seems to have preceded Hera as the wife of Zeus at Dodona. The origin of
the connexion may possibly be due to the fusion of two "Pelasgic"
tribes, worshipping Zeus and Hera respectively; but speculation on the
earliest cult of the goddess, before she became the wife of Zeus, must
be largely conjectural. The close relation of the two deities appears in
a frequent community of altars and sacrifices, and also in the [Greek:
hieros gamos], a dramatic representation of their sacred marriage. The
festival, which was certainly ancient, was held not only in Argos,
Samos, Euboea and other centres of Hera-worship, but also in Athens,
where the goddess was obscured by the predominance of Athena. The
details of the [Greek: hieros gamos] may have varied locally, but the
main idea of the ritual was the same. In the Daedala, as the festival
was called at Plataea, an effigy was made from an oak-tree, dressed in
bridal attire, and carried in a cart with a woman who acted as
bridesmaid. The image was called Daedale, and the ritual was explained
by a myth: Hera had left Zeus in her anger; in order to win her back,
Zeus announced that he was about to marry, and dressed up a puppet to
imitate a bride; Hera met the procession, tore the veil from the false
bride, and, on discovering the ruse, became reconciled to her husband.
The image was put away after each occasion; every sixty years a large
number of such images, which had served in previous celebrations, were
carried in procession to the top of Mount Cithaeron, and were burned on
an altar together with animals and the altar itself. As Frazer notes
(_Golden Bough_,^2 i. 227), this festival appears to belong to the large
class of mimetic charms designed to quicken the growth of vegetation;
the marriage of Zeus and Hera would in this case represent the union of
the king and queen of May. But it by no means follows that Hera was
therefore originally a goddess of the earth or of vegetation. When the
real nature of the ritual had become lost or obscured, it was natural to
explain it by the help of an aetiological myth; in European folklore,
images, corresponding to those burnt at the Daedala, were sometimes
called Judas Iscariot or Luther (_Golden Bough_,^2 iii. 315). At Samos
the [Greek: hieros gamos] was celebrated annually; the image of Hera was
concealed on the sea-shore and solemnly discovered. This rite seems to
reflect an actual custom of abduction; or it may rather refer to the
practice of intercourse between the betrothed before marriage. Such
intercourse was sanctioned by the Samians, who excused it by the example
of Zeus and Hera (schol. on _Il._ xiv. 296). There is nothing in the
Samian [Greek: hieros gamos] to suggest a marriage of heaven and earth,
or of two vegetation-spirits; as Dr Farnell points out, the ritual
appears to explain the custom of human nuptials. The sacred marriage,
therefore, though connected with vegetation at the Daedala, was not
necessarily a vegetation-charm in its origin; consequently, it does not
prove that Hera was an earth-goddess or tree-spirit. It is at least
remarkable that, except at Argos, Hera had little to do with
agriculture, and was not closely associated with such deities as Cybele,
Demeter, Persephone and Dionysus, whose connexion with the earth, or
with its fruits, is beyond doubt.
In her general cult Hera was worshipped in two main capacities: (1) as
the consort of Zeus and queen of heaven; (2) as the goddess who presided
over marriage, and, in a wider sense, over the various phases of a
woman's life. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (_Ars rhet._ ii. 2) calls Zeus
and Hera the first wedded pair, and a sacrifice to Zeus [Greek: teleios]
and Hera [Greek: teleia] was a regular feature of the Greek wedding.
