professedly by Hippocrates (Ibukrat or Bukrat), the number of
which greatly exceeds that of the extant Greek originals, reference
may be made to Flügel’s contribution to the article “Hippokrates”
in the Encyklopädie of Ersch and Gruber. They have been partially
catalogued by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca.
(J. B. T.)
HIPPOCRENE (the “fountain of the horse,” ἡ ἵππου κρήνη),
the spring on Mt Helicon, in Boeotia, which, like the other
spring there, Aganippe, was sacred to the Muses and Apollo,
and hence taken as the source of poetic inspiration. The spring,
surrounded by an ancient wall, is now known as Kryopegadi or
the cold spring. According to the legend, it was produced by
the stamping of the hoof of Bellerophon’s horse Pegasus. The
same story accounts for the Hippocrene in Troezen and the
spring Peirene at Corinth.
HIPPODAMUS, of Miletus, a Greek architect of the 5th
century B.C. It was he who introduced order and regularity
into the planning of cities, in place of the previous intricacy
and confusion. For Pericles he planned the arrangement of
the harbour-town Peiraeus at Athens. When the Athenians
founded Thurii in Italy he accompanied the colony as architect,
and afterwards, in 408 B.C., he superintended the building of
the new city of Rhodes. His schemes consisted of series of broad,
straight streets, cutting one another at right angles.
HIPPODROME (Gr. ἱππόδρομος, from ἵππος, horse, and
δρόμος, racecourse), the course provided by the Greeks for
horse and chariot racing; it corresponded to the Roman circus,
except that in the latter only four chariots ran at a time, whereas
ten or more contended in the Greek games, so that the width
was far greater, being about 400 ft., the course being 600 to
700 ft. long. The Greek hippodrome was usually set out on the
slope of a hill, and the ground taken from one side served to
form the embankment on the other side. One end of the
hippodrome was semicircular, and the other end square with
an extensive portico, in front of which, at a lower level, were
the stalls for the horses and chariots. The modern hippodrome
is more for equestrian and other displays than for horse racing.
The Hippodrome in Paris somewhat resembles the Roman
amphitheatre, being open in the centre to the sky, with seats
round on rising levels.
HIPPOLYTUS, in Greek legend, son of Theseus and Hippolyte,
queen of the Amazons (or of her sister Antiope), a famous hunter
and charioteer and favourite of Artemis. His stepmother
Phaedra became enamoured of him, but, finding her advances
rejected, she hanged herself, leaving a letter in which she accused
Hippolytus of an attempt upon her virtue. Theseus thereupon
drove his son from his presence with curses and called upon his
father Poseidon to destroy him. While Hippolytus was driving
along the shore at Troezen (the scene of the Hippolytus of
Euripides), a sea-monster (a bull or phoca) sent by Poseidon
emerged from the waves; the horses were scared, Hippolytus
was thrown out of the chariot, and was dragged along, entangled
in the reins, until he died. According to a tradition of Epidaurus,
Asclepius restored him to life at the request of Artemis, who
removed him to Italy (see Virbius). At Troezen, where he had
a special sanctuary and priest, and was worshipped with divine
honours, the story of his death was denied. He was said to
have been rescued by the gods at the critical moment, and to
have been placed amongst the stars as the Charioteer (Auriga).
It was also the custom of the Troezenian maidens to cut off a
lock of their hair and to dedicate it to Hippolytus before marriage
(see Frazer on Pausanias ii. 32. 1). Well-known classical
parallels to the main theme are Bellerophon and Antea (or
Stheneboea) and Peleus and Astydamia. The story was the
subject of two plays by Euripides (the later of which is extant),
of a tragedy by Seneca and of Racine’s Phèdre. A trace of it
has survived in the legendary death of the apocryphal martyr
Hippolytus, a Roman officer who was torn to pieces by wild
horses as a convert to Christianity (see J. J. Döllinger, Hippolytus
and Callistus, Eng. tr. by A. Plummer, 1876, pp. 28-39,
51-60).
