Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/318

 HERMOPOLIS. mt this point, it wu easier to ferry the dead over the water than to transport them hy land to the hills. The principal deities worshipped at Her* mopolis were Tjphbn and Thoth. The former was represoited by an hippopotamus, on which sat a hawk fighting with a serpent. (Plut /«. ei Ostr^ p. 371, D.) Thoth or Tanth, the Greek Hermes, the inventor of tlie pen and of letters, the Ibis- headed god, was, with his accompanying emblems, the Ibis and the'Cynocephalus or ape, the most con- spicooos among the sculptures upon the great por- tico of the temple of Hermopolis. His designation in inflcriptions was *' The Lord of Eshmoon." This portico was a work of the Pharaonic era ; but the erections of the Ptolemies at Hermopolis were upon m scale of great extent and magnificence, and, al- though raised by Grecian monarchs, are essentially Egyptian in their conception and execution. The portico, the only remnant of the temple, consists of m double row of pillars, six in each row. The archi- tnves are formed of fi'e stones ; each passes from tile centre of one pillar to that of the next, accord- ing to a well-known usage with A^yptian builders. The intercolumnation of the centre pillars is wider than that of the others ; and the stone over the centre is twenty-five feet and six inches long. These columns were painted yellow, red, and blue in alternate bands, and the brilliancy of the colours b well represented in Minutoi^s 14th pbite. There is also a peculiarity in the pillars of the Hermopolitan portico peculiar to themselves, or, at least, discovered only again in the temple of Guumou, (IMnon, L^igypte^ pbte 41.) Instead of being formed of large masses placed horizontally above each other, they are composed of irregular pieces, so artfully adjusted that it b difficult to detect the lines of junction. The bases of these columns represent the lower leaves of the lotus; next come a number of eonoentric rings, like the hoops of a cask; and above these the pilbn appear like bunches of reeds held together by horizontal bonds. Including the capital, each column b about 40 feet in height; the grntest circumference b about 28 1 feet, about five feet from the ground, for they diminbh in thickness both towards the base and towards the capital. The widest part of the intercolumnation b 17 feet; the other pillars are 13 feet apart. Hermopolb com- paratively escaped the frequent wars which, in the decline both of the Pharaonic and Boman eras, de- vastated the Heptanomb; but, on the other hand, its structnres have suffered severely from the igno- rance and cupidity of its Mohammedan rulers, who have bunted its st(M)es for lime or carried them away for building materials. [W. B. D.] HERMO'POLIS PARVA ('EpMoO w6Xis fwcpd, Steph. B.i.v.; Strab. xviL p. 802 ; Ptol. iv. 5. § 46 ; /L AnUm. p. 154), the modem BatnankuTf was a city of the Egyptian Delta, in the nnme of Alex- andria, or, as it was sometimes described, the chief town of a Deltaic Hermopolite nome. It stood in lat. 31^ N. on the banks of a canal which connected the lake Mareotb with the Canopic or most westerly arm of the Nile. It was 44 miles S£. of Alexandria. (GhampoIIion, LEgypte^ vol. iL p. 249.) There were, besides, two other towns of the same name: I. on an ]j»land near the city Butosos (Strab. xvii. p. 802); 2. another a little below Thmub (Strab. /.c; Stepb. B. #. t^.)- [ W. B. D.] HEKMUNDU'RI ('Ep/«ovy8o^/N>i or^Ep^i^opoi), a large and powerful tribe of Germany, occupying HERNICI. 1059 the extensive country between the mountains in the north-west of Bohenua and the Roman wall in the south-west, which funned the boundary of the Agri I^umates. On the east they bordered on the Na- risci, in the north-east on the Cherusci, and in the north-west on the Ghatti. The accounts of tlie an- cients about the Hermunduri are very contradictory. They belonged no doubt to the Suevi; but respecting their earliest place of abode, and the reasons which induced them to quit their homes, nothing b known. They first appear in history at the time of Domitius Ahenobarbus, as a host expelled from their country and wandering abont^ until Ahenobarbus assigned to them a port of the territory of the Marcomanni, be- tween the Miun and the Danube. That district had been abandoned by the Marcomanni, and continued to be inhabited by the Hermunduri at the time of Tacitus, who describes them as friends of the Ro- mans. (Dion Cass. Fragm. 32, ed. Morell; Tac. Gtrm, 41.) Their original country was, according to some, in the nortli of Bohemb and the neighbour- ing mountains; for Tacitus places the sources of the Albb in the country of the Hennunduri, while Strabo (vii. p. 290) pbces them beyond the Albis. At all events, however, they were always hostile to the Marcomanni. (Tac. Atkn, ii 63, xii. 29, xiii. 57.) After the overthrow of Maroboduus and Caiualda, which they themselves had assbted to effect (Tac. Aiwi. ii. 63), they spread in a north-easU-m direction, taking possession of the north-western part of Bolie- mU and the country about the sources of the Mam and Saale, that is, the part of Franconb as Ikr as Kistmgeny and the south-western part of the king* dom of Saxony. (Veil. Pat ii. 106; Tac Atm, xiii. 57.) Henceforth they continued to occupy that ex- tensive country, and soon after we find them allied with their old enemies, the Marcomanni, in their war against the Romans. (Jul. Capitol. M. Anton* 22; Eutrop. viii. IS.) After thb war they are no longer mentioned, but seem to be comprised under the general name of the Suevi; for Jul. Capitolinus expressly mentions the Hermunduri on the same oc- casion, where others, such as Eutropius and Orosius (vii. 15), speak only of Suevi. Even Ptolemy ap- pears not to have loiown them, for, in ii. 11. § 24, he enumerates in their country quite different tribes, which are otherwise unknown to us. The name Hermunduri b believed by some to signify high- landers, and to be a compound of Hers=Arj that b ppu208,fol.) [L.S.] HERMUS. [Attica, p. 325, b.] HE'RNICI C^pucoi, Strab.; *Epyurc5, Dionys.), a peopb of Central Italy, whose territory was in later times included in Latium, but who appear in the early histoiy of Rome as a separate and inde- pendent nation. They inhabited the upper valley of the Trerns or SaccOf together with the mountain dblrict N. of that river;' and bordered on the Aequians towards the N., and on the Volscbns to the S. and £. We are told that their name waa derived from an old Sabine or Marsic word " hema," signifying a rock, an appellation well suited to the clioracter of their country, the " Hemica saxa" of Virgil. (Virg. A en, vii. 684; Serv. ad /oc; Festus, V, Hemici.) Thb derivation would seein to point to their being a race akin to the Sabines ; and Servins distinctly calls them a Sabine colony (Serv. ad Aen, I. c): nor does there seem to be any reason to reject thb statement, although the authority of that c<Hn- mentator b in itself of little weight (Niebulir, vol. i. 3y2
 * )o]is, joiy ftom the wide carve of the western hilb
 * « high," and AfiHKf^ Man. (Wilheim, (?ennafMe%