men of Greece. His father’s name was Cyrrhadius. With the assistance
of the sons of Alcæus, he delivered his country from the oppression
of the tyrant Melanchrus, and in the war which the Athenians waged
against Lesbos he appeared at the head of his countrymen, and
challenged to single combat Phrynon, the enemy’s general. As the
event of the war seemed to depend upon this combat, Pittacus had
recourse to artifice, and when he engaged, he entangled his adversary
in a net, which he had concealed under his shield, and easily
despatched him. He was amply rewarded for his victory, and his
countrymen, sensible of his merit, unanimously appointed him governor
of their city with unlimited authority. In this capacity Pittacus
behaved with great moderation and prudence, and after he had governed
his fellow-citizens with the strictest justice, and after he had
established and enforced the most salutary laws, he voluntarily
resigned the sovereign power after he had enjoyed it for 10 years,
observing that the virtues and innocence of private life were
incompatible with the power and influence of a sovereign. His
disinterestedness gained him many admirers, and when the Mityleneans
wished to reward his public services by presenting him with an
immense tract of territory, he refused to accept more land than what
should be contained within the distance to which he could throw a
javelin. He died in the 82nd year of his age, about 570 years before
Christ, after he had spent the last 10 years of his life in literary
ease, and peaceful retirement. One of his favourite maxims was,
that man ought to provide against misfortunes to avoid them; but
that if they ever happened he ought to support them with patience
and resignation. In prosperity friends were to be acquired, and
in the hour of adversity their faithfulness was to be tried. He
also observed, that in our actions it was imprudent to make others
acquainted with our designs, for if we failed we had exposed
ourselves to censure and to ridicule. Many of his maxims were
inscribed on the walls of Apollo’s temple at Delphi, to show the
world how great an opinion the Mityleneans entertained of his
abilities as a philosopher, a moralist, and a man. By one of his
laws, every fault committed by a man when intoxicated, deserved
double punishment. The titles of some of his writings are preserved
by Laërtius, among which are mentioned elegiac verses, some laws
in prose, addressed to his countrymen, epistles, and moral precepts
called _adomena_. _Diogenes Laërtius._――_Aristotle_, _Politics_.
――_Plutarch_, _Convivium Septem Sapientium_.――_Pausanias_, bk. 10, ch.
24.――_Ælian_, _Varia Historia_, bk. 2, &c.――_Valerius Maximus_, bk. 6,
ch. 2, sect. 5.――――A grandson of Porus king of India.
=Pitthea=, a town near Trœzene. Hence the epithet of _Pittheus_ in
_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 15, li. 296.
=Pitthēus=, a king of Trœzene in Argolis, son of Pelops and Hippodamia.
He was universally admired for his learning, wisdom, and application;
he publicly taught in a school at Trœzene, and even composed a book,
which was seen by Pausanias the geographer. He gave his daughter
Æthra in marriage to Ægeus king of Athens, and he himself took
particular care of the youth and education of his grandson Theseus.
He was buried at Trœzene, which he had founded, and on his tomb
were seen, for many ages, three seats of white marble, on which he
sat, with two other judges, whenever he gave laws to his subjects
or settled their disputes. _Pausanias_, bks. 1 & 2.――_Plutarch_,
_Theseus_.――_Strabo_, bk. 8.
=Pituanius=, a mathematician in the age of Tiberius, thrown down from
the Tarpeian rock, &c. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 2.
=Pitulāni=, a people of Umbria. Their chief town was called _Pitulum_.
=Pityæa=, a town of Asia Minor. _Apollonius._
=Pityassus=, a town of Pisidia. _Strabo._
=Pityonēsus=, a small island on the coast of Peloponnesus, near
Epidaurus. _Pliny._
=Pityus= (untis), now _Pitchinda_, a town of Colchis. _Pliny_, bk. 6,
ch. 5.
