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former was only a kind of funeral-honour, in which they celebrat-ed their exploits, concluding ihe rehearsal with leasts.

Hero of a Poem, or Romance, is the principal personage, orhe w ho acts the chief part in it. Thus tne hero of the Iliad isAchilles; of the Odyssey, Ulysses; of the d'.neul, Aeneas ; ofT asso’s Jerusalem , Godfrey of Bu'.loign; of Milton’s ParadiseI-oa, Adam; though Mr. l)ryden viil have the Devil to be Mil-ton’s hero, because he gets the better of Adam, and drives himout of Paradise.

HEROD , improperly styled the Greal, the execrable tyrant ofJudina, was born at Ascalon, about B. C. (is. llis father. Antipa-ter the Idutnean, (or Edomite, ; appointed him governor of Gali-lee; Mark Antony made him letrarch, or elhnarch; and lie after-wards obtained the kingdom of Judaa, wh'ch was continued tohim by Augustus , a short time before the birth of our Saviour;and thus the prophecy was fulfilled, of “ the sceptre departingfrom Judah,” he being an alien by birth. At the birth of ourLord, in the vain hope of cutting olf the Messiah, he caused ailthe infants of Bethlehem under two years of age to be massacred.His barbarity was as fatal to his own family as to iiis subjects ; forbe murdered bis beautilul wife Mariamne, her mother Alexandra,her brother Aristohulus, her grandfather llvrcanus If. and his ownsons Alexander and AristobuUr; which led the emperor Augus-tus to say, that it was better to tie Ilerod’s swine than bis sons,lie died miserably within three years after the birth of Christ,aged 70.

Herod Antipas, the son of Ilerod the Great, by his wife'Cleopatra, a native pf Jerusalem . Ilerod, in his w ill, named bisson Archelatis bis successor, giving Antipas the title of Tetrarch ofGalilee and Penea. Antipas adorned and fortified the principalplaces of his dominions. He married the daughter of Aretas,King of Arabia; whom he divorced about A. D. 33, to marry bissister-in-law Ilerodias, wife to his brother Philip, who was stillJiving. St. John the Baptist , exclaiming against this incest andadultery, was imprisoned in the castle of Maciv.erus; and after-Avards beheaded by Herod ’s order, as recorded in Mat. xiv. Mark\i. and Luke iii. Aretas to revenge the ailront which Ilerod hadoffered to his daughter, declared war against him, and overcamehim in a very obstinate engagement. Herod being afterwards de-tected as a party in Sejanus ’s conspiracy, was banished by the em-peror Caligula into Lyons in Gaul ; whither Ilorodias accompa-nied him. T his Antipas is the Herod who, being at Jerusalem atthe time of our Saviour’s passion, (Luke xxiii. 11,) ridiculed him,by dressing him in a white robe, and sending him back to Pilate,ns a mock king , whose ambition gave him no umbrage. T hetime when lie died is not known, but it is certain he died in exile,as well as Ilerodias. Josephus says he died in Spain .

HEROD I AN, an eminent Greek historian, who flourished atHome in the third century, in the reigns of Severus, Caracalla ,lleliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximin. His history beginsfrom the death of Marcus Aurelius the philosopher; and endswith those of Balbimis and Maximin, and the beginning of tiiereign of Gordian. It is written in very elegant Greek; and thereis an excellent translation of it into Latin , by Angeius Folitiamis.It was published by Henry Stephens in 4to, in 1381; by Boeder,atStrasburg, in 1 GG2, in 8vo. ; and by Hudson, at Oxford, inlGy.d, 8 vo. ' '

1IERODIANS, a sect among the Jews, mentioned in Matth .xxii, JG, and Mark iii. 6. Commentators are much divided withregard to them. St. Jerome , in his dialogue against the l.ucife-rians, takes the name to have been given to such as owned Ilerodfor tlie Messiah; and Terlullian and Epiphanius are of the sameopinion. But the same Jerome, in his Comment on St. Matthew ,treats ttiis opinion as ridiculous; and maintains, (hat the Pharisees gave this appellation by way of ridicule to Ilerod’s soldiers, whopaid tribute to the Romans; agreeable to this the S\ rian interpre-ters render the word by the domestics of Ilerod, i. e. Ilerod’scourtiers. M. Simon, in his notes on the twenty-second chapterof Matthew , advances a more probable opinion. T he name h<*supposes to have been given to such as adhered to Herod ’s pattyand interest; and were for preserving the government in his fa-mily, about which there were great div isions among the Jews . F.Ilardotiin will have the Ilerodians and Sadducees to liavi beenthe same. Dr. Prideaux is of opinion, that they were distinguish-ed from the other Jews by Uieir concurrence with Ilerod’s scheme,

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of subjecting himself and bis dominions to the Romans, and bycomplying with many of their heathen usages and customs. Thissymbolizing with idolatry upon views of interest and worldly po-licy, was probably that leaven of Herod , against which our Savi-our cautioned his di.ciples. It is farther probable, that they werechietly of the sect of the Sadducees; because the leaven of Herod is also called the leaven of the Sadducees.

