Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

HIRING (from O. Eng. _hyrian_, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. _heuern_, Dutch _huren_, &c.), in law, a contract by which one man grants the use of a thing to another in return for a certain price. It corresponds to the _locatio-conductio_ of Roman law. That contract was either a letting of a thing (_locatio-conductio rei_) or of labour (_locatio operarum_). The distinguishing feature of the contract was the price. Thus the contracts of _mutuum_, _commodatum_, _depositum_ and _mandatum_, which are all gratuitous contracts, become, if a price is fixed, cases of _locatio-conductio_. In modern English law the term can scarcely be said to be used in a strictly technical sense. The contracts which the Roman law grouped together under the head of _locatio-conductio_--such as those of landlord and tenant, master and servant, &c.--are not in English law treated as cases of hiring but as independent varieties of contract. Neither in law books nor in ordinary discourse could a tenant farmer be said to hire his land. Hiring would generally be applied to contracts in which the services of a man or the use of a thing are engaged for a short time.

_Hiring Fairs_, or _Statute Fairs_, still held in Wales and some parts of England, were formerly an annual fixture in every important country town. These fairs served to bring together masters and servants. The men and maids seeking work stood in rows, the males together and the females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the lines and selected those who suited them. Originally these hiring-fairs were always held on Martinmas Day (11th of November). Now they are held on different dates in different towns, usually in October or November. In Cumberland the men seeking work stood with straws in their mouths. In Lincolnshire the bargain between employer and employed was closed by the giving of the "fasten-penny," the earnest money, usually a shilling, which "fastened" the contract for a twelvemonth. Some few days after the Statute Fair it was customary to hold a second called a Mop Fair or Runaway Mop. "Mop" (from Lat. _mappa_, napkin, or small cloth) meant in Old English a tuft or tassel, and the fair was so called, it is suggested, in allusion to tufts or badges worn by those seeking employment. Thus the carter wore whipcord on his hat, the cowherd a tuft of cow's hair, and so on. Another possible explanation would be to take the word "mop" in its old provincial slang sense of "a fool," mop fair being the fools' fair, a sort of last chance offered to those who were too dull or slovenly-looking to be hired at the statute fair. Perhaps "runaway" suggests the idea of those absent through drunkenness, or those who simply feared to face the ordeal of the larger hiring and so ran away.

HIROSAKI, a town of Japan in the province of Michmoku or Rikuchiu, north Nippon, 22 m. S.W. of Aomori by rail. Pop. about 37,000. The fine isolated cone of Iwakisan, a mountain of pilgrimage, rises to the west. Hirosaki is a very old place, formerly residence of a great daimio (or daimyo) and capital of a vast principality, and still the seat of a high court with jurisdiction over the surrounding districts of Aomori and Akita. Like most places in north Nippon, it is built with continuous verandas extending from house to house, and affording a promenade completely sheltered from the snows of winter. Apples of fine flavour grow in the district, which also enjoys some reputation for its peculiar green lacquer-ware.

HIROSHIGE (1797-1858), Japanese artist, was one of the principal members of that branch of the _Ukiyo-ye_ or Popular School of Painting in Japan, a school which chiefly made colour-prints. His family name was Ando Tokitaro; that under which he is known having been, in accordance with Japanese practice, adopted by him in recognition of the fact that he was a pupil of Toyohiro. The earliest reference to him is in the account given by an inhabitant of the Lu-chu islands of a visit to Japan; where a sketch of a procession drawn with great skill by Hiroshige at the age of ten years only is mentioned as one of the remarkable sights seen. At the age of fifteen he applied unsuccessfully to be admitted to the studio of the elder Toyokuni; but was eventually received by Toyohiro. On the death of the latter in 1828, he began to practise on his own account, but finding small encouragement at Yedo (Tokyo) he removed to Kioto, where he published a set of landscapes. He soon returned to Yedo, where his work soon became popular, and was imitated by other artists. He died in that city on the 6th day of the 9th month of the year, Ansei 5th, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried at Asakusa. One of his pupils, Hironobu, received from him the name of Hiroshige II. and another, Ando Tokubei, that of Hiroshige III. All three were closely associated with the work signed with the name of the master. Hiroshige II. some time after the year 1863 fell into disgrace and was compelled to leave Yedo for Nagasaki, where he died; Hiroshige III. then called himself Hiroshige II. He died in 1896. The earlier prints by these artists, whose work can hardly be separated, are of extraordinary merit. They applied the process of colour block printing to the purposes of depicting landscape, with a breadth, skill and suitability of convention that has been equalled only by Hokusai in Japan, and by no European. Most of their subjects were derived from the neighbourhood of Yedo, or were scenes on the old high road--the Tokaido--that ran from that city to Kioto. The two elder of the name were competent painters, and pictures and drawings by them are occasionally to be met with.

See E. F. Strange, "Japanese Colour-prints" (_Victoria and Albert
Museum Handbook_, 1904). (E. F. S.)

HIROSHIMA, a city and seaport of Japan, capital of the government of its name in central Nippon. Pop. (1903) 113,545. It is very beautifully situated on a small plain surrounded by hills, the bay being studded with islands. In its general aspect it resembles Osaka, from which it is 190 m. W. by rail, and next to that place and Hiogo it is the most important commercial centre on the Inland Sea. The government has an area of about 3000 sq. m., with a population of about 1,500,000. Hiroshima is famous all over Japan owing to its association with the neighbouring islet of Itaku-Shima, "Island of Light," which is dedicated to the goddess Bentin and regarded as one of the three wonders of Japan. The chief temple dates from the year 587, and the island, which is inhabited largely by priests and their attendants, is annually visited by thousands of pilgrims. But the hallowed soil is never tilled, so that all provisions have to be brought from the surrounding districts.

