_Alexander_. He was destined, even before his birth, to become the
ruin of his country; and when his mother, in the first month of
her pregnancy, had dreamed that she should bring forth a torch
which should set fire to her palace, the soothsayers foretold the
calamities which might be expected from the imprudence of her future
son, and which would end in the destruction of Troy. Priam, to
prevent so great and so alarming an evil, ordered his slave Archelaus
to destroy the child as soon as born. The slave, either touched
with humanity, or influenced by Hecuba, did not destroy him, but
was satisfied to expose him on mount Ida, where the shepherds of the
place found him, and educated him as their own son. Some attribute
the preservation of his life, before he was found by the shepherds,
to the motherly tenderness of a she-bear which suckled him. Young
Paris, though educated among shepherds and peasants, gave early
proofs of courage and intrepidity, and from his care in protecting
the flocks of mount Ida against the rapacity of the wild beasts, he
obtained the name of Alexander (_helper_ or _defender_). He gained
the esteem of all the shepherds, and his graceful countenance and
manly deportment recommended him to the favour of Œnone, a nymph of
Ida, whom he married, and with whom he lived with the most perfect
tenderness. Their conjugal peace was soon disturbed. At the marriage
of Peleus and Thetis, the goddess of discord, who had not been
invited to partake of the entertainment, showed her displeasure by
throwing into the assembly of the gods who were at the celebration
of the nuptials, a golden apple on which were written the words
_Detur pulchriori_. All the goddesses claimed it as their own: the
contention at first became general, but at last only three, Juno,
Venus, and Minerva, wished to dispute their respective right to
beauty. The gods, unwilling to become arbiters in an affair of so
tender and so delicate a nature, appointed Paris to adjudge the prize
of beauty to the fairest of the goddesses, and indeed the shepherd
seemed properly qualified to decide so great a contest, as his wisdom
was so well established, and his prudence and sagacity so well known.
The goddesses appeared before their judge without any covering or
ornament, and each tried by promises and entreaties to gain the
attention of Paris, and to influence his judgment. Juno promised him
a kingdom; Minerva, military glory; and Venus, the fairest woman in
the world for his wife, as Ovid expresses it, _Heroides_, poem 17,
li. 118,
_Udaque cum regnum; belli daret altera laudem;
Tyndaridis conjux, tertia dixit, eris._
After he had heard their several claims and promises, Paris adjudged
the prize to Venus, and gave her the golden apple, to which, perhaps,
she seemed entitled as the goddess of beauty. This decision of Paris
in favour of Venus drew upon the judge and his family the resentment
of the two other goddesses. Soon after Priam proposed a contest among
his sons and other princes, and promised to reward the conqueror with
one of the finest bulls of mount Ida. His emissaries were sent to
procure the animal, and it was found in the possession of Paris, who
reluctantly yielded it up. The shepherd was desirous of obtaining
again this favourite animal, and he went to Troy and entered the
list of the combatants. He was received with the greatest applause,
and obtained the victory over his rivals, Nestor the son of Neleus;
Cycnus son of Neptune; Polites, Helenus, and Deiphobus sons of Priam.
He also obtained a superiority over Hector himself, and the prince,
enraged to see himself conquered by an unknown stranger, pursued
him closely, and Paris must have fallen a victim to his brother’s
resentment, had he not fled to the altar of Jupiter. This sacred
retreat preserved his life, and Cassandra the daughter of Priam,
struck with the similarity of the features of Paris with those of her
brothers, inquired his birth and his age. From these circumstances
she soon discovered that he was her brother, and as such she
introduced him to her father and to his children. Priam acknowledged
Paris as his son, forgetful of the alarming dream which had
influenced him to meditate his death, and all jealousy ceased among
the brothers. Paris did not long suffer himself to remain inactive;
he equipped a fleet, as if willing to redeem Hesione, his father’s
sister, whom Hercules had carried away and obliged to marry Telamon
the son of Æacus. This was the pretended motive of his voyage, but
the causes were far different. Paris recollected that he was to
be the husband of the fairest of women; and if he had been led to
form those expectations while he was an obscure shepherd of Ida, he
had now every plausible reason to see them realized, since he was
acknowledged son of the king of Troy. Helen was the fairest woman
of the age, and Venus had promised her to him. On these grounds,
therefore, he visited Sparta, the residence of Helen, who had married
Menelaus. He was received with every mark of respect, but he abused
the hospitality of Menelaus, and while the husband was absent in
Crete, Paris persuaded Helen to elope with him and fly to Asia. Helen
consented, and Priam received her into his palace without difficulty,
as his sister was then detained in a foreign country, and as he
wished to show himself as hostile as possible to the Greeks. This
affair was soon productive of serious consequences. When Menelaus had
married Helen, all her suitors had bound themselves by a solemn oath
to protect her person, and to defend her from every violence [_See:_
Helena], and therefore the injured husband reminded them of their
engagements, and called upon them to recover Helen. Upon this all
Greece took up arms in the cause of Menelaus; Agamemnon was chosen
general of all the combined forces, and a regular war was begun.
