Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/510

496 name. (Hom. Il. xxiv. 251; Diod. iv. 33; Apollod. ii. 1. § 5; iii. 10. § 5.) 2em

 HIPPYS ( or ) of Rhegium, a Greek historian, who lived in the time of the Persian wars, and wrote a work on Sicily in five books, which was epitomised by Myes. He also wrote, no doubt an account of the early mythical history of Italy, like the works which the Romans called Origines; in five books; and, if the text of Suidas is correct , a miscellaneous work, the fruit of leisure hours, in three books: but few critics will hesitate to accept the conjectural emendation of Gyraldus,. (Suid. s. v.) There can be no doubt that the remainder of the article in Suidas is misplaced from his article. [.] Hippys is quoted by Aelian (N. A. ix. 33), by Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v. ), who says that Hippys first called the Arcadians ; by Plutarch (de Defect. Orac. 23, p. 422); by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (iv. 262), and, with a corruption of the name into and, 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. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 19, 20, ed. Westermann.) 2em

 HIRPI'NUS, QUINCTIUS, a friend of Horace, who, according to the received titles of his poems, addressed to him an ode (Carm. ii. 11), and an epistle (Epp. i. 16). In the former of these compositions he admonishes Hirpinus to relax from public cares, in the latter, if it relate to Hirpinus at all, to prefer solid to specious virtue. 2em

 HI'RRIUS, C., son perhaps of –––––– Hirrius, praetor in 88, was remembered as the first private person who had sea-water stock-ponds for lampreys. He was so proud of these fish that he would not sell them at any price, but sent some thousands of them to Caesar for his triumphal banquets in 46–45. Hirrius expended the rent of his houses, amounting to 12,000,000 sesterces, in bait for his lampreys, and sold one farm which was well stocked with them for 400,000 sesterces. (Varr. R. R. ii. 5, iii. 17; Plin. H. N. ix. 55.) He is perhaps the same person with C. Hirrius Postumius, mentioned among other voluptuaries by Cicero (de Fin. ii. 22. § 70). 2em

 A. HI'RTIUS,, belonged to a plebeian family, which came probably from Ferentinum in the territory of the Hernici. (Orelli, Inscr. n. 589.) He was throughout life the personal and political friend of Caesar the dictator (Cic. Phil. xiii. 11), but his name would scarcely have rescued the Hirtia gens from obscurity, had not his death marked a crisis in the history of the republic. In 58 he was Caesar's legatus in Gaul (Cic. ad Fam. xvi. 27), but was more frequently employed as a negotiator than as a soldier. In December 50, he was despatched with a commission to L. Balbus at Rome, and as he arrived and departed at night, his errand, as a known emissary of Caesar, caused much speculation and alarm, especially to Cn. Pompey. (Cic. ad Att. vii. 4.) Hirtius returned from Gaul on the breaking out of the civil war in 49, and was at Rome in April after Pompey's expulsion from Italy, at which time he obtained for the younger Q. Cicero an audience with Caesar (ad Att. x. 4. § 5, 11). Whether he accompanied his patron to the Spanish war in the same year, or remained with Oppius, Balbus, and other Caesarians to watch over his interests in the capital, is unknown. Whether Hirtius were one of the ten praetors nominated by Caesar for 46 (Dion Cass. xlii. 51), and one of the ex-praetors who received consular ornaments (Suet. Caes. 76), is equally uncertain. The grounds for supposing him to have been praetor,—the inscription on a coin (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 224),—apply equally to a prefecture of the city, and as Caesar, during his frequent absences from Rome, appointed many delegates, Hirtius was probably one of the number. Either as praetor or city-prefect, he may have been the author of the Lex Hirtia, for excluding the Pompeians from the magistracies. (Cic. Phil. xiii. 16.) In 47, after the close of the Alexandrian war, Hirtius met Caesar at Antioch, and exerted himself in behalf of the elder Q. Cicero. (Cic. ad Att. xi. 20.) In the following year he was present at the games at Praeneste, and during Caesar's absence in Africa lived principally at his Tusculan estate, which was contiguous to Cicero's villa. (Ad Att. xii. 2.) Though politically opposed, they were on friendly terms. Cicero gave Hirtius lessons in oratory, and Hirtius, in return, imparted to the orator, or to the orator's cook, some of the mysteries of the table. (Cic. ad Fam. vii. 33, ix. 6, xvi. 18; Suet. de Clar. Rhet. 1.) Hirtius corresponded with Caesar during the African war (Cic. ad Fam. ix. 6), and left his Tusculan villa to meet him on his return to Italy (Id. Ib. 18), and accompanied him to Rome. He did not attend the dictator to the second Spanish war, 45, but followed him to Narbonne, whence in a letter dated April 18, he announced to Cicero the defeat of the Pompeians (ad Att. xii. 37). From Narbo, where Caesar joined him, Hirtius sent to Cicero his reply to the orator's panegyric of Cato, which was probably composed at Caesar's request, and was a prelude to his own more celebrated treatise "Anti-Cato." (Id. ad Att. xii. 40. § 1, 41. § 4.) Hirtius disputed his commendations of Cato, but wrote in flattering terms of Cicero himself (comp. ad Att. xiii. 21), who accordingly took care to circulate freely the treatise of Hirtius. (Ad Att. xii. 44, 45, 47.) At the same time Hirtius appears to have renewed his efforts to reconcile Q. Cicero with his son, and to have softened Caesar's displeasure with the father. (Ad Att. xiii. 37. 40.) In 44 Hirtius received Belgic Gaul for his province, but he governed it by deputy (ad Att. xiv. 9), and attended Caesar at Rome, who nominated him and Vibius Pansa, his colleague in the augurate, consuls for  43. (Id. ad Fam. xii. 25, Phil. vii. 4.) His long residence in the capital had made Hirtius better acquainted with the general feeling and state of parties than Caesar himself, and he joined the other leading Caesarians in counselling the dictator not to dismiss his guards (Vell. Pat. ii. 57; Plut. Caes. 57; comp. Suet. Caes. 86; Dion Cass. xliv. 7; App. B. C. ii. 107; Cic. ad Att. xiv. 22.) Their advice was neglected, and Hirtius, deprived of his constant patron and friend, was, by his nomination to the consulship, brought into the centre and front of political convulsion, without strictly belonging to any one of its component parties. As a Caesarian, he was opposed to Cicero and the senate; as a friend of the murdered dictator, to