Wikipedia
Harpalus is a young lunar impact crater that lies on the Mare Frigoris, at the eastern edge of the Sinus Roris. To the southeast at the edge of the mare is the small crater Foucault, and to the northwest on the opposite edge is the walled plain named South.
The rim of Harpalus is sharp-edged with little sign of wear or erosion. The wall is not perfectly circular, and has a few outward notches and protrusions, especially along the eastern half. It is surrounded by an outer rampart of ejecta, most notably towards the north, and is at the center of a small ray system. Due to its rays, Harpalus is mapped as part of the Copernican System.
The inner surface is terraced, and flows down to the floor. The interior wall is the least wide along the northern face, making the floor slightly offset in that direction. Near the midpoint is a system of low central ridges.
Harpalus ( Greek: Ἅρπαλος) son of Machatas was an aristocrat of Macedon and boyhood friend of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. Being lame in a leg, and therefore exempt from military service, Harpalus did not follow Alexander in his advance within the Persian Empire but received nonetheless a post in Asia Minor. Alexander reportedly contacted him with a demand of reading material for his spare time. Harpalus sent his King theatrical plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the history of Philistus and odes by Philoxenus and Telestes.
Harpalus was also a charming rogue who absconded three times with large amounts of money. The first time he was forgiven and reinstated, only to abuse his trust again. In 324 BC Harpalus found refuge in Athens. He was imprisoned by the Athenians after a proposal of Demosthenes and Phocion, despite Hypereides' opposition, who wanted an immediate uprising against Alexander. The Ecclesia, based on a proposal from Demosthenes, decided on the guarding of Harpalus' money, which was entrusted to a committee led by Demosthenes himself. When the committee counted the money they found 350 talents, although Harpalus had declared that he had 700 talents. Nevertheless, Demosthenes and the other members of the committee decided not to disclose the deficit.
When Harpalus escaped and fled to Crete, the orator faced a new wave of public uproar. The Areopagus conducted an inquiry and its findings led to Demosthenes being charged with mishandling 20 talents. At Demosthenes' trial in the Heliaia, Hypereides, who was the main prosecutor, noted that Demosthenes had admitted taking the money, but said that he had used it on the people's behalf and had borrowed it free of interest. The prosecutor rejected this argument and accused Demosthenes of being bribed by Alexander. Demosthenes was fined 50 talents and imprisoned, but after a few days he escaped thanks to the carelessness or connivance of some citizens and travelled around Calauria, Aegina and Troezen. It remains still unclear whether the accusations against him were just or not. In any case, the Athenians soon repealed the sentence and sent a ship to Aegina to carry Demosthenes back to the port of Piraeus.
According to Pausanias, "shortly after Harpalus ran away from Athens and crossed with a squadron to Crete, he was put to death by the servants who were attending him (in 323 BC), though some assert that he was assassinated by Pausanias, a Macedonian". The geographer also narrates the following story: "The steward of his money fled to Rhodes, and was arrested by a Macedonian, Philoxenus, who also had demanded Harpalus from the Athenians. Having this slave in his power, he proceeded to examine him, until he learned everything about such as had allowed themselves to accept a bribe from Harpalus. On obtaining this information he sent a dispatch to Athens, in which he gave a list of such as had taken a bribe from Harpalus, both their names and the sums each had received. Demosthenes, however, he never mentioned at all, although Alexander held him in bitter hatred, and he himself had a private quarrel with him."
Harpalus is featured in the historical novel Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault. In it, he is entrusted by his teacher Aristotle with the task of observing and recording the lives of wild animals. Renault speculates that this would explain some of the fantastic accounts in Aristotle's zoological writings as Harpalian hoaxes.
Harpalus is a genus of ground beetle with over 420 species and subspecies.
Harpalus was an ancient Greek astronomer (flor. 82nd Olympiad, ca.450 BC) who corrected the cycle of Cleostratus and invented the Nine Year Cycle. He may also have been the engineer Harpalus who designed a pontoon bridge solution when Xerxes wished his army to cross the Hellespont.
Harpalus in Greek mythology was son of Amyclas king of Laconia and father of Deritus, ancestor of Patreus, founder of Patras.
Harpalus or Harpalos (Ancient Greek: ) may refer to:
Harpalus son of Polemaeus from Beroea, was a Macedonian statesman, hieromnemon at Delphi and the chief of the ambassadors sent by Perseus to Rome in 172 BC, to answer the complaints of Eumenes II, king of Pergamon. Harpalus gave great offence to the Romans by the haughty and vehement tone that he assumed, and exacerbated the irritation already existing against Perseus.
Harpalus or Harpalos is a name reported by modern historical books ( tertiary sources) as the engineer who built the pontoon bridge over the Hellespont (from Abydos to Sestos) for Xerxes in 480 BC. The primary source Herodotus (7.34-36) gives no specific name, except the following information:
The secondary source may have been some later writer, who may have invented a name in order to provide a name for this impressive engineering achievement, in the manner of Mandrocles, recorded by Herodotus as bridging the Bosporus for Darius I. The oldest and relevant source seems to be a work published in 1904 by Hermann Alexander Diels which he titled Laterculi Alexandrini ("Alexandrian lists"), out of a damaged 1st or 2nd-century BC papyrus he found, which lists artists and scientists by their achievements.
The tertiary sources report the following: One of Mandrocles' successors, not named by Herodotus (7.34-36), was Harpalos of Tenedos who, succeeding where Egyptian and Phoenician engineers had failed, built the bridge over the Hellespont (Hofstetter 1978, no. 130; on the bridge, see Hammond and Roseman 1996). It is important for a right estimate of Ionian science to remember the high development of engineering in these days. Mandrokles of Samos built the bridge over the Bosporos for King Dareios (Herod. iv. 88), and Harpalos of Tenedos bridged the Hellespont for Xerxes when the Egyptians and Phoenicians had failed in the attempt ( Diels, Laterculi Alexandrini, Abh. der Berl. Akad., 1904, p. 8). Harpalus, a Macedonian contractor, who took on the bridging project, according to Peter Green. The astronomer Harpalus supervised the construction of the bridges. according to Hugh Pembroke Vowles.