over, as we saw, by the Syrian Christians, and Greek philosophical and scientific classics were now translated from Syriac into Arabic. These were the starting-points for the Mahommedan schools in these subjects. Accordingly we find that Arabian philosophy (q.v.), mathematics, geography, medicine and philology are all based professedly upon Greek works (Brockelmann, Gesch. d. arabischen Literatur, 1898, vol. i.; R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, 1907, pp. 358-361). Aristotle in the East no less than in the West was the “master of them that know”; and Moslem physicians to this day invoke the names of Hippocrates and Galen. The Hellenistic strain in Mahommedan civilization has, it is true, flagged and failed, but only as that civilization as a whole has declined. It was not that the Hellenistic element failed, whilst the native elements in the civilization prospered; the culture of Islam has, as a whole (from whatever causes), sunk ever lower during the centuries that have witnessed the marvellous expansion of Europe.
Authorities.—For the inner history of Hellenism after Alexander, the general historical literature dealing with later Greece and Rome supplies material in various degrees. See works quoted in articles Greece, History; Rome, History; Ptolemies; Seleucid Dynasty; Bactria, &c.
Different elements (literature, philosophy, art, &c.) are dealt with in works dealing specially with these subjects, among which those of Susemihl, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Erwin Rohde and E. Schwartz are of especial importance for the literature; those of Schreiber and Strzygowski for the later Greek art.
Sketches of Hellenistic civilization generally are found in J. P. Mahaffy’s Greek Life and Thought (1887), The Greek World under Roman Sway (1890); The Silver Age of the Greek World (1906); Julius Kaerst, Gesch. d. hellenist. Zeitalters (Band ii., publ. 1909); and in Beloch’s Griechische Geschichte, vol. iii. (for the century immediately succeeding Alexander). R. von Scala’s “The Greeks after Alexander,” in Helmolt’s History of the World (vol. v.), covers the whole period from Alexander to the end of the Byzantine Empire. P. Wendland’s Hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum u. Christentum (1907) is an illuminating monograph, giving a conspectus of the material. For Hellenistic Egypt, Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, vol. iii. (1906). (E. R. B.)
HELLER, STEPHEN (1815–1888), Austrian pianist and composer, was born at Pest on the 15th of May 1815. (Fétis’s dictionary says 1814, but this is almost certainly wrong.) He was at first intended for a lawyer, but at nine years of age performed so successfully at a concert that he was sent to Vienna to study under Czerny. Halm was his principal master, and from the age of twelve he gave concerts in Vienna, and made a tour through Hungary, Poland and Germany. At Augsburg he had the good fortune to be befriended when ill by a wealthy family, who practically adopted him and gave him the opportunity to complete his musical education. In 1838 he went to Paris, and soon became intimate with Liszt, Chopin, Berlioz and their set, among whom was Hallé, throughout his life an indefatigable performer of Heller’s music. In 1849 he came to England and played a few times, and in 1862 he appeared with Hallé at the Crystal Palace. He outlived the great reputation he had enjoyed among cultivated amateurs for so many years, and was almost forgotten when he died at Paris on the 14th of January 1888. His pianoforte pieces, almost all of them published in sets and provided with fancy names, do not show very startling originality, but their grace and refinement could not but make them popular with players and listeners of all classes.
HELLESPONT (i.e. “Sea of Helle”; variously named in classical literature Ἑλλήσποντος, ὁ Ἕλλης πόντος, Hellespontum Pelagus, and Fretum Hellesponticum), the ancient name of the Dardanelles (q.v.). It was so-called from Helle, the daughter of Athamas (q.v.), who was drowned here. See Argonauts.
HELLEVOETSLUIS, or Helvoetsluis, a fortified seaport in the province of South Holland, the kingdom of Holland, on the south side of the island of Voorne-and-Putten, on the sea-arm known as the Haringvliet, 512 m. S. of Brielle. It has daily steamboat connexion with Rotterdam by the Voornsche canal. Pop. (1900), 4152. Hellevoetsluis is an important naval station, and possesses a naval arsenal, dry and wet docks, wharves and a naval college for engineers. Among the public buildings are the communal chambers, a Reformed church (1661), a Roman Catholic church and a synagogue.