HIRPINI (from an Oscan or Sabine stem _hirpo-_, "wolf"), an inland Samnite tribe in the south of Italy, whose territory was bounded by that of the Lucani on the S., the Campani on the S.W., the Appuli (Apuli) and Frentani on the E. and N.E. On the N. we find them, politically speaking, identified with the Pentri and Caraceni, and with them constituting the Samnite alliance in the wars of the 4th century B.C. (see SAMNITES). The Roman policy of separation cut them off from these allies by the foundation of Beneventum in 268 B.C., and henceforward they are a separate unit; they joined Hannibal in 216 B.C., and retained their independence until, after joining in the Social war, which in their part of Italy can hardly be said to have ceased till the final defeat of the Samnites by Sulla in 83 B.C., they received the Roman franchise. Of their Oscan speech, besides the evidence of their place-names, only a few fragments survive (R. S. Conway, _The Italic Dialects_, pp. 170 ff.; and for _hirpo-_, ib. p. 200). In the ethnology of Italy the Hirpini appear from one point of view as the purest type of Safine stock, namely, that in which the proportion of ethnica formed with the suffix _-no-_ is highest, thirty-three out of thirty-six tribal or municipal epithets being formed thereby (e.g. _Caudini_, _Compsani_) and only one with the suffix -_ti_- (_Abellinates_), where it is clearly secondary. On the significance of this see SABINI. (R. S. C.)

HIRSAU (formerly _Hirschau_), a village of Germany, in the kingdom of Wurttemberg, on the Nagold and the Pforzheim-Horb railway, 2 m. N. of Calw. Pop. 800. Hirsau has some small manufactures, but it owes its origin and historical interest to its former Benedictine monastery, _Monasterium Hirsaugiense_, at one period one of the most famous in Europe. Its picturesque ruins, of which only the chapel with the library hall are still in good preservation, testify to the pristine grandeur of the establishment. It was founded about 830 by Count Erlafried of Calw, at the instigation of his son, Bishop Notting of Vercelli, who enriched it with, among other treasures, the body of St Aurelius. Its first occupants (838) were a colony of fifteen monks from Fulda, disciples of Hrabanus Maurus and Walafrid Strabo, headed by the abbot Liudebert. During about a century and a half, under the fostering care of the counts of Calw, it enjoyed great prosperity, and became an important seat of learning; but towards the end of the 10th century the ravages of the pestilence combined with the rapacity of its patrons, and the selfishness and immorality of its inmates, to bring it to the lowest ebb. After it had been desolate and in ruins for upwards of sixty years it was rebuilt in 1059, and under Abbot William--Wilhelm von Hirsau--abbot from 1069 to 1091, it more than regained its former splendour. By his _Constitutiones Hirsaugienses_, a new religious order, the Ordo Hirsaugiensis, was formed, the rule of which was afterwards adopted by many monastic establishments throughout Germany, such as those of Blaubeuren, Erfurt and Schaffhausen. The friend and correspondent of Pope Gregory VII., and of Anselm of Canterbury, Abbot William took active part in the politico-ecclesiastical controversies of his time; while a treatise from his pen, _De musica et tonis_, as well as the _Philosophicarum et astronomicarum institutionum libri iii._, bears witness to his interest in science and philosophy. About the end of the 12th century the material and moral welfare of Hirsau was again very perceptibly on the decline; and it never afterwards again rose into importance. In consequence of the Reformation it was secularized in 1558; in 1692 it was laid in ruins by the French. The _Chronicon Hirsaugiense_, or, as in the later edition it is called, _Annales Hirsaugienses_ of Abbot Trithemius (Basel, 1559; St Gall, 1690), is, although containing much that is merely legendary, an important source of information, not only on the affairs of this monastery, but also on the early history of Germany. The _Codex Hirsaugiensis_ was edited by A. F. Gfrorer and printed at Stuttgart in 1843.

See Steck, _Das Kloster Hirschau_ (1844); Helmsdorfer, _Forschungen
zur Geschichte des Abts Wilhelm von Hirschau_ (Gottingen, 1874);
Weizsacker, _Fuhrer durch die Geschichte des Klosters Hirschau_
(Stuttgart, 1898); Sussmann, _Forschungen zur Geschichte des Klosters
Hirschau_ (Halle, 1903); Giseke, _Die Hirschauer wahrend des
Investiturstreits_ (Gotha, 1883); C. H. Klaiber, _Das Kloster
Hirschau_ (Tubingen, 1886); and Baer, _Die Hirsauer Bauschule_
(Freiburg, 1897).

