to show that neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees as such could in consistency have been really thus friendly, reference may be made to Hausrath (especially his Neu-Testamentliche Zeitgeschichte, and article “Herodianer” in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexicon), and to Wellhausen (Pharisäer u. Sadducäer, 1873). It is possible that, to gain adherents, the Herodian party may have been in the habit of representing that the establishment of a Herodian dynasty would be favourable to the realization of the theocracy; and this in turn may suggest some explanation of Tertullian’s (De Præscr.) palpably absurd allegation that the Herodians regarded Herod himself as the Messiah.
HERODIANUS, the author of a Greek history of the period extending from 180 to 238 a.d. Of his origin and condition in life very little is known. He was in Rome in 203, and seems to have held some public office. It has been conjectured that he was first “procurator Cæsaris” and afterwards “legatus” of the Sicilian provinces, and that, while fulfilling his official duties, he wrote at intervals the history which bears his name. It is entitled Ήρωδιανοῡ τῆς μετὰ Μάρκον Βασιλείας ἱστοριῶν Βιβλία ὀκτώ, and it narrates the events of the fifty-eight years that intervened between the death of Marcus Aurelius and the proclamation of Gordianus III. The narrative is of special value for the reigns of the emperors subsequent to Alexander Severus, with whom the work of Dion Cassius ends. As an historian Herodianus has prominent merits and defects. His work has the value that attaches to a record written by one chronicling the events of his own times, gifted with respectable powers of observation, indubitable candour, and independence of view. But he prefers the interest of style to the interest of truth, and is thus led into exaggerations and errors. The inner life and thought of Rome, the formidable barbarian pressure on her borders, are alike unheeded, that he may blazon his pages with the dazzling vicissitudes of the purple. Though the somewhat sober declamations which he introduces are apt to become tedious, his story is on the whole clear, graceful, and vivacious. The frequent antitheses and studied tricks of phrase savour of the rhetorical schools. Imitations of Thucydides and Latinisms are frequent. Yet in the main his style retains an original cast, a genuine unborrowed beauty, and contrasts favourably with the thin, affected Atticism of the period. Extensive use has been made of Herodianus by later chroniclers. His history was first translated into Latin in the end of the 15th century, by the famous Angelo Poliziano.
HERODIANUS, Ælius, a famous grammarian of antiquity, called by Priscian “maximus auctor artis grammaticæ.” He was the son of the grammarian Apollonius, was born at Alexandria, and resided at Rome. He was patronized by the emperor Marcus Aurelius (161–180 a.d.), to whom he dedicated his great treatise on prosody. This was a work in twenty books, called Καθολικὴ Προσῳδία, which included also an account of the etymological part of grammar. An epitome of it has been preserved. Abstracts of a treatise on difficult words and peculiar forms, called Έπιμερισμοί, are also extant. Besides these, Herodianus wrote various other treatises; but of the large number of titles quoted, some are probably merely names for parts of larger works, Only one of them has come down complete—a treatise on monosyllables (περὶ μονήρους λέξεως). Numerous quotations, however, and considerable fragments still exist.
Fabricius (Bibl. Græc. vi. 278 sqq.) enumerates his works and the passages where they are quoted. Lenz (Herodiani technici reliquiæ, Lips. 1867-70) has collected and thoroughly edited all the remains.
HERODOTUS, according to the best authorities, was born in or about the year 484 b.c. He was a native of Halicarnassus, a city which belonged originally to the Doric Hexapolis, situated towards the south-western corner of Asia Minor, but which from a date considerably anterior to the birth of Herodotus had been excluded from the confederacy, and was an isolated Greek town, dependent upon the Persians. Herodotus was thus born a Persian subject, and such he continued until he was thirty or five- and-thirty years of age. At the time of his birth, Halicarnassus was under the rule of a queen called Artemisia, who had been allowed by the Persians to succeed to the sovereignty of her husband, and was mistress, not only of Halicarnassus, but also of Cos, Nisyrus, and Calydna. The year of her death is unknown; but she left her crown to her son Pisindelis (born about 498 b.c.), who was succeeded upon the throne by his son Lygdamis about the time that Herodotus grew to manhood. The family of Herodotus belonged to the upper rank of the citizens. His father was named Lyxes, and his mother Rhæo, or Dryo. He had a brother Theodore, and an uncle or cousin called Panyasis, who was an epic poet, and a personage of so much importance that the tyrant Lygdamis, suspecting him of treasonable projects, put him to death. It is likely that Herodotus derived from this near relative that love of letters which led him at an early age to the careful study of the existing Greek literature, and determined him ultimately to engage in the composition of his great work. It is probable also that he shared his relative’s political opinions, and was either exiled from Halicarnassus, or quitted it voluntarily, at the time of his execution.
Of the education of Herodotus no more can be said than that it was thoroughly Greek, and embraced no doubt the three subjects essential to a Greek liberal education—grammar, gymnastic training, and music. There is no reason to suppose that he went beyond the walls of his native city for instruction in this, the ordinary, curriculum or that he enjoyed any special advantages in respect of these early studies. They would be regarded as completed when he attained the age of eighteen, and took rank among the “ephebi” or “eirenes” of his native city. Under ordinary circumstances a Greek of this age began at once his duties as a citizen, and found in the excitement of political life sufficient employment for his growing energies. But when a city was ruled by a despot or tyrant, this outlet was wanting; no political life worthy of the name existed; and youths of spirit, more especially those of superior abilities, had to cast about for some other field in which to distinguish themselves. Herodotus may thus have had his thoughts turned to literature as furnishing a not unsatisfactory career, and may well have been encouraged in his choice by the example of Panyasis, who, whether his cousin or his uncle, was certainly his elder, and had already gained a reputation by his writings when Herodotus was still an infant. At any rate it is clear from the extant work of Herodotus that he must have devoted himself early to the literary life, and commenced that extensive course of reading which renders him one of the most instructive as well as one of the most charming of ancient writers. The poetical literature of Greece was in his time already large; the prose literature was more extensive than is generally supposed; yet Herodotus shows an intimate acquaintance with the whole of it. He has drunk at the Homeric cistern till his entire being is impregnated with the influence thence derived. The Iliad and the Odyssey are as familiar to him as Shakespeare to the most highly educated of modern Englishmen. He is acquainted with the poems of the epic cycle, the Cypria, the Epigoni, &c. He quotes or otherwise shows familiarity with the writings of Hesiod, Olen, Musæus, Bacis, Lysistratus, Archilochus of Paros, Alcæus, Sappho, Solon, Æsop, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Simonides of Ceos, Phrynichus, Æschylus, and Pindar. He quotes and criticizes Hecatæus, the best of the prose writers who had preceded him, and makes numerous allusions to other authors
