over houses and the domestic affairs of families. They were called
_Penates_, because they were generally placed in the innermost and
most secret parts of the house, _in Penitissimâ ædium parte, quod_,
as Cicero says, _penitus insident_. The place ♦where they stood was
afterwards called _penetralia_, and they themselves received the name
of _Penetrales_. It was in the option of every master of a family to
choose his Penates, and therefore Jupiter, and some of the superior
gods, are often invoked as patrons of domestic affairs. According
to some, the gods Penates were divided into four classes; the first
comprehended all the celestial, the second the sea-gods, the third
the gods of hell, and the last all such heroes as had received
divine honours after death. The Penates were originally the manes of
the dead, but when superstition had taught mankind to pay uncommon
reverence to the statues and images of their deceased friends, their
attention was soon exchanged for regular worship, and they were
admitted by their votaries to share immortality and power over the
world, with a Jupiter or a Minerva. The statues of the Penates were
generally made with wax, ivory, silver, or earth, according to the
affluence of the worshipper, and the only offerings they received
were wine, incense, fruits, and sometimes the sacrifice of lambs,
sheep, goats, &c. In the early ages of Rome, human sacrifices were
offered to them; but Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins, abolished
this unnatural custom. When offerings were made to them, their
statues were crowned with garlands, poppies, or garlic, and besides
the monthly day that was set apart for their worship, their festivals
were celebrated during the Saturnalia. Some have confounded the
Lares and the Penates, but they were different. _Cicero_, _de Natura
Deorum_, bk. 2, ch. 27; _Against Verres_, bk. 2.――_Dionysius of
Halicarnassus_, bk. 1.
♦ ‘were’ replaced with ‘where’
=Pendalium=, a promontory of Cyprus.
=Pēneia=, or =Penēis=, an epithet applied to Daphne, as daughter of
Peneus. _Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 1, li. 452.
=Penelius=, one of the Greeks killed in the Trojan war. _Homer_,
_Iliad_, bk. 2, li. 494.――――A son of Hippalmus among the Argonauts.
=Pēnĕlŏpe=, a celebrated princess of Greece, daughter of Icarius,
and wife of Ulysses king of Ithaca. Her marriage with Ulysses was
celebrated about the same time that Menelaus married Helen, and she
retired with her husband to Ithaca, against the inclination of her
father, who wished to detain her at Sparta, her native country. She
soon after became mother of Telemachus, and was obliged to part with
great reluctance from her husband, whom the Greeks obliged to go to
the Trojan war. _See:_ Palamedes. The continuation of hostilities
for 10 years made her sad and melancholy; but when Ulysses did not
return like the other princes of Greece at the conclusion of the
war, her fears and her anxieties were increased. As she received
no intelligence of his situation, she was soon beset by a number of
importuning suitors, who wished her to believe that her husband was
shipwrecked, and that therefore, she ought no longer to expect his
return, but forget his loss, and fix her choice and affections on one
of her numerous admirers. She received their addresses with coldness
and disdain; but as she was destitute of power, and a prisoner, as it
were, in their hands, she yet flattered them with hopes and promises,
and declared that she would make choice of one of them, as soon as
she had finished a piece of tapestry, on which she was employed.
The work was done in a dilatory manner, and she baffled their eager
expectations, by undoing in the night what she had done in the
daytime. This artifice of Penelope has given rise to the proverb of
_Penelope’s web_, which is applied to whatever labour can never be
ended. The return of Ulysses, after an absence of 20 years, however,
delivered her from her fears and from her dangerous suitors. Penelope
is described by Homer as a model of female virtue and chastity, but
some more modern writers dispute her claims to modesty and continence,
and they represent her as the most debauched and voluptuous of her
sex. According to their opinions, therefore, she liberally gratified
the desires of her suitors, in the absence of her husband, and had a
son whom she called Pan, as if to show that he was the offspring of
all her admirers. Some, however, suppose that Pan was son of Penelope
by Mercury, and that he was born before his mother’s marriage with
Ulysses. The god, as it is said, deceived Penelope, under the form
of a beautiful goat, as she was tending her father’s flocks on one
of the mountains of Arcadia. After the return of Ulysses, Penelope
had a daughter, who was called Ptoliporthe; but if we believe the
traditions that were long preserved at Mantinea, Ulysses repudiated
his wife for her incontinence during his absence, and Penelope
fled to Sparta, and afterwards to Mantinea, where she died and was
buried. After the death of Ulysses, according to Hyginus, she married
Telegonus, her husband’s son by Circe, by order of the goddess
Minerva. Some say that her original name was Arnea, or Amirace, and
that she was called Penelope, when some river birds called Penelopes
had saved her from the waves of the sea, when her father had exposed
her. Icarius had attempted to destroy her, because the oracles had
told him that his daughter by Peribœa would be the most dissolute of
her sex, and a disgrace to his family. _Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 10.
