Hiordis

“ The brother of the Knight called to the jay, "Diablesse!" and scraped with his foot, as a signal.
"Appear, pale man!" spake the creature; "the clock vibrates the hour; man of sorrow, land upon the still island!"
Hiort stepped forth, with his cheeks painted pale, with open breast, looked upon the tomb, and said, from his innermost soul, "At last!" The music played a dance. "Yes, indeed, island of slumber thou may'st well be called; our days end with a sleep," he added. Now came his Carlos. "Hiort, art thou dead?" cried he, in terror, over the corpse. ”

“ In the days of bondage Hydra flourished, because it was comparatively free. With the establishment of general freedom, Hydra lost all special privilege; commerce, as commerce always will, went to such spots as best suited it; Peiraieus and Syra rose as Hydra went down. Yet Hydra and Spetza at least form part of free Greece. Psara, the isle of Constantine Kanarês, is still in bondage. It is something to stand before the house of the last of the old heroes, to look out on Salamis, and to remember that, when the battle was fought, Themistoklês too was ἄπολις ἀνήρ. ”

“ Besides this story of the rearing of the children, I heard also other things at Memphis, in converse with the priests of Hephaestus; and I visited Thebes too and Heliopolis for this very purpose, because I desired to know if the people of those places would tell me the same tale as the priests at Memphis; for the people of Heliopolis are said to be the most learned of the Egyptians. Now, for the stories which I heard about the gods, I am not desirous to relate them, saving only the names of the deities; for I hold that no man knows about the gods more than another ”

“ Through the twisted streets of modern Athens the beautiful Tower of the Winds is his constant land-mark; Hadrian, with his Olympieion, with his triumphal Arch, with his Library, confronts him at every turn; when he goes to the great [2] Stadion to see ‘Olympian’ games or a revived ‘Antigone,’ when he looks down from the Acropolis into the vast Odeion, Herodes Atticus cannot well be forgotten. Moreover, if he really cares to know what Athens was in Roman days, the scholar can leave behind him his Murray and his Baedeker and take for his only guide the contemporary of Hadrian, Pausanias. ”

“ The Medes, roughly handled, retired; and the Persians whom the king called "Immortal," and whom Hydarnes commanded, took their place and advanced to the attack, thinking that they indeed should easily settle the business. But they succeeded no better than the Medic troops, but just the same, as they fought in a narrow space, and used shorter spears than the Greeks, and were unable to avail themselves of their numbers. The Lacedæmonians fought memorably, showing that they knew how to fight with men who knew not, and whenever they turned their backs, they retreated in close order ”

“ Know, first, that Hylas has been taken by the nymphs who love him and who think to win his love, and that he will stay forever with them in their cold and glimmering cave. For Hylas seek no more. And to you, Heracles, I will say this: Go aboard the Argo again; the ship will take you to where a great labor awaits you, and which, in accomplishing, you will work out the will of Zeus. You will know what this labor is when a spirit seizes on you. ”

“ He sent a messenger into Phrygia to those Paeonians who had been led away captive by Megabazus from the river Strymon, and who now dwelt by themselves in Phrygia, having a tract of land and a hamlet of their own. This man, when he reached the Paeonians, spoke thus to them:-
"Men of Paeonia, Aristagoras, king of Miletus, has sent me to you, to inform you that you may now escape, if you choose to follow the advice he proffers. All Ionia has revolted from the king; and the way is open to you to return to your own land. You have only to contrive to reach the sea-coast ”

“ O king of the Syracusans, it was not of a leader that Hellas was in want when it sent us to thee, but of an army. Thou however dost not set before us the hope that thou wilt send an army, except thou have the leadership of Hellas; and thou art striving how thou mayest become commander of the armies of Hellas. So long then as it was thy demand to be leader of the whole army of the Hellenes, it was sufficient for us Athenians to keep silence, knowing that the Lacedemonian would be able to make defence even for us both ”