Girls offered their hair or veils to Hera before marriage. In
Aristophanes (_Thesm._ 973) she "keeps the keys of wedlock." The
marriage-goddess naturally became the protector of women in childbed,
and bore the title of the birth-goddess (Eileithyia), at Argos and
Athens. In Homer (_Il._ xi. 270) and Hesiod (_Theog._ 922) she is the
mother of the Eileithyiae, or the single Eileithyia. Her cult-titles
[Greek: parthenos] (or [Greek: pais]), [Greek: teleia] and [Greek:
chera] the "maiden," "wife," and "widow" (or "divorced") have been
interpreted as symbolical of the earth in spring, summer, and winter;
but they may well express the different conditions in the lives of her
human worshippers. The Argives believed that Hera recovered her
virginity every year by bathing in a certain spring (Paus. viii. 22, 2),
a belief which probably reflects the custom of ceremonial purification
after marriage (see Frazer, _Adonis_, p. 176). Although Hera was not the
bestower of feminine charm to the same extent as Aphrodite, she was the
patron of a contest for beauty in a Lesbian festival ([Greek:
kallisteia]). This intimate relation with women has been held a proof
that Hera was originally a moon-goddess, as the moon is often thought to
influence childbirth and other aspects of feminine life. But Hera's
patronage of women, though undoubtedly ancient, is not necessarily
primitive. Further, the Greeks themselves, who were always ready to
identify Artemis with the moon, do not seem to have recognized any lunar
connexion in Hera.
Among her particular worshippers, at Argos and Samos, Hera was much more
than the queen of heaven and the marriage-goddess. As the patron of
these cities ([Greek: poliouchos]) she held a place corresponding to
that of Athena in Athens. The Argives are called "the people of Hera" by
Pindar; the Heraeum, situated under a mountain significantly called Mt.
Euboea, was the most important temple in Argolis. Here the agricultural
character of her ritual is well marked; the first oxen used in ploughing
were, according to an Argive myth, dedicated to her as [Greek:
zeuxidia]; and the sprouting ears of corn were called "the flowers of
Hera." She was worshipped as the goddess of flowers ([Greek: antheia]);
girls served in her temple under the name of "flower-bearers," and a
flower festival ([Greek: Herosantheia, Heroanthia]) was celebrated by
Peloponnesian women in spring. These rites recall our May day
observance, and give colour to the earth-goddess theory. On the other
hand it must be remembered that the patron deity of a Greek state had
very wide functions; and it is not surprising to find that Hera
(whatever her origin may have been) assumed an agricultural character
among her own people whose occupations were largely agricultural. So,
although the warlike character of Hera was not elsewhere prominent, she
assumed a militant aspect in her two chief cities; a festival called the
Shield ([Greek: aspis], in Pindar [Greek: agon chalkeos]) was part of
the Argive cult, and there was an armed procession in her honour at
Samos. The city-goddess, whether Hera or Athena, must be chief alike in
peace and war.
The cow was the animal specially sacred to Hera both in ritual and in
mythology. The story of Io, metamorphosed into a cow, is familiar; she
was priestess of Hera, and was originally, no doubt, a form of the
goddess herself. The Homeric epithet [Greek: boopis] may have meant
"cow-faced" to the earliest worshippers of Hera, though by Homer and the
later Greeks it was understood as "large-eyed," like the cow. A car
drawn by oxen seems to have been widely used in the processions of Hera,
and the cow was her most frequent sacrifice. The origin of Hera's
association with the cow is uncertain, but there is no need to see in
it, with Roscher, a symbol of the moon. The cuckoo was also sacred to
Hera, who, according to the Argive legend, was wooed by Zeus in the form
of the bird. In later times the peacock, which was still unfamiliar to
the Greeks in the 5th century, was her favourite, especially at Samos.
The earliest recorded images of Hera preceded the rise of Greek
sculpture; a log at Thespiae, a plank at Samos, a pillar at Argos served
to represent the goddess. In the archaic period of sculpture the [Greek:
xoanon] or wooden statue of the Samian Hera by Smilis was famous. In the
first half of the 5th century the sacred marriage was represented on an
extant metope from a temple at Selinus. The most celebrated statue of
Hera was the chryselephantine work of Polyclitus, made for the Heraeum
at Argos soon after 423 B.C. It is fully described by Pausanias, who
says that Hera was seated on a throne, wearing a crown ([Greek:
stephanos]), and carrying a sceptre in one hand and a pomegranate in the
other. Various ancient writers testify to the beauty and dignity of the
statue, which was considered equal to the Zeus of Pheidias. Polyclitus
seems to have fixed the type of Hera as a youthful matron, but
unfortunately the exact character of her head cannot be determined. A
majestic and rather severe beauty marks the conception of Hera in later
art, of which the Farnese bust at Naples and the Ludovisi Hera are the
most conspicuous examples.