HIRSCH, MAURICE DE, BARON HIRSCH AUF GEREUTH, in the baronage of Bavaria (1831-1896), capitalist and philanthropist (German by birth, Austro-Hungarian by domicile), was born at Munich, 9th December 1831. His grandfather, the first Jewish landowner in Bavaria, was ennobled with the _pradikat_ "auf Gereuth" in 1818; his father, who was banker to the Bavarian king, was created a baron in 1869. The family for generations has occupied a prominent position in the German Jewish community. At the age of thirteen young Hirsch was sent to Brussels to school, but when seventeen years old he went into business. In 1855 he became associated with the banking house of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt, of Brussels, London and Paris. He amassed a large fortune, which he increased by purchasing and working railway concessions in Austria, Turkey and the Balkans, and by speculations in sugar and copper. While living in great splendour in Paris and London and on his estates in Hungary, he devoted much of his time to schemes for the relief of his Hebrew co-religionists in lands where they were persecuted and oppressed. He took a deep interest in the educational work of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, and on two occasions presented the society with gifts of a million francs. For some years he regularly paid the deficits in the accounts of the Alliance, amounting to several thousand pounds a year. In 1889 he capitalized his donations and presented the society with securities producing an annual income of L16,000. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the emperor Francis Joseph's accession to the Austrian throne he gave L500,000 for the establishment of primary and technical schools in Galicia and the Bukowina. The greatest charitable enterprise on which he embarked was in connexion with the persecution of the Jews in Russia (see ANTI-SEMITISM). He gave L10,000 to the funds raised for the repatriation of the refugees in 1882, but, feeling that this was a very lame conclusion to the efforts made in western Europe for the relief of the Russian Jews, he offered the Russian Government L2,000,000 for the endowment of a system of secular education to be established in the Jewish pale of settlement. The Russian Government was willing to accept the money, but declined to allow any foreigner to be concerned in its control or administration. Thereupon Baron de Hirsch resolved to devote the money to an emigration and colonization scheme which should afford the persecuted Jews opportunities of establishing themselves in agricultural colonies outside Russia. He founded the Jewish Colonization Association as an English society, with a capital of L2,000,000, and in 1892 he presented to it a further sum of L7,000,000. On the death of his wife in 1899 the capital was increased to L11,000,000, of which L1,250,000 went to the Treasury, after some litigation, in death duties. This enormous fund, which is probably the greatest charitable trust in the world, is now managed by delegates of certain Jewish societies, chiefly the Anglo-Jewish Association of London and the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris, among whom the shares in the association have been divided. The association, which is prohibited from working for profit, possesses large colonies in South America, Canada and Asia Minor. In addition to its vast agricultural work it has a gigantic and complex machinery for dealing with the whole problem of Jewish persecution, including emigration and distributing agencies, technical schools, co-operative factories, savings and loan banks and model dwellings in the congested Russian jewries. It also subventions and assists a large number of societies all over the world whose work is connected with the relief and rehabilitation of Jewish refugees. Besides this great organization, Baron de Hirsch founded in 1891 a benevolent trust in the United States for the benefit of Jewish immigrants, which he endowed with L493,000. His minor charities were on a princely scale, and during his residence in London he distributed over L100,000 among the local hospitals. It was in this manner that he disposed of the whole gross proceeds derived from his successes on the English turf, of which he was a lavish patron. He raced, as he said himself, "for the London hospitals," and in 1892, when his filly, La Fleche, won the Oaks, St Leger and One Thousand Guineas, his donations from this source amounted to about L40,000. Baron de Hirsch married on 28th June 1855 Clara, daughter of Senator Bischoffsheim of Brussels (b. 1833), by whom he had a son and daughter, both of whom predeceased him. He died at Ogyalla, near Komorn, in Hungary, 21st April 1896. The baroness, who seconded her husband's charitable work with great munificence--their total benefactions have been estimated at L18,000,000,--died at Paris on the 1st of April 1899.

For details of Baron de Hirsch's chief charities see the annual
reports of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and of the
"Administration Centrale" of the Jewish Colonization Association.
(L. W.)

HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL (1808-1888), Jewish theologian, was born in Hamburg in 1808 and died at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1888. He opposed the reform tendency of Geiger (q.v.), and presented Jewish orthodoxy in a new and attractive light. His philosophical conception of tradition, associated as it was with conservatism in ritual practice, created what is often known as the Frankfort "Neo-Orthodoxy." Hirsch exercised a profound influence on the Synagogue and undoubtedly stemmed the tide of liberalism. His famous _Nineteen Letters_ (1836), with which the Neo-Orthodoxy began, were translated into English by Drachmann (New York, 1899). Other works by Hirsch were _Horeb_, and commentaries on the Pentateuch and Psalms. These are marked by much originality, but their exegesis is fanciful. Three volumes of his essays have been published (1902-1908); these were collected as _Gesammelte Schriften_ from his periodical _Jeschurun_.

For Hirsch's religious philosophy see S. A. Hirsch, _A Book of Essays_
(London, 1905). (I. A.)

HIRSCHBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, beautifully situated at the confluence of the Bober and Zacken, 1120 ft. above the sea-level, 48 m. S.E. of Gorlitz, on the railway to Glatz, with branches to Grunthal and Schmiedeberg. Pop. (1905) 19,317. It is surrounded by pleasant promenades occupying the site of its former fortifications. It possesses an Evangelical church, the church of the Holy Cross, one of the six _Gnaden Kirchen_ for the Silesian Protestants stipulated for in the agreement at Altranstadt between Charles XII. of Sweden and the emperor Joseph I. in 1707, four Roman Catholic churches, one of which dates from the 14th century, a synagogue, several schools, an orphanage and an asylum. The town is the principal emporium of commerce in the Silesian mountains, and its industries include the carding and spinning of wool, and the manufacture of linen and cotton fabrics, yarn, artificial flowers, paper, cement, porcelain, sealing-wax, blacking, chemicals and cider. There is also a lively trade in corn, wine and agricultural produce. The town is celebrated for its romantic surroundings, including the Cavalierberg, from which there is a splendid view, the Hausberg, the Helicon, crowned by a small Doric temple, the Kreuzberg, with walks commanding beautiful views, and the Sattler ravine, over which there is a railway viaduct. Hirschberg was in existence in the 11th century, and obtained town rights in 1108 from Duke Boleslaus of Poland. It withstood a siege by the Hussites in 1427, and an attack of the imperial troops in 1640. The foundation of its prosperity was laid in the 16th century by the introduction of the manufacture of linen and veils.

Hirschberg is also the name of a town of Thuringia on the Saale with manufactures of leather and knives. Pop. 2000.