=Pityūsa=, a small island on the coast of Argolis. _Pliny_, bk. 4,
ch. 12.――――A name of Chios.――――Two small islands in the Mediterranean,
near the coast of Spain, of which the larger was called _Ebusus_,
and the smaller _Ophiusa_. _Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 7.――_Strabo._――_Pliny_,
bk. 3, ch. 5.
=Pius=, a surname given to the emperor Antoninus, on account of his
piety and virtue.――――A surname given to a son of Metellus, because
he interested himself so warmly to have his father recalled from
banishment.
=Placentia=, now called _Placenza_, an ancient town and colony of Italy,
at the confluence of the Trebia and Po. _Livy_, bk. 21, chs. 25 & 56;
bk. 37, ch. 10.――――Another, near Lusitania, in Spain.
=Placideianus=, a gladiator in Horace’s age, bk. 2, satire 7.
=Placidia=, a daughter of Theodosius the Great, sister to Honorius
and Arcadius. She married Adolphus king of the Goths, and afterwards
Constantine, by whom she had Valentinian III. She died A.D. 449.
=Placidius Julius=, a tribune of a cohort, who imprisoned the emperor
Vitellius, &c. _Tacitus_, _Histories_, bk. 3, ch. 85.
=Planasia=, a small island of the ♦Tyrrhene sea.――――Another, on the
coast of Gaul, where Tiberius ordered Agrippa the grandson of
Augustus to be put to death. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 1, ch. 3.――――A
town on the Rhone.
♦ ‘Tyrhene’ replaced with ‘Tyrrhene’
=Plancīna=, a woman celebrated for her intrigues and her crimes, who
married Piso, and was accused with him of having murdered Germanicus,
in the reign of Tiberius. She was acquitted either by means of the
empress Livia, or on account of the partiality of the emperor for her
person. She had long supported the spirits of her husband, during his
confinement, but when she saw herself freed from the accusation, she
totally abandoned him to his fate. Subservient in everything to the
will of Livia, she, at her instigation, became guilty of the greatest
crimes, to injure the character of Agrippina. After the death of
Agrippina, Plancina was accused of the most atrocious villanies, and,
as she knew she could not elude justice, she put herself to death,
A.D. 33. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 6, ch. 26, &c.
=Lucius Plancus Munatius=, a Roman, who rendered himself ridiculous
by his follies and his extravagance. He had been consul, and had
presided over a province in the capacity of governor; but he forgot
all his dignity, and became one of the most servile flatterers
of Cleopatra and Antony. At the court of the Egyptian queen in
Alexandria, he appeared in the character of the meanest stage dancer,
and in a comedy he personated Glaucus, and painted his body of a
green colour, dancing on a public stage quite naked, only with a
crown of green reeds on his head, while he had tied behind his back
the tail of a large sea fish. This exposed him to the public derision,
and when Antony had joined the rest of his friends in censuring him
for his unbecoming behaviour, he deserted to Octavius, who received
him with great marks of friendship and attention. It was he who
proposed, in the Roman senate, that the title of Augustus should
be conferred on his friend Octavius, as expressive of the dignity and
the reverence which the greatness of his exploits seemed to claim.
Horace has dedicated bk. 1, ode 7, to him; and he certainly deserved
the honour, from the elegance of his letters, which are still
extant, written to Cicero. He founded a town in Gaul, which he called
Lugdunum. _Plutarch_, _Antonius_.――――A patrician, proscribed by the
second triumvirate. His servants wished to save him from death, but
he refused it, rather than to expose their persons to danger.
=Phangon=, a courtesan of Miletus, in Ionia.
=Platæa=, a daughter of Asopus king of Bœotia. _Pausanias_, bk. 9,
ch. 1, &c.――――An island on the coast of Africa in the Mediterranean.
It belonged to the Cyreneans. _Herodotus_, bk. 4, ch. 157.