AUTHORITIES.--F. G. Welcker, _Griech. Gotterl._ i. 362 f. (Gottingen,
1857-1863); L. Preller (ed. C. Robert), _Griech. Mythologie_, i. 160
f. (Berlin, 1894); W. H. Roscher, _Lex. der griech. u. rom.
Mythologie_, s.v. (Leipzig, 1884); C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, _Dict.
des ant. grecques et rom._ s.v. "Juno" (Paris, 1877); L. R. Farnell,
_Cults of the Greek States_, i. 179 f. (Oxford, 1896); A. B. Cook in
_Class. Rev._ xx. 365 f. 416 f.; O. Gruppe, _Griech. Mythologie u.
Religionsgesch._ p. 1121 f. (Munich, 1903). In the article GREEK ART,
fig. 24, will be found a roughly executed head of Hera, from the
pediment of the treasury of the Megarians. (E. E. S.)
HERACLEA, the name of a large number of ancient cities founded by the
Greeks.
1. HERACLEA (Gr. [Greek: Herakleia]), an ancient city of Lucania,
situated near the modern Policoro, 3 m. from the coast of the gulf of
Tarentum, between the rivers Aciris (Agri) and Siris (Sinni) about 13 m.
S.S.W. of Metapontum. It was a Greek colony founded by the Tarentines
and Thurians in 432 B.C., the former being predominant. It was chosen as
the meeting-place of the general assembly of the Italiot Greeks, which
Alexander of Epirus, after his alienation from Tarentum, tried to
transfer to Thurii. Here Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, defeated the consul
Laevinus in 280 B.C., after he had crossed the river Siris. In 278 B.C.,
or possibly in 282 B.C., probably in order to detach it from Tarentum,
the Romans made a special treaty with Heraclea, on such favourable terms
that in 89 B.C. the Roman citizenship given to the inhabitants by the
Lex Plautia Papiria was only accepted after considerable hesitation. We
hear that Heraclea surrendered under compulsion to Hannibal in 212 B.C.
and that in the Social war the public records were destroyed by fire.
Cicero in his defence of the poet Archias, an adopted citizen of
Heraclea, speaks of it as a flourishing town. As a consequence of its
having accepted Roman citizenship, it became a _municipium_; part of a
copy of the Lex Iulia Municipalis of 46 B.C. (engraved on the back of
two bronze tablets, on the front of which is a Greek inscription of the
3rd century B.C. defining the boundaries of lands belonging to various
temples), which was found between Heraclea and Metapontum, is of the
highest importance for our knowledge of that law. It was still a place
of some importance under the empire; a branch road from Venusia joined
the coast road here. The circumstances of its destruction and
abandonment was unknown; the site is now marked by a few heaps of ruins.
Its medieval representative was Anglona, once a bishopric, but now
itself a heap of ruins, among which are those of an 11th-century church.
2. HERACLEA MINOA, an ancient town on the south coast of Sicily, at the
mouth of the river Halycus, near the modern Montallegro, some 20 m. N.W.
of Girgenti. It was at first an outpost of Selinus (Herod. v. 46), then
overthrown by Carthage, later a border town of Agrigentum. It passed
into Carthaginian hands by the treaty of 405 B.C., was won back by
Dionysius in his first Punic war, but recovered by Carthage in 383. From
this date onwards coins bearing its Semitic name, _Ras Melkart_, become
common, and it was obviously an important border fortress. It was here
that Dion landed in 357 B.C., when he attacked Syracuse. The
Agrigentines won it back in 309, but it soon fell under the power of
Agathocles. It was temporarily recovered for Greece by Pyrrhus.
