Part 16

The province is not notably well suited to agriculture, but in forests it is the richest in Prussia, and the timber trade is large. The chief trees are beech, oak and conifers. Cattle-breeding is extensively practised. The vine is cultivated chiefly on the slopes of the Taunus, in the south-west, where the names of several towns are well known for their wines--Schierstein, Erbach (Marcobrunner), Johannisberg, Geisenheim, Rudesheim, Assmannshausen. Iron, coal, copper and manganese are mined. The mineral springs are important, including those at Wiesbaden, Homburg, Langenschwalbach, Nenndorf, Schlangenbad and Soden. The chief manufacturing centres are Cassel, Diez, Eschwege, Frankfort, Fulda, Gross Almerode, Hanau and Hersfeld. The province is divided for administration into 42 circles (_Kreise_), 24 in the government of Cassel and 18 in that of Wiesbaden. It returns 14 representatives to the Reichstag. Marburg is the seat of a university.

HESSE-ROTENBURG, a German landgraviate which was broken up in 1834. In 1627 Ernest (1623-1693), a younger son of Maurice, landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (d. 1632), received Rheinsfels and lower Katzenelnbogen as his inheritance, and some years later, on the deaths of two of his brothers, he added Eschwege, Rotenburg, Wanfried and other districts to his possessions. Ernest, who was a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, was a great traveller and a voluminous writer. About 1700 his two sons, William (d. 1725) and Charles (d. 1711), divided their territories, and founded the families of Hesse-Rotenburg and Hesse-Wanfried. The latter family died out in 1755, when William's grandson, Constantine (d. 1778), reunited the lands except Rheinfels, which had been acquired by Hesse-Cassel in 1735, and ruled them as landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg. At the peace of Luneville in 1801 the part of the landgraviate on the left bank of the Rhine was surrendered to France, and in 1815 other parts were ceded to Prussia, the landgrave Victor Amadeus being compensated by the abbey of Corvey and the Silesian duchy of Ratibor. Victor was the last male member of his family, so, with the consent of Prussia, he bequeathed his allodial estates to his nephews the princes Victor and Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfurst (see HOHENLOHE). When the landgrave died on the 12th of November 1834 the remaining parts of Hesse-Rotenburg were united with Hesse-Cassel according to the arrangement of 1627. It may be noted that Hesse-Rotenburg was never completely independent of Hesse-Cassel. Perhaps the most celebrated member of this family was Charles Constantine (1752-1821), a younger son of the landgrave Constantine, who was called "citoyen Hesse," and who took part in the French Revolution.

HESSIAN, the name of a jute fabric made as a plain cloth, in various degrees of fineness, width and quality. The common, or standard, hessian is 40 in. wide, weighs 10(1/2) oz. per yd., and in the finished state contains about 12 threads and 12(1/2) picks per in. The name is probably of German origin, and the fabric was originally made from flax and tow. Small quantities of cloth are still made from yarns of these fibres, but the jute fibre, owing to its comparative cheapness, has now almost supplanted all others.

This useful cloth is employed in countless ways, especially for packing all kinds of dry goods, while large quantities, of different qualities, are made up into bags for sugar, flour, coffee, grain, ore, manure, sand, potatoes, onions, &c. Indeed, bags made from one or other quality of this cloth, or from sacking, bagging or tarpaulin, form the most convenient, and at the same time the cheapest covering for any kind of goods which are not damaged by being crushed.

Certain types are specially treated, dyed black, tan or other colour, or left in their natural colour, stiffened and used for paddings and linings for cheap clothing, boots, shoes, bags and other articles. When dyed in art shades the cloth forms an attractive decoration for stages and platforms, and generally for any temporary erection, and in many cases it is stencilled and then used for wall decoration.

The great linoleum industry depends upon certain types of this fabric for the foundation of its products, while large quantities are used for the backs of fringe rugs, spring mattresses and the upholstery of furniture.