“ Whereupon the warlike god went to a neighbouring city and rallied round him a body of men, who forced an entrance for him, and treated the attendants none too gently. Therefore a fight with clubs is appointed for this festival.”
“Were the Egyptian gods at all like the Greek?” asked Harry.
“Oh, yes!” replied Herodotus, “for it is my belief that the Greek gods came, with but few exceptions, from Egypt—but this is a subject too long and too deep to speak of now. When thou readest my writings thou wilt learn much about this very question.” ”

“ Hydra is a very long constellation, and trending southward and eastward from the head it passes underneath Leo, and, sweeping pretty close down to the horizon, winds away under Corvus, the tail reaching to the eastern horizon. The length of this skyey serpent is about 100°. Its stars are all faint, except Alphard, or the Hydra's Heart, a second-magnitude star, remarkable for its lonely situation, southwest of Regulus. A line from Gamma Leonis through Regulus points it out. It is worth looking at with the glass on account of its rich orange-tint. ”

“ Darius therefore sent a messenger to Myrcinus, who said, "These be the words of the king to thee, O Histiaeus! I have looked to find a man well affectioned towards me and towards my greatness; and I have found none whom I can trust like thee. Thy deeds, and not thy words only, have proved thy love for me. Now then, since I have a mighty enterprise in hand, I pray thee come to me, that I may show thee what I purpose!"
Histiaeus, when he heard this, put faith in the words of the messenger; and, as it seemed to him a grand thing to be the king's counsellor, he straightway went up to Sardis. ”

“ From thence and as far as Heliopolis inland Egypt is broad, and the land is all flat and without springs of water and formed of mud: and the road as one goes inland from the sea to Heliopolis is about the same in length as that which leads from the altar of the twelve gods at Athens to Pisa and the temple of Olympian Zeus: reckoning up you would find the difference very small by which these roads fail of being equal in length, not more indeed than fifteen furlongs ”

“ Three nations, however, consecrated for themselves separate temples- the Eginetans one to Jupiter, the Samians to Juno, and the Milesians to Apollo.
In ancient times there was no factory but Naucratis in the whole of Egypt; and if a person entered one of the other mouths of the Nile, he was obliged to swear that he had not come there of his own free will. Having so done, he was bound to sail in his ship to the Canobic mouth, or were that impossible owing to contrary winds, he must take his wares by boat all round the Delta, and so bring them to Naucratis, which had an exclusive privilege. ”

“ You may always know Hercules in pictures and statues by his knotted club and his lion-skin.
It was easy enough to find the Hydra—only too easy. It had its nest in a foul stagnant swamp, the air of which its breath turned to poison. Giving Iolas his other arms to hold, Hercules attacked the Hydra with his club alone, trusting to his lion-skin to receive the strokes of the creature’s fangs. With a tremendous blow he crushed one of the Hydra’s hundred heads, leaving ninety-nine more to destroy if he could hold out so long. ”

“ This is like the story told by the Egyptians of what takes place in their city of Thebes, where a woman always passes the night in the temple of the Theban Jupiter. In each case the woman is said to be debarred all intercourse with men. It is also like the custom of Patara, in Lycia, where the priestess who delivers the oracles, during the time that she is so employed- for at Patara there is not always an oracle- is shut up in the temple every night. ”

“ The sun-god Rē‛ (see Egypt: Religion) was especially the royal god, the ancestor of all the Pharaohs, who therefore held the temple of Heliopolis in great honour. Each dynasty might give the first place to the god of its residence—Ptah of Memphis, Ammon of Thebes, Neith of Sais, Bubastis of Bubastis, but all alike honoured Rē‛. His temple became in a special degree a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. ”

“ And now let us look at the Hyades, an assemblage of stars not less beautiful than their more celebrated sisters the Pleiades. The leader of the Hyades is Aldebaran, or Alpha Tauri, and his followers are worthy of their leader. The inexperienced observer is certain to be surprised by the display of stars which an opera-glass brings to view in the Hyades. ”