_See:_ Troja. Paris, meanwhile, who had refused Helen to the
petitions and embassies of the Greeks, armed himself with his
brothers and subjects to oppose the enemy; but the success of the
war was neither hindered nor accelerated by his means. He fought with
little courage, and at the very sight of Menelaus, whom he had so
recently injured, all his resolution vanished, and he retired from
the front of the army, where he walked before like a conqueror. In
a combat with Menelaus, which he undertook at the persuasion of his
brother Hector, Paris must have perished, had not Venus interfered,
and stolen him from the resentment of his adversary. He nevertheless
wounded, in another battle, Machaon, Euryphilus, and Diomedes, and,
according to some opinions, he killed with one of his arrows the
great Achilles. _See:_ Achilles. The death of Paris is differently
related; some suppose that he was mortally wounded by one of the
arrows of Philoctetes, which had been once in the possession of
Hercules, and that when he found himself languid on account of his
wounds, he ordered himself to be carried to the feet of Œnone, whom
he had basely abandoned, and who, in the years of his obscurity,
had foretold him that he would solicit her assistance in his dying
moments. He expired before he came into the presence of Œnone, and
the nymph, still mindful of their former loves, threw herself upon
his body, and stabbed herself to the heart, after she had plentifully
bathed it with her tears. According to some authors, Paris did not
immediately go to Troy when he left the Peloponnesus, but he was
driven on the coast of Egypt, where Proteus, who was king of the
country, detained him, and when he heard of the violence which had
been offered to the king of Sparta, he kept Helen at his court,
and permitted Paris to retire. _See:_ Helena. _Dictys Cretensis_,
bks. 1, 3, & 4.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 12.――_Homer_, _Iliad_.
――_Ovid_, _Heroides_, poems 5, 16, & 17.――_Quintus Calabrus
[Smyrnæus]_, bk. 10, li. 290.――_Horace_, ode 3.――_Euripides_,
_Iphigeneia_.――_Hyginus_, fables 92 & 273.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 1,
&c.――_Ælian_, _Varia Historia_, bk. 12, ch. 42.――_Pausanias_, bk. 10,
ch. 27.――_Cicero_, _de Divinatione_.――_Lycophron_. & _Tzetzes_ on
_Lycophron_.――――A celebrated player at Rome, in the good graces of
the emperor Nero, &c. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 13, ch. 19, &c.
=Parisădes=, a king of Pontus in the age of Alexander the Great.
――――Another, king of Bosphorus.
=Parīsii=, a people and a city of Celtic Gaul, now called _Paris_, the
capital of the kingdom of France. _Cæsar_, _Gallic War_, bk. 6, ch. 3.
=Parisus=, a river of Pannonia, falling into the Danube. _Strabo._
=Parium=, now _Camanar_, a town of Asia Minor, on the Propontis, where
Archilochus was born, as some say. _Strabo_, bk. 10.――_Pliny_, bk. 7,
ch. 2; bk. 36, ch. 5.
=Parma=, a town of Italy, near Cremona, celebrated for its wool, and
now for its cheese. The poet Cassius and the critic Macrobius were
born there. It was made a Roman colony, A.U.C. 569. The inhabitants
are called _Parmenenses_ and _Parmani_. _Livy_, bk. 39, ch. 55.
――_Strabo_, bk. 5.――_Horace_, bk. 1, ltr. 4, li. 3.――_Cicero_,
_Philippics_, bk. 14, li. 3.――_Varro_, _de Lingua Latina_, bk. 7,
ch. 31.――_Martial_, bk. 2, ltr. 43, li. 4; bk. 3, ltr. 13, li. 8 &
ltr. 14, li. 155.
=Parmenĭdes=, a Greek philosopher of Elis, who flourished about 505
years before Christ. He was son of Pyres of Elis, and the pupil
of Xenophanes, or of Anaximander, according to some. He maintained
that there were only two elements, fire and the earth; and he taught
that the first generation of men was produced from the sun. He first
discovered that the earth was round, and habitable only in the two
temperate zones, and that it was suspended in the centre of the
universe, in a fluid lighter than air, so that all bodies left to
themselves fell on its surface. There were, as he supposed, only two
sorts of philosophy,――one founded on reason, and the other on opinion.
