dismantled by Henri IV., but thanks to its walls, the town resisted in 1707 an attack made by the duke of Savoy.
See Ch. Lenthéric, La Provence Maritime ancienne et moderne (chap. 5) (Paris, 1880). (W. A. B. C.)
HYGIEIA, in Greek mythology, the goddess of health. It seems probable that she was originally an abstraction, subsequently personified, rather than an independent divinity of very ancient date. The question of the original home of her worship has been much discussed. The oldest traces of it, so far as is known at present, are to be found at Titane in the territory of Sicyon, where she was worshipped together with Asclepius, to whom she appears completely assimilated, not an independent personality. Her cult was not introduced at Epidaurus till a late date, and therefore, when in 420 B.C. the worship of Asclepius was introduced at Athens coupled with that of Hygieia, it is not to be inferred that she accompanied him from Epidaurus, or that she is a Peloponnesian importation at all. It is most probable that she was invented at the time of the introduction of Asclepius, after the sufferings caused by the plague had directed special attention to sanitary matters. The already existing worship of Athena Hygieia had nothing to do with Hygieia the goddess of health, but merely denoted the recognition of the power of healing as one of the attributes of Athena, which gradually became crystallized into a concrete personality. At first no special relationship existed between Asclepius and Hygieia, but gradually she came to be regarded as his daughter, the place of his wife being already secured by Epione. Later Orphic hymns, however, and Herodas iv. 1-9, make her the wife of Asclepius. The cult of Hygieia then spread concurrently with that of Asclepius, and was introduced at Rome from Epidaurus in 293, by which time she may have been admitted (which was not the case before) into the Epidaurian family of the god. Her proper name as a Romanized Greek importation was Valetudo, but she was gradually identified with Salus, an older genuine Italian divinity, to whom a temple had already been erected in 302. While in classical times Asclepius and Hygieia are simply the god and goddess of health, in the declining years of paganism they are protecting divinities generally, who preserve mankind not only from sickness but from all dangers on land and sea. In works of art Hygieia is represented, together with Asclepius, as a maiden of benevolent appearance, wearing the chiton and giving food or drink to a serpent out of a dish.
See the article by H. Lechat in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, with full references to authorities; and E. Thrämer in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, with a special section on the modern theories of Hygieia.
HYGIENE (Fr. hygiène, from Gr. ὑγιαίνειν, to be healthy), the science of preserving health, its practical aim being to render “growth more perfect, decay less rapid, life more vigorous, death more remote.” The subject is thus a very wide one, embracing all the agencies which affect the physical and mental well-being of man, and it requires acquaintance with such diverse sciences as physics, chemistry, geology, engineering, architecture, meteorology, epidemiology, bacteriology and statistics. On the personal or individual side it involves consideration of the character and quality of food and of water and other beverages; of clothing; of work, exercise and sleep; of personal cleanliness, of special habits, such as the use of tobacco, narcotics, &c.; and of control of sexual and other passions. In its more general and public aspects it must take cognizance of meteorological conditions, roughly included under the term climate; of the site or soil on which dwellings are placed; of the character, materials and arrangement of dwellings, whether regarded individually or in relation to other houses among which they stand; of their heating and ventilation; of the removal of excreta and other effete matters; of medical knowledge relating to the incidence and prevention of disease; and of the disposal of the dead.
These topics will be found treated in such articles as Dietetics, Food, Food-Preservation, Adulteration, Water, Heating, Ventilation, Sewerage, Bacteriology, Housing, Cremation, &c. For legal enactments which concern the sanitary well-being of the community, see Public Health.
HYGINUS, eighth pope. It was during his pontificate (c. 137–140) that the gnostic heresies began to manifest themselves at Rome.
HYGINUS (surnamed Gromaticus, from gruma, a surveyor’s measuring-rod), Latin writer on land-surveying, flourished in the reign of Trajan (A.D. 98–117). Fragments of a work on legal boundaries attributed to him will be found in C. F. Lachmann, Gromatici Veteres, i. (1848).
A treatise on Castrametation (De Munitionibus Castrorum), also attributed to him, is probably of later date, about the 3rd century A.D. (ed. W. Gemoll, 1879; A. von Domaszewski, 1887).
HYGINUS, GAIUS JULIUS, Latin author, a native of Spain (or Alexandria), was a pupil of the famous Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor and a freedman of Augustus, by whom he was made superintendent of the Palatine library (Suetonius, De Grammaticis, 20). He is said to have fallen into great poverty in his old age, and to have been supported by the historian Clodius Licinus. He was a voluminous author, and his works included topographical and biographical treatises, commentaries on Helvius Cinna and the poems of Virgil, and disquisitions on agriculture and bee-keeping. All these are lost.
Under the name of Hyginus two school treatises on mythology are extant: (1) Fabularum Liber, some 300 mythological legends and celestial genealogies, valuable for the use made by the author of the works of Greek tragedians now lost; (2) De Astronomia, usually called Poetica Astronomica, containing an elementary treatise on astronomy and the myths connected with the stars, chiefly based on the Καταστερισμοί of Eratosthenes. Both are abridgments and both are by the same hand; but the style and Latinity and the elementary mistakes (especially in the rendering of the Greek originals) are held to prove that they cannot have been the work of so distinguished a scholar as C. Julius Hyginus. It is suggested that these treatises are an abridgment (made in the latter half of the 2nd century) of the Genealogiae of Hyginus by an unknown grammarian, who added a complete treatise on mythology.
Editions.—Fabulae, by M. Schmidt (1872); De Astronomia, by B. Bunte (1875); see also Bunte, De C. Julii Hygini, Augusti Liberti, Vita et Scriptis (1846).
HYGROMETER (Gr. ὁγρός, moist, μέτρον, a measure), an instrument for measuring the absolute or relative amount of moisture in the atmosphere; an instrument which only qualitatively determines changes in the humidity is termed a “hygroscope.” The earlier instruments generally depended for their action on the contraction or extension of substances when exposed to varying degrees of moisture; catgut, hair, twisted cords and wooden laths, all of which contract with an increase in the humidity and vice versa, being the most favoured materials. The familiar “weather house” exemplifies this property. This toy consists of a house provided with two doors, through which either a man or woman appears according as the weather is about to be wet or fine. This action is effected by fixing a catgut thread to the base on which the figures are mounted, in such a manner that contraction of the thread rotates the figures so that the man appears and extension so that the woman appears.
Many of the early forms are described in C. Hutton, Math. and Phil. Dictionary (1815). The modern instruments, which utilize other principles, are described in Meteorology: II. Methods and Apparatus.
HYKSOS, or “Shepherd Kings,” the name of the earliest invaders of Egypt of whom we have definite evidence in tradition. Josephus (c. Apion. i. 14), who identifies the Hyksos with the Israelites, preserves a passage from the second book of Manetho giving an account of them. (It may be that Josephus had it, not direct from Manetho’s writings, but through the garbled version of some Alexandrine compiler.) In outline it is as follows. In the days of a king of Egypt named Timaeus the land was suddenly invaded from the east by men of ignoble race, who conquered it without a struggle, destroyed cities and temples, and slew or enslaved the inhabitants. At length they elected a king named Salatis, who, residing at Memphis, made all Egypt tributary, and established garrisons in different parts, especially eastwards, fearing the Assyrians. He built also a great fortress at Avaris, in the Sethroite nome, east of the Bubastite branch of the Nile. Salatis was followed in succession by Beon, Apachnas, Apophis, Jannas and Asses. These six kings reigned 198 years and 10 months, and all aimed at extirpating the Egyptians. Their whole race was named Hyksos, i.e. “shepherd kings,” and