HIRSON, a town of northern France in the department of Aisne, 35 m. by rail N.E. of Laon, on the Oise. Pop. (1906) 8335. It occupies an important strategic position close to the point of intersection of several railway lines, and not far from the Belgian frontier. For its defence there are a permanent fort and two batteries, near the railway junction. The town carries on the manufacture of glass bottles, tiles, iron and tin goods, wool-spinning and brewing.

HIRTIUS, AULUS (c. 90-43 B.C.), Roman historian and statesman. He was with Julius Caesar as legate in Gaul, but after the civil war broke out in 49 he seems to have remained in Rome to protect Caesar's interests. He was also a personal friend of Cicero. He was nominated with C. Vibius Pansa by Caesar for the consulship of 43; and after the dictator's assassination in March 44, he and his colleague supported the senatorial party against M. Antonius, with whom Hirtius had at first sided. The consuls set out for Mutina, where Antonius was besieging Decimus Brutus. On the 15th of April, Pansa was attacked by Antonius at Forum Gallorum, about 8 m. from Mutina, and lost his life in the engagement. Hirtius, however, compelled Antonius to retire on Mutina, where another battle took place on the 25th (or 27th) of April, in which Hirtius was slain. Of the continuations of Caesar's _Commentaries_--the eighth book of the Gallic war, the history of the Alexandrian, African and Spanish wars--the first is generally allowed to be by Hirtius; the Alexandrian war is perhaps by him (or Oppius); the last two are supposed to have been written at his request, by persons who had taken part in the events described, with a view to subsequent revision and incorporation in his proposed work on military commanders. The language of Hirtius is good, but his style is monotonous and lacks vigour.

Hirtius and the other continuators of Caesar are discussed in M.
Schanz, _Geschichte der romischen Literatur_, i.; also R. Schneider,
_Bellum Africanum_ (1905). For the history of the period see under
ANTONIUS; Cicero's _Letters_ (ed. Tyrrell and Purser); G. Boissier,
_Cicero and his Friends_ (Eng. trans., 1897).

HISHAM IBN AL-KALBI [Abu-l Mundhir Hisham ibn Mahommed ibn us-Sa'b ul-Kalb] (d. c. 819), Arabic historian, was born in Kufa, but spent much of his life in Bagdad. Like his father, on whose authority he relied largely, he collected information about the genealogies and history of the ancient Arabs. According to the _Fihrist_ (see NADIM) he wrote 140 works. As independent works they have almost entirely ceased to exist, but his account of the genealogies of the Arabs is continually quoted in the _Kitab ul-Aghani_.

Large extracts from another of his works, the _Kitab ul-Asnam_, are
contained in the _Khizanat ul-Adab_ (iii. 242-246) and in the
geography of Yaqut (q.v.). These latter have been translated with
comments by J. Wellhausen in his _Reste des arabischen Heidentums_
(2nd ed., Berlin, 1897). (G. W. T.)

HISPELLUM (mod. Spello, q.v.), an ancient town of Umbria, Italy, 3 m. N. of Fulginiae, on the road between it and Perusia, 1030 ft. above sea-level. It does not appear to be mentioned before the time of Augustus, who founded a colony there (_Colonia Iulia Hispellum_) and extended its territory to the springs of the Clitumnus, which had originally belonged to the territory of Mevania. It received the name of Flavia Constans by a rescript of the emperor Constantine, a copy of which on a marble tablet is still preserved at Spello. The gate by which the town is entered is ancient and has three portrait statues above it; two other gates and a part of the city wall, built of rectangular blocks of local limestone, may still be seen, as also the ruins of what is possibly a triumphal arch (attributed to Augustus) and an amphitheatre, and perhaps of a theatre, close to the modern high-road, outside the town. (T. As.)

HISSAR, a district in Central Asia, lying between 66 deg. 30' and 70 deg. E. and 39 deg. 15' and 37 deg. N. and dependent on the amir of Bokhara. It forms that part of the basin of the Amu-darya or Oxus which lies on the north side of the river, opposite the Afghan province of Balkh. The western prolongation of the Tian-shan, which divides the basin of the Zarafshan from that of the upper Amu, after rising to a height of 12,300 ft., bifurcates in 67 deg. 45' E. The main chain, the southern arm of this bifurcation, designated the Hissar range, but sometimes called also Koh-i-tau, forms the N. and N.W. boundaries of Hissar. On the W. it is wholly bounded by the desert; the Amu limits it on the S. and S.E.; and Karateghin and Darvaz complete the boundary on the E. Until 1875 it was one of the least known tracts of Central Asia. Hissar is traversed from north to south by four tributaries of the Amu, viz. the Surkhab or Vakhsh, Kafirnihan, Surkhan and Shirabad-darya, which descend from the snowy mountains to the north and form a series of fertile valleys, disposed in a fan-shape, within which lie the principal towns. In the N.W. boundary range between Khuzar and Derbent is situated the defile formerly called the Iron Gate (Caspian Gates, Bab-al-Hadid, Dar Ahanin and in Chinese T'ie-men-kuan) but now styled Buzghol-khana or the Goat-house. It was also called Kohluga, said to be a Mongol word meaning barrier. This pass is described as a deep but narrow chasm in a transverse range, whose rocks overhang and threaten to choke the tortuous and gloomy corridor (in places but five paces wide) which affords the only exit from the valley. In ancient times it was a vantage point of much importance and commanded one of the chief routes between Turkestan and India. Hsuan Tsang, the Chinese traveller, who passed through it in the 7th century, states that there were then two folding doors or gates, cased with iron and hung with bells, placed across the pass. Clavijo, the Spanish ambassador to the court of Timur, heard of this when he passed through the defile nearly 800 years later, but the gates had then disappeared.