――_Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 12.――_Homer_, _Iliad_ & _Odyssey_.――_Ovid_,
_Heroides_, poem 1; _Metamorphoses_.――_Aristotle_, _History of
Animals_, bk. 8.――_Hyginus_, fable 127.――_Aristophanes_, _The Birds_.
――_Pliny_, bk. 37.
=Pēneus=, a river of Thessaly, rising on mount Pindus, and falling
into the Thermean gulf, after a wandering course between mount Ossa
and Olympus, through the plains of Tempe. It received its name from
Peneus, a son of Oceanus and Tethys. The Peneus anciently inundated
the plains of Thessaly, till an earthquake separated the mountains
Ossa and Olympus, and formed the beautiful vale of Tempe, where
the waters formerly stagnated. From this circumstance, therefore,
it obtained the name of Arexes, _ab_ ἀρασσω, _scindo_. Daphne the
daughter of the Peneus, according to the fables of the mythologists,
was changed into a laurel on the banks of this river. This tradition
arises from the quantity of laurels which grow near the Peneus.
_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 1, li. 452, &c.――_Strabo_, bk. 9.
――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.――_Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 4, li. 317.
――_Diodorus_, bk. 4.――――Also a small river of Elis in Peloponnesus,
better known under the name of Araxes. _Pausanias_, bk. 6, ch. 24.
――_Strabo_, bks. 8 & 11.
=Penidas=, one of Alexander’s friends, who went to examine Scythia
under pretence of an embassy. _Curtius_, bk. 6, ch. 6.
=Penīnæ alpes=, a certain part of the Alps. _Livy_, bk. 21, ch. 38.
=Pentapŏlis=, a town of India.――――A part of Africa near Cyrene. It
received this name on account of the _five cities_ which it contained,
Cyrene, Arsinoe, Berenice, Ptolemais, or Barce, and Apollonia.
_Pliny_, bk. 5, ch. 5.――――Also part of Palestine, containing the five
cities of Gaza, Gath, Ascalon, Azotus, and Ekron.
=Pentelĭcus=, a mountain of Attica, where were found quarries of
beautiful marble. _Strabo_, bk. 9.――_Pausanias_, bk. 1, ch. 32.
=Penthesĭlēa=, a queen of the Amazons, daughter of Mars by Otrera, or
Orithya. She came to assist Priam in the last years of the Trojan war,
and fought against Achilles, by whom she was slain. The hero was so
struck with the beauty of Penthesilea, when he stripped her of her
arms, that he even shed tears for having too violently sacrificed
her to his fury. Thersites laughed at the partiality of the hero, for
which ridicule he was instantly killed. Lycophron says that Achilles
slew Thersites because he had put out the eyes of Penthesilea when
she was yet alive. The scholiast of Lycophron differs from that
opinion, and declares, that it was commonly believed that Achilles
offered violence to the body of Penthesilea when she was dead,
and that Thersites was killed because he had reproached the hero
for this infamous action, in the presence of all the Greeks. The
death of Thersites so offended Diomedes that he dragged the body of
Penthesilea out of the camp, and threw it into the Scamander. It is
generally supposed that Achilles was enamoured of the Amazon before
he fought with her, and that she had by him a son called Cayster.
_Dictys Cretensis_, bks. 3 & 4.――_Pausanias_, bk. 10, ch. 31.
――_Quintus Calaber [Smyrnæus]_, bk. 1.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 1, li.
495; bk. 11, li. 662.――_Dares Phrygius._――_Lycophron_, _Cassandra_,
li. 995, &c.――_Hyginus_, fable 112.
