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HEROD AGRIPPA II. HERODOTUS. 



apparent misfortune proved the source of his future 

 prosperity ; for, on the accession of Caligula, he was 

 not only rewarded with a golden chain, as heavy as 

 the iron one which had bound him , but was honoured 

 with the title of king, and received the tetrarchy of 

 his disgraced uncle, and all the dominions of Herod 

 the Great. It was this Herod who, to please the 

 Jews, caused St James to be put to death, and St 

 Peter to be imprisoned. His power and opulence 

 acquired him a great reputation, and, in a grand 

 audience at Ca?sarea, having made an oration to some 

 deputies from Tyre and Sidon, he was hailed by his 

 obsequious train as one who spoke like a god. His 

 satisfaction at this flattery was soon after reproved 

 by a violent disorder in his bowels; which carried him 

 oli'in the forty-fourth year of his age, and seventh of 

 his reign. 



HEROD AGRIPPA II., son of the preceding, 

 being too young to govern, Judra was, on his father's 

 death, reduced to a Roman province. He subse- 

 quently received the kingdom of Chalcis, and obtained 

 the superintendency of the temple and sacred uten- 

 sils at Jerusalem, together with the nomination of 

 the high priests. He resided much at Jerusalem, 

 and here, together with his sister Berenice, heard the 

 defence of Paul, addressed to the lloman governor 

 Festus. Being driven from Jerusalem in the revolt 

 which proved so fatal to the Jews, he joined Cestius, 

 the Roman commander, and, when Vespasian was 

 sent into the province, met him with a considerable 

 reinforcement. During the siege of Jerusalem, he 

 was very serviceable to Titus, and, after its reduc- 

 tion, he and Berenice, (with whom he was suspected 

 to have an incestuous intercourse) returned to Rome. 

 He is supposed to have died there, A. D. 94, and in 

 him terminated the Herodian line and family. 



HERODES ATT1CUS, TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS (from 

 Marathon, his birthplace, frequently called Maratho- 

 nius), was descended from Cecrops, and distinguish- 

 ed for his wealth and brilliant accomplishments. 

 He was born in the. reign of Adrian, and held sever- 

 al public offices under the Antonines. A. D. 143, 

 he was appointed eponymosof Athens, and died, pro- 

 bably, after the year 180. The ruins of an odeeon at 

 Athens, which Pausanias preferred to every other, 

 on account of its size and beauty (Pans. FIL, 20), is 

 the only remnant of all the public buildings, baths, 

 canals, statues, &c., with which Herodes Atticus 

 beautified Italy, Greece, and Asia. This odccon, of 

 which the ruins prove the taste of its founder, was 

 consecrated to the memory of Annia Regilla, a Ro- 

 man lady, and the wife of Herodes, whose death he 

 was accused of having hastened by unkindness. An- 

 other place, a short distance from Rome, in the Appian 

 Way, he dedicated to the same object. It was an ex- 

 tensive garden, containing several temples and the 

 sepulchre of his family; which, to give it a more 

 sacred character, Herodes called Triopium, from 

 Triopas, the father of Eresichthon. A statue of Re- 

 gilla contains an inscription, which has excited the 

 attention of the learned, particularly, in recent times, 

 of Visconti, Eichstadt, and Fr. Jacobs. It was pro- 

 bably written by Marcellus Sidetes, and an excellent 

 translation is giving by Fr. Jacobs, in his Leben und 

 Kunst der Alien, 1st vol. The mourning of Herodes 

 for Regilla, which must have been mingled with self- 

 reproach, was remarkable. Even his house seemed to 

 share his grief. To cherish his melancholy, he over- 

 laid all the bright colours with dark Lesbian marble. 

 Of the oratorical talents of Herodes, which procured 

 for him the flattering titles of the tongue of the Greeks 

 and the king of eloquence, only one monument re- 

 mains to us. It is a sophistical declamation On the 

 State, last printed by Fiorillo. It by no means equals 

 his fame. In the market-place of Tenedos, some 



modern travellers found the marble coffin of Hero- 

 des's mother, used as the cov< r of a spring ; the in- 

 scription was given by Clarke. This is omitted in 

 the work of Fiorillo, Herodis Attici, qute supersunt, 

 adnotat. illust, (Remains of Herodes Atticus, illustra- 

 ted with Notes), Leipsic, 1801. 



HERODIAN; a Greek historian, who held seve- 

 ral public offices at Rome, and lived till some time 

 after the year A. D. 238. His history is written in 

 Greek, and comprises the period from the death of 

 Marcus Aurelius to the year above-mentioned. It is 

 in eight books, without chronological data, but writ- 

 ten in a pure and dignified style, in a spirit of inde- 

 pendence and impartiality. A valuable critical 

 edition was published by Irmisch (Leipsic, 1789 

 1805); and a manual edition, by Wolf (Halle, 1792). 

 He has often been confounded with Herodian of 

 Alexandria, who died A. D. 180. 



HERODOTUS, the oldest Greek historian, whose 

 works have come down to us, was born at Halicar- 

 nassus in Caria, in the fourth year of the seventy- 

 third Olympiad, B. C. 484. If by the title father of 

 history, which has been bestowed upon him by the 

 general consent, be meant that he was the first who 

 wrote history in a more elevated manner (or, accord- 

 ing to Cicero, historiam ornavif), he fully deserves 

 that title. Many authors, some of them with suc- 

 cess, had entered this difficult career before him. 

 Hellanicus of Lesbos, Charon of Lampsacus, and 

 Dionysius of Miletus, had even, in a great measure, 

 anticipated Herodotus in the subject of his work. 

 His love of learning was early enkindled by his youth- 

 ful studies, and by examples in his own family. The 

 celebrated epic poet, Panyasis, who was regarded by 

 several ancient critics as inferior only to Homer, was 

 his uncle. H is genius was animated by the works of 

 the writers just mentioned : they excited in him the 

 desire to visit the countries which were described in 

 such glowing colours, and his circumstances permit- 

 ted him to gratify his inclinations. Whether he had 

 conceived the plan of his history, in which the results 

 of his travels are preserved, before his long journey, 

 is uncertain. Egypt, so celebrated for the wisdom of 

 its institutions, seems to have been one of the most 

 constant subjects of his attention. This country liad 

 long been rendered inaccessible to the rest of the 

 world, by the jealousy of its rulers, and the preju- 

 dices of its inhabitants against foreigners. But a 

 short time before Herodotus commenced his travels, 

 it had been opened to the Greeks; and, although it 

 was then almost entirely unknown, and every part 

 of it has since been examined by crowds of travellers, 

 and described in almost every language, yet no au- 

 thor, ancient or modern, has given so accurate and 

 instructive an account of it as Herodotus. He did 

 not content himself with a knowledge of places; he 

 investigated, likewise, the productions of the soil, 

 the manners, customs, and religion of the people, the 

 history of the last princes who reigned before the 

 conquest of the country by the Persians, and many 

 interesting particulars concerning the conquest it- 

 self. The second book of his history, which is devo- 

 ted to the description of Egypt, is still our richest 

 store of information, concerning its ancient history 

 and geography. From Egypt he proceeded to Libya, 

 concerning which he collected a mass of information, 

 equally new to his contemporaries, and valuable to 

 us. His description of the country, from the fron- 

 tiers of Egypt to the straits of Gibraltar, is so conso- 

 nant with the accounts of the most intelligent travel- 

 lers, in particular of doctor Shaw, that we cannot for 

 a moment believe it founded on the relations of others. 

 He asserts himself, that he resided some time in 

 Tyre. He visited the coasts of Palestine, and 

 thence continued his route to Babylon, then opulent 



