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On this page: Hellas – Helle – Hellen – Hellotia

HELLOTIA.

HELLANICUS.

378

in the form of annals, which ascended to the earliest times for which they were made up from oral tra­ditions. Hellanicus made use of these records, but his work was not a mere meagre list, but he incor­porated in it a variety of traditions and historical events, for which there was no room in any of his other works, and he thus produced a sort of chro­nicle. It was one of the earliest attempts to regu­late chronology, and was afterwards made use of by Thucydides (ii. 2, iv. 1, 33), Timaeus (Polyb. xii. 12), and others. (Comp. Plut. De Mus. p. 1181 ; Preller, 1. c. p. 34, &c.) 2. Kapz/eoj/T/caf, or a chro­nological list of the victors in the musical and poetical contests at the festival of the Carneia. This work may be regarded as the first attempt to­wards a history of literature in Greece. A part of this work, or perhaps an early edition of it, is said to have been in verse. (Athen. xiv. p. 635.) Suidas states that Hellanicus wrote many works both in prose and in verse ; but of the latter kind nothing is known.

All the productions of Hellanicus are lost, with the exception of a considerable number of fragments. Although he belongs, strictly speaking, to the logographers (Dionys. Jud. de Thucyd. 5 ; Diod. i. 37), still he holds a much higher place among the early Greek historians than any of those who are designated by the name of logographers. He forms the transition from that class of writers to the real historians ; for he not only treated of the mythical ages, but, in several instances, he carried history down to his own times. But, as far as the form of history is concerned, he had not emancipated him­self from the custom and practice of other logo­graphers, for, like them, he treated history from local points of view, and divided it into such por­tions as might be related in the form of genealogies. Hence he wrote local histories and traditions. This circumstance, and the many differences in his ac­counts from those of Herodotus, renders it highly probable that these two writers worked quite inde­pendently of each other, and that the one was unknown to the other. It cannot be matter of surprise that, in regard to early traditions, he was deficient in historical criticism, and we may believe Thucydides (i. 97), who says that Hellanicus wrote the history of later times briefly, and that he was not accurate in his chronology. In his geo­graphical views, too, he seems to have been greatly dependent upon his predecessors, and gave, for the most part, what he found in them; whence Aga-themerus (i. 1), who calls him an dvr}p iroKviffrup, remarks that he air\d(rT<as TrapeSw/ce tt)v iffroplav; but the censure for falsehood and the like be­stowed on him by such writers as Ctesias (ap. Pliot. Bibl. Cod. 72), Theopompus (ap. Strab. i. p. 43), Ephorus (ap. Joseph, c. Apian, i. 3 ; comp. Strab. viii. p. 366), and Strabo (x. p. 451, xi. p. 508, xiii. p. 602), is evidently one-sided, and should not bias us in forming our judgment of his merits or demerits as a writer; for there can be no doubt that he was a learned and diligent compiler, and that so far as his sources went, he was a trustworthy one. His fragments are collected in Sturz, Hellanici Lesbii Frag-menta, Lips. 1796, 8vo., 2d edition 1826 ; in the Museum Criticum,vo\.ii. p. 90—107, Camb. 1826 ; and in C. and Th. Miiller, Fragmenta Histor. Graec. p. 45—96. (Dahlmann, Herodot. p. 122, Miiller, Hist, of Greek Lit. p. 264, and especially the work of Preller above referred to.)

2.

A Greek grammarian, a disciple of Aga-thocles, and apparently a contemporary of the critic Aristarchus. He wrote on the Homeric poems, and belonged to that class of critics who are termed the Chorizontes. (Eustath. ad Horn. pp. 1035, 1173 ; Schol. Venet. ad II. v. 269 ; Schol. ad Sophocl. Philoct. 201 ; Schol. Eurip. Vat. in Troad. 823, in Orest. 1347 ; comp. Grauert in the Rhein. Museum, vol. i. p. 204, &c.; Welcker, derEpische Cyclus, p. 251.)

3. Of Syracuse, a contemporary of Dion. (Plut. Dion. 42.) He is perhaps the same as the one who is mentioned in Bekker's Anecdota (p. 351) and Suidas (s. v. dvafipixa-ffQai) as an author who wrote in the Doric dialect. [L. S.j

HELLAS. [go'ngylus.]

HELLE fEAAr;), a daughter of Athamas and Nephele, and sister of Phrixus. (Apollod. i. 9. § 1; Apollon. Rhod. i. 927; Ov. Fast. iv. 909, Met. xi. 195.) When Phrixus was to be sacrificed, Ne­ phele rescued her two children, who rode away through the air upon the ram with the golden fleece, the gift of Hermes, but, between Sigeium and the Chersonesus, Helle fell into the sea, which was hence called the sea of Helle (Hellespont; Aeschyl. Pers. 70, 875). Her tomb was shown near Pactya, on the Hellespont. (Herod, vii. 57 ; comp. atha­ mas and almops.) [L. S.]

HELLEN ("EAATji/). 1. A son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, or, according to others, a son of Zeus and Dorippe (Apollod. i. 7. § 2; Schol. ad Apol­lon. Rhod. i. 118; Eustath. ad Horn. p. 1644), or of Prometheus and Clymene, and a brother of Deu­calion. (Schol. ad Find. 01. ix. 68.) By the nymph Orseis, that is, the mountain nymph, he became the father of Aeolus, Dorus, and Xuthus, t,o whom some add Amphictyon. Hellen, according to tradition, was king of Phthia in Thessaly, i. e. the country between the rivers Peneius and Aso-pus, and this kingdom he left to Aeolus. Hellen is the mythical ancestor of all the Hellenes or Greeks, in contradistinction from the more an­cient Pelasgians. The name of Hellenes was at first confined to a tribe inhabiting a part of Thessaly, but subsequently it was extended to the whole Greek nation. (Horn. II. ii. 684 ; Herod, i. 56; Thucyd. i. 3 ; Pans. iii. 20. § 6; Strab. viii. p. 383.)

2. A son of Phthios and Chrysippe, and the mythical founder of the Thessalian town of Hellas. (Steph. Byz. s. v. 'EAAas; Strab. ix. p. 431, &c.) [L. S.]

HELLEN, a distinguished engraver of gems in the time of Hadrian. (Bracci, vol. ii. tab. 77 ; de Jonge, p. 161; Kbhler, Einleitung, p. 23; R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schorn, p. 44.) [P. S.]

HELLOTIA or HELLO'TIS ('EAAwrfa or 'EAA&ms), a surname of Athena at Corinth. Ac­cording to the scholiast on Pindar (Ol. xiii. 56), the name was derived from the fertile marsh (cAos) near Marathon, where Athena had a sanctuary ; or from Hellotia, one of the daughters of Timander, who fled into the temple of Athena when Corinth was burnt down by the Dorians, and was destroyed in the temple with her sister Eurytione. Soon after, a plague broke out at Corinth, and the oracle de­clared that it should not cease until the souls o| the maidens were propitiated, and a sanctuary should be erected to Athena Hellotis. Respecting the festival of the Hellotia, see Diet, of Ant. s.v. Hellotis was also a surname of Europe in Crete,