Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/367

Rh HARPOCRATION. twenty- four, and a Lexicon to Plato in two, books. (Suidas.) He seems to be the same as the Harpo-^ cration who is mentioned by Athenaeus (xiv. p. 648) along with Chiysippus, and by Stobaeus {Eclog. Phys. i. 2. pp.896, 912. ed. Heeren.) 2. Of Mendes, is mentioned by Athenaeus (xiv. p. 648) as the author of a work on cakes (Ilepl naKoi;i/Twi'), but is otherwise unknown. Who the Haipocration is who is mentioned by the Venetian scholiast on the Iliad (i. 453), as the teacher of Dins, is unknown. [L. S.] HARPOCRA'TION, AE'LIUS, a rhetorician who, according to Suidas, wrote a variety of rhe- torical and philosophical works ; such as, Ilept tcov SoKovvTccu Tots pT^TopffLv "qyvoe^aOai, "TiroOeaeis - yiau 'TTTtpi'Sou, Uepl rext'Tjs priTopiKTJs, Ilepi ide "v^ &c., of which not a trace has come down to us. Anottier Harpocration, with the praenomen Cains, who is likewise mentioned only by Suidas, wrote works of a similar character, as Ylepi rwv 'TTreplSoo Koi Avaiov KoyoiV, Ilepl riv 'AvrifpccvTos (rxVI^<i- Twu, and others. Hence it is inferred that Suidas is here guilty of some mistake, and that Aelius and Caius Harpocration are perhaps one and the same person, whose full name was C. Aelius Har- pocration. (Kiessling, Quaest. Atiic. Specim. p. 26.) [L. S. j HARPOCRA'TION, VALE'RIUS, the author of a Greek dictionary to the works of the ten Attic orators, which is entitled Ilept to/v ^€wv toqv SeKa ^riTopcov, or Ae^iKdv tcDi/ 5e/ca prjTopwv, and is still extant. It contains not only explanations of legal and political terms, but also accounts of persons and things mentioned in the orations of the Attic orators. The work is to us of the highest import- ance, as it contains a vast deal of information on the public and civil law of Athens, and on antiqua- rian, historical, and literary subjects, of which we should be in ignorance but for this dictionary of Harpocration, for most of the works from which the author compiled are lost, and appear to have perished at an early time. Hence Suidas, the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, and other late grammarians, derived their information on many points from Harpocration. All we know about his personal history is contained in a line or two in Suidas, who calls him a rhetorician of Alex- andria, and, besides the above-mentioned dictionary, attributes to him an dvdr^pdiv crwaywyri^ which is lost. We are thus left in the dark as to the time in which our rhetorician lived. Some believe that he is the same person as the Harpocration who, ac- cording to Julius Capitolinus ( Vefus^ 2), instructed the emperor L. Verus in Greek ; so that he would have lived in the latter half of the second century after Christ. Maussac (Dissert. Grit. p. 378, in Blancard's edition of Harpocration) points out pas- sages from which it would appear that Harpocration must have been acquainted with the Deipnoso- phists of Athenaeus, and that consequently he must have lived after the time of Athenaeus. Others, again, look upon him as identical with the Harpo- cration whom Libanius {Epist. 367) calls a good poet and a still better teacher ; whence it would follow that he lived about a. d. 354. Others, lastly, identify hira with the physician Harpocration : but all is mere conjecture, and it is impossible to arrive at any positive conviction. The text of Harpo- cration's dictionary was first printed, with the Scholia of Ulpian on the Philippics of Demosthenes, in the Aldine edition ( Venice, J 503, and again in VOL. II. HARPYIAE. 853 1527) ; but the first critical edition is that by Ph. J. Maussac (Paris, 1614, 4to.), with a commentary and a learned dissertation on Harpocration. This edition was reprinted, with some improvements and additional notes of H. Valesius, by N. Blancard, Leyden, 1683, 4to., and followed by the edition of J. Gronovius, Harderwyk, 1696, 4to. The Leip- zig edition (1824, 2 vols. 8vo.) incorporates every thing that had been done by previous editors for Harpocration. The most recent edition of the text (together with the dictionary of Moeris) is that of I. Bekker, Berlin, 1833, 8vo. [L. S.] HARPYIAE ("ApTTumj), that is, "the swift robbers," are, in the Homeric poems, nothing but personified storm winds. {Od. xx. QQ^ "il.) Homer mentions only one by name, viz. Podarge, who was married to Zephyrus, and gave birth to the two horses of Achilles, Xanthus and Balius. {II. xvi. 1 49, &c.) When a person suddenly disappeared from the earth, it was said that he had been carried off by the Harpies {Od. i. 241, xiv. 371) ; thus, •they carried off the daughters of king Pandareus, and gave them as servants to the Erinnyes. {Od. XX. 78.) According to Hesiod {Tlieog. 26'7, &c.), the Harpies were the daughters of Thaumas by the Oceanid Electra, fair-locked and winged maidens, who surpassed winds and birds in the rapidity of their flight. Their names in Hesiod are Aello and Ocypete, (Comp. Apollod. i. 2. § 6.) But even as early as the time of Aeschylus {Eum. 50), they are described as ugly creatures with wings, and later writers carry their notions of the Harpies so far as to represent them as most disgusting mon- sters. They were sent by the gods as a punish- ment to harass the blind Phineus, and whenever a meal was placed before him, they darted down from the air and carried it off ; later writers add, that they either devoured the food themselves, or that they dirtied it by dropping upon it some stinking substance, so as to render it unfit to be eaten. Tiiey are farther described in these later accounts as birds with the heads of maidens, with long claws on their hands, and with faces pale with hunger. ( Virg. Aen. iii. 2 1 6, &c. ; Tzetz. cul Lycoph. 653 ; Ov. Met. vii.4. Fast. vi. 132 ; Hygin. i^a6. 14.) The traditions about their parentage likewise differ in the different traditions, for some called them the daughters of Pontus (or Poseidon) and Terra (Serv. ad Aen. iii. 241), of Typhon (Val. Flacc iv. 428, 516), or even of Phineus. (Tzetz. ad Ly- coph. 166, ChU. i. 220 ; Palaephat. 23. 3). Their number is either two, as in Hesiod and ApoUo- donis, or three ; but their names are not the same in all writers, and, besides those already mentioned, we find Aellopos, Nicothoe, Ocythoe, Ocypode, Celaeno, Acholoe. (Apollod. i. 9, 21 ; Serv. ad Aen. iii. 209 ; Hygin. Fab. Praef. p. 15, Fab. 14.) Their place of abode is either the islands called Strophades (Virg. Aen. iii. 210), a place at the en- trance of Orcus (vi. 289), or a cave in Crete. (Apollon. Rhod. ii. 298.) The most celebrated story in which the Harpies play a part is that of Phineus, at whose residence the Argonauts arrived while he was plagued by the monsters. He pro- mised to instruct them respecting the course they had to take, if they would deliver him from ths Harpies. When the food for Pliineus was laid out on a table, the Harpies immediately came, and were attacked by the Boreades, Zetes and Calais, who wei-e among the Argonauts, and provided with wings. According to an ancient oracle, the