=Platæa=, and æ (arum), a town of Bœotia, near mount Cithæron, on
the confines of Megaris and Attica, celebrated for a battle fought
there between Mardonius the commander of Xerxes king of Persia,
and Pausanias the Lacedæmonian, and the Athenians. The Persian
army consisted of 300,000 men, 3000 of which scarce escaped with
their lives by flight. The Grecian army, which was greatly inferior,
lost but few men, and among these 91 Spartans, 52 Athenians, and 16
Tegeans, were the only soldiers found in the number of the slain. The
plunder which the Greeks obtained in the Persian camp was immense.
Pausanias received the tenth of all the spoils, on account of his
uncommon valour during the engagement, and the rest were rewarded
each according to their respective merit. This battle was fought on
the 22nd September, the same day as the battle of Mycale, 479 B.C.,
and by it Greece was totally delivered for ever from the continual
alarms to which she was exposed on account of the Persian invasions,
and from that time none of the princes of Persia dared to appear with
a hostile force beyond the Hellespont. The Platæans were naturally
attached to the interest of the Athenians, and they furnished them
with 1000 soldiers when Greece was attacked by Datis the general of
Darius. Platæa was taken by the Thebans, after a famous siege, in the
beginning of the Peloponnesian war, and destroyed by the Spartans,
B.C. 427. Alexander rebuilt it, and paid great encomiums to the
inhabitants, on account of their ancestors, who had so bravely fought
against the Persians at the battle of Marathon, and under Pausanias.
_Herodotus_, bk. 8, ch. 50.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 1.――_Plutarch_,
_Alexander_, &c.――_Cornelius Nepos_, &c.――_Cicero_, _de Officiis_,
bk. 1, ch. 18.――_Strabo._――_Justin._
=Platanius=, a river of Bœotia. _Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 24.
=Plato=, a celebrated philosopher at Athens, son of Ariston and
Parectonia. His original name was Aristocles, and he received that of
Plato from the largeness of his shoulders. As one of the descendants
of Codrus, and as the offspring of a noble, illustrious, and opulent
family, Plato was educated with care, his body was formed and
invigorated with gymnastic exercises, and his mind was cultivated
and enlightened by the study of poetry and of geometry, from which
he derived that acuteness of judgment and warmth of imagination which
have stamped his character as the most subtle and flowery writer of
antiquity. He first began his literary career by writing poems and
tragedies; but he was soon disgusted with his own productions, when,
at the age of 20, he was introduced into the presence of Socrates,
and when he was enabled to compare and examine, with critical
accuracy, the merit of his compositions with those of his poetical
predecessors. He therefore committed to the flames these productions
of his early years, which could not command the attention or gain
the applause of a maturer age. During eight years he continued to be
one of the pupils of Socrates; and if he was prevented by a momentary
indisposition from attending the philosopher’s last moments, yet he
collected from the conversation of those that were present, and from
his own accurate observations, the minutest and most circumstantial
accounts, which can exhibit, in its truest colours, the concern
and sensibility of the pupil, and the firmness, virtues, and moral
sentiments of the dying philosopher. After the death of Socrates,
Plato retired from Athens, and to acquire that information which the
accurate observer can derive in foreign countries, he began to travel
over Greece. He visited Megara, Thebes, and Elis, where he met with
the kindest reception from his fellow-disciples, whom the violent
death of their master had likewise removed from Attica. He afterwards
visited Magna Græcia, attracted by the fame of the Pythagorean
philosophy, and by the learning, abilities, and reputation of its
professors, Philolaus, Archytas, and Eurytus. He afterwards passed
into Sicily, and examined the eruptions and fires of the volcano
of that island. He also visited Egypt, where then the mathematician
Theodorus flourished, and where he knew that the tenets of the
Pythagorean philosophy and metempsychosis had been fostered and
cherished. When he had finished his travels, Plato retired to
the groves of Academus, in the neighbourhood of Athens, where
his lectures were soon attended by a crowd of learned, noble, and
illustrious pupils; and the philosopher, by refusing to have a share
in the administration of affairs, rendered his name more famous, and
his school more frequented. During forty years he presided at the
head of the academy, and there he devoted his time to the instruction
of his pupils, and composed those dialogues which have been the
admiration of every age and country. His studies, however, were