=Pentheus=, son of Echion and Agave, was king of Thebes in Bœotia. His
refusal to acknowledge the divinity of Bacchus was attended with the
most fatal consequences. He forbade his subjects to pay adoration to
this new god; and when the Theban women had gone out of the city to
celebrate the orgies of Bacchus, Pentheus, apprised of the debauchery
which attended the solemnity, ordered the god himself, who conducted
the religious multitude, to be seized. His orders were obeyed with
reluctance, but when the doors of the prison in which Bacchus had
been confined opened of their own accord, Pentheus became more
irritated, and commanded his soldiers to destroy the whole band of
the bacchanals. This, however, was not executed, for Bacchus inspired
the monarch with the ardent desire of seeing the celebration of the
orgies. Accordingly, he hid himself in a wood on mount Cithæron,
from whence he could see all the ceremonies unperceived. But here
his curiosity soon proved fatal; he was descried by the bacchanals,
and they all rushed upon him. His mother was the first who attacked
him, and her example was instantly followed by her two sisters, Ino
and Autonoe, and his body was torn to pieces. Euripides introduces
Bacchus among his priestesses, when Pentheus was put to death; but
Ovid, who relates the whole in the same manner, differs from the
Greek poet only in saying, that not Bacchus himself, but one of
his priests, was present. The tree on which the bacchanals found
Pentheus, was cut down by the Corinthians, by order of the oracle,
and with it two statues of the god of wine were made, and placed in
their forum. _Hyginus_, fable 184.――_Theocritus_, poem 26.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 3, fables 7, 8, & 9.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 4,
li. 469.――_Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 5.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 5.
――_Euripides_, _Bacchæ_.――_Seneca_, _Phœnissæ_ & _Hippolytus_.
=Penthĭlus=, a son of Orestes by Erigone the daughter of Ægysthus, who
reigned conjointly with his brother Tisamenus at Argos. He was driven
some time after from his throne by the Heraclidæ, and he retired to
Achaia, and thence to Lesbos, where he planted a colony. _Pausanias_,
bk. 5, ch. 4.――_Strabo_, bk. 13.――_Paterculus_ bk. 1, ch. 1.
=Penthylus=, a prince of Paphos, who assisted Xerxes with 12 ships.
He was seized by the Greeks, to whom he communicated many important
things concerning the situation of the Persians, &c. _Herodotus_,
bk. 7, ch. 195.
=Pepărēthos=, a small island of the Ægean sea, on the coast of
Macedonia, about 20 miles in circumference. It abounded in olives,
and its wines have always been reckoned excellent. They were not,
however, palatable before they were seven years old. _Pliny_, bk. 4,
ch. 12.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 7, li. 470.――_Livy_, bk. 28,
ch. 5; bk. 31, ch. 58.
=Pephnos=, a town of Laconia. _Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 26.
=Pephrēdo=, a sea nymph, daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. She was born
with white hair, and thence surnamed Graia. She had a sister called
Enyo. _Hesiod_, _Theogony_, li. 270.――_Apollodorus._
=Peræa=, or =Beræa=, a country of Judæa, near Egypt. _Pliny_, bk. 5,
ch. 14.――――A part of Caria, opposite to Rhodes. _Livy_, bk. 32, ch.
33.――――A colony of the Mityleneans in Æolia. _Livy_, bk. 37, ch. 21.
=Perasippus=, an ambassador sent to Darius by the Lacedæmonians, &c.
_Curtius_, bk. 3, ch. 13.
=Percōpe=, or =Percote=, a city which assisted Priam during the Trojan
war. _See:_ Percote.
=Percosius=, a man acquainted with futurity. He attempted in vain to
dissuade his two sons from going to the Trojan war by telling them
that they should perish there.
=Percōte=, a town on the Hellespont, between Abydos and Lampsacus, near
the sea-shore. Artaxerxes gave it to Themistocles, to maintain his
wardrobe. It is sometimes called Percope. _Herodotus_, bk. 1, ch. 117.
――_Homer._
=Perdiccas=, the fourth king of Macedonia, B.C. 729, was descended from
Temenus. He increased his dominions by conquest, and in the latter
part of his life, he showed his son Argeus where he wished to be
buried, and told him, that as long as the bones of his descendants
and successors on the throne of Macedonia were laid in the same grave,
so long would the crown remain in their family. These injunctions
were observed till the time of Alexander, who was buried out
of Macedonia. _Herodotus_, bks. 7 & 8.――_Justin_, bk. 7, ch. 2.
