Hipparion

“ The process by which the Anchitherium has been converted into Equus is one of specialisation, or of more and more complete deviation from what might be called the average form of an ungulate mammal. In the Horses, the reduction of some parts of the limbs, together with the special modification of those which are left, is carried to a greater extent than in any other hoofed mammals. The reduction is less and the specialisation is less in the Hipparion, and still less in the Anchitherium ”

“ Any modification affecting the density of the soil might so far relate to the changes of limb-structure, as that a foot with a pair of small hoofs dangling by the sides of the large one, like those behind the cloven hoof of the ox, would cause the foot of Hipparion, e.g., and a fortiori the broader based three-hoofed foot of the Palæothere, to sink less deeply into swampy soil, and be more easily withdrawn than the more concentratively simplified and specialized foot of the horse. ”

“ The barbarians shouted with delight. The hippopotamus turned furiously against his new assailant, crushing, alas! the empty canoe to fragments with a single snap of his enormous jaws; but the turn was fatal to him; the barge was close upon him, and as he presented his broad side to the blow, the sinewy arm of the giant drove a harpoon through his heart, and with one convulsive shudder the huge blue mass turned over on its side and floated dead.
Poor Philammon! He alone was silent, amid the yells of triumph; sorrowfully he swam round and round his little paper wreck . . . . ”

“ Caliph’s great delight was to take his master on his broad back and plunge into the swimming pool.
Our critical friends say that a Hippopotamus is not intelligent enough to be trained; that they are vicious, are not to be trusted, and have no memory. I give you these facts to disprove their theory and to give the Hippo a square deal. I feel that he is a much maligned beast. Many of them are loving, gentle and faithful, if handled by those who love and want to understand them. ”

“ The Hippo is certainly not handsome. He has a huge barrel body submerged in fat mounted on short stumpy legs and a gigantic head with a mouth of such enormous size and capacity as to be positively terrifying. The huge, horse-like nose is covered with stiff bristles, the nostrils flare like fans, the eyes bulge, and the forehead is low and flat, with two foolish looking ears sticking up on either side of it.
The weight of this great beast averages from four thousand to eight thousand pounds. ”

“ Hippo belonged to a herd consisting of from twenty to thirty hippopotami—mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, relations of all kinds, and several little baby calves. They agreed well together, on the whole.
The only time they grew quarrelsome was when they were selecting new wives, or when one of them had discovered a field of corn or rice, and found that the others wanted to explore it, too. Then some nasty things were said, and some terrible fights took place; for, although a hippopotamus is such a heavy and ungainly creature, he can move swiftly when he is angry. ”

“ As a rule, each is known to us only by small fragments of its skeleton, so that we can have no assurance as to what the whole animal was really like, or even that all parts assigned to one creature really belonged to him. We can accordingly feel no certainty that if we could see any of these as a whole we should find it possible to suppose that the horse descended from it. Thus in Hippidium, an American genus closely allied to Equus, it is at least doubtful whether the digits did not terminate in claws. [285] One species of Hippidium is known only by a solitary tooth. ”

“ Another citizen, Aristogiton, had reasons of his own for wishing ill to Hipparchus: he stimulated his friend Harmodius to a keener sense of the injury, and they resolved to [170] wash away their wrongs in blood. But few associates were admitted to the knowledge of their plot, which was to be executed at the Panathenaic festival, when it was usual for all persons to appear in arms. Hipparchus alone was personally offensive; but to dissolve the tyranny, and to secure themselves from retribution, Hippias was to be involved in his brother’s fate. ”

“ Nay rather, they were to experience unnumbered ills and they were to be in perplexity; and the course of their apostleship they were by no means to find free of peril, as he intimated indeed by way of an example, when he said, “Let (Dan) be,” meaning by that, that there shall be a multitude of persecutors in Dan like a “serpent lying by the way on the path, stinging the horse’s heel,” i.e., giving fierce and dangerous bites; for the bites of snakes are generally very dangerous. And they were “in the heel” in particular, for “he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” ”

