essential charms of old
furniture as of all other antiques is that it should retain the patina
of time. A large proportion of Hepplewhite furniture is inlaid with the
exotic woods which had come into high favour by the third quarter of the
18th century. While the decorative use upon furniture of so evanescent a
medium as paint is always open to criticism, any form of marquetry is
obviously legitimate, and, if inlaid furniture be less ravishing to the
eye, its beauty is but enhanced by time. It was not in chairs alone that
the Hepplewhite manner excelled. It acquired, for instance, a speciality
of seats for the tall, narrow Georgian sash windows, which in the
Hepplewhite period had almost entirely superseded the more picturesque
forms of an earlier time. These window-seats had ends rolling over
outwards, and no backs, and despite their skimpiness their elegant
simplicity is decidedly pleasing. Elegance, in fact, was the note of a
style which on the whole was more distinctly English than that which
preceded or immediately followed it. The smaller Hepplewhite pieces are
much prized by collectors. Among these may be included urn-shaped
knife-boxes in mahogany and satinwood, charming in form and decorative
in the extreme; inlaid tea-caddies, varying greatly in shape and
material, but always appropriate and _coquet_; delicate little
fire-screens with shaped poles; painted work-tables, and inlaid stands.
Hepplewhite's bedsteads with carved and fluted pillars were very
handsome and attractive. The evolution of the dining-room sideboard made
rapid progress towards the end of the 18th century, but neither
Hepplewhite nor those who worked in his style did much to advance it.
Indeed they somewhat retarded its development by causing it to revert to
little more than that side-table which had been its original form. It
was, however, a very delightful table with its undulating front, its
many elegant spade-footed legs and its delicate carving. If we were
dealing with a less elusive personality it would be just to say that
Hepplewhite's work varies from the extreme of elegance and the most
delicious simplicity to an unimaginative commonplace, and sometimes to
actual ugliness. As it is, this summary may well be applied to the style
as a whole--a style which was assuredly not the creation of any one man,
but owed much alike of excellence and of defect to a school of
cabinet-makers who were under the influence of conflicting tastes and
changing ideals. At its best the taste was so fine and so full of
distinction, so simple, modest and sufficient, that it amounted to
genius. On its lower planes it was clearly influenced by commercialism
and the desire to make what tasteless people preferred. Yet this is no
more than to say that the Hepplewhite style succumbed sometimes, perhaps
very often, to the eternal enemy of all art--the uninspired banality of
the average man. (J. P.-B.)
HEPTARCHY (Gr. [Greek: hepta], seven, and [Greek: arche], rule), a word
which is frequently used to designate the period of English history
between the coming of the Anglo-Saxons in 449 and the union of the
kingdoms under Ecgbert in 828. It was first used during the 16th century
because of the belief held by Camden and other older historians, that
during this period there were exactly seven kingdoms in England, these
being Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex.
This belief is erroneous, as the number of kingdoms varied considerably
from time to time; nevertheless the word still serves a useful purpose
to denote the period.
HERA, in Greek mythology, the sister and wife of Zeus and queen of the
Olympian gods; she was identified by the Romans with Juno. The
derivation of the name is obscure, but there is no reason to doubt that
she was a genuine Greek deity. There are no signs of Oriental influence
in her cults, except at Corinth, where she seems to have been identified
with Astarte. It is probable that she was originally a personification
of some department of nature; but the traces of her primitive
significance are vague, and have been interpreted to suit various
theories. Some of the ancients connected her with the earth; Plato,
followed by the Stoics, derived her name from [Greek: aer], the air.
Both theories have been revived in modern times, the former notably by
F. G. Welcker, the latter by L. Preller. A third view, that Hera is the
moon, is held by W. H. Roscher and others. Of these explanations, that
advanced by Preller has little to commend it, even if, with O. Gruppe,
we understand the air-goddess as a storm deity; some of the arguments in
support of the two other theories will be examined in this article.
Whatever may have been the origin of Hera, to the historic Greeks
(except a few poets or philosophers) she was a purely anthropomorphic
goddess, and had no close relation to any province of nature. In
literature, from the times of Homer and Hesiod, she played an important
part, appearing most frequently as the jealous and resentful wife of
Zeus. In this character she pursues with vindictive hatred the heroines,
such as Alcmene, Leto and Semele, who were beloved by Zeus. She visits
his sins upon the children born of his intrigues, and is thus the
constant enemy of Heracles and Dionysus. This character of the offended
wife was borrowed by later poets from the Greek epic; but it belongs to
literature rather than to cult, in which the dignity and power of the
goddess is naturally more emphasized.
The worship of Hera is found, in different degrees of prominence,
throughout the Greek world. It was especially important in the ancient
Achaean centres, Argos, Mycenae and Sparta, which she claims in the
_Iliad_ (iv. 51) as her three dearest cities. Whether Hera was also
worshipped by the early Dorians is uncertain; after the Dorian invasion
she remained the chief deity of Argos, but her cult at Sparta was not so
conspicuous. She received honour, however, in other parts of the
Peloponnese, particularly in Olympia, where her temple was the oldest,
and in Arcadia. In several Boeotian cities she seems to have been one of
the principal objects of worship, while the neighbouring island of
Euboea probably derived its name from a title of Hera, who was "rich in
cows" ([Greek: Euboia]). Among the islands of the Aegean, Samos was
celebrated for the cult of Hera; according to the local tradition, she
was born in the island. As Hera Lacinia (from her Lacinian temple near
Croton) she was extensively worshipped in Magna Graecia.