was descended of an illustrious family, and was remarkable for his
immense possessions, which he bestowed with great liberality to
the poor and necessitous. Many were the objects of his generosity;
but when Epaminondas had refused to accept his presents, Pelopidas
disregarded all his wealth, and preferred before it the enjoyment of
his friend’s conversation and of his poverty. From their friendship
and intercourse the Thebans derived the most considerable advantages.
No sooner had the interest of Sparta prevailed at Thebes, and the
friends of liberty and national independence been banished from the
city, than Pelopidas, who was in the number of the exiles, resolved
to free his country from foreign slavery. His plan was bold and
animated, and his deliberations were slow. Meanwhile Epaminondas,
who had been left by the tyrants at Thebes, as being in appearance
a worthless and insignificant philosopher, animated the youths of
the city, and at last Pelopidas, with 11 of his associates, entered
Thebes, and easily massacred the friends of the tyranny, and freed
the country from foreign masters. After this successful enterprise,
Pelopidas was unanimously placed at the head of the government; and
so confident were the Thebans of his abilities as a general and a
magistrate, that they successively re-elected him 13 times to fill
the honourable office of governor of Bœotia. Epaminondas shared with
him the sovereign power, and it was to their valour and prudence that
the Thebans were indebted for a celebrated victory at the battle of
Leuctra. In a war which Thebes carried on against Alexander tyrant
of Pheræ, Pelopidas was appointed commander; but his imprudence,
in trusting himself unarmed into the enemy’s camp, nearly proved
fatal to him. He was taken prisoner, but Epaminondas restored him to
liberty. The perfidy of Alexander irritated him, and he was killed
bravely fighting in a celebrated battle in which his troops obtained
the victory, B.C. 364 years. He received an honourable burial. The
Thebans showed their sense for his merit by their lamentations; they
sent a powerful army to revenge his death on the destruction of the
tyrant of Pheræ; and his relations and his children were presented
with immense donations by the cities of Thessaly. Pelopidas is
admired for his valour, as he never engaged an enemy without
obtaining the advantage. The impoverished state of Thebes before his
birth, and after his fall, plainly demonstrates the superiority of
his genius and of his abilities; and it has been justly observed,
that with Pelopidas and Epaminondas the glory and the independence
of the Thebans rose and set. _Plutarch_ & _Cornelius Nepos_, _Lives_.
――_Xenophon_, _Hellenica_.――_Diodorus_, bk. 15.――_Polybius._
=Peloponnesiăcum bellum=, a celebrated war which continued for 27 years
between the Athenians and the inhabitants of Peloponnesus with their
respective allies. It is the most famous and the most interesting of
all the wars which have happened between the inhabitants of Greece;
and for the minute and circumstantial description which we have of
the events and revolutions which mutual animosity produced, we are
indebted more particularly to the correct and authentic writings of
Thucydides and of Xenophon. The circumstances which gave birth to
this memorable war are these. The power of Athens, under the prudent
and vigorous administration of Pericles, was already extended over
Greece, and it had procured itself many admirers and more enemies,
when the Corcyreans, who had been planted by a Corinthian colony,
refused to pay their founders those marks of respect and reverence
which among the Greeks every colony was obliged to pay to its mother
country. The Corinthians wished to punish that infidelity; and when
the people of Epidamnus, a considerable town on the Adriatic, had
been invaded by some of the barbarians of Illyricum, the people
of Corinth gladly granted to the Epidamnians that assistance which
had in vain been solicited from the Corcyreans, their founders and
their patrons. The Corcyreans were offended at the interference of
