A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

HESTIAEA. HIESYCHIUS. 445
of a house is at the same time the altar on which and is dignified by them with the title'EO7la4La $
sacrifices are offered to the domestic gods (TLeov- rpaav.-jUTL4. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p.
XOL or loeb10-LoL), Hestia was looked upon as pre- 516.) [C. P. M.]
siding at all sacrifices, and, as the goddess of the HESTIAEUS ('Ea-riLao). 1. A native of
sacred fire of the altar, she had a share in the Perinthus, mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (iii.
sacrifices in all the temples of the gods. (Hom. 16) as one of the disciples of Plato.
Hymn. in Ven. 31.) Hence when sacrifices were 2. According to Aristoxenus (in Diog. Lairt.
offered, she was invoked first, and the first part of viii. 79), the father of Archytas of Tarentum was
the sacrifice was offered to her. (Hom. Hymnn. xxxii. named Hestiaeus. And the name- occurs in the
5; Pind. Nern. xi. 5; Plat. Cratyl. p. 401, d.; list of Pythagoreans in Iamblichus (Vit. Pythag.
Paus. v. 14. ~ 5; Schol. ad Asistoph. Vesp. 842; c. 36. ~ 267).'Hesych. s. v. dq' eo'r[as dcpX4Zevos.) Solemn oaths 3. A Stoic philosopher, a native of Pontus, menwere sworn by the goddess of the hearth, and the tioned by Athenaeus (vi. p. 273 d.). [C. P. M.]
hearth itself was the sacred asylum where sup- HESY'CHIA ('HcrvX[a), the personification of
pliants implored the protection of the inhabitants tranquillity and peace, is called a daughter of Dice,
of the house. (Hom. Od. xiv. 159; Eustath. ad that is, Justice. (Pind. 01. iv. 18, Pyth. viii. 1,
Homrn. p. 1579.) A town or city is only an ex- Fragrn. 228. p. 669, ed. Boeckh.) [L. S.]
tended family, and therefore had likewise its sacred HESY'CH1US, bishop of Salona in Dalmatia,
hearth, the symbol of an harmonious community of who flourished about the beginning of the fifth cencitizens and of a common worship. This public tury, maintained a friendly intercourse with St.
hearth usually existed in the prytaneium of a town, Augustin and St. Chrysostom, as we gather from
where the goddess had her especial sanctuary (4-& their works; and a letter has been preserved adAa/Aos), under the name of IIgvravo'rts, with a dressed to him by Pope Zosimus in A. D. 418.
statue and the sacred hearth. There the prytanes The only epistle written by Hesychius himself now
offered sacrifices to her, on entering upon their extant will be found among the correspondence of
office, and there, as at a private hearth, Hestia pro- St. Augustin, and is numbered cxcviii. in the Benetected the suppliants. As this public hearth was dictine edition. (Augustin, De Civ. Dei, xx. 5,
the sacred asylum in every town, the state usually Ep. cxcvii, cxcviii, cxcix. vol. ii. ed. Bened.;
received its guests and foreign ambassadors there, Schinemann, Bibl. Patrum Lat. vol. ii. ~ 14
and the prytanes had to act the part of hosts. Bihr, in his Gesclichle der RMmisc~len Litlerat.
When a colony was sent out, the emigrants took suppl. band. II. abtheil. ~ 141, by some mistake
the fire which was to burn on the hearth of their apparently names this prelate Hegesieppus instead of
new home from that of the mother town. (Pind. Hesychius.) [W. R.]
ente. xi. 1, t&c., with the Scholiast; Parthen. Erot. HESY'CHIUS ('H-6TXios).
18; Dion. Hal. ii. 65.) If ever the fire of her 1. Libanius appears to have had two friends
hearth became extinct, it was not allowed to be and correspondents of this name about the middle
lighted again with ordinary fire, but either by fire of the fourth century: one a priest (Ep. 636), the
produced by friction, or by burning glasses drawing other a magistrate (Ep. 773, 914). One of them
fire from the sun. The mystical speculations of had two sons, Eutropius and Celsus, to whom
later times proceeded from the simple ideas of the Libanius was much attached, and who were possibly
ancients, and assumed a sacred hearth not only in his pupils, and several daughters, to one of whom
the centre of the earth, but even in that of the uni- a cousin of Libanius was married (Ep. 375). Liverse, and confounded Hestia in various ways with banius was anxious to promote the marriage of a
other divinities, such as Cybele, Gaea, Demeter, grandson of an Hesychius (perhaps one of the
Persephone, and Artemis. (Orph. Hymn. 83; Plut. two above mentioned) by his son Calliopius, with a
de Plac. P/ilos. 3, 11, Numa, 11.) There were daughter of Pompeianus (Ep. 1400). Possibly the
but few special temples of Hestia in Greece, as in magistrate Hesychius, the correspondent of Libareality every prytaneum was a sanctuary of the nius, may be the Hesychius or Esychius mentioned
goddess, and as a portion of the sacrifices, to what- by Jerome (Epistola 33 (olim 101) ad Pammacle.;
ever divinity they were offered, belonged to her. Opera,vol. iv. pt. ii. col. 249, ed. Benedictin.) as a
There was, however, a separate temple of Hestia at man of consular rank, bitterly hated by the patriHermione, though it contained no image of her, but arch Gamaliel, and who was condemned to death
only an altar. (Paus. ii. 35. ~ 2.) Her sacrifices con- by the emperor Theodosius for bribing a notary,
sisted of the primitiae of fruit, water, oil, wine, and and pillaging some of the imperial records.. Facows of one year old. (Hesych. L. c.; Hom. Hymn. bricius understands the notice in Jerome of Hexxxi. 3, xxxii. 6; Pind. Nem. xi. 6.) The Roe- sychius, who was proconsul of Achaia, under
mans worshipped the same goddess, or rather the Theodosius II. A. D. 435 (Cod. Theodos. 6. tit.
same ideas embodied in her, under the name of 28. ~ 8); but this is not likely, for if the Bene-:
Vesta, which is in reality identical with Hestia; dictine editors are right in fixing A. D. 396 as the
but as the Roman worship of Vesta differed in date of the -letter to Pammachius, the Theodosius
several points from that of Hestia in Greece, we there mentioned must have been Theodosius I. the
treat of Vesta in a separate article. [L. S.] Great; and if Hesychius was executed (as Jerome
HESTIAEA ('EorTLaa), a learned Alexandrian seems to say) in his reign,he could not have been prolady. Her literary efforts were directed to the consul in the reign of his grandson Theodosius II.
explanation of the Homeric poems. Strabo (xiii. The Hesychius of the Codex Theodosianus may
p. 894), on the authority of Demetrius of Scepsis, perhaps be the one mentioned in the letters of the
informs us that she wrote a treatise respecting the monk Nilus, the pupil of Chrysostom. (Libanius,
site of the Homeric city of Troy, and the position Epistolae, 11. cc., and Ep. 1010; Cod. Theodos. 1. e.;
of the plain which formed the scene of the en- Hieron. 1. c.; Nili Ascetae Eyistolae. Lib. ii. Ep.
counters described in the Iliad. She is mentioned 292, ed. Allatii; Fabr. Bibl. Gr. vol. vii. p. 547.)
by the scholiasts on n. iii. 64, and by Eustathius, 2. A devoted disciple of St. Hilarion, whose