not inherit the kingdom of God, that his reputation as a heretic chiefly depends.
HIERO, the name of two rulers of Syracuse.
Hiero I., displacing his infant nephew, succeeded his famous brother Gelon as tyrant of Syracuse in 478 b.c. His rule was more tyrannical than Gelon’s had been, and his jealousy of his more popular brother Polyzelus (who was at the head of the army, and had married Gelon’s widow Demarete, daughter of Theron of Agrigentum) ended in an open quarrel, in which Theron sided with Polyzelus. The brothers, however, were reconciled, and Hiero married Theron’s sister. From the slight information extant regarding Hiero, his influence seems to have been very great. He removed the inhabitants of Naxos and Catana to Leontini, and peopled Catana, which he renamed /Etna, with Dorians. He was also an important factor in the history of Agrigentum, of Rhegium, and of Locri; and he saved the Greeks of Campania from the Etruscans, whose naval power he destroyed by his great victory at Cumz (474 b.c.). Though despotic in his rule, he was a hearty patron of literature, and numbered among his friends such names as /Eschylus, Bacchylides, Epicharmus, Simonides, and Pindar—the last of whom celebrated his victories in the Grecian games. He died at Catana in 467 b.c.
Hiero II., king of Syracuse, was the illegitimate son of a Syracusan noble, Hierocles, who claimed descent from Gelon (see Gelon). His birth must have taken place before the year 306 b.c. On the departure of Pyrrhus from Sicily (in 275 or end of 276 b.c.), the Syracusan army and citizens alike marked their approval of Hiero’s military and popular qualities by placing him at the head of the troops, and he materially strengthened his position by marrying the daughter of Leptines, the leading citizen. A body of Campanian mercenaries, who had been employed by King Agathocles of Syracuse, had taken the designation of Mamertines, and occupied Messana. From this stronghold they harassed the Syracusans, Hiero led his army against them, and in the engagement that ensued he abandoned to the enemy his mercenary troops, whose fickle disposition he distrusted, and retreated with the rest of his soldiers to Syracuse. There he raised a native force, with which he drove the Mamertines into the corner of the island, defeated them in a pitched battle, and was prevented from capturing Messana only by Carthaginian interference. His grateful countrymen then chose him king (270 b.c.). In 264 he again returned to the attack, and the Mamertines called in the aid of Rome. Hiero at once joined the Punic leader Hanno, who had newly landed in Sicily; but being defeated by the consul Appius Claudius, he withdrew to Syracuse. Pressed by the Roman forces, he was in 263 compelled to conclude a treaty with Rome, by which he was to rule over the south-east of Sicily and the eastern coast to Tauro- menium. From this time till his death in 216 he remained the fast friend of Rome, rendering frequent and valuable service during the First Punic War by supplying men, miterial, and provisions, Presents were sent him in acknowledgement of these good offices; but the strong desire of the Romans to occupy Sicily prevented his receiving any accession of territory at the close of the war. When the Second Punic War broke out, he was faithful as ever, joined his fleet to that of Sempronius, and offered supplies of food and clothing. At home, he was a wise and just ruler. He retained the republican senate, and governed as a constitutional monarch. Munificent in his gifts to foreigners—witness his presents to Olympia, to the Rhodians, to King Ptolemy, and above all to the Romans— and in the erection of public buildings within his own domain, he was exceedingly simple in his personal tastes ; he wore a citizen’s dress, and was not attended by guards. So wise were his financial arrangements that they were retained by the Romans after the reduction of Sicily. He kept up a powerful fleet for defensive purposes, and employed his famous kinsman Archimedes in the construction of those engines that, at a later date, played so important a part during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans. His only son, Gelon, predeceased him, and he was succeeded by his grandson Hieronymus.
HIEROCLES, a Roman proconsul, first of Bithynia and afterwards of Alexandria, flourished during the reign of Diocletian (284–305 a.d.), and is said to have been the instigator of the fierce persecution of the Christians under Galerius Cesar in 303. He was a man of considerable intellectual culture, and wrote a work entitled Adyoe prad7nbes pds tors Xpioteavors in two books, in which he endeavoured to persuade the Christians that their sacred books were full of contradictions, and that in moral influence and miraculous power Christ was inferior to Apollonius of Tyana. For our knowledge of the nature of this treatise, which has not come down to our times, we are dependent on Lactantius (/zstit. Div., v. 2), and still more on Eusebius, who is the author of a refutation entitled avTippntiKos mpods Ta ‘Tepoxdéovs.
HIEROCLES, a Neo-Platonic writer of the 5th century a.d., was apparently a native of Alexandria. He was born most probably about the beginning of the 5th century, studied under the celebrated Neo-Platonist Plutarch at Athens, and taught for some years in his native town. He seems to have been banished from Alexandria and to have taken up his abode in Constantinople, where he endured some persecution for his religious opinions. His death must be referred to the closing decade of the 5th century, probably about 490. The only complete work of his which has come down to us is the commentary on the great Pythagorean Carmen Aureum, but several other writings, specially one on Providence or Foreknowledge, are quoted or referred to by Photius and Stobeus. The commentary contains several remarkable utterances, and is written with much elegance. Philosophy is there regarded in its practical aspect, as a discipline for purifying or clevating the mind by inculcating virtue and leading to truth. The most curious doctrines contained in the work are those bearing on providence and the human soul. The activity of the Divine Being, the supreme God, although eternal and all- reaching, is viewed as extending specially or immediately only to spiritual existences, or rather to the genera of such existences. The individuals are not directly the objects of divine operation, but are left to natural chance or law. In more modern phraseology there is only, according to Hierocles, general, not particular, providence. As against divine foreknowledge, perfect freedom of individual will is maintained. All that is preordained is but the connexion between volitions and their natural consequents. As re- gards the human soul, the teaching of Hierocles in the main resembles Neo-Pythagoreanism. He states the doctrine of transmigration and pre-existence, holds that there is an etherzal body which is purified by trial along with the soul, and regards the world as the means by which judg- ment upon the past actions of the individual spirit is carried out.
The carliest edition of the commentary is the Latin translation by Aurispa in 1474; the Greek text was first given by Curterius in 1583. The fragments of the works on Providence and Fate were published in 1593 by Morellus. Later editions of all that is preserved appeared in 1654-5, 1673, and 1709. The commentary alone has been edited by Ashton (1742), by Wolf (1710), by Gaisford in his edition of Stobeus (1850), and finally by Mullach (1852). The jest-book entitled aereta (edited by Schier, 1768, and Eberhard, 1869), though frequently attributed to this author, is certainly the work of a later hand. The most complete information regarding Hierocles is to be found in Mullach’s edition, and in the relative portions of his Fragmenta Phil. Gracorum, 1860, i. 408 sg. Cf. Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen (2d ed.), iii. 2, pp. 681-7.
