Media, south by Carmania, north by Hyrcania, and east by Aria, &c.,
containing, according to Ptolemy, 25 large cities, the most capital
of which was called _Hecatompylos_, from its _hundred gates_. Some
suppose that the present capital of the country is built on the
ruins of Hecatompylos. According to some authors, the Parthians
were Scythians by origin, who made an invasion on the more southern
provinces of Asia, and at last fixed their residence near Hyrcania.
They long remained unknown and unnoticed, and became successively
tributary to the empire of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians. When
Alexander invaded Asia, the Parthians submitted, like the other
dependent provinces of Persia, and they were for some time under
the power of Eumenes, Antigonus, Seleucus, Nicanor, and Antiochus,
till the rapacity and oppression of Agathocles, a lieutenant of the
latter, roused their spirit, and fomented rebellion. Arsaces, a man
of obscure origin, but blessed with great military powers, placed
himself at the head of his countrymen, and laid the foundation of
the Parthian empire, about 250 years before the christian era. The
Macedonians attempted in vain to recover it; a race of active and
vigilant princes, who assumed the surname of _Arsacides_, from the
founder of their kingdom, increased its power, and rendered it so
formidable, that, while it possessed 18 kingdoms between the Caspian
and Arabian seas, it even disputed the empire of the world with the
Romans, and could never be subdued by that nation, which had seen
no people on earth unconquered by their arms. It remained a kingdom
till the reign of Artabanus, who was killed about the year 229 of the
christian era, and from that time it became a province of the newly
re-established kingdom of Persia, under Artaxerxes. The Parthians
were naturally strong and warlike, and were esteemed the most expert
horsemen and archers in the world. The peculiar custom of discharging
their arrows while they were retiring full speed, has been greatly
celebrated by the ancients, particularly by the poets, who all
observe that their flight was more formidable than their attacks.
This manner of fighting, and the wonderful address and dexterity
with which it was performed, gained them many victories. They were
addicted much to drinking, and to every manner of lewdness, and
their laws permitted them to raise children even by their mothers
and sisters. _Strabo_, bks. 2, 6, &c.――_Curtius_, bk. 6, ch. 11.
――_Florus_, bk. 3, ch. 5.――_Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 3, li. 31, &c.;
_Æneid_ bk. 7, li. 606.――_Ovid_, _Ars Amatoria_, bk. 1, &c., _Fasti_,
bk. 5, li. 580.――_Dio Cassius_, bk. 40.――_Ptolemy_, bk. 6, ch. 5.
――_Pliny_, bk. 6, ch. 25.――_Polybius_, bk. 5, &c.――_Marcellinus._
――_Herodian_, bk. 3, &c.――_Lucan_, bk. 1, li. 230; bk. 6, li. 50;
bk. 10, li. 53.――_Justin_, bk. 41, ch. 1.――_Horace_, bk. 1, ode 19,
li. 11; bk. 2, ode 13, li. 17.
=Parthini=, a people of Illyricum. _Livy_, bk. 29, ltr. 12; bk. 33,
ch. 34; bk. 44, ch. 30.――_Suetonius_, _Augustus_, ch. 19.――_Cicero_,
_Against Piso_, ch. 40.
=Parthytēne=, a province of Parthia, according to Ptolemy, though some
authors support that it is the name of Parthia itself.
=Parysădes=, a king of Pontus, B.C. 310. _Diodorus._――――A king of the
Cimmerian Bosphorus, who flourished 284 B.C.
=Parysătis=, a Persian princess, wife of Darius Ochus, by whom she
had Artaxerxes, Memnon, and Cyrus the younger. She was so extremely
partial to her younger son, that she committed the greatest cruelties
to encourage his ambition, and she supported him with all her
interest in his rebellion against his brother Memnon. The death
of Cyrus at the battle of Cunaxa, was revenged with the grossest
barbarity, and Parysatis sacrificed to her resentment all such as she
found concerned in his fall. She also poisoned Statira the wife of
her son Artaxerxes, and ordered one of the eunuchs of the court to
be flayed alive, and his skin to be stretched on two poles before her
eyes, because he had, by order of the king, cut off the hand and the
head of Cyrus. These cruelties offended Artaxerxes, and he ordered
his mother to be confined in Babylon; but they were soon after
reconciled, and Parysatis regained all her power and influence till
the time of her death. _Plutarch_, _Artaxerxes_.――_Ctesiphon._
=Pasargada=, a town of Persia, near Carmania, founded by Cyrus on the
very spot where he had conquered Astyages. The kings of Persia were
always crowned there, and the Pasargadæ were the noblest families of
Persia, in the number of which were the Achæmenides. _Strabo_, bk. 15.