Corinth in the affairs of their colony; they manned a fleet, and
obtained a victory over the Corinthian vessels which had assisted
the Epidamnians. The subsequent conduct of the Corcyreans, and their
insolence to some of the Elians, who had furnished a few ships to the
Corinthians, provoked the Peloponnesians, and the discontent became
general. Ambassadors were sent by both parties to Athens to claim its
protection, and to justify these violent proceedings. The greatest
part of the Athenians heard their various reasonings with moderation
and with compassion; but the enterprising ambition of Pericles
prevailed, and when the Corcyreans had reminded the people of Athens,
that in all the states of Peloponnesus they had to dread the most
malevolent enemies, and the most insidious of rivals, they were
listened to with attention, and were promised support. This step was
no sooner taken, than the Corinthians appealed to the other Grecian
states, and particularly to the Lacedæmonians. Their complaints
were accompanied by those of the people of Megara and of Ægina, who
bitterly inveighed against the cruelty, injustice, and insolence
of the Athenians. This had due weight with the Lacedæmonians, who
had long beheld with concern and with jealousy the ambitious power
of the Athenians, and they determined to support the cause of the
Corinthians. However, before they proceeded to hostilities, an
embassy was sent to Athens, to represent the danger of entering
into a war with the most powerful and flourishing of all the Grecian
states. This alarmed the Athenians, but when Pericles had eloquently
spoken of the resources and the actual strength of the republic,
and of the weakness of the allies, the clamours of his enemies
were silenced, and the answer which was returned to the Spartans
was taken as a declaration of war. The Spartans were supported by
all the republics of the Peloponnesus, except Argos and part of
Achaia, besides the people of Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, Locris, Leucas,
Ambracia, and Anactorium. The Platæans, the Lesbians, Carians,
Chians, Messenians, Acarnanians, Zacynthians, Corcyreans, Dorians,
and Thracians, were the friends of the Athenians, with all the
Cyclades, except Eubœa, Samos, Melos, and Thera. The first blow had
already been struck, May 7, B.C. 431, by an attempt of the Bœotians
to ♦surprise Platæa; and therefore Archidamus king of Sparta, who had
in vain recommended moderation to the allies, entered Attica at the
head of an army of 60,000 men, and laid waste the country by fire
and sword. Pericles, who was at the head of the government, did not
attempt to oppose them in the field; but a fleet of 150 ships set
sail, without delay, to ravage the coasts of the Peloponnesus. Megara
was also depopulated by an army of 20,000 men, and the campaign of
the first year of the war was concluded in celebrating, with the most
solemn pomp, the funerals of such as had nobly fallen in battle. The
following year was remarkable for a pestilence which raged in Athens,
and which destroyed the greatest part of the inhabitants. The public
calamity was still heightened by the approach of the Peloponnesian
army on the borders of Attica, and by the ♠unsuccessful expedition
of the Athenians against Epidaurus and in Thrace. The pestilence
which had carried away so many of the Athenians proved also fatal
to Pericles, and he died about two years and six months after the
commencement of the Peloponnesian war. The following years did not
give rise to decisive events; but the revolt of Lesbos from the
alliance of the Athenians was productive of fresh troubles. Mitylene
the capital of the island was recovered, and the inhabitants treated
with the greatest cruelty. The island of Corcyra became also the
seat of new seditions, and those citizens who had been carried away
prisoners by the Corinthians, and for political reasons treated
with lenity, and taught to despise the alliance of Athens, were no
sooner returned home, than they raised commotions and endeavoured
to persuade their countrymen to join the Peloponnesian confederates.