The Surkhan valley is highly cultivated, especially in its upper portion. It supplies Bokhara with corn and sheep, but its chief products are rice and flax. The town of Hissar (pop. 15,000) commands the entrance into the fertile valleys of the Surkhan and Kafirnihan, just as Kabadian at the southern end of the latter defends them from the south. Hissar was long famous for its damascened swords and its silk goods. Kulab produces wheat in abundance, and gold is brought thither from the surrounding districts. Kabadian is a large, silk-producing town, and is surrounded with rice-fields.

The population consists principally of Uzbegs and Tajiks, the former predominating and gradually pushing the Tajiks into the hills. On the banks of the Amu there are Turkomans who work the ferries, drive sheep and accompany caravans. Lyuli (gipsies), Jews, Hindus and Afghans are other elements of the population. The climate of the valleys of Hissar and Kulab is pleasant, as they are protected by mountains to the north and open towards the south. They produce all the cereals and garden plants indigenous to Central Asia. Cotton is grown in the district of Shirabad; and cotton, wheat, flax, sheep and rock-salt are all exported.

_History._--This country was anciently part of the Persian empire of the Achaemenidae, and probably afterwards of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, and then subject to the invading Asiatic tribes who broke up that kingdom, e.g. the Yue-chi. It was afterwards conquered by the Ephthalites or White Huns, who were subdued by the Turks in the early part of the 7th century. It then became subject successively to the Mahommedan invaders from Persia, and after to the Mongol dynasty of Jenghiz Khan, and to Timur and his successors. It subsequently became a cluster of Uzbeg states and was annexed by the amir of Bokhara (q.v.) in 1869-1870, soon after the Russian occupation of Samarkand. (J. T. Be.; C. El.)

HISSAR, a town and district of British India, in the Delhi division of the Punjab. The town is situated on the Rajputana railway and the Western Jumna canal, 102 m. W.N.W. of Delhi. Pop. (1901) 17,647. It was founded in 1356 by the emperor Feroz Shah, who constructed the canal to supply it with water; but this fell into decay during the 18th century, owing to the constant inroads of marauders. Hissar was almost completely depopulated during the famine of 1783, but was afterwards occupied by the famous Irish adventurer George Thomas, who built a fort and collected inhabitants. It is now chiefly known for its cattle and horse fairs, and has a cotton factory.

The DISTRICT comprises an area of 5217 sq. m. It forms the western border district of the great Bikanir desert, and consists for the most part of sandy plains dotted with shrub and brushwood, and broken by undulations towards the south, which rise into hills of rock like islands out of a sea of sand. The Ghaggar is its only river, whose supply is uncertain, depending much on the fall of rain in the lower Himalayas; its overflow in times of heavy rain is caught by _jhils_, which dry up in the hot season. The Western Jumna canal crosses the district from east to west, irrigating many villages. The soil is in places hard and clayey, and difficult to till; but when sufficiently irrigated it is highly productive. Old mosques and other buildings exist in parts of the district. Hissar produces a breed of large milk-white oxen, which are in great request for the carriages of natives. The district has always been subject to famine. The first calamity of this kind of which there is authentic record was in 1783; and Hissar has suffered severely in more recent famines. Its population in 1901 was 781,717, showing practically no increase in the decade, whereas in the previous decade there had been an increase of 15%. The climate is very dry, hot westerly winds blowing from the middle of March till July. Cotton weaving, ginning and pressing are carried on. The district is served by the Rajputana-Malwa, the Southern Punjab and the Jodhpur-Bikanir railways. The chief trading centres are Bhiwani, Hansi, Hissar and Sirsa.

Before the Mahommedan conquest, the semi-desert tract of which Hissar district now forms part was the retreat of Chauhan Rajputs. Towards the end of the 18th century the Bhattis of Bhattiana gained ascendancy after bloody struggles. To complete the ruin brought on by these conflicts, nature lent her aid in the great famine of 1783. Hissar passed nominally to the British in 1803, but they could not enforce order till 1810. Early in the mutiny of 1857 Hissar was wholly lost for a time to British rule, and all Europeans were either murdered or compelled to fly. The Bhattis rose under their hereditary chiefs, and the majority of the Mahommedan population followed their example. Before Delhi had been recovered, the rebels were utterly routed.

HISTIAEUS (d. 494 B.C.), tyrant of Miletus under the Persian king Darius Hystaspis. According to Herodotus he rendered great service to Darius while he was campaigning in Scythia by persuading his fellow-despots not to destroy the bridge over the Danube by which the Persians must return. Choosing his own reward for this service, he became possessor of territory near Myrcinus (afterwards Amphipolis), rich in timber and minerals. The success of his enterprise led to his being invited to Susa, where in the midst of every kind of honour he was virtually a prisoner of Darius, who had reason to dread his growing power in Ionia. During this period the Greek cities were left under native despots supported by Persia, Aristagoras, son-in-law of Histiaeus, being ruler of Miletus in his stead. This prince, having failed against Naxos in a joint expedition with the satrap Artaphernes, began to stir up the Ionians to revolt, and this result was brought to pass, according to Herodotus, by a secret message from Histiaeus. The revolt assumed a formidable character and Histiaeus persuaded Darius that he alone could quell it. He was allowed to leave Susa, but on his arrival at the coast found himself suspected by the satrap, and was ultimately driven to establish himself (Herodotus says as a pirate; more probably in charge of the Bosporus route) at Byzantium. After the total failure of the revolt at the battle of Lade, he made various attempts to re-establish himself, but was captured by the Persian Harpagus and crucified by Artaphernes at Sardis. His head was embalmed and sent to Darius, who gave it honourable burial. The theory of Herodotus that the Ionian revolt was caused by the single message of Histiaeus is incredible; there is evidence to show that the Ionians had been meditating since about 512 a patriotic revolt against the Persian domination and the "tyrants" on whom it rested (see Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, ed. 1907, especially p. 122 note; art. IONIA, and authorities; also S. Heinlein in _Klio_, 1909, pp. 341-351).

