(formed of ἡπαρ liver, and σκοπεῖν I consider), in antiquity, a species of divination, wherein predictions were made by inspecting the livers of animals.

Hepatoscopia is also used as a general name for divination by intrals.

**HEPHAESTIA,** in Grecian antiquity, an Athenian festival in honour of Vulcan, the chief ceremony of which was a race with torches. It was performed in this manner: The antagonists were three young men, one of whom, by lot, took a lighted torch in his hand, and began his course; if the torch was extinguished before he finished the race, he delivered it to the second; and he in like manner to the third: the victory was his who first carried the torch lighted to the end of the race; and to this successive delivering of the torch we find many allusions in ancient writers.

**HEPTHHEMIMERIS** (composed of ἑπτα seven, μισθος half, and μέρος part), in the Greek and Latin poetry, a sort of verse consisting of three feet and a syllable; that is, of seven half feet.

Such are most of the verses in Anacreon:

| Θέλω | ἀγαθὸν | Ἀτρί | δακ | |-------|--------|------|-----| | Θέλω | ἐν Καβ | ἀνον | δια |

And that of Aristophanes, in his Plutus:

| Εὐτυχία μυρίου χοροῦ | |------------------------|

They are also called trimetri catalectic.

**HEPTHHEMIMERIS,** or Hephthemimeres, is also a caesura after the third foot; that is, on the seventh half-foot. It is a rule, that this syllable, though it be short in itself, must be made long on account of the caesura, or to make it an hepthhemimeris. As in that verse of Virgil:

*Et furitis agitatus amor, et conficia virtus.*

It may be added, that the caesura is not to be on the fifth foot, as it is in the verse which Dr Harris gives us for an example:

*Ille latum niveum molli salutis Hyacintho.*

This is not a hepthhemimeris caesura, but a hennaeimeris, i.e., of nine half feet.

**HEPTACHORD,** in the ancient poetry, signified verses that were sung or played on seven chords, that is, on seven different notes. In this sense it was applied to the lyre when it had but seven strings. One of the intervals is also called an heptachord, as containing the same number of degrees between the extremes.

**HEPTAGON,** in geometry, a figure consisting of seven sides, and as many angles. In fortification, a place is termed an heptagon, that has seven bastions for its defence.

**HEPTAGONAL numbers,** in arithmetic, a sort of polygonal numbers, wherein the difference of the terms of the corresponding arithmetical progression is. One of the properties of these numbers is, that if they be multiplied by 49, and 9 added to the product, the sum will be a square number.