(T. As.)
3. HERACLEA PONTICA (mod. _Bender Eregli_), an ancient city on the coast
of Bithynia in Asia Minor, at the mouth of the Kilijsu. It was founded
by a Megarian colony, which soon subjugated the native Mariandynians and
extended its power over a considerable territory. The prosperity of the
city, rudely shaken by the Galatians and the Bithynians, was utterly
destroyed in the Mithradatic war. It was the birthplace of Heraclides
Ponticus. The modern town is best known for its lignite coal-mines, from
which Constantinople receives a good part of its supply.
4. HERACLEA SINTICA, a town in Thracian Macedonia, to the south of the
Strymon, the site of which is marked by the village of Zervokhori, and
identified by the discovery of local coins.
5. HERACLEA, a town on the borders of Caria and Ionia, near the foot of
Mount Latmus. In its neighbourhood was the burial cave of Endymion.
6. HERACLEA-CYBISTRA (mod. _Eregli_ in the vilayet of Konia), under the
name Cybistra, had some importance in Hellenistic times owing to its
position near the point where the road to the Cilician Gates enters the
hills. It lay in the way of armies and was more than once sacked by the
Arab invaders of Asia Minor (A.D. 805 and 832). It became Turkish
(Seljuk) in the 11th century. Modern Eregli had grown from a large
village to a town since the railway reached it from Konia and Karaman in
1904; and it has now an hotel and good shops. Three hours' ride S. is
the famous "Hittite" rock-relief of Ivriz, representing a king (probably
of neighbouring Tyana) adoring a god (see HITTITES). This was the first
"Hittite" monument discovered in modern times (early 18th century, by
the Swede Otter, an emissary of Louis XIV.).
For Heraclea Trachinia see TRACHIS, and for Heraclea Perinthus see
PERINTHUS.
HERACLEA was also the name of one of the Sporades, between Naxos and
Ios, which is still called Raklia, and bears traces of a Greek township
with temples to Tyche and Zeus Lophites. (D. G. H.)
HERACLEON, a Gnostic who flourished about A.D. 125, probably in the
south of Italy or in Sicily, and is generally classed by the early
heresiologists with the Valentinian school of heresy. In his system he
appears to have regarded the divine nature as a vast abyss in whose
_pleroma_ were aeons of different orders and degrees,--emanations from
the source of being. Midway between the supreme God and the material
world was the Demiurgus, who created the latter, and under whose
jurisdiction the lower, animal soul of man proceeded after death, while
his higher, celestial soul returned to the pleroma whence at first it
issued. Though conspicuously uniting faith in Christ with spiritual
maturity, there are evidences that, like other Valentinians, Heracleon
did not sufficiently emphasize abstinence from the moral laxity and
worldliness into which his followers fell. He seems to have received the
ordinary Christian scriptures; and Origen, who treats him as a notable
exegete, has preserved fragments of a commentary by him on the fourth
gospel (brought together by Grabe in the second volume of his
_Spicilegium_), while Clement of Alexandria quotes from him what appears
to be a passage from a commentary on Luke. These writings are remarkable
for their intensely mystical and allegorical interpretations of the
text.
HERACLEONAS, east-Roman emperor (Feb.-Sept. 641), was the son of
Heraclius (q.v.) and Martina. At the end of Heraclius' reign he obtained
through his mother's influence the title of Augustus (638), and after
his father's death was proclaimed joint emperor with his half-brother
Constantine III. The premature death of Constantine, in May 641, left
Heracleonas sole ruler. But a suspicion that he and Martina had murdered
Constantine led soon after to a revolt, and to the mutilation and
banishment of the supposed offenders. Nothing further is known about
Heracleonas subsequent to 641.