HELLÍN, a town of south-eastern Spain, in the province of Albacete, on the Albacete-Murcia railway. Pop. (1900), 12,558. Hellín is built on the outskirts of the low hills which line the left bank of the river Mundo. It possesses the remains of an old Roman castle and a beautiful parish church, the masonry and marble pavement at the entrance of which are worthy of special notice. The surrounding country yields wine, oil and saffron in abundance; within the town there are manufactures of coarse cloth, leather and pottery. Sulphur is obtained from the celebrated mining district of Minas del Mundo, 12 m. S., at the junction between the Mundo and the Segura; and there are warm sulphurous springs in the neighbouring village of Azaraque. Hellín was known to the Romans who first exploited its sulphur as Illunum.
HELLO, ERNEST (1828–1885), French critic, was born at Tréguier. He was the son of a lawyer who held posts of great importance at Rennes and in Paris, and was well educated at both places, but took to no profession and resided much, for a time, in his father’s country-house in Brittany. A very strong Roman Catholic, he appears to have been specially excited by his countryman Renan’s attitude to religious matters, and coming under the influence of J. A. Barbey d’Aurevilly and Louis Veuillot, the two most brilliant crusaders of the Church in the press, he started a newspaper of his own, Le Croisé, in 1859; but it only lasted two years. He wrote, however, much in other papers. He had very bad health, suffering apparently from spinal or bone disease. But he was fortunate enough to meet with a wife, Zoe Berthier, who, ten years older than himself, and a friend for some years before their marriage, became his devoted nurse, and even brought upon herself abuse from gutter journalists of the time for the care with which she guarded him. He died in 1885. Hello’s work is somewhat varied in form but uniform in spirit. His best-known book, Physionomie de saints (1875), which has been translated into English (1903) as Studies in Saintship, does not display his qualities best. Contes extraordinaires, published not long before his death, is better and more original. But the real Hello is to be found in a series of philosophical and critical essays, from Renan, l’Allemagne et l’athéisme (1861), through L’Homme (1871) and Les Plateaux de la balance (1880), perhaps his chief book, to the posthumously published Le Siècle. The peculiarity of his standpoint and the originality and vigour of his handling make his studies, of Shakespeare, Hugo and others, of abiding importance as literary “triangulations,” results of object, subject and point of view.
HELMERS, JAN FREDERIK (1767–1813), Dutch poet, was born at Amsterdam on the 7th of March 1767. His early poems, Night (1788) and Socrates (1790), were tame and sentimental, but after 1805 he determined, in company with his brother-in-law, Cornelis Loots (1765–1834), to rouse national feeling by a burst of patriotic poetry. His Poems (2 vols., 1809–1810), but especially his great work The Dutch Nation, a poem in six cantos (1812), created great enthusiasm and enjoyed immense success. Helmers died at Amsterdam on the 26th of February 1813. He owed his success mainly to the integrity of his patriotism and the opportune moment at which he sounded his counterblast to the French oppression. His posthumous poems were collected in 1815.
HELMERSEN, GREGOR VON (1803–1885), Russian geologist, was born at Laugut-Duckershof, near Dorpat, on the 29th of September (O.S.) 1803. He received an engineering training and became major-general in the corps of Mining Engineers. In 1837 he was appointed professor of geology in the mining institute at St Petersburg. He was author of numerous memoirs on the geology of Russia, especially on the coal and other mineral deposits of the country; and he wrote also some explanations to accompany separate sheets of the geological map of Russia. His geological work was continued to an advanced age, one of the later publications being Studien über die Wanderblöcke und die Diluvialgebilde Russlands (1869 and 1882). Most of his memoirs were published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg. He died at St Petersburg on the 3rd of February (O.S.) 1885.