“ Then wild, as though he were one of the doomed youths, Hippomenes made his way through the throng and came before the black-bearded King of Bœtia. The king’s brows were knit, for even then he was pronouncing doom upon the youths who had been left behind in the race. He looked upon Hippomenes, another youth who would make the trial, and the frown became heavier upon his face.
But Hippomenes saw only Atalanta. She came beside her father; the wreath was upon her head of gold, and her eyes were wide and tender. ”

“ The type-genus of the family is Hippurites itself (fig. 199) , in which the shell is in the shape of a straight or slightly-twisted horn, sometimes a foot or more in length, constituted by the attached lower valve, and closed above by a small lid-like free upper valve. About a hundred species of the family of the Hippuritidœ are known, all of these being Cretaceous, and occurring in Britain (one species only) , in Southern Europe, the West Indies, North America, Algeria, and Egypt. ”

“ The fate of Hippolytus is indeed tragic—a lofty and pure character destroyed by his own purity; but the spectator is partly reconciled to it, and the vengeance of the deity is palliated, by the bold and somewhat impious contempt for her which he expresses at the opening of the play. The aged servant who begs him to offer the customary sacrifice to Aphrodite, and not brave her anger, touches the proper string; the bold self-opinion of the hero gives a jarring sound. ”

“ Hipparchus inherited his father's literary tastes. He invited several distinguished poets, such as Anacreon and Simonides, to his court. The people appear to have been contented with their rule; and it was only an accidental circumstance which led to their overthrow and to a change in the government.
Their fall was occasioned by the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who were attached to each other by a most intimate friendship. Harmodius having given offence to Hippias, the despot revenged himself by putting a public affront upon his sister. ”

“ Hipparchus, ancient astronomer, born at Nicæa; flourished in the 2nd century B.C.; discovered among other things the precession of the equinoxes, determined the place of the equinox, and catalogued 1000 fixed stars.
Hippias, tyrant of Athens, son of Pisistratus; expelled from Athens, applied to the Persians to reinstate him, and kindled the first Persian War with Greece; fell at Marathon, 490 B.C.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, born at Cos, 460 B.C.; was a contemporary of Socrates and Plato; was of wide-spread renown as a physician ”

“ Hippias being their despot and growing ever bitterer in enmity against the Athenians by reason of Hipparchus’ death, the Alcmeonidae, a family of Athenian stock banished by the sons of Pisistratus, essayed with the rest of the banished Athenians to make their way back by force and free Athens, but could not prosper in their return and rather suffered great hurt. ”

“ When we consider all that Hipparchus invented or perfected, and reflect upon the number of his works and the mass of calculations which they imply, we must regard him as one of the most astonishing men of antiquity, and as the greatest of all in the sciences which are not purely speculative, and which require a combination of geometrical knowledge with a knowledge of phenomena, to be observed only by diligent attention and refined instruments. ”

“ Hippys is quoted by Aelian (N. A. ix. 33) , by Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v. Ἀρκάς) , who says that Hippys first called the Arcadians προσελήνους; by Plutarch (de Defect. Orac. 23, p. 422) ; by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (iv. 262) , and, with a corruption of the name into Ἱππίας and Ἱππεύς, by Athenaeus (i. p. 31, b.) ; by a Scholiast on Euripides (Med. 9) ; and by Zenobius (Prov. iii. 42) . Perhaps too one passage (Antig. Hist. Mir. 133) , in which the name of Hippon of Rhegium occurs, may really refer to Hippys. ”

“ Is this the proud Hippolytus I see, Than whom there breathed no fiercer foe to love And to that yoke which Theseus has so oft Endured? And can it be that Venus, scorn'd So long, will justify your sire at last? Has she, then, setting you with other mortals, Forced e'en Hippolytus to offer incense Before her? Can you love? HIPPOLYTUS Friend, ask me not. You, who have known my heart from infancy And all its feelings of disdainful pride, Spare me the shame of disavowing all That I profess'd. ”

“ Black wings outspread, blue hoofs plunging, roaring from the fiery pits of its violet nostrils, the hippodrac was master in the land.
In the hope of ridding themselves of the monster, the people of the Golden Plain offered a huge treasure to whosoever might conquer the invader. In true soldier fashion the grenadier resolved to fight the hippodrac, and win fame and fortune at a blow. ”