He digested this unpopular system in verses, of which a few fragments
remain. _Diogenes Laërtius._
=Parmenio=, a celebrated general in the armies of Alexander, who
enjoyed the king’s confidence, and was more attached to his person as
a man than as a monarch. When Darius king of Persia offered Alexander
all the country which lies at the west of the Euphrates, with his
daughter Statira in marriage, and 10,000 talents of gold, Parmenio
took occasion to observe that he would, without hesitation, accept of
these conditions, if he were Alexander. “So would I, were I Parmenio,”
replied the conqueror. This friendship, so true and inviolable, was
sacrificed to a moment of resentment and suspicion; and Alexander,
who had too eagerly listened to a light and perhaps a false
accusation, ordered Parmenio and his son to be put to death, as if
guilty of treason against his person. Parmenio was in the 70th year
of his age, B.C. 330. He died in the greatest popularity, and it
has been judiciously observed, that Parmenio obtained many victories
without Alexander, but Alexander not one without Parmenio. _Curtius_,
bk. 7, &c.――_Plutarch_, _Alexander_.
=Parnassus=, a mountain of Phocis, anciently called _Larnassos_, from
the _boat_ of Deucalion (λαρναξ), which was carried there in the
universal deluge. It received the name of Parnassus from Parnassus
the son of Neptune by Cleobula, and was sacred to the Muses, and
to Apollo and Bacchus. The soil was barren, but the valleys and
the green woods that covered its sides, rendered it agreeable, and
fit for solitude and meditation. Parnassus is one of the highest
mountains of Europe, and it is easily seen from the citadel of
Corinth, though at the distance of about 80 miles. According to the
computation of the ancients, it is one day’s journey round. At the
north of Parnassus, there is a large plain, about eight miles in
circumference. The mountain, according to the poets, had only two
tops, called _Hyampea_ and _Tithorea_, on one of which the city of
Delphi was situated, and thence it was called _Biceps_. _Strabo_, bks.
8, 9.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 1, li. 317; bk. 2, li. 221; bk. 5,
li. 278.――_Lucan_, bk. 5, li. 71; bk. 3, li. 173.――_Livy_, bk. 42,
ch. 16.――_Silius Italicus_, bk. 15, li. 311.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.
――_Pausanias_, bk. 10, ch. 6.――_Propertius_, bk. 2, poem 23, li. 13;
bk. 3, poem 11, li. 54.――――A son of Neptune, who gave his name to a
mountain of Phocis.
=Parnes= (etis), a mountain of Africa, abounding in vines. _Statius_,
bk. 12, _Thebaid_, li. 620.
=Parnessus=, a mountain of Asia near Bactriana. _Dionysius Periegeta_,
li. 737.
=Parni=, a tribe of the Scythians, who invaded Parthia. _Strabo_,
bk. 11.
=Paron= and =Heraclides=, two youths who killed a man who had insulted
their father. _Plutarch_, _Apophthegmata Laconica_.
=Paropamisus=, a ridge of mountains at the north of India, called the
_Stony Girdle_, or Indian Caucasus. _Strabo_, bk. 15.
=Paropus=, now _Colisano_, a town at the north of Sicily, on the shores
of the Tyrrhene sea. _Polybius_, bk. 1, ch. 24.
=Paroreia=, a town of Thrace, near mount Hæmus. _Livy_, bk. 39, ch. 27.
――――A town of Peloponnesus.――――A district of Phrygia Magna. _Strabo_,
bk. 12.
=Paros=, a celebrated island among the Cyclades, about 7½ miles distant
from Naxos, and 28 from Delos. According to Pliny, it is half as
large as Naxos, that is, about 36 or 37 miles in circumference, a
measure which some of the moderns have extended to 50 and even 80
miles. It has borne the different names of _Pactia_, _Minoa_, _Hiria_,
_Demetrias_, _Zacynthus_, _Cabarnis_, and _Hyleassa_. It received
the name of Paros, which it still bears, from Paros, a son of Jason,
or, as some maintain, of Parrhasius. The island of Paros was rich
and powerful, and well known for its famous marble, which was always
used by the best statuaries. The best quarries were those of Marpesus,
a mountain where still caverns of the most extraordinary depth are
seen by modern travellers, and admired as the sources from whence
the ♦labyrinth of Egypt and the porticoes of Greece received their
splendour. According to Pliny, the quarries were so uncommonly deep,
that, in the clearest weather, the workmen were obliged to use lamps,
from which circumstance the Greeks have called the marble _Lychnites_,
worked by the light of lamps. Paros is also famous for the fine
cattle which it produces, and for its partridges, and wild pigeons.
