HIMERA

himera, a city on the north coast of sicily, on a hill above the east bank of the himeras septentrionalis. it was founded in 648 b.c. by the chalcidian inhabitants of zancle, in company with many syracusan exiles. early in the 5th century the tyrant terillas, son-in-law of anaxilas of rhegium and zancle, appealed to the carthaginians, who came to his assistance, but were utterly defeated by gelon of syracuse in 480 b.c.--on the same day, it is said, as the battle of salamis. thrasydaeus, son of theron of agrigentum, seems to have ruled the city oppressively, but an appeal made to hiero of syracuse, gelon's brother, was betrayed by him to theron; the latter massacred all his enemies and in the following year resettled the town. in 415 it refused to admit the athenian fleet and remained an ally of syracuse. in 408 the carthaginian invading army under hannibal, after capturing selinus, invested and took himera and razed the city to the ground, founding a new town close to the hot springs (thermae himeraeae), 8 m. to the west. the only relic of the ancient town now visible above ground is a small portion (four columns, lower diameter 7 ft.) of a doric temple, the date of which (whether before or after 480 b.c.) is uncertain. himerius (c. a.d. 315-386), greek sophist and rhetorician, was born at prusa in bithynia. he completed his education at athens, whence he was summoned to antioch in 362 by the emperor julian to act as his private secretary. after the death of julian in the following year himerius returned to athens, where he established a school of rhetoric, which he compared with that of isocrates and the delphic oracle, owing to the number of those who flocked from all parts of the world to hear him. amongst his pupils were gregory of nazianzus and basil the great, bishop of caesarea. in recognition of his merits, civic rights and the membership of the areopagus were conferred upon him. the death of his son rufinus (his lament for whom, called [greek: monodia], is extant) and that of a favourite daughter greatly affected his health; in his later years he became blind and he died of epilepsy. although a heathen, who had been initiated into the mysteries of mithra by julian, he shows no prejudice against the christians. himerius is a typical representative of the later rhetorical schools. photius (cod. 165, 243 bekker) had read 71 speeches by him, of 36 of which he has given an epitome; 24 have come down to us complete and fragments of 10 or 12 others. they consist of epideictic or "display" speeches after the style of aristides, the majority of them having been delivered on special occasions, such as the arrival of a new governor, visits to different cities (thessalonica, constantinople), or the death of friends or well-known personages. the _polemarchicus_, like the _menexenus_ of plato and the _epitaphios logos_ of hypereides, is a panegyric of those who had given their lives for their country; it is so called because it was originally the duty of the polemarch to arrange the funeral games in honour of those who had fallen in battle. other declamations, only known from the excerpts in photius, were imaginary orations put into the mouth of famous persons--demosthenes advocating the recall of aeschines from banishment, hypereides supporting the policy of demosthenes, themistocles inveighing against the king of persia, an orator unnamed attacking epicurus for atheism before julian at constantinople. himerius is more of a poet than a rhetorician, and his declamations are valuable as giving prose versions or even the actual words of lost poems by greek lyric writers. the prose poem on the marriage of severus and his greeting to basil at the beginning of spring are quite in the spirit of the old lyric. himerius possesses vigour of language and descriptive powers, though his productions are spoilt by too frequent use of imagery, allegorical and metaphorical obscurities, mannerism and ostentatious learning. but they are valuable for the history and social conditions of the time, although lacking the sincerity characteristic of libanius. see eunapius, _vitae sophistarum_; suidas, _s.v._; editions by g. wernsdorf (1790), with valuable introduction and commentaries, and by f. dubner (1849) in the didot series; c. teuber, _quaestiones himerianae_ (breslau, 1882); on the style, e. norden, _die antike kunstprosa_ (1898). himly (louis), auguste (1823-1906), french historian and geographer, was born at strassburg on the 28th of march 1823. after studying in his native town and taking the university course in berlin (1842-1843) he went to paris, and passed first in the examination for fellowship (_agregation_) of the _lycees_ (1845), first in the examinations on leaving the ecole des chartes, and first in the examination for fellowship of the faculties (1849). in 1849 he took the degree of doctor of letters with two theses, one of which, _wala et louis le debonnaire_ (published in paris in 1849), placed him in the front rank of french scholars in the province of carolingian history. soon, however, he turned his attention to the study of geography. in 1858 he obtained an appointment as teacher of geography at the sorbonne, and henceforth devoted himself to that subject. it was not till 1876 that he published, in two volumes, his remarkable _histoire de la formation territoriale des etats de l'europe centrale_, in which he showed with a firm, but sometimes slightly heavy touch, the reciprocal influence exerted by geography and history. while the work gives evidence throughout of wide and well-directed research, he preferred to write it in the form of a student's manual; but it was a manual so original that it gained him admission to the institute in 1881. in that year he was appointed dean of the faculty of letters, and for ten years he directed the intellectual life of that great educational centre during its development into a great scientific body. he died at sevres on the 6th of october 1906.