HERACLIDAE, the general name for the numerous descendants of Heracles
(Hercules), and specially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants
of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianeirathe, conquerors of
Peloponnesus. Heracles, whom Zeus had originally intended to be ruler of
Argos, Lacedaemon and Messenian Pylos, had been supplanted by the
cunning of Hera, and his intended possessions had fallen into the hands
of Eurystheus, king of Mycenae. After the death of Heracles, his
children, after many wanderings, found refuge from Eurystheus at Athens.
Eurystheus, on his demand for their surrender being refused, attacked
Athens, but was defeated and slain. Hyllus and his brothers then invaded
Peloponnesus, but after a year's stay were forced by a pestilence to
quit. They withdrew to Thessaly, where Aegimius, the mythical ancestor
of the Dorians, whom Heracles had assisted in war against the Lapithae,
adopted Hyllus and made over to him a third part of his territory. After
the death of Aegimius, his two sons, Pamphilus and Dymas, voluntarily
submitted to Hyllus (who was, according to the Dorian tradition in
Herodotus v. 72, really an Achaean), who thus became ruler of the
Dorians, the three branches of that race being named after these three
heroes. Being desirous of reconquering his paternal inheritance, Hyllus
consulted the Delphic oracle, which told him to wait for "the third
fruit," and then enter Peloponnesus by "a narrow passage by sea."
Accordingly, after three years, Hyllus marched across the isthmus of
Corinth to attack Atreus, the successor of Eurystheus, but was slain in
single combat by Echemus, king of Tegea. This second attempt was
followed by a third under Cleodaeus and a fourth under Aristomachus,
both of which were equally unsuccessful. At last, Temenus, Cresphontes
and Aristodemus, the sons of Aristomachus, complained to the oracle that
its instructions had proved fatal to those who had followed them. They
received the answer that by the "third fruit" the "third generation" was
meant, and that the "narrow passage" was not the isthmus of Corinth, but
the straits of Rhium. They accordingly built a fleet at Naupactus, but
before they set sail, Aristodemus was struck by lightning (or shot by
Apollo) and the fleet destroyed, because one of the Heraclidae had slain
an Acarnanian soothsayer. The oracle, being again consulted by Temenus,
bade him offer an expiatory sacrifice and banish the murderer for ten
years, and look out for a man with three eyes to act as guide. On his
way back to Naupactus, Temenus fell in with Oxylus, an Aetolian, who had
lost one eye, riding on a horse (thus making up the three eyes) and
immediately pressed him into his service. According to another account,
a mule on which Oxylus rode had lost an eye. The Heraclidae repaired
their ships, sailed from Naupactus to Antirrhium, and thence to Rhium in
Peloponnesus. A decisive battle was fought with Tisamenus, son of
Orestes, the chief ruler in the peninsula, who was defeated and slain.
The Heraclidae, who thus became practically masters of Peloponnesus,
proceeded to distribute its territory among themselves by lot. Argos
fell to Temenus, Lacedaemon to Procles and Eurysthenes, the twin sons of
Aristodemus; and Messene to Cresphontes. The fertile district of Elis
had been reserved by agreement for Oxylus. The Heraclidae ruled in
Lacedaemon till 221 B.C., but disappeared much earlier in the other
countries. This conquest of Peloponnesus by the Dorians, commonly called
the "Return of the Heraclidae," is represented as the recovery by the
descendants of Heracles of the rightful inheritance of their hero
ancestor and his sons. The Dorians followed the custom of other Greek
tribes in claiming as ancestor for their ruling families one of the
legendary heroes, but the traditions must not on that account be
regarded as entirely mythical. They represent a joint invasion of
Peloponnesus by Aetolians and Dorians, the latter having been driven
southward from their original northern home under pressure from the
Thessalians. It is noticeable that there is no mention of these
Heraclidae or their invasion in Homer or Hesiod. Herodotus (vi. 52)
speaks of poets who had celebrated their deeds, but these were limited
to events immediately succeeding the death of Heracles. The story was
first amplified by the Greek tragedians, who probably drew their
inspiration from local legends, which glorified the services rendered by
Athens to the rulers of Peloponnesus.