This was strongly opposed; but both parties obtained by turns the
superiority, and massacred, with the greatest barbarity, all those
who obstructed their views. Some time after Demosthenes the Athenian
general invaded Ætolia, where his arms were attended with the
greatest success. He also fortified Pylos in the Peloponnesus, and
gained so many advantages over the confederates, that they sued for
peace, which the insolence of Athens refused. The fortune of the war
soon after changed, and the Lacedæmonians, under the prudent conduct
of Brasidas, made themselves masters of many valuable places in
Thrace. But this victorious progress was soon stopped by the death
of their general, and that of Cleon the Athenian commander; and the
pacific disposition of Nicias, who was now at the head of Athens,
made overtures of peace and universal tranquillity. Plistoanax the
king of the Spartans wished them to be accepted; but the intrigues
of the Corinthians prevented the discontinuation of the war, and
therefore hostilities began anew. But while war was carried on with
various success in different parts of Greece, the Athenians engaged
in a new expedition; they yielded to the persuasive eloquence of
Gorgias of Leontium, and the ambitious views of Alcibiades, and
sent a fleet of 20 ships to assist the Sicilian states against the
tyrannical power of Syracuse, B.C. 416. This was warmly opposed by
Nicias; but the eloquence of Alcibiades prevailed, and a powerful
fleet was sent against the capital of Sicily. These vigorous though
impolitic measures of the Athenians were not viewed with indifference
by the confederates. Syracuse, in her distress, implored the
assistance of Corinth, and Gylippus was sent to direct her operations,
and to defend her against the power of her enemies. The events of
battles were dubious, and though the Athenian army was animated by
the prudence and intrepidity of Nicias, and the more hasty courage of
Demosthenes, yet the good fortune of Syracuse prevailed; and after a
campaign of two years of bloodshed, the fleets of Athens were totally
ruined, and the few soldiers that survived the destructive siege,
made prisoners of war. So fatal a blow threw the people of Attica
into consternation and despair, and while they sought for resources
at home, they severely felt themselves deprived of support abroad,
their allies were alienated by the intrigues of the enemy, and
rebellion was fomented in their dependent states and colonies on
the Asiatic coast. The threatened ruin, however, was timely averted,
and Alcibiades, who had been treated with cruelty by his countrymen,
and who had for some time resided in Sparta, and directed her
military operations, now exerted himself to defeat the designs of
the confederates, by inducing the Persians to espouse the cause of
his country. But in a short time after, the internal tranquillity
of Athens was disturbed, and Alcibiades, by wishing to abolish the
democracy, called away the attention of his fellow-citizens from
the prosecution of a war which had already cost them so much blood.
This, however, was but momentary; the Athenians soon after obtained a
naval victory, and the Peloponnesian fleet was defeated by Alcibiades.
The Athenians beheld with rapture the success of their arms; but
when their fleet, in the absence of Alcibiades, had been defeated
and destroyed near Andros by Lysander the Lacedæmonian admiral, they
showed their discontent and mortification by eagerly listening to
the accusations which were brought against their naval leader, to
whom they gratefully had acknowledged themselves indebted for their
former victories. Alcibiades was disgraced in the public assembly,
and 10 commanders were appointed to succeed him in the management
of the republic. This change of admirals, and the appointment of
Callicratidas to succeed Lysander, whose office had expired with the
revolving year, produced new operations. The Athenians fitted out a
fleet, and the two nations decided their superiority near Arginusæ,
in a naval battle. Callicratidas was killed, and the Lacedæmonians
conquered, but the rejoicings which the intelligence of this victory
occasioned were soon stopped, when it was known that the wrecks of
some of the disabled ships of the Athenians, and the bodies of the
slain, had not been saved from the sea. The admirals were accused in
the tumultuous assembly, and immediately condemned. Their successors
in office were not so prudent, but they were more unfortunate in
their operations. Lysander was again placed at the head of the