interrupted for a while, whilst he obeyed the pressing calls
and invitations of Dionysius, and whilst he persuaded the tyrant
to become a man, the father of his people, and the friend of
liberty. _See:_ Dionysius II. In his dress the philosopher was not
ostentatious; his manners were elegant but modest, simple without
affectation; and the great honours which his learning deserved were
not paid to his appearance. When he came to the Olympian games,
Plato resided, during the celebration, in a family who were totally
strangers to him. He ate and drank with them, he partook of their
innocent pleasures and amusements; but though he told them his name
was Plato, yet he never spoke of the employment which he pursued
at Athens, and never introduced the name of that philosopher whose
doctrines he followed, and whose death and virtues were favourite
topics of conversation in every part of Greece. When he returned home,
he was attended by the family which had so kindly entertained him;
and, as being a native of Athens, he was desired to show them the
great philosopher whose name he bore: their surprise was great when
he told them that he himself was the Plato whom they wished to behold.
In his diet he was moderate, and, indeed, to sobriety and temperance
in the use of food, and to the want of those pleasures which enfeeble
the body and enervate the mind, some have attributed his preservation
during the tremendous pestilence which raged at Athens with so much
fury at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Plato was never
subject to any long or lingering indisposition, and though change of
climate had enfeebled a constitution naturally strong and healthy,
the philosopher lived to an advanced age, and was often heard to say,
when his physicians advised him to leave his residence at Athens,
where the air was impregnated by the pestilence, that he would
not advance one single step to gain the top of mount Athos, were
he assured to attain the great longevity which the inhabitants of
that mountain were said to enjoy above the rest of mankind. Plato
died on his birthday, in the 81st year of his age, about 348 years
before the christian era. His last moments were easy and without pain,
and, according to some, he expired in the midst of an entertainment,
or, according to Cicero, as he was writing. The works of Plato are
numerous; they are all written in the form of a dialogue, except 12
letters. He speaks always by the mouth of others, and the philosopher
has nowhere made mention of himself except once in his dialogue
intituled Phædon, and another time in his apology for Socrates. His
writings were so celebrated, and, his opinion so respected, that he
was called divine; and for the elegance, melody, and sweetness of his
expressions, he was distinguished by the appellation of the Athenian
bee. Cicero had such an esteem for him, that in the warmth of
panegyric, he exclaimed, _Errare meherculè malo cum Platone quàm cum
istis vera sentire_; and Quintilian said that, when he read Plato, he
seemed to hear not a man, but a divinity speaking. His style, however,
though admired and commended by the best and most refined of critics
among the ancients, has not escaped the censure of some of the
moderns; and the philosopher has been blamed, who supports that fire
is a pyramid tied to the earth by numbers, that the world is a figure
consisting of 12 pentagons, and who, to prove the metempsychosis and
the immortality of the soul, asserts that the dead are born from the
living, and the living from the dead. The speculative mind of Plato
was employed in examining things divine and human, and he attempted
to fix and ascertain, not only the practical doctrine of morals and
politics, but the more subtle and abstruse theory of mystical
theogony. His philosophy was universally received and adopted, and it
has not only governed the opinions of the speculative part of mankind,
but it continues still to influence the reasoning, and to divide the
sentiments, of the moderns. In his system of philosophy he followed
the physics of Heraclitus, the metaphysical opinions of Pythagoras,
and the morals of Socrates. He maintained the existence of two beings,
one self-existent, and the other formed by the hand of a pre-existent
creature, god and man. The world was created by that self-existent
cause, from the rude undigested mass of matter which had existed
from all eternity, and which had even been animated by an irregular
principle of motion. The origin of evil could not be traced under the
government of a deity, without admitting a stubborn intractability
and wildness congenial to matter, and from these, consequently, could
be demonstrated the deviations from the laws of nature, and from
thence the extravagant passions and appetites of men. From materials
like these were formed the four elements, and the beautiful structure