“ And whom, moreover, what man or what woman, hast thou slain?" "Oh! king," replied the Phrygian, "I am the son of Gordias, son of Midas. I am named Adrastus. The man I unintentionally slew was my own brother. For this my father drove me from the land, and I lost all. Then fled I here to thee." "Thou art the offspring," Croesus rejoined, "of a house friendly to mine, and thou art come to friends. Thou shalt want for nothing so long as thou abidest in my dominions. Bear thy misfortune as easily as thou mayest, so will it go best with thee." Thenceforth Adrastus lived in the palace of the king. ”

“ The repulse was bloody. If once Leonidas’s line broke and the Persians rushed on with howls of triumph, it was only to see the Hellenes’ files close in a twinkling and return to the onset with their foes in confusion. Hydarnes led back his men [pg 221] at last. The king sat on the ivory throne just out of arrow shot, watching the ebb and flow of the battle. Hydarnes approached and prostrated himself.
“Omnipotence, I the least of your slaves put my life at your bidding. Command that I forfeit my head, but my men can do no more. I have lost hundreds. The pass is not to be stormed.” ”

“ But when they were at sea off Iapygia, a great storm caught and drove them ashore; and their ships being wrecked, and no way left of returning to Crete, they founded there the town of Hyria, and abode in it, changing from Cretans to Messapians of Iapygia, and from islanders to dwellers on the mainland. From Hyria they made settlements in those other towns, which a very long time afterwards the Tarentines essayed to destroy, but suffered great disaster thereby; so that none has ever heard of so great a slaughter of Greeks as was made of the Tarentines and Rhegians ”

“ If thou do not hasten to make a sea-fight, but keep thy ships here by the land, either remaining here thyself or even advancing on to the Peloponnese, that which thou hast come to do, O master, will easily be effected; for the Hellenes are not able to hold out against thee for any long time, but thou wilt soon disperse them and they will take flight to their several cities: since neither have they provisions with them in this island, as I am informed, nor is it probable that if thou shalt march thy land-army against the Peloponnese, they who have come from thence will remain still ”

“ It is reddish in colour, and the spectrum of its light is very similar to that of the temporary stars. Whether it will [Pg 288] ever become a brilliant object again, time alone can tell; but from the fact that it was presumably faint in Al-Sufi’s time, and afterwards increased to the brightness of Sirius, it seems possible that its light may again revive.
The long constellation Hydra lies south of Cancer, Leo, Crater, Corvus, Virgo, and Libra. It was also called Asina, Coluber, Anguis, Sublimatus, etc. In the Greek mythology it was supposed to represent the Lernæan serpent killed by Hercules. ”

“ They crossed the river Halys, entered Phrygia, and arrived at Celænæ, where rise the springs of the Mæander, and of another river not less than the Mæander, which is called the Catarractes, which, springing up in the very forum of the Celænians, discharges itself into the Mæander; in this city the skin of Silenus Marsyas is suspended, which, as the Phrygians report, was stripped off and suspended by Apollo. In this city Pythius, son of Atys, a Lydian, being in waiting, entertained the whole army of the king, and Xerxes himself, with most sumptuous feasts ”

“ And when Hippias had returned to Asia from Lacedemon, he set everything in motion, stirring up enmity between the Athenians and Artaphrenes, and using every means to secure that Athens should come under the rule of himself and of Dareios. Hippias, I say, was thus engaged; and the Athenians meanwhile hearing of these things sent envoys to Sardis, and endeavoured to prevent the Persians from following the suggestions of the exiled Athenians. Artaphrenes however commanded them, if they desired to be preserved from ruin, to receive Hippias back again. ”

“ The others then put in their ships to land at Salamis, but the Athenians went over to their own land; and after their coming they made a proclamation that every one of the Athenians should endeavour to save his children and household as best he could. So the greater number sent them to Troizen, but others to Egina, and others to Salamis, and they were urgent to put these out of danger, both because they desired to obey the oracle and also especially for another reason, which was this:—the Athenians say that a great serpent lives in the temple 25 and guards the Acropolis ”