HISTOLOGY (Gr. [Greek: histos], web, tissue, properly the web-beam of the loom, from [Greek: histanai], to make to stand), the science which deals with the structure of the tissues of plants and animals (see CYTOLOGY).

HISTORY. The word "history" is used in two senses. It may mean either the record of events, or events themselves. Originally (see below) limited to inquiry and statement, it was only in comparatively modern times that the meaning of the word was extended to include the phenomena which form or might form their subject. It was perhaps by a somewhat careless transference of ideas that this extension was brought about. Now indeed it is the commoner meaning. We speak of the "history of England" without reference to any literary narrative. We term kings and statesmen the "makers of history," and sometimes say that the historian only records the history which they make. History in this connexion is obviously not the record, but the thing to be recorded. It is unfortunate that such a double meaning of the word should have grown up, for it is productive of not a little confusion of thought.

History in the wider sense is all that has happened, not merely all the phenomena of human life, but those of the natural world as well. It includes everything that undergoes change; and as modern science has shown that there is nothing absolutely static, therefore the whole universe, and every part of it, has its history. The discovery of ether brought with it a reconstruction of our ideas of the physical universe, transferring the emphasis from the mathematical expression of static relationships to a dynamic conception of a universe in constant transformation; matter in equipoise became energy in gradual readjustment. Solids are solids no longer. The universe is in motion in every particle of every part; rock and metal merely a transition stage between crystallization and dissolution. This idea of universal activity has in a sense made physics itself a branch of history. It is the same with the other sciences--especially the biological division, where the doctrine of evolution has induced an attitude of mind which is distinctly historical.

But the tendency to look at things historically is not merely the attitude of men of science. Our outlook upon life differs in just this particular from that of preceding ages. We recognize the unstable nature of our whole social fabric, and are therefore more and more capable of transforming it. Our institutions are no longer held to be inevitable and immutable creations. We do not attempt to fit them to absolute formulae, but continually adapt them to a changing environment. Even modern architecture, notably in America, reflects the consciousness of change. The permanent character of ancient or medieval buildings was fitted only to a society dominated by static ideals. Now the architect builds, not for all time, but for a set of conditions which will inevitably cease in the not distant future. Thus our whole society not only bears the marks of its evolution, but shows its growing consciousness of the fact in the most evident of its arts. In literature, philosophy and political science, there is the same historical trend. Criticism no longer judges by absolute standards; it applies the standards of the author's own environment. We no longer condemn Shakespeare for having violated the ancient dramatic laws, nor Voltaire for having objected to the violations. Each age has its own expression, and in judging each we enter the field of history. In ethics, again, the revolt against absolute standards limits us to the relative, and morals are investigated on the basis of history, as largely conditioned by economic environment and the growth of intellectual freedom. Revelation no longer appeals to scientific minds as a source of knowledge. Experience on the other hand is history. As for political science, we do not regard the national state as that ultimate and final product which men once saw in the Roman Empire. It has hardly come into being before forces are evident which aim at its destruction. Internationalism has gained ground in Europe in recent years; and Socialism itself, which is based upon a distinct interpretation of history, is regarded by its followers as merely a stage in human progress, like those which have gone before it. It is evident that Freeman's definition of history as "past politics" is miserably inadequate. Political events are mere externals. History enters into every phase of activity, and the economic forces which urge society along are as much its subject as the political result.

In short the historical spirit of the age has invaded every field. The world-picture presented in this encyclopaedia is that of a dynamic universe, of phenomena in process of ceaseless change. Owing to this insistent change all things which happen, or seem to happen, are history in the broader sense of the word. The encyclopaedia itself is a history of them in the stricter sense,--the description and record of this universal process. This narrower meaning is the subject of the rest of this article.

The word "history" comes from the Gr. [Greek: historia], which was used by the Ionians in the 6th century B.C. for the search for knowledge in the widest sense. It meant inquiry, investigation, not narrative. It was not until two centuries later that the historikos, the reciter of stories, superseded the _historeon_ ([Greek: historeon]), the seeker after knowledge. Thus history began as a branch of scientific research,--much the same as what the Athenians later termed philosophy. Herodotus himself was as much a scientific explorer as a reciter of narrative, and his life-long investigation was _historie_ in his Ionian speech. Yet it was Herodotus himself who first hinted at the new use of the word, applied merely to the details accumulated during a long search for knowledge. It is not until Aristotle, however, that we have it definitely applied to the literary product instead of the inquiry which precedes it. From Aristotle to modern times, history (Lat. _historia_) has been a form of literature. It is only in the scientific environment of to-day that we recognize once more, with those earliest of the forerunners of Herodotus, that history involves two distinct operations, one of which, investigation, is in the field of science, while the other, the literary presentation, is in the field of art.

