Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/539

I HORTENSIUS. under which tlie god had a statue at Oh'mpia. (Paus. V. 24. § 2 ; Eurip. IlippoL 1025.) [L. S.] HORCUS ("Op/cos), the personification of an oath, is described by Hesiod as the son of Eris, and the avenger of perjury. {Tlieog. 231, Op. 209 ; Herod, vi. 86. § 3.) [L. S.] HORDEO'NIUS FLACCUS. [Flaccus.] HORDEO'NIUS LOLLIANUS. [Lollia- NUS.] HORME ('0/j,u7f), the personification of energetic activity, who had an altar dedicated to her at Athens. (Paus. i. 17. § 1.) [L.S.] HORMUS, was one of Vespasian's freedmen, and commanded a detachment in Caecina's division i«. c. 70. He was said to have instigated the sol- diers to the sack of Cremona. After the war his services were recompensed with the rank of eques. (Tiic. Hist, iii, 12, 28; iv. 39.) [W. B. D] HORTALUS. [HoRTENsius, Nos. 8, 10.] HORTE'NSIA. 1. Daughter of the orator Q. Hortensius. She partook of his eloquence, and spoke before the triumvirs in behalf of the wealthy- matrons, when these were threatened with a special tax to defray the expenses of the war against Bru- tus and Cassius. (Val. Max. viii. 3. § 3 ; Quintil. i. 1 . § 6 ; Appian, B. C. iv. 32.) 2. A sister of the orator, wife of M. Valerius Messala. Their son nearly became heir to the orator [Hortensius, No. 8]. [H. G. L.] HORTE'NSIA GENS, plebeian ; for we have an Hortensius as tribunus plebis [Hortensius, No. 1], and there is no evidence of any patrician families of this name. Cicero, indeed, gives the epithet of nohilis to the orator {pro Qu'inct. 22 ; cf. Plut. Cat. Maj. 25 ; Plin. H. N. 9, 80) ; but this is sufficiently accounted for by the high curule offices that had been held by several of his ances- tors. The name seems to have been derived from the gardeninfj propensities of the first person Avho bore it ; and the surname Hortalus, borne by the great orator's son [Nos. 8 and 10], seems, as Dru- mann observes, to have been a kind of nickname of the orator himself. (Cic. Att. ii. 25, iv. 15.) [H. G. L.] HORTE'NSIUS. 1. Q. Hortensius, tribu- nus plebis, B.C. 419. He indicted C. Sempronius, consul of the year before, for ill conduct of the Volscian war, but dropped his accusation at the instance of four of his colleagues. (Liv. iv. 42 ; cf. Val. Max. vi. 5. 2.) 2. Q. Hortensius, dictator about b. c. 286 (Fasti). The commons, oppressed by debt, had broken out into sedition, and ended by seceding to the Janiculum. He was appointed dictator to remedy the evil, and for this purpose re-enacted the Lex Horatia- Valeria (of the year 446 B. c), and the Lex Publilia (b. c. 336), " ut quod plebs jussisset omnes Quirites teneret." (Plin. H. N. xvi. § 37 ; cf. Liv. Ejnt. xi.) On the supposed difference of these three laws, see Niebuhr, R. II. vol. ii. p. 365, vol. iii. p. 418, &c. He passed another law, establishing the nundinae as dies fasti., and intro- ducing the trinundinum as the necessary term be- tween promulgating and proposing a le» centu- riata. {Diet, of Antiq. s. v. Nundinae.) 3. L. Hortensius, as praetor, B.C. 171, suc- ceeded C. Lucretius in the command of the fleet in the war with Perseus, and pursued a like course of oppression with his predecessor. Of Abdera he demanded 100,000 denarii and 50,000 modii of wheat ; and when the inhabitants sent to entreat HORTENSIUS. 525 the protection of the consul Mancinus and of the senate, Hortensius was so enraged that he stormed and pillaged the city, beheaded the chief men, and sold the rest into slavery. The senate contented themselves with voting this act to be unjust, and commanding that all who had been sold should be set free. Hortensius continued his robberies, and was again reprimanded by the senate for his treat- ment of the Chalcidians ; but we do not hear that he was recalled or punished. (Liv. xliii. 3, 4, 7,8.) 4. Q. Hortensius, found in some Fasti as con- sul in B.C. 108. 5. L. Hortensius, father of the orator, praetor of Sicily in b. c. 97, and remembered there for his just and upright conduct. (Cic. Ferr. iii. 16.) He married Sempronia, daughter of C. Sernpr. Tuditanus (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 6, 30, 32). 6. Q. Hortensius, l. f., the orator, bom in B. c. 114, eight years before Cicero, the same year that L. Crassus made his famous speech for the Vestal Licinia (Cic. Brut. 64, 94). At the eariy age of nineteen he appeared in the forum, and his first speech gained the applause of the consuls, L. Crassus and Q. Scaevola, the former the greatest orator, the latter the first jurist of the day. Crassus also heard his second speech for Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, who had been expelled by his brother Chrestus. His client was restored (Cic. de Oral. iii. 61). By these speeches Hortensius at once rose to eminence as an advocate. Q. Hortensius., says Cicero, admodum adolescentis ingenium simul spectatum et prohatum est {Brut. 64). But his forensic pursuits were soon interrupted by the Social War, in which he was obliged to serve two campaigns (b. c. 91, 90), in the first as a legionarj', in the second as tribunus militum {Brut. 89). In the year 86 b. c. he defended young Cn. Pompeius, who was accused of having embezzled some of the public booty taken at Ascuium in the course of the war {Brut. 64). But, for the most part, the courts were silent during the anarchy which fol- lowed the Marian massacres, up to the return of Sulla, B. c. 83. But these troubles, though they checked the young orator in his career, left him complete master of the courts — rex judiciorum., — as Cicero calls him {Divin. in Q. Caecil. 7). For Crassus had died before the landing of Marius ; Antonius, Catulus, and others fell victims in the massacres; and Cotta, who survived, yielded the first place to his younger rival. Hortensius, therefore, began his brilliant professional career anew, and was carried along on the top of the wave till he met a more powerful than himself in Cicero. Henceforth he confined himself to civil life, and was wont to boast in his old age that he had never borne arms in any domestic strife ( Cic. ml Fam. ii. 16). He attached himself closely to the dominant Sullane or aristocratic party, and his chief professional labours were in defending men of this party, when accused of mal-adminstration and extortion in their provinces, or of bribery and the like in canvassing for public honours. His con- stant success, partly due to his own eloquence, readiness, and skill (of which we shall say some- what hereafter), was yet in great measure due to circumstances. The judices at that time were all taken from the senatorial order, i. e. from the same party with those who were arraigned before them, and the presiding praetor was of the same party. Moreover, the accusers were for the most part young men, of ability indeed and ambition, but