The capital city was called Paros. It was first peopled by the
Phœnicians, and afterwards a colony of Cretans settled in it. The
Athenians made war against it, because it had assisted the Persians
in the invasion of Greece, and took it, and it became a Roman
province in the age of Pompey. Archilochus was born there. The
_Parian_ marbles, perhaps better known by the appellation of
_Arundelian_, were engraved in this island in capital letters, B.C.
264, and, as a valuable chronicle, preserved the most celebrated
epochas of Greece, from the year 1582 B.C. These valuable pieces of
antiquity were procured originally by M. de Peirisc, a Frenchman,
and afterwards purchased by the earl of Arundel, by whom they were
given to the university of Oxford, where they are still to be seen.
Prideaux published an account of all the inscriptions in 1676. _Mela_,
bk. 2, ch. 7.――_Strabo_, bk. 5.――_Cornelius Nepos_, _Miltiades_ &
_Alcibiades_.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 1, li. 593; _Georgics_, bk. 3,
li. 34.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 3, li. 419; bk. 7, li. 466.
――_Pliny_, bk. 3, ch. 14; bk. 36, ch. 17.――_Diodorus_, bk. 5, &
_Thucydides_, bk. 1.――_Herodotus_, bk. 5, &c.――_Horace_, bk. 1,
ode 19, li. 6.
♦ ‘labryrinth’ replaced with ‘labyrinth’
=Parphŏrus=, a native of Colophon, who, at the head of a colony, built
a town at the foot of Ida, which was abandoned for a situation nearer
his native city. _Strabo_, bk. 14.――_Pausanias_, bk. 7, ch. 3.
=Parrhăsia=, a town of Arcadia, founded by Parrhasius the son of
Jupiter. The Arcadians are sometimes called _Parrhasians_, and
Arcas _Parrhasis_, and Carmenta, Evander’s mother, _Parrhasiadea_.
_Lucan_, bk. 2, li. 237.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 8, li. 333.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 8, li. 315; _Fasti_, bk. 1, li. 618; _Tristia_,
bk. 1, li. 190.――_Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 27.
=Parrhăsius=, a famous painter, son of Evenor of Ephesus, in the age
of Zeuxis, about 415 years before Christ. He was a great master of
his profession, and particularly excelled in strongly expressing
the violent passions. He was blessed with a great genius, and much
invention, and he was particularly happy in his designs. He acquired
himself great reputation by his pieces, but by none more than that
in which he allegorically represented the people of Athens with all
the injustice, the clemency, the fickleness, timidity, the arrogance
and inconsistency, which so eminently characterized that celebrated
nation. He once entered the lists against Zeuxis, and when they had
produced their respective pieces, the birds came to pick with the
greatest avidity the grapes which ♦Zeuxis had painted. Immediately
Parrhasius exhibited his piece, and Zeuxis said, “Remove your
curtain, that we may see the painting.” The curtain was the painting,
and Zeuxis acknowledged himself conquered, by exclaiming, “Zeuxis
has deceived birds, but Parrhasius has deceived Zeuxis himself”.
Parrhasius grew so vain of his art, that he clothed himself in purple,
and wore a crown of gold, calling himself the king of painters. He
was lavish in his own praises, and by his vanity too often exposed
himself to the ridicule of his enemies. _Plutarch_, _Theseus_;
_Quomodo Adolescens Poetas Audire Debeat_.――_Pausanias_, bk. 1, ch.
28.――_Pliny_, bk. 35, ch. 10.――_Horace_, bk. 4, ode 8.――――A son of
Jupiter, or, according to some, of Mars, by a nymph called Philonomia.
♦ ‘Xeuxis’ replaced with ‘Zeuxis’
=Parthamisiris=, a king of Armenia, in the reign of Trajan.
=Parthāon=, a son of Agenor and Epicaste, who married Euryte daughter
of Hippodamus, by whom he had many children, among whom were Œneus
and Sterope. Parthaon was brother to Demonice, the mother of Evenus
by Mars, and also to Molus, Pylus, and Thestius. He is called
Portheus by Homer, _Iliad_, bk. 14.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 1, ch. 7.
――_Hyginus_, fables 129 & 239.――――A son of Peripetus and father of
Aristas. _Pausanias_, bk. 8.