Peloponnesian forces, instead of Eteonicus, who had succeeded to the
command at the death of Callicratidas. The age and the experience
of this general seemed to promise something decisive, and indeed
an opportunity was not long wanting for the display of his military
character. The superiority of the Athenians over that of the
Peloponnesians, rendered the former insolent, proud, and negligent,
and when they had imprudently forsaken their ships to indulge their
indolence, or pursue their amusements on the sea-shore at Ægospotamus,
Lysander attacked their fleet, and his victory was complete. Of
180 sail, only nine escaped, eight of which fled, under the command
of Conon, to the island of Cyprus, and the other carried to Athens
the melancholy news of the defeat. The Athenian prisoners were all
massacred; and when the Peloponnesian conquerors had extended their
dominion over the states and communities of Europe and Asia, which
formerly acknowledged the power of Athens, they returned home to
finish the war by the reduction of the capital of Attica. The siege
was carried on with vigour, and supported with firmness, and the
first Athenian who mentioned capitulation to his countrymen, was
instantly sacrificed to the fury and the indignation of the populace,
and all the citizens unanimously declared, that the same moment would
terminate their independence and their lives. This animated language,
however, was not long continued; the spirit of faction was not yet
extinguished at Athens; and it proved, perhaps, more destructive
to the public liberty, than the operations and assaults of the
Peloponnesian besiegers. During four months, negotiations were
carried on with the Spartans by the aristocratical part of the
Athenians, and at last it was agreed that to establish the peace,
the fortifications of the Athenian harbours must be demolished,
together with the long walls which joined them to the city; all their
ships, except 12, were to be surrendered to the enemy; they were
to resign every pretension to their ancient dominions abroad; to
recall from banishment all the members of the late aristocracy; to
follow the Spartans in war, and, in the time of peace, to frame their
constitution according to the will and the prescriptions of their
Peloponnesian conquerors. The terms were accepted, and the enemy
entered the harbour, and took possession of the city, that very
day on which the Athenians had been accustomed to celebrate the
anniversary of the immortal victory which their ancestors had
obtained over the Persians about 76 years before, near the island of
Salamis. The walls and fortifications were instantly levelled with
the ground, and the conquerors observed, that in the demolition of
Athens, succeeding ages would fix the era of Grecian freedom. The
day was concluded with a festival, and the recitation of one of the
tragedies of Euripides, in which the misfortunes of the daughter of
Agamemnon, who was reduced to misery, and banished from her father’s
kingdom, excited a kindred sympathy in the bosom of the audience, who
melted into tears at the recollection that one moment had likewise
reduced to misery and servitude the capital of Attica, which was
once called the common patroness of Greece, and the scourge of Persia.
This memorable event happened about 404 years before the christian
era, and 30 tyrants were appointed by Lysander over the government
of the city. _Xenophon_, _Hellenica_.――_Plutarch_, _Lysander_,
_Pericles_, _Alcibiades_, _Nicias_, & _Agesilaus_.――_Diodorus_,
bk. 11, &c.――_Aristophanes._――_Thucydides._――_Plato._――_Aristotle._
――_Lycias._――_Isocrates._――_Cornelius Nepos_, _Lysander_,
_Alcibiades_, &c.――_Cicero_, _De Officiis_, bk. 1, ch. 24.
♦ ‘supprise’ replaced with ‘surprise’
♠ ‘unsuccesful’ replaced with ‘unsuccessful’
=Peloponnēsus=, a celebrated peninsula which comprehends the most
southern parts of Greece. It received its name from Pelops, who
settled there, as the name indicates (πηλοπος νησος, _the island
of Pelops_). It had been called before _Argia_, _Pelasgia_, and
_Argolis_, and in its form, it has been observed by the moderns,
highly to resemble the leaf of the plane tree. Its present name
is _Morea_, which seems to be derived either from the Greek word
μορεα, or the Latin _morus_, which signifies a _mulberry tree_,
which is found there in great abundance. The ancient Peloponnesus
was divided into six different provinces, Messenia, Laconia, Elis,
Arcadia, Achaia propria, and Argolis, to which some add Sicyon.