of the heavens and the earth; and into the active but irrational
principle of matter, the divinity infused a rational soul. The souls
of men were formed from the remainder of the rational soul of the
world, which had previously given existence to the invisible gods and
demons. The philosopher, therefore, supported the doctrine of ideal
forms, and the pre-existence of the human mind, which he considered
as emanations of the Deity, which can never remain satisfied with
objects or things unworthy of their divine original. Men could
perceive, with their corporeal senses, the types of immutable things
and the fluctuating objects of the material world; but the sudden
changes to which these are continually obnoxious, create innumerable
disorders, and hence arise deception, and, in short, all the errors
and miseries of human life. Yet, in whatever situation man may be,
he is still an object of divine concern; and, to recommend himself
to the favour of the pre-existent cause, he must comply with the
purposes of his creation, and, by proper care and diligence, he can
recover those immaculate powers with which he was naturally endowed.
All science the philosopher made to consist in reminiscence, and in
recalling the nature, forms, and proportions of those perfect and
immutable essences with which the human mind had been conversant.
From observations like these, the summit of felicity might be
attained by removing from the material, and approaching nearer to
the intellectual world, by curbing and governing the passions which
were ever agitated and inflamed by real and imaginary objects. The
passions were divided into two classes: the first consisted of the
irascible passions, which originated in pride or resentment, and were
seated in the breast; the other, founded on the love of pleasure, was
the concupiscible part of the soul seated in the belly, and inferior
parts of the body. These different orders induced the philosopher
to compare the soul to a small republic, of which the reasoning and
judging powers were stationed in the head, as in a firm citadel, and
of which the senses were its guards and servants. By the irascible
part of the soul men asserted their dignity, repelled injuries, and
scorned danger; and the concupiscible part provided for the support
and the necessities of the body, and when governed with propriety, it
gave rise to temperance. Justice was produced by the regular dominion
of reason, and by the submission of the passions; and prudence arose
from the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the soul, without
which all other virtues could not exist. But, amidst all this, wisdom
was not easily attained; at their creation all minds were not endowed
with the same excellence, the bodies which they animated on earth
were not always in harmony with the divine emanation; some might be
too weak, others too strong, and on the first years of a man’s life
depended his future consequence; as an effeminate and licentious
education seemed calculated to destroy the purposes of the divinity,
while the contrary produced different effects, and tended to
cultivate and improve the reasoning and judging faculty, and to
produce wisdom and virtue. Plato was the first who supported the
immortality of the soul upon arguments solid and permanent, deduced
from truth and experience. He did not imagine that the diseases,
and the death of the body, could injure the principle of life and
destroy the soul, which, of itself, was of divine origin, and of an
uncorrupted and immutable essence, which, though inherent for a while
in matter, could not lose that power which was the emanation of God.
From doctrines like these, the great founder of Platonism concluded
that there might exist in the world a community of men, whose
passions could be governed with moderation, and who, from knowing
the evils and miseries which arise from ill conduct, might aspire to
excellence, and attain that perfection which can be derived from the
proper exercise of the rational and moral powers. To illustrate this
more fully, the philosopher wrote a book, well known by the name of
the republic of Plato, in which he explains with acuteness, judgment,
and elegance the rise and revolution of civil society; and so
respected was his opinion as a legislator, that his scholars were
employed in regulating the republics of Arcadia, Elis, and Cnidus, at
the desire of those states, and Xenocrates gave political rules for
good and impartial government to the conqueror of the east. The best
editions of Plato are those of Frankfurt, folio, 1602; and Bipontium,
12 vols. 8vo, 1718. _Plato_, _Dialogues_, &c.――_Cicero_, _de
Officiis_, bk. 1; _de Divinatione_, bk. 1, ch. 36; _de Natura Deorum_,
bk. 2, ch. 12; _Tusculanæ Disputationes_, bk. 1, ch. 17.――_Plutarch_,
_Solon_, &c.――_Seneca_, _Epistulæ_.――_Quintilian_, bk. 10, ch. 1, &c.