The history of history itself is therefore two-fold. History as art flourishes with the arts. It calls upon the imagination and the literary gifts of expression. Its history does not run parallel with the scientific side, but rather varies in inverse ratio with scientific activity. Those periods which have been dominated by the great masters of style have been less interested in the criticism of the historian's methods of investigation than in the beauty of his rhetoric. The scientific historian, deeply interested in the search for truth, is generally but a poor artist, and his uncoloured picture of the past will never rank in literature beside the splendid distortions which glow in the pages of a Michelet or Macaulay. History the art, in so far as it is conditioned upon genius, has no single traceable line of development. Here the product of the age of Pericles remains unsurpassed still; the works of Herodotus and Thucydides standing along with those of Pheidias as models for all time. On the other hand, history the science has developed so that it has not only gained recognition among historians as a distinct subject, but it has raised with it a group of auxiliary sciences which serve either as tools for investigation or as a basis for testing the results. The advance in this branch of history in the 19th century was one of its greatest achievements. The vast gulf which lies between the history of Egypt by Herodotus and that by Flinders Petrie is the measure of its achievement. By the mechanism now at his disposal the scientific explorer can read more history from the dust-heaps of Abydos than the greatest traveller of antiquity could gather from the priests of Sais. In tracing the history of history we must therefore keep in mind the double aspect.

History itself, this double subject, the science and the art combined, begins with the dawn of memory and the invention of speech. It is wrong to term those ages _pre-historic_ whose history has not come down to us, including in one category the pre-literary age and the literary whose traces have been lost. Even the pre-literary had its history, first in myth and then in saga. The saga, or epos, was a great advance upon the myth, for in it the deeds of men replace or tend to replace the deeds of the gods. But we are still largely in the realm of imagination. Poetry, as Thucydides complained, is a most imperfect medium for fact. The bard will exaggerate or distort his story. True history, as a record of what really has happened, first reached maturity in prose. Therefore, although much of the past has been handed down to us in epic, in ballad and in the legends of folk-lore, we must turn from them to what became history in the narrower sense.

The earliest prose origins of history are the inscriptions. Their inadequacy is evident from two standpoints. Their permanence depends not upon their importance, but upon the durability of the substance on which they are inscribed. A note for a wedding ring baked into the clay of Babylon has been preserved, while the history of the greatest events has perished. In the second place they are sealed to all but those who know how to read them, and so they lie forgotten for centuries while oral tradition flourishes,--being within the reach of every man. It is only recently that archaeology, turning from the field of art, has undertaken to interpret for us this first written history. The process by which the modern fits together all the obtainable remains of an antiquity, and reconstructs even that past which left no written record, lies outside the field of this article. But such enlargement of the field of history is a modern scientific product, and is to be distinguished from the imperfect beginnings of history-writing which the archaeologist is able to decipher.

Next to the inscriptions,--sometimes identical with them,--are the early chronicles. These are of various kinds. Family chronicles preserved the memory of heroic ancestors whose deeds in the earliest age would have passed into the keeping of the bards. Such family archives were perhaps the main source for Roman historians. But they are not confined to Rome or Greece. Genealogies also pass from the bald verse, which was the vehicle for oral transmission, to such elaborate tables as those in which Manetho has preserved the dynasties of Egyptian Pharaohs.

In this field the priest succeeds the poet. The temple itself became the chief repository of records. There were simple religious annals, votive tablets recording miracles accomplished at a shrine, lists of priests and priestesses, accounts of benefactions, of prodigies and portents. In some cases, as in Rome, the pontiffs kept a kind of register, not merely of religious history, but of important political events as well. Down to the time of the Gracchi (131 B.C.) the Pontifex Maximus inscribed the year's events upon annual tablets of wood which were preserved in the Regia, the official residence of the pontiff in the Forum. These pontifical "annals" thus came to be a sort of civic history. Chronicles of the Greek cities were commonly ascribed to mythical authors, as for instance that of Miletus, the oldest, to Cadmus the inventor of letters. But they were continued and edited by men in whom the critical spirit was awakening, as when the chroniclers of Ionian towns began the criticism of Homer.

The first historians were the logographi of these Ionian cities; men who carried their inquiry (_historie_) beyond both written record and oral tradition to a study of the world around them. Their "saying" (_logos_) was gathered mostly from contemporaries; and upon the basis of a widened experience they became critics of their traditions. The opening lines of Hecataeus of Miletus begin the history of the true historic spirit in words which read like a sentence from Voltaire. "Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write as I deem true, for the traditions of the Greeks seem to me manifold and laughable." Those words mark an epoch in the history of thought. They are the introduction to historical criticism and scientific investigation. Whatever the actual achievement of Hecataeus may have been, from his time onward the scientific movement was set going. Herodotus of Heraclea struggled to rationalize mythology, and established chronology on a solid basis. And finally Herodotus, a professional story-teller, rose to the height of genuine scientific investigation. Herodotus' inquiry was not simply that of an idle tourist. He was a critical observer, who tested his evidence. It is easy for the student now to show the inadequacy of his sources, and his failure here or there to discriminate between fact and fable. But given the imperfect medium for investigation and the absence of an archaeological basis for criticism, the work of Herodotus remains a scientific achievement, as remarkable for its approximation to truth as for the vastness of its scope. Yet it was Herodotus' chief glory to have joined to this scientific spirit an artistic sense which enabled him to cast the material into the truest literary form. He gathered all his knowledge of the ancient world, not simply for itself, but to mass it around the story of the war between the east and west, the Greeks and the Persians. He is first and foremost a story-teller; his theme is like that of the bards, a heroic event. His story is a vast prose epos, in which science is to this extent subordinated to art. "This is the showing forth of the Inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, to the end that neither the deeds of men may be forgotten by lapse of time, nor the works, great and marvellous, which have been produced, some by Hellenes, some by Barbarians, may lose their renown, and especially that the causes may be remembered for which these waged war with one another" (i.e. the Persian war).