――_Pliny_, bk. 8, ch. 26.――_Herodotus_, bk. 1, ch. 125.――_Mela_,
bk. 3, ch. 8.
=Paseas=, a tyrant in Sicyon in Peloponnesus, father to Abantidas, &c.
_Plutarch_, _Aratus_.
=Pasicles=, a grammarian, &c.
=Pasicrătes=, a king of part of the island of Cyprus. _Plutarch._
=Pasiphae=, a daughter of the Sun and of Perseis, who married Minos king
of Crete. She disgraced herself by her unnatural passion for a bull,
which, according to some authors, she was enabled to gratify by means
of the artist Dædalus. This celebrated bull had been given to Minos
by Neptune, to be offered on his altars, but as the monarch refused
to sacrifice the animal on account of his beauty, the god revenged
his disobedience by inspiring Pasiphæ with an unnatural love for it.
This fabulous tradition, which is universally believed by the poets,
who observe that the Minotaur was the fruit of this infamous commerce,
is refuted by some writers, who suppose that the infidelity of
Pasiphæ to her husband was betrayed in her affection for an officer
called Taurus; and that Dædalus, by permitting his house to be
the asylum of the two lovers, was looked upon as accessary to the
gratification of Pasiphæ’s lust. From this amour with Taurus, as it
is further remarked, the queen became mother of twins, and the name
of _Minotaurus_ arises from the resemblance of the children to the
husband and the lover of Pasiphæ. Minos had four sons by Pasiphæ,
Castreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeus, and three daughters,
Hecate, Ariadne, and Phædra. _See:_ Minotaurus. _Plato_, _Minos_.
――_Plutarch_, _Theseus_.――_Apollonius_, bk. 2, ch. 1.――_Virgil_,
_Æneid_, bk. 6, li. 24.――_Hyginus_, fable 40.――_Diodorus_, bk. 4.
――_Ovid_, _Heroides_, poem 4, lis. 57 & 165.
=Pasithea=, one of the Graces, also called Aglaia. _Pausanias_, bk. 9,
ch. 35.――――One of the Nereides. _Hesiod._――――A daughter of Atlas.
=Pasitĭgris=, a name given to the river Tigris. _Strabo_, bk. 15.
――_Pliny_, bk. 6, ch. 20.
=Passaron=, a town of Epirus, where, after sacrificing to Jupiter, the
kings swore to govern according to law, and the people to obey and
to defend the country. _Plutarch_, _Pyrrhus_.――_Livy_, bk. 45, chs.
26 & 33.
=Passiēnus=, a Roman who reduced Numidia, &c. _Tacitus_, _Annals_.
――――Paulus, a Roman knight, nephew to the poet Propertius, whose
elegiac compositions he imitated. He likewise attempted lyric poetry,
and with success, and chose for his model the writings of Horace.
_Pliny_, ltrs. 6 & 9.――――Crispus, a man distinguished as an orator,
but more as the husband of Domitia, and afterwards of Agrippina,
Nero’s mother, &c. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 6, ch. 20.
=Pasus=, a Thessalian in Alexander’s army, &c.
=Patala=, a harbour at the mouth of the Indus, in an island called
_Patale_. The river here begins to form a Delta like the Nile. Pliny
places this island within the torrid zone. _Pliny_, bk. 2, ch. 73.
――_Curtius_, bk. 9, ch. 7.――_Strabo_, bk. 15.――_Arrian_, bk. 6,
ch. 17.
=Pătăra= (orum), now _Patera_, a town of Lycia, situate on the eastern
side of the mouth of the river Xanthus, with a capacious harbour,
a temple, and an oracle of Apollo, surnamed _Patareus_, where was
preserved and shown, in the age of Pausanias, a brazen cap, which
had been made by the hands of Vulcan, and presented by the god to
Telephus. The god was supposed by some to reside for the six winter
months at Patara, and the rest of the year at Delphi. The city was
greatly embellished by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who attempted in vain to
change its original name into that of his wife Arsinoe. _Livy_, bk.
