HERODIANS 



3966 



HEROIN 



last foot. A unique specimen of 

 their kind, they consist of scenes 

 from everyday life in dialogue 

 form, in some parts reminiscent of 

 Theocritus. The characters intro- 

 duced are sometimes unpleasant, 

 sometimes of a more homely type. 

 See A Realist of the ^Egean, H. 

 Sharply, 1906. 



Herodians. Term applied to 

 the family of Herods. Idumaean 

 by descent and Jewish by faith, 

 they sought the favour of Rome. 

 They included Herod the Great, 

 Herod Antipas, Herod Philip I, 

 Herod Philip II, Herod Agrippa I 

 and Herod Agrippa II. The term 

 is applied also to those who, for 

 various reasons, supported the 

 political aspirations of the Herods 

 and sided with the Pharisees and 

 Sadducees against Jesus. See Matt. 

 22 ; Mark 3 and 12. 



Herodian OR HERODIANOS (c 

 A.D. 170-240). Roman historian. 

 A Greek by birth, he appears to 

 have resided chiefly in Rome. His 

 history, written in his native 

 tongue and still extant, embraces 

 the period from the death of 

 Marcus Aurelius to the reign of 

 Gordian III (187-238). In spite 

 of geographical and chronological 

 inaccuracies and lack "of political 

 insight, it is a lively and generally 

 trustworthy account of contempor- 

 ary events and forms a valuable 

 supplement to the work of Dion 

 Cassius (q.v.). 



Herodias. Sister of Agrippa I. 

 She left her first husband Herod 

 Philip I and married his half- 

 brother Herod Antipas (q.v. ). This 

 act brought down upon the two 

 the condemnation of John Baptist, 

 whose head, at Herodias' request, 

 was demanded and granted to her 

 daughter Salome, and involved 

 Antipas in a disastrous war with his 

 first wife's father. Her ambition 

 finally brought about the ruin of 

 Antipas, with whom, however, she 

 decided to go into exile. See 

 Matt. 14; Mark 6. 



Herodotus (c. 484-424 B.C.). 

 Greek historian, commonly called 

 the Father of History. Born at 

 Halicarnassus in Caria, in Asia 

 Minor, a city which, though peopled 

 by Dorian Greeks, was under Per- 

 sian rule, Herodotus was technic- 

 ally a Persian subject by birth. 

 The first half of his life was spent 

 in travel. He lived some time at 

 Samos, where he learned the Ionic 

 dialect in which he wrote his 

 history. About 446 B.C. he came to 

 Athens, where he became intimate 

 with the poet Sophocles. By the 

 time he reached middle life he had 

 travelled in Persia, Egypt, Italy, 

 and Sicily, and had visited even 

 the N. shores of the Black Sea. 

 During his travels Herodotus was 



diligently collecting materials for 

 his history, but where the work 

 was actually written is not known. 

 Its theme is the great struggle 

 between the Persians and the 

 Greeks, which was still fresh in the 

 memory of the Hellenic world. The 

 first five of the nine books are 

 taken up with a sketch of the rise 

 of the Persian empire, in which the 

 author gives a history of Lydia as 

 a preliminary, with historical and 

 descriptive digressions on Egypt 

 and other countries with which the 

 Persians came into contact. The 

 last four books deal with the actual 

 clash of arms between Persians and 

 Greeks, giving the immortal stories 

 of Marathon, Thermopylae, and 

 Salamis, and ending with the tak- 

 ing of Sestos by the Greeks in 478. 

 The work is thus virtually a sketch 



Herodotus, Greek historian 



From a buit in the Museum at Naplet 



of the history of the world, as then 

 known, with geographical, archaeo- 

 logical, and other digressions. 



Like the Greek tragedians, Hero- 

 dotus held the belief that over- 

 weening arrogance among mortals 

 slowly but surely brings in its 

 train the punishment of heaven, 

 and this idea runs all through the 

 history. The work, as a whole, is 

 one of the most fascinating ever 

 written, perhaps the most en- 

 thralling section being the second 

 book, which deals with the history 

 and civilization of Egypt. With 

 his clear and simple style, Hero- 

 dotus is a master of narrative 

 prose. He is rightly adjudged to 

 be also the Father of History, inas- 

 much as he was the first to write 

 history according to a plan or 

 scheme, whereas those that went 

 before him were mere chroniclers. 



His veracity has been impeached, 

 but although his history contains 

 much that is palpably untrue, 

 Herodotus wrote in good faith. 



There are excellent translations of 

 the history by Rawlinson and by 

 G. C. Macaulay. See Ancient Greek 

 Historians, J. B. Bury, 1909. 



Heroes and Hero Worship. 

 Volume of lectures on Heroes, Hero- 

 Worship, and the Heroic in History 

 by Thomas Carlyle, 1841. The six 

 lectures, delivered at Willis's 

 Rooms, London, in May, 1840, 

 comprise some of the best and 

 most characteristic of Carlyle's 

 vigorous and stimulating work. 

 They deal successively with the 

 hero as divinity, prophet, poet, 

 man of letters, and king, taking as 

 typical examples Odin, Mahomet, 

 Dante, Shakespeare, Luther, Knox, 

 Johnson, Rousseau, Burns, Crom- 

 well and Napoleon. 



Heroic Play. Form of dramatic 

 tragedy set up in the second half 

 of the 17th century, of which Dry- 

 den was the chief, but not the first, 

 exponent. The tragic drama had 

 degenerated from the greatness of 

 Elizabethan time, and an attempt 

 was made to reestablish it more or 

 less closely on French models, both 

 in choice of themes and in the use 

 of rhymed couplets. In his essay 

 Of Heroic Plays, Dryden credited 

 his predecessor and collaborator, 

 Sir William D'Avenant, with hav- 

 ing originated them. He declared 

 that the heroic play should be an 

 imitation in little of an heroic poem 

 (i.e. epic), and that love and valour 

 ought to be the subject of it. 



The chief attempts of Dryden 

 himself in this direction were 

 Tyrannic Love or the Royal Mar- 

 tyr, 1669 ; Almanzor and Almahide 

 or the Conquest of Granada, 1670, 

 in which he came nearest to justi- 

 fying his theory as to the suita- 

 bility of his form ; and Aurenge- 

 Zebe or the Great Mogul, 1.675. The 

 Heroic Play was made the satiric 

 theme of The Rehearsal, 1671, by 

 the duke of Buckingham and others. 

 See Drama ; Poetry ; Tragedy. 



Heroic Verse. Name given to 

 the form of verse employed in epic 

 poetry which deals with the life 

 and deeds of heroes. In Greek and 

 Latin, as in The Iliad and The 

 Aeneid, the verse is hexameter. In 

 English it is rhymed iambic penta- 

 meter, used by Dryden and by 

 Pope in The Rape of the Lock. 

 The French adopted as the sole 

 recognized form for dramatic and 

 epic poetry the twelve-syllabled 

 rhymed measure, with alternate 

 masculine and feminine, single and 

 double, rhymes, as in Corneille and 

 Racine. In Italy the recognized 

 form is the Ottava Rima (q.v.). 



Heroin OR DIAMORPHINE HY- 

 DROCHLORIDE. Alkaloid obtained 

 by acting on ftorphine with acetic 

 acid. It is used in medicine to 

 allay cough in phthisis and asthma. 