In Thucydides a higher art than that of Herodotus was combined with a higher science. He scorned the story-teller "who seeks to please the ear rather than to speak the truth," and yet his rhetoric is the culmination of Greek historical prose. He withdrew from vulgar applause, conscious that his narrative would be considered "disappointing to the ear," yet he recast the materials out of which he constructed it in order to lift that narrative into the realm of pure literature. Speeches, letters and documents are reworded to be in tone with the rest of the story. It was his art, in fact, which really created the Peloponnesian war out of its separate parts. And yet this art was merely the language of a scientist. The "laborious task" of which he speaks is that of consulting all possible evidence, and weighing conflicting accounts. It is this which makes his rhetoric worth while, "an everlasting possession, not a prize competition which is heard and forgotten."

From the sublimity of Thucydides, and Xenophon's straight-forward story, history passed with Theopompus and Ephorus into the field of rhetoric. A revival of the scientific instinct of investigation is discernable in Timaeus the Sicilian, at the end of the 4th century, but his attack upon his predecessors was the text of a more crushing attack upon himself by Polybius, who declares him lacking in critical insight and biased by passion. Polybius' comments upon Timaeus reach the dignity of a treatise upon history. He protests against its use for controversial pamphlets which distort the truth. "Directly a man assumes the moral attitude of an historian he ought to forget all considerations, such as love of one's friends, hatred of one's enemies.... He must sometimes praise enemies and blame friends. For as a living creature is rendered useless if deprived of its eyes, so if you take truth from History, what is left but an improfitable tale" (bk. xii. 14). These are the words of a Ranke. Unfortunately Polybius, like most modern scientific historians, was no artist. His style is the very opposite of that of Isocrates and the rhetoricians. It is often only clear in the light of inscriptions, so closely does it keep to the sources. The style found no imitator; history passed from Greece to Rome in the guise of rhetoric. In Dionysius of Halicarnassus the rhetoric was combined with an extensive study of the sources; but the influence of the Greek rhetoricians upon Roman prose was deplorable from the standpoint of science. Cicero, although he said that the duty of the historian is to conceal nothing true, to say nothing false, would in practice have written the kind of history that Polybius denounced. He finds fault with those who are _non exornatores rerum sed tantum narratores_. History for him is the mine from which to draw argument in oratory and example in education. It is not the subject of a scientific curiosity.

It should be noted before we pass to Rome that with the expansion of Hellenism the subject of historians expanded as well. Universal history was begun by Ephorus, the rhetorician, and formed the theme of Polybius and Deodorus. Exiled Greeks were the first to write histories of Rome worthy of the name. The Alexandrian Eratosthenes placed chronology upon the scientific basis of astronomy, and Apollodorus drew up the most important _chronica_ of antiquity.

History-writing in Rome,--except for the Greek writers resident there,--was until the first half of the 1st century B.C. in the form of annals. Then came rhetorical ornamentation,--and the Ciceronian era. The first Roman historian who rose to the conception of a science and art combined was Sallust, the student of Thucydides. The Augustan age produced in Livy a great popular historian and natural artist and a trained rhetorician (in the speeches),--but as uncritical and inaccurate as he was brilliant. From Livy to Tacitus the gulf is greater than from Herodotus to Thucydides. Tacitus is at least a consummate artist. His style ranges from the brilliancy of his youth to the sternness and sombre gravity of age, passing almost to poetic expression in its epigrammatic terseness. Yet in spite of his searching study of authorities, his keen judgment of men, and his perception of underlying principles of moral law, his view was warped by the heat of faction, which glows beneath his external objectivity. After him Roman history-writing speedily degenerated. Suetonius' _Lives of the Caesars_ is but a superior kind of journalism. But his gossip of the court became the model for historians, whose works, now lost, furnish the main source for the _Historia Augusta_. The importance to us of this uncritical collection of biographies is sufficient comment on the decline of history-writing in the latter empire. Finally, from the 4th century the epitomes of Eutropius and Festus served to satisfy the lessening curiosity in the past and became the handbooks for the middle ages. The single figure of Ammianus Marcellinus stands out of this age like a belated disciple of Tacitus. But the world was changing from antique to Christian ideals just as he was writing, and with him we leave this outline of ancient history.

The 4th and 5th centuries saw a great revolution in the history of history. The story of the pagan past slipped out of mind, and in its place was set, by the genius of Eusebius, the story of the world force which had superseded it, Christianity, and of that small fraction of antiquity from which it sprang,--the Jews. Christianity from the first had forced thinking men to reconstruct their philosophy of history, but it was only after the Church's triumph that its point of view became dominant in historiography. Three centuries more passed before the pagan models were quite lost to sight. But from the 7th century to the 17th--from Isidore of Seville and the English Bede for a thousand years,--mankind was to look back along the line of Jewish priests and kings to the Creation. Egypt was of interest only as it came into Israelite history, Babylon and Nineveh were to illustrate the judgments of Yahweh, Tyre and Sidon to reflect the glory of Solomon. The process by which the "gentiles" have been robbed of their legitimate history was the inevitable result of a religion whose sacred books make them lay figures for the history of the Jews. Rejected by the Yahweh who became the Christian God, they have remained to the present day, in Sunday schools and in common opinion, not nations of living men, with the culture of arts and sciences, but outcasts who do not enter into the divine scheme of the world's history. When a line was drawn between pagan and Christian back to the creation of the world, it left outside the pale of inquiry nearly all antiquity. But it must be remembered that that antiquity was one in which the German nations had no personal interest. Scipio and the Gracchi were essentially unreal to them. The one living organization with which they came into touch was the Church. So Cicero and Pompey paled before Joshua and Paul. Diocletian, the organizing genius, became a bloodthirsty monster, and Constantine, the murderer, a saint.