HERODOT US, an ancient Greek historian, the son of Lyxuiand Dryo, bom at Halicarnassus in Garia, in the first year ot theseventy-fourth Olj mpiad, about B. C. 484. Halicarnassus beingat that time under the tyranny of Lygdamis, grandson of Artemi-sia, Queen of Caria, Herodotus retired to Samos ; from whencelie travelled over Egypt, Greece, Italy , Ac. and acquired theknowledge of the history and origin of many nations. He thenbegan to digest the materials he had collected, and composed thathistory which has preserved his name ever since. He wrote it mthe isle of Samos. Lucian informs us, that when Herodotus leftCaria to go into Greece , he began to consider wTth himself,

What lie should do to be for ever known,

And make the ages all to come his own.

His history, he presumed, would easily procure him fame, andraise his name among the Grecians, in whose favour it was written;but then lie saw that it would be tedious to go through all the ci-ties of Greece , and recite it to the inhabitants of each city. Hethought it best therefore 1 to take the opportunity ot their assemblingall together; and accordingly recited his work at the Olympicgames, which rendered him more famous than even those vs,ho hadobtained the prizes. None were ignorant of bis name, nor wasthere a single person in Gtetce who had not either seen him at theOlympic games, or heard those speak of him who laid seen himthere. 11 is work is divided into nine books; which, according tothe computation of l)iony»ius Haliearnassensis, contain the mostremarkable occurrences within a period of 240 years; from thereign of Cyrus to that of Xerxes , when the historian was living.These nine books are named after the nine Muses, each book be-ing distinguished bv the name of a Muse; and this lias givenbirth to two disquisitions; viz. I. Whether they were so calledbv Herodotus himself; and, 2. For what reason they were so call-ed. As to the first, it is generally agreed that Herodotus did notimpose these names himself; but it is not agreed why they wereimposed by others. Lucian tells us, that these names were giventhem by tlie Grecians at the Olympic games, when they were firstrecited, as the best compliment that could be paid the man whohad taken pains to do them so much honour. Others havethought, that the names of tke Muses have been fixed upon themby way of reproach, to intimate, that Herodotus , instead of truehistory, had written a great deal of fable. Aldus Mainitius, Joa-chim Camerarius , aticl Henry Stephens, have written apologiesfor him; and have very justly observed, that he seldom relatesany thing of doubtful credit without producing the authority onwhich liis narration is founded; and, if he lias no certain authoiityto fix it upon, uses always the terms, lit ferunt, lit ego audivi, Ac.There is ascribed also to Herodotus, but falsely, a Fite of Homer ,which is usually printed at the end of his work. IJe w rote in theIonic dialect, and his style and manner have been admired by allpeople of taste. There have been several editions of his works;two by Henry Stephens, in 1370, and 1392; one by Gale at Lon-don in 1679;* and one by Gronovius at Leyden in 1715, which isthe best, though not the best printed.

HEROIC AGE, is that age or period of the world, wlieieinthe heroes, or those called by the poets the children of the gods,are supposed to have lived.- it coincides witli the fabulous age.

Heroic Poem is that which undertakes to describe some extra-ordinary action, or enterprise, limner, Virgil, Statius , Eucao,'lasso, Canteens, Milton, and. Voltaire , have composed heroicpoems. In this sense, heroic poem coincides with epic poem.

Heroic Ver^k, is (hat wherein heroic poems ate usually com-posed; or, it isllv.it proper for such poems. In the Greek andLatin , hexameter verses are peculiarly denominated heroic verses,as being alone used by Ilomer, Virgil, &c. Alexandrine verses,of twelve .)Rabies, were formerly called heroic verses, as beingsupposed the only verse proper for heroic poetry ; but later writersuse verses of ten syllables.

IIeron, in ornithology. See Akim a. This bird is a verygreat devourer of fish, atid will do more mischief to a pond than

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