The great centres for the manufacture of this fabric are Dundee and Calcutta, and every variety of the cloth, and all kinds of hand- and machine-sewn, as well as seamless bags, are made in the former city. The American name for hessian is burlap; this particular kind is 40 in. wide, and is now largely made in Calcutta as well as in Dundee and other places.

HESSUS, HELIUS EOBANUS (1488-1540), German Latin poet, was born at Halgehausen in Hesse-Cassel, on the 6th of January 1488. His family name is said to have been Koch; Eoban was the name of a local saint; Hessus indicates the land of his birth, Helius the fact that he was born on Sunday. In 1504 he entered the university of Erfurt, and soon after his graduation was appointed rector of the school of St Severus. This post he soon lost, and spent the years 1509-1513 at the court of the bishop of Riesenburg. Returning to Erfurt, he was reduced to great straits owing to his drunken and irregular habits. At length (in 1517) he was appointed professor of Latin in the university. He was prominently associated with the distinguished men of the time (Johann Reuchlin, Conrad Peutinger, Ulrich von Hutten, Conrad Mutianus), and took part in the political, religious and literary quarrels of the period, finally declaring in favour of Luther and the Reformation, although his subsequent conduct showed that he was actuated by selfish motives. The university was seriously weakened by the growing popularity of the new university of Wittenberg, and Hessus endeavoured (but without success) to gain a living by the practice of medicine. Through the influence of Camerarius and Melanchthon, he obtained a post at Nuremberg (1526), but, finding a regular life distasteful, he again went back to Erfurt (1533). But It was not the Erfurt he had known; his old friends were dead or had left the place; the university was deserted. A lengthy poem gained him the favour of the landgrave of Hesse, by whom he was summoned in 1536 as professor of poetry and history to Marburg, where he died on the 5th of October 1540. Hessus, who was considered the foremost Latin poet of his age, was a facile verse-maker, but not a true poet. He wrote what he thought was likely to pay or secure him the favour of some important person. He wrote local, historical and military poems, idylls, epigrams and occasional pieces, collected under the title of _Sylvae_. His most popular works were translations of the Psalms into Latin distichs (which reached forty editions) and of the _Iliad_ into hexameters. His most original poem was the _Heroides_ in imitation of Ovid, consisting of letters from holy women, from the Virgin Mary down to Kunigunde, wife of the emperor Henry II.

His _Epistolae_ were edited by his friend Camerarius, who also wrote his life (1553). There are later accounts of him by M. Hertz (1860), G. Schwertzell (1874) and C. Krause (1879); see also D. F. Strauss, _Ulrich von Hutten_ (Eng. trans., 1874). His poems on Nuremberg and other towns have been edited with commentaries and 16th-century illustrations by J. Neff and V. von Loga in M. Herrmann and S. Szamatolski's _Lateinische Literaturdenkmaler des XV. u. XVI. Jahrhunderts_ (Berlin, 1896).

HESTIA, in Greek mythology, the "fire-goddess," daughter of Cronus and Rhea, the goddess of hearth and home. She is not mentioned in Homer, although the hearth is recognized as a place of refuge for suppliants; this seems to show that her worship was not universally acknowledged at the time of the Homeric poems. In post-Homeric religion she is one of the twelve Olympian deities, but, as the abiding goddess of the household, she never leaves Olympus. When Apollo and Poseidon became suitors for her hand, she swore to remain a maiden for ever; whereupon Zeus bestowed upon her the honour of presiding over all sacrifices. To her the opening sacrifice was offered; to her at the sacrificial meal the first and last libations were poured. The fire of Hestia was always kept burning, and, if by any accident it became extinct, only sacred fire produced by friction, or by burning glasses drawing fire from the sun, might be used to rekindle it. Hestia is the goddess of the family union, the personification of the idea of home; and as the city union is only the family union on a large scale, she was regarded as the goddess of the state. In this character her special sanctuary was in the prytaneum, where the common hearth-fire round which the magistrates meet is ever burning, and where the sacred rites that sanctify the concord of city life are performed. From this fire, as the representative of the life of the city, intending colonists took the fire which was to be kindled on the hearth of the new colony. Hestia was closely connected with Zeus, the god of the family both in its external relation of hospitality and its internal unity round its own hearth; in the _Odyssey_ a form of oath is by Zeus, the table and the hearth. Again, Hestia is often associated with Hermes, the two representing home and domestic life on the one hand, and business and outdoor life on the other; or, according to others, the association is local--that of the god of boundaries with the goddess of the house. In later philosophy Hestia became the hearth of the universe--the personification of the earth as the centre of the universe, identified with Cybele and Demeter. As Hestia had her home in the prytaneum, special temples dedicated to her are of rare occurrence. She is seldom represented in works of art, and plays no important part in legend. It is not certain that any really Greek statues of Hestia are in existence, although the Giustiniani Vesta in the Torlonia Museum is usually accepted as such. In this she is represented standing upright, simply robed, a hood over her head, the left hand raised and pointing upwards. The Roman deity corresponding to the Greek Hestia is Vesta (q.v.).

