Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/615

599 H Y R H Y S 599 Syria, and Palestine. This species is generally regarded as the &quot;shaphan,&quot; rendered &quot; conies&quot; in the English Bible, ! which &quot; are hut a feeble folk, yet make their houses in j the rocks &quot; (Prov. xxx. 26). They measure about a foot in i length and 1 1 inches in height, and are of a greyish-brown colour above, fulvous on the flanks, and white beneath. They are active little creatures, darting in and out of their j rocky shelters with remarkable agility. Bruce, who ob served their habits in Abyssinia, states that large numbers of them were frequently to be seen sitting on great stones at the mouths of caves, basking in the sunshine, or enjoying the coolness of the summer evening. Of timid and gentle disposition, they can be readily tamed, although when roughly handled at first they are said to bite severely. The Cape hyrax (Ilyrax capensis) or &quot; badger &quot; (dasse ; Dutch, Das ; German, Dachs) is the largest known species, measur ing about 18 inches in length. It frequents situations similar to those occupied by the Syrian form, and is exceed ingly shy, peeping out of its rocky hiding places with a circumspection which is by no means uncalled for, as it forms a favourite food of lions, hyaenas, and the larger birds of prey. The latter, it is said, may often be seen perched, for hours, like statues on the rocks, watching their oppor tunity to dart upon the luckless &quot;badger.&quot; To guard against such surprises, they are said, when feeding, to place one of their number, usually an old male, as a sentinel, whose shrill prolonged cry gives timely notice of approaching danger. Like the &quot; conies,&quot; they are readily tamed, and seem capable of considerable attach ment, although their natural timidity and suspicion cause them to hide themselves on the appearance of a stranger. There are two species of hyrax, one in the south and the other in the west of Africa, which are said to be arboreal in their habits, making their abode in the holes of trees. Dr Gray has placed these in a separate genus Dendrohyrax. The island of Fernando Po possesses a species peculiar to itself, while the genus is entirely wanting in Madagascar. No fossil remains of the hyrax have yet been found. HYRCANIA, a province of Asia, south of the Caspian Sea, and bounded on the E. by the river Oxus. It was, however, a wide and indefinite tract, the extent of which is variously conceived. Its chief city is called Tape by Strabo, Zadracarta by Arrian. The latter is evidently the same as Carta, mentioned by Strabo as an important city. Some parts of the country were fertile, but the general idea prevalent among the classical writers is that it was a mde region of forests full of dangerous wild animals. Little is known of the history of the country, as it seldom came into connexion with the better known races. Xenophon says it was subdued by the Assyrians ; Curtius says that 6000 Hyrcanians were in the army of the last Persian king Darius. Two towns named Hyrcania are mentioned, one in the country of Hyrcania, the other in Lydia. The latter is said to have derived its name from a colony of Hyr- canians, transported thither by the Persians. HYRCANUS ( YpKavo?), a Greek surname, of unknown origin, borne by several Jews of the Maccabaean period. JOHN HYRCANUS L, high priest of the Jews from 135 to 105 B.C., was the youngest son of Simon Maccabseus. In 137 B.C. he, along with his brother Judas, commanded the force which repelled the invasion of Judaea led by Cendebeus the general of Antiochus VII. (Sidetes). On the assassination of his father and two elder brothers by Ptolemy, governor of Jericho, his brother-in-law, in Feb ruary 135, he succeeded to the high priesthood and the supreme authority in Judaea, While still engaged in the struggle with Ptolemy, he was attacked by Antiochus with a large army (134), and compelled to shut himself up in Jerusalem ; after a severe siege peace was at last secured only on condition of a Jewish disarmament, and the pay ment of an indemnity and an annual tribute, for which hostages were taken. In 129 he accompanied Antiochus as a vassal prince on his ill-fated Parthian expedition ; re turning, however, to Judaea before winter, he escaped the final disaster. By the judicious mission of an embassy to Rome he now obtained confirmation of the alliance which his father had previously made with the growing western power ; at the same time he availed himself of the weak ened state of the Syrian monarchy under Demetrius II. to overrun Samaria, and also to invade Idumaea, which he completely subdued, compelling its inhabitants to receive circumcision and accept the Jewish faith. After a long period of rest he directed his arms against the town of Samaria, which, in spite of the intervention of Antiochus,. his sons Antigonus and Aristobulus ultimately took, and by his orders razed to the ground (c. 109 B.C.). He died in 105, and was succeeded by Aristobulus, the eldest of his five sons. The external policy of Hyrcanus was marked by considerable energy and tact, and, aided as it was by favouring circumstances, was so successful as to leave the Jewish nation in a position of independence and of influ ence such as it had not known since the days of Solomon. During its later years his reign was much disturbed, how ever, by the contentions for ascendency which arose be tween the Pharisees and Sadducees, the two rival sects or parties which then for the first time (under those names at least) came into prominence. Josephus has related the curious circumstances under which he ultimately transferred his personal support from the former to the latter. JOHN HYRCANUS II., high priest from 78 to 40 B.C., was the eldest son of Alexander Jannaeus by his wife Alexandra, and was thus a grandson of the preceding. When his father died in 78, he was by his mother forthwith appointed high priest, and on her death in 69 he claimed the succession to the supreme civil authority also ; but, after a brief and troubled reign of three months, he was compelled to abdi cate both kingly and priestly dignities in favour of his more energetic and ambitious younger brother Aristobulus II. In 63 it suited the policy of Pompey that he should be restored to the high priesthood, with some semblance of supreme command, but of much of this semblance even he was soon again deprived by the arrangement of the pro consul Gabinius, according to which Palestine was in 57 B.C. divided into five separate circles (crwoSoi, o-WSpia). For services rendered to Caesar after the battle of Pharsalia, he was again rewarded with the sovereignty (Trpoo-rao-t a rov tOvovs, Jos., Ant., xx. 10) in 47 B.C., Antipater of Idumaea, however, being at the same time made procurator of Judn?a. In 41 B.C. he was practically superseded by Antony s appointment of Herod and Phasael to be tetrarchs of Judaea ; and in the following year he was taken prisoner by the Parthian s, deprived of his ears that he might be permanently disqualified for priestly office, and carried to Babylon. He was permitted in 33 B.C. to return to Jeru salem, where on a charge of treasonable correspondence with Malchus, king of Arabia, he was put to death in 30 B.C. See Josephus (Ant., xiii. 8-10; xiv. 5-13; Bell. Jud., i. 2; i. 8-13), upon whose narrative all the modem accounts, as, e.g., those by Ewald, Griitz, and Hitzig in their Histories, are based. HYSSOP (Hyssopus officiualis), a garden herb belonging to the natural order Labiatcc, cultivated for use in domestic medicine. It is a small perennial plant about 2 feet high, with slender, quadrangular, woody stems ; narrowly elliptical, pointed, entire, dotted leaves, about 1 inch long and ^ inch wide, growing in pairs on the stem ; and long terminal, erect, half-verticillate, leafy spikes of small violet- blue flowers, which are in blossom from June to September. Two varieties of the plant occur in gardens, one having variegated leaves and the other reddish flowers. The