HARPOCRATES, the name given by Greek writers to the younger Horns. the hiero glyphical inscriptions calling him hat' pa Alma, " Horns the child," the son of Isis. According to the legend, he was a younger son of Osiris and Isis, who. bavmg placed an amulet round her neck. gave birth to hitn at the winter solstice. lie described by Plutarch as lame in the lower limbs when born, to indicate the weak and tender shootings of .corn, lie is represented as a. child wearing the skullcap or preheat, the crown of the upper and lower world, amid holding in his hands the whip and crook, to expel evil influences. At the right side of his bead his hair is gathered into a single lock, and his finger is placed on his mouth, an action indicative of youth, and mistaken by the Greek and Roman writers for that of silence, of which they made Harpocrates the divinity. Sometimes he wears an amulet in shanc of a vase round his neck. The temple at Edfou or Apollinopolis Magna was dedicated to him, and in the sculptures he symbolizes the sun in the earliest hours of the day. He has generallv been considered to be the winter sun, but rather represents the feeble and nascent sun of the later mythology. Lions were placed muter his throne; oynocephali are said to be dedicated to him, probably from confounding him with the lunar god Ehons: and the lotus, on which he is often depicted sitting, and which was thought to be qpen at sunrise and close at sunset, was particularly sacred to him, So was the Persea, or Cassia Fidalaris. His worship was introduced as part of t-he Isiac cult into Rome, and
he was supposed to be very efficacious in giving dreams; an edict of the people hcing, however, directed against it in the consulship of Gabinius. In the.consulship of Piso and Gabinius his worship was driven from the capitol; but he was very popular in the days of Pliny. Although the name of Ilarpocrates is uotmentidned earlier than Erat's theues, yet as he mentions it as part of that of an ancient monarch, it was undoubtedly of high antiquity.
Birch, Gallery of Antiquities, i. p. 37; Wilkinson, sir G., .:11amit. and Cast., iv. p. 405; lablonski, Pantheon, i. p. 241.
HARPOCRATI01\z, VALEIDUS, a grammarian of Egypt, respecting whose personal history nothing is known. Some have considered him to he the Greek instructor of the emperor L. Vents, mentioned by Julius Capitolinus, while others have made him live so late as A.D. 360, because several passages are found hi his works taken from Athenvens, who is supposed to have flourished about A.D. 300. Ilarpocration is tl• author of a very valuable lexicon on the ten orators, which contains a great deal of information on the law, history, antiquities, and general literature of Athens. The value of this work is much enhanced by the fact that all the authorities from which it has been compiled are lost. Harpocration is also the author of a work entitled Coactioik of Flowery Eetracts.