According to the older explanations, Hippolytus represented the sun, which sets in the sea (cf. the scene of his death and the story of Phaëthon), and Phaedra the moon, which travels behind the sun, but is unable to overtake it. It is more probable, however, that he was a local hero famous for his chastity, perhaps originally a priest of Artemis, worshipped as a god at Troezen, where he was closely connected and sometimes confounded with Asclepius. It is noteworthy that, in a speech put into the mouth of Theseus by Euripides, the father, who of course believes his wife’s story and regards Hippolytus as a hypocrite, throws his son’s pretended misogyny and asceticism (Orphism) in his teeth. This seems to point to a struggle between a new ritual and that of Poseidon, the chief deity of Troezen, in which the representative of the intruding religion meets his death through the agency of the offended god, as Orpheus (q.v.) was torn to pieces by the votaries of the jealous Dionysus. According to S. Reinach (Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, x., 1907, p. 47), the Troezenian Hippolytus was a horse, the hypostasis of an equestrian divinity periodically torn to pieces by the faithful, who called themselves, and believed themselves to be, horses. Death was followed by resuscitation, as in the similar myths of Adonis (the sacred boar), Orpheus (the fox), Pentheus (the fawn), Phaëthon (the white sun-horse).
See Wilamowitz-Möllendorff’s Introduction to his German translation of Euripides’ Hippolytus (1891); A. Kalkmann, De Hippolytis Euripideis (Bonn, 1882); and (for representations in art) “Über Darstellung der Hippolytussage” in Archäologische Zeitung (xli. 1883); J. E. Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens (1890), cl.
HIPPOLYTUS, a writer of the early Church. The mystery
which enveloped the person and writings of Hippolytus,[1] one of
the most prolific ecclesiastical writers of early times, had some
light thrown upon it for the first time about the middle of the
19th century by the discovery of the so-called Philosophumena
(see below). Assuming this writing to be the work of Hippolytus,
the information given in it as to the author and his times can be
combined with other traditional dates to form a tolerably clear
picture. Hippolytus must have been born in the second half of
the 2nd century, probably in Rome. Photius describes him in
his Bibliotheca (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus, and from the
context of this passage it is supposed that we may conclude that
Hippolytus himself so styled himself. But this is not certain, and
even if it were, it does not necessarily imply that Hippolytus
enjoyed the personal teaching of the celebrated Gallic bishop;
it may perhaps merely refer to that relation of his theological
system to that of Irenaeus which can easily be traced in his
writings. As a presbyter of the church at Rome under Bishop
Zephyrinus (199–217), Hippolytus was distinguished for his
learning and eloquence. It was at this time that Origen, then a
young man, heard him preach (Hieron. Vir. ill. 61; cp. Euseb.
H.E. vi. 14, 10). It was probably not long before questions of
theology and church discipline brought him into direct conflict with
Zephyrinus, or at any rate with his successor Calixtus I. (q.v.).
He accused the bishop of favouring the Christological heresies
of the Monarchians, and, further, of subverting the discipline of
the Church by his lax action in receiving back into the Church
those guilty of gross offences. The result was a schism, and for
perhaps over ten years Hippolytus stood as bishop at the head of
a separate church. Then came the persecution under Maximinus
the Thracian. Hippolytus and Pontius, who was then bishop,
were transported in 235 to Sardinia, where it would seem that
both of them died. From the so-called chronograph of the year
354 (Catalogus Liberianus) we learn that on the 13th of August,
probably in 236, the bodies of the exiles were interred in Rome
and that of Hippolytus in the cemetery on the Via Tiburtina.
So we must suppose that before his death the schismatic was
received again into the bosom of the Church, and this is confirmed
by the fact that his memory was henceforth celebrated in the
Church as that of a holy martyr. Pope Damasus I. dedicated to
him one of his famous epigrams, and Prudentius (Peristephanon, 11)
drew a highly coloured picture of his gruesome death, the details
of which are certainly purely legendary: the myth of Hippolytus
the son of Theseus was transferred to the Christian martyr. Of
the historical Hippolytus little remained in the memory of after
- ↑ According to the legend St Hippolytus was a Roman soldier who was converted by St Lawrence.
