Hegelochus

(Ἡγέλοχος.)

1. Commander of the Athenian forces, which successfully protected the fields of the Mantineians from the Theban and Thessalian cavalry, when Epaminondas threatened the city in B. C. 362. The name of the Athenian commander is not mentioned by Xenophon, but is supplied by Diodorus. (Xen. Hell.7.5. §§ 15-17 ; Diod. 15.84; Plut. de Glor. Ath. 2.)

2. One of Alexander's officers, son of Hippostratus. At the battle of the Granicus, in B. C. 334, he led a body of cavalry which was sent forward to watch the enemy's movements. In the following year Amphotorus was appointed to command the fleet in the Hellespont, and Hegelochus was associated with him as general of the forces, with a commission to drive the Persian garrisons from the islands in the Aegean. In this he was fully successful, the islanders being themselves anxious to throw off the Persan yoke; and he brought the news of his success to Alexander in B. C. 331, when the king was engaged in the foundation of Alexandria. In the same year he commanded a troop of horse at the battle of Arbela ; and in the confession of Philotas, in B. C. 330, he is mentioned as having died in battle. According to the statements of Philotas under the torture, on which, however, no dependence can be placed, Hegelochus, indignant at Alexander's assumption of divine honours, had instigated Parmenion to form a plot against the king's life. (Arr. Anab,. 1.13, 3.2, 11; Curt. 3.1, 4.4, 6.11; comp. Plut. Alex. 49; Diod. 17.79.) [E.E]

(Ἡγέλοχος), an Athenian tragic actor, who incurred the ridicule of the comic poets, Plato, Strattis, Sannynon, and Aristophanes, by his pronunciation of the line of Euripides (Eur. Orest. 269)-- Ἐκ κυμάτων γὰρ αὖθις αὖ γαλήνʼ ὁρῶ.

The scholiasts tell us that the sudden failure of the actor's voice prevented him from indicating properly the synaloepha, and that thus he altered γαλήνʼ, a calm, into γαλῆν, a weasel. The incident furnishes a proof that elided vowels were not completely dropped in pronunciation. (Aristoph. Frogs 304; Schol. in loc.; Schol. in Eurip. Orest. 269.) [P.S]