37, ch. 15.――_Strabo_, bk. 14.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 41.――_Horace_,
bk. 3, ode 14, li. 64.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 1, li. 516.
――_Mela_, bk. 1, ch. 15.
=Pătăvium=, a city of Italy, at the north of the Po, on the shores
of the Adriatic, now called _Padua_, and once said to be capable of
sending 20,000 men into the field. _See:_ Padua. It is the birthplace
of Livy, from which reason some writers have denominated _Patavinity_
those peculiar expressions and provincial dialect, which they seem
to discover in the historian’s style, not strictly agreeable to
the purity and refined language of the Roman authors who flourished
in or near the Augustan age. _Martial_, bk. 11, ltr. 17, li. 8.
――_Quintilian_, bk. 1, chs. 5, 56; bk. 8, ch. 13.――_Livy_, bk. 10,
ch. 2; bk. 41, ch. 27.――_Strabo_, bk. 5.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 4.
=Patercŭlus=, a Roman, whose daughter Sulpicia was pronounced the
chastest matron at Rome. _Pliny_, bk. 7, ch. 35.――――Velleius, an
historian. _See:_ Velleius.
=Patizithes=, one of the Persian Magi, who raised his brother to the
throne because he resembled Smerdis the brother of Cambyses, &c.
_Herodotus_, bk. 3, ch. 61.
=Patmos=, one of the Cyclades, with a small town of the same
name, situate at the south of Icaria, and measuring 30 miles in
circumference, according to Pliny, or only 18, according to modern
travellers. It has a large harbour, near which are some broken
columns, the most ancient in that part of Greece. The Romans
generally banished their culprits there. It is now called _Palmosa_.
_Strabo._――_Pliny_, bk. 4, ch. 12.
=Patræ=, an ancient town at the north-west of Peloponnesus, anciently
called _Aroe_. Diana had there a temple, and a famous statue of gold
and ivory. _Pausanias_, bk. 7, ch. 6.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 6,
li. 417.――_Livy_, bk. 27, ch. 29.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.
=Patro=, a daughter of Thestius. _Apollodorus._――――An epicurean
philosopher intimate with Cicero. _Cicero_, _Letters to his Friends_,
bk. 13, ch. 1.
=Pātrōcles=, an officer of the fleet of Seleucus and Antiochus. He
discovered several countries, and it is said that he wrote a history
of the world. _Strabo._――_Pliny_, bk. 6, ch. 17.
=Patrocli=, a small island on the coast of Attica. _Pausanias_, bk. 4,
ch. 5.
=Pātrōclus=, one of the Grecian chiefs during the Trojan war, son of
Menœtius by Sthenele, whom some call Philomela, or Polymela. The
accidental murder of Clysonymus the son of Amphidamus, in the time
of his youth, obliged him to fly from Opus, where his father reigned.
He retired to the court of Peleus king of Phthia, where he was kindly
received, and where he contracted the most intimate friendship with
Achilles the monarch’s son. When the Greeks went to the Trojan war,
Patroclus also accompanied them at the express command of his father,
who had visited the court of Peleus, and he embarked with 10 ships
from Phthia. He was the constant companion of Achilles, and he lodged
in the same tent; and when his friend refused to appear in the field
of battle, because he had been offended by Agamemnon, Patroclus
imitated his example, and by his absence was the cause of the
overthrow of the Greeks. But at last Nestor prevailed upon him to
return to the war, and Achilles permitted him to appear in his armour.
The valour of Patroclus, together with the terror which the sight of
the arms of Achilles inspired, soon routed the victorious armies of
the Trojans, and obliged them to fly within their walls for safety.
He would have broken down the walls of the city; but Apollo, who
interested himself for the Trojans, placed himself to oppose him, and
Hector, at the instigation of the god, dismounted from his chariot
to attack him, as he attempted to strip one of the Trojans whom he
had slain. The engagement was obstinate, but at last Patroclus was
overpowered by the valour of Hector, and the interposition of Apollo.
His arms became the property of the conqueror, and Hector would have
severed his head from his body had not Ajax and Menelaus intervened.