See A. Preuner, _Hestia-Vesta_ (1864), the standard treatise on the subject, and his article in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_; J. G. Frazer, "The Prytaneum," &c., in _Journal of Philology_, xiv. (1885); G. Hagemann, _De Graecorum prytaneis_ (1881), with bibliography and notes; _Homeric Hymns_, xxix., ed. T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes (1904); Farnell, _Cults, the Greek States_, v. (1909).

HESYCHASTS ([Greek: hesychastai] or [Greek: hesychazontes], from [Greek: hesychos], quiet, also called [Greek: omphalopsychoi], Umbilicanimi, and sometimes referred to as Euchites, Massalians or Palamites), a quietistic sect which arose, during the later period of the Byzantine empire, among the monks of the Greek church, especially at Mount Athos, then at the height of its fame and influence under the reign of Andronicus the younger and the abbacy of Symeon. Owing to various adventitious circumstances the sect came into great prominence politically and ecclesiastically for a few years about the middle of the 14th century. Their opinion and practice will be best represented in the words of one of their early teachers (quoted by Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, c. 63): "When thou art alone in thy cell shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thine eyes and thy thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel ([Greek: omphalos]); and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if thou persevere day and night, thou wilt feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light." About the year 1337 this hesychasm, which is obviously related to certain well-known forms of Oriental mysticism, attracted the attention of the learned and versatile Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who at that time held the office of abbot in the Basilian monastery of St Saviour's in Constantinople, and who had visited the fraternities of Mount Athos on a tour of inspection. Amid much that he disapproved, what he specially took exception to as heretical and blasphemous was the doctrine entertained as to the nature of this divine light, the fruition of which was the supposed reward of hesychastic contemplation. It was maintained to be the pure and perfect essence of God Himself, that eternal light which had been manifested to the disciples on Mount Tabor at the transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. On the hesychastic side the controversy was taken up by Gregory Palamas, afterwards archbishop of Thessalonica, who laboured to establish a distinction between eternal [Greek: ousia] and eternal [Greek: energeia]. In 1341 the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and presided over by the emperor Andronicus; the assembly, influenced by the veneration in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held in the Eastern Church, overawed Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming bishop of Hierace in the Latin communion. One of his friends, Gregory Acindynus, continued the controversy, and three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the Barlaamites gained a brief victory. But in 1351 under the presidency of the emperor John Cantacuzenus, the uncreated light of Mount Tabor was established as an article of faith for the Greeks, who ever since have been ready to recognize it as an additional ground of separation from the Roman Church. The contemporary historians Cantacuzenus and Nicephorus Gregoras deal very copiously with this subject, taking the Hesychast and Barlaamite sides respectively. It may be mentioned that in the time of Justinian the word hesychast was applied to monks in general simply as descriptive of the quiet and contemplative character of their pursuits.

See article "Hesychasten" in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_ (3rd ed., 1900), where further references are given.