These provinces all bordered on the sea-shore, except Arcadia. The
Peloponnesus was conquered, some time after the Trojan war, by the
Heraclidæ or descendants of Hercules, who had been forcibly expelled
from it. The inhabitants of this peninsula rendered themselves
illustrious, like the rest of the Greeks, by their genius, their
fondness for the fine arts, the cultivation of learning, and the
profession of arms, but in nothing more than by a celebrated war,
which they carried on against Athens and her allies for 27 years, and
which from them received the name of the Peloponnesian war. _See:_
Peloponnesiacum bellum. The Peloponnesus scarce extended 200 miles in
length, and 140 in breadth, and about 563 miles in circumference. It
was separated from Greece by the narrow isthmus of Corinth, which, as
being only five miles broad, Demetrius, Cæsar, Nero, and some others,
attempted in vain to cut, to make a communication between the bay
of Corinth, and the Saronicus sinus. _Strabo_, bk. 8.――_Thucydides._
――_Diodorus_, bk. 12, &c.――_Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 21; bk. 8, ch. 1.
――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.――_Pliny_, bk. 4, ch. 6.――_Herodotus_, bk. 8,
ch. 40.
=Pelopēa mœnia=, is applied to the cities of Greece, but more
particularly to Mycenæ and Argos, where the descendants of Pelops
reigned. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 2, li. 193.
=Pelops=, a celebrated prince, son of Tantalus king of Phrygia. His
mother’s name was Euryanassa, or, according to others, Euprytone, or
Eurystemista, or Dione. He was murdered by his father, who wished to
try the divinity of the gods who had visited Phrygia, by placing on
their table the limbs of his son. The gods perceived his perfidious
cruelty, and they refused to touch the meat, except Ceres, whom the
recent loss of her daughter had rendered melancholy and inattentive.
She ate one of the shoulders of Pelops, and therefore, when Jupiter
had compassion on his fate, and restored him to life, he placed a
shoulder of ivory instead of that which Ceres had devoured. This
shoulder had an uncommon power, and it could heal by its very touch
every complaint, and remove every disorder. Some time after, the
kingdom of Tantalus was invaded by Tros king of Troy, on pretence
that he had carried away his son Ganymedes. This rape had been
committed by Jupiter himself; the war, nevertheless, was carried on,
and Tantalus, defeated and ruined, was obliged to fly with his son
Pelops, and to seek a shelter in Greece. This tradition is confuted
by some, who support that Tantalus did not fly into Greece, as he had
been some time before confined by Jupiter in the infernal regions for
his impiety, and therefore Pelops was the only one whom the enmity
of Tros persecuted. Pelops came to Pisa, where he became one of the
suitors of Hippodamia the daughter of king Œnomaus, and he entered
the lists against the father, who promised his daughter only to him
who could outrun him in a chariot race. Pelops was not terrified
at the fate of the 13 lovers, who before him had entered the course
against Œnomaus, and had, according to the conditions proposed,
been put to death when conquered. He previously bribed Myrtilus the
charioteer of Œnomaus, and therefore he easily obtained the victory.
_See:_ Œnomaus. He married Hippodamia, and threw headlong into the
sea Myrtilus, when he claimed the reward of his perfidy. According
to some authors, Pelops had received some winged horses from Neptune,
with which he was enabled to outrun Œnomaus. When he had established
himself on the throne of Pisa, Hippodamia’s possession, he extended
his conquests over the neighbouring countries, and from him the
peninsula, of which he was one of the monarchs, received the name of
Peloponnesus. Pelops, after death, received divine honours, and he
was as much revered above all the other heroes of Greece, as Jupiter
was above the rest of the gods. He had a temple at Olympia, near that
of Jupiter, where Hercules consecrated to him a small portion of land,
and offered to him a sacrifice. The place where this sacrifice had
been offered was religiously observed, and the magistrates of the
country yearly, on coming upon office, made there an offering of
a black ram. During the sacrifice, the soothsayer was not allowed,
as at other times, to have a share of the victim, but he alone who
furnished the wood was permitted to take the neck. The wood for
sacrifices, as may be observed, was always furnished by some of the
priests to all such as offered victims, and they received a price
equivalent to what they gave. The white poplar was generally used in
the sacrifices made to Jupiter and to Pelops. The children of Pelops
by Hippodamia were Pitheus, Trœzen, Atreus, Thyestes, &c., besides
some by concubines. The time of his death is unknown, though it is
universally agreed that he survived for some time Hippodamia. Some
suppose that the Palladium of the Trojans was made with the bones
of Pelops. His descendants were called _Pelopidæ_. Pindar, who,
in his first Olympic, speaks of Pelops, confutes the traditions of
his ivory shoulder, and says that Neptune took him up to heaven to
become the cup-bearer to the gods, from which he was expelled, when
the impiety of Tantalus wished to make mankind partake of the nectar
and the entertainments of the gods. Some suppose that Pelops first
instituted the Olympic games in honour of Jupiter, and to commemorate
the victory which he had obtained over Œnomaus. _Pausanias_, bk. 5,
ch. 1, &c.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 2, ch. 5.――_Euripides_, _Iphigeneia_.