――――Another, king of Macedonia, son of Alexander. He reigned during
the Peloponnesian war, and assisted the Lacedæmonians against Athens.
He behaved with great courage on the throne, and died B.C. 413, after
a long reign of glory and independence, during which he had subdued
some of his barbarian neighbours.――――Another, king of Macedonia, who
was supported on his throne by Iphicrates the Athenian against the
intrusions of Pausanias. He was killed in a war against the Illyrians,
B.C. 360. _Justin_, bk. 7, &c.――――One of the friends and favourites
of Alexander the Great. At the king’s death he wished to make himself
absolute; and the ring which he had received from the hand of the
dying Alexander, seemed in some measure to favour his pretensions.
The better to support his claims to the throne, he married Cleopatra
the sister of Alexander, and strengthened himself by making a league
with Eumenes. His ambitious views were easily discovered by Antigonus,
and the rest of the generals of Alexander, who all wished, like
Perdiccas, to succeed to the kingdom and honours of the deceased
monarch. Antipater, Craterus, and Ptolemy, leagued with Antigonus
against him, and after much bloodshed on both sides, Perdiccas was
totally ruined, and at last assassinated in his tent in Egypt, by his
own officers, about 321 years before the christian era. Perdiccas had
not the prudence and the address which were necessary to conciliate
the esteem and gain the attachment of his fellow-soldiers, and this
impropriety of his conduct alienated the heart of his friends, and
at last proved his destruction. _Plutarch_, _Alexander_.――_Diodorus_,
bks. 17 & 18.――_Curtius_, bk. 10.――_Cornelius Nepos_, _Eumenes_.
――_Ælian_, _Varia Historia_, bk. 12.
=Perdix=, a young Athenian, son of the sister of Dædalus. He invented
the saw, and seemed to promise to become a greater artist than had
ever been known. His uncle was jealous of his rising fame, and he
threw him down from the top of a tower and put him to death. Perdix
was changed into a bird which bears his name. _Hyginus_, fables 39 &
274.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 4, ch. 15.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 8,
li. 220, &c.
=Perenna.= _See:_ Anna.
=Perennis=, a favourite of the emperor Commodus. He is described by
some as a virtuous and impartial magistrate, while others paint
him as a cruel, violent, and oppressive tyrant, who committed the
greatest barbarities to enrich himself. He was put to death for
aspiring to the empire. _Herodian._
=Pereus=, a son of Elatus and Laodice, grandson of Arcas. He left only
one daughter, called Neæra, who was mother of Auge, and of Cepheus
and Lycurgus. _Apollodorus_, bk. 3.――_Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 4.
=Perga=, a town of Pamphylia. _See:_ Perge, _Livy_, bk. 38, ch. 57.
=Pergămus= (Pergama plural), the citadel of the city of Troy. The word
is often used for Troy. It was situated in the most elevated part
of the town, on the shores of the river Scamander. Xerxes mounted to
the top of this citadel when he reviewed his troops as he marched to
invade Greece. _Herodotus_, bk. 7, ch. 43.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 1,
li. 466, &c.
=Pergamus=, now _Pergamo_, a town of Mysia, on the banks of the Caycus.