Apollodorus ii. 8; Diod. Sic. iv. 57, 58; Pausanias i. 32, 41, ii. 13,
18, iii. 1, iv. 3, v. 3; Euripides, _Heraclidae_; Pindar, _Pythia_,
ix. 137; Herodotus ix. 27. See Muller's _Dorians_, i. ch. 3;
Thirlwall, _History of Greece_, ch. vii.; Grote, _Hist. of Greece_,
pt. i. ch. xviii.; Busolt, _Griechische Geschichte_, i. ch. ii. sec.
7, where a list of modern authorities is given.
HERACLIDES PONTICUS, Greek philosopher and miscellaneous writer, born at
Heraclea in Pontus, flourished in the 4th century B.C. He studied
philosophy at Athens under Speusippus, Plato and Aristotle. According to
Suidas, Plato, on his departure for Sicily, left his pupils in charge of
Heraclides. The latter part of his life was spent at Heraclea. He is
said to have been vain and fat, and to have been so fond of display that
he was nicknamed Pompicus, or the Showy (unless the epithet refers to
his literary style). Various idle stories are related about him. On one
occasion, for instance, Heraclea was afflicted with famine, and the
Pythian priestess at Delphi, bribed by Heraclides, assured his inquiring
townsmen that the dearth would be stayed if they granted a golden crown
to that philosopher. This was done; but just as Heraclides was receiving
his honour in a crowded assembly, he was seized with apoplexy, while the
dishonest priestess perished at the same moment from the bite of a
serpent. On his death-bed he is said to have requested a friend to hide
his body as soon as life was extinct, and, by putting a serpent in its
place, induce his townsmen to suppose that he had been carried up to
heaven. The trick was discovered, and Heraclides received only ridicule
instead of divine honours (Diogenes Laertius v. 6). Whatever may be the
truth about these stories, Heraclides seems to have been a versatile and
prolific writer on philosophy, mathematics, music, grammar, physics,
history and rhetoric. Many of the works attributed to him, however, are
probably by one or more persons of the same name.
The extant fragment of a treatise _On Constitutions_ (C. W. Muller,
_F.H.G._ ii. 197-207) is probably a compilation from the _Politics_ of
Aristotle by Heraclides Lembos, who lived in the time of Ptolemy VI.
Philometor (181-146). See Otto Voss, _De Heraclidis Pontici vita et
scriptis_ (1896).
HERACLITUS ([Greek: Herakleitos]; c. 540-475 B.C.), Greek philosopher,
was born at Ephesus of distinguished parentage. Of his early life and
education we know nothing; from the contempt with which he spoke of all
his fellow-philosophers and of his fellow-citizens as a whole we may
gather that he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom.
So intensely aristocratic (hence his nickname [Greek: ochloloidoros],
"he who rails at the people") was his temperament that he declined to
exercise the regal-hieratic office of [Greek: Basileus] which was
hereditary in his family, and presented it to his brother. It is
probable, however, that he did occasionally intervene in the affairs of
the city at the period when the rule of Persia had given place to
autonomy; it is said that he compelled the usurper Melancomas to
abdicate. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the extreme
profundity of his philosophy and his contempt for mankind in general, he
was called the "Dark Philosopher" ([Greek: ho skoteinos]), or the
"Weeping Philosopher," in contrast to Democritus, the "Laughing
Philosopher."
Heraclitus is in a real sense the founder of metaphysics. Starting from
the physical standpoint of the Ionian physicists, he accepted their
general idea of the unity of nature, but entirely denied their theory of
being. The fundamental uniform fact in nature is constant change
([Greek: panta chorei kai ouden menei]); everything both is and is not
at the same time. He thus arrives at the principle of Relativity;
harmony and unity consist in diversity and multiplicity. The senses are
"bad witnesses" ([Greek: kakoi martyres]); only the wise man can obtain
knowledge.