and the centre of Absalom’s rebellion. In later days the Edomites held it for a time, but Judas Maccabaeus recovered it. It was destroyed in the great war under Vespasian. In A.D. 1167 Hebron became the see of a Latin bishop, and it was taken in 1187 by Saladin. In 1834 it joined the rebellion against Ibrahim Pasha, who took the town and pillaged it. Modern Hebron rises on the east slope of a shallow valley—a long narrow town of stone houses, the flat roofs having small stone domes. The main quarter is about 700 yds. long, and two smaller groups of houses exist north and south of this. The hill behind is terraced, and luxuriant vineyards and fruit plantations surround the place, which is well watered on the north by three principal springs, including the Well Sirah, now ʽAin Sāra (2 Sam. iii. 26). Three conspicuous minarets rise, two from the Haram, the other in the north quarter. The population (10,000) includes Moslems and about 500 Jews. The Bedouins bring wool and camel’s hair to the market; and glass bracelets, lamps and leather water-skins are manufactured in the town. The most conspicuous building is the Haram built over the supposed site of the cave of Machpelah. It is an enclosure measuring 112 ft. east and west by 198 north and south, surrounded with high rampart walls of masonry similar in size and dressing to that of the Jerusalem Haram walls. These ramparts are ascribed by architectural authorities to the Herodian period. The interior area is partly occupied by a 12th-century Gothic church, and contains six modern cenotaphs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. The cave beneath the platform has probably not been entered for at least 600 years. The numerous traditional sites now shown round Hebron are traceable generally to medieval legendary topography; they include the Oak of Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18 R.V.) which has at various times been shown in different positions from 34 to 2 m. from the town.
There are a British medical mission, a German Protestant mission with church and schools, and, near Abraham’s Oak, a Russian mission. Since 1880 several notices of the Haram, within which are the tombs of the Patriarchs, have appeared.
See C. R. Conder, Pal. Exp. Fund, Memoirs, iii. 333, &c.; Riant, Archives de l’orient latin, ii. 411, &c.; Dalton and Chaplin, P. E. F. Quarterly Statement (1897); Goldziher, “Das Patriarchengrab in Hebron,” in Zeitschrift d. Dn. Pal. Vereins, xvii. (R. A. S. M.)
HECATAEUS OF ABDERA (or of Teos), Greek historian and Sceptic philosopher, flourished in the 4th century B.C. He accompanied Ptolemy I. Soter in an expedition to Syria, and sailed up the Nile with him as far as Thebes (Diogenes Laërtius ix. 61). The result of his travels was set down by him in two works—Αἰγυπτιακά and Περὶ Ὑπερβορέων, which were used by Diodorus Siculus. According to Suidas, he also wrote a treatise on the poetry of Hesiod and Homer. Regarding his authorship of a work on the Jews (utilized by Josephus in Contra Apionem), it is conjectured that portions of the Αἰγυπτιακά were revised by a Hellenistic Jew from his point of view and published as a special work.
Fragments in C. W. Müller’s Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum.
HECATAEUS OF MILETUS (6th-5th century B.C.), Greek historian, son of Hegesander, flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus, to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking (Herodotus v. 36, 125). In 494, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities (Diod. Sic. x. 25). He is by some credited with a work entitled Γῆς περίοδος (“Travels round the Earth”), in two books, one on Europe, the other on Asia, in which were described the countries and inhabitants of the known world, the account of Egypt being especially comprehensive; the descriptive matter was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander’s map of the earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The authenticity of the work is, however, strongly attacked by J. Wells in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxix. pt. i. 1909. The only certainly genuine work of Hecataeus was the Γενεηλογίαι or Ἱστορίαι, a systematic account of the traditions and mythology of the Greeks. He was probably the first to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and the other poets as trustworthy authority. Herodotus, though he once at least controverts his statements, is indebted to Hecataeus not only for facts, but also in regard of method and general scheme, but the extent of the debt depends on the genuineness of the Γῆς περίοδος.
See fragments in C. W. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i.; H. Berger, Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen (1903); E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, i.; W. Mure, History of Greek Literature, iv.; especially J. V. Prašek, Hekataios als Herodots Quelle zur Geschichte Vorderasiens. Beiträge zur alten Geschichte (Klio), iv. 193 seq. (1904), and J. Wells in Journ. Hell. Stud., as above.
HECATE (Gr. Ἑκατή, “she who works from afar”[1]), a goddess in Greek mythology. According to the generally accepted view, she is of Hellenic origin, but Farnell regards her as a foreign importation from Thrace, the home of Bendis, with whom Hecate has many points in common. She is not mentioned in the Iliad or the Odyssey, but in Hesiod (Theogony, 409) she is the daughter of the Titan Perses and Asterie, in a passage which may be a later interpolation by the Orphists (for other genealogies see Steuding in Roscher’s Lexikon). She is there represented as a mighty goddess, having power over heaven, earth and sea; hence she is the bestower of wealth and all the blessings of daily life. The range of her influence is most varied, extending to war, athletic games, the tending of cattle, hunting, the assembly of the people and the law-courts. Hecate is frequently identified with Artemis, an identification usually justified by the assumption that both were moon-goddesses. Farnell, who regards
Artemis as originally an earth-goddess, while recognizing a “genuine lunar element” in Hecate from the 5th century, considers her a chthonian rather than a lunar divinity (see also Warr in Classical Review, ix. 390). He is of opinion that neither borrowed much from, nor exercised much influence on, the cult and character of the other.
Hecate is the chief goddess who presides over magic arts and spells, and in this connexion she is the mother of the sorceresses Circe and Medea. She is constantly invoked, in the well-known idyll (ii.) of Theocritus, in the incantation to bring back a woman’s faithless lover. As a chthonian power, she is worshipped at the Samothracian mysteries, and is closely connected with Demeter. Alone of the gods besides Helios, she witnessed the abduction of Persephone, and, torch in hand (a natural symbol for the moon’s light, but see Farnell), assisted Demeter in her search for her daughter. On moonlight nights she is seen at the cross-roads (hence her name τριοδῖτις, Lat. Trivia) accompanied by the dogs of the Styx and crowds of the dead. Here, on the last day of the month, eggs and fish were offered to her. Black puppies and she-lambs (black victims being offered to chthonian deities) were also sacrificed (Schol. on Theocritus ii. 12). Pillars like the Hermae, called Hecataea, stood, especially in Athens, at cross-roads and doorways, perhaps to keep away the spirits of evil. Like Artemis, Hecate is also a goddess of fertility, presiding especially over the birth and the youth of wild animals, and over human birth and marriage. She also attends when the soul leaves the body at death, and is found near graves, and on the hearth, where the master of the house was formerly buried. It is to be noted that Hecate plays little or no part in mythological legend. Her worship seems to have flourished especially in the wilder parts of Greece, such as Samothrace and Thessaly, in Caria and on the coasts of Asia Minor. In Greece proper it prevailed on the east coast and especially in Aegina, where her aid was invoked against madness.
In older times Hecate is represented as single-formed, clad in
- ↑ J. B. Bury, in Classical Review, iii. p. 416, suggests that the name means “dog,” against which see J. H. Vince, ib. iv. p. 47. G. C. Warr, ib. ix. 390, takes the Hesiodic Hecate to be a moon-goddess, daughter of the sun-god Perseus.
