Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/683

 HEPHZESTION manner the disease it would cure or the portion of the body it would affect, and hepa- tica was at one time used for liver complaints; but it is nearly destitute of active properties, being at most a demulcent. The hepaticas are stemless perennials, with numerous radical, heart-shaped, three-lobed, thick, persistent leaves, from among which there rise in early spring numerous hairy scapes, each bearing a single flower ; the flowers are without petals, the colored calyx appearing like a corolla, and the three-leaved involucre is so close to the flower as to appear like a calyx ; the sepals in the wild state are six to nine, blue, purple, or even white; stamens and pistils numerous. The commonest species, H. triloba, is widely distributed in the cooler portions of both hemi- spheres; H. acutiloba has the lobes of the leaves pointed, while in the other they are very obtuse and rounded, and may be only a variety of the preceding ; it is found from Vermont to HERACLEA 669 Hepatica triloba. Wisconsin. Both species grow in rich woods among the fallen leaves, and lift up their bright flowers soon after the snow has gone. The single-flowered H. triloba, w-ith several double varieties, with flowers of various shades of red, blue, purple, and crimson, as well as white- flowered ones, are in cultivation in Europe. In this country they do not succeed, exposed to the heats of our long summers, unless in a moist rich soil. The double varieties are in- creased by division. A species or a marked variety, H. angulosa, has recently been brought into cultivation from Transylvania ; it is much larger than ours, the flowers being sometimes two inches across. HEPHJ1STION, a Macedonian, the friend and companion of Alexander the Great, with whom he had been brought up. When, at the com- mencement of his Asiatic expedition, Alexander visited the site of Troy, Hephaestion accompa- nied him. He was frequently intrusted with commands of great importance, and for his ser- vices was rewarded with a golden crown on his arrival at Susa, and received in marriage Drypetis, the daughter of Darius and sister of Statira. From Susa he accompanied Alexander to Ecbatana, where he died of fever after an illness of seven days (325 or 324 B. C.). Alex- ander's grief was excessive. His body was trans- ported to Babylon, where a magnificent pyre and monument were erected ; and orders were issued for a general mourning throughout the empire, and divine honors to the deceased hero. HEPHAESTUS. See VULCAN. HEPTARCHY. See ENGLAND, vol. vi., p. 607. HEPWORTH, Gtorge Hnghes, an American clergyman, born in Boston, Feb. 4, 1833. He graduated at the theological school of Harvard university in 1855, and was called to the Uni- tarian church in Nantucket, where he remained two years. In 1858 he removed to Boston and became pastor of the church of the Unity. In December, 1862, he was appointed chap- lain of the 47th regiment of Massachusetts volunteers, and in 1863 served on the staff of Gen. Banks in Louisiana. In 1870 he accepted the pastorate of the church of the Messiah, New York, but resigned it in 1872, in conse- quence of a change of religious belief in the direction of Trinitarianism. He afterward or- ganized and is now (1874) pastor of the " Church of the Disciples " in New York. He has published " Whip, Hoe, and Sword " (Bos- ton, 1864), and "Rocks and Shoals" (1870). HERA. See JUNO. HERACLEA, the name of several ancient Greek cities, the most important of which were : I. A city of Magna Grgecia, in Lucania, near the Tarentine gulf, founded by a colony of Thurians and Tarentines about 432 B. C. It was the place for the general assembly of the Italiote Greeks, until Alexander, king of Epi- rus, transferred it to Thurii. Heraclea was the scene of the first conflict between Pyrrhus and the Romans, the consul Lsevinus being defeated there in 280. In 278 an advantageous treaty was made with Rome, which was maintained as long as the republic lasted, and Heraclea was flourishing in the time of Cicero. Its site is now marked by heaps of rubbish, where many coins and bronzes have been discovered ; and near there were discovered in 1732 the celebrated tabulae Heracleenses, now in the national museum at Naples. These are frag- ments of two bronze tables, containing on one side Greek inscriptions with reference to cer- tain fields sacred to Bacchus and Minerva, and on the other side a Latin inscription relating to the municipal regulations of Heraclea, which is in fact a copy of the more general lex Julia municipalis issued in 45 B. C. The Latin in- scription was explained by Savigny in his Zeit- schrift fur geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, and both inscriptions were published and illus- trated by Mazocchi in his In Eegii Hereula- nensisMuscei Tabulas Heracleenses Commentarii (Naples, 1754-'5). II. A city of Sicily, on the