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

532 HOSTIUS. I YACINTht US.
from "I'hostilius in primo Annali," where Weichert, th'eme by any one not actually alive at the time
although unsupported by any MS. authority, pro- when the scenes which he described were enacted,
poses to substitute Hostinus for Hostilius, and sup- or at all events while the recollection of them was
poses that a reference is here made to a work by still fresh in the minds of his countrymen. (Festus,
that Hostius who wrote a poem on the Histric s. vv. tesca; scaeva; Macrob. Sat. vi. 3, 5; Serv.
War [Hos'ivs]. If Hostilius be the true reading, ad Viry. Aen. xii. 121; Weichert, Poet. Lat. Reliwe find no other allusion to this personage in any quiae, Lips. 1830, pp. 1-18.) [W. R.]
ancient author, since he can scarcely be the mimo- HUNNERIC ('Oo'cpLXoS), king of the Vandals
graphermentioned by Tertullian (Apolog. 15), who in Africa (A. D. 477-484) son of Genseric. He
in classing together " Lentulorum et Hostiliorum succeeded his father A. D. 4'77, and married Euvenustates " seems to bring down the latter to docia, daughter of the emperor Valentinian, in
the reign of Domitian, which we know to have whose court he had been a hostage. His reign,been the epoch of Lentulus, while the versifieation was chiefly marked by his savage persecution of the
of the hexameter given above appears to belong to Catholics —rendered famous by the alleged miracle
some period not later than the age of Cicero. (See of the confession of Tipasa; and he died of a loathWeichert, Poet. Lat. Reliquiae, Lips. 1830. p. some disease, A. D. 484. (Procop. Bell. Vand. i.,17.) [W. R.] 5, 8; Victor Vitensis, apud Ruinart.; Gibbon, c.
HO'STIUS. Festus, Macrobius, and Servius, 37.) [A. P. S.i
make quotations, extending in all to about six lines, HYACI'NTHIDES. [HYACINTHUS, NO. 2.]
from the first'and second books of the Bellurm HYACINTHUS ('TdealuOos). 1. The youngest
Histrieum of Hostiuns. From these fragments, from son of the Spartan king Amyclas and Diomede
the title of the'piece, and from the expressions of (Apollod. iii. 10. ~ 3; Paus. iii. 1. ~ 3, 19. ~ 4),
the grammarians, we learn that the poem was but according to others a son of Pierus and Clio,
composed in heroic hexameters; that the subject or of Oebalus or Eurotas (Lucian, Dial. Deor. 14;
must have been the Illyrian war, waged in the Hygin. Fab. 271.) He was a youth of extraorconsulship of A. Manlius Vulso and M. Junius dinary beauty, and beloved by Thamyris and
Brutus, B. c. 178, the events of which are chro- Apollo, who unintentionally killed him during a
nicled in the forty-first book of ivy; and that the game of discus. (Apollod. i. 3. ~ 3.) Some traauthor lived before Virgil; but no ancient writer ditions relate that he was beloved also by Boreas
has recorded the period of his birth or of his death, or Zephyrus, who, from jealousy of Apollo, drove
the place of his nativity, the precise epoch when the discus of the god against the head of the youth,,he flourished, or any circumstance connected with and thus killed him. (Lucian, 1. c.; Serv. ad Virg.
his personal history. In the absence of any thing Eclog. iii. 63; Philostr. Imag. i. 24; Ov. Met. x.
substantial, critics have caught eagerly at shadows. 1;84.) From the blood of Hyacinthus there sprang
We are told by Appuleius in his Apology, that the flower of the same name (hyacinth), on the
Iostia was the real name of the lady so often ad- leaves of which there appeared the exclamation of
dressed as Cynthia in the lays of Propertius. woe AI, AI, or the letter r, being the initial of
Hence Vossius (de Poet. Lat. c. 2) has boldly'Tda'vOos. According to other traditions, the hyaasserted that Hostius belongs to the age of Julius cinth (on the leaves of which, howevir, those
Caesar, a position somewhat vague in itself, and characters do not appear) sprang from the blood of
testing upon no basis save the simple conjecture Ajax. (Schol. ad Theocrit. x. 28; comp. Ov.4 Met.
that Hostia was his daughter. (De Hist. Lat. xiii. 395, &c., who corfbines both legends; Plin.
i. 16.) Weichert, while he rejects this assump- H. N. xxi. 28.) Hyacinthus was worshipped at
tion, is willing to admit that a connection ex- Amyclae as a hero, and a great festival, Hyaisted between the parties, and conceives that the cinthia, was celebrated in his honour. (Diet. of
precise degree of relationship is indicated by the Ant. s. v.)
words of the amatory bard, who, having paid a 2. A Lacedaemonian, who is said to have gone
tribute in the first book of his elegies (ii. 27) to to Athens,' and in compliance with an oracle, to
the poetical powers of the fair one, refers expressly have caused his daughters to be sacrificed on the
in another place (iii. 18, 7; comp. ii. 10, 9) to the tomb on the Cyclops Geraestus, for the purpose
glory reflected on her by the fame of a learned of delivering the city from famine and the plague,
grandsire — under which it was suffering during the war with
Minos. His daughters, who were sacrificed either
" Est tibi forma potens, sunt castae Palladis artes, who were sacrificed eithe
Splendidaque a docto fama refulget avo." to Athena or Persephone, were known in the Attic
legends by the name of the Hyacinthides, which
Now if we grant that a paternal ancestor is here they derived from their father. (Apollod. iii. 15.
pointed out, since no one bearing the name of ~ 8; Hygin. Fab. 238; Harpocrat. s. v.) Some
Hostius is celebrated in the literary annals of traditions make them the daughters of Erechtheus,
Rome, except the Hostius whom we are now dis- and relate that they ieceived their name from the
cussing, it follows that he must be the person in village of Hyacinthus, where they were sacrificed
question; and since Cynthia appears to have been at the time when Athens was attacked by the
considerably older than her lover, we may throw Eleusinians and Thracians, or Thebans. (Suid. s. v.
back her grandfather beyond the era of the Grac- lcapOevor; Demosth. Epitaph. p. 1397; Lycurg.
chi. This supposition, at first sight far-fetched and c. Leocrat. 24; Cic. p. Sext. 48; Hygin. Fab. 46.)
visionary, receives some support from the language The names and numbers of the Hyacinthides differ
and versification of the scanty remains transmitted in the different writers. The account of Apolloto us, which, although far-removed from barbarism, dorus is confused: he mentions four, and represavour somewhat of antique rudeness, and also sents them as married, although they were sacrificed
from the circumstance that the Histric war was a as maidens, whence they are sometimes called simply
contest so far from being prominent or important, ai 7rapOevoi. Those traditions in which they are
that it was little likely to have been selected as a described as the daughters of Erechtheus confound