His body was at last recovered and carried to the Grecian camp, where
Achilles received it with the bitterest lamentations. His funeral was
observed with the greatest solemnity. Achilles sacrificed near the
burning pile 12 young Trojans, besides four of his horses, and two
of his dogs, and the whole was concluded by the exhibition of funeral
games, in which the conquerors were liberally rewarded by Achilles.
The death of Patroclus, as it is described by Homer, gave rise to
new events; Achilles forgot his resentment against Agamemnon, and
entered the field to avenge the fall of his friend, and his anger was
gratified only by the slaughter of Hector, who had more powerfully
kindled his wrath by appearing at the head of the Trojan armies
in the armour which had been taken from the body of Patroclus. The
patronymic of _Actorides_ is often applied to Patroclus, because
Actor was father to Menœtius. _Dictys Cretensis_, bk. 1, &c.――_Homer_,
bk. 9, _Iliad_, &c.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 13.――_Hyginus_, fables
97 & 275.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 13, li. 273.――――A son of
Hercules. _Apollodorus._――――An officer of Ptolemy Philadelphus.
=Patron=, an Arcadian at the games exhibited by Æneas in Sicily.
_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 5, li. 298.
=Patrous=, a surname of Jupiter among the Greeks, represented by his
statues as having three eyes, which some suppose to signify that he
reigned in three different places, in heaven, on earth, and in hell.
_Pausanias_, bk. 2.
=Patulcius=, a surname of Janus, which he received _a pateo_, because
the doors of his temple were always open in the time of war. Some
suppose that he received it because he presided over gates, or
because the year began by the celebration of his festivals. _Ovid_,
_Fasti_, bk. 1, li. 129.
=Paventia=, a goddess who presided over terror at Rome, and who was
invoked to protect her votaries from its effects. _Augustine_, _City
of God_, bk. 4, ch. 11.
=Paula=, the first wife of the emperor Heliogabalus. She was daughter
of the prefect of the pretorian guards. The emperor divorced her, and
Paula retired to solitude and obscurity with composure.
=Paulīna=, a Roman lady who married Saturninus, a governor of Syria, in
the reign of the emperor Tiberius. Her conjugal peace was disturbed,
and violence was offered to her virtue by a young man called Mundus,
who was enamoured of her, and who had caused her to come to the
temple of Isis by means of the priests of the goddess, who declared
that Anubis wished to communicate to her something of moment.
Saturninus complained to the emperor of the violence which had been
offered to his wife, and the temple of Isis was overturned and Mundus
banished, &c. _Josephus_, _Antiquities_, bk. 18, ch. 4.――――The wife
of the philosopher Seneca, who attempted to kill herself when Nero
had ordered her husband to die. The emperor, however, prevented
her, and she lived some few years after in the greatest melancholy.
_Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 15, ch. 63, &c.――――A sister of the emperor
Adrian.――――The wife of the emperor Maximinus.
=Paulīnus Pompeius=, an officer in Nero’s reign, who had the command of
the German armies, and finished the works on the banks of the Rhine,
which Drusus had begun 63 years before. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 13,
ch. 53.――_Suetonius._――――A Roman general, the first who crossed mount
Atlas with an army. He wrote a history of this expedition in Africa,
which is lost. Paulinus also distinguished himself in Britain, &c. He
followed the arms of Otho against Vitellius. _Pliny_, bk. 5, ch. 1.
――――Valerius, a friend of Vespasian.――――Julius, a Batavian nobleman,
put to death by Fonteius Capito, on pretence of rebellion. _Tacitus_,
_Histories_, bk. 4, ch. 13.