=Parthĕniæ= and =Parthĕnii=, a certain number of desperate citizens
of Sparta. During the Messenian war, the Spartans were absent from
their city for the space of 10 years, and it was unlawful for them to
return, as they had bound themselves by a solemn oath not to revisit
Sparta before they had totally subdued Messenia. This long absence
alarmed the Lacedæmonian women, as well as the magistrates. The
Spartans were reminded by their wives, that if they continued in
their resolution, the state must at last decay for want of citizens,
and when they had duly considered this embassy, they empowered all
the young men in the army, who had come to the war while yet under
age, and who therefore were not bound by the oath, to return to
Sparta, and, by a familiar and promiscuous intercourse with all the
unmarried women of the state, to raise a future generation. It was
carried into execution, and the children that sprang from this union
were called Partheniæ, or _sons of virgins_ (παρθενος). The war
with Messenia was some time after ended, and the Spartans returned
victorious; but the cold indifference with which they looked upon
the Partheniæ was attended with serious consequences. The Partheniæ
knew they had no legitimate fathers, and no inheritance, and
that therefore their life depended upon their own exertions. This
drove them almost to despair. They joined with the Helots, whose
maintenance was as precarious as their own, and it was mutually
agreed to murder all the citizens of Sparta, and to seize their
possessions. This massacre was to be done at a general assembly, and
the signal was the throwing of a cap in the air. The whole, however,
was discovered through the diffidence and apprehensions of the Helots;
and when the people had assembled, the Partheniæ discovered that all
was known, by the voice of a crier, who proclaimed that no man should
throw up his cap. The Partheniæ, though apprehensive of punishment,
were not visibly treated with greater severity; their calamitous
condition was attentively examined, and the Spartans, afraid of
another conspiracy, and awed by their numbers, permitted them to
sail for Italy, with Phalantus their ringleader at their head. They
settled in Magna Græcia, and built Tarentum, about 707 years before
Christ. _Justin_, bk. 3, ch. 5.――_Strabo_, bk. 6.――_Pausanias_, on
_Laconia_, &c.――_Plutarch_, _Apophthegmata Laconica_.
=Parthĕnias=, a river of Peloponnesus, flowing by Elis. _Pausanias_,
bk. 6, ch. 21.――――The ancient name of Samos. _Pliny_, bk. 5, ch. 31.
=Parthĕnion=, a mountain of Peloponnesus at the north of Tegea.
_Pausanias._
=Parthĕnius=, a river of Paphlagonia, which, after separating Bithynia,
falls into the Euxine sea, near Sesamum. It received its name either
because the _virgin_ Diana (παρθενος) bathed herself there, or
perhaps it received it from the purity and mildness of its waters.
_Herodotus_, bk. 2, ch. 104.――_Pliny_, bk. 6, ch. 2.――――A mountain
of Arcadia, which was said to abound in tortoises. Here Telephus
had a temple. Atalanta was exposed on its top and brought up there.
_Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 54.――_Ælian_, _Varia Historia_, bk. 13.
――_Apollodorus_, bk. 2, ch. 7.――――A favourite of the emperor Domitian.
He conspired against his imperial master, and assisted to murder him.
――――A river of European Sarmatia. _Ovid_, _ex Ponto_, bk. 4, poem 10,
li. 49.――――A friend of Æneas killed in Italy. _Virgil_, _Æneid_,
bk. 10, li. 748.――――A Greek writer, whose romance, _de Amatoriis
Affectionibus_ has been edited in 12mo, Basil, 1531.
=Parthĕnon=, a temple of Athens, sacred to Minerva. It was destroyed by
the Persians, and afterwards rebuilt by Pericles in a more magnificent
manner, and still exists. All the circumstances which related to
the birth of Minerva were beautifully and minutely represented in
bas-relief, on the front of the entrance. The statue of the goddess,
26 cubits high, and made of gold and ivory, passed for one of the
masterpieces of Phidias. _Pliny_, bk. 34.
=Parthĕnŏpæus=, a son of Meleager and Atalanta, or, according to some,
of Milanion and another Atalanta. He was one of the seven chiefs
who accompanied Adrastus the king of Argos in his expedition against
Thebes. He was killed by Amphidicus. _Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 9.
――_Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 12; bk. 9, ch. 19.――――A son of Talaus.
=Parthĕnŏpe=, one of the Sirens.――――A daughter of Stymphalus.
_Apollodorus._――――A city of Campania, afterwards called Neapolis,
or _the new city_, when it had been beautified and enlarged by a
colony from Eubœa. It is now called _Naples_. It received the name
of Parthenope from one of the Sirens, whose body was found on the
sea-shore there. _Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 4, li. 564.――_Strabo_,
bks. 1 & 5.――_Paterculus_, bk. 1, ch. 4.――_Homer_, _Odyssey_, bk. 12,
li. 167.――_Silius Italicus_, bk. 12, li. 33.