“ But he disdained the goddess, as he could not marry the statue; and taking the courtesan Lamia, he ascended the Acropolis, and lay with her on the couch of Athene, showing to the old virgin the postures of the young courtesan.
There is no cause for indignation, then, at Hippo, who immortalized his own death. For this Hippo ordered the following elegy to be inscribed on his tomb:
“This is the sepulchre of Hippo, whom Destiny
Made, through death, equal to the immortal gods.” Well done, Hippo! thou showest to us the delusion of men. ”

“ Now the vision of a dream which Hipparchos had was this:—in the night before the Panathenaia it seemed to Hipparchos that a man came and stood by him, tall and of fair form, and riddling spoke to him these verses:
"With enduring soul as a lion endure unendurable evil: No one of men who doth wrong shall escape from the judgment appointed." ”

“ Her white hair hung down the sides of her waxen cheeks; the mouth, without lips, resembled a deep furrow; her eyes were sealed forever beneath the corroded eyelids; her entire air expressed a reminiscence of innumerable pains.
"Is she dead?" asked Hippolyte in a whisper, stopping, seized by fear and respect.
The multitude was pushing about the Sanctuary. The processions whirled around chanting, beneath the cruel sun. One of these processions came from under the great portal and turned towards the open space, preceded by its cross-bearer. ”

“ Hippolytus, charged by Theseus with the crime, will not break his oath and goes out to exile under his father's curse. The gods, in fulfilment of the curse, send death to him, but before he actually dies reveal his innocence. The story which might so easily be made ugly or sensual is treated by Euripides with a delicate and austere purity. In construction, too, and general beauty of workmanship, though not in greatness of idea or depth of passion, the Hippolytus is perhaps the finest of all his plays, and has still a great appeal on the stage. ”

“ Thus many suitors had perished, for the maiden was unequalled for swiftness of foot, but at last a beautiful youth, named Hippomenes, who had vainly endeavoured to win her love by his assiduous attentions in the chase, ventured to enter the fatal lists. Knowing that only by stratagem could he hope to be successful, he obtained, by the help of Aphrodite, three golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides, which he threw down at intervals during his course. Atalanta, secure of victory, stooped to pick up the tempting fruit, and, in the meantime, Hippomenes arrived at the goal. ”

“ Fourteen years had thus passed in peace and prosperity, when Hipparchus gave serious offense to a citizen named Harmo ́dius, who thereupon united with his friend Aristogi ́ton in a plot to murder the two tyrants. Hipparchus was slain. Hippias saved himself by promptness and presence of mind; but from that day his character was changed. His most intimate friends had been accused by the conspirators as concerned in the plot, and executed. Though the charge was false and made only for revenge, the suspicions of Hippias never again slept. ”

“ In order to understand the difficulties of this question Ptolemy says one should read the books of the ancients, and especially those of Hipparchus, whom he praises “as a lover of labour and a lover of truth” (ἀνδρὶ φιλοπόνῳ τε ὁμοῦ καὶ φιλαληθεῖ) . He begins by telling us how Hipparchus was led to discover the precession of the equinoxes; he relates the observations by which Hipparchus verified the eccentricity of the solar orbit imperfectly known to his Chaldaean predecessors, and gives the hypothesis of the eccentric by which he explained the inequality of the sun’s motion. ”

“ HIP Hipozẻugma, a figure when euery clause hath his proper verbe.
Hippáce, cheese of mares milke.
Hippagrẻto, such a one as is Captaine ouer armed men. It is vsed in Xenophon.
Hippáro, Hippárico, as Hippúro.
Hippẻa, a Comet or blazing-starre hauing maines like horses, most swift in motion, and euer turning.
Híppia, Chick-weed.
Hippíce, as Hipíce.
Hippicóne, a Greeke measure of fiue hundred paces or halfe an Italian and English mile.
Híppo, as Hipúro. Also the Greeke word for a horse. Also the Coast crab-fish.
Hippocámpo, a Sea-horse. Also a fish called a Sea-light. ”