HESYCHIUS, grammarian of Alexandria, probably flourished in the 5th century A.D. He was probably a pagan; and the explanations of words from Gregory of Nazianzus and other Christian writers (_glossae sacrae_) are interpolations of a later time. He has left a Greek dictionary, containing a copious list of peculiar words, forms and phrases, with an explanation of their meaning, and often with a reference to the author who used them or to the district of Greece where they were current. Hence the book is of great value to the student of the Greek dialects; while in the restoration of the text of the classical authors generally, and particularly of such writers as Aeschylus and Theocritus, who used many unusual words, its value can hardly be exaggerated. The explanations of many epithets and phrases reveal many important facts about the religion and social life of the ancients. In a prefatory letter Hesychius mentions that his lexicon is based on that of Diogenianus (itself extracted from an earlier work by Pamphilus), but that he has also used similar works by Aristarchus, Apion, Heliodorus and others.

The text is very corrupt, and the order of the words has often been disturbed. There is no doubt that many interpolations, besides the Christian glosses, have been made. The work has come down to us from a single MS., now in the library at Venice, from which the editio princeps was published. The best edition is by M. Schmidt (1858-1868); in a smaller edition (1867) he attempts to distinguish the additions made by Hesychius to the work of Diogenianus.

HESYCHIUS OF MILETUS, Greek chronicler and biographer, surnamed _Illustrius_, son of an advocate, flourished at Constantinople in the 5th century A.D. during the reign of Justinian. According to Photius (cod. 69) he was the author of three important works, (1) _A Compendium of Universal History_ in six books, from Belus, the reputed founder of the Assyrian empire, to Anastasius I. (d. 518). A considerable fragment has been preserved from the sixth book, entitled [Greek: Patria Konstantinoupoleos], a history of Byzantium from its earliest beginnings till the time of Constantine the Great. (2) _A Biographical Dictionary_ ([Greek: Onomatologos] or [Greek: Pinax]) _of Learned Men_, arranged according to classes (poets, philosophers), the chief sources of which were the [Greek: Mousike historia] of Aelius Dionysius and the works of Herennius Philo. Much of it has been incorporated in the lexicon of Suidas, as we learn from that author. It is disputed, however, whether the words in Suidas ("of which this book is an epitome") mean that Suidas himself epitomized the work of Hesychius, or whether they are part of the title of an already epitomized Hesychius used by Suidas. The second view is more generally held. The epitome referred to, in which alphabetical order was substituted for arrangement in classes and some articles on Christian writers added as a concession to the times, is assigned from internal indications to the years 829-837. Both it and the original work are lost, with the exception of the excerpts in Photius and Suidas. A smaller compilation, chiefly from Diogenes Laertius and Suidas, with a similar title, is the work of an unknown author of the 11th or 12th century. (3) A _History_ of the Reign of Justin I. (518-527) and the early years of Justinian, completely lost. Photius praises the style of Hesychius, and credits him with being a veracious historian.

Editions: J. C. Orelli (1820) and J. Flach (1882); fragments in C. W. Muller, _Frag. hist. Graec._ iv. 143 and in T. Preger's _Scriptores originis Constantinopolitanae_, i. (1901); _Pseudo-Hesychius_, by J. Flach (1880); see generally C. Krumbacher, _Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur_ (1897).

HETAERISM (Gr. [Greek: hetaira] mistress), the term employed by anthropologists to express the primitive condition of man in his sexual relations. The earliest social organization of the human race was characterized by the absence of the institution of marriage in any form. Women were the common property of their tribe, and the children never knew their fathers.

HETEROKARYOTA, a zoological name proposed by S. J. Hickson for the Infusoria (q.v.) on the ground of the differentiation of their nuclear apparatus into meganucleus and micronucleus (or nuclei).

See Lankester's _Treatise of Zoology_, vol. i. fasc. 1 (1903).

