HEPHAESTOS, called Vulcan by the Romans, the Greek god of fire, or of labour in the element of fire, the son of Zeus and Hera, represented as ill-shapen, lame, and ungainly, so much so as to be an object of ridicule to the rest of the pantheon, but he was indispensable to the dynasty, and to none more than his father and mother, who were often unkind to him; he had his smithy in Olympus in the vicinity of the gods, and the marvellous creations of his art were shaped on an anvil, the hammer of which was plied by 20 bellows that worked at his bidding; in later traditions he had his workshop elsewhere, and the Cyclops for his servants, employed in manufacturing thunderbolts for Zeus; he was wedded to Aphrodite, whom he caught playing false with Ares, and whom he trapped along with him in a net a spectacle to all the upper deities.

HEPTAD, a term in chemistry to denote an atom that is the equivalent of seven atoms of hydrogen, from hepta, seven.

HEPTARCHY, ANGLO-SAXON, the seven kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumberland, East Anglia, and Mercia, the chief of those established by the Saxons during the 6th century in Great Britain.

HEPTATEUCH, a name given to the first seven books of the Bible.

HERA, called Juno by the Romans, daughter of Cronos and Rhea, and sister and wife of Zeus; was the queen of heaven, and treated with the same reverence as her husband, but being inferior in power was bound to obey him equally with the rest, or suffer if she did not; she was jealous of Zeus in his amours with mortals, and persecuted all his children by mortal mothers, Hercules among the chief.

HERACLES, i. e. the chosen of Hera, to be tried by her.  See HERCULES.

HERACLI`DAE, Spartans, presumed descendants of Hercules, who at one time invaded and took possession of the Peloponnesus.

HERACLITUS, a Greek philosopher, born at Ephesus, who flourished about the year 480 B.C.; was the first to note how everything throughout the universe is in constant flux, and nothing permanent but in transition from being to nothing and from nothing to being, from life to death and from death to life, that nothing is, that everything becomes, that the truth of being is becoming, that no one, nothing, is exempt from this law, the law symbolised by the fable of the PHOENIX IN THE FIRE (q. v.).

HERACLIUS, Emperor of the East from 610 to 642, born in Cappadocia; raised to the throne of the East on account of the services he rendered the citizens of Constantinople in getting rid of a tyrant; waged war against the hostile Persians, defeated Chosroes, and compelled a peace, but was unable to withstand the arms of the Moslem invaders.

HERAT (50), the chief town of the province of Herat, in W. Afghanistan, on the Hari-Rud, 300 m.  W. of Cabul; its central position has given it a great commercial and military importance; it has manufactures of leather and wool, and as a place of great strategical value, since the advance of Russia in Asia is strongly fortified by a British citadel and garrison.