――_Diodorus_, bk. 3.――_Strabo_, bk. 8.――_Mela_, bk. 1, ch. 18.
――_Pindar_, _Olympian_, bk. 1.――_Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 3, li. 7.
――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 6, li. 404, &c.――_Hyginus_, fables 9,
82, & 83.
=Pelor=, one of the men who sprang from the teeth of the dragon killed
by Cadmus. _Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 5.
=Peloria=, a festival observed by the Thessalians, in commemoration of
the news which they received by one Pelorious, that the mountains of
Tempe had been separated by an earthquake, and that the waters of the
lake which lay there stagnated, had found a passage into the Alpheus,
and left behind a vast, pleasant, and most delightful plain, &c.
_Athenæus_, bk. 3.
=Pelōrus= (_v._ is-dis, _v._ ias-iados), now Cape _Faro_, one of the
three great promontories of Sicily, on whose top is erected a tower
to direct the sailor on his voyage. It lies near the coast of Italy,
and received its name from Pelorus, the pilot of the ship which
carried away Annibal from Italy. This celebrated general, as it is
reported, was carried by the tides into the straits of Charybdis, and
as he was ignorant of the coast, he asked the pilot of his ship the
name of the promontory, which appeared at a distance. The pilot told
him it was one of the capes of Sicily, but Annibal gave no credit to
his information, and murdered him on the spot, on the apprehension
that he would betray him into the hands of the Romans. He was,
however, soon convinced of his error, and found that the pilot had
spoken with great fidelity; and therefore, to pay honour to his
memory, and to atone for his cruelty, he gave him a magnificent
funeral, and ordered that the promontory should bear his name, and
from that time it was called Pelorus. Some suppose that this account
is false, and they observe that it bore that name before the age of
Annibal. _Valerius Maximus_, bk. 9, ch. 8.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 7.
――_Strabo_, bk. 5.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 3, lis. 411 & 687.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 5, li. 350; bk. 13, li. 727; bk. 15, li. 706.
=Peltæ=, a town of Phrygia.
=Pelūsium=, now _Tineh_, a town of Egypt, situate at the entrance of
one of the mouths of the Nile, called from it Pelusian. It is about
20 stadia from the sea, and it has received the name of _Pelusium_
from the lakes and marshes (♦πυλος) which are in its neighbourhood.
It was the key of Egypt on the side of Phœnicia, as it was impossible
to enter the Egyptian territories without passing by Pelusium, and
therefore on that account it was always well fortified and garrisoned,
as it was of such importance for the security of the country. It
produced lentils, and was celebrated for the linen stuffs made there.
It is now in ruins. _Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 9.――_Columella_, bk. 5, ch. 10.
――_Silius Italicus_, bk. 3, li. 25.――_Lucan_, bk. 8, li. 466; bk. 9,
li. 83; bk. 10, li. 53.――_Livy_, bk. 44, ch. 19; bk. 45, ch. 11.
――_Strabo_, bk. 17.――_Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 1, li. 228.
♦ ‘πμλος’ replaced with ‘πυλος’