It was the capital of a celebrated empire called the kingdom of
Pergamus, which was founded by Philæterus, a eunuch, whom Lysimachus,
after the battle of Ipsus, had entrusted with the treasures which
he had obtained in the war. Philæterus made himself master of the
treasures and of Pergamus, in which they were deposited, B.C. 283,
and laid the foundation of an empire, over which he himself presided
for 20 years. His successors began to reign in the following order:
His nephew Eumenes ascended the throne 263 B.C.; Attalus, 241;
♦Eumenes II., 197; Attalus Philadelphus, 159; Attalus Philomator,
138, who, B.C. 133, left the Roman people heirs to his kingdom, as
he had no children. The right of the Romans, however, was disputed by
a usurper, who claimed the empire as his own, and Aquilius the Roman
general was obliged to conquer the different cities one by one, and
to gain their submission by poisoning the waters which were conveyed
to their houses till the whole was reduced into the form of a
dependent province. The capital of the kingdom of Pergamus was famous
for a library of 200,000 volumes, which had been collected by the
different monarchs who had reigned there. This noble collection was
afterwards transported to Egypt by Cleopatra, with the permission of
Antony, and it adorned and enriched the Alexandrian library, till it
was most fatally destroyed by the Saracens, A.D. 642. Parchment was
first invented and made use of at Pergamus, to transcribe books, as
Ptolemy king of Egypt had forbidden the exportation of papyrus from
his kingdom, in order to prevent Eumenes from making a library as
valuable and as choice as that of Alexandria. From this circumstance
parchment has been called _charta pergamena_. Galenus the physician
and Apollodorus the mythologist were born there. Æsculapius was the
chief deity of the country. _Pliny_, bks. 5 & 15.――_Isidorus_, bk. 6,
ch. 11.――_Strabo_, bk. 13.――_Livy_, bk. 29, ch. 11; bk. 31, ch. 46.
――_Pliny_, bk. 10, ch. 21; bk. 13, ch. 11.――――A son of Neoptolemus
and Andromache, who, as some suppose, founded Pergamus in Asia.
_Pausanias_, bk. 1, ch. 11.
♦ ‘Enmenes’ replaced with ‘Eumenes’
=Perge=, a town of Pamphylia, where Diana had a magnificent temple,
whence her surname of Pergæa. Apollonius the geometrician was born
there. _Mela_, bk. 1, ch. 14.――_Strabo_, bk. 14.
=Pergus=, a lake of Sicily near Enna, where Proserpine was carried away
by Pluto. _Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 5, li. 386.
=Perĭander=, a tyrant of Corinth, son of Cypselus. The first years of
his government were mild and popular, but he soon learnt to become
oppressive, when he had consulted the tyrant of Sicily, about the
surest way of reigning. He received no other answer but whatever
explanation he wished to place on the Sicilian tyrant’s having, in
the presence of his messenger, plucked, in a field, all the ears
of corn which seemed to tower above the rest. Periander understood
the meaning of this answer. He immediately surrounded himself with
a numerous guard, and put to death the richest and most powerful
citizens of Corinth. He was not only cruel to his subjects, but his
family also were objects of his vengeance. He committed incest with
his mother, and put to death his wife Melissa, upon false accusation.
He also banished his son Lycophron to the island of Corcyra, because
the youth pitied and wept at the miserable end of his mother, and
detested the barbarities of his father. Periander died about 585
years before the christian era, in his 80th year, and by the meanness
of his flatterers, he was reckoned one of the seven wise men of
Greece. Though he was tyrannical, yet he patronized the fine arts; he
was fond of peace, and he showed himself the friend and the protector
of genius and of learning. He used to say that a man ought solemnly
to keep his word, but not to hesitate to break it if ever it clashed
with his interest. He said also, that not only crimes ought to be
punished, but also every wicked and corrupt thought. _Diogenes
Laërtius_ in _Lives_.――_Aristotle_, bk. 5, _Politics_.――_Pausanias_,
bk. 2.――――A tyrant of Ambracia, whom some rank with the seven wise
men of Greece, and not the tyrant of Corinth.――――A man distinguished
as a physician, but contemptible as a poet. _Plutarch._――_Lucan._
=Periarchus=, a naval commander of Sparta, conquered by Conon.
_Diodorus._
=Peribœa=, the second wife of Œneus king of Calydon, was daughter
of Hipponous. She became mother of Tydeus. Some suppose that Œneus
debauched her, and afterwards married her. _Hyginus_, fable 69.――――A
daughter of Alcathous, sold by her father on suspicion that she
was courted by Telamon, son of Æacus king of Ægina. She was carried
to Cyprus, where Telamon the founder of Salamis married her, and
she became mother of Ajax. She also married Theseus, according to
some. She is also called Eribœa. _Pausanias_, bk. 1, chs. 17 & 42.
――_Hyginus_, fable 97.――――The wife of Polybus king of Corinth, who
educated Œdipus as her own child.――――A daughter of Eurymedon, who
became mother of Nausithous by Neptune.――――The mother of Penelope,
according to some authors.
=Peribomius=, a noted debauchee, &c. _Juvenal_, satire 2, li. 16.