=Paulus Æmylius=, a Roman, son of the Æmylius who fell at Cannæ,
was celebrated for his victories, and received the surname of
_Macedonicus_ from his conquest of Macedonia. In the early part of
life he distinguished himself by his uncommon application, and by his
fondness for military discipline. His first appearance in the field
was attended with great success, and the barbarians that had revolted
in Spain were reduced with the greatest facility under the power of
the Romans. In his first consulship his arms were directed against
the Ligurians, whom he totally subjected. His applications for a
second consulship proved abortive; but when Perseus the king of
Macedonia had declared war against Rome, the abilities of Paulus
were remembered, and he was honoured with the consulship about the
60th year of his age. After this appointment he behaved with uncommon
vigour, and soon a general engagement was fought near Pydna. The
Romans obtained the victory, and Perseus saw himself deserted by all
his subjects. In two days the conqueror made himself master of all
Macedonia, and soon after the fugitive monarch was brought into his
presence. Paulus did not exult over his fallen enemy; but when he
had gently rebuked him for his temerity in attacking the Romans,
he addressed himself in a pathetic speech to the officers of his
army who surrounded him, and feelingly enlarged on the instability
of fortune, and the vicissitude of all human affairs. When he had
finally settled the government of Macedonia with 10 commissioners
from Rome, and after he had sacked 70 cities of Epirus, and divided
the booty amongst his soldiers, Paulus returned to Italy. He
was received with the usual acclamations, and though some of the
seditious soldiers attempted to prevent his triumphal entry into the
capital, yet three days were appointed to exhibit the fruits of his
victories. Perseus, with his wretched family, adorned the triumph of
the conqueror, and as they were dragged through the streets before
the chariot of Paulus, they drew tears of compassion from the people.
The riches which the Romans derived from this conquest were immense,
and the people were freed from all taxes till the consulship of
Hirtius and Pansa; but while every one of the citizens received some
benefit from the victories of Paulus, the conqueror himself was poor,
and appropriated for his own use nothing of the Macedonian treasures
except the library of Perseus. In the office of censor, to which he
was afterwards elected, Paulus behaved with the greatest moderation,
and at his death, which happened about 168 years before the christian
era, not only the Romans, but their very enemies, confessed, by
their lamentations, the loss which they had sustained. He had married
Papiria, by whom he had two sons, one of whom was adopted by the
family of Maximus, and the other by that of Scipio Africanus. He had
also two daughters, one of whom married a son of Cato, and the other
Ælius Tubero. He afterwards divorced Papiria; and when his friends
wished to reprobate his conduct in doing so, by observing that she
was young and handsome, and that she had made him father of a fine
family, Paulus replied, that the shoe which he then wore was new and
well made, but that he was obliged to leave it off, though no one but
himself, as he said, knew where it pinched him. He married a second
wife, by whom he had two sons, whose sudden death exhibited to
the Romans, in the most engaging view, their father’s philosophy
and stoicism. The elder of these sons died five days before Paulus
triumphed over Perseus, and the other three days after the public
♦procession. This domestic calamity did not shake the firmness of the
conqueror; yet before he retired to a private station, he harangued
the people, and in mentioning the severity of fortune upon his family,
he expressed his wish that every evil might be averted from the
republic by the sacrifice of the domestic prosperity of an individual.
_Plutarch_, _Lives_.――_Livy_, bks. 43, 44, &c. _Justin_, bk. 33,
ch. 1, &c.――――Samosatenus, an author in the reign of Gallienus.
――――Maximus. _See:_ Maximus Fabius.――――Ægineta, a Greek physician
whose work was edited _apud_, _Aldus Manutius_, Venice, folio, 1528.
――――Lucius Æmylius, a consul, who, when opposed to Annibal in Italy,
checked the rashness of his colleague Varro, and recommended an
imitation of the conduct of the great Fabius, by harassing and not
facing the enemy in the field. His advice was rejected, and the
battle of Cannæ, so glorious to Annibal, and so fatal to Rome, soon
followed. Paulus was wounded, but when he might have escaped from
the slaughter, by accepting a horse generously offered by one of
his officers, he disdained to fly, and perished by the darts of the
enemy. _Horace_, ode 12, li. 38.――_Livy_, bk. 22, ch. 39.――――Julius,
a Latin poet in the age of Adrian and Antoninus. He wrote some
poetical pieces, recommended by Aulus Gellius.
♦ ‘processsion’ replaced with ‘procession’
=Pāulus.= _See:_ Æmylius.
=Pavor=, an emotion of the mind which received divine honours among
the Romans, and was considered of a most tremendous power, as
the ancients swore by her name in the most solemn manner. Tullus
Hostilius, the third king of Rome, was the first who built her
temples, and raised altars to her honour, as also to Pallor the
goddess of paleness. _Cicero_, _de Natura Deorum_, bk. 3, ch. 17.