HETERONOMY (from Gr. [Greek: heteros] and [Greek: nomos], the rule of another), the state of being under the rule of another person. In ethics the term is specially used as the antithesis of "autonomy," which, especially in Kantian terminology, treats of the true self as will, determining itself by its own law, the moral law. "Heteronomy" is therefore applied by Kant to all other ethical systems, inasmuch as they place the individual in subjection to external laws of conduct.

HETMAN (a Polish word, probably derived from the Ger. _Hauptmann_, head-man or captain; the Russian form is _ataman_), a military title formerly in use in Poland; the _Hetman Wielki_, or Great Hetman, was the chief of the armed forces of the nation, and commanded in the field, except when the king was present in person. The office was abolished in 1792. From Poland the word was introduced into Russia, in the form _ataman_, and was adopted by the Cossacks, as a title for their head, who was practically an independent prince, when under the suzerainty of Poland. After the acceptance of Russian rule by the Cossacks in 1654, the post was shorn of its power. The title of "ataman" or "hetman of all the Cossacks" is held by the Cesarevitch. "Ataman" or "hetman" is also the name of the elected elder of the _stanitsa_, the unit of Cossack administration. (See COSSACKS.)

HETTNER, HERMANN THEODOR (1821-1882), German literary historian and writer on the history of art, was born at Leisersdorf, near Goldberg, in Silesia, on the 12th of March 1821. At the universities of Berlin, Halle and Heidelberg he devoted himself chiefly to the study of philosophy, but in 1843 turned his attention to aesthetics, art and literature. With a view to furthering these studies, he spent three years in Italy, and, on his return, published a _Vorschule zur bildenden Kunst der Alten_ (1848) and an essay on _Die neapolitanischen Malerschulen_. He became _Privatdozent_ for aesthetics and the history of art at Heidelberg and, after the publication of his suggestive volume on _Die romantische Schule in ihrem Zusammenhang mit Goethe und Schiller_ (1850), accepted a call as professor to Jena where he lectured on the history of both art and literature. In 1855 he was appointed director of the royal collections of antiquities and the museum of plaster casts at Dresden, to which posts were subsequently added that of director of the historical museum and a professorship at the royal _Polytechnikum_. He died in Dresden on the 29th of May 1882. Hettner's chief work is his _Literaturgeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts_, which appeared in three parts, devoted respectively to English, French and German literature, between 1856 and 1870 (5th ed. of I. and II., revised by A. Brandl and H. Morf, 1894; 4th of III., revised by O. Harnack, 1894). Although to some extent influenced by the political and literary theories of the Hegelian school, which, since Hettner's day have fallen into discredit, and at times losing sight of the main issues of literary development over questions of social evolution, this work belongs to the best histories that the 19th century produced. Hettner's judgment is sound and his point of view always original and stimulating. His other works include _Griechische Reiseskizzen_ (1853), _Das moderne Drama_ (1852)--a book that arose from a correspondence with Gottfried Keller--_Italienische Studien_ (1879), and several works descriptive of the Dresden art collections. His _Kleine Schriften_ were collected and published in 1884.

See A. Stern, _Hermann Hettner, ein Lebensbild_ (1885); H. Spitzer, _H. Hettners kunstphilosophische Anfange und Literaturasthetik_ (1903).

HETTSTEDT, a town of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, on the Wipper, and at the junction of the railways Berlin-Blankenheim and Hettstedt-Halle, 23 m. N.W. of the last town. Pop. (1905), 9230. It has a Roman Catholic and four Evangelical churches, and has manufactures of machinery, pianofortes and artificial manure. In the neighbourhood are mines of argentiferous copper, and the surrounding district and villages are occupied with smelting and similar works. Silver and sulphuric acid are the other chief products; nickel and gold are also found in small quantities. In the Kaiser Friedrich mine close by, the first steam-engine in Germany was erected on the 23rd of August 1785. Hettstedt is mentioned as early as 1046; in 1220 it possessed a castle; and in 1380 it received civic privileges. When the countship of Mansfeld was sequestrated, Hettstedt came into the possession of Saxony, passing to Prussia in 1815.