――_Ælian_, _Varia Historia_, bks. 2 & 4.――_Pausanias_, bk. 1, ch. 30.
――_Diogenes Laërtius._――――A son of Lycaon king of Arcadia.――――A Greek
poet, called the prince of the middle comedy, who flourished B.C. 445.
Some fragments remain of his pieces.
=Plator=, a man of Dyrrhachium, put to death by Piso. _Cicero_,
_Against Piso_, ch. 34.
=Plavis=, a river of Venetia, in Italy.
=Plautia lex=, was enacted by Marcus Plautius the tribune, A.U.C. 664.
It required every tribe annually to choose 15 persons of their body,
to serve as judges, making the honour common to all the three orders,
according to the majority of votes in every tribe.――――Another, called
also _Plotia_, A.U.C. 675. It punished with the _interdictio ignis &
aquæ_, all persons who were found guilty of attempts upon the state,
or the senators or magistrates, or such as appeared in public, armed
with an evil design, or such as forcibly expelled any person from his
legal ♦possessions.
♦ ‘possesions’ replaced with ‘possessions’
=Plautiānus Fulvius=, an African of mean birth, who was banished
for his seditious behaviour in the years of his obscurity. In his
banishment, Plautianus formed an acquaintance with Severus, who, some
years after, ascended the imperial throne. This was the beginning
of his prosperity; Severus paid the greatest attention to him, and,
if we believe some authors, their familiarity and intercourse were
carried beyond the bounds of modesty and propriety. Plautianus shared
the favours of Severus on the throne as well as in obscurity. He
was invested with as much power as his patron at Rome, and in the
provinces; and, indeed, he wanted but the name of emperor to be his
equal. His table was served with more delicate meats than that of
the emperor; when he walked in the public streets he received the
most distinguishing honours, and a number of criers ordered the most
noble citizens, as well as the meanest beggars, to make way for the
favourite of the emperor, and not to fix their eyes upon him. He
was concerned in all the rapine and destruction which were committed
through the empire, and he enriched himself with the possessions of
those who had been sacrificed to the emperor’s cruelty or avarice. To
complete his triumph, and to make himself still greater, Plautianus
married his favourite daughter Plautilla to Caracalla the son of the
emperor, and so eager was the emperor to indulge his inclinations in
this and in every other respect, that he declared he loved Plautianus
so much that he would even wish to die before him. The marriage of
Caracalla with Plautilla was attended with serious consequences.
The son of Severus had complied with great reluctance, and, though
Plautilla was amiable in her manners, commanding in aspect, and of
a beautiful countenance, yet the young prince often threatened to
punish her haughty and imperious behaviour as soon as he succeeded to
the throne. Plautilla reported the whole to her father, and to save
his daughter from the vengeance of Caracalla, Plautianus conspired
against the emperor and his son. The conspiracy was discovered, and
Severus forgot his attachment to Plautianus, and the favours he had
heaped upon him, when he heard of his perfidy. The wicked minister
was immediately put to death, and Plautilla banished to the island
of Lipari, with her brother Plautius, where, seven years after,
she was put to death by order of Caracalla, A.D. 211. Plautilla had
two children, a son who died in his childhood, and a daughter, whom
Caracalla murdered in the arms of her mother. _Dio Cassius._
=Plautilla=, a daughter of Plautianus the favourite minister of Severus.
_See:_ Plautianus.――――The mother of the